Hello everybody. It's a great night tonight, isn't it? (everyone cheers) You know it's a great night because that guy in the back? Yeah, him (I point to a guy in the back)...he's been here since I showed up in the taxi at noon and he was drunk then.
Ok, so earlier today I had to go to Walmart (groans from the audience). I know, I know. The humidity was so high today that I stepped into the restroom before I went shopping to use the electric hand drier just to re-fluff my hair. Hey! Bangs are back, baby.
I was walking down an aisle looking at stuff I mostly don't need and this lady with a dark blue shirt and tan pants walked up to me holding a gun - yeah, one of those things they are constantly changing the prices with - she says to me "Honey, do you need help?" I looked at her and said, "Do they train you in psychiatry when you come to work here?"
Right before I was ready to check out ... literally... I mean, the air conditioning in Walmart leaves a lot to be desired considering they save energy by installing sky lights that let hot air back in... I am scouting the area with my cell phone ready to take a photo to send to those PeopleofWalmart.com folks. I see this sign. It was for a candy bar. It said "Was 69 cents" and had 59 cents underneath it. I looked at it for a couple seconds before my brain was able to do the calculation. When it's hot outside ... or inside ... my math skills tend to revert back to the days when I had to count every problem on my fingers. I picked up one of the "on sale" candy bars and headed to the check out lady. She scanned the candy and said, "Oh, you saved money on this." Hello, revelation! I saved a whole 10 cents. Do you know what ten cents will buy you in Walmart? Absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip. I gave her the dime back and said "Lady, here's my two cents worth times five on how I feel about your savings."
I should have saved it because when I stopped for gas on the way home, I was trying to hit $20.00 on the mark and when I clicked the handle, like all of you do ... you know you do it too ... the dang thing spun to $20.10. I thought it was a sign! (2010?)
I went home and Googled Nostradamus and 2010 for an hour and a half trying to figure out what it meant.
Lately I have been having a bad bout of insomnia. It seems like no matter what I do, even if I listen to 'Mere Christianity' on my Ipod ... and no, C.S. Lewis is not reading it. How do I know? Because C.S. Lewis would not be a monotone drone...and I believe he has passed. He had passion for what he wrote. The reader, however, must have been paid Walmart wages because his voice can put the dog to sleep. No matter what ... I can't seem to get to sleep and stay asleep at night.
I'm married, and today my spouse says to me "I hate it when you are going through this because then I have to sleep alone. I hate sleeping alone." I wanted to point out how inaccurate that statement is. I wanted to say "Honey, when you are sleeping in the bed, so is the dog and two cats and the billion fleas that I can't seem to eradicate no matter how many EPA warnings and citations I get for chemical use." So yeah - no one is alone in that bed.
Which brings me to another point. If you've ever had a flea infestation, you know how impossible it is to kill the little suckers. And little suckers they are. You can mow your yard to look like Wrigley Field, spray some Spectricide around the area - which by the way says on the bottle it will kill all types of little itty bitty buggies for two months! You can put that dot of smelly gel on the shoulders of your dogs and cats ... where they can't lick of course ... and you can wash everything you own for weeks straight. I can guarantee that if you do all that - you are the one who is going to wish you were dead. The fleas? I think that the whole idea of a flea circus was a huge joke on humanity in more ways than one. The only effective way I have found to kill a flea is to catch the sucker in the act and smash it between my fingers. The problem? You have to be incredibly fast, or the flea has to be drunk on all the chemicals you've used to turn your house and yard into a toxic wasteland. I gave in the other night and just got up, sprayed myself down with OFF 100% deet and laid there letting the aroma fill the air and the a/c swirl it around. It worked.
Now, when I want to sleep, I poison myself with DEET.
Speaking of poison...I have bad circulation. No one knows why...the doctors are stumped. I've had deep vein thrombosis - blood clots in the legs - that have turned into pulmonary emboli. That's plural. Saying emboluses - that's just silly. Anyway, the emboli were so bad one time that the entire upper lobe of my right lung would not perfuse --- oxygen just wouldn't go into the blood in that part of my lung. So once I return from the nearly dead state I was in, my doctor informs me that he wants to put me on Warfarin or Coumadin for the rest of my life.
I've worked in the medical field for most of my life, so I am thinking - this guy must know what he's doing. He tells me it is a blood thinner and will help me keep from getting clots. I agree that it sounds great because my two stints in ICU were a little expensive...and my guardian angel kept telling me that she was getting tired of being called away from a date just to look after me while I laid in bed.
I get home, I take the medication...no big deal. A few months later I am irritated because a mouse has somehow figured out a way to get through a hole no wider than the width of a penny --- that's the side where there are no markings for those of you who didn't graduate from high school. So, this little furball is having fun getting into stuff like the cat food, cereal boxes, and phone books. I head to Walmart ---- hey now! It just happens to be the ONLY place I shop - yes, so sit down and shut up. I go find the varmint area of the store where they sell more chemicals and find a box with a BIG BLACK PANTHER on it that says it will kill mice dead! Good! I didn't want it to be only mostly dead - when I put down the powder I want the thing eliminated!
I start looking at the ingredients so that I know just what is so special about this BIG BLACK PANTHER mouse killer and my eyes zero in on the word WARFARIN. Now you know where my mind was headed...I kept reading the instructions and found out that WARFARIN would kill all mice and rats and most rodents, except warfarin-resistant Norway Rats. My first thought was - well we're not in Norway so I think I am safe. My second thought was WAIT A SECOND! I took one of those mysterious slow-motion montage scenes through my head to my hand holding a medicine bottle from Medicap that said Warfarin/Coumadin on it AND THEN I REALIZED.....if I am taking this crap for the rest of my life and it isn't killing me? Is it really going to kill the mice?
I put the box down, bought a bunch of tin foil, hooked it up to a trickle charger, and put the foil right where this mouse liked to come into the house. A couple nights later we ate it for dinner. Grilled with a little lemon pepper - superb.
The best way to kill mice? Spike their peanut butter sandwich with a little sterno. Guaranteed that jelly ain't gonna go down smooth.
Have a good one - and stay away from tinfoil and a trickle charger. Goodnight.
Oh, and no animals were hurt in the making of my jokes, except for the guy back there who is still drunk.
Thanks!
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