Gagged Mannequin

 Pam’s adult kids always make me feel welcome when I visit Indiana. Really sweet.

This last trip, her son Spencer—invited us to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Which is already funny because Texas Roadhouse is where you go if you can’t afford therapy. Unlimited bread rolls? Yes please.

Now, before dinner, Pam casually mentions, “Oh yeah, we stopped by your house earlier. Took a little self-guided tour.”

Spencer dropped his fork.
“YOU went inside my house?”

This man looked like the police had just asked him if he owned a shovel and a suspiciously large backyard.

I quickly jump in, “No, no, no—we didn’t go in to see if you clean. We just looked around a little. I loved the Harley Davidson room with the two motorcycles in it.”

Because nothing says bachelor pad like, ‘Forget a sofa—let’s just park the bikes indoors.’

But Spencer is still panicking. His girlfriend’s staring at him like, do you live in a garage?

And then—Pam. Oh, sweet Pam. She says, “Well, I didn’t show her the mannequin standing at the window.”

Excuse me?

She continues: “I didn’t want bad words coming out of her mouth… so I put an ACE bandage around her face.”

WHAT. THE. WHAT.

Three sets of eyes at the table. Me, Spencer, and his girlfriend—all staring at her like she just confessed to burying Jimmy Hoffa in the backyard.

I’m thinking, human trafficking. I mean, who duct tapes a mannequin and thinks, “Yep, normal décor choice.”

Pam says it proud. She’s like, “Yes I did!”

I go, “Pam… now it looks like your son has a woman held hostage in his bedroom. Someone is gonna call the cops!”

And she’s confused.
“Why?”

WHY?! Ma’am, because if you Google “gagged woman,” your phone explodes, and the FBI comes to your house!

And that’s exactly what I told her. And she actually Googled it. Her eyes went wide. She shut off her phone, flipped it over, and went, “End of this conversation.”

Ladies and gentlemen, forget the Harley Davidsons. Forget the bachelor pad. Nothing says “welcome home” quite like a gagged mannequin in the window.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Really Just TWO?

Image
Camping is the life—especially when I’m the guest and others are responsible for all the work. We woke up to the sound of high winds rocking the camper, then… a huge crash! The awning. Yes, the awning. We had left it up, because why be sensible when the night is warm and balmy? It had been so hot that we hated following the “no generators after eleven pm” rule. We suffered in… not silence exactly, more like an Olympic-level flopping competition, twisting and turning to find some relief, drenched in sweat, like human puddles. Finally, a bit of relief as the wind quickly cooled everything down. And then—the huge crash! Oh no! The awning pole was bent just a little. Not catastrophic… yet. Clint, Pam's #4 sone swooped in like a tiny superhero and helped us get it down. By now, we were all soaked from the sudden rain, so really, what was the point of trying to stay dry? Survival mode: activated. Sweet Clint always the thoughtful one, brought us milk and cereal for breakfast. Tiny pr...
Read more

Fake Home Invasion

My daughter tells her husband and my grandsons, ‘Mema will be here tomorrow, so clean the house.’ Of course, the boys don’t do a thing. They’re gaming, chilling, living their best lives… until they realize' Mom  will be home in ten minutes.’ Suddenly, DEFCON 1 panic. What’s their solution? Do they grab a vacuum? No. Do they pick up the laundry? No. These geniuses go ' Let’s stage a home invasion. Maybe she’ll be so grateful she won’t care.’ They blacken Zak’s eye with shoe polish, tie him to a chair with a pillowcase over his head, scatter broken glass from the trash all over the floor—like a crime scene from CSI: Lazy Teenagers. And of course, Dad’s filming it. Because why clean when you can go viral? Brandy walks in, takes one look around, and goes, ‘What the hell?’ —and trust me, she does NOT normally cuss. She sets her bag down, pulls the pillowcase off Zak’s head… just shakes her head like, ‘This is my circus. These are my monkeys.’ Later, I’m watching the video and ...
Read more

Unrestrained Travis

Image
                                                       Unrestrained Travis    My brother Travis came to visit,  the same week, my mother-in-law passed away.    Perfect time for my kids to get to see Uncle Travis.    The morning of the funeral, we went to breakfast, Travis, my son, Montana,  daughter, son- in- law, grandsons and sister.    We googled a good place to eat near me. The Apple Barrel came up. 4.7 stars. That was the highest rated place with good friendly staff.   We are all dressed like we’re going to a funeral or maybe we’re a new band in town who knows?    “Travis, just behave for today.”   “I’ll try, but I’m not making any promises.”    Our family tries to be serious at a funeral.. We fail a lot.    My brother-in-law passed away a month ago. At th...
Read more