What if Spartacus Had A Piper Cub?

What if Jane Austen had a submachine gun for an arm and an interest in total, global domination?

What if what we think is reality is actually just some blog written by a dendraphobic, nudist albino named "Steve?"

What if spider monkeys were really made up of hundreds of monkey-shaped spiders?

What are YOUR "what ifs?"

The best answer (meaning the one that makes me laugh so hard I weep tears of vodka) wins a galley copy of I SHOT YOU BABE. So hit me with your best shot. Fire away.

The Assassin

A Sad Day at The Craig House

“I’m sorry.” I told my upset nineteen-year-old son standing at the edge of my desk. “Losing someone is never easy. Death is the ultimate price of loving.” Seeing the grief in my son’s eyes broke my heart. Seriously, I really did feel bad. However, there was no doubt about it, my son felt the blunt of this grief.

Probably because he was the one to discover the body curled up in the hammock. As far as we know, the passing was of natural causes and not a homicide. Although, I’ll admit, the cats were acting very suspicious.

Mr. Raton, God rest his soul, was not on our four cats’ favorite lists. Okay, I’ll admit it. He wasn’t on my fav’ list either. It was his bald tail. If he’d just had little fur on it, I think I could have gotten past my prejudices. I could have pretended he was a gerbil or a hamster. But my lack of affection for the dearly departed wasn’t important, I knew my son’s feelings were real.

“I’m really sorry.”

“He was the best nine dollars I ever spent,” he said. “Thank goodness I still have his brother.”

I had to bite my tongue not to remind him that his nine dollars was money he hadn’t asked to spend. He’d never gotten permission to bring home the two rats. Imagine my surprise when one day, a week or so after they’d been sneaked into my home, I went to toss the dirty socks he’d left in my living room into his bedroom (Hey, I always left them by his pillow so he’d learn a lesson-not that it worked, but it made me feel better) and saw the two pink-eyed creatures staring at me from the cage. I tossed the socks up in the air and screamed bloody murder. I was also tempted to leave his door open and let the kitties in for a visit. You know their paws were small enough to reach into that cage.

When he arrived home that day from school, I insisted he take them back. He called the pet store, but their no return policy stood strong. I insisted he find another home for them. Amazingly, much to my son’s shock, not one of his friend’s parents would welcome a couple of rats into their home. Duh!

I was forced to either cruelly insist he toss the creatures into our cat friendly neighborhood, or accept them into the family. Call me a sucker, but I accepted them. I’m not saying I loved them. Acceptance is a far cry from loving.

So that’s how Mr. Raton and his brother arrived at the Craig house and here’s the story of how he left.

“What do I do with the body?” my son asked, still standing at the edge of my desk.

I thought a minute. “My mom flushed my goldfish down the toilet.” (Hey, I wasn’t trying to be ugly, it was just the first thing that popped into my head.)

“You haven’t seen him lately, have you?” my son asked, his tone accusing.

“I didn’t know I had mandatory visitations.”

“He’s not so little anymore. Too many Cheetos, I guess.”

“You fed him Cheetos?”

“He loved them. He used to sit on my shoulder and eat them.”

I sigh. “Then I guess you’ll need to bury him.”

My son goes and finds his dad, I’m sure hoping his dad will show him more sympathy.

“Dad is going to help me bury it,” my son said when he returned.

“That’s good,” I said and glanced back at my computer, eager to get in my obligated ten pages of writing.

“Do you want to come say good bye?” he asked.

“No!” I know most of you won’t agree, but for some reason seeing a dead rat seemed freakier than seeing a live one.

His dad appeared in my study, a shovel in hand. “You ready?”

“What about a casket?” my son asked. Yup, he really asked that.

When neither hubby or I answered, son continued. “We can’t just put him in the dirt.”

I wanted to ask why not, but I refrained and found a box and offered it to my son.

“Mom, how would you like to be buried in a used Chinese takeout box that smelled like Kung Pao that was pulled out of the garbage?”

I didn’t answer. Hubby snickered.

“Besides,” Son says, “He won’t fit.”

“Can you just smash him a little bit?” his dad asked.

Son looked appalled and then he too snickered. I went in search of another box. The box my business cards came in is the perfect size for a rotund Cheeto-loving rat.

Mr. Raton was tucked away in his makeshift casket, lovingly wrapped in paper towels, resting beside a . . . a Cheeto (so I’m told, I still wouldn’t look at him) and son and hubby went in the backyard.

I, of course, excuse myself from attending the funeral, but I did watch from my French doors, accompanied by the four still suspicious-appearing cats, as my two men buried the rat and said their final good byes.

Afterwards, my son returned in my office. “I know you think I’m crazy, but I really did love that guy.”

I looked at my son. “I know you did.” I got up and hugged him really tight and I remembered when I was ten and being heart broke when my Iguana died. “I’m really sorry.”

And I guess the moral of this blog is . . . love really is blind. So here’s to you, Mr. Raton. May the afterlife bring you lots of Cheetos.

So that’s my sad day at the Craig house. What’s going on in everyone else’s life? Hey…what book are you reading? I’m about to make a run to Barnes & Noble, so does anyone have any recommendations?

Crime Scene Christie

Stupid Things That Just Shouldn't Be

Sometimes you see things so stupid, they just shouldn't be. I thought I'd wake you up (and gross you out) with a few examples, first thing this Monday morning.

1. Women who have bellies and back hair, wearing belly shirts. Gross. And they really shouldn't wear them to the mall. And they really, REALLY shouldn't wear them in front of me when I've just taken a huge sip of my frulatti.

2. Tags that read "One size fits all." Uh, no????? I'm not exactly slight on all, but I've seen a lot of people that I couldn't share a T-shirt with. Comedian Buddy Hacket describes this best when asking for a XXX hospital gown and was told one size fits all. He said "well, it covered my all, but my a%@ was hanging out the back." I'm thinking "One size fits many" might be a better way to go - if only just to discourage the worst offenders.

3. Religious bumper stickers. If you're going to drive like you're the only person on the road, then please don't display a sermon on your vehicle. Driving 80 mph off the exit ramp, cutting off four lanes of traffic (almost causing a wreck) then screeching around a red light (as the light is turning red), while flipping off the one guy who had the audacity to honk at you is most likely NOT what Jesus would do.

4. People being allowed to have children or buy power tools without passing some kind of proficiency exam. Enough said.

5. Now this one is really stupid - I mean the most stupid thing I've seen in forever: Scheduling Presidential addresses on American Idol night!!!!!!!!!!!! C'mon, Obama, can we get real for a moment. More people voted for the American Idol finale last year than president. Take a back seat to your superiors. No one wants to hear about how bad the economy is screwed up from a guy wearing a suit that could feed our families for a year. WE already know. What we don't know is the final five.

Okay, I'm off for coffee and a shower. It's early and I'm still trying to wake up. That's probably another thing that just shouldn't be - Mondays.

Deadly DeLeon

Tales from the dressing room

This week, fed up with wearing yoga pants and sweats all the time, I finally broke down and went maternity shopping. Let me tell you, shopping for clothes that make you look like you’re smuggling an alien under your shirt while being on a hormonal cocktail is not something any woman should have to go through and be expected to keep her cool.

The first bit of horror that came my way was hen my best friend informed me, “You know, you can’t wear heels when pregnant,” Um… what?! No one told me that! But, I googled it, and she’s right. It’s a total no-no. With the changing weight, your balance is constantly just slightly off, so stilts are forbidden. Crap. I look in my closet. All the summer shoes I have are heels. And I do mean all. I do not own one single pair of flats. Sigh.

So, off to the mall I go – in search of maternity tents and flats. Yay.

The first problem I encounter is that I have no idea what size to even try on. Normally, I’m a small/medium. But, considering I’m only in month 4 of alien growing, it turns out I’m an extra small in pregnancy clothes. Okay, I admit, buying an extra small anything was kinda fun. But then I tried the clothes on and they fit perfectly. Just enough give all around to be comfortable. Which means they’re probably going to continue fitting for all of two weeks. So, I went up a size. I pulled the pants up. They promptly fell around my knees. Whimper. I ended up buying both sizes, figuring I’m gonna grow into the bigger ones and can wear the smaller ones now.

Then I look at he price tags. Holy maxed out credit cards! I had no idea that those few inches of extra fabric would make maternity clothes so expensive. Which, I think, is really unfair, because it’s not like we have a choice weather to buy them or not. Seriously, I’ll be spending my savings on truckloads of diapers, you’d think they could give me a little break in the clothing department.

No such luck.

So, with my credit card wincing, I take both pairs of pants up to the gal at the counter. Who, incidentally is about 20 and a stick figure. I hate her already. She starts ringing up my clothes and tells me that I’ve made a mistake and bought two different sizes. I tell her one is for now, one is for when I grow later. She shakes her perky little head. “No,” she tells me. “These clothes are made so the belly panel grows with you. You’re supposed to get the same size you normally are in regular clothes and it wilt fit the whole time.”

Clearly, she never grown an alien inside her.

I calmly tell her, “That might work if I only grew in the belly. But that doesn’t happen. Everything from about your knees up to your neck expands both front to back and side to side when you’re pregnant.”
(Or, as I had to explain to my son the other day, “Mommy’s butt grow in order to balance out her growing tummy so she doesn’t fall forward.”)

So, Stick Figure wrinkles her nose in an “eww, gross” gesture. Then the wise little twit informs me, “Well, your butt isn’t supposed to grow.”

I’m amazed that no big butted, hormonal pregnant woman has strangled the life out of this thing yet.

I hand her my credit card, tell her to shut up if she values her life and ring up the pants, then make a bee-lie for the nearest Mrs. Fields and calm my self down with a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie. Then wish ten children on stick figure girl. Preferably all twins. Bwahahahaha!

On the upside, I did manage to buy a bunch of cute outfits. As expensive as they were, I found it’s actually not a myth that pregnancy fashions have gotten better in the last few years. So, here are my buys that managed to be cute, comfortable, go with flats, and still expand with the alien growth:




These pants with this top, perfect for summer! Plus, the pants can go either full length or capri, so they work even on those breezy evenings.







Adorable top and a maternity min skirt. Yes, I may be pregnant, and I may have to give up my heels - but I'm still wearing a mini-skirt!






And the shoes. Oddly enough, there are some really pretty flats out there. Who knew?





~Trigger (and flats!) Happy Halliday

Another Birthday in the Life of Bullet Hole

My birthday was Tuesday. Now, I usually try to put my head down and stoically bulldog my way through the day. Little fanfare. Little fuss. That’s the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it.

Oh, I appreciate the emails and cards and best wishes, but for the most part I just want to get it behind me with as little emotional trauma and morbid thoughts of mortality as possible. But one does hope for some decent luck and a bit of cheer on one’s special day.
So let me tell you about my birthday.

Thunderboomers, lightning, heavy rain and battering winds woke me around one A.M. And those of you who recall my annual spring fling history of wading in basement water knee-deep will understand my inability to get back to sleep as I lie there listening to buckets of rain dumping on already saturated ground. At half past three I give up, check the basement again, and stumble to my office and read about other people’s sleep disorders in my Abnormal Psych textbook.

By 5:30 I’m on my way to work. It’s still pouring and some moron is riding the Jimmy’s tail with his or her bright lights on, literally obliterating any sign of the road ahead of me. I finally reduce my speed to a crawl and the dummy goes around me. And yes. For just a teensy moment, I was tempted to speed up, click my brights on and return the favor. But since I really didn’t want to risk a case of road rage on my ‘special day’, I resisted the urge.

I arrive at work. It’s still dark. It’s still pouring. The wind is still ripping away. I grab my umbrella, exit the car, and realize I’ve left my thermos of coffee at home. I can’t stress the importance of my coffee thermos filled with my lovely dark, strong, black with no cream or sugar caffeinated beverage. It’s the difference between a semi -comatose state and the ability to recognize a security threat when I see it—which, of course requires eyes that are open. And focusing.

So, I grumbled a bit (cheapskate that I am) resigned to the fact that I would have to purchase my caffeine fix from the cafeteria. It’s not as strong as mine, but better than nothing. I exit my vehicle in the monsoon-like rain and head in the direction of the closest entrance. I got about ten meters when the wind caught my umbrella. You know what happened next. Yep. My umbrella did one of those embarrassing inside out moves. I could only be thankful it was still dark and no one was around to laugh at the spectacle I made. I ended up running to the entrance, my bag held overhead as a makeshift umbrella.

I get inside and shake off like a mongrel (and probably smelling like one) to begin a ten hour shift. I’d decided that it might be nice to have a few hours of unstructured time to relax and vej out to celebrate my birthday. We had sufficient staff. Why not take off a couple hours early? I report to my work station, go 10-41--and find out we’re short due to illness and expect a huge number of folks through security. My free time fantasy went poof!

The day is busy, but uneventful. Until my sister comes to have lunch with me on my birthday and bearing a big tray of cupcakes for me to hand out. I was touched. It was so thoughtful. My sister and I are both incredibly busy people and rarely have opportunities to see each other so this was truly a gift.

I’m relieved for lunch at my work station. I grab the plastic tray of cupcakes to take them to the security break area. I’m eating with my sister and happen to look down at my uniform and discover somehow I’ve gotten white cupcake frosting up one sleeve and down the front of my dress uniform. Even my breast patch is covered with gooey frosting. I stare at my sister. She stares back.

“How did you manage that?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“It’s another gift that keeps on giving,” I replied with a wince.

Fortunately, for some bizarre reason I a spare jacket in my vehicle. So, with borrowed umbrella in hand, I ran out to switch uniforms.

It’s still pouring.

At the end of my shift, I hit the door running.

I get home. The basement is still dry. I change out of my uniform into comfy sweats and collapse onto the couch.

My daughter calls from work.

“Anything you need me to pick up on my way home?” she asks.

I don’t miss a beat.

“Chocolate,” I responded. “Lots and lots of chocolate.”

Hmm. Maybe next year I’ll take the day off.

In advance.

Any less than stellar birthday memories (besides the reality of getting another year older) you’d like to share? How about best birthdays? Do you make a big deal out of the anniversary of your birth or, like me, do you basically let it pass without much hoopla?

~Bullet Hole who is such a party animal she’s celebrating with a trip to the dentist later today~

A Southern Gal Goes to New York

I just got back from attending the PASIC Power Conference in New York. What a treat. What a time. What a learning experience. Here are fifteen lessons I learned in the big city.

1. When people engaged me in conversation it wasn’t that they liked me, they just wanted to hear me talk and say ya’ll. Next time, I’m going to bring a tin cup and ask for donations.

2. When a taxi driver asks if he can turn at the next right, he’s really getting permission to rip you off.

3. When you say, “I’ll just take the special” to the waiter in some nice restaurant in Times Square, you need to warn your credit card company in advance and take out another mortgage on your home to pay for it.

4. Before leaving for the big city, brush up on all the different kinds of seasonings, fancy cheeses and cooking phrases that you might not know. This way when the 100% Angus tartar beef comes out, you won’t be thinking you just ordered a really good grilled smothered steak and ask why the heck the meat isn’t cooked and where’s the tartar cheese.

5. When a smiling, slightly sleazy man approaches you wearing a dark and over-sized trench coat, don’t look! No matter how tempting, don’t look. Why? You might like the watches he has penned to the inside of his coat. (Yeah, I thought he was up to something else and was a tad disappointed too! Hey, it would have a made a much better blog.)

6. It’s okay to wear tennis shoes in New York as long as you have your 12-inch heels tucked away in your back pack or Gucci purse—which may or may not be the same Gucci purses the guy down the corner of the street is selling. (Which, by the way, are real. He swears on his mother’s grave.)

7. Don’t go to New York unless you look good in black. Any other color attracts dark-colored trench-coat wearing people.

8. Apparently, New York doesn’t get the weather memos that announce the first day of spring. I’m talking about the white, icy stuff falling from the sky that looked a lot like snow.

9. Short people should never go out on Times Square at six in the evening and attempt to follow someone unless you can recognize them by their butt. (P.S. Some butts do look alike.)

10. Short people should never stand behind anyone in Times Square at six in the evening who is wearing a back pack. Especially if it’s a woman carrying her 12-inch heels.

11. You are just as likely to be run over by a bicycle in Manhattan as a taxi. It hurts less but the tire tracks on your brand new tennis shoes can be permanent.

12. Manhattan taxi drivers do not like bicyclists and apparently they get points for every one they run off the road. Bicyclists can obviously retrieve those points by banging their fist on the side of the taxi and scaring the tourists in the cab to the point of nearly peeing in their pants.

13. Road rage isn’t something you need to see a doctor about, it just means you were meant to become a Manhattan taxi driver or a bicyclist.

14. Ordering iced tea or iced water in a restaurant doesn’t mean you’ll actually get the ice. P.S. When a southerner pronounces ice, it sometimes sounds like “ass” to a New York waiter and can bring on some very interesting conversations that start with, “You want what kind of water?”

15. Never, ever pass up the opportunity to go to New York. The people, even the road-raging taxi drivers and bicyclists, trench-coat wearing venders, and anti-ice or “anti-ass” bringing waiters, are a sight to behold and an experience to cherish. I loved every moment of it. Thank you, New York for putting up with this country bumpkin.

So, have you ever been to New York? Have you gone somewhere that you felt as if you were in a completely different world? Hey, have some of you big city folks ever visited south and felt as if the world was off its kilter?

Just Plain Stupid

I'm been sharing "stupid" stories with you, but this one doesn't fall into any particular category, unless you just wanted to call it REALLY stupid. A writer friend of mine relayed this story at a meeting one day, told by her brother, a paramedic.

They went on a call of a car wreck at a huge overpass in Dallas - one of those that swirls around top and bottom like petals on a flower and allows everyone to take a different direction. Well, apparently some guy moving thought it would be a good idea to pile his truck up beyond capacity then put a mattress on top of all the stuff to "hold it down." Even worse, since he didn't have any rope at all, it was decided that his buddy would ride on top of the mattress to hold the mattress down.

Now, really, one does not need a degree in physics to know where this one is going.

So they took off down the interstate, yes, they thought the interstate would be the place to do this, and when going over one of those big overpasses, a huge gust of wind hit the mattress and it took off the truck, man and all, and went hurtling into the interstate lane below. Now, the remarkable part is that even though the mattress twirled around and around, it landed upright with the buddy still on it - sliding right in the middle of a lane of oncoming traffic.

Traffic scattered everywhere and it's a miracle that no one even wrecked their car. God must really look after the stupid. Because honestly, if I'd have wrecked my car because of something that stupid, I'm pretty sure I would have gotten out of my car and strangled them both until they died.

It took the paramedics three rounds of sedatives and some hand tools to pry the man's fingers off the mattress. I'm not even going to ask if anyone did his laundry. I think that's one of those cases where you probably just throw the clothes away.

So anyone want to chime it - hear about anything that stupid?

Deadly DeLeon