Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Talk About A Hot Flash!


So I finally get around to eating dinner sometime tonight around 10:00 PM. I made pork chops. M-M-good.
I bought a grill last year at the beginning of the summer. I used it about 10 times. Seven of those times in the first two weeks. Then I got bored with it.
I've been working to get the outside of my house in order for the summer. As my mom used to say, it looks like "Hogan's Alley" (Jasmine, history on that please)
So I've let the inside of my house go while concentrating on flowers and weed pulling. God I hate doing that. I love how flowers look, but hate, hate gardening. I used to have tons of flowers all over the place. One time I was swearing to myself while on my knees planting. My husband asked what was the matter. I told him how I hated gardening. He looked shocked. "You're kidding me?" he said. I said "No I'm not. I hate planting flowers. I love how they look when done, but it's really painful for me." He laughed and said all these years he thought I loved doing it because we always had so many flowers. 20 years people, the man thought I loved doing something I hated for 20 years. Yeah, we talked alot about things....

Sorry, straying from my point again. Anyway, I've been grilling all week.
Sometime next week, I'll get sick of it and won't use it again until next March.

In the meantime, I put the marinated porkchops on the grill. After a few minutes I go to turn them over and (this is so weird) a peppercorn pops up off the meat and hits my chin, then, bounces off my chin and get this GOES DOWN MY SHIRT. I swear to God.
So I'm all like "Holy Shit, my boob is burning. It really hurt. I stick my hand down my shirt and try to find it. I pull my bra loose and it falls down and lands on the waist of my pants. Held to my skin by a camisole I had on under my shirt.
I'm digging to get it out, forgetting for the moment that I am out in my backyard for all the neighbors to see. I guess if any were watching, they sure got a show.

How funny is that?
Want to know something crazier? That is not the first time something like this has happened to me.

I'm sure "The Madonna"will throw her two cents in on this story.

When I was around 15 or 16 I borrowed (ok, stole) one of my sisters brand new blouses to wear. I had to look cool because my friend Maryann and I were going to hang out at Arsenal Park and you never knew when my boy obsession of the week was going to cut through the park.
Never mind she paid $25.00 for in 1972. I didn't care, I had to look good. Or that she had it on lay-a-way for two months to pay it off on her part time Treasure Island salary. None of that mattered.
I just needed to wear that blue plaid smock top with my new jeans.

So Mary and I are sitting on the bench by the water fountain over the park, smoking cigarettes. Acting all cool and all.
When here they come, Eugene and Paul. We spot them walking towards us. Always the shy one, I get all nervous. Mary was way cooler and always had boyfriends, she was captain of cheerleaders and all. No match for tall, skinny, awkward 15 year old me.
Attempting to be cool, which I so was not, I flick the cigarette backward over my shoulder. To this day, I have no idea why I did that.
The boys walk over and start talking. My face was probably 90 shades of red. All of the sudden, my left boob starts feeling hot. I'm thinking, why is my boob hurting.
About that same moment Mary screams "OMG, your boob is on fire."
I look down and sure enough, the light from the cigarette I stupidly flicked over my shoulder fell down my shirt into my bra. Burning a hole straight through my bra and through my shirt.
Yeah, I always seem to have a way with boys, even way back then.

Stupid me goes home and tries to hang the shirt back in my sisters closet. WITH A GIANT BURN OVER THE LEFT BOOB. Was I really so damn stupid? I guess I was.

I plead with her not to tell our mother, because then she would know I smoked and I would probably be grounded, like, all summer or something.
I can't remember if she told or not. I don't think she did. I just had to hear about it for the rest of my life. And she blackmailed me for a few years, until I actually did get caught smoking.
And yep, they did ground me for the summer of 73. That was the summer I joined the church choir so I could at least sneak out after choir practice on Tuesday nights.
And I wonder why I was never their favorite child?

That's a whole other story.
But I bet not one of you know someone who burned their boob, TWICE.

See you all Thursday.
Pollacks. Around 8.
Also, as I was posting this, I notice this is my 100th Post.
Woo Hoo. We'll have to have a celebratory drink tomorrow.

LATE EDITION: Yeah, heard from the Madonna who promtly corrected me. The cost of her plaid smock top was TWENTY EIGHT DOLLARS. Not twenty five. (Not that she's still holding a grudge or anything, it was only 35 years ago. But who's counting!)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

ooh, ooh, I think I can answer this one. Hogan's Alley was a late 1800's comic strip one of the first to be run as a Sunday supplement. It's main character was the Yellow Kid and he lived in a "rough neighborhood" (read ghetto, tennament slum). he hung out in his yellow nightshirt with the other strange characters who populated Hogan's Alley. The term was used in the 1920's as the name for a marksmanship training facility at Camp Perry (US Army) and a 1984 video game and 1987 FBI training facility bear the same name. All of them refering back to the slums that Yellow Kid lived in.