This is definitely a forgive-and-forget society we live in. It’s not that we have no scruples or morals, it’s just that in this day of media overload we’re on to the next big scandal before the dust has cleared from whatever screw up you participated in. Martha Stewart went to jail and was back in her kitchen studio before we realized she had finished out her term.

So when a giant orca killed his trainer in SeaWorld last year, it made news…for about a week. Then we promptly forgot all about it, until SeaWorld announced last week that the brute Tilikum would be reintroduced into the SeaWorld Shamu show, with new safety precautions in place.

It’s easy to blame the whale, or blame the corporate branding of these wild animals as gentle giants, or blame the marine biologists who keep telling us these things are so bright they could create their own Facebook pages if they just had thumbs. Many people called for a ban on all aquatics entertainment, and from what I understand the water skiing Goofy actually testified before Congress in defense of the killer whale.

One thing that stood out in the aftermath of the trainer’s untimely death in 2010 was the response from other animal trainers who pointed out what most of us would rather forget: these are wild animals and there is an inherent risk in messing with them. Very true.

However, what the public wasn’t told was that Tilikum actually had two other previous homicide convictions that his lawyer somehow managed to sweep under the rug. He was actually enjoying his diplomatic immunity status here in the States after killing his first victim in his native Canada. The first U.S. killing actually involved someone whom SeaWorld’s spin doctors claimed had tried to sneak into Tilikum’s tank and died as a result of the efforts to breach security. When SeaWorld trainers arrived in the morning and found Tilikum swimming laps with his dead trophy on his back, they claimed that the gentle orca was merely trying to keep the man at the surface in case he regained consciousness.

In light of the news of the other deaths that this beast has had a hand in, it becomes a whole lot easier to say the animal should be destroyed. Heck, they shot Old Yeller just for snapping at somebody after he was presumed to be a rabies carrier. The deer in Rawlings’s The Yearling was shot just for nibbling on the family’s crops. We don’t take shit off of animals around here.

Unless you’re a killer whale, apparently. Well, I say no more. We need to make an example of this creature, preferably to his brethren public. We need to send the message to all marine mammals that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated, even if we did snatch you up out of the ocean and plop you in a giant swimming pool for our viewing pleasure.

Even better, I really think SeaWorld could stand to profit from this. Just think how much money bigwigs with a seriously lopsided brains-to-income ratio would pay to feast on lightly seasoned seared killer whale steak? SeaWorld has long allowed special VIP guests to enjoy a buffet meal on the deck of the killer whale pool while the orcas provided the entertainment. The trainer who was killed was actually working with Tilikum during one of these dinner events.

So instead of fried chicken platters, serve up one of these homicidal monsters poolside. The sheer volume of meat on an animal that size could feed any number of corporate sponsors with enough leftovers to send over to the homelss shelter. The annual budget will be met from the ticket sales and the rest of the troupe of performers will now be on their very best behavior. Forget trying to teach these mammals to jump through a hoop for a fish, those things will sit up and develop the ability to speak when they catch a whiff of the aroma coming off the barbecue grill.

Admittedly, this could open up a whole can of worms in the punishing of criminals. We’ve blasted judges in the recent past for their creative sentences, but every once in a while a good public flogging of somebody who really deserves it, a CEO who steals from the retirement fund or a hospital orderly who stores old people in the kitchen’s walk-in freezer, could really get the rest of the population to think twice about breaking the law. At least until the next shiny object grabs our attention.

I’m a sucker for the opportunity to reap massive rewards for basically doing nothing. It’s why I have a Keurig coffee maker and why I’m seriously considering those little motors that attach to the side of your canoe.

So when my uber-writer friends on Twitter started twittering about a contest to win a FULL MANUSCRIPT REQUEST from super-agent Suzie Townsend (the literary kind, not the ninja kind, don’t panic), and all I had to do was summarize my entire life’s work (well, okay, just the one young adult novel) in 140 characters or less, I was in.

Here is my entry for YA writer Shelley Watters’s Twitter contest (contest details at shelleywatters.blogspot.com). The thing that is supposedly fun about this contest is to narrow down the entire premise of your book into 140 characters or less. First of all, I can barely give my order at Starbuck’s in 140 characters or less, let alone tell you what my book is about. Second, people who can do it in the “or less” part are either overachievers or underachievers. Third, (this isn’t a very long list) I’m having trouble with writing anything right now because my daughter used this computer last and now the quotes/apostrophe key is sticky and every time I hit that key it’s very distracting to have my finger attached to it for a nanosecond.

But here goes, my entire 58,000 word book whittled down to 140 characters (fine! or less!):

Lorca Damon @LorcaDamon
YA contemporary
58,000+
Sam lives alone w/ her Alzheimers-stricken grandma & is afraid people at school will find out. That’s the least of her problems right now.

I DID IT! With two characters left over! I did it in the “or less” part! I did it! WOOHOO!

Rock on, Twitter literati!

One of my failings as an English teacher is my complete boycott of anything related to poetry. While I introduce students to some of the more famous poems for the chance to earn extra credit, I don’t assign poetry as required reading because it is often so foreign to my students. And I never assign poetry-writing assignments because, quite frankly, I don’t get paid enough to read rhyming love poems written by teenagers. Have you ever seen the episode of South Park where the Goth kids sit around reading their poetry to each other? Welcome to my hell.

My loathing of poetry can’t only be blamed on the fact that teenagers are perpetually in and out of love and only know three words to rhyme with “you.” It stems from a much older, deeper disassociation back in college when I took a graduate-level poetry class.

By that point, I’d already been teaching high school English for two years. I’d read every bad poem my students threw at me on wide-ruled notebook paper and endured their massacring of recitation of the required poems from their textbooks. I was sure this poetry class was going to restore my love of poetry.

I almost failed it. First, I would like to say, in my defense, that the professor had a real chip on her shoulder about education majors, as though we were only there wasting her time since we weren’t true English majors and therefore destined to become real estate agents after graduation. It’s not like there’s a ton of jobs that will let you really use a degree in literature unless you plan to rent a kiosk in the mall and help shoppers with their homework.

Another shortcoming with the class was the professor’s stubborn belief that poetry is not what you make of it. I had apparently been falsely led to believe that poetry was open to interpretation, that the words “speak” to each reader individually. Wrong! The professor expected literal translations of the poems and it had better line up with what the original poet meant by it.

Sadly, unless Emily Dickinson plans to sit her ass up and tell me what exactly she meant in the poem, “A Narrow of Fellow in the Grass,” I can’t tell you what she was thinking about when she wrote it. I can certainly tell you what Freud thought about it, and I don’t think this poetry snob wanted to hear that either. Then again, she’s an English professor, maybe phallic references about a simple snake poem are exactly what she wanted to hear.

Alas, the other part of our grade in the course came from our original poetry, always on a strictly assigned topic. This is where any hope of maintaining my grade point average went all to hell. When you have a room full of Ph.D. candidates who have debased themselves to not only let Master’s students in the class but also a public high school teacher at that, I learned that they don’t find anything funny. Nothing. Robin Williams, George Carlin, and Bob Hope could comprise the entire thesis committee, and these people wouldn’t even try to crack a smile.

And, gosh, do I love a good limerick.

I’ve written my grocery lists in limerick form. I’ve written get-well cards in limerick form and on one tasteless fateful occasion, a sympathy card in limerick. I’m pretty sure I’d been drinking.

English majors do not find anything at all amusing about trying out the different poetry formats in their class. They want free verse about how crappily men have treated women throughout history, not sonnets about what I had for dinner every night last week. Certainly there is no love for ABACA rhyme scheme on why Dr. Who is the best show on television or why asparagus is the best vegetable ever in the history of the world.

So every third class meeting when we were required to read our own pieces aloud for the group, then allow those members present to rip our compositions apart for their own sadistic amusement, I smiled in anticipation while clutching what I knew was going to be the most painful experience ever for my classmates. If you can’t play the game, change the rules.

I wrote one assignment entirely about fortunes I’d received in cookies from Chinese take-out. I wrote another composed around things I’d read scribbled on the bathroom stalls at work, and let me tell you, that was hair-raising enough and it was only from the girls’ restrooms. My favorite of all time, the pinnacle of my opus, was written entirely of lines from Days of our Lives and General Hospital. It wasn’t exactly limerick writing, but it was still fun.

What I learned from that one course was more beneficial to me as a teacher than in any education course in the seven total years I attended any college working on any of my various degrees: stop being an English Nazi. If a student’s favorite poem was written by rapper ‘Lil Wayne, go with it. If the only reason a student knows what happens in “The Tell-Tale Heart” is because it was made into an episode of The Simpsons, at least he now knows who Poe is. And if the only word you can think of to rhyme with “tomorrow” is “sorrow,” just don’t make me read it. Unless it’s a limerick. I do love a good limerick.

Here is my entry for YA writer Shelley Waters’s Twitter contest. The fun of this contest is to narrow down the entire premise of your book into 140 characters or less. First of all, I can barely give my order at Starbuck’s in 140 characters or less, let alone tell you what my book is about. Second, people who can do it in the “or less” part are either overachievers or underachievers. Third, (this isn’t a very long list) I’m having trouble with writing anything right now because my daughter used this computer last and now the quotes/apostrophe key is sticky and every time I hit that key it’s very distracting to have my finger attached to it for a nanosecond.

But here goes, my entire 58,000 word book whittled down to 140 characters (fine! or less!):

“Sam lives alone w/ her Alzheimers-stricken grandmother and is afraid people will find out. And that’s the least of her problems right now.”

I DID IT! With one character left over! I did it in the “or less” part! Okay, if you don’t count the quotation marks, which I didn’t use on Twitter but I had to use here because it’s just good usage. But I did it! WOOHOO!

Have you ever thought about swapping lives with a celebrity, even just for a day? Tossing aside the mundane routine of hectic day-to-day life to live as one of the beautiful people, jet-setting around, waving at your adoring fans as you go about your business, living a basically carefree existence?

If I could get away from it all and trade lives with anyone, only for one day mind you since my life is pretty freakin’ sweet, only one famous name comes to mind: Sasquatch.

First of all, to my fans reading this in Canada, I would like to clarify once and for all that Sasquatch is not actually the name for citizens of Saskatchewan, and as an American I apologize for the ignorance of my brethren who have met some of your nice people and immediately looked down to check out their shoe sizes. And now on with our story.

How absolutely awesome would it be to get to live Big Foot’s life for a while? This guy is the epitome of existential living, communing with nature and subsisting totally on his finely honed self-reliance. Hell, the guy’s naked. In every redneck’s grainy first-contact sighting video and bystander description, he’s not wearing a stitch. Total freedom. The winter might suck, though.

I looked it up just for good measure, and Big Foot really gets to travel a lot, like, the kind of frequent flyer club miles distances. Since the first reported sighting, he’s been officially located in twenty-four different states, mostly the Pacific Northwest, which I hear is just a gorgeous part of the country. He apparently winters in Texas and Oklahoma according to the locals, which is really smart planning on his part because it’s warm enough for him what with all the fur and tornado season is pretty much over by then.

I guess the coolest part about being Big Foot would be the obvious immortality thing, since he’s been running around spotted by drunken lumberjacks since way back in 1811. When you’ve lived that long, you’ve seen it all. Think about it, this guy has been around for the invention of the telephone, the microwave oven, the personal computer, the Internet. He’s been alive for almost every major war, the emancipation of the slaves, the suffrage of women. The history lessons we could learn from one afternoon’s conversation with Sasquatch would be legendary, assuming he’s evolved to the level of speech instead of just grunting and pointing, that is. Oh my gosh, how cool would it be if Big Foot was actually a novelist up there in the woods? Maybe he’s really Stephen King.

According to the testimony of a man who actually claimed that he was kidnapped by Sasquatch and held against his will for almost a week, Big Foot is quite the family man and has a wife and children. They were the perfect hosts, except when the younger family member pelted him with heavy objects as he tried to flee. They embrace the vegetarian lifestyle because they really care about their health and the environment, but they aren’t stuck up or weird like the vegans. There are several independently-sighted reports that they like to throw rocks at people, so it’s possible that one of his offspring could have what it takes to play major league baseball, what with the natural love of pitching and the acuity for health foods.

From all of the purported video footage that I’ve seen, Big Foot likes to keep to himself while communing with nature, but he’s not a snob. One video that made its viral way on to the internet just yesterday even showed him politely waving at a motorist who stopped to let him cross the street. He’s just an all-around good guy, the kind of guy you’d like to have at your barbecue. If he wasn’t a vegetarian, that is, although I guess you could do a whole grilled vegetable platter for him and his family. It’s only courteous to make sure the different beliefs of all your guests are respected.

It’s entirely possible that the reason Big Foot sightings are so spread out is due to his grueling work schedule and if that’s the case I’m not sure I want to be him. I know that his job as the official spokescreature for Jack Link’s-brand beef jerky might involve fourteen-hour days while they’re in video production, and that can really be rough. Just look at all the celebrity marriages that crumble like L.A. faux bacon due to the crazy hours a two-celebrity family keeps. But if he’s got the kind of job where he can take several weeks off at a time all throughout the year, I might be interested. Of course, he’s perfect for a civil service position like game warden or fire ranger, which would be a cool job even if I wasn’t Big Foot. He could have a sucky dangerous job like moose wrangler, though, in which case I’m not physically equipped for the job.

That would be just my luck, to be the world’s shortest Sasquatch. I think if people saw me running through the woods without any clothes but I was covered in hair, they would think I was just an oversized woodchuck or a misplaced juvenile gorilla, and nobody whips out the camera phone to capture the antics of a rabid lesser primate.

The worst part about being Big Foot would probably be the would-be paparazzi. Just this week a man in North Carolina who claims to have not only seen Sasquatch on several occasions but actually “poked him the chest with this stick” released a video interview to the local news channel. The interview took place porch-side from his manifesto-writing shack, but it was very difficult to see the man as he was wearing camouflage print from head to toe. The six missing teeth were also vaguely distracting.

This mountain man claims that his dogs “got to barking” one night, so he looked out to see Sasquatch standing in his yard right next to the kudzu-covered 1983 T-top Camero that was missing one front wheel. The man shouted various obscenities at Big Foot before proceeding to poke him in the chest with a proverbial ten-foot pole in an attempt to run him off. The most damaging part of the interview was the fact that the man was actually wearing an oversized class ring from some school. I think it was Notre Dame, but I could just be projecting.

I guess it’s a classic case of thinking the nuts and berries are always greener on the other side of the Canadian wilderness, because surely there are some downsides to being Sasquatch, like the constant invasion of privacy, the restraining orders against the townsfolk, being the butt of “Messing with Sasquatch” jokes. I personally believe he’s a live-and-let-live creature, but I’m sure even Big Foot has a breaking point. I’m still waiting for the live action camera-phone footage of him snatching up the offending photographer’s equipment and smashing it on the pavement while cursing like a pre-Oscar Christian Bale. Now that’s some film I would pay to see.

I live in a part of the country where road kill pigs are often seen feet-in-the-air on the side of the road, and occasionally a cow is, too. There is a store near my house with a live bait vending machine out front, just for those after-hours bait emergencies. I have seriously exited our Walmart and made my way through the parking lot to my car only to find a horse and buggy in the parking spot next to mine.

Even worse, an aquaintence of mine had to do some community service in an outlying part of the county and when he arrived at the Town-That-Deliverance-Forgot, he wondered aloud if he would have to use an outhouse while there. The deputy supervising the workers passed out some mud-crusted shovels and replied, “Not yet, you can’t. You’re here to dig the outhouse.”

So it’s always a little bit of a surprise when something “big city” happens in our area, like a celebrity passing through on his way to somewhere else or finding out that more U.S. astronauts have attended one of our state colleges than any other university in the country. Two of the elements on the Periodic Table were identified by scientists at that same university, but they chose stupid names so someone else in the scientific community gave them more prestigious-sounding titles. I, for one, refuse to believe that astatine is a better name than alabamium, and I’m not even from here.

We do have trouble naming things here, I’ll admit. I know of several towns that were legally forced to choose different names for themselves after it was discovered that the chosen name had already been used by another town. Sadly, nobody ever seemed to realize it until they noticed they weren’t getting any mail. I now live in my second town in this state that was forced to give up its original name under duress. As if Poplar Head is so wildly…well, popular…that TWO towns called themselves that? And my current home town actually used to be called Lickskillet. I refuse to believe that idiots from two different towns independently of each other decided, “Hey, I know, we’ll call this place Lickskillet.”

It often seems that there was a massive contest during the Southern land rush to see who could come up with the best drunken name for their town. Frog Eye, which was not to be outdone by Pig Eye, almost wins the title, but Possum Trot (minus the O) and Slicklizzard are still in the running.

The various town founders throughout this great state really should have put more thought into this, if for no other reason than the beauty queens. Yes, I’m talking about the legendary art form known as pageants. These girls give it their all and they are completely unappreciated. They learn to pageant walk before they can crawl. Some of them have won crowns for Miss Photogenic off their smiling ultrasound pictures. All of them have fake teeth inserts and fake boob inserts from the moment the hit pre-puberty, and for what? For some fat, old mayor to crown her Miss Pin Hook 2010? Does that actually look good on a college application? That you were the beauty queen of a town seriously named Intercourse? YOU are Miss Intercourse? And your mama didn’t stop you?

I’m not really sure how long I’ve been a Communist, but after seeing the names that people choose for babies and towns, I’m starting to think a Government Office for the Naming and Identifying of Sundry Things might be necessary. Picture it, you walk up to the window with your sweet new bundle of joy and an old woman with hopefully keen eyesight squints at Junior and says, “Yup, he looks like a William to me.” I suppose it’s a slippery slope, because from there we could have a separate office for naming your town. At least that way we’d have a record that there already exists a lovely hamlet called Cluttsville.

I’m officially nominating my husband for sainthood. I don’t know if there’s an online form I can fill out or if there’s an application process, but surely someone with this much patience will be recognized by the Catholic Church. Maybe there’ll be a link on the Pope’s new Facebook page, kind of like the Like button, because that would really be handy.

My husband has put up with my complete lack of concern for all of the mundane day-to-day things in our lives for almost fifteen years, so he finally deserves some recognition. I’m really good at keeping up with important data like where the bodies are hidden, but when it comes to the mind-numbingly pointless things like investing for retirement, I’m out.

At the end of January, he gathered a ridiculous amount of paperwork that he claimed he needed in order to file our taxes. Now, right there, I would have been in federal prison ages ago because every year it’s kind of a surprise to me that people scramble to file their taxes. You wouldn’t think I would find it all that superfluous since I’m a state-employed teacher and the reason there are Nikes on my feet is because people pay their taxes, but I just don’t think of these things.

While he was working on the taxes, he took a break to come downstairs for some bread crusts and a glass of water, when he drew a deep breath from an oxygen tank that I keep handy for use during bouts of heavy thinking and announced proudly, “We put $10,000 in our IRAs last year.”

My second thought was, “We have IRAs?” Sadly, my first thought was, “Holy crap, we’re Irish terrorists? Oh wait, he meant…” Fortunately, another one of those really funny Geico car insurance commercials came on and distracted me from saying anything that made him think I don’t care about that.

And sadly, I don’t care about that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that we pay all our taxes since prison really sucks, and it’s wonderful that my retirement plan no longer involves the Rapture. But part of what makes us perfect for each other is he’s able to focus on these random tasks while I focus on the important things like making sure each child leaves the house wearing two vaguely similar-looking shoes and everyone who needs an exploding volcano project for school today has one. No, in the grand scheme of things the volcano isn’t going to make a huge worldly impact (pun intended), but the fact that we each delegate our own responsibilities is what makes our marriage work.

We have held on to our respective positions on opposite sides of our responsibility boundary lines for years, and these lines are not to be blurred. One of the husbandly roles I gladly gave over to my sweet darling early in our relationship was the concept of Man’s Work. Basically, he informed me from day one that there is Woman’s Work and Man’s Work. I was suspicious until I saw how this could work in my favor. According to his definition, anything inside is Woman’s Work, and anything outside is Man’s Work. Logically, cooking and cleaning would be Woman’s Work and yard work and oil changing would be Man’s Work.

Unless you take into consideration that there are discrepancies. For example, garbage accumulated inside, but then it has to be carried outside, so by right of exit I deemed it Man’s Work. Groceries have to be cooked in order to be eaten, but groceries originated at the store and then the trunk of the car, which are both outside, so cooking became Man’s Work. Cleaning something means it must have gotten dirty, and dirt came from outside, so cleaning is Man’s Work. He didn’t like where this was going, so he agreed to shut up and split the chores.

I do allow him his Man’s Work concept of yard maintenance, because getting to spend an evening nurturing his own three-fourths acre of the planet into green bliss is something that gives him some me-time. And because he has always claimed that I am not to do anything resembling yard work because (wait for it) it’s beneath me.

As I am his pampered and treasured wife, he believes he would lose esteem in the eyes of his neighbors if he allowed me to toil under a hot sun like a field hand. And I have faithfully cultivated that belief to this day. Of course, I’m not a moron. I know he’s only telling me that so I will keep my destructive, agriculturally-incompetent little hands of his shiny red riding mower. It’s not that he thinks yard labor is beneath me, it’s because he doesn’t want crop circles in his front yard. And because he’s seen the damage I can do with a motorized vehicle.

But I’m not too proud to take his explanation at face value and wave from the shade of the porch as his parched body makes another pass on that riding mower. I’m even happy to put on my pearls and high heels 1950s housewife-style and carry him out a glass of iced tea once in a while, gushing with praise of his lawn care skills while he mops sweat with a rag and tries to bring some of the color back to his sweat-drenched face. That man is a saint, I tell you.

I am not a fancy person.

I don’t wear much jewelry other than my watch and a plain gold wedding ring. I loathe make-up, mostly because it’s never going to stay in the spot that I applied it. I don’t get my hair or nails done due to the violently creeped-out feeling I get from having strangers touch my hair or point sharp instruments at my cuticles, and I can’t help the feeling that most of the nail places are manned by beautiful young Chinese women who may have trained in those prisons where they shove bamboo under your finger nails. I don’t drive a fancy expensive car because any vehicle I drive is going to have its interior glowing an orange hue from a fine dusting of Goldfish cracker crumbs at all times.

I’m basically eight notches above Amish. Well, I love my Keurig coffee maker too much to be Amish, so I guess I’m closer to Mennonite.

One of my iron-willed standoffs is my absolute refusal to wear uncomfortable clothes in the name of fashion. Of course, my job requires my wardrobe to be functional, and by functional I mean I have to be able to move. And by able to move I mean I have to be able to drop kick someone and pin him to the floor until backup arrives, and you just shouldn’t do that in Manolos.

Our facility has had a dress code for the guards for quite some time, which is just simply a dark-colored shirt and khaki pants. Those of us in the school program were never required to participate in their costume party, but a few months ago I decided the standard uniform might be the answer to simplifying my life even more on crazy school mornings. Or maybe it’s just my fond nostalgia for all things Catholic-school.

So I invested in a few pairs of identical pants and as many clearance-rack black shirts as I could find. I did purchase a couple of navy blue shirts for the days when I’m feeling festive and my creative side just has to shine through.

Every bespectacled reference librarian, dwelling alone in the darkest recesses of the stacks, has a wild side. Some are weekend pool sharks, others are involved in adult phone chat. You know you’ve pictured that frumpy old woman who appears prairie-dog style from the shelves to shush you angrily as having a wild dominatrix side.

Sorry, dearest audience, my secret wild side involves nothing more eyebrow-raising than bicycles. No, not riding naked through the streets Lady Godiva-style. Not even creating erotic sculptures out of bicycles with a welding torch and spare parts. Just riding them. Plain and simple.

Well, as plain as a Felt S22 full carbon racing bike with bladed forks and tapered head tubes can be. The X-Wing handlebar was extra but so completely worth it. Our collection of racing bikes contains more seats than we have rear-ends in our family and puts the total insurable value of our garage as more than the value of any other room in the house. The most recent member of our Tour du France Dream Team costs more than my first car. And my second. And the down payment on my third. Combined.

The vehicle I drive would not have been my first choice in a perfect world. Face it, no one actually wants to drive a minivan, they do so because it just makes sense. In our case, making sense means the bikes fit inside the van when we travel to races so we don’t have to risk anything happening to them on the rear bike rack as we drive on an interstate highway. We actually do have a rear bike rack, we use it to strap the luggage to so the bikes don’t get scratched by an overnight bag. It also gives the kids something to hold on to when we make them ride on the bumper. I’m kidding. No, I’m not.

My students are always very shocked to find out their elderly English teacher has this crazy hobby, one obviously meant for young studly people with spiky hair and a permanent tan. I guess they don’t realize, the younger you are, the less likely you are to be able to afford a $5000 bicycle. The fact that I still run marathons is jaw-droppingly astounding, which is insulting on some level. What about my appearance screams, “I spend my evenings curled up in my chair with a cup of tea before bed?” C’mon, what do I have to do to prove I’m cool? I wore my navy blue shirt!

Kathunk. That would be the sound of my husband’s body landing in the deep hole I had dug in the woods.

Kasplash. That’s what it would sound like if I shoved his body off a bridge into the storm-swelled swirling muddy waters where the alligators lay in wait.

Kasquish. That’s what it would sound like if it had rained a lot and the hole I had dug was kind of muddy.

Kafizz, his body being consumed by acid. Kacrackle, his body if I burned it, preferably in his ugly recliner.

It is really rare that I want to kill my husband. And for the record, if any law enforcement professionals happen to be reading, don’t reach for the radio to call for backup just yet. By the end of this post you’ll be willing to help me move the body.

First, there is a really profound distinction between wanting to kill someone and just wanting them dead. I don’t want my husband to actually be dead, now or ever. It would be soul-crushing to lose him. But occasionally, I do want the privilege of killing him.

Kill Him Case Study #1: The doctor was still stitching me up from giving birth to our first born (and no, as a matter of fact, I did NOT have a c-section) when his cell phone rang. It was his high school buddy, sweetly calling to ask if I’d had the baby yet and how I was doing. Dead Husband replied, “I don’t know what all the screaming is for when somebody gives birth on TV, it doesn’t hurt.”

Kill Him Case Study #2: During my labor with our second child, he LEFT ME AT THE HOSPITAL because a potential client he’d been meeting with for weeks suddenly decided to sign up with Dead Husband’s company. Now, if Dead Husband had simply said, “My wife is in labor, we’re in the hospital right now,” I’m going to bet the second born child that the client would have been mortified and agreed to meet with Dead Husband at his earliest convenience, say sometime after I’d had the baby. Nope. Left me there.

Kill Him Case Study #3: And this one’s the doozy, the absolute He-Must-Go clincher. Some time while we were still dating, Dead Husband made the comment that he would never be an organ donor on the grounds that there must be some great reason he was born with all of these squishy parts, and that whenever he should die, they were still legally his. We discussed it like calm adults, until I said, “But what about me? I could have your kidney, right?” He looked me right in the face and told me no, not even I could have an organ. And for some reason I still married him.

Fast forward to years down the road when we are both absolutely giddy, just staring at our FOUR-DAY-OLD firstborn child. Granted, I had given birth FOUR DAYS AGO so he had only been a father for FOUR DAYS. He waxed mushy poetic and teary-eyed about how he would do anything for our daughter. Right up until he said, “But you can’t have my kidney either.”

I was stunned. This man, claiming the status of FATHER simply by the biological right to the title, had just informed a baby who had only been alive for 96 hours that she could not have one of his superfluous organs if she had a medical need for it. You might think I got loud and angry, but I’ve learned that quiet threats are scarier, especially if there’s a soft Exorcist-accent to your voice when you speak.

“Hear me now, mudflap. If she ever needs your kidney, you can give her one or I can kill you and take ’em both. Mama has spoken.”

It has brought great peace to my household and my marriage relationship that I refuse to argue or nag. I simply don’t have the spare brain cells to waste on a stupid argument, so whenever he gets on a prissy tirade about how he’s told me fifteen times to check the oil in my car, I simply look at him, smile, and say, “Kathunk.”

He knows what Kathunk means, and he usually turns a little bit pale and backs up a few steps.

But recently, he had to go and do something heinously unacceptable. His company was the major underwriter of a concert in town, an elegant affair. I was handed the credit card “I Love Lucy”-style and given permission to get myself a new dress for the occasion. At the event, we were mingling with all of the beautiful people and I was pleasantly smiling at all of the company administrators he works with whom I’d never met.

Then he introduced me as his first wife. You know, because he thought it would be funny. Somehow. The only thing that kept me from ripping his throat out with my teeth like an angry puma was the knowledge that I still had his credit card and, believe it or not, there are actually some hurts that can be soothed by throwing money at them.

I continued to smile at all of the upper echelon of his company, grinning through that asinine joke time after time. Every time he said it, especially the times he enhanced the one-liner by telling people he still loved me but he had to trade me in for something shinier to go with how good he looked, I just envisioned all the ways he was going to die.

The best part was imagining the sound his head would make hitting each of the stairs as I dragged his body, still slightly warm and wrapped in the bamboo sheets he got me for Valentine’s Day, to the awaiting pit in the woods behind our house. The crime scene investigators would be really puzzled by the crazy blood trail because it would go down the stairs, then back up again, then back down again, then back up, over and over until I grew tired of the wonderful sound his head was going to make on those stairs. Thunk-thunk-thunk-thuuuunnnk (we’re missing a step)-thunk-thunk-thunk.

Dearest readers, please don’t think there is any reason for alarm. I will never actually kill my husband, because believe it or not he is still worth more alive than dead. Besides, once you go killing people you open a whole can of clean-up-the-mess worms and it’s just not worth the hassle. But that’s not to say that there aren’t a few people on Earth who wouldn’t improve this place by hurrying up and becoming organ donors.

Trashy romance novels are the fake butter flavored syrup of the literary world. You shouldn’t be eating it because it’s heart-cloggingly crappy for you and you really hope no one saw you drown your popcorn with twelve pumps from the self-serve machine at the concession stand, but you just can’t help yourself. I became hooked after once having to buy a specific title for a writing class in college. This one wasn’t one of those four-dollar paperback romance “novels” made popular by women in trailer parks (note: the English snob in me is requiring the use of quotation marks any time romance novels are referred to as novels in this posting…henceforth, but not in these parentheses). No, this particular “novel” cost just ninety-nine cents. The paper smelled like formaldehyde and the vivid descriptions oozed with low-classness.

Somehow there is a distinction between trashy romance “novels” and romantic literary novels (see? High-class = no quotes), the kind that are supposedly fine literature of a romantic genre like the ones written by Nicholas Sparks. The difference between his romance novels and a dime-store bodice-ripper “novel?” No sex. It’s only in Hollywood that taking your clothes off equals an Oscar, but I digress.

There is a very clear industry formula for trashy romance “novels” and it is unyielding. All of them have to go this route to be considered for publication.

Step One: a couple with absolutely nothing in common and highest disdain for each other are somehow inexplicably thrown together…maybe they are marooned on the same island or they’re both fighting to save the same farm but for different reasons.

Step Two: Over the course of a few chapters, they have their ups and downs but eventually develop a friendship-type bond, all the while dropping hints about how hot the other one is and forcing themselves through internal monologue to squash those lurid innermost thoughts.

Step Three: they can no longer deny the attraction and they have cheek-reddeningliny descriptive sex for no less than five pages. Seriously. It is a publishing requirement that the sex last at least five pages. By the way, any actual sex act cannot take place before page two hundred, or it classifies as the Erotica genre. Apparently, getting to know someone for two hundred odd paperback pages then screwing him is normal behavior in all levels of society, but jumping on him on page ten is depraved and therefore a whole different category.

Step Four: something happens to make these two hate each other, and no, it can’t be regret about having sex in the tack room of the barn while the horses look on. One of them (almost exclusively the woman because we like her but the guy is a schmuck, just like the rest of them) finds out the other is a conniving liar and vows never to speak to him again. See, that’s where I lose the last shred of respect I ever had with trashy romance “novels.” If I had just been lured into the steamy naval commodore’s quarters and consensually ravaged for about eight hundred word count, then found out he was a big fat Mr. Pants on Fire, he wouldn’t have vital organs anymore. This would no longer be a trashy romance “novel,” it would now have to be shelved under Mystery/True Crime Drama.

Step Five: the real-live villainous character is revealed, usually someone whom the heroine had at least some form of attraction to but thankfully never boinked (she was able to hold back when it came to this guy, apparently), and the couple gets back together. It is ALWAYS implied that they are getting married but they rarely do, mostly due to the fact that the biggest purchasing audience of these “novels” is not married and is sad about that, so proof of lifelong happiness for the couple would be a turn off.

There it is in a nutshell, and I wish to all literary gods that I was making it up.

The biggest shock in reading today’s romance “novels” has been the portrayal of safe sex practices. While I heartily applaud the industry as a whole for promoting the concept in this day and age, it’s still surprising to read it in 12-pitch font whenever the pirate/lord something-or-other/cattle rancher/vampire actually stops to don a condom. Seriously? Even the undead can carry STDs? I mean, it’s kind of awkward and “mood breaking” enough, at least for the reader but apparently not for the swooning couple, but it’s very distracting from a practical editorial standpoint. My mind immediately starts to wonder why this captain of a pirate ship just happened to have prophylactics available. I mean, these guys are at sea for months at a time and Captain Darknhansom had no way at all of knowing that the Duchess Jasmine du Heavingcleavagier would end up shipwrecked on a nearby island that he happened to be sailing past, using all of her corsets and sundry undergarments to stoke the flames of the signal fire which left her feeling practically naked at all times and unable to leave the cabin of the pirate ship/rescue vessel, even for the meals which the Captain was kind enough to personally bring to her room in case any of the crew men should see her and think she was unladylike. Does the author really expect me to believe that a pirate ship comprised solely of swashbuckling and scurvy-ridden men without so much as a woman in sight to do the cooking keeps condoms on board just in case…oh wait. Never mind. I get it now.

And where is the practicality? I would have to use my imagination to let this scene unfold, but if I’m about to give in to the undeniable feelings I have for the rugged game warden who takes me out in his boat on the bayou supposedly to find out who’s been shooting all the alligators and setting up out-of-season crawfish traps, and he magically has a condom with him, wouldn’t you think I would be kind of insulted that he was just carrying that around with him in case I was easy? I don’t recall reading that he dug around in his wallet for one he placed in there back in seventh grade to look cool to the other guys. He didn’t reach over into the boat’s live bait well where he stores odds and ends type stuff, and even if he did, how reliable can it be if he’s been driving it around in that boat in the hot sun for ages? Plus, ewww! How many other women have gone boat riding on the bayou with this guy? He keeps condoms strategically stashed around his boat just in case? He’s a Cajun game warden, for crying out loud, not a pro football player! Seriously, how often do hot women throw themselves shirtless at this guy? Oh my gosh!

You may already be wondering why it is that I know so much about these “novels.” Admittedly, these “novels” are the kind you don’t mind reading for a weekend at the lake house with your best girlfriends and a lot of margaritas because you’re all a little bit drunk and basically unbathed in a vacation free-for-all, but when you get back home to your high-class world of flush toilets and remote controlled televisions you leave them stowed in a closet like some nineteen-year-old boy toy you met in the layaway line at Kmart . It would be career suicide (well, okay, very embarrassing) if anyone from work found out you read “books like those,” so you look down your literary nose and scoff, all the while knowing they are your own dirty little secret.

What you don’t know is that these tiny little tomes, these raging infernos of lust and moral abandon, are actually vital gems of the grammatical world. These volumes keep the life burning in words that the rest of society would like to sweep under the rug, words like any of the sixteen different names for the male genitalia I found in one title alone. No, I will not list them here. Buy your own damn copy.

A trashy romance “novel” is way better than a thesaurus for coming up with alternate words in a pinch. If you ever need an awesome verb to describe the way someone was lathering up in the shower, try trashy romance, preferably one with a blonde, shirtless farm hand on the cover. If you need a great euphemism to whisper to someone behind your hand to describe any given sex act, even ones that are illegal in twenty-two states, it will be in there. Ever have a use for limitless adjectives describing a man’s sweat-sheened chest? Or adverbs to describe the way a mismatched pair of sexually frustrated royals are gazing at each other? The twenty-eight pages of various coupling in, Jezebel: The Preacher’s Wife, will supply enough synonym fun to last you through all forty-one chapters. Roget’s got nothing on these writers. NOTE: don’t bother going looking for great prepositions in there, the only ones that get used are “on” and “under.”

Leave off with the jokes about becoming inspired in the bedroom thanks to the acrobatic antics of the implausibly aroused characters in these books. No reader in her right mind, and right-mindedness might be a tall order when it comes to the people who devour these “novels,” should succumb to the belief that zoologists the world over are actually having wild Discovery Channel-style sex on their desks at work. Heck, scientists of any ilk are just grateful to be having sex at all, let alone with the hottie lady Ph.D. botanist who suddenly finds herself having to share office space with the aforementioned smoldering-yet-completely-infuriating zoologist due to a cruel twist of funding-cutting fate (I swear to you that is the storyline of one such “novel” that I literally have in my possession). However, for the record, many kudos to the authors who decided gorgeous females can be botanists and still have rampant sexual feelings. Preach it, sisters.

All in all, trashy romance “novels” might seem to be the seedy underbelly of the publishing world to the rest of mainstream society, but it could be so much worse. I haven’t had the courage to delve into the ones shelved as Erotica, mostly because the things that the women of lesser royalty are apparently capable of are shocking enough. There are some things you just cannot unsee.