Miserable Mutt

So I had to literally pick up my beagle and carry him out of the house to go to his auntie's house to stay over Thanksgiving, while I was out of town.

On the car ride over there, he shook for 45 minutes and salivated all over me as though he was going to throw up from fright. It was quite a display. Truly an Oscar-winning performance.

We said our goodbyes and I left him for 5 days, the poor little stinker. I felt so bad. And upon my triumphant return to retrieve him....

The little runt ran away from me and cowered behind my sister-in-law! He collapsed down into this little ball between her legs and was looking at us both like I was charging at him with a freshly sharpened machete! He gave her the full-blown big beagle eyes, silently pleading with her not to let me get him. He is such a manipulative little f--ker!!!!!

So I went over and snatched him up and stuck him under my arm, and we left. After all, he's only 20 pounds, so I can do whatever I want with him. But the nerve!!!! My God, the nerve!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a little brat!

So he's been home for 2 days now, and he's totally depressed. It's just pathetic. I come home and he just kind of wanders over and sits on the other side of the room and looks at me as if he wishes he had some kind of sharpened instrument with which to put himself out of his misery (and the opposing thumbs to be able to maneuver it properly).

Unbelievable.

Apparently they let him sleep on the couch over at their house, and he got "tasty new food" and had lots of treats and playtime, because it was the holiday and they were home all day long. So now that we're back home without any such perks, he feels that he's being "mistreated" and he's "bored" and of course we are completely to blame. And it makes my husband and I feel great, let me tell you. We call him over excitedly and he just kind of stalks out of the room, lifting his tail to show us his butt-hole on the way out.

Nice.

I guess he wasn't a complete angel while he was over there, though. Somebody left the garage door open and he bolted. He ran across the street, through a field, and was attempting to flee over a big hill, but there was too much snow on it and he kept sliding back down. So my brother-in-law was running after him and he saw his big chance. He lunged at his hind legs and plucked him out of the snow like a bunny rabbit. Haha! I do derive some pleasure out of picturing that little scene.

Anyhow, my point is that I have never seen such a melodramatic little shit in all my life. First he doesn't want to leave, and now he's miserable because he's back. And when we look at him, we can tell that he hates us. You can just feel the loathing in his beady little gaze.

Can't wait to have kids!

Taxicab Confessions

So the weirdest thing happened to me on Thanksgiving.

I arranged for a cab to pick me up to take me to the airport. As soon as I settled into the back seat, I suddenly recognized my taxi driver as THE EXACT SAME DRIVER THAT TOOK ME TO THE AIRPORT, LIKE, 4 OR 5 YEARS AGO. Mind you, I have only taken 2 or 3 taxis to the airport in the past 5 years, and out of ALL the drivers of ALL the taxis around here (of which there are thousands), I somehow managed to get the exact same one.

Is that not COMPLETELY bizarre?????? And even moreso that I would remember him???? What are the odds of that?????

He was Russian with a short crewcut and a blue dragon ornament hanging from his rear view mirror. As soon as I sat down, I recognized the dragon and the driver's haircut and accent. Is that totally strange, or what???????

The first time I rode with him a few years back, I remember being kind of scared (it was dark out and, like, 4 o'clock in the morning). He wasn't very talkative, and I couldn't really understand him anyway. But he was really amiable this time, and his English was better. He called the airport on his cell phone for us to verify what time our flight was departing. Isn't that friendly? What a sociable taxi driver.

Which brings to mind something else really strange that happened a few years ago.

When I moved 1000 miles away from home, where I didn't know anybody, I was walking down the street one day, and I looked over and saw this kid I went to high school with, walking past me the other way. I had a crush on him when I was 16. We were friendly, but he had a girlfriend, so that was about the extent of it.

ANYHOW, approximately 7 years after I knew him, he somehow happened to be walking past me down the exact same street at the exact same time as I was, 1000 miles from home. What are the odds of that??????????????

I was totally floored. Although I didn't say hello because I was standing there with my mouth gaping open when I saw him. And he had already passed me by that point anyway, because he didn't see me. It was a crowded street, and I was late for work so I just kept going. But it was most certainly him. Isn't that weird?????

Did I mention I'm going to start playing the lottery? I think I have been chosen by the finger of God.

No, really.

Is That Boiled Rabbit?

So I can't even believe I am writing this. I am twenty-seven years old, and I've got a 33-year-old problem. Her name, for the sake of this post, will be Pester.

How to accurately describe my relationship with Pester....I am a nice shiny all-occasion shoe. And she is the gigantic stinking turd clinging to my pristine underside. I scrape and scrape at it with a stick, but it keeps working its way deeper and deeper into my sole.

I think that pretty much sums up our relationship.

As ill luck would have it, we share the same work space, so I have the unfortunate displeasure of dealing with her on a daily basis. I will not get into the details of our long and sordid history together, but this most recent development has got me COMPLETELY freaked out.

Pester is wearing my clothes.

I kid you not. I came to work about a month ago in this new outfit, a pink shirt with gray pants. She simply could not stop admiring it. She kept asking me where I got it. And then I wore it again last week. And again, she could not stop asking me about it.

She showed up in it THE VERY NEXT DAY.

Now, she had never worn this outfit before. She even admitted to me whilst admiring it that she did not own any pink shirts AT ALL. Was it coincidence that she happenened to buy the exact color and style as mine? Perhaps. Was it happenstance that she chose to wear it with the exact same color and style of pants as mine? Maybe. Did she JUST HAPPEN to wear HER outfit, that was IDENTICAL to mine, which I OWNED FIRST, on the very day after I had worn it? I suppose it's a possibility.

But read on.

SO two days ago, I wore another new outfit to work. Gray striped pants with a black sweater. Very snazzy for me, I usually don't wear things that nice.

Pester was all over me like a monkey on a banana demanding to know where I got it.

AND TODAY SHE IS WEARING IT.

I only wore it two days ago! And she has never worn it before!!!!!!!!!!!!! And she admitted to me as she was fawning over it that she did not own any striped pants like mine!!! What the hell is going on around here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So now I'm totally freaking out. Is this really happening to me? Am I really almost 30 years old and there is someone in the office WEARING MY OUTFITS in a vain attempt to STEAL MY IDENTITY? Some might say that I should be flattered. But I'm not. I'm damned upset about it, and I'm COMPLETELY in fear of my own life at the same time. What's next? Is she going to cut her hair like mine? Start following me around in her car? Smother me in my sleep and pickle my skin to make herself a personalized flesh suit courtesy of Hildy B???????

If you simply MUST copy somebody else because you yourself lack the originality to be your own person, AT LEAST have the decency to WAIT A FEW DAYS before doing so. I mean, really.

So I think I'm going to have to start wearing something really strange to test her, like my underpants on top of my clothes or something. Or maybe get a tattoo. I dunno. I admit I am quite unequipped to deal with this situation. But I can't lie idly by and let her continue to mimick me, can I???? No, I most certainly cannot!!!!!!!!!!

I never saw that movie Single White Female, but perhaps I should rent it and take some notes. And thank God I never got that pet bunny rabbit......

Knife Sitting

So if you've ever wondered what it might be like to be stabbed in the ass with a dagger, I would highly recommend making a trip to your friendly local "pain specialist".

As many of you may or may not know, I have struggled with back pain for YEARS. Six, to be exact. I had surgery earlier this year, which helped, but I am still battling residual damage, namely, a feeling not unlike sitting bare-assed on a bed of red-hot embers. It's delightful, as you might imagine. If you have ever had a charley-horse, that really painful seizing up of your muscles, that is what I have ALL THE TIME. I have an entire ass-ful of them, not to mention my hammies and my traps regions. It's a non-stop party, let me tell you.

So I made the trip back to my surgeon to find out what to do about it. He indicated that steroid injections would be the way to go. So yesterday I met with my "pain specialist" for the first time. He basically walked in the room, bared my ass, and then started poking around, using a big marker to identify the spots he wanted to inject "for pain relief".

So then he pulls out this GIGANTIC needle WITH AN EXTENTION. I kid you not. And this HUGE vial of clear liquid to fill it with. So then I turn around and he starts sticking me with the needle really deep, the first of 8 times, and MY GOD it hurt like absolute F---ing hell. He tells me, "You can swear if you want." I squeaked out, "Oh, that's okay, not necessary" with my eyes squinched up tight whilst clinging onto two enormous handfuls of my own flesh. "No, really, you can swear if you need to," he reasserts. "I've heard it in all languages. So please, go right ahead." And I was SERIOUSLY considering taking him up on it.

This was the point at which I started to black out. As my knees started to buckle, he yanked out the needle and had to help me clamber onto this really high table, again with my ass hanging out the whole time. It was one of my finest moments, let me tell you. And I'm now sweating from head to toe. So then he asks if I'm doing better, and for some reason I said that I was, and away we went again with the horse needle as I clamped down on the table with the rest of my body. To summarize, the experience did NOT make my list of favorite things. If I made such a list, you would not find "trip to the pain specialist" anywhere on it. Not at all.

So, in a nutshell, I now feel that I pretty much know what it feels like to actually sit on a chairful of 6-inch daggers. And I don't recommend it. Unless you are one of those crazy carnies who can do such things without pain or bleeding, like the guy who puts his face in broken glass and has an assistant stand on his head. But what is the likelihood of that.

The Ignorami Chronicles

So there should be a word in the English language for persons who choose to shut down an ENTIRE ACCESS ROAD TO THE TOLLWAY FOR MONTHS AT A TIME to do “CONSTRUCTION WORK” during “THE SCHOOL YEAR.”

I’m not sure what the “actual” definition of “construction work” is, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with an ancient form of Chinese torture, with the age-old purpose of “making people wish they had never been born” and “causing perfectly normal people to weep like babies” and “driving all commuting persons in the vicinity clinically insane.”

As I was pissing away an hour and twenty minutes in my Jetta this morning whilst trying to decide how best to kill myself with only a Volkswagen manual and an ice scraper, I was simultaneously contemplating how, exactly, the amoebic residue lining the bottom of the gene pool always manages to land such governmental positions as the ones who decide “when and where to perform construction work” and “which critical roads to shut down completely” and “why perfectly good roads should be totally dismantled and then painstakingly reassembled for no apparent reason whatsoever.”

Are they looking for something? Is there valuable something beneath the road that they need, like diamonds or crude oil? Do they have to tear up X number of roads per season to meet some sort of bogus quota to get re-appointed by other worthless degenerate bacilli? Or are they just sadistic low-life cretins who delight in the cruelty of unsuspecting tax-paying commuters? Just wondering.

For what it’s worth, my money’s on the latter. And they may therefore bend over and “KISS MY SORE MISSHAPEN BUTTOCKS," which were in perfectly normal condition when I left the house this morning but are now kind of throbbing and out of sorts.

Paved roads are really overrated. I don’t recall there ever being traffic problems back in the horse and buggy days. And no flat tires, either! They really had the right idea. Stupid progressive road-paving do-gooders....

MY GOD, MY EYEBALLS!!

So the most dreadful occurrence befell me this evening.

I went to the gym after work and had just rounded the corner into the locker room, when WHAM!!!! Some old lady was bent over in front of me WITH ONLY A G-STRING ON.

AUGH!!!!!!!!!! MY EYEBALLS!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE HORROR!!!! MY GOD, THE HORROR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I recoiled. It was a FULL MOON split down the middle by a band of turqoise polyester. Absolutely disgusting!!!!!!!! As I was trying to divert my eyes to minimize the burning sensation (and any resultant ocular damage), it slowly began to dawn on me.....wait a minute.....G-string....bending over unabashedly in public....sinewy, albeit leathery bottom, an odd burnt sienna color......Yes. OH YES, it was none other than----

PUMPKIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, friends, if you can EVEN believe it (OH believe it, my lovelies...although it took a few seconds to come to grips with it, myself)---it was PUMPKIN bent over in front of me, displaying ALL of her wares. I was totally nastified!!! I could not help from wincing openly!! (Just a reminder, Pumpkin is in her MID-FIFTIES and is an EXTREMELY abnormal color. She is the spitting image of one of those glistening rotisserie chickens, except not even remotely appetizing.)

So then she stands up and starts smearing lotion all over herself (which I am absolutely in favor of to help counteract her jerky-like appearance, yet somehow it managed to unwittingly enhance the "basted, slow-roasted" effect), and she TOTALLY starts checking herself out in the mirror. Which, by the way, is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. Why do people feel the need to check themselves out in public?? Isn't that the purpose of the bathroom mirror in your own home? You can stand in front of it as long as you like! Strut around, if you want to! Smear whatever you like, wherever you like, in the position of your choice! But is it REALLY NECESSARY to inflict (most likely permanent) corneal damage in perfectly innocent bystanders by putting on such an unabashed display of your oily rear-ended repugnance????? Talk about gross anatomy....

I do not have to tell you that I was altogether nauseated. I went over and started washing my hands whilst trying to shake off one of those full-body shudders---you know the kind. But I could still see her out of the corner of my eye, so I had to relocate to a completely different locker bank across the room before I could settle down and proceed with my business. Absolutely unbelievable!!!!

Also of note, I fixed up the tuna salad for my beagle over the weekend. I threw in a handful of cayenne pepper and half a palmful of red pepper flakes for good measure. Then I squashed it in between some Wheat Thins and left it for him on the table. It was a no go---he sniffed it and stalked off. Dang! My mom suggested a Tabasco-and-peanut-butter sandwich. It's not a bad idea---he might be fooled by the seemingly fresh-baked bread and gobble the thing down, unwittingly finding himself with a mouthful of Tabasco. Ole! It has definite potential!

And now I must find a way to soothe mine aching eyes....I could really use one of those eyewash water-fountain-looking dealies from chem lab....woe is me...