Well, gee--it seems presumptuous to tell a long story about mememe on my first visit, but ok- it can be a bedtime story.
HOW RAMBI SELF-IMMOLATES IN AN ATTEMPT TO BE A GOOD WIFE
It is the day after Christmas and I am hiding in the study. My husband has started on the taxes for my trades. I unfortunately had a very good first six months, which means that we'll owe a lot of taxes, despite the fact that in the last month our net worth is probably off 40%.
He suggested that I sell some of my (many) losers despite my conviction, which is based on experience, that they will all soar the day I sell. Since I keep my books a little different than it seems I'm supposed to, he has to figure out exactly what we REALLY made as opposed to what I want to say we made. For instance, in my head I never sell my core of IMGN that I bought at 2. I sell in and out another thousand shares for quick trades. But Dan says he has to show that I sold what I bought first, which made me mad. Which then made him mad. Everyone's mad. Ammo (Son #2) has to write college essays, he's mad. CW's (Son #1)computer crashed, he's mad.
So I decide to create an atmosphere of peace in the house. Tax Time Ambiance.
You know, a little Total Woman action. (OH dear, apologies to the feminists, if any)
I put pine oil on the lamp, and lit a fire, and turned on all the Christmas lights, and put on nice music. And then I decided to light all the candles in the living room.
I have a lot of them on the coffee table in an attractive Martha Stewart arrangement (oh no! Another wimpy Marabelle Morgan impression). For some reason, I lit the closer ones first and then stretched my arm over to reach the farther ones, but as I stretched, I noticed that the room suddenly grew much brighter. Because-- the arm of my Christmas sweater had gone up in flames.
I was holding a lit match, and stood up, trying not to let the match go out because I was low on matches and I still had several candles left to light. Silly me. I could have lit all the candles at once using my arm. It was amazing how fast that acrylic yarn went up. I smacked my arm against my side to put out the flames and set fire to my side. Then I tried to put my side out with my other hand and the other sleeve caught fire.
"Dan, I seem to be on fire," I said, hating to disturb him. Dan sighs and looks up from the kitchen table. There is this millisecond pause and then he leaps up, chair flying, and runs into the living room, where I am quickly becoming a little human tiki torch, and throws himself on me.
He is a big man and he snuffed me out in seconds, including my smoking hair. He did it by beating on me. In retrospect, I think he may have been a little more violent than necessary, but I was not in a position to argue.
The sweater looks pretty bad, but I had a turtle neck underneath it, so I never felt a thing. Just a nice warmth. And I lost all the hair on one wrist.
Dan checked to make sure I was out, shook his head, and went back to the kitchen, muttering, "You forgot to stop, drop, and roll" in an accusatory tone, which made me feel bad.
I guess I should be grateful that he didn't just look up, throw his coke on me, and go back to the taxes. |
