We Need Potpourri In The Bedroom

I’ve been indisposed for a few days. A buddy of mine has a landscaping business, and he asked me to help him out with a backlog of work so he can get away on vacation in a couple of weeks. I agreed. Big mistake. Never, ever do anyone a favor at any time for any reason. It will bite you in the ass every time. But that’s another saga. I did get a couple of good tales out of this hellacious nightmare, though. Gather ‘round for this one.

I was pushing dirt around the grounds of a half-million dollar, tinker-toy, keep-up-with-the-Jones' shack being constructed in a cow pasture which, with one wave of a developer’s magic wand, is mystically transforming itself into a gated community. You know the place. You have them in your neck of the woods, too. These are the enclaves where big suckers with big dollars move to escape the stench of little suckers with little dollars.

The snot-nosed, thirty-something, pseudo-executive homeowner, who was building this ostentatious palace for himself, his trophy wife and perfect children, visited the job site at least four times daily. He was clearly nervous about the bucks he was bleeding and the debt he was digesting in the construction of this monstrosity and, like any good American, he was venting his frustration by shitting on anybody he deemed beneath him in the world order. These days, the world order presents him with tradesmen and laborers just ripe for shit-catching.

Dandy Boy patrolled the grounds with legal pad in hand, scribbling out his shit list as he conducted his inspections. When his path intersected that of a working stiff, he’d bark orders.

"Move that boulder two feet this way and turn it around. The other side looks better. I can see the screw heads in that deck...hide ‘em. I want this area perfectly level for my kids’ jungle gym. Move that kitchen window two inches to the left."

When he wasn’t complaining about the progress and quality of the project, he was whining about the construction grit and dust on his penny loafers. Four times a day we looked forward to Dandy’s visit with the same anticipation as Gitmo prisoners looking forward to another interrogation session. The Geneva Conventions don’t apply to construction sites, either.

While Dandy was emotionally mutilating a painter, I flashed back to 1977. Saturday Night Fever. The Bee Gees, their collective nuts in a vice, croon a melodramatic ballad in an octave that makes dogs howl. Tony Manero delivers his impassioned can’t-we-all-just-get-along soliloquy: "Ever’body’s dumpin’ on ever’body. Dis guy dumps on dat guy, dat guy dumps on me, I dump on anudder guy. Ever’body’s just a dump dump dumpin’ on ever’body else."

Dandy Boy was a dump dump dumpin’ with the best of them, and I wondered if the chain of dumpin’ ever came back around and paid him a visit. Well, Jupiter must have been aligned with Mars, because his cell phone rang to announce the delivery of his own medicine.

"Hello?"

I’m pretty sure it was the voice of god on the other end of the line, because it reigned over the prairie like a clash of thunder.

"Where the hell are you?"

"Um, I’m uh…I’m…"

"New house?"

"Yeah, heh heh…"

"Build your house on your own goddam time! Get your ass in here! I’m trying to run a business!"

I don’t know who Dandy Boy’s boss is, but he deserves a humanitarian award. The punishment was swift and it fit the crime. An eye for an eye. Dandy’s gonads crawled right up his soft underbelly and nestled in with his tonsils. He looked incredibly tiny as he slithered behind the wheel of his $70,000 SUV and raced back to the temple of money that was funding this cow pasture palace.

It was a sweltering 95 degrees out there in the blazing sunshine of Affluent Acres, but I swear I felt a cool sea breeze wafting over me as I took a piss on the foundation under Dandy’s new bedroom suite.

Yo, Tony. Gimme a call. Ya won’t fuckin’ believe dis. It was beauteeful…

You All Looked Better At Closing Time

Among my wives and their husbands, the "’til death do us part" oath has been recited eleven times. None of us is dead, but we are all arthritic from excessive finger-crossing. That’s OK, though, because I think we have enough participants to form a trade group for purchases of health insurance and for volume discounts at Walgreen’s.

I am effectively a member of a commune. In the psychedelic 60s, the concept of communal living implied simultaneous sharing of accommodations and partners. In the ensuing decades, we hippies have learned to pace ourselves. We build our communes one temporary monogamous relationship at a time.

I still have furniture and appliance receipts for items now residing in at least three other households within my vast commune. With the passage of time, I’m sure that number will increase. It’s the finger-crossing exponent of quantum multiple marriage mathematics. Children I have never met are eating with utensils I purchased. Some guy is farting in my chair.

According to my application of the Geometric Jizz-Spray Theorem and associated corollaries promulgated by the Centers for Disease Control, I have consummated sexual relations with every living being on the planet. All within the holy confines of marriage and without leaving the comfort of my own home. Yes, including you. Don’t be offended, but I don’t remember our rendezvous. I don’t know if I fucked you or you fucked me, but we have swapped DNA.

Whenever I receive a wedding invitation, now that I am armed with this extensive carnal knowledge, I RSVP "maybe next time." I have already provided toasters and blenders for my entire promiscuous global family. And my attendance at the wedding would be wholly inappropriate. According to the CDC formulae, I have slept with the bride. And the groom. And their sisters. And their brothers. And their moms. And their dads. I still have the hots for mom.

By the way, does anybody else have a thing on their lip? I need all of your medical histories before my next physical.

So the next time you pass me on the street, don’t avert your eyes. After all we have shared together, it’s hurtful when you treat me like a stranger. Your mom doesn’t.

Who Was That Masked Man?

I live in a one-newspaper town. The Gannett newspaper conglomerate chooses to publish in one-newspaper markets, thereby precluding any need to compete for advertising dollars or "scoops." Gannett can publish the news it sees fit to publish and it can publish anything it deems to be news.

The November 7, 2004 headline in my Daily Gannett read "Philanthropist of the Year Feted at Awards Banquet." Of course, any subscriber to my Gannett newspaper knew, without reading further, that the Philanthropist of the Year was chosen from among the handful of people who conceptualize, manufacture and receive all of the awards in my town. Because they own my town. And all of the dirty little working people who live in my town.

The hot-off-the-press news flash stated "The Moneybucks family, headed by Milton Moneybucks III, gave more than $500,000 last year to 200 organizations. Milton Moneybucks III is the chairman of Moneybucks Financial, the parent company of Moneybucks National Bank and Trust."

Don’t get me wrong. I find this very honorable. Milton Moneybucks III inherited a banking empire in my little town and he has generously given away $500,000 of his grandpa’s money to charity. I’m all for it.

But it gets better. The award was presented by a woman who shares a marriage license with a wealthy industrialist older than her father, but far less attractive. Her sole occupation is attending awards banquets at which one-percenters give awards to one another. When her busy schedule allows, she also fervently endeavors to instill an appreciation of the fine arts and proper table-setting in children who don’t know who their fathers are. I’m pretty sure she has received awards for her earnest efforts. I’ll have to search the Gannett news archives for confirmation of that. She offered these comments from the podium:

"The Moneybucks’ contributions have been given without recognition and fanfare, and most were made anonymously."

There you have it. Milton Moneybucks III is the Anonymous Philanthropist of the Year. Just between you and me.

An anonymous source provided me with the letter accompanying the anonymous contributions. The letter, printed on the Moneybucks clan’s linen stationery, watermarked with the family crest, reads as follows:

"Please accept this anonymous contribution toward your fine cause. Don’t tell anyone. I prefer to simply bask in an anonymous warm glow, knowing that I have performed an anonymous gesture in complete and utter anonymity.

I am also anonymously enclosing two tickets to the awards banquet at which I will be shamelessly and anonymously honored for giving $500,000 in anonymous contributions to 200 organizations. Only my cloak of anonymity hides my embarrassment about it. Please pass the tickets on to someone at a respectable level of your organization, and note that a dress code will be strictly enforced.

Please also sign the enclosed receipt acknowledging my anonymous contribution, and return it to me anonymously at Moneybucks Financial.

I would have slipped this donation, in cash, through the transom of your establishment’s back door, but I can’t go anywhere without being recognized. I surely would have been spotted, and the anonymous nature of my anonymous contribution would have faded into anonymity. Besides, your office is located in an icky neighborhood where neither I nor my Mercedes would be safe."

Dead center on the front page of my newspaper was a color photo of Milton Moneybucks III accepting his Anonymous Philanthropist of the Year Award. There wasn’t even a black bar across his eyes. He looked terribly embarrassed. And tanned. And well fed. He wears his anonymity well.

Only a splash of golden sperm stands between you and the thrill of award-winning anonymous philanthropy. Teach your children well, but choose your ancestors better.

Habitat For Inhumanity

I rescue bugs. My cats find them in the house, and I rescue them. It doesn’t seem like any more trouble to scoop them up and deposit them outside than it is to squash them and dump them in the garbage. There have been people in my house that I’ve wanted to squash and dump in the garbage, but the bugs are not nearly as bothersome. The bugs don’t want to be here any more than I do. It’s filthy in here. My house is decorated like a crime scene. Helter Skelter Feng Shui. Not suitable for man nor bug.

So I rescued a bug today. And I reminisced about a bug-rescuing mission I performed a couple of years ago. I suppose I could reminisce about other things, given the abundance of time on my hands. Things like my marriages and jobs and junk like that. But those would be more accurately categorized as flashbacks. Do you ever hear of Nam vets waking up screaming with reminiscences?

I reminisced about the day a friend stopped by with her three-year-old daughter. The little one had to pee, and making it home was an iffy proposition. I was in my front yard, probably reminiscing, and my lady friend saw the opportunity to avoid a urinary accident. May we use the bathroom? Why, surely.

Mother and daughter headed for the crapper and closed the door behind them.

"Oooooh, it’s dirty in here." The kid said it, but I’m sure it was a unanimous determination. I flush twice a year, when I change my clocks. That’s why the bugs are looking for a way out, too.

Having passed judgment on my domestic skills, the two headed back out to the car. As my breezeway door swung open, a ladybug made its dash for freedom and the child caught sight of it on final approach to the garden outside my door. The ladybug had barely pulled up to the arrival gate, and the kid scooped it up in her hands.

"Can I bring it home, Mommy?"

Mommy apparently thought the kidnap and torture of a bug would be a good learning experience for the wee one, and asked me if I had a jar. As I diligently monitored the situation to prevent the ladybug from being squished by the spastic fingers of the little angel, I offered my own recommendation.

"Rather than encourage the little darling to adopt the ladybug and bring it home to die, given that the ladybug’s attention span far exceeds that of the child, why not encourage the child to observe the ladybug in it’s natural habitat, noting the productivity and meaningfulness of the bug’s life? Then compare and contrast that to the unproductive and meaningless nature of the lives of the adult human beings surrounding her. Consider it a lesson in perspective."

Mommy didn’t get it. "So you’re not going to give us a jar?"

"I’ll give you a jar if you clean my toilet."

Bug stayed, kid left. Dirty toilets save lives.

Sorry To Keep You Waiting...I Didn't See You Come In

Summer is bearing down upon us, and with it comes the proliferation of street festivals in celebration of the rich ethnic heritages of the proud Hyphenated-Americans. Downtowns will be barricaded, tents will billow above the asphalt and the heavy summer air will explode with aromas of old country cooking.

Swarthy Italian-American teens adorned in wife-beater tees and gold chains will communicate via crotch-grabs, exhibiting the proud culture they have learned from Don Corleone and Tony Soprano. Never mind that they can’t find Italy on a map of Italy. Greek-Americans will dance a confused Fiddler On The Roof jig. Wrong ethnicity, but who am I to question their proud heritage? Afro-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Polish-Americans; all will jubilantly revel in the warm glow of the remnants of their highly diluted ethnicities.

I need a hyphen. I crave an ethnicity. I feel so invisible. I’m pretty sure I could walk through walls, but who would notice? After all, I walk through a door and nobody notices.

By the powers vested in me as an armchair Presbyterian, I hereby declare myself a Beige-American. Unassuming. Unobtrusive. Safe. Goes with anything. Provides a subtle background for the vibrant colors without detracting from them.

And I hereby declare Beige-American History Month. We will celebrate our heritage by making our beds and taking the garbage out. Bric-a-brac subdivisions in suburbs of Anytown, USA will erect barricades for Beige-American Fest. We’ll run through the sprinkler and play kick the can. Food booths will vend pickle loaf on white bread and vanilla ice cream. Not French Vanilla. just plain vanilla. We’ll eat school paste and wash it down with hose water. Leave It To Beaver will play on the big screen at sundown. No dancing, because we can’t. No fireworks, because they could put an eye out. Thousands of chalky-complected families adorned in bermuda shorts, black socks and sandals will join a pilgrimage of tan Chevy sedans to an industrial park on the outskirts of town to witness the unveiling of the Beige-American Monument: a paper-mache three-bedroom ranch with central air. Carousel upon carousel will be filled with Kodachrome slides as shutterbugs provide the archival record of the event.

When day is done, we will bathe with 99.9% pure Ivory soap and slather our burned flesh with Unguentine. We’ll recite our Now I lay Me Down To Sleeps, slide between our crisp white sheets and fade back into anonymity.

But, boy, we sure raised some gosh darned heck, didn’t we?

It Won't Heal If You Don't Stop Picking At It

I’ve written before about my miraculously good health, and the resultant risk I bear of living way too long. It’s already been way too long. I’m running out of shit to do. Hell, I’ve done some stuff twice.

I was gazing at the contents of the vial sitting atop my mantle, and realized that I have endured only two semi-surgical procedures in my lifetime. Like I said, I’ve done some stuff twice. Both procedures were elective in nature. Both were performed on my package. What a magnet for tinkering that thing has been.

My Circumcision. The ritualistic disfigurement designed to acclimate a little boy to the pain that his crotch will inflict upon him throughout his life. Why don’t they leave the foreskin alone and just sever the nerve center controlling the Little Brain? You know, that Little Brain that hijacks the Big Brain and tells the male animal to pursue females and sow seeds in search of the Holy Grail: alimony and child support. Just leave the foreskin alone. A little crust and mold in there is a good first line of defense.

I survived 48 years without finding the Holy Grail, and without it finding me. I didn’t father any little boys requiring immediate physical mutilation, nor any little girls to perpetrate ongoing emotional mutilation. But my health insurance benefits were soon to become iffy, so I was perusing the catalog for any medical procedures that tickled my fancy before the benefits expired.

I found one. Seemed like such a good idea, I’m surprised I didn’t pursue it years ago. I never wanted to have kids. Don’t much like ‘em. Didn’t like ‘em when I was a kid. My imaginary friends were far more entertaining than the kids I grew up with, and they went away when I deemed them uninteresting.

My Vasectomy. I scheduled it for a Friday afternoon in February. It was cold, but the roads were dry, so I rode my Harley to the appointment. I didn’t want to risk being rescheduled for lack of appearance of sound mental health, so I cut the engine and coasted into the surgical center’s parking lot.

Before the cutting began, the doc gave me the obligatory consultation. "Brad, this procedure should be considered nothing less than permanent. If you should change your mind later, a reversal procedure can be attempted, but it is very expensive and not guaranteed successful."

"Doc, I’m not inclined to trade the Harley for a minivan, and I don’t anticipate any sudden urges to spend my weekends at soccer tournaments and ballet recitals. Wash your hands and let’s pull the plug on this thing."

I couldn’t help wondering if the doc had read any of my published editorials about scumbag money-grubbing doctors and their incessant whining about the malpractice insurance situation. I didn’t really care. As far as I was concerned, he could lop the whole assembly off at the root. That would prevent me from thinking of any more surgeries to have done on it.

I noticed that his office was decorated with a bunch of holy-roller shit. Crucifixes and cutesy Bible verses. Twelve fucking years of college, with an emphasis in the sciences, and this guy puts his faith in Jesus. Should I make my check out to Holy Father? What’s the copay under His plan? Is He a preferred provider or will I be paying the out-of-network deductible? Apparently the Bible was this guy’s Physician’s Desk Reference, and I fully expected to hear prayers while he was fingering my rosary beads.

Time for the Main Event. A slathering of antiseptic and a syringe-full of crotch deadener. I had envisioned the need for two nurses to wrassle the dragon out of harms way at ground zero. Turns out it only required a snippet of adhesive tape. It was cold in that room. Yeah, that was it.

The doc offered me a hit of Valium, but only on the condition that I had arranged a designated driver. I declined, and figured it was safe at that point to reveal that my designated driver was Harley Davidson, and he was waiting in the parking lot. The doc took a moment to document this fact in his malpractice defense file, and we were good to go.

I propped my head up on the pillow to watch the action. "No, no, no" the doc admonished. "That could cause you tighten up down here and complicate the procedure."

I insisted. "If my dick is attached to my neck, I’ll slacken my jaw while you unreel and tie off another few inches of it. Otherwise, since I’m paying for this, I’m going to watch. I’ve observed autopsies and fat guys in Speedos without losing my lunch, so I don’t think a little nut-snipping will make me swoon." Time-out for more defense file documentation.

The coolest part of the show was the cauterization of my insides. The smell of burning tissue and the cloud of blue-gray smoke wafting into the light fixture signaled the permanence we had discussed previously. Cutting those horny little fishies off at the pass. They were now residing in a cul-de-nut-sac.

The vial sitting atop my mantle? It’s a saline-filled contact lens vial containing the remnants of my surgery. After the doc left the demolition site, and as I was supposed to be recovering from the trauma, I ransacked the medical waste receptacle. After all, the doc wasn’t selling t-shirts, and I needed a souvenir. I salvaged a discarded section of one of my vas deferens, wrapped it in gauze, and stuffed it in my pocket. What’s so sick about that? Senator Rick Santorum brings dead babies home. This is just a quarter inch of mini-macaroni. And a good mechanic always returns used parts to the customer.

In the end run, the whole procedure was nothing I couldn’t have done myself with common garage tools. Nail punch, needle-nosed pliers, soldering iron, isopropyl alcohol, Jack Daniels. This whole medical arts thing is overly aggrandized. I’m submitting a query to Popular Mechanics for a how-to article on self-sterilization. The New England Journal of Medicine won’t be interested, because do-it-yourselfers don’t fund Porsches and vacations.

I think I’ll leave the little fella alone for a while now. I could have "ATM" tattooed on it, but there’s no room for instructions in English and Espanol. In spite of my new slack-jawed look.