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  • Mistress Of The Flies…

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    Part 2 of 2 Continued from: Heellllpp Meeee…

    When we left off with that cliffhanger at the end of part 1 – BTW, don’t you just hate it when I do that? Well, don’t expect it to change anytime soon. (Bwuahahahaha!)

    So, anyway, when we left off I had just skulked into the kitchen to investigate a commotion only to find the Evil Redhead decked out in her “torturin’ togs” and talking to a Popsicle stick. If none of that makes sense, go back and read part 1. If it still doesn’t make sense, join the club. I was having trouble wrapping my head around it too…

    Now… Something else I need to fill you in on… During the latter part of June and early portion of July we had this absolutely INSANE problem with flies. They were everywhere. Inside, outside, around the side, in the back, out front, above, below… We just couldn’t figure it out. I mean, we keep the litter boxes clean, we take out the trash regularly, double bag stuff that might be conducive to fly breeding, etc, ad nauseum. There was no rhyme or reason for it. Still, they were everywhere…

    And so, on with the story…

    I drew up next to the imitation-leather-clad redhead who was holding a Popsicle stick, and peered carefully over her shoulder. After all, she seemed to be talking to an inanimate object and I didn’t want to startle her or anything. However, as I mentioned before, the stick wasn’t quite as empty as I had first thought. In point of fact, it had a sopping wet blowfly attached to the end with whatever fixative redheaded bug dominatrixes use for restraining their subs. However, this particular blowfly didn’t seem to be enjoying its encounter in the least… its hairy little legs were kicking and its wings were flexing as it tried in vain to escape the clutches of my evil wife.

    “I’m going to ask you one more time,” E K demanded, her attention focused on the struggling insect. “Where are all of you little bastards coming from?”

    The fly buzzed something unintelligible, to me at least, as it attempted to work itself free to no avail.

    “The name, rank, and serial number bit isn’t going to fly,” E K mused aloud, then giggled an evil giggle at her own pun. “Remember, you did this to yourself…”

    With that, she turned on the faucet and held the end of the Popsicle stick into the center of the stream of flowing water. After slowly counting to five she twisted the handle and the water stopped running. The fly sputtered and kicked.

    “Ready to talk now, Dick?” E K demanded. “Where is your base of operations? How many of you are there? What are your attack plans? Answer me, dammit!”

    I cleared my throat and asked, “Ummm, honey… Uh… What are you doing?”

    “Enhanced Interrogation,” she replied without breaking attention from the task at hand.

    “You’re waterboarding flies?” I said. “What? Did you call Dick Cheney for pest extermination advice or something?”

    “Hmmph!” she returned. “I called Dick Cheney all right, but not for advice. I told him to shut the hell up.”

    “You’ve been spending too much time on Facebook*.”

    “You set up my page for me as I recall.”

    “Yeah… okay… You’ve got me there.”

    “I’ve always got you.”

    “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

    “I’m always right.”

    “You really don’t have to remind me about that.”

    “Obviously I do.”

    “Yeah… Okay… So back to what you’re doing here… I take it your dislike of the former VP has something to do with why you are calling that fly Dick, and it’s not just some crass reference to male anatomy?”

    “Oh my, aren’t we quick today,” she replied, sarcasm dripping from her words.

    “I try.”

    “Well it’s pretty obvious, don’t you think? Flies are almost as annoying as Dick Cheney. Not quite, but almost. So it just stands to reason.”

    “Yeah… I suppose I can see your point there.”

    “Even so, under the circumstances I think both meanings apply.”

    “Yeah, I had a feeling you might say that.”

    “Talk you little bastard!” she demanded of the waterlogged fly, returning her focus to the interrogation while shaking the Popsicle stick like she was resetting the level on an old mercury thermometer.

    I watched her yelling threats at the insect for a moment then spoke up again. “So, this seems a bit complicated and involved. I mean, if this is about torturing flies, why don’t you just pull their wings off or something? You know, simple stuff like regular sociopaths do…”

    “Because I’m not regular. I’m high octane.”

    “Uh… Yeah.”

    “Besides, I tried that,” she quipped. “They die too quickly and I don’t get any information out of them.”

    “I see…” I nodded and took a few precautionary steps back from her. “So… Just out of curiosity… Mind if I ask why you are so intent on ruthlessly interrogating winged insects all of a sudden?”

    “Because they’ve flown over the line. One of them attacked our daughter last night.”

    “Attacked?”

    “Yes. It kept dive bombing her.”

    “Ahhhh,” I said with a nod yet again. “That would explain why I heard you screaming, “Get away from her, you bitch!‘”

    “Hey, it’s one of my favorite lines from Aliens, and you know it,” she replied. “Besides, it fit the situation and I was channeling my inner Ellen Ripley. If I’d had a flamethrower the damn thing would have been toast, trust me.”

    “I’m sure the folks at 20th Century Fox appreciate your loyalty to the franchise.”

    She turned on the water and shoved the fly into the stream again while saying, “Don’t be sarcastic with me lackey or you’ll be next.”

    “I hate to disappoint you but I’m not really afraid of a Popsicle stick.”

    “You would be if you knew what I was going to do to you with it,” she countered. “But, that doesn’t matter anyway because I also have an 8 foot 2 by 12, an economy size tube of epoxy, and a garden hose.”

    “Oh.”

    “Yeah… I thought that might change your tune.”

    “Okay, so what about the flies? I mean, is this whole interrogation thing actually working?”

    “Of course it is.”

    “So, you know where they are all hiding out?”

    “Absolutely.”

    I pointed to the Popsicle stick in her hand. “Okay… So… Umm… May I ask why you’re still waterboarding that one?”

    “Because it amuses me.”

    “Ahhh… I guess I should have already known that, huh?”

    “Yes, you should have, lackey” she replied. “Just for that, drop and give me twenty.”

    I conceded. “Yes, your evilness.”

    However, before I could drop and give her twenty of whatever it is she wanted – she hadn’t told me what just yet – she whipped around and said, “No. Wait.” Then she handed me the dripping Popsicle stick, and added, “Here. Hold this.”

    No sooner had I taken the fly adorned strip of wood from her than she quickly stalked out of the room without another word, and left the twenty still unnamed.

    “Excuse me… ummm… your evilness,” I called after her. “Mind if I ask where you’re going?”

    She poked her head back through the doorway and replied, “It’s time for operation NO PEST STOMP.”

    The next time I saw the redhead she was in the back yard scooping clouds of buzzing Phaenicia Sericata into a butterfly net, then tossing it on the ground and doing a frantic flamenco dance on top of it. (And believe it or not, I didn’t even fabricate that particular part of this tale… She really did… And then to top it off she showed no remorse. In fact, she complained about getting fly guts on her shoes. Given PETA’s reaction to the President swatting a single fly I figure we’ll be hearing from them soon…)

    But, in the end I guess I can’t complain too much. The fly problem seems to be under control these days, we’ve officially renamed the kitchen “Katmo”, and then there’s that nifty Sci-Fi movie power loader suit thing we have standing in the driveway.

    Of course, something tells me Dick Cheney just isn’t going to shut the hell up no matter how many Facebook groups demand it, and that scares me a little. You see, I have to live under the same roof with E K, and if Dick keeps running off at the mouth and annoying her, she just might end up needing another surrogate to torture since we are now out of flies… What do you want to bet that surrogate will be yours truly?

    And you know, I just checked… She still has that giant tube of epoxy…

    More to come…

    Murv

    * Facebook Fan Page: “Telling Dick Cheney To Shut The Hell Up”

  • Career Choices…

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    I like to sing.

    microphoneNow, please take note – I did not indicate in any way that I am good at singing. I simply said that I like to do it. Therefore, you aren’t about to find me in a Karaoke bar, belting out Bon Jovi or Heart tunes and downing Kirin with a bunch of visiting Japanese businessmen. For one thing, I never have occasion to be socializing with the aforementioned Asian moguls. Just doesn’t happen in my line of work. Maybe someday a Japanese publisher will pick up the foreign rights to the Rowan Gant Investigations and do a translation, but something tells me by the time they were done, he would end up being a Mystical Samurai Pokemon or something of that sort, so I’m not really sure how I feel about that prospect. I guess it all depends on how much Kirin I’ve had, and how much money is on the table when the offer is made.kirin_beer

    But, let’s get back to the story…

    The truth is, it really doesn’t matter if they are Japanese businessmen, or a visiting friend from the FBI, since the latter actually does happen. You still won’t find me hanging out in the Karaoke bars, because even though I like to sing, I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, even with help and I know that. I didn’t used to have this problem. Once upon a time I could cart a tune around in a brown paper sack with no backup whatsoever, and sound pretty good. But, at around age 13 I was afflicted with a bad case of swimmer’s ear. (I bet you thought I was going to say hormones… Well, that’s a different blog…) At any rate, both of my eardrums were perforated by the blistering, which left behind a whole mess of scar tissue. As I have grown older the extent of my frequency hearing loss has worsened considerably. So, no matter whether we are talking brown paper sack, plastic bucket, or galvanized pail, I can’t carry a tune.

    Still, I like to sing.

    Just ask Anastasia, good friend and co-founder of the “Murv’s Stalkers” fan club. She and her husband are regular visitors to the “Murv Cave,” and were here for the Yule Bash 2007. They were also here for Yule Bash 2008, but 2007 has more to do with the singing thing… You see, that was the year of the 14 inch snowfall type blizzard storm that struck on the very day and evening of the Yule bash. So, Anastasia actually got to witness me shoveling the back deck – repeatedly – while I was holding a Vodka-Tonic in one hand, and belting out my own renditions of A Fairytale of New York, Run, Run Rudolph, and countless other holiday tunes. What I’m trying to illustrate here is this – I am likely to start singing at the drop of a hat. Especially if alcohol is involved, but while it is a good impetus, booze definitely isn’t a pre-requisite.

    Such was the case just the other day. And, no, this time there was no alcohol involved.

    You see, I had just picked up the offspring from school. We returned home, and following the usual schedule the short person set about doing her homework while I started fixing dinner. After all, E K would be home in just a little over an hour and we all know what happens if I don’t have her dinner on the table when she walks in.

    So, anyway, it had been a fairly good day, I was feeling somewhat chipper,  and I was far enough ahead of the game with fixing dinner that I could reasonably assume E K wouldn’t beat me and lock me in the closet that evening. Well, at least not on account of dinner being late, that is… Therefore I started bellowing out some Traveling Wilbury’s tunes. I happen to like the Traveling Wilbury’s. Not only are their songs catchy, but also they’re a lot of fun.  If I remember correctly I started out with Tweeter And The Monkey Man then flowed right into Handle With Care. I think Last Night might have even been in there somewhere as well, although I’m pretty sure it entered the mix a bit later. I left Margarita out of it because it doesn’t sound nearly as good without the 4-part harmony.

    Somewhere around the time I was taking a breath before launching into the chorus of one of the above songs, I was cut short by the offspring calling out to me from the dining room…

    “Daddy!” she yelled.

    Well, it didn’t sound like anything was terribly wrong… Parents kind of have a sixth-sense about that sort of thing believe me. What it sounded like was that she was simply trying to get my attention before I started bellowing again. I made the logical assumption that she might need some help with fractions or some such. She absolutely despises math. It’s not that she’s bad at it or anything. She just hates it with a passion for some odd reason.

    Anyway, I stepped out through the kitchen doorway and asked, “What’s up?”

    She looked at me, and with all the seriousness she could muster she asked, “Daddy, are you going to be a Pop-Star?”

    You see, the offspring is all about that Cyrus kid… The one named after a state…  And the somebody or another brothers… And Denny Tomatoes, or some such… You know, the latest Disney sensations, most of whom probably won’t have the staying power of an Annette Funicello… But, that’s just my opinion… Either way, she is so all about these “Tween/Teen Idols” in fact, that she has abandoned her grand plan to become a Doctor and has decided instead to become a “Pop Star” just like them. When I was her age I think I was planning to be an Astronaut. Shortly after that it was Oceanographer, closely followed by Veterinarian… So, my point is, I’m not worried about her current career choice. I’m sure it will change soon enough. As a matter of fact, she has such a gift for gab and penchant for arguing with us, that I wouldn’t be surprised to see her become a trial attorney. I mean, I hope not. Then when people at the old folks home ask me what my kid does for a living I’ll have to make up a lie and stuff… But, I digress…

    So, the kid had just asked me if I was going to become a “Pop Star”…

    I looked back at her and chuckled as I replied, “No, honey, I write books for a living. You know that.”

    She pondered my answer for less than a heartbeat before replying, “That’s good, because you don’t sing very well.”

    Critics. They’re everywhere. But, at least I know my kid is honest, so that gives me some hope that she won’t become an attorney after all, and it should definitely keep her out of politics.

    As for me, I guess I won’t be quitting my day job.

    More to come…

    Murv