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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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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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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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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This Week’s Short List of People Who Piss Me Off

Why is everyone trying to piss me off this week?  As if I didn’t have enough to do getting ready for the start of summer classes, I had to sit down and write some letters:

Dear fuckety-fuck-fucking-fuckheads at the Philadelphia Valley Swim Club,

You know, this flap over throwing the black kids from the local summer camp out of your pool is your own damn fault.  Sure, you signed the agreement to have the kids from a local summer camp come to your pool.  And yes, you took their $1900.  But what you didn’t do, you sillies, is make sure all the kids were white!!  And now, there’s an uproar because your club President expressed concern that allowing the children to swim with you would change the “complexion” of the club and some of your members feared that their children were not safe around the black kids.  Thank you for demonstrating to the rose-colored glasses contingent that there’s no such thing as a post-racial America.  Or maybe you didn’t read the post-racial memo with all those black letters blighting that pristine white page and whatnot.  It’s more likely that you’re just dumbass motherfuckers who didn’t cut eyeholes in your sheets.  Either way, fuck you with a burning cross.

Sincerely,

Dingo

Dear Obama,

I know you must be surprised to be on the short list of people who’ve pissed me off, but here you are.  When you first took office I was ecstatic, giddy even, as I stood in Times Square with thousands of others watching the election results come in.  We kissed friends, we kissed neighbors, and I may have even slipped some tongue to a gorgeous Swedish tourist.  You, however, seem to have given those of us who voted for you the big kiss-off choosing to lock lips instead with Right Wing ass.  At first, I didn’t view it as pandering as others did.  “Oh, no,” I said. “He’s reaching across the aisle!  He’s building bridges! Give him a chance!” And yes, I used a lot of exclamation points. 

Well, Obama your building bridges has turned into a game of Chutes and Ladders.  You’ve backtracked on repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, you’ve appointed radical Anti-Choice Activist Alexia Kelley to the Department of Health and Human Services, and your promises about closing Guantanamo Bay and actually upholding our Constitution and restoring our good name were as empty as Keira Knightly’s bra.  In spite of the Michelle baby-bump speculation, I’m starting to think you’ve lost your balls.  I voted for change and I voted for principles.  Get your act together, POTUS, or my next letter to you will be short, sweet, and to the point: F.U.

Sincerely,

Dingo

Dear Annoying Parents in the Dog Run,

Do not yell at my dog.  She doesn’t bite but I do.  Dingo Girl had no interest in your big-headed offspring.  She was playing at least eight feet way with her best doggy buddy when you decided that you weren’t taking up enough space with your stroller, diaper bag, wagon, and soccer ball and moved in our direction. Your baby was completely safe at all times since there was absolutely no way Dingo Girl would ever fit that ginormous Tweety-Pie head in her mouth.  Believe me, your baby is safe, although you might want to consider forgetting about the college fund and think about setting aside a HUGE dowry. Maybe one about the size of your kid’s head.  And oh, it’s a DOG RUN not a freakin’ playground!  I’d tell you to get your head out of your asses but since it’s obvious where your little Jimmy Neutron got her noggin, I think you’re quite stuck.  So, fuck you.

Sincerely,

Dingo Didn’t Eat Your Baby

Well, that’s it for now.  I’m sure as this week goes on this list will get longer and longer.  That’s just the sort of mood I’m in.

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