So the other day BigHugs, who hasn’t been feeling very well this week, comes up to me and says, “I have a hot.”  Goose said, “I think she means she has a cold.”  I think she was feeling hot and was just trying to avoid saying the other word, considering what happened the last time she tried to have a serious conversation about her health issues with her mother.

For some reason, this joke just never gets old for me.  Last month one of Mr. T’s birthday gifts included this:

Last week, DynaGirl got Singstar for her birthday.  It’s a karaoke game for Playstation.  They have several versions, including 80’s, 90’s, rock, pop and amped.  I picked up amped.  How could I not?  It has “Don’t Fear the Reaper” on it.   DynaGirl and Mr. T tried it out in duet mode, and did a pretty good job.  But, of course, the whole time I kept thinking, “I need more cowbell.”  I decided right then and there, this family must acquire a cowbell.

I first checked with my local music store, but all of their cowbells are designed to be mounted with a drum set.  So I checked online.  My first stop was Amazon.  They seem to have everything, plus I like reading the customer reviews.  I find them very helpful.  Well, there are plenty of useless reviews like “this sucked” or “I don’t actually have this, but it looks awesome”, but occasionally you find someone who obviously knows what they’re talking about and offers some helpful insights.

Like this guy in his review of the Basic Beat Black Cowbell.  We’ll call him J from Texas.

Looking back on my long musical career, I have played many instruments, but I keep coming back to my first love… the cowbell. Oh sure, I’ve tried them all - from triangle to wood block but I have never felt so in tune with any other instrument than the Cowbell.

I have many different cowbells in my collection. Most of these are for a particular mood only. If I am feeling somewhat polka, I always reach for my signature “Shmenge Brothers #6″ with the zebrawood handle… for rock it is my “Gussmann Blue-Steel Screamer”… jazz see’s me grab my “Trini Lopez Limmited Addition Melody Master” knock-off.

But here is the finest single cowbell I have ever played. It has such a full & pleasant sound it seems to go with any type of music I play. My group was shocked when I showed up to our last gig and I only brought this little beauty with me. They protested at first and even threatened not to do the show, but their fears quickly disovled when I brought the house down with our first song of the night.

I can only close with this… Buy this Cowbell and see if I am not right! This thing is a Godsend for any serious cowbeller out there. You will reach new areas of playing that you did not even think were possible.

And as if J’s glowing review wasn’t enough to sell me on it, here’s W from Seoul, Korea.

Fellas, I’m tellin’ ya…you’re gonna want more cowbell. I got a fever and the only prescription is more Basic Beat Black Cowbell!

I think I’ve found my cowbell, people.

This is my child who refuses to sleep in her own bed.

It would be wrong to like tuck her into the table every night, right?

I had this whole special “Wacky Search Terms Wednesday with a Twist” thing planned, but alas, all plans are thwarted!  My search terms list is missing!  Lost!  Lost, I tell you!  Lost!!!  I keep a little piece of paper by my computer to write down all of my very best ones.  Yes, my stats tracker keeps records of them, but only the top whatever number for any given period of time, and it sorts them by popularity, and of course the very best ones are not oft repeated, so while I managed to find a few, some of my very most favoritest freakiest ones are just gone, and I’ve tried to reconstruct them from memory, but I’m all befuddled by the loss of my actual list and can’t think clearly plus I’m all about truth and accuracy here at By the lbs and cannot in good conscience just throw something together that may or may not have been the actual wording—there is no “gist of it” with Wacky Search Terms Wednesday!!!  No gist!  No fabricating!  Just exactness!  And truth!  Sigh.  Sniffle.  Sniffle.

Don’t worry, I’ve already stopped looking for the list.  It’s hopeless.  After an exhaustive search of the computer desk and floor and trash and paper shredder and under the computer and the keyboard and the printer and on the refrigerator (because sometimes I stick little important papery things on the little clothespinny magnets on there), I have concluded that it’s just gone.  Gone daddy gone. 

Really, I’m OK.  I’m already coming to grips with it.  I’ve even started a new list to convince myself I’ve moved on.  I’m fine.  Totally, utterly and completely OK.  Peachy.  Right as rain.  No residual anxiety or anger or grief.  Just me here.  Typing.  With a smile.  See, I’m smiling.  Totally smiling.  And it’s not even a freakish fake smile with dead, empty eyes.  Just happiness and sunshine and rainbows and pink flying unicorns…with little pieces of paper… with my wacky search terms…impaled. on. their. horns. 

Oh woe!  Woe is me!

So this morning I get out my trusty dusty spiral notebook to write a quick note to DynaGirl’s teacher, giving her an update on DG’s arm and letting her know we forgot to get DG’s homework when we left early yesterday for the appointment with the doctor.  I’m just getting started when DynaGirl says, “You’re writing another note?”

Me:  What do you mean?

DG:  Didn’t you just write her a note last week?

Me:  Yeah, but that was to let her know when I could come in this week to work in the classroom.

DG:  It just seems like you write a lot of notes.

Me:  Is that bad?

DG:  No, as long as people don’t start thinking you’re weird with all the notes.  Or that I’m weird.

Me:  Well, I was just letting her know that you need to sit out of PE for two more weeks and that we forgot to get your homework yesterday.  Is that OK?

DG:  Yeah, that’s OK.  I’m just sayin’.

She’s right, you know.  I write a lot of notes.  I like to communicate with my children’s teachers.  Is that so wrong?   But I know how she feels.  My mom was also a note writer.  But not just your run-of-the-mill-please-excuse-bythelbs-from-class-today kind of notes.  She wrote novellas.  Whether it be an early dismissal from class or an excuse for missing a day or a question about whatever, she was always very thorough.  One time in 5th grade, I did not complete a report on time.  I think we had a lot of family stuff going on.  My brother was sick and going back and forth to the hospital for treatments and my mom just didn’t have time to help me with the report.  She wrote a three page letter, front and back, to Mr. Caperton, explaining why I did not have the assignment and asking if I could have more time to complete it.  He came up to me during class.  In one hand he held the letter, the other he placed on my shoulder.  He looked at me, with what I thought was a glistening of a tear in the corner of his eye, and said in a tender voice, “Of course you can have more time.  Of course.  You turn it in whenever you’re ready.”  I remember feeling embarrassed, wondering what my mom had written in that note.  Whatever it was, it worked.  Like a charm. 

Last week, Mr. T had an assignment due that he didn’t get in on time.  Apparently, it was supposed to be the final draft of a paper they had written the previous week and then given to another student in the class for a peer review.  The kid Mr. T had given his paper to, didn’t give it back to him until the morning of the day it was due.  When Mr. T explained this to his teacher, his teacher gave him an extra day to complete the final draft.  Well, that night when Mr. T went to type up his final draft, he couldn’t find the rough draft.  He had accidentally turned it in with some other papers.  I asked him to explain this to his teacher the next day and see if he could have one more day to finish the assignment.  The next two days he had a sub, and I was worried that now that we were going into the weekend, his teacher would not be so understanding about an assignment being five days late.  So I sent him an e-mail explaining the situation.  I even threw in that I understood that now that the assignment would be so late, he might incur point deductions but I still felt strongly that Mr. T needed to finish the assignment.  I heard back from the teacher who said he would allow Mr. T to finish the assignment and that he would not be penalized.  He even e-mailed me again after class, letting me know that Mr. T now had the rough draft in his hands. 

At first I was a little hesitant to get involved.  I was worried about coming off as one of those hovering mothers that has to have her hand in everything her child is doing or feels the need to hold her child’s hand through everything he does.  I even let Mr. T read the e-mail before I sent it to make sure I didn’t say anything that he would find embarrassing.  Mr. T  was OK with it, and the teacher even thanked me for letting him know the situation.  I think he was just grateful to have a parent express some kind of interest in her child’s education.

So maybe my kids will spend the next 40 years mocking me for my penchant for note-writing, but I hope, at least someday, they’ll come to the same understanding that I eventually did with my own mother.  She cared.

An award!  From Cheryl!  Behold the oddness!

This blog invests and believes, the proximity. [meaning, that blogging makes us 'close' -being close through proxy]. They all are charmed with the blogs, where in the majority of its aims are to show the marvels and to do friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize, and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut, or that they propagate? Then let’s try to give more attention to them! So with this prize we must deliver it to 8 bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this text.

I know, this is so last week, but with DynaGirl’s birthday and the homecoming of the Chuck, I had already posted two days ahead, and when you already have posts just sitting there in the queue all ready to post, you don’t just jump in there and post again.  Timeliness be darned!

I realized just this morning that this is a chain award, and I’m not usually a chain person, but I am always loathe to cut the bows of proximity to our friendship so I am extending this award to:

Susan M, kamillivanilli, Boquinha, Patience and Jody.

Yes, I know that’s only five, but with the rounds this award has been making, I’m running out of bows of friendship.  I only know so many people, people.  Not to say that these five fine bloggers are awardees by default or that I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel in any way.  There is no barrel bottom here!  No sir!

And, my friends, please do not in any way feel obligated to continue the chain.  I promise not to come to your blog and check to see if you have posted about it or anything.  Well, I suppose since I read all of your blogs I will know if you have posted about it, but I will be in no way offended should you choose to revel in the glory of this award privately.

Ooh, but you could do this 7 random things about me meme that goes with it!

1.  I think I may have a minor apple allergy.  Whenever I eat more than a couple of apple slices my face gets all hot and flush. 

2.  When I take dinner to someone (like when they have a new baby or an illness) I always make the same thing.  Creamy chicken enchiladas.  Always.  And if I really like them, they get guacamole, too.

3.  The word “supple” really creeps me out.  There are many other words that would also go in this category, but that’s the first one to come to mind.

4.  I am kind of afraid of raisins.  *shudder*

5.  As a youth, I was known to do a killer Fat Albert impression.  My younger sister could do a similar voice, but it wasn’t quite the same so we called it her Skinny Albert.  Or maybe it was just because she was skinny.

6.  I haven’t been to a doctor for anything besides birthing babies in almost 14 years.

7.  I’ve composed dozens of Oscar acceptance speeches in my head.  They are always witty and funny, touching and relevant, and when I’m done delivering them, Meryl Streep gives me a standing O and I get a meaningful head nod from Jack Nicholson.

What earworms do you have wiggling around in your head?  What’s been the most annoying one you’ve ever had?

Into the Ocean by Blue October—What do you think?

I’m just a normal boy
That sank when I fell overboard
My ship would leave the country
But I’d rather swim ashore

Without a life vest I’d be stuck again
Wish I was much more masculine
Maybe then I could learn to swim
Like ‘fourteen miles away’

Now floating up and down
I spin, colliding into sound
Like whales beneath me diving down
I’m sinking to the bottom of my
Everything that freaks me out
The lighthouse beam has just run out
I’m cold as cold as cold can be
be

I want to swim away but don’t know how
Sometimes it feels just like I’m falling in the ocean
Let the waves up take me down
Let the hurricane set in motion… yeah
Let the rain of what I feel right now…come down
Let the rain come down

Where is the coastguard
I keep looking each direction
For a spotlight, give me something
I need something for protection
Maybe flotsam junk will do just fine
the jetsam sunk, I’m left behind
I’m treading for my life believe me
(How can I keep up this breathing)

Not knowing how to think
I scream aloud, begin to sink
My legs and arms are broken down
With envy for the solid ground
I’m reaching for the life within me
How can one man stop his ending
I thought of just your face
Relaxed, and floated into space

I want to swim away but don’t know how
Sometimes it feels just like I’m falling in the ocean
Let the waves up take me down
Let the hurricane set in motion… yeah
Let the rain of what I feel right now…come down
Let the rain come down

Now waking to the sun
I calculate what I had done
Like jumping from the bow (yeah)
Just to prove I knew how (yeah)
It’s midnight’s late reminder of
The loss of her, the one I love
My will to quickly end it all
Set front row in my need to fall

Into the ocean, end it all
Into the ocean, end it all
Into the ocean, end it all
into the ocean…end it all

[Zayra]
Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)
Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)
Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)

I want to swim away but don’t know how
Sometimes it feels just like I’m falling in the ocean
Let the waves up take me down
Let the hurricane set in motion (yeah)
Let the rain of what I feel right now…come down
Let the rain come down

Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)
In to space
I thought of just your face

Are there any sad songs that cheer you up?  Hmm…I think I’m hearing a whispering of Sir EJ somewhere in the back of my mind.

DynaGirl is nine today.  And with every birthday of every child of every year, I find myself wondering where the time has gone.  The seems like just yesterdays are always on the tip of my tongue, yet when I think about all that has happened, all that we’ve been through, and how much she has grown, I realize that of course this much time has passed.

At 6 pounds 14 ounces, she was my smallest little bundle of joy.  Over the past almost decade, she has become my not so little bundle of joy and also my bundle of contradictions.  She is my silliest and most serious.  My toughest and most fragile.  My first to forgive and last to forget.  My most popular and most lonely.  My most affectionate and most distant.  My happiest and most melancholy.

She sometimes laments being the outsider among her sisters—the only brown-eyed brunette in a family of blue-eyed blonde women.  I tell her I love that she is different because she brings me the best of both worlds.  She sometimes wishes she wasn’t the oldest sister with all of the extra responsibilities and expectations.  I tell her that being my first daughter will always make her extra special.  She sometimes complains that I am quicker to praise her younger, more emotionally needy sister.  I tell her that nothing and no one brings me greater joy than her.  And it’s true.  I hope deep down (or not so very deep down) she believes it or that at least someday she will.

Happy birthday, DynaGirl!  I love you!

DynaGirl’s birthday is tomorrow.  I had asked her to make me a wish list, so I would have some idea of what she might like.  Here’s what she gave me.

DynaGirl’s Birthay (her typo, not mine) List!

Webkinz 1. Alligator  2. Sheep  3. Deer  4. Dolphin  5. Frog  6. Chipmunk  7. Simeese cat  8. Chicken  9. Rottwiler  10. Google  12. Manity  11. Ali Cat  13. Girl lion  14. Carmel lion  15. Leopard (Please, don’t get me all the webkinz on my list)

Mini white Board

original Checkers

live Puppy

Half couch

$50.07¢

50 dollars

Sewing Machine (Sewing Lessonds)

Picture frames

pens

two Mirrors

Flamingo Posters

Rock BAND (then there’s a little picture of a microphone, drums, and two guitars)

More sticy Tac

Scarfs

Sticky notes

very BIG Boxes

I loved that she felt the need to request that I not buy every Webkinz on her list.  As if.  I did buy her one of those—the one that Goose begged me not to buy because she wants the same one.  My girls have this perpetual “copying” feud going on where if someone wants the same thing as the other, the other just assumes the someone only wants it because the other wants it, and then if the someone gets it then the other no longer wants it because the someone has it, and even though the other still secretly really, really wants it and will remind the someone that the someone is just a big fat copycat jerk who deprived the other of the other’s heart’s desire, the other will not allow the other’s own anger and grief over the situation to be appeased by the receiving of the same thing because the someone already has it, so the thing is just dead to the other now.

I also asked her to clarify the very BIG boxes request.  She said, “Like cardboard boxes.  Really BIG boxes.”

My children know that they will never get everything on their lists.  Partly because I make that verbally clear every time they hand me a list, and partly from past experience of never having it happen before.  Even the years when they’ve given me a very short and modest list that I could easily purchase everything and still stay within the budget, I still make it a point to not get everything on the list.  I just don’t want to set that kind of precedent.  Plus, I like them to be surprised.  The only thing that is more fun than providing them with their requested hearts’ desires is surprising them with their previously unrealized hearts’ desires.  Oh, and also the idea that their wish lists are just them writing my shopping lists for me really torques me off. 

I know we hear a lot of talk about the sense of entitlement kids seem to have these days, but it’s true.  Last year, for my neighbor’s daughter’s (one of DynaGirl’s BFFs) birthday party, my neighbor hired a limo to take everyone to Build-a-Bear and then out to lunch at a trendy (read non-cheap) restaurant.  That was in addition to all of the birthday gifts she was already receiving.  OK, that’s her perogative as a parent.  But I’ve had a really hard time holding my tongue when my neighbor complains about her daughter always asking and whining for things and complaining about the things she does get.  Some of these behaviors are learned.  We play a part in setting our children’s expectations.  (I should add that my neighbor is a wonderful parent in many, many respects.  Probably more wonderful than me in many ways.  She just has this tendency at times to try to make her kids happy by giving them everything they want.)

My kids do not want for much, but I’m trying really hard to teach them gratitude, and that I don’t owe them anything more than food, clothing, shelter and all of my love.  What more should they ask for, right?

A meme!  The quintessential slacker post (except for the whole 50 questions part—50?!).  This comes by way of Susan.

1.  Do you like blue cheese?  I avoid sad foods as a general rule.  You are what you eat.

2.  Have you ever smoked a cigarette?  Not unless you count the time when I was 5 and I picked up an old butt (cigarette butt) out of the gutter and pretended to smoke it.  I didn’t inhale, though.

3.  Do you own a gun?  I’ve got two glue guns stashed in my laundry room right now.  Just in case…

4.  What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic?  What kind of restaurant serves flavorless drinks?  And what chumps are actually paying for these?  Add your own flavor—humph—I’ll tell you somethin’.

5.  Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?  Only if they’re womanly.  I’m very shy.

6.  What do you think of hot dogs?  Ditto Susan.  Simultaneously disgusting and delicious.

7.  Your favorite Christmas song?  Amy Grant’s Breath of Heaven.  It’s real perdy.

8.  What do you prefer to drink in the morning?  Depends on what I’m eating.

9.  Can you do push-ups?  Plural?  All of my push-ups come in pairs.

10.  What is your favorite movie?  I don’t really have one, but if you put a gun to my head I would probably say Pride & Prejudice.  I can watch it over and over.  My most oft quoted movies, however, are Napoleon Dynamite, A Christmas Story, Princess Bride and Better Off Dead.

11.  What is your favorite piece of jewelry?  My wedding ring.  (One of my favorite memories of my grandmother is riding in the car with her when she realized she’d forgotten to put on her clip-on earrings and her saying, “Oh, I just feel naked without my jewel-ry!)

12.  Favorite hobby?  Reading, writing, couch-potatoing

13.  Do you work with people who idolize you?  Define work.

14.  Do you have ADD?  I made it all the way to question 14, didn’t I?

15.  What’s one trait you hate about yourself?  Slackery

16.  What’s your middle name?  the

17.  Name three thoughts at this moment.

Quick—think of something interesting/amusing.  I’ve got nothing.

I hate it when if feels like there’s something in my nose.

There is something in my nose.  Did I just walk the girls to school like that?  Did anyone notice?

18.  Name 3 things you bought yesterday.  My child’s love with a chocolate chip cookie.  That is all.

19.  Current worry right now?  My sink is full of dishes again.

21.  Current hate right now?  dirty dishes

22.  Favorite place to be?  At home, somewhere out of view of my kitchen sink.

23.  How did you bring in the New Year?  Watching my son blow up like a balloon after eating a pistachio.

24.  Where would you like to go?  Italy, England, Hogwarts (the real Hogwarts, but not the dungeon—it scares me)

25.  Name three people who will complete this.  Whichever (whatever? whoever? whomever?) slackers are in need of a post.

26.  Whose answer do you want to read the most?  Madhousewife

27.  What color shirt are you wearing?  brown

28.  Do you like sleeping on satin sheets?  What kind of hussy do you take me for?

29.  Can you whistle?  Melodically?  Yes.  Two fingered-ly?  No.

30.  Favorite color?  Green.  Like this:

  Mmmmm…guacamole…oh hoho ho…

31.  Would you be a pirate?  Only if I could have the wise-cracking parrot.  Actually, I’d rather be the wise-cracking parrot.

32.  What songs do you sing in the shower?  Most recently, Ghetto Supastar.  I heard it on the radio yesterday, and it’s stuck in my brain.  Quick, somebody sing something else.

33.  Favorite girl’s name?  I just like to call everyone dude.

34.  Favorite boy’s name?  See #33.

35.  What’s in your pocket right now?  loose threads and my fingers

36.  Last thing (person) that made you laugh.  BigHugs saying, “Mom, I want to be a piggy for Halloween, but I don’t want to get all muddy.”

37.  Best bed sheets as a child?  rubber

38.  Worst injury you’ve ever had?  I tore my achilles tendon playing soccer in the 6th grade.  It still gives out if I try to run more than a couple of miles (and by still, I mean the last time I tried, which was like 15 years ago).

39.  What is your favorite snack?  cheetos—pure, delicious evil

40.  Favorite thing to do on Sundays?  watch my kids draw

41.  Who is your loudest friend?  My oldest sister.  Right, Mad?  (Mad’s not the oldest.)

42.  How many dogs do you have?  I’m not really a dog person.  Or a drool person.  Or a shedding person.  Or a smelly person.  Or a pooper scooper person.  (I’m not really a pet person at all.)

43.  Does someone have a crush on you?  yes

45.  What is your favorite book?  Pride & Prejudice

46.  What is your favorite candy?  Junior Mints.  Who’s going to turn down a Junior Mint?  It’s chocolate, it’s peppermint, it’s delicious!  It’s very refreshing!

47.  What is your favorite sports team?  Eh?

48.  What song do you want played at your funeral?  I don’t actually plan on dying, but this one is very sweet and peaceful and hopeful.  I’d want them to play it from me to my kids.

49.  What were you doing at 12 am last night?  Watching Silar cut somebody’s brain open, and wondering what the heck was wrong with me that I wasn’t already in bed.

50.  What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up this morning?  Why?  (Not why on the question, just why.)

Last week my phone kept ringing once.  One ring and then nothing.  A few minutes later, one ring and nothing.  Nothing would even pop up on my caller ID.  I picked up the phone and heard crazy-crackling static and no dial tone.  Hmm.  I went through the house, making sure every phone was properly hung up and checked again.  CRAZY static.  And crackling.  No creepy voice informing me they were calling from inside my house.  And no dial tone.  I tried dialing my home phone with my cell phone.  Busy signal.  Seems like the phone would be off the hook, right?  So I checked again.  Everything was properly plugged in and hung up and yet the static remained and the dial tone stayed away.  Darn it all, my phone line was broke!

My next step was to consult my local phone company’s online support center.  The troubleshooting section took me through a series of steps to try and diagnose the source of the problem.  It said I needed to determine if it was a problem with the inside or outside wiring. To do that, I had to go outside, open the phone box thingy and flip open the jack doo-hickey and plug in a phone to see if it functioned properly.  If it didn’t work then it was a problem with the outside wiring and the phone company would fix it at their own cost, and if it did then it was a problem with the inside wiring and I’d have to foot the bill.  I’ll give you five guesses which one it was, and the first one doesn’t count (seeing how there’s only two possible answers, if you need the last three guesses there’s something wrong with you).

I called Chuck, who’s been out of town (of course), to see how I should proceed, and we decided I really had no choice but to suck it up and schedule the service call.  You know what I found most upsetting about this whole thing?  Was it the fact that my phone line was broken and I was without my land line?  No.  Or the fact that I’d be stuck with no doubt a hefty bill for my troubles?  No.  It was the fact that my house was a mess and I had every intention of being a total slacker and completely ignoring it, but now I had the telephone repair guy coming and I would have to clean my house.  I was actually near tears at the thought.  I even briefly considered waiting to schedule the appointment for a day when my house already happened to be clean, but having no earthly idea of when that might actually happen I thought better of it.  I kind of needed the phone.  So I scheduled the appointment and cleaned my house and the guy came out and figured out the problem and now my phone works and my house is presentable for all types of visitors, expected or not.  But will I have any?  Of course not.  Because the house is already clean.  It’s like an unwritten law of the universe.

For the past couple of months, I’ve actually been thinking about this quite a bit.  One night I was sitting on my bed reading when I heard this pop, pop, pop noise that sounded kind of gunfire-ish.  I looked out the window, but as far as I could tell, nothing was amiss.  But it got me thinking, what if it had been gunfire?  What if that pop, pop, pop had pop, pop, popped right through my window and struck me?  Chuck had been out of town then, too, so there would have been no one to drive me to the hospital.  I’d have to call 911.  And depending on the severity of the wound, I might have to wait for them in my bedroom.  My bedroom which was covered bed to floor with laundry in various states of cleanliness.  Would they look around my room in disgust and say, “Pack it up, boys.  This woman does not deserve our help.” and I’d bleed out between the whites and colors?  I’ve never tested the response time of my local emergency personnel.  Would I be able to fold and put away the clean laundry and throw the dirty laundry in the wash before they arrived?  Or before I passed out from the blood loss?  Maybe I could grab a towel from the bathroom and somehow secure it to the wound, so that I could go downstairs to wait for them there?  But with a gunshot wound there would most likely be a mandatory investigation, which would no doubt necessitate the inspection of the scene of the crime, which would mean they would still have to go up to my bedroom, discover that I was indeed a total slob, close the case and move onto solving crimes with victims more deserving of their time and resources.

I concluded that there was just no way I could allow myself to be seriously injured in the squalor of my bedroom.  But what about a minor injury?  After all, that pop, pop, pop noise wasn’t very loud so it couldn’t have come from a high caliber weapon.  More likely it was a BB gun or something.  Getting shot with a BB gun is really no big deal, right?  Probably very little blood, too.  In that case, I could just drive myself to the hospital, tell them I’d been shot in a drive-by or something, and avoid the whole ugly crime scene.  Although, once they really started questioning me they would likely find the holes in my story and trick me into confessing that I had, indeed, been shot in my bedroom and then they’d visit the crime scene and I’d be back to square one. 

I also started to worry about those little BB’s.  What if one got in my bloodstream and traveled to my heart or lungs?  Can you get a pulminary embolism from a BB?  I just wasn’t sure.  It had been a long time since I’d seen ER, and I only watch Grey’s Anatomy for the witty banter.  That could be serious, right?  Life threatening even.  I couldn’t risk this day dreamed scenario.  I decided right then and there that I must never be shot in my bedroom while reading a book.  And the only way to ensure that would never ever happen would be to keep my room neat and tidy at all times.  Because obviously there would be no need for anyone to be there if it was clean.  No one ever just drops in when your house happens to be clean.  Unwritten law.

So you know the old joke about moms asking if you’re wearing clean underwear before you go out, and it’s supposed to be so just in case you’re in a car accident you won’t be embarrassed to have the medical personnel discover your dirty drawers?  Well, that’s not really why moms say that.  They say that because clean underwear is like a talisman of protection.  Cleanliness is actually the only 100% effective prophylactic against bodily harm or other such calamities.  Of course, there is the flipside to these laws of the universe. I’d hazard a guess that an immaculate home is just asking for Hurricane Huey, and clean underwear likely drastically reduces the chances you’ll get lucky.  Plan accordingly.