“The scampering ham was on the lam…”

I woke up today hearing voices – one of them said, “Clean the garage.”  The others said, “ Go back to sleep.”  So I rolled over and went back to sleep and had another bad dream, this one about cleaning out the refrigerator.

In our house cleaning out the refrigerator is a formidable task.  Nobody wants to do it.  So things, I call them things because, after food has been crammed in there, day after day, for weeks on end, who knows what it is.  Leftovers begin to look like primordial slime and eventually take on a life of their own

As I gagged at the sight of an almost gangrenous leg of lamb, I yelled, “Howard, isn’t it your turn to clean the refrigerator?”

“Nope, it’s your turn.  And by the way, I think something nearly bit me last night, you might want to get a rope and muzzle.” Now that’s what I call losing an argument.  Badly.  I was going to be an indiscriminate it, just like all the stuff I would have to clean out.  The dirty job was mine, and it didn’t even have my name on it.

Hmmm, rope and muzzle… I decided to make a list of cleaning tools and supplies.  I’m big on lists, like a lot of self-help gurus and websites.  So here’s what I compiled:  disinfectant, rubber gloves, yowee brush (that’s a steel bristled cleaning brush or loofah bath sponge gone mad), mop, ice pick, pliers, hammer, explosives, shovel, night vision goggles (for the meat keeper), and industrial sized wet vac.  Oh, and I forgot to add, a cage and a high powered rifle.

Now you might think that I was over-reacting but if you’d seen what was on the third shelf, you’d understand.  The second shelf?  Well, it wasn’t so bad.  It had a lot of stuff of undetermined origin.  I’d probably need a DNA kit for the meat in a bag.   The chicken thighs smelled okay.  I could feed them to the dog and find out.  (I learned a long time ago, that if the dog won’t eat something and I eat it anyway, I would be a “woman on the go” for at least the next week or longer.)  The steak fingers and hot dogs might be edible.  They had so much salt in them, they will never decompose.  If it had been snowing, I could have used them to melt the ice on iced-over sidewalks. On the other hand, their elongated, dark brown fecal appearance would probably keep people off the icy sidewalks anyway, you know, as in, “Mabel, watch where you step.  There’s s___t on the goddam sidewalk…”

But there’s that third shelf.  It reminded me of the last time I cleaned the refrigerator, when I caught my fingers in the grillwork of the wire shelving and had to get Howard to use the wirecutters.  This time it was something else, like green froth, in the fridge’s far posterior, that caught my eye.  And it was moving.  The shelf was a swamp and I could not clearly see the back.  What was that sock doing there? Were dustmites moving it?  Maybe they were rabid dustmites??? Can they bite through rubber gloves?  Maybe I should get a tetanus shot before I tackle this…  

“Howard, get me the longest barbecue fork you can find!”

“How about a pitchfork!”

“Quick, I need it before it crawls out of the fridge!”

He hands me a long barbecue fork and I pull the “mass” out.  But, it’s just the decaying remains of a big chunk of summer sausage.  Summer sausage and my imagination… The gases in it must have made it look like it was on the move. Summer sausage with gas…  Then my intestines felt like they were on the move… Like they were gonna have the galloping boogies all the way to Arizona.

That was it.  I was done.  So much for cleaning the refrigerator that day.

There’s always tomorrow…

Stuffing the turkey is only part of the cooking process. You have to “dress” it too. Since I’m not going to be cooking this turkey, I considered an alternative holiday dressing.

I dread the holidays.  All that cooking.  Not that I actually do it.  I can’t remember the last time I dressed  or stuffed a turkey.  That’s Howard’s job now.  But if I did, I have a few special ideas I’d like to try.  Like Popcorn Stuffing.  I found a recipe  somewhere for “Popcorn Stuffing”.  Now that sounded really interesting.   Innovative.   But I always like to think ahead before I cook or bake something.  In this case, I expect that it would keep my kitchen, and probably me, in one piece.

I’m not going to show the recipe.

It definitely looks like one of those “Don’t try this at home” ventures.  The recipe I saw did not account for the effect of the steam and energy released by the popcorn in the stuffing.  Depending on the amount of popcorn used, especially if the amount was in the ratio of 1-3 cups, the steam and energy released by the popcorn in the turkey’s sutured bunghole would have nowhere to go.   It would likely accumulate and then blow the turkey’s ass clear out through the oven door.

Now If I could time its velocity as it came through the oven door and didn’t get hit upside the head in the meantime, with a little math, I could calculate the force of impact when it hit the kitchen wall or  whoever was dumb enough to stand  in front of the oven.  For a 14 lb turkey, the force of impact would be about 30 lbs.  Now I’m not sure what a 30 lb impact is like, but I don’t think it would leave an oven door intact and it would probably send a person to the Emergency Room.

I doubt  the turkey  would  go through the kitchen wall, but I can hear Howard in the next room yelling, “Hey Maggie, what the hell was that noise?” to which I would  reply, “Nothing, dear.” This would then be followed by a lot of scraping and scrubbing for the next week and a half, not to mention a busted oven door, and the complaints, grumbling, and swearing continuing into the next holiday…

The vacuum was overwhelming…

Vacuum cleaners.  I hate housework, especially vacuuming the house.  Not that I won’t do it, but before breakfast???  It was 6 o’clock  this morning when Howard emerged from the bedroom.  Instead of the usual sleepy trudge, he’s hauling ass to the utility closet and clutching his throat.  At first I was impressed, I’ve never seen him so awake this early.

“Hey Speedy, are we going out for breakfast?”  Boy was I naive, I assumed food must be involved.  But no, all I heard was, “!#*&^@!!  dust bunnies… gonna give me asthma.”  Now I  know I sound ungrateful, after all, how many women wouldn’t appreciate having their husbands vacuum the house? But so early in the morning?  And besides, he’s not asthmatic.

Maybe it’s the vacuum cleaner. It’s really noisy and noise makes me irritable.So cantankerous, I’d like to take to it with a baseball bat. It sounds like it’s going to fram the tile floor to pieces.   When my husband pushes the dang thing all over the house, the engine screeches bloody murder and dirt and cat hair fly into its Lucite cylinders like hoards of flies coming to a dog pile. It has no bag and  crud spews out everywhere from underneath it.   Why not get a quieter vacuum cleaner?  Howard says we need power!  Power to suck up all the dirt, dust mites, and cat hair (a condiment around here).

Now if I was the one  making all that racket…

Citizenship.  I was born in Pennsylvania, not Palm Beach County, Florida. ( Maybe  I should have said I live in South Florida because living in this part of the state is like living in another country.)  How long have I lived here?  Long enough to consider myself a naturalized southerner.

But what exactly determines who is a naturalized southerner?  It  isn’t birth and it really isn’t how long or where you have lived in the south.  There are, however,  a few attributes that you may have acquired and they would certainly account for a southern point of view. Consider:

1. You think a 4-wheel drive pick up truck is a bare necessity

2. You think living in a double wide is high class

3.  You hate sweetened cornbread

4.  Your 75 year old mother-in-law still climbs a deer stand.

5.  Worse yet, your 75 year old mother-in-law’s favorite gun is a .243 Winchester.

Being married to a natural born southerner also helps.  I could also claim conferred citizenship by marriage.

December-May vs. May-December.  I asked Howard if he wouldn’t be happier with someone 30 years younger (Like Neil Diamond, who at the moment, seems to be ecstatically happy with a much, much younger wife.)  His reply, “No way.”

“Not even if she was a me?  Not even a maybe?” I replied.

“No.”

“But if I weren’t around?”

“Then I would consider it.”

“So, if I stick around, you’d still keep me, even though I’m the older model?”

“Yes.”

“You  know,” I replied.  “If I met a you that was 30 years younger, whether or not the current version of you was still around, you know what I’d do?”

“What?”

“I’d run like hell the other way.  No looking back either.”

Today I woke up, got up, and dragged myself around….

All parts of a conch are supposed to be edible, which is okay if you don’t mind eating  intestines and brains (however small conch brains may be).
But a conch’s foot has the best white meat -not to be confused with pork- and if you don’t mind eating the equivalent of an overgrown escargot, conch
fritters are delicious, grease and all!

After gorging on conch fritters and a lot of beer, I woke up
the next morning with a heavy chest. At first, I thought that it was last night’s conch
fritters, and that all that fritter grease  had formed one big gas bubble in my gut.  It felt like  flatulence was pushing all my internal body parts up against my throat.  But it wasn’t  flatulence and it certainly wasn’t gravity. It was just my cat, Tom Brown, standing on top of me.

Now I wonder, how many conch feet are in a fritter? Probably four or five.  Unless
you use the whole thing.  I’m beginning to feel sorry for the conch.  How does a
footless conch put its best foot forward?  Wading must be  difficult.  How can a
footloose conch set foot anywhere?

But conchs can get even,   After the fritters slid on down into my lower
intestine, I began to think the conch(s) had an agenda of their own.  Or maybe it was the grease. It felt like Custer’s last stand,  a major gastric coup.   Or maybe the conchs were just going to spawn….Anyway, conchs are persistent little bastards.  It took three hours and half a bottle of kaopectate to calm my intestines.  From  now on, I’ll stick to vegetables.

Florida cockroaches are real cockroaches.  They are not teeny and puny like those little German immigrants.  Just seeing one of those big suckers swimming in your coffee or having sex on your kitchen counter  is enough to cause a major jump in most people’s blood pressure.

So what can you do about it?  Answer: cook them  Cooking them will not only eliminate them from your premises but it will also provide  an additional protein source.  The hard stuff  in their exoskeletons is better than fiber and when it scratches the insides of your large bowel, you  can forget about constipation (maybe for a really long time!) and get set for a really impressive weight loss.

So how do you cook a Florida cockroach?  Here are some suggestions.

1) Toast it!  If it’s hiding in the bottom of your toaster, it will come out flying like a       second stage ignition rocket.

2) Fry it.  The day old congealed butter in a frying pan will immobilize it. It can’t get   away. If  your close your  eyes and stir vigorously, its parts will disintegrate into    smaller  pieces and  no one, including you, will know the difference. You can also add breading for extra crunch.

3)  Roast it.  It’s hard to see a cockroach when it is au jus.

Now I find the thought of consuming a cockroach absolutely nauseating, even if it was pureed with pork rinds or dipped in chocolate.  My concern is that eating an unsterilized cockroach could cause violent stomach spasms and a three day stint in a diarrhea ward (or worse.)  So heed the warning:  Do not do this at home (or anywhere else)!

I like to fuss over my cat, Tom Brown.  But Tom doesn’t always take too kindly to
fussing and his tail will begin to twitch.
It even twitches when I just look at him.  He
just lies there, pretending  to
sleep and looking away from me, but the tail is twitching.  Then I get to thinking, what if humans had tails?  A tail could be a real
aggravation or even an embarrassment,
especially if you are trying to maintain your cool and  your tail has a mind of its own.

I can see it now.  A meeting  or a presentation.  Enthusiasm and  the tail get carried away.  Crisp, to the point,  data presentation is accompanied by the
staccato hammering of an uncontrolled tail beat. So much for self-control or
the lack of it.  Worse yet, it could have been a job interview.

Another scenario:  One grumpy  teacher and a classroom full of  misbehaving imps. Teachers are supposed to maintain a calm “you didn’t piss me off” demeanor.  Cool as ice… smooth as ice cream…  But after  a disruption, the tail would be a tell tale give
away.  I can just see it flailing from side to side or up and down.  Holding it
still would really be an effort.  And under  a dress???

“Look,” says one little brat to the other.  “Look at Mrs. M’s tail!”

Second little twerp: “Owww.  You just poked me in the eye, Mrs. M!”

Two days later  I’m back in the principal’s office :  “I know, Dr. Smartz (still not his real name),  my tail was out of control.  Lots of people have that problem, but I did
not try to poke that child’s eye out with my tail.”

On the other hand, a tail could serve some useful purposes:

1.  Use it as a pointer.  It would really go well with power point  presentations.

2.  Text with it.

3.  Use it as a gavel and call a meeting to order.

4.  Or wrap it around a bar stool to keep from falling off.

But there could  be other problems.

Teacher:  Imp Number 3, why are you out of your seat?

“My tail hurts Mrs. M. I’ve been sitting on it too long.”

Or worse yet, “Imp Number 4, keep your tail to yourself.”

“But Mrs. M., he keeps touching me!”

And don’ t  forget about big feet and rocking chairs. When
your tail is flattened,  yowwww!

Another Christmas gone by.  I’m so relieved.  Not that I’m a bah humbug person and not that I don’t have at least a few Christmas memories that I treasure, but there are a whole bunch of Christmases that I would just like to forget (and for some no good reason, I can’t.)  I try to blame some of my unpleasant memories on the month of December.  In our family, December is a lousy month.  If I’m headed for thirty days of aggravation, it’s going to be in December.  Bad things always happen in December, usually just in time for the holiday season.  You know, like….

“Hey Howard, the water in the toilet won’t go down and the
tide is rising…”

“Then don’t flush!”

“Why not?”

“The septic tank is full.”

Then there’s the forever holiday trip.  We do an annual drive to Georgia to spend the holidays with family:

“How many more miles?” I ask.

“500 miles.” he replies.

He sounds like an old Peter, Paul, and Mary song.  “Nahh, “ I tell him.. “ You’ve got to be kidding!”

Then he says;” Yup!  500 miles, 8 pit stops, and 8 more dirty bathrooms.”

I  so want to stay home.

We get to Georgia.  I start sneezing.  Then I spend the next four days in the guestroom with a cold or worse yet, the flu.  If I had been lucky, I would have gotten sick before we left and I could just suffer there in my own bed at home.  I blew and blew.  I should have had a bucket for all that flu goo.  The end of my nose was beginning to look like raw diaper rash.                                                                                                             “Howard, go to the store.  I need more Kleenex,” I gasped.                                “Already?”                                                                                                                    “And get me something for my hamburger nose!”  So what does he come back with?      A & D diaper rash ointment.  All I can smell is baby butt.

And then there was this year.  “Howard, the tree is tilting.  It’s not straight.”             “Finish it and we”ll straighten it later.”                                                                                 I did finish it, and guess what, we didn’t straighten it.  We left it that way, listing to port for the entire holiday season.  We called it the leaning bower of Treeza.

I worry a lot.  Especially late at night when I have insomnia.  I worry about money, my job , gaining
weight… In other words, anything that  comes along. Lately, I’ve begun to worry about  airports.   Homeland security scares the heck out of me.  I’m afraid they’ll do something to piss me off and then I’ll open my big mouth and next thing you know,  I won’t even be allowed to call for a bail bondsman.   I can just imagine the phone conversation between me and Howard.

“Howard, the feds have me locked up.”                  “Why? What’d you do now?”                                           ” Nothing.”                                                                  “Are you sure?”                                             “Absolutely.”

“Then why are you calling me?”

“Call me a bail bondsman and a lawyer!”

“Why me?”

Need I say more?

I always have a fear that I’ll get lost in an airport.  I can see myself wandering around
for  days.  Little kids stare at me.  ”Mommy, what’s wrong with that lady? Why is she dragging her suit case up and down the airport?”

“Shhhh, she’ll hear you.”

Man across from little kid:  “Her GPS doesn’t work,  she lost her Blackberry, and her husband  won’t come get her.”

I really hate traveling alone.  I have to make a trip to Dayton,Ohio, next month.  I wanted Howard to come with me.    But he said it’s my business and he doesn’t want to spend money to be bored.  I think it’s really because of his girth.  It’s been awhile and a lot of
pounds since he flew anywhere.  I’m betting 10 to 1 he can’t fit into an economy or business seat and he just doesn’t want to admit it.

Halloween’s been long gone for almost a month.  It was just another Halloween, a Halloween spent trick or treating with my sister-in-law’s kid.  He dressed up as a pirate and me, I went as an aging adult.  “Do ya have to look like that?” he complained.      “Listen kid, I am what I am.  Besides, what do you want, a frog?”   Then I  clutched my goody bag, actually a grocery bag, and we stomped off to beg  for candy.

Somehow I managed to come home with a lot of candy in spite of the skeptical looks I got from the neighbors. “Aren’t you a little old for this?” they asked.  “Nah, ” I replied. “You’re never too old for indigestion.”  Then I took the kid home – I even let him keep his candy (no candy “tax” this year ).  ”Eat as much candy as you want, kid.”                                    
“Stop calling me kid.”    
                                                                                                          
I ignored him.   “Here, have some more,”  I said as we rounded the corner.  “It’ll help your mother sleep.”

 Then I decided to go home and stuff myself with my candy.  Just me, the candy, and a bottle of merlot were gonna celebrate this one together.  I must have really been tired because I dozed off right after consuming all that candy and wine.

 It was just a dream or maybe it was a diabetic stupor,  but I woke up  standing at the entrance of a cemetery.  The sign on the gate read “Dead End” and I didn’t feel right. As a matter of fact, nothing seemed right, but I kept on going until  I finally entered  a small, dilapidated building.  Then I began to wonder if I  was dead.  I guess it was all the candy I ate. I really felt like dead and maybe all that sugar can kill. 

 Cobwebs and dust were all over the place. It looked  like home.  But there was no technicolor  and something smelled really bad.  Could have been me.  Decomposition? Or bad flatulence from all that wine?

 I passed by a  concrete angel and tried not to notice its missing head.  A bad omen.  My mother always told me I would lose my head if it wasn’t attached.  But , thankfully, I’m no angel.   I saw a mirror. It was one of those ornate things with flowers and cherub carvings. I looked into it and, boy,  I did look dead. Like Alice Cooper.    Maybe it was the wine or maybe it was just the shroud I was wearing, or  the runny eye-makeup.   

 I heard voices from further in. I couldn’t see for shit because it was so dark but it was  Howard and an under taker. The building was a mortuary and they were doing something to a casket…

 ”Hey, Howard, let’s get  the hell  out of here!”I yelled out. “This place gives me the creeps!”  He wasn’t listening. How typical. But neither was the undertaker. Nobody  heard me.  I guess when you’re dead, no one can hear you scream.  I waved.  I jumped up and down.  When my right foot passed through my left foot , I finally got it.  I was ethereal and Howard can’t fix dead.

Howard:  She’s dead.                                                                                             Undertaker: She certainly is.                                                                                              Me:  Snarky bastards!                                                                                                   Howard (still carrying on): She’s dead!  She’s dead!                                                    Undertaker:  Of course she is, sir.  All our clients are dead.                                      Howard:  I told her not to eat all that candy.                                                                       Me:  Enough already. Stop saying that!

Together they lowered the casket lid, but it wouldn’t close.                                              They tried again and again.  The casket stayed open.                                               Howard:  What’s that?   Pie dough?                                                                      Undertaker:  No,  body fat!                                                                                           Howard:  Body fat?  How?                                                                                      Undertaker:  She’s swelling.                                                                                        Howard:  And bulging.                                                                                            Undertaker:  Irritable Bowel Syndrome?                                                                     Howard:  No.  Maybe it was the potato salad.                                                        Undertaker:  I’ll get a saw and a vacuum pump.

 And then I woke up…for real.

It’s 3AM and I am ohhh so hungry!  I can’t sleep when I feel like my stomach is licking the meat off my ribs.  I stare at the ceiling and I think no more calories! But I’m beginning to see luminenscent petite fours on the ceiling.  I must have low blood sugar, my vision is starting to go. The petite fours are multiplying.  I think they are dancing with the chocolate truffles.

 I get restless and can’t sleep when I am hungry.  Howard is lying next to me sawing logs and passing gas.  He’s not hungry.  He never goes to bed hungry.  It’s a wonder he’s not hugging a bag of potato chips.  I didn’t go to bed hungry last night.  A couple of hours after supper I scarfed down a sugar loaded dulce le leche cupcake.  The sweets center in my brain thought it had died and gone to heaven.  Then the sugar from that delicious monster screamed for water all night long.  My stomach swelled.  It even winked at me.  Tonight I am making up for it.   Tonight is penance night and I am hungry.