Dead Rats Don't Sprout!

We were looking for a box of rice in the pantry. George noticed that behind the open shelving in the pantry something was growing. Not arms and legs, but vines, leaves and sprouts. He couldn’t get it out from behind the Gorilla shelf and finally realized whatever it was had grown into a new, unused electric fly swatter. He grabbed the handle and out came a dead rat.

When George said to look at it…well, let’s just say the conversation could be used in a court of law to have me committed.

“Honey, look at this!”

“Don’t worry I’ve got it.” I grabbed the fishing net from the hook on the wall, swatted it over the dead rat knocking the swatter out of George’s hand and trapping the vermin on the ground under the net.

“What the heck are you doing?”

“I’m saving you from rabies, dysentery and gonorrhea.”

“It’s not alive.” George rubbed his hand where I hit it in my hurry to save him.

“The host may not be alive, but it’s sprouted and its progeny could be one step from attacking you.”

“With what?”

           

“They’ve attached to the fly zapper and are planning to use it to electrocute you.”

“It doesn’t have any batteries in it.” George said.

“You can’t know that for sure. They may have stolen batteries from the other shelf.”

“Give me that net.”

“NO! I’ll hold them prisoner. You get something to put them in, then we’ll incinerate them in the burn barrel.”

“Are you insane? Dead rats don’t sprout!”

“It could be an alien mutant rat.” I said confidently.

“IT’S A POTATO!”

I looked at the shriveled up dead thing sprouting everywhere. I took the net off the “rat” and poked it with the end of the handle. “A potato?”

“It must have fallen out of the potato bin.”

“Look at it. It gave its life trying to sprout a family of potatoes to carry on its lineage. That’s so sad. Do you think we should give it a decent burial?”

“I’m going to ignore the irony of that question, and throw it and the zapper it destroyed in the trash.” George said.

“That’s mean.”

“A minute ago you were ready to burn it alive.”

“I may have overreacted.”

“Really? I find that SO hard to believe.”

Sometimes the hardest part about being a writer is reaching the end of the workday and feeling like I wasted my time.

I had a very productive day: wrote 11 pages, did some key research, outlined another project and even organized the top of my desk…yet when I stopped work for the day I felt a sense of incompleteness.

As authors we are encouraged to feel satisfaction and accomplishment from showing up every day at our computers and putting even a few words on the page. I wonder if there are other authors who often leave their desk frustrated or filled with fear they are wasting their time and cheating their families from a “real paycheck?”

I stood in front of our family room window after work today, sipping decaf coffee watching a new neighbor building their home. Excavators were digging a septic system. Concrete workers prepared the garage floor to be poured, while others sealed the concrete basement so it could be backfilled.

Watching these hardworking people I knew they would go home feeling they accomplished something. The house wasn’t complete, just like my novel wasn’t complete. So why can’t I feel their sense of having worked hard today.

My conclusion is this: First, they are being paid every day for their accomplishment. Second, they have bosses and co-workers telling them (hopefully regularly) job well done.

I love what I do, but I enter each day not knowing if the work I do today will ever generate interest or income. Quite frankly, most of us need income. And that income is also a validation of our efforts, paid to most, daily, weekly or bi-weekly.  Even writers earning a decent income can’t be sure what they write will be accepted as payment worthy.

And honestly, the only “person” telling me good job at the end of the day is my cat. He feels MY day is worthwhile if I allowed him to sit on my hands while I attempt to type, and if I let him walk all over my notes and mix them up. Today, he gave my chin an extra head bump reward because I successfully kept typing while his tail moved across the keyboard and his paws stepped on the mouse pad.

I’ve read the books telling writers if you write 500 words each day you are succeeding. Plus, all the other seminar-style, ego boosting statements to help writers feel good about our production, and not beaten up when we can’t write anything more than our name at the top of the page. My intellectual brain buys it; but my Xanax eating, wine guzzling, brain doesn’t.

Some days we just need an atta-girl and a paycheck. This life definitely isn’t for everyone, which is where the Xanax and wine come in really handy.

How to create your own earthquake sensor.

After our recent encounters with numerous small quakes I got the bright idea to invent a cheap and effective quake monitor for personal home use.

All you need is a 24 case of can beer.

First, drink the beer.

Then, make a pyramid.

If you aren’t too drunk from drinking the case of beer, you’ll notice there are only 21 cans in the pyramid. The other three cans I used for target practice. Nothing goes together better than beer and bullets. This combination is also where the genius inspiration for my at-home-quake-sensor came from. (Before some of you get your britches in a bunch, let me assure you I was using an air pistol…also known as a BB gun. Therefore, no animals, transportation signs, terrorists, or lawn furniture was injured in the making of this device.)

I’d also like to thank McCollum Hall at the University of Kansas for inspiring this idea. God rest your P.O.S. (thank-God-they-imploded-you) heart; you showed freshmen for years what it was like to live in a prison cell and inspired us to greater achievements.

By the way, I haven’t shown George my invention yet. I sure hope that patent comes through before the next quake, I’d hate for it to activate (read fall down) and scare the bejeezus out of him.