On the occasion of DeForest Kelley’s 103rd birthday, let’s have some fun! I know he would like that!
De’s 75th Birthday, 1995
It’s hard to imagine the world before 2001, isn’t it?
Before 9/11
Before COVID-19
Before January 6, 2021
Like the old Chinese curse, we are living in interesting times, indeed!
So, I think it’s time to recapture some of our earlier innocence. Are you ready? I sure am!
When I re-read DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal: A Harvestof Memories from the Fan Who Knew Him Best from this vantage point (post 9/11, post COVID, post-Capitol Coup attempt), I find myself transported back in time to days, weeks, even months at a stretch where a smile was on my lips so often that it almost felt etched there.
What a hoot it was to look forward to the phone ringing every few days (sometimes multiple times a day!) and finding Carolyn and/or DeForest Kelley on the other end of the line to say they were “just checking up” on me or for some other fun (or funny) reason.
How much fun it was to try to come up with frequent humorous letters, letting the Kelleys know what kind of crazy situation I had gotten myself into (or found myself in) so I could imagine them laughing — and then getting the calls that confirmed that I had managed to crack them up again.
“I just figured out how to launch rockets without using rocket fuel. Put a big net between a body of water and set cats on the net, then start to lower the net into the water! The resulting leaping will boost the rocket! Try giving a cat a bath, like I just did, for proof that this will work!”)
The following excerpts are from my book DeForest Kelley Up Close and Personal (All rights reserved!!! OK to share this post but NOT to cut and paste these excerpts anywhere else without my express written permission!):
Dear Ones:
I want to pass along to you some vital professional advice. It’s revolutionary.
Up until today, I thought I had heard it all. But I was wrong.
Today I went in for my regular dental check-up. The dentist looked around in my mouth and couldn’t find anything on my teeth worth complaining about, so he asked, “And do you also brush your tongue?”
???????????????
If he hadn’t had both hands and some sort of lethal-looking metal device shoved halfway down my throat, I would have laughed. Instead, I almost choked. When he let me up for air, I said, “You have got to be putting me on!”
“No.” He was serious! He said that people who brush their tongues taste food better. He said that bacteria found on the teeth are also found on the tongue; it only made sense that they should receive similar treatment. O.K. I accepted that; it sounded logical.
But that led me to ask, “But—how do you brush your tongue without gagging?”
He had an answer for that, too. “Stick your tongue out and pant while you brush.”
I was beginning to wonder if I had perhaps run into one of those dentists you’re not supposed to trust as far as you can throw them. (I’m still not sure I didn’t!) But now I am dutifully brushing my tongue, as well as my teeth. And it gags me every time, because I refuse to pant in a house where others live and where the walls are thin. I mean, can you imagine?
“What’s she doing in there?’
“She’s brushing her tongue.”
“I see…” (long pause) “I told you we should have had her confined when she started talking to animals, but no! You said she’d outgrow it!”
But the dentist is right. Food does taste better! (Just what I need, is for food to taste better! I’m already 30 pounds overweight!)
I have been thinking about this conversation ever since. And I thought, Well, I bet this is something Carolyn and De haven’t been written to about before. (It’s not easy coming up with a Letter of the Month to you that won’t end up sounding like old hat. I mean, don’t you get tired of hearing how wonderful you are, how you have changed people’s lives? All that serious, mushy stuff? Isn’t it refreshing to know you can count on me to update you on oral hygiene advances now and then?
Love you,
Krazy Kris (pant, pant)
……………………………………….
On Saturday, De introduced me as “Krazy Kris” for the first time, and it stuck in DKFC members’ minds. And that’s when I decided that, at some point in the future, I would get even with Mister Kelley publicly for “DE-faming” me.
When I got home from the convention, I blasted him with a pseudo- outraged letter regarding his impertinence. A sticker at the top hinted at what might follow. It read: “CAUTION: Contains material that may be offensive to persons lacking a sense of humor.”
The letter went like this:
JACKSON DeFOREST KELLEY! (The sound of thunder or growling goes here.) (Ooh—doesn’t that just make the hair on the back of your neck rise? Why, whenever I heard my full name used in that tone of voice, I knew I was in Big Trouble. I only heard my full name used TWICE in my life – once, when I went inner-tubing in Spanaway Lake before I knew how to swim (unaccompanied), and once — but I digress: This is your chewing out, not mine!!)
(“Yes?”) You are in Big Trouble! (“I am?”) Yes! You! (“What did I do, pray tell?”)
Well, if you don’t even know, I am outraged! (“So, clue me in, will you?”) You called me KRAZY KRIS in LA and now everybody is doing it—all these people who used to think of me as sane, sensible, reputable, dependable, intelligent, and professional. Stop laughing now! There were a few misguided souls who really felt that way!
Krazy Kris was a secret—didn’t you know?! No one was supposed to know she existed; I had managed to keep her under wraps for 36 years and then you had to open your big mouth in LA and let the cat out! Well, as you no doubt guessed, the DKFC reporters (your stooges, particularly the Top Stooge, Sue Keenan) picked it right up, and now it is INTERNATIONAL news! What am I supposed to tell my Trekkie boss who, up until now, thought I was safe to have around? “It was a case of mistaken identity?!” You blew my cover! Okay, two can play this game. Don’t expect me to run interference for you ever again. If I see you sneaking down the street in Spanaway or anywhere else in the world in your movie star “They’ll-Never-Recognize-Me-In-This-Get-Up” glasses, will I just nod to you and pass by, keeping it under my hat that I know who you are? Not on your life! I’ll shriek at the top of my lungs, “Hey, there’s DeFOREST KELLEY!” and while everyone on the block is thinking, “Gee, where do I know that name from? It seems so familiar…” I will add, “DR. McCOY, you guys! Get with it! Mob him!” You’ll never have another moment’s peace, if I have anything to say about it! I considered punishing you by not writing at ALL this month, but then I decided, hey, the best punishment of all is writing to him! Make him suffer for the indignities he has caused me. The mental anguish, the guffaws of my co-workers, WHO I WAS TRYING TO INSPIRE AND LEAD, for heaven’s sake! What you have done is the equivalent of calling Captain Kirk a lunatic in front of the Klingons! It will never be forgotten! I am ruined!
If I need a new job as a result of all this, I hope you will be kind enough to write me a letter of reference, leaving out anything you might know about me that would indicate I am not working on all thrusters. (No matter how little that leaves to talk about.)
Sincerely yours, (Hah! More like, “Go milk a duck, Bones!”) (“Go milk a duck, De,” sounds a bit too harsh. Bones can take it, though!)
The One Who Shall Remain Nameless, Faceless and Incognito to protect what’s LEFT of her shattered reputation!
***************
Kat and I had made two shellacked plaques – one for Sue, one for the Kelleys (whom we considered partners in crime over the 3 ½ month long nervous mystery). Both had an enormous elephant dropping on them, borrowed from the dung pile up at Shambala, and both had an engraved brass metal plate, as well, which read, “THANK YOU FOR PUTTING UP WITH ALL OUR SHIT.” Atop the pachyderm poo we cemented two little love bugs, and they had little placards, containing songs:
De’s and Carolyn’s Song
We love you, D&C
Oh yes we “doo”
We don’t love anyone
As much as you
Sometimes it’s hard to tell
That’s true –
But D&C we love you!
Sue’s Song
We love you Sue Keenan
Oh yes we “doo”
We try so hard to prove
This fact to you
But we are sure you know
It’s true
Oh Sue Keenan we love you!
UNDERNEATH the plaque, we affixed a “contents” label:
Contents: 100% Pure Pachyderm Poop
Compliments of Shambala Preserve(d)
******************************
The next day we got in line for De’s final OktoberTrek appearance, claimed front row seats, and then took turns having breakfast in the hotel restaurant while others saved our seats.
De appeared at 4:30 PM and once again had to bring up the pachyderm poop plaques! (Kat and I were afraid some reverent Trekker might take us out behind the hotel and lynch us afterward, so we really wished he hadn’t brought that particular got’cha to public attention!)
We had carried huge yellow fans to the convention, which Kat had designed to read DE KELLEY FAN when opened. When De saw those fans, he got a big kick out of them and had us turn around to show the rest of the audience what was on them. Then he said, “That’s some bunch of fans I’ve got. You all see that? That’s the same smart ass group that presented me with that petrified…I told you about that yesterday. Elephant dung. It’s an inside joke, but now that it’s outside, I was thinking about it and I know why they did that. They know the story. A number of years ago I was doing a Western with Rory Calhoun, and Rory is a prankster. He’s always doing devilish things like pretending to sneeze behind your back while dipping his fingers in a cup of coffee and then flinging it on the back of your neck…that sort of thing. So one day we were sitting outside and it was very cold. It was in the winter. We were shooting on location and we all had these little canvas dressing rooms that they had thrown up…put electric heaters in all of them for us. But, I was sitting outside on my chair, and Rory is walking by with Chill Wills…so he feigns tripping over my legs and spills coffee all over me ‘accidentally.’ I thought I’d had just about enough of that, and I noticed that one of the men, who took care of the horses, was walking around cleaning up the horse manure. So I asked him if he would do me a favor and take a shovel of that fresh manure and put it in Rory’s dressing room. So he did – and I went with him, of course, you know…He put it in Rory’s dressing room and I had him place it inside this little bitty closet. I turned the electric heater on it. True story!” The audience was in stitches by now. “Rory had to appear that night on the Art Linkletter Show and had this beautiful sport coat and flannel slacks hanging in that closet. So, I checked first with the Assistant Director, and asked him, ‘Am I still getting off early this afternoon?’ He said, ‘Yes,’ so I left!”
“The next morning I was doing a fight scene in a corral and Rory came in. He was a big strapping guy, ya know? He came in and he jumped over that corral and he grabbed me…and he shook me, and he said, ‘You little shit!’
“But he never played another trick on me!
“So I know the reason for that little joke you gals played on me!”
***********************************
HUMOR – A DIFFICULT CONCEPT
After a convention the mood at home is somewhat ho-hum—think of post-holiday blues and you’ll have the general idea—so I generally started imagining the next event, which was a De con scheduled for August in Oakland. I had seen De in a blue and white striped shirt in photos taken during a Trek cruise and at other cons, and had swooned over how attractive he looked in it. I joked that he’d never better show up wearing it around me, because I might ravage his body. That led into a couple of tamely ribald skits that led into DKFC history so it’s only fair that I share them here with you.
INFAMOUS STRIPED SHIRT SKIT #1
De is onstage in Oakland on Saturday.
De: (to Kat) Hi, Kat!
Kat: Hello, you handsome devil!
De: Well, thank you!
Kat: I call ‘em as I see ‘em.
De: I know you do. Glad you could make it. (To audience.)
She’s from Florida. She follows me everywhere. She’s crazy about me.
Kat: (joking) No, I’m not. I just want to be in the audience the day you slip up.
De: Slip up? And do what?
Kat: The day you slip up and wear that blue and white striped shirt in front of Kris
Kris: Shut up, Kat.
De: I don’t get it.
Kris: (nervous) Shut up, Kat.
Kat: If I don’t warn him, he might actually wear the darned thing sometime.
Kris: You’re right. And then I’d chew my knuckles to the bone. Maybe we should tell him. But how, without making me look like a fool?
Kat: Don’t worry. Let me handle it. Trust me. (To De.) She likes that blue and white striped shirt you wore to dinner on the cruise. And you’ve worn it a few times at other conventions since then—cons Kris wasn’t at.
De: Oh, I see. Well, I’ll be sure and wear it tomorrow so you can see it in person, Kris.
Kris and Kat: NO!
Kris: Oh, God, no. Anything but that!
De: Now, that doesn’t make any sense at all: Tell me you like something particularly well, and then tell me not to wear it.
Kris: Drop it, Kat. Forget it. Please.
Kat: (to Kris) Don’t worry. I can handle it. (To De.) It makes perfect sense. Kris likes you, and she loves that striped shirt. Combine the two and she can’t be held responsible for her actions—and I sure as hell can’t hold her down.
De: You can’t be serious. Are you telling me that my lack of a striped shirt is all that’s keeping me safe from Kris?
Kris: (sweating bullets; jumping to her own defense)
Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Kat, please.
Kat: That shirt acts as a sort of visual stimulant to her, I guess. Sort of like an aphroDEsiac… (everybody in the audience laughs like crazy)
Kris: Gee, Kat, thanks for explaining it so I wouldn’t be embarrassed! Next time I’ll handle my own explanations, thank you!
De:(also laughing) Well, that’s crazy!
Carolyn: CONSIDER THE SOURCE! AND THROW AWAY THAT SHIRT!
INFAMOUS STRIPED SHIRT SKIT #2
De arrives on stage on Sunday wearing the blue and white striped shirt! He’s grinning like a Cheshire cat and looking straight at Kris.
De: Good morning, Kris.
Kris: I don’t believe it. You little (shit)
De: Do you like my shirt?
Kris: I love your shirt.
Kat: Kris, would you like my help in beating him to a pulp?
Kris: No…Let him have his fun. We’ll see who gets the last laugh. (To De) Okay, smarty pants, you want to live dangerously…(she gets up and heads for the stage)
De: (laughing) What are you going to do to me?
Kris: I don’t give away the ending of a story any more often than you do.
De: You’re not going to do anything you’ll regret later, are you?
Kris: Why, De….There’s nothing I could do to you that I would regret later…
De: (his smile fades) Kris—are you going to do anything to me that I would regret later?
Kris: Gee, I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out!
De: Kris….Kat? Help?
Kat: Sorry, De. You were warned. You made your bed. Now you’re going to have to lie in it. (Kat gets up, looking as if she’ll assist Kris)
De: OK, you two. Enough is enough. Just wait a minute! (Kris arrives.)
Kris: (fondling the material on De’s sleeve.) Nice material, De…
De: OK ,I surrender. You win. Let’s call it even!
Kris: Even? I haven’t even begun to get even!
De: CAROLYN! HELP ME!
Carolyn: Sorry, De. You have it coming. I told you not to wear that shirt!
De: CAROLYN! (Carolyn shakes her head and crosses her arms, showing no mercy or sympathy.) (To the girls.) OK, I’m taking this shirt off. Right now. OK?
Kat: Great idea. That’ll get KRIS off your back, at least.
Kris: Of course, then you’ll have Kat to contend with. She just loves hairy chests—especially yours.
De: Oh, dear. Look, ladies…I’m sorry. I was just trying to add a little levity to these proceedings.
Kris: Well, I’m entertained.
Kat: Me, too. I don’t think I’ve ever had a better time.
De: Uh… perhaps I’ll read my second poem now.
Kris: Well, if you think you can, despite the interference.
De: (clears his throat) “Twenty years ago in a galaxy far far away…”
(Kris starts unbuttoning his shirt) Oh, dear… Where was I?
Kris: Beats me!
Kat: Frankly, my dear, we don’t give a damn!
De: CAROLYN! IF YOU LOVE ME, YOU WILL COME UP HERE RIGHT THIS MINUTE AND TELL THESE TWO WOMEN TO LEAVE ME ALONE!
Carolyn: (to Sue) I think he’s had enough. He’s about ready to cry.
Sue: I agree. Poor guy.
Carolyn: All right, girls. At ease.
Kat: (to Carolyn) Thanks for the forewarning about the shirt, Carolyn. We worked on this skit half the night —and it went even better than planned!
De: You…you had this planned? (glaring at Carolyn, completely flabbergasted)
Carolyn: Well, of course, dear. You don’t think I’d have let it go on this long if I wasn’t in on it, do you?
De: I am going to burn this shirt! And if I didn’t like the three of you so much, I’d…
C,K. and K: You’d what?
De: I don’t know. There’s nothing I can come up with that’s just punishment! I’d like to turn you all over my knee.
Kat: Ooh, sounds like FUN!
De: Oh, no! Here we go, again!
I sent the skits to the Kelleys and sat back in anticipation, figuring they would certainly put them on the floor (my usual aim in writing to them). So certain was I of their hilarious effect that I decided to share the skits with my parents. They listened to them as I proceeded along. Their faces grew more pale and their eyes grew wider the farther along I got. When I finished, Mom asked, “You didn’t send these skits to the Kelleys, did you?”
“Yeah. Sure! Why not?”
Mom and Dad looked at each other.
“Oh, my God.” Dad said, “I can’t believe it. The Kelleys will never speak to you again.”
Their horrified reaction and prediction put ice water into my veins like you wouldn’t believe. I re-read the skits and decided that maybe on paper they weren’t as funny as they’d been in my head. If the Kelleys took them as a true representation of my attraction to De, I was doomed.
Of course, I panicked. I kept telling myself, Be rational, Kris. Don’t let your folks panic you! The Kelleys know that if these skits were a true representation of your feelings, you would never have sent them in the first place! Calm down! The Kelleys are not going to assign any validity to those off-the-wall skits!
But my folks’ concern kept returning and their words kept reverberating in the corridors of my mind: The Kelleys will never speak to you again! I began to contemplate the odds of that happening. The Kelleys were of the same generation as Mom and Dad…they grew up under some of the same influences…and oh my God…De was a preacher’s kid, for God’s sake! They were going to look upon these skits exactly as Mom and Dad had feared and I would be drummed out of the DKFC and out of the Kelleys’ lives forever, amen!
I called Kat. She told me to calm down! The Kelleys would love the skits.
Mom and Dad were hardly talking to me. I later learned that Dad was really frightened that the Kelleys might take the skits wrong and distance themselves from me, which he knew would devastate me. He didn’t want me to suffer through something like that.
Well, I was so torn by this time, I thought, Well, it won’t do me any good to sit here and fall apart. I’ll write them a letter of apology just in case the skits weren’t well received. It was the only thing I could think to do in the event I had overstepped any boundaries and humiliated or angered De or Carolyn.
I don’t think my letter of apology was even completely read by Carolyn and De before Carolyn fired back a note to me saying, in part, “Don’t worry about the shirt skits you sent. We are glad you can have such a lot of fun with all that nonsense.”
That was the scariest envelope I ever opened–and I was so relieved when I got to that part of the message.
(Spoiler Alert: De wore the striped shirt to the very next convention that he knew I’d be attending. Carolyn made him do it!)
(So it’s a foregone conclusion that I passed her test, or she’d have killed me back then! HA HA HA A HA!)
Right after this major crisis, Kat came up with a skit based on the old I Love Lucy series. In it, the two of US (instead of Lucy and Ethel) go to the Kelleys home disguised as lawn care attendants, hoping not to be recognized–and of course, we are recognized instantly. I thought the skit was really cute and suggested she send it to De and Carolyn the next time she had occasion to write. She did.
The only problem was that she mistyped the word skits, and within days she got a response from Carolyn in which she wrote: “De feels you two have a long way to go on your ‘shits.’” Kat vowed then and there to get even with the proofreader of her embarrassing misprint, and called me a couple of days later and said, “I want to short-sheet his bed.”
I laughed so hard I cried at the impertinence of that remark. After I regained my composure, I said, “That’s awful. Let’s do it!”
She said, “There’s no way!”
I said, “Did I hear that? From a Trekker? Kat, ‘There are always possibilities!’ Remember?”
The light went on and Kat said, “Carolyn!”
I said, “Bingo!”
Kat said, “Naw….She’d never go with us on this one.”
I said, “Well, at least we can ask. If she says no, at least he’ll find out he was very close to being in Deep Skit with that comment!”
Kat told me I should write the short-sheeting request.
That gave me pause! “Why me? It was your idea!” (Cold feet!)
Kat insisted, “You’re the writer. You can sell the idea better.”
I countered, “Carolyn is not going to buy the idea, no matter who sells it!”
Kat said, “I know…but at least you can keep us from being disowned for asking!” So, I sat down and wrote the letter:
Dear Carolyn,
Now you’ve REALLY got Kat going! Ever since that “shits” note, she has been thinking of a way to “get even.”
Her best idea is to short sheet De’s bed at the upcoming Oakland convention. If there was any way we could think to do this without your help, we would. But then YOU would get short-sheeted, too – since we have a strange predilection ever since Denver to short-sheet beds of people we like. (I think I may have fallen in with the wrong crowd, here. Before I met Kat, I never even knew what short-sheeting WAS! Then she educated me. It’s ALL Sue’s fault! If she hadn’t put me with Kat in the first place, I would still be the sweet, respectful, reverent person I’ve ALWAYS been!)
ANYWAY — Sue loved being short-sheeted in Denver. (She even cried when we left. Of course, she may have been crying with RELIEF, but it didn’t look that way to US!) We are also planning to short-sheet Jackie’s bed in Oakland. And we’ve had two T-shirts made up that say, “SHE DID IT!” with arrows pointing to each other. So Jackie won’t know who to blame! There’s no reason why we couldn’t wear them AGAIN – and FOREVER – if we got permission from YOU to short-sheet De. This is exactly the kind of thing a legend in his own time would never expect or imagine (especially since we’d need an inside accomplice). And you would get to see his reaction firsthand! (We sure would appreciate a full report later! We’ll even wait in the lobby to re-make the bed, if you want, so you won’t have to do it! (OR we’ll run and hide until De has had enough time to see the humor in it before he catches sight of us again. Whatever you think it best!)
If you say yes, you will be helping to forge CONVENTION HISTORY. Possibly to get us put away for good, too – so just think of the contribution to SOCIETY you would be making RIGHT THERE!) IF De decided to tell the convention-goers about it, everyone would be in stitches (and we’d probably be lynched! TWO opportunities to be rid of us!) Sue would wet her pants (just before barring us from the DKFC forever) and Jackie would not be far behind!
If you don’t agree that it’s a great idea (true inspiration) we withdraw the request! If you DO think it’ll be a howl, we need your help (obviously) to accomplish the dastardly deed: a key, a word left with hotel management to let us sneak in some time when you’re out to dinner… or, if your hotel is close to ours, we can get together for a drink and excuse ourselves to go “to the ladies room” and run over and perpetrate the crime in a couple of minutes. WHEE! What fun!
What’cha think? Huh? It’s your last convention for a long, long time – THINK of the great MEMORIES you’ll have! (?) (De remembers Rory Calhoun for some pretty dastardly pranks. In fact, if he wasn’t so fond of those stories, we would never have thought of THIS! It’s all DE’S fault!)
Now that I’ve placed the blame on everyone except myself (Kat, Sue, even De), I feel a lot better signing this. But I’m not taking the rap alone!
Kat and Kris
The DE-mentos
(Double Yolkers in Need of a Third Good Egg!)
While we awaited the response to this letter (which we weren’t sure we’d ever get) we entertained ourselves devising skits relating to What Might Happen if Carolyn actually said yes and we were faced with having to face De again after the Incident. They were pretty hilarious.
A week or so after we sent the Official Short-Sheeting Request, I got a letter from Carolyn:
Dear Kris:
We were amused no end by your letter today. You and Kat are certainly having a good time – it was a lucky day when you were introduced as “roomies” – and I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful vacation together in the Great Northwest after the Oakland convention.
I hesitate having to place a damper on your short-sheeting plan for De, but having some idea as to his reaction, I wouldn’t advise it.
Enjoyed your article in GRIT (“Getting Down to Earth With The Reel McCoy”) and the Dave Barry piece on sharks. You’re as good as he is, right now. You just haven’t had the breaks yet… but you will.
Best always,
Carolyn
Notice that even when Carolyn has to tell you, no way she does it in such a pleasant way as to make you feel blessed. I love her deeply.
*********
HOPPY HALLOWEEN
Kat and I hand-made a pair of truly grotesque (by design) bunny costumes that we had planned to wear to AC Lyles’ place in Bel Air on Halloween. (We had never perpetrated a got’cha on AC and figured it was time.) We each had a pair of panty hose over our heads, with cardboard pushed into the legs to make them resemble crude bunny ears; we had white jogging pants on with men’s BVDs outside them (to hold the cotton tails we had made). Two women have never, in all of earth history, looked so ludicrous as we did in those get-ups. We were hysterical thinking what AC’s reaction would be when he opened the door and spotted us standing there with a gaudy, plastic basketful of Reese’s peanut butter cups (his favorites).
We were planning to tell AC, when he answered the door, that we were there to audition for the sequel to Night of the Lepus, the last film AC had made with De. As bad luck would have it, President G.H. Bush called AC out of town on Halloween weekend to campaign for him, so…
We needed another victim.
Kat suggested De and Carolyn, and I said no. “Jeez, if the neighbors catch us looking like idiots…it’ll embarrass the Kelleys. We can’t do this to them!” (Up in Bel Air, where the Lyles lived, we knew that no one would know us, whereas the neighbors near De would recognize us.)
Kat moped and groused, and I finally conceded. We’d gone to some expense to make ridiculous costumes, so…it was decided. We’d go to the Kelleys. Still, I was nervous about it.
Kat called Carolyn before we left, to be sure our victims would be at home when we arrived. When Carolyn answered the phone, Kat said, “Boo! Happy Halloween!” Carolyn returned the greeting and Kat asked permission to stop by and drop something off. Carolyn said the threshold had just been painted and was still wet. Kat said, “Oh, we don’t want to come in. We just want to drop something off and we want you to look out the window when we do it, if you can.”
Carolyn said, “Oh, you can come in; I just don’t want you to step on the threshold when you do it.” Then she laughed, “Maybe Kris can carry you over the threshold, since Daryl isn’t around!”
Kat mentioned what a beautiful, clear day it was and Carolyn said, “This is exactly how it was when we moved here: clear, quiet, no crime…”
Kat said, “Darn! We missed it!”
Carolyn joked back, “You weren’t even BORN yet!” and Kat responded, “Details, Carolyn! Details!”
Carolyn then asked Kat, “Does Kris want to talk to me?”
Kat asked me, “Do you want to talk to Carolyn?”
I was so nervous about our impending got’cha that I said, “No!” (because I knew we were about to make complete asses of ourselves). Kat said to me, “Oh, come on!” and whispered, “She asked for you. She’ll be hurt if you don’t say something.”
So I leaped over to the phone and said enthusiastically, “Hi, Carolyn!”
Carolyn asked, sounding a little hurt, “Don’t you want to talk to me?”
I said, “Yes, yes, yes, I do!” — and she laughed.
I said, “But — we’re gonna see you in a few minutes.”
Carolyn said, “So we can talk then, right?”
I said, “Right!”
“Well, I’ll talk to you then, then! Bye!”
We drove over. I was really traumatized by this little thing we were about to do, worrying that it was very much over the edge.
Kat had a rather large amount of Science Diet dry cat food pebbles clasped tightly in one fist as we got out of the car. I had the Halloween basket in one of my hands. We started up the sidewalk to the front door and then were surprised from behind. De had exited the garage door and come around behind us. When he saw us, he looked…perplexed. Perhaps a better word is troubled. By us. I immediately felt we had sinned, big time.
Kat went over to him and started with, “Oh, I’m so happy to see you….I’m so excited to see you…I can’t control myself!” – and, back behind her cotton tail, she dropped the Science Diet pellets on the sidewalk, to make it look as though the bunny had pooped.
De looked down at the kibble mess and said, “Oh, my.” He started to lean down to collect the joke, and Kat said, “Don’t worry about that! I’ll pick it up!”
De said, “Oh, no! You two get in the house. Get in the house right now! I’ll take care of this.”
Yep, it was definitely the neighbors he was concerned about. Me, too.
Kat and I went inside. Carolyn saw us and laughed. I handed her the basket of Reese’s peanut butter cups and said, “Happy Easter. I mean, “Hoppy Halloween!”
She sat the basket down and invited us into the little room, their office. We began to chat. Not long after, De stepped into the room.
Kat said, “Sorry, De.” De said, “It’s all taken care of. Don’t worry about it.”
I said, “I’m really surprised you invited us in, the way we look, and after all that.”
De studied our costumes a little more and said, “You know, you look a little bit like nuns with that head gear you have on.”
Kat shot back, “This is the first time I’ve ever been thought of as a nun!”
De laughed. “Yes, Kat, I can imagine that. You might want to aspire to something like that.”
Kat said, “Not on your life, Mr. Kelley.”
De again studied the costumes. “You have your underwear on the outside of your jogging pants.”
“Yes,” I said. “We didn’t want to put a hole in our pants, so we bought men’s underwear to cut a hole in. It was funnier than women’s, since we’re – women.”
De said, “If you had put them on backwards, you wouldn’t have had to cut a hole in them!”
I said, “Good thinking, De. We weren’t thinking. What could possibly lead you to believe we were thinking — at all?” He laughed.
Kat joked to De, “If we’d done that, and hadn’t cut holes, we could have given you the underwear afterward!”
De laughed and joked, “That’s right. That’s why I said that!” We all laughed.
I acknowledged, “Kat and I both have bigger butts than you do. These shorts would fall down around your knees!”
True to form, Kat commented, “That would be good!”
Carolyn said, “That’s quite enough, girls!”
We visited for about an hour, chatting about much less controversial topics, and then Kat and I “hopped” home…
******
Now De was a cowboy with flair
He rode side by side without care
‘Til one day, while dismountin’
He spurred the next mount ‘n
Spent half of the scene in midair!
********
It isn’t all a bad dream
I’m a stuck on you as I seem
If you had your druthers
Your might prefer otheres
Or even the transporter beam!
I could go on and on… For more fun stuff, get the book!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DE!!
DEFOREST KELLEY:
MARKED SAFE
FROM HAVING TO
DEAL WITH
KRAZY KRIS TODAY!
