Semi-Defective

October 9, 2013 / Diane Henders / 23 Comments

Lately my brain has been semi-defective. It works most of the time, but every now and then it shorts out, leaving me standing there wondering what the hell I’d intended to do moments ago. Or I go to do one thing and end up doing something else entirely.

I hope it’s because I’m in the final intense writing phase of Book 7 and all my spare brain power is used up. I really hope it’s not permanent. And I really, really hope aliens didn’t sneak into my bedroom while I was asleep and swap out my brain for a substandard model. ‘Cause everybody knows there’s a big market for good used brains around Halloween, so it would make sense to manufacture some cheaper semi-defective ones.

I mean, really, there are lots of things that are apparently manufactured to be intentionally inferior.

Take cotton swabs, for example – one of my pet peeves. Any time I buy a generic brand, one end of the swab has a nice soft cotton tip and the other end is a hard plastic stick with a few shreds of cotton adhering to it, just enough to blunt the edges so it doesn’t actually slice the inside of my ear to pieces.

(Don’t bother reprimanding me for sticking cotton swabs in my ears. I know I’m not supposed to, but I’m a rebel. Sometimes I go out doors marked ‘In Only’. Sometimes I drink milk that’s a day past its ‘Best Before’ date. So sticking cotton swabs in my ears? I laugh in the face of danger! Ha-ha!)

Anyway…

If Q-Tips® can make cotton swabs with nice soft cotton tips on both ends, why are all generic cotton swabs semi-defective? Do aliens open up every single package and remove the cotton from one end of each swab?

Or is there a special cut-rate supplier for semi-defective manufacturing equipment?

I imagine the following sales pitch from SemDef Corporation: “Yeah, you could buy a machine that actually works, but for half the price, you can have a machine that only works half the time. Is that a deal or what?”

Which actually explains a lot about the generic food market, too. You know what I mean. If you buy Cheerios®, you get yummy Cheerios®. If you buy generic oatie-o cereal, you get something that tastes like the cardboard box it’s packed in.

It has the same ingredient list. There’s no sawdust or wallpaper paste in there. Not even the leftover cotton from the semi-defective swabs. So that means either they’ve somehow managed to screw up a simple recipe past the point of recognition, OR…

…SemDef also sells substandard food products: “Why spend extra money for top quality oats? For half the price, you can get oats that have been left out in the rain for a few days. All you have to do is scrape off the mouldy bits and ignore the grasshopper corpses, and you’re all set. Really, you’re going to process them past the point of recognition anyway. Who’ll know?”

Okay, I just grossed myself out.

And I’ve created a rambling blog post that connects cotton swabs, aliens, breakfast cereal, and grasshoppers. Yet another sabotage by my semi-defective brain.

Damn those aliens anyway.

Home Free

October 2, 2013 / Diane Henders / 24 Comments

I made it!

As I mentioned a couple of months ago, I was worried I might be on a no-fly list somewhere. (That would be a “don’t-let-this-woman-on-an-airplane” list; not a list that prohibits flies from being in my presence. I’d be delighted to get on an actual no-fly list – then I wouldn’t need fly diapers.)

Anyway, it turns out I’m on neither of those lists. Last week I successfully completed a trip to Las Vegas to attend a wedding. I even had fun.

The last time I flew to the States was about eight years ago, and the U.S. Customs guards, while not exactly hostile, were definitely Not Friendly. Thanks to sponge toffee, I have issues with authority figures at the best of times, so slinking into a foreign country under the disapproving stare of Uncle Sam was a traumatic experience for me. And I hadn’t even been doing anything remotely suspicious at the time.

This time, with my guilty browser history searing my conscience, I was distinctly anxious.

What if they turned me away and wouldn’t let me get on the plane? Or worse, what if they didn’t turn me away, and instead dragged me off to an interrogation room, never to be seen or heard from again?

Clearing airport security has been a worrisome experience for me ever since they stepped up the screening requirements. My waist pouch always contains a number of items that are either overtly weapons (jackknives), or could be construed as such by paranoid security personnel (nail file, screwdrivers, a vial of hand sanitizer, etc.)

So every time I fly, one of the items on my to-do-before-I-leave list is to audit my waist pouch. Problem is, I have a lot of crap stuffed in there, and I either forget it or overlook it. Twice, they’ve confiscated corkscrews from me; once it was scissors. Each time, they write down my name on an ominous-looking list, and then give me the hairy eyeball until I shrivel to the size of a garden gnome and creep away trembling.

This time, as usual, I wrote “Take out weapons” on my to-do list, and then immediately glanced over my shoulder to see if Big Brother was watching. Honest, I meant “take weapons out of waist pouch”, not “lay out weapons to be packed and smuggled aboard”.

To my surprise, everything went without a hitch in the Calgary airport. The border guard barely glanced at me; I hadn’t forgotten to remove that stick of dynamite from my waist pouch; and amazingly, I wasn’t even selected for the “random” physical search (for which I’m chosen ninety percent of the time).

Coming home, Vegas airport security took some more nudie pics of me (I should have asked them for copies, come to think of it), but they didn’t tell me to bend over and pick up the soap, for which I was profoundly grateful. Once I had removed my epidermis and superficial musculature and tucked it all into the little plastic bin to be X-rayed, it was clear sailing all the way.

Customs on the Canadian side lifted an amused eyebrow at my $20 declaration, and that was that. Home free.

Little did they know I’d cleverly smuggled a prohibited item across the border: a living creature carrying a communicable disease.

Yeah, I caught a cold while I was there.

But other than that, it was a perfect trip.

A Nudie Pic From My Sordid Past

September 18, 2013 / Diane Henders / 29 Comments

All the major celebrities have nude pictures lurking somewhere in their past. They pretend to be embarrassed about them, but in fact it’s a clever marketing ploy to drum up some sensational news articles and garner more publicity.

I figure I could use some publicity, so today I’m going to unveil a nudie pic from my own misguided youth. And no, I’m not talking about baby pictures. I was twenty-two at the time, and old enough to know better.

I have to warn you, this is not a tastefully-done boudoir photo. It’s a tawdry snapshot from a time when someone who shall remain nameless (and whom I’ve cropped from the photo) convinced me to expose myself in public.

I knew at the time that it was a bad idea.

I protested, but I was young, and peer pressure is a terrible thing. And I believed in the power of friendship. A true friend would never ask me to do anything humiliating or potentially damaging to my reputation, right?

Wrong.

Here’s the proof:

Sorry, Camille, I would’ve cropped you out to preserve your privacy if I could, but thanks for being there. No, I mean physically there. In front of me, blocking the view.

Believe it or not, I am actually wearing a dress in that photo. (For the record, Camille was a fellow martyr, not the bride who strong-armed us into this disaster.)

The bridesmaids’ dresses were flesh-coloured taffeta. Low-cut and strapless, they had an inadequate wrap-around skirt secured only at the waist. I’m sure I mooned half of Winnipeg just trying to get in and out of the car while the wind whipped that skirt around.

But the top was worse. Much worse.

When the dress arrived the day before the wedding, I refused to wear it. The top was so loose that one false move would’ve given the girls far more freedom than was advisable (or legal, for that matter).

So the seamstress altered it. She was obviously vindictive about the last-minute change. When I got the dress back the morning of the wedding, it was so tight I couldn’t draw a full breath. My assets were attractively portioned into four boobs: Bisected by a tourniquet of fabric, two naked bulges overflowed the top of the bodice, while the sadly flattened remainders were viciously crushed against my ribcage.

It was the 80s, and back then, cleavage was usually concealed in church. You should have seen the poor minister’s face when I shuffled up the aisle clothed in little more than the tattered remains of my dignity, my half-exposed boobs burgeoning over the bodice with each humiliated breath while I tried to keep that slit-to-the waist skirt closed. He probably wondered if I was inside the dress trying to get out, or outside it struggling to get in.

Trust me, it was the latter.

Somehow I got through the day, but the damning photographic evidence is preserved for all time: Me, apparently stark naked in public, smiling for the camera.

So do you think that’s enough to make me famous? Or just mortified?

Hair Today…

September 11, 2013 / Diane Henders / 38 Comments

The other day I was cutting my husband’s hair when a memory made me smile. Since it seems to make him unaccountably nervous when I smile for no apparent reason while wielding sharp objects close to his jugular, I hastened to explain.

First, a bit of background information:

I haven’t been to a hair salon in years. I cut Hubby’s hair, and he trims an inch or two off mine whenever I feel the urge to part with some split ends. This works well for many reasons, not the least of which is that if there are any latent hostilities in a marriage, letting your spouse snip away at your ‘do while you sit defenceless in a chair is certain to bring them to the surface.

Also, we’re both cheap and lazy, with no discernible fashion sense. Cutting our own hair saves time and money, and as long as there are no visible chunks missing or sticking out, we figure it’s good enough.

But pre-Hubby, I went faithfully if grudgingly to the salon to get my hair cut.

Apart from the layered big-hair era of the 80s and a brief fling with short hair after donating my long locks to the Cancer Society, this is pretty much what my hairstyle has been all my life, plus or minus a foot or so:

Just before I cut it off and donated it about 10 years ago.

Back to the memory in question…

I love my hair, so (cheapness notwithstanding) I decided to spend whatever it took to make it look good. I experimented with various salons and price ranges, reasoning that an expensive haircut should be better than a cheap one.

That may be true if you have a complicated hairstyle, but I didn’t. It was pretty much “just lop off a few inches and make sure the ends are straight”. Other than the time I lost six inches because the stylist kept cutting it crooked and then trying to correct it, there was no discernible difference in the quality of the cut.

There was, however, one commonality between all the salons no matter how cheap or expensive: the snotty stylist.

You know the one. When you go into a salon, they put you in the chair, tie the cape around your throat so you can’t escape, and run their fingers through your hair with an expression of pained distaste.

Then they ask “Who cut your hair?” with not-quite-concealed disdain.

It didn’t matter whether I had paid $50 (which was a lot of money for a haircut ‘way back then) or $10, the haircut was always disparaged by the next stylist in line.

But once, and only once, I got my own back.

The stylist plopped me into the chair and ran contemptuous fingers through my hair before drawing himself up to haughtily inquire, “Who cut your hair?”

And I replied in complete honesty, “You did.”

It’s one of my most treasured memories.

Fly Diapers. God, I’m Old.

August 21, 2013 / Diane Henders / 46 Comments

Monday afternoon I was contemplating diapers for house flies, and that’s when I realized I’m getting old.

It’s complicated. Let me explain:

We have a little acreage outside the city, with a tiny decrepit forty-year-old travel trailer on it. The trailer’s only features are a primitive propane furnace and a queen-size bed we shoehorned in after sacrificing all the original interior partitions and fittings. A toilet is not one of its luxuries, so I built an outhouse.

I don’t like dark, icky outhouses, so ours has a clear roof for natural light, a battery-powered overhead light for nighttime use, and a rainwater collection system that gravity-feeds a small sink so we can wash our hands. Thanks to strategies I won’t describe here, it doesn’t even stink (most of the time).

The deluxe outhouse

There are only two of us, so it’s not a big deal to keep it clean. I regularly evict spiders and sweep out the inevitable pine needles and dead leaves we track in, but that’s about the extent of my chores (other than occasionally scrubbing it just because it’s an outhouse and I’m a weirdo clean freak).

That is, until this week.

This week the flies from hell arrived. I don’t know what they’ve been eating, but these are sick, sick flies. Usually fly shit looks like little black specks. These flies dumped brown and yellow splotches the size of a pencil eraser. Or larger. Sometimes much larger. Large enough to dribble when they hit a vertical surface…

It looked as though someone had taken a baby with explosive diarrhea and twirled the poor suffering child around and around inside our outhouse before fleeing the scene of the crime.

It was disgusting, and I spent a good half-hour scrubbing it all clean again before griping to Hubby about the pressing need for fly diapers.

And that’s when I realized it.

I’m old.

In mid-August thirty years ago (okay, maybe a little more), I was portaging and paddling through the beautiful network of lakes in the rocky Canadian Shield country around Kenora, Ontario. I carried all my food, clothing, and cooking tools in my backpack. I slept on the ground, cooked over a tiny fire when necessary, and carried a small trowel whose function I shall leave to your imagination. There was no human habitation whatsoever, and definitely no outhouse.

(In fact, I only met one other group of people the entire week. In complete fulfillment of Murphy’s Law, they caught me squatting behind a bush, trowel in hand. Did I mention I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit? Well, actually, not wearing it at the moment of discovery.)

Aaaaanyway…

Fast-forward.

When I wrote the first draft of this post, I was sitting in my zero-gravity lounge chair in front of our firepit. I still cook all our meals over the campfire, but I’m not exactly roughing it:

No hunkering down next to the flames for me. I even use a nonstick frying pan.

So there I was, lounging in my deluxe folding chair, typing on my laptop beside a heated trailer containing a queen-sized bed.

And kvetching about fly shit in my deluxe outhouse.

God, I’m old.

When the hell did that happen?

Compatibility Is Overrated

August 14, 2013 / Diane Henders / 56 Comments

Over the past decade or so, it has become apparent that my husband and I are completely incompatible:

He’s a pack rat. I’m a cleaner-outer.
He dwells happily in his cluttered man cave. I need a tidy house and a clean desk.
He’s a procrastinator. I do things as soon as they come up (which is really only because I’ll forget about them otherwise, but still).
He likes to have music or TV always on in the background. I prefer silence unless I’m actually concentrating on listening to music.
I love all kinds of music. He’s rock & roll to the core.
I’m a jock. He’s a couch potato (sorry, dear, but you know it’s true).
I’m an adventurous eater. He’s a meat-and-potatoes kinda guy.
He winds down by watching TV. After half an hour in front of the TV, I’m ready to chew off my own arm if that’s what it takes to escape.

But it doesn’t end there. We can’t even agree on the things we agree on. We have two kinds of everything in our house. I drink skim milk and he drinks full-fat homogenized. I eat crackers with unsalted tops; he eats salted. He drinks black tea; I drink green and herbal. He likes white bread; I like whole-grain. We don’t even use the same brand of toothpaste.

A while ago, I ran into an old friend in the grocery store and we were standing there catching up when he suddenly blurted out, “I can’t believe you’re still married.” When I laughed and asked him why, he couldn’t (or didn’t) come up with any concrete reason, but I suspect it was the compatibility thing. Looking at the list above, you’d think we’d have throttled each other before the first year was out.

But we’ve figured out ways to compromise (or agree to disagree), and there are lots of activities we both enjoy. It also helps that Hubby is the most tolerant guy I’ve ever met, and he encourages me in absolutely everything I try (even if I suck at it).

Yesterday was our fourteenth wedding anniversary, and I can’t believe how quickly the years have flown by. It’s been the best fourteen years of my adult life.

I think what I love most about him is the way he does little, special things for me. The surprise trip to a new restaurant; cleaning out the dishwasher because he knows I hate doing it; the fancy bows on the chairs we bought together as a mutual anniversary gift; the flowers for no reason; the way he magically appears with a dishtowel in his hand when he hears me washing dishes. No grand fanfare, no ‘look what I did for you, praise me now’; just his quiet smile.

And I love the way his mind is constantly active. Conversations at our dinner table range from quantum physics to car maintenance; astronomy to science-fiction laser guns; building computers to growing tomatoes to finding a way to filter out the awful taste of his last batch of rotgut homemade wine. (We never did figure that one out. If anybody wants a few gallons of dark-brown fluid that smells like rotten eggs and burns with a clear blue flame, let me know.)

Our basement is full of obscure mechanical and electronic oddments, and Hubby’s always working on some theoretical problem or invention. It’s unfailingly interesting, and occasionally alarming. I’ve narrowly missed being struck in the back of the head by an exploding capacitor (it shot past my left ear). Sometimes there are billows of dense smoke or worrisome chemical odours.

But I think I’ve finally trained him not to use my kitchen sink for toxic substances or my food processor for non-food items. At least, not while I’m looking.

And after all, where’s the fun in predictability?

So happy anniversary to my dear Hubby – I’m looking forward to many more! (Anniversaries, I mean. Just thought I should clarify that…)

Is There A 12-Step Program For That?

August 7, 2013 / Diane Henders / 55 Comments

My name is Diane, and I’m here to confess my addiction. No, not my addiction to tools. This is a different addiction altogether.

I can withstand it for long stretches of time, but it always drags me under in the end. The high is ecstatic. Then comes the slow sobering, followed by guilt and shame. After that comes the steely resolve to do better, and sometimes I vanquish the demons for a while.

But sooner or later, I succumb again. The longest I’ve ever stayed clean was several years. I really thought I’d beaten it that time.

I was wrong.

I’m talking, of course, about Costco. I gave up my membership years ago, but in a weak moment I asked one of my friends to take me this past weekend. It wasn’t the ugliest relapse I’ve ever had, but it proved that I am and always will be an addict.

For those unfamiliar with Costco, it’s a wholesale-style outlet that sells everything from food to electronics to furniture to clothing. In gigantic bulk quantities. Usually at lower-than-retail prices, and occasionally at screaming discounts.

I have a five-pound tin of baking powder I bought at Costco over fifteen years ago. It’s still good… but it’s also still half-full. In another fifteen years, I might actually finish it. I have half-gallon jugs of onion powder and cinnamon that date back to that period, too. There’s something about large quantities of food that I just can’t resist.

Maybe it’s because my dad was a child of the 1930s Depression years. Nothing was ever wasted in our household. The tiniest scraps of food were saved and incorporated into the next meal, and staple foods were purchased in bulk to get the best discounts.

So I harbour two horribly conflicting attitudes toward groceries: Large quantities are magnificent; and: Waste nothing.

You can see my problem with Costco. They have large quantities! Of everything! What could be better than five pounds of chocolate chips for the price of two? Three water bottles for the price of one? More toilet paper than you can fit in your car?

It’s magnificent, I tell you!

When I walk into their cavernous building, my pulse races and the demons begin their seductive chorus: “Look how much there is. And for such a cheap price! It’s an excellent buy! Large quantities are magnificent!”

Euphoria seizes me and I buy. And buy.

Then I get home and realize what I’ve done. Yes, I scored a case of my favourite Ataulfo mangoes for a fabulous discount. But Hubby doesn’t like mangoes, and I can only eat so many of them before they rot.

Guilt and anxiety kick in. I must waste nothing! I must eat mangoes morning, noon, and night!

I managed to avoid gross excesses this time. I bought what I needed and could use within the foreseeable future. (Except for the water bottles – I needed one, not three. But hey, it’s not like they’re going to go bad, right?)

And I split that giant package of cheese curds with my friend, so it was a good buy.

Really.

I think I’m improving.

Maybe I should go back again this week just to be sure…

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

July 31, 2013 / Diane Henders / 43 Comments

I’m worried.

Being the cynical geek I am, I was sure Big Brother was watching us long before the “news” broke about the NSA and PRISM. No surprise there.

That’s why ever since I started writing the Never Say Spy series, I’ve joked semi-seriously that I’m probably on a no-fly list somewhere. Anyone watching my browsing habits will know I spend a disturbing amount of time researching untraceable poisons, the characteristics of C4 and other explosives, sonic grenades, Tasers and stun guns, specifications and ballistics tables for firearms, and a host of other unsavoury topics.

Throw in my YouTube viewing history of martial arts, shooting techniques, self-defence against knives and guns, military training videos, and some other odds and sods that are definitely non-typical for your average middle-aged female viewer.

Then add my frequent searches on computer networks, hacking, cracking, and encryption, and I just bet they’re watching me.

Meanwhile, and (until this morning) completely unrelated to this… I’m a big music fan. I love just about all genres, and, as I’ve mentioned before, my MP3 player contains everything from rock to reggae to ragtime, country to classical, metal to Motown, pop to polkas, blues to barbershop harmony. But (*gasp*) I’ve never been a huge Beatles fan.

Sure, I like their music, and I respect their impact on the music scene, but I’ve never actually gotten around to buying an album. So yesterday I thought, “Hmm. What kind of self-professed music lover doesn’t have a single Beatles song on her MP3 player? Maybe I’d better go and buy an anthology.”

So off to Amazon I went, and I found a remastered 2-disc set that looked good. I checked the track list and discovered the song “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”. I’d never heard of it before. So I played the preview, then messed around a bit and got distracted. And forgot about the whole thing.

Until a mere 18 hours later.

Sometimes I like to get out and do some new things and meet new people (bear with me; I’ll establish the relevance of this momentarily). So I belong to a couple of Meetup groups. They send me updates on upcoming events.

Here’s what I found in my Inbox this morning:

What the hell are the chances of that?

My idea of getting a Beatles album was completely off-the-cuff. I went to Amazon and clicked on the first Beatles album in the list without any conscious selection process; I’d never even heard of this song before yesterday; and I arbitrarily chose to listen to its preview instead of any of several other songs that were unfamiliar to me.

And within 18 hours, I get an invitation with the very same title?!?

And what are the chances of two different Meetup group organizers emailing me on the same day about gun-related activities? I just joined this group. They shouldn’t have any way of knowing I like to shoot.

I thought the alien butt sensors and the NSA were bad, but now I’m totally creeped out.

Who else is watching me? I don’t know, but I’m suspicious of the jackrabbit that’s been living under the spruce tree in our front yard. He has a shifty expression…

Alien Butt Sensors

July 3, 2013 / Diane Henders / 40 Comments

They’re invisible, but I know they’re there.

I’m not sure how or when they were installed, but there are hidden pressure sensors under every toilet seat in the house, as well as on my office chair. It’s the only possible explanation.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve just nicely settled myself on the throne when the phone rings. In fact, it happens so frequently that it’s a standing (sorry, couldn’t resist) joke with one of my friends. She calls; I’m in the bathroom.

Every. Single. Time.

This makes it sound as though a) I have continence problems and therefore spend a considerable amount of time ensconced in the holy of holies; or b) she phones me far too often.

Neither is true. I won’t lower myself (sorry again) to discussing my bathroom habits here, other than to say: normal. And it’s rare for her to phone me more than once a week.

So I’m convinced that she somehow knows when I’m in the john.

It’s far too creepy to consider that she might actually be the culprit responsible for the butt sensors, so I prefer to believe they were installed by some advanced alien race that is capable of invisibility and possesses both the technology to broadcast telepathic signals of unlimited range, and the malevolence to torture me by broadcasting “Phone Diane” every time I shit… er, sit.

And the bastards didn’t stop with the toilet seats, either.

The sensor on my office chair is an extremely specialized model; probably some advanced prototype they’re developing exclusively for sales to telemarketers, politicians, and meddling relatives.

It doesn’t just register pressure and react the way the toilet-seat model does. No, this one is far more diabolical.

It also taps into my brainwaves.

It doesn’t react when I’m doing something boring and tedious and I’d love to be interrupted. Oh, hell no. I can spend all bloody day writing computer training workbooks with nary a peep, but within ten seconds of achieving the zen-like bliss of uninterrupted writing … I’ll be interrupted.

It’s obviously programmed with a complicated algorithm that constantly sifts through the detritus of my mind, measuring my exact degree of concentration and commitment to the task at hand. When I achieve some critical pre-determined level, the butt sensor psychically broadcasts “Interrupt Diane using any method necessary, immediately”.

Phone calls are easiest, but in a pinch they’ll induce Hubby to choose that exact moment to ask a not-very-important but time-consuming question. Or the courier will show up with delivery that needs a signature. A sudden loud noise and/or cry of distress from somewhere in the house is always a winner. Or there’s the tried-and-true method of having somebody crash into my parked
half-ton and ring the doorbell to report the accident.

That may sound far-fetched, but don’t laugh – it’s happened five times. I don’t know how anyone can fail to see a big red truck in their rear-view mirror, so the aliens must make my truck momentarily invisible, too.

I guess it could be worse. In the big picture, interruptions are only an annoyance. At least the aliens don’t seem interested in my body cavities.

Unless there’s something about those butt sensors that I really don’t want to know about…

The Happy Hoer

June 12, 2013August 5, 2013 / Diane Henders / 40 Comments

As I mentioned a couple of years ago, I’m a hoer. Very few people are willing to discuss this lifestyle openly and fewer still can comprehend enjoying it, but as you probably know by now, I’m a freak. I love being a hoer.

Last week found me sweating in the hot sun at the side of the road, waving at passing cars as usual. And I’m not ashamed to admit I’ll be doing it all summer long, as often as I can. It’s a way of life for me.

But simply waving at cars seemed a little too passive, so I added pole-dancing to my repertoire just to attract a little more attention.

It was not a pretty sight.

If you’ve been following my Facebook page, you’ll know we spread approximately 10,000 pounds of compost and peat on our big vegetable garden about a month ago. Hoeing in that beautiful, fluffy soil is pure joy. Thanks to some perfectly-timed rain, almost everything has germinated, and last week it was time to put up the trellises for my snap peas and scarlet runner beans.

Since snow is unlikely (though not unheard-of) for the next couple of months, we use our snow-fence stakes to support the trellises.

(For those in warmer climates, snow fences are flexible fencing made of slats or perforated plastic and supported by six- to eight-foot-tall iron stakes pounded into the ground. During the winter the fences control drifting snow by breaking the wind slightly, which causes snow to swirl and collect on the lee side of the fence.)

If you’ve ever tried to swing a 2½ pound hand sledge over your head hard enough to drive in a tall and heavy iron stake, you’ll see the difficulty here. So, thanks to my nice soft soil, I push the stakes in first so I can reach them more comfortably with the sledge hammer.

It takes a lot of pressure to push those stakes in. Fortunately, I’m no lightweight. Put 155 pounds behind an iron stake, and it’s going somewhere… though not necessarily where you want it.

So there I am, hanging off the top of the stake with my legs drawn up to make sure I’ve got all my weight on it.

A car drives by, catching me in the act, and I start to giggle. This does not improve my balance or coordination.

No, I didn’t fall on my ass. That would have been decorous.

Instead I flailed my legs madly to maintain my balance without letting the stake topple. And I laughed harder.

Then I realized how I must look, and I lost it completely.

Since I’m apparently quite allergic to dignity, I decided this was too funny not to share. So, I give you: The Happy Hoer. (Yes, snow-fence posts are ribbed with iron protrusions every couple of inches. I’m not sure why, but I can only surmise it’s “for greater sensation”.)