DOH! - A DEER!

It was while I was driving along the highway and noticing yet another deer carcass on the side of the road that I decided that it would suck to be a deer.

There have been times during great stress in dealing with my everyday life that I have wished to be someone or something else. A bird would be appealing due to the whole "flying factor" - just pick up and fly some place warm when the mood strikes you and poop on those pedestrians who tick you off along the way. If I'm a bird, I'm flying my butt down to Disney World, getting in free, and bombadeering the jerks who rent a wheelchair and fake disability in order to get in the front of the line. A bear would be a good choice - get to gain weight and sleep all winter without anyone saying "boo" about it and if they do, you just eat them - yeah, I could be a bear.

However, a deer's life is not one I envy. They are the Rodney Dangerfields of the animal kingdom - they get no respect. Deer are surrounded by the threat of imminent death. I imagine that if a deer possessed human qualities, we would see a bunch of paranoid, chain-smoking cynical deer who are in therapy twice a week....Maybe Dennis Leary is a deer in disguise. And a disguise is really what a deer needs to escape the bullets that wiz by their heads every hunting season. Of course, the deer population is so large that if they are not hunted by either man or beast, they would starve to death for lack of food. Then of course our furry friend can meet its fate by automobile - can't even run away from its miserable existence in the forest without the fear of ending up as a hood ornament on a Chevy Impala - which is just cruel irony if you ask me. To add insult to injury - a dead deer isn't even removed from the scene of its demise on the highway. It is simply pushed to the side of the road and spray painted orange so that it can be avoided by on-coming traffic. So if you are that deceased deer, not only are you now sprawled out for all of rush-hour traffic to see, but your butt has been tagged with orange graffiti - not a flattering color I might add.

You know, when you add all the factors of a deer's life up - guns, over-population, starvation, predators, getting killed by a drive-by, graffiti - you have....the ghetto. Maybe deer could expound upon their harsh life in the wood-ghetto though the music of rap. Deer - the rap artists of the animal kingdom. You could have Snoop Bucky-Buck, Lil' Fawn, Dr. Doe, and Bambi Elliot. They could rap about Chronic (Wasting Disease) and drive pimped-out John Deer tractors. "So I'm on a mission. Ya betta jus' listen. Time to give props to the deer that we're dissin' - Peace Out!"

I Dream - Therefore I Am

Do nudists have recurring dreams of being dressed in a public place?
Do gorgeous movie stars dream of kissing an ordinary un-famous face?
Does the dream of falling from a height leave stuntmen without a care?
Do birds dream (if they dream) of walking everywhere?
If dreams are our subconscious fears as Freud was known to say,
Then did Sigmund have recurring dreams that dreams all went away?
Some very deep and profound thoughts fill my philosophical cup,
But they must now all cease for the alarm is ringing......and now I must wake up.

Cheap Cable Reality Stars

I am married to a frugal man. He prefers the term "a good steward of money", but that's like calling a virgin "a good steward of sex" - neither one's going to be giving it up any time soon. I call it like I see it - my husband's cheap (which, ironically, you can't say about a virgin). So naturally, being married to a penny-pincher, there are certain things in our married life that reflect his extra tight grip on the wallet. One of them is our cable service.

We have "basic cable" - not even "standard cable" - basic. No HBO or Cinemax for us. I've made the discovery that we don't have Discovery, it's no laughing matter that we can't get Comedy Central - I can't even get my MTV. I am lucky if I can get to watch Scott Baio in any number of reruns of Happy Days, Joannie Loves Chachi, Diagnosis Murder or my personal favorite - Charles in Charge. TV THEME SONG BREAK!......"A new boy in the neighborhood, lives downstairs and it's understood. He's there just to take good care of me, like he's one of the family....CHARLES IN CHARGE of our days and our nights, CHARLES IN CHARGE of our wrongs and our rights. And I see, I want CHARLES IN CHARGE OF ME!"

Ahhhh, that was fun.... now where were we? Oh yes, cheap cable. We have the TV version of AM radio. To be perfectly honest with you, it really doesn't bother me. I figure, the more channels we have, the more crap we have to choose from. As such, in having cheap, cheap cable, I am obviously out of the loop in regards to the latest trend towards reality shows. The newlyweds, Nick and Jessica, have not crossed the threshold of our home. Queer Eye has not had an influence on my fashion-challenged husband - although, every time I catch him wearing his shorts with tube socks and stark white sneakers, I threaten to call the Fab Five for an emergency make-over. However, they say that necessity is the mother of invention (or the root of all evil.... something like that), so I have found my own Cheap Cable Reality Stars.

My first reality star I discovered while flipping through my oh-so-few channels can be seen on that widely-viewed network - EWTN. That's right - Catholic TV. There you will find the cutest little nun since Sally Field flew across our TV screens. Mother Angelica is a sweet little old lady whose face reminds me of one of those baked-apple dolls you see in gift shops. Now I must admit that my Catholic up-bringing might be shedding a bias on my opinion, but as she sits in her wooden chair giving her viewers spiritual counsel with a little bit of spunk in her voice, I am completely mesmerized. Mother Angelica has been plagued by recurring minor strokes and so during some of her telecasts, she wears an eye patch and becomes.......Pirate Nun - Arrrrrrr!
Okay, I am so completely going to Hell for that statement. I'm going to go say 3 "Hail Mary's" and 2 "Our Father's".

My next cheap cable reality star likes to hang out with the stars - literally. Jack Horkheimer is better known as the Star Gazer and can be seen on PBS during a night of insomnia or nursing an infant (which is how I discovered him). Actually, he used to be known as the Star Hustler and dressed the part - gold chains and all - until political correctness took over. Now he just wears polyester sweat suits ala Tony Soprano. There are so many things I like about this guy - the first being his name. Jack Horkheimer - sounds like something that you would order at the deli. "I'll have a pound of Jack Horkheimer - shaved, not sliced." Next, is his obvious love for the science of Astronomy. This guy is way too excited about telling the audience where they can find Uranus in the night sky. My guess is that it would be most visible during a full moon, but I'm no expert (hee, hee!) Mr. Horkheimer delivers his nightly star-gazing reports with a wild-eyed smile and a raspy voice reminiscent of Harvey Feinstein as he leaps from planet to planet on his green screen set. He even has a signature sign-off, "Keep looking up!" which I think beat out Jack's first choice of, "Horkheimer Out!"

Ooohh! Gotta go - informercial guru Don Lapre is on TV telling me how I can get rich enough to upgrade my cable service.

The Enemy Within

I am the mother of 3 small children - ages 7, 2, and 9 months. They are adorable to look at - my husband always says that the world would be a more beautiful place if we kept having children. He says that because he's a man, and therefore - having not gone through the child birth experience - doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. And, with his low threshold for pain, the world would be a less populated place if he were to birth our offspring. Besides, even if his theory were true, the world might be a more beautiful place with one hip-widening, belly flabbiness exception - me! After three children, my once athletic body is headed for early retirement. Jenny Craig has her work cut out for her.

It was while I was looking in the mirror one day and contemplating the miracles of liposuction, that I came up with my very own conspiracy theory - What if children are a secret terrorist plot to destoy society? Now I know this is not a politically correct statement to make - after all, we are talking about children - cute, adorable, fun-loving children. But that's what makes it so perfect - nobody would ever suspect them! I started imagining what the planning meetings for this devious plot would sound like. I also imagined that the terrorists would have cheesy French accents - I don't know why:

Okay, first we will weaken ze bodies of ze unsuspecting pregnant females by giving zem swollen ankles, hemeroids, and ze wimpy bladders zat will keep zem in ze toilet every ten minutes or peeing a little on zemselves when ze laugh - (insert evil laugh here - HA, HA, HA, HA!)

Next, we will deprive zem of ze sleep by instructing our infant agents (via a secret code transmitted through ze baby monitor) to wake up every 2 hours with ze loud crying. If ze parents start to zuspect anyzing, ze babies will diztract zem with ze spit-up and ze poo-poo. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! (insert evil laugh here - HA,HA, HA, HA!)

Next, I imagined the instructions given to the tiny toddler terrorists:

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to wreak havoc in ze lives of your parents. Your voice will always be loud. Your main weapon will be dirt - spread it everywhere ezpecially on ze walls and ze newly shampooed carpets. Rezist naps - zis iz zer only way to control you. If ze try to restrain you, you can use one of ze two methods of defense - ze wet noodle if zey try to pick you up, and ze ironing board if ze try to make you sit in ze car seat. Cuteness will be your cover. Your code name is Schnooky Poo.

Of course, we parents are not without our own ways to counter-attack our pint-size terrorist plotters. We can deploy the verbal machine gun whenever our toddler terrorist is about to touch something or someone they shouldn't - "No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no!"
There's solitary confinement - "TIME OUT! Go To Your Room!"
And the old tried and true method of appealing to their weakness - Sugar. "If you're good in the store, Mommy will buy you a lollipop the size of your head!"

Now, I must go. I just found my should-be-napping 2-year-old in her crib with all her clothes off - "Look Mommy - I nakey!".......I think I've been infiltrated.