Maj has a cold. She is really pissed off about this. Because she uses hand sanitizer somewhat obsessively (and the rest of us do not), she is fairly confident there has been sabotage. She hates germs.
Also? Her ears are stuffed up, something I didn’t realize until about 20 minutes into a loud-talking morning.
“MOM?”
“Yeah?”
“I NEED MONEY FOR LUNCH TICKETS.”
“Ok.”
“I’M GOING TO EAT SOME YOGURT.”
“Whatever.”
“THE DOG IS EATING GRASS.”
“Ok.”
“YOU NEED TO SIGN A PAPER FOR MY TEACHER.”
“Ummmm . . . Maj?”
“YEAH?”
“Are you under the impression that you are using a normal speaking voice?”
“OF COURSE. THIS IS HOW I ALWAYS TALK.”
“Because you are kind of yelling everything.”
“OH, GREAT. SO NOW I CAN’T ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS AT SCHOOL, BECAUSE I WON’T BE ABLE TO TELL HOW LOUD MY VOICE IS AND I WILL BE SCREAMING EVERYTHING. THAT’S JUST GREAT.”
Kallan comes through and raises her hand.
“What, Kallan?”
“No, I’m not Kallan, I’m loud-talking Maj. AND THE ANSWER IS TWELVE!”
Kallan runs off giggling and Maj glares at me, “AREN’T YOU GOING TO PUNISH HER?”
“I did. You just didn’t hear me because your ears are all clogged up.”
“YOU ARE LYING, MOTHER.”
“Yes, well there’s that.”
“WHAT?”
“What?”
“AUGH! YOU ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY. OK, LISTEN. I AM GOING TO TRY TO TURN DOWN MY VOLUME, AND YOU TELL ME IF THIS VOICE WILL WORK FOR SCHOOL. READY?”
“Yes.”
“HOW ABOUT THIS VOICE? IS THIS A REGULAR VOICE?”
“Not even.”
“WHAT?”
“I said not even.”
“NOT EVEN WHAT?”
“Ok, Maj? It’s going to be a long day. Let me get you some Sudafed.”
“WHAT?”
I put my hands on her shoulders and steer her up the stairs. Give her the Sudafed and her allergy meds. In the small enclosed space of the bathroom, she can hear me better.
“SO WHEN WILL I BE ABLE TO HEAR EVERYTHING AT THE RIGHT VOLUME AGAIN?”
“I think this should help in about a half hour or so, but your ears are probably going to bother you all day.”
“GREAT.”
She turns to leave, but then turns back, “CAN YOU HELP ME WITH THE ZIPPER ON THESE PANTS? IT’S STUCK.”
Kallan yells from the other room, “That’s because somebody is all kinds of fat!”
“WHAT DID SHE SAY?”
I yell back so that Kallan can hear me, “Kallan said that she wants to do your chores later and what do you think of that?”
Kallan squeals and runs downstairs.
“THAT’S NOT WHAT SHE SAID, IS IT?”
“Nope.”
“HAVING KALLAN FOR A SISTER IS WAY MORE WORK THAN IT OUGHT TO BE.”
“Sorry about that.”
“WHAT?”
“Your sister can be a pain. I know.”
“NO, I DON’T THINK IT’S SUPPOSED TO RAIN.”
Sigh.
I have agreed to drive them to school this morning. It’s a very short drive, and they are silent. As we pull up to the drop-off area, they leap from the car.
I wave after them, “Bye, ladies! Have a great day!”
Kallan grunts and runs off.
Maj turns, waves, “BYE, MOM! DON’T FORGET . . .”
And then she realizes she is yelling and runs off without finishing her sentence.
My ears? Are not all fucked up.
But yesterday? There was a moment when I wished that I was not hearing what I was hearing.
I have mentioned elsewhere that many years ago, I let Maj name our new Labrador puppy. She chose Persie, after a character in a book she liked at the time. I thought it was the perfect name. However, Persie’s name was forever ruined for me by a friend who long ago asked me how I could stand having my two lispy little girls (at that time ages 1 and 3) run around our back yard screaming for “pussy.”
Once someone tells you that calling your dog makes you sound like you are screaming for pussy?
It’s difficult to ever hear Persie again. The dog’s name is Pussy, and calling her name in public is all kinds of inappropriate and embarrassing.
Sigh.
So that has been big fun here at our new house where children live on all sides of our back yard. Persie the Labrador loves them all and happily runs from one side of the yard to the other to greet them as they scream for her, “Pussy, come here, Pussy! Here girl! Treat, Pussy! I have a treat for you, Pussy!”
Sigh.
I have had to clearly enunciate the name PERSIE for more than one confused and startled mom
So fun.
There is a little boy in the neighborhood who loves our smaller badly behaved dog Jack. For some reason, he sometimes calls the dog Jacket. Cute, right?
Yesterday, Kallan is in the back yard with 3 or 4 kids, and both dogs are out there as well. The little boy who loves Jack is on the deck, trying to get the dog to jump up onto a chair, “Jacket up! Up, Jacket! Jacket, Up!”
And in the background the rest of the kids are playing some sort of keep-away ball game with the Labrador that requires them to scream her name endlessly.
So I am sitting on the couch, trying to read a book, and all I hear is this . . .
Jacket, Up! Pussy! Jacket, Up! PUSSY! JACKET, UP! PUSSY! PUSSY! JACKET, UP! JACKETUPPUSSY JACKETUPPUSSY JACKETUPPUSSY JACKETUPPUSSY! JACKETUPPUSSY! JACKETUPPUSSY!
Jacked-up pussy.
Sigh.
Also, you know that thing Maj was trying to tell me not to forget as she headed off to school?
Neither do I.
Not a clue.
Oh my stomach hurts from trying not to laugh here in my cubicle. Ah the joys of dog ownership.
Holding in laughter is good exercise for those stomach muscles, but not as much fun as letting it out!
I love causing disruption in the workplace! Let it out!
Poor jacked up pussy. All this time I thought the dog’s name was Persie… now I know better. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
Happy Tuesday FM.
It is horrible. And I believe I mentioned the horror to Barbara one time, because I remember her choking and laughing hysterically.
And Happy Tuesday to you!
“jacked up pussy” is all kinds of funny…it reminds of a time with my own Lab. Her name is Holley, nothing you can’t yell in public, but I still have to watch what I say to her sometimes. She has a bandana that has a giant heart on it, and the dog loves that damn bandana, brings it to me all the time, I put it on and the she struts around with it. one day we are out walking and I turn and ask her (in a too loud, ears clogged voice) ” Does Holley have a heart on?” A woman five feet away turns around and start screaming at me…evidently her name was Holley and she thought I was calling her out about her giant hard on? People can be sooo sensitive sometimes.
Ok, that??
Is fucking hilarious!
Does Holley have a heart on?
I am all snorty.
Maybe she was a hermaphrodite?
Yes, that’s my guess. Why else would she react as though the words were meant for her?
I think Jacket would be an AWESOME name for a dog. Especially a weird looking dog.
In fact, we should all start naming our animals with nouns. Jacket. Paperclip. Rug.
Michael Jackson was onto this loveliness . . . only he one-upped us and named his “son” . . .
Blanket.
True story. Kathy Griffin said so.
The dog’s name from one of my fav films The Road Warrior was… “Dog”. A classic.
Other great dog names:
“Barfolomew” from Space Balls
“Bullet” from Roy Rogers Show (TV)
“Bullseye” from Oliver Twist
“Copernicus” from Back To the Future
“Gort” from Something About Mary
“Grunt” from Flashdance
“Hercules” from The Sandlot
“Precious” from Silence of the Lambs
“Peety” from Little Rascals
“Queegqueg” from the X-Files (TV)
“Stinky” from Dharma and Greg (TV)
Somebody is not so much about the working today!
You forgot Dug from the movie UP.
My personal favorite.
The cone of shame . . . hee hee!
Not to mention South Park. They also confirmed that fact, so it must be true.
@Kris~ Makes my day that i made you snort, since you so often make me snort and spit things at my poor monitor.
@Axel~ That would be my guess…why else would she be so pissy about the whole thing, even after I explained that I was talking to my dog, not her. But then again there are just some people that go through life without laughing…it must make for a boring life
Thanks for making my day!!! I was laughing so hard at this! JACKETUPPUSSY!!! Hehe. Oh to only be your neighbor…
Yes, my neighbors . . .
LOVE me and my poor jacked-up pussy dogs.
Sigh.
Poor Maj.
Poor me. For the rest of the day, my often overactive imagination will come up with scenarios involving the phrase “jacked up pussy,” and I can’t see how any of them will be enjoyable.
As you so eloquently put it,
Sigh.
Do you not have some old enemy of the female persuasion on whom you can place the voodoo curse of jacked-up pussy?
We’ll need a little voodoo doll. And some pins to stick in the dolly’s . . .
Ow.
Poor Maj. I hope she didn’t get in trouble for yelling at school.
When Jeff & I were picking out the girls’ names, I would suggest a name and then Jeff would find some way to make fun of it. I bet jacked up pussy was not a name you would have thought of to name the dogs. Too funny!
Yes, thank god we didn’t have a boy and name him Percey. And then he could have been Pussy Worm-Master.
That would have been joyful.
I told you what Mark wanted to name a son if we had one, right?
Jack Daniels.
So not kidding — Both family names, but are you kidding me? Not even.
I did let him name the smaller dog Jack. Mark only gets to name pets.
And I thought that having 5 cats whose names are Pliers, Salami, Acorn, The Keeper, and McIntosh was a little over the top. But “Pussy” does take the cake. I am still laughing! molly
Six pussies in the same house . . .
IS over the top.
Also? You have a cat named Pliers?
WTF?
The thought of being a fly on the wall at your house simultaneously thrills and frightens me. Come on, let me come over… ;)
OK, and now I have that horrible Miley Cyrus song in my head.
Don’t you wish that you could be a fly on the wall?
A creepy little sneaky little fly on the wall?
All my precious secrets, yeah, you’d know them all
Don’t you wish that you could be a fly on the wall?
Thank you for that. Hmmmmph.
You may NOT come over!
Fine, then. Geesh.
I’d be crabby too if I actually knew the words to a Miley Cyrus song.
You just wait . . .
Your daughter is going to mark your brain in permanent marker with all sorts of inappropriateness.
If You Seek Amy . . . Really, Britney? REALLY?
At the end of year school book fair, I let my youngest, who is three, pick out a book of her choosing. She picks out a Princess book that came with a timer that looks like the alarm clock from Beauty and the Beast(so you can be sure and get every second in of the 20 minutes of recommended reading to your kids daily and have the alarm go off to prove it) and four bookmarks. Okay, fine, whatever. We go to pay for it and it’s $25. WHAT??!?! Anyone ever heard of a price sticker? 500+ books under $5 and she picks the $25 one. I try to talk her out of it and she’s having none of it. She starts screaming (mind you school has started AND we are in the library for God’s sake) “I want my clock! I want my CLOCK!!” Only when she says it, she leaves out the l in clock. So yes, my three year old is screaming for her cock. Awesome.
Your daughter got the book, I am guessing?
At our house? For the longest time? We referred to the girls’ private areas as “Girl Parts.”
I will never forget a screaming tantrum at the department store from Kallan, who did not approve of my choice of underwear for her.
Or as she so eloquently raged, “I WANT TO COVER MY GIRL PARTS WITH PRINCESSES! MY GIRL PARTS LOVE PRINCESSES!”
She got the princesses.
Yes she got the book. And the clock? I freakin’ hate that thing. It wasn’t worth $2 much less $25. It only does 20 minute timings..not a real clock, doesn’t tell time…RIP OFF.
How funny- we call girl privates ‘lady parts’. At the pool this weekend I took her to the bathroom and she was sitting on the potty saying (loudly of course) I’M TOUCHING MY LADY PARTS. LOOK AT MY LADY PARTS! MOOOOOMMY LOOK! LOOK AT MY LADY PARTS! LOOK MOMMY! LOOK! YOUR LADY PARTS ARE FUZZY, MINE ARE SMOOTH AND SHINY.
Oh good lord.
Snorty giggling!
Same conversation here. Different pool, different bathroom . . . but same conversation.
Why must they always have these conversations in their loudest and most incredulous voices?
OMG, I’m laughing too hard to type well…
Seriously, I want to be a fly on the wall at your house, too. The whole dog thing was hysterical, but the conversation with your daughters just about had me wiping tears from my eyes.
I’m guessing what she wanted to tell you had something to do with the dog. :)
Whatever it is that I have completely forgotten?
There will be loud-voiced hell to pay when she gets home.
Do other moms remember every single thing? Maj seems to think they do.
I have said it before and I will say it again, you need to write a book. Your stories are so freakin’ funny, especially Maj, love her.
Thank you!
All this has to become a daily column somewhere.
Hysterical, I cant’ be the only one that find it that dang funny.
I didnt’ see it coming…I love that kind of humor…
Most excellent post.
I love that today was all sneaky and caught you off guard!
YAY for stealthy me!
A friend of mine has a cat named Mean Pussy. I call one of my cats Asshole, but that’s because it really fits his personality. I don’t call him that in front of the kids though.
It’s not so bad if you intend to give the pet the inappropriate name. It’s the unintentional pussy calling by a neighborhood of children that is, well . . . bad.