How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Two weeks ago The Cougar and I were supposed to take a trapeze class at the Trapeze School of New York.  I was excited.  I had my trapeze outfit all planned out.  Mom was going to go with boring black tights and a t-shirt but I wanted more pizzazz.  PIZZAZZ! After searching high and low I found what I was looking for.  Pink tights, pink top.  I stopped at sequins. Believe me, Innernetz, it was an exercise in self-restraint.  The sequins may have been a bit much and I didn’t want to intimidate all the other novices with my innate trapeze fashion sense.  I also thought that showing up in pink sequined tights would make me look like a plump, pink caterpillar larva as I twisted in the wind on my tiny little trapeze branch.  But alas, this caterpillar never had a chance to become a butterfly.  The morning that The Cougar was to catch the train I received a call from my aunt.  The Cougar had fallen and couldn’t get up.  Actually, once she regained consciousness she did get up, but she’d missed her train.  How did she fall, you ask?  Let’s just say that FUCKED runs in the family.  So instead of The Cougar coming here, I went there to pamper her and make her feel guilty for ruining my big summer event.  Although I didn’t get to fly through the air in Cirque du Soleil splendor, the past two weeks have definitely been one of those circus clown cars.  Just when I think I can’t shove another thing onto my To Do list, I shove another thing on my To Do list.  Not only are things getting jammed packed in here, it’s also starting to smell like feet.  Nasty ol’ clown feet.

When I visit The Cougar I turn into Dingo Do-It-Yourselfer.  At home, when something breaks, I take to my bed in a fit of vapors until Caesar, our landlord, can come make things right.  At The Cougar’s, however, I am Dingo!  Hear me bark!  Seriously folks, while I was there I fixed a toilet, washing machine, garage door opener, printer, and barbecue grill.  I was at Lowe’s and Home Depot so often that I parked in the handicapped parking and no one said a word.  They just waved their canes and walkers at me in a show of support.

Unlike the home improvement stores here, where us city folk sort through paint chips with names like Frappe and Wasabi, debate the merits of low flush toilets, and compare the Krups and Braun espresso machines to the ones we can buy at Starbucks, the stores near The Cougar have power tools!  Nail guns!  Chain saws!  Orbital sanders!  Other thingys I don’t know the names of!  It’s all very manly and testosterone hangs in the air like pepper spray at a WTO protest. 

I found the staff and customers at these everyman country clubs to be very condescending helpful.  And confused, possibly even offended, when I politely told them to fuck off rejected their help.  I had Mr. Google to assist me.  Mr. Google is very informative and doesn’t insinuate that his help can be obtained in exchange for sexual favors.  He also doesn’t flash his hairy ass crack.  Ass crack man, if you are going to let your ass locks fly free you should at least trim your split ends.

In addition to home improvement projects, I dispensed relationship advice to The Cougar.  It’s time she got over The Jackass and found herself a boy toy.  The Cougar is having none of it, however.  Forty years of marriage to The Jackass was quite enough, thankyouverymuch.  Then again, I don’t think I’d ever find anyone deserving of her.  How do you find someone for a woman who spends the majority of her time caring for ill and injured church members, is on the hospitality committee of her church, sings in the choir, leads the teen youth group, works in the nursery every other Sunday, volunteers at Vacation Bible School, and is the go-to person for all the fucked up kids in the neighborhood?  And she does all of this without a Kindness Card.  I call bullshit on that.  If I’m going to mentor juvenile delinquents, I want some damn Oreos.  Hey!  Come to think of it, she’d be the perfect date for Jesus!  He could come pick her up in a pimped out chariot and whisk her to dinner.  I have a feeling that Jesus would be a cheap date.  They’d probably end up at some loaves and fishes buffet.  Word of advice mom, avoid the Communion Special and stay away from the apple pie!  Actually, I would think that the Holy Mack Daddy is too busy with all the stuff in Iran and Darfur to actually date.  Then again, it’s such a royal clusterfuck over there who knows what the hell he’s doing these days.  Maybe he’s hiking in the Appalachians or visiting Argentina. 

So, there you have it.  Between cursing at appliances and blasphemy, I have been a busy little Dingo.  Oh sure, I may end up in hell, but I’ll install one heck of a sprinkler system.

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Take This Oreo And Shove It

An Oreo-wielding, Up–With-People-ish, Pollyanna with a used car salesman smile and faux bohemian dress from Urban Outfitters ruined my week.  There I was minding my own business mocking the pseudohippies worshiping at the Imagine Mosaic in Strawberry Fields when Pollyanna approached waving a half-empty tray of Double-Stufs. 

No, it was not half-full.  It was half-empty.  Call me a pessimist if you like, but if you have a tray half-full of Double-Stufs, you have a math problem.  The answer is B: a full tray of Stufs.

Speaking of SAT questions, Strawberry Fields does not have any strawberries and it’s definitely not a field.  What it does have is a mixture of Baby Boomers paying respects to John Lennon and his message of love and harmony together with a mob of stoned, weeping baby boomer offspring in Abercrombie tie-dyes.  Not only was the Abercrombie Generation not even born when Lennon lived and died, but their idea of activism consists of peacefully demonstrating that marijuana is not an antidepressant.  I was tempted — oooh, so tempted — to stir the pot (no pun intended) by calling out, “Snap out of it!  I mean, it’s not like he was Adam Lambert or anything!” Two things stopped me.

One, I was in no mood to fend off patchouli wearing pseudohippies wielding sitars and body odor like NYPD night sticks.  Two, there were Oreos.  Remember how, waaaay up at the top of this post, I mentioned Oreos?  You forgot, didn’t you?  Don’t worry, so did I.  Anyway, I know that you’re not supposed to take anything anyone hands you on the street.  But it was the park, it was sunny, there was music, and rainbows and unicorns, and second hand pot smoke.  And Pollyanna and her group of merry women were singing “All You Need Is Love” and waving to everyone and smiling. It was like a good ol’ fashioned love in without the body fluids. I got caught up in the moment and took the entire tray an Oreo.  And like that, I was doomed.  I had just twisted the top off the Oreo and was scraping my teeth across the creamy Double Stuf goodness when Pollyanna says, “You’ve been tagged!”

Tagged?  What the hell?  Look, bitch, Dingo doesn’t do memes so I’m not buying whatever you’re selling but can I have another Oreo?  Instead of an Oreo, she hands me a card with the following message:

Someone reached out to you with an anonymous act of kindness.  Now it’s your chance to do the same.  Do something nice for someone, leave this card behind, and keep the spirit going!

I would’ve handed the card back if I’d have known the existential crisis it would cause, but I was already up to the part of the Oreo-eating exercise where you suck really hard on your teeth, so I was kinda stuck.  Fuckers.  Who hands out Oreo cookies and then asks people to pay it forward?  Fuckers, that’s who.  Kind twatwaffles who want to screw with my life.  And so I’ve spent the past week running around trying to do kind things for people to get this monkey off my back.  It’s not as easy as you’d think. 

First of all, there are no guidelines. Just how kind do I have to be?  Hold the door open for a group of nuns kind, or rescue a child from adoption by Madonna kind?  I spent all last week in a miasma of kindness.  And it sucked.  Nothing I did seemed worth tagging someone else and saying, “Ha, ha, I did something kind for you, now you’re royally fucked!  Good luck trying to pay off this karmic debt, loser!” I mean, doesn’t tagging someone with the Kindness Card undo the kindness you’ve done?

I thought I was free and clear when I saw a couple rooting around for a quarter to put in the parking meter.  I surprised them by popping a quarter into the meter.  They said, “Thank you!” It was too easy.  I couldn’t give them my card.  Not for a lousy quarter.  I had to do something MORE.  I’ve been scouring the city trying to do something kind enough to warrant giving this burden to someone else.  I thought I was off the hook later that day.  As I turned the corner in the grocery store, I noticed this little old lady trying to reach a can of green beans on the top shelf.  Hopping around on pale little bird legs sticking out of yellow leggings she looked like one of those wind-up chicks you get at Easter.  I kept waiting for her to wind down and fall over.  I got the can for her, threw some birdseed in the aisle behind me, and went on my way.  But I didn’t give her the card.  “Hey, old lady!  You’ve been tagged!  Good luck finding someone shorter than you so you can repay this kindness!  Maybe you should carry a ladder with you everywhere from now on to keep this from happening to you again, huh?” It just seemed wrong. 

I keep thinking that I should just toss the card, but I can’t.  So, I’m a wandering Persephone, doomed by an Oreo to be kind to people.  Except Pollyanna.  If I ever see that bitch again I’m going to punch her in the face. 

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And Dingo Came Tumbling After

If the name Central Park Dance Skaters brings to mind the snoozefest of Brian Boitano and that girl who always looks as if she slathered her hair with bear grease and had Bobo the Monkey apply her make-up Oksana Baiul on roller skates, stop right there.  Imagine the showmanship of MC Hammer dancing on a treadmill (include the Hammer pants), throw in a couple of George Clinton look-alikes and some well-meaning white people trying to channel Vanilla Ice.  Now, imagine all of them skate dancing on old-school roller skates to music you wish your parents played at the family BBQ.  Are you feelin’ it yet?  Are your feet tapping and hips shakin’ to Turn This Mutha Out? Perhaps you’re groovin’ to Stevie Wonder’s Superstition? Well, stop it.  Your co-workers are wondering if you’re having some sort of seizure.  Anyway, The Central Park Dance Skaters are free entertainment every Saturday and the crowd lining the edge of the impromptu rink and sitting on the nearby hill have as much fun watching as the skaters have skating. 

I would love to join the skaters but, alas, I have no inner Pam Grier (the only Foxy Brown, in my book) to let loose in the skating rink.  I’m more Marcia Brady, and Innernetz, believe me, no one wants to see her milkshake.  I also have a disorder that prevents me from taking part in activities requiring coordination and agility.  The scientific name for it is falldown uncoordinated cantwalkand khewgum embarrassment disorder.  Most people simply refer to it as FUCKED.  I’ve been susceptible to FUCKED all my life. It tends to strike without warning and with as much humiliation as possible. 

You’d like an example?  My, you are a bloodthirsty crowd, aren’t you?  But because I love you, here goes . . .  . It was the week before my law school mid-terms and I needed a study break and some exercise. I laced up my rollerblades and decided that I would skate to Town Center to run some errands. I had never skated to Town Center before.  The tree-lined street I lived on ran through a residential area but it was heavily traveled by eighteen-wheelers and dump trucks careening down the street like they’d just heard Carmen Electra was giving free blow jobs at the local truck stop.  And if the streets were bad, the sidewalks were worse.  Small, cramped, and controlled by the mommies with their SUV strollers riding up the back of your ankles and their organic unbleached hemp diaper bags swinging ominously from their shoulders like Poe’s pendulum.

In spite of the road and sidewalk hazards, I set out on my journey.  Hell, I’d just spent six hours studying Property Law, I think I subconsciously wanted a truck or a heavy duty double-wide stroller to put me out of my misery.  I had to use the sidewalk because the street was packed.  One of the local schools had a football game scheduled for later that afternoon and all the entrances to the football field were backed up at least two miles in every direction.  I waved to the tailgaters and rowdy fans as if I were a one-woman promotional tour for Starlight Express.  Successfully dodging the mommy brigades and their diaper bags of doom, I made it to Town Center with all limbs intact.  After a lunch of Rocky Road ice cream, I picked up a few books , toilet paper, and a 2-liter Diet Coke, stuck them into my backpack and headed home. 

“Funny, I don’t remember having to blade up such a steep incline!” I thought to myself as I stood on wobbly ankles at the top of what looked like an Olympic Ski Jump. I could see my apartment at the bottom of the hill as if peering through the wrong end of a telescope.  “And when did those retaining walls get here?” Many of the yards had the four-foot tall stone walls for which New England is famous.  Other homes simply let their lawns gently slope to the sidewalk.  Both options thwarted my plan to use the grass as an emergency brake. 

I began my descent.  All went well until I hit a root sticking through a crack in the sidewalk.  I probably would’ve been able to regain my balance if it weren’t for the books and Diet Coke shifting around in the backpack.  My arms flailed in all directions but my feet kept moving forward.  Houses, trees, and cars passed by at supersonic speed.  All I could think of was, “Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall,” as if barreling down the sidewalk like a marionette on meth was a better alternative. 

During my rapid descent and my attempts to stay upright, the tips of my roller blades danced off the sidewalk in frantic pointe work, tap tap tap, but as I picked up momentum they became mini-jackhammers, taptaptaptaptap.  I was running on my toes trying to catch up to my dignity when I hit another root.  And. Went. Flying.  My feet left the sidewalk and curved into a grassy embankment.  “Whew!” I thought, “I’ll finally stop.” But, no.  I was going too fast.  I launched up the embankment as if propelled from a sling shot.  Up, up, up, I went!  Time stopped.  I was suspended in mid-air among the clouds.  Weightless.  I could touch the sun.  Oh, Icarus! 

I landed on my books and Diet Coke.  The backpack exploded and I was doused with caramelly, carbonated, high fructose corn syrup.  One of my roller blades came off.  It was going up as I was falling down.  I could see it reach its apex and pause for a moment, a serpent about to strike, before it started its rapid free fall toward my head.  I threw my hands up over my face and rolled.  Down the embankment.  Across the sidewalk.  To the curb.  Leaving Diet Coke and clumps of Charmin in my wake.

My loose skate followed me down the embankment but when it hit the sidewalk it rolled four more feet before coming to a stop.  I don’t know how long I sat at the curb staring dizzily at the cars as I gathered my breath and checked for broken bones (there were none).  I do know that with the hundreds of eyes staring at me from the road, none of those fuckers came to help.  No one asked how I was or if I was hurt.  I tried to give them the finger but my hands were so sore my fingers wouldn’t bend.  I’m sure those who bothered to look my way wondered why the girl with one skate was giving them the high-five.  I hope their team lost.  And got jock itch.  Fuckers.  Somehow, I retrieved my loose skate and, one skate off, one skate on, hobbled the remaining quarter mile of shame home where my landlord who was out raking the leaves saw me, dropped her rake, ran inside and returned with a towel, band aids, and two cocktail glasses full of Tennesse’s finest. We drank it with what was left of the Diet Coke.

I know my limits and no matter how fun it looks, The Central Park Skate Dancers will have to do without me.  But, since I already know I can fly, I signed up for a one day class at the New York Trapeze School.  So, who wants to hold my Jack and Coke?

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Never Been to Spain

Hello, Innernetz!  I guest posted at Kelley’s blog, Magneto Bold Too, a few days ago.  I’m cross-posting it here just in case you didn’t get a chance to pop over there and read it.

I went to see Wolverine earlier this week.  Did I replay the Hugh Jackman in his birthday suit scene over and over again in my dreams that night?  Oh, quit whining.  That’s not a spoiler, folks.  That’s incentive.  Now plop your $12.50 down and go get a gander at some man candy. 

Anyway, no, I did not dream of Hugh “Come-to-me-Baby” Jackman.  I dreamt that my mother was trying to get me to go to church.  But not just any church.  It was some country church with hard wooden pews and a preacher who looked like he just stepped off the set of The Scarlett Letter.  There was a fruit stand just down the street selling cherry pie and I could see it from my pew.  I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.  I don’t even like cherry pie all that much.

Anyway, I woke up craving pie and pissed off that I did not dream of Hugh “You Know You Want Me” Jackman.  But the universe was not finished fucking with me yet.  I packed up my bag o’ books and headed to Starbucks to study.  As some of you know, my Starbuck’s study days are often rather interesting.  I am a magnet for the flotsam and jetsam of humanity who want to critique my hair or otherwise flaunt their crazy.  This particular day was no different.

The coffee shop was relatively empty.  I set my laptop up in my usual spot, a tiny table that’s just large enough for my computer and a book.  About an hour later, I was thoroughly engrossed in my work when I heard someone say in a pissed off voice, “I said hello!” I looked up to find a woman standing beside my table with a Tupperware bin filled with a murky biohazard and, in her other hand, a newspaper.  “Um, hello?” I said, sure that she had mistaken me for someone else — like someone who was about to share my table when there were at least ten empty ones in the store.  At my acknowledgment, she beamed.  Her face broke into a smile and her hair, which radiated out from her head like braided spokes on a wagon wheel, practically shivered with delight, each braid giving the others enthusiastic high-fives.  My stomach dropped.  And then she dropped into the seat across from me, pushing my laptop across the table and placing her Tupperware Dumpster of Death and newspaper in the now-empty spot. 

Now, for the uninitiated, if you MUST share a table at a coffee shop, all that is required is a civil acknowledgment of the other person’s existence.  You do not need to engage in small talk, exchange phone numbers, or arrange for a house swap while one of you is in France.  No, just nod.  Smile.  And done.  Apparently, Wilma Wagon Wheel didn’t get the memo.  She plopped down and immediately started blathering, only pausing to inhale enough air to re-inflate. 

“Do you think we’re going to get some sun today?  I like to go barefoot when it’s sunny.  It makes my corns feel good.”

*deep breath*

“What kinda laxtop is that?  My brother has a laxtop but his looks better than that one!

*deep breath and a shaking of the braids over the sorry state of my “laxtop”*

“Did you see Medea Goes to Jail, Race to Witch Mountain, Mall Cop? ”

*deep breath*

The easiest thing would have been for me to move to another table, but once again I was cursed by my southern upbringing.  I didn’t want to hurt her feelings so I stayed put.  And, as she opened the Tupperware Dumpster and began gobbing its contents like a mouse trapped in a cheese wheel, I figured she’d either finish and leave soon or the hazmats she was eating would kill her.  I tried to focus on my work only giving her a nod and an “uh-huh” every now and then.  I figured she’d get the hint.  She didn’t.  Instead, she stopped mid-slurp and slammed the container down on the table slopping a few tentacles over the edge and soaking her newspaper with ooze.  “What are you looking at?!” she yelled.  Oh, crap.  What the hell is going on?  I looked up from my laptop to see that she was directing her ire toward a man at a table several feet away.  “What are you looking at?!” she yelled again.  In an indignant stage whisper, she turns to me and gestures, “That man is staring at us.”

And then I sealed my fate.  I answered her.  “He’s not looking at us,” I said.  He’s working.” With an emphasis on the “working.” That simple answer appeased her and now, having gotten my attention, her braids did a happy dance.  “I’m going to Hallelujah!” she said.  “Have you ever been to Hallelujah?” she asked.  Shitfire, I thought.  She’s going to whip out her Gideon Bible, or Watchtower, or copy of Dianetics.  My dream of my mom trying to get me to go to church became less of a dream and more like a premonition. 

“No, I’ve never been to Hallelujah.  I’ve never even heard of it,” I said.  She was flabbergasted.  Her eyes rounded into a Tex Avery cartoon look of surprise and her braids just about leapt off her head in shock.  “YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF HALLELUJAH?!” she shouted.  “Nope, sorry,” I said, shaking my head, “Where is it?” Clearly disgusted by my lack of world geography, she waved her hand in the general direction of the Starbucks entry and said, “You know, over there!” I just shrugged and gave her a weak smile and said, “Sorry, still don’t know where it is,” as I prayed to God and L. Ron Hubbard that she would not ask me to look it up on my laxtop.  But I didn’t need to look it up because she described it to me in great detail.  How she’d gone to Liberty Travel to book her ticket (I didn’t even know people used travel agencies anymore) and that she just wanted to get her ticket but the travel agent wouldn’t stop talking about transfers, fees, and other mundane things.  But she finally got her ticket.  Just that morning. But she wasn’t sure where she’d put it.  No problem, she’d go back and get another one if she couldn’t find it.

“Are you sure you’ve never been to Hallelujah?” she asked.  The look of pity on her face was genuine.  First, I had a second-rate laptop and now, she discovers, I have never been to Hallelujah.  Hell, I’ve never even heard of Hallelujah!  So, she described it to me. 

Hallelujah has water, and sand, and palm trees and — wait a minute, this is sounding awfully familiar.  “Do you mean Honolulu?” I asked.  “Where?” she asked?  “Honolulu,” I repeated. “It sounds like that’s what you’re describing.” “Honolulu?  I’ve never heard of such a place!  Honolulu?” she said as she and her braids start laughing at my stupidity.  “Honolulu.  Hmph!” Now she thinks I am completely off my rocker.  “It’s just that I’ve never heard of Hallelujah and what you are describing sounds a lot like Honolulu.” I must have offended her with my suggestion because she placed the lid on her Tupperware Dumpster with a brusque snap! and gathered up her newspaper, soggy though it was with offal.  She and her braids turned their back on me and began to walk away from the table.  “What do you know,” she said, “you’ve never even heard of Hallelujah!”

She stomped away.  Three feet away.  And plopped herself down at the table of the man she’d yelled at just moments before.  I sighed with relief, went back to my reading, and pitied the poor man as, five minutes later, I heard her exclaim, “YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF HALLELUJAH?!”

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Best Idea Ever!

Three months ago, our Apartment Manager showed up at our door with a big blue tarp and a large skein of rope.  I figured one of two things, either the landlord had found a tenant who could pay a lot more in rent than I, so I was on my way to the bottom of the Hudson River, or the landlord had found a tenant who could pay a lot more in rent than I, so I was on my way to the bottom of the East River.  Fortunately, neither of those possibilities occurred, but only because, thank god, I live in an overpriced walk-up with no dishwasher, bad electricity, and obnoxious neighbors.

Anyway, Apartment Manager was finally getting around to fixing the wading pool that covers the rooftop deck of the unit below mine.  It’s not a real wading pool.  It’s more like a catch basin.  Lacking any apparatus to drain water away from the enclosed deck, the lightest rain, morning dew, or spitting contest off my terrace turns the deck into an amusement park wave pool for local pigeons and the occasional vacationing sewer rodent looking for some fun and sun far from the din of the subterranean rat race (what happens on the roof deck, stays on the roof deck).  And of course, what would standing water be without mosquitoes?  We have those in proboscis abundance.  (Get it?  Proboscis = prodigious?  Dingo even makes entomology funny!) Let’s just say that, if you’re a New York mosquito in the know, Casa Dingo is the happening place to stop by for a drink and a bite.

After months of complaints, Apartment Manager finally came to solve the problem.  His solution consisted solely of laying a tarp across the deck.  That’s it.  No renovation, no reconstruction, just a big, blue tarp.  At first, I thought he might be an idiot.  But, as the day wore on, all doubts faded.  If he wasn’t hooting or humming the Vonage Woo-Hoo song, he was whistling the Vonage Woo-Hoo song.  All.  Morning.  Long.  By mid-afternoon, I was humming the Woo-Hoo song as well, but instead of cheap long distance, I was envisioning rolling his ass up in a big blue tarp before using a Hattori Hanzo katana to make my own Kill Bill sushi. Woo-Hoo, Woo-Hoo-Hoo!

I was sitting at my desk Googling tutorials on swordsmanship and wondering why it takes all day to place a tarp over a roof when suddenly, in the middle of the day, outside of the apartment went dark.  UFO hovering over the city dark.  Godzilla-like monster outside the windows dark.  Or perhaps, most frightening of all, ectoplasm-powered giant marshmallow man walking through midtown dark.  I knew this would happen one day.  I opened the terrace door — graham crackers and Hershey bars in hand — to find a waving, trembling wall of blue.  I should have guessed.  Tsunami.

But, I didn’t drown.  The wall just stayed there, wobbling at me.  Blue wobble wobble.  It was the freakin’ tarp.

“What’s going on?” I shouted as I batted my way through yards of blue nylon trying to find an opening through which I could reach Apartment Manager’s neck.  “This is a great idea!” he shouted back with glee, rubbing his hands together as if he’d just discovered how to make explosives with two three-ounce bottles of shampoo rather than one six-ounce bottle of shampoo.  Apparently, all the whistling and singing deprived Apartment Manager’s brain of much needed oxygen.  I can think of no other reason why he decided to secure the tarp to the top of my apartment, sloping the material over the terrace to the far side of the rooftop deck.  The back of the apartment looked like an isolation tent from a horror movie except there were no cute, superviolent monkeys with cute, superviolent viruses running around.  I did a double-take.  Nope, no monkeys.  Just one whistling ass.

“You’re blocking off all of our light!” I said.  Apartment Manager was convinced that it would be a short-lived inconvenience. He promised that a more permanent and probably far less convenient solution would be in place in less than a week.  I wanted to ask him if a “more permanent solution” meant actually fixing the roof so it didn’t hold water like a woman eating two pounds of taffy a week before her period.  But I didn’t.  Instead, I went back into the apartment to fume.  The fuming only lasted a few minutes.  Not because I took the high road and decided to just deal with living in a cloudless sky for the next week, but because my fuming was interrupted by phhhrrrt!  Phhhrrrt!  Phhhrrrt! 

I tried to ignore the sound but my curiosity got the best of me.  I went back out onto the terrace to find that Apartment Manager didn’t have enough rope to tie down the tarp.  So he decided to use duct tape.  Yep, Apartment Manager was MacGyvering the tarp to a brick apartment building.  It was his very own Blue Badge of Stupid.  “This is my best idea ever!” he kept shouting.  Woo-hoo!  Phhhrrrt!  Woo-hoo-hoo!  Phhhrrt! Best!  phhrrrt!  Idea!  phhrrrt!  Ever!  phhhrrrt!

Later that evening, a passing thunderstorm made mincemeat of the Blue Badge of Stupid.  It lay sad and alone for two months on the roof deck below forming a delightful mosquito duplex.  I watched passively for the first month, then I ordered Sea Monkeys.  I hoped to have a colony of cute, superviolent Sea Monkeys with cute, superviolent viruses waiting for Apartment Manager when he finally returned.  Alas, that plan was thwarted.  Last week Apartment Manager came to fix the roof deck as well as the roof on the top of our building.  I thought that would be the end of the repair drama, but I think the real drama is about to begin.  Now there is a swath of blue tarp draped over the top of our building.  Realizing that duct tape was not the best way to secure a big, blue tarp to brick, Apartment Manager decided to keep the tarp from flying off the top of the building by securing it with bricks wrapped with rope and draped over the edge of the roof like piñatas for kids you just don’t friggin’ like.  Or maybe the bricks just say, “Best!  Idea!  Ever!”

It’s supposed to storm tonight.  The wind has already picked up and the bricks swing precariously closer and closer to our living room window.  All I can say is that I’m going to bed tonight dreaming of all the Sea Monkeys I could buy with the settlement money.

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