A Sneak Peek--The Opening of Confessions of the Sausage Queen
Over at Over’s Pond
You might think driving all the way out to Over’s Pond, to the little bend where Randy kept the Airstream parked, somewhat illegally, on Big Bill Ludowski’s land, was overkill. It was eight miles out of town. On that day, of all days, I didn’t have eight miles to spare. Besides which, Randy, despite the transient look of an Airstream with a chemical toilet, was pretty much a permanent fixture in my life. He had a cell phone. A cell phone whose number was on my speed dial as three, one being Gran Lila’s house and two
being Sammy’s school. Given all this, you’d no doubt think driving all the way up an old dirt road to remind Randy to pick up Sammy from kindergarten was overkill. You could have just called, you are probably inclined to say. Which is, pretty much word-for-word, exactly what Randy said.
“Your phone’s turned off,” was my response.
“So leave a message.”
“For when? Next Thursday?”
“I’m not about to forget my own kid, Mandy."
“Right. Like you didn’t forget him at the Sausage Festival softball tournament.”
“That was different,” Randy said, “we won. And it only happened once. And I turned around and got him, didn’t I?”
“Half an hour later, Rand. He’s going to require a lot of therapy.”
“Given his family, he’s going to require a lot of therapy anyway.”
Because I know you’re a bright person, by now you’ve probably figured out why I drove eight miles to remind Sammy’s other parent of his responsibility to his five-year-old son. I could add to my case by telling you that, when I drove up, my Neon kicking up dust like nobody’s business, Randy was sitting under the awning with the dog, a lovable mutt we call Alpo, on the green Naugahyde couch that passed for lawn furniture. Randy was the one barking.
Well, okay, he was trying to teach Alpo to speak and Alpo, sweet mutt that he is, might be what you call a slow learner. It took him six months of intense training to learn “sit.”
When I drove up, Randy had his head tilted back full howl while Alpo sat with his head cocked, trying to figure out what his man was doing.
“Nice howl,” I said, climbing from the Neon. “I always knew you were part wolf.”
By now, you are no doubt wondering how I ended up with a guy like Randy in the first place. I mean, I’m a nice enough girl, relatively smart, okay looking in a blonde-haired-blue-eyed girl-next-door kind of way. You’d no doubt question my judgment, Randy-wise, if I told you he had nine pink flamingos sitting in a tableau on the weed patch that passed for a lawn. And the couch, the aforementioned Naugahyde, was one of many treasures he unearthed along his garbage route. Randy could have opened his own treasure
museum. His booty included, but was not limited to, an ashtray in the shape of Texas, a little silver Jaguar, presumably once fastened to the hood of a little silver Jaguar, and a gold gilded statue of a naked boy who peed when you pushed down on his head. Given this, you would no doubt be inclined to ask, “What are you? Crazy?”
I have no ready defense, except to say love or lust or whatever that weird chemical reaction between two people is…well, it’s weird. It’s chemical. It’s uncontrollable. There is also the look. The one Randy gave me after I made the wolf remark. Not wolfish, exactly. More as though I was a banana cream pie, and he was deciding whether he had room for
dessert.
“Oh that,” you might say. And I would say to you, do not be so quick to pooh-pooh the look. As I’ve said, I have a certain girl-next-door kind of attractiveness. I am, however, by no stretch of anyone’s imagination, super model material. No stretch of anyone’s imagination except perhaps for Randy’s. You have to admit that there is something to that.
Of course, you’ll ask if it’s enough. And, of course, the answer is it is not. But Randy is a very attractive guy in a darkhaired-dark-eyed tanned-construction-worker kind of way. And Randy, contrary to what I may have led you to believe, is no slouch in the brains department.
Garbage truck and Airstream aside, Randy is downright smart. He has three bachelor’s degrees and a master’s in Eastern Thought, all of them amassed in the four short years it takes most of us to graduate with any sort of degree at all. The Airstream, the flamingos, the sanitation engineering gig are, for Randy, a statement of sorts. Although Kassenburg, the town in which we reside, is deep in the depths of western New York State, Randy was born in New Hampshire where the state motto is Live Free or Die. Randy takes
the matter of the motto seriously. The reason Randy lives as he does is because he chooses to live as he does. That and he is missing the embarrassment gene. The man cannot, will not, and has never been embarrassed.
Given our son, I begin to suspect the quality is genetically linked to the Y-chromosome. Randy’s full name is Randall Kenneth Handy. That’s right, he’s Randy Handy. Which, for a time, made me Mandy Handy. Which explains why, after I moved from the Airstream with Sammy, I reverted to my maiden name, Minhouser. Now, Mandy Minhouser will never win a prize as an ideal moniker, but it beats the bejesus out of Mandy Handy.
The “no shame, no tease-ability” syndrome Randy suffers from is his best and his worst feature. It allows him to make a noholes-barred effort at romance, and me, being the object of that effort—well, it goes a long way toward explaining how I married him and lived in an Airstream with a chemical toilet for nearly five years. It also goes a long way toward explaining why I no longer resided in said trailer. Though the defining reason for my moving out is a little tale I will have to save for later.
At this point in the story, I had already spent eight miles, and I was in a bit of a hurry. So, where was I? Oh yes, the look. The whole banana cream pie thing. After the wolf comment, I got the look from Randy along with, “Nice, nice dress.” I am not in the habit of wearing dresses. I’m more a jeans and T-shirt kind of girl. But, on that particular occasion, I was wearing a dress. A black one. Because I was on my way to a funeral. It was not a sexy dress, mind you. It was a funeral dress. The funeral being the reason I couldn’t pick Sammy up myself.
You might think driving all the way out to Over’s Pond, to the little bend where Randy kept the Airstream parked, somewhat illegally, on Big Bill Ludowski’s land, was overkill. It was eight miles out of town. On that day, of all days, I didn’t have eight miles to spare. Besides which, Randy, despite the transient look of an Airstream with a chemical toilet, was pretty much a permanent fixture in my life. He had a cell phone. A cell phone whose number was on my speed dial as three, one being Gran Lila’s house and two
being Sammy’s school. Given all this, you’d no doubt think driving all the way up an old dirt road to remind Randy to pick up Sammy from kindergarten was overkill. You could have just called, you are probably inclined to say. Which is, pretty much word-for-word, exactly what Randy said.
“Your phone’s turned off,” was my response.
“So leave a message.”
“For when? Next Thursday?”
“I’m not about to forget my own kid, Mandy."
“Right. Like you didn’t forget him at the Sausage Festival softball tournament.”
“That was different,” Randy said, “we won. And it only happened once. And I turned around and got him, didn’t I?”
“Half an hour later, Rand. He’s going to require a lot of therapy.”
“Given his family, he’s going to require a lot of therapy anyway.”
Because I know you’re a bright person, by now you’ve probably figured out why I drove eight miles to remind Sammy’s other parent of his responsibility to his five-year-old son. I could add to my case by telling you that, when I drove up, my Neon kicking up dust like nobody’s business, Randy was sitting under the awning with the dog, a lovable mutt we call Alpo, on the green Naugahyde couch that passed for lawn furniture. Randy was the one barking.
Well, okay, he was trying to teach Alpo to speak and Alpo, sweet mutt that he is, might be what you call a slow learner. It took him six months of intense training to learn “sit.”
When I drove up, Randy had his head tilted back full howl while Alpo sat with his head cocked, trying to figure out what his man was doing.
“Nice howl,” I said, climbing from the Neon. “I always knew you were part wolf.”
By now, you are no doubt wondering how I ended up with a guy like Randy in the first place. I mean, I’m a nice enough girl, relatively smart, okay looking in a blonde-haired-blue-eyed girl-next-door kind of way. You’d no doubt question my judgment, Randy-wise, if I told you he had nine pink flamingos sitting in a tableau on the weed patch that passed for a lawn. And the couch, the aforementioned Naugahyde, was one of many treasures he unearthed along his garbage route. Randy could have opened his own treasure
museum. His booty included, but was not limited to, an ashtray in the shape of Texas, a little silver Jaguar, presumably once fastened to the hood of a little silver Jaguar, and a gold gilded statue of a naked boy who peed when you pushed down on his head. Given this, you would no doubt be inclined to ask, “What are you? Crazy?”
I have no ready defense, except to say love or lust or whatever that weird chemical reaction between two people is…well, it’s weird. It’s chemical. It’s uncontrollable. There is also the look. The one Randy gave me after I made the wolf remark. Not wolfish, exactly. More as though I was a banana cream pie, and he was deciding whether he had room for
dessert.
“Oh that,” you might say. And I would say to you, do not be so quick to pooh-pooh the look. As I’ve said, I have a certain girl-next-door kind of attractiveness. I am, however, by no stretch of anyone’s imagination, super model material. No stretch of anyone’s imagination except perhaps for Randy’s. You have to admit that there is something to that.
Of course, you’ll ask if it’s enough. And, of course, the answer is it is not. But Randy is a very attractive guy in a darkhaired-dark-eyed tanned-construction-worker kind of way. And Randy, contrary to what I may have led you to believe, is no slouch in the brains department.
Garbage truck and Airstream aside, Randy is downright smart. He has three bachelor’s degrees and a master’s in Eastern Thought, all of them amassed in the four short years it takes most of us to graduate with any sort of degree at all. The Airstream, the flamingos, the sanitation engineering gig are, for Randy, a statement of sorts. Although Kassenburg, the town in which we reside, is deep in the depths of western New York State, Randy was born in New Hampshire where the state motto is Live Free or Die. Randy takes
the matter of the motto seriously. The reason Randy lives as he does is because he chooses to live as he does. That and he is missing the embarrassment gene. The man cannot, will not, and has never been embarrassed.
Given our son, I begin to suspect the quality is genetically linked to the Y-chromosome. Randy’s full name is Randall Kenneth Handy. That’s right, he’s Randy Handy. Which, for a time, made me Mandy Handy. Which explains why, after I moved from the Airstream with Sammy, I reverted to my maiden name, Minhouser. Now, Mandy Minhouser will never win a prize as an ideal moniker, but it beats the bejesus out of Mandy Handy.
The “no shame, no tease-ability” syndrome Randy suffers from is his best and his worst feature. It allows him to make a noholes-barred effort at romance, and me, being the object of that effort—well, it goes a long way toward explaining how I married him and lived in an Airstream with a chemical toilet for nearly five years. It also goes a long way toward explaining why I no longer resided in said trailer. Though the defining reason for my moving out is a little tale I will have to save for later.
At this point in the story, I had already spent eight miles, and I was in a bit of a hurry. So, where was I? Oh yes, the look. The whole banana cream pie thing. After the wolf comment, I got the look from Randy along with, “Nice, nice dress.” I am not in the habit of wearing dresses. I’m more a jeans and T-shirt kind of girl. But, on that particular occasion, I was wearing a dress. A black one. Because I was on my way to a funeral. It was not a sexy dress, mind you. It was a funeral dress. The funeral being the reason I couldn’t pick Sammy up myself.