Monday, June 07, 2010

Get Those Mother Effin' Snakes Out The Mother Effin' Saturn

Quiet weekend in Smallville...but, hey, that's Smallville.
On Saturday, Carlos was going to take our recycling, the garbage, and lawn and garden refuse, to the recycling center. See, they don't pick up our garbage and recycling at Casa Bob y Carlos because, while we live in Smallville, we don't live in Smallville. We are outside the city limits and, well, you take care of your own trash out here.
It's really not so bad. The recycling-refuse-garbage center is a hop, skip, and sashay down the road, so it's usually done quickly. And if we lived in Smallville, the plus of having them pick up our garbage would be weighed down by the excessive taxes one pays to live in the city.
There are hotel and restaurant surtaxes; entertainment taxes; tourism taxes. You get taxed for wearing white after Labor Day, or not having enough mint in the julep. So, we take the outskirts of Smallville to save a penny or two, and to be able to slip into a pair of eggshell shorts in October if we so choose.
So, now, back to Carlos and the recycling. He uses my car, Leonora, a lovely white Saturn--hmmmm, I wonder if I'm allowed to drive her in the city after Labor Day--because his car can't handle the bins and boxes and trash cans and clippings. He loads up Leonora and off he goes; quick trip and then back home to gather up the bundles of branches and sacks of leaves and lawn debris from the last yard duty session, and off he goes again. Without a hitch.
But, back at home, it is while he is cleaning out Leonora, getting rid of stray leaves, twigs, etc. that have fallen off the bundles from the back of the car that a tiny snake crawls from the leaves and slithers across his hand.
The scream was heard all the way into Columbia. Dogs everywhere perked up their ears. people thought it was a tornado alert.
Nope. Just Carlos and some mothereffin' snakes in the mothereffin' Saturn .
Some smelling salts and a large broom later, the little snake had slithered back into the yard and Carlos seemed to be coming down. That is until Round-The-Way-Gay Neal asked about the big snake in the car, because, if there's a small one, a big one can't be too far away.
Carlos fainted.
On Sunday, Carlos and I, along with Round-The-Way-Gays, Neal and David, went up to Charlotte for a CostCo pilgrimage, with a quick stop at Trader Joe's for some delicacies. We stopped in at Senor Tequila's--and you just know that name appealed to me--for an incredible lunch, and fun stories. It's a small place, but the waiters are cute, with sexy accents, and food is amazing, so it's a win-win. A little ceviche, a little Ropa Vieja--Spanish for "old clothes" though it makes a tasty lunch--and chiles and cheeses and tortillas.
Then it was on to Joe's for some curry sauces, swordfish steaks, wine--always wine--goat cheese....you know, the everyday staples. But if you've never been to Trader Joe's, you do not know what you're missing. It's like an upscale, gourmet grocery store, with incredibly reasonable prices, and new stuff every week.
It's a gem.
After stowing away those treasures, we went off to CostCo for our more mundane groceries. Carlos and I stocked up on industrial sized containers of bleach, laundry soap, enough Kleenex to last a year, and Oatmeal for the rest of the decade, along with fish and chicken and cheese and bread and and and....
David and Neal got a small sense of Carlos and shopping carts when he whizzed by them on the back of our cart, followed quickly by me, shouting, Stop! NOW!
I'm still looking for an adult sized leash to put on him when we go out in public, or, failing that, a life sized rubber snake to keep around the house.
You know, just for kicks.

7 comments:

  1. Okay, you all don't get the DIRE PERIL of snakes in the car, plane or the whole planet!!
    (I loves Carlos stories.)

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  2. Oh, I love your stories! We have a Trader Joe's just up the street and we L-O-V-E it. We tell everybody about it. Saying it has "incredibly reasonable prices" is an understatement. Sometimes I wonder how they can stay in business. I don't recall ever seeing a Trader Joe's TV commercial or print advertisement, so that must save them a bundle.

    We told Greg's mother about Trader Joe's and of course she wanted nothing to do with it, even though it is only one mile from her house. How's that saying go? You can't teach an 80-year-old Sicilian new tricks. But we were able to drag her there once and now we can't keep her out of it! LOL

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  3. You crack me up!

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  4. Anonymous5:10 PM

    Phew! I exhausted just reading about how much you accomplished over the weekend.

    "A hope, skip and sashay away". That's a keeper.

    And I so get the screamer thing. A couple years ago I was home visiting my parents and we all went somewhere in my dad's car. When he backed out of the drive way, he backed into one of the neighbor's cars. As soon as it hit I squeeled like a little girl.

    So embarrassing. Good thing they already knew I was gay, otherwise they would've known for sure at that time.

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  5. Carlos and shopping carts. Just mentioning that makes me smile and forget the hell my day was once I got home from the office.

    And be lucky you don't live where I do. My snakes tend to have diamond patterns and rattles.

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  6. Love the snake story.

    As for Trader Joe's, went for the first time while out in CA last month, it is awesome. Wish we had one here.

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  7. LOL!!! I think your Carlos and I are related or something.... snakes? Bad! Riding on the backs of carts? Good! Give the guy a break, and relax a bit. Life is short, enjoy it!

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