David Smith Must Never Find Out Where I Live

One day last week I walked into the house and started playing back the messages on my answering machine while the little J-dog busied himself nearby, polishing the floor with the seat of his pants.

There was only one message, and it was a wrong number:

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN.* (Just do it! But maybe turn the volume down a little if you're at work. Or around small children.)

After I recovered from the shock of hearing the words, "penis," "fart," and "butthole" on my answering machine, it began to dawn on me that thanks to Mrs. Doodle-Pro's dialing mix-up, a certain delinquent named David Smith would be getting off scot-free after shouting profanities aloud in Art class and sticking an Exacto knife, which he was not allowed to touch, in someone's face.

And I began to contemplate what obligation, if any, I had as an accidental player in this tragicomedy. Should I notify Mrs. Doodle-Pro of her mistake and bust David Smith's a$$? Or pretend I never got the message and let him sweat bullets indefinitely?

I decided to consult with my husband and moral compass, the P-Dawg, before proceeding. (But not before calling up everyone I know and gleefully playing the message back to them.)

In the end, I did contact the high school and left Mrs. Doodle-Pro a very awkward voice mail explaining her mistake and thus putting David Smith out of the misery he was surely enduring while waiting for his mother to finally receive the Phone Call of Doom.

Now, if I could just get the little J-dog to stop running around the house yelling, "penis," "fart" and "butthole."


* The recording has been slightly edited for brevity, privacy, and comedic effect. Your media player should pop up automatically when you click on the link, then just press the "play" button.

When Science And Life Collide

I came home from choir rehearsal last night to find the P-Dawg beside himself with glee.

"WE ARE NOT CHIMPANZEES!!!!" he announced as I knuckle-walked through the door.

I immediately put down my banana, stood upright, and joined him in the family room, where P-Dawg breathlessly informed me of the discovery of Ardipithecus Ramdus or "Ardi", the fossil that has usurped Lucy's claim to fame as mother of humankind. It's the sort of news that has many scientists drooling over their pocket protectors, and the P-Dawg even more so because one of the members of the research team that discovered Ardi just happens to be a former professor of his.

I immediately went online and read all about this long lost biped cousin. It turns out she stood about five feet tall, weighed 110 pounds, and was in desperate need of a properly fitting bra.

In other words, she's me, only furrier.

Refined, with a Hint of Ridiculous

We had some friends over for pizza and wine last weekend. In preparation for his former med school buddy and fellow wine enthusiast's visit, the P-Dawg purchased a host of gadgetry, including something called a "wine aerator" with a "de-sedimenting sleeve."

While we mothers buzzed around, breaking up toddler scuffles and cutting pizza into bite-sized pieces, the two men stood around our kitchen island sniffing, swirling, and sampling vintages. They marveled at the supreme filtration capacity of Dan's french pewter aerating and decanting funnel, and every once in awhile, one of them would gaze out the window and say in all seriousness, "This is nicely structured, though lightly acidic." Or, "This is compact, yet surprisingly supple." And, "I'm picking up some lavender with a hint of candy corn."

There was a large wine encyclopedia open on the counter, and the P-Dawg and his buddy would periodically access it for detailed information about the bouquet, maturation, and characteristics of the vintage being imbibed. A different type of glass was used for each selection sampled, and in between flights, the P-Dawg and his friend rinsed their empty goblets with palate cleansing sparkling water.

The two of them almost keeled over dead when I filled a glass that had previously contained zinfandel to the brim with pinot noir and gulped it down between brownie bites. "Yeah, this is pretty good!"

"Hey, how come you guys aren't having any dessert?" I demanded of the P-Dawg. "Betty Crocker an insult to your discriminating palate?"

"Maybe."

"Wine snob!"

The P-Dawg sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. "If I were a wine snob, Rimarama, I would have done a blind tasting and de-salinated the goblets."

(Duh.)

BooBees

I have a fear of bees.

You'll recognize me as the person who goes nuts at the picnic if a honeybee so much as ventures within a five mile radius of my plate. I'm the one who will flip the table over in my haste to flee, then ruin everyone's good time by hovering nervously and trying to shoo it away for the remainder of the outing.

I'm not even allergic, just skeert.

But bees were the furthest thing from my mind this morning as I tripped along a flower lined sidewalk at the local outdoor shopping plaza, on my way to purchase a birthday gift for the P-Dawg.

I was minding my own beeswax (HAR!), thinking merry thoughts and humming a Barry White tune in my head when I walked straight into a swarm of honeybees (and by "swarm," I mean, "one or two").

As luck would have it, one of those bees made a beeline (you don't see it, but I just fell off my chair and am ROTFL) for my shirt and disappeared therein.

I reacted the way any sane mellisophobe would do: by flailing hysterically, renting my garments, and dancing a little jig as confused eyewitnesses watched from the sidelines.

By some crazy miracle, I was not stung.

But what's even more amazing is that the kamikaze bee who flew down my shirt? Fell out onto the sidewalk, DEAD AS A DOORNAIL (or dazed and confused, at the very least).

I can only assume it was my boobees that struck him down.

(Incidentally, tobacco is supposed to be a good antidote for a bee sting. I got stung on a Girl Scout camping trip once and was carrying on about it until our scout leader stubbed out her Virgina Slims menthol, broke it in half, and smeared the tobacco combined with some spit on the affected area. Which totally shut me up. I hope somebody gave her a badge for that. "Bee prepared," is what I always say.)


OK, who threw that tomato?

Like Joan and Melissa Rivers, Only Better

On the bus ride home from school one day, I was part of a trio of uniformed and pig-tailed little girls sitting near the front, where we second class citizens graders were always booted.

I no longer remember the exact subject of our profound discourse, but at some point I made a self-deprecating comment that my peers considered a real knee-slapper.

"You're funny, Rimarama!" one of them said. "Yeah! You totally crack me up!" the other seconded.

This pleased me to no end. I had never been called "funny" before, but if it could get me positive attention from the Tatum O'Neil of our second grade class, whose beauty I admired and Muppets lunch box I coveted, then surely it wasn't a bad thing to be.

Desperately trying to ride the wave as long as I could, I continued making wisecracks in the same vein that had originally caught my peers' attention.

When I ran out of funny things to say, I pretended to choke on a jujubee.

From that day forward, I made it a point of cultivating the art of slapstick comedy, reveling in the satisfaction of eliciting a laugh, however cheaply attained.

To this end, I've masterminded and acted out many a campfire skit, each one ending with me making a fool of myself in one form or another. One skit had me running around the campfire in circles shouting nonsense words before finally collapsing in front of the embers a la John Cleese.

Needless to say, it was a runaway hit.

I used to practice rolling with fake punches, and I'll tell you another secret: I cannot approach a slow moving vehicle without contemplating a Miami Vice style hood rollover. It's one of my trademark moves.

So the other day, my friend V was over with her two kids, who are very close in age to the J-dog and V-meister. J-dog has always been the baby of the bunch though, and until just recently, he's been treated as such.

The kids were all lined up at the Little Tykes picnic table, eating their beans-n-wienies, when the little J-dog accidentally fell backwards off his bench. It was very "Now you see him, now you don't-ish" and therefore quite funny.

The other kids thought it was pretty hilarious, too. But it turns out that they weren't laughing at the little J-dog, so much as laughing with him.

Once a mere bit player, putzing around the posse's periphery and being reprimanded for knocking over the block tower or messing up the game, he was now the star of the show.

And he was instinctively aware of this turn of events, because only five seconds after popping back up and re-situating himself at the table, the little J-dog was down for the count again.

Peals of laughter and clapping ensued.

Like his mom before him, the little J-dog recognizes an audience when he sees one (and neither does he know how to quit while he's ahead). I'd venture to say that he fell off that picnic bench another ten or so times, each one accompanied by raucous laughter and enthusiasm from the peanut gallery.

Before you knew it, the V-meister had also bitten the dust, closely followed by her friend, V-boy.

Kids were falling backwards off that picnic bench like dominoes, again and again, all following the J-dog's irresistible example.

After giving him fair warning that it was time to cut it out before someone got hurt, I put him in time-out by the rose bushes.

And you know what? No sooner was he allowed back at the table, he started it up again.

And me, well, I just couldn't bring myself to re-discipline the little stinker. A regular Richard Pryor, that one. He got his mama's joker gene, and I love him for it.

I can't wait for the day when the two of us can do a BBC skit together. Soon, he'll be regaling his own buddies with fake hood rollovers out in the school parking lot, and I'll be there, coaching and cheering him on.


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Also of Note:

1. That's it, folks. Inspired by Becca and encouraged by the commenters on this post, I am going to try and arrange a meeting with Barack Obama to get myself on the ticket as Veep. How, I ask you, can "Obama-Rama" lose?
   
   
2. It's recently come to my attention, through misguided Google searches, that there is a cast member named "Rima" on the Aussie version of "Big Brother" who is one meter tall, has made some nekkid videos, and apparently also worked as a v1brator saleswoman at some point or another. I AM NOT THAT RIMA. (Am at least two meters tall, maybe even three.)
   

A Handful of Words

. . . that crack me up:

titmouse
goji berry
dingleberry
cockles
goober
wanker
squeegee
pecker
nubbin
doofus
Huckabee

You're welcome.

Care to add to this by no means comprehensive list?

Go ahead. You know you want to.


Tufted Titmouse

Feckin' Oirish

Since nobody's bitten it in the last twenty or so pages of Angela's Ashes, I am deeming this book safe reading after page 100. This Frank McCourt, now he has me in stitches. I went from tears to convulsive laughter last night, and that's what I call true writing talent.

Only thing is, (and Lede Me On might understand), I'm starting to talk like the feckin' Oirish! In my head voice and out loud.

This morning: "Ah, Jaysus, yer nappy's fulla shite!"

and:

"Take those knickers off yer head, lassie! Jaysus, Mary and Holy Saint Joseph, is it ye want to drive me to an early grave?"

Yaknowwhottameyan?

Och, och, och.