The Diaries of a Fat Chick

In September of 2005, Ben and I were at the SPCA when a couple brought in two 3 week old orphaned kittens. Before Ben could blink I had planted myself firmly at the counter and volunteered to foster them until they were ready to be adopted out. We brought the little ones home (one boy and one girl) and began the process of bottle feeding them. I named them Dennis and Margaret and for the first couple of days they did well.

By the third morning however, Margaret was very sick indeed and after a quick consult with the SPCA, I dropped Margaret and Dennis off at my vet clinic. Jan, one of the vet technicians who had lots of experience with orphaned kittens, did a fantastic job at caring for them and nursing Margaret back to health and when I picked them up that night Margaret was back to her normal, playful self.

However, at seven the next morning, the wee Margaret died in my hands. When I had gotten up at 2am to feed them, she had refused to eat and had been lethargic. I kick myself now for not taking her to the emergency vet right then. Unfortunately, it was my first time fostering such young kittens and I didn’t realize just how grave the situation was until it was too late. I spent many sleepless nights and wept plenty of bitter tears for quite a few weeks after Margaret died, torturing myself with what I should have and could have done until I finally got up the nerve to talk to Jan about it. Frankly, I wish I had done it sooner. She promptly gave me a pep talk about needing to understand that as a foster parent to kittens, you had to prepare yourself for the fact that they were very susceptible to infection and many of them die. That you couldn’t save them all; some of them just weren’t meant to live. And I know that will sound harsh to a lot of animal rescuers out there but her brisk, no-nonsense approach to my pain did more to heal it than the countless other soothing comments from friends and family. Because while I appreciated their assurances that I had done everything I possibly could, it didn’t lessen the guilt. And for whatever reason, Jan’s reality check did. Not to say that I still don’t wish I had taken Margaret to the emergency vet, (I do) and not to say that I still don’t occasionally weep over it (I do) but I was finally able to let her death go and concentrate on the remaining kitten Dennis.

And what a character little Dennis was. He was bigger than his sister Margaret (although not by much) and the morning that Margaret died he was full of piss and vinegar and eating his kitten milk with his usual enthusiasm. Despite my trepidation that he would succumb to infection as quickly as Margaret had earlier in the day, that entire evening he was his normal self. I began to relax somewhat until I went to give him his feeding at 11pm. Much like Margaret the night before, he refused to eat and was very lethargic. My heart dropped into my stomach but I carefully tube fed him the way Jan had shown me at the clinic and tucked him into the bed with us. For two hours I laid awake, my stomach in knots as little Dennis laid on the pillow beside me, purring non-stop. I was cat savvy enough to recognize that the purring was not one of happiness, but one of pain and finally at 2 in the morning I made the decision to take him to the emergency clinic.

Ben, God love him, drove with me to the emergency clinic, despite having to work the next morning. The vet took a careful look at Dennis’ limp motionless body as I explained what had happened to his sister earlier and how Dennis had been perfectly fine all day. He sighed and told me that orphaned kittens, deprived of their mother’s milk, often caught infections and quickly become septic. That was the case with Dennis, and, he gave me a look of sorrow, saying that it didn’t look good for the wee boy.

We left Dennis with the vet, who said that if Dennis didn’t make it through the night, he would call us in the morning and let us know. I laid awake for the rest of the night, waiting for the ring of the telephone telling me what I already knew in my heart – Dennis had died. But the phone never rang and just shortly after I arrived at work that morning, the vet called me with news.

Against all odds, wee Dennis had survived the night. He’d spent it in an incubator, receiving oxygen while hooked up to an IV that poured antibiotics into his tiny little body. He was awake now, staggering carefully around the incubator and had even managed to slurp up some watered down cat food. They would keep him for the day and we could pick him up that evening.

That evening, Ben and I drove to the clinic and picked up Dennis. The vet staff oohed and ahhed over him, telling us they’d never seen a smaller kitten and they couldn’t believe that he had survived. I smiled and cupped Dennis to my face, his tiny scratchy tongue licking delicately at my cheek, while his entire body vibrated with the force of his purring.

Each day after that terrible night, Dennis grew stronger and more alert. We stopped believing he was going to die and allowed ourselves the tiniest bit of hope that he was a fighter. And he was. He beat the infection but he wasn’t, however, gaining weight. We made a trip to our vet who decided to try him on some pro-biotic medicine. It made no difference and while Dennis wasn’t losing weight, he still wasn’t gaining like he should have. Finally our vet suggested we try sprinkling digestive enzymes on his food. That did the trick. Dennis began to have normal bathroom habits and put on some much needed weight.

He was a typical kitten with lots of energy. He stormed around our kitchen attacking real life toes and imaginary foes. He personally investigated every morsel of food or ounce of drink I tried to put in my mouth. He attacked our heads while we were sleeping, pounced and teased the other senior cats mercilessly and fought heroically against the head-to-toe grooming Smokey forced upon him every evening.

As much as I loved having Dennis in our lives, I knew that we couldn’t keep him. We didn’t have the space that an energetic, tireless kitten required and while our cat Ebony tolerated him as a tiny baby, it was very apparent that she grew to despise him more and more over the following weeks. So, with a heavy heart, when Dennis was 10 weeks old we took him back to the SPCA. I cried buckets when we left him in his cage, despite Sandy’s assurances that they would find him a very good home, despite the huge long letter I had written for potential adopters and despite the fact that I had left him with all of his favourite toys and blanket. The look of confusion and terror on his face drove a knife into my heart. Still sobbing pathetically, I allowed myself to be led to the car, my blubbering drowning out Sandy’s promises to call as soon as Dennis was adopted.  Three hours later, Sandy called us – Dennis had been adopted! A lady had come in looking for a girl kitten to be a buddy to the boy kitten she had at home but after reading Dennis’ story she promptly adopted him. I was thrilled!

Three weeks later we arrived at the vet clinic for an appointment. The receptionist introduced me to a lady standing by the counter.

“Kelly, this is your little foster kitten Dennis’ new mom.”

She shook my hand and I told her how thankful I was that she had adopted Dennis. She smiled a bit sheepishly and told me that Dennis was now named Sadie. Her daughter had wanted a girl kitten so badly but she had wanted to adopt Dennis so badly that they compromised and gave him a girl’s name. I laughed delightedly and inquired as to how Dennis was doing. She gave me a small grin and pointed to the carrier at her feet.

“Why don’t you say hello?”

I bent down, my heart thudding heavily in my chest and stared into Dennis’ sweetly familiar face. He was curled up next to another kitten, a look of sleepy contentment marked his features and as he stared at me, no trace of recognition on his face, I began to cry.

“He doesn’t know who I am.” I whispered to Ben who had knelt down beside me.

“I’m sorry honey.” He whispered back, placing a warm hand on my lower back.

“No,” I half-hiccupped, half-laughed, “I’m crying because I’m happy he doesn’t remember me. It means he’s happy with his new family.”

I stood back up and shook the woman’s hand again and made her promise to send me pictures of Dennis. Remarkably, despite her fear of the sobbing, obviously half-deranged woman in front of her, she did send me pictures of Dennis over the next year or so. He’s grown into a beautiful and much loved cat and I’m so thankful that he was a part of our family, if even just for a few short weeks.

 Dennis (aka Sadie) and his new little buddy:

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Nothing strikes terror in Ben’s heart faster than the realization that it’s Tuesday night at 8pm.  Ryan’s “This is American Idol” and the theme song makes him visibly shudder.

Is it because of the mass volume of terrible singers that parade across the screen?  Ryan and Simon’s bickering?  (I’m sorry, but those two just need to have sex and get it out of their systems.  Seriously.)  Randy’s penchant for annoying little phrases like “Yo, yo, yo!” and “Dog…what’s up dog?”  Or perhaps it’s Paula’s continual display of why drinking and judging just shouldn’t mix?  (Y’all she was totally and utterly drunk tonight.  Note the hiccuping and the slumping on the desk.  And if that wasn’t proof enough, the “touchdown” at the very end sealed the deal).

While those are all valid reasons to make one shudder, sadly they are not what causes Ben’s pale face and nausea.   Nope.  In fact I’m not ashamed to admit that my inability to stop myself from singing along at the top of my lungs and demonstrating exactly how that song the skinny white guy just butchered should really sound is what causes poor Ben the most pain.

Also, the fact that I tend to go on and on (and on!) about how I could easily make it on American Idol has got to get tiring. 

But Ben, bless his little heart, just nods and says “Of course you could dear.” and “Absolutely dear.” and “I know you would totally  make it on American Idol dear but could you do me a favour and turn the singing down just a notch?  I’m trying to grade papers over here and the unearthly screeching coming from the direction of the couch is a wee bit distracting.”

And for the next few minutes or so I manage to stay quiet until my sincere belief that I am the best singer in the world gets the better of me and I once again start belting it out with the current contestant on the screen. 

Ben?  Deserves a medal.  I’m just sayin’.

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So I consider myself to be a pretty brave person.  Needles don’t make me faint, the sight of blood, missing limbs or protruding eyeballs don’t make me squeamish, I can handle snakes, rats, mice all the usual “eek!” animals.  Hell, I had an organ removed and went back to work a week later.  See - I’m tough.

Except for one teeny tiny fear.  Bugs.  Yup, bugs.  Bugs freak me out.  All manner of bugs give me the gross-outs but high on the list would be - earwigs, June bugs, cockroaches and spiders.  Heck, given the right circumstance, your average housefly can give me the heebie-jeebies. 

More than once a blood curdling scream has rang through the house and Ben has had to stop whatever he was doing and come rescue me from the big bad bug currently cornering me in the bathroom.  (And to show you how truly sick and twisted I am, despite my fear, I always beg him “not to kill it” just take it outside and let it roam free)  I tend to spend as little time as possible outside trying to avoid the pesky eight (ten, twelve?) legged critters that roam through the grass.  And don’t even get me started on the time I was mowing the lawn and a swarm of ants tumbled out of their ant hill with a hellish light in their eyes and descended upon my bare legs, sending me screaming and kicking and crying across the yard.

I grew up in Ontario (home to some monster sized June bugs, let me tell you) and once a month or so mum would take my brother and I on a road trip to visit her best friend Phyllis.  We arrived there one summer weekend to discover that they were in the midst of an earwig infestation.  I don’t remember a lot of specific details about that particular weekend [probably because I spent most of it in a state of extreme terror and debilitating exhaustion (I’ll explain the exhaustion in a moment)] but two things still stand out clearly in my mind.  The first was the morning I decided to have toast for breakfast and, upon opening the bread box, was immediately overcome by fear and revulsion at the large swarm of earwigs that fell out of the breadbox and rushed across the counter to either greet me warmly or tear me limb from limb with their tiny gnashing teeth.  As I recall, I didn’t stick around to find out; choosing instead, to scream my head off and race from the room.  I then further humiliated myself by tripping and landing at the feet of Phyllis, where I clung pathetically to her legs while sobbing hysterically. 

The debilitating exhaustion happened because every evening you had to strip back the sheets and the blanket and “humanely dispose” of any earwigs that were currently using your bed as their own personal sleeping spot.  But that wasn’t the worst of it.  What kept me awake for the entire time we were visiting was the possibility that while I slept, an earwig would fall from the ceiling onto my sleeping, prone body and then burrow it’s way, via my ear, into my brain.  Visions of that brown ugly body merrily chewing off parts of my brain had me hyperventilating the nights away.

As I grew older I stopped being embarrassed about my fear of bugs and accepted it as a character flaw.  I was even able to appreciate the beauty in some bugs.  Spiders, for example, eat bugs - hence less bugs to land on Kelly.  Yay spiders!  (sort of…just don’t come near me).  In fact, after I married Ben I eventually adopted a “live and let live” attitude when it came to spiders.  You go ahead and make a nice cozy web in the corner of my living room Mr. Spider, eat all the bugs you want, don’t come near me and we’ll live in perfect harmony.

There’s only one exception to the spider rule and that is the Black Widow.  Despite my friend Chris’ disbelief that we even have Black Widow’s in BC, I can assure you we do.  And, most of them seem to enjoy living at my house.  In fact, just this summer, Ben had to dispose of the biggest black widow I’ve ever seen.  She had made herself a cozy little house in the folds of our barbeque cover.  And while I hated to see her destroyed, she really was beautiful, that little girl was big enough to seriously harm us, not to mention easily kill our dogs.

(Okay, gross - I just looked out my office window to see some guy in the parking lot blowing his nose.  And he wasn’t using a tissue.  Ugh.  Why do men do that?  *shudder*)

Anyhoodle, not even a month after I had married Ben, we had gone to bed just shortly after 11.  A few hours later I was woken by a gentle shake from Ben, who was standing beside the bed.

Ben: Honey, wake up.

Me:  Huzzah?  *snorkle*  Wha?”

Ben:  I need you to get up and come into the bathroom with me.

Me:  stunned bunny look

Ben:  C’mon honey, get out of the bed.

Me:  I don’t want to.

Ben:  I know, but I need you to go in to the bathroom.

Me:  This had better not be some kinky sex game.  It’s 3 am and I have to work in the morning.

Ben, (leading me into the bathroom):  It’s not.  Now listen honey, don’t freak out but I woke up because something was crawling on my stomach.  I caught it and brought it into the bathroom and it was a black widow spider.

Me:  blink, blink

Ben:  I’ve gotten rid of it but it was a baby and I want to check the bed to make sure there aren’t any more babies crawling around.

Me:  blink, blink

Ben:  I’ll be right back, stay here while I check okay? 

Me:  I…I…

Ben:  Okay, there aren’t any more spiders, you can come back to bed.

Me:  I’m not getting back into that bed.  Ever.  Bring me the spare blanket and pillow from the closet, I’m sleeping in the tub.

Ben:  It’s okay honey, I checked the bed really well.

Me (whispering hysterically):  I don’t care!!  I’m never sleeping in the bed again!  Also, I’m divorcing you and moving back into my nice, bug free apartment first thing in the morning.

Ben:  Okay now, you’re getting a wee bit hysterical, let’s just…

Me (yelling hysterically):  I am not hysterical!!  This is me being calm!!!  Don’t make me show you hysterical!

Ben:  Yes dear.

Obviously I did go back to sleeping in the bed, but it took a long time before I could drop off to sleep without visions of tiny little black widow spiders crawling all over me.

I realize that however traumatizing these bug stories are to me, many of you would have been all “Earwigs in the bread box…bah.” and “Phsst, black widow spider crawling on me while I sleep, whatever!” but luckily I have discovered a little gem of an article on the internet. 

Welcome to Kelly’s triumphant justification of her fear of bugs:

The Five Most Horrifying Bugs on Earth

http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html

Enjoy my friends, enjoy.

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Last night at 10:30 I was lying on the bed, rattie boys flinging themselves madly about the bed and bouncing off my head with reckless abandon and watching a rather dull episode of Law and Order.  Truth be told, I gave up on Law and Order after Lenny left (RIP Jerry Orbach) - but then they went and hired Jeremy Sisco and I was hooked again (Marry me Jeremy Sisco!!  We’ll live in a delightfully dilapidated shack on the beach and drink margaritas and take long walks in the warm sand and give each other foot rubs every day!).  

But despite my adoration for all things Jeremy, I wasn’t feeling the Law and Order love last night.  As I carefully extracted a tiny rat toe from my eyeball (thanks Francis) I made the mistake of glancing at the little shelf under the tv.  What did I see?  My rather dusty and forlorn looking copy of Leslie Sansone’s One Mile Walk.  I quickly looked away, humming to myself and pretending that I still couldn’t remember where I had placed that darn video tape (yes, embarrassingly enough, it is a video tape, not even a dvd).  I tried to re-absorb myself into the world of Law and Order but it was too late, the damage was done.   Completely against my will I found myself repeatedly glancing at the tape, Leslie’s dusty face crying out to me:

“Kelly, get off your butt, dust me off and stick me in that vcr/dvd player not less than 2 feet away from you.  You’re not even enjoying Law and Order.  Your butt looks huge in those pajama bottoms.  You’ll feel better and happier if you exercise.  Remember that jumbo chocolate chip cookie you ate for dessert?  If you exercise with me, you won’t feel so guilty and you’ll earn extra points to compensate for the cookie.”

Finally, with a scream of rage, I got off my bed, dusted off the tape and stuck it in the video player.  The moment the music started and Leslie came on the screen I knew I had made a terrible mistake.  My heart cried out for the pleasing sight of Jeremy Sisco.  Instead, 20 minutes and one mile later, I collapsed on the bed.  The rattie boys came over and began to chew thoughtfully on my hair while I begged weakly for Ben to bring me water. 

After graciously bringing me a cold glass of water, Ben congratulated me on working out but said “You might want to think about exercising earlier in the evening though, working out late at night will keep you up.”

“Pshaw,” I said, handing him back my water glass, ”I’m so tired from working out I’m going to fall asleep immediately.  In fact, I think I’ve discovered a great new way to help me sleep at night.”

“Yes dear.” he nodded, rolled his eyes and went back to grading papers.

FYI - Ben was right, working out late at night, does keep you awake.  Curses! 

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For a Siamese cat, Smokey is remarkably mellow and low key. Normally Siamese cats are hissy and mean and full of attitude and well… jerks frankly. I know this sounds a teensy bit like racial profiling, but dudes - my Aunt Marie had a 4lb Siamese cat that she had to tie to a chair when company came over for fear that it would rip the unsuspecting visitor’s leg to shreds while yowling like a wildebeast in heat.  She had to tie it to a chair.  A CHAIR!

To be fair Smokey is only part Siamese with a healthy dose of Himalayan mixed in. And while he has the Siamese markings and can do a very convincing Siamese yowl when the mood strikes him (mostly when he’s forced to travel in the car) it would seem that his personality is composed entirely of the casual, laid-back, “How you’ doin’ baby?” Himalayan breed.

And thank God for that because these new ratty boys? Find his soft fur very enjoyable to snuggle in and his tail quite the amusing play toy.

*disclaimer - y’all probably know this but cats and rats?  Should never be left alone together.  In fact, most rats really shouldn’t play with cats at all.  Really.  Honestly.  Cats hunt rodents.  Smokey is the exception to the rule.  He’s like that kindly old grandfather who never seems to mind when his 17 grandchildren climb all over him, pulling his hair, knocking his pipe out of his mouth, peeing all over his lap and peppering him with a million questions like “Grandpa, why is your face so wrinkly?” and “Grandpa, why do you smell like our attic?”

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Snatches of conversation from me regarding the Amazing Race on Sunday night that poor Ben had to listen to while trying to work:  (Um…spoiler alert by the way)

“Shut up Jen!”

“Christina, your dad has not changed, he’s still a douche!”

“Yes, take the subway dammit!  The subway!”

“I love you TK!!”

“SHUT UP JEN!!”

“Ha, ha!  That random pedestrian at the bus stop thinks Jen has lost her mind too!”

“Oh Nick, you’re so darn cute!”

“I could totally hold my breath for that long.  Pssht, not even a challenge really.”

“If we were doing this, we would do the jagged rock walk.  I knew my calloused heels would come in handy some day.”

 ”Rachel and TK are in second!!”

“SHUT THE BLEEP UP JEN!!”

“Please let it be Nick and Don, please let it be Nick and Don, please let it be Nick and Don…”

 ”IT’S NICK AND DON!!!”

“Ha!  Buh-bye Jen!!”

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How friggin’ awesome/disturbing is this website?

http://www.tapewormdiet.net/index.html

 You guys, I’m totally ditching weight watchers and going the way of the worm.  Yum!

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Last week I was sitting innocently in my co-worker Clark’s office when he informed me that he was the new Environmental Champion for our branch and the first Environmental Committee meeting would be next week.  He paused meaningfully but when I only stared at him with a blank look on my face, he soldiered on.

“You’re joining the committee right Kelly?”

“Um…no?”

He gave me his best disappointed look, “Really?  Because I’ve already got you on the list.”

“What the hell?  I didn’t respond to your meeting request with a yes.” I frowned.

‘Yeah but you and I have been sitting here for the last 10 minutes and we’ve already brainstormed like four ideas on how we, as an office, can reduce our environmental impact on the earth.  You’re an integral part to the committee.”

“But I don’t care about the environment.  That makes it difficult to be on the committee.” I said with a slightly guilty grin.

“I really want you to be a part of the team Kelly.” he gave me his best puppy dog eyes.

“Can I be the Environmental Champion?”

“Well, I was assigned this title and I can’t really just give it away.”

“What exactly does the Champion do Clark?”

“Um, it’s pretty important stuff actually,” he hedged nervously, “I’m in charge of um, building team confidence and making sure things go smoothly and overseeing, uh, the bulk of the meeting and um…”

“So you do nothing?  You find four or five people to be on the committee and you supervise while they do all the hard work.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Then if you want me on the team, I want to be the Environmental Champion.” I cross my arms firmly and stare pointedly at him.

“I can’t do that.  You’re putting me in an impossible position.” he fidgeted nervously with a mechanical pencil on his desk as I stared impassively at him.

“Hey, how about if I make you the Environmental Vice Champion?” he gave me his best politician smile.

I uncross my arms and lean forward, “What are the perks of this position?  What sort of power will I wield?”

“I’ll tell everyone at the meeting that you’re the Vice Champion.”

“Hmm…tempting.  But seriously Clark, I really don’t think I’d be any use at this meeting.  You know how I sit and just mock people at these things.  Plus, I believe I mentioned I don’t really care about the environment.”

“Well, here’s the thing Kelly.”  he brushed an imaginary piece of lint from the front of his shirt nervously.  “Half the people in this office are afraid of you so if you tell them they have to print double sided or recycle the cardboard boxes from their lunches, they’ll do it.”

“That’s true.  Fine, I’ll go to your stupid environmental committee meeting.  But I must insist that I be referred to as Mr. Vice Champion during the meeting.”

“We can do that Mr. Vice Champion.”

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They’ve got a very interesting afternoon comment diversion going on over at Pajiba today.  It’s all about superstitions and after carefully reading through the comments I came to the realization that I am utterly and completely superstition free.  This is despite the many superstitions that both my grandmother and mother tried to drill into me over the years. 

For example, at my grandmother’s house, if you opened an umbrella in her house you just might as well go ahead and kick your own ass because that’s sure as hell what she was going to do to you if she found out.  And at my mum’s don’t even think of putting those “new shoes on the table, what on earth has gotten into you, you dumb kid?”.  Also, did you know that if you drop a dishcloth at my mum’s house, then there will be company visiting that very night?  And that tragedies/deaths happen in three? 

Despite all of this information, I grew into someone who has no belief in superstitions and do in fact, have a mild bit of contempt for people who believe in these superstitions religiously (family not included of course…hi mumsi!  Love you!).  I own a black cat, will walk under a ladder without a second thought, if I spill salt on the table I leave it for Ben to clean up (because I am lazy), I put new shoes on the table, I’ll open an umbrella in the house, I drop a dishcloth on the floor and have no compulsive need to immediately tidy up for what will certainly be visitors arriving at any moment and I don’t really believe that tragedies happen in three.  But reading the comments from the readers of Pajiba made me interested in finding a list of common superstitions so I quickly googled it and came up with a pretty cool list.  You’ll find that list here:

http://csicop.org/superstition/library/common.html

A few of my personal favourites:

When a dog howls, death is near

Considering that both our dogs howl on a regular basis (i.e. two to three times a week the big babies) I’m really shocked that I haven’t gone home to Glory by now.  Seriously.

Animals can talk at midnight on Christmas Eve 

Really?  Truly?  Because if I had known that I would have made my entire family stay up on Christmas Eve just so we could finally know the reason why Cuda the dog is such a big ass whiny baby. 

Smell dandelions, wet the bed 

*Finally!  An explanation for why I wet the bed so often in the spring!  And I just thought it was poor bladder control. 

I encourage you to leave comments and tell me what superstition you faithfully believe in, or share your favourite superstition story.  I promise I won’t mock you….too much.

And finally, my own personal favourite superstition story:

When Ben and I got married, in an effort to save some money, we decided we wouldn’t do an engagement ring or wedding bands.  However, my mumsi had, after her divorce from my dad, very thoughtfully kept the rings he gave her thinking that I would one day want them.  Which she was right about because she’s always right (can you tell my mum reads this blog?)

We had the rings resized and voila, instant engagement ring and wedding band for Kelly - hurrah!

A few weeks after the wedding, I was showing the rings to a couple of the ladies who work at the corner store near our home.  I explained the story of the rings and watched with some confusion as a look of utter horror crossed one of the ladies face. 

“I would never wear those rings.” she muttered, stepping back a little as if I had the plague (maybe she also knew I had pet rats?).

Not really understanding what she meant, I gave her a polite and sightly puzzled smile.

She took a deep breath, “Your marriage will end in divorce if you wear those rings.”

Now it was my turn to take a a step back as I glanced at the other woman behind the till.  She rolled her eyes at me and twirled her finger beside her head in the universal sign for “this woman is crazy like a shithouse rat”.

I turned back to the other woman, “I’m sorry?”

She sighed impatiently, “Those rings are cursed.  Because they were worn by your mother and her marriage ended in divorce, your marriage is doomed unless you take off those rings.”

**I smiled a little and explained very earnestly, “It’s okay really.  These rings are only temporary anyway.  In a few weeks I’ll be having the number 666 tattooed on my ring finger as a pledge to my dark master.  My husband doesn’t know yet though so could you keep it hush hush?”

Now she doesn’t talk to me anymore.

*  I don’t really wet the bed.  Honest, ask Ben.  Although between you and me Internets I’m really surprised that I don’t because a) the women in my family have a history of poor bladder control, b) I drink insane amounts of water and c) I have a well known history of having dreams where I’m constantly running to the bathroom and peeing.  It’s amazing to me (and a huge relief to poor Ben) that I have yet to actually wet the bed while I’m having a “pee dream” as I like to refer to them and obviously allows me to boast at our family reunions of my superior bladder control over the other women in the family.

**  I, of course, didn’t have the number 666 tattooed on my ring finger, that’s just plain silly.  I’m still just wearing the rings and waiting for my marriage to fall apart at any moment.

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