Footloose and fancy-free? Not so much

“And stay away from the lakes,” the HOA orientation woman, says. “It may not look like it, but there’s gators in there.”

The orientation group stares at her with our mouths half-open.

“Oh yeah,” she says. “We just pulled out a seven-footer last week.” A seven-foot alligator. Living fifty feet from my brand-new home.

“And because it’s been exposed to humans, they euthanize them.” Gator, euthanized, for living in my lake. “It’s done humanely by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Well, actually, they contract it out to someone, but anyway. Once they’ve been around humans, they can’t be rehabilitated.” She pauses. “And don’t forget, all the lakes are interconnected through underground systems, so don’t think there aren’t gators in your lake. Believe me, they’re there.”

“Gators?” a shaky woman asks.

“You can’t see ‘em, but they’re there, believe me.”

Am I scared? Horrified? Both? I shoot a look at Matthew and mouth “OMG,” meaning, “freakin seven-foot alligators fifty feet from our brand new home.”

A friend told us, “If you walk the nature trails, your dog will get fleas and ticks. Oh, and so will you.” But, the realtor had us believing in the recreational possibilities of our dog walks on the nature trail. That’s bunk too?

The HOA woman tells us, “And the snakes on the nature trails—let me tell you that I don’t walk the nature trails. Moccasins, cotton mouths, Southeastern rattlesnakes….” I shoot another look at Matthew. He looks kinda blank.

“I tell you, one time, I was in my golf cart, and there was a moccasin right in my path. He was mean, they’ll strike unprovoked, and he was lookin at me,” she trailed off. “I turned around and went another way.”

Tick infestations, alligators, vicious snakes, what sinister place have we moved into?

“And if you get a flat tire on your bicycle on the nature trail at night, don’t feel around for it. There could still be a snake tooth in there.”

Me, terrified, “Do bear bells work?”

The whole room turns to look at me like I’ve just appeared from outer space. “You know, bear bells. You wear them in the woods. The bears hear the bells and are afraid that something’s in their area so they hide. Bear bells?” Everyone turns back to HOA lady.

“Well I’ve never heard of that, and I have no idea.”

The sheriff, who’s been silently sitting at a desk the whole time says, “I’ve never heard of it, but I wouldn’t trust it. Just don’t walk those trails after night.”

We leave, afraid of ponds and nature trails. I thought, “If I stay away from the ponds—which I had no intention of visiting in the first place—I’m pretty safe from alligators. I doubt they’ll come as far as our house exploring out of the water.” Much later I think, “Reptiles are cold-blooded. Are snakes really striking wayward bicyclists on trails at night?” I’m not a fish and wildlife expert, but I am confused. And ticks? I used to be a nature-hiker (remember the bear bells?); I’ve had enough ticks in my life to know how to get rid of them, and I’ve seen enough Discovery Channel horror stories to know what Lyme Disease looks like. No, I’m not out of the woods, but at least I feel a little better.

Dripping to the top

Tonight, I went to Blockbuster for a really bad movie. Matthew’s out of town, so I have guilt-free anonymous liaisons with trash media, then never tell anyone but the internet about it. Fortunately, this is a blog. No one reads blogs anymore, right? Just Twitter?

Anyway, I’m at Blockbuster picking up a Lindsay Lohan straight to DVD movie when I realize I have to pee. Pretty bad. But I’ve used Blockbuster’s bathroom before, and, I gotta tell ya, I’m plannin on holdin it til I get back to the house. It’s not like Blockbuster’s bathrooms are gross or anything, it’s just that it’s a *huge* production. I mean, first you have to ask at the desk, and they oh-so surreptitiously announce it over the intercom that a manager needs to let a customer into the bathroom. Just in case you don’t feel embarrassed yet, you have to stand around waiting for someone with the keys while that whole, long, Friday night check-out line stares at you. Makes you feel real classy.

But the Blockbuster pee party doesn’t end there. Not only is a key-holding manager necessary to let you in, but they stand there and guard the door after you go in. Process that. You’re peeing. A Blockbuster employee is on the other side of the door waiting for you. Which is more humiliating? The peeing or pee-observing? I really don’t want to find out from experience because I’ve got to say that pee observation sounds hand’s down more humiliating than being spied on. And what do they think I’m doing in there? If I were desperate enough to go through all this pee-drama, I can assure you that I’m there on serious business.

Blockbuster. Friday night. Bad movie. I *will not* pee in Blockbuster. I *will not* pee in Blockbuster. I can totally hold it til I get home.

Right.

Half-way to my car, I realize that this is probably not going to go according to plan, but I am determined that I am not turning around and going into Blockbuster. I, Christine Wy, am going to make it home. No. No I’m not. OK, there’s a decent gas station really close by, I’ll just duck in there.

I headed to the bathroom. I could hear flushing sounds, so I knew someone was in there, and I figured I wouldn’t have long to wait for her to come out. Not long enough. Immediately after the flush, the door opened, and out walked an attractive young woman. “Oh my god, she didn’t wash her hands!” was my first thought, being a germ-obsessed weirdo. Ew. Now, being skeptical of her hygiene, I decided to check the toilet seat to see if she had peed all over it—I absolutely loathe seat pee-ers. Yup. The non-hand-washing attractive woman had peed all over it. Dammit.

I weighed my options. Wipe the seat and sit, or perch and add my own spray to the Pollack-speckled seat? I opted for perch.

Relieved of my troubles, literally, I realized to my horror that now someone else was standing outside the bathroom waiting to use it. Oh no! Now this stranger is going to think I peed all over the seat, when really it was a whole urine chain of events that were now completely out of my control!

I did what any level-headed gas station restroom user would do: I tore off extra toilet paper and wiped down the seat. I cared enough what a gas station stranger using the restroom after me would think that I actually wiped down her throne. I’m ashamed, sad, and confused, but that lady will always think, “What a clean, attractive young woman that was peeing before me!

Los Pericos, what do you see in this image?

You may want to check the Wikipedia Rorschach Test site soon. It appears to have some errant Wiki-fiti of an Argentine band squeezed into the intended content.

Dream entry #8

I dreamt about the Russian mob running out the local crime syndicate. The leader of the mob was named “Chemkin,” which I don’t think is a real Russian name. The last thing I said in the dream was to someone trying to get the Russians’ attention: “You don’t find Chemkin, Chemkin finds you.” Pretty bad-ass.

Songs forgotten, faded photos

Like most 18-year-olds, I had some pretty warped ideas about what constituted a healthy relationship. Case in point: Bruce. I wish I could remember his last name so I could publish it. (Just because I retroactively hold onto warped ideals that I expected at the age of 18.)

So, Bruce. He played guitar. I believed that if he really loved me, he’d write a song about me. He did write a song while we were dating, and I kept waiting for him to say “and this is for you,” but he never did. I’d go to his house and he’d pull out his guitar and play his song, and, like a dummy, I’d sit and watch, waiting for those words. I just knew he was so on the verge of it, I could feel my mind meld pulling the words from him, “and this is for you.” No. No one had a song about me.

Like Bruce was a “musician,” he was also a “photographer.” He had this super amazingly hot 20-year-old “best friend” who he’d go shoot with. They’d break into places like the abandoned train station together, and she’d be the subject of all his photographs. GRRR! Another great chance for him to show me his boundless love by making me the subject of his photographs--gone, poof, goodbye. Having little pride at the age of 18, I begged him to take me on his photo excursions and photograph me, but he never did, saying it was better to be with the super hot girl because she was a photographer too. He did photograph me once wearing a beret and sitting in a vintage rocking chair, but he said the photos didn’t come out right. Woe betide me.

I had no pride, Bruce had no shame. He was much older than me, which I thought legitimized my awesomeness, but really it just proved his absolute creepazoid-itude. He did get me into bars, which was cool, but mostly he just stepped on my fragile 18-year-old self-esteem with big steel-toe combat boots.

Thanks for teaching me valuable life lessons, Bruce. I hope you grew up eventually too.

Germfinger

How do you non-germaphobes see the world? Do you touch PIN pads then lasciviously lick your fingers? Yeck! I am prompted, “Please use the PIN pad device below,” and I nearly die. Think of all those grubby, nasty, un-washed fingers that have danced there before you. Just seconds before you were there, someone wiped their nose and touched the PIN pad, and now here you are, typing that little number on the PIN pad with your innocent little digits, while germs wait to attack you.

Elevator buttons? I’ve gotten pretty good at those—I jab with my knuckles. I used to jab with my elbows, but it became too random, stabbing at those little dots with parts of the body that aren’t supposed to be wielded with dexterity. Knuckles. Matthew once looked at me as I jabbed the up arrow with my right knuckle and said, “Really? It’s gotten that bad? Knuckles?”

Yes, knuckles! I have never seen a cleaning staff disinfect door handles or elevator buttons.

O! And the door handles! At work, I cross myself, say a prayer, turn in a circle three times, and just grab like nothing is wrong. If only my office mate knew the horror I cringed every time I had to touch her office door knob. Not that it’s her, but that it’s all the co-workers, all the staff, all the students—they’re all touching the doorknob with boogery fingers.

At my last job, archiving at the newspaper, I would work the Sunday shift by myself. My ritual was to arrive ten minutes late, go to Starbucks for something insanely decadent involving white chocolate or caramel, and then use Clorox wipes on every surface in the office.

I started wiping my keyboard, my mouse, and my phone. Next I made my way over to the office door and scrubbed the handle from the interior and the exterior. The refrigerator doors got a go-over, and, if I were feeling really crazy, the cupboard doors that hid the fridge got a good bleaching too.

Last to get bleached were my co-workers. My lovely co-workers. I had nothing against them, but computer keyboards are like the second most contaminated surface after toilet bowl handles (we won’t go on the subject of toilets and aerosol fecal spray--we just won’t). So here were my co-workers, Chicago, winter, flu season, sneezing and typing in their own stew of germs and they didn’t even know it.

On a light day I’d just use some Lysol and spray down all their keyboards and phones. On a “Christine’s nuttier than usual” day I also Clorox wiped all of their work stations. Thoroughly. I like to think that I was doing them this special favor that they didn’t even know about. Like I was the germaphobe’s Clark Kent, weirdo newspaper girl by weekday shift, germ warfare nuclear committee on weekends. Every Monday, they’d return, grumbling about The Mondays, but, I knew, I knew I did them a huge favor and they were returning to sanitized desks, delivered via yours truly.

I have actually spoken to more than one clinician about this. They all agree that while my germaphobia may be exaggerated, I’m actually not OCD. Isn’t that comforting? I’m a mild form of nutters, not full-fledged therapeutic-like.

OK, now a big secret that’s not a secret anymore because I’m telling you: I hate sharing computers with my husband. He’s not a germaphobe. He could have touched nearly anything and been perfectly OK with it. He could have touched the garbage can, not washed his hands, and then touched the keyboard! Yeep! I deal with it, OK, I’m not crazy. I suck it up and pretend like it’s OK and deal with it—then every few days I do a sweep of the house and Clorox wipe all the computers.

Here’s the worst part: my neuroses don’t transfer to any useful hang-up. Touching a bus railing gives me cold chills, but looking at dog hair on my floor that really ought to be vacuumed doesn’t faze me at all. Why would that be? If something directly impacts my distorted sense of safety, I am god-awful uptight. I have Selective Narcissistic Neuroses Disorder.

I have to go wash my hands now. I touched the keyboard AND the mouse.

Eating at my heart

Cravings are curious, unpredictable things.

When I moved to Chicago in 1998, I was shocked at the number of hot dog stands. Everything from one window booths to large sit down restaurants committed to the peddling of hot dog cuisine could be found anywhere in the city, no matter the neighborhood. Weird. I can’t think of any culinary predilection in my home of Louisville, Kentucky like hot dogs were in Chicago.

I resisted the hot dog ubiquity, but, caving in to the expediency of the dog, I tried one of Chicago’s venerable hot dog institutions, Demon Dogs. It was directly under the Red Line train across the street from DePaul University where I was a student. Desperate for protein, I gave it a shot.

First, Demon Dogs was one of those “Chicago guys” kinda places—you have to say that with the rough Chicago accent to make sense. Demon Dogs spoke a different language than I do, and the entire operation moved through order, prep, and sale so quickly that I had no idea what to do. There was no dawdling in line. You stepped up, stated your hot dog mission, paid, and received it—no nonsense allowed.

Despite my minor panic attack at the foreign wiener experience, I managed to pull it off. Over to one of the stand-up tables, the kind that should have had bar stools but didn’t. First bite of my first Chicago dog: “snap.” What the hell was that? Freaky feeling in my mouth. OK. I can do this. I can order and eat a Chicago hotdog. “Snap.” What the fuck?

I felt ill. My dog had a texture unlike any I’d ever experienced. I ate it, because, like I said, I was pretty hungry, but believe me when I tell you I did not enjoy it.

I went home and described my Demon Dog to Matthew, “And then, when I took a bite, it snapped!”

“That’s just the natural skin casing.”

“The what?” I asked, totally grossed out by this conversation and getting queasy to think of what I’d eaten.

“Chicago dogs are made with a natural skin casing unlike hot dogs you get from the grocery store.”

Natural. Skin. Casing. That means ... intestines! Oh my god. Demon Dogs put me off the whole Chicago dog experience for quite a while.

My first job in Chicago I worked in a chintzy mall store full of second rate shops and scary food. Hungry and desperate again, I went for the Chicago dog. I braced myself, “Snap.” What was it with natural skin casing?

The mall dog broke some sort of barrier for me, though. Yeah, Chicago hot dogs snapped at you, but maybe they weren’t so horrible after all. After the mall dog, I became more experimental. I’d end up trying lots of different hot dog stands, and, eventually I learned to love the snap of a natural skin casing.

From disgust to adoration, me and the dog. I’m typing this from Florida, far, far away from the Windy City dog. And I’m craving. I’d give anything for a natural skin casing dog right now. Cravings are curious, unpredictable things.

Facebook's alternate reality

I’ve blogged a little about it before, but Facebook is doing straaange things to my head.

One: I have learned that I am a Negative Nelly. I look back and remember all the reasons relationships with Facebook’s ghosts of the past didn’t work. They’ve contacted me and told me all the wonderful things they missed about friendship with me. [Insert eerie noise of brain doing flip-flop here.] Hold up. There’s a different perspective?

OK, there being different perspectives is going to seem acutely obvious to people with more evolved brains than mine (most of you), but coming from an apparently self-centered person, this is huge. The world doesn’t exist solely as I see it.

Result of FB Lesson One? I have forgiven some of the hurt that signaled the end of former relationships. I have mentally salvaged the good bits, dusted them off and said, “Yeah, this is worth holding on to.” Channels of communication are re-opened and I’m feeling the love again.

Two: There are people I thought were friends who I may have to de-friend in the real world. A woman I singularly admired as the coolest, awesomest girl I knew keeps company with total flakes. It’s harsh to judge people by lame, isolated computer-generated quips, but the digital company she keeps speaks volumes about her. She gets eighteen comments for everything that she posts and they all say, “Love you!” “You are so cool!” “Rad!”

FB isn’t a digital collective of genius conversation, but all of her friends are so inane. Why would she keep the company of so many sycophantic nabobs who can never string together a more coherent sentence than “Your [classy, elegant party] ruled! Yeah!” And all eighteen of the other respondents said the same thing. What digital “friends” universally declare incoherently that this major, beautiful milestone in your life “ruled”? Unsavory. Sorry friends, you’re judged by the company you keep, and your company says “tacky” all over it.

Maybe that’s the Negative Nelly and I should assume that some people have trouble communicating via computer, but, um, that many of them? I’m going to have to go back to Lesson One and remember the good conversations I’ve had tete-a-tete with this woman and hold onto what I believe about her intelligence. Who knows why we have the friends we have, I guess, I just wish that hers reflected her better nature.
Facebook, you blow my mind. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but Facebook is reconstructing my world view.

Neuroses installment #155: Earplugs

Since moving to Florida, I have not been able to find my favorite brand of earplugs. When I mentioned this to my office mate, she said in disbelief, “You have a favorite brand of earplugs?” I mean, she’s kinda used to the weird stuff like this that comes out of my mouth, so I don’t think she was that shocked, just mentally adding another tick mark on the list of “Christine’s insane” tally. Usual stuff.

So the problem is that my globally favorite brand of earplugs is Leight Sleepers. I highly recommend them if you can find them at your drug store. Their purpose: live music. They are absolutely the right sound dampening to let the music in adequately and still hear people who talk into your ear without the live music making your ears ring the next day. Instead, you come home refreshed, having had a fun time and not sacrificing ear health.

I’ve been getting by with these purple things that I found at a drug store, but they are too dense, the music is garbled, and I can hear nothing of my friends’ voices. Suck. Must have Leight Sleepers back. Google search!

Google turned up several results, the first of which was a 200 pack for $20. Seemed excessive since I really don’t see live music that often. OK, next two offerings are Leight Sleepers brand but not the style I like. Ah, here’s one, a ten pack for $3. Perfect. Click on the store, enter information, go to check out, shipping price $15! You’re kidding me, right? A ten pack of foam nuggets? Not cool dude, not cool.

I searched through the Google results again, but nothing was right. I took the plunge. I bought a case of 200 earplugs. And, the sale was through Amazon, so why not buy two books I’ve been wanting? Things I Learned about my Dad (in Therapy) and It Sucked and then I Cried. Now I qualified for super saver shipping! Rock.

Anyone need earplugs? I have about 160 I can spare.

Losing Me

I was a substitute teacher in Chicago public schools. Believe it or not, the students and in-class work really weren’t that bad. You hear “Chicago public school,” and I know you are thinking terrible scenarios, but it wasn’t the kids who gave me trouble—it was my fellow substitutes.

When there were more teachers out than there were subs to cover, one of the schools I worked at would put all the subs they had in the auditorium and turn all the students loose to sit in sections by class. As for my co-workers, there was this ancient guy who came off like a weather-beaten Chicago mafia grandfather and three young women about my age. I naively bounced into the auditorium thinking “Oh yay! Three new friends!” I sat down, smiled, did the “Hi I’m Christine,” and they all kind of scowled at me. The old guy scowled because that’s just what he did, but I had no idea my cohorts would be Negative Nelly’s too. They wouldn’t look at me, talk to me, or sit near me, and I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t let me fit in. I couldn’t see that we were so different.

I overheard them complaining about no money, shitty jobs, too many student loan bills, and credit cards, and I thought, “I have those problems too… why aren’t they talking to me?” For whatever reason, I was just not invited to the in-club, but I so desperately wanted to join. I came up with a strategy, next opening I got, I’d pretend like the world was crushing me with debt and joblessness too. I mean, it was, but if I dwelt on it I’d be too depressed to move. Moment came, I laid it on.

“Yeah, I don’t make hardly any money here, especially since they don’t call me every day.” They rolled their eyes and groaned, sympathizing.

“I mean, I have crazy student loan debt that I have no idea what to do about. And my credit card? I used that just to survive college, now I have to seriously pay it off? With what?”

“Oh yeah, me too,” one of them said. “I mean, you pay so much for school, then, this is what you get?” We nodded and mm-hmmed.

And then, I felt horrible. They were finally talking to me, but as we continued commiserating, I felt the pull of the credit card and the crappy unreliable job and my rusted-out car.

I was miserable. I went from naïve, cutesy little, “Hi! I’m a teacher!” to an amazingly unhappy depressed person. I would get the morning phone call, “Can you teach today?” and my heart would sink. “Oh great, another day of misery to trudge through.”

Those young women didn’t become my friends. We may have reached a sympathetic level of communication, but they did nothing but bring me down. When I was around them, my world-weary miserable-with-life self would come out. Around them, I became less myself because I had traded in my happiness for acceptance into a tribe of petulant twenty-somethings.

It’s hard to look back at the simpler Christine and not regret the way life’s grind wears out a person’s childhood presumptions about the future, but I can’t forget the learning opportunities I’ve had along the way. The public school triumvirate taught me that sinking to the lowest common denominator just to ease loneliness really isolates you from yourself. I don’t think I’ve lost my naivety completely, but I know I’ve gained maturity from all those hard lessons earned at my innocence’s expense.

Random internet word-spew:

"I guess you can be a bitch like that when you are queen of the internet?"

Global finance and baby asparagus

The greatest economic indicator is going to be my stomach. If you see me eating organic ground turkey, baby asparagus, and pre-cut watermelon, then the world is fine. If, however, you peek in my shopping cart and see ground chuck, French style green beans, and canned peaches, then you know we are in trouble.

Wild, sweet fragrance

Wild honeysuckle cascades down the wood fence south of my front porch. Every time I open the door, the nectar-drunk scent hits me bodily; I feel enveloped in its honeysuckle cloud. I inhale honeysuckle with my nose, my mouth, my eyes, and my arms, as it exhales through the soles of my feet. I feel the pure essence of wild honeysuckle deep in my lungs, inspiring my limbs to breathe in the scent too. My chest fills with the lightness of invisible clouds.

Our wild honeysuckle is technically an invasive weed. In the two years we’ve lived here, I’ve seen the vine quadruple in breadth, overwhelming the cultivated ivy below it. But we’re poor renters here. Our landlords would never spend enough time at our homes to notice their weed-choked flower beds filling with honeysuckle, so why should we bother?

I bank on cultivar indifference. Every year when I smell honeysuckle I am reminded of how homesick for the scent I was during its absence. I yearned for its deep fragrance even though I had forgotten it was missing.

This year, for whatever wild, fanciful reason, I am even more in love with the honeysuckle vine than usual. Quentin Compson taught me a deep power of honeysuckle’s role in our memories, and I feel reverberation of his knowledge every spring. Each breath I take, I pray, “Please don’t let anyone notice this weed and wish it harm. This year, please, let the sacred scent linger longer in my body. This year, let me breath deeper.”

Next year, surprise me again with your wild blossom.

Wiki-fiti

I love finding graffiti in Wikipedia. Behold:

In 1559, Spanish Pensacola was sam so fine following year.

I italicized "sam so fine" for emphasis. Love it.

Footie--not futbol

My feet hurt. I have really bad arthritis in my subtalar joint, droopy arches, and pronation. I like my new podiatrist, but her voodoo isn’t working on my right foot.

I want to go to South Africa.

In college, I somehow ended up friends with the long distance track team. And somehow they were almost all from South Africa. The South Africans told a story of a foot guru who could fix anything.

Way out in the bush, a place where there were no roads and you’d bust your car’s oil pan in a minute, there lived a man who was a master of feet. He analyzed feet and just from looking could make any orthotic to custom fit your footie needs.

The weird part of the foot guru? He used phone books. He cut pages of phone books and stacked the leaves to fit the arch.

His phone book supports were always perfect. The runners expressed reverence for his skill and spoke of him with awe. The grueling trip through the bush was worth it all.

I want that. I want to go the bush country of South Africa and have the most perfect arch supports ever. Bye-bye subtalar joint pain! Bye-bye pronation! Hello strong arches!

I’m jealous. There must be a foot guru in the United States, right? I’ll take phone book supports—no problem.

Creep-o's in my closet

Actual e-mail to my boss:

Boss, I’ve decided my office is haunted. I hear strange irregular tapping sounds coming from behind me all day. It’s always been like this, but I thought it was a bathroom noise—people coming in and out. I no longer think that. The sound comes from behind me where there’s a maintenance closet.

Rather than call a priest, I propose that I need a noise cancelling radio system next to the noise or those fancy Bose aircraft worker silencer headphones.

I used to just ignore the noise, but now I am thoroughly creeped out.

Sincerely freaked,
Christine Wy

Actual response:

How about I call Bose and ask for an exorcist?

-Boss

The lady condescends

I’m talkin to a guy who obviously has an accent. Somehow the accent comes up in conversation, and he says, “Besides, no one can understand me.”

I could understand him clearly, but whatev. I asked, “Where are you from?”

“Sierra Leone.”

Brain wheels start churning badly, and fortunately my Thought Filter was semi-functional that day.

“Blood diamonds!” Brain shouted.

“Shh!” via Filter.

“Forced child labor!” Brain again.

“Quiet!” Filter says.

“Civil war!”

“I’m getting tired of this,” Filter exhales.

“Ooh! The fighting, is your family OK?” Actual mouth says. “D’oh!” Filter says. “That’s some nicely condescending National Geographic crap--assuming he considers himself lucky to escape some horror.”

Polite gentleman: “It’s safe. There hasn’t been fighting in years.”

Brain: “Yeah, like two, right?”

Filter: “Shut the fark up already!”

Random thing that pisses me off

Wanna know what really grinds my gears? Semi-pro singers who grab-up karaoke spotlights. Don’t you get enough attention singing on your own that you can let us Plebes have a little fun and not be intimidated by you? Like, what’s up with that?

So, Matthew and I were at a party. This party boasted karaoke and 80’s music—perfect! But, no, awesomeness was not to be had. First, no one at the party but us was into the 80’s music part. Second, some woman jumped up the second the karaoke book was passed around and instantly had her smug little face in front of the microphone. I didn’t think about it too much until she opened her mouth and belted out an amazing pitch-perfect rendition of a Janis Joplin song.

Dood. Give the rest of us a chance—you just took a little piece of my heart.

One day I'll be infected

My adventures with toxoplasmosis gondii effing continue. Why can’t I get away from this germy-virus thing?

Our neighborhood is a veritable dog buffet of cat shit since all the feral and “outdoor” cats poop willy-nilly in the sandy soil. Joy to Blanche DuBois, champion of munching all things disgusting!

I do try to keep her away from cat poop, but she’s so low to the ground that it’s hard to tell when she’s sniffing to mark her territory or sniffing to snatch a turd. She’s eaten many a cat turd on my watch, but yesterday I snapped.

Blanche found herself a whopper of a poop fest, and I flipped out. I wrenched her mouth open and started to pull the poo from her mouth. Ever tried this particular maneuver? The poo is slimy and doesn’t want to come out—it’s not like grasping a twig or something reasonably solid. She had worked it down pretty far, so as I held her mouth open with one hand and yanked with the other, she gagged and tried to twist away.

Successful in extracting the turd, I didn’t feel vindicated. I looked at my right hand and thought, “What have I done?” My right hand was covered in semi-moist cat shit. It was my turn to gag. I nearly did vomit, and I held my hand as far from my face as I could. I choked, walking to a palm tree to wipe my hand on its leaves, but this didn’t really cure the waves of nausea.

I yanked the dog leash and wrestled Blanche home, her own necessities be damned. New dilemma: my house key was in my right pocket, and my right hand was covered in gritty shit. I banged on the front door with my left elbow. Twice. Finally Matthew acted goofy and looked through the curtains at me. “Open the damn door!” He obliged and walked away.

“My hand is covered in cat shit. Take the dog. I have to clean up.”

“What?” he asked.

“I got mad at her for always eating cat turds so I reached in her mouth and pulled one out,” I explained. “Now I regret it because I’m absolutely disgusting.”

I let go of her leash and headed for the sink. I used the dish scrubber, dish soap, and a follow-up of bleach. I still felt unclean, though I was probably technically sanitized. I felt I could never use my right hand again because it would always be tainted by that notorious toxoplasmosis carrier, cat feces.

Unhelpfully, Matthew didn’t come to the rescue. I was so mad at the dog I could barely look at her, but he didn’t help. He left her leash on her and didn’t feed her, leaving me to finish the dog walk routine, even though I yelled at him to take care of her.

I didn’t want to touch her, didn’t want to get near her mouth, didn’t want her to belch after dinner, didn’t want her to fart—didn’t want to be anywhere near the organism that reminded me of my terrible fear of infection by toxoplasmosis. But, I did it. If Matthew wasn’t helping, it didn’t mean that her care wasn’t over.

Her sit and stay routine before being rewarded with access to her food was harsher than normal, but what was I supposed to do? Overlook the fact that I had just scrubbed gooey cat shit from under my fingernails?

I still haven’t forgiven her, and this morning I pushed her face away from me every time she got too close. I felt a twinge of guilt for being mad at her for doing something that comes naturally to dogs, but I just couldn’t deal with my emotional connection to her mouth.

I am resolved to be nice to her tonight, but I am not particularly pleased. That mouth still represents colossal horror.

Asshole's revenge

I have a large proboscis. I’m OK with it now, but I really had to grow into my nose, both physically and emotionally.

As a pre-teen, I was teased mercilessly by my peers. They made my life at school a terrible hell, but I obviously survived their cruelty.

My best friend toward the end of middle school was Gretta. She had one of those super cool older sisters that even though she was still in high school; she only hung out with college-age guys. The guys didn’t like me, but they mostly ignored me.

One dreadful sunny day, the college guys turned on me. “Chris ‘nose’ everything,” they taunted. I couldn’t believe adults would be so awful—I thought they were supposed to be mature. “Get it, Chris ‘nose’ everything,” they said over and over.

I played dumb to protect my broken ego—I pretended they said “knows.” Over and over I politely defended myself. “I don’t know everything.”

“No, no, get it? Chris ‘nose’ everything.” Laughter.

I stubbornly continued to protest until they eventually gave up their game—which took them way too long to tire of.

I haven’t heard anyone comment on my nose in years, though it’s still a rudder on my face. I will try to say I outgrew caring, but I know that if someone taunted me again, I’d cry on the inside.

Those jerk-wads have their revenge now. I have a dog that “nose” everything. Blanche must touch everything with her nose. Whether it’s your hand she’s sliming with her wet nose as you type, your laptop, the software I tried to peacefully install this morning, she must give it a good sniff.

Those ass-hats may have been totally out of line, but I kind of ‘know’ what they felt now. My nose my have irrationally irritated them or have just provided jockstrap humor, but now my “nose of the south,” Miss Blanche DuBois, noses all over everything.

I’m not in a dog nose mood today after an incident happened between me and her yesterday afternoon, and I’ve pushed her face away every time she’s gotten in my business. I feel mean, but I just can’t do nose right now, I say as my allergies kick in and my own nose feels like a time bomb.

Blanche ‘nose’ everything.