I Got Nuthin’

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La Loco Laundry

Classes are finally over and I’ve been grading finals and trying to catch up on all the things I’ve put on the back burner — hell, more like an unplugged crock pot — for the past month.  Like laundry.  When I find myself spritzing my jeans with Febreze, it’s time to suds the duds.  But, Innernetz, I really, really hate going to the laundromat. I’d rather take a kindergarten class on a field trip to the DMV after giving them jellybeans and espresso for breakfast. 

Things were getting desperate, however.  Besides the Febreze, I was also down to wearing Mr. Dingo’s boxer briefs while using band-aids to hold them up.  So off I went to the laundromat thinking that it couldn’t be as bad as I was expecting.  Hahahahaha!  Oh come on, Innernetz!  You know me by now.  Of course it could!

There were two empty machines in the back of the laundromat. I dumped my clothes onto a table and began sorting when a shadow emerged from the corner.  It was Yoda’s evil twin.  Short, swarthy, and with his face wrinkled like a two-pack-a-day Shar-pei , his sudden presence at my elbow startled me.

“Drop something you did?” he croaked as he timidly handed me my bra.  At least I think that’s what he said.  His garbled words oozed past broken yellowed teeth that tap-danced like drunken tombstones in his puckered mouth.

“Thank you,” I said, noticing a wet thumbprint on my C-cup.  He glided backward into the shadows as eerily as he had appeared.  I held my bra away from my body in case the disgusting propagated.

I had just started a load and settled into a chair to mock my students’ papers when I felt a bony finger tap me on the shoulder. I looked up expecting to see Pervy Yoda but no, it was Bod-a-lish-us.  Bod-a-lish-us was wearing an ultrasheer body stocking and fuck me stilettos.  Let me say that slowly: Body.  Stocking.  She woke up that morning, cracked open a plastic egg she’d been saving since 1989 when she was thirty pounds lighter, and, with the aid of a crowbar and shoehorn, strong-armed the sheer burnt orange “suntan” abomination over her calves, thighs, and hips until she reached her armpits.  Then, the body stocking depriving her brain of any oxygen, she looked in the mirror and declared herself flabulous.  She looked like a radioactive hotdog.  And she brought her own buns.  Bubbly, puffy, crusty buns.

Bod-a-lish-us waved a container of laundry detergent in front of my face and asked, “Me use?”

“Sorry,” I said shaking my headwhile prying my container of detergent from her purple three-inch acrylic nails. 

Tears brimmed at the edges of her heavily kohled eyes.  “Me use?” she repeated pointing to a laundry cart with a small load of hoochie-mama accoutrements.  Damn, I thought, if I don’t let her use my detergent, what is she going to wear to work tonight?  Besides, the body stocking was obviously her laundry-day outfit.  Letting her wash the rest of her whoredrobe would be like a public service. 

Sighing, I said, “Okay, but please use just a li—”

“Gracias!” she said.  Her tears dried up like a sunbathing raisin contemplating its deferred dreams.  And then waving her talons, she summoned three kids who entered the laundromat rolling one of those SUV-sized granny carts.  And there went my laundry detergent. The Bod-a-lish-us brood opened and slammed washing machine doors and swung from them like low-hanging crotchfruit.

I had just taken my seat and opened my gradebook when I was again disturbed by a poke at my shoulder.  It was Pervy Yoda handing me another of my bras. 

“Drop something you did?” he said, giving me the side eye.

This was just too creepy. 

“Get away from me, you fucking freak!” I screamed.  Inside my head.  I searched for the manager.  I found her watching a telenovella in a little room at the far end of the laundromat as she reverently stroked the coin-changer strapped to her belt.

“There’s a guy back there stealing underwear,” I said. 

She sighed and, without taking her eyes off the screen, yelled something unintelligible over the din of the TV.  I smugly waited for Pervy Yoda to levitate to the front of the store.  He would’ve gotten to us sooner but for the disruption in the force as three Bod-a-lish-us muffpuppets cried out in glee and raced through the laundromat on laundry carts slamming into washing machines.

When he finally reached us, Pervy Yoda and the manager shouted back and forth at each other in tongues until the commercial break was over.  The manager threw her hands up in the air, tossed a few words over her shoulder punctuated by an occasional “Ayiii!” and then went back to her show.  Pervy Yoda slunk back to his hole.

“That’s it?” I asked.  “Aren’t you going to kick him out?”

“No miss.  No worry.”

“But he is stealing underwear!”

“He stop, miss,” she said. “He here with one of his children and their mother,” she explained, pointing toward the Bod-a-lish-us brood.

Fuck this, I thought.  I stormed back to my washing machines, took out the wet clothes, and left.  I’d buy a bucket and scrubbing board before ever going back there.  Once home, I stomped to the bathroom.  And then I opened my laundry bag to hang up my wet… dental floss thong, fishnet thigh highs, and cupless bra.

These weren’t clothes.  These were pieces of fabric held together by fairy dust and surface tension.  In addition to my own clothing, I had stolen Bod-a-lish-us’s undies.

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I Didn’t Have To Go To Starbucks For This One

The semester is almost over, thank dog.  I am worn out.  Two of my classes have been engaging and fun.  One class, my mouth breathers, have required every bit of patience — well, let’s just say that their ignorance is like a BP oil spill: the stupid won’t stop pouring out and, I swear, it’s not my fault!  I’ve had writing workshops, peer reviews, and intensive one-on-one writing sessions yet I still receive papers with insightful pronouncements like:

“Being a Christian has the promises of eternal salvation.  One day, when you kick the bucket, you will go to the city called Heaven.  Except, maybe not.  You might go to Heaven.  Unless there isn’t really a Heaven.  Then you will just be dead.  So sad.  So very, very sad. But this book isn’t about Christianity its about anarchy and there all going to hell anyway.”

And…

“Paul Whitman wrote Leafs of Grasses.  He was gay.  He had a beard because he had acne.  He is famous because he is the only gay poet in America.  If Paul Whitman were alive today he would be a gay poet with a beard.”

But the Troglodyte Of The Year Award goes to Beaker.  On the first day of class, my explanation of the syllabus was interrupted by a high-pitched “Meep!” from the back of the room.  All heads whipped to the hairy bespectacled Lorax sitting in the corner. 

“Excuse me?”

“Meep!” he replied, the lower half of his wooly Snuffleupagus-like visage partially hidden by the syllabus wedged between his saber-toothed incisors.  Meep!  Meep!  Meep!  I was a bit non-plussed by the truckload of trouble that seemed to be backing its way into my classroom. 

“I have autism!” he shouted through a mouthful of paper.

Beaker’s proclamation hovered over the room like a loud, liquidy shart in a crowded elevator.  No problem, I thought.  I’ve had autistic students in several of my classes.  What followed, however, was weeks of meeping when asked a question, spasmodic jerks at any mention of technology, and a host of other ticks and triggers that made teaching each and every class like being “It” while playing Simon Says in a minefield.

On one occasion, I asked the class a question about the day’s reading.  Beaker’s hand shot up.  Thinking it was one of his ticks, I called on someone else.  Beaker’s other hand shot up. 

“Beaker, do you want to respond?”

He nodded emphatically, eyes wide behind his dirty glasses.

“Okay, go ahead.”

Beaker slooooowly lowered his hands and covered his mouth as he spoke, fingers interlaced in a hairy-fingered web that trapped his words.

“Beaker, I can’t hear you.  Do you mind moving your hands?”

Beaker paused for a moment and then slooooowly raised his hands like a roman shade until his eyes were blocked from view.  His mouth continued to move.  No sounds emerged.  I sighed and called on someone else.

Beaker’s outbursts increased in frequency and intensity, often disrupting class.  I needed some advice: taser or baton?  So I went to the student disability office.  The student disability office Beaker was supposed to have registered with at the beginning of the semester.  The student disability office he said he registered with, between meeps, at the beginning of the semester.  The student disability office he didn’t register with at the beginning of the semester because he DOESN’T FUCKING HAVE AUTISM!

In fact, the student disability office informed me that Beaker had tried his autism routine in several other classes.  When confronted, Beaker fessed up, settled down, and didn’t utter another meep for the rest of the semester.  That’s right, Innernetz, Beaker doesn’t have autism.  At all.  Not even a little bit.  Not even the high-functioning-I’m-gonna-make-a-bazillion-dollars-on-a-world-dominating-computer-operating-system kind.  What he did have was the wrath of Dingo coming his way.

The next day, at the beginning of class, I announced that I had sent the entire class an email.  He meeped and flailed back and forth like a hairy piñata in a Santa Ana wind.  I ignored it and went on to mention that students could collaborate about their in-class presentations online.  Beaker twitched and jerked.  I suggested Tweets and Beaker grabbed a book from his desk and waved it in front of his face while making “tweet” sounds.  When I suggested that the groups befriend one another on Facebook, he screamed while smacking the book against his face.  I suggested instant messaging, bulletin boards, and online collaboration apps, but it wasn’t until I mentioned Skype that Beaker fell to the floor, exhausted and panting.  I then requested that he come see me during my office hours.

“Ms. Dingo? You wanted to see me?” He stepped into my office, hair poking through buttonholes and sleeves as if he’d bought his clothes at a minoxidil fire sale.

“Sit down, Beaker.” Beaker sat. 

“You don’t have autism.  You’re a faker,” I said getting to the point.  Barely restraining my glee about the water works and blubbering apologies that I just knew were about to spring from his lying lips, I reached for the tissues I keep by my desk for such occasions. 

“Um, is this about my papers?”

My hand paused mid-air.  I may or may not have made a fist.  He doesn’t have autism.  He did have stupid.

“No, Not Rain Man, this is not about your papers.  This is about the fact that you’ve been faking a developmental disorder and disrupting class.  What the hell, dude?!” I sat back mentally rubbing my hands together waiting for the groveling.  I’d worn my best shoes.  I find the tears of desperate penitents exceptional for buffing patent leather.

“Oh, yeah, that.  Does this affect my grade?” he asked.

“Meep!” I said.

He smiled a little.  “No, seriously, I can’t fail this class,” he said.  “This won’t affect my...?”

“Meep meep,” I said and froze, but for my left arm, which glacially moved a sheet of paper from the desk to the front of my face.  “Meep,” I repeated, until I was sure he had left.

Damn, I’ll be glad when this semester is over.

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Like A Rock

*cough* <waving away dust and cobwebs> *cough* Day-um, y’all, it’s all dusty up in here!  It’s not that I’ve forgotten about you, Innernetz.  I’ve missed y’all tremendously, but if I didn’t focus on the freelance writing, copyediting, and tutoring jobs I rustled up for some extra cash, I’d instead miss things like electricity and food.  The past month was an exhausting pattern of workworkworkworksleepwork.  I’m not complaining — well, yes I am because that’s what I do — but this last month has been full of the suckage and no bloggage.

But I’m baaaccck, and I know you are just orgasmic with relief.  I’ll give you a minute or two to compose yourself and change your panties.  Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

I had a break this weekend when The Cougar came to visit.  She took one look at my pasty pallor and prescribed large doses of Vitamin Daylight.  It took a while for her to crowbar me away from my desk, my ass having molded perfectly around my chair cushion, but once that was accomplished we headed to the park with Dingo Girl for a tasty but hasty dingolicious picnic. One of the paths that meandered up a steep hill took us along a massive vertical rock face jutting drunkenly out of the ground like Mel Gibson at The Passion of The Long Island Iced Tea. As I walked to the edge of the path so that Dingo Girl could do her bidness, I suddenly heard The Cougar say, “I’m going to climb that rock! I bet I can see most of the park from the top!” The next second she was scaling the smooth precipice like Spiderman with a sand wedgie.

“Come down!” I called.  “What are you doing?! Are you crazy?!”

The Cougar continued to climb.  “Take a picture!” she yelled.

My heart thumping so hard it sounded like Kirstie Alley in Wal-Mart flip-flops, I fumbled in my messenger bag for my camera.  Dingo Girl was pacing around my feet, whimpering.  By the time I found the camera, The Cougar was another five feet up.  She paused to wave at me.

“Don’t do that! Get down here!  You’re going to break your neck!” The Cougar responded by giving me The Cougar equivalent of the finger — she stuck her tongue out at me.  And kept climbing. 

I started to put the camera back in my bag when I felt a tug on Dingo Girl’s retractable leash.  She had started up the rock after The Cougar.  Dingo Girl, however, not having grasped the fine art of climbing 80-degree rock cliffs, shifted into reverse, going up the rock face ass first. I dropped the leash, crossed the path, and walked to the rock to get her down.  She crab-walked just out of my reach but not before planting a saucy lick on my nose — Dingo Girl’s version of the finger.

Dingo Girl halted her upward progression about twenty feet up where the rock veered even more sharply up the side of the hill and sat down.  She somehow remained stuck to the side of the rock, jutting from the cliff like Pinocchio’s nose at a Tea Party rally.  I started to scale the cliff to save her.

“Mom!” I yelled.  “Call Dingo Girl to you.  She has to keep going.”

Hearing the panic in my voice, Dingo Girl began to get nervous.  She began to whimper.  And then howl.  It was a long, high-pitched wail.  It sounded something like I’msofuuuuuucked! I’madognotamountaingoat! She started to slide.  Pebbles, dirt, and bits of moss kicked up by her struggles hit my face like a rice-substitute at a very environmentally friendly wedding.  Here comes the bride.  Too bad she died.

My feet couldn’t find purchase against the slick moss.  Motherfucker!  Motherfucker!  slip, slide, whack! My knee crashed against the rock.  Motherfucker!  Still, I made slow progress toward Dingo Girl.

“Grab her!” I yelled to The Cougar.  She reached for Dingo Girl’s collar and…missed!  Dingo Girl slammed into me.  For the first time in years, I thanked the Universe for my big thighs.  More surface area to hang onto the promontory of death.  I managed to catch Dingo Girl, her head trapped between my knees and her butt in my face.  I breathed a sigh of relief but now I had a freaked out dog trapped between me and the rock.  And I was on a rock!  No, I was on the side of a rock!

The Cougar carefully scooted toward us and got close enough to wrap her arm around Dingo Girl’s back end.  We slowly moved up the remaining five feet or so in fits and starts like Frogger, The Epilectic Edition.  When we finally reached level ground at the top of the boulder, The Cougar and I flopped onto our backs, breathing heavily, and picking dog hair out of our mouths.  Dingo Girl went to pee on a bush.

“Well,” I said to The Cougar, “we made it! Thank you for that exhilarating experience!”

Then I grumbled something only marginally obscene.  You couldn’t even see the entire park from the top.  Too many trees!  I called Dingo Girl over and then turned toward her.  She was still rustling in the nearby bushes so I went to get her.  I didn’t want her near the steep edges.  I pictured her jumping over the edge and The Cougar jumping right after her because that looked like fun, too.

When I reached Dingo Girl, I realized that she had found a staircase carved into the rock.  The stairs led down and around the rock to a point about thirty feet in front of the spot where The Cougar had decided to climb.

And that, dear Innernetz, is how I lost my voice.

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Thanks for Nuttin’

Hola, Innernetz!  I know, I know, I promised to announce the winner of the Nobel Works Cards Giveaway ages ago, but things got a little busy around here, what with dodging bullets, intercepting gang communications, and negotiating a hostage release or two amidst all the other opportunities for community involvement my new slayborhood presents.  Actually, I’ve been curled up on the couch nursing my aching ovaries with a heating pad and Super-Extra-Strength-This-Had-Better-Work-Or-I’m-Going-to-Punch-Somebody-Midol.  Normally, my ovaries only ache (in a good way) when I see pictures of puppies.  Or cream cheese frosting cupcakes.  But over the past two weeks my normal PMS symptoms have been exacerbated by the stress of living under the clamorous womb weasels upstairs. My ovaries staged a revolt.  Bitchiness, Moodiness, and Irritability joined the insurrection.  But, I have figured out how to deal with abdominal anarchy: naps.  Naps are the way to deal with your painful monthly visit from Aunt Flo.  It’s like every other family get-together.  Excuse yourself during Thanksgiving dinner and hibernate until January 1st. 

So, I’ve been napping, or trying to.  Sleep is hard to come by around here.  Some of you had wonderful passive-aggressive suggestions for dealing with my noisy neighbors.  Just my style.  Dingo talks a good game, but when it comes down to it, I am embarrassingly non-confrontational.  I’d rather tattle and let someone else deal with the Furby’s and Baby Mamas of the world.  But SOME of you suggested that I bang on the ceiling with a broom.  Now Innernetz, is that any way to be neighborly and avoid getting stabbed in the face?  I would have to wear a Jason Vorhees mask at all times.

Last week, as I lay on the couch moaning about my stupid bitchface reproductive organs and bemoaning the fact that the exorcisms on Paranormal State don’t result in head-spinning, pea-soup spewing fabulousness, the percussion posse above me decided to turn their apartment into a roller derby of the damned.  “Sweet baby jebus, you splooge sprogs,” I silently cursed to myself.  How am I supposed to distinguish your thumps, bumps, and screams from the ones on TV?  The folks at Paranormal State were trying to exorcise Redneck Demon and I was missing it!  When Redneck Demon refuses to leave your double-wide, you are in a whole heap o’ hurt.  You may wake up in the middle of the night to your mounted talking fish saying something hurtful about NASCAR.  Glaring at the ceiling, I turned up the volume.  So did they.  Oh, no you din’t!  I thought, “What would Innernetz do?” And I knew, I knew what you would do, Innernetz. 

So, I stomped into the kitchen and grabbed the broom.  Bam!  Bam!  Bam! Bam! I pounded on the ceiling.  My bad ass Swiffer meant swift justice. Bam!  Bam! Bam!  Bam! The ceiling started to crack. Bam!  Bam!  Bam! Bam! Paint and plaster began to form a lead paint and asbestos laden fog around my head and shoulders.  Bam!  Bam!  Bam! Bam! Shut. The. Fuck. Up!  Shut. The. Fuck. Up!  This. Is. Sparta!  Shut. The. Fuck. Up!  And it worked, Innernetz!  It worked!  I partied like the Canadian Women’s hockey team. 

And then there was a knock on my door.  Oh shit!  They’ve come to kill me.  I whispered to Dingo Girl, “Go bark at the door!  Go bark at the door!” She rolled over on the couch and farted.  She’s a great watch dog, educated in only the most modern of urban warfare — stealth bombs — but she’s not a good early warning system.  In fact, as I was freaking out and looking for my Jason Vorhees mask, she rolled off the couch and ambled to the bedroom leaving a trail of mustard gas in her wake.

Trying not to make a sound, I tiptoed to the door and looked through the peephole. 

¡Ay Dios Mío! The Thing was standing at my door.  The Thing was ginormous — as wide as she was tall — and as ugly as sin.  And she was staring right at me through the peephole.  Or at least one eye was.  She had one lazy eye that scampered to the left as she leaned toward the door, and that eye drifted toward her ear so she probably got a better view of the hinges.  Suddenly, she whipped her bulbous noggin’ to the side.  Something had caught her attention.  She froze, hackles raised, eyes unlazy eye narrowed as she honed in on the intruding sound.  We both waited, she tense with adrenaline of the hunter and I, knees knocking like cornered prey.  The ping from the elevator cast a tinny echo down the hallway.  Help, oh, help! I sent a soundless plea down the hallway that was answered by a slamming door.  My fate was sealed. 

And then, Dingo Girl came to my rescue.  Either alerted to my danger or waking up from a bad dream, she raced out of the bedroom and began growling at the door.  The Thing backed away, shaking her head as if in a daze.  I stepped away slowly and was walking toward the living room when BOOM!, the door shook in its frame like a lie detector connected to Sarah Palin.  Dingo Girl’s bravado spent, she raced back to the bedroom.  I followed.  We were just tucking under the covers when the noise upstairs started again.  I don’t know how long Dingo Girl and I were hiding napping when Mr. Dingo came home.

“What’s this?” he said, waving a piece of paper in the air.  “It was stuck to the door.”

“What does it say,” I asked.  But I already knew.

Mr. Dingo handed me the note.  And there, in handwriting that punctured the paper in its fury was the note:

“Shutt the fuk up.”

So, thank you, Innernetz, for your advice but I will no longer be needing your services.  You tried to get me stabbed.  In my face.

Which brings me to the winner of the Noble Works Gift Card Giveaway!  Brazen Bare Toe, come on down!  Your ass-kissing and passive-aggressiveness warmed my heart and tickled my funny bone.  For this comment:

I will always call on St. Bitch the Fierce for any problems I have that need a passive aggressive fix too. Also you could use your side kick Dingo Girl and leave a nice little present in front of their door everyday.  Just after the ol’ walky walk I’m sure you have a nice bag of leavings you could just accidentally drop in front of their door. And of course leave a calling card: Card 7253 “FIERCE”.  Inside you could write “Shut the hell up or the many plagues of St. Bitch the Fierce will descend upon you!”
Plauge 1: Shit
Plauge 2: More Shit
Plauge 3: So Much Shit
And so on.

I think this is a much better way of dealing with The Thing and her linoleum lizards.  Dingo Girl and I WILL have our revenge.  Toe, you will receive the Noble Works gift card.  Email your info to me and you, too, can send snarky cards to all your friends and family.  But, if you do, you just might want to wear your Jason Vorhees mask the next time you answer the door.

*****

If you are not sick of hearing about my moving woes, head on over to The Greenists.

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