Thursday, August 31, 2017

RealLifeSuperman Delivers

The cellphone rings. It's my Dad. 

#RealLifeSuperman "A-vo!"

"Hey, Daddy!"

We just got off the phone twenty minutes ago.

"Have you eaten dinner? You're Mom made pulled pork. There's a lot of it."

"Nope. Not yet," it's only 5:55pm. 

"Do you want some of this pulled pork?" #TheSilverFox yells something inaudible from the background. "How many people are at the house?"

I decided to stop at Jeff's instead of braving the flooded roads in north Shelby County.

"Daddy, it's just me right now, but Jeff will be home. Nick will be home. Melodie won't eat meat. But I don't need you coming back out. You're gonna break Mom's 'only leave the house once-a-day rule.'"

My Dad will leave in and out of the house all day to run errands. If he needs a specific car part he'll run to Auto Zone. He'll come back home. Then he'll make another trip to get tomatoes. He'll come back home. He'll leave again to run to Lowe's or Home Depot. My Mom only likes to combine trips; out for errands and then home to read or exercise. 

"We've already broken her rule," he chuckles because he knows he's gotten away with and she's given in to multiple trips, "and we've both been out of the house twice today runnin' around. Karen?" he yells in my ear. It's unusual that he uses her real name. He usually calls her 'Boog,' as in short for Booger.  Quieter, he asks, "Go or not?" 

She yells something else inaudible from across the kitchen, sounding like an adult from Peanuts cartoons.

"Who's gonna eat all of this pulled pork if y'all don't take it?"

"And there is wild rain, and crazy drivers, and flooding, and y'all don't need to be out in it..."

"I'll see you in a few minutes," he abruptly hangs up. 

Forty-nine minutes later, my parents arrive at Jeff's front door with an entire BBQ pulled pork dinner including Hawaiian Sweet Rolls. 


Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Wigging Out

After work I am walking around Dollar Tree on Highland at Poplar in the Kroger shopping center. I have two arms full of party products, literal arms full. I can't see the floor because I refuse to push a basket in Dollar Tree. 

As I walk down the toy aisle I feel it. The hair of an animal rubs against my left leg, crawls on my foot, and captures my bare toes like seaweed in the surf. The hair feels mangy and matted. I can't see it. I scream, "Oh MY GOD, it's on ME!!! SOMEONE HELP ME!!!!" 

Two women in the aisle stop to watch me, one of them pauses her blue tooth phone conversation. Another woman from an aisle over abandons her buggy to come to my rescue. 

In a complete panic I step wildly to untangled my foot from a rogue, wild-ass animal, in the middle of a toy aisle, in a chain store, in an urban oasis. I hop, dance, and gyrate far enough away from the hair touching my foot to see it. 

"Did you want me to pick up your wig?" asks the second lady watching me in the toy aisle. 

I look down at it. There it is, a harmless mangled mass of a headband attached to orange plastic-hair, princess extensions.

The lady who abandoned her cart is laughing, "It got you good!" as she walks back to her basket. 

#ConfidentlyAwesome #ImNotAnAnimalPerson #SeverelyAllergicToAnimals #IDontLikeSeaweedEither #UnwarrantedBreakdown #AtLeastICanLaughAtMyIdiocy