THANKSGIVING, THONGS & PROZAC

Well, it’s just about that time again.  That yearly get-together with the fam.

Yeah.  Thanksgiving.

Hoo boy.

Here’s how, with a few variations each year, it usually goes:

Once at the house and divested of mukluks and a down-filled coat that made me look like the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man, I hand my mother the pumpkin pie she’d asked me to make.  This one is made of freshly-processed pumpkin, not that tinned crap. This results in a lighter color and the flavor is remarkable.

So my mother feels compelled to remark.

“Looks sort of anemic, doesn’t it?”

“Top it with a unit of O Negative, then.  Where is everybody?”  The driveway was a sea of cars.

“You’re the first.”

“Opening a used car lot?”

“Overflow from the neighbors’ big do.”

“So . . . what?  The family’s going to park on the street, like I did?”  The house is on a hill with a 50-foot driveway.

“Looks that way.  We just wanted to help out. You might try loving your fellow man a little more, Carson.  Your snarky attitude is unbecoming.”

All this from a woman whose dirty look can open clams at twenty paces.

But okay, I’ll go along.  She’s getting older.  She’s forgotten that where she spits, grass never grows.

“What can I do to help?” I’m hoping quite a lot.  My mother is not the best of cooks.

“Nothing really.  It’s all done. We can go sit and talk until everyone else gets here.”

“Well, before we do that, how about if I go and scatter some salt and sand on the driveway—it’s pretty slick out there.”

“In a minute.  I have something I want to discuss with you.”

Oh, God.

When we are seated, Mom drops the big one.  “I think your father is having an affair.”

Holding in explosive laughter, which, having nowhere to go, travels downward, instantly inflating my ankles, I said, “Mom, Dad is 83 years old.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“He’s legally blind.”

“Right.”

“He only has one leg.”

“Yes.”

“And a colostomy bag.”

“What’s your point?”

“I can’t believe you just asked me that.”

So, after Mom dries her eyes, I posed the big question.

“How do you know, anyway?”

“He’s started wearing thong underwear.”

Most people, mainly women, wear thongs to avoid underwear lines in their pants.  I’d really like to know who my father thinks is looking at his ass.  “That’s it?  Thong underwear?”

“And he’s using that Axe cologne.”

“Ah, I take it he’s losing his sense of smell, as well, then?”

“This is not the time for jokes, Carson.  Oh, and he’s letting his hair grow longer.”

My father has had a crew cut for as long as I’ve known him.  “Perhaps he’s finally decided to leave the 1950s behind?”

“I don’t think so.

“Okay, so who with?  Any idea?”

“Oh, I know exactly who with.”

Evidently, according to my mother, Pop has become enamored of the local Postmistress . . . who is 92, uses a walker, and is nearly deaf.  Getting the mail is never a peaceful pursuit if there is anyone requiring front desk service.  At Christmastime it's bedlam in there.

“So what are you going to do about it?  Have you talked to him?”

“No.”

“Why not?  Talking to me isn’t going to get it resolved.”

“I don’t want to discuss it.”

“You don’t have to.  I’m going to go talk to him.”

“No.  It has nothing to do with you.  Leave it alone.  Let’s just have a pleasant Thanksgiving, all right?”

Yes, kindly readers, this is Thanksgiving in my house.

The aged relatives begin arriving, with only minor sprains and bruising from slipping on the ice in the driveway on the way up from the street.

Once everyone is comfortable, Mom hustles us into the dining room to eat “before everything dries out.”

Food is passed, plates are loaded, wine glasses filled and it begins.

My Uncle Dan starts things off.  “So, how’s life with the Buckinghams?”

My mother bursts into tears and dashes from the room.

“About the same, I see,” he mutters.

By the time my mother composes herself enough to return, Aunt Shirley is already on her fifth glass of wine and her seventh filthy joke.  This doesn’t play well to Aunt Mary, who is a nun.  My brother has decided to use his considerable talents as a career waiter in a diner to instruct the group on French serving and is launching food all over the room.  Dad is still looking for his fork.  My cousin Lois hasn’t taken her face out of her pocket mirror since she arrived, and has answered at least six calls on her Bluetooth, since she knew we’d all want to hear her side of each conversation.  Aunt Anne has removed her wig and is beating my cousin Donald with it—I have no idea why.

The only reason that there is no gunplay this year is that, when Mom wasn’t looking, I sneaked Prozac into the stuffing . . . a lot of Prozac.  By the time the football game started, the family members who weren’t unconscious were actually getting along, and even I was a little less snarky.

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

GPS, ARIZONA POLICE & HOME DEPOT (PART 2)

After my last drive down the Arizona street that landed me in Colorado, Stij decided that the time had come to install a GPS in the car.

“And what does GPS stand for?  Go Park Somewhere?” I asked.

“In your case, most likely.”

“I think I’ll be cooking dinner tonight…”

“I take it back!  I’m sorry!”

“That’s better.  Now how do you work this thing?”

“You just turn it on and tell it your destination address.  After you do that, it will tell you, turn by turn how to get there.”

“Wow, that’s great.”

“I hope it helps.  I’ve got to get going if I’m going to make that meeting before 9:30, so I’ll see you later.”  He jumped into the truck and left.

I was all alone with this new gadget, so I thought I’d try it out.

Three hours later, Stij walked in the door.  “Do you hear shrieking outside?  I hear shrieking.”

“Oh, that's just the GPS.  It’s giving me turn by turn directions to Moscow.  About now, I think it may be drowning in the Pacific Ocean.”

Stij sighed.  “I’m going to go turn it off.”  He opened the door and stepped outside, just as a police cruiser pulled up.

The police exited the vehicle with guns drawn.   “Stop right there!  Who’s doing all that screaming?”

“It’s the car—my wife tricked it into the Pacific Ocean.”

They lowered their guns.  “Hey, your wife wouldn’t be Carson Buckingham, would she?”

“The same.”

While Stij turned the gurgling GPS off, one of the officers clicked on his shoulder radio.  “We’re at the location.  Everything’s under control.  It’s Carson again.”

“Holy Mother of God, what’s that crazy bitch done now?  She’s not cooking again, is she?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”  He clicked it off again.

The other officer was about to re-holster his weapon, but instead held it out to Stij.  “Sure you don’t want this?”

“Not today, thanks.”

They left shortly afterward.

When Stij came back inside, he said, “Your reputation is really starting to spin out of control around here.”

“Are you saying that it’s time to move again?”

“No.  And by the way, you’re supposed to use the GPS while you’re driving so it can tell you where to turn.  You don’t use it in the driveway.”

“But you didn’t say that.”

“That’s because I forget who I’m talking to, sometimes.”

“Okay, then I’ll take it out for a spin.  Do you need me to pick up anything for you?”

“Let’s try Home Depot again,” he said, and gave me a list.

When I was sitting in the car, he leaned in the window and showed me another interesting feature of the GPS.

“You can have either a man’s voice or a woman’s voice giving you directions.  You just press that button once for a man’s voice and twice for a woman’s.”

“Okay, I’m off.  See you later.”

After I backed out of the driveway, I pushed the button twice, and getting no response, I pushed it again a few times.  Finally, results.

Unfortunately, I now had both male and female voices giving me directions, and it went something like this:

Male:    “Take your next left.”

Female:   “Oh, don’t do that!”

Male:    “It’s a short cut.”

Female:    “I’ve been on your ‘shortcuts.’  Wanna see Albuquerque, sweetie—just follow his directions!”

Male:   “Okay, now you missed the left you were supposed to take.”

Female:   “She needs to turn around, then.”

Male:   “She doesn’t need to turn around.  I’ll plot a different route.”

Female:   “Have you ever noticed how men never, ever turn around?  Well, honey, if you go down about a mile and turn right, there’s this cute little dress shop…”

Male:   “We’re going to Home Depot, goddammit!”

Well, you get the idea.  This went on for quite some time.  I finally had to call Stij.

“Hello?”

“Hi.  It’s me.”

“Are you planning on coming home tonight?”

“Eventually.  I got lost again.”

“What?  How is that possible?”

“Weeeeell, there was a problem with the GPS.”

“What happened?”

“It exploded.”

“Where are you?”

“Colorado.”

DRIVING, COPS & HOME DEPOT

Stij has been really tied up with his woodworking business these days.  He was on a tight deadline for some deeply disturbed client who wanted a wooden refrigerator (?) and he needed some supplies from Home Depot.

So he sent me.

I know, I know.

Now, understand, I know about as much about woodworking as I do about cooking…well, maybe slightly less.

You get the idea, anyway.

So, with list in hand, I tootled off to Home Depot, which is about a mile away from our house.

About a quarter mile down the highway, there was a roadblock and a detour.  This really threw me, since I don’t drive much since the neighbors had to rebuild their living room the last time I did, so I don’t know my way around very well.  But Stij decided to roll the dice once again, since the roads were all straight, away from a residential area, and he would be home to make sure the car was actually in reverse before I floored it to back into the driveway.

Okay.  Back to the detour.  Being the mature, law-abiding woman that I am, I pulled up next to the officer directing traffic and greeted him.

“PLEEEEEEEAAAAASSSSSE, OFFICER!  I DON’T KNOW MY WAY AROUND HERE.  I KNOW ONE WAY TO GET TO HOME DEPOT, AND THAT’S IT!  CAN’T I PLEEEEEEEAAAAAAASSSSSSEEEE GO THROUGH?”

“Ma’am, there’s a flash flood up ahead—the road’s washed out.  You can’t get a car through there.”

“Then let me park here, and I’ll get out and swim for it.”

“Move along, ma’am.”

Arizona state troopers do not think outside the box.

So off I went.  I thought of faking a nervous breakdown, but he didn’t look like he’d buy it. 

In completely unfamiliar territory now, I reached for my phone to call Stij and…guess what…I left it home.

At that point an actual, unfaked nervous breakdown wasn’t far away.  And relying on my sense of direction was no good.  I have been known to get lost walking to the bathroom.

So after my screaming died down and I stopped hyperventilating, I fell back on the way most women remedy a situation such as this—I found a gas station.  And GAS, as most women know, is an acronym meaning: Go Ask Someone.  Men have never understood this.

So I pull into a station, took several deep breaths to help calm the trembling, and legged it to the cashier inside.

“Hello, I need directions to the Home Depot—but not on the 101—it’s closed.”

“Que?”

Fabulous.

My Spanish was pretty sucky, but I gave it a try, anyhow.  “Por favor— Yo requisitiono mappe dos vocala chordios en la Casa Trainstationo.”

He looked horrified.

I tried again.  He was just a cashier—maybe he could get one of the guys in the body shop to help.

“Por favor (I am nothing if not polite)—Perhaps el drunko mechanico…

That did it—he grabbed two Slim Jim sausage snacks and used them to make a cross, then backed slowly away from me.

Realizing that further attempts at light banter would be futile, I took my leave, got back in my car, and resumed my journey.

Ten hours later, I decided to stop for the night.

The next morning, feeling refreshed, I got in the car, started it up, drove ten feet, and the car died. 

I hadn’t called Stij the previous night, because I was just too tired.

But now seemed like a good time.

“Hi, hon.”

“Are you okay?  I’ve been worried sick!  Why didn’t you call?”

“I left my phone turned off at home.”

“Gas stations have phones.”

“Let’s not go there.  The car died.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“No, you won’t.  There was a detour on 101.”

“Okay.  What happened, did you end up driving all around the west side?”

“Yes.”

“So I’ll see you in forty-five minutes, then.”

“No.”

“I thought you were on the west side.”

“Yes.  Of Colorado.”

“WHHHAAAAAAAATTTT?”                  

“And guess what? There’s a Home Depot right across the street!”

THE ICU AND STAND-UP COMEDY

Have you ever gone to the doctor just because you didn't feel quite right, but weren't sure exactly what was wrong with you?

Prepare yourself.  A problem that would have been cured in your grandmother's day by a strong dose of tonic will now cost you in the neighborhood of three months' salary, the antique clock in your dining room, and all the fillings in your teeth.

There is no such thing as a GP anymore.   The General Practitioner has been reduced to bones in the La Brea tar pits, along with the rest of the dinosaurs.

"I'm feeling weak and tired," I told a Doctor of Internal Medicine.

He put his hand on my wallet and told me to cough (Henny Youngman wasn't kidding!), after which he recommended that I see a heart specialist.

"That's it?" I cried.  "No blood work?  No EKG?  No stress test?  Just 'go to a heat specialist'?"

"Yes," he replied, while counting out my life savings.

So I went to a "heart man,' as he's known in the biz.

He presented me with a bill before he even examined me, then said, "You have six months to live."

I looked at the bill.  I'd never seen so many zeroes in one place before in my life.  "I can't pay this!"

"OK, then I'll give you another six months." (Did Henny Youngman go to medical school?)

"Oh, and I'm sending you to a respiratory specialist," he said.

When I showed up there, the respiratory specialist sent his secretary out to give me my bill in the parking lot!  On it was scrawled the name of a neurologist and the time of my appointment.

The neurologist's office called me and gave me my bill total over the phone.  I was then told to report to the ICU.

At the hospital, still not knowing what was wrong with me, I was placed inside an oxygen tent and put on suicide watch.  When the doctor finally came in, he looked just like Henny Youngman.

I took one look at him and said, "Take my life...please."

FARTS, PUBLISHERS, & THE LOLLIPOP GUILD

Don’t you just love riding elevators?

I was on my way to see my publisher, who is located in a high-rise office building that people get nosebleeds just looking up at from the street.  But that’s Manhattan for you—city of excess and bloody sidewalks.

At any rate, I toodled inside, hired a pack mule, purchased supplies and made my way across a solid pink marble lobby the size of Ohio.  Upon arriving at the banks of elevators, I told my Sherpa guide, Niblick, to keep the meter running on the mule, and stepped aboard the nearest vertical conveyance.

The car was already crammed full of passengers, one of whom was carrying in his lunch and, if the odor of same was any indication, he was planning on a feast of three-week old fish that had been marinated in finely aged sewage.

“Floor 267, please,” I said to the elevator boy.

“267?  Oh, you’ll need oxygen for that floor,” he said, handing me a mask.  I dutifully slipped it on.

Off we shot to the first stop—floor 100.  This trip took 1.5 seconds.  During the course of the ride, my head had burst through my hat, which was now hanging around my neck like a Beefeater ruff.  I was also three inches in the red on my previous height and would require cosmetic surgery and a screw jack to remove my breasts from my knees.

After all that, only one person got off.  He’d been short when he’d gotten on, but now he looked like a member of the Lollipop Guild.

“How do I get to Suite 1014?” he asked the elevator boy.

“Just follow the Yellow Brick Road,” he chortled, closing the door in his face.

Next stop, floor 200.  The elevator boy executed a quick countdown, then launched us skyward yet again.

This time, my feet went right through the bottoms of my shoes, my necklace broke, and my earrings were pulled down so low that my earlobes would have been right at home among the Ubangis.

One woman was sick to her stomach in the corner of the car, and a rather large gentleman was experiencing technical difficulties involving methane gas.  Add that to the guy packing the landfill lunch and you have an aroma that would even make Jeffrey Dahmer think twice.  As the minutes passed, I became more and more convinced that Hell had just added a tenth ring, and that elevator was it.

Everyone, but the galloping gourmet and I, got off at floor 200, whether they needed to or not.  But I am made of stronger stuff . . . plus, the idea of walking up 67 flights didn’t much appeal to me. 

The doors slammed shut again, and I prepared for takeoff.

The elevator hurtled upward, but came to a bone-rattling stop between floors 266 and 267.

So there I was, trapped in an elevator with a race driver wannabe, a nerdy guy holding a leaky lunch bag filled with toxic waste, surrounded by the miasma of the revenge of the fat guy’s chili dinner and the pile of vomit in the corner.

This was not the way I envisioned making my transition from this world to the next, somehow.

“Don’t worry, we have a special phone to call for help,” Mario Andretti assured us.  He picked up the receiver and confidently pushed the red button.

Nothing happened.

He pushed it again.

Still nothing.

He panicked and began speaking in tongues.

I slapped him, probably harder than I needed to (though I must admit, it felt awfully good), to snap him out of it.  I’m amazed I could see well enough to actually hit his face, because by that time, the stench was melting my eyeballs.

“OK, how do we get out of here?” I demanded.

He meekly indicated the trap door in the roof of the car.

“Fine.  Give me a boost.”

“Lady, you can’t . .  .”

“You want to go?”

“A boost!  Right!  Sure, no problem!”

You may wonder at the alacrity of my voluntarism.  Had you been there, you wouldn’t have.  I was more than willing to take the chance of falling to a quick death over dying slowly and horribly in that elevator.

A boost, and I was on the roof.  “Now what?” I asked, gulping in the fresh air.

“Climb up to the floor above us and open the door.  Then get help.”

One thing I’ve learned about directions such as these is that anything that sounds this simple usually isn’t.

To get to the door above, I had to shinny up the greasy cable and lean out to step across the ledge.  It took patience, dexterity, and the firm resolve that I was not, under any circumstances, going back into that elevator.

Once on the ledge, I managed to pry the door open and fall in a heap on the white carpeting of my publisher’s office.  Being covered with grease did not enhance my prestige with the firm, I can promise you.

I stood, with the help of a couple of receptionists holding me at arm’s length.  My clothing was torn and hanging in stalactite-like shreds from my body.  I was so filthy, I could have done a guest shot on “The Wide, Wide World of Dumpster Diving.”  The only pieces left of my shoes were the toes.  My hair looked as if it had been styled by Ray Charles, my hands were ripped and bleeding, and every single fingernail was not just broken, but gone!

“There are more people stuck in the elevator.  They need help and I need an ambulance and a bath in Drano,” I croaked.  Then I passed out.

I awoke in the hospital.  My publisher had sent a huge bouquet of flowers.  Smiling, I opened the card as fast as ten heavily bandaged fingers would permit, and read:

Roses are Red.

Violets are Blue.

You messed up our carpet,

So we’re suing you!

I’m out of the hospital now, and I work out on a Stairmaster for an hour every day.

You’ll never catch me on another elevator!

PLEA BARGAINS, SARCASM & ORANGE JUICE

           Does anybody, besides me, get exasperated with husbands who can’t find a goddamned thing?  If I hear, “Honey, where’s the juice?” one more time, I just know I’ll wind up sitting at a table with my defense attorney and trying to plea bargain down to a life sentence. 

With subtle variations, my day starts off like this:  I’m sitting at the kitchen table, toothpicks holding my eyes open, slurping down my first cup of coffee and missing my mouth (if you can believe it), most of time, while watching the birds packing it in at our feeder just outside the window.  The Zen-like tranquility of this quiet, sunny morning is about to be broken.

“Honey, where are my boxer shorts?”

“In the drawer, where I’ve been putting them for the last ten years.”

“Which drawer, though?”

At this point, I heave a sigh audible on the 50-yard line of the nearest football stadium, stomp down the hall, open the drawer and hand him his shorts.

“What would I ever do without you?” he purrs.

“You’d be pretty chilly,” I reply.

I go back to my coffee.  I have just resumed my chair, when . . .

“Honey?  Where are my loafers?”

“In the closet.”

“Where in the closet?”

“On the floor!”

“I don’t see them.”

I pray for restraint and stomp down the hall, yet again, open the closet, bend down, pick up his shoes, and hand them to him.

“What would I ever do without you?” he asks again.

Without me?!  I’m starting to question the fact that he even lives here!

Then he comes out to breakfast, open the fridge and . . .

“Honey?”

“Yessssssssss?”

“Where’s the orange juice?”

“It’s behind the milk.”

“No, it’s not.”

Grinding my teeth to nubs, I stomp over to the refrigerator, move the milk aside with a dramatic sweep, and indicate the orange juice, much the way a German Shorthaired Pointer would indicate a duck.

The sarcasm is lost on him.

Now he has the orange juice container in his hand and looks me right in the face and asks, “Honey?  Where are the glasses?”

I hand him his spectacles.

The sarcasm is lost on him.

“No, I mean to put the juice in,” he whines.

That finally does it.  Still in my bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, I put on my coat, get in the car, and drive away.

If you happen to be passing by, you might want to drop off a gallon of orange juice for my husband so he doesn’t get dehydrated.

Just don’t put it behind the milk!