I read an article a while back. Yes, don’t choke on your cornflakes, I actually do take time to read every now and then. It sort of comes with the whole being a writer thing. But, anyway, this particular article presented a study which ostensibly showed that the gene for red hair is being bred out of the world population at a significant rate. Theoretically, this makes E K kinda rare, what with her being the Queen of the Redheads and all that.

But, I’m not entirely sure I buy their story…

All you have to do is turn on the TV, and there they are. For instance, Lauren from the HP and Windows commercial. Heartthrob of every electronics geek on the face of the planet.

Never mind the fact that she’s actually a card carrying actress for hire, and not just some random, ginger hottie off the street shopping for a computer. That’s another story in and of itself. The point here is, REDHEAD.

There’s another commercial for some manner of portable moving and storage company, or maybe it was even broadband internet – I forget which. At any rate, they show a redhead who is packing a box at a snail’s pace, apparently to prove you don’t need to be in a rush.

Then you have the Target ad. I don’t think they are running it at the moment, but it depicted an entire family of redheads. It was kind of creepy, actually. Almost like the episodes of Millennium dealing with the army of blondes.

Unfortunately, I was unable to locate pictures of those last two, so you’ll just have to take my word for it… Even so, all you need to do is keep flipping through the channels.

Have a look at Desperate Housewives and there you have what? A REDHEAD. I don’t actually watch the show myself, but if I was going to, it would probably be because of the femme fatale on the right. I mean, after all, she’s a redhead, so she attracts quite a bit of attention. Kinda like a stoplight or a firetruck, know what I mean?

Thumb the clicker again and you happen across a rerun of Will and Grace. Voila! REDHEAD.

I actually watched this show. As funny as the two guys were, and even that secretary gal with the voice, I was looking at Debra Messing. Arguably the best reason for watching the show in the first place, in my opinion at least.

As we continue our tour around the dial – back in my day we actually had dials, so count yourself lucky that I’m letting you use the remote – click click and whaddya get? A movie starring a redhead. You can pretty much take your pick here. It could be Reba McEntire – the late Senior Sellars favorite, or maybe Holly Hunter – counted among the not-as-yet-late Junior Sellars faves.

Or what the hell, it could even be Julianne Moore.

So… You can’t escape them. They are everywhere… But, you have an idea. You’ll just pop in a DVD and that will take care of the problem.

Well, maybe not so much…

You snag your Firefly DVD’s off the shelf, select one at random because all of the episodes are more than worth re-watching an infinite number of times, and what do you get? Our Mrs. Reynolds plays across your toob and you end up coming face to face with Christina Hendricks.

Don’t get me wrong. Bumping into Christina Hendricks is not something I would complain about. Hell, I’d probably back up and bump into her again. But remember, right now we are on a mission to escape these supposed rare redheads. These individuals of fiery hair and dubious intent.

Now, obviously, I am leaving out far too many to count. Gillian Anderson, for one. Although I liked her better when she was cute instead of sophisticated. She made the innocent girl next door thing work really well. Tina Louise, anyone? As fond as I am of redheads, I wasn’t much of a Ginger guy. I was all about Mary Ann… Now, make Mary Ann a redhead and… Well… We won’t go there…

Hell, there’s even David Caruso, but I’m not really a fan. Although, I did like it when Ike on Southpark did his impression of Caruso’s career and dove out of the UFO into the snow, but that was pre CSI Miami. Not a big fan of that either.

So… in a last ditch effort to escape this redheaded menace we turn to animated features. Surely with red hair being so rare it shouldn’t show up in cartoons, would it?

Let’s see… Flintstones. Nope, Wilma and Pebbles…

Penelope Pitstop? Nope. Another Redhead…

Scooby Doo? Nope. Daphne. Redhead…

Let’s move on…

Jetsons? Nope. Jane.

How about something with Bugs and the gang? WTF? Yosemite Sam…

Strawberry Shortcake, Jessica Rabbit, The Little Mermaid… Well Crap!

How about something a little more current? Damn… The Family Guy DVD’s won’t work… There’s Lois Griffin decked out in Dominatrix Gear beating the crap out of Peter. Typical for a redhead, of course, but still, there’s the operative issue again. R E D H E A D…

Hmmm… Maybe something Pixarish…

Bang! Elastigirl…

Quick, next movie…

Bang! Beth the Park Ranger…

Swap it out again…

I know, a holiday short… Something Christmasy…

BANG! A redheaded Elf babe…

And guess what? SHE’s the one in charge of Flight Ops for the bearded dude who delivers the presents. Of course. She’s a redhead. She would be in charge now wouldn’t she?

Now, before you start objecting, I know some of you are going to say, “But, Debra Messing was the voice for Beth the Park Ranger and Holly Hunter was the voice for Elastigirl, so that doesn’t count.”

Well, guess what? I’ve seen Martin Lawrence and he looks nothing like a Grizzly Bear, so they were under no obligation to make the animated character a redhead like Messing. Same goes for Hunter.

But they did… Why? Because redheads are everywhere, no matter what they try to tell you with falsified genetic diversity reports from shady scientists. How much would you like to bet those supposed “scientists” who conducted the study are all redheads? Yeah, you’ll want to let it all ride on red, because if they aren’t redheads themselves then they are definitely in the employ of the gingers, guaranteed.

Of course, even when I turn off the TV, throw away the magazines, and burn all the copies of The Red Sonja comic books I can find, I’m not safe, because I have a redhead right here with me.

What’s worse, she is their leader…

So there you have it. Concrete proof that this is all a conspiracy cooked up by my wife and “her kind” to create an even larger “Evil Ginger Army” bent on taking over the world.

If all that’s not enough for you, then how about this little tidbit of intel – It just so happens the ERC (Evil Redhead Coalition) has their meetings right here at my house the third Friday of every month. Of course, E K locks me in the basement so I won’t discover their plans, but I eavesdrop through the air ducts, and what I’ve been hearing is pretty scary…

Evil Redheads… They’re everywhere I tell you… Everywhere…

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