Arizona = HELL

The thermometer doesn't lie, bitches.

So I’m on the road again, posting Blu hoo from the passenger seat of a rented Volkswagen Jetta, which isn’t a bad car at all other than the fact that the entire interior is black plastic, which absorbs heat the way a Tena Twist ® takes on lady-pee. And if you look at the photo above, you can see PROOF that the temperature outside the Jetta today was 110 fucking hell-degrees. That means that if my calculations are right based on the relative size of the skin grafts I’m going to need on the backs of my thighs, the INSIDE of the four-wheeled-furnace was mother-fucking HOTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

I am just baffled that there are so many people in Arizona. Armadillos and tarantulas and scorpions and rattle snakes and other evil things that would naturally populate hell, I can understand. But what in God’s name possesses humans to want to live in this inferno? There are just miles and miles and miles of desolate terrain that look mostly like either elephant skin caked in clay or my heels in the summer months. I cannot conceive of the notion that someone looked out over the parched landscape of bakedom and thought, Now, THIS would be a terrific place to settle and raise a family!

It says a lot about a place when every, single Arizonian who found out that we are from Indiana looked at us gravely and asked, “Oh, my God. How are you handling the heat?” NOT. That’s how. I feel bad that mostly everybody looks like one of those witch heads we used to make out of shriveled apples at Halloween when we were kids. I kept wanting to stick cloves in everyone.

And all of the plants just look angry. I mean, there are 10-foot cacti with needles the size of, like, butcher knives, which means that they are almost as big as the one needle that asshole doctor stuck in my knee last year.

This plant will kill you in the night and like it.

There was a kid’s birthday party going on in a neighborhood we passed. All the torpid children were dragging uninflated balloons on strings because what’s the point of blowing them up when the trees in the yard have built-in weapons? I totally made that shit up, but it isn’t hard to imagine. I also imagine this exchange happens frequently:            

“Mommy, can I go outside and climb the tree in our backyard?”

“Sure, Billy! Don’t forget to take your phone so that you can call 911 when the bleeding gets too heavy.”

No wonder all the children look sad. They are probably going to die if they go out to play.

Even the hotel pool wasn’t much relief from the scorchage. It was so tepid that either no one knows how to make cool water in Arizona, or there was a whole lotta peeing going on in there. From the taste of the water that went all up in my nose and down my throat when I stepped off a sudden, un-marked drop into the deep part, I’m going to have to go with that second choice. The only upside is that my sinuses are now sterile.  

So even though I love my dear friend whose wedding occasioned my journey to sunny, Arizona (which is Navajo for “Fuck you, white people for forcing us to live on this God-forsaken reservation; We curse you to drink your own pee and die.”), I probably won’t go back any time soon. You know what they say: “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the Arizona.”

What IS It with Me and P?

This post brought to you by my bladder.

Day before yesterday, I was minding my own business when out of nowhere, I was bombarded by pee. First, before I could mute the t.v., that stupid Tena Twist ® commercial came on. You know what I’m talking about. Tena ® is a product for bladder control issues, and the embarrassing commercial features several average women (read: NOT thin) dancing with abandon to the twist, made popular by Chubby Checker in 1960. 

On a side note, Chubby was recently in the news because he strongly (and legally) objected to a new phone app called the "chubby checker" with which men can check the thickness or their...yeah. You get it. The problem with the app is that any guy who uses his phone for that purpose is a dick all over. But I digress.

Tena Twist ®. That's where I was. The point of Tena Twist ®, I guess, is that while you are dancing, and pee is just squirting out, the bladder control pads or briefs (gaaaaaccckkkkkk) will sop it up so you can continue looking like you are having spasms more-or-less to the beat of a 50-year-old tune. Because there is nothing more mortifying than visiting your doctor to learn the physical reason behind your leakage except maybe enduring a price check over the intercom in Wal Mart after you plop down a package of pee-leaky pads in front of guy buying a pack of Marlboros and a foreign couple who consistently ignore the "20 items or less" sign and haul up two buggies of supplies for their restaurant.

Not that I've had that experience. Yet.

My second urine run-in happened just seconds after I saw the Tena ® ad. I got up from the couch because I'd had to pee for, like, an hour, and now could no longer hold it because people on t.v. were all excited about having to pee. It must be noted that due to my recent knee injury, it takes a few moments for me to adjust to standing. So before I could quite get into fully erect mode (i.e., in which I can clamp together my gargantuan thighs in order to "hold it" when I have to go), my bladder went on the offensive. 

I didn't have that regular sensation that occurs when I pee with permission. This was more like an imaginary imp pouring a 2-liter of warm something down my legs. There were no tissues nearby--which seems impossible since I keep Kleenex ® in business with my allergies--so I had no choice but to wad up the bottom of my nightgown to stanch the golden gift. Class-saaaaaaaay. Needless to say, I will be burning that garment.

So then, in my effort to make it to the potty before the coming deluge, I was stumbling down the hall clutching my peeful crotch when I stepped in a huge, cold, wet patch of carpet. My extra-thick sock wicked so much liquid that some ground water came up. I snapped my head back to glare at my poodle, and she slinked her 14-year-old bladder out of view. Bitch.

I can't tell you how much fun I had hopping on a damaged leg while trying to hold a gallon of urinary juice inside a sack with no cut-off valve. I was like a palsy victim trying to run while carrying a giant mixing bowl of sloshing water. Pee everywhere!

I finally made it to the bathroom, but it was academic. In the end, I could not get the pee to go in the one place it was acceptable. Screw incontinence! If you need me, I'm sure you can find me cleaning something. But at least I won't have to pee.