Two in the Bush.

Once upon a time, I had a bird named Casey.  He was a Senegal and he was awesome.  He went everywhere with me, riding on my shoulder, or on the steering wheel of my car.  He'd lay upside down in the palm of my hand and he loved having his head scratched.  He could even talk a little bit.  His major talent?  He could poop on command.  That's how awesome he was.  I'd just say, "Poop, Casey!"  and he would practically kill himself trying to squeeze one out.  That's a little tip for you, if you ever decide to get a smaller bird as a pet.  A big bird, like an African Grey or a Macaw, has an butthole that's about a foot away from you when they're perched on your shoulder, so you can walk down the street with them and not have to worry.  With a little bird, you'd better teach them to poop on command, otherwise you will find the back of your shirt covered in bird shit.

One day, I was working on my car stereo, and something spooked Casey and he flew into the car window and gave himself a bloody nose.  I rushed him to the vet, and the vet said he probably had a concussion. He recovered, but something had happened to him, and he was never the same. He was scared of everyone, and he hated me.  He went from being my best buddy to me not being able to even get near him.  It broke my heart, but I finally had to give him to a breeder.

When we moved into our current house, I thought about getting another one. I looked around, found a reputable breeder and got a Pionus Maximillani, also known by the less glamorous name of Scaly Headed Parrot.  I named him Stinky, and he was a pretty good bird, but he was never quite as amazing as Casey.  He got his name because, well… he stunk. It turns out it's just something about the breed.  Casey smelled like Peanuts, and Stinky smelled like burnt ass.  He also hated my wife passionately.  Every time she came near his cage, he'd squawk at her, and he tried to bite her any chance he got.

When my mom's friend called us up and asked us if we'd be interested in adopting another bird, my wife jumped at the chance.  She had big plans -- this was going to be her bird.  Basically, I think she just wanted a bird that didn't hate her guts.  So we went and met this little bird named Bailey, who was a green-cheeked conure.  Bailey was a sweet bird who absolutely loved my mom's friend, but hated her husband.  As a result, he was making her get rid of the bird.  We took Bailey and his cage home, and my wife began working to earn his trust.

Bailey turned out to be a duplicitous little bastard. Once we were out of his comfort zone, I couldn't even stick my hand inside the cage without being bitten almost immediately.  My wife, however, could pick him up with no problem at all.  Until, that is, he decided he'd had enough, and then he would bite her, too.   The first time it happened, she was petting him and she brought him up close to her face while she was talking to him, and before she could even react, he  lunged at her, latched onto her upper lip and wouldn't let go.  She was flailing around screaming, "GEB HIMB OFF! GEB HIMB OFF!  and the bird was just hanging off her lip like a multi-colored rat trap. I grabbed him and was trying to get him to let go, but at the same time, trying not to hurt either one of them.  Nor did I want to turn his wrath in my direction, which is what happened anyway.  He decided he wanted a piece of me instead, and I ended up with a hole in my finger and my wife had a nice fat lip for a few days.

She was serious about taming this bird though.  A couple of nights later, I saw just how committed she was to this endeavor.  I got home from work and walked into the living room.  My wife was sitting on the couch in her pajamas, and Bailey was sitting calmly on her shoulder.  The first thing I noticed was that the TV was really loud.  The second thing I noticed was that my wife was wearing big, puffy ear muffs.  Earlier that day, she apparently had gained a cauliflower ear to go with her fat lip.  I started to worry people would think I was beating her up.

This went on for a while.  It got to the point where my wife was wearing ear muffs, a face mask, a scarf and oven mitts whenever she handled the bird.  Half the time I wasn't sure if she was going on an arctic expedition or getting ready to rob a bank with Julia Childs.

In addition to Bailey being a moody little bastard, he was also extremely loud.  He had a pretty annoying screech, and Stinky had started to pick up on it.  When they were both in full swing, it was enough to make you lose your mind.  Eventually, when we couldn't take it anymore, we decided Bailey had to go. But where?  We didn't know.  We didn't want to just give him away to some random person.  We had taken him, so we sort of felt obligated to find him a good home.

My wife came home from work one day, and said, "I think my mother might want to take Bailey."   I had some reservations about that, but I thought it might work.  In retrospect, it was probably the worst decision we could have made.  If you've been around here long, you know my MIL is a little crazy -- but we thought at least that way, we could keep tabs on how he was doing.  So we agreed that my in-laws should come up to the house and meet Bailey, who, ironically, was actually doing pretty well by then, other than the screeching.  We both could handle him pretty easily, and while I still wasn't his favorite, about 80% of the time I could manage to come away from an interaction with little or no blood loss.   We took a deep breath, invited them up for dinner, and hoped for the best.   We had amassed a large list of "Things That You Should Not Do Or You Will End Up Bloody" and as long as we could keep them from doing any of those things, we figured we were home free.  We could dump the bird and he would be someone else's problem.

Bailey was on his best behavior.  I mean, he really turned on the charm.  His performance was so good, we started having second thoughts about giving him away.  Her mom was able to get him to perch on her finger, he was enjoying having his neck scratched, and everything was going great.  We hoped she wouldn't ruin it by inadvertently doing something on The List, and she didn't.

My father-in-law was sitting on the couch minding his own business and watching TV.  He didn't really have much use for a bird, but he figured if his wife wanted a bird, she could get a bird. He didn't really give a shit one way or the other.  Since she was in the kitchen feeding Bailey sunflower seeds and consequently not bothering him while he watched the game, he was OK with it.  My wife and I glanced at each other, and watched as she fed him the seeds.  When she started talking baby talk to him, we knew the hook was set.

"Chuck, do you want to meet Bailey?" she yelled into the other room.  He was non-committal, but she was going to introduce them anyway.   Rather than hand him the bird outright, she instead just set him down on the back of the couch, figuring that way they could ease into getting to know each other.  And that's exactly what happened.  Bailey walked slowly across the back of the couch and eased gently into this fragile new relationship by biting into my father-in-law's ear like it was a hunk of beef jerky.

My father-in-law, to his credit, didn't flip out -- he just sort of froze up and let us come to his rescue.  After removing the bird from the side of his head, my wife and I looked at each other, our hopes of relocation crushed before our eyes. We figured that was it.  Bailey had blown his nice-bird cover and now we were stuck with him.

Much to our surprise, after the bleeding stopped, they decided to take him home anyway.  To this day, I have no idea why. They packed him and his cage into the car at the end of the night, and blessed silence was finally ours.

We got periodic updates and made the occasional visit, and it looked like Bailey was doing fine.  He lived there for another three months or so before my wife called me at work with the bad news.

I picked up the phone, and before I could say hello, my wife said, "Hey, it's me.  My mother just called. She thinks Bailey is dead.  I might have to ride over there."

"Oh, man," I said. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure. She said when she came downstairs this morning, the bird was on the bottom of the cage lying on his back with his feet sticking straight up in the air.   Does that sound crazy to you?  Can birds actually die like that?"

"Definitely, especially if they're cartoon birds," I replied.  "Did his eyes turn into black X's?  Because that usually happens too."

She wasn't amused.  "She wants me to come over right now."

"What the hell does she want you to do?" I asked. "Give it mouth to mouth?"

"I have no idea," my wife said, "She said she doesn't know what to do with him and she wants me to come over and help her take care of it."

"OK, let me know what happens," I said, and we hung up.

About two hours later, my phone rang again.

"Hello?"

"You have to come over here as soon as you can," she said.

"Why? What's the matter?" I asked, a little alarmed by the tone of her voice.

"Bailey is up in a tree and he won't come down."

"What?  I thought he was dead," I said, confused. "How the hell did he get up into a tree?"

"It's a long story, just come over after work."

I left work and drove over to the inlaws' house, not sure what to expect.  The first thing I saw was my wife's car, and parked right behind it, her grandmother's car.   This was turning into a family affair.   I parked in the street and walked around to the back of the house, and all three of them were standing there staring up into a tree. I shielded my eyes from the sun and scanned the tree, and saw Bailey sitting on a branch about 50 feet off the ground.

My wife saw me walking toward them, and she met me halfway.  "Unbelievable," she said under her breath. "Wait until you hear this."

She turned me around and we walked to the side of the house to talk in private.

"What the hell happened?" I asked.

"I still can't believe it.  I got to the house, and asked her to see the bird.  She said I couldn't, because she had put him in a shoebox and buried him already.  At first I was pissed because she made me drive all the way over here for nothing,  but she still seemed pretty upset.  I asked her why she buried him before I got here, and she said she couldn't stand to look at a dead bird anymore."

"Yeah, right," I said. "What did she do? Just let him go because she didn't want him anymore?"

"That's what I figured too, since she was acting so weird about it.  So I asked her to show me where she buried him and she did.  Right when I was thinking that maybe it really did die,  I heard squawking coming from the ground."

"Are you shitting me?" I asked. "She buried him alive?"

"I swear, I had to dig him up!  He was screaming bloody murder.  All the while, she was swearing up and down that he was dead when she put him in the box.  She said she had no idea how this could have happened.  When I opened the box to see if he was OK, he took off and flew around the back yard a couple of times and then perched in that tree.  He's been up there since I called you."

I was more than a little pissed.  We walked back to the tree, and I looked up at Bailey.  He looked down at me.  I called up to him, "Hey, Bailey!  Come on down!  Come on, buddy!"  He called down to me, "Fuck that. That crazy bitch buried me alive."

OK, so he didn't really say that, but I could tell he was thinking it.

I said to my wife, "Take everyone inside. Make some coffee or something.  I'll get him down."

I had no idea how I was going to get him down.  At first I didn't want to climb the tree -- one, because I was wearing a suit and tie, and two, because I figured he'd just fly away and I'd be chasing him all over the neighborhood.  She was supposed to have kept his wings clipped, but apparently had neglected to do so.  I called him a few more times, and he dropped a few branches and was now only about 20 feet up.  I eventually realized he wasn't going to go anywhere.  I thought maybe if I climbed the tree, I could coax him to jump on my arm or bite my ear or something, so I did.  I got as high as the branch he was perched on, but the branch was too thin for me to crawl out to where he was.  I could reach out and almost get my hands on him, but every time I did, he'd lunge at my hand and try to bite it, then move further out onto the branch.

After about an hour of being perched in a tree wearing my dress clothes,  I gave up and climbed back down.  It was starting to get dark, and we were still at a Mexican standoff of sorts.  I was  done trying to physically coax him out of the tree - he was going to have to do it on his own, or he was going to stay there all night.  I had a feeling that if it came to that, he probably wouldn't make it.  It was autumn, and getting pretty chilly after the sun went down.  I called to him a few more times and had my wife bring out his cage, thinking that if he saw something he recognized, he might come down for it.

I was just about to quit for the night, when I called him one last time, expecting nothing.  I'm not sure why, but this time instead of ignoring me, he just flew down out of the tree and landed on my shoulder, easy as can be.  I picked him up and put him back in his cage.

I brought him back inside, and my mother-in-law was stumbling all over herself to thank me, but I was still pretty upset.  I had no idea how this had gone down, but I had a sneaking suspicion.  Bailey was a loud bird, and all I can say is I'm glad my wife had been a quiet baby.  We told her we were taking the bird with us, and we'd find a home for him somewhere else.  There was no way we were going to leave him there after that.

We did eventually find a home for him, and even though I don't know much about where he went or the people that adopted him, my gut feeling is that they probably never buried him alive, which is a definite plus in my book.

Most likely his too, come to think of it.

I AM KING OF THE CHIPMUNKS.

So this happened on our last camping trip:

Yeah, I know. I probably have some sort of hantavirus coursing through my bloodstream now, diligently working its way into my brain.  But chipmunks are notoriously cute, and I had nothing but time and peanuts.  And man, was she a little whore for the peanuts.   We named her Raihbys, because Rabies was just too conventional. Why not make her spell her name every day for the rest of her life, right?   

At first I shelled the peanuts for her, and handed them to her one by one.  She was a bit tentative, reaching out slowly taking the peanut gently, and it was really cute.  After about an hour she was like "GIMME MY PEANUTS, BITCH!" and she'd jump around on my lap and nudge my hand and if I didn't let go of the peanut fast enough she'd yank it right out of my fingers.  Finally I just started opening my palm flat with a pile of peanuts on it, and she'd jump up on my hand and stuff her face until the pile was gone.  

Initially she didn't really know what to do with unshelled peanuts. She quickly figured out she could break them open, take the peanuts from inside and stuff them in her pouch, but that turned out to be a lot of work, and it apparently took too much time. 

Eventually, she dispensed with opening them up at all and just pounded them like a porn star, shoving one in each pouch and a third in the mouth.  Then she'd hop away into the woods, and a few minutes later we'd hear her coming back and we'd do it all over again. 

We made her promise to tell her cousins to lay off our garden, too, but I'm pretty sure she was too high on peanuts to understand what the hell we were talking about.

In other news, the first one is mostly done:

Still needs to be sanded, painted and oiled… and then I only have three more to go.  I tried to convince my wife to just get folding chairs for the other three spots.  I told her we could go for sort of a shabby chic look, but she wasn't buying it.

Edit:  Chair above with the finish applied:

Loving you is easy 'cause you're beautiful.

As I mentioned in my previous post, last weekend we drove to Maine with some friends. Vidna drove, I rode shotgun, and the wimmin folk sat in the back.  We always called that "Italian style" in my family.  In this case though, they actually like to sit back there because then they can talk about girl stuff that Does Not Pertain to Us.  Because I was riding shotgun, the unwritten rules of the road stated that I was in charge of the music.

Let me tell you about the music on this trip.  It was glorious.   Last summer, we somehow got Minnie Riperton's song "Loving You" stuck in our heads, and it killed us all weekend.  It was like having a rash you couldn't get rid of.  We were all constantly walking around singing the "lalalalala" part, which, if you've never heard the song, is really, really annoying.  And it never failed -- just when I had finally succeeded in removing it from my skull by performing a mini-exorcism that consisted of simultaneously screaming the lyrics to "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC and repeatedly punching myself in the thigh as hard as I could, someone in our group would walk past me and go "lalalalala" under their breath and Minnie would be back like the persistent and malevolent demon that she truly is.  My only solace was that the person who did that to me generally did it to themselves too, because that song is truly evil and its brain-burrowing knows no bounds.

So for this trip, my plan was to gather up a bunch of hits from every year of the 70's, and force everyone in the car to listen to it.  Right around 1974, Minnie popped up, and we all sang the song right up to the point where she has sex with a dolphin. (yes, the link is safe for work.)

Luckily, that song is not the one that got stuck in our heads this year.  That dubious honor would go to a gem from 1970 called "I Hear You Knocking" by Dave Edmunds.  None of us knew the actual verses, so we were just going around singing the chorus over and over.  It was infuriating. And also hilarious.  If you're ever planning a trip to Maine and you want to inflict some 70's pain/pleasure on your passengers, here's my play list.

Last year it was just the four of us, but this year we had an extra passenger:

Come get some.

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you.  We had Action Jesus along for the ride.  Added bonus: he recited the entire Lord's prayer - loudly, and at inopportune times.  I'm still trying to figure out exactly who he looks like.  

The first thing I wondered was if he was anatomically correct, because that's just the way my 12-year-old mind works.  It turns out he has a permanent diaper.   I thought that was marginally better than the blank crotch of G.I. Joe, and it ties in pretty well with the whole rough-woven robe thing he has going on.

One thing I did not know about Jesus before this trip -- he could kick your ass from here to Kingdom Come. The dude is seriously ripped:

There's no two ways about it -- I have to buckle down and work out more.  I know it's not really fair to compare myself to Jesus, especially since he probably just raised his arms unto the heavens and commanded, "Let there be Six Pack Abs" and it was so, but at least now I have a goal to aspire to.

If anyone overheard any of our conversations, they probably thought we were complete holy rollers.

"Jesus will make the clouds go away."
"Maybe Jesus can find us a parking spot."
"I think we should bring Jesus to the beach with us."
"We won't need to see the wine list.  We have Jesus and water, we're set."
"Jesus failed us, which is why we had to drink that shitty Burger King coffee. Blame him, not me."

OK, maybe not that last one.  That coffee was the work of the devil.  Pay attention, because I'm going to share with you a little tip about beaches in Maine on Labor Day Weekend.  As you may know, they are crowded, and there are lots and lots of children and families all sitting practically on top of each other to be near the bathrooms and concession stands.  I imagine it's that way all summer.  Now, if you are like us and you don't particularly like screaming children and getting hit with the warm overspray of aerosol coconut oil from the leather-tanned lady basting her jerky-like thighs not five feet upwind from you, you can  just keep walking down the beach.  That's all you have to do.  Just walk.

Eventually, you will notice something.  First, the brightly colored toys disappear, along with the screaming children. Then it suddenly dawns on you that more and more people around you are in shape.  You have arrived at your destination, and you can spread your towels and set up your chairs.

You are now officially on the gay section of the beach.  It's not an official section or anything, and where it starts can vary from day to day.  It's simple, really.  Just keep walking until things get gay, then stop.  And let me tell you this: it's totally awesome.  Very few kids, polite people, no crowds… Nothing at all like it would be portrayed on television.*  Really, other than maybe seeing a little more peen than you normally might on any given day, you can't go wrong.


-------------------------------------

*This might annoy  (both?)  my gay readers, or maybe it won't -- I'm not really sure.  I'm certainly not trivializing the struggle for gay rights or anything, but while I was writing this, I think I may have finally figured out what I don't like about the way gay people are sometimes portrayed on TV.  

I think the producers are still trying to go for the shock value; trying to see what they can get away with during prime time.  So instead of treating it like it's no big deal, a non-event, they have to shove it in your face and (just like everything else) try to make it seem like they are being edgy and pushing the envelope.  Because of this, I have discovered something about myself.   

I apparently don't enjoy unexpected man-on-man action.  For some reason, having that sprung on me in a manipulative manner irritates me.  

Here's a half-assed analogy.  I don't particularly like sports. I don't watch sports on TV, and sports in general holds no interest for me at all.  I don't mind one bit if you happen to like sports, and I don't care if you play sports -- that's all fine, you can do what you want.  But if I'm sitting at my house watching Army of Darkness and drinking a scotch and you suddenly change the channel to the final inning of the world series just to elicit a reaction from me, you can bet your lunch money that I'm not going to want to watch it,  no matter how exciting it may be to those involved.  I just don't give a shit about the world series.  And you messed up my movie and that irritates me. 

That's the same feeling I got the other day when I was watching The LA Complex (Don't judge me. I miss Kaylee) and, in the space of 10 seconds, a badass gangsta rapper went from pushing around some kid to making out with him on the floor.  It annoyed me.  I mean, don't get me wrong -- after that, it turned into a decent character arc, and the continuing story of the rapper dealing with his suppressed sexuality is pretty good, but when I felt like I was initially manipulated into reacting a certain way about it,  it pissed me off.   

I ain't dead (yet.)

Wow.  I really need to crack a window in this place and let in some fresh air. I've been gone so long there's an inch of dust on everything.  I've actually been getting email asking if I'm OK.  So the answer to that question is yes, I'm fine.  Thanks for asking, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  So what have I been doing?

Lots of this:

Some of this:

A bit of this:

And a bunch of other happy horseshit that comes with being a homeowner.   Sometimes I really miss my apartment.   

Just got back from a trip to Ogunquit, Maine with some friends, and I am currently working on a few posts that I hope to have up shortly.  No promises though. September is my vacation month, and I have to finish these damned chairs before they finish me.

Here's a pretty moonlight picture from the right coast:

Blood from a stone.

We had a blood drive at work the other day, and so I like to get out of work for a little while do my good deed for the month and donate.  The last time they came around, I had a bit of a cold so I had to skip it, but this time I was in pretty good shape.  

They're always after me because of my type O blood.  I get phone calls, and follow-ups, and reminder e-mails about how many lives I'm going to save…sometimes it's more of a guilt-trip than those abused animal commercials on TV.  OK, nothing is worse than those, but you get the idea.  I usually feel really guilty when they call, so I sign up to bleed into a bag and adopt a greyhound or something.   

The day I was supposed to donate, I did something incredibly stupid.  Well,  the stupidity happened the night before, and then just continued on to the next day.  I had driven the convertible to work the previous day and when I got home, the garage door had been locked so I parked and went inside, figuring I'd put the car away later.  Not so much.  Instead,  I forgot the car was out there, top down, and it rained all night.  Really hard.  Buckets.  Then the next morning I just left in the Honda and didn't even notice the other car sitting out there in the driveway making pathetic sloshing sounds.  To be fair, it was still pretty dark when I left, but when my wife called me at work and told me the entire thing was a giant puddle of water, I wasn't real happy with myself.   Also, it was supposed to rain all day again.  My wife can't drive a stick, and didn't have the keys, so all she could do before she left for work was throw a tarp over it.  As a result, I decided to head home at lunch time and at least mop up what I could and get the car inside before the coming storms made it worse.  

This is really just a long way of saying that I showed up for the blood thing unannounced at around 10:30 instead of at my scheduled time of 12:45.  I figured if they had that much of a chub for my Type O, they'd take it when I offered it, and they did.  The only drawback was that I was really hungry, since I normally grab something to eat around 5:30 on my way to work and then eat lunch around 11:30 at the latest.  

They were after me to do the "double red-cell" thing too, which I guess means they filter your blood through a machine that extracts the red blood cells and pumps the plasma back in, but I'm not down with that. Something about having my blood outside my body like it's standing on the corner looking for a job, and then having it pumped back in skeeves me out a little.  It's too much like science fiction.  At least if I'm just donating whole blood, I can lie there and pretend like it's 1453 and the barber-surgeon is just taking a little off the top. 

I was antsy, so the whole prep thing was killing me.  First they made me read the booklet (which looked like it had been handled by a classroom of first-graders after their snack break) and then I had to get tested for anemia and answer a questionnaire about how many men I've screwed (none), how many needles I've shared (none) and whether or not I had been out of the country or in juvie for more than 72 hours.  I'm not sure what happens there at hour #70, but I'm glad I never have to find out.  Then they made me answer the same questions again, only this time on a computer screen. The whole thing was maddeningly repetitive and proceeded at a snail's pace, mostly because I showed up unannounced.  They were nice about it, even though I probably screwed up their schedule a little bit.  They say they take walk-ins but I'm not sure they actually like to.

They finally hooked me up, and luckily the 12-year-old girl who put the needle in my arm was pretty good at it, and I dropped a pint in a little over six minutes, which I think was a new record for me. Apparently even my blood was in a hurry to get the hell out of there.  As she was disconnecting me from the apparatus, she hit me in the eye with an errant hose or something and got really embarrassed.  I told her it was fine,  but it would be pretty unlucky of me to lose a perfectly good eye while giving blood.  She left me there for a bit, and then came back and asked me how I was feeling.  "Pretty good, except for the eye," I said.  I'm not sure she appreciated my humor.

Since I hadn't eaten, I was a little light-headed afterwards, so I sat down and drank a bottle of water and ate some ass-raisins.  I'm not sure where they got them from, but they were the worst, most juicy raisins I ever ate.  It's like they weren't quite done being grapes.  I only chose them because of their sugar content, but after eating half the bag I switched to a pretzel, which was non-juicy. Then I packed up my shit and headed for the car.  I got home just in time to pull the car in the garage before it started coming down hard.  

After I got home I emptied my pockets and found the little info sheet they give you with all the "after donating" tips on it.  This paragraph made me laugh:

"Injury may result from dizziness or fainting after donation.  If you developed a cut as a result of a fall, you may want to request evaluation for stitches, especially if the injury is on your face.  Serious head injuries are uncommon after donation but may require immediate medical attention." 

So basically they're saying, "Hey, thanks for your blood.  Oh, by the way, if you fall and cut your face wide open, you probably should get it sewed up."  That's really good information to know.  

Other weird stuff I stumbled on this week:

Why is this a real thing?  Are people that concerned about their child's "unique astrological chart" that this hot crazy lady can actually make a living off of them?  Whenever I see something like this I always think, "I wonder if they really believe that shit, or if they just saw an opportunity to rip off gullible people?" Then I got a little sad because I realized I would probably respect her more if she was knowingly ripping people off.  That's pretty cynical. But then again, I'm a Gemini and therefore I can see both sides of the issue.

The other thing that made me laugh today was this:

Fifth Third Bank.  The curious bank.  What crack-smoking ad agency came up with that tagline?  Not sure about you guys, but I really don't want my bank to be curious about me.


"Can I help you, Mr. Virgil? 
"How do you know my name?  Who told you my name? I NEVER SAID MY NAME!"
"Don't be upset.  We're just curious about you.  So… are you wearing the boxer briefs today or going commando?"
"TOO CURIOUS! TOO CURIOUS!"


I don't want phone calls at home asking me how I'm feeling and if I need anything and how my garden is doing.  In fact, I want them to stay out of my life unless I specifically ask them to provide me with a banking service and I contact them to get it.  The last thing I want is some teller at Fifth Third asking me inane questions about my personal life when all I really want her to do is read the note and start stuffing the money in the sack.

p.s. - does anyone know why the EFF the spacing is all off on this blogger editor?  Looks fine in the editing window, but all sorts of weird spacing when it's published.

Blue Light Special.

I was sitting in my room reading a comic book when Markie walked in. "Whatcha doin?" he asked. "What's it look like?" I replied.  Markie was unfazed by my sarcasm. "You wanna ride bikes?" he asked. "We could go over to Bumby's bakery or maybe to Midas Muffler to get a soda. Or we could go to K-Mart. I gotta get some BBs."

I wasn’t sure if he really needed them, or if he was just rubbing it in my face that he was allowed to have a BB gun and I wasn’t. I thought about it. A man has to know his limitations after all, and at the time, my limitations were that I could go to Bumby's and Midas because they were both on the same side of Central Avenue, but I wasn't allowed to cross it on my bike.

Yes, I was ten years old and barely allowed to leave my yard. At least that's what it seemed like to me at the time. K-Mart was definitely out because that meant I had to cross Route 155, which my mother somehow believed would result in my instant death.

"OK, I'll go to Midas with you." I said. "I want to go up to Record Town and get that Stealer's Wheel 45 anyway." Stuck in the Middle with You had been stuck in the middle of my head ever since I heard it on Casey Kasem the previous Saturday, and I wanted to get in on the ground floor. They were going to be the next Beatles; I was sure of it.

We jumped on our bikes and took our normal route to Midas, which involved riding through the woods past the big hill and following a skinny trail through a dusty, tumbleweed strewn field that eventually popped out onto the sidewalk of Central Ave. There were easier ways to get there, but none that involved riding through wooded trails at top speed while deer flies tried to snack on your head. I know that doesn't sound like fun, but it was.

I'm not sure what the guys working on cars in the muffler shop thought of all the kids that continuously showed up to raid their soda machine, but we didn't give it a thought. Knowledge of the machine had been passed from kid to kid, and we had only just found out about it the summer before. The soda was cheap and ice cold, and they had Orange Crush. What was there to think about? When we first left my house, neither one of us had been especially thirsty, but by the time we coasted up outside Midas, we were sweating through our shirts and an ice-cold soda was, at that moment, the thing we wanted most in the world.

We leaned our bikes up against the side of the building and walked around front to the machine. "Whatcha gettin'?" Markie asked. "Same thing I always get," I replied. "Orange Crush." I dropped my quarter in, opened the skinny glass door, and looked for the Orange Crush logo on the vertical row of bottle caps. It wasn't there. I scanned the bottle tops again, and realized that in its place was Nehi Orange. Not as good, in my professional opinion, but I wasn't going to pass it up.* It was still better than that Dr. Pepper crap Markie liked. I grabbed the neck of the bottle and yanked it out hard. I popped the cap off with the opener in the front of the machine, and heard it fall onto the pile of other dead bottle caps somewhere deep inside. I took a long, sweet swig as Markie repeated the process and pulled out his bottle of foulness that tasted like a mixture of rotting cherries and root beer. I didn't understand Dr Pepper then, and I don't understand it now.

The only drag about buying sodas at Midas was that the bottles were refillable, so we had to drink them there, and then put the empties in the wooden rack or the owner got pissed at us. I think he might have had to pay for the missing bottles or something. They were twice as thick as a normal bottle and they stayed cold forever. We walked around the building and sat down in the sun next to our bikes, our backs resting up against the wall, and drank our hard-earned sodas. We looked at each other and grinned like we had just accomplished the impossible. We had ridden our bikes to Midas Muffler and purchased Soda of the Gods. It was a good day so far.

"Bruuuuuaarp!" I said.

"Blarrrruuuuuhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaapp!" replied Markie.

"Beat that," he said.

I couldn’t, and we both knew it. When we finished drinking our sodas, we dutifully placed our empties in their slots in one of the wooden crates, making sure that the guys in the garage saw us do it. It was like we were placing an offering at the mouth of the volcano to appease Pele. We wanted to make sure we were welcomed next time — if not with open arms, exactly, then at least with a surly grunt and a nod of the head.

We hopped back on our bikes and took the "back way" to the record store. It probably added another ten minutes to our ride, but it was deemed safer by my mother because it meant we didn’t have to travel directly down the shoulder of Route 155, thereby saving us from becoming I-told-you-so road kill. Ironically, it also meant that we had to cut through some kind of shit hole trucking company storage yard where they parked unhooked semi trailers that were stacked so close they were almost touching each other.

There was no pavement, just a hard-packed clay with a covering of powdery sand. It wasn't so bad if the weather was calm, but even the slightest breeze meant that this dust was lifted into the air and accelerated to an insane velocity by the wind tunnel effect created between the trailers, then flung directly into your eyes and nose as you rode into it. You had zero side-to-side visibility when riding between these trailers, and there was so much truck traffic in and out of the main entrance that, windy or not, the entire place existed in the yellow haze of a permanent dust cloud. Most of the time when you cut through the lot, you had to be extremely careful not to get run over by an 18-wheeler. And you kept your mouth closed, or you'd be crunching sand between your teeth for hours afterward.

When we finally made it out of the main gate, it was only a short ride around the corner to the record store. Markie didn’t have much interest in music, so I went in by myself and picked up my single. While I was in there, I picked up the new Grand Funk single, too; a new song I liked called We're an American Band. It seemed like a good idea because the singles were 99 cents each or 2 for $1.59. I had a stack of 45's that would have made you drool.

When I came out of the store, Markie was sitting astride his bike, counting his money. "Whatcha doin'?" I asked.

"Seeing if I have enough for BBs," he replied. "You wanna go, or are you gonna wait here?"

He knew about The Limitation too, and was, in his own way, casually inviting me to ignore it without coming right out and saying so. It had to be my decision. I looked across the street at K-mart. There was hardly any traffic on the road, and I had just avoided death by 18-wheeler, so I was feeling pretty invincible. It was only two lanes wide for god's sake. We'd be across and back before we saw car one. "Yeah, I'll go," I said nonchalantly, in direct opposition to my mother's rule #234 for not getting killed.

So we crossed, and believe it or not, nothing bad happened.

We rode the shoulder for while until we reached K-mart, locked our bikes outside the store and went in. We messed around in the sporting goods department for a while, and then Markie picked up his BBs. When we came out of the store, there was a kid checking out Markie's bike. That damned Schwinn Orange Krate wasn't exactly inconspicuous. The kid was big, and older than us, and had a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Against our better judgement, we walked over to our bikes, all the while pretending he wasn't there.

"Nice Bike," he said. We ignored him and unlocked our bikes. We stood them up and got on. Just when we thought we were home free, he put his hand on Markie's handle bars, stopping him. "Hey kid," he said. "Didn't you hear me? I said nice bike. Whattaya say I take it for a spin."

It wasn't really a question. Markie immediately (and probably correctly) decided that if he agreed, it would be the last time he ever saw his Orange Krate. "I don't think so," he replied. "We gotta go." I must have looked like I was going to make a run for it, because the kid turned his attention to me.

"Where do you think you're goin, faggot?" he asked me. "You don't leave until I tell you to leave."

I stopped where I was.

"What's in the bag?" he asked, tossing the cigarette away. "Give it."

I reluctantly handed him the bag with the two 45's in it and he opened it up, momentarily letting go of Markie's handlebars. He took the records out of the bag and made a show of sliding them out of the slip covers and flipping them across the parking lot like frisbees. "Hey!" I said. "I just bought those!" He just crumpled up the slip covers and laughed.

It was that moment that Markie made a break for it. His bike was fast, and the kid had been distracted by the obvious pleasure he took in trashing my new records.

"ASSHOLLLLLE!" Markie yelled over his shoulder as he gathered speed. The kid spun away from me and ran after Markie, intent on not letting him get away after such a serious transgression. I jumped on my bike and pedaled in the other direction, then swung wide, picked up some speed, turned around and headed back toward the highway, behind both of them and about 50 feet to the right.

The kid suddenly gave up on Markie, who was easily out-distancing him, and turned back toward me, trying to intercept me as I passed. He grabbed at my bike and missed by inches, and we were home free. Wild laughter involuntarily erupted from my lips as I gained speed. My heart was pounding in my chest and I was pedaling with everything I had, heading toward Route 155. Markie was about a hundred yards in front of me, and he zipped across the street without stopping, perfectly timing a break in the traffic. When I got to the shoulder of the road, I wasn't so lucky. I looked both ways and it was nothing but cars whizzing by, one faster than the next. I looked behind me and the kid was catching up fast. Markie was on the other side, watching everything unfold. "COME ON!" he yelled. "Hurry up! He's coming!"

"I CAN'T!" I yelled back, frantically watching the cars speed by. "There's too much tr----"

A hand grabbed the collar of my shirt and the next thing I knew I was lying on my back tangled up in my bike.

"Get up," the kid said. "Get up and get your fuckin' ass over here."

I stood up, my knees shaking. I thought about running, but wasn't sure I could even walk, let alone out-run this kid who was twice my size. And besides, all I could think about was my bike. I knew that if I ran away, I'd never see it again, and my father would kill me. "What do you want?" I asked him. My voice didn't even sound like my own. "What are you gonna do?"

"I'm gonna make you pay," he said. "And the price is one punch in the face. Now get over here and take it."

I walked slowly toward him. When I was standing within arms reach, he jabbed at my face with his right fist. Just by reflex, I twitched my head back and his fist just barely touched my nose. This infuriated him, because he assumed I did it on purpose. "STAND STILL, ASSHOLE!" he yelled. I froze, trying not to cry, but not entirely succeeding.

He threw another punch and this time it connected. My upper lip and the side of my nose went instantly numb, and I saw stars in my right eye. I don't even remember hitting the ground, but I did, too stunned to even cry. As I tried to get up, he pushed me down again with his foot. Then he just laughed, and said "That's what you get." and then walked away, raising his middle finger to Markie as he did so.

I sat up, but couldn't do much more. A few minutes later, Markie rode back across the street and helped me get on my bike. "You OK?" he asked. "I dunno," I replied, touching my mouth gingerly. "How bad is it?"

"Your lip looks like a balloon," he said. "He popped you good."

"My mother is gonna KILL me," I blubbered through lips that increasingly felt like over-inflated inner tubes. "I wasn't supposed to cross 155. She's gonna kill me when she finds out. And I think my tooth is loose." I suddenly felt like crying again.

"So what she don't know won't hurt her," Markie said. "It ain't that bad. Maybe she won't notice." He looked at my face and reconsidered. "Yeah, she's definitely gonna notice. But we'll just tell her this happened in the parkin' lot of the record store."

That sounded like a solid plan, so we went with it. We rode home slowly, and when we got back to our houses, we parted ways.

"Tthee ya," I lisped. It was really starting to pound now that the numbness was wearing off.

"I snuck in the house and immediately went to the bathroom to assess the damage. The inside of my lip was the color of a ripe plum, but the outside of the lip wasn't split, so that was good. It was a little ripped up inside from where the tooth had jammed through it, but that was the only bleeding that I saw and even that had almost stopped. The tooth itself was definitely a little loose, but it didn't appear to be in any danger of falling out, so I figured it would probably be OK. I took my first punch, I thought. And it wasn't that bad. I cheered up a little.

I hid in my room until dinner time, but the second I walked into the kitchen my mother took one look at my misshapen face and flipped out. "Oh my god! What happened?" she asked, grabbing my face and turning it this way and that and tilting it up toward the light. "Who did this to you?"

"Mom, ith no big deal," I said. "I got in a fight." That was a slight exaggeration of the truth, but a guy has his pride. "I don't know who it wath. Justht thum jerk outthide the record thtore."

She eventually calmed down and got me an icepack and some aspirin and I told her the whole story. She immediately called Markie's mom and she got the story from him, and for the most part Markie backed me up. I think he told her that I "got punched in the face" which wasn't nearly as impressive as "got in a fight" but I couldn't blame the guy -- we hadn't rehearsed that bit. I made sure he knew how it (ahem) really happened before we went to school the next day though. I had an impressive shiner and a fat lip, and I didn't want to waste it.

Of course, I had to repeat the story to my father when he got home, and I don't think I was allowed to go to the record store again until I could drive there. Shortly thereafter, I sent away for this and I started lifting weights that consisted of two paint cans tied on the ends of a broom handle. After waiting a few weeks to see if I was serious, my father bought real weights and a heavy bag -- which I beat the shit out of on a fairly regular basis for about seven years in preparation for the rematch that never happened.

So that's the story of my first fight, if you can call it that. I'm not proud of it, but that's the way it happened. I stood there and got punched, and it pisses me off to this day.

I never saw that kid again, but I still looked for him in crowds.  Even now, I picture him just as he looked then -- black t-shirt, jeans, greasy blond hair and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his sneering mouth -- even though on an intellectual level I know he's probably ten years older than me and has a pot belly, an ex-wife, a loser kid and no hair except for what grows out of his ears.

It's funny the memories that stick with you over the years. The world is full of assholes, and that was my first experience with one, so it stands to reason that it would leave a mark. Or maybe it's because I didn't go ape-shit on him and fight back and I'm ashamed of ten-year-old me.

Maybe the kid had a shitty father who beat on him, or maybe he had some sort of emotional problems and right now he's jacked up to the gills with Prozac. He could be dead, or sweeping the floor at a local high school, or working for NASA. Maybe he became a priest, or won the lottery. Who knows. Chances are, he's still an asshole, but I forgive him anyway. He was just a kid. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't sometimes think about punching him in his mail-order dentures.

After all, a guy has his pride.

*Every once in a while I'll get a bottle of orange soda in a glass bottle if I can find it. In fact, this post was inspired by a can of orange crush I drank not too long ago while standing outside a QuickLube. Orange soda in the summer time brings back those days more clearly that I would have believed possible. I can still picture the smell of that muffler shop -- Sun-baked asphalt, car exhaust, hot welded metal, and an oily mist in the air that you thought smelled really good at first, but after a while started to make you feel a little sick. I loved all of it, and still do.

Taint no big thang.

I was going to tell you the story of my first fight, but instead I'm going to tell you the story of why I can't sit down today. It's not nearly as entertaining, but it's all I can think about right now, so it's what you get. I hope you don't mind. (I'll be right back, I have to get some Advil. )

Last week, I foolishly decided to take Monday off and get the sailboat on the water since we missed last year completely due to me chopping off part of my finger right before summer really started. My father was coming up for Father's Day anyway, so he brought the boat up and we got it ready to go for the morning.

The next morning things weren't looking so great weather-wise. Overcast and cold, it felt more like September than June. We kept checking the weather report, which swore that it was going to get sunnier and warmer. It had been a while since we had everything set up, so we went through a dry run. Mast up, standing rigging set, sails up; everything went flawlessly -- in the driveway, on the trailer, with no wind. So we were set, obviously.

When we got to the lake I noticed two things almost simultaneously -- there were no sailboats on the lake and the flag at the marina was blowing in one direction and the trees were blowing in another. I'm not sure how that was happening, but it was probably a sign of some sort. One we chose to ignore. There were no whitecaps, so we figured "how bad could it be?" and got everything ready to go.

This marina really needs to redo their docks. Unfortunately, they aren't floating docks, and the water level was so low that the dock is about three feet above your boat. It doesn't make things easy since you have to practically jump down into it, which is not easy for anyone, especially my 73-year-old dad. He managed though. We eased the boat out onto the lake using the trolling motor.

When we figured we were out far enough, I climbed up on the foredeck to raise the sails. It was pretty windy, so I knew as soon as I raised the jib we were going to start moving, and we did. I raised the mainsail and then raised the gaff, and that's the exact moment when a gust hit the boat and tipped us sideways. Looking back on it now, I don't think we were in any danger of capsizing, but when I turned around and saw the mainsheet wrapped around one of the damned cleats, I rushed to get back to the cockpit because things were going sideways.

Unfortunately, another gust hit us and I went one way and the boat went the other, and I came down hard on the corner of the hatchway door with the inside of my ass. That wasn't enough for me, however, and I continued on my journey of self-discovery and slid along the sharp edge of the casing and slammed my tailbone on the front lip of the seat. In retrospect, I would have rather fallen overboard, because the pain was blinding. Remember that feeling when you were a kid and pedaling your bike as fast as you could, and your foot slipped off the pedal and you came down hard on the bar? It was like that, only about ten times worse. Right now all the guys reading this are crossing their legs and holding their asses, and all the girls reading this are thinking 'you should have worn more sensible shoes.'

I immediately grabbed my ass and started rolling around, and I think I came pretty close to blacking out for a second. I also treated dear old dad to a very emphatic F-bomb. To be honest, it was more of an F-clusterbomb, in that it started with a really big one and then a series of smaller follow-up bombs. Then I realized who I was with, and also realized that I needed to either finish putting the sails up or take them down. They were creeping back down the mast since I never tied them off. So I crawled back to the front of the boat and finished what I had started. Once we got everything set up, we went where the wind took us, mostly, but also managed to sail to a few spots we were actually trying to sail to.

The wind stayed gusty all day but even so, we had some good runs. We made a few mistakes -- Some we knew were mistakes and some we just sat there scratching our heads and thinking, "Why'd that happen?" We really need to get some lessons and make some improvements to the boat. We are planning to redo some of the rigging so nothing gets caught where it shouldn't when we tack, and we're going to move some of the cleats. And maybe figure out how to raise and lower the sails from the cockpit of the boat. I like that particular idea.

All in all we had a fun day, even though I still can't sit. Well, that's not entirely true. I can sit, but getting back up still hurts like hell. But it seems to be getting a little better every day, so I've opted out of seeing a doctor.

Let me tell you something. I never even considered the possibility that you could bruise your actual asshole, but you can.

Also, doing this is a lot harder than you'd think:

Balls. Of the eye variety.

Back in December, my wife had eye surgery on both her eyes because she had extreme dry eye and some kind of conjunctival lesion that needed to be removed. They pull tissue from another place on your eye under your lid and graft it to the area they cut away. Here's what they did to her. Try not to puke:

When it was done, she couldn't open her eyes. Two days later, she looked like an emo vampire -- her eyes were blood red and she was involuntarily crying all the time.

It's been a long recovery, and while her eyes still bug her a bit, they are looking much better these days. I thought the worst was over -- until I got the bill.

It cost over 10 grand, and luckily a good chunk of it was covered by my insurance. But since we have a fairly high minimum yearly deductible, I'm going to be paying it off until the end of the year at least.

I understand some of the itemized charges, but some of the other line items made me laugh. Apparently eye surgery requires some weird things. For instance, they could be charging us $110 bucks for a pregnancy test and I wouldn't even know it -- oh wait, yes I would because it's itemized right on the bill. Yes, they actually required a pregnancy test before eye surgery. Good thing she wasn't having a pelvic exam -- they probably would have required an eye test. Ridiculous.

Let me share a few of the other items with you. The first one I understand:

Operating Room, 90 minutes -- $3422.00

That's 38 bucks a minute, just to lay there in a room while a light mist of virulent staphylococcus germs settles gently upon you. And this was just to rent the hall - before any surgery actually happens. After the surgery is just more of the same:

Outpatient recovery, 125 minutes -- $545.50

Again, that seems like an assload of money to just lie somewhere watching a 4:3 picture stretched onto a 16:9 TV for two hours. I mean, if your eyes weren't all cut to shit and you could actually see the short fat people on the screen. Why hospitals and doctor's offices can't get the aspect ratio correct on a flat screen, I will never know. Drives me insane.

Eraser Wetfield -- I don't know what this is, but it sounds like the nickname of a hit man you'd hire if you never, ever wanted the body to be found.

Beaver Blades -- No idea on this one. They might have gotten her chart mixed up with someone else. I may have to dispute this charge because as far as I could tell, there were absolutely zero changes to the bikini line.

Esteem -- I never knew you could get this so cheap. $12.88. I should totally load up the next time I'm in the doctor's office. I figure for less than two hundred bucks I could have the ego of Kanye West and Bono combined. I'd be a super-hero in my own mind. I wonder if I'd let myself finish.

Cannula Nasal -- This might be nose oil; I'm not sure. It was only about five bucks, so I guess if it kept her nose from squeaking during the operation, it was worth it.

Drapehead Bar -- I think I got drunk there once in college. I'm not sure what a drape head is, but it sounds like some kind of insult. I think I got billed for it because the doctor had a scotch/rocks right before the operation to calm his nerves and I told him to put it on my tab.

Ondansetron -- On Cupid, on Donder, on Blitzen! I'm pretty sure Dansetron was the gay transformer reindeer who didn't make the final cut to be on the team. Apparently, he now makes hospital visits to cheer up the post-op patients. Too bad he didn't get the Christmas gig and has been reduced to this. You gotta know when not to dance is all I'm saying, Dansetron. It's really your own fault.

Micro spears -- I saw no evidence of a line item for the micro warriors who would presumably be wielding the micro spears, so I'm thinking I got them as a freebie. Kind of like that bag of sour patch kids the cashier missed in my cart last week. I won't tell them if you don't.

Stopcock -- This one was very reasonably priced at $3.63. That's amazingly affordable when you consider that it was completely effective for almost two weeks.

So my advice to you is to double check all your medical bills and make sure you got what you paid for. And if you get charged for Beaver blades, make sure that shit is high and tight. In fact, I recommend checking it before you leave the hospital. Maybe take some before and after pictures just for evidence in case it shows up on your bill later.

Also, don't ever get eye surgery if you can help it. That shit is expensive. And really, really gross.