Loving Me Is Now Optional

If you read my last post you know that I am about to become un-hinged.

A whole week of my husband's health concerns without any clear answers has stretched my string.

I had to clean Daddy's place Saturday and actually looked forward to the ride out there, and marking Daddy off  of  The Chore List.
    I made sure that T-Bird had everything he needed, loaded my cleaning stuff in the truck and took off..........

I didn't make it halfway before my truck DIED.

I couldn't crank it, and try as I might I couldn't get it pushed off of the road.    Do men still stop for a Lady In Distress?    NO.    They DON'T.

I hated to do it, but I called T-Bird.

After checking it all out, we went for a fuel filter, and swung by the house for a chain, just in case.

The fuel filter was a good guess, but it was the wrong guess.    Time to break out the chain.

I steered the deceased while he pulled me back to the house, and that always makes me nervous.   All I have to do is collide with the back of  T.'s truck and the nightmare will be complete.

We made it---no thanks to ME---and he pronounced Ol' Yaller a lost cause.

"Take my truck to your Daddy's house and be careful."

I hadn't driven that thing in months, so I was out of practice with a standard shift.     I white-knuckled it all the way to Daddy's house.

I was almost finished when T-Bird called.

"You might need to come home.    I'm having another spell."

I asked if he had taken his medication for that.

"After the last bad reaction, I don't want to take it without you here."

I understand that.    He's had TWO bad reactions to meds in the past and both of those were REALLY bad.   He had never taken this particular drug, and was a little leary of it. 

I said goodbye to Daddy, threw my stuff in the truck, and violated a good many driving laws in an effort to get home.

I AM HALFWAY HOME when the phone rings.

"You don't need to get in no big hurry.    I feel better now, and I think I'll be alright."

He's wrong about that.   He will not be "alright", 'cause I'm gonna kill him when I walk through the door.    For scaring me to death for nothing.

Bless his heart, he had been cleaning house and washing clothes to help me out when he had his "spell".    He had even folded the laundry!

I let him live.   He took the pill, and he was much better after it took effect.

I have no real recollection of Sunday, other than checking on the boss's dog.    Just too damned tired to keep up with it all.

I dropped Hubs off at his office this morning, checked on the dog again, and went to the dentist office to clean that.

I grabbed the back of a chair to move it and managed to pinch the side of one finger so badly that I now have a blood blister sitting in the middle of a badly bruised finger.

In that last post I wrote "if you ever loved me".

Never mind.     You don't want to get that close to me right now.    It may rub off on you.   

You'll need pills and a chain if it does.

"If You Ever Loved Me"

"If You Ever Loved Me........"

These words always preface a plea, and more than likely......you won't like what follows.

Hands down, the best If-you-ever-loved-me has to be a friend's buddy from The Way Back Days.

Someone talked him into going into the service.    I don't remember which branch, but it really doesn't matter for this post.

He says that you don't really understand what Desperate is until you open an envelope to find a letter written in ink on tear and snot-stained toilet tissue begging you to get the sender of this missive OUT of the clutches of The Military.  

"If You Ever Loved Me" were the very first words committed to the damp tissue.

Consider this a  tear-soaked wad of rectal ribbon.

IF YOU EVER LOVED ME, GET ME TO A SANDBAR!   

Just drop me off--right by myself--early in the morning, and get me just before dark.

Yeah. I'm gonna need all day.

I usually have a lengthy list of supplies for this Sandbar Fantasy (sandbars are a type of Paradise for us Rednecks) but all I need right now is a place to sit and scream or cry.....or both.

I just want to sit and watch the Ocmulgee roll by between crying jags.   

Take me a good ways up the river.     I want to hear the birds and the animals moving in the woods.    I want to hear cicadas, and fish striking.

I don't want to hear a human voice.   Leaving the cell phone at home.

I get sick and tired of being on the go all the time and at everybody else's beck and call.   The shape of my backside is beginning to resemble my truck seat, creases and all and I'm not sure that anybody is able to wipe their own backside anymore.   

I want to sit on MY ass and dig my toes in the sand.    And stay that way.

And since it's MY Fantasy and I'll dream if I want to, I want to spark up a Fat Boy and let it all unravel, before I do.    It's almost worth the ticket for trespassing and the misdemeanor weed charges, courtesy the Department of Game And Fish.

There are a few snags in My Sandbar Fantasy:

1.)    It will be a Cold Day In Hades before T-Bird would allow that.   I don't need to be told about alligators, snakes, two-legged fools, and bein' stupid enough to accidentally drown/shoot myself.  

2.)    It is now against the law to get out of your boat on the river.    Period.     It is now considered trespassing.     We took an entire family ( four adults and seven kids) for a weekend campout on a sandbar MILES away from everything.    We had a blast!

Those days are gone, I guess.

And I have had just about all that I can stand.

It has been weeks since I have had any kind of a break.   Between my job, finances, father, kids, and wiping the noses AND tears of everyone that I know, I was very tired and looking forward to some rest.    Sunday was gonna be the day for some down-time!

I am so, so very stupid.

That day started off with a trip to the clinic, the quick diagnosis of a possible heart attack for Hubs, and a day spent in the E.R..    It went down the crapper after that, and it's been five days of doctor visits, medications, tests, a bad drug reaction, and yet ANOTHER trip to the E.R..    We still have no clue what is wrong but have it narrowed down to Diabetes, gall bladder, sleep apnea, or severe anxiety.    After proving that he does have a bad case of Assholeitis---for which he apologized to the E.R. staff---I have concluded that when he goes it will be Blunt Force Trauma or Lead Poisoning.     I just haven't decided yet.


*As a side note, may I respectfully ask the janitorial staff of hospitals to keep blood spatter wiped off of the E.R. walls?

If I was tired before, I am now completely wiped out.

To get just a couple of hours of Peace and Quiet, I hid out in the cemetery with my mother.     Instead of Ocmulgee River sand, I parked my ass on Daddy's slab.    He ain't under it yet so it's okay.

Nobody will bother me there..............

BULLSHIT.

The co-worker who has been the biggest P. I. A. I have ever had to deal with called my cell to tell me a joke.     And a corny one at that.    Why?    Because Life just doesn't suck enough for me.

All I can think to do now is go sit in the middle of a cotton field somewhere WITHOUT THE CELL PHONE.

Since it's time for the farmers to spray defoliant this is probably a bad idea too.     I've been sprayed with cotton defoliant once, and once is too much, if T-Bird's rant was any indicator.

I was watching a fantastic crop duster in a very small, state-of-the-art plane, and I had field-side seats.    He was awesome!   

I got misted a few times but when he came down the middle of the road about five feet off the ground I was simply amazed and had to watch.

Rest this weekend?    Nope.   I have to clean Hell Hill today for Daddy, I have to run checks on Bosslady's dog, and T-Bird is still sick.     Monday, the office has to be cleaned so we can fire it up Tuesday, bright and early.

Should I go missing next week, I'll be hiding under the bed sucking my thumb.

"If You Ever Loved Me", you won't tell anybody.

Nightmares And The Upshot

Little Miss Muffet
Got off of her tuffet
And went to the barn
For a chart.

What she found there
Gave her quite a scare
And dang near
Stopped her heart.

One of my co-workers says she has nightmares involving snakes after finding a shed skin in the barn.

The snake came out of his skin so I let the cat out of the bag, and informed her that there was ALWAYS a snake or two in the barn.

Of course, the upshot is that now, if ANYONE needs anything out of the barn, either me or the boss will have to go in The Scary Place for charts and supplies.   

To prove the point they left three large boxes of supplies in the middle of the floor for me to lug out.........by myself.

I removed The Horror Of Horrors when I hauled the boxes to the barn.    I am posting a picture of this Nightmare-Inducing Fright below.

Try not to scream..................

I looked around for the rest but could not find it, and yeppers, it was a good-sized snake judging from what I found.

My co-worker recently married a big Doo-Dah in our county and spends a lot of her evenings with our county commissioners.

If I was truly afraid of snakes, I'd steer clear of that bunch.    They've been giving the rest of us nightmares for years.

When Your Drums Are Hocked.........

T-Bird's band is coming along.

With one teeny-weenie hiccup.

No drummer.

He has two guitar players, one bass player, and his best-est bud on keyboards.    Three of them do vocals.

But..........no drummer.  

Okay, technically, he DOES have a drummer, but the drummer has no drums to drum.   But he should have them out of the pawn shop soon or so I've been led to believe.

It's an old story often repeated.    Drummers are a dime a dozen around here, but they usually don't possess a kit due to one personal disaster or another.

In the meantime, we may have found a substitute:

Fidiots

I thought I was looking at a ghost at first because I would have bet my paycheck that the man was long gone from here.

But, there he was, crouched in the frozen foods aisle diggin' through the bottom of a freezer for frozen biscuits.

How would you greet an old friend that you never expected to see again?   Hug him?    A kiss on the cheek?     Ask about his family?    There was a time when I genuinely loved the man.

That was then, this is NOW.  

I thought about kicking the freezer door shut on his neck and holding it shut until his head froze solid or some Good Samaritan pulled me away from the frozen foods department kickin' and screamin'.

He holds the record for The Biggest Meth Bust in this county, and given the chance, would have sold it to my kids with a smile on his face and Joy in his heart.    He was bringing in thousands of dollars worth of meth so he sold it to someone's kids.

Forgive and forget?    According to my beliefs I have to forgive him, but I've lost too many friends to meth to forget it.    I've "forgiven" him three times now.

When another old "buddy" invited me over to her house to "hoot one", this is actually what I heard:   

 "Come over to my house and we'll smoke a joint on my front porch in the middle of town IN FRONT OF THE WORLD and across the street from the woman who set me up for my recent drug bust in the first place." 

I pointed out that this was a damned bad idea when you considered that she hadn't gone up in front of the judge yet, and if they tested her she'd be positive AGAIN.

She replied that at least they would have to feed her three meals a day, and she'd be away from the grown kids that were running her up the wall.    Two of them are female, and they spend a good deal of time in jail, too.    With her luck she'd end up sharing a cell with one of 'em.

She wants to do a stint on the Buddy System, or set ME up to lessen her sentence.    I'm gonna take a pass.

The band and biker group we hung out with started doin' seriously stupid stuff involving alcohol and firearms and the leader of the group is unstable on his very best day.      Please, whenever possible, mix alcohol, guns, and stoooopid.    
     After a particularly bad fight at the clubhouse my husband told 'em where they could stick it and resigned his post as second in command.    We filed it under "Shit We Don't Need".

Our Rogues Gallery includes dopers, drunks, skanks, cheaters, thieves, at least TWO psychos, hopeless neurotics, those who are stuck on stupid, and one male prostitute/snitch.


Sooner or later, you have GOT to do the freakin' math, and I strongly suggest SOONER. 

I did, and have the answer.

Almost every single person that we hung out with in The Real World is a fuckin' idiot.

"Fidiot" for short.

And we were fidiots for bein' with 'em in the first place.   

"Recluse" sounds better than "fidiot" and I do believe it's safer.

Operation Hairball

I'll admit to possessing a certain amount of Vanity.     I always wore my brown-to-auburn hair relatively long and it was always thick.    I hated to cut it because it took FOR-EV-EEEEER to grow.    It was always wavy but would not hold a curl for Love or Money.    I had my hair burned badly by a perm ONCE.   And just once.

That's how it was through my teens but after a few years of Marriage and  Child Herding I was just happy if I could keep it clean.

After thirty five years of Marriage and Child Herding I no longer give a damn if I have hair or not.

Ladies, if you ever get a chance, go to your stylist and when she asks you what you want, tell her to "shave it and give it a good Turtle Wax."

I rendered my stylist speechless with that one.

I started wearing it super short about five years ago and knew my long hair days were GONE.    I just didn't want to fight it anymore.
     As a back-handed bonus, when my hair is cut really short, it  now curls.    Where was THAT in my early years?????  I don't need gel or styling mousse, just fingers and a bit of water.

I loved it, and everyone said it looked good.    I didn't question the veracity of the comments, just took 'em as compliments and let it go.

Then, there was a very hurtful argument about my appearance.    I vowed to grow it out so long I'd have to part it to sit on the toilet.

I was half-way there after two years.

While lots of women begin to see thinning hair later in life, the fact that mine has gotten thicker just ain't fair.    I could barely get a brush through it in the morning, and my hair was breaking because of the constant use of hairbands.

Prolonged use of bandanas was causing the hair at the front of my head to break, KINK, and stand straight up.    Like I needed THAT.

In two years it's been singed repeatedly, caught in the truck window, pulled by purse straps and seatbelts.    I've trapped a bug or two IN it, and I've shampooed who-knows-what OUT of it.    It was like wearing a knitted wool cap all summer and stayed wet with sweat 24/7.    And if your hair is wet with sweat, your head smells.

When my headphones (not ear buds, HEADPHONES) got hopelessly tangled up in my hair AT WORK, well, it was the last straw.
     The removal process was painful but I couldn't very well go to the bank and the utility company with my headphones sticking out of the back of my head and the cord dangling down my back, could I??

I threw in the hairbrush, so to speak.   

I was determined to make a point and I did.    I am one very stubborn ass.    That's the only point I made and the only thing I have proven here with Operation Hairball.

But I ain't no hater, and this is for those who have kept up the fight for Hair Peace:

Old Dog, New Trick

Tryin' to figure out this video posting thing.    WITHOUT HELP FROM A KID.    The equivalent of working without a net.