Victor the Visitor!

Greetings, people of Earth! Uh . . . and all WYMOP fans, of course.

This week's story starts a couple of years ago. I returned from a trip to Colorado to find my room wasn't as empty as I'd left it. Apparently, we had a visitor from, well, pretty damn far away, and he'd taken up residence in my room as a way to hide from the govern . . . I mean, to try to ease into our society. It seems he lost his luggage, and I had the particular joy of walking into my room at 2:00 am to find a naked stranger standing, a bit bug-eyed, in the corner. For some reason, my mom decided not to warn me that he was there.

Thanks, Mom!

Eventually, I talked the visitor (there was a bit of a communication barrier, but I finally started just calling him Victor--he seems to like it) into coming out of the shadows of my room and borrowing some of my clothes. They were a bit bright for me anyway, and I thought it might help the poor bastard fit in a little if he looked like a tourist. I mean, tourists are supposed to be a little odd, right? Anyway, after his little makeover, Victor seemed to feel a little better about being here. Maybe it was just not being naked? I dunno. But he seemed a bit perkier once he had some pants on--though it was hard to tell if he was smiling at all: I don't think he actually has any teeth.





Once he started to come out of his shell, I decided to greet him properly, and officially welcome him to the Ear--uh, I mean America. Massachusetts, yeah, that's it, I welcomed him to Massachusetts.

So with nothing else to do, Victor stood in the corner of my room. During the day, I'd talk to him, teaching him to understand English, though he never actually spoke a word of it to me. At least, not out loud . . . which is how all people speak, right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Nope, he never "spoke" a word to me. Not one word.

Then, last weekend, as I was getting ready to go to Rock and Shock, a three-day horror and music extravaganza in Worcester, and I came home from work on Thursday and found this:

Apparently, someone in the house was watching Wheel of Fortune while I was at work, and Victor became fascinated with Vanna White--not in the eighteen-year-old hormonal young man way, but in the "Hey, I could do that!" way. 

He made it pretty clear he wanted to go to Rock and Shock with me.

In fact, I found him waiting in the car the next morning, all belted in and rarin' to go.

He doesn't have a lot of expression, but he still seemed impatient to get on the road.

He's either waving for me to come on right here, or giving me the finger. Kind of hard to tell . . .

So we drove on to Worcester, and the DCU Center. We did get a few odd looks on the drive:

But Victor took them as his due and moved on. Once we arrived, he did his thing. I have to say, he was surprisingly professional the entire time--though it was a long two days.

The drive home was uneventful.

Once we got home, I started unloading the car. Victor was supposed to be helping, but he disappeared right at the start. It wasn't until I got all of the stuff back into the house that I went into my room and found him:

The poor baby was just exhausted from the big weekend. I didn't have the heart to wake him, so I wound up on the couch for the night.

Now, you'd think that would have been enough for the big galoot, but he was invited back to Worcester for a reading event the very next weekend, and there's been talk of him coming to North East Comic Con in early December. I think he's letting me tag along in December, which is pretty cool, but yesterday he went on an audition that has me wondering just how long I'll still be in the picture.

I just hope, you know, when Victor hits the big time, that he remembers where he came from, and who chauffeured him to his first shows. I hope he remembers who his real friends are, from way back when he was just a naked dude standing in a dark corner.

"Me and Vic - BFFs"

Thanks, Mom!

Talk to you later!

Mini Bennies

Hey there, WYMOP readers!

As some of you may know—though most of you may not—I used to drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Early this year I decided I needed a change (read: the Jeep’s motor turned in its pink slip and retired Florida) and picked up a used Mini Cooper.

Was this a bit different? You bet your ass.

“What,” some people still ask me, “were you thinking? Don’t you know what kind of a change that is?”

“You,” I answer these people, “bet your ass.”

Tired of pointing out all of the good things about my Mini ownership on a one-to-one basis, I’ve decided to throw out a short list of the positives that just don’t seem to occur to these people.

1. Fuel Economy
   
   I do author events in New England, and even though I try to keep it pretty local (generally less than three hours away), I do drive about Massachusetts and New Hampshire more than I used to. When I drove the Jeep, I found that showing up at a book sale or other event with tears in my eyes from actually watching the gas gauge fall for the past ninety minutes was not the best way to impress and sell books. Now, however, pulling into the lot with a big smile on my face, then having people watch as I unpack a van-load of stuff from inside a red shoe box with wheels (I was pretty good at Tetris when I was a lad) is a sure way to entertain and get people in a buying mood. Of course, that might just be my red, rubber-ball nose and big Bozo wig. And then there’s the huge shoes . . .
   
2. Fun to Drive
   
   Maneuverability, thy name is Mini.
   
   Look, on the highway, my Mini’s darting, hummingbird-like ability to appear to be in three places at once is a bit of an advantage; also it is fun to see the expression on other drivers’ faces when a perfectly good slot in traffic suddenly disappears, filled by a small red package of high-pitched motor whine, and giggling driver (yes, I am a speeding Masshole behind the wheel).  
   
   Also, since I have a tendency to overrun the instructions coming out of my Garmin GPS unit (speeding Masshole, remember?), some people who have driven with me in
   
   the past have remarked on my penchant for three-point turns. Now, though, before the Garmin can even finish saying “Recalculating,” I’m pulling a U-turn tighter than anything this side of a Big Wheel and cackling like a psychotic six-year-old on a fifteen Pixie-Stix sugar rush. I once was lost, but now I’m found, as my little red car goes round and round!
   
   
   
3. Camouflage
   
   I know. It’s just a little four-cylinder engine. But it’s not pushing a lot of weight, and the Mini Cooper can move. It might take a little longer than a sports car to get to the speed I want, but once it arrives, it stays there pretty damn easily, no matter how many curves and turns I have to take (see “Fun to Drive,” above), so getting from point A to point B happens faster than you’d think.
   
   But here’s the best part—
   
   The management would like to take this opportunity to invite officers of the law, anyone who drives a car equipped with flashing blue lights, or anyone otherwise enabled to hand out traffic tickets, to please skip ahead to #4—we know your time is more valuable than the rest of ours, and we wouldn’t want to take you away from your very important business.
   
   Are they gone? Okay.
   
   The best part is the strange blind spot the police seem to have regarding cars of a certain type. You can drive a Mini past a parked cop doing 70mph in a 30mph zone (Mom, this is hypothetical, okay?) and it’s like they don’t even see you. Either they see the Mini and assume their radar must be faulty because there’s no way that car can go that fast, or they’re picturing the embarrassment of there being a record of them pulling a speed stop on a vehicle that slows down when the hamster gets tired.
   
   Either way, if you’ve ever been pulled over for speeding in a Mini, then you were really trying!
   
   
4. Roadside Assistance
   
   What assistance? You break down, you just put the car in your pocket and walk the hell home.
   
   
   
5. And the Most Important Difference of All, as of 6:00 This Morning:
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
      . . . heated seats!

Ta-daaaaa!

Talk to you later!

What A Funny Guy!

Some of you may know, heck, all of you may know, that I drive a Jeep. A grand Cherokee. It started out with the Laredo package, but at the moment it's got the "duct tape and hope" package.

There are a few things wrong with it, sure. I've been adding coolant to it every month since I bought the thing. At one point I had a transmission leak, but it "healed". I don't know what else to call it - one month there was a leak in it, the next, the leak was gone and it hasn't come back. That was almost 2 years ago now. The only other cars I've ever heard of that could do that were Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, Herbie the Love Bug, and that other one... what was it called? From the Stephen King movie. Oh yes. Christine.Yeah... I think it's more like that one, actually.

I've had a fan replaced, a new water pump, thrown a rod (twice, actually) and a host of other stuff. Right now what I have is a weak oil pump. I can watch the pressure drop while I drive, right down to zero.

But that's not what I'm here tonight to talk about. It's the whistle.

My Jeep whistles. Loudly. Constantly. While I'm driving, while I'm standing still, coasting, cruising, whatever - I have a whistle. And it's maddening.

My brother-in-law is a mechanic, and he says it might be the air-filter. If the cover's not on tight, or cracked so it's not sealing properly, that could create a whistle. It should be easy to check that, right? I mean, even I know where the air filter is located. All I should have to do is open the hood and give a listen. Follow my ears. Maybe even lean on the filter cover to see if the whistle changes in pitch. Something like that. Anything like that.

But there's a problem. The whistle stops. Not when I want it to, like when I'm running on to work late and the parking lot is -full of my co-workers and I just don't feel like hearing about my whistling car all morning. Then the damn thing whistles a tune, "Zippidy-Doo-Dah" coming out from beneath my hood to make certain to capture everyone's attention! No. Not then. The whistle stops when it wants to stop, and that appears to be every time I stop to give it a listen!

I tried this afternoon when I left work. I was driving along, the damn thing whistling away. I wasn't in a hurry for once, so I decided to give it another try. Up ahead, past the stop light I was sitting at, was a parking lot - the perfect place to pull in and pop the hood.

I was stopped at the light. The jeep was whistling.

I pulled up to the light. The Jeep was whistling.

I turned into the parking lot. The Jeep was whistling.

I pulled into a parking spot preparatory to getting out to finally giving it a good listen and isolating the cause of the whistle. The whistle died.

I stepped on the gas, trying to make the whistle come.

Nothing.

But now I know what it is. He's tipped his hand again, and I've figured it out.

If I had chosen that exact moment to look skyward, rather than kicking my Jeep and shouting curses across an empty, uncaring parking lot, I might have seen something in the clouds. It's been referred to before, but not by me. Most people simply call it the Finger of God.

The Finger of God. It's been seen pointing at sinners in condemnation. It's been seen stretching forth to grant Adam the spark of Life. But no one's ever reported seeing it as I would have seen it, bouncing and jiggling rhythmically up and down, in time with His shoulders, which shake in time to the motion of His belly.

God is laughing and pointing at me.

I picture him up there in Heaven, one finger pointing me out to His friends, the other poised on the Switch.

"Look at him," I picture Him saying. "Keep your eye on him! He cracks Me up! There he goes, there he goes! Look! He's heading for a parking lot again! let's see if I can time this right - wait! What am I saying, of course I can time it right! I'm God for My sake! I created Time! Look, look, right when he gets out to pop the hood.. and... now!"

And He flips the Switch.

And the whistle stops.

And I lose my mind a little more.

And the pointing finger of God shakes with His laughter.

And I know how the Platypus feels.


Talk to you later!

Talk to you later!

Memory Lane

Do you remember your first car?

I do.

Remember your friends' first cars? Unless you and your friends grew up with a lot more money than I did, somewhere in that pack of first and second cars there was a vehicle, maybe more than one, that was sporting some repairs that were... well, let's just say they were more economical than aesthetically pleasing.

Less expensive, and even less fashionable.

Ugly, but cheap.

Like I said, maybe it was your car, maybe it belonged to someone you knew.

A fender picked up from the junkyard that was, though a perfect and undented replacement for the crumpled original, entirely the wrong color.

Hubcaps that did not match, or possibly weren't there at all.

A broken window replaced temporarily (all these repairs were intended to be temporary, it just didn't work out that way!) with a garbage bag, the loosely fitting plastic ruffling and snapping wildly, like a flag in a high wind, as you drove down the street.

A trunk, or in some cases an actual door held closed (and sometimes on) with a rope.

This used to be all high-school stuff, for the most part. Maybe into college. But we always assumed that as we got older this stuff would be less likely to happen.

Not so. Not with this economy.

In the past few years I've had a ruffling, snapping window. Sheet plastic rather than a bag, but plastic is plastic. I've seen people, adults, not kids, driving along with a rope for a trunk-lock, or clear packing tape holding together a shattered headlight lens. It reminds me of my youth.

And so, this morning when I went to work I was not exactly surprised to see what I saw. It made me laugh, I can tell you that. What I saw was this:

I know what's caught your eye. That black stuff around the back-up light on the back of that mail truck. Is that what you think it is?

Let's take a closer look.
















Yup. It's exactly what you thought it was. It's a nice thick layer of sweet, black electrical tape. It just happens to be the only thing holding that back-up light (the red one with the white square in the center) to the truck. Without that high-tech tape that light would be hanging out on the wiring, just dangling loose and whacking against the back of the truck every time it drove over a bump.

That, my friends, is a member of the motor pool of the largest (employee-wise) business in the world, and it's driving around with a mickey-moused repair job worthy of every kid in the world who just got his license and just has to drive, no matter what his car looks like!

Takes me right back to High-School.

Ah, nostalgia!

Talk to you later!

Protective Gear

I came around the turn using a little drift, not a lot. I was in second place, and coming up on the leader. I know he saw me coming, but I didn't really think he could squeeze any more speed out of his car. I crept up on him and was about to pass, edging up beside him, the guardrail just whipping by beside me.
There was a sudden sharp screech of rubber and road and before I could react he'd slammed sideways into the nose of my car, driving me into the guardrail. I fought for control, sparks flying as he kept the pressure on, forcing me hard against the rail.
Quick as a thought I jammed on the brakes, effectively popping backward out of his forceful embrace, and cutting the wheel a little to the left, away from the guardrail. He wasn't expecting the move, and it took him a second to react to my absence beside him. A second too long.
Without my car to act as a buffer he slammed into the guardrail just as we entered the last turn; a sweep to the right. I slipped out to the left, behind him, and twitched my wheel to the right as I hit the gas again, setting up a slight left drift. As he rebounded hard off the rail, swinging wide to the left before regaining control and entering the turn. I, in my slight left drift, feathered my wheels to the left, just slightly into the skid. My wheels suddenly gained purchase, gripping the road like some clawed metal beast, and I floored it.
My angle was perfect, and I slipped past on the inside track, shooting through the widening gap between his car and the rail at a much better angle than he had. I roared across the finish line a mere car length ahead of him.
Completely forgetting where I was, I let go of the WII controller with one hand and threw my fists in the air in triumph. My legs flexed hard as I started to jump to my feet and throw a one-man victory party. I say 'started' because, as I said, I had forgotten where I was.
As my butt left the edge of Handsome's bed, where I had been perched, the very top of my head connected forcefully with the underside of his upper bunk.  My cry of "Did you see that?" degenerated into "Did youwaauughh!" My vision went a little funny for a second, but that may have been the tears of pain blurring up my view of the world. I nearly knocked myself silly again when I tried to grab my head without first releasing the controller.
"Are you okay, Dad?"
Handsome was horrified, but laughing. I managed to bite back the first response that sprang to my lips, and then the second. And the third. I finally gave him the fourth response that came to my mind, just happy that I'd finally thought of something to say that didn't involve a swear word or five.
He went to his closet, and came back with something for me, and we continued playing. He giggled, but I didn't care, I wore the thing he had fetched from his closet.
I know it was meant for skateboarding, but it fit and I didn't have to worry about my head any more.
I may be the only one I know who actually wears a crash helmet to play Mario Karts for the WII.
But, dammit, I won!

Talk to you later

Booo! ...Huzzah?

This afternoon I was on my way to pick up Handsome at school, as I do every school-day I have off.
I was also running late. As I do every school-day I have off.

I'm fairly certain I won't even die on time.

So there I was, tearing through town, driving, as I like to call it, 'like I was born in Massachusetts'. In other words, as if driving like a complete and total %^$#@ is in my blood.

Which it is.

I came out of my neighborhood and saw a traffic jam right there at the lights.
Booo!

I zipped across three lanes of traffic and took a left. I suspect my left-hand wheels were touching the ground the whole time, but I can't be sure.
Huzzah!

I whipped down that street and came out to a T-junction. I needed to go left, but the traffic building up in that lane was already blocking me in.
Booo!

Someone stopped a little early, giving me the opportunity to turn right, then left, cutting behind the last guy in the traffic line and take up the lane next to him. That worked out because I wanted to take a right.
Huzzah!

As I barreled along, using side streets to get around back-ups and blockages, aware that I might be a minute late, it started raining. Hard enough that I didn't want Handsome to have to be standing around in it while he waited for stupid old me!
Booo!

I slowed down as I entered the school zone, turned the corner to the parking lot behind Handsome's school just as the clock hit 2:30. The kids were exiting the building and I was right there to keep Handsome from getting too wet from the driving rain.
Huzzah! Hip-hip-huzzah!

As I pulled up, Handsome came scuffing across the grass. He was kicking the wet grass with his soaked sneakers, and his jacket, rather than being on, was tied to his backpack by one sleeve and dragging on the ground behind him as he seemed to do everything in his power to get as wet as possible.




Son of a %$#@! Why do I bother!?

Talk to you later!

Pahched!

Have you ever been driving, right, just driving along, and you decide that you are really thirsty? It's possible that you might, I repeat might have just purchased two bottled drinks and tossed them in the backseat when you were getting in the car. It could happen, right? Sudden thirst, two cold drinks just happen to be within an arm's reach, but not where you can see them. But, hey, you're driving, and how hard could it be to find one or two bottles of water that you put on the seat right behind you?
So you lean to the side and crank one arm around your seat back into the space directly behind you. The place within the car that you have the least chance of seeing a damn thing. You feel around. You try to identify stuff from the feel of it.
"Shopping bag with food, but no water ... my backpack ... Handsome's weekend bag ... Handsome's computer ... Aha! Shopping bag with wa- no, no, my bad, it's the one with food in it again ..."
You feel about, and you move stuff, and you keep the car going straight in its lane. For the most part. No one was in that parked car, so no one will ever know just how close you came to hitting - "wait, I have  ... no, it's that damn food bag again!"
Eventually you get pretty frustrated, not to mention parched. Or, as we say in Boston, pahched. You're leaned pretty far over and flailing around in that backseat like a circa 1958 father who, after asking those damn kids in the backseat 'do you want me to pull this car over?' has decided to just lay a little smackdown justice on the little pains in the ass without even bothering to touch the brake. The car tends to swerve a little, you tend to swear a lot, and do you know what can make this situation even more aggravating?

I'll tell you.

Someone sitting in the passenger's seat who is just watching and laughing. Not helping, not reaching right over to the bottles they can plainly see from their passenger's seat vantage point, not even when you ask them to. Especially when you ask them to. They are too busy laughing and enjoying the show, just hoping you will slip up and one of those curses you are mumbling under your breath will really fly!

CLICK HERE

Enter my son, Handsome.

One day, I will have my revenge. Oh it may be years from now, but I will have my revenge...

Talk to you later!

... The More They Stay The Same

The other day I was in the Jeep, kind of cruising on my way home. Flying on autopilot. Paying attention to the road, but everything else about driving was kind of running in the background of my mind. I got to a spot where the street I was on goes downhill and winds in an S-curve, right then left, then straightens back out for a bit before the stop sign at the end. The houses there are pretty close together, and seem to loom over the street. It's not really crowded, not as cramped as it appears, with room for a sidewalk on your left and even space for a few cars to park. Everything is close enough, however, that you can't see around either of the bends in the road. It's a little like an 'S' shaped corridor.
I went into this curve with a little zest. A little verve. A little speed. If I were a kid I might have entered the first curve while saying 'zooommm..." at least, I would have been saying that until I saw the cop. Sitting right in the middle of the S-bend so that it couldn't be seen from either before or after the curves, was a police cruiser. And it was occupied.
My eyes flew to the speedometer as my foot touched the brake. It was too late, I saw, as I passed the officer doing 35 in a 25. Or was it a 20? I strained to remember as I pulled up to the stop sign after the curves. There I sat, my eyes glued to the rear-view mirror. I sat stiffly, looking with my eyes only, since to turn around to look might seem guilty. I sat and prayed not to see the cop car come around the bend.
And there came a car! My heart dropped until I saw that, rather than a police car, this was a grey Buick. As they pulled up behind me I could hear their music, feel the too-high Bass keeping the rhythm in my stomach. From their silhouettes I could tell that there were two of them, and they had their hats on sideways; a practice that, to me, deserves a stinging slap. Much like wearing your pants half-way down.
But as they pulled right behind me at the stop sign, I could see them more clearly. Both were about 18 years old, sitting up straight, eyes glued to the rear view and wing mirrors, refusing to turn around and look as that might seem guilty. They both looked wide-eyed and intense, each concentrating on his own prayers that the cop car not come around the bend behind them.

I laughed.

I may have been 42, listening to the local Country station and dressed in a way that I would call 'sensible', and they may have been 18, listening to hip-hop way too loud and dressed like rap star wannabes, but we had one thing in common.

Guilt looks the same no matter how old you are!

Talk to you later!

You Wouldn't Hit A Guy With Glasses, Would You?

Yeah, I've worn glasses for a long time, but I should have been wearing them longer. I don't think I was 20 yet, not quite, but I was one of those stubborn people who kept telling people (as well as myself) "I'm not that old, I don't need glasses yet!"
But I did.
I used all kinds of little tricks to get by. I knew all the local streets so I didn't have to read the signs. I always ordered the same thing at McDonald's, so I didn't have to read the menu board. But my best tricks were at night.
You see, the problem with my eyes is that the pupils are too big. That's a little like having the wrong size lens on a camera, and it throws the focus off. It makes me near-sighted, but it also does one more pretty interesting thing. I have what is called 'night-blindness'.
You'd thing that, what with my enlarged pupils, I'd see quite well in the dark. It just isn't so. When it gets dark my pupils really dilate, and that's like having an even bigger lens on the front of that camera. My focus goes so out of whack I have a much harder time seeing anything at all. Plus, there's an added bonus when I'm driving at night.
Headlights. When a car is coming the other way in the dark, all I can see are their headlights. Everything else in front of my car just disappears into blackness, and all i can see are the approaching headlights.
But I had tricks for night time.
If there was a car ahead of me I could see and follow its tail lights. I just had to hope they were going the same way I was . Well, the same way I meant to, since I was going wherever they were.
If there was no car ahead of me, but there was a car coming the other way, I'd just ... stay to the right of them. I'd estimate my position on the road relative to theirs.
My last trick was to keep an eye on the lines to my left. Keep that line next to me, and I was good. Let it get too far away, or cross it, and I was dangerously out of my lane.  I couldn't just try to bracket the lines ahead of me, like most people do without even thinking about it, because I couldn't even see them.
So, I was driving around secretly unable, for the most part, to see what was going on around me once the sun went down. But that was okay, I had my tricks, and they worked just fine.
Until ...
One evening my friends D- and P- and I were heading to the mall. I was driving. I got to the spot where I had to get in the left lane to take the left turn onto the road that leads to the mall. No worries, I sat there waiting to turn, directional on. The light changed to green, and off I went. I took my left, and there was a car coming the other way. No worries, I just glanced out my side window and found the dotted white line running right beside me, straight and true. I squinted into the oncoming headlights, and saw that I was staying just to the right of them, exactly where I wanted to be.
That was when P- and D- began to freak out. They were yelling at me to "Pull right! Pull right!" I looked at them in confusion, since I was pretty sure there was a breakdown lane over there but couldn't fathom why they needed it. I looked forward again and saw a second set of headlights next to the first and heading right toward me! I yanked the wheel, heading for that breakdown lane I was pretty sure was there, and the cars whipped by on my left, heading in the other direction and moving fast. I looked down to find the line and make sure I was going straight ... and rather than the white line delineating a breakdown lane, I saw the double-yellow.
Then I remembered.
I had taken a left into a street that was four lanes wide, not two. There were two lanes of traffic traveling in each direction. I had taken a left and set myself up going perfectly straight, right in the middle of a lane ... on the wrong side of the street, driving right into oncoming traffic.
After we all checked to see if our pants were dry, my friends wanted to know what the hell my problem was.
Actually, I cleaned up the language a little there.
I fessed up, and explained that I was having a hard time seeing. They said "No kidding," (cleaned up the language quite a bit here) and pointed out, in a very colorful fashion, that I was taking their lives in my stupid, blind hands.
I think there may have been threats involved.
So... yeah, I've worn glasses for a long time. Better that than have to go to the proctologist to get my car keys back.

Talk to you later!

But I'm Not Thirsty!

Tonight on the way home, Handsome was thinking about my anhidrosis. Our conversation made him laugh quite a bit, so I'll try to recreate it here, for you.

"Dad," he said, "I think it's weird that they thought you were dehydrated when you weren't sweating. Where did they think it was all going?"
"They didn't know I wasn't sweating yet," I told him. "All they knew was that I was having signs of heat stroke and it was barely 60 degrees out that day. Usually, when someone gets heatstroke it has to do with them sweating all the water out of their system until their body just runs out. Then, with no water cooling their system, they start to over heat really fast and *bam* they get heatstroke."
"But couldn't they check you?"
"Oh," I replied, "they did. They took some of my blood and checked to see how much water was in that. I could have just peed in a cup, I guess, but I had been drinking water all day and not sweating any of it out. I was going to the bathroom every fifteen minutes, and the water that was going into me was coming out right away, practically unchanged. I could have peed it right back into a bottle and still sold it as spring water, for crying out loud!"
In the seat beside me, my son started laughing.
"I probably could have peed in a cup for them, but they would have said "Hey, slow down there, pal! You just took this from the tap, didn't you!""
"'No,' I'd have said. 'I'm just super hydrated is all. I'm sloshing. Look, I've been drinking grape flavored water all day, right? Well smell that sample! Does it smell like urine to you? Nope, smells like grape, doesn't it? Enticing, right? Make you want to try a sip?"
Beside me, Hansome was laughing fit to bust. Feeling like a funnyman, I went on.
"Put two bottles side by side! In one we put grape Propel, in the other we put some Propel that's gone through me! We'll call it Propee! Propel and Propee, a blind taste test! What do you think?"
The passenger window rolled down suddenly, and Handsome stuck his head out.
"What are you doing?"
"I was laughing so hard," he said, "I threw up a little in my mouth!"
I took up a bottle from the cup holder between the seats and held it out to him.
"Wanna wash it out with some grape Propel? I promise it's Propel."
I made an evil face.
"...or is it?"
He started laughing again, turned a little green, and his head went back out the window.

He is my best audience.

Nothing says funny like vomit in your throat!

Talk to you later!

Sunday Driver

Handsome has been seeing commercials for a local place that dies Go-Kart rentals and Mini Golf. Today I decided to take him there as a bit of a surprise. He was happy to go, and was jumping up and down at the idea of driving the Go-Kart.
"I'm gonna beat you," he kept telling me, a huge smile on his face.
Now, for those of you who have never been out to a Go-Kart track, as I had not been before today, I'll tell you that there is no 'starting line'. You roll out of the shed and go, they start you one at a time. Since I was last in line, I entered the track being lapped by the first one or two drivers. Handsome, who had started right in front of me, was a half a lap ahead of me when I started.
I never got any closer.
I wound up trapped behind a girl in a yellow car. There were "NO bumping" signs all over the track, including the rear of all the cars, so I had the feeling that they were taking that rule pretty seriously. I was trying to avoid bumping this girl. She, on the other hand, seemed determined to hit everything! She hit me, the sidewalls, the kid in front of her, just everything. I'm almost positive that a couple of times if I could have avoided being hit by her she would have just spun out. I was having a hard time avoiding her, and when she wiped out the kid in front of her I almost ran right into the poor boy, but I managed to avoid him. Eventually she wiped out the next kid in front of her and they both went spinning out of control. I avoided the both of them and figured I had gained a couple of places, at least, between me and Handsome.
Then the person in front of me spun me out as I was passing him. He didn't 'bump' me, he drove into me continuously, grinding me into the guard rail until I went into a spin. He was about six years old, and the only reason he was even allowed to be in the car at all was that he was in the two-seater with his dad, but he took me out nicely.
When the other two spin outs happened, they threw some switch in the shed and sent out some signal to the little electric cars we were driving, turning on a speed governor and we all slowed to a safe crawl until one of the attendants could make his way out onto the track and push the car back into position.
Not so when I spun out. When I came to rest with my nose to the guard rail, unable to back up as the cars have no 'reverse', the other cars were left at full power. Handsome told me later that he was saddened when he saw that I was spun out, and worried that I was okay.
While I was stuck, unable to move, however, he flew past me in his full-powered car with a huge grin and a "Hi, Dad!".
Twice. The attendant was not into moving fast.
Since then, my 'saddened' and 'worried' son has told everyone we know, and quite a few that we don't, the story of how he lapped me twice his first time ever driving a Go-Kart. His grin gets bigger every time he tells it.
I really don't know where he gets his competitive streak from.

... but I made sure to beat him in the mini-golf. Not by a huge amount, but by enough that he knew who won.

Funny, how he leaves that part out of the story when he tells it.

Talk to you later!

Slowpoke McSaab and Losing My Mind

There we were, Handsome and I, driving to theater. We were trying to get there in time to see "Kung-Fu Panda 2", and we were running late.
I am always running late. It's axiomatic.
Also axiomatic is the fact that when I am running late, and I am in a hurry, the slowest people in town will get out there in front of me, no matter the cost to themselves. They cut me off, they cut each-other off, they cut  everyone off in their efforts to be between me and wherever it is I am trying to get to.

I do not take it well.

Handsome, on the other hand, thinks it's the greatest thing. He knows that when I have someone in front of me making me even more late, I start to lose my mind. Rapidly. I try to keep the windows up when I start to do this, since I begin to talk to the driver in front of me. Loudly.
So, today, as we drove along I was right on the tail of the guy in front of me. Not tailgating, but close enough that no one should have been trying to get between us. There was no cut-off room involved. This being Massachusetts I know that there is no such thing as cut-off room without an actual cut-off!
I got cut off anyway.
Now, there was room behind me. There was plenty of room behind me, and though the guy in front of me was moving at a pretty good clip there was, as I said, no room in front of me. The came the Saab. The grey Saab, being driven by a grey man. He came from my left, did kind of a rolling stop at his stop sign, and forced his way into traffic in front of me. He almost hit my nose as well as the tail if the guy in front of me.
Okay,  I thought. He's forced his way in here, and we're moving pretty well... maybe he has the right idea and we can all keep rolling along...
Nope.
The first thing I noticed was that I didn't have to hit the gas. I had hit the brake in order not to hit this paramour of driving virtue, and as he took his place in front of me I found that I was just rolling along, not having to speed up at all.
The second thing I noticed was that the guy in front of the grey Saab, the guy who had been right in front of me, was still cruising, and was rapidly getting farther away as we just rolled along without effort.
The third thing I noticed was Handsome, sitting in the seat next to me, watching me intensely for signs he should start laughing.
I held it together for a little while. Maybe 10 seconds, maybe 12.  Then I started talking.
"C'mon! Get up there! You see where he is? Go get him, hug his butt!"
Handsome started laughing. I looked over at him.
"Well, when he cut us off he was hugging that guy's butt, but now look! His butt's way up there where we should be, but we're stuck back here behind this guy's butt!"
Laughter.
We came to our turn off, and the dude in the Saab took it in front of us, still blocking our path to speedy travel.
"Terrific! That's just terrific!"
We came to the end of the street we were on, where we had to take a left or a right. We were going to take a right. And so was Saabman, according to his directional. Not according to his motion, though. According to his motion he was parked at a stop sign with his directional on and contemplating Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Any cross traffic that he would have to merge with was about 3 miles away, but he was choosing this moment to be cautious. Like he couldn't have been cautious when he was deciding whether to cut me off?
I began to get louder, though I think the windows were down.
"Can you feel me, back here, hating you!?"
Handsome was thrashing about in his seat with laughter.
SaabDude took the right, and I ripped out behind him, and we proceeded to move along a street that was clearly marked at 35 mph... at about 27-28 mph.
"Shift into second! Upshift! Upshift! Oh, for God's sake, the gas is the long tall pedal on the right!"
I believe that by this time my volume could be described as 'screaming'.
After that it's kind of a blur, and I'm not sure what I said. I know I did not swear, exactly, because Handsome was in the car. I recall Handsome opening his window at one point and hanging his head outside because he was laughing so hard he was in danger of throwing up.

In all fairness, I do play this up a bit in an effort to make the kid laugh just that hard.

Eventually, the Saab turned off when we were going straight, and we were able to move a little faster than a stiff jog, and I began to calm down. I drove fast, but not too fast because I am aware of the dangers to Handsome if I drive like a total &%$#$%, and I actually am careful with him.
We did, however, make the movie.
Thank God for all those movie trailers!

Talk to you later!