Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

  • I Go Insane: Part the First

    I often wonder if writers are depressed because they are writers, or if they are writers because they are depressed. It seems if you have been depressed, you have been to a strange planet and you come back needing to explain the chill in the atmosphere and the lack of color of the suns.

    Normal people probably come closest to depression when they dream. I heard a theory once that your dreams are just random images floating in your brain, and the instant you wake your mind gives it reason and some logical structure. That’s how you end up with “George Bush and I were at McDonald’s in our underwear and they made us leave so we went to China.” And depression is just as logical. You have a mind that is telling you that you are evil, and the part of your mind that needs order out of insanity says “Well, you are, and that’s why you should drown your children. It’s the only rational thing to do to protect them from being raised by an evil person like you.”

    I didn’t start at 100 percent insane right after my colonoscopy (see this). It took about five days. On day one, the pie chart of my soul was divided into 2 slices, a 99 percent me slice, and a one percent slice for the “still small voice” of my conscience. You know, we all have that little voice that says “What the – god, THAT was stupid. What were you thinking?” It’s only one percent, you can shove it in the closet pretty easily.

    On day two, the voice expanded to take up to twenty percent of the the pie chart of my soul. Larger than normal, but no larger than it gets when I’ve done something stupid. The next day – twenty five.

    When it hit fifty percent it became impossible to shove it into the closet.

    When it hit ninety percent, it kicked me into the closet whenever I tried to have a rational thought. And my soul stayed that way for about three months. I would sometime wake up at 3 a.m., moments before my no longer still or small Voice woke up, and I would think, “Huh – why am I awake at 3 a.m?” That would wake the Voice up and it would start in with “Because you don’t deserve to be asleep. You are an awful person. You are a cold, heartless, uncaring person and anyone else who thinks differently is just falling into the deception you perpetrate against mankind. ”

    Happy thoughts like that filled every waking hour I was alone. I would be at work (it let me work as long as I didn’t talk to anyone about it) until I left, and as soon as I would get into my car it would start in with the guilt.

    I know you’re thinking how insane this sounds. Of course, I would have shrugged the Voice off if it had been still and small. But every thought was voiced by the Voice. I had no say. I understand that some depressed people shrink to only one percent, and the rest is not taken up by a Voice, it’s just emptiness. And why not kill yourself, because you aren’t there anyway?

    Except, thankfully, after two and a half months of not controlling my thoughts I visited my friend Carol and she foolishly asked how I was doing and I suppose the Voice was napping, I told her what an awful person I was. Picture two hours of me crying and explaining how I was a cold, unfeeling person, standoffish, how I kept boundaries between myself and others, and that type of behavior is what causes wars. So, basically, I cause wars.

    Carol started by asking if I’d had thoughts of suicide. “Oh, no, I don’t deserve to kill myself!” I answered, “There’s only three ways that could go. I could die and be eaten by worms, and that wouldn’t be right. I can’t get off scott-free. I’m awful. Or, what if church is right and I would go to heaven, even though I’m awful.” (Violent sobbing.) ” That’s not a punishment, and I don’t think I’m so special God would make an exception for me and send me to hell. ” (Big sniffle.) “If there’s only a one-in-three chance of going to hell, which is what I deserve, I have to stay here and think about what I’ve done.”

    Carol and bless him, her husband, tried for quite some time to tell me I wasn’t a bad person. “But you don’t really know me,” I complained. “If you really knew what I was like inside, you would understand and you wouldn’t be talking to me right now.”

    It was getting quite late and Carol took the tack of humoring the crazy person. “Okay,” she reasoned. “Let’s say you are an awful person. No one can tell. I think it’s a great thing you’re doing, hiding your evil nature from the world. “

    See, reason. I couldn’t argue with that. And I stuck to the idea that at least I was a good fraud for at least a month, until I noticed I was down to crying only once a week. I’m not saying that Carol’s humoring made me turn the corner, but it gave me another rational construct to hang my insanity on, while my damaged brain had a chance to rebuild itself and restore the balance of serotonin.

    After I came out of it, I got a medical power of attorney and convinced Gary that if he ever wakes up and finds me crying at three am, and if the reason for my tears is that I am a horrible person, he must give me drugs. No point in fighting insanity.

  • Prelude to Insanity

    Before I found out I had MS, I still had MS. Ah, so young. So arrogant, so diseased and oblivious. No doubt one thing worse than having MS is having it and not knowing it. I was pin-balling between specialists for a few years before I was diagnosed. I saw an ophthalmologist for the optic neuritis, and had to see a urologist for the frequent bladder infections, but I never thought I needed a primary care physician to put it all together. Because hey, I have the Internet and the big medical encyclopedia.

    Well, at some point my digestion went south. It was, to say the least, irritable. It was also very, very active and made me very, very tired. I had to pad an extra 45 minutes to any 20 minute car ride to account for gas station visits. So I recommended myself to a gastrointerologist, Dr. C___________.

    His first question: “What are your symptoms?
    I explained that my life was now spent voiding my bowels.

    “What are your other symptoms?” he asked.

    “Well, my feet tingle, for some reason.”

    “Do you have MS?”

    “No,” I chirped, IN BLIND IGNORANCE.

    “Are you of Swedish descent?”

    “No. Do Swedish people move their bowels a lot?” (NO, STUPID GIRL, THEY HAVE MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS MORE THAN THE AVERAGE.)

    “Well they have other conditions that can cause it. Have you ever had any vision problems?”

    “Well, I had optic neuritis once, but it went away.” BECAUSE MS SYMPTOMS DO JUST GO AWAY SOMETIMES.

    Of course, you can’t diagnose MS just on random symptoms, you have to be suspected of having MS for a while. The M does stand for Multiple. And its not good to be diagnosed with MS when you are on COBRA insurance. So I went through a few tests culminating in an endoscopy and colonoscopy.

    The endoscopy went well, I suppose; they gave me a drug that almost made me forget it. It was the same drug they give you for wisdom teeth extractions. Versed, the drug, evidently breaks down the boundaries that make you discourage people from shoving tubes down your throat and up your ass. (Different tubes. I asked.)

    The colonoscopy – well. Heh. It started with Gail, the technician, asking what I remembered about the endoscopy. All I do remember is nurses yelling at me to breathe and my being. very. annoyed. Snippy high queen hissing annoyed. Gail should have taken that as a cue to roll me out right then, but instead I think she chose to give me a little less Versed. So little I remember the whole colonoscopy experience, down to my appendix and back again.

    Dr. C______ came in and started. The nurse had said, “We’ll give you a drug that makes it like you’ve had a glass of wine at a bar.” She should have said, “We’ll give you a drug that makes it like you’ve had a glass of wine at a bar and a stranger comes up and shoves a tube with a camera up your ass.” I was not civil. But I was soon distracted by the pretty colors. My colon is gorgeous. A pretty little pink factory. I was enchanted. At some point the TV monitor I was watching began to spin. I alerted them that the monitor was spinning and they said “that’s the drugs.”

    “Oh,” I realized,”that must be why you look like giant sheep.” Technically, a large giant sheep wearing a lab coat and a stethescope and a slightly small female sheep. I suppose this was inspired by a very heavy-handed Daphne DuMarier story I read in my morbid youth called “The Blue Lenses” in which a woman comes out of an operation and all her doctors look like animals.

    I told them they were giant sheep and they didn’t seem too concerned. The the poor doctor had to navigate through some colonic dogleg and it hurt. I was clenching the rail on the bed. He apologized and I hissed at him, “It doesn’t hurt. What on earth makes you think YOU have the capacity to hurt ME?”

    “But it must hurt. Your toes are clenched. And I am sorry.”

    I snarled through clenched teeth, “It does not hurt. Stop apologizing. Do you think I am so weak YOU have to apologize to ME?”

    Gail (the smaller of the giant sheep) bleated, “He’s just trying to make you feel better.”

    I informed Gail she was just a sheep, what did she know? And she would hurt her head if she kept bumping it against the wall of glass bricks I could distinctly see growing brick by brick between us.

    At that time we were turning the corner into the ascending colon. And I at that moment turned the corner from manic to depressed. Suddenly I felt bad about how I was treating this nice noble doctor. He changed from a sheep to a nice intelligent father-figure in a uniform who was just trying to help. And I changed from the bitch queen into a Very Bad Person. I would have mentioned this to the doctor, except the glass bricks were up to the ceiling and I was hallucinating the end of the old Get Smart show when the doors close one after another.

    I was pensive all through my ascending colon. He tried to interest me in my appendix. They tried to engage me in conversation and I mentioned what a Very Bad Person I was. Soon it was all over.

    As were my digestion problems. Any problems were superseded by my insanity and depression for the next three months, of course. I don’t want to think the Versed (which they don’t give for colonoscopies anymore) caused the depression. I was a thirty-five year old woman with MS; I was a depression waiting to happen. However, the Versed did cause me to redecorate my bathroom with anatomy charts and photos of my friends colonoscopies, because internal organs are beautiful and fantastic.

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  • Things I Learned At the Cradle of Filth Concert

    I escorted my 15-year-old niece Arzanna-fay to the Cradle of Filth Concert in KC. I learned these things:

    I may not like to be hugged, but being patted down for weapons is quite agreeable to me.

    If you stand within two people deep from the stage the bouncers squirt water into your mouth if you open it like a baby bird.

    Even if friends advise you not to get too close to the mosh pit, it is futile, because the mosh pit comes to you.

    Even if you assume a “I Shall Not Mosh” stance, you will still mosh.

    Do not wear slide-on shoes into the mosh pit.

    If fellow moshers see you suddenly look around the floor in search of your shoe, they help you look until you find your shoe.

    Losing your shoe in the mosh pit excuses you from the mosh community. Moshers who then bump into you turn about and nod apologetically.

    If you are 15, watch from the edge of the stage, make the two-fingered rock and roll hand gesture at the drummer, and have an aunt who hops up and down pointing at your head, you will get Cradle of Filth’s set list after the concert.

    Cradle of Filth censors their set list (I assume the song “Beautiful C**t” is not actually about a Beautiful Cart.)

    I can still be shocked by t-shirts that say “Jesus is a Cart” (censored).

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  • Jummah!

    We went to jummah at Arzaana-fay’s old mosque. She didn’t recognize anyone there. I sat in the back, and Arzaana-fay sat with the pray-ers. Oddly, I didn’t hear my favorite word, hamdallah, at all. I was just quietly sitting there when a pleasant-faced woman crept up to me holding a scarf in front of her. It was like she was trying to catch a bird, and I was the bird. I didn’t know how much English she spoke, so when I realized she wanted to wrap the scarf around my head, I nodded. She leapt at me and mummified my head in a matter of seconds. She said “It is a pleasure to do this for you,” which was nice so I didn’t feel like a harlot. Then she patted my head and said “You look gorgeous.” I told Arzaana-fay I got scarfed.

    I liked the jummah, but if they intend to sit the women behind the men, they need to discourage the men from touching the ground with their foreheads as it puts their asses out there for the women to enjoy. However, this does not make up for discovering that women cannot pray while menstruating. I think if I were menstruating and cranky and someone had the nerve to say I was “unclean” and separate me from the assembled crowd I would yank out my tampon and twirl it around my head and lob it at him.

    After the jummah we went looking for clothes. She had to come along on the clothes trip because this next January she turns 12 and there are new rules for what has to be covered. She explained that she could still show her elbows but not after — “you know.” “Well,” I said, “it’s not like ‘you know’ hits the day you turn twelve. It could happen tomorrow.” She looked really concerned. “Mom said it wouldn’t happen till I’m twelve.” Gary made us stop having that conversation.

    Anyway, she stayed in the dressing room and patiently accepted or vetoed articles of clothing on religious principles. Again, for future reference, an opaque blouse with long sheer sleeves still breaks the elbow taboo. And here I walk around with my chin and elbows exposed like some kind of hussy.

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  • We Enjoy the Majesty of Horses 2004

    We got to Pere Marquette State Park and Gary and Arzaana-fay changed out of their radio interview clothes into their trail ride clothes. I did not need to change my clothes. Yet.

    Our trail ride for this year was through Pere Marquette State Park. We were not with two spunky teenage girl guides, but instead we were with Enos, a cowboy. He had a cowboy hat, and he had cowboy smokes, and he was a soft-spoken no-nonsense cowboy.

    Gary – Domino, who knew that the sign over the door said “weight limit 250” and kept rolling his eyes at Enos’ horse and glancing up at Gary.

    Me – Jerry, the only horse with perfect bowel and bladder control. Jerry didn’t even like to step on the horse trail because it had traces of horse urine on it.

    Arzaana-fay – Lollipop, the largest, whitest, slowest horse. Lollipop was a fly magnet and she (he?) took advantage of Arzaana-fay’s good nature. Lollipop sensed Arzaana-fay was not going to kick, so Lollipop was going to occasionally stop, eat, just relax and take it easy.

    “I’ve been thinking of becoming a serial killer for a while now. You might be my first victims.”

    Yes. It WAS creepy. He looked right at Arzaana-fay. She began planning her escape. It creeped me out until I noticed it sounded as if he’d said it three times a day, every day, every time he locked that gate.

    Well, after that, the ride was uneventful, especially since we were all poised for Enos to attack or for Gary to bolt up another bunny trail. We did see two deer and a turkey.

    We made it back to the corral and dismounted. I would like to say we dismounted without incident. Sadly, I did not. One of my shirttails got caught on the saddlehorn and I came down, and it didn’t, and pop pop pop – three buttons out of my four popped off. Luckily the single remaining button was right over my brassiere. (We are talking about an industrial strength granny bra. It is almost AS big as my shirt.) I laughed, Enos smiled, Jerry the horse was amused. Luckily, we again had an extra t-shirt in the trunk and I made a quick change on the parking lot.

    We went back to the Pere Marquette lodge and ate lunch. This gave us enough strength to hike the Diamond trail — we saw scenic views, Arzaana-fay carved her initials into a shelter, we clambered up and down steps … and then… we heard the NOISE.

    Gary froze. “Do you hear that?”

    “Wind in the leaves.” I said.

    “It’s wasps!”

    “It sounds like an air conditioner,” I said.

    Someone pointed out that wasps would be more believable than an air conditioner.

    Gary took a few steps forward. He froze again. “Back! Back! It’s bees!”

    (I don’t know how he could tell this. He didn’t see anything.)

    We hustled back.

    Gary began hurrying us along the trail back from whence we came, warning us of what lay ahead, when the full realization of what we had nearly encountered struck him.

    “Its the severed head of a dead animal, and a huge swarm of flies has laid its maggots in it and that’s what we heard! A swarm of flies and hatching maggots eating the head of an animal!”

    Ew! We were SO relieved Gary had protected us from that danger. Plus, that trail had gone on far too long.

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  • Given the Opportunity, I Am Not Spartacus

    My favorite plays in high school were always those where the main character has a crisis of conscience. All My Sons. The Crucible. My favorite book is still Jane Eyre. I always dreamed I’d be faced with some big moral test and I could make a choice for virtue and morality. I love that scene in Spartacus. “I am Spartacus!” Love that. So Tony Curtis gets crucified. Big deal. At least he passed the big moral test. I’ve been prepping for my big moral test all my life. No big test. No one ever even tempts me. No Brief Encounter.

    I mention this because one day at the office when I came in there were three people in the lobby: a young man who looked like a biology student on a field trek, a little dark girl about 15, and I guessed her mom, a blond woman.

    “May I help you?” I asked, since our receptionist Sue wasn’t there.

    “We’re here for a meeting with Susan,” the blond woman said.

    “Sue, the receptionist or Susan E_____, the owner?” I asked.

    “Susan E_____”, the blond said, “Please tell her Ana Alvarez from Mexico is here to see her.”

    “Certainly,” I said, AND SCURRIED OFF TO DO SATAN’S WORK. (Ominous music)

    When I found Susan, I had decided Ana was her foster child that she had adopted though one of those Sally-Struthers commercial pleas. The little girl had just lit up when I went off to find Susan.

    Susan said, “Ana? From MEXICO?”

    “Yes…you don’t have a meeting with them?”

    “Oh I’ll MEET with them” Susan said boldly. “Let’s get someone else to meet them with me in case they have a gun.”

    (“A gun?” I thought. “Susan really is shy… I didn’t know she disliked meeting strangers so much. Or maybe she’s prejudiced just against Mexicans.”)

    Then she marched down the hall and Elizabeth happened upon her path.

    “Elizabeth, there are some people here to see me and they’re from Mexico.” (significant look exchanged) “Come with me and help me see what they want.”

    Elizabeth was taken aback to hear Mexicans were this far North but she was game.

    However, a few doors down the hall, Susan passed Mark’s office and decided his first duty as new co-CEO would be to take Elizabeth’s place holding off the Mexicans. Because you cant have the president and vice-president taken out by the Mexicans all at once.

    So then, we were this band of brothers marching against the Mexicans: Elizabeth (who really wanted to go up against the Mexicans), Big Mark, who immediately delegated his job on the front line to another VP, Tom, and Susan who just kept accumulating more forces around her. And I kept bouncing like a puppy on the outskirts of this growing mob saying, “I’m never entering the lobby again. That’s why you have a receptionist, Susan. To say ‘She’s in a meeting.’”

    (Gary said if I were a good employee I’d have said “I am Susan E_____. What do you want?” Like “I am Spartacus.” Not, “Sure, I’ll go get Spartacus for you.”)

    So we have this band of five people, counting me, and right before we hit the lobby — within earshot but out of view — we decided only one person was going to face the banditos. So Tom (Lowest ranking person in authority) marched out and we all strained to listen.

    Ana, it seemed was 15 and was very unhappy with the working conditions in Susan’s factories. I didn’t know Susan had factories The blond woman was her translator, not her mother, and I don’t know why the guy was there. Perhaps to make it obvious to all but the most stupid that they were union rabble-rousers, because once I heard a little of the speech he looked increasingly less biologist and more communist.

    Anyway Tom came back and said, “She appears to be discontent with the conditions in the factory. And she didn’t want any computer training, so I let her go.”

    So then Susan explained she’s on the board of Angelica Corporation, and THEY make uniforms in Mexico, in a factory, and there is an organization called Unite that is trying to unionize the Mexican factories. According to Susan, they do it by using deceptive practices, like making illiterate people sign union cards, and so on. And she had been warned that they had been going to board members and trying to intimidate them.

    So, my big chance to step up and be brave and it slips through my fingers. Perhaps I’ll have some other opportunity. Or perhaps you only get so many chances to make big dramatic gestures and I’ve missed them all. I’m tempted to almost have an affair with some doctor on a train just so I can NOT have an affair with him. With Rachmaninoff in the background.

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  • A Brief interlude in Which We Encounter the Beauty of Nature

    Gary and I have been walking the Katy Trail. This is how Gary enjoys the beauties of nature:

    wildflowers: “There must be a dead body buried there. That’s what makes wildflowers bloom in a patch like that.”

    reeds by the river: “If an escaped convict chased us into the river we could use those reeds to breathe.”

    abandoned pair of shoes: “Look! severed feet.”

    We found a fishing knife. Murder weapon. There was a breeze in the outdoor latrine. Satan’s cold breath was blowing into his rectum. Unlike me, Gary tends to the hyperbole. And he is not a nature lover.

    That is why when we were driving back from our hike I steeled myself to see the freshly dead possum we had seen driving on the way to the trail. It was a big possum in the middle of Greens Bottom Road. At the time Gary had driven past and just said “Big possum. Must have just died,” but now seeing it a second time he would have concocted a murder mystery around the possum, or had the possum die suddenly of SARS, or something. So I had to steel myself and gather up the breath for a patient sigh.

    I had also been admiring a hawk making “lazy circles in the sky” like in the song from “Oklahoma.” I see one of those hawks once a week on Greens Bottom Road. This hawk seemed to be floating down to the road.

    “Look at that bird!” Gary said.

    “Hawk.” I patiently said.

    “Its crazy! It’s going to land in the road!”

    “No it isn’t,” as it landed in the road right in front of us, on the dead possum.

    Gary screamed, “It’s a vulture!”

    “No–” I began as the vulture’s red vulture head popped up and glared at me with its psychic red eye for suggesting that it was not a proud vulture-like vulture.

    My reaction to the beauty of the vulture is to scream and slap wildly at my husband’s arm like I was in a 6th grade girl fight and say “BaaaAhhhhhhhh! BahhhAhhhhh!”

    The vulture looked at us with the hatred only an insulted vulture can assume and swooped off.

    Of course, we drove to a safe spot, disembarked, and hightailed it back to the dead possum where there were now the classic three vultures making lazy circles in the sky.

    Gary said, “Lie on the ground and look dead.”

    We waited, but we had angered the vultures (or perhaps buzzard hawks) and they would not land and peck out my eyes, much to Gary’s disappointment.

    I know I belong to the land, and the land I belong to is grand. Yippe-yi.

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  • In Which I Abuse Myself

    I hate my vibrator. Gary got it for me, and he always does great research and puzzling to determine what is the top of the line before he makes any important purchase. He went to usergroups and mailing lists and googled the best of the vibrators. He found a vibrator that had been featured on Sex In the City. He bought it. I hate it. Here is why:

    Device Number 1: It is too BIG. Particularly here at the corona (Don’t argue with me, I had to look it up.) I’d be fine if we didn’t have this flare thing at this point. Getting it in: I have considered hammering it in with my shoe. Getting it out: the shape resembles those nasty O.B. tampons that gave women toxic shock. Unnecessary. Perhaps if they made uncircumcised vibrators we wouldn’t have this issue.

    Number 2: This should be my favorite part, except the committee of dimwit men who designed the Famous Jack Rabbit vibrator decided it would be more female-friendly if there was a bunny here. And I ask them, Why? Do you think I want to have sex with bunnies? Or porpoises? Or bear cubs? Or any other animal you shape this flange into?

    Number 3: The web page described these white balls as pleasure pearls. I was intrigued until I turned it on and I flashed back to my childhood toy vacuum. It had plastic ping pong balls inside a clear plastic dome and as you ran it over the carpet the balls popped and bounced. It looked and sounded JUST like the pearls of pleasure. Total turn-off.

    And Number 4: A Battery pack? Why? Why? Am I going out on the boat with this? Shall I take this out camping? If the power goes out do other women think “Yes, a thunderstorm, this would be a good time to enjoy my built-in entertainment system.” I think it is safe to say I will be using this in close proximity to a power outlet; give me a power cord. However, keep the controls built in to the sides of the battery pack. It is nice to have the moving parts at variable speeds. There are two controls, one for the (sighs) bunny and one for the freaking gigantic shaft. The shaft twirls. Have the girls over. Set it up. Turn it on. It twirls like the Fickle Finger of Fate from Laugh-In.

    Yes, I said it, Laugh-In. I am old. So old that when I tried to resolve the size issue with some lubricant I was unable to read the tiny directions on the bottle. I pulled my glasses to the end of my nose and thought “I need bifocals if I am going to read this lubricant bottle.” It was a defining moment for me, I tell you.

    Clearly a male-designed device. So, one Girl’s Night Out we redesigned the vibrator. It was out because I needed a model I could use to sculpt a circumcised kosher hot dog. Then I left it on and oh, how it danced. The most vital modification, after de-circumcising it and adding a power cord, would be to have a button you could push to produce lubricant from a built-in well. And pick a different color. And heat the thing (easy, especially with the limitless power supply). Plus, it needs something you can squeeze and have it pant “Oh, God, you are so gorgeous, I will love you forever.”

    There you go, dimwit male committee. Get working on that.

  • We Enjoy the Majesty of Horses 2003

    We anticipated it was going to rain and scheduled the trail ride for 10:30 am. My and Arzaana-fay’s horse’s were, like they ourselves, gentle and docile creatures who took direction and did as they were told. Gary’s horse, Gunsmoke, tolerated Gary for about half an hour and then began to adopt his personality traits.

    At one point Gunsmoke decided we were clearly lost and he needed to be the lead horse and lead us out of the woods. He began pushing his way to the front of the line. Gary was forced to assert his will over Gunsmoke and not just reprove “whoa,” and released his death grips on the front and back of the saddle to pick up the reins and pull.

    Sadly, he pulled too hard on on the right just as Gunsmoke was passing what could have been interpreted as a horse off-ramp. On the right. Gunsmoke took the off-ramp, which was sort of a path, perhaps for small bunnies, up a hill. The horse bolted up the hill as if to stay “These women are crazy. They don’t know where they’re going. Gary knows where to go. Let’s take this bunny trail.” Gary stayed on and found himself at the top of the hill being slapped in the face by small trees.

    Arzaana-fay and I stayed at the bottom and skillfully convinced their horses that Gunsmoke and Gary were crazy.

    Luckily, with three people riding the trail the park provides two professional riders, one in the front (Erin, whose job it is to stay and say “Good job. Just stay here. Hold her, she’ll want go up there.”) and one in the back (Emily, whose job it is to gallop up the hill and say “No – don’t pull so – hard – see – Gunsmoke will rear back – no – oh!”) and then make eye contact with Gunsmoke and leap off her horse and grab the reins. Then Gary and Gunsmoke were lead down the path by the 90 pound Emily while her horse stood at the top of the hill. As Gary said, she could tell if he got off the horse he wasn’t getting back on.

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  • I Pay a Visit To Ann’s Bra Shop

    Warning: Mature Content, because this tale deals with my breasts, referred to as:
    – Boobs
    – Bosom
    – Hooters
    – Droopy and Bashful
    – The Girls
    – and sometimes TaTas
    (You see why it has a “Mature” content rating. Also, if you saw my breasts, well, mature is a nice way to describe them.)

    When I was at my Grandmas funeral, there were two topics of conversation, Grandmas arthritis and Grandma’s breasts. The arthritis made her fingers twisted and gnarled. (To demonstrate, my Grandfather pulled Grandma’s hand out of the coffin and waved it about, bellowing: “SEE HOW TWISTED AND GNARLED HER FINGERS ARE FROM THE ARTHRITIS?” This is why we were concerned when the conversation turned to Grandma’s breasts.) It seems Grandma’s breasts were so large the bra straps gouged deep channels into her shoulders and caused her no end of back problems and suffering. All the old ladies were very sad about the suffering Grandma’s breasts caused her, especially the “little” old ladies.

    I was in my early twenties and thought, “I am thankful I have not inherited Grandma’s breasts,” as you do when you are a 32C and in your early 20s. I had gone from 32nothing to a 32C over the course of a week at 11 and had held fast to that measurement. Since the cup is the difference between the ribcage and what I imagine might be called the “erect” state, the abnormally small ribcage bought me the C cup. I was perhaps a little vain about the C cup. However, 32s don’t usually have C’s, so I just had to accept any bra color or style in 32C. Or go to Frederick’s and order a bra, which I did once, but the bra looked so pedestrian compared to the label it was a perpetual reminder that I had Frederick’s breasts with a pedestrian lifestyle.

    I knew decisively I was a 32C because Mom hauled me in to Famous after that fateful week and got me a properly fitted bra. I remember the trip because the Famous saleswoman barged into the dressing room and wanted to know HOW I WAS DOING while I was taking off my too-small undershirt. Mom hadn’t seen me naked in my entire conscious life (nor has she ever) and here this woman was staring at my two new body parts I had only known for a week. I was going to protest as she spun me around so I faced the mirror, not her, and she stared at my bosom in the mirror, as if that made it acceptable under the Dressing Room Code. Then she measured, then announced, then barged out, then barged in, then barged out, then discussed my breasts with my mom for the edification of any perverts in the vicinity. I tried on the first bra, then pulled on my old bra and all my old clothes before she got back and said it was fine. “Well, put it back on then!” she whooped, and I had to model for her before she
    allowed me to leave with her approval.

    Then the bra came home and was worn daily, perhaps alternating with others exactly like it, all through high school and college. I will confess, I have only one or two bras at a time, with perhaps a special-occasion bra, such as my specially engineered cantilevered backless bra. When they get just too old and sad they are replaced with another bra that has no qualifications but the number 32C on the label. And of course, I’ve never tried on a bra in a dressing room since the Famous experience. Besides, it’s not like The Girls are particularly attractive, since having a week to mature left them with stretch marks and, shall we say, little infrastructure.

    Of course, in the last few years I have lost what little infrastructure I had, and I have seen my Grandmother in myself every time I’ve hitched up my brassiere. It began with a one-handed adjustment to the back, to a dual front-and-back two handed haul, to a dual front-back haul with a thumb pulling down the left side. This is why the giant billboard inquiring “GOT A BRA PROBLEM?” appealed to my particular demographic, the demographic of women who had 40-year-old breasts at 11, and 65-year-old breasts at 40. “GOT A BRA PROBLEM?” it asked to all the people driving over the bridge to St. Charles. “Why, yes I do, thank you for asking,” I’d say, as I rubbed the deep channels the bra straps made in my shoulders. “GOT A BRA PROBLEM? WWW.BRASHOP.COM“

    So one day I went to Ann’s, which was like a giant Famous dressing room, populated entirely by brash middle-aged women who took the doors off the dressing rooms and replaced them with curtains so they could barge at will. When you walk in to Ann’s you are assigned a bra consultant and hustled to a curtained-off corral where you wait for someone to barge in on you, because you were 11 once and you expect it now. After a few minutes I began to read the literature posted on the corral wall (Ann of Ann’s Bra Shop promotes monthly self-exams. I thought about doing a speed-self exam but knew I’d be barged in on.) Soon, Marie my consultant barged in and I explained I was tired of hefting my bosom about. (I didn’t tell her my fear of being dug up by archaeologists in the year 2508 and my skeleton displayed at a museum next to a plaque reading “this middle-aged woman exhibits the channels in her shoulder blades common to women with ill-fitting bras.”) Marie measured (from behind, of course)
    and asked “What are you wearing now, 32C?” Damn! I thought, Marie is good! I nodded and Marie barged out and almost immediately barged back in. “Try this on!” she barked. “Its a 32DD.”

    I almost laughed and said no, they don’t make 32DDs. “But,” I thought, “That’s why I have a bra consultant, so she must know. Besides, perhaps I have grown since I was 11. That must be why my bra doesn’t fit.” I trying the bra on, fastening it and yanking it around, you know, as you do, when Marie barged in again. “How you doin’?” I decided I was a 32DD and I shouldn’t be shy about my bosom, since I’m a DD Woman. Hell, I’m a WWoman! I turned to face Marie with my bra hooked upside down and backwards beneath my BBoobs. She hung another bar on the hook and said “Try this one, you might be more comfortable,” before ducking out, intimidated by my full frontal confrontational semi-nudity. I peeked at the label — 32DD Minimizer! I just had to double over and laugh. Eventually I composed myself and dropped the breasts in the DD cups and stood up.

    Front on, I looked okay, except it wasn’t a lacy delicate bra, and it looked like a Viking breastplate. So no cleavage, but I probably haven’t had that since Tuesday of The Week My Breasts Grew.

    Then I turned to the side. You know how 12-year old boys draw breasts? When they draw a front-on representation, they draw what looks like the letter U with a dot for the nipple. But the boys don’t know what breasts look like from the side. So they draw a U sticking out from the woman’s body. Like a torpedo with a dot for a nipple. Well, I have been wrong about the artistic skills of those boys. They must have seen their Grannies in profile. It was as if someone had papier-mached my slack bosom when I was doubled over laughing about the Minimizer bra and when I stood up it stayed that way. I’m used to these bras that take what I have and mush it up so it approximates a circular breast, since it has no infrastructure. There was no mushing. I was just cranked up and ratcheted out horizontally. I pondered my breasts. I allowed them a moment to adjust to their new environment.

    Left Breast: Hey! Hey! What are we doing in this strange position?
    Right Breast: I know! I’m not mushed and I’m not dangling.
    Left Breast: It’s actually kind of liberating jutting out here.
    Right Breast: Yes! I feel like Kate Winslet on the bow of the Titanic.

    And, I admit, I felt no pressure on my shoulders. I couldn’t breathe, of course, which is why I was oxygen-deprived enough to consider trying on the Minimizer. Marie was right, it was more comfortable, because it gave my armpit fat somewhere to go. I almost snapped it up too just for the absurdity (and the good laugh it had given me) but it was enough of a stretch walking out with a 32DD bra. As I left, Marie advised me that I should be sure I slept in this bra so my breasts wouldn’t become misshapen as I slept. Marie, I thought, that ship has sailed, baby, plus I would die from a splintered rib if I slept in this contraption. And I bet my tits would poke Gary’s eye out. Actually I’ve never liked the word “tits,” but its the only word pointy enough to describe my breasts in this device.

    I put it on when I got home and told Gary he was married to a DD WWoman.
    “Woo!” he said.
    I whipped my shirt over my head and flashed my 32DDs at him. He screamed. I whipped my shirt down and saw him cowering in his chair covering his eyes.
    “I hate that bra!” he screamed. “Ugh! Ugghhh!”
    “What is wrong with you?” I demanded to know.
    “I saw my grandmother in her underwear once! My grandmother had a bra like that!”

    It’s the circle of Life. One Grandma dies, another is born to take her place. Meanwhile I’m sure I’ll get arthritis in addition to the deep channels that are being gouged into my ribcage.

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