Billy Don't Be Hero

Poor Mr. Lane, duped again by his old lady. When is that man going to learn that the good Lawd put me on this planet to torment him? Obviously my husband is a little slow. Maybe that's why I like him so much.

As if his self-inflicted injury weren't enough embarrassment, (please see post with photo below) he saw that I posted it on the internet. I was adding links to my sidebar and he looked over my shoulder.

"Hey! That's me! What the fuck, Lois?!"

"I'm practically making you famous. Shut up!"

"Famous my ass! You're making fun of me again, aren't you?"

"Would I do that?"

"In a heartbeat!"

"If it's any consolation, everyone felt sorry for you and told me to tell you they hope you feel better."

"Really? That was nice. But come on, I didn't even suck in my gut. I guess what's done is done. Let me read the comments."

So here is a man whom I've dedicated my life to for 18 years. That's half of my life, people! He's never taken an interest in my writing. He's never read my blog or anything I've published in the outside world. But suddenly, because it's all about him, he has an interest. Eat me, I'm a Danish!

"I don't have time to show you all the nice comments now."

I was lying anyhow, there weren't any nice comments. You guys, like me, got a big fat LOL at his expense. Thankfully he is slow and forgot all about it later.

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I totally forgot to tell you about my sister in-law Deb and I being real live super heroes. I know, how could I forget something so important! On our way back from Menard's, for our third trip, I spotted a guy sitting on his patio, face-down. He had gray hair, glasses and looked to be pretty old.

"Deb, did you see that... um... that guy?"

"What guy?"

"The dead guy back there?"

"Dead guy?"

"Well, I don't know if he's dead. He looks pretty dead."

"What are you smoking?"

"No really. I'm not kidding, Deb. This old guy on his patio is hunched over in his chair, and his head is face down on the table in front of him."

Still driving, and now a couple blocks away from the dead man, she said, "Should we turn around?"

"I don't know. I really don't want to see dead people. I mean, I do want to turn around and help but..."

"Yeah, he's dead. We can fix decks, but we can't fix dead."

Continuing down the 40 MPH road, we drove in silence, but my mind wouldn't stop talking. I had to expel my thoughts.

"Deb, what if he is just passed out from the heat? What if he isn't dead yet and can be revived. We both know CPR. What if we can save him?"

"Shit! I was thinking the same thing."

We flipped a Uey in the middle of the street to go save the dead guy. By then, we were a couple of miles away.

"Are you sure we didn't pass him already?"

"Yeah, he was way down there. You know Deb, super heroes like us don't have to worry about gas conservation or prices."

"Oh, good!"

"We should get some capes."

"For what?"

"What super hero doesn't have a cape? We are gonna save this guy's life! We are like the Double D Death Defiers! We fuckin' rock, Deb!"

"Yeah, we really do!"

Overly dramatic, I shouted, "Hey, Deb! There he is! That dead fellow is over there!"

Accidentally driving right by him, we flipped another Uey. (is that even how you would spell that? Should I have written U-turn instead? Well, it's too late to go back and delete now.)

Slowly creeping by his house, we could both see the dead man.

"Oh God, Lois, he is dead."

"Maybe we can mouth-to-mouth him."

"What if he is just taking a nap?"

"Then he'll be surprised to see his dream come true with your lips pressed against his."

"Who said I was the one doing the mouth-to-mouth?"

"1, 2, 3... NOT IT!"

"Shit! You got me!"

Now stopped, in front of the house, I began to feel bad that we were joking when an older gentleman was clearly dead. Deb's nervous laughter told me she too was beginning to worry.

"Let's just beep, and see if that does anything to him."

"Deb, what if he is just napping and the beep gives him a heart attack?"

"Well, then we will be right here ready to revive him. By the way Lois, 1, 2, 3,...NOT IT!"

"Bitch! You got me!"

Beep, beep!

And the man jumped up from his chair. He wasn't dead after all!

We quickly drove away. Looking back at the confused, but alive dead man, I said, "You know what Deb?"

"What, Lo?"

"We totally saved that man's life. We really are super heroes."

"I know."

We high-fived.

Betty The Butch Builder

Thank you all for the birthday wishes. It was a great day!

My sister in-law summons us to build her a deck. I've never questioned my own sexuality before this. Deb and I went to Menard's with a laundry list of wood and supplies. Picture if you will, my sister in-law and I walking through the mega hardware store, side-by-side and knowing where to find everything. It paints a picture of life partners already, doesn't it?

The style of dress we chose for the day screamed, "California here we come." I had a Miller Lite baseball cap on with my hair sticking out of the adjuster loop in the back. I had a sports bra under a firefighter wife beater that hung low on the sides, with faded old Levis shorts. I wasn't wearing makeup and my feet were sporting construction boots. I looked like a lesbian version of Olive Oyl.

She was wearing black spandex capris, with a tee-shirt, and a fancy pair of neon green Crocs. Her hair was in a ponytail and she wasn't wearing makeup either.

Best part of all? We shared a cart. Move over two girls one cup, here comes Lois and Deb, two girls, one cart! It became a parody in my head. (If you don't understand the reference, two girls one cup. I'm sorry but I'm not explaining that one. Consider yourself lucky. It is far too disgusting even for me.)

When other people looked at us, we knew what they were thinking. I played it up, swatting her on her ass and calling her babe. That's just how I roll.

After we ordered the lumber and rented a truck, we went to the yard where we saw proof that customer service is officially dead. There were plenty of blue vest wearing people out there, doing nothing, but none offered a hand. After loading the first two 14 ft. boards onto the rack at the top of the truck, I called to the closest Menard's employee.

"Hey, Cinderella," she was just standing there, staring at her fingernails, like she had nothing to do. Call me the evil step mother or an evil step sister whatever you call me, know that I am so sick of people not doing their damn job. She kept looking around us, playing off the, if I don't see them, I don't have to help, card.

My call snapped her out of her zone and she made eye contact, now she HAD to help, right? Wrong, she turned around as if I were calling the imaginary person behind her. "No, Cinderella, I'm talking to you. Don't be afraid of customer service. I promise it won't kill you."

Unhappily she slowly walked toward us, "How may I help you?" That struck me really funny because it all seemed so obvious. When I showed her the laundry list of supplies we needed, she called for backup on her walkie talkie. It took four employees and a forklift to load the truck of everything we needed.

Finally, back at the house, where we left the men. I was slightly annoyed that they hadn't finished the demo job. Mr. Lane claimed that we were "lucky, getting to shop," while they struggled with the old decking that was really hard to remove.

Lucky to shop? Was he kidding me? My only retort, "Tuck in your vag and grow a pair!"

Because I taunted him and was rushing him, like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon happened right before my eyes. Mr. Lane stomped his foot on a board to loosen the old rusty nails, and the board came back with a smack to his gut. (Thankfully, the nails were on the other end.) When you see the photo below, you may cringe and feel sorry for him. But trust me when I say, it was hysterical. His pain equals my gain.



Notice his hairy whiteness, which I also found a lot of humor in.

And because I don't have a snazzy photo of my sexy butch self, or a picture of the awesome deck, I'll leave you with a commercial for my new blog. Checkout my NBC blog. It's updated often and written in monologue style, and pretty freakin' funny, if I don't say so myself.

Mr. Lane is singing: Summer Time Blues

Poor Mr. Lane. I pulled a dirty rotten son of a bitch on him, and there wasn't a thing he could do about my antics. Sucks to be you, pretty boy. I didn't plan it out. Sometimes, life happens and I don't get the short end of the stick. Those are the moments I cherish most of all.

Lane 2 has a friend over. She is staying with us for two weeks. It took three days before Mr. Lane noticed the extra kid in the house. He rarely knows what is going on around here. Anyhow, she used to live in our old town, but since has also moved to Indiana, which is why I agreed on a two week stay. It was nice getting the kids together again.

Because we moved to a town just a handful of miles away from where we were living, my lovely daughter convinced me that we should round up a few more friends from the old hood.

I needed to grocery shop anyway, so I loaded the kids up and we headed out. I came home with a couple more extra kids. When I pulled into our driveway, I realized it was after 6. I'm on the board of directors at our local teen center and my meeting began at 6.

Even though he just got home from work right before we arrived, I yelled from the car, "Sorry honey, I have a meeting to get to! The kids will help you put the groceries away. Oh yeah, I was going to make spaghetti for dinner tonight. Love you guys!" And off I drove.

Mr. Lane was unintentionally duped with all of the extra kids, plus having to put all the crap I bought away, and having to make dinner. It felt better than sex! I loved every second of dropping and running. I really should do that more often. I wish you guys could have seen the look on his face!

When I got home two hours later, amazingly enough, he handled things pretty well. Groceries were put away, dinner was already made and eaten. The mess was waiting for me to take care of it, but that was okay. I grabbed the sauce pan first and then I saw it... smoked sausage.

I bought Italian sausage and he used the smoked sausage instead. It had to be an accident right? Just about that time, Lane 2 walked in the kitchen, so I asked her how dinner was. She said it wasn't too bad, considering.

"Considering what?"

"Considering Dad didn't know how to tell when the noodles were done, but I showed him. And then, I tried to tell him he wasn't using the right sausage but he wouldn't listen, and told me to go and entertain my friends."

"Thanks for trying to help Daddy. So how was the redneck variety of Italian food?"

"Seriously, redneck! Most of us just picked around the sausage, so it wasn't too bad."

Overhearing us, Mr. Lane walked in and said, "Sausage is sausage."

"No it's not!" Lane 2 and I said simultaneously.

"You may as well have put Vienna sausages from a can in that sauce, Dad."

"Oh come on. It wasn't that bad!"

"Yeah, Dad, and it wasn't that good either."

Viva la teenager daughter!

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I'm pretty excited about my new NBC blog. Many of you received an email from me last week, so some of this post will be a rerun for you. For those of you who didn't get an email, I likely landed in your spam folder, because it was a pretty meaty email. Or I didn't have your email address already saved in my address book.

Know right here and now, this blog isn't going anywhere. We have been together for nearly four years. I will continue to update once a week, give or take. But the new blog is like a new baby. It requires a lot of time, care, love, effort, hands-on molding and an occasional breast in its mouth.

I'm updating three or four times each week, so please stop by often. Link it on your site if you like what you see. If you would like to comment, which I of course would love, you have to register with NBC. I hear it's a real pain in the ass but I promise I'll be worth it. One thing I do know about signing up is that you can skip all of the profile information if you want, which I think is what takes the most amount of time during sign up.

I hope by starting up a home there, I can get more exposure, which ultimately can get me that dream writing job. I'm sick of dreaming. And I'm sick of low paying crap ass freelance work. Help me make it happen. It would be great to see all of you and your friends there.

Once You Pop, You Can't Stop...

...Unless You Have Fat Hands

Fredric J. Baur died last month. He was 89. Do any of you know who that was? Well, as an investigative reporter, I've been searching for this guy for decades. Not so much for a big news story, but to give him a piece of my mind.

Don't worry, I only wanted to give a small piece. Seems Fredric was the genius behind the Pringles packaging system.

He wasn't the one who gave them the fun make-yourself-a-duck-face shape. He simply created a package to keep the chips from breakage. But there was a problem with his "genius idea."

Snack foods are supposed to make you feel happy. We use them when we are hungry, hankering a little salt, as a side dish with burgers and hot dogs, having a monthly issue, watching television or a movie, trying to ward off depression.

What? Some of us eat instead of taking Prozac, so shut your pie hole and keep reading.

Where is the happy in this product? Well, you get the salty goodness, and the crunchity fun, but seriously, should a package make the person feel fat? No is the correct answer. Even on my skinniest of skinny days, my giant hand never fit properly into a can of Pringles.

I always felt like the chip gods were somewhere, watching, and laughing at my fat hands. As I neared the middle of the can, I'd use my opposable thumb and my index finger to try and latch on to just one chip, or maybe a tiny stack, it never worked. While my index finger may have been sufficiently long, my thumb is somewhat nubby. Shut up!

Then nearing the bottom of the can, using my middle and index fingers like scissors, I try with all of my might. I know my hand isn't magically shrinking as I woof down the tube of Pringly goodness.

Turns out, there's no chip gods, just Fredric. And that S.O.B. probably laughed himself straight to the grave thinking of me and the millions of other salty loving bastards with fat hands.

So don't mourn the loss of this "icon." Instead, know he had a pretty great life and died laughing...probably at you and me. And per his own request, because he was so incredibly proud of his invention, a portion of his ashes has been buried in one of the cans.

When the angels come to take him to heaven, providing that is where he is going, I hope for his sake, they have tiny hands. Rest in piece you not funny man!