Try Try Again

So I smoked like a madman over the weekend. "Oh, I'm going to miss you, my little friends," I'd say to the ciggy each time I torched up.

Sunday night-- failsafe.

I lit up the last ciggy. "Goodbye! Goodbye!" I said to the ciggy.

I finished it, went inside, showered, flossed and brushed. Soon after falling into bed, I slept deeply, with the clean conscience of a pollyanna do-gooder.

But as Grandma Louise used to say, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

The alarm went off Monday morning, and the fun began!

For two days, I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. My head was a balloon floating above me connected on a fraying string. My arms and hands tingled. I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't speak in complete sentences. I was fatigued.

Most of all, I was hungry.

Massive quantities of food disappeared into my yawning maw. On Tuesday for lunch I had a footlong Subway sandwich and A POUND OF CHEEZ-ITS. On a dinner date that night, I polished off a loaf of bread with olive oil, along with a large dish of rigatoni and sauce and a side of grilled chicken. Bags of salted and roasted sunflower seeds were inhaled. Bavarian Creme donuts disappeared down my throat. Bags of nectarines and pints of blueberries were consumed. An entire bag of greens was liberally doused with spices and Paul Newman Italian dressing and sucked into my gut. And on, and on, and on. I began to realize that there wasn't enough food in the world to satisfy me.

In short, I was a slack-jawed, empty-eyed, shivering, starving zombie.

I thought, "This is not working. At. All."

Last night I went off the wagon and am again equipped with my little deadly friends. "We knew you'd come around," they whisper to me from my purse.

I answer, "Ohhhh, the fight has just begun, bitches!"

If At First You Don't Succeed

I went to my doctor for my annual pap schmear.

My doctor is a tiny little Hispanic lady with a heavy accent.

"So... I'm thinking about going back on birth control," I said to her. She outlined several options. "Choo can haf an IUD," she offered.

"Nah, I'm not too keen about having a piece of copper in my body for five years," I answered. "I'm kind of good with the pill."

"Well," she said, her intelligent brown eyes sizing me up,"Choo haf to quit smoking."

"Oh! I know that. God! I'm all for it."

"Jes? Well. If you're 'all for eet', then I'm chur choo won't mind I don't write a script for the pills until choo quit smoking for a month."

I stared at her dumbly. "Are you serious?"

She nodded, her hand on her hips. "Oh, jes. I'm serious."

Uh... "Okay. I'll quit this Monday," I mumbled.

Goddamn doctors wanting me to be healthy and stuff. Shit.

Just Say No!

I downloaded some porn and a nasty virus infected my computer, completely blowing out my operating system.

God was punishing me for my sick and twisted sins.

Whatevs!

So, I took the computer to the shop. Two weeks and an economic stimulus check later, I'm back writing for you, dear readers. I will attempt to post something terribly clever within the next couple of days.

Remember kids-- don't do porn!

Snapshots From The Hamlet II.

"Thank you for calling The Hamlet. This is T-Bone."

A quavery, accusatory male voice said, "Yeah. I need to talk to someone about the fireworks this year. Who can I talk to?"

"Sir, I can try to help you. What's your question?"

His lengthy pause prepared me for the oncoming shitstorm.

"I wanna know where the fireworks are bein' shot off this year."

"They're being shot off from the flats this year, sir."

"So they aren't gonna be shot off the mountain," he stated.

"That's correct," I answered.

"I been goin' up the mountain for thirty-five years now. Can you tell me why they aren't bein' shot off from the mountain this year?"

Breathe. "Sir, they're being shot from the flats this year because we haven't had any significant rain for the last three weeks. It's very dry up there, and they don't want to start a forest fire."

"So! They're being shot off the highway?"

"No. They're not shooting off the fireworks from the highway. It's the last exit into town off the highway."

"So, they're shooting 'em off of the top of the storage facility?"

"Noooooo... they're not doing that, either. There's a big parking-lot sized space there off of the exit. That's where they're shooting them from."

"And who thought up this bright idea?" he said sarcastically.

"Well, I do believe the fire department decided, sir. They're the guys that shoot off the fireworks, and they're the guys that fight the fires if they start. We don't want another Mt. Hamlet fire, like last July."

"Well... that's just... I bet it was the Mayor, wuddint it? He's the one that decided this. He's that same guy that had the police department do a Reverse 911 in case there's a mountain lion wandering around near houses and shit!" he concluded.

The Mayor didn't decide anything like that and I opened my mouth to say so. But first, the caller spat:

"You people. You're so stupid. So fucking stupid! YOU'RE STUPID!!!"

Click.

I sighed and hung up the phone.

Kerri said from her desk, "Another happy citizen?"

"Yeah," I said. "Jesus Christ. All's he has to do is turn his chair a little bit north."