I Hid in the Vestibule

So I'm at my usual Tuesday night meeting tonight, for the first time since the Big O happened. It was with mixed feelings that I went there tonight, having missed my exciting duties but with the bad taste of Mr. Ick's back-rubbing story still stuck in my mouth. Ewwwwww.

Mr. Ick's wife, Mrs. Ick, showed up this time. Apparently there was some anxiety over Mr. Ick's coming home so late the last two weeks I was there, so Mrs. Ick made sure to tell me, "We have to leave on time tonight. We have a sick boy at home" (I think it was her grandson, but I have a sneaking suspicion she was talking about her dog).

*Let's pause here, so we can all imagine me slapping the crap out of Mrs. Ick*

Excuse me, Mrs. Ick. I'm sorry my husband doesn't pick me up on time (which I have absolutely no control over), but I believe it was your salacious-story-sharing husband, Mr. Ick, who chose to sit around waiting for the Indian in the cupboard to come to life and hack me to death as I waited for my husband to arrive. Never at any point have I uttered the following: "Please, Mr. Ick. I feel so afraid, sitting behind two sets of heavy locked doors that can't be kicked in because they open to the outside. Won't you stay with me, so that I might be protected by your 80-year-old self?" So don't be pulling this "We have to leave on time" crap. If you want to leave, you know where the door is.... you old blowhole.

The Icks and Mrs. Blossomhead were all ready to go by 9:15 (closing time, by the way, is 9:30). As Mr. Crybaby had not yet left his coded phone message - "It's butt-clapping time" - I was forced to wait around with them and listen to Mrs. Ick's whining. "Mrs. Crybaby, are you still here? Did your husband call yet? Mrs. Blossomhead, is Mrs. Crybaby still on the computer? What's going on? Can we leave yet? WHAAAAA??? AAAAAHHHHH??????"

Finally Mr. Crybaby did call. Having worked through our previous difficulties, I was pretty sure I knew what to do - pulling it off without the other meeting-ees finding out would be the hard part.

I hung up, hurriedly shoved everything into my bag, said "BYE!" and ran out the door. Our meeting room is connected to a long, straight hallway, so I would have to run like mad. Once they all hauled their monstrous keisters out of their chairs, commented on my not-that-grateful-for-their-protection attitude, said "good night" 18 times and shuffled out the door, I was in danger of being discovered.

And I ran - I ran so far away - to the gym where the Tuesday Night Volleyball Chicks were whooping it up as usual. On an earlier fact-finding mission, I had been annoyed and a bit panicked to find they were in the farthest-away gym from my meeting room, instead of the closer gym they had played in on previous weeks. They all looked surprised as I now ripped open their door, trounced into the gym and took off walking to the opposite hallway as fast as I could.

Finding myself in a foyer on the opposite side of the building, I sat down on a couch, then worried I might still be discovered. What if they saw me head into the gym, followed me, asked the TNVCs "Which way did she go?", and were, even as we speak, hot on my heels? So I stood up... and hid in the vestibule. Seriously. I hid from them like a naughty child and stood there in the dark corner thinking, "What if they find me? What will they say? What will I tell them? I can't believe I'm doing this." I thought I saw the Icks' car go by and thought, OK, the coast must be clear.

I went back the way I came, through the TNVC's gym. "Do you want to play volleyball?" one lady asked me. I signed up on their email reminder list. I chatted them up for a few minutes and tried to assure them numerous times that no matter how much they said, "Oh, you CAN'T suck at volleyball, you're just saying that" - it's really true, and they'll be sorry someday that they ever asked me to play with them.

I glanced out the door into the hallway - the scene of the crime - and sighed with relief that everyone was apparently gone. The meeting room door was locked and no one was hovering. For once.

Then I sprinted down the hall, let myself back in, locked myself behind two sets of doors, sat myself down and dashed off this post.... and finally Mr. Crybaby made his appearance.

I now have volleyball as a legitimate excuse to stick around if he's late again. But I'm also contemplating quitting this Tuesday night thing altogether. Sneaking around and hiding from well-meaning adults used to mean everything to me. I enjoyed it - who wouldn't?

But when I turned 37, it suddenly lost its charm.

Pass the Pepto

Mr. Crybaby has provided our family with one car. It's fine until nights like tonight, when we have to be in two different places at the same time. Then it's downright annoying.

So tonight he's at his meeting and I'm at mine, and he dropped me off because mine started first and his SUPPOSEDLY was going to end before mine did. However, we've set a bad precedent.

Last week, Mr. Jones didn't make it at the appointed time, and because I'm made of 8,000-year-old glass and I break if you look at me, my fellow meeting-ees felt it their duty to stick around until he showed up. I had planned to go back to the room where the meeting was and wait by myself till he got there, but no matter what I said to them, they weren't budging. Imagine my embarrassment when Mr. Jones finally arrived, 40 minutes late.

Besides feeling (and, I'm sure, LOOKING) like a giant stankwad, Mr. Jones got to hear about it from me all the way home. I didn't particularly like being held against my will for the last 40 minutes. What could we do about one meeting-ee in particular, 80-year-old Mr. Ick, who insists on making sure I'm handed off to my husband at the end of the evening?

Mr. Jones came up with this idea: "When it's time to leave," he said brightly, convinced his goofy plan would work, "pretend you're going to leave too, but as you're walking out the door with them, develop a major gas cramp and say, 'HOLY CRAP,' and run to the restroom with your hand clapped over your butt. They'll leave, thinking I'm soon to arrive, and then you can go back to the room and lock yourself in till I get there."

I'm not a good liar, but tonight, I decided to try this plan out. No dice: Mr. Ick didn't care if I belched the alphabet, lit up a smoke or walked laps around the building in the dark, encountering tarantulas, Wiccans, pyschopaths or errant kittens - he was NOT GOING TO LEAVE. Mrs. Blossomhead, another meeting-ee, didn't feel right leaving us alone (because if she weren't there, I'd be all over that 80-year-old liver-spotted scalp like stink on poop), so she sat there too, making small talk with Mr. Ick and checking her watch every two minutes.

We sat there and waited for Mr. Crybaby, who kindly called to let me know that he wasn't coming on time and NOW was the moment to try out his brilliant Restroom Tactic. I told him in code that it wasn't going to work: Mr. Ick was a complete nerdwad and wouldn't leave until he handed me over, pretended severe gas attack or no. Afterward, I sat there, wishing it were permissible to scream, wave my fists in the air and jump up and down until they left. I also tried to sleep.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ick regaled us with stories. He told us that his wife sleeps on her stomach (not a pretty picture to imagine) and that when he rubs her back while she's asleep, she enjoys his back-rubbing so much, she makes noises that sound - this is not a joke - "like she's having an org**m."

Mrs. Blossomhead laughed nervously and I seriously thought I would pass out. A liver-spotted 80-year-old man in my presence had just admitted to having s*x with Mrs. Ick, who is 22 years his junior, not that attractive (I'm being nice), and apparently has org**ms regularly.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

By the time Mr. Crybaby showed up, I was scarred and traumatized and hyperventilating. I was but a shell and a shadow of my former self. He asked me what happened and when I told him, he said I "messed up" his plan. Apparently my butt-clapping wasn't convincing enough.

I'm going to call in "grossed out" next week - it's Mr. Crybaby's birthday anyway - but the week after, I'm bringing my gym clothes. There's a group of chickies playing volleyball in the same building and it starts right after my meeting ends!!! We may have found our answer!

Mr. Crybaby thinks it's tremendously hilarious that I, his unsporty little missus, must "stoop" to playing volleyball to get out of being baby-sat by Mr. Ick. I think Mr. Crybaby is a no-talent little (bleeeeeeeep!).

But wait, there's more!

CAT! You've peed your last mattress!

How many times, dear reader, would you allow a semi-new to your household box-trained cat to pee your bed before you decided enough was enough, and it was time for him to shove off? Once? Twice? Three times a wet spot?

Let's just say, I placed an ad for a cute little black and white kitty today. Any takers?

I've Grown Accustomed To Their Knocks...

... their endless knocking on my door...
I've grown accustomed to my neighbor, who borrows this or that...
The milk, the salt, the eggs, the cat

It's second nature to me now...
Feeling annoyed and feeling bugged...
The rotten neighbor children tattle-ing, involved in countless spats...
Alas, I can't throw rocks at them, or smack them with my bat...

I've grown accustomed to the way they drive me freakin' nuts...
Accustomed... to their... knocks.

John Travolta: Attention Whore Extraordinaire

Hi. I'm John Travolta.

I'm a fat cross-dresser in the new movie Hairspray. Feel free to interrupt my shameless self-promotion with applause, screams, cheers, wolf whistles, indecent proposals shouted for the entire audience to hear, and hotel keys or underwear thrown onstage (male or female, I'm an equal opportunity movie god).


I've appeared in over 300 iconic American movies. While acting in one of the suckier ones, I met my lovely wife Kelly Preston.

At the time we met, I may or may not have looked like this (and bore a slight, though definitely creepy, resemblance to Napoleon Dynamite - just in the face, though. He never had a bod this hot).

Now I look more like Mrs. Crybaby Jones' dad, who, while not an ugly man, certainly doesn't have women throwing their panties at him - at least, not for a long time.

Some past roles you absolutely must, under penalty of law, remember me from are "Danny Zuko" in Grease....

I also danced one of the all-time important American movie dance scenes as "Tony Manero" in that ode to young smart aleck Italian-American gang rapists, Saturday Night Fever.

For about ten years, I was in a series of stink-o wastes of time (although, I will say that however you may feel about Look Who's Talking, I consider it one of my proudest moments). For my "comeback," I then had the pleasure of shootin' 'em up in that violent crapfest of a movie Pulp Fiction. Oooh, look at my big meanie man face. I look good mean!

Oh, and in case you forgot, I once danced with that dead Princess Diana for a total of five minutes at the White House one year, a fact I try to trot out at least once per television appearance; I fly jets and named my son after one; I'm a Scientologist like that one guy... um... don't tell me, I'll remember his name in a second... uh... darn, he's going to kill me for this... You ever have that problem, where you can't remember someone's name and then two weeks later at 3:00 in the morning, you finally remember?... He married that chick from Dawson's Creek... DANG!

Anyway. I'm in a movie about a fat girl who likes to dance, called Hairspray (the movie, not the girl), and I don't have $80 trillion in the bank yet, so I'd appreciate it if you'd go see my new movie. Or possibly head to the movie rental store and rent one of my tired old flicks that you can catch on TV for free most weeknights (sometimes on weekends if there's nothing good on, like The Hunt For Red October). Because Kelly, Jett, Ella and I could really use another ... um... hang on, let me ask Kelly.

Kelly? What overpriced superfluous bauble should we get this week? Liposuction for my triple chin? OK, thanks, babe.

WAAAAAAAAAA

*giggle giggle*

You are so sleuthy. Thanks, Crybaby, for letting me have my way with your blog...

(you're welcome)

One more time... over here... come on, click it. I'll buy you some new deodorant.