Another Day in the Dark Parade

Ass Trifecta

2008-11-27T10:59:00.005-05:00

My Better Half, who tends to have a saltier verbal delivery than I do, recently called someone from her past a "***** Ass." Guess that's why Samantha no longer associates with this person. Fear not. I will tell you what the word is in a few moments.

I've been keeping a running tally of the words she's been using as adjectives that contain the word ass. I called her attention to the fact we now have three. Enough for a list, I'd say.

I dubbed it, oddly enough, The Ass List:

1. Swamp Ass. The exquisite feeling of spongy dampness felt you-know-where when you're driving your car and the temperature is Hotter Than The Hinges of Hell (another Samantha-ism), but your air conditioner just won't cut it.

2. Gooey Ass. The lovely feeling of seepage one feels after a colonoscopy/endoscopy and the lubricant the doctor used to shove the tubing up your bottom begins to S.L.O.W.L.Y. creep out.

3. Phony Ass. A person who looks astonishingly great all the time and smiles and looks you right in the eye -- and you know she's a complete and utter phony.

Kidney Stones + Massive Pain = Ambulance

2008-11-23T15:01:00.004-05:00

My Better Half passed what we think -- and hope -- was a kidney stone in October. This wasn't fun. She tossed and turned and moaned so much in her sleep that I actually slept in the spare bedroom for a night. The pain she experienced was, in her words, "'savage." At the height of her suffering, she couldn't take it anymore and called 911. Her actions led me to develop another truism in my growing arsenal of wisdom. "Any night the ambulance does NOT show up at your door at 2 am is a good night."

Natural Isn't Always Good For You

2008-10-02T12:44:00.008-04:00

I'm an avid Mike Rowe fan. For the uninitiated, he is the host of the Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs.

On a recent episode, Mike went on a minor rant when someone plugged a natural product as being good for you. "Since when is natural good?" he said.

He then enumerated several "natural" things that will kill a person dead real quick, such as lightening, quick sand, and sharks.

Natural isn't always better, and sometimes it comes with razor-sharp teeth.

Furry Cupcakes

2008-09-27T15:19:00.004-04:00

I was trying to open the beta version of software I use at work. The application helpfully reminded me to download the latest and greatest version.

Bread, on the other hand, is not helpful. Bread won't actively nag you when it's stale. Sure, there's a tiny date stamped on it, but really, who looks at that?

Bread doesn't care -- not the way software does -- and will let you eat it when it's outdated. I have eaten stale bread without realizing it. (Whataboutit?)

That reminds me of when I ate cupcakes so stale that mold was growing on them. Yes, I saw the mold.

Yes, I ate them anyway. It was, like, around 15 years ago.

I was hungry. And desperate.

Dark Humor Makes Electrifying Warning

2008-09-27T10:58:00.010-04:00

High voltage + promise of smoky burning agonizing death + dark humor = eye-popping warning.

No, really.

If you burn to death like this, your eyes might just pop out of your head as they burst into flame and your face melts off.

Fun stuff.

(Full disclosure: I found this picture on http://gizmodo.com)

Stay Thin: Have Children

2008-09-21T12:01:00.007-04:00

Latest wisdom from my little sister (whom I adore and admire), who has two young children, and is always tired, thin, and hungry:

"Exhaustion plus laziness trumps hunger."

Clown food

2008-08-29T12:19:00.004-04:00

The herd lurched about restlessly. The animals had no idea something was wrong.

The hunter watched from a distance, far enough away to not spook the herd. It wouldn't matter, though, if he were spotted, because he knew how to disguise himself so as to not instill fear.

He SO enjoyed the thrill of the hunt. He loved stalking in silence and killing with precision.

He observed the animals for a few minutes and chose the one he wanted -- smaller, but still meaty. A good meal by any standards, even his. Not too young, that wouldn't be sporting. Not too old, either. The meat got tougher with age.

The hunter scanned the area, looking for ways to isolate his next meal from the rest of its herd.

The herd began to shift about with greater excitement and move out of the area, leaving two stragglers behind. Fortunately for the hunter, his quarry was one of those left behind. His anticipation mounted. This might be easier than he first thought.

He could have taken them both. He was good enough and quick enough to do it. He didn't want to behave in a gluttonous fashion, however. Also, dispatching two at a time could be messier than he liked. He couldn't kill two quite as quickly as he could kill one.

Again, luck was on his side. A quarrel erupted between the two who remained. Such arguments often did. He loved it when they fought. They separated themselves. He didn't have to do it.

Sometimes he had to mimic the sound of their mothers calling. He was an excellent mimic and always got the job done.

One strode away angrily. Incredibly, once again, his luck held. His prey stayed behind. The hunter began his sure and steady approach, soundlessly from behind his quarry. His supper would never hear him coming anyway. And if he did, the hunter was fully and perfectly camouflaged.

As a clown.

The young boy had an iPod in one hand and ear buds in both ears. His eyes were closed. His body swayed to the last music he would ever hear. He was oblivious to the monstrous horror looming up behind him. The abomination's reptilian lips drew back. The cavernous Cheshire Cat maw opened to reveal triangular teeth in a configuration not found in any textbook.

The huge mouth smashed down on the boy. It almost snapped him up in one gulp. Sadly, someone approached quite suddenly -- and screamed. It was the boy who argued with the young boy whose arm was now dangling from the clown's mouth.

The arm hung loosely, kind of like a cigarette, but not as cool, because it was an arm, and it was dripping blood.

The other boy, the younger one's brother, had come back to apologize.

Wrong time and wrong place to make amends.

The clown glared at the boy and snarled -- or tried to. Awfully hard to snarl when your mouth is full of boy. It bit down, slicing through the arm like butter. The arm fell into the grass. The clown stepped out of phase and vanished from sight. It disappeared from whence it came.

The arm laid in the grass and kept bleeding until it ran out of blood.

The younger one's brother, quite understandably, kept screaming.

Failure to Comply

2008-07-26T18:29:00.003-04:00

They say you never forget your first car, your first real job, or your first date. That may be true, but I also never forgot my first significant failure. This happened in Round Meadow Elementary School when I was in Fourth Grade in 1970. My inadequacy was held up for scrutiny -- make that ridicule -- by the rest of the class.

The teacher I remember most is Mrs. Mayer. She was about a thousand years old at the time. A real old school fire-breather. Ex-Nazi prison guard, as I recall. Hands like meat hooks and a voice that chilled one's soul to its core. She brooked no disorder and governed her class firmly. One followed quietly, quickly, and meekly. She was to be obeyed instantly. Questions were not encouraged.

Any mistake was held up for all to see. This action was taken to make sure one never made the same mistake again. Embarrassment at messing up reinforced this method.

The rules were laid down quite simply by our teacher. Sit up straight, keep you feet flat on the floor, don't fidget, and pay attention.

I was not quite the model student. I slouched, my legs and feet played Twister with each other, I fidgeted, and my mind wandered. This is true today, but I have trained myself to pay attention when I must.

We were taking a spelling test, one of the many -- by the hour it seemed -- administered daily. She told us to number our papers from one to ten down the left side. She was specific about this, as she was about all things.

My attention wandered. Big mistake.

I was probably thinking about the next thrilling installment of Lost in Space. Wondering how Will, Dr. Smith, and the robot were going to handle the mountain monster was far more interesting than yet another boring test.

I totally forgot about numbering my paper. I should have kept quiet about it and flown under the radar, as I would now.

Instead, I raised my hand and, when recognized, said, "I forgot to number my paper. What should I do?" Another big mistake.

Mrs. Mayer stopped dead in her tracks. Like a lion that smelled blood in the air, she looked me right in the eyes. I was a goner.

"Didn't you number your paper as I instructed?" she roared.

Her Arctic gale of a voice froze all classroom mumbling in its tracks. Everyone turned in their seats to look at me. The dead kid.

She was making an example of me. She already knew I hadn't numbered my paper, because I asked her what I should do about it.

"No, I didn't," I replied quietly, staring down at my desk.

"Excuse me, but I didn't quite hear you," she said. This from a woman who could hear an empty sandwich baggie hit the cafeteria floor during the hubbub of lunchtime.

"Could you repeat that?" she commanded. She was pouring bleach on the paper cut of my mistake. That was her job.

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you!" she thundered.

I raised my head and looked into those ancient yet intimidating eyes. What I saw there wasn't malice. She was doing her job. I was learning a lesson.

"No, I didn't," I repeated myself very loudly this time. My scratchy prepubescent voice echoed off the lime-green classroom walls.

This was the kid equivalent of, "Yes, sir, may I have another." Think of that scene in the movie "Animal House" where pledges are paddled during hazing.

Nodding, she said, "I see." She was wondering which of the tortures used by the Spanish Inquisition would be a suitable punishment.

After all, I had just publically confessed, twice, to disobeying instructions.

I was SO dead.

In spelling tests like the one we had just taken, the teacher would go over the words you had just spelled out on your paper. You would know what your grade was before you handed your test in.

I looked down and realized that, numbered or not, I had a perfect score. I usually did very well, where spelling was concerned. Math, however, was hell on earth (but that's another story) .

Stupidly, I said, "I got all the words right," hoping to postpone execution.

Mrs. Mayer folded her pudgy arms across her chest and glared at me balefully. "So that entitles you to ignore my instructions? Everyone else managed to number their papers."

Yes, but who else among these idiots got ALL the words right?

To my thinking, the words were all spelled correctly, so who cared about some stupid numbers? I didn't realize then that adherence to policy, procedures, and instructions matters above all else.

Today, smart adults (and sometimes smart children) can skirt the rules and still succeed, but not in early 1970s suburban Philadelphia.

"Are you better than everyone else? Do you not have to number your paper?" Teachers loved these arguments.

Of course I'm better than everyone else -- I spelled the words correctly!

Yet I dared not say it aloud. The schoolyard was the ultimate proving ground.

Then the bolt suddenly shot home. I realized the system wouldn't care if I flunked every test I ever took as long as I followed procedure and policy. That included numbering my tests correctly, sitting still, and following the teacher's directions.

"Why didn't you number your paper?" Mrs. Mayer's hammer-on-anvil inquiry brought me back to earth.

I decided to go for broke with a lame explanation and an apology.

Teachers loved apologies.

"I guess I didn't hear you - I was worried about the test - I'm sorry - I'll do better next time - I promise to number the test," I gushed in one long rush of breath.

I shrunk into myself, doing my best Oliver Twist pitiful starving orphan imitation.

The Grand Inquisitor seemed placated.

I learned a lot that day with Mrs. Mayer. I learned it the way I learn everything --The hard way.

Truth was, my attention had wandered. But had I said that, I would have been questioned as to what I was thinking about. Then I would have been asked whether that was really more important than school.

That would have been a very bad question to ask me. To my mind, Lost in Space is STILL more important than many other things. I loved TV. My dad derisively called television the Boob Tube, and me TV Tina. That's a topic for another story.

The question of the unnumbered test remained. The paper we used, as I recall, had no margins. I couldn't use the left margin to squeeze in any numbers.

I had an idea.

"I'll number my test down the right side and do better the next time," I squeaked.

Adults loved when kids promised to do better next time.

"I suppose that will have to do," Mrs. Mayer grunted, satisfied. She swiveled around on her sensible black shoes and resumed her place at the blackboard.

The Grand Inquisitor had turned her back on me. I was excused from the penalty box. Not wishing to re-enter that box, I quickly numbered my paper.

This was decades before the school system decided such actions might damage young psyches. Them was the old days.

The humiliation made me feel lower than a pregnant worm, but it was an effective system. I still remember the lesson I learned that day. My mind never wandered quite as badly again -- at least in the classroom.

Moment of sheer terror: Layoff

2008-07-25T22:10:00.004-04:00

Nothing says "sheer terror" in business quite like the word "layoff." Men tie their masculine identities to their work. We may not love our jobs or like what we do, but we are seldom relieved to be shown the door. I was not aware of this, but the big project I had wrapped up wasn't selling. The board wasn't happy and wanted a scapegoat. Yours truly. My manager was told to jettison me after Christmas. My boss liked me, but the board wanted to close the books on anything connected with the failed project, and that included me. He gave me the news one day in November 2006, right before Thanksgiving. That was one hell of a Thanksgiving, and not in a good way. Completing a project does not guarantee success.

Going Brown

2008-06-21T15:49:00.004-04:00

I've decided I'm not going green. Ever. That said, I am going brown.

Green is the color of money. Green is also the color of envy -- the Green-Eyed Monster.

Green doesn't do it for me. I like brown. Brown is the color of dirt, manure, fertilizer, explosive diarrhea, and skid marks. Poop makes good fertilizer -- and good stories

Brown is the color of honest labor and sweat. Brown is the color of hard work. Brown is the color of getting your hands dirty.

We can't have green grass, pastures, trees, plants, or even green tea without dirt.

To quote Mike Rowe of the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs, brown comes before green, because you can't have green without brown.

Green is the pretty part, the end result that usually looks good and smells nice. Brown is the not-so-pretty part that sometimes stinks -- and even sticks.

I respect dirt and the elbow grease required to remove it.

While I can't call myself green, I can honestly call myself brown. I do hard work. I get my hands dirty. Maybe not every day, but I get around to it.

Brown has been good to me. I have written some well-received stories about poop -- the stinky, sticky, sometimes liquid, kind of brown.

Go green if you want. I look better in brown.

Poop on a Stick

2008-06-21T15:33:00.013-04:00

My sister told me this story. She said a friend of hers told it to her, and it originally came from her friend's husband. I have spruced it up a bit for entertainment purposes.

A painter was hired to do some work for a woman who had just bought a large house on a very nice wooded lot. She said he was welcome inside, naturally, but she told him the electricity wasn't on yet, and not to use the toilets. He thought it a bit strange at the time but gave it no further thought. Many clients had odd requests they never clarified.

He arrived on the appointed day and got to work. As the hours went by, he felt something familiar to all of us. A certain FULL feeling in his nether regions / undercarriage / boiler room. Nature was calling, big time. And she was calling collect.

He didn't want to pack up his stuff and hop into his truck just to find a restroom. He still had a few hours of work to do. He remembered the powder room toilet he had been cautioned against using. He felt slighted and angry.

She has money, she just bought a house, but she won't let a lowly tradesman like me use her toilet. He had to go. He put his tools down and went to find the toilet. He entered the small powder room. Just enough natural light crept in so he could see. The room had recently been redecorated, and quite nicely, too, he had to admit. The lady had taste. Maybe he should look for a toilet upstairs. A wave of cramps nearly doubled him over and helped him to rapidly make a decision. The powder room would do.

He yanked his painting pants down as quickly as he could and sat down with almost a crash. The next set of cramps came and he grunted and squeezed. It WAS like giving birth, he thought, but every time he started up that line of conversation with his young wife, who was usually chasing after their toddler, she gave him a bug-eyed look and stormed off.

It was over. The hot, sick, feverish feeling rapidly dissipated. He sighed, almost crying with relief. No more cramps. He was done. He stared down between his thighs into the bowl. Lots of guys do. They can't help it. They want to know if they really do Crap Large or not. Well, he grinned, I sure do. He reached behind him with a practiced arm and pushed down on the handle to flush his triumph away. Nothing happened.

Frowning, he reached behind himself again and pushed. Still nothing. Sighing, he arose. He turned around. His pants remained around his ankles. He reached the handle and firmly pushed. Again, nothing. He checked the water shutoff valve. It was in the ON position. He pulled his trousers up and shuffled to the kitchen to turn on the tap. The water flowed. But the toilet wouldn't flush.

He was running out of daylight in a house with no electricity, and he had taken a monster dump the size of a Greyhound bus in a toilet that wouldn’t flush. Great. What do I do now? He wondered. He had to get rid of the poop somehow. The house was empty and he didn’t have any tools but those of his trade. Then he saw his paint sticks.

His mind rebelled until he thought that if poop was discovered the lady would know he did it and he didn't want to get fired.

He grabbed a fistful of paint sticks and ran into the toilet. He began using them as poop shovels. He hacked his mammoth intestinal extrusion into more easily carried chunks. Yes, he poked his own poo with a stick. Paint sticks.

He then ran as quickly as he dared through the house. Once out the door, he dashed over to the wooded area and chucked each poop mini-sausage deep into the trees. He heard each piece land softly in the underbrush.

It took him 30 minutes but he cleared out the toilet. He wrapped the poop sticks in scrap paper from his truck. He would throw them into a dumpster on the way home. He finished the remainder of his work in record time, doing the best he could she would be unable to find fault in his craftsmanship.

She never complained. His own backside did, however, later that evening.

Much to his chagrin, when he finally sat down, he felt a scratchy , gritty discomfort of another sort. He remembered he had been so busy cleaning up the toilet that he had forgotten to do the same for himself.

Embarrassing Moments -- Explosive Diarrhea

2008-04-26T22:11:00.003-04:00

My sister, Candace, called me to tell me she had a new poop story and immediately thought of me. My reputation is secure.

Candace was going to pick up her daughter, Alexa, from her school (Shipley, which is private) and took my new baby nephew, Chase, with her. It's his feeding time, but no problem. His diaper should be changed, too. Candace climbs into the back seat of their brand-new white SUV where his car seat is. After feeding him, she unbuckles the myriad of S&M-like straps binding him to his car seat. She gently extracts his fragile body from the rigid transport and lays him on the seat. Candace peels the old diaper from his damp bottom. His delicate undercarriage is exposed to the elements for a few short, meaningful seconds. The car's warm interior works its wonders on his wee manhood.

And wee he does, in spectacular fashion, quite literally hosing my sister -- along with the inside of her sparkling clean vehicle. Fresh pee trickles down her face as she quickly reaches for a new diaper, but not quickly enough.

The gods of chaos stomped with full force on the toothpaste tube of his now liquefied intestinal tract. A geyser of dark brown hideousness roared forth from his tender sphincter with the full force of water spewing from a firefighting hose. Chase let fly with the abandon of a innocent newborn, giving my sister an instant DIY facial with explosive diarrhea.

Suddenly awash in pee and poop she has to get out to get a breath of fresh air. Her pristine SUV has been drenched in baby goodness. Said baby is now screaming. The temperature inside the car is rising along with steam from the rain forest of excrement. She reaches for the car door handle. The door won't open.

The child-safety lock is on. She's trapped.

She thinks briefly of yelling for help, but this is Shipley, after all. Such things simply don't happen here. Parents don't wear sweat suits to pick up their spawn. Parents are not usually smeared with excrement, either. She rules out screaming for help.

Candace also now develops a mysterious condition she calls "boob sweat," which mixes beautifully with the dripping pee and molten poop.

She has to get to the front seat to get out of the car, but she can't get squeeze through the space in the middle of the seats because that's where his car seat is.

Candace wiggles over the headrest, which offers four or five inches of room between it and the roof of the car. She shuts off the child-safety lock and staggers out of car. She rescues Chase from the rapidly overheating car. He is a complete mess and can't be cleaned with handy wipes. There's nothing else she can do for Chase right now and she can't leave him in the car. She wraps him in a blanket and carries him to find Alexa.

Naturally, Candace meets a former classmate in the parking lot who, unfortunately, comes over to say hello. He is an old friend of hers. Smiling outwardly as he approaches, she says to herself, I know I have poop in my hair. I look like poop. I smell like poop. I'm dripping with poop. My hands are smeared with poop. I can try to explain what happened and move on.

Or I shake hands with him using my poop hands.

She can't possibly explain herself without looking even crazier than she already does. She exclaims how glad she is to see him and shakes hands with him using her poop hand. She says she's picking up her daughter and can't stop to chat. She slips away quickly.

Candace glances at herself in a mirror later that day and notices a tiny fragment of something horribly familiar clinging to her tresses.

What the hell is that?

Oh my god, I still have poop in my hair.

Blood relatives who increased my blood pressure

2008-04-26T22:03:00.003-04:00

For decades, we would spend Christmas in the Pink Funeral Parlor -- the room that never changed. When you sat down, gingerly, in a chair or on the couch, a dust plume would arise like a mushroom cloud. Dust bunnies would scatter like beetles brought to light.

Mom would refuse any help in the kitchen, even as she neared and passed 70, so dinners would get later and later. One evening, the meal -- penance -- was served at about 9 or 10 PM. We finally emerged, grateful to be released, by about midnight. Mom saw nothing wrong with this, even though some us had to go to work the next day, like in about six hours.

Everyone was near dead by that point, but we complained not. That would have brought down a firestorm of criticism from my mom, who thought the mere fact we were all together as a family would make everything right. HA! She would also moan about being "a woman alone" since my dad died in 1993. A little extra helping of GUILT, anyone, served piping hot?

The other thing that drove me crazy for years was that I had to act as driver for my kind-hearted but deluded Aunt Virge (my dad's older half-sister) who lived in Philadelphia with her son. Her son is a good 10 years older than me, doesn't drive, and never held a real job in his life. I went schlepping into Philadelphia at mom's command to pick up two people I barely knew and never cared to. They talked gibberish the entire trip to help make the time pass much more S - L - O - W - L - Y.

My crazy old aunt labored under the mistaken impression that her son was a genius -- instead of a compete and utter ass. I said as much when I was a kid and was chastised for being insensitive. Now, my brother, too, thinks Chuck is an ass. So, miraculously, does my mom. My aunt has since died. We don't see Chuck anymore.

Perhaps time does heal a few wounds.

Every Day Job Blues

2008-04-05T22:36:00.001-04:00

The cloudless blue sky hurt to look at that morning. He glanced down at the ground, blinking rapidly. His eyes stung at bit, like your hands do when they grasp etched crystal goblets a bit too hard. It had been a beautiful day, too beautiful to be spent -- well, thinking about his job. The thought almost him sad, like when a favorite pair of faded jeans finally becomes ripped beyond repair.

The moon, which earlier that evening looked like a full and proper moon, seemed to have lost its will now, somehow dissolving into a Robin’s Egg in shape. The British would have said it had gone pear-shaped, meaning a screw-up. He wondered briefly and fancifully if that had contributed to his change in mood. He pursed his lips as he drove by the ocean, going through the blueprints of the day he had laid out in his mind.

He drove through the center of the small seaside village, outside of which his contact lived. The Moody Blues played on the radio to keep him company. Earlier that day, the flowers had bloomed, the bluebirds sung in cheerful fashion, and blueberries had beckoned juicily from a vendor’s cart. Now the town’s sidewalks had been rolled up. Everyone had gone home.

No, it wasn’t been the moon. He had a job to do. It was always the job that gave him the blues. He couldn’t honestly say he liked it. Much like the rest of us, he had simply started as a young man and become good at it -- very good. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was an expert. He was one of the best in the country. He actually was the best, but his boss wouldn’t admit it. Then his boss would have to give him a raise.

He reached his destination, but pulled up two blocks away, around the corner. It wouldn’t do for a neighbor to catch a glimpse. He exited the nondescript car and strolled to the correct address. He walked briskly, but not quickly enough to attract attention. He slipped around the back, where he quickly and silently broke in. The meeting was brief. They usually are. He brought his business to its inevitable and professional conclusion. The man who had cheated his employer's company lay dead. He paused long enough to make sure his target's pulse had stopped, then he left as swiftly and silently as he had entered.

My Brother is Missing

2008-02-29T21:12:00.002-05:00

Mom had taken my brother, Cam, to the beach to go swimming. He didn’t get to the shore often, so it was a treat. It was a hot summer day in July and they were both looking forward to a dip in the ocean.

The day they choose was much like any other. Sunny and hot. Mom had gone through hip surgery a few years ago and could still be a bit unsteady. She asked my brother if they could hold hands. She slipped her hand into his. Together they waded out into the surf.

The waves were not as rough as she anticipated. Her confidence grew. He released her hand. She was not yet ready to head back to the beach, but he said he wanted to take a walk. She nodded, and off he went. She watched him for a moment, then turned to watch the horizon bob up and down.

When she grew a bit weary, she decided to head back. Her hip would bother her at times like these, when fatigue set in. Her earlier determined footsteps became grim and labored. The beach, only five minutes away earlier, now seemed more like 25 minutes away. Damn this hip. Damn the heat.

Mom finally emerged from the surf. She made her way to where they left their beach blankets and chairs. Cam was nowhere to be seen. She felt uneasy.

It wasn’t like Cam to wander off without telling her. She wondered if something had happened to him on his way to shore – a cramp. She hadn’t watched him come all the way in. Or, perhaps someone had grabbed him after he had gotten to shore – a

kidnapping. She read of such things happening. She knew what she would do. She would tell a lifeguard.

"Excuse me, sir, my son is missing, and he is wearing special trunks,” she announced. The lifeguard, being an alert sort of person, immediately seized upon that critical fact, and pounced.

“Oh, My God, Ma’am, I’m so sorry,” he said. “We’ll do everything we can to find your son. What is his name? These ‘special trunks’ of his could be a distinguishing feature—What kind of orthopedic trucks are they? Oh, and how old is your poor little boy?

My rapidly panicking mom replied, haltingly, under a welling veil of tears, “My son’s name is Cam. His trunks are very special – a now discontinued nautical red. I got them on sale for just 1.99! I bought them for his father, who wore them only once before he died, but don’t tell my son that,” she quickly added in a conspiratorial fashion. The lifeguard slowly lowered his detective’s pad.

“I never told him. If I told my son that he never would have worn those lovely red trunks.”

“He’s wearing a dead guy’s trunks,” the lifeguard said flatly.

“And my son just turned 40 in April,” she added brightly, ignoring the lifeguard’s comment.

At that moment, six-foot tall, 40-ish man with long hair wandered up behind Mom. The lifeguard’s jaw dropped and he stared open-mouthed as my brother piped up from behind her and said, “Hi, Mom. I went for a walk. Who are we looking for?”

Plunging In

2008-02-29T21:05:00.014-05:00

"It all comes back to poop," my brother-in-law, Frank, once said. He was referring to the conversations held by the family into which he married. That would be my family. Every conversation inevitably returns to bowel movements -- those of kids, pets, the elderly, and you. Yes, sad to say, we are up to our eyeballs in defecation. Quantity, frequency, color, and consistency are all terribly important qualities. They must be.

When I changed my sister's diapers when she was a baby (I am now 46, she is a 34-year-old supermom), using the old cloth kind, back in the early 1970s, my mom would always ask, "How much was there?"

"How much what?" I replied.

"You know, Number Two," she said.

"Oh, you mean poop," I replied.

"Yes." She was now getting irritated because I used a "common" word. "How much?"

"Enough to fill a diaper, stink like something crawled up inside her and died, and be the most hideous shade of green you've ever seen," I said. "Does that answer your question?"

"Don't be a smart-mouth," she said. "You don't want to grow up like Chucky."

"I don't know how to measure poop loads in a diaper. There was a load of it. You want to see it?" Mom wanted complete 24-hour news reports of what went in my sister's one end and out the other.

"No. I guess that's good enough."

I never did figure out what "good enough" was with baby poop. I was afraid of getting The Poop Lecture. Even Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs says "poo." We always said poop.

I did, however, figure out what Baby Poop Green is. It is much like a train wreck. You want to look away, but you can't. Your eyeballs are being sucked out of your head, twisting your cranium toward a color so grotesque it can't possibly exist in nature, yet it does.

Speaking of grotesque, I also learned one more thing about baby poop. It has a stench like no other.

Babies are supposed to look cute so you want to take care of them. That's what I've heard, anyway. It is a cruel contradiction of Mother Nature that even the world's cutest baby, my niece Alexa, will gently expel from her tiny processing plant a substance that exudes a delicate bouquet not unlike that of a drifter's corpse, but worse.

The aroma does not gently waft in your direction like perfume. This odor lumbers toward you like Dr. Frankenstein's creation. More mustard gas than cologne, this monstrous attack upon your olfactory senses was launched not by an invading army bent on conquering your lands, but by a baby who already has devoted slaves.

I believe they're called parents.

In both college and graduate school, I was not afraid to tackle obscenely clogged toilets in the dormitories. I do not use the word "obscenely" lightly. Some guys never learned to courtesy flush BEFORE they are done grunting. When they finish, get up, turn around, and confront the brown pyramidal mountain they have built, they simply hitch up their pants and leave. Some young women have not yet learned that feminine hygiene items should not be flushed.

I don't mind plunging. I'm good at plunging. While in high school, at some point, my poor dad lost patience with all the times my brother and sister stopped up the toilet. I volunteered to learn how to plunge. With a palpable sense of relief, he showed me. From then on, I killed clogs with a vengeance. I vanquished one bowl after another of swirling water that rose alarmingly higher with every frantic jiggle of the handle. Maybe I should have been a plumber.

This past fall, my Mom and Aunt Beryl went to my late grandmother's place in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, for the weekend. The weather promised to be nice, and air conditioning was no longer necessary. They didn't need the oil furnace fired up yet, either. One thing they desperately needed, but didn't have yet, was a functioning toilet. They were blissfully unaware the toilet wasn't quite ready for duty.

I don't know about anyone else, but the first thing I do when I arrive somewhere is use the head and get a drink. It sets a dividing line between "not there yet" and "we're here." It helps me clear my mind. Mom doesn't do that, I guess. Neither does Beryl.

When Mom and Beryl arrived at the Nan's place, they went out to dinner. By that I mean they immediately went out to dinner. They opened the door, brought their weekend flotilla of 52 bags in, turned around, and walked right out the door again to get something to eat.

Upon their return, they needed to use the head, but found the toilet wouldn't flush. I know how to diagnose such things, but they don't. My brother, Cam, knows about these things, too. They called him. Not me. Thank Christ.

Why the harsh reaction? You might ask. When my brother recounted this tale at Thanksgiving, he said they called him about every two minutes with problems. I would have gone postal after the second call. He is far more patient with Mom than I am.

When they called him about the toilet (after first calling him six or seven times about the TV), he said he wanted to put a bullet in his head. Instead, he decided to have some fun. He invented the "How Badly Do You Need to Poop?" quiz. This should be a game show.

He initially advised them to just use the head and leave it alone. In other words, pee in it, don't flush, close the door, no harm done. From the rising panic in mom's voice, my brother correctly discerned that she needed to relieve herself in a major, "material" manner. First, understand that mom is a 1950s person, and she doesn't use words like "pee" and "poop." She always used Number One and Number Two. My brother pounced.

"You guys need to poop!" he triumphantly exclaimed.

My mom admitted that was so.

Cam said, "Just hold it."

"But we can't!" Mom wailed plaintively on the phone.

"You guys must really need to poop!" my brother boomed.

My mom whimpered in the affirmative.

Pretending this could be a major repair, my brother went into sympathetic diagnosing mode.

"How much does Aunt Beryl really need to poop?"

Mom and Beryl, best friends since childhood, never discussed such matters. They had never even bunked together in the same bed, let alone in the same room. It simply wasn't done in their world.

"I can't ask Beryl that!" Mom was shocked.

Cam insisted, "You have to. On a scale of 1 to 10. Ask her right now!" He still pretended things were critical and that something bad could happen at any moment.

He heard a muffled "oh, 6 or 7." He was certain Beryl was downplaying things and that she was actually at about 9 or 10.

Mom being Mom, told the truth. "Ten," she said dully, admitting defeat, convinced she'd be squatting out back in the hedges.

Cam let them off the hook. "In that case," he said, "turn the water on."

"What?" mom asked.

"Look behind the toilet. There's a little knob back there on the pipe going into the tank. Turn the knob counter-clockwise, to the left."

Mom was so relieved that, well, relief might be in sight that she forgot to yell at Cam for playing her like a fiddle.

Mom turned the water on and got the Porcelain Goblet working.

A slice of heaven, indeed.

Strange Man -- Secret Agent Man?

2008-02-22T17:16:00.001-05:00

London (AP) – A man dressed in tuxedo was taken into custody early this morning. He was found hiking along one of the major roads leading into the city. When asked his name by a local constable, he said his name was “Bond...James Bond.” Constable Plod said he smelled the strong odor of alcohol on his breath, possibly vodka.

When questioned, the man identifying himself as Mr. Bond described a huge underground missile complex and a wealthy industrialist bent on world domination. Mr. Bond said he destroyed the missiles and killed the supposed villain. Having confessed to murder, Mr. Bond was cautioned, arrested on the spot, and charged with murder.

When searched, Mr. Bond was found to be carrying a Walther PPK and a handful of other gadgets he asked the constable not to touch. He explained most could be used as weapons. Mr. Bond was again cautioned, as firearms are strictly regulated in Britain and concealed weapons of any kind are forbidden.

The man said he was a commander in the Royal Navy, on attachment with MI-6 as an agent, and that this could be confirmed by MI-6. MI-6 had not returned any of the several phone calls made by the police on his behalf by press time. The not-so-secret agent calling himself James Bond is currently assisting the police in their inquiries.