Saturday, December 27, 2008

The 12 Inch Italian, Please **

I'd like one of these, please! Hold the mayo.

I have pounds of cookies to eat and miles to go before I sleep, so I am taking the liberty of recycling another of my older posts:

May 30, 2008
I stopped at Firehouse Subs for a sandwich to share with a friend today. I ordered the 12 inch Italian. I realized right in the middle of my order that it sounded rather rude. The cashier, apparently jaded by these orders, just asked if I wanted chips with that. Sure do.
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Sometime in the early dawn hours the resident squirrels succeeded in toppling the squirrel proof bird feeder from our tree out back. Pesky things. They pour over blue prints at night and make new attempts by day. Took them 2 1/2 years, but they got it.

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They ate most of the seed that spilled out. I hope they're good and thirsty now. I also caught them in the act of snagging one of my roses yesterday. A new white miniature that I planted the day before. (I'm a glutton for punishment) I've been blaming it on the deer because I saw a deer track in the garden. I think the squirrels figured out how to make deer tracks.



.Now you can see just what we're up against here!

Any way, the squirrels are having an awards dinner tonight for the one who cracked the code to the feeder. They'll probably hit the sack early though. They're in training right now. I have a fig tree - the one with bottles and wind chimes on it - to deter them. They love it! In there all the time. They are measuring the figs daily, and doing their meal planning around the ripening crop. It's a game every year - who gets to enjoy the figs. The usual score is squirrels 287, Muse and the Mister 6.
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'Scuse me - I was just interrupted in my chain of thought by the Mister. Letting me know that the current load of laundry is just about dry and since it's mostly my clothes I should get it while it's hot. Skipping over the obvious; WHY SHOULD I GET THE *$%^@#@ LAUNDRY JUST BECAUSE IT"S MINE, %^@#@(* !!!!!!) what may not be so obvious to the reader is this: I am sitting here in the one room of the house that I can call mine. I've mentioned.... oh, I don't know... maybe just a thousand times that when I'm writing it would be ever so nice not to be interrupted. Yet, even if we have not exchanged ONE WORD all day, he thinks up things to tell me or ask me while I'm writing. Just like the squirrels figuring out the bird feeder.

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Did you see "As Good As It Gets"? The scene where Jack Nicholson's fiction writing character Melvin Udall is interrupted in the middle of writing? This is part of the dialogue: " Never, never, interrupt me, okay? Not if there's a fire, not even if you hear the sound of a thud from my home and one week later there's a smell coming from there that can only be a decaying human body and you have to hold a hanky to your face because the stench is so thick that you think you're going to faint. Even then, don't come knocking." There's more, but it gets way too rude.


You might just want to take it out of the dryer yourself, Mister.



Anyway, all I'm trying to say is I've explained this to the Mister 167 different ways, and no sooner do I come in here and I'm wailing away on the keyboard I hear the skritching of his sandals coming closer and closer and closer.... to the door and then next thing ya know, here he is with a burning question like "Should I put the chicken on the counter to thaw?" Holy Mama!
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I'm just sure I could have finished my novel by now, sans interruptions. I could be out on book tours. talking movie rights. But no-o-o-o-o-o. Every time I think about it I imagine the skritch of those sandals coming at me and well, that's why I'm only 78 pages into the thing. Four years later. The fact that I haven't quite worked out the plot plays into this, but I'd rather blame it on skritchy sandals.
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When he isn't able to think up a good question he'll just skritch up behind me and say "What are you writing? or " Why dontcha put the 2 of diamonds on the black three." Okay, Okay, so I play some solitaire. It's because I'm passing the time before the skritching starts and then, after answering the burning question of the hour, I can move on.

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'Scuse me, the mister just stopped by with another question (bzzzzzzzzz) and I heard the dryer go off. The dryer with MY clothes in it, so before I go off again I'm signing off. More to follow.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great post...SO FUNNY!

larkswing said...

Ah cute! And yes, I do remember that line from As Good As It Gets! hehe

Martha@A Sense of Humor is Essential said...

Ha, Ha, Mister Muse Swings, guess you will be folding YOUR Own Clothes.

Alexis AKA MOM said...

OMG love the post, I so got it I love that movie!

What do you mean you have to fold and hang up the clothes? Isn't the treadmill the place that you throw you on? LOL

Glad you stopped by, come by anytime! Love that 80 degrees is fair on your weather guide :).

steviewren said...

I'll never be able to order a sub again without blushing! haha I'm glad you posted these. They are too funny.

soulbrush said...

you just crack me up! so does jack nicholson, what a movie saw it three times!!

Sparky said...

Our squirrels are devious. But I'm older and have more money. We bought metal feeders. "HA! Take THAT squirrels!" Now they just chew on our wood house. Guess they showed me what's what.

My Sweetie doesn't have skritchy sandals, he pokes his head into MY office, bats his eyelashes (it's scary how good he is at that ...) and says, "Am I bothering you ...?"

"YEEESSSSS!"

And off he gabbers about nothing. Then I've lost my train of thought.

[sigh]

Must be a guy thing.

'Scuse me. I have to go fold some clothes.

Sparky ♥ ∞

Kat Mortensen said...

Apparently, in some parts of the U.S, the sub is referred to as a "Grinder". Good thing you don't live in Connecticut, for example -- a 12 inch Italian "grinder" would be even worse.

I don't trust my hubby with the laundry ever since he folded up damp towels and put them away in the cupboard. Can you say "mold and mildew"?

Kat

Jane In The Jungle said...

12 inch Italian, ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love it!!!!!!!!!

Dave King said...

What a title! Most authors would die for one like that! Hope you get whatever it is you want from 2009!!!

human being said...

wow...
i'll be the first person to buy your novel... you write marvelously... the way you knit the anecdotes together... and that underlying theme... the atmosphere you create... the sarcasm....
reading this post made me so excited...
wait feverishly for you to write your novel... and please please please include this motif of "skritchy sandals' somewhere in your novel... it's really impressive...
hugs

Lisa at Greenbow said...

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at this post. I am so glad you reposted for us to enjoy. This is such a familiar happening. hahahahahahah