The Death of SCOOTER BOY

I am occasionally given to criminal impulses, like my overwhelming desire every Christmas to drive around late at night in a beat up camaro shooting out those loathsome inflatable Christmas decorations with a bee bee gun. I HATE them.

And this year they came out with snow globes which I hated even more. I was heartened to hear on the news one night that juvenile delinquents were doing what I had only dreamed of and “vandalizing” them. I was also quite cheered by the fact that due to some design flaw after they'd been up for a while all the "snow" stuck to the inside of the globe so that the snowmen or whatever were completely obscured.

BUT

When I hear scooter boy approaching from 12 blocks away, heading up our street, that whine slowly increasing in volume until the cat and I both flinch, I want to rig up a trip wire at neck height.

I don't think anyone, except maybe his parents, would mind.

Who knew that some crappy piece of metal could make more noise than a Harley? This thing is SO loud it is astounding. There have been times that John and I have BOTH been woken up out of a sound sleep by that kid coming home from, I'm going to take a wild guess here, playing D&D and speculating with his friends about what a real girl's breasts would feel like. I will further speculate that as long as he is riding that thing around he is never going to find out.

I hear that sound and the RAGE just wells up inside me. And there are times that he isn't just coming home... he's CRUISING and we can hear his progress as he slowly motors around the block.

And really, if I DID rig up a wire that oh, decapitated him, or maybe even one at ankle height that would just keep him from ever standing on ANYTHING ever again, I don't think anyone, except maybe his parents, would mind. I had the occasion to observe him (while sitting on my front porch drinking beer with a friend) on the 4th of July. Our directly-across-the-street neighbors were having a party, lots of kids ages probably 15 - 22 (and all of them drinking beer, of course) and NO ONE wanted this kid around. A couple of them even took his scooter away from him for a while. But he's the kind of kid who has NO IDEA that people wish he would just fuck right off. He just hangs around and then RIDES HIS SCOOTER AROUND S'MORE. He got that thing a year and a half ago. I keep thinking it should have broken by now or something.

But no... even as I Type this he is MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEING down our street making my brain throb.

He's so very lucky I am only a hit woman/mob assassin in my HEAD or he would be SO dead... or at the least crippled. And he really better not leave that thing laying around in plain sight when I have PMS or a headache. BE WARNED SCOOTER BOY: I have had just about enough out of you!

PRIVACY MANAGER ROCKS!!!

So the Holidays are once again upon us and, uh, well, not surprisingly my mom is going through one of her, oh, let's be generous and call them EPISODES.

She's having one. Not as bad as the one that caused her to try to ruin my wedding (to the point my father removed every phone from their house but one and then took that one with him whenever he left. The few times he forgot I’d receive insane escalating messages on my answering machine until the tape reached the end… good times...) but still attempting to drive me nuts via the phone.

I only recently was able to convince her, while we were visiting her in lovely Bakersfield last weekend, that when she leaves me VOICEMAIL I cannot hear her, “Laurel if you’re there pick up the phone… Laurel? Pick up the phone. Fine” messages as she’s leaving them. I had to argue with her about this. Explain voicemail. Explain I have to call in with a password to hear it. I’m still not sure she fully believed me.

So now she has a new pattern…It goes something like this:

The phone rings, I pick it up, see that it is “Private Name, Private Number”, and carefully put it back down.
I check back a few minutes later.
No Message.
15 minutes pass.
The phone rings, I pick it up, see that it is “Private Name, Private Number”, and carefully put it
Back down.
 I check back a few minutes later.
No Message.
22 minutes pass.
The phone rings, I pick it up, see that it is “Private Name, Private Number”, and carefully put it
back down.
I check back a few minutes later.
No Message.
I say a few bad words.
8 minutes pass.
The phone rings, I don't even bother picking up the phone because I assume it is my mother.
I check back an hour or two later
There is a message!
A message from someone I actually DID want to talk to.
I say more bad words.

REPEAT endlessly, sometimes several times in one day, with the occasional alternate ending of it being someone else who goes by the alias “Private Name, Private Number” that I did want to talk to.

This problem has been exacerbated by the fact that sometime in the last month my call waiting ID just sort of stopped being there (thus tricking me into clicking over, expecting someone else and finding my mother) and our regular caller ID wasn’t a terribly effective screening tool since MANY people we know show up as “Private Name, Private Number.”

So I called SBC (and for the record I HATE SBC, in the last year they screwed up my installation leaving me without phone or Internet for a week and a half, made our DSL act like it was on heroin and flat out eaten my voicemail so that I only got the first seven seconds [remember that band… ah punk, I miss it… and I digress] of my messages and had to try to deduce from that snippet who was calling and what they wanted) they apologized about the call waiting ID problem, fixed that immediately and then hooked me up with PRIVACY MANAGER the “you paid for your number to be blocked but I paid MORE to see who you are anyway so you can either unblock your number or you can go away” service. For only $3.50 more a month.

So Saturday morning the phone rings at 9:00 am and it is a computerized computer courtesy call letting me know my new service is in place. 18 minutes later the phone rings again… I lean over, look at the phone and yep… there is my mother’s name and phone number.

Worth every penny. SBC, I almost forgive you for everything you’ve ever done to me. Almost.

VoiceMail for the Dead!

I'm gonna be rich! Well, not now, because I was stupid enough to post this on the internet instead of rushing of to PATENT the idea but I have hit upon a winner: voicemail for the dead!

It came to me, after in quick succession I got my mother off my phone, made another call to a friend that turned into a quick Christmas party clothing consultation (no, that will look cool, no really) and then left two voicemail messages of the imploring "call me" variety. I hung up the phone and then yelled up into my ceiling, "Tommy, I really freaking wish you weren't DEAD because I really need to talk to you!" and it hit me. Yes, I felt DAMN stupid yelling at my ceiling, but what if I was speaking into a phone? When communicating, we need to feel like we have an audience, whether it is someone in the room with us or someone we’re writing e-mail to or leaving a voicemail for.

My friend Evelyn and I have talked about this. How sometimes if a lot is going on and we are really stressed we can feel much better just after leaving a long rambling message for the other person. Almost like we'd talked to them. All we did was ramble into their answering machine but we know they’ll hear it eventually and we feel like we’ve made a connection.

Why shouldn't this principle apply to dead people? I know I feel DUMB talking to the ceiling (if for no other reason than I figure the odds of the spirit I am wanting to talk to being RIGHT OVER MY LIVING ROOM at the exact moment I want to talk to them are really REALLY minute because, well, at least in Tommy's case, I'm sure he's dancing in assless chaps in the hereafter gay bar) and writing a letter that I KNOW isn't getting mailed anywhere doesn't work.

In general letter writing is a great tool for catharsis because of the possibility of actually sending it. You write your boss a letter explaining to him how much easier it would be to drive and tie his shoes and how much better food would taste if his HEAD wasn't up his ASS and part of what makes you feel SO much better after you've written it is that you COULD send it. You won't. But you could.

But writing a letter to someone who’s dead is like writing a letter to Santa, you KNOW it isn't going anywhere even if you address it to:

Tommy Griffin,
The Hippest Gay Bar,
Hereafter, Heaven.

Or, if my church was right:
Tommy Griffin,
Slowly turning on a spit over an open flame,
Gay Section, Floor 793, Hell.
But VOICEMAIL! Who’s to say dead people CAN'T pick their messages up? And you'd be talking into a PHONE which feels so normal and not like you are just talking into space. And with the technology available today, you could create an a outgoing message with that person's voice, either by using a previous recording of an old phone message, or by using technology to piece together recorded words and sounds captured of that person (for an additional fee – supply all known vocal recordings, a request for what the message should say "Hi this is Tommy and I'm too dead to pick up the phone right now so please leave a message and I won't call you back!"  for example, and a check for $499.99 -- Either way, you'd actually be speaking TO them.

PURE FUCKING GENIUS. I need to log off and get on this because I have a fortune to make and a really long message to leave for Tommy.

Once Upon a Time...

A love story from the 90s comes back to haunt the present

Once upon a time a long LONG time ago, like in the very early 90’s a brown-eyed American girl fell in love with a blue-eyed British boy while he was visiting California on spring break. At Disneyland. Cliché, yes, and all the things that go with that cliché: hot sex, an intense connection, more hot sex. And then he went back toEngland. And she thought it was over. Until he sent flowers. From another COUNTRY. And love letters. And she was lost. And so it went. Loneliness and mail marked par avion and mix tapes and bad poetry and phone bills she had to pawn jewelry from her grandmother to pay. But The American Girl loved the British Boy and she didn’t care. And, when she finished university, they made plans for her to move to England so they could be together. And then two weeks before she was to arrive,e he ended it over the phone. With one icy phone call he broke her. The American Girl’s heart shattered into a thousand pieces. She never found all of them. Some of the tiniest chips were lost forever. Her friends were as relieved as she was devastated. And slowly it came out. That they loved HER but they had a very hard time being around her when she was being in LOVE with him. It as like she was another person. An addict. Only instead of being addicted to a drug she was addicted to a person who wasn’t there, a love that was never enough and always left her raw and bruised and whimpering for more.

And time passed. And even though it was over it was never truly OVER. There were still phone calls and letters, though fewer than before. And her heart still ached. But she kept moving forward in the world trying to figure out who she was if not The American Girl the British Boy with blue eyes loved.

And then in 1994, after a move to a new locale and some serious therapy, she came up with a metaphor: The British Boy = Heroin. It was short and sweet and simply went, “Just because a person kicks heroin doesn’t mean they should ever lock themselves in a room filled with it for several hours” which translated into, “just because I got some sense and cut things off with The British Boy and fell in love with a nice young man who makes me happy AND safe doesn’t mean I should ever actually have anything to do with The British Boy because I might get all LAME and screw it up.”

And everyone nodded and agreed that yes, that was a very good and true metaphor. And they sighed with relief. And a year later they celebrated the American Girl’s wedding to the American Man who bought out the best in her. And for a long time, that was where “The End” went.

Then, 10 years later, the London subway was bombed and The American Girl, now a happily married woman, called the British Boy’s mum to make sure he was okay. And they had a nice chat (at $2.71 a minute) and the Boy’s mum was touched that The American Girl cared enough to call and make sure The British Boy and his wife and daughter were all okay. And she did care. Through the grapevine she knew he was no longer a boy either but a man, a husband and father and that people had died in his tube stop. And she was truly TRULY thankful that he hadn’t been one of them.

And then three weeks later she received an e-mail from The British Boy, something she was so unprepared for it that it sent her into an emotional tailspin. Within 24 hours she fell off the wagon and called him.  And they talked for an hour and a half. And like those 12 years had not passed they plunged headfirst into a maelstrom of memories, feelings, nostalgia and LAME. And her friends sent “please, just be careful” e-mails and bit their lips with worry. This continued for 7 days and 7 nights. Neither of them slept well, neither of them accomplished much other than to check their e-mail constantly, cry, write e-mail, send photos, IM each other etc.  It felt great and awful all at the same time. And it was LAME. And they both knew it. So The American Girl forced the British Boy to wade through the remaining emotional detritus one night (his night, her day) and they seemingly came through the other end with only minor emotional scrapes and bruises. And they agreed that now that they’d finally be able to be friends.

However, during all of this the American girl had realized that her Heroin metaphor was actually MUCH more appropriate and applicable than she had ever appreciated.

• Heroin is expensive = phone calls to The British Boy are expensive
• Heroin has to be imported from other countries = The British Boy is from another country
• Heroin is bad for you = not sleeping and not eating because you have lame “The British Boy hasn’t written back yet” stomach is bad for you.
• Heroin is addictive = contact with The British Boy is addictive
• Once you get addicted to Heroin, you need more and more to keep that same great feeling = the more the American Girl talked to The British Boy the more she wanted to talk to him even more.
• Once you get addicted to Heroin you also stop caring about everything else = she got fuck-all done that week.
• Even if you go into the Heroin experience with a clean needle and what you think is a safe “I just want to experience this once” attitude you still have NO idea how bad it is going to fuck you up, that you’re going to throw up and then want to do it again anyway = substitute THE BRITISH BOY for HEROIN and PHONE for NEEDLE and yeah, same thing.
• If you decide you want to just recreationally do Heroin that means accepting that you’re going to spend 2 or 3 days a week feeling like shit, crying and shaking = Again just replace DO HEROIN with TALK TO THE BRITISH BOY and again, same thing.

So the American Girl let herself have one more really good cry. And then she stepped back and looked at the entire experience. It was an unexpected adventure. And she did get some closure and they both were able to say some things they’d wanted to say for a long time and hear some things they both needed to hear. The American Girl was honest with herself. It was very nice to know that the boy who broke her heart into a thousand pieces really did love her, was just young and didn’t know how to handle it and has regretted it ever since. He had loved her. He had. She had always needed to hear him say it and now she had. And so far no one had gotten hurt.  But she had managed not to become a drug addict yet and was SO not starting now. She didn’t have the desire, or even the energy, to go back to living like that. Sure, it was a GREAT diet but it was so not worth it.

And the American Girl admitted that an old lover does not equal an old friend no matter how much you might want them to. She hadn’t gone to all that therapy for nothing. So with a twinge in her heart she let go of him again. And she wished him happiness. And she wished his family safety. And she wished his daughter love.

And then she crawled back into the arms of her husband and, for the first times in days, fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.

The End

OBITUARIES

Laurel Elizabeth, age 34, erstwhile veterinary assistant, perennial writer of wit and incurable giver of gifts, died at home in Folsom, California, on Tuesday, August 10, 2004, following a courageous battle with the Visa bill.

She was born in the city of XXXXXXXXXXX (name omitted in accordance with the deceased's wishes). From a young age, Laurel loved to shop. She rarely met a store she didn't like, and her propensity for items pretty and whimsical is well known among all those fortunate enough to call her friend.

"She was always buying people presents," says Deborah Graff, a grieving friend of Laurel's. "I can't tell you how many times she told me how tight money was, and yet within days or even hours, a gift would arrive for me. I always assumed she stole the gifts, or forced her house elves to make them. But I guess she was just racking up a Visa bill like the rest of us."

Laurel is survived by her husband, John, lately of the California State Prison, where he is serving 3-6 months for second degree murder following the discovery of a large Visa bill incurred by Laurel. At the landmark trial, the judge issued a sentence of unprecedented leniency, and even shook the defendant's hand after the sentence was read. Laurel is further survived by many friends who are grateful for the shiny things and silly knickknacks bestowed upon them over the years.

"I wish I had kept more of the goofy little presents she was always sending me," says a friend who wishes to remain anonymous. "They would really mean something to me now that she's gone. I bet I could get a lot for them on eBay."

Funeral services for Laurel Merlino will be held at a to-be-determined date and time, pending the release of her husband, John Merlino, from prison. Despite his need to kill Laurel for racking up a ridiculously large Visa bill, still he wishes to honor her memory and invite the hundreds of people who have profited from her misguided generosity to join with him in bidding farewell to this beautiful person who made so many mailboxes a little fuller, and so many lives a little brighter.

In lieu of flowers, mourners are invited to donate to the Merlinos' Visa account.

Laurel and John go Rafting: the Good, the Bad and the Bloody

(Written by Laurel, edited and snarkily commented on by John)

So John and I went rafting down the American river yesterday with Michelle, Brenden, Chris, Torie and a bunch of people from Chris’ huge never-ending family.

I covered myself with two complete coats of SPF 48 (Sweater in a Bottle) eschewed a bathing suit for shorts and a t-shirt and we headed out to the raft place. Where, once you finally found parking, you played “find your huge teeming group of people.” Then once you managed that, stood around while the men rounded up enough rafts for your group (10 people to a raft so we needed FIVE). And when they finally procured them, everyone helped carry them down to the river where they were all lashed together into a giant flotilla with a smaller, cooler laden raft, floating in the back.
So, once we got all organized and made sure each raft had at least one cooler in it for easy drink access, we all hopped in, pushed off into the river and spent a wonderful afternoon lazily drifting down the river occasionally having a drink passed up as we lolled in the sun.
 NOT.

Not even a little freaking BIT actually.

Actually it was FIVE hours of FULL out water WAR! Some genius (may he rot in a special hell with the guy who invented the Piccolo Pete) invented a water gun that is basically a three foot plastic tube with a plunger so you just suck up, oh, a couple GALLONS of water and then shoot it at people. Mostly at people on other rafts (of which there were many) who then shoot back because ALL the boys and men on ALL the rafts had these damn things. But, when there were no outside targets, they were used on family members ON the raft.

So you got to hear things yelled across the raft like, “Knock it off I’m mixing the vodka punch dammit” and “Hold up everyone, Pops is TRYING to smoke!”

So my first injury of the day I probably brought upon myself, I tried to push John into the river and he did this damn flip turn move that not only knocked MY ass into the water but also caught me upside the mouth with the end of his paddle. (She should have considered her timing a little better: ed). So I decided as long as I was IN the water I’d swim around from raft to raft looking for the orange Smirnoff drinks and then once I located which cooler they were in someone pulled me back in.

A bit later we weren’t really paying attention to steering and ended up rubbing along the bank which was COVERED with bushes (It was a small group of trees, leaning and/or almost fallen into the river, some with branches as big as two inches in diameter – they hung so low that it was impossible to avoid them, even if some people [like the women] dove headfirst into the bottom of the boat. The main problem, though, was that we hit them in a fast part of the river, and we were probably doing about 15 mph – try jogging into a tree: ed). I merely ended up with a scratched arm but John caught a branch to the funny bone and lost ALL feeling to his arm for about 20 minutes.

And so the fun continued as the hours passed. Seresa and I (who, as newbies, had actually FALLEN for the “you just get to drift down the river and relax” B.S.) had decided early on that the BEST way to cope with all this was to get DRUNK. This actually worked really well until I ended up in the back of the boat somehow, the WAR float, and a bunch of people had been knocked in, one at a time (you know, one guy catches somebody off-guard and pushes that person in, and doesn’t realize that HE is a target now…and so on) and Chris (miracle of miracles) was the first person dumped in. But before he could haul himself back into the raft, Chris threw his water gun, MARINE STYLE, back into the boat where it HIT ME ON THE TOP OF MY HEAD. Apparently it looked pretty impressive because the moment they saw it happen Michelle and Torie started knocking people out of the way to get to me. So I said “OW”, and reached up to touch the place where I got winged and I pulled my hand away and it was COVERED (well, not exactly “covered”, but there was more than you might think in just a few seconds: ed) in blood so I held it up for everyone to see, assuming someone would know what to do. I then put my OTHER hand up to my head, and it came back with just as much blood. And then everything went a bit hazy and then Michelle and Torie were there patting me and cleaning the wound (not very deep but an inch long and apparently head wounds always bleed like the dickens even when you haven’t been drinking alcohol [aka BLOOD THINNER] all afternoon) and holding someone’s ice soaked t-shirt hard against it until the bleeding stopped.

And then they valiantly tried to wash the blood off the rest of me and off my SHIRT. And my head was just THROBBING. So I took a Vicodin (which I had brought in case of pain emergency, just didn’t know it would be MY pain emergency) which would have been fine if I hadn’t been DRINKING for the last three hours. Walking suddenly became very complicated and people kept saying, “Laurel just sit your ass down in the damn boat”. So I got some food, switched to water and, when they finally stopped the raft at the official “mud wrestling pit”, I took a bit of a nap sprawled out in the sun on the raft and John was even nice enough to come over and spray me with sunscreen since I was starting to burn.

Luckily, by the time the mud wrestling was over, I was feeling a lot better, the Vicodin had kicked in, some of the alcohol had worn off, my head was no longer throbbing and I was able to sit up and enjoy the last hour of the ride which was, comparatively, pretty mellow. Michelle dozed in my lap and I just sat in the middle of the raft and, well, sat.

So we FINALLY made it to the end (marked by a tiny red flag [uh, that was an upended 10-foot canoe – I guess you were still a little out of it: ed]) where there was much pulling out of rafts and sorting out of stuff and yelling of, “Whose cooler is this? Who’s missing a brown shoe? Etc.” and I just stood there on the bank watching because, well, I had a head injury and a swollen jaw and felt rather entitled. And then we got to ride the bus BACK! By this point John and I were both so exhausted we just kind of sat in our seat with our foreheads resting on the seatback in front of us and John would go, “Home?” and I’d say, “McDonalds” and he’d say “and then HOME?” and I’d say yes and then he’d say, “Wendy’s?” and we went through that about three times before I caved and said, “fine, Wendy’s then home.”

Meanwhile in the BUS OF CHAOS Chris and Michelle were organizing a big jaunt for everyone to go to sushi afterwards in Elk Grove and drink Sake bombs but we used my GAPING HEAD WOUND (man, Chris felt so bad about that) to beg off (we’d just been there Thursday night anyway and I had enough Sake Bombs then to last me a while) hugged everyone goodbye, I told Chris he looked like a genial old washer woman in his hat (he did) and we trudged off to our car, got Wendy’s, ate, stared at the TV for a while, cleaned and dressed each other’s wounds with aloe vera and Neosporin and advil all around and passed OUT.

And now it is morning. We are tired and we are SORE. John has a swollen elbow and a sunburn and I have a hole in my head, many scratches and a bruised chin. But we survived our first trip as “newbies” and I think I earned lots of points for not crying like a little girl (or at all) when I got my head split open.

And I did, OF COURSE, take pictures of all this but I did it with a couple of waterproof disposable cameras so I just need to find a development place that gives you one of those photo CDs and you can ALL enjoy it for yourselves!

A grand muddy adventure!

Okay, so I was driving home from Michelle's house last night, you know, thinking how cool it would be to have a kid like Brenden...

but that I would NEVER make it through the Christian phase, (3 hours with a screaming 2 year old climbing on you seems like SEVEN hours at least) I went to the grocery store HUNGRY (bad plan) bought, of course, pasta, and then headed home.
 
As I pulled into my parking lot I decided to check the mail and just as I was getting BACK into my car I saw this black lab chasing this SUV so I watched it and realized the people had no idea their dog was chasing their car... and then when the car turned one direction and the dog headed ANOTHER I realized it was a lost dog so I cussed, flipped a bitch and started hunting for the dog, finally saw it across this HUGE busy street, flipped an illegal bitch on a red light and pulled into the entry to a housing complex where the dog was happily waylaying bicyclists and joggers.

I pulled around where the dog was jumping on an old male jogger and alternately drinking from the pools of water in the marsh area and getting all muddy. The jogger asked me "Is this your dog?" and I said, "No, but he's lost and I've been following him and it is getting dark and I am REALLY worried he's going to get hit by a car... can you help me get him into my back-seat?" So as people honked at me for rudely being in their way this nice man helped my foist this hyper panting dripping dog into my car and then I drove BACK to my complex and drove all around looking for someone looking for a dog but didn't see anyone so I parked, ran upstairs to grab a belt to use as a collar/leash (John was OH SO HELPFULLY on the phone to his best friend Brian the whole time) ran BACK down to my car, collared the dog and led him up to my apartment and out onto my deck where he happily panted and drooled all over me. So I checked his fur for one of those ID chips but he didn't have one of those either.

And John was still on the phone to Brian and I was like, "HELLO a little HELP PLEASE" so he got off the phone and made several phone calls and finally got someone to tell him about the animal shelter after hours drop off about 15 miles from here so I releashed the dog and I had just put him BACK into my car (this time he happily jumped in) when I heard a woman on the trail ask John, who had followed me out to make sure I got the dog in okay, if anyone had seen a black LAB and I was like "OOOH ME ME!"

So I let the dog out and he went running towards her and she was like, "Hi DUKE!" and the dog was all, "Hi Mom! I had an adventure!" So she said, "he outgrew his collar," as if that excused letting your dog run around with no ID, and I gestured to the belt/collar/leash I had created and was like "then keep this for now, it doesn't fit me anyway" so she thanked us again and headed off to the building NEXT to ours and I trudged back upstairs where John made me a drink and I made dinner and stared at CSI Miami for an hour and then passed out.

So another good animal deed done (I have yet to pass up a lost dog without trying to capture it, find the owner or call Animal control -- I'm such a sucker) which karmically hopefully helps make up for all the REALLY bitchy things I did in college.

I have yet to inspect the damage to my car but I am quite sure there are muddy footprints ALL over my seats. Sigh.