over40club

Dog Gone It

My husband and I have been using the bedroom only for sleeping as of late. Too much work, too much stress, too much PlayStation3 and my new found talent of falling asleep on the couch as soon as the TV is switched on was taking its toll. I had to take a business trip to Amsterdam a few weeks ago (this is where I insert the disclaimer that my boss is not affiliated with the mafia or drug cartel although he does deal in phone numbers for SMS billing) and decided to check out one of the many sex toy shops. Actually I was walking past one with some co-workers after a night of shear debauchery drinking rose’ wine with dinner. Daredevils that we are. Anyway, we pass this sex shop and I hear giggles and snorts and the resounding “Let’s check it out ladies!” to which I get myself behind the herd and push as hard as I can to make sure we all end up inside. Hey, no one has to tell me twice. This could be my saving grace as far as my intimate encounters go.

Once inside the dude behind the counter looks us up and down once then goes back to his pot induced coma (it is legal there). That leaves us gals to roam freely giggling over such things as the rabbit rocket and other things we could not pronounce in Dutch. I look over several items in the store, some which amuse me others that scare me (who needs a rubber arm? I mean seriously,  what is that all about?) and finally make my way up to the toasted guy behind the counter.
“Excuse me”
No reply
“Um, excuse me”
Nothing
“HELLO?”
Thinking he may be dead from a hemp overdose, I grab the rubber arm and poke him with it.
“Yes?” he says, eyes still glazed over. I jump back a tad freaked that he still looks dead and he had no qualms about being poked with a giant rubber arm.
“Um, I am wondering. My husband and I, well, we could use a little excitement in the bedroom.”
His eyebrow raises as he glances at the big, black rubber arm still firmly in my grasp.
“Oh, no! My guy is more of a leg man" I blurt. "I like cute butts myself.” As soon as the words leave my lips I look around, scared that he is going to whip out a big rubber leg attached to an ass and say “Here you go! This solves it all!” Instead he leans over and pulls out a bottle behind the counter.
“This stuff is all you need”, he says.
I look at the bottle and all I can read in English is “Hot 69”. Interesting. The Dutch have figured out a way to put a sex position into a bottle. Crafty Dutchies. But, that is what you should expect from people that make shoes from tree branches.
“I am not too sure this translates well”, I say.
“It is a pheromone gel. You put this on you and your guy will not be able to resist you.”
I am almost afraid to ask the next question but, the fact I now have three arms gives me courage.
“Ah, where on me do I put it?”
“Anywhere. Use it like you do perfume.”
Shew. Ok. I can handle that. How simple! I tell the guy to give me the biggest bottle he has, put down the rubber arm, whip out way too many Euros , gather the girls who are now smacking each other with riding crops and dangerously close to breaking some odd looking, phallic, glass things and out we go. I have a bottle of Hot 69 gel and dammit, I can’t wait to get home to my guy.

Fast forward a week and I am home, jet lag firmly behind me. After spending the past seven days falling asleep at 5pm, it is finally the weekend and I am back on schedule. Time to break out the Netherland weapon of mass reproduction.

I send my hubby off to the store to pick up some mixers for our rum and scurry upstairs to the bedroom. Opening my nightstand, I dig behind my sunglasses, a rabbit rocket (I plead the 5th) and grab the glorious bottle of Hot 69 gel. I open it, squeeze out a little, dab it behind my ears, have a second thought and squeeze out a little more. 5 minutes later there is not an inch of me that isn’t covered in the musky smelling Holland magic goo and I think to myself he should be able to smell me from the driveway.  I have thoughts of him busting through the door, ripping his shirt off, pounding his chest like Tarzan and bounding up the stairs after me. “You Tarzan. Me Jane”, I say out loud with a giggle. I look down and see Buster, my puppy, looking at me. “What?” I ask him. “Ok, you can be Cheetah but, you have to stay outside when Tarzan gets home.” It is at that time I hear a noise. I can’t make out exactly what it is but, it sounds odd. Then it hits me. It is the sound of a pack of wildly barking dogs and it is getting closer.
I look at Buster again. “What did you do? Did you signal your friends? “ Imagining a pack of dogs yielding huge rubber arms, I quickly bolt for the bathroom, lock myself in, dump the entire bottle of Hot 69 down the toilet and turn the shower on full blast. Damn that stoned sex shop salesman! He sold me eau de doggy pheromone! Thanks to him I was now the most popular bitch on the block. 

20 minutes and an entire bottle of body wash later I emerge from the shower, wrinkled, scrubbed raw, heart still pounding from the scare. I can still hear the barking outside although it has calmed a bit. I am resigned to stay locked in the bathroom and thankful it is on the second floor when I hear Larry knocking on the door.
“You ok in there?”
I want to blurt out “No. I am the hottest thing since Milk Bones and in case you can't tell, I am on the menu”, but, I manage a “Yes. Just taking a shower. Be out soon.”
30 minutes later the barking stops. I slowly open the door wondering if they managed to sneak inside and seeing the coast is clear, creep down the stairs.
“What is wrong with you?” asks Larry.
“Nothing.”, I lie. I wanted to tell him the whole story but, didn’t feel like being laughed at just yet.
“Oh, guess what?” he asks me.
“What?”
“When I got home, the neighborhood dogs were all out front barking up a storm.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. I am going to have to fess up and tell him I had the word SUCKER plastered on my face in an Amsterdam sex toy shop.
“Really?”  I play dumb well.
“Yeah. Damndest thing. Seems the neighbors cat got out and they were chasing it all over our block. They finally treed it up in that big pine right outside our bedroom window. I guess they gave up. I don't hear them now. So, you wanna go watch some TV?”

Falling asleep on the couch never felt so nice.

Cravings

I was standing at the kitchen counter making my afternoon snack when I hear Larry's voice whisper in my ear. "Watermelon, peaches, pears, apples, oranges, grapes", he said.
I spun around and he had a big grin on his face. "Oh God, you're pregnant".
"No!" came the reply. "I was just whispering sweet nothings in your ear".

I really love that guy of mine.

It's only natural

I took a trip out to Sprouts Food Market yesterday to get some natural, ground chicken for the two youngest of our kitties. They are on a raw meat diet and I actually make their food every week. Ground chicken, liver powder, fish oil and some other powdered stuff. It smells nasty but, they like it and this is supposed to be so much healthier for them. Anyway, so here I am in Sprouts where I am surrounded by organic, natural foods and stuff. I have been trying to eat better, lots of fresh veggies, chicken and fish these days, so I decided that I wanted to poke around and see what kind of juices I could find. So many in the regular grocery store have high fructose corn syrup in them and that stuff is just horrid. I found one that looked yummy and thought 'hmmm, this would be tasty with some ginger ale added to it'. So off to look for some soda. I found this 'natural'  diet soda called Hansens and wondering how good or bad it might be, decided to pick up a 6 pack and try it. I also grabbed a buttermilk bath soak (I am going to treat myself to that tonight) and some perfume oils.

I got home, put all my finds away, made a batch of stinky cat food then decided to treat myself to a spritzer with my new juice and all natural ginger ale. I grabbed a big wine glass, filled it with ice, mixed my concoction and took a sip. After downing half the 6 pack in a 2 hour time frame I have come to the conclusion that Hansens Diet Ginger Ale is liquid crack. I even woke up this morning thinking about a tall glass of that gold liquid and rushed through my A.M. work out at the gym so I could get home and pop a can open. Larry made a trip to Sam's Club later on and called from the store to see if I needed anything. "Yes", I replied. "More Hansen's. In fact, can you see if Sam's carries it and if they do, grab a case. No wait. Grab two".

As I sit here savoring my last can and wondering if we could fit a tractor trailer next to the house I think it is safe to say, I am hooked. I wonder if there is a Hansens 12 Step program.

Public Enemy

Public toilets have it in for me. They discovered me at age 4 during a trip to drop my siblings off at church camp and have not left me alone since. I could write a horror movie. Jason, Freddy and a great white shark ain't got nothing on that graffiti strewn stall with the silver handled, white porcelain devil that we so trustingly give our bare backsides to. You see it as something soothing, an oasis during a long car ride but, trust me. Behind that innocent looking seat, that beckoning pool of water lays an evil menace.

As I mentioned, during my 4th year of existence on this planet, my parents, siblings and I made the yearly pilgrimage to Camp Wakonda, our church camp. I was too young to attend but, I was excited at the 'picnic' mom had planned for us on our way there. You see, this was back before the days of the Golden Arches, drive thru's and cholesterol. Back then it was homemade sandwiches, potato salad and grape soda at a rest stop. We loaded up the car and made our journey, stopping for our fabulous picnic, and then continued up the road. At a stop for gas, my 4 year old bladder decided that the grape soda consumed earlier needed an outlet. This was my first venture into the land of the public restroom stall and I wanted to be a big girl. Mom walked me into the restroom, waited while I found an empty stall, made sure I had managed to make it up on the toilet without a stepstool and with my urging that I was old enough to do my business alone, left. The door to the outside had no more than closed and I was finished. Hey, four year olds have rather small bladders. I reached for the TP and just as my hand touched it, I felt my ass shift then slip. Suddenly that paper was much further from my reach. I tried to move but, the more I wiggled the further the paper moved from my grasp. No worries, I thought. I will just jump down, grab the paper and wipe standing up. I turned my attention to getting off this great, white, hope only to feel the dampness of the toilet bowl water touching my butt. Ok, let's try again. As my legs came closer to my head and I started to resemble the letter "V" I began to realize that my 4 year old, skinny ass was not made to fit over a public toilet. My ass was sinking and there was no getting out. So with the words of "I'm a big girl and I can do this myself" running through my brain, I swallowed pride and begin to loudly say " Mama!" Nothing. Louder. "MAMA!" Nothing. My whole 4 years of life flashed before my eyes and within that 2 minute time frame, I hear a familiar voice. It is my 10 year old sister. "Do you want me to get mom?" I was torn between being a big girl and forever turning into a letter of the alphabet or admitting that I was not quite ready to take on a public potty room. As I was pondering life, pee and the pursuit of making a tinkle on your own, I hear mom's voice.

"Are you ok?"

"I can't get off the toilet". I answered.

"Can you unlock the door?"


Ok, what part of I can't get off the toilet are you not getting.

"No, I can't get to the door."

"Ok, I am going to try to get under the door to you."

Oh lord. All I can thank you for is the fact that mom is not carrying the camera with her and I will never have to suffer the humiliation of a future Prom date being entertained with these images. I see mom's head pop under the door. Then I see her arm. Then I hear, "I can't get to you. I need someone smaller." Enter my older sister. Amidst the fear that I will be sucked forever into the sewey hole, I let her pick me up off the toilet from hell, open the stall door and carry me out.

Fast forward seven years.

Dad accepted a job in a new town which meant we had to find a new home. One weekend found dad, mom and me making the journey to our soon to be new city to meet up with a Realtor. His office was in an older building and kind of hodge podge put together. After what seemed hours of pouring over pages and pages of listings (where was the internet when we needed it?) I felt nature call. I asked where the restroom was and was directed all the way to the back of this building in a section that looked like it was once a porch and had been enclosed. I walked into the restroom, shut the squeaky door, locked it and did my business. When finished I washed my hands, unlocked the door and turned the handle. The handle however, refused to turn. Ok, no biggie, let's try it again. Nope. So here I went for the next 15 minutes. Turn the handle left. Nothing. Turn the handle right. Nothing. I eventually gave up and thought ok, someone will come looking for me. 20 minutes in a bathroom is a bit much even for a pre-teen that loves mirrors. 25 minutes pass. Nothing. So, I decide this calls for a little noise. I start banging on the door. Not working. Then I add a little shouting. Still nothing. I start wondering if they completely forgot they had a daughter or if this was their evil plan all along. "Let's take her to a new city, find a place with a faulty bathroom door, wait until she has to make tinkle then leave her. Bwa ha ha ha".  I was resigned to the fact that I would most likely be found by some homeless person as I was stuck trying to squeeze through the 1 foot by 2 foot only window in the bathroom when I hear moms voice.

“Sweety is everything alright?”

“I can’t get out of here!”

“Is the door stuck?”

“No, I just really like this bathroom and I can’t pull myself away from it. Can we just move the rest of the family here as well?”

“Are you being serious?”

“NO! The handle won’t turn!”

“Let me get your dad.”

Minutes later I hear two male voices on the other side of the door followed by jiggling of the door handle. The door still won’t open and I am thinking that my earlier sarcasm may actually come true and the entire family will be moving into the realtor’s office. I can see it now. We will be the family in town with the dirty little secret.

“Have you met the new family that just moved into the old realtor’s office?”

“Yeah, I hear they keep their youngest daughter locked in a bathroom”.

About that time the doorknob falls on the floor in front of me and the door swings open. I was free. That was the last time I ever remember having a bodily function while house hunting.

Moving ahead a number of years *cough* 30 *cough*.

I had been back home to Springfield, MO to see my family. Mom and dad took me to the airport to catch my flight back to Phoenix. We got there early so we found a spot in the restaurant and had breakfast which included several cups of coffee and a few glasses of water. After saying our “see ya laters” I boarded my flight, found my seat, buckled up and realized all that coffee and water probably wasn’t such a good idea. Thank goodness I was seated fairly close to the toilet in an aisle seat and had a good chance of beating everyone else to be first to break the seal. After what seemed an eternity, the Fasten Seatbelt light finally went off and I made a mad dash for the toilet cutting off a few slower people in the process. I indeed got in ahead of everyone else and trying to be considerate, I made it a quick stop. All done. Flush the toilet. Jump at the noise it makes because I always fear getting a body part sucked in and spit out to fly amongst the clouds. Wash hands. Look for paper towels. Accidently grab Kleenex. Wash hands again to remove tissue paper. Find paper towels. Grab latch to unlock door. Latch doesn’t move. Pull latch harder. Latch doesn’t budge. Hit latch with fist. Latch appears to flip me off. Stare at latch and mutter “Dear Lord. Not again”. So the game begins. Pull latch. Nothing. Pull latch. Nothing. Finally I bang on the door hoping that someone is not obeying the flight attendant and is standing in the aisle waiting with baited breath and full bladder for me to emerge from the can. No luck. Ok, so how bad can it be to spend an entire flight in a toilet? I have water, a place to sit and I am more than set if I hear nature call. I was about to just settle in on the commode (being careful not to accidentally hit the lever and flush my ass into outer space) when I hear pounding on the door.

“Hey! I am locked in here. Can you get me some help?”

No reply.

Silence.

Back to my “seat” I go and again, more pounding on the door.

“HELLO! I AM LOCKED IN HERE. THE LATCH WON’T MOVE. PLEASE GET HELP”

Again, silence.

I am about to start thinking that maybe I am hallucinating when again, bam, bam, bam on the door.

“Are you freakin’ DEAF? I AM LOCKED IN HERE!! GET HELP YOU MORON!” I screamed as I beat on the latch.

“Ma’am. Please let go of the latch”

It was my handsome Jamaican flight attendant.

I let go of the latch and I could hear some kind of thumping and banging going on outside. The latch wiggled a bit, then wiggled some more and walla, it budged and the door swung open. Standing in front of me was the flight attendant, a non-English speaking family and about 20 people with looks on their faces ranging from anger, to pain to ‘I wonder if the windows in these things open and if anyone would notice me taking a leak out of one of them’.

I thanked the flight attendant and apologized for calling him a moron, quickly found my seat, put my seatbelt back on, hid my face in a magazine and vowed no more coffee before a flight. In fact, public restrooms in general are not a good idea. Ever.

I wonder if they make travel catheters.

Overheard

Larry and I have personalized tags on our cute Honda Element. It is a play on his business name and also plays on our silly personalities. We live in an area that is about 80% Hispanic. This area was a part of Mexico until about 1853 and there are still a lot of old, old family owned farms around here.

We had to make a quick run to Home Depot one day and as we are heading through the parking lot back to our vehicle, we see about 4 to 5 Mexicans staring at our license plate. They seemed to be perplexed by it, scratched their heads then walked on past us. As they passed us, they were saying something and Larry started giggling. "What did they say?", I asked. "They were asking each other who Amuseus (pronounced A-ma-sue-us) was."

Our plate is Amuseus, pronounced Amuse Us.

I guess that just shows that sometimes things can have different meanings. Life can be amusing or it can be some Amuseus dude. Just depends on where you are from and how you want to look at it.

All choked up

Larry and I were sitting in the living room chatting as Buster, our loveable canine child, was having his lunch just 10 feet or so from us. I look up at one point and Buster is standing with his mouth wide open like he is going to hurl. He has a bad habit of inhaling his food rather than chewing it and my first thought was 'great. He is 6 inches from tiled floor yet he is locked, loaded and zeroed in on the carpeting'. When nothing came flying from his mouth  even though it appeared he was trying harder, I suddenly realized that he was most likely choking. I stopped Larry in mid sentence and yelled to Buster "Are you ok?" as if he was going to look at me and shake his head no or stick a paw up and flash me the OK sign. About that time whatever was lodged came loose and he indeed hit the carpet. I breathed a sigh of relief and ran for the paper towels. "I was afraid I was going to have to perform the heimlich on Buster" I hollered to Larry as I was digging for the can of carpet cleaner. "And I don't think I even know how to do the heimlich on a dog, do you?" "Sure I do", he answered. "Just lift his tail and lick". As Buster decided he didn't need my help cleaning up his mess and did it himself, I stood in the kitchen trying to figure out if Larry was being cute, needed a hearing aid or if he had just had a mental snap. "Um, babe, I don't understand. What did you just say?" "I said, just lift his tail and lick. You know. The Hinny Lick maneuver".

I honestly hope that if I am ever choking on a foreign object, there is someone standing closer to me than Larry.

I can see clearly now

!We found out last month that we have to move. The house we are in is being sold so we have to move while it sits vacant for a year or more while the owners try to get more out of it than it is worth. As we were packing I ran across crap that I only see when we move. I decided that some of it has seen the last of the inside of a UHaul with us at the wheel and we made plans to have a garage sale. 

Bound and determined to unload everything I wrote up ads of all kinds and placed them in newspapers and in online publications. Larry went and rented us some tables and while I sorted and priced all of our goodies, he went to get garage sale signs. An hour later he came home just as I was finishing up tagging the last of it. As I am limping around the house rubbing aches and pains in muscles and joints I never had 20 years ago, he comes flying in the house, 14 wooden stakes in one hand and shaking two bags in the other. "99 cents! I got this can for only 99 cents!" I was wondering where the garage sale signs were and if he had been watching too many episodes of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' but, I went along with his enthusiasm as best I could. "That is wonderful babe! I am so proud of you! What kind of can do we now own?" He produces a can of spray enamel and goes on to explain that he can spray paint some of the old boxes with this white enamel then, once they dry, cut them into pieces, staple them to the stakes and write on them. I glance at the clock. It is 8:30pm and our sale starts at 6am. I know that 5am alarm is going to come pretty early. "You do know the paint will have to dry before you can write on it", I remind him. "I know. That is why I also got a can of beer to help pass the time". And with that he heads out the door, his cans in one hand and his boxes in the other.

Minutes later the backdoor opens. "Um, what color is enamel?" he asks. I rack my brain to try and decipher his question and give an intelligent answer. All I can muster at this point in the evening is "The color it says on the can. Why?"  "Because I sprayed it and it is clear but, the cap is white. Shouldn't the paint be white?" I grab the can and look at it. It just states that it is enamel. I guess that is all you get for 99 cents. Color is extra. I look at the clock again. 8:38pm. Home Depot closes at 9pm and we have to have signs up before 6am. Larry grabs his keys and flys out the door to Home Depot waving a bag in his hand. He is going to return our 99 cent can of colorless white enamel and get signs instead. What a great idea.

Just after 9pm he comes flying through the door, 14 garage sale signs in one hand and a bag with a can in it in the other. He sees my puzzled look and offers an explanation. "So I run into Home Depot, race up to the customer service desk, toss this bag on the counter and tell the guy I need to return what is in it because when I use it, it comes out clear." to which he hands me the bag. I open it only to find his beer.

If anyone needs some clear enamel, please let me know. I have a can in my fridge.

Overheard

I am in the kitchen today making myself my mid afternoon energy drink when I overhear Larry on the phone.

"Hi, this is Larry Cole. I am calling to make an appointment to get a haircut. Please call me back with an available time and a price. Also, please let me know if it is an additional charge to get all of them cut. "

Vanilla protein shakes are not meant to come out ones nose.

Where's the Beef?

Larry is an excellent grill chef. Weekends you can find him pouring over his grilling 'bibles', sticky notes in one hand to mark the pages, pen and paper in the other to make his grocery list. Some of the ingredients are a bit odd and send us into unfamiliar stores where confused employees play the game of 'what is the crazy gringo asking for'. I guess we have been lucky so far as we have never been slapped in the face or suddenly found ourselves purchasing small farm animals. Life is good on that front.

One weekend Larry had grilled us up some especially tasty porterhouse steaks with a homemade bbq sauce that I would pit against any KC steakhouse. About 1/8 of the way into the side of beef sized steak he had made for me, I gave up. When Larry got as far as he could through his portion, he told me to sit tight and he would clear the plates.

We had an enjoyable rest of the evening watching some movie through eyelids flying half mast and the occassional groan of 'I'm stuffed'. Finally around midnight we gave up and hit the sack.

The next morning Larry decided that steak and eggs was on the menu and hurried around making fresh brewed coffee, and hauling the ingredients and pots and pans out. I noticed him moving things around inside the fridge then moving them around again. I asked him what he was looking for. "Nothing", he mumbled back. 10 minutes later I go back to the kitchen expecting to see the normal 'Larry is in the kitchen' nuclear disaster but, all I saw was Larry standing in front of the cabinet that houses our tupperware style containers. He was staring at a container he held in his hands and I swear I saw his lower lip quivering. "What's wrong?" I asked. "Well, when we finished dinner last night, I put the leftovers in a container, rinsed the dishes off and loaded the dishwasher. I couldn't find the steak this morning though." He said. "Then what is that in your hand?" "The steak." "Ok, then you found it" "Yes but, it wasn't in the fridge". "Where was it?" "In the cabinet." I couldn't help but chuckle even though he was obviously upset over the misplacement, spoilage and loss of his precious steak. When Clara Peller asked "Where's the beef" back in the mid 1980's, someone should have told her "look in the tupperware cabinet".

The next morning Larry is out of bed before me. There isn't quite the spring in his step as there is no steak and eggs to be had. I hear him open the pantry for the box of Special K with Red Berries (which are strawberries but, that is another story), the cabinet for a bowl, the fridge for the milk and reheating a cup of coffee. I make it downstairs awhile later and open the fridge for some milk. There, staring me in the face is the box of Special K with Red Berries.

I am 7 years older than Larry. That means while I am in the infancy stage of this decade of my life, he is in the toddler stage of his. Neither of us is near any stage of any decade that should make us absent minded so I can only assume that living with me the last 3 years has finally taken its toll. No Larry hasn't lost his mind but, he has misplaced it. Perhaps I should check the dryer.

What if...

Like most couples these days, Larry and I find that communication is the key to our relationship. This is how we can sit a mere two rooms away from each other and talk via instant messenger. Most of the time it is a quick "hey look at what I found online" or a "who was on the phone" or "while you are downstairs, can you grab me a glass of water?". And at times the words that come across my screen just crack me up and make me think 'what if'.

Larry (05:59 PM) :
wow, both the voices to Tigger and Piglett passed away, along with their owners
Yo (05:59 PM) :
Are you doing drugs?
Larry (06:00 PM) :
Oh my God, I'm so serious!
Larry (06:00 PM) :
they just had it on the news
Larry (06:00 PM) :
and they said they weren't lieing

I sat here for a good 5 minutes trying to catch my breath. It isn't funny by any means that both men who provided the voices to two of the most beloved cartoon characters of all time, passed away but, you have to admit the way he worded it is a riot. 'Both the voices passed away along with their owners'. I never realized that there is a chance my voice could go before I do. How horrible would that be? "Woman loses voice in fatal accident. Renders body speechless".