BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Allow me to quell your fears. This blog entry isn’t about what your dirty little minds think it’s about.  So there.

 Now, on with the story…

It was a weekend just like any other weekend, with the exception perhaps that it was Fourth of July weekend. However, since July 4th has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on this tale, we’ll stick with, “It was a weekend just like any other weekend.” All good? Terrific…

On this particular weekend like any other weekend I had been doing elebenty-gazillion loads of laundry just like any other weekend. However, I was finished with laundry, so I don’t guess it has any real bearing either, other than the fact that I had “specially washed” one of the O-springs garments sans fabric softener because she was on a mission to dye it a different color. Of course, what with the spring being a little to the young side for handling stuff like dye and hot water without dying the whole room, adult supervision was needed.

For the record, E K has me doing the laundry, but I don’t dye. Allowing me to dye something would be tantamount to allowing the o-spring to dye something without supervision.

Anywho… On this particular weekend we had also purchased a new computer for E K. Super fast, loaded with memory, storage, and all housed in a black case to match her shoes and leather wear. E K likes to coordinate, you see. Therefore, we were in the office. I was busily doing whatever it is that writers do when they are working on 57 projects at once. E K was playing Speed Sudoku… Or HALO 17: The Leather-Clad Bitch Edition… Or  hacking NORAD… Or maybe it was paying bills and checking her Facebook profile. I never can keep any of that straight. Either way, we were engaged in office type computer activities, and the spring was watching the toob — that is, right up until her program ended and she had a sudden, powerful desire to dye the aforementioned garment.

No… She didn’t try to do it herself. That would be way too predictable… Come on… You know me better than that…

Acquiescing to the Tween Urgency of the project, E K sent the child on a mission. That being to go into the basement and retrieve the large bucket we use for whatever sorts of things one might require a large bucket. And so, off the o-spring went to “haz a bukkit.”

Two minutes, seventeen seconds elapsed when we suddenly heard a door fly open, followed by a running child – the herd of elephants noise was then followed up by a herd of wildebeests bounding up the stairs toward the office. The louvered doors split, swinging inward with enough force to cause a sonic boom. The silence in the wake of the sound barrier being broken was quickly filled with a panting child.

Gasping for breath she yipped, “OhMyGoshIt’sHUGE!!”

I remained silent. I knew better than to get involved.

“The bucket?” E K asked.

“Nothuhbuuug!” Child-o-mine replied.

E K puzzled aloud, “The what?”

Our tween panted some more, then gulped in some air and yelped, “There’sAGiantBugDownThere!”

E K found this to be funny. So did I. But that’s not the funny part I’m here to tell you about.

So… E K says to the spring, “How big is this bug?”

“OMGIT’SHUGE!” the kid replies.

“Really?” E K says.

“YES!” the wild-eyed child tells her.

“It’s been raining,” the redhead explained. “It’s probably just a water bug.”

You see, our basement is an unfinished, leaky, storage/laundry hole in the ground. Whenever it rains, we get water, and maybe even some water bugs.

Now, as we know, for E K this isn’t a really huge issue. If it’s a bug she likes, she picks it up and moves it to a safe, out-of-the way, natural habitat sort of location, and then threatens anyone in the general vicinity with death if they even look like they might be intent on harming the insect. However, if it is a bug she doesn’t like it still really isn’t a problem – and she does, in fact, have a list of bugs she doesn’t like. It’s a short one, but it’s a list nonetheless.  Either way, in the event of the bug being on her hit list, she just puts on her patent leather cockroach killers and goes to work with a wicked gleam in her eyes and a smile on her lips. It’s pretty much the same as how she deals with men, except that as a rule, when it comes to men instead of insects, I’ve never seen her set one free, move him to safety, nor protect him from harm. Quite the opposite, actually… But I digress. This is about actual insects, not figurative ones.

The o-spring, however, hates ALL bugs. She fears ALL bugs. She would be perfectly happy for ALL bugs to be eradicated from the face of the planet. Hence the fact that she was now standing in the office hyperventilating.

But back to the dialogue…

“IT’SHuuuuuuuuuggggggeeeee!” the child repeated, not really placated by EKay’s explanation for its presence in the basement.

“Did you see it on the floor or on the stairs?” EKay asked.

“Onthefloor!” the short person replied.

The redhead shrugged and said, “Okay, well the bucket is on the shelf right at the bottom of the stairs.”

O-spring returned, “IknowIWasDownThere!”

“Well… Did you get the bucket?” E K asked.

The child thought for a second, then with the first inkling of calm she had shown since hurtling up the stairs, she delivered the punch line: “Wellllll… I SAW the bucket…”

Fifteen minutes later we held a funeral for the water bug. After we scraped him off the sole of EKay’s pump, of course. What with him being a water bug and all we flushed him. Seemed fitting.

After all that you have to wonder if he “Saw The Bucket” too… I’m thinking he probably did. Right before he kicked it.

More to come…

Murv

It has been quite a while since I’ve done a Frequently Asked Questions blog, so I though maybe it might be time for one, especially when you consider that I’ve had a few questions being asked frequently as of late…

Believe it or not, as silly as some of the questions may seem, they have actually been asked by someone other than the voices inside my head. And, you will notice that some of these questions have appeared in past FAQ blogs. Why are they here now? Because people are still asking them. Frequently. As in, a lot.

Srsly.

So, without further mucking about, it’s time for…

ASK MERP!

1. I just read (or recently read, or at some point read) Merrie Axemas: A Killer Holiday Tale, and loved it (hated it, think you suck, WTF, Christmas is over you putz). Will you be continuing the story at all?

The short answer is: Yes. The long answer is: Yes. (That is to say, look for the full-length novel, In The Bleak Midwinter, coming November 2011.)

2. Why haven’t I ever heard of you before?

Hmm… Uhh… Well… Umm, best guess? I have no friggin’ clue. But don’t worry, I haven’t heard of you either, so we’re all good.

3. Do you write every day?

Yes. While I don’t necessarily work on a novel project on the weekends, I write something every single day, whether it’s a blog entry, notes, a bit of poetry, or a random journal entry.

4. If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

Srsly? Okay, you asked for it – A hardwood. Take that however you want.

5. I read in an interview where you said that you give your wife a 30 minute back rub every morning. Is that true?

No. It used to be, but she changed the setting on the alarm clock while I was out of town, so now it’s a 45 minute back rub. Since I have more traveling ahead of me, I suspect by the end of the summer she will have adjusted the alarm clock enough that it will be a two-hour back rub by sometime around mid-August this year.

6. Will you ever be growing your ponytail back?

I’ve grown accustomed to being able to escape the clutches of the evil redhead – at least part of the time – now that she doesn’t have the built-in leash to grab onto. So, I’d have to say growing it back isn’t very high on my priority list.

7. When are you going to write the Rowan Gant cookbook you talked about?

Me and my big mouth. I really have no clue. Srsly. I don’t. I know I babbled about it once upon a time, and apparently it resonated with some of you. I haven’t ruled it out, but it’s not residing on the top of the projects pile either. However, when I do, I’ll be sure to shout it from the rooftops.

8. When are you coming to [insert town, city, state, country here]?

When someone books me to do a gig there, most likely. Book tours aren’t as common as they once were, due to the economy, the changes in the publishing industry, and the surge of social media. However, if someone books me for a gig, I’m there. To do that, contact my publicist: Wendy at promo_dept@willowtreepress.com

9. When is there going to be a Rowan Gant Investigations movie?

When someone buys the rights and makes one. That’s about all I can say. At this juncture, nobody has optioned any of the books in the series, so it’s doubtful you will see one in the near future. The same goes for TV.

10. I read somewhere that you get up at 4:30 in the morning every day. Is that true, and why?

I wake up at around 4:30 AM, give or take a few minutes. My feet don’t generally hit the floor until 5 or 5:30. As to why, I have a very high maintenance wife. Her breakfast doesn’t fix itself.

But seriously, on the “why,” it’s my internal clock. I spent a lot of time on a farm growing up, and even when I was in the city, my family was of the early rising type. It’s kinda baked on and I haven’t been able to scrub it off, no matter how hard I try.

That’s it for this edition of ASK MERP! Keep those cards and letters coming. The sponsors won’t pay up unless I can prove you’re watching…

More to come…

Murv