Butt Plug and BettySue

Butt Plug is a fastidious little man with small white hands, a pot belly, and a fake smile. To say he’s uptight is an understatement. He can only be described as having a butt plug so far up his ass he can’t see straight. Hence, his name.

BettySue also has a fake smile. Occasionally she appears to have a heart, but it’s a tiny little heart that beats slowly (if at all). She’s always offending or pissing someone off.

Butt Plug and BettySue are cohorts, coconspirators in making people’s lives miserable. They work together and spend most of their day stroking each other’s ego and blaming everyone else for their stupidity.

I know Butt Plug and BettySue and have been forced to spend time with them. It’s been a lesson in life, a lesson in patience, and a lesson in foolery.

One night I was the last person to leave the office before Butt Plug. I waved good night being certain to conceal my middle finger that wanted so badly to thrust itself forward as the final gesture of my goodnight wave. Luckily I was able force my finger from going fully erect. It was hard.

Not ten minutes later my iPhone rang. When I saw Butt Plug’s name I almost didn’t pick it up, but I did.

His normally squeaky wimpy voice was in a high-pitched rage. I’m certain all the dogs in the neighborhood started howling.

Why the commotion? Butt Plug was in a fit because he was the last to leave the parking lot and had to slide the parking lot chain link gate closed. He screeched about his bad back and how it was too hard to pull the gate.

Bad back? Maybe if he loosened that butt plug he’d be a bit more pliable and would then be able to slide the gate closed.

I feigned concern, told him to leave the gate open, and hung up. Then I laughed all the way home.

The next day BettySue announced that if Butt Plug was staying later than everyone else someone would have to move his car out of the parking lot and park it in front of the building for him.

Did I ever move his car? No fucking way.

Tough Love Time for Evelyn

My car remote has an alarm button. When I first got the car curiosity got the best of me and I pressed it and was jolted by its high pitched siren scream.

Evelyn (the name I’ve christened my car) surely has a strong powerful voice!

I love Evelyn but lately she’s been misbehaving.

When I get home from work I park her in my designated parking space in the garage beneath my building. She’s been sleeping in that spot since I bought her.

Lately, no sooner do I leave and get into my apartment she blares her alarm. The first time it happened I didn’t believe it was Evelyn. Then it happened a few minutes later. I ran into the hallway and clicked my remote to quiet her. A few minutes later it happened yet again.

Only in my garage does Evelyn do this. Wherever else we are she behaves beautifully.

The other night I was startled out of my sleep at 3:30 AM with Evelyn screaming. I’m sure the neighbors above the garage did not appreciate her outburst.

Why the misbehaving?

Maybe I haven’t been giving her the attention she yearns for, but I’ve working long hours, and she knows that. I thought she understood.

Maybe it’s because during my working hours she’s been stuck in a chain linked parking lot with other cars she thinks are inferior to her.

She loves going to the car wash and being soaped up and then sprayed and wiped. Afterwards she glistens in afterglow and purrs lovingly as we drive down the street.

Yesterday I took her for a wash, and then last night she did it again. This bad behavior’s got to stop!

We were planning a trip to Santa Barbara Sunday to visit wineries but it’s best I cancel. She’s not going anywhere, and I’m no longer going to blast her favorite Air Supply song - “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” - as we soar down the freeway.

It’s tough love time, Evelyn, tough love.

My Weekend Torment

This weekend I experienced something I don’t want to ever experience again.

It was more painful than that bout of food poisoning I had when I ate bad crawfish.

It was more frightening than the time I got mugged a block south of Sunset Boulevard on Halloween weekend when I was heading to 7 Eleven to buy ice cream.

It was a major disruption in the world of Michael.

I was computer-less from Friday morning until late Sunday afternoon.

My hard drive needed to be replaced. It happened suddenly and I didn’t have time to prepare, to plan activities to keep my mind off of being unconnected. Sure I had my cell phone and could text and email, but it wasn’t the same without my MacBook. I needed that 13-inch screen glowing at me with gigabytes of information.

My fingers don’t feel that same tender caress they feel on my MacBook keyboard when I’m pecking away on my iPhone keyboard. Its just not the same. Never will be.

What the hell did we ever do before computers? I felt cut off from the world. I felt alienated, alone, and naked. It wasn’t fun.

Every morning when I get up I make the coffee and then sit at my computer to check email, read the news, do an online crossword puzzle, check my daily calendar, enjoy some Facebook social intercourse, and read celebrity news.

My Saturday and Sunday morning routine was disrupted. I tried reading an actual magazine but I read my magazines late at night before going to sleep so the rhythm of the day was out of whack and it wasn’t even mid-morning.

Sitting there at my empty desk I realized that maybe - just maybe - I’ve become somewhat Internet addicted.

Do they have twelve step programs for this? Instead of going to a meeting where you’re forced to reveal who you are does everyone log on to their computers for a computer generated meeting? Should I be concerned?

Egad.... I need to find some non-computer hobbies.

Tennis anyone?

Todd’s Tale of Woe

Todd Remis has filed a lawsuit against a photography studio to recreate part of his wedding (from 2003) so that he can have those cherished moments he claims the photography studio neglected to document.

The only thing is he’s now divorced. He believes his ex-wife has moved to Latvia.

Something sounds fishy...

The marriage went bust yet he still wants the wedding recreated exactly as it was the day he promised ‘til death do us part. “I need to have the wedding recreated exactly as it was so that the remaining 15 percent of the wedding that was not shot can be shot" and the album and video completed "so we have memories of the wedding," Todd said during his July deposition, according to a transcript. "So we would need to recreate everything to complete that."

Do you think Todd has issues? No wonder his wife left him, and the country.

I think Todd’s a bitter groomzilla who’s trying recoup his life savings he wasted on what I assume was a mail order bride and the subsequent lavish wedding. He’s learning the hard way you can’t buy true love.

Maybe Todd was a real virgin his wedding day and the memory of the wedding and the wedding night sex is so clouded with “I finally got laid!” that he can’t see straight and remember it for what it really was: the beginning of the end with bad sex.

I imagine him lying alone in his twin bed in his small studio apartment nightly recreating the wedding night sex with his right hand. He seems like an uptight one position man.

Hey Todd, the wedding recreation is not gonna happen. Let it go. Get yourself some therapy (or a hooker). You need it.

An American Tradition

I hate malls.

I know it’s un-American to not want to spend hours upon hours every weekend roaming from generic store to generic store with multiple excursions to the food court for some highly-processed American food, but I can’t help myself. I. Hate. Malls.

No matter what city you’re visiting there’s sure to be a mall to waste time in rather than seeing the actual city you’re visiting. Why go on vacation to visit a mall? People do. I don’t understand.

Are we defined by how many malls we can visit in our lifetime. When we die do they have a counter at the Pearly Gates telling us how many hours we’ve spent at the mall. If the number’s too low are we sent to hell for eternity or are we immediately reincarnated so we can right the wrong and spend more hours at the mall?

Why do malls all have the same stores? Is there something extra special about buying a Gap t-shirt in Minneapolis that’s different from buying the exact same Gap t-shirt in Miami? It’s just one more thing to throw in your luggage for the journey home.

Years ago I worked at a mall restaurant. The food was cheap and of the poorest quality. Oh but everyone loved the restaurant. It also had the highest rate of 911 calls for cardiac arrest. They actually weren’t cardiac arrests. They were msg attacks masquerading at cardiac arrests. The slimy owners of the restaurant would never say the food was soaked in msg. Without the msg there wouldn’t be any of that delicious mall flavor. I heard the restaurant’s no longer there. Maybe the owners ate their own food and succumbed to actual cardiac arrest.

The children play areas in malls scare me. They’re a pit of pink eye just waiting to attack your child. And no one’s going to tell me all those toys and rubber balls and play pens are properly cleaned every night. Germs. Germs. Germs.


And yet people love malls. It’s an American tradition... and addiction.

Maybe I should start a tour company and feature “Mall Tours of America.” For a few thousand dollars you could be escorted onto an air conditioned bus and taken across America stopping at every mall there is. I’d offer discount coupons to the food courts and as a special treat you’d receive a special t-shirt from every mall you visit that says “Mall Tours of America” with the name of the mall emblazoned across the chest. Then when you return home you can roam your hometown mall proudly displaying the many malls you visited.

Who needs to see Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon or Mount Rushmore when you can spend your vacation in a mall?

The Black Slippers

My toes are always cold. In the middle of a summer heat wave I have cold toes. My elongated popsicle toes shiver when the sun goes down. They always need a pair of socks, and when socks are not enough they need a pair of slippers to keep them toasty warm. I can walk around naked for days but my toes are always properly socked.

You can starve me. You can water board me. You can force me listen to Wilson Phillips until my ears bleed. But you cannot force me to endure cold toes.

With the Los Angeles nights now cold and wintery (yes, cold and wintery) I need the socks and slippers now more then ever.

This afternoon I went to the shoe store and bought a new pair of slippers. Black slippers. On sale black slippers. Dockers brand black slippers. Originally $39.99 and on sale for $9.99.

When I caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of my eye and then saw the sale price my toes were immediately erect with joy, erect with anticipation, erect with erectness waiting to slip themselves into the warmth of the tight slipper opening. There’s nothing like the touch of a virgin pair of slippers wrapping themselves around your toes.

Aaah....

Tonight it’s a little wine, candles burning softly, an afghan wrapped around my toned body, a good book, and my toes snuggling nicely inside my new black slippers.
Life doesn’t get much better than this.

A Holiday Cookie Miracle

I’m always thinking about food. I love to eat. I love to cook. I love to eat a lot. Thank goodness for the gym and my 21-speed bike because without them I’d be as huge as a two-car garage and have to be weighed on a Richter scale.

Oh food glorious food.

This past year I wrote an article called “A Tradition Continued” about my deceased mother and how we connected over food. Without her I would never have learned to cook, and I would never have learned to appreciate the power of a good recipe. Luckily that article has become a chapter in the book Chicken Soup for the Soul: Food and Love. At the end of my chapter is Mom’s recipe for her famous potato croquettes. Yum, yum, and yummy!

Speaking of food... Growing up in suburban Massachusetts, Wakefield to be exact, there was a bakery on Water Street, and if memory doesn’t fail me it was called Frank’s Bakery. The owners were Frank and Grace. They were Italian. They made incredible Italian bread along with incredible Italian pastries. Sadly that was years ago and the bakery is no longer there. Both Grace and Frank are deceased.

During the holidays I remember delicious chocolate cookies with chocolate icing. Oh they were special. I always looked forward to taking that first bite and having my taste buds come alive with that flavor, that holiday joy.

How can I describe them? They were chocolate and had a nutmeg flavor. I have searched the internet high and low and none of the recipes I’ve found come even close to what Grace and Frank made.

Every year during Christmas and New Year I get nostalgic for those chocolate iced chocolate cookies.

Maybe Grace and Frank’s next of kin reads my blog... and maybe just maybe the next of kin will have that recipe in an old recipe box... and maybe just maybe they would contact me and give me that recipe.

Now that would be a holiday cookie miracle.