Getting screwed: The Live Blog

9:00am: Two days ago, my wife told me both of our uptairs toilets had problems. By problems, she meant they were flushing, but doing so all over the damned floor. I accused her of being unlucky and told her to buy some Drano. No Home Depot product worked. A day later, she called the plumbers. I started to get cranky.

9:20am: The plumber arrived. I am already disappointed because the guy is not fat and I doubt there will be any butt crack joke availability. In fact, he's thin, fairly good looking, has a stylish haircut and makes a point of covering his shoes before he walks on my floors. He smells like chewing gum and cigarettes. I fear I might be headed toward some sort of alternative lifestyle fantasy fodder, so I'll leave it at that.

9:28am: I take the guy on a tour of the upstairs. The wife has cleaned up, I guess just in case we want to impress the plumber. I tell the guy the toilets won't flush. I don't think he's listening.

9:32am: Here are a few of the quotes from the plumber over the past few minutes.

"You really want to stay away from toilets with rounded fronts."

"You really want to stay away from Drano. There's acid in that. Not a lot. I mean they can sell it at Home Depot. But there's acid in there and that can cause you problems."

"You really want to go for a toilet with a square front. They are a bit enlongated and, if you know what I mean, a little more man-friendly."

Yeah, I don't know if he was hitting on me or not.

9:34am: Wow, why the hell didn't I see this coming? You call a plumber to fix your toilet and he tries to sell you a new toilet? Really? This happens? Now, I'm no fan of my cheap toilets. I'd even buy some new ones to replace these if I thought it was going to save us any time and plumber fees. So, this guy thinks I'm buying what he's selling. And I'm probably going to make the purchase until Mr. Man-Friendly tells me the new johns are going to run me more than $600. Apiece.

9:35am: Using smelling salts and a few kicks in the ribs, Mr. Man-Friendly gets me up off the hardwoods. I try to find a way to play off my lack of consciousness. "And, so how much just to fix the ones I have?" I ask. And then I get it. They try to sell you on the NASA Space Shuttle toilets and quote you the price. So, when you get the actual quote for the repairs, you are actually happy about what would normally be sticker shock. In fact, by now, I am downright excited to spending $400 for what is certainly a couple minutes of witchcraft and probably some generic Drano. And somewhere along the way, I buy the Ben Franklin service plan, titled cleverly enough, "The Ben Society." A stich in time and all.

9:41am: I leave the guy to "snake" my toliets. The "snake" looks more like a military-grade weapon. It sounds like it, too. What's happening upstairs sounds like the plumber destroying everything on the second level of my house. I hear running water and a lot of banging. Before this is over, I feel certain I will need a new toilet after all.

9:57am: Man-Friendly is really putting on a show. He's made more noise than any service person in the history of our house. I've heard the two upstairs toilets flush three or four times apiece. Somehow, I feel certain, the guy is going to come down and tell me, despite his best efforts, he's going to have to sell me some $600 toilets.

10:00am: I think this guy actually hates my family. As he comes downstairs, he quietly says, "They are unclogged." The sound in Man-Friendly's voice sounds like a guy who just watched five of his buddies die in battle. He has a 1,000-yard stare and quietly says as he goes to his truck, "No more baby wipes."

10:02am: I actually feel bad for Man-Friendly. "I've never pulled so many out," he says. I'm sort of glad my kid isn't here, because the guy will realize the boy is now three years old and ask why there are still baby wipes around. I protest briefly, "They are called flushable wipes." Man-Friendly responds, "They are not."

10:09am: The guy seems to have come back to reality. "I think they call them flushable just so they can sell more of them. They don't disintegrate. Anything they can get hung up on, they will." I am actually disturbed by the concept of what the wipes could possibly get hung up on. I find myself actually happy writing a check for $400.

10:20am: Mr. Man-Friendly is gone and everything seems to be in working order. I'm pretty sure that means we're going to have a major plumbing disaster in about six hours.

Thank goodness I joined the Ben Society.

Where normal meets life

Once returned from Las Vegas, the everyday activity between waking and sleeping seems quite ordinary. This is the way it happens every time. There is relief at being home, followed by latent endorphin withdrawal, followed by sense of contentment at the normal things in life.

And it is quite normal. Friday night was a ridiculous evening of bar hopping with my fellow thirty-something married male friends. Saturday night was date night with the wife (Portafino's chicken marsala was good, "I Am Legend" was about what you'd expect). Sunday was making ziti, taking the kid to "Alvin and the Chipmunks," and then watching "Good Night, and Good Luck."

You know, normal.

In fact, apart watching my wife jump out of her seat during "I Am Legend," the most significant event of the weekend was the arrival of my first-ever Netflix DVDs. Sure, I know I'm late to the game. In the past, I had a hard time justifying the cost of the service. Even I couldn't understand my resistance to the service. I mean, I spent $20 in a jukebox battle on Friday night, but 'm not going to spend $15 a month to get unlimited movies? I didn't make sense.

A few nights ago, however, I figured it all out.

I have had HBO for as long as I have been an adult. With DirecTV, HBO cost me $13 a month. The wife and I also spend about $12-15 a month renting DVDs. Once "The Sopranos" went off for good, I realized that HBO had nothing more to offer me but Inside the NFL and Real Sports. I decided I could live without those shows, canceled HBO, and signed up with Netflix.

The decision turned out to be pretty easy. I signed up for the plan that gives me unlimited DVDs (two at a time) and unlimited streaming movies on my laptop. Within a week, the subscription has already paid for itself. I've been a little giddy over the service and spent more than a little time setting up my queue of films. Any recommendations?

Normal life is a pretty comfortable thing. It rarely lasts as long as I'd like, but when it happens, I tend to enjoy it. If my calculations are right, this normalcy should last about two weeks before life gets odd again.

I'll take it while I can get it.

Cleaning house for the aged

"I'm going to clean out my closet," I said.

G-Rob replied, "Is that a metaphor?"

After nearly eight years of friendship, this guy knows me way too well.

"Yeah, probably," I said. "But I really am going to clean out my closet."

In the south, we grow kudzu, not because we want to, but because we have no choice. Someone brought it here and now it's going to grow regardless of our wants and whims. Same goes for my closet. It became my closet and now it is going to be messy.

I took three thrash bags with me and filled one with garbage before I reached the floor. I found bills for cell phones I haven't owned in four years, flight coupons for trips I don't remember taking, and a stack of business cards that I never actually carried for fear of being arrested. It all went in the bag. Other stuff sat to the side, like the monogrammed flask (hall full, no less) and the various and sundry items surrounding my career in television and media: three IFBs, two or three reporter notebooks, and countless press passes (including, but not limited to a badge granting me access to John Edwards in 2004, two or three presidential address Secret Service badges for both Bush and Clinton, and one I actually stole from the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London, England).

I filled the second bag with clothes to give away. Five pairs of black dress shoes, two or three pairs of pants, a few shirts, and some giveaway items that I have collected over my years for working for a client.

Finally, I headed to some drawers where I keep underclothes and such. One drawer was so full that I could barely open it. There was a time, see, when I wore a white t-shirt nearly every day under my work clothes. Because of that and the fact that I hate doing laundry (the wife has taken over the duty in the house, only because it won't get done unless she doesn't), I had more than 20 white undershirts. I stacked five of the cleaner ones to the side and prepared to throw the rest away.

As I was about to throw one in the bag, I notice black Sharpie on the collar. I took a closer look and noticed my father's name written in my mother's hand. It was a shirt I'd somehow picked up when my dad was in the hospital and rehab center during and after his three brain surgeries. I rarely consider myself much of a man, but whatever maturity I have started forming around that time in 2003. I retrieved the shirt from the throwaway pile and tucked it back in the drawer.

Cleaning or no, we all need to keep some reminders.

(Upon re-reading the above, it sort of makes it sound like my Dad died. He will tell you that he's doing just fine, thank you. He just should've died. Like three times. Instead, he's playing the best golf of his life and not doing much else that could be considered work. All in all, not so bad for a guy in his 60s.)

***

I see Uncle Ted every couple of months. He speaks his mind. He's like that.

He came over a couple of weeks ago and wasn't in the door 30 seconds before he broke into a chorus of, "Gray, gray, gray, gray!"

I didn't have to ask what he was talking about. I think I muttered something profane and shuffled away to look for my walker.

The aging man's lament is so trite that I dare not repeat it this year. On my birthday last year, I talked about the choice I made. This year, I'm letting the day slide by with little fanfare. I decided to let this happen when I discovered, for the first time ever, I not only look a year older, I feel a year older.

This is not to say I mind. After I get through this awkward old man's adolescence, I'm going to be well on my way to Distinguished. That should be a good time. Of course, if the books tell us anything, it's a short road between being becoming distinguished and having someone feed you your soup. In that case, my wife and kid got me some fantastic German steel knives to mark the occasion that could probably put a quick end to it all.

If no marketing genius has come up with this yet, I think there is probably a great advertising campaign for knives aimed at seniors: "We'll still be sharp when you're not!"

Black leaves fall

The dog is getting old. She has gray around her muzzle and gives up the fence-row race with the neighbor mutts a lot quicker than she used to. Most people don't like my dog, and I don't care. She's a constant companion and likes me when most people don't. We were alone in the house for an hour today. She nuzzled quietly into a blanket and left me be. I acted in kind, save the blanket.

I hear fairly well and have near-perfect vision, but I didn't notice what was happening outside before the dog. She let loose a small yip that seemed to come from nowhere. I assumed she had woken from a dog a dream, one where two squirrels were screwing on the back deck and offending the dog's moral sensibilities. I paid her little attention until she barked again.

Like my wife's bemused expressions, the dog has a different bark for different occasions. It's always in the interpretation. The staccato yip usually means, in dog shorthand, something ain't right. It's not a meddlesome squirrel. It's not a neighborhood teen punk. It's the dog's alert that something quite off has crossed the property line and threatens to upset the normal order--or disorder--of our home.

I looked up and out the window. I saw what appeared to be an inordinate amount of leaves falling from the giant four-trunked sweetgum in the front yard. We're nearing that point in the year when the final leaves let loose of their annual hold and fall onto our half-acre. Nothing new. Nothing uncomfortable. Simply seasonal changes in how we process our lives.

The dog yipped again and the sky rained black. The fire-colored leaves were falling, but something else was there, too. The sky was voiding itself of color and the dog was nonplussed. Unsettled, I stood and walked slowly toward the window. The dog did not follow.

My eyes registered the sight before my mind woke up. The front yard--no small amount of space--was nearly black with birds. Dozens of giant crows had landed within a couple of seconds of each other and turned my manicured lawn into a Hitchcockian horror show. I turned my head to look for my camera. It was across the room.

I took one step and the birds rose en masse into the air. I was behind a pane of glass and more than 20 feet away from the nearest beak, but they knew. Chaos choreographed broke into the sky and hung there, a black mass working in confused and unsure unison. The flock knew it had to move, had to do something, had to get away, but--for one tenth of one second--didn't know where. The birds spoke to each other in a silent alarm. Like the dog, it was if they knew something wasn't right, but were unsure what it was.

I continued to move toward the camera and grabbed it. When I returned, the birds had lit in a neighbor's yard, out of my lens' range but within the bird's danger instinct. I cracked the door and the birds again took off. This time the birds had no question. Danger was here and they knew they had to be gone. I turned my lens toward the black mass and fired three unfocused shots. The birds dodged and disappeared as if they were from somewhere else--somewhere meant to be unseen, imagined, storied. Evidence of their appearance was beyond inappropriate. It was verboten.

They were gone. The dog was quiet. I looked at the LCD screen on my camera and saw the black blur. It was not half as remarkable as what I saw, what set the dog on edge, what actually happened in my front yard. It didn't happen slowly enough for me to register good or evil. It was spine-chill quick and away.

Tonight, the reasonable side me assigns no value to the moment other than a brief whisper from nature. That's what I tell myself.

The curtains, however, are now closed.

Get in my pants

I have a hard time believing there is anybody out there who wouldn't enjoy spending some quality time in my pants. My wife's facial muscles are sprained from the amount of eyebrow raising she has done on the subject. Chagrin might begin to explain it, but it comes nowhere close to ending the subject. Simply put, I've got a great pair of pants and I'd be happy to invite anyone to get in them for a test drive.

Perhaps some background is in order.

A couple of years ago, I picked up a pair of jeans on a whim. I don't buy clothes very often, and when I do, it's usually a ten-minute aisle-sprint that ends in me buying a bunch of muted colors and things that are more comfortable than they are stylish. These particular jeans, however, were perfect. They hugged the parts that needed to be hugged without squeezing the parts that shouldn't be squeezed. They looked worn, but not worn out. Best of all, they were comfortable enough to make me wish I never owned another pair of jeans.

I went out a week later and bought another pair of jeans.

The exact same style, size, color, and everything. Even I couldn't tell the difference between the two pair. That's actually where I made the first mistake. I should've put one pair in the fire safe. Instead, I wore one pair until it was time to wash, and then put on the other pair. Rinse and repeat for two years.

I guess it has something to do with the amount of time I spend on my knees in front of my employer, wife, and the poker fates. Regardless, the knees of my jeans are always the first to go. No big surprise, the knees of both pair of jeans blew out within a week of each other.

"Honey," the wife said one day, "I think it's time."

The wife is immeasurably understanding when it comes to my indiscretions and eccentricities. She puts up with me looking like a slob most of the time. However, there reached a point with both pants that I looked...well, I'll say it: stupid. Somehow, though, I couldn't let go. When you have something that spends that much time protecting your junk from public view, it deserves a little respect. I mean, these jeans have covered my ass in several countries and I'm supposed to just throw them out because of a couple holes? Nuh-uh.

I went with iron-on patches. For a mere four bucks, I got about two dozen patches of several different colors. The idea was to turn the jeans inside out, hold the raggedy parts together and fuse them back together from the inside. The first time I did it for both pair, you could barely tell there was a patch involved.

The fourth and fifth times I did it, however, I knew I was fighting a losing battle. I was like the guy who doesn't realize when it's time to put his dying dog out of its misery. One day, one pair of jeans blew out again, this time in a huge rip down one of the legs. Faded denim hung like ripped flesh. There would be no putting those jeans back together. I considered burning them and keeping the ashes in a mug on the mantle. Instead, I tossed them in the trash and cried for a couple minutes.

That left just one pair of jeans raging against the dying of the light. My irrationality headed into overdrive. I went to the same store and couldn't find anything close to the same style and size. I went online and started searching--everywhere from the store's web site to eBay. Nothing. I might as well have been a junkie on a desert island with the last of my H dripping out of a hole in my arm. The laws of supply and demand only hold up when a supply exists.

So, I went to work. I identified every weak spot in the aging denim and patched it from the inside. Turned inside-out, my jeans looked like something out of a Ozark Mountains craft fair. Worn correctly, though, they look like...well, they look a pair of jeans that has been patched seven or eight times from the inside. Still, I can't stop myself from wearing them. My wife has stopped rolling her eyes and started averting them. Either that, or she covers them when we're in public together.

As I type, I hear the Friday arrival of the local garbage collector. It would take me all of two minutes to walk upstairs, grab the jeans, and run them out to the curb. But I can't. And I won't.

Not until the last shred of denim is hanging from my sentimental and quite happily covered ass.

Kid Hero

A couple of pictures from Halloween night from my Flickr account.


Saving the world, one suburb at a time. Also, as I wrote on the Flickr description, for a kid who gets next to no sugar, Halloween night for my boy was like a fallen priest spending a night in a brothel. Or something like that.

Lifespan

"I'm an import killer," Ray said through a cloud of blue dust.

Ray had two packs of menthol cigarettes shoved in the front pocket of his work shirt shirt. At mid-afternoon on a sunny Friday, it was his job to be under the hood of my foreign, gas-guzzling SDV (Stripped Down Version). I didn't envy him the work. An hour before, I'd thrown up the hood and looked down at the battery. The positive terminal was hidden underneath a crust of blue-green corrosion that looked rather alien. I actually said aloud, alone in my driveway, "Woah, that's not good."

I had some suspicion my SDV's battery was on the wane. A couple of nights before, a beer run had nearly been cut-off when my vehicle almost refused to start. Then, sensing how cruel it would be to keep me from beer, the engine turned over. I took that as a sign to completely ignore the problem.

Then Friday afternoon came and I had four errands to run before a friend was scheduled to be at my house to pick me up. After working for about 35 straight days and nights, I was going to take a night off. Out to the driveway, I hopped in Emilio (see if you can figure out why he's named that) and turned the ignition.

Everybody knows the sound. It's a low, halting, groan that ends with the dome light extinguished, the radio channel pre-sets erased, and the car making no other noise. I wasn't even sad. I looked back through my mental maintenance file and recalled that since I bought the vehicle in November 2001, I have never changed the battery. It's a rather amazing feat, really. The standard life of a battery is 2-3 years. This one--a factory battery that looked more like something that would fit in the back of a big flashlight--had lasted for six years without ever failing me.

Now, it was dead in the middle of my driveway on a perfect Friday afternoon. My initial intention was to run up to the store, buy a new battery, and change it myself. Then I realized my wife had to use her car to go pick up the boy from pre-school. Thinking quickly, I grabbed some brand new, still-in-the-package jumper cables from the back of Emilio and hooked them up. After checking the connection on my wife's Honda, I went back to Emilio and said it again: "Woah, that's not good."

Smoke was coming off the positive terminal. I'd done my best to remove all the corrosion and produce a clean connection, but something was obviously still quite wrong. I grabbed for the red handle, then realized it was, well yeah, smoking hot. So, I grabbed for the cable and realized the insulation had melted off. Fingers singed, I grabbed the black cable, ripped everything off, and threw the smoking, melted mass as far as I could (incidentally, about four feet).

It was a sign, as far as I was concerned, that someone else should be replacing the battery in my car. While the jumper cables were obviously defective (another set out of the garage worked just fine), I didn't see any reason to press my luck.

And that's how I ended up with Ray the Import Killer.

***

The new battery was $80 including installation. Ray grabbed a red cart stacked with tools and wheeled it out to Emilio. I'd left the vehicle running and Ray took it upon himself to climb inside, turn it off, and get started before I'd even finished paying.

Ray wore sunglasses, a work hat, and a stained shirt. His hands bore all the signs of a career in manual labor. He worked with a silent deliberation. I stood on the sidewalk and wished I'd worn something different. I was in a pair of jeans--a little too tight--a graphic tee and a pair of Ecco shoes. To anyone driving by, I was that guy from the nearby suburban neighborhood where men don't change their own car batteries. I was about to stick my head under the hood, too, just to keep up appearances, when Ray emerged.

"You're going to need a new terminal," he said.

He was pointing to the positive connector. It was sea-foamy with corrosion.

"I'll go get one," I said with zeal. With a task, I felt like I was helping, much like the three-year-old that helps his father clean up autumn leaves, which is to say, not at all.

"It's the band-type with the bolt sticking out of the back," Ray said and ducked back under the hood.

I went in and ran into the woman who sold me the battery.

"I need a new terminal," I said. "Band-type with a bolt sticking out of the back."

Just five minutes before, I'd seen the same woman (a cross between Chastity Bono and Abe Vigoda) run to the store room and pick out an obscure part for a 1978 Cutlass from memory. There was no need trying to deny my emasculation. The new part was another $4. Still, $84 for the pleasure of having a brand new battery is no small price to pay. I mean, this battery came with a three-year warranty, something that would serve me very well if this massive container of acid lasted only half as long as my little flashlight battery.

When I returned, Ray was using a wire brush to clean the negative terminal. The blue-green dust smoked up into the air and blew with the breeze. I wondered how much corrosion dust Ray had breathed in his life. Like my battery, I'm pretty sure Ray was outliving his projected lifespan, despite the career of battery acid bong hits

"This work?" I said.

"Sure," he said. "You're going to need another terminal." He pointed to the black one. "Bolt won't turn."

I ran back inside and pulled the same one Ms. Vigoda had just picked out. In the sunshine once again, I said, "This work?"

"Nuh-uh," Ray said. "You need the one with the band and the two prongs that bend over the wire."

Of course, I do.

I went back inside, found the right part, and brought it back to Ray. That was another $4, bringing the total to $88. I was still okay with it. After, all, Ray was into his work. In all, he'd been going for about 25 minutes, and now he was installing new parts, straining over a pair of channel locks, and breaking a small sweat in the unusually warm October air. I wondered if I could tip him.

See, I spend 30% of my year in places where you tip everybody. Guy opens your door? You give him a buck or two. Dealer pushes you a big one? You throw'em a red bird. Server spends a couple hours making sure your meal is presented as well as it can be? Twenty percent is the minimum.

I've tipped bellmen, gift shop cashiers, housekeepers, concierges, valets, dealers, waitresses, bartenders, floormen, chip runners, deli counter workers, cab drivers, limo drivers, doormen, and cashiers. I have never, however, tipped a guy who installs car batteries. Is there a proper percentage? Is it even kosher?

A bearded man walked out of the store, looked at Ray, looked at my SDV, and shook his head. It was a rueful head shake that communicated all it needed to. The old dude drove a beat up teal Cavalier, but was bemoaning my driving of an imported vehicle. That's what happens in these parts.

He drive away in light cloud of smoke.

Ray looked up and spoke. "He got out of his car earlier, looked at your car, and said, 'You know, that thing will never run right again.' I told him I'm the import killer.'"

I couldn't tell if Ray was defending me or mocking me. Soon, it didn't matter.

I looked down and Ray was on his hands and knees, chipping away with a screwdriver at some corrosion that had formed on what I took to calling "that thingy that makes sure he battery doesn't slide around under the hood." Ray was a true professional and was going beyond the call of duty. I reached in my pocket and pulled out $5. I cupped it in my hand and wondered how one tipped a guy like this.

With doormen it's easy. The bill is folded a couple of times and rested between the tips and second knuckles of the index and middle fingers. It's slid into the doorman's hand with a simple, "Thank you." Card dealer? Just rake your pot and leave the tip on the felt. It's understood. Car battery installer? What do I do? Slip it in his tool box?

I almost changed my mind and forgot the tip, until Ray pulled out some industrial anti-corrosion liquid and slathering it in all the right places. For the past 40 minutes, it had been nothing but wire brushes, likely poisonous dust, new parts, and now lubricant.

With no fanfare, Ray stood and said, "That's it."

Ray probably wasn't more than ten years older than me, but he wasn't going to live as long as he should. I don't know what kind of cancer you can catch from battery acid corrosion, but it seems clear that ol' Ray is going to pick up whatever it is.

I pulled ten bucks from my pocket, walked over to Ray, and shook his hand.

"Thanks," I said and put the ten-spot in his hand.

I couldn't gauge the guy's reaction. "Aw, man," he said. He shut up as I turned to get in my car. I was feeling bad. I'd probably just offended him by giving him something extra for something he would normally do. He's a working man who didn't expect anything more.

"Sir?" I heard behind me. I turned to see Ray. "Thank you very much."

There are people in this world who break things. There are people who neglect things until they break or their own or reach the end of their normal lifespan. I am those people.

There are people who fix things. Ray is those people.

Sometimes, as we all live out our own personal battery life, we must accept our role. It's not always easy, and it's quite often emasculating, but it's life.

There's your tip for the day.

Suburban Landscapes

I'm a fescue man, matured from youth as a fescue boy, a time where I spent summer nights with my bare feet buried in dewy three-inch blades of it. During July days, I'd pick dandelion blossoms from the fescue carpet on Yulan Drive. At night, when the Dukes of Hazzard was coming on, I'd run in with pieces of grass stuck to my feet, the product of youthful carelessness and my mom's afternoon mowing. My parents' grass had roots in the southwest Missouri soil and they somehow wormed their way into how I look at suburban landscapes.

Where I come from, fescue was the thing. If anyone mentioned Bermuda, we thought shorts before grass. It wasn't until I ventured out from the city limit neighborhood that I started discovering that there was a world outside fescue. If it wasn't a shock, it was at least a real kick in the seat of the shorts.

Bermuda. Who would've thought there was a grass that greened only a few months out of the year, barely grew above its roots, and looked like it had always been freshly mowed? It was like a homeowner's dream. Instead of mowing once a week, it seemed Bermuda owners lived a life that began and ended on the 18th green.

I bought my house in 2000, and, no surprise, its lawn was fescue. It was comfortable, if almost impossible to maintain. Once the contract was signed, weeds raised their flags and bare spots spread like red clay oil slicks. The grass was its own thing, and I couldn't control it on my own.

It was then that I looked across the street and saw the neighbor with the Bermuda grass. He was a closet wife beater and wore a walkman and headphones when he trimmed his grass. He sang out loud and off key. For the summer months, when my grass was either sand-brown or uneven with weeds, the neighbor's yard looked like it was maintained by the greenskeepers from Augusta National. I couldn't decide if I pitied him more for how bad he sang or how little effort he really had to put into his lawn.

I developed a theory over time about Bermuda grass owners. I watched them as they tended to their lawns. They did it far more often than necessary, some even clipping small pieces of it with house scissors. They were the people who needed their lives to look perfect on the outside and needed to be seen tending to the perfection. I considered my lawn, misshapen and brown, a proud admission of my relaxed life outlook. And if anyone asked why I didn't have the perfect lawn, I had the perfect excuse: Hey, what can I do? Forget it, Jake. It's fescue.

That's when the Corner Bastard came in and turned my life upside down.

Corner Bastard lives up the street and around the corner of my little cookie cutter neighborhood. He drives perfect little cars, has perfect little bushes, and has a lawn of green fescue that not only is the pride of the neighborhood, but has managed to emasculate me in such a way that I can barely drive by without reminding my wife that I was "man enough to give her a baby, so stop looking at the damned grass like you want to have sex on it."

Corner Bastard blew my Bermuda theory right out of the Caribbean. Never in history has a lawn of fescue been so well maintained, perfectly groomed, and artfully crafted. It's as if God himself came down with a golden John Deere and rode around for seven days and nights.

It didn't matter when I drove by or what the weather was like. The lawn was perfect. I eventually lost my mind. In early 2006, I was on a quest to become an evil-doer and this guy entered into my plan. At the time, when I was feeling a little more rage, I called him PC. You can read about that time in Becoming An Evil-Doer Step 2.

In short, I had long believed I could leave a relaxed life of disorder because that's just the was fescue was. Corner Bastard proved me wrong.

Tonight after dinner, the wife chose a walk over a trip for ice cream. We four, a husband, wife, child, and dog headed up to the park. Along the way we were forced to walk by the house on the corner. I heard my wife before I saw it.

"Woah," she said.

I looked at Corner Bastard's grass. It was long and uneven.

"He must be dead," I said out loud, not bothering to conceal my hope.

We walked on, not saying anything more. I started playing out scenarios in which the guy had become an alcoholic, porn-addict, foot fetishist who got caught doing body shots off his nanny's feet. You can't very well mow the lawn when you're in rehab.

It was a perfect night. The near-waning gibbous moon was still waiting to come over the horizon. The local Hispanic population was playing soccer. My kid was pretending he was a super hero. I was the perfect father and breathing with the breeze.

After a stroll around the walking path, we wandered into the little playground to let the kid climb for a while. I was hidden under a cap and behind sunglasses, so my wife couldn't see my eyes turn to slits.

"We may have to leave," I said.

"Huh?"

I nodded across the mulch.

"Oh," she said, and nodded.

There he stood with a soccer ball in his hand and chatting with another fit, well-groomed neighbor. Me? My hat was frayed, my shirt was wrinkled, and I hadn't shaved in almost two weeks. He? He was the picture of the perfect damned father. Like J.C. Penney catalog perfect. Why was his grass long? Because he was taking time out of his life to be a better father. Suddenly, I hated myself for hiring a lawn service this year.

A gangly kid walked in our direction. There was little doubt he was the guy's son. My boy ran up to him.

"Hi! What's you name?" L'il Otis asked. The kid answered.

"I'm Mr. Incredible," my boy said in response and assumed a super hero pose.

The kid didn't know what to say. He stared for a second and then ran away.

"Looks like he has his dad's social skills," my wife mused.

I'm not sure what it was, but I felt better. I hated the guy less and liked myself more. He didn't have to be an adulterer with a drinking problem and I didn't have to have a green thumb. In our heart of hearts, we were both fescue men.

I do not feel any other kinship with this guy. I still think he spends too much time on his lawn, but, I'm done hating him and hating myself for it. He has his own problems, like teaching his son not to run away from potential friendship.

I have a lawn service, a wife who still goes to bed with me, and a super hero for a kid.

I am a fescue man.

Why I don't do things

A few months back, I was in St. Louis visiting my brother and some old college buddies. I stayed at Dr. Jeff's swank suburban home during my visit and did my best to ignore the fact that my brother had--after a couple of years languishing in his medical residency--had again surpassed me in the realm of financial success. After all, he's still the guy who had to endure me blowing Corn Pops belches in his face when we were kids.

When I asked for the tour, Dr. Jeff was proud and showed me around his pad. There was the completely re-done den, outfitted with a massive HDTV mounted above the fireplace, infrared remote control systems, and a surround sound system that was loud enough to scare the wadding out of my kid. Every bathroom had been remodeled. The back yard had been completely re-landscaped and outfitted with an irrigation system that would make most mansion owners jealous.

And Dr. Jeff had done it all himself (with the help off his wife, of course, but still...). Somehow my little brother had found time in between saving lives, playing poker, hanging out with his friends, tending to ill-mannered dog, and settling into a new city to turn his house into something out of a magazine.

For the love of of fuck, the little prick plumbed. He plumbed! He took me down to the basement and showed me a maze of water pipes in which he had run new tubes and experimented with some newfangled technology that only NASA and defense contractors use.

I thought back on the past ten years or so. We attended the same university and during the time we were there, he managed to develop the reputation as Crazy Smart Guy. That meant he could party as much as any of us, be as nuts as the next guy, and still managed to maintain a nearly perfect GPA and secure scholarships that paid for most of his medical school.

However, during all of it, the dude didn't own a home until he moved to the southeast for his residency. Not once during our youth or college years did I ever see him pick up a hammer, screwdriver, or NASA tubing.

Now in St. Louis together, I asked, "How in the hell did you learn how to do all this?"

He didn't really answer and only said mysteriously, "Once I did it once, it was easy."

***

It's no big secret. I am better at a lot of things (getting in trouble, making an ass of myself, and making bad decisions chief among them) than I am home repair. I've been known to hire Home Depot employees under-the-table and off-the-books just to avoid doing something as simple(?) as installing a toilet.

It's a source of quite a bit of embarrassment for me, to be honest. It's one thing to have my brother out-do me in the world of home improvement. It's quite another to have a list as long as Rich McGuire's manhood (long story...) of things I should've done around the house and just haven't. I've told my wife I'm too busy. I've told her I'll get to it. I've told her it's not necessary.

So, now I'm home after a summer in Las Vegas and the list is still there. The good wife is not pushing me, preferring to let me re-acclimate myself to polite society. Still, the list grows longer every day. Lattice work for the deck. Light fixtures need changing. Kitchen needs remodeled. Bathrooms need skim-coated. The list of things requiring tools other than the one I was born with is frighteningly long and enough to make me want to avoid it completely.

There is a certain clarity that comes with leaving Sin City and re-joining suburban life. It's in this moment of clarity that I came to a conclusion. It's not a fear of the unknown that's keeping me from keeping up with the Joneses.

It's a fear of failing.

My wife has had a friend and her kids in town since I've been home and that's left me a lot of time to think. The more I ruminated on my laziness around the house, I discovered that my fear of failure has pretty much handcuffed me in just about every avenue of my life. I have sat on my hands, completely paralyzed by an overriding fear that the simple act of trying will more than likely result in failing.

I don't know how all this got started, but I can't think of a time in my life in which I wasn't worried about the implications of failure. I've found about a dozen defense mechanisms (few of them healthy) that have helped me survive to this point. If it weren't for that, I'd probably be...well, I don't even want to consider it.

Here's a quick one. My wife and I decided we wanted to put some lattice on the bottom of our deck. Easy enough, right? Well, after picking out what we wanted during one fine and optimistic day, I tried to forget about it. I worried about everything from how to get the lattice home, to how I was going to cut it, to whether I'd be able install it correctly. And, so it went undone.

Looking back at the past few years of my life, I've left so many things--easy things--undone that my list of incomplete projects outnumbers my complete list by about 10-1. Perhaps the most important undone project in recent years is the 50,000 words I put into NaNoWriMo back in November 2005. Here's a snippet from the first chapter.

Sanchez was wrapped around the street sign like a performance artist in a climactic finale of “Man Loves Pole.” His black hair had fallen out of his hair net and was slicked against the sweat on his face. The tendons in his neck were taut. His eyes were shut tight. His knuckles were white. Every few seconds, as Reek stood watching in the street, Sanchez grunted a simple “Unnngh,” and started over. Reek had learned not to interfere.

After five minutes of pushing, yanking, twisting, and grunting, the street sign’s pole shifted against Sanchez’s small frame. With the care of a painter adding the final highlight to his portrait’s eyes, Sanchez turned the street sign 90 degrees, then stood back to admire his work for a second. He took off his hair net, slicked his hair back against his head, and then turned to see Reek watching.

“Bastards cemented the thing in again,” Sanchez said. “Okay, let’s go.”

Here's the thing. After I hit the 50,000 word mark, I actually liked what I had written. I told myself, "It's not finished, but I'll get it done as soon as I can."

Apart from moving the file from my old laptop to this one, I haven't touched it since. And I hate myself for it, because I know the only reason I'm not doing it is because I'm afraid to finish. Finishing means the book is open to being a failure (unpublished, un-read, un-liked, uninspiring, un-ad-infinitum).

And, so now I have this revelation. I'm not lazy so much as scared. That's a really sad thing for a thirty-something guy to admit.

I am not making myself any promises other than this: I'm going to confront failure.

This morning I woke up and did the lattice project in about four hours. It ain't perfect, but I did it.

My wife came out and approved the job. "It looks great," she said. She started to walk back in the house and I stopped her.

"I'm trying," I said.

She didn't say anything. It wasn't the silence of disapproval. It was the silence of someone who has heard me say that same thing way too many times. She's one of a few people who have believed in me--to a fault most of the time--more than I ever have believed in myself.

I looked at her, unsure whether I should say anything else. Finally, these words came out of my mouth.

"And I'm going to keep trying."

Doing the Nasty

My wife and I haven't been sleeping together.

For the past few nights, I've slept on the couch or in my office, curled up under an old blanket or with some random pillow that just doesn't feel right. At the moment, my relationship with the wife is such that if I see her, I walk in the other direction. If she dares enter a room with me, she knows she'll get nothing more than a finger pointed in the other direction. I barely have to speak to her anymore. She knows to get the hell away from me. And, try as she may, she can't bring herself to speak to me either.

Strep throat will do that to you.

I don't think I'm breaking any martial vows by telling you my wife's tolerance for pain is equivalent to a three year-old who knows doting adults are watching. She'd rather suffer years of water boarding than stub her toe. Of course, she is also the only member of this family to drop a seven pound weight out of her crotch, so I can't say too much. However, if I were going to say too much, I might say that she handles the pain of strep throat...well, I guess about like anybody else handles the pain of strep throat. I, for one, can't remember ever having been afflicted with the illness. My mom, ever the champion of the Mother Class, insists I did have strep as a kid and likely handled it pretty badly. She also tells me that it feels like someone took a heavy grade sandpaper and snaked out your esophagus. My wife just says it hurts worse than any sore throat she's ever had.

Yesterday her doctor, in spite of a "false negative" strep test, diagnosed my wife with a "nasty throat" and sent her home with some antibiotics. Where normally I might be a bit intrigued by the concept of a spousal nasty throat, in this case, I was willing the believe that the doctor--again, in spite of a negative test--was likely right. And even if she wasn't right, I still wasn't going to go anywhere near my wife.

Now, in normal cases, I'd be a real fucking hero about all of this. If it meant I had to lick said "nasty throat" to prove my love for my wife, I'd do it. I have a fairly decent immune system and only get sick once or twice a year. This time though, I can't afford to take any chances. I'm getting ready to go on an eleven day international trip, during which I figure to be working 16 hours a day or so and traveling on every mode of uncomfortable transport you can imagine (aside: there should be a law that coach must be described as "coach" and not "tourist class" or some other "class." Coach is coach and it means it will suck, no matter how you look at it).

Before the "nasty" diagnosis, I was avoiding close contact and deep high-school-style kissing with my wife. Now, she gets me in thirty-second shots (that's enough snickering from the peanut gallery). That is, I pop into the bedroom to bring her water or broth and noodle soup. She takes it, rasps something that sounds like "I love you" or "I wish you were dead" and crawls back under the covers. And me? Well, I'm Mr. Mom for a while. See, my kid's pain tolerance is better than my wife's, but he's still only two. And with me getting ready to hit the road, the wife can't really afford to give the kid Nasty Throat.

And so now, as the kid naps and I pound through my work-work, I realize I'm unshowered, unshaven, and generally disgusting. I've slept about 12 hours out of the last 72. I actually feel okay so far. However, if this continues for much longer, I'm going to have to see about finding some home remedy for the Nasty.

More on the upcoming trip to come. The kid is stirring and I need to wash myself.

Live blogging suburbia

Two weeks ago, we hired a new yard services company to make Mt. Otis look nice, part of an ongoing effort to look less like we are doing our best to get full use out of a rental house when we are actually paying a mortgage on this thing.

8:12am--Motherfucker. Who starts working with gas-powered equipment at this hour? I for one have only been asleep for four hours and the idea of a gas-driven hedge trimmer below my bedroom window makes me want to cancel my contract with "The Cutting Edge" (not the real name, but it might as well be).

9:12am--Motherfucker, these guys are serious. We had been told that our little cul-de-sac home would be given the first-run go-over this morning, but I didn't know it was going to be this fucking noisy.

9:30am--I manage to fall back asleep. I dream about sex stuff. Because I do that a lot.

10:45am--Seems like as good a time as any to wake up. I peek my head out the window to survey what my money has purchased. Something is really, really wrong. The yard looks nice. The hedges below my window look nice. But something is really, really wrong with the six year-old hedges lining the street. I planted those hedges with my wife. Dwarf Holly, I think they're called.

10:47am--Barefoot, hair-mussed, I walked into the yard. Everything looks perfect, save the row of hedges along Otis Court. For the first time, I think of the phrase, "pruned with an axe" and make plans to use it several times over the next few hours.



11:01am--The wife calls on her way home from her workout to see if I want coffee. I suggest that our front hedges have been "pruned with an axe." I accept the offer of coffee and sit back to wait on my wife's opinion.

11:30am--Unacceptable, she says. I have to agree, and though she at one point used the word "butchered," I sort of feel like she should've said something about the axe. We considered that a) The Cuttting Edge isn't finished and b) The Cutting Edge is using some sort of new-fangled pruning technique.

11:42am--I call my contact at The Cutting Edge and tell him my opinion about the bushes and use my little phrase again. "About that," he says. "I was in a meeting and couldn't call you." He goes on to say his guys finished our job, left, went to another job in the neighborhood, drove back by and noticed the damage. "Looks like somebody ran over your bushes," he said. Oddly, I believe him. He goes on to say that if his guys had done it, they would've replaced everything. The Cutting Edge is a reputable company that does most of the nice lawns in the area.

12:01pm--And yet. And yet, what the fuck do I do now. I remember buying the bushes when they were tiny and planting them with the wife in what, at the time, seemed to be a very grueling day of yard work. Most of them look beyond repair. The logical part of my brain suggests that the only option is that The Cutting Edge guys did it on accident and couldn't own up to it to their boss. I, however, have no way to prove this. And so, I'm fucked. Actually, my bushes are fucked. Me, I'm just cranky.

12:03pm--Now I don't know what to do. I have now looked over the destruction several times and it is pretty clear the damage was done by a car. The remaining questions are 1) who? and 2) why? So, I look up the non-emergency number for the Otis County Sheriff's Office. After five minutes on the phone, a nice man with a nice southern accent defines the phrase "passing the buck" for me and passes on the number for the Highway Patrol. His reasoning goes like this: I have no reason to believe it was malicious, hence, it was probably an accident and under the jurisdiction of the HP.

12:08pm--I reach a dispatcher at the Highway Patrol who audibly rolls her eyes. By this point, I feel a little stupid. However, I figure if I'm going to fix this situation, I need to get a law enforcement report for it. After I explain the situation for the fourth time, the lady says a trooper will be right out. I should point out, a few months ago, I was at an illegal poker tournament. I witnessed a head on collision in which there were injuries. We called the HP. It took the trooper nearly two hours to show up. So, like, I'm really anticipating a quick arrival to write a report on my fucked up hedges.

12:18pm--The dog starts barking and I figure The Cutting Edge bossman has come by to check everything out. Instead, there is a police interceptor Crown Vic in the driveway. I overcome my amazement long enough to put on shoes and go outside to talk to Trooper Thompson. To summarize the conversation: "I'm a friendly state trooper, but what the fuck do you want me to do here? You have no idea who did it, it is going to go on your homeowner's insurance anyway." I actually feel bad for calling. The guy was nice enough, but, hell, what do I expect him to do. He ends up handing me a blank accident report. I consider filling it out to make it look like one of my friends ran over a moose, but decide against it.

12:45pm--Lunch. Turkey with pepperjack cheese, brown mustard, and Sun Chips on the side. I drink water in an effort to cut down on the number of Diet Cokes I drink in a day. I spend the lunch thinking about how I'd like to find the person who ran over our bushes...and how I'd like a Diet Coke.

1:30pm--I have yet to call the insurance company. The wife and I have slipped into a paranoia that involves our suspicion that our new neighbors are involved. Any car that rolls up onto our street gets the stinkeye. Everything is reason to be on alert. We begin making plans to sneak into our new neighbor's driveway overnight and look for Dwarf Holly leaves in the wheel wells of their Subaru. We might need more sleep.

2:12pm--Another vehicle pulls onto Otis Court. It is a UPS minivan. The UPS guy usually comes in a big ol' truck. Then, a knock at the door. The dog barks. I, again barefoot, step out to talk to a man named Quinton.

2:30pm--Well, go figure. Apparently our friendly UPS guy (the one who is always on his cell phone) lost control of his truck this morning and ran through our yard. He apparently knocked and I was apparently unconcious (something that is a bit too common around here...apparently). After a breif conversation and some investigation, a very apologetic UPS regional manager explains that I will be contacted by the company's insurance representative and that all costs will be covered.



And suddenly my night mission across the street seems a little silly.

Fuck, I may do it anyway. I don't care where you come from. Hazing new neighbors is a good time.

HDTV (W-H-Y-?)

Mt. Otis is technologically sound. Within the short time it would take to tour both floors of the home, you would find four operational computers, two iPods, various stereo equipment, speaker systems that allow me to listen to my music anywhere on my property, satellite radio, a TV satellite with more channels than I've ever seen, four digital cameras, four digital camera lenses, several cordless phones with digital answering services, and enough remote controls (should I give them to charity) to keep the homeless in their lazyboys for the next decade.

I use this technology well. My PC has a 24-inch monitor with picture-in-picture and will display any of my satellite TV channels in the corner of the screen while I work. I have outdoor speakers on my deck so I can listen to my iPod while I tend to the grill. I have wireless speakers that I can carry anywhere and set up for easy listening. I have Bose QC3s for when I want to listen to music and nothing else. I have a cellular phone that will work just about anywhere in the world. I have a wireless broadband card for my laptop so I can work just about anywhere in the U.S. My wife's new car has a DVD player, drop down screen, satellite radio, and a electric plug in. That means, should the whim strike us, we could load the kid in the car with a bunch of DVDs, and while he is watching the DVD on a set of wireless headphones in the back, we could listen to XM radio in the back while we drive. Further, should I need to use my laptop, I could plug it into the electric outlet and use my broadband card to access the Internet while we cross the country. Next thing you know, my work-week is over and we're at Wally World.

Reading back over this, it all sounds pretty excessive, especially in light of the fact that I've long considered myself a Luddite. Still, we use everything we have here and are quite happy to have it.

In the past few weeks, I've had more than a few people ask me whether I have HDTV. In each case, I laughed and said, "Well, no. Do you?" It seemed a silly idea. Last I head, I'd have to auction my wife on the Internet if I wanted to watch a few high-def channels on TV. And while I'm a liberal thinker, I don't want to give any of my well bank-rolled friends a shot at my wife just because they know how to use an auction sniping service.

"You have no idea," my friend T said one night.

"What do you mean I have no idea?" I said. I like a clear picture and all, but I'd rather spend my money on other things.

"Have you ever seen a football game in high-def?" Badblood asked one night.

"Can't say I have," I said, almost completely disinterested.

The subject came up at a poker game a few nights later. Someone again brought up HD and I rolled my eyes.

"You must not watch much sports on TV," a guy said, clearly making it a point to further emasculate me.

Thing is, I do. I subscribe to NFL Sunday ticket and watch as many games as possible. March Madness is on TV right now. I'm no sports expert, but I enjoy watching games as much as the next guy.

Fearing I might protest too much, I finally just shut up.

I have three TVs in my home, only one of which gets watched very much. It's a 32-inch flat screen that I bought several years ago after my wife told me I couldn't buy one any larger.

"I will not have a TV as the focal point of my living area," she protested.

[This space left for you to wrap you head around that one for a second.]

I currently have no plans to buy a new TV. If things don't change, I should like be able to acquire (notice, I didn't say buy) this TV by the end of the year. However, I'm not really itching for it, and if it wasn't going to be essentially free, I probably wouldn't bother.

I guess I just don't get it. When people tell me about their HD experience, I look at them much in the same way they look at me when I tell them about my Ecco shoes. The HD converts get such a glazed, orgasmy look about them that I almost think they bought their set from Jim Jones' ghost.

Me, I haven't just bought into it yet. If that makes me a woman, then sign me up for the Internet booty auction. Maybe they'll broadcast my exploits in HD.

True Romance

With each passing year, the Valentines Day expectations around Mt. Otis get smaller and smaller. Mrs. Otis respects my disdain for the holiday. I humor her attempts to make it relevant. This year, we worked together. Instead of buying useless gifts for each other, we went out for a nice meal last Friday night, had some drinks, and came back home to watch "Snakes on a Plane." You know, lovey stuff.

Part of the deal on spending a nice little sum on a meal and $3.99 for SoaP was that we wouldn't buy gifts this year. In the past, I did a lot of the roses and other romantic crap. Mrs. Otis bought very thoughtful gifts (just two months off of Christmas, my level of thoughtfulness and creativity is usually still in the wane). And so, no gifts.

Last night, I was at my local Men's Club. And by Men's Club, I mean room full of boys (ages 17-70), thousands of wagering dollars, and a new cocktail waitress who obviously forgot to tell her breast augmentation expert when it was time to take a coffee break. In this room were discussions of true romance. One man--gold chained and overweight--spoke of divorce, or after a few drinks, the donkey shows he'd seen in the Far East. Other men would speak reverentially about their wives in between mad cussing fits, driven by poker tilt and general rage.

It was around 8pm when Stan walked in holding a red five gallon bucket. Stan is a genial guy, rarely swears, and acts a lot like that older uncle who always gives you a chocolate bar when you see him.

"Oh, jesus," I muttered. I like Stan. I really do. But, this was a little much.

In the bucket rested about 20 dozen roses of varied colors.

"Just in case anybody forgot," he said with a smile. Thirty-five people looked up and pretended to dismiss Stan's entrepreneurial efforts. "Just $20 a dozen," he said.

Stan is not a late-night guy, so I was surprised to see him stay past 1:30am. Even more surprising was the line that formed around him around 1:45am. He was selling and selling fast.

I couldn't decide which was correct. Was this of a bunch of forgetful, unromantic, painfully inept guys? Or was I watching these usually tough men turn a little soft. Before I could figure out which, I was buying a dozen white roses and a little red balloon. Just because I thought they would make the wife smile.

I guess it was pretty clear. We may act like a bunch of tough guys who talk about Far East sex shows and try to wrap our head around the concept of double-D breasts on a 105 pound girl, but deep down, we're romantics. Or something like romantics, anyway.

"Be sure you put them in water before morning," Stan said.

Love comes in many forms...and sometimes it comes in a five gallon bucket.

Don't call me a Boy Scout

I don't believe the weather-guessers. I don't really believe that I will face winter apocalypse in the morning. I don't really believe that I'm going to have to spend any time without power or internet service. I don't believe I'm going to have to move my young son and old dog into a hotel room or beg friends with electricity to sleep in their guest rooms. I don't believe I'm going to have to roll around in sleepless fits while giant sweetgum limbs fall on my house and explode into a dozen pieces. I don't believe I'm going to have to spend eight days in a suburban Starbucks just so that I can get my work done. I don't beieve I need a week's worth of fresh water and canned food. I don't believe I need fire logs, batteries, and propane.

Of course, I didn't believe any of these things in December of 2005. And, well, yeah, all of the above turned out to be an issue.

So, today we bought everything we needed and prepared ourselves to deal with the first winter storm of the season. [Note to weather people: The phrase 'wintery mix' sounds like something I would snack on at a Christmas party. Why don't you call it what it really is? Otis-Screwing Hell Storm Carolina.] By preparing, I'm sure this will make sure the weather turns out to be a little damp and unfrozen.

Which would be just the fuck fine with me.

If I can still use this power outlet and internet connection at thiss time tomorrow night, I'll be one happy Otis. And if you don't see me here by Friday, you know that I've given up and moved to some mudslide or hurricane-prone area.

Victory in unexpected places

It began with a discussion about where we'd put our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. The wife wanted to break from tradition and move the tree to a different corner of our living room. This plan involved the moving of furniture and several other unpleasant duties that may or may not have involved me sliding down our chimney in a pair of ladies underwear. When the discussion was complete, the tree was in a new place, a sofa table had been moved to a different part of the house, and I was getting in touch with my feminine side.

The move also involved the realtively easy movement of a small cubish table from underneath one of our front windows, which I accomplished despite my new light in the loafers leanings.

"MOLD!" the wife screamed and ran to our neighbor's house, carrying the kid in a bubble.

I gave her a ring on the cell and informed her that the stain on the carpet wasn't mold. It was obviously a stain leeched from the cheap-ass cube storage table. Of course, I knew it was mold, but I wasn't about to let her know that. My guess was the kid had spilled his water under the table at some point. No reason to worry. I coaxed the wife back into the house with an assortment of chocolates, a sex toy, and the DVD box set of Extreme Home Makeover.

So, we went to the Bahamas and the moldy conditions at the five-star Atlantis Resort and Casino somehow allayed my wife's concerns about our house. It was clear, if the opulent Atlantis had mold problems, our five-inch-square stain wasn't a really big issue.

Upon our return home, I made the mistake of packing my bags and once again leaving the house. This time, I left the wife behind to care for the kid and home. It was an annual boys' trip and, frankly, the lady was handling it very well. In fact, my cell phone only rang twice while I was on a four-day binge of sleepless poker playing and silliness. One time, the wife was calling me to tell me the boy was wearing big boy underwear for the first time. It was a sweet moment and one for which I was happy to take a break from my endeavors.

The second call began, in part, like this:

"MOLD!"

In fact, no more mold had developed. But my wife, as is her wont, had discovered a whole new calamity.

"The floor is wet. I mean SOAKED."

Some very heavy and persistent rains were hitting Mt. Otis and, apparently, there was a leak. The floor was wet and the prospect of more mold was, apprently, more than immediate. In fact, around the same time my wife called, Atlantis announced a new ad campaign that began, "Atlantis: Now with less mold than Mt. Otis!"

Of course, as a good husband, I offered to catch the next flight home and stick my finger in the dike. My wife said she would endeavor to persevere. She, the kid, and the dog took turns making sure the mold didn't spread to the neighbors' home.

Though the crisis was averted with the passing of the rain, the entire problem of the wet floor remained. While, upon my return home I could find no evidence of the dampness, my wife insisted it existed.

A brief aside: My wife, whom I love with every fiber of your being (and mine), believes everything is broken, especially if it isn't working for her. Just this afternoon, her computer told her it was about to shut down.

"What's happening? Something is wrong!" she exclaimed in her best 'this is broken' voice. A little investigation showed the laptop had not been plugged in for a couple of hours.

Okay, so though I could find no evidence of wetness (and likely won't for some time after this post), I agreed we should call Pike's.

Pike's, you ask?

Indeed. This is the company we employed to spend an inordinate amount of time at our house last year so that we may spend an inordinate amount of money to make sure the outside of our house looked inordinately better than our neighbors'.

So, for the past six days, I've been expecting the worst. The worst, you say?

Yeah. I expected the guy's from Pike's to show up, sniff my house, and tell me I needed to tear it down and start over. It only got worse last night when the wife was watching Extreme Home Makeover and the entire premise was that a guy fucking died from the mold in his house and the rest of the family had to run off to parts unknown until hotboy Ty showed up to MOVE THAT BUS.

I didn't make it to bed until around 5am Monday morning. Work went later than I expected. When I crawled under the sheets, the wife said, "Man, 10am is going to come pretty early."

The implication was clear. She expected me to be up to negotiate the demolition of our house at 10am. I thought quick, told her the kid was sick, that she was feeling sick, and that none of us should leave the house. The ruse worked (or the wife was feeling exceptionally sympathetic and only woke me up once this morning, before giving up and letting me sleep as long as I wanted).

The denouement of all of this went as follows: The wife walks in at about 10:20am and says, "You want to hear the good news?"

Still half-asleep, I tried in vain to figure out if she was slow-playing the bad news. Before I could process much more, she informed me that one piece of siding near the offending window was askew. That was likely the cause of the leak. What's more, any fears of a mold outbreak were apparently unfounded.

I woke up an hour later in a good mood. Somehow, before my day had even started, I had scored two victories. First, the guy from Pike's had not done what EVERY OTHER service person has done when I've ordered them to my home. He had not found something wrong that would cost me a minimum of $500. Not only that, he apparently didn't charge us at all to pop the siding back in place.

The second victory was a little sweeter. I was able to quietly nod and not say I told you so as I recognized that my wife's fears of our house being irrepairably broken were based on little more than a wet floor.

So tonight, as she sleeps off the second round of the Mt. Otis Malaise, I sit comfortably knowing I was able to sleep in this morning, beat back my wife's fears that our house is broken, and am not one penny poorer for it.

Of course, all of this means that when I wake up in the morning, the dishwasher will be leaking, the fridge won't be cold enough, and the kid will need braces.

But for now, I'm content.

South Carolina UFOs

My wife made her tasty southwestern cheesy meatloaf and mashed potatoes tonight for dinner. She was cranky while she worked, cursing the spuds and lamenting her cheese purchase. She snapped at me while she peeled her potatoes, eschewing the peeler and working with a paring knife. Worried, I kept my distance and made sure the kid didn't mention anything about food prep or the wife's spiritual mise en place.

During dinner, I noticed something a little odd. As my wife forked her food and tried to maintain casual conversation, her mashed potatoes were taking on a vertical slant. I tried not to read too much into the fact that her plate was taking on the look of the Devil's Tower National Monument.

Two nights ago, our walls rattled. Candlesticks on the mantle shook at 6:30pm and 8:30pm. At first, I assumed the sound was a news or sheriff's office helicopter. After the second time, I changed my mind. The rotor noise was too loud to be a simple news chopper. What I heard was military grade noise.

Last night, the familiar whopping of the choppers was back, again at 6:30pm, and again at 8:30pm. On the first pass, I went outside and looked up. Though it was dark, I made out the shadow of a military helicopter. Obviously, one of the nearby air bases was in the middle of some sort of training rotation.

When the local FOX affiliate started its broadcast with BREAKING NEWS, I looked up from my computer. The news readers made it clear, something strange was in the air. Many viewers had called in to report seeing strange lights in the sky. I didn't think much of it. First, I'd actually seen the helicopters and they were not otherworldly. Second, this particular news station doesn't shy away from making a big deal out of a few lights in the sky.

By 11pm, though, every station, including my old employer, was talking about the lights. The local office of the National Weather Service reported no weather phenomenon that would cause such streaky blue lights.

By morning, we had a full scale UFO incident on our hands. TV stations and newspapers as far away as Charlotte were reporting the strange lights in the sky. Even the Drudge Report was reporting the lights. What you see on the left is a lightened version of a picture taken by a guy smoking a cigarette on his porch in Charlotte.

There's been a lot of this kind of thing recently. Airline employees in Chicago were largely rebuffed for their reporting of a UFO sighting. Then an a retired airman in Arkansas reported seeing lights over his state. That, apparently, ended up being flares used during a semi-secret military mission.

Now, the lights have moved to the Carolinas. If I had to bet, I'd wager we're looking at a version of the Arkansas Lights here. When military choppers are patrolling the area and people see odd lights, drawing a connection isn't too hard. Of course, some people may say I'm being a little naive...maybe I'm dealing with a chicken and egg situation here. I mean, who is to say the choppers weren't here looking for the lights, eh?

I'll still put my money on some military monkey business. That said, my wife is still acting a little bit funny. And, if for some reason my kid disappears tonight, I may start to fret a bit.

Last damned thing I need right now is my wife running off with Richard Dreyfus.

Freedom from focusing

Update: Come here looking for an answer on the Jimmy Crack Corn Cingular commcerical? All your answers can be found at Jimmy Crack Corn and Cingular is Forced to Care.

So, after spending nearly four weeks focused on one unspeakable subject, I'm to a point at which I no longer have to sit and worry about whether I'm going to be working in Glendive, MT come 2007. The past four weeks aren't really a subject for for a public blog, but suffice it to say, they involved a lot of life and family choices that I wasn't really prepared to make. My wife was not pregnant and I wasn't deciding whether I'm gay. It was a professional thing that still isn't fully resolved. However, as I wrote to a friend yesterday, it's liberating to accept that normalcy is less the norm than relative chaos. So, there's that.

Now that I'm not unduly focused on whether the view out my window is going to change, my mind has been a wandering mess. My regular daydreams have become even more regular. I'm a silly, sappy fool that, for the moment, is bouncing from subject to subject. So, today you get the silt that's settled in my fingers. The following mental notes are in no particular order.

***

We live on a street that boasts five surburban tract homes. We have lived here for going on seven years and are the longest-running remaining residents of a street that is really hard to spell. Three of the four other houses have sold once apiece since we moved here in 2000. Our neighbors in those three houses are all great people and I could live on the same street with them for a long time without wanting for more or to kill them. The fifth house, the one directly across the street from our's, is owned by someone who doesn't live there. It's been leased several times in the last several years. The first resident was a fairly hot woman who worked in her yard in a bikini. We called her Repo, because the cops came and took all her shit one day. After that, an odd family that only came out of the house on Independence Day moved in. There was an odd People Under the Stairs vibe about them. After that, a preacher and his wife moved in. They didn't stay long. Bradoween 2005 was enough to scare anyone of serious faith.

Now, we have the people my wife has taken to calling The Pilgrims, in most part because the mother occasionally dresses like a Mayflower woman. They are home schooling people and of a faith I neither understand nor believe is actually recognized by the government. The woman of the house can occasinally be seen running into her house from her car. The man of the house ran his car into my curb on Saturday night, destroying a large slab of concrete that covers our neighborhood's drainage system. When I went out to ask if he was okay, he rebuffed me with a simple "yes," and drove his semi-crippled car into the driveway without another word.

I only bring these folks up because they are even odder than the People Under the Stairs who lived here a couple of years ago. That and the fact that the home schooling involves music instruction and one of the kids plays violin. (Some day I'll have to tell you about Halloween and how this house handled it). Now, usually, the kid plays his fiddle inside and plays it loud enough that I can hear it in my house. Recently, he's taken to playing the thing outside.

Here's the thing...the last couple of days "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" has been in heavy rotation on a local rock station. The Pilgrims, Charlie Daniels, and too much time to think...well, they've all got me daydreaming that the kid across the street might be the devil. If I hear anything about chickens kicking out dough, I may start re-examininig my system of faith.

***

Does Iran's President not look like the guy who would sell you a joint at some jam band show? He has this smile that says, "kind bud, fatty burritoes" and a beard that just doesn't fit a president.

If we had a Wayback Machine (and not the kind that reminds me of how Rapid Eye Reality looked over the past five years), do you think we might spend less time beating up the Taliban and Iraq and might have focused a little more on North Korea and Iran? I mean, whether Iran's main man smokes dope is not really worth discussing if he gets The Bomb.

Just askin'.

***

A recent legal ruling has re-affirmed my faith in the courts for five minutes. If you didn't hear, Panera Bread recently tried to get the courts to keep a Mexican eatery from opening in a shopping center in which the over-priced sandwich store had an outlet. Apparently, Panera had a deal with the shopping center that made it clear another sandwich shop couldn't take up residence in the same area. Panera argued that since Mexican restaurants serve burritoes, they shouldn't be allowed to open. A judge finally ruled that a burrito is not a sandwich and Panera lost in its bid to completely piss me off.

Problem about this is, I'm now spending way too much time thinking about the legal implications of this ruling and what other foods are not other foods. Most recently, I've been wondering whether coffee could be considered a soup.

***

I rented two movies last weekend, both featuring William H. Macy. "Thank You For Smoking" was okay but left me wondering if the comedic possibilities of the film were not fully tapped. I also rented "Edmond" because I like Macy and I like David Mamet.

Edmond...

See, I said I like Macy and I like Mamet. I said that, right? Okay, that said, "Edmond" was so fucking full of itself, it made me question if I really like Mamet. Macy was good, as usual.

Okay, here's where I'm all fucked up. Maybe I need to watch the movie again. I want to rail on it, but I feel like I do when a friend works hard on something that ultimately sucks and then asks, "So, whatta ya think?"

Anyone else seen this one?

***

Is it Earl? Cat got your tongue? Earl got your tongue?

***

I could spend all day doing this, but since I have a lot of work to do in the next few hours, I'm going to end this silliness here. Otherwise, I'm going to go off on something about communal living.

My lawn has an erection

I'll be the first to admit, I have the hottest wife on the block. What's more, within the view of my home office, I haven't seen anything so arousing as what I can find inside. That said, there must be something going on around this place, because my lawn has wood. And I'm not talking about the sweetgum tree.

But, wait...yes, let's talk about the sweetgum tree. In fact, before I get all salacious on you, let's talk about the yard as a whole. Despite the fact I really don't like my property that much, there are some things about it that are endearing.

For instance, my wife is really a terrible keeper of flowers and plants. She loves them, as I do, but her green thumb is more of an attraction for the Irish than it is for the lawn and garden department. Still, she's done better this year and created a few beds that are quite pretty.





Beyond the old lady's ability to keep things alive for the duration of a South Carolina summer are the little eccentricities. For me, it's the little evergreen tree that's been growing under the big sweetgum for the past five years. It started as no more than a wild sprout that I refused to mow down. Now, it's grown to sapling size and it's captured a special little piece of my heart. I can't help but love it. I also can't help but wonder what kind of problems it's going to cause for the huge sweetgum. It has to be like a boil on the root system of the tree I love to hate (sweetgums drop spikey balls on the ground in the fall and break pretty easily under the weight of an ice storm).





Then there's the giant weed that looks like it is a real plant. It's not. It looks like a fern. It's not. It sprouted up last year between two hibiscous bushes. I chopped it down once. While I was gone this summer, it came back. I sort of like it. For a weed, anyway.



All of these things I can stomach and enjoy on my own time. Today, however, I noticed my lawn had a woody. I was doing some work at my computer and looked out the second floor window. That's where I saw the disgusing display. It was below the white oak and it was dirtier than anything I've seen on Cinemax.



Obviously, it is some sort of mushroom. I brief web search makes me believe it might be something called a stinkhorn (a name that would explain why I puked in my mouth a little bit while taking the above picture). That said, most of the stinkhorns I've seen online have looked a little more like a...well, a dog's penis.

So, for now, I've convinced myself that my lawn is hot for the lawn next door, a finely manicured, irrigated, and green carpet of suburban sexiness. My only worry will be if my wife decides to start spending more time "working outside."