BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

My apologies to the B-52’s. I’ll buy y’all a round of drinks next time you’re in town, okay? (Watch ’em all order B-52’s…)

So, anyway, Facebook and Twitter folk know that last weekend we were finally able to get around to re-roofing our shed. Many of you have asked about it… Okay, okay, so none of you have asked about it. Be that way… Sheesh… Tough crowd everywhere I go.

Be that as it may… or as it were… or was… or is… Oh, what the hell. Thing is, it’s too damn hot for me to sit in the office and be funny. I’m much funnier when chilled. Therefore, by way of blog entry I am going to provide you with a few pictures and captions from the Great Shed Re-Roofing of 2010…

To the left we have “Le Shed.” The E K and I built it something on the order of 15 or 17 or maybe even 112 years ago. I can’t really remember. At any rate, it has served us well. However, it lives beneath a black walnut tree that is infested with Tree Rats (aka Skwirlz… not Squirrels, mind you. We have Skwirlz. Trust me… I’m pretty sure McSquizzy is their leader.) Anywho, after umpty-jillion years the asphalt shingled roof gave up the ghost. Once that happened, McSquizzy and his crew began their own demolition work.

Between the Skwirlz and weather, tolls were taken, but no receipts given. Problem is, with our schedules, getting out there and re-roofing the thing was proving a challenge. It wasn’t that we didn’t know how. We just didn’t have time.

Finally, this past winter we were able to do a quick tear-off, but the weather turned on us, and with time being a factor once again, a tarp became the interim roof.

Me, being the early riser that I am, got out there and pulled the tarp, then set about the process of replacing the damaged trusses.

Eventually, Loota-Chack and the Mikester showed up, followed by Johnathan “Mentos Rib Fest” Minton. Oh, and E K was there too. Once we managed to get the trusses replaced, E K and the Mikester went up top and set about the process of installing the purlins. These were necessary because we elected to go with a corrugated roofing material this go around.

During the initial installation, we were entertaining ourselves with some tunes. Much to our  dismay followed by delight, we discovered that the Mikester was unfamiliar with Aphrodite’s Child. We made it a point to change that.

This educational interlude, however, seemed to annoy the disembodied voice behind all of the pictured foliage, and he yelled sarcastic silliness at us. He should really leave the sarcasm to the professionals, because he wasn’t any good at it at all.

Here we have the offending radio. It even has its own chair. We allowed it to continue playing in the back yard while we were working so that we could keep an eye on it. However, since it was bad and offended the neighbor so much that he had to yell over the top of his weeds, when we were finished we sent it to its room and took away its power cord. Bad radio. No batteries for you!

It never ceases to amaze me…

No matter how hard I work, no matter what power tools, hand tools, or lumber I happen to be using, cutting, hammering, or otherwise busting my ass with, the only picture of me is where I am in supervisor mode.

I think E K does that to me on purpose, just to make me look bad…

Of course, at least I was supervising.

Loota-chack, on the other hand, was working just as hard as she could holding the ground down so it didn’t float away. I mean, after all, if the back yard had floated away we wouldn’t have any place to put the shed, right?

But, seriously folks, this is just the A-Bomb taking a break. We were all bustin’ arses on this project. Even “Little Miss 57 Languages” here…

Speaking of Luets-es-es… Here we have The Mikester. He’s kind of a trip. Has do-rag, will travel. He even comes with his own tools.

One of the amazing things about The Mikester is that he shows up, tools in hand, then does ANYTHING and EVERYTHING the redhead tells him to do. Seriously. She points and barks orders. Mikester jumps and carries out her commands. Somehow or another she has him even better trained than she has me. Not sure what that’s all about.

And, what’s a shed re-roofing without a gratuitous “Kilroy Was Here” photo.

And, wouldn’t you know it, Johnathan “Mentos Rib Fest” Minton is the culprit.

Unfortunately, this is the best pic we have of the Mentos during the project, which is too bad.  The T-Shirt he wore that day is actually an On The Edge Graphics original from the online store. Any guesses which one? Yeah… “Wearer Property of Evil Kat“… Hmmm… wonder why he selected that particular shirt on that particular day?

And finally, The Evil One herself… She hates having her picture taken so this is pretty much the best I could manage… Not that it isn’t perfectly lovely in its own right…

She actually had to take frequent breaks, because she’s so hot that she was warping the Ondura Roofing Panels. Go figure…

Still, here the roof is almost halfway installed… By the time we were done we were all too tired to take a picture of the finished product – besides which, E K and I had to get cleaned up and rush downtown to MAC for my 30th HS reunion.

Yes. Seriously. We busted our asses on the shed ALL DAY, then went to the reunion dinner… So, if you were there and wondered why we looked a little cooked, there you have it.

Okay… I’ll see if I can come up with something funny for  this coming Wednesday.

Hey! It could happen…

More to come…

Murv

They gave her looks. Brains. Nuclear capabilities. Everything but an “off” switch.

Since Gregory Hines died back in 2003, they called me to fill in.

“You know I can’t dance, right?” I asked.

By way of reply, they advanced their own question, “Do you know how to use a gun?”

“Well, yeah.”

One of them handed me a stack of paper. It was folded and dog-eared to a specific page. It looked like it had seen better days.

“I hate to tell you this,” I said. “But, this isn’t a gun.”

“This is a script. You get the gun when the properties master gets here,” the script girl replied. I knew she was the script girl because it said so on her t-shirt. She then followed up with yet another question as she tapped her index finger on the page. “Can you memorize this line right here?”

I looked down at the paper and read the text. I looked back up at them, then lowered my eyes and read the text again. Not only had the paper itself seen better days, so had the writing. Finally, I said, “You’re kidding, right?”

“No” was the answer.

“I can memorize it,” I told them. “In fact, now that I’ve read it once I’m pretty sure I’m never going to be able to forget it, unfortunately. “

“Good,” she quipped.

I shook my head. “You aren’t  going to expect me to actually say it or something ridiculous like that, are you?”

“Ssshhhhh!” the one with the wild-eyes shushed. “Here she comes.”

“Here who comes?” I asked.

“Eeek.”

“Eeek?”

“Ssshhh!”

I turned to see E K coming down the stairs. She was all decked out in a retro leather jacket, short skirt, and stiletto heels. I have to admit, she was looking pretty hot in a retro-80’s-disco-pop sorta way. Over her shoulder was a huge, black  duffle bag that looked more than a little suspicious.  What’s more, she was wearing an unhappy grimace. I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was because the duffle was too heavy or if she was seriously pissed off about the eighties pop wardrobe. Of course, it’s always possible she was just pissed about everything in general. I mean, we’re talking about E K here.

“Ummmm… Hi… Your worship,” I said.

The Evil One didn’t say a word. Instead she simply reached into the duffle, then quickly withdrew her hand and pointed a rather nasty looking machine pistol at me.

I cringed.

She stood there.

Finally I said, “What’s going on here?”

“She’s activated,” the script girl said.

“What do you mean she’s activated?” I asked.

“Ssshhh!” the wild-eyed one shushed me again, then whispered urgently, “You’ll set her off.”

“I’ve got some bad news for you,” I told him. “You don’t have to talk to set her off. Just leave the toilet seat up and see what happens. It’s pretty ugly.”

“Do you have a death wish?” the script girl hissed.

“No, but whoever gave my wife an Uzi obviously does,” I replied. “And, by the way. It’s EKay, not Eeek.”

“Not anymore,” said a new voice.

E K turned and fired.

I ducked.

So did everyone else.

Once the explosive burp and clatter of brass subsided, and the ringing in my ears started to fade, I looked over at the holes in the wall. The guy belonging to the new voice dragged himself up from the floor and gave me a nod.

“I knew she was going to do that,” he said.

I looked over and noticed that E K was just standing there staring with her breach hanging wide open. I would have mentioned it to her but I was afraid she’d just reload.

“Good on ya’,” I replied to the new guy. “So, who’s gonna fix my wall?”

“I’ll get a gaffer to take care of that. They have some pretty amazing tape.”

“So I hear.”

“You must be Colonel McQuade.”

“No, I’m Murv.”

He nodded and winked. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say.”

“Seriously.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he grunted

“So, what did you mean by not anymore?” I asked.

“Simple. She used to be EKay. Now she’s Eeek VIII.”

“Eeek Eight…”

“No, Eeek VIII.”

“That’s what I said.”

“This is a B movie. You have to say it with a Roman accent in order to make it sound important.”

“I see…” I grumbled. “So, what happened to Eeek One through… Excuse me, Eeek I through Eeek VII?”

“They were all blonds. The director wanted a redhead.”

“And they wanted to know if I had a death wish…” I mumbled while shaking my head, and then asked, “He’s not very bright, is he?”

“Hey! I’m right here…” the director shouted.

“Not very bright, are you?” I turned and asked.

He didn’t answer. Instead he just climbed back into his fancy folding chair and grumbled a lot.

“So…” I began. “What exactly does Eeek Eigh… I mean VIII do? I mean, besides destroy our house with an Uzi.”

“She terminates Japanese Beetles.”

“With a machine gun?”

“That’s one method. She’s capable of destroying Japanese Beetles in a variety of ways. And, if she is overcome by them at any point, she is also equipped with a tactical nuclear device.”

“Yeah,” I grunted. “I know. I live with her. I’ve seen her melt down.”

“Here,” he said, then handed me a Sig Sauer. “This is your gun.”

“Great,” I said, taking the firearm from him. “What am I supposed to do with it? I thought Eeek over here was the Japanese Beetle Exterminator.”

“She is.” He replied, then directed himself to retro E K. “Eeek VIII. Kill.”

With that, my wife reloaded the Uzi and stalked through the house. A moment later the back door exploded off its hinges and that was followed by the burp of the machine pistol, occasionally punctuated by silence. I assumed  that just meant she was reloading, because the gunfire would commence again within a few seconds.

I jogged through the house to the smoking hole where my back door used to be, and looked out at the carnage. Japanese Beetles were screaming for mercy as E K… I mean Eeek VIII… was peppering the back yard with 9mm rounds while stomping the carcasses of the wounded insects and gleefully grinding them into the ground.  The crunching noise was absolutely horrific, and she showed no sign of stopping. In fact, she really seemed to be enjoying herself.

“Now do you know what to do?” the properties guy asked.

“Run and hide?” I replied.

“Pssstttt!” a noise came from behind.

I turned to see the script girl motioning wildly.

“What?” I asked.

“Your line…” she hissed urgently. “Say your line…”

“You mean you seriously want me to say that?”

“Yes!” the director demanded.

I moaned.

“We can have wardrobe put you into a Japanese Beetle costume,” the director threatened.

“Yeah, okay, fine…” I grumbled, then cleared my throat and said, “Well this is quite some toy you have yourselves here gentlemen. I suppose you want me to put it back in its box.”

“CUT!” the director yelled.

The crunching and gunfire continued, along with a bit of giggling coming from the retro-clad redhead.

“CUT!” the director yelled again.

Eeek VIII kept stomping beetles and blowing holes into the sides of our neighbor’s houses with the Uzi.

“You idiots really did forget to give her an off switch, didn’t you?”

“Ummm… Animatronics wasn’t my department,” the properties master said. “Just props.”

“Yeah, great… Pass the buck,” I replied, then asked, “Okay, so what now?”

“Well… Ummm… She’s your wife. We were hoping you could tell us…”

“Yeah, actually, I think I can… Don’t call me if you decide to remake The Fly. She hates those too…”

More to come…

Murv

(NOTE: It is entirely possible that the movie reference above is a bit too obscure. My apologies for that. However, I watched it many years ago and figured I should subject the rest of you to it as well. The movie is “Eve of Destruction” – Also known in other countries as Eve Eight, Android Assassin, as well as Terminator Woman. It was a B Minus / C Plus Terminatoresque ripoff S/F flick starring Gregory Hines and Dutch actress Renée Soutendijk in a dual role as Doctor Eve Simmons and Eve VIII. You can read more about the actual movie here: Eve Of Destruction. I recommend pizza, booze, and nothing much else to do before actually watching this. But if you like mindless B schlock movies, it’s worth a gander. In the interest of full disclosure, while E K does in fact have leather and stilettos, she does not own an Uzi nor a tactical nuclear device. Production stills and frame grabs  of the actual movie were used to create Eeek Eig… I mean, Eeek VIII.)