I'm a freak in bed.

But not the way you think, you filthy, godless pervert. Christ, is that all you people think about? You disgust me.

No, what I mean is that I'm a high-maintenance sleeper. While some of you could sleep easily and peacefully while strapped to the blade of a windmill, or being dragged behind a pickup truck, I require an elaborate list of specific items and ideal room conditions to get me through the night.

Here's the short list of idiosyncrasies that would make a normal person cringe at the thought of sleeping in the same bed with me:

1. I need a full wardrobe change by my bedside. I go to bed in long-sleeves and long jammie pants, but keep shorts and at the ready. This is because I go to bed chilly, but wake up later a little warm, and change into the t-shirt. Still later, I may wake up and change into the shorts, or just lose the pants. But I could never go so far as to sleep in a tank top (or less) because I'd wake up cold in about 20 minutes. Don't ask me why there's a world of difference between a tank top and a t-shirt, but those few extra inches of fabric make all the difference between getting a warm, comfortable night's sleep, or laying wide awake in a fetal position cursing God and listening to my teeth chatter.

2. I usually get up to change the thermostat in the night. I leave it set at 76 degrees all day and most of the night, but when I wake up hot in the middle of the night, I sometimes get up to change it to 75. Later, I'll probably wake up chilly and change it back to 76. I hear you out there thinking, "Um...hey Dumbass. One degree probably makes no difference at all. Why not just turn the overhead fan on instead?" I can't do that because I can't sleep with air blowing directly on me. And stop calling me Dumbass. I refuse to be insulted on my own blog.

3. I can't sleep with any extraneous noise in the room. No radio, no TV, etc. Also, no snoring, which makes my husband a poor candidate for a sleep partner. But if I cram earplugs in my ears and turn on a small bedside fan, I may be able to make it a couple hours before having to wake him up with a gentle karate chop to the skull and asking him to turn over. Then I may be able to make it another hour before the racket resumes, causing me to get up and move to the floor. That little bit of added distance between my ears and his honking make it possible for me to sleep fairly well from that point on. At least, until I wake up for another wardrobe change.

4. I need just the right combination and arrangement of pillows. One medium-fluffy under my head, one unfluffy to put between my knees (when I'm sleeping on my side), or under my knees (when I'm on my back), and one fat-fluffy to put next to me. Plus I need Roe, the teddy bear I've slept with since I was in junior high, to throw an arm over. Many nights I get all snuggled down in bed, nice and comfy, only to realize I'm missing one of these crucial pillows or the aforementioned teddy bear, and I have to get back up and track down the missing component. True, all these accoutrements leave almost no room for my husband to squeeze into the bed, but luckily for me he's only of medium build, and can manage to fit.

5. I need just the right blanket. Usually that means a down comforter, but in the absence of that, I can settle for two or three blankets--just enough to crush a normal person under the sheer weight of them.

6. I need chapstick handy all night. I apply it before I go to bed, but it's likely I will need a reapplication in the night. Otherwise I may be distracted from sleep by the thought of my lips cracking like a baseball glove left out in the sun.

7. I am guaranteed to make at least two, possibly more, bathroom trips. I have a bladder the approximate size of one of those little rubber coin purses your grandpa carries in his pocket. And if I happen to have a couple of glasses of wine on a Saturday night before going to bed, I might as well just haul my pillows, wardrobe change, teddy bear and chapstick into the bathroom and sleep in there.

8. I like to sleep in pitch darkness, which means that even the smallest bit of light is unacceptable. Not only is a nightlight bothersome, but get this: We have a security system on our house which has a control panel in our bedroom. A tiny green dot of light signals to us that the house is "safe," whereas a green blinking dot means that a door or window has been opened. Either way, blinking or not, the green light is there, and though it's only about the size of the head of a nail, it bugs me. I cover it with a small square of black electrical tape so that I can't see it. True, that means we can't tell if the house is "safe" or if a door or window has been opened by a crazed prison escapee who is perhaps even now in the process of rummaging around in our kitchen for just the right knife for cutting my jugular, but let's remember what's important here: A good night's sleep.

In summary, I'm a huge pain in the ass to sleep with. Luckily for me, my husband has no idea. He is so loaded down with great qualities that they're actually coming out of his ears--I've seen it--and among them is the fact that he sleeps like a corpse. He doesn't care if it's 100 degrees or 20 degrees in the room, if the bed is piled precariously high with stuffed animals, pillows and gardening tools, if I get up 75 times or zero times in the night, or if there's a thin cotton sheet or 14 bison pelts covering him. He can sleep fully clothed or dressed only in a pair of Victoria's Secret angel wings (don't judge him), he can sleep in an utterly quiet room or in a bottle cap factory. It's yet another example of the thousands of ways that I'm basically unfit for a relationship, yet my husband is so agreeable and so easy to live with that he doesn't notice. He actually thinks I'm perfect--which, as you and I both know, is preposterous.

But don't tell him any different. I have a good thing going here, and I don't need you ruining it.

Beware of strangers bearing candy

Did I ever tell you about the time I was sexually assaulted by met Hoss, of Old Horsetail Snake? If you're a reader of his blog (and who isn't?) I bet you've bought into his portrayal of himself as some sweet old guy, hanging around the old folks home chatting up the nurses and cracking a joke or two. Forget that. The man's a cad, 100% pure evil.

He was passing through town on his way to visit his friend Tish (don't call her "Trish," or she'll gut you like a flounder), and would be at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport for a short layover. The plan was for me to meet him at his gate and have a nice visit with him before his connecting flight took off. There was no time to go anywhere for a meal or a cup of coffee, so we would just sit in the airport and chat each other up.

Little did I know what fate really had in store for me.

I showed up at his gate with an expectant smile on my face, looking this way and that for what I pictured him to be: A sweet older gentleman sitting politely, hands folded in his lap, giving an amiable nod to the travelers who passed by him. As I was scanning the area for someone who resembled the friendly-faced fellow in the cap pictured to the left in this paragraph, two hands grabbed my ass and I felt hot breath on my neck as someone growled, "Hey baby, you come here often?" Naturally, I was shocked and outraged, and quickly spun around to slap the offender across the face, when I recognized him from the pictures I'd seen on his blog--it was Hoss! I immediately began to stammer and stutter, completely at a loss for how to respond to this incredibly inappropriate "greeting." He just smiled and swatted me on the tush again and said, "Yeah, I'm used to that. The ladies are often stunned at my good looks." True, he was dashing, as most villains are, but his bad-boy good looks were not enough to make up for his lecherous, depraved behavior. This man was just bad, through and through.

Oh, alright, I confess: This whole post has been a lie. Well, the part about meeting Hoss in the airport is true, and the part about him being dashing is true too, but the ass-grabbing bit was pure fabrication. He was every bit as sweet and charming as I expected, and a perfect gentleman, at that. He was just as smart and funny and kind as you'd assume from reading his blog. The truth hardly makes for edge-of-your seat reading, though, so sometimes I have to throw in a celebrity tabloid-style lie or two to keep you folks interested.

I doubt Hoss will be foolish enough to try to meet up with me again, though--I gave him a Spam snowglobe as a gift in the airport that day, and while that sort of thing is inexplicably hilarious to me, it just makes most people think I'm mentally challenged in some way. So unless he wants more questionable gifts heaped upon him, or another libelous blog post written about him, old Hoss will follow his gut instinct and stay far away from the Dallas/Fort Worth area in the future.

July 14 is "Cannibal Cow Day!"

Are you:

-Hungry?
-Desperate for attention?
-Utterly lacking in dignity or self-respect?
-Willing to do humiliate yourself for a handful of fast food?
-In possession of a full-body cow suit?

If you answered "yes" to the above questions, you're in luck! Because the Chick Fil-A fast food restaurant chain has come up with the most brilliant promotion known to man. Observe the ad below:Wait, wait--I know what you're thinking. It sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? When you hear of something so wonderful, so unusual, and totally free, it's only natural to be suspicious. And yet! I assure you I did not Photoshop this ad or alter it in any way--it really is a true and valid promotion. Yes! You can schlep your retarded ass into a public restaurant wearing a full cow costume on July 14 and receive a free combo! That's...hell's bells...nearly four dollars worth of processed chicken!

Careful though, cowboy. Read the fine print. It has to be a full cow costume. Don't try to sneak by just wearing a cow's head mask, or half-ass it in only a set of hooves and a tail. If you want to reap the bounty of a whole combo meal--that's a sandwich or nuggets, fries and a drink--you have to be tricked out from head to tail in a full-body cow suit. Hopefully you've already got a couple of those hanging in your closet, but if not, you can probably buy a decent one for $80 or so.

At this point, the laziest among you may be thinking, "Um...shouldn't I just keep my $80 and use it to buy myself twenty combo meals over a period of weeks or months?" Harrumph. Frankly, you embarrass me and shame yourself with such uninspired thinking. Sure, it would be way simpler, cheaper and easier to skip the whole costume idea and just pay for your deep-fried fast food like anyone else, but in doing so, you'd miss out on the opportunity to make a total jackass out of yourself and look like a moron as you sit on a plastic chair in the local Chick Fil-A restaurant trying to ram a chicken nugget through the mouth hole of your filthy cow suit.

So hurry; time's a-wasting. July 14 is the big day, and since it's nowhere near Halloween, it's not going to be easy to find the required attire in the local stores. Your best bet is to order it on the internet and pay for expedited shipping, just to be safe.

Oh, and email me a photo of yourself with your yummy prize clutched triumphantly between your hooves. I want to savor the moment with you.

Happy Birthday Kristina!

My friend Kristina (pictured on the left) is a great catch. If you're a single guy (or hell, maybe even a girl), you would definitely try to hit on her. If you're not single, you would probably try to hook her up with one of your best friends. She's adorable, she's tiny (size 3, for Christ's sake, something which I previously thought existed only in movies and fictional novels), she's fun, and she's incredibly loyal. Why do I tell you this? Because I need your help.
There are many guys who are interested in this totally hot friend of mine, but Kristina has apparently been drugged or hypnotized by her ex-boyfriend, because she cannot seem to let go of him in spite of his noticeable lack of appealing character traits. Although they're broken up, he manages to show up on the scene only every once in a great while, and only when he gets a whiff of the fact that she may be showing some interest in a new guy. He sticks around just long enough to get her to forget about the new guy, and then poof, he's gone again like Houdini.

Clearly, she needs an intervention, but this is a tricky business because she doesn't see anything particularly distressing about this ongoing scenario. So it's up to me to get him out of the picture, but how? Below are some possible solutions I've come up with so far, for your review.

1. The most obvious answer is to kill him. I watch enough true-crime TV to know that it can be done; all I'd need is a crawlspace in my house. This would be the surest way to free Kristina up for the opportunity to find happiness with a decent guy. A great plan! One small downside: A lengthy jail sentence. I am too prissy to flourish in the far-from-plush accommodations I've heard can be found in most prisons. These places probably don't even offer TiVo, much less a decent pedicure. I love Kristina, but maybe not quite enough to sleep on a bacteria-laden cot and miss the entire season of 24 for the next several decades.

2. What if I could cause Kristina to develop amnesia? On the surface this sounds like a total win. She would forget all about what's-his-name, and her life could go on as if he never existed. Apparently it's not hard to get amnesia--I've seen cartoons in which a person merely falls down and gets a bump his head, and bam! He forgets his own name. I could just give her a good shove, and that would probably solve everything. On the other hand, though, she might also forget me, and upon meeting me again, might not like me very much. I don't want to take that chance. For reasons that mystify me, and probably you as well, she loves me now, and I don't want to risk losing that. It's probably not all that easy to make new friends when you have an incredibly disagreeable personality.

3. I could cause him to develop amnesia. He'd forget about Kristina! He'd stop showing up in town; no more late-night drunken phone calls! A big upside is that I'd thoroughly enjoy giving him an excessively hard shove. Then, just to be safe, I'd put the confused chap on a bus to Wisconsin, where hopefully he'd stay, since he wouldn't be able to remember where his hometown was. True, people in Wisconsin would be very angry with me, but screw them. I have no pity for people who go to football games--or anywhere--wearing hats shaped like wedges of cheese.

4. I could introduce Kristina to such a fabulous, irresistible guy that she would totally lose interest in her ex. This is where you come in. I think I made it pretty clear in the past that I don't have the kind of male friends I'd trust my girlfriends with. But you! You're not like me! You've probably led a sane life, filled with normal, mentally healthy friends and acquaintances who have good jobs, no criminal records, and no periodic, state-mandated drug tests. So I'm calling on you for help. Gather up those fine, upstanding young men for my review and approval, and once I deem them suitable for my dear friend Kristina, I will set them upon her like a pack of dogs, and may the best man win her love and affection. I'm sure her ex has his good points, but we're talking about one of my very best friends here--Kristina is someone I love very much, and she deserves someone who loves her at least as much as I do, someone who would treat her with the care and respect she deserves.

In the event that you don't know any single, lovable, disease-free young men, I will also be accepting better suggestions than the ones I came up with above. Know how to eliminate an undesirable guy without landing on death row or being doomed to a life on the run? That's the kind of information I can use. See, Kristina's birthday was Thursday, and although we went out and celebrated with food, booze and gifts, it would be a really great birthday gift if I could solve this little problem for her. So please help. You've spent enough time merely reading my pearls of wisdom and words of poetic beauty on this site; now it's your turn to give something back.

Come on, get busy.