This Burns Me Up

 

Human beings are animals. Which means, like our less evolved four legged friends, we are made up of baser instincts, natural reflexes, fight or flight reactions, and a tendency to bite someone's head off if they rub our fur the wrong direction.

 

Sure, we can do Quantum physics, solve the Da Vinci code, and have learned that The Secret to success lies in simply willing the universe to drop a new Mercedes, a laundry bag full of cash, and Brad Pitt onto our doorsteps. According to the highly touted, Oprah blessed tome, if you will it, it will come.

 

But, apparently, sometimes wishing won't make it so. Sometimes all the positive outlook in the world won't resolve a completely negative situation. And sometimes, a person has to become actively involved in correcting what they perceive to be wrong in their lives.

 

That's when our animalistic side tends to take over.

 

Take relationships, for instance. We all know that the amount a person purrs in the beginning of a relationship is ultimately in direct proportion to the amount of growling we do when a hook up begins to go sour. We rant. We tear things up. We pace, we pounce, we pee on the rug and chew on the furniture.

 

OK, ok – maybe not that last one, but you get the picture. Hurt ffeelings, betrayed trust, broken dreams – they are all perfectly capable of puushing us all but one step away from peeing on the rug.

 

Most of us, however, settle for changing the locks, throwing the belongings of the offender out on the front lawn, and contacting the divorce lawyer.

 

But there are others, who are obviously closer to their animal instincts, yet somehow insanely creative in their resolution strategies.

 

Meet Rosanita Nery dos Santos, 52, of Sao Paulo, Brazil. A woman who must fancy herself a good cook, but who will never appear on an episode of Top Chef with her ... ahem ... recipe.

 

You see, Rosarita had it up-to-here with her spouse, and what is being reported by relatives as "many years of humiliation from her husband."

 

So she fried his ass.

 

Literally.

 

She drugged him. She stabbed him. She chopped him into 100+ pieces. Then she turned on the stove, prepared the pans (Cooking tip: hot pan, cold oil – food won't stick), and both boiled and fried his remains. She then put them into a big garbage bag and hid them under the stairs for two years.

 

Of course, she tells authorities that masked assailants entered her house, killed her husband and then forced her to cut up the body and fry it because that would prevent the stench of a decomposing body from alerting neighbors.

 

Um. Ye-ah.

 

Most masked assailants take the time to break out The Joy of Cooking book in order to hide their transgressions.

 

Rosarita is currently in jail, awaiting trial, the bag of Kentucky Fried Husband discovered after an anonymous tip was phoned in to police.

 

Forgive me, but I just have to go one logical mental step further...

 

Even in my refrigerator, a box of cooked Chinese take-out begins to fester and smell like ass after two weeks hidden in the back. And leftover grilled steak, thrown into the big blue garbage can smells like a herd of dead cattle after three days. I simply cannot believe that a bag of cooked person, regardless of the spices used in the process, didn't reek after just a few days.

 

But I digress...(and hork up a tad.)

 

Anyway, when I read about this yesterday, my initial thought was, "Wow. She must have been pissed off." But I also thought, "You don't read about this kind of domestic dispute everyday. This is unique."

 

But, oh, how 24 hours can prove a person wrong.

 

This morning's news headline out Houston, Texas?

 

Sheriff: Student murdered, burned on patio grill

 

I'm not kidding.

 

Yes, just a couple hours drive from me (Texas does everything big – I am so proud to live here.), a19 year old student at Texas A&M was the victim of her ex-boyfriend’s Lion King-like rage when he discovered she had begun a new relationship – and he wasn't in it.

 

Timothy Wayne Shepard, 27, confessed to authorities that he strangled Tynesha Stewart, then dismembered her, and over the course of two days disposed of her via his grill.

 

Residents of the apartment complex have told authorities they noticed both thick black clouds of smoke and an acrid smell coming from the two grills on his porch, but he told nosey neighbors he was cooking for a wedding. At one point the flames from the grills were dangerously close to the roof over his balcony and a neighbor called 911, however, by the time the fire department arrived, the flames were under control and they left.

 

That their loved one was killed to begin with? As a parent, I cannot even begin to imagine the pain they feel, but to have it compounded with such a heinous, sickening act after the fact? You would have to sedate me for the rest of my life. One – so that I would not be awake to ddeal with reality, and Two, because I would be stalking that young man with a lasso, machete, and George Foreman grill for the rest of my life. (And should I find him? Anthony Hopkins would be on speed dial and some fava beans would be simmering on the stove.)

 

Thankfully, while domestic tragedies do occur daily, they do not typically play out to such a sickening degree.

 

But I am also aware that when push comes to shove, some people do react in a King of the Beasts type way. To that end, I made it clear to my own husband – if he ever gets that angry with me, or just wants out to pursue his animal lust for another big breasted mammal, the answer is fairly simple...

 

Leave the cutlery and olive oil out of it. Just ask me to leave.

 

I might be steamed. But I will certainly not be burned up about