Cold as ICE

Ever-optimistic Big Frank and his long-suffering wife head back to frozen England and find that a casino conference in London – in January – is no winter wonderland.

Unlike Rush Limbaugh’s personal trainer, I like being busy. It does after all keep me young – or at least, keeps my mind off being the other word. The only sticking point to my endless social whirl is that I have about as much free time as one of Beyoncé’s bra straps. Post-launch, Big Frank says that our online casino is cranking up to meltdown, though how this is possible when only twelve people have signed up, I couldn’t say. But hubby #3 is adamant that we’re on the way to our first million. We were also on our way to UK’s capital for another show.

London, England was colder than my ex-husband’s lawyer. Whoever thought of putting on a show here in January for heaven’s sake? I say, find ’em, strip ’em and leave ’em handcuffed to a Thank Your Lucky Slots machine in the car park. Everything was booked solid. While Big Frank got in the staff dorms at the Sheraton by posing as a night porter, I was offered the option of sharing a suite the size an LAX Terminal with this woman who was some big-shot in Middle Eastern bingo. Strangely for an Israeli woman her coiffured locks were (a) blonde, and (b) straight as a Hollywood actor going for a leading man role. I haven’t run so fast since seeing a poster for Mother Teresa the Musical, because as grannie used to say, “Never trust a woman who irons her hair.”

In less than the time it would take for a major asteroid to crash into the planet and wipe out our entire ecosystem, I was standing in the packed lobby of the International Casino Exhibition at Earl’s Court. With its seven sparkling gaming sectors, ICE was a celebration of tacky over taste. It was also packed to the gills. In no time, I lost Big Frank in the crowds and found myself crushed between thirty Coco the Clowns, a dozen half-naked showgirls, and this tiny guy who bored me stupid nattering incessantly about his no-download poker offering. This joker talked so fast and so squeakily, it took me all of ten minutes before I realized he was trying to sell himself, too. Told him how it was kinda novel having a Mickey Mouse operation actually headed by Mickey Mouse. But what I really wanted to say was: Jesus, if you like sleeping with ugly men, then the casino market is definitely the place to be.

About then my cell rang. It was Muffy.

“You still on that island?” was her opener.
“You still on that medication?” I replied.
“You total, total witch!”
“Poof! You’re an asshole.”
“Look, I’m calling about our mother. You know, the one that suffers from insanity.”
“Your mother,” I corrected. “And, let’s be blunt, she enjoys every frickin’ minute of it. What’s your point?”

So the pampered Akron steel tycoon’s poppet explained that due to a virulent outbreak of flesh-eating bugs, the Lake Erie Facility for the Terminally Bewildered was having to close and discharge all its 3,852 loonies into the community.

“She just cannot come and live with me and Theodore. Our wilderness lodge is so big, she might get lost and starve to death. So she’s going to have to stay with you.”

“What! When?” I demanded.

There was a pause. No doubt, the Muffster was doing some remedial math.

“By my reckoning, she’s already docked and is going through quarantine.”

Forget icy London, diary. Hearing that the USS Invincible was coming to the Isle of Man was like feeling Hell freezing over…

Seven-month Itch

Unable to cope with life in doom-laden Douglas, Bettie tries to find comfort in a dirty weekend in Greece that turns out to contain entirely the wrong kind of filth.

The real, sorry, scratch that, the only joy of being in the United Flag-waving Kingdom of Queen Elizabeth II is that Europe is less than an hour away. So when I got what I thought was another call from a rabid family member, it came as a pleasant surprise to find that it was in fact the man I had woken up with at The Dorchester. Yeah, him. Once I’d got over the shock, recovered, then navigated past the twin terrors of “How’d you get my number?” and “Sorry to hear you lost your Rolex”, he dropped the bombshell of asking if I’d like to meet again.

I was, like, ‘Whoa! Gimme a moment here!’ but in light of the current state of my latest marital mess, the offer of a weekend in Greece was too hard to resist. And, yes, what this also meant was that technically I was now having an affair.

After telling Big Frank I was at Time To Dye for a crack-wax super-intensive, I arrived in Athens a day early. At loose ends for a full eight hours, I took some pictures of the surrounding buildings in case they decided to fall down before I got back and went in search of the Acropolis. Never did get there, but instead ended up at several other must-see places, such as the Tower of Wind (which had blown down), Socrates’ Prison (he’d escaped) and the Roman Angina for a view of the entire city – which, if you get a hot flash flipping through Construction Site Quarterly, is a must.

I came, I saw, I ate a little lunch and that’s when I felt the first twinges of what swiftly became a chronic case of the poop cramps. Here, diary, is where the real horror began as the last restroom I’d seen was at Heathrow Airport.

Wildly searching the streets, I went into Café Sappho and asked Madame X behind the counter, “You got a ladies room?”

Bad mistake. And once that little misunderstanding was sorted out, the she-man explained: “We no got toilet. We got cappuccino, Coca Cola, Seven-Up…”

Rushing outside I managed, between spasms, to discover there was a public restroom in Greece, but it was located on the Piraeus dock front – over ten miles away. Helpfully manhandled onto a bus, I was squeezed between the collective armpits of eighty-five Greek fisherman who’ve lived their entire lives on a diet solely consisting of garlic fish paste sandwiches. Arriving hours later, I staggered into what can best be described as the vilest torture device ever invented for the weak of bowel. The toilet – and I use the word in its loosest possible sense – consisted of a sludge-filled hole with two footplates positioned at the optimum crouching distance from a gurgling funnel that in any other country would be called the seat. But, by now, I had to go, and that was that. And, je t’adore, it’s funny how you never realize there’s no toilet paper until it’s far too late.

Not what I had in mind when I planned a dirty weekend, I can tell you. Still, at least I’d wasted the entire day.

Rushing back to the hotel, I waddled in and there he was. Tall, handsome, blond and reading a copy of The Reader’s Digest Atlas Of Places Americans Will Never Go To. He was perfect. He’d also bought me a thoughtful gift – a Tiffany something-or-other – which only served to remind me how the last time Big Frank tried to buy me a present, he went to the local jewellery store, asked for something cheap and they handed him a mirror. For the first time since setting foot this side of the Atlantic, I was feeling fabulous.

Later, as we lay alone together, he said, “Ever since our eyes first met across that crowded casino, I wanted to make love to you in the worst possible way.”

Unfortunately, diary, he succeeded.

Manx Minxes

Bettie finally arrives back home only to discover that, in her absence, things are definitely sliding to the crazier end of the scale…

The way I see it, diary, the world falls into two camps: those who believe everything comes down to two outcomes, and those who don’t. And as I arrived back at our crumbling ruin of a new home, I could just smell we were approaching zero hour for the success or – more-than-likely – total and complete failure of Big Frank’s 39-4-Ever misadventure.

Stepping from the taxi, I met hubby #3 acting head honcho as hordes of workmen wheeled expensive-looking computer servers into the coal cellar.

“Hi, honey!” he said, as I breezed past.

“Good morning, darling,” I replied. “I see the assassins failed. Been busy?”

It turned out he’d been fiddling with his backend all week – hardly a revelation – so I escaped inside to unpack and freshen up. This turned out to be far harder than I’d imagined as when I arrived in our Dickensian-drama of the archaic kitchen, I found my maid Mona laden down with bowls of tripe.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m feeding the cats.”

“Cats?” I questioned. “We don’t have any cats.”

It turns out I was wrong on that count as, following the crusty slattern to the back yard, I found the entire place was stuffed full to the fence posts with dozens and dozens of freaky, tail-less felines.

“What are these?” I said.

“They’re Manx cats,” Mona replied, reminding me that anything from the Isle of Man was dubbed with the descriptor, ‘Manx’.

“There’s two varieties,” Mona continued, as I stood in shock. “The rumpy what ain’t got no tail, and the stumpy what’s got this twisted lump of…”

“Stop,” I said. I’d heard enough. “If you don’t, we’ll be overrun!”  

“I tried not feeding them, but they just picked up little stones from the rock garden and pelted the bedroom windows morning, noon and night. It gets on me nerves.”

“But I hate cats!” I shrieked, which is true as I believe they are the work of the devil on a mission to enslave all mankind. It will certainly come as a surprise to no one that if there was a little red button on my desk that would exterminate every cat on the planet instantly and painfully, then I’d push it. Repeatedly.

“Maybe that’s because you were a dog in a previous life,” Mona intoned.

Thinking, ‘Well, that’s far better than being a dog in this one’, I left her to sort out the chaos, and headed back for the front door. Only fifteen minutes home after a twenty-six hour flight, and I already wanted off this island more than a whole planeful of Lost regulars. Still, as my anxieties and stresses of this whole venture collapsing into its own half-cooked conception reached boiling point, I decided that now was as good a time as any to confront Big Frank. Yep, I hit my ever-loving husband with the big one. The $64,000 Question? Since buying this online casino, relocating to Nowheresville and stocking up with enough Eskimo seal jackets and huskies to survive the British winter amounted to one huge chunk of change, would it ever – could it ever – like, make any money?

“If you build it, they will come,” he said.

Jesus, if only that was the byline for our sex life.

“Well,” I said, “I don’t think your truly appreciate the sacrifices I’ve made on this crazy scheme.”

“Like what?”

Well, round about then I let him have it. The List. How things would be like dancing on the steps of Disneyland Palace:

-       if it wasn’t so fricking wet

-       if it wasn’t so fricking freezing

-       if it wasn’t so fricking dark all the time

-       if I didn’t have to suffer a nine-hour flight every time I wanted to visit my nearest Walmart Supercenter

-       if it didn’t scare the Holy Bejeebus out of me at the amount of money this was all costing

-       if there was proof of a God, so that at the end of civilization as we know it I had any chance of being saved

-       Yada yada yada…

The final rant took the best part of an hour, and you’re just getting the highlights here, diary, but when it was over, you know what the big lug said?

“Is it really nine hours to the local Walmart?”

Arrrggghhh!!!

Homeward Grounded

Returning to her less-than-beloved Isle of Man home, Bettie welcomes in the New Year stuck in San Diego with a plastic surgery princess and some less-than-achievable resolutions.

Holy crap, diary, what a way to start a perfectly good new year. Three days in and I’m delayed at San Diego International, a virtual prisoner of Air Archipelago’s Crème De La Crème Class. I’m on my way back from the Pacific island paradise of Vanuatu after a blissful week of palm beaches, Piña Coladas and Port Vila pub crawls. But for the next Lord-knows-how-many hours, I’m trapped in that special limbo world of the airport terminal.

I’m also squashed next to this Phoenix-born denim-and-rhinestone beauty queen who’s reached the age where she’s more plastic than person. As I gaze around her radical rhinoplasty, it goes without saying that I’m not a fan of the modern obsession with nips, tucks and whacko treatments. Sheesh, every time I think of having something retouched or tightened or whatever, I have nightmares that some crazy white coat will pick up the wrong chart and I’d go in for the face of Angelina Jolie and come out with the ass of David Gest.

“Did you make any new year resolutions?” the self-built Barbie just asked. And I was going to say, ‘No, do I look like a dumb ass?’, but could see I’d already scrawled a few on a torn-up packet of Marlboros. They read:

1) Purge extraneous fat.

2) Casually disassociate with anyone who’s seen my birth certificate.

3) Give up my many worldly vices in favour of health and happiness. If health and/or happiness prove elusive circa January 15th, realize eternal quest for self-improvement is doomed. To supplement disappointment: Go blonde; buy higher heels.

Lord only knows when our flight is going to actually go anywhere? There’s been no useful news, just endless passenger announcements – but we’ve got so many passengers of a Hispanic persuasion, you can never be sure if they’re giving out another name check or just clearing their throats.

Bing-bong!

“Would passengers Joaquima, Hesus-Esperanza and Chiquitillo-Suárezpachão pleased be advised that you are now delaying the departure of this flight. We have identified your cheap-looking luggage and will nuke it if you do not arrive at the departure lounge in twenty, correction, eighteen seconds.”

Much, much later, I arrived back on the Isle of Man – you know the one where even the sheep get bored. Flying in was bad enough as I lost more than a couple of swigs of rum and Jack while the pilot tried to hit the postage-stamp of an airstrip. The indignity continued post-baggage claim, when the airline offered me a measly $25 meal voucher to compensate the inconvenience of the delay. And how is that commensurate to the loss of a half dozen hours of my life, I asked? If I was a high-class hooker, I’d have earned $25 just by taking off my coat. Six hours is like losing over seven thousand in measurable income. But the galley-hag just couldn’t see my reasoning.

Oh, and one more tip: when going through customs, if asked, “Are you carrying any drugs?”, do not reply, “Sure, what do you need?”

As I said, diary, what a way to start the year, but I had a sneaky suspicion that before the next twelve months were out, I’d require more than a swift slug of that Auld Lang Syne cup of kindness crap. I’d be needing some honest-to-goodness New Year miracles…