I was flipping through TV channels when I came upon the "Beast Hunter" on the National Geographic channel. I was immediately interested since I love unexplained mysteries: Does Big Foot exist? Are there really aliens? Why are the Kardashians so popular?
The "Beast Hunter" stars biologist and explorer, Pat Spain. He travels around the globe in search of mythical creatures. In the episode I saw, he was in Sumatra searching for the Man Ape. He interviewed local witnesses who all described encounters with the Man Ape. Of course, he never actually found any proof that this Man Ape actually exists, but it gave me an idea.
Since I love unexplained mysteries, why couldn’t I go on my own search for mythical creatures? Of course, I can’t afford to travel around the globe but there must be some mythical creatures in my area. The guy down the street looks sketchy.
After numerous inquiries, I heard rumors about the Screaming Banshee of Oakcrest Mall. Apparently there were several eyewitnesses. I drove to the mall to meet with Amber McGill. She described her terrifying ordeal:
"I was working at the perfume counter at Macys and I was having like a really bad day. First I found out that my boyfriend, Trevor, changed his status on Facebook to single and then I lost my favorite tube of lip glass. So I was standing there all bummed out when I looked up and saw this hideous creature coming toward me. I was terrified and I didn’t know what to do so I just started spraying it with perfume. Then it started shrieking and ran out of the store."
"What did the monster look like?"
"It was about 5’6", hairy, had long claws, and was wearing a pink velour running suit."
Interesting, at first I thought Amber might be describing some type of ape, but most primates don’t wear running suits, especially pink ones. I went to meet with my next eyewitnesses, Diane Tinsdale and her 12-year old daughter, Shelby. Their story is as follows:
"We were going to the mall to buy Shelby a padded bra for the first day of school."
"Mother!! What are you doing? Are you trying to ruin my life? Why are you telling everyone in the world that I’m flat chested? I hate you!"
"I’m sorry, Shelby! I guess I can’t say or do anything right anymore! Maybe I should just stop talking for the rest of my life."
"Maybe you should because then you’d stop embarrassing me!"
"Excuse me could we get back to your story."
"Oh yes, we were outside Macys when this creature, that reeked of musk, came screaming out of the store and knocked me on the ground. Shelby recorded the whole incident on her cell phone and later posted in on Youtube."
My next step was to ask Dr. Montrose Figbender, a noted biologist and expert on mythical creatures, to examine the film Shelby recorded.
"After careful examination I have determined that this creature is a female homosapian."
"What? How can that be? Why is she so hairy and what about the claws?"
"The hair appears to be a really bad weave and the claws are actually two inch long acrylic nails."
"I see but how do you account for the abnormal behavior?"
"It appears she has a hormonal imbalance!"
Well there you have it. I didn’t find a monster, but I did prove that the Oakcrest Screaming Banshee is just a human woman with really bad PMS. Now, I’m off to investigate another mythical creature, the man who always puts the toilet seat down.
Halloween is one of the scariest nights of the year (closely followed by the night my granddaughter talked me into watching "Toddlers and Tiaras" on TV). But with a little attention to health and safety you can keep Halloween fun and not frightful! Since I’m not an expert on anything, I’ve recruited Lifestyle Guru Ariel Comstalk, Board Member of the Institute for Healthy Living and Personal Enrichment to help me some tips to have a safe and healthy Halloween!
Costume Safety –
If your child plans to go trick or treating as Evel Knievel this year, make sure his costume is labeled "flame resistant" before he rides his tricycle through a ring of fire.
Children are safest in clothing that is clearly visible to motorists. Children should never go trick or treating dressed as a Black Hole! According to Comstalk, "Last year my daughter went out dressed as a reflective road sign. Not only was she highly visible, but she got six cars to yield the right-of-way."
Children’s costumes should never include sharp objects. Please leave the swords, knives, pitchforks, bayonets, spears, and guillotines at home.
Food Safety –
Parents normally warn their children not to eat any candy until mom or dad can check to make sure it’s safe. However they may fail to warn their children about foraging for food along their trick and treating route. My granddaughter is a modern day Euel Gibbons (the 60’s naturalist and spokesman for Grape Nuts who asked America, "Ever eat a pine tree?") No, not when there’s a Chinese Buffet available. Sorry, getting back to my story we were at a store when she saw what appeared to be grapevines. The next thing I know she was over by a fence munching on the "grapes." Persoanlly, I don’t think it’s a good idea to eat berries that you find next to a parking lot.
Healthy Treats –
Comstalk doesn’t believe in handing out sugary snacks for Halloween. Some of her alternatives include small portions of fruit leather, pretzels, granola, raisins, or Brussels sprouts.
"Most children appreciate the fact that I’m thinking about their overall health. However some children resist good nutrition. Last year vandals wrapped toilet paper around my house and threw a stink bomb through my bedroom window!" Comstalk said.
Halloween Décor –
Instead of the usual pumpkins, Comstalk said she likes to decorate with items from nature.
"Last year I decorated my porch with branches of colored leaves that I picked in the woods. Unfortunately I inadvertently picked Poison Oak and several children ended up with a nasty rash."
If you follow these tips, hopefully you’ll have a safe and healthy Halloween. If you don’t, please sue Comstock not me! (I can provide attorneys with her home address).
I just got a new Halloween costume sales flyer in the mail. I must say, I never realized there was such a wide selection of sexy Halloween costumes for women. Of course I’ve seen the standard French Maid and Nurse costumes, but I didn’t realize there were so many other choices.
Here are just a few of the many sexy costumes:
Pouty Air Plane Pilot – she wants to re-route your flight
Perky Plumber – she wants to adjust your pipes
Provocative Proctologist – she won’t keep you waiting
Lusty Librarian – she wants to check out your book
Raunchy Red Riding Hood – "my what a big (bleep) you have"
Rowdy Referee – she’s giving you a penalty for going out of bounds
Seductive Sailor – she wants to swab your deck
Buxom Biophysicist – she want to examine your anti-matter
Freaky Ichthyologist – she wants to identify a new species
I was invited to a Halloween Party so I decided to use the flyer for my inspiration.
When I arrived at the party, the hostess seemed shocked by my appearance.
"Oh my God! What are you supposed to be? A hooker at a nursing home?"
"This is my skanky grandmother costume."
"That’s just wrong on so many levels."
"I’m trying to prove that woman can by sexy at any age."
"That theory isn’t working. I suggest you adopt the style worn by the women of Saudi Arabia and only let people see your eyes."
"That would be too restricting."
"Well, I’m begging you to put on more clothes. You’re scaring my guests. A guy at the buffet table just looked at you, dropped his plate, and ran towards the bathroom."
"Some people just can’t handle my raw sexuality. It’s over powering!"
I live in Wisconsin where we used to have four seasons, spring, summer, winter, and fall. Now thanks to Global Warming we have two seasons, six months of really hot weather, and six months of blizzards, cold and snow.
I hate hot weather. By September I’ve had my share of heat and humidity and I’m ready for some nice cool fall weather. Unfortunately, what do we have this year? More hot weather. It’s Indian Summer every year. I’m sorry that was politically incorrect, I should have said Native American Summer every year now.
In September we had a frost warning and it got cold. We don’t have central air. We rely on window fans to cool the house. So when it got cold I took out all the window fans and closed all the windows. What happened? The temperature shot up to the 90’s so I had to put the window fans back in again. At this point, I’m not taking out any fans until I see snow on the ground.
What happened to sweater weather? The other day I drove by the local lake and saw people sunbathing in October! Maybe I should put on my bathing suit to rake leaves? (Note to neighbors. I was just kidding don’t panic and put your house up for sale!)
I’m sure you’ve heard of El Nino. Well there’s also a little known weather phenomena known as La Claxtonia. This occurs when Deb Claxton gives up her whole weekend to pack up all her summer clothes and haul them off to storage. This simple act then sets off a chain reaction causing the temperature to drastically rise leaving her suffering from heat exhaustion because she only has wool sweaters and jeans to wear.
My room is now filled with winter and summer clothes because I don’t know what to wear from one day to the next. It starts out cold in the morning so I put on jeans and a long sleeve shirt. By afternoon, it’s hot out and I’m drenched in sweat. Hot, cold, hot, cold. This is almost as bad as menopause.
Fashion experts advise dressing in layers. I should invest in stripper clothes so when I get hot I can start ripping them off. Don’t get too excited, I plan to wear shorts and a T-shirt underneath!
As if this hot fall weather weren’t bad enough, I just heard today that we’re in for a really bad winter! Does anyone in Hawaii need a live in personal assistant?
When I pictured my "Golden Years" I imagined that I’d be traveling, reading, lunching with friends, attending plays and concerts, and taking care of my cats. Maybe I’d even garden or sew a quilt.
Well none of those things have happened. I’ve spent the last nine years raising my now 10-year old granddaughter. Instead of traveling I’m driving her to softball, and basketball practice. Instead of lunching with friends, I’m ordering at the McDonalds drive through. The only concerts I’ve seen involve last year’s 4th grade recorder band. I don’t even own a cat. Instead I have a hyper active dog, a bird, and a hamster.
Things are a lot different than I imagined. I love my granddaughter dearly and she’s the light of my life, and I wouldn’t change a thing, but raising her has presented some challenges. The biggest challenge is the fact that she’s a Drama Queen.
She’s afraid of needles. Last year when they gave flu shots at her school. I signed the permission slip and returned it. On the day of the flu shots she made up a big story about how she already got her shot at Walgreen’s. If that were the case, wouldn’t I know that? Why would I go to all the trouble of filling out the permission slip? Duh! And of course she got the flu and was sick for a week. Guess who had to wait on her hand and foot because she was so weak she could barely lift her head up off the pillow? The last time she actually got a flu shot, she spent the whole day with her arm in a sling complaining bitterly about how much her arm hurt. I told her I get a flu shot every year and it doesn’t bother me at all.
"That’s because my arm is so much more skinnier than yours. Skinny people feel more pain," she explained. Wow, if that’s the case, Kelly Ripa must be aching all over.
There’s also the time I told her to clean up the mess she made in the living room or no iCarly. I was in the kitchen when I heard a scream and found her lying on the floor. Apparently she tripped on a stuffed animal and her leg was now broken! She spent the day with an ace bandage wrapped from her ankle to her hip, hobbling around with a makeshift crutch (her old hobbyhorse). Of course she was in "so much pain" that she couldn’t pick up any of her stuff.
After spending so much time together, I’ve learned to decipher her screams. There’s the Justin Bieber is on TV scream, the you shrunk my favorite T-shirt scream, the I have a paper cut scream, and the most horrifying of all, the there’s a mouse or spider scream. I really hate the last scream because I’m afraid of mice and spiders so I usually start screaming too which doesn’t solve the problem.
Before you get judgmental, we have giant spiders at our house. They look like hairless tarantulas. They come in every fall. Once I was dozing off to sleep when I felt something tickling my arm, It was a giant spider. I screamed and knocked it on the floor. Then I spent the rest of the night terrified that it was going to come back. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in two years.
The other night, I was in my room and my granddaughter was in the bathroom when I heard a scream followed by, "Grandma get a shoe it’s a spider!" I rushed to find a good spider-killing shoe (it has to be flat with a hard sole) and rushed into the bathroom panting, only to discover a Daddy-Longlegs.
"Are you kidding me? I thought you were screaming about one of those giant spiders!" I picked up the spider with a wad of toilet paper and flushed it down the toilet.
I have to say, all the drama keeps life interesting but there’s something that troubling me, if my granddaughter is this much of a Drama Queen now, what’s she going to be like when she turns into a teenager?
"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh" that’s the sound of me screaming.
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