Val: Portrait From a PEEPaholic

With the Easter holiday fast approaching, I cannot hold my deep darker secret any longer. I bought myself some of THESE:

They're Party Cake PEEPS, people! PARTY CAKE!

Let the record show that I have not sampled them at this juncture. I am saving this treat until I am pretty sure there are no more available. Because once Val gets a taste of PEEPS, it's Katy bar the door!

I found this food of the gods a couple weeks ago, on a center aisle display at Walmart. I was almost successful in pushing my cart right past them. Until I saw the words PARTY CAKE! Uh huh. I could resist the regular flavor PEEPS, even the bunny form, my favorite. And the Mystery PEEPS, some of which I tried a couple years ago, and figured out they were sour apple. Yes, I was feeling quite emwillpowered that day, ready to forge right by the Bubble Gum PEEPS, and any flavor, really, until I saw PARTY CAKE!

Let the record further show that Val has been successful in suppressing her urges over the past year. In fact, Hick pointed out only Saturday that there is a Walmart bag with a box of PEEPS in it under the desk in the corner of the master bedroom.

"I know. I got them last year, and I've been trying not to eat them."

Mission accomplished, people! Mission accomplished. The PARTY CAKE PEEPS, though, are not long for this world. Probably after Easter dinner, I will partake of their squishy goodness. No way will I brave the hordes on the day after Easter, trying to procure holiday candy at rock-bottom prices.

What's the worst that could happen, right? That I backslide and devour the bunny PEEPS left from 2016? I can still recover. Two and done! Safe for another year.

Okay. Maybe that should be 20 and done. Because there are ten PEEPS in a pack.

Oh...and I think there are Halloween PEEPS now. Which will hit the shelves around July 5th.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere Are Signs...Shutting Val Up Whenever She Whines

It is no secret that Val thinks she is special. That she has an insider relationship with the Universe, where she is in tune with frequencies that have nothing to do with the aluminum foil antennae headband she wears 24/7, even though it means driving with T-Hoe's sunroof open for optimal reception.

Yes, Val has hunches and inklings and seems to be in the right place at the right time to buy winning lottery tickets and hear special songs and see ladybugs in various forms. Perhaps Val is simply a wishful thinker, and these random incidents are only that: random incidents.

Let the record show that last week, I had The Pony on my mind a lot. Not that there's anything wrong (that I know of), just that he's 19-going-on-11, and he's been away at OU since the first week of January, and he can't come home for Easter dinner because they don't get any extra time off, having already had their spring break, and all I get is a random text here and there. My helicopter is grounded due to lack of a pilot, and I worry about my baby The Pony being so far away and so on his own.

On Wednesday, I drove to the Walmart over in Bill-Paying Town. I wanted to check out their deli selection, and Hick assigned a mission to search for small Cardinals or Blues trinkets to add to his sports collection that he houses in his Little Barbershop of Horrors. I browsed around for quite a while, and picked up too many gewgaws for Hick. I also found a delicious BBQ chicken wrap in the deli that my regular Walmart does not have.

With this trip being twice as far as I usually travel, and the journey taking place in the morning, after the dosing of blood pressure meds, I had a need to use the restroom facilities before I would arrive back at the homestead. Not an emergency. But you KNOW that it's going to be if you wait that extra 45 minutes before you get home. I still had to stop for my 44 oz Diet Coke, you know. And don't even suggest that I use the facilities at the gas station chicken store. They have His and Hers doors right up front by the register, and though I've never been in them, I imagine they have probably been there unchanged since the mid 1940s.

I paid for my many memorabilia, and parked my cart by the restrooms on the front wall of Walmart. It had a handicap stall and a regular stall. I could see the door to the handicap stall was standing open. Believe me, I have no qualms about using the handicap stall. In fact, I prefer it. But what was going on inside the other stall made me reconsider. I heard rustling. Lots of crinkly rustling. Some grunting. The woman in the stall was either standing sideways, or her legs were terribly misshapen, in which case she really, really needed to be in that handicap stall. Her pants were not gathered around her ankles, but of proper length, right at the top of her shoes that pointed toward me, not toward the front of the stall. Her feet were at a 90 degree angle to the toilet.

While the odd configuration of this woman's feet inside the stall flitted through my mind, TWO ITEMS FELL TO THE FLOOR INSIDE THAT STALL! I was so shocked that I did not fully gather what they were. Not big. One was yellow and about the size of a rubber ducky, only soft-looking, with a price tag held on by a clear stringy thing that's so hard to get off. The other was a bit bigger, aqua in color. I have no idea what they were, because I turned and sped out the door. Val was not going to be caught up in a shoplifting sting. No siree, Bob! I wanted no part of being mistake for a 'lifter, nor subpoenaed as a witness.

I went right back out and pushed my cart out the door. A man with a cart kept right beside me. I don't think he was undercover. I think he was just a regular Bill-Paying Town weirdo feeling the pull of my magnet. I would swerve left to go around him, and then find him catching up on my right after passing. "I wonder where my car is..." he said. To me, not rhetorically.

"Huh. I don't know. I'm thinking I shouldn't have put my glasses on top of my head, because these sprinkles are going to leave spots on them." I sped off as fast as I could after that attempt to be polite. He pinballed from one side of the parking aisle to the other, but I tossed my stuff in T-Hoe's hatch and got out of there.

I thought I could stop by the Sonic that's just across the highway from Walmart. They have a restroom down on the end. I used to stop there all the time when I had business more often in Bill-Paying Town. Of course I would also order a Route 44 Diet Cherry Coke while I was there. Just to be polite. But on THIS day, the three bays along in front of the restroom were taken. TAKEN! What's with these people eating lunch at 10:50 a.m.? It's not like they're teachers on their lunch 22-minutes in the school cafeteria.

Anyhoo...I drove on by. I figured I could go at the Waterside Mart halfway home, even though it was a couple miles off my route. I could pick up a lottery ticket while I was there. But when I got to the curve by the local junior college, it occurred to me that I could stop at Hardee's and use their restroom. I haven't been to that Hardee's for at least a year, back when I was still working, and I met my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel there for breakfast when I took a sick day for a doctor's appointment.

I pulled in and parked out on the big lot of the mostly-abandoned shopping center. It's hard to back T-Hoe with his backup beeper not working. I stepped up on the sidewalk and started in. Something was laying on the sidewalk, but I stepped over it and continued about my business. I didn't feel a need to buy anything from them. I don't really like their soda, and I had my BBQ chicken wrap for lunch when I got home.

As I came outside and started back up the sidewalk to T-Hoe, I paused to see what was on the ground.

It was a PONY! There he is, prancing across the dusty wasteland of T-Hoe's dash, one inch tall from hoof to ear. Of course I picked him up! He's a sign from the Universe that The Pony is okay! Isn't he? Why else would I stop at a place that I don't patronize, and find him right there where I have to walk?

Yep. I bent over and picked up that little pony and didn't give an obese rodent's patooty if the Hardee's dining room was full of witnesses, and possibly a crying toddler who lost it. He's mine now, by cracky! That little pony is standing on the desk in my dark basement lair, up on a pile of CDs, in a clear plastic holder of square memo papers, right next to a white plastic MOM with nesting, spinning Os that Genius made on a 3D printer.

I think my life is on track. Every little delay put me right there, right then, after a spur-of-the moment decision on where to take a pee...to find a dropped toy, which could have been anything. Except it wasn't. It was a pony.

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Let the record show that I typed this up on Saturday night, scheduled it to post this evening, and then today, Sunday, in Walmart...

The ladybug made an appearance on the CLEARANCE aisle. Even though that tag says it's a bumble bee...you can't fool Val. That's a LADYBUG!

I had just finished loading my cart with too much sugar for my too-spoiled boys for their Easter treat. The CLEARANCE aisle was just on the other side of the last Easter candy aisle, so I thought I'd take a stroll along there.

Glad I did. Although the only thing I bought there was a roll of tape to close up the box for mailing The Pony's treat.

Signs.

On the Lam After Dishing Spam

You know how it goes. If your phone rings and you don't recognize the number...who in their right mind picks up? Not this ol' Val, that's for sure.

Last Friday afternoon, a call came in from ZDXFGEIEIO. Not knowing anyone by that name, I chose not to answer. I was sitting at New Delly in my dark basement lair, and saw on the screen of my ancient Panasonic land line receiver that the number had a local area code. I may be tempted, you know, to answer if it's different. Just because I don't know the area codes in Oklahoma, and it might involve The Pony. But if a local caller can't display their identity, then I probably don't want to talk to them.

The phone picked up, and I heard a lady's voice leave a message. She did not sound like a recording, but rather like she was reading from a script. "This call is for Dude Duderson, regarding the case against you in Gotcha County. This is your notification that we are proceeding with your case unless you contact us with information concerning Case Number 123456. Consider yourself notified."

Well. I do not know Dude Duderson. I have heard of some Dudersons, having associations with someone Hick used to know. But we have no dealings with any Dudersons. So I figured, "Too bad, so sad. Dude Duderson gave a fake number, and now he's about to reap what he's sown." No skin off my nose. I am not Dude Duderson's answering service. Nor am I paid by Gotcha County to track down their fugitives.

I thought nothing else of it. Went on with my daily chore of sipping a 44 oz Diet Coke, writing two blog posts, reading conspiracy websites, watching slot machine videos, and wondering if Hick was having a good flight home from Sweden.

On Monday morning, as I was getting ready to go mail a package of tax forms to Genius, and pick up my 44 oz Diet Coke for the day's chores...the phone rang again. From ZDXFGEIEIO. Same lady. Only this time she informed Dude Duderson that they were on the way, unless he called back with pertinent information in reference to Case Number 123456. She said he would be notified one more time, and that they would arrive within four hours.

Huh. Sucks to be Dude Duderson, I guess. If only he hadn't falsified his contact number, he might have made an escape. Hick came in to spring his surprise plan of taking me to cash in my lottery ticket, and I told him about Dude Duderson apparently giving our number as his contact.

"Huh. I don't know Dude. [REDACTED] used to be married to a Duderson. That doesn't surprise me."

"Do you think I should have picked up? To say Dude doesn't live here, and we don't even know who Dude is?"

"Nah. He shouldn't have give our number. He'll get what he deserves."

"Yeah. That's what I thought."

On the way home from our ticket-cashing/casino/Goodwill Tour day, a sudden thought shot through my brain.

"What if Dude Duderson gave our ADDRESS, too?"

"Well, then...I guess they showed up to get him and he wasn't home."

"Heh, heh! Wouldn't you crap if we get home and there's a sticky note on the front door telling Dude they stopped by and missed him while he was out?"

"Yeah. I wouldn't be happy if I had to prove I'm not Dude Duderson."

Pretty sure Dude won't want Hick and Val as peers on his jury.

Back-of-the-Book-Blurb Friday #55 "The Long Finger of the Pa"

Blog buddy Sioux is hosting Back-of-the-Book-Blurb Friday. I have 150 words to convince you to fake-buy my fake book. Do you have a slight physical imperfection? A minor affliction, perhaps, that doesn't incapacitate you, but makes some situations difficult? Or maybe just embarrassing? If so, or even if you like to gawk at others (surreptitiously, of course, so as not to hurt their feelings), then this week's fake book is for you. It's the story of a man who should have listened to his mother. "What if your finger froze that way, Sonny?" Yeah. He should have listened. Fake-order your fake copy today! Competition for the limited print run will be stiff.

The Long Finger of the Pa

Flick Ricks is embarrassed by his father, Flipper, the town laughingstock. Since his early teens, Flipper's middle finger has been unbendable. Kids ribbed him mercilessly growing up. "Little Flip Ricks grew up in the sticks, eating his Christmas pie. He stuck in his bird and pulled out a turd, and said, 'What an eff-up am I!'"

Flipper doesn't want his son Flick to hear such taunting. He beats them to the punch. "Hey! Pull my finger!" He improvises song lyrics. "I'm good, good, Flipper Ricks...the nicest man in a town of d*cks!" He starts conversations with, "I can't quite put my finger on it, but..."

Flipper vows that his son shall have the best counseling his thriving proctologist income can provide. What stories will Flick have to tell about his childhood? (131 words)

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Fake Reviews for Val’s Fake Book

Badfinger..."We remember finding out about Thevictorian. Looking out on her fake, fake book, day after day. If you want it, here it is. Come and get it. But you better hurry because it's a piece of trash. You better hurry, cause it will not last."

Fickle Finger of Fate..."The release of this fake book, and its lackluster sales, is a prime example of how not-bad-enough things happen to not-good-enough people."

Flipper..."Clicketyclicketyclickety!" Translation: I'm a dolphin, you idiots! How can I fake-read a fake book?

Sit 'n' Spin..."I am dizzy with anticipation for the sequel!"

One Finger..."I salute you, Thevictorian, on your latest fake effort."

The Bird..."Neither flipping nor flying nor shooting me will properly convey the feeling most folks have after fake-reading this fake book."

Henry Fonda's dead severed arm and hand strapped to the mast at the end of Sometimes a Great Notion..."Take THAT, Thevictorian!"

Fingerling Potato..."While I would like to report that this fake book is a smashing success...it instead made me boiling mad! Oh, my eyes! There is nothing new here. It's almost as if the fake author was baked or loaded when she fake-wrote it. She needs to stop waffling and make her plot less grating. Even buttering me up with a free fake copy cannot make it sell like hotcakes. In the literary world, Thevictorian is instantly becoming persona au gratin. She needs to hash out the wedge she is driving between her fake fiction and her fake readers."

Freddie Got Fingered..."This fake book is going to be really bad for my future DVD sales. It makes a mockery of one man's struggle to fit in. No way is anybody going to throw away money on Thevictorian's crappy story AND me. Though we appeal to the same demographic, I am ashamed to say."

Finger Lakes of New York..."Whew! After reading THAT stagnant body of work, we need a drink! That is not to be confused with a toast, which nobody will be raising a glass to do for this fake author. Such a shallow effort has not been observed since pre-glacial times."

The Hick Goodwill Tour

Monday, Hick drove me to the city to cash in my big scratch-off winner. Good thing. Even if I grew a spine and drove myself on the highway, I would never have found that place. Not even with Genius's gift Garmin! AND, on the way out of what looked to me like an industrial park, Hick got himself lost. At least he knows how to set the Garmin to take him home. I told him that if anything happened to him before we got out of there, I'd just have to find a cardboard box and live there the rest of my life.

Hick may have told the Garmin to take us home, but all he really wanted was to get back to the main road. From there, he took me by the casino. We used my restaurant coupon to have some delicious burgers for lunch. I gave him some gambling money, then proceeded to lose part of mine. NOT MY BIG SCRATCH-OFF WIN! It remains intact. I'm still on my gambling stake that I brought back from Oklahoma with a profit.

Since Hick jerked a knot in my tail by proclaiming that we were only staying until 4:30, I gave him less money than usual. I was even ready to leave 15 minutes earlier, since Even Steven was obviously evening out my big scratch-off winner. Hick texted that he would be right there. That's unusual. He is usually ready to leave before me. Anyhoo...he met me at the cash machine. Turns out Hick turned a profit!!! I know his secret, though. He said that he ran out of the money I gave him, and had to use some of his own (like that weekly allowance that I still gave him, even though he was in Sweden a whole week, and only spent $3 or $4 on my Swedish lottery ticket).

See? Here's the secret to Hick's gambling success: when he uses his OWN money, he's more careful with it, and cashes out small wins to keep the tickets in his pocket until leave time, thus not playing them all back in a frenzy.

We left the casino at 4:20 p.m. It's normally a 50-minute drive for us. I understand that it was a weekday. And that rush hour traffic starts at 3:30. Hick said he was driving down the old highway rather than sit in the stop-and-go of the five-lane interstate. He was doing ME a favor, you know, because he said I'd be miserable like that. Silly Hick! Miserable is just my baseline.

Can you believe that, along this old highway, there were MULTIPLE Goodwill stores? Yeah! Who woulda thunk it? Of course Hick seemed to know where they were located. And had to stop and look for bargains. I didn't rummage through his bags, or care enough to ask, but I did ascertain that he bought a bunch of LED lights to go over our bathroom sink, and a lantern with a red glass thingy. I'm pretty sure he'll get us some pictures of his treasures if I ask.

Good thing Hick avoided that rush hour traffic with this scheme scathingly brilliant idea of his. We made it home in only 2 hours and 10 minutes!

The original plan for the day called for Hick to grill some hot dogs on Gassy G for supper. Funny how he decided it was too late to start that at 6:30. But not too late for me to make him those same hot dogs in the oven.

Can We Give Val a Hand?

I think I must have injured my finger during a frantic bout of lottery-ticket scratching! Maybe I tore a knuckle cartilage! Maybe I'll need arthroscopic surgery! Maybe I'll be in a cast for six weeks! Will I be scratching tickets with one hand tied behind my back elevated above my heart in a hot-pink stylish sling?

Woe is me! There's my disfigured digit, resting comfortably on a single-ply bed of Puffs With Lotion. Not sure why the knuckle next to the injured one looks like an elephant's knee...Somehow, I bruised the bejeebers out of my index finger.

I think the injury might have occurred during a wrestle royale with FRIG II's ice-maker. That contraption decided to take a vacation while Hick was in Sweden. It was all I could do to pry THREE BUBBA CUPS of ice out of it each day. That wouldn't fly if Genius was here! He could use that many ice cubes just by himself, to fill red Solo cups, douse them with water, and let them sit melting and undrunken. (So unlike himself in college town.)

I wish Genius was here to see my finger. I'm sure it will come as a shock to you that he does not read my blog! It probably won't come as a shock to you that Genius is squeamish about things like this. You may or may not recall the times he had to get his shots, and made The Pony go first during flu season, and then declared that he couldn't feel his LEG after a shot in his opposite arm.

Anyhoo...on the way to the casino a couple weekends ago, with Genius driving A-Cad, Val riding shotgun, and Friend sitting behind Val...we saw an ambulance. Which reminded me of my 80-mile ride in the back of one when I almost died a few years back with multiple bilateral pulmonary embolisms. That led Friend to espouse that he would have to be pretty much incapacitated to allow himself a ride in an ambulance, which I assured him was most unpleasant, even though you would think the morphine they gave me would have made it more bearable.

That led to a discussion with Friend of how you'd think morphine would depress respirations and not be good for somebody with multiple bilateral pulmonary embolisms...although it must be a vasodilator, because hospital personnel assured me that this was not their first rodeo it helped the blood-clotted struggling breathers to breathe easier. Friend was in my camp, although my knowledge of drug actions comes from a degree and teaching experience in biology, whereas his...does not.

Anyhoo...getting back to the hand theme...I agreed that morphine does indeed make one feel like everything is going to be all right--just before you nod off in a rainbow-and-unicorn alternate universe. It didn't have that effect in the ambulance when I was trying to die on the way to a better hospital than the Backroads ER, but when I had one of those pump thingies before and after my gallbladder came out, the year after The Pony was born, it did.

"Oh, you had the pump? Every 15 minutes?"

"That's right! Every 15 minutes. I could click it every second if I wanted to, but it only pushed that morphine into my vein every 15 minutes."

This is where Genius began to object. "NO! Stop. Enough."

"What? You don't like to hear about my pain medicine pump?"

"No. I'm trying to drive."

"Okay. You go ahead and drive. You know, Friend, that medicine worked great right up until the morning of the day I was being discharged without my gallbladder. The pain pump ran dry, and they hooked up another one until time for me to leave. They explained that they would give me pills for the next few days at home. I was hurtin' for certain, so I pushed my pain pump. But that medicine didn't seem to be working. 'Oh, no!' I thought. 'I've already developed a tolerance to morphine! I'm addicted! I'm pushing this button way more often than 15 minutes. It LOOKS like it's working the same as before. But I'm still in pain.' So I just decided, Friend, I'd have to tough it out, and get used to some discomfort, because the pills probably weren't going to take that pain away as good as the sweet, sweet morphine."

"You already had a tolerance? How many days were you on that morphine?"

"I was in the hospital five days. They had to wait for some liver enzyme to go down before they could do surgery. So I guess I was on it about four-and-a-half days. Every 15 minutes. But here's the thing...I finally called the nurse and told her that my pain medicine wasn't taking away the pain. She looked at my hand, and said, 'Well, no wonder! Look at your hand.'"

Friend leaned forward, getting into the story. Not so with Genius.

"NO! I don't want to know what was wrong with your hand! Stop!"

"You see, Friend...my hand was swelled up like a Mickey Mouse hand. All bloated--"

"NO! STOP! I can't!"

"Except I had four fingers, not just three--"

"STOP! I'll have to pull off!"

"Because that nurse said, 'She missed the vein when she put the IV in, and every time you push the button, the morphine goes into the tissue, not your bloodstream.' They blew this vein right here on the side of my wrist--"

"You have got to STOP!"

"I can't believe you don't care that your mother was in pain, with a Mickey Mouse hand."

"I can't drive if you're going to do this!"

"Okay. I'm done with my story. Look. It was THIS hand right here--"

Yeah. I think my ice finger will heal up nicely. It's more purple today. But the swelling has already gone down. It's not like I have a Mickey Mouse hand or anything.

A Reward For a Job Mostly Done

Ain't they sweet
For Hick's Oldest Son's treat
I ask you very confidentially
Ain't they sweet

Ain't they nice
I hope HOS wins once or twice
I ask you very confidentially
Ain't they nice

While Hick was away, I fed the goat and mini-pony and chickens and guineas and turkey. I also gave them water, toted in a heavy bucket. I did not, however, go into the goat pen. Their food troughs are wired to the fence, and I can pour their sweet feed over the fence with a scoop. They don't need much. Their water bucket is in the corner where the goat pen shares a common fence with the chicken pen. Since our chickens roam, their pen gate is left open, and I walk right in and pour the bucket of water through the fence.

Not all chickens roam.

We only have four left, you know. And three are roosters. You might think the hen is just faking it to get the roosters off her back, but Hick discovered her in the goat shed, sitting on some eggs, right before he left. She's vulnerable like that. So he boarded up the goat shed (to about waist height) where Billy the goat and Barry the mini-pony stand during a rainstorm.

"Tough," said Hick, when I said they would get wet if it rained. "They know other places to go. They can get under the BARn lean-to. I've seen them over there before. I'm closing up this shed, and HOS will come down and make sure she's got food and water, and see if the chicks have hatched. You don't have to go in there."

Billy has a bad butting habit. He's never butted ME, but he DID try to take a bite out of my hand when I went to pet him last time Hick was gone and I had feeding duty. Barry just turns his rear and kicks. Mostly at Billy. But it wouldn't be prudent for me to get all stove-up, and be laying in the goat pen for a week with Hick gone.

I'm not too sure about the quality of HOS's mothering instincts. I DID see him here one evening while I was feeding. He went in and peered into the goat shed. "It's hard to tell if there's any chicks. It's dark in there, and she's black, and I can't see what's under her."

"We'd hear them if there were chicks. We can hear then all the way over on the porch."

HOS and his wife and her cousin went down in the woods to hunt for mushrooms, and I do not recall seeing HOS give that chicken any food or water. So I asked Hick when he got back if someone was supposed to be feeding and watering that hen.

"Oh, HOS was going to do that."

"I didn't see him do it that one night when he checked on her. You should probably go look. I don't want to think that she starved to death."

"She could get out, Val. There was an opening she could fly out, to get food and water. But I left her some inside."

"Well, those other chickens went through a lot of water. Unless the dogs were drinking it instead of their own water."

"Huh. I just sent HOS a text, and he said she wasn't eating or drinking. I'll go check." He was back shortly. "She's fine. Still sitting. Her water is half empty. I told HOS her water sure did disappear for her not drinking it."

Maybe HOS fed and watered on the days I didn't see him. He WAS there checking on that one chicken on one night, anyway. Usually when Hick is gone, he makes HOS feed and water all the animals, and check on ME. And when we go to Oklahoma, HOS feeds the dogs and cats, too. I always give him some money for his gas and time. Although now, with him living right up the other road, he just rides our 4-wheeler down, and it takes about 15 minutes to do everything.

Hick said I didn't need to give HOS anything. I thought I should. So I got him some scratch-off tickets.

Give a man money, and he can eat for a week if he shops at Save A Lot. Give a man lottery tickets, and he might not eat at all if they're losers. But for a brief moment, he has HOPE, by cracky!

HOS doesn't know he's getting anything. He probably won't get them until Friday, when he's off work and Hick is off work and has time to deliver them. I hope HOS wins a fortune!

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BREAKING NEWS!
6:47 p.m. Backroads time

The chicks arrived sometime this afternoon. Hick sent me a picture this evening. We are the proud new parents of six chicks: three black, three yellow.