Time Machine Needed. Unironically.

I can't thank the inventors of DVR enough. When your husband has this ability to recognize faces he's seen for merely a second, even 20 + years ago (famous and civilian), watching anything becomes more of a test of patience than a free flowing experience.

The fact that I can pause everything while he blurts out "Do you know who that is?" has saved us both. It's like knock knock jokes between us. "Do you know who that is?" "No, who is it. What T.V., Movie, commercial, street corner did you see that person on?" And then he answers.

We were watching Scrubs a few weeks ago and the familiar rumblings began. Apparently some kid in a movie called Little Giants is now grown up and acting on Scrubs. Which triggered my husban's OCD. He even rememberd one of the lines. I haven't looked the movie up on IMDB, but we think it was about 20 years ago that it came out.

I paused the show, let him do his thing and then sat there with my mouth haninging open when he knew an actual line from the movie THAT HE SAID HE NEVER EVEN SAW THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH. Because I sometimes feel competitive, I squealed "Nanerpuss!"

"Would you stop it with the Nanerpuss?" "Oh, I see. You can quote a random line from a film from 20 years ago, but I can't sing a song from a Superbowl Commercial. From LAST WEEK?"

He does this with the Cosby show too. I'll skim past Nickelodeon or something and Cosby will be running. He'll start saying the lines before the t.v. does and I start trying to figure out how I can sell him to a reality show.

So here's what I need. I need someone to create a time machine and go back to the 80s. I need them to incorporate a message to Mr. Zoom that I love him, so very much. And that I'm allergic to dairy products. And please, if I provide a list of movies we have seen together, maybe he will stop confusing me with his ex girlfriends and/or telling me about films/events we saw together?

I'd settle for just the I Love Him part. Because he might not be able to tell when I'm rolling my eyes and screaming "You are Monkey Throwing Shit Crazy" at him here in the 2000s.

Please Don't Eat My Face Off

It's a butt cold Tuesday morning. Mr. Zoom and I are going through our morning routines trying to get ready for work. I'm in the bathroom and casually glance out of the teeny vent window that now has a perfect view of our neighbor's second story. They just added it in the last year or so, and as you will see, the house is still under a bit of construction.


So I look out and expect to see the usual. Plaster, wood, a tree branch or two, and sometimes a construction crew that we've been dodging for a lot of the time since now anyone on the neighbor's roof has a perfect line of sight into our bathroom. The room known as Where the Bad Naked Happens.


This is what I see:

DUDE. The Mothman just landed on our neighbor's roof and he brought his entire family.




That right there is a flock of Turkey Vultures, and they have this charming Horror Movie dance they do - where they stand up with their wings fully spread for many many minutes - absorbing the sun. I am convinced that this is also their satellite dish for collecting the souls of the naked and innocent people TRYING TO GET READY FOR WORK ON TIME FOR ONCE.


These pictures aren't going to give you any idea just how huge these things are. About the only scale for size you will have is the fact that the window seen on the house they are sitting on, that's a full size window. It's not a little bathroom one.


I saw one do this only one other time. And he was far on top of a telephone pole. When I saw him standing up there with his wings spread and holding it - I nearly drove off the road because all I knew of huge creepy birds with giant claws is what I've seen in scary movies.


I can't even begin to tell you how very creepy this scene is, especially when their bubbly red turkey heads are turning toward you and then angling with their giant eyeballs with every scream you make. I am positive they could carry off a poodle or wandering kitty cat. Probably both at the same time.

I ran for the camera after demanding that Mr. Zoom drop everything and "come here and look at this we are going down it's the apocalypse they are going to fly in here and eat my face off."

In my defense, the birds at the coffee shop attack me so often that I have to carry a stick with me when I go in there. If I don't have the stick, they fly at my head, sometimes land, and actually peck at my poor little helmet-less head while I scream and flail like a cartoon character. Those are just magpies. At most the size of a foot long subway sammich wing span.

Turkey Vultures are novelty 100 foot long party sandwiches with giant claws and wings that block out the sun when they fly at your head.

So then I did the only thing I could do. I went outside to try and get some better shots.

I came back inside and kept telling Mr. Zoom he should save himself. I could throw myself out there and while they attacked my head, he could get to the garage, his car, and drive away safely to work. He was watching the Nanerpuss Denny's commercial so he didn't hear anything I said.

About 5 minutes later the Mothman and his family flew back to West Virginia and we Zooms were able to get to the car.

Mr. Zoom, Magician. Almost.

Normally I would not watch the Superbowl. I'm not a football fan, even a little bit. But watching Mr. Zoom scream like a little girl is fantastic. So I parked on the couch to watch him watch the game.

You know, for a sport that is by all definitions "tackle", there's a hell of a lot of game stoppage for touching. But whatever.

At one point Mr. Zoom parked himself directly in front of me and I couldn't see the t.v. He sat right on the 3 inches of couch I wasn't occupying with his back to me. He has never done this. Ever. And it made no sense to me. I asked him "What in the frigging world are you doing?" He said "Just came over to tell you I love you." I replied "I thought you were coming over to fart on me." Because I'm the best wife in the world, I repay kindness like that.

He jumped up and said "WHAT?? I'd never do that to you. When was the last time I farted on you?" He seemed so genuinely hurt, I didn't have the heart to say "Oh, ok. So we have to count the times you were actually awake - which would be zero. But asleep...well, that's a whole different number system."

We decided that at half time he'd run out and grab some dinner for us. Because I didn't want him to lug drinks back with food, I looked over at my diet coke and decided to re-cap it and put it back in the fridge for later. And that's when I noticed something odd.

My diet coke was even more full after I had taken a few tugs on it than it would have been had I opened a brand new one. I got up and went to the fridge to compare to an unopened bottle just to be sure. AHA. Someone in the house was up to something, and it was Mr. Zoom. Caught diet cola handed.

I have a thing. Well, several things. One of them is that once I've abandoned a drink, I can't finish it. I don't have a strict rule or timeline or anything I can point to that lets even me know that I will be abandoning a drink, but it happens quite a bit. I'm not proud of it, but I figure there are worse habits out there. Mr. Zoom is the complete opposite. He can finish a soda he started days ago, simply re-capping it and storing it in the fridge.

Apparently Mr. Zoom had taken one of my abandoned drinks and kept it in the fridge. I had seen it, and giggled to myself because I think it's so cute that he thinks I'll ever finish an abandoned drink. Generally after 3 days or so I empty and toss it.

What he'd done was pour the abandoned diet coke into my new diet coke so that after I'd finished it, he could say "AHA! See? You didn't know the difference." And it might have worked, if I hadn't bothered to try and save that very drink for consumption later.

"Did you pour that old diet coke into the one on the table?" He raised his eyebrows and looked away. Guilty! "When did you do that? When? I didn't even notice!" He said he'd done it when he sat in front of me so that I couldn't see what he was doing. And it had worked. I laughed. I laughed some more and then said "SO, you wouldn't fart on me (consciously), but you'll try to trick me into drinking an abandoned diet coke?" "Yes" he said. What could I do but laugh some more.

And this is how I know I've married the right person. I already knew it, but things like this remind me again. I love that he won't let me have my crazy without a playful fight. I love that when I get him back, he will laugh at that too.