Category: humor

Friday the Thirteenth: The Sequel

You read it here first: it’s Friday the thirteenth.

There will be two this year, a trend that will continue until 2020.

You probably read it somewhere else first. It’s ‘always’ news.

I’m not superstitious. Friday the 13th doesn’t bother me. I believe a zillion people are affected to some degree. They were probably preparing to cope with the date. I only knew today was Friday the thirteenth because I read it somewhere.

I reacted when I read it. It’s Friday? Already? The thirteenth?  Is is still January and 2017? Man, this year is just flying past me.

I used to fly with some pilots who were terribly superstitious. Their nervousness over their superstitions shredded my patience. One of them always avoided flights on Friday the thirteenth if it could be done, and no joking about Friday the thirteenth or their superstitions could be tolerated. No, no, no, don’t joke about that. Then there was the order of processes for preparing for flight, lucky pens…maddening. None of it could be joked about, either.

Dealing with a nervous pilot isn’t fun.

You have some folks who are full-on, one hundred percent superstitious. I’m more like two percent. I have some idiosyncrasies, like not having my back to the door, but that came from the military drumming it into me through recurring anti-terrorism training.

“DON’T SIT WITH YOUR BACK TO THE DOOR. POSITION YOURSELF WHERE YOU CAN SEE ALL THE ROOM. ALWAYS SCAN YOUR ENVIRONMENT. AVOID SITTING IN CORNERS. ALWAYS KNOW THE LOCATIONS OF YOUR PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EXITS. TRY TO HAVE A THIRD ONE AVAILABLE. DO NOT FOLLOW PATTERNS. DON’T TAKE THE SAME ROUTE TO WORK. DO NOT FOLLOW A RECURRING, PREDICTABLE TIME-TABLE. ALWAYS EAT ALL OF YOUR VEGETABLES. BE SURE TO CLEAN YOUR PLATE. ALWAYS WEAR CLEAN UNDERWEAR. IS IT COLD OUT? MAYBE YOU SHOULD WEAR A JACKET.”

Sorry, I transitioned from hearing the military voice to hearing Mom’s voice. They often sound alike in tone and nature.

I wasn’t aware of how much I’d embraced the whole back to the door thing. It was my wife that noticed. She always acquiesced to my seating preference and I never gave it deliberate thought. Then, years after returning to America and leaving the military, we went to a restaurant. She casually mentioned, “I know you can’t see the door from there. I’ll watch it for you.”

I was affronted, indignant, outraged, I tell you. She laughed at my response. “You always have to see the door.”

“I do?”

I’ve been working on it since then. Here at the coffee shop, I make a huge effort to sit with my back to the door. Writing about it right now awakens my awareness. I feel extremely uncomfortable and a little vulnerable.

Fortunately, I can see the door reflected in my laptop’s screen.

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The Boom: the Sequel

To recap part one of The Boom, my wife was making smoothies when the beverage somehow became animated, escaped all containers and spread its raspberry-pomegranate hues over appliances, hardwood floors and walls. Clean-up wasn’t difficult. We thought the incident was over.

But now…here is ‘the rest of the story’….

I left the master suite’s hallway late Christmas day and headed for the kitchen. The weak winter sun had already abandoned us. Lights were required. I went to the switch plate. Four lighting systems were controlled from that location. I clicked two and glanced up to assess, was this enough light?

The sight that I saw left me gawking. “Oh, my, God.”

Our kitchen has a vaulted ceiling. It rises from about seven feet up past fourteen. A pattern of dried smoothie resembling Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and other Pacific island chains was spread across the ivory ceiling at about the twelve foot altitude.

I regarded it for a number of minutes, considering what we’d initially seen, trying to reconcile the two scenes. The distances…the quantity….

Something like this needed company. I  hunted down my wife. She was in the snug. “Hey,” I said in Mister Casual’s voice. “We missed some of the smoothie spill.”

“Where?”

“You need to come see this.”

She went into the kitchen. I lagged behind her. She searched the floor and appliances. “I don’t see anything.”

“Look up.”

My wife did. She gasped. “Oh. My. God.”

“Yep. What the hell happened in here?”

Staring at the mess, my wife shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t explain.” Bewilderment glistened in her eyes. “We might need to paint that.”

“We’ll see. Let’s try cleaning it first.”

It would need to be me cleaning it, or painting it, should it be required. My wife would never be able to reach it. She’s too short. With cats warily inspecting my activities, I got out the ten foot step ladder to begin the cleaning process and set it up in the kitchen. Climbing up to the third rung from the top, I surveyed the mess.

It was worse than we thought. From here, I could see that another wall – ten feet away and fifteen feet up – displayed the Aleutians. Smoothie was on the walls above the cabinets and above the small artwork over the window. Smoothie speckled the dining room ceiling another eight feet away in the opposite direction.

Unbelievable. Studying it all, I wished again for Dexter to come in and analyze this mess. Turning on the Denver and KC football game for companionship, I began cleaning. Soap and water was tried.

The mess chortled at my puny efforts.

I doused a section with Windex and scrubbed.

The mess sniffed. “Is that the best you got?”

I conducted an Internet search. Magic Erasers were tried.

Magic Erasers failed.

I returned to the Internet. Another cleaner was recommended.

I tried it. “No,” the smoothie mess cried. “I’m disappearing…oh, what a world, what a world.”

By the third quarter, I had it all cleaned. A slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream was consumed to celebrate.

If you ever need to clean a berry stain from paint, I highly recommend OxiClean.

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The Internet of Relationships

Dad was playing a computer game on his smart phone when his son walked in.

“Google, turn on the television,” the son said, sliding onto the sofa.

Dad called out, “The Internet is down, son.”

The boy said, “Google, turn on the television.”

Flinching with exasperation, his father called out, “Danny, the Internet is down. You need to use the remote.”

“Google, turn on the television,” Danny said.

Irritating growing, Danny’s father said, “Didn’t you hear me? The Internet is down. You need to use the remote.”

Danny looked at his father and frowned. “Google, what does the Internet is down mean?”

“Jesus,” his father shouted. “Are you serious? You really don’t know what I’m talking about?”

Studying his father, Danny said, “Google, what does he mean?”

“He?” his father asked. “He? Seriously? I’m your father, Danny. Get it? Now if you want to watch television, you need to use the remote to turn it on because the Internet is down.”

Danny’s frown danced in and out of existence as his father continued playing his game. Finally Danny looked up and said, “Google, what’s a remote?”

Gritting his teeth against a scream, his father finally said, “Google, how do I get through to my son?”

3

The Boom

My dressing was just completed. I was visiting with the tailless black panther, Boo Radley , in the master suite. He was enjoying the attention. Just as I presented him a catnip offering on his favorite toy, a loud boom interrupted from another part of the house.

“Oh, fuck,” I heard from my wife.

Not good omens.

I went out. “What’s the word out he — ”

No more was needed. She’d been blending the day’s smoothie. Something had gone awry. Raspberry-pomegranate smoothie decorated the kitchen’s hardware floor. Spatters continued up the walls and wooden cabinets. The stainless steel refrigerator had taken a large hit. More hits were found on its stainless steel brethren, the dishwasher and stove. A puddle had settled on the dark granite top.

I wondered, what would Dexter tell me about this spatter pattern?

My wife, looking forlorn, was in the middle of the mess. Smoothie rolled down her jean legs. “What’s the best way to clean this up?” she asked without looking at me.

Cleaning wasn’t hard with a methodical approach, cleaner, some paper towels and rags. It took but ten minutes. The worse of it: the day’s smoothie rations were gone. Enough remained for her breakfast smoothie but there was naught for our lunches.

The best part: a raspberry-pomegranate smoothie explosion leaves the house with a great fragrance.

 

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Today’s Theme Music

Randy claimed he wasn’t racist. We believed him. “Some of my best friends are black,” he said. That was true. We knew them. But coming from Alabama, he said a lot of racist – and sexist – things. He was a genuine throwback, but he was genuine. Still, that didn’t keep us from getting indignant about his attitude, pissed off at him, and worried about getting our asses kicked.

That’s exactly what Rich said that night at the St. James Infirmary in Mountain View, California, around 1994. “They’re going to kick our asses.”

‘They’ were the black people who dominated the club and were having a great time dancing. Randy called the music being played ‘Black music’. He saw nothing wrong with that as we argued with him. “Play some white music,” he yelled whenever a song ended. That prompted a lot of heads swiveling our way and deep stares.

Eventually, the DJ said, “Would the gentleman who wants some white music please come talk to me.” Randy did. Randy got along with everyone. After he returned, he said, “They’re going to play some white music.”

The white music that was played was one of our favorite drinking songs. We were in the military and we did a lot of drinking. We liked to gather in a circle and sing this song.

Randy passed away from cancer in 2016, sixty years old. He never changed, to my knowledge. But his Facebook page mourning his passing has a number of entries by black people from his church lamenting his passing. He was a character.

Here’s Meatloaf with ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Lights’, 1977. 

 

 

4

Today’s Theme Music

I wanted something lighter today. A favorite parody is ‘My Cubicle’, a take-off on James Blunt’s song, ‘You’re Beautiful’, 2004. The parody probably emerged within two years. I always had an office. However, my team and a lot of friends worked in cubicle warrens, and my wife was an office manager and HR manager. Between them, I received a daily infusion of irritations and frustrations with cubicle working. I once visited an enormous Air Force office space that had been converted into cubicles and was appalled. Of course, I think cubicles are better than those enormous open spaces of rows and columns of desks and filing cabinets that provided no privacy. That’s just my sense of it because I never worked in one of those, but only knew of them through visiting, television shows and movies.

Anyway, turn it up and sing along. I hope it provides you with a laugh.

2

Today’s Theme Music

Ah, the holidays are rolling faster down the hill toward us as we gape back up at them, pointing and shouting, “Look out!” Let’s retreat to a little Adam Sandler singing the “Chanukah Song”

 

2

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

It’s great when a new year begins. The past is neatly folded and hidden in drawers and cupboards. Part of it is stashed in the guest room bedroom closet in plastic vacuum packs to preserve it for future use because, you know, the past often comes around again.

So I’ve decided to begin a new year. Sure, I could stay wedded to the calendar year or revert to a fiscal year that begins in January or October. I decided not to. That’s too rational and conforms to everyone else’s needs without considering my own. That was working for me. I’ve decided to change it.

I selected November 29th as my new year’s beginning because that’s today. It’s the Michael calendar. I’ll only use it for personal goals and dreams. I’ll still pay my bills on the same date. I thought about trying to change it with the banks and utilities but OMG, can you imagine the paperwork? Bureaucracy dislikes change. Despises it, actually. So it’s easier to fly under their detection systems. I mean, I’ve already created a little app that’ll convert the dates and days for me.

For one thing, I’ve done away with Tuesdays. Come on, it was just filler to bridge Monday and Wednesday. Most people didn’t like it. We can attest to that because they were always doing Throwback Tuesday. “This Tuesday doesn’t matter, let’s look back into the past to give it some purpose.” I did away with it, reducing my week from seven days to six. I’m flexible about when each one ends and begins because basically I’m following the George Costanza method.

If everything that he did was wrong, by some property, if he does the opposite, he’ll be doing the correct thing. So I’m doing the same. Which is the opposite. Therefore, instead of having set days of the week that begin and end at the same time, I’m embracing flex hours.

Things just have to change. Except some things. There’s no telling what will happen from this.

Happy New Year. No, wait. I have to think about the correct greeting. Still a few bugs in the system. But that’s okay.

It’s the opposite of what I usually do.

 

1

Today’s Theme Music

I don’t know about you, because I actually don’t know you (I barely know myself), but I could use a rebuild every now and then. Take this gut. Please. Rebuild it. Put my twenty-five year old version back in there. Like a lot of things, I like my body as it used to be.

But c’est la vie, my friends. That’s life and we can’t get rebuilt.

Except that’s not how it was for Steve Austin. He was a man barely alive, and they rebuilt him. I wonder, though, you know, if you can rebuild him, did they rebuild all of him? Was this a ground up restoration or did they just pick and chose? I suspect the latter. They’re always talking about one of his eyes and his legs.

That’s what worries me about being rebuilt. I worry that I’ll ask, “Which of my parts should I replace?”

After softly clearing her throat, my consultant tells me, “Well, on your budget, you’re pretty limited.”

Of course I have a vision about how I want to be rebuilt. “What about Brad Pitt? Can I order anything out of the Brad Pitt catalog?”

“Yes.” My consultant clears her throat. Again. “You can afford anything out of his fingernail sections. Here, page through the website. It’s organized by body parts. So, just select limbs, and then click down to arms, hands, and fingers. See? Brad Pitt’s fingernails are quite reasonably priced. We can rebuild you with a couple of those.”

“A couple?”

“Yes, you can afford a thumb and a little finger.”

“From the same hand?”

“No.”

“What about my mid-section?”

Heavy laughter ensues. When it ends, my consultant tells me, “Oh, you can’t afford Brad Pitt’s mid-section.”

“I can take out a mortgage on my home.”

“That won’t be enough, I’m afraid.”

“How ’bout a bun?”

“Excuse me?”

“Can I get rebuilt with one of Brad Pitt’s buns? You know, his rear end? His ass, to be crass, his derriere, if you want posh.”

“Oh my gosh, excuse me. I spewed coffee when you said that! No, you can’t afford Brad Pitt’s buns, and don’t even think about anything off his face.”

“Not even an earlobe?”

“No.”

“Well, what can I get?”

“Here, let me show you our John Goodman collection.”

“John Goodman? From ‘Roseanne’?”

“Yes, I think you can afford his mid-section.”

“I don’t think that’s an improvement.”

“Are you sure? He is a star.”

So, anyway, I won’t be doing any rebuilding on this cyber Monday. I’m still saving for improvements I can afford. Meanwhile, here is the opening from ‘Six Million Dollar Man’. Oh, sure, they can rebuild Lee Majors. What’s he got that I haven’t got?

That was rhetorical; you don’t need to reply.

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