Doctor Visit

For a guy with a colorful 4 letter word vocabulary, I sure do take offense to some rather unoffensive words.  I've written about this in the past.  The word I hate the most is "moist" and I think I have gone into enough detail as to why the word makes my skin crawl.

Recently the words "soy milk" and "almond milk" have managed to get under my skin.  Maybe its semantics or maybe I just don't have anything else in the world bothering me.  I don't know.  To me it just seems like another lie someone is trying to make me choose to believe.

Now, I have tried both of them.  I can say that I did not find the taste offensive.  You know what I do find offensive? Calling this shit milk. It's not milk.  I've eaten pounds of edamame and almonds in my life and I have never once discovered a lactating tit on either one.  Yeah, I've looked.  I spent a good amount of time looking for bean tits.  Not one.  I haven't even found a cartoon bean tit.

I even went as far as to ask my doctor about bean tits.  He looked at me as if I had really lost my mind this time, but I figured since I don't know any bean doctors, I'd ask the guy I am paying to sit in front of me to answer the question.  I figured he had spent more time in school than I did, and if anyone in the office knew about bean tits, he was likely my guy.

The doctor said, "So we discussed your blood glucose level and your A1c and what we need to do there.  We talked about your blood pressure, which is improving by the way.... is there anything that we should talk about?"

 I mean, for Christ's sake.  He opened the door to the conversation.

I nodded and asked, "Do beans have tits?"  He looked at his clip board and then looked at the floor.  He looked at the spot between my eyebrows and then looked at the floor again.  He scratched his head and said, "What did you just ask me?".

I said, "I asked you if beans have tits."  He went through the same routine.  Clipboard, floor, the spot between my eyebrows and the floor again.  He pushed himself back a couple of feet from me and said, "Are you okay?"  I replied, "Well, you're the doctor. You said I was doing pretty good."

Here's where it went south, fast and in a hurry

Doctor:  "What kind of question is that?"
Me:  "I don't know if it lies in the realms of a botany or agriculture question with a medical twist."
Doctor:  "What would a bean need a tit for?"
Me:  "For milk, obviously."
Doctor:  "What in the fuck is the matter with you? "
Me: "You've already asked me that."
Doctor:  "Why would a bean ever need milk?"
Me:  "I don't know as if they ever do need milk."
Doctor:  "Then why would they need tits?  Wait, don't answer that..."

He looked at the clock on the wall and then fiddled with his watch.  He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and asked, "What in the hell is going on here?"

I'm dead ass serious with the guy, and he is about to lose his ever loving mind.  I said, "Soy milk and almond milk.  If soy and almonds don't have tits, where do you get soy milk and almond milk from?"
He shook his head yet again and said, "I can't believe I am having this conversation.  Soy milk comes from soy and almond milk comes from almonds.  That's it.  There's nothing more to it.  It is what it is."

"But it can't be milk if it doesn't come from a tit, right?"

So here sits this guy, completely bewildered by whats taking place.  He is a nice, clean cut fellow who know looks as if he is considering bypassing all entry level drugs and hopping straight to heroin.
He throws his hands in the air.  "How is this even a thing?  How are we even having this discussion?  What does this have to do with your health?"  I answered, "I think this is more about the truth than anything else.  I don't know how you can call something milk that is not milk.  It seems horribly dishonest and I find you to be a pretty honest guy.  You asked me if there was anything else I wanted to talk about, so I brought this up."

Silence hit the room again.  This time it was rather profound.  The poor soul looked heart broken, like I declined his offer to take me to the prom.  Then all of a sudden, he looked as if he had some kind of a recovery.  "While I have you here, lets go ahead and take some blood and then I will see you again in two weeks and we will discuss the blood test results."

He said that because he knows I don't like giving blood.  And that's fine.  The poor guy looked like I dragged him through a size 2 knot hole.  I guess he thought he deserved to get something out of this discussion.  Anyhow, I make it through the blood draw and make an appointment for two weeks down the road.

Two weeks later, I show up to discuss the blood test results.  As per usual, the nurse walks me in, takes my blood pressure, checks my pulse and asks the regular questions.  She awkwardly departs while saying that the doctor would be in in just a couple of minutes.

A minute later, the doctor walks in.  He greets me with a handshake like usual and says, "Hey.  Before we go any further, I just want to say that we will only be discussing your health on this visit.  I am in a bind for time and your blood results are pretty cut and dry."  I agree and then the first thing he does is ask, "So how are the wife and kids?''

I don't say a thing.  He made it abundantly clear that we were only going to discuss my health.  Again he asks, "So, how are the wife and kids?"  Again, I say nothing.  He taps me on the shoulder and says, "Can you hear me?" I nod yes.  "Are you going to answer the question' he asks.  I said, "I thought you said we were only going to discuss my health?''

He turned his back on me, sat his stethoscope down and took off his lab coat.  He dropped the lab coat on the ground and gave me this dejected look.  He opened the door and left the building.  I think he quit.  If he didn't give it up altogether, I bet he is finished with me.  That's kind of sad.... not so much that he quit but more along the lines that he never answered my question.  Do beans have tits?

Trip to the barber shop.

I'm a kind of "go with what you know" type of guy.  I buy gas and groceries at the same places I have been shopping for years.  I have the same mechanic that I have been using for the last 3 decades.  It's product loyalty, I reckon.  These good folks at these places have never steered me wrong or screwed me over.  I get what I want for a reasonable price and if there is a problem, these folks go out of their way to make things right.

It's the same thing with hair cuts.  Big shout out to Mike and them over at Teton Barbers.  Those guys have been cutting my hair for nearly 30 years, except for when I decide to shave my head.  It's almost like we are family at this point.  Besides getting a good hair cut for a good price, you normally get a couple of good jokes, a pretty good BS session and you get to find out who is doing what with that big ass hole in the ground across the street from the shop.

This isn't about those folks though.  I'm comfortable there no matter whose chair I sit in.  This is about another shop in another town, some time back.  I was on vacation and I needed a hair cut pretty bad.  I asked a few friends and when 2 of them mentioned the same shop, I got on the phone and made an appointment for the following day.

The next morning, I showered, washed my hair and set off for the barber shop.  I arrived about 10 minutes early and took a seat.  The normal looking barber with the normal looking client asked, "Do you have an appointment?".  I told him I did and when he said, "One of us will be right with you" it gave me the opportunity to really survey the situation.

The rest of the people there looked like the Ministry of  Awkward Souls.  These folks looked as if they excelled in making poor life decisions.  Besides the lopsided hair cuts, neck and face tattoos, each one of them either had an appendage in a cast, visible bruises or stitches or missing teeth.  That's counting the other 2 barbers mind you and one of them was blessed with a neck brace screwed into his head.

All judging aside, I really wanted the normal looking barber.  I needed the normal looking barber.  What did I get?  The gal who looked like Marilyn Manson wearing a clown costume.  As it turned out, I ended up with a hair cut I could live with, but it never seemed as if it was going to go that way.

As barbers do, she asked me what I wanted.  I gave instructions that I wanted it short but just long enough to be able to comb.  She nodded and then took a bite of a bologna sandwich.  Then she began to tell me a story, I believe in Arabic, about her husband or hamster.  I couldn't tell which because of the tongue piercings.

I tried to stay engaged but she kept spitting on me as she talked.  That made looking her in the face and trying to decipher the language she was trying to speak nearly impossible.  She managed to stab me in the head with the scissors.  I don't know if that was meant to grab my attention or be a promise of things to come, but I all of a sudden wanted to leave.

Finally she stood in front of me, holding a mirror.  She nodded and said, "Wouth jew lipe me to du thumpin witch does ibrews?"  I was mesmerized...  She nodded again and repeated herself.  I kind of did the "what the fuck did you just say" thing with my hands.  She reached out and poked me in the forehead and said, "Ibrews... wouth you lipe me to pix your Ibrews?"  I did the hand gesture thing again and wiped my forehead where the blood was now trickling from.

"Eyebrows?" I asked.  She smiled her picket fence smile and nodded emphatically.  To her credit, they were heinous.  They looked like burn victim caterpillars.  All sparse and patchy, no two hairs the same length and a couple of them were as long as my pointer finger.

I stood up as the took that cape thingy off of me and I said, "No, hell no.  Leave them be.  I plan on growing them out and braiding them to those pesky nose hairs you were probably going to ask me about."  She looked at me like a puppy would if I had a real high voice and kind of tilted her head.  Then she said, "Okay, that'll be $9.00" like I was the weird one.

I gave her all the cash I had.  I don't know how much it was.  I just wanted to go.

I hit the door and waved back over my shoulder.  I made a beeline to the Insta-care for a tetanus shot and 2 stitches form the cranial scissor wound.  They wanted to know what happened but I just didn't have it in me to tell them the truth.  "Oh, I was trying shove spaghetti up a bobcats ass and he scratched me on the head.  Can I have some stitches please and go home... I just want to go home."

That reminds me, Mike or anyone at the barber shop, I need a haircut.  I'll make an appointment soon.

Parenthood and shit....

Nothing in the world can completely prepare you for parenthood.  It seems as if there are a million books with a million different opinions on how to properly raise a child, but none of them ever really get it right.  And for that matter, no how much preparation you do, you are never fully prepared for what we got hit with this past Christmas break.

With the kids being adults and out of the house, Christmas doesn't have the same feeling anymore.  For us these days, Christmas is more about family and friends and perhaps the wife gets off to mass in an attempt to keep the door of heaven open for me.

We got word that our youngest was going to be home for Christmas so we began to make arrangements regarding how, what and where we would be celebrating this joyous holiday.  The wife began to plan the menu.  I planned the beer.  In no time flat, we were just sitting around and awaiting our son's arrival.

When he walked in the house a couple of weeks later, he dropped a whole semester's worth of dirty clothes on the wash room floor, gave his mom a kiss and came over and gave me a big hug.  The boy looked good.  Perhaps he lost a few pounds, but something else was different and I couldn't put my finger on it.

As he told stories about school, his room mates and beer pong, I sensed a bit of anxiety.  I didn't say anything at first but rather watched it build.  He began to pace as he spoke.  Shortly after that, he began wringing his hands as he got more nervous.  Topics for discussion were all over the place and by this point, I could tell something was really eating away at him.

I said, "Son, what's bothering you?".  "Nothing much" he replied, not very convincingly but added, "I do have something that I have to tell you and mom, though."  The wife was in the kitchen and said "I'm listening, honey.  Go ahead."

The boy was sweating at this point and the first thing that ran through my mind was that he knocked up some poor co-ed.  I looked at him as he was looked at the floor for a shred of confidence.  I asked the wife to come join me on the couch so he could have our undivided attention.  As she sat, this pregnancy thought ran through my mind again so I leaned over and said, "No matter what this is, we will get through this like we've gotten through every other thing that has ever happened."  She nodded cautiously.

"Mom, dad...  I have something that I've been wanting to tell you for some time now" he said.  Before he could go on the wife said, "I knew it.  You got some girl pregnant, didn't you?"  I was glad she said it, but Wade just shook his head and directed a stare at the wall above our heads.  "No mother.  I didn't get anyone pregnant."  I chimed in, "You've failed out of school?"  "No dad.  That hasn't happened yet either.  In fact, my grades are good and solid."

The wife and I exchanged a glance.  We do this from time to time.  It's like telepathy.  At the same time, we looked at him and said, "Are you coming out of the closet?"  "No" he said with emphasis, "and please quit interrupting me.  This is very important!"  He looked at the floor.  The wife and I looked at each other as if we covered everything that we thought he would find important.  At the same time we both shrugged and tuned back in to whatever it was that he was going to tell us.

"Mom, dad, I've been wanting to tell you this for about 3 months now.  I think its really important that you know this.  Some kids don't have the type of family that I do, so I am sure that when I get this off my chest, I will have your support, or at least I hope I will."  He looked us both in the eyes and said, "Mom and dad, I am a vegetarian!"

The wife broke into tears.  She was immediately inconsolable.  He said something else to his mother, but all I heard was Charlie Browns kindergarten teacher talking.  "Wa waa waaaa wawa wa wawawa."  I stood up and looked him dead in the eye and said, "Vegetarian?  Are you out of your fucking mind?  Vegetarian?  Holy shit son!  What in the fuck is going on with you?"

Now of course the anxiety level is through the roof at our once peaceful abode.  He looks at me and said, "You know dad, I could really use some support right now.  This is serious."  I answered back, "You're God damned right its serious!  You've got incisors, for Christ's sake!  Those fuckers were made for ripping into meat, boy.  Your mom, your dad, your brother, every one of your grandparents, every one of your great grandparents, all of your aunts and uncles are all carnivores!  What in the world makes you think you can just stroll in here and say something as ridiculous as that?"

It was at this point in time that I knew my world had been turned upside down.  I'd never been more mad or more confused in my life.  I mean, I have taken this boy hunting and I taught him how to fish just so he could learn where food really comes from.  Now this kid is prepared to turn in his fishing gear and hunting rifle for a reusable cloth bag to take to the farmer's market?

He said, "You know dad, I could use a little support right now."  "You bet your ass you can!  You ain't strong enough to stand up on your own.  Eating twigs, lettuce and dirt ain't no way to get proper nutrition.  Shit, your mother or I am going to have to move in with you to drag your anemic ass to classes and shit.  For crying out loud man.  Why couldn't you have come home and told your mother and I you were gay or you knocked up some poor waif?  We were prepared for that!  We can handle that!  Vegetarian?  Shit, I wish you would have told me you tried pot or something!"  I shook my head and said, "I need to go check on your mother."  I looked at him again and just shook my head.

As I opened the bedroom door, the wife wailed "Why?  Why is he a vegetarian?" and then she fell back into the fetal position at the foot of the bed.  "I don't know honey.  I figured he was more likely to rob a bank or some shit.  I don't know how we work through this.  Can you come out at face him?"
I helped her to her feet and wiped a tear from her cheek.  I gave her a hug and told her that it would be all right as convincingly as I could at the moment.  She opened the bedroom door and looked at him.  He was shaking.  Not because he was scared or anything, but because his blood sugar crashed.  DeeDee asked, "Why son?  Why now?"

He said, "Mom, its because I met this girl..."  I interrupted, "Shit, you didn't knock her up did you?  Oh wait, you probably don't have the strength to knock anyone up."  Then I asked, "Is she a vegetarian too?"  He nodded and said, "Yes dad she is a vegetarian and no dad, I didn't knock her up." "Well, its a good damned thing" the wife said and added "skinny ass girl wouldn't have the strength to carry a baby around full term eating kiwi fruit and drinking beet smoothies and shit."

Everyone was about at the end of their personal ropes.  Our oldest son walks through the door just as Wade says, "It's healthy.  I've lost 20 pounds and I never have been healthier in my life.  I feel great."  Roger cut him off by saying, "You don't feel great, you idiot.  You're just keep getting a head rush every time you stand up?"  I asked Roger, "You knew about this?"  He said, "Nope.  Mom called me and said we are having a family crisis.  Then she told me that Wade was a vegetarian so I am here to plan an intervention or something.  I just can't let this happen to my little brother."

The whole family is now involved.  One of the dogs was so disgusted by this news that he put himself in his kennel and locked the door.  The cat peed on Wade's coat.  He accidentally dropped it on the floor because he no longer possesses the hand strength and hand eye coordination he once had, when he ate bacon.

Right before this boy was born, I thought I had gone over every potential scenario that a father may face, raising a child.  I mean, I thought of all kids of weird shit like, "What if he is born and is just a head on a foot?"  Or, "What if he has one eye bigger than the other and he shits his pants every time he blinks?"  I had answers for those things.  Not this.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, I thought I should step up and try to get us all through this, somehow.  It was time to start throwing some ideas around.  "Is this permanent" I asked.  "I don't know, dad."  "Will you eat turkey for dinner, like your mom planned?"  "No dad, turkey is meat."  I lost myself for a second and blurted out, "No its not, God damn it.  Its fucking turkey!"  That surely didn't help matters.  So I looked around the room and said, "What's next?"

Wade stood up and said, "Mom, no matter what, I will always love you.  I know you love me and I know we can work through this.  Roger, I know you may feel let down right now, but I promise you brother, I will be the same guy and I will always love you and will always have your back.  Dad, I can still hunt and I can still go fishing."  I couldn't stop myself from saying, "How in the hell do you hunt parsnips?"  Wade looked at us all again and said, "Can we all share a hug and move on" to which Roger replied, "We can.  We eat meat.  You'll probably have to rest for a couple of hours between hugs."

Man, I wonder what's going to happen next Christmas.

"This is different"

"He's not my President!"  The first time I ever heard that statement was 8 short years ago after Barack Obama was elected President.  The statement was a rally cry of sorts for conservatives, since they promised that he would bring an end to the 2nd Amendment, institute Sharia law, will create death panels and our beloved grandmothers would be lined up to prepare to die.  There was a threat that Obama would spread disease in order to gain better control of the country while imprisoning ill civilians, and he was going to take God away from Christians.

The democrats demanded in response, "He is your President" and "You'd better get on board."  At the same time, the democrats began carpet bombing their enemy with terms like "racist" and "bigot",in an attempt to keep republicans from talking.  If you did speak up, you were then labeled a "bully" for defending your opinion.

It was clear.  The democrats laid claim to the moral high ground and if you didn't agree with them, you were a sub human life source, not worthy of forming your own opinion.  While they were name calling and otherwise "bullying", they were doing the ground work to establish 'safe places' for democrats who got their feelings hurt, by bullies.

Now the group that tried to forge their way into being the worlds true north are melting down as bad or worse than the republicans did, and they are trying to justify it.  "He's not my President'' is being used by people who were telling others 8 years ago to grow up.  The democrats have turned into the very thing they accuse the republicans of, and they can't see it.  When I have bothered to point this out to some of my democrat friends they reply, "this is different".

There's an old saying that says, "there's no pain like my pain".  That is the difference.  They've bought into the "us v.s. them" mentality and they really feel as if they lost something, much like the republicans did.  But this is different and that is what happens when you lay claim to being superior in every fashion.  In these circumstances, it hurts...

The melodrama was laid on thick.  People crying while trying to explain their grief were calling for ambulances and therapy was being offered because of a Presidential election?  There is nothing wrong with needing therapy, by the way, but if a Presidential election cycle spun you out into the irrational unknown, there were big problems well before the election.  Knowing and understanding that is the key to being able to move forward and maybe those 'safe places' ought to be available for everyone, crayons and coloring books included.

I hear people on both sides of the equation saying, "How did it come to this?"  Now is time for everyone to put on their adult clothing and take some responsibility.  You created this.  You bought into this bullshit fight when you were indoctrinated in your high school government classes.  You were taught that you had to pick a side and it was your civic duty to stand in and choose a ruler.  If your guy doesn't win the election, you feel as if YOU lost and you throw am fit like a 3 year old.

Both sides of the political spectrum are full of shit and frankly, full of hate and discontent.  Democrats cried foul when the republicans said they would do all they can to stuff every effort put forth by President Obama and the democrats and here we are today and now its the democrats vowing to do everything they can to thwart every political effort by this President.  This... this is how we got here.

"Gone Fishing"

Many years ago while I was still living at home, my mom bought me a "gone fishing" sign that I hung from my bedroom door.  At this point in my life, I was doing one of about 4 things.  I was either at work, hanging out with friends, hunting with friends or most likely I was out fishing with friends.  For a while, fishing was all I thought about and looking back, I have so many good memories that are wrapped around fishing trips.

Most of these fishing trips were impromptu events.  I'd either be at work or at home and the phone would ring.  It'd likely be my buddy Horton.  "Hey Prick, you want to go fishing?" he'd ask.  "Yeah, I'm off in an hour.  Let me gather my stuff and I'll be right over."  We'd go to pick up that Carter kid and head out to Vegas Wash or one of our other haunts and fish all of that afternoon and well into the night.  Sometimes we slayed them, other times we sat around and laughed our asses off.  Nothing too special, just a bunch of buds out screwing around.

All of this started for me when I was much younger.  My dad used to bring me to the lake, in the boat, in my bassinet.  He'd rig the bassinet up in a fashion where he could either rock me with his foot or bump me with his knee and keep casting plugs into the brush for bass.

Later, that evolved into me getting my first fishing rod.  It was a blue colored Abu-Garcia with a Mitchell open faced spinning reel, probably with about 6-8 lb. test line on it.  I started to learn how to tie knots, how to handle live bait, how to cast and since then, I don't think I turned down an opportunity to be on a boat with the old man.

Somewhere between the bassinet on the boat days and learning to do these things for myself, I got to spend some time with my grandpa and great grandpa fishing everywhere between Las Vegas to Idaho to Nebraska.

Right before my grandpa retired, he bought a motor home.  We all hopped in to go to Idaho for a week of visiting relatives and fishing.  All of the relatives were older folks and I can't even recall their names.  Family was and still is important, but I remember starting to ask, "Are we going fishing yet?' before we even got out of the driveway in Las Vegas.

We finally made it to Lewiston, Idaho.  Seemed like it took days.  We pulled up to this cabin in the woods that sat about 100 yards away from a small lake.  I looked at my grandpa and great grandpa and asked, "Now are we going fishing?"

We went over to greet these relatives and grandpa excused us so we could make a quick trip down to the lake.  In a matter of a couple of minutes, I caught my first trout.  Then another, then another.  It seemed like every cast I was reeling in something.  That night we ate some trout cooked over the camp fire and my great grandpa told me that he had a secret spot he was going to sneak me into at first light.

Most of my family was kind of full of shit.  Great grandpa wasn't, as best I could tell.  I woke up that next morning and had mom get me into my overalls and get my hat on my head.  I ran over to the cabin where great grandpa was and knocked on the door.  There he was, ready to fish and dressed for success!  He had this old hat with a dozen or so flies and lures stuck to it.  He had a look in his eye that to me said, "We're going to get 'em."  He looked down and said, "You ready boy?" and off we went.

I thought I was in for this big adventure.  Fact of the matter was, great grandpa didn't want to get too far from the motor home, just in case he had to turn me back over to mom for some reason.  But there we were.  Great grandpa turned over a couple of milk crates and told me to take a seat.  He sat next to me and started telling me some fishing stories of this very lake, many years earlier.  All I wanted to know is if they caught anything.

Great grandpa cast my rod into a good spot and told me to watch the bobber.  As soon as he got ready to cast his rod, I had a fish on.  He was coaching me on how to real the fish in.  It was a monster!  I started laughing, he started laughing and we thought we were going to wake everyone in camp up.  When I got the fish close to the bank grandpa said, "Back up and drag him through the weeds."  I start backing up and all of a sudden, there was Moby Dick flopping around.  I couldn't believe it.  I looked at grandpa and he said, "Let me get the hook out of his mouth, then you have to put him on the stringer."

Grandpa removes the hook and sets the fish back on the ground.  He whispers, "Well, get him."  I bend over and pick the fish up around the belly with my small hands and he squirts out the other side.  I do it again and again with the same result, each time making the old timer laugh harder and harder.  He leans forward and says, "Get him by the mouth."  I looked at him.  The information seemed legit so I reached forward, jammed my thumb into the trouts mouth and stood up.  When I stood up, the fish clamped down...  it didn't hurt but startled me, so I kind of jumped and dropped the fish.  Its so quiet out that great grandpa whispered, "What happened?"  I looked at him and said, "The son of a bitch bit me!"

Great grandpa fell off the milk crate laughing.  I thought I killed the poor old guy.  My grandpa came out of the motor home laughing his ass off.  My grandma came out with her hand over her mouth trying not to laugh and my mother came out with tears in her eyes from laughing.  Next thing I know, the cabin door opened.  A couple other old people came out laughing, so there I sit with a smile on my mug wondering what in the hell was so funny.  We laughed for at least a half an hour.

Mom gathered me up told me that I wasn't allowed to swear, probably especially around great grandpa.  I thought that was odd because he appeared to have the most fun with the whole experience.

I'll never forget that.  I heard the story probably at least 100 times from my grandpa and great grandpa and it got funnier every time trying to watch them get through the story and maintain their composure.  I bet I told the story at least another 100 times and hope I live long enough to tell it 100 more.  I've taken my kids fishing and hope to be able to take some grand kids fishing one day.

If you don't have a good time fishing, you're doing it wrong.  Whether it be with family, friends or by yourself, fishing is about having a good time.  I believe its what fishing was invented for.  Get out of town, get in the sticks, get on the water and relax.  Take it all in.  Bring a friend, bring your kid, bring the wife... just get out and go fishing!

"Lee" from Gold Card Services

So, I'm sitting at work the other day and the phone rings.  This brings me great excitement because I was sitting there watching this tiny spider walk across my desk, shivering from the cold, looking for a warm place to hide.  I was going to warm him up with a lighter and a half of a can of carb cleaner but I didn't want to have to explain to the bosses why the cub scouts were roasting marshmallows were the guard shack used to be.  All of the sudden, the phone rings.

Much to my delight, it turned out to be "Lee from Gold Card Services."  Before I could say anything Lee, in all of his benevolence, tells me that there was a flag on my Gold Card.  Now, I'm no rocket surgeon and my memory is not what it used to be so I asked Lee "Who are you looking for, Lee?"  Emphatically Lee said, "You sir" in an accent that I'd never, ever be able to replicate.  He added, "Your Gold Card has been compromised and fraudulent activity has been detected."



I asked, "Lee, if you're looking form me, you must know my name, right?"  Lee let go with a sigh and then there was an uncomfortable pause before he said, "I don't know your name but I know your credit card has been compromised.  Give me last 4 numbers and I can help you get this problem resolved."  Oddly, I was surprised by his mastery of the language.  Not sure what language it was but his confidence in the shit he was saying was just over the top!

"#1" I said.  Lee said, "What next?"  I said, "That's it.  I got the first credit card awarded by this particular institution so the number is one."  I could almost hear him shake his head.  Before he could say anything I asked, "Do you want to know a secret?"  Before he could answer I said, "My name is Lee too.  Some people have called me portly because I am kind of short and fat.  Some people have called me ugly and that's because they are stupid and they don't have feelings.  Others have called me
dick, but I don't understand that..."

The guy yells, "Enough!  Enough!  I don't need this information.  I need the last 4 digits of your card number."  I then apologize.  "Lee, I'm sorry.  It sounds like you are a very busy man.  I'll let you go for now.  Can you call me back later, because I know when I try to return this call, the number you called me on will not be available."  "What" he asks and then adds, "What are you talking about?  I'm trying to schedule a "reburchment"."

Now, up to this point, I thought I could keep Lee on the phone.  I felt as if I garnered some level of trust, but I ruined it completely when I said, "What in the fuck is a reburchment?  Are you going to plant some trees or shrubs?  Are you going to do a habitat rehabilitation program in my front yard?  That's awful nice, Lee, but its winter and its a bad time to do reburchments... I think."

That is when Lee lost his mind. "Mother Bitch!  What the fuck is this?  I don't know what you are saying.  I ask questions, you say things that don't make sense.  I don't have this time."  I then asked, "Is your whole name Angri-ly because you seem to have taken an unkind tone with me."  He said something in his native tongue, sighed and came back with, "Do you need my assistance" to which I replied, "Yes".  He said, "I need last 4 digits of your credit card number to reburch."

At this point, I wanted to try something else.  For years, and this started when my kids where little and were having some kind of non-crisis, I would say "pee pee-poo poo" and they would either laugh or spin out.  I introduced Lee to it.. I said, "Pee pee-poo poo".  He replied "three three, two two" and I started to laugh.  "Yes, Lee. Pee pee-poo poo  ca ca doo doo".  I really lost it when he said, "Too many numbers.  Try again."

By now, I am running out of potty humor and I figured he would have hung up by now.  I didn't know what to say so I just said, "What's your favorite color?"  He didn't say anything but I could hear him typing.  "Lee," I asked, "what is your favorite color?".  Nothing... "Lee, what is your favorite food?'  Still nothing, "Lee, if you could have one super power, what would it be?"  Still nothing so I throw one more at him.  "Lee" I said before being yelled at... "God bitch, mother damn it!  You no good.  I fuck this up and you fuck jokes at me."

I've heard and done a lot of things to people, but I not once "fucked jokes at someone".  I am just not that type of guy.  I'll help you carry in the groceries, maybe give you that pesky clue on the crossword, but I will never, ever fuck a joke at you.

Lee's done.  He yells some incoherent shit at me, throws down another lame attempt at cussing me out, but he is through.  For me, the best is still coming at me.  I sat here, in my mental mind, trying to figure out how to fuck a joke at someone.... begging for the phone to ring again.

"December Hate Its"

A while back, my wife spent a good deal of time putting "December Gratefuls" on her Facebook account.  Every day for the month of December, she would list one thing she was grateful about.  I on the other hand decided to counter that with "December Hatefuls".  As you probably figured out, I spent time once a day putting up things that I hated.  This Presidential Election cycle and with the holidays right in front of us, I realized that there are a ton of things that I truly hate.

With that said, here are some of the things I hate in no particular order:

#1.   When walking down the street this time of year, some people will say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays".  I typically replay with the same term.  If the term "Happy Holidays" offends you, please go fuck yourself.  Seriously, go into the darkest, loneliest room you can find and just fuck your miserable self into the soul sucking black hole you really are.  Christian or not, you are not the only person celebrating something this time of year and its about high time you got over yourself.  Christmas is but one day.  I know this from looking at a calendar, yet some of you jack offs want to hijack a whole month!  Maybe I would feel differently about this if you actually went to church or if you actually prayed at other times rather than not puking at the company Christmas party. Screw you and I hope you shit yourself in front of your in laws during Christmas dinner.

When someone says "Happy Holidays" to you, they are trying to be nice and NOT presumptuous.  You may or may not be Christian.  They don't know that.  Would you prefer they walk up and hit you across the teeth with an ax handle?  Shut your over commercialized holiday, candy cane sucking hole, and try to remember what this time of year is supposed to be about.  Try being nice in return, or like I mentioned, go fuck yourself.

#2.   Drama.  Jesus Christ...  Have you ever noticed how many people claim to hate drama but yet do everything they can to fill their life with drama at every turn?  I hate that shit.  I can't stand it.  And when you point out the fact that "their" drama comes from a bunch of shitty decisions they made, they make YOU out to be the asshole in the equation.  If there is a God, why can't he just smite these jerk offs?  All we need is one big ass lightning bolt and a loud BANG! Nothing left but a black mark on the sidewalk and a smoking rib cage...  That would stop a lot of the drama, quick!

#3.   I've run into a few women recently that take pride in the fact that they are a bitch.  No matter what they do or what they say, they come off like a bitch and are proud of it.  What they can't wrap their tiny, little, shit filled heads around is, when they act shitty towards people, people act shitty back and they just can't figure it out.

If you pride yourself on "being a bitch", can you do me a favor?  Please take a moment and step out in front of a speeding dump truck.  Now, try and pick yourself up after being run over by said dump truck.  That, my ignorant friend, is a bitch.  You are an asshole and you shouldn't confuse the two.  Grow up, be decent or try to suck start the bumper of the next dump truck doing 80 mph, okay?

#4.  Shitty drivers in winter...  This may take me a while to get through because I have a step by step plan for this special group of shit wits.  There is a thing called physics and by the looks of some of you sons a bitches, I can tell that you haven't heard of them.  I'll give you a cliff notes version.  4 wheel drive does not mean 4 wheel stop.  The white shit you are driving on is ice and snow and its kind of slippery.  When you are going 80 miles an hour on snow and ice and have to slam on the brakes in an attempt to get out of on coming traffic, because you decided that a blind corner was a great place to try to pass someone with a knowledge of physics, you're going to slip and slide, be out of control and probably injure or kill yourself and others.

Suicide is no joke, but if you want to kill yourself, do it in a no fail manner.  Find a loaded sawed off shotgun, 7 sticks of dynamite, duct tape and a lighter.  Go 30 miles into the desert where nobody will find you and you won't blow up anyone elses shit.  Take the dynamite and twist all of the fuses together and duct tape them to your chest.  Take the lighter, light the fuse, place the shotgun in your mouth, pull the trigger and then the dynamite will blow the rest of remains to rodent feeding sized pieces and there will be no clean up... considerate, right?

On the other hand, there is this.  This plan is more of a dream than a real plan, but it works out in my head and I manage to stay out of prison this way... in my head.  If I see you driving like shit and I watch you get in a wreck, I am going to help you out.  I am CPR/First Aide certified, but that is of no consequence here.  I am going to run and and check to see if your alright.  If your unconscious, I will move on with the plan.  If you are conscious, I am going to jerk you out of the car and flog your sorry ass like a spoiled American kid who keyed cuss words into a North Korean Generals brand new Hyundai.  Then I am going to beat your kids, kick your dog and choke your wife.  Then I will administer proper first aide to them, hire a Voo Doo High Priestess to come slap a life long curse on you, stuff you back in the car, light that shit on fire, steal all of your shit and then hide your cell phone or change your password, just in case you survive.

Act right, assholes.  I am one bad day from making this a reality!

#5.   I had a cop friend of mine tell me, in a social setting, "It's against the law to talk on your cell phone while operating a motor vehicle."  I had no idea what he was talking about.  He was doing all he could to make me feel uncomfortable, but because I didn't know what he was talking about, he got mad.  I hate that shit.  I hate everything about that.  I asked him, "What are you talking about?".  He informed me that he saw me at a stop light on my phone.

At that moment, I understood what he was talking about.  In reality, I wasn't talking on the phone and that shit would have stood up in a court of law.  I was switching songs... probably still no bueno but I was not talking on the phone.  And, for the record, I was not operating a motor vehicle.  I was at a complete stand still at a stop light.

Some time later, I catch this guy riding along side me, having a casual conversation on his cell phone.  I decide to bring this up.  I honked and waved. He holds his phone out and nodded, like saying, "I see you, but I am on the phone."  I honk again, point at his phone and shook my head.  He hung up the phone, rolled the window down and said, "What?".  I reminded him of our conversation a while back where he told me how ILLEGAL it was to talk on the phone while operating a motor vehicle.
He played stupid but informed me that he was "discussing business" on the phone and that the whole thing was "no concern to me".

Now, people who know me know that I will argue with an ice cube if I think it isn't cold enough.  This discussion was beginning to wear on me.  By this time, we had pulled over and I had my elbows on his passenger door jam, speaking through the passenger window.  I pointed to his radio.  I asked, "what's that' to which he replied, "Its a radio" and added, "you know that".  So, me being me, I had to say, "If you were conducting official business when I saw you talking on your phone, why were you not using the radio and why were you breaking the law?"  He went on to tell me basically that he is a cop and can do whatever he wants.  I told him he was a dick.  He got mad.  He got more mad when I told him that I probably had a better driving record than he did and offered to place a bet on it.

So, all of that made me mad but you know what pissed me off the most?  He wouldn't take the bet.  Johnny Law in all of his benevolence and pride didn't have enough faith in his driving record to place a bet on it.  He got mad when I said, "Your wife reminding you to get paper towels, a copy of Nat King Cole's rendition of "Blue Moon" and a pint of ass lube doesn't equal "official business.""

I don't think were friends any more.  I don't think I hate that.



#6.    Cheap toilet paper.  My hate for this vile torture device runs deep. (Maybe not so deep if I weren't so heavy handed.)  When you provide cheap toilet paper, you are telling your guests, "I don't care about you, your ass, your health or well being.  I hope this shit trashes your rectum like you wiped with a belt sander coated in crushed glass, and I hope you go crazy trying to explain this mess in the emergency room."  This is the most indirect "fuck you" on the planet and you just know that somewhere in the house, they have a stash of disposable Kashmir ass wiping cloths.

#7.   Deodorant and lotion.  Kind of dumb to spend time hating things that make you not stick and your skin to look healthy.  Its not that.  It's that my nose doesn't always work right and I can't tell what things smell like before I put them on.  What I wish was, they could all have a universal smell, like cedar or new car smell.

Anyhow, on a recent trip to Las Vegas, I realized that I forgot to bring my deodorant and lotion.  We were getting ready to go out, so I mashed a bunch of my wife's Secret (strong enough for a man but made for a woman) and some extra girly smelling lotion that made my skin all shiny.

I can't tell anything is up, but my wife is grinning at me from ear to ear.  I'd look at her and she'd smile.  I asked, "What's up with all of the grinning?"  She said, "Can't I just be happy?"  Of course she could, but after being married for nearly 25 years, I know she isn't that happy... I mean, she's happy but not happy enough to just break out in a random grin.  And, she's married to me so she isn't above letting something like her big dumb ass red neck husband go walking around in public smelling like a pretty princess.

We make it to our destination and walk in.  Friend walks up, gives us a hug and invites us in.  As he's walking in front of us, he turns around with this look on his face and says, "right this way, ladies."

So there we are, all gussied up, walking around and associating with everyone.  Some of these people I haven't seen in years so it was really a nice gathering.  Every once in a while, I get a real good whiff of some alluring aroma and I can't help but wonder which woman smells so good.

Just about the time I start to forget about this wonderful aroma, I go up to shake a guys hand.  This is a guy I haven't seen in 25 years.  He's a big old boy like me with a hell of a handshake.  I remember this and the key to shaking hands with this guy is to get the jump on the squeeze part of the handshake.  We see each other, grin and extend our hands.  I put the clamp down on him and my shiny, pretty princess hand shoots out of his hand like shit out of a gooses ass.  We laugh about it briefly, but not I am starting to put things together.

After we broke towards the bar for a beer, this guy smells his hand, looks at me and kind of shrugs his shoulders like "whatever".

I ask where the restroom is and make my way for it.  Once inside, it becomes abundantly clear that I am the woman with the "alluring aroma".  I freak out.  I look at my hands and they are still all shiny and shit, so I scramble underneath the sink and find my savior... Ajax and some other clean but not pretty smelling shit.  I wash my hands with the Ajax and that immediately takes the scent and the sheen off my paws.  I splash on some hydrogen peroxide and some mint mouth wash on my shirt and spray on some bug spray, just to help.

By the time I get back outdoors, I realize that I have concocted something that smells a little like mustard gas.  As I walk around and meet and greet more people, I am making their eyes water and their noses run.  That is more my speed.  Now if I could only get rid of the chemical burns....