It was a Thursday night and we were in the midst of a huge snowstorm in Utah.  The deer were out and scouring my yard in search of apples or remnants of a salt lick from days past.  A few hours earlier, I had stopped at the neighborhood grocery store and stocked up on carrots and knobby, maroon colored apples as I knew, if you build it, or rather, if you stockpile it, they (the deer) will come. 

And they did….

At 6:03 pm, I glanced out my living room window to see “Momma”deer and her two does.  I ecstaticly ran to the fridge, loaded my arms up with carrots and headed out my front door where I stopped and briefly waved a carrot.  The deer looked at me with curiosity, and with their ears protruded towards me , seemed to take an interest in what I was waiving overhead. 

I slowly stepped forward, nearing the top of my two-stepped porch, believing that the deer may actually come in close for a bite.  Inch by slow, painful inch, I advanced, all the while, waving the carrot. 

But then “Momma”, suddenly consumed with fear of the strange figure moving closer and erratically waving an orange stick, started to bolt and behind her trailed her two does. 

Me, while not thinking (surprise, surprise) darted out after her, with an armful of carrots in tow, stepped on the top edge of my front porch, slipped on the ice covered step and landed abruptly on my left elbow and ass!  

Stunned at first, I then bellowed for my husband, like a wounded cow who has been struck on the highway, still alive but nearing death and gurgling its last guttural moans. 

Dave arrived to see an image of me, his once lovely and feminine wife, now laying sprawled unattractively in the icy snow.  Carrots dotted the pavement around me and the vocalization of pain sputtered from my mouth. 

As Dave tried to scoop me (and my fat ass) up from the ground, I pleaded that he let me stay lying breathless in the snow.  Apparently, he now argues that I was claiming to be paralyzed while flailing my arms and legs all about so he felt that he needed to get me calm, to the couch and most importantly, medicated with a nice glass of Chardonnay……probably to shut me up. 

The next morning, I awoke to a severely swollen left elbow and a hematoma on my left ass cheek so large that it would put Texas to shame. 

I traveled to the urgent care medical clinic and learned that I had fractured my elbow and broke my tailbone along with the grossly enlarged hematoma (the bruise, not my ass this time) that, per the on-call physician, SHOULD be drained, but given the fact that I am frightened of needles, (and admittedly, somewhat frightened of the doctors that practice out of these so-called “Doc in a Box” clinics) I implored for mercy to not stick anything into my ass and to not bother draining it.  Seriously…….if you think I was going to let someone stick a needle into my left ass cheek to drain blood out of it, you can think again!   

The doctor reluctantly agreed not to drain my ass and sent me home with my arm in a sling, a donut for my ass and a prescription for 12 Darvocet (which are now all gone, by the way). 

So, here I am, writing this blog, sitting on only half an ass (I won’t use the donut – they are ONLY for eating and not for sitting) and trying to type accurately with only one hand…….so forgive me for any typos…………..

And, as we are now rounding the corner into a new year, this time, I venture into it with a body that is 10 years older than it was last week. 

(raising my glass to toast……)  To the deer!

Let me explain, years back, when Dave and I eloped in Las Vegas, we *hit* the local porn store and loaded up on tons of video “gems” that we could smuggle back into Utah, safely hidden within our luggage. In doing this, we also snagged a VHS video of John Holmes, one of the country’s most famous porn star, as a gift to my mom, who has been a single parent for over three decades.

The tape was well received (I imagine, but didn’t inquire as to any details…..) but with the explosion of the DVD era and the demise of video tape, I envisioned that Mr. Holmes (a.k.a., Long Dong John….) was forever entombed in his bed of rectangular cardboard, neatly tucked away and never seen again.

Until now…….

Dave and I found a great website that ships a variety of porn anywhere in the United States. They have all sorts of juicy (and yes, somewhat frightening stuff) that includes anal, lesbo, MILF, midget, transgendered and quadruple penetration (okay……this one we purchased for ourselves in hopes of discovering something new such as WHERE IS THE fourth goddamn hole???).

A few of them (mostly just mellow hetero stuff,) are now en route to our house in hopes that they arrive in time for Christmas delivery to Grandma.

For those of you on a hunt for holiday decorations (namely Christmas, but I did not want to offend anyone….oh, what the hell……) for those of you on a massive hunt for FUCKING CHRISTMAS decorations……DO NOT BUY THEM FROM WALMART!!!

Now, I can visualize all of you anti-Walmart shopping Nazis cheering with glee as you read this but it is not what you think. I do shop at Walmart. In fact, I shop their all the time! But I have recently learned that buying cheap Christmas decorations such as lighted reindeer, a life-sized Frosty the Snowman and box-shaped presents that glow in multi-colored neon and automatically open and shut, open and shut, and open and shut……is NOT a very good idea! Yeah, Dave and I were on the hunt! Purse tucked under arm, two screaming children packed tightly in the basket and wallet snugly packed in back pocket. We were on a mission and we were headed to the “Christmas” section of the store and were not leaving until we had loaded up the cart with decorations that included TWO reindeer, FROSTY and some lighted boxes.

Everything seemed fine, until we arrived at home. Dave piled on the snow gear while I fixed us a cocktail. Yes, it was only 11:00 am on a Saturday morning, but goddammit, we had a yard to decorate. We downed the cocktail (and added one extra shot of Southern Comfort to boot!) and headed out! The two reindeer were first. We set them up, got them positioned in just the right spot, above the waterfall and staked them into the ground. They were draped with white lights and, when activated, one head moved up/down and the other one, with antlers moved side to side. It was nice….. Frosty (the fucker) came next. What we failed to realize is that Frosty is six feet tall and is assembled in four different parts: bottom, middle, head and hat. We threw him together, piece by friggin piece, slapped on the tie fasteners, staggered the lighted boxes on the ground next to him and anxiously waited for night fall. When darkness settled in, the four of us (me, dave, paris and phoenix) ventured outside and activated the lights. At first, we felt like the Griswold’s (the movie Vacation, with Chevy Chase) with Clark (a.k.a. Dave) in all his glory as the lights streamed on. Then, I REALLY felt like Ellen Griswold as I looked, in horror, as half of the Reindeer lights were dead, Frosty’s fucking right arm was twitching as if he had Tourette’s syndrome and one of the boxes had a broken hinge so instead of opening and closing, it jerked and made a horrible humming sound. Dave relentlessly plucked light after light after light out of the reindeer to see which one was dead…..you know, IF ONE GOES OUT, THEY ALL GO OUT!!! AAAARRRRGGGHHHH He then gave up and moved to Frosty where he tried to controlling the obnoxious arm tics with more ties. This, in turn, stopped the twitching arm but resulted in a full body convulsion. The arm was now motionless but the rest of Frosty’s fucking body looked like he was in the midst of performing the ABS OF STEEL exercise routine.

Dave grunted and as he glanced down at the “broken” Christmas box, he looked at me and said, “Fuck it, let’s go have a drink!”