Stuart R. West's Blog

The Ultimate Insult

A while back, I had a very restless, insomnia-filled night (that's not the unusual part of this true, traumatic tale). When I finally bumbled out of bed, I had only logged about three hours of sleep. So I was in a bad mood.

"I didn't sleep last night," I grumbled by way of saying "good morning" to my wife. "I feel like ca-ca poo-poo."

"Good morning to you, dear."

"What's good about it?" I snapped. "Where's the granola? WHY don't we have any granola? And where did you put it this time?"

"I didn't put it anywhere. If we have any, it's in the carb cabinet where it always is."

"And why are there so many damn packages in the foyer? It's like an Amazon warehouse! I can't even move!"

"Stuart," my wife replied calmly, "stop it. You're acting like our president."

Wow. That one took me aback. The ultimate insult, worse than anything I could imagine. Throwing tantrums worse than our wonderful president? Unthinkable. And it hurt. Badly. But the truth often does.

After thinking about it a while, I realized she was right and I was slinging my grumpiness at her. Caught in the crosshairs of my ire, we'll call it "friendly fire."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm tired and I didn't mean to take it out on you."

But while walking away, I grumbled, "But my tantrums weren't nearly as bad as Trump's."

While thinking of men behaving badly, my book Secret Society immediately came to mind. We have more serial killers running around than clowns coming out of a clown car. And wait until you meet the bad guys! Check out all the fun, thrills, suspense, mystery, and very dark humor in Secret Society, available here.

Strange New Species Discovery!

Recently I discovered something of great anthropological interest; a new breed of humanity that inhabit an island, far, far away from civilized humanity. They've developed their own curious language, bizarre dating rituals, wear little to no clothing, and have developed a dance uniquely their own.

Yes, it is I, Sir Admiral "Take A" Leaky, bringing you another important armchair anthropological discovery. I'm talking about, of course, the uncivilized inhabitants of Love Island.

This fascinating documentary series about a heretofore unknown species unravels in daily fashion, each day bringing a new discovery of this vastly different culture.

First of all, I have to wonder how these inhabitants came to live on Love Island in the first place. In an undisclosed location (clearly to protect their primitive lifestyle from civil people), these people all appear to be in their 20's (what would ordinarily be considered "Gen Z") and have great genetic qualities. There are no uggos in this collection of perfect human specimens. Which begs the question...who gave birth to this strange species? There are no responsible, older adults on the island, nor are there any children to be seen. How in the world can they sustain their lifestyle if they're all sterile?

Let's look at their curious language. "I wanna chop it up with her" is one such expression used constantly by the island's inhabitants (castaways?). After much consideration, I have decided it means that a courting male desires to chop up their meal (a boar, perhaps?) with his partner to be. Constantly they say "I ain't gonna lie," reaffirming their commitment to telling the truth (although, ironically enough, few of them do refrain from lying). "I'm standing on business" is a much used idiom that I haven't quite deciphered as is "I'm pressing down." Violence seems to be hinted at in their language. Finally, the inhabitants constantly brag that "I'd f*** with that." In civilized humanity, if someone were to say that, it would mean "giving one the business," but here it seems to be a statement of lust.

The new species on Love Island have no leader except for the rarely seen Queen of Love Island. Almost like a spiritual apparition, she appears in front of a ceremonial firepit, handing down orders as to what her minions shall do next, usually involving mating and sex. They are forced to "couple up" with someone for an overnight conjugal visit, all in the same bedroom, thus dispensing of rituals of civilized people such as dating, courting, and privacy.

The Love Island species appear to shun clothing at every possibility. The men lounge around in short shorts and the women choose to let it all hang out with a strap of dental floss set between their bottom cheeks, thus defying any possibility of comfort, practicality or sanitation.

No one appears to have a job, their days filled with working out, chatting, lounging pool-side and gossiping. A primitive culture, they seem to have a lot of growing to do as a people on the rise. But how far will it go? Does civilized humanity want these people to breed? Or were they themselves bred in test tubes?

Their extremely strange behavior might suggest such an origin. At every given chance, they change amorous partners more often than I change my underwear. The women have developed their own peculiar way of dancing wherein they thrust their bottoms in the air and make their cheeks flop up and down. This style was referred to as "twerking," and it's not a good look on anyone, particularly in civilized cultures.

The people of Love Island are worthy of much more study than I can provide from my armchair. Hopefully, someone will delve fully into this eccentric offspring of humanity and bring some much-needed clarity to this curious phenomena.

Or as my nephew put it, "Love Island represents everything that's wrong with humanity."

While on the topic of strange people and culture, I would be remiss if I didn't bring your attention to the folks of Peculiar County. Here, normal civilized people rub elbows with ghosts, witches, something that flies in the night, and murderers. Just another day in Peculiar County. You can visit right here!

A Mission of Cookies and Humiliation

I miss my mom. But I do swan (and all of you should know by now that I abhor "swanning"), she used to put me through the ringer.

Once Covid reared its ugly head, my brother, myself and my mom thought it a good idea that she just stay in her apartment and we'd do all the running for her. She was just too dang vulnerable at that point, mask or no mask (and we had no vaccines then, either). 

Honestly, I didn't mind putting together a list of her grocery needs and fetching them. It was ten times speedier than taking her with me to do her grocery shopping. Talk about a huge chunk of time lost forever. Once, she and I spent twenty minutes in the butter aisle alone. 

"How much is this one?" she'd ask and point at a box.

I'd tell her. Invariably, she'd come back with one of two of her usual responses, either "Hmmph" or "highway robbery!" We would then proceed to go through all the rest of the butter boxes and prices. Then she'd forget what the prices were and we'd start all over again. Behind me, a line began to form of impatient butter shoppers.

Anyway, one day I went to her apartment, ready to jot down her grocery list.

"Is that all?" I asked.

"Wait," she replied. She got up, went into the kitchen and brought back a half-eaten package of cookies, one of those see-through plastic containers half-filled with gross looking marshmallow cookies with an ugly aqua-colored frosting. She thrust the package at me. "Take these and get my money back."

I blinked. Stared at the proffered burden she held out to me. "Ummmm...what?"

"Take them back. They're awful."

"Mom...you ate half of them. I can't take them back!"

"I know what I know and I know that they're bad." (This was one of her favorite sayings and usually it signified that she wouldn't tolerate any fools and the argument was done because she knows what she knows.)

"But...but...Mom...if they were bad, why'd you eat half of them?"

"Take them back, Stuart. They're terrible."

"Mom...you know you can't return food just because you don't like it, right?"

To this, she giggled. Before I was chalking up her ridiculous demand as to her age, but the giggle signified she knew exactly what she was doing. A shrewd tactic, one designed to eat a half bag of gross cookies for free, a ploy worthy of the most tactical military minds of our times. Unfortunately, I was the expendable soldier tasked with carrying out this suicide mission.

Realizing that I couldn't stand up to my superiors, I set out on my mission of humiliation. Choosing to get that job over with before my shopping, head down, I raced to the customer service desk with cookies in hand.

"Can I help you?"

"Um...yeah...I hope so." I gave a little nervous chuckle, hoping to disarm the bomb I was about to drop. But instead, it took me back to the early days when my voice was changing. "I...uh...need to return these," I squeaked.

The grocery clerk grabbed the package, turned it over and over. First her eyebrows raised, then they plunged downward in a menacing scowl. Tough crowd.

"They're not mine," I hastily added in a weak voice. "They're for my mom. I told her that--"

"What's wrong with them?" Still turning the package over and over.

"My mom...NOT ME...says they were stale."

"But she ate half of them."

"I know, I tried to talk her out of this, but--" 

"Fine," she sighed. What little charm I thought I possessed wasn't nearly potent enough. Then she lightened a bit, looked around like a spy, finally grinned. She held the package out to me. "Want one?"

"Um...no thanks." 

First, they looked gross. Second, I thought it might be some kind of undercover trap to capture the notorious cookie bandit who'd been returning half eaten cookies across the greater Kansas City metro area.

I raced away and got Mom's shopping done in record time.

Mom, I miss and love you dearly. But not some of the things you used to send me out to do.

Speaking of guys who have to run fast out of necessity, consider the plight of poor Wendell Worthy. Bad guys force him to run across downtown Kansas City in a limited time to save his brother's life and bring back some takeout chili. Dressed in nothing but his tennis shoes and his tighty-whities. It's complicated. Read about the dangerous situations, wacky mishaps, and bizarre characters Wendell encounters through the night in my comical suspense thriller, Chili Run! It's the perfect book for the reader on the go.

Swimming in a Stream of Semi-Consciousnee

Four days ago I was stretched out on the love seat, covered in a blanket and wearing a jacket.

"Honey, I think I'm sick."

"Have you taken your temperature?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it's a lot of effort."

My wife took my temperature.

"Okay! 104 degrees! Honey, you're sick."

I've felt terrible all week, can hardly think. Wasn't even going to blog. But I thought, a great time to experiment. Here's my stream of consciousness blog.

The worst was the shivering. I shook like a meth addict in turbulent waters. Freezing. Pain relievers sometimes temporarily relieved the shakes. When I could keep them down. Every other time I made it rain from both ends. Pounding headache, little elves upstairs banging away on my brain. My diet has been the Gandhi diet, a little bread, a little soup, a frozen mini pinappel whip. If I live through this, I'll have kick-started my diet again. Fever dreams are horrible. When I can sleep. The first two days and nnights all I did was sleep. Last night It was a grand two hours. But when I do sleep, it's always fever dreams. Doing a repetitive task over and over always involving some stupid complex math equation. Two nights ago, I was robbing a jewelry store. It wasn't exciting, just boring after so many times. My idea of hell: repetition of hated task and then Donald Trump pokes me in the ass with a pitchfork, yells "Where's the military guard?" then sends me back to do the task all over again. And the hallucinations shoulld be fun, right? But they're creepy. Mostly they're audible. Once I heard my wife groaning as if she'd fallen into a deep well. Constantly I hear the ice cream man going by tingling his bells to The Entertainer. But I've had visual hallucinations too, especially the first two days. While I was napping, the blanket slipped up over my shoes and I swear one shoe winked at me. Another time I felt like I was in Disney's Beauty and the Beast with animated kitchen utensils dancing around me. Or maybe that was a fever dream, I dont know they're pretty close. The dogs are wondering why mom and dad are sleeping in different beds. "Bijou, why are our parents not together?" "Don't worry your pretty little head, Biscuit." My first assumption was that I had Covid again. I tested, then tested again the next day. Negative, just some horrific virus I picked up on our mini vacartiion before labor day. I haven't showered in three days. I'm trying to build up stamina and courage to get in there now and I can't think of anything I'd rather not do. I have no strength, expecially in my already bad knees. I've fallen at the top of the stairs going tto bed twice, thankfully forward. But one of these days the crummy gods of sickness are going to get me. But I'm despairing. One can only watch so much Netflix and when sick, never watch complicated murder mysteries from overseas. Going to shower nnow. Wish me luck!

Tripping My Wife's Trigger

There are many things I do or say that bugs my wife. Off the top of my head, she loathes when I say "Yessireebobcattail!" I'm not sure why; I don't even think she understands. But hate it, she does.

But the absolute worst offender? Read on...

Years ago, my family was out at a restaurant celebrating someone's birthday. When they brought out our salads, my brother and I oohed and ahhed over how great the blue cheese dressing was. 

 "Man," I said, "I could drink a gallon of this."

"Same," replied my brother. "What about good gravy? Could you drink a gallon of that? I sure could."

"Oh yeah," I agreed. Then in a sudden inspirational burst, I added, "That's because we have the exact same genetic chemical makeup."

Okay, besides the ridiculous redundancy of the sentence ("exact same" kinda bugs me, too), I understand the impossibility of having the same genetic chemical makeup as someone else, even family. But when I saw how it bugged the scientific mindset of my wife, I wouldn't let up. First, she responded with eyerolls. Later she said how stupid it was.

Of course, my brother and I rolled with it, sometimes perfecting it to the point where we recited it in unison.

My daughter took up the cause, as well. She and I really perfected the routine, in perfect sync every time. She even added on to it with "Oh my GODDDD!" Which worked out extraordinarily well.

"You know why we both love dogs?" I'd ask.

Together, my daughter and I: "Because we have the exact same genetic chemical makeup, oh my GODDDDDD!"

My wife went back to eyerolling, knowing full well we weren't going to stop the insanity. Soon enough, we even enlisted my daughter's boyfriend's son in the game.

Go on, try it on your loved ones. It's fun! (NOTICE: I'm not responsible for any resulting fighting or marital problems.)

Speaking of games, there's plenty of cat 'n mouse games going on between a couple of serial killers and the evil corporation who's using them like pawns. Heads are chopped, dropped, and swapped in my darkly comical suspense thriller trilogy, Killers Incorporated, available here.

The Wise Guy of the Round Table

 

Several weeks ago, I managed to get (most of) "the band" back together. Just as we had done over 40 years ago, laughs were spilled, beers were drunk, and stories were told. It seemed like not much had changed in all of those decades. Except, of course, there were quite a few more pounds and quite fewer hairs. And a lot of the stories dealt with all of our aches, pains, and operations. Kinda like battle wounds.

After my brother came back from the bathroom, he shook our friend's hand next to him.

He said, "my hand's not wet from washing it."

After much giggling and groaning, he further elaborated, "I don't bother washing my hands after going to the bathroom. Why bother? Your hands just get dirty again opening the bathroom door."

"That's very sound advice," I opined.

"You can learn a lot from me," he replied.

What an extremely wise man.

While on the topic of wise guys, meet Charlie Broadmoor, a struggling stand-up comic, who wishes for more of an audience. Unfortunately, a demon is in his audience one night. One who Charlie mercilessly teases about his comb-over. Things quickly go downhill from there. Read all about it in my darkly comic horror tale,

Demon With A Comb-Over.

BANNED!

I suppose it's my fault really. No one to blame but myself. To fully comprehend the following tragic tale of insanity, jump with me, if you will, into the wayback machine...

When my daughter was younger, she liked to sing. She appeared to know practically every song in the world and I'm not really sure how she learned them as I brought her up on a steady diet of alternative rock. But soon enough, my wife and I enrolled her into singing lessons. (Strike number one: Encouragement!)

Then I created an even bigger mistake. I introduced her to musicals. First, I showed her some of my favorites such as West Side Story. Appearing to really enjoy it, I sought out all of the musicals for her I could find.

And woe unto us for the day she discovered the musical, Rent. First, we watched it several times. Then she showed it to all of her friends. I grew so sick of watching--and especially hearing--Rent, that I considered hiding the DVD. But that didn't stop my daughter. She bought the soundtrack and sang along at the top of her voice in her bedroom and worst of all, the shower.

Her showers were always hour-long affairs, but they weren't quiet ones. Every night we listened to the same  musical selections from Rent. No choice. No escape.

"I'm going to go AOOOOOOOOOOOOut tonight!" issued from the shower over and over and over again, finally stamping all over my nightmares.

Enough was enough and I threw down the Mean Parent gauntlet. "Hey!" I said. "From this day on, I'm officially banning show tunes from being sung in this house!"

Of course the rule didn't stick. But to this day, if I even see the title Rent, I grow sweaty and fearful and nauseous. Let this tragic tale serve as a warning to parents everywhere. Ban show tunes before it's too late!

This has been a Public Service Announcement from the Agitated Father Coalition.

Speaking of teens in trouble, it doesn't get much worse for high schooler Tex McKenna. He's bullied, struggles with the principal, is discovering love for the first time, and suddenly has a target on his back from a potential serial killer. Complicating matters is he has just discovered he's a witch. Check out Tex and friends adventures and mystery in my Tex, the Witch Boy trilogy here!

Castration Fascination!

 

Ouch!

Recently I was visiting my daughter. The conversation turned to her new(ish) nephew.

"You wanna know why my nephew couldn't get castrated when he was born?" she asked.

I looked at her boyfriend who looked at me. 

"Castrated?" said the incredulous boyfriend. "Um...I think you mean 'circumcised.'"

As we all had a good laugh, my knees clenched together as tight as my teeth and I crossed my legs. In protective mode. The mere thought of castration gives me the heebie-jeebies.

But apparently we weren't quite done with the topic. My daughter's boyfriend (who grew up on a farm) started explaining the elaborate process of how they castrated their cows. The details don't matter (and I don't care to dwell on the topic too long), but it had to do with this really strong band they put around the cows testicles cutting off the circulation so they could lop. CHOP!

And OUCH again.

Still stubbornly staying on this very cringe-inducing topic, it turns out the BF had eaten "Rocky Mountain Oysters" before. Ugh. I'm usually pretty daring when it comes to food experimentation but eating a goat's "jewels" is above my pay-grade.

Then I started wondering why in the world would my daughter's BF's family want to castrate their cows. I mean, doesn't it make sense that the more cows you have, the more meat and milk you can hawk?

Apparently, I was wrong (something that NEVER, EVER happens; just ask my wife). Castrating male cows improves meat quality, making it more tender through "marbling," a fancy-schmancy term for fatty deposits. Wow. That was all the science I needed to know about that. But can you imagine the indignity of first having your jewels lopped off so you can be eaten later? As I write this, I'm locking my knees together more securely than Trump's classified files (wait...).

Which brings me to pity the poor plight of the eunuchs, those castrated men from the past (not so golden) olden days. Curious (yet extremely uncomfortable, mind you), I researched why in the world they'd do this to any man. Some of the reasons were punishment for crimes. Okay, fair enough, I think the act of "chemically castrating" some rapists may still be going on.

Historically, eunuchs were thought to make better royal servants with their sexual inhibitions curbed. Religious motives? Yikes! Some guys did it to themselves, thinking it aligned with their faith. Somehow I missed that lesson in Bible school.

Finally, here's the craziest reason of all: castrating men was thought to make better opera singers in the Baroque period, keeping their voices high-pitched. AIEEEEEEE! I'd shriek in a high-pitched tone too, if some kooky opera buff came at me with a pair of hedge trimmers.

Okay, I think I've milked this topic enough, ball-ieve it or not. If you'd like to know more, the BALL's in your court. (I'll be here all weekend. Ba-da-bing!)

Since I'm in a particularly juvenile mood, I may as well hawk my king of juvenile comedies, the Zach and Zora murder mystery series, guaranteed to be the only books you'll ever read about a dumb male stripper (but, PLEASE, call him a "male entertainment dancer") and his more often than not pregnant sleuth sister.  No shame in writing them, no shame in reading.

The Royalty of Weird

The other day I asked my wife if she could do my laundry. (Now before all the feminists get in an uproar, my wife kindly volunteered to take this task over from me because my knees went the way of disco and she doesn't want me crashing down the basement stairs.)

I said, "Thanks, honey. Could you start with my unspeakables?"

"Okay," she replied, "but it's 'unmentionables,' not 'unspeakables'."

"Have you seen my underwear?"

Pause. Blink. Finally, she hit me back with her most often used retort. "You're weird."

To which I responded, "Yeah? Well, you married weird."

BOOM! Mic drop. Even she had no witty comeback for that one.

Now. Let's get something straight. There's nothing wrong with being weird. I pride myself on being weird. It's far, far, far better than being "normal" or even worse, boring.

And it's worked out well for many people. There's Weird Al...and...um...Gary Busey...ah...Donny Trump?

Okay, so I can't use celebrities as a shining example of the success of being weird.

My wife won't admit it, but I think she's good with weird, too.

We're the royal King and Queen of Weird, our kingdom is Weirdopia. And I love my weird queen.

Speaking of all things weird, here's a strange little weird book of mine: Chili Run. It's kinda a lark, a comedic crime thriller based on a dream I had about being forced to run through downtown Kansas City in my tighty whities (or is it "tidy whities"? That's one controversy I've never resolved.). It's complicated. The hijinks ensue right here!

Monster Cat On The Loose!

By now, you guys know I'm a dog-lover. It's not that I hate cats...I'm just allergic to them.

Okay, that's not entirely true. Well, it is about my being allergic to them. If you put a cat around me and I happen to touch near my eye, it's all over. I turn into a crying, sneezing, wheezing pink-eyed mess.

But back to dogs. Dogs are fiercely loyal, full of character, funny, loving, doting, sloppy, playful, and depend entirely on humans to take care of them. It's a nice feeling.

Cats are...cats. They're quiet, sneaky, scary, boring, and when they feel like it, they'll bite or claw you for no reason. Just for the fun of it, I suppose. They're like goldfish. Only meaner. And did I mention I'm highly allergic to them?

So, the other day, I was tasked with going to this strange "feed and seed" store in the middle of the city to get dog food. After I figured out how to enter the place (it's like an Escape Room), the first thing I noticed were three cats running across my path.

Uh-oh.

The old guy asks how can he help me. I felt like saying by getting those damn cats away from me. Instead, I say, "Just picking up some dog food." Quickly, I scuttled toward the dog food, hefted a big-ass bag up and hoped to get out of there before I turned into a wet, soppy, crying mess.

But the old guy behind the counter had a different idea. "Ah! You're getting the bison!"

"Yeah. Nothing but the most expensive for our dogs, I guess," I said, while eyeballing what seemed like a dozen cats twisting and scampering around me.

The old guy wasn't put off by that. Must've been a slow day for him. "Well, golly...it's good stuff, though."

"I guess," I said. "But I've never tried it."

The ancient clerk looks at me. Blinks. Finally guffaws and slaps his knee. Meanwhile, one particularly clingy kitty was rubbing up against my legs. I could feel my eyes starting to water.

"That's a good one, yep. Had me going for a while. Yessir...'never tried it.' Heh." Suddenly he drops down behind the counter.

I'm wondering if I should call 911.

Like an ancient jack-in-the-box, he springs up with a scrawny mean-looking cat in his arms. And thrusts it toward me. "Here's my bison! What do you make of this mean fellow?"

Instinctively, I jumped back. "Oh...he's, um...thanks!" I grabbed the dog food and raced out of the store (once I found the exit).

Next time I go there, I'm wearing a mask, protective eyewear and a Hazmat suit. I swan...

Speaking of things that are furry and not so adorable, check out my book, Corporate Wolf. It's the only werewolf, horror, murder mystery, dark comedy, corporate satire out there!