A Life of Pie

I share custody of a pair of Nomex with this guy at work. His name is Big Bill. (The Nomex, that is, not the guy.) Neither of us have ever worn Big Bill, but it makes us feel somehow more... official to have him on hand. (And by official I mean, less like wussy office dwellers.) So we toss Big Bill in the back of a work truck from time to time and cart him around the countryside, making Tim the Toolman grunts and feeling all relevant to the world, yet never having to suffer the myriad indignities of actually wearing Nomex. The best of both worlds!

So when the safety plan for my field work this week told me that, in order to safely traverse some gently rolling grassy fields, I needed to wear about seventeen pieces of Personal Protective Equipment - including Nomex - I went right ahead and exerted my end of the custodial arrangement. Just as I was giving Big Bill a hug and telling him what a fun day he was going to have with mommy, it hit me: Big Bill is a bit of a misnomer. Big Bill is rather more along the lines of medium.

Or maybe even small.

And I'm, you know, not.

Seems that, while I'd had the presence of mind to share custody of a pair of Nomex with someone more or less my own height, I had never really considered whether there was any difference in our respective, er, circumferences - and let's just say that I've multiplied my diameter by a whole lot more pie than my esteemed coworker has. And I was leaving town in just a few short hours...

*ring ring*

"Marks Work WearHouse, Garrett speaking. Can I help you?"

"Hi, Garrett. I'm interested in purchasing some of your Ladies' Nomex."

"We certainly have some in stock, ma'am, would you like me to put some aside for you until you can make it in to the store?"

"Yes, please. May I have the tummy control panel and built-in shelf bra option, please? Oh, and I look so much better in green, it really sets off my skin tone, let's just do a nice fern or jade instead of that godawful blue for a change."

"... ..."

"I can tell by your silence that you're having trouble with the green - it's okay, I know you menfolk have difficulty with colour words, really it's a small price to pay for being straight don't you think? Honestly, anything but chartreuse is fine. Don't be shy. Use your discretion."

"Ma'am, I don't - I don't have any idea what you're talking about. Did you just request a tummy control panel?"

"Why, yes, it's a bit of a trouble spot for me, you know, and..."

"I'm sorry ma'am, nothing like that exists."

"Why - why, that's terrible, Garrett! What on earth kind of options do you have?"

"We carry both the 'Shapeless Lump' and the 'Saggy Crotch' models, in sizes from 'Room for Three' to 'Pinch the Tip Before You Roll 'Em On'. Blue is standard on all models."

"Well, I'm terribly disappointed in your selection, Garrett, but I'm in a bit of a rush so I don't really have time to comparison shop. It's much like a first marriage that way. Can I at least get some of those excellent slits on the sides, so when I try to put anything in my pocket it actually just falls straight into my boot?"

"Yes, ma'am, that's another of our fabulous standard features."

"Great, thanks. I'll swing by to pick them up shortly."

Sadly, Big Bill remains a field virgin. But really, it's best that I have my own pair now - it's unspeakably rude to pee on someone else's sleeve.

Birthday Dinner

I made DH a ginormous German chocolate cake for his birthday today. (He's 34, by the way. Which has nothing to do with anything except that he's doing the whole '29 again' thing, which annoys the crap out of me, so I'm going to go ahead and publicize the truth, which will annoy the crap out of him, and then we'll be even.) But anyways. I was standing in the kitchen just now while DH was puttering around upstairs, surreptitiously excavating a new surface on the cake and wondering if I'd be tastier to vampires because I eat so many sweets.

Yep: I've been reading the Twilight series. Busted. And of course, they're terrible, and surely my mind is more rotten for reading them, but - also of course - I totally loved them. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a love story. I may even be a Twihard.

Okay, so maybe not, but I will admit to being a little preoccupied with all things vampire this week. For instance, I don't even know what happened during the staff meeting on Monday, because I spent the whole time deciding which of my coworkers would make good vampires. You know, if there really are vampires, I'll bet they're pretty pissed at Stephenie Meyer right now: "Can you believe it, Vlad? That stupid human just told me I wasn't hot enough to be a vampire!" Which more or less spills the beans on my criteria, but what the hell. I'm just going on the Cullen model here.

After I read The Road I spent some weeks considering whether I'd make good steaks - it's a good bet that I'm well marbled - and I've always felt that a superior brain such as my own would be much in demand for the zombie gourmand. So, uh - do I have some kind of buffet complex or what?

Actually, I think it's my deeply pragmatic streak coming through: it'd be like recycling. Or something.

But you know, taken from a completely cannibalistic viewpoint, we North Americans are a pretty delicious-sounding lot: generally pre-plucked and obsessively cleaned for reduced prep time on those busy weeknights, not to mention frequently tenderized (think massage therapy). And personally, at the moment I'm sporting a rather significant quantity of choco-coconut-pecan stuffing and am slathered in a lovely vanilla-almond marinade. Heck, I'd eat me.

Hm, maybe I'll go run my new product description by DH and see if he feels the same...

He's Got Radioactive Something, Anyways

Oh, crap. Oh, crap. Don't sit here don't sit here don't sit here oooohhhh, gawd - why can't you find someone else with stinky breath and go sit with them? You could bathe each other in tender plumes of your noxious exhaust. It would be super romantic. Really. Go away now.

Gum disease. Wet peanut butter. Quarter Pounder for lunch. I can see bad breath coming from a C-Train length away, yet I'm powerless to stop it. I'm like SpiderMan when his glue-gun thingers quit working! Except mine never worked, but I can totally imagine how awesome it would be if they did work, so I'm equally frustrated.

Why couldn't Calgary Transit hand out a pack of dental floss free with purchase of a transit pass? It's not like they spend their money on keeping the buses in good working order or anything.

I can't believe that society is willing to make fragrance-related concessions for people with 'sensitivities', but not odor-related concessions. For example, I'm not allowed to wear pleasantly-scented underarm deodorant to the gym because some fruitloop has convinced herself Spring Breeze affects her more adversely than Unadultered Armpit, but people are allowed to regularly subject me to the horrifying stench of their gums rotting out of their face. Appalling. Sure, moving a toothbrush around your mouth on ocasion is almost as much a chore as thoroughly wiping your ass (yep, the world can smell that too, my friend), but the fact is, even if you don't want to brush your teeth, there are any number of delicious, cost-effective and readily available alternatives to stinking! TicTac, anyone?

My philosophy is this: always be kissable. Hey, you never know when some random hottie is going to need to make out with you in an elevator!

Then again, maybe you do, and that time is never. I can't deny that's a pretty reasonable assessment of your charms, Dragon Breath, however - much like you're guaranteed not to win the lotto if you don't buy a ticket - nine out of ten oral hygienists agree that halitosis takes you right out of the running.

If Wives Ruled the World...

Bailiff: All rise! The Honourable Justice Peltigera presiding... you may now be seated.

Justice Peltigera: We'll hear the argument now in AB2884092, Spouse vs. Spouse.

Thank you, Your Honour. Your Honour, may it please the court: my client is before you this morning charging that the defendant, Mister D. Husband, has failed to uphold the terms and conditions of Unspoken Spousal Agreement Number 4,562.

JP: Can you inform the court of the specific nature of the Agreement?

Yes, Your Honour. Clause 3.1.2 of Unspoken Spousal Agreement Number 4,562, a.k.a. the New Socks and Underwear Purchase Agreement, states that: the recipient of new underwear shall discard or destroy a quantity of existing underwear, not less than the quantity of new underwear purchased for or otherwise provided to him, regardless of its status as potential 'camping underwear' or 'cleaning rags', or any other possible imaginable reason he could come up with for keeping the rotten old things around.

JP: Please specify the charges to the court.

On March 31, 2010, the plaintiff purchased a total of ten new pair of underwear for the defendant. On April 3, 2010, the defendant was found by the plaintiff to have squirrelled away four pair of decrepit old underwear, in direct violation of Clause 3.1.2 of the New Socks and Underwear Purchase Agreement.

JP: And what kind of underwear did the plaintiff purchase?

Boxer briefs, Your Honour.

JP: Because they're the hottest.

Agreed, Your Honour.

JP: Mr. Husband, how to you plead to these charges?

*grumble, grumble*

JP: Mr. Husband, kindly state your plea clearly for the court.

I was just saving them for camping...

JP: Based on the conditions stated in Clause 3.1.2 of the New Socks and Underwear Purchase Agreement, Mr. Husband, your response would constitute a guilty plea. Am I interpreting your statement correctly?

*grumble, grumble* I guess so.

JP: Thank you. If you have no further statement, Mr. Husband, we will proceed with sentencing.

*grumble, grumble* Whatever.

JP: After much deliberation, the court rules in favour of the plaintiff, Mrs. Darling Wife. The couple is found to have income sufficient to warrant the occasional purging of natty undergarments. The defendant is sentenced to discarding all remaining pair of gross old gotch, in addition to that ridiculous blue shirt that he bought at Value Village ten years ago that is now full of holes and has one pocket falling off.

Bailiff: All rise! ... Court is adjourned.

Johnson Biggar: Died a Happy Man

I am prone to having strange, strange dreams. Which makes sleeping even more fun than it naturally is! I credit my crazy dreams in large part to the Night Lunch - Saskatchewan vernacular for that pre-bedtime meal your dietician warned you not to partake of, for reasons probably not pertaining to weird dreams alone. But I'm a Saskatchewanite from way back, and Night Lunch is as much a regional attribute of Saskatchewan as are Vi-Co and gotch.

So before you dust off your old Psych textbooks over this, recall that I was eating lemon meringue pie right before bed.

I dreamed I had a penis. My very own penis! I got it in the mail after I saw an ad for a free trial offer. I was so pumped to try it out, but alas - trial sizes being what they are - it was not a very big penis. I'll be totally honest here: it was a really small penis. Man, it sure looked better in the ad - could I sue? It wood be tough to stand up in court and present that kind of hard evidence...

But back to the penis. What a conundrum! You've got it, it's ready to go, and... you're pretty sure it's going to be laughed at. For the first time in my life, I felt sad for so many of my ex... er, for men. In general. No one in particular. Really, it's a terrible irony of life that one can suffer an enlarged heart, liver, spleen, whatever, but no amount of self-abuse (and it's my understanding that there's an inordinate amount of this directed specifically at the penis) will serve to enlarge one's penis.

But wouldn't that just be the disease of the decade, if someone could only invent it? (Big Pharma take note!) It would be the one and only thing about which your wife would never harp at you to go to the doctor:

"Remember that time you sneezed last week, honey? I made you an appointment to go get that checked out, and why don't you ask the doctor about that one really long mole hair while you're there? But let's just keep this whole 'enlarged penis' thing our little secret for now, m'kay?"

As for what happened in my dream - sadly, I woke up. And aside from feeling strangely compelled to buy a lift kit for my truck, have experienced no further side effects. This week it's molasses cookies for Night Lunch. I'll let you know how it goes.

Better Get Used to it, Baby

I recently began working more. (The paid variety of work, that is.) Eight extra hours per week. Doesn't sound like much when you put it that way, but for anyone who knows me, you're probably wondering which night of the week I stopped sleeping, because it's unclear even to me where those additional eight hours are coming from.

Not that I generally sleep for eight hours at a stretch, but you know what I mean.

So if you break it all down - market work, home production, leisure, and that vital yet oft overlooked (by economists, anyway) category, sleep - which Peter am I stealing from?

Judging by the bags under my eyes and the sound of dust bunnies frolicking under the couch, it's easy to guess. I didn't really have any leisure time to steal from - you're actually reading what becomes of my leisure time these days. (Note that I haven't posted in three weeks.)

On Monday mornings, people invariably ask how my weekend was, and I invariably fiddle with the dosage on my caffeine drip and mutter, "Oh, you know - busy." Then they say something inane like, "Cool! So what did you do?"

Seriously, people? Why do you ask? Perhaps you think I'm kidding when I say 'twelve loads of laundry', every single week, and you just haven't gotten tired of the (presumed) joke. Or maybe it's like watching reality TV, and you're just relishing the idea that someone out there is even lamer than you - I'm not sure. But I am tired of always being the person with the most pathetic weekends. So on this fine Sunday evening, I'm going to write a little song all about what I did this weekend, and if you really want to know, you can just sing along and save me the bullshit Monday morning inquisition. Here goes:

On this most recent weekend, here's the stuff I did...

Twelve loads of laundry! Grocery shopping!
Three dozen muffins! Scrubbed down the bathrooms!
Vacuumed the carpets! Mended the garments!
Mopped all the floors! Helped with the homework!
Wrote ten letters! Managed expenses!
Potty trained the Small One! Cleaned up the fallout!
Shaaaaampoooooed the coooouuuuuuch!
Bread for the week!
Vat of refried beans!
And wiped fingerprints off all household surfaces under three feet in height!

*pant, pant*

I can tell that people with no kids don't think the math adds up. They think, 'Gee, there are two of us in the house and we only have two loads of laundry per week, and wash the floor once a month, and golly I can't even think of when we last shampooed the furniture - how can twice the people add up to six (or eight, or twenty) times the work?' But that's exactly my point. I challenge anyone to give a two-year-old a banana chocolate-chip muffin in such a way that doesn't result in having to wash the walls, floors, child, upholstery and everything both you and the child were wearing at the time of Muffining. It's just not possible.

But I'm certainly not resentful of the little beasts, or even really all that irritated - after all, they're just kids, and muffins do stick to the walls in a very compelling fashion if you pitch them with enough force. I'm just that I'm so very tired. I keep thinking, only sixteen more years to go, then I can relax a little. Maybe my parents can advise on how true that actually is - hey guys, did you stop worrying when we all turned eighteen?

Hmm, didn't think so.

Okay, rev. 1: Only sixteen more years until my youngest child is an adult and... and what? And I am no longer legally obligated to fuss over him. Not that that'll stop me, I'm sure. So rev. 2: And if my kids still want to live in my house after they turn eighteen, they can darn well pay rent and wipe up their own fingerprints. Yeah, that's more like it! And they can cook me muffins for a change! Plus, I will get myself a soft-serve ice cream machine to celebrate my new, easy-peasy, child-free life, because I will have all the time in the world to exercise off all those extra calories.

Oooooh, and since my kids are seven years apart, maybe by the time Small Fry moves out, Medium Fry will have children of her own, and won't my little red-haired grandkids just totally love coming over for swirl cones?

Oh... damn... the circle of life. Right.

You know, if I named the dust bunnies I'll bet they'd be more like companions...

The Good, the Bad, and the Scrambled

I know I've mentioned before my theory that it's the tiny, gentle acts of vengeance that really make a relationship go 'round. They relieve marital tensions in a way that only a good boxing of ears could otherwise match, without the resulting awkwardness of police statements and cauliflower ear and so forth.

But one can only make so many muffins, and DH just doesn't seem to realize that the toothbrushes are a microcosm of our relationship (I can't be the only person who puts them at opposite ends of the holder when I'm peeved, can I?), so basically - I'm out of ideas. I used to be so good at being evil! I'm really off my game these days.

Guess that's the problem with how much I like DH versus, say, my ex-husband.

One thing I do recall from my pre-divorce days, however, was that you have to be constantly on the lookout for signs of weakness in your opponent. Once you sense a chink in the armour, you ferret that information away and plot out how exactly you're going to exploit the flaw to greatest effect. It's a deeply instinctual process, hearkening back to the days of our Australopithecine forebears:

"Gaaaahhh! Ug, ug, grug ormph!"
[Doris, you bitch! I know you shrunk my loincloth on purpose! Now what am I going to wear to work today?]

"Urg ug, arrrrg ug!"
[If you ever got off your fat ass and helped out around the cave, maybe I'd have more time to fuss over your damn laundry!]

Tale as old as time, Doris, but alas - love and happiness have dulled my edge.

But then DH launched into one of his random tirades today, over poached eggs of all things. There was this little photo essay in a magazine showing how to make perfect poached eggs, and he just snapped. During his verbal assault on the authors, he accused them - I'm not kidding - of "using a Henrietta" and then faking the poaching photos. So, two things here:

1. A "Henrietta" is a hen-shaped electric egg poacher (like, for real - I had to look it up); and

2. If DH has given the problem of poached eggs enough thought that he not only knew what a Henrietta was, but could actually rant for a full five minutes about what cocksuckers those poach-faking sons-of-bitches down at Canadian Living are... my search for the perfect form of retaliation is over.

I bought an extra two dozen eggs tonight, and solemnly vow that on DHs next poker night with the boys, I shall perfect the poached egg. And then I will save that precious knowledge for a day when DH is so wildly irritating that I would just as soon drop kick him as look at him, and I will lovingly prepare him a simple, hearty meal of golden, buttery toast, freshly-squeezed orange juice, and a plump, perfect pair of poached eggs.

Oh, yeah. That'll really serve him right. *contented sigh* Yeah, baby - I've still got it.