Month: June 2020

Til Death Us Do Part

The Viking found a website of old TV shows and while I was building a puzzle on my computer, he proceeded to list them.  Within 15 minutes, he was re-evaluating most of the life choices he’s made in the past decade.

Him:  M*A*S*H*!  That was a good show.

Me:  I love that show!

Him:  The Waltons.

Me:  Too church-y for me.  I always felt like I was failing every time one of those ‘goody-two-shoes’ made the right decision.  Too much pressure for regular kids who lie once in a while and will take the largest slice of cake instead of giving it to a sibling.

Him:  HA!  Columbo?  He was good.

Me:  I had a serious crush on him.

Him:  WHAT?!

Me:  Yup!  Completely in love with that guy.

Him (laughing in disbelief):  That’s funny, Babe.  The Rockford Files.  Did you have a crush on him, too?

Me:  Nah.  Too pretty.  The pretty guys are always too high maintenance.

Him:  CHiPS

Me:  ……

Him:  Six Million Dollar Man.

Me:  He was always squinting and that just gets annoying after a while, don’t you think?  You would think that if they had the technology to make a bionic eye they could do something about the squinting.

Him (squinting at me):  I’ve never really thought about it.  Kojack!

Me:  I had a crush on him, too.

Him:  Noooo.  You didn’t!

Me:  Yes.  I did!  He was a badass.

Him:  Little House on the Prairie.

Me:  …..

Him:  Gunsmoke.

Me:  Crush.

Him:  Fucking hell!  Hawaii Five-O.

Me:  Too arrogant.

Him:  WKRP in Cincinnati.

Me:  ……

Him:  Marcus Welby, M.D.

Me:  Oh, yeah!

Him:  He’s so old!

Me:  But in a good way.

Him:  The Love Boat

Me:  ……

Him:  Hogan’s Heros.

Me:  Nope.  There was something about that guy that just rubbed me the wrong way.

Him:  Kung Fu.  Noooo…..don’t say it!

Me (nodding my head):  Uh Huh!  And Scott Glenn too, because he looks a lot like David Carradine.

Him:  Fucking hell.  Quincy M.E.

Me:  YES!  I love his face!  Total crush.

Him:  ……

Me:  What?  He was hot!

Him:  Baa Baa Black Sheep.  Robert Conrad.

Me:  Crush.  But I felt bad about it because he was so pretty and I was riddled with guilt.

Him:  Trapper John, M.D.

Me:  Nope.  Something wrong with that guy too.

Him:  B.J. and the Bear

Me:  Double nope!

Him:  Vegas?  Robert Urich?

Me:  Again, yes. But with a lot of guilt.

Him:  Barnaby Jones.  Sigh.  If you had a crush on him…….

Me:  Oh, yeah!

Him:  ……

Me:  You’re regretting that you married me, aren’t you?  Too late now – you’re stuck with me till death do us part.

I’m just surprised that The Viking is surprised.  He should be accustomed to me by now.  What I find attractive about a person has nothing to do with their appearance.  Except with Robert Urich and Robert Conrad of course, but I won’t feel good about it.

Wait.  Both are Roberts.

My father’s name is Robert.  Fuck.  Excuse me while I do an online Psychological assessment.

Welcome to the Neighbourhood and Sorry for Our Cat

On Saturday morning I happened to glance out the window that faces the back alley and saw two women stop and point at our fifth-wheel trailer and Goldwing.

That’s weird and who are those women?

Should I go out and see what they’re looking at?  I don’t want to look like a nosey, busy-body who charges and confronts everyone who walks past though.  On the other hand, maybe there’s a dead body – human, feline or canine.  Under those circumstances, I should definitely get out there because I don’t want any corpses lingering around.  Perhaps they aren’t pointing at anything at all but practicing dance moves – like John Travolta in Grease – and they don’t need my interference.   They’ve got the pointy finger bit perfect.

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Or, maybe there was something wrong with the trailer and because I don’t want to appear aggressive, the problem escalates into a full-blown catastrophe.  I could also wait until they move on and then rush out, but maybe they are stalking homes to burgle and me going out there might convince them this isn’t the neighbourhood for that kind of activity.

Decisions, decisions.

Okay.  I’m going out there.  However, I’ll pretend I’m on my way to put something in the garbage, so it doesn’t look like I’m suspicious of them.  They are both holding coffee mugs and that doesn’t seem like something a nefarious gang of robbers would have in their hands.

I started whistling as I sauntered toward the alley and at the moment the women could see me, I pretended surprise.  “Oh!  Haha!  I didn’t see you there.”

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They bought it.

Woman 1:  We are just trying to get our cat to come home and he’s under your trailer.

Phew!  So glad I didn’t come out like a Pitbull.

Woman 2:  He’s grey and white.  See, there he is, up on the fence!

Woman 1:  Hi, my name is Steph and this is Erin.

Me:  Nice to meet you.  I’m Lori.

Erin:  We just moved into the house at the end of the alley.  Our cat is Baloshi.

Me:  That’s wonderful.  Welcome to the neighbourhood!  I have two cats.  One is gray….

Steph:  That’s Teddy, right?

Me (wondering how they know that):  Yeees.

Have the neighbours been talking?  Of course they have! It’s the first law in Neighbourhood Rules:  Get to the Newbies first and spill all the dirt on everyone else.  You’re just being helpful after all and saving them from getting involved with the bad seeds on the block.

Erin:  He’s such a nice boy!  He’s making friends with Baloshi and it’s going really well.

Me:  That sounds exactly like Teddy.  He’s a sweetie.  Umm….I also have a black cat…..

I watched the smiles fade from both woman’s face.

Steph: Izzie.  Right?

Me:  I’m so sorry.  What did she do?

Erin:  She sits on our back step so we can’t get out.

Steph:  We tried just stepping around her but apparently that’s not a good idea.

Okay, that isn’t as bad as I was expecting.  It’s a simple Hostage-Taking.  Considering some of her past sins, this isn’t even 4th on the list.

Me:  Did either of you bleed?

Erin:  Oh, no!  She just refused to move so we couldn’t get the door open.

Okay.  No physical damage then.  That’s good news.  Probably a little emotional trauma though.  I’m going to put this at a solid sixth on the list.

Me:  I’m really sorry.  We’ve tried talking to her but she either ignores us or calls us curse-y names.

Steph:  Oh, don’t worry.  It wasn’t that big of a deal.

Sure, you say that now but wait until she steals your car.  She’s already stolen two – the first time with the owner still in the actual car.  She made the critical mistake of having her window rolled down.  One of the neighbours heard her screams and came to get us.  The second time, Izzie just declared the vehicle as hers and refused to let the owner have it back until The Viking physically removed her.  That guy will lock his truck door next time he comes around.

So, I had a chat with Izzie.

“Izzie.  Stop taking the new people hostage.  I honestly didn’t think I would have to spell this out, but here we are.  Hostage Taking is forbidden.  Yes.  Another forbidden thing.  And since we’re already here, let me take the opportunity to remind you of the other forbidden behaviors.  Again.  You cannot….

    • Break into a person’s home and block them from getting out of their own house. Yes, I’m talking about Peter.
    • Steal household appliances. Yes, I’m still talking about Peter.
    • Steal vehicles, whether the owner is inside the vehicle at the time or not.
    • Stop traffic while you clean your ass in the middle of the street. All the honking brings the police.
    • Slap young children.
    • Take people hostage, even if you don’t draw blood – it’s a felony and you can be prosecuted!
    • Bully the dogs on the other side of the alley. Don’t bother denying.  Ross found your collar stuck on the fence.
    • Pick fights with Magpies or Ravens because they come back en masse and turn the entire block into a scene from Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ and I’m forced to rescue you. Three birds shat on me last time.
    • And while I’m on the subject of ‘Birds’, you cannot catch birds outside and bring them inside to ‘finish them off’. That’s just gross.
    • And for fuck’s sake, stop beating up Teddy! Geezus!”

Have I missed anything?  Probably.  Give her a couple of days and I’m sure she’ll find something that will require my deepest apologizes to random strangers.  Our long-term neighbours don’t even require an apology anymore – we’re all in this together, I suppose.

So, welcome to the neighbourhood and we’re sorry about our cat.

Tim, Tim, Jim, Tim

I don’t want to alarm you, but I may be having a week-long stroke.  Or a slow aneurism.  Or a lengthy onslaught of dementia.  Or maybe all of them at once.

Last week I confused two customers because they were both named Tim and I called one Tim to come and pay for his machine when it was the other Tim’s bike.  What followed was a very messy display of questions, demands, and confusion where I might have grabbed my head and yelled, “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE!!”

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The Viking shouted, “HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW?!”

And the confused customer said, “Don’t worry about me.  I’ll just be waiting at the end of the block.”

After profuse apologies and a full refund, I offered to drive him back home, but during the bizarro events, when he was at the end of the block self-distancing from the chaos, he had already called his Mother, probably telling her to hurry because he might be trapped in an insane asylum.  I apologized to her, too.  Gawd.

Then I copied a customer’s phone number wrong and couldn’t tell him his machine was ready to be picked up.  Also, I changed his name to Tim even though he tried to convince me that he’s actually a Jim, not a Tim.  So, wrong name AND wrong number.  Thankfully, he called this morning and I said, “Thank Gawd, Tim!  I somehow have the wrong phone number for you and your bike has been ready since last Thursday.”

He said, “Shit happens, it’s no big deal and please stop calling me Tim.”

I also had the bad luck for a customer to be named John* Ross and another customer to be named Ross John*.  How the hell is that even possible?  Obviously, the Gawds are bored.  The Viking likes John Ross but he doesn’t like Ross John and so I may have been a little short with John Ross when I should have been much nicer and I was too nice to Ross John which just encouraged him to pester The Viking more.

In my defense, I don’t usually see the customer until they show up to pay their bill, while The Viking sees them both dropping off AND picking up, so of course he has more time to anchor their face to their machine.  I am juggling customer appointments 2 weeks in advance while trying to remember appointments from the last week because those machines are still in the shop and it’s easy as hell to mix names and machines because who can really tell the difference between a GSXR and a YZF600R?   A Viking, apparently.

So, when I walk into the shop and The Viking points at a bike and says, “Call that guy and tell him his machine is ready to go” it’s a guessing game.

“Umm…..Richard Doe?”

“NO!  RICHARD’S BIKE IS A V-STAR!  THIS BIKE IS A VIRAGO!!” As if they don’t look exactly black and shiny the same.

My mind starts going, “V-Star.  V-Star.  V-Star.  If Richard owns the V-Star but doesn’t own the Virago then who the fuck does own the Virago?!”  The Viking stands there watching me blink.

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“Come one, Babe!  Where is your head?  This is Tim’s bike!”

 

*I’m changing the names to John to protect the identities of the two guys because….well….just because.

A Pain in My Ass and Shiver Me Timbers!

It’s going to be fast and dirty today because I have shit to do.

Last Saturday was supposed to be beautiful so The Viking pulled Goldwing out of the corner and got her running.  We decided to go in the exact opposite direction that we projected most other people were going to go and that meant we would go east.  Our destination?  Drumheller!

At first, we were enjoying the ride and the fresh air and getting out of the house, but then my Back decided to mutiny.  It started in my left ass cheek, but true to most mutinies, it spread – to my right ass cheek and down both legs.  Gawd!!  And guess who didn’t bring her super-duper pain meds to deal with this shit.

I started squirming around and stretching my legs to alleviate the pain but it didn’t help much and The Viking couldn’t find a place to pull over to give me a break.

When we stopped at the ‘Welcome to Drumheller’ sign, The Viking had to help me get off Goldwing.  After walking around and stretching a bit I felt much better which was a good thing because how would I get home, right?

And then we thought we could just grab a burger someplace in town but all we could find was an A&W and the line-up to get food was really, really long so we decided ‘fuck that, we didn’t want to eat here anyway!’ and started home where we had two delicious steaks waiting for us.

And then the wind suddenly arrived!  Holy!  Hell!  If I turned my head just a little, the wind would grab my helmet and nearly rip it off.  The Viking was having some difficulty holding on to Goldwing and at one point the wind grabbed us and pushed us to the very edge of the pavement and we both thought we were goners but The Viking roared in the face of Father Wind and saved us!

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The mutiny in my ass returned with such vengeance that it inspired Goldwing to mutiny too, and The Viking was forced to use his motivational shouting-cursing which encouraged her to get us home because who wants to disappoint a shouting-cursing Viking, right?

We both needed several drinks when we got home and I got drunk* and started telling The Viking how much I fucking love him and we almost got into a fight about who loves who the most.  I was drunk enough that I actually prompted him to give me more shots of Pernod which is totally not like me at all because I really hate salty licorice but I suppose this is one of the reasons he loves Drunk Lori so much.

Due to the outbreak of Drunkenness, The Viking had to manage supper on his own because I can’t be trusted with a BBQ when I’m drunk.  Or tongs.  He confiscates them immediately citing that time I pinched his ass with them.

The Viking did an admirable job making supper and I was so enthusiastic in my praise that he finally told me to shut up and eat.  He appreciated it though, I could tell.

I decided we should have sex because getting drunk does that to me which is just one more reason The Viking loves Drunken Lori so much, but the whole thing turned into a disaster despite our best efforts because…. well…. drunkenness.  To be honest though, I probably won’t learn a lesson from the experience.

And then we both fell asleep and woke up at midnight.  Like irresponsible teenagers who have no internal clock and can go back to sleep two hours later.  We were useless on Sunday.

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*Because I also needed some pain meds just to move.