Everyone needs a fleet of flying monkeys to rip the stuffing out of the annoying people in their lives
— Laura
I came home last night to the chirp chirp chirp of dying batteries in the smoke detector outside my bedroom and although I own a ladder, I wasn’t about to climb up and change the batteries because I injured my back last week and it still hurts and I wasn’t about to injure it further. I put up with the chirping for about half an hour and then I went kind of batshit crazy and beat the hell out of it with a broom handle until it stopped. About twenty minutes later the smoke detector in the kitchen started chirping too and I went equally batshit crazy with a broom on it and because apparently my house is haunted with ghosts that fuck with smoke detector batteries I bashed the one in the den for good measure BECAUSE I’M PROACTIVE LIKE THAT. I don’t know when I’ll replace them or even if I’ll replace them. It does give me comfort knowing how I will die. You know, in a fire, of which I will be blissfully unaware until engulfed by flames.
Now here’s a valentine I made for y’all:
Happy Valentine's Day!
I tried to kill myself once. I was about four or five years old and in a store of some sort with my mother when I spotted a huge Yogi Bear coloring book. Now, you have to understand, I was obsessed with coloring books as a child. From the earliest I can remember I took great pride in coloring inside the lines and I would start from page one then on to the last, never skipping a page no matter how boring the subject matter. Once completed, I would file them in the bookcase in my room, occasionally taking them out to gaze upon my work in awe. So on this particular day I noticed a special edition Yogi Bear coloring book that screamed at me to take it home and when I asked my mom for it she simply said “No, you have enough coloring books.” I tried to reason with her, being careful not to whine, because she hated whining. I told her I didn’t have THAT one and if I had THAT one I’d never ask for another thing ever in my whole life because my life would be complete. She didn’t believe me and the next thing I knew we were leaving the store bookless and getting in the car to go home.
I silently stewed about it on the drive home. I’d close my eyes while the wind from the open windows blew my hair into knots and tangles and all I could envision was lying on the floor with my Yogi Bear coloring book, coloring each page methodically. I could hear songbirds in the background in this vision and I’m pretty sure there was a rainbow that ended right on the coloring book itself. I had to have that coloring book.
After we got home, I waited a few minutes and I went up to my mom again and asked her to go back and get me that coloring book. She looked at me, shook her head and said “No.” I sulked to my room and buried my head into my pillow, crying silently. “Why did my mom hate me so much? How could she do this? Life is so unfair. Wait, maybe she doesn’t really understand how important this is to me. I’ll go ask again.” So I did, and I got the same reply and was told to go to my room. I did and I immediately buried my head back into my pillow this time muffling cries of frustration. “How dare she not get me a coloring book. She is so mean. She’ll be sorry she never got me that coloring book when I’m dead.” This is when I knew I had to teach her a lesson. I stood up, dried my tears, and marched back downstairs to confront my mother.
She was sitting on the couch watching TV and I walked over and stood beside her and said “Mommy I need that coloring book.” Her eyes never left the television and she said something to the effect “Didn’t I tell you to go to your room? You’re not getting that coloring book and that’s final.” Tears started streaming down my cheeks because I knew when she said “that’s final” that things were indeed final. I had one more card to play. “If I don’t get that coloring book I’m going to kill myself and I’ll be dead and you’ll be sorry.” I saw one of her eyebrows go up and she slowly turned to look at me. “Oh yeah is that so?” “Yes.” I said and we stared at each other. Then I thought about how I would kill myself. Should I throw myself down the steps? No, too painful. Should I stab myself with a pair of scissors I saw sitting at the table? No, again too painful. No, I would hold my breath until I died. So I took a big inhale and held it. “Man oh man” I thought “she’s going to start crying any second, hug me, and then she’ll go back to the store and probably get me TWO Yogi Bear coloring books.”
But that never happened. And I never could hold my breath until I died. I did, however, hold my breath a few times long enough to get a little lightheaded, and then I pretended to collapse in death’s grasp at her feet. I stared up at her as she continued to watch television. When her show was over, she stepped over my “dead” body, turned off the lights and went to bed, leaving my “corpse” behind to rot on the living room floor. I lay there on the floor, staring up at the cold, dark nothingness and realized, years before I heard the wise words of Mick Jagger, that you can’t always get what you want. I got up, smoothed my hair with my hands and went on to bed.
I never did get that Yogi Bear coloring book.
So I slept on the couch the other night because that’s where my back feels better, and I don’t know if it was from sleeping on the couch or from the pain meds but I had another weird bullshit celebrity dream that I’m going to tell you about.
In this dream I was in a post-apocalyptic world and I was on horseback, riding alone along a burnt road. The horizon was all weird, and the vegetation was all singed from previously being nuked and I remember thinking I was probably going to get cancer soon when I heard someone yelling “Help.” I rode over toward the sound with one hand on my holster and I saw a dude standing by a horse. When I got close enough I saw it was Daniel Craig.
I said “What’s wrong, Daniel Craig?” and he said “Nothing.” I said “Weren’t you yelling for help?” He said “Yes, but Help is the name of my dog. He’s missing.” I thought it strange that he named his dog Help, but I knew actors were weird, especially British ones. I said “I’ll help you look for him, Daniel Craig.” He got on his horse and we headed out toward nothingness and I we chit-chatted and I started thinking I’d make sweet love to him after we found his dog because he was pretty hawt and it was the end of the world after all, so what the Hell. Then I got to thinking that it being the end of the world, there wouldn’t be any contraceptives and I knew I didn’t want to be having a baby in a world with no hospitals or orphanages, so I decided I’d just make out with him a little. About that time there was a rustling in some bushes and Daniel Craig was all “There he is! C’mere Help.” and I looked and a fucked up coyote looking beast with mange and two heads lumbered out from behind the bushes. “Damn, Daniel Craig, that’s one fucked up looking dog.” ”Yes, he was born after the war so he’s not too pretty.” That’s when I knew I’d made a good decision not to make sweet love to him. He asked me to pick Help up and put him on his lap in the saddle and I was thinking “Goddamn, I don’t want to touch that thing” but I kind of still wanted to make out with him later so I got down from my horse. When I picked Help up he started struggling and snapping at me with his two mouths and I was all scared I was going to get nuclear rabies, but I was determined to get the damn thing up to him so Daniel Craig and I could at least make out later. As I went to lift the beast I slipped back and he was all in my face and I remember thinking how foul smelling the “dog” was, like he was just a ball of dead fish inside a sack of mangy fur, and then my mouth was all full of that mangy fur, and I started choking and gasping for air. That’s where I woke up and discovered Thelma was laying right up against my head with her ass half on my face. She had eaten some canned cat food earlier that day. Tuna flavored cat food. FML.
I had a bad morning yesterday. And I’m telling you right now, I became such a wimpy, whiny girl I wanted to punch myself in the face. I could not control it. Not that I’m trying to make any excuses mind you, but as I’ve mentioned a few days ago, I sprained my back and have been jacked up on prednisone, muscle relaxers, and painkillers so I’m blaming it on that. Yeah, that’s it.
Now to set up this conversation, I was driving to work early yesterday morning when suddenly the steering locked up on my car and I lost all things electrical. I managed to pull over into the front parking lot of a business. It was cold, and dark, and I was in the hood. This was the very first time I had ever broken down on the side of the road. J lives hours away, all my friends live on the other side of Columbia, and besides it was 5 in the morning, they’d all be asleep. I knew I had to call a wrecker (I have AAA) but the first call I made was to wake up J because my crazy-girly gene kicked in. Now, read all my lines in the whiniest, most irritating voice you can manage in your head and multiply that by ten.
Me: “MY CAR BROKE DOWN ON THE WAY TO WORK!”
J: “Where are you?”
Me:” IN THE GHETTO IN MY BROKEN DOWN CAR!”
J: “Stay in your car, make sure your doors are locked. I know you’re armed. Now, did you call the auto club?”
Me: “Not yet! What do I do? Will they take me home? Will I have to sit in my car at the garage? (Here is where actual girly tears start and I start babbling like a loon) What do I dooo? It’s five and no one’s open! *sniff* I have never done this! Why don’t I have more friends who live by me? My back hurts, and I’m cold, and I’m in the ghetto, *sniff* and I have a bunch of stuff with me because I was bringing lunch for some people today, and it’s dark, and my back hurts, *sniff* and I’m on that road where people get killed walking all the time so I’m not walking, and what if it costs a lot to fix my car, and I can’t not have a car, I want a new car, and I didn’t wear a coat today because I’m either in a warm car or building, and I have to poop.”
J: (Starts laughing)
Me: (Starts laughing too) Okay, hang up and let me call the auto club.
So the wrecker arrived an hour later and I sat in his cab while the wrecker man put my car on his truck. I called J to tell him the guy was driving me home then taking my car to the garage.
Me: “He’s loading my car, but I can’t watch.”
J: “Why not?”
Me: “It’s like watching your baby being put on a stretcher.”
J: laughs “You’re so weird.”
Me: “I’m serious. I knew if I saw him put a big ol’ chain on her and start dragging her I’d scream ‘STOP IT! YOU’RE HURTING HER!” and I’d go at him like a spider monkey.”
J: “Go home and poop.”
Me: “Okay, bye.”
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