Erma Does Not Live Here!

The offending Yorkie

Stardate: 10-29-09  Time: -0245

“Hey there sleeping beauty. I have explosive Yorkie diarrhea and I felt I should alert you.”

“Damn it Tanner!  Are you kidding me?”

“Yeah I know. My bad. Sorry about the overwhelming smell, but in my defense,  those snacks Aunt Terry brought me and my brother were definitely not high quality. I didn’t get a look at the package, but based upon what I’ve produced in the last hour, the first ingredient is monkey ass.”

“Shit, Tan! I can’t breathe!”

“I know, right? The walls are alive with the smell of monkey.”

“You’re going outside.”

“That’s cool. That’s cool. I get it. But I have to tell you, Sher – the damage has been done. I may weigh 3.5 pounds and be inches tall, but I covered a lot of territory while you were sleeping. Like a LOT.”

“You couldn’t wake me up during this crap-a-palooza? Jeez!”

“Don’t hate. It’s not like I didn’t try. I whimpered. I made that grunting sound that annoys the piss out of you. You were talking in your sleep and didn’t hear me.”

“What was I saying? Should I be embarrassed?”

“You know me. I don’t judge. All I know is that whoever this Lou Dobbs is, he must be all kinds of sex on a stick. Oh and PS – those sounds coming from my tiny stomach right now are what you might think of as my early Yorkie warning systerm. This is not a test.”

“Don’t you dare crap in this house again!”

“I’m not picky, yo. Totally your call. Not for nothing – that pounding outside your window is rain so at least the wet dog smell will help to balance out the smell of ape ass.”

“I love my life.”

“You are definitely living the dream, chick.”

If one more person tells me to count my blessings, I may choose instead to count their internal organs as I lay them out on my kitchen table.  Murderous feelings? Why yes, Bob. I’ll take a ladle full, please.

Here are things that are GOOD to say when someone you know is having a tough time:

“I’ve been there,” or “I am there.”

“I have confidence that things will get better. I am thinking of you often during this difficult time.”

“I’m sorry.”

Here are things that are BAD to say when someone you know is having a tough time:

“When God closes a door, He opens a window.”

I don’t see how God’s lack of air conditioning helps me.

“Everything happens for a reason.”

Everything? Even that time I went on a date with a boy named Bubba Dry and I almost threw up in the front seat of his Grandma’s car from the scent of Musk Oil? What about the fact that Jon Gosselin STILL has the ability to procreate?

“Money can’t buy happiness.”

Yes it does. Don’t be a dumb ass.

“Buckle down, keep your chin up, and put one foot in front of the other.”

Have you any idea how difficult doing all those things at once would actually be? I can’t even chew gum and have sex at the same time. Well – I can, but someone’s gonna need some peanut butter to get that shit out.

So I guess what I’m saying is this: when someone you like is struggling, choose your words of comfort carefully – or don’t come whining to me when someone guts you like a catfish.

The joy of my life is making people laugh. It’s honestly what I live for – the laugh. But if you’ll indulge me this morning, I’m going to briefly step away from the humor and talk briefly about something that’s happened in the last week that has broken my heart.

Maybe it’s because of The Midlife Road Trip, or maybe I’ve somehow unintentionally created a persona that would lead to such a conclusion – whatever the reason, in the past week, two of my “online friends” have sent me beautifully written, heartfelt pleas for financial help.

Of course, some would have harsh words for those that would ask someone they only know online to help them out of a financial crisis. They may see “scam artist” written all over such a request.

Not me. In reading their emails, I could feel the terror and desperation and even the awful embarrassment of asking. “I don’t know where else to go. I don’t know who else to ask. They’re about to turn off our utilities. We’re going to be homeless in two weeks.”

This story is playing out across our country. Good, decent people are living moment to moment in fear. They’ve worked hard all their lives and they’ve never asked anyone for anything – never had to. They’ve paid their taxes, paid their bills, gotten up everyday and gone to the jobs that are the backbone of this country and now they are left unable even to provide the most basic essentials for their families.

I had to tell these two precious people that while my heart was breaking for them, I couldn’t help. I can’t help because in my world right now, we’re battling very similar monsters. My husband has spent his life in law enforcement in one fashion or another. As an investigator for the state, he worked tirelessly to create solid cases against those in the medical profession who would divert pain medication from the sick and dying and those who thought they could abuse – or even kill – a patient because no one would ever know. His case load was massive and his record was impeccable.

As a cop he rolled on the ground with bad guys, worked more than 24 hours straight innumerable times, pulled dead teenagers from crashed cars and held mothers upright after delivering the devastating news.  Even after he had to give up full time law enforcement to take a job in nuclear security (law enforcement pays barely a living wage), he loved the law so much, he continued to work as a cop at the same time. “It doesn’t feel like work,” he’d tell me when he’d walk in the door from a 12 hour shift at the nuclear plant only long enough to change uniforms and get in his patrol vehicle.

We thought we were doing what we could do to protect ourselves. We purchased disability insurance on our loans and on him so that if ever we needed it, we’d be OK. What we didn’t bargain for was that when we needed what we’ve paid for all these years, it wouldn’t be there for us. We trusted in CUNA Mutual and in his employer’s disability insurance and now as my forty-five year old husband walks with a cane – they’ve hung us out to dry. It seems they employ people whose only job is to find ways NOT to do that which they are in business to do.

Will we make it? Absolutely. We are resilient, tough, people who were raised in such a way that we know how to do whatever is necessary to survive. You will survive, too. We’ll all survive. My hope is that we – all of us across our country who are going through this together - we will create a new reality. We’ll learn to embrace the basics again as our grandparents did. We’ll give up what we don’t need in order to protect the ONLY things we need.

Never forget who you are – who we are. We are fighters. We are hard workers. Don’t feel ashamed and don’t bow your head except to say thank you for what you do have. You are welcome to email me ANY time to vent or share your story. For now, all I can do is listen, but if that helps even a little, I will happily do just that.

With love,

Sher

humorwriter @ gmail.com