I don't know what's going to become of the men in my life when I am no longer available to make money magically appear in their accounts, tell them not to lick batteries, and to leave the six-month old bologna in the back of Frig II where it belongs. Ah...the weaker sex would soon perish from malnutrition, stupidity, or violence at the hands of angry mobs wielding flaming torches if we did not look out for them, ladies.
At the academic banquet on Wednesday night, in a room teeming with decorum and respect and dreams for the future...Hick's cell phone went off. It's not like he has a catchy ringtone. No "Can't Touch This," no "You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Paaaaarrrrrty!" Not even his favorite song, by David Allen Coe, with its last verse that starts out: "I was drunk the day my ma got out of prison..." Nope. Hick is so out of touch that even 80s songs are not on his phone. Just a sound. The ringing of a dial phone. Catchy, huh? So all these heads turn to look at VAL when that phone rings, hopefully not because they think she is such an anachronism, but because she's a small-town celebrity, and when a phone rings in her vicinity during a heartfelt speech about the success of our students, their eyes are drawn to a star of her magnitude.
Still. I was mighty embarrassed.
Hick made a big show of frowning at his phone, like it had betrayed him, and fiddled with it, and stuck it back in the holster on his belt. I'll be ding dang donged it that phone didn't ring again five minutes later. Again, Hick huffed, poked at it aggressively, said, "There!" and laid it on the banquet table. Yeah. You're ahead of me. Five minutes later, that not-heavenly gadget started vibrating to beat the band. You would have thought a convoy of armored tanks was driving though, such was the clatter and rumbling. After I disemboweled him with my eyes, Hick finally turned that thing off.
Allow me to be Rooster Cogburn for a minute. "Genius, you can stand clear now. I have no interests in you today." That's because his tale will take the spotlight another time. Right now it's The Pony I aim to take in for questioning.
"Pony! Can you tell me, perhaps, why, after taking a shower a scant two hours ago yesterday, and five hours ago today, that my butt sticks to the NASCAR bathroom toilet like Polygrip-ed dentures to septuagenarian gums?"
"Um. I don't really know what you're talking about. But I didn't use it!"
"How can that be? Are you saying that my clean butt just happens to stick to that toilet seat today and yesterday, when it did not all last week?"
"No. I don't know why it sticks. Butts emit many things."
"So you're saying that something is emitted by the backs of my upper thighs and buttocks that makes me stick to the toilet seat?"
"Maybe..."
"I am not up-to-date on the extent of your knowledge of the female anatomy, but I assure you there are no special glands that release any type of bodily fluid from the back of a woman's upper thighs or buttocks."
"Um. I don't really want to know that."
"Then stop peeing on the seat and saying you didn't!"
"I wasn't in there!"
"Yet I heard you this morning right after you went downstairs, and yesterday morning, too. You know the fan goes on when you turn on the light, right? And that you can hear it humming from the living room."
"Oh. But I wiped off the seat!"
That's what they all say.
At least he didn't blame it on another male in the house. However, he should know it takes less effort to raise and lower the seat than to wipe the seat clean. Actually, he should know much more than that.
ReplyDeleteAnd none of 'em DO wipe the seat. It's not their job... It's YOUR job, Val. So stop your bellyachin' and do it.
ReplyDeleteAt least he hit the seat and not the floor. Err, maybe he did but you didn't know it because you didn't sit there. But when your toes stick, you'll know. Believe me it's worse. Still, like Sioux says, it's still YOUR job to wipe it up.
ReplyDeleteOh, gawd. The things you ladies do say.
ReplyDeleteIf men knew what women laughed about, they would never sleep with us!!
ReplyDeleteHe went quickly from I wasn't in there to I wiped off the seat.
ReplyDeleteJoanne,
ReplyDeleteTo think of all the Cheerios wasted on teaching that toddler Pony how to aim! Cheerios that could have been better-used as an ingredient in my world famous Chex Mix.
******
Sioux,
I will have to go to the file cabinet and check my contract. I don't recall that being part of my duties. Surely I would never have negotiated such a contract if I had known I would be living with one man and four boys over the course of my marriage!
******
Leenie,
I think it's time to re-negotiate my contract. I want to make sure that clause is in there about The Pony being the one to clip my yellow snaggly old-lady toenails on a weekly basis, and push my wheelchair through the casino, towing my oxygen tank.
*****
Catalyst,
Every now and then, we need to let it out. Consider it insurance against you guys accidentally slipping while walking near the wood-chipper.
*****
fishducky,
Unfortunately, I think they still would.
As Hick likes to say, about OTHER men, of course: "His memory ain't no longer than his ******." Let the record show that this word is what you might call a chicken stabbing at feed on the ground with its beak.
******
Stephen,
The Pony has learned the value of having Plan B.