Stupid Lady... Not So Stupid?

Please, help me turn from an 'Up-and-Comer' to a Rising Star!

The voting is only open for another couple of days in the Preditors&Editors Readers Poll for 2012. I have a chance, a pretty good chance it seems, to win the Horror Short Story category with my story "Photo Finish", as published by Post Mortem Press. I just need one little thing.

Your vote.

Please, if you could just take two minutes of your time, click on the link below and cast your vote for "Photo Finish.
Membership is not required. All that's required is the desire to help a small artist's burgeoning career.

Two minutes and the desire to help. Won't you?

Thank you for your help and support.

http://www.critters.org/predpoll/shortstoryh.shtml


...and now, here's the story:

So Handsome had a wrestling tournament on Sunday morning. Early. It was about an an hour away from home, so that meant we had to get up and leave early.

Okay…

Now, if you know me, you probably suspect the words “Rob was right on time” have never been spoken during the course of my life. Even I have that suspicion. I was, surprise surprise, running just a bit late. However, I had the address, I had a GPS unit, and I had little to no traffic.

I drive using a Garmin GPS unit all the time. The unit (just in case you’ve never seen on in operation) talks to you, like a smooth, female-voiced nagging backseat driver. I tend to refer to it as ‘the Stupid Lady’.

“In two miles, take a right, onto Richardson road.”

“In one and a half miles, take a right, onto Richardson road.”

“In one mile, take a right onto Richardson road.”

“In a half-mile, take a right onto Richardson road.”

“In 500 yards, take a right onto Richardson road.”

“In 200 yards, take a right into Richardson road.”

“In 100 yards, take a right on to Richardson road.”

“In 100 feet, take a right on to Richardson road.”

“Take a right, onto Richardson road. Take it now. Right now turn right rightnowyou’regoingtomissityoudummy—”

You get the picture.

So there I was, listening to this otherwise very pleasant voiced Stupid Lady giving me the most strict and detailed directions you ever saw, heard, or read about. Anywhere. Trust me. The whole way she gave warnings, directions and instructions. Handsome laughs at me, but I tend to talk back to the machine. I start out with thank-yous, then try to ignore her, but eventually I start snapping at her. It’s kind of fun, and that thing yapping at me constantly does get pretty annoying.

So there we were, zipping up the highway, and along came our exit. Madam Garmin warned us that the exit was coming up. In excruciating detail. About nine times. She even told us about the exit as we were taking it!

“Yes, you Stupid Lady,” I said to her. I wasn’t exactly shouting, but it was getting there. “I know, I know! Take the exit on my right! I get it! I get it! For God’s sake, shut up!”

Then, once we were on the exit ramp, the display screen on the GPS changed. It showed just the diagram of a traffic circle, an actual circle on the screen, with individual roads leading out from it. The highlighted route went into the circle on one road, half-way around it (passing one roundabout exit on the way), then out the other side. If the circle wasn’t in the diagram, the route would have been a simple straight line.

I looked through the windshield at what lay ahead.

There was no traffic circle.

It was an intersection, where I could either go right, left, or just go straight on through.

I hit the brakes and came to a halt, staring from the GPS display to reality, then back again. I was hoping they would suddenly match up, but it didn’t happen.

Traffic circle with the marked route going just as straight through as can be.

Intersection.

Hmm…..

I sat and waited for the Stupid Lady to speak up, to tell me which way to go. Straight? Turn?

Nothing but silence.

“Seriously?”

Nothing but silence.

“Well,” I said, “Okay… the route on the map goes straight, so…”

I drove straight on through the intersection, continuing on the same off-ramp route I was on.

Immediately the screen changed, flashing a single word over and over, the same word the Stupid Lady was repeating at me, again and again:

“Recalculating… Recalculating…Recalculating…”

“Oh, seriously!? You chose that exact time to shut up?”

I saw that I was cruising right back out onto the highway I had just left, bypassing the exit I was apparently supposed to take. I fumed silently as we pulled back into the slight morning traffic.

“In one mile, take exit 30 on the right.”

“In a half mile, take exit 30 on the right.”

“In a quarter mile, take exit 30 on the right.”

I listened. I drove. I did not talk.

We circled around, but made it to the tournament on time.

I still hate her. Stupid Lady.

Talk to you later!

That Was So NINJA!

It's been a really mild winter here in Massachusetts, at least so far. So, is this going to be a story about the weather?

Sort of.

Here's the story:

We finally had a little snow here in Massachusetts, and of course Handsome felt the need to go out and play in it.

Aw, who am I kidding? I felt the need too.

I was sort of trying to fight it off; I’ve never edited a novel before but I’m giving it a shot. Having just the smidge of an idea how much work this edit will entail, my plan was to get him to the hill with the other kids and let him loose on the sledding world while I sat in the car with more than 300 pages of single-spaced manuscript and a pen.

That was my plan.

Then I saw the snow-covered hill with its sleds zipping down while children trudged back up, and before you can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (and some of the older crowd who are Disney fans probably can say that) I was struggling into my ice fishing/sledding gear behind the parked Jeep. Those of you who are paying attention might ask why I even had this equipment with me if the plan was to let Handsome sled while I sat in the car editing. I would like to inform these people that all questions must be submitted in writing and will be answered at the end of the term.

*ahem*

So there I was, sledding with Handsome. Handsome, being a ten -year-old boy, occasionally exhibits all the attention span of a meth addict who’s been hopped up on sugar and handed the remote control to a 52” television with all the channels. In minutes the sledding had morphed into an odd, somewhat violent snow-fight involving two plastic sleds (shields) various wrestling and karate moves (take-downs in the snow can actually be quite fun) and fistfuls of loose snow (because who really has time to pack a good snowball when your opponent is bearing down on you intent on taking out your legs and going for the pin?). We were in the middle of this comic-book-type battle when it happened.

I was lying on my side with Handsome lying atop but perpendicular to me, on his back. I had his left arm trapped with my legs and his right arm held with my right arm… if you picture us lying in the shape of a capital “T”, him with the back of his head lying on my sternum, you have it pretty well right.

Now though we were both on the ground at the time, and he was, technically, on top of me, I had the upper hand. I had both of his arms pinned, while one of my arms (the left) was free to scoop and throw snow. So I did. I scooped up a handful of cold, powdery whiteness and thrust my arm out past his head just about as far as I could. Since I was lying sort of behind him, this put my hand out in front of his face. With a flick of my wrist I cast the handful of snow into his face so that he, arms pinned and helpless, wound up with a face full of cold.

At least, that was the plan.

Seeing my hand push out past his face and noticing the chilly cargo it contained, Handsome intuited my plan and took action. Timing it perfectly, he jerked to the right just as I flicked my wrist, managing to get his head out of the path of my throw and allowing the snow to simply cascade down, past his face… and into my own.

Let me see if I can say this more plainly: in a move worthy of every Jackie Chan flick in existence, Handsome ducked out of the way and allowed me to throw snow into my own face.

Into my own face.

To all those people out there who have watched movies or television shows where a little guy outmaneuvers the bigger guy and the big guy winds up smashing himself in the foot with a club, or hitting himself in the head, or otherwise doing himself harm, and you have sat there wondering Oh, my God, who would be that stupid? I have one thing to say:

*Little finger wave* “Hi. How you doing?”

Talk to you later!

You're So Gandalf?

Hey there WYMOP Nation! Sorry, but before I move on to this week's post, I have to make a plea.

Some of you may know I have a short story titled Photo Finish in the Horror anthology The Ghost IS The Machine, from Post Mortem Press. I recently found out that the anthology is up for an industry award, the Preditors & Editor's Reader's Poll Award for 2012.   I was very excited. I later found out that not only is the anthology up for an award, so is my story.

Excited is no longer the word. 

Please, take a couple of minutes to go to the site and vote for me, and the anthology. It takes, literally, two minutes of your time, and you don't have to be a member of their website to vote. No joining, no getting on a list, nothing like that. You can just vote. 

The voting is open until midnight, January 10th. Please, take the two minutes to help me out, then you can forget all about it. One vote for me, one vote for the anthology. It couldn't hurt you, and it means a lot to me.

Here are the links:

Short Story Category (voting for Photo Finish) -> http://www.critters.org/predpoll/shortstoryh.shtml

Anthologies Category (Voting for The Ghost IS The Machine) -> http://www.critters.org/predpoll/antho.shtml

Every single vote helps.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Now... on with the post!

~ ~ * * ~ ~

Every group, be they family, friends or simple co-workers, tends to create a special language all their own, with words and phrases that no one else would understand. They may understand the words, but not their meaning.

I’ll give you an example:

In one place I once worked (nothing to do with my current place of employment, I assure you) there was a man who came in to work some of the Saturday mornings that he worked still at least a little drunk from the night before. He would be rumpled, unshaven, bleary-eyed, with a little wobble in his step and breath that smelled like Satan’s balloon knot. We’ll call this man, at least for the purposes of this example, Scott. Eventually we began to refer, at least among ourselves, to people who exhibited signs of great inebriation to be ‘Scott-faced’, as in ‘Wow, you should have seen this guy at the party, he was totally Scott-faced’. No one outside of our group would have had the background to understand that. They may have picked up the intent through context, but we all simply understood the phrase ‘Scott-faced’.

Got it?

Now, with the understanding that these little secret phrases happen spontaneously all around us… here’s the story:

Recently Handsome and I watched the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. What with each of the three movies being more than three hours long, and Handsome being just ten years old and not exactly famous for the longevity of his patience, I sort of spread the movies out a bit. We watched them pretty much one a week for the first part of the month, and Handsome was a little thrown by a scene in the beginning of the second part of the trilogy, The Two Towers.

SPOILER ALERT!! — I am about to describe and remark upon things that happen in the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want me to ruin it for you, you might want to skip the rest of this episode of WYMOP and just get back to us next week. If you’re looking for something to read, however, you can try some of the fiction that can be found on my website, The Storyteller. See you next week!

Okay— are they gone? Cool. Okay… back in the first movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, we saw the wizard Gandalf fall from an underground cliff while locked in battle with a demon called a Balrog, where he is assumed dead. Bad, right? It sure is. Well after watching that first movie Handsome and I had a little discussion on who the toughest in the group was, the toughest in the Fellowship of thirteen who set out with the Ring. Handsome spoke of the Ranger Aragorn, Legolas the Elf and Gimli the Dwarf. I, on the other hand, maintained that Gandalf the Wizard was the toughest. Handsome wasn’t sure, but he could see both sides of the Gandalf argument. Yes, Gandalf appeared to die, to be the first of them to die, in fact, but he had done it while locked in single combat with a thing that the others dared not face even as a group. Did that make him tougher, or just suicidal?

“Just wait,” I said. “You’ll see.”

Wait he did. And then, in the beginning of the second film in the trilogy, The Two Towers, there is a scene, sort of a flashback, where we see the Balrog falling deeper and deeper into an apparently bottomless chasm inside the Earth, Gandalf falling above it. We see Gandalf gain control of his fall much like a sky-diver, narrow his body’s profile to allow himself to pick up speed, pluck a sword (dropped earlier in the battle) from the air as it spins past in the void, then actually catch up to the twelve-foot demon and begin fighting it again, hacking at the beast with the captured sword while thundering out words of abjuration. All this while they fall endlessly through the Earth.

Back in the real world I pointed dramatically toward the action on the screen.

“There,” I said, “you see that? While the others are all running from the Orcs, Gandalf catches up with the Balrog and actually rides it all the way down into Hell while beating it about the head and shoulders with a sword! He doesn’t even have his magic staff or anything, just a sword! That, my friend, is a tough guy.”

Handsome was laughing at my exuberance, but I ignored that and leaned in, trying to make my point.

“Those other guys are tough, alright. They are.”

I leaned in closer.

“But Gandalf is a bad-ass!”

More laughter ensued.

Fast forward about two and a half weeks.

It’s Christmas day. Handsome has gotten exactly what he wanted, a Play Station 3 with the Assassin’s Creed package. Yes, I know Assassin’s Creed might be a bit of an adult game for a ten-year-old, but I’m trying to monitor it. Also, please bear in mind that this is a kid who watches NCIS, Bones, and Risoli and Isles on television. It was later in the morning and he had opened his presents hours ago. He had immediately asked me to set up the Play Station, and I had… and that was just about the last we saw of him for the day. He’d been in there for a couple of hours already the first time he emerged for supplies. I saw him rummaging through the fridge, wished him a merry Christmas and asked him how the game was going.

“I’m Gandalf in this game,” he said as he disappeared back into his room. I followed, leaning in the doorway to watch the screen for a moment.

“What do you mean,” I asked. “Your character is named Gandalf?”

“No,” he replied. “I’m Gandalf. You know.”

He dropped the controller to raise his hands in the air for a second.

“I’m bad-ass!”

“Hey! I— you… look, when…” I said, not exactly intelligently. He scooped up the controller again, focusing on the game before him.

“I’m so Gandalf,” he murmured. I chuckled.

Later on as he crossed the kitchen again, the hands went in the air and he pranced a little.

“I’m so Gandalf!”

His mother looked at me for an explanation.

“He’s, uh, he’s pretty Gandalf,” I said.

I think I’ll skip the explanation on this one.

Talk to you later!

And So This Is Christmas...

It’s 6:30 am.

Here I sit, all alone at the dining room table in the house where Handsome and his mother live. I’ve been here for forty minutes or so.

I drove here so early there was no traffic, other than the one obligatory Slow Person. This is the person who got in front of me for just long enough for me to start yelling in my enclosed car. Then they turned on their directional for a little more than a mile, passing about nine turnings they could have taken but didn’t, and I had just started to shout to myself about that when they turned off my intended route, thereby saving themselves from a slow death by strangulation… and myself from a lengthy prison sentence for murder via slow strangulation. I don’t know why I shout at these people. I believe it’s actually a Massachusetts State Law that every trip made by car which the driver thinks will be a breeze have one of these Slow People in front of them for a while. It helps maintain, as a State, a healthy level of Road Rage. 

Or is it an un-healthy level?

I forget.

Anyway, I slipped through the front door in the dark, silent as a shadow among shadows. One of the main reasons I was being so silent was so I would not create any sounds that might serve to cover up the noise of all three dogs in the house going absolutely mental, barking at me as if I had just set all their asses on fire. Lights went on up and down the street as the dogs announced my presence in the house with more clarity than if I’d ridden in on a parade float preceded by the world’s only Electronic Fife and Drum corps with all their amps turned up to eleven. Not Ten. Eleven. And why would their amps turn up to eleven, rather than the traditional maximum of ten? The Spinal Tap fans out there all know. 

What’s that? 

Yes, that’s right. Because it’s one louder, isn’t it?

Eventually they all settled down again, and I proceeded to set up my laptop on the table here to start working on a short story I’m writing: a somewhat dark (what a surprise, I know) fairytale Princess story. I sat for a while and thought, listening to the silence in the dark house. I looked out the window to see if the sun was rising yet, but I swear that great celestial orb rolled over, squinted at me, gave me the finger and went right back to sleep. I got up and turned on the Christmas Tree lights, and that was a bit cheery, but then I sat back down and listened to the silent house again. Air hissed through the ducts as the heat came on, but ten minutes later the silence returned when the furnace shut down. 

The reason I got up and came over here so early was so that I’d be here when Handsome got up for Christmas morning. I’ve been here every Christmas morning of his life, and this was to be no exception. Wife told me I had to be here before 6am, since that’s when he gets up. Handsome told me to be here before 6am, since that’s when he gets up. I got here before 6am, because that was when Handsome was getting up.

Let’s see…

— Had an easy drive in except for the Slow Person.

— Snuck in quite silently except for the dogs barking at me to within an inch of their lives.

— Got here early enough to see Handsome wake up at 6am… but it’s now past 7am and I’m still alone out here.

— However, I did get a quick blog entry out of all this, and now, at 7:05 am, I’ve cracked open my first box of Milk Duds of the day. My camera is all set to capture the look of groggy wonder on Handsome’s face whenever he decides to grace the world with his presence, and then his presents, and I’m about to start working on that dark fairy Princess story.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Merry Christmas to me!

Merry Christmas to you!

Talk to you later!

P.S. - Just thought I'd pop back in here and mention that it's now 7:35. The Sun is up, but the son is still down, and I still sit here alone, quietly singing to myself.

"...and so this is Christmas.... and what have you done? You're sitting here blogging... wai-ting for your son..."


P.P.S. - 8:00am - FIRST SIGNS OF LIFE! HUZZAAAAHHH!!!!!

Merry Christmas!

Nana and Mutes

Here's the story:

We had gathered together as a family to celebrate the life of my father… no, wait, that would be a funeral. He’s not quite that old yet… it was his birthday! Yeah, that was it! His birthday! Sorry about that.

So we had gathered together as a family to celebrate my father being bored. Born, sorry. Born.

Anyway, for his birthday I gave him a copy of the book Dangers Untold, in which is a story I wrote and sold called Mutes. Not a lot of people I know have actually read that particular anthology — I like the story I wrote very much, I loved the idea, but it’s a little more harsh than most of the other Horror I’ve written. Just a touch more graphic. A smidge more gory.

Aw, hell, he’s my Dad. He can take it. Besides, in reviews for the book, Mutes is constantly being chosen by the reviewers as one of the stand-out stories in the anthology, and I’m kind of proud of that. So I slipped it into a gift bag with another thing or two and put it on the table by the cake and ice cream. We ate the goodies and Dad opened his cards and gifts. He was appreciative of the book, but as he still had company he set it aside for later. Before later had a chance to arrive, however, Dangers Untold was picked up by someone else as it lay there on the table.

My Nana.

She checked out the cover art (which is good, it’s a handsome book, if I do say so myself), then opened it to the Table of Contents.

“Is Rob in this one?”

My father pointed out where I was in the list, and I thought that was going to be it. I thought she would simply verify that I was in the book, admire the cover, and put it back down. Instead she took note of the page number Mutes started on, flipped through the book, and started reading.

Oh.

My.

God!

This is the story that caused my mother, the Steven King fan who’s read all the weird and gross things he’s written, to tell me I’d ‘gone a bit far’.

This is the story where the protagonist is a paramedic, who sees (as paramedics and EMTs do) some seriously terrible things… and that’s just the jumping off point for the story.

My mother came by, handing out slices of birthday cake, and must have seen something in my face.

“What’s the matter?”

I tossed my head sideways to indicate where my Nana sat, book open on the table in front her, and my voice came out in a hiss.

“She’s reading Mutes!”

Mom looked over, somewhat startled, but when she turned back to me she sounded reassuring.

“Don’t worry. She won’t have time to get to the end.”

Mom walked away, satisfied. I sat there remembering that, sure, the worst part, the part that had made Mom shudder, was toward the end of the story, but there was plenty of awful stuff in there. What if Nana read…

My mind boggled.

My sister, seeing my expression, and sensing weakness in a way only a sibling can, decided to ‘help’.

“Hey, Nana,” she called out. “Have you gotten to the bad part yet?”

“Well,” Nana replied without looking up, “I found a couple of words I didn’t care for.”

Oh #$%@!! I’d forgotten all about the language!

“My editor put some of that in there,” I babbled. “The language, I mean. She added in a few…”

I trailed off, realizing Nana wasn’t paying any attention to me, so focused was she on reading the story. Sister kept on ‘helping’, watching with glee as I squirmed whenever she asked “So, Nana, what part are you up to now?” Nana always answered her, once actually looking at me and asking “Where do you come up with this stuff? I mean, this thing with the pine branch in the girl’s eye?”

“The guy’s a paramedic,” I began. “He’s going to see some…”

I didn’t have to continue; She was gone again, focusing once more on the words on the page.

My words.

Terrific.

I sat there, wanting to run but unable to tear myself away, as Sister asked questions and Nana gave updates about ambulance rides, falling security doors, emergency rooms, and ‘Angels with eyes of blood’. My Nana was the woman who babysat us when we were little, and no matter what my sister and I did would report to our parents that we were angels. Now she was reading what I’d written and asking me “How do you come up with this stuff?” Would she still think of me as an Angel?

Eventually I managed to flee. I went upstairs to my own room, checked some email and caught my breath. I went back downstairs a few minutes later to find Nana’s chair vacant and my mother saying goodbye to Nana and Grampy out in the driveway. I stepped out to give hugs and shake hands. My Nana kissed my cheek and said “Now, I think I only got about half-way through that one before we had to get ready to go.”

She hadn’t even gotten to the ‘bad’ part! Reprieve!

“But I want to finish it sometime.”

Doom!

They drove off and Mom and I returned to the house.

“Nana said she wants to finish reading Mutes,” I said to Mom. “What do I do?”

“Don’t worry. She’ll probably get involved in something something else and forget all about it.”

Reprieve!

A week later Mom came home from visiting with Nana and Grampy to tell me Nana was asking where she could buy the book Dangers Untold so she could finish the story.

Doom!

To quote the great Willie Wonka (the Gene Wilder version, my favorite):

“The suspense is killing me… I hope it’ll last.”

…and last…and last…

Oh boy.

Talk to you later!

They All Go Out

So it’s that time of year again. It’s the season for idiots all over the country, maybe all over the world, to climb up on ladders, belly-crawl across roofs, maybe even hang off a gutter with one hand while fruitlessly waving a long hooked pole with the other. It’s a time when cries of “you be careful up there” ring out over neighborhoods far and wide, in the city and the country. Those words are spoken as if the people saying the words think those folks have never clung to ladders or hung off gutters one-handed before; as if those folks who are routinely seen standing firmly on (or even above) the rung on the ladder marked ‘Do not Stand On or Above This Step’, those folks who are taking their very lives in their hands simply to honor a tradition passed down from father to son for generations are hearing those warnings for the very first time. As if the climbing people have never, ever, heard them before.

Trust me. We’ve heard the warning before. For as long as idiots like me have been climbing ladders and roofs while dragging wires and cords behind them there have been other people standing right there to remind us to be careful, to test the strings before we go up the ladders, and to ask why we get so upset over something so simple when it does not work. We heard it all last year, and the year before that. We heard people warning our fathers, and our fathers heard people warning their fathers. There have been idiots climbing and people warning them going practically back to the very day Thomas Alba Edison flipped the switch and filled Menlo Park with a dim glow to the gasps of astonished wonder from that evening’s crowd…

Yup. I’m talking about putting up the Christmas lights.

Weekend before last I broke the house lights out of the shed where they spend the warmer months. Come the Christmas season the front of my house is decorated each year with dangling icicle lights that run the length of the roof-edge. This little project includes both the climbing of the ladder and the crawling across the roof hanging on to the gutter edge described above. It also includes the ‘testing the strings before going up the ladder’ that I mentioned. All this means is plugging the damn lights in while they’re still on the ground to make certain they all light up, since it’s much easier to isolate and repair the problem when you don’t have to make multiple trips up a ladder to do so.

Yes, I speak from experience here. Horrible, cold, clinging-to-the-side-of-the-house-and-holding-replacement-bulbs-in-your-teeth-while-tears-and streamers-of-snot-freeze-to-your-face experience.

It was not pretty.

So I checked the lights before I even tried to climb the ladder. These are not the old-fashioned light strings either, where if one light goes out they all go out. Oh no! These are newer technology, where if one light goes out then just that three-foot section goes out! Much better to work with than those old ‘all for one and one for all’ type of light strings!

So I plugged in the lights, expecting as usual that 4-5 sections wouldn’t light, the way it is every year… but lo and behold it was a Christmas miracle! There was just one three-foot section that remained dark — the first section in the string. This was going to be the easiest year in quite a while if this was any indication! I sat right down and started checking lights, looking forward to climbing that ladder and crawling over that roof… well, looking forward to getting it all over with, that’s for sure!

I put a pile of replacement bulbs next to me and started testing them, plugging them into a working part of the string to make sure the replacements themselves weren’t burnt out or broken. All good. Next I started, one at a time, checking all the bulbs in the bad section of the string. I’d pull a bulb from the dark section and plug it into the working section next to it. The bulb would light up, that section of the string would light up, and I’d pull it out again to pop back into the bad section where I’d found it. Then I’d pull out the next bulb and repeat the process.

And again.

And again.

Whenever a bulb didn’t work, I’d replace it from my pile of good bulbs. It took me about an hour, but eventually I’d either verified or replaced every single light in that unlit section of the string.

The string remained stubbornly unlit.

I took a deep breath. Then another. Then another. Then I realized I was actually hyperventilating and went in the house to get a paper bag to breathe into. Many of my exhalations, once the bag was firmly attached to my face, sounded a lot like ‘Christmas miracle my rosy red @$$!!’ being said again and again, but I’m sure that was just a trick of paper bag acoustics. From there I went straight to the Jeep and drove to the nearest CVS pharmacy, where I purchased an entire new set of lights for a modest sum. I went back to the house, unpackaged the new lights and tested them. They all worked.

“Look! Look! A Christmas miracle!”

People driving past slowed down a bit to watch as I danced about the lighted string, looking quite a bit like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway during the scene where he manages to finally make a fire… except bald. And wearing winter clothes. And being in a driveway rather than in a deserted island. And it wasn’t life-giving fire I had there, but a string of stupid Christmas lights. Okay, it was nothing at all like that scene in the movie, but the feeling was the same! I was practically ready to draw a face on Handsome’s soccer ball and start chatting with it… but I had to get up that ladder. And across that roof.

Huzzah.

Now, fast forward one week to this past weekend. There I was, standing before the Christmas tree holding another set of lights in my hand. It’s a set I’d had for quite a while, with a plastic ring that goes around the top of the tree and eight separate light strings that then drape down toward the floor — much easier than the old-fashioned lights that had to be wound either around and around the tree or to and fro across the front. I loved this set of lights! Before I hung them on the tree, however, I plugged them in. Just to test them out. Just to be sure.

Not a single bulb lit up.

I sat there, looking sat the dark heap of my favorite Christmas lights. I pictured myself sitting there as I had the week before, testing the tree lights as I had the house lights, though there were a lot more bulbs to check here than there had been for the house.

Then I pictured myself scooping the whole mess off the floor and throwing it forcefully into the kitchen trash can, then dancing out to the Jeep in a fashion that would have made Michael Flatly himself green with envy, all to run up to CVS and buy a while new set of lights for just $9.99.

Long story short, it was the best ten dollars I ever spent.

…and I think some of the cars that slowed down to watch me dancing toward the Jeep were some of the same ones that slowed to watch as I danced and hugged a soccer ball the week before.

Ah, tradition!

Talk to you later!

P.S. — Just to answer any questions you might have, the soccer ball and I have talked about it, and we are just friends. Just very, very good friends.

Fair's Fair... Right?

You picture a high school craft fair, you picture a small event, the kind of thing you go to and everybody just sort of has fun. Maybe you sell stuff, maybe you don’t, but there’s a kind of friendly atmosphere, vendors keeping each-other company all day, checking out each-other’s wares, and there’s a general feel-good kind of atmosphere. At the end of the day everyone goes home with a good feeling inside, having made promises to get together with the other vendors for coffee sometime (intended at the time, but will almost never happen) and looking forward to seeing them all at the next event.

At least, that’s how I pictured working the day at a high school craft fair.

Then I went to the Tantasqua's Holiday Craft Fair, held at the Tantasqua Regional Sr. High School in Fiskdale, Ma, with the New England Horror Writers.

I may never be the same.

Here’s the story:

I may say I’m not mentioning names to protect the innocent, but in this case it’s really to protect myself. I was with a group of people who think of terrible things for fun, then write them down, and have probably done at least a little research into forensics and police procedures.

It’s all about self-preservation.

The event was larger and more well organized than I’d imagined, with a shuttle-bus driving vendors to and from the student parking lot up the road to allow customers the closer parking and better access to the building. Yup. A shuttle bus. I went in and located the rest of my NEHW brethren setting up at the twin 8-foot tables that had been secured for us by our esteemed Director of Publicity. Tablecloths were shaken out and draped, book stands positioned, and stock unpacked. I set my stuff up at one end of the tables and watched the event’s Santa walk by, ‘Ho-ho-ho’-ing as he went. Then he walked by again. He hadn’t yet made his third pass before someone in our group decided they’d had Ho-ho-enough, and announced their intention to kill Santa.

I’ll not say who it was, (see above note on self-preservation) but suffice to say that though I look nothing like Santa, I was afraid.

I may have said too much already. I think she could find me if she tried. Moving on.

We set up and the fun began. Here are some high points:

• Every time customers perused the NEHW table, the man with the newspapers on the table across the aisle (and thus behind them) would call out “Want a free paper?” I always thought the magic word was ‘please’, but apparently it’s ‘free’; at its very utterance the marks would peel off like a pack of zombies who’ve scented a woman wearing improbably high heels and have decided to give chase. Said marks never returned to our table.
• We were not amused.
• There was a man roving about the venue hawking coupon books filled with deals at local establishments. He would suddenly appear in the area, bellowing his pitch in full voice — and what a voice! If the System ever breaks down due to Zombie Apocalypse or plague, and you need to get a message to the next town, just have this guy shout: they’ll hear, trust me. “Excuse me, sir? Hercules called, and he’d like his lungs back.” The man was actually frightening people.
• We were not amused. From the moment this guy’s voice made the scene, Mr. Claus was safe. Our potential Santa Slayer had acquired a new target… and we were all behind her, 100%. Safest place to be, actually…
• One of our writers purchased a sandwich from the students running the cafeteria for the event, and was charged $4. Ten minutes later a pair of students walked by offering people the last of the sandwiches for just $2. The writer in question felt somewhat ‘rooked’. Questions were asked. Glares were offered. Anger abounded.
• We were not amused.
• Well, actually, most of us were amused, but were afraid to admit it. All I can say is those students are damn lucky it wasn’t the potential Santa Slayer who bought a $4 sandwich — they may have wound up right back in that cafeteria. On the side of a milk carton.

Okay, so I lied. Those weren’t high points. By the next day, though, they were pretty funny. Some actual high points, for me anyway, include:

• As soon as we set up, a woman stopped in to buy RW’s book, Crabapples, have her picture taken with him, and then… abscond with him for a time. I had heard talk of RW and his ‘Groupies’, but this was my first experience with them, and I have to say I was not disappointed. I shave my head, tip the scales at about 200 lbs, and have been told there is a slight resemblance to Stone Cold Steve Austin… but without the muscle-mass. Kind of like ‘Stone Cold the home game’. I’ve offered myself up as ‘RW Security’ for future events, but have yet to hear anything definite either way. I’ll keep you posted.
• Who am I kidding? I want groupies of my own. Maybe, someday, when I grow up…
• At one point a woman none of us had ever seen before simply appeared out of the crowd to accost RW (he had been returned to us by this point) and offer him a small charm on a necklace. “Hey,” she said leaning down over his shoulder. “I just found this stone, and you see this mark on it? Right here? This is a mark of Protection. You should have this!” We all looked at each-other. Someone voiced the question that was on all out minds:
  “Who the hell was that?”
  No one knew.
• I don’t have words. I’ve looked for them, but I can’t find them. No, that’s not right, I can find one of them: ‘Groupies’. ‘Nuff said.
• After eating a snack, I was collecting the group’s trash to take with me to the waste bin. When asked for trash, our Director of Publicity offered me two of those ‘free’ papers from the table across the way, showing all the large-motion flourish with which one traditionally throws down a gauntlet on the field of battle. An obvious challenge had been issued, and I worried that fisticuffs might ensue, but there was naught but the dangerous narrowing of eyes in response from the paper vendor as he sat impotently behind his table across the way.
• The honor of the group had been defended, the Director of Publicity emerging a hero in all our eyes.
• And now, summing up the highest point in the day for me, I have just two words: Bacon Fudge.
• I should say something pithy here, but I think I need to step away for a moment to collect myself.
• …so good … it was so good …

Sorry, where was I? Right! Tantasqua's Holiday Craft Fair… right…

Me and my wares. Photo by NEHW Director of Publicity

As I said, the venue was larger than I had anticipated, and we had plenty of space (thanks to the foresight of Director of Publicity) to spread out our wares. The sheer amount of people who walked by our table should have worked in our favor, and might have if not for the machinations of the Evil Newspaper Man. There was food, there was caroling, and the people hosting the event seemed to do everything they could to make both the customers and the vendors as comfortable as possible. As far as I could tell a good time was had by all.

A few of us even sold books, and any day when that happens is a check mark in the ‘win’ column in my book.

I’d never worked a Craft Fair before this, and I didn’t know what to expect. Now that I do know what to expect, would I do one again?

You bet your Bacon Fudge!

…mmmm…. Bacon fudge….

Talk to you later!