Waring: No pictures in this one. No names. Definitely not for the kids, so kids read something else. This could get… awkward. As for the rest of you, well I guess I’ll have to take my chances. I’ve said this before: some of you are bound to judge me, but keep it to yourself and we can both pretend. The people who matter in this tale, have already been warned (remember that, dear sweet friend—). This tale may not even be true. I may be making this entire thing up… And if you are related to any of the delightful young men in this post, then this is definitely fiction.

Hypothetically:  I was given an opportunity this past August to house sit for friends, who would be away for 2.5 weeks. It came at a perfect time: I needed to get out of my own house. If me needing to get away, is beginning to sound like a trend, perhaps it is (read Searching For The Groove and I Ate His Balls For Dinner. Hell read the entire series from last July. The Yellowstone posts are worth reading). I haven’t pretended to be anyone other than who I am; it’s just complicated. I’m complicated; and that makes for some tricky times. So when I started feeling like I might lose it again this summer: kids home from college, butting of heads, kosher kitchens, restlessness that I couldn’t seem to sooth with a grapefruit cocktail, the idea of getting out of Dodge for a little while seemed very appealing (read Peru, The Outtakes for the back story). Yellowstone was out this time, and house sitting allowed me to stay much closer and be available for all the things that tie me to the name “Mom.”  I was grateful for the gig because it got me out of the maelstrom for a little while, and offered a chance to clear my head. Their big, affable lab needed tending, and I needed to get away; it all seemed like a fortuitous fit… until things got interesting.

As the gig date got closer, a little glitch popped up:  I found out that my friends nephew would be staying at the house too. “He won’t be around much at all…” my friend glossed over assured me. “He’ll be camping and visiting friends. You’ll hardly see him.”  Good! I’m looking for solitude, not Jersey Shores, I thought. Then two days before the escape, I learned that the nephew would be bringing a friend, and since said nephew had just had ankle surgery (something my friend had forgotten), he might be around “a little more than originally expected.”  This friend is beyond a good egg, she is too good for me. Truly. She might sugar coat, a teeny, tiny bit sometimes.  “They’re great guys…  you’ll hardly notice them,” she said to my incredulous stare. I was invested enough in my getaway by then, that I didn’t just hand the job over to someone else. I could have. I still held out hope that the “boys” would be busy and I’d be alone, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I arrived at the house wary.

I also arrived with a suitcase full of all the things I thought I’d need, to spend that much time away from home. My goal was to not be running back to my house every day for things. I wanted to not get drawn into the dramas over dishes that might need doing, messes, chores and squabbles. If this is a true story, I was taking a brief break as wife and mother, as much as that was possible, and I brought all the necessary stuff:  Clothes, personal care itmes; snacks; book; computer; shoes; Cheez Its, my stuff.  I arrived mid-day the first Saturday, to settle in and as soon as I walked in I heard the “boys” in the kitchen. Great! Hardly notice them, right… way to start.

Quick back up: I’d come over a day or two before to get the lay of things, and had met both of the guys then. That day, they had been like two puppies in the kitchen: chest butting, making pancakes and eggs, high fiving and offering to feed anyone who was there… shirtless and in pajama bottoms.  I certainly noticed all this, and my friend saw my wide eyed panic consternation.  She said, in that super sweet voice of hers: “They’re just excited to go boating today. Aren’t they fun?”  So the ice was at least broken when I arrived, but I wasn’t exactly excited to see them.

As I entered the kitchen, there stood two beautiful hunks (an antiquated, but so dead on description) guys, in. their. boxer. briefs! Making breakfast! (If you are criticising my punctuation or grammar right now, you are not getting this picture.)  Uh, err, um, eh. All clever comments evaporated from my brain. “Hey welcome! Want some eggs?” They piped up, in their puppy like enthusiasm, camouflaged by six pack abs and, well… Every ounce of motherly instinct went right out the window and, enter Cougar. (I want to be very clear here: most of the descriptions for Cougar, in the Urban dictionary link provided, do not apply to me- perhaps the “has her shit together,” and maybe “hottie,” but then all of this may be made up anyway. I have provided the link, only to clarify that I am not talking about a “large American wild cat with tawny coat,”… Well, probably not.)

My head swirled in the thump of hip hop playing, the smell of good food, and the surreal moment of  two barely clothed guys offering me brunch.  If this is fiction, I could add that one of these studmuffins happened to have missed this summer’s Olympics by one spot. Yes, really. That he’s a nationally ranked athlete who looks every bit the part, makes for good storytelling, but I’ll leave out the sport lest you try to find his hypothetical name.  Missing the Olympics also made for lots of jokes about all the sex he was missing at the Olympic village (read Golden Hook Ups). The other muffin? Well… beauty attracts beauty; that’s a fact Jack. It can only up the ante to say that the other muffin is Navy Seal material, but I believe that’s one of those confidential things… Can you understand why a woman might go weak in the knees? Fantasies don’t get much better than this!  As I stood there all tongue tied (Me! Tongue tied!) and twitterpated, it it struck me that truth is indeed stranger than Disney fiction sometimes.  And lest you judge too harshly, no one in that room was under age and all studmuffins were older than my own kids.  Principles mean something to me.

Anyway, sexy men in the kitchen… That was how my 10 days of studmuffin magic started. Bang! Any preconceived anxiety I had about annoying guys and lack of solitude disappeared pretty quickly in a blur of boxer briefs and blazing smiles. I did suggest pants, I’m not completely devoid of scruples. Any and all other worries disappeared pretty quickly however. We were having too much fun:  joking (notes to me were addressed “Cougar…”), throwing wild parties, dealing with a high maintenance lab who feigns mellowness, me oggling said studmuffins, working out (yeah, you read that right), discussing Tolkien and Existentialism, studmuffins cooking and me venturing into the world of breakfast (baby steps), and a nearly constant stream of witty repartee– Some, or all, or none of this may be fiction.  It’s my story, and these studmuffins were very clever,  bright and articulate (non-fiction). They handled my sarcasm and dished it back in spades. Both discussed literature, music, and underwear, equally well–hypothetically.

There was also the issue of who would feed the snake. If you read any of the Amazon posts (Is That a Snake… and A Is For Amazon, S Is For Snake), you know I do not like snakes. At all. Not even a little. Yeah, that’s another thing my friend left out: the snake. Their pet snake required feeding and watering. It required “fuzzies.” Suffice it to say, that snake is only alive today because there were two studly guys sharing the digs with me and the snake. I managed to pour water in its dish, but that ruined me for an hour. The idea that it might get loose prompted me to put large sneakers and heavy water bottles on top of the cage, just in case. I never confirmed what “fuzzies” were, as the muffins bought and fed them to said snake. “Man you should have seen it D! That snake went crazy for those little…” Stop! Don’t say another word!  My muffins found this quite amusing…  and yes that sentence is provocative at the least…

Anyway, back to shirtless hunks and hot summer days… And believe you me, it’s my story, and those hunks were shirtless pretty much all the time, and it was hot. What was I to do? Pretend I wasn’t surrounded by beauty? Look, you can’t be a Cougar if you don’t oggle… and since this is my story, I’ll paint it the way I want. I don’t kid myself folks. These fun, handsome, outrageously clever guys were not interested in me. They had plenty of studmuffinettes to spend time with. And they did. Dancing is another thing they apparently do very well, according to at least one witness. But, the Cougar-Boy Toy humor got plenty of play. I was well matched in the sarcasm and clever come backs departments, and we worked that program hard. As Olympic boy did flips on the trampoline one morning, yes in briefs, I had to just get in my car and leave… hello? “Hey D!” he called out to me, as I made a dash for my car. I am not looking at you! I called back. There is only so much a woman of my age can handle. He laughed, so sure I was  joking. Ha, ha, ha. Not. My very healthy low blood pressure served me well those 10 days.

For balance, the dog brought as much drooling, whining, running off and making me chase him, pooping where he shouldn’t, begging to sleep in my room and snoring, panting and big brown-eyed stares, as any one dog should be capable of.  Other people’s dogs never seem as wonderful as your own, that’s just the way it is. If there was a chance to run off, and say poop in a neighbors yard, while the neighbor was standing there, and make me chase him, and clean up his mess… say in my pajamas, he did it.  He shedded like crazy and drooled on anything and anyone in his path. It was in fact hot, he drooled a lot. He stole a bag of almonds and ate every one… only to leave them redeposited right in front of a Ranger, up at Mt. Baker. But, he is a big old baby and impossible to stay mad at with his big brown eyes and smile. He was the grounding factor. It couldn’t be all sexy guys and hypothetically outrageous times. Right? So I’m throwing in a big crazy lab for balance.

I had to put up window coverings on my temporary bedroom, to help with the direct view into the kitchen… where studmuffins congregate.  It’s not enough to have to have to watch them stretch and work out on the deck outside my room each morning (seriously), but impossible to sleep restfully when you’re forced to look at said muffins just before sleeping. “Hey, want to take a break from all that writing and join us in the hot tub,” Olympic muffin asks, one afternoon. Uh, err, um, eh. I stammer.  I think I’ll pass, I’m pretty sure I definitely couldn’t handle that, I tell him. He laughed. Not a joke fly boy. It may be my story, but there’s no way I was getting into a hot tub with two gorgeous, if not incredibly courteous, guys… It would just be too much for them to bear; and I’m thoughtuful, if nothing else.

So we made it through our ten days together, and admittedly it went very differently than I had begrudgingly anticipated.  Clearly I need to run away in the summer, and I somehow I’m destined to find stud muffins wherever I land (read The Joy of The Saddle and Buckle Bunnies). For the record, Olympic studmuffin had far more clever things to say than the one witty quote about his genitals, that I promised not to include… if I were to make up this story. Navy Seal muffin was a perfect gentleman, but that doesn’t stop a Cougar from looking. In fairness, we had a heat wave that week, that practically required that said  muffins not wear shirts all of the time, and for that I can only smile. The dog was cared for, the snake didn’t die, no lines were crossed… pretty much… I think. Depends on who defines lines.  I’m sure there were times when I was just too much woman for either of them. And there were times when I could have gone blind… It was the kind of week that made me forget all about Yellowstone for a while. It was whatever I dare to say here, because it’s my story.

And if I were to make a story up, the guys just might look this good…

Purrr!

And this would be an Olympic calibre muffin, hypothetically.

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