"Friday's Child" Can Suck My Sweaty Ass [Where the Hell Was I?]

August 20, 2004

"Friday's Child" Can Suck My Sweaty Ass

Aw, for the love of poop. What a fricking night.

Here's a taste of my last three hours in a nutshell.

(And look -- I'm not even gonna make a rude joke about you 'tasting my nutshell'. See? I'm just too pooped. That's the kind of night it's been.)

So, first, I left work around nine pm. Nine. On a Friday. I was working on this big project that had to go out the door today, and it did. At five. And then, I spent the next four hours finding things wrong with it, and fixing the damned things. And that took me up to nine o'clock.

Then, I hopped in the car to come home. I had two things in mind -- run an errand for my wife at the local computer store, and maybe pick up some food on the way home.

First, the errand. I got to the store at ten after nine. They closed at nine. Strike one.

Then, I left the store going towards home, so I couldn't double back to the sandwich shop I was thinking of for food. Strike two.

But that's okay, I told myself -- this morning, I saw leftovers in the fridge. I could scoot home and heat those up. No problem.

So, obviously, as I turned onto our street, I noticed how dark the neighborhood looked. Dark, and quiet. A mid-evening storm had knocked out power for blocks around. We were just on the edge of the outage -- I could look across the street and see lights on -- but that wasn't much comfort, with chilly, congealed leftovers taunting me from the fridge. Strike fucking three.

Now, if that were all there were to it, that would be fine. A little nerve-wracking, maybe -- almost everything I like to do seems to involve electricity in one way or another. So after lighting a couple of candles and playing 'Barko Polo' to find the damned dog, I was pretty much out of options for entertainment. Ten minutes after getting home, I ended up on the porch with the dog, twiddling my thumbs.

(Mainly just to annoy the dog. She's got 'thumb envy', you know. Sometimes, I tie and re-tie my shoes in front of her, just to piss her off. That'll teach the bitch to sleep on the couch when she thinks I'm not looking.)

So, after another twenty minutes or so, my wife got home. By that time, it was fricking sweltering. Hot, humid, and sticky -- and not in a 'Penthouse Letters' kind of way, either. Just nasty. And no electricity means no fans, no A/C, no nothing. Just stick.

It was so hot, in fact, that we just collapsed in the hallway, lying there with the dog, trying to stay low and keep cool. And failing, rather miserably. Before long, a big honking pool of sweat oozed out of us and onto the floor. Much more, and we could have done the backstroke to the kitchen.

And it was just about that time that the dog decided to trot out to her kennel in the back yard. Whether to find a cool breeze or drop a few steamers, I don't know. All I can say for sure is that after about thirty seconds, she let out a quick 'woof!', and came running and gagging back inside, down the hallway, and into the living room.

The wife and I decided we might want to investigate. We're curious that way.

We were still ten feet from the dog when we smelled the skunk. And we knew just what had happened -- we've been down this road before. And trust me, people, this is not ground that you want to cover. Much less twice.

And even less during a blackout.

So, you can imagine the pandemonium that ensued as we tried to find the dog by candlelight, shoo her outside into the no-light, and hose her down as best we could. Then there was the trick of finding the shampoo, and fumbling around for towels, and trying to determine just exactly what the hell she'd rubbed the funk juice onto in the living room before we got to her. All in the dark, and with empty stomachs, three hours after dinnertime, in ass-sweating swampy heat.

Crispy-fried Christ on a cracker, people, that was no fun. If I weren't still a little hungover from last night -- oh yeah, did I mention that part? -- I'd have slugged some tequila in the middle of it all, just to take the edge off.

Of course, now that you're reading this, you know that things have settled down a bit. The power finally came back on. And we had some food, and now the smell -- both in the living room and near the dog -- is actually marginally tolerable. And the fans are keeping it cooler.

Still, this is not the way I wanted to spend my Friday night. Or any Friday night, for that matter. Actually, you can pretty much shove the whole damned day. Shuffle the deck, and deal me a new one, dammit. I want a recount.

Okay. Enough bitching for one day. I need sleep, and you people don't want to hear any more of this crap. Maybe if I'd stepped up to the plate with the 'tasting my nutshell' joke, but no. If I've got nothing better than this to scribble about, then we're both better off just calling it a night. I just hope Saturday isn't as much 'fun' as today was. I'm not sure I can take much more of this. Toodles.