Someone is about to get a serious head stomping from The Evil Redhead, and for a change it’s not me.

Were I the impending “stompee” I’d be pretty concerned, because I’m willing to bet hard cash that no safe word known to man or E K will make her stop until she’s completely satisfied her blood lust.

But, allow me to back up just a second and explain…

You see, while her supreme evilness is perfectly willing to hand out a sound beating at the drop of a hat, there are certain times when she’s not just willing, she’s flat out chomping at the bit to hurt someone. Whenever this occurs it’s not just some random someone either. She usually has a target in mind. In point of fact, the target is always he who angered her to the point of the bloodlust in the first place. (I should point out that I said “he” because it always seems to be a male who pushes her over the edge.)

So, there we were the other day, getting ready to head out to the grocery store. It just so happened that it was a Friday. The O-spring was off from school due to teacher conferences so E K took one of her closely guarded and carefully doled out vacation days in order to spend time with family – that being the O-spring and me.

She had no more stuck her key into the ignition of the Evil Mobile than her cell phone began to chirp. She pulled it from her belt, perused the screen, then her face twisted into a perplexed mask. She flipped open the device and placed it against her ear.

“This is Kat,” she said.

After a brief pause she replied, “Oh, Hi Customer X, how are you?”

She listened for a moment and exchanged a few more pleasantries before getting down to business.

Now, I need to point out to you that E K takes her job as a Field Service Engineer very seriously. Her accounts and pet clients are extremely important to her and she is probably one of the most conscientious technicians out there, not to mention one of the best in the whole country, period. So, if anyone does anything to screw up one of her accounts, she turns into a redheaded Terminatrix.

I’ll be back… Faster pussycat, kill, kill! Hasta la vista, asshole… Yeah, the whole nine yards… Further proof that one should never piss off the E K unless a death wish is involved.

So, back to the story…

I watched her face as she listened to the customer on the other end of the line. With each passing second her expression became more and more drawn with a mix of incredulity and anger.

Finally she yelped, “He WHAT?”

Before I knew it she was snapping her fingers in front of my face and pointing to what she calls her “tin can” – a metal clipboard with a storage compartment for service tickets and the like.

Of course, not wanting to get beaten to death myself on this particular afternoon, I scrambled to hand it to her. She flipped it open, dug around, then provided the customer on the other end of the line with a phone number, all while apologizing profusely for someone else’s massive screwup. When all was done and she had bid the customer farewell, she sat in the driver’s seat with a frown on her face and fiery glare in her ice blue eyes.

Taking my life into my own hands I asked in a near whisper, “Something wrong?”

“When you pack my lunch on Monday morning,” she instructed with a hot grumble in her voice. “Make sure you also pack my black stiletto pumps – the really sharp ones. Also, a pair of vise grips, a baseball bat, a gag, a roll of duct tape, and a propane torch. Is that understood, lackey?”

“Yes ma’am,” I replied. “Mind if I ask why?”

Her anger seemed to be turning into a cold rage and I could see in her eyes that she was plotting someone’s demise.

My wife replied in a cold, even tone. “Apparently going-to-wish-he-were-dead-coworker gave one of my pet accounts a number for XYZ Printer Tech Support.”

“That’s a problem?” I asked sheepishly.

She growled. “It is when the number he gave them turns out to be a Phone Sex Service!“

All I could think of to say was, “Oh.”

She sat in silence for another minute, then started the Evil Mobile and backed out of the driveway. We were halfway to our intended destination when the Redhead turned to me and asked, “Lackey! Do you happen to know where the closest farm supply store is around here?”

“I think so, why?”

“Because I’ve decided the vise grips aren’t going to be quite enough for what I have planned. I’m going to need a sheep castrator too.”

Yep… Someone is gonna be havin’ a realllllly bad day, and it ain’t me… Just to make things easier for her, I think I’ll pack her stun gun too. And an extra roll of duct tape, just in case.

Oh, and if you are looking for a tech job, you might want to check the want ads the next day. E K is probably going to need a new co-worker…

A note of caution though – Make sure you don’t screw up, because she not only bought a sheep castrator at the farm supply, she also picked up the biggest damn cattle prod I’ve ever seen, and an entire case of batteries…

More to come…

Murv

I think that will probably depend on how well I follow instructions from here on out. The dance thing, I mean.

You see, messages come in all forms and from many sources. In fact, depending on your belief system, you may even be convinced that you receive messages from beyond the veil between the worlds. And, sometimes those messages come along with a set of instructions that need following.

I suppose at this point you are wondering what messages from the great beyond have to do with the picture of Evil Kat’s shapely gams over here on the right. Well, to be honest, both everything and nothing. You see I’m not actually going to go on about being contacted by the dead. I am, however, going to go on about messages. In particular a message I received just the other day, and it just so happens that it has quite a bit to do with E Kay’s shoes.

In particular, her Mary Janes.

(BTW, I’d have put the whole picture up there, however if you have seen the revamped cover of Perfect Trust, for which this was one of many shots taken to create the final collage, you know things were far less pretty above the waist… Not gory or anything… You’ll just have to read the book if you don’t understand what I’m getting at… But, yeah, E K was one of the models… How cool is that?)

And, back to our regularly scheduled blog…

So, E K has several pairs of Mary Jane styled pumps. Dress up, work, leather, patent leather,  canvas, heels, flats, wedges, brown, black, and so on…

You get the idea.

I couldn’t begin to tell you about the fashion statement surrounding these, primarily because I have absolutely no fashion sense at all. I will pair stripes and plaids in a heartbeat, so I am definitely NOT the go-to guy where this sort of stuff is concerned. However, as shoes go these seem to work for the Evil One, and I am perfectly willing to admit that I think she looks pretty damn good in them. This latter fact may have something to do with one of those childhood memories, that being the little blonde-haired girl next door when I was growing up. We were all of about 7 and I was crushing on her pretty hard. Being the style of the 60’s she always wore frilly dresses and patent leather Mary Janes. They say you never forget your first love. Well, I wouldn’t call this playmate from my childhood a “love,” so I guess that old saying applies to crushes too.

So, there you go. Nothing sick or twisted, just Id, ego, and superego colliding to stir fond puppy love memories in my heart whenever I see the evil redhead in her Mary Janes.

Okay, enough with psychoanalyzing the Murv…

Now, the thing about E Kay’s shoes is that while most of them reside in her evil shoe closet, there are a few pairs that occupy strategic locations around the house – i.e. wherever she happened to take them off. Of course, her evilness is still more conscientious about her shoe placement than the O-spring. If you go stumbling through the dark in the middle of the night around our house, while traversing the living room you will trip over every pair of shoes the child owns. E K, however, does place hers pretty much out of the way. One such “out of the way” location where her feet become un-shod – and the aforementioned shods remain – is the general vicinity of her desk in our shared office.

And yes, Virginia (No, not you Doc… No, not the state either… I mean the metaphorical and collective Virginia) this is from whence I received a message. I just didn’t know it at the time. See below…

If you look closely at the left shoe you will notice a piece of paper lounged out on the insole as if it belongs there…

You see, the other day I rolled back from my desk on a mission to put something in the cabinets on the other side of the room. Since our office is relatively small our desks are against opposite walls. When I stood up to make the 4 steps to the cabinets I had to step around the shoes. When I looked down I noticed this bit of paper occupying the insole.

I didn’t really think much of it at first. Her shoes were sitting next to the paper recycling bin and since she is a shredding maniac I figured that in a frenzy of potential paper-mâché production the previous evening a scrap had escaped her evil clutches in a daring attempt at freedom. Unfortunately for the scrap, however, it plummeted into her shoe where it was overcome by odoriferous fumes and expired before it could get away.

Do NOT tell her I said that…

I continued about my task, tucking some papers into a cabinet, then returned to my desk. once again stepping around the pair of Mary Janes. This time, however, I noticed that there appeared to be writing upon the bit of paper. Again, I didn’t really think much of it until several seconds had passed and I was seated back at my desk. Some manner of subliminal trigger clicked, clanked, or whatever it is they do and I stopped everything I was doing. The image of the paper with the writing on it flashed through my gourd and I screwed up my face in thought as I wondered, “Did that really say what I think it said?”

Now I was curious. So, what else could I do? I rolled back, turned around in my chair, then leaned over to look at the scrap in the shoe (all while holding my nose, of course…) And, much to my surprise, it did in fact say what I thought it said.

“Leave Treat”

I’d heard “trick or treat” before, but never “leave treat,” although it definitely sounded like a pretty clear instruction to me. For a minute I started wondering if she was trying to get in touch with her Dutch roots and thought it was Christmas or something. But I came to my senses and remembered she is primarily Welsh and Irish, not Dutch.

Then for another brief moment I considered stuffing a banana into the shoe just to see what would happen when her evilness came home. However, since I wasn’t sure if that would spark some sort of Freudian dilemma or not, and I didn’t have any Vodka or Scotch miniatures on hand, I elected to simply laugh and snap a picture or two, because it was obvious to me at that juncture that this would be blog material.

Unfortunately, I get the impression that maybe I should have put some individually wrapped Dove chocolates in there or something.

Why?

Well, what you can’t see here is the knobby tread this pair of shoes has on the sole. The reason that is important is that I am now sporting a mirror image of it all over my face. All I know is that E K was doing a lot of unintelligible screaming while she was dancing on my head, but I did manage to catch a little snippet about her shoes being empty when she arrived home and when was I going to learn to follow instructions?

More to come…

Murv