Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Three years ago, Trey and I lived in San Diego while he managed an office selling security systems. One day while out selling, he spotted something moving in the grass. With no regard for the sale he was in, Trey abruptly asked his customer for a bucket and some gloves. What he came home with that night was something he called an alligator lizard or something I called a bad word. After explaining the sentimental reasons for this stupid lizard (I guess they had one growing up named Jordan), I decided to allow him to keep it as long as I didn't have to ever touch it, feed it, interact with it, etc...

Trey put the alligator lizard (I can't just say lizard or you will think it's cute. This thing was hissing at me) in a cardboard box until we could get a more permanent home for it. The next day, Trey left for work and left me alone, in the same house with the reptile. All afternoon I could hear this thing crawling around the box, which creeped me out to say the least. What creeped me out even more, however, was when I couldn't hear it anymore.

I went over to the box to check on the alligator and sure enough, it was gone and in its place, a lizard-sized hole he had chewed through the box. After searching all over the apartment, I found it on the balcony. I called Trey and told him the situation, which was basically that the lizard was gone forever since I wasn't going to touch it. He begged me to get a towel from the bathroom and catch it. If I was a tear shedder, this is where they would've come. Like a stupid wife, I obeyed and attempted to catch the dang thing. Unfortunately it scurried behind the washer, which meant that I had to coax it out by beating it with an unwound hanger. Just my luck. And after that proved unsuccessful, I watched as the lizard ran through a hole in the exterior wall. All that work for nothing.

Trey heard the full story when he got home and rather than feeling sorry for the trauma I had incurred, he suggested we go to the pet store to replace his day old friend. So what do you think happened? Well, we came home with a snake, tank, and a freezer full of frozen mice. The lizard was looking good at this point. Trey left for work the next day, not only leaving me alone with another reptile, but also accidentally leaving the top of the tank open. Later that evening, I realized I couldn't see the snake and noticed the open lid. The tank was on our kitchen counter so after looking EVERYWHERE, I assumed maybe the snake went down the sink. I assumed this mostly to help myself feel better about Trey not being home for many more hours.

Trey came home that night and once again, rather than feeling sorry for me, he decided we should go buy another snake as a replacement. Sure enough, we brought home one more snake. What was I thinking allowing this? That night, Trey went to bed and I decided to stay up and watch a movie. When the movie was over, I walked passed the kitchen and saw the snake out of the tank and on the counter. I panicked. How did this one get out? I would have to wake Trey up since I was not about to catch it and return it to the tank. But wait, there was already a snake in the tank. Snake on the counter=snake we thought we lost. Awesome. Two snakes. Kill me.

I was reminded of this story a few nights ago when Trey told me we were getting a new pet...a snapping turtle. Regular turtle, no problem. Snapping turtle, problem. One of Trey's guys found it in his neighborhood and knew Trey would love it, so he brought it home to join the Warner family. Trey got a home all set up for it and, though it was so tiny, I could not bring myself to go near it. The word "snapping" just ran through my mind and I was afraid the stupid thing would bite me. And before I allowed Trey to put this turtle in yet, another cardboard box, I made sure he wouldn't be able to chew his way through it. Why am I such a wuss? Here's Trey with the tiny little turtle.
Aww, so cute. What a nice little pet, even though it still creeps me out to hear it walking on the cardboard. But wait, that thing is just a baby, which only means that it won't stay tiny forever. Maybe we should google it and see how big this thing plans on getting. And this picture is no joke. Our tiny little turtle is only years away from becoming this...
And now the tiny turtle has become a resident of the lake behind our house. I think I'm done allowing Trey to bring home pets he finds in the hood.

Gotta Love 'Em

Whether you're married to a man or not, you have at least had boyfriends or brothers or hopefully fathers. You've been around men enough to know that most of their quirks are not unique to just them, but seem to come with the species.

This post is motivated, of course, by something my special husband did that may be surprising to some, but not to anyone who knows a man. Not just any man, but a man who finds himself helpless in seemingly simple situations. A man who, for some reason, though grown well into adulthood, finds himself vulnerable and childlike when in the presence of a woman. A man who is the epitome of the Youtube video "Man Cold." This man is the kind who will tell you he can't find something he has searched everywhere for, upon which you move one very obvious item to discover the missing "something." The man whose idea of doing the dishes is rinsing them with water and returning them to the wrong cupboards. The man who you won't even let do the dishes anymore because it's just too much hassle to undo the damage. My man doesn't do any of these things, but my attention has been brought to this question...are men really this helpless or are they manipulating us into thinking they are so we will give up and do the work ourselves?

I never considered the manipulation idea until I was enlightened by "Everybody Loves Raymond" a few years back. Raymond's brother, Robert, was getting married and he was semi-annoyed with all the pre-wedding tasks, but felt obligated to be a help to his fiance. Raymond offered advice from his own experience to just do a bad job, offer bad suggestions...basically do poorly whatever was asked of him. This way, the fiance would appreciate him for still trying, but would slowly let him off the hook. Genius, I thought. Do men really do this in real life? Was my husband one step ahead of me? A few nights ago, my question was answered.

Trey takes Ambien on occasion to help him sleep, but the effects can often be annoying to me, ie: he does/says weird things he doesn't always remember in the morning, until the moment he does fall asleep he won't stop talking, etc...) So I decided we should also try a more natural sleep aid called Melatonin. The second night we had the pills, I took one and left the bottle by the kitchen sink. Trey asked me a few minutes later where the Melatonin was and I told him where I'd put it. The next day, I saw some pills on Trey's nightstand. Walter, our dog, sometimes has a bad habit of eating his own poop. It's disgusting, but apparently not too uncommon. I went to the pet store to get some pills to remedy this and had left them on the kitchen counter...nowhere near the Melatonin. However, Trey picked up the first bottle he saw and popped the pills without a second thought. He did notice they were very grainy and pretty gross tasting but went right on swallowing. The second I saw the dog pills on his nightstand I knew what had happened. He'd mistaken the don't-eat-your-own-poop pills for his sleep aid medicine. I told him the pills were in the kitchen and he didn't doubt me for a second, not even enough to actually read the medicine label.

And that's when it occurred to me...men really are that helpless. They trust us women with their lives. They may not clean so great or find things so great or be sick so great, but they sure can trust us pretty well. We can't blame them if their natural inclinations are not to clean at the first sight of mess or take care of themselves when they have a minor cough. I love that Trey can rely on me for absolutely anything and he knows that I will always come through for him. I'd rather have a man who trusts me to the fullest than one who can clean my house. At least that's what I'll tell myself as I slave over the dishes.

And just in case you were wondering, the pills worked. Trey didn't eat his own poop the next day.

Where would I be without my iPhone

Right now I'm coming at you live from my iPhone, which on an everyday basis is, in theory, retarded in my opinion. No one would rather blog from their phone than from a nice Macbook. Today, however, I've run across some bad luck. After getting out of the shower, the doorbell rang. I went downstairs, turban towel and all, answered the door to a mean electricity man telling me he was shutting off my electricity since I haven't paid my bill since February. Funny, since I've lived here one month and the company takes care of my utilities. Too bad, he doesn't care that my name is not Collin Gehl. He doesn't care that my hair is still wet and could use the electricity to run thru my blow dryer. He simply flips the switch to the off position and leaves, not without showing me that Collin's balance is 420 something dollars. Normally, I could survive this situation. Normally, my husband wouldn't have gone out of town this morning and left me carless. Normally, I wouldn't be stranded in the middle of Kansas with no friends, family, Internet or cable. Aside from all that, I called the electrical company and luckily they can't come for two days. Goodbye delicious produce and other food I bought at Costco yesterday. Hello tears. I called Trey to see if he could rescue this damsel and sure enough, he did...mostly. I guess the company forgot to take care of the utility situation and were getting right on it because as the lady on the phone put it, I was in panic mode. Wouldn't you be? After waiting for an update, I learned that the soonest they can turn my power back on is sometime tomorrow. My survival skills kicked in as I loaded up a huge suitcase full of fridge/freezer food and dragged it down one flight of stairs and up another into our empty office fridge. I only spilled pickle juice and salsa everywhere. Other than that, no problems. Here's the part in my story where I'm proud of myself. I did dispose of most of the produce as I'm not going to walk to the office everytime I want something but I did decide to make the best of my raspberries by making some jam. Mom would be so proud. It's only been 4 hours and already I'm so bored. But, the moral of the story is, I love my iPhone. I'm a person that needs technology in any form. I'd even read a book if I had one. All I have is my phone and my two dogs to keep me company. And less than 3 hours of daylight until I'm just sitting in the dark. Looks like I'm popping a sleeping pill at 9:00 tonight. Tell me, how would you entertain yourself if you were me? Maybe you're better than me. Maybe you don't need a car or tv or Internet or friends or books or noise or cold food or lights in your bathroom or your hair done. If you don't, maybe you were born a century too late.