I’ve been informed that I don’t listen or pay attention very well. I can’t recall who said it, when or what the circumstances were, but they were pissed. I’m fairly certain it was my wife, as I know she talks a lot but I’m at a loss in regards to the content of her discussions. Women should know this by now about men; if a woman is in direct competition for her man’s attention with a televised sporting event, she will lose…and lose big. To gain my undivided attention, the T.V. should be not only turned off but dismantled into several hundred pieces and placed on the washing machine. This guarantees my attentiveness, as I avoid the laundry room at all costs and I have trouble assembling a sandwich, let alone a Samsung high-def. Making eye contact, yelling and fixing hold firmly on my shirt collar with clenched fists is another way to win my consideration. It’s not that I can’t remember things, as I recall, and recite, obscure movie quotes from countless R-Rated comedies, can talk at length about baseball history and I have an enviable knowledge of all things Brady Bunch. Like most men, the problem must be in the exchange of information from our ears to our brain.
There are 3 pockets of dead space in the male brain that we can’t control, even though outside stimulus persuades us to act properly, we just can’t make the connection. First, is our inability to show good judgment and timing when scratching/adjusting our “plumbing”, if you will. It’s in our nature to insure the comfort and whereabouts of these tools at all times. Whether it’s standing out in right field during a softball game, giving a eulogy at a funeral or making a big presentation at work, we know it’s improper but you’re sure to find us tugging, shifting or tenting for air, our groinal regions. Second, is our refusal to replace the empty toilet paper roll. And really, why should we, when there’s a box of Kleenex sitting right behind us on the toilet tank lid, cotton balls in the cabinet or in a real pinch, a hefty supply of Q-Tips, all within reach and fully capable of getting the job done. Lastly, is our unwillingness to remember what’s being told to us when the T.V. is on. My wife claims I have “selective hearing.”
It’s not selective hearing. I’ve been blessed with the ability to screen out spoken information which requires me to remember a date/time, exert myself physically, clean something or anything that has to do with decorating. In fact, I have perfect hearing or at least I thought I did until the other day. A sound in the house frustrated and perplexed me in a way I hadn’t experienced since my youth.
When I was 10, I vividly remember sitting in my family room on a hot summer evening, only to have my T.V. viewing disturbed by the chirping of a lone cricket hidden somewhere in my midst. It’s amazing how loud a noise 1 cricket can make. Like a kitten playing with a ball of string, finding this cricket presented me with a new adventuresome game. This proved to be more difficult than I had expected. In the insect world, the cricket is what we refer to as a ventriloquist, without the scary looking wooden dummy, as the weight of this prop would surely crush a cricket and most crickets don’t have hands to properly operate a dummy. As soon as I heard a chirp, I rushed over to where I thought the sound originated, only to be mocked by a follow up chirp coming from the other side of the room. This went on for an hour; listen, chirp, run, adjust my winkie, watch some T.V., snack on some Fiddle-Faddle, repeat. Eventually, the cricket tired of the game and hopped out onto the floor. I ran over and placed my tennis shoe over his body. I tried to muster the courage to squish the little bastard but the crunching sound of an insect’s exoskeleton has always given me the heebie-jeebies. So I scooped it up with fistful of toilet paper, took it out to the garage and threw it into the first big spider web I saw. Once again, the circle of life was set in motion as God had intended. Boy sees cricket. Boy corrals cricket with a catcher’s mitt fashioned from Charmin toilet paper. Boy slings cricket into spider web to its’ ultimate doom. I had silenced the annoying sound which interrupted my T.V. viewing and the other day, my hearing skills were once again, put to the test.
A single beep from an unknown place in our home, nearly caused me to lose my mind. Like most people, we have roughly 87 smoke detectors dispersed throughout our house. When the battery runs low on one of these detectors, it emits an annoying chirp, like the cricket, that is impossible to find with the human ear. I was up in our bedroom when I heard the first chirp. It sounded like it came from across the hall in the guest room. When I got in the guest room, I positioned myself under the smoke detector and stared upward for what seemed like an hour. Then I heard the chirp again, only now it sounded like it came from the bathroom. I ran to the bathroom and again, stood motionless staring at the ceiling. Frustrated, I heard the next chirp distinctly coming from my bedroom, where I started my search. In a fit of rage, I stood in the hallway, mumbling curse words through gritted teeth. I poised myself in a ready position, knees bent, hands out like a basketball player in a defensive stance and eyes staring blankly forward, fixed on the wall in front of me. My ninja-like trance was broken by another chirp.
“SON OF A BITCH!!!”
Now I heard it coming from downstairs.
“Okay! Now I’m pissed!” I yelled out as I ran downstairs. “You’re ass is mine!” Rational thought had gone bye-bye, as I was now verbally abusing an inanimate object and yelling out loud threats of what I was going to do to it once I found the faulty detector. The whole process started all over again, as the chirp had me sprinting from the basement to the ground floor and back upstairs again. After an hour or so, I devised a strategy and finally isolated what I hoped, was the bad detector. The chirp rung out every 3 minutes but as I stood below staring upward, the time seemed much longer than that. Slowly swaying back and forth, like a praying mantis stalking a bug, I psychotically giggled over and over,
“Now I got you! Now I got you!” Then from nowhere, my daughter popped out and just as the chirp sounded she asked,
“Hey dad. Whatcha doin?” Her question broke my feeble concentration and I was unable to tell if this was the bad smoke detector.
“Aaawwww! Come on!!!!” I yelled out near tears, while punching the air in frustration and stomping around in a circle. Eventually, I located the bad detector and changed the battery but the angst this search exacted on my psyche, knocked 5 years off my life.
So, I guess I can hear, if something really annoys me. My wife shouldn’t scold me about selective hearing but instead, take comfort knowing that because I don’t hear her all the time, proves I don’t find her annoying. And that last statement of mine is a prime example of the circle of marriage. Man doesn’t hear wife. Man inadvertently insults wife. Wife throws man into a giant spider web to his ultimate doom.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Stop That. You're Making Me Yawn, Too.
While my daughter and I were enjoying a pleasant Saturday morning breakfast, she looked up from her bowl of Lucky Charms and challenged my intellect with a typical question from a child, posed to prove my stupidity.
“Why do we yawn?”
Being that it was Saturday, and morning no less, my mind wasn’t prepared for such a challenge. Usually, I’m focused on the magically delicious marshmallow bits of “Hearts, Stars, and Horseshoes, Clovers, and Blue Moons! Pots of Gold and Rainbows, and me Red Balloons!” However, I could tell that this was one of those questions my daughter would keep asking me until I gave her an answer. I wasn’t sure exactly why we yawn but lack of knowledge never stopped me before from giving an answer I passed off as truth.
“Well honey, we yawn when there is a lack of oxygen in our body.” My response was short, to the point and very Marcus Welby-like in delivery. She replied,
“So, if we take extra deep breaths, we can stop yawning?” I could tell my answer only opened up a Pandora’s box of more questions, when really, all I wanted to do was shut my brain off and enjoy my marshmallow treats. So I did what most responsible parents would do in my situation. I told her,
“No. If you take too many deep breaths, you can get tumors!” I know, the reply made no sense but the threat of tumors usually quiets the inquisitive mind of a child. Just then, my wife walked in and added,
“Why don’t you tell her the Robbie Benson story?” Damn her!!
As you all know, Robbie Benson was a movie acting genius in the late 70’s and early 80’s and I’m certain, will be sharing his thespian talents once again, here in the zero’s. A few years back, I found myself alone in the house with nothing to do and nothing on T.V. As I flicked around the channels, I came upon a movie starring Robbie Benson. I stopped and started watching. It was about a hockey player who had the hots for this bitchy, ice skater chick, who did nothing but whine and then fell on some ice and went blind. It was fascinatingly terrible but I couldn’t stop watching. I had to see just how bad the movie could get. At the end, Robbie walks down on the ice at a big competition and helps the blind girl finish her performance. During the last minutes of the movie, I let out a huge yawn. It was one of those really long, deep yawns, so deep it made my eyes water. As I wiped the yawn tears from my eyes, my wife walked in the room. She looked at the T.V., then at me and while shaking her head in disappointed shock asked,
“Are you crying during “Ice Castles?” Damn that Robbie Benson!!
The concept of yawning is quite remarkable. I believe it’s the human species polite and discreet way, in which to communicate to others, the message…
“For the love of God, you’re boring the shit out of me!!!!”
There are some interesting reactions are body includes along with a good yawn. For some, yawning opens up the taste buds for the briefest of moments, allowing one to taste the inside of your mouth. After the yawn, you can see a person engaged in such a tasting by the continued smacking of lips together and napping of spit. This is usually followed by an unpleasant, soured facial expression, as the yawner realizes the inside of his/her mouth tastes indeed, like crap. The next biggest yawn lasts a few moments longer than the tasting yawn but is a bit more embarrassing. The extended agape mouth allows ample time for a long, steady stream of hot drool to drip from the side of your lips. It usually soaks a thin line down your shirt and causes the yawner to look around in shock and tell the nearest person whom may have seen them drool,
“Oh my god. Did you see that? Look at this! I yawned so hard it made me drool!” It’s the only time I can think of when a grown person will ask another grown person to look at their spit. Lastly, there’s the mother of all yawns, which I call the Epileptic yawn. I once stayed awake for 40 hours straight. I did this because I was young and liquor was involved. I was at a wedding, on a first/last date with a girl, who unfortunately bore witness to this rarest of yawns. While sitting at the table, I felt a yawn coming on. Innocently enough, I leaned back in my chair and opened up for a large, but manageable yawn. During the yawn, from out of nowhere, a second, even larger yawn overtook me. I was in the clutches of the seldom seen double yawn and I was helpless. The force caused me lean further back, nearly toppling over backward. I would’ve certainly fell over if not for my quick thinking to violently clutch a wad of my date’s hair from the back of her head. With my free hand, I pounded repeatedly on the table trying to get much needed air. I could feel tears rolling down my face and drool running down my neck. I was helpless. Al I could do was pound on the table for air and pull that hair. Eventually, I regained my composure only to find my date wanted to go home early. Go figure.
I’d like to share with you, some compelling observations about the yawn, in general. I believe that yawns were invented by Catholics in the 5th century and the first yawn ever was given birth during a really boring sermon at Sunday Mass. Another person across the church, upon catching sight of the first yawn, could not stop himself from yawning. This chain of yawning kept on during mass and was brought forth to the world where it continues to this day. In fact, the next time you’re at church, Christmas or Easter for those honest enough to tell the truth, look around and witness the yawning chain for yourself. Amazingly, the yawn is the only bodily function I know that we automatically respond to. I don’t cough when someone coughs. I don’t sneeze when someone sneezes. I don’t fart when someone farts, although I try like the dickens to do so, just to top their efforts. In fact, I’ve blown out a neck vein, and some under shorts, trying to flatulently battle back.
The yawn is quite a mystery. I’m curious. I’d like you to be honest and help me out with an experiment. Just how many times during this article, did you yawn? 1-2 and you were mildly bored. 3-4 and I bored the shit out of you. 5-6 and you and I can go see the next Robbie Benson movie together. In the hour and a half it took me to write this, I yawned 18 times! Leave your number in the “comments” tab. I’d be interested to know how boring I can be.
“Why do we yawn?”
Being that it was Saturday, and morning no less, my mind wasn’t prepared for such a challenge. Usually, I’m focused on the magically delicious marshmallow bits of “Hearts, Stars, and Horseshoes, Clovers, and Blue Moons! Pots of Gold and Rainbows, and me Red Balloons!” However, I could tell that this was one of those questions my daughter would keep asking me until I gave her an answer. I wasn’t sure exactly why we yawn but lack of knowledge never stopped me before from giving an answer I passed off as truth.
“Well honey, we yawn when there is a lack of oxygen in our body.” My response was short, to the point and very Marcus Welby-like in delivery. She replied,
“So, if we take extra deep breaths, we can stop yawning?” I could tell my answer only opened up a Pandora’s box of more questions, when really, all I wanted to do was shut my brain off and enjoy my marshmallow treats. So I did what most responsible parents would do in my situation. I told her,
“No. If you take too many deep breaths, you can get tumors!” I know, the reply made no sense but the threat of tumors usually quiets the inquisitive mind of a child. Just then, my wife walked in and added,
“Why don’t you tell her the Robbie Benson story?” Damn her!!
As you all know, Robbie Benson was a movie acting genius in the late 70’s and early 80’s and I’m certain, will be sharing his thespian talents once again, here in the zero’s. A few years back, I found myself alone in the house with nothing to do and nothing on T.V. As I flicked around the channels, I came upon a movie starring Robbie Benson. I stopped and started watching. It was about a hockey player who had the hots for this bitchy, ice skater chick, who did nothing but whine and then fell on some ice and went blind. It was fascinatingly terrible but I couldn’t stop watching. I had to see just how bad the movie could get. At the end, Robbie walks down on the ice at a big competition and helps the blind girl finish her performance. During the last minutes of the movie, I let out a huge yawn. It was one of those really long, deep yawns, so deep it made my eyes water. As I wiped the yawn tears from my eyes, my wife walked in the room. She looked at the T.V., then at me and while shaking her head in disappointed shock asked,
“Are you crying during “Ice Castles?” Damn that Robbie Benson!!
The concept of yawning is quite remarkable. I believe it’s the human species polite and discreet way, in which to communicate to others, the message…
“For the love of God, you’re boring the shit out of me!!!!”
There are some interesting reactions are body includes along with a good yawn. For some, yawning opens up the taste buds for the briefest of moments, allowing one to taste the inside of your mouth. After the yawn, you can see a person engaged in such a tasting by the continued smacking of lips together and napping of spit. This is usually followed by an unpleasant, soured facial expression, as the yawner realizes the inside of his/her mouth tastes indeed, like crap. The next biggest yawn lasts a few moments longer than the tasting yawn but is a bit more embarrassing. The extended agape mouth allows ample time for a long, steady stream of hot drool to drip from the side of your lips. It usually soaks a thin line down your shirt and causes the yawner to look around in shock and tell the nearest person whom may have seen them drool,
“Oh my god. Did you see that? Look at this! I yawned so hard it made me drool!” It’s the only time I can think of when a grown person will ask another grown person to look at their spit. Lastly, there’s the mother of all yawns, which I call the Epileptic yawn. I once stayed awake for 40 hours straight. I did this because I was young and liquor was involved. I was at a wedding, on a first/last date with a girl, who unfortunately bore witness to this rarest of yawns. While sitting at the table, I felt a yawn coming on. Innocently enough, I leaned back in my chair and opened up for a large, but manageable yawn. During the yawn, from out of nowhere, a second, even larger yawn overtook me. I was in the clutches of the seldom seen double yawn and I was helpless. The force caused me lean further back, nearly toppling over backward. I would’ve certainly fell over if not for my quick thinking to violently clutch a wad of my date’s hair from the back of her head. With my free hand, I pounded repeatedly on the table trying to get much needed air. I could feel tears rolling down my face and drool running down my neck. I was helpless. Al I could do was pound on the table for air and pull that hair. Eventually, I regained my composure only to find my date wanted to go home early. Go figure.
I’d like to share with you, some compelling observations about the yawn, in general. I believe that yawns were invented by Catholics in the 5th century and the first yawn ever was given birth during a really boring sermon at Sunday Mass. Another person across the church, upon catching sight of the first yawn, could not stop himself from yawning. This chain of yawning kept on during mass and was brought forth to the world where it continues to this day. In fact, the next time you’re at church, Christmas or Easter for those honest enough to tell the truth, look around and witness the yawning chain for yourself. Amazingly, the yawn is the only bodily function I know that we automatically respond to. I don’t cough when someone coughs. I don’t sneeze when someone sneezes. I don’t fart when someone farts, although I try like the dickens to do so, just to top their efforts. In fact, I’ve blown out a neck vein, and some under shorts, trying to flatulently battle back.
The yawn is quite a mystery. I’m curious. I’d like you to be honest and help me out with an experiment. Just how many times during this article, did you yawn? 1-2 and you were mildly bored. 3-4 and I bored the shit out of you. 5-6 and you and I can go see the next Robbie Benson movie together. In the hour and a half it took me to write this, I yawned 18 times! Leave your number in the “comments” tab. I’d be interested to know how boring I can be.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Brotherly Love
When my sisters and I were young, my parents did their best to fulfill all our wants and needs. We always had food on the table, clothes to wear and every summer, although we couldn’t afford elaborate vacations, my parents managed to take us somewhere which required a long, car ride and gave dad plenty of time to yell at us and threaten our lives. One thing we always wanted was a family pet. In 1976, my parents broke down and agreed to get us a dog. We drove out to some woman’s house, where we were to choose our new dog. Upon arriving, we were greeted by 3 cute, Cocker Spaniel puppies. As my sisters and I played with the pups, one of them sat on my leg and proceeded to paint my thigh with a long line of diarrhea…one of the dogs…not one my sisters. This, of course, was the deciding factor for the rest of the family in choosing our dog, as any pup with the good sense to crap on me must be the dog for the Foley’s. We named her Bouncer. For the next few months, we overlooked some of Bouncer’s bad habits; peeing on the floor, begging for food and my personal favorite, after a healthy dump in the yard…the dog…not my sisters…would seek out a nice, clean stretch of carpet and use her front paws to scooch forward, wiping her ass along the way. Lovely. Unfortunately, Bouncer lacked mental toughness and had an adverse reaction to tail pulling, being mounted for pony rides and having Crayolas inserted into openings where Crayolas didn’t belong. I’m pretty sure I’d try to bite someone if they slipped a “Burnt Orange” crayon in my rectum. That’s just me…and Bouncer, as well, so we shipped her off to my grandparents, whom we were quite certain, stopped sticking crayons in dog’s butts several years earlier. I felt bad after Bouncer left us but then I realized my parents had already supplied me with something better than a pet. I had a little sister!
We called her Beth and at every chance given, verbally and mentally tortured her. Maureen, Kathy and I were each born 1 year apart. There was a 4 year gap between Beth and myself, which gave me the perfect opportunity to tease her that her birth and very existence was a mistake. As an older brother, it was not only my right but my duty to make her life miserable and believe me, I seized every opening to do so. I could fill volumes and Beth could spend months on the couch of a therapist, recalling the some of the wonderful, comical abuse she suffered for my entertainment. However, I’ll share with you one incident, which I hold dearest in my heart.
After a family gathering at Maureen’s house, I offered to give Beth a ride home in my new ’87 Pontiac Grand Am. Leaving the protection of my parents and accepting an invitation to be trapped in a car for 45 minutes with me was her first mistake. The ride started out innocently enough but for Beth, things soon turned for the worse. Maureen likes to cook enormous amounts of Italian food. I like to eat enormous amounts of Italian food. Italian food contains enormous amounts of fat and grease. This means one thing for me; an enormous amount of gas. This was the perfect setting. I had an abundant store of gag-provoking, eye-burning flatulence, a naïve, trusting little sister and thanks to General Motors, a control panel at my fingertips, which controlled the access of all the car windows. In a situation like this, timing is everything. Silently, I set free a healthy portion of gas. After waiting a few seconds and sensing she would be sharing in the experience at any moment, I calmly asked her with a puzzled look,
“Do you smell mint?” Now really, how often do you just smell mint? Almost never, so intrigued by my question Beth replied,
“Mint?” Then she followed up her reply with a deep, nasal clearing sniff…the kind where your chest puffs out and shoulders kinda shrug. I knew my timing was perfect and scored a direct hit when I could see the look in her eyes turn to sheer terror. Her lips soured and face wrinkled in disgust. In a panicked whisper she tried to speak, without actually breathing,
“Oh my God!” With her lips shut tight and cheeks puffed out like she was holding back a mouthful of marshmallows, she feverishly attempted to open her window. Eventually, she found the button to operate the window and as it slowly slid down, she stuck her face out into the rushing, cool, night air to catch a breath. I was feeling generous that night and let her get a single gulp of clean air before I utilized my master control and started to raise her window. Like a little kitten’s paws, poking out between the bars of a pet store cage, her fingers desperately darted out the small crack I left open, in a futile attempt to wedge the window back open. It was great!
After the air cleared and I stopped laughing, Beth voiced her objections to my game of “Do You Smell Mint.” As she yelled at me, I started to get a whiff of something, not of my own creation, which was quite fowl. Italian food has enormous amounts of garlic and apparently, Beth had plenty of it. We made a pact for the rest of the ride home. She promised to keep her mouth closed and I promised to keep my other end closed. As we drove in silence, the smell still remained, which truly perplexed me as I could see out the corner of my eye, Beth looking straight forward and not saying a word. After 10 minutes or so, the odor was relentless and refused to weaken. Overcome by the fumes, I apologized to Beth.
“I’m sorry. Whatever that smell is, it isn’t you. You haven’t said a word but I can still smell it. It’s making me sick! I shouldn’t have blamed you.”
For the last 20 minutes of the ride, I sniffed my clothes, cupped my hands over my mouth and checked my breath, hell, I was tempted to look in the backseat for the fly-infested carcass of a rotting wildebeest. I was in agony. I figured it must be me, as Beth was unfazed by any sort of smell. Just before pulling into the driveway, I turned to Beth to; once again, apologize for wrongfully accusing her of having garlic breath. As I looked, I found the source of my discomfort for the past half hour. While stoically peering straight ahead, Beth had contorted her lips and shifted them to the left side of her face. Her lips formed a tight circle, as though whistling, and they were pointed directly at me. Apparently, the entire ride home she had breathed a steady stream of garlic right at my nose, all the while keeping her head perfectly straight. Truly a remarkable feat of body control but even more impressive, the ability to pull it off without so much as a giggle. I wasn’t angry. I was proud!
In retrospect, having a dog would’ve been a lot of hard work. We would’ve had to clean up poop, feed it, bathe it and pay attention to it. Having a little sister was much better. We made mom take care of all that, which left plenty of time for us to torture her.
We called her Beth and at every chance given, verbally and mentally tortured her. Maureen, Kathy and I were each born 1 year apart. There was a 4 year gap between Beth and myself, which gave me the perfect opportunity to tease her that her birth and very existence was a mistake. As an older brother, it was not only my right but my duty to make her life miserable and believe me, I seized every opening to do so. I could fill volumes and Beth could spend months on the couch of a therapist, recalling the some of the wonderful, comical abuse she suffered for my entertainment. However, I’ll share with you one incident, which I hold dearest in my heart.
After a family gathering at Maureen’s house, I offered to give Beth a ride home in my new ’87 Pontiac Grand Am. Leaving the protection of my parents and accepting an invitation to be trapped in a car for 45 minutes with me was her first mistake. The ride started out innocently enough but for Beth, things soon turned for the worse. Maureen likes to cook enormous amounts of Italian food. I like to eat enormous amounts of Italian food. Italian food contains enormous amounts of fat and grease. This means one thing for me; an enormous amount of gas. This was the perfect setting. I had an abundant store of gag-provoking, eye-burning flatulence, a naïve, trusting little sister and thanks to General Motors, a control panel at my fingertips, which controlled the access of all the car windows. In a situation like this, timing is everything. Silently, I set free a healthy portion of gas. After waiting a few seconds and sensing she would be sharing in the experience at any moment, I calmly asked her with a puzzled look,
“Do you smell mint?” Now really, how often do you just smell mint? Almost never, so intrigued by my question Beth replied,
“Mint?” Then she followed up her reply with a deep, nasal clearing sniff…the kind where your chest puffs out and shoulders kinda shrug. I knew my timing was perfect and scored a direct hit when I could see the look in her eyes turn to sheer terror. Her lips soured and face wrinkled in disgust. In a panicked whisper she tried to speak, without actually breathing,
“Oh my God!” With her lips shut tight and cheeks puffed out like she was holding back a mouthful of marshmallows, she feverishly attempted to open her window. Eventually, she found the button to operate the window and as it slowly slid down, she stuck her face out into the rushing, cool, night air to catch a breath. I was feeling generous that night and let her get a single gulp of clean air before I utilized my master control and started to raise her window. Like a little kitten’s paws, poking out between the bars of a pet store cage, her fingers desperately darted out the small crack I left open, in a futile attempt to wedge the window back open. It was great!
After the air cleared and I stopped laughing, Beth voiced her objections to my game of “Do You Smell Mint.” As she yelled at me, I started to get a whiff of something, not of my own creation, which was quite fowl. Italian food has enormous amounts of garlic and apparently, Beth had plenty of it. We made a pact for the rest of the ride home. She promised to keep her mouth closed and I promised to keep my other end closed. As we drove in silence, the smell still remained, which truly perplexed me as I could see out the corner of my eye, Beth looking straight forward and not saying a word. After 10 minutes or so, the odor was relentless and refused to weaken. Overcome by the fumes, I apologized to Beth.
“I’m sorry. Whatever that smell is, it isn’t you. You haven’t said a word but I can still smell it. It’s making me sick! I shouldn’t have blamed you.”
For the last 20 minutes of the ride, I sniffed my clothes, cupped my hands over my mouth and checked my breath, hell, I was tempted to look in the backseat for the fly-infested carcass of a rotting wildebeest. I was in agony. I figured it must be me, as Beth was unfazed by any sort of smell. Just before pulling into the driveway, I turned to Beth to; once again, apologize for wrongfully accusing her of having garlic breath. As I looked, I found the source of my discomfort for the past half hour. While stoically peering straight ahead, Beth had contorted her lips and shifted them to the left side of her face. Her lips formed a tight circle, as though whistling, and they were pointed directly at me. Apparently, the entire ride home she had breathed a steady stream of garlic right at my nose, all the while keeping her head perfectly straight. Truly a remarkable feat of body control but even more impressive, the ability to pull it off without so much as a giggle. I wasn’t angry. I was proud!
In retrospect, having a dog would’ve been a lot of hard work. We would’ve had to clean up poop, feed it, bathe it and pay attention to it. Having a little sister was much better. We made mom take care of all that, which left plenty of time for us to torture her.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Labor Day Reflections
Like many of you, this past Monday I enjoyed some well-deserved time off to celebrate Labor Day. While I was fixing the downspout, cleaning out the garage, mowing the lawn and de-clogging the bath tub drain of either a freakishly, plump gerbil or a decade’s worth of hair, I took time to reflect on some of the past jobs, or labors, in my life. My employment history ranges from normal vocations like mortgage banking, carpentry and bartending, to some less then glamorous occupations, such as a door-to-door, vacuum cleaner salesman (I kid you, not) and placing the disgustingly obese on specialty beds, geared to hold those who somehow let themselves go a bit…800 pounds and up! I could easily fill page after page with anecdotes from each one of these jobs and someday, probably will. However, today I’ll just focus on my very first job, a job some of you, more than likely, suffered through, as well.
When I turned 10 years old, my dad figured I had enjoyed enough carefree days as a child and was in need of a daily dose of physical and verbal abuse. So, he signed me up to be a paper boy for the Southtown Economist. All you needed, to start a promising career in the newspaper distribution field, was a reliable bicycle, which I didn’t have, a desire to work hard each day, which I didn’t have, and most importantly, a dad willing and quite capable of “putting you through a wall!” if papers weren’t promptly delivered each day.
Our subdivision was quite large and much too big for just one delivery boy. Thankfully, there were several other stupid kids in the neighborhood to help deliver the paper, which nobody really wanted in the first place. Unfortunately, my assigned territory was 75 homes in the old phase of the Catalina development. The routes in the newer sections of the neighborhood delivered to young families, with small children and an acceptance of a young person, trying to make a buck. The homes I had to deliver to were primarily owned by cantankerous, wrinkled people with white hair, trousers pulled up to just below the nipple line, who had plenty of free time to lay in wait, so they could bitch at me daily about my delivery technique, the length of my hair or the high cost of a loaf of bread. The remaining homes on my route housed a 10 year olds worst nightmare; high school kids.
For some reason, I seemed to attract packs of discontented boys ranging from the age of 13-18, with long hair, oily, pimpled faces and an insatiable desire to chase me down, knock me off my bike and kick my ass. Some years later, I read a published study in a medical journal, which proved conclusively, pasty-faced red-heads with freckles emit a scent which drives other kids to chase them down and beat them senseless. Or perhaps it was my bike?
As I said before, I didn’t have a reliable bike. Earlier that summer, I suffered my mid-life crises a few years early and became obsessed with owning a “chopper.” My neighbor, who owned an acetylene torch and a father with a lot of free time, helped me weld an extra fork on the end of my existing bike fork, to make my very own chopper bike. It was great to look at but unfortunately, when I tried to sit, the unbalanced weight distribution caused the front end to pop up and the bike to flip over my head. This, of course, got all kinds of laughs from the other kids on the street, an understanding slap upside my head from dad but regrettably, was not conducive to newspaper delivery. Leave it to dad to come up with the perfect solution.
“You can ride your sister’s bike.”
After removing the white, wicker basket from the handle bars and replacing it with large, metal hooks on each handle, I stepped back to assess my ride. It was a typical 70’s, girly bike, painted a light aqua green with a big white, banana style seat, covered with large pastel colored flowers, which looked like they were pulled off the set of “The Dating Game.” This bike, coupled with the red hair and freckles, were a perfect mix to insure abuse. When I whined to dad about how I would get beat up riding my sister’s bike, he assured me it “would build character.” Why do parents feel ass-kickings, crossing gender lines and public humiliation build self esteem? They don’t. It taught me how to peddle fast and run from trouble. I’m so proud.
After loading my bag with 100 pounds of cumbersome newspapers, I peddled off down the street, with my front wheel wobbling back and forth, trying my best to keep the bike upright. When my route was finished and I had successfully run the gauntlet of burn-outs looking for a piece of me, I was thankful for having my sister’s bike. While fleeing, the combination of unbalanced weight load, sobbing and excessive wobbling caused me to lose my balance and slide off my flowery bike seat. As any guy will tell you, falling off your bike seat at a high rate of speed means one thing: RACKED BALLS!!! But because I was getting in touch with my feminine side and “cross biking”, I avoided smashing my noootz on the bar normally found on a boy’s bike and was able to keep, not only my balance for escape, but my dignity. Well, as much dignity as you can have while running home with the bike frame wedged between your thighs to keep it upright, cutting through the neighbor’s yards and screaming over your shoulder,
“Better leave me alone! My dad’s a police officer!!! My dad’s a police officer!!!”
Actually, my dad sold carbon-copy business forms. Yelling, “My dad’s a carbon-copy business forms salesman!!” didn’t carry the intimidating punch I was looking for.
I’ve found that each one of my past job’s, has prepared me better to handle any crisis that may pop up in my current job. Hopefully, we learn from our mistakes and apply that knowledge to further our careers. Just last month, an issue came up at the closing table for a client’s home purchase. Seems a charge was billed to them erroneously, and they expressed their displeasure at the oversight. Did I panic? No. I simply jumped up from the table, grabbed my balls and ran out of the office yelling, “My dad’s a policeman!!” I look back on my past jobs and I’m thankful they taught me dignity and built a fine character.
When I turned 10 years old, my dad figured I had enjoyed enough carefree days as a child and was in need of a daily dose of physical and verbal abuse. So, he signed me up to be a paper boy for the Southtown Economist. All you needed, to start a promising career in the newspaper distribution field, was a reliable bicycle, which I didn’t have, a desire to work hard each day, which I didn’t have, and most importantly, a dad willing and quite capable of “putting you through a wall!” if papers weren’t promptly delivered each day.
Our subdivision was quite large and much too big for just one delivery boy. Thankfully, there were several other stupid kids in the neighborhood to help deliver the paper, which nobody really wanted in the first place. Unfortunately, my assigned territory was 75 homes in the old phase of the Catalina development. The routes in the newer sections of the neighborhood delivered to young families, with small children and an acceptance of a young person, trying to make a buck. The homes I had to deliver to were primarily owned by cantankerous, wrinkled people with white hair, trousers pulled up to just below the nipple line, who had plenty of free time to lay in wait, so they could bitch at me daily about my delivery technique, the length of my hair or the high cost of a loaf of bread. The remaining homes on my route housed a 10 year olds worst nightmare; high school kids.
For some reason, I seemed to attract packs of discontented boys ranging from the age of 13-18, with long hair, oily, pimpled faces and an insatiable desire to chase me down, knock me off my bike and kick my ass. Some years later, I read a published study in a medical journal, which proved conclusively, pasty-faced red-heads with freckles emit a scent which drives other kids to chase them down and beat them senseless. Or perhaps it was my bike?
As I said before, I didn’t have a reliable bike. Earlier that summer, I suffered my mid-life crises a few years early and became obsessed with owning a “chopper.” My neighbor, who owned an acetylene torch and a father with a lot of free time, helped me weld an extra fork on the end of my existing bike fork, to make my very own chopper bike. It was great to look at but unfortunately, when I tried to sit, the unbalanced weight distribution caused the front end to pop up and the bike to flip over my head. This, of course, got all kinds of laughs from the other kids on the street, an understanding slap upside my head from dad but regrettably, was not conducive to newspaper delivery. Leave it to dad to come up with the perfect solution.
“You can ride your sister’s bike.”
After removing the white, wicker basket from the handle bars and replacing it with large, metal hooks on each handle, I stepped back to assess my ride. It was a typical 70’s, girly bike, painted a light aqua green with a big white, banana style seat, covered with large pastel colored flowers, which looked like they were pulled off the set of “The Dating Game.” This bike, coupled with the red hair and freckles, were a perfect mix to insure abuse. When I whined to dad about how I would get beat up riding my sister’s bike, he assured me it “would build character.” Why do parents feel ass-kickings, crossing gender lines and public humiliation build self esteem? They don’t. It taught me how to peddle fast and run from trouble. I’m so proud.
After loading my bag with 100 pounds of cumbersome newspapers, I peddled off down the street, with my front wheel wobbling back and forth, trying my best to keep the bike upright. When my route was finished and I had successfully run the gauntlet of burn-outs looking for a piece of me, I was thankful for having my sister’s bike. While fleeing, the combination of unbalanced weight load, sobbing and excessive wobbling caused me to lose my balance and slide off my flowery bike seat. As any guy will tell you, falling off your bike seat at a high rate of speed means one thing: RACKED BALLS!!! But because I was getting in touch with my feminine side and “cross biking”, I avoided smashing my noootz on the bar normally found on a boy’s bike and was able to keep, not only my balance for escape, but my dignity. Well, as much dignity as you can have while running home with the bike frame wedged between your thighs to keep it upright, cutting through the neighbor’s yards and screaming over your shoulder,
“Better leave me alone! My dad’s a police officer!!! My dad’s a police officer!!!”
Actually, my dad sold carbon-copy business forms. Yelling, “My dad’s a carbon-copy business forms salesman!!” didn’t carry the intimidating punch I was looking for.
I’ve found that each one of my past job’s, has prepared me better to handle any crisis that may pop up in my current job. Hopefully, we learn from our mistakes and apply that knowledge to further our careers. Just last month, an issue came up at the closing table for a client’s home purchase. Seems a charge was billed to them erroneously, and they expressed their displeasure at the oversight. Did I panic? No. I simply jumped up from the table, grabbed my balls and ran out of the office yelling, “My dad’s a policeman!!” I look back on my past jobs and I’m thankful they taught me dignity and built a fine character.
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