The End of Absence Makes the Ire Grow Stronger

Hick has been off the hook of late. And by "off the hook," I don't mean that he's been especially awesome. Since he was gone to Sweden for a week, and totally out of my hair, I had little to complain about, once his residual imprint around the homestead had faded. Well, let me tell you something.

HE'S BACK!

In case I might have forgotten, the bedcover situation last night made Hick's return clear. I might have tried to forget the fact that for a couple of weeks now, no matter how many times I tug and straighten it in the morning, my side of the fitted sheet is pulled loose from the corner by the time I hit the sack in the early morning hours. That's because Hick rolls up in the bedclothes like a giant burrito that even the Man vs Food guy would never attempt to consume. But it's the quilt situation that screams, "I'm BAAAACK!"

I walked from the master bathroom toward the end of the bed, to go around to my side away from the door (details in case Joe H wants to compile data for his study). In the dim light, I saw the wedding quilt my grandma made for us draped from the Hick burrito all the way to the carpet. Draped like a fine Paso Fino mane. Magnificent in it's drapage. Which meant that my side of the bed, in all its short-sheeted glory, was also as bare as Old Mother Hubbard's quilt cupboard. Let the record show that when you lie on your side, the cover should come down over your body, not end along an imaginary line from shoulder to hip to ankle. Forget about my heart growing cold while Hick was away. My body grows cold now that he's back.

But that's not all! This morning I made a pot of chili for him, because Hick likes chili. With toast. So I had to buy a loaf of plain white bread for him yesterday so he can make toast to go with his chili. Oh, don't think VAL is the one making his toast! I made his lunch! He wanted some Oberle sausage and Oberle cheese. Which I bought yesterday, along with his toast bread, and chili ingredients, and special crackers, although he had to make do with oval crackers instead of round Ritz, because I was shopping at Save A Lot, not some gourmet superstore.

I don't begrudge Hick the chili, because I like it too. But I don't see why he couldn't slice his own sausage. Heh, heh. My 13-year-old self is trying to be improper. Funny how a guy can do ANYTHING with a knife...except slice food for his own sustenance.

But that's not all! I told Hick that his lunch was sliced and on the second shelf of Frig II. And the crackers were in the box on the cutting block, where I had taken out the chili beans and canned ingredients to make the chili this morning. Well. I'd like to think you might be surprised to find that I returned from the bank and post office this morning to discover THIS:

But I know you won't be. Surprised, that is. Uh huh. Hick had opened his crackers, eaten some for lunch, and replaced the open box of crackers in this box that had carried home the groceries from Save A Lot. Like that's where they belong. Not in the pantry two steps to the right, just out of view, next to the laundry room door. Oh, yeah. I know our cutting block needs seasoning. But it's not like I hack up a side of beef there on a regular basis.

But that's not all! All week, I've been putting two cans of soda in Frig II so Hick can have one with supper, and one with his snack later in the evening. A Diet Mountain Dew, and a Diet A&W Root Beer. The 12-packs sit on a kitchen chair beside the door, where he can easily grab them and put them in himself. Or put the whole 12-pack in there. Hick was spoiled by The Pony stocking the basement mini fridge and bringing him a soda whenever he called for one. This afternoon, I saw that Hick had FINALLY put two sodas in for himself.

Right in the open space on the top shelf that I had cleared out to set the pot of chili when it cooled off.

Back-of-the-Book-Blurb Friday #34 "No Man Buys the Chicken"

Blog buddy Sioux is hosting Back-of-the-Book-Blurb Friday. I have 150 words to convince you to fake-buy my fake book. This week's fake book might be regarded as kind of corny, but it gives you a glimpse inside a real hen party. You'll cackle, you'll lay an egg, you'll come home to roost at Val's Fake-Book Library.

Loosen the iron grip on your retirement nest egg, and cough up some dough for Val's latest fake book.

No Man Buys the Chicken When He Can Get the Eggs For Free

Missy and Lissa are fed up with country guys who think they're cock-o-the-walk, strutting around like banty roosters, waiting for the women to flock to THEM. So they start their own business in an attempt to net a city dude. The biological clock is ticking. Time to settle down.

The gals book children's parties for divorced or unmarried dads, taking their fine feathered friends along as the entertainment. Kids love the living, breathing versions of their nuggets and fingers. Dads love the Daisy Dukes and halter tops on the chicken-tenders.

Will Missy and Lissa make a love connection this summer? Or will a jealous ex show them the pecking order when their antics get stuck in her craw? (118 words)

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Fake Reviews for Val’s Fake Book

Foghorn Leghorn…"Those are, ah say, those are some FINE looking birds on that book cover. Can't say the same for the author. Have you SEEN her driver's license? She makes Miss Prissy look like a supermodel. The only part of this book I can recommend is the cover."

Miss Prissy…"I was SSSSO looking forward to a little romance. Um...the fake book, I mean. However, I was sadly disappointed with the lack of talent shown by this writer, Val Thevictorian. If she ever achieves commercial success, I'll eat my bonnet!” 

Egghead, Jr…"I'm kind of young for a book with a theme like this, but I snuck it out of Mom's nest when she wasn't looking. That big ol' rooster said it would make a man of me. I don't want to be a man! I'm a chicken. I didn't think the cover was a work of art, either. I fake-read this fake book, and I must say I found the reading level quite beneath me. It's as if the author had no formal training whatsoever.”

The New York Times…"Which came first, Thevictorian or bad fake-writing?” 

Goodreads…"From the sentiment evidenced here, Thevictorian's fake work is more suited to a site called Badreads."

Val Thevictorian's Agent and Publisher…"Sorry, world. We gave it our all, but we were unable to make chicken salad out of chicken sh!t. One of which Thevictorian is full of."

Kirkus Reviews..."This fake book is nothing to crow about. Please do not egg Val Thevictorian on. Just egg her. With a quickness."

Chicken Little…"I never thought I would rejoice that the sky is falling. The rainbow at the end of the tunnel is that once the world is crushed, nobody else will be subjected to Thevictorian's catastrophic effort of a fake book."

The Gas Station Chicken Store…"We truly do not know what to say. We have posted a picture (look away, she's hideous) of Val Thevictorian on the cash register. She is barred from buying Diet Coke (the elixir that fueled this folly), and our fried chicken, (which is a fate she should be subjected to). We will still permit her to purchase scratch-off lottery tickets, because if she hits the big one, perhaps she will stop churning out these atrocious fake books."

The "Eat Mor Chikin" Cows..."Fergit bout eatin mor chikin. EAT THEVICTORIAN! As much uh her as you can cram in. If ya can indur the bittr tase. We don no much bout ritin, but we no wen a fak book sux."

Doo, Doo, Doo, Lookin' Out for The Pony

Just got home from town, my friends
Errands I thought would never end
Got to sit down
In my dark basement lair
My phone lets out a text buzz
Seems that someone just was
Doo, doo, doo
Lookin' out for The Pony

I don't think John Fogerty would mind me borrowing his lyrics for my tale today. Besides, they help give credence to my story. Heh, heh! See what I did there?

For those of you who think Val is the only crazy one in Thevictorian family...

Last night I sent The Pony a text around 7:00.

"Everything OK with you? Did you get last week's letter?"

"I haven't checked today but as of yesterday no letter yet. I'm studying for a test now."

"Not even last week's normal letter? The one I send every week, and you get on Thursday or Friday?"

"Not as far as I recall."

"Then I need to stop sending them, or try registered mail, or some other system. I send you a letter every week. With $20 in it."

"I know. I'll text you later if any have come in. But so far nothing has for about a week and a half iirc." (I think that means If I Recall Correctly. Just like Shirley Feeney told Laverne DeFazio that RSVP means Respond So Very Promptly.)

"OK."

At 11:50 p.m., my phone buzzed alive beside my basement recliner.

"The letter came today."

"You mean last week's regular letter, or the one I wrote three days ago and mailed Monday morning?"

"Haven't opened yet. Assuming last week's."

"Okay. Genius didn't get this week's letter today like he usually does. Am I addressing them right?"

"Yes. To my knowledge."

"Okay. Love you. One is on the way."

"I just read the letter. Spooky about the light in the kitchen, and I am sorry about your auto woes!"

"It was like I couldn't get a break. I really missed you when I was putting air in my tires! That kitchen light was quite a coincidence. Grandma always looked out for her boys!"

And that was it for the night. That last text I sent shortly after midnight. The furnace was kicking on and off, and the ductwork popping with contractions as it shut off. Much different from the walking, which has been absent of late. But at 1:40 I heard a thump directly over my head. That's in the boys' bathroom. I used to hear it when The Pony was here, and figured he had knocked his toothpaste off the sink, or dropped his phone. For the next hour and a half, I heard some walking in Genius's room above.

That must have been a major test, or else The Pony is using "studying" as a euphemism for "I don't want to talk to you right now." He told me he was studying on Sunday night, when I texted him about a 5.0 earthquake that had hit there within the hour (thanks, blog buddy Joe H, for alerting me!). And he told Hick that he was studying, twice, when Hick tried to communicate with him on Monday and yesterday.

This morning I went to town for several errands, one of them being to transfer money for Genius and The Pony, since Friday is a banking holiday, and more errands for me on Monday, and a doctor appointment on Tuesday. I figured I'd get their monthly allowance doled out, just in case the process hit a snag. Which it did. And as you may recall, I mailed the checks last month, and Genius's arrived five days late, and The Pony's has never been found.

This morning, I tried to mobile deposit The Pony's money seven times, from five different town locations, all showing plenty of SPRINT bars, and could not get it through. I signed in, took the pictures of the check front and back, put in the amount, and then could not CONTINUE to the next screen. I called his credit union, and the girl looked up the account, and said if I didn't get a message that it was accepted, it wasn't. She had no idea how I could make it work. "I guess it's just a snag in the app." Indeed. I did it last month. But now I can't.

I'll try again tomorrow. I think I went above and beyond the effort required for one day. Short of helicoptering the money out to Oklahoma and dropping it on The Pony's head, I don't know how much harder I can try.

Anyhoo...I got home a little before 1:00. I had just settled down in front of New Delly in my dark basement lair, ready to sip to my soon-to-be-racing heart's content from my 44 oz Diet Coke, when my phone buzzed. It was 1:20 p.m., and it was from The Pony:

"A ladybug landed on my arm while I was walking to my Chem test."

Yeah. I guess crazy is in the genes. Or we both give off the same pheromone that attracts ladybugs in mid-November.

Uh Oh. Val is THAT PERSON Again.

Sunday was not a good day for Val. 

I was sitting in the recliner and saw Jack come out of the woods that Juno uses for her toilet, and HE WAS LIMPING! He had to stop and sit down, and when he sat his long little body down, he held up his paw. It would have been cute if it wasn’t so heartbreaking. I called Hick, who was at Walmart getting mad at them with the tire of his Oldsmobile. He had a flat but no stem to fix it, and Walmart takes first come, first serve. Hick specifically rushed in ahead of a man he saw get out of his truck, so he could beat him to the service counter. He waited 20 minutes for them to change the oil in a car, and THEN THEY CALLED THE TRUCK GUY! Hick went and complained about being there first, and the worker man said, “Well, we have to put four tires on this truck,” and Hick complained some more about being there first, and why did they skip over him, and the man said, “We just did.” So Hick demanded his keys back and left and went and bought a stem to fix it himself.

ANYHOO…back to Jack. I called Hick and told him Jack was hurt, and he said, “He was just down at the creek with me and Juno, running around having a great time.” He probably didn’t swim, because temps were in the 40s that morning. I asked Hick to take a look at him as soon as he got home. Maybe he stepped on a thorn, or got snake bit. Hick said, “He probably got bit by a snake.” Like that’s the most common thing that could happen. Huh. And the thing that would worry me most. I told him that, and then he said, “Oh, animals get over getting snakebit all the time.” I still don’t know what’s wrong with Jack.

Hick said he looked at his foot and didn’t see anything in it, and Jack didn’t yelp when he pulled on his leg, so he doesn’t think it’s broken. Then HOS and his boy came out, and HOS helped Hick look at Jack’s foot some more. He’s so pitiful. They couldn’t find anything. I looked at Jack on the side porch later. Still nothing. I told Hick that if Jack wasn’t better by the end of the week, I’d taking him to the vet. Hick said, “He’ll be fine.” Meaning, I think, that he’s not spending money on the vet. We’ll see.

Okay, so that started my morning. Then I went to Country Mart for some hamburger for spaghetti for Hick, and some refried beans and Spanish rice for me, to build a Hardee’s chicken bowl which is my new favorite fast food, and only 430 calories. I didn’t think Save A Lot would have that Spanish rice. Anyhoo… I got the hamburger and refried beans and rice and some sugar free Lifesaver mints and Werther’s for Hick. I got to the checkout and barely had to wait, and it was $19.72, so I put in my debit card and it kept saying AUTHORIZING and then it said NOT APPROVED! That's preposterous! I KNOW I have $19.72 in my bank account! So the lady asked the service lady over by where The Pony used to rent the same Thomas the Tank Engine movie every week until they gave it to us…if the internet was down. And she said no. So we tried it again. I looked at the old man behind me and said, “Maybe it’s demagnetized.” And he nodded his head and said, “They’ll do it! Mine did that in Texas at a radio tower!” Since I haven’t been in Texas around a radio tower, I figure I must have put my phone in the pocket with it, even though I am conscious of that, because that’s how Genius said Hick’s card got demagnetized. Maybe that man was afraid I would ask him to pay for my groceries. But I pulled out a $20, because I’m always prepared. And because I buy my lottery tickets in their machines. I bought some, and won $40. Not as much as I wanted to. But at least there’s THAT.

My next stop was at the gas station chicken store for a 44 oz Diet Coke and the chicken I’d been thinking about for two days. It was another bad part of my day. When I walked in, I did NOT smell chicken! That is a travesty, because on a Sunday, EVERYBODY buys chicken! Most people after church, but me because I know they won’t have it again until Wednesday, because the chicken fryers are off on Monday and Tuesday. So, disappointed, and without my correct change, because I was planning on CHICKEN, I still got my soda, and then also two lottery tickets, because I wanted to ask the guy to try my debit card. Uh huh, I’M THAT PERSON who uses a debit card to buy a soda. And two lottery tickets. Which were losers, I might add. But at least my card worked there. I took a check in Walmart the next day just in case, since I didn't have The Pony to run back out for it. (Let the record show that it worked like a charm.)

When I got back home, I wanted to look at Jack’s foot again, and while I had him mostly still and was just leaning over without his long tongue darting into my mouth to clean my teeth…JUNO came running around and stuck her face in mine and tried to wedge in between me and Jack. I spoke to her sharply and hurt her feelings, and then I felt bad, and Jack squirmed loose, and Juno was sad during my evening walk and on the front porch for her evening snack. But I hugged her then and said I was sorry and I think she accepted my apology. Either that, or she really liked the raw hamburger I thawed out for her and Jack.

I certainly hope Even Steven has now balanced out my casino win from last Wednesday. I am not proud of being THAT PERSON who works on a car in the Walmart parking lot (because her husband does not maintain their rattletraps properly), makes excuses for her debit card not working (while you know everyone in line thinks she has no money in her account, or stole that card), and uses a debit card to pay for a soda in a convenience store (thus inconveniencing other customers there for the convenience).

Val Tries Her Hand at Horror

Val is about to tell you a horror story with far-reaching consequences! Get something to nosh on. Grab the popcorn and soda. Or maybe you'll have to make do with a bowl of nuts and some grape juice, if you're visiting a family you don't know because you're planning to watch the movie version rather than read it. Watch out for their white sofa, and remember that you can't call your seat.

Our story begins here. Looks foreboding, doesn't it? What horror might lurk behind those walls? Are you brave enough to enter?

Lots of warnings on the door. Are you sure you want to go through with this? On the other side of that door is a basement packed with angst. With souls that don't know which way to turn.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here! I had to work quick, before one of those angsty souls escaped into the dark pall of day, and got caught on my hand-me-down-phone camera.

An elderly gentleman with a cane beat me (not literally) to the door. He bemoaned the fact that this polling place really should be handicap accessible. I just moaned. In agreement. There are five carpeted steps down to the basement where the ballots are doled out. With only one handrail, because the other side of the stairwell is taken up by one of those mechanical seat contraptions like shot Mrs. Deagle, the hateful banker/cat lady, out the upstairs window in Gremlins. Nobody was gonna ride that thing. It didn't even have arms on it to stab your fingernails into. And it was tiny. It would have been like asking a sumo wrestler to sit on a postage stamp. A snow songbird stamp, not an oversized, overpriced breast cancer awareness stamp.

What's all the flap about should we have a law requiring people to show ID before they vote? We ALWAYS have to show ID at my polling place. They used to check your driver's license picture, then flip through a giant book bigger than Santa's Naughty and Nice List, and mark in ink that you voted. NOW they have a fancy schmancy contraption that Genius would appreciate, though he's probably designed things way more complicated that that while in middle school. The lady turned my license over (and not just because of the worst picture ever taken that I sincerely hope doesn't do me justice) and put it on a little platform and pushed a thingy that read the barcode on the back!

Then I was given a paper ballot by the next old crone, and a black pen by the last crone at the table. Voting was family style. That means we didn't have booths for privacy, like I remember when I accompanied my parents to vote in the gymnasium of my old junior high school when I was in elementary. It's the same place we went to eat sugar cubes with polio vaccine on them! And there were yellow triangle radiation signs declaring that it was also a shelter for when the Ruskies dropped the big one. Ahh...my idyllic childhood...

Anyhoo...we had to sit at round tables-for-five, covered with red plastic tablecloths, to do our voting, with people walking by all willy-nilly, and getting up and sitting down, and others talking loudly, one lady in particular, who said, "Isn't it a pity we don't have someone to vote FOR, rather than someone to vote AGAINST?" I swear someone hollered back, "Amen!" But we WERE in a church. It's like people arrived for a nice banquet, and were forced to take a tiny taste of the entree just to say they'd tried it, though most spit it out "Ptooey!" and filled their ballot plates with more palatable side dish choices.

Against the wall were three electronic voting machines, I think. I only had a chance to use one about 8 years ago, and that's where it was. There weren't even dividers on the sides. They were like tall TV trays. A lady came from there with her panties in a wad, because of what it said on the top of the electronic ballot. "This is ST. Boondocks County! Why does the ballot only say 'Boondocks County?'" Nobody had an answer for her, but you could tell she was agitated lest her ballot be thrown out for a clerical error.

The minder at the ballot-feeder was quite disinterested when I got to it. I asked if it mattered which end went in first, or which side was up, and she said no. But earlier, while voting, I heard her complaining to another lady that some people only checked or Xed the boxes (more like oval rectangles) instead of filling them in completely, and the machine kicked them out, and they had to sit down and color them in.

Let the record show that my polling place, at 10:30 a.m., was filled with MY PEOPLE (in the same manner The Pony refers to introverted nerds as HIS PEOPLE). Meaning the elderly and partially-lame and not-working good-ol'-bubba network, with men wearing overalls and women with their hair on the fourth day of their weekly beauty-parlor shellacking.

Get a load of THIS! When I got up this morning, I sent Hick a text to ask if he voted. Usually he goes on the way to work, and was often one of the first handful of people to show up when the polling place opened at 6:00. And do you know that Hick texted back?

"No. I thought we would go when I get home."

Has that man lost his mind? There's no way I was leaving home with him after 5:00 p.m. and trying to get in there to vote! NEVER in the history of our marriage have we gone to the polling place at the same time. If this is what his retirement looks like, I want no part of it! I used to go by after work, when it was starting to get dark, taking both boys along, and I had trouble finding a parking spot at 4:00 or 4:30. I can only imagine after 5:00. When I was there today at 10:30, both parking lots were full, AND the spot for five or six cars out front along the road. I was lucky to have a car backing out right by the red door.

That's my voting adventure. Hick went after work, and said it was packed. He got one of these, too

(scary thought), though I was the only one left by that time for him to impress, while I had paraded my sticker through the gas station chicken store. Nobody made a comment. But when I was teaching, the kids (and some teachers) were in a tizzy all day when they saw legal adults without a vote sticker. Not everybody lives a couple blocks down the street from their polling place, you know. Mine is in the opposite direction of town.

I made the effort, though. And if you didn't, you'd better hold your tongue for the next four years, because you haven't earned the right to gripe.

Let the record show that the vote sticker is stuck to my gambling uniform shirt! Which might have, perhaps, been an inadvertent wardrobe choice of Freudian proportions.