Prank Call

I knew when my caller i.d. said "Restricted" that there was a 90% chance it was a prank call. (The 10% of doubt is because for most of the time that my first boyfriend and I were dating, his caller i.d. inexplicably showed up as "Restricted" whenever he called me and I got into a bad habit of answering all "Restricted" calls with "Hi, Kevin.")

Truthfully? I'm so desperate for human interaction that my heart practically skipped a beat when my phone vibrated, restricted numbers be damned. I felt flattered that somebody, somewhere had thought of me, had decided to call me, even if it was to confirm my order of 200 dildos.*

*I'm almost definitely sure that's what he or she was saying. It was hard to tell because the dildo salesman's accent was alternating between Swedish and Japanese. 

Here's the transcription of the conversation as I heard it.

Me: Hello?

Prank Caller: Hallo, is this a-Grace a-Smith-uh?

Me: ...yes?

PC: Yes, I'm-a calling to flaflafloofla mumph banana omnom order of 200 tiptoes from wawawawa.

Me: What?

PC: Your order of 200 banana dingoes from mop mop mop moop.

Me: [Long moment of silence, unsure how to respond.]

PC: Hello? 

Me: [Urge to hang up outweighed by intense loneliness. More silence.]

PC: Hello? Are you there? (Giggling in background.)

Me: [Having decided to engage prank callers in conversation out of boredom and despair] I'm sorry, you were calling about my order?

PC: Ja, ja, your order of-a 200 dilberts. 

Me: Two hundred? I thought I made it very clear that my order was for two thousand. 

PC: Ah, oh, yes yes, two thousand. You forgot that pesky little zero there, huh huh huh. [Accent now becoming Canadian.]

Me: I don't see how there was any mistake on my part, but I guess it's a good thing you called or I would've been very unsatisfied with the shipment.

PC: Yes, huh huh, okay ma'am, we'll get that right in the mail for y- for your a-night of pleasure. Huh huh. (Muffled giggling.)

Me: Yes, thank you.

PC: Whad do scale thing say begin.

Me: ...bye. *click*

What is wrong with me? Why does this brand of attention make me feel special? It's like when I was in junior high and sometimes high school boys would yell lewd things out of their car windows at me, but it really stung because I knew that they were not actually making sexual remarks, they were being ironic because I was such a funny-looking kid in middle school that it was humorous to imagine that anyone would ever find me appealing.

Cut to high school, walking down Main Street in shorts and somebody honks his horn and whistles at me and I immediately assume that, as before, he is doing it ironically because I am so far from what society considers sexy. Then I have a sudden moment of realization - he's not making fun of me, he's objectifying me! Awww!

Do you know how twisted that is? I was legitimately flattered because some creep honked and whistled at me and wasn't doing it to make fun of me, just to sincerely let me and everyone else within earshot know that he would have sex with me because of the way my ass looks in shorts.

What does it say about the way people treat each other that being objectified gave me an ego boost? What does it say about the way we alienate each other that a prank call was the one thing all day that made me feel like somebody cared about me? 

Roommate

It was both my little brother's recent exodus from the house and an effort to maintain my tree-hugger-flower-child image that got me into this room-sharing situation a week ago.

I probably deserved it for staying up obscenely late and as the condescending angel on my shoulder pointed out, it was technically his home first: when I finally started to get into bed there was a little brown spider on my wall right above my pillow. He was doing that spidery thing where he was perfectly still but could shoot across the wall at any second.

I don't know why I chickened out. There's only one kind of spider that I am legitimately afraid of and that is the daddy long-legs, which this spider was not. He was actually probably the closest a spider can get to being cute; about the size of a nickel, little brown body and legs that were not freakishly long and spindly. 

Every time this happens to me at a despicable hour, I do the same thing. I stand totally still, staring at the spider, and speed-dial my brother on my cell phone. 

He answers groggily and I say something dramatic like "for the love of god, help me" in a quavery whisper and he sighs and hangs up and opens the door of his bedroom (which is four feet away from mine) and slouches over in his boxers to size up the spider. Then he gets a tissue and kills it and I thank him and apologize profusely until he closes the door of his room again. 

It was the perfect system because a) I did not have to put a part of my body near the spider, b) I would not feel guilty about killing a spider that did nothing to hurt me, and c) I would not get that withering look from my dad that he gives me when I wake him up late at night for stupid things.

Last month, however, I became the oldest-child-who-still-lives-with-parents because my brother left for college. Which was okay other than being a little depressing; there has been more food since he left and now I know for a fact that all of the pubic hair in our bathroom is my own. 

Anyway, when my little buddy showed up, I was not really sure what to do. I'm ashamed to admit that I did stand by my bed holding a wad of toilet paper like an idiot for several minutes, but I was too afraid that when I reached out to squash him, the spider would suddenly jump off of the wall and onto my arm or face or body.

When that didn't accomplish anything, I spent twenty minutes whispering and gesturing emphatically while my cat ran around the room in confused circles. 

Finally, in one of the most achingly passive decisions I've ever made, I decided that I had wanted to sleep downstairs on the couch anyway and the spider could have my bed.

The next morning, he was not on my wall any longer but was presumably still in my bedroom. I decided that I could be civil about the situation and share my good-sized amount of personal space with a spider. (Meaning that hopefully my cat would kill and eat it while I was at school.)

A couple days ago he showed up again in my curtains, and then in a rather eerie coincidence, appeared right when I was describing him earlier and for a long time was in a groove on the lid of my yarn-bin and I can't believe I'm saying this, but he had his little legs tucked up under him and it was kind of adorable. 

I've been calling him Dennis, which is the name of Cordelia's ghost roommate on "Angel." Unfortunately, my Dennis does not hand me cans of pop or put an extra blanket over me when I'm cold, he just skitters around my room making me nervous and magically not being seen by my stupid cat. I am one with nature.

Thankfully, Dennis was released into the wild tonight because my mother is a saint and carried him outside for me. Here is a video tribute that I made for Dennis. He may be living in the front garden now, but he'll always be in my heart.

Ninjutsu

I see a therapist. (Make any and all judgments now so that we can continue un-hindered.) We have monthly appointments, sometimes we work on CBT and sometimes I go on existential and/or nihilistic rants and sometimes we sit in silence while I stare at my fingernails, although recently, we've been playing Scrabble.



I went through several therapists in an impressively short period of time but prior to that, all of my knowledge about psychiatry and/or seeing a therapist came from Jamie Lee Curtis' character in "Freaky Friday" and reading Gary Larson's The Far Side. Since my understanding was limited to talking cows and a movie that involved Lindsay Lohan, I had no idea what to expect the first time we walked into the waiting room of a psychiatry practice.

It was disappointingly normal.

Finally, after about three years of sitting in ugly chairs and wondering what was wrong with all of the other normal-looking people, it happened - the experience I'd been waiting for.
And it was beautiful.


There were four of us in the waiting room on that particular day. Normally, I plop myself down directly next to another patient even if there are a bunch of empty seats so that I have at least one last-minute exposure to tell my therapist about. On this particular day my selected victim had been called in for his appointment right after I sat down, so I was alone against the back wall. A guy who could've been anywhere from 17 to 24 sat opposite me, sexting his girlfriend. (Wild guess.) Perpendicular to us against the main wall was a generic middle-aged white couple.

I was reading the same sentence in my book over and over again when the door from the offices into the waiting room opened and this rather large, blonde guy in a dirty t-shirt and sweatpants walked out. I was reminded of a member of Count Olaf's entourage detailed by Lemony Snicket in Series of Unfortunate Events; the large person whom the orphans could never identify as a man or a woman. This guy was obviously a man, but everything else about him was ambiguous. Age, mood, sanity, homelessness, et cetera. He had short blonde hair and now that I think about it, kind of looked like he had been drawn by the previously mentioned cartoonist, Gary Larson.

He was giving off some seriously weird vibes, but I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt since I can be pretty weird myself. First, he turned around and tried to go back into the offices but could not - there's a lock that you have to enter a key code into, which had always seemed unnecessary to me until just now. Being denied access, he turned and leaned his weight on the counter by the window, engaging the reluctant receptionist in conversation.

"Have you ever heard of a side-effect of schizophrenia that gives you the power to learn martial arts in your sleep?"

At this point we all thought he was making a weird joke. Sexting Guy and I shared an amused glance.

"Because when I woke up this morning, I knew Ninjutsu."

I was still under the impression that he was joking, but then he set his jumbo-fast-food-beverage down on the counter and in a miraculous demonstration of agility for his heftiness, suddenly chopped the air with his hand in a wide arc, stumbling forward a little bit as a result of the wild motion.

The four of us in the waiting room all jolted simultaneously. Sexting Guy and I stared at each other wide-eyed, the situation having officially crossed over from funny to scary.

The receptionist was impressively composed. "Wow! Look at that."

"It's the strangest thing - I've never had any training." The guy flailed around a little more doing nothing that looked like "the martial art, strategy, and tactics of unconventional warfare and guerrilla warfare as well as the art of espionage purportedly practiced by the shinobi." (I google-d Ninjutsu when I got home.) He motioned around to the four of us and said, "I could take on everyone in here." (The alarming truth is that he was probably right.)

The receptionist quickly changed the subject. The next thing I recall the man talking about was astral projection, which he claimed to practice regularly.

He had allegedly done the following things through out-of-body experiences in the spirit world:

• Met what I suspect were some anime characters
• Learned ninja secrets
• Lost his virginity.

Just when I had come to my senses and realized that I needed to remember everything this guy said for storytelling purposes later on, an older, female version of him strode through the door from the back offices and dragged him behind her out of the waiting room without breaking her stride. 

For a few minutes we sat in stunned silence, unsure of the appropriate way to react. (If anyone understands how un-funny mental illness can be, it's a bunch of people in a psychiatrist's waiting room. Then again, I think it's absolutely necessary to find humor in hardship.)

Finally, the middle-aged man broke the silence. Quietly and seriously, he said to the receptionist,


"I am also a master of Ninjutsu."

Connor con Queso

It was July of 2012, and my good friend Connor and I had just started dating.

(For those of you confused by my cryptic wording, Connor is a current good friend and former boyfriend but for some reason that's ridiculously hard to phrase without sounding fickle. Unrelated side-note, I'm obsessed with writing about a super-villain called the Fickle Pickle. Trademarked by Grace.)

Early on in our relationship, when we were getting to know each other, Connor and I played the Question Game via Facebook message. (Question Game: Must ask another question after answering one.) We eventually got around to "biggest fear," then the far more interesting "biggest irrational fear," or what some may call "phobia." Here's my list:

• Horses*
• Escalators
• Open water*
• Daddy Long Legs
• Those little monkeys that wear diapers**
• Orangutans***
• Pregnant women's bellies

Granted, I have a rather hefty list. Truth be told, I can ride an escalator if I absolutely have to and I could probably hold myself together if I had the opportunity to gallop to someone's rescue on the back of a horse. See corresponding footnotes for related stories.

Connor's list was only two things.

• Being attacked/murdered while in the shower
• Anyone (including himself) putting their finger in his bellybutton

I really do respect irrational fear. I'm not the kind of person who rubs my hands all over someone when I find out they have OCD. (Do people do that? I couldn't think of a better example.) I never entered the bathroom while Connor was showering without clearly announcing myself.

That being said, I, like most human beings, do have occasional moments of pure evil. 

July of 2012, I'm sitting on a white vinyl bench on a pontoon boat in a lake in Northern Michigan. There are about 6 or 7 people on the boat; myself, Connor, Connor's brother Brendon, and several of Brendon's friends including Shawna and Melissa. (The only two I remember.)

Connor has this really, really frustrating ability to fall asleep whenever and wherever he wants in about 30 seconds, and at this particular moment had dozed off whilst shirtless, his head in my lap. I was instantly bored. Boredom, as everyone knows, is a dangerous sensation. All of my truly evil moments are manifested from boredom. 

I scanned the boat for entertainment and my eyes instantly went - as if drawn by a magnet - to Connor's belly button. I began looking frantically around me for something funny to put in his belly button. All I could really see was a life jacket, cigarette butts, and a few pairs of sunglasses. Cigarette butt was too mean. I sighed audibly and made eye contact with Shawna or Melissa (don't remember which) who was sitting across from me.

"I'm trying to find something to put in his belly button." I explained. Shawna/Melissa laughed and contemplated for a moment before having a stroke of genius; she went over to the driver's seat of the pontoon boat where the boys were and came back with a jar of Chi-Chi's queso dip that had been brought on-board to accompany tortilla chips. I could barely contain my delighted freak-out; I couldn't have asked for anything sillier. 

I stuck my finger in the queso and got a nice big blob of it and very carefully dropped it into Connor's exposed belly button. He didn't stir. I added just a smidgen more so that it was sufficiently visible. Connor woke up moments later with a groan. 

"Wha... what? Awwww, maaaan." Connor groggily noticed the queso and acknowledge my hilarious prank with a groan. I had expected that he would jump in the lake to wash it out. That's where the story gets better.

To Connor, apparently, hunger for queso takes priority over irrational fear. When he was done grumbling, he stuck his own finger into his belly button.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" He grimaced in agony at the sensation. I started to say that he could jump into the water and he wouldn't have to do that.

Until I figured out what he was actually doing, which was eating the queso out of his own belly button. I have to admire his perseverance - he had to go back in three or four times before he got all of the queso. The man is truly unbreakable. 

When I decided to post the story, I mentioned it to my friend Josh, and as soon as I brought up the irrational fear of someone touching/poking your belly button, "Oh my god! No way! That is seriously my one irrational fear! I'm not kidding!" While my parents and I were watching the Modern Family premiere, I was looking up phobias online and the fear of having one's belly button touched or poked is called omphalophobia. Even better, there's an online community of people who share the common issue of omphalophobia! Apparently it's not horribly uncommon! Who knew?

Here are some of the more entertaining phobias I found in my quest:

Consecotaleophobia- Fear of chopsticks.

Eurotophobia- Fear of female genitalia. We have all had this fear at one time or another.

Papaphobia- Fear of the Pope.

More than you'lll never know.

Gymnophobia- Fear of nudity.

*Both of these fears originated with an early childhood viewing of "Black Beauty," the only scene from which I can remember is a large boat sinking and a little boy and horse ending up on some random beach, where the horse got spooked by a snake and flailed it's deadly hooves all around on the screen. Also, my parents had told me about Christopher Reeve breaking his neck by being bucked off of a horse, and in my mind it had turned into "a horse crippled Superman."

**The episode of "Malcolm in the Middle" where Craig has a homicidal helper-monkey may have something to do with this.

***I was at the zoo once and was at these glass windows that looked into the orangutan enclosure, and there was this orangutan who came up to the glass and I got all excited because I was going to connect with a monkey like Jane Goodall, and he seemed really curious and friendly! I got all excited and turned around to yell for my mom to come over and see the orangutan. When I turned back, the orangutan was rubbing this slimy, bright green goop all over the glass directly in front of me. The people around me were making "Eeeew" noises and turning away. I could not for the life of me figure out what the green stuff was, it was definitely not feces and the orangutan was having a ridiculous amount of fun rubbing it on the glass. Here's what I missed when I turned away to beckon my mom, drawn very, very poorly:

Of course, now that I've expressed my association of orangutans with nausea, I cannot not love this guy:

Gail v. Robespierre

I've been saving this work story for a while because I couldn't come up with good cartoons to go with it. I finally compromised and drew one unnecessarily-detailed cartoon.


Gail
A middle-aged, horse-loving, mini-van-driving, serial-dessert-baking vet assistant and mother of at least two with whom I used to work. (That may not have been a complete sentence but I went out of my way to avoid ending it with a preposition.)

Gail is funny. I really didn't like her at first - she just rubbed me the wrong way. Then one day she walked in with her usual "Good morning, Gracie!" and I suddenly realized that she'd grown on me and without knowing it, I had begun to adore her. The things that used to get under my skin became things that made me laugh, and not in a sarcastic way.

She had a tendency to scurry around the clinic like a chicken with her head cut off, doing random things like "cleaning all the dust pans" or Lemon Pledge-ing the wooden railings.To me, eventually, she seemed to take on a "mother hen" role. (I did not plan for those metaphorical clichés to match so well.) The bottom line is that Gail could be neurotic, but in a stressful work environment it meant a lot to have someone call me "honey" and make me feel appreciated.


Robespierre
A small, bean-shaped French Bulldog puppy who was born with a cleft palate. One of the technicians at the clinic took him home to do the rigorous tube-feeding required to nurse a pup with a cleft palate and he blossomed into a less-small, bean-shaped Frenchie with the derp-iest face I've ever seen on a canine and eyes that pointed in two visibly different directions.

He always had this "crazy-eyes" face that my dog gets when he's about to do something that he knows is blatantly against the rules. He looked like he was continually saying "Hit me, bro!" He didn't bark, either - he had a velociraptor-like shriek that sometimes sounded uncannily like the scream of a hysterical human woman.


The Showdown
I was standing in the main office filing paperwork. Robespierre was hanging out in the practice manager's office with a baby gate blocking the door while the technician taking care of him was at work. There were at least two pee pads laid out on the floor for him to use.

Which was, of course, wishful thinking, because the moment the manager stepped away he squatted in the center of the office and took a dump on one of the very few patches of floor that was not a pee pad. See left for a detailed but not-specific-enough-for-anyone-to-recognize-it-because-I'm-paranoid-that-I'll-get-in-trouble-even-though-I-haven't-said-anything-bad-about-the-hospital-and-I-don't-work-there-anymore map of the manager's office.

Gail happened to be passing through the office at that moment, and the sudden inspiration to do dirty work hit her - albeit not for a client's animal, but it was still a triumph. She grabbed a few paper towels and stepped over the baby gate into the office.

As soon as she moved towards Robespierre's poop, he starting freaking the hell out. He was squealing and screaming and snapping his crooked little mouth at her and would not let her take his feces.

Gail started "Oh!"-ing, all flustered the way she gets - "Oh! Oh no! Oh dear!" (and so on.)

Neither the receptions nor I thought to help her because we were too busy busting a gut watching Gail get terrorized by a tiny, retarded bulldog intent on literally guarding his poop.

Both parties made a valiant effort, but only one could win. Gail eventually rallied, got the best of Robespierre, and robbed him of his precious creation... although not without getting poo on her finger.



When Robespierre was older, an animal neurologist confirmed that his neurological issues were abnormal and irreparable. This is my homage to that crazy little mo-fo who terrorized poor Gail more and made me laugh harder than any dog ever has.

Today in Grace History: Late Submission Wins Pun-Based Pet Name Category

Today was my last day at work.

Also, today was the day poor Spotnick lost his crown to the new front-runner in pun-based names, his presence in the original competition non-existent for the sole reason that he had not yet been run over by an ATV and brought in to the clinic...

Didgeri-Don't.

Here, Beowolf.

I've always loved naming things - I was one of those kids - and I love a good, weird name.

Unfortunately, when I got my current cat, a moment of misguided charity and uncomfortable-ness made me decide to keep the name Rosie after an adult handicapped lady told me that she named her and then kissed the top of Rosie's head.

I regret this decision now.

That woman absolutely does not remember my cat and has probably named at least three more cats Rosie since then. I should have changed it to Jennyanydots when I had the chance. 

All personal regrets aside, one of my favorite things about working at the vet is hearing some of the crazy pet names. People who name their dogs Bella and Buddy seem so dull, although I do acknowledge that saying that makes me a huge hypocrite. Anyway, since I'm leaving my job soon to focus on school, I decided to indulge my curiosity and compile a list of the best of the best pet names and give them awards by category.
Enjoy.

Best Full Name

Second Place: Harvey Wallbanger (Canine)

First Place: Thadious Hoppington (Rabbit)

Best Food-Inspired Name

Second Place: (Tie) Kielbasa, Pork Fried Rice

First Place: Pou Pon (Feline)

Pets Named After Celebrities, In Order from Worst to Best

Charlie Sheen

Dale Earnhart

Bruce Lee

Bill Nye

Freddie Mercury

Best Names with the word "Fat" in them

Honorable Mentions: Fat Boy, Fat Head, and NINE pets named "Fatty"

Second Place: Fatapuss (See also "Best Puns")

First Place: Fat Bastard

Classiest

Honorable Mentions: Sinbad, Siegfried, Octavius

Third Place: Toulouse

Second Place: Hildegard

First Place: Alowycious

Best Descriptive Names*

Third Place: Fussy Butt

Second Place: Toe Licker

First Place: Tuna Breath

Honorable Mentions: Mustache Louie, One-Eyed Jack

*Fun fact, all winners in this category are cats.

Most Baffling

Third Place: Mr. Thumbs

Second Place: Oy

First Place: Pubert

Surprisingly Cute Names

Toggle

Segway

Velcro

Sequel

Jenga

Sandman

Malarkey

Best Puns

Third Place: My-Newt (Species said "Other," so I'm assuming it's an actual newt.)

Second Place: Catty Wompus

First Place: Spotnick

Worst Puns

Third Place: Maybullene (English Bulldog)

Second Place: Tie Deeogy (D.O.G.) and Shinopi (She No Pee)

First Place: Semper Fido

Honorable Mentions: Vincent Van Cat and Purrsilla.

Awesomest

The Wolfman

Snicklefritz

Robespierre

Beowolf

Avogadro

Megatron

Danger Kitty

Most Hilarious 

Mr. Noodle

Uncle Salty

Boobie

Spanky

Poop, Pooper, Poopie, 

Poopsie, and Poop Stain

Proud Mary

Spleen

Totally Inappropriate Names

Three-Way Tie: Osama, Hitler, and "Sexy Cat."

Animals with Best-Suited Names

Honorable Mentions: Hound named "Messerschmitt," Cornish Rex named "Nefertiti," and a French Bulldog named "Mavis."

Third Place: Doberman Pinscher named "Jebidiah"

Second Place: A dachshund named "Schnitzel"

First Place: (And I'm completely serious about this) A one-eyed basset hound named Whiskey Joe. (I've actually met Whiskey Joe, he looks like he just got back from snoozing on a front porch in the background of Fievel Goes West.)

Some fun statistics to wrap everything up:

- There are 11 orange cats named "Hobbes"

- 2 cats named "Crookshanks" and 1 actual rat named "Scabbers"

- 16 Cheechs, 1 Chong (I don't get it, either.)

- 5 Goobers and 8 Boogers

Moral of the story: It really doesn't matter what you name your pet, you're just going to end up calling it "dumbass" all the time anyway.

Leave Amanda Alone

Ah, the early 2000's. I vividly recall one of my very first ventures onto the internet - this was before I frequented the "Polly Pockets" website to play awful G-rated games - it was on our now-rustic family PC and I went to amandaplease.com, because Penelope Taynt (who I later learned was Amanda in a wig - 10-year-old mind blown) told me to. Then I sat in the office chair for an hour waiting for a 30-second clip to load and doing absolutely nothing else. I was so happy. I got to watch this pixel-y little video of their parody of "The Brady Bunch," the one where Alice is a man in drag. I was mousy and socially retarded and had all of the defining features of pre-pubescence as well as somehow, tragically, size 10 feet. Those were the days.

Remember "What I Like About You?" What a good show. How in love did you fall with Henry when he said that he'd propose at the dump?

The thing about Amanda was that she was an icon for the rest of us. She was unique and funny and true to herself - that was the best thing about her.

Now, see, my webcam does not work in the sense that it does not record video properly. All I end up with is a video of myself getting increasingly faster with audio that stays at the normal speed. Otherwise, I would have put on a long blonde wig and rolled around in my sheets dramatically. Alas, technology fails me and I must stoop to the written word and deprive the internet of five minutes of me trying to achieve the most flattering webcam face-angle and admiring my own hair.


Leave Amanda alone.

As the Season 2 Finale of "Sherlock" taught us, what the press reports is not necessarily true. Now, to clarify, I'm not saying that Amanda didn't throw a bong out of the window of a high-rise,* among other things - there's just no way for us to know the whole story. (Although any story with a flying bong is usually at least entertaining.)

Anyway, that's what's been on my mind today instead of the online exam for my last summer course. As much as I'm predisposed to harshly judge people who pierce their cheeks, (WHY DO PEOPLE DO THAT???) I hope Amanda finds her way and that I never have to hear her rap.


*Note: Add "hit by falling bong" to Worst Obituaries Ever list.

Is that rigor mortis, or are you just happy to see me?

My first real pet was a guinea pig. Three guinea pigs, actually, all of whom were equally useless creatures. The first time I ever set foot in the vet hospital was when one of them - a white, red-eyed little bastard - got a weird anus rash and we took her to the vet so she could pee down the front of my legs in the exam room. Anyway, there were three of them - Pokey, Taffy, and Flash.

Taffy was the Bunnicula doppleganger, Pokey had the appearance and personality of an elephant turd, and Flash was small and black and as it turned out, short-lived.

I was somewhere around 9 years old. Flash got sick very suddenly. I found her lying on her side in the guinea pig pen, twitching. My parents had me hold her for a few moments until she kicked it, although I don't recall the exact moment. They put her in a shoe box and put the shoe box in the garage to wait for the ground to be less frozen so we could bury her. 

The whole time the shoe box sat in the garage waiting, (a total of three or four days) I found myself strangely, magnetically drawn to it. My morbid curiosity was practically leaking out my ears, but I was socially aware enough to know that it would probably be unacceptable for me to fondle my guinea pig's corpse in the presence of others. I nursed that creepy sense of suspense and secrecy for all that it had while I waited for an opportunity to privately spend time with a dead thing for the first time ever.

When my parents were gone, I went out to the garage, took out the shoe box, and opened it. She was dead, all right. A dead guinea pig. I touched her fur - it felt the same, but the skin beneath it was cold and firm. I examined her still-open eyes, her mouth, her paws frozen in position as if she was running. I touched only her fur - I wasn't quite brave enough to do anything more. I put her back and went inside.

Over the next few days, I would sneak away to look in the shoe box. I thought of the creepy little visits as spending time with my pet, the concept of body v. soul foreign to a 9-year-old. 

I was visiting Flash one night when, in a sentimental moment, I tenderly reached into the box and picked her up. When I lifted her rear end, however, the rest of her kind of just lifted right along with it. It took a second for the horror to register, but I had a moment of terrible, terrible realization as I held her aloft - I was sitting in my garage, holding a furry black plank.  

Flash was not Flash anymore. It was both a tremendous growing-up experience, and in retrospect, a really hilarious situation. 

Sufficiently scarred for life, I dropped Flash back into the shoe box, put it back on the shelf, and ran inside to wash off all of the corpse bacteria that I could practically see crawling up my arms.

Now that my sense of soul v. body has developed, I can understand the reasoning from an 8-year-old - but it boggles my mind when adult pet owners spend unnecessary amounts of time with their pet's dead body. Due to what I now know is called rigor mortis, the aforementioned tendency also poses a significant problem to myself and the other veterinary assistants. Prime example - a challenge faced by myself and Little Dan.

There had been a euthanasia in one of the exam rooms that morning, and apparently the owners had spent several hours with the body afterwards. It's common to have to bag-and-tag a body a couple times a day, since the vets perform euthanasia and we have one of the only veterinary emergency rooms in the area. It was no surprise when Little Dan and I were asked to stretcher a dead dog back to the freezer. It was an old German Shepherd and he was already on the stretcher, so we quickly took him back and got out a bag. 

The trouble started when we began to ease the dog into the bag - he was immovable, and had stiffened into a position where his legs were splayed out in several different directions. Bagging the dog would've been an easy task if a) he'd been smaller or b) he'd been in a floppier and more bendable state, which he would have been for the first hour or so after his death. That window of opportunity had closed, however, and we were left with an impossibly rigid body and a bag that just wasn't quite big enough. 

I think we both knew that it wasn't going to work, but Little Dan and I were both fairly new assistants, so we kept our mouths shut, silently thanked the lord that there were doors separating us and our spectacle from the rest of the staff, and started by sticking the dog's upper half into the bag.

On the way in, the dog's frozen front paw caught on the bag and ripped a hole in it before either of us could respond. With a few muttered swear words, a sheepish apology to the dog, and some improvisation, we realized that the leg could not be bent without breaking it, so quickly got the dog back out and tried again.

On the second shot it seemed like the torso had gone in seamlessly. However, when I paused to pull the bag up over the dog's hips, I was greeted with a crusty snout sticking out through the hole previously created by the front paw. The situation continued more and more to resemble a slapstick comedy bit as we tried various ways to get the body bagged, our doggy friend's glassy eyes gazing back at us as if mocking our inadequacy. 

What we ended up with was two large red garbage bags and about a pound and a half of tape keeping the dog contained within them, the tip of a paw peeking out of the hole still. It was a huge fucking mess. 

In the end, appearance didn't matter - it was just going to be cremated anyway. But I'll be damned if that dog didn't put up a surprisingly fair post-mortem fight. 

The moral of the story - live adventurously, and give 'em hell once you're dead. Coincidently, I plan on that day being the first and last time I get punched in the boob by a dead dog. 

Grace's Guide to Intermediate Crossword Puzzles

A recent obsession with puzzles inspired

this guide, which, at first, may come off as shallow.

Before I finished creating one puzzle, my intellect tired -

Judgement-free, any clue about lotion is aloe.

Of Lena Horne and Edie Falco they're fond,

"Witherspoon" and "Zellweger" aren't hard to guess.

Exactly how many clues can reference James Bond?

My trivia knowledge falls short... I digress.

A fencing sword, F.Y.I, is "épée,"

and "parry"'s the name of said fencer's deflection

If any Great Lake besides "Eerie" comes into play,

Somewhere in New York, Will Shortz gets an erection.

There was once an explosive Italian named Etna.

Anything with sushi will be about eels.

If crime is involved, let me aid and abet ya,

As for fruit, know that "rinds" are synonymous with "peels."

I'm not the only one guilty of uncomfortable plurality -

"Ohios" and "Ahas" are good phrases to try

The Korean War had a whole lot of fatalities,

but all you must know: the guy in M*A*S*H is Hawkeye.

The elusive and oft-mentioned snake is an asp.

Turns out, nearly all actions can be re-done.

While music and art can be harder to grasp,

You'll likely see "oboes," or "aria," for one.

It's not "spheres," it's "orbs;" an urn, not a jar.

No matter what the planet will not be Uranus.

It might seem to you like they're stretching too far.

Jokes on you - this dumb poem is equally heinous.


G. S.

**Side note - I realized afterwards that this is now the second time I've rhymed "heinous" with a variation of "anus" in a poem on this blog. In my defense, not much else rhymes with "anus."**

Bag of Poopy Snow

I may have mentioned in a previous post that my job as a vet assistant can range from scrubbing in to surgeries to literally being a pooper-scooper.

While I get the most excited about scrubbing in, all of my best stories are about the latter.

It was the winter of '12. Poop-scooping was turning out to be slightly more pleasant in the freezing cold. On a hot August day, there's nothing worse than dripping with sweat, wearing scrub pants and holding a bucket of steaming dog turds. The fact that all of the turds were now frozen and consequently less pungent was a big perk. Also, being a veterinary hospital, there was an unfortunate tendency for the dog feces not to be solid in above-freezing temperatures.

What I hadn't anticipated was how quickly my garbage bag would become heavy. The added weight of the snow surrounding each turd began to make the job increasingly difficult as the garbage bag and I both strained under the weight, but I didn't want to go inside to get a second bag because my glasses would fog up and I'd look like Chandler in that clip they always show of him wearing glasses in a sauna during the introduction to "Friends." (You know you know the clip I'm talking about.)

When I was satisfied with my clean-up job, I dragged the feces-and-snow-filled bag over to the dumpster.

The dumpster was really full. In fact, it was overflowing - I guess the garbage guys had missed a day or something, because the mound above the top rim of the dumpster was at least six inches high. The top rim of the dumpster itself was about 3 inches taller than me; almost six feet. I briefly considered leaving the garbage bag sitting on the asphalt next to the dumpster so that someone else would have to deal with it, but come on. That's a dick move. It was my bag of shit, and I was going to dispose of it properly.

After assessing the situation for a moment, I decided to just go with the first logical option - use my own brute force. (Cue laugh track.)

This is how my first attempt played out.

After scratching my head and casually looking up at the sky in case anyone was watching, I decided to give it another go, but this time to swing the bag back farther to get more momentum. (So basically the exact same thing but with feeling!)

I very badly wanted to be in a comical fury. I recall yelling "Balls!" a few times while shaking the poop-y snow-water out of my hair. In the end I couldn't really be angry and this is why:

The Harris Defense Mechanism

(Pioneered by the illustrious Joss Whedon, followed religiously by me.)

"I laugh in the face of danger! Then I hide until it goes away."
    -Xander Harris, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"I've been in a fire fight! Well, I've been in a fire. Okay, I was fired... from a fry cook opportunity."
     -Hoban Washburne, Firefly

"I dismembered a guy with a trowel. What have you been up to?"
     -Marty, Cabin in the Woods


I've never been great at handling scary stuff. I can deal with gore and psychological thrillers - in fact, those are the best, but I cannot handle suspense peppered with sudden bursts of horror - Paranormal Activity and shit like that. It took me a while to recover from watching "Insidious."

Like a classic idiot, I chose to confront this fear by going to "Erebus," the record holder for world's largest haunted house from '05-'09. My very first haunted house (haunted anything, actually) and I decided to go all or nothing. One year I heard that they gave you a free t-shirt if you could make it all the way through the four-story haunted house without leaving out one of the emergency exits.

My friend Ella is one of the only people who can get me to do stuff like this, so we went together. She's curvy, Latina, has shorter hair than I do, and people often mistake us for a pair of lesbians. More on her later. Fast forward to the two of us, having just turned in our tickets and been directed to a large open hallway.

We stood at the entryway, only able to see red fog ahead of us. I immediately resorted to my opossum-like instinct to freeze and curl up like a dead body. I would have paid twenty more dollars not to have to go in there. Why? Why did I think this was a good idea? Fight-or-flight kicked in and it's only because of Ella that I didn't instantly "Nope" the fuck out of there.

"No. No. No. No."
"Grace, come on. Just walk forward."
"NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo."

Our compromise was that we would stay there, glued to the wall and clutching each other, and wait for the next group to enter so that we could casually follow them.

What happened instead was, a dad and his two pubescent sons appeared and Ella and I immediately latched onto them like two very high-pitched and profane barnacles. I'm talking head crabs from Half-Life here, I don't think I was at any point not clinging to a handful of a 14-year-old boy's shirt.

As we entered the first floor of the house, I was doing my best to be quiet. It was agonizing. The silence was slowly killing me, every scare was a tiny heart attack. We were about two minutes into it when my Harris Defense Mechanism kicked in - I started talking and did not shut up until we got to the gift shop half an hour later.

For example,

The gimmick this year was that we were traveling through time; we were put in these "time machines" that seemed to double as an elevator-phobic's worst nightmare, and it went pitch black as the door was closing. I totally knew an actor had slipped in with us, I knew it. (Like how I predict the entire plots of movies... see "Albatross Soup.")

"There's a dude in here. I know it. There's a dude. He's right over by the door. Hello? Hello? I know you're there - FUCK! SHIT! - I know there's a dude over there. He's going to scare us. He's - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH SON OF A BITCH!" (I was right, of course.) "Okay, Hi. Thank you for scaring us. Nice to meet you. Have a nice day."

We scurried past an elaborate, gory operating room with a disemboweled nurse reaching towards us as we passed. "That's not very sanitary. This is how people get MRSA. Maybe you should mop before the next surgery."

To a mutant waving it's tentacles through a barred window at us, "I'm sorry they did this to you."

To my surprise and delight, some of the actors responded to my babbling. This crazy dinosaur noise came out of some guy who was on a scaffolding above us and I said, "How did he even make that noise?"
As we passed under him he hissed, "With my mouth."

Talking to and at everything that scared me, like the invaluable character in every Joss Whedon creation, was clearing my head and making the experience bearable. It began with Xander Harris, an essential member of the Scoobies despite his lack of obvious merit. The legacy was passed on to the beloved Wash, keeping the crew of Serenity grounded with his quips and nervous chatter. And then of course, Fran Kranz - who's basically every Whedonite-who-is-too-young-for-Nathan-Fillion's wet dream - graced the screen as Topher and then Marty, a champion for Xander Harris-es everywhere.

About a quarter of the way through Erebus, the employees began doing the classic haunted-house bit where they single out the most scared-looking person in the group and separate them from everyone else or make them go in the front of the group, et cetera. I naturally assumed it would be me, but to my surprise, I WAS WINNING AT THE HAUNTED HOUSE. Ella's silence and purposeful avoidance of eye contact must have been more notable than me vocalizing everything I thought, because time and time again, it was her. My stream of chatter must have come across as amused or deadpan, even though it occasionally crescendo-ed into hysterical screaming.

Also at one point one of the actors grabbed my ass, probably by accident because I'm pretty sure they aren't supposed to touch guests unless we touch them first.

Now I wish we had bought the picture taken of the five of us peeing our pants that they had on display in the gift shop. This would've been the perfect place to post it. Instead I flipped through the photos that were on the Erebus Facebook page and picked my favorite one.

Okay, one more.

"Aw, Honey, let's keep him."

God I love these.

The scariest part of the ordeal, of course, was driving through downtown Pontiac.

After years of meticulous research...

Rosie

A gift from my comrade to me
It's beautiful and it is free
Pungent and pink
Malodorous stink
She oozes self-satisfied glee.

She trots tip-of-toe and gives chase
Then presents herself right to my face
There's nothing heinous
About my cat's anus                                                            
Pride compliments her feminine grace.

G. S.

Ode to the Drunk Guy at the Two-Story McDonald's in East Lansing on St. Patrick's Day

I jumped when he yelled, "Where all the white girls at?"
It was expected, of course, but still crude
Frightened, I shrank down where I sat
Glad that from behind I look like a dude.

It was funny until he became asinine, 
Knocking trays off of tables and so on
I was terrified our table was next in line,
And I was winning at Settlers of Catan.

Now, looking back,
It was not because he was black,
Or inebriated, that was the norm.

Yet despite threatening oddities
I was flush with commodities
And took my opponents by storm.

G. S.

Albatross Soup

Yesterday I hung out with my best friend Anna and her boyfriend Miles all evening.

I had two incredible revelations while I was with them.

We were standing in the kitchen scavenging for food when Miles used "high-five" as a form of strictly-verbal positive feedback and I immediately decided to steal it from him because IT IS HILARIOUS.

Miles literally just says "High five!" like someone would say "Cool!" or "Good job!" and then when the other person holds up their hand for a high five, he has already moved on, having only meant to casually congratulate them, oblivious to the fact that his statement traditionally indicates a physical response. It's the new "Tits."

Revelation No. 1: Check.


Later that night I made the horrible discovery of the only way my boyfriend has been a bad influence on me. Here's the scenario.

We were in Anna's living room and Miles suggested a movie, an independent horror flick called "Hunger." He said it was about cannibalism, some guy puts six people in a cellar together with only water and leaves them to their own devices. (Caution - spoilers ahead.) That's all the information I had when the movie began.

It opened on a car wreck in the wilderness, and cut to the person in the passenger seat, a young kid. Being one of those people, I immediately started asking questions.

"Is that kid going to be one of the people in the cellar?"

"No, just watch."

Then we see the kid look slowly to his left, and the camera pans over to show a dead woman in the driver's seat, presumably his mother.


I sat in contemplative silence for about twenty seconds before shouting, "The kid grows up to be the guy who puts the six people in the cellar because he's crazy because when he was little he got in a car accident and had to eat his mom to survive!"


I knew that I was correct when Miles burst out with a "GodDAMMIT, Grace!" and started looking for something else for us to watch. (We ended up with Patton Oswalt stand-up instead, which is way better.)

I know it was a dick move on my part. It is absolutely my boyfriend Connor's fault that I did it. I swear, it's his fucking hobby to accurately predict the entire plot of a movie from the first sixty seconds. On the off-chance he isn't right, he usually consoles himself by pointing out gaping plot holes. I get so mad at him for this.

That being said, I was extremely proud of myself for guessing the entire movie in the first minute and saw the hypocrisy and did not care. Looking back, it's been creeping up on me for a while. Every Wednesday night when I watch "Modern Family" with my parents, I spend the whole episode calling out what's going to happen just before it does and then saying how I could totally be a television writer. It was only a matter of time before my journey to the dark side was complete. (Also my parents might kick me out.)

To all friends of myself and my boyfriend Connor, let this be a warning: We are ruthless, we are not afraid to ruin nostalgic old favorites or shatter fond memories, we take every opening title as a challenge, and one way or another, we will absolutely (and shamelessly) ruin the movie for you.

End Revelation No. 2.

How to Blergh.

I'm having trouble drawing pictures to go along with my posts. I had a really funny idea the other day for a doodle to go along with a draft titled "Poopy Snow Bag" (it's a gem) but it turns out, I'm not great at drawing people unless they're standing, facing forwards, hands at their sides. I'm working on it. IT'S THE CLIMB. 

Because this is only my fifth or sixth post and anyone who doesn't know me doesn't have a great idea of my sense of humor, that "IT'S THE CLIMB." was purely satirical. The impression that it leaves - that of a hockey mom in jeans with rhinestones on the back pockets and a key-chain with a breast cancer awareness ribbon on it sporting the above phrase, coined by some person I don't know, made worse by Miley Cyrus - being a departure from my actual persona, contrasts in a way that some would consider ironic humor. For all anyone on the internet knows, I am a hockey mom who goes tanning and buys all of my vehicles new even though it's a horrible financial decision because they decrease in value a huge amount as soon as you drive it off the lot. When in reality, I'm a swell young gal who just likes hanging out and cracking wise.

I promise I won't do that more than a few more times. I don't over-explain in real life in a condescending way, I over-explain using feigned condescension that is exaggerated just enough so that the explainee recognizes that I'm not over-explaining because I think they don't understand, I'm over-explaining to make fun of people who over-explain for real. 

Imagine I said all of that kind of deadpan and with sort of bad breath - I imagine that's what talking to me in person is like. 

Grace write funny someday.

It's the climb.

The Art of Being Intertwined

Well, I lied. Niches are dumb. I don't really have one. As a feeble-minded woman, I have different things to write about depending on the day. There will inevitably be entertaining stories about my job sprinkled throughout, it's a big part of my life. Someday when I have an ipad and a stylus, I'll draw bad comics to go with the blog and then people will read it. I'm not going to lie, I only read the ones with drawings. No shame.


Today, the subject that's been weighing on my mind most heavily is relationships.

Maybe it's the "Bridezillas" marathon that I had this morning.

Maybe it's the argument I had with my boyfriend a few hours ago.

Probably the latter, but "Bridezillas" will make a good cultural reference for later on if I can't think of a better one. I almost always think of a better one.

Connor and I have been dating for almost a year. Both of us have been in long-term relationships before, every one of which met it's own unique demise. We are far from seasoned professionals. However, we have the two vital things necessary for a happy relationship - friendship and chemistry - and things are going really, really well.

They still are. I know I said we had a fight this morning, but it was resolved and we ended up talking for an embarrassingly long time about ridiculous stuff and making each other laugh.

One of the best things about my relationship with Connor is that we can both be happy alone. It took me about eighteen years to figure out how to be happy on my own, and I still have to remind myself every once in a while. (Okay, often.) The fact that we can both be happy alone and choose to be happy together is what makes it so wonderful.

There was a fight - possibly our first fight - that happened about three months into the relationship. We were angry and tired and rashly "called it quits." I attempted a goofy gesture - obviously successful - to win him back, which ended with a poorly drawn picture of the two of us holding each other, our limbs becoming vines and growing together so that we were entwined. It was a reference to a song by The Hush Sound, but I still meant it. See below for a shitty re-creation.

The actual drawing is not pornographic. Everything I draw on Paint just looks like genitalia. 

That being said, I've been thinking about what it takes to become fully intertwined with someone, and why I don't ever doubt our relationship.

It takes years for vines to form around each other and produce a stronger vine. I look at my paternal grandparents, who had what I hope to have someday in a marriage. By the time I was born and got to know them, they were professionals - they knew exactly how the other would react in any given situation, they knew each other better than anyone else in the world, and it was still fresh and exciting because they continued to fulfill their lifelong dreams, only they did it side by side. Of course, that doesn't mean that they didn't have conflicts or "the same fight" over and over again. They did. When it came down to it, though, Grandma and Grandpa could go to Pastries by T for breakfast every morning and still have things to talk about over their toast. They were always learning, always reading, always discovering, and because they were with each other, they had opportunities and experiences that they never would have had otherwise.


Vines take years to form. Ivy takes longer than six months to reach the roof of a house. I'm in it for the long haul, though, and it's only a matter of time before Connor and I can function flawlessly, sinuously if you will, contouring to fit each other while still maintaining our own distinctive shapes.

Abed Nadir once said, "When you really know who you are and what you like about yourself, changing for other people isn't such a big deal."

Abed, you're a god.

Previously Mentioned Zebulon Pike Limerick

The vast amount of knowledge I have about Zebulon Pike is due to the fact that I was absent the day we picked explorers in 5th grade. Stupid Paige got Sally Ride and those two girls that were best friends picked Lewis and Clark aww, get it because Lewis and Clark were best friends, right? Ugh. I returned after what was one of maybe two entire days of school I missed that year to find myself standing alone amid the sea of Vespuccis, Ericsons, and Albuquerques. Just me, Zebulon Pike, and the cheese. If you happen to be interested at all in a dude who "discovered" a peak in the Rocky Mountains that he saw from a distance and never actually climbed, shortly before meeting his untimely death due to a magazine explosion, (that was also, coincidentally, the year I learned that "magazine" has two meanings) then enjoy this limerick about the illustrious Pike and imagine a ten-year-old girl wearing a beard made out of brown construction paper and Scotch tape reciting it.

An explorer once set out to seek 
A glimpse of the mountain range bleak 
But Zebulon Pike 
Preferred not to hike 
He just pointed and said, "That's Pike's Peak."

G. S.

Niche - Is Yours as Good as Mine?

For the longest time whenever I would have those cat-staring-out-the-window "I should buy a boat" moments, it was always "I should start a vlog." (Other variations include "I should write a screenplay" and "I should become a space pirate.")

After several attempts at a vlog and a long litany of videos of me saying stupid stuff and my webcam malfunctioning, I returned to the idea of a normal blog. Words-on-screen and such.

One of which, in fact, I have had for years. However, it is the most self-indulgent blog ever because it's just an online dream journal. The only people who are insane enough to voluntarily submit themselves to a rambling, nonsensical description of all of the dumb shit that someone's brain came up with while they were sleeping are, according to the statistics, primarily from Russia.

Regardless of the fact that I would not read it myself, I love my dream blog dearly. It's for me and my handful of Russian fans to enjoy. Maybe I am to Russia what David Hasselhoff is to Germany.

Back to the (sort of) story, one of my half-hearted New Year's resolutions other than get more sleep and stop watching shows that have laugh tracks was to keep a journal. Which I did, for about four days, in an awesome notebook made out of elephant dung that I got on Etsy. I did immediately sniff it when it came in the mail. You'd never know it was in an elephant's colon. Maybe I'll include a link here, and that can be part of my niche.

The issue now is that I need something that will make my blog unique. Like "My Drunk Kitchen" or "Hyperbole and a Half" or "Cat vs. Human" or "Books of Adam" except that I'm not an adorable lesbian or decent artist. My art skills are limited to drawing my boyfriend as a superhero or a person facing forward with their arms at their sides. My lesbian skills are limited to a party at the "Tuba House" during my time at Central during which my friend tried to find another attractive slightly-skanky woman to eat half of a Kit-Kat out of her mouth but had to settle for me (in a hoody with my high school's name on it not talking to anyone), and I consented primarily because I really wanted a Kit-Kat bar. I don't think anyone thought it was hot. She has great tits, though.

I gave weird poetry a shot. There are two more poems saved in my "Drafts" folder, a limerick about Zebulon Pike (too specific to be interesting) and a free verse titled "The Time You Saw My Butthole." Neither of which I found suitable for the public, although there was a nice parallel between a surprisingly hairy anal sphincter and the inevitable mortality of man.

I could write about my job. That's a decent option - I'm a veterinary assistant at a prominent veterinary hospital in my area. My duties range from scrubbing in on surgeries to scooping poop along the sidewalk. I spent an hour or two today nursing (via the mama dog, obviously) 14 neomastiff pups. Did more dog-nipple-pinching than I ever intended to do in my life. I have a year's worth of stories saved up, now that I think about it, lots of entertaining ones, too. Stories that range from outright potty humor to heartfelt (self-indulgent) philosophy. Much cuteness and possible pictures, too, now that I think of it.

GREAT SCOTT! I think I've got it. Welcome to my blog about being a veterinary assistant, peppered with occasional crude poetry for added spice. Prepare to laugh so hard you unintentionally release a small amount of urine, I have my niche.


Let's meet back here tomorrow for my first knee-slapper. And to all of my Russian fans out there, "На какой улице можно у вас увидеть диких белых медведей?"

Quatrains About My Job

Rex may or may not have eaten marijuana
Spot jumped out of a moving car again
Jake's a good boy when he's not eating babies
Hercules doesn't like men.

Carl won't stop licking Tinkerbell's anus
Why does my dog have huge tits?
My kitty weighs twenty-three pounds, is that bad.
Should her feces be bright orange like this?

It's possible Buster Brown swallowed a NuvaRing
I think he might have ringworm, too
Were the anal glands chunky or hard to express?
Belle needs her Xanax prescription renewed.

G. S.

Childhood Trauma Outside of Comerica Park

Scary Homeless Man with No Feet
Just needs enough money to eat
Meet your eyes, I could not
It'd help if you would not
Waggle your stumps at all whom you meet.

G. S.