BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but in case you are new here… Oh, what the hell… It bears repeating even for the regulars:

E K despises Wal-Mart.  And, when I say despises that is very simply the strongest family friendly word I can pull out of my pocket at this juncture. If she could, E K would have Wal-Mart strapped to the wall down in her dungeon so she could torture it on a daily basis. She hates the organization just that much.

Living under that same roof with her I have come to understand this, and to even plan routes to restaurants and cinemas so that they avoid coming within 10 miles of a Wal-Mart. It’s sort of a self-preservation thing. However, since E K is not only evil, she has the built in “Mom Thing” going on, the O-spring can at least get away with mentioning the name of the vile organization without paying the price I – or another adult – would.

And so, since Wal-Mart attracts a “certain” demographic, which then allows them to cut deals with manufacturers or even musical artists that cater to said demographic, the life sucking mecca of retail depravity happened to be the exclusive reseller of a particular CD. A particular CD that it turns out the O-spring wanted “really, really bad.” This, of course, led to the child badgering The Evil One relentlessly about shopping there – whether in person or online, she didn’t care.

Eventually the badgering wore on E K, and one night as the O-spring dropped not so subtle hints around our office, the redhead went ahead and surfed over to the online cesspool of Satan’s Shopping Center. (That would be Wal-Mart just in case you aren’t following.)

The O-spring watched on as the supremely evil one scanned the site. After a few silent moments the kid looked at her mother and with every bit of seriousness she could muster announced in a matter-of-fact tone, “You didn’t know Wal-Mart had this much information didya?”

A minute or two later, as E K and I were cleaning our drinks off our monitors, the daughter turned to me and said, “This is going to be blog material, isn’t it?”

Why yes… Yes it is.

More to come…

Murv

I raced up the stairs, trying my damnedest not to kill myself in the process. You see, our house is old. VERY old. What’s more, the basement stairs were apparently cut and assembled by a rag-tag group of chimpanzees that were somewhere in the middle of a 30 day beer binge – I know this because I found a few of the “church key” topped cans in the wall when we remodeled and tore out the plaster and lath. The other reason I know this is because one stair might have a 7 1/2 inch rise with a 10 inch tread, but the next will have a 10 inch rise with a 7 inch tread. Of course, the one that follows usually has a 4 inch rise and a 12 inch tread, but I think you get the idea. The thing of it is, there’s no discernible pattern, even where muscle memory is concerned. Therefore, much killing of oneself occurs on these stairs, especially when you are in a hurry.

I know, I should probably just rip them out and replace them, like I did with their fraternal twins that led upstairs to the half story. But, that’s beside the point. This blog is actually about Dorothy Morrison and telephones.

Dorothy and cell phones, to be exact…

You see, Dorothy Morrison is a friend of mine. In fact, she is one of my best friends in the whole world. For those of you who might not know just who Dorothy is click on her name and follow the link. It will take you to her website. She’s a fantastic author and we often tour together. We are so much like brother and sister that we had to have been siblings in a previous life. It’s that simple.

So, anyway, there I was, trying hard not to kill myself as I bounded up the stairs from the basement. It was Christmas Day. Just this past Christmas Day 2009, as a matter of fact. Presents had been opened, breakfast had been consumed, showers had been had, and I had finished all of the cooking and meal prep work. We were gathering things together so we could load up and head out to visit with E Kay’s family. I was down in the basement – also known as E Kay’s Dungeon and Playroom – so that I could snag a box or two in order to make the packing up a bit easier. I had already had to skirt my way around the rack, the Iron Maiden, and all of E Kay’s other “toys” without injuring myself, and so far I had been doing fine.

Then I heard it. My cell phone, which was upstairs on the dining room table, began to belt out a jazzy show tune sort of ring. Only one person in my phone book was assigned this particular melange of electronic chirps – Dorothy.

Now, one would imagine that it would be just as easy to safely negotiate the stairs and return the call if missed. But, I knew better. I knew that Dorothy and her husband were on vacation, therefore in all likelihood she was calling me from her cell phone.

“Okay… So what?” you ask.

Well, I’ll tell you. Better yet, allow me to illustrate by finishing the story.

… The boxes I had been carrying flew out of my hands, as they were all but forgotten. I stumbled up the stairs at a frantic pace, losing a shoe and banging my shin on the 12 inch riser because I had miscalculated after taking the two 4 inch risers at once. The cats scattered in front of me – after all, wouldn’t you too if a fat guy was falling up the stairs at you?

My head bounced off the door frame as I fell through the opening, then rolled across the floor, came up into a dead run… Well, a limping dead run… E K was yelling from our bedroom upstairs, wanting to know why she was hearing a show tune, the offspring was surveying her bounty yet again, and the clock was ticking. I rounded the corner from the hallway and dove for the dining room table, snagging my phone as I crashed through the chairs and ended in a crumpled heap against the wall.

“Hello? Hello?” I said, speaking into the now unfolded cell between labored breaths. But alas, no one was there. Though I knew it was a longshot – and I do mean longshot – I pressed the button to return the missed call, which the tiny LCD screen was telling me had, in fact, come from Dorothy. Moreover, it told me it had come from Dorothy’s cell.

The tiny speaker on my LG warbled twice then clicked. The click, as I had fully expected, was followed by a voice mail prompt.

You see, here’s the thing… Dorothy suffers from CPFCS (Cell Phone Flash Calling Syndrome). She calls you, leaves a message, then before the last syllable has even finished echoing, she switches off her cell phone. Yes, just like a criminal on the run who fears being tracked by a cell phone signal, she shuts the thing down. I’m not absolutely certain, but I think she might even take the battery out of the damn thing.

I have attempted interventions in the past, gathering together friends and other authors who know Dorothy, but we have never had any success. No matter how hard we try, she still calls, leaves a message, then turns off her phone so that you can’t reach her. We even tried to bring her husband in on the intervention once, but Mark has been living under the same roof with her for so long that he has become jaded to this behavior.

When we told him what we were planning and why, he simply responded, “You’ll have that.”

Unable to reach Dorothy, I listened to the voice mail. As I suspected it would be, she was calling to wish us a Merry Christmas. Of course, I couldn’t return the greeting because she had turned off her phone. For that very same reason I also couldn’t call her horrible and terrible names for relaxing in Key West while I was preparing to load a vehicle in snow and sub-freezing temperatures.

Still, even though she couldn’t hear me, I called her names anyway. All in good fun, of course.

I mean, we’re talking about Dorothy Morrison here…

You’ll have that.

More to come…

Murv