The Junk Drawer

Because I really wanted that.

Also, scoops should come with a seat belt or something. It just went sailing.

Crap.

I loves me automation.

Automatic drive. Automatic coffee makers. Automatic car washes.

I do not love automatic doors.

At least not the ones who eat you like a Venus flytrap.

Some time ago I had a doctor’s appointment that finished up after the medical building closed for the day. By the time I got to the lobby, the place was deserted.

Not a problem.

I found my way to the exit and headed through the first set of double electronic doors.

They made a nice little swoooosh sound as I stepped through, but as I continued walking, the outer set of doors refused to open.

Oh, geez. They locked up already.

Not a problem.

I’ll just go back in the way I came and find someone to let me out.

Or not.

The first set of doors had locked behind me and now I stood in the belly of the beast. Stuck between two sets of doors that wouldn’t open and no one to set me free.

Think. Think.

OK, there’s a panel here that reads “Emergency Push to Release.”

Yea!

I’ll just push this latch and the doors will open.

Um.

No.

The doors will not open. Instead, I will freak the hell out and become the Incredible Hulk. My suddenly panicked self will gather superhuman strength and take the door clear off its tracks and it will get lodged in a way that renders it completely and utterly BUSTED UP.

I am now trapped and have just ruined a perfectly good door and I can’t run away because the beast ate me and now whoever comes to save me will know exactly who broke the door because I’m inside and I realize at that moment I’m just like that moronic burglar who gets stuck in a chimney trying to rob a house and the firemen and cops have to come and let him out and then have a good laugh over the chucklehead’s predicament.

Yeah, that’s me. In a predicament.

And so I, the newly-ordained chucklehead, waited.

And sweated.

And felt a good cry coming on.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

Will they charge me for breaking the door?

Will they even be able to move the door now that it’s broken?

Will I have to sleep here tonight?

I don’t have any food. And nothing to drink! I’m going to die here!

I considered pulling a Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate church scene (1:30), but thought better of it. No sense in making too much noise. But how will they know I’m here?

Why do these things always happen to me?

Just then, a maintenance worker — my savior — walked by and we locked eyes. From the belly, I mouthed the words “I’m sorry” and my ordeal was nearly over.

I can’t quite remember how he unjammed the door and I don’t remember what I said to him as I slinked out of the beast.

I do know that I don’t trust automatic double doors now. And you shouldn’t either. They’re hungry for humans. Just sayin’.

BURRRRRP!

I work at a university where we sometimes hire student assistants to help out with our tech support workload. Today one of my assistants came in for his shift and I told him there was a client who could use his help.

The client had left a voice mail message describing her problem, so I thought I would just play that message for him on speakerphone and he’d be on his way.

I knew I had several messages stored in my voice mail archives, so I started message replay and hit a certain key to speed past the first few to get to the pertinent message.

I didn’t speed fast enough.

See, I sometimes archive messages from my husband, who has a tendency to leave me wise-cracking voice mails to lighten my mood.

When I played the series of messages, I skipped fast enough through a few and then the student (and everyone else in my office) heard the following from my husband:

Hey, giant pootie!

I was mortified. I looked at the student and he smiled uncomfortably.

I died a little.

The thing is, I don’t even remember why Dave started addressing me as Giant Pootie. I don’t even know what it means. I had to ask.

Dave thinks it’s from circa 1986 when we started dating. It might be a variation on Puddin’ Head. Or it could be an offshoot of Pootie Cat, which doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

And we will never know why I’m a giant Pootie. What part of me is the pootie? And why is it so big?

OK, folks. Here’s where you dump all the insane terms of endearment you have for your significant others or kids in the comments.

I’m quite sure they’ll make more sense than mine.

My husband Dave is doing the low-carb thing and this is what I found boiling on the stove on Sunday.

Can’t even identify it. I imagine the description on the package read “A slab of something that grunted once. 5.99/lb.”

I nearly threw up.

I’m sorry, meat just ain’t right if it’s boiled. Club it over the head and fry it, I always say. I like meat to sizzle and have a crust, not look quite so fresh and fleshy.

I can’t be a vegetarian, but I can’t do this either.

Bon appetit.

Or not.

A couple days ago on my lunchtime walk, I purposely avoided a man and his dog while crossing the street because the dog was unleashed. My walking partner asked if I was afraid of dogs and I said “Yes, the ones over 30 pounds do.” And this one looked like a 50lb pit bull mix, not the friendliest looking pooch. He said “Yeah, but he’s missing a foot.”

I hadn’t noticed right away, but the dog didn’t have a left hind foot. He could still walk easily and I assumed he could run after me easily, too, and rip my face off.

That night I had a dream wherein one of my cats’ paws fell off. I saw it a few inches from her body, lying on a pillow. She wasn’t in pain or anything. The paw was detached, that’s all.

So I took her to the vet and they gave her a replacement paw.

And what did the vet replace it with? Of course, a bacon-wrapped scallop paw.

And why did I have this dream?

Because of this video I’d watched earlier in the day:

You guys are always pulling through for me. Last night I was tearing my hair out trying to come up with a post. I remarked on Facebook that my husband suggested I get in the zone by drinking a beer. Which is bad because I hadn’t had a beer in ten years and a little would go a long way. And then I wondered whether drunken posts were any good.

In the end, I decided to go to bed early and hope that a post came to me while I slept.

That never happened, but look what did! I woke up and checked email to find this photo taken by my blogging bud, Moonshadow. She writes:

“Sorry I didn’t get this sent to you sooner since you were have so much trouble coming up with a post. A week or two ago I had made chef salads for supper and my husband called me to the table saying I needed to take a look at “this face.” So I told him to hold it right there so I could get a picture, that I knew someone that loved food that looked like something… so here you go.”

Thank you, Moonshadow! It’s just what the doctor ordered. I love that your husband noticed the face and that you thought to take a picture for me. If you don’t already have a Junk Drawer magnet, I’ll pop one in the mail for you as a big thank you!

Oh, and your chef’s salad looks delicious, what with all the BACON!

Tell me, did the little egg scream when you ate him?

Finally. The weather’s perking up around here and I got out for a long walk today with my jam-packed iPod of dance tunes. If anyone saw me walking, they either knew I had downloaded the best music ever, or wondered whether I was having a spasm and thought they should call 911.

I’m not afraid to dance-walk-spaz in public. It ain’t pretty, but you get to a certain age when you just don’t care anymore what people think of you.

But I didn’t find my groove right away.

First, I suffered through five minutes of electroshock therapy, courtesy of my iPod.

It seems that if it’s dry enough and that if you create enough static when you walk, that static builds up in the device and finds its way out through the path of least resistance.

That path was straight to my ears.

For the first five minutes of my walk, I couldn’t figure out how to stop shocking myself in the head.

I kept the iPod in my pocket.

Shock. Owwww!

I held the iPod in my hand.

Zzzzzzzppp. Aieeeeeee!!!!

I realized that the long black Matrix coat I was wearing created enough friction brushing against my legs that I repeatedly got shocked once a block.

I tried holding the coat close enough to my body to keep it from brushing against me but that didn’t work either. I finally gave up and removed it all together.

Luckily, the sun was out full force and I’d been walking fast enough, albeit painfully, to sweat a little and fend off the cold.

Has this ever happened to you and your ear buds? Or do I just have a super-electric personality? Yea, that’s gotta be it.

Do you remember the other day when I found out I’m that crazy lady who talks to herself and that I’m thisclose to being a crazy cat lady, too?

Well, we’re there.

I took my cat Lucky to the vet yesterday for dental work.

When I arrived at the office, I checked him in, along with three other people who brought pets in for some kind of surgery.

After I finished filling out paperwork, I delivered my cat to the receptionist who said “We’ll take him from here.”

Being the worrying type, I suddenly got a thought in my head that maybe with all the other cats there for surgery, the vet might mistake my cat for another and do the wrong procedure on him.

And then I didn’t want to give up my cat.

What if they do a microchip implantation? I didn’t ask for that!

What if they declaw him? No, no, no!

What if they try to remove a gall stone? He doesn’t have any!

And what if they think he’s in for what the poodle came for? I’m pretty sure Fluffy McFluffster was in for a botox treatment.

So I asked the assistant “How will you know what he’s here for? How will I know you’re working on the right cat?”

She assured me that he’d get an ID wrist band just like people get in a hospital and walked further back to the prep room.

I said “So you’ll put it on him?”

“Yes.” She kept walking.

“Like, you’ll put it on him right now?”

Her walking, walking, me following, following.

“Yes.”

Hey! Did she just roll her eyes at me?

“You will? Promise?”

[blink blink]

“Mrs. Frederick, I can guarantee you Lucky will get the right treatment.”

And then I left, happy in the knowledge that Lucky would have his teeth cleaned and cared for and I wouldn’t be picking up a clawless, plump-lipped cat with an incision for a gall stone that never existed.

He did come home with one less tooth, though. Sorry, dude. I could save you from the wrong surgery, but I couldn’t save you from this.