Reheated Fried Chicken

I am rerunning this post because it made the Yeah Write "Best of," which you should check out because there are some great writers listed and, frankly, I've obviously got nothing new for you. Visit the Grid.

The sky was nothing but scorched earth swirling with gusts of acrid smoke. An angry flame pierced through the haze and then disappeared.

That hateful woman's kitchen was engulfed in flames. I had turned the gas off, right?

I saw a crowd of wailing women moving together, carrying something back into the main house. They were carrying her. I killed her. I left the gas on. I blew up her kitchen. She was dead and all the money she had been greedily extorting from me in exchange for a wooden bed and ketchup-drenched noodles was turning to ashes inside the coffee tin on top of the fridge.

I ran into the house. They were fanning her. I hadn't picked up on all the cultural differences, but it is a universal truth that dead women don't need a breeze. She leaned dramatically on the coffee tin. Good, she would live to see her sons hang me for burning down their house and she could use the money I gave her to pay the police to look the other way. The wailing had subsided far too early for my tastes. I started to cry a horrible, clumsy, American cry. I cried the cry she had been expecting when she asked what was wrong with me that my parents didn't care if I left home. I cried the cry I swallowed when she told me I couldn't go to the bathroom at night without her because the dog that guards the chicken coop would attack me. I cried at what a dreadful person I was, to hate a woman so deeply for making my life difficult, when she had washed the same disposable diaper four times.

She held my head against her chest. I didn't know how to tell her what I had done.

Her son came in, caked in soot. My advanced body language skills told me he was asking why the fat, awkward American was sobbing.

"Chicken," he told me emphatically. I dismissed the idiomatic conclusion that he was calling me a coward. The fire killed all the chickens. I was a depraved, poultry murderer/arsonist. Another round of sobbing was accompanied by my feeble attempt to communicate my understanding that all the chickens were dead. The "Chicken Dance" achieved a new level of emotional depth that night.

He pointed angrily to the light switch, "No. CHICKEN! Do you speak Russian, or not?"

I do speak Russian. The Turkmen word for "chicken" sounds a lot like the Russian word for "electrical current." The daughter-in-law had plugged in a hot plate and the wiring in the wall caught fire. I had turned the gas off. The three times I obsessively checked the stove had not led me astray. The crumbling, hideous house simply self-destructed.

"Maybe," she said in Russian, "maybe we don't tell Peace Corps what happened?"

I looked at the coffee can. Maybe this changes everything.

________________________________________

Cat in a Box

What is reality? 

I have no idea.  It has something to do with a cat, a box, and poison.  The cat may or may not be dead.  I know what you're thinking, "Poor cat."  Unless you are Shiftless Husband and then you are thinking, "Good, there is potentially one less cat."  Both of you are changing the subject, which is rude, and missing the point, which is pretty easy because I don't understand it myself.

There is no cat.  Herr Schrödinger was creating a reductio ad absurdum, which, best I can tell, is fancy way to describe what happens when I overcook vinegar while watching a clown cry.  I didn't have time to read anything about it, so that's what it is.  And that's pretty much what I think reality is, too.  Whatever, or more often whomever, we choose to believe defines our reality.  

Case in point:  Every morning when I wake, before I put on my makeup--nope, not paying any royalties--before I get in the shower, I first look at my naked self in the mirror and then weigh myself on a scale that has the memory of a scorned teenage girl.  I'm not sure why I bother to look at myself in the mirror first because no matter what I see before the scale, the moment I turn around after the scale has spoken the only thing I see is a visual reflection of what the scale has just told me.  

Other than the two toes, this is an accurate representation of my Hobbit-esque calves and feet.  Boot shopping isn't pretty.

I am a pretty accomplished self-saboteur, but even I can't manage to gain 10 pounds while locked in a bathroom for 5 minutes.  Logically, I know I look exactly the same after the scale as before, but that isn't what I see.  I choose to believe the scale.  

Of course, this only works up to a point.  When you look in the box, the cat will either be alive or dead, regardless of what you have told yourself.  But in that precious moment before, you control the cat's existence and that feels good.  Even if you are allowing someone else's crazy reality to rule your life, you choose that person, which is much easier than choosing to ignore the nonsensical rantings of a discontented Teddy Ruxpin. (Yeah, I know.  I always thought it was Ruxbin, too.)    

So that's reality.  It is what I believe it is and therefore I'm right.  See how I've tied everything up in a nice little package?  There's a fancy phrase for that, too.  

Where have you been?

Around.  I really burned out having to post every week so I parted ways with some advertisers, not that I was making much.  I also tried to write what I wanted in addition to what other people wanted me to write and that was just the end of it.  I am going to try to post once a month now because we all have things to do other than my blog.  This is February's post.  Happy Valentine's Day.  Money is a little tight so I got you a possibly dead cat in a box.      

Interrupting Cow

Background by Shiftless Baby I, who thinks we live in the Alps.

What is the appropriate way to interrupt someone if he is telling you something 1.) you already know, 2.) you aren't really interested in knowing?

1.) Really? You can't take 30 seconds out of your life to hear a story again? Haven't you watched the "King-Sized Homer" Simpsons episode 43 times? The drinking bird stops working. Every.single.time.

Unlike the bird, maybe this time your friend's delivery will be punchier or he will reveal some dark secret by mistake. Or maybe you should listen because one day your extensive database of what story you have told to which friend could fail to compile and you will find yourself on the receiving end of the knowing smile.

2.) I'll need you to clarify what, precisely, you don't want to know. Are we talking about the details of a medical procedure? Sexual peculiarities of his hideous ex? What he pulled out of his shower drain? First, those are all interesting topics, but if you insist on ruining our fun, the appropriate way to interrupt  a disgusting disclosure is to hunch over and say, "Stop, I'm gonna throw up." Then gag a little for effect. Don't go overboard, though, or you will become your own gross story.

Alternatively, if you just aren't interested in what your friend has to say because it is boring or you think what you have to say is more important, see answer 1. I assure you that there are days you aren't channeling Steinbeck reading The Economist.

Unfortunately, there is one more, unstoppable, genre of conversation: The Devastating. This epidemic must be stopped. I give you full permission to hold up a finger (the pointer) and say, "I'm gonna have to stop you right there. I don't want to hear if the dog dies, but if you stop, I'll know that the dog dies, so instead, I need you to talk about something else right now. The topic is: shoes that you thought would fit, but then once you got them home they didn't fit. And...go."

The following is a non-exhaustive list of The Devastating, grouped into a pseudo-Linnaean classification:

• Animals
• Anything on Animal Planet, NatGeo or any show on any channel having to do with the those really big whales and Orcas, the assholes of the sea. (Free Willy isn't fooling me.)
• Anything that starts with "I had this dog once..."
• Almost anything a cat does when it is alone. 
• People
• Anything your mom calls you about that starts with "Remember so-and-so..."
• Stories that start with a back injury, hazardous jobs or pre-OSHA manufacturing
• Most stories about teenagers doing anything but studying
• Stories about childhood not accompanied by premature and nostalgic laughing
• Crime other than minor white-collar and petty theft. (If you are a Marylander, I will accept Rogue and Vagabond, because I like to say it.)
• Food
• How food is made in America
• How many calories are in anything. (Also WW points)
• The nutritional content of a Salted Caramel Mocha latte at Starbucks
• Land
• Anything that ever happened in Appalachia or the Deep South in the last millennium  (This millenium is probationary Devastating)
• The 3 F's: Floods, Fires, Foreclosures

These are topics to discuss with a mental health professional only. Anyone that attempts to speak of such things invites interruption with abandon. 

I will accept additional submission into the list of The Devastating in the comment section.