Water Beds: Helpful Hints! Back By Popular Demand

Got some emails the other day of people who couldnt' access the "Robin as a dumbass' story. For some reason, it's popular and if you guys want dumb ass Robin stories..trust me, I have more! So, I'm "reposting", which to me doesn't sound like relaxing, sounds like something that requires penicillin....here it is?


I was talking to an acquaintance today who was bemoaning a really dumb thing she had done...I thought to myself...girl, you ain't seen dumb until you've seen a Texas divorce that involves four people...one couple already fresh from the courtroom and the other with two children, and the wife being a redhead.....

Here's the deal, my best friend since second grade (oh yeah! That's why we are still best friends...we've too much dirt on the other!) We'll call her K. Anyway, she was separated from her ne'er do well husband, I was newly divorced. My ex husband, moved in with her estranged husband, a mile away from us, in my bosses' trailer house. I moved in with K in her trailer house...Now, if that ain't country I'll kiss your ass. What does a tornado and a Texas divorce have in common? Someone is going to lose a trailer house.

Keep in mind, this is the panhandle and we could see their house from our house.

What we couldn't figure out is how they seemed to know everything we were thinking, feeling and planning. It was eerie. I was, not at that time, a "trained" observer mind you...but every morning after we got S to school and M to daycare and we trotted off to the big college...we would wonder how they knew things they shouldn't. They sure as hell didn't seem to be that in tune with us when we were frickin' married to them! It occurred to me one morning to ask..."K, where is the baby monitor now?" She said, "In a box in the closet I think." Hmmm, I was suspicious. We always swore we would check when we got home but never seemed to.

Until onereally creepy moment when her repentant ex told her exactly what she wanted to hear. A word-for-word conversation we had the night before in her bedroom. Dumb ass.

We found the baby monitor hidden behind the dresser. I knew they weren't home (for once, they had jobs...) so I went to their house, broke in...and could hear K saying...."Robin, if you can frickin' hear me I'm killing somebody! Robin, this is command central...if you get home and tell me you heard me (before cell phones were affordable by broke college students with kids) the the SOB is going to !*@^#%($^@%$))!" I know this woman, she was on the edge. It takes a long time for this redhead to lose her temper, but when she does....just get out of the way...like, move to another country.

I got home and said "Yeah, loud and clear." Without a word she started throwing his shit in the front yard (we were, by the way, in our mid twenties and testy with it!). Her plan was to pile the stuff up and put the "wrong' half of the baby monitor on top with a nice little Dear John letter. Basically, it's over, kiss my butt....that's saying it nicely.

SO! The waterbed was his. The damn waterbed was going in the pile. We hooked up a garden hose and it was my job to go out in the front yard. Put this garden hose to my lips...suck like a hoover until it started to drain. When K has backed off from homicide and conceded to "hissy fit" and she gives you a "chore"....do it. You won't like the results if you don't, even if you are her best friend.

So, here I am, in front of the neighbors in the trailer park who at this point thought we had probably started drinking early....Sucking on the hose, it wasn't working. There was a red ring around my mouth and I was getting light headed. So I did what any sensible person would do, I lay down on the sidewalk and continue to suck on the garden hose...that way, if I pass out...I don't crack my head open...right? The neighbors were convinced by this time we had imbibed alcohol before 5 o'clock, so went in and got their own beer to watch the show. For the record, we hadn't been drinking, we were women scorned...has the effects of alcohol without the slurring.

Well, I am slowly losing consciousness, I am nothing if not stubborn and I was going to start this waterbed draining if it killed me, my head lolled to the east and I saw my best friend in the whole wide world, standing in the doorway, bent over, tears rolling down her face...trying to tell me something...she was hiccuping toohard to do so and my mental capacity was failing with each indrawn breath through a 30 foot garden hose.

Before I faded into black I finally heard her..."OMG Robin...we hooked up the soaker hose."

The only thing that could have saved face for me in that moment...is if I'd succeeded.

I didn't.