Jane's Blog

Hello All -- Janey Here! :)

Greetings, Friends! 

Where to begin? 

I am a simple woman, and I mean "simple" as high praise to the writer. 

If the reader will generously forgive my stating of the obvious, this is my first venture into the SaidSimple realm.  Being a rookie, I've  self-imposed an immesurable amount of pressure to cook up something unprecidented, dazzling.  I expect as much when I nuke a hotdog, but I usually botch that, too. 

I've been rifling the category menu for these last seven minutes and forty-three seconds (give or take).  Such provocative choices!  How shall I catalogue this stuttering cyber echo of an introduction?  A World Event?  That's wild-eyed presumptuous, eh?  Personal?  You will be either too eager, or too polite to read.  Politics?  I am simple, but not obtuse. 

By default, I selected HUMOR.  A beautiful predicament.  If an author touts her prose as humorous, she provokes in her audience gleeful anticipation that the piece will be--how you say?--funny! 

I am afraid, however you shall find me insufferably glum, and given to spontaneous (while spectacular) fits of cynicism, irritability, and general poor sportsmanship.  Fortunately, sportsmanship is not a sticking point.  I lost all vigor for sports in utero. 

But I risk losing your rapt attention. 

As date would have it, this very Wednesday marks the anniversary of my birth.  I share the festivities with one Gwendelyn Henrietta Seton-Wolfe, a bold and astute member of the tribe Gallus Domesticus, Birdalious-Latex (to the layperson, "Rubber Chicken").  She arrived via U.S.  post at approximately 2:41 pm EST.  She is 9" tall, 3" in diameter and, if I may be frank, a bit hippy. 

The bird sports an unapologetically lavendar bikini with eggshell polka-dot print.  She slathers on a show girl dose of eye color, enough to stop traffic.  Or could it be that traffic always defers to a chicken crossing the road? 

Gwen can outhonk a blinkin' fog horn.  One modest squeeze, and that yellow spark plug lets go a MAAAARP that could rouse the troubled spirit of Edgar Allen Poe.  She gave my hungover roomie quite a start, too. 

Not to intimate I am anything but delighted to spend my birthday with a chicken in a bikini, but let's call a spade a rusty gardening tool.  A bird is not the thickest cable on the rhetoric train.  The subject of MAAAAARP dries up rather quickly.  Neither are fowl coveted luncheon companions.  Birds are very particular eaters.  I invited Gwen to to a casual mid-day meal.  She got prickly because I downed a turkey sandwich. 

I suppose they consider every member of the fowl family one of the pack.  I suggested she put on her big girl panties and deal. 

I had to make ammends.  I intuited she would happily eat a box of waxy sweet crayons.  We headed to Safeway, where a woman can purchase such rare delights as motor oil, ChapStick, Crystal Lite, Easy Cheese, various soy products, and essential art supplies for that special chicken in her life. 

When I glanced sidelong at the flat curb near the foot of the sidewalk, I knew we were noodled.  (Anyone know what that means?  How exactly does one glance "sidelong?" If you know, for pity's sake, contact my office manager and schedule a teleconference). 

You've seen unsightly hunter orange traffic cones?  The cones I spied were like those, only fatter than the stadards, striped, and inexcusably ugly!  It being Gwen's birthday, and with our relationship already strained, I had to do something miraculous. 

I drove the little rip to Sheetz's.  Don't laugh!  It's a harrowing trek for a woman, a chicken, and a Quantum Vibe! 

Who knew a convenience store with the immaculate reputation of Sheetz stocks no crayons? 

"Is this America?" cried Gwen. 

It was more of a MAAAAAAAARP, but that too is a legitimate question. 

Poor Gwen.  The trip fatigued her.  Her stretch marks were stretched to capacity, her eyeshadow thickened by heat.  She rubbed her left eye with her heel, then ground a green stain into my blouse. 

Food was the only fathomable remedy.  For the love of bungie cord!  It was past 5, and there had neither been sign, nor suggestion of cake! 

I could pen a lengthy diatribe describing the events that immiately followed, but I don't feel like it.  My knee highs are digging itchy pink indents around my shins, and I need sufficient time for flossing before bed.  I will be uncharacteristically practical, and summarize. 

Gwen craved the Tasty-Kake Chocolate Junior.  She loved it solely by virtue of the fact that it is cake.  It was conceived in a dust-ridden factory in Buckshot, Iowa.  Its expiration date was conspicuously obscured.  Its icing would peel off in one gritty slab.  Gwen wanted the Junior. 

Why would she lust after something so repulsive? 

Would she not spend my hard-counted $1.49 on something satiating? 

Why this sticky, flavorless brick of mass-produced goop? 

I asked, "Don't you want something really special, Gwendylin Henrietta... 

For what might (in another story) have been a pivotal moment, I had her attention! 

...like a homemade Sheetz's Gob?"

She turned to me.  Mustering all the dignity one could expect of a dejected fowl, and said, "Is it your birthday, or mine Janey?"

Well...it was more of a MAAAAAAAARRRPPPP

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