And Then . . .

Christmas blew like an enthusiastic whore with razor blade braces.  As I was shopping among the holly jolly holiday lights at Victoria’s Secret and deciding between the comfortable cotton jammies and the brittle acrylic slip that looked as if it had been Bedazzled by blind kindergartners, Bob Cratchit Mr. Dingo was in a nondescript office holding a slip of another sort.  It was pink.  Yes, the Tuesday before Christmas, Mr. Dingo lost his job.  We’re fucked.  The holidays have been spent deciding whether our bed will fit under one of the city’s main bridges and scouring the internet and classifieds for apartments we can afford with frequent flyer miles and an adjunct teacher’s salary (Hahahahahahaha! *wipes tears from eyes*).  We eventually nixed the bridges because there’s no Innernetz.  In spite of all the hype, there are no habitable bridges on the Information Superhighway.  I can live without cable, and electricity, and running water.  But who can live without Innernetz?  I love you, Innernetz.  I really do.  I also love writing comments I never post and sending emails I regret ten seconds after cutting the umbilical cord.  Besides, there’s no Starbucks under any bridges in New York City.  Not yet, at least.  Still, having investigated the bridge option, I now know where all my Starbucks Friends come from. 

So, that’s my Christmas post. 

And here’s my New Year’s post:  Happy Fucking New Year. 

Moving on….

About a week ago, as I sat in front of the computer screen transfixed by our bank account — what does it mean when all the numbers are preceded by a hyphen? — Dingo Girl had just about had enough.  She wanted to play.  She wanted to walk.  She wanted to run and be free of my foul mood and my phone calls canceling things.  Now, Dingo Girl, she’s my chill pill, my Paxil, my shred of sanity, my mutually co-dependent canine compadre.  Dingo + Dingo Girl = BFF4EVA!  Walks with Dingo Girl are never run-of-the-mill.  It’s more like run-after-squirrel and run-after-child-eating-cookies.  Her favorite thing, though, is run-through-puddles.  After the previous week’s rain, I knew the park would be the muddy stuff of a redneck Bubba’s wet dream — dirt so soggy it demands that monster trucks pull tractors, that bikini-clad women wrestle, and that you take your boots off to keep them from getting dirty.

Cresting a hill, we found a stream that had overrun its bank and covered the path.  Fallen trees icky with moss, fungi, and the rest of nature’s enormous assortment of snot blocked one side. The other was a steep drop off into a used condom- and beer-can-infested pond.  There were only two choices: through or around. The wall of logs looked stable, but that was as misleading as an Enzyte commercial.  I kicked the center of the gnarly mass and the log jam shifted.  Something scurried underneath.  I couldn’t really see it, but it looked like it glanced at the ring on my finger and whispered, “my precious.” Oh, hell to the no!  Dingo Girl, we’re turning around.  Dingo Girl gave me the “Bitch, puh-leeez” look as I backpeddled from the Leaning Tower of Nasty.  Mouth open and tongue flying, Dingo Girl cannonballed into the middle of the puddle.  And disappeared.  She vanished.  I looked around me to see if anyone had seen the thirty-pound dog in the fifty-pound body disappear but also half expecting Dingo Girl to be behind me, shaking her paws in my face and telling me I just got freaked.  But I was alone.  All alone.  Dingo Girl had pulled an Osama bin Laden on me without so much as a bark goodbye.

I could hear Gollum sliding around under the Leaning Tower of Nasty, but the puddle was still.  I searched the sky.  There had been a meteor shower over New York City a month or so before, and strange, flashing lights had been spotted all over the place right around Christmas.  That could only mean one thing: alien zombies.  “Give me back my dog you big-headed, one-eyed, undead motherfuckers!” I screamed at the UFOs hovering overhead. 

And it worked!  Suddenly, the surface of the water broke.  That little overflowed puddle was much deeper than it looked!  Dingo Girl emerged on the other side of the puddle sputtering blach, blaaach! blaaaaghhhh! and snarling at the water. 

Ha!  Served her right.  Puddles are one thing.  Total submersion without her wetsuit and fins is another.  She was one mad dog. 

I started to climb over the Leaning Tower of Nasty to get Dingo Girl when my disorder surfaced like a floater.  I was FUCKED.  At the pinnacle of the heap, one foot darted to the left.  I caught my balance. Then, my other foot went right. Leftrightleftrightleftright.  My feet slipped in an increasingly rapid rhythm until I was doing the hillbilly hoedown, knees up to my ears, hands flapping and arms waving like a pew-jumping Pentecostal on So You Think You Can Dance.  The more I tried to regain my balance the more I looked like a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man.  And then the logs shifted.  Gollum was coming!  I was running in place, trying to keep up with the rotation of the logs to keep Gollum from nibbling on my fingers — highkneeshighkneeshighknees — when suddenly my ass hit the log pile and I slid, branch by anal probing branch, until I landed on my back in The Puddle That Ate My Dog.  Dingo Girl whined and pawed at the ground. 

And then, something finally began to go my way. 

Unfortunately, it was the Leaning Tower of Nasty.  It creaked and groaned and swayed toward me like a withered old nun with a ruler in her hands.

Just then, the water moved.  The water didn’t ripple.  It moved.  By itself.

I was on my feet and by Dingo Girl’s side faster than Britney Spears speed-dialed her attorney after she woke up married to Jason Allen Alexander.  Dingo Girl and I were both sputtering blach, blaaach! blaaaaghhhh! and snarling at the water until, suddenly, Dingo Girl turned and ran, leaving me at the edge of the underwater portal to another dimension.  I turned to chase her.  As I turned to go, out the corner of my eye, I saw something slither out of the puddle into the pile of rotted wreckage.  I’m not joking.  It was not human.  Not animal.  Not my imagination.  Dingo Girl barked again.  I followed her in my water-logged boots — squishsplatsquishsplat.  You won’t get us, you big-headed, one-eyed, undead freaks, I muttered. 

Not today, anyway.

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Cookie Monsters

Ooooh, holeEey niiIIIght—

A clatter from the kitchen interrupted my shower serenade and made me drop my microphone loofah. What the —?!  Another crash, followed by what sounded like someone digging through my breakfast cereal looking for the prize.  Ha, ha muthafucka!  I already took out the prize!  It was a Lego toilet or something.  And Dingo Girl already chewed it into a pulpy wad of plastic!  You FAIL, chump!

Wait!

I was home alone.  I was in the shower.  The ruckus from the kitchen could only mean one thing — zombies.

Trapped in my bathroom, my only hope for survival would rest on how resourceful I could be.  I needed a weapon.  I looked around.  I could concoct a Molotov cocktail in my empty mouthwash bottle with Nyquil and a wash cloth.  But the wash cloth was wet and I had no matches.  Nyquil alone would certainly knock out someone who is a zombie even before they take it, but how would I get him to drink it?  I couldn’t even find the little plastic cup.  I needed something foolproof.  I could squirt shower gel in the zombie’s face.  If it didn’t close its eyes, that would sting like hell.  And zombies don’t blink all that much.  I had about half a bottle of Aveda Rosemary Mint Hand and Body Wash.  But it’s a small bottle and, serious, it was almost $20.  It should cost less than $10 to blind a zombie.  I needed a cheaper weapon.

I did have morning breath, a known WMD, and no mouthwash.  I breathed into my cupped hand.  Oh yeah, I thought.  Locked and loaded.  But, you know, no need to rush into anything.  Besides, I hadn’t yet washed off my oatmeal-honey scrub mask.  Maybe hiding out in a steamy shower covered in breakfast was the appropriate way to deal with the zombie hordes.  Kind of like how Governor Arnie handled those aliens in Predator.

No.  Dingo Girl and Not a Dingo were out there.  I had to make a move.  I was carefully and oh. so. quietly sliding the shower curtain aside when I heard the dishes by the sink clatter to the floor.  Innernetz, this was serious.  There was really something in the kitchen.  I may or may not have peed my birthday suit. 

I stepped carefully across the bathroom floor.  It was probably not a good idea to apply the oatmeal-honey scrub mask to my entire body because it was really hard to move with ninja-like stealth with my butt cheeks stuck together.  I pressed my ear to the door.  The sounds were definitely coming from the kitchen.  I really needed a weapon.  The plunger!  Grabbing Excalibur from behind the toilet, I gave a few practice thrusts and put on my mean face.  “Don’t come any closer, asshole!” I whispered.  “I have e coli and I’m not afraid to use it!.”

I was ready. 

The door creaked open on its warped hinges. The kitchen went silent.  Damn!  Had I lost the element of surprise?  I eyed the living room through the quarter-inch crack.  I didn’t see Dingo Girl.  She was probably protecting me from under the bed.  Into my peripheral vision strolled Not a Dingo.  Evidencing the fearless mien of her leonine ancestors, she mercilessly stalked a sunbeam. And then got bored. Yawing and stretching, she plopped down in the middle of the floor, hiked her hind leg over her ear and began to slurp her cooter.  I remembered reading an article about a cat that saved her owner from an intruder and another one about a cat that dialed 911.  I knew I could count on Not a Dingo. “Run, Not a Dingo!  Go get help!” I thought.  I could tell the moment Not a Dingo received my instant mental message.  She looked up from her cooter slurpin’ for just a moment and messaged back, “Hey!  Look what I can do!”

There was another crash from the kitchen.  Damn, damn, damn! I thought.  It sounded like the cookie jar.  And then I got mad.  Oh, no you din’t! You did NOT come to my kitchen and steal my cookies.  The front door was just inches away from the bathroom and I was confident I could make it. But there was no way I was going to leave Dingo Girl and Not a Dingo in the apartment with a killer.  And I knew it had to be a killer.  Anyone with enough balls to sneak into my apartment and touch my Snickerdoodles had to foresee the potential need for deadly force. 

One hand on the door, the other holding Excalibur, I had to make a decision.  And then I heard it.  tich, tich, tich.  I knew that sound!  tich, tich, tich. But in the kitchen?  Drying oatmeal flaked off my trembling body and crumbled to the floor.  My feet left wet tattoos on the cold hardwood as I snuck to the kitchen.  Every Law and Order episode I’d ever seen flicked through my brain.  I could see Ice-T standing over the chalk outline of my body shaking his head saying, “Ah, here!  See this footprint?  This is where the victim did something really stupid.” I took a deep breath that never quite reached my lungs and peeked into the kitchen.  Pots, pans, dishes, and cookie crumbs were everywhere.  And there, in the middle of it all was the black-eyed fiend. 

“Pinky!” I yelled.  “You scared the shit out of me!”

Pinky’s bushy tail waved at me wildly as she dove into the tub of nuts by the fridge searching for the walnuts that warm her squirrel heart.  A cold breeze alerted me to the open window.  “Get out of here,” I hissed.  “Do you know what will happen if Not a Dingo sees you?”

Pinky was unperturbed.  A quick glance over my shoulder revealed Not a Dingo oblivious to the gamey morsel just within her reach as she practiced the Licking Your Own Belly With Two Outstretched Legs In The Air yoga routine that still gives me a sore neck when it’s just about to rain. 

“Get back outside,” I said to Pinky.  “I’ll bring some walnuts to you.”

Pinky ran to the window, pausing briefly to scoop up a piece of Snickerdoodle.  She waited impatiently while I sorted through the tub of nuts.  I presented her with the largest walnut I could find.  Without so much as a “thank you,” she grabbed it from me and scrambled away.  I closed the window.  I had twenty minutes to get to work.

Although I managed to wash off most of the oatmeal and honey, the areas I missed formed an insoluble binding agent between my clothes and skin.  Walking to work like a drunken hula girl in an attempt to dislodge the resulting denim wedgie was a painful reminder not to miss my waxing appointment later that afternoon. 

But the day was not through fucking with me yet.  Alone in my office, frantically printing out the day’s lesson plan, the lights suddenly went out.  It could only mean one thing — zombies.

******I have a new post up over at The Greenists. It’s about food!****

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I’m Totally RAD

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, “Oh no she din’t!  She din’t just disappear for weeks with no word of warning and then just pop up in my reader unannounced like a zit on prom night!” That’s what you’re thinking, aren’t you?  Hold off on your vitriol, Innernetz.  Save that for Roman Po-skank-ski. 

September has been one bitch of a month. Reactive Airway Disease (RAD), which is just a fancy way of saying, “we don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, here’s your mask, have a nice day,” and bronchitis have knocked me on my ass.  My doctor doesn’t have an explanation for the fatigue that makes every day feel as if I am walking through sand dunes with Rosie O’Donnell strapped to one leg, Kirstie Alley to the other, and a box of donuts hanging around my neck. 

The one bright spot in my month was my visit to the Mean Girl homestead.  We laughed, we drank, we shook some booty.  But it was over too soon.  My buzz hadn’t yet dissipated before I was on a cramped, crowded plane home, remembering why I hate people to fly.  First of all, it was the smallest fucking plane I’d ever seen.  Somewhere in the Midwest, a child was frantically searching for his Fisher Price L’il People People Movers Plane while I was trying to squeeze my ass into a seat the size of an oyster cracker. 

As I was putting in my earplugs and preparing for a nap, a woman sat next to me.  I was rude, Innernetz.  I did not make eye contact or even nod in her direction.  I knew better.  I seem to have a face that says, “Please!  Talk to me!  Tell me about your son’s ingrown toenail and your husband’s battle with psoriasis!  What?  Oh no, I’m not yawning.  I’m just trying to eat my brain so I don’t have to listen to you for another god damn minute!” Even on the best of days, I hate small talk and chit-chat.  Hate. It.  So, I put in my earplugs, fashioned a pillow out of my knock-off pashmina, closed my eyes, and — tap, tap, tap

I tried to ignore the fingernail poking into my shoulder.  Tap, tap, tap.  With a sigh that clearly indicated “This Better Be Good, Bitch” I opened my eyes.  “Yes?” I asked, in a voice that I have used to turn crying babies to stone and obnoxious men into bubbling pools of offal.

“You must be tired,” said the woman next to me, bobbing her head like a pump handle toward my makeshift pillow against the fuselage.  Oh em gee!  Thanks for waking me up to tell me!  I was just wondering why my eyes were closed. 

“I am.  Very tired.” I grunted.  I went to reinsert my earplugs when Pump Handle Pam decided it would be a good time to take off her migraine-inducing sweater of many colors, bump my hand, and send my earplugs falling to the floor where they disappeared with what was left of my patience and goodwill.  I didn’t rest my head against the fuselage so much as I banged it repeatedly in an attempt to knock myself out.  It didn’t work. 

And then, Samuel L. Jackson walked on the plane.  Well, not the REAL Samuel L.Jackson.  But he looked enough like him for me to wish there were snakes on the plane and I was sitting next to the emergency exit with a parachute.  Not Samuel L. Jackson took a seat at the front of the plane.  Behind him was a man wearing a toupee so pathetic it was crying and some sort of cologne that fragranced the air.  I think it was Eau de Budweiser.  He wobbled his way down the aisle before finally collapsing into the row in front of me.  He let out a loud buuuuuuurp!  Yep, definitely Eau de Budweiser.

The next few hours passed in a haze of misery. Pump Handle Pam nattered on about her son’s football drama.  Oh noes!1!  He was second string!  Tearful Toupee continued to depressurize, sending fumes of EdB through his blowhole like Flipper on a bender.  And to make this the Best! Flight! Ever! John Goodman joined Kirstie and Rosie in a battle royale for the donuts.  Because lethargy and muscle weakness wasn’t enough, the cough that had disappeared several days earlier returned with such vehemence that my body contorted as if undergoing an exorcism.  Watery eyes and a runny nose soon joined the mucous maracas rattling in my chest. 

I made it home, Innernetz.  Mr. Dingo took one look at me and put me to bed wrapped in blankets and woe.  When I finally dragged myself to the doctor’s office, I was told that my RAD and bronchitis had never completely disappeared; it had just been on hiatus.  And it was back.  So I’ve been hanging out on the couch watching bad TV with Dingo Girl, Not a Dingo, Rosie, Kirstie, and John.  I’ve been feeling much better the past few days.  Good thing, too.  John just told me that we’re out of donuts.

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Fine Feathered Fiends

Alfred Hitchcock scarred me for life. “Good evening,” my ass, motherfucker. How am I supposed to sleep when all I can think about are birds waiting to peck me to death on the way to the subway station?  All the ghosts, goblins, and ghouls from the twisted minds of Stephen King and Clive Barker don’t scare me as much as Hitchcock’s fucking birds. With their beady eyes and sharp beaks, birds are nature’s ultimate killing machine. If you put a bird up against a lion, the bird would win. Shut up!  It would too!  That’s the National Geographic special they don’t want you to see. Can you imagine the worldwide panic?  I don’t like birds. Except for puffins. Puffins are cute. And chickens. Chickens taste good.  There are no puffins or chickens in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds for the same reason that not even Peter Jackson took the screenplay for Alien vs. Hello Kitty very seriously.

Another reason I hate birds is because of the lunacy they inspire in otherwise normal people.  Anything that motivates people to wear pith hats, safari vests, and knee length khaki shorts while walking around chirping bird calls to each other ranks up there with Renaissance Festivals and Star Trek conventions.  These are the people who, as children, wore calculator watches so they could keep track of how often they got beat up at the playground.  Fortunately, although Central Park is a birder’s paradise, I rarely encounter bird watchers. They get up way too fucking early. By the time I get to the park, the early birds have eaten their worms and the early birders have moseyed off for coffee, shuffleboard, and a relaxing change of diaper. But there’s one birder I see quite frequently. Unlike the others, her voice is not the hushed, subdued equivalent of one hand clapping. Her voice is The Clap. A painful, abnormal discharge that induces nausea and general discomfort.

The rain last week kept The Clap sightings to a minimum but there was an outbreak yesterday as Dingo Girl and I were on our morning walk. The Clap came into view as she swooped toward an unsuspecting flock of feathered menace. “I see ‘em!  I see ‘em!  The blue jays!” she yelled, running to a rock outcropping in the middle of a small stand of trees. She tried to run up the rock face but her bright yellow Crocs slipped on the smooth surface and she fell backwards, Crocs over cranium. Her pasty legs and multi-colored muumuu flashed and sparkled like a chameleon under disco lights. The bags of Wonder Bread tied to her waist burst open, sending doughy goodness spinning through the air like cotton candy. I had a sudden craving for carnival food and was torn between rushing over to help and rushing to Coney Island. Oh, come on, Innernetz!  You know I did the right thing!  It was too early to go to Coney Island.

But The Clap didn’t need my help.  She jumped up unscathed and carefully made her way to the top of the rock. “Pretty biiiiiiird!  Pretty biiiiiird!” she hissed, sounding less like Mother Earth and more like a sucking chest wound. “Pretty biii — *hack* *cough* *hiss* — iiiird!” Craning her face to the tree branches she raised her arms to the sky and hopped in a lop-sided circle resembling a one-legged chicken trying to cross a hot road. “Blue jay, blue jay, bluuuu *hack* *phlegm* *ooze* jaaaaaay!”

The Clap stopped her masturbatory mating Macarena long enough to yell at Henpecked Husband to get the camera. Henpecked rummaged through his Power Ranger backpack and rushed over to The Clap waving — a cell phone. “Not that one, damn it!  The good camera!” The Clap wheezed. Henpecked, properly castrated, dumped the contents of the the backpack on the ground next to the sullied slices of Wonder. “Here! Here!” he whimpered, racing toward her with &another cell phone. But it was too late. The Blue Jays scattered. And by Blue Jays, I mean Crows.  Big, black, nasty crows. It’s easy to see how The Clap could have confused the two. After all, Blue Jays are blue and white and Crows are black. I would’ve made the same mistake as well if my Guide to North American Birds was written in Braille.  And if I were a moron.

The Clap, being the avid birder that she is, obviously knew the best way to get the Blue Jays Crows to return. She cupped her hands around her mouth, took a deep breath and called, “Come back here you motherfuckers!” Surprisingly, it didn’t work. The Crows circled in an ominous dark cloud. Damn, I thought. I’ve seen how this movie ends!  And that was my cue to get Dingo Girl and go. It was about to get ugly. Do you know what a flock of Crows is called?  A murder! Yes, a murder of crows. That’s not a mistake made by superstitious naturalists long ago.  That’s not even a hint.  That’s a warning.  A warning somewhere along the lines of someone throwing a note through your window attached to a rock that’s attached to a dead ninja with your name painted on his toenails.  I had a feeling that I was about to witness a fly-by.

Perched on the rock with her pasty skin, bright yellow Crocs, and flamboyant muumuu, The Clap resembled the lesser-known urban fairy tale character, Snow Blight. Surrounded by the Seven Loaves.  And her Dopey husband.  As Dingo Girl and I headed home and away from the impending crime scene, we could hear The Clap still trying to daintily woo the crows:  “Goddamnyoushitforbrainsmotherfuckers! God *hiss* *phlegm* *cough* damncomehere!”

If The Clap hasn’t been murdered, I’m sure I’ll see her again.  Perhaps at Starbucks.

********
I’m over at The Greenists again!  Come see me!

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Pound Of Flesh

Quick Update:  I did a movie review for The Greenists.  Please check it out!

Tap, tap, tap…testing 1, 2, 3…is anybody out there?

Well, that was an unexpected and unintended bloggy hiatus! 

The last two weeks of class were a flurry of papers, projects, exams, and grading.  You’d think that once grades were submitted I’d be able to kick back with a beer and revel in the five minutes I have to myself before I begin prepping for the fall.  Oh, Innernetz, how silly you are!  I had to use four of those minutes to catch up on the many things I had let slide during the summer session.  After grades are submitted, my personal life takes over. Among the many joyous tasks I had: calls to my slumlord about the dismal water pressure that had turned my shower into Chinese water torture, involuntary volunteer work, and inventing new miracle diets that magically and effortlessly pack on the pounds.  Yes, I did watch eighteen nonstop hours of Seasons 1 and 2 of True Blood, but that indulgence was earned since, even after grades were submitted, I spent a disproportionate amount of time performing cutting edge surgery on students whose heads were so far up their asses that their burps were indistinguishable from their farts

All of the students (and some of their parents) think that if they could just meet with me, they’d be able to convince me that getting that pedicure was much more important than attending the mid-term exam.  And every semester I get one or two students who tell me that they thought all of the assignments were optional.  I tell you what, if they were as creative and diligent in doing the assigned work as they were with coming up with excuses for not doing it, they’d all be A+ students.  But they’re not.  They’re just idiots.  Two seconds after grades were submitted I began receiving phone calls and emails asking, “What can I do about my grade?” My standard answer always starts with, “First, build a time machine....” They don’t think that’s as funny as I do. 

One student failed the course because she missed an entire week of class.  She flounced into my office peeling like a soft shell crab, her tan lines fish belly white against her crocodile jerky skin.  “I told you that I had a family vacation that was non-negotiable!” she shrieked, waving her arms with such fury and drama that she looked like a fight scene from the Matrix.  Layers of baked flesh drifted onto my desk as though I had landed in a dust-mite’s dream.  Flake threw herself into the chair next to my desk and crossed her arms like a petulant child.  “What do you have to say for yourself?” Flake demanded, her face shriveled like an Appalachian apple doll.  What else could I say?  I gently pushed a tube of Aveeno across the desk and held up the garden hose I keep in my desk.  “She rubs the lotion on her skin....”

The last time I saw skin like hers, I was Flake’s age and working at a video store.  (Just in case any of my students are reading: yes, they had televisions and even videos when I was your age.  Yes, the videos were made of wood.) My co-irker was a tall bottle-blonde who aspired to be a supermodel.  I didn’t see it ever happening only because she had a congenital defect that was impossible to overlook: she was butt ugly.  Willem Defoe/Janet Reno love-child ugly. If ugly were a sport, she would win the Tour de Ugly every year and, every single year, the French would accuse her of taking ugly-enhancing drugs.  My co-irker would lay out in the sun every chance she got, but her skin never changed from baboon-ass red to the deep copper tan she so desired.  I called her Chernobyl Barbie.

One day, after being on vacation for almost two weeks, Chernobyl Barbie walked into the video store looking as if she had vacationed on the sun.  Her skin was brown, blistered, and pork rind crispy.  In her red and white sundress, she resembled a KFC Chicken Strip.  Chernobyl Barbie slathered on cheap body lotion throughout the day to soothe her skin and prolong her third degree burn tan.  She scared more children than usual.

By closing time, her chest was an oozing mass of moist, peeling, bubbly flesh.  After returning some videos to the stacks, she came behind the counter where I was counting the day’s receipts, noting the surge in rentals of Nightmare on Elm Street. Chernobyl Barbie went to grab the next pile of unshelved movies from the floor and tripped.  I tried to catch her but my palm landed with a schwack! in the middle of her lubricated chest. It was like sinking my hand into Vaseline covered Tempur-Pedic foam, patented NASA research and all.  I yanked my hand away but, after her twelve hours of regular basting, my hand just slid across her Butterball chest, the skin curling like ribbon candy and encasing each digit like a Chinese finger trap. And the smell!  I gagged and tried to breathe through my nose as her skin gave off the swampy, wet smell of a dirty fish tank.  Where was her filter?  Must change her filter!

“Get it off!  Get it off!” I screamed, snapping my hands back and forth.  But the dead flesh clung on, not wanting to relinquish its hold on living cells.  Chernobyl Barbie was no help.  She was staring in disbelief at the raw white skin emblazoned on her chest in the distinct shape of my palm.  With a final violent shake, the skin came loose and dropped onto the glass counter with a sickening schlock! Imagine the sound you make when you suck Jello right out of the bowl: schlock!

I don’t remember much after that, and neither would you.  But I do remember that, for the rest of that summer, Chernobyl Barbie walked around with my handprint on her chest like a turkey drawing kids do at Thanksgiving, except that, against the crispy pork-rind skin next to it, it looked like a marshmallow turkey.  Still, somehow, she continued to scare more kids than usual.

I thought about Chernobyl Barbie as I watched Flake douse herself with my tube of lotion.  As she sputtered and spewed about her vacation and how I owed her a good grade, her dry skin crackled and threatened to split like a crusty baked potato.  Where was my sour cream?

With the apartment in such a state of disrepair that Dingo Girl and Not a Dingo are weighing the benefits of homelessness and the drama of summer semester just beginning to fade, students for next semester are already starting to contact me (“Do we have to read all the books on the syllabus?”).  I have been too tired and unmotivated to blog, preferring instead to escape my surroundings via the Fine Living channel. But that will change soon.  I’ve scheduled myself for a thirty minute nap on Thursday.  After that, I’ll be Dingolicious all over again.

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