Time Fries!

by Fay Jacobs

  Armed with a fully stocked bar and eschewing teetotalism, we set out along the Delaware coast, heading for the Mason-Dixon line. First stop in Virginia was Dixieland Gas. If the South rises again, it will be here. I’ve never seen so many Confederate souvenirs in my life, and tempting as it was, I opted against the Picket’s Charge tote-bag and went back outside.

  There, the RV was as dead as Robert E. Lee. My mate sought jumper cables as I encountered a woman admiring our rig.

  She: “I’ve always wanted an RV but could never afford one.”

  Me: “You can have this one.”

  We got a jump but needed not one new battery, but two. Apparently, lightning had struck one night recently and destroyed the under-rig battery, which, in turn, drained the one under the hood. I guess we lucked out the strike didn’t burn down the RV and the house with it. Or did we?

  Me: “Do we have replacement value insurance?”

  Mate: “Yup.”

  Me: “Wow, that could have funded lots of five star hotels.”

  When the nasty stare ebbed I learned something. An errant battery part had melted, requiring my spouse to use the fire-starter gun to heat and shrink wrap the rubber battery cable cover like a lamb chop for the freezer. As we stood, toasting the battery compartment, my fears about detonating our second largest asset were not calmed by the sight, next door, of the Miracle Tabernacle Church and Pawn Shop.

  Eventually we hit Temperanceville, where the beautiful campground faced Pocomoke Sound, and we situated our traveling condos to make a private courtyard for folding tables and chairs, Schnauzer dog beds, and iPod speakers. I love camping.

  Building a fire is outside my skill set so I fiddled while my companions tried to get Rome to burn. Across the way, a camouflage-wearing, beer-bellied Yeti look-alike pulled out a propane torch and whoooosh, instantly lit his campfire. Also his eyebrows. Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

  Those folks were all finished barbecuing supper and themselves by the time our fire started to crackle. Fortunately, we’d already cooked our Kosher hot dogs on the electric griddle and beans in the electric crock pot. I love camping.

  It does say something about our fluid commitment to renewable energy and recycling that we scrupulously separated all our beer bottles, but used disposable plastic liners in the crock pot. Well, it did save our personal energy.

  There was an amazing full moon, as we sat around the fire, martinis in hand, anti-saloon league drop-outs telling stories of childhoods spent on the farm eating rhubarb pie, shucking fresh-picked corn and wringing the necks of chickens. Well, the other three did. Best I could offer was ordering chicken broth with matzo balls and wanting to wring the neck of the waiter who put his thumb in the soup.

  Camper friend: “What kind of music is this?”

  Me: “Hello, Dolly!.”

  Camper Friend: “I don’t believe this.”

  Me: “I love camping.”

  We also discussed our comprehensive RV departure lists, always meticulously checked before heading out on a trip. Extra fuses, check; emergency food and drink, check; unhooking the rig from garage electric so we don’t drag the three-bedroom rancher with us, check.

  At which point my cell phone rang (if a cell phone rings in the forest and there’s no one to hear it, are there still overage charges?). It was my neighbor telling me we’d left our garage door wide open. So much for checklists.

  The night was still young but we were not, so pretty soon bed beckoned. Besides, there’s only so much fresh air with a hint of Deep Woods Off I can take. The next thing I know it’s dawn and my spouse comes back from a dog walk covered head to toe in thick brown mud, a veritable human sludgesicle.

  Seems that a squatting Schnauzer had the acrobatic fortitude to poop on the steep side of a hill by a drainage ditch. A conscientious citizen, my mate bent to retrieve the specimen, lost her footing and, like a car crash dummy in a Kia, suffered a roll-over into the ditch. And apparently, climbing back out required gymnastics, if not crampons and ropes. We saw forensic evidence of the struggle when we went to view the scene of the slime.

  Camper friend: “Wow, it looks like a college football game was played in there.”

  Camper friend 2: “I can see body parts sculpted into the muck.”

  Me: “Yeah, fossilized forms like at the La Brea tar pits…”

  We hosed off the accident victim (memo to self: add extra shoes and pants to checklist), spent a day at Chincoteague visiting the beautiful beach and wild ponies, had a fried seafood lunch along the ocean, then stopped for dessert. One of the homemade ice-cream choices was actually Chocolate Marsh Mud. We deferred to Rocky Road.

  Then came a second glorious evening around the crackling campfire, chowing down on microwaved linguini and clam sauce, sipping white wine. I do not believe there is a Girl Scout badge offered for the making of this meal.

  After dining, we offered dueling tales (thankfully, not dueling banjos) of farm animals and Broadway legends, along with copious anti-temperance league activities. And while the league may have succeeded in enacting Prohibition in the early 20th century, the term temperance originated to mean moderation in the indulgence of all the appetites. I know it was aimed at the first degenerates to sit around a camp fire making chocolate and marshmallow S’Mores.

  Back at home, after a weekend of intemperate eating and drinking, it was tough to face the bathroom scale. Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

  April 2012

  OUT! OUT! DAMNED…

  They say that good fences make good neighbors. Not on my street. We love our neighbors. Although in this case, a big bottle of Febreze might make better neighbors.

  One day recently I saw several cars on my neighbors’ driveway, figured they were in town and walked across the street to find them. There, in the garage, stood Neighbor One and a pal, each holding a black and white furry baby in their arms. The women wore sly smiles.

  “Want a kitten?” asked Neighbor One.

  I eyed the long bushy tails on the fur babies suspiciously. “What are they, baby skunks?” I asked, warily.

  “Yes,” said the pal, who was volunteering for some kind of wildlife rehab organization. “Aren’t they cute?”

  “Yes, but aren’t they going to spray you? How can you just hold them like that?”

  “Oh, they’re too young to spray yet,” said the volunteer. “We’ve been holding them for a half hour and they’re fine. Want to hold one?”

  I held out my hands, and cradled one of the pointy-nosed, bright-eyed cuties in my arms. The little bastard looked up at me, and, apparently struck by sudden puberty, let loose with some sort of aerosol from his butt and EWWWWWW.

  I tossed junior back to the volunteer, just as the girls started wrinkling their noses and backing away from me. Step away from the Fay.

  I’ve been skunked before, by a contractor who failed to finish a job, or, my sister who usually sticks me with the check, but this was getting skunked in the stinkily literal sense.

  PEE-EW. I stood there, reeking. “Why me?” I looked at the two women still holding black and white fur balls. You’ve been cuddling these skunklets for a half hour and nothing. He takes one look at me and hurls a stink bomb. So much for them being too young to vote. Shit.”

  “It’s not so bad,” said the volunteer, “it will go away in a minute. He’s just a baby.” I bent down and wiped my hands on a towel on the garage floor and then sniffed my palms. AUUGGGHHH!!!!

  At which point Neighbor Number Two entered the garage saying, “Omigod. I’d know that smell anywhere!” Getting the gist of what happened, she said, “You have to get those clothes off, and not over your head or your hair will stink. And don’t even put them in the trash, you have to find a dumpster, or burn them, omigod.”

  And with that, she grabbed a scissors, saying, “I’m going to help you,” and cut my new golf shirt down the back and started to peel it off me.

  “Wait, I have to get across the street first,” I hol
lered, understanding that our road is a busy cut-through for traffic and not wanting to be in the newspaper as the Seaside Drive Lady Godiva. That could have caused a pile up or two.

  So I started hauling butt across the street, my shirt flapping open in the back like a hospital gown. Neighbor Two caught up with me, walking behind me to keep me decent. When I hit my driveway, she retreated, I opened the garage door, closed it (this is important) and stripped. It’s a very odd feeling standing buck naked in your own garage, stuffing your clothes in a plastic bag and sealing the bag like it contains Anthrax.

  So I went inside, showered twice, lathered, rinsed and repeated ad nauseam, and finally emerged in clean clothes. Most of me was okay, but my right palm still had an eau d’skunklet aroma.

  Recalling the old wives’ advice to wash in tomato juice when you are skunk sprayed, I grabbed a bottle from the cabinet, put some ice, vodka and the tomato juice in a glass and had a few sips. Then, I stood over the sink and poured the remaining tomato juice over my hands. Handwringing ensued. Perhaps over how many Bloody Marys died in this process.

  During the next several hours I crossed my palm with Febreze, Glade solid, Ban deodorant, and a variety of hand creams. Honestly, there is just a hint of skunk aroma left. I imagine it will dissipate before we next have to shake hands.

  I suspect that “They’re too young to spray” now belongs in the hall of fame with “You can’t get pregnant the first time,” and “The check’s in the mail.”

  When Bonnie came home and heard the story, she banished me to the porch until she was sure there was an all-clear. Out there, I paced like Lady Macbeth, rubbing my hands together, channeling some crazed Shakespearian, staring at my palm and yelling, “Out! Out! Damned Skunk.” Just to be safe, I had another Bloody Mary for internal protection and soaked my palm in some more tomato juice. Perhaps Clamato would have been better. Darn, I could have had a V8.

  When Bonnie and Moxie agreed that I passed the sniff test, I was allowed back in the house. In the ensuing days I discovered that half the lesbians in Rehoboth had been playing with those skunk babies, and nobody but me got spritzed. Lucky me.

  No harm, no foul, except for the loss of a great golf shirt, a ridiculously expensive brassiere, and my pride. It’s tough knowing you’re the only one who got skunked. But hell, I choose to think of it as a gift from that stinky little fellow. He made this Letters deadline a no brainer.

  Thanks, little buddy. Sing with me. “Arrivederci, aroma.”

  April 2012

  SCHNAUZERHAVEN ASSISTED LIVING

  My house is now a Schnauzer geriatric ward. Like us, my boys are aging fast, but since dog years fly by faster than human ones, our house is in the full throes of canine old age. Paddy is 13 and Moxie is 14. I can hardly believe it. It seems like only yesterday they were teething on the furniture. These days, they’re gumming.

  Moxie’s deaf and Paddy’s blind, so between them they’re one guard dog. Both boys still eat like animals, can sniff a Thrasher’s french fry at 90 yards, and enjoy a moderate amount of exercise. When they wake up and discover strangers in the house they still go into their vicious guard dog routine despite the fact our guests have been in the building for hours.

  It’s also possible a little doggie dementia is going on, so they just as often bark hysterically in the middle of the night when absolutely nothing is happening. For a while we’d leap up, on full alert, ready to call 911, but now we just humor them, roll over, and try to sleep. Sometimes I think it’s merely Paddy hearing Moxie snore. That dog needs a sleep study and a breathing device.

  And if a doorbell goes off on television, Paddy jumps straight up into the air, alerting Moxie with his movement and both of them knock themselves senseless with the furniture they’re under.

  The Golden Years really began when Paddy couldn’t walk by the water bowl without filling up or get through the night without emptying out. He’s a full-on diabetic now, requiring us to administer two daily insulin injections.

  There’s a reason I’m a writer and not a health care provider. Squeamish-r-us. Based on our abilities, I’d say that Bonnie is the one who gives the skilled care around here. I’m more like the janitor.

  But given our crazy schedules, both doggie parents had to learn to give the injections. Bonnie was a natural. As for me, I’d close my eyes, steel myself, and stab the dog, who wouldn’t even notice. But, I really should get my own eyes checked, because more often than not, when putting the cap back on the needle I stab myself in the thumb and shriek in a decibel level even Moxie can hear.

  One day, the phone rang as I prepared to inject the insulin and behind my back the dogs switched food bowls. Believe me, when I gave Moxie the booster shot in the butt he was one surprised little Schnauzer. I panicked, calling the vet, hollering about giving insulin to the wrong patient.

  “Don’t worry,” said the doctor, “just give Moxie a little sugar.” I gave him a marshmallow Peep and he’s been a Peepoholic ever since.

  And what do we do with all those used needles? You can’t just throw them in the trash. Between trips to the animal hospital to turn them in, we keep them in a big plastic pretzel jar. It looks like a candy dish for the Addams Family.

  Setting a dog’s insulin level is harder than for a human. And, until we found the right dose, Paddy gave us quite a winter. At its worst, he was up every two hours to pee. For a while, Bonnie and I took turns getting up and neither of us had a decent night’s rest. Then we alternated for a whole night, making me a zombie only every other day. And it’s a good thing it was a mild winter. We spent most nights in the yard in our pajamas.

  Finally, we tried cutting a tail hole in Depends and it worked pretty well. Vanity is me, I cannot go through the Food Lion checkout without saying, “They’re for my dog.”

  As for Moxie, at first I accused him of being passive aggressive. He wouldn’t come when called but would respond instantly if I opened a bag of Utz potato chips. As an aside, Bonnie believes this about me, too, and she may be right. But for Moxie, I learned that voice pitch is the first to go, so I have cut him a break on responding to commands. If I need him in a hurry I’ll rip open Doritos. Sometimes he hears me if I talk in a basso profundo like Tallulah Bankhead.

  Also, just like their human counterparts, if the dogs could talk, they’d sit around discussing their ailments. I can just imagine Moxie complaining about his hearing deficit, and saying, “Come again?” when Paddy asks him to be his seeing-eye dog. They are co-dependent in a good way.

  It was clear the twilight years were upon us when, last week, a bird flew into our sun room and neither dog noticed it. Up to that point it was Schnauzers 4, birds 0. Likewise, no bunnies were harmed in the making of this spring in Rehoboth.

  Here at Schnauzerhaven Assisted Living, of course we offer free transportation within the area to doctors’ appointments and the local beauty salon. We provide assistance with bathing and dressing (“Does this collar make me look fat?”), plenty of recreation and exercise. Frankly, it’s 24-hour care.

  Which all goes to say that I know we are on borrowed time here. I call Paddy my dog with nine lives. I think he’s on seven. In the past year he’s had several urinary infections, a variety of stomach ailments, and numerous glucose tests. By this time I could have paid for a new Mitsubishi.

  And it’s a good thing this deadline is just days before publication, ‘cause between now and then anything can happen. So we’re trying to be good sports around here. We lament having two dogs of roughly the same old age, but we try to keep our senses of humor at our canine assisted living facility.

  I want to know whether we’re eligible for respite care.

  May 2012

  IT GETS BETTER THAN BETTER

  I want to do one of those It Gets Better ads, telling our gay kids that not only does it get better, it can get freakin’ fabulous.

  For me, the past two weeks have been a tale of two cities, Rehoboth and New Orleans, awash in gay culture and energized by our communi
ty.

  We made our annual trip to the Saints & Sinners literary conference in N’awlins and I’m surprised to report that we were slightly more saint than sinner this year, foregoing an excess of bar-hopping for rest and relaxation at the hotel pool.

  On the town, we found making friends a snap. We hadn’t been in the gayborhood five minutes, with our first Hurricanes placed on the bar before us, when a young man leaned over to me and said, “Drink your juice, Shelby.” This steel magnolia, who uttered this signature line from Steel Magnolias, was from Texas and knew that line was universal gay speak. Before long we were buds, with plans to meet up the next night. I love our gay culture!

  At dinner time, we found a restaurant without a liquor license which encouraged patrons to bring their own. We used our half hour wait for a table to amble to the gay bar down the block and order cocktails to go. I still smile every time I walk down a New Orleans street carrying a roadie.

  “We need plastic cups,” I told the bartender, “We’re taking them to dinner at the corner.”

  “Take a real glass, honey, have fun and return it later,” came the reply. We took the finery, had the fun and returned the glasses later, along with having a wee nightcap (and this was our year to be less sinnerly!).

  But all good things must end, so we arrived at the airport at noon Sunday to find our flight home viciously overbooked. We heeded the call for volunteer bumpees, rewarded by free round trip tickets to anywhere AirTran flies. Woo-Hoo!

  The down side was spending the next seven hours trapped in the vicinity of Gate 16. There was nothing to do but eat and drink and listen to funky NOLA jazz on the airport speakers. Not so bad, actually. We spent our incarceration reading a little, but mostly chowing down on alligator sausage, po’ boys, and the ubiquitous red beans and rice. Oh yeah, we met some other Friends of Dorothy on the concourse and had some laughs along with our copious Cajun cuisine. By flight time I feared our stomachs exceeded the size limit for carry-ons and we would be consigned to the baggage compartment.