BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

This is probably going to sound a bit weird, but I think maybe Jerry Garcia came back as a squirrel and he’s living in my back yard with a whole raft of furry dead-heads.

Yeah, I’m sure you are probably wondering what I’ve been smoking that would make me think such a thing, but interestingly enough, that’s kind of the point behind this whole blog entry. Not the smoking per se, but the ingestion of psychedelic substances, and no, I’m not talking about a rainbow bomb pop from the ice cream dude.

Now, as a rule, I think squirrels are pretty cool. After all, I am a devout follower of Foamy, and I regularly exchange Tweets on Twitter with Butters The Squirrel. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these two tree dwelling rodents, Foamy is the activist with a foul mouth, and Butters is quite a bit more of a pacifist. Basically, I suppose I am covering all of the bases in the event of an unexpected “Squirrel Uprising.”

Now, lest you think I am merely playing both sides against the middle, I am also a great supporter of the squirrel kingdom across the board. I have a pinwheel feeder which I keep stocked with feed corn (incidentally, my father-in-law calls it a squirrel gymnasium), and when winter rolls around and the temperature drops off, a big part of my morning routine is preparing breakfast for the tree rats. I do this by breaking a couple of slabs of Ramen noodles into squirrel friendly sized pieces, then coating them with chunky peanut butter and rolling them in sunflower seeds & feed corn. Not exactly gourmet, but I haven’t had any complaints yet. In fact, Clem and Cletus, a couple of my regulars, can often be found peering into our dining room from the picture window while they wait for the restaurant to open.

But, let’s get back to Jerry and the Dead Heads living in my back yard. You see, I’m actually old enough to remember Jerry. I’m also old – and experimentally curious – enough to have experienced the Dead Head culture. Now, I never actually followed The Grateful Dead across the US in a beat up microbus. Truth is, I never even attended a Dead concert in person (I could only afford just so many concert tickets). However, this is not to say that in my younger, wilder, less inhibited, and somewhat stupider years I didn’t maybe partake of a few controlled substances.

Yeah, I inhaled.

And guess what, I don’t intend to run for public office, but if for some reason I do lose my mind and put my name on a ballot, here you go. No digging required. Get over it, odds are you inhaled too.

But, moving right along… There was another substance that made the rounds with the Dead Heads, that being The Magic Mushroom. Yep… Psylocibin containing psychedelic fungus. Happy toadstools from the cow pasture. Your ticket to the magic kingdom.

Did I ever partake of them? Well, I probably shouldn’t say… But in case you are wondering, for the record those things taste like crap. (whoops… oh well… didn’t say I was proud of it, but hey, I’m being honest here…)

And so, anyway, Funny Fungus is exactly why I think Jerry and the Furry Dead have pitched a tent city in my back yard. You see, the other day I pulled into the driveway, parked and all that jazz. However, unlike any other day I heard this loud thump as I climbed out of my truck. Darting my eyes in the direction of the noise I saw a wild eyed tree rat perched on the railing of my trailer. He began chittering at me, as squirrels tend to do, then darted off down the length of the flatbed following an erratic serpentine pattern. Against my better judgment, I followed the little furbag.

Before I even reached the back gate I saw a half dozen more squirrels running around the yard like their tails were on fire and their nuts were catchin’… Aww, come on… I mean like peanuts, walnuts, hickory nuts… sheesh, you dirty minded folks… Anywho, I watched as they darted about, jumped up onto the deck railing, beat their tiny little paws against their chests while doing these squeaky little, high-pitched Tarzan yells, somersaulted onto my BBQ pit, ran up a tree, jumped 72 feet to the roof, double back flipped into the wading pool, and then started all over again.

Let me tell you, it was a sight to behold.

I stood there wondering what had gotten into them when something caught my eye. A couple of the tree rats who weren’t engaged in happy jungle gym time were sitting back on their haunches atop a stump. In their paws they held huge chunks of brownish-orange fungi. Before long, one of the crazed rodents who had been doing the backstroke in the offspring’s pool ran up to the stump, tore a hunk of the fungus from the side, then sat back and began gnawing on it. My guess is that his Psylocibin levels were getting a bit low and he needed a booster.

This continued daily until the fungus was all gone. No big surprise there. I almost offered them a boom box and a stack of Dead CD’s, but they seemed to be getting along fine without tunes.

And, you know, I can’t say as that I blame them for the rampant, repeated frolicking and going back to the trough for more, so to speak. As I recall, the magic kingdom was a nice place to visit. Not a place where I’d want to live, but hey, it had it’s moments.

Still, with that said, if I ever catch the little bastards cooking up meth in the tool shed, I’m having squirrel and dumplings for dinner that night.

More to come…

Murv

If you are looking for a stock to add to your portfolio, I would like to suggest that you look into any company that produces Raisin Bran.

Seriously.

It can be Kellogg’s, Post, General-Mills, Store Brand, or even Happy Fred’s Generic Cereal Company. The real deal here is that it doesn’t matter one iota who it is, just as long as they produce, package, and sell Raisin Bran, and are publicly traded on the exchange, you probably want to grab yourself a few shares.

Why?

Well, I’ll tell you. Because E K likes Raisin Bran. In point of fact, not only does The Evil Redhead like – nay, love – the shriveled-up-grape and flaky goodness of said cereal, I am fairly certain she is addicted to it… If not addicted, then damn close, because she goes through entire barge loads of the stuff, and on top of that, it is no less than number 2 on the hit parade for her daily routine.

THE E K DAILY MEANNESS AND EVILNESS SCHEDULE

1. Get out of bed and scare the hell out of Satan… Or, scare Satan right out of hell, whichever works. Then stand over him and giggle while he cowers in the corner.
2. Eat Raisin Bran while watching the morning news.
3. Feed and medicate cats.
4. Get ready for work.
5. Beat husband. Beat husband again if the mood strikes. Then stand over him and giggle while he cowers in the corner next to Satan.
6. Go to work and generally be evil. If necessary, and again if the mood strikes, be specifically evil as well as generally evil.
7. Come home and beat husband. Find where Satan is hiding and beat him too. Stand over both husband and Satan and giggle while they cower in the corner.
8. Lock husband and Satan in basement then go to bed.
9. Sleep with evil grin on face.
10. Wake up, start at item 1 and repeat ad infinitum.

See what I mean? I’m pretty sure number 2 would actually be number 1 if it weren’t for the fact that she takes such joy in scaring Satan senseless. I mean, she is after all, Evil Kat. But, if it weren’t for the amusement she gets from torturing the prince of darkness on a daily basis, I’m sure she’d just have me bring the Raisin Bran to her in bed so she could skip that annoying first step altogether. In fact, come to think of it, on Katsmas when she lets Satan slide for the day as a Katsmas present, she does in fact have me bring her Raisin Bran to her in bed, so there you go.

Oh, and BTW, she’s always quick remind Satan that he can be the prince of darkness all he wants, but she’s the Queen, so “neener neener”… Then Satan starts crying. Blubbering actually. It’s pretty sad to watch.

But, anyway, back to this whole Raisin Bran thing. One time when we ate the complimentary breakfast at a hotel where we stayed, I witnessed E K stab a desk clerk to death with a spork because all they had were Corn Flakes and generic Cheerios. You just don’t mess with her two scoops, as it were.

So, I’m sure you can see that E Kay’s schedule of events is pretty well set. And, if something causes her to deviate from that course, things tend to go awry. Take just the other morning for instance…

It started out just like any other day. Beelzebub was at the back of E Kay’s closet trying to hide under one of her shoe racks while crying for his mommy. The Evil One had enjoyed her morning giggle, and then traipsed into the kitchen so she could move along to number 2 on the list.

Now, I have to point out that even though she’s had her morning giggle, E K can be a bit on the glassy-eyed side for the first hour or so after her feet hit the floor. Hence the strict routine.

Well, for whatever reason, be it that she was wracking her brain to come up with a new husband torture, or maybe even that she was simply drunk with mirth from the horribleness she had already perpetrated upon the whimpering devil upstairs, E K deviated from her routine.

Yes. The Queen Bitch Of The Whole F*cking Universe made a left at Albuquerque.

She put number 2 on hold and moved number 3 up a half step on the ladder – meaning she elected to feed the cats first. Just so there’s no misunderstanding I want everyone to know I would have gently nudged her back onto the schedule had I been aware this was happening. Unfortunately, I was preoccupied with putting a spit shine on the shoes E K wanted to wear that day lest I be in even more trouble than normal.

I honestly had no clue whatsoever that anything was wrong until I heard a loud, exasperated groan followed by E Kay’s voice exclaiming, “DAMMIT!”

(As an aside, I think she might have picked that whole “dammit” thing up from a friend of ours we call “Helga”. She’s been schooling “Helga” in the ways of evil and husband torture, so they’ve hung out together a bit and, well, ya’know what I mean?)

At any rate, I stopped what I was doing and rushed to the kitchen to see what might possibly be the problem. Things were going through my head like perhaps I had set out the wrong color cereal bowl, or the spoon wasn’t shiny enough, or the milk wasn’t cold enough, or any of the hundreds of other things that would upset the E K.

My heart was stuck in my throat and fear of an impending beating was already welling in my stomach as I rounded the corner. However, instead of seeing blue fire shooting out of the redhead’s eyes, I found myself gazing upon 4 cats – well, actually 1 grumbling Kat and 3 quite obviously confused four-legged felines. I looked at the furry threesome as they cocked their heads side to side, then looked up, down, and all around. Then I looked at The Evil One. In her hand was an open box of Raisin Bran.

The problem was, that’s also exactly what was in the feline’s dishes on the floor.

Of course, as I am sure you already guessed, this deviation from the canonical list of the day was somehow my fault. Honestly, I never really understand the logic behind how I get blamed, but I’ve learned better than to object. I just take my beating, and then go cower in the corner with Satan.

It seems to be quite a bit safer there.

More to come…

Murv