Ramblings Of A Neurotic Housewife – Kimberley Zuehlke Anderson

Last Friday night Brandt was at a friend’s sleeping over so Merlin decided to take advantage of the alone time and asked me out on a date.  Married almost 14 years and Merlin still “asks me out”.  Aaaaaawwwww!  Very sweet, I know.  I love it.

We went to East Side Mario’s for supper, “Eh Budda Boom Budda Bing”!  It was delicious.  Until a few hours later when my innerds were doing their own version of the “Budda Boom Budda Bing”.  Not fun I tell ya.  Anyways, that’s not what this story is about.  We had planned to go to a movie as well but it didn’t start for a bit so we decided to kill time at Wal-Mart, we shop “high class” all the way!!  When we left Wally-World we still had time to waste so Merlin came up with two options, have sex in the car behind an abandoned barn just outside of town or go to a local thrift store.  Thrift stores give me the heebie-jeebies big time and sex in our car could be a little cramped.  It was a real tough decision.  NOT!  Off to Thrift Village we went!  Merlin said that they had recently painted inside and really cleaned it up so it didn’t smell like half dead mouldy old people anymore.  I was a tad sceptical but decided I would give him the benefit of the doubt since I really wasn’t too keen on getting the gear shift shoved up my ass while getting our freak on in our car.

As we drove into the parking lot I started to get a little nervous.  My right eye started to twitch, I broke out into a mild sweat, me left leg was bouncing up and down and my mouth got a little dry.  Do you know what a typical thrift store is?  I’ll tell you.  It’s nothing more than an orphanage for homeless germs and bacteria just waiting to be picked up and taken to a warm and loving home.  Do you know what happens when germs and bacteria go into a warm environment?  They multiply rapidly!  Eeekkkk!!  I was really hoping Merlin was right and this place was going to be different from the norm and be clean as a whistle.  I wasn’t really in the right frame of mind to be “adopting” anything.  Even though I was trying to be cool about this endeavour I still panicked a little as we headed for the door.  At the last minute I asked Merlin if we could maybe find something else to do.  I looked at him and he was doing his best attempt to look sexy, raising his eyebrows up and down and licking his lips and he said, “Well, we could go for a little honk honk toot toot in the car.  Cause you know I’m always in the mood to drive …… you!”  Alrighty then, Thrift Village it is!

Two seconds inside and one quick whiff and I knew it was germ fest 2009 greeting me.  Lovely!  I thought Merlin said it smelled nice in there now.  Bastard!!  I stood frozen at the door trying to come to grips with the fact that my own husband lied to me!  Sadly, it’s not the first time a dude has lied to me just to get what he wants.  Sigh ….. Back to my story.  When I finally snapped out of my daze I realized Merlin was already off checking stuff out so I couldn’t just grab him and run, I was in now.  So I decided I would be a trooper and try to blend in and act like this not a big deal.  I mean, people shop in thrift stores everyday and they live to talk about it so I just needed to suck it up.  All I had to do was breath through my mouth and then I wouldn’t have to smell the nastiness.  I always end up crouched over in a corner dry heaving when I inhale the aroma of other people’s body stink, mouth breathing prevents that.  I headed over to the women’s clothes to take a look.  You never know, maybe I might actually find something worth looking at.

I got to the first rack and started to flip through the hangers and instantly wished I had a pair of latex gloves in my purse.  One of the black shirts had what appeared to be dandruff on the shoulder of it.  Ack ack ack!  I gagged at the thought of touching someone else’s dead dried out scalp skin.  As I gagged I gulped in air and I swear, I could actually TASTE the germs.  God give me strength!  It took me a couple of minutes to regain composure and I forged on with my big adventure in germsville.  I didn’t want Merlin to be disappointed in me and think of me as a total snob so I ended up grabbing three shirts (dandruff free) and a pair of capris to SHOW him.  He looked so impressed and proud of me for getting past my fear of other people’s germs and unknown sources of bodily stink.  He flashed me a huge smile, I could see the admiration in his eyes, then he said, “Let me see them on you before you take them off.”  Whoa nelly!  Let’s back up here a minute.  He wanted me to actually put these garments containing copious amounts of germs, bacteria (most likely flesh eating disease) and bearing this aroma of fecal matter and moth balls next to my bare skin??  Lord have mercy!  I was trying to be a good sport and grab something to LOOK at.  I hadn’t planned on actually trying stuff on.  I was about to tell Merlin where he could stick this stuff but he cut me off by giving me a little squeeze on my arm and said, “I’m so proud of you!  This is a big step.”  Aw f$%k!  As I slowly trudged over to the change rooms dragging my feet as if they weighed 100 pounds each, I was begging God to strike me down with lightening, cause me to have a heart attack or even send me to the ground suffering a massive brain aneurism.  That lasted for about four seconds because I wised up and realized that if any of those things happened I would end up on the floor …… the dirty, sticky, grayish hued floor.  What if I fell forward and my lips grazed that nasty floor!  Holy crap, that WOULD be the death of me for sure.  See, if my lips grazed the floor and then I licked them I’ve now ingested all the nasty germs and “ick” and I would have it all running through my veins.  Do you realize how hard it is to get rid of shit like that once it’s coursing through your entire body??  Putting the clothes on to humour Merlin didn’t seem too bad now. 

When I got in the change room I had turned sideways to hang the clothes on the hook with my left hand and without looking I pulled the door shut with my right hand.  As I slid the latch closed I felt something with my thumb, something that just didn’t feel right.  I had a really bad feeling about this.  I very cautiously looked over at my hand and I almost fainted.  Oh sweet Jesus!  My thumb had touched four, yup I said FOUR pieces of gum that had been chewed by god knows who with who knows what kinds of diseases and germs and then they stuck it under the latch for some reason.  Why?  Please, tell me why!  The insanity of it all!!!  My stomach flipped a couple times, then the change room suddenly got really hot and small and I could see bright lights flashing in front of me.  I braced myself against the sides of the stall, closed my eyes and thought about my happy place …… Crazy Cakes.  Mmmmmm …. it smells yummy there.  It’s clean there.  I feel happy when I’m there.  Mmmmmm.  It took me a couple of minutes but I was eventually able to pull myself back together and somehow managed to muster up the strength to keep going.

I pulled on the pair of capris and zipped them up and thought to myself that this wasn’t all that bad.  I COULD do this.  It even crossed my mind for a fleeting few seconds that these pants were very cute, all they needed was to be washed, about 20 times, and I could see myself possibly wearing them, maybe.  I looked in the mirror and noticed that there was a little dust or something on the upper and inner thigh on the right side, probably from when I dropped them before I put them on.  No biggy, I just needed to give them a quick brush off.  Wipe wipe.  I was good to g……. uh oh.  My spidey senses were telling me something wasn’t right.  Oh hell no!  I felt some pilling of the material.  My morbid curiosity took hold and I started running my hands up and down the inner thighs of the pants to see just how bad the pilling was.  It was bad …… it was REAL BAD!!!

Do you know what causes pilling on the inner thighs of pants?  Chaffing!  Thighs rubbing together as you walk.  These capris were made of 97% polyester and 3% spandex.  Do you know what happens when thighs rub together rapidly enough to cause pilling on polyester?  Things get warm.  Do you know what happens when things get warm in the inner upper thigh region?  You sweat!!  Oh lord have mercy!  I was just rubbing someone else’s sweaty thigh germs with my bare hands and was rubbing and grinding them into my own skin.  Ack ack ack!  I could picture some toothless, bra-less stinky, unbathed, sweaty trailer trash scuz bucket running around wildly in her trailer court with her head tossed back and cackling at a full moon working up a big old nasty sweat in her capris knowing full well that she intended to send them to a thrift store unwashed for some unsuspecting poor sap like me to come along and try them on.  See, trailer trash folk are like warewolves in a way.  If a warewolf bites you, you become one.  In the same kind of way, if you get trailer trash crotch sweat ground into your skin you become trailer trash too!  It was at that point that I threw up in my mouth.  It was not good at all!  I couldn’t get those capris off quick enough.  I whipped my skirt back on and went barrelling out of the change room, touching the used gum sculpture again in my haste causing me to throw up in my mouth again and making everything around me spin out of control.  I grabbed Merlin by his shirt collar and said to him in a voice resembling the chick in the Exorcist, “GET ME OUT OF HERE NOW!!!!”

Once we got outside I dropped to my knees and gasped wildly at the fresh outdoor air.  I rummaged through my purse (with a Kleenex on my fingers) looking for my anti-bacterial hand gel.  I emptied the whole bottle onto my hands and scrubbed up to my elbows first then I hiked up my skirt and slathered the remaining gel on my inner thighs in the hopes of sparing myself from dying from someone else’s stinky thigh and crotch sweat germs and bacteria taking over my body.

Once I finally calmed down and regained my composure Merlin asked if we could head to the theatre early so he could check out the new movies coming out.  Um …… yah …. that would be a big fat nasty NO!!  The theatre shares the same parking lot as the thrift store and even though it’s less than a city block away and the movie was starting in 40 minutes I insisted we head back home first.  I used the excuse that it was too hot out to leave our supper leftovers in the car especially since the movie was 2 hours and 16 minutes long.  Luckily, Merlin bought it.  Phew!  In reality, as far as I was concerned the leftovers were nothing more than a pain in the ass that we didn’t really need to have packed up and could rot and spoil in the back seat of the car.  My real concern was that there wasn’t enough anti-bacterial gel in the world to clean off these germs, I needed soap and hot water … and a whole hell of a lot of it!!

When we got home I made a mad dash for the bathroom, cranked on the hot water, grabbed my anti-bacterial soap, a face cloth, rubbing alcohol, Lysol spray, my netti put and a bottle of vodka.  I scrubbed my arms up to my arm pits with the anti-bacterial soap, I scrubbed my neck and chest, then I hiked my skirt up once again and gave my legs a good hearty wipe down.  I doused my hands in rubbing alcohol just to be extra cautious since I would be eating popcorn at the theatre later.  I filled my nettie pot and gave my sinuses a good cleansing because I had breathed in through my nose when we first walked in the store and got a fairly good dose of germs and stink and you just can’t ever be too careful.  I took a nice healthy swig of vodka and swished it around my mouth to kill off anything I breathed in and spit it out.  Naturally, I took a second swig and swallowed it.  In the old days they always gave you booze when you were in shock and I was at this point.  I was shocked that I hadn’t hurled my supper up completely after being traumatized this horrifically.  I had grabbed the Lysol so I could spray my shoes and my purse (they touched that oocky floor) and after doing just that I had another thought.  I wanted to be sure that my clothes weren’t harbouring any stow away germs and bacteria so I put a few spritzes of Lysol in the air and walked through the mist then I did it again so I could walk backwards through the mist to make sure I got the back of my clothes too.  I felt MUCH better.  When I went downstairs Merlin asked what smelled like apples (I had Green Apple Lysol), I told him it was a new body spray I had that was made by a company called Laysole, I said it was French, he bought that story too.

As we headed back out to go to our movie my head started to spin again thinking about the theatre.  Do you KNOW what a theatre REALLY is?  It’s just another orphanage for abandoned germs and bacteria!  Oh dear God, give me strength.

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