Hey guys, this is a repeat offender, but many of you have asked me to post this so here it is!
It’s official: Spring is here and so are the endless list of our home improvements. Our house needs painting, inside and out. Of course there are the normal, weekly chores: Hedge trimming, grass mowing and weed whacking. This brings to my twisted mind, the art of Spring hygiene. Ahh yes, the fashion dread for most people my gender: Swimsuit season. Paying tribute to the looming fashion season, I trekked to Bushwacker Mo’s, a small, trendy spa in Ukiah and I was met with a bit of a fashion shock:
The new trend is to trim your hedge, mow your grass and whack your weeds down to the roots. To eradicate any doubt, I took a survey from ladies of various ages. Eighty percent say that bald is beautiful. This brings about a lot of confusion: How bald? Is it the military buzz, or completely Vin Diesel? Who started this trend anyway? Probably the same people who dictate those fabulous fashions that only look great on anorexic run way models.
Most of us gals wait twelve years to get our hedges, lawns and weeds to grow. Now, everyone wants to kill theirs off with unusual forms of weed whacking hair removal, wax and shaving lotion. My brain automatically went to that warped place where I asked myself, "OK, so who in their right mind becomes a hedge trimmer, eight hours a day for a minimum wage, plus tips?"
The entire conversation one has with the weed whacker while they accomplish their task had my imagination working overtime: Do you make small talk while she is placing the warm wax and then ripping the hair out in all the wrong places? Do you stifle the scream? Perhaps in some cultures it’s OK to let out the archaic squeal after the wax is ripped, kind of like belching in public. Weed whacking isn’t for sissies, especially if you get what is fondly called, the Brazilian wax job. To me, it sounds crudely close to the Cuban neck tie. We are talking ripping hair out from the Glutenous Maximus Grand Canyon. I couldn’t imagine. It’s difficult enough to make small talk while your feet are in the stirrups. Will Numz-it be available? Is it more expensive to be wimpy?
Given that eighty percent of my poll voted for the trend, I decided a military air strip was the way to go, A.K.A.: Partial Brazilian. My journey to the feminist movement would stop at my low-pain threshold, even with the persuasive pro-bald arguments from the proprietor. Surprisingly, there really wasn’t much pain involved, with the exception of my wallet. Though Gilda, my Esthetician was as gentle as she could be, I still felt a sting of pain, handing over a twenty percent tip for what seemed to be a masochistic spa treatment.
Strolling around the pool at my health club, I was confident that my two weeks of rigorous Treadmill workouts and no visible weeds, would enable me to accomplish the modern woman’s exuberance.
I continued to relish in the after glow of my Darwinian movement as I made my way to yet another dreaded task: My dental appointment. I felt refined, enjoying my evolved leap into this new womanhood, until I noticed a slight tingling sensation happening south of the border. The tingling turned into a horrific itching. The itching turned into an obsession. While the hygienist left to get a new tool, I scratched and raked and twisted in my dentist chair, keeping an eye out for the intrusive hygienist. I managed to escape the dental office without committing a lewd and lecivious act of scratching my crotch in public.
In the privacy of my bathroom, I ripped my pants off to reveal the confirmed burn. Pinkish swelling of my bikini area told me to get out the aloe vera. This is an area that hasn’t been shaved in over sixth months. Some of my areas have never been shaved or for that matter, had never seen the light of day. Thankfully, my ancestory allows for a less hairy anatomy than my more anglo counterparts, so I won't have to endure (and repeat) this mashochistic ritual until the next swimsuit season. Reviewing this day made me chuckle at trying to be the modern woman and with the help and relief of aloe vera, I found my way out of the forest, so to speak.
Memory is funny sometimes: One can’t remember what one had for dinner, but can remember the small details of the recipe. My memory button cruelly hit act one, scene two: The dentist office had mirrors, everywhere. I remembered the hygienist and dentist smirking at me as I left. Flashes of laughter echoed after I closed the dental office door. I remember why I will forever be a traditional hedge, have long grass and wayward weeds.
Facts is facts Ladies: Shaving, waxing or plucking your “area” En Toto is not more aesthetic as most urban myths have us believe. In fact, most Gynecologist agree, that total removal of the hair is more harmful, causing in-grown hairs and skin rashes. In the last ten years, more women have visited their Gynecologist for in-grown hairs and razor rash issues than the usual health concerns.
Alternatives come at a hefty price, Laser hair removal lasts for six months and go from $500-up.
Electrolysis is permanent, but can take several procedures and costs more than the laser hair removal.
And last but not least, as most of us "seasoned" ladies should know: When a guy says he prefers the civilization of Brazil to a domesticated jungle because he gets "lost," then hand him a GPS, sign him up for the show, or better still, tell him dares go first.
For more information, you may contact your Gynecologist or go to www.webmd.com
Sources: Doctor Barbara Hameir, MD
Doctor Patrice Hyde, MD
©All Rights Reserved, Anne Wycoff, April 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
Ya Ya Bitchyhood sister speak
Sister Speak
My sister Lynn is three years younger than I am and had been the victim of my wicked humor and practical jokes in early childhood. However, during the height of our dysfunctional pre-teen hoods, we somehow united against the ravages of misery and developed our own language and silly sayings for everyday things. Often, we’d break into song about the most innate and ridicules, leaving our parents dumbfounded, driving them nuts and we did it at great risk, often provoking more abuse from the autocrat. For years, we sang a stupid diddy called, “Dee Dee girl,” a repetitive insult to the ears about a girl or Trump-ish man for that matter who had the unfortunate timing of crossing our paths with a horrible hair cut or hair style. Sort of a code for “Bad hair day.” Our mother had always taught us if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, so instead, Lynn and I sang it. This included the obvious bad hair style of any and all hair a baby has, stapled into a lone pink barrette atop a bald baby head. Is this supposed to announce to the world, “Yes, this is a baby girl,” or better yet to say, “well, yes, it is human, see? No scales nor feathers, but this one chunk of hair”(even though the baby looks like a cabbage patch doll).
Sadly, I became the leader of the Dee Dee girl cult by bestowing upon my newborn daughter the very same lone pink Barrett hair style. Of course for the first two years of my daughters life, she was to Lynn, Dee Dee girl. For two years, my daughter thought her name was Dee Dee, instead of her birth name, Emily.
Another thing we did to evade the pit of depression after our abuser’s wrath was our “Brain-dead” salute: When faced with an obvious stupidity of other people or if we just wanted to crack ourselves up, we’d put our left arm in a semicircle to our forehead and stick our right arm through the circle, waving it in small circles. No matter what we’d endure before, during and after a bout with an enraged abuser, we could always crack each other up with that bit. It left our parents perplexed, not understanding the giggles coming from what should have been the room of doom and punishment.
Most siblings (especially ones who have grown up in dysfunctional homes) find a mode of survival: A way to escape the destruction of human spirit and climb on top of the heap, laughing hysterically. Over the years we have developed this ability to make each other laugh into an art form. We have nailed it down to such perfection all we have to do to each other, is utter a “Dee Dee,” or put our left hand to our forehead that it will cause us to giggle until we pee. We call it, sister speak. Those who haven’t suffered abuse would naively call this behavior insanity. Indeed our husbands and my children gawk at Lynn and I during a sister speak episode and shake their heads: Time to get out the straight jackets, here we go again.
Although thankfully, Lynn and I no longer have to associate with intensely angry, dysfunctional people, when faced with insecurity, we rely on the silly relics of our childhood to free us from those angry embers. Lately we find new more embarrassing ways, songs and saying to deal with the odd dysfunction so many fellow humans seem to suffer from.
Recently, Lynn took me to Mendocino for a belated birthday (A.K.A Ya Ya bitchyhood) weekend. Before leaving, I paid homage to my mother’s home in which she bestowed upon me, clothing. Let’s just say that the clothes my mom so graciously gives me are top of the line, second hand thrift store faire. Faded labels such as: Lane Bryant, Izod and ESPRIT. Though I do appreciate the gesture, I am really not a Lane Bryant, Izod and ESPRIT person. After pillaging through the stripes, plaid shorts and square necklines, I came across something that inspired a new phrase for my sister speak: My mother and stepfathers matching Gucci thong underwear.
EWWWWWWW!
After grossing Lynn out with the history of our new vocabulary word of sister speak, we arrived at our wonderful five-star Inn. We noticed there were a lot of elderly female guests. Our neighbors, are longtime Lesbian couple on a romantic weekend. Though that doesn’t “ewwww” us, we were invariably lumped in with the other twenty-something lesbian couples as we were: Number one, together all the time. Number two: Laughed and hugged each other and number three, stayed in the same room. What else are people(especially men with pea brains) supposed to think? So when men (BTW single girls, note to self: Men outnumber women 5-1 in Mendocino and Fort Bragg), started to hit on us in a bar, we just beamed at each other and winked, giving them the “ewwwww” phrase as we giggled profusely. This of course caused more confusion for the men, and subjected the poor fellows to a bout of even more belly laughs from us, the faux lesbian duo. All we had to do to crack each other up the entire trip was lean over and quietly whisper to each other, “Ewwwwww."
It’s not that we don’t appreciate a good measure of attention from the opposite sex, in fact, Lynn and I often come up with new and improved ways of gaining male attention. Usually it’s just fantasy and enlists skills we sadly lack. The second day of the great Mendocino escape of the Ya Ya bitchyhood sisters, we were on the beach, soaking up rays in our long underwear and flannel shirts(too sexy)! A gaggle of young male feti took to the beach, toting Corona’s and obvious buzzes. I alerted Lynn to potential eye candy with my very smooth, very covert loud purr of my tongue, to which she of course started laughing and I joined, with my snort-laugh.
As the Corona toting feti kept angling for attention from us (the only females under the age of eighty on the beach), we came up with several fantasy scenarios in which to entice the unsuspecting feti. The first was one of us was gravely ill and needed fresh air. However, not wanting to anger the fate gods, we eighty-sixed that idea and thought we could be wealthy cougars. However, since we were wearing flannel and neither one of us exactly cougar material, we moved on with a brilliant idea of: The invasion of the foreign femme fatale. Only, we didn’t want to risk that one of them knew Spanish or Japanese-the two languages we hardly know. So, we decided to invent a language, complete with Aborigines tongue clicks. After several practice runs, we were laughing so much at our greeting, “Hungu vu gaga lacky click loo loo duck click lucky moo moo, click.” Then, I had to put a cherry on top of that greeting with the fact that maybe, we also had Tourette’s syndrome. So the greeting turned into,
“Hungu vu gaga lacky click dammit, loo loo duck click lucky caca-hell, moo moo, click.”
We looked through our tear-streaked faces only to discover our potential victims had left. We figured they either thought we were on some really great peyote and weren’t sharing or the more obvious; we are crazy.
This weekend had glorious weather, wonderful food and the best housing so far on our elongated list of ya ya bitchyhood weekends. But the best part of the entire weekend was adding another ridicules array of vocabulary to our sister speak, “Ewww, purrrr, hungu vu gaga lacky click loo loo dammit duck click lucky caca-hell, moo moo.”
My sister Lynn is three years younger than I am and had been the victim of my wicked humor and practical jokes in early childhood. However, during the height of our dysfunctional pre-teen hoods, we somehow united against the ravages of misery and developed our own language and silly sayings for everyday things. Often, we’d break into song about the most innate and ridicules, leaving our parents dumbfounded, driving them nuts and we did it at great risk, often provoking more abuse from the autocrat. For years, we sang a stupid diddy called, “Dee Dee girl,” a repetitive insult to the ears about a girl or Trump-ish man for that matter who had the unfortunate timing of crossing our paths with a horrible hair cut or hair style. Sort of a code for “Bad hair day.” Our mother had always taught us if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, so instead, Lynn and I sang it. This included the obvious bad hair style of any and all hair a baby has, stapled into a lone pink barrette atop a bald baby head. Is this supposed to announce to the world, “Yes, this is a baby girl,” or better yet to say, “well, yes, it is human, see? No scales nor feathers, but this one chunk of hair”(even though the baby looks like a cabbage patch doll).
Sadly, I became the leader of the Dee Dee girl cult by bestowing upon my newborn daughter the very same lone pink Barrett hair style. Of course for the first two years of my daughters life, she was to Lynn, Dee Dee girl. For two years, my daughter thought her name was Dee Dee, instead of her birth name, Emily.
Another thing we did to evade the pit of depression after our abuser’s wrath was our “Brain-dead” salute: When faced with an obvious stupidity of other people or if we just wanted to crack ourselves up, we’d put our left arm in a semicircle to our forehead and stick our right arm through the circle, waving it in small circles. No matter what we’d endure before, during and after a bout with an enraged abuser, we could always crack each other up with that bit. It left our parents perplexed, not understanding the giggles coming from what should have been the room of doom and punishment.
Most siblings (especially ones who have grown up in dysfunctional homes) find a mode of survival: A way to escape the destruction of human spirit and climb on top of the heap, laughing hysterically. Over the years we have developed this ability to make each other laugh into an art form. We have nailed it down to such perfection all we have to do to each other, is utter a “Dee Dee,” or put our left hand to our forehead that it will cause us to giggle until we pee. We call it, sister speak. Those who haven’t suffered abuse would naively call this behavior insanity. Indeed our husbands and my children gawk at Lynn and I during a sister speak episode and shake their heads: Time to get out the straight jackets, here we go again.
Although thankfully, Lynn and I no longer have to associate with intensely angry, dysfunctional people, when faced with insecurity, we rely on the silly relics of our childhood to free us from those angry embers. Lately we find new more embarrassing ways, songs and saying to deal with the odd dysfunction so many fellow humans seem to suffer from.
Recently, Lynn took me to Mendocino for a belated birthday (A.K.A Ya Ya bitchyhood) weekend. Before leaving, I paid homage to my mother’s home in which she bestowed upon me, clothing. Let’s just say that the clothes my mom so graciously gives me are top of the line, second hand thrift store faire. Faded labels such as: Lane Bryant, Izod and ESPRIT. Though I do appreciate the gesture, I am really not a Lane Bryant, Izod and ESPRIT person. After pillaging through the stripes, plaid shorts and square necklines, I came across something that inspired a new phrase for my sister speak: My mother and stepfathers matching Gucci thong underwear.
EWWWWWWW!
After grossing Lynn out with the history of our new vocabulary word of sister speak, we arrived at our wonderful five-star Inn. We noticed there were a lot of elderly female guests. Our neighbors, are longtime Lesbian couple on a romantic weekend. Though that doesn’t “ewwww” us, we were invariably lumped in with the other twenty-something lesbian couples as we were: Number one, together all the time. Number two: Laughed and hugged each other and number three, stayed in the same room. What else are people(especially men with pea brains) supposed to think? So when men (BTW single girls, note to self: Men outnumber women 5-1 in Mendocino and Fort Bragg), started to hit on us in a bar, we just beamed at each other and winked, giving them the “ewwwww” phrase as we giggled profusely. This of course caused more confusion for the men, and subjected the poor fellows to a bout of even more belly laughs from us, the faux lesbian duo. All we had to do to crack each other up the entire trip was lean over and quietly whisper to each other, “Ewwwwww."
It’s not that we don’t appreciate a good measure of attention from the opposite sex, in fact, Lynn and I often come up with new and improved ways of gaining male attention. Usually it’s just fantasy and enlists skills we sadly lack. The second day of the great Mendocino escape of the Ya Ya bitchyhood sisters, we were on the beach, soaking up rays in our long underwear and flannel shirts(too sexy)! A gaggle of young male feti took to the beach, toting Corona’s and obvious buzzes. I alerted Lynn to potential eye candy with my very smooth, very covert loud purr of my tongue, to which she of course started laughing and I joined, with my snort-laugh.
As the Corona toting feti kept angling for attention from us (the only females under the age of eighty on the beach), we came up with several fantasy scenarios in which to entice the unsuspecting feti. The first was one of us was gravely ill and needed fresh air. However, not wanting to anger the fate gods, we eighty-sixed that idea and thought we could be wealthy cougars. However, since we were wearing flannel and neither one of us exactly cougar material, we moved on with a brilliant idea of: The invasion of the foreign femme fatale. Only, we didn’t want to risk that one of them knew Spanish or Japanese-the two languages we hardly know. So, we decided to invent a language, complete with Aborigines tongue clicks. After several practice runs, we were laughing so much at our greeting, “Hungu vu gaga lacky click loo loo duck click lucky moo moo, click.” Then, I had to put a cherry on top of that greeting with the fact that maybe, we also had Tourette’s syndrome. So the greeting turned into,
“Hungu vu gaga lacky click dammit, loo loo duck click lucky caca-hell, moo moo, click.”
We looked through our tear-streaked faces only to discover our potential victims had left. We figured they either thought we were on some really great peyote and weren’t sharing or the more obvious; we are crazy.
This weekend had glorious weather, wonderful food and the best housing so far on our elongated list of ya ya bitchyhood weekends. But the best part of the entire weekend was adding another ridicules array of vocabulary to our sister speak, “Ewww, purrrr, hungu vu gaga lacky click loo loo dammit duck click lucky caca-hell, moo moo.”
Monday, April 14, 2008
One man's junk
One mans junk is another mans treasure.
This past weekend, it became clear that my husband(Tom) and I are opponents in that age-old argument of couples: Treasure versus junk. One of our treasures, our dear dog Lucky ran out of luck and experienced violent seizures last Thursday. Taking him to the vet cost two of my paychecks (that’s not saying much). Feeling frustrated at our monetary situation, Tom declared that we should have just put the dog down. “After all”, he said, “he is old and we can get a new dog”. That of course enraged the rest of the family and it got me thinking: I wish “Putting him down,” would have been an option for me when Tom went through knee surgery and four months of home recovery. After all, he is old and well ... .
After spending the day at the vets, the dog is diagnosed with Cushing disease and medicated. I guess it’s common in Great Danes and Labs and poor Lucky dog has both strikes against him. He is a mutt, old and a bit dusty. But we certainly wouldn’t get rid of him nor upgrade to a newer model. He is our equivalent of beloved family junk, in other words, pure Wycoff gold.
On Friday Tom left to help our family friend Don move out of his foreclosed home. A sad commentary on the current situation in our state. All your belongings have to be loaded up and pawned off on friends and relatives who will store them in the hopes that one day, the winds of favor will grant you property possession again. In the meantime, the temporary proprietors reap the rewards of storing your stuff. Don held a yard sale, but knowing him, it wouldn’t make a dent in the junk collection he vowed to “fix up” one day. I visited his place once, awestruck by the acres of machinery and pipes, accumulation of old cars and vacuum cleaners. At one time, Don even had a by-plane graveyard in addition to a collection of above ground wells. It was like walking through a weird outdoor art gallery. I guess in some cultures it would be considered modern art. After all, if people are paying through the nose for art done by an elephant, why not? Don is just like the character Fred Sanford in Sanford and Son, he saw potential in everything, even stuff that was rusted out, busted and left for dead. I however, don’t care for junk. Don refers to me as Tom’s neat freak woman. If I don’t use it within the two major seasons then it is outta here! Though not a Stepford wife, I do tend to keep a tidy house and I can’t stand knick knacks, they make me feel claustrophobic. My kids are forever squawking about my cleaning rampages. I have hauled several garbage bags of junk out of their rooms, all accomplished without them missing their favorite pipe cleaners, rocks and moldy twinkies. We now use rakes for the junk under their bed because of a moldy twinkie experience (I once attempted to retrieve what I thought was a fuzzy green eraser and it turned out to be, you guessed it)!
Late last night, I noticed a strange vehicle slowly backing into our driveway. The loaded down truck was teaming with junk, seeping over it’s sides so that the emblem on the side wasn’t visible. An enormous aluminum fishing boat sat atop a rusted trailer, they were bouncing their way backward into our driveway, nearly tipping over from the barrage of junk piled in it. Suddenly, I realized this was my husband, coming home from a weekend at Don’s. Might as well have been Weekend at Bernies. For all I knew, there could have been a body at the bottom of the pile.
He sheepishly got out of his pickup, slamming his door and nearly toppling a chainsaw tethered to the side. “Hey hon, can you back your car out of the garage?”
It is a curious thing when you can simultaneously think two expletives to shout, but just then my kids ran out of the house to greet their father. “Wow! That is cool” exclaimed our other Sanford in the family. “Is all this ours?” My son asked already determining the Ebay price for some of the items. This is the same kid who uses Legos as weapons of mass destruction against parents who dare trespass into his bedroom at night. “Well, the motorcycle and motorized scooter are ours, I got them at a steal and the boat, we can use and the chainsaws just need to be fixed up and we can sell them for profit.”
He rattled on, captivating our kids with each items history and potential.
It was all I could do to not clutch my chest and scream out, “I’m a comin’ Elizabeth...I’m a coming” (Sanfords old bit about having a heart attack and meeting up with his deceased wife). I kept envisioning that Tom would eventually need an intervention. Are there interventions for junkers? I suppose it would be along the lines of families that go through substance abuse interventions: We'd all gather Tom in the looming backyard/junkyard, our once pristine pool a vestibule of used tires, wet suits and swingsets. I'd have to recruit back-up and the only person close enough to Tom and who is (gulp) as neat of freak as me is (double gulp) his mother. Visions of our feme de muerte battles outweighing the junk intervention caused me to tank the entire idea. There had to be a better way! Go here for the theme song while you read on: http://www.sitcomsonline.com/sounds/sanfordandson.wav
After the kids settled down for bed, my tired treasure hunter secured his treasure in our backyard, complete with a tattered tarp. There was no way I was giving up my CRV parking space. Hell, in this job, I don’t get paid but I do get a parking space.
In this sitcom of our life, the role of Lamont is often played by me, the questioning, nagging, common sense character. Most men call that bitchy.
“So hon, how much did that bike and scooter set us back?” I tried to be as Lamont as I could, trick the sly fox into telling me his latest scheme gone bad so I could do damage control.
Besides, he was pretty tired, there was a good chance he would spill the beans.
“Oh well, that came out of my account, so you don’t need to worry about it.”
His account? He has an account? Anger turned to curiosity. I have an account too, but it is often used for frivolous stuff, such as: Kids clothing, field trips, soccer sign ups, my cell phone and oh yes, saving our beloved pets ass.
“So how much was the motorcycle and scooter, really?” I knew asking again would be pushing it but I just had to know. “Together they only put me in the hole for $700. But remember, those chainsaws I’ll sell as well as the oven hood, and besides, we can use the boat anytime we want.”
“And if they don’t?” I asked, pushing for a time limit for his new endeavors into the junk yard business.
He sighed, “I’ll get rid of this stuff before the summer.”
Wishing I still drank, I made my way into our backyard and lifted the tattered tarp, wanting a good look at Don’s treasures. Shining in the moonlight, they almost looked beautiful. The glistening of a chrome oven hood. A colorful array of paint chips fallen from the boat(Don had changed the name so often, it reminded me of the Norman Rockwell Tattoo illustration). The glint of steal chainsaws, shadows of various rusted out tool chests and the conjoined smell of metal and male perspiration. Our Lucky dog saddled up beside me to observe the treasure. As if sensing my disgust, he snorted and then shook his head, then cocked it to the side and winked at me. He was not made to be a junk yard dog. If anyone dared jump Lucky's fence to get to Tom's future junk treasures, then it would be death by saliva! He'd hold them down and lick them to death!
A Lamont moment hit me like a ton of bricks: If Tom didn’t get rid of this junk before the weeds grew over it, well then, with the help of craigslist, he will become a junk hauler(unbeknownst to him of course). As the theme song of Sanford and Son lulled me to sleep, I dreamed of my dog leaping and bounding among the sunflowers that will eventually replace Tom’s junk yard.
If you need junk hauled away, keep Tom in mind for future reference, however, if you can’t park your car in the garage, if your home resembles that of a mobile home estate sale, if you think an antique fire hydrant should go onto antique roadhouse, then you are a Sanford wife, husband or child and should seek immediate help.
www.1800gotjunk.com
www.junkhaulers.com
All rights reserved, Anne Wycoff April 2008
This past weekend, it became clear that my husband(Tom) and I are opponents in that age-old argument of couples: Treasure versus junk. One of our treasures, our dear dog Lucky ran out of luck and experienced violent seizures last Thursday. Taking him to the vet cost two of my paychecks (that’s not saying much). Feeling frustrated at our monetary situation, Tom declared that we should have just put the dog down. “After all”, he said, “he is old and we can get a new dog”. That of course enraged the rest of the family and it got me thinking: I wish “Putting him down,” would have been an option for me when Tom went through knee surgery and four months of home recovery. After all, he is old and well ... .
After spending the day at the vets, the dog is diagnosed with Cushing disease and medicated. I guess it’s common in Great Danes and Labs and poor Lucky dog has both strikes against him. He is a mutt, old and a bit dusty. But we certainly wouldn’t get rid of him nor upgrade to a newer model. He is our equivalent of beloved family junk, in other words, pure Wycoff gold.
On Friday Tom left to help our family friend Don move out of his foreclosed home. A sad commentary on the current situation in our state. All your belongings have to be loaded up and pawned off on friends and relatives who will store them in the hopes that one day, the winds of favor will grant you property possession again. In the meantime, the temporary proprietors reap the rewards of storing your stuff. Don held a yard sale, but knowing him, it wouldn’t make a dent in the junk collection he vowed to “fix up” one day. I visited his place once, awestruck by the acres of machinery and pipes, accumulation of old cars and vacuum cleaners. At one time, Don even had a by-plane graveyard in addition to a collection of above ground wells. It was like walking through a weird outdoor art gallery. I guess in some cultures it would be considered modern art. After all, if people are paying through the nose for art done by an elephant, why not? Don is just like the character Fred Sanford in Sanford and Son, he saw potential in everything, even stuff that was rusted out, busted and left for dead. I however, don’t care for junk. Don refers to me as Tom’s neat freak woman. If I don’t use it within the two major seasons then it is outta here! Though not a Stepford wife, I do tend to keep a tidy house and I can’t stand knick knacks, they make me feel claustrophobic. My kids are forever squawking about my cleaning rampages. I have hauled several garbage bags of junk out of their rooms, all accomplished without them missing their favorite pipe cleaners, rocks and moldy twinkies. We now use rakes for the junk under their bed because of a moldy twinkie experience (I once attempted to retrieve what I thought was a fuzzy green eraser and it turned out to be, you guessed it)!
Late last night, I noticed a strange vehicle slowly backing into our driveway. The loaded down truck was teaming with junk, seeping over it’s sides so that the emblem on the side wasn’t visible. An enormous aluminum fishing boat sat atop a rusted trailer, they were bouncing their way backward into our driveway, nearly tipping over from the barrage of junk piled in it. Suddenly, I realized this was my husband, coming home from a weekend at Don’s. Might as well have been Weekend at Bernies. For all I knew, there could have been a body at the bottom of the pile.
He sheepishly got out of his pickup, slamming his door and nearly toppling a chainsaw tethered to the side. “Hey hon, can you back your car out of the garage?”
It is a curious thing when you can simultaneously think two expletives to shout, but just then my kids ran out of the house to greet their father. “Wow! That is cool” exclaimed our other Sanford in the family. “Is all this ours?” My son asked already determining the Ebay price for some of the items. This is the same kid who uses Legos as weapons of mass destruction against parents who dare trespass into his bedroom at night. “Well, the motorcycle and motorized scooter are ours, I got them at a steal and the boat, we can use and the chainsaws just need to be fixed up and we can sell them for profit.”
He rattled on, captivating our kids with each items history and potential.
It was all I could do to not clutch my chest and scream out, “I’m a comin’ Elizabeth...I’m a coming” (Sanfords old bit about having a heart attack and meeting up with his deceased wife). I kept envisioning that Tom would eventually need an intervention. Are there interventions for junkers? I suppose it would be along the lines of families that go through substance abuse interventions: We'd all gather Tom in the looming backyard/junkyard, our once pristine pool a vestibule of used tires, wet suits and swingsets. I'd have to recruit back-up and the only person close enough to Tom and who is (gulp) as neat of freak as me is (double gulp) his mother. Visions of our feme de muerte battles outweighing the junk intervention caused me to tank the entire idea. There had to be a better way! Go here for the theme song while you read on: http://www.sitcomsonline.com/sounds/sanfordandson.wav
After the kids settled down for bed, my tired treasure hunter secured his treasure in our backyard, complete with a tattered tarp. There was no way I was giving up my CRV parking space. Hell, in this job, I don’t get paid but I do get a parking space.
In this sitcom of our life, the role of Lamont is often played by me, the questioning, nagging, common sense character. Most men call that bitchy.
“So hon, how much did that bike and scooter set us back?” I tried to be as Lamont as I could, trick the sly fox into telling me his latest scheme gone bad so I could do damage control.
Besides, he was pretty tired, there was a good chance he would spill the beans.
“Oh well, that came out of my account, so you don’t need to worry about it.”
His account? He has an account? Anger turned to curiosity. I have an account too, but it is often used for frivolous stuff, such as: Kids clothing, field trips, soccer sign ups, my cell phone and oh yes, saving our beloved pets ass.
“So how much was the motorcycle and scooter, really?” I knew asking again would be pushing it but I just had to know. “Together they only put me in the hole for $700. But remember, those chainsaws I’ll sell as well as the oven hood, and besides, we can use the boat anytime we want.”
“And if they don’t?” I asked, pushing for a time limit for his new endeavors into the junk yard business.
He sighed, “I’ll get rid of this stuff before the summer.”
Wishing I still drank, I made my way into our backyard and lifted the tattered tarp, wanting a good look at Don’s treasures. Shining in the moonlight, they almost looked beautiful. The glistening of a chrome oven hood. A colorful array of paint chips fallen from the boat(Don had changed the name so often, it reminded me of the Norman Rockwell Tattoo illustration). The glint of steal chainsaws, shadows of various rusted out tool chests and the conjoined smell of metal and male perspiration. Our Lucky dog saddled up beside me to observe the treasure. As if sensing my disgust, he snorted and then shook his head, then cocked it to the side and winked at me. He was not made to be a junk yard dog. If anyone dared jump Lucky's fence to get to Tom's future junk treasures, then it would be death by saliva! He'd hold them down and lick them to death!
A Lamont moment hit me like a ton of bricks: If Tom didn’t get rid of this junk before the weeds grew over it, well then, with the help of craigslist, he will become a junk hauler(unbeknownst to him of course). As the theme song of Sanford and Son lulled me to sleep, I dreamed of my dog leaping and bounding among the sunflowers that will eventually replace Tom’s junk yard.
If you need junk hauled away, keep Tom in mind for future reference, however, if you can’t park your car in the garage, if your home resembles that of a mobile home estate sale, if you think an antique fire hydrant should go onto antique roadhouse, then you are a Sanford wife, husband or child and should seek immediate help.
www.1800gotjunk.com
www.junkhaulers.com
All rights reserved, Anne Wycoff April 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Band Camp News version uno
OK, so one of my editors said I just had to have this done today, so here I sit, alone in my thoughts, my own version of hell with writers block.
All I can say is, the chicken is in the oven, the dishes are done, my kids homework is somewhat completed, my looming deadline approaches and slicing up a masterpiece seems so very wrong.
What's wrong with this picture?
Askew in the murky spaces of my pea brain....
Until next time, this is your fearless bandcamp leader hoping it doesn't rain until I can pull my knickers off the line.
All I can say is, the chicken is in the oven, the dishes are done, my kids homework is somewhat completed, my looming deadline approaches and slicing up a masterpiece seems so very wrong.
What's wrong with this picture?
Askew in the murky spaces of my pea brain....
Until next time, this is your fearless bandcamp leader hoping it doesn't rain until I can pull my knickers off the line.
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