Shit. It was bound to happen. I'm writing about nothing. Nothing at all. Honestly. I have no topic. I have nothing of interest to say. But I have been staring at a blank page all day, and I've decided that vomiting up a whole lot of nothing onto the page is far better than blank space. Blank space can be haunting to a writer. It's a clear indication of failure. So here goes...
Okay, maybe I'll write about something. How about random SHIT? There. I'm heading in the right direction. At least I have a direction.
What is a Permalink? And is it similar to Permafrost? Are they both found in the north pole? Or only in geographical locations which have internet service? And how do they relate to the extinction of the polar bear? These are the questions that spiral out of control in my brain. Sad, but true. The frequency of nonsense which riddles my brain is directly proportional to the level of my desire to procrastinate doing anything worthwhile.
I like internet terminology, but social networking terms are even more amusing. I have to like it because there is no option for "unlike," at least not yet. I wonder what percentage of horse racing handicappers are now using Facebook to let each other know their preferences in specific races? Instead of asking, "Who do you like in the seventh?" do they just post a photo and wait for a response, such as: "Ernie Exacta, Gladys Goodluck and 3 others like this." It makes me wonder. What are the odds of that happening?
Okay… moving on to some deeper SHIT… My week has been a series of mishaps, much of it involving shit or holy shit. Yes, upon review, I'd say there has definitely been a theme to my week, a theme of fecal matter.
On Tuesday, I went to the Wisconsin State Fair with the sole intention of holding a baby pig. It's been on my bucket list for a long time, ever since reading the heart-wrenching yet strangely uplifting Charlotte's Web. But there were no baby pigs to hold. I could ooh and ahh over one litter through glass. They were cute. But no touching and no holding. So near and yet so far. Disappointed, I headed toward the exit of the Swine Barn. Hogs to the left. Hogs to the right. It smelled to high heaven (Why do they say that? Does heaven really smell that bad?) so at that point I was moving pretty quickly down the aisle. A farmer and his herd of huge hogs darted out in front of me. Okay, maybe they didn't dart. Maybe it was more of an amble, but they appeared out of nowhere. I acted fast and managed to side-step the whole ensemble. But then I felt a smooshy feeling under my left tennis shoe. I had stepped smack dab in the center of one heaping, steaming pile of hog SHIT.
I grumbled and kept moving and wiped it off on the grass outside the barn. Posted on the barn door was a sign that read, "Please wash hands after leaving Swine Barn." Well, there was a line of about fifteen people waiting for one little sink outside. Since the barn door was wide open, the vile stench of swine was heavy in the air. I plugged my nose, looked at the line, and thought it over. It occurred to me, hey, I never touched a pig or a pig pen or anything in that barn, so I'm good to go. Don't have to wait in the hot sun. So I walked around a bit more, listened to some music, but just wasn't into the whole fair thing and was still bummed out about not holding a single damn baby pig.
Trying to lighten my mood, I hopped on one ride that jerked my head back and forth and wasn't really much fun anyway. I used to love fair rides. SHIT, I'm old. I had to admit it. There I was at the fair and I wasn't having a bit of fun. Anyway, by this time it was getting crowded so I decided to get my traditional cream puff and go. I bought a cream puff, ate it, did the whole lick-your-fingers thing and headed home.
After I got home, I washed my shoes outside with 409 disinfectant and left out in the sun to dry, then went inside to read my emails from earlier that day. My friend had replied to my email about going to the fair and holding a baby pig. She said, "You might want to check before you go. A lot of fairs are dealing with Swine Flu outbreaks and won't let pigs in." Swine Flu. Hmmm.... I thought. Maybe that's why the sign said wash your hands. Even if I didn't touch anything in there, maybe those flu bugaroos can hop from pig to person, fly right through the air... Well, the next thing I did was what stupid people do after they've done something stupid, I searched the internet. For me, it always yields the motherlode of wisdom, some of it actually true. I searched the web for symptoms of Swine Flu. Nausea, headache, stiff neck...
Holy shit. Okay, so I didn't get a wink of sleep that night because I was lying awake worrying that my nausea wasn't actually from washing down a cream puff with a glass of Leinenkugel's, and my headache and stiff neck wasn't from riding a amusement park ride, but actually early signs of Swine Flu. The next day, I realized I didn't actually have Swine Flu, but before I enter another swine barn, I'll 1) don a pair of those plastic shoe covers (they hand them out at walk-through art exhibits; why not swine barns?) and 2) I'll wash my hands. Hell, I'll power wash my hands. Actually, unless someone can promise me 100% that I'm going to be holding a baby pig, I'm not stepping foot in another swine barn. So there.
Okay, that was just the beginning. On Wednesday, I went to a garage sale to find a cheap plastic container to collect cat SHIT in and I injured myself. I'm not kidding about the cat shit or the injury. I needed a container into which I could shovel soiled litter and crap (literally) from our three litter boxes at home and carry it all to the covered pail outside. Since I'm now "freelance writing," which means not bringing in a red cent, we are on a tight budget so the whole process of litter excavation has changed at our house. Let me elaborate:
I switched from "World's Best" brand cat litter, which is the gold standard of cat litter, to "Cheap-Ass" brand litter -- which is nasty as hell, has zero deodorizing capability, cannot be simply shoveled into the toilet and flushed away to a place that is far, far away from here and sticks to everything including the cats' butts, the shovel and the bottoms of the litter boxes -- and that means frequent excavation to prevent revolting conditions. With any job, it requires the right tools. So continuing with my story, I went to the garage sale to buy a plastic container. Caught up now? Okay, so I walked up the driveway at the garage sale, (rummage sale for the Wisconsinites out there), perused their shelves, found nothing I could use and headed back down the driveway. This took all of twenty seconds.
As I was nearing my car, I spotted an older woman (and when I say older, I mean older than me, but not as old as Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies) who was trying to get up out of a very low-seated chair that was on sale. Without a moment's hesitation, since she was on my way back to my car anyway, I offered my arm to help her up. She, also without a moment's hesitation, since her derrière was stuck in the chair, took my arm. But then she shocked me by not helping in the slightest. I mean, she put ALL of her weight on me, all 200-plus pounds of her, which went into my arm at an angle, and down into my lower back and hip. Ouch. Basically, she made me her human hoist.
The second shocking thing is, the woman never said thank you, just mumbled something about her "therapy." Well, I need therapy after hoisting her up. So what did I say as I tried to get out of my car, upon arriving home? You guessed it, "Holy shit. My back hurts like hell." I've been resting it, icing it, downing double doses of Naproxen for two straight days and eyeing my precious bottle of Flexeril, which has three tablets left and is rationed because it's expensive. But things are changing. For all my special self-care, the pain is actually getting worse by the hour.
Holy shit. So much for being a good samaritan.
