I CAN BOO IF I WANT TO

The talk around the Boston area is that I behaved badly yesterday.  Yup.  I did, you did .... Hell, just about everybody did.  Remember, I swore at the television and turned away several times from the Patriots' game when it got too painful to watch anymore.  Some of the game attendees audibly booed our own team and even left early so as not to be sitting on route 1 for hours in traffic.

Hey, here's my response:  Fuckyaselves.  Yup.  FUCKYASELVES.  And I say this with love in my heart.

You see, we're not booing some group of little kids or handicapped players or anything like that.  We're not total assholes.  But, folks, these players are professionals.  PROFESSIONALS.  This is their JOB.  When they suck as badly as they did on Sunday, we are entitled to groan, swear, and boo.  I mean, if you buy a burger and it's so badly charred that it is basically inedible, you don't shrug it off and say, "Oh, well, I'll get a better burger next time." 

Professional sports are products and we are the consumers.  Deal with it.  We are entitled to complain where complaints are due.

Take tonight, for example, when the Bruins choke near the end of the third period and I start laughing and say to my TV, "What the fuck, guys.  Really?"  I mean, tickets to the games can run into the hundreds of dollars.  I think for that price I should be able to be a bit of an armchair coach.

For those of you who say we shouldn't be booing our teams, don't call us fair-weather fans.  Saying we cannot boo when a team sucks is the same as saying we cannot cheer when they score.  You're probably a socialist and believe that everybody gets a trophy.  If you're offended that we boo our teams when they blow chunks, then you're a hypocrite and shouldn't bother watching events like the Superbowl.  After all, everyone wins in your world ... right?

I will continue to call-out bad playing just as I call out bad officiating.  You want to know why?  BECAUSE I CAN.  If it offends you, go stick your head up your ... cable modem.

MY FOUL MOUTH

I've turned into my father.

Anyone who knew my father will know that this is NOT a compliment.  As a matter of fact, any of my siblings reading this probably just shit themselves.  Watching football today, though, it's obvious I've inherited all of my father's gifts of language.

In other words, I can swear like a drunken soldier.

Okay, people who've known me pretty much all my life might be reading this and wondering how or why I think this is news since I swear every single day of my life.  What makes today a special occasion?  Truly, it's not like football is the only sport that brings out my colorful language.  I've been a hockey-swearer since long before I got my permit to drive.

For the last three weeks, though, sports in general and football in particular have been making me swear my head off.  Sometimes it's because a play sucks particularly badly, and sometimes it's because a play is phenomenally unbelievable.  Sometimes it the officiating, and sometimes it's the "professional" commentary.

Either way, the F-word has become even more of a regular in my vocabulary, especially on the weekends when sports are all over the television and I cannot escape myself.  I'm so bad that a friend gave me an F-Bomb ... really ... it looks like a bomb with an F on it.

I apologize.

It may be generational or it may be something of my own doing.  Either way, much like the father in A Christmas Story, I can weave a tapestry of foul language that might still be hanging in space over the Merrimack River.  If my sports teams keep playing the way they're playing (shut-outs one day, huge losses the next; fantastic passes one game, dropped soft passes the next), I should be getting plenty of practice using my foul mouth.

I DON'T EVEN FEEL LIKE SMACKING ANYONE TODAY!

I almost fall for it.  Truly, I do.

I spend the previous evening canvassing emails and checking out ads and cutting out coupons and strategically planning a day of shopping for Saturday.  After all, the deals end Sunday.  I'm missing out!  I'M MISSING OUT!!!!!

I wake up Saturday a little later than I'd like.  I stumble downstairs, make some tea and oatmeal, and I sit at the table, staring at the coupons neatly organized in a colorful baggie that sticks out of the top of my pocketbook.  I'm going to do it.  I'm going to go out there and mingle with the mayhem.  I'm going to, I swear it!

And then I remember that I have to put together some storage bins (another story for another day), that my son's new gal pal is coming up for the day, and that I promised a friend I would attend her house party.  I also have homework for a class I'm taking, and, to be frank, I haven't showered and I look and probably smell like something that fell off a turnip truck.

I accomplish some things on my to-do list, including spending some time in the upstairs den/office/sewing room that now looks like the remainder of a bomb incident instead of the end result of a full-scale bombing raid.  Currently I am in between events and about to head out to another.  I have since showered, washed and dried my hair, applied deodorant, make-up, and clean clothes, and have almost entered into the human world. 

I even manage a quick trip out to CVS.  I know, right?  Does this count for hitting the stores?  Can I count myself among the masses even though there is zero line at CVS?  I mean, I don't even wait one second.  I walk right up to the counter and am through in no time.  Plus, I have a 20% off coupon that expires Sunday, so I guess my plotting last night really does help.

Oh, and just for the record, my friend's daughter is posting on social media that she is stuck in a long, loooong line at Kohl's in Salem, NH, and that the place is Crazyville and the people are asylum patients gone amok.

I guess I get the better end of all of this -- and I'm proud of myself.  I only fall for it a little bit, 20% or so, and I don't even feel like smacking anyone today.  Progress!  Merry almost-Christmas, kids.

HAS THE DEER A LITTLE DOE?

According to the Three Stooges, the answer to this question is: "Why, certainly.  Two bucks!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL5FjvH3AJc

I can tell it must be hunting season in the nearby state forest.  No, I don't hear any gunfire; the hunters are only allowed to use bows and arrows, at least that's been the rule for the last couple of years.  I don't really know for sure if it's open season in the woods.  I can only tell you that the deer sure as hell think it's hunting season.

Driving to work I am careening down a relatively well-traveled back road when I turn a corner and nearly get sideswiped by a huge doe.  She's a beauty, and she's solid, an amazingly agile and meaty animal.  I stop for a moment in the road (no one else is around), and watch her duck into the underbrush and stand up against a wooden fence, where she is trapped from moving any further.  I look around and realize she must've trotted right up the nearby cul-de-sac like a four-legged jogger out for a morning run.

I'm still thinking about the doe later on when I drive home.  I decide to take another side street, one that is well-traveled even though it abuts the state forest and the pond where I like to kayak.  The exact moment when I recall the morning's deer encounter, another doe trots out right in front of my car.

Luckily, like this morning, no one else is coming.  I stop the car and roll down the windows.  I don't know why I do this.  What's the deer going to do?  Stick her head inside the window and greet me?  I seriously think my gut reaction is to hear her, to listen to her move from the woods on one side of the road to the woods on the other.

No sooner do I watch her descend into the gully when another doe jumps out and practically over the hood of my car.  She's a little smaller than the other one, and both are smaller than the beauty I encountered this morning.  It seems like I am sitting in the road for a long time, but the entire encounter takes probably fifteen, maybe twenty, seconds.  I see them safely into the bog, both moving slightly into the water among the reeds and branches.

(Not my picture; not my deer)

Pretty cool but not enough time to grab my cell phone camera.

Part of me worries that an errant arrow will come flying through the window and pierce my skull for interfering with what might be a hunter's pursuit; part of me cannot tear myself away from watching the two deer.  A car comes along the other way, and I decide that I should probably keep moving, especially since I am within spitting distance of the state police barracks.

It's all right, though.  It has been a three-doe commute today, and that's much better than my usual two-school-buses-and-some-traffic-lights commute.  Reminds me why I live around here and not in the city.

I'LL BE DEAD SOON

Guacamole ... Guac Guac-amole... (Not me, BTW)

Sometimes I don't mind people; sometimes I don't want to be around people at all.

This becomes extremely difficult in my line of work: middle school teacher.  I am pretty much surrounded by people (of various ages) all bloody day long, and sometimes I'll play along, and sometimes I won't.

I have a former student who likes to stop by every morning on her way to her own homeroom in the hallway that connects to where my room is located.  This particular morning she stops by and encourages me to join her in a mini dance routine.

So ... I join her.  It doesn't matter to me that the entire hall is choked full of students.  We dance, laughed at by students and teachers alike.  Who cares?  I'll be dead soon, anyway.

Later, though, I'm feeling burnt out.  It is after school, the bell has rung, the students (for the most part) have left the building.  Suddenly, in the hall outside my room, I hear my favorite former student and one of my current students plotting to come surprise me in my room.

I glance around. There is no second access to or from my room.  I am trapped.  I do the only thing I can do:  I hide under my desk.

Mind you, I'm wearing a dress and suede boots, so folding myself under the middle drawer of a metal teacher desk is no easy task.

"She's not here!" I hear them lament. 

Ah, safe.  I'm safe!

No.  Wait.  Another teacher passes the girls and says, "Oh, I was just talking to her.  She is definitely in her room."

Damnit. 

I don't move.  I'm not even sure I'm breathing.  I stay completely still.

I hear the girls' feet shuffle back into the room.  One of them repeats the belief that I'm not there.  Suddenly, I hear my student shriek:

"SHE'S UNDER THE DESK!  SHE'S HIDING UNDER HER DESK!"

Busted.

Oh, well.  Sometimes I just want to be left alone, but, to be honest, they worked really hard for this; they earned it.  I pop up, chat for a while, and let them make fun of my morning dancing.  Oh, well.  Like I said before, I'll be dead soon.  No big deal.

AIN'T NO F*&%&#G THELMA HERE!

It's that time of year again when all the bizarre charities call.  You know the ones I mean:  Save the Children with Dimpled Cheeks Fund, Money for Missing Dryer Socks Foundation, and The Secret Order of Belly Button Lint.

I will admit, though, that I like to answer political surveys.  It's one of my favorite pastimes fucking with people's heads.  (What is the biggest problem facing America today?  SPAM!  We need more Spam in case of an apocalypse!)  So, sometimes I like to answer the phone, but, then when I find out it's a money-grubber trying to get cash out of my pocket for the Sewer Workers Lunchtime Hoedown, I act all indignant.

Tonight I am in the basement, futzing with the laundry, moving the wet washed stuff to the dryer and putting the new stuff into the washer and transferring the dried stuff to the laundry basket.  All of a sudden, the phone rings.  I fly around and rush to answer it in case it's one of my kids or a political activist.

I think I might have mentioned, or perhaps I did not, that I am eventually going to rearrange the junk in my basement.  Anyhow, when I whip myself around to head up the cellar stairs to answer the phone, I forget about the folded-up treadmill and whack my hand on it so hard that I feel and hear my wrist snap.

Oh.  Shit.

I very carefully move my wrist while taking the stairs two at a time, all the while swearing my bloody head off.  I see the caller ID as some Somerville number I don't know.  Here's how the conversation goes.

ME: (picking up phone receiver) WHAAAAAAT!!!!  (Dead air)  (sighing, then sharply) What do you WAAAAAANT?!?!

SHE:  Um, is Uhn-DRAY-yuh there?

At this point, I can honestly feel the blood boiling in my head.  My wrist hurts a bit, my hand is unsmooshing itself, and there isn't any Uhndrayyuh here.  I take a deep breath and reply in my best Aresnio Hall Amazon Women on the Moon impersonation ...

ME:  THEY AIN'T NO FUCKING THELMA HERE!

If you've never seen the first four minutes of Amazon Women on the Moon, you simply must watch it.  Here's a link (that won't link so you'll have to copy and paste into a new window).  Short of the bookcase, this is exactly what happened to me this afternoon.  I swear it.  I would only exaggerate a teeny bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHSoN8t6x3M

I am pleased to report that my wrist is fine, my hand only hurts a little, and that bitch from Somerville, whomever she may be, has not called me back, and yay for it because I have more laundry to finish, anyway.

KILL THE WABBIT

The other day at work I'm trying to find some music to pump me up in the morning.  I now have some kickass speakers mounted into the ceiling of my room, and I've been known to blast everything from Dropkick Murphys to Big Band music.  I'm having a particularly shitty morning on this particularly shitty day, so I head for Pandora's symphony station.

On comes Ride of the Valkyries, or, Die Walkure, by Wagner.

You know this song.  Yup, you do.  Even if you don't know classical music, you know this one.  It's the one from Looney Tunes when Elmer Fudd sings, "Kill the wabbit, KILL THE WABBIT!"  Here, try these links (you might have to copy and paste into a tab):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V92OBNsQgxU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGhQ2BDt4VE

Anyway, even if you don't click on the links (or copy and open them), suffice it to say that I had Wagner cranked to the rafters, which is a daring thing to do since the superintendent's office is three doors down from my room.  I just felt the need, though, because some days at work are just like that.

My limited knowledge and a few clicks of dictionary.com tell me that a Valkyrie is a Norse mythological figure, a woman, actually.  She represents one of twelve handmaidens to Odin, and they choose slain warriors from the battlefield to enter into Valhalla (which reminds me of another song, Vahevala, by Loggins and Messina).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiDOkRJ1w20


Some days I want to ride with the Valkyries, plucking up the dead ideas thrown at me at work and leading them into oblivion where they belong.  Other days, I just want to kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit ...