I don't think those are peppercorns...

I have mentioned before that sometimes I am just dumb. I promise you, it is not my intention to be dumb. I read all the time, try to stay current on news and world events, watch educational programs on TV, all in an effort to expand my knowledge. I know a little bit about a lot of things, and a great deal about a few. When it comes to playing games like Trivial Pursuit, there is a pretty good chance that I am going to kick your butt, especially when partnered with my husband. He and I are the king and queen...of useless knowledge.

That being said, I continue to say and do...very dumb things.

Last summer, we had a large cookout at my dads lake house. Lloyd was outside frying catfish, fried green tomatoes and other things, and I was supposed to be preparing the "inside food". That works out good for me because then I get to be in the air conditioning. I like air conditioning...a lot.

So, one of the foods I was supposed to prepare was a large thing of boiled shrimp. I hadn't ever boiled shrimp before, so Lloyd came in and patiently explained the process. You boil the water, add a couple of things of crab boil, stick the shrimp in, let them boil, remove and drain them, and Voila! boiled shrimp.

(Good deal...I can handle this.) The shrimp get done boiling, and I noticed that the bags of crab boil had burst in the pot. No biggie, that will get rinsed off in the colander.

In the kitchen with me, I had my brothers girlfriend Hope and his friend Victor. Hope hasn't cooked a lot so she was interested in learning. (Given this particular situation, I can't say that I may be the best person for her to learn from.) Victor was just there for the air conditioning and beer.

So, I go to rinse the shrimp and noticed that there were peppercorns, apparently from the crab boil, all over the shrimp. So, I rinsed...and rinsed...and rinsed...and they would not come off to save my life.

*sigh*...man...those things are spicy when you bite into them, I really have to get them off. But we are talking...10lbs of shrimp...that's a lot of peppercorn removal. Especially if they are "boiled on".

These particular shrimp were "shell-on" shrimp. I don't generally eat shrimp like that, as I don't like to have to remove the flipper-thingies, or the exoskeleton. It just grosses me out because inevitably you have the little legs stuck everywhere on you, and you never quite get all of the shell off and unless the shrimp is fried, it just shouldn't be crunchy. If we go out to eat, Lloyd will usually peel a few for me, probably out of pity. Please sir...may I have some more.

So, I started looking at the shrimp a little closer and realize that these particular shrimp are a little more "shell-on" than I had realized. The head was still on them.



huh. Head.still.on.them.

Damyankee: you know...I just don't think the black things on these shrimp are peppercorns.

Victor: um...yeah. You thought the eyeballs were peppercorns? Is that what you have been trying to rinse off for the last 15 minutes???? bwahahahaaha...(and then he ran outside to tell my husband what an idiot his wife was...like he didn't already KNOW that).

Damyankee: Well, what am I supposed to do? Why would the head still be on there?

Hope: (grossed out look on her face) I don't know.

Damyankee: Well, am I supposed to serve them like this, you think?

Hope: um....well...um....I just don't think I can eat something with the eyeballs still on there.

Damyankee: yeah...I see what you mean. It's like they are lookin' at you. What do we do? (see how I have now made this *our* problem...lol)

Hope: I don't know. Maybe you can just cut the heads off. (hmm...she isn't seeming too keen on it being "our problem" and helping me mutilate these shrimp)

Meanwhile, Victor has come back inside from tattling on me, like the little girl he is. He watches me cut the head off of a couple of the shrimp...and I look down at the 5 billion or so left to go. I hadn't actually planned to touch the shrimp with my bare hands, and my dad doesn't carry disposable gloves at the lake house. A problem I plan to remedy this year. No house should be without a 500 count box of disposable gloves, as far as I am concerned.

He then tells me that I am "doing it wrong". He said you don't cut the heads off...you "pop" them off.

(Oh hell no...you have to be kidding me. I am not popping nothin' off with my bare hands.)

He grabs a shrimp and basically just rips the head off and throws it into another bowl. No big thang jangalang.

Crap. So, there I am...ripping the heads off, tossing them aside, for at least 45 minutes. When I got done, I had at least 5,000 little flippers stuck everywhere on me, in addition to several hundred eyeballs that had became dislodged (probably because I had loosened the hell out of them trying to rinse them off for 15 minutes), and I stunk. Like nasty tootie-tootie. (you know what I mean)

Needless to say, I didn't eat any shrimp that night. I hope everyone else enjoyed it, though, because it will be the LAST "whole head-on eyeballs and flippers included shrimp" we will ever bring up there.

:)

Farm living is the life for me....

The cube farm that is....

I am coming up on nearly 9 years of sitting in the cube farm. The walls are grey, the carpeting is grey, even our desks and cabinets are grey. I remember the first time I walked in here, I thought there was no way I was going to be able to sit in there without feeling claustrophobic. Caged, even. Jeez...where's my little spinny wheel?

However, like most anything, you get used to your environment, and you adapt. Like guinea pigs. In your cage.

I can't say it's really all that bad...I have a great job, one that I am happy to have. Over the years, though, I have had some *truly* whacked out people that have sat near me.

Obviously, there is no privacy. If you are on the phone, anyone sitting near you can hear everything you say with acute clarity...even more so if you are trying to be private about your conversation. Suddenly there are no more clackity-clack sounds, whispered conversations grind to a halt...and the silence is deafening. Fight with your spouse? I know about it. Little heathens for kids? Yeah, I know all about that too. Problems with your credit? trying to buy a house? an embarrassing medical problem? on a diet?...yep, I know allll about it. And wish I didn't.

There's one guy that used to sit in the farm....he hated his wife, or maybe just women in general, but especially his wife. No doubt. He was so mean to her on the phone...raising his voice, telling her to shut up, that she was stupid, criticizing any little thing she did. He just made me want to throw up every time I saw his ugly face. Every so often, I may or may not have buried some tuna or other rotten smelling food in his garbage can when he walked away from his desk. I imagine that the stench was unreal...especially when it got hot in here in the afternoon. This probably wouldn't have been so bad if our garbage was picked up more than twice a week. Yeah, I know...that's wasn't nice, but it wasn't to make me feel better...it was for his wife.

I remember another guy that used to sit a few rows away from me that would talk on his speaker-phone all morning long. For those that don't sit in a farm, this is a pretty major social faux pas. It's just not done. Worse, he was a pompous @ss that had been booted from a nice cushy office and felt that he was too good to be sitting in the farm. *sigh*. He really had to go; he just wasn't fitting into the farm schema. What to do?

Welllllll.....near him sat an old school fax machine that had run out of toner, perhaps a few years before. You could dial the fax machine, but it wouldn't pick up...and would just ring and ring. Very annoying...if you sat right beside it. Every time he got on a speaker-phone call, I may or may not have dialled the number to the fax machine and then placed the phone down on my desk for 5 or even...10 minutes. Riiiiiiiiiiiing. Riiiiiiiiiiing. Inevitably, he would have to switch off of speakerphone because the person he was talking to couldn't hear him, and he seemed genuinely puzzled (and highly irritated) that it always seemed to do that when he was talking on the phone. Odd. He lasted a month.

The first Christmas that I worked here, I sat right near a guy that played the same Irish Christmas CD over and over and over again. All day long, every day. By the 8th day, I thought I might be going insane and despite the fact that I was wearing noise cancelling headphones, I could still hear every single note played. Being new, I didn't understand that normal societal politeness just doesn't apply in the farm with some people; I went to him and told him how much I enjoyed the music he was playing. I was wondering, however, if he had any other Christmas CD's? That as much as I liked the current selection, it was getting a little "old". He smiled, and said absolutely...and for the next 10 straight days, I listened to wonderful sounds of Christmas as represented by bagpipes. It's a Scottish Christmas. Yay. That's so much better...thank you.

My mistake was in not going with my first inclination which would have been to render his CD/DVD drive permanently inoperable. A few well placed toothpicks and some peanut butter and that sucker would have never opened again. But, that would be destroying property, and I don't do that. The better option would have been to hide his speakers, until such time that Christmas was over. The following year.

On the whole, there are some very nice people that sit near me, and we all tend to leave each other alone and behave like civilized folks. Every now and again...we get a dolt in the mix.

I almost feel sorry for them. muwahahaha....

I will never learn...

I was talking to my friend Tammy one day while at work, discussing our mutual fear of spiders. She told me about a spider that carries it's egg sac on its butt and that, awhile back, she stepped on one, and out poured all these little baby spiders. She said she nearly came unglued.

I didn't sleep well that night after that conversation. I have never seen a spider with an egg sac on its butt...and I hope and pray that as long as I live...I never do. Because I have just typed these words, I will probably see one tomorrow, with my luck.

Last week, while taking a shower, having just shampooed my hair, I felt something run across my feet. (Oh God, please don't let it be a spider) I look down and it was a prehistoric sized wood roach. Like Madagascar hissing sized cockroach. I screamed like I was being killed, nearly busted the shower door down trying to get out. Although naked, with shampoo running down my back, I ran to my closet, grabbed some ugly flip-flops, went back and beat the hell out of it. I do not fear roaches the same way I do spiders. To my knowledge, roaches do not bite, although they are TRULY disgustingly nasty. Especially when they are half the width of my foot.


[woodroach...nasty, huh? crawled across my FOOT!]

Ahhhh...I love living in the south.

Anyway, we have had TONS of rain these last few weeks. This seems to be driving the outdoor bugs, inside. This is just not sitting well with me at all. I already don't sleep much...and the thought of having these insects in the house, potentially crawling on me while I sleep, dropping down from the ceiling and landing on my face is the stuff nightmares are made of. Is it bad to mix a bottle of wine and a couple of Advil PM? I think not. At least if something did land on me at night, I might not care as much.

I have seen several good sized spiders in the house lately, and after all we went through last year eradicating them, I just don't know if I have it in me again to launch that level of warfare. Although my husband is very manly, he is more scared of spiders than I am. Granted, I do not have a large hole in my leg from being bitten by a Brown Recluse, I still think as the man of the house, he should be doing more to remove these pests. He likes to play the ol' "I don't see them, and I also don't hear my wife's terrified screams when she sees them" game. I see some passive-aggressiveness in our future.

Well, after what I went through the other morning, he is going to have to "man up" and start doing something about the problem. I am not even kidding. He needs to call up his sister-in-law once removed, get the heavy duty commercial grade insecticide, bring out the hazmat suit, slap on the air tank and start doing some killin'!

Two mornings ago, I was getting ready for work. I had just finished cattle-prodding the kids to finish their breakfast. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a spider making its way towards me in the kitchen. Brazen little thing. Since I was wearing heavy tennis shoes, and my husband had already left for work, and he hates when I call him for what he considers trivial problems, I decided to handle it myself.

I went over and stepped on the spider...

...HUNDREDS, maybe thousands of little spiders fanned out from the carcass! I went absolutely BERSERK. Screaming, hollering, yelling, a whole lot more screaming, stomping, doing the Mexican hat dance on them trying to kill them all. Katie and Cole came running...I am sure they thought that I had finally gone certifiably insane. To a degree...I had.

I won't be the same after witnessing that. Obviously, I didn't see it coming. I figured if babies were involved...there would be an egg sac or something stuck to the butt. But noooooooooooooo....apparently, they can carry them on their back! WHAT THE HELL??? Since when did they start doing that???

[this looks exactly like the 'possum-like spider I stepped on...GROSS!!!]

Again...4,000 hours of Animal Planet watching...and I am unprepared. I see no point in watching the stupid channel anymore if I am not learning the educational things I need to know. WHO GIVES a DAYUM about lions ripping apart a stupid caribou, or elk or whatever those fast running horned things are called! I don't have lions and caribou's running amok in my kitchen! They need to dedicate an entire show to pest removal and killin'. I am telling you...there is a market.

You know, I spent the majority of my life up north. Never...ever...ever...ever.....(one more time)...EVER...did I see anything like that, anywhere I lived. If a yankee stepped on a spider like that up there, they would sell their house...and move. That very day. No questions asked. See ya...ba-bye.

Down here....yeah, it sucks, and when it happens (especially) to someone else, it's sorta funny...and gross at the same time. But, no big deal, really...happens all the time. Sorry...I'm calling BS on that! It is the grossest.thing.ever.

ever.

By the way...I know of a nice 4 bedroom split that will be going on the market soon. (small spider problem).

Crazy...

One of my very favorite songs, Crazy, by Gnarls Barkely has been around not quite 15 years. For a long time, I thought it was an old song by Al Green. It sure sounds like something he would sing. My dad has listened to Al Green since I was a youngling, and I can remember being maybe 4 years old sitting in the backseat of my parents Cutlass Supreme singing the lyrics to "Let's Stay Together". Nobody can sing R&B like a 4 year old. "Why somebody, why people break up....Oooh, turn around and make up I just can't seeeeeeeee".

Recently, we were slow cruising out on my dads boat, and Crazy was one of the songs playing on my iPod. He heard the first few lines of it, and said..."I LIKE THAT!". I knew you would.

I have heard that the writer of Crazy had been told, repeatedly, that an artist had to be genuinely crazy, in order to achieve true success. There is probably some truth in that. Many great writers, musicians and painters have certainly led...mmm...colorful lives, to put it conservatively.

Personally, I think the song is about self-awareness. While I am not certifiably crazy (so I have been told), I know that at times, I am a little off my rocker. I am completely aware of these moments...and instead of fighting them off, like we are conditioned to do, I now embrace them. Between the heightened senses and the clarity of ideas, thoughts, and images that flow in my mind much faster than my fingers can type, or my mouth can speak, I know I am entering the proverbial zone.

If you have not been in the zone, all you have to do is just let go...for a little while.

"Crazy" - Gnarls Barkley

I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place.
Even your emotions had an echo
In so much space

And when you're out there
Without care,
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much

Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
probably

And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that's my only advice

Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are,
Ha ha ha bless your soul
You really think you're in control

Well, I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
Just like me

My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
And all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them
Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun
And it's no coincidence I've come
And I can die when I'm done

Maybe I'm crazy
Maybe you're crazy
Maybe we're crazy
Probably

Uh, uh

Quirky friends...

Everyone has one friend that is a little different. Not "rides the short bus" different, but odd. Quirky. For most of my friends, I have a sneaking suspicion that *I* am their quirky friend. I certainly have my eccentricities, and that doesn't bother me a bit.

However, like I said, everyone, even a person that's a "little out there" has at least one friend that's a little weirder than themselves. My quirky friend would be Melissa. I have known her...I don't know...maybe 7-8 years now, and she never ceases to surprise me with her antics.

Driving with her has always been an experience. One of the first times I rode with her, she was giving me a ride to the dealership to pick up my car. Looking inside any of Melissa's vehicles, you are surprised *she* even has a place to sit. She loves to shop, and is always finding interesting things. Only she doesn't unload them with any regularity. Her backseats are filled (RIGHT NOW) with Christmas decorations she bought the day after Christmas, in addition to light fixtures (garage sale), dishes (flea market), tiki lights, shoes, a Dutch Oven, bags of concrete, some kind of camel poop that she swears is good for her flowers, and only God knows what else.

I recall this one time, she was driving a Lincoln Town Car. Mike (her very soon to be husband) bought it for her from the previous owner who was...maybe 97 years old. This elderly woman liked to drive around with her 3lb excitable Yorkie...that had a bladder problem. I sat down in the passenger side, and before we made it out of the front gates at work, I could feel my butt growing damp. Hmmm...I sure hope it's water since I am wearing light colored khaki pants. *sigh*

We get to the dealership, I get out of the car...and turned around and asked her if my butt looked wet. She lies about as well as I do. Her eyes looked upwards, her eyebrows went cockeyed, her lips pursed. If she had dog ears, they would have been flattened back against her skull. Yet, she still said, "I don't see anything". LIAR. Well, my butt feels a little damp-ish...is it noticeable? "No, no...you can hardly see it. I am sure that it is just tea or something." Hmmm.

I walk in, pay for my car repair, turn to leave and the kid at the cash register says, "m'am, I think you sat in something." (grrrr...I knew it!).

Another day, we were going out to lunch and she insisted on driving. I hadn't ridden with her in awhile, but she had a new truck by this time. No previous geriatric owners with pet bladder problems, that I was aware of. So, there we are...she is irritated because her kids, despite the fact that they are mostly grown adults, have called her 327 times, needing something, since 9AM. She is talking on her cell phone, smoking a cigarette, with a large cup of tea between her legs and trying to drive with her knee. I won't lie...I felt a little nervous...because we needed to make a sharp right turn. I offered to get the wheel, but she was busy yelling at one of the little heathens and didn't hear me. She mostly made the turn...we totally jumped the curb in front of the gas station, but she hung on to her tea, cell phone and cigarette. That's talent right there. She then told whichever child that she had to get off the phone because she needed to concentrate. No, no. The roads are pretty straight from here on out...you should just keep talking.

She also has a thing about leaving her keys inside her vehicles. Of course, the automatic locks don't help a bit in this situation. I have literally begged her to make a spare set of keys, but noooooo...that would be too easy. One day, we were having lunch at McAllisters. Upon leaving, she realizes that she has, once again, locked the keys in her truck. She told me "no worries, I have it handled this time". Oh good...you finally made a spare key and put it in one of magnetic boxes?

She looked at me like I was crazy.

Out of the bed of her truck, she pulls out a 6 foot painters pole. She had left the windows cracked just enough (even though it was raining) to stick the ridiculously long pole through and hit the unlock button.

Huh. Clever. You know a spare key is much more compact.


I won't LOSE a painters pole, now will I? Beats the umbrella we used last time, remember? Or the coat hanger the time before. And we didn't even break the window this time.

You do make a compelling argument, I'll give you that.

Eating out with her is always fun, as well. I am not saying she is demanding, she will be the first to tell you that she just wants things how she wants them and why settle for less? I have seen her send sandwiches back for being tainted by a tomato, or something else on there that she found unappealing, rather than just taking off the "offendee". I keep telling her that every time she sends it back they are making her a "special turkey club". She just doesn't believe me.

Other foods have been sent back because she saw someone else's plate at another table, changed her mind and wanted what they had; and she will keep a waiter or waitress on the run asking them for additional packets of sweet n low. What they don't know is that if you opened up her purse, at least 5,000 packets of the stuff would spill out. Those are "spares"...for later.

She always gets most everything to-go, especially her tea. One time, they told her they didn't have any to-go cups, she suggested they look anyway. lol...They put her tea in what looked to me to be a specimen cup (probably from some guy that had to report to his parole officer that day) and sent her back with that. She was pissed because it didn't have a lid, but she still drank out of it anyway.

At any rate, she is hilarious...and will give you the shirt off her back. Or which ever one she may have stashed in her backseat.

Harpoon the whale!

Katie's birthday is on Saturday; she has asked for a new tube for the boat. Hmmm...yeah. I am going to have to think about that.

We spent a lot of time last summer at my dad's lake house tubing with the kids. It all seemed like good fun (and it was) until that last ride. I used to be able to tube with the best of them. I would DARE anyone to throw me off. Couldn't be done, I said. I had a death grip like no other and could withstand G forces that would make even the hairiest of pilots reach for their complimentary barf bags.

This last day, we had been tubing with the Marshall's and my dad all afternoon. Angela could hang with the best of them. For a California girl, she could holler woooooooooooooohoooooooooooo when flying over a wake better than Daisy Duke jumping a washed out bridge while being chased by Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. You know Mike was proud.

I don't like to get into the water...personally. ON is fine. IN, not so much. It may sound a little sissified...but I don't care. I know that there are all sorts of things in there, weeds, large catfish (maybe even those bitin' kind like on River Monsters), oozy mud, more weeds, and lets not forget the GATORS. Plenty of them. But they only come out at night...so I am told.

Anyway, everyone had already tubed for the day...it was my turn. I didn't want to seem like a big wuss (although I am), so I made my way over to to the boat. I also don't feel comfortable getting into the tube from the back of his boat, but I am unable to get into the tube if I am already in the water. I look like a large seal trying to flip itself up onto a high dive. How many times have you seen that happen successfully? Yeah, I didn't think so.

So, I fall back into the tube, grab onto the handles and see my husband look backwards, thumbs up, and off we go. yay.

At first, he was taking it easy on me...a nice little grandma ride that I enjoyed immensely. It was a trap...he was just trying to lull me into a false sense of security. I saw him look back again, and maybe it was because I was kicked back, legs crossed, only holding on with one hand and sipping a fruity beverage, that he felt that I needed a little more action. I saw him push forward on the throttle, and the front end of the boat came up out of the water like the Titanic...in its final death throes...

Oh Lawdy...

OFF WE WENT like a bat out of hell. He started doing donuts and I could almost taste the butt enema I was getting, as I skated across his wake, while simultaneously being slung nearly around to the front of the boat. Maybe it was the maniacal grin on his face, but I started trying to recall if I had ever mentioned the value of my life insurance policies to him.

I was screaming at him to Please for the love of God and all that is Holy STOP, SLOW DOWN, ANYTHING. I couldn't let go to give him a hand signal (and I had a very specific one in mind) because I knew that would be the beginning of the end.

You see, I have water splatted many times before, and each time...I vow....that I will never ever ever ever get on a tube, water ski, or knee board again. Each summer rolls around and it is as if I have amnesia. Splat? What splat? I didn't do a face plant. I didn't ski myself into reeds cutting my legs into thin ribbons of flesh. I didn't hit a stump and catapult 29 feet into the air and oh so gracefully land on my face. That wasn't me.

OH...but it was.

So, there I am, my face has become rubberized, cheeks flapping much like a skydiver having just fallen 1500 feet in 4 seconds, I am contemplating my beneficiary choices, when the boat slows.

oh...thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou...

HOLDUP...I am leaning too far back in the tube...OhNo...I better reposition myself before I hit the wake or I will....

BOOM!...

I see sky...

and a pontoon boat...

and the Mississippi River...

(ok...I didn't see that last thing, but I shot way way up there...)

falling...need to turn so I don't land on my face again...almost there...(yes, I was multitasking my contemplations with some girly screaming)

SPLASH!

I'm in the water...ugh, this stuff is so nasty, please don't let me touch bottom, it's going to be gross... Good thing for the jacket...it just pops me back on top. AIR...sweet air. Oh hell no. GASPGASPWHEEZEGASP. Can't breathe! no air. wind must be knocked out of me. Relaaaaaaaaaaax. ahhh oooooommmm aaaahhh oooommmm. Breeeeeeeathe. Caaaaaalm...I suck in a little air. I still feel constricted, can't get in a deep breath. Lord...what have I done this time?

So, I floated...just laying there...like a dead whale gone belly up. Couldn't swim, couldn't take in a breath. I could hear Lloyd laughing as he pulled the boat along side me. I imagine that it was quite a spectacle to have launched me 50 feet in the air then watched my less than "clean" landing. She should get a 10 on the dismount, but a 2 on the landing.

He tells me to pull myself up on to the deck. I am only afloat because of my jacket and my double D's. I can't breathe, and can't move. I can't talk either. Maybe it was my lack of communication, maybe it was because I was gasping and wheezing, or it could have been the fact that my eyes had rolled back in my head...

The next thing I know, a long rod has been hooked into my jacket and I am harpooned and tossed onto the deck like a large fish. Only I didn't flop around. I just laid there, much like a dead one.

I could see him standing above me asking me what is wrong. I told him I didn't know....but I think I may have broken a rib or two. "DAYUM. that sucks.", he says.

you have such a way with words...

I waited three days to go to the Dr...yeah, dumb, I know. But if you have read my Dr stories then you know why I typically wait until I am on the verge of death before paying him a visit. I didn't break my ribs, but I did tear the muscles in between them. Hurt like a....well, it just hurt real bad.

So here it is...nearly summertime again. We have already had a few days in the 90's, the humidity has also returned with a vengeance. Maybe it is the humidity that plays tricks on my mind causing my amnesia or dementia, as it were.

I am contemplating the new tube that Katie wants. A bigger, badder 3-person tube. With additional jet propulsion. In green.

Hmmm...maybe I don't need to be DamYankee...I need to be DumbYankee.

The 'Coon Wrassler...

Once upon a time, in a land, not so far away...

...sat our former house at the end of a cul-de-sac. Behind the house was a nasty retention pond, a woodsy-like area, and on either side lived our neighbors. This would not have been considered a country setting, by any means. In this same house, we had a glassed in sun porch, in which our two dogs, Rufus and Rorie dined. I spent a lot of time out there myself, drinking coffee, reading the newspaper and trying to hide from my kids and responsibilities.

One early morning, my husband came home from working a 12 hour shift as a sheriff's deputy. When he works nights, he usually crawls into the house, bleary-eyed, his clothes and gun belt are removed and he drops into the bed, fast asleep within 30...maybe 45 seconds. I am usually getting up just about that time. Afterwards, I go and pour my coffee and retreat to the back porch to wake up before I have to deal with getting the kids ready, fed and to their respective places. I *need* this time. I must have this time.

This particular morning, I let the dogs out, went to make my coffee and heard the most horrible growling sounds. Terrible fighting sounds, things getting knocked over, more growling and fighting and snarling.

OH NO!...what in the world is going on?? I ran back to the sliding glass doors that lead out to the porch and saw my dogs fighting with a couple of raccoons on the back porch. 'Coons...if they are big enough, will kill a dog. Their claws and teeth are razor sharp, and they are very strong. My little Napoleon dogs, not the avid Animal Planet watchers that I am, were unaware of that fact and were protecting their turf.


By this time, the girls had gotten up, and we somehow managed to get the dogs back into the house, but the two 'coons that we saw were trapped out on the back porch. Great.

[actual 'coon on our back porch, different day]

I gently walked into our bedroom, and very softly tapped my husband on the shoulder and said, "YOU HAVE TO GET UP! THERE ARE RACCOONS TRAPPED ON THE BACK PORCH AND THEY JUST TRIED TO KILL THE DOGS!"

My motivation was simple...one, I did need to be able to let the dogs out so they wouldn't poop on my floors. Two, I still hadn't had my coffee.

He jumps up, scared half to death, but still out of it. I repeat my dire message. Maybe with a little more intensity.

*sigh*..."%$#...FINE...I will go take care of the raccoons." With that, he stomps out of the bedroom.

He walked past the sliding glass doors and straight out to the garage. It is at this time, that I notice...he is only wearing underwear. Hmm...he seems kinda pissy, maybe I better leave this one alone. But, again..why is he going to deal with a potentially vicious animal wearing only underwear? I'm just sayin'.

He grabs the two dog crates that were being stored in the garage and proceeds to the back porch.

There were two small raccoons that had been "treed" on the wood post that separates the windows, and another one that had enclosed itself inside of the roll away plastic dog food bin. Three raccoons. Awesome.

He immediately went for one of the little raccoons that had treed itself on the window. It was a quick grab, he had it by its neck and it was in dog crate #1 before it even knew what happened.

It scratched him up a bit, so he asked for his rawhide gloves. I quickly found them, and opened the door a hair and threw them to him. I sat back down in one of the kitchen chairs that I had dragged in front of the glass doors to continue watching "the show", while I drank my coffee.

He decided to go for the raccoon in the dog food bin, as the other one on the post, seeing what had happened to his brother Ricky, went ballistic and began growling and hissing at him. He opened the dog food bin...and slammed it shut as fast as he could! I think he may have even said another bad word.

Meanwhile, the girls, who normally can't get themselves ready in under an hour on any other given school day, have miraculously gotten themselves dressed, ready and were seated beside me watching Lloyd wrassle the 'coons.

I yelled through the glass doors..."what's wrong??". I could see him taking deep breaths, he said that there were TWO raccoons in the bin and one was the size of Rufus, (the bigger of our two dogs). lol...that would be Momma 'coon. FOUR raccoons.

Now, keep in mind, he is only wearing a pair of underwear, and Rawhide gloves. He then yelled for me to bring him a pair of shorts. Maybe the beansNfrank needed some protection? I obliged and threw those out to him. He took another deep breath and threw the bin open, kicked it over, spilling out 40lbs of dog food, one juvenile 'coon and its' Momma.

She immediately went after him as he tried to capture her baby. There he was, hooping and hollering, knocking over end tables and chairs trying to chase this thing down. He did manage to get the second one, opened up the dog crate and tossed it in with its' brother Ricky.

At this time, I felt it might be beneficial to suggest some boots. I reminded him that raccoons are known rabies carries. Truthfully, I have no idea, but it seems logical. He asked me to get his work boots, and I threw those out the door as well. Still...he is not wearing a shirt. If it was me, I would want to be covered in chainmail. Actually, if it was me, I would have just opened the door to the backyard from the other side of the porch and let them leave at their leisure.

Momma has now treed herself next to her remaining baby. They were both growling and hissing at him and the sound was horrible. They were seriously pissed.

For whatever reason, he unwisely chose to grab Momma. She was no small raccoon like the others. She started lunging at him the second he came near her, teeth gnashing, snapping, howling, she was reaaaddyy to ruuummmbbbllee.

He grabbed her around her neck...she twisted and grabbed his wrists with her paws and hung on for dear life. Despite the fact that he was nearly choking her, she managed to growl, hiss, snarl, and spit at him. She thrashed her body from side to side; jerking herself up and down, twisting her head side to side, biting and chewing at his gloves. He may have "had" her...but she still had a great deal of control.

For 15 minutes, he danced around the porch with this large raccoon. He tripped over furniture, slid on dog food and finally, he managed to get her inside of Cage #2. The girls and I were laughing so hard at this sight, we nearly peed our pants. Just then I had a thought...

huh. this would probably be a bad time to tell him that *that* particular cage was broken. The bolt holding it down on one side is missing. Ah well, I am sure that she won't be able to...oh crap!!!

Just as he had grabbed 'coon #4...HULKASAURUS Momma coon stood up, breaking the remaining bolt, 'Roooooowwwwwwwwwwrrrrrrrrrrrrr', throwing the top half of the dog crate aside. She jumped nearly 3 feet in the air, and in a move I have only seen in the The Matrix, she suspended herself in midair before twisting her body sideways and lunging at my husband. My mouth...hung open...

My husband is a large man. I have never seen him cry, and although he can be a titty baby about being sick, I know that is all for show, he just wants the attention. In truth, you could probably stab him, shoot him, or otherwise maim him in some way and he will barely flinch. All in all, he's a pretty tough guy.

But I say this, and not necessarily for getting back at him because of the suppository thing....

...he screamed like a little girl when he saw that raccoon coming after him! Aaaaahhhhhhh!

He dropped the other baby and ran for his life around that porch. It was clear that it was her intention to inflict great bodily harm upon him. Around and around the porch they ran, I don't know how many times. (Look kids!...Big Ben, Parliament).

At some point, testosterone kicked in and he must have realized that he was a 250lb grown man being chased like a little girl by a 40lb raccoon. He then turned around and made another grab for her. The remaining baby decided piss on this! and also went after Lloyd, defending his momma.

I am sure that there was no way he heard our laughter over the sound of all that growling and snarling, but this "show" had been so much more entertaining than we ever expected. WHY OH WHY...do we not own a video camera?? He scared baby #4 back onto its post and once again, it was just him and momma.

Both, were breathing hard and each had a new found respect for the other.

Momma had finally started to wind down and he managed to grab her up, one last time and "helped" her out the door to the backyard. He knew there was no way that he would be able to get her crated again, (especially not in the BROKEN one!) and off into the woods she ran.

He grabbed up the final baby raccoon, who still had lots of fight left in him. By this time, my husband was exhausted, scratched up, still semi-naked and barely able to hang on to this small creature. He called out to me to help him open the cage so that he could put the remaining one in.

Are you talkin' to me? ...right now? Out there? No, no. I just want to watch, I don't want to be an active participant.

GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW AND OPEN UP THIS (insert bad word here) CAGE.

ok...ok...I'm coming. Jeez. You don't need to be so snitty...

To open the cage, you have to squeeze both the top and the bottom of the latch release simultaneously. I was scared to death the raccoons were going to leap out and rip my face off when I did manage to get it open. I sat there and tried to psyche myself up for at least a minute...forgetting that Lloyd was still holding a thrashing and pissed off raccoon. No worries...he reminded me.

However, my fears were unjustified, and I was able to open the crate without incident. He then tossed in the remaining raccoon, closed it up and carried it out to his truck. The little guys were enrolled in a "witness relocation program" not too far from our house. I am sure the doctors that live near this particularly woodsy area will be able to provide the raccoons with classier food than Purina Weight Management Dog Chow.

Later that night, when we were recounting the entire saga over dinner, he asked about the broken crate...

huh?...broken crate? what broken crate? OH...you mean Rorie's old crate. Yeah, that was weird...I had NO IDEA it was broken, or I would have told you, I'm sure.

riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

One more embarrassing story...

I have told a couple of my own embarrassing stories recently; in some cases, enough time has passed that I no longer feel that burn of shame. Jay recently asked *how* these things happen to me...

Hmm...well, I can't say for sure. I have given a lot of thought to it, however, and conclude that everyone has to have done things that are just plain ol' dumb...most do not blog about it.

Here we go...

Before I got pregnant with Cole, I had a bout of intestinal issues. I don't handle this sort of situation well. The last time I confessed intestinal issues to anyone, I was 20, and my dad fearing that I was suffering the same serious issues that have afflicted him, scheduled me for an upper GI, lower GI, ultimately leading to a sigmoidoscopy. Only, he didn't tell me the details of any of the procedures until it was much too late. It was the roto-rooter that grabbed my attention the most, and since then, I have never told anyone that I have had a stomach problem in fear that I will get the garden hose treatment. The joke has always been, unless I see my colon hanging out of my butt, I see no reason for a medical intervention.

My husband too...is a funny guy. I mentioned to him one afternoon that I hadn't "gone" in a few days. He was horrified. He is one of those hated "regular" kind of people. I don't know what that means, my body doesn't work that way, and I am unwilling to eat enough fiber to find out. When it happens...it happens. And I am just grateful.

However, during this period of time, it hadn't happened in awhile, and it was starting to get uncomfortable. He suggested a suppository. I didn't even know what that was and had to google it. After 1 second of research, I came to the following conclusion: OH HELL NO...there is no way. None. Nope. I will not do that. Things will have to be MUCH MUCH worse before I consider it.

Two more days would pass, and the fact that I could only walk if I was stooped over like a 95 year old woman, before I decided that desperate times called for desperate measures. Off to Walmart we went.

Normally, I don't take my husband to Walmart. Sometimes he can be embarrassing (hey baby....did you need any of that PERSONAL LUBE? nope..I am good, thanks). Most of the time, though, his presence increases the bill by at least $200, and then he is shocked and indignant at the register when the cashier gives him the total. (um...we are pushing around *2* overflowing carts...the Duggars don't even get this much stuff...what did you expect?)

Because I can be an idiot...I took him with me. My plan was to wander near the section that held the suppositories and just swipe one of them into the basket, nonchalantly, and place a few other items on top to hide them.

He...had other ideas.

As soon as we got near the drugstore area, he made a beeline for the pharmacist. (where is he going?) I could hear him, over many other people on a crowded Saturday morning..."UM...YES....MY WIFE NEEDS SOME SUPPOSITORIES...SHE HASN'T POOPED IN A WEEK...WHAT AISLE IS THAT IN?"

(Holy crap, I know he didn't just do that!) I broke into a run with the cart to beat him there. These dayum old ladies better get out of my way!

I did make it to the aisle first, and to say that I was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of different types and sizes of suppositories was an understatement. Why are there so many different suppository makers? I have never bought them before...is there REALLY that large of a demand of suppositories? (no time to sit here and contemplate this, he is coming...you better hurry!)

So, I see him skate around the corner, and I gave him a look (one that said that I did overhear his little conversation with the pharmacist and would deal with him later), he smiled...as if to say..."let the games begin".

He bends down and starts reading off the bottles...as if he is talking to someone that is very hard of hearing"OK...WE CAN GET YOU THIS 500 COUNT BOTTLE OF SUPPOSITORIES HERE FOR $7.99. OR...WE HAVE THIS OTHER BOTTLE OVER HERE THAT HAS 200 SUPPOSITORIES FOR ONLY $4.99. WHICH ONE DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO WORK BETTER FOR YOU??"

I was stunned. I could NOT BELIEVE he was doing this. My eyes were nearly ready to pop out of my skull. A lady was pushing her cart down the aisle and burst out laughing, and another could overhear from the main aisle and stopped her cart to see what hubbub was in the laxative/suppository aisle. She too walked away laughing. I could feel my ears burn...I knew my face was probably beet red and I had to strongly resist the urge to kill him. (too many witnesses)

I swiped the 200 count bottle into my cart and tried to walk away as if I didn't know him. "NOW, IF YOU DON'T WANT A SUPPOSITORY, WE CAN TRY A DIFFERENT LAXATIVE." (grrr)

WHAT ABOUT GLOVES? DO YOU NEED SOME GLOVES? I have gloves, let's go. YOU SURE? yesssssssss....I'm sure.

I did try to bury the suppositories underneath some other items, and every time I looked away, he would place it back on top of my purse to ensure a more prominent display.

I didn't speak to him the remainder of the Walmart trip...my stomach was killing me and now everyone in aisles 13-27 knew that I hadn't pooped in a week, and was about to do something invasive to try to fix that. I just didn't feel that I could add to the conversation in a meaningful way.

He, of course, was very proud of himself. He doesn't get many opportunities to embarrass me, and he knew that he had done so with a zest never before seen. He was willing to take whatever silence or passive-aggressiveness came his way in retaliation and more importantly, he had caught me with my proverbial pants down. :)

Do squirrels have boogers?

I was driving my 3 year old son, Cole, to daycare one morning last month. It was a quiet drive, neither of us saying much. Out of nowhere:

Cole: Momma, do squirrels have boogers?

I looked at him in the rear view mirror to determine the seriousness of his question. His eyebrows were furrowed as if he had been pondering this great mystery for some time. Maybe even a whole 3 minutes. Since I had never before given any thought to animal boogers, I took a minute or so myself.

Damyankee: Well, son, I will be honest, I have never seen a squirrel booger. But, if I had to guess, I would say....yes, they probably do have boogers. (that's my final answer...what do I win?)

He, too, was quiet for another minute or so. I figured he was probably thinking about how a squirrel would go about picking their nose. (I know I was)

Cole: Well, I have boogers. (he proudly held one up for me to see).

*sigh*...good thing I keep several boxes of Kleenex in the car.

Most children are very good at throwing parents for a loop when they least expect it. I am sure it's to keep us on our toes. While the squirrel booger was a new one for me, he is also very good at saying the wrong thing to other people at inappropriate times, much to my embarrassment.

For instance, we went out to dinner last night, taking Cole with us. Sometimes he can be very good in restaurants, sometimes we are better off getting our food to go as he has a hard time sitting still and hasn't discovered his "inside voice". Hindsight being what it is, I wish we would have just eaten takeout.

While we waited to be seated, the hostess, a very nice middle aged woman was chatting with Cole. She asked him how old he was, what his name was, did he like school, etc. Eventually, she told him that he was so cute that she wanted to pinch his fat cheeks.

Cole: (eyebrows furrowed) What'd you say?

Hostess: I said that your fat cheeks are so cute I just want to pinch them! (she demonstrates on herself).

Cole: Well, you gotta fat booty.

(Oh, please don't let him have said what I think he just said.)

Hostess: Pardon?

Cole: You gotta fat booty?

(Yep, that's what I thought he said.)

Damyankee: Cole, that was ugly, you don't say that.

Cole: Well, she does gotta fat booty! (pointing)...Look! See? It's fat.

*sigh*....we are never going to get seated now.

He was right and I was wrong...Part II

I haven't been able to hear all week. That has worked out pretty well for me at work, as it mostly drowned out the sounds from my new jerk neighbor in the cube farm. (almost). It was just he and I around 5 this afternoon when he farted rather loudly. I left maybe 2 seconds later before the stank wafted over the wall. I may have to get passive-aggressive on him.

Anyway, I have had sinus issues and apparently they haven't been happy with just screwing up my breathing, they now have decided to settle in my ears. Not sure, medically, how that works...but it feels like I have been swimming for 10 straight hours underwater. yay.

I knew that we had some prescription ear drops in the cabinet. No sense in going to the dr when you can utilize others leftover medication. So, I glanced at the bottle, right size, right shape, said "otic" on it. I tilted my head, squeezed in an entire dropper full...

LORD HAVE MERCY...the burning. And stinging. My ear infection must be worse than I thought. To keep the drops from running down my neck, I stuck a cotton ball in it, and then did the other side. Crap...I do NOT remember these ear drops hurting like this...I am such a baby.

Later, I laid in bed...whining. Which my husband just loves, when he is trying to go to sleep. He feels like he has to do something, but he is too tired to do anything of any real value, and I know he just wants me to "man up". lol...which makes me even whinier.

So, after the 5th time of me complaining about my ears, (and not being able to hear his responses) he finally noticed the cotton balls. Of course, he had begun to enunciate his words as if I was stupid or something:

Him: What.....Can.....I.....Do......To.....Help.....You?? (more importantly, what can I do to get you to be quiet?) ....What's.....With.....The.....Balls??

Damyankee:It's to keep the ear drops in. I have been telling you about this for 30 minutes. You never listen to anything I say.

Him: *sigh*....What drops did you use? I know we don't have any ear drops.

Damyankee: YES...we do...I just put them in...(duh)...

Him: NO...we DON'T...I was looking for some last week and we.....don't....have....any.

Damyankee:[nostrils flare]

I get up to go to the cabinet so that I can pretty much bring the bottle back and shove it in his.... face...

I look more carefully at the bottle...reading the microscopically fine print... so that I will be able to quote song and verse the details regarding the *ear* drops.

huh! what do you know? there is only a "one" letter difference between "otic" and "oPtic".

[this is what I thought I was putting in my ear]

My brain processed this revelation like this:
Otic=ear
Optic=eye
Optic=pink eye drops

[would have been good to have the box...as there is a picture of an EYE on it!]

DAYUM...I just put pink eye drops in my ears! And then sealed it in. No wonder it burned. Awesome, I have probably just damaged my hearing even MORE. I already can't watch TV without closed captioning, this is just going to seal the deal. *sigh* Blind and Deaf on the backside of 30. Seeing eye dog and an ear horn. Just perfect.

[my next dog is very cute, no?]


[I want one of these just to have one now]

Side note: If I am going to lose a sense...why not the sense of smell? It would certainly help out when the new jerk next door decides to fart like he is in his own bathroom.

I can hear Lloyd (muffly) asking me to bring the bottle in for him to look at....(riiight...)

I hate being wrong. More importantly, I hate being wrong when I am being such an @ss about being right. Even more than that, I hate being wrong, when I am being such an @ss about being right, and it turns out that HE is right. Ah well, might as well get this over with...

Damyankee: ok...you were right and I was wrong. I just put pink eye drops in my ears. HAPPY? I am probably deaf now. So..go ahead and laugh.

He does...and loudly. What can I say?...his wife is an idiot. :)

At least the dr. said this morning that my ears showed no sign of pink eye. Always a plus.

Dear Jehovah's Witnesses...

Dear Jehovah's Witnesses:

I want to tell you how much I enjoy our visits together every other Saturday around 9AM. You certainly are early risers. If somehow you could call first and let me know you were coming, I might be able to answer the door wearing a bra. I feel certain that the discomfort that both you and I feel, as I try to hide the fact that I am allowing the girls to hang free for a few hours a week, could be avoided.

I know I must be a sight to look at and have caught you trying to avert your eyes from my red and black leopard print jammie bottoms, lavender colored fuzzy house flops, and Swiss cheese-like Grateful Dead t-shirt that probably should have been thrown away 10 years ago. I also wish that I had not chosen those particular moments to deep condition my hair, as it is hard to hear you spread the word of God through the plastic bag on my head.

Usually, when I deep condition my hair, I also apply a mask to my face, which would explain why I look like Mrs. Hulk. Again, a phone call would save both of us a lot of embarrassment.



I do want to apologize for my dogs, Rufus and Rorie. Normally they are very nice dogs, and don't go around viciously chasing people in our front yard. However, you did ring the front door bell...9 times, and I think that may have agitated them. Along with copies of the Watchtower, maybe bringing them a biscuit or two would go a long way towards making friends.


Sincerely,
Damyankee

People Watching

People watching...is one of my favorite past times. Sitting in a cube farm is not conducive to staring at folks, without being noticed.

After Lloyd made his automotive diagnosis...I optimistically showed up at the place I bought the tires. The guy at the desk, was in his early 20's and had a large brass fitting through a hole in his ear, and a bar pierced through his tongue. I am not judging, just giving you a description.

[not the same guy, but this is what the Tire guys ear looked like]

He was talking to me, but I haven't seen a tongue bar in a long time and I was fascinated and found it hard to pay attention to what he said with it clicking against his teeth.

[Tongue thing]

I told him that I needed my tires rotated and that I suspected that I had a hole in the right front side tire. Mr. Tongue Bar asked me a few questions that I knew the answer to, and I started feeling pretty confident that I wasn't going to screw this up. He then asked me if my tires had a wheel lock. (cue the grasshoppers)...blink blink...blink. A what? A wheel lock.

Sometimes it is better just to go ahead and tell people how ignorant you are and get it out of the way. I informed him that my automotive knowledge consisted of being able to put gas in my car, and drive it around. I have changed a tire once, but I had to google how to do it, and it took me two hours. I have never successfully opened the hood of my car, but I do know that the engine, oil stuff and windshield wiper fluid are in there...somewhere. Thus endeth my automotive knowledge.

This time...it was his turn to blink. He said never mind about the wheelock. Sounds good to me. And then told me it would be about 30 minutes. Since it was only 8:15, I felt confident that I would make it to work by 9. HA!

I selected a semi-clean chair in the waiting room, one that would give me a good view of the other tire patrons. There was one professional looking lady in there, dressed in a power suit (I caught her later flossing her teeth), a guy wearing a satellite company uniform, and another lady that was wearing a housecoat and house slippers. The only thing missing were the curlers.

[housecoat]

Around 9...and my car still not having been brought in, but most everyone standing around in the shop, I started eyeballing the "complimentary" coffee. Beggars can't be choosers, you know? I pumped the canister a few times and filled my cup, added some creamer, and it was *then* that I noticed...there's no sugar. No pink packets, no blue packets, no yellow packets, no nothing sugary. *sigh*. Well, I have already poured it, I might as well try to drink it.

This stuff was so vile, that I could hardly choke it down. Ms. Professional must have been watching me because she saw the face I made and actually cracked a smile. Yeah, I know...shoulda checked first.

Ms. Housecoat was pacing, her feet scuffing against the floor. My sister-in-law, Margaret, knows how I feel about this...and again, I am not judging...but how lazy do you have to be to leave your home wearing a housecoat and house slippers? How does that work? I know they are comfortable and all, but...dayum. She was there putting a new set of tires on her Yukon, so it wasn't like she was too poor to afford other clothes. Maybe she just got up late or something.

[house slippers]

So, I noticed her drinking some coffee...and asked her how hers tasted. She told me it was much better when she found some sugar to put in it. She didn't know it yet, but Ms. Housecoat was about to be my new best friend. I asked her where she found the sugar...(hoping she hadn't found some at the bottom of her purse). She said they had a huge thing of it in the shop by the coffeemaker back there. Hmmm....well, if you happen to go back there and check your tires, (wink wink), I noticed that your purse is much bigger than mine. I am sure they won't even notice. She laughed, and acted like she couldn't do something like that (for about three seconds).

It wasn't a minute later and she was back with the swiped sugar, pulling it out of her suitcase sized purse. She said that she got to thinking about it, and that sugar should be for the customers. (lol...that's riiiight). I told her thank you!thank you!, that she had just saved my morning. Is it bad to manipulate people into doing your dirty deeds? I think not.

With my coffee doctored, I started checking out Mr. Satellite guy. I thought maybe he was looking for some sugar too, as he was rifling through the cabinets below the tv, and below the coffee stuff. There was nothing there (I knew this due to my earlier pilfering). He walked out for a few minutes and the next thing I know, he was back with a remote in his hand, re-programming the tv. We all took notice then...as every channel had been blocked but the one the Today show comes on. Did you just go get that remote out of your truck? He said yeah...he couldn't stand Matt Lauer. lol...

So, he resets the receiver, types all these codes in, (all the while looking back at the counter to make sure no one is looking), and lo' and behold...the tire shop now had every channel known to man. I asked him if he had any extras of those, as I wanted to be able to change the channel when I went to the dentist. He just smiled and said that I had to know the codes. Be happy to provide pen and paper too. Just say the word.

Turns out...he did all that, just so he could watch Celebrity Jury. He said he just loved this show and hated to miss it. Apparently, if he happens to be somewhere in public and they have blocked all of the channels on their receiver and he is missing a show, he will just reprogram their TV. Says that he does it several times a day. That's just awesome.

Anyway, I don't ever watch daytime TV; I can see now that I am not missing much. Celebrity Jury is without a doubt, one of the DUMBEST shows I have ever seen. JJ Walker (dynooooomiiiite) was on there, and that little person Verne guy, and maybe Charro (coochiecoochiecoochie). DUMB. I lost IQ points that hour, I just know it. But it was a train wreck, and I couldn't help myself.

Finally, I picked up on the fact that if you went and stood up at near the desk staring at the counter guys...your car got worked on faster. It was my turn to pace and stare. Twenty minutes of pacing and staring...and a little glaring (just for good measure), and nearly 2 hours after he told me it would be ready, he said my car was done. I didn't owe anything, no idea why, so I went to leave. Some jerk had parked a rental car in NOT A PARKING SPOT, therefore blocking me in. No way to get around it, unless I wanted to back up 3,000 feet down a narrow strip of asphalt with a large drop off to one side and a metal building on the other.

I walked back inside to talk to the guy with the metal bone in his mouth, and waited. And waited. He refused to acknowledge that I was standing there. Eventually, and maybe it was because I had a sudden PHLEGM problem, he asked if he could help me. I pointed to the car blocking me in and he actually whined. "Roooogeerr, could you please move the Heeeertz caaar". He then tells me that I could just back around the building, if I wanted to. I asked him if he had recalled the conversation that we had when I came in? "You don't know much about a car", he said. That would be correct. I also suck at backing up, too. I drive forward pretty well; backwards...not so much.

The car gets moved, I say goodbye to my new friends, and make it to work...only 2.5 hours late. At least I got to people watch.