Nothing lasts forever

However, if you can keep your wits about you and make the most of the situation, sometimes you can parlay bad luck into free sh*t. Case in point:

I was kicking in the backyard, taking out the rest of my frustrations on the "tree" when I noticed yet another Huey circling my house. Figuring it was just another day in the life of B'more, I cranked my iPod and went back to work. Imagine my surprise when the next time I looked up there was a 200lb bald guy scaling down a rope ladder and coming right for me.

I'm no dummy. I've done things I'm not proud of. I've also done things other people might want to pay me back for, so I took off running but in my haste I stepped on the rake a la Wiley E Coyote and knocked myself right back into yesterday. Or at least back into the arms of the giant goon coming at me (and not in the good way). Big, bald and ugly with legs like tree trunks and a little bit of crazy eye: there's only one group I know who hires people like that, and if they were looking for me I was probably in trouble. It's a bitch when the past catches up with you.

The man had some questions, and he began shouting them in a less than friendly way. He also used what I would consider excessive profanity, and from me that's saying something. Seems somewhere some Indian guy disappeared and due to a certain number of "angry letters" and "belligerent voicemails" I was the #1 suspect. The "stereotypical" "woman scorned" and all that crap. typical. I tried explaining to the big fella that just because I had a long and dirty history with the missing party, didn't mean I had at some point reached my limit, gotten tired of him ducking my calls, been fed up with having been used and abused and tied the party in question to a tree somewhere, because I just wanted him to listen to me for once! I tried to tell him all that but he just wasn't buying.

We went back and forth for a while, him yelling "where's Veejay", me denying any knowledge and him not believing me. Cue finger twisting and a slap upside the head courtesy of McGilla Gorilla, rinse, and repeat.

Then he broke out the big guns and said that the big boss was tired of doing all the work and they needed their squirrel back. They'd paid good money for his fake papers and they weren't about to let it all go to waste because someone couldn't keep it in their pants. I was about to ask indignantly if he was referring to me when the big louse got quiet. He grabbed the loppers I had been working with and started telling me about how he sometimes moonlighted for the government. Doh. I began to sweat a little and then he had to bring the dog into it. He said if I didn't talk that he'd give us both "nail trimmings" and since he wasn't trained in Manicures things could get messy. Looking over at the dog, I noticed that crap, her nails really did need to be cut, and I thought maybe I'd go a few rounds with him and try to get someone else to do it since the last time I tried she kicked me where the sun don't shine, and I quit, hence their current obscene length. Then I remembered how sulky she got after I posted the pictures of her with the hairless ass after her last surgery and boycotted me for a week. I also remembered he was talking about cutting my nails as well, and since I don't have any, I didn't want to guess what he might cut off instead. After doing some quick mental math I asked him what was in it for me if I did tell him anything, not that I for sure knew what he wanted to hear.

He responded that I'd get to keep my limbs and that he wouldn't put on a little Boobah symphony while relieving me of extra opposable digits, which was good enough for me. I sang like Mariah Carey in Butterfly. Loud, off key and with dangerously little point but in the end he got the info he needed. He patted me on the head for a job well done and got up to leave. He whispered that it was probably best that I kept this little visit between us, and I told him that cost extra. He smirked, signaled for the copter to circle back and disappeared up the rope ladder. I was standing there trying to explain to my neighbor that sometimes that's how I receive guests when a sealed brown package came falling out of nowhere. figuring if it was something bad it would have exploded on impact I ran over to check it out.

Scrawled across the top was 'something extra' and inside was a free T Shirt and some cards. Score! That will certainly buy my silence, and they can have Veejay, he cries too much for my tastes anyway.

thanks cerebral itch!!