BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

… Continued from: I Cannot Tell A Lie…

I can still hear all of you grumbling about the way the last entry ended. Well, what did you expect? You should know me by now.

So, anyway, toss the bones, pull out the wet naps, and clean yourselves up. It’s time to continue the story. BTW, just put the bucket in the fridge. I like cold fried chicken and I’m going to need something for breakfast tomorrow.

Now, back to the Tupperware.

You see, E K is probably the least gullible person on the face of the planet. Really. I have noted before that it takes an entire covert task force, the involvement of major governments, and a whole fleet of black helicopters to even make a dent in her stoic armor. And, even with all of the above brought to bear on her she simply doesn’t fall for it. I think she might be psychic. I already know she’s psycho, but that’s a different story.

All I can tell you is that you simply cannot fool this woman. It’s probably the hair. She actually has a T-Shirt she wears that has written across it, “My Red Hair Gives Me Superpowers“. Given the past 22+ years with her, I sincerely believe that. Now, I really have to point out here that I wouldn’t have bothered to reiterate this fact if it wasn’t of absolute importance. In fact, the humor in this missive hinges entirely on this fact:

You just cannot fool the E K. The odds against your success in doing so are so astronomical that even making the attempt is an exercise in abject futility.

I’m serious folks.

Therefore, I’m sure you can understand that I was completely flabbergasted when I realized I was getting away with the lie.

What lie?

I already told you – the lie about the Tupperware.

Here’s the thing… In addition to being unnaturally impossible to fool, The Evil One is also a creature of habit. Not that she’s terribly predictable, mind you, because she isn’t… Not by any stretch. However, when she sets her mind to something she will institute a routine that is to be followed exactly, and until such time as she, and only she, decides said routine is going to change, you best follow the instructions you’ve been given by she who must be obeyed, lest you end up incurring her wrath. The problem with this is, she does not warn you about the changes, so you end up incurring her wrath at some point anyway, no matter what you do. Yes… She uses fear very effectively. You live your life knowing for a fact you are going to “get it”… You just never know when.

But, moving right along… One of E Kay’s structured habits is that she takes her lunch as opposed to spending money on fast food. Yeah, she’s pretty damn frugal like that. Of course, this also involves me being responsible for making her lunch, to her exacting specifications, then packing it, again to her exacting specifications, then having her “lunchbox” sitting in exactly the right spot, for her to pick up on her way out the door each morning.

Of course, on those days when she is feeling particularly cruel and unusual, she will simply stand next to the “lunchbox” tapping her dainty Mary-Jane clad foot while glaring at me with a look of disdain and expectation. This is the signal that I am to drop whatever I am doing and tote her “lunchbox” out to the vehicle for her. Failing to do so in a timely fashion generally results in severe bruising and even a few minor abrasions.

I would be remiss, of course, if I didn’t point out that the extent of the injuries is in direct correlation to whether or not she is feeling so evil as to pick up said lunchbox and beat me with it. That is why she has several lunchboxes with various designs. Unfortunately they just don’t make them like they used to, and these days they tend dent easier and have to be replaced often.

Of course, there is an entire reversed version of this routine every evening when she arrives home – I have to meet her at the door with her drink, then lay down on the floor so she can wipe her shoes, then when she eventually allows me back up on my knees, I take the lunchbox from her and scurry into the kitchen with it. Once there I have to place the ice packs into the freezer, cull out the recyclables from the garbage, etc, then get dinner on the table before she has a chance to beat me with a broom handle.

But, speaking of the lunch box, this is where the lie about the Tupperware comes in…

You see, E K is a big fan of water. She’s also a big fan of environmental stewardship. So, rather than use bottled water, she has a fancy pink reusable Rubbermaid water bottle, as well as a tall, yellow Tupperware cup with a snap on lid.

I honestly don’t know what it was that possessed me on the evening in question. Really, I don’t. All I know is that we had only recently returned home from taking the munchkin to a Girl Scout skating party. We were both standing in the kitchen, E K setting about the task of feeding the four legged felines, while I was across the room setting up the coffee pot for the next morning.

As I scooped fresh grounds into the filter basket I heard myself say, “So, Leggs… Where’s your yellow Tupperware cup?”

The thing is, I knew exactly where it was. After performing my earlier duties as drink caddy and doormat, I had washed said Tupperware cup, refilled it with filtered water, and placed it into the refrigerator so it would be ready the next morning.

Of course, her reply was, “It should be in my lunchbox.”

At this point it was almost as if I was having an out of body experience. Instead of cutting my losses and running, I heard myself say, “Nope. Not in there.”

I heard her shuffle around the center island then undo the Velcro tab on the miniature padded cooler. A moment later she muttered a “hmph.”

I should have kept my mouth shut, but apparently I still hadn’t re-entered my body. My voice was now saying, “Did you leave it at work or something?”

“No,” she replied, confusion evident in her voice. “I’m sure I put it back in my lunchbox.”

“Well, it wasn’t there when I cleaned it out this afternoon,” I replied.

The entire time my mouth was moving a little voice was screaming in the back of my skull, “Have you lost your mind! She’s going to kill you!“

But, I was committed – or, I obviously needed to be, because I continued. “Did you maybe leave it in your van?”

“No,” she replied, her audible consternation growing.

“You’re sure?” I asked, my mouth no longer governed by anything resembling good sense. “Because I haven’t seen it.”

“Dammit,” E K muttered. “But, it was right here… I’m sure I put it in my lunchbox.”

“Could you have left it at a customer’s site or something?” my voice asked, apparently driven by some kind of Kamikaze autopilot.

“No,” she snapped, and the tone of her voice was saying “don’t be an idiot, of course I didn’t“… Then she huffed and muttered “dammit” once again.

Now she stalked back around the center island and opened up the cabinet. After some clanking and knocking around she withdrew a smaller, orange Tupperware tumbler.

“This is too small,” she announced. “Don’t we have another one of the big cups?”

“Nope,” I replied. “Just the one you lost.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing myself say. I also couldn’t believe she was falling for it. It was at about this time it dawned on me that I was subconsciously keeping my back to her at all times. I continued methodically going about my task of prepping the coffee maker, loading the dishwasher, and whatever else I could find to do, so long as I didn’t turn to face The Evil One. If she couldn’t see my eyes, I was in good shape… For the moment, anyway…

E K let out an exasperated sigh and returned the orange tumbler to the cabinet with a hollow thump, then withdrew a different plastic cup. Slightly larger, but most certainly not of the proper configuration to fit between the special, curvy, blue-ice cold packs she uses in her lunchbox.

“Well,” she huffed, annoyance thick in her tone. “It’s not going to fit, but I guess I’ll just have to use one of these tomorrow. Are the lids in the drawer over there?”

“Yeah,” I replied, now stepping over to the refrigerator as she stomped her way to toward the drawer.

Swinging open the fridge I stared at the yellow Tupperware cup sitting magnificently upon the top shelf, just in front of the milk. I suddenly felt this horrible rending of the soul sort of sensation that always seems to accompany the process of your incorporeal form unceremoniously slamming back into your body. I blinked, then began laughing. Why was I laughing? To build up a surplus of endorphins, of course, because I had a pretty good idea what was coming next.

Still, my mouth hadn’t fully reconnected with my brain, therefore it was still running on the suicide mission profile. I stopped chuckling for a moment to take in a breath, then heard myself say, “Did you look in the fridge by any chance?”

After that, pretty much everything became a blur punctuated by bouts of extreme agony. The last thing I remember clearly was a lightning-like flash of red hair and  a whole lot of fire shooting out of a pair of blue eyes as a banshee like scream echoed in my ears, “It’s Not Nice To Fool Evil Kat!”

By the way, I’m writing this blog entry from my room at the hospital. The proctologist tells me he’s fairly optimistic about my surgery tomorrow morning to remove the size 7 pump from my… Well… You know. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think he can save the pump itself.

I guess I’m going to have to take E K shoe shopping when they release me.

More to come…

Murv

I like to sing.

Now, 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.

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