BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Literally.

Why would I lie about something like that?

… And yes, I do realize that right now you are all sitting there chanting, “Murv’s gonna get it… Murv’s gonna get it…”

Normally, I would agree with you, but go back to the beginning and read again what I wrote… I’m fairly certain I typed in the word, literally. As in, E K is a literal pain in my ass. Not figurative. Not metaphorical. Nope. None of that dancing about and implied torture. No husbandly lamenting about a wife’s wifeliness. We are talking about the real deal here…

I mean to say, the woman literally caused pain and physical damage to my Gluteus Maximus.

Uh-huh… I know… Now all of you are sitting there saying, “So what? You’re talking about E K. Since you say she’s so evil then she probably just tied you up and spanked you or something like that. Big deal. Just roll with it you big baby.” (On that note – The cartoon on the right is just for you “perverted types,” BTW… )

Well, though it is apparently titillating for all of you to imagine such a scenario, otherwise you probably wouldn’t be imagining it… Hey…. Hey! Yeah, you. Stop staring at the cartoon and pay attention.

Okay… so where was I? Oh yeah… As I was saying, such graphic details might be a little too much info for a relatively PG rated blog like Brainpan Leakage… And, for the record, I am now firmly convinced that y’all have dirtier minds than I do… Especially you… Yeah, you in the back row. The one that keeps staring and drooling at the cartoon… It’s a friggin’  PG rated cartoon for Gods sake… Sheesh… For shame… For shame…

So, anyway, let’s set the record straight right here and now… E K did not spank me. Well… Not in this particular case anyway. (There, did that little bit of innuendo satisfy your prurient curiosity, or just pique it? Yeah… I thought as much, ya’ bunch of sickos… When you’re all done drooling over the silly cartoon, we can continue…)

(Jeopardy thinking music)

Okay, are we all done? Finally… Good…

So now that we’ve dispensed with the mental foreplay, we’ll move on already…

We’ve established that no spankings were had. The simple fact is that this is an entirely different kind of literal pain in the ass. And, it is also one that reaches far back into history. So, since the whole nostalgia approach of the “marriage blog” mini-series seemed to go over so well, I figured y’all might like to hear this story too. So, let’s all jump into the wayback machine and have a look at this particular, and annoyingly painful, slice of my past… (Yeah, you too… Yeah you… I don’t care… You can page back up and look at the cartoon again when we’ve finished the story… Sheesh… You don’t get out much, do you?)

Okay… On with the sordid tale…

The year was nineteen and eighty six…  E K and I had met by this point, and were more or less in the midst of doing that coy, flirty thing that accompanies the first three months of dating. You know what I mean…

For men it’s crap like: Getting a haircut. Making sure your shirt isn’t wrinkled. Actually tying your necktie in a Full Windsor instead of a Half, but only after making doubly sure it actually matches your shirt and slacks. Using aftershave and maybe even a bit of cologne… Holding your farts in until you are in the next county and downwind so that the object of your affection will never know…

For women it’s crap like: Shaving your legs regularly. Wearing a shorter skirt and higher heels than you normally would on your average workday.  A push up bra. Fancy jewelry… Holding your farts in until you are in the next county and downwind so that the object of your affection will never know…

Y’all know the drill… Typical, flirty – datey stuff.

On the particular day in question, E K arrived at our place of employment, all decked out in a nice blouse, blazer, shape hugging slacks, and the high heels that were a bit too high for your average work day… The pumps were a dead giveaway that she was being flirty, because:

1. She had service calls to take and was going to be on her feet, digging around behind printers, kneeling, bending over, and all of the other gyrations that come along with taking a service call. (For the record, it’s actually pretty good exercise.)
2. She had VERY RECENTLY uncovered my particular affinity for shapely female legs and high heels. (It bears mentioning that being the absolutely brilliant femme fatale she is, The Evil Redhead has used this information to her benefit on countless occasions, ever since making the discovery.)

The only thing missing from the overall package was the shorter than normal skirt, but see #1. She had to compromise somewhere along the line, and like I said, the slacks were definitely figure flattering…

Okay… I need some alone time now…

Just kidding. Well, not really, but I have too much to do and I need to finish this story…

In keeping with the flirty stuff, E K had some tasteful jewelry on to accentuate here and there. Of course, being incredibly practical as well, one of the jewelry items was a fancy little diskette lapel pin. I mean, after all, she’s a technician, so she needed to have herself some technician jewelry, right? And, yes, the picture here is of the actual pin in question. As amazing as it may seem, she still has it after all these years. Granted, it may look a bit odd to you youngsters who have never seen a 5 1/4 inch floppy diskette in real life, but that is exactly what it was patterned after. BTW, Sorcim / IUS was a software company. They were the “publisher” of a widely used, DOS Based program called SuperCalc. If I remember correctly, the lapel pin itself was a gimme type perk she received for attending a Sorcim seminar.

So, anyway, enough rambling on about ancient technology being transformed into jewelry. Let’s get back to this particular day in history…

E Kay’s truck… Yes, my dear and lovely used to drive a truck…  Anyway, her truck was going to be in the shop for some routine maintenance, which effectively left her without wheels, but she still needed to take service calls. Unfortunately, the outfit we were working for at the time, TC Service, didn’t have company vehicles for us to use. So, in order that my lovely be able to take her scheduled service calls, I loaned her my car. As it happened, said vehicle was the Mustang LX I was desperately trying to pay off… Yeah, that’s one of those, “another stories,” but if you read the “Mahwage” series of entries, you know what I mean.

So, after a bit of flirting and lustful stirrings brought about by E K in high heels purposely reaching for things behind her desk while standing in front of it, if you know what I’m saying, I sent her on the road with parts, tools, and my car. After that, the day continued in a relatively uneventful fashion. I configured a few Leading Edge PC’s, fixed a printer or two, answered some tech support calls… The usual crap… The Evil One completed her service calls and returned, both she and my car completely unscathed. Life was good.

As it happened, that evening was filled with “other obligations,” so E K and I were not going to be able to spend it together. Not exactly the best situation, given the fact that she had purposely lit my fuse, so to speak, but hey, stuff happens. Of course, we did the flirty-flirty thing through the afternoon, and retrieved her truck from the shop, then when quitting time rolled around, stole a few kisses before going our separate directions for the evening.

I hopped into my car, and at a point somewhere around halfway home, I felt a very sudden, very sharp, very intense pain in my right butt cheek. If I remember correctly, I even let out a yelp.  It was reminiscent of being nailed by a bee. Since it happened to be late summer, I assumed this was a real possibility.  Something else I considered was a cherry from a cigarette. At the time I was a smoker, so I had to wonder if I had inadvertently knocked the fire from the end of a smoke while shifting gears or some such.

Well, of course, I reached down and felt about in the seat while hiking myself up onto my left hip and dancing around in a circle, all while trying to keep the car in between the dashed lines dividing the lanes on I-170. However, no matter how much feeling about in the seat, or on my own ass I did, I found nothing.

Still, the pain continued.

Well… I have to admit, I have a fairly high pain tolerance. I’m not at all sure from whence it originates, but I can actually take a lot of abuse… Just ask E K… But, let’s not go there again… Seriously, though, I really do have a fairly high tolerance for pain, so since I couldn’t find the source I decided my best bet was to just ignore it. Besides, at this point, the initial shock of the pain was fading and it had settled down to a dull ache. The ache was making its way into the background as well, so I figured I’d be all good. Eventually, it would just go away.

And it did. For the most part, anyway. I mean, there remained a minor ache and soreness throughout the rest of the evening, but nothing anywhere near as intense as the initial stab of pain.

Life rocked on, I met my various obligations, and even had a quick chat or two with E K on the phone, just because I couldn’t stand to be away from her for more than an hour at a stretch unless I was unconscious. The evening grew late and eventually it was time to hit the sack. Following my regular routine, I emptied my pockets, then started getting undressed so I could go to bed. About the time I undid my pants and went to pull them off, I discovered that they seemed to be hung up somewhere around the right side of my ass. As in, they wouldn’t come off. At about the exact instant I started to tug on them a bit, the pain that had earlier ravaged my butt cheek exploded forth once more.

Now I was hopping about on one leg, cussing, and about to trip over my half-removed britches. Fearing that I was going to perform a flawless face plant on the floor, I twisted around and perched myself on the corner of my waterbed side rails, and rolled up onto my left hip. Reaching back and feeling around, through the fabric of the pants, my fingers now came into contact with a small lump on my rear, right about where my wallet had been residing earlier. Perplexed, I slipped my hand into my hip pocket and felt around some more. Within seconds I had hold of the offending object and pulled, much like the whole mouse yanking the thorn out of the lion’s paw scenario. Except, it was just me doing the yanking, and the paw in this case was my ass.

When I brought my hand up into the light, besides a bit of blood, I also found a gold, diskette shaped, lapel pin pinched between my fingers.

The next morning, when E K strolled into work, I waited for her to park herself at her desk, which was nearby and facing mine. After exchanging some flirty good mornings, I raised an eyebrow and asked, “So, were you trying to make sure I didn’t forget you last night?”

She furrowed her brow and cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

I pushed back from my desk, stood, took the few steps in her direction, and then dropped the lapel pin on the desk blotter in front of her.

“Oh, I was wondering where I lost that!” she exclaimed. “Where did you find it?”

I shook my head. “You probably don’t want to know.”

I did eventually tell her, of course. A few minutes later, in fact. However, looking back on it now, that was probably a mistake in and of itself. You see,  it was at that point in our relationship that she became aware of my higher than normal tolerance for pain, and she has been trying to find my breaking point ever since…

But seriously… All joking and silliness aside, I think you can now see why I can truthfully say that, “E K is a real pain in my ass…”

More to come…

Murv

Yep, I know… Y’all weren’t expecting another blog entry until Wednesday morning when the next installment of Mahwage deploys from the queue.  However, I did warn you back when I extolled the virtues of the “post this in the future” function of WordPress, that I might occasionally drop a little something on you completely unannounced if the mood or circumstances struck.

Well, this is one of those times… I will admit, however,  that I considered just adding this missive to the queue for future posting as well, but since it somewhat involves that annual February event known as the “Salad Bowl”… Wait… “Cereal Bowl”… No… That ain’t it either… Well, all I know is that it has bowl in the title and people have parties while looking at Football on TV, so there…

Now, those of you who know me fairly well are certainly aware that “Football” isn’t my thing. Neither is Baseball, Basketball, or Soccer. Hockey, well that’s a different story, but since the “Rice Bowl” or whatever they call it has something or another to do with Football and not Hockey… Well, I guess we need to talk about Football.

Obviously, my personal perception of this activity isn’t quite the same as that of the overwhelming majority of the masses. In fact, when I set out to describe my view of this particular sport I have found it to be a waste of time to bother reinventing the wheel. What I mean by that is this: Andy Griffith explained it best in his old monologue, “What it was, was football…“

Yeah… The sheriff of Mayberry. Harry Broderick from Salvage One… Matlock… Uh-huh, that guy. For those of you who may be way too young to remember, before Mister Griffith became Barney Fife’s keeper, or appeared in movies, he was quite an accomplished stand up comedian of sorts. Yeah… No kidding. He didn’t have any cool puppets, nor did he insult the crowd for effect. He was a bardic sort of comedian. He simply told funny stories, and one of them happened to be all about an experience with seeing a “football” game, ostensibly for the first time. It became one of his most popular and beloved monologues, and is a classic.

Now, I’m certainly not about to plagiarize Mister Griffith’s routine, (I do, however, highly recommend it if you have a chance to hear it – much of his material is available on CD by the way), suffice it to say, my perception of football is much the same as his: A bunch of guys running around in a cow pasture fighting over a petrified pumpkin for no apparent reason.

But, of course, I didn’t come here to talk to you about “Football,” but you already knew that… I came here to talk to you about the “Soup Bowl” party… (You know, that actually sounds kinda close to what I remember hearing it called… Hmm…)

You see, every year some friends of ours host one of these massive shindigs. A bunch of folks show up, each toting a dish of food and a cooler. So, as always is the case with our gatherings, there is food for days and much malted beverage to be imbibed. I suppose, in most respects, that is what brings everyone together… But then, there is that whole pumpkin in the cow pasture thing on TV…

Of course, not everyone attending the party is that much of a “Football” fan… Granted, we do get caught up in the excitement near the end and we will all be plastered to the TV hooting and hollering, but that usually happens sometime around the last 5 minutes or so. Maybe even the entire last quarter if things are close and much violence is ensuing, if you know what I mean. But, I think that’s all just a matter of contagious excitement or something.

Still, for the most part, there are the “Football” fans and there are the Commercial fans. Generally the commercial fans consist of the wives. That isn’t intended as a sexist remark by any stretch of the imagination, it just happens to be how things are with our particular group. Still, some of the wives are Football fans too. Well, to some extent. In fact, I can actually remember coming down the stairs one Sunday to find E K lounged out on the sofa with a beer in her hand, watching a football game and explaining it to our daughter who was all of about 3 at the time. But, even taking that little event into account, E K isn’t what you’d call a rabid fan by any means…

Yes, just in case you are wondering, there really is a point to all this rambling…

So here’s the thing. Generally, what happens is that the wives will gather in one room and play cards or some manner of dice games or some such. I tend to mosey back and forth between the camps being a bit of a social butterfly, so to speak. But, that’s not really my point either…

Back to the “thing”…

Last night, the game being played by the ladies was some kind of semi – yahtzeeish – bone – throwing – what have you that involved rolling dice and passing tokens left, right, center, or even not passing them at all depending on your roll, until the last person with a token rolled a “dot” or some such, and won all the tokens in the center. Whereupon the game started all over again. Fairly simple, and it even looked like a bit of fun when things got rolling, (pun not intended, but I’ll definitely take it…)

Now, the folks hosting the party have a 21 year old son who was there along with a friend of his. Both of them are good kids.  I just thought I’d throw that out there… Well, actually, it does also play an integral part to my monologue here…

You see, the friend, we’ll call him what’s is name to protect the innocent, while interested in the “Football” game, was also familiar with, and interested in, playing the game with the dice. So, since the first half of the football game was kind of boring, he joined the ladies in the dining room.

In case you haven’t done the math just yet, that made him the sole male at a table full of mature, but nonetheless incredibly gorgeous women. And, you know, that whole mature thing has its perks as well, but we won’t go there…

Well, actually we will, but not just yet…

Anyway, damn smart kid, IMHO…

At any rate, long about halftime we husband types were standing around in the kitchen gnawing on some hot wings and popping open fresh beers. One of the husbands poked his head through the doorway to see what was up with the dice game, then started laughing and jokingly announced so that everyone could hear, “Hey, what’s is name is in there being a girl with all the rest of the women.”

It was a good-natured jibe and definitely drew a round of chuckles.  Still,  you know me… I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to explore the half-full, half-empty principle where it applied to this situation.

When the chuckling died down I replied, “Yeah, but look at it this way. He’s the only guy in a room full of good looking women. Seems like a smart move to me.”

One of the other husbands snorted and said, “Yeah, but they’re all old and married.”

I had pretty much expected a response in that vein, after all, I’ve known these guys for a long time. I’m not saying they are completely predictable, but I do know how they think, so I definitely wasn’t surprised by what he said. Of course, as we all know, when you expect something it is much easier to be prepared… And, I was.

I nodded in response to his rebuttal and said, “Well,  I guess it’s all in how you look at it, you know… I mean, if they’re old then so are we, right?”

“Well, yeah,” came a chorus of responses from the men, punctuated here and there by a “no sh*t” or two.

“Well then,” I continued. “So you have a whole room of mature, hot women who are married to the likes of us old bastards, which pretty much means they are probably all getting pretty desperate, know what I’m saying? And right now they’re sitting in there with a guy who is still young enough to get it up repeatedly without  the aid of pharmaceuticals.”

A chuckle ran through the room, but I wasn’t finished yet. I let things settle for a moment before pulling the pin on the punchline.

I looked around at the guys and shrugged, then gave them a nod. “But, you’re probably right,” I finally offered. “I mean, it’s not like guys ever have that whole older woman fantasy when they’re his age…”

Yeah, I know… Pretty evil, eh?  But I just couldn’t help myself.

More to come…

Murv