The Yellowship of the Ring
or "Ah screw it, I'm posting this beast anyway."
Predator Press
[LOBO]
No, this isn’t about David Letterman.
My last post was preachier ‘n one might expect from Predator Press, and I don’t want to give new readers the wrong idea.
Yes, David Letterman is an adulterer.
Yes, David Letterman will burn in the Lake of Fire for the rest of Eternity.
-But I will continue not preaching about David Letterman for at least the duration of this post.
So to summarize, if you’re here for David Letterman or preaching, you’re in the wrong place: pontification upon our wayward late night talk show host will be explicitly avoided.
Regarding the preaching, I like to think full-on preaching requires at least one pulpit. And while we technically have four or five pulpits, they are all in storage unit, deeply buried behind a precariously-balanced waterbed frame and a couch Courtney Love once sat on.
Screw. All. THAT.
But excuse me! It seems, momentarily distracted by not preaching, I have digressed from my reasons for not blogging about David Letterman:
What David Letterman is really going to Hell for is making me chuck a fascinating two page single-spaced draft post I wrote last night where I had incorrectly assumed he wasn’t married. At that time I thought he was a creepy-yet-wealthy Hollywood genius-type evil single guy, eh, 'sewing his oats' by harvesting his own workplace. But as we all now know, it turns out he is married … so now he’s just another creepy-yet-wealthy Hollywood genius-type evil ass.
Meh.
Predator Press is currently up to its ears in 'creepy-yet-wealthy Hollywood genius-type evil ass' stories -heck, Joe Francis has been tryin to kick in our door for years. Why should we give this 'David Letterman' guy our much-coveted publicity? I spent, like, twenty minutes on that story: couldn't he just have the decency to keep his yap shut about being married for at least a few lousy months?
That little story he wrecked up by selfishly tellin' the truth kicked ass. Seriously. Letterman probably costed me a Peabody with his whole 'Duuuh ...uhh ... Screw Predator Press! I'm gunna ... duuuh uhhh ... tell everybody I'm married anyway!' crap.
-and that’s plenty of reason for David Letterman to go Hell as far as I'm concerned: this deliberate and savage act was directed at me personally, and an outright attack on Predator Press.
-And an attack upon Predator Press is an attack upon you, 'O Loyal Reader.
Well I won't stand for David Letterman attacking Predator Press readers.
While millions and millions of you desperately 'Refreshed' this page all night until finally collapsing into weepy and unsatisfied exhausted heaps, David Letterman, having destroyed my perfectly good story, was laughing at us! In fact, just before boarding his private jet and setting a flight plan designed so's he could pee on each and every Predator Press fan's house individually, he said all you people were "mush-headed jerks," and then he ordered his pilot to shoot down Santa Claus’ sleigh if he happened to come across it.
So now that we're all in agreement, I’m sure you understand why yet another dishwater dull Hollywood adultery story doesn’t interest me -cripes you can't throw a rock without hitting yet another Hollywood adultery story. In truth, Fidelity interests me infinitely more. Adultery is easy. Adultery is common. Adultery is saucy. But Fidelity seems far more rare and exotic in contrast. Fidelity is difficult, understated, and unsung. And as a consequence, Fidelity is the moral equivalent of that skinny redhead kid in grubby clothes that the other kids throw their Tater Tots at when the adults aren’t looking ‘cuz he got lice camping last year after refusing to play 'Doctor' with that slutty chick that was doin "Whip-Its" with all the pesticides.
Unlike glamorous Adultery, Fidelity slips quietly through High School with nary a ripple -largely because he has a leg braces, a big weird retainer, and is socially awkward in general. And after trying out for the football team, poor ‘lil unrecognized Fidelity is not considered to live an equally-dangerous full-contact lifestyle as sexy athletic Adultery does, and Fidelity is issued woefully inadequate protective gear: subsequently, he tears his ACL, his team loses the game, and their seemingly sure-fire trajectory to lead their division to the Finals is utterly destroyed.
Many years later, Fidelity once again meets that slutty chick from camp that was hoggin all the pesticides and caused him to get lice. Weirdly both, now adults, fall deeply in love. But a week before the wedding Fidelity contracts Hepatitis and discovers his bride-to-be is secretly a coke whore and Libertarian: a subsequent botched sting operation to catch her stealing Fidelity's paltry life savings backfires, and she narrowly escapes by ironically dousing Fidelity in the eyes with an entire bottle of lice repellent leaving Fidelity permanently blind and with a raging, yet-unprecedented case of accelerated male pattern baldness.
And while a battered and broken Fidelity just chugs blandly along forever, Adultery in contrast is already rushed to the front of the line to Oblivion: fueled by an often rage-inciting behavior, chain-smoking boozer Adultery's lifelong hedonistic binge is statistically far likelier to receive either a dignified quick youthful death, a lucrative reality show, or a fantastic political career.
-Fidelity, instead, is left adrift to flounder helplessly on his HMO, hobbling around on makeshift crutches and squeaky, bent wheelchairs for many more years to come.
Years later, poor Fidelity finds he can’t hide that urine smell no matter how much Old Spice he uses, and he is banished to the alleys ... but still this former athlete adapts, thrives and survives by stealing food from unmonitored rat traps. Seemingly indestructible -even after his arms are amputated due to the numerous untreated rat bites- he persists by swift and dexterous use of his increasingly-nimble toes.
In Fidelity's final decades, our unfaltering hero will grow ultra-sensitive to natural light, shrieking hideously when exposed to it. But again Fidelity turns apples to applesauce: deep within the catacombs of a Los Angeles sewer, Fidelity will enjoy many a comparatively tranquil year laying under a startlingly high-protein leak directly under a liposuction clinic. Content and happy, Fidelity ultimately succumbs to his piteous and unsanitary lifestyle as a host to a hive of giant stainless steel bees with razorwire stingers and acid drool that slowly devour him -from the inside out- in a horrific and macabre agonizing death.
I totally made up the part about the lice repellent causing male pattern baldness, but you can see Fidelity is pretty fucked right?
(For the record, I made up the bees too actually.)
Anyway, I maintain the rest of these as facts because they are true.
I know they are facts because I either experienced them, or made them up personally.
Furthermore I experienced these facts just today at roughly 11:00 am -the moment I noticed my wedding ring was missing.
Yes, you read that correctly: I lost my wedding ring.
While David explained stuff to a disbelieving and oblivious jaw-agape world that he’s been having affairs on television, I conversely was explaining stuff to my beloved, a disbelieving woman so utterly convinced of my rampant faithlessness she wouldn’t trust me in prison. And as David wove his circumstances into a monologue and the audience laughed uneasily at his, eh, ‘confession,’ I was flipping between pie charts with a laser pointer, pitching insistent theories on dizzyingly-long Excel spreadsheets supporting the 'I Never Take My Ring Off! Maybe it Just Ran Away!' hypothesis.
If you think about it, I had the exact opposite of David’s problems today. Therefore, smart people must conclude our respective Karmas are completely inversed, right? Thus, could there possibly be clearer irrefutable proof that I am cosmically favored over David Letterman by Divine Influence?
Hah! Stick that in your pipe 'an smoke it David Letterman! Sure you got nice cars and mansions and yachts and vacations and tons of money ... I got Jesus, sucker!
Well, enough about how God loves me and hates David Letterman. I’m bored with it. Technically, this post isn't even about David Letterman ... he just keeps creeping back in somehow, kinda like some slightly pudgier and well-dressed Nicolas Cage. Blech! And because I think it is widely considered rude by civilized nations to talk about people besides myself, I’m simply going to “rise above” my obvious and vast spiritual superiority over David Letterman, try not to lord over him with it’s blinding warmth and radiance, and get on with my story.
-A story that contains no David Letterman.
Or preaching.
***
At 11:00 am or so, Terri and the kids had just left.
But upon discovery of the missing ring, I quickly decide to call her immediately anyway: I’m faintly hoping she found it lying somewhere and was waiting to see how long it’ll take me to notice –you know, as a test or a joke maybe.
Within moments, it was clear sinister academics and cruel humor could be ruled out. But by this time I would already be in too deep.
She answers the phone on the third ring.
“Hello?” she asks.
This will take some finesse, coaches my brain. Relax, LOBO. Be cool. Smoooooth. To alert her to the problem will be to alarm her with the problem. And it seems to me the least you could do -as her husband- is to not alarm the poor woman.
“Uh, baby, have you seen my wedding ring?”
Dammit!
”No honey,” she says over the cellphone. “I haven’t seen your ring.”
Oh crap she knows oh crap oh crap oh crap-
“Where did you see it last?” she asks.
See that? my brain marvels to me. Now that’s love. A mere handful of barbaric attempts at syllables, and she knows everything somehow! It’s truly amazing to behold. Indeed we share a deep, mystical bond.
As I wait for an answer, I hear fingers drumming rhythmically.
This is going to be tough, my brain concludes. If we don’t figure out a way trick this ‘mystical bond’ thing into thinking everything is cool, she’ll kill us. I recommend you change the subject without delay.
“What ring?” I ask Terri, thinking quickly.
-From inside my skull, I hear a sound that reminds me of a tightening noose, and a chair being kicked.
“Your wedding ring,” says Terri. ”Do you remember the last time you saw it?”
The jig clearly up, I sigh thumping my forehead softly against the wall in sinking dread. I’ve screwed up some pretty hefty crap, but this is ‘off the charts’ comparably. This’ll doubtlessly be days and days of consecutive screaming and yelling. And she’ll probably kick the whole thing off with some coy line like the ever-dreaded ‘Did you lose your ring in a bar? Was it for some cute girl? Hm … ?’
”Check the sink,” she offers. “Maybe it slipped off.”
I blink at my phone in disbelief ... My wife, in the face of this inexcusable quarreling “lay up,” is being cool, sweet and attempting to be helpful.
-I’m not sure what she’s up to, but now I’m Terrified.
“I did already,” I manage.
“Well,” she jokes. “Judging from your pork chop intake it certainly didn’t fall off. I’m sure it’s there somewhere."
Here comes, I'm thinking. That little funny was the warm-up. She’s gonna torture you and wait to deliver the real haymaker when you least expect it. That will totally suck. I better go "big," and hope I can get her to pull the trigger on it ASAP.
“Hah,” I said into the phone, eyes narrow. “A fat joke. Very clever."
”Baby, it’ll turn up I’m sure. Now we’re almost there -I gotta go. I love you.”
Man, I'm thinking. What is she up to? This woman is flat out slick.
“I love you too,” I says cautiously.
And after flipping the phone shut, an odd quietness seems to set in a little too quickly; I head for the living room. Regardless of her true motives, Terri raised a good point to reflect upon: that wedding ring wasn’t ‘falling off’ loose. That thing had to be here in the house.
Intuitively, I tried to recreate my earlier household activities … but this proved extremely difficult; this was an uncharacteristically busy morning for me, and sorting out the order of events seemed to grow more complex with every fresh memory. Curse my wretched industriousness! Thinking the flurry of activity might be too distracting, I thought maybe typing it up might clarify things a bit.
After printing it, I grabbed a pencil and returned to the living room for intense study:
After I woke up, I drank a cup of coffee. Then I went to the store. When I got back, I briefly tried to figure out a speaker short behind my computer until I banged my head on a shelf. After cursing a lot, I suddenly remembered there were some leftover pork chops in the fridge. I nuked the crap out of those babies, and ate them while watching NFL highlights on cable. I woke up on the couch after an indeterminate amount of time and fiddled with the computer short again during a commercial.
I read this with a high degree of skepticism. But the story checks out: the overall timeline is accurate because a plate of pork chop bones is sitting on my desk, instead of in the kitchen sink where it should be.
Still, don’t entirely trust this testimony somehow. My gut tells me this isn’t the work of some rank amateur: a plate of bones picked this expertly clean could be on my desk merely because my desk is a lot closer than the kitchen sink is.
But reading on, a chill runs down my spine as I read the last riveting line:
I better figure out why nobody installed a kitchen sink near my desk before Terri gets home or I'll get yelled at for leaving dishes here -Hey! Where the fuck is my wedding ring?
Now I am wholly convinced.
-No human could fake an unspeakable horror like that.
Feeling the transcript’s veracity confirmed I grab the remote, and contemplate this solemnly while watching ESPN. But even if it is true, I’m thinking, what could one mortal man possibly do about it? -Oooh look! Kobe Bryant has a new commercial!
On the very face this ring search was daunting. Even just thinking about it one grew instantaneously overwhelmed –mauled violently by it’s sheer scope, and left a drained and desiccated husk. A short nap helped somewhat, but not as much as a long one would have; yawning, I grab the transcript again.
How could I somehow be everywhere over the span of such a short span of time? There were literally dozens of possible nooks ‘an crannies and shelves where that ring could be concealed. Heck, it could be in the very couch I’m sitting on! This is completely hopeless.
But as time passed, I grew increasingly apprehensive. And by the time all the NFL highlights were over I was disgusted, and found myself absently re-reading the puzzling transcript once again.
Regardless of the infinitesimal-seeming odds of success in solving this nigh-incomprehensible mystery, I need to find that ring, I decide. And failure is never an option when one’s marital bliss is threatened!
Determined, I stood abruptly from the couch and stormed into the den. And once there, I typed up my passionate and blistering “Reasons that Failure is not an Option!” list for further inspiration:
I print this too, and paperclip it to my own previous testimony.
It reads: First, I just plain want the damn ring. Partly on principal, and partly on ‘nothing screams loser like a married guy with no ring.’ Blogging loser reaches a wider audience than a screaming loser, and blogging doesn’t make you hoarse. WTF? Is this, the Middle Ages? This ring has become a universal symbol of Progress.
Second, I’m virtually certain that ring wasn’t missing for very long. I would have noticed. Terri is right: that thing is here somewhere. Close. Maybe too close in fact: try and look for it facing toward a lot of mirrors if you can. And stay “frosty,” too: I think that thing has diamond shards or something in it, and you could probably get a mean scratch on your foot that could get infected. If wounded, there is Neosporin and some Band-Aids in the bathroom … but always keep in mind a full-blown of gangrene might be used in your favor: you could always tell Terri “I lost my freakin’ leg looking for that ring!” Pretend you have feelings and, like, cry or something -whether you find the ring or not, I’ll bet you get pork chops.
Third, stuff doesn’t just ”disappear” -well, unless it’s by a really, really good magician. Like one of those guys in Vegas. Don’t let any Vegas magicians in the house for the duration of the hunt. That ring is there, and I’m sure with some effort you will find it -assuming it hasn't been whisked away to some other dimension or something. But quasi-dimensional types don’t give two craps about jewelry anyway, so I would regard this as highly unlikely; they usually only want lighters, pens, and individual socks.
You know now that I think about it, leave a goodly supply of lighters, pens, and individual socks spread all over the house.
Just in case.
I didn’t finish the fourth reason.
It just sort of trails off because I got busy searching.
-Frankly the fourth reason was simply far too frightening to contemplate, and I probably didn’t want to waste time changing underwear numerous times for doing so.
Indeed Terri had been amazingly cool so far. Heck, maybe she’s even sincere. But either way, if this goes on another twelve hours or so, she is going to be interrogating me by freezing various digits and limbs of mine in liquid nitrogen and smashing them with a ball-peen hammer for every wrong answer I provide.
An hour passes.
”You're exaggerating of course,” I’m saying to myself out loud from under the dresser. “The unbearable stress of this clearly futile hunt has simply magnified your worst fears. Terri would never dance barefoot on the slushy frozen goo of what remained of you, her irresponsible-yet adorable husband. You would be at the State Line by then. She would never catch you either! Liquid nitrogen tanks are really freakin’ heavy.
Another hour.
”And once I hit that State Line, pow, I’m home free!” I laugh, tearing up the bed. “At that point all I have to do is fake my own death, steal someone else’s identity, leave the planet, and never sleep again. Simple.”
But all this planning would be for naught.
-For something shiny just thumped into my field of vision.
After a scant four hours of solid, frantic searching, I found the ring!
Well okay, fine: four hours minus the twenty minutes out I took to convince those poor Jehova’s Witnesses that they are dead wrong about everything, and that I would prove it if they came back here in eight hours.
-Also, subtract eight minutes and forty-one seconds for when I gassed up the car.
Let’s just call it an even three hours and thirty minutes of frantic searching. Okay? Anyway ...
“I found it!” I cry triumphant into the cellphone moments later. "Ha-HA!"
“Well good darling,” says Terri, crackling slightly in the ambient din of kids. “I should be home in twenty minutes. I was thinking I would make spaghetti.”
“That sounds great,” I says almost pointlessly -I’m so simultaneously relieved and frazzled, she could have said she was making shish-kabobbed kitty litter clumps on the hibachi and I wouldn’t have cared. “I missed you guys today!”
”We missed you too. Aunt Beth says hello.”
I can here faint-yet distinct ‘farewells,’ and conclude she’s loading the van. “Tell her hi,” I says pleasantly.
”So where did you find the ring?”
“Folded in a deep wrinkle in our bedspread. You could barely see it. I’ll show you … it was like camouflaged in a crease.”
There’s kind of this long, ominous pause.
Over the phone, the kids fall utterly silent in this strange moment –it sounds as if all the oxygen has suddenly left the vehicle.
”Really?” Terri begins. ”And why exactly would you take your ring off in the bed today?”
Predator Press
[LOBO]
No, this isn’t about David Letterman.
My last post was preachier ‘n one might expect from Predator Press, and I don’t want to give new readers the wrong idea.
Yes, David Letterman is an adulterer.
Yes, David Letterman will burn in the Lake of Fire for the rest of Eternity.
-But I will continue not preaching about David Letterman for at least the duration of this post.
So to summarize, if you’re here for David Letterman or preaching, you’re in the wrong place: pontification upon our wayward late night talk show host will be explicitly avoided.
Regarding the preaching, I like to think full-on preaching requires at least one pulpit. And while we technically have four or five pulpits, they are all in storage unit, deeply buried behind a precariously-balanced waterbed frame and a couch Courtney Love once sat on.
Screw. All. THAT.
But excuse me! It seems, momentarily distracted by not preaching, I have digressed from my reasons for not blogging about David Letterman:
What David Letterman is really going to Hell for is making me chuck a fascinating two page single-spaced draft post I wrote last night where I had incorrectly assumed he wasn’t married. At that time I thought he was a creepy-yet-wealthy Hollywood genius-type evil single guy, eh, 'sewing his oats' by harvesting his own workplace. But as we all now know, it turns out he is married … so now he’s just another creepy-yet-wealthy Hollywood genius-type evil ass.
Meh.
Predator Press is currently up to its ears in 'creepy-yet-wealthy Hollywood genius-type evil ass' stories -heck, Joe Francis has been tryin to kick in our door for years. Why should we give this 'David Letterman' guy our much-coveted publicity? I spent, like, twenty minutes on that story: couldn't he just have the decency to keep his yap shut about being married for at least a few lousy months?
That little story he wrecked up by selfishly tellin' the truth kicked ass. Seriously. Letterman probably costed me a Peabody with his whole 'Duuuh ...uhh ... Screw Predator Press! I'm gunna ... duuuh uhhh ... tell everybody I'm married anyway!' crap.
-and that’s plenty of reason for David Letterman to go Hell as far as I'm concerned: this deliberate and savage act was directed at me personally, and an outright attack on Predator Press.
-And an attack upon Predator Press is an attack upon you, 'O Loyal Reader.
Well I won't stand for David Letterman attacking Predator Press readers.
While millions and millions of you desperately 'Refreshed' this page all night until finally collapsing into weepy and unsatisfied exhausted heaps, David Letterman, having destroyed my perfectly good story, was laughing at us! In fact, just before boarding his private jet and setting a flight plan designed so's he could pee on each and every Predator Press fan's house individually, he said all you people were "mush-headed jerks," and then he ordered his pilot to shoot down Santa Claus’ sleigh if he happened to come across it.
So now that we're all in agreement, I’m sure you understand why yet another dishwater dull Hollywood adultery story doesn’t interest me -cripes you can't throw a rock without hitting yet another Hollywood adultery story. In truth, Fidelity interests me infinitely more. Adultery is easy. Adultery is common. Adultery is saucy. But Fidelity seems far more rare and exotic in contrast. Fidelity is difficult, understated, and unsung. And as a consequence, Fidelity is the moral equivalent of that skinny redhead kid in grubby clothes that the other kids throw their Tater Tots at when the adults aren’t looking ‘cuz he got lice camping last year after refusing to play 'Doctor' with that slutty chick that was doin "Whip-Its" with all the pesticides.
Unlike glamorous Adultery, Fidelity slips quietly through High School with nary a ripple -largely because he has a leg braces, a big weird retainer, and is socially awkward in general. And after trying out for the football team, poor ‘lil unrecognized Fidelity is not considered to live an equally-dangerous full-contact lifestyle as sexy athletic Adultery does, and Fidelity is issued woefully inadequate protective gear: subsequently, he tears his ACL, his team loses the game, and their seemingly sure-fire trajectory to lead their division to the Finals is utterly destroyed.
Many years later, Fidelity once again meets that slutty chick from camp that was hoggin all the pesticides and caused him to get lice. Weirdly both, now adults, fall deeply in love. But a week before the wedding Fidelity contracts Hepatitis and discovers his bride-to-be is secretly a coke whore and Libertarian: a subsequent botched sting operation to catch her stealing Fidelity's paltry life savings backfires, and she narrowly escapes by ironically dousing Fidelity in the eyes with an entire bottle of lice repellent leaving Fidelity permanently blind and with a raging, yet-unprecedented case of accelerated male pattern baldness.
And while a battered and broken Fidelity just chugs blandly along forever, Adultery in contrast is already rushed to the front of the line to Oblivion: fueled by an often rage-inciting behavior, chain-smoking boozer Adultery's lifelong hedonistic binge is statistically far likelier to receive either a dignified quick youthful death, a lucrative reality show, or a fantastic political career.
-Fidelity, instead, is left adrift to flounder helplessly on his HMO, hobbling around on makeshift crutches and squeaky, bent wheelchairs for many more years to come.
Years later, poor Fidelity finds he can’t hide that urine smell no matter how much Old Spice he uses, and he is banished to the alleys ... but still this former athlete adapts, thrives and survives by stealing food from unmonitored rat traps. Seemingly indestructible -even after his arms are amputated due to the numerous untreated rat bites- he persists by swift and dexterous use of his increasingly-nimble toes.
In Fidelity's final decades, our unfaltering hero will grow ultra-sensitive to natural light, shrieking hideously when exposed to it. But again Fidelity turns apples to applesauce: deep within the catacombs of a Los Angeles sewer, Fidelity will enjoy many a comparatively tranquil year laying under a startlingly high-protein leak directly under a liposuction clinic. Content and happy, Fidelity ultimately succumbs to his piteous and unsanitary lifestyle as a host to a hive of giant stainless steel bees with razorwire stingers and acid drool that slowly devour him -from the inside out- in a horrific and macabre agonizing death.
I totally made up the part about the lice repellent causing male pattern baldness, but you can see Fidelity is pretty fucked right?
(For the record, I made up the bees too actually.)
Anyway, I maintain the rest of these as facts because they are true.
I know they are facts because I either experienced them, or made them up personally.
Furthermore I experienced these facts just today at roughly 11:00 am -the moment I noticed my wedding ring was missing.
Yes, you read that correctly: I lost my wedding ring.
While David explained stuff to a disbelieving and oblivious jaw-agape world that he’s been having affairs on television, I conversely was explaining stuff to my beloved, a disbelieving woman so utterly convinced of my rampant faithlessness she wouldn’t trust me in prison. And as David wove his circumstances into a monologue and the audience laughed uneasily at his, eh, ‘confession,’ I was flipping between pie charts with a laser pointer, pitching insistent theories on dizzyingly-long Excel spreadsheets supporting the 'I Never Take My Ring Off! Maybe it Just Ran Away!' hypothesis.
If you think about it, I had the exact opposite of David’s problems today. Therefore, smart people must conclude our respective Karmas are completely inversed, right? Thus, could there possibly be clearer irrefutable proof that I am cosmically favored over David Letterman by Divine Influence?
Hah! Stick that in your pipe 'an smoke it David Letterman! Sure you got nice cars and mansions and yachts and vacations and tons of money ... I got Jesus, sucker!
Well, enough about how God loves me and hates David Letterman. I’m bored with it. Technically, this post isn't even about David Letterman ... he just keeps creeping back in somehow, kinda like some slightly pudgier and well-dressed Nicolas Cage. Blech! And because I think it is widely considered rude by civilized nations to talk about people besides myself, I’m simply going to “rise above” my obvious and vast spiritual superiority over David Letterman, try not to lord over him with it’s blinding warmth and radiance, and get on with my story.
-A story that contains no David Letterman.
Or preaching.
At 11:00 am or so, Terri and the kids had just left.
But upon discovery of the missing ring, I quickly decide to call her immediately anyway: I’m faintly hoping she found it lying somewhere and was waiting to see how long it’ll take me to notice –you know, as a test or a joke maybe.
Within moments, it was clear sinister academics and cruel humor could be ruled out. But by this time I would already be in too deep.
She answers the phone on the third ring.
“Hello?” she asks.
This will take some finesse, coaches my brain. Relax, LOBO. Be cool. Smoooooth. To alert her to the problem will be to alarm her with the problem. And it seems to me the least you could do -as her husband- is to not alarm the poor woman.
“Uh, baby, have you seen my wedding ring?”
Dammit!
”No honey,” she says over the cellphone. “I haven’t seen your ring.”
Oh crap she knows oh crap oh crap oh crap-
“Where did you see it last?” she asks.
See that? my brain marvels to me. Now that’s love. A mere handful of barbaric attempts at syllables, and she knows everything somehow! It’s truly amazing to behold. Indeed we share a deep, mystical bond.
As I wait for an answer, I hear fingers drumming rhythmically.
This is going to be tough, my brain concludes. If we don’t figure out a way trick this ‘mystical bond’ thing into thinking everything is cool, she’ll kill us. I recommend you change the subject without delay.
“What ring?” I ask Terri, thinking quickly.
-From inside my skull, I hear a sound that reminds me of a tightening noose, and a chair being kicked.
“Your wedding ring,” says Terri. ”Do you remember the last time you saw it?”
The jig clearly up, I sigh thumping my forehead softly against the wall in sinking dread. I’ve screwed up some pretty hefty crap, but this is ‘off the charts’ comparably. This’ll doubtlessly be days and days of consecutive screaming and yelling. And she’ll probably kick the whole thing off with some coy line like the ever-dreaded ‘Did you lose your ring in a bar? Was it for some cute girl? Hm … ?’
”Check the sink,” she offers. “Maybe it slipped off.”
I blink at my phone in disbelief ... My wife, in the face of this inexcusable quarreling “lay up,” is being cool, sweet and attempting to be helpful.
-I’m not sure what she’s up to, but now I’m Terrified.
“I did already,” I manage.
“Well,” she jokes. “Judging from your pork chop intake it certainly didn’t fall off. I’m sure it’s there somewhere."
Here comes, I'm thinking. That little funny was the warm-up. She’s gonna torture you and wait to deliver the real haymaker when you least expect it. That will totally suck. I better go "big," and hope I can get her to pull the trigger on it ASAP.
“Hah,” I said into the phone, eyes narrow. “A fat joke. Very clever."
”Baby, it’ll turn up I’m sure. Now we’re almost there -I gotta go. I love you.”
Man, I'm thinking. What is she up to? This woman is flat out slick.
“I love you too,” I says cautiously.
And after flipping the phone shut, an odd quietness seems to set in a little too quickly; I head for the living room. Regardless of her true motives, Terri raised a good point to reflect upon: that wedding ring wasn’t ‘falling off’ loose. That thing had to be here in the house.
Intuitively, I tried to recreate my earlier household activities … but this proved extremely difficult; this was an uncharacteristically busy morning for me, and sorting out the order of events seemed to grow more complex with every fresh memory. Curse my wretched industriousness! Thinking the flurry of activity might be too distracting, I thought maybe typing it up might clarify things a bit.
After printing it, I grabbed a pencil and returned to the living room for intense study:
After I woke up, I drank a cup of coffee. Then I went to the store. When I got back, I briefly tried to figure out a speaker short behind my computer until I banged my head on a shelf. After cursing a lot, I suddenly remembered there were some leftover pork chops in the fridge. I nuked the crap out of those babies, and ate them while watching NFL highlights on cable. I woke up on the couch after an indeterminate amount of time and fiddled with the computer short again during a commercial.
I read this with a high degree of skepticism. But the story checks out: the overall timeline is accurate because a plate of pork chop bones is sitting on my desk, instead of in the kitchen sink where it should be.
Still, don’t entirely trust this testimony somehow. My gut tells me this isn’t the work of some rank amateur: a plate of bones picked this expertly clean could be on my desk merely because my desk is a lot closer than the kitchen sink is.
But reading on, a chill runs down my spine as I read the last riveting line:
I better figure out why nobody installed a kitchen sink near my desk before Terri gets home or I'll get yelled at for leaving dishes here -Hey! Where the fuck is my wedding ring?
Now I am wholly convinced.
-No human could fake an unspeakable horror like that.
Feeling the transcript’s veracity confirmed I grab the remote, and contemplate this solemnly while watching ESPN. But even if it is true, I’m thinking, what could one mortal man possibly do about it? -Oooh look! Kobe Bryant has a new commercial!
On the very face this ring search was daunting. Even just thinking about it one grew instantaneously overwhelmed –mauled violently by it’s sheer scope, and left a drained and desiccated husk. A short nap helped somewhat, but not as much as a long one would have; yawning, I grab the transcript again.
How could I somehow be everywhere over the span of such a short span of time? There were literally dozens of possible nooks ‘an crannies and shelves where that ring could be concealed. Heck, it could be in the very couch I’m sitting on! This is completely hopeless.
But as time passed, I grew increasingly apprehensive. And by the time all the NFL highlights were over I was disgusted, and found myself absently re-reading the puzzling transcript once again.
Regardless of the infinitesimal-seeming odds of success in solving this nigh-incomprehensible mystery, I need to find that ring, I decide. And failure is never an option when one’s marital bliss is threatened!
Determined, I stood abruptly from the couch and stormed into the den. And once there, I typed up my passionate and blistering “Reasons that Failure is not an Option!” list for further inspiration:
I print this too, and paperclip it to my own previous testimony.
It reads: First, I just plain want the damn ring. Partly on principal, and partly on ‘nothing screams loser like a married guy with no ring.’ Blogging loser reaches a wider audience than a screaming loser, and blogging doesn’t make you hoarse. WTF? Is this, the Middle Ages? This ring has become a universal symbol of Progress.
Second, I’m virtually certain that ring wasn’t missing for very long. I would have noticed. Terri is right: that thing is here somewhere. Close. Maybe too close in fact: try and look for it facing toward a lot of mirrors if you can. And stay “frosty,” too: I think that thing has diamond shards or something in it, and you could probably get a mean scratch on your foot that could get infected. If wounded, there is Neosporin and some Band-Aids in the bathroom … but always keep in mind a full-blown of gangrene might be used in your favor: you could always tell Terri “I lost my freakin’ leg looking for that ring!” Pretend you have feelings and, like, cry or something -whether you find the ring or not, I’ll bet you get pork chops.
Third, stuff doesn’t just ”disappear” -well, unless it’s by a really, really good magician. Like one of those guys in Vegas. Don’t let any Vegas magicians in the house for the duration of the hunt. That ring is there, and I’m sure with some effort you will find it -assuming it hasn't been whisked away to some other dimension or something. But quasi-dimensional types don’t give two craps about jewelry anyway, so I would regard this as highly unlikely; they usually only want lighters, pens, and individual socks.
You know now that I think about it, leave a goodly supply of lighters, pens, and individual socks spread all over the house.
Just in case.
I didn’t finish the fourth reason.
It just sort of trails off because I got busy searching.
-Frankly the fourth reason was simply far too frightening to contemplate, and I probably didn’t want to waste time changing underwear numerous times for doing so.
Indeed Terri had been amazingly cool so far. Heck, maybe she’s even sincere. But either way, if this goes on another twelve hours or so, she is going to be interrogating me by freezing various digits and limbs of mine in liquid nitrogen and smashing them with a ball-peen hammer for every wrong answer I provide.
An hour passes.
”You're exaggerating of course,” I’m saying to myself out loud from under the dresser. “The unbearable stress of this clearly futile hunt has simply magnified your worst fears. Terri would never dance barefoot on the slushy frozen goo of what remained of you, her irresponsible-yet adorable husband. You would be at the State Line by then. She would never catch you either! Liquid nitrogen tanks are really freakin’ heavy.
Another hour.
”And once I hit that State Line, pow, I’m home free!” I laugh, tearing up the bed. “At that point all I have to do is fake my own death, steal someone else’s identity, leave the planet, and never sleep again. Simple.”
But all this planning would be for naught.
-For something shiny just thumped into my field of vision.
After a scant four hours of solid, frantic searching, I found the ring!
Well okay, fine: four hours minus the twenty minutes out I took to convince those poor Jehova’s Witnesses that they are dead wrong about everything, and that I would prove it if they came back here in eight hours.
-Also, subtract eight minutes and forty-one seconds for when I gassed up the car.
Let’s just call it an even three hours and thirty minutes of frantic searching. Okay? Anyway ...
“I found it!” I cry triumphant into the cellphone moments later. "Ha-HA!"
“Well good darling,” says Terri, crackling slightly in the ambient din of kids. “I should be home in twenty minutes. I was thinking I would make spaghetti.”
“That sounds great,” I says almost pointlessly -I’m so simultaneously relieved and frazzled, she could have said she was making shish-kabobbed kitty litter clumps on the hibachi and I wouldn’t have cared. “I missed you guys today!”
”We missed you too. Aunt Beth says hello.”
I can here faint-yet distinct ‘farewells,’ and conclude she’s loading the van. “Tell her hi,” I says pleasantly.
”So where did you find the ring?”
“Folded in a deep wrinkle in our bedspread. You could barely see it. I’ll show you … it was like camouflaged in a crease.”
There’s kind of this long, ominous pause.
Over the phone, the kids fall utterly silent in this strange moment –it sounds as if all the oxygen has suddenly left the vehicle.
”Really?” Terri begins. ”And why exactly would you take your ring off in the bed today?”
Comments
Do you realize you write more in one post then I do in three months? As a matter of fact I think your word count is far greater then the entire output of the whole Entrecard community today.
Now mind ya, I am not bashing ya, on the contrary, I just like to know how long this took you to write and if you say less then 30 minutes, this two finger typer is gonna be pissed for not learning my typing skills back in Catholic school. Bad enough it took 35 years to get rid of the guilt the beer swigging brothers laid on us.
I also believe I just made a few of the longest run on sentences I have ever left for anyone, that in itself deserve some kind of reward.
Obviously this post does not need a comment or you might need to start another database. OK OK, I plead guilty I have not read a whole lot of your posts as of yet. I am a fledgling OLD newbie blogger and takes me half the day to find and click the damn yellow boxes that people shove all over their blogs. Why do we click on these pathetic things?
Actually the main reason I stopped by is to thank you for your nice, extensive comment on my blog. So with that, peace out ;-)
[hope, hope!]
MOB: This is actually a "smoosh" of a few drafts, notes, rejected posts, and ideas that had a common theme.
-The Letterman story came along and strung them together somewhat.
Think of it as "blog meat loaf."
:)