With Friends Like These, Who Needs Pants?

I think the reason that I don't have more friends, is that people these days are just too sensitive. For instance the other day we had a couple from church over to the house, and they ended up leaving in a huff over practically nothing.
     This couple was supposed come over this week and my wife forgot to remind me; I mean she claims to have written it on the calendar, and have texted me during the day, and put a note in my lunch, and tied a string around my finger, but I mean really?! If she really wanted me to remember she could have written it on my hand... hey, look at that. So I came straight home after work, and by straight home I mean, I played 9 holes of disc golf, went to the local watering hole, and then to the bookstore to peruse the latest comic books. By the time I got home, I had 25 voice mails and 5 minutes to get ready for our guests. So I grabbed a beer and jumped into the shower. After what I estimated to be 3 or 4 minutes I got out of the shower and went into the kitchen. "Hey hon", I called "I forgot to take clothes into the bathroom, and when is that stuffed shirt and his clown-like wife supposed to show up?"

If he does it, it's art.

      And that's when I learned several things, apparently they had been there for twenty minutes, DaVinci's David is a masterpiece, but somehow naked Flip is an abomination, and our new "friends" don't have much of a sense of humor. Everyone started screaming; the husband was yelling at me to put on pants, the wife was screeching about how her make-up was subdued, my wife was yelling how I was a complete embarrassment, and I was yelling about how it would be nice if I never had to wear pants... and could somebody get me a beer. But I would like to have some friends, they have a pool and the summers get hot, so I apologized. Totally sincerely and everything. But did they forgive me like christian friends should? NO, they just huffed out, saying how they've never been so humiliated. And I swear they just kept going on and on about the whole would you please put some pants on thing. Jeez, give it a rest, already.
     So there is two more people I don't want to be friends with. Maybe I just have bad friend-ar, (like gaydar, but different), I always pick bad friends. They never have a sense of humor, or they won't answer their phones at 3am, (somebody told me that was the true test of friendship), or they have an unnatural attachment to their "priceless" Ming vases, or they complain about how they always have to pick up the check, or they have that weird hangup about how I should wear pants, or they are intimidated by my obviously superior intelligentsia. Maybe I am just destined to not have friends. Oh well, at least I have my wife... Hey, where is she going?

In Which Fred Gets A Date. Sort Of. But Not Really.

I was on vacation with my family last week, which I might tell you about later... or not. But, without further ado, I bring you another exciting edition of Fred from Vegas.

I slowly became aware that somebody was gently yet insistently trying to break my ribs with a little tap-dance.
"Hey stupid" The girl of my dreams lovingly shouted, "Wake up you freakin' moron."
"Ow. OW! Quit it out! I'm up! I'm up. What happened?"
"I'm not sure, being blind and all, but I think you and your retarded, what I can only assume is a cat, attacked me as I walked to the mail box. We got entangled and drug down the street, where you first tried to flirt with me and then smashed your unquestionably teeny brain on a fire hydrant and heroically passed out. Your mongrel cat and my dogs leashes are tangled up around us, and we are trapped here and I can't see the knot to unfasten us so I was hoping that I could convince you wake up AND GET ME OUT OF THIS FREAKIN' MESS!!"
"Oh."
"OH?! Sit up and untangle us already!"
"How do you know there is something wrong with my cat?" I asked as I sat up and surveyed the situation.
"It is tied to my face! It feels like a bag of pointy sticks wrapped in burlap, sounds like a asthmatic rusty 78 Pinto, and smells like I can only assume zombie butt odor does. Now get me untied, or I swear I'll start screaming until the cops show up and swear you were trying to molest me AND my dog."
"OK, ok, you don't have to get all huffy."
So I sat up and began to untangle the four of us, trying to stay away from the business end of her dog, who was on the largish side and didn't appear to be very happy to make my acquaintance. After several minutes, a few growls and one small bite, I managed to get us all freed. As we gathered ourselves I took the opportunity to get a good look at the neighbor, who promptly slapped me in the face.

"OW, first you bite me and now you hit me in face. What was that for?"
"Both were for being a perv. Perv."
"I'm not a perv." Anxious to change the subject, "So, a Rottweiler? That seems like an aggressive choice to be a guide dog."
"Yeah, well they closed a junk yard and some charity repurposes guard dogs into service animals. Conan, here does a pretty good job most of the time."
"Conan. After the funny guy on TV?"
"No, Conan, as in the Desroyer, of pretty much everything."
"I see what you mean, he has most of my cat stuffed inside of his mouth."
She immediately started smacking her dog on top of the head to get him to drop my precious Bill, "Spit it out, Conan, that thing will make you sick, it's rotten, spit it out. Oh, that is disgusting." She said,  as she pulled Bill out of her dogs slimy maw.
"Here" she thrust the cat in my direction, dripping frothy white ooze, tracing a line from the dogs mouth to the cat and slowly plopping stalactites onto the sidewalk.
Then she turned on her heel, tripped over her dog, got up, grabbed the leash, and stalked back to her house.
"So I didn't catch your name, mine's Fred. Do you want to get some coffee or something?" I yelled at her back.
"Laura," I think she said, and then something that sounded like piss off and then something saltier and more unrepeatable.
"So I'll take a rain check then, shall I?"
Getting no response I headed back to my house, dragging the cat, who being lubed up with dog excretions, slid along rather nicely.
I let Bill out of his kitty harness, who set about the daunting task of decontaminating himself of several pounds of dog spit, and I set down on the couch and realized that the TV still didn't work, and then remembered that I hadn't paid the cable bill and that is why the TV probably didn't work. Before I had thrown the remote through it, I mean. The TV was clearly not going to work with or without cable, while a plastic rectangle protruded from the screen.
I went to the kitchen and got another cup of "coffee", when someone began to bang on the front door. Loudly. Like it had done something terrible and was being punished.
"Who is it?"
"DID YOU TAKE MY FREAKIN' KEYS?!"
"I'm sorry, who is it again?"

"It's Laura from down the street, and after the incident earlier, I can't find my keys, and I looked an... Did you take them?"

I opened the door and let Laura and her beast into the front door. In rapid succession, dog and cat locked eyes and Bill shot up the stairs, Conan followed closely behind, sending Laura flying. Into me. Or more specifically into my face. With her face. CRACK! As I fell backwards I thought, "her sweet lips touched mine... granted, a tad hard, but when the swelling goes down it will be worth it." I watched her face as we flew backwards, in seeming slow motion, as seen in many a Lifetime original movie, and then we landed as people flying through the air are want to do, at the bottom of the stairs. And the last thing I saw, was Laura's blind eyes registering a look of surprise as her forehead smashed against my nose and the Sandman once again sprinkled some fairy dust on me... and then clobbered me with his big damn sledgehammer and knocked me senseless!
more to come...

The Incredibly Moving Story Of A Man And His Cat.

Dearest readers, I have run out of stuff to talk about in my life, so I have now hired myself out as a ghost writer. Today I helped Fred, from Las Vegas put his story into words. Enjoy.


Today started off just like any other day, I woke up early to the cat using my face to sharpen his claws. Not feeling the need to get up right at that moment, I slung the cat, spinning, across the room, where he crumpled against the wall, temporarily stunned, buying myself several more minutes of sleep. (*Note to self, although undeniably soft; perhaps cat-nip not best material for "organic pillow stuffing".) After several more facial disfigurement/cat hurling episodes, (or the snooze button as I call it), I rolled out of bed, and tracked blood into the bathroom. Wearing copious amounts of gauze, I headed down towards the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Just as I stepped over the unconscious cat at the top of the stairs, he woke up and launched himself at my feet like some majestic tiger tackling a crippled yak, and not the neutered myopic lazy excuse for a cat that he is. His hunting prowess notwithstanding, we landed akimbo, at the bottom of the stairs in a knot of kitty, people, arms, legs, and tails, (well, tail.)

     I awoke sometime later that afternoon, (judging by the amount of messages on my cell phone;  "do you know what time it is?", "are you coming to work today?", "you no longer work here") and went into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of cold coffee. Seeing as how I didn't have a place of employment to head to, I went ahead and made it a sort of Irish Coffee. (A half Scottish, half Mexican, half Jamaican, half Irish coffee.) I poured a little of my concoction in the kitty dish on my way into the living room, and collapsed into the couch. I turned on the TV and then dug my phone out of the couch to call my boss and explain that I would be into work tomorrow and that I had been laying unresponsive at the bottom of the stairs all day. Again. (Damn cat) My boss didn't believe me, but agreed to give me another shot. Luckily, not just anyone can pick up dead animals on the side of the road, and my dad owns the company. The stupid TV was channel after channel of snow, but it stopped after the remote embedded itself in the screen.
    Seeing as how the TV wasn't working, I decided to go out and get some exercise. I gathered up the cat and told him we were going for a walk, to which he appreciatively responded with a flurry of claws and feral screams. With a minimal amount of blood loss, the use of welding gloves, a tazer and several more cups of "coffee", I managed to get the cat into his kitty harness, and headed out the door. The cat was thrilled to be out of the house and showed his excitement by spreading out his limbs as far as he could and giving the sidewalk a big pointy hug. I headed down the street towards the mail box at the end of the block, and gave the lead a gentle tug to encourage the cat to catch up, and as he sailed over my head, beautifully silhouetted against the setting sun, he lovingly coughed a hair ball on my head. I wiped the slimy ball of hair off my face as the cat landed on top of the dog of the next door neighbor, who let out a somewhat surprised howl and turned into a furry lightning bolt.
     The problem with the neighbors dog shooting off down the street, was that, firstly, the cat was attached to the dog, and secondly, I was attached to the cat, and lastly but not leastly, the neighbors dog was attached to the ever so lovely but nonetheless completely blind next door neighbor. I had been wanting to meet her for months, and now I was finally getting my opportunity, I just had to play it cool. I'm not sure what the proper etiquette is for asking somebody out on a date while being drug down the street by their guide dog, but I did manage to ask her, "what a good looking girl like you doing, being drug down a street like this?" And then I hit my head on a fire hydrant... More to come.