The phone here at work just rang – a rare occurrence at this particular financial institution. I answered, and this is what I heard:

“Hi, I’m being detained at the Davidson County jail, and need bail money. I’ve been framed. This is my one phone call. Can you help me out?”

“Um, are you serious?”

“Yes. Very serious.” He told me his name, and what kind of a doctor he is.

“Are you a client here?”

“No.”

“Well. We’re not a bank, per se. We’re more along the lines of private wealth management.”

“Okay. But can you help me? This is my ONE phone call.” The panic in his voice was evident.

“Um… well… I’m just the [temp!] receptionist. Let me toss you over to Sandra.”

I transferred the call, and watched the light that indicated Sandra’s phone ringing blink… and blink… and blink… but she was away from her desk. She never answered.

I have failed him.

My friend Carly has a fabulous food blog aptly titled Fabulously Classic. She is my dream wife, coming up with all sorts of delicious concoctions to feed her husband Ben. Recently, she posted a recipe for pumpkin bars, and since it’s fall and I have A NEW MIXER, I thought I would bake a batch for my friendliest neighbors: the ex-cons across the street.

Except I didn’t follow the instructions. Carly said “jelly roll pan.” I took that to mean “any pan that I want.” Bad decision.

The pumpkin batter in my pan wound up being FAR too deep to bake all the way through, so in the end, I was presented with a “crispy around the edges” and yet “completely unbaked wad of dough in the middle” cake. I pulled it out and looked at it, flabbergasted, trying to scientifically deduce what I had done wrong. I’ve decided that a good law to live by should be, “Never do what your brain thinks will be okay.” That rule of thumb would have saved me from several speeding tickets, an ill-fated decision to pass up Dramamine, and $400 at a date auction in 2001.

However, never one to waste anything – especially sugar and lard – I waited for the cake to cool and then revisited it. I decided that there were salvageable pieces around the edges, so I took a knife to the whole, and wound up with 3 platefuls of mini-squares of perfectly good cake. Today, I will frost them individually, and bring them to my favorite former prisoners.

But I still have the mush from the middle – a doughy lump of ugly-yet-probably-delicious cake. And call me crazy, but I’m thinking… breakfast for 2 weeks.

Last night, I was flipping through a hymnal (trust me: if you had no cable or internet, you’d be doing it, too) and paused at “There Is a Fountain.” Twenty-six years in the church, and I had never heard this song? Outrageous! So I started singing it, all quiet and peaceful and lovely (belying my actual persona), sitting there on the red couch.

When. From out of nowhere.

A hybrid spider-cricket (spicket?), unlike anything I have ever seen, crawled into plain sight, right in the middle of the living room floor. I screeeeeeeeeeamed, and threw the book at it. The hymnal book. It turns out that the words of life are also capable of bringing about death, and for this, I am grateful.

In other news, I am sick. My windpipe is a straw. My sinuses are packed like sausages, like thighs into pantyhose. I am doped up on cold medicine, which gave me a satisfying night’s sleep last night, but is resulting in a vacant stare and a gaping mouth sitting at the ol’ desk job today. I called a health clinic for the uninsured, but they are not accepting new patients until November. Looks like I’ll be riding this one out on a wave of Contac and tomato soup (Progresso makes a fantastic tomato soup – so much cheaper and healthier than Whole Foods cream-based option, but a million times more delicious than Campbell’s – it even has real tomato chunkage!).

And should this buggy blog leave you unfulfilled (which I suspect it might), be sure to read this fantastic example of poor redneck judgment. But who could blame him, really? I mean, his last name was Fox.

I don’t really watch “The Biggest Loser,” although I have a couple of times – enough to remember Dan Evans. Dan Evans, of season 5. Dan Evans, who lost a heroic 136 lbs. Dan Evans, the aspiring country artist. Dan Evans, whose CD entitled “Goin’ All Out” is being released today.

Dan Evans, whose mega “Goin’ All Out” tour bus hit my little Honda yesterday.

It’s not unusual to see a tour bus on the streets of Nashville – this is Music City, after all. But most artists tend to keep a low profile – it’s hard to tell who might be inside the bus. Not Dan Evans. His face is plastered all over his bus, along with his name – although, due to poor typography and a serious lack of spacing, I read “DANEvans” and thought that his name was indeed “Dane Vans.”

It wasn’t until the bus hit my car and the DANEvans decal was 18 inches from my face that I realized, “Oh, I was wrong – this is DAN EVANS, not DANE VANS. Charming.”

Blame it on traffic. Blame it on narrow streets. Blame it on a bus driver who was dreaming some seriously big dreams, attempting to navigate his way around a corner. But my bumper was the casualty. Scrape. Scratch. I honked my horn, rolled down my window, and yelled up at the driver, “Did you just crunch me?” He said, “Yes. I’m sorry. If you pull straight forward, you should be fine.”

Surprisingly, he was right. I pulled straight forward, and after the intial RASP of two bumpers separating, I was free from the wreckage*. And DANEvans went chugging merrily on his way.

No autograph or anything. The nerve.

*The “wreckage” consisted of a couple scrapes, but nothing cracked. Bumper, here’s a lesson that my heart has learned time and time again: the bastards can beat you up, but they can’t keep you down. You are bruised but not broken. And you will live to see another day.

For those of you who do not live in the Nashville area: currently, we are experiencing a gas shortage. A gas crisis. The city is out of fuel. Blame it on Hurricane Ike, blame it on the government, blame it on people being worked into a frenzy and hoarding fuel – whatever the reason, the gas pumps are bone dry, and have been for several days. Occasionally, a partially-full tanker truck will refuel a station, but the outrageously long lines of cars quickly deplete the supply.

Last weekend, I took a chance and used a half a tank of gas to drive to Chattanooga, hoping that there would be fuel there. I was able to fill up, but then used that same half tank to get back to Nashville. Luckily, I work just a mile and a half from my house, so the gas should last me awhile. They say that we might have gas by Friday – although there’s no telling how much they’ll charge.

Most of us who live here have seen this – I know that several of my bloggie friends have already posted it. I believe that it displays the sentiments of most people in this city. Beware some harsh language, but what do you expect?
It’s Hitler.

As the Temptress, I make an hourly wage, which equates to a not-very-big salary. Don’t get me wrong: for doing nothing, I make a fortune. And even if I don’t have a lot of extra cash, my bills always get paid. I am grateful for this temp job that is allowing me to have an experience here in Nashville.

But extra money is never a bad thing, right?

So I am currently doing a trial run with one of those Type From Home programs. Companies all over the world have scanned in old documents, and they need people to transcribe them. This seemed like a good fit for me because 1) I can do it at work, and 2) who is the valedictorian of typing? It sounded like easy cash.

But the program that I am using has some stipulations. There is a minimum requirement of pages to be typed each month, and if you don’t meet it – sorry, no money, not even for the pages that you DO type. There is also a maximum number of pages you can type – you may not exceed X number of pages, and therefore, X number of dollars, each month.

Doing the math, I figured out that I must type 15 pages a day to meet the minimum requirement. Not bad – especially when WHAT ELSE AM I GOING TO DO AT MY DESK? So yesterday was my first day, my grand experiment, and I was excited to get going.

Maniacally excited. I typed 75 pages.

When I walked out of work, my eyeballs fell out of my skull and rolled across the parking lot like marbles.

But you know me – I love money! I love cash! Being poor is balderdash!

So I went home, and typed some more – mostly Iranian medical documents about menstruation and chemical compounds. Adding up the pages as I went along, I started calculating the things I was going to buy: a new bottle of perfume, a ticket to Seattle, a new car… visions of Anthropologie dresses and massages and all of the things I’ve always wanted but never been able to buy… Type From Home is going to be my ticket to financial freedom!

But just before bed, I checked the website one more time… and my Blimp of a Thousand Dreams was slashed by the Grand Knife of Reality: there is a 50 page/day maximum. Anything above that is not only deleted, but then subtracted from your total. You type 51, your total is 49. You type 52, your total is 48. So because I typed close to 100 pages, I logged nearly zero.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Guys, I am very sorry to report that the special surprise will not be happening today. Due to circumstances out of my control, it is not ready to be unveiled JUST yet.

But probably tomorrow. Probably.

Dang. Who wants to unveil a surprise on the weekend, when everyone is not at their computer all day to see it? I might wait until Monday for the surprise.

Or I might post it tomorrow. I’ll see how I feel.

I like to keep you on your toes.

Sorry. PSYCH! Just kidding. But seriously. Psych.

In other news, I just finished the season finale of “Lost” (yes, at work. So?). And all I have to say is that Michael Emerson and Yunjin Kim are the best actors on that show. Phenomenal.

Hair grows.

It does. I know it does.

And mine grows quickly, like a weed – about an inch a month.

Still. These days, I am regretting the decision to cut my hair.

Sure, it was spontaneous and cute and spunky for awhile – an “I am Annie Freaking Parsons” moment. But now, it’s shaggy and a little bit shapeless, and not short enough to be cute, but not long enough to be hot.

I am a PTA mother.

I miss the days of showering at night, sleeping with wet hair, and waking up with a picture-perfect mane. It was so easy, with the ever-advantageous feature of being long enough for a Liv Tyler ponytail. These days, my ponytail is an inch and a half long, with the underside being too short to reach the rubber band, and thus, sticking out wildly, like prickles on a cactus.

I could trim it up and give it some oomph, but I so desperately want it to Be Long again. I cut it on February 23, and 10” were hacked off. So if I want to get it back to a state of glamour, this means that I will be in the process of growing until Christmas.

Christmas 1987 – a hand-made dollhouse, crafted by my Grandpop
Christmas 1993 – a kitten named Cassie
Christmas 2000 – keys to the Honda, which my parents helped me get into
Christmas 2005 – Dolce & Gabana Light Blue perfume
Christmas 2008 – my femininity

… all of my wildest underdog Disney sports movie dreams came crashing down.