Mickey Hadick

I spent this past weekend with a head cold, stuffed up sinuses, and sniffling and sneezing. What bothers me most about being sick is the lack of energy, and feeling tired, but not being able to sleep, but not being able to try because sometimes (most of the time) life goes on. I was at soccer games and music recitals, drove the kids to other appointments, and went visiting.

The "went visiting" part is probably the dumbest, because I've shared my germs with the world when, in that moment, I didn't need to do so.

The best part was the legitimate excuse to drink Dimetap elixr. It's the purple drink for children that is both anti-hystamine and decongestant. It works wonders for me, but makes me a little on the drowsy side. I love the taste. To me it's grape Kool Aid, and I believe it would be the perfect basis of a mixed drink, like the Flaming Moe.

However, I get very strange dreams when on it. I can't describe them, but suffice to say that I was overwhelmed with a creepy dread. It's funny that I'm surprised that pouring chemicals into my body might have an effect on my mind.

Labels: story

My son is not big on projects. It is not the way he learns, and he hates the idea of them. For the most part I agree with him, but it's something that has to get done.

My son is big on talking, watching television, and arguing. He especially likes arguing about what's on television, especially when he can use the DVR to prove a point through the miracle of pause and slow-motion. These things don't help get a project done.

Labels: memoir, story

This afternoon, a clock I've had for twenty years fell off the wall and broke. Shattered glass was all over the carpet, and the wooden body of the clock snapped in half. There was no good reason for it to fall when it did. The hook and nail were still in the wall. It had somehow been bounced off, but there was no particular bump when it happened. I would have blamed the cat, who has leaped at the pendulum before, but the cat wasn't home at the moment (out visiting friends).

I guess I don't mind if the house is haunted and the ghost is going to play pranks to mess with me. What I worry about is that the ghost may be watching me when I do very private things in the bathroom that I'd rather not have any one see. What if it's the ghost of my grandmother? I really, really don't want her seeing what I do in the bathroom.

Of course, grandma was never a jokester, so the ghost is probably not her. My father wouldn't do that either; he'd get right in my face and tell me how I was screwing up.

What I regret about the clock is not seeing it fall. It's a smallish clock and the pendulum is non-functional (i.e., it just swung back and forth but didn't regulate any gear movements). It hit the curio cabinet below it and then fell face forward to the floor. Shattered glass was sent into a three-foot kill zone and the pendulum remained on top of the curio cabinet. It wasn't bad to clean up—I put the larger chunks in a cardboard box and then vacuumed. It gives me the opportunity to install our cuckoo clock where the old one used to hang. If the ghost also knocks down the cuckoo clock, the joke will be on them because it's already broken. Maybe looking at the broken clock (which is correct twice a day) will motivate me to fix it.

What I know for sure about this ghost is that the jokester owes me a new clock. But if they simply don't tell everyone what I do in the bathroom, then we'll call it even.

Labels: story

I went to a Scotch tasting event in Ann Arbor yesterday. My friend is a connoisseur of wine and Scotch, and I was excited by his invitation. There is a world of flavors that I know nothing about, and I thought this would begin my journey.

My first lesson is that Scotch Whisky does not have an "e". Everything else, like Jack Daniels, is Whiskey.

Vendors set up tables along the walls and displayed various bottles. For our admission, we were given a sack full of twenty polished stones, and we profferred one polished stone for a taste. Some of the vendors were more generous than others, but whatever they gave was plenty—I could not drink all of my polished stones anyway.

The names of the various Scotch Whiskys were unpronounceable. My friend is a scotsman, and he rattled them off like a native. I tried to match his brogue at first, but gave up quickly. I would just point to the bottle hold out my glass, and offer a stone.

I have tried Scotch in the past, and didn't like it. This event did not change that, but I did appreciate many of them. I could almost imagine enjoying them. However, I probably won't.

The highlight of the evening was a toss-up between the two "Jack Daniels" girls and the handsome woman serving absinthe.

The Jack Daniels girls were young ladies in very high heels, very short skirts, and tight T-shirts emblazoned with the Jack label. They stood talking to each other the entire evening near the Jack Daniels vendor, and occasionally got themselves some food from the buffet. The event was dominated by men, and I'm sure these two were the highlight for many others. It was almost cruel, in fact, because the men there were mostly nerdy, clumsy looking middle-aged guys (like myself) that were more interested in getting their money's worth out of the booze and the buffet than making time with the young ladies. I think they could have been there naked and had no more, and no less, effect on the men. I may suggest that for next year.

Absinthe is a foul drink, notorious for destroying the liver and driving people insane. So I had some. If it was good enough for Hemingway, then it's good enough for me. It was incredibly like black licorice, and had no kick to it at all, until this morning. I woke up with a headache, but wasn't otherwise bothered with a hangover. I got up and moved around a bit, and realized I had to vomit. What came up was a green glob of bile that I can only think was that absinthe sitting in my stomach all night, waiting to annoy me.

Labels: story

There were two spit takes in my life in the past week that are worth relating as they reminded me of what I consider to be one of the better spit-take stories ever.

The first one happened in my cubicle. Someone stopped by to chat, and they happened to be eating something at the time. I was seated in my chair, and they stood over me telling a story while they chewed on some trail mix. While pronouncing a "t" sound (titillating would be nice, but, alas, it wasn't that word) a small crumb of chewed food was expelled from their mouth, and landed smack dab in the middle of my left eye glass lens. I was startled, but didn't draw attention to it lest I embarrass my visitor. I took the glasses off and rubbed my eyes; once they left me (the now forgotten story over) I cleaned my glasses.

The second was in a meeting and the person across from me was speaking. The late afternoon sun streamed in from the window behind their head, and I was able to see their spit expelled during the oratory. One droplet, reflecting the light, fell in a long arc from their lip to the middle of the conference table like a meteor streaking across the night sky. The unhygienic aspects of the spectacle aside, the sparkling droplet of spit was quite pretty. It made me smile.

The best spit-take story I heard happened in a training classroom for a computer system. One of the students, an older gentleman, called to the instructor and complained about the quality of the monitor. There were sparkles all across the cathode ray tube (CRT) that were bothering his ability to see the computer images. The instructor had never seen such a thing, and none of the other monitors exhibited such a bizarre effect.

As she struggled to diagnose the problem, the student sneezed. He failed to cover his mouth, and sneezed straight ahead, spitting all over his computer monitor. The screen lit up with dozens more sparkles, as the spit caught the light.

Labels: story

I tore into a brand new box of Lucky Charms and ate them out of the box. I'm not going to apologize for this behavior, but neither am I proud of it. Those charms are not just lucky, but they are also magical. I think they could be called "Magical Charms." I'd still buy them, but instead of a leprechaun as the mascot and spokesman, you'd have to have a midget-wizard, or maybe an elf.

I find them magical because of the aftertaste that lingers on my tongue and in my throat. I enjoy the aftertaste more so than the actual taste. There is something about the chemicals they use to create the marshmallows that coats my throat, and prolongs the flavor and the release of sugar. I find it intoxicating and delightful.

They coat the cereal things with some bland frosting, but I don't even notice those. They are just in the way, but I wouldn't want to eat just a box of marshmallows—that wouldn't be right. In truth, there is a fine interplay between the two ingredients, cereal and chemically-created marshmallow, that makes it work. I wouldn't change a thing. I don't even mind that they keep creating new shapes to include, but at some point in the future they are going to run out of cute things and someone in their design department, feeling desperate and having a very bad day, will suggest that they make a poop-shaped charm. I believe that that idea should be rejected. I don't think Lucky the Leprechaun can add "brown dookie" to his brag list of charms inside the box and sell cereal.

When I was but a mere child, I was careful to separate the marshmallows in my bowl of Lucky Charms, and save them for last. They would begin to melt in the milk, and a sugary scum formed across the top, but oh how proud I was of myself to have upwards of two dozen marshmallow charms remaining in my bowl, clinging to each other because of what I would later learn was surface tension in the milk. I thought they were friends, having fun in a white, sweet pool, or survivors of a boating accident, desperate to live, thinking they've been rescued by the great big spoon from the sky, only to realize they were being devoured by their God.

Now I just eat them out of the box.

Labels: standup, story

Yesterday, while working in the yard, I had an incident that demonstrates my own fault and folly with immaturity, and my relationship with my wife. She had done some pruning in one of her gardens, and loaded the refuse into a laundry basket. The laundry basket, overflowing with dead vegetation, was left at the side of the garage, presumably for someone other than herself to take it to our mulch pile in the backyard.

I could have been the person to do that, for I walked past that laundry basket everyday for a month making the exact route prescribed, from the garage to the backyard. It would have only taken a moment of thought to complete the transaction. But I have a fault in that I don't like cleaning up messes created by someone else. It's childish, I realize, but it's no sillier than other childish belief systems, such as the Unitarianism, Dewey Decimal, or Social Security.

I finally broke down yesterday and decided to take the laundry basket to the mulch pile. Of course, the laundry basket is a story in itself because it had fallen into disuse, I threw it away, and my wife retrieved it out of the trash. So I had plenty of resentment against this laundry basket before we even started.

On one of my many trips around the house while raking leaves, I bent over and grabbed the laundry basket. I noticed a foul, fetid odor. It reminded me of the mice nests whose stench I often find in our shed, so I held the basket away from me with some trepidation that a mouse (EEK!) might still be nested within. I felt something wet on my pants leg, and heard water pouring. At least I thought it was water, and in my mind imagined that basket sitting through rain storms and water gathering in the bottom. All that changed in an instant.

The foul, fetid stench gained strength. I looked at the water spilling from the basket in my hands, and noticed it was not clear like rain water, but tinged with yellow. The dogs had been urinating on the basket for weeks, and their pungent pee had been gathered there, and was now soaked into my pants and shoes.

When my anger subsided and the chore was done, I went inside the house. My daughter reeled at the smell. It turns out that massive amounts of dog urine is an effective family repellent.

Labels: mistake, standup, story

My father bought one brand new vehicle during my childhood. It was a 1976 Ford Econoline van burnt orange, and void of any accessories or options. It was bare metal inside, and came with the absolute minimum of two seats. His dream was to customize that van for a trip we took as a family to Yellowstone National Park. This was the age of customized vans. He was not attempting to put wall to wall shag carpeting and a water bed in the back so that he could score some serious tail (as far as I know); he was trying to make more of a recreational vehicle that would sleep a family of five.

My father was an engineer, designed things, and took the van customization very seriously. He spent weeks sketching out his ideas, to scale, on graph paper. His optimal design called for a bed across the back that could be expanded, two captians chairs in front, and a bench along one side that would convert to a mini-kitchen. There were storage cubbies everywhere. He also planned to install an AM/FM stereo with eight track tape deck and six speakers and a citizen's band radio.

Dad was also a bit paranoid--perhaps rightfully so given his upbringing--so the very first thing he installed was a kill switch disguised as a headphone jack. I suppose there were people that would steal an unfinished, oddly colored van. The next thing he did was have Sears install an after market cruise control. The switch was attached to the turn signal, as they are today, but this one stuck out like a sore thumb, and had wires hanging from it. It was novel and cool to me, though.

The deadline for the trip approached far too quickly, and the only customizations my father accomplished was the wooden frame for the bed, the captains chairs up front, and the new stereo. I think that is how much of life goes, with grand plans going wildly astray, and coming up short. But we took the trip, and rode in that van.

Mom and Dad sat up front, and my brothers and I either shared the bed in back, or sat on a lawn chair resting in the middle. I don't believe there was anything like a seat belt in that van. It was bare metal, unfinished lumber, and us. If there had been an accident, my brothers and I would have been thrown forward in free fall, waving our arms as we screamed in terror before splattering our brains on the dashboard. Those were the good old days for travel on our nation's highways.

During that first trip, we broke down in Omaha, Nebraska, and the transmission had to be repaired, and we all learned to hate Omaha. Our intention was to sleep in a tent in Yellowstone, but often, because of bear warnings, we had to pile into the van, and there we shivered in cold, uncomfortable, cramped quarters.

All of this is leading up to my very worst memory of that van. A few years later, I was riding with him in the van on a hot summer day. I was sixteen or seventeen at the time, and, for whatever reason, I didn't really want to be there with him, in that van, doing whatever we were doing. I was sitting on the cooler in back (we came to keep a Coleman cooler in the van for extra seating) when the van overheated and my Dad pulled it over.

He popped the hood and steam was escaping from the radiator cap. He decided to allow that pressure to escape, and he loosened the cap. It exploded in a burst of steam, scalding his face, eyes, hands, and arms. He backed away in pain, groaning and waving about anxiously.

I was bored by the whole episode, and I had already planted my ass in the lawn chair in the shade nearby to watch the proceedings. I could see he was in pain, but being a selfish, stupid teenager, I did nothing and hardly cared. Dad stood for a confused moment, not sure what he should do to help himself, and looked at me.

I said, "There's some ice in the cooler if you want it." But I didn't get up to help him, or ask about his injuries, or much of anything. As I said, I was a stupid, selfish teenager.

My son is fourteen now. I think I'm due to get a taste of my own medicine.

Labels: memoir, mistake, story

I went shopping the other night at Kroger's. Ostensibly, it was just for a few things: Bananas, Bagels, and Milk. The banana display stand was almost empty. Just a few scattered bunches, many spotted brown, and with three or four bananas in each bunch. They were picked over.

I once was at a training class (for OnBase, the document management solution, of all things) and sat next to a guy from Costa Rica who worked for Chiqita in Cincinnati, Ohio. He explained that Americans prefer buying nearly green bananas, and only like to eat them when they are a golden-yellow color, and unblemished to boot. We are picky and lousy customers. Europeans, being smarter(?) know that the brown spotted bananas are ripe and flavorful.

I happen to like the brown ones, a lot, but the rest of the family likes them ala American, golden-yellow. To serve them when they are that color, you pretty much have to buy them green yellow, and hope for the best.

An interesting thing happened, though, at that banana display. There was one other woman looking over the meager selection, and we began to compete for the bananas. She took a bunch with three green and one yellow, so I grabbed a bunch. She took another, so I did too. There were only a few bunches remaining—brown spotted, the way I like them—and she dared to take one of those. So I took two bunches of brown spotted. These bananas, by the way, were huge, like they were straight out of a South East Asian porno movie. Eventually she backed down, and left the display, but we had nearly picked it clean.

I think I broke my own record for most bananas, and I've been eating four huge ones a day ever since. If it's possible to overdose on banana-supplied potassium, I'm on my way.

Labels: mistake, story

I have placed a few of my movies on this site, under the stories section. This was done specifically for Dennis's benefit, but others may get a laugh.

Labels: administrative, story

Back once again is the short film I created two years ago with friends about a failed internet millionaire who is hoping to regain his glory, but his family and his housekeeper are not helping.

It's here on this site, under the stories menu. Soon, I hope to have all of my stories there, at which time I'll rearrange that part of the site.

All Others Pay Cash - Episode #1: Death By Chocolate

Labels: story

In Cleveland there are two main highways that lead into the city, and both of them stay high above the Cuyahoga River. That area, the Cuyahoga Valley just south of downtown, is an industrial wasteland where steel mills and chemical plants operate — not like they used to, of course, but they belch smoke into the sky, and burn off noxious fumes from their chimney stacks sending red, orange, and blue flames into the night. Riding on those highways, Interstates 71 and 77, is the closest thing Cleveland has to offer that compares to the "It's a Small World" ride at Disney World. In the span of five miles, you see the tops of buildings that once were the pinnacle of American industrial society, creating wealth for a few lucky ones, providing jobs for tens of thousands, and creating deadly pollution that damn near killed the entire region. Both my maternal and paternal grandfathers found work in those industrial mills, started families that thrived in Cleveland, and ultimately created me and my brothers.

I lived with my brother for eighteen months while I was going to graduate school at Cleveland State. He had a house in Parma, and I commuted from there to CSU, which was downtown. I took I-77 and never grew tired of the surreal view of the vestiges of Cleveland's glory. Being a city college, CSU only offered evening classes for graduate courses, and so I also had the advantage of commuting into town when most drivers were fighting to escape. My brother was also getting his law degree at CSU's Marshall College of Law, so he was there most evenings as well.

One day, my brother and I had reason to commute downtown together late in the afternoon. It was between four and five P.M., and traffic was heavy but not thick. We found ourselves pinned in behind a truck pulling a flatbed trailer, and on the trailer was a large industrial machine we couldn't quite identify. We were behind it for a couple of miles on I-77. Because traffic was slow, we had quite a few minutes to wonder what that machine might possibly be.

The machine was made mostly of stainless steel and absolutely filled the flatbed behind the truck. It had a large arm that hung over a massive round body. It was oddly familiar, but neither of us could quite place it.

That particular stretch of highway is rough and abused. The speed limits are not really necessary because the potholes and half-assed repairs keep only the most insane from going over 50. As we approached downtown, we noticed that the shaking from the bad road had caused the massive round body on the strange machine being transported ahead of us to spin on its axis.

As the Terminal Tower and BP Oil building came into view, we recognized what was before us: an industrial sized mixer, and the massive round body was its enormous mixing bowl. The spinning gave it away. Here was a machine capable of making enough dough to bake a loaf of bread the size of a Buick. Of course such things had to exist, for how else did ten thousand loaves of Wonder Bread appear on the shelves of A & P and Krogers each morning if some huge machine did not spit out ten thousand balls of dough? If you saw a leprechaun or a unicorn in the morning mist, you would believe; so it is with industrial sized mixers being dragged above the smelly wasteland of Cleveland: once you see it, you believe.

As we neared our exit, East 9th Street, the mixing bowl spun faster. It warbled and rocked, and before our disbelieving eyes, that mixing bowl spun off of its trailer just one hundred feet in front of our car. It bounced a good six feet off of the pavement, and bounced again still spinning.

My brother eased off of the accelerator, but because of the traffic we didn't dare slam on the brakes. For a brief moment I know we both thought that the stupid giant mixing bowl was going to bounce onto our car and crush us. It was a funny feeling that did not induce fear. We were going to die, but in such a bizarre way that it wouldn't seem like dying, but merely suffering the ultimate prank — the bucket propped on the door, filled with paint, but that also chops off your head, or the electric buzzer in your palm intended to shock you but which instead stops your heart — and so the story explaining what happened would obscure the fact that you were dead and never coming back to this world.

When it hit the pavement the second time, now less than fifty feet before our car, the spin of the bowl took it out of our lane. My brother hit the gas and we surged forward. The bowl bounced again in the next lane, and then slammed off of the cement barrier dividing the highway. We tore ahead and took the exit.

I did turn back and saw the huge mixing bowl bounce back across the highway, and somehow, as if guided by the practical joking hand of God, it missed all the other cars as well. We spun down the ramp, down to the level of the city, and began making our way past the abandoned storefronts, the condemned apartment buildings, and the empty warehouses, and we said a quiet prayer of thanksgiving. Then we began to laugh.

Labels: story

I spent the better part of a long weekend cleaning my basement last month. There were boxes stacked on top of boxes, partially spilled boxes on top of the spillage from other boxes, and the debris left over from some fun game my son played with his friends. That is just the beginning of the mess.

We have a specially constructed set of shelves for the boxes that hold the Christmas decorations, and those shelves were bare but surrounded by the partially packed boxes waiting to be stored on those shelves. We also have the rejected and forgotten furniture from the early part of our marriage shoved along the walls. Sofas, chairs, and dressers, once useful and necessary in our life, now waiting for some second chance that will never, ever come. As they wait, the cats have used them to sharpen claws, and to deposit the occasional hair ball. Coated with shed hair, they reek of mildew and bile.

Beneath the stairs, there is an impossibly packed collection of old toys, Easter decorations, craft supplies, Halloween decorations, more toys, and dress-up clothes. In the event of a tornado, that space will be the safest place in the house, and perhaps our only chance for survival, but there is no way in hell we'll be able to make room for all of us. Even if we could unpack it, there is no place to put those things, and we'd be forced to carry them back upstairs, back into the path of danger. We are doomed if a tornado strikes.

A basement is like a reflection of the dark recesses of your soul. In our case, it reveals our profound laziness, and how we lack the fortitude to dispose of the things in our life we no longer need. Rather than offer these things, many of them serviceable, to the poor or needy, we pack them away for some undefined future need. I suppose children's play clothes may come back in style, but no one who lives here will be able to fit into them.

If Oscar Wilde's "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" were made into a movie these days, it would be Dorian's basement in suburban America that revealed his flaws of character and sinful misgivings. Instead of the deep wrinkles, sunken eyes, and hateful expression on a portrait, it would be the cluttered, smelly, and filthy basement that Dorian would hide from public view.

My wife is horrified to know that I allowed our friends into our basement during its worst state of being. I was not deluded into thinking it was no big deal; I am a man, and sometimes clutter and filth mean little to a man, especially when it is shown to another man. Nevertheless, I was not impervious to the shame.

At its nadir, we had four cats and two dogs. The cats' litter box was in the basement, and the dogs, perhaps drawn by the various smells, were wont to sneak downstairs to relieve themselves. Two of the cats became intolerant of the others, backed themselves into a cluttered corner, and turned several of our boxes into litter trays. I became afraid that cholera or typhus might be lurking amongst the feces or urine that was starting to accumulate.

Over the span of three days, I spent over twenty hours cleaning the mess. Each day I worked myself into a sweat, and reached a point of despair not quite knowing what to do with certain things. I filled numerous trash bags, and rearranged vast swaths of basement territory.

The operation itself was not unlike solving a Chinese puzzle. I needed to clear a certain area in order to use it for swap space when, later on, I'd clear another. What made it possible, ultimately, was my wife's absence. She was gone for the long weekend visiting a sick friend, and I was able to spend long stretches below ground level, tearing through the vestiges of our former, happy life. Old pictures, old books, old magazines; what, exactly, possessed us to save so very much garbage?

When I was finished, there was still a great deal of unneeded things in the basement, but I had arranged them to create space and the illusion that we knew what we were doing. While I was working, I had secretly thought that I might stumble upon something — a toy, a hat, an old album — that would cheer me up and make me believe it was all worth the effort. I found no such thing.

I did discover that tidying up my life gives me a warmth and happiness inside, like I might just know what I'm doing with my future after all, if only I can clean up my past.

Labels: story

I started listening to National Public Radio when I was at the University in Ann Arbor, and I got a job in Detroit forcing a 40 mile commute, each way, everyday. I feasted on the substantial content to keep my mind occupied, and I appreciated the thoughtful turn of phrase offered. They seemed to care about their subjects, and committed a decent amount of time to stories.

The habit of listening to NPR has continued for more than twenty years. I've learned the cadence and humor of all the newscasters, and grown fond of all of them. It's just a bit like sitting in a room with people I like, so comfortable am I with the sound of their voices.

In the year 2000, they played a story in honor of the 60th anniversary of Bugs Bunny. I was tickled because, being a child at heart, I love Bugs Bunny cartoons (well, to be exact, I love those created by Robert McKimson during the 1950s). There was something I didn't quite like about their filmography of Bugs. And for the first time in my life, I was moved to take action.

If you have two minutes to spare, and a Real Media player installed, you can listen to the filmography here.

Then, if you have three more minutes, you can listen to my response to their story.

And that, ladies and gentleman, may be the closest I ever get to fame and fortune.

Labels: memoir, story

I'm usually a very upbeat person, but coming home was tough today. I had to clear a clogged drain--that was my mission for the evening. I came home to find the mailbox knocked from the post out on the curb. So in the freezing rain, I repaired that. No need to rush inside,

Once I did go inside, I discovered my son sick with a cold (nothing serious) but he is not a good patient. He suffers greatly any illness. He complained about feeling sick, having a sore throat, and that he needed a better pillow.

I scrounged for my dinner, finding scraps on the table and in the fridge. I believe it's good training for if, and when, I'm homeless. Our house is a little bit cluttered at the moment, so it also feels like I'm making my way through back alleys just to get through the kitchen.

The drain was nasty. It is my bathroom sink, and the normal plumber-in-a-bottle did nothing. I removed the J-trap but it was clean. I then pulled apart the drain pipe leading into the wall, and found the blockage. It was like Dom Deloise's artery, about 95% blocked. I believe it was shaving cream scum that had built up on the walls, and then took on a life of its own.

I then had to pick up my daughter from a lesson, and when she got home she became tearful over a slight that had happened to her during the day.

Now my son has thrown himself over our bed, and I'll probably sleep on a sofa to avoid the cold germs. It seems a bit uncaring on my part, but I don't really care if it is uncaring. Just one of those nights.

Labels: story

My family threw a party the day I graduated from high school. It's was just an open house. Our extended family was there, but what I really hoped for was to have a bunch of my friends from high school there. Not a lot of them showed up.

The trick is that there were probably fifteen other parties, and so everybody is going from place to place, and that was that.

We had a keg (this was back when you could get your friends drunk at these parties--now you can't) but no one to drink it. My extended family was more into booze than draft beer. So as the evening wound down and still no crowd, one of my older brothers suggested that we, the two of us, try to drain that keg before morning.

Our house was small, but behind the detached garage there was an enclosed patio. In summer we would sleep there often, and this was where the keg was placed. So we sat on either side of the keg and stared at the trees and shrubs out back as we drank.

In the middle of the night, my father came out to check on us. He pulled up a chair and joined us.

My father flew F-86 jets for the Air Force in the 1950s. So he had quite a few stories, and he told a couple of doozies that night. He was stationed in Europe, and was the wingman for a larger-than-life character that led him on great adventures in France and West Germany. (Those stories will have to wait for their own blog entry.) As the stories wound down, he got a bit reflective and philosophical, and gave us the following advice.

You'll probably get married someday, and when you do, you'll be faced with morale choices. You'll have to decide for yourself about staying faithful to your wife, and how you raise your family.

We didn't say anything after that. It was dark, almost pitch black, and we were still drinking and probably half-drunk. I thought there was maybe something else he wanted to say, but I didn't know how to probe that subject, or how to ask an appropriate follow-up question. So it just stayed exactly how it was: an enigmatic riddle with no answer. He said, "Good night boys," and then left us in the dark.

I was the youngest, and I had just graduated. In my egocentricity, I had thought that the day was all about me. But it dawns on me now, right this moment as I type, that perhaps he was reflecting on his own life, rather than helping us shape what we might become.

He had gotten his youngest son to manhood and, strictly speaking, he was no longer obligated to do a damn thing for us. That former jet pilot was beholden to no one at that moment. He had done what nature intended: he procreated three boys, got them to adulthood, and his part in the circle of life was over.

I don't know if he was elated and relieved, or full of dread and regret. I don't know if he wished he had done things differently. I don't know if he wanted to chuck it all and start a new life, or if this was everything he ever hoped for in life. I just don't know.

My brother and I kept drinking until dawn. We didn't talk about what Dad said. In fact, I don't remember anything we talked about that night except what Dad said. If my brother reminds me of something else, I'll add it here, but I just remember the dark, and the stupidity of drinking cold beer on a cold summer night just for the sake of drinking it. I assume we had some music playing (there was an eight-track tape player in the patio) but maybe not.

We faced west, and so the trees began to show light at the top as dawn crested behind us. We did not finish the keg, but we put a world of hurt on it. We left the patio, peed one last time on the shrubs, and made our way to the house.

And thus my adult life began.

Labels: memoir, story

We have a cat and two dogs. The cat is new, and was brought into the house as a kitten, and now it thinks it is a dog. At least, it hangs around with the dogs and is not bothered by their dog-ness. The cat still uses the litter box, so that's cool.

The dogs are trying to hump the cat lately. We think the cat has just matured enough to enter its first estrus cycle. What am I doing with an un-spayed cat, you ask? I ask that myself, as we paid $250 for the procedure to have the cat fixed.

Why did you spend $250 on a procedure that should cost, at most, $80? I asked my wife the same question. She couldn't answer, but here is her version of the events:

We paid $50 as a deposit on the cat's spaying. We were given a coupon for the service to be done at the Riverside Cat Hospital. My wife took the cat there expecting to pay no more than an additional $50 beyond the deposit. However, after the procedure, she was presented a bill for $289. They also requested we bring the cat back for follow-up procedures.

Why would your cat still have an estrus cycle after a costly procedure like that? I can only assume those dumb-ass veterinarians tied the cat's tubes, rather than remove the ovaries. Can you not just imagine the joy the vets feel, preserving the cat's hormonal balance while still preventing over-population. For a service like that, of course you charge far more than one would charge for a simple spaying.

What makes this so deliciously painful is that it's not even the first time something like this has happened to us in regards to cats. But that will have to wait for another blog post.

Labels: mistake, story

My wife and I went out to dinner on a Saturday night. It was back in November, but we had an unusually cold November this year. We were downtown, which has more of a nightlife these days. After dinner, we walked down the block to a nightclub for a drink.

As we neared the nightclub, a man yelled "Sandusky". I heard him distinctly, but I didn't think he was talking to us, but the word hit me because I spend a bit of time in or near Sandusky, Ohio. I assumed he was talking on a cell phone.

He yelled "Sandusky" again. He was just a few feet away, now.

"Are you talking to me?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "Do you know where Sandusky is?"

I pointed South. "That a-way."

"Have you ever been to Cedar Point? Do you know the artists there? I'll draw your picture, just like they do."

This stopped us momentarily, and he flapped paper in our face and showed us a pen. "I'll draw your picture, and then you can pay me whatever you think is fair."

I muttered something in my confusion, so he kept talking:

"I just got out of jail, and I don't have a place to stay, and I don't have any money. I need $24.50 to stay at the hotel by the highway, so I'm trying to draw pictures to raise cash. I don't have any family nearby that I can call."

My wife was all too eager to be drawn into this conversation. "Did you try the city mission?" she asked. "It's just down the road."

"They're full. They aren't taking any more tonight."

"So where are you going to stay?" she asked.

"I don't know," the guy said. "I'm going to keep moving. Everything will be closing soon, so I won't be able to get warm."

He was drawing us as he spoke. He had a blue, ballpoint pen, and some scrap paper. He made a rough, outline sketch of us. It was not masterful by any means, but it reminded me of us.

"So if you'd give me $20, I'd really appreciate it," he said. I took out my wallet. "$10 would be cool, too," he added. He was cold and shivering. While he drew the picture, his hand shook, and now his teeth chattered a bit as he spoke.

I offered him three dollars. He took it, but was visibly disappointed. He left quietly, without thanking us, but I don't blame him. I was disappointed too. I should have given more. It was not a great picture, but it was a reasonable likeness.

Labels: story

The problem with hookers is that they don't always look like hookers. They don't always dress like the over-the-top hussies you see on old episodes of Starsky and Hutch or Beretta. Unfortunately for me, television is the extent of my training about dealing with hookers. There really needs to be a life manual for these sorts of things.

The other day I had just parked my car on the street downtown when a woman approached me asking for help. She was older (fifty?), petite, and thin. She had blonde hair, big glasses, and was wearing a lavender jogging suit. She said her car had broken down about a mile away, and needed a ride. She didn't have any money so she couldn't take a cab.

She spoke with a near-spastic intensity that reminded me of one of my aunts, so I decided to help.

During the ride, she elaborated on her story. Her daughter had a problem at college, and she had driven there and given her daughter all of her money, and then broken down on the way home. She still had an hour of driving to complete, and had no friends in this city, but some friends from home had wired her money so that she could get her car fixed.

When we got to where she had said the car was broken down, she asked me to take her a little farther, into one of the neighborhoods near the highway, to a party store where she was expecting the money. I became suspicious: the car was not where she had said it would be.

She asked if she could have a couple of bucks, because she had driven that whole way from the college without money, and was thirsty, and really needed a coke. Just a couple of bucks was all she needed. She'd be really thankful, and she knew I was already doing plenty, and I didn't have to give her anything, but she really wanted a coke if I could spare a couple of bucks.

As we pulled into the party store parking lot, she looked at a man leaving the parking lot in a pickup truck, and he waved at her. She waved back. I saw recognition in the man's face. Not joy; just recognition.

Nothing of her story was playing out. The car wasn't where she said it was; she needed a ride to somewhere else, she knew someone in town, and if she was being wired money, why did she need two bucks from me?

I thought she's either the neighborhood whacko, a crack head, or a hooker. Somehow, hooker seemed right. It's one of those instinctual things.

I gave her the two bucks and bid her adieu.

Labels: story