Текст книги "Troubles and Treats"
Автор книги: Tara Sivec
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 14 страниц)
Not only did I have to stop Drew from pooping in the kitty litter, shortly after we got married, I had to get him to stop peeing on trees in the front yard. And this was long before we even had kids, let alone had a puppy. He claimed the pee was good for the trees and helped them grow faster. Our neighbors had the most beautiful, tall trees, and Drew always saw their black lab peeing on them, so he assumed their landscaping looked so nice because of the dog. I couldn't count how many times I'd look out one of our windows and saw Drew holding his penis with one hand and waving to passing cars with another as he “helped our trees grow.” It got to the point where I had to start keeping an eye on him at all times. When he had started crossing and uncrossing his legs and shifting in his seat, I knew he had to go to the bathroom. I’d have to grab his hand and take him upstairs and stand him in front of the toilet and say, “You pee here! You pee here right now! You are NOT going outside, do you understand me?” It had taken three months before he would head to the stairs instead of the front door to pee.
Now Drew is fast asleep next to me, and I’ve been tossing and turning for the last two hours, trying to get comfortable in a bed that not only has us in it but now includes Miss Lippy and our Beagle puppy, Rollo the Janitor, too. While the kitten hisses at the puppy and the puppy whines in fear, I lie here silently plotting how to kill Drew and if my friends will help me hide the body.
“Oh my gosh, stop whining,” Drew mutters sleepily. “Do you have to go out?”
I lean up on my elbows and try to see Drew in the darkness. I can just make out his form sitting up and feel the bed shift as he flings off the covers and stands up.
“She just went out,” I tell him softly, assuming he’s referring to Rollo needing to go to the bathroom. I had taken her outside about an hour before, and since she hasn’t crawled all over me and licked my face, I’m assuming that means she doesn’t need to go out again. But Drew is either half asleep or doesn’t care and mumbles something about how it’s his turn to take the dog out. I am not about to argue because if he can bring this thing home without talking to me about it first, he can damn well take it out to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
I put my head back down on the pillow and snuggle under the blankets, listening to Drew curse under his breath about how cold it is outside and how the dog better make it quick since we had a huge snow storm earlier in the day and there is currently about a foot and a half of snow on our back deck where we let Rollo out to do his business as he picks up the dog and heads out of the room.
Why do people say that about dogs going to the bathroom? Do his business. How is pooping and peeing like doing business? I do business every day and it involves computers and phone calls and meetings. That’s nothing at all like going to the bathroom. Every time someone says that, I picture a dog walking into the backyard with a doggy briefcase in its hand, wearing a suit and tie. It’s weird.
Another thing that’s weird? Animals wearing clothes. Did you know there’s a whole website dedicated to just cats wearing sweaters? Do they ”do their business” while wearing sweaters?
While I pounder these thoughts, I reach over in bed to scratch Miss Lippy’s head before I go to sleep. But it doesn’t feel like Miss Lippy’s head; it’s not as fluffy.
As I feel around the bed for the rest of Miss Lippy, wondering if maybe I’m nowhere near her head, I hear the back door open downstairs so Drew can let Rollo out. As soon as I hear the door slam shut, I hear a whine in the bed next to me and feel a warm, wet puppy tongue on my chin.
“Oh no! Oh SHIT!”
Drew just threw Miss Lippy out into the snow! Poor, little Miss Lippy who has never been outside a day in her life except for the day Drew brought her home!
I throw the covers off of me, scoop up Rollo, jump out of bed, and run as fast as I can down the stairs. When I get to the last step, I hear the screams and wails of agony.
Oh thank God! Drew must have realized what he did and now he feels bad. He’s so sweet for getting upset.
I race through the house and skid to a stop in the doorway of the kitchen.
Miss Lippy, sopping wet and covered in snow, is attached to the front of Drew’s chest. And when I say attached, I mean it. He hadn't worn a shirt to bed, so all four sets of claws are stuck deep into his skin as Drew screams and tries to pull her off of him.
“MOTHER SON OF FUCKER SHIT! GET THIS GOD DAMMED CAT OFF OF ME!” he shrieks as he tugs on the cat’s fur and the cat yowls and hisses up at him angrily.
“Oh my gosh! Drew, you threw Miss Lippy out instead of Rollo!” I tell him as I just stand there cuddling Rollo and watch Drew spin around in circles, slamming into the counter and chair as he wrestles with the cat.
“GEE? REALLY? I HAD NO IDEA, WHAT WITH THE WET, KILLER CAT STUCK TO MY SKIN!” he screams at me as the cat uses his distraction to her advantage by climbing further up his chest until she can sink her teeth into his chin.
Drew screeches at the top of his lungs while he continues to try and pry Miss Lippy off of him. She’s growling now and drooling out of the side of her mouth, so I’m guessing she’s not going anywhere for a while.
“I SAID I WAS SORRY, MISS LIPPY! COME THE FUCK ON, THAT HURTS! I SWEAR I DID NOT MEAN TO THROW YOU IN THE SNOW!”
Drew and Miss Lippy are carrying on so loudly right now, I’m sure they are going to wake the kids up any minute.
“Drew, keep it down! You’re going to wake up Billy and Veronica,” I whisper loudly over the crying and hissing.
“I HAVE A KILLER CAT WITH FANGS TRYING TO EAT MY FACE, JENNY! SHE’S TRYING TO EAT OFF MY FACE!”
Rollo sighs and huffs in my arms at the commotion and rests her head on my arm to continue watching.
Drew bends over at the waist and tries to stick his arm up between Miss Lippy’s body and his chest to push her away from him since pulling on her fur is obviously just pissing her off. She takes that opportunity to scramble up his face and onto his head, sinking her claws into his skull.
I’m sorry, but at this point, I have to laugh. Drew stands up when the cat gets to his head and is now trying to head-bang to get her to fall off, screaming the whole time because it’s just making her dig her claws in even further.
I sort of feel bad for him when I see the claw marks and blood dripping down the front of his chest, arms, neck, and face. It looks like he got into a fighting match with Freddy Kruger. But then I think about the fact that he's brought home not one, but two new animals at the same time we've had an infant in the house, and it kind of makes me happy that this is going on right now.
“IS THIS BECAUSE I TOOK A DUMP IN YOUR LITTER BOX? I TOLD YOU I WAS SORRY FOR THAT TOO. GET THE FUCK OFF OF MY HEAD!”
I walk across the room in an attempt to help Drew get Miss Lippy off of his head, but he’s too busy head-banging and hopping around the room for me to get close to him. Instead, I take a seat at the kitchen table, yawn, and get Rollo comfortable in my lap.
“YOU’RE A VINDICTIVE LITTLE BITCH, MISS LIPPY! NEXT TIME YOU YACK UP A HAIR BALL IN MY SHOE, I’M GOING STRAIGHT UP GANSTER AND POPPING A CAP IN YOUR ASS!”
It’s almost like Miss Lippy understands what Drew is threatening. As soon as Drew takes a break and rests against the counter, Miss Lippy rears up on her back legs and starts smacking Drew on either side of his head with her paws. It’s like something right out of Funniest Home Videos when the little kid is teasing the cat too much and it smacks the poor little kid in the face. That’s always funny because it’s happening to someone else’s kid. It turns out, this is even funnier.
I’m too busy laughing to see how he does it, but Drew finally manages to remove Miss Lippy from his head and tosses her to the kitchen floor. She hisses once more at him and then runs away.
“I can’t believe you didn’t help me. I could have been killed!” Drew complains.
I roll my eyes at him and stand up. “Oh stop, she wouldn’t have killed you.”
Holding Rollo to my chest, I turn and walk out of the room.
“You have no idea what that monster is capable of. You didn’t see her eyes. It was like looking into the windows of hell. I actually felt a chill. That cat is Satan. I bet she’s upstairs right now trying to suck the souls out of our kids. Why aren’t you more worried about this?” Drew demands.
“That cat is a sweetheart. You threw her into a pile of snow. What did you expect her to do?” I ask as I make my way up the stairs and Drew trails behind me, shushing me as we go.
“We need to stop talking about her. She’s probably listening and plotting our deaths. I bet she knows thirty-five ways to kill us and make it look like an accident. They’ll find our bloody corpses, and she’ll just be sitting there, looking up at them with those big, cute Puss and Boots eyes but no one will think she’s coming to do the Devil's bidding,” Drew whispers as we walk into our room.
He turns and looks both ways down the hallway and then quickly runs away from the doorway, over to the closet. I watch as he rifles through the closet until finally pulling out what he's looking for – a baseball bat. He lifts it up on his shoulder and puffs out his chest.
“You do realize Miss Lippy doesn’t weigh more than six pounds, and you’re ready to fight her with a metal baseball bat, right?” I ask him as I climb into bed and get Rollo situated next to me.
“Cold, dead eyes, Jenny! How many times do I have to tell you? It’s like you’re not even afraid of Satan! He wants to eat your soul!” he whispers loudly, creeping around the room and glancing nervously behind the nightstands and under the bed.
“She’s just a little kitty, Drew.” I sigh as he makes his way into the bathroom.
I hear the water running in the sink followed by cursing as he cleans off his scratches. He comes back into the room a few minutes later with the bat clutched tightly to his chest.
“That little kitty tried to gut me like a fish tonight. Do you want me to go downstairs and get you a weapon? I would totally do that for you. I would brave the wrath of the human-slayer to make sure you could sleep safely tonight,” he tells me seriously.
“I could probably make it to the first drawer on the left in the kitchen and get you a steak knife if I can bug out early and stay under cover until I make it back to the barracks without risk of another attack,” he whispers to himself.
When he starts talking like his father, I know he’s lost his mind.
“Drew, cut it out! I don’t need a weapon and you’re not going to a freaking war. Good grief! You’re not really going to sleep with the baseball bat, are you?” I ask him as he climbs under the covers, still hugging the bat.
“Yes. Yes I am. I am not going to just let that thing terrorize our family. I am going to bed armed and ready to protect the people I love at all costs. You didn’t see the evil in that thing’s face when I realized I’d thrown it out into the snow and quickly opened the door back up to get her. She flew Jenny! She rose up out of the snow and fucking FLEW at me! There was death in her eyes. She was covered in snow and foaming at the mouth. I’m pretty sure her eyes turned red too,” Drew mutters.
I can’t even think of a reply to the insanity coming out of his mouth right now. As soon as I roll over and decide to just ignore him, he pops up in bed with a gasp.
“Did you hear that?” he whispers so softly I barely hear him.
“Hear what?” I ask.
“SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Listen,” he scolds.
I sigh in irritation and listen for whatever it was Drew thinks he's heard. I open my mouth to tell him to grow up, and I hear it. I crane my neck and try to figure out what the hell it is. It almost sounds like a garbled female voice. Like maybe we left the TV on downstairs or something.
The sound gets louder, like it’s coming closer. It’s definitely a female voice and she’s talking like one of those Valerie girls. “Like, you know! Like, oh my God! Like, totally awesome!”
“Oh my God, is this like a Ghosts of Christmas Past thing? Is this us if we were born in the eighties? But, would that be Christmas Past or Christmas Back to the Future? I don’t want to see my back to the future! I’m not ready!” Drew cries softly.
I elbow him in the ribs and shush him.
What the hell is out in our hallway?
We wait in anticipation on the bed, and now I’m a little glad Drew decided to bring a bat to bed with him. I don’t think a bat will work on a ghost, but at least Drew didn’t lie when he said he would do anything to protect us.
All of a sudden, right in our doorway we see two red, glowing eyes. Drew and I have completely opposite reactions to the creepy glowing eyes staring us down. As soon as I put two and six together, the girly voices and red eyes, I immediately know what it is.
Drew, on the other hand, does the exact opposite of what he had just vowed a few minutes ago.
“OH HOLY MOTHER FUCKING TAINT BUCKET! IT’S MISS LIPPY! SHE WANTS MORE BLOOD!” Drew screams as he throws the bat to the ground, jumps up to his feet on the bed, and scrambles across it, stepping on my legs in his hurry to run away. Before I can even sit up in bed, he’s already made it across the room and locked himself in the bathroom.
“Gee whizzer, Drew! So nice of you to do whatever you can to protect us!” I shout to him in the bathroom as I get up out of bed and stomp out into the hallway to pick up Veronica’s Furby toy. She always forgets to shut the thing off when she’s done with it, and every once in a while it will just get a mind of its own and wander through the house.
“Jenny! STAY STRONG, BABY!” Drew yells from behind the bathroom door.
I shake my head and decide not to tell him that I found out what was in the doorway, and it wasn’t a ghost or a killer cat. I think a night sleeping on the cold bathroom floor is good punishment for turning this house into a zoo.
Rollo repositions himself in the bed until he’s curled up in the curve of my legs and Miss Lippy, who had been in bed right next to Drew during most of his freak out, and he hadn’t even realized it, slinks down next to Rollo and lies down, her chin resting on Rollo’s back.
I fall asleep to the sounds of Drew mumbling through the bathroom door about kittens having killer fangs.
Chapter 6 – Liquid Courage
“Should we call the guys and see how they’re doing?” I ask Claire.
“That is the third time you’ve asked that question in thirty minutes,” Liz complains. “If you don’t shut up and enjoy the peace and quiet, I’m going to punch you in the neck.”
Drew, Carter, and Jim are all at our house with the seven kids, and we’re at Liz and Jim’s house. I can’t help it if I’m nervous. It’s the first time they’ve all been alone with the kids without us there to stop the screaming and the crying. We’re the only ones who can calm the men down when they see how much poop comes out of that many kids at one time.
“What if one of them gets hurt?”
Claire rolls her eyes at me. “Don’t worry. Gavin knows how to call 9-1-1 if the idiots we married hurt themselves.
“I’m talking about the kids. What if one of them gets hurt?”
“I know you’re talking about one of the kids. I’m trying to make you lighten up. So lighten the fuck up!”
Claire and Liz have started project “Fake it Till You Make it” with me. They are on a mission to restore mine and Drew’s sex life. I still don’t understand this whole “faking it” thing. I’ve never faked anything with Drew. They had decided I need to watch the holy grail of faking it movies so we’re spending the afternoon watching When Harry Met Sally.
“I’m still confused by the fact that you have never, ever faked it with Drew. How is that possible?” Liz asks as she puts the DVD in and hits play.
“Drew is a very giving lover. He always makes sure I come first. And if I don’t, he brings out one of my toys. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always his tongue.”
“Okay, stop. You’re going to make me puke,” Liz complains.
“Well, it’s true. He’s ambidextrous so his tongue can be used both ways.”
“Oh my God, stop the insanity!” Liz complains.
“So what do you do if you’re just too tired to have sex but he’s bugging you for it?” Claire asks.
“Um, I tell him I’m too tired for sex and roll over and go to sleep.”
Both women stare at me.
“What? What’s wrong with that? It’s the truth. I’m not going to lie to him.”
“In this case, you definitely should lie to him. He probably thinks you don’t want him anymore,” Claire says.
In all honesty, part of me doesn’t really mind if Drew thinks just for a minute that I don’t want him. It serves him right for what he did six weeks after Billy was born.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEK!”
I had bolted up in bed at the sound of Drew screaming in his sleep next to me. He sat straight up in bed as well, shivering and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“Are you okay?” I had asked him with a yawn and checking the clock. Billy would probably be up in another hour for a feeding unless Drew just woke him up with his scream.
“I had a really bad dream. Oh my God it was awful. It had fangs and it was trying to eat me, and I tried to scream but it bit off my tongue! Oh, the horror!” Drew wailed.
“Where you dreaming about Miss Lippy again?” I ask him, lying back down in bed and pulling the covers up over my shoulder.
He looked down at me nervously and started biting his nails.
“I don’t know. I forget. Let’s have sex.”
Drew immediately dropped his head to the pillow, wrapped his arm around my body, and pulled me against him.
He started kissing my neck, and I swore I could hear him say, “You can do this. Just don’t think about the fangs.”
“Drew, I don’t know. It might still be too soon,” I told him.
I knew it wasn't too soon. It had been exactly six weeks to the day since Billy was born. This was the day we could start having sex again. While Drew was busy kissing his way down to my breasts, I looked over his shoulder at the alarm clock on his side of the bed.
If I fell asleep right now, I’d still get about fifty minutes of sleep before Billy woke up.
“I promise I’ll be quick,” Drew said around kisses as he slipped my tank top down, exposing one breast and starting to kiss and suck all around the full mound.
“Be careful, I might leak,” I warned him.
Since I was breast feeding, my boobs tended to leak at inappropriate times. Now would be a really inappropriate time.
Drew immediately stopped, his mouth hovering over my nipple.
“This is a huge dilemma for me. I know I should back away since it’s like, our kid’s food, but the pervert in me wants to go grab a bag of cookies and do this thing,” he admitted.
“Don’t even think about it,” I told him, clutching onto his hair and pulling his head back up to mine.
“Are you really going to let me stick my penis in you? Don’t tease me right now. My heart can’t take it,” Drew said.
“Yes, go ahead. But seriously, make it quick. Billy will be up soon.”
Drew pushed himself off of me quickly and shoved his boxers down to his knees, lying back down between my legs before I even blink.
“I’ll be quick, I promise. Time me,” Drew said as he pushes my underwear down my hips and to my knees. I wiggled my legs to get them the rest of the way down, kicking them off of my ankle when they reached that far.
“What was your dream about,” I asked him as he wraps his hand around his erection and guides it toward me, running the tip through me and placing it at my opening.
“It was awful. Your vagina turned into a monster and it looked just like it did when you were having Billy, except it had teeth and red, glowing eyes, and it wanted to bite off my face, and it was so saggy and floppy and had all this extra skin hanging around. It was so fucking scary,” he explained as he pushes just the tip of his penis inside of me and groans.
I put my hand on his shoulders and pushed him up and away from me a little.
“Are you kidding right now or are you serious?”
He paused and a look of pain washed over his face when he realized I’m stopping him from pushing in any further.
Drew had never been able to lie to me, even about little things. I knew that right then he was wondering if he should really tell me the truth.
“Um, yes?”
I pushed on his shoulders as hard as I could.
“Are you serious with this right now? You’re having nightmares about my VAGINA?” I yelled at him as he scrambled to get up on his knees, his penis sticking straight out, pointing right at me.
“I’m sorry! I have no control over my dreams. It’s not my fault!” he argued.
“It is if you’re thinking about my vagina being floppy and saggy!” I yelled back, digging under the sheet for my underwear and sliding them back on.
“No! Please! I need that!” Drew whined as I roll angrily away from him after I pulled my underwear all the way up.
I felt the bed shift and the heat of his stomach against my back. He rested his chin on my shoulder, and I was hoping he was coming up with a really good apology for this crap.
“Can I just stick the tip back in?” he whispered against my ear. “If your vagina is still sore, we could just do anal. That would be awesome, right?”
I had shoved my elbow back and into his stomach as hard as I could. While he was moaning and whimpering like a baby next to me in bed, our REAL baby had started crying over the monitor.
That episode was six weeks ago and Drew hasn’t even attempted to try and have sex with me since then. Well, aside from the sex swing I guess. I’ve forgiven him for his stupidity because, well, he’s a guy and guys are stupid. But I’m still not really in the mood for sex, which brings us back to the lesson Liz and Claire are trying to teach me.
“You don’t want Drew to think you don’t want him. Hence the phrase, ‘fake it till you make it.’ If you start off faking that you want it, eventually you’ll get back into the flow of things and really start to want it.”
Does Drew really think I don’t want him anymore? I don’t want him to think that.
“Drew is never going to buy it. He’s going to know right away if I fake an orgasm.”
Claire and Liz burst out laughing.
“You’re kidding right? There is no possible way he would ever know,” Liz informs me.
“Oh believe me, Drew would know. He says he can feel it when I come. He says my vagina squeezes him if he’s inside me, and it tastes different if he’s going down on me,” I tell them.
“What the fuck are you ingesting before you have sex that he can taste it, straight gasoline?” Liz asks.
“Why would Drew lie to me about something like that?”
“Why wouldn’t Drew lie to you about something like that? Every woman has asked her guy if he can tell when she’s coming. We don’t ask because we want to know if he can feel just how amazing it is and thereby boost his ego because he can get you off. We ask just to make sure he can’t tell so when we fake it, he won’t be the wiser. Even though we all have the same working body parts, every guy’s answer is usually different. Proving that they have no idea, aside from the sounds we make,” Liz explains.
“Carter told me he can tell when I’m coming because I start breathing faster. I’m usually breathing faster because I’m tired as shit and out of shape and I think my heart is going to give out,” Claire says.
“Jim told me he knows because I always smack his ass right before I come. I do that so he’ll hurry the fuck up because I want to go to sleep or because Top Chef is coming on,” Liz adds.
I stare at both women in shock and cannot believe this has been happening all these years, and I've known nothing about it. I had never known women faked orgasms with their husbands. It makes no sense to me. Why would you marry someone if they couldn’t give you an orgasm? Liz and Claire’s marriages are solid as a rock though, so they must be on to something.
“Fine, get to the faking part so I can see what this is all about.”
“It will be my fake pleasure,” Liz says with a smile as she fast forwards the movie.
~
An hour and a half later, we’re sitting at a local hole in the wall bar a few blocks from Liz and Claire’s shop, and I’m still in shock by that movie.
“I mean, it was so real,” I tell them in awe.
“I know, right? You would have totally thought Billy Crystal was giving it to Meg Ryan under the table,” Liz says as she drinks the last of her beer and signals the waitress for another round.
We decide that since we were without children or husbands we should make the most of it and get some drinks. Plus, the girls are convinced that a little liquid courage will help with the faking I plan on testing out this evening, but they have yet to order me any.
The waitress comes to our table a few minutes later and Claire and Liz each order another beer.
“I’ll take whatever size Liquid Courage you have on draft,” I tell her with a smile.
“I’m sorry, what?” the waitress asks in confusion.
“I don’t know. My friends told me to order it. Do you guys not have it? Maybe it’s new.”
Liz leans over and covers my mouth with her hand. “Just bring her a drink with the highest proof alcohol you’ve got.”
Claire is laughing and typing something into her cell phone.
“What are you doing? Are you putting that on Facebook? Don’t you dare! How was I supposed to know it wasn’t a brand of beer?” I complain.
“Actually, that isn’t a bad idea. I wonder if I could market my own beer for the shop. Liquid Courage: helping men get laid for centuries.” Claire laughs as she slips her cell phone back in her purse.
The waitress comes back with the girls' beers and a shot glass filled with a pinkish colored liquid for me.
“What is this?” I ask her.
“It’s Everclear with a splash of cherry juice,” she explains before rushing off to another table.
“Ooooh, Everclear. That sounds pretty,” I say before downing the shot.
I immediately start coughing and choking, fanning my mouth with my hand.
“IT BURNS! OH MY GOD IT BURNS!” I try to yell with a raspy voice that feels like it’s on fire.
“Here, drink this,” Claire tells me as she slides her beer across the table towards me.
I drink the entire thing in three big gulps and smack the glass back down to the table.
“Well, I do believe that is plenty of liquid courage for the evening,” Liz says with a laugh.
Chapter 7 – Fake it Till You Make it
“Holy fucking Wheat Thins. What did you feed this kid?” Jim asks as he brings Billy over to me, holding him at arm’s length with a look of disgust on his face. “It smells like he ate a dead dog covered in vomit and yogurt and then shit it out.”
He puts Billy in my lap and as soon as I get a whiff, I throw up in my mouth a little and have to hold my breath.
“Jenny stopped breast feeding last week and put him on formula and cereal. Maybe that’s it.”
Carter shakes his head. “That is not what formula and cereal smell like. That smells like ball sweat covered in Swiss cheese.”
I place Billy on the floor at my feet and step away from him so I can take a breath.
“Jesus, that is really bad. How is he smiling? Can’t he smell himself? If I took a dump that smelled that bad I wouldn’t be smiling,” I say.
“Well, at least whatever that was isn’t inside of him anymore. Imagine the havoc it was wreaking on his stomach. He’s probably like, ‘Thank fucking God that shit is out of me.' Literally,” Jim says as he plugs his nose and takes a few giant steps backwards.
All of a sudden, the sound of five little girls screaming bloody murder comes from the toy room at the back of the house, and ten-year-old Gavin comes running into the living room with a grin on his face.
“What did you do?” Carter asks him as I dig through the diaper bag for a gas mask and latex gloves.
“Nothing,” Gavin replies as he flops down on the couch. “Who farted? It stinks in here.”
We all point to the baby. There is still screaming and crying coming from the toy room, but at this point we’re all more concerned with the fact that the smell coming from my son might start peeling the paint off of the walls.
Veronica comes charging into the living room holding a headless, naked Barbie in her hand. Behind her is Carter’s six-year-old Sophia and Jim’s three daughters, Charlotte who is also six, Ava who is five, and Molly who is three. All have tear-stained cheeks and a multitude of naked, headless Barbies in their hands.
“GAVIN TOOK THE CLOTHES OFF OF ALL OF OUR DOLLS AND POPPED THEIR HEADS OFF!” Charlotte screeches.
“My dolly has no head!” Ava wails.
“He drew boobies on my Barbie!” Sophia cries as she waves the torso of her inked Barbie in front of our faces.
“Hey, those look pretty good. Nice nipple placement,” I tell him.
“Why does this one have a big red dot in the middle of its chest and a shaved head,” Jim asks as he grabs the only one with its head still intact that three-year-old Molly is cradling to her.
“She’s got a third nipple because she was abducted by aliens and they experimented on her. The other Barbies shunned her and cut off all of her hair when she went to sleep,” Gavin explains.
The wails from the five girls grow louder, and we all wince at the sounds they are producing.
“Oh my God, make it stop!” Carter complains.
“GIRLS! Calm down!” Jim yells in an effort to be heard. Living in a house with three girls and a wife, he is quite the expert at the trials and tribulations of females. But even he looks shocked at the amount of noise that is coming out of them.
They begin crying even harder because they think Jim is yelling at them, which in turn produces snot, dry heaves, and honest to God foot stomping.
“No, no, no! Please stop crying!” Carter pleads with them, getting down on his knees so he is eye level with them.
“I WANT MY MOMMY!” Veronica shouts.
And thus begins a half hour chant of “I WANT MY MOMMY” from five little girls.
Instead of calling the wives and admitting to them that we have no idea how to control the situation, Carter calls his own mother. She tells him to bribe them with candy. Exactly six seconds after he hangs up the phone, each girl has a sucker in her hand and a smile on her face as they walk back to the toy room to play “Headless Barbie Princess Parade”.
