Call Me Dingo Fierce

Things have pretty much sucked since my last post, Innernetz.  With so much going on it’s been difficult to write with blinding tears and snot running all over the keyboard and whatnot.  Everything I wrote sounded like, Waaaaaaa!  Waaaaaaaaa!  Moving sucks!  Waaaaaaaa! I hate living in the ‘hood! Waaaaaaa!  We’re broke! Waaaaaaa! See how boring that gets after a while?  I tell you waaaaat, I was sick of myself.  I needed something to take my mind off of my pathetic pity party and the unsettling feeling of just seeing my new neighborhood on Cops. 

And then, then Innernetz, I got an email from the folks over at Noble Works Cards.  They asked if I’d be interested in hosting a giveaway on my blog.  Giveaway?! Hells yeah, I’d be interested in a giveaway!  One lucky and creative As I Was Saying reader is going to get a $25 gift card to spend on some of the hilarious, irreverent, and often downright offensive Noble Works gift cards, mugs, calendars, and memo pads.  Could anything be more perfect for you, Innernetz?!  But simmadownnow, bitches.  You gotta work for this. 

Here’s how this is going down.  Head over to Noble Works Cards and take a look around. Pick your favorite card and leave a comment to this post telling me what card made you pee in your pants, who you’d send the card to, and any additional comments you’d write on the card before dropping it in the mailbox.  You have until Saturday, February 13th at noon (because I’m not rolling outta bed before then) to submit your comment.  On Valentine’s Day, I’ll announce the comment I love the most.  And Voila!  You have a $25 gift card!  How easy is that?

You wanna know how easy it is?  Here’s a card I ordered for Mr. Dingo’s former employer with the $25 gift card Noble Works sent to me for hosting the giveaway.  And here’s my P.S.:

I hope that you get syphilis of the soul from all the people you’ve fucked over and that the dried piece of jerky you call a heart is absorbed into your lower intestine like a cancer and passes through your anus like the hardened piece of shit you are.

Dingo

I wonder if I should sit on it for a day or two?

But Innernetz, my absolute favorite purchase is the St. Bitch the Fierce Magnetic Memo Pad.  I love this memo pad.  It’s a legally recognized license to be the fashion police and to launch a citizen’s arrest all wrapped up in one delightfully robed visage — St. Bitch the Fierce.  I can’t wait until they get here.  I will be a superhero!  I can write wrongs and right wrongs.

My first citation will be given to the baby mamas and their crotch fruit who live directly above me.  How shall I put this?  Oh yeah, I hate them.  Hate.  Them.  The never ending noise. Sweet baby jebus, the constant noise!  Are they wearing cement shoes?  Why are they running around in circles for hours and hours every single night?  I mean, shouldn’t the little semen demons be in bed by 8?  But the running, jumping, and screaming continue until 2 or 3 in the morning.  Are they herding sheep before they count them?  All that running simply reminds me that polio once played an important role in child care.  And then there’s the music.  I may have been able to forgive the loud thumping bass that rattles the three-inch-thick steel security gates over my windows but I cannot forgive the desecration of the King of Pop and Billy Jean.  Aren’t there copyright restrictions that prevent Menudo wannabes from singing “Billy Cheen es not my luvah.  Cheese jussa girl says dat I am de juan”?  Really, Baby Mamas?  Is that the song you really want to have on repeat?  I know, I know, many of you are probably saying, “Oh Dingo, have you tried talking to them?” Silly Innernetz, do you want me to get stabbed in the face?  Because a knife sticking out of my face would not be a good look for me.  And that’s where my St. Bitch the Fierce memo pad comes in handy.  I can anonymously leave them a polite note asking them to respect their neighbors and STFU.  I should get a good citizen award but I’m already a saint and it would be a sin to be so greedy. 

Two nights ago the thumping and jumping reached Def Con 4.  My earplugs whimpered in defeat.  And then, it happened.  There was crash that shook the ceiling and sent Dingo Girl running for cover.  All was quiet for about five seconds and then there was keening and howling like a pack of drunken coyotes on a Spring Break bender.  Holy shit.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  Should I bang on the ceiling?  Call an ambulance?  The po-po?  No, I St. Bitch the Fierce had an even better idea. 

Running into the bedroom where the crying was the loudest, I climbed on top of the dresser.  I was only six inches away from the shrieking and crying.  But it was six inches too far.  I stretched up on my tippy toes.  My calf muscles, still sore from the move, groaned in protest, but this was important.  I was not going to stand by and do nothing.  Bracing my hands on the wall to give me some leverage and traction, I was just three inches from the ceiling.  Three scant inches from ground zero.  I didn’t hesitate.  I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with air, and shouted:

HAHAHHAHAHAHWOOOTWOOOTHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHTAKETHATMUTHAFUCKA!!

And for five blissful seconds, the yelling, crying, and music stopped.  I held my breath.  Fuck.  And then I breathed a sigh of relief.  I am St. Bitch the Fierce.  And I don’t care how obnoxious you are, you wouldn’t stab a saint in the face.  Would you?

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Furby

So, there I was at Starbucks, grading papers and trying to ward off an Overused Comma coma with a Cranberry Bliss bar, when Tiny Bladder at the next table asked me to watch his stuff for the millionth time.  I rolled my eyes, stuffed a chunk of Cranberry Bliss into my mouth and said, “Dude, I don’t care how cold it is outside, no one wants your dollar-store notebook and the ratty goddamn trench coat your mama obviously dressed you in.” Somehow, through the crumbly brown sugary goodness that fell from my mouth he heard, “Sure! No problem!” Then he dashed off.

While Tiny Bladder ran to the bathroom, a fetid odor snuck into the coffee shop, curdling the last of the lemon frosting sticking to my fingers.  I held my nose in the nick of time because, given a few more seconds, it would have jumped off my face and scurried out the door.  For there in the doorway stood Furby.  I groaned.  I had thirty-three more papers to grade with sentences like:

Homosexuality didn’t have a name in the 12th Century.  It was called gay in the 20th Century being that men what lived together were happy.

And

During the American Civil War in the late 1960s feminism was dying.  It was in its death throws.

I did not have time to deal with Furby’s brand of crazy.  My stomach tried to dissolve itself with its own acid as Furby’s pungent, dank, mop soaked in urine, moldy cabbage scent settled over the store.  I turned back to my papers hoping Furby would not sense the crazy magnet implanted behind my left ear during a secret government experiment in the 1980s.  He had thirty or so mangy stuffed animal torsos from the Island of Plague Infected Toys pinned to his moldy jacket and 70s era running shorts.  As he made his way toward me (natch!) eyeless heads with mouths disfigured by rats and dry rot taunted me, “We’re coming to get you, Dingo!  We’re coming to get YOUooouuuuUUU!”

It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, I told myself, closing my eyes and wishing it all away.  It worked.  Sort of.  When I opened my eyes, Furby was seated at Tiny Bladder’s table drinking Tiny Bladder’s coffee and writing in Tiny Bladder’s notebook. 

“Excuse me, “ I said.  “Someone’s sitting there; he’ll be right back.”

Furby continued to scribble in Tiny Bladder’s notebook.  Although Furby ignored me, his Typhoid Toys did not.  Bouncing and bobbing with every elaborate flourish of Furby’s Tiny Bladder’s pen, their empty eye sockets stared at me accusingly, spewing reproach (not to mention hantavirus) in my direction.  I was supposed to be watching Tiny Bladder’s things!  What kind of derelict sentinel am I?  I had to do something.

Before I could interrupt him again, Furby paused from his frantic writing.  Apparently, all that creative activity, together with the large coffee, were making him warm.  So he removed the head-studded coat with some fanfare, and the smell of sick room sweat and body odor became even more overpowering. 

But at that moment, thoughts of compassion, understanding, and kindness rose above the wormwood stench of Furby’s presence.  Furby, after all, seemed to have fallen on hard times.  I was warmed by the holiday music playing over the speakers. The beautifully lit professionally photographed pictures of pumpkin pie latte evoked Normal Rockwell images of friends and family.  Furby’s furry contingent of contagion was his family.  And I, I am a friend to man, a comrade of all mankind.  My mind floated on thoughts of “we are the world” and “we are the children,” and, miraculously, my body went with it, all the way up to the manager where I, with compassion, understanding, and kindness said, “He’s using someone else’s stuff.” Because nothing overcomes a spiritual bond with your fellow man like good ol’ property rights.  It’s the American Way!

I stayed at the counter thinking of Peace on Earth and ordering another Cranberry Bliss as the manager gently, and with compassion, understanding, and kindness, gave Furby the boot.  Furby gathered his things and flounced out of the Starbucks with a primetime pageant-worthy flounce to end all flounces.  If trumpets had heralded his departure, it would have been no more dramatic.  Still, if he had turned at the door and said, “Good day, sir!  I said, GOOD DAY!” I would have applauded.

Instead, I hummed Fa la la la la! La la la la! all the way back to my seat and launched into another poorly written paper.  Tiny Bladder returned.  Dear god!  What took him so fucking long! 

“Hey!” he exclaimed.  “What happened to my coffee?” He eyed me suspiciously.

“Well,” I began to explain but was cut short.

“And where’s my coat?”

Oh shit.  Still sitting on the chair was Furby’s coat of heads, all of them staring at me critically with their vacant eyeholes.  Tiny Bladder’s trench had departed.

“That’s not your coat?” I asked.

Yes, there are eight million stories in this naked city.  And tonight, one of those stories is a little less naked. 

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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.

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

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That’s Not In The Script

I love my friend’s little boy.  The Kid is three years old and knows he has me wrapped around his finger.  The thing is, entertaining a three-year-old is exhausting!  So, what do you do with a three-year-old full of energy on a fine Saturday afternoon? No, not the baby Benadryl.  Moms seem to frown upon that.  You enter him in a baby race, of course. 

So there I was in Central Park on Saturday morning lining The Kid up with all the other three-year-olds at the starting line.  I kept telling him that this race was for fun and he should enjoy it, there are no losers and all that other blah, blah, bullshit.  Look, it’s fine if you want your child to be an impotent, underachieving, unpopular loser.  My little friend, however, is in it to win it and so, although I was giving him useless platitudes just in case he turned out to be an utterly embarrassing failure, I also had him practice his Game Face along with important dignity-preserving statements like, “I let the Special Olympics kid win” and “It’s easy to run fast when you’re not burdened by all this handsomeness.” We may or may not have made other children cry.  Pussies.

Standing at the starting line, I surreptitiously checked out the competition.  I scoffed at the mom who had her kid in Baby Crocs.  O rly?  Even if you win this race (which you won’t) your kid loses.  Baby Crocs!  Humpft!!!  And then I looked down at her feet.  My. god.  She had long, leathery, bony feet that stretched over the edges of her flip-flops like an old gator sunning on a rock.  Really, her feet were overstuffed, cracked, vintage handbags.  Her toes were aged ginger.  If Dingo Girl had been there, I would not have been able to stop her from gnawing on those nasty feet.  I quickly turned my head in the other direction but then I locked eyes with HIM.  Oh, lord. 

Back in my younger days I was doing quite a bit of work as an extra on films and television shows shot in my town.  You may have heard of Chuck Norris and a little show called Walker, Texas Ranger.  I was on the set as an extra almost every week.  I excelled in the art of the fake, silent phone call made in the background of some lavish set.  I am the veritable Robert DeNiro of this little known niche.  For every take I’d create a different scenario.  First, I’d be the Tearful Girlfriend.  Face contorted in grief and despair, I’d conduct an entire conversation that started with an angry “You’ll never find another doormat as stupid as me!” and ended with me softly whispering, “So long, my love.  Go now with God,” before wistfully hanging up the phone.  And if you think it’s easy to convincingly portray intense emotion without uttering a single sound, you are sadly mistaken.  My favorite was Glamour Girl, where I’d mouth words like “Lunch?  Yes, I’d love to!  Oh, but let me check my calendar,” while tossing my long flowing hair and flashing a toothy smile. But my fine acting skills went unnoticed.  Until one day…

One day I got the call from my piece of shit agent that the casting directors wanted me to audition for a bit part in the show.  They were looking for someone sexy and bold but sophisticated.  They must have seen me in the background of last week’s episode when I was perfecting Phone Sex Operator!  Once the excitement died down, panic set in.  I was a naïve and not-so-worldly twenty-something.  What did I know about sexy but sophisticated?  Not a whole hell of a lot.  Just out of college, I was a starving artist living in khakis and denim skirts (hey, it was the early nineties in Texas where denim never goes out of style!).  I tell you what, the outfit I came up with makes me blush even to this day. 

As I teetered into the casting studio on pleather Payless five-inch stilettos, I noticed the other women waiting to audition had taken a different fashion approach.  One that did not involve looking like Jessica Rabbit trying to pay the rent in the red-light district.  “I got this,” I thought.  “These women aren’t even showing skin!” You know, if I’d spent more time paying attention to the show and less attention to the candy and sodas at the craft services tables, I’d have realized that Walker, Texas Ranger was a family-friendly show delivering heartwarming lessons week after week with a flying roundhouse followed by a tip of the hat.  It was not Streetwalker, Sex Arranger.

So there I was in the room with HIM, the casting director.  I started reading my lines at one end the room as I tried to walk seductively toward his desk at the other end.  Seduction is difficult to pull off in towering pleather stilettos when you’re used to wearing Keds, but I soldiered on, skillfully masking my unsteady teetering with regular tottering, swinging and swaying like the Betty Boop float at the Macy’s Spanksgiving Day Parade.  My voice low and husky, I whispered line after line because that’s what sexy women do, right?  They whisper? 

As I got closer to his chair my vision started to blur.  What the —?  My fake eyelashes had decided to become unglued and crawl down my face like hairy Wacky Wall Walkers.  But I pressed on, my padded boobs like beacons leading the way to his desk.  As I placed one hip against his desk and leaned precariously toward him, a wayward layer of eyelashes, having made its way to my chin, tumbled off my face and landed with a delicate splash in his coffee cup like a furry black fairy.  Neither of us said a word.  I racked my brain trying to cover my embarrassment without losing character.  Although it felt like a lifetime, I’m sure it was only a few seconds before I heard myself whisper seductively, “I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t lash out at you like that.”

I wrapped up the scene moments later, proud of my ad-libbing and wondering if I would be able to contribute other lines of dialogue once I was cast for the part.  I went home and waited for the phone to ring.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.  All of this went through my mind in the mere seconds it took for him to smile and say, “Gorgeous day for a race, isn’t it?” Oh my god, he didn’t recognize me?  I can’t explain why, but I found myself lowering my voice and whispering, “Yes, yes it is.” His eyes popped open wide but I was saved from further humiliation by the starting bell and everyone yelling, “Run! Run! Run!” And so, I did. 

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Take This Oreo And Shove It

An Oreo-wielding, Up–With-People-ish, Pollyanna with a used car salesman smile and faux bohemian dress from Urban Outfitters ruined my week.  There I was minding my own business mocking the pseudohippies worshiping at the Imagine Mosaic in Strawberry Fields when Pollyanna approached waving a half-empty tray of Double-Stufs. 

No, it was not half-full.  It was half-empty.  Call me a pessimist if you like, but if you have a tray half-full of Double-Stufs, you have a math problem.  The answer is B: a full tray of Stufs.

Speaking of SAT questions, Strawberry Fields does not have any strawberries and it’s definitely not a field.  What it does have is a mixture of Baby Boomers paying respects to John Lennon and his message of love and harmony together with a mob of stoned, weeping baby boomer offspring in Abercrombie tie-dyes.  Not only was the Abercrombie Generation not even born when Lennon lived and died, but their idea of activism consists of peacefully demonstrating that marijuana is not an antidepressant.  I was tempted — oooh, so tempted — to stir the pot (no pun intended) by calling out, “Snap out of it!  I mean, it’s not like he was Adam Lambert or anything!” Two things stopped me.

One, I was in no mood to fend off patchouli wearing pseudohippies wielding sitars and body odor like NYPD night sticks.  Two, there were Oreos.  Remember how, waaaay up at the top of this post, I mentioned Oreos?  You forgot, didn’t you?  Don’t worry, so did I.  Anyway, I know that you’re not supposed to take anything anyone hands you on the street.  But it was the park, it was sunny, there was music, and rainbows and unicorns, and second hand pot smoke.  And Pollyanna and her group of merry women were singing “All You Need Is Love” and waving to everyone and smiling. It was like a good ol’ fashioned love in without the body fluids. I got caught up in the moment and took the entire tray an Oreo.  And like that, I was doomed.  I had just twisted the top off the Oreo and was scraping my teeth across the creamy Double Stuf goodness when Pollyanna says, “You’ve been tagged!”

Tagged?  What the hell?  Look, bitch, Dingo doesn’t do memes so I’m not buying whatever you’re selling but can I have another Oreo?  Instead of an Oreo, she hands me a card with the following message:

Someone reached out to you with an anonymous act of kindness.  Now it’s your chance to do the same.  Do something nice for someone, leave this card behind, and keep the spirit going!

I would’ve handed the card back if I’d have known the existential crisis it would cause, but I was already up to the part of the Oreo-eating exercise where you suck really hard on your teeth, so I was kinda stuck.  Fuckers.  Who hands out Oreo cookies and then asks people to pay it forward?  Fuckers, that’s who.  Kind twatwaffles who want to screw with my life.  And so I’ve spent the past week running around trying to do kind things for people to get this monkey off my back.  It’s not as easy as you’d think. 

First of all, there are no guidelines. Just how kind do I have to be?  Hold the door open for a group of nuns kind, or rescue a child from adoption by Madonna kind?  I spent all last week in a miasma of kindness.  And it sucked.  Nothing I did seemed worth tagging someone else and saying, “Ha, ha, I did something kind for you, now you’re royally fucked!  Good luck trying to pay off this karmic debt, loser!” I mean, doesn’t tagging someone with the Kindness Card undo the kindness you’ve done?

I thought I was free and clear when I saw a couple rooting around for a quarter to put in the parking meter.  I surprised them by popping a quarter into the meter.  They said, “Thank you!” It was too easy.  I couldn’t give them my card.  Not for a lousy quarter.  I had to do something MORE.  I’ve been scouring the city trying to do something kind enough to warrant giving this burden to someone else.  I thought I was off the hook later that day.  As I turned the corner in the grocery store, I noticed this little old lady trying to reach a can of green beans on the top shelf.  Hopping around on pale little bird legs sticking out of yellow leggings she looked like one of those wind-up chicks you get at Easter.  I kept waiting for her to wind down and fall over.  I got the can for her, threw some birdseed in the aisle behind me, and went on my way.  But I didn’t give her the card.  “Hey, old lady!  You’ve been tagged!  Good luck finding someone shorter than you so you can repay this kindness!  Maybe you should carry a ladder with you everywhere from now on to keep this from happening to you again, huh?” It just seemed wrong. 

I keep thinking that I should just toss the card, but I can’t.  So, I’m a wandering Persephone, doomed by an Oreo to be kind to people.  Except Pollyanna.  If I ever see that bitch again I’m going to punch her in the face. 

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