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Posts Tagged ‘Duffy Kelly’

Enlighten me please.

Why is it my precious dog, Schwartz, loves to eat cords?  I thought we had grown out of this problem after he ate three phone chargers, two cell phones and numerous little plugs during his puppyhood.

But no.

And I thought he was bright! At least bright enough not to need to eat any lights!

What happened? Well, yesterday my daughter moved her dorm lamp home and into my bedroom.  ”Sure is cute. I’ll take it!” I said.

Durning the night I heard some strange noises coming from under my bed. Noises like this: “Crunch. Crack. Chomp. Yum. Burp.” This went on so long that I had to turn on the light. However, it wouldn’t turn on.  Instead, a warm glow emitted from the belly region of my precious Schwartz. Hmmm? Is he an angel? Is he God himself?

After rolling out of my bed much the way a hot dog rolls off a Walmart weenie cooker, I began to crawl around under the bed to look for the lamp’s light switch. (There are no overhead lights in my home’s bedrooms…)

“Think, think, think!” I said to myself.  I must have been saying this too much because all my talk about thinking was leaving me no time to actually think because I think best  in quiet , not to mention well-lit, rooms.

After crawling around until dawn and until sunlight  began to trickle through the fog, I finally spotted my daughter’s lamp. Sure enough, it was missing its cord. Litle pieces of electrical items were scattered like cookie crumbs here and there.

Darn. Why am I so in the dark as to why a dog likes to eat lamp cords?

The only thing I can figure is that he is jealous of lamps. Doesn’t want any competition. Indeed,  Schwartz is the light of my life, but this is going too far.  I guess he just hates it when a new light enters the household and threatens to take his top dog spot on the brilliance meter.

Doesn’t he know he will always be the light of my life?  I guess I just have to cuddle him more. You know, love that cord-eating phenomenon right out of him.

Schwartz lounging with his kitten after eating a lamp cord

Leave it to me to figure out how to sprain my kidney and shatter my nebula all in the name of thrifty household repair.

It all started when I put a load of sheets in the dryer… Two minutes into their cycle, I heard a buzz. “They can’t be ready yet,” I said to the disposal.

“Buzz,” said the dryer again.  “Well, I guess they are ready,” I whistled to the sponge.

But, nope. I was wrong. The dryer just kept on buzzing…and the sheets were still wet as could be. I did a lot of “harumphing,” banging, clanging, climbing around. I unfastened the dryer vent that goes outside, peeked in there for good measure.  (Nothing visible because it’s very dark in that long, winding thing.)  Turns out it was a mistake to look inside that long thing. Never ever do that.

To peek inside there, I had to climb on the dryer and somehow my left slipper was stuck on the dryer door and my right slipper was stuck on the window sill… This is a bad thing, especially when the dryer door flings open. Thank God I had a hip bone to cushion my fall. Only now my whole left side is numb, black, blue and purple. There goes my centerfold modeling contract with National Geographic.

I decided that 5 days before Christmas is a terrible time to buy a new dryer so I kept at my fix-it plan despite having the wind knocked out of my epidermis.  I realized that the dryer knob felt funny so I took it off and got a wrench-like device and turned the little knob under the knob. Voila!  This fixed my dryer.

At least I will have dry sheets to line my coffin.

I suggest calling a dryer repair man if you hear a buzzing coming from your dryer.

The things my kids and I talk about are so exciting I can barely leave the house. Let me give you an example.

The other day my four youngest children were cleaning out—a polite term used to describe “snooping through”—their older sister’s drawers. She’s away at college, so this is now our family sport.

After a few minutes of ”cleaning,” the oldest, Nola, ran to me, horrified.

“MOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!! This is really bad! She’s hiding so much stuff in here! Brace yourself.”

“What? what? Tell me quick! I can’t stand the suspense!”

“You are going to die. She has her very own RECTAL SUSPENDERS!” Nola said. .

“Ooh Geeze! Not rectal suspenders! Lordy be, what’s the world coming to?”

“Mom, rectal suspenders are something for the weenular area,” Nola explains.

“The weenular area? What area is that?”

“The area where the weenis is!”

“Well, of course it is. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

“Haven’t you ever heard of a weenis, Mom?”

“I have heard of words that kind of rhyme with weenis, but, no, this is the first time I have ever heard the word weenis. I like the word, though. Don’t get me wrong. I love that word.” Maybe I was giving them too much information.

“So you say she has something for the weenular area? The area where the weenis would be? How can you be so sure?”

“It says right on it. Rectal suspender!” She was so shocked and horrified that I had to stop what I was doing, which was nothing, and get out of bed.

“The nerve of that girl! That sister of yours is up to no good again. Imagine, she’s hiding weenular items from us,” I exclaim, acting grown-up. “The weirdest part is she doesn’t even have a weenis. By the way, is a weenis what I think it is?”

Then things get confusing because the youngest walks in and says, “Everybody has a weenis. The weenis is the flap of loose wrinkly skin that …”

“O.K., O.K. Enough about the weenis,” I command.

“No, really mom. A real weenis is the flap of loose, wrinkly skin on your elbow when you put your arm straight.”

“But there’s another weenis and the suspenders are probably for that kind of weenies, Nola says. “You know, the weenis in the crotch-al region?”

“Thank you for clarifying, I say. “The crotch-al region?” I love this kid because she has a very creative use of the English language. Always careful not to offend. Always looking for the “Stuffy-Mom-Approved” way to say things. Thank you, Nola.

“Crotch-al region weenis rectal suspenders. You sure she has these upstairs in her room?”

”Sure. One hundred and three percent sure.”

“But Grace doesn’t have a weenies,” I say. Wait a minute, now. Do these kids know something I don’t? “She doesn’t have a weenis, does she? DOES SHE?”

“How are we supposed to know? That’s your job.

Nola suggests I go upstairs and see for myself the rectal suspenders. I have to admit, all kinds of images cross my mind. “Rectal suspenders. Right there in her top drawer!”

I get a teensy, eeensy bit curious so I start racing through the house, screeching around the center island and jumping four stairs at a time up the staircase, breathlessly yanking open her top drawer. The kids all follow, eyeballs popping out of their heads.

“How do you suspend a rectal?” Nola asked. “Got to be a crazy thing she does to her boo-doddum and she’ll probably get pregnant.”

“Where are they?” I ask.

“See these white bottles? That’s it. We don’t want to touch them, though.”

Sure enough, there are some white bottles in her drawer. They do say rectal on them. But the other word is not suspenders. It’s suppositories. And the reason they are there is because they are a medicine that was prescribed a long time ago and that she obviously did not use. (I don’t blame her one bit on that, I might add.) Then comes the long part where I have to explain what suppositories are to the four younger children. And then the word rectal. This takes a while.

”Ewwww. Yuuuuuuck. Grooooooosssssss!”

“O.K., fine. But explain these!  RUBBER TEETH!” Nola says as she whips out a tooth-positioner from another drawer.

If you liked this stroy, you will love my book, “Don’t Take It From Me,” due out in October!   Check Duffykelly.com for more funny mom stories.