Crack's List

Like I don't put up with enough crap at work, my wife has struck once again!
I love the fact that she is our CFO and does a fine job at making sure our money goes the distance. But sometimes it's just not worth saving a buck. I think sometimes she gets a little too frugal. And sometimes I'm the sucker in the whole deal.
So she's doing her thing trying to make sure we don't spend the inheritance that the kids won't get by shopping on Craig's List. You may have heard of this thing. You know where people list items for sale like cars, furniture, jewelry; and sometimes they list services for sale like handyman or yard work or sexual favors or serial killer victim. I'm pretty sure those last two might be one and the same.
On this particular occasion my wife has decided that she is going to save us a bundle by finding a leather couch for dirt cheap. She calls me at work to notify me that we need to go look at a sleeper sofa. Are you freak'n kidding me?!
"Babe, it's been a long day (a 12 hour day)."
"Yeah, but this is a really good deal. $350 for this Lazy Boy."
"Babe, really."
"No, seriously, it's leather and lists for $900 new. The lady said that she's desperate, that they're going to come get her car if she misses another payment."
Sirens are now sounding in my head. "And where is it at?"
"Nokomis."
Sounding like Jim Mora I say "What's that? Nokomis? You talking about Nokomis, are you kidding me? Nokomis?"
"Listen, I've dropped the girls off at my folks and grabbed my dad's truck. Meet me over at Five Guys for dinner and then we'll go check it out."
Damn it! She knew she'd get me with the Five Guys offer.
I meet her there, down a burger, fries, and a hand full of roasted peanuts. Then we hit the road. I ask her what the directions and she reads me something like this:
"Go to Blackburn, but not the Blackburn you're thinking of. Cross over it and take your first right. Follow that road and it will be the first condo on the left."
And I'm like what?
"You don't know where that is?"
"It's frig'n dark out and that doesn't make sense!"
"You don't have to yell. Do you want me to call her?"
I jerk the truck off the road. "Call her."
We get somewhat better directions and as luck would have it we're right around from her. Pulling in, I see the first condo on the left and a piece of crap 1990 Cavalier in the driveway. Are you catching these signs?
I back the truck in and say into the steering wheel, "This is not going to be good."
"Come on, how bad can it be?" Pitched right down the middle. "But if it is, you figure out how to get us out of here."
How it became my job to develop an escape plan from a place I didn't want to be in to begin with is still lost on me.
As soon as we step out there's some little piss ant dog yipping at us.
"Come on baby, it's okay. Stop barking."
I follow the voice to, yep you guessed it, a crack head! All skin and bones and jittery. She waves us in. My wife catches my look and starts to giggle. As we step in the "smoke-free" home (yeah, smoke-free since the time my wife called you)it gets even worse in the light. This chick's hair has been died and fried so bad it's more of an orange color with a green sheen in the light. She looks like tarantulas are crawling out her eyes from the caked-up mascara.
So Eight Ball Annie begins her spastic impression of Vanna White telling us what a great deal it is and how bad she needs to get rid of it. She convinces my wife, and therefore me, to have a seat. My wife to the left and Eight Ball Annie on the right. At that point her Rat Terrier/Chihuahua/Pomeranian/ whatever ankle-bitter mix jumps on my lap.
"Oh, that's my little Pipsy. I had to rescue him. He's incontinent so they were going to put him down."
My wife once again manages to keep her giggles to an undetectable level from the rock monster whose skin is obviously irritating her to the point of scratching it off.
"So you said it's a sleeper?" my wife asks just to keep this freak show going.
Apparently my gaping jaw was enough to cause a Cheshire's grin to stretch across her face.
Eight Ball Annie leaps from the couch and begins to rip the cushions of the couch. I step back out of the way and just when I didn't think it could get any worse I suddenly feel the need to gouge my eyes out.
See, the lovely Eight Ball Annie is wearing this soft nicotine stained linen sundress. Of course the benefits of such a garment are its light and airy feeling and in some cases its sheerness, but this was not one of those cases. Because as Eight Ball Annie bent over in front of me she gave me a not-so-lovely shot of where that pink t-back disappeared. This, once again, amused the crap out of my wife. I thought my burger would join the pillows tossed across the room.
Fruitlessly, Eight Ball Annie tries to pull out the "never-slept-on" folding bed. It keeps binding on her and I figure this is the out we needed, but my wife is enjoying this entirely too much tells me to give her hand.
The thing opens to reveal a sheet stretched over the "never-slept-on" mattress. All I can think is Luminol and a black light would set this thing aglow.
Just as I'm about to say something bounding in from the front door that was left open comes a screaming three year old who begins jumping on all the furniture.
An exhausted elderly man steps in and tells Eight Ball Annie that her child, once again, came running into his place to hang out. He waited fifteen, twenty minutes but mommy never came to get her (and he couldn't take it any longer).
Now instead of irritating the old man the little brat is irritating me. Eight Ball Annie does a fine parenting job of ignoring her and keeps looking from me to my wife for one of us to whip some cash so she can run out and get her fix and turn the scream'n demon's shrieks into a lullaby. And just as I'm about to break her dreams I'm interrupted once more.
"Hey, hey, hey! Quiet down! Pot Head Pete says as he comes out of the bedroom apparently just waking up from a nap... At 8:30 pm? "Wus up," he mumbles as he shuffles into the kitchen type area looking in the variety of chip bags open on the counters. Must suck waking up with the munchies and a screaming kid. Oddly the strangers in the house didn't seem to phase him. Hmm...
"Well, I don't think it's gonna work. It's uh, too small. Too small for the space we're looking at," I finally get out and grab my lovely wife's hand.
"You sure? I'll take $300!"
"Yeah, sorry, even at $300 it's not going to change the size."
"Well, okay guess it's not going work," the wife says, finally showing me some support.
We show ourselves out and load back into the truck.
"Babe, what the hell?"
"Okay, okay you were right."
"There's a reason they say 'No shoes, no shirt, Nokomis*.'
"Look at it this way, at least you got some new characters," she says with a smile.
What could I possibly write and use that chick. I guess my blog.

*Just so it is noted, not all the losers in Nokomis are crack heads.