Friday, July 29, 2016

Cookie Monster (Life is a Roller Derby Run by a Sphinx Preview!)

Hello everyone! I hope you have all had more fabulous weeks than the thought of the Democratic National Convention reenacted by William Shatner impersonators. 

Well, we are getting close to the release of Life is a Roller Derby Run by a Sphinx and so this week I wanted to give you a quick taste of what is to come. So for your reading pleasure, ripped directly from the pages of my next book, is Chapter 27: Cookie Monster.

27. Cookie Monster 

Some children are lovely little gifts from heaven. Other kids are more like trials sent to test parents’ perseverance, cunning and ability to get crayon off of a variety of surfaces. 


         I was more of the latter; I pretended to be a dinosaur during church, thought I was a Power Ranger and World Wrestling Federation wrestler all rolled into one (that poor furniture) and built very elaborate spaceships from everyday items and sometimes essential machine parts. 


         Not only was I handful, I was a rather clever one. I had learned to read at an early age and by the time I turned four I already had most of the Nancy Drew, The Boxcar Children and The Hardy Boys under my literary belt. Add in the fact that I watched as many episodes of Murder, She Wrote and Matlock as I could find, and I was a regular criminal mastermind in the making. I gobbled up mystery stories faster than the newest Lone Ranger movie bombed and was forgotten.

Out soon!!!
         Of course, with my rambunctious little brain, I began to wonder if I could pull of a caper that not even Nancy Drew or Jessica Fletcher could solve! 
  
          I plotted, I planned, I drew schematics, I built models of vaults and banks out of Legos.

           Now keep in mind, at four years old you really don’t have to have an exact goal in mind. I wasn’t out to steal the Hope Diamond or ransack a museum for priceless art. I was just plotting crime in general.
           
           My parents, knowing I lacked the income and resources to pull off a liquor store robbery, much less a fantastical heist, weren’t too concerned about my little ‘flights of fancy’ into the heinous world of crime.
          
           I knew that my plans could succeed, as a Brain without a Pinky could, if only I had a goal to focus them on.

Then came the day my mother made her wonderfully delicious peanut-butter-chocolate-chip cookies. These cookies are melt-in-your-mouth good. If we could give these cookies out to every world leader simultaneously, there would be World Peace, because it’s impossible to feel aggressive or angry while eating one. 

She baked an entire batch in the afternoon, and I had been granted one cookie. The rest, she informed me, would have to wait until after dinner. I tried to reason with her, dinner was a full two hours away. My pleas went unanswered. I watched sorrowfully as my mom put every remaining cookie into the giant strawberry shaped cookie jar far back on the kitchen counter and wandered off to do something else. 

I stood in the kitchen staring daggers at that cookie jar, reveling in how unfair the situation was. I could still smell the cookies, and still had the taste of peanut butter and chocolate in my mouth. 

Suddenly, it hit me like a Mac truck hits a sleeping armadillo, this is what I had been scheming for! This was my crime of the century! Well… at least crime of the day… let’s be real here. 

I ran back to my room digging through my catapult designs, ideas for a mind-control laser and blueprints of someone else’s house that I had found while playing outside one day. None of it seemed to help my cookie situation. 

I snuck back towards the kitchen to do some reconnaissance. Crawling, army-style on my belly, I crept down the hallway, listening intently for any adults. No one was about. I stood up and wandered towards the kitchen counter, realizing that I was far shorter than it was and the cookie jar was all the way back on the counter near the wall.nMy thoughts turned to the kitchen chairs, which could be drug over, but I needed to determine where my mom was first, in case the noise would alert her. 

I found my mom in the living room folding clothing. I nonchalantly wandered in, “Hi mom, you don’t have any reason to go to the kitchen anytime soon do you?” 

My mother’s eyes narrowed, “Why?” 

“No reason,” I said as I darted away, congratulating myself on not making her suspicious at all. 

Back in the kitchen, I planned my route of entry. The chair would be too loud to drag, but if I opened the drawers like stairs, I could probably climb up relatively easily. 

I wandered back down towards my mother, who, still folding clothes, was now surely listening intently for something to explode. Again, as casually as I could, I asked, “Hey mom, you don’t have a reason to be in the kitchen, right?” 

My mom blinked at me a couple of times, “Is there something on fire in the kitchen? Should I be in the kitchen right now?” 

“Nope! Was just wondering!” I said, skipping back down the hallway, again impressed with my own dramatic non-mom-worrying skills.


I checked to make sure the coast was clear, and then I opened the first drawer. I looked around; no one seemed to be rushing down the hall. I slid open the second drawer, nothing. I flung the remaining drawers open with wild abandon and stepped up onto the counter.


There it was, the strawberry cookie jar, in all its red glory.


I lifted the lid and found a veritable dragon’s hoard of amazing luscious little treats inside.


I’ve never been a dainty person. The cookie carnage I unleashed would have made the Cookie Monster seem civilized by comparison. I stuffed, I crammed, I smeared. I had chocolate on my face, cookie crumbs in my hair and peanut butter residue on every piece of clothing I was wearing. The spoils of my crime were sweet, soft and delicious.


I was about halfway through enjoying cookie number seven when I heard it, “Allison, what are you doing on the counter?”

         
          Turning, my mouth absolutely stuffed with cookie, I blinked at my mother. How had she caught me? I had made sure to fool her into thinking that nothing was wrong in the kitchen! Why was she here!? There was still thirty minutes until dinner!

          
         She stood, hands on hips, surveying the disastrous scene, “Allison, did you eat cookies out of the cookie jar?”

         
        I blinked. Interrogation was not something that Nancy Drew, Jessica Fletcher or any of the others had ever prepared me for. Mostly they just caught the criminal, the criminal confessed and then they would get a sad, disappointed look from Angela Lansbury. I knew my mother’s punishment wouldn’t be a sad, sympathetic, yet also disappointed look. So I came up with the best Hail-Mary answer I could think up.

          
         “No!” bits of cookie spraying from my mouth, “No! It wasn’t me!”

          
         My mother let out a tiny snort, then collected herself again and said, “Now,” small amount of laughter, followed by a throat clearing, “I’m going to ask you again. Did you eat the cookies?”

         
          Don’t ask me why, even at the age of four I knew there was no logical escape, and yet, I found myself answering, “Nope! Wasn’t me!”

         
          My mother instructed me to come down off the counter and stand there for a minute, she would be right back. I obediently, for once, climbed off of the counter and stood, waiting for my punishment as my mom took long strides towards the hallway.

          
          I realize that she was trying to hide the fact that she was laughing, but I could still hear her. To this day, I will never forget her pained attempts to be a seriously upset parent as she snorted out from behind the wall, “Go,” chuckle, “to your room! Bahahahahahaha!”

         
         So what crumbs of knowledge can be extracted from the cookie jar of experience?


1. Laughter may delay punishment, but the punishment is still forthcoming.


2. If your child is planning heists at the age of four, you might want to pay closer attention to her behavior.


3. Sometimes the best-laid plans end with cookies and grounding.

   
If you want news on the upcoming book you can get updates by liking me on Facebook, following me on Twitter (@AllisonHawn) and follow me on instagram (@AtillaTheHawn)! You can also snatch up my previous two books here!

Friday, July 22, 2016

Behold, the Majesty!

Hello all, I hope you have all been having a more fabulous summer than the thought of a lemur reenactment of the Republican National Convention.

Well, I have some exciting news. Thanks to the amazing artistic powers of Anthony Carpenter my soon-to-be released book has a cover!


And here, to whet your literary appetites, is the blurb for the back cover!

Some people refurbish classic cars, others make quaint quilts, and a few still gather together to play Dungeons and Dragons in basements. 

Author Allison Hawn doesn’t have time for these pursuits. Instead, she spends her days dodging every weird, dangerous and surreal happening that the universe can fling in her direction. Follow Allison on her “bizarre magnet” life as she narrowly escapes the clutches of a giant territorial raccoon, barely avoids death by “burrito bomb” and pulls off the chocolate heist of the century. Find a hilarious escape from your reality by stepping into hers. 

There will be more news on the upcoming book soon! So sit tight, and while you're sitting, come find me on FacebookTwitter (@AllisonHawn), Instagram (@atillathehawn) and my books can be found here.

Friday, July 1, 2016

Laundry Room Blues

Hello all, I hope you have all had a more fabulous start to your summer than the thought of an elephant dressed as Elton John (he could be called "Elephant John," and this is why I probably need adult supervision).

Well, the summer here went from too hot to run in to too hot to breath in pretty quickly. This is particularly troublesome because my apartment's laundry has no air conditioning.

"Why don't you leave your clothes in there and come back when they're done?" you might find yourself wondering.

Unfortunately, like every other aspect of my life, the laundry room is yet another place where I cannot be a normal person and do normal things, like leave my clothes to wash and dry while I go back to my apartment to be a normal adult. Here is why:

One of the first months that I moved into my apartment, I thought just as you all do, "I can leave my gym clothes in the washing machine, no one will want to mess with dirty gym shorts..." and so I left my clothes, confident that when I returned they would be fresh smelling and ready to pop in the dryer.

Instead, I returned to find the washer I had been using open. My dirty gym shorts were still there, in fact, most of my clothes were still there. What wasn't there was any of my underwear.

Now let me clarify; women, have two different types of underwear. We have our "good" underwear and our "smeh" underwear. Our "good" underwear is flattering, form fitting, cute and relatively new. Our "smeh" underwear is what we wear to the gym, when we're lounging around alone at home or going somewhere we are relatively sure we won't be injured and have a possibly cute EMT see them at any point.

This load of laundry, being primarily full of gym clothes, was not just my "bad" underwear, it was the "three seconds from being thrown out" underwear. Add in the fact that the washing machine had started the cycle when it was interrupted, so everything in there was soaking wet, and you have quite the caper on your hands.

So, someone stole my dirty gym underwear straight out of the washing machine. As I asked others in the area to see if they had witnessed this, I found out that apparently this was an epidemic. There was a panty plunderer in our midst. As such, I did the responsible thing, and called the police, not because I wanted them returned, and I knew they wouldn't investigate, but I wanted them to be aware of the pervert wandering around who may escalate from stealing women's underwear to something worse (like stealing bras, those things are expensive!).

So, after giving the most ridiculous police report of my life. I went back to resolutely guard what remained of my laundry. It was then that things got weird.

Okay, things were weird already, but then it got to the "watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show while sleep deprived" level of weird.

I had been standing by my washing machine, suspiciously eyeing anyone who approached, for about five minutes when this short woman ran up to me and, while speaking rapid Spanish, thrust her baby into my arms before running off to fold laundry.

A quick note for those who don't know me. I don't like babies. I think they are cute from a distance, but even when it's a baby of someone that I know, I have little to zero desire to hold it. She apparently spoke no English, as I repeatedly tried to return her child to her, she would just ramble something in Spanish and return to folding laundry.

 So I stood there, with a child that I not only did not know the name of, I actually had no clue of its gender, wondering when this Hell simulator might end.

Apparently the Hell simulator was on "shop demonstration" mode, because out of nowhere this guy, with clean shaven head, beard that qualified as "ZZ Top length" and a giant swastika tattoo wandered up to me, "Hey... I heard your underwear got stolen... that really sucks..." 

So, a quick recap on the situation. I have had all my underwear stolen, I am stuck holding a baby of unknown name and gender and I am now being consoled about stolen underwear by a Neo-Nazi.

At this point, I figured, "Well, it can't get any worse, right?"

The universe loves to laugh at these thoughts. The Neo-Nazi suddenly changed subjects, "So... are you busy Friday night?"

I was about to attempt a reply when suddenly the baby hiccuped and puked down my arm. Granted, if there is ever a time to puke, it might be witnessing someone being asked out by a Neo-Nazi in a laundromat, but I still didn't appreciate the gesture.

Finally, after fending off my Neo-Nazi Nitwit, managing to give back the baby, and most of the puke, to the mother and gathering up my finally clean laundry, I was able to leave.

Now I go to the laundromat armed with mace. Excuse me, not "mace," I meant "a mace" as in one of those medieval weapons with the chain and the spiky ball on the end. It has the benefit of both occupying my hands so unknown babies cannot be thrown into them and keeping unwanted advances at bay.

So what socks of knowledge can be pulled from the laundry basket of experience?

1. If an officer asks, "What would you like me to do about your stolen underwear?" Responding with, "Well, nothing really, I mean if you see a guy wearing panties on his head, you might assume he's the culprit and talk to him. I just thought you should know about the creeper..." will make the responding officer nearly snort his coffee all over his notebook.

2. Apparently baby puke repulses Nazis, if only we had known this in WWII.

3. Laundry day is a dangerous day.

As always my adventures can be followed on FacebookTwitter (@AllisonHawn), instagram (@AtillatheHawn) and my books can be found here! Keep checking in for more news and details about my upcoming book "Life is a Roller Derby Run by a Sphinx!"