UP IN SMOKE

            Smoking is hazardous to your health…in more ways than one.

I stopped and bought a pack of smokes this morning on the way to the office.  Driving again, I tried to light one up, and received a third-degree burn on my index finger.

Disgusted, I tossed the matches aside and fumbled in my handbag for my lighter.  Finding it at last, I flicked it on, while keeping my eyes on the road.  Unbeknownst to me, it was turned up to maximum flame height and not only did it light my cigarette, but my nose, as well. Making a mental note to figure skin grafting into this month’s budget, I drove on.

Unfortunately, I had dropped the lighter during the screaming, and had no idea where it landed until my seat caught fire.

Luckily, there was a doughnut shop across the street, so I leapt out of the car, ran into the shop, and bought both pots of coffee (regular AND decaf), ran back to the car, and extinguished the conflagration.

I returned the empty pots and turned to leave when the cashier stopped me.

“What is it?” 

She uneasily indicated my jeans.

The cuffs were smoldering.

Brand new jeans, and the damned cuffs were on fire!

I bought a cup of regular, black, no sugar, and put them out.

Now I had ragged cuffs that smelled really bad and were dyed brown with absolutely no regard for symmetry whatsoever.

I sloshed back to my car.

I sat down on what was left of my seat, which also sloshed.  My butt was now coffee-colored, too.

“OK,” I said.  “I’ll light up while I’m parked.”  I was able to do so uneventfully, and resumed my drive to the office.

Feeling that perhaps a little music would relax me, I flipped on the radio and twirled the dial, looking for something suitable.  While I was thus occupied, a live cigarette ash fell onto my leg and burned a huge hole in my jeans.  In my panic to put it out, I dropped my cigarette and it landed on my other leg, burning a hole there, too.

I pulled over, grabbed my lighter, matches, and cigarettes, and threw them out the window.

Walking into my office building, I was accosted by a group of teenagers.

“Hey, wow!  Where’d you get the cool jeans?”

“Hey, Skank!  Look at her nose!  Sick!  She looks just like a cat!  Who did that for you, lady?”

“Philip Morris,” I muttered.

“Was it expensive?”

 “Actually, no.  Only $5.50.”

Lately, I’ve been seeing a rather large cross section of the teen segment resplendent in burned, coffee-stained jeans and black noses.

I’m just really happy I didn’t have leprosy.

God knows what they would have done.

 

OUTDOOR GARDENING MADE EASY

Step 1.  Prepare the Soil

This is done by turning it over, much the same way your Great Aunt Fudd turns over your Great Uncle Fudd to get him to knock off the snoring.  Next, you must break up the clods to that the soil is a more consistent texture—calling for an action similar to the punches Great Uncle Fudd receives in both eyes when he rolls over and tells Great Aunt Fudd to get stuffed. 

Step 2.  Fertilize the Soil

Do this by first stopping in at the nearest nursery, relinquishing your wallet, signing a promissory note against your soul, and then loading up your car with bag after bag of the same product you could get for free if you stood out in a cow pasture long enough.  (Remember, I never said any of this made sense – especially since I’ve yet to see even one flower growing in a cow pasture.)

Next, you go home and, using a rake, a hoe, and other implements of destruction; you work the truckload of manure that you just spend all your children’s college money on, into the flowerbed soil.  You will accomplish two things by doing this.  First, you will have wonderfully fertile soil.  Second, the god-awful smell will keep the Jehovah’s Witnesses away for most of the summer . . . also anyone else who inhales.  Your garden will be perfect – there just won’t be anyone but you and the swarming colony of flies to appreciate it. 

Step 3.  Plant your seedlings

Starting your plants indoors in February and raising your own seedlings will fill you with pride and give you a special feeling of accomplishment.  By the time they are large enough to plant in your flowerbeds, you will have come to regard them as your children.  And, since it is a well-known fact that talking to your plants improves their health, you are encouraged to do so.  If you are unsure of what to talk about, try to find subjects that might be of interest to them.  Have a discussion about sewing with a cactus.  Try a debate about the situation in the Middle East with a Wandering Jew.  Or how about a rousing conversation about the FBI with your Virginia Creeper?  After a while, it will become second nature to you, and with any luck at all, you may actually stay out of the lunatic asylum long enough to see them all bloom!

Mr. F. Dostoyevsky, of Pottsylvania, felt so fatherly toward his prize geraniums that he went so far as to fashion tiny outfits for them.  However, being a rather depressed personage who had no access to Prozac at the time, he dressed them all in black.  Since they were a deep red variety, when the geraniums bloomed, his front flowerbed took on the somewhat appalling aspect of a group of Lilliputian, recently beheaded mourners.  He was summarily arrested and charged with unnecessary strangeness and intent to attract the attention of the National Enquirer.  These offenses carried the stiff penalty of having to read six Tolstoy novels right in a row, without stopping.  Three days later, Mr. Dostoyevsky committed suicide.

There is such a thing as getting too involved with your plants. 

Step 4.  Garden pests and how to deal with them

Okay.  You’ve rid yourself of the bothersome human factor that would spoil your newly planted garden.  Now you’ll have to deal with the pests.  No, no!  I’m not talking about your Great Aunt Fudd!  I’m talking about pests with six legs!

Oh.

No wonder she spends so much on shoes.

Actually, I’m referring to insect-type pests, and I don’t want to hear any mother-in-law jokes.

To continue.  The best thing to use to discourage insects is insecticide.  If killing the little fuckers doesn’t discourage them, I don’t know what will.

Some environmentally-conscious folks take issue with the use of chemicals to off one’s aphids.  They prefer a more natural, environmentally responsible way of eliminating insects.

They eat them.

These are the same people who make ant sandwiches, then go on a picnic, thereby saving oodles of time.

Once your plants are established, you may have to deal with larger pests, such as rabbits and deer and that weird little kid down the block.  To repel rabbits and deer, I recommend sprinkling a little dried blood at the edges of your flowerbeds.  You can get this from the weird little kid down the block immediately after you remove him from the microwave. 

Step 5.  Watering

Next, we must choose the best time of day to water the seedlings.  I opt for first thing in the morning; my cousin swears by early evening; and my dog will water them anytime no one is looking.

In conclusion, just let me point out that gardening should be relaxing.  If your neighbor is also a gardener, it can be fun to engage in a friendly competition.  For instance, who gets the first bloom, who has the most interesting color scheme, who has the most creative design, etc.  If you begin to fall behind your neighbor, don’t get grumpy; use it as a opportunity to learn from him or her…how to correctly fertilize the soil in your area, how to maximize a small space, how to fill his watering can with gasoline, how to landscape his flowerbed with a burning log…

After all, the best way to learn effective watering is from the pros – the fire department!

 

SEX TOYS? REALLY?

I don’t know about you, but I think sex toys are getting pretty scary.

I mean, at a bachelorette party I once had, someone gave me a piece of plastic that had more appendages than any deep sea dwelling creature you’d care to name.  This was something that you could (apparently) use in bed while simultaneously snaking out your toilet, cleaning your car’s exhaust system, unclogging your sink, and dialing 911.

“Have fun,” she said.  Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

“Oh, I will.” Say-no-more, say-no-more.

I gave it to my six-year-old nephew.  I think he uses it to attack his Star Wars action figures.  Darth  Vader doesn’t stand a chance!

My next experience with things of this nature occurred when a guy I had been dating for a while took me back to his apartment.  There was romantic music on the CD player, wine in the glasses, and lights turned down low.

He excused himself and came back with . . .ta da . . .a vibrating egg!

“Did you get that from a robotic chicken?” I asked, taken aback.

“No.”

“Oh, that’s one of those Japanese mechanical pets, then?”

“No.”

When he told me what he intended to do with it, I politely declined.  I have enough eggs inside me already, thank you SO much.

Then there are the inflatable dolls.  I tried one of these out once, and it worked pretty well until, after it was over, I gave him a lighted cigarette.

He should have told me he was a non-smoker.

Butt plugs are really freaky, but I’ve come to love them.  I make my husband wear his all the time.  He has had no gaseous explosions in years, but he’s getting REALLY big . . .

 

 

 

ADVENTURES IN GARDENING

          Now that it is, once again, safe to leave one’s brass monkey out all night, it’s time to begin serious consideration of the type of garden to put in this year.  Last year, I successfully planted Lobelia and Iris in my front garden, and so far, their relatives haven’t caught on.

I don’t know how many of you are aware of it, but there are even celebrities who make time to enjoy gardening.  Here are a few gardening tips from some of the rich and famous.

Politicians:  “We have flowers beyond compare, and the trick is to use the best fertilizer available.  We just stand in the middle of the flowerbed and read any one of our speeches. It never fails.”

Arnold Swartz…Scwarz…Schwar…The Big Guy with the Muscles Who Talks Funny:  “My flowers always grow tall and strong because I water them with Gatorade.”

Joan Rivers:  “I tell them that if they don’t grow, they’re going to look just like me.” 

Now doesn’t that make you want to rush out, join the local Garden Club and plant evil-smelling geraniums, marigolds, and chrysanthemums as far as the eye can see; then go back to one of the members’ houses for last year’s iced tea and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off?  They will call this “refreshment.”  You will call this “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Oh, the excitement of it all.

I do have to admit that the Darwin Club…I mean, the Garden Club, does wonderful, well-thought-out projects throughout my area.  For instance, the hillsides along the highway were so drab, littered with nothing but endangered wildflowers.  But the Garden Club swept to the rescue by mowing down every last Trillium and Jack-in-the-Pulpit, and replacing them with, you guessed it, Crown Vetch.  This is a small creeping flower that is the color of Pepto Bismol and has that je ne sais quoi fragrance that never fails to remind one of an outhouse on a hot August afternoon.  It’s the stuff of Wyeth scenes, l tell you!

And the malls!  Oh, my!  I can’t begin to describe the fabulous container gardens the club plants in those large round concrete planters that are such a funeral home-esque decorative statement.  At a mall nearby, they’ve put in Dusty Miller, White Pansies, and a dark gray something-or-other that I think eats things.  This club is the only one of its kind that can plant an entire living, growing garden that looks dead when they’ve finished with it.  No one knows whether to water it or give it last rites.

Have you also noticed that Garden Club members always plant things that grow low to the ground?  This is because they are low to the ground.  You can’t be a member of the Garden Club in my town if you are taller than 3’7”.  They really ought to call themselves the Garden Gnomes.  I only got in because I lied about my height.  However, I shant (I’ve always wanted to use that word) be a member much longer because of a gaffe (I’ve never wanted to use that word, and I’m sorry I did) I committed last week.

I couldn’t help it.

I ran amok and used club funds to purchase…gasp…trellises!  I trained Morning Glories, climbing roses, Wisteria, and grape vines all over them.

When the club members found out what I had done, they formed a mob and cornered me after a meeting.  It really got ugly – they bit my knees and threw bucket after bucket of water on me, shrieking, “She’s a bad witch!  Melt her!  Melt her!”  Well, as you may guess, all they succeeded in doing was causing me to get drenched and develop a grudge against little people who hide in the tall grass and giggle a lot.

Don’t worry, though.  I’ll have my revenge.  They’re all getting warts.

So drop what you’re doing and join the Garden Club in your town.  Run out now and buy a thick pair of gardening gloves and a huge, floppy-brimmed hat.

The gloves are to protect your hands.

The hat is to protect your identity.

PSYCHIC CITY!

           It seems that telephone psychics are on the rise yet again, at least where I live.  I must confess that I’m amazed by the growing number of these people littering the airwaves.  You've seen the ads, haven’t you?  People call in, the psychic gives them a reading over the phone, and then the callers pay for it . . . hoo boy, do they pay for it!

What I don’t understand is why anyone has to call them.  They’re psychics, aren’t they?  They should call you!

I think the ads should be more like this:

“Psychic City!  Learn about what’s going on in your life (in case you haven’t been paying attention).  We can tell you your child’s name!  We can tell you if you’re married or single!  We can tell you if you if you’ve recently become engaged!  PLUS, we can make dangerous, relationship-ruining guesses that your husband is cheating on you or that the child that’s on the way isn’t yours!  We can tell you that your girlfriend doesn’t love you, with no evidence whatsoever!  This way, you can stop at the hardware store on your way home and buy that marked-down machete and take care of the problems you didn’t know you had until you talked with US!  We can destroy your life and reduce you to a hollowed out husk of a human being, and the first three minutes are free!  Naturally, we’ll keep you on hold for those three minutes, but after that, the call only costs $11 per minute, with the average call lasting 25-30 minutes.  But isn’t that a small price to pay for someone to completely shatter your peace of mind and send you screaming into the streets?

Of course it is!

Wouldn’t you rather know that your husband is contemplating an affair with his cheap slut floozy secretary?  Though he may not ever follow through on it, he definitely won’t if you poison his oatmeal.  And isn’t that better than tripping through your life in blissful ignorance, with a false sense of happiness and well-being?

Of course it is!

Our psychics are waiting to talk with you now!  Just pick up the phone.  You don’t need to dial anything.  Just pick up the phone!

Psychic City is brought to you by the American Bar Association.

 

Ya Wanna Coke With That?

           This seems to be my week for getting trapped.

This time, it was a pay toilet at a McDonald’s.

Now, understand, I don’t actually eat there anymore.  I just stopped, on my way to eat somewhere better than McDonald’s, because the Montezuma’s Revenge from hell had finally caught up to me from the last time I had eaten there.  I had to either stop or plan on dying my upholstery brown.

I did not want to dye my upholstery brown.

So, in I dashed.

I deposited the requisite quarter in the slot, yanked the door open and, ahhhhhh, blessed relief.

This relief was short-lived, however.

When I concluded my communing with the porcelain god, and prepared to be on my way once again, the door would not budge!  And it was one of those stalls that had an eight-foot door that was flush (no pun intended) with the floor, so crawling out underneath was not an option.

I tried calling for help.  You know . . . at first, tentatively.

“Hello?  Is anybody there?”

Yeah, right.  As if anybody would sweep to the aid of an unknown, disembodied voice emanating from a toilet stall at a McDonald’s in Brooklyn, New York.  What in hell was I thinking?

At any rate, my pleas soon became more urgent.

“Hey!  Someone get me out of here!  I’m locked in!  Help!  Help!”

The only thing this accomplished was to clear out the restroom completely.

So, I did the only thing I could do.  I sat back down to wait for a sympathetic soul or a police officer . . . whoever came first.

 I am a writer by profession, and I have never yet been oppressed by the demon “writer’s block.”  I can find something to write about in almost any given situation.

This one was no exception.

At the time of my entrapment, I was in the middle of writing a novel and was mentally chewing over some pivotal plot details that didn’t seem to be working.  As I sat, my mind set of humming and, low and behold, the solution came to me.

But I had no paper – only a pen.  And the toilet paper was far too thin to use.

This will never stop a writer.

I pulled out my felt tip and proceeded to jot my next seven chapters on the wall of the restroom.  It was brilliant, and I was ultimately thankful for my unwilling incarceration.

By the time an employee (who wanted to use the stall I was in because all the others were occupied) finally bailed me out, all four walls were covered with my scribbling, and it was the finest work I’d ever done.  I strutted out of the stall, proud as could be, until I came face-to-face with THE MANAGER.

“Hey, lady, what the hell ya think ya doin’ writin’ all over the wall like dat?  Ya know how long it’s gonna take to clean it all off?” he demanded.

“I don’t want you to clean it off!  This is the final seven chapters of my novel!”

“I don’ care if it’s the final seven chapters udda Bible!  It’s gonna be washed off and youse gonna pay for it!”

Philistine!

I told him that I would be happy to wash it off after I’d transferred it to a pad.

“I ain’t gonna wait that long!  Customers’ll complain!”

“Well, if your customers are getting stuck in here on a regular basis, they might just be glad of something to read while they’re waiting!” I retorted.

“Read?  Read what?  Why would they wanna read?”

“Look at it this way – you could start a whole new trend.  Entire books on the walls of the stalls at McDonald’s!  Why, people would come from far and wide just to eat your food, then go rushing to the toilet, as they usually do, immediately afterward.  But you’d have something for them to focus on besides the gut-wrenching pain tearing through their digestive tracts!  You’d be a legend!  A pioneer!  Just think of the repeat business,” I cried.

Though unaccustomed to the agonies of coherent thought, this seemed to give him pause.

“Awright, it stays.  We’ll have an experiment,” he said, proud of the fact that he knew a word over three syllables and could pronounce it correctly.

“Great!” I cried.  “I’ll be back tomorrow to transcribe it.”

“Oh, no, lady,” he said.  “Dis is the property’a McDonald’s.  If youse write it down and publish it anywheres else, we’ll sue youse for copyright infringement!”

He wasn’t as dumb as he looked.  Then again, he couldn't be.

So, friends, the upshot of the whole deal was that I had to pay McDonald’s a ridiculous sum of money in order to use my own work in my own book!  And if you know of anyone who would like to own an authentic souvenir pay toilet from McDonald’s, please let me know.  I have all four walls!

 

What Your Pets Do Behind Your Back

         Do you ever wonder that your pets get up to when you’re away from home?

I have my suspicions.

My cat, Tango, is a secretive little creature, as are most cats.  However, mine is not only secretive but, I think, also possessed by demons.

Oh, she’s good at pretending to be a docile little house cat, but lately, upon returning home from work, I’ve noticed cigarette burns in the upholstery, and I don’t smoke in the living room.  There are also rolling papers and catnip scattered everywhere, and the water and food dishes are both empty.  Add to that the paw prints of varying sizes all over the handle on the refrigerator door, and it doesn’t take Stephen Hawking to put it all together.

She has parties with what appears to be (if detritus is any indication) about sixty other cats!

Observing my look of irritation upon my arrival in the den of iniquity that used to be my home, she puts on her most innocent expression and summons up a mournful little “mew.”  This translates to:  “A whole crowd of bandits broke in here and messed up the place and ate all my food and drank all my water, and I was so scared I went and hid, and where were you, anyway?”

“I am not fooled, Tango,” I said, bending down to wipe up the 47 barfed-up hairballs that dotted my oriental carpet.

 “Mew,” she replied.  This translates to:  “No, no!  Those hairballs are mine!  If you brushed me more than three times a day, I wouldn’t be having that problem!  It’s all your fault!”

I looked at her in disgust.  “You know, you can’t go on like this, Tango -- having wild parties all day, and eating catnip like it’s cat food!  You’re going to damage your health, not to mention the woodwork,” I said, indicating a newel post that had been clawed so much it was now a newel toothpick.

“Mew,” she shot back.  This translates to:  “Yeah, yeah, get off my back.  I’m four years old, and I can do what I want.  I don’t need your permission!  Pardon me for living!”

“And, Tango, there have been complaints from the neighbors about loud music during the day.”

“Mew.”  Translated:  “Geez, what CAN I do?!  Am I breathing too loudly for you and your sainted neighbors?  Do you have any idea how boring it is all day around here?  And those toys you give me?  What a joke!  Why don’t you bring home a live mouse once in a while, Ms. Big Shot Writer?”

“And just look at your litter box!  What a mess!  This litter was fresh this morning and now it has about 20 pounds of poop in it!”

“Mew.”  Translated:  “If you’d buy me some decent food, my furry little colon wouldn’t be acting like a Play-Doh Fun Factory, moron!”

Sighing, I stood and threw away the last hairball.  If you leave your cat alone during the day, I strongly advise you to lock up the milk!