I have a Bachelor’s degree in Cliff’s Notes.

Seriously, I do.  I was an English major as an undergraduate, and my degree was earned, for the most part, reading three dollar summaries of the Classics.

Most mornings, Amy and I would wake up and yell to eachother from our respective bedrooms, “SKIPPIES?” Translation: We Are Truants.  Some days we would show up late for the first lesson, some days we would miss one class, and other times we would blow off every course scheduled that day.  In Amy’s defense, she fell into this habit because of my poor influence.

I honed this skill one year prior to meeting Amy during my Drama course featuring Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekhov.  The professor was a boring and eccentric woman, and the thought of listening to her drone on for ninety minutes two days a week was just too much for any 18 year old to stomach.  Amazingly, she bought my fabricated story about missing classes due to a recently diagnosed thyroid problem and I managed to scrape up a B for my final grade.

The following year, I convinced Michelle to sign up for another course with the same professor - Victorian Literature.  (Amy could not be persuaded to join.) “Come on, it’ll be a total blowoff.  She’s completely out of it and it’ll be an easy way to complete that requirement!” I could not have been more wrong.  The professor’s favorite expressions were “Ahhhhhhhh,” and “Uhhhhhhhh,” and my personal favorite, “I myself don’t see that, but There It Is.” This was her usual statement when I was called upon to respond to a question she posed, and unprepared to do so knowledgeably, I made up the biggest bullcrappity answer I could think of on the spot.  She was on to me.  Therefore, Michelle and I spent the rest of the semester tallying the number of times she repeated her Ahs and Uhs and I myself don’t see that but There It Ises because we knew we couldn’t dare try to skip out when we weren’t completing the readings.  We actually became rather well known to the Back Row Crowd, of which we were the founding members, and on the last day of class, we brought in a cordless tape recorder so we could remember her annoying phrases for all time.  We and the rest of the Back Row spent the entire class covering our mouths and laughing our asses off at our great ingenuity.  I wonder what ever happened to that tape...

Amy and I had quite a strongbox of excuses that we used on a weekly basis so that the attendance requirements for our classes no longer applied to us.  Electricity out, stalled car, various illnesses - all carefully used and never repeated in order to maintain a semblance of truth.  I think we only got away with this because we participated wholeheartedly in class discussions when we were present, thus endearing us to the naive (or indifferent) instructor.

Aside:  The only time I cringe when I think about speaking in class was in my 20th Century European Fiction course.  During class, the professor would made us read each chapter aloud round-robin style, even though we had already been assigned the chapter for homework.  When it was my turn to read aloud from a book by Isak Dinesen (I think it was Seven Gothic Tales), I mispronounced the word “truculent” (I said truce-u-lent).  This was my first encounter with that word since it was, predictably, my first encounter with the chapter.  I was passively-aggressively corrected later during our discussion of the chapter by a bookish bitch who monopolized the conversations and enjoyed making haughty and condescending remarks about reluctant comments spoken by shy and nervous students.  She was VERY serious about books, and I was not.  She was a member of the Front Row Club; I, the Back.  People like her were the reason that, for me, being an English major could make reading a book a rotten chore rather than a pleasurable experience.

I blew off classes and assignments.  I rarely read the entirety of a book when it was assigned.  If Cliff’s Notes were unavailable, I simply skimmed the text for important information and quotes that I heard mentioned in class to throw in my term papers.  I know for a fact I was not the only student of this scholarly vein.  In every class there was a Back Row clique who engaged in similar behavior.  Even in the round table classes, Back Rowers could be picked out in the blink of an eye.  It was like our own little secret society. 

I’m amazed to this day that I took my major so lightly.  It’s not like I had anything better to do, or even that there was anything else I’d rather be studying.  I was always a reader.  I could read Dr. Seuss independently at the age of 2-and-a-half.  I remember reading and rereading Judy Blume books until I could nearly recite them by heart.  One of my favorite activities was to close my eyes, choose a volume from my shelf, open it to any page, and read to the very end of the book.  I could do this for hours at a time.  I collected books like kids today collect beanie babies and video games.  Reading was a huge part of my life and books were partly responsible for shaping who I am today.

Which is why I think I was so apathetic in college.  Stubborn Capricorn that I am, being TOLD to read something, particularly within a prescribed time frame, made me much less likely to WANT to read it.  Forced learning was not my THANG.  Ironic, because I was always a teacher-pleaser and got fair grades.  But my heart was never in it.  I wasn’t trying to be Too Cool For School or anything, I just didn’t care. That’s one of my great regrets, considering the wonderful literature I missed out on reading back then.  I’m appreciating books so much more now that I am reading of my own accord.  I’ve recently joined a fab Book Club and rediscovered that I love talking about books with other people who love books as much as I do. I feel about books like I do about music. I’m not a snob.  I’ll read pretty much anything and enjoy it overall. 

I barely closed the back cover of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” before cracking the spine on my next great read.  I think I know what my college professors would say if they knew how I felt about books now...

“I myself don’t see that, but There It Is.”

My neighbors suck. 

When I lived in the city, my neighbors sucked in that pee-on-your-front-lawn-at-two-in-the-morning kind of way.  I can deal with that.  But these neighbors suck in the way that only a suburban neighbor can.

To my left is a family of five.  The dad grew up in an abusive home, which I know because the mom shared that little tidbit of information with me one day.  I think she did this to excuse the fact that her husband does nothing but scream at her, scream at his children and swear at the top of his lungs on a daily basis.  His favorite word is the F word.  Now, I’m not against using such word, but I really don’t see the need to use it so loudly at 8:30 am on a Saturday morning just because some squirrels ate the tomatoes from your garden.  I especially do not see the need to do this in front of your three children who are playing in the yard.  This guy is obsessed with his lawn.  The “theme” in the front is Nautical Beach.  He built and painted this horrid lighthouse which serves as the focal point.  Under the pieces of wrought-iron gate which he bolted to the front of his house (why, I will never understand) is a tri-level rock and seashell garden.  Wooden cutout people complete the look.  Oh, yeah, it’s JUST like living in Maine, dude.  Our houses are really close together and sometimes when I back in or out of our driveway, I end up on HIS precious property.  I made a nice little rut in the ground, so to correct our wrongdoing, he stuck a giant fricking boulder at the edge of my driveway.  I cannot tell you how many times I have run this thing over and pushed it into the street with my car.  I just leave it there.  If he wants a boulder on his property, he can do the maintenance.

On my right is the most crotchety couple that ever walked the face of the earth.  Their favorite thing to do is call the Inspector on my ass.  Didn’t bundle your twigs for trash collection properly?  Phone call.  Dogs barking too early in the morning?  Phone call.  When I painted the house, the husband actually had the nerve to come over and tell me we missed a spot.  Just to SHOW HIM, I left it unpainted.  Suck on that, assface.  And to make things worse, his house is the color of puke and he has it repainted THE SAME FRICKING COLOR every two years or so.  I’d be a miserable bastard, too, if I had to come home every day to a Puke House.  And their favorite thing to do is called Lay Outside in The Sun.  She just lays there motionless for HOURS while he sucks back a six-pack of some crappy, foul beer.  I thought orange skin was OVER.  She looks like a suitcase, and I’m not trying to be mean.  Seriously, I’m not.  It’s just not attractive at all.  Not to mention that she insists on walking around in a BIKINI all the time.  He loves to be in a tank top.  Skin is hanging and swinging and I really don’t want to see that. 

Which is why I put up the Spite Fence.  I fenced in the yard with this Big Ass Six Foot High Solid Wood Mother.  It’s the best thing I ever did.  Ever.  I love not having to interact with the humans that flank my home environment.  Good fences really do make good neighbors.

Other highlights of the neighborhood include The Guy With The Lawn Jockey, The Bitchy Woman Whose Husband Rides The Loudest Motorcycle In The World, The Unruly Brat Children, The Slutty Mom and Her Slutty Daughter, and The Cat Who Shits On Everyone’s Property. I don’t talk to any of them.

And I keep getting invited to the Annual Block Party.  Go figure.

“What the frick is that smell?” I ask myself as I sit here reading.  Looking to my immediate right, I notice a small black turd sitting quietly on the hardwood floor next to my feet.  A gift. From Jake.  Apparently he needs to go out and this is His Way of communicating that need. 

Lately Jake has become quite fond of the taste of mud.  This dog’s discriminating palate has determined that mud is the delicacy du jour.  While in the yard, he enjoys an hors d’oeuvre of grass clippings, followed by a main course of mud, which he licks from a divet that he has made in the lawn with his paw.  Then he shits black turds on my hardwood floors.

Jake is the Miracle Dog.  There is some Great Force keeping him alive.  Once he ate three-quarters of a 20-pound bag of dog food.  I called the vet in a panic after his midsection blew up to the size of Texas.  They advised me to give him a teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide every 15 minutes until he started to barf it all up.  After the first heave, he moseyed right back into that kitchen and headed straight for that bag of food. 

Another time he ate the greater part of a tub of Udder Cream, which, may I say, keeps the knees and elbows silky soft.  He opened the jar (no teeth marks - I think he is hiding an opposable thumb)and licked out the contents until they were nearly gone.  I came home and wondered at what point he decided he was full of Udder Cream.

Also, he can open cans of soup.

He cannibalized himself on one occasion.  He chewed off the end of his tail.  Chewed that mother off.  Then he took a nap in the hall.  When I came home, he couldn’t contain his glee and started wagging his tail furiously.  It looked like I had a home visit from Charles Manson while I was out.  I half-expected to see Die Pig Die written on the wall in tail blood.

And the other two canines aren’t any better.  Jake’s the oldest so he sets the crappy example for his younger brother and sister.  Fergus is the one following in his footsteps. 

Fergus eats socks.  Whole socks.  Just sucks ‘em right down.  Then he shits them out.  Every once in a while I’ll see him squatting in the yard looking pathetically from side to side for someone to come and rescue him.  Because, you see, the sock is stuck in his ass.  So I have to put on a surgical glove or bag my hand and go out there and PULL THE FRICKING THING OUT OF HIS ASS.  When sphincter muscles just don’t cut it, I have to fill in on the job.  No wonder I feel the need to tell people frequently that I have a Master’s degree. 

A few months ago one of these sock things didn’t make its way out.  After two days of projectile vomiting, I took him to the vet.  They did lots of expensive diagnostic tests using special x-rayable pellets to tell me he had a sock stuck in his ass.  Actually it was stuck between his stomach and intestine.  Two days and $2000 worth of surgery later, I brought him home with a 10 inch incision on his belly and a bile-soaked sock in a baggie.  I don’t leave the laundry baskets out anymore.

Tess is the only dog in the house who eats only food.  And her breath is the foulest.  She’s had 5 teeth extracted and a good scraping and cleaning, and still her mouth smells like the Grim Reaper ate a bowl of horseshit and is breathing right down your neck. But she really can’t help it.  When I was volunteering at the local Humane Society, I agreed to take her in as a “foster dog” for a few weeks around Christmastime. (Foster care my ass...like I could give her back) She had been severely neglected and starved and was basically surviving on her own feces.  She was so undernourished, you could make out the outline of her entire skeleton through her skin and fur.  For weeks I had to sit on the floor with her food bowl in my lap and feed her one nugget at a time until she learned to eat and trust again.  She was 9 pounds that December.  Today she weighs around 40 pounds.  It’s amazing to me that after all these years, she still has that memory etched in her brain.  She growls and snarls over her bowl every single time she eats.  She runs and hides whenever she gets a treat.  But she’s so grateful to have food, that’s all she eats. 

Still, a dog can’t eat shit during the formative months and have good breath.  It just can’t happen.

I feel like breaking out the karaoke machine I got for Christmas at the age of 32.

Christmas night, we hooked that mother up and watched my dad sing Frank Sinatra tunes peppered with fart noises he made into the microphone during the non-vocal parts.  Charles and I belted out a few show tunes before we started making up our own words to songs.  Our original creations were mostly about pooping or calling someone a bastard.  We had manic giggles and refused to let anyone else use the mikes for about an hour.  My brother’s friend Jim stopped over and sang a couple duets with Uncle Chuck which brought down the FRICKING HOUSE. Yeah, dawg.

At my grandma’s 89th birthday party, Bart got Jiggy With It all night.  Dad made more fart noises. Kelly and I kicked Carmen Rasmusen’s ass on our version of How Do I Live (Without You).  Gregg tried to get his hands on a microphone but we monopolized them until he finally accepted his role as disc changer.  Charles and I sang duets from Miss Saigon and some hooey from that musical Jekyll and Hyde.  When it comes to this machine, pride goes right in the crapper.

I’m not a music snob.  Basically I will listen to anything.  I’ll admit to liking it too.  I don’t care.  Who the frick am I trying to impress?  You already know I’m shallow.  But what I love the most about my family and friends is that they enjoy this kind of exhibitionism just as much as I do.  There’s no pretense, no attempt at trying to act like real musician, none of that.  Just the pure rapture you can only experience by making a complete ass of yourself in front of other grown human beings.  I love being an ass and not caring.  It’s one of the greatest pleasures in life. 

That and the fart noises.

Things are getting on my nerves. 

It all started when I went to Borders to buy my copy of Rolling Stone with Clay on the cover and I saw a book by Alan Thicke.  Alan Fricking Thicke.  Who in their right mind would publish a book by this dude?  I mean, he was on GROWING PAINS.  The worst show in the history of television.  I bet Leonardo DiCaprio is kicking his own ass for signing on to that train wreck.  Normally I would have picked up this book and flipped through the pages to see what this nonsense was all about, but I was so outraged by the fact that it was even on the shelf, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I just walked by it huffing and puffing and rolling my eyes.  If it weren’t for that Rolling Stone making me so happy, I would have given one of those Borders people a piece of my fricking mind.

I just got this new computer.  I love it completely, except for the CD burner drive, which doesn’t work.  So I can’t make copies upon copies of my bootleg Clay Aiken CDs to force upon my unwilling friends and family members.  “Listen to this.  I mean, you have got to hear this boy sing.  Have you ever heard a voice like this in YOUR EVER LIVING LIFE?”, I would say.  But I can’t say because the fricking CD burner drive is hooey.  So after hours and hours on the phone with customer service reps and technical experts who kept rerouting my call to someone more incompetent...after following directions to click this and open that...after spending 20 bucks on obsolete CD-Rs...after I asked the rep on the other end of the phone if she was TRAINED TO LIE TO CUSTOMERS when customers tried to pursue an actual resolution to their technical problems...after the rep on the phone advised me to take the fricking side panel off the CPU and unplug the drive, thus releasing a smell of burning plastic that permeated every nook of my humble home...they figured out that the DRIVE DIDN’T WORK.  DUH!  I tried telling them that the first hundred times I called!  When I finally threatened to return the computer (which, of course I wouldn’t do now that I have about 100 pictures of Clay saved on my hard drive, and I wouldn’t dream of losing them), they hightailed a new drive to my house to be installed.  Ah, sweet justice.  I can’t wait to burn, baby, burn.

I’ve got two nerves left.  Alan Thicke and my CD burner drive are sitting on them.