But Honey, I Can Explain! Read online

  After the recital debacle, and the truly memorable post-concert spanking that followed, I knew I had to do something. If I were to be spanked every time I either didn’t practice, failed to show up for a recital, or made rude and disparaging remarks about the inventor of the pianoforte, I would be permanently rosy pink from the waist down, my husband would be in the state pen, being romanced by some hairy guy named Bubba, and my orphaned children would be on the street, or worse yet, living with my mother-in law, who would make them clean their rooms and eat lima beans.

  I decide to sell the piano. In one clean sweep, I’ll get Mac off the financial hook, save my marriage, and my ass. Easy, right?

  Do you have any idea how few people there are in this country interested in buying a piano the approximate size of New Zealand? And of those who do, just how few of them are willing to fork over more than six hundred bucks? (My top bid. My only bid, in point of fact.)

  And so, in the full realization that I was looking at a net loss in the thousands, I decide to rid myself of the piano, at any price. It has come down to either the Black Beast or the good health of my nether regions.

  I opt for my sore backside, and sell the piano at the kind of financial loss that made a lot of people jump out of very tall buildings back in 1929.

  But, you see, I had a plan.

  A lot of my best ideas seem to come to me while watching television, which is good, because I watch a lot of television in the pursuit of my other hobby—sloth. In an old movie, I find the kernel of an idea, which seems workable, if not strictly speaking, honest. My plan? Insurance fraud. I will simply arrive home to find my beloved piano stolen! Neat, huh?

  I dash from store to store around town, tacking up ads for a used piano on every bulletin board in every market within fifteen miles of home. After a week, I have been swamped by the grand total of two phone calls expressing mild interest, one of which is from an individual named Rudy, who explains in more detail than necessary why he has gone bankrupt three times.

  My other possibility is a gentleman with a heavy accent—Egyptian, he tells me. He will meet my asking price of $600, in cash, which is approximately $13,398.26 less than we paid for the piano two months previously. I arrange for Mr. Hurrabi to pick up the piano the following afternoon, arriving at precisely one o’clock. He will bring a truck, he says, and pull around to the back of the house.

  The plot thickens, from this point, so please try to follow carefully.

  That morning, I decide to try one last stab at getting Mac to see my side of the issue, and forego any further pursuit of learning the piano. Mac has a heavy day ahead of him, and is not in the mood to re-open the discussion. I call him unreasonable, and several other names, which I will not print here. Mac responds as I might have expected, had I been thinking clearly, and orders me across his knee. Very childish, and without a doubt my least favored position, but I do it. I may be dumb, at times, but I’m not dumb enough to risk further irritating a man with a hairbrush in his hand.

  When I’m in position, Mac pulls up my nightgown, lowers my panties to my knees, and, with me draped there like so much wet laundry, explains what’s about to happen to my ass, and why.

  Mac is a big guy, and absolutely capable of forcing a spanking on me, if he wanted to, but the deal with us is, I have to cooperate by not fighting him. This is a fairly easy thing to promise, but a very hard thing to actually do, when the event gets underway. When Mac puts me across his knee, I know he’s planning on taking his time and making the spanking a real whopper. He’s under the impression that this position is more comfortable, but I think he also knows how embarrassing it is for me. Anyway, after a short lecture about how I am the most stubborn, blah, blah, blah, he delivers the first swat to my right cheek, and I swear to God you could hear the sound next door and down the block. I know you could hear my shriek, because what we’re talking about, here, is a very big hairbrush. He lands another smack on my left cheek, and pulls me further over his knee, so that my head is nearly touching the floor, and my ass is directly in the line of fire. In this position, I can barely touch the floor, and I can’t even kick my legs, or tense my cheeks, which always seems to relieve the pain a little bit.

  He absolutely scorches my ass, while I squirm and wail, and pound the floor. Finally, with my butt feeling like I’ve sat on a hot stove burner, I ask him to stop. That’s also part of the deal. If I say I’ve had enough, he stops— usually after at least one or two final, “I’m in control” whacks to show me who’s boss. I have to ask politely, and say I’m sorry, and the apology has to be sincere—also part of the deal— but he does stop. I’m usually very stubborn about asking, though, because the whole thing is often a war of wills. Generally, I take the blistering, and refuse to say “uncle.” Today, however, I have a lot to do. I have no time to waste being spanked. Besides, there’s another spanking in my future, for sure, whatever the outcome of today’s insurance caper.

  I get up, pull my panties up, and apologize. Mac kisses me on the forehead, and goes off to work.

  At 11:30 that morning, I call Mac at work and tell him that I’m going shopping. I’ll be out most of the day, until the kids get home at three. I back the car out of the garage, and make a great show of leaving. For the benefit of my neighbor across the street. I run over her garbage can, and then stop to chat for a few moments. She makes my job even easier by telling me she’s off to her bridge club soon thereafter. I giggle with delight as I drive around the block, park the car, sneak through two unfenced back yards, and crawl over the wall, into my own yard.

  At 12:45, I open the driveway gate, along with the sliding glass door from the den, where the piano waits patiently to meet its new owner. The timing here is very important, because my neighbors on either side are at work, and with any luck at all, Mr. Hurrabi and his new piano will be gone from my life by 1:30. At three, I will make a convincingly frantic call to Mac, who will then make a calm, collected call to the insurance company to report the traumatic loss of his wife’s beloved piano. See how simple? The tall trees surrounding our backyard promise privacy, and a comfortable getaway.

  At 12:52, Mr. Hurrabi arrives, at the wheel of a truck the size of Wal-Mart, with a bad muffler. The truck will not quite fit through the driveway gate, until Mr. Hurrabi, who is apparently under the influence of something other than coffee, backs over the gate and squashes it, which widens the entrance to the back yard considerably. The truck pulls around the back of the house, dragging the remains of our wooden gate and several potted plants. In despair, I begin to devise a story about my backing over the gate, which will probably get my butt paddled a little, but at this point seems like the only reasonable solution. Mr. Hurrabi steps from the truck, in the company of an extremely large, hairy, person inscribed from head to toe in grotesquely crude tattoos. The associate, evidently genetically female, identifies herself as “Woof.” When I point out that the piano is very heavy, and will require some heavy lifting, Woof informs me that she is “strong as shit,” and flexes a tattooed bicep (“Hell’s Angels”) to prove it.

  I direct Woof and Mr. Hurrabi to the piano, and watch, horrified, as they attempt to pick it up and carry it through the doorway, while I scream that it’s too heavy and that the door is too narrow. To move a grand piano through a small door, I explain patiently and a little hysterically, it is customary—even necessary—to remove the legs. Woof pushes me aside, explaining once again that she is strong as shit. She is also, apparently, deaf as shit, because when the piano crashes into the doorjamb and takes out a good portion of my music room wall, she doesn’t seem to hear the ensuing collapse of plaster and shattered glass. Trying not to scream again, I shove my fist in my mouth and hiss another warning about the six inch step-down to the patio, which Woof waves off as a matter of no concern at all.

  Woof is the first to tumble down the steps, followed instantly by Mr. Hurrabi, swearing in what I assume is colloquial Egyptian. In a stroke of phenomenal good luck, the escaped piano does not crush
both of my guests to a bloody pulp, but hits the brick patio deck fully upright, on all three sturdy legs, which, mercifully, do not buckle. Instead, the piano simply glides gracefully across the deck on its beautifully engineered casters, teeters for one titillating moment at the edge of the swimming pool, and slips over the edge with a barely audible splash.

  (Oh! Did I mention that we put in a swimming pool two years ago?)

  There is a long pause, during which no one says anything, but merely gaze a bit sadly into the bottom of the pool, where the piano sits, perfectly upright and apparently intact, in eight feet of crystal-clear water. (The pool guy came yesterday.)

  It is now 1:34, and not only is Mr. Hurrabi not gone from my life; he has now deposited his piano at the bottom of my swimming pool. Mr. Hurrabi disagrees, rather violently, with my assessment of who is the actual owner of the unfortunate piano, since he has not yet handed over payment, and suggests rather hotly that if I wish to contest the instrument’s current ownership, he will see me in court.

  At this exact moment, my nine-year-old son and a friend arrive home from school, and wander curiously through the shattered remains of the gate. It is “early closing day” at school, a fact I had somehow overlooked in my exhaustive planning. Both boys stand at the edge of the pool, and join the rest of us in watching as a thin line of bubbles rises to the surface, as if the piano is scuba-diving, or awaiting the momentary arrival of Esther Williams on the scene.

  “Cool!” breathes my son, (at whose birth I labored for eighteen sweaty hours.)

  “Awesome!” his little friend concurs. I decided that the child is an obvious nitwit, and not fit company for my own offspring.

  Mr. Hurrabi and Woof (Ruth, I have finally figured out,) crawl in the truck and back out of the driveway, shrieking insults, and dragging a portion of my back gate behind them. I turn to the only witnesses, debating whether to use bribery or blackmail to ensure their silence. The bribe sets me back twenty bucks.

  The problem with having a six-foot long, one-ton grand piano sitting on the bottom of one’s swimming pool is that it’s so there! Nothing can hide its annoying presence—not artfully arranged poolside furniture, not the pool float shaped like a giant green alligator, nor a cluster of partially deflated beach balls. Nothing!

  Of course, I had no realistic expectation of hiding from Mac the fact that there was a piano at the bottom of his pool; I hoped only to buy time. Enough time, perhaps, to change my name and move to Bangladesh, or to undergo major plastic surgery, or, when all else failed, to make up a good story—a believable story.

  1.) An accident while dusting.

  2.) An unsuspected major earthquake fault directly below the house.

  3.) Poltergeists.

  Believe it or not, these were my best ideas.

  Mac pulled into the driveway at the usual time, and walked into the house in a not-great mood, having already noticed the driveway gate in ruins.

  “What the hell happened?” he asked, in that level, mild tone of voice that always tells me he’s trying not to explode. The gate had suffered a similar injury only two months ago. Guess who was driving?

  “Just a tiny little mistake,” I say sweetly, rolling my eyes to show what a silly, adorable little thing I am. “I guess I turned too sharply. I’m so sorry, honey. Will it be just awfully expensive to fix?” God, it was demeaning! The things we women are forced to do in our own defense!

  Mac groaned, but put an arm around my shoulder. “You weren’t hurt, were you?”

  I gave a brave sigh. “Just a little bruise or two,” I said. “Nothing serious. But I’ve had a horrible day!”

  My Prince Charming kissed me, and wrapped his strong arms around my waist.

  “There’s just one other little thing,” I said, brushing away a tear. “Another little… mishap, I guess you could call it.”

  I decided to say it very fast.

  “I was vacuuming. I tried to move the piano. The piano rolled away, through the door, down the steps, across the deck, and fell into the pool. Can you believe it?”

  “No,” Mac said. “As a matter of fact, I don’t.” Just like that, he said it.

  With his hands in his pockets, Mac went outside and walked slowly around the perimeter of the pool several times, calculating the rate of descent, angle of penetration, whatever, just like that guy on “CSI Miami.” I sat on the stoop and watched him, trying very hard to remember why I wanted piano lessons in the first place and wondering if I’d be able to sit down by the time my daughter got married, in about twelve years or so.

  Finally, Mac came over to where I was, and sat down next to me.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on here, or should I try guessing?”

  “Well,” I began, “It was an accident.”

  Mac nodded. “Okay, I believe that. I don’t think that you’d purposely drown an innocent piano that cost more than the car, but I’m still going to need a story for the homeowner’s insurance. I won’t believe the story, of course, but maybe they will, if you’re good enough. Go ahead and give it a shot.”

  So, I told him the truth. I didn’t want to die with a lie on my lips.

  Final scene: Our living room, that same evening. Mac has just spoken to the insurance company, and provided them with my tortuous rendition of the events leading up to the piano’s demise. They are not pleased, but will send an adjuster tomorrow.

  Mac says he will adjust me, this very evening, and true to his word, I get adjusted.

  I’ve probably had worse spankings in my life. If there were time, I could give a brief account of several of the more unpleasant ones, but this spanking seemed worse, somehow— possibly because it was the first time my idiocy has actually involved either of us in what might be regarded by some tiresome, nit-picking insurance guys, as a crime.

  I am not spanked. I’m “birched,” actually—bent over the back of the living room couch, while biting on a sofa cushion to ensure my relative silence. In an apparent effort to make the evening memorable, Mac has chosen to go into the yard and arm himself with several switches from my beloved white birch tree, which, when bunched together, are possibly the most excruciating thing I’ve ever had used on my naked rear end. He makes it last a very long time, and is breathtakingly thorough. Between muffled howls, I vow to chop the damned tree down, first thing in the morning.

  The only thing missing is the English schoolgirl outfit.

  The End.

  PUPPY LOVE

  THE AVERAGE DOG IS A MUCH NICER PERSON

  THAN THE AVERAGE PERSON.

  I don’t remember who said this… Mark Twain, maybe? Anyway, it’s true, whoever said it. There just isn’t anything in the world I like better than dogs, with the possible exception of my husband and kids. I use the word "possible" because on approximately 260 days a year, my children are the light of my life, the apple of my eye, and the cream in my coffee. The remaining 105 days are best left undescribed and without metaphor. My husband, Dan, on the other hand, is the love of my life, my best friend and my soul-mate.

  Dan and I have been married for ten years. We have three nice kids, a nice house with a nice mortgage, and a pretty nice life, all things considered. Dan makes a nice living designing and building very nice boats, and I stay in my nice home with my nice kids and tear my hair out. In addition to this tendency to tear my hair out, I have a tendency to be impatient, impetuous, intemperate, and foul-mouthed. There you have it. I’m the least nice thing in this story, actually. But I am colorful. That’s Dan’s word, by the way –“colorful.”

  Anyway, all of this impatience, impetuosity, (and last, but never least, profanity) has been known to get me into trouble. Which is a "nice" word for deep shit. Oh, and one other thing….I never listen. Well, maybe not never, but not often enough to spare myself certain "consequences." When I get into a mess, you see, Dan always come to the rescue… my own handsome, loyal knight in shining armor. But then, when he gets me (the damsel in distress) safely back to the castle,
my handsome knight hangs up his shining armor, throws chivalry out the castle window, and spanks the living daylights out of the damsel's deserving rear end. There, I’ve said it out loud. When my husband is driven to the brink, he spanks me. And here’s the astonishing part. I agreed to it.

  If I had to put a number on how often this spanking stuff happens, I’d say it averages once every two or three months, but like all estimates and averages, numbers don't always convey a true sense of the way things are. Like with the puppies, for instance.

  I’ll bet you’re wondering what all this spanking stuff has to do with dogs and puppies and Mark Twain. Okay, I will explain.

  Dan likes dogs, too, although maybe not quite as passionately as I do. Until recently, we had just one dog, an enormous, clumsy female St. Bernard, whom we had named, in a wild excess of optimism, "Beauty." Beauty's problem, aside from not having lived up to the early promise of her name, is that she isn’t especially bright. In point of fact, she’s the dumbest, least attractive, and most disreputable-looking dog in the neighborhood— possibly in the western hemisphere. As a puppy, poor Beauty developed a loathsome skin condition that resulted in an almost total loss of her body hair, and despite the purchase and application of thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of doggie dermatological products, she looks pretty much the same as she did as a puppy—except that she’s put on about 175 pounds. What hair she does have grows in tufts and from unlikely places, which gives her sort of a weedy appearance, like an unkempt vacant lot. Despite her unlovely exterior, though, Beauty is the noblest of dogs—good-natured, loyal, and affectionate to a fault. We always try to notify visitors that they may be welcomed to our home by being knocked to the floor, sat upon, and kissed fully on the mouth by a scabrous, slobbering one hundred and eighty pound carnivore. Very few salesmen return twice.