I Win at Punching.I Fail at Marriage.

I write romance. I hope that some day, some super smart person will publish my awesome romance, because it is awesome.

But there are days when I feel like a fraud, a sham, a sham-un-wow! Because while the husband and I love each other an epic amount, and I truly believe we are soul mates in manner of Han Solo and Princess Leia...

sometimes I punch him in the face.

It happens in the middle of the night, and I think it may be caused somehow by zombies. It's not my fault, no matter what Ricky says. Here's what happens.

* Indicates me guessing the events, since I am asleep *

Lucy: Zzzzzzzzzzz.

Ricky: *Rolls over. Scooches toward Lucy. Touches her lightly on the arm in a loving manner.*

Lucy: "Hgggnthhthg."

Ricky: *Sighs handsomely. Puts head on Lucy's shoulder. Whispers: "You're the most beautiful woman who lives, and who ever lived, and I'm including supermodels."*

Lucy: "GgGGGGGGrrrrrrr!"

Ricky: *Kisses Lucy's cheek.*

Lucy: LUCYSMASH!!!! FLAIL! KICK! PUNCH! OMG SOMEONE IS ATTACKING ME!!! PUNCH AGAIN AND THE FLAIL FLAIL FLAIL!!

Ricky: "Aaaaaaaaahhhh!"

Ricky flees to the edge of the bed, crying in horror and rocking and moaning "Why? Why? Why?"

The next morning, Lucy awakes refreshed! She tosses her raven locks and turns to greet her love, her husband, her little cuddle muffin!

Lucy: I love you, cuddle muffin!

Ricky: Cuddle muffin your face, stupid mean nasty... (random muttering). I hate you.

Lucy: What? How can you say these things, my darling one?

Ricky: You punched me in the face!

Lucy: That doesn't sound like me. Was it zombies?

Ricky: NO IT WASN'T FUCKING ZOMBIES! GRRRrrrrr.

Lucy: It must have been zombies. Kiss me!

Ricky: [Unprintable.]

About the 837582865th time this happened, I began to believe his version of events, despite its lack of zombie action. I punch him in the face when he tries to love on me in the middle of the night. I don't know why. You'd think he would stop trying, but every once in a while my fabulocity gets the better of him (naturally) and he tries again, only to be kicked in the elbow and/or thyroid.

I would like to put this in a romance novel, but I don't think an editor would let me.

So what have we learned today?

Punching is the opposite of romance. Don't punch!

At Least It's Not Farting

My name is Lucy and I have a problem.

Actually, I have a lot of them. In no particular order:

• I'm short.
  
• Really short.
  
• I have feet so small they only make Hello Kitty shoes for me.
  
• I have a pathological obsession with my blanket, Blankie.
  
• I think I'm funny.
  
• Really funny.
  
• Hahahaha I just thought of a terrible new pun.
  
• I have a short attention span, like my height.
  
• I never remember how to spell deliscious. Deliicius. Oh, fine YUMMY.
  
• I think gargly is a word*.

But the problem I am going to talk about today is my burping.

I burp. A lot. And I do it aloud. In a big, resonating, gargly* way. Now, I am a small lady, as I may have mentioned, and I love to look girly and flowery in dresses and heels. So there I'll be, bopping around LA LA LA and then BBBBAAARRRUUURRPPPPPPPPP!!1!

Oops.

Children flee in terror. Animals bark and/or roar. Old ladies shake their canes.

And I laugh.

Yes, not only do monstrous burps that sound like they ought to come from James Gandolfini escape my red-lipsticked lips, but then I think they're cute and amusing.

THEY'RE NOT, OKAY?

Everyone tells me they're not:

• My husband
  
• My co-coworkers
  
• Random strangers
  
• My cat
  
• Santa
  
• The cast of Battlestar Galactica

But I can't help it! Sometimes I try to stifle them and make the sound stop. But then, other times, they just fall outta me like spray tan oozes off the cast of The Hills. Uncontrollably!

I don't know what to do. Doesn't matter what I eat.

I am Lucy, and I'm a burper. THERE I SAID IT.

Stay tuned for my book "THE ITALIAN RICH GUY'S SHORT YET BURPY SORTA-VIRGIN BRIDE"!

Yeah.

Anatomy of a Home Improvement Project:Husband Edition

Step 1: EXCITEMENT!

Saturday, 1pm.

Ricky: You’re going to love it when I’m finished! It’ll just take a couple of hours.

Lucy: Wonderful!


Step 2: HANDY MAN... IS HANDY!

Saturday, 2pm.

Hammer, hammer, hammer. Grunt, grunt, grunt! Manly man wipes his forehead on his shirt, looking manly. Lucy approves and thinks dirty thoughts about her husband, but knows better than to interrupt the thump, thump, thump & drill, drill, drill sequence of events.


Step 3: CUE OMINOUS MUSIC

Saturday, 4pm.

Drilling gets louder. The hour grows later.

Lucy: What would you like for dinner, honey?

Ricky: What did you do with my drill bits?

Lucy: Drill whats?

Ricky: *growls*

Lucy backs away slowly toward the wall, in her best “Crouching Wife, Hidden Scapegoat” manner.


Step 4: WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?

Saturday, 5:00pm.

Lucy jerks her head. What was that noise? She looks up. Tiny pieces of ceiling scatter, floating gently to the ground like snowflakes. A wire protrudes from the hole, slinking down, down, down. She holds her breath in the silence. Should she say something? Is the wire supposed to be there, in the middle of the ceiling? Deciding that the entire ceiling could fall in before she’d go upstairs and interrupt Captain McGrunty, she goes back to her yoga.

Ricky descends the stairs -- clop, clop, clop. His unfocused eyes, beneath dusty eyebrows, narrow at the cord dangling above. He lets out a breath and heaves in another gulp of air. Then, slowly, he releases a series of foul invective the likes of which the world has never known! Words so curse-ey, so profane, they are illegal in most countries, and not even allowed on Fox!

Lucy cowers on her yoga mat in rabbit pose, lest a stray “fucking” or “goatblowing assclown” pockmark her dewy porcelain skin. Even the cat has the good sense to flee and sit in the bathtub, like they tell you to do during a tornado.


Step 5: DENIAL

Saturday, 5:10pm

Ricky: [Expletive.] [Expletive.] [Expletive.] This was supposed to be easy! Why is the *&%$#@#@$%$ wire going through the ceiling?

Lucy: Because you drilled a hole there? You look very handsome, honey.

Ricky: I put two holes through the wall upstairs.

*Crickets*

Lucy: Is that a new haircut? Aren’t your muscles bulgey today!

Ricky glowers, clops back up the stairs, and slams the bedroom door. The skies crackle and open up, releasing a deluge of Heaven’s tears upon the unsuspecting apartment. (Not really, but that would have been totally poetic. And wet.)


Step 6: GIVING UP

Saturday, 7pm

Lucy dons her flak jacket and oven mitts.

Lucy: Dinner’s ready.

Ricky: [Expletive.]

Only one [expletive], thinks Lucy. Progress!

Ricky: This was supposed to be done by now!

Lucy: (Grabs a butter knife just in case.) I made pasta.

Ricky: Don’t go upstairs.

Lucy wonders what has become of her bedroom. She imagines a scene from Apocalypse Now, but with more pillows.


Step 7: PROGRESS

Sunday, 1pm

Ricky’s sandy brown hair gleams in the sunlight as he stands on the balcony, working. He tells something out there to “fuck off.” Lucy grins, glad she’s not that thing. He comes back inside and fiddles at the wall. A few moments later, he smiles and poses, hands on hips.

Ricky: Look!

Lucy: At what?

Ricky: It’s a wall jack.

Lucy assures Ricky that it is the most wondrous wall to ever jack! She has never seen such a wall jack! That wall jack will surely go on to cure rabies, and win the Nobel prize in physics!

Ricky: My hands are all sticky.

Lucy: That’s what she said.

Ricky smiles at Lucy.


Step 8: HALLELUJAH!

Turns out that Ricky has connected the bedroom and the living room DVRs. They have become MEGA-SUPER-AWESOME-ROCKET-POWERED DVR, with twice the capacity and twice the unicorn powers of a single DVR.




Lucy tells Ricky that she has always dreamed about, nay, lusted for a MEGA-SUPER-AWESOME-ROCKET-POWERED DVR, and that her life is now complete! Kalu kalay!

The happy couple sits upon the couch and browses the cornucopia of television available to them.

Lucy: What’s that on your shirt?

Ricky: Spackle.

Lucy: I can get it off for you.

Ricky: That’s what she said.


FIN