"someone who really has pOCD would be disgusted and horrified at their intrusive thoughts" or maybe i'm in therapy & am going by the books, being radically ambivalent to my intrusive thoughts instead of wasting energy mentally washing my paws of sin. i'm not going to perform my rock bottom for you for the sake of being believed.
Pleased to report that after a day of this i am not longer craving caper brine and my mouth is not dry as usual. There's some good suggestions in the notes too that I want to try.
-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)
-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt
It’s time for another Installment of Family Lore from my wierd-ass childhood!
Story contains: poor childhood decisions, profanity, extremely poor animal handling practices, and a semi-graphic description of an injury. Mind the content warnings, your health comes first. As usual, all names have been changed to protect everyone’s privacy. rest of the story under the cut to avoid a five-mile post.
*
This is the story of the first time I said the word “Fuck” In front of my mother.
When I was a kid, my parents would drive to Ohio from California every other summer of so to visit my Mom’s family, who never figured out that they can escape. Four days is a long ass time to be a small child in the back of an unairconditioned van with a bunch of rotting bananas but it was worth it for being able to more or less run wild through the Ohio woods.
My mother’s family consisted of my grandparents Polly and Bobby, and her younger brother, Bobby. Bobby has a saint of a wife named Stephanie, and three children. My sister was very fond of cousins Samantha and Amanda.
Due to a combination of Ye Olde Misogyny and post-delivery drugs, for about five generations there, the men had been naming all the children, so literally every AMAB person born into the family was named “Robert” and immediately shortened to “Bobby”. Uncle Bobby very nearly did this to his firstborn, wich would have brought the total number of Bobbies to 8 between the miscellaneous cousins and uncles, when Stephanie put her foot down and named him Jonathan Jackson the second she found out what sex he was.
Cousin JonJack is still my favorite cousin- he has a heart big enough to house every creeping and crawling thing on this planet, and a quiet determination to make things right with the world, even if that means doing something completely batshit insane.
We were camping at a place near West Branch State Park, at what is advertised as a “Luxury Campground next to a Private Lake” but is really an RV collection next to a glorified sump. It has the extremely redeeming feature of being smack in the middle of Northeast Ohio’s dense hardwood forest, and since we had parents that grew up in the area and had passed a reasonable amount of scouting knowledge onto us, we were turned lose after breakfast and told to return by dark or if anyone got hurt. This was splendid, as the woods were full of interesting things like nests of day-old rabbits, their hearts visible as they beat against their delicate rib cages, shimmering black rat snakes longer than we were tall, hives of wild bees, intricate in their geometric structure and remarkably patient as long as you didn’t poke them.
The Sump was even better- it had dozens of baby snapping turtles for the catch-and-releasing, catfish twice the size of any cat, a plethora of bugs and worms and crawdads and families of duck and best of all, Arthur, The Swan.
When my mom was volunteering with city council, they took a bunch of field trips to various civic infrastructures to learn how the worked so they could learn How The Fuck A City Works. On one of these trips, they were all in a bigass van doing icebreaker questions and one of the questions was "Whats your largest scar and how did you get it?"
And everyone in the van wanted to brag so there was "I did this with an awl while woodworking" and "Oh I got my appendix out" and the like, until they get to my Mom in the farthest back seat in the van and she pulls her shirt up a bit to show the six-inch scar on her abdomen. She's 4'10" so it looks enormous on her, bright red because that's how she scars.
"Oh My God!" people gasped.
"I had to have an eight-pound growth removed from my abdomen." She said, sitting back down to a chorus of horrified gasps.
"What happened?" Asked the trip coodinator, walking right into it.
"Oh, They're in college now!" She said.
-
"Sorted out who had a sense of humor in that group real fast." Mom explained later.
i get the feeling this is going to be like, inviting weevils directly into your activity page, so please feel free not to reply if you think it's a bad idea. anyway i was wondering why you specified archery specifically in a post where you mentioned that if you were going to hunt with your dog he'd be good at it? Like. Specifically from my POV, i've always heard that bow hunting is crueler and the more ethical choice is gun hunting, but like i wouldn't really know, honestly. Is there a reason behind that or is it more just "i know how archery works and I don't know guns"
Weevils are what the block button is for.
I don't know enough about the relative merits of Bow vs Rifle hunting to comment on which is the more humane practice, but I do know that the male half of both sides of my family is straight-up cursed when it comes to guns.
Dad almost shot his drill sergeant when he was drafted. My grandfather accidentally shot and nearly killed my great grandfather. my great-uncle shot his own foot off, my other great-uncle fatally shot himself in the leg. My Great-Grandfather was accidentally killed by his brother while hunting.
On my Mom's side of the family, my grandfather and great-uncle mutually shot each other in the foot hunting. My uncle broke his collarbone and nearly lost an eye when a rifle jammed on him. My cousin almost killed himself because the prop gun in a play was loaded with the wrong kind of blanks and he still needed like a year's worth of surgeries.
All five suicides on both sides of the family were done by men with guns.
On the other hand-
Both my Grandmothers were state-ranked compettitive sharpshooters, my mother broke the range's previous record the one time she used a rifle at the world's dumbest company bonding exercise, my aunt could hit coyotes in the eye on the other side of the horse pasture, and my other aunt apparently had a part-time job sharpshooting suspected rabid animals for her county animal control for a while.
My mom and both grandmothers were also apparently excellent archers.
None of my male relatives have ever tried to use a bow, so I'm not sure, but none of them were ever shot by an arrow either so maybe archery is safe. or, safer. perhaps.
So the problem is.
I'm Agender.
And if my apparently-fucking-fae-blessing-dictated options are "Godlike Skill" or "Serious Chance Of Getting Maimed And/Or Dying" you can see why I'm a bit reluctant to play that particular game of russian roulette.
The year is 2009, the place is the University of Hawai'i at Manoa in Honolulu, and I am recovering from a still-undiagnosed disease that left me with a 100+ degree for over three weeks, extreme weight loss and permanent Brain Damage. I have signed up for an introductory Art History class because I need an additional Humanities credit.
It's called "The History and Philosophy of the Japanese Tea Ceremony", and for a class I can only sort of remember, it stands out.
So I'm in professor Roberts' Japanese Tea Ceremony class, looking and feeling like death warmed over, but I'm genuinely interested in the subject matter and show up to every class because I have nothing better to do, and ask questions and turn in my homework, even if neither are particularly coherent at times, and rapidly become his favorite student. The thing I learned in public school was how to show up to events even if I don't want to, analyze tests and other written materials for patterns and charm educators by holding up my end of a conversation, skills that have served me in the modern world far more than learning actual course content would have.
The Tea Ceremony, historically, takes a good month to prepare and the entire evening to carry out- the guest list is curated to create social bonds and intellectual stimulation alike, a poem is composed for the season, and a seasonal flower arrangement created to decorate the space. When the guests arrive, they must all crawl through a small door to enter the tea garden, regardless of profession or rank. Hands are ritually washed in spring water, and there is a slow processional walk through the garden, to admire the artistry of the landscaping, and the composition of seasonal elements to create this particular night of beauty. The entire ceremony is about appreciating both the joy of existing right now, in this time and place, and the unification of the self and the universe and the endless cycles of nature.
The guests arrive at the tea house and meet the Tea Master, who will be making the Matcha that evening. The guests are seated in particular order, the Most Revered Guest- sometimes a high-ranking official, sometimes a visiting scholar or artist- is seated closest to the Tea Master. The Poem is read aloud. The Flowers are admired. The tools for making the Matcha are taken out, examined as objects of art, and their history told. The matcha powder itself is taken out- the case examined, the cultivation of the tea discussed, and only then does the Tea Master make the Tea.
Matcha is not brewed- it's a fine powder made of crushed green tea leaves, and the powder is whisked together with not-quite-boiling water in a bowl to create a much more substantial and flavorful drink. This drink is presented to the Most Revered Guest first, who is expected to take a sip and, in a moment of Zen spiritual clarity, comment on its flavor and how all the elements of the tea, art, garden and season all complement each other, and perhaps offer some sort of philosophical statement.
At least,
That's how it's supposed to go.
About a month before the spring semester is over, Professor Roberts announces that he has a surprise for his class- a good friend of his, a Professional Tea Master, will be visiting Hawai'i, and has agreed to perform a Tea Ceremony for our class! I am very excited. The other 10 people in class are varying levels of amiably confused to distressed by having to go to An Event (TM) for a grade, but agree. One of my classmates, an astrology hoe named Jessica, pointed out that with the 11 students, Professor Roberts, and the Tea Master, there will be 13 people present, which is basically inviting disaster.
"Jessica." Sighed Professor Roberts. "It's a Tea Ceremony. What disaster could happen?"
Despite Jessica's misgivings, Preparations for the ceremony went on. We learned about Ikebana while deciding on the Ceremonial Bouquet and tried our hands at it with what Professor Robert could get at the grocery store for $12. We learned about calligraphy and different types of poetic compositions while making the Seasonal Poem, and stain the hell out of the classroom carpet learning the brush strokes. We learn about different types of Matcha Bowl sculpting and glazing and we are not allowed to touch the demonstration bowls or the kiln because Professor Roberts was beginning to suspect that some of his students (me) were suffering from coordination issues. I apply myself with zeal, if not necessarily talent. I was, at the time, an Art Major, but my professors in the art department had been grading me on a secret "this bitch almost died last semester and is re-learning how to hold a pencil" curve, and boy howdy did I stumble and break leaves and splatter ink like it.
Despite my ongoing unmonitored recovery, Professor Roberts viewed my enthusiastic class participation with rose-colored glasses, and about a week before the ceremony we had a class where he brought out the used Kimonos and Obi and other forms of japanese dress he'd borrowed from the theater department so that we would be traditionally dressed(ish) and experience the ceremony authentically(ish). While people were trying on clothes to see what would fit, he took me aside and told me he wanted me to be in the position of Most Revered Guest, the person who makes the zen statement upon which the entire event hinges.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" I asked.
"You're the only person who doesn't fall asleep in class and you talked about how the flowers stagger their blooms to not compete for the bees- you're perfectly engaged and conscious of the seasons!" He said, blindly. "You will need different shoes though." He indicated my flip-flops. "I won't make you learn how to walk in Geta, but nothing with Heels. Ballet flats are fine."
"...These are the only shoes I own." I said.
Professor Roberts stared at me.
"-I used to have a pair of sneakers but I think a homeless guy stole them while I was at the beach last month."
"What?" Roberts blinked.
"He probably needed them more than I do. I'll see if I can borrow some flats."
"...I don't think I've ever met a woman with less than 10 pairs of shoes." Said Roberts.
"I'm not a woman, I'm and undergrad." I said, still three years away from learning the term 'Nonbinary'. "Those are Jordan's only pair of shorts, you know." I pointed at my classmate, who had been wearing the one (1) pair of basketball shorts for the entire semester.
"I WASH THEM." Jordan shouted defensively, wearing the longest Men's Kinmo the theater department had, which barely came down to the top of his calves.
"Oh God." Said Roberts, a horrifying new world opening up to him like a tub of Expired sour cream.
*
It was the day of the Ceremony.
The Seasonal Theme we'd worked on was "The Turn Of Summer", and the weather was complying maliciously.
Normally, Tea Ceremonies are scheduled for the more temperate evening, but due to the school needing to host something in the adjoining cultural center later, we could only use the Tea Garden in the middle of the afternoon, and the summer sun was a sweltering 98 degrees and a similar level of Humidity. The Camelias were melting.
Where Jordan had difficulty finding a Kimono that suited his ent-like proportions, I'd had the opposite problem and the only Kimono short enough to not trip my Hobbit-sized self was a Child’s size. My roommate had helped me get into the Kimono and Obi before the ceremony, and leant me a pair of her Ballet Flats, but we discovered an issue- this Kimono was designed for a flat-chested prepubescent youth, and even though I barely scraped 5'0", I had the robust proportions of an Irish Peasant, and the only way to avoid displaying a frankly offensive amount of cleavage was to use the widest Obi we could find and sort of tuck my boobs into it.
"Hm" I said. "Kind of hard to breathe."
"Yeah, but you're sitting for most of it, right? It can't last more than an hour, so just like, shuffle and don't talk much?" She suggested.
To her credit, the first forty-five minutes of the ceremony only involved shuffling through the gardens and not talking while the Tea Master lectured us on some of the finer points of the garden's design.
But then we got to the Tea House- a small structure only barely able to accommodate the 13 of us, which was in the shade but hotter than the outside because of the roaring fire in the middle of the room, where the water for the Matcha was boiling. The room was surrounded by a narrow sort of porch, part of which hung over the Koi pond, where several massively overfed carp blurbled expectantly for treats at the arrival of humans. I sat down, legs folded under me like Professor Roberts had insisted, and realized that this pushed the Obi UP, and now my rib cage was being compressed in all directions.
I tried to pay attention to the rest of the ceremony, but two and a half hours is an awfully long time to listen about lecturers you've already heard when your body is undergoing a sort of internal horserace to see if the heatstroke, sciatica pain and numbness, allergies or suffocation-by-compression will cause you to pass out first. My legs had gone numb below the knee by the time we were done with the flower arrangement. My entire legs were numb before we were done with the Poem. By the time the Tea Utensils came out, I was seeing spots of colored light in my vision and could only breathe if I focused on it very, very hard.
But! The ceremony was genuinely interesting! and Professor Roberts was counting on me! So I did my best not to sway or throw up from watching the Tea Master whisk the Matcha, and dutifully took the bowl with a pair of hands that felt like slabs of ham that I was attempting to puppet from another dimension, and took a sip.
They say that Smell and Taste are far more closely connected to the emotional centers of the brain than any other sense, and I believe it because the instant I inhaled both the grassy, powdery smell, and tasted the moderately viscous bubbly liquid, I experienced an intense flashbulb memory back to a previous late May-
The Year was '98, the place was my elementary school art room, and we'd been using the seasonal hot weather to paint on a massive scale as the art dried quickly- each third-grader had been given a roll of butcher paper, a cheap brush, squirts of non-toxic paint and a water cup, and allowed to go hog-wild on our murals, and the rush of creative energy and the imminent sense of freedom as the semester drew to a close truly embodied the summer of youth, carefree but with an almost psychotic fervor, where lack of care was both freeing and dangerous as you lost track of your surroundings in the act of creation-
Which isn't a bad seasonal-philosophical connection statement to make, but the actual words that came out of my mouth were:
"Wow. This tastes exactly like paint."
The first sound I heard after the moment of silence was the cartoonishly loud gasp of horror from Professor Roberts, which was almost immediately drowned out by the thunderclap of laughter from the Tea Master, slapping his thighs and wiping tears from his face, unable to stop. I desperately tried to explain the connection between the fact I might be dying of heat stroke right now, and how I ended up drinking my paint water back in Mrs. Krantz's art class because back then I was also dying of heat stroke, but mostly ended up wheezing half-formed sentences as the rest of the class took sips and offered opinions varying between "Wow, that's thick. Like a Hot smoothie." and "Oh yeah, it tastes like summer. Like how a freshly-mowed lawn smells like summer." Professor Roberts slowly melted into a pile of shame, and the Tea Master slapped him on the back, still howling with laughter.
"They're honest! Nobody else will be honest! This is magnificent!" he wheezed.
Eventually, everyone had their taste, and the ceremony was concluded. The second the Tea Master had packed up his tools and stepped outside for a breath of fresh air, Professor Roberts was in my face.
"HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT?" he hissed, grabbing my arm and pulling me up. "GO APOLOGIZE RIGHT NOW!" he shoved me out onto the porch where the Tea Master was looking at the Koi, who had started bubble-begging aggressively again.
Except that my legs felt like blocks of wood that my pelvis was renting from another planet where legs hadn’t been invented yet, my vision was entirely static between the dehydration and lack of oxygen, and my vestibuar system had fucked off an hour ago, leaving me to stay upright by purely by the virtue of the over-tightened Obi. So instead of bowing and apologizing profusely like my professor expected, what I actually did was stumble out of the room, say something like "Hsdfkf" and topple head-first into the koi pond.
Fortunately, the impact of the bottom of the pond with the top of my skull activated a sort of last-resort emergency self preservation system and I inhaled with enough force to break the Obi-Jime and probably a couple ribs from the pain that hit both my sides like lightning. Unfortunately, the thing I was inhaling was fish-shit riddled Pond Water, so my emergency self-preservation system ordered an even harder Exhale.
The Tea Master, to his immense credit, had immediately jumped in after me, and pulled me upright just in time for me to forcibly exhale half a gallon of rancid pond water directly into his face, then start screaming. Screaming is an extremely appropriate reaction to have when injured, because it alerts everyone that you require medical attention, but is very unpleasant to experience from four inches away, which is probably why he then immediately dropped me.
Fortunately the pond wasn't very deep and this time I sat there, scream-gasping as my lungs reinflated, Koi fish burbling and sucking at me with tremendous excitement, until the EMT from the campus clinic arrived, a vanguard before the actual ambulance.
"Okay uh. You're bleeding." he said, cautiously wading into the pond.
I opened my eyes to find that I had apparently acquired a large and profusely bleeding head wound, which had activated some long-suppressed Shark Instincts in the Koi, which were eagerly gumming at the streams of blood and trying to suck on my forehead. "Good thing they don’t have teeth." I said in the distant bliss that only zen masters and people with serious head injuries get to experience.
"Do you want a towel?" he asked, helping me up.
"No, this is rather refreshing, actually." I said, still absolutely smashed on endorphins, Koi still enthusiastically swarming at my kneecaps.
"I mean like for your-" the EMT Gestured Vaguely at my torso.
I looked down and realized that not only had I broken the Obi-jime, the entire Obi had come undone and was floating several feet away, and I was only wearing the Kimono, fallen completely off my shoulders and was only being prevented from performing a full Lady Godiva by the valiant efforts of the safety pin my roommate had put in to keep it folded correctly while we figured out the Obi.
"Professor Roberts?" I stood up all the way, soaking wet, bleeding from my forehead with such force as to create actual streams of blood down my face, neck and chest, tits out, and addressed the poor man standing, white-faced on the deck above the pond. "I don't think I'm going to be in class on Monday-" I paused to fish a small Koi that had gotten trapped in the remains of the now-ruined Kimono, and tossed it back into the pond. "-Can I schedule a make-up exam for the Final?"
"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET IN THE AMBULANCE!" He screamed.
I was x-rayed for a skull fracture, but my lifelong membership to the Lactose Tolerance Club had protected me, and I happily texted my roommate to come pick me up as "They x-rayed my head and found nothing" while the doctor stitched part of my scalp back together.
The following morning, I discovered that Professor Roberts had graded my exam before I took it. 100%. Truly, the best way to get a good grade on your finals is to get a serious head injury.
So, Matcha is not a Tea, in my humble opinion.
Matcha is an Experience.
And sometimes that experience is drinking something almost exactly like paint, ruining an important cultural ceremony, traumatizing your professor, and introducing a bunch of fish to the taste of human flesh.
***
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Hey look it’s more Family Lore! content warnings: discussions of mental illness, nongraphic and nonmoving video.
Depression doesn’t run in my family so much as stampede, and this is the worst time of year for us. I pretty much live under my 10,000 lux lamp this time of year, and my sister gets into Christmas with an unusual degree of intensity for an Agnostic, to the point where nearly every available surface in the house is covered in garland, and she tried to put wreaths on the dogs last week. Charlie was his usual confused but accommodating self, and Arwen ate hers.
Out of us, my Mom has it the worst. She pretty much turns into a shadow of her usual self starting in about November. The sun lamps and holiday celebrations help, but she’s exhausted and glum, and at her absolute worst on the solstice.
December of 1995 was particularly bad for her- her parents health had taken a dive, work was being a pain, and our regular sitter had cancelled for the entire first week of winter break so I had to come into work with my parents. (My sister’s preschool hadn’t cancelled, at least. This was at Hewlett-Packard before everything went to shit, and we could be relied upon to sit in a cubicle and draw all day, so her manager allowed it). She was extremely stressed, to the point of coming home and crying.
Dad decided to do something about this.
They both worked at HP, at the same building, on different floors. Dad was an engineer, and Mom wrote internal instruction manuals (everything from business plans to repair guides), and would visit each other if they happened to be on the same floor, so it was generally known they were married.
On December 21st of 1995, I went in with him a bit early, and on the way to work, dad turned to me at a red light and said:
“If you can keep a secret from Mom, we’ll get donuts.”
I am easily bribed.
I don’t actually see what the paper-wrapped cone shape he puts in the trunk is, or make a note of the buildings we stopped at that he came out of with envelopes. I was six and had a chocolate donut. I had noted that he’d been listening to the same song from an old broadway musical for like, a week now, but I listened to enya on loop at the time, so I wasn’t going to judge.
We arrive at work late, and the envelopes and the paper cone come in with us. I amuse myself by taking every single one of my dad’s O’Riley Media books off his desk and drawing the animals on the covers.
At lunch, Dad finally unwraps the cone and I discover he’s gotten a bouquet of a dozen white roses. We go upstairs towards Mom’s cubicle and as we do so, begin to gather a crowd.
Every year since they’ve been together, Dad has gotten my mother flowers and sung a love song to her on their birthday, and it had become something of an event in the office to see Dad perform for her. But their birthday is in April, so clearly something special is going on.
We find Mom eating lunch at her desk. Dad stands strategically behind the cubicle wall to hide the roses.
“May I bother you for a few minutes?” hes asks.
“Sure.” Says mom as I climb into her lap. The gathering crowd shuffles closer. Someone brought a video camera.
“You have an audience.” She observes as he steps out from behind the wall with the roses. She gasps, delighted and completely surprised.
He then sings the song he’s been listening to and rehearsing for a good week now, “The Shortest Day Of The Year” from Rogers & Hart’s “Boys From Syracuse” Since I was six and didn’t have my own video camera, you’ll just have to listen to the Broadway recording, but my Dad does have a very nice tenor:
There isn’t a dry eye on the floor, mostly because everyone came over to see what the fuss was. The women are crying because it’s romantic, the Men are crying because they aren’t nearly as cool and romantic as my dad is, Gay Charles who arranged my parent’s relationship in the first place is crying because 7 years on this is happening. I’m crying because it seems the thing to be doing.
Mom hands the roses to me, gets up and grabs Dad to pull him into a dip for a kiss, which is really impressive because she’s a good 9 inches shorter than him.
“I love you.” Says Mom.
“I also arranged for my parents to watch the kids next week and booked us into that B&B you love for three days after the project is finished so you can have a vacation.” Says Dad, awkwardly hanging off her shoulders.
“I really love you.” says mom, kissing him again.
*
It’s December 20th 2018 today and it’s another Bad Year for seasonal depression for Mom. It’s been cloudier and darker than usual, she’s on new photoractive meds right now so she can’t use the sunlamp and current events are what they are.
Dad called me earlier today to ask me order a dozen white roses because Mom gets email alerts on her credit card and he wants it to be a surprise.
He’ll pay me back at christmas, but I’d do it anyway because I’m ridiculously lucky to have these romantic dorks for parents.
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So the tire-eating potholes in my neighborhood finally killed both my rear tires and I had to get that dealt with, but while they were getting replaced, I put the dogs in puppy daycare and upon picking them up early, the attendant literally sprinted to the front desk, grabbed me by the shoulders and breathlessly exclaimed "YOUNEEDTOCOMESEEWHATYOURDOGSAREDOING"
While she escorted me back to the play yards, she explained that every time they have more than three Corgi, they have to put all the Corgs in a separate play yard because they turn into a little gang and bully the Very Large dogs by playing Cow Herding Simulator 5000 with them, and especially if Herschel is there, because corgis are bossy-pants dogs, and Herschel has the bossiest pants of them all and acts as leader.
Despite being a little Don Corgleone to the short bitch mafia, Hershcel is also a Huge Baby and will apparently cry and cry and try to climb the fence and cry and eat people's shoelaces and cry if he is separated from Charlie during playtime, so this means any time that "Corgi Party" is happening, Charlie also has to go to Corgi party, despite being full-height, running cat software and a senior citizen. he copes with being Gulliver amongst the Liliputians by climbing onto the roof of the playskool castle they have for a climbing structure in the yard, kicking the ladder down behind him, and stretching out to nap in the sun while the corgi frolic and gambol around him.
Corgi are dogs that make up and play games with secret rules, like kindergartners. "Everyone bark in sync" is a popular game, as is "follow the leader" and it's companion game "March in a circle around a tall structure like ants caught in a death loop".
So what I was greeted with, when the attendant and I snuck out to the play yard, was the sight of Charlie, sound asleep and flat on his back with his paws crossed over his chest because sighthounds sleep in the stupidest fucking positions, on top of a faux-medieval castle with gargoyles on the corners, surrounded by approximately seven Corgi, all trotting in a circle around him, barking in sync.
"They look like they're preforming some kind of ritual!" giggled the attendant as attempted to get my phone to focus.
"Yeah, they're gonna summon Corgtulhu." I said.
Unfortunately, this made the attendant literally fall on her ass laughing, and distracted Herschel and his compatriots, so they didn't get to complete the summons, and I didn't get the pic.
The attendant kept laughing because apparently she's new to puns, and had mostly gotten it under control by the time we got everyone's leashes on and back out to the front.
The manager was watching the front desk, bemused. Did you get to see them doing the ritual?"
"YEAH!" shrieks the attendant, still excitable with merriment. "THEY'RE- THEY WERE-" The attendant ends up giggling on the floor.
"You okay there Katie?" asked the manager with minimal concern.
"We think they were trying to summon Corgthulhu." I eplain, and Katie screams from the floor. "Wasn't gonna work though, you need a virgin sacrifice and Charlie had an STD when we got him."
It was the manager's turn to shriek. and for Charlie and Herschel to start barking in solidarity.
"That's right Charlie! Your sluttiness saved the world!" I told him, as he jumped up and kicked me in the face.
Anyway, that's why Charlie's nickname at daycare is now "Superman(whore)"
---
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I've got my parent's van for the week and it seems determined to establish my status as The Local Cryptid by terrorizing an innocent 7-11 clerk.
...I might need to back up a bit.
My mother is an eminently sensible woman who knows herself well, and when The Plauge hit, she knew she'd need some sort of mentally and physically engaging craft project to keep herself from going insane and massacring the local zoning and water management boards (even if they have it coming). So she and Dad acquired a utility van and converted it into a camper van because while they love camping, they're past the age where their joints and immune systems will tolerate sleeping on the cold ground in a nylon tent.
They did a terrific job of it and my mom taught herself woodworking and carpentry and now the van has it's own cabinets, fold-away dining table, and removable queen-sized bed with memory foam mattress. My Dad was already a computer engineer, but he learned the dark magics of automotive software and electronics to install after-market backup cameras, a media player that would take a terabyte hard drive and a solar-powered battery and outlet so they could wake up and just turn on the kettle and griddle for breakfast without having to exit the van into a cold morning on an empty stomach.
Truly, the height of Camping Luxury.
My parents are both in their mid-seventies and my primary life goal is to be at least half as cool and hale as they are when I get old.
Anyway, they take it out at least a dozen times a year and it works fabulously, but, being as I am on good terms with my parents and also finishing the process of moving house, I've been borrowing it to move large and cumbersome objects that will not fit in the back of my equally lovely but minuscule Honda hatchback.
It's a Great Van.
Very easy and comfortable to drive.
Stunningly good MPG for it's size.
The best cruise control I've ever had in a car.
It's just also.
Quirky.
Mischievous, even.
---
If this van has a fault its that it bears the unfortunate affliction that all lightly used white utility vans have in that the combination of an utter lack of branding features and the large dent/scrape I accidentally put on it while trying to escape a Denny's last Thanksgiving means that this vehicle is one addition of a Badly Spray-Painted "FREE CANDY" on the side away from being the sort of vehicle you see in an edgy horror movie.
It's got the same issue that Doberman Dogs have where they look like the sort of creature that likes to snack on toddler's faces whilst actually having personalities made of marshmallow fluff. This vehicle is unnecessarily menacing and I think nothing short of an airbrushed Epic Van Wizard will correct this. People see this van pull up and lean over and squint suspiciously at me when the driver's side door opens, and then look moderately confused when, instead of Charles Manson, a small, potato-shaped creature with neon purple hair and a statistically unlikely assortment of dogs emerges.
My own two dogs, Herschel the Hanukkah Goblin/Corgi and Charleston Chew The Taco Dumpster Dog, Do Not Like The Van. Even with the bed in it, they have a tendency to slide and roll around in the back, and both WILL chew through dog saftey belts or other attempts to secure them in there.
On the other hand, my house mate's dog, an exceptionally tall standard poodle whom we lovingly call "The Creature", loves the Van because SHE wears her doggy seat-belt with only mild complaining and gets to sit up in the passenger seat like A People.
Also like A People, The Creature likes to stand and walk around on her hind legs. It doesn't hurt her and it's entirely voluntary, but every so often I will feel a hand on my arm and instead of my husband or friend, it's a canine that's taller than I am on her hind legs who wants to stare at my face with soulful, concerned eyes. The Creature's favorite thing is that she is exactly the right height for me to hold her arm in Genteel Fashion and walk around the pet food or hardware store with her like I'm a count escorting a debutante around a royal ball.
---
As it stands, I am set to inherit this vehicle whenever my Honda gives up the ghost, and I fully intend to paint an Epic Van Wizard on it when that time comes.
The other peculiarity of The Van is that while Dad did manage to successfully install all his after-market electronics, not all the electronics get along.
Sometimes, they fight for Dominance.
The Terabyte Music Player and the Backup Camera have a particularly contentious relationship, and turning on the music has about a 25% chance of turning on the backup camera as well, and turning on the Backup Camera is equally likely to turn on the music.
Firthermore, The Van has a favorite song.
I am not kidding that Dad filled an entire terabyte hard drive with music and the software to sort it via the radio controls, but of all the Early Boomer Dad Rock (Kingston Trio over The Eagles) and Irish Folk and Symphonies and the entire discography of Weird Al Yankovic, The Van's favorite song-
The one it picks to play as victory music every time it beats the Backup Camera at their weird electronic game of rock-paper-scissors
-is The Liberty Bell March by John Phillip Sousa.
You all know this song already.
...but in case you've forgotten the tune:
Yeah.
The Van's favorite song is the goddamn Monty Python's Flying Circus Theme Music.
It does not play this song at a normal volume.
Every time I turn on the Backup Camera and it manages to turn the music player on as well, The Van insists on absolutely blasting this nonsense on at the maximum volume it's physically capable of producing, which I know is loud enough to be heard from the Denver International Airport's Pickup zone when they Van decided to start playing it from the economy lot about half a mile away.
Perhaps it's The Van's way of honoring the aesthetic sensibilities and sonic enthusiasm of Mr. Sousa.
...I can't help but wonder if the purpose of an Epic Van Wizard is to control this sort of faerie-like malarkey, and channel these chaotic energies into things like Spell of Don't Break Down In Nevada or Enchantment Of Always Have Good Parking.
---
So last Friday the 13th, I get a call from my friend and housemate, at said airport.
It's roughly 11PM at night, and I have already retired for the evening.
I am in the exact minimum of clothing required to be a decent housemate and not scandalize the neighbors should I happen to walk by a window.
My feet are up.
There is a cat in my lap and fictional British people murdering each other in highly inventive fashion on the tv.
-But my friend has returned from her friend's wedding,and either American or United Airlines has managed to lose her luggage,
including,
among other valuable possessions,
the keys to her car.
...So she cannot just drive home as originally planned.
There are, as luck would have it, her spare set of keys not eight feet from me.
Being a good and decent person, I agree to bring the spare keys to her so she may get home before daybreak and not spend a semester's worth of tuition on an uber across the greater Denver traffic jam.
Being also that she Loves Activities, and it's her mom we're going to pick up, I elect to take along The Creature.
I am primarily focused on remembering how to get to the airport and not leaving my friend's spare keys on the counter, so I throw on a pair of flip-flops, step outside, remember that it's AUTUMN and my minimal evening attire is not sufficient thermal protection, step back in, grab the first coat in the closet I lay hands on, pull it on, check that I have her keys again and leave.
The trip to the airport is largely unremarkable, save that it becomes necessary for me to put on sunglasses to drive, despite it being nearly the witching hour and almost entirely darker than the inside of a cow.
It's necessary because this blissful darkness of night is violently punctured by a startling number of cars that seem to have installed miniaturized but no less powerful lighthouse bulbs in where their headlights ought to go so the oncoming traffic and sports cars that insist on tailgating me in the slow lane alike illuminate the road and my mirrors with the kind of radiance I'd normally associate with the arrival of a Seraphim.
I arrive at the distant highly discounted airport car lot where my housemate is waiting, deeply apologetic.
It's nothing. I say. Once I see that your car starts up, I'm gonna go to that 7-11 across the way that I parked in front of, get a slurpee or something and I'll see you at home.
While she is retrieving her vehicle (an equally eccentric but much more stately Subaru that is old enough to be elected to congress) I rifle through the loose change in the glove box and discover that I have exactly $6.66 in small bills and coins. The Subaru, continuing it's long voyage into vehicular immortality, immediately starts up.
Upon her return, we all remember that my friend had all her camping gear in the backseat of the car and there is no room for The Creature to ride home with her parent, so I again assure her it's nothing, and will just take The Creature into the 7-11 with me. She is trained as a service animal and needs the practice after the plague.
I wave my friend off and turn to enter the 7-11.
I promptly trip over the jutting back bumper of The Van and fall, cartoonishly, face-first onto the sidewalk.
Fortunately, I have a lot of practice falling on my face, and have learned not to throw my hands out but instead cover my face, so my unexpected self-inflicted attempted curb-stomping lightly scrapes my hairline and nothing else -my sunglasses even stay in place- and I get up and resume my quest for a slurpee.
It's well known that the airport is a lawless place, and the 7-11 across from the discounted airport parking at the stroke of midnight is no exception.
I know it's the stroke of Midnight because there's one of those Audubon society bird-call clocks that makes bird noises, and my arrival is heralded by the twittering call of a Summer Tanager. I am almost charmed enough by the unusual choice of chronological device to excuse the exorbitant Airport-adjacent mark-up of Slurpee prices. I stand at the machine for some time, trying to decide on a size for the price and guess what the fuck "Blue Lighting Blast" is supposed to taste like.
The Creature is being Very Polite but is somewhat agitated, I assume because she *just* saw her mother for the first time in three days and then she LEFT with no explanation, so The Creature is on her hind legs, staring woefully into my eyes, asking to be escorted around the 7-11. Even though that's not what she's not supposed to be doing, there's nobody else in here, so I let her hang off my arm and discuss various Slurpee Flavor options with her.
We eventually decide on an experiment in which I try a Small Blue Lightning Blast, and discover it tastes a bit like licking a nintendo cartridge but in a pleasantly satisfying way.
I go up to pay and realize something is amiss.
The Cashier is a young man staring at me with wide eyes, one had over the register and the other wrapped up in his rosary.
I look down at myself.
In my haste to reunite my friend with her spare keys and service animal, I had left the house in the following accoutrements:
Flip Flops.
Not matching.
It's below freezing outside.
That last part is not particularly odd footwear for the weather in for Colorado, but it's an important detail for the rest of the ensemble.
Assorted scrapes, bruises, cuts and welts on my arms and legs that come with doing outdoor work and living in a house with three dogs and a fully-clawed cat that all want to be in my lap all the time.
It's cold out, so vasoconstriction has pulled the blood away from my skin, a trait that served my ancestors well during the last Ice Age, but leaves me with pale skin to contrast the various wounds and I look like a corpse that fell out of the back of a pickup truck.
The black Bootyshorts with "CRYPTID" painted in bright red gothic font across my ass, that @theshitpostcalligrapher gave me for my wedding present.
A peculiar but extremely comfortable garment that straddles the line between "Lacy Camisole" and "Industrial-Strength Sports Bra" like the Ever Given straddling the Suez Canal.
It is also Bright Red. with black accents.
The Jacket I had grabbed out of the closet, which is in fact, a black Velour Dinner Jacket.
The Tokyo-Ghoul inspired reusable anti-covid mask a friend made me with the set of Coyote Teeth.
My sunglasses, which are shaped like a Halloween Bat. The lenses are the wings and the body is the nose bridge.
It is ALSO bright red.
A Very Large and remarkably Humanoid Poodle that I have been audibly affectionately calling "Dear Creature" who is hanging off my arm like she's my Prom Date.
The Very Large and remarkably Humanoid Poodle is ALSO dressed up in a black Dog Sweater that has white bones printed on it to look like its an X-ray jacket showing off her skeleton.
I look like I am taking my Very Fancy Werewolf Girlfriend to a particularly casual Dinner Party for Vampires, but the thing that's really selling it and probably alarming the kid the most is the fun accessory I acquired in the parking lot not five minutes earlier:
The "Small Scrape At my Hairline" is actually a painless but PROFUSELY bleeding head wound that I had somehow entirely failed to notice covering my face, neck, decolletage and magnificent cleavage with blood like a Tarantino Film Extra.
This does explain why The Creature has been delicately trying to use her bodyweight to push me down onto the floor for the last ten minutes.
So I don't injure myself while we wait for the paramedics she hoped this kid called to arrive, you see.
The Creature has such a High and Naive Opinion of humanity.
I decide this social situation is already fucked, and the only way out is through, and with haste, before I start dripping on the floor.
"Hi there!" I say cheerfully, to indicate this is a visually alarming but not terribly serious situation. "Just a Small Slurpee!"
The Cashier has entered the relevant code into the register before I finish the sentence. His gaze flicks off me just long enough to look at the total, and he grips his Rosary harder.
$6.66
"Oh cool! I have exact change!" I say, taking the money out of my as-yet-unsanguined pocket without looking and slap it down on the counter. "You have a good night and be safe out there!" I wave, leaving.
I get in The Van, mortified, buckle The Creature up, and as I make to leave, I have to put it in reverse, which automatically turns on the backup Camera.
It also turns on the music player.
I make eye contact with the cashier as the dulcet tones of John Phillip Sousa boom from the van hard enough to make the windshield and the windows of the 7-11 rattle for the nine-and-a-half seconds I have to wait to be able to turn the volume back down. Not knowing what else to to, I give him a thumbs up, and leave.
Anyway, now I know what my Future Van Wizard has got to be dressed like, and what their familiar is.
---
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