Nothing Says I Love You Like Flaming Meat Hurtling Through the Air

You've all seen them, you've all heard about them, heck, even the Grand-pappy of all sitcoms, Friends, featured one. Yes folks, I'm talking about the anti-Valentines Day parties. No "Holiday" (if you could see me, you'd be noting the sarcastic quote fingers there) inspires as much anger and ire as VDay. Perhaps some folks are bitter they didn't get a little cartoon He-Man on a frilly paper heart backin third grade. Maybe there's people that are still upset that their little candies always say, "just go ahead and eat the whole bag, you're alone and no one loves you." Or, it's always possible that some people are just really deep-down-in-there angry about being alone.

I fit into category three. Not now, not anymore, that's fit in the past tense, this is way back in the day. Fresh out of college and recently dumped with Valentine's Day fast approaching, I started to feel a bitterness usually reserved for David Letterman when someone takes a job he wants. I was alone, but fortunately I wasn't alone in my loneliness. My roommate Matt had also been recently dismissed by his lady. Like gin and tonic, cinnamon and raisen, pork chops and apple sauce, his angry made good company for my bitter.

In our house, we had two other roommates, a disgustingly happy couple that shared the bedroom upstairs. They played like good coupley couple and planned a night out on the town for February 14th. Thatl eft Matt and I home alone to throw the "We're Guys and We Want to Kick Cupid in the Sack (of Arrows, keepin' it clean here) Anti-Valentine's Day Extravaganza.
The guest list was huge. Every bitter, angry, love-lorn, heart-broken, lonely guy we knew. Somehow though, poopers of the party that they were, all of our brethren had dates that night. Mattand I it was. Just the two of us, emerced in some totally hetero-sexual male bonding that was to include eating meat, drinking heavily, and complaining about the fairer sex.

The day came. The other roomies left for their romantic evening of bliss, strolling hand in hand down the driveway, he opened the car door for her. Matt almost threw up they made him so sick. I did throw up, but just a little, in my mouth. It might have been because I'd already started into the Jack Daniels and was eating cocktail wienies by the fistful. Then again, it might have been the sugary sweetness of their love. Probably both now that I think about it.

The evening began with VHS viewings of the least romantic movies we could find in our collections; First Blood, Reservoir Dogs, ErnestGoes to Jail, combined with some hard core drinking. Jack, Jose, Jim,and Johnny were all invited to this party. Before too long, we got hungry.

Knowing full well that drinking and driving are two verbs that don't belong together, and knowing full well that drinking was going to be the action word of the day, Matt and I had planned ahead. We spent the morning at the grocery store finding the biggest juiciest steaks we could find. Unfortunately, we looked at the price tags of those succulently fine carnivore's delights and plan B became our new buddy. The back up was to find the biggest, juiciest steaks we could lay our hands on for a price that would allow us to continue eating for the rest of the week. It wasn't long before we settled on two less than prime pieces of meat. They were huge steaks, by huge, I mean they must have been ten inches across, that's meatapalooza right there my friends. So what if the thickness had to be measured in millimeters. So what if the fat to meat ratio looked like Chicago Cubs-ish Vegas odds. So what if there were funny little swirly rainbow looking things on the surface of the meat. Meat cooked on fire is meat cooked on fire.

Next stop produce. No, no, no, don't get the wrong idea, we knew that vegetables are not for angry bitter testosterone loaded men who would show the world the meaning of MAN that very evening. Women eat vegetables. Women eat green things. Rabbits eat green things. Men eat rabbits that are currently eating womanly green things. Men eat potatoes. We grabbed the four biggest potatoes the potato pile had ever seen and went to check out.

Problems quickly developed when we started to cook our meat. That little tank o' gas on the grill that allows us men to char our tasty flesh on an open flame, it was empty. Again, the need for a plan B popped up. Easy. We had a fireplace.

Stoves? Ovens? Broilers? Toasters? Scoff, scoff, scoff, scoff. Men cook meat with fire. Manly brains went to work. Hot dogs and marshmallows are easy too cook on sticks, you can do the luau pig on a spit, but how about steak? Really flimsy thin droopy steak?

Ding. (that's the sound of Matt's cartoon light bulb) Probably should be more of afizzzzzlefizzlefzzzzzzzlecrackle-bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, like one ofthose blue bug zapping lights, but ding makes him seem smarter. After this he'll need a lot of help seeming smarter.

Matt decided to pull the wire rack out of the oven and wedge it into the fireplace. It actually fit. Sure, it stuck out a foot and a half into the living room and we had to use our other roommate's work boot to hold the end sticking out of the fire place up, but surely it would be safe, surely that wasn't something that would give both the fire marshall and our landlord strokes, and surely that boot was far enough from the flame that it'd be alright. It was a manly boot. Manly boots should be able to withstand a little fire.

Matt treated lighting a grill like most folks revere the torch at the Olympic games. It was a sacred moment. I left him to it, and while my Einstienie-ish roommate got started on the fire lighting, I moved to the kitchen for potato duty. Looking back, I realize that making a drinking game out of slicing spuds was a bad idea, but at the time, take a drink every time you almost chop off a digit seemed innovative and wacky. Hindsight brings such a different perspective, as does sobriety. Who'da thunk it?

Meanwhile, in the living room, the fire wasn't burning hot and fast enough for Matt's liking. His eyebrows found out that lighter fluid, like frisbees and footballs, is an outdoor toy. That fire got up and going right quick after that, but Matt was too busy stopping, dropping, and rolling to get the meat on.

Back in the kitchen, I had the brilliant culinary epiphany that vodka is made from potatoes, therefore potatoes sauteed in vodka would be especially tasty. Let's do a quick math problem. Open flame from the stove + free flowing vodka + a massive mound of carbohydrates = crispy spuds, an embarrassing lack of arm hair, and a desperate need for some sort of salve or ointment. (salve and ointment, both funny words, so I couldn't decide)

His face flame free, Matt now understood that lighter fluid burns off real quick. The fire dying, he tossed the steaks on. The consistency of the meat was not entirely unlike the skin you find on day old pudding, so it kinda started to slither through the spaces in the grill. Alert with the tongs, my pal was able to save it, but he knew those steak-like hunks of former cow had to be cooked right quick.

He reached for a pile of newspaper with his free hand and shoved it into the flame. It erupted almost as violently as my second go round with the vodka, which, I learned, is going to ignite no matter how low the flame is. I was beating the kitchen wallpaper with an oven mitt that resembled a chicken puppet. Matt was evading bits of red hot newspaper ash that were flying out of the fire every which way, most of them landing on Matt or the meat.

When one smoldering hunk of what was the sports page landed unexpectedly on the back of his neck, Matt freaked and knocked the now partially melted work boot out from under the grate. The grill, still wedged in solidly in the back, tipped violently forward, landing squarely on Matt's leg with a sizzling sound I heard all the way in the kitchen.

This was all probably about the time I finally knocked the smoke detector off the ceiling with a dust mop and came to the realization that like Chernobyl, these potatoes were in full on melt down mode.

I used the only option I could think of; I sacrificed the chicken puppet by grabbing the volcanic pan and making a run for the backdoor. I darted into the living room just in time to see Matt's reaction to molten steel searing his knee. He kicked like a ticked off mule, which catapulted the "steaks" and the oven rack across the room where they ricocheted off the wall onto our roommate's couch. This all coincided with me launching the potatoes, the pan, and the alcoholic ball of fire out the door into the snowy backyard.

My mission complete, I dove to the sofa to prevent yet another piece of our furniture from becoming infurnituro. (Like that word? I justcame up with that one.) Good ole chicken mitt snatched that rack off the cushion and deposited in the snow bank right next to the steaming sauce pan.

Hunks of newspaper ash still falling from, well, everywhere, like a swirling vortex of "The Flaming Times," Matt did a nifty rolling ninja-ey maneuver and snatched the fire extinguisher out of the front closet and put an end to any plans that flame had of taking over the universe.
The Rug Doctor, a buttload of Seaside Breeze scented Lysol, and an ingenious flip-the-cushion-and-hope-he-doesn't-notice maneuver took care of a good portion of the mess. The rest would have to wait, there were injuries to tend to.

In all of about three minutes, we'd managed to lose our dinner, our desire to party, and our security deposit. What a Valentine's Day.

On a happy note, our other male roommie came home about an hour later, sans girlfriend. Some sort of argument about oysters and clams led to a Valentine's break-up. Like a guy should, he never inquired why a good portion of the stove was in the backyard, why there were bits of meat stuck to the window, why his left boot was a melted glob in the middle of the floor, or why the Sunday paper was a charcoaly mess smeared into the carpet. He just sunk down into the slightly singed sofa, ordered us a meat-lover's pizza, poured us each another drink, and asked if we could watch a few more Ernest movies.

Luckily, for the safety of the free world, I met my wife a few years later and have never cooked on Valentine's again. Matt, on the other hand, he's still single ladies.

Come on people. Head over to humorbloggers.com and vote for the Humor Blogger of the Year. I currently have zero votes. This saddens me.

PlainOleMike's Nine Rings of Hell-ular

The other day, I had a friend tell me to go to Hell. He didn't mean it, there was no urging me to book a trip on Expedia or anything, it was all just good natured ribbing, but even so, it got me thinking. What is Hell? There's hundreds of literary and Hollywood versions of it. Meet Joe Black, Family Guy, Bill and Ted, South Park, The Marquis de Sade, sitting through all fourteen hours that were Steven Speilburg's A.I. However, the grand-daddy of all that is the underworld comes from "The Divine Comedy." The classic version of Satan's rumpus room.

That grand old chap Dante made himself all famous simply for writing about Hell. Dante envisioned the land of H, E, double hockey sticks as a big funnel extending down into the center of the Earth, kind o flike a giant beer bong with burning flesh and tortured souls instead of the frosty brew and scantily clad co-eds. If Dante were MapQuest, he'd probably direct you to Jerusalem or there abouts to start your Netherworld treasure map, personally, I'm pretty certain he's off my a few thousand kilometers. My best guess is that the eternal lava pits are simmering just to the left of Washington.

Dante's beer bong is made up of nine circles, with that I can agree,but I don't think Dante had Mr. Orwell's eye for the future. I don'tt hink he fully thought out the multitude of future sins the human race would come up with. He had this part right, the first circle is the widest and they get smaller and smaller, less and less crowded until the ninth circle, which is a little tiny room, kind of like TheUnderworld's half bath. Dante and all the subsequent Dantephiles and Danteholics that supported his visions over the years needed a pair of fresh eyes, therefore, I've taken it upon myself to revamp Hell. This is a Hell for the modern world.

1st circle: Limbo. In Dante's brain, Limbo is for the folks who never found God, the ignorant; the unbaptized, savages, Carrot Top, and the like. Other than Mr. Top, who has punished all of us quite enough, I don't reallybelieve these folks deserve Hell. Instead, Limbo is for those that have committed lesser crimes, they won't necessarily burn in the eternal fires, but their seat is uncomfortably close. Limbo's population will be made up of people who wear pants you can easily fit three or four people into, parents who let their preteen daughters dress like extras from "Betty Jo is a Filthy Filthy Whore: The Musical," and celebrities that incite people to ask, "why is this person famous, and why won't they go away?" Also down there, in the forever limbo (which by the way does have an all Harry Belafonte all the time soundtrack) will be PeOpLe WhO TyPe LiKe ThIs, anyone who tears articles out of waiting room magazines, and every single beingthat has ever uttered the words, "would you like to take part in a short one to two minute telephone survey?"

Sure, you have rapists, murderers, little boy diddling clergymen, crack dealers, Michael Jackson, and all their ilk. I'm not going tof orget about them. Let's just go ahead and throw them into Hell's urinal right now, go ahead and assume these people are damned to an afterlife of eternal swirlie. These folks go without saying, my concern, though, is the remaining eight Hellevels. Like one of those freakishly limber Gong Show contestants with nineteen hula hoops, Hell has more rings we need to discuss.

2nd circle: This is the merely uncomfortable level. This is the level of eternal smacks across the face. Never ending sting of the cheek. Ring number two is reserved solely for souls that encounter cell phone static and ask their conversation partner (fully expecting a laugh)"can you hear me now?" Enough. Ring two may not be deep, but no one will hear you, except Satan's minions who will slap the crap out of you. Your comaptriots: people who over spout Saturday Night Live catch phrases. They will be seated in a slightly disagreeable chair next to you.

3rd circle: Every single time I go to the grocery store I see future residents of this very special ring. These are the people who, at insane volume levels, have one very loud side of a conversation on their cell phones for every one around them to hear. These people, since they lack the gene that controls discretion will be forced to parade naked in front of Howard Stern (oh come on, you know he'll be down there) for all eternity. Howie and his boys will teach you the lesson of keeping it to yourself by broadcasting your flaws and faults to all of the afterlife. In the 3 ring convoy will be the folks sneaking sixty eight items into the express lane and that moron who can't figure out the self check out, but insists on getting to it just before me.

4th circle: Living it up in Fourthringville will be all the people who use the Nextel BOOOODOOOP walkie talkie phones in public places. Again the grocers, the mall, the gas station, the bus, the train... Could Nextel have come up with a more obnoxious sound? I can't watch that scene in Dumb and Dumber anymore without expecting Jim Carey to pull out his mobile phone. It's okay, you'll have people to talk to on that level - the guy who decided that you can't control the volumeof the BOOOOOOODOOOOP noise and all of corporate Nextel will be walkie-ing and talkie-ing with you. For all eternity you will be whipped with ham radio antennas while being forced to listen to 1970's big rig CB chatter and watch "Smokey and the Bandit 2" over and over and over and over and over. 10-4?

5th circle: This fifth circle of hell is earmarked for the people who, in very inappropriate places; like church, class, meetings..., forget to turn the ringer off. No, that in itself is not a sin, that's a mistake, a forgetfulness issues, a reason to eat more zinc or carrots or whatever it is that improves memory. The criminals here are those that hear their phones go off in these inappropriate places and let them ring and ring and ring and ring. Sure, sometimes they give a sheepish, apologetic smile, but do they get off their butts and make it so we don't have to hear a synthesized cell phone version of "Holla Back Girl?" No, they do not. So, they will be drafted into Hell's marching band, where they will perform cell phone beeping button versions of Journey's greatest hits until their thumbs are numb, then they get to start in on the REO Speedwagon catalog. Roommates: people who are still doing impressions of or quoting Napolean Dynamite or Austin Powers and the actual Napolean Dynamite.

6th circle: This is a personal vendetta ring. Anyone who has answered a cell phone during a face to face conversation with me. This has happened countless times: at the book store register while I was cashiering, while I was talking to a table I was waiting on, the bank teller even did it to me once, my own friends have done it during dinner at restaurants... I've seen it happen in church, and it even happened during a parent/teacher conference the other day. It is a vicious, indescribably rude act. Due to the high instance of this sin being committed at dining establishments, these folks will spend the after life eating waiter-spit-soup in the company of people who don't hold elevator doors and those that leave their pets in the car during summer.

7th circle: It's quite passe to be vindictive against people who talk on the phone while they drive, and I myself am guilty of it, so I don't reserve this circle for just any driving phone talkers; this is for the people who are actually distracted enough by the telephone to have it cause safety issues. If you're alone, chat away, but if there are any of the following things taking place, welcome to level 7: kids in the car with you, you're a teenager talking to other teenagers who are also driving, you have a hamburger in the other hand, you are talking to someone that is actually in the car with you, you are within ten miles of home, you have caused an accident in the past, or you are applying make-up and/or shaving. Your hell will be equipped with crash test dummy driven vehicles repeatedly smashing into your cellphone talking ass while they endlessly sing, in their metallic robot voices, the chorus of the Crash Test Dummies song, "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm." Extra volume on the song for thosewho A. Palm Pilot with that stupid little pen or B. Text with that incessant thumb typing while piloting a motor vehicle.

8th circle: A special table for a select few. Everyone here will inexplicably have their cell phone clipped to their belt. Why they don't move it mere millimeters into pocketland, no one can comprehend. Who could possibly be calling that needs your attention milliseconds quicker than a hand into pocket maneuver takes? Since these folks think they're some sort of modern day communication device gunslingers, their forever will be spent with PDA styluses under their fingernails, ridden by spur wearing cowpokes, and being constantly antagonized by rodeo clowns. Along for the rodeo will be any one that wears a beret (non-military) and most of the four AM Denny's customers.

9th circle: This is it, this is the big boy. This is reserved for the utmost of utmost sins. The pickings will be slim, but the tortured souls wandering this level for the hereafter will be people who, when they are not actually talking on the phone, wear the hands free headset or the "Blue Tooth" into completely unnecessary situations. If you keep the ear piece in during youth sporting events, church, walking around stores, or the biggest sin I've yet witnessed, into the movie theater, you will take the elevator down and hit the big round number nine. Hell will not be a picnic for you, so leave your basket behind. You'll be greeted each morning with an army of failed dental assistants who will spend the day shoving inappropriate things into your ear; like cats, your elbow, and Austrian pop star Falco. Your dance partner will be Simon from American Idol and those pseudo-Christian nut jobs from The AmazingRace.

Dante was a fine writer, a creative man, and a wee bit on this side of wacky. He had the right idea, but he needed himself a flux capacitor and a glimpse of the future to see the real crimes against humanity. If you, yourself, are guilty of any of these sins, do yourself a favor, repent. Say a couple of Hail Marys, knock off a few Lord'sPrayers, maybe even recite that Crash Test Dummies song for good measure, there is still hope for you. Can you hear me now?

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Billy Joel Must Have Been Talking About This River... er... Creek of Dreams

This is the excitement that is my life. Like Snickers with the peanuts and the nougat, my weekly routine is just chock full of adventure. For example, just the other day, I drove over to my
sister's house. I know what you're thinking, WOW, all the way to your sister's house. Now bear in mind that this was on a whim, no planning, no mapping, just pick and go. That's not something just any ole person can handle, that's only for experienced adventurers like myself.

Okay, to the lay person, a Sunday drive to a relatives may not seem terribly exciting, but let me tell you about this is no simple trip across town, if I recount the things I underwent it will probably remind you of that old Atari version of Pitfall, with the vine swinging and the alligator hopping and the falling into giant scorpion pits. We are not talking about smooth sailing here. The trip starts out with one of those treacherous and nerve-wracking red left turn arrow intersections. Sometimes I have to wait a long time. Waiting for just the right moment is not easy, you get the shakes, you get anxious, you nearly jump the gun. This obstacle requires the patience of a... well, the patience of someone who is really really patient. Later, there's a slight curve in the road that takes the coordination of a fighter pilot to navigate, which is followed way too closely for none but the highly trained by a left hand turn - INTO TRAFFIC. And, as if all that wasn't enough, there's a four way stop that no one but the finest of drivers can coordinate, one false move can lead to tragedy. Then, right when you think you've hit the home stretch,
there's a hill. This is no ordinary hill, this one goes up AND down. Only the most alert and highly trained drivers should even attempt this portion of the trip. Most people would be better off pulling over and walking the rest of the way, but not me. I'm brave. I make this trip, believe it or not, almost every week. I am an adventurer.

Alright, so maybe I'm no Allen Quartermain and my sister's den isn't the crypt of the ancient pharaoh of death, but I am an adventurer.

Really I am. I'll prove it.

Each time I drive to my sister's house, which really isn't all that exciting, I have to drive through the neighborhood I grew up in. You see, my sister and her husband live in one of those new subdivisions that was built on what used to be some one's corn right behind the street I lived on as a kid.

Back when I was a lad, the whole area that my sister's neighborhood now sits on was corn fields, woods, and a few dirt roads. What is now one hundred and thirteen prefab houses was tree forts and snowball fights and dirt clod wars and sledding and being chased by the farmer's dog for getting to close to the house and a really weird and slightly creepy area in the middle of the woods with discarded rusted out cars from the forties and fifties and... well, tetanus shots.
Most of my early childhood memories took place in what is now Mrs. Denver's petunias, some young couple's half bath, or the two car garage down the street. Each time I make that drive, there's a little bit of me, deep down in there all mixed in with the guts and the innards, that's kinda sad.

The worst part of it all, the hardest thing for me to deal with, is the destruction of the creek. They rerouted part of it. Some of it was filled in. Other bits just went and dried up. Whatever it was, when that little stream disappeared some of the happiest times of my youth were washed away with it.

That creek was the center of my universe for a good decade. Frog hunting, spy games, fantastic hides and incredible seeks, rock skipping, wading, when the rains had come - swimming, incredible GI Joe nautical battles, crawling through the drain pipes to follow it to the other side of the road, ice skating, speed sledding, really narrow hockey games, and the best winter time sport ever - smashing ice with big huge rocks. That creek was everything, to all us kids. Now it's gone.

The best creek adventure took place the summer of my eleventh year. My sciencey minded friend Jerry spent the entire long winter designing a raft. Finally, after all these years, a vessel with which we can explore portions of the creek further than our tired peddling legs could bike us or our aching little feet could hike us.

The design called for a large piece of wood that we could sit on and something underneath that would trap pockets of air. Jerry, being one of those genius type kids that you either really want to be friends with or beat up, had a perfect plan within weeks. The problem would be gathering the necessary materials. Seeing as how Home Depot doesn't extend a line of credit to most prepubescents, we had a scavenger hunt ahead of us.

My job was to find wood. Construction site dumpster diving became my forte. Soon I not only had a four foot by four foot section of plywood. It was quite a sight, but I dragged all the way home.

While I was playing cat burglar in the construction zone, Jer was testing scale model rafts in his bathtub. His initial design called for several dozen air filled Ziploc freezer bags taped to the bottom of the board. They didn't support the weight.

I thought I was the hero of the summer when I stumbled across a giant piece of Styrofoam, about the same size as the wood, but about four inches thick that I figured would add to the floatiness. Jer agreed, although he used the term buoyancy. I like floatiness. It did a good
job of raising the wood portion of the raft out of the water, but still not enough to support our bodies.

Like that guy in prison who can get you whatever you want, like a dime bag or a tuba or an emu or maybe a Backstreet Boys poster to hang up there in the cell, Jerry seemed to magically get the materials he wanted. So his dad had nothing to take his lunch in, so his brother's paint supplies got all dried out, so his mom (probably to this day) wondered why her meatloaf was suddenly bare and freezer-burned up there in the icebox, none of that mattered, beacuse one day when I came over, he suddenly he had several hundred air filled Ziploc freezer bags filling his bedroom. Busy meticulously hot glue gunning them together in neat little rows, Jer was jittering like a crack fiend. I had no idea how he'd done so much work since the day before,
but he quickly taught me a valuable dietary lesson that came in quite handy in the subsequent college years. Jer had drank four liters of Mountain Dew to keep himself up all night to get work done.

"Ifitwasn'tfortheinsanelyfrequentpottybreaks," he explained, his hands shaking and his eyes twitching, "Iwouldhavebeendonebeforeyouevengothere. Gimmethatglassofpopovertherewouldyou?"

Jer made a bed of baggies and instructed me to lay down on them to test their strength. A loud pop let us know a plan B might be a good way to go.

Subsequent highly caffeinated nights "sleeping" over at Jer's house testing models and new theories accomplished two things. One, we found that Ziploc doesn't make a product that holds up to well against twigs, rocks, and other snagging agents in the creek. Two, we added
immensely to Jer's growing collection of empty two liter pop bottles.


Cartoon light bulbs dinged.

The pop bottles. I knew they were floaty. Jer knew they were buoyant. We had dozens of them and they were much stronger than plastic bags. Within minutes we were arranging the two liters in nice neat columns. Jer busted out a new hot glue cartridge and we were underway.

Soon we realized that we only had enough pop bottles to line about a quarter of the raft. We'd need more. A lot more. Spring was rapidly approaching. The wet season, when the creek would be highest, and our adventure best, was almost upon us. We had to hurry.

Fast forward to one of those movie musical montage scenes, some upbeat peppy pop song cranking in the foreground like "I Want Candy" or "MmmmBop." The film cuts between shots of two little kids going door to door asking for empty pop bottles, chugging massive amounts of soda
outside the local convenience store, pulling a wagon loaded with recyclable plastics around the neighborhood, raiding garbage cans, scavenging their own fridges and dumping into the sink partially filled bottles of sweet carbonated nectar, even a highly intense moment during which a caffeine withdrawn Jerry screamed at a neighbor for offering us the stupid one liter bottles.

Jerry had done some high falutin' calculations and determined that we'd need one hundred and thirteen bottles to safely support us on the raft. I never even thought to question his figures. He was good at math; I used calculators to spell words out upside-down.

The first big rains arrived just as Jer and me were finishing up the raft. Just over a hundred beverage containers glued to a big piece of polystyrene with a large hunk of plywood on top. Damn the Wright Brothers. Screw that Arch thing down in St. Louis. To hell with John
Titanic, or whoever it was that built that big boat. This. This, ladies and gents, this was a marvel of modern engineering. Like Huck Finn with petroleum products. We were adventurers.

Now to test it. The raft made debut in Jer's backyard. It floated just fine in the pool, yeah, I fell off into the barely melted, algae filled (isn't chlorine supposed to take care of that) swamp Jer's
family called a pool, but the raft was successful.

Next, the maiden voyage. The creek was thawed. The water was rushing. It rained and rained hard for nearly a week. We were afraid we'd be swept to far down stream. We were afraid the raft (I actually somehow just typed fart) would be pulled away before we could even jump on board.

Adventurers don't delay though. This raft had to launch. The show had to go on. The captain had going down to do (get your mind out of the gutter). The ship had to set sail. The fat lady, well, I guess that doesn't fit, so the fat lady can take a break and have a Twinkie.

Justifying our next decision with the claim that Jer and I both had to remain on land, each on one side of the creek, with safety ropes to keep the raft under control, we went on a mission to kidnap my sister. She'd be Laika, the Russian dog that was the first Earth creature in space. She'd be Lewis, or maybe Clark. She'd be Neil Armstrong, Columbus, Jackie Robinson. A pioneer. A legend. A living representation of the American adventurer's spirit. She'd tell Mom.

Somehow we talked her into coming with us to the creek. Somehow we talked her into stepping onto the raft. She actually seemed excited to be included and kind of asked for us to shove the raft off. Everything looked good. She held onto the safety line and started to float gently down stream. On one side of the creek, I shouted encouragements and had a death grip on the rope. On the other side, Jer held on tight while he did some more calculatin'. At about the same time, Jerry realized that the raft was much lighter than any of his previous figurin' had figured for, and that raft really started to get moving, fast. Before long, we had to jog to keep up with it.

Heavier rains than we had accounted for had that little boat cruising. Jer, possibly because all that brain power made him slightly top-heavy, slipped, fell, and lost his end of the safety rope. When he tells the story, he recounts a version in which, holding on for dear life, he was dragged nearly fifty feet by the raft, but he's a liar, he fell down, went boom, and my sister (along with any hope I had of seeing outside this coming summer) was floating away.

I held on to my end of the rope and ran as fast as my little legs would carry me. My thighs were burning, my feet were pounding, my tiny little heart was pumping so fast I thought it'd burst right there in my chest. I willed it not to though; I had to save my sister. Not only was I an adventurer, I was a hero. Indiana Jones always saved the girl. Even if it was a bratty little sister with severe tattle issues, he'd come to her rescue.

The raft was moving so quick that we got to the point where we were both holding on to the very ends of the rope. It was taut. I stopped and dug in like a tug of war anchor, but it wasn't enough. Her little hands couldn't hold on any longer and the line slipped from her fingers.

I tossed the useless line aside and resumed sprinting after her. losing ground when she went through a viaduct under the road and I had to climb the embankment, and some more during the barbed wire fence - hole in an unpleasant part of my shorts - I'd rather not talk about it
incident. Pretty soon, with all the twists and turns and curves of the creek and all the slipping and sliding and falling I was doing running on the muddy bank, she was out of sight.

Before long, Jer had caught up to me on his bike, panting and breathing hard. He jumped off at full speed, handing the Schwinn with the banana seat off to me. I was far more athletic and even in my current state much more able to catch the raft before it reached the real river a few miles away.

Panic took a little more of me over with each turn of the pedals. The longer I went with out finding her, the more scared I got. Every curve of the stream led to a new sense of hope that I'd spot her as I came around the bend, each one a heart crushing disappointment.

Finally, I could hear the sound of the river in the distance. Just having that sound hit my ears filled me with dread. I knew that hearing it meant I was way too close and my little sister was probably way too far. Then, as I came over a hill, the river now in my sight, I saw her. She was lying face down in the mud by the river, the raft, fully intact, but overturned, was up in the weeds beside her. I dropped the bike and sprinted down the hill. Boy Scout CPR/Heimlich
Maneuver/all sorts of first aid gobbledy gook training rushed through my brain.

She was dead. I'd killed my sister. I was convinced of it.

Then, as I got closer, I could see her back slowly rising and falling. The steady rhythm of breathing. A new jolt of adrenaline took me the rest of the way at ThunderCats Cheetara like speed. As I approached I could hear a whimpering sound, no, it wasn't whimpering, it was... it
was... singing.

My sister was lying in the mud, perfectly okay, perfectly happy, serenading a frog with the chorus of "I Feel Pretty, oh so pretty...." When I finally got to her she sat up, smiled, and asked if we could do it again. "Next time tell your stupid friend to hold onto the rope though," she added.

As much fun as she had and as much as she promised while we hiked home not to tell Mom and Dad, within seconds of walking through the door, she'd spilled the beans about her adventure on the mighty rapids. The parents were quite unhappy, phone calls were made, like number
Johnny-5 -- rafts were disassembled, and the recycling guy wondered how much pop one family could drink in a week the next trash day.

Like the Titanic, that good ole raft's maiden voyage was it's last.

Every time I drive by where the creek used to be, on the way to tattletale's house, I think about the good times. I miss it. I wish it was still there. My sister, she has kids, she's probably glad it's gone. No rafting adventures for her youngest. Then again, none of them will get to sing West Side Story songs to amphibians either.

I told you I was an adventurer.

Vote for this adventurer for Humor Blogger of the Year over at HumorBloggers.com, or just check out the other funny blogs in the running.

Nothing Says True Love Like Mayonaise and Bacon

A lot of what defines me and has made mewho I am is the relationships I did not have. Yup, that's right, no typo there, the relationships I did not have.

As a young lad I had a tendency to idealize certain people. I had these crushes that I just wouldn't let go of. Most of the time it wasa relationship that never could be, someone attached, a girl that was out of my league, a friend's sister, a foreign head of state... but there I'd be with my crush anyway, an insecure adolescent who in no way, not in a million kazillion years would show his emotions and put himself in a position where he could actually be hurt. No, I'd admire from afar. I'd put them on a pedestal. I'd ignore other romantic possibilities, holding out for that impossible relationship, but neverever never ever doing anything to get the ball a rollin'. I admit that I was somewhere between one of those slightly nerdy guys in a teen romance comedy that eventually charms the girl and the dude that shot president Reagan to impress a woman, but I'd at least like to think I was slightly closer to the first one.

The first in a long line of these pre-failed relationships was with Carrie. She was my friend's sister, as off limits as it gets. Still, you can't control your feelings. Inner-most emotions don't know your buddy finds the mere thought, well, icky. It started innocently enough. I used to write parody songs to go with the hits on the radio. She'd read them and laugh and laugh and laugh; that's a lot of laughing. Some people might have suspected insanity or a gas leak, but me, I read it as true love. The feeling was not mutual, but that didn't stop me.

I continued to write songs... "Tim Tracy," about a friend of ours with anger issues to the tune of AC/DC's TNT. Van Halen's "Panama' became "Malaria," including the insanely romantic lyric, "Burinin'when I urine too." The best (read: most embarrassing in retrospect) was the history of our friendship and all the people around us to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire," by Billy Joel. It actually worked surprisingly well as a song, except that I couldn't come up with anything logical or real to replace "Bay of Pigs Invasion" with "May O naise and Bacon." No, it didn't make sense, and my friends called me on it, so I made up this elaborate lie about this dude that came into the burger joint I worked at and ordered mayo/bacon sandwiches. I even swore up and down that Carrie had been there once visiting me when the guy came in. I asked my pal Ray to back me up. He didn't. I had to back track and come up with some sort of "thinking of you makes me think of sandwich spread and pork products thing." The relationship was never the same.

I found out four months (four months of extreme candle burning) later, when I finally worked up the courage to ask her to the Valentine's dance, that she'd been secretly dating (in the way that only high school kids, co-workers, or leaders of the free world can secretly date) one of my best friends the whole while. Nothing says love like awkwardly inappropriate song lyrics.
He's still one of my best friends, I haven't seen her for a decade, but I was romantically altered for eternity.

I was over Carrie, but for a good chunk of high school I dreamed about, and had a very long-term non-relationship with Christine, my next door neighbor. Sure, I only actually spoke to her twice: once at the bus stop freshman the first day of freshman year. She was new. I was new. She asked, in a very friendly, very hot, manner, "Is anyone else here new?" Already smitten, I began a beautiful non-relationshipwith a meekly muttered, "me."

Sure, like any relationship, ours was rocky at times, there were highs and there were lows. The highs being the bus stop encounter, the lows being the subsequent four years during which we never spoke. But, fate stepped in. At the senior picnic, a water fight between the students and the teachers broke out. My counsellor, Mr. Keller, was hiding behind a tree. Christine was kind enough to point him out to me, shouting, "Mike, behind the tree."

Be still my heart, there was pointing too, yes, our relationship had advanced to the pointing point in just four short years. "Uh...eruhodeusdsickh," I shouted as I dumped a bucket of water on Mr. K, relieved that I finally got that off my chest.

Nothing says love like incoherent mutterings and an angry school dean.

My relationship with Christine ended that day. I saw her in the neighborhood once or twice that summer, but once she left for college, I never laid eyes on her again.

When I got to college, I developed a crush on Gina. Gina lived on my floor, right across the hall. Throughout the year, my feelings for her grew. She was amazing, the only flaw being one of those soul crushing "boyfriends back home." I didn't care. She was worth waiting for. I never made my feelings known, but I hung around her like a vulture waiting for little bits of roadkill (only she was quite a bit more attractive that roadkill). It didn't help things that her boyfriend was an ass. Frequent almost break-ups occurred, but it was never enough for me to make a move. We became really close friends, she often bounced boyfriend ideas off me, kind of like those little poisonous blow gun darts bounce of human flesh. It was fun, in the same kinda way that the poison and the darts and the bouncing from the flesh would be fun.

My roommate, fully aware of my predicament, suggested a heavy night of college binge drinking. "Emotions get high, inhibitions get low. Nothing erases an idiot boyfriend from a chick's memory like cheap beer. It's perfect," Ted swore to me.

I took his advice, he shooed everyone else out of the way for a night and the chugging commenced. I almost got up the courage to tell her how I felt. I swear, it was right there, almost perfect, but then... well, let's just say that nothing quite says love like dual upchucks.

Gina and I "broke up" when we both transferred schools the next fall.

At my new school, I met Sharon. She was the perfect girl to not have a relationship with. I worked backstage on the plays, she was a singer/actress. How not perfect is that? She asked me to help her with a play was directing for a class. I asked her to act in my play the next year. That was the extent of it. I never had the balls to figure out if there could be more. Two years later (yes, I know it's sudden), I made my move. I sent her flowers after a performance, that would have been a pretty good way to see if there were any feelings, except that I decided against signing my name and turned a nice gesture into just-on-this-side-of-creepy.

Nothing says true love like stalkerish tendencies.

After college I floundered around a bit. I still wanted to live the college lifestyle, only with a degree and no classes (read: Mike was a slacker fully prepared to out slack all slackers that had come before him). I kept working as a bartender and waiter, claiming that the poverty lifestyle would force me to work on my writing, force me to work for a better life, keep me wanting more. It also forced me to live in a dump and eat Hot Pockets and macaroni and cheese a lot.

While working at this little Italian joint, I met Toni. She had everything I didn't. Courage, an outgoing nature, spirit, vim and vigor (I have no idea what vigor or vim are, but somehow I knew they were good and Toni had them). What more could I ask for?

We became work friends, then sometimes outside of work friends, then really real friends. I actually made a move; I thought there could be something more, so I invited her to a party. That "something more" I was hoping for turned out to be the long-term boyfriend she brought along to the shin-dig, but had failed to ever mention before that night.

Nothing says true love like crying into your microwave meat filled pastry.

They say that fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce, and sincethe other fifty end even worse (no one seems to ever mention the part about the death and the 'til we parting), so I figure my non-relationships were much healthier choices. No one got hurt. No one got dead. And, best of all, no lawyers got rich.

It all worked out in the end though, eventually I grew up (and grew a pair). I met an amazing woman who showed me that I could love morethan I ever imagined a man could love. And, this one actually acknowledged my existence to boot. I went ahead and married her.

The only snafu, I couldn't convince her to play the May O naise and Bacon song at the wedding. Nothing says true love like being okay with that.

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The Legend of Eddie Bubble Gum

There are a handful of moments every now and again that trigger some deep, long forgotten sense memory in me. Once in a while, when the wind is just right, a neighbor will light up his barbeque and just a whiff of the coals will transport me back to a summer evening cooking out on the grill in our backyard. Just the right smell of just the right kind of leather sparks visions of long hours spent patrolling the little league outfield with my glove to my face to smell the greatest smell on Earth – leather and baseball dirt. Music can do it too. The opening chords of Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong has me longing for my days in the college dorms, and while I’ve probably only heard it two or three times in the last fifteen years, just a note or two of Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam’s Lost in Emotion instantly sends me back to 1987, so much so that I’d swear that I can smell the fresh paint my dad and I spent that entire summer coating our new house with. A nice rain, and the smell of worms, helps me recall family fishing trips. Overripe tomatoes, for some reason, give me mental images of these big fat green hairless caterpillars that roamed the fields around my neighborhood – we must have found them on backyard tomato plants at some point, because cutting into an even slightly mushy tomato makes me wince, as a picture of these alieny green bugs that emitted some sort of funky stank from their heads while little red antennae popped out. While these images that stem from smells and sounds are strong, nothing triggers sense memory for me quite like food.

When I start to think of specific foods from my childhood, memories flood my brain. Just the mention of Fun Dip has me salivating, and even though it’s been two decades since I’ve had any, I could just about taste the poof of candy powder that erupts from the pouch when you tear into a packet of Fun Dip as I typed those words. I can smell the artificial grape and strawberry chemical compounds that made Fun Dip so darn fun, and I can feel the grainy white stick slide across my tongue right now. What a disgusting concept that product was. While thoughts of Fun Dip have me planning a lunch hour trip to the local 7-11 to search for my old friend (or at the very least, snatch up a few packets of Smarties and Sweet Tarts that I can pound the crap out of with my stapler until I have my own homemade Fun Dip), that’s not even the food that conjures up the strongest memories. For some reason, the top of my list is cluttered with a variety of tube shaped foods – hot dogs, the Super Rope licorice, Freeze Pops, Cow Tails, and beef jerky all hold a special place in the pantry of my mind, but the Grandpappy of edible memory triggers is Big Daddy Bubble Gum.

I honestly don’t know if they make this anymore. I don’t know if it was ever even widely available. I don’t know if it came from a crazed bubblegum fanatic who had a mini-gum factory in his basement hidden somewhere in the maze of cul de sacs that is suburbia. The only place I ever saw Big Daddy Bubble Gum for sale was the concession stands of the little league baseball fields in my neighborhood.

For the uninitiated, Big Daddy Bubble Gum was indeed the big daddy of all bubblegum, not a stick like Big Red, or a hunk like Bubblicious, or a brick like Bazooka Joe, or a ball like you might chip your tooth on, or shredded like Big League Chew, or a nugget o’ gum like a Chicklet – Big Daddy was a rod of gum. As pornographic as this entire paragraph is going to come across, we’re talking about a nine inch gum pipe. I don’t remember which is a diameter and which is a circumference and what you multiply pi by to get the body mass index of a Big Daddy, but I’d have to guess that it was about as big around as one of those fatty pencils that they make you use in kindergarten, only it was about twice as long. Packaged in a slick plastic sheath that you had to tear open with your teeth, Big Daddy was coated in a strange white powder that was more flour than sugar, but may just have been cocaine’s little brother for all the addictive properties a rod o’ Big Daddy had. I don’t recall all the flavors they made, only that my preferred Big Daddy came in a bright blue wrapping that gets me excited just thinking about it.

I can distinctly recall sprinting to the concessions after a hard fought little league battle just to get my little mitts on another Big Daddy. Sitting here right now, twenty-five years after the fact, I can feel the smooth plastic, the soft gum inside, and the struggle I always had to tear into the wrapper. I can smell the chemically enhanced fruity flavors burst out of the plastic. I can just about feel the weird white powder on my fingers and the not-quite-as-soft-as-it-looks gum in my mouth. I can taste the grapey, bubble gummy, and mystery fruit flavored goodness right now. It makes my jaw hurt, my jaw which is probably twice the size as it was back in the day, just to think about the massive entire-pack-of-Bubble-Yum sized wad of goo I’d chomp on for seven innings at a time. Then I start to remember my neighbor and teammate Eddie Mayer. At one game little Eddie shoved an entire log of Big Daddy into his yap before taking the mound. He pitched great, prompted Coach Lakaitis to dub him “Eddie Bubble Gum.” Eddie liked the nickname so much, that despite the possibility of lockjaw (or, considering the Eddie to gum mass ratio, an entire locked head) he began a pregame ritual during which he would shove three or four Big Daddy Bubble Gums into his mouth.

Unbelievably, it helped. Eddie went from the worst player on the team to our top pitcher in the course of one foot long gum branch. His fastball had more pop. His curveball was suddenly wicked. He change-up changed so much that it changed, went back to being what it was initially, then changed again. It was like the bubble gum had empowered his arm to make the ball miss bats. Eddie Bubble Gum became a folk hero of sorts after he threw three straight no-hitters. There was an article about him in the local paper. There were kids asking for his autograph. There was a teammate who wrote an Eddie Bubble Gum song that helped the legend grow. Kids on other teams would breathe a sigh of relief on Eddie’s off days. Coaches would resign themselves to a loss. Opponents would see striking out against Bubble Gum as a badge of honor – something they would tell their grandkids about the day Eddie Bubble Gum was elected to the Hall of Fame.

Eddie’s new found success was part luck and part the power of positive thinking and part a psychological advantage – at first. Soon though, it inspired him, motivated him, pushed him. In no time Eddie Bubble Gum was watching major leaguers, studying their pitching delivery. He was reading books, trying to find any tips he could. And, he was practicing, practicing, practicing. He threw each and every day. Being his next door neighbor, I was suddenly elected catcher, so that I could work with him at home before and after practice. It was inspiring to see his dedication, but disgusting to see the little pink sugar crusties form on the corners of his mouth and the bubble gum juice erupt from his cheeks as he grunted with each fastball he threw.

Soon his nice white uniform was streaked with spitty, fruity globs of pink, blue, and green. This lasted most of a season, until Eddie’s mom made it to a game. You see, she’d been home most of this time looking after a newborn baby brother (who several coaches had already called dibs on), then it stopped real quick. The legend of Eddie Bubble Gum died because Mrs. Bubble had finally figured out what her son was doing that was making laundry day such a chore. No more gum, that was the decree from above. At first Eddie resisted, sneaking smaller wads (Jupiter would have been a smaller wad) into his cheek before gametime, but mom found him out. Eddie Bubble Gum was no more.

Opponents, sure that the gum was the source of Eddie’s dominance, were suddenly confident that they could hit him. Teammates began to question his ability. Coaches grumbled about banning mom from the ballpark. Eddie doubted himself.

The first game he started after the bubble gum ban was imposed was a disaster. He hit the first batter, walked two more, gave up a three run triple, and felt a little pop in his shoulder. Coach pulled him. He pitched again a few days later and was back to domination, striking out the first ten kids he faced. He kept it up, pitching great time after time all the way through high school and into college, but it wasn’t the same. He was just Eddie, and later just Ed. He wasn’t a legend anymore. He wasn’t a folk hero. He wasn’t Eddie Bubble Gum. In fact, it wasn’t long before kids went back to calling him by his old nickname – an unfortunate label inflicted upon him due to a strange set of allergies that left him with a runny nose all year round – Eddie Bubble Gum went back to being known as “Booger Ed.”

Until something triggered the memory of that gum, I’d forgotten about Eddie. I moved out of that neighborhood a few years after that baseball season and over time we fell out of touch. What a fun summer that was. What a fantastic baseball season. What a fastball. What a memory. What a bubble gum.

To get Eddie Bubblegum into the Hall of Fame, vote here.

No Ducks Were Harmed in the Writing of This Post

People do stupid things. Let's face it. There's no denying it. I'm pretty sure that we can all agree on that.

We can also agree, I'm sure, on the fact that you are a person. Unless you're a government trained chimp learning to read blogs so you can assimilate into our society, in which case, leave me alone G-monkey. Everyone else is probably a person. Therefore, you have likely done something stupid. The variation, of course, is the degree of our stupidity.

Sometimes it's as simple as a stupid comment slipping out of your mouth, like this one that haunts me to this day from my first day in the dorms at a "get to know the other people on the floor" meeting.

RA - "So, Mike, do you think there are any pretty girls on our floor?"

Mike (in front of the whole floor) - "Oh yeah, and Stan (my new
roommate) is two of them."

What the hell did that mean? It sounded funny in my head before I said it, but when it came out of my mouth, I immediately wished I could grab those words out of the air and cram them back in my cramhole. I thought about making a cross dressing joke at Stan's
expense, but, this was my bed to lie in. Everyone else seemed to think that what I said was pretty stupid as well, evidenced by all the very uncomfortable chuckles and a whole bunch of weird stares. Other than that, all I got was a guarantee that I would not see a single girl from my floor naked that year. College started off with a bang.

Sometimes, the stupid things we do are more pronounced and have a greater impact, as well as bigger repercussions. "Oh, that was dumb, perhaps I shouldn't have stuck that fireplace poker through my step-mom's chest. Stupid stupid stupid. Why do I do these idiotic things?"

The stupidest thing I ever did was somewhere in between those two.

Back in my high school days, my friends and I caused a little bit of trouble. Never really bad stuff, no one ever died, and only one trip to the hospital was ever made, but being model citizens bored us. Somewhere down the line one of us must have come up with the goal to be included in the weird crimes section of the newspaper, because the stupid things we did were ... well, really really stupid.

There were several of our escapades that could easily make a top ten list, such as pulling over on the side of the road and tossing one of those orange blinky saw horse construction zone things into the car. For some reason we thought it'd be cool to have one. We didn't think the whole thing through, and our crime became very apparent as we
drove down one of the busiest streets in town, the backseat of the car glowing and flashing orange.

That was probably topped on the stupidity scale by the time we found a discarded kitchen sink, filled the back seat of the car with other randomly odd items, and drove around hoping to get pulled over so we could hear a cop say, "You've got everything, including the kitchen sink in there." We did. He did. He let us off.

We also got away with doing doughnuts in the middle of a corn field, even though there were corn stalks sticking out of the car’s front grill, removing all the flags from the local golf course and reinstalling them in strategic places throughout my friend Jerry’s house, sinking a stolen shopping cart in our buddy's pool, filling a neighbor's hot tub with laundry detergent, and "TPing" a friend's girlfriend's house with nearly 10,000 "found" shoelaces.

All of those pale in comparison to the dumbest thing we ever did. We decided to steal a duck crossing sign. Why? I have no idea. We must have thought it would look good hanging on one of our walls. There was just something about the silhouette of that mama duck and the tree little baby ducks that simply screamed out, “I got to have that.”

Our plan was simple. We found three potential Duck Crossing Signs to take. One near an apartment complex, one along a shopping plaza, and one in the middle of a subdivision. Each of them had their difficulties, so we weighed our options. It was decided that sign number two would be the easiest. It was in the parkway, adjacent to a mid-sized strip mall. Even though it was just a block off of a main street, in a high traffic area, we thought it was our best option because it wasn’t in a residential area. I mean, who would be hanging out in the Office Depot parking lot in the middle of the night? It would still be complicated, but we were up to the task. Of course, we were stupid.

It was decided that my pal Owen and I would do the deed. Matt, the Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes of the group (an insult I just don't get – don’t most people have two shoes?), would
drive the get away car.

Owen packed his socket set, just in case the bolts were different sized and we were off. Of course, we waited until the middle of the night when the cover of darkness, the lack of traffic, and those stores being closed would increase our probability of success. Matt
dropped us off and drove away.

This was to be a quick mission. Owen was taller, so he'd remove the top bolt. At the same time, I'd loosen the lower one. By the time Matt circled the block, we'd be ready to throw the sign in the trunk, jump in, and speed off. All plans have kinks though. Kink number one was that we could barely reach the bottom bolt, and the the top one was a good two feet beyond our outstretched arms.

We looked around, Owen humming the theme to Mission: Impossible. There, about fifty yards away, was the nicely done landscaping for the shopping center. Whoever did that did an excellent job. A little area filled with trees and bushes, mulch, all of it surrounded by a small retaining wall made up of bowling ball sized rocks. The rocks, probably about two of them when stacked next to the pole, would be about perfect for helping us reach that pesky top bolt.

Snafu number two. Those rocks, well, they were as heavy as... really heavy rocks. I tried to lift one, but when my eyes almost popped out of my head from the strain, I realized I was looking at a recipe for Insta-Hernia. We were going to each grab a stone and haul it over to the sign, but it took both of us to even budge one. Slowly, we lugged the rocks into place, Owen, all the while, humming the theme to The Flintstones.

Meanwhile, Matt had been driving in circles around the area to avoid the suspicion of a car parked in the shopping center lot in the middle of the night. He checked back on us, saw us messing around with rocks, and was confused. Figuring we’d be ready to go by now, he started to get nervous and instead of continuing around and around the commercial areas, he took a quick turn into an apartment complex and cruised around in there for a while.

Before too long, (thank God or my arms would have fallen off) we got both rocks in place. Owen got the bottom bolt off. Seeing as how he was balancing on top of a round stone that was balancing on top of another round stone, he was rocking back and forth, teetering a little, then tottering a tad. I tried to hold him steady, but there was nothing we could do. This incident with the rocks was slowing down our initial plan so much that we should have just called it quits and re-planned our caper. Did I happen to mention that we were stupid?

I was acting as lookout. At first, we didn't think we'd need a lookout, but the turtle pace of our scheme was keeping us exposed longer than we'd intended. Pretty soon, I had two things to say to Owen. "Lookout," and "Who in the world goes jogging at two o' clock
in the morning?"

Owen jumped down off the rock tower as fitness boy rounded the corner. He slyly shoved the wrench into his pocket and started humming the theme to Sanford and Son. I have no idea what significance that had.

As Mr. Ankle Weights passed, we exchanged pleasantries, as anyone would do when they encounter a stranger in the dark during the wee hours of the morning while he’s trying to keep his heart rate up and your plotting the demise of street crossing ducks everywhere.

As soon as Johnny Sweatbands was out of sight, Owen climbed back up, speedily spun that top bolt, and let the sign fall into the grass.

Suddenly, three cars in a row came down the street, their headlights shining right in our eyes. It’s hard not to look guilty when you are in fact incredibly guilty and your plan has gone kaput and your standing in the grass in the middle of the night next to an empty post and a road sign lying on the ground, so we probably looked pretty guilty. Panic took over. We started to walk away, in the direction that Matt would be coming from. Mission aborted.

I know what you’re thinking, “wise decision,” right? Haven’t you been paying attention? We were stupid. That’s the theme of this whole thing. Do you actually think we just walked away?

Matt swung out of the apartment parking lot, we jumped in, and took off.

We drove around aimlessly for the next hour or so. Kicking ourselves for not finishing the job. Upset that we were so close, but did not taste the sweet cigar. We decided to go back. We'd be cautious though. All we'd do is cruise down the street, pull into the shopping center, and take a lap or two to see how clear the coast was.

That's exactly what we did. Only, just as we pulled into the parking lot, a cop car pulled in behind us. We continued to drive along the storefronts, Matt started to freak out a little more than we'd have liked. The lot was empty, none of the stores had been open for hours, but there we were, being tailed by the police into a deserted mini-mall. Why were we in there? Why did we go back? What would our excuse be when those rollers started flashing?

Matt, good little citizen that he is, kept to the posted speed limit of 10 miles per hour, which made the whole event seem surreal, like a slo-mo action movie scene. He even stopped at all twelve of the little parking lot stop signs that most people don't even abide by during the day unless some old lady wanders out of the Honey Baked Ham store (yes, this mall had a whole store devoted to the heaven that is the honey baked ham) and into the road, Johnny Law right behind us at each and every one.

Then it happened. At the last stop sign, almost out onto the main road, the flashing lights went off. Since we were mid-speed bump, cruising along at a whopping seven miles an hour at that point, it really didn't take that much effort to pull over.

The cop strolled up to Matt's window and shined his ridiculously bright light into each of our faces. He seemed a bit jittery and nervous. "What are you guys doing out here so late at night?" He asked.

A fair question, but luckily our speedy lap through the parking lot gave us enough time to get our stories straight. "We're supposed to meet a friend here," Matt answered, doing a really good job at faking the calm, the cool, and the collected.

"Oh yeah, whose your friend?" Coppy Copperson asked, sure he was about to trip us up.

"Jerry," we answered in such perfect unison that I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Jerry who?"

"Schmutz," all together now, like a three man barbershop quartet. Come on, who could make up a name like that? He had to believe this story.

A couple more cop cars pulled up behind us and suddenly Barney Fife had his groove back. With a new found sense of confidence, he started in with the hard core interrogation tactics.

"Well, how long have you been waiting for your friend?"

Matt took this one on his own. He was in the driver's seat, so the questions seemed to be directed at him. Barney must have sensed Matt's weakness. "We just pulled in here right before you."

Coppy didn't buy it. He informed us that he had a witness that had seen us up to no good. Owen and I silently cursed fitness boy, assuming that he was the narc. Matt held strong.

The cop continued. "Don't make me go get the witness, guys. That will just make this
whole process worse."

As this game went on, Owen and I started to get the impression that the cop was bluffing us. We sensed that there was no witness. Good little Fitness Boy had minded his own business. The cop hadn't actually seen us doing anything, therefore had to get us to confess to something. No way. We wouldn't do it. We would never fall for such trickery.

"Come on guys, make it easy on yourselves, just tell me what you were doing."

"Ok, Ok," Matt started, falling for the trickery.

"Noooooooooooo," Owen and I shouted, in slow motion, inside our heads.

"We were stealing the duck crossing sign."

"You were what?" a very confused Deputy Fife asked.

"We were stealing the duck crossing sign," Matt repeated.

"Why would you do that?" the cop, who, on the off chance that we actually had been no good fired a lone warning shot into the dark cold night hoping to hit something. It was so obvious to Owen and I that he had no idea what we'd been up to, but that lone shot hit Matt square in the face.

"We're a bunch of idiots," Matt confessed, nearly in tears.

"OK. Hold on," the cop said, wandering away to chat with his cop buddies.

A minute or two later, after Owen and I had soundly chastised Matt for his cowardice and stupidity, the cop and his pals strolled back to the window.

"Now, what did you guys do?"

Matt launched back into the whole story and a group of highly entertained officers of the law stood there riveted. By then, we had seven cop cars attending to us.

They were all a bit surprised by Matt's confession, seeing as how they'd been called because some old woman had seen Matt's car circling around her apartment building for almost an hour. She was concerned that he was casing the joint for a robbery.

Eventually, they had us lead them back to the other side of the lot and show them the sign. Once they saw the sign on the ground, they pulled us out of Matt's hatchback and frisked us. I had nothing to hide but a wrench in my pocket, but since Matt had already confessed for us, there was no reason to worry about that. I'd completely forgotten, until Officer Friendly found it, that I had a little GI Joe figure backpack sound effects doohicky in my jacket. The cop got a little concerned about the unidentifiable lump in my pocket and pulled it out. Confuddled, he pressed the little buttons to hear laser beam
and hand grenade noises. At the same time, on the other side of the car, laser beams echoed back at us. I looked up to see that another slightly confused policeman had found Owen's noise maker. "What, do you guys communicate with these things or something?" cop number two asked.

Also in Owen's pocket, the cop found the bolts to the sign. Owen smiled in his Oweny sort of way and asked the cops if we could just put the sign back up and forget about the whole thing. They liked half that idea and pretty soon Owen was back up there, teetering on the rock pile to fasten the bolts. They didn't seem to care for the forget about the whole thing part of our proposition.

Later, at the police station, the three of us sat there quietly while a group of officers debated what they should charge us with. They only seemed mildly amused when Owen kept wandering over into their conversation and requesting that no matter what we were charged with that the word "duck" was some how included on the citation.

While filling out the paperwork for our "removal of traffic control signals" ticket, one of the cops asked Matt what his license plate number was. Too distraught to recall his own name at this point, Matt blanked. His car was parked out front, so the officer at the desk
used a little joy stick to maneuver a security camera to get a better look. He couldn't seem to get the right angle from any of the cameras he tried, so Owen offered to give it a shot. They said no, so he ran.

The cops started to scramble after him, but somehow, through my power of persuasion, I told them to stop and wait. This was Owen they were dealing with, he wasn't going to go all fugitive on them, he really wanted a ticket with the word "duck" on it, and he wouldn't leave without it.

Camera cop spun his eyes in the sky around, trying to pick up Owen on his monitor. Pretty soon he did, and there he was standing in front of Matt's car, reading the license plate number. Then, because he's Owen and that's what he does, he looked back at the building. Watching him on the monitor, you could see his eyes dart around to find the same camera the officer had been using, and once he did, he began to do what he calls "The Cantaloupe in Heat" dance, which consists of waving your arms about
like a slow motion stork and hopping from one foot to the other while bringing your knees almost up to your armpits. There's sound effects too, but I can't even begin to explain them. It's actually quite a sight. He used to do it all the time, but now he only pulls out the cantaloupe at weddings when the bride asks for it. Believe me, it's always requested.

The cops didn't quite know what to make of this sight, but I was loving it. The longer he did it, the funnier it got to the room full of lawmen. I took a shot and asked if the entertainment that is Owen could serve as payment for any fine they were going to hit us with. They found that funny too.

It took some time, but eventually they gave us our tickets and sent us on our way. We got a few laughs again when the court date came, but when we were told exactly how much our fine would be, there was no more ha ha. We'd learned our lessons. We were all reformed. Each of us is now completely pro-fowl. Never again would we interfere with a duck's ability to safely cross the street.

Still, I can’t help but think one of those signs would look good above my fireplace.

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I Mention Wilford Brimley in this Post, and I'm Not Just Saying That to Win Your Heart

Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings. - Evan Esar

We went to the zoo the other day, armed with our brand new video camera. We did all the things that proud new video camera owners are supposed to do. We tried out everything. Night vision, lights, quick focus, stabilization thingamabahobbers. We zoomed in. We zoomed out. I zoomed so much, I think I actually got footage inside a bear's nose. That's a powerful little camera. This morning, we finally got around to watching what we'd taped, and besides now knowing that the inside of a panda nose is surprisingly spacious, I came to the realization that the people at the zoo are far more entertaining than the animals. We actually found ourselves rewinding the tape to point out to each other odd things people had done and going back again and again to try and make out what someone had said in the background.

After nearly thirty minutes of zoo footage, we came up with a zoorific theory on the people at the zoo. On first glance it may seem that there are simply two types of zoo patron, kid and adult. Closer looks however break that down even further; hyper kid, bored kid, adult. A trained eye, however, will be able to distinguish between twelve, yes, that is a twelve, subspecies of zoo patrons. They are as follows:

1. The Scooter Alonger. The Scooter Alonger can be recognized by his inability to stay at any one display for more than a few seconds. Scooter Alongers, much like sharks and helicopters, are unable to stop moving. They're not necessarily in a hurry, but also will not be caught dawdling. There's constant shuffling of feet, never more than a mere glimpse of any animal, and quite often a confused look on their faces as they have to double back to find thier family members who fit into a different category.

2. The Attention Defici...Wha? What's Thaters. These folks have the attention span of a gnat. In fact, even gnats bore them. They are easily distracted by bright lights, the waving of arms, the sound of jingling keys, or motion of any sort. At the zoo they can often be heard making broad statements like, "I love the monkeys. The monkeys are my favo...Hey. Is that a polar be... Camels. Look everyone, camels." Do not get in their way, they bounce to and fro in a potentially (unintentionally) violent and dangerous way.

3. Sign Readers. Always wanting to be well informed about every detail about every single animal they do not see, because they're too busy absorbing paragraph after paragraph aboubt the mating habits of the naked mole rat and holding up their arms to compare them with the wingspan of the California condor and matching thier handprints with those of all of the great apes and turning knobs and flipping flaps and spinning wheels... These are the people that miss the rare occurrences when a captive animal actual does something different than sleep or lick its own butt, because they are too busy reading the signs. They can often be heard complaining, "Oh, I missed it." These folks don't realize they could go home and read a book about an animal, but unless there's an aardvark in their living room, there are certain things you can only accomplish while actually in the confines of the zoo.

4. Sign Scanners. A close relative of the sign readers, sign scanners are a dangerous sort. They merely skim the material presented to them on the zoo signs, often misinterpreting what they've been told. These are the people that believe that lions are making a fashion statement with the hair-do, tortoises are simply turtles after puberty, dolphins are in fact fish (not eat fish), and red pandas and giant pandas belong to the same bridge club. Sign scanners absorb a small percentage of the information given, but spout it back at their compatriots as if they know the whole story - often times filling in the blanks with professed expertise. These sad folks are most often found pontificating misinformation to their young. Sign scanners should be considered dangerous, keep children and elderly away.

5. Excessive Picture Takers. Are easily spotted, just follow the strobe effect of the flash bulb. They often have a dazed look in their eye from the light bouncing back at them off the plexi-glass enclosures. They often make proud declarations about the size of their memory cards and can usually be found scrolling through thier camera's memory and proudly showing thier companions the seventeen perfect shots they got of the "whatever that thing is." EPT's rarely know what they're photographing, but manage to frame each snap in such a way that it appears that they've just happened to stumble across a bandicoot in their backyard. An endagered subspecies of EPTs is the Almost Out Of Film EPTs. Before the advent of digital photography these folks could be found everywhere, but sadly, now a sighting is rare. If we don't take care to prevent their demise, out children may never hear a AOOFEPT bemoan, "I'm almost out of film. I took sixty-eight pictures of the gibbon, now I only have two shots left, and I have to save them for something really cool."

6. Linger Way Too Longers. These are the people that stare at the baboon butts just a wee bit longer than socially acceptable. At first they seem harmless. At first you believe they're trying to be in touch with nature. At first you disregard the odd behavior. Then, as if a light bulb just smacked you in the temple, you realize that if you saw the same person exhibiting the same behavior at the neighborhood playground, you'd be dialing 911 before I could sing the chorus of "Man in the Mirror." Be forewarned, do not look directly at the folks. Do not engage and for the love of Mike, do not make eye contact. If unsure, keep in mind, their finger prints are probably on file someplace.

7. Know It Alls. While annoying, like dung beetles and spiders, these creatures actually serve a purpose. Many an animal kingdom illiterate parent could benefit from following one of these people from pen to pen. Know it alls show up at the zoo with the knowledge that sign readers want and the sign scanners believe they've found. If you can find a nice know it all, one who doesn't lord his/her/its knowldege over the little people, stick with them. A very rare sighting, but absolutely priceless.

8. Don't Know It Alls. A far more common cousin of the Know It All. Sadly, these folks think they are Know It Alls. Like those butterflies that aren't poisonous, but look like other poisonous ones to fool the predators, these somewhat dangerous pests hook you in with an interesting fact. It seems plausible, and you figure that they must be smart, so you listen and believe that you're learning. Next thing you know it, you're at work the next day, telling your friends that canaries come from the Canary Islands, and Wolves come from Wolfistan, and Camels are bred and traded for small aircraft in Camelonia.

9. The Absolutely Clueless. The elderly, the very young, and the mentally disabled are usually the only ones that fall into this category. They generally have no idea where they are, what all the fuss is about, and are mostly wondering who will change their diapers. Zoos that serve alcohol (yes, they exist, so someone must have thought that Long Island Ice Tea and dangerous wild beasts made a good combo) have a more abundant population of ACs, but they can be found in most public arenas, usually playing with a straw or a napkin, completely satisfied with a form of entertainment that didn't have a fifteen dollar ticket price.

10. Schedule Keepers. These are fast moving folks who have a mission. Much like migrating geese or marching penguins, these people have somewhere to be and they are usually behind schedule. You can identify this species by their folded, unfolded, and refolded maps. You'll most often find them moving very quickly, herding members of these other categories, and shouting, "We've got a schedule to keep, people. We only have so many hours and there are a lot of animals to see," or something to that effect. Schedule Keepers are, without fail, close to a stroke due to the incompliance of their sign reading/lingering/clueless/photo-op/attention span lacking cohorts.

11. Shove the Kids to the Fronters. Always accompanied by their offspring, these zoo patrons are often pushing and shoving their children into prime viewing spots. These folks, regardless of what said offspring want, desire the kids to be front and center at each and every exhibit. They are easily recognizable by their mating call, "Do you see the ocelot, Timmy? Can you see it? Do you need to move closer? Let's move closer? Step over the barrier, Timmy, we'll see better. Don't worry about that ocelot, he's nice. He won't eat you, get a little closer, Timmy. Stop whining, so he took a little nibble, it's memories like this that you'll cherish forever, Timmy."

12. Careful Observers. These folks are a harmless breed. They are not grounded in reality. They, in fact, believe that they're on a nature safari in the wilds of what ever continent LaLa Land is on. They stare at the animals (sometimes even take notes or make sketches) as if they are Jane Goodall. Like a caterpillar or Wilford Brimley in the Cocoon, they can sometimes metamorphosisize into a Linger Too Longers or a member of the Know It All family. Can usually be recognized by the pith helmet and the blank stare. Of course, there are other species and subspecies and speciesubsubspeciespecies, but these are the most common humans found at the zoo.

Remember, it takes a keen eye to discern between the species, but this handy little guide should give you a head start. So, on your next trip to your local zoo, enjoy the lack of nature, dress for the weather, and steer clear of the people (the animals are much less dangerous). Let me know, which of these fits you and your family. Happy zooing.

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