Dear Headley

Now that Just Plain Stupid has survived my first month of bloghood, It’s time to hear from you. Not only does that give you access to a multitude of readers (double figures!) but it also saves me from having to come up with my own crap or use up all the stuff in my archives in the first few months.

What? Did I not mention that I’m lazy?

So, you may ask, “what sort of questions should I ask Headley Hauser?” That’s not a particular original question, but it will do for a start. Let’s begin with questions you shouldn’t ask me.

1) I have a problem with my hard-drive run-thingy. How do I make it do computer stuff instead of large, useless paperweight stuff?

2) My two-year-old just refuses to be potty-trained. Should I feed him more prunes or is that just asking for trouble...?

(Actually, that might be an interesting question to field – go ahead and send that one in.)

3) My son is in the Army and says he’s in danger of a bad discharge – is that a medical problem?

4) How many triple field goals will the Lions need to convert to beat the Tiger-Bears in the coming Munchkin bowl?

(or other related sports questions.)

5) On form 1040RS the government asks me to divide my non-dairy food budget by the square root of the diameter of my big toe. Should I call the IRS for clarification, pick a number at random, or order pizza?

5A) If I order pizza, should I declare that as dairy, or non-dairy on form 1040RS?

5B) Is intentionally stubbing my big toe before measuring its diameter a violation or IRS law?

(Actually, I’ll answer these here – 5 – order pizza. 5A – If you order from Little Caesars, it’s non-dairy, because Little Caesar’s cheese is made of plastic. 5B – Don’t worry about it – breathing is a violation of IRS law.)

Here are some good sample questions you might want to send.

1) Is Trouble in Taos just too wonderful? Is that why it hasn’t made you rich?

2) Is it alright with you if I order a copy of Trouble in Taos for my kindle, download it, erase it, order again, and keep doing that until I reach my credit limit?

3) I’m a very wealthy one-hundred-and-twelve-year-old skydiver. May I make you my heir?

4) Why does Go Figure Reads treat you so badly? Would you please complain about them some more? They are very unfair.

5) I need help understanding my (mother, father, husband, wife, sister, brother, son, daughter, Rabbi, hamster, waffle.) Would you give me some personal advice?

(Yes – I am not completely self-centered. I would love to screw up your personal life.)

Email me at headleyh@hotmail.com. Make certain to put your legal name and credit card number on the subject line (for verification purposes.) There may be a small fee billed to your card for time and effort in answering your question. The fee will be determined by how boring your question is to read, how much research I need to do in order to answer it, how short of cash I am at the moment, and your credit limit.

And now – because that didn’t fill up a full post’s worth of space…

To the archives!!!!!!!!

To the archives is my battle cry, much like Batman’s, “to the bat cave,” though it doesn’t involve a creepy middle-aged man in spandex commanding an under-aged boy into vehicle that is clearly illegal to drive on public roads.

You ever see Batman standing in line at the DMV?

Here’s a little story I wrote some time ago, and Go Figure Reads GAVE IT AWAY to some web site for free use. (sigh.)

Toto in Munchkinland

By Headley Hauser

The house never used to move like that. At least Toto didn’t think it moved that way, but he spent all of his time with Dorothy, and she used to wander around outside singing so he couldn’t be sure. It felt a lot like being in the bad dog’s basket when she rode on her bicycle over the rocky hilly road except that now, there wasn’t any stable ground to jump out on.

Crash!

Well, there wasn’t till now.

“Oh Toto,” said Dorothy, “look at all the colors!”

What was a color? Dorothy was the love of his life, but Toto could never understand this thing she had about colors. Then she completely ignored the most interesting smells.

Dorothy was a very strange dog.

What was this? Toto ran out of the house and around to the side. There was something under the house – something either newly dead or just dying. It was the foulest, nastiest smell he’d ever smelled in his life. Was it food? Maybe he should roll in it.

He better check with Dorothy.

“Dorothy!” Toto barked, “you gotta come smell this dead thing!”

“Toto,” said Dorothy, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

Talk about changing the subject! Sometimes, it seemed like Dorothy just wasn’t listening.

Dorothy went around looking at flowers while Toto sniffed for interesting things. Of course the dead thing was pretty hard to ignore, but Toto wasn’t a puppy anymore. He knew how to sniff for small smells in the midst of big stench. There wasn’t that much to smell - no rabbits or squirrels or even those bags with all the hard kibble in them. Unless that dead thing was food, they might be in trouble.

But there were dogs – lots of them. They smelled different than Dorothy, but so did Toto. Dogs came in all kinds of scents. Dorothy was so busy looking for colors that she didn’t even smell the pack.

Toto wasn’t worried. The pack smelled like they were afraid. Toto gave a growl to show them that they had reason to fear. Three dogs smaller than Dorothy and a big bitch with white fur came out of the weeds so Dorothy could see them. Toto prepared for a fight.

They just talked. They didn’t even growl. They gave Dorothy respect. Clearly Toto’s growls had impressed them.

The pack showed Dorothy the dead thing under the house. They didn’t say it was food, so Toto lost interest and went around marking the small trees that didn’t smell like real trees at all.

It was too easy. No dogs had marked any of them.

“What’s wrong with you dogs!” Toto barked.

Dorothy giggled like Toto had made a joke and held out her arms. Toto jumped up. She never understood the things he tried to tell her, but she was nice and warm.

They talked some more – not about food or territory or anything useful. They talked about witches and a wizard. Unless they were the witches and wizards of food, Toto didn’t care.

Then it got weird.

Everybody started saying, “follow the yellow brick road.” They said it over and over again. Even Dorothy said it. Dorothy started walking while saying, “follow the yellow brick road.” She motioned for Toto to follow her.

Toto followed. He always followed Dorothy. He loved Dorothy.

“But when do we eat?” barked Toto.

“And what’s yellow?”