Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad

Making friends isn’t something I do well. Upon meeting me, you will find me quiet and reserved - most people would say I am shy. People who know me well would laugh at that. Once you know me, I am not shy. Truthfully, when I first meet you, I’m getting a read on you. Don't ask me what I’m reading - I have no idea, but my picture is next to the definition of the phrase, “What are you eyeballing?” No lie. That’s been asked of me many times - think I might respond with “Seeing if I can tolerate your presence” when I’m asked it next.

Once I find your presence acceptable, that doesn’t mean I just start talking. Oh, I may make a comment on the clothes you are wearing, or on your shoes if I like them, but usually I’m still quiet. You see, I don’t know if I like you enough to engage in conversation. Peopling is exhausting for me. Even conversing with my own son can be too much, so I conserve my mental batteries for people who are important to me. I just met you - outside of being a human being, you aren’t’ that important to me, and I’d rather converse with my child for three hours talking about Minecraft than talk to an absolute stranger - don’t test me, I’ve done it.

So, now there’s the small talk. I hate small talk. As I’ve said, conversing with people drains my mental batteries and small talk, in my mind, is a waste of time and energy. Talking about the weather is pointless - we both have eyes and access to weather reports. Discussing the weather is stupid. If you want me to engage in conversation, ask my opinion on something important - but be prepared for an opinion you may not like - and we can talk about that. For me, the energy I put forth for conversing with people needs to be worth it. Asking me what type of movies I like to watch, or what kind of music I like to listen to can be asked in text messages; talking about how you and I view the world? Now THAT’S worth the energy. Why? Because that shows more about a person than what movies or music they enjoy.

So, having said all that, I have done something I have sworn I would never do. I feel silly having done it; it’s not natural or organic. It reeks of desperation and not to mention the stigma surrounding it. PLUS, half the time it’s filtered - and as you know, I am done being filtered. I’m strange, weird, crazy, profound and perfectly imperfect. I have my flaws. Some I don’t like - I’m working on correcting them. Some I adore - I ain’t changing those flaws for anyone. I don’t like going out to crowded places (I despise grocery shopping and haven’t set foot in Aggieville in years); I tend to keep to myself and keep close to home, so whenever I do get overwhelmed and need to leave in a hurry, I don’t have far to go until I get to my sanctuary; and while I tried to change the “house mouse” aspect of myself, I found that I rather like my quasi-solitary way. However, sometimes I get lonely, and although I do have friends, there’s not that many - and they have their own lives to live (meaning they aren’t waiting around for me to get lonely and actually WANT to people - they know it doesn’t happen very often).

So, what did I do?

I joined a dating app.

Now, before you throw Two to Tango at me, I am truly looking for friends to do stuff with. I tend to get along better with men than I do women in friendship - most of the female friends I’ve had tend to get butthurt when I don’t call or visit them enough - and for most of my life, I’ve been in the “friend zone” or “sister zone,” meaning I gave the guys great advice from the female perspective and kicked their asses when they got too big for their britches. However, with every romantic relationship I’ve had (a whopping THREE serious relationships), I had set aside the male friendships so as not to court trouble - avoiding the appearance of impropriety and all that. And once my husband died, any friendships I had with his friends fizzled to nothing - especially when they realized I was not interested in having sex with them (they were like brothers to me) nor was I interested in a romantic relationship with them.

Assholes.

Anyhoo, I opened an account, specifically stating I am looking for friends. I am not opposed to the “with benefits” part, because, let’s face it - I like sex. A lot. And I’m not so innocent that I don’t understand I have “needs.” But I do NOT want a romantic relationship and all the messiness with that because I am NOT ready for it. There’s been a few that I find funny and could hang out with, but I have seen more pictures of penises than a porn casting director. However, as nice as the pics are, I cannot bring myself to having sex with just any ol’ person. For me, there needs to be a connection - which I had stated on my profile, if the dick pic senders would have bothered to read. At the time I typed the profile, I had no idea what that connection was - thinking someone is attractive isn’t enough for me to get hot and bothered. As I spoke with various individuals over the last two weeks, I pondered what that connection was. What was it about my son’s biological father (my first serious relationship), my late husband, and my current ex (I’m fairly certain there will be more in my future - I’m not everyone’s cup of tea) that made me want to shag them? Each man is very different - especially in their personalities, ages, looks, professions - yet there were similarities. However the similarities weren’t what made me want to be with them - for fuck’s sake, I can swing a damned hammer and build shit (doesn’t look professional, but then again, I am not a tradeswoman). What was it that made me take the plunge and jump into the bed with them?

It was trust.

With my first, it was trust that he truly thought I was attractive (something my 20 year old mind hadn’t had all throughout her teenage years). With my late husband, it was trust that he would love me no matter how weird I got (everyone knows I’m a strange duck), or how badly I acted or screwed up (which I did frequently, but I admitted my failure - always said I wasn’t a very good wife to him in the beginning; rectified said failure and learned from my mistakes) because I always felt like the love others had for me was conditional. With my current ex, it was trust that he would accept me for me - my flaws and my strengths. Something I have never had in my life - acceptance (aside from my inner circle - all 4 of them). Trust is the connection I need.

And it’s something I don’t give freely. Trust, for me, is the bridge from being a friendly acquaintance to being a friend. Everything else - like acceptance, love, and loyalty - is built on trust. My first cheated on me - apparently he thought me losing weight was a bad thing and I wasn’t attractive anymore. My late husband wanted me to not only change the flaws I wanted to change (constant anger, holding onto grudges, impatience), but the ones I liked as well (independence, a trusting heart, seeing the good in people). My current ex couldn’t accept me as I am, I guess - a flawed human trying to be better. My first, I just left - he broke my trust and I wasn’t willing to forgive him for it (not like he was apologizing anyway). My late husband - I can’t blame him. I, too, tried to change him in the beginning of our marriage until I realized I was the problem, not him - then the stroke happened and that’s when the wheels started coming off of the wagon. But, his last year of life, we both learned that love was unconditional, and once we accepted that, we were in a pretty good place before the cancer affected his brain. With my current ex, he threw me out of his life as if I were trash. I don’t know exactly why, and I’ll probably never know. I’m going to venture a guess and say it’s because we are both broken in the same way - except I know I’m broken and I’m trying to fix the parts I don’t like about myself where he is happy with himself. That is perfectly okay - laudable even - and I don’t begrudge him for it. I just didn’t know his communication style as I said in Two to Tango.

So! Long story short (or as my son would say, TLDR): If you want to get with me, you have to earn my trust. And right now, I’m inclined to not to trust many individuals. I’m trying not to paint all people with the same brush, but when you get burned as many times as I have…well, once bitten, twice shy ain’t just the name of an album.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

I was just asked where do I see myself in 10 years - “What do you want your life to be like” is what was asked specifically. Honestly, I don’t see myself alive, but then I didn’t think I’d live past 40, but here I am!

Thirty years ago, I had big plans. I was going to become a journalist. I was going to be an investigative reporter that would put Geraldo Rivera to shame. Riding on the fame I garnered from that, I was going to become a news anchor that made Tom Brokaw and Barbara Walters look like amateurs. I was going to be a best selling author - Stephen King would be my biggest fan. I was going to find the love of my life, have some kids all by the time I reached 50.

Clearly that didn’t pan out.

Twenty-five years ago, holding my newborn son, my life changed and so did my plans. I looked down at his scrunchy face as he slept peacefully in my arms and whispered, “It’s just you and me, kid.” My plan was to raise my son with love, kindness and patience. No longer was I interested in finding a husband - men were slave masters in my twenty-one year old mind. They expected the woman to work 40 hours a week, cook, clean, perform their “womanly duties,” take care of the children and tend to the man’s every whim. If that isn’t met, war was declared - at least it was with my son’s biological father. I was determined to raise my boy to look at women as equals - not a mommy to clean up after them, not a body to keep their bed warm - but a human being just as worthy of the respect and dignity he is shown. My plan was to return to work in retail and climb the corporate ladder - what else could I do? I didn’t have a college education (there weren’t many programs for women like me - I wasn’t on welfare) and retail was all I knew.

Well, that was half-assed accomplished. I would love to say that I raised my boy with love, kindness, and patience but it would be a lie. I discovered I despise children between the ages of 8 and 12 - they’re worse than toddlers, who do not know any better, so teaching is called for. Preteens? A punch in the face is what they need. They’re little assholes who still act like toddlers when they don’t get their own way and CLEARLY know better than to test mom. My sisters were the ones that showed me that I hated the preteen years. I went through this with my three younger sisters (the youngest is 5 years older than my son) so I knew what I was going to face. My son fucked around and found out plenty of times, and because I was both mom and dad, I had to be especially harsh. However, I worked at Walmart - kindness left that company LONG before Sam Walton died and my patience died a horrible death (and I’m not a very patient person to begin with) when dealing with stupidity day in and day out at work. I had absolutely no patience left when I got home and got a sit-rep from my father on the stupid bullshit my son would pull. Surprisingly enough, during that time, I met Kristopher, my late husband. He had the patience of Job with me. During our courtship he got the “Nine Faces of Sue.” I was up front with him - I was looking for a father for my child and someone I could spend the rest of my life with. I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t need a piece of paper and some holy man to tell me who my heart belonged to. But I wanted someone to help me raise my son because I was getting close to selling the boy to the gypsies and having zero regrets for doing so. It was Kristopher’s idea to get married - and because I loved him, I agreed.

For 9 years, our plan was to work long enough to retire, sell our house, buy an RV and travel around the country fulfilling our bucket lists in our retirement. If only the American health care system wasn’t as shitty as it is. Kristopher had ulcerative colitis since he was 12, and it was only getting worse the older he got. By the time we got married, I had already drained my life’s savings ($10,000) to clear his past medical and financial debts. When his medications weren’t working and the doctors wanted him to use Remicade, the boondoggle that is our health insurance system caused me to put the cost of the drug on my credit card - it was $2,000 (that was our out of pocket - it only went up from there). Kris needed the drug every 8 weeks - that’s $16,000 every year, plus the yearly $2,240 prescription drug cost for his other medications on $52,000/year salary from two people (Obama’s bullshit healthcare crap only caused everything to increase in price - not the decrease he promised). We tried to recover from it, and we were making headway once Kristopher moved to Smithfield and I became a live-out nanny. The plan was to get all the medical bills paid off, get his student loan paid off, get the cars paid off and his credit card paid off and shredded. We hit every single target. Then we got the cancer diagnosis in 2019. Kris died three months and five days after our 10th wedding anniversary.

So, our retirement plans didn’t work out.

After Kris died, I threw myself into my job - I had a lot of catching up to do if I want to have a decent nest egg because, let’s face it, the U.S. Government isn’t going to let anyone from Gen X onward to retire. We weren’t baby-making factories like our parents and reduced the future tax pool - damn us to hell for knowing we can’t afford 10 kids. I wanted to get my savings back up - that was my only goal for 2021. I couldn’t think any further than that. I knew I wanted to be a store manager of the Dollar General I worked at - it was the next logical step for me in my retail career. I spent the rest of 2020 and most of 2021 with that mindset.

Then I decided to get a tooth pulled and because I couldn’t afford to see my doctor while paying for my husband’s cancer treatment in 2019 and 2020, the dentist advised me to go see one. Usually when a dentist says that, there’s nothing wrong with the tooth, it could very well be your heart. And, since I did have a stroke in 2016 and hadn’t taken my medication in over a year because we couldn’t afford the extra cost during 2019-2020, it was a good chance there was a problem with my heart. All the money I had saved and planned to save from my inheritance after the house and renovations were done was gone by the end of 2021. HOWEVER! That didn’t alter my plans - I was still working towards becoming a store manager and I was able to save little by little.

2022. The year that the entire fucking country lost its shit and decided Biden was responsible for the inflation that happened and continues to happen today. Oh for fuck’s sake! BUSINESSES WILL NOT SWALLOW LOSSES!!! Shutting the country down in 2020 caused an ENORMOUS amount of profit to be lost and those businesses that didn’t go under during the pandemic were going to recover those losses. I saw this coming when I got the blood money after Kristopher died; it’s why I didn’t buy all the gizmos and gadgets I wanted to get but didn’t need. It’s why I didn’t take my car into the dealership to have it looked over for maintenance. It’s why I paid off the house as soon as I did - I didn’t want to pay more than I had to in interest. I was hoping Russia wouldn’t do stupid shit, but, well, it’s Russia. Then all hell broke loose on the economy. In May of 2022 I had lost all hope of EVER getting a decent amount in savings and decided I would just focus on the store manager position. THAT fell into the shitter when the current store manager decided because the economy took a massive hit, her retirement took a hard hit and she wouldn’t be able to retire in 2022.

I gave up on making future goals. It’s pointless. They never work out either through my own stupidity, hubris, or just the universe fucking with my head. I stuck to making short term goals and plans; like, what am I going to make for dinner when I get home, or I should mow the yard this weekend since it’s going to rain Monday. Making long term plans…it’s frivolous. Even states in the Bible not to do it because tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone and you wasted all that time planning instead of living. I was feeling pretty low when I had a conversation with a customer at Dollar General about life.

“Life was intended to be experienced, not tolerated.”

Two days later, on a weekend when I was overwhelmed with life and all the B.S. it brought with it, my ex mowed his way into my life. The world didn’t end when I accepted his help (accepting help is difficult for me) and when he countered my offer of beer as payment with a dinner, those words echoed in my head. I accepted to his dinner proposal - when I wasn’t as busy.

That was when I started making plans. Not financial plans. Not professional plans. Life plans. I still want to hike Pike’s Peak. I still want to learn how to ride horses. I want to sky dive. I want to publish my works. I want to go into a hot air balloon. I want to see the ocean and feel the sand (is it different from the Great Lakes? I don’t know). I want to live life as full as I possibly could. I wanted memories that I could hang onto as I’m on my deathbed and smile as I relive each one in my mind. I didn’t care about money - I just want enough to keep the lights on and food in my stomach. I wanted to live life without overthinking it - just take the fucking leap. If you fall on your ass, just get back up and go again. I had decided I would enter this new mindset with a new ‘do, manicure and a pedicure (never had those done professionally before) for my birthday. It was a waste of money because I wouldn’t be able to maintain my new hair color, I worked retail and had the worst hands and feet (told ya, I ain’t no girlie girl - they get washed and nails clipped. That’s it); but it was the experience of getting pampered that I wanted.

Aannnd the universe decided to implode on me as it usually does when I make plans for my birthday. I never got the experience. My soul was weary with my plans always going to shit. HOWEVER, after soul-searching at my sister’s that July 4th, and realizing I had treated the kind neighbor who had mowed my yard horribly before I had left (we weren’t even dating at that time) I decided I was going to rectify my actions and alter my mindset from defeatism to optimism - the universe can suck a bag of dicks if it thinks it’s going to keep me down. I set a date with him for dinner. I hadn’t been on a date with a man since I don’t know when (I’m sure if I look on my Facebook post it’ll say, but I don’t have that kind of time to look) and I didn’t even know THIS one’s name, to boot! As our relationship continued, my son decided to move to West Virginia and I had no clue what to do with my house (by this time, I hated being in that house, especially by myself). I didn’t want to sell it - I even joked about turning it into a whore house on Facebook (which is probably why the cops keep going by). The house, while I didn’t like being there alone, is literally the only thing I have of value other than my charm and good looks (I’m still pondering the whorehouse idea). I wasn’t going to sell it. But even though there was no one living there, the money to keep it insured, keep the property tax payment current, the water hooked up, the heat kept on - it was draining my finances. I planned to rent it within the year, room by room (because my daddy didn’t raise a fool - I know just because things are going ok in a romance doesn’t mean they can’t go south quick). Getting the crap out was a different story. Work was being idiotic with the trucks STILL not arriving on time, and then Dollar General Corporate decided to pass the buck to us at store level on pricing errors. They made this “pledge” mandatory for employment, so I walked. Without having a job to fall back on.

Not the smartest move I made, but it certainly was the riskiest. Fortunately, I still had my retirement plans through Walmart and my various other employers (including Kristopher’s retirement plans). I cashed out my personal retirement plans and made the decision to use that money to hold me over until I got a new job. That was the plan. I refused to go back to retail - I’m done breaking my body for pennies. I wanted to work in an office - preferably away from people because people are stupid. And I kept getting rejection email after rejection email all summer - I was underqualified for office assistant jobs. I spent over half of my retail career in management - how is that underqualified? During all of the rejections and job applications, I continued with my original plan of just experiencing life as full as I could. I published a short story on my encounters with the “Spider Kingdom” during 2022 and was working on a romance novel in addition to putting the novel I wrote in high school into a more permanant format (a bunch of notebooks isn’t really good for posterity). I started this blog. Life was going as I had planned. Finally. I was in a good head space to actually make plans that would stick. I planned on raising chickens for meat - everyone around here has eggs for sale, but to my knowledge, they all buy their chicken meat at the grocery store. Even the meat locker doesn’t sell home grown chicken. And I know firsthand how to raise, slaughter and butcher the birds. My plan was to start small in July and increase production as word spread. I even aquired old cabinetry that I planned on repurposing into chicken houses.

Then the break-up. Once again, that stupid quote from Robert Burns’s poem “To a Mouse” comes back into my life.

To answer the question “What do you want your life to be like in 10 years”

As I said, I don’t think I’ll be alive at 57, but if I am, this is what I would like my life to be like:

*More fond and fun memories than heartaching ones. Despite recent events, there were more fond and fun memories of my relationship with my ex than heartaching ones.

*More successes than failures (cuz let’s face it, I ain’t got that great a track record, lol).

*Many amazing friends that I made on my own and won’t be afraid of losing if I break up with a man.

*To have completed my first bucket list and started the second one.

*Quiet. Cozy. Happy.

And if I do die before I hit 57, I want to have LIVED life instead of tolerating it.

Two to Tango

My daddy had a saying - it takes two people to fight or argue. Neither one is at fault and both are to blame. I never fully understood what he meant by that until recently as I recover from my recent heartbreak. My objection was he didn’t communicate with me and he used a trigger to manipulate me - that’s why I was so angry that night. But as I read through my journal all week and contemplate everything that happened throughout our relationship, he WAS communicating, just not in a way I understand.

I don’t read between the lines in personal relationships, so people need to be straight up with me. Yes, it might hurt my feelings or make me angry, but truth is rarely nice or pretty; truth just is. He communicated through his actions, which had I known how to interpret that communication style, I would have saved us both a shit ton of time and maybe we could still have been friendly with one another. I’m not at fault - I’m built the way I’m built through experience and how I’m naturally wired. He’s not at fault - he’s built the way he’s built through his experiences and how he’s naturally wired. The fault doesn’t lie with either of us.

But, we are both to blame. I told him long ago to be honest with me, to tell me things straight up; to be blunt. Throughout our early days, I got the feeling he was getting tired of me hanging around and I reminded him that if he needed space, to just let me know. I assured him my feelings wouldn’t be hurt - hell, I get sick of being around me sometimes - and I would give him the space he needed. He had said everything was fine between us, just work stuff, yet his actions dictated differently. I didn’t pursue the matter and he didn’t change his actions. And because neither of us were communicating to the other properly - from me resorting to the passive aggressive nonsense of moving my stuff out while he was gone from the house to have him finally hear what I was telling him, to him using a trigger to have me finally hear what he was telling me - we are both to blame for the break up.

I know I still love him - love isn’t a light switch that can be turned on or off. If I didn’t love him, I wouldn’t be confused on why he couldn’t just tell me he wanted me gone - I just wouldn’t care one way or the other. I wouldn’t have spent the three days after the break up so angry - I would have been like, “Next!” I love him. But, I know that I can’t be in a romantic relationship with him - or anyone else for that matter - until I can unlearn some of the toxic things I’ve picked up over the years. Things like picking up hobbies I have no interest in, just so I can spend time with someone I care about - doing whatever they want to do, even though I hate doing it (playing first person shooters or Magic: The Gathering), yet they don’t join me in my hobbies because “they don’t like doing it.” I need to unlearn that. Things like only eating things the other likes and never eating what I like (I never thought I would miss vegetables or liver this much). I need to unlearn that. Things like not letting my fear rule my thinking - past experiences or not. It’s not fair to paint everyone with the same brush, and as much as I tried not to, I wound up doing it anyway. I need to unlearn that.

Not only do I need to unlearn the toxic traits, I need to really spend some time rediscovering myself. Before I had a stroke, before I even met my late husband, I was a fiercely independent woman. There was nothing I couldn’t do, or figure out how to do - it was a trait my father encouraged (until I rebelled at the ripe old age of 33). Even after I married, I was still a very independent woman - so much so it was a source of contention between my late husband and I. After my stroke, though, I had gone from independence to dependence. I was still determined to get most of my brain power back, but my late husband, through the goodness of his heart, I’m sure, coddled me and soon I became more dependent on others. I need to get my independence back - my sense of ‘I got this shit.’

Maybe once I unlearn the toxic traits and find my bad ass self again I’ll find a man for a partner. Until then, the most I’m looking for are friends - with benefits, maybe - and for now, that’s all I want.

The Birds and the Bees

School is back in session around the country and for those of you with 4th/5th/6th graders you know what’s going to be coming home this year. Sex Ed permission slips! Yay! Do your children a favor - do not use made up names for body parts and let them know what happens after they reach a certain age. Why? Here’s my story:

****cue Law and Order music****

BUM BUM

AUGUST 2022

So, here’s a very real frustration for me: the uterus.

If you were born with one, you go through the beginnings of you life without a care in the world - you don’t even know what it is because your parents give you some dumb story about cabbages and storks because of the shame religions and prudes put on human reproduction. You go into the fifth grade thinking your mom ate cabbage and that grew a baby in her tummy and she needed to go to the hospital to meet the stork so she can get your baby brother.

Then the teacher plays the video…

Oh, HELL NO! I’m gonna bleed? From my PETUNIA?!? What kind of messed up shit is THIS? Do the boys have to bleed from their ding dong? No? Then what the HELL! Waitaminute, I have to shove a wad of towels in my pants, and your only concern is for me not to flush it down the toilet? I’M BLEEDING OUT! LIke, THOUSANDS OF GALLONS of blood once a month, and everyone is ok with this?!?

Grown ups are stupid. I ain’t bleeding. I’ll just cross my legs together like when I have to pee. That doesn’t work? Well why the hell NOT? Because it isn’t connected?!? IT’S IN THE SAME PLACE! I wet my pants, it’s on my underwear; if I bleed, it’s on my underwear. See? Same place.

…What the hell is a vagina? I thought THAT was what I was peeing out of! So where is the pee coming from?

I was sent home with a note for my parents. And my step mother had “the talk” with me. Not the in depth talk, like exactly how babies are made, but the functions of the female body and all the wonder that it is.

It’s crap is what it is. Getting little things that stick out of your chest only to get them caught on door jambs, which sends THOUSANDS of needles shooting throughout your chest and you swear you’re dying because you KNOW you tore your baby booby right off of your body and you’re bleeding down the front of your shirt. Wake up one morning, and you have a frigging vertical mustache growing between your legs - scares the shit out of you when you first see it because you think a mouse or a tarantula got into your underwear. Not to mention hair in your armpits! Nothing like stealing your dad’s razor and scraping it off only to get blindsided by your smell. What the hell DIED in my ARMPIT, and why didn’t I smell it before? Oh great, now I have to wear DEODORANT?!? Why can’t I just leave the hair so I don’t have to smell it?

…What’s a hippy?

Over the summer into sixth grade was the worst summer I ever had. My boobs sprang up over night from little speed bumps to frigging grapefruits. I was given a hand-me-down bra and told to wear it. What kind of contortionist do you have to be to put the damned thing on?!? I swear, I dislocated my shoulder TWICE before I said forget this crap. I did the clasps and pulled it over my head like a shirt. I didn’t know the point of wearing it; it was like wearing a tank top. Why would I need to wear this contraption when a tank top works just as good? Sure as hell wouldn’t have dislocated my shoulder trying to put it on, that’s for sure. The bra stayed in my underwear drawer.

That summer, my mom had bought me a new outfit and after digging the bra out and putting it on at her demand, my uterus, who had been so quiet for 12 years, decided to introduce herself to me. In front of my mom’s new boyfriend - whom we were meeting for the first time. I don’t know who saw it first, him or Mom, but I noticed I felt wet all of a sudden - like I peed my pants. I looked down and saw the black and white polka dot shorts were changing color - specifically, red. The shorts were ruined. I ran into the house bawling, not just from embarrassment, but the fact the new clothes I had just gotten permission to wear on the first day of school the following week was destroyed. My mom came to check on me and I told her I hated being a girl - boobs and periods were stupid, bras were dumb and I just hated all of it. My mother’s words of wisdom?

“It gets worse.”

Kill me now. Mom wasn’t kidding. Apparently my uterus’s introduction to me was so shocking to HER, that she didn’t speak to me for TWO WHOLE YEARS. That’s right, I had my period once when I was 12 and didn’t get it again until I was almost 15. And my uterus was shy - my periods were so light, a pantyliner was all I ever needed, if I needed anything at all for the three days it lasted. They were so light, my dad and step-mom thought to reassure me that it was normal not to have my period until I was 16 - I guess they thought I felt bad for not having it after an episode of The Cosby Show when it was Vanessa’s turn at “woman’s day.” I informed them that I already knew that and explained my periods to them. That was when I would come home from school and find a pile of used pads on my bed. Not heavily used, but enough for me to know they were. But not by me. Toilet paper shoved in my underwear was enough to handle my periods. A single maxi pad (that was all that was available to me back then) would last me the ENTIRE TIME - I wasn’t about to wear a pad for three days straight.

Over the following months, my uterus became more comfortable with me, and my periods became heavier. The toilet paper trick wasn’t working anymore. I wore a maxi pad for the first time during the summer after I turned 16. Gross. Nothing like feeling like you’re wearing a frigging soggy diaper all day. And the SMELL! I was reassured no one could smell it, but every time I sat 'Indian-style,' on the floor, I caught the whiff of dried blood and death. I was too afraid to change it - I didn’t want a pile of heavily used pads dumped on my bed - so I took to spritzing perfume 'down there' until I thought it would be ok to change the pad.

Changing the pad was an unpleasant adventure in of itself. Remember the mustache between the legs? There’s nothing quite like the feeling of your pubic hair getting YANKED OUT when you change the pad because it got stuck to the tape…somehow. To this day, I have yet to figure out how that happens. I had had enough of this crap. There has to be a better way…

Tampon commercials to the rescue! No odor. No leakage. You can do ANYTHING when you use tampons!

I’m sold. I sneak into my parents’ bathroom and swipe a couple of my step-mom’s tampons. If only I stole the instructions too…but the commercials show the girls talking with their friends about tampons, so that’s what I did. I learned a lot. Like a vagina is actually called 'the fuck hole.'

…The what now? The hole guys put their dicks into and make you pregnant.

Ewww! GROSS! They PEE with that thing! That’s never happening to me…

My friend’s further instruction was just as informative. You just stick it in the fuck hole and you’re good.

…So, it’s like a plug? SWEET!

No. Not sweet. PAINFUL. And confusing. How is the plastic enclosed cotton supposed to absorb the blood? And how in the hell am I supposed to wear CLOTHES with this thing hanging out of me?!? I figured out how the applicator worked and the pain on inserting the cotton plug further hurt immensely. Why in the hell would women use these things?!? Taking it out was worse. Nothing like grabbing a few pubes with the string then YANKING the tampon AND pubes out. Not to mention there wasn’t much blood in or on it. Worthless. My friend asked me about it days later and I told her it hurt.

Apparently I lost my virginity. To a tampon. That’s why it hurt because losing your virginity is supposed to hurt. I didn’t even know I HAD a virginity! That was when I decided to keep those kinds of questions to myself. Like most things, I’ll figure it out or research it myself. And that worked for awhile. I still wasn’t crazy about having a uterus and the fact she never stayed consistent. Some months were light, some were normal, some were heavy. Always 3 days long - to the hour, that’s how punctual my uterus was when she stopped throwing her hissy fit. She wasn’t very punctual on WHEN she threw her fit, but as long as I knew when it was gonna end, I was good. Me and my uterus got along fine.

Until I turned 38. It seemed my uterus was forgetting what she was supposed to do. When I missed my period, I freaked out - Kristopher did NOT want biological children - and the last time my uterus didn’t speak to me, I was pregnant. Three pregnancy tests later, my uterus screamed and the red river flowed like a frigging dam broke. This was during the time when EVERYONE was out of tampons and pads. Kristopher came home with pantyliners and thought HE was going to convince ME that they were pads. I shoved the box in his face - PANTYLINER in feminine script across the bottom of the brand name. He had to squint to see it and then proceeded to vent how feminine hygiene manufacturers did that shit to make the men look bad. I was back to shoving half a roll of toilet paper down my pants. Kristopher took to sleeping in his office - God forbid any blood got on him while we slept…

*** I feel the need to interject this thought here. Men are frigging STOOPID when it comes to menstruation. They don’t want kids, yet fear the blood time when it shows up. DUDES! If she’s bleeding, she’s most likely NOT pregnant. If anything, those of you who don’t want kids should be treating your bleeding women as QUEENS during the blood-letting. Yeah, she may be cranky - just give her chocolate or whatever else is her favorite treat - and tell her how beautiful and majestic she is cuz if you had to go through it, you. would. die. ***

Anyhoo, the whole period thing got worse after my stroke when I started taking my blood thinner. I didn’t know human body could expel THAT much blood without passing out, much less not dying. My tampon and pad budget increased because I had to use BOTH just to keep my clothes from getting ruined. Not to mention that I had to relearn my impending doom cycle all over again! Which put a HUGE dampener on my sex life - if you can’t predict the cycle, it’s a crap shoot as to when it’s safe to not bother with protection; and since I had yet found a condom that didn’t make me itch or smell gross from my nether regions, I was basically in a loving, yet sexless marriage. Well, we had Bill Clinton’s version of not having sex, but it wasn’t like before.

My uterus and hormones took 2 years to even themselves out and become somewhat predictable. Again, all normal according to the doctor. I got a second opinion. I went to WebMD - which I should have done in the first place and saved myself the $85 office visit (and that was WITH insurance). Another year and me and my uterus were in sync once again; I knew when she was going to throw her hissy fit for not having a bun in the oven. If I wanted to beat Kristopher or my son to death for eating the last of my favorite cereal or using the last of the body wash, my period was 2 weeks away. When I was feeling especially amorous and Kristopher took to locking himself in his office, I knew I was a week away from the blood bath and needed to make sure I had enough supplies.

*** I think I’ll inject this thought here for the ladies. Now, I know I have no scientific basis for this, nor do I have a degree in human biology, but I seriously think that when a woman is exceptionally flirty or sensual, when she normally isn’t, it means she’s ovulating. It kinda makes sense since reproducing is an instinct; we ARE, at our core, animals, and when a female animal is in heat, it means she’s ovulating. Just my opinion, take it for what it is. ***

After Kristopher died, obviously my periods became wonky again. I hadn’t taken my medications for over a year which made my periods more like what happened in my twenties and thirties (to which I would like to point out, no ill effects to stopping them cold turkey and no stroke from not taking them - I serious think my brain had no idea what to do when I wasn’t at DefCon 1 all day like I was at Walmart, just sayin’). Since I wasn’t feeling poorly physically, I wasn’t worried about it.

Until Christmas last year (2021). My uterus decided to give me a present by refreshing herself TWICE - once to start the month off with a blood bath (my usual time) and again two frigging hours after I buried my cat on Christmas night! Nothing like rubbing pounds of salt into open wounds… I started 2022 thinking twice a month was going to be my new normal (I frigging HATE that phrase) and practically stockpiled tampons and pads. February rolled around and I realized I hadn’t heard from my uterus - which made me panic like I did last time until I realized…I havne’t had sex in 3 years. I cannot POSSIBLY be pregnant - and no, I am not the proper vessel for the anti-Christ, so no immaculate conception. After the idiotic self induced heart attack, I just went about my life when in April, I noticed I hadn’t touched my supplies.

I counted the months. Four. How many months do I have to go to be done with this shit? I saved myself some money and Googled. Twelve. 12 months until I hit menopause.

I told my uterus to keep her big trap shut.

In May, my uterus threw the biggest temper tantrum ANY living creature could throw:

*Excruciating lower back pain - the kind that requires 3 heating pads, a purring cat and the fetal position just to find relief. I had none. I did squats and back arches behind the checkout counter and the remaining cat was NOT a snuggler so I was SOL when I got home from work.

*Abdominal cramps - the kind that felt like a white hot poker was stabbed through one side of your gut, and just for good measure, raced back and forth like you were being cut in half with a dull saw blade. Only women who experienced normal birthing contractions would understand what that is. I did not have normal birthing contractions, nor had I ever experienced ANY type of menstrual cramping. I had to ask my little sister - who is 14 years younger than I am - about them cuz I thought I was going to die.

*Screwed up bowel movements - the kind that, even though you have eaten NOTHING for a day and a half, somehow your intestines felt a purge was necessary. With the explosive kind of gas warfare to boot. Even the DOG wouldn’t come near me! I was the pooping-est, fartiest person alive. Thank God I still had candles left and I had two days off from work so my uterus could get it out of her system.

*Feelings of affection - the kind that if there was a man in my life, a locked door wouldn’t have helped him. Hell, a locked door surrounded by anti-personnel mines, a fire breathing dragon, acid spitting spiders, and a horde of flesh-eating zombies wouldn’t have stopped me from getting to said man and having my unspeakable, lustfully wicked way with him. I can tell you, cold showers do not help with that feeling so whomever came up with that idea - you’re an idiot.

And that was all BEFORE my uterus unleashed a red river that rivaled the one in Egypt during Moses’s time! Two weeks. TWO WEEKS of heavy bleeding. So heavy I went through a regular tampon in an hour and my overnight pad was soaked through. So heavy, I started getting dizzy. I called both my cardiologist AND my primary doctor to see if my medication was causing the blood flow (which it had when I initially started the blood thinner in 2016, but didn’t when I started again in 2021) and was it normal. My cardiologist said to keep taking the blood thinner (crap); and my primary, after performing more tests (well, the ones I could afford anyway), more pap smears, more looking into the cavern that is my vagina, found nothing wrong. The primary did say my blood tests showed I was becoming anemic and I was slightly malnourished. What was my diet like?

Coffee. Coffee was my primary diet with a smattering of veggies and chicken tossed in for variety - along with pizza, cuz lets be honest, I have to have SOMETHING unhealthy. Both doctors told me to eat more and my primary said to take a one a day. My cardiologist loosened up diet restrictions - instead of 3 ounces of red meat a week, I was able to have it twice during shark week. I was told by both of them that if I was still bleeding uncontrollably after 24 hours to get my butt to the ER. Yeah…not gonna happen. I bought the Flinstones vitamins because the grown-up ones make me constipated, more supplies and some hamburger. I popped the vitamin as soon as I got to my car and made the juiciest hamburger I’ve ever made - which is to say it was ran through a warm room (it was very rare). My uterus continued to vomit blood like a dying vampire, but the dizziness was gone, so I wasn’t worried about it. I called the doctors to give them a sit-rep two days later; while still heavier than what I’m used to, my period was manageable and the dizziness was gone outside of the usual vertigo I get when standing up too quick. Three months later and I’m still getting my period for two weeks out of the month. Maybe. Who knows anymore. I asked my doctor at my checkup if this was normal.

“Yup. Sucks, don’t it?”

Why is it every female of menopausal age DELIGHTS in telling me how this stage of my uterus’s life isn’t unicorns and rainbows? What I find annoying about this whole process is NO ONE SAYS ANYTHING! Sure, you’ll send us home with permission slips for our parent’s to sign allowing you to tell us we’ll be bleeding for most of our lives when we’re in the 5th grade, but you won’t tell us what happens when our bodies are done making babies? Because that’s certainly not pertinent information…

PRESENT DAY:

Seriously folks, explain the whole damn thing to them. Its vagina, or clitoris. Not petunia. It’s a penis, not a dick, ding-a-ling, one-eyed snake… why do we have so many names for a penis but one for a vagina? This is BIOLOGY. These are our BODY PARTS. There is no shame in your kids knowing the names of their body parts - even when they shout clitoris in church (trust me, they do it for shock value). There is no shame in our bodies and it’s high time society’s puritanical standards get loosened up for a nano-second.

Left or Right?

Two weeks ago I was figuring out what spice I wanted to put on the bullet I was about to eat. I wanted out. I had just told my only child that if he didn’t uphold his side of the deal he made with me, I was going to kick him out - I’ve never said it to him before, and I was certain he was going to fuck around and find out how serious I was being. Kicking my child out, possibly never seeing him again or him dying from something happening to him on the streets - I couldn’t bear the thought of it, and it would be my fault. I was a shitty mother and coddled my son. I didn’t allow him to make mistakes; I didn’t allow him to fail or learn from his failures. Oh, there was discipline - he’s been grounded I don’t know how many times in his life - but the second he became a nuisance to his grandfather or step-father, it was always suggested to un-ground him. And to keep the peace (I had balked at the notion of “shock parole” and was met with hostility), I gave in to the demand. I’m not excusing it because at the end of the day, I’m his mother. I failed him - by moving him back into my home; by not following up; by making excuses for him to myself. Lies, really, because I know how lazy he can be - typically doing just enough to get away with not doing a good job, or screwing it up so he doesn’t get asked to do it again (this trait has GOT to be ingrained in male DNA because every male in my life has done this to me). So anything that happens to him once he becomes homeless is on MY head. Because I didn’t raise him right, and because I kept telling lies to avoid doing what I knew I should have done as a mother.

I wanted out. I had a stressful week starting with my vagina puking out my uterus. I sat on the toilet to pee and the red river flowed as it had never flowed before. Which surprised me because my period had finished up a week prior. I thought a miscarriage, but kinda have to have sex for that (I hadn’t gotten laid since before my last period) and there was absolutely no pain involved. It doesn’t really matter what’s wrong with me - it’s not like I can afford to fix it anyway, even with insurance (gotta love the American health care system) and all the doctor will say is “Oh, that’s normal at your age.” I know there’s something wrong with me - cancer or something, because let’s face it, I don’t exactly live the most pure of lifestyles - not gaining weight while increasing my food intake and decreasing my activity level is a clue something ain’t right, I don’t care what my blood tests show. Even if it is cancer, there’s nothing I can do about it - no would I, because I believe in accepting the consequences of your choices. I know cigarettes can cause cancer; my father, mother, maternal grandparents, and numerous aunts and uncles died of cancer. I knew the risks when I made the decision to keep smoking. So I had been living my life as if each day was my last. And was faced with the judgmental opinions of others. I was tired of everyone CONSTANTLY telling me how disappointed they are in me. In addition to the “red river,” my sinuses weren’t draining and putting so much pressure on my jaw, that my ears were hurting. Thursday night I was doing whatever I could to get the pain under control so I could sleep since I had to get up early the next morning to get a car part and take my car to the mechanic to get it fixed.

I wanted out. I thought my boyfriend and I were in a pretty good space as far as our relationship went. Until Friday afternoon when I came home and his pissed mist hit me full force. I asked why he was so angry at me and he said he was having a bad day. Now, I grew up with passive aggressive anger - I’m even guilty of using it myself - and I can tell when someone is angry with me. Especially whenever said person stomps through the house, knowing I’m in there, but walks normal as they go outside. Slamming cabinet doors is an indication as well. I wanted to ask him why he was so angry with me; I wanted to apologize for the mess I had left that morning and explain why I didn’t get to it like I usually do; but his pissed mist was strong. It was the kind that if I had said one little word, I was gonna get a punch in the face (he’s never hit me, but others have in the same scenario so I was erring on the side of personal experience). I agonized over what to do when I saw he had left his .22 pistol on the counter.

I want out. I’m tired of everyone thinking I’m perfect and when I fall short it’s hell.

I want out. I’m tired of having to be the bad guy when someone isn’t even trying very hard.

I want out. I’m tired of having things pop up that I can’t get fixed because healthcare is stupidly expensive.

I want out. I’m tired of my uterus. I don’t even want it anymore, but I can’t do anything about it because of the stupidity that is the religious Reicht.

I want out. I’m tired of giving grace and understanding to people who just take advantage of it. I’m tired of putting trust in people just to have them stab me in the back. I’m tired of being completely honest with people only to just have them use it against me. I’m tired of having a sense of integrity and fairness that gets thrown back into my face as if I spit in theirs.

I want out.

I picked his gun up as he slammed the door going back outside. I cried as I heard his diesel start up and pull away as I walked up the stairs into his attic. I could barely breathe from sobbing so much as I put the gun barrel towards my mouth. I have no alternative. I can’t live with myself if I have to forcibly remove my son from my house. I can’t live with “Him” if he refuses to talk to me and tell me why he’s so angry with me. I can’t live if I can’t even make enough money to survive. I can’t live in a world where I can’t be myself without judgment from the people I care about. The only option left for me is death.

“Please God. Please. I can’t hear you anymore. Please, tell me what to do. I can’t keep going on like this. He hates me, I can’t kick my son out, no one will hire me. Please! Tell me what to do!” I took a deep breath and angled the pistol so the bullet would kill me instantly and not leave me brain-dead with half my skull missing). I squeezed the trigger.

I guess here is where y’all that that was when God decided to talk to me. I could never remember which way the safety worked on the pistol, no matter how many times “Him” showed me. I lowered the gun, sobbing still, but with resolve. The headache I had been feeling all week had subsided. The bitch that was locked away finally escaped her cage. I stood up, dried my tears and walked back downstairs and tossed the gun on the island. I knew I was at a crossroad. And something I had told my tenant when he kept bringing in “free” junk that he never did anything with popped into my head. The bitch whispered,

“If it will not serve you in your current goals or future plans, let it go. It does you no good hanging onto it.”

It was something I had said when I had gotten rid of things from my house last month during a garage sale. None of that stuff would serve me in the next chapter of my life - why do I want to keep it? But, does God really want me to treat people like that? I ignored the advice - mainly because it was from the bitch and she’s the most vile, hateful thing on the planet. I gave my word to my son he had the month of September to straighten up or get out. I told “Him” if he couldn’t understand why the house was messy that day when he got home, I’d have my stuff out by the following Tuesday. “Him” never showed he understood, nor ever talked to me about it. I missed my word with “Him” by two days - if his ass wouldn’t have come home early both days, I would have had everything out.

That’s not true - I wanted him to say something so we could talk about it. Not so we could salvage the relationship, but so we could at the very least remain neighborly.

That mindset backfired horribly.

After this last week with the break-up with “Him,” moving back to my house, dealing with what hadn’t gotten done that should have gotten done A LONG time ago when my son moved back home, to having a hormonal temper tantrum last night because I couldn’t get comfortable to sleep, to treating my son and another tenant like shit because of it after waking up this morning to find my stuff thrown on my lawn (stuff that “Him” wouldn’t let me take out of the house), to me losing my wallet and accusing “Him” of stealing it; to me agonizing over whether to apologize to “Him” for the accusation (I found my wallet) I realized something. Yes, the bitch may be out, but something she rarely cared about is something I now hold dear - integrity. If I make a mistake, I own up to the mistake; I don’t make excuses or blame someone else. Not gonna lie, it took me 10 minutes to text “Him” that I found my wallet and I apologized for accusing him of stealing it - it would have been easier to just ignore it all instead of swallowing my pride and owning up to a fact that “Him” knows very well. I would lose my head if it weren’t attached.

SO…the crossroad I’m at right now is this: Do I want to learn to control the bitch and only bring her out when necessary, or let her run rampant leaving destruction in her wake? How do I want to spend my life as a PERSON? Do I want to be the Walmart bitch for whatever time I have left? That route won’t afford me much longer to live, to be honest - way too stressful always watching your back, thinking everyone is going to fuck you over. Or do I want to be the doormat that I’ve been for most everyone for the last six years? That route didn’t do my dad much good with my youngest sister.

Is it possible to combine the two?

The fact that I felt better when I apologized to “Him” for accusing him of something he didn’t do and when I apologized to my son and tenant for taking my anger at a situation out on them (which is something the bitch would NEVER do - she apologizes to no one), I think I’m going to try combining the two.

I hope this is the last personal development crossroad I come to. This shit is getting exhausting.

The End

I have lost my army.

No, they didn’t die. I lost custody of them. By way of a break-up. I’m sure the story going around is I abandoned them, or I didn’t pay for them or their belongings - which is NOT entirely true. I never asked for a tiny chicken coop to be bought - I had plans for repurposing old cabinetry - and I never asked for a bigger coop to be made. I only asked where can I put a bigger run since it was his property. I still planned on repurposing the old cabinetry. I bought the chickens - I have the receipts. I took care of them - the entire frigging town has witnessed it. I bought their feed, both initial and subsequent food stuffs (layer feed was recently purchased - not by me - and can’t be fed to them for another three or four months) - I have the receipts. I bought their necessary grit - I have the receipts. I was the one that took care of them while they were in the house during the hot times. I was the one who checked on them every two hours for food, water and to give them greens, iced treats. What I didn’t buy was the initial pine shavings - I was going to use shredded paper. I was actually getting ready to shred another batch when I got a text about the purchase.

So, yes, I paid for them. They are mine. However, it was his idea for putting a fan outside for the hotter days (he purchased it - the second one is mine). It was his water usage that went up in for their care (chickens go through lots of water when they are young - mainly cuz the dingbats scratch at the dish, or they knock it over when they try to jump on top of it to play “King of the Mountain”). It was his electricity usage that went up for having the fans run 24/7 too keep the chickens comfortable.

Even though I was vehemently told I was no longer allowed on his property, I have driven by often to check on the chickens - they are still alive and looking well. And despite the fact that the chickens were my idea, and despite the fact he hates my guts, he is still continuing to build their “Big Bird Barracks” (he calls it a “chicken shack”) - at least I am assuming so since I can hear him pounding away at it and it’s still standing. It’ll be a nice home for them - roomy and with every amenity a chicken could want. I just hope the chickens don’t expect him to communicate with them like I did, because I can say from personal experience that ain’t gonna happen. I do miss my chickens - even though I think they are all roosters. They were my sanity - my contemplation spot on life when things started going downhill. But I know he will take care of them.

SO…this is the end of the chicken army story. Gonna say it was much shorter than I thought it would be and not nearly as exciting. Hell, even the spiders at my house right now are all like, “Nope. Ain’t messing with this woman - I don’t care how much the King is offering in bounty.” I still squish them - they’re in my house. And I’ve taken to killing the ones that look like brown recluse or black widows outside. Usually I leave them because outside is their home. Not anymore. I have no regard for where they are. If I’m working in that area, they better scram before my boot drops on their ass. I am going to say the war has definitely ended. And as with all wars, there is no winner.

Strange Days…

Something I’ve noticed during the last couple of weeks is how the spiders are getting smaller and smaller. And they’re showing up in weird places. I’m not talking about more in underwear drawers or coffee machines, but just the most odd places. One hitched a ride on my windshield into Manhattan - he was just chilling on the lee side of the wiper blade. How the little bastard wound up INSIDE my car is what puzzles me because I closed the windows when I went into the store and the little shit stain was sitting on my steering wheel when I got into the car.

“Oh my God, you drive so frigging SLOOOWWW! How hasn’t ANYONE been able to deal with you?!?” ~hence why I squished it. It was rude.

He’s a smear now. And really, I’m not interested in having any “Benedict Arachnid” as a spy for the Spider Kingdom. It wasn’t like it did me any good last time, so I’m not wasting my resources.

The spiders are even getting into my garden! Well, that’s not unusual, really, but when they encompass ENTIRE tomatoes in their webs - tomatoes that are perfect for picking and using - it’s a bit suspicious. I almost let the army loose in the garden to annihilate the eight-legged freaks. “Him” said no. The last thing he needed was seeing me running around his half acre trying to catch three chickens with most of the town camped outside to watch the show.

Don’t mess with the ‘maters…

“Him” knows me entirely too well…

So I will have to wait. And continue slaughtering spiders. For those of you who adore spiders, save me the whole “oh they kill bugs” nonsense. They do not. We have flies all over the place, we have lady beetles all over the place; and my garden? Grasshoppers Galore (sounds like a Bond movie ho…). So, no. They do not do much of anything to mitigate the other insect infestations. They even allow the grasshoppers to copulate for DAYS on end - right in front of them! Frigging voyeurs…

I’ve also noticed how Nibbles has been getting much more vocal lately. Her meows are even starting to sound like words like “mom” and “food.” It’s typically in the morning right before I get out of bed. If you want to know what it sounds like, watch the ‘Family Guy’ episode where Stewie gets extra clingy with Lois. Some mornings I just want to punt Her Royal Ass across the room. But I don’t. She’s just doing what a cat does. Now, the one I don’t understand is Buddy. He’s gotten more growly and more barky over the last few weeks, for now reason. Even when “Him” is out of town for the night on a job, Buddy has never been this bad. And because Buddy is more growly and barky, Nibbles doesn’t seem to want to have anything to do with him - they have been the best of friends since Buddy was brought home a month after we took her in, so it’s odd. She’s taken to spending her time in the spare bedroom and only ventures out sporadically - usually two hours before meal time.

It’s all just…strange.

Army of White

So this past week, the temperatures have been hovering around Satan’s-butthole-after-a-wet-fart degrees here in Kansas. For those of you unfamiliar with Kansas weather and Satan’s butthole, let me just tell you its frigging HOT. And wet. There is so much humidity that you need to grow gills just to breathe. And because of that, graduation of my soldiers’ basic training has been postponed. Meaning it’s too damned hot to get the bigger coop built and to let the birds run loose.

BUT! I did give them names. Sassy’s death reminded me that life isn’t promised to anyone or anything so rather than wait for the ceremony of graduation and releasing them into the big barracks with their names spoken out loud by their commander to give them legitimacy, I gave them names as I chucked them into the inside pen we fashioned for the week. May I present to you Frankie, Pearl and No-Name (I call her Bitch, but I have littles who frequently visit and their mother frowns on them cussing - poor kids).

Left to right: Frankie, No-Name, Pearl

Frankie is named such because I seriously think “she” is a “he” because the personality is very dominant, the comb is much more pronounced, and as you can see the waddle area is much more red than the others. The name “Frankie” is also uni-sex - it’ll work for both boys and girls, so if I’m wrong, no harm to how the soldier identifies. Frankie was (and still is) the biggest of the soldiers with his stocky frame and posture. He don’t slouch, that’s for sure.

No-Name (aka Bitch) is named such because her personality hasn’t quite come through yet, but she does like pecking people. Not as in, “oopsie, I pecked your finger by mistake when I was getting the grass” kind of pecking either. She purposefully pecks fingers and likes to play it off as an accident. She mainly does this when I’m trying to move her from one area to another, so it could be her way of saying she doesn’t want to go. No-Name was the smallest of the troops when I brought them home, and after Sassy’s death, she seems to be taking over her comrade in arms namesake.

Pearl is named such because she is all white. Not a speck of blonde, black, gray, or anything in between is in her coloring. She’s also a prissy soldier, in the fact she keeps herself pristine. She grooms herself constantly and carries herself with a quiet confidence. Like, she knows she’s a pretty hen and makes no excuses for it. She owns her prettiness. On the other hand, she’s also a bit of a klutz, but that trait has only surfaced recently - I’m hoping she outgrows it.

And that’s the army. Nothing too exciting this week since the temps are ungodly hot and every living thing in Kansas is just trying to survive the heat until next week. I do have to clean their pen today. That’ll prove interesting as Nibbles has taken to sitting outside the temporary barracks, faking like she hasn’t been trying to get under the door whenever I walk by.

Am I the only one who thinks my life has turned into “Animal Farm?”

Sassy

This week has been a sad week for me and my army. After a mysterious illness passed through the barracks, one soldier passed away in her sleep on Tuesday night. My only guess is it was food poisoning as the littlest soldier didn’t get sick at all (the others bullied her away from the snacks). I was certain I had cleaned their barracks thoroughly, however my troops like hiding their rewards and I haven’t found all their hiding places. As their commander, I nursed them as best as I could. Two made it. One did not. She didn’t make it to graduation, but I had a name already for her.

Sassy

The name described her well. She had no fear of man nor beast. When my bodyguard, Buddy, would follow me to the barracks and get too close, Sassy would stand at attention and try to peck him through the wire.

Buddy was not amused.

Sassy would even peck me, her Commander-In-Chief, when I tried to shepherd her into the barracks so I could get them new ground to scourge…I mean forage in. Whenever there was fresh grass offered, Sassy was the first one there and she would buffalo her comrades to get to the dandelion leaves first. Whenever something new was offered as a reward…I mean, treat, Sassy was the first one to taste it.

Her adventurous spirit gave me many a “shake my head” moments. Two weeks after I drafted the troops…I mean, brought them home, Sassy was the first to jump on top of the mess hall…I mean, the feeder. She even taught the other trainees to do it. Any stick that wound up in the barracks, Sassy would use as a perch and taught the others how to hop on it. Of course the moment I tried to remove the “perch” I got a few pecks on my hands.

Despite her attitude towards myself and Buddy and her penchant to boss her fellow soldiers around, Sassy also had a soft side. When the illness started with the first soldier, Sassy kept the it company as they rested in the afternoon. When the sick soldier slept, Sassy would sit next to it, alert and on edge, ready to attack any who dared to ambush her sick friend. She did the same for the second soldier who came down with the illness. Even when she was starting to get sick, she would stand guard over her comrades and peck my hand as I nursed them to health. Her feistiness and adventurous spirit will be missed by us all.

There may not be a post next Saturday as that is the day the soldiers have their final training mission before graduation…I mean, the chickens will be moving into the Big Chicken coop and they’ll have their first taste of free-range.

Bigger is Always Better

So the spider kill…I mean, the chicks are about a smidge over a month old now. Well, it’s been 5 weeks since I brought them home from the store. Lord! They grew fast. Their original coop was supposedly supposed to fit four full-grown chickens. Yeah, only if you want your soldiers fighting amongst themselves for space. I needed to add larger space for them and fast. Luckily for me, I was taught to save every usable piece of scrap lumber I create or find. And use it, I did.

I built an addition onto the barracks.

It looks pretty ghetto, but it works. The chicks love the extra space and access to whatever bugs have been ticking them off. I’ve never seen chickens attack an insect with such ferocity! Like, the chicks were in their little space and the bugs were outside the fence, saying “Oh big bad chickens! Can’t get me can you?”

Well…they got gotten. The neighbor kids have taken to bringing over insects to feed to the soldiers. So much so, they developed a touch of chicken constipation. To help combat that, I gave them some watermelon scraps and asked the kids to ask me before they are given any more. Did my soldiers let a little constipation stop them? Absolutely not! They gobbled up the watermelon, pooped, and continued to attack the bugs.

Such good little soldiers! They’re prodigies, really. They know what they need to do and by golly, they’re gonna do it!

Even when their Drill Instructor calls them “Chicken Nugget,” “Chicken Tender,” “Fried Chicken,” and “Sunday Dinner.” Once they pass basic training and get moved to the bigger coop, they will need proper names befitting their personalities. I have a few in mind, but will have to wait for the transition ceremony.

Just as soon as I get the bigger coop and run built. I cannot wait to get started because the Spider King isn’t pulling any punches this year. He continues to throw his minions at me. He must be running out of minions because the spiders I’m squishing are getting smaller and smaller. OH! And he’s enlisted the aid of the ANT ARMADA! And the worst battalion of the Ant Armada; the little tiny ones - you know, those little fuckers that get into the sugar bowl. Messing with my sugar is low, but what do I expect from the Spider Kingdom? He must be getting desperate.

Good. My soldiers will annihilate him.

Oh Lord, I AM losing my mind, aren’t I?

Can Life Get More Insane?

So for the last few weeks life has kept me fairly busy - repairing the moldy and gross wall; putting the siding up; insulating the interior; living with a dying air conditioner; raising a spider killing army - you know, the basics of living. Why just last week was spent being sleep deprived, what with all the storms we had, me fretting over my tomato plants (four of which were knocked over by the wind…stupid wind…), and trying to survive hot nights without decent a/c. Thankfully all plants survived and my peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers are thriving. So much so I had to get to canning the cucumbers into pickles so we didn’t lose our crop. Which led to bouncing between continuing renovations and canning in the sweltering heat like a madwoman. So when the trash pandas decided to make their presence known, it would be understandable that I’m laughing like a frigging lunatic here. I’m going to try to paint the picture, but I still haven’t recovered on my sleep so bear with me.

Two weeks ago, “Him” and I thought we were finally going round the bend because we kept hearing noises. Like, something or someone banging on the house sort of noises. We had dismissed it initially because of the storms. When our temperatures hit the triple digits, we knew something wasn’t right. Neither one of us could discern where the sounds came from and neither one of us was going to ask the other if they heard that. We’re getting up there in age and no one wants to admit were getting too old to trust our auditory senses. A week later, while we were tearing down the God-awful plywood off of the ceiling, I caved. Getting old be damned, the thumping was driving me nuts! “Him” didn’t hear anything and we went about our task. This was Saturday night. On Sunday, while “Him” ran to the store, I distinctly heard a knock on the front door. Buddy growling made me investigate. There was no one. Ordinarily I would have thought it was my niece playing a prank, as she is wont to do; however the timing would have indicated she would have been in bed. I mentioned it to “Him” when he came home, and we both chalked it up to neighborhood kids being bored on a Sunday night.

Parents, the following is why you need to know where your children are if you have any fondness for them.

“Him” and I got our showers and went to bed thinking nothing of the knocking Sunday night. Well, around midnight, “Him” bolted out of bed - nothing new, I do the same thing when I have a nighttime bathroom run and I don’t wanna. What clued me into it being nothing was the fact that Buddy didn’t growl or bark. Buddy is a good watch dog. A bumblebee farts within his hearing, and he growls to alert me to the potential chemical warfare of the pollinator.

….

Anyhoo, I only became concerned when Buddy growled as the front door opened and I heard a chamber round being loaded. As in, a slide being clicked to load a bullet. As in, a gun. Now, I knew “Him” had guns. I’m ok with guns - grew up around them my whole life before trigger locks and safes were a thing (we didn’t use either). I know how to shoot one and know that the only time you point a gun at a person is if you intend to kill them. It was that part that had me concerned. I didn’t want to clean blood off of the floor. I had enough to do without dealing with that messy nonsense. I got up to look for “Him” and met him coming through the door. We discussed why he was coming from outside, half naked, holding a pistol.

“Him” heard a noise at the windows. He didn’t find anything when he investigated, but he was going to stay up for a bit in case they came back. I went to bed and about 30 minutes later, so did he. This was around midnight - four hours after we went to bed. At 1:30 in the morning, Buddy growled first and “Him” bolted out of bed and left the room. The door opened and closed, loudly; which set Buddy off in a barking frenzy and he bolted from the bed to assist. Since “Him” was armed with a weapon and Buddy could bark anyone to death, I decided to head to the bathroom to take care of business. Nibbles was there to inform me that she was hungry and I was starving her to death and since we were all up, she needed sustenance. I checked her kibble bowl, scolded her she had plenty, and again met “Him” at the front door - this time he had a bigger weapon. Don’t ask what it was, I have no clue. It was bigger than a pistol, smaller than a shotgun. And it was completely surreal seeing “Him” carry it around so non-nonchalantly; like he was bringing in groceries or something.

Again, there was nothing. The neighbor happened to be outside and “Him” asked if the neighbor had seen anything. Nope. We discussed more of what could be knocking on the windows: we both decided it couldn’t be critters because the windows were too high up from the ground. We both figured it was a tweaker (someone strung out on drugs; a common occurrence in small towns) and they moved one. And because I didn’t hear the noises he had heard, I was biting my tongue in asking if he were on crack (kinda like I did to my offspring about the bat). As we were going back to bed, “Him” asked where Nibbles was (we had closed the bedroom door to keep the one place we NEED air conditioning and we didn’t want to lock her in - cleaning cat poop off of carpet is NOT fun). Other than her demand for food, I didn’t see here. WE checked under the bed and certain the cat wasn’t there, the mysterious knocker moved on, we went back to bed to sleep.

Oh, if only… At 2:45, a loud thud and glass rattling set “Him” and I upright in bed, both of us asking, “Did you hear that?” “Yes, I did.” We bolted out of bed, “Him” getting his crowd dispenser, me getting the pistol. I was beyond annoyed at this point. Whatever was out there was about to get shot. Several times. With no regrets. If it were the neighborhood kids, well, not my problem - their parents should chain them to the wall if they can’t be sure where they are at 3 in the morning. Like I said, I was already sleep deprived. I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions.

So, armed with the .22 pistol and a flashlight, I go out in my underwear and camisole, my neon white body becoming a beacon in the porch light. Again, I had no fucks to give except to get some fucking sleep. “Him” came outside (he had the sense to get pants and shoes on), looked at me and shook his head as we went in separate directions. I distinctly heard him mutter, “Redneck” under his breath.

Funny coming from a backwoods hill billy. Joke’s on him. I’m deadly enough in my underwear without a gun. One look and BOOM! Heart attack. No chance for resuscitation.

Anyhoo, while “Him” took right, I took left off the porch and into the yard; shining wherever my flashlight wherever I pointed my weapon (as is proper according to every modern military movie I’ve ever watched), checking possible hiding places throughout the yard. There was nothing. I even checked the “barn” (“Him’s” garage/outbuilding), climbing up the ladder to check the storage space. Again, nothing. I went back to the house to report when I realized that the door was unlocked, and neither of us were inside. Whomever was creeping around the house could have gone in.

Engage sweep mode. My years of being a meat shield for my son during Call of Duty kicked in. So did Aliens. I swear I had Sarge telling me to “check your corners, check those corners” in my ear as I went from room to room. I kinda felt like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, but the middle aged version - my knees clicked like crazy as I went up the stairs to check the attic. They were probably giving away my position, but other than dropping through the ceiling (which was exposed since we were dry walling the front room), there was nowhere for the intruder to go.

Again, nothing. I was starting to question my sanity. How could both of us hear the same thing, but not find anything or anyone? I met “Him” at the door knowing he didn’t find anything either (mainly because there would have been gunshots fired). He thinks it was raccoons and as we discussed how we were going to deal them we both heard a door slam. Inside the house.

*Me: I did a sweep. There’s no on in here but us.

*Him: Are you sure? I did have to show you how to get the safety off.

*Me: I have eyes. Ass…

We heard footsteps approaching us from the ceiling. “Him” raised his bazooka of a weapon (compared to my .22). I lowered mine and flipped the safety on.

*Him: If it’s a coon…

*Me: It isn’t. Lower the gun.

*Him: Raccoons ain’t something to play with.

*Me: It isn’t a raccoon. Trust me.

*Him: If it’s not, then what is it?

MERRRROWWWW…

*Nibbles: How DARE you point a weapon of mass destruction at your Majesty! This is TREASON! Not only do you starve me to death…

*Him: How did she get up there?!?

*Nibbles: I flew! How does that prevent you from feeding your Royal Highness?!?

*Him: Should we go get her?

*Nibbles: Don’t you DARE touch me peasant! I shall…

*Me: Ignore her. She’ll figure out how to get down. It was probably her all along.

As “Him” and I continued debating whether it was Nibbles making the racket or raccoons all week, Nibbles shrieked a long, loud meow. Buddy growled low and “Him” called the dog to bed. Who knows what was said? Nibbles can be a touch bitchy.

**************************************************************************

*Buddy: Sister, you should be nicer to Mom and Mower Man. Mommy loves you, she just doesn’t like you much because you always shout at her.

*Nibbles: Silence Ugly Cat. I care little for the wench’s adoration, just her dedication. I have spent the entire week alerting her to my feeding schedule, yet she chooses not to obey. I cannot allow that.

*Buddy(growling low): Sister…

*Nibbles: Oh shut up, Ugly Cat! I’m not going to kill her. Who would feed me then? The peasant? HAH! Just going to mess with her a little bit. Just enough to give her nightmares for months…

*Buddy(growling louder): Nibbles, I’m warning you…

*Him: Come on Bud, come to bed.

*Nibbles: Yes Ugly Cat, run along to your masters. I wonder if the raccoons will stop eating the trash long enough to send word…

Dirty Birds

The first step in preparing your soldiers for battle is teaching them where the food and water is cuz let's face it - they're chickens.  They aren't very bright.  The second step is teaching them how to bathe.  Like most living creatures, spiders can smell.  It's kinda fucked up that they smell with their legs; it's probably how they found me - bastards have eight frigging noses!

Anyhoo, so that the enemy can't smell the army coming, it's important that the soldiers bathe.  Teaching them to do that was no simple feat.  Since my soldiers are young and without their biological mother, it's up to me to show them how to take a dirt bath.  Why a dirt bath?  Well, it serves two purposes, both of which align with my goal of having a stealthy, healthy army.  One, it helps them get rid of parasites they might have hitching a ride inside their feathers.  Healthy soldiers are fighting machines.  The second reason for the dirt bath is it covers their scent, allowing them to blend into their environment making them invisible to predators and prey.  If the spiders can't smell my soldiers, they won't know what hit them - kinda like I felt when the Spider King enlisted the aid of the Mice Army last December.

Asshat.

So!  I set out to gather what I needed to provide for my soldiers' hygiene and training.  Unfortunately it had been pretty damp Jeremy and I couldn't get the loose, dry dirt I needed.  So I used sand - which wasn't bad the sand provides grit for the soldiers (grit is necessary for a chicken's food digestion), so I was thinking, "Bonus!"

With sand in the tray I placed in their pen, I fiddled with the granules and powder to get their attention.  Once I got that, I ran my hand through the and, shaking it slightly.

...and promptly scared the chicks away.  I was very disappointed in my young soldiers.  I knew I was definitely going to have to work on their fear factor.  I had seen full grown chickens grab a garter snake and run through the chicken yard as if they had just won the trophy to end all trophies - my young soldiers were not giving me much hope.  Especially given the fact that the slur of calling someone a chicken was the same as calling them a coward.


No matter!  They'll be spider killing machines in time.

Anyhoo.  I withdrew my hand and waited for the chicks to come back to the tray.  Cautiously they approached, tilting their heads side to side to see better.  I held my breath as they drew closer as a unit - cohesion of the group is important in warfare.  The littlest soldier cheeped an inquiry to the biggest soldier, who responded with a decisive peck at the tray - had she been full grown, she would have broken it.

"Good."  I totally thought that in Emperor Palpatine's voice from Return of the Jedi.  "Feel the anger.  Kill it.  Murder that spider's face."


...Oh my God, what have I become?


Anyhoo, the sand idea was a huge bust.  The chicks wound up scratching at it and using it as grit.  Again, not a big deal because grit is necessary, but seeing them itch themselves and seeing downy tufts trying to escape the new feathers growing in, I felt bad for the chicks.

Now according to the interwebs, I should just use diatomaceous earth or potting soil.  The same interwebs also said a chicken only needs 4 square feet of space in a coop or run, which is most DEFINITELY NOT enough room for a full grown soldiers....I mean, chickens.  So I'm ignoring the interwebs because most of those people have no clue what they're talking about.  Besides, diatomaceous earth isn't something I can run to the corner store to get; and I really don't trust ordering things like that from Amazon - who knows what I'm getting.  I decided to wait out the piddly rains we had gotten and harvest some dirt from the yard.  In the mean time, I decided to move the barracks - the soldiers weren't getting enough shade during the afternoon.

Boy, am I glad I did!  Look at those happy soldiers! 

I let them be - they knew what they needed to do to clean themselves.  "Him" came home to find me videoing the soldiers.

*Him: How they doin'?"
*Me, all smiles: They're loving their dirt.  Makes me glad I moved the coop.
*Him, eyeballing my dirty jeans: What?  You had to show them how to roll in the dirt?
*Me: No.  There needs to be a clear line between command and the troops.

"Him's" expression was that of questioning my sanity.  He muttered something with a shake of his head.  I'm fairly certain he said something to the effect of "What am I getting myself into?"

He'll change his tune in eight weeks.  He hates spiders as much as I do.

The Army

So I'm putting my chicken knowledge to use! When I was a teenager, my family lived on 6.6 acres in Michigan. We had ducks, geese, pigs, and chickens. These were not pets - we learned that quickly when we butchered our first two roosters. To this day I remember how I felt when I was served a drumstick (my favorite part of chicken). Imagine eating your dog or cat.

Yeah, that's how I felt poking at my dinner while Dad scolded me for not eating and lecturing on how he told us these weren't pets. "They're food."

Well excuse me I I like furry and feathery creatures! And those roosters were cuddly too! Feathers AND cuddly, what did Dad expect?!? Thankfully my younger brother complained about the bird being too tough to eat (my brother was an eating machine - I believe if he had to, he'd eat his own foot); and when the rest of my siblings agreed the bird wasn't very good, my father took a bite. Being a man with poor teeth, he quickly ignored the fact that I hadn’t touched my chicken to know it was like eating the sole off of a workbook and declared none of us had to eat the chicken if we didn’t want to.

YAY! We get to have pet chickens!

No. No we couldn’t and to make sure we didn't, Dad tasked us kids with the new batches’ care. Which wouldn’t have been a big deal if my father wasn’t a cheapskate…I mean, frugal.

He had the idea of raising our meat to be as natural as possible long before the “organic” movement started. That means no hormones, no antibiotics, no pesticide, herbicides or fungicides were used on the grains in the feed. Finding that in America was damn near impossible, but Canada hadn’t allowed that in their agriculture industry for years so Dad wanted Canadian feed - which was great because we lived in Michigan and Canada was a hop, skip and jump away. Problem was, the elevator didn't carry the feed and it would be a week or two before they could get it.

So Dad got dried corn. That was still on the cob. It was feed intended for other livestock, but it would work. Yeah, I knew how it worked - the man had 5 frigging kids and we spent TWO WEEKS shucking and popping and grinding the corn into pieces suitable for chicks to eat. When I say shucked, I mean pulling whatever husk was dried off of the ear, slicing your fingers in the process. Fresh corn husk cuts burn like a son of a bitch, worse than paper cuts or sheet metal cuts, but when they’re dry…oh my God, just kill me now.

No, death would be too easy. Now we had to use our sliced fingers to pop the dry kernels off of the cob. To save ourselves some pain, we used the meat of our hands and thumb to pop the hardened rocks off of their bed. After the second cob, some of my siblings were calling uncle. Those of us who were double jointed in the thumb (namely me) was able to go longer, but the result was the same.

Agony. Imagine, if you will, using your fingers to test the edge of a chainsaw blade after sticking them in a vat of glass shards 100 times. Do this until your hands are absolutely raw. That’s how our hands felt. But we figured once the hard part was over, we were done.

We were stupid.

Just when we thought life couldn’t get worse, we had to grind the kernels. With raw, tender hands sunburnt red (there was no sun, we were in the basement). On an old grinder from Wyatt Earp's era - you know, the one that clamps to a table and has a turn handle; the kind that gets jammed up and you’re lifting the table just to get the fucker to turn. That kind of grinder.

I asked Dad why he didn’t just get an electric one - that HAD to have been available; it was the 1990s after all. Dad’s response?

“Why do you think I had 5 kids?”

…that explained SOOO much…

Anyhoo! I quickly learned not to view them as pets, but as food. However, I noticed how well clipped the chickens kept the back yard grass (they were free range) and how we didn't really have a problem with mosquitoes and flies. Hell, chickens will even go after a mouse - it’s weird seeing a chicken peck a mouse. It’s freaky seeing a group of them play “I got it” with said mouse; like the “SAVE THE MELON!” scene from Ice Age. But what really impressed me in my young age was how the chickens would walk up to a spider web, peck it, and when the spider dropped down, they pounced on it with zero fucks given. To add insult to injury, the chickens would then absolutely DESTROY the web, or dig into the burrow to eat anything they found.

They are ferocious.

They are tenacious.

They are vicious.

They are EXACTLY the kind of soldier I need to end this war.

Delays, Delays

So when you combine technology and a person who isn’t tech savvy, you get hiccups.

Hi. I’m the technology idiot.

Due to renovations, my computer is disconnected from its life-force (the outlet) and what was supposed to be two days of drywalling and mudding has turned into almost two weeks of mold mitigation, siding installation, re-installation of insulation and rewiring of electrical outlets.

Being the technological idiot, I didn’t even think to see if there was an app I could use on my phone until last week. Today, I have just learned how to use said app😅 I’m still working out the bugs, but for now, at least I can post something.

HUZZAH!

Anyhoo, my usual Saturday Slice of Life post will be a two-fer tomorrow; just so I can catch you all up on the current round of the Spider war. Hopefully I'll be able to include pics - still navigating this app and learning it’s quirks.

Some days I feel like Marvin Martian…

It Begins, Again…

So apparently the Great Spider War of 2022 has not ended.  It’s followed me to “Him’s” house.  I know this because “Him” made a comment how he didn’t really have spiders last year and now they’re all over.  He found one nestled in his underwear drawer.  It freaked him out when the eight-legged psycho gave him a wave hello - that was the spider’s mistake.  I cleaned it’s guts from the drawer as I explained my arachnid “wanted” status; and because he crushed the spider in his underwear drawer, he was now wanted too.

My boyfriend now thinks I’m clinically insane.

In my defense, I thought the Spider King and I were good, so I wasn’t expecting the lone spider infiltrating my coffee maker (it must have taken a page from the Mice Kingdom’s way to wage warfare on humans).  Upon showing “Him” the photographic evidence, he tried explaining it away as the coffee pot was warmer than the house, and that was why the spider was there.  Then, as we were washing dishes, a black blob dropped from the ceiling.  I didn’t see it - it was “Him’s” yelp and clattering of dishes that alerted me to a problem.

*Him: Fucker dropped right in front of my face!

*Me: Yep.  They do that.  You get used to it.

*Him: They’re just spiders.

*Me: Hellbent on world domination.

He rolled his eyes at me.  I just shrugged, not going to defend my position.  I thought the same too in the beginning.  We continued on with the chore when I heard him exclaim:

*Him: SON OF A BITCH!

Below is what he saw

*Me: Do you believe me know?

I’m thinking this year, instead of nuking two yards and bombing two houses with pesticides, I’m going to continue my “natural” approach.  Except this time, I’m taking a page from the Spider King’s playbook.  This past Monday, I enlisted some allies in the war.  They’re cute.  They have feathers.  But they are young yet - perfect for molding them into spider killing machines…er…I mean, perfect for putting my chicken knowledge to use.

…hopefully one of them will bit his royal ass…

If you haven’t heard about the Spider war, check out my Facebook page (yes, its my personal page). If you don’t have an hour to scroll to 2022 on Facebook, you can buy ROYAL PITAS here.

Dressing in Drag

This week’s blog was going to be some freedom-loving garbage about the tripe in the media that’s showing how freedom doesn’t mean much to elected officials and how its diverting our attention from important things.  Much more important things.  Like, life or death more important things.  For instance, the ingredients of ranch dressing.

Sit back and enjoy this tale.

So, as with every couple getting to know each other, “Him” and I have told each other what our culinary likes and dislikes are.  I have mentioned foods I like and he doesn’t - such as peas, liver, and canned tuna.  He has mentioned foods he likes that I do not - such as sauerkraut, summer sausage, and corned beef.  We’ve shared foods we enjoy - both of us like most foods and even found combos that we’ve wondered where it had been our entire lives.  For me, it was ranch dressing.  Hated it as a kid, gave it a try on a salad shortly after my husband passed away and I’ve been hooked since.  For “Him,” it was thousand island dressing on pizza.  His brother in arms suggested it and “Him” tried it.  It was delicious, but “Him” still loves his ranch dressing.  We have even shared things we despise and will never eat again.  I will never try sauerkraut ever again - that shit EATS through aluminum cans.  “Him” will never eat mayonnaise.

…Don’t get ahead of me.

When I heard he despised mayo, I did a double take.  Wait, what?  The ONLY reason I did the double take was because w2hen I find a dressing I enjoy, I research the hell out of it so I can make it at home without all the preservatives that’s in store bought foods.  Which is how I found out that ranch dressing - “Him’s” version of ketchup - is spiced up mayonnaise.  He loves ranch dressing but hates mayo?  Well, I could understand why on two fronts; one: it’s kinda like my dislike of tomatoes.  I love tomato sauces, ketchups and the like.  I just don’t care for a raw tomato on or in my food.  It’s weird, but that’s just how my taste buds work.  The second reason I could understand why he didn’t like mayo is because by itself, mayonnaise is disgusting.  It has no flavor except for the oil you use and it’s mouth feel is like  you’ve sucked down a quart of motor oil.

Those of you who change your own oil know what I’m talking about.

Anyhoo, I had asked why he disliked it so much and he mentioned having a summer with nothing but mayo and cheese sandwiches for lunch.  I understood his perspective as I had a similar experience with a summer of nothing but bologna sandwiches for lunch - it was 20 years later before I could bring myself to have a slice again.  Because of that shared childhood trauma, I decided to keep my big yap shut about mayonnaise being the primary ingredient in “Him’s” beloved ranch dressing.  He let’s me live in my fantasy world where I don’t have to shave my face; I can let him live in his fantasy world where ranch dressing is actually not made from mayo.  It’s made from some divine cum, I guess.  Whatever, I wasn’t going to destroy his world.

Welp, that fantasy was shattered last night.  “Him’s” entire world was shook and he’s now questioning everything he’s known to be true.  No, I didn’t say anything.  Like I said, he lets me live in my fantasy world.  I told him nothing about ranch dressing since I found out he loved it but hated mayo.  His belief wasn’t hurting anything or anyone.  It was the TikToks that obliterated his world.

You see, “Him” likes to cook and sees things on the TikToks he’d like to make.  We’ve gotten several recipes from it that were good and he was looking for one to do this weekend.  As we sat in our individual recliners relaxing after dinner - me petting the dog while I scroll through Facebook and drink a beer, him watching the TikToks and occasionally showing me some funny or interesting stuff.  It was a very lovely end to our day.  Until…

*Him (whispering): No…

*Me: What?

*Him: No…that’s…that can’t be true.

*Me, starting to become alarmed: What?

He didn’t respond and my brain kicked into overdrive: China invaded, the banking system in America collapsed, martial law was declared, the end of American life as we knew it was gone all because people let fear of their safety erode their desire for liberty.  I’m thinking I was going to have to start loading up all the guns, board up the windows around the house and prepare myself to shoot people approaching the property.  I read too many news articles…

“Him” turned to me, the look on his face was so despondent and his voice thick with a mix of sadness and horror, “Ranch dressing is made with mayonnaise.  Did you know this?”

*Me: Yes.

*Him: You KNEW?!?

*Me: I didn’t have the heart to tell you!  Your belief wasn’t hurting anything or anyone, so why correct you?

*Him: But it tastes so good!  How is this POSSIBLE?!?

*Me: Because of the spices used.  It changes the taste and texture.

*Him: I’m questioning everything I’ve known to be true…

By now he’s exaggerating and I’m just playing along.  “Him” isn’t a child.  Just because he discovered his favorite condiment contained something he wasn’t fond of doesn’t mean he’s never going to eat it again.  He’s not going to get rid of the three bottles of ranch dressing we have in the pantry.  He’s not going to march on D.C. and demand they outlaw ranch dressing because all it is is mayonnaise dressed up and passing itself off as something else.  He’s not going to slap those who are eating ranch dressing in his presence.  He’s not going to boycott any restaurant that serves ranch dressing because it’s mayo lying to everyone.

As we cleaned up from dinner, he grabbed a french fry and sighed with resignation.  “I guess I’ll dip it in the spiced mayonnaise,” he said as he dipped it in and popped the fry in his mouth.  “Mm, mm, mm!  So good,” he announced as he dipped his finger in the dressing to get more.  “Who knew mayo could be made to taste so delicious?

Probably some dude who hated the taste and texture of mayonnaise and dressed it up.  Ranch dressing is LITERALLY just mayo dressed in drag.

Not the best…

I just read a book called “National Sunday Law.”  It was in my mailbox and since I am cheap and an avid reader I figured I’d give it a go.  It was a small book so I knew it wouldn’t take me long to read and given the summary on the back cover, I knew it was nonfiction.  Now, I love me some nonfiction that challenges my beliefs and thinking - sometimes it gives me a better understanding that I am wrong and sometimes it shows that I am right and the author is a dipshit.  Loving a good debate is one of my many flaws (calling someone a dipshit for espousing their nonsense is another) so I was started reading the short book with an open mind.

That’s an hour of my life I will never get back.  To be honest, it’s a long winded conspiracy theory of a religious nature.  Now, I like hearing other people’s viewpoints on religion.  It’s no secret that I am most decidedly NOT religious as I believe religion is the worst thing to happen to the word of God and am vocal about it when asked; however, I am not so ingrained in my philosophies that I cannot hear another’s thoughts about religion.  This particular author’s viewpoint is not unlike the pamphlets the Jehovah’s Witnesses leave for people - the world is going to hell in a hand basket and the only salvation is God.

Well, no shit Sherlock.  Duh.  Every religion has been shouting “The end is near” for so long, I’ve been shouting back, “Is it gonna be TODAY?!?”  Yes, I know Armageddon is coming.  I’m eagerly anticipating its arrival.  Every baby I’ve come across I’ve checked for “the Mark” so I can protect that child from the idiots in the Catholic church from killing the Antichrist.  Seriously, as a religion, Christians should relish the arrival of the Antichrist because, according to biblical teachings, once the end war happens between Christ and Satan’s baby, the good people will be reborn and life will be good and peaceful - everyone will still have to wear clothes, according to the Jehovah’s Witness publications, but I guess being able to run around naked is too much to ask of God.  One would think that if that’s the end goal of the religious, they would protect the Antichrist so they can get to “heaven” faster.  Make no mistakes, even my own family thinks I’m weird for having this thought process, so don’t feel like you’re being judgy for thinking I’m a touch crazy.  I was raised in a Baptist home - the JUDGIEST religion I have ever come across…

Anyhoo!  The book is about how religions are trying to make Sunday the “National Day of Rest” when Sunday is NOT the true Sabbath.  It says the Catholic church changed it because, well, let’s face it, the Vatican thinks it can do what it wants - including changing God’s commandments about keeping Saturday the holy day and saying it’s what God wants.  The ENTIRE book is all about how the Catholic church is evil.  They are doing Satan’s work by changing the resting day, and the other Christian religions are following suit by demanding the American government to make it law.  The author keeps yammering about the 4th commandment, totally bypassing the 1st commandment of “God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me’” when speaking of the atrocities ancient Catholicism had done to  people.  But whatever, the book IS about a National Sunday Law.  I continued to read, God forgive me…

The author tries to refute other Christian teachings of the commandments being put on the cross with Christ when he was crucified.  He states there were two sets of commandments - the moral law and the ceremonial law - and it was the ceremonial law that was put on the cross with Christ. What the author fails to realize is that one of Jesus’s teachings was about doing works on the Sabbath - like getting your donkey out of a hole if it fell in on the Sabbath; or your neighbors roof starts leaking and it rains; or a fire breaks out in the village on the Sabbath.  What?  Y’all gonna stand outside and watch the place burn because God says you can’t do work?

That’s how silly some of the pharisees’ interpretations of the commandments were and why there were TWO commandments left, given to CHRISTIANS by God through his dying son: “Love God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your  mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Now the first one is self explanatory - and given the author’s points of religious actions, most religions of the world are in direct violation of the first one.  The second one means treat others as you want to be treated.  If you lie to people, they’re gonna lie to you; if you treat people like shit, they’re gonna treat you like shit.  The author of this book failed to mention either one of these - though if he did it would completely negate his yammering about a commandment that NO LONGER APPLIES TO FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST!

Photo Credit https://unsplash.com/@ajayjoseph

The author continues on and while I enjoy a good conspiracy theory - I’m a sucker for the Illuminati bullshit - the rest of the book pretty much devolved into Jehovah’s Witness pamphlet that was written by someone who imbibed in too much of the sacramental wine and had a fourth grade writing level.  He gets into the whole origin of the “666” number from Revelations.  According to the author, it’s the Latin letters of the Pope’s title Vicarius Filii Dei.  Using numerology (which the author previously stated was “against God”) the author takes all the letters that are also Roman numerals and they add up to the unholy number.  Frankly, his “origin” point belies his point of the Antichrist being the Catholic Church since the number “666” isn’t on Vatican property (at least to my knowledge).  The author bounces around like Tigger on crack with his explanations of the end time when we all have to choose between getting the mark or losing our heads; and while he makes some good points, his delivery is very much that of a zealot.

Even after all of that, the thing that irritated me the most about the book - no, the thing that pissed me right the fuck off about the book; and my BIGGEST problem with religion; isn’t the fact that passages were cherry picked, twisted and bastardized to fit the author’s narrative.  I’m used to religious fanatics doing that - remember, I grew up in a Baptist home. No, what pissed me off the most about this book is the author’s condemnation of homosexuality, DESPITE there being BIBLICAL PROOF (1 Samuel 18:-23) that God doesn’t really give a shit which gender you love - if God did, do you really think he would have blessed David?  If God really cared about which gender you loved, do you really think he would have his son, the Lamb, come from a lineage that was “tainted” as such?  I think not. Now, if you want to have off-spring, then yeah, you kinda need both genders (or parts from both, cuz medical science has made leaps and bounds in that department - some of which I’m still on the fence about). But to love someone that has the same gender DNA as you being sinful and an abomination to God? I sincerely doubt that, but then again, I’m probably driving the bus to Hell for my paganistic and warped viewpoint of God so draw your own conclusions.

Do I think the book has merit?  Yes, but then I’m an intellectual bookworm.  I don’t believe in banning or burning books because ALL books have some worth.  This one can be used as toilet paper when you’re done reading it. If you read the book, what did you think of it?

Compensating

If you’ve ever been through my little section of the Great American woods, you’ll have seen a tractor in the front yard of a house in town.  You wouldn’t look twice except to say, “Well, it’s a farming community” in understanding why a big, old tractor is basically a lawn ornament, complete with the patch of clover growing up around it.

Except, it’s not a lawn ornament.  Apparently, it’s a collectible - who knew FULL SIZED tractors were collectibles - and “Him” is determined to fix ‘er up and put ‘er to work in a field.  I’m all for that idea.  With the advent of 3D printing and CNC machines, even the OLDEST antique can be put back into working order and garner another 100 years of use.  “Him” has done all the basics needed, now it’s just a matter of knocking shit loose before he goes to the next step.

So you can imagine my excitement when he says, “I need your help,” while I’m cooking dinner.  I’m thinking, “Sweet!  I gets to drive a tractor today!” as I get my boots on and chase after “Him” out the door, my inner child yelling, “Wait for me!”  He tells me what he’s doing and why he’s doing it (he knows my inner three year old very well), and when I asked him what he wanted me to do, he handed me his truck keys with a cheeky grin.

Butthole knows how excited I am to drive the tractor…

Now, I have to interject another story here.  You see, I drive a tiny car.  It’s a Chevy Spark.  The running joke from the “men-folk” is I have squirrels and hamsters as the engine; or, as “Him” teases, my own legs, as if my car is a Fred Flinstone sedan or something.  I just smile sweetly and remind them all I get 40 miles to a gallon of gas and it only costs me $30 to fill up.  I ask them how much it costs to fill their truck tanks and the conversation topic gets changed really quick.  

I bring that up, because it never fails where I’m parked at, there’s ALWAYS a big ol’ truck that’s got to park riight next to me.  Not like, they pull in straight or anything; oh no, they have to make this grand gesture of turning their tank into the spot next to me with their front end close enough for me to reach out my window and brush the animal guts off of their front bumper.  OR, I park my car with SEVERAL parking spaces available between me and the next car on either side of me.  When I come out of the store, not one, but TWO trucks are parked next to me - usually one preventing me or my passenger from opening our door.  Now, these aren’t just regular sized trucks.  These are GIGANTIC trucks - the kind a country boy would use on the farm.  But these trucks that “pen me in” are sparkling clean and CLEARLY a symbol of the owner having feelings of inadequacies - meaning they’re compensating for having a little dick because every other huge ass truck I’ve ever seen has had mud or muck SOMEWHERE on the truck.  My CAR has more bug guts on the windshield than theirs did in the grill, so…city boys pretending to be country boys equals little dicks.  Especially when I see the driver and passenger getting into them.  No one goes into a Walmart dressed like it’s Sunday unless it IS a Sunday and after church lets out.  Why else would a prissy guy/gal drive a truck that isn’t used for what it’s intended - ripping out stumps, hauling trailers or mudding?  Hence my conclusion of compensation.

Literally turned around in the Dollar General parking lot to park next to my teeny tiny car

When my boyfriend brought his truck home, I looked at it and reassured him he had no reason to feel inadequate.  His deadpan face was what the emoji had to have been based off of...  “Him’s” truck is a monster.  I literally have to climb the side of the truck just to get into the passenger seat, using not only hand grips the manufacturer provided near the roof of the cab, but using the inside door handle “shut the door” thingy, the running board and the middle console.  That’s just getting into the seat.  To close the door, I have to use the hand grip attached to the roof of the cab, swing my torso out to grab and close the door.  The neighbors get a good laugh whenever we use the truck together - I look like a damned spider monkey getting in the thing.  The first time I got inside the truck, “Him” was laughing at me asking if I needed a ladder.  In my defense, I grew up in a household that unless it served more than one purpose, we didn’t own it - that included the vehicles as well.  The family station wagon was able to haul a ton of bricks for the septic tank when I was a child and the Econoline van we had when we moved down to Kansas was able to haul 9 tons of gravel and sand for our concrete project.  I never had to learn how to get into a truck taller than me.

Anyway, getting in the driver’s seat is much easier.  Just grab the steering wheel and haul your ass in.  Then I had to move the seat forward to reach the pedals - “Him” is a good 6-8 inches taller than I - and I heard him say, “Watch the hips” before I started it up.  His truck is a dually - the idiot who thought it was a good idea to put a big ol’ ass on a truck should be shot - and it’s like driving a frigging freighter.  It’s a good thing I have experience driving both boats (station wagons) and gigantic pieces of plywood (vans).  Big hips don’t bother me none.  I navigated the truck into the yard and put her into position behind the tractor.  “Him” chains them together and gestures for me to back up.  I slowly back up until the chain is taut, then I give it some gas…diesel, whatever.  The truck slid more than the tractor.  “Him” tells me to put it into neutral, then pop it in 4 wheel drive.

Say what now?  He wants ME to drive his truck in 4 wheel drive?  With his collectible tractor attached?  ME?  The one who, when I’m driving by myself, thinks the road is my personal race track and I get points for how many “competitors” I pass?  Me?  The one who can fuck up a steel ball with a feather?  That me?

Ohhkay…it’s your baby.

I popped the truck into 4 wheel drive and pressed the accelerator, watching the wheels of the tractor slide.  “Him” gives me a “You can do better than that” look, so I floored it, praying “Him” would forgive the ruts left behind from the tractor tires being dragged.  Him gestured for me to stop and unhooked the chain from the truck.  “Put it back into 2 wheel, drive around to the front to pull.”  I did as I was told and after Him hooked it back up, he mentioned putting it into 4 wheel drive again.  “Already did.”  He nodded with satisfaction and gestured for me to back it up again.  This time, I drove it like I stole it.  Slowly pressed the accelerator until the chain was taut, then slammed it down.

The tractor wheels broke free!  They were turning!  I put the truck into park and “Him” took the chains off.  I leaned out the window and asked if he wanted me to go to the back.  He met me at the window shaking his head.  He had fiddled with stuffs and for the next part, he’d need someone who knew what they were doing.  I didn’t take offense to what he said.  I have often said I know nothing about tractors.  I know absolutely ZERO except how to put my butt in the seat.  As I climbed out of his truck, he said I looked good driving it.  

*ME: I like driving it.  Now I understand why city boys have one.

*HIM (laughing): What are you compensating for?

*ME: I gots a little dick and I ain’t ashamed to say it!

FIRST SQUIRRELS, NOW GECKOS…

So the plan for last weekend was to go fishing.  It was a free pass all weekend - no license required - and even though I am not the biggest fan of fishing, I was looking forward to it.  Mainly because my boyfriend said I could take his kayak out.  Personally, I think he did that just so I wouldn’t talk his ears off - I do not like being idle and if yakking gives me something to do, I’ll do it.  And quite honestly, the bait he was going to use looked absolutely disgusting and smelled worse.  The jar looked like it contained preserved aborted fetuses.  And I was sure if I had to use that to bait the hook, with what it looked like, I would puke right there.  Even typing this I’m getting nauseous.  Anyway, we pull out all his rods, I pick the ones I’d like to use - complete with “Those are for little kids” comment from my boyfriend.  To which I answered, “Have you seen my arms?  I gots little T-Rex arms.  These will be perfect.  Although you’ll have to teach me how to use them.  Last time I used a fishing pole it got tossed into Pott 2 when I cast the line and I was forbidden to go fishing with my father ever again.  Honestly, I don’t know what Dad’s problem was.  The stupid pole only cost $5 and the reel didn’t work very well anyway.  You rotate it forward, right?”

And that was when my boyfriend offered to bring the kayak/canoe boat thing.   Well, I call it a canoe, cuz to me a kayak has a cover with a hole in which the person sits, rolls the kayak over and then it’s a fight for your life when your upside down trapped in a boat.  This “kayak” doesn’t have the death invoking cover.  It’s open and I’m sure I would feel safer in it.

…I just realized why he offered to bring the kayak…

Anyhoo!  Why does a picture of a gecko in the middle of the road have anything to do with fishing?  I could say it was because that’s how rednecks find their bait; or that’s how hill billy’s get their fishing snacks, but it was neither of those.  

We didn’t get to go fishing.

Our area had just gone through some hellacious rain and really high winds.  Nothing bad if you didn’t have dead trees in your yard.  Unfortunately, my boyfriend’s neighbor did and it split in half covering the roadway.  Not a big deal - there’s more than one way in and out of the neighborhood - but the neighbor didn’t know it had fallen (neither did we - it was upright and fine the night before.  It was how we had gotten home from the bar).  It must’ve happened overnight because my boyfriend noticed it when another neighbor had to back up and take a different route out to the main road.  I was inside making sandwiches for our fishing trip when he came inside and told me what happened.  I asked if the neighbor knew and my boyfriend said he knocked, but there was no answer so he was just going to get it chopped up to clear the road.  I finished making our fishing lunch and went outside to help.

Once I got a load of small branches gathered into the trailer, I hauled it off to the dump.  Because it had rained the night before, there were puddles everywhere.  Birds were bathing, squirrels were getting drinks.  Those squirrels were either dying of thirst or they weren’t too afraid of the very loud tractor I was driving, because two of them just stood in the puddle staring at me.  Even when I sped up to go around them, the squirrels did not move.  It was like they were challenging my position as a keystone species or something.  Or maybe they wanted a ride in the trailer - they were eyeballing the branches pretty hard.

That was one trip.  The third trip had me ripping around corners to get some wind blowing on my face, wildlife be damned.  If the squirrels wanted a ride, they were gonna have to grab a branch and hang on for dear life.  We had been going at that damned tree for HOURS and it seemed like it was never ending.  It was getting really muggy and it was getting very hot.  Poor Buddy had to be forced into the house because he wasn’t listening to either one of us.  When my boyfriend came back from a dump run, Buddy made like he was going to run out into the road and I shouted at him.  My boyfriend heard me over the roar of the diesel engine, slammed on his breaks which sent a tool box sailing out onto the road.  And that was the start of us getting pissy because it was just getting gross outside.  We both would have rather gone fishing, but no one else was going to give the older neighbor a hand; if the amount of vehicles trying to go in either direction was any indication (and none offering help or even asking what happened - which is what annoyed me more than the humidity), and the road needed to be cleared.  

On the final run to the dump with the tractor, I saw a gecko dart from the side of the road.  I slowed to give it a chance to scurry on by.

It did not.  If anything, it was doing a gecko impersonation of “deer in the headlights.”  The damn thing froze in the middle of the road.  Like, the LITERAL middle.  There wasn’t enough room to go around behind it without dropping branches from the trailer I was hauling and if I tried to cut him off and he darted…well, it wouldn’t have hurt the vehicle I was driving, but I kinda like geckos and I would be heartbroken if I hit one.  Don’t roll your eyes.  I cry when I hit frogs on the highway during a summer rain at night and I will slam my brakes to prevent running over a squirrel, spilling hot coffee onto my driving instructor. It was ok - he was a critter lover like me, so I was forgiven.

Anyhoo, so this gecko is hogging the road horizontally and I’m hot, sweaty, and just want to get my butt out onto the water rowing until my heart was content while my boyfriend fished.  I wanted to get fried and have him put lotion on my body and if the “lotion” went elsewhere, then oh well.  At least we’ll be having fun.  But as it sat, both of us were pretty irritable so that probably wasn’t going to happen.

“Dude, move your ass,” I yelled at the gecko.  Why I thought yelling at a lizard was going to get it to move when the noise from a BadBoy lawnmower hauling a trailer full of branches didn’t even faze it.  The gecko stared at me and it’s body began changing color.  

“Really?  I can CLEARLY see you.  Changing colors isn’t going to confuse me.  I’m not a color blind donkey.”  No, just an idiot still shouting at a gecko over a lawnmower…  I figured maybe inch forward at a high rpm would get it to move.  I didn’t want to hit the walking wallet, so I turned the mower towards the gecko’s behind, making sure I wouldn’t nip its tail.  I put the mower into rabbit mode and pushed forward for a moment (running with Buddy while driving it, I got good at stopping the mower on a dime).  I was sure that would have scared it - why I don’t know, the squirrels weren’t impressed earlier…

The gecko wasn’t either. By now, it had started to turn blue.  Because, you know, it doesn’t believe me when I tell it I’m NOT a color blind donkey.

…jackass…

I figured since all it was doing was changing its colors, the gecko wasn’t going to be scurrying to the other side of the road any time soon; and since it didn’t change it’s mind at the last second like squirrels do, it was committed to laying claim to the road as it’s own personal domain.  Or the gecko was doing the wildlife version of Robin Hood.  In either case, I didn’t have time for it’s foolishness - besides, what the hell would a gecko want as a toll to use the road?  I wanted to salvage whatever time my boyfriend and I had for getting to a body of water so he can fish and I can throw a pole in the water…I mean, take the kayak out.  I inched around the road pirate and noticed it puffing itself up.

“You do realize, I can crush you, right?  I mean, just an accidental, derpy twist of the handles and “oopsie,” you’re roadkill.  You know this, right?”

The gecko’s response was to puff itself more.  I think it thought it was the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the reptilian world.  Or it thought it was some gangster idiot who thought being all showy was going to intimidate me, like it was saying, “You wanna go?  You wanna go?  Let’s go!  Come on, I ain’t scared of you and your death wagon.  Let’s go!  Come for me, bitch.”

“You are not the least bit scary.  I’ve half a mind to make you my pet.”  The gecko puffed a bit more and widened its stance.   That was when I noticed the hind end of the gecko flexing and something coming out from under its tail.

Initially I thought it was laying an egg, but then logic took over.  Why would a lizard lay an egg in a wide open area where any ol’ predator can get to it?  Seriously?  When I realized it was “taking care of business,” I felt like a heel.  The poor gecko was trying to poop and was having performance anxiety ‘cuz I was hanging around like an idiot.  I apologized to the gecko for interrupting its potty break and continued on my way.  It was an exposed spot to defecate - it clearly could have been eaten by a predator if there was one nearby. Why would it pick the middle of the road to poop?  Even a cat would have been able to pounce on it. I went around it, and was three feet away when it dawned on me why the gecko decided to take a shit.

“Oh you’re GROSS!” I shouted in the direction I had left the pooping gecko.  “I wasn’t trying to eat you!  I don’t even WANT to eat you!”

Idiot…

A Sue-Eating Tree

Y’all remember the kite eating tree from the Charlie Brown comics, right? Well, I now understand his trepidation in retrieving his kite from the tree. Let me tell you a story…

As a child - like 10 years old and onward until I was about 16/17 - I lived on 6.6 acres with my family. I simply LOVED that place; the old house with the adventurous attic and the creepy serial killer basement; the stable and steady yard around the house and the magical wilderness just beyond; it was my favorite place to be. What I loved most about it was the house’s porch. The porch dad to have been 10 feet off of the ground. It was built of brick and stone with stone slab to cap the walls of the porch about waist high on a decently tall adult. Many adventures were had on that porch fighting Klingons, assaulting the Death Star or saving people by taking huge leaps off of the edge, plummeting to the ground and running in any given direction with “wwhawawhawaha” playing in my head (that’s the sound of bionic arms and legs, doncha know). Hell, we even figured out how to get onto the roof from the side of the porch to “rescue” the poor little chipmunk that had “gotten stuck” in the eaves of the roof. At least that was the story I gave my dad when he came home and demanded to know why my younger brother was shimmying up the column and was halfway onto the porch roof. I had to say SOMETHING! There was a clear view from the road to the porch and Dad had to have seen me hoist my brother up as he was driving home. In truth, we both wanted to jump from the roof of the house, land on the porch roof and “fall” onto an old mattress my parents were getting rid of. I was too short to get a good hold to pull myself up, so my brother was going to pull me up until I could.

Dad bought the chipmunk story. However, we were no longer allowed to climb on the house. There were SIX perfectly good full-sized apple trees in the side yard - go climb those. Years later, during a visit with the same brother, he let slip what we were actually doing, knowing that we were full grown adults and Dad couldn’t do anything about it. Joke was on us. Dad knew EXACTLY what we were doing - he saw the mattress and did the math (I didn’t maths well as a child, either). He also knew the mattress had broken springs that would have impaled on of us if we landed on it. I didn’t see the problem. My brother only agreed to haul me up if I let him go first.

Anyhoo, we took to climbing every tree on the property. For the bigger ones I need boosted up since we weren’t allowed to use Dad’s ladder; but for the more “branchy” trees (like the mulberry tree we had) I was able to get into without help. Once I got into a tree, I was a climbing fool. Never did I get stuck, never did I fall out of the tree - I jumped. Highest point I jumped was about 15 feet from the ground. That was Dad’s guestimation right before he banned me from climbing and jumping from trees (which is why I took to jumping off of swings like a ballistic missle). I didn’t see the issue he had with it. I never hurt myself AND, as my mom had said when I complained to her about it, it was my dad’s own fault I liked jumping off of things. He encouraged us kids to jump off of things because the damned floor was a pool of lava and if we got off of the couch we’d burn to death. We figured jumping furniture was the safest way to get to the bathroom. So, no more “Rocky the Squirrel” for me.

Fast forward to last Sunday. There is a mulberry tree in the yard. It’s a “wild” one, meaning it was there when the place was bought and nothing has ever been done with it. Some of the branches are dead. The tree never gets watered outside of what God gives it. The tree never gets fertilized outside of what God gives it. The tree never gets pruned outside of when God does it. The tree is located to the main road in and out of town, so it gets pelted with all the pollution from the trucks, cars and semis that go by, yet it still grows and bears fruit. It still hosts birds and squirrels as if it were a McDonald’s.

And it’s climbable for a shorty like me.

It is also fruiting and I decided I was going to go pick the fruit to make mulberry whatever. I get my bowl and start plucking the lower hanging fruit. Birds screeching and squirrels chittering in angry protest with the tree’s siren song becoming a chorus. I ignored all three. There was plenty of fruit for all of us and I am 47 years old. I do NOT belong in a tree like a 10 year old. “But you COULD do it. You know you could. Besides, up there is where all the ripe berries are.”

I don’t know who said that, but they made a good point. The top branches were littered with spots of purply black berries. Along with a couple of stubborn robins telling me my kind wasn’t welcomed at their tree. Being one to fight discrimination, I went to the shed and got some rope. Walking back to the tree, I heard the robins fly away with a couple of birds screeching at me while I tied my bowl around my waist and looped it over my neck. I’m gonna get me some berries.

Famous last words, I’m sure.

Getting into the tree wasn’t a problem, and it felt GOOD knowing I could still pull myself up without help. Finding hand and foot holds, making sure the branch could take my weight, either breaking dead branches off or dodging them altogether; it all came back to me. I felt like I was a kid again, picking berries and climbing higher. I could only climb about six or eight feet from the ground. Meh, the tree wasn’t very big.

I paused to shift my bowl - which was a rooyal pain in the ass trying to keep myself upright while not spilling the fruits of my labor - and leaned against a limb. The birds were still being prejudicial assholes - flying in close to get something to eat, seeing me and flying back to where they came from as if to say, “Nope. Not eating here. They serve HUMANS.” I ignored them. I was in a tree. At 47 years old. With clicky shoulders and walnuts for knees. In that moment I was at peace. Everything was right in the world.

Until Buddy barked at me to get myself down from there. He was not happy that I was up high without him, I guess.

And that’s when the wheels came off of the wagon.

I didn’t fall. I’m much more careful than that. The way you go up is the way you come back down. Usually. Well, the way I went up, I didn’t have a bowl full of berries to worry about. I wasn’t about to lose any, so I took a different route down. A little riskier, but if I fell, I didn’t have far to fall. Unfortunately the route I chose had a lot of little dead branch spikes and every time I shifted down, my shirt snagged, or my jeans snagged, or my shoe laces snagged. I was getting impatient with the amount of snagging that was going on, so I grabbed a branch with one hand to turn my body while using the other to keep the bowl steady. I shifted. My thigh, who was firmly wedged in a crook decided to cramp. Or complain about the 180 degree turn to the muscle. Whichegver the case, I shifted back in a hurry using both hands. And promplty spilled some of my precious cargo.

Sonofabitch. Oh well, didn’t lose too many. I started clearing the dead spikes so not to get caught up again and continued my descent. HA! Only in an ideal world - of which I most decidely do NOT live in - because I cleared the dead branches, I shifted to relieve the cramp and give my poor thigh some relief not worrying about my ass placement - which is critical if you have wider hips and are climbing in narrow spaces.

I’m going to pause here and tell you, I have no ass. I’ve lost quite a bit of weight in the last three years and although I still have the “Weston Spread” (my mother’s family’s name for the wide butts on the women of the family), I no longer have “da booty.” My ass is flatter than Kansas. My ass is so flat, you could wax my back and butt and go surfing on me. That’s how flat my ass is.

So how in the hell did it get stuck?!?

Because I h ad my phone in one pocket, my cigarettes in the other. Why I had my smokes in my pocket, I don’t know. It’s not like I was gonna climb to the top and have a cigarette because it was so stressful. But my phone - I keep that with me always becasue it gives me peace of mind for when I have an emergency, I can call for help instead of dying from whatever idiocy I do. Apparently, those two things gave me “ass” enough to get stuck in a tree. I am not happy. Mainly because the tree is on the corner of a well traveled road and that was all I needed; some one see me stuck in the tree, tell my boyfriend and him rolling up with a cherry picker to get me out - all the while, the sleepy town suddenly becomes alive and stands around to watch my dumb ass get rescued from a tree and the story lasts for YEARS. It’s a tiny town. It’s what happens.

I looked down wondering how far my descent was. Y’all I was LITERALLY 4 feet from the ground! I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be a spectacle because of four frigging feet. I tried jumping down. I felt a tug on my ankle. My foot was stuck.

Are you frigging KIDDING me?

I hear a truck. A diesel - that’s a no brainer. It’s farm country - EVERYONE has a diesel. But all I thought in my head was that truck was my boyfriend coming down the road and I will NEVER hear the end of it if he has to help me out of a tree. I grabbed a branck with my left hand and pulled my weight off of my foot. look at me go - I can pull 120 pounds with one hand - and jerked my foot free. Unfortunately there was no stable place to put it. By now, I didn’t give a shit about my bowl of berries. I had to get out of the damned tree. Releasing the precious cargo, I grabbed another branch and shifted (see, this is why monkey bars are important to have on the playground), freeing my ass and my foot in one go. All I did was flip myself 180 (technically photo-shopping myeslf in real life) and came face to face with an incoming bird. We both said, “Oh shit!” and the bird - a robin, I think; I didn’t get a good look - veered off course, brushed a bunch of berries in aborting it’s flight path and I pushed myself back to avoid a face to face collision.

And stabbed myself in the back with a dead branch. While massaging my wound, the asshat bird had the gall to sqwak at me - I’m pretty sure he said something bad about my mother - and refused to leave me alone so I could get out of the tree. So, not only did I have to worry about not getting stuck and finding a secent descent route, I now had to worry about a stupid, over-inflated, bigoted avian telling me how awful my species is.

At least the truck that was coming wasn’t my boyfriend, thank God. I was leaning against a branch, yelling back at the robin - which only brought more of his bigoted friends - and tried to figure out a way to get down without losing every single mulberry I picked. Jumping wasn’t going to work - I’d probably land on Buddy because he was directly below me wondering what the hell was going on up there and why didn’t I bring him along. After a few minutes, I finally said fuck it and propped my berries on a branch I could reach from the growon, grabbed another branch and pulled my body up and positioned my legs out.

I was gonna drop. Dropping is different from jumping in the fact its more controlled. I wasn’t worried about hitting dead branches - those were cleared when I decided to drop. I was concerned about landing on my dumb dog, who upon seeing it rain sticks as if they were manna from heaven, decided to park his ass below me to gnaw on one. I swung me feet back onto the crook. The birds perched on the tippy top of the canopy got louder. And that’s when my mind decided to replay the movie in my memory bank. That’s all I fucking needed - a bunch of birds scratching and clawing my eyes out while I’m in a tree.

I turn around. Behind me the space is narrower, but if I turn myself sideways, I could drop. It was more difficult, but since the ideal drop zone wasn’t available and the bigoted birds were coming back in force to lynch me, I was out of options. I put my “butt cheeks” in the bowl with the berries so I wouldn’t get stuck again and grabbed hold of the branch. I slowly made my way over and a robin landed above me to the right just as my feet left their secure footing. I glared at the robin and said, “You shit on me, and I will torch this fucking tree. Do not test me.”

The robin flew away. I did not get shat upon.

Once I was cleared of any further obstructions, I dropped the 4 feet. Buddy looked up from his stick for a nano second, then went back to gnawing on his sticks. His concern for my welfare was palpable…

So, if you ever wondered why Charlie Brown was so terrified to get his kite back from the kite eating tree, now you know why. Its DANGEROUS inside a tree!