Sticky and Used NEW!

Strapping on the Bone Machine.

Well, it's gotten to the point where I'm gonna have to sit down and write some funny shit. A lot of times I can put it off, especially if Adam's sending me plenty of stuff – but he's gotten into one of his predicaments where he's seen so many movies and concerts that he doesn't know where to start and just says fuck it and watches the Jazz game. In lieu of any such content I figured I'd sit down, dust off the bone machine and see what comes out. Actually my wife (seeing that I was out of bed earlier than usual - what does she call it – day?) suggested that we have sex real quick before she went to work. But I told her I had writing to do and didn't want to feel all sticky and used. Which would mean I'd have to take a shower and most likely forget all the funny shit I was gonna say – leaving me with no alternative than to take a nap. "Shower naps" are much better than sex, but my hair's getting pretty long and if I fall asleep with it wet I'll wake up looking insane and my inlaws are in town. My wife just loves it when they show up at the house about noon and find me peaking out of my room looking like the guy from Taxi. Come on in it's "Back to the Future." Next to traveling to St. George to see his Grandkids (golf) there's nothing my father-in-law enjoys more than coming over to my house in the early afternoon to apologize for waking me up. As in-laws go, they're actually pretty cool, but if they think for one lousy second that I prefer their company to my beauty sleep they're daft as mad cows

As I suppose I've mentioned in the past, visits from the inlaws are the only reason I'm not content to live amid the dangerous clutter that my children festoon the house with. Just sort of a generally dangerous state of affairs that might result in a badly stubbed toe or a bleeding puncture wound along the bottom (or plantar aspect of the foot). Things went from bad to horrifying when I woke up with severe pain in my big toe which was subsequently diagnosed as Gout? Which sounds funny like Shingles or a Carbuncle, but is no laughing matter trust you you me. Wait til you wake up with the shit - you'll never laugh at weird ailments again. On the horrible human suffering scale it clocks in just a nitch below kidney stones. Which are trumped only by childbirth and birth of a baby on fire. I'm not proud of this, but my cat occasionally hops up on my shoulders and digs in with her claws, which invariably makes me want to swat her stupid ass. (It's not unlike being blindsided by a flying cougar in the kitchen.) The timing of this attack was certainly unfortunate. Her crazy flying lunge took me by surprised and caused me to stumble and biff my "gout-afflicted" toe so hard that it brought about a moment of blinding white caveman rage so intense that I reflexively threw a brisk, right cross to my cats noggin. As ugly and embarassing as this all was, and as badly as I instantly felt, it turns out I didn't catch her flush and happily within 10 minutes the cat was back purring in my lap - all full of forgiveness and certainly not noticeably stupider - at least to my untrained eye. The episode certainly implanted in my mind questions as to the intelligence and/or memory of cats and made me wonder how science has come to the conclusion that elefants are so blessed with such prodigious memory and ergo intelligence? It would be a bit morbid to imagine that perhaps an elefant accidentally stepped on the foot of one of its handlers causing the individual to lash out at the beast with uncharacteristic severity. And then 30 years later the Elefant escapes from a Circus in the very city where the once-abusive and now retired trainer is living out his remaining days in peace and contentment. Oblivious, this night to the long range peril of a butt-hurt pachyderm on a mission. Patiently biding his time the massive mammal with a score to settle, easily fades into the shadowy darkness of this fateful suburban night. Moving with surprising alacrity and stealth the self-trained mercinary (we'll call him Rumbo) doesn't hesitate to enter right through the living room window only to find the guilty party seated on a lazy boy, nibblin' on peanuts. Since our tusky husky housequest is not one to waste time with a ellafalotta funt and games. He takes a load offdoesn't toying with his mark thexacting revenge by also choosing the lazy boy as its choice of seating. ed a totally un-elefant-like memory, So after having spent the last day and a half cleaning myself into a dither, I've got every reason to rest up. But for some reason my children can't look at a clean expanse of vacuumed floor without the overwhelming compulsion to bust out a full-scale game of Monopoly. The girls are still a bit young to understand the subtle nuances of the game, and once my oldest has cheated my youngest out of every last pink and white cent, there's usually some kind of natural disaster in Monopoly town and they storm off and leave the twisted wreckage behind like a couple of retarded little tornadoes. God I love ‘em.

Being generally barefoot I give the disaster site a wide berth, but somehow my FEMA feet show up just late enough to discover a ravaged hotel an amazing distance from town and after I howl and curse, I'll hear giggling from above and then my youngest will timidly venture – "Hotel?" To which I reply in a manner not really human or linguistic, just before further horrors are visited upon the Avenues. I've thrown entire games in the garbage, there are remnants of half a dozen Candylands from the garage to the neighbor's backyard.

Similarly a clean expanse of kitchen counter is an irresistible invitation to create. Lennon, my eldest has begun to experiment with Jello, for example. I have to admit that I've never successfully made Jello, (whaddaya, cook it and then freeze it and then fluff it up) but I knew when to give up, not Lennon. God bless her, she's finally got the hang of it, but oh how my kitchen has suffered. When it comes to getting that green shit off a counter she may as well have spraypainted. I heap on great clumps of Oxy-Clean, but even before I begin I hear it murmur to the Clorox bottle – "cmon man, I gotta have a little bit – I can't get through this myself, c'mon, I'm hurtin' - just this one last time. Y'know I wouldn't call if it wasn't Jello, give me just a taste, don't be like that - I promise I'll never call again.

Got to pick them up, it's parent teacher week – their teachers tell me they're wonderful. But it doesn't say that anywhere on the spread sheet.