Birds are stupid

While I was outside having my morning coffee, a couple of birds flew into the screened in porch. That was at about 8am.

It's almost 4pm and they're still flapping around in there. They can't figure out how to get out.

I tried enticing them with bits of bread crumbs at the door, but they didn't seem to notice. They'd rather fly into the screen, getting their beaks stuck, and leaving holes all over.

I tried shooing them out with a broom, but all that did was cause one of them to drop dead on the floor.

I really thought I gave it a heart attack, and I immediately burst into tears. It just laid there for a few minutes, not moving.

After that episode I decided better to ignore the whole matter until Jim got home. I like to leave the dirty jobs to him, like when one of the babies would poop in the tub during their nighttime bath.

"I've got a surprise for you in the bathtub," I would sing to him when he walked in the door after work. Worked every time.

As it turned out, the bird was not dead--only playing dead. How fucked up is that?

Maybe they're not as stupid as I thought.

Hee Haw Haircut

When I first started at the last salon I worked at, I was still rebuilding my clientele from my first maternity leave. GOD FORBID a hairstylist takes some time off to have an 8lb. 1oz. box-shaped baby drug out of her vagina with giant salad tongs.

I lost some clients during my maternity leave, then switched salons and lost a few more. It happens.

My first day, my coworkers filled me in on "The Coupon Debacle".

There was this receptionist who I'll call Sherri.

Sherri wasn't the brightest gal you'd ever meet. She was young and pretty, but mostly clueless.

One day, several months before, the Big Brothers/Big Sisters people called the shop and asked to speak to the manager. Boss Lady was busy and told Sherri to "take care of it" (not the smartest move on her part). Apparently, the BBBS people wanted to know if the salon would care to donate a haircut to their fundraiser.

I'm not sure if Sherri gave the go ahead or if Boss Lady gave the nod. Either way, BBBS got their donation. Sounds like a nice thing to do for the good of the community, right?

Yes, except that what they were actually asking for was WAY more than that.

As it turns out, it wasn't just one gift certificate they were asking for. The free haircut was part of a 'coupon book' they were printing up. They sold them around town for $25 to raise money--and there were 1,000 of them.

ONE THOUSAND.

The $25 people paid for the whole damn booklet wouldn't have covered a single haircut at the salon, and now there were 1,000 of them floating around town.

Feeling bad for Boss Lady, I told her I'd be happy to fill some of my down time (which at that point, I had plenty of) with the free haircut coupon people. I should have kept my mouth shut.

One afternoon I had a coupon cut on my book and didn't think anything of it until she walked in followed by her husband.

She was morbidly obese, dressed in grey jersey knit shorts pulled up almost level with her imposing, unrestrained breasts. The t-shirt was my favorite part: Tweety Bird in a feather boa with the words "HOT STUFF" splayed across the front.

Her husband was a lanky NASCAR aficionado who apparently ate cigarettes and gravel by the looks of his gaping, spittle-covered mouth and yellow skin.

And I was going to have to honor of cutting BOTH of their heads of greasy, nicotine-coated hair because they bought two coupon booklets. Kick ass!

"Mama" went first. She had approximately 7 hairs on her head and they all grew in a different direction. The best part was that her husband felt it necessary to stand next to me, directing the haircut.

"Make sure you git it up hurr (pointing at about ear level). She lahks it short. Don'tcha, Mama?"

I combed and combed those 7 seven hairs, but all I accomplished was a nice collection of some kind of white, pasty/flaky gunk on my comb...and this was after a shampoo. What was really intriguing was the amount of gunk she was able to keep a special secret from me in the folds in the back of her gigantic neck.

Smokey Joe was next. I'm pretty sure the years of not cracking a window to let out some of the smoke permanently changed the organic nature of this man's hair. My clippers groaned against the stiff, tar-laden strands of yuck growing from this man's head.

When they left, they didn't tip me. Not even a fucking dollar. Nothing. They paid $50 for two of those god damned coupon books, but they couldn't muster up at least something for a tip?!

My boss felt so bad about the whole situation, she paid me for the haircuts out of her own pocket.

One time I hated my neighbors

Last week at the grocery store, I ran into our old neighbors. Unfortunately, it wasn't with the car.

When we bought our current house, these people had only lived in it for 4 months. Through their realtor we found out that the husband (Chuck) had had some heart problems and his doctor told him, "No stairs, no mowing the lawn, and no fast food." So they had to move to avoid two out of the three.

We took full advantage of this information by only paying two thousand dollars more than they paid for it. I know they took a bath on the transaction. I felt a little guilty for practically ripping off an sick old dude and his wife, but all's fair in love and real estate.

About six months after we moved into our house, we got new neighbors next door. I was outside, playing with the dogs when I saw an older couple waving at me from across the fence.

"Remember us?!" a witchy haired crone hollered, a sack of greasy fast food in her claw.

"Uh...."

"It's us! Chuck and Cindy! We sold you your house!"

I was instantly bewildered. The house next door, except for less square footage and one less bathroom, is an exact replica of our house. The not-so-secret information their former real estate agent played in my head. Why would they buy a two story house with a big yard? Why, when they had almost the same thing less than a year ago? Why?

I was wasting time wondering about these issues when there would be a whole host of others to contemplate in the years to come.

For instance, why would they rip out a perfectly good fence, tear up the grass next to the driveway, then fill it in with gravel?

Answer: So they could pull their truck up that extra 10 feet to the back door. I think they were afraid the Wendys, McDonalds, or Hardees they ate almost every day would get cold if they had to carry it too far. Also, I don't think they wanted to get any inadvertent exercise.

Answer #2: So their beautiful golden-white Labrador wouldn't have the joy of romping in a big back yard, but would instead be locked up in an 8x8 pen. Wouldn't want the dog to get any inadvertent exercise either.

I didn't get why they even had a dog. I never saw him play with it. Cindy was afraid of it, so he never never got to come in the house. I know not all dogs are spoiled rotten like ours are, but they never brought him inside. They had a perfectly good garage that they didn't even use. They could have put the dog in there when the weather was bad (ie; the ice storm that poor dog endured one winter). Sure, he had a makeshift plywood doghouse inside his pen (giving him even less room to exercise), but it killed me to see him laying on top of it everyday lonely and bored.

So bored in fact, that he barked incessantly. At first, Chuck would yell out the kitchen window to tell his dog to shut up. Over time, that apparently took too much effort as he eventually hooked up an intercom system, pointing the speaker out the upstairs bedroom window to yell at the dog.

Oh, and the dog wasn't neutered either. When I asked Chuck one day if he was planning on showing the dog or breeding him, Chuck looked confused. I pointed out that his dog wasn't "fixed" and I wondered if he was a show dog or was he planning on starting a puppy mill. He got pretty defensive. I started anonymously calling Animal Control about the barking.

I tried to be somewhat friendly with them, but when he casually referred to the renters across the street as "Ni***r Whores", I washed my hands of them. The bumper sticker on his truck of Calvin pissing on the word "France" pretty much sealed the deal of my immense hostility toward them.

I was so damn happy when they finally sold their house and moved. They said they were moving to Las Vegas, and all I could picture was that sweet dog dying of heat stroke in their backyard.

But they didn't move to Vegas. They moved across town. And now I'll probably run into them all the time. Last week "broke the seal" so to speak.

I was nice to them. No sense in being a bitch just for the hell of it. I save that for my husband.

They were pretty excited to see me and the girls.

"Chuuuu-uuuck! Come see your kids!"

Excuse me? "Your" kids?! I know she was trying to friendly and her statement was sort of a "Oh we think you guys are great/your kids are great/we care about you" kind of thing, but it made my blood boil. I didn't like her familiar tone.

"I don't like you!" I wanted to scream across the grocery store, "I think you're a couple of racist, lazy animal abusing fucks! I hate you I hate you I hate you!"

But I didn't. I mentioned that we were in the process of selling the house, and Cindy nodded, "I know! I saw the sign!" (if it's not apparent by now, Cindy yells everything).

Then, without thinking I asked the million dollar question, "Wanna' buy it?"

We shared an uncomfortable chuckle, after which Chuck rolled away in the handicap grocery cart contraption, basket filled with pizza rolls, sausage and whole milk.

Good Eats

Yesterday, I took my dogs to a new vet. The old place was fine, but after some stellar recommendations we decided to make the leap. They were due for their annual credit card-straining exams, so we felt like now was as good a time as any to switch.

One thing necessary for the full yearly doggy work up is a fecal sample. Nothing beats being up before sunrise outside, in the dead of an Illinois winter, scooping up dog shit to put in a bag.

The new vet was great and the final bill was a bit lower than the other place. The male of our two dogs celebrated by shitting on the exam room floor. He's a rock star, that one.

Before we had left the house that morning, it had started snowing quite a bit. The roads were pretty slippery but nothing a little old lady driving couldn't make up for.

What was scary was the fact that the heat in my car, which had been spotty in the last couple of weeks, decided to completely stop working this fine sub-zero morning. My hands and toes were numb and the defrost was not defrosting. I could barely see through my front windshield.

I had to to stop at the bank to make a deposit to cover the bills I sent out that morning. Luckily it was on the way home.

I had given up on the heat coming back on, but kept hoping against hope that somehow my window would defrost. It looked like I was driving through clouds, but if I squinted just enough I could make out my half of the road.

As I was sitting at the drive-up bank teller, I reasoned that I wasn't that far from home and if I was really really careful, I could get there without killing myself and the dogs or anyone else. Suddenly, I smelled something 'not right'-a burning smell to be exact. Then, smoke started billowing out of my dashboard.

I was cold, my dogs were cold, I couldn't see out the front of my car and now something was about to blow up under the hood. I didn't really see the point of panicking, so I just headed home.

After dropping the dogs off at the house, I went to the auto shop a block from my house.

A half hour and 40 bucks later, I was good to go. Something about a gallon of whoosit and a loose whatchamajig. I didn't care. My car was running, smoke-free and warm.

That night I decided, healthy eating be damned, we were eating comfort food for dinner. So I made fried chicken. I'd never made it before and if I may be so bold, it was really damn good. Alton Brown himself would have been proud.