I’m sitting here in my big black, comfortable poppa chair in my living room…and I am still wearing my Indiana Jones hero hat.
I had to jam it on my head a little while ago when my Lady Wonder Wench made a sound that shattered two of the glasses in our kitchen cabinet. It was her “Oh my God there’s a bug” shriek that erupts every time she sees something that doesn’t look like a neighbor crawling somewhere in our zip code.
Most of the time, my Lady Wonder Wench has a warm and gentle Mezzo soprano voice. It was one of the many personal attributes that inclined me, when I first met her, to ask her if she had any love that was going to waste…although I must admit that what I really had on my mind was trying to persuade her to abandon as many of her fundamental principles of decency as I could, as quickly as I could. I remember telling her that “To err is human, but it can feel devine.” But she just gave me one of those soft, warm, Lady Wonder Wenchy laughs. That was the first time I’d heard anything like that. Even after all these years, it always reminds me of butter melting on my pancakes. Which is not really surprising when you consider that it came from somewhere inside Lady Wonder Wench.
But there are several things that can change that voice into something of a sonic weapon. The New York Mets in the process of booting another game is one. Also cold finger tips where they don’t belong…many women drivers in suvs talking on their cell phones…and bugs. For some reason, she can deal with bugs when they’re on the floor. But not on the wall, on the table…and certainly not on her needlepoint.
Unfortunately, over the course of the last few months, our living room has been bugged. And ours isn’t the only one. They’re all over the place, including the needlepoint shop where my Lady Wonder Wench gets threads, cloth, and the latest news. The needlepoint shop is run by a group of ladies, and most of their customers are ladies. And the ladies who work there are always trying to hide the bugs from the ladies who shop there, because there’s probably a lot of non-shatterproof glass around.
The bugs are roughly the size of an I-pod, but thankfully with a lot less intelligence. They’re so big that if they didn’t look so much like something out of a Si-Fi movie, you might want to keep them for pets. They appear out of no where, but then they just sit there as if they’re expecting a pat on the back for making such a good landing on your wall…or your table…or in this case on your needlepoint. They make a satisfying crunch when you do pat them enthusiastically on the back with a Kleenex, but they take revenge by leaving a smell that will clear your sinuses and those of your neighbors for three blocks around.
I keep my Indiana Jones hat handy, because I kind of like jamming in on my head, making a manly grunt, and grabbing a Kleenex on my way to assassinate a bug. I like the “You’re my hero” sound in Lady Wonder Wench’s pancake buttery voice when I do the heroic deed.
You may have noticed that every hero has to have a hat, or a cape, or something that makes him easy to spot for the pretty women who are always milling around in his movies and often in his bed room. And of course it doesn’t hurt that those hats or capes or whatever can be easily marketed to goose the profits of the movie studio for which the guy is heroic.
Indiana Jones in my kind of hero. He can’t leap tall buildings with a single bound like Superman, but he’s the kind of guy who might try doing it in two bounds if he thought some pretty girl was watching. He’s not particularly handsome, he’s not particularly tall, he’s just a nice guy who…like me…might usually figure the best way to keep from being annoyed by a dripping faucet is just to turn up the stereo…but then lose his temper and seriously consider unclogging an overflowing toilet with a twelve-gage shotgun if there was NO pretty girl…like my Lady Wonder Wench…watching, and generally keeping things under control. In other words, he’s my kind of guy.
Dick’s details quiz. All answers are in the current podcast. 1- What is it that 100 % of the guys listening to the podcast do that makes their women roll their eyes in opposite directions. 2- What is the biggest difference between men and women. 3- What do 85% of American women wear improperly.
Dick’s Details take your mind off your mind.
Some women’s voices are sexier than others. Lady Wonder Wench is at the sweatiest end of the scale. Aircraft manufacturers know that most pilots are men, and we tend to pay more attention to women’s voices than we do to men’s voices. I think hormones may be to blame. So the automatic instruments in a cockpit that say things like “That’s a mountain at 12 o’clock and a half mile…you may want to climb dummy.” are all female voices. Some people hear lots of voices that only they can hear. That can be confusing. And there are some people who take the time to listen to just a single voice in their own heads. And that voice can clear up lots of confusion. There’s a way to do that. It’s in the Quiet Hands personal audio cd. It’s called The Strong, Quiet Voice.
You’ll be amazed at how smart that Strong Quiet Voice in your own head can be. You’ll find yourself trusting it more and more. If you like The Strong Quiet Voice, you can just keep the podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just download it from the icon on the home page.
I have to admit, I really like jamming my Indiana Jones hat on…I always tilt it about 45 degrees to the left. As soon as I do that, I can hear the music…and feel the bullwhip in my hands…and best of all, there’s the Lady Wonder Wench sound…just like butter melting on my pancakes.