The Junk Drawer

Yesterday my husband and I attended a birthday party for my brother-in-law. I was disappointed to find out from other guests that I missed the part of the show where my husband tried to walk through a patio door without first making sure it was, like, open. Smooth move, Dave.

Though he’s not so great with walking through glass, he does have a knack for screen doors.

The year: 1992

The place: Our townhouse

The event: Escaped cat

One morning before work, I had enough time to let one of our cats out into the backyard, which overlooked a wooded area and a small creek. I put Calvin in his harness and tied the leash to a fence.

From the breakfast nook I could keep an eye on him, but when I had my back turned for a split second, he managed to wriggle his way out of the harness and escape to God knows where.

Not prone to too much panic, as this had happened before, I grabbed a can of cat food and went outside to open it up in the hopes that Calvin would hear a familiar yummy sound and come running back from wherever he ventured off.

He didn’t.

I began calling his name, pleading more desperately with each shout.

Still nothing.

I ran inside for a jingle bell toy he liked and returned outside to ring it in an annoyed, I-mean-business kind of way.

Time ticked with no response.

Looking over the bank, down to the creek, I saw something orange and white moving about the brush. It’s him! Good that I found him, bad to see how inaccessible he was. The hill dropped at a 45 degree angle.

Now I panicked.

So what’s a girl to do? I ran back to the house and yelled through the screen door “Dave!!! Calvin’s in the woods!!! I can’t get him!!!”

A formerly-sleeping Dave bolted out of bed, stumbled downstairs and shot through the door to begin search and rescue.

And by “through the door,” I mean through the door.

Like a gorilla in the mist, my beast of a husband took out the entire screen door, right off the tracks.

Huh. That’s sort of unfortunate.

Without skipping a beat, he handed me the door, said simply “Here. Hold this,” and went off to retrieve Calvin.

And so there I stood, regretting having turned a peaceful morning into a three-ring circus, holding an ineffective jingle bell toy and a giant, slightly-bent patio door that would never again close properly.

Awesome.

We usually consider people who live on the edge as the types who enjoy thrill-seeking adventures such as skydiving, rock climbing or race car driving.

Tonight I met a guy who could beat them all.

He was going to buy a tub of sour cream.

Let me ‘splain.

I followed him to the courtesy counter at my grocery store. He had the sour cream in hand and I figured he’d be in and out of the line in no time at all. Spotting another container of sour cream peeking out of a bag on the counter, I realized he was there to make an exchange.

He told the cashier “I looked and looked and could only find this one.”

“Let me see,” said the cashier.

“But it’s just like all the others. They’re all expired,” the man reported. “This one is the most recent. June 21st.”

The cashier, not knowing exactly what to do about the exchange, stood there for a moment and said nothing.

I figured the next move she’d make is to give the guy his money back because he couldn’t find a tub that still had some time left on the clock.

But no.

He said “It’s only four days past expiration. If I smell it, I can tell if it’s still good yet.“

No, buddy. If you smell it and deem it safe, you may just find yourself in the ER a little later on.

Either because you ate it or because the wife who probably sent you back to the store to get a new one is going to kick you in the spleen for bringing home only a slightly less hazardous one.

Dude. Livin’ on the edge doesn’t always end well.

And that statement is: We have too many blankets.

Ay-carumba! They’re just the ones in the living room. There are at least eight more upstairs.

Yet each one of these is here for a reason.

From top to bottom:

#1 traveled downstairs one day and got stuck there. I believe it got washed and never made it back up. You know, because it’s so hard to carry a blanket up fourteen steps. My back!

#2 is for Shadow, our cat who likes to sleep on the red chair’s ottoman.

#3 is for Lucky, our cat who likes to sleep on the red chair.

#4 is for me to cover my legs at the kitchen table where an A/C vent blows arctic air right on me.

#5 also came down for a washing and never made it back upstairs. Oh, so heavy!

#6 is for covering a chair you can’t see. Another spot where Lucky likes to nap.

#7 is for me to nap with. Used in conjunction with #4 because one blanket is not enough for napping, so says me, the Napping Queen.

Can anyone beat this? Extra points of you own a Snuggie. Subtract points if you have one for your dog.

When my husband Dave and I were first dating, we’d hit the dance clubs every other weekend.

During one such outing, we went to popular nightclub that had a big, hulking guy standing outside the doors to take the cover charge and make sure you were of age to get in.

Hulking guy took the money from Dave and then stared at me for an uncomfortably long time. Of course, I thought it was because of my stop-traffic hotness.

It wasn’t.

He spoke.

I remember you.

Oh, yeah?

Fancy Feast and pot pies.

What?

Fancy Feast. You used to come into Weis Markets and buy a ton of Fancy Feast cat food and pot pies.

Dying.

I remember you would buy hardly any food, but would always buy a load of cat food. I thought you had ten cats.

Dying some more and not wanting to give him any response, I grabbed Dave’s arm, nervously smiled at hulking guy and slipped inside.

Dude. You’re a tool.

Thanks for setting up my date night in the most awkward way possible, (though Dave never asked about it, the sweetheart he is.)

It was better left unsaid that when I moved out on my own, I had hardly any money to speak of. Times were very lean. But I had my own apartment and a cat named Baby who thought I was most righteous.

A cat for whom I didn’t mind feeding the very best stinky goodness money could buy. Oh, yeah. And I survived those first years on chicken pot pies, 3 for $1.00. Mere pennies more expensive than the cat food.

Sure, I was just scraping by, but I didn’t mind.

What I did mind was a stupid former grocery store clerk knowing it and remembering it out loud.

So I guess the lesson here is that when you think your grocery store cashier is making judgements about you by the things you buy, and you tell yourself “Nah, they wouldn’t,” think again. They’re taking notes.

Thanks to an alert reader, who didn’t chomp down and ask questions later, we have a new submission to the Food That Looks Like Stuff series.

Behold!

Peanut butter-filled pretzel face

Oooo! A photo shoot? Lil ‘ol me? I must be special! Wait… what are you doing?

CRUNCH.

I’m always on the lookout for food that looks like stuff, so if you find something, please visit my Contact page and email it in!

——

On another note, I want to thank everyone again for your positive response to the Windy story that aired on NPR Monday. I’ve had the time of my life and I’m so happy to have readers (and new followers!) like you. This is what makes blogging so incredibly fun and fulfilling.

You guys are THE BEST!

Welcome NPR listeners! Please click here to access all the posts about Windy, the plastic bag stuck in a tree since March, 2008. The posts appear in reverse chronological order.

To all my regular readers, big news! I had the honor and pleasure of being interviewed by Melissa Block of National Public Radio (NPR) for a segment on All Things Considered, which aired today.

Visit NPR’s website to read the story and hear the interview (available at approx. 7PM EST).

Who knew our little Windy would go national? If we can’t get her out, I’d say that’s not a bad consolation prize.

I want to thank everyone who’s followed and enjoyed Windy’s story. Getting on board with it helped make the saga something worthy of all this attention. I have the best readers in the blogosphere and no one can tell me otherwise.

Thank you! Thank you!

When I was about ten years old, I went to a wilderness camp with my girl scout troop. Until then I was content with earning merit badges, singing hokey songs at after-school meetings and selling overpriced cookies once a year to my Thin Mint junkie friends and family.

As with everything else I did at that time in my life, I went with the crowd. Camping is not something I would have chosen to do for fun. Even then I knew I liked my creature comforts. Or rather, comforts without the creatures. I don’t need to get close to things in nature that have a thirst for blood, too many legs and a desire to get all up in my face.

I was OK when we all arrived at the camp site and got checked into the main building, which was nice and clean and looking every bit like the civilization I’d just left.

But as we made our way toward the cabins to drop off our backpacks and stuff, things got more and more rustic, and less and less civilized.

On approach to the cabins, wait. What? We’re cooking on a campfire? Sitting on logs? Eating? Here? My mind was spinning. And the cabins? Where are the lights? Those mattresses are funky. Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I have to pee in a hole in a shed?

I began plotting right then and there how to get back home where a warm bed would be missing me.

That day’s activities included ice-breaker games, gathering sticks for firewood, acquainting ourselves with the layout of camp, singing songs around a fire and then eating off dented metal plates on logs.

What I wanted was to be home watching Soul Train. What I got was dirty and gross and sweaty and can’t I eat in that nice clean building where we started?

That whole day all I could think about was having to sleep in the pitch black cabin. No lights. Cracks in the wooden ceiling. Creaky doors. The one thing I forgot to think about was how much water I drank during the day.

I shouldn’t have had anything because I realized I’d have to use the latrine, which is such a pretty-sounding word, right? [from French, from Latin latrina, shortened form of lavatrina bath, from lavare to wash]. Please. It’s a hole.

Just as we got settled into our cabins for the night, the rains came.

And then I had to pee.

I took a buddy with me, through now-sloppy grounds, up an incline to the ramshackle, bug-infested shed with a hole in it. The smell. The darkness. The fear. I positioned myself for the Infection Avoidance Crouch-and-Hover over the hole and OMG! Is there something touching me? What was that? Is it a rat?

That’s it. I’m outta here.

This is the part where my parents, who read my blog, will find out the Big Lie of 1975.

I feigned sickness.

While heading over to the scout leader’s cabin, I tried to work up a good puke, or at the very least, appear as pathetic and pasty white as possible. It’s very hard to puke at will, so all I could muster was a whiney “I don’t feeeeeel so good.”

The wheels were set in motion and a call would be made to my parents early the next morning.

I’d be free in T-minus twelve hours.

I didn’t care that my fellow scouts would probably talk about me after I left. What a weenie she is. Yeah, can’t even make it one day. I didn’t care that I truncated what should have been a neat experience. For most people.

I’m not most people. As a girl scout you’re supposed to learn “skills for success in the real world” and know your potential. I did. I learned that I’d always be a room service, crisp bed sheet, luxury hotel kind of girl.

The real world is full of luxury hotels.

Last week my husband Dave and I received the outdoor pet tent I ordered from Amazon. We wanted one because our cat Lucky is always jonesing to go outside, but he can’t be trusted to stay put, nor did we want to struggle putting a harness on him.

The Outdoor Feline Funhouse is perfect and I highly recommend!

Lucky enjoys feeling a breeze, sniffing the fresh air, watching birds and rabbits in the yard and rolling around inside of it.

I even trained him to go right into it when I open the patio door. I just tell him “Come on” and he slips right in. There are two panels, one on the long end, one on the short, secured with easy to open and close zippers.

Lucky is clawed, but he doesn’t bother scratching at the mesh, so we don’t have any problems there.

When he’s done enjoying the outside, he meows to go inside to take his eleventh nap of the day.

The tent is great, except for one thing.

It’s lightweight.

Really lightweight.

Dave and I left the house to run errands yesterday, pulled out of the garage and started down the street.

Before I noticed, Dave said “I wonder who that belongs to.”

“Who what belongs to?”

“That.”

Four houses down, smack dab in the middle of the street, sat our new mesh tent. (Of course I took a picture, you silly goose. I’m a professional.)

The tent got up off the patio, hung a right, tumbled past the neighbor’s house, across the front lawn and then down the street.

Luckily it folds up quickly and I could stash it in the trunk of the car. We hightailed it outta there like we just robbed a bank. I felt oddly embarrassed that our tent ran away. Was anyone watching?

Anyway, we know now we have to fill bags with sand to anchor the tent. The bags the tent came with. The bags that the directions say you should use because the tent is lightweight. The directions I never read unless you have a gun to my head.

I picked up takeout food last night at a restaurant and found a sad little Bird of Paradise drinking his sorrows away over at the bar.

What’s up little buddy?

What’s up? Just have a look.

Did you see all that? And what happened at the end?

Yeah. Brutal. What gives?

I don’t know. I tried everything. I cleaned my pad, swept the patio, buffed my tree branches to a nice shine and burned up the dance floor. Then nothing.

You know, I’m terribly impressed. You’ve got some mad dance skills.

True dat. I practiced at the studio for like eight weeks to get that down. I wanted to give up in week three, but my trainer encouraged me to stick it out. Six days a week. Sore feet, sore wings, sore neck. And for what?

I’m sorry.

She didn’t even wait for my finale. I was planning on throwing in a moonwalk and then a little soft shoe at the end. I would have killed.

I believe you. So is this something all Birds of Paradise do in your forest?

Please.

I’m the only one who took the lessons, went to a stylist, got a Feather Smoothie, consulted with a clutter expert, and bought a Swiffer. You could eat bugs off the floor of my tree house.

I don’t understand why she turned you down. You did everything you’re supposed to do. You smell nice, too.

I have my suspicions. Word on the tree is there’s some shinier bird over in 2C with a really big wingspan. He just moved in and all the ladies are curious. Got a Wii, high-def TV and a mini-fridge filled with spiders. Pffft. He’s got all of the fluff and none of the substance.

Well, all I can offer is my sympathy. You have it hard. Are you going to put on another show for someone else?

I don’t know. I may take off a couple weeks. I’m frustrated and tired. Trying so hard to get a date is for the birds.

Hey, did you see that?

See what?

That chicklet over there, by the jukebox. She winked at you.

Uh. Maybe you should leave now. Might be able to salvage this night after all.

Sure thing. Just don’t try so hard. Sometimes the ladies like a more relaxed approach.

Relaxed? Hell, no! Drop some coin in the jukebox for me, will ya? I feel a dance coming on.

A friend emailed me today about how she acquired a particularly nasty virus that rendered her computer unusable. Let this be a warning about where you can pickup bad things on the interwebz.

Anywhere.

She had just gotten back from a wonderful trip to the UK. She reports:

It’s a funny story really. There were so many baby lambs in England and we got to bottle-feed one. So, last night before I left for home, I Googled videos of bottle-feeding baby lambs because I missed all the lambs. There were a ton of cute baby lamb videos. I found a whole Web site of baby lamb videos called Ewe-Tube.

While on that site, I accidentally clicked on an ad that gave me the virus. I could tell right away that something was wrong because it started downloading files to my computer. Ctrl-Alt-Del wouldn’t even work. It’s just occurred to me that baby lamb is redundant. Anyway, who would think that baby lambs could be harmful? What kind of a sicko puts a virus on a baby lamb Web site?

I agree. What kind of sicko does that? I say viruses should be limited to stupid places people visit on the web, like porn sites and … well, just porn sites. Not baby lamb sites. The baby lambs don’t want to hurt you. They want to love you and wrap their cuteness around you and give you lamby kisses and hugs. More if you bottle-feed them.

Lambies good, viruses baaaaaa-d!

Don’t even go to that Ewe-tube site, even out of curiosity. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone getting a comp-ewe-ter virus.

God. Remember when the Internet was free of crap and spam and viruses and spyware and junk? It should just be full of baby lambs and cotton candy and rainbows.

And our blogs.

So let’s hear it. Have you ever picked up a virus from a place you least expected it? Share your horror stories. It might make my friend feel better.