Thursday, November 23, 2006
Happy thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is my favority holiday. It's about having a great time with your family. It's not labor intensive--well, at least you don't have to decorate, buy presents, wrap them, and then also cook all day.
On a funnier note, my Thanksgiving gift to you is this: a short story I wrote last year after a particularly harrowing lock-out experience in my new home. I hope you enjoy the day!!
Here's a pic of my kitchen so you can get a mental picture:
This is a true story. And it's long, so read when you've got a minute.
I'm prolly not nearly as funny as I think I am. Here's the curse of the
Howard womens'boobs at work....
I got up this morning and went for my usual 3 mile walk. Normally,
that's enough, but just this morning I was crowned Davidson County
Little Miss Over-Achiever and thought I would get my bike out to ride
after work. Not only had I already done 2 loads of laundry and gotten
myself dressed (pretty smartly, I might add) for work, I was up and
down those basement stairs at least 15 million times this morning. So
as I'm wheeling my bike out, I think I should lock the handset so I
don't have to risk West Nile ( I have mosquitos that masquerade as
birds) and walk all the way back around the house after I put my bike
on the car. I slam the door thinking I'm pretty smart for saving myself
some time. I immediately see my mistake. I haven't gone out the kitchen
door today, and it's still locked.
I start thinking about all the times I've thought I should leave a key
somewhere or get to know my neighbors better. I think about the housing
projects I'd have to ride my bike through to get to work, and I start
thinking about my little tiny kitchen window that I know has a broken
latch. Then I think of the entire box of York peppermint patty cookies
I ate yesterday, and how the pair of jeans I was so proud of just
moments ago are more than a little tight through the thighs. Probably
not a good idea for lunging.
Aha! Wait! I see the elderly and definitely foreign-speaking mother of the
neighbor I never speak to outside and ask to use her phone. I call
Jason who has a key to the kitchen door and who is coming into
Nashville to work in a hour or so. Once he's on the way I start to
remember that I have a secondary dead-bolt on the kitchen door, the
only one he has a key to, that I lock from the inside and don't have a
key to from the outside. I realized someone is going to have to climb
in that window. I might as well start trying. I loved Macgyver as much
as the next gal.
I take the spatula from the bbq grill that I always tell Jason to bring
in, but he never does. I pry the screen off the door and open the
window. I realize that the window is a full 6 feet of the ground. I
pull up a chair, which is too short. I spy my trusty green garbage
can. Luckily, it's full enough to provide support for my clod-hoppers.
I do the splits to get from my top step onto the stair railing, then
onto said garbage can. I pause here to pray and to curse the York
Peppermint Cookies again. I take one attempt at unlocking the dead-bolt
with a broken rake handle I have laying around (thank god & grandma
for my pack-rat tendencies.) No luck on the lock. So it's in I'm going.
I eye the stove and have serious questions about if it will hold my
weight and all 6 feet of me once I propel myself through the window. I
decide to give it a shot.
I take a deep breath and stick my head and shoulders in. Then comes
the most harrowing part of the whole story. I have finally reached the
point in life and bra sizes where my boobs have become a real safety
hazard. This window is 20 inches wide, and will only open about 10
inches. Oh Holy God. Imagine my 3feet-plus of legs sticking out the side
of my house,six feet up in the air, kicking wildly. I squeeze and squirm and apologize to my future children for the ruin I'm doing to my mammary glands. Ow. Ow.
Ow. Whoaa, Ow. Finally my bazoombas (thanks, for the word, Erin) pop
out on the inside of the window and now I realized that the stove is
not long enough for me to walk my way in on my arms. I flip over to
face the ceiling and in the process turn on a burner, which I didn't
realize until my left cheek was getting toasty.
I got off the stove (quickly) and took a deep breath, and pulled my
boobs up out of my belt, and called Jason. He was not happy to learn
that I had gotten in the house and cost him an extra 3 minutes of
sleep. I'm just glad that I can detect my own breast cancer before it
gets too far.
I'm definitely going to put a key someplace safe outside the house from
now on--maybe in a flower pot shaped like boobs so today's trauma
wasn't in vain.
Sorry if you don't think this is funny--I'll give you the 20 minutes of
your life back some other time.
~beth
Read or Post a Comment
oh my god, i needed that.
:D
so glad you got in, didn't get toasted, and nobody called the police to report the 6-foot-tall cat burglar in your window.
Great story, glad you didn't end up in the burn unit! Love your blog - you're an amazing artist.