BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I have literally lost track of the number of emails, tweets, Facebook & Myspace comments, and other communications I have received from folks following the deployment of the “Gimme Mai Shooz” blog post. In all honesty, I never expected that story to go as “viral” as it did. Granted, it was a weak virus that played out quickly, but it was probably the first blog post I have ever written that was re-tweeted and linked to from other blogs/sites more times than I could count.

And, who knows, maybe the virus is merely dormant for a short period. I suppose it could re-awaken and spread some more. I mean, it definitely is a funny story.

However, the purpose of this particular blog entry is to address the adjunct “virus” that came along with the post itself – that being the plethora of faux bets on the how and when of my demise for publicly retelling the story in the first place. This is where all of the emails, tweets, comments, etcetera, come into play. I had thrown the “want to play Clue and start a pool?” comment out as a joke, but folks picked it up and ran with it. Not something I really expected, but I don’t suppose I should have been surprised. And besides, it was fun to watch.

There were plenty of the old standby ideas submitted:

• E K in the kitchen with a knife…
• E K in the dining room with a poison sandwich…
• E K in the driveway with her car…

There were even a couple that left me wondering:

• E K with a cheese grater and razor wire…
• E K with Dr. Pepper in the bathtub…

I’m not entirely sure if that second one was a “Dr. Pepper bath” type of Beauty Tip, or if the intention was to use the carbonic & phosphoric acids in the soda to dissolve my remains. In addition to the Clue-like wagers, there were even several suggestions for torture and punishment. I’m not entirely certain that the majority of those suggestions actually fit the crime… In fact, I think maybe some folks have seen way too many episodes of the “Jack Bauer Show” .

Still, when it came to bets on how I would meet my end for embarking on this horrible transgression, the suggestion I received most, and the odds on favorite method for my death was:

• E K somewhere in the house with stiletto heels [add description here]

– The “somewheres“ tendered for consideration ranged anywhere from her shoe closet to just about any other room you could imagine, including some we don’t even have.

– The stiletto heels varied quite a bit in color and style. (Obviously the fashion statement was just as important as my demise.)

– The [add description here] AKA “method” by which the deadly footwear would be used to affect my untimely death varied only slightly and always involved an enormous amount of gleeful stomping and grinding on E Kay’s part, and even more bleeding and suffering on my part.

Not surprisingly, 100% of the death by high heels suggestions came from women. At first, I assumed that all of these ladies had read the RGI Miranda Trilogy, since that happened to be how a particular victim met his demise at the hands… well, feet actually… of a sociopathic killer dominatrix. Then I discovered that several of them had not yet read that far in the series.

That was a bit of a surprise…

What was really shocking to me, however, was the obvious delight most of them took in outlining the details of the scenario for me. There seemed to be a whole vicarious thrill built around it. Some of them even seemed to have spent quite a bit of time dwelling on it… Like maybe even before the whole blog ever happened, if you know what I mean… I even kind of had the feeling I was suddenly becoming a virtual surrogate for some husbands and boyfriends out there who had committed various infractions over the years.

Kinda scary… Kinda really scary, actually…

Because of that, I hope you ladies realize I’m going to be maintaining a safe distance from here on out… Especially if you show up at one of my book signings wearing high heels.

So, anyway, there’s something y’all probably need to know. E K really and truly is an extremely laid back gal. Very little fazes her, and her Evil persona in my blogs is for the most part satire. Now, this is not to say that she won’t tap dance on someone’s head if they cross her, because she definitely will. I’ve seen her do it. I even have pictures. And, I’m also not saying that she isn’t on the dominant side, because that would be a lie.  She is very much the alpha female. And, in our relationship I’m the clown in the mailroom and she’s the CEO – actually, she prefers to be referred to as The Queen, but let’s not take that side road… My point here is she actually knows about my blogs in advance. Maybe not the exact wording and such, but she definitely knows which stories are being told. So, in essence I really had little to fear – from her, anyway. The rest of you twisted women… Well…  I’m not so sure…

At least, that’s what I thought…

You see, as it happens E K gives pretty amazing back walking massages – trust me, that’ll make sense in a minute if it doesn’t already. I figure she was probably a Geisha or something of the sort in a previous life,  – (Egads, please don’t email me and tell me I’ve offended someone with the whole Geisha thing… I realize it’s a whole cultural thing and that I’m probably just focusing on a hyped aspect or something, but give me a break…) – My point being that with sitting in front of a keyboard as much as I do, I will get a crick in my back every now and again. Whenever seeing the Chiropractor isn’t affordable time-wise or money-wise, and E K notices me twisting and stretching quite a bit, she asks with much wifely compassion and concern, “Is your back hurting? Do you want me to walk on it for you?” Then she’ll go all “E K-Geisha” on me and run up and down my back a few times while it goes POP! CRACK! SKRUNCH! After that I’m all good. She really and truly does have a talent for it. Trust me, I’m not the only person for whom she’s done this. She could probably get you testimonials without even threatening anyone.

Anywho, such was the case Saturday evening… As in, the Saturday evening immediately after the blog had been going a bit viral…

I should have known something was up when instead of the normal concerned question, her offer to pop my back came out a bit differently this time. With more than just a bit of a wicked grin and an evil twinkle in her eyes the redhead pretty much issued the following order, in no uncertain terms –

“Lay down and I’ll step on you…”

I didn’t notice her shoes until it was already too late.

I blame you ladies and your suggestions.

More to come…

Murv

Part 12 of 12

Continued from: Mahwage: Where’s Everybody Going?

…And the bride and groom said let there be food… And there was food… And the food was good… And the food cost a whole bunch of money… And there were leftovers for eons… And so on, and so on, and so on…

Yep… No two ways about it. We had food. In some respects I suppose that has also set the tone for any parties and such we have had ever since. Trust me, there’s never a shortage of food.

Because of that, one of my favorite kitchen appliances is a vacuum sealer – or, as I like to call it, the suck ‘n seal machine.  I think it’s actually called a “Foodsaver®” and the company that produced it describes the thing as a “food storage system”…Or they did… Mine is an older model that E K gave me for Christmas many years ago, so they might have changed their tag line… All I know is that I put stuff in the bag, suck out all the air, and heat seal the edge – Voila! Vacuum packed food that can survive a stay in the freezer quite a bit longer than average… Wish I’d had one of ’em back then…

Of course, as I said, the overabundance of chow made for an easy go of it over the next week (plus  a handful of days). I didn’t have to cook, simply reheat – for those of you who may be new to my blog, go back through some of the earlier entries and you’ll find out why I keep saying, “I didn’t have to cook…” In a nutshell, my bride doesn’t much care for kitchen duty… Fortunately, I already knew that coming into this…

I suppose that if we had been thinking, we would have taken a better picture or two of the spread.  In all honesty, we weren’t really thinking about much of anything, other than simply getting to the other side of all this with our sanity intact. I’m pretty sure that at some point we were both just on autopilot, which is probably why we made it without  the benefit of pharmaceuticals, shock therapy, or straight jackets.  I guess it’s lucky we even have the pictures we do since we accomplished this on a shoestring, and had way too many irons in the fire on top of it all. Looking back now, I seriously doubt we could manage to pull it together the way we did back then. I don’t know if it would be just a matter of not having the energy, or if the simple knowledge of the fact that we overcame so many obstacles – not the least of which was money – would scare us out of even trying. Of course, they say love conquers all…

And I say yet again, “whoever the hell they are… “

But, I think maybe they are correct in this case. We made it happen and  it’s one hell of a memory…

I suppose what has brought it back around in my mind at this particular point in my life is the FAQ. Because of my profession I get asked all manner of questions by fans, and this one has always been at the top of the list for some reason. Maybe because I babble on incessantly about E K, no matter where I am.

And, to fuel that fire, there is also a simple, yet very profound fact that I recently realized, as I was sitting here writing this in fact,.. Next month, February 2009, it will be 23 years since I first laid eyes upon E K and fell headfirst, unequivocally, no holds barred, just plain blithering stupid, in love with her, no matter what my co-workers had said. To me, that’s a rare thing and “lightning strike” special… (Just a quick addendum: Yes, I know, February was last month, but hey, I originally wrote this in January.)

Of course, the real cause could just be that I’m just getting old and my mind is going… That’s always a possibility…

But, to continue in the sappy, sentimental vein I have started here, time has “marched on.” Life has taken twists, turns, and thrown horrible roadblocks in our path…

Friends have gone, moved away, lost touch. Some couples that were there with us on that evening have since split, going their separate ways and finding love elsewhere, or in some cases finding happiness alone. Others have disappeared, only to reappear in unexpected places. Some are long out of touch, but not forgotten.

And, as is inevitable for us all, some family members have since crossed over the veil betwixt the worlds, leaving us to face this existence without them. In that respect, one of the worst of the “potholes” along the road was the sudden and very unexpected loss of my mother just a scant few weeks after the wedding, but that is, as I often say, a different blog.

And what of Erin? (Remember Erin?)… Well, I cannot tell a lie… That little parenthetical tag throughout these missives was just me having fun. Erin was one of those friends who moved away and with whom we lost touch. E K and I both hope she is doing well, and if she happens to be surfing the web some day and stumbles across this blog, maybe she’ll drop us a line… We’d love to hear from her.

But, through it all: trials, tribulations, loss, gain, joy, sadness, and speed bumps galore, E K and I remain. Together and weathering whatever we must.  We still live in that very same house where we took our vows, where I dropped her ring, and where she strapped on her stockings with rubber bands.  We eat our meals in the room where our friends and family gathered to watch my bride smear me with cake; and we watch the morning news sitting in a chair that rests right before the window where we giggled while fumbling with our rings. Our paid-too-much-for fixer upper is paid off now,  free and clear… And the remodeling we began way back when is long done, along with many other projects since. So long done in fact that we are probably even due for a bit of a redecorate.  We have a wonderful child, we’ve both changed jobs, and I’ve even changed careers, abandoning my life as a tech to pursue my dream to be a writer. So far, that has worked out well. And, as beautiful as E K was on October 31, 1987, in my estimation she just keeps getting prettier every single day.

And, you know what else? My heart still goes “pitter-pat” whenever she enters the room – just like it did that fateful and fortunate day back in 1986 when I turned a corner in a tech center and found her waiting…

Yeah, yeah, okay… I can hear you screaming – “Sheesh, Sellars… All right already… Enough with the sappy Hallmark Channel^TM crap… What does this have to do with food… Or was that just a ploy to get us here so you could throw down some kind of Nicholas Sparks inspired frou-frou on us?”

Well, in all honesty, no it wasn’t intended as a bait and switch. I just guess nostalgia has a way of creeping up on a person and taking over. But, we’ll talk about that  later…

So, the food…

Take a good look at the pictures from the wedding… You’ll see cake, chafing dishes filled with veal parmigiana, ham, rice… Plates filled with dollar rolls, cheese, condiments… But, what’s missing?

Well, I can easily understand if you are having trouble with the “where’s Waldo” scenario here, so let me refresh your memory just a bit… Remember earlier in this story when E K and I planned the menu and blew a wad of cash at the Honey Baked Ham® Company? Part of what ate up that chunk of change from our budget were the boxes of fancy hors d’oeuvres… Or, as the young man behind the counter called them, much to E Kay’s amusement, Whores Duh-Vores…

It was probably a solid month later when it dawned on us that all of those expensive mini quiches, bite sized meat pies, and unpronounceable little appetizer morsels never made it to the table that night. They were still nestled snug and chilly in their boxes, stacked neatly in the chest freezer downstairs… That was our final glitch for the evening, not that anyone even noticed…

Still, it opened a door and presented an opportunity we simply could not pass up… When lives  settled down once again over the following weeks, we set our plan into motion… We gathered our friends, filled the fridge with beer, wine – even a bottle or two of the bubbly – and baked those boxes of goodies…

We had our party… Even if it was several weeks late.

And now, sadly – in my way of thinking, at least – we have come to the end. Not of Brainpan Leakage, of course… I plan to bore you with many more stories of the lunacy that is my life. Nor is it the end of E Kay’s and my story…  It’s merely the ellipsis at the end of this particular chapter in a memory book that will hopefully just continue to grow for untold years to come.

I know that many of you have come to expect humor from me at every turn – be it silly, dry, acerbic, or even hidden… I hope that I was able to inject some of that into this tale, and into your lives with it. I realize, of course, that some – maybe even a good portion – of this was sappy and sentimental. Well, I’m a sappy and sentimental guy, especially when I come down with a bad case of nostalgia. Don’t worry, I’m taking something for it and the doctors assure me it should clear up soon – although they say I will always be at risk for a sudden relapse, (or two or three), in the future. But, what I can definitely say about this attack of nostalgia is that in writing this multi-part answer to a frequently asked question I have been given a gift. While it may seem like nothing more than random babbling to some of you,  committing this slice of my life to “paper” has allowed me to relive something in much more depth and detail than the cursory re-tellings I’ve given in the past.

And, for that, those of you who asked the question that made this series of blog entries happen, have my humble and profuse thanks. You have given me something, that while it was there all the time, had been hidden behind better than two decades of day to day life, still in my heart but obscured from my view.

In any case, if the sentimentality here has managed to get your panties all in a bunch, just remember I warned you about it at the outset, so don’t bother to send any complaint letters…It won’t do you any good because I’ll just give them to E K, and trust me, you don’t want her answering them… (I keep telling you people she’s evil…)

Now… What with this little blog “mini-series” being born of a FAQ and all,  I suppose I should move along to the next question. So, as to the query about how our daughter came to be…

Well, you see, when a man and woman love each other…

Nah… On second thought I think I’ll just let you call the local high school and ask the biology teacher about that one.

More to come…

Murv