Seinblog is a blog about...well, nothing. And everything. A humorous romp through the author's mind, the subject matter ranges from time travel to girl scout cookies to...manure. Always irreverent and unapologetically politically incorrect, it's guaranteed to give you a chuckle. Enjoy the sample blogs by clicking the tabs below, or click here to check out the entire Seinblog archive. |
Women are endowed with innate weaponry. Weapons we can choose to conceal or reveal, but that we don’t need a license to carry. Weapons that must be used responsibly and judiciously, and that must be wielded with care. Because, like guns, women are always loaded.
Every once in a great while, I bring out this natural arsenal. Like the time I volunteered to build new bridle and saddle racks for the tack room at the barn. I had an impressive collection of tools and an equally impressive ability to use them. But there’s one thing I didn’t have: a vehicle big enough to carry uncut lumber. None of the hardware stores cut lumber for the customers anymore; it didn’t matter how much you begged or pleaded. At the time I didn’t have an available friend with a pickup truck.
But I had something better.
Cue the ZZ Top song She’s got Legs.
I arrived at Orchard Supply Hardware wearing my little short skirt and spike heels, calling upon years of theatrical training to convey complete helplessness. This was the kind of place where people (mostly men) shopped in jeans, sneakers and overalls. The moment I stepped through the door, I looked like a fish out of water.
Eggggggggggggsellent.
I tippy-toed about the store in my stilettos. They clicked on the concrete floor, echoing across the aisles. The ears of every male within a 200-foot radius immediately perked the way my horse’s ears did when he heard the sound of a snapping carrot.
Click click click click. Pause at a tool display and stare at it like it’s an alien life form.
Click click click click. Pause in front of paint display and look at all the pretty colors.
Click click click click. Pause in front of lumber display and adopt expression that is both vacuous and pensive (try this, it’s not easy, I had to practice in front of the mirror). Reach out and gently stroke lumber.
Five young men sporting OSH uniforms appear out of nowhere and surround me like they are Pit Bulls and I am a pork chop.
All five say in unison: “May I help you?” while vying for the coveted me, me, pick me! position.
Me: Big sigh followed by big, more vacuous, doe-eyed stare. “Well…..I need four pieces of lumber, but I know you don’t cut lumber here…” (employing my best I just lost my puppy tone) “…and it’ll never fit in my little car.”
They run into and over each other grabbing lumber for me. Boards fall over domino-style. Two of them grab the same piece and I fear a fistfight will break out over who gets to carry it for me. It looks like a Three Stooges movie.
“We’re not supposed to cut it,” one of them winks, “But we can do it.”
“I’ll get the hacksaw,” another one says, lighting up like a Christmas tree.
“I’ll get it,” the third one says.
“No, I’ll get it,” the fourth one says.
The fifth one was ahead of them all and had already split to claim the sole hack saw they kept hidden in the back room.
Click click click click. I followed the lumber, which was being borne with all the pomp and circumstance of an emperor in a rickshaw, to the workbench area, where I stood and watched in vacuous fascination as they meticulously measured and drew lines and cut. The hacksaw was a tiny, old thing and took a lot of manpower to chew through the two by fours. There were four boards and five employees; one of them didn’t get to cut anything. He seemed wholly disappointed. He did, however, get to carry the lumber to the register and to my car for me.
Click click click click. The other four stood vying for position at the door with goofy smiles on their faces as I left. It didn’t matter that I was old enough to be some of their mothers. Their eyes never ventured any further north than the hem of my skirt. Not a one of ‘em could have told you what color eyes I had.
I drove off, waving at them.
The second I got home I doffed the stilettos and skirt and put on jeans, a tee shirt and my work boots. Then I hauled out my own tools and started building. Before you could say Dude Looks Like A Lady, I’d built and painted three bridle racks and two saddle racks.
The skirt and the stilettos are still in my closet, patiently waiting, like magical talismans, for their next assignment. Someday, I’ll need to build something again. And I know that if I need to build it (and if I wear the skirt and shoes), they will come.
I’m not much of a holiday person. I don’t decorate, don’t plan parties, don’t send cards, generally don’t observe. I’m happy to just have a day off and get to pillage the holiday sales at the mall. The rest of the whole holiday hoo-ha I can do without.
But there are a few holidays I find fun.
I like Halloween. I like dressing up like some hungry, undead child-eating creature and scaring the bejesus out of the neighborhood kids. I like lying in wait for them to come home from trick or treating so I can jump out from behind a bush and grab their candy bags. Those screaming little voices and the patter of horrified feet running away down the pavement just warm my heart. Yes, Halloween is a great holiday.
The other holiday I like is Easter.
It’s not the sentiment behind the day. It’s not the vacation time from work. It’s not Easter egg hunts or picnics. It’s not getting together with family – crap, that’s the last thing I want to do on a holiday.
Nope.
It’s the chocolate.
Notice I didn’t say ‘candy.’
Chocolate.
You can keep your peeps and your jellybeans and your marshmallow rabbits. Just give me the chocolate.
Any chocolate. I don’t care if it’s shaped like a bunny, a chick, or an International Harvester. Don’t put a lot of time into selecting just the right work of chocolate art. The artistry of chocolate sculpture is lost on me; I am not going to stop to appreciate it before I rip Mr. Bunny’s ears off.
And it better not be hollow. Don’t even TRY to slip one of those hollow chocolate travesties into my basket. There’s more chocolate than that in the center of a tootsie pop.
Hollow chocolate is a cop out; it’s for people who don’t really care enough to spend money on the good stuff, or for people who need a place to stash their contraband. I want solid chocolate. Solid dark chocolate. And make sure there’s no nuts in it – they just take up space where more chocolate could go. Yes, fill my basket with solid dark no-nut chocolate.
Then you’d better put said basket in plain view where I will see it immediately upon waking Easter morning. Hiding a person’s basket of solid dark no-nut chocolate is just plain mean. Trust me, you do not want tell me first thing in the morning that I must look for chocolate that you’ve hidden from me. I’m not going to look for it. I’m going to put you into a chokehold until you tell me where the hell it is.
Don’t bother cooking some extravagant Easter meal. I’ve got chocolate. I’m not going to waste perfectly good stomach capacity on ham or green bean casserole when I can fill it with solid dark no-nut chocolate. I’ll eat your meal when the chocolate is gone.
Finally, don’t even think about asking me to share any of my solid dark no-nut candy. There are two things I refuse to share: Men, and chocolate. The reasons for this should be evident. If you have to ask why, you are probably the kind of person who also thinks hollow chocolate with nuts in it is a good idea.
I might sound demanding, but really, I’m not high maintenance. It’s not that difficult to keep me happy. Don’t get hollow chocolate, don’t get nuts in it and don’t hide it. Do this and nobody gets hurt. It’s that damn simple.
My out-of-proportion-to-reality fear of spiders began when I moved into a little studio in a rustic, woodsy area that turned out to be a haven for creepy-crawlies and things that go bump in the night. I have no problem with the great outdoors – the problem arises when denizens of the great outdoors decide to come inside. Particularly spiders.
Regardless of the “No Arachnids” sign clearly posted in my yard, I still encounter a superfluity of spiders in my house on an average day. Big ones. Little ones. Fat ones. Skinny ones. Spindly ones. Squatty ones. Furry ones. I suppose it’s better than, say, a crocodile infestation, or a plague of locusts or burning hail. Spiders are small. Ish. I’m bigger than they are. I can squash them like the bugs they are.
I am aware of this size advantage and intellectual superiority. Still, I always have the same reaction when I see one.
I scream.
Not a wimpy little-girl-being-chased-by-a-boy-holding-a-worm squeal – a bloodcurdling shriek that would land me the lead role in any number of slasher movies. It’s a totally involuntary reaction and it’s embarrassing.
When the initial panic subsides, I search frantically for an implement of destruction. A shoe. A rolled up magazine. A priceless figurine. It doesn’t matter. The collateral damage is of no concern so long as it dispatches the 8-legged demon to spider purgatory. It’s not as simple as it sounds. Spiders are fast. Really fast. And they can keep running until they’re down to about two legs. Sometimes the legs run by themselves.
Spiders appear to get into my home via some Hell Mouth portal that opens directly into my bathroom – which is apparently some sort of arachnid day spa destination. They meet their friends for a drink in the bathtub and then like to cozy up for a little nappy-poo in my bath towels. I have learned to carefully shake all the towels and the shower curtain and peer into the tub in search of spiders before I climb in for my nightly shower. Invariably there are those I discover only after I am naked and defenseless.
I am probably the only person I know who keeps a baseball bat in the shower. If that dude from “psycho” ever sneaks up on ME he’s gonna get a very unpleasant surprise. But by now, the neighbors have become accustomed to and disinterested in the sounds of banging and blood-curdling screams that come from my bathroom window at night. Should I be murdered no one would be any the wiser until the stench of my decomposing remains started making cats leave the neighborhood.
Over time, my phobia has progressed beyond fear of anything that IS a spider to fear of anything that MIGHT be a spider. Detecting the slightest hint of motion out of the corner of my eye will trigger an over-reactive avoidance reflex. I’ve hurled my body out of my office chair and to the floor when a light on my modem blinked. I’ve flung plates of food in the air when a piece of lettuce shifted. If I feel a stray hair brush my neck unexpectedly I start pummeling myself like a spastic.
I can only imagine the catastrophe if I were to discover a spider in the car while I was driving. I’d like to think I could keep my wits about me, but who am I kidding? They’d be pulling my car out of a ravine on the side of the road and I’d be running down the middle of the highway screaming.
Somewhere, in the spider afterlife, little critters are swapping stories of their demise.
“How’d they get YOU?"
“A shoe.”
“...and you?”
“Lawn dart.”
“What about you?”
“I dunno what happened, I was just crawling around in the car and suddenly, CRASH!”
Yeah, well I’m not your chauffeur. Next time just shoot a web out of your butt and let the wind take you where you want to go.
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