Tongue In Check

We are leaving for a 3 day get-away in Ohio. Let’s be honest. Does anyone ever go to Ohio for a “get-away?” Before you even attempt to answer that question, just understand one thing. The answer is no. However, ever the contrary that I am, that is exactly what I am doing.

My wife has 3 bags piled up by the back door and I am sure there are more hidden away somewhere that she will spring on me just as we are ready to go out the door. Did you hear that? I said 3 bags. 3 bags for 3 days. Is that even possible?

It takes me about 2 minutes to pack because I figure that if I forget anything that I might need, there is always a store somewhere in America (or Ohio) where I can buy whatever item it is I might have forgotten.

My packing list is as follows:

• fresh bottle of Gin.
• one freshly washed and waxed Chihuahua and all related Chihuahua items.
• everything else.

I only need to load the above mentioned items into my truck, put on my flip flops, and I will be ready to go. My wife, on the other hand, is still waiting for the moving van to show up.

but very dumb.

There’s a story on KSL, that liberal bastion of Mormon journalism, about a store in American Fork Utah that sells sexy lingerie. It seems the city council wants to find a way to regulate these sexually explicit stores.

All that is fine and well and completely expected in a backward ass cave dwelling state like Utah, but what I want to know is how do Mormon women wear those lingerie? I mean do they wear them over or under their special underwear?

This may be one of life’s greatest mysteries for me.

I bet that woman in the picture isn’t a Mormon.

here are 10 interesting facts about yours truly that you should know:

1. I rarely finish any project I start. I am not sure why I can’t do it, but I will always take it just so far and then quit.
2. I rarely, if ever

If you have ever looked at a map of Michigan, you might have noticed that we have this little appendage sticking out of Wisconsin that is attached to our state in name only. I mean geographically it belongs to Wisconsin and philosophically it belongs to West Virginia, but why it is stuck to Michigan, I will never know. Anyway, we Michiganders commonly refer to it as the U.P. and people from the region are referred to as Yoopers. Yoopers are like Mormons, only with more “teefs” and instead of “special underwear,” they wear these.

Yoopers are a hardy bunch that make do with nothing and that is a good thing because they have nothing. I mean let’s face it, when you live in a part of the state that only has trees and beavers (and not the good kind either) you have to make do with nothing.

Anyway, my mom sent me this joke today and I thought it was funny. Of course if you are not from Michigan and have never met a Yooper, this won’t mean much to you, but on the off chance you can imagine living life as a snow-bound hillbilly, you might appreciate this.

Before you read the joke though, you might need a lesson in “Yoopernese.” It’s a lot like Joey Polanskinese, only different.

Anyway, here’s the joke:

The National Poetry Contest had come down to two semi-finalists:

a) a Yale graduate;
b) an Upper Michigander.

They were given a single word, and then allowed two minutes to come up with a poem containing that word.

The word they were given was “TIMBUKTU”.

The Yale graduate stepped up the microphone and said:

“SLOWLY ACROSS THE DESERT SAND
TREKKED A LONELY CARAVAN.
MEN ON CAMELS – TWO BY TWO
DESTINATION – TIMBUKTU”.

The crowd went crazy! No way could the Yooper top that, they thought.

The Upper Michigander calmly made his way to the microphone, and recited:

“ME AND TIM A HUNTIN’ WENT,
MET T’REE WHORES IN A POP-UP TENT.
DEY WAS T’REE, AND WE WAS TWO
SO I BUCKED ONE, AND TIMBUKTU“.

The Yooper won hands down

I spent an hour or so outside this morning fighting the war against the weeds but it is a scorching hot day here in my part of Michigan today, so I am going to spend the rest of the day in the house. Well, until happy hour anyway.

I spent the rest of the morning getting my wireless set up and may I just say that it was one of the most trying things I have ever done. AT&T now offers a high speed wireless service that comes in over your phone lines and I must say it works quite well, but installing it on your computer takes forever and a fucking day. When you live out in the sticks though, it is about the best you can do.

It is kind of nice not to have to worry about getting the computer in just the right spot to catch stolen wireless waves as they came (uninvited) through my living room though. Once I connected to the stolen wireless internet, I couldn’t move the computer by as much as a half an inch or I would be severely and thoroughly disconnected.

Which brings up an interesting question: if internet waves come through your house and you don’t ask them to, how can it be stealing? I mean is it my fault if my computer latches on to these waves and surfs porn all by itself? Now that I no longer need stolen wireless internet, I think I am going to hire a lawyer and sue the itnernet because it is tresspassing. Once I win that suit, I am going to sue the radio for tresspassing too.

Newsflash: I have only worn shorts since I left Utah and haven’t even seen a pair of pants. I haven’t had on a shirt since sometime yesterday and I only put that on because I had to go into town to buy cigarettes. Oh, and underwear? That may be a thing of the past. On Sunday morning my wife called me a scruffy old man, referring I think, to the fact that I hadn’t shaved in a while. I did finally shave yesterday, but that was only because I wanted to avoid a major operation to get the fur off my face.

All in all, life’s been good.

The Chihuahua has finally adjusted to me being home and will let me out of her sight for a few mintues at a time. If I am gone too long though, she starts whining and walking through the house looking for me. She’s a whiny little bitch.

The Mormons announced yesterday that the 1 millionth missionary has been turned loose on the world. They seemed rather proud of that fact, but to me, the whole event bordered on tragedy. That means that there is another Mormon fuckstick out there knocking on doors and bothering the shit out of people. I would love for the millionth missionary to come to my door so that I could tell him to go fuck himself a million times.

Hey, maybe the millionth missionary is Mitt Romney.

This is the view looking out of the back door of my garage. You are looking at what used to be a small strawberry patch and a garden with a few tomato plants and some beautiful flowers. Over the years, it has been taken over by weeds. Evil weeds.

Today I will begin a campaign to root out the weeds and destroy them. My wife is worried because hidden amongst the weeds are some flowers that she says are worthy of saving. These insidious weeds are using the flowers as shields to protect them from the hell I am about to unleash on them. The code name for this operation is Operation Rabid Chihuahua.

I told my wife that I would do my best to keep the flowers from any harm, but that if this campaign is to be successful, there will be some civilian casualties. I have the latest in weaponry and I have been well trained in the use of these lethal weapons and I am not afraid to use them.

I have captured several of the weeds and I am currently holding them in an undisclosed location. I am attempting to extract some strategic information from them, but they are rather tight-lipped and are not willing to talk to me at the moment. I am threating them with advanced technology, but they still refuse to talk.

In a few minutes, I am going to go out and kill a few of the flowers right in front of the weeds just to prove to them that I mean business and am in no mood to be fucked with.

I have sent out forward scouts to try to determine the enemies strength. After several minutes of reconnaissance, she returned shivering and ran into her cage.

I don’t think this is going to be easy. War is hell.

First of all, may I just take a moment to say that I miss the Mormons and their narrow-minded view of the world (George Bush is God and everything else sucks). I have nothing to hate right now and without something to hate, I feel so empty.

I spent the day working out in my garage. I would like to say that it was a pleasure, but it really wasn’t. See, I am particular about my tools. I like to put them down someplace knowing that they will be there when I come back for them. The notion that someone would put them away is appalling to me. Anyway, after I spent several hours trying to locate all of my tools, I built my wife a compost bin so she can continue composting with some measure of style. It didn’t turn out as nice as it did in my mind, but things almost never do.

This is going to sound awful, but it is true. There are two things I hate besides Mormons: composting and recycling. We (and by we, I mean my wife) do both around here. I really don’t know why we (she) recycles because the company that picks up our trash takes it to a “sorting center” where they pull out all the recyclable stuff before they haul it away to a landfill. Recycling, as far as I am concerned, just ensures that my garage is cluttered and infested with raccoons and other vermin. Everybody thinks that recycling and composting are good for the environment and I suppose that globally speaking that might be the truth, but as far as my own personal environment goes it sucks.

When I was taking a shower earlier today I noticed something very disturbing. No, I am not talking about that kind of disturbing. Anyway, there were 5 bottles of shampoo and only 4 bottles of cream rinse. How can such a thing happen in this day and age when cream rinse and shampoo are always sold as a matching set? Does this mean someone is not using enough shampoo or that someone is using too much cream rinse? This is a mystery I shall have to get to the bottom of and very quickly. We just can’t have things like this going on around here. For the last 3 years I have been living with 1 bottle of shampoo and 1 bottle of cream rinse. Things need to be just that simple.

My wife’s name is Anne and if you ever write her name down as “Ann,” she gets very mad. One time on her birthday, I ate the “e” off the name on the cake so that it just said Happy Birthday Ann and she got really pissed at me. I had to file a restraining order against her and spent a month in a shelter for battered women (there are no shelters for battered men and even if there were, who they hell would want to be there since the pickings are so much better in a shelter for battered women). But that is another story that I will have to make up for another time.

Anyway, in my mind, I still call her Ann. I mean who would know the difference because when the word is spoken, you can’t tell the difference between Anne and Ann.

Hell, for all she knows, I am calling her An.

My wife is going to be so proud of me. Today I rearranged the living room. First of all, I removed our old 1937 TV set (complete with hand crank) and replaced it with the new one I bought when I was in Utah. It is going to take some time for my wife to learn how to operate the remote control, but she’s a smart woman (I mean just look who she married) and will figure it out in time. I also got rid of the entertainment center that was so old that it wore a powdered wig and sported Elvis Presley sideburns. There seems to be a lot more room in here now. I think the new arrangement may have improved my stolen wireless internet connectivity a little bit too.

Now there’s the issue of what to do with all the stuff I didn’t put back in here. Personally I think it looks pretty good piled up on the dining room floor, but I don’t think my wife is going to agree.

Is there a name for a person that just cannot throw things away? I certainly don’t have this disorder because I will throw anything and everything away, but I know someone that is heavily afflicted with the disorder. I wish I could remember the name of it. It seems to me that if you don’t have a use for something and you don’t know someone who does, you should simply get rid of it because if you don’t, I think you will end up like this.

Hey, what is the deal with all these missing and presumed dead pregnant women lately? Did Scott Peterson start a new trend or something? Is every whacked out and unhappy husband in America now hell bent on killing his pregnant wife and unborn child in an effort to out do the previous killer? I don’t know for sure, but divorce still seems easier. Maybe not cheaper, but certainly easier.

It’s so quiet here at night that instead of the incessant blaring of car alarms and run-away shopping carts rolling rhythmically across the blacktop of the Wal*Mart parking lot, I hear crickets, frogs, coyotes and the occasional night bird off in the distance somewhere. I had forgotten how soothing those sounds were.

Towards the end of my stay in Utah, I had developed some pretty severe sleep issues, and by that, I mean I was barely sleeping at all with or without the aid of Gin or Ativan. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until I got to Missouri that I actually slept through an entire night. Of course if you have ever been to Missouri, you understand why it is so easy to sleep there.

Eventually I will have to call into work and let them know I am here and ready for work, but in the mean time, I just want to enjoy this fantasy of being semi-retired. Tomorrow I think I’ll build a bird-house.

Or maybe I’ll just surf porn.

to be home again.

First of all, I’ll get around to visiting all of your blogs real soon. I have been busy unpacking and putting stuff away, but that is a never ending job that will drive you to total distraction if you continue with it….which I won’t be.

Oh yeah, and I have been fighting stolen wireless internet which used to be reliable, but isn’t anymore. Therefore, I will be getting actual non-stolen wireless internet installed here on the 26th of this month. It costs more than the dial up that we have, but since I can no longer bear using dial-up, I would be willing to pay more to get actual usable internet service.

So how did I spend my first day at home? Well, I went to my favorite bar for lunch and accidentally had 4 Gin & Tonics and came home and slept the afternoon away. It only seems like I didn’t get anything done, but that’s because you are looking at things the wrong way. If drinking and sleeping are major accomplishments (which in my world they are), then I got a butt-load done today.

Now I think I am going to have a cup of coffee because I obviously won’t be going to sleep for a while anyway.

After 2100 miles, a certain little Chihuahua has laid claim to my truck and refuses to give the keys back until I learn to act my age.

I would have been home sooner, but my wife who drinks water like normal people drink Gin, had to stop and pee every 5 miles. I spent more time in rest stops than I did on the road. I think she has a thing for truckers.

Now the real fun begins.