The Febreeze Incident

            I did have one small role in cheering up the little lady in these tumultuous times of change.  I had a little incident with the Febreeze.  Every once in awhile I like to spray down the clothes I’m wearing ‘cause I enjoy my cigarettes and I like to smell good.  So… 

            Liz doesn’t like Febreeze for reasons I have yet to make any sense of.  But even so, it’s never caused any problems.  Or potentially poisoned anyone. 

            I had just finished blanketing myself in a lovely fragrance, Hawaiian Aloha, and no, I don’t think it’s gay to blanket myself in a feminine scent when the cigarettes tame it right down.  I had set the can down on the endtable, few minutes later picked it up to take it back to the kitchen only I had picked it up backward, didn’t realize it was pointing right at me. 

I had gotten up from the desk too fast and got dizzy, lost my balance (mild side effect of meds) and as I tried to correct myself I accidentally squeezed the trigger and sprayed myself in the face.  And then, in my startled shock, turned my head away and accidentally did it again, lost my balance completely and fell back toward the desk chair and instinct tightened my grasp on the can.  And trigger.  Sprayed myself with a full cloud of mist as I fell awkwardly into the chair.

On the one hand, it made everything taste funny for a couple hours.  Even my cigarettes.  They set up camp on my tongue and made it tingle.  But, then, my beard smelled frikkin’ great.  I got all cozy with Liz and though she claims that she doesn’t like the fragrance, she got a laugh out of it anyway.  My beard had never smelled so delightful.  And hasn’t since.

                       

            It took her mind off the kids moving out and being all alone with me in this empty and quiet apartment and her struggle to accept all this semi-unwelcomed change in our lives and embrace an uncertain future.  We can only hope it is a future that smells this delightful.

Hysterical Blindness

            Today Julie and Chris moved out.  Meaning—for the first time in the four years we have been seeing each other, Liz and I now officially live alone.  Just the two of us.  She and I.  It’s kinda weird. 

            Our first night alone in the apartment, and how do we choose to spend it?  We went out to eat with mom and the fam for her birthday, came home, she got on the computer, I laid down on the couch and fell asleep.  This was our evening.  Yes, we are getting old.  I can’t say that I mind all that much, though. 

            I was supposed to be spending the evening with Cody, the other daugher’s boyfriend.  He was supposed to be coming over and working on my dreadlocks.  He didn’t show up and I happened to catch a peek at myself in the mirror as I passed it by, took a long look at my hair, decided I kind of like it just the way it is.  So, there’s really no loss here.

                       

            I have to admit, Liz is handling it better than I thought she would.  She was scared heading into it.  We have seen this coming for at least a couple weeks.  No kids.  When school started this year and she realized that for the first time in twenty years or so she wasn’t going to have any kids to wake up in the morning and get off to school, she broke down and cried a little. 

            I kind of expected her to break down and cry a lot with the last two (of four) moving out.  And she’s done quite well.  Not a single tear yet.  And as much as I try to help and to cheer her up, I don’t think this newfound strength has much to do with me.  I’ve been insanely busy working marathons on the computer, haven’t been much company.

            The girls and I have had our differences, but for the most part we have gotten along famously in the time I’ve been around.  I’ve tried to be a positive role in their lives, they leave me alone on the many issues they rightfully could have griped about, and I don’t tell them what to do.  Ever. 

            The only time I ever tried to play stepdad was a couple of years ago, they were juniors, and they had missed Friday afternoon, came home from school at lunch and didn’t go back.  Sunday night they needed a written excuse to get back into school, so I wrote them this little ditty:

            “Please excuse Julianna and Jonalyn Emmons from school on Friday afternoon.  They were both stricken with a case of hysterical blindness.  Please let them back into school, as they are fine now, they can see again.” 

            And I begged and pleaded with Liz to sign it.  But, to no avail.  

Battle of Mountain Wits

            Liz got online today and read through the list of symptoms of Alzheimers, just to be safe. 

She’s appears okay with it, ‘cause she doesn’t have that one symptom yet. 

(I kid.) 

            I went storming into the living room shouting, “Google has now canceled my account twice for no good reason at all!”

            And what did she say to this? 

What did my lovely lady take from this and fire back? 

“What for?” she asked.

            So rather than get mad, I took a lesson learned from the Naked Truth incident, fight back with humor, I answered, “Mountaineering.”

            “What?”

            “Yeah.  I was mountaineering without a license.  You can’t do that in Germany.” 

            It wasn’t an overnight deal, it took a tremendous and concentrated effort on our part, but this is how we try to fight.  When we get mad at each other.

            She was irritated with me for being a smart ass.  So, she played along.  Pretended like she wasn’t interested.  Casually flipping through a magazine.  “When did you go to Germany?” 

            “Last week.  I was doing some secret recognizance work for Yahoo.”

            “On a mountain?”

            “Yeah.  Well, sort of.  It was a hidden lair within the mountain.  The Google agents picked me up on my way back down.”

            She set her magazine aside for this one.  Must’ve been important, I could tell already. 

            “I never understood that,” she said.  “Why do secret lairs always have to be so obsolete?”

            “Pardon?”

            “What?”

            I shook my head, motioned for her to carry on.  It’s quicker that way. 

            “What was I saying?”

            “Secret lairs.”

            “Yeah!  I mean, seems like they spend a lot of time and money going all the way out to a mountain in Germany just to conduct business.  They want remote, tell ‘em to bring their gear to Olney.  It’s gotta be cheaper.  Doesn’t it?  They could use one of the empty stores at the mall.  Ya know, for their headquarters.”

            “You just don’t understand the world of industrial espionage, hun.  And neither do I.  And that’s why we’re safe.  Big Brother is listening right now, and he’s bored stupid.  That’s how we will beat him.”

            “What?”

            “This conversation is senseless,” I said.  And then she had the audacity, the unmitigated gull, to say, “This conversation became senseless whenever you joined in.”  It was a right hook to the jaw.  She snuck it in. 

            My mouth flopped open, eyes wide and brow curled, I forgot to breathe there for a stint. 

I stormed off. 

She won this battle. 

But, the war rages on.  

The Naked Truth

             I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that I at least try to be entertaining around the house.  I try to make sure whenever Liz says, “I’m so bored!” it is followed by some kind of spike in the electricity in the air.  Sometimes she regrets saying it.  Oft times, though, she is glad she did.

           

It’s become routine for either one of us to fly off the handle for no good reason at all and do something senseless.  Just to make the other one laugh.  It’s gotten so bad, though, she ticked me off the other day and I went to say something aggressive and maybe a little hateful, just ‘cause I was mad at her and was about to leave the room and wanted to punctuate my departure. 

            But I screwed up, I made it to the doorway and turned back and pointed my finger at her and I said, “Fine!  I’m gonna go to the bedroom, I’m gonna get naked and spend some time alone!”  And I stormed off.  Which isn’t easy to do with any real effect on a concrete floor.  There’s carpeting, sure.  But still.

As soon as I stepped into the hallway I was shakin’ my head, rolling my eyes back and forth and anywhere else they would roll, ‘Wonder where that came from?  Hmmn?  Thought I was supposed to be mad.’  Wasn’t the kind of impression I was aiming to leave. 

Ya know, that would be really great therapy, if you think about it.  I hadn’t until just now.  But for marriage counseling… the couple comes in, the counselor listens to them bitch about each other for awhile, then stops them and tells them, “Take off your clothes, and swap undergarments with each other.  You put on her bra and panties, you put on his boxer-briefs, and if you can keep a straight face long enough to stay mad, you have deep-seeded issues that have nothing to do with one another and you need to work on those before you can hope to sustain a marriage.  Now… go ahead.  Take off your clothes.”

They look at him dumbfounded.  Jaws agape.  Eyes wide.  They don’t know what to think.

He tells them, “I won’t look.  I promise.  Here, I’ll cover my eyes.”  He covers them.  He waits.  He waits.  He need wait no longer.  The husband fires back, “Are you frikkin’ serious, you, you creepy weirdo!”

He uncovers his eyes.  He forces a laugh.  “Of course not, silly man.  Do it at home.  Put on her bra and panties and try to sit on the bed and have a serious conversation.  Put her in a jockstrap if you have to.  You won’t be able to hold onto this tension between you two, and for once you’ll be able to talk.”

He makes his point.  Then sighs and stares off in the distance.  Evidently, disappointed.     

Appleonia Revisited

           I got a big frikkin’ knife and two bags of apples, if you wanna party.  Seriously.  We could do some damage.  Slice their skin off.  Cut ‘em down to the core.  We could carve ‘em into funny shapes and put them in compromising positions.  Take photographs.

            I’m trying to think up a few good uses for apples.  In a gross oversight of mismanaged shopping lists, we somehow ended up with thirty-seven apples sitting in our kitchen.  (Somebody went shopping without looking around the house first to see what we already had.)  Thirty-seven apples in our kitchen.  Just chillin’.  Hangin’.  Aging. 

            So far the only thing I’ve discovered about my old fruity friend the apple is that when you carve ‘em up and let ‘em sit on the desk they start looking like driftwood after a few hours.  In the right light.  Particularly when you cut around the core and you leave the right bits.

            Past that, I have no idea what she expects me to do with so many apples. 

Maybe I could build a house for ‘em.  Or an apartment complex.  Give ‘em all names, and a place to stay.  You ever tried to name an apple?  Give it a nice background story?  With heart? 

            I mean, if it was thirty-seven cats, now that would be something I could work with.  Or puppies.  Sweet Mary Crumbcake, how I could work with thirty-seven puppies in the apartment looking for direction and substance.  It would be disastrous good fun.

            But no.  I’m still struggling with apples.  I don’t know if she expects me to be mixing up seventeen barrels of hard cider.  Or enough apple pie for the next gathering of continental congress. 

            It’s terribly tempting to throw them at stuff. 

            I know.  I won’t.

  

            

Liar's Club

            I recently found out there is such a thing as a Liar’s Club and to be totally honest, I’m a little terked off I wasn’t invited.  I’m not normally like that, but a Liar’s Club standoff?  Of all sporting events?! 

            I can lie with the best of ‘em.  It just depends on the content and the nature of the lie.  Take Liz, for example.  I lie to her all the time.  I come back to the bedroom after a five minute sojourn to the kitchen with a cup of coffee in my hand and she asks me, “Where’d you go?”  I tell her.  “Wyoming.  You ever been there?  Lovely place.”

            Or she knocks on the bathroom door and asks me what I’m doing.

            “I’m wraaanglin’ a sea monster!”

            (I pick on her a lot because, yeah, it’s fun, and it makes her laugh, most of the time, but she’s also the one I spend almost all of my time with, so she gets it by default.)

            Lieing is a virtue and an artform.  And it isn’t always for nice guys.  I admit, when I first found out about this I threw a little tantrum ‘cause I wasn’t invited. 

“What is this Liar’s Club?” 

            “I don’t know.  I guess a bunch of liars get together.”

            “And do what?”

            “Tell stories, I guess.”

            “What kind of stories?  Stupid liar stories?  That’s stupid!”  …  “Why wasn’t I invited?” 

            Sometimes the greatest lies aren’t even lies.  They are subtle, simple truths, surrounded by fiction.  The other day, I talked Liz into doing a little experiment with me.  Sort of.  I told her I wanted to take a funny picture.  So, she put on my boxers and my gold bermuda shirt and the lighting kinda sucks in our bedroom, so I had her stand on the bed, to catch the best light off the lamp. 

            She obliged.  Dutifully. 

            She was already in the mindset of making some kind of funny face.  She wasn’t too surprised when I told her to put her hands in the air like she just don’t care.  She obliged. 

She didn’t expect me to have a glass of water at the ready, but, for one thing, the glass was empty, it was just a ruse to get her going, but even so, it wouldn’t have been the first time I tossed a glass of water on her for effect (it was just the once, the effect was utter failure, and I won’t do it again) so overall this time, with all things considered, the effect was pure gold.  And nobody got wet.  Or hurt.  Or pissed.

            She looked like a scared linebacker on crack on Halloween night with a field full of monster brats coming at him.  Her.  The photo turned out lovely.  But I didn’t put it on the web.  That wasn’t my purpose.

            We tease Liz about just how severely unique she is, and it’s just a joke, but it’s a running joke that’s been going for years and shows no signs of tiring, that one day she’s gonna lose her mind.  Flip her lid.  She’s going to snap.

            I waited for her BFF to come over, to make her daily visit.  I let her and Liz go for awhile.  Talking about this that or the other.  I waited for Liz to say or do something unintentionally funny, as she is sooo good at doing. 

            Teresa told her something and they began a conversation and half way through, Liz got lost, then redirected and caught up, shortly thereafter she forgot what they were talking about, Teresa reminded her, Liz got confused, she backtracked and found her way right on her own accord, Liz then told Teresa that she was the one that was wrong, tried telling her what was right, then got confused, lost interest, and started talking about something else on an unrelated topic.

            That’s when I struck.

            I told Teresa, “It’s happened.  It happened earlier.  She finally snapped.  She’s gone.  Liz is gone.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Liz.  Liz – is – gone.  She’s not here no more.  Liz went away.  She was in my underwear earlier standing on the bed freaking out and screaming.  Threatening violence.  I was scared.  I almost called the cops.  I tried to call you but she took the phone from me and busted it on the floor.”

            Liz shrieked, “I did not!”

            With a straight face and a bit of a whimper, I shouted back, “You did too!  Don’t deny it!”

            I showed her the photo.  I had her going for awhile.  Had her thinking Liz had finally done it.  Lost it.  Went nuts.  Teresa that is.  Had her going.  Though, I don’t know.  Liz looked like she might’ve been second guessing there for a minute.  Never know with her.  God bless her.  I do love her.  She’s such a good sport. 

           

            Sometimes the lies are more subtle.  All those nice, reassuring folks telling me, “What are you talking about?  You’re not getting fat!”  Uh huh.  You start believing them and you eventually realize, ‘I haven’t worn a belt in six months.  These pants used to fall to my ankles without a belt.’ …pause, wait on it, eventually… ‘Heeeyyy!  They lied to me!’  

             

Satellites and Milemarkers

            All night Liz had been periodically checking news reports and the RSS on the NASA website, keeping tabs on where and when the UARS satellite was going to fall, and how many people would be killed.  She wasn’t secretly pulling for catastrophe or anything, she was just sure that it was going to be bad and the Powers That Be were deliberately downplaying it to avoid mass hysteria…

            I admit, I didn’t help matters any.  She blows stuff out of proportion and it’s just funny to me, and maybe this is one I should have left alone, it just happened so fast, over a long period of time, she just talks so fast when she gets worked up. 

            She was going to bed and she made me check nine times over a period of five minutes for a new update from NASA, which we did not receive.  So she laid down and went to sleep.  Woke up an hour later to pee and made me check five times in a matter of three minutes for an update we did not receive. 

            Finally, I woke her up around three thirty and told her, “It fell somewhere in the Pacific outside California.”

            She immediately rolled back over and mumbled, “That’s nice.”

            I waited. 

            “It caused massive earthquakes and tsunamis and stirred up a dust cloud through which the sun will no longer be able to penetrate, we’re all doomed.”

            I waited.

            She rolled back over and looked up at me and slowly said, “Wwwhhaaaaaatt?”

            “Just making sure you’re awake.  Listen.  Hun.  Hey, hun!”

            “What?!”

            “I fixed that cabinet door in the kitchen.  The wobbly one?  I fixed it.”

            She eyed me.  Didn’t say anything.  She rolled back over and went to sleep.

            I thought the cabinet door was way more important.  As a news item, anyway.  I wasn’t expecting doom and catastrophe, and I don’t fix stuff very often.  Turned out to be a simple enough project.  Just had to tighten a screw.  Didn’t even have to look very long for the screwdriver. 

            It’s important to plant these milemarkers in the sand every once in awhile.  Me?  Fixing a wobbly cabinet door?  I’m growing up.  Taking responsibility.  Next thing you know I’ll have three kids and a mortgage and an ulcer to beat the band. 

            I kid.  It’s late.  I’m wide awake, I’m bored… so bored I resorted to household repairs to entertain myself.