Monday, September 08, 2008

The Slime of Miss Green Moldy

Hey, what can I say? I can't remember why I'm standing in the kitchen spinning in circles with the water running, the tea kettle boiling, my Sim peeps hollering for help while sweat trickles down the middle of my back and pools in my butt crack, but I can STILL MAKE UP SILLY TITLES FOR THINGS!

For those of you who were not born before the Flood, that title is a take on some old movie: the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

I thought of another one, sure to go right over the heads of the less aged and/or historically savvy: "Would you like some Menachem Bacon with those eggs?"

Okay, today was one of those days. Up at 3:30 for no reason at all except I could tell my body was done sleeping for the night. Exhausted by 10 am with a mounting headache, I decided to pop out to the grocery store really quick for some laundry detergent and the super duper bottle of quick-release Advil. My hair was wet from the shower, I had on baggy clothes that are stained and frankly not fit for the charity barrel, and the worst shoes on earth: old red tennies that I spray painted pink once upon a time on a whim.

Because, you know, I'm just popping out for 15 minutes. I'll keep my head down low. I won't meet anyone I know. I won't be talking to any strangers. There won't be any dangers, dramas or emergencies between there and back again.

At the grocery store I successfully avoided the cute produce dude that has teased me for years that he is my husband because once, a LONG time ago he was sweeping the floor and I jumped over the broom.
I avoided going to my favorite checker because I felt too badly to make eye contact.
I made it all the way to pulling out my debit card when two ladies behind me raised a fuss about the cute little card holder I made out of paisley paper to keep my card from losing it's swipe. It's just like an old library card pocket, back when library cards were made of paper and needed to be protected. You know, kids, before PLASTIC was invented.

They kept insisting that was my hidden talent and where my fortune lay! I wanted to hang down my head and cry because, frankly? If that's my hidden talent? and where my fortunes lie? Then I'm a lost goner. Because I could probably sell them at 5 cents apiece and once I'd saturated the market I'd have made a quarter.

Finally I made it out of that store without too much fuss and as I pulled into the alley behind my building I almost ran smack dab into a downed power wire! Or, it could have been a telephone wire but how would I know? Like the Good Samaritan that I am, I whipped my car across the alley to block all other traffic and threw on my flashers.

I asked a nearby parishioner of the church, congregating in the parking lot like always, if she had a cell phone and explained the situation. She debated whether it was a 911 emergency or not while I had time to take stock of her bling, her perfectly coiffed hair, her designer shoes and the fact that her ear robot was the best quality shiny Star Wars model available on the market, I just KNEW she had time to take stock of my shoes, my hair, my air of desperate downtroddenness, and my trembling need for a big fix of Advil. Which, by the way, was all I could do to keep from whipping that bottle open right there and gnawing through the plastic in order to down a couple of them.

It's a shame, but I felt ashamed at my absolutely demented appearance. And why didn't I have my cell phone with me? What good does it do me at home when I'm out and about?

Nevertheless, I was not about to be thwarted in my quest to be a hero, so I stood my ground while she dithered about the phone. She finally decided to call the church administrator and see what he thought. I decided to handle it myself, quickly ran upstairs and called 911. I told the dispatcher that it might not be an emergency but it might be a sizzling smokin' hot 400 million volts of blue steel molten electricity just waiting for the hapless victim to come along and touch it, but it was her call whether to send out an officer or not.

Then I returned to my car hoping the cop was cute and single and over 75 otherwise he'd not be attracted to me unless he had full blown cataracts; firmly determined to have saved at least a dozen citizens from being reduced to charred ash heaps.

Alas, the cop was about 5 foot 1 inches tall, 23 years old soaking wet, totally oblivious to my flashers or my peepers, who calmly pulled up, got out of his vehicle and proceeded to roll the wire up and toss it out of the way.

Well, REALLY!

1 comment:

SmilingsMyFavorite said...

oh my goodness. I'm loving those pink tennis shoes! how funny! If the card holder career falls through, you can spray paint people's shoes for a living.