Stop, Feeth!

There’ve been a rash of “theft from car”s in my neighborhood lately, particularly ones in which the windows were not broken but the door simply opened.

NextDoor is abuzz with incredulity.

Imagine.  Thefts!  From cars!

“They got my laptop, my wallet, and my good umbrella!”

“Someone took the jar of change I keep in the backseat.”

And here it is where we stop – hammer time – and reflect on all the things I will not say in response.

Things like:

Was the car locked?

And of course

They took your UMBRELLA?!  That’s IT!  I’m getting my conceal and carry!

I’m not an idiot, according to my mother, and I don’t say these things, because what do I know?  People work late, they forget, and there’s always someone waiting to take advantage of someone else’s lapse in judgement.  Me, I drive my car maybe twice a month and therefore keep very little in it.  On the other hand, as a bus-dweller, I am known to carry both a backpack and a bag I could smuggle small dogs in, so again, what do I know?

Grandma went into town with a lipstick and car keys and did just fine. We now carry things with us that cost hundreds of dollars.

"I didn't know it was that kind of neighborhood," writes one young, newly disillusioned neighbor.  "Guess I'll have to start locking my doors."

And I feel for her; not because she sees her neighborhood differently, but because she once believed she could leave a laptop in an unlocked car.

A Morning on the Bus with My Peeps

The woman on the bus is taking up some space. 

She sits across the seats as if stretched out in the back of my old Ford LTD.   Her feet extend into the aisle, and those of us boarding – a term also used in the air transportation business, I believe – clear her boots gingerly.

She is rough looking, perhaps she has slept outside.  Her age is difficult to guess, her skin sun damaged, her eyes hard. 

I grumble internally, briefly, as I ponder the hubris.  The bus is full, as I have taken the second to the last seat.  If anyone wants to sit, they will have to ask her to move; and this being Minnesota, I’m guessing only one out of 20 would.

We don’t like confrontation.

But we will grumble to ourselves.

I judge her for a minute or two.  In the end I decide that perhaps this is all she has, the imperious demand for not one but two seats.  She’s only going to pay for one, dagnabbit, but she’s taking two.

I shrug, internally.  So have two.

There is a clatter at the front of the bus, and I watch a smiling, dimpled man in a suit, a recent immigrant from India, chase a water bottle.  For the next 30 seconds I watch as the thermos rolls, just ahead of his outstretched hands.  Out of his bag, it rolls under his seat, across the aisle, under two more seats to where it finally rests next to the duffel bag that Two Seats has on the floor.

He straightens up.  He smiles, says something I cannot hear and leans in to pick up the bottle, whereupon he returns to his seat.

And she smiles, slowly, pulls a phone out of her pocket and begins texting.

It Was Either That or A Tote Bag

Every now and then, we here at Acme Gravel and Sprockets take a quiet moment to reflect that, hey, there are worse jobs.

Delivering food on roller skates, for example.  Or crime-scene sanitation. 

Or working where Margaret does.

“Don’t,” she says, “Tell anyone where this came from, but this is a gen-u-wine email from our VP.  Oh, and don’t tell them I work at Global Stickers.”

Sure, I say.  That’s safe with me, Miss Margaret Olson, 5248 Lefse Boulevard.

Random Capitalization and Punctuation included for your Pleasure.

Team,

Recently I noted on the company bulletin board that the TPS reduction goal for 2016 was met!  This was a great accomplishment.  We here at Global Stickers had committed to providing a Pizza Party to the Company in the event we reached our Goal, and since we did, Global Stickers is excited to be providing that Pizza Party. 

Organizing the Pizza's for your team will be the responsibility of the Manager and supervisor. You will have this party on April 1.  Two pieces of pizza per person will be purchased.  Drinks will not be provided.  Multiply the number of people by 2 and divide by 8 to get the number of large Pizza's to order.   Pizza’s must be cheese, pepperoni, or sausage. 

You may order from anywhere in town as long as it is Domino’s, Costco, or Pizza Hut.  No other’s allowed! I would order them in the morning or even the day before to give them time to fill the order.  I have a script if anyone need’s it.

The supervisor or manager should pay for the Pizza's and expect to be reimbursed.   Write clearly, using black or blue ink.  Be sure to include the name of your department, if anyone took more than two pieces, and the exact start and end time of your celebration.  I will review. 

Thanks for the determination you’ve shown this last year, and I look forward to posting this coming year’s next initiative.  Fingers crossed for next year’s reward:  tee-shirt’s from last year’s Inventory Lock-In!

Best regards,

Snidely W. Lash, PhD, OCD, SOB

Just Do What The Hand Tells You to Do

Because I spent yesterday with plumbing issues (the house's, not my own) and didn't save time for writing.  And because it was seven below zero Fahrenheit this morning at the bus stop.  

From November of 2014.  Enjoy!

My father drove the 600 mile round-trip every weekend.

“It was 1960,” he says, fiddling with the woodstove.  “Mumma and I had been married a couple of months, and 600 miles a weekend is small potatoes when you’re 21 and in love.”

He pokes at an unruly log, steps back to consider the flames.  The darkness presses against the windows of their garage/extended living room, a clean, comfy space with carpet-remnant flooring and hand-made, wood-scrap cabinets.  I pull the crocheted afghan closer.

“Chandler, Minnesota, was down in the southwestern corner of the state – over by Pipestone? – an area far too far from my bride, but what could I do?  Uncle Sam needed me.”

He sighs.  “Highway 23.  Every weekend, Highway 23.”

He chuckles.  “Of course, I had to be careful.  We’d go out on the weekends, sometimes I’d even play in that little three-piece I was a part of in them days.  I’d be lucky to get more than five, six hours of sleep the whole weekend.”

“Paul!” my mother shouts from inside the house.  “Are you telling stories again?”

He winks at me.  “No, mumma,” he calls.

My father wanders over to the fridge.  “So anyway,” he says, “come January, I think it was, I get caught in a blizzard.”  He looks over at me, visibly calculating my age.  “You want one?”

I nod, and he grabs two beers.

“This was a real blizzard,” he says, popping the can open and handing me one, “back when snow was snow and the roads weren’t always plowed.”  He takes a deep pull from the can and frowns.  “My 300 miles back to the Air Force base – a trip that should’ve taken maybe four hours in that Rambler I had – was pushing on to seven.”

He takes another drink from his beer.  “Eventually,” he says, “I was forced to stick my head out the window, just to keep myself awake.  Of course, then I was pulling icicles from my eye lashes, but it beat the alternative, if you know what I mean.”

I do know what he means.  I nod and take a drink. 

“Of course, you can only stick your head out the window so many times before even that doesn't do the trick; and I’m realizing that I haven’t seen another car in almost six hours when up ahead of me, way off on the horizon, I see a shape.”

He wanders over to the woodstove, opens its door.  "I see a shape," he says again.  A roaring fire lights the bottom part of the room.  A cat wanders in and flops on to its side, yawns lazily.

He pokes the fire, throws another piece of scrap wood in.

“This shape,” he says, shutting the door, “is getting larger, and I’m thinking ‘what is this’?  I mean, it doesn’t seem like a car or a truck to me.”

He sits down in his chair, a recliner, puts his feet up, retrieves the beer can he left sitting on the end table. 

“And it gets larger and larger, until suddenly I see what it is.”

There is silence.  The fire in the woodstove crackles energetically. 

“Well?”  I say.  “What was it?”

“It was a hand,” he says.  He looks at me, eyes narrowed, nodding.  “A hand.  A hand shot down the center of the road, palm out, and commanded that I stop.”

The cat leaps into my lap.  “A hand,” I say.

He nods.  “A hand.”

I smile.  “So what did you do?”

He slaps his thigh.  “What did I do?!  Well, I did what you do when a hand flies down the center of the road at your car and demands that you stop!  I stopped!”

It is silent again.

“I pulled over,” he says quietly.  “Turned the car off, pulled a blanket over me and slept.”

He takes a pull from his beer. 

“Slept almost an hour,” he says.  “Too cold, of course, with the car off, but you can’t sleep in a driving snow with your car running, it’ll kill you.”  He stops.  “You know that, right?  That you can’t sleep in a car while it’s snowing with the car running?”

I smile.  “Yes, Dad,” I say.

He nods.  It is his duty to remind his middle-aged daughter of the dangers of covered tailpipes, of un-refrigerated potato salad and of playing with matches. 

He stares toward the wood stove.  “That hand saved my life.”

I smile toward the wood stove.  “It wasn’t an actual hand, though, surely,” I say.

He turns and smiles at me, taps the side of his nose in acknowledgement of the softball I’d just tossed him.  “It was an actual hand,” he says.  “And don’t call me Shirley.”

A Two for One Deal

He’s reaching for the glove box as we pull up to the red light. 

He pulls the coupons from his breast pocket.

“What are you doing?”

He glances from the coupons to the light to the paper-clipped offers he’s taken from the glove box.

“Organizing,” he says.

“Hmm,” I say.

“What?” he says, turning bright blue eyes at me.  “A man’s got to organize.”

I keep my own counsel.

He looks up at the light again.  “No, really,” he says.  “Sitting at a red light is an excellent opportunity to go through your coupons.”

“Maybe for you to go through your coupons,” I say.  “I like to do mine while showering.”

He has the sense to grin.  “Like this one,” he says.  He checks his rear view mirror, then pulls a small piece of paper from the pile  “You see this?  Because we went through the paper this morning, I know this is on sale, limit of ten.  I’m going to get ten at the discounted price, but the coupon I have says buy one, get the second for free.”  He smiles.  “I’ll be swimming in Dr Pepper.”  He leans over, takes my hand.  “Don’t you want to be swimming in Dr Pepper, Pearl?”

I turn to look out the window, mostly to hide my amusement.  “You buys you ten, you gets you eleven.”

He squeezes my hand quickly as the light changes, then puts both hands on the wheel.  We pull ahead.  

He is smiling into traffic.  “Pearl,” he says quietly.

“Kurt,” I say.

Minneapolis, Late Saturday Night

The bus has taken on a warm, smoky glow.

“My name is Louis,” the bus driver had said.  “Drunk women call me Louie.  And I don’t mind at all.

“There’s only one rule tonight, and that’s that there is no rule.  This is a party bus, a drinking, dancing, smoking bus.  Dance, laugh, shout.  You need cigs?  I’ll stop.  You need something at a convenience store?  I’ll stop.  Keep all your lovely bits inside the bus, though, let’s not attract more attention than a black and pink bus already does.  Now let’s have a good time!”

This is not, of course, the trusty #17.  This is not a commute.

This is an adventure. 

It’s Erin’s bachelorette party.  Home from Arizona and full of the love that a two-year absence and a well-run pub crawl can spur, the sun has gone down, the music has been turned up.

“I THOUGHT I SPOTTED AN OLD HIPPIE,” LouAnn shouts.  We have similar dance moves – Soul Train comes to mind – and we high-five.

“I GOT ABOUT SEVEN INCHES CUT OFF ABOUT A MONTH AGO,” Megan yells.  “YOU DON’T THINK IT LOOKS CHOPPY?”

“I’M SECOND-HAND SMOKING OVER HERE, MAN,” shouts Kim.  “I TELL YOU WHAT – I’M GONNA GO IN THE NEXT BAR, EAT A LOAF OF BREAD AND ME AND MY GLUTEN ALLERGY ARE GONNA CLEAR THIS WHOLE BUS.  YOU FEEL ME?  YOU’RE JUST ONE SLICE OF BREAD AWAY FROM THE GASSY EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME.”

The black and pink bus slides majestically down the cobblestoned roads to the river, down by the Grain Belt sign, down by where the 35W bridge collapsed. 

Diana hands me a beer. 

“HISTORIC MINNEAPOLIS.”

I nod, move across the aisle from one side of the bus to the other to sit next to her.  “Can I just tell you that I’m pretty drunk right now?”

“You could tell me,” she says, “but I wouldn’t beli - hic! – I wouldn’t beli – hic! – I would be disinclined to have faith in your assumption.”

We grin at each other.  “Nicely done,” I say. 

She shrugs.  “English is my native language.”

We twist in our seats, look out the windows to the brick, to the river, to the stark beauty of the leafless trees against the starlit skies.

Behind us, music I don’t recognize throbs, bass-heavy.  Beautiful women dance in the aisle, shouting encouragement and jokes.  Outside, Minneapolis moves silently from winter to spring.

Diana wraps her arms around me, and I rest my head on her shoulder.

“We are the luckiest women in the world,” she says. 

I nod.  “I am inclined,” I say, “to have faith in your assumption.”

Well It WAS Called a HoJo...

“I’m starting to have feelings about this gal,” I say.

Mary leans over the railing and peers into the dark of a heavy Florida night.  She jerks her chin toward the woman lurching through the parking lot.  That one?   

I nod. 

“What kind of feelings,” she says, straightening.  “Deep-rooted feelings?  Feelings of longing and/or despair?”

Mary’s been a little keyed up since the flight.

“Feelings of nausea and fascination,” I say. 

We watch as the woman, a tall angular female clad in less than a yard of black fabric, walks through the lot.  The five-, maybe six-inch heels she is wearing give her the perplexing, jerky grace of a spider one shot of vodka past sobriety.  Pale and, well, lunar, somehow, she knocks sharply on a door several down and one floor below us. 

The door opens, and she slips through it.

Mary turns to me.  “What are ya thinkin’?”

“It’s not pizzas she’s delivering.”

“A hooker?"  Mary leans over the railing again, cranes her neck toward the door on the ground floor.  "So suspicious,” she says.  She straightens up, holds out a piece of fruit.  “Meth-addict orange?”

I take it.  The woman who had approached us at the convenience store a couple blocks down had had the hood of her jacket stuffed with them.  “Mmm,” I say.  “Meth-addict oranges are the juiciest.”

Mary nods.  “Nothing says Sunshine State like a parking-lot fruit deal."

We sit down, peel our oranges, drop the skins into the ash can outside our room.

"Ima giver 10 minutes."  Said from around a mouth full of orange.

"That's just rude," I say.  I spit out a seed.  "Terms and conditions are a good three minutes alone."

"You know everything," Mary says.

I shrug nonchalantly.  "I read," I say.

We laugh, eat another orange.

"What did we pay for these again?"

"Three bucks."  Mary pops another segment into her mouth, stands up, and leans over the railing again.  "Door opening!"

I stand in time to see her leave.  Mary hands me a piece of orange, and we watch her adjust a strap or two as she heads back to parking lot.

People never look up.

We watch as she walks from one side of the parking lot to the next,  She pulls a phone out, texts something.  She puts her phone in her purse, then disappears behind a parked car.

Mary tugs at my sleeve.  "Is she doing what I think she's doing?"

I shrug, grimace a bit.  But she is.  The woman is peeing behind a parked car.

"We should stay here more often,"I say.

"Both inexpensive and scenic," Mary offers.  She puts a piece of orange peel in her mouth, gives me a grin.  "What-say we find a new place to stay tomorrow?"

After a few moments, the woman stands, adjusts her clothing and checks her phone.  Another quick text, and she walks through the parking lot and toward another door just a few doors from the first one.

And we watch as she knocks again.  

And His Shoes Make Him Run Faster and Jump Higher, Too

You remember my friend T, right? The man who believes almost every woman he sees is beautiful? The man whose sudden and pert-near evangelical love of his lawn (The Book of Scotts Turf Builder) has changed his brown weedy yard to a lush, green carpet?

He now has furniture concerns.

To wit, he believes his dresser drawers are up to no good.

“Everything I put in there comes out smaller,” he says. “My t-shirts are all tight in the middle. They didn’t used to be!”

That’s right. The dresser in T’s bedroom is shrinking his clothes.

I’ve seen T’s dresser. It’s a battered blonde wood piece of furniture with missing drawer pulls – and while I’ve always stood four-square against this very type of dresser, it does not appear to be any more a clothing-shrinker than my own.

And none of my shirts are, uh, too small.

None! I don’t care what you’ve heard!

Of course, T may claim that it is faulty furniture that has caused his t-shirts to reduce in size, there is also the fact that cotton t-shirts and hot dryers are natural enemies.

There’s also something to be said of his love of the all-you-can-eat banquet.

For now, however, I will play along with his dresser drawer theory. Why not? It makes as much sense as his belief that there are beautiful women everywhere he goes; and maybe I’ll get a free t-shirt out of the deal.

Mary and Pearl go to Florida; or Mr. Frampton Appears to Have Fallen on Hard Times

A continuation of yesterday's story, which was a continuation of Monday's and Tuesday's.  Catch up, won't you?  I'll wait right here.  Ooooh, maybe I should pick up some Danish...


The bar could be anywhere. 

Mary digs an elbow into my ribs.  “Whaddaya think?  Think we’re the prettiest gals here?”

We laugh.  “By way of having all our teeth,” I say.

“And hair.”

“And,” I say, quietly, “by being among a handful that don’t appear to have a meth problem.”

She nods.  “All situations should be judged thusly,” she says.  I give her a look.

“What?” she says.  “You aren’t the only one who gets to say stuff like that!”

And we laugh again.  Because we are funny.

It’s early evening.  The bar is three quarters full, Wheel of Fortune is on the TV in the corner, and a song about somebody sic’ing something on a chicken is on the juke box.

But like stepping into the shower with your socks on, something seems wrong. What is it? What's that -- Hey!  What’s that smell?

Ah.  Cigarette smoke.

“Smoking in a bar,” Mary says.  Suitably, she sounds almost breathless.

“That’s crazy.”  I say.  “Remember when that was allowed?”

“Pew,” she says, wrinkling her nose.  “We’re gonna stink.”

“You’re gonna stink,” I say.

“No, you,” she counters.

And we laugh some more.

“Hey.”

I turn around.  A man best visualized as an aging Peter Frampton is standing there.

This is not lost on Mary, who starts to hum “Do You Feel Like We Do” under her breath. 

He is thin, and, somehow grubby, although it’s hard to pinpoint why.  Perhaps because he has spent far too much time in the sun.  Perhaps he just needs a good moisturizer. 

“Do you play pool?” he says.

I shake my head.  “Haven’t played in years,” I say.  “Anyway, I’m here with my friend.”

“Yeah,” he says, “but you could still play pool.”

“I could,” I say, “but I’m not.”

Mary starts to laugh, and Mr. Frampton finds this reassuring.

“But you could,” he says.  “Please?  Please play pool with me?”

And just like that – just like that! – I resolve that I will not play pool with him.  “No,” I say.  “Thank you anyway, but we’re on vacation and –“

He breaks in.  “Somewhere north, am I right?”

Mary, a woman most accurately described as having a current skin tone closely resembling her original, fresh-out-of-the-box color – that is to say, alabaster – laughs.  “We got ourselves a live one!” she hollers.  The guys at the bar turn around, give us the once-over, and return to the Wheel of Fortune.

“Come on.  Please,” he says.  “Just play pool with me.”

“Why?” I say.  “Ask someone else.”

“You’re the prettiest gal in here.”

I turn to Mary, our eyes lock, and our jaws drop in mock indignation.  “I’ll have you know, sir,” Mary says, puffing her chest, “that I’ve won a number –“

“—a number!” I shout.

“—of competitions based solely on my looks!”

“And your ability to hold your liquor,” I add.

“And your liquor,” she concedes.

But Peter Frampton is not dissuaded.  “Please,” he says.  “It’ll be an easy game.  No showboating, no pressure.  A friendly game.  I just want to play pool with you.”

I look at Mary, who shrugs.  “Go ahead,” she says.  “I’ll just sit at the bar and talk to—“  she leans over, taps the shoulder of a Korean War vet, from the looks of his jacket, “—what’s your name?”

“Ken,” he says. 

“I’m gonna talk to Ken here,” she says.  She sits down on the stool next to Ken.  “Go on.  Have fun, kids.”

Is there more?  Honey, we’re almost up to 600 words already, and you know there’s more!

Mary and Pearl Go to Florida; or I Don’t Know Anyone Who Thinks of Them as True Liquids

Balancing on one foot while re-shodding myself, stuffing my laptop into my carry-on and briefly marveling over the way my left leg sets off metal detectors yet contains no metal, I have made it through Security with a minimum of indignities. 

I am trying to figure out what to do with my winter coat – do I put it back on?  Do I try to cram it into my already cram-full suitcase? – when I glance up in time to see Mary shoot me a look of dismay.

“Ma’am,” says a man with a badge on his chest.  “Please step out of line.”

Mary points to herself.  Me?

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is it what’s in my bag?  I thought I could pack anything in the bag…”

My head swivels from speaker to speaker, my jaw open, a dog watching a game of ping pong.  “What’s in the bag, Mary?”

“Ma’am,” and now he is addressing me – in the credits of this particular scene, I am, apparently, Second Ma’am – “Please step aside.”

I step, as instructed, aside.  “What is it?  Mary!  What’s in the bag?”

And Mary, a woman whose skin tone is settled comfortably between alabaster and Cream of Wheat, has gone azalea on us.

And for just a moment, I have visions of prisons, of ill-fitting clothing and garbage-bag wine. 

“What’s in the bag, Mary?”

“I – I – well you know how I go on my kicks!”

Bright spots appear before my eyes.  A humming goes up in my ears that experience tells me is a precursor to fainting.

“What kinda kicks, Mary?”

The security guard, mirthless as Death’s dad, is unzipping the suitcase.

Should we start running? I mouth to Mary.

But Mary’s eyes are not on me.  Large, bright blue, they are on the guard who is now removing the clothing from her carry on.

“Nice undies,” I say to her.

She looks up and smiles.  “They’re new.”

And that’s when he holds them up.  Not her undies, oh, no.  There are more subversive things in store for this trip than Mary’s brand-new undies.

“You can’t bring these in a carry on,” says Security Man.  Now surrounded by a supporting cast of other Security Men – all grinning – he holds aloft the offending items.

A squeeze container of Top The Tater.

A large bottle of Western Dressing.

The men in blue shake their heads.

And I am practically speechless.

Practically.

“What?!  Mary!  No taters?  No salad?”

The red in her cheeks sets off the blue of her eyes nicely.  “We have a room waiting for us with a fridge and a microwave,” she says.  “And I heard you can’t get these in Florida.”

“Can’t get --?  What are we, traveling back in time?”

But Mary is undeterred.  She shakes her head, firm in her understanding that she must travel with her own condiments. 

Security Man #1 is back.  “Ma’am, do you want to put these in your bag and then check it?  You’ll have to go back through Security.”

And I already know the answer, know it just as surely as I know Mary.

She will check the bag.  She will go through Security again.

And I tie my winter coat around my waist, take a seat on a bench leading out of Security.

“I’ll be here then, shall I?” I say.

Is there more to this?  Of course there is!  Come back tomorrow!