Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Skunk

Animal Control is on their way to my house. They’re closed on Mondays, so they couldn’t make it out until today, four days after our battle began—the battle for our backyard.

Sometime in the early evening of Friday, a small, happy-go-lucky skunk decided to move into the wilderness that is my backyard. And while I’m all for the cohabitation of nature and man, my bulldogs are not. It is their backyard, and they guard it like a castle. This was the case when at half-past-ten Bronco, one of my munchkin-doodles, dove through the doggy-door at a dead sprint and began rolling vigorously all over our carpet in the office. Mark and I watched curiously for approximately one second before being completely overcome by the burning, musky scent of skunk, sprayed all over our dog.

If you ever want to know how you’d really respond in a true emergency, have a dog rub skunk spray all over your house. As it turned out, I reacted poorly but quickly. Screaming, tears running down my face, I chased Bronco around the house before quarantining him in my bathroom. As with all emergencies, my first instinct was to get online and google “skunk spray dog.” I now imagine if Mark lost a hand in a backyard wood chipper, I’d run inside and google “detached hand” before realizing I should call 911. Perhaps I could text 911 while googling and post a bulletin on Myspace.

Anyway, at this point Mark and I discover that I have none of the home remedies listed online and realize I’ve got to make a run to Wal-Mart because the Dollar Palace is closed (see yesterday’s post). Now, despite Bronco’s success in spreading his stinkies (this is the word we use so he understands) across the entire house, I’ve actually managed not to touch him at this point and assume I’m safe to go out in public (the fatal assumption). I jump in the Volvo and off I go.

Mere moments after walking into the Wal-Mart health and beauty section, I pass two associates who remark to each other:

Shelby-Linn: “Kaylee-Mae, do you smell sompthin’?”
Kalylee-Mae: “Damn that’s nasty… smells like sompthin’s burnin’ gurl!”

I stop dead in my tracks. “No,” I think, “It can’t be me… I didn’t touch anything. I’m just being paranoid!” Lots of things in Wal-Mart smell like shit, including many of the other customers and Loretta—the 92 year old greeter with the colostomy bag. “I’m fine,” I tell myself one more time before proceeding and encountering yet another associate, Patsy.

Patsy shouting across three aisles to Kaylee-Mae and Shelby-Linn: “Now I smell it over in aisle thurteen! What is it?!”

I’m standing next to Patsy as she belts out this proclamation. She has no idea it’s me. It is me. I’ve now got a team of associates calling a manager to come find out what the smell in health and beauty is. FUCK.

Although I never realized it before, I learned that night that my greatest fear is actually smelling like burnt rubber and musk (in public). People always say “death” or “public speaking” when polled about this sort of thing, but I’d better dollars to doughnuts it would only take one good skunk incident to get these people to change their vote. Shocked, horrified, and now crippled by emotional pain, I ran straight out of the store without buying a single thing. I vowed never to return.

Alas I was forced to call my father, at midnight, and ask him to get the products for me (including feminine douche, which he actually purchased but only after having to explain the entire story to the cashier) and bring them over to the house—the house, which at this point, I’m not sure I can ever leave again. I stayed up until three in the morning scrubbing every surface of my home, only to go to bed completely saturated with the skunk—in my hair, my eyes, my nose, my mouth, my very soul.

It’s been four days now and the house still smells. Bronco still smells. My bathroom still makes my eyes water. And worst of all, the skunk is still in the backyard, digging in for a long summer of fun. I can’t even let the dogs in the backyard because of the smell and possible rematch. I keep telling myself they will catch him; take him away, far away. I can’t smell like that again. I can’t. I won’t.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Sometimes You Don't Feel Fancy

Ms. Jackson was brave enough to put into words what I've always felt. This is quintessential Oklahoma right here...

Where do you avoid when you've got that not-so-fresh feeling?

Thursday, February 22, 2007

A Kick in the Teeth

WARNING: Today’s entry is an unusually autobiographic insight into the author’s emotional instability, love, and heartache. Please be aware that the following post is not funny.

For the past three days Oklahoma has emerged from the cold, bitter fog of winter and transformed into an amazing sunny, blissful koromogae. And although you might note that for the past eight years I’ve done nothing but bitch about the warm sunniness of Los Angeles, I am now truly enjoying the change.

However, this shift in weather has also coincided with a figurative kick in the teeth from my dentist. At the beginning of the month, I had the first of two appoints to create a crown for one of my molars which, due to a genetic gift which is my defective enamel and a constant conjunction of teeth grinding, had all but disappeared. Before we began this process, I was told my university insurance would cover 50% of the procedure (a whopping $900). OK, I can work around that. However, yesterday I received a call from my dentist explaining how they were wrong to tell me my insurance would pay for half, in fact insurance would pay for nothing, because I had the procedure TWO WEEKS before the end of my “waiting period” for the insurance to cover “major work.” Thus unexpectedly, I now have a heft bill to pay if I want my tooth back. But this is only the most recent of a string of financial hardships I’ve suffered in the last two months:

1. Car door keyed so deeply, it had to be filled and repainted. $300
2. Lost car key, replacement involved software, remotes, etc. $400
3. Computer collapses, dies unexpectedly. Must be replaced. $1400
4. Other car door is attacked by a pillar in a parking garage. $600
5. Tooth ground to nothing, replaced with porcelain. $900
6. Other molar chipped while eating gyros with Blythe, filled. $200

So long summer trip. So long new tennis shoes. So long savings account. Say hello to the “quick sell” isle of the grocery store.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Proud to be OK!


When your university's newspaper headline reads "Still home to the KKK," how are you supposed to feel? Ashamed by your state? Ashamed by the poor quality journalism? Ashamed by your fellow man? Good thing I enjoy shame.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Godiva Chocolate

While waiting on line at Starbucks for my chai latte, I witnessed a man, but a mere boy, of perhaps 80 or so, walk up to the counter and steal a chocolate bar. He was bold, assertive, but not conniving. He was fearless but not naive. He simply knew. And he took, quickly, while no one was there. And then he was gone. Turned out not far, just on the other side of the wall, sitting, alone, eating his prize with a certain sense of entitlement and ease. The veracity of a toddler hung on his face. He had no guilt. Pride almost. This was certainly not his first crime. Caught before, several times I'm sure. But he'd honed his craft, and no longer did he even need to feign confusion and play the part of the disoriented invalid. He was 8 years old again emboldened by immunity garnered from the shabby chic flannel of the kindly grandpa.

Friday, February 16, 2007

An Actual Email

The following email was sent by Dr. Nancy Mergler, Senior Vice President and Provost of the University of Oklahoma:
Notice the time stamp in the email, 11am. Nancy must start her lunchtime cocktails a little earlier than most. If you'd like to learn more about Dr. Mergler, please visit her website. Or, just give her a call at home (405) 360-0755.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Be your own Jackson Pollock!


I'm simply in love with this flash animation "Splatter" by Miltos Manetas courtesy of Yvon Lambert Gallery in New York, which allows you to be your own Jackson Pollock without the mess (and haven't we all secretly been yearning for just that?). If you have a Mac (read: aren't a loser) you can save your Pollock creations by doing a screen shot (shift+apple+3). However, you must hit the shift button twice in order to lose Manetas's signature (you'll see when you do it). If you have a PC, I'm sure you can do it too, and that's great--I just don't care honestly. Enjoi!

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Boy Girl Scouts?

Tonight I settled in with a glass of Charles Shaw $2/bottle Merlot and a box of Girl Scouts Thin Mints cookies. Yes, I am this classy in real life. Anyway, as I was ripping into the package, I noticed the front of the box, which features some poor troupe of scouts on a ropes course clad in helmets and t-shirts with an array of unnatural colors God certainly never intended—and my honest first thought upon seeing the picture was, “why is there a group of boys on the Girl Scouts box?” Turns out the girls are just in desperate need of eyebrow waxes. See for yourself. I think the lesson here is that prepubescent girls should not be allowed to engage in activities requiring helmets. Or, if helmets are unavoidable, pink shirt embroidered with "I'm a girl!" should be worn. Moms, let's avoid transgender confusion--don't let your daughter do activities clearly designed for boys.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Christ Be with You

Yesterday I read in The Daily Oklahoman, a federal judge ruled that an 8 foot tall granite slab, inscribed with the 10 Commandments on one side and the Mayflower Compact on the other, could indeed remain at the county courthouse in Muskogee, OK. Federal courts bad, county courts just fine. The paper heralded the ruling as a triumph. This bold editorial line surprised me until I found the Daily Prayer Section published at the bottom of the paper. Christ be with you, vote Republican. *22August 2006.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Things We Do to the Dead

My department’s secretary Lindsay returned from a funeral on Tuesday where the body of the deceased was on display wearing his Oakley sunglass, NASCAR racing jacket, wrangler jeans, ostrich skin cowboy boots, and a can of Skoal tucked gently in his hand. That my friends, is what white trash is all about. Apparently there was originally a bottle of Jack Daniels in the casket, but it was stolen during the viewing the night before.

Another friend of mine works at a funeral home. Now, he himself doesn’t do anything particularly exciting like embalming the corpses or fixing their hair and make-up; he’s just an admin. That was true until last week, when he was asked to press the feet of a stillborn fetus onto his desk Xerox machine. No one had provided the funeral home with the deceased’s birth certificate, which is the origin of the footprints so popularly printed on the memorial programs of babies. The day before the funeral, drastic measures were needed to ensure the timely printing of the programs. And thus, in a back office of the administrative wing, my friend, with his assistant, juggled the lifeless corpse, pressing its tiny feet onto the freshly cleaned class of the copy machine. The resulting image revealed not only the footprints, but also the hands of the men holding the baby, which had to be edited out, not with Photoshop, but an entire bottle of whiteout. Ultimately, the prints were made, the family was pleased, and that’s all the really matters I guess.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Needle Exchange

Today, the front page of the Daily Oklahoman included a medley of photographs depicting young children being stabbed by needles, their faces in vary degrees of contortion. The headline, blazoned across the paper, read "Immunization Time." I considered whether this was possibly the first time people in Oklahoma had encountered western medicine, justifying the front-page coverage. Upon closer inspection, the article confirmed that this was indeed an annual ritual. Good to know. *Originally published 19 August 2006.

This is a blog


At the request of Blythe (see Bee-Spot) I've created a "real blog". Indeed.