tclary’s BodyBlog

Like all visits to the emergency room for compound fractures and multiple stitches, today’s cascade into a New Dimension Of Pissed Off began with the installation of the pet door.

Tools required: 3/8" drill bit, a saw I don’t know the exact name of but which I have, a level which I consider a tool for sissies and refuse to use, a screwdriver which thrilled me because what are jobs around the house if not made that much more fun with cocktails?, and a few other tools I only know by sight because all my dad ever yelled was NOT THAT THING THE OTHER THING!

First we hold up the actual dog door frame, noting where on the door this portal from God Forbid A Dog Should Ever Be Outside into Ha! Said The Burglar, I Can Fit Through THAT! should be cut.  So I draw my lines, note the holes so that I can very shortly drill with all the precision of a surgeon, and remember with disdain the checkout person at the pet store.

Who was chirpy.

I don’t like chirpy.  When I’m doing man things like installing pet doors the last thing I want is chirpy.  I also don’t like it when my wife, who I love, hovers.  And watches.  I don’t know why this bothers me.  All I know is that if my buddy were to go, ‘…you know I think you have the wrong size drill bit there,’ I’d be all, ‘ha ha! you are THE BEST FRIEND IN THE WORLD ILOVEYOUMAN!’ and the next thing you know we’d be stumbling drunk down the street bar hopping with our arms around each other’s neck looking for fights just to prove how tight we were and how we just GET each other, right?  But when my wife goes, ‘…you know I think you have the wrong size drill bit there,’ all I hear is ‘…I love watching you do things around the house. It’s like watching my girlfriends.  You’re a wuss and I think you could wear high heels.’  Much to her credit, however, she left me alone to the project as soon as she heard what we’ve come to know in our family as The Tone.  (She has The Look.  I have The Tone.  It works for us.)

So I grab the saw…I think it’s called a jig saw and I like that name because it makes me think of merry little dances with characters from my favorite childhood books.  Books with titles like, ‘Johnny Severs A Limb,’ and ‘Are You My Plastic Surgeon?’

This thing is a lethal weapon and should be banned in all fifty states because it is alive and has a mind of its own.  And that little red laser super-straight beam of light it emits ensuring you keep your wits about you and keep a straight line throughout the sawing process?  Yeah no.  My cuts looked like I thought it would be less useful to cut a square and more interesting to show the world that yes you can actually cut out what looks like a plate of spaghetti noodles.

And then this damn door’s nine thousand different beveled sections decided to get structurally attitudinal.  And fall apart.  Like a real life set of Tetris blocks or something.  So there I am with Additional Problem Number Six and now I have to somehow secure these beveled pieces back into the rest of the door.  Which I actually do.  And which we’re not going to actually explain how.  We’re just going to assume it’s all going to work out just fine.  And it does.

Because I tell myself big fat lies.  Lies like, ‘Bailey, the 110 pound and beloved Golden Retarded, will delicately step through this brand new doggie door with the quiet subtlety of a church mouse.’

Actual Truth:  ‘Bailey has all the subtlety of a wounded rhinoceros and the first time he comes barreling through this stupid thing I fully expect the entire back half of the house to come down around my ears.’  At which point my wife will turn to me and go, ‘…nice work.  Can I borrow your new blouse?’

For manly men who can walk down the aisles of Home Depot with that practiced look of bored expertise:  I hate you.  For the rest:  God, why do you hate us so?  At the end of this project it looks like I took every tool Craftsman ever dreamed up, put them into a canon and shot them at the door.

But it works.  And by works, I mean that I might as well have stapled posters around the neighborhood announcing to would-be prowlers that there’s no need to worry about that irritating snag of a dead bolt in the front when you can slip your fat ass through this dog door right around back.

So, yes, there is an actual opening in this door.  And, yes, there is an actual flip-floppy plastic thing that swings to and fro fairly begging any animal to come hither and bask in the dry warmth of the laundry room and then bounce off the walls like I know every squirrel in a ten mile radius is going to do.

And, yes, I am drinking screwdrivers.

I promise I am not making this up.

‘Hallucinogenic Sedative.’

H-A-L-L-U-C-I-N-O-G-E-N-I-C  S-E-D-A-T-I-V-E.

What’s that?  You have no idea what ‘hallucinogenic sedative’ is, you say?  Well well well-well-well.  Aren’t you in for a treat.

First of all, show of hands.  Who sleeps well?  Hm?  Show of hands, folks.  Who is passed out cold before their head hits the pillow?  Hm?  Who here can basically conjure Theta waves on command and more or less navigate normal life in a constant state of REM sleep?  Hm?

What’s that?  Most of you, you say?  Well.  Isn’t that charming.

Burn in Hell.

Because while you’re sawing logs I’m haunting the darkened halls of my home willing to sell my soul to the devil for a song just to be able to get an hour or two of deep, restorative sleep.  I’m serious.  I have three children and my nocturnal existence reads like Satan’s Fiery Extravaganza in the Form of Musical Beds.  I sleep horribly IF I ever sleep at all.  I can’t tell you how many sunrises I’ve sat and watched with dark circles under my eyes, crying out of sheer elusive exhaustion.  If I could have one thing in life it would be regular, deep sleep.

Okay, none of that is actually true at all.

I actually sleep fairly well.  And by fairly well I mean I have three children on a mission from God to make sure I never sleep through the night again for the rest of my life.  But when I sleep, I sleep fairly well.

Begging the question, What The Hell is ‘hallucinogenic sedative’?

So one day I’m all Not Getting Good Sleep lately because (details not important) and so I managed to (details also not important) come across some Ambien.  The sleeping pill.  THE sleeping pill.  And before any of you go, ‘Ha ha ha! Silly man! Why not just go to the grocery store and get some Tylenol PM you big silly!’, let me just say this:

Burn in Hell.

I could keep that crap in candy dishes around the house for all its anemic potency.  And that also goes for NiQuil, the supposed Nighttime-Sniffling-Sneezing-Coughing-How-Th
e-Hell-Did-I-End-Up-On-The-Kitchen-Floor medicine.  That stuff does not work.  AT ALL.  And by does not work at all I mean I happen to be one of those unholy freaks of Nature for whom over-the-counter sleep aids tend to work like this:

Pretend you’re you and you take NiQuil but instead of experiencing drowsiness you experience the sudden ability to power a small New Hampshire town.  Or instead of yawning a whole bunch and feeling dreamy-eyed and all snuggly-sleepy you decide to ride your bike upside down on the ceiling.  That’d be me on that over-the-counter crap.  Total. Reverse. Effect.

And then I discovered Ambien.

O Ambien, my Precious Little White Courier of Slumber.  My Blessed Pill of Bastard, You Better Not Have to Wake Up For At Least Nine Hours.

I love this stuff.  I love this stuff because right on the two reams of paperwork accompanying the prescription it says, right at the top, exactly what this stuff is in the technical.  Which is ‘Hallucinogenic Sedative.’

Now you can not look me right in the eye and tell me that does not make you almost start crying for joy.  Because whereas you hold a Tylenol PM in the palm of your hand and wonder to yourself, ‘…I wonder if this stuff is any good,’ you would instead hold an Ambien in the palm of your hand to hear IT say to YOU,  ‘Oh bitch, please.’

And the next thing you remember would be You Will Not Remember Anything.

And I am not lying.

I’m serious, the first time I took one of thes–

Oh.  One more thing:  don’t even think of lecturing me with, ‘you know you can get addicted to that stuff,’ because I’M ADDICTED TO SLEEPING EVERY NIGHT OKAY SO BACK THE HELL OFF.

So I take this teeny tiny little Ambien, right?  And I’m sitting on the couch, right?  And I’m reading because I read at night when the house is finally quiet and the spawn are in bed and I can risk not having to be The Law with GetYourButtBackInBed which completely ruins a good book.  And then all of a sudden…

…it’s morning.

And I sit up in bed.  And I have NO MEMORY of ever getting up off the couch.  I have NO MEMORY of putting down the book.  I have NO MEMORY of how the living room to the stairs to the hallway to the bedroom got to look like They Stripped Off All Their Clothing Piece By Piece On Their Way to the Bedroom and Made Mad Gorilla Love (this never happens, single people).  I have NO MEMORY. Of. Anything.

I was shocked.  I was amazed.  I must tell the world.  I must spread the news.  I must shout from the roof tops!

I must take another one tonight.

Gaining the position by virtue of the work is impressive.  White-knuckling the position in abject desperation…not so much.

Talk to me while I’m working out.  That is how you will get cut.

LATEST PROTEIN SHAKE MIX REPORT:

Dymatize Nutrition, Elite 12-Hour MRP.  Flavor: Fudge Brownie.  Big Fat Lie Right On Box:  "Tastes Great!"

Um.  Yeah.  If you’ve been deprived of human food for the last nine years on a deserted island and were told the dog shit you were just served on plate was a Little Debbie Swiss Cake Roll…

…then, yeah.  This ‘tastes great.’

I am so hip. But this, I have learned, is not how I can say it because this is vernacular no longer understood these days any more than ‘four score and seven years ago.’
  
So: I am fly.  FLY.  And here is the backstory on how and why:

I am speeding down the interstate and I am fly.  I am fly because I am speeding down the interstate toward a very fly party.  At this very fly party are very fly people gathered to welcome our very fly friend home from the not so fly war over in Iraq.

More reasons why I am fly: I am dressed very fly so I am looking very cool (I am told this word remains timeless which is good because I’m getting sick of ‘fly’).  I am also totally single and on the market and there is no telling where I’ll end up by morning because I am fly and on my way to a fly party with other fly people.

Note:  I am not at all single.  In fact I am married sixteen years and I have three children.  But I was in character so just play along and keep quite while I *dance my fly way into Fly America’s heart.  *(More on ‘dance’ later).

So there I am speeding down the highway and I’ve got fly music on the radio and I’m looking totally hot (word still acceptable though ‘bangin’ is said to be better) and I’m completely into how cool I am on my way to ‘off the hook’ party.

Until.

I look at the clock and see that it’s nine p.m.

And then my Fly Bangin’ Off The Hook dream sequence implodes under its own weight and I start laughing my butt off at myself because in Toddland if I can be in bed by nine p.m. I think I’ve won the lottery and nine p.m. usually goes like this:

‘GET YOUR BUTT BACK IN BED!’ And then you might hear me grumbling to myself something like ‘this-crap-was-not-in-the-brochure-and-where
’s-my-book-and-I-want-another-bowl-of-cocoa-krispies-and-I-think-I need-to-pick-up-more-laundry-detergent-tomorrow- and-ISAIDGETBACKINBED!’

But not tonight.  Tonight I am fly and I’m speeding down the highway to welcome home Rage who is very cool and finally home from the Not Fly war, so I stop laughing.  And, yes, his name is ‘Rage’ and I totally want a stage name that’s cool and fierce just like that but I’m torn between Makes Lunches For Three Kids and Has No Idea What Off The Hook Means.

Okay.  I get to where the party is and this is not going to be appreciated by anyone who has never been to lower downtown Denver at night in a few years:

Scene:  Nebraska corn field.  Corn.  Sky.  (occasional sound of grasshopper. Maybe.)

And that’s it.

And THAT is what downtown Denver’s night life use to be like back in the day.  And by back in the day I mean the last time I was not yelling GETYOURBUTTBACKINBED which has been long enough to have wondered what the hell happened to terms like ‘golly that party was FUN!’

But not anymore.  Oh. Man.  Imagine cars bumper-to-bumper people shoulder-to-shoulder loud thumping music coming from one doorway after another over which there hangs signs that say things like Martini Cozy and If You Step In Here And You’re Not Fly We Will Cut You (I keep walking).

I thought I was in Las Vegas except that I’ve never been to Las Vegas.

Well.  That’s not entirely true.  I’ve been THROUGH Las Vegas once a long time ago when me and six buddies drove to California for a wedding.  I don’t remember who’s wedding it was.  I don’t remember because while we were there there was a 3.4 earthquake and when Not A Single Local even blinked I crapped my pants and ran around the hotel like Jack from Will and Grace with my hair on fire and everything else after it got wiped from my hard drive.  Also: Las Vegas.  I hate to admit this but I refused to stop the car and experience Las Vegas.  I somehow became the Unofficial Dad on the trip and the last thing I wanted to do was get on a telephone with: ‘I’m sorry Mrs. My Friend’s Mom..we don’t know where he is.  All I remember is I woke up naked face down in a gutter holding a Barbie doll and he was gone.’

So.  No Las Vegas.

Except now Denver looks and acts like Las Vegas and I decide that for one night I can deal with it.  And I go upstairs to the fly party and meet all the fly people and it was fly.

Okay, Rage and his family are hilarious and cool and total Salt of the Earth and my new best friends.  He is related to more people than the Royal Arab Family and all their servants put together.  He is also covered in tattoos, built like I’m not but am supposed to be, back from the war, and if you piss him off he will send your butt straight to Your Maker and you can take it up with Him.  He has this one sister who is hilarious and hanging with her three other hilarious friends and they are T.R.O.U.B.L.E., buxom and completely TAKING OVER the place.  Read: I am in heaven.  Also, loud thumping music thumping so loud that if you have a heart attack from it and die you’re going to be totally fine because the loud thumping music doubles as a defibulator thing and people are everywhere and I’m being introduced to one and all the place is packed with people under thirty.

Note to People Under Thirty:  We love you but you’re stupid.  Don’t get me wrong…you’re totally nice and we get it and we love you but unless you’re Rage or Anyone Else In The Military, or a parent, you’re stupid.  You don’t even know you don’t know What’s Coming In Life but there’s music and it’s loud and their are drinks and they’re awesome and I would have been doing exactly what you’re doing with no idea whatsoever about What’s Coming In Life so don’t get snippy with me.

At one point I break away from the fly party and decide I have got to walk through this place see all this for myself and I do and even though it’s difficult I resist the urge to walk up to most guys and go, ‘Does your mother know you’re here?!’ and most girls and go, ‘You are NOT leaving THIS house wearing THAT!’  And then someone grabbed my butt.  Right there in front of God and everyone someone grabbed my butt.

(Eyes pop out like in cartoon)(turns around)(two smiling girls, one smiling guy) I have no idea who did what I just experience but I’m sure I just experienced it and I go, ‘okay don’t touch me there…I don’t even touch me there.’ But I laugh and they laugh and I go back to the fly party because I’m fly and must fly back.  Because this Big Terrible Thing is about to happen:

*Dancing.  I was given express orders by my hilarious friend CubaRicanGirl that, should I hear the phrase: ‘aahhh yeaaarhhh….that’s my jam’ I am to immediately make my way to the nearest exit and get out.  And this has nothing to do with marmalade and everything to do with dancing.  Which white people are not allowed to do.  Ever.  Not now.  Not in Heaven at The Big Party.  Not ever.  Period.  God hates Bad Things and white people who think they can dance is a Bad Thing.

But before I can stop this Bad Thing from happening four ladies pull me into the middle of them and make me dance with them and all I can think of is Where Is ABBA when I need them? And then I remember the advice I was given : ‘If they try to make you dance pull your shirt up and expose The Abs and distract them.’  And so I do this.  But it backfires because it only eggs them on and I remember words like ‘Chipendale Hips’ and something else Not Publishable.  And I’m about to think this is all going too far and then I see my Very Cool Buddy Rage Who Will Kick Your Butt For Me in the middle of three other women right next to me and they are like…well…they’re like…gyrating.  Like…a lot.  And I think Okay If He Can Do THAT then Doing This Won’t Kill Me.  But then–okay, I’m not 100% sure it’s possible but if you COULD get pregnant from dancing those girls Rage ‘danced with’ are each carrying twins right now and I’m not lying.

And then I look at the clock.  And it’s midnight.  And I’m a pumpkin.  And I’ve turned back into Not Fly Me and laugh at myself all the way home.

And I am so hip.

Idiot to Me: ‘Ha ha ha You spend WAAAAY to much time in the gym ha ha ha!’

Me to Idiot: ‘…oh. You mean more time than you.’

I am the picture of restraint.  Why just yesterday I sat in a waiting room whilst wife had a (brace yourselves) panendoscopy.  And while I COULD have been writing about it I instead chose to mosey along the crest of the Wave o’ Restraint.

In case my cute wife died in which case I would have felt like a total cad.

And why a panendoscopy, you ask?  Well…how else can you get a gander at the upper regions of her small intestine?  And when you have to get there, why there’s nothing like a good old fashioned panendoscopy I always say.

Loads and LOADS of fun made even more enjoyable by me, the faithful husband, with no shortage of wise guy comments at the ready.  Which may sound…well, heartless and cruel…but you don’t get to make that sort of judgement until you’ve been on an airplane with her.

She is so funny.  The woman goes INTO crash position on taxi and I promise I am not making that up.  CRASH POSITION.  And I don’t know about you but that just begs all kinds of one-lining.  And who more able to dish it out than me.  After all, if she can keep referring to my underwear as ‘panties’ I’d say it’s open season.  Yeah I know I’m supposed to be in my seat next to her with all kinds of encouragement and soothing words.  Words like, ‘If anything should happen I just want you to know that I’ve always loved you more than anything and I’m just so <frog in throat> glad we will at least die together, holding one another’ (which I actually would say).  The problem is that it somehow gets obscured by another far more placating  phrase that goes something like this: <sound of cabin bin shutting> <Wife’s eyes the size of Buick hubcaps> Me: ‘We’re going to die.’

And then she clocks me.  Hard.  But I can’t stop laughing.  Oh the joys of normal marital sadism!

But this was no airplane, no bazillion pounds of metal and steel and wires being magically kept in the air by her fervent prayers alone!  Oh no.  This was the fifth floor of St. Joe’s hospital downtown.

Or as the sign likes to be all uppity about  :  GASTROENTEROLOGY.

Okay so were walking in and I’m like PRAYING to…well, to myself I guess actually.  And the prayer went like this: ‘do not say anything that will upset her do not say anything that will upset her dear GOD why did I have to be born with a defective Editor Lobe?!’  And it was working.  It was.  It was working just fine until I saw that sign.  And then I started laughing and I’m all, ‘okay lolololol NO WAY!’  And this did not help Jane one single bit because at this point she is certain she is going to die right on the table.  And all of my ‘oh honey it’s going to be as gentle as a little lamb lying softly in your lap’…sort of…well…refashioned itself right then and there into ‘GASTROENTEROLOGY?!?  ARE YOU SERIOUS?!  LOLOLOLOL!!!  OH MAN!!  GASTRO?!?  ENTER?!?  OLOGY?!?  HA HA HA HA!  WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST CALL IT ‘ABDOMINAL INVASION LIKE THE ALIEN MOVIE-OLOGY?!  HA HA HA HA!!’

And then she completely lost her sense of humor.

And — if you can believe this, she wouldn’t even let me come into the procedure room with her.  The nerve.   I had to sit in the waiting room with nothing but my book.  And the beloved iPhone.  And all my movies on it.  And the beloved MacBook Pro.  With all my cool stuff on it.  And I had to all by myself find reasons to use the iPhone AND the MacBook Pro and do it all with that oh-so-perfected look of casual boredom even though these devices are bad ass.

But I made up for it because I had something perfect to say when the nurse came and got me (she lived) and took me into the recovery area (no rooms, just a big warehouse with thin curtains separating patients knocked unconscious on tables where they probably harvested all kinds of gastroinvadedological things).

I was all ready with <takes hand of loving wife> ‘I have never loved you more than I do right now you doe-eyed perfect woman.’  But then that …well…refashioned itself right then and there into, ‘Hey!  They’re not bigger!  We got robbed!’

And she didn’t clock me because of the IV stuck in her arm.  In fact, she didn’t even give me The Look.  What’d I get?  I got the Slight Glance and Courtesy Laugh.  Only 17 years of marriage gets you THAT one.

A banner day.

My buddies are evil.  They’re evil and they must be stopped.

There I was, all unassuming and minding my own damned business and with no warning whatsoever they dragged my sorry butt to that most threatening of Uncomfort Zones: the sports bar.

I hate the sports bar.  I hate it.  And I don’t care if you read this and immediately go to, ‘ha ha ha ha what a little girl ha ha ha why, we’re real men and we like sports bars!’  I don’t care because I think you’re lying.

This stupid places drive me nuts for a all kinds of seemingly unrelated reasons.  First of all (little known and oft-forgotten fact coming here) I have hearing loss.  And no not the ‘pardon me? would you speak up a bit?’ kind.  Oh no.  Years before the whole Sports Bar Clog Dance From Hell they dragged my sorry butt to the mountains to shoot a gun.  And by ‘gun’ I mean a .357.  In a canyon.  Canyons echo.  With no earplugs.  Earplugs make a big difference.  My ears are (I promise I am not making this up) still ringing.  Not a big giant deal except for the fact that we’re talking about 1987.  So a few things on the hearing loss:  I’m not luxuriating in the pouty sultry design of your mouth when I stare at it.  I’m reading your lips, you nutjob.  I have to or I will think I’ve heard what you said and reply with something brilliant like, ‘…and why the hell would I want to change my oil with orange doughnuts.’  And, yes, that one really happened and they still don’t let me forget it.  Like I said, evil.

And yes I know the sports bar is so loud you can hear it all the way across town but the weird thing about my hearing loss is that it also did some weird thing to the ears such that loudness borders painful.  

Also, though the ringing is a part of my daily diet, and though it has more or less become the New Normal, every once in a while my ears will whack the hell out and the ringing will Go To Eleven.  And I’ll wince and put a hand to my ear and wait for it to pass so that I can get to whatever it was you were boring shit to stone with.

Sports bar.

So we go to the sports bar because some game was on and it seemed to hold heaven and earth in the balance and if we don’t get there Right Now and wear all kinds of sports jerseys it’s curtains for the free world.  So we go.  And though I couldn’t care less about the Stanley…Bowl…thing…or whatever the hell it is, I realize that these places serve food and I’m good with it because now I want a cheeseburger.  And I happen to know that these places do not skimp on that kind of meal because it would not work out well for them to serve anything less than a cow to Men who are watching The Game.  Could you imagine serving something girly?  It would be the food industry equivalent to having to change the tire on a subcompact car and then driving to the nearest station to get the flat fixed.  And if you’ve ever done that, and if you’re a man, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  I’d like to meet the pale, friendless virgin who designed the Barbie doll spare tire on those damn cars.  Why not just put a glitter pinwheel on it while you’re at it and let me drive down the highway with a big pink bow in my hair?

So there I am about to finish off the stalked prey in the form of  Cheeseburger that to this day brings tears to my eyes it was so awesome…

…and then this dude at the bar starts talking to me.

About the game.

And I freeze like a deer caught in headlights because I have no idea how one talks about The Game.  And my friends, in perfect friendly fashion have abandoned me to my complete inadequacy and are at the other end of the bar all amped up and high-fiving and screaming and doing that Hug From The Side thing we have to do lest the rest of the world think we wear dresses at night.

So I look at the television emitting enough light and sound to signal passing aircraft and force my eyes to focus and decipher all the colors and the sounds and the graphics and the zip-zing-flash that’s making my cerebral cortex react like it’s saturated in enough LSD to bring a clydesdale to its knees.  And in the process The Game fades to black so that The Commercial can air.  The Commercial: a guy shaving and it’s awesome because there’s steel-blue light all over the place and he’s buff and he’s tan and it’s awesome and there’s at least half a dozen women and it’s awesome and the music makes Van Halen come off like The Wiggles and it’s awesome and they’re all swooning and caressing his now very smooth yet still very manly chiseled jaw and I’m royally pissed because I never have this experience when I shave.

But that doesn’t last very long because, for God’s sake, The Game is back on and I realize he’s asked me something pertinent to The Game and I have no idea what in the hell he just asked me.

And before you think I’m some Big Fat Wussy Girl (no offense, big fat wussy girls) I’ll make sure you appreciate the fact that I am wicked strong and can put your lame ass on the floor having knocked you in the head three times before you realize you’re not staring at the ceiling.  And by not staring at the ceiling I mean you’re unconscious.  That’s how fast and hard I can hit you.  But I wouldn’t, for I am kind and benevolent and not at all unaware of the power in my punch.

So get off my back.

My friends, the alert reader will recall, are evil.  Because they have left me there entirely unequipped to navigate this minefield.  I simply did not grow up playing a lot of sports.  I can not even run and dribble at the same time.  I just never learned it.  Football?  I can’t even keep all the maneuvers straight.  Clueless.  But when they make me play I rule because I run like hell and no one can catch me.  I am lightening.  I am swift.  I am the wind.  I am running for my life because I am scared beyond expelling my bowels.  Fear has won my team many a game.

God, on the other hand, in heavenly favor, has granted my freak mind a boon in the form of knowing exactly how to answer the rhetorical question Damn Did You Just See What Giant Athlete Just Did?!  And this was what I learned in a split second of brilliant understanding:

All you have to do is (a) swear and (b) agree.

So I go, ‘Hell (a) yeah!’ (b)

And he goes, ‘Damn! He didn’t pull that crap last season!’

And I go, ‘Yeah! (b) Last season!  Hell (a) no!’  And I have no idea how in the hell Spring has anything to do with whatever Giant Athlete just did because, first of all, I have no idea what the hell Giant Athlete just did.  All I know is that bodies and limbs and some sort of ball just got knocked to kingdom come and there’s spit and grass and maniacal responses from announcers and then…

…my buddies are laughing there asses off at me and have been watching me talking back to this other dude and have come over to ask me what I’ve been saying.  And I tell them and they laugh even harder because they realize it works.

And then they ask me something else, because they know my freak brain because, even though they’re evil and deserve painful death for doing this to me lol they really are cool and they’d beat up anyone who gave me shit but not before I’d put your lame ass on the floor having knocked you in the head three times before you realize you’re not staring at the ceiling.  And by not staring at the ceiling I mean you’re unconscious.  That’s how fast and hard I can hit you.  But I wouldn’t, for I am kind and benevolent.

They ask me what I was REALLY thinking while I was watching the Stanley Bowl Cup thing and I tell them, and what I thought was laughter before transmogrifies right then and there to gut splitting laughter and mockery because what I was really thinking is ‘…how in the hell are they going to get those stains out?’

Okay, it’s Saturday and we’re going to actually fix the garage door. And by ‘we’ I mean one of my buddies is going to actually do it while I stand near and look interested and helpful. And by ‘garage door’ I mean that boxxy thingy that hangs up near the ceiling and pulls on that chain thingy and opens and closes the door.

Which actually is working just fine. The problem is we’ve misplaced the actual garage door opener. And by ‘misplaced’ I mean that somewhere in the wreckage of this household there lies hidden the garage door opener, one or two undiscovered Easter Eggs and the original plans for the Death Star.

The issue with the ancient garage door mechanism is that, though it still works, it seems to operate at a radio frequency now disallowed by the Government Office Governing Garage Door Radio Frequencies because, it would seem, that should we activate it, satellites would drop from the sky.

Whatever.

As it is, I’m not going to clean the garage until I’m sure I can open it from the outside.

(32 Hours Later)

Okay, it’s Sunday and I actually fixed the garage door.  It was hell and I am not making this up.

There must be some theorem or primary law of thermodynamics saying something about a problem devolving into chaos the more attention and energy it is given because such was the case with my experience with the God-forsaken [very unpublishable word here] garage door opener.

I basically rebuilt the entire mechanism along the way.

I cursed out my own father several times. Solely because he was not nearby to take one look at the mess and say, ‘oh. yeah. you need this-thus-and-so-boom-you’re-done’, while at the same time grabbing the correct tool from that ancient olive green canvas tool bag he’s had since God was a boy. He’s like that (my dad, that is). He can tear down and rebuild anything. I’ve seen him do it. He can take a Q-tip and a can opener and build you a Pratt & Whitney jet engine. Yet while I stood there anxiously waiting for that part of my DNA to kick in, the garage door hung askew mocking me all the while.  Mock, mock, mock.

See that photo of the garage door opener engine? (not included) That’s taken from atop my ladder. Yes, I know ‘obviously’ shut the hell up I’m not in the mood. See all those wires? (also not included) I could rewire the Space Shuttle after that. Yes, I know there aren’t but six wires involved but we’re talking about me and in Toddland that equals out to the entire electrical grid west of the Rockies.

See that gear head around which the chain moves? (again…not included) There’s a piece atop it deceivingly termed ‘chained spreader’ in the directions. Yes, I read the directions shut the hell up I’m not in the mood. It does not, I might mention here, spread the chain enough to make a damn bit of difference. but I won’t go into it because there are all other kinds of things to go into.

Like the cable wiring that maintains the proper tension of the chain drive and the weight of the garage door. Or the Golden Gate bridge.

I am also convinced that somewhere within a three foot radius of my work area (and by ‘work area’ I mean the area in which I could throw anything that made me mad during this freak show), there is a rip in the Space/Time continuum that causes cable wiring and garage door chain links to mysteriously multiply and then shrink for no reason.

There were so many stupid little detours to this pain in the rear end, it’s not even humorous.

The door opens perfectly.

The door closes perfectly.

That’s all that matters.

Well…okay, so it doesn’t close perfectly.

I don’t want to talk about it.

I’m still trying to figure out how to make all of this someone else’s fault.