Dick Van Dyke was one of my favorite pratfall comedians. For some reason, he has fallen out of favor with the re-run gods and his show isn’t on any of the tv channels we get.

No matter, I am Dick Van Dyke reincarnated if he was dead. Not the REAL Dick Van Dyke, his character Rob.  Not the suave, handsome, skinny, well-dressed Rob. The klutzy Rob who is victim of his own good intentions or Laura’s missteps.

Except my Rob moments often have potential for serious injury. And my Laura doesn’t shake her hands and say Ooooh Rooooob! when I’m in serious danger.

My Laura laughs at me.

Back to the beginning:

Nancy goes on “streaks.” She will put up with a minor inconvenience for years – literally years – and then decide she has to take matters into her own hands and take drastic steps NOW.

We love sunlight – all summer long – through as much glass as we have in the house – including the glass storm doors. We run the air conditioning all summer long with the front doors open with only the glass storm doors between 110 degrees and 75 degrees. Now that it’s fall the flies have decided they would rather live in our house rather than just near it.

With four dogs somebody is always coming and going. Coming or going. No, going and going. We have a garage attached to the house with a “enclosed breezeway” by a couple doors. Nancy uses the garage and is always carting stuff from her car inside. So the doors never get closed.

A few flies get in the house from time to time. Just a few, it’s not like a dairy barn or garbage skow around here.

Really, just a few. And Derby The Disturber is really good at nailing them against the window and eating them. Since we have mini-blinds at the windows he can reach, they sometimes get crashed in Derby’s pursuit of flyfood.

Nancy decided she was going to NOT have ANY flies in the house. She bought those flystrips that cow farmers hang in  dairy barns. Yeah, the real sticky, gooey, ones where the flies have to run into the damn thing for it to work.

She hung in on the back of one of the doors from the garage.

Of course I got one in my hair!

You think I’m telling you all this for no reason?

Well I. AM. PISSED.

I leave it in my hair and storm into the bathroom (hardly able to maintain a suitable irritation factor.) I demand she remove the strip and wash my hair. I didn’t make eye contact with her or look in the mirror because I knew I would bust out laughing.

No. I. AM. PISSED.

She pulls it out of my hair. She pulls out hair with it.

I demand she wash my hair – wash my hair woman! I know she is just biting right through her lip to keep from laughing out loud.

So I dump shampoo in my hair – and this stuff isn’t touched by soap.

So I demand she get “something” to get it out. Vegetable oil! I heard that is good for sticky stuff. “No wait, get the Goo Be Gone.”

She dumps it on my head, I suds up and it gets in my eyes.

“Dad, Denise pushed us out of the bathroom, so the soap’s in Rudy’s eyes and she wouldn’t let me rinse out the shampoo like Mom said and now Rudy might be blinded for life! If she is, can we get a dog?”
– Vanessa (also a bit from the classic Cosby sit-down routine that made him famous)

I mean, it is stinging like I’ve never had before. It hurt. Really hurt. 100 time worse than when I put Ear Wax Remover drops in my eye.

So I start flooding my eyes with water and as they get better, I realize my whole scalp is burning like hell.

After a couple more shampoos I am all better.

I looked at the fly strip just removed from my head… not one damn fly died for my suffering.

But like Rob and Laura, we kissed and it was all better. Nancy jumps in the car and is gone to a Arts Fair for the day.

Fade to black.