The Way Things Are



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We�re pumping mud.
2006-04-21, 5:45 p.m.

I am a fount of valuable information about what to do when your aged, withered body starts to embarrass you in public.

YES, spray deodorant on your feet. I just slipped my Target shoe off my fat little foot, smelled it (the shoe), and noticed nary a stink. I�m hoping I can keep this no-stink momentum up for the entire summer, because what�s more mortifyingly embarrassing then taking your shoes off at the airport and stinking up the whole security gate? Nothing, that�s what.

Oh, sure there are other embarrassing things, but when you�re right there in the moment of stinking up a large area filled with tired, cranky people, it feels like there�s nothing else.

And YES, vitamin A. I came up with this theory my freshman year of college, when my skin objected strenuously to the changes wrought upon it when I moved from Dallas to College Station. From hard water to soft water, from moderate humidity to The Place Where Humidity Comes From.

Really. I used to tell people that College Station is the reason Houston is so humid.

My brother had done a round of Accutane, which is a high dosage synthetic vitamin A. Because real vitamin A in such high doses would KEEEELLLL you. So I reasoned that if I just took �quite a bit� of it, as opposed to a �high dosage� (SCIENCE!), it might do the trick, and it did. I cleared up and became human again.

I remembered this last week, and got myself some A. Just the regular kind that you take orally. I take a multivitamin, which has 70% RDA of your A, and then I take two extras of those little vitamin A globules or pustules or whatever they are. Those little yeller things that look like lizard eggs.

Don�t drop them on the floor, because you won�t be able to find them. But your dogs will use their tingly dog senses to find them and eat them, and then they might burp fish oil at you. And that�s NOT GOOD.

It seems to be working, and I�ll tell ya: I took three of them yesterday just to see what would happen, and I did indeed have a headache. Feels like a nagging tension headache. Not terrible, but very unpleasant, and it�s a sign from GAHD that you�re overdoing it.

****

We have an actual well service company at our house today doing � GUESS WHAT � some service on our well. Just like it did a few days before Christmas, the cold water into our bathroom stopped running, and it�s due to silt or sediment or lizards or hobbits or whatthefuckever in our water lines.

Bad, bad DIRTY water. Oh, it�s safe to drink and everything. It�s very clean sediment.

In my usual easy going manner, I panicked and threatened and whined and fretted, even going so far as to say �It�s a shame we spent so much money building a really nice, big bathroom for ourselves that we can�t even use. We sure could have saved a ton of money if we hadn�t,� for I am a manipulative, passive aggressive beeotch. DW LOVES that bathroom, and there I was, practically wishing it out of existence.

But honestly, there�s my big-ass bathroom that�s bigger than my old bedroom, with a tub you could water livestock or raise catfish in, and we can�t even use it.

Well, passive aggressive manipulation works for me, because I got to have this conversation with DW today:

Him: I�ve got a well service coming out today. Blah blah blah raise up the something because we�re in the silt blah blah blah not going to trust Plumber because he�s only right 95% of the time, and we need someone who�s going to know 100% of their shit�

Me: Do you know how hot it gets me when you say the words �well service�?

Him: It all comes down to sex for you, doesn�t it?

Me: Well, I tend to panic when the water doesn�t work, and for me not to panic, I�ll need to be on anti-anxiety medication, and when I�m taking that, I have no sex drive. Wells already skeeve me out*, and when our water is too dirty to run through the pipes, I get panicky. I wonder what the hell is going on down there that we can�t see. It�s like there�s a major calamity lurking just under the surface.

Him: So if I want to ever have sex again, I need to make sure our water is running.**

Me: Exactly. You can explain the situation to them if they don�t understand how important this is.

My friends, I hate to keep boring you with my tales of the well, but godDAMMIT, why go to the trouble of building a big-ass house if one of the four necessities of life isn�t going to work there? I could have stayed in town in our tiny 2-bedroom and had all the running water I ever wanted, and be within walking distance of several bars when I got tired of all the water and wanted something a little stronger.

And godDAMMIT again, why does it take 6 months for DW to finally understand that getting our well serviced is a minor expense compared to what we spent building this stupid house with its unreliable water? We�re not pumping water, we�re pumping mud. It�s a little hard on the pipes. Plus, this just lights a far under his ass to get the stupid water storage tank fixed up, because that�s where you let your sediment settle.

If I ever form a band, I�m going to name it Pumping Mud.

*There are two things I�m afraid of, and one of them is deep, dark, water-filled holes. The other is giant cockroaches.

**That, plus bust his move within 3 minutes of me getting into bed. In a perfect marriage, you never stop learning how to get laid about your soul mate.

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