Princess of Irony

He was flingin that chainsaw all over the place.

Issue Date: Tuesday, May. 08, 2007

Tuesday of last week I had an all day meeting here in the Dallas area. I had to be there to help with registration at 7 am so that morning I was up at like 4:30 am freaking out (why do I do this?) that I would leave too late (because the weather was turning bad rather quickly) so I just got up, showered, dressed and left the house at 6 am. I got to my destination a full thirty minutes early and had to be on for almost ten hours. All smiles and gracious nods to the committee members and board of directors in attendance.

I also was blackberry chatting my boss trying to get him to guffaw loudly at inappropriate times... while we were sitting right next to each other.

I have been told that I am a trouble maker. Don�t let the twin set or the pearls fool you folks.

And then Wednesday I went to San Antonio for a planning meeting. I traveled on Wednesday after a full day of worky type stuff and then had the meeting on Thursday. While I was holding court with my committee, Mister was driving to Houston to have a meeting of his own. I knew that we would start doing this �strangers in the night... exchanging glances� thing sooner or later, but it doesn�t mean that I have to like it.

I got home Thursday evening, three hours late (8:30 ish � stupid weather) and tried not to watch Ugly Betty or Grey�s Anatomy as I had missed both of them (but recorded!) so I wound up doing laundry, watching the weather channel and downloading stuff from Limewire. I had nightmares all night that included a very riveting mind-made-up movie that featured Lindsey Lohen, Forrest Whitaker, Michael Madsen and someone else that I can�t quite remember. Oh, and there were zombies.

Mister and I have one of those sleep number beds. My side is set to �firm and wonderful� and his side is set to �hole that I fall into and can not crawl out of while I am partially asleep.� Keep in mind. He is big, it is a big hole. Grave sized hole. Wonderful fodder for more nightmares.

So I would have a bad dream, fall into his bed-hole, crawl out, curse, get my pillows straightened, kick the cat off the bed, go back to sleep, have a bad dream, fall into his bed-hole, get stuck, crawl out, curse... ad nauseam. It was so exhausting.

Friday after what seemed like the longest work day ever, I went home. I stopped at a wrap sandwich place to grab dinner as Mister would be late and then went home to clean up the kitchen. He got home and it started one of the strangest weekends we have had in a long time.

We started out with a little S&R (Smoking and Relaxation) on the porch, got caught up with one another and then decided to go to bed and watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.

Normal right?

No.

It freaks me right the fuck out.

I have always had a bad anchor with the original. I saw the (have I talked about this before? Must search archives.* No, I have not.) trailer for the original when I was like, oh, I don�t know... seven? eight? When did it come out? 1974? I was two... alright, so by the time it aired on HBO I was... I don�t know. Six? Seven? Let�s guesstimate and say I was wee.

*By the way... what the fuck diaryland? Seriously, what the ever loving fuck? Posting each entry like three or four times, taking forever to load... ANYTHING. Get it together diaryland. Be a team player diaryland.

I was staying at Julie Jacquote�s** house. She was one of my bestest friends in the world when I was that age. Her parents had a big home in Indian Hills neighborhood. She had a younger brother and a huge basement. The home was multileveled with the great room on the first floor, the kitchen and the den on the second floor, her parents� master bedroom and bath on the third floor and her brother�s room, her room and another bathroom on the fourth floor. From the back you could see a small lake, their swing set and a porch that was level with the second floor. And the basement was below the kitchen and great room.

**If you are Julie Jacquote and you are Googling yourself and you know me... dude, please leave me a comment or your email, would love to get back in touch with you! Indian Hills right? Not Fox Hills.

Yes, there is a reason I am telling you this.

One evening I was spending the night with Julie. We were normally relegated to the basement whenever we had sleepovers as we were wanton, giggly girls prone to fits of laughter and squealing. We would bring our snacks downstairs because to get to the kitchen we had to go up these creepy stairs and the creaking of the stairs would wake one of Julie�s parents who would inevitably get on to us for being 1) up so late or 2) being so loud. We would bring down mounds of pillows and blankets to snuggle up into and make forts.

During a brief lull of making up dances to the theme soundtrack to Fame for one another (or whatever) we snuggled in to watch TV. Julie�s parents� had cable and it was a treat for me to watch TV over there as we had the big four (five?), NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS and the budding TBS or TNT or whatever. We turned the channel to HBO and watched the coming attraction previews for the movies to choose from. (Remember when Ringo Starr in Caveman was on like seven times a day?)

We watched for a few minutes then the trailer for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre came on. Just the trailer. Movie trailer. Nothing big. Nothing that bad (if you are already desensitized to brutal slayings and murder and furniture made out of human bones and chicken feathers...). But we screamed so loudly when Leatherface went to go impale that girl on a meat hook that we woke up Julie�s dad. He came down to the basement and asked us to be quiet. We, round eyed with terror, nodded silently. He said, �Girls, now... if I have to come down here one more time tonight, we�re going to have to separate you so the rest of the house can get some rest.�

Julie took the TV remote (fancy.) in her hands and turned the volume down on the television. Her dad nodded solemnly and headed back upstairs.

We were scared. So very scared. What if this chainsaw guy wanted to put us on meat hooks? The sliding glass doors in the basement led to the backyard and the lake. We spoke in hushed tones and figured out a plan. We would escape through the sliding glass doors if the killer came to get us she would run one way around the house and I would run the other way so at least one of us could warn the rest of the family and then run to safety.

It said it right there in the trailer, �THE EVENTS ARE TRUE....� anything that came after that was just icing. All we had to know was that this shit was for real.

We were talking so quietly that it frightened us even more when her father came stomping down the stairs, �Alright girls, I have had enough. Julie, you go into your own room, Susan, you take her brother�s room.� Julie and I blinked at one another as we knew we hadn�t made a sound that could travel up the stairs and into her parents� bedroom.

Her brother was already sleeping in her parents� room so I snuggled into his tiny toddler�s bed as Julie walked silently to her bedroom.

I laid there for what seemed like hours. We were basically three floors up from the ground, two floors from the second story porch that was off of the kitchen and the den.

What?

What was that noise?

That noise sounded a lot like... a ladder being placed upon the side of the house.

What ladder could reach to the third story? Well, duh, of course... Leatherface has put the ladder on the porch and is leaning it up against the house right under the window to Julie�s brother�s room. The window under which I was sleeping in a toddler�s bed. I just knew that the killer chainsaw guy was coming to get me so he could put me on a meat hook.

That creepy, high pitched, evil laughter and the gunning of his chainsaw would be the last thing my ears would ever hear.

I had to get away from that window. But I had to do it quietly, I couldn�t risk waking Julie�s father again and I could NOT risk drawing the attention of Leatherface (thanks, Gunnar Hansen) where he was perched precariously on his ladder right outside the window just waiting to take my skin off and wear it.

I crept out of bed and tiptoed down the hallway to Julie�s bedroom. I was quiet as a cat. I stayed on the balls of my feet just waiting to flee. I thought, maybe if Leatherface busts a move through the window, I can get a head start on him if I keep on my toes, nimble and ready to be quick and dart in any direction (namely, down the stairs and out the fucking front door).

When I got to Julie�s room, she was in her bed fast asleep. I tried waking her with a gentle nudge. �Jooooleeee?� I whispered. �Hey, Julie?� I tapped her on the shoulder. She was fast asleep. I made sure she wasn�t dead by holding a hand in front of her mouth to feel her breath. Then I thought better of it and decided to hop onto the bed just incase Leatherface (that bastard, I was really starting to hate him) had already killed her and was laying in wait under the bed for me.

Oh, yes. Even then, it was all about me.***

***Shut up.

So I hopped on the bed, made sure I wasn�t snuggling in with a dead person, and then tried to get under the covers. I wanted to hide from that guy, and when you are young and stupid and moving a micrometer a second and trying to be all quiet and shit it takes a LONG ass time to try and get covers from someone who is wrapped up like a burrito and sleeping like she had been tranq-ed with a rhino dart.

So? I crawled under her. Figuring if Leatherface was gonna meat hook anyone or get a little frisky with his chainsaw? He�d get her first.****

****Julie, I am so sorry. I was yella. A chicken. A hyped up super freak imagination chicken that was giving you up as a shield.

She�s totally not going to leave me a comment or email me or anything now, even if she does find this by the power of Google is she y�all? I thought not.

Brainfart:

Something weird just occurred to me. Do y�all remember the hand cutting off mother of that troubled kid on Boston Public or the Biscuit�s date a few times or something or another on Ally McBeal? That is the same sexpot redhead �That was the single most thrilling experience of my entire life� from Edward Scissorhands. Coincidence Kathy Baker? Nope.

So I had a negative anchor with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for a long time. I had never even seen the damn thing and yet it gave me shivers and nightmares for about twenty years... or shamefully, even more.

I went to a haunted house during Halloween one year with a bunch of my teenage girlfriends. They shoved me in the front and we all held on to each other for �protection�. We went through the caves, bridges, Frankenstien-y, creepy, jumpy-outty people and then we came to the last room. This room was all white with �blood� splattered everywhere. A strobe light made every movement seem surreal when all of the sudden a man stood out of the way and a large man came out from behind a partition.

He may have been wearing a mask made of lady skin like Leatherface, he may have been wearing the standard �Jason from Friday the 13th� hockey mask or the mask of Michael Myers from the Halloween movies. I have no clue. All I know is that I took in several things at once. 1) This guy was huge. 2) He had a chainsaw (!). 3) I couldn�t see his face. And 4) there was no way out of the room.

He was flingin that chainsaw all over the place. His partner acted like he couldn�t hold him back and I knew, y�all I knew that this was a haunted house. There was no way that they were going to let anything happen to any kids, much less a bunch of squealing girls that may or may not have been cheerleaders. But I did know that I was in the front of the pack, and I knew that the guy was coming closer to me.

And then he did it y�all. He touched me on my leg with the chainsaw. The chainsaw had no blades on it. It was completely harmless (unless he were to smack someone upside the noggin) but it didn�t matter to me. That one leeetle gesture, just meant to scare the pants off somebody triggered two things in me, the fight and flight adrenaline rush that you can get in some situations and the need to get out.

The fight part. I kneed the guy in his thigh (was always taught not to knee a man in his jewels... regardless of the chainsaw situation) and while he cursed and stumbled backwards I saw the smallest bit of light in a rectangle formation behind him.

The flight part. I ran at the rectangle of light. This light just happened to be a board of plywood that was being held up by at least two, maybe three men. When they got the signal, they were to drop the board creating an outing into the parking lot. What they did not expect was a sixteen year old girl freaked out on chainsaw adrenaline that had been building up for about a decade. They also didn�t expect me to knock the plywood and them down, run over them like I was in a Three Stooges movie and keep running into the parking lot like the freaking roadrunner.

But guess what? That is exactly what I did. Not sure when I stopped running, or when my friends stopped laughing at me, and the rest of the patrons stopped laughing at the men I ran over but sooner or later I stopped, had a smoke and a good laugh about it. (Yeah, ha ha... very funny mother fucker.)

So a few years ago.

Lord... is she still rambling? Yes... and I would like to ask you very kindly to shut up. Diaryland is not letting me post stuff on the regular so I have to cram it all in now. See? Warning you that I am going to cram it all in again. So polite.

Again...

So a few years ago Mister and I were at Hollywood video and he saw the thirty year edition DVD for Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Mister: OOH! Let�s get it!
self: Have you lost your ever loving mind?
Mister: No.
self: You�ve heard the stories... seeing the trailer has caused damage.... DAMAGE.
Mister: Stop being so dramatic. That was like thirty years ago. You could totally handle it now.
self: Do you remember who was screaming like a twelve year old girl during The Grudge?
Mister: That was you.
self: Right. And remember those poor men who I ran over at the haunted house because of the...
Mister: Chainsaw... right. But, also...
self: Ut oh.
Mister: Right, logic. Also... remember how after you finally watched that guy peel his face off in Poltergeist it wasn�t so scary anymore?
self: ::snerk:: Yes.
Mister: Again I say, OOH! Let�s get it!
self: hmmmpf, fine.

So we got it home, set it up in the bedroom, turned all the lights on... during the afternoon and watched it. And it was scary as shit.

So why are we watching the prequels? No clue.

And why can�t I finish a thought and tell you people about the rest of my weird weekend? Okay, one thing. Text message to boss on Sunday: �I am sitting astride a riding lawnmower in Lowe�s, holding several downspouts for our gutters while [Mister] is contemplating a wet/dry shop vac. Can my life get anymore glamorous?�

This weekend is rockstar weekend. Will take pictures, or just say I am going to take pictures and then send you to someone else�s flickr page. This weekend? Also my birthday. But y�all already knew that.

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