Where's the Beverly Hillbillies Diet anyway???

I am so mad right now that if I weren't afraid my daughter might read this, I'd probably swear. Not any of those nice, neat swear words either. I'd let fly some of the really bad ones like they used in "Sideways"...which by the way was the absolute worst movie I've ever seen in my entire human life. I don't care what the Academy Awards snobbies thought.

Here's the situation. Because I am feeling so tired lately and because I look like a forty-one year old mother-to-be, I visited my doctor to have my thyroid levels checked again. After describing to her this God awful exhaustion I'm experiencing lately, she and I had a nice conversation about what she referred to as my "lifestyle".

"I really recommend you try the South Beach Diet", said my size one nurse practitioner. "We're all going to die someday, and I personally want to die healthy. This diet can do that for you."

This is without question the single worst advertising slogan for the South Beach Diet I've ever heard.

"Try the South Beach Diet today because let's face it. You're going to die no matter what you do. Why not die skinny?"

So today while I was getting new tires on my Ford Bogus, I picked up a copy of this wonderful book that is going to make me die skinny. I couldn't wait to start reading it and after my car was finished, I pulled into Sonic and tore into it while I ate my tater tots and foot long Coney.

Don't worry. I had a Diet Coke.

The beginning of the book basically goes into a lot of mumbo-jumbo about health and sugar and carbs and how if you eat sugar and the wrong kinds of fat, you might as well just put a 45 in your mouth and get it over with now.

I didn't care about that stuff. I wanted the facts, Ma'am. Just the facts.

WHAT CAN I EAT????

I skimmed to the back of the book where the menu plans are for Phase One. In case you don't know, that is the phase where you chew on tree leaves and eat chickens whole...feathers and all. (Not the beaks though. The beaks have too many bad carbs in them.)

What I read there is the source of my aforementioned anger.

Apparently I am supposed to eat things like: Smoked Salmon Frittata, Artichokes Benedict and Hummus. Dear Lord in Heaven. I'm a southern woman! I don't even know what those things are.

I'm supposed to have 6 ounces of vegetable juice cocktail and an asparagus and mushroom omelet for breakfast. For lunch, something called Salad Nicoise. And if I get hungry between meals, I can stuff myself with cherry tomatoes, but only up to ten of them.

This can't be right, I think. Surely there are more "normal people" foods I can eat. So I hop on the old internet and snoop around to see what other people are eating on this diet. I can't be the only person in the universe that thinks this is nuts.

Can I?

Well let's see here. Lots of people have online diaries to keep track of their weight loss with the South Beach Diet so it isn't hard to find out what's going on out there.

One lady wrote, "I was so full from my breakfast of tomato juice and egg substitute that I completely skipped my mid-morning snack".

Another wrote, "Even though I really wasn't hungry, I ate my afternoon snack anyway just like the book says to do. I had 10 nuts...which I had previously sorted out into baggies so that I wouldn't be tempted to eat more."

Is there something wrong with me? Am I the only person that thinks I will absolutely go mad if I try to live off low-fat turkey sausage and 2 tablespoons of peanut butter? I will kill someone. And I mean that literally. I will actually kill a small person and eat them. I know I will. Especially if they are wearing flavored lip gloss or lotion that smells like coconut.

Who eats like this? Granted I'm a typical redneck girl, but I can tell you that I don't know one single person that even knows where to go to buy Hummus, much less what it is. For all I know there are little furry Hummus animals that live in tiny stalls and have big old pretty eyes. I'm sure as heck not going to eat them. In fact, I'm going to get a bumper sticker made today that says, "Free the Hummuses".

I hate it when society "pretends" like certain things are completely normal. Everyone is acting like the South Beach Diet was handed down by Moses and worse yet, that no one is starving to death.

Come on, people. Let's talk about the pink elephant in the room. You're hungry. You know you are. And you don't like Artichokes Benedict. No one likes Artichokes Benedict. Nobody in their right minds would eat that, unless maybe one of those "Die Hard with Bruce Willis" villains was holding your puppy hostage. And frankly, it would have to be a really cute puppy.

I don't know what to do. If only there were a Beverly Hillbillies Diet. That I could do. Bring on the biscuits and the sorghum, baby. I could do with a little possum belly, so long as I could wash it down with the "rheumatis medicine". Can't somebody NORMAL create a diet that contains things the everyday human might actually eat?

I'm through ranting for now. Besides, my Good Humour bar is dripping on my keyboard.

Jealous???


Copyright © 2004, Sherri Bailey
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Thank you for calling the Bat Phone.

Here it is again. My birthday.

This one means that I have been sucking air for forty-one years. Wow. That's impressive. I think someone should set a cake on fire in my honor.

I'm cool with forty-one I suppose. Thanks to the miracle of bio-identical hormone replacement therapy and blonde in a bottle, I think I'm holding up pretty well, and I can honestly say that I feel better now than I ever have.

This year I've actually made a list of things I want to accomplish before forty-two shows up. I believe in living life to the fullest, so in that spirit, here is my list of the top ten things I want to accomplish before my next birthday.

10. Really focus on my tap-dancing and fire baton twirling so that I can take my one woman show on the road. I plan to add a dramatic reading of "You're One Messed Up White Boy, Charlie Brown" to the act and hopefully get a gig opening for the Osmond's in Branson.

9. Wear a cape everywhere I go. People just don't wear capes like they used to and I am convinced the world would be a better place if they did. Everyone would feel all super-hero-ish...even when they were buying toilet paper at Wal-Mart. That has to be a good thing.

8. Learn whatever language it is people from Laos speak so that I can understand what Kahn and Minn are saying to each other on King of the Hill. (Also, I should probably learn how to correctly spell Kahn and Minn.)

7. Try to use the words, "Piccadilly" and "ubiquitous" more often in everyday conversation.

6. Learn what "Piccadilly" and "ubiquitous" mean.

5. Try out all the hair color shades I've never tried before. As I think I've tried them all with the exception of "Fresh Potting Soil" by Loreal, this one should be easy.

4. Meet the Spice Girls and Wayne Newton. If I could meet the Spice Girls while they are having a barbecue at Wayne Newton's house, that would be even better. If Tony Bennett is flipping the burgers, I'll die on the spot.

3. Always answer the phone "Bat Phone" or "Sher's Morgue: You stab 'em, we slab 'em".

2. Sell one of my kidneys and take my son to the Mall of America for vacation. Ever since he saw it on The Travel Channel, he won't quit asking when we can go. I tried telling him they don't allow ten-year-old boys inside the Mall, but he doesn't believe anything I say since the time I told him the refried beans were chocolate frosting.

1. Cancel The Travel Channel so that my son has no idea there is anything better than our house.

Copyright © 2004, Sherri Bailey
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Sophisticated people almost never pee in mayonnaise jars.

(My daughter is on my mind today, so I'm running this 'old' post. Hope you enjoy it.)

It hit me today that in only a few short days, my beautiful daughter Kitten is going to turn twenty-years-old. The idea of my baby turning twenty has sort of twisted up my inside and colored me all sentimental on my outside. A tiny tear even formed at the corner of my eye and slid slowly down my cheek, not unlike that Native American guy that used to ride his horse around trash dumps. (If you don't get that, step away from this column.)

I can't believe it's been twenty years. It seems like only yesterday. (This is where you have to picture me staring off into space and slowly disappearing into the fog. We're about to experience a dream sequence together.)

The year was 1983. Prince was singing about crying doves, Tina wanted to know what love had to do with it and I was only nineteen-years-old. It was a simpler time. My hair and my shoulder pads were equally big and I was still on my first husband.

Even though I was very young when she was born, my daughter was not the result of an 'oops'. In fact, from the moment I had uttered those two little words at the altar, I was on a mission. I was going to get pregnant, have a baby girl and play house. It was going to be loads and loads of grown up fun.

My new husband wasn't nearly as fired up about the idea as was I. You see, he was seven years older than me and already had two kids from his first marriage. (This week, on a very special episode of Springer...) He had done the whole baby thing and had no interest in doing it again. Lucky for me, his hormones were on my side. He was a young man with an even younger, big-haired bride, so as you can imagine I didn't have to work too hard to get him to do the deed that makes baby girls.

A month went by, then two months and yet I had no bun in the microwave. By the time I had been married five months and was still barren, I was going to faith healers and witch doctors to find out why my ground was not fertile. My friends advised me to just stop worrying about it because worrying would keep you from getting pregnant. I'm sure there are lots of teenage mothers in this country that wish they had known that worrying is without question the most effective form of birth control.

My husband and I were nearing our six month wedding anniversary... and by the way kids, you only celebrate months during the first year of your first marriage. By the time you've done it as often as I have, you simply celebrate the fact that you aren't divorced yet. So anyway, it's getting close to the six month mark of childlessness and the only thing stopping me from sacrificing myself to the fertility gods by diving head first into an active volcano was the remarkable shortage of active volcanoes in Kentucky.

There I was sitting around our tiny, roach infested, babyless apartment, dreaming of how cute I would look pregnant when it hit me. A desire so unbelievably intense, so powerful, so all consuming that I have never experienced anything like it before or sense. Two words kept pounding away at my brain, demanding to be heard. Two little words that represented everything good and pure in the world. Two words that made everything else seem unimportant.

Frosted Flakes.

I wanted Frosted Flakes more than I had ever wanted anything in my entire life. How had I managed to exist in the universe without having noticed how utterly wonderful they were? How is it I had wasted so much of my life eating foods that were not Frosted Flakes? After all, they're grrrrreat.

When the husband came home that night, I begged with my sweetest "I'm so cute and you'll totally get some if you do this" voice for him to go immediately to the nearest retail food outlet and buy a box of said sugary flakes and some milk. He reluctantly complied.

When he walked in the door with the goods, I grabbed the box from him like some rabid animal, rushed to the kitchen and poured the flakes in the biggest bowl I could find and covered them in milk. When I shoveled in the first bite, I swear I heard the angels singing on high. I could have died happy at that moment.

The next day, I went to visit my Mother across town. During the course of our mother daughter chit chat, I mentioned that if she had any Frosted Flakes just lying around the house that she didn't want, I would take them off her hands.

"Frosted Flakes?" she asked. "What's the deal with Frosted Flakes?"

I explained to her that I had discovered the meaning of life and that it had been right under my nose all these years cleverly disguised in a blue box with a grinning tiger on the front.

"You're pregnant," she said calmly.

"Pregnant???" I asked, not nearly as calmly.

She told me that when she was nineteen and pregnant with me, she too had been hooked on the frosted junk. Mother knew first hand what it was like to have a little tiger on her back. She said my Daddy would come home every day from a long day at work and ask what was for supper. She never understood why he was always less than thrilled to find out it was another big bowl of Frosted Flakes.

At my Mother's urging, I peed in a mayonnaise jar so that I could take my specimen to the doctor's office to find out whether the rabbit had indeed passed away.

Of course, I'm obsessive compulsive, so after I went in the mayonnaise jar, I started to worry that maybe I had gone over board a little in the fluids department. Exactly how much is too much? And not only that, but how does one know what kind of container is appropriate to present urine to someone? Oddly enough, Miss Manners does not address the etiquette of urine specimens.

I didn't want to seem like I was trying too hard, so I poured a little back in the toilet. I could just imagine all the lab techs sitting around my mayonnaise jar, pointing and laughing. "Have you ever seen so much pee in your life?" they would ask each other. "What kind of hillbilly doesn't know the universal appropriate amount of pee to bring to the lab? She is too stupid to be somebody's mother. Mark her mayonnaise jar NEGATIVE."

Oh Lord. What was I going to do? Clearly I could not haul a big old jar of urine to the doctor's office. Mother and I searched through her cabinets for something more suitable. Something that conveyed how ready to be a mom I was. I decided maybe a crystal vinaigrette container would be just the thing, but Mother vetoed the idea. In fact, every pretty thing I found, my selfish Mother refused to let me pee in. Lacking anything better, I settled on a small jelly jar. It wasn't very pretty, but it did look a little more presentable when I tied a festive gingham bow around it.

"Girls, you all have to see this!" the lab tech in charge would most certainly say. "Look at how lovely this girl's pee-pee holder is! The world would truly be a better place if everyone took the time to pretty up their urine before they took it to the doctor's office. She will make a wonderful mother. Mark her jelly jar POSITIVE... and be sure to dot the i's with little hearts."

So off I went with my Martha Stewart specimen collection to find out whether the Frosted Flakes had gotten me pregnant. When the lady at the desk asked me how many periods I had missed, I lied just like Mother told me to and said I had missed two, even though I hadn't yet missed any. If I was pregnant, I was probably about thirteen minutes along and apparently doctors didn't want to be bothered with nineteen-year-old girls that had gotten knocked up by breakfast cereals and wanted to take pregnancy tests, thus the need to lie.

Although I wanted to sit on the floor of the lab and wait it out I had to go to work, where I was pursuing my dream career of carrying giant trays of food to rude people for very little money so Mother agreed to call and get the results for me.

When I showed up at her house that evening, she threw her arms around me and said, "Congratulations! You're pregnant and it's a girl." She gave me a little pink dress with tiny, pink flowers all over and little, pink socks for her new, microscopic granddaughter. It had been awhile since Mother had been pregnant or she would have remembered it was going to be nine months before the baby could wear clothing.

"How do you know it's a girl?" I asked, still in shock.

"The same way I knew you were pregnant," she answered.

The truth was out. My Mother was a witch.

I don't think my feet touched the ground for about two weeks after I found out I was going to be somebody's mother. Every dream I'd ever had was about to come true. It was going to be beautiful and wonderful and I'd be the bestest mom in the whole world. Life was going to be perfect.

Pregnancy was going to be a breeze. And it was. If you consider hurricane force winds to be a breeze, that is.




Copyright © 2004, Sherri Bailey
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Don't hate me 'cause I'm modest.

This is it, kids. My defining moment. The big show. I'm all a tingle.

Wait a minute. I was just sitting on my foot and it went to sleep. Scratch the tingle part.

You see, I made myself a promise on April 23rd of last year. That was the day before my fortieth birthday. I promised myself that before I turned forty-one, I would submit my work to at least one literary agent. Just one.

I figured that was all the rejection my forty-year-old body could handle.

With my birthday deadline only days away, I have decided I finally have to go through with it and actually do the deal. I tried to talk me into letting me out of my promise, but I can be so damn stubborn sometimes that there is absolutely no dealing with me so I finally gave in just to shut me up.

My first order of business has been to choose an agent that will even allow someone other than Suzanne Somers to submit a query. For those of you that don't know, a query is basically a letter that introduces you, your work and everything you've ever done worth mentioning in a single page. The query letter is a monster like no other and it's the biggest reason I have allowed my deadline to get so close without going forward. I hate them.

Hate them, hate them, hate them.

And why do I hate them so? Because I suck at 'em, that's why. According to the one million articles I've read on how to write a good one, they have to be very straightforward, very succint and not so much funny. I am neither straightforward nor am I succinct and when I am told I can't be funny is when I am the funniest.

It's like telling me not to laugh in church. It's a curse.

So anyway, I finally found the one. The literary agent that I know is going to break my heart and leave me blowing snot bubbles under the kitchen table with a box of Moon Pies and a roll of toilet paper. I've been doodling his name on my notebook all day and I already love him and hate him at the same time.

Allowing random people to visit my website or my blog and read my work in progress has been fun and not a bit scary. The emails have always been encouraging and very often, absolutely hysterical. It's great feedback and for an attention starved chick like myself, it's a real boost.

But presenting your heart and soul to someone that reads what people have to say for a living and decides whether it's worthy or not is a different beast altogether. It's like giving birth to a child you see as beautiful and amazing and having someone peek under the blanket and compliment you on your pet platypus.

Not cool.

I asked myself what I could possibly say to this man to convince him that he needs to stick a contract under my nose quicker than I married my last husband. The problem in describing my work is that if you have to tell someone you are funny, you are not funny. It's like explaining a bad joke and then saying, "Get it?".

I don't want to be a bad joke.

Here's the solution I've come up with. I'll just let some emails I've received from my readers do the talking for me! How perfect is that?

Below you can read five emails I've received from actual people. Some allowed me to use their names and some asked that I just use their initials. Remember, these are really, really, real people. I did not just sit here this very minute and make them up. That would be wrong.

Real email #1:
Dear Sher,
You are so funny. I wish so much that you had a book that I could purchase for my very own. No matter how much it cost, I would buy it. Even if that meant I had to take out a second mortgage and spend my kid's college fund, it would be worth it. You are that good.
Sincerely,
Mary Todd Lincoln

Real email #2:
Dear Sher,
You are so funny. So funny in fact that reading your work actually cured my diverticulitis.
Thank you,
A real person with diverticulitis

Real email #3:
Dear Sher,
You are so funny. I believe that had I had a book written by you a few years ago, I would have spent my time laughing rather than painting an intern's dress with my DNA.
God save the Queen,
B.C.

Real email #4:
Dear Sher,
You are so funny. I am writing this with the help of a medium as I am quite dead, but I felt it was worth the effort to let you know how much I enjoy your work. Be sure and mention to potential publishers that you have the breathing-challenged market all sewn up.
Regards,
Boo

Real email #5:
Dear Sher,
You are so funny. If funny was a monkey, you'd be the monkey queen.
Love,
King Kong

I'd like to thank all of the totally real people that took the time to send me such thoughtful emails. You are the wind beneath my wings.


Copyright © 2004, Sherri Bailey
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Is that a birthday cake in your pocket?

I'm supposed to be doing taxes right now, but that's no fun so I'm writing instead.

As Mr. Man has been on my back to get them done for weeks now and tax day is day after tomorrow, I am perpetuating the myth that I am hard at work by scattering a myriad of papers and file folders all over the floor and for good measure, I occasionally emit a loud accountant-like sigh.

I think it's working, but unfortunately my sighs are evidently the actual mating call of the North American Double-Breasted CPA. Accountants have been beating down my door all morning offering me calculators and pocket protectors to breed with them.

While I have no interest in getting freaky with accountants or Uncle Sam today, I do have a major interest in talking excessively about my birthday. I am pretty dang near close to turning forty-one, people. So close in fact I can feel it breathing down my neck.

It's all good though. I'm not freaking out or anything this year. Not like last year. Last year I spent my fortieth birthday crying and telling Mr. Man how very much I hated him, hated my life and hated the fact that there was no monkey under my birthday tree. This year, I plan to do all that the day before thereby leaving the 24th open for an epic celebration.

But there is a potential problem that has me concerned. See, I've spent my entire life lying to everyone I know. They'll ask, "What do you want for your birthday?" and I'll say, "Oh nothing. Don't make a big deal out of it".

And you know what? They don't. Sorry scum-sucking pigs, every last one of them.

My birthday has never been a big deal to anyone but me. Never, ever, ever. No one has ever jumped through hoops of any sort to create a memorable birthday celebration for me. Well, unless you count my step-mother who tried to do a good thing and throw me a Sweet Sixteen surprise party.

And if you don't count the fact that my trumpet blowing ex-boyfriend showed up with his new sex pot girlfriend, it was great.

I remember when I was married to number one, I became completely convinced that he was going to throw me a surprise party. I was sure of it. I got all baby-dolled up in my eighties clothes and frankly I was so excited I could hardly put the eighth coat of spray on my hair.

Turns out he hadn't so much planned a party as he had planned for me to cook supper and service him. What was I thinking anyway? This was the same man that told me if I raised my voice during labor, he would walk out and not come back. Yeah... he was going to throw me a party. Can you say naive hillbilly?

Then there was my twenty-fifth birthday. I was still married to number one, but by this time I had wised up a little. My co-workers decided they were going to take me out on the town to celebrate the fact that I was a quarter of a century old. At the time, I lived in a little village in Germany which meant they were going to take me to a German bar full of GI Joe's that were looking for love and came complete with their own penicillin.

Woo-hoo.

No matter though. I was thrilled that someone cared enough about me to celebrate the fact that I was born into this world. I wore a black dress, black stockings with the seam up the back and black heels so high that I had to purchase extra accident insurance just to wear them. Looking back, I'm pretty sure I was channeling an eighteenth century prostitute named Satin.

So we arrive at this little bar in Germany, my girlfriends and I, all prepared for a fun girl's night out on the town. The disco music was blasting as we walked in, and the cigarette smoke was heavy in the air. There were soldiers everywhere and as the four of us walked past, I could feel their eyes on us.

No sooner had we sat down than men started approaching the table. One by one my girlfriends were asked to dance and left the table with cute, young soldiers. We all had husbands at home, but with their permission; we were "allowed" to be just girls again for this one night...as long as we behaved ourselves. My friends were taking full advantage of the freedom we'd been granted in honor of my birthday.

And when I say my friends were taking advantage of it, that's what I mean. While they danced the night away with handsome man after handsome man, I sat staring at my hooker shoes and pretending that I didn't want to dance anyway. It wasn't just my girlfriends that were dancing their behinds off either. Even women with who had hairy armpits and warts on their chins were being asked to dance. But, when I saw a one-legged woman leave her crutch on the table to dance with a guy to "Paradise By The Dashboard Lights", the reality was unavoidable

I was a quarter century old wall flower.

Not one single man in the place even approached me, much less asked me to dance. That was painful enough, but what made it even more painful was the fact that this kind of thing ALWAYS happened to me. Men just wouldn't come near me in any situation. It was if I always wore a t-shirt that read, "I want you to be my baby's Daddy".

Hour after hour ticked by as I celebrated my birthday feeling like a giant toad that emitted a special man repellant spray released every few moments from my man repellant gland.

Finally, just as I was about to strip down and stand in the middle of the table naked to determine whether I was even still visible to other humans, a man approached me.

And I use the word "man" loosely.

He was a German guy with roughly fourteen hairs that he had carefully plastered to his head with what I can only guess was some sort of cooking oil. He wore a brown suede vest and corduroy pants with a white belt and white shoes and I would estimate that he was approximately 5'5" tall and weighed as much as a Volkswagen.

Way hot.

With a thick German accent, he nervously asked me to dance. With a thick Southern accent, I shot him down cold.

"What happened, Sher?" asked one of my friends when she noticed someone of the male persuasion had actually come near me. "Why didn't you dance with that guy?"

Obviously she had forgotten how strong German beer could be because only a crazy drunk woman would imagine any sort of circumstance that would have me dancing with Greasy Gross Guy In A Vest.

"I have a confession to make," she said. "We all felt sorry for you that you weren't having a better time on your birthday, so we found that guy and told him we'd buy him a beer if he'd ask you to dance."

This is the very reason that my best friends since that time have always been male.

"You had to actually pay a person in alcohol to dance with me?"

Twenty-five years on Earth wasn't a bad run. I figured I'd go home and take an entire bottle of Midol and end it peacefully...and without cramps and bloating.

But she wasn't quite finished. I still had the tiniest shred of life left in me.

"The bad thing is that even though we offered him beer to do it, he really didn't want to because he was afraid you'd say yes."

And that my friends is why I'd seriously better get a great birthday this year from somebody. I'm talking jugglers and fire-eaters and presents and singing and a cake so big it requires four hunky men to carry it. And none of them better be wearing a vest and white shoes.


Copyright © 2004, Sherri Bailey
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My dog is such a dog.

In this house along with me live three males, one of which I am not so happy to be around lately. I have a tiny Yorkie named Tanner, a son and a Mr. Man. Because I am nothing if not discreet, we will say that it is Tanner that has managed to get on my bad side. (I can use Tanner's name without fear of upsetting him because he is not allowed on the computer unless he has my permission.)

So anyway, Tanner has been a real poop-head lately. (See what he's turned me into? Some sort of sailor mouthed female.) His job has been very stressful for him recently and as a result, he is completely unpleasant to be around. He's grumpy, ungrateful and what's even worse, he swears nothing is wrong with him.

For the next several months, Tanner has to work twelve hour night shifts protecting our country's nuclear interests, in addition to arriving at work at least thirty minutes prior to his shift. Because I appreciate having a dog that will work like one and because I am a goddess, everyday I wake him up mid-afternoon with an elaborate breakfast in bed. Brown sugar smoked ham, scrambled eggs with fresh garlic and real butter, fresh fruit with French vanilla whipped cream and of course, hot coffee. And so that he doesn't get bored with eating the same things day after day, I also make sure that each day, I prepare something different. No hard working dog of mine should have to eat kibble.

Everyday I have to ask Tanner if his breakfast is ok, because Heaven forbid he should tell me how fabulous it is.

And it is.

Did I forget to mention that although Tanner and I have been together for roughly five years and I have complained for at least 4.9999% of those five years about the sock issue, he still takes off his socks so that they create a thoroughly disgusting ball of sweaty smelliness? As if it weren't enough to continually torture me with this intolerable habit, he also feels the need to scatter them about our bedroom like they are fragrant rose petals left for his new bride.

Same goes with dirty underwear. Tanner apparently looks on dirty underwear as something that will someday have incredible value in society. That is the only reason I can possibly come up with that would explain his need to hide them all over the room. Under the bed, behind dressers, and at the foot of the bed between the sheets and comforter.

Tanner may be a Yorkie, but he is a pig.

When I first met Tanner, he was a crazy romantic. He said the most wonderful things to me on a daily basis, all of which I ate up with a spoon. I was beautiful, funny, smart and the single best thing that God ever invented...to include March Madness and rawhide bones. He always took great care with his appearance and more importantly sometimes he smelled so good I would often feel faint whenever he walked into the room.

Now I feel faint for another reason all together.

Here is the point in the story where I would typically insert a long list of complaints about our "relations" and how foreplay has gone from tender and thoughtful to "It's 10 o'clock", but as we are talking about Tanner here, that would just be wrong.

So what's a girl to do when her Yorkie no longer worships her? Maybe I should change my hair or lose 100 pounds or get blue contacts in order to get his attention. Maybe I should learn a foreign language so that I can whisper sweet French nothings in his ear or get a stripper pole and learn to do whatever it is strippers do that cause men to spontaneously fling their mortgage payments at them.

Or maybe I should just take him to the vet and get his who-ha's chopped off.

Yeah. Let's do that.

Copyright © 2004, Sherri Bailey
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You say tomato, I say station wagon.

Although I live in the Midwest and haven't lived south of anything in millions of years, I am told that I have a southern accent. It used to annoy me a little, because I really didn't think I did.

I guess I'm going to have to admit it might be a possibility though, because lately either people are completely hard of hearing, or I am completely hard to understand.

A couple weeks ago a senior neighborhood lady asked if I would draw up wills for her and her husband. Before you run wake your kids to tell them I am a lawyer, you should know that in most states, it simply involves a computer program and a couple witnesses that aren't drunk. I am in possession of such a program.

So I show up at her door a few days later, laptop in hand, all set to do a good deed thereby securing some ocean front property in Heaven. Her husband answered the door.

"Hi there," I say. "Your wife asked me if I would come do your wills, so here I am."

His head tilted slightly to the side like a confused puppy dog. Thinking maybe he didn't hear me, I spoke louder.

"Your wife asked me if I would do your wills. I'M HEAR TO DO YOUR WILLS!"

Nothing.

"DO YOU SPEAK THE ENGLISH?" This time I yelled so loudly his toupee blew backward.

"I'm not hard of hearing, Dear. But, why would my wife ask you to do our wheels? What do you do to wheels anyway? This isn't some sort of gang thing is it?"

You see what I'm up against?

And it's not just older people that don't understand but about every third word I say, so I can't blame it on probable hearing loss.

Case in point. Several months ago now I hosted a business event. As some of the vendors were driving and flying in to attend, I planned a small dinner the night before as sort of a meet and greet. As you might imagine, I wanted to put my best foot forward. I very much needed to appear to be completely professional, which of course I am not.

During the course of conversation, I said something that I'm sure I thought was entirely clever. However, I noticed that the faces of my dinner guests looked more in shock than delighted at my cleverness.

Finally, one lady could take it no more. She burst into laughter and asked me if I had really just said that I tasted burnt panties.

Everyone in that room actually thought I said that I tasted burnt panties!

What did I really say? I have no earthly idea. I could have asked someone to pass the butter or I could have said I like pudding. Who the heck knows? All that matters is that a group of people that had previously believed I was capable of planning an important business event now thought I was the kind of person that has knowledge of what burnt panties taste like.

That can't be good. I think it's time to hire a diction coach.
You uns know whur I kin find wun uv em?



Copyright © 2004, Sherri Bailey
This blog may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.

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Little Red Criminal in the Hood

One of my very bestest friends in the whole, big, wide world is a red-headed, innocent looking chick named Roberta. She’s funny, intelligent and without question the single most mischievous person I have ever met in my entire life.

Roberta and I were destined to be friends. We share a mad love of AC/DC, tiny chocolate turkeys, and thirty-something firefighters named Mike. We are also the only two people on earth that understand why the words, “back street boy” and “here’s the situation” are so funny.

I love her to bits and pieces. She’s the kind of friend that will lie for you even before you ask her to and the kind of friend that will make time for your late night frantic phone call from the bathroom of your tiny apartment because you have a drunken bull rider on your sofa that doesn’t get the hint that it’s time to crawl up on his bull and get the heck out of Dodge.

She’s also the kind of friend that would set you up with an alcoholic bull rider in the first place.

Berta and I have a bond that has grown stronger through the years. I would do anything for her and she would do anything for me. We always know that when the chips are down, we can count on the other one to pop open a tub of French Onion dip and eat them right off the floor. Our friendship is rock solid.

That’s why it really pains me to have to do this.

Lately I’ve been dealing with some degree of guilt over a few things I may or may not have done that may or may not have been less than ethical or in some cases, just slightly less than legal. I think my guilt has something to do with all the dead people that have been plastered on the news lately. There are dead people lying around in fancy clothes, dead people riding in long limousines and I think I even saw one sitting at the defense table in the Michael Jackson trial.

Being confronted at every turn by dead people has forced me to consider the fact that I might possibly die someday too. And so in an effort to protect my immortal soul, I feel the need to come clean about some less than wonderful things I have done in my life. And by less than wonderful things I have done in my life, I mean things Roberta forced me to do.

Here now are the top three things Berta forced me to do for which I need to be forgiven before I die.

Sorry Bert, but this is eternity we’re talking about. I burn easily.

One time, not at band camp, I might have been involved in a freak silly string incident that involved three cans of the stringy stuff, two cops and two unattended police vehicles with the windows down. I didn’t want to do it of course, but Berta Lou forced me at pencil point to drive the get-away vehicle. What makes this particularly worthy of repentance is that we weren’t so much fourteen years old at the time as we were grown women who were dispatchers for said officers. It was our duty to watch over them and do our best to keep them safe, not to make their cars look like Spiderman had a personal vendetta against them. I tried to talk her out of it, but our department had one of those high tech electric pencil sharpeners and that number 2 was really, really sharp.

And then there was the time because of our deep and abiding love for AC/DC and our less than deep and abiding love for some of our co-workers, Berta decided she would tell a few people that she was quitting the department to go on the road with Angus and the boys as a doo-wop girl. She then forced me to write an official looking announcement wishing her well at her new job with AC/DC and post it on the bulletin board. That might not have been so bad if we didn’t work with a few people that as kids were the very reason the government had to create those neighborhood signs that read, “Slow Children Playing”. They accepted the bogus announcement as fact and told everyone they knew about her career change. It wouldn’t surprise me if to this day they aren’t still telling people they know someone that sings back up for a famous rock band.

But without question, the worst string of offenses Roberta has ever forced me to participate in happened when our old Chief of Police handed us the keys to a brand, spanking new police car with only 65 miles on it to drive to our scheduled training. “Take our new car to school, ladies,” he said.

Looking exactly like the Grinch That Stole Christmas, Berta’s lips curled into an evil smile as she said, “Oh, we’ll take it to school all right.” I should have run as fast as I could in the opposite direction, but I felt an obligation to soak up all the knowledge I possibly could on behalf of my department at this incredibly exciting training event that would last three days and two nights at the Ramada Inn three hours from home.

We had no sooner made it out of our county’s jurisdiction when for reasons I will never understand Berta flipped on the lights and sirens, forcing the law abiding drivers in our vicinity to freak out and pull off to the side of the road. I held on for dear life while reminding her we were not legally allowed to drive 10-39 (lights and sirens) and begging her to come to her senses and behave in manner that would reflect positively on our fair city, but it was no use.

When she hung her head out the window and yelled, “Respect my u-thor-i-tie, Bee-otch” to an old lady driving a 1979 Buick Regal, I knew there was no turning back. She had crossed over to the bad side. She was Thelma and through no fault of my own, I was Louise. (Only with bigger hair and lots more make-up.)

After we checked in our hotel and cruised through the drive thru lane at McDonald’s, Berta became obsessed with the idea that we should go to a bar. And for the record, you’d be surprised at how quickly you get your Big Mac when you flip the red and blues on.

Naturally, I wanted no part of going to any place that served alcohol and pleaded with her to give me the keys to the patrol car. But before I knew what happened, I was handcuffed and thrown in the back of the vehicle as Roberta raced towards the nearest Cheers like facility.

And it was exactly like Cheers…except for the fact that it was dark and smelled like urine and gasoline and was packed wall to wall with toothless guys named Artery and Lucifer rather than Cliff and Norm. I have to admit that some of the guys were really friendly, though. Since the door to the women’s bathroom wouldn’t close all the way, they were kind enough to hold it for me every time I had to go. I thought it was odd they had to hold it from the inside, but I figured the doors were probably hung backwards or something.

After we’d been there for about an hour, Berta said to me, “I know! Let’s use very loud voices and say that I am a judge and you are a cop and that I once sentenced a man to death. That’ll be a fun thing to do.”

“No, Roberta,” I said. “I will not use a very loud voice and say I am a cop and you are a judge that once sentenced a man to death. That could illicit a somewhat negative response from some of the individuals here. No way, Jose. I won’t do it and you can’t make me.”

But alas, sneaky Roberta had brought along her super sharp pencil. Damn those number 2’s. I had to comply. She could have put my eye out right then and there.

“Oh waitress,” I said, waving to our server. “Waitress, I’d like you to know that I am a cop and this red-headed, innocent looking woman is a judge and she once sentenced a man to death. Pass it on.”

“Ok. But, why are you talking in such a very loud voice?”

What happened next can only be described as a wave, very much like the ones you see at football games in large stadiums. We watched as one by one, men without teeth and women in tube tops and blue eye-shadow mouthed the words, “cop” and “judge” and “they’ll never find the bodies” until it became clear that this might be a good time to locate the nearest exit. My Grandma had taught me when I was a little girl that you should never run from a dog that is about to attack you, but rather walk slowly and calmly to safety. I knew that advice was perfect for a situation such as this one.

So very calmly I said to Judge Roberta, “Sweet Jesus! Run for your life!!! These hillbillies are going to kill us!”

As you may have surmised, we did make a safe escape from the Deliverance Bar & Grill and returned to our department three days later absolutely brimming with knowledge.

Wow, I feel better now. Confession really is good for the soul. Let’s just keep this between us though. If Roberta finds out I spilled the beans, I’ll have to go in the witness protection program. She still carries a concealed pencil.


Copyright © 2004, Sherri Bailey
This blog may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.



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