Nun Better...

Hi there WYMOP fans!

Late again, I know, I know. I'm sorry. In my defense it has been a crazy couple of weekends here: last weekend was the Granite State Comicon, while this week was the Harvard Bookstore Warehouse Weekend, so I spent both weekends helping man the New England Horror Writers' sale table having loads of fun and selling oodles of my books... if by 'oodles' you mean three or four a day. Maybe. Almost enough to pay for the gas I used to get to the events, but it was a lot of fun anyway.

So here's my post, late again, as I said. My apologies to my reader.

...and, here's the story:

~ ~ * * ~ ~

So there I was: pausing momentarily at an intersection, and according to the click-click-click of my directional I was going to take a left. I was all alone there, the only other car in sight coming straight up to the other side of the intersection. They were no worry for me, though —  it was a four-way-stop, and they wren’t even here yet. I eased off the brake and onto the gas and started through my turn.

— and that other car actually sped up a bit and blew off the stop sign, cutting me off as they took a right.

My tires gave a little chirp as I stomped on the brake, and I came within an inch or two of taking a bite out of the steering wheel as my jeep jerked to a halt. I started out with “Son of a bitch”, and the language would have gone downhill from there if I hadn’t been so shocked. I’d gotten a quick glimpse of the driver as the car blew past me, just inches from my grill. It had been quick, but like I said it hadn’t been from that far away, and it had been… it was...

It was a nun.

The black habit, the white wimple, the whole thing had flashed by as she cut me off like a sixteen year-old boy trying to impress the girl in the passenger’s seat. I sat there for a second or two, just letting it sink in and watching her car rapidly disappearing in the distance... then stepped on the gas and went after her.

I wanted to see this flying nun in action.

Wanting and doing, however, are two different things. I leaned on the gas, and I’ll admit I was speeding, going fast even for me. This was Massachusetts after all, where speed limits are more like suggestions and students here major in math just so they can explain their way out of the ticket, but I was going fast enough that I was actually nervous about getting spotted by the police.

I may be cool, but God is not my co-pilot.

I couldn’t catch her. I could see her up ahead, and there weren’t any traffic lights that slowed me down, but I just couldn’t catch her. She lefted. She righted. She lefted again, all of it with a smooth minimum of deceleration that left me struggling simply not to lose her, nevermind actually catching up. I kept picturing a little old lady in my mind: wearing a habit, with a bobble-Jesus mounted on the dash as a nice counterpoint to the death’s head shifter knob clenched in her gnarled and arthritic hand.

Finally, a straightaway! Though in my imagination a cop lurked behind every tree and bush along the way, I put the hammer down and started to gain on her. There was a part of me that reveled in the chase, feeling a burst of pride at even this small success; but there was another part of me, a smooth, logical part that thought it was just all kinds of smart, that pointed out that though I was chasing, she was, technically, not running, and actually had no idea I was back here with her tail lights in my mental cross-hairs.

And still she almost lost me.

The rest of me got together and told that logical part of me to have a nice cup of “Shut the #$%@ up!” and got down to the serious business of nun-hunting. It was going pretty well for nearly a half a minute… and then the straightaway ended. I was close enough to the Driver Superior that I saw the end of my bit of luck before it actually happened; up ahead I could see cross-streets and traffic, exactly the type of driving terrain I had been doing so poorly in a minute ago, and my heart sank.

But then there was another little bit of luck that went my way. The traffic light ahead flipped red, and so did Sister Andretti's brake-lights as she slowed to a stop. I had been closing the gap, and if this red light was just long enough…

It was. The road split here into two lanes as it approached the traffic signal: the left lane was for left turn only. No. Did I need to go left? No. Did I want to go left? Oh, Hell no —  but what I did want to do, quite a bit actually, was to get a glimpse of the little old woman of God who drove a car with such speed, such skill, such verve.

I pulled into the left lane moving like I was going to run the light, but all I was trying to do was get up there and have a little time to see her before the light changed and my holy quarry disappeared with a blast of exhaust and a stretch of burned rubber.

I made it. I powered down to the stop line and took a nice, sweeping look at my surroundings, just checking everything: oncoming traffic, the surrounding house or two, even an imaginary squirrel in one of the trees to my right. It would have been obvious to anyone observing me that I was looking at everything, and not focused entirely on the driver of the car to my right.

… Who turned out to be a girl of 18 or 20. Maybe 22? Maybe. The dark habit and white wimple I thought I had seen turned out to be black, curly locks held back and out of her face by a white headband. She was laughing and talking animatedly, only holding the wheel with one hand while the other held a cell phone up to her ear.

A small, internal part of me died, just a little, to see how deep into her conversation she was. As I sat there remembering the smooth, practically professional way she had taken those turns and realizing she had apparently done it almost completely on auto-pilot, the light changed. With a head-tossing laugh that I swear I could hear through both our raised windows, she stepped on the gas. I imagined her managing the wheel with but a single finger as she powered along the road, disappearing around a bend about a quarter-mile ahead while I sat there, waiting for the light to change and allow me to take a left I really didn’t want to take. My head was hung slightly in a sort of manly Massachusetts-driver shame that was tempered somewhat by a little bit of pride: that was the next generation of Massachusetts drivers right there, and if she was any indication then they were well-equipped to uphold our state’s driving reputation.

Even better equipped than me.

The green arrow above my head lit up, indicating that I could now take that left turn. I stepped on the gas and swung onto this new road, deciding I’d just see where it took me.

Talk to you later!

~ ~ * * ~ ~

When I went to YouTube and looked up 'Funny Nuns', this was on the top of the list. Enjoy!

The One

Greetings WYMOP readers!

This is late, I know, and I'm sorry. I actually had it written, but this past weekend I was at the Granite State Comicon huddling behind a couple of sale tables with some of the other members of the New England Horror Writers, and both Saturday and Sunday nights I was pretty tired... and I forgot to post anything.

My bad. I'm sorry. So here's the story:

~ ~ * * ~ ~

This weekend at the Granite State Comic Convention Handsome has decided to accompany me for one of the days as Neo, from the movie The Matrix. He got the clothes and he got the shades, and he actually looks quite a bit like the character of Neo from the movies… but a blonde Neo.

Neo (for those of you who never watch any movies there under your rock) is played by Keanu Reeves, not an actor noted for his golden locks. Rather the opposite, I fear: that Canadian bastard has some of the blackest hair never to come out of a bottle.

Out of a bottle… now there’s a thought!

So I shelled out $3 and picked up a can of spray-on hair color —  basically spray-paint for the head. I’ve never used the stuff before (not even way back in the past when I had hair) and the thought of experimenting with it at six in the morning when I was just trying to get out the door and to the convention just did not appeal. That was not the time to find out it didn’t work, or was just a terrible mess, or some other television sit-com disaster, so instead of waiting until Sunday morning…

...I waited until Handsome was firmly ensconced in his chair in front of a game of Minecraft, and I pounced! Before he knew what was happening I had whipped a towel around his neck like some back-alley barber.

“Hey!” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Just sit still and play your game,” I said, shaking the can as per the instructions. The rattle-ball inside the can (See? I told you it was spray paint!) clattered away, causing the boy to ignore his game and twist about in his chair in fear.

“Whazzat?”

“It’s black hair coloring. I want to test it out a bit before we have to use it to Neo-ize you Sunday morning, okay?”

“Oh. Okay.” He turned back to his game. “Just do the back of my head or whatever.”

“I will,” I lied, and started spraying away. In a series of short bursts I painted the back of his head black, then moved around to stand beside him, cupping a protective hand around his ear.

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping this stuff from getting inside your head. You’re welcome.”

The spray hissed. The ball rattled. The spray hissed some more as I worked my way around to the other side, leaving blackened hairs in my wake.

“You might as well do the whole thing,” he said, leaning a bit to the side to keep his screen in sight.

“Now why didn’t I think of that?” I said as I finished the job.

I hit a few spots a second time, throwing a little better coverage onto places where the natural blond was struggling through.

“Okay,” I said. "Hit pause, or get to a safe spot or whatever you have to do, but I want to take a look at you.”

He did what he needed to, then turned in the chair to face me.

“Not bad,” I said, doing the nodding thing combined with the raised-eyebrow thing: the impressed look thing.

“Lemme see!”

He flailed off into the bathroom, then came back demanding some eyebrows. I obliged. He went back to stare into the mirror again, and when he came back to me he was all smiles.

“I’m getting the coat,” he said, hustling past me to fetch his long leather jacket. When he tried to breeze by me again on his way back to the mirror I put out a hand to stop him, then held up his thin black shades. He too them and, grinning like a fool, slipped them on as he stepped into the bathroom.

“I am so Neo!”

He was, too. He strolled around the house for a while dodging imaginary slow-motion bullets, but then it was time to clean up.

“Can’t I just wear it to bed?”

“Nope. I know how well it goes on now, and how well it stays in. Now I want to know how easily it comes out.”

So I sent him in the bathroom again, sans leather and shades, and told him to take a shower and wash the hell out of his hair. With water. And soap. At the same time.

Sometimes you have to break it down for him like that, be that specific.

The door closed. The water ran. This had all gone splendidly, so much better than I’d expected, and I began to think it was going to stay that way. I began to think that God was going to let me have this one.

I should have known better.

“Dad? Can you come here?”

I went to the bathroom to find a naked, towel-wrapped Handsome standing in the propped-open door. His hair looked… different.

“Have you been through the shower already?”

“No,” he said, and he looked a little embarrassed. “I was trying to wash it out with a facecloth first.”

I looked past him to the sink: the full-to-the-rim sink. Full to the rim with both water and suds, and some of those suds were a bit black.

No, they were pretty black.

So were the puddles along the vanity top and the floor.

So was the facecloth draped and dripping over the edge of the sink. The white facecloth. Well, it used to be white. Now there were some white-ish parts left around a pitch-black center that seemed to be spreading fast.

“Yeah,” he said, seeing my expression. “I think the sink needs to be cleaned.”

I heaved a big sigh, then looked down at my toes for a minute and made a quick count to ten. Handsome wisely chose that moment to get into the shower, which had been running all this time, just steaming away. I drained the sink and started cleaning the vanity. I used the destroyed washcloth to clean the counter and wash out the sink, then I started trying to clean the cloth itself.

I soaped it.

I rinsed it.

I soaped it.

I rinsed it.

I kept doing this again and again, not really paying attention to how long I was standing there at the sink, just using the repetitive motion as a kind of meditation exercise, just soaping and breathing and rinsing and repeating until I was perfectly calm.

Then a voice came from the shower, penetrating my calm like a bullet through glass:

“Hey Dad? I think the tub needs to be cleaned…”

My sneakered toes came into view as a sigh cut through the room, and I started counting...

Yeah. Fatherhood. It makes me laugh.

Talk to you later!

....and, just for the fun of it: Babies!

Why... So... Serious?

Greetings, WYMOP readers!

This is a quick one, I promise you! I know you may be a bit leery after my lengthy amusement park adventure over the past three weeks, but I do promise.

Some of you who have been reading for a while (okay, maybe that one person who has been reading a while —  I have no illusions as to the actual popularity of this blog) may remember one of my co-workers, a man I’ve referred to in the past as ALM: the Angry Little Man. The other day ALM was in full A mode, and I decided to do something about it.

Here’s the story:

~ ~ * * ~ ~

I had been watching ALM all morning, marching about the work floor with his little face set in his ‘I just dare anyone to @#$% with me’ expression. So far it was working, and no one was speaking to him. People were looking at each other, sometimes even right over his little head, with warning looks and mouthing the words ‘leave him ALONE today!’. So I left him alone.

But he looked so unhappy. Seriously. What was I supposed to do?

I decided to poke the tiger.

ALM was walking toward the door, on his way out to the parking lot, when one of the women on the other side of the floor complained loudly about having to work that day.

“What are you complaining about?” I shouted back, hooking a thumb at the passing ALM. “You get to work all morning right near this guy!”

I widened my eyes and grew a little gaspy with astonishment.

“It… how… how does it get any better than this?”

ALM just shook his head, little teeth gritting, and walked out the door. I followed, shouting back over my shoulder to the woman.

“I’m going to walk out right behind him! Maybe if there are some of those paparazzi around they can get a picture of him and me together and we can wind up on the cover of People! They could run one of those ‘who is this man seen with ALM’ pieces, you know what I mean?”

We were out in the parking lot by this time, and there was no way the woman could hear me any more, but it had never really been about her anyway. I was right behind him and ALM could hear me loud and clear, and that was all I really wanted. I held up my hands as if framing a headline.

“ALM, stepping out?”

No reaction as he unlocked his truck door.

“ALM: Boy toy?”

Still nothing as he slung himself up into the seat, though he did turn to look down at me. I gazed up at his angry little face, hard as a stone and just as difficult to break.

Then, inspiration struck.

“Hey! I know! I’ll twerk for you like that Miley Cyrus chick! That got her and that Thicke guy a lot of press!”

I spun about and bent over, thrusting my backside into the air as I looked at him, upside-down, from between my knees.

“C’mon down and get close!”

Having no idea how to actually  twerk, I just started to gyrate and pump my hips, double-time. Right there in the parking lot.

Ten seconds later I was walking toward my own truck, smiling at the sounds of ALM in his truck behind me, laughing so hard I thought he might wet the seat, and ignoring it when he managed to gasp some words out in between guffaws:

“...where… do… you… come up with… this @#$%?”

I dunno. Internet maybe?

What the hell was he laughing about? Don't I look hawt?
And where did ALM get that Beetlejuice suit?

Talk to you later!



And, because I think sometimes we all want to do this: A Husky having a metric butt-ton of fun!