It's the Dog.

I was sitting around watching “It’s me or the Dog” the other day. Is that chick Victoria something else or what? She makes it look so easy. She walks into a room with a snarling mean nasty monster of a dog, and at the end of the show, it’s nothing but a big ole sweetie pie little cuddle bunny. And all in 30 minutes or less to boot. Of course, in the process of turning the beast into a teddy bear she paints the owners as bumbling know nothing dolts that shouldn’t be roaming the streets alone let alone owning a dog. I’m fascinated by this show. I don’t rearrange my week just so I can watch it or anything. I mean, after all, it’s not Survivor. But if I’m channel surfing and it happens to be on, I gotta stop and watch it. I was REALLY late for work recently because I just had to find out just how she was going to handle two Dobermans. Dobermans, can you imagine? Two huge freaking Dobermans. How could I not watch?

I’ve sat through more than a couple of episodes. I got to thinking recently, Wow, this dog thing is easy and those people are just so dumb.” I got to thinking about owning a dog again and just how cool it would be. I watched enough of these dog shows, I know how to train a dog. I wouldn’t be like one of those dopey owners, my dog would be well trained. It’d come when I called, sit when told to sit and it definitely wouldn’t destroy the house or yard. Yeah, me and my dog. We’d be like peas and carrots. I even went and looked at a couple of puppies.

While I was looking at the puppies something hit me. The little voice in the back of my head started yelling. I don’t know how it had fallen asleep, but when it woke up it was panicked and it was yelling. It started yelling “STOP!!! WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? DON’T YOU REMEMBER THE LAST TWO TIMES YOU TRIED TO OWN DOGS? DON’T YOU REMEMBER THE LIST OF THINGS YOU WON’T DO THREE TIMES?” When that little voice started going, I had to stop and reconsider the road I was about to stroll down. At this point my head started drifting away from the images of sitting by the camp fire with my trusted canine companion by my side and started remembering just what it meant to own one of these monsters. I've owned dogs before you know.

I’ve already talked about the time the dogs (I had two at the time) got loose in the house. If you recall the story, they destroyed the place. When I got home there was two feet of rumble throughout the entire house. There was poop on the dining room rug and the male must have started marking his territory or something because there was pee everywhere. And those two things ate everything of mine they could get at. They left Lisa’s stuff alone, but my stuff was destroyed. I lost three pairs of shoes, two leather belts a jacket (yeah, I should have hung it up) and fist full of silk ties (should have hung them up too). This ended up being the first time we had to have a dumpster delivered.

I had been given advice when I got these dogs. In hindsight it was really bad advice.  I only tried to listen to it once.   I was told that a dog only understands two things, pain and pleasure. When they are good, you gotta give them pleasure, but when bad, they need to experience some pain. Well, as you can imagine, this was bad.  I talk'n really bad.  I'm talk'n almost indescribably bad.  Lisa would kill me and the dogs if she saw this mess.  Trust me though, I was gonna go first.  Anyway, these were some dogs that needed some punishment. I ended up chasing the them around the house. I finally cornered the male. I grabbed him under the front legs and picked him up. All the while I was scolding him. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, OK, I was yelling. So I’m holding this dog up to my face and I’m yelling at it. Why would you yell at a dog? Oh, I don’t know. They don’t understand what you are saying anyway. As I was yelling I started to smell and taste something funny.  All of a sudden I realized I was getting wet too. I looked down to see that the dog was peeing on my chest. And not just a little squirt either. This was a full on, I gotta go pee, pee. I dropped the dog and went running for the bathroom. I almost puked. I jumped in the shower fully dressed. There I was, standing in the shower in a suit and tie still wearing my shoes sucking on a bottle of mouthwash trying as best I could to get the taste of dog urine out of my mouth.  No amount on Listerine would  help. 

Then I started thinking about the time the female (is it OK to call this one a BITCH???) peed on my feet. I was watching TV. I didn’t have the remote, so I had pulled the rocking chair up close to the TV so I wouldn’t have to get up to channel surf. Now, this dog wouldn’t come anywhere near me. If I came into a room, it went out (kind of like Lisa, OOOOPs, did I say that out loud?). If I opened the door to let her in or out, she’d wait for me to move before she went through. And there wasn’t a chance in hell she would ever come if I called. I’m sitting in the rocking chair watching TV when out of the blue the bitch walked up and put her head in my lap. She laid her head on my legs and looked up at me with those big brown eyes, and just sat there. I thought to myself “WOW, what brought this on? Maybe she’s jealous of Max (the male).” Max had been lying beside the chair and I had been scratching his back. So anyway, she’s just sitting there on my feet with her head in my lap looking at me with those big brown puppydog eyes. I stopped scratching Max and started scratching her head. After about a minute I started to feel something warm. Took me a second before it realized what it was. That damn dog was peeing on my feet. That BITCH sat on my feet, and then peed on my shoes. Needless to say, the dog had cost me another pair of shoes, and just a little bit a dignity.

Anyway, I’m looking at the puppies and I’m thinking. I’m thinking that the kinds of situations that I’ve just been thinking about can be corrected with proper training. I’m thinking, “Hey, I’ve seen Victoria do it, I can too. The last time, I didn’t really know how to train a dog. Now I do. Victoria is a good teacher, and beside those other people are stupid. I’m not stupid.” Then another thought popped into my head.

So, I had two dogs. They were mutts. They were a mix of Collie, Husky and German Sheppard. The male looked like a Sheppard with a thick coat. The female looked like a Husky with a strawberry blond coat. The male was about 75 lbs, the female was about 60. These dogs were strong and they liked to pull. Hey, it was in their blood, they were part Husky. I used to tie them to cinder blocks and let them pull the blocks around the yard. The heavier the load, the more they seemed to like it. Besides, it slowed down the female enough that when she didn’t come when I called, I could go get her. I quickly learned that if I only tied one block to her, she could still out run me. Anyway, the point is, these dogs were strong, and they really liked to pull.

One day I was walking the dogs. They were on the leash. I had both leashes wrapped around one wrist. As we were walking by the conservation area, the dogs alerted to something. The conservation area was wet lands. Swamp really. There was maybe 6 to 8 feet of embankment sloping down into prickers and briars that comprised most of the conservation land. Both dogs alerted at the same time. They were standing at the top of the embankment and they were very intently peering into the swamp. I went up next to the dogs, but I couldn’t see anything. Oh, I could hear something, but I couldn’t see anything. So I started very softly saying to the dogs “what’s zat?” “What iz zit” “Do you see anything, whatszat” All the while, you could just feel the dogs tensing up. Their little feet were starting to dance and they were twitching. You could taste it, these dogs wanted at whatever it was that was making that rustling noise. I’m standing at the top of the embankment with these two Husky mix digs strapped to my wrist trying to get them all excited. I’m up there still saying brilliant things like “whatszat” when I heard a stick snap. Without thinking, as soon as that little stick snapped I shouted “GO GIT IT”. And with that, those dogs took off.

The dogs were off  like a shot. They were just waiting for permission to go. When they got it, they went. I had a combined almost 150 lbs of sled dog running down hill after whatever was making that noise dragging me by the wrist with them. I wasn’t even slowing them down. Did I mention the thorns and prickers and briars and stickers and burrs and muck that made up the swamp/conservation land? Think of a rose bush.  Now picture one that covers a couple of acres.  It was like that.  The dogs dragged me down the slope, into the swamp and through about 100 feet of briar patch before I could get them stopped. I stopped in about a foot of muck and in the middle of a thorn bush. I looked around to survey where I was. There were prickers in every direction as far as the eye could see. I had no choice but to go back the way I had come. It took me less than 10 seconds to get into the middle of the swamp, and about 45 minutes to get out. Of course, while I was trying to get out, the dogs were still trying to go after whatever had drawn them into the swamp in the first place. Eventually I just dropped the leashes. To hell with the dogs, let them find their own way out. I got out of the swamp and headed home. About two hours later the dogs showed up. I have no idea if they ever got at what they were after. They seemed pretty happy though. To add insult to injury, I had to bathe them both to get all the muck out of their fur. I spent a couple of hours combing the burrs out too.

As I was looking at the puppies I had an epiphany. If I was seriuosly considering getting another dog, well I guess I am as stupid as those people on the show.  It doesn’t matter what little Ms Vicky can do or how well she can handle her dogs. I’m not a dog person. Thank god the little man in the back of my head finally woke up and started yelling. I don’t know why it took so long for me to hear him. Wow, I was that close to starting my list of things I won’t do four times. Again.

It’s not a cookie it’s a snack cake

Herbie Reed tagged me with the nickname Slow Joe a hundred years ago. He and a couple of other people who shall remain nameless thought that moniker was funny (see John Kelly of North Carolina fame, I didn’t mention your name. I kept your identity secret ). I like the name so I use it periodically as my online nom de plume and super secret identify. Herbie tagged me with Slow Joe because of the obvious. He never saw me rush, especially coming over the hill on my bike on the way to work. My response was “OH YEAH, you never see me rushing, but I’m never late for anything. phtttttttthth”.   Besides, who rushes to work?  Of course I was going slow, I didn't want to go to work in the first place. Well, now I’m older and a lot less wiser and I have to admit I really am slow. I still don’t rush. But that’s mainly because I can’t. None of the moving parts move quite the same as the used to. They all kind of just creak and groan then stay put. My joints protest every move, and therefore move as little as absolutely possible. It’s like they need a liberal application of lubricant. On top of that, I am NOT as quick on the uptake as I used to be. Maybe I never was and it’s only now that I’m realizing it. But boy oh boy I gotta admit it, sometimes I just don’t get it. You know, I understand Keynesian Economics, I get the Theory of Relativity and I know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. But I gotta tell ya, there are just some things that are way beyond me.

If you peruse some of my writings, you will notice some recurring themes. One of those themes is I like to play golf. Another is that many of my golfing buddies are a lot younger than I am. Finally, you’ll notice that there is a liberal about of harassment being inflicted by and on me. This quick little story touches on all three.

So I’m at the annual WBFL golf outing and demolition derby. There are maybe 16 of us in total at this extravaganza. I’m paired up with Dangerous Dan the Man. We’ve checked in and have taken the cart down to the car to get our clubs. We’ve got the cart all loaded and are waiting for everyone else. One of the guys LGM (Little Gay Mark) is standing there busting everyone’s crackers like he usually does when all of a sudden, out of his pocket he pulls a HUGE bag of Swedish Fish. You know what Swedish fish are right? They’re those little red gummie candies shaped like fish. Well, now he starts taking some ribbing about the fish. You know, things like: How old are you? Do you need some kool aide to go with those? Did your mommy pack those with you lunch? etc etc etc. Eventually we finished harassing LGM and started to head up to the first tee. As we were pulling out of the parking lot on our carts, LGM shouted for everyone to wait. He started making a scene saying he’s forgotten something. He went running to the car and started rummaging around. After a couple of seconds he came out of the car and started heading my way. He came over to my cart and handed me a BIG box of Fig Newton’s. He must have gotten this box at BJs or something cuz, the box was big, I mean really big, I’m surprised he could lift it big. Anyway he handed me the box of Newton’s and said “Here, I got these for you.” and walked off.

Now I’m sitting in the cart holding a big box of cookies. I like Fig Newton’s.  Guilt is starting to get the better of me and I'm starting to feel badly for teasing Mark about the fish.  I was thinking to myself, "WOW, what a thoughtful and useful gift, how did he know I like Fig Netwon's?" I looked at LGM and said thanks. I started saying things about not picking on him the rest of the day, maybe I shouldn’t be teasing him and so on. All the while, I’m thanking him profusely for the cookies. LGM is like, don’t worry about it, just eat your cookies. What happened next puzzled me.  It caused me pause.  It made  me wonder just what was happening.  After Mark said "eat your cookies" he burst out laughing. All the other guys burst out laughing too. I looked at Dan an asked, “what’s so funny?” Dan just looked at me and said, “How am I suppose to know, they’re your friends. I like Fig Newton’s. Can I have a cookie?” I opened the box and took a couple of cookies for me and handed a couple to Dan. As I did, the laugher intensified. I looked at LGM and asked if he had done something to the cookies. He said no, and that I should eat up. I’m looking at Dan and wondering what the hell is going on. I asked Dan to check the date on the box. Maybe the cookies are a couple of years out of date or something. Nope, everything is good. So I looked at this group of giggling guys and asked if any of them wanted a cookie. Now they are peeing themselves. They are dying. A couple are laughing so hard they can’t even talk. I looked at Dan again and asked “Do you know what’s going on? What’s so funny? Why are they laughing? What’s so funny about Fig Newton’s?” Dan just looked at me and said, “I don’t know dad, I like Fig Newton’s.”

So, we tee off and start playing. Dan and I are playing golf, eating cookies and having a ball. I mean, I’m in heaven. I would normally take a sleeve of the tasty little snack cakes with me anyway. Now I have a whole giant box. It’s a fine day if you ask me. So we finish the front nine and stop for a drink at the club house. As we are heading off to the 10th tee, the whole group of guys is standing around finishing their drinks. As Dan and I head off, I hear LGM ask about the cookies. When he does, the whole place just explodes with laughter. As Dan and I drove off, we were listening to a chorus of laughter and taunts about the Newton’s. Again I looked at Dan and ask “Do you know what that’s all about?” Again he looked and me and said, “I don’t know, I like Fig Newton’s.”  With that, he grabbed another handful.

We finish playing and now we are at the cars putting the clubs away. As the rest of the guys drove up, they all asked about the cookies. I told them that yes, I was enjoying my cookies and asked if anyone wanted one. All refused and all were laughing. I looked at Dan and asked him if if he knew what was so funny. He just shrugged his shoulders and said “I like Fig Newton’s” I said “So do I. I don’t get the joke. Are we missing something? What the hell is so funny?” Dan just shrugged and said “I don’t know” and finished the end of the box.

Every time we get together somebody asks me about Fig Newton’s. Inevitably when the question comes up, everyone laughs. I had someone put something on my facebook wall referencing Fig Newton’s just the other day. I just don’t get it. What the hell is so funny? What the hell am I missing? I mean come on guys, it’s been three years. Could somebody let me in on the joke? Am I’m missing something good. Then again, maybe I’m missing something bad. Am I the butt of some obscure joke? Well, obviously yes I guess. How funny can it be? They’re all laughing so it must be a good one. I like good jokes. Can somebody PLEASE explain this one?

I just don’t get the joke. Guess I’m just a little too slow to figure it out. Maybe someday someone will let me in on it. If I had to guess I'd say I think it's some kind of old guy prank. But what the heck, I like Fig Newtons.

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been repeatedly asked “What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?” It’s usually followed with an “Uncle Joe”. That kind of gives you a hint on who keeps asking the question. Apparently, the younger members of the clan find of some of my more stellar moments both amusing and amazing. They seem absolutely astounded by the sheer number of stories I can relate. Yes I do repeat some of my stories. After all, I do have my favorites. Then again, I am also continually adding to the list so there is almost always a new story to tell. The young-uns just seem so fascinated. I don’t know if it’s because I tell such a riveting tale, or if they are just questioning the gene pool from which they’ve sprung. I’m not sure this next story is deserving of being on the “Most Stoopidest” list. If it isn’t, it definitely deserves an honorable mention. Or in my case, I guess you need to call it Dishonorable Mention.

A little while ago the Little Woman and I were having a spirited discussion. There was a significant level of passion on both sides. And the volume was quite high. She had her view point which unfortunately didn’t coincide with mine. She was as passionately debating her position as I was my own. OK, if you want to know the truth, we were fighting. I know you find that hard to believe but it’s true. I don’t know why but apparently SHE sometimes finds ME hard to deal with. Can you imagine that? ME? I know.  I’m shocked too. I find me quite easy to be around. Anyway, we were going at it. I don’t remember why. Maybe she washed the lights with the darks, maybe she let the green beans touch the mashed potatoes or maybe it was that she changed the channel when I wasn’t looking. I can’t remember exactly. All I know is, in this particular battle, I was winning. Can you imagine that, I had the upper hand? Please bear in mind this is a woman that if you walked into a room and found her standing there covered in red paint, holding a red paint brush with red paint all over the rug and furniture, she would argue that she wasn’t the one that made the mess with the red paint. And 9 times out of 9 she’d win the debate! However, this day I was running the show. She was mine. I had her dead to rights. In this altercation, I was ahead and she wasn’t going to worm her way out. I tell you what, she’ll never throw socks in with my underpants again.

When I was good and satisfied that I had sufficiently proven my point, that I was on the side of justice and honor , that I was right and she was wrong, I decided that I should take a short break. I decided that I would take a quick respite and repose myself to a quiet place to revel in my victory and let her stew in her own juices for a little bit. So I adjourned to the throne room. OK, so I had to use the facilities. The timing wasn’t right, but when a man’s got to go, a man’s got to go. So I went upstairs. The whole time I’m going I’m still explaining to the Misses the errors of her ways. She’s yelling after me something about my being too grumpy and a royal PITA. Or something of that nature, I don’t really know. I don’t listen when I’m winning (or losing for that matter).

Anyway when I got to my destination, I had to prepare for what I was about to do. Basically, I had to raise the thrones' seat. After all, sometimes the King stands. Now believe it or not, I was a still a little miffed. Yes, my blood was still boiling, or maybe it was the excitement of actually being in the position to win a debate. To date my record was 0-99-1. I was on the verge of chalking up my first win you know. I was a little excited either way you choose to look at it. When I lifted the seat, I kind of tossed it up. As you would expect, it hit the back of the throne, and bounced back. Now I’m standing there and the seat is down. I'm all ready to go, but the target is fogged in so to speak. I don’t think this is funny, I'm all cranked up, I'm deperately in need of my break, and the seat is back in my way. So I tossed it again. Only this time, I tossed it a little bit harder.  That damn seat better stay put this time or else! Just as before, it bounced back. I was already excited and this wasn’t helping. On my third try, I grabbed the seat and instead of just tossing it, I pushed it all the way to the tank. Yeah, that’s right, I hand carried it to where it was supposed to be. That bad boy wasn’t going to bounce back this time, No siree. And when I lifted the seat to its final resting place, I did it with force. No #$@*&%@@#* toilet seat is going to get the better of me I tell you that.

Well, you guessed it, this is where stupid comes into play. I grabbed the toilet seat and whacked it into the toilet tank. Did you know that toilets are made out of porcelain? Furthermore, did you know that porcelain is fragile and prone to breakage when some idiot smashes a toilet seat into it? At the time, neither did I. It seems so obvious now, but it didn’t then. So, using a straight right jab worthy of Chuck Liddell I smashed the toilet seat into the toilet tank. When I did the tank broke in two and fell to the floor. For an instant, the water just hung there suspended in mid air, held up only by the hand of God. It seemed like it hung there for an eternity. Now I’m just standing there with all manner of thought racing through my head. “SHIT, what am I going to do now? Wholey crap, can I get this cleaned up before Lisa sees it? Why the hell is that water just hanging there? I wonder if I can grab it and throw it in the sink before it falls to the floor.” It was beautiful really. I’m not kidding, for an instant that water just hung there. It was like Wile E Coyote when he runs off the edge of a cliff. There’s a split second of “Uh Oh” before he falls to the canyon floor. It was kind of like that. Eventually, gravity being what it is, the water hit the floor. Now this is the part I found really fascinating. Did you ever see that small silver pipe coming out of the wall behind the toilet? There’s usually a shut off valve on it and a smaller silver pipe that leads to the tank. That’s how the water for flushing gets into the tank. Did you ever notice how slowly the tank fills after you flush? Did you know that the water in that pipe is actually under pressure and that the slowness of the tank fill up is not indicative of how fast the water can come out of that pipe? Once the tank fell away there was no longer anything to impede the flow of water from the pipe. Now I’m standing in a growing pool of water, my shoes and pants are soaked , there’s porcelain toilet tank parts everywhere and there’s a stream of water shooting up from the silver pipe and it's  hitting the ceiling. And to top it all off, I haven’t done my business yet.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I heard Lisa. She was yelling again. And the yelling was getting louder and  it was getting closer. I heard her start to come up the stairs. She was on her way and she was coming fast. I knew I was toast. It didn’t matter what had preceded this event or what had just happened.  Any way you sliced it I was a dead man. I was defenseless. I resigned myself to just accepting whatever torment and torture was headed my way. What could I say? There was no defense other than….well none really.

Lisa burst into the bathroom and launched into “OH MY GOD WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!?!?!? QUICK COME DOWN TO THE KITCHEN!!!!” With that, she was off. She was FLYING back downstairs. I went flying downstairs after her. My feet didn’t touch a single tread. I grabbed the handrails and took the whole staircase in one giant leap. I went flying into the kitchen and there was Lisa doing her happy dance and pointing upwards. I looked at the ceiling and discovered a growing circle of wetness. This struck me as odd since, my bathroom is over the downstairs bathroom, not the kitchen. So I went into the downstairs bathroom. The entire ceiling was soaked. Oh my GOD!!! Will this ever end?

At this point, I’m in the downstairs bathroom and I’m yelling “holy shit, holy shit, holy shit”. As you can tell I’m one articulate fellow. I was just standing there watching the wet spot grow and yelling holy shit. All of a sudden it hit me. Lisa was standing in the doorway. I turned and started yelling “GET OUT OF THE WAY, GET OUT OF THE WAY, GET OUT OF THE WAY.” I blasted past Lisa and went screaming back up stairs. Lisa’s now yelling “WHAT”S THE MATTER? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” I didn’t answer, I was too busy racing upstairs like my hair was on fire and my ass was catching. You see, while I was standing in the downstairs bathroom gawking at the quickly growing wet spot on the ceiling wondering when it was going to stop something dawned on me. While I was standing there marveling at the calamity it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t shut off the water in my bathroom.

I got the water shut off upstairs. I cleaned up the mess in my bathroom and soaked up all the water. All the while I’m listening to a never ending string of expletives and detailed explanations as to why I am such an idiot. I believe almost every other sentence began with "What the hell is wrong with you....." When finally I was able to pause and take a breath I took inventory of the damage: the ceiling in my bathroom - ruined, the floor in my bathroom – well it was roller coasteresque, the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom - on its way to the floor (It was starting to sag), the ceiling in the kitchen - soaked but salvageable, the toilet - destroyed, the fight that preceded this catastrophe - LOST. Yeah that’s right, I ended up losing that fight. I had to give it up. How could I keep fighting after what had just happened? It didn't matter how right I was before the accident, once that tank hit the floor I was wrong, I was a goner.  And the fight that followed the great toilet tank debacle? I lost that one too.

Now my record was 0-102-0. Oh, did I forget to mention it, she even took back the tie.

Headcase

Most people who know me know I get migraines. After all, I do complain about it all the time. Lord knows I don’t want to miss an opportunity to complain. (Yes, I do like cheese with my whine, no you don’t need to call me the WAAAAAAHMbulance, Yes I do like fench cries with my waaaaahamburger.) I get most of the classic symptoms of a migraine; vision disturbances, sensitivity to light, sound and smells, nausea, and of course a screaming, nasty, horrible, indescribable headache. A bunch of years ago they were talking about  daily medications and permanent disability. I spent maybe 2-3 years suffering from almost daily occurrences. To me, the medication was just as bad as the migraine and that disability thing, well that just wasn’t going to happen. I researched and tried all kinds of alternatives. I learned bio-feedback so that I could control pain with my mind (I can bend spoons now too ). I tried to identify and eliminate the triggers that led to migraine in the first place. Triggers include most of my favorite foods along with things like stress and changes in the weather. Eventually I got to the point where I was able to reduce the occurrences to 1 or 2 a year. I got so good at the bio-feedback (Lamaze really) that I did not take any prescription medicines. A hand full of Excedrin Migraine, some deep breathing and visualization was my typically remedy.


As a side story. I had taken a bunch of classes for the bio-feedback. I had several opportunities to practice the techniques while I was taking the course. I quickly noticed that it was working. It didn’t eliminate the migraine, but I could dramatically lessen the effects. I was telling one of my brothers about this new trick I had learned and how it was helping. When I got through with my story, he looked at me and said “You’re so full of sh*t, that doesn’t work. That’s all in your mind, it’s all psychosomatic.” I just looked at him and responded “Exactly”

Anyway, I got to the point where the migraines were manageable. Yeah, they still sucked, but I could live with it,. Every doctor I saw, and it didn’t matter for what, wanted to prescribe me all kinds of drugs when they discovered I was a migraine sufferer. I would just smile and say no thank you. I had something that worked for me and that’s all I needed.

Now let’s skip forward a few years. I had some heart surgery. As a result of the surgery, I have been prescribed two drugs, a beta block to help control my heart rate and a blood thinner. Immediately after my surgery I began to have migraines again. I am getting one or two a week, sometimes more. Seldom do I go a week without one. At first I was panicked. What was causing all the new migraines? I kept asking the doctors about what it might be. Was it one of the drugs I was on? Nobody knew. Everytime I talked to someone their response was, Nope, couldn’t be (Pick one: drugs, diet, surgery, stress, stroke etc.) but here, let me prescribe……. I’ve been telling doctors for years that I loathe drugs. Why oh why is the first thing they reach for the prescription pad? I’d rather find the cause of the problem and eliminate it rather than just medicate the symptoms. The bottom line is, No one had any idea what would be causing the dramatic increase in the number of migraines.

After a while, I started to notice that the symptoms are less severe. Sure I get vision disturbances and light sensitivity but the headaches are minimal and the nausea is almost non-existent. Originally on a pain/sick scale of 1 – 10 with 10 being the worst, migraines would rank a 10. For anyone that has ever broken a bone picture that kind of pain, but all in one spot in your head. It’s that kind of pain. Now it is typically like a 2 or a 3. You know, kind of like a pebble in your shoe. Yeah you know it’s there, but the next time you sit down you’ll take care of it.

I began to wonder why. What had changed? Why were the symptoms so dramatically reduced? Then something struck me. A long time ago when they wanted to put me on daily medication, one of the things they wanted to try was a beta blocker. I am now on a beta blocker for my heart. Was I finally getting a positive side affect from a drug? It appears so.

So, I asked the doctors. They are all so helpful. Their response was, “maybe, could be.” Now whenever I see one, they ask “How’s the headaches.” My response is “more frequent, less severe.” To which they all smile and say “Well, that’s good. Looks like you’re getting a dual benefit from the beta blocker. Let me know if you need me to prescribe anything else” and they all seem so happy. They tell me I should be happy too.

I can’t seem to get them to understand that, it doesn’t make me happy. Yes it is still disruptive. Yes, my head is still in a fog. Yes, I lose my vision. Yes, I still have “pressure” in my head” Yes I am still slightly nauseous. I still have all of the symptoms, just not as bad. I keep telling the doctors things like “It’s like being less pregnant. Sometimes you are or are you are not. Less doesn’t really help” I can’t seem to get anyone to understand that this still isn’t something I’m too crazy about.

Here’s an analogy

Think back to Junior High. Remember the class bully?, Picture this, every now and then the bully grabs you, When he does he just beats the crap out of you, takes your lunch money and leaves you laying in a pool of you own blood or stuffed in a locker somewhere.

Now skip forward a few years. You’re in high school. The bully from Junior High no longer beats you up and takes your lunch money occasionally. Instead, every day when he sees you in the hall he just punches you in the stomach.

Here’s a question for you. Do you feel any better when you see the bully in high school now that he’s not taking your lunch money?

Migraines are like run-ins with the bully. Today I’m not penniless stuffed in a locker somewhere. Then again, I’m not looking forward to seeing him. No matter how you slice it, it’s still painful and it sucks.

The day the bubble burst

I think everyone occasionally has delusions of grandeur. I mean, who doesn’t occasionally look in the mirror and think, “DAMN, I look fine today, a veritable babe magnet”? How else can you get the courage up to leave the house? I mean, whole industries are built around fostering this kind of thinking. You look good, you feel good, right? Watch out world, here I come. Well, once that bubble is burst, there’s no coming back.

There was a point where I thought I had it going on. I had a great job, I was a Consulting Principle (Principal? I never get that right. OK, So I wasn’t a GREAT consultant), a great family, enough money not to worry too much.  Basically, I thought I had the world on a string.  I tried to look and act accordingly. When heading to the customer, it was navy blue suits, white shirts, red ties and black wing tip shoes. Office time was more casual. No suit and tie, but it was always dress slacks and button down shirts. There were no khakis and polos on this kid. It was Business Casual all the way. And it all went through the dry cleaners. Everything was crisp, and clean and neatly pressed. What do they say, looking good, feeling mean? Look the part, feel the part, be the part. That was my motto anyway.  (As a side note, I used to walk the kids to the bus stop before I headed to work.  It was me and a handful of moms waitng for the bus almost every morning.  One of the mom's used to call me GQ.  I mean, it aint bragging if it's true is it? :-))

I was working out regularly too.  I'd always had a thin frame, so I wasn't trying to be a massive guy or anything.  Just wanted to be in shape.  You know, maintain my stamina if you get my drift. At the time, I was in pretty good condition for a 40 something.  I was 6 feet tall with a 42 inch chest and a 34 inch waist.

Now I never kidded myself that I was the next George Clooney or anything. But by the same token, I didn’t think I was the second coming of Larry the Cable Guy either. I always kinda felt I was comfortably above average. Which was OK with me.

So one day I was in the office. I was flitting around doing my in the office thing. You know, going to meetings, calling customers and dropping in on people I hadn’t seen in a few days. Mostly it was dropping in on people. As I was walking around the office I passed the receptionists desk. She was busily looking for something in the filing cabinet and didn’t seem to notice I was passing by. She was pretty preoccupied with something, who knows what. As I passed, I softly said “Hey”. Still preoccupied with the file cabinet, she looked up to see what the noise was. You could tell she wasn’t really paying attention. She was thinking about something other than my passing by. As she looked up, her lips kind of curled back and her eyes squinted. It was like she smelled something vile. She looked up and almost instantly said “Ewwwwww, Yuck.”

The phrase “Ew, Yuck” caused me a monetary pause. I looked at her and laughingly said “Yuck? Yuck? What the hell is Yuck? I mean, I know I’m not a perfect 10 or anything, but I never considered I was a Yuck.” At this point, I was kidding. I didn’t really think she was talking about me, but the timing was right to tease her a little. That’s when I got a surprise. That’s when my delusional bubble burst.

You could see her blink a little and then she shuddered her shoulders. You could see her coming back to reality. She looked at me and said “What?” I said “I never thought I was a perfect 10 or anything. I mean, I would have said maybe a 6.5 or a 7. But YUCK? I never would have thought of myself as a YUCK.” Her next comments struck me like I had been hit in the stomach with a bowling ball. She looked at me and said “Oh my god, you heard that?” I said “Yes”. She looked at me and said “I’m so sorry; I thought I had just thought that. I didn’t realize I had said it. I'mm sooooooooo sorry.” Now I’m taken aback.

I’m a little stunned. I mean, up until this point I would have said maybe I was a 7, on a good day maybe even an 8. But YUCK? I mean, what the hell is YUCK? Is it a 1, or a 2? Am I even on the scale? YUCK, how can this be? I looked at her and said “YUCK, are you serious? I know I’m not a 10, but YUCK?”

Now she’s back pedaling. She’s saying things like “Oh no, you’re not a Yuck. Why would you think that?” “ I was looking at something nasty in the trash barrel” (The trash barrel was empty). “Oh, you’re a good looking guy. You’re not MY type of course, but I can see how some woman might like you.” “You’re not that bad. I mean some days you’re ok I guess.” "It's just that, well, I'm really sorry." "You know, not everyone can be.........." And every other sentence is a variation of “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for you to hear that.” I’m just standing there muttering “Yuck? I never would have imagined. Yuck? Me? Really? Yuck? Damn.”

So, this was the day the bubble burst. I mean, there are certin things a man doesn't forget, the first "kiss", the first car,  and apparently, the first "YUCK!"  Casual in the office means old jeans and topsiders now. I no longer worry about the dry cleaners. I don’t even iron my shirts. I just hang them in the bathroom and let the steam from the shower soften the wrinkles. I now just try to make sure there are no holes in anything. And I don't work out anymore either.  I'm now 5 foot 10 and have a 34 inch chest with a 42 inch waist. 

I mean let's be honest now, who am I are trying to kid here. I don't even care any more.  Why would I?  You know what they say don’t you?  “Once you’re a yuck, you never ……. “ ohhhh, never mind.

A Good Bluff Doesn't Get Called

Every now and then I do something that in hindsight was pretty ridiculous. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it leaves a permanent mark and sometimes it just leaves me scratching my head thinking, how the heck did I just get away with that one?

A few years ago, I had some heart surgery (No, I’m not whining, it’s germane to the story. Stick with me for a minute).It was suppose to be an in and out in an hour kind of thing. Bingo, bango, bongo, no fuss no muss. I'd be back to work in a week. Well, I wasn’t.  The procedure ended up being a little more involved than expected. The surgery itself lasted seven hours. I ended up being out of work for over three months. When I went back to work, I was  down over 40 pounds, I was hovering just under 150.

My job at the time required that I travel. Due to all that had happened I was forced to come off the road. That was a good thing, I was getting use to sleeping in my own bed again. One of the upsides of being off the road was I got to go see my son play high school soccer. High school soccer is played during the week. It’s tough to make it to games in Massachusetts when you are in Red Deer, Alberta Canada, or San Juan Puerto Rico. Since I wasn’t traveling any longer I was able to make a deal with the boss that enabled me to see most of the games.

The first year my son played varsity the team wasn't doing very well. They were three games into the second half of the season and had only notched two wins. It didn’t matter to me. I went to watch the Boy play. That’s all I cared about. A win was a bonus. As long as the Boy played well, it was a good game. The Boy played defense. He switched to defense because the defenders got more playing time. He just wanted to be on the field as much as he could be. I used to stand down in the defensive zone so I could watch him. I don’t think I actually ever saw a goal scored once he went to the defense, I was always at the other end of the field. Most parents get to the game early and try to grab a spot at mid field. Not me, I’m usually all by myself down the end of the sideline watching the defense.

This one game I’m all by myself in my usual spot. Eventually, another Dad from our team came over and we started to chat. My son played left defensive back, his son played sweeper (middle of the defensive line, right in front of the goalie). After a while, a couple of fathers from the other team drifted down our end of the field. They were watching their forwards. The forwards are the guys that try to score the goals; the defenders are the guys that try to stop them. Once these other parents got down our end of the field they started yelling. Oh, they weren’t yelling things like “Go team go” or “Rickety rack, rickety rall, make them relinquish the ball”. No no no. They were yelling things like “Trip him”, “Knock him down”, “the ref’s not calling anything, PUNCH HIM”. They were loud and they wouldn’t shut up.

After a couple of minutes of this, I had had all I could take. I looked at the guy I was talking to and said “Give me a minute, I’ll be right back.” I floated down the sideline toward the parents from the other team. I got right up next to the louder, more obnoxious of the two. Eventually he looked over at me. I said “Hi, how you doin?” He said “Fine, how are you?” I went on and said “So how’s your season going?” He responded “OK, they are 10 and 2 and are in contention for 1st place.” I said “Oh, our guys aren’t having that good a season; they’ve only won one or two games. So, which kid is yours?” This guy points to one of the forwards and says “that one, number 11. He’s on pace to set the school scoring record this year.” I said “really, wow that’s great. See that little skinny defender over there, number 4?” The guy looked at me and said ”yeah?”

At this point I stepped out in front of him. I got between him and the game so that he would be sure to be looking at me. My arms were  folded across my chest. I stepped in front of him, turned, looked him square in the eyes and very slowly and deliberately said “That one’s mine. If he gets hurt out there then I’m going to hurt you.”

The guys’ eyes popped and his jaw dropped. I started to mosy back down to where I had been standing, as I did I said “Have a nice day. I hope you guys finish the season as strong as you started. I’ll be following the stats to see if your son gets the record. Good luck.”

The Dad from our team I had been talking to when this all started was only maybe 8 or 10 feet away. He hadn’t heard everything that had transpired, but he had heard enough. When I got back he asked me if I had just done what he thought I had done. I said “What?” He asked “What did you say to that guy?” So I told him “I told him that if my son got hurt out there I was going to hurt him.” This other parent then asked “Are you REALLY going to fight him?” I started to chuckle and said “Hell no, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I just had open heart surgery. I can barely make the walk back to the car. All he’d have to do is poke me in the chest with his finger and I’d be done. There’s not a chance in hell I’m going to do anything to him.” The other parent then asked “So why’d you go talk to him?” I said “because he was aggravating me.” He went on to ask “What the hell were you thinking?” I said “He was bugging me, I wasn’t thinking. It didn’t dawn on me that I really couldn’t do anything about it until after I said it. If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have talked to him in the first place. Ooooops.” Now I’m standing on the sideline chuckling, the other parent is standing there just shaking his head.

The game ended with another loss for the home team. The two parents from the other team hadn’t said a word or made a sound for the rest of the game. As they were leaving I gave them a big wave and a smile and said “Good luck with the rest of your season.” The other Dad I was talking to just shook his head and said “I don’t believe you. You are pushing your luck. I can’t believe you went over and did that.” I just laughed and said “Yeah, me either.”

Grape Ape

Can you stand another work story? What? You’re not interested in hearing about people you don’t know, from a company you never heard of.   Oh Well, I’m going to tell another one anyway. What the heck, it’s my blog. They’re my stories and I like telling them. So here goes.

I’ve been traveling on business for years. The guy that hired me did a good job of selling the better half on the value of frequent flyer miles and hotel points. So good in fact that I was never able to take advantage of any of them to ease my own travel burden. Noooooo, I had to save up all my points so that the “family” could use them for vacations. Yes honey, that’s what I want to do for vacation. Let’s fly somewhere, stay in a hotel and eat out every night. Sounds an awful lot like work to me. So anyway, as I was saying, I seldom if ever used my points for an upgrade to first class, or a better room in the hotel or even a better class car. I’m a good husband; I do what I’m told. She won’t let me do anything else.

One of my customers is in Savannah GA. I was down to see this customer with another consultant not that long ago. It was mid May. The weather was gorgeous. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the scent of honeysuckle was floating gently on the breeze. There was nary a cloud in the sky. It was a glorious day. As I was picking up my rental car I was informed that they were out of intermediate sized cars. As a matter of fact, there were just two cars left on the lot. They only had a minivan and a Dodge Sebring convertible. Both are considered an “upgrade”. I was told I could take either, at no additional cost because they had run out of cars. It was my choice, I could take what I wanted. Now I was all excited. Oh boy, a free upgrade. And  a convertible to boot. I’ve not rented a convertible before. This ought to be great! I would get to drive around Savannah, on a gorgeous evening with the top down enjoying the fresh air and scenery.  Yeah baby, who's luckier than me?

My traveling partner is on a flight about an hour behind me. Perfect. I’ll get the car and wait for him at baggage claim. Maybe I’ll make dinner reservations. I can hardly wait to start my evening cruise through downtown with the top down.

Eventually the other consultant and I met up. He gets his baggage and we head for the car. I can hardly wait to tell him our good fortune. On our way to the car I tell him the story about our good luck in getting upgraded to the convertible. As soon as I tell him, he stops dead in his tracks. He looks at me as asks “Are you serious?” I’m smiling ear to ear. My response was yes, of course I was serious. He looked at me and said “that F’n sucks. You’re not putting the top down”. Now I’m perplexed, I’m puzzled I’m confused. I was excited to finally get a car that was not my normal Chevy Malibu. This car was great, it was happening, it was a babe magnet. I mean, just look at it, a burgandy convertiable with a buckskin top and gold wheels.  I mean, we were going to be styl'n.  I had visions of driving through downtown with the top down, elbow on the door, radio play’n. I’d be wear’n my Ray Ban’s. I’d be hip, I’d be suave, I’d be cool. All of a sudden, my fantasy was smashed, this guy thinks the whole thing is going to “suck” and doesn’t want the top down.

Now I was a little irritated. I’m like “John E, what’s the problem, what’s wrong with a convertible?” He looked at me and said “They are too small.” I looked at him and said. “Hey, there’s only the two of us. My stuffs already in the trunk. You can put your computer bag in the trunk with my stuff and your suitcase on the back seat, we’ll be fine.” He looked at me and repeated that the car is too small. We volleyed this back in forth for a few minutes then he finally looked at me and said “You don’t understand, I’m too big. I don’t fit.” I said “Bullshit, you’ll be fine.” As we put his stuff in the back seat he looked at me and said, “You’re not putting the top down.”

We got in the car and drove off. As we were leaving the airport all I’m listening to is how much this “sucks”. Finally I looked to see what the problem was. There he was, his legs spread apart with his knees buried into the dash board. He’s all hunched over with his head tipped to the side; it’s lying on his left shoulder. His head is buried into the canvas of the convertible top. The car top is actually stretching around his head. His arms are folded across his chest; he has nowhere else to put them. I looked at him and said “Wholly shit John, Why don’t you just tip the seat back?” He looked at me and responded “You’re such a dick. I can’t. My suitcase is on the back seat so my seat won’t recline.” Sure enough, there was the suitcase filling up any space that could have been used to recline the seat. At this point I offered to return to the car rental and swap out the convertible for the Minivan. My partner was “No, let’s just get out of here.” Then I started saying “Let’s put the top down, at least that will give you some head room. He looked at me and said “F You, you're not putting the damn top down.” Eventually I stopped arguing and we headed into Savannah.

Before we hit the hotel we stopped for dinner. As we got out of the car, he just looked at me and said “This car sucks bro. I told you it was too small.” While we were eating I kept trying to convince him the thing to do was put the top down. There was no way he wants that. Under penalty of death, he wanted the top to stay up. I finally asked point blank why he was so adamant about keeping the top up. He’s now getting testy, now he’s a little irritated. Finally he looked at me and said “BECAUSE I'LL LOOK LIKE THE GRAPE APE!”

I just looked at him and asked “What the hell is that?” He said, “You know, the Grape Ape.” I said no, what the heck is the Grape Ape. He’s now looking at me like I’m from another planet. He goes, “You know the Grape Ape, the cartoon. “ I’m like, “Nah, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Finally he just said “Forget it, you're just not putting the top down.”

We got back to the car after dinner and John E squeezed himself  back into the front seat. From outside, you could see the top of his head trying to poke through the roof. Finally, I looked at him and said, “Screw this, I’m senior man here. I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m putting the top down.” He replied “No, don’t do it. I’m not going to be seen driving around with the top down with another guy.” I looked at him and asked, "Why not?"   He looked at me and said "Because it's so gey.  Two guys riding around in a chick car with the top down is gey." To which I said “John, don’t worry about it at least you’ll be able to sit up straight.  Besides, this isn't a chick car, it's a chick magnet."  He’s now arguing with me again. He doesn’t want the top down, period. Finally he gave in, after all, I out rank him, I'm the Senior Consultant on this gig, my say goes.   As he gave in, he looked at me and said “If anyone says anything to us, I’m putting the damn top back up. You could be the president of the G D world,  anybody says anything and the top's going up.” I just looked at him and said “John E, who the hell is going to say anything to us? Relax will you.”

We put the top down. I’m all excited now, this is what I wanted all along. My partner is not happy. I looked over at him and burst out laughing. There he was, his head  sticking up out of the car up beyond the top of the windshield. He looked at me and said “Dude, this SUCKs.  I told you, I look like the Grape Ape. I don't fit in this car even with the top down. Nobody better say anything.” Again I told him to relax. As we were pulling out of the parking lot at the restaurant, there was a homeless guy sitting on the curb. He took one look at us, stood up, pointed and started to sing and dance. His song went:

          Roll'n down the road with the top down
          Two guys in a car they’re headed downtown
          Wind in their hair
          They don't have a care….

As we got onto the road this guy started yelling after us. "Hey guy's were are you go'n.  You look good in the car man.  Oh man, that car fits you.  It looks like you're wearing it like a shirt (John E thinks he said skirt.  I'm writing the story, so I'm goin with shirt, John E can tell the story any way he wants, but I'm saying shirt). 

That was all John E needed to hear. He grabbed the steering wheel and yelled “PULL OVER.” He yanked the wheel and we pulled to the curb. At this point he didn’t ask to have the top put up. He TOLD me to put the top up. I may not be the brightest bulb in the circuit, but I understood that message. I don't know if you picked up the subtle hint woven throughout this story but, John E is a big guy.  When he puts his foot down, I'm not arguing with him.  I mean, I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid.  The top went up and didn’t come down again.

In 13 years of traveling I got exactly one rental car upgrade. I got a convertible. I was able to drive almost 100 yards with the top down. I didn’t understand the Grape Ape reference. Then one day I looked it up.

THE GREAT GRAPE APE THEME

(Grape Ape!) Over 40 feet high!
(Grape Ape!) Just a little bit shy!
(Grape Ape!) What a super-strong guy!
(Yup, that's me!) The Great Grape Ape!

(Grape Ape!) If he comes to your town,
(Grape Ape!) He will really put down
(Grape Ape!) Any bad guy around!
The Great Grape Ape!

What a sight to see him jogging, block after block!
Things begin to shake and quake and rattle and rock!
THE BIG, BIG, BIG, BIG GORILILILILILILILA!!!!!!!!

(Grape Ape!) I do not recommend
(ACHOOOOO!) He is one to offend...
(Grape Ape!) So, be sure he's your friend!
(Better be sure!) The Great Grape Ape!

What Was Once an Embarrasment is now a Fantasy

There’s a restaurant at the end of the street where I work. Every time I past it I am reminded of my youth. It has been many different types of restaurants over the years. Now’s it’s a fancy schmancy linen tablecloth kind of place. When I was young, it was an ice cream place. It was when it was an ice cream place that I learned a couple life's more painful lessons there. I still carry a couple of scars from at least one of those lessons. Every time I pass this place, I think about the night of one of my more traumatic “life's experiences.” And every so often someone who was there that fateful night seizes the opportunity to remind me about it.  As a matter of fact, he looks for opportunities to tell the story. There’s always a peal of laughter when he does, and an avalanche of comments like “It could only happen to Joe”

What I’m referring to is the Howard Johnson’s Massacre. Yes, that’s right, it was a massacre. And I was the massacre-ee. Oh, it’s a story all right. And it was a scene. Maybe by finally documenting the events of this epic battle I can finally put this traumatic incident to rest.

It all started after a concert. I and a group of friends decided to go see a show in Boston. It was at the old Boston Garden. I still remember the show, Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Who could forget? We were all 19 or 20 years old and headed in town for a night of partying. It was a real adventure for a kid from the suburbs. A friend borrowed his mother’s car, an old style station wagon. You know a big gun boat thing with three rows of seats. Eight of us piled into this thing and headed in town for the night, seven guys, and one girl. It was a great night. We were celebrating as guys are prone to do. We had a couple of beers before we went into town. The drinking age was 18 back then, and we were taking full advantage. When we got there we parked in a garage just down the street from the Garden. The garage was rocking. Seemed like everyone there was going to the show and garage had become the pre-show party place. So we partied in the parking garage before the show. We’ were rocking out with 100 people we didn’t know, and would never see again. It was great. We went into the show, and the partying intensified. The show was great; the party was great the entire evening was just amazing. An event for the record books as they say.

Eventually the concert ended and so did the party. It was time to head home. As we were headed home someone came up with the bright idea that we should stop of ice cream. After a hard night of partying, you usually end up with the munchies, right? And what’s better for curing the munchies than a really large ice cream sundae? At this point, it was after midnight. Now what’s the only Ice Cream place open after midnight? Howard Johnson’s. And it’s on our way home too. This was a plan, and it was coming together beautifully.

Before I go any further with this story, let me tell you about this Ho Jo’s.  The particular resturant is just outside of Boston at a junction where a couple of highways come together. This Ho Jo's was periodically  used as a meeting place for some of the areas criminal elite. Late at night, it was not uncommon to see a collection of dark Cadillac’s with frosted glass parked at the rear of the building. More than occasionally you would see trays of liquor being delivered to a room at the back of the restaurant. What kind of ice cream restaurant serves booze to a “private” room out back? I think you get the picture. Needless to say, this was a place where it paid to be on your best behavior.

We ordered and ate without fanfare. It’s been a couple of hours since the party ended. Now everyone was starting to be blessed with the after affects of our evening of entertainment. People were starting to get tired and just a little bit cranky.  The first sour notes of the next day's hangover chorus were starting to sound.  Frizzle frazzle frozzle frome, time for these guys to go home.

As we were paying our bills (separate checks please) one of the guys spotted what looked like a 12 year old kid running around. This guy started busting this kid's crackers. We all looked at him and told him to leave the kid alone. But he didn’t. I guess he thought it was funny.

One by one we started drifting back to the car. As we did, this guy was STILL giving this kid a hard time. He taunted the kid all the way back to his car. Funny thing, the kid jumped into a car parked right beside us. ANOTHER station wagon! My friend and his buddy piled into the back of the car. I didn’t know the buddy, it was the first time I had met him. These two piled into the rear most section of the car, they’re riding in the "way back". There I was, leaning on the rear of the car talking to them through the back window when all of a sudden the doors on the car next to us opened up and out poured about a half a dozen people. These weren’t kids either. These people looked like guys.  BIG GUYS. And they didn’t look happy.

A couple of guys came around the back of our car. I looked at them and thought to myself “uh oh, this isn’t going to be good.” I turned back to our car and told my friend to get out, this was his problem. He just looked at me wide eyed and tried to slip between the seats so as not to be seen. He and his little buddy looked like they were about to cry. Now I could hear these other guys saying things like “I’ve got the big guy, you get the other one.” At this point, I’m the only one of us standing outside of the car. Who the hell is the big guy? MEEEEE? Oh, I don’t think so. I’m not getting into a jam because the guy busily locking the doors was harassing some strange kid. So I turned and faced our adversaries and started saying things like “don’t mind him, he’s drunk, we’re getting him outa here.” But they were not buying it. They were too busy devising new and exciting ways of dealing us out some pain and trying to determine who was going to do what to whom.

I’m all alone. The other two are cowering in the back of the car with the windows up and the doors locked. Great, just great. This night had been going too good. Another example of the Yin and Yang of life. I guess this was going to be the Yang of this night. “Hello Maw, it was a tough fight. I stood like this, but not for long” (Curly Howard)

As I was trying to figure out what to do, the rest of our group rolled out of the restaurant. Two guys curled around our car on the passenger side, two around the driver side. A couple of really brief words were exchanged and all of a sudden all hell broke loose. It was a veritable donnybrook, a brouhaha, a ruckus. There were guys rolling around and body parts flying all over the place. And there I was leaning on the back of the car, watching it all unfold. How did that just happen? One second I’m all alone facing a car load of guys, next thing you know, a riot ensues, and I’m left standing there watching.

So as I’m watching, I’m thinking to myself, “Well, at least this is fair. Everyone is paired up. I don’t need to get involved. After all, it was the Jackass in the car that started it, and he didn’t even get out to help. Why should I fight his battle?” All of a sudden it dawned on me. This little “to do” started because one of them hit one of us. The one of us that got hit first wasn't even part of the inital negotiation process.  He was inside Ho Jo's when it started.  He had just come around the side of the car and simply asked what was going on.  Then WHAM, he caught one right in the kisser. Now that’s NOT fair. As soon as this realization struck me, I jumped into action. I immediately lent my support to the closest of my allies. In other words, I suckered one of them. I reached out, grabbed the shirt of one of their guys who was already tussling with one of our guys, and slammed him. In retrospect, this turned out to be the first of several mistakes.

At the moment I decided to join in the fray I felt good. I was supporting my compatriots, my amigos, my pals. I was righting a wrong. I was like the cavalry coming over the hill to save the day. A split second after I intervened, I realized I had made a significant error in judgment. Seems I was standing next to what I assume must have been this guys girlfriend. She let out a yell and hit me square in the face. She knocked off my glasses and sent them flying. I slowly turned and looked at her, squinting to see just who had hit me. I looked this little beastie square in the eye and I called her a series of very nasty names.  One of the names began with a B and rhymed with itch. This was my second and as it turned out, almost fatal mistake. Seems on the OTHER side of me was her we’ll say “friend”, another girl. She yelled out “don’t call her a BITCH” and she started to hit me too. Now I’m standing there with these two banshees just a whomp’n and a stomp’n and a kick’n and a scratch’n me like no one has ever been whomp’d and stomp'd before.

My first impulse was to “defend” myself. But I didn’t. I just couldn’t bring myself to whack a girl, even as these two were wailing on me. I turned and leaned on the car in an attempt to shield what was left of my face and other sensitive areas. Oh yeah, don’t kid yourself, they were aiming there too. At this point, two of our guys were MMAing it around the parking lot with two of their guys. Two more of our guys were locked in the car peeing themselves and crying. The last two of us were standing outside, squared up with the last two of them. And all four of these guys were now killing themselves laughing. They were just standing there, watching these two little women just beat the bejeezes out of me. As I leaned on the car absorbing endless punishment I thought to myself, “Why God, why is it always me?” And the part of this that just added insult to injury was, one of the guys standing there watching and laughing, was my own brother. Can you imagine that, my own brother? He was just standing there arm-in-arm with the enemy laughing like a fool as I was pummeled into an almost unrecognizable pulp. And when I say these girls were little, I mean little. If they were more than 5 foot 2, I would have been surprised.

Eventually, the altercation got broken up and we all jumped in the cars and left. This was not a good place to cause a scene, and then hang around.  When the guys in the Cadillacs tell you it's time to leave, brother, it's time to go. We didn't have to be told twice.

The guy that got hit first, well it looked like he might get a shiner out of the deal. The other one of our battlers, well he had a bit of a fat lip. Now what about me? I looked worse than the guys that were actually brawling. It looked like I had been passed through a wood chipper. These two girls scratched and clawed at anything they could get at on me. My face looked like raw hamburger. Even my forearms were a mess.  And there were lumps and bumps all over me. They must have started swinging bags of bricks or something because the next day, I was one giant bruise. What about the guy that started it all? He just changed his underpants and he was fine. Three weeks later I was still explaining my appearance. I was telling the tale of the Howard Johnson’s Massacre until I was blue in the face. No, scratch that. I had to tell the tale until I STOPPED being blue in the face

To this day, all trips down memory lane with my brother inevitably end at “Do you remember when those two girls kicked your ass?” He’s still laughing at me. And unfortunately for me, he loves to tell the story. So he does, a lot. On top of that, at least once a week someone from the office wants to go have dinner or cocktails at the restaurant that used to be the Ho Jo’s. I have flash backs as I pass the spot in the parking lot where it all took place.

From now on when I’m forced to tell the Massacre story, I’m going to tell a tale of a threesome out behind the Ho Jo's with a couple of anonymous women that just couldn’t keep their hands off me. See? What was once an embarrasment is now a fantasy.

The Elevator Story

Someone once asked me “What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?” I don’t know. It’s hard to limit it to just one thing. That’s kind of how I started my list of things I won’t do three times. There are however also dumb things that in all likelihood will happen only once. Most likely because the situations or events leading up to them aren’t likely to ever occur again. The following is just one example.

I was visiting a customer a bunch of years ago. I was on site for a week. I flew out to see them on Sunday so I could be on site first thing Monday morning. My flight home was late Friday afternoon. I’m never too thrilled about 6 days away from home, but it goes with the territory sometimes. The customers’ office is in an annex building, on the backside of the “new” building. His office is up on the fifth floor.

When I got onsite Monday morning, I was given a set of cryptic directions on how to reach the annex. I’m told that I’ll know when I’m in the right place when I get to the wooden elevator. Seems the Annex is in the old part of the building. The Annex is wood framed construction and even has an elevator with a wooden (or at least wood lined) car. As I headed off on my quest to find this relic of a thing I’m told not to worry. Oh sure, the elevator is old, and it smells funny and it creaks and groans when it moves and it’s really slow. But most of the time, it’s reliable. Great just what I needed, an elevator that might or might not get me to where I’m going.

So I headed off to find the customers’ office. Sure enough, I found the Annex building and eventually the elevator in question. Oh yeah, it was wooden alright. I bet you drew a mental picture of Mahogany inlays and ornate carvings. Boy were you off base. This thing looked like it had been whittled by Jed Clampett. I mean really, come on now this can't be it, can it? Is this REALLY an elevator? It was more like someone slapped together a couple of sheets of old plywood that had been lying around and tied a rope to the top. And it smelled funny. I’m not even going to try to guess where that smell came from. Crimanny. Was I about to get on this thing or what? Was this a joke? I was not going to climb five flights of stairs lugging all the junk I had with me, so after a short prayer, I jumped on. What the heck no guts no glory.

This elevator was a trip. Rattle barely described the ride. I think the astronauts atop a Saturn 5 rocket had a smoother ride. Oh well, it’s only to the fifth floor.

All week long as I rode this elevator, I marveled at its condition and was more than a little amazed that it hadn’t been shut down. As I rode up in down in this thing, I started noticing little things. Things like: only some of the floor lights work, the lean rail was only barely attached and when it reached it's destintion it only kind of  lined up with the floor. Sometimes close enough IS good enough. One of the things that really catches my eye is the panel with the floor buttons. This panel looked like it had been around a while. It was more than just a little worn. You could tell the popular floors, the numbers were all but worn off the buttons. All the screws holding the panel on looked like they have been screwed and unscrewed more than the original design specification called for. I think everyone has seen what I’m talking about, slotted screws with the slots all mashed and uneven from years of screwdriver abuse. There was one screw in particular that really drew my attention. This screw was different from all the rest. It was easily ten times the size of the others and it looked like there was a broken piece of metal in the slot. It looked like someone had used too small a screwdriver tightening it down the last time and broke the tip off. How stupid is that? How could some maintenance person use the wrong sized tool and break off the tip, then just leave the broken tip behind?

For the remainder of the week, all I could think about as I rode in the elevator was that broken screwdriver tip stuck in that mismatched screw in the button panel. Eventually, I started wondering what it would take to remove the broken tip from the screw. I ran my finger over the screw and sure enough, I could feel the rough, broken edge of the tip.

Finally Friday rolled around and it was time to go home. I piled onto the elevator, exhausted, and lugging three computer bags. As the doors started to close, I started to day dream. This trip was long, the days were long, I had a long flight ahead of me and I was tired. I was thinking about my trip home and no longer really paying attention to anything else.  I started running my finger over the large screw again and began to wonder, just how difficult would it be to just flick that broken piece of metal out? I kind of scratched at the piece with my fingernail. The nail caught an edge, and the piece moved. I thought to myself, “I bet I can get that out of there”. So I tried again. Sure enough, this time I could see it move. Now a little more of the edge is exposed. GREAT! This piece of metal has been bugging me all week. Now I just knew I could flick it out of there. I thought to myself “What the heck, no one else is going to remove it.” So I hooked my fingernail under the broken piece of metal as best I could and flicked it as hard as I could. When I did, I could feel the piece move, and it moved a lot. EXCELLENT, I’m going to get it out of there. So I hooked the piece again and gave it one last flick.

As soon as I flicked the piece of metal this second time, something happened that I wasn’t quite prepared for. Out of all the possible eventualities I never dreamed this would happen.  I never even saw this one coming. It never entered my mind even once. Not for one split second did I give this possibility even the briefiest of consideration. This time when the piece moved, there was a snap, and then darkness. The lights went out!  And I am talking DARK dark. No light at all. No emergency light, no light seeping in from a crack in the door, nothing. Now I’m standing in the dark and I’m thinking “Oh Shit, that wasn’t a broken piece of metal, that was the light switch.” YIKES! I found out afterwards that they used to make switches like that so that people wouldn’t play with the lights. It was a safety thing. A technician could easily turn on/off the lights using the tip of whatever tool they happened to be holding. Oooops. Boy did I find that out too late. Now I’m standing in a pitch black elevator trying to quickly figure out how to get the lights back on before somebody notices that they are off.

I had about two seconds to formulate my plan. Not enough time unfortunately. About two seconds after the lights went out, the elevator stopped and the doors opened. When they did, I saw a group of people waiting to get on. It looked like a Mother with a child in a stroller and possibly a grandmother. I can’t be sure. As soon as I saw them, I looked at the floor and quickly walked by, trying hard as I could not to be seen. As I reached the door to the hallway, I turned my head just in time to see the women and stroller get into the pitch black elevator car. As they did, I could hear one of them utter “Well I don’t know. That man just got off.” And with that, the doors closed.

I flew home that night in both abject terror and in hysterics. I was convinced the customer would know I was the one that shut off the lights and stranded a group of woman in the elevator. I had convinced myself that first thing Monday morning I would get a call to go see the Boss. Then, that would be that.  I'd be gone.  How would I explain this in my next job interview?  "Yeah, I was forced to leave that last job because I stranded a family of three in a dark elevator all weekend." I just couldn't see how I was going to turn that one into a resume builder or one of my strong points. By the same token, I found it hysterically funny. It was all so innocent and it happened so fast.  You should have seen the looks on those peoples faces as I stepped out of the blackness.  Can you picture it?  There I was in my best navy blue suit, white shirt, red tie, black wing tip shoes, carrying very offical looking cases of who knows what appearing mysteriously from this darkened. elevator car.  The only things missing were a whift of smoke and some dark sun glasses.  I could see the looks of wonder and awe on their faces as I whisked past them trying not to be noticed.  I can close my eyes even now and picture those looks.

I waited well over 10 years before I finally told this story to anyone. I figured ten years was the statute of limitations on this level of stupidity.  I no longer worked for that company anyway. What could they do to me?   And besides, those women had to be out of the elevator by then. How mad could they still be?

An Anniversary Story

I'm always amazed to look back and realize the key moments of how I ended up where I've landed. Ocassionally things that seem minor at the time sometimes in reality are the driving forces of how things work out as they do.  It's amazing really when you stop and think about it.  Here's but one example.

In my youth I used to work for a local bank. It was wonderful. There were fifteen women, and me. I just loved that job and going to work.  You may be asking yourself why, why would I enjoy being a bank teller so much?.  Well, I guess it was because you could say that all these women were in competition for my attention and I was loving it.  I never wanted for something to do or anyone to do something with.  And there were no secrets. Everything was out in the open. I’d have lunch with Lucy and dinner with Debbie. The next day I’d be off for cocktails with Caroline. The following night maybe it’d be the movies with Marylyn. Every now and then, I even got to go out as a small group ;-).  And everybody was fine with this arrangement. Especially me. Ahhh, the glory days, it was good to be young. 


I was thin when I was young. OK, I was skinny, really, really skinny. One fall this collection of women decided I wasn’t eating right and that they’d have to fix that. They began to bring me all kinds of food.  Well, I guess what they really brought were desserts. It was great. I must have gotten a couple of dozen pies, and countless plates of cookies or brownies. If someone brought in a pie for me today, someone else would bring a cake tomorrow. Again, it was like a competition and no one wanted to be out done. Don’t ask me why they thought eating right meant pies and cakes.  Lord knows I wasn’t going to argue.

In the spring, a new girl started in the office. She was kinda small, and she was kinda pretty and I was kinda oblivious. The first few weeks she worked at the bank we had coffee together a couple of times. That was our whole interaction.  A couple of cups of coffe in the break room.  I'm not sure we even actually talked other than "hi, can you  hand me the cream?"  I didn’t think anything of it. After all, it was just coffee, and she wasn’t bringing me pie.

One day I was in the men’s locker room. The women’s locker room was on the other side of the wall. The walls were thin. Conversations in one room were very easily heard in the other. As I was taking off my coat I could hear voices coming from the other side of the wall. One of the voices was saying how she was “attracted” to me and how she was going to "get” me. The other voices were telling her “No way, that’s not going to happen. “ They kept trying to explain that oh I’d go out with her alright but a serious relationship? Not going to happen. Others had tried, none had succeeded.

Now my curiosity was peaked. I approached one of the women whose voice I recognized and asked what it was all about. She had a good laugh. She said it was the “new” girl. She went on to explain that the new girl seemed to have a thing for me. She went on the tell me that she and the other women (yup, that’s plural) that were in the locker room kept trying to explain to her that I was not the serious type and that quite frankly, I was having way too much fun to be with just one girl.

Now this conversation made me a little gun shy. I’m not playing these kinds of games. Life was too good to mess with any of the variables in the equation. I didn’t think too much of it. I’ve only had coffee with this woman a couple of times. We haven’t really spent any time together. And besides, I still have a ton of people bringing me pie.

A week or so goes by and nothing more happens or is said.  Then one evening as I’m descending the stairs to the locker room I see, the new girl is coming up. We exchanged pleasantries as we passed each other. As she reached the top of the stairs she turned around and said “I brought something for you”. Surprised, I turned and asked “What?” She replied  “I brought something in for you.” I asked what it was. She just said “It’s in the refrigerator, in two plastic containers. It’s for you.” And with that, she was out the door and gone.

I went to the refrigerator and there they were. Two plastic tubs filled with some kind of red gelatinous goo. What the hell is this? This isn’t a pie? I want pie, or at least a cake. What the heck is this gloopy stuff? Who the heck is this woman and why did she bring me this stuff? And more importantly, what was her name again?

When I got back to my apartment one of my roommates was there. I showed him my two containers of goo. A series of questions ensued. What’s that? Who’s this girl? Why did she give that to you? Do you know what it is? And so on. All I could say is, “I don’t know who she is, she just started” and “I don’t have a clue  what this is.” We debated for a while about what it was and why it was given to me. We debated whether or not we should heat it up or try to eat is as is. Eventually, we decided to heat it up. We dumped the containers of who knows what into a large sauce pan. As soon as it hit the pan my roommate looked at me and said “I know what that is, that’s Chicken Cacciatore,” Now, let me tell you something about the roommate, He’s Lithuanian by birth, but Italian at heart. One thing he knows is Italian food. When he said it was Chicken Cacciatore, I believed him. My only question was, what the heck is Chicken Cacciatore?

At my house growing up, Italian food came out of a can. It consisted of spaghetti from a can, spaghetti and meatballs from a can, and ravioli from a can. And these cans all said “Chef Boyardee” on the label. What the heck do I know from Chicken Cacciatore?

The next round of questions from the roommate is centered on whether or not this girl can cook. Again, I have to adopt the Sgt Shultz “I know nothing” response. After all, she’s only worked with me for a couple of weeks and besides, we’ve only had a couple of cups of coffee together. I don’t really even know her. The roommate decided it’s better to be safe than sorry. Oh sure, we have this chicken thing cooking on the stove. But he decided we’d better have a backup meal already to go, just in case. On the back burner he started to prepare some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. He was even talking about throwing in some hotdogs this time, just to spruce it up.

After a few minutes the Cacciatore started to steam. My roommate looked at me and asked if it was any good. My response was “how am I suppose to now, I haven’t tried it?” He looked at me in a “what the hell is wrong with you” way and said. “well then, taste it, let me know how it is.” I responded “I’m not going to taste it. I don’t even know what this is. You taste it.” He looked at me and said “I’m not going to taste it. You brought it home, you taste it.” This argument went back and forth a few more times. Finally, he looked at me, called me a name, insulted my manhood and grabbed a fork. He dipped the fork into the sauce and took a taste. He looked at the pan, put the fork down on the stove and left the room without uttering a word.

I’m standing at the stove looking at this bubbling pile of I don’t know what. I said “well how is it?” By this time, my roommate was standing in the living room. He just looked and me. He had a very quizzical look on his face. His brow was furrowed. He looked like he was concentrating really hard. He seemed very serious all of a sudden. After a short pause he looked at me and uttered but two words. He simply said “marry her.”

That was it, his only comment. I grabbed a fork and tasted this concoction. DAMN, it was good. The Kraft Macaroni and Cheese went in the trash. We made up some pasta and feasted this night.

Soon I was noticing the never ending dessert train had stopped. No more pies, no more cakes, no more cookies. And I noticed another funny thing. To this day I don’t know how it happened but by the end of the summer there was just one girl.

This was over 30 years ago. On our next anniversary we will be married 27 years. And it all started over two containers of Chicken Cacciatore. I’ve always wondered how different things would be had she brought me a pie.

Joke Gone Wild.

I once worked with a crew of practical jokers. You never wanted to be out of the office for long. You were never quite sure what you would walk into when you got back. Over time though, people moved on and all the joking came to an end. It just kind of faded away.

One day I got a call from one of the primary jokesters. He had moved on to another company and he was calling just to say hi. While we were talking I had a flash of brilliance. He may have left the office, but he could still be a primary target for harassment.

At the time I subscribed to a variety of periodicals. Once a month or so, the publisher would package up all the little postage paid response cards that come in the magazines and send them out to the readers. I would end up to two or here of these packets a month. These packets each contained over a dozen of the little cards. While I was talking to my friend, it dawned on me I had the perfect vehicle for continuing our practical joke war. As he was talking, it dawned on me that, I could fill out all these cards. Only instead of using my information, I could use his. I found this to be an extremely amusing thought. I couldn’t let this bright idea and golden opportunity pass. So while he was talking, I was busy filling out mailers. I thought why stop at this little group? I started looking for postage paid cards to fill out all over the place. I eventually filled out several hundred of the little things. I was filling these things out for weeks. I was pulling them out of magazines; I filled out surveys at the mall and I entered all the contests at the home show. Every time I filled one out, I giggled. Boy oh boy this is going to be grrrrreeat.

A month went by, then two, then three. I was starting to lose my faith in my little trick. Six months went by, still nothing. As the year mark started to approach, I began to feel my prank had failed. I was starting to get pretty bummed. I had filled out hundreds of cards and heard nary a peep. All that work for nothing. All that anticipation, all the excitement, and there was nothing to show for it. Then I got the call. It was my friend, my pal, my amigo. It was my target

At first, we were just chit chatting about nothing. While we were talking, I could tell something was bothering him. After a few minutes, I asked what was wrong. He told me he wasn’t going to say anything but yes, something was bothering him. I asked what it was. At this point almost a year had lapsed since I launched my great plan. I was no longer even thinking about it. I was just concerned from my troubled friend. He said “Joe, I don’t know what it is, I don’t know why it is happening but I think someone is out to get me.” I asked what he was talking about. It still hadn’t hit me what was going on. He went on to say “I must have done something to someone but I don’t know who. I can’t think what I could have done but someone is harassing me. It can’t be an accident. Someone has to be doing this on purpose and I can’t figure out why.” All of a sudden it hit me. I had to put the phone on mute so that he wouldn’t hear me laughing. It had taken almost a year but FINALLY my plan was working. I got back on the phone and asked him what he was talking about. He informed me that he was getting dozens, no hundreds of calls from all kinds of people. He was getting calls in the office, he was getting calls at home, he was getting calls on his cell phone. And people were sending him things too. They were sending all kinds of ads, and magazines and junk. Everyone was looking to sell him something. He was getting calls all day and all night. He was going out of his mind with the harassment. He kept asking how these people were getting his name and number. No one had a good answer. They just kept saying he had filled out a customer response card for more information so they were calling him for follow up. I was saying things like, “What did you do?” Who could you possibly have made mad at you? What do you think is the reason?” And it’s obvious he’s upset, he’s not laughing or fooling around. He’s seriously troubled. He kept asking what he had done, who he had done it to and how he could make it stop. He was thinking of changing his phone number and having it unlisted. He eventually said he was thinking of approaching the Attorney General’s office to see what he could do. Eventually he asked me “Can you think of anyone that would do this to me?” I responded, “Yeah, I would”. He then launched into another round of “Why would anyone do this to me.” And “Can you think of who might be doing this”. I again said “Yes, I would.” He launched into saying he might call the police or Attorney General’s office. He asked a third time if I knew who would do this to him. At this point, I thought it best to let him in on the joke. I said “John (after all, that is his name) listen to me, I’ve said it several times, YES, I would, I would know who would do this to you. I would do it to you.” There was a pause, then he said “Who do you think is doing this?” I said “I am, didn’t you hear me the first three times?”

At this point he launched into a stream of obscenities. I was a son of a bi, a dirty rotten AS#@$#%^, A Fr&&^%$ing BA^^@&#*. OH baby he was mad. I think he was making up some of the words. I’m not even sure all of them were in English. Now that the cat is out of the bag, I’m laughing hysterically. I’m just killing myself. I’m crying I’m laughing so hard. And he doesn’t think it funny. Eventually he acknowledged the humor in my trick. He said it lacked originality. It was a little pedestrian for him. Not very creative at all. But he also acknowledged that I had gotten him and I had gotten him good. He said he had been getting calls for months. He said originally, he thought it was a joke. He said he THOUGHT it was me. He also said that when it went on so long, he stopped thinking it a joke and started trying to figure out just who would be trying to harass him. I came off the suspect list because; well he just didn’t think I had that kind of thing in me. The call ended with a promise that he would get even. (He hasn’t, yet.)

To this day, I can still tell when he gets a fresh batch of calls about vinyl siding, replacement windows and/or the Encyclopedia Britannica. He’ll send me an email. The frequency is tapering off.  The time lag between messages is starting to expand.  And the email always says the same thing. Periodically I get and email with only one word in it. It just says “BASTARD”

I love it. It’s my favorite message.

There’s no such thing as common sense – Duh!!!

One of my first “real” jobs was as a Manager of a convenience store.  I managed a Cumberland Farms. Yeah that’s right, I was one of the “kids” trusted to run one of these fast paced enterprises. I quickly learned that the only pre-requisite for getting this job was, well, all you really had to do was apply.

Anyway, I managed a store for almost two years. Quickly I learned that the reason most people were coming to my store was for the milk. Cumbies had a reputation as a milk store that also sold other things, like bread and eggs. But mostly though, it was a milk store. Most people came for the milk, and picked up other things up as an impulse

One day my milk truck had an accident. As such, I didn’t get my milk delivery. That’s OK, typically the store kept a 4 or 5 day supply on hand. We got new milk deliveries every other day. Missing one would be OK. This milk truck had a rather significant accident. It was down for a week. Needless to say, by day 5, I was completely out of milk. I quickly got tired of customers coming in and asking “Do you have any milk?” I mean, the cooler was empty. There was nothing on the shelves. Just like Mother Hubbard, the cupboard was bare. The only things in the cooler were a couple of out of date/sour bottles of non-fat milk way in the back that were waiting to be returned to the factory. Eight empty chests now lined the back of my store; And since there’s nothing on the shelves, you could see all the way to the back of the walk-in cooler. People would walk into the store, go over to the milk case, see it was empty, come up to the register and ask ”do you have any milk?” To which I’d have to say “No, I’m sorry we are out.” A couple of folks asked if there was any out back. They had looked into the empty cooler. What, do they think we keep extra milk out on the loading dock or something? Maybe it’s in the back seat of my car. Yeah, like I’m hording milk in the hallway waiting for the price to go up. I’m trying to corner the sour milk market. One guy insisted he could see milk at the back of the cooler and that he’d wait for me to put it out on the shelves.

Eventually I got tired of answering the question. I made up a handful of signs. The signs all said the same thing. They said, “Sorry, we are temporarily out of milk.” The signs were in big bold letters and were brightly colored. I wanted to make sure people could see them. I posted a sign on the front door, eye level. I put a sign on every door in the milk case. There were eight doors. I had four ice cream chests. A sign went on the top of each ice cream chest. I had two signs at the register as well. One was on the counter; one was on the back of the register. Some people would grab the door handle, read the sign then turn around and leave. Others would come into the store and ask when I thought I would be re-supplied.

One guy walked into the store and over to the milk case. I could see him pacing back and forth like a caged lion at feeding time. I then saw him circle the ice cream cases. After a minute or so he came over to the register.  I could see that there was something in his hands. He walked up the register, handed me what he was holding and asked “Do you have any milk?” I looked at what he had just given me. It was the four signs off of the ice cream chests. I looked up at him only to see him trying to peel the “out of milk” sign off the counter.

I was speechless. This guy had seen the milk chests were empty. He had just walked past a sign on the front door saying we were out of milk. He had picked up four more signs saying the same thing and was now peeling a fifth one off the counter. I just looked at him and said “Yes, it’s out back. I haven’t had a chance to restock the cooler yet. Please, feel free to return tomorrow, the shelves should be full by then.” The next day was Saturday. Saturday is my day off. Let the weekend crew deal with him.

Old Guys Rule

Remember the golfing story about taking $100 off the twenty-nothing year old kid and how much fun it was? That day was just a string of victories for the Old Guy. After all OLD GUYS RULE!!!

We finished the 12th hole and I informed my little golfing victim that we were done, there was no way he could beat me. We had six holes left to play and I was ahead by seven. That’s the beauty of this match, we were scoring by hole, not strokes. It works like this, let’s say I beat him by seven strokes on one hole and I lose by 1 stoke on the next two holes. In stroke play, I’m ahead by 5. Playing by the hole, I’m down by one. So I’m up by seven with six to go, there is no way he can win. I offered to end the match and go have breakfast. He wants to soldier on, so we start the next hole. As I pointed out in my earlier story, we are on a par three course. What that means is, it should take you 3 strokes to play a hole. We’re on the 13th hole and this kid is torqued. He knows he’s been beat, he knows I’ve made a sucker out of him, he knows it was my plan all along and he’s mad. But there’s nothing he can do about it. Golfing and mad is not a good combination, even on a par 3 course. By the time we’ve reached the green on 13 (50 feet away mind you, he could have just underhand tossed it there) he’s already hitting a seven and he’s lost three balls. I have parred the hole. I just looked at him and said ‘Why don’t you just pick that up and we’ll go to the next hole”. He looked at me and said “Why don’t you just shut the F@#! UP and let’s go have breakfast.” So we packed up all out stuff and walked off the course.

So we’re in the parking lot talking about the match and how my REAL plan was to take him to the Chip and Putt. He’s laughing. He’s had a few minutes to get over it and now can see some humor in his plight. At one point he looked at me and asked “What would you have done had I beaten you?” That’s when I walked over to the passenger side of the truck, opened the door and pulled out the bag of nickels. I looked at him and said “I wouldn’t have cared, I kinda wish you had. I would have just loved handing you all these nickels.” He burst out laughing. He’s now commenting on my sanity and whether or not a normal person would have put so much thought and effort into our competition. He’s trying to salvage some dignity at this point. He thinks I’ve now handed him an opportunity to turn the tables on me. He thinks I’ve given him the ammunition to start ridiculing me. He started to laugh “HA HA HA, HO HO HO, you had to unwrap ALLLLL those nickels, that must have taken forever, boy you really showed me How dumb is that?” I just looked at him and responded “I did it with my daughter. We stood in the kitchen and talked while we did it. It took about ten minutes. Boy does she want to meet you. She thinks you’re some kind of sucker. We had a great time laughing at you. I wished we had bet $1000. Would have given Cait and me something to do for an afternoon.” This guy just bit his lip. Damn, even that attempt at salvaging some pride failed. Chalk another one up for the Old Guy.

We eventually headed off for breakfast. After a while, it dawns on pigeon-boy that I’m now stuck with $100 worth of unwrapped nickels. He again tried to salvage some pride and launched into “boy are you dumb, now you have to wrap them all back up ha ha ha ha ha.” To which I responded “I have a coin machine. I just drop them in the top and the machine does the rest.” The score is now, OLD GUY 4, Sucker 0. This day is going WICKED AWESOME!

In a last desperate attempt to salvage some kind of victory no matter how trivial, he makes one last attempt to throw some harassment my way. After a minute or two, he looked at me and said “What are you going to do with all those nickels? You can’t spend them like that.” I responded that I would just give them to my daughter. Now he smiles, there’s the crack he was looking for. He piped up with a stinging retort of, “So, you’re down $100 any way you look at it.” I just looked and smiled. I responded “Nah, I’d have given her that money anyway. She’s going off the school soon. I’ll probably give her the money you gave me too.” Ooooooohhhhh, BURN!!!! Another failed attempt.

He gave up. He wasn’t going to get any satisfaction from this battle.

Later when I got home I handed Cait the bag of nickels and told her if she wrapped then, she could have the money. She looked at me and shouted, “I’M NOT GOING TO WRAP ALL THOSE NICKELS, YOU DO IT.” So we entered into a negotiation on the nickels and who would wrap them. I kept telling her she could have the money. She kept saying “great, you wrap the nickels; I’ll take them when you are done.” I kept telling her she was missing the point. Eventually, she said she didn’t want to wrap the nickels because it would take too long. I looked and her and asked, “How long do you think it will be, we have a machine that does it for you?” She said, “I don’t know, an hour?” At this point I changed tactics. I shifted gears and started asking her what she was doing the rest of the day. She said she had to go to work. We started talking about work. At one point I looked at her and asked what they were paying her. She said “8 bucks.” I said, “What, a DAY?” She look at me like I had two heads and said “no, an hour.” You could actually see the little light bulb turn on in her head. As soon as she said “an hour” I smiled. As soon as I smiled, she paused then said “Alright, give me the nickels, I’ll wrap them.”

This day was awesome. I suckered a kid that had been teasing me mercilessly about being old. Did it publicly too. There were about 25 people waiting on the results of our match, just so they could pounce on the loser. I absolutely trashed him on the golf course. The only holes I lost were ones I lost on purpose. I deflected about a half a dozen futile attempts made by him to regain some pride. I out smarted Caitlin, a rare feat in and of itself. She ended up wrapping all the nickels (She unwrapped most of them too by the way). And it only cost me $100 worth of nickels. Money I would have given Caitlin in the first place. Well worth the price if you ask me. In the final analysis, it just goes to prove what we all know anyway. “OLD GUYS RULE!!!” (Excalibur drools)