Smooshed

Most evenings I'm in bed by ten. I like to watch the Daily Show and Stephen Colbert in the bedroom. So just before ten I go through my nightly ritual. First I close up the French doors to the living room so that the dogs don't spend the night barking at every drunk that stumbles by. Then, before I put my Breath Right Nose Strip on and take my old man pills, I take the dogs out to the back yard to poop and pee. On Monday evening it was no different. Down the stairs and bounding into the grass went Chandler and Scout. Chandler started pacing back and forth, looking for just the perfect pooping spot, while Scout ran immediately to her favorite spot and assumed the position. She squatted and strained, pushed and pushed. I could tell she was having trouble. Something was wrong in the poo department. As I made my way over to see what was the problem, Scout took off running around the yard. She scooted her little poop chute across the grass, and then she tried pushing the stubborn turd out again. No luck. So I ran into the house, grabbed one of the dog crap pickup bags, and went in for the digital investigation. Sure enough, Scout had a large turd stuck halfway out of her anus, with much of what had already exited smooshed into her butt hair. So I ordered Chandler back into the house, while I corralled Scout down into the basement where she ran from end to end smearing her poo everywhere. I was gagging. Nothing to do but pick her up and deposit her into the laundry sink where I proceeded to scrub the shit right out of her hair. It was not pretty, I had to take my bare hand and pull the offending turd out. I then picked all the dog shit out of her butt hair, shampooed her butt, and scrubbed it down. By the time I had her clean enough to be allowed back upstairs and had her dried off, it was nearly eleven o'clock. I followed Scout up the stairs and as I walked past the bedroom, Mark asked "Aren't you coming to bed?" Now if I were in the mood for some fun, I would have told Mark this story in vivid detail. But I didn't. No need to create more drama. Oh, and as for Miss Scout, she's scheduled for a grooming next Saturday. I will make sure the groomer pays special attention to all that butt hair.

Forty Pounds of Lime

"Toss that forty pound bag of lime into the cart."

"What do you need lime for?" I asked Mark.

"It helps the color of the hydrangeas... in fact, grab that fifty pound bag."

"I don't know who you think you are talking to, but I am not picking up fifty pounds, nor am I picking up that forty pound bag."

"Waaaa... I need the lime.... waaaa..."

"Okay, okay, but the forty pound bag... You big baby."

Mark and I went to Lowes the other day. He apparently needed a bag of lime and a few hundred flower bulbs. I just don't know where he thinks I am going to plant all those bulbs. Our yard is barely fifteen feet by fifteen feet and I need to have open space for the dogs to poop. Anyway, Sunday dawned clear and warm and I was going to tackle those bulbs. Mark had bought day lilies in two different colors, gladiolus, and some other thing that I can't remember the name of. So I got the shovel out and started digging along the fence. Four inches deep, just like the instructions told me to do. I was going to mix them all together so that we would get a variety of colors and blooms. While bent over the shovel I heard that voice behind me.

"Oh good, you're planting them."

"Yes I am. In fact you can help me. Just hand me one bulb at a time as I go along the fence. Make sure you mix them up so we don't have all the same..... "

"NO! That's not how it's done. Go along and plant all the same, then go back and put in the next type, and continue back and forth like that."

"That's ridiculous. Just hand them to me like I told you."

"No, not like that. Do it the way I told you to do it"

"Fine, you do it. I'm going in the house."

Mark has a way of sucking the enthusiasm out of everything I do. It always has to be done his way. So I stormed off into the house. A few minutes later Mark came huffing and puffing in.

"I can't do it. I'm out of breath. You go out and do it your way."

So I did. However, Mark had cut all the labels off the bags of bulbs. I had no idea what was what. So I now call it my mystery garden. I just jammed those bulbs in the ground, covered them up, and now we wait. And if Mark has any opinions on how it turns out, I have a shovel and I know where the forty pound bag of lime is.

Mother Satan

Devil in a Blue Dress

When I was a child, I did not like Oreo cookies. Oh sure, I would twist those two hard discs apart and scrape the filling into my mouth. I wasn't totally crazy. Sugar is sugar to a kid, and any delivery system will do. But if I had my choice, I would pick oatmeal cookies. Soft, chewy, and chock full of juicy raisins.

When I visit my mom, almost every time, she tries to hand off some kind of treat to Mark and me. I think that she is trying to put some weight on Mark. This time however, I think Mom was working hand in hand with Satan. As Mark and I were getting ready to leave, Mom wheeled on over to the pantry and returned with a package of Oreo Cookies. She plopped them on the table, "Here, take these home with you." Before I could protest that I didn't really like Oreos, Mark grabbed them and thanked her. Fine, Mark will eat those disgusting cookies.

On Wednesday evening I saw the box of Oreos sitting on the counter. The package was open, so I took one of the broken cookies out and stuck it in my mouth. I don't know what Nabisco has done, maybe loaded them up with crack cocaine or some other addicting substance, because within two minutes I had eaten half a dozen Oreos washed down with a glass of milk. I simply do not remember Oreos tasting this damn good. By yesterday morning I had eaten another half dozen along with another big, cold, glass of milk.

"What the hell happened to the milk?" Mark asked later while staring into the refrigerator.

"I don't know. It got drank?" I mumbled with brown goo wedged between my teeth, "But I know one thing, you need to go out and get some more real soon." Because he surely doesn't expect me to eat the rest of those Oreos without milk to wash them down.

And the packaging makes it really easy to get to them.

Flowers

The long mild winter is over. I'm spoiled. I couldn't have had a better winter for my return to Chicago, almost no snow and no deep freeze. Next year when I'm up to my ass in snow and my nose hairs are frozen solid, I'll feel compelled to whine like every other Chicagoan. But to hell with that, it's springtime and I planted flowers. Over the winter I built a set of flower boxes for under the frontchroom[1] windows. Out on the front stoop[2] I planted yellow daffodils in the planter, and even put some geraniums in my neighbor's planter. I hope they appreciate them and don't use it as an ash tray. Mark and I did have a bit of an argument over the flowers in the window box. I thought that since I had built them, I got to pick out what went in there. I was wrong.

"We have to go to Home Depot and get some more pots to go in that window box." Mark told me.

"I am not going shopping. I am not going to waste good weather like this by going shopping with you at Home Depot. If you want to go shopping, you know where the keys to the car are. You know where Home Depot is." I screamed back at him. Rude, yes, but I was really tired of shopping. I hate shopping. Anyway, Mark got the keys and off he went. About an hour later Mark returned. He came marching out of the garage with a gigantic fern in his arms. He went to get flower pots to put in the window box, and came home with a fern. That's why I hate shopping with him.

"Where are the flower pots? You couldn't go to the store without getting something you don't need, could you?"

"They're in the car." Mark snipped, while breezing past me with his fern.

So after all the drama, Mark and I planted the flowers in the window boxes together. I have to admit, Mark's design is better than what I was going to do. I wanted a big cluster of blooms, all the same color, and all bunched up together. Sometimes I just need to shut up and let him go about his business. But I still hate shopping with him. That's not going to change.

[1] Chicago speak for the living room, or the front room.

[2] This is what Chicagoans call their front porch.

1984

Gotcha bitch! Now give me all your money.

I did not want Mark to see this, but it has been frosting my ass ever since I got the notice from my brother Gary. I got a red light ticket while driving Mark's car. I got one of these before. Last time it was a video speeding ticket that I got while driving Mark back from grocery shopping, and Mark was pissed. All I heard for hours was, "I never got a ticket. My record is pristine, pure, totally unsullied. I told you to slow down." Well, this time it's a video red light ticket. Goddamned sonofabitch, what a crock of crap. I don't even remember doing it, and what pisses me off even more is that if you look closely, a cop is turning right in front of me. The cop doesn't think my slow down and right turn on red is that egregious. He ignored it. It's not like I blew through a red light with traffic speeding through from the cross street. No, the cross street had a left turn arrow, nobody was coming my way. So I asked for a hearing. I was not going down without a fight on this one. The answer from the City of Chicago was that it was too late for a hearing. You see the car was registered at my brother's house at that time, and that is where the notice was sent. I did not get the notice from my brother until nearly six months after that right turn. Seriously, that's two hundred and fifty dollars this thing has cost me. What a scam. I was endangering nobody, I was not driving recklessly, but there I am. So I paid the goddamned fine and did not tell Mark. It does not go on his record, he gets no points on his license for this, but he will still go crazy. And that crazy will happen just about noon time today when he reads this. Goddamn sonofoabitch.

That's me in the white car turning right.