dailydiatribes

We are going to Atlanta for the weekend.  Please do not despair if you check in and don't find an update; one will be forthcoming upon our return. 

Do not think because I have posted this that now is a good time to come and burgle my house.  Tim's brother Bubba is coming over to mobile home-sit and feed the three pit bulls, Huey, Louie, and Dewey, and the rottweiler Babycakes.  Bubba has not been himself since he got back from Iraq and he tends to err on the side of caution and shoots first.

Love you all!!

You know how sometimes when your child complains, you totally ignore him or her and just hope he or she will go away and leave you alone?  Like when your child has a stick lodged in her eye and she's whining about it and all you want to do is finish watching "Young and the Restless" so you tell her to go put a bandaid on it and quit crying?  And then later you find out that it was really bad and you should have jumped up right then and there and taken her to the hospital because now she has to have her left eye, part of her brain and 1/3 of her ear removed, all because you ignored her?  Well that sort of happened to me.

A few weeks ago, Abby started complaining about her ankle.  I asked her what she had done to it and she did not remember doing anything to hurt it.  So I proceeded to ignore her.  A huge tactical error on my part.  The problem with her is she is impervious to pain.  If she falls down and starts crying, I call the paramedics, because I know it's life threatening.  She makes Lou Gehrig look like a sissy. 

But for some reason, I ignored her complaints about her ankle.  True, it was swollen, but she was walking, even running, on it, so I knew it wasn't slowing her down.  "You probably rolled it," I told her.  "So suck it up and deal with it."  Words that would come back to haunt me.

Last week, she started complaining about the pain.  So I grudgingly called the doctor, whined a lot, and they worked her in to their schedule.  When we arrived, I presented them with the x-rays Tim had lovingly taken.  What's the point of owning an x-ray machine if you can't occasionally x-ray your family members?  There was a spot on the x-ray he wasn't sure about, but as he pointed out, human children have more growth plates than dogs, so it might be normal.

Well, the nurse took a look, said she needed more views, but thought she saw a chipped bone.  The guilt started bearing down upon me.  Probably, it was more than a chipped bone.  Probably, it was a compound spiral fracture and fragments of bone had already entered her blood stream and were racing toward her heart to kill her.  And I had told her to suck it up.  Great parenting; Dr. Spock would be so proud.

They took her for x-rays and then the doctor came in and examined her ankle.  He pulled it and prodded it and she squirmed uncomfortably.  I watched the pain my child was in and mentally vowed to take her shopping to make up for it.  Finally he addressed the problem.  Yes, it was just a bad sprain, he told me and I mentally wiped my brow in relief. 

However, he went on to say, she had evidence of an old injury where she had CHIPPED OFF PART OF THE BONE!!!  The guilt returned in full force, and I almost fell to the ground under the weight of it.  Not only had I ignored this injury, I had evidently ignored a previous one, one that had actually resulted in maiming her.  How could I live with this.

He prescribed a brace and a month of physical therapy.  After a month, he would recheck her.  About 50% of the time, the PT does the trick, he said.  But if it doesn't, the next step is surgery.  By now, I was gasping for air.  What had I done to this poor, sweet child???  How could I, the original over-reacting hypochondriacal parent, miss an injury like that???  Was I so busy monitoring her for signs of leukemia that I overlooked the obvious?  Apparently I am not the good parent I thought I was. 

I thanked him meekly and I slunk out of the office, Abby hobbling behind me in her new brace.  Well, ok, she actually was about ten yards ahead of me because she walks so darn fast I can't keep up with her.  We got to the car and headed immediately for the Galleria.  There was no amount of money to assuage my guilt, but a shopping spree is at least a good start.  There's something about the air in Abercrombie that restores health to my child.  I will keep you posted on her progress and a fund will be opened in her name to pay for the physical therapy, as well as my psychiatric sessions for dealing with the guilt.  We also accept major credit cards and Pay Pal, with a valid driver's license.  Operators are standing by, so call now!!! 

It's 5:30 a.m on Memorial Day.  All of you are still asleep, which is as it should be.  The brave men and women who died fighting for our country would want us all to still be asleep on a government holiday.  It's the American way.

Unfortunately, Abby had eight of her little friends from school over to spend the night last night.  When Tim and I went to bed at midnight, they were still going strong.  Tim informed me that at 3:30, while I was snoring (his word, but I don't snore..I just breathe loudly), they were still going strong.  Now at 5:30, they are still going strong.  When I got up to go to the bathroom, Abby the birthday girl, poked her head in and chirpily said good morning.  I volunteered to beat her into silence with a shoe, but Tim restrained me.  I asked her if they stayed up all night. 

"Only five us stayed up all night," she said cheerfully.  Hmmm, more than half.  Some mothers in town are NOT going to be thanking me.  Teensy, your daughter was not one of the five!

Yesterday passed in a flurry of preparation for the party.  I tied a length of nylon rope to my waist, anchored it to the iron stair rail, and prepared myself to go into the treacherous wasteland of my daughter's room.  There are not adjectives enough to describe the horror within, but let's just say it filled an entire garbage bag.

Downstairs, I dusted, I swept, I vacuumed.  I vacuumed up a bottle of bubbles and jammed the hose.  I had to unplug the vacuum cleaner and use a pair of scissors to extricate the bubbles.  You know my track record with vacuum cleaners. 

Finally, the big moment arrived, and 12 year old girls swarmed into my house like a herd of locusts.  "Did we really only invite eight?" I asked Tim fearfully, as they plunged into the house.

While they frolicked outside, Tim and I slaved in the kitchen, preparing their nutritious meal of cheese sticks, pizza rolls, and taquitos, with a side order of french fries and chips and dip.  When we announced the food was ready, they swarmed into the kitchen and began devouring everything within their reach.  A truly frightening spectacle.

From the kitchen, they swarmed down to the basement to watch a movie.  The screaming began.  Ten minutes later I walked downstairs to see why they were screaming.  The floor of the basement was covered with Nerds.  For those of you not acquainted with the term, I do not mean the bodies of Abby's less popular friends.  No, Nerds are a type of candy, brought to you by those wonderful folks at Willy Wonka.  They are tiny pebbles of sugar in bright, technicolor shades.  They crunch underfoot and I wobbled a little as I made my way across the room.

"What happened here?" I snarled in my nicest voice.

"Oh nothing," Abby replied airily.  "Just a little accident." 

I trudged back up the stairs and got the broom.  I brought it back down and thrust it at her.  "Clean it up," I told her, and went back upstairs.

Ten minutes later, I came back down and the Nerds were still on the floor and the broom was also on the floor, in two pieces.  I was visited by a sudden premonition that this would be a very long night.  To be fair to the girls, the broom was about to break anyway and it probably didn't take much for it to die.  Still...

Tim and I settled in uneasily to watch a movie.  The screams from downstairs continued, punctuated with the occasional loud thud that shook the foundations of the house.  He would look at me like I was somehow responsible.  At around 11:30, they trooped upstairs and the screams continued from above.  I felt like I was on the set of a horror movie.

At midnight, I went up and read them the riot act about being quiet.  Then Tim and I went to bed.  I turned on all the vent fans in the bathroom and turned the radio on really loud.  At first, we shut the door, but then Tim worried they might try to sneak downstairs to do something dastardly, like scream some more.  So we left it half open.

And so here we are at 5:30.  They are still screaming.  Tim is in bed, trying to catch a little more sleep, but I have yielded to the inevitable.  There is no more sleep to be had.  So I got up, made some coffee to cheer him up when he finally concedes defeat, and now I am recording this for posterity.  The one consolation is we drove to Krispy Kreme yeserday to get donuts for the invited guests.  So I plan on inhaling a half dozen or so.  Gotta have some sugar to keep me awake because the little varmints don't go home until noon!!     

1.  I am having hormonal issues.  Because Renee is now one of my dearest friends, I can no longer see her for my "yearly" female checkup.  I can't imagine sitting at my favorite bistro with someone who just that morning told me to spread my legs and say ahhh (altho she didn't go to medical school for nothin'!!)  So I picked a new doctor and she decided I needed to take some hormones.  I have put on ten pounds in the last week, I've had insomnia, hot flashes, homicidal rages and a frequent urge to rape 85 year old men who suddenly look damn hot to me.  In short, I am a mess right now and I am never taking hormones again.  This has taken a toll on my creative side. 

2.  As if the hormones were not enough, I am experiencing terrible allergies for the first time in my life.  My eyes are so red I look like a stoned weasel who was trapped in a house fire.  My nose is stopped up, but still manages to run copiously.  My throat hurts and feels like an emery board.  I cough like a 300 pound truck driver with a 3 pack a day habit.  In short, I am a mess.  Again.  Add the above symptoms and you can see why I may have a problem being witty right now.

3.  We have a new puppy, possibly one of the single biggest mistakes of my adult life.  She is an adorable golden fluff ball, a golden retriever named Lulu.  She pees on the floor every fifteen minutes, regardless of how many times she has been outside.  She also likes to wake up and bark for twenty minutes at 2:00 in the morning.  When she did it this morning, Tim became enraged and hauled her, cage and all, down into the basement.  It muffled the cries somewhat, but not enough.  Tonight if she barks, I am going to drive her, cage and all, to the Cahaba River and set her afloat.  Maybe I'll send a few kids with her.

4.  The month of May is busier than December.  Every possible event comes crashing down all at once, including dance recitals, graduations, end of year parties, soccer parties, birthday parties, and all kinds of other events that cannot be missed.  Every event consists of pizza and cake.  We ate pizza and cake for six days straight.  If you were to take my blood, it would probably consist largely of tomato sauce and buttercream icing.  Add the hormones and my next child could look like the Domino's Pizza delivery guy, the freaky one with the nail in his ear and the tatoos on his legs.  Frequently, these events occur at the same time, at opposite ends of the city.  They all involve some sort of cash outlay, usually only $5 to $10, but when you mulitply that times five events times three children, it ends up being more than the mortgage on my house.  How can I blog when I am facing financial devastation and clogged arteries?

5.  My house has been declared a federal disaster area by the Red Cross.  The carpet in the family room is dotted with wet spots where the puppy has peed and we blasted with Spot Shot.  There is laundry everywhere.  Abby is having eight little girls over to spend the night tomorrow.  The party favors will consist of a Swiffer, a can of Pledge and a toilet bowl brush.  I'm going to divide them up into teams and set them loose.  Whichever team gets its section the cleanest gets to keep the cleaning supplies and come back again in two weeks. 

So this explains why my blog has been so quiet lately and why my topics have been so scatological in nature.  And if you question me again, I'll stab you to death with a spork....right after I rape you!!!! 

I can't believe I am scooping Birmingham Blues on an important political news story.  I am beside myself with joy!!  It has been a long and busy day for me and I only just read the paper.  This morning I had an important breakfast meeting at the Chick Fil-A (the one with the playground) to help implement new girl scout strategies, like whether we all needed matching shirts or not.  Then it was off to Mountain Brook for my birthday pedicure/manicure, courtesy of my sweet friend Karen.  My toes feel so refined right now for having been touched by a Mountain Brook pedicurist.

Anyway, after I dropped Karen off, I headed home to eat lunch and read the paper.  To my delight, Leonard Pitts, my favorite columnist, focused on my home state in his column.  I love to see Alabama mentioned on a national level.  We always get such good press, and today was no exception.  Leonard's column is about the continuing fight to legalize the sale of sex toys in Alabama....I would hyperlink it, but after almost two hours, I still can't make it work!!  Go to www.miamiherald.com and type in his name.  You'll find it.

Yes, I'm afraid it's true that here in Alabama, you can go to any Wal-Mart and buy a gun, but you are not allowed to purchase a vibrator.  Not even a dildo.  Not even nipple rings.  Where is the justice in this?  So it's ok to buy a rifle and blow Bambi away but you can't buy a life-like representation of the male anatomy to, um, pleasure yourself?  I find this thinking to be extremely backward.  If people were experiencing more orgasms, they wouldn't have time to shoot each other.  If we were to take the guns out of the hands of Al-Quaida and replace them with something more, er, stimulating, the war would be over in five minutes.

I don't get what's wrong with this state.  The blue laws are bad enough.  God forbid we should drink a beer on Sunday.  That's a one way ticket to hell right there.  Can't play a high school football game on Sunday because it's the Lord's day.  The conservative values of the moral majority are imposed upon us everywhere.  Now they're taking away our dildoes?  Are we going to stand for this??  Why is it ok to buy a gun and not a vibrator?  In the great scheme of things, which one is likely to cause more damage?  Ok, granted, if your vibrator shorts out while you're using it, the resulting burn damage could be most unpleasant, but still, that's a worst case scenario.  Dildoes don't kill people; guns kill people.  And I am having 250,000 bumper stickers printed up as we speak.

While I do not claim to be an expert on all things biblical, I am reasonably certain none of the commandments Moses toted down from the mountain addressed masturbation.  I don't recall "thou shalt not pleasure thyself with mechanical objects" in any of my Sunday school classes.  So what in the world is so bad about it?  And this is America for crying out loud!!  I am pretty sure I have the right to masturbate if I want to!  Not that I own a vibrator, and I know I am incapable of buying one, let alone operating it, but still, if I want one, I should be able to get one.  It's the American way.

Orgasms make people feel happy and good.  They reduce tension and promote harmony.  They are good.  In fact, while researching for this blog ( you would be amazed at the amount of research I conduct to get this thing done) I stumbled across justification for my theory...www.globalorgasm.org.  It seems there is a worldwide movement to send a surge of positive human energy out into the atmosphere by getting everyone to orgasm at the same time.  Hey, count me in; I'll play that game!

So the next time you do your gun shopping at your local Wal-Mart, don't count on picking up a nifty little strap-on at the same time.  Because it's immoral to orgasm.  God only wants us to shoot things. 

I wandered into the bathroom this morning and found Tim pawing through his sock drawer.  He kept holding different socks up to the light and tsking.  Finally I asked him what the problem was.

"Whoever sorted these socks did a terrible job," he complained.  "None of them match."

That's when I had to share the bad news with him.  I can't believe he didn't see it on CNN or Fox already, since it's been on all the major news outlets.  The sock sorters union, fed up with management's refusals to meet its demands, has gone on strike.  This has upset households all over the United States.  Athletic socks, dress socks, ankle socks, crew socks and tube socks are jumbled together in a shapeless mass until the sock sorters go back to work.

R. Gyle, president of the sock sorters union, vowed there would be no socks sorted until managment acceded to a lengthy list of demands.  "For too long," R. Gyle said, "we have suffered in silence, spending 8 to 10 hours a day in cramped, poorly lit laundry rooms, sorting socks with little or no recognition for our efforts.  Our backs are ruined, our fingers are arthritic and our eyesight has suffered from spending endless hours trying to match toe seams.  It ends today.  If you want someone to sort the navy socks from the black socks, you better be prepared to pay!"

CNN was able to obtain a list of the union's demands, which included requests for a significant increase in the labor force, more spacious folding areas (possibly located in that mansion in Southlake I've been looking at), and increased benefits, including a more generous lunch allowance.

Many families are already feeling the pain.  Tim Brunner was interviewed at work wearing a Tommy Hilfiger ankle sock and a navy blue dress sock.  "I can't believe this," he said to reporters.  "I can't find two socks that match.  I had no idea it was such a skilled job."

R. Gyle has promised to keep the picket lines going until sock sorters get the benefits and the respect they deserve.  "No one else wants to do this job," he told reporters.  "So I feel confident we can resolve the issue without compromising our demands." 

Ah, Saturday morning.  A time for leisurely reading the paper.  A time to watch cartoons.  A time to dawdle over breakfast and listen to the bluebirds chirping as they smack into the window.  A time to clean the house.

We live in squalor.  We have an attractive brick home and from the outside, it looks very respectably middle class.  However, to pass through its front doors is to enter the crack house from hell.  You can't come in the front door without tripping over a pile of Josh's smelly laundry.  No toting of the Pottery Barn limited edition monogrammed wicker laundry baskets down the stairs for my children.  No, they simply stand at the rail and heave their dirty underwear over the side like so much unwanted ballast.  Charming.

So the front rooms are filled with laundry in various stages.  Dirty laundry, waiting to be sorted and washed.  Clean laundry, piled in baskets, slowly wrinkling into something resembling a shar-pei.  Folded laundry languishing on the sofa, sadly waiting for some owner to claim it and put it away.  Yeah, right, like that's going to happen! Shirts and slacks adorn the backs of the dining room chairs, anxiously waiting their turn to be hung.  See above pronouncement on the likelihood of that.

Come on into the kitchen and trip over the watermelon that's been sitting on the air conditioning vent for a week.  My brilliant husband put it there to chill.  I said "dang honey, why'ont you put that sucker in the crick to cool?" but he wouldn't listen.  No one has touched it because none of us like to cut up watermelon.  Avoid the watermelon and step in one of the dog food bowls that attractively range around my kitchen floor like land mines, waiting to annihilate the unsuspecting.  One is metal, and it really wakes you up when someone inadvertantly kicks it across the floor.  Unless, of course, it sticks to the floor, which has been known to happen.

Pass on into the family room and you'll probably step into a large wet spot composed of puppy urine and Spot Shot.  Yes, we foolishly acquired a golden retriever puppy.  She is a precious, cunning little fluff ball!  Who voids her bladder every fifteen minutes on the carpet.  Doesn't matter whether she just spent two hours outside, she's not going to pass up a chance to mark the carpet.  If you miss the urine, you will almost certainly trip over a pile of shoes belonging to the blonde goddess.  I picked up 13 pairs this morning.  Imelda Marcos would gnash her teeth in envy over the child's shoe collection.  And heaven forbid we should wear the same pair twice.  Or put them away after we've worn them.  No, we keep them attractively displayed in the middle of the floor in case we get an urge to change them mid-morning. 

This morning, I declared war.  Every so often, the clutter gets so bad, it impedes the flow of creative juices.  There's something soul destroying about tripping over the same pile of towels 5 days in a row.  So I casually began assigning tasks to the older children.  First, I asked Abby to unload the dishwasher.

This was met with the predictable wail of "It's not my turn!!!  I just did it!!!  Why can't Josh do it????  Why doesn't Anna do anything??? It's NOT FAIR!!!!!"  I continued to ask in a very calm, pleasant tone, until I wore her down and she did it.  Elated by my success, I allowed a few minutes to pass, then I asked her to clean the bathroom.  She erupted into a frenzy.

"WHY do we have to WORK on SATURDAY?????  It's supposed to be a day for fun and you have to RUIN it by making us work.  IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  I completely agree, and I suggest one you readers call DHR immediately and have these children removed from my care for the abuse I have heaped upon them.  However, I continued to pleasantly insist and eventually, she subsided to the bathroom with a huff.

Ten minutes later, she emerged and walked into my bedroom where I was folding the shar-peis and said "I'm sorry.  I love you."  And she put her head on my shoulder.  Such a tender moment.  Until I asked her to take her clothes upstairs.

She danced away from me in a rage.  "Why ARE you SO MEAN?" she snarled.  "You keep making me do everything and no one else has to do anything.  Why do I have to do ALL the work???"  I sensibly pointed out that Josh was downstairs cleaning the basement and that the goddess was frolicking in the woods, as six year olds do.  I pointed out that when she was six, I required nothing more of her than to flush the toilet after she was done.  "Yeah, but Josh is older than me and he didn't have to do anything then either." 

I decided it was unwise to continue arguing with her and so I calmly asked her to put her clothes away.  She grabbed them and stomped all the way up the stairs and slammed her door.  I am sure every stomp was meant to be a dagger to my mother's heart, a reminder of the injustices I had visited upon this child I was supposed to love and cherish.  In fact, it made me remember she needs to vacuum the stairs next.  Batten down the hatches y'all, cause the hurricane is comin'!!! 

This morning, I stood on the steps and waved goodbye to Abby as she climbed into the bus.  As I turned to go in the house, my foot teetered on the step and my arms pinwheeled for a moment, and I fought gravity's relentless pull toward the earth.  Undoubtedly, had I fallen, I would have smashed my head against the pavement and suffered a fractured skull and a subdural hematoma.  It would have been the end.

In that moment, with complete clarity, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.  Saw Abby's schoolmates howling with mirth as her mom plunged down the steps.  Saw Tim screaming "Noooooooooooo" as I fell to the earth.  Felt my soul separate from my body and wing its way toward heaven.

Whereupon I was greeted at the gates by St. Peter, who said in no uncertain terms "Oh no, you aren't coming in here." 

"But why not?" I whined.  "I've been good.  I go to church every...well, ok, ALMOST every Sunday.  I do good deeds.  I should get to come in."

"Yeah, right," he snorted derisively.  "You...good??"  He whipped a book out of his pocket and consulted it.  "Says here you read dirty magazines when you were in high school."

I stared in disbelief.  "Everyone reads dirty magazines in high school," I said.

"But you memorized them," he reminded me. 

"Oh, right, forgot about that.  But there was that great story in Penthouse about the guy who got funky with a roast chicken....never mind," I said quickly.  "Still, I have done lots of nice things for other people."

"Hmmm, says here you gossiped on a daily basis about everyone and everything," he said.

"Never, ever about anything important though," I reminded him.  "I only gossiped about the little things.  And really, if everyone would have just listened to me and done things my way, the world would have been a better place.  Right?"

He looked at me for a minute, shook his head and then went back to the list.  "And what about this "BLOG" thing?" he asked.  "Very scatological in nature.  Nothing in it promoting the glory of God.  Instead, you wrote about poop and drinking.  Not exactly praising the lord were we?" 

"Well, uh, I made people laugh with it," I said defensively.  "Isn't that a good thing."

"It is when you don't use toilet jokes to do it," he said dismissively.  "I'm afraid I can't sign off on your entry to heaven.  You'll have to go to Hell and see what Satan says."  He flicked a hand and I was off, tumbling through the cosmos, heading down to a warmer climate.

Whereupon I was greeted at the gates by the Prince of Darkness himself (and no, I don't mean Ozzie Osbourne).  "I'm afraid I can't let you in," he said, before I could even open my mouth.

"What?" I asked, feeling somewhat offended now.

"We don't need you 'blogger' types here," he said scathingly.  "It's bad enough we have the lawyers.  The place is already full of bullshit and hot air.  So move on," he said, and he looked a bit menacing.

"But, but...." I stammered, "they've already kicked me out of heaven.  Where am I supposed to go?  Besides, all my friends are here," I said, waving at a few familiar faces.

"Hmmm, sounds like a personal problem to me," he said sarcastically.  He waved a hand and I went plunging through the cosmos again and found myself at the doors of Wal-Mart.

I was greeted by a chipper old lady in a blue smock who said "I'm afraid you can't come in here."

By now, I was a little tired of the whole, out-of-body thing.  "Why not?" I asked wearily.

"You used your blog to deny all the good the Walton family has done," she said.  "When I think of how many times you mocked our little yellow happy face for just doing his job..."  She sniffled and pulled a lacy hanky out of her smock.  "No, I'm afraid purgatory is not for you."

This was too much.  Wal-Mart is purgatory and I can't even get in the door??  "Everyone makes fun of Wal-Mart," I snarled at her.  "It's the new national past time.  Who watches baseball anymore?"

I looked over her shoulder, through the doors, and I could see happy people pushing their carts through endless aisles of merchandise, all of it made in China.  I saw a whole display of Nora Roberts paperbacks, marked down to $4.88.  I had to get through the door.

"Please, please, please," I whined, pulling at her smock.  "I have nowhere else to go.  You have to let me come in..pleeeeeeeaaaaaaasssssssssse?"

She just looked at me and waved her hand and in an instant, I was back on my front porch step, and I found my footing, just before I plunged. 

I came into the house and sat down at the computer to blog about the whole thing before I forgot all the details.  After all, I'm not dead yet.  There's still time for me to redeem myself before I have to meet my Maker.  So I think I'm going to the gas station to buy this month's Penthouse!

I really need to stop reading the obituaries since they tend to depress me, but I can't help it.  Today, there were two women in their 30's listed, something guaranteed to get my paranoia meter going.  I know you're not supposed to laugh at obits, but one said "in lieu of flowers, please send donations to any family member."  I suppose the woman probably didn't have insurance and the family can't pay for the funeral.  Still, I believe Miss Manners might frown on it.

So after my shower this morning, I stuck a q-tip in my ear to remove the excess water and when I removed it, it was bright purple.  I have to admit, the first thought that ran through my mind was a giant tarantula had moved into my ear overnight and I had just squished it, sending particles of arachnid throughout my brain.  I stared at the q-tip dumbfounded.  Why was it purple?  Did I have ear cancer?  Was it a sign of meningitis?  Lyme disease?  Rocky mountain spotted fever???

Another thought surfaced:  what if aliens had taken over my body and I didn't know it?  What if all my movements were being controlled by giant octopus-like creatures who had nefarious designs upon the women of our planet?  Horror burgeoned in my soul as I realized the octopi creatures had replaced all my good, red, American blood with a foul alien liquid as part of the transmogrification process.  At any moment, they would burst through my door and bear me away to the mother ship, where they would continue their vile experiments. 

I continued to stare and then it hit me.  You know how your mother always told you never to stick anything smaller than your elbow into your ear?  Well, I have ignored that all my life and I stick everything into my ears.  I have extremely itchy ear canals, so I am always sticking in bobby pins or sucker sticks or, most frequently pen caps.  It's an OCD/self mutilating sort of behavior that I have, like biting nails (which I do as well) and I have a hard time controlling it.  When I am especially anxious, like when I am in the middle of a game of canasta on Pogo, I will absent-mindedly reach into the drawer, grab a pen cap, and scratch away.  There is no wax in my ears at all, because I scratch them all the time.

As I stared at the purple Q-tip, I remembered that in fact, there was a leaky pen in the drawer and I had probably used the cap from it to mutilate my ear.  So as I scratched, I deposited ink on the inside of my ear, rendering it purple.  This would also explain why my left index finger is also purple, a question that has been plaguing me since yesterday.

So there was no spider and no aliens.  I am not dying of hemorrhagic purple wax disease.  I just need to quit mortifying my flesh with bic pen caps.  But if you want to make a donation to my family anyways, feel free.  You know how I am with flowers!

Boys and girls, today's theme is doo doo.  Not that I intended for today to have a theme, but some days are crappier than others.  I guess I have poop on the brain, what can I say?

I went to Tim's office to pick him up for lunch.  Occasionally, I forego the pleasure of lunching with my friends and go to lunch with my husband, just so he'll feel important.  When I walked in, he was in the exam room and I was on the phone with Nancy, so I went into his office and sat down to wait.  It was then that I saw it, hanging on the bulletin board, just begging for my attention:  THE FECAL SCORING SYSTEM...BROUGHT TO YOU BY PURINA.

To say I was overcome with delight is to put it mildly.  I'm not sure what it says about my character if a chart with various pictures of dog doo fills me with giddy glee.  I guess I need to get a job or a new hobby or maybe a new therapist.  Still, the moment the chart caught my eye, I had to have it!  I hung up on Nancy and snatched it from the board, eager to learn how to score feces.

Tim saw it in my hand, rolled his eyes and said "I feel a blog coming on!" 

After I stopped laughing, I asked him if he ever used it.  "All the time," he said, oh so seriously.  "When clients come in and I ask if the dog's stool is watery or if it looks like pudding, they get mad because they don't know what I'm talking about.  This way I can show them."

Maybe my imagination is slightly more developed than average, because I get a very vivid mental association with the word "pudding" and I do not require a visual aid.  I have been a dog owner for most of my life and I am all to well acquainted with the "pudding" stool that results after a garbage eating binge.  But I guess that's just me.

So, to assist the lowly veterinarian in his difficult task, the think tank at Purina has come up with a scoring system for diagnosing bowel problems.  And they probably paid huge sums of money to some consulting firm to follow a bunch of dogs around and photograph their, um, "results".  What a crappy job!

Anyway, if I could work my scanner, I would scan it in, but I haven't the faintest clue, so I am just going to take you through the chart step by step.  If you need visuals, please contact Purina for your own copy of the FECAL SCORING SYSTEM.

Score 1---"Very hard and dry; requires much effort to expel from body; no residue left on ground when picked up.  Often expelled as individual pellets".  The corresponding picture shows two little, brown balls on the sidewalk.  There is no sign of the dog who exerted all the energy to produce them.  He has probably gone home to drink some prune juice and take an ex-lax.

Score 2---Firm, but not hard; should be pliable; segmented appearance; little or no residue left on ground when picked up..."  Presumably, one is picking it up to test its pliability and to count the segments.  I think you can guess the age of the dog by the number of segments.  Or is that trees?  They should add "tootsie roll like appearance" to this description.

Score 3---"Log-like; little or not segmentation visible; moist surface; leaves residue but holds form when picked up..."  Again with the picking up; did they have someone to test the pliability of dog turds?  Is this a specialized job that requires intensive training?  Is there a correspondence course I can take?

Score 4---"Very moist (soggy); distinct log shape visible; leaves residue and loses form when picked up..."  So you are left with a soggy, shapeless mass of poo.  Another good reason NOT TO PICK IT UP!!!  I know why I don't work for Tim anymore.

Score 5---"Very moist but has distinct shape; present in piles rather than as distinct logs; leaves residue and loses form when picked up..."  I am thrilled with the adjectives in this description.  How many jobs allow you to use words like "distinct logs" and "present in piles"?  I wish you could see the picture; it looks a lot like Dairy Queen soft serve (listens to retching noises with glee...:-))

Score 6---"Has texture but no defined shape; occurs as piles or as spots; leaves residue when picked up."  Hmmm, we are working towards pudding with this one.  Bill Cosby would be so happy.

Score 7---"Watery, no texture, flat; occurs as puddle...."  We have chocolate pudding!!!  The moment we've all been waiting for!   This is the picture Tim can point to and say severely "This is what will happen if you do not feed your dog Purina!"  Talk about marketing!!

I hope you found this as instructional and informative as I did.  Now I have to take the puppy outside.  I am hoping for a nice number 2 or at least a number 3!