Neverdone #1 :: Strangers in the night

If Frank Sinatra began crooning in your head when you read this blog title, you can stop him right now. Offer him a dry martini and invite him to sit down in the back of the room. The tender interlude in his song is not where my story will lead you.

Now, I can imagine that you've been sitting on the edge of your hot little seats, in orgasmic anticipation of the very first item in my yearlong 'neverdone' series. What would it be? Would I go off a freakish deep end and do something heretofore unimaginable, or would I somehow adapt one of my weirdly inane posts about the goings-on in my head?

(Yeah, yeah, I know. I have a really wacked-out imagination and an obviously elevated opinion of my own importance. I realize that any "orgasmic anticipation" you've experienced lately has nothing to do with me.....or at least I assume that is the case, since it hasn't happened in my presence. But, hey.... I can create whatever universe I choose inside my own head. This week I have been feeling quite center-of-the-world-ish. And, as you've already discovered if you've done any scrolling down, pretty darn chatty.)

(Anyway.....)

Last weekend was full of so many neverdone items that, if I used them all, I wouldn't have to post another one until the summer!

I've never gotten into a van at night with 6 semi-strangers and headed to the mountains. I've never tromped around in the woods during the most obscene nighttime hours, beams from my flashlight reflecting gems off the surrounding dew. I've never met a huge, surprisingly cuddly-looking rat who'd made a comfy home in someone's long-abandoned house. I've never felt the primal ....umm..."pleasure" of emptying my bladder in the woods. I've never been geocaching in a group larger than three people.

So I guess that last sentence gave it away, huh? I went night caching with some people from the Upstate SC Geocachers Association (USCGA).

Why did I go??
It is whompin' leagues outside my comfort zone to invite myself on a road trip with people I barely know. And this, my friends, is a big reason why I did it. My comfort zone is too complacent, too ordinary, too safe. I don't like my comfort zone anymore. It's boring. I want to force myself out of that sleepy place.....in fact, I'm using my neverdones as a catalyst.

The other big reason is that I've been SOOOO starved for a good, decent cache run.....it's been well over a year since I left the house with a geo-bud for an all-day adventure full of treasure hunts and hiking and fresh air and bushwhacking and exploration and inspiration and good old-fashioned stress-bustin' fun. I'd been on a few afternoon trips, but those were just appetizers that made me crave a big, juicy, open-your-mouth-wide-and-bite-hard slab o'meat. Medium rare.

The original plan that a friend and I had on Saturday was to attend a USCGA coffee event after grabbing some yummy Asian fare. I read in the club's online forum that a few people were planning to knock out a new series of night caches afterward, and I was pretty darn close to convincing my friend that we should go with them. I mean, it wouldn't be weird if both of us went, right? But then she caught a nasty little bug which laid her up at home the whole weekend, and I wound up having to bring a ton of work home. Since I'd posted in the forum that we were probably in for the cache run, I called one of the geocachers to decline....and, instead, he ended up convincing me to join them. Honestly, though, it didn't take much convincing. His excitement was lightspeed contagious!

Before midnight
Around 8:30 or so Saturday evening, I sat in my car in a Cracker Barrel parking lot, those telltale white wires trailing from my Shuffle to my eardrums. Cranking up the volume of a favorite running tune, Prince sang that he really does love me, but not like he loves his guitar. I wondered whether I might someday develop a special relationship with an inanimate object. But then I realized I already had--my Nikon and my Mac. Instruments of my creativity, just like Prince and his guitar. Well, maybe not just like Prince and his guitar, but..... My cell phone rang, signaling that the gang had arrived.

Cool! Let's cram in the van and go!

Everyone was so nice that it wasn't too supremely awkward that I didn't know these people very well. There were five men, one of whom brought his wife. Most of them I'd spoken with via e-mail or the forums, but actual real-life conversations had been minimal. At one point early in the evening, my comfortzonometer's alarm went off when I realized that most of them go caching together on a regular basis....but....then I mentally whacked that shy 5-year-old in my head ON her head. Geesh, won't she ever grow up?

Our drive to the first geocache took about an hour, I think, and we (well, mostly they) filled the vehicle with random chitchat. I got the impression that my particular brand of humor might not be fully appreciated, so I did not snicker in the least when someone posed the question, "Would you like one with a creamy center?" I did share with them, however, the freakish little OCD way in which I like to eat Smarties. One person asked me if any of my friends ever compared me to Monk. Ha! :)

(I know I've described this to some of you, but probably not everyone. You see, the orange Smarties taste WAY better than the other colors. So I want to savor them, and I want get a lot of them in my mouth at the same time so that my tastebuds can concentrate on the yummy orangey-ness. I'll take apart 3-4 rolls, restacking the pieces on a table in front of me, each color forming its own tiny candy tower. Then I'll eat them, one color-stack at a time, saving the orange ones for last. It makes beautiful, perfect sense to me. And if it makes you feel better--it certainly does me, now that it's many days later--I didn't go into quite that much detail with the caching crowd.)

(There I go, off on a tangent again.....)

We had eleven caches ahead of us--135 miles on winding mountain roads. The series, called "Fright Night," was designed so that you would find a single clue in each of the first ten. If you figured everything out correctly, the clues--based on horror-flick trivia--would provide you with the coordinates to the eleventh "bonus" cache. I would've been SOL myself, but with everyone's brains enlisted, as well as one guy's cell phone internet access, the group had no prob.

The general premise behind night caching is that reflective items are strategically placed so that, with the aid of a bright flashlight, you are led to the physical cache. It turned out that most of the Fright Night caches were not placed with that concept in mind. A lot of them were just 35mm film containers hidden on or near roadside signs, random trees, or manmade structures.

(By the way, if you'd like a quick primer on geocaching in general, click here.)

Remember many paragraphs back, when I told you I'd never been caching in a larger group? Well, one thing I discovered is that you'd better be superhero fast if you want to be the person who actually finds something first. I was sitting in the very back of the vehicle, so by the time I'd scrambled out and determined which way my GPS receiver was leading me, one of the fast boys had, especially on the easy roadside caches, already found it. Ahhhhh, well....

But, make no mistake, the advantages of the group totally rocked the pants off the disadvantages. Mainly because I wouldn't have done the night series at all without a few testosterone-types around--which is something that's not in my geo-world of late.

There were times when the walk to the cache was longer, so I had time to catch up and actually help look. One of the first ones we found (not me....alas, that night it was never me) was in a park in Walhalla. Despite assurances in the online cache description that it was OK to be there, we saw signs which conveyed that the place was closed after dark. So I felt like one of the "bad kids" in high school, breaking-and-entering to do n'er-do-well sorts of stuff. What fun! This cache was hidden at a gazebo. I'm sure it would have been amusing to passers-by to see seven flashlight-wielding adults scrambling all over it.....some on their backs looking under benches, some standing on the benches examining the interior rafters, some kneeling to poke their heads underneath the structure, some on the nearby grass kicking around in the vegetation..... Ha!

(It may not surprise you that breaking-and-entering did not make my neverdone list because--you guessed it--I've done it. But you may not have imagined this scenario: It's about 1am on a crisp, clear, autumn night. A 20-year-old Lisa, dressed in skinnyleg Levi's and a tight turtleneck underneath a pink button-down oxford shirt, is being walked back to her dorm on the Clemson campus by a similarly-dressed frat-guy type--let's call him Dumass. I'd met this character through friends about an hour earlier, on the way out of one bar and into another. Well, Dumass decides to take a detour through Death Valley. He talks me into slipping through the gates with him--I am so inebriated I have no idea how that loud clank of a sound helps him get in--but I firmly draw the line at breaking into the VIP box. So he tells me to wait for him, he disappears behind a wall, and is gone FOR-freakin'-EVER. I sober up, gradually, sitting against the fence and all too aware that I am somewhere I should definitely not be. He finally shows up carrying a seat cushion he stole from the box, and--this is the kicker--bleeding profusely from his right hand. MF'ing geesh, man. We continue the walk to my dorm, talk the security guard into allowing Dumass upstairs, I bandage his hand, and he promptly passes out on my floor. After he skulks away the next morning, I never, ever, ever see Dumass again. A good thing, don't you think?)

(Auuuuugh!! Back to the story at hand. Sorry, sorry, sorry.....)

By midnight, we'd found four caches out of eleven.

After midnight
Hey, if Eric Clapton is rockin' happily in your head right now, let him sing. Not because the party-lyrics are so appropriate, but because I like his song much better than Sinatra's.

One of my favorite stops of the night was in a spooky-fun location. There was a short-but-steep drop-off from the road which led quickly into thick woods. There was a creek. And an abandoned house. We searched the area for 45 minutes--the darkness made the find way harder than it would have been in daylight. I kept losing my bearings, not able to tell where I'd searched and where I hadn't. My fingers and toes were going numb, but I was NOT going to cave and go back to the van for warmth. No way! I'm no wussy girl. At one point I heard a huge crash coming from the abandoned house, and I found out later that one of the men had gone upstairs only to fall through the floor. He came out of it with a nasty bruise, I think, but no one mentioned blood.

This was where I met the aforementioned rodent. Everyone had converged upon the house to search, and someone had disturbed the burly rat-fella in his warm, comfy rat-lair. One of the men urged me over, and I was hesitant to go look, but I'm glad I did. I'd expected one of those dark grey, nasty sewer-rat-looking rats. But when I peeked into the soft pillowish mound of pink insulation near the basement ceiling, I saw a tannish-colored, cute mousey thing with whiskers. Looked like a pretty little Jerry-like house mouse.....only twenty times bigger. He'd retreated toward the back of his nest, sniffing the air as he struggled to see beyond the flashlights shining in his face. Poor thing. I'll bet he would've chewed our fingers off, given half a chance.

This was also where I started to feel a slight nudge in my kidneys....just a tiny one. Barely there at all.

Only once during the night did I allow Lisa to come through. You guys know her. The woman whose sense of humor is a somewhat uncomfortable marriage between a pubescent boy and a horny longshoreman. Or perhaps a threesome among Beavis, Butthead, and Mae West. I probably should've kept my mouth shut, I know.....but the setup was so perfect.....so EASY.

We were all standing around a newly-found cache, the finder kneeling near the container, signing the log for all. Everyone's flashlights combined to give a faint glow to the group. I don't remember the entire sentence, but one man off to my right uttered this phrase as part of a completely innocent statement:

"...I'm going to touch myself..." (Or was it "hold myself"? I forget. Oh well, same thing.)

Even though I stood there knowing it might not be a good idea to utter one of those typical-Lisa comments, I very deliberately took a breath, parted my lips, and said, "Well, give me a heads-up so I can look the other way."

Now, that's actually pretty tame for me. Worse--a LOT worse--has come out of my mouth. But I hadn't seen any evidence of like minds all evening, so it was a big-risk punch line.

There was silence.

In retrospect, it was probably only a nanosecond or two, but, in the moment, the dead air held a cavernous void....into which I wanted to crawl head-first. But then I heard a few quiet, obligatory chuckles. And then.....there was a weirdly palpable light-bulb moment where suddenly they realized what I said. And that I said it on purpose. It was a relief to hear the hearty laughs I'd been trying for. Whew! No awkward ride home after all.

And of course--of course--I discovered the next day, as I read his geo-profile, that the man who made the "touch" comment is an associate pastor. Of course.

(Since tangents seem to be enmeshed in this post's prosaic style, here's another one. This story involves a Lisa-comment and a pastor. At a work party a year or so ago, a group of us were standing around, and one man was wearing a pair of those new-style dress shoes with the longer toes. My observation: "Hey, you know what they say about men with big feet." I got a laugh, a snicker, a chuckle.....it should've died there. Well, a few minutes later someone told me that a coworker's husband--a Lutheran minister--had been standing right behind me, and had probably heard me. Well, I was mortified! Everyone got their funny-bones tickled at my embarrassment, and one woman, good friends with Mr. Lutheran Minister's wife, shared the story with Mrs. Lutheran Minister. Who thought it was a riot and, of course, shared the story with Mr. Lutheran Minister. Who, of course, decided to try and make me feel better--or was he just messing with me?--by coming over to tell me a story involving a penis. Well, now. If I knew a stronger word for 'mortified,' I would use it here. This was a different brand of minister from the ones I'd known in the past, let me tell you. I was so horror-struck after hearing the word 'penis' from him that it was difficult to pay attention to the story he told. Something about losing weight and growing an inch.)

Finally, we arrived at our last cache before the bonus. It was a quick find for the fast boys again, and everyone piled back into the van so that the keepers of the clues could determine the coordinates to the bonus cache. You should've heard the groans when they realized we'd have to go ALL the way back to an area which we'd long ago abandoned.....back near the whiskery-cute rat and his cozy pink nest. It was 3am-ish, and the drive, according to the vehicle's Garmin nav device, would take about an hour. But we'd come too far to give up!

I may have napped a little during this long drive on curvy, mountainous, abandoned roads. The van was a lot quieter, and I'd look up now and then to see a couple heads nodding in front of me. The other female in the gang was out like a light beside me. At one point, we got lost.....the van's Garmin kept telling the driver to turn down a nonexistent road. There was a lake where the road was supposed to be.

Now. At this point in my blog entry, I am faced with a creative challenge, folks. What is the best way to convey to you the feeling in my kidneys??

I'd had my eyes peeled since midnight-ish for any sort of roadside civilization that wasn't someone's home, dark inside with slumbering residents who were privileged with modern toilets mere steps from their warm beds. I'd asked the gang in the front of the van to keep their eyes peeled for a stopping place. No big deal, I said, because at the time I felt like I could hold it for awhile.

"Hey, didn't we see a Citgo?" someone asked.

"Yeah, but it was closed," another answered.

"Well.....you could still sit 'n' go."

A great one-liner, don't you think? Lots of laughter all around. But as the minutes ticked by, and then turned into hours, the pressure in my bladder changed from a slight, polite nudge to a raging, inevitable force of nature threatening to rupture with no more than a microscopic wisp of a disturbance in the air around me. I was certainly getting in my kegels.

The bonus
Finally, yay! We arrived at the bonus cache coordinates! This 4am hike would be the sweet culmination of the evening's activities.

I got out of the van a good bit slower than before, trying to judge what might happen within my bladder as I became more vertical. Might I be able to make it? Search for the cache, then get back into the van, and wait for the first available gas station on the ride home? I hung near the back of the group as everyone plunged into the darkness, and, not even 100 feet from the vehicle, the driver had to go back to the van to retrieve something he forgot. By this time, my bladder was cursing me as if possessed by 43 demons with tourettes. So I asked him for a kleenex, and, grateful for the napkin in my hand, I set off toward a loose clump of trees as he walked off to catch up with the others.

Yes, I grew up on a farm in the rural South--pastures edged with thick woods in which I played constantly--and I have never peed in the woods. No matter how unlikely that seems, it's true.

I swung my flashlight to the left. I had an idea of the best mechanics for the situation, thanks to a friend's vivid, entertaining tale involving a hunting trip, a stomach bug, a tree, and a very scary bear. So I look for a tree. Not too close to the road, but somewhere nearby--I didn't want to lose sight of the flashlights in the distance. No leaves on the ground. Leaves cause splatter. I found a perfect little place--it didn't meet my not-too-close-to-the-road requirement, but we hadn't seen any other vehicles for a couple hours, at least. I ran over, turned the flashlight off, dropped it on the ground in front of me, exposed my girly privates to the cold night air, assumed the position, and......

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

In the middle of the act, I thought: Dammit. What if there's a slight slope to the ground, and it's inching toward my feet? What if it reaches my flashlight? Eww, freakin' ewwwwww.

But I did not care, and wasn't ABOUT to stop. It felt too good. Besides, that was just paranoia whispering in my ear.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Elation! I smiled a broad, fulfilled smile in the darkness as I quickly gathered myself, grabbed the flashlight, and ran toward the bouncing lights in the distance.

It turned out that a few of the cachers had graciously waited for me, so together we followed the reflective dots into the woods--finally, a real night cache. It was great! I loved the cold, I loved the obstacle-strewn walk, I loved the sparkly dew that looked like tiny diamonds all around me. I longed for my camera, for the chance to capture that image for posterity. Remember the dimwitted pixie-muse from my December 1st post? He showed up during the walk to the bonus cache. Perhaps my empty bladder sang a happy song to my imaginary spirit-friends out there, and the pixie showed up to see if there was any free booze.

Well, that's about it. We piled in the van for the last time, and hit the road homeward. We rolled into the Cracker Barrel parking lot around 5:30, and I was home a little before 6am.....sleepy, exhausted, and content.

Will you forgive me?
From the bottom of my motormouthed heart, I apologize for the porn-star length of this post. Once in awhile, words come out of me in quite a diarrhea-like fashion.

Oh well. It gave me a valid reason to use the phrase 'porn-star length.'

Random confessions

I'm blogging right now in a distinct effort to procrastinate. I hate house cleaning. And by "hate," I mean loathe. Detest. Despise. Abhor.

A friend introduced me to clementines last year. I can't eat one without singing the tune in my head: "oh, m'dar-lin', oh m'dar-lin', oh m'daaaaaar-lin' Clementine..."

Sometimes I imagine that another person has transmigrated into my head, and can see and hear everything that I see and hear. They can't access my thoughts, though, so they are constantly wondering what the hell I'm doing.

An amusing thing about having a baby would be that you could legitimately call the father a mother fucker.

I worry that my cats are bored and are not living the happy, carefree cat-life they could be living elsewhere.

The most vivid dream I ever had was an end-of-the-world scenario involving King Kong and a traffic jam. I think I was in college at the time. In the dream, I was riding in the car with my mom along a major interstate when we come upon a huge standstill -- no traffic is moving as far as we can see, and people are getting out of their cars, wondering what is wrong. On the radio, we hear an announcement: "Well, this is IT, folks -- the end of the world! Get ready. Here it comes. Prepare yourself NOW!" Suddenly, we see a 60-foot-tall, very angry gorilla-monster stand up from behind a bridge, and he's roaring and grabbing every person within reach and eating their heads. Yikes! I woke up in a sweat, convinced that the END was imminent. Took me several minutes to shake the fear. Weird, man. It was crystal-clear real.

The most sexually amusing dream I ever had was last year. I was on the official US Olympic sex team. There were 10 or so of us, women and men, and we were all strung from the masts of a sailboat so that fans could watch from the shore. Oddly enough, we were dressed -- in long-sleeved pro-cycling-like gear, but with "appropriate" holes for easy access. Ha!

My favorite republican presidential candidate is McCain. This is partly due to process of elimination because Mitt Romney and Ron Paul both have exhibited slacker-design-student typography in their signage. Romney's small caps are not "true," which is a pet peeve of mine, and Paul's kerning is so bad it's offensive.

I can't pinpoint my favorite democratic candidate. I thought I had a pretty good idea until Clinton and Obama acted like spoiled playground bullies in their Charleston, SC, debate. John Edwards began looking a lot better after that.

I'm DVR-ing VH1's "Celebrity Rehab" nowadays, and am trying not to be ashamed of myself for my fascination with the show. Remember the handsome guy from "Taxi" with the lion's-mane blondish hair? Today he is a pathetic, empty shell of a man who was a train wreck in BETTER days. He's in a wheel chair all the time, and acts like a person who's had a severe blow to the head. I feel bad for what he's going through, but....well, he did bring it on himself. I hope he gets it together.

Hmmmmm, my confessions are getting progressively more serious, so it's time to get off my couch and clean. What a bummer of a buzz kill, man.

Mini pleasure moment

This morning I carried my laptop and its charger/power adapter inside my soft-sided brief case. As a result, there was some heft to the load swinging from my left shoulder, and the charger made a hard little lump on the side. As I walked from my car into the office, this hard little lump was repeatedly propelled against my left glute -- at JUST the perfect angle and momentum to "massage" the spot that was sore from my Sunday afternoon workout.

Ahhhhhhhhhh.....

Blogging as a way of being

What should I blog about when I don't know what to blog about?

I'm trying to stay committed to this fun little creative experiment. Truly, I am. I know that creativity begets creativity. I know that it is a discipline as much as it is an intuition. I want it to be a way of life for me, a way of being in the universe.

That's a bit lofty for a blog, huh? I meant creativity as a way of being. Not blogging. Although "Blogging as a way of being" sounds like a great post title. I think I'll use it.


...


...


sigh ...


Hoping I'd find some inspiration -- or, at the very least, a little amusement -- I googled "weird blog topics." Right off the bat, I found a guy who goes into excruciating detail about what he eats each day and how the meals were prepared. Geesh. And I mean freakin' geesh.

I almost stopped there in favor of browsing wistfully through unfound geocaches in my area, but I thought the search deserved more than just one shot, so I kept going......and actually found some interesting blogs.

Reality Banned
A dude named Mikster ("Nobody blogs you like I blog you") posts every few days or so, and has written recently about things like showering, the time he was hit hardest in the balls, and things he would never, ever do in a million years. I haven't read the entries in their entirety -- he writes quite a LOT -- but what I did read was pretty darn chuckles-inducing.

Vonnegut's Asshole
This guy's name is Eric, and he is a real, honest-to-goodness writer. Makes a living selling words that come out of his own head -- he's written entire books, and his articles have appeared in publications you would actually recognize. His most recent posts are inspired by visits with family over the holidays, and in a November post he talks about a publication he guest-edited called Monkeybicycle. His writing amuses me greatly (yet again, though, I just skimmed).....but if I were to be completely honest, I'd admit that this blog made my list because of its name. Vonnegut's Asshole! Ha!

Pretty Dumb Things
This is a chick named Chelsea who is also a professional writer -- for the likes of Penthouse. Her site is not pornographic (although some of the ads along the sides are....um, interesting), but neither does she mince words. I like her. I totally (welllll, mostly) agree with her Jan 15th post about romance. I'm looking forward to reading more of her archives on a lazy, rainy weekend afternoon. Whilst sipping highend coffee, my cats slumbering contentedly at my side. Ahhhhhhhhh.

Kittenpants
Ha! Another name which amuses me, and the logo is quite fabulously fabulous! You can also buy Kittenpants merchandise, including -- of course -- Kittenpants underpants. For a nanosecond I considered buying a poster or two for my office at work, but.....I think I should avoid the controversy. The writing on the site? Um, I didn't actually read any of it, but it looks like it'd be good.

Offended Blogger
Chelle B's latest post of Jan 15th talks about how her husband goes completely insane once a month, and has the insolent nerve to try and blame it on her. On Jan 6th, she shares concerns about "disturbing changes happening to the melanocytic naevus on [her husband's] left ass cheek." Ha! Laugh-out-loud funny stuff. But the post which most struck a chord with me was Jan 3rd.....you can scroll down to a grown-up picture of her cat, Mister Schmoopy Doopey -- who looks just like my supersweet kitty Ozzy -- who is peering angrily into the camera, saying "You are paying them to do what to my balls?!?"


Toward the end of my browsing adventures, I found a compilation site which I am definitely going to bookmark: humor-blogs.com. Am hoping for future inspiration.

Ten things I learned in 2007

1. Humans can suck in their ribs.
2. It is possible to change your life, no matter what type of "trap" you think you're in.
3. Creativity must be nurtured — use it or lose it, baby.
4. Honeycrisp apples are freakin' yummy.
5. Asian pears are freakin' orgasmic.
6. Some male cats can get an infection which will cause a nipple to grow spoogy and fall off.
7. Some male humans are preoccupied with the notion of ass hair.
8. In the gym, a beneficial skill is an ability to tell your own body to just shut up and put out.
9. Intellectually, you may know that being a workaholic will get you nowhere at lightspeed....but you are still a hopeless case until you are able to force yourself away from your desk to go outside and play. On a regular basis. In a guilt-free manner.
10. Asparagus can be pretty tasty, especially when prepared with kickin' hot spices.

I'm feeling un-funny today

A: "You know, I'm going to stop visiting your blog."
Me: "I know what you're trying to do. It's not going to work."
A: "Yep, I'm trying to force you to post."
Me: "It's hard to come up with things that are post-worthy."
A: "Oh, come on...I KNOW you think of at least one funny thing a day!"

Hmmm, I'm not so sure that's true. It's shortly after noon and I haven't had one funny thought yet. In my defense, though, I only got out of bed about an hour ago, and am still working on my first cup of coffee. It's a yummy blend of pumpkin-spice flavors I found at Bloom.

So far this morning I have regretted not letting my cats in the backyard yesterday because now it has rained and is too wet to take them out. Or....was it wet yesterday, too, and I just did not notice? That's a possibility. I was consumed with getting-ready-for-Christmas indoor tasks and barely looked out the window.

This morning I have also wondered if I should revisit a project I'd abandoned -- making my cats an elaborate play-tunnel. Many weeks ago, I'd read about a woman who had fashioned a tunnel for her cats out of grocery-store paper bags. I'd begun collecting bags of my own and had linked four of them together already, but there's a major design flaw which I need to address. The tunnel won't stand up by itself.

This morning I've also had an interesting......um.....scenario or two flicker through my head. They relate to a dream I had last night, which relates to a website I stumbled upon recently. An interesting sort of fellow was attempting to describe the S&M culture -- and, most notably, practices -- to the uninitiated. Fascinating stuff. I didn't bookmark the link, though. Sorry. I could've shared it with you.

Well, I think that's about all that has crossed my mind this morning, and, as I'm sure you agree, none of it can be classified as funny. Weird-catlady-ish, maybe. Inappropriate-for-middle-class-America, maybe.

But not funny.

If stuff like this didn't happen to me, I suppose I'd be bored

So this guy -- a young man whom I'd just met about 20 minutes before -- hops on top of the table next to me. I was already sitting on one of the tables.

"Do what I do," he says.

"OK...sure," I reply. "Show me."

The short, ever-so-slightly plump, dark-haired, khakis-wearing, 20s-something professional swings his legs behind him, twists around, and in a smooth motion gets on all fours. I look around the room and no one seems to be paying us any attention at all. Perhaps this is a normal thing in this establishment.

He's looking at me expectantly. Chuckling, I take a deep breath, and in a second I, too, am on all fours on top of my own table. I turn my head to look at him, and he's beaming at me. Yes, I said beaming. It's odd to be beaming in this particular situation, I think to myself. And odd, too, that he's not saying anything. Just beaming.

"What's next?" I ask, trying to ignore the beaming.

"Have you ever been in this position before?" he asks.

I just stare at him blankly for a lonnnnnnnggg few seconds while I process this question. Does he think I never played "doggie" as a child? Never cleaned that hard-to-reach corner behind my toilet? Never gardened? Never played with a pet in the summer grass? Never knocked the kitty toys from underneath my coffee table? Good lord, there are a countless number of things requiring an all-fours position.

And, of course, you -- dear reader -- know me well enough by now to realize that all those innocent things flash through my head at lightspeed. The scenarios conjured by my inner pervert are the things which linger. A lecherous giggle-fit is dangerously close to the surface, but I don't allow it. I'm pretty good at suppressing lecherous giggle-fits.

"Have I ever been in this position before?" I ask him back, hoping to kill a little time while my brain comes up with an appropriate answer.

"Yes," he says.

That was no help.

"You mean....have I ever been on all fours before?"

"Yes," he says again.

"Umm......" My brain was coming up with nothing. "Yyyyyeeeeess......"

"Good. Has anyone ever made you do this?" I watch as he demonstrates.

"Oh, that thing! It's useless. It doesn't DO anything." I quickly mimic his demonstration, then follow with my own, more creative move. When I'm done, I sit up on my knees and look over at him. He's sitting on the edge of the table again, looking at me with wide eyes.

"Hrmmp," he says.