BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I know a lot of Wendys…

I realize that’s kind of odd, but throughout my life I have come to know several Wendys. Or, in one case, Wendi. There’s also Wendie, as in Wendie Malick, but I don’t actually know her. I’ve just seen her on TV, so she really doesn’t count.

And, these Wendys are all across the board as to personalities and professions. There’s a blond Wendy who was a Flight Attendant for TWA – remember them? TWA, I mean, not Flight Attendants. Although, I could certainly wax nostalgic about how Flight Attendants used to be Flight Attendants, and not psychopathic hall monitors who seem to think they are Air Marshals. In any event, I have no idea what TWA Wendy is doing these days. I haven’t seen her in years, but I did use to joke with her quite a bit and call her an Airborne Waitress. Fortunately, she had a good sense of humor about it.

Then there’s small Wendy. I have no idea what she is doing, or what she grew up to be. I met her shortly after I graduated high school. My dad and I went on a hiking trip in Colorado, and we had set up camp in a public – but little used – camping area halfway up a pass in the Rockies. Small Wendy and her parents were camping in the same area, albeit several sites over. She developed a crush on me because she thought I looked like John Denver, and would come over to our campsite whenever she saw us out and about. Her parents even sent her over with leftovers from their dinner – they had an RV with a kitchen – because they felt sorry for us having to eat freeze dried rations.

And, there’s “Mistress Wendi”. That’s where the Wendi with an”i” shows up. That’s not her real name… Well… Not when she’s just being her normal self. It’s more of a moniker attached to the alter ego of a friend. Based on the honorific I’m sure you can figure out what she does for fun. We’ve been friends forever, and she was an invaluable source of info when I was researching the Miranda novels.

There are others, but I don’t want to bore you too much. I mean, all I am doing is rambling about women named Wendy. There was, however, a particular Wendy in my life who wasn’t exactly a friend. She also wasn’t exactly an enemy. She was, for lack of a better description, a thorn in my ass. I have no clue what happened to her, but I think of her often, believe it or not. Well, maybe not often as in often. More like whenever I am startled by something and jump out of my skin.

I was all prepared to write the story of why this happens to be when I received notice that one of my recent workshops, which had been videotaped at an event, was now online. I was watching it to see how it came out and lo and behold, there I was, right there on the screen telling the story about this particular Wendy in order to illustrate a point. So, rather than toss a whole ‘nother mess of words out there, here it is, from my lips to your ears.

(Video Courtesy of Spiraling Up Video Productions)

Moral of the story?

Don’t let your guard down around anyone named Wendy. Especially if she has a roll of Scotch Tape in hand…

More to come…

Murv

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