I think that will probably depend on how well I follow instructions from here on out. The dance thing, I mean.

You see, messages come in all forms and from many sources. In fact, depending on your belief system, you may even be convinced that you receive messages from beyond the veil between the worlds. And, sometimes those messages come along with a set of instructions that need following.

I suppose at this point you are wondering what messages from the great beyond have to do with the picture of Evil Kat’s shapely gams over here on the right. Well, to be honest, both everything and nothing. You see I’m not actually going to go on about being contacted by the dead. I am, however, going to go on about messages. In particular a message I received just the other day, and it just so happens that it has quite a bit to do with E Kay’s shoes.

In particular, her Mary Janes.

(BTW, I’d have put the whole picture up there, however if you have seen the revamped cover of Perfect Trust, for which this was one of many shots taken to create the final collage, you know things were far less pretty above the waist… Not gory or anything… You’ll just have to read the book if you don’t understand what I’m getting at… But, yeah, E K was one of the models… How cool is that?)

And, back to our regularly scheduled blog…

So, E K has several pairs of Mary Jane styled pumps. Dress up, work, leather, patent leather,  canvas, heels, flats, wedges, brown, black, and so on…

You get the idea.

I couldn’t begin to tell you about the fashion statement surrounding these, primarily because I have absolutely no fashion sense at all. I will pair stripes and plaids in a heartbeat, so I am definitely NOT the go-to guy where this sort of stuff is concerned. However, as shoes go these seem to work for the Evil One, and I am perfectly willing to admit that I think she looks pretty damn good in them. This latter fact may have something to do with one of those childhood memories, that being the little blonde-haired girl next door when I was growing up. We were all of about 7 and I was crushing on her pretty hard. Being the style of the 60’s she always wore frilly dresses and patent leather Mary Janes. They say you never forget your first love. Well, I wouldn’t call this playmate from my childhood a “love,” so I guess that old saying applies to crushes too.

So, there you go. Nothing sick or twisted, just Id, ego, and superego colliding to stir fond puppy love memories in my heart whenever I see the evil redhead in her Mary Janes.

Okay, enough with psychoanalyzing the Murv…

Now, the thing about E Kay’s shoes is that while most of them reside in her evil shoe closet, there are a few pairs that occupy strategic locations around the house – i.e. wherever she happened to take them off. Of course, her evilness is still more conscientious about her shoe placement than the O-spring. If you go stumbling through the dark in the middle of the night around our house, while traversing the living room you will trip over every pair of shoes the child owns. E K, however, does place hers pretty much out of the way. One such “out of the way” location where her feet become un-shod – and the aforementioned shods remain – is the general vicinity of her desk in our shared office.

And yes, Virginia (No, not you Doc… No, not the state either… I mean the metaphorical and collective Virginia) this is from whence I received a message. I just didn’t know it at the time. See below…

If you look closely at the left shoe you will notice a piece of paper lounged out on the insole as if it belongs there…

You see, the other day I rolled back from my desk on a mission to put something in the cabinets on the other side of the room. Since our office is relatively small our desks are against opposite walls. When I stood up to make the 4 steps to the cabinets I had to step around the shoes. When I looked down I noticed this bit of paper occupying the insole.

I didn’t really think much of it at first. Her shoes were sitting next to the paper recycling bin and since she is a shredding maniac I figured that in a frenzy of potential paper-mâché production the previous evening a scrap had escaped her evil clutches in a daring attempt at freedom. Unfortunately for the scrap, however, it plummeted into her shoe where it was overcome by odoriferous fumes and expired before it could get away.

Do NOT tell her I said that…

I continued about my task, tucking some papers into a cabinet, then returned to my desk. once again stepping around the pair of Mary Janes. This time, however, I noticed that there appeared to be writing upon the bit of paper. Again, I didn’t really think much of it until several seconds had passed and I was seated back at my desk. Some manner of subliminal trigger clicked, clanked, or whatever it is they do and I stopped everything I was doing. The image of the paper with the writing on it flashed through my gourd and I screwed up my face in thought as I wondered, “Did that really say what I think it said?”

Now I was curious. So, what else could I do? I rolled back, turned around in my chair, then leaned over to look at the scrap in the shoe (all while holding my nose, of course…) And, much to my surprise, it did in fact say what I thought it said.

“Leave Treat”

I’d heard “trick or treat” before, but never “leave treat,” although it definitely sounded like a pretty clear instruction to me. For a minute I started wondering if she was trying to get in touch with her Dutch roots and thought it was Christmas or something. But I came to my senses and remembered she is primarily Welsh and Irish, not Dutch.

Then for another brief moment I considered stuffing a banana into the shoe just to see what would happen when her evilness came home. However, since I wasn’t sure if that would spark some sort of Freudian dilemma or not, and I didn’t have any Vodka or Scotch miniatures on hand, I elected to simply laugh and snap a picture or two, because it was obvious to me at that juncture that this would be blog material.

Unfortunately, I get the impression that maybe I should have put some individually wrapped Dove chocolates in there or something.

Why?

Well, what you can’t see here is the knobby tread this pair of shoes has on the sole. The reason that is important is that I am now sporting a mirror image of it all over my face. All I know is that E K was doing a lot of unintelligible screaming while she was dancing on my head, but I did manage to catch a little snippet about her shoes being empty when she arrived home and when was I going to learn to follow instructions?

More to come…

Murv

This is likely to be my final blog post. The end of an era, the sad and pitiful end to Brainpan Leakage and anything that has passed for humor in it over the last several years. I’m sure my loyal readers are now asking, “Why would you stop blogging, especially after going through all of the trouble of moving B L over here to WordPress and all that jazz?”

Well, it’s simple. Within a 24 hour period following the “deployment” of this particular post, I will probably be dead. Corpsified. X’s on the eyes. Pushin’ up daisies. Stiff as a board. Croaked. No longer among the living… Well, you get the picture. Just insert your preferred euphemism and sally forth… In lieu of flowers, send booze and cigars…

Now, I am sure you are wondering why it is that I figure I will be dead. Again, there’s a simple answer to that one. E K will be killing me. How she’ll do it is anyone’s guess. Gun, knife, running over me with her car, who knows… It’s probably a safe bet that it won’t be poison, since she doesn’t cook, but I suspect the rest of the methods are up for grabs. Of course, if she suddenly offers me a sammich, then I suppose it could be death by arsenic. But, I think that would be some long odds, because it would still involve use of the kitchen and once I’m croaked she won’t have anyone to do the dishes.  Still, take it from me… Knowing her like I do, I am certain my demise will be slow and painful, for me at least. I’m sure she’ll enjoy every minute of it. In any event, if you happen to be starting a pool on this, think outside the box. Remember, she’s evil, and extremely creative. Very convincing too. I’m sure she’ll have a perfectly reasonable explanation for the investigating authorities.

Yep… I can already hear the gears meshing and smell the wood burning as you all try to figure out why E K would want to kill me… Well, I keep telling you she’s evil, but y’all just don’t listen. And besides, you don’t live with me, so obviously you aren’t privy to a good portion of what could serve as her impetus… However, in this case all of that is really a moot point. The simple truth is, she will be committing blatant spousicide, (as I said earlier, probably only after gleefully subjecting me to some extreme and prolonged spousal torture), and it will be all because of the story I am about to tell.

You see, some time back when I was bouncing blog ideas off my dear and lovely, (figuratively, folks… I didn’t actually hit her with stuff… If I’d done that I’d already be dead)… But anyway, during one such conversation E K told me she liked my blogs when they made her look good. Anything where she came out on top and I was revealed as the bumbling klutz, worshiping her from my station at her feet was all right by her. As to the rest of it, her reaction was something along the line of, “Meh.”

Not surprising. Remember, she’s heard most of these stories before, and was even present for many of them…

Of course, I immediately pointed out that any time she appeared in my blogs, she was always portrayed as the beautiful, intelligent, crafty, and yes, overly evil,  heroine. That last part, of course, is merely truth in advertising. Furthermore, I reminded her that I was always painted as the complete doofus.

She cocked her head to the side, raised an eyebrow, frowned, tapped her foot in that evil “let me explain this again you moron” sort of fashion, then said, “Kmart?“

Yeah… In case the rest of you don’t recall this grandiose f*ckup on my part, during the “Mahwage” blog series I outed The Evil One as having purchased her wedding dress from Kmart. I paid for that… Or, I thought I had…  I even have the lash marks to prove it… But, apparently there’s some interest, or hidden principal, that I missed when I made out the check…

So… The long and short of it is this… If the Kmart thing was enough to get me long term punishment, the story I am about to tell is enough to get me tortured and killed. Count on it. Truth is, I may even qualify for the full William Wallace treatment, so don’t be surprised if I am drawn, quartered, and have my individual parts buried in landfills at the four corners of the earth.

So, again I am sure you are wondering why I am going to tell this tale if I already know doing so is equivalent to signing that proverbial death warrant? Man, y’all are just full of easy questions today… Are you taking pity on me or something?

Thanks… I guess…

Well, at any rate, the answer is once again, as I said, simple… Because it’s funny. Well, it’s funny to me. And to the few folks to whom I’ve told it to in secret, (but only after having them sign off on a non-disclosure agreement). Hopefully it will be funny enough for y’all that it will make up for my untimely corpsification. I guess we’ll find out.

On that note, the story you are about to hear is true. The names have not been changed because there is no innocence to be protected. Again, in lieu of flowers, send really good scotch, bourbon, and cigars to wherever E K buries me. I don’t know if they have liquor stores and smoke shops on the other side of the veil, so I want to be prepared…

Now, on with the crime…

Umpty-jillion years back… Okay, seriously, it was more like about a decade ago… E K and I had ourselves a wedding to attend. Not ours, someone else’s. It was for some good friends we had known for quite a while and were a part of our particular circle. Therefore, while we didn’t know everyone at the reception…you never do…our core group was there to help celebrate.

Now, going to a fancy wedding and reception at a fancy hotel pretty much means you shouldn’t show up in shorts and a t-shirt. Especially since this happened in January and there was snow on the ground. But, of course, those of you who know me are well aware that I do the whole shorts and a t-shirt thing year round. But, as usual, that’s not my point. What I’m trying to say is that we got ourselves all prettied up. I did the whole button down shirt, tie, slacks, nice blazer thing. E K, naturally, did the whole eye-popping killer dress thing with heels. And, I need to point out that since this was a fancy party deal and all, she wasn’t wearing everyday go-to-work shoes. She was prancing around on a shiny pair of CFMP’s… (For those of you who may be unfamiliar with that particular acronym, it stands for “Come F*ck Me Pumps“… Yeah… Bedroom shoes.) Now, before you shake your heads and mutter, “tisk-tisk,” I am not bringing this up just because I like seeing my wife in heels. We’ve already established that I do… However, this is actually a very important part of the story… After all, this post is titled “Gimme Mai Shooz…”

So… There we are at this party. I’m looking kinda okay… You know, about as silk purse as a sow’s ear can get once it’s cleaned up… E K is, of course, looking amazing, as always. The party is raging around us. Food is served, booze is flowing, and dancing is happening.

Now, at this point I have to give you a tiny bit of background… At this juncture, E K and I had been trying to start a family. There had been miscarriages involved, along with a whole lot of stress and urgency… I mean, we weren’t getting any younger, and the bell on The Evil One’s biological alarm clock had already been hammering out a deafening cacophony for a couple of years. But, at this point in time, after repeatedly trying and failing, we had finally taken our own advice and decided it was time to simply relax. If it was going to happen, it was going to happen. Enough said. Because of this, we didn’t even have to flip a coin that evening with regard to a designated driver. I told E K that since she had been putting herself under all this stress, and had been living in her own private, self-imposed “dry county” for several months, that I would take it easy on the drink and let her do the table dancing and lampshade wearing at this particular shindig.

She was all good with that…

One more important piece of background… In our youth, E K used to drink me under the table. Once I was there she would kick me repeatedly and use me as a footrest, but that’s a different story… But seriously, this tiny little, 100 pound when soaking wet, waifish doll, could pull a Marion Ravenwood and go shot for shot of hard liquor, then still be perfectly coherent and drinking when everyone else was passed out, or laid up in the hospital being detoxified (See: Raiders of the Lost Ark, bar scene in Nepal). It was truly a sight to see. But, as I said, that was in our youth… And, we weren’t exactly youthful anymore… We weren’t as un-youthful as we are now, but you get the point. On top of that, she was out of practice… See where I’m going?

So… Yeah. The Evil One came down with a severe case of the drunks. Now, for those of you who don’t know E K, there is only one way you can tell she has even been drinking, and that is the fact that she starts talking. You see, The Evil One is generally very reserved and quiet. Probably because inside the pretty head of hers she’s hatching evil plans against the world. But seriously, she really is a quiet and reserved type of person, especially in crowds. So, when you see her out on the dance floor, giggling and bouncing off the walls, it’s a good bet she’s had a drink or two… or three… or four.

But, as I have tried to illustrate above, an attack of gregariousness is pretty much it. She doesn’t get sloppy, falling down, toilet bowl hugging drunk. I’ve never seen her go that far… Well, until that night.

However, we aren’t there yet. You see, as the evening wore on and all was good. E K was flitting about, dancing, laughing, bouncing around, and just generally having a great time. It was wonderful to see her de-stressed for a change. But, as usual, all good things must come to an end. As expected, at umpteen-thirty in the morning the party reached its inevitable conclusion and everyone parted ways to head to their respective homes, us included.

I should have known right away that the booze bottles E K had tied to her tail were drained dry the minute we started out across the parking lot. Remember, I mentioned this was during the winter and it was cold outside. My dear and lovely, who freezes to death when the temperature drops below 70, pranced right out through the cold night in her slinky dress, coat over her arm, and completely unfazed. Obviously, her anti-freeze was working just fine.

Fortunately, it was a relatively short drive home, however, this was when things started going south. Anyone who has ever done any drinking to excess knows that there are two scenarios that come into play here. One is, if you’ve been sitting at a table tossing them back, once you stand up, it’s all over but the funeral. The other is, if you’ve been moving about like a crazy person while downing the booze, once you stop moving, it’s all over but yadda yadda.

Well, obviously, E K fell into category two. Now, fortunately there was no hurlage or any such grossness, but by the time we arrived home she was doing a lot of moaning and whenever she spoke it sounded like the language our daughter used to speak when she was around 18 months old, punctuated by an occasional, and perfectly understandable, “Oh sh*t.”

Now, I’m sure you are all wondering what’s so funny about this… Well… Nothing. That’s because this isn’t the funny part. This is just the set-up. You know how it works by now…

So, anyway, we get into the house, and while the walk from driveway to living room wasn’t exactly long, E K was ready to sit down. She plopped onto the couch and moaned some more. Being the good guy I am, I pulled her shoes off and propped her up so that the sofa would only spin at something near half speed. I figured I’d be sitting up with her for a bit so I took off my tie and started to get comfortable when she mumbled, “Ahm gomma gro banoom.”

Naturally, since it sounded like she had just told me she was going to explode, I said, “What?”

“Erm gon manna berf noom,” she replied.

Unfortunately, I had left my drunken E K to English dictionary in the car, so I simply stood there and puzzled over what she was trying to tell me. For a moment I thought maybe she was saying, “I’m gonna barf soon,” but she didn’t look particularly green around the gills, so I chalked that one down as a possibility, and continued to ponder.

With an exasperated sigh that was somewhat dangerous due to the fact that it could have been ignited by even a small spark, my rag doll wife mumbled once again, “Annem gimma froom.”

With that she rocked forward and pushed herself up off the sofa. With a quick twist she started forward and her eyes suddenly expanded to the size of salad plates. Right before my eyes, she collapsed downward as if she had just tripped over a curb. I jumped forward, caught her before she hit the floor, and settled her back on the couch.

Less than a minute later, and this time with no warning, she tried getting up again. She came to her feet, teetered, stepped forward, stepped back, then fell straight down onto the couch.

I laughed. Probably not the best idea, but hey, it was funny… But, things were about to get funnier…

She stood again, teetered back to front, then pitched forward a second time. And, once again I stepped in and caught her before she did a face plant on the hardwood.

“Ammen gimma badda froom..” she insisted, pointing past me and down the hallway. Or, at least that’s where I thought she was pointing.

Putting 2 and 2 together I surmised that she wanted to go to the bathroom, so I asked her, “Do you mean you want to go to the bathroom?”

Yeah, I know, obvious question, but I was tired.

She nodded, then her eyes got big again as she mumbled something a little more decipherable. “Ohm sit!”

I was still holding her up, so I hooked my arm tighter around her waist and tried to guide her around the coffee table. We made it exactly 1 and 1/2 steps before she teetered backwards and toppled onto the couch, nearly taking me with her.

She giggled. Then she giggled harder. Then she mumbled, “Ohm sit…” again.

I said, “Okay, let’s try this again.”

As I started to pull her up she raised her eyebrows and began to babble. “Gamma sous.”

“What?” I asked.

“Ganmanna souses.”

Again, like an idiot, I asked, “What?”

“Ginnama soons,” she replied a bit more adamantly.

I shook my head. “Honey, I don’t understand what you want.”

She let out an exasperated sigh, drew in a deep breath and tried to focus on me. With what was obviously a huge amount of effort  in order to form semi coherent speech, she demanded, “Gimme Mai Shooz!”

Well, having been drunk before I know how it is. You get attached to something, important or not, and you want to make sure you know where it is at all times. Be it a bottle cap, a swizzle stick, or even your shoes.

So, I turned around and plucked the pair of stiletto heeled pumps off the coffee table and handed them to her. She rocked a bit then pitched herself forward and tried desperately to fit the left shoe onto her right foot. In this case, however, it wasn’t so much that she was trying to put a shoe on the wrong foot, she wasn’t even able to match the shoe with real foot. It seems she was seeing several, so her aim was way off.

After watching this for a half minute or so, I knelt down and took the shoes from her hands and slipped them onto her feet. After all, it seemed important to her that her feet no longer be naked.

Once I had done this she mumbled something then gave me a nudge, which I interpreted to mean, “get out of my way you idiot.”

Apparently, my translation skills were getting better. As soon as I had stood and backed away, she pushed herself up and stood perfectly without even teetering. Then, without another word she pranced off to the bathroom in a perfectly straight line, no bob nor weave save for the sexy sway that afflicts a woman in high-heeled footwear.

I suppose it’s kind of like the Sid Caesar sight gag joke about the staggering drunk guy who can suddenly walk a straight line during an earthquake. In this case, however, instead of a natural disaster, apparently some form of female fashion physics is involved. I don’t have the necessary plugin to show the equation, suffice it to say, the answer to the variable seemed to be, if you get drunk while wearing high-heels, don’t take them off until you are  either sober or passed out.

And now, I need to go finish writing my Last Will and Testament…

More to come? (I guess that really depends on how merciful The Evil One decides to be…)

Murv

PS. For readers of the Rowan Gant saga… Did you ever wonder where I got the “drunken Felicity” scene in Never Burn A Witch? Well, now you know…

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