Stuart R. West's Blog, page 12

Vacuum Cleaners Don't Suck!

Well, yes they do. Wait... No, they don't. I mean they don't suck in the way you'd want them to suck, but on principle, they figuratively suck.

I'm not sure what the deal is. Vacuum cleaner manufacturers have made a killing off of planned obsolescence. Back in the day, when our vacuum cleaner would (inevitably) break, I'd take it in to some guy to fix it. He'd either laugh and tell me buying a new one would be cheaper or I'd wait for months for him to get around to it. In fact, one time I lugged our cleaner into a vacuum repair shop where the hard-to-understand owner tried to sell me a new one instead of repairing it "because he didn't want to deal with it."

I've never met a vacuum cleaner I didn't hate.

My long-time hatred for vacuum cleaners goes back to my youth. At the time, my then-wife decided to have a vacuum cleaner salesman call on us (to get our free trip to Branson for listening to his spiel {of which we never used; all the hoops you have to jump through to "qualify" just wasn't worth it}). This kid's tactics were shameless, using guilt ("Just look at the dirt I picked up from your cushion; I know you're better parents than that."), shame ("Do you really want your baby crawling in filth?"), lies ("Hmmm...let me call my boss and see if I can take off twenty bucks."), and other completely transparent ploys. Even though I was ready to boot the jackass outta our house, my wife bought into it.

So... For the incredibly low, low price of $1,200 dollars, we got the super-fantastic, highly deluxe vacuum cleaner of the century! Pretty horrible when  you have to take out a loan to get a vacuum cleaner.

Of course, the Super Megatron Vacuu-Suck 2,000 quit working after a month.

No wonder dogs hate vacuum cleaners so much.

It really doesn't matter how much you spend on a vacuum, they're all built to fail. If I was of a conspiracy bent, I'd say that vacuum cleaner companies secretly build their wares with a month-long shelf life. And clearly--CLEARLY--they're in cahoots with Consumer Reports. Why? Because--get this--Consumer Reports claims that the median life of a vacuum cleaner is eight years.

EIGHT YEARS??? I've rarely had one that's lasted a year. And that's a rarity. Our basement is pretty much a vacuum graveyard full of the corpses of long-dead cleaners. (Some day I'll figure out why I don't just toss them out.)

My vacuum curse isn't limited to me. Apparently the sins of the father have been passed down to my daughter. For the short period of time she's owned a house, she's gone through about six cleaners. One day, while she was at work, I attempted vacuuming for her and all the "cleaner" did was blow dirt around.

My wife said, "Did you read the manual?"

I rolled my eyes in disbelief. Everyone knows men aren't supposed to read manuals or instructions. If you do, you may as well hand in your Man Card immediately.

In 2015, a French law was passed that demanded manufacturers display how long their appliances would last. The French got one thing right (don't even get me going on Jerry Lewis). If that law were passed here, dozens of vacuum cleaner manufacturers would be put out of business, the stock market would crash, Democrats and Republicans would have a Kumbaya come-together moment, your basic end-of-the-world scenario.

Suck it, Hoover!

Speaking of shameless, sucky things, why not check out my Zach and Zora books? The comic mystery series pulls out all the stops, knows no boundaries of good taste, and is guaranteed to tickle your inner eleven year old. That's a guarantee!* But don't take my word for it. Check 'em out here!

*Guarantee void in all English-speaking countries.

Man-Dog!

Well. The uprising has started earlier than I thought it would. And it wasn't robots OR apes. Nope! It came from a surprise insurgent group that sorta snuck right up on humanity. Yes, I'm talking about humans disguising themselves as animals.

First, we have humans dressed up as sun bears in a Chinese zoo, waving merrily at spectators. (Or ARE they human? I swan, conspiracy theorists will find a smoking gun behind everything.)

And now we have the man living as a collie. Ladies and gents, I give you Toco! Let's hear it for Toco! (I'll wait until the smattering of applause has died down.)

While "Toco" is an alias, not much is known about him, other than that he's Japanese with a YouTube channel comprised of 31,000 subscribers (and growing). And he's living out his lifelong dream of being a dog.

Dream big, Toco, you champion in the clouds, dream big!

I'm happy for Toco, being able to (sorta) fulfill his lifelong dream and (kinda) live life to the fullest extreme. While most people (usually in their childhood years) dream of being...oh, I dunno...a fireman or a ballerina or even a cowboy, Toco took the higher canine path and commissioned a company to design a lifelike dog costume for him for a mere $16,000. That's 16 large, folks! Think of all the "real" dogs you could've fed for that amount of money.

I'm beginning to think there's something a little wrong with Toco. Just a hunch. I believe he may think that about himself as well, but doesn't really come out and say it. In an interview, he told the reporter he wants to keep his identity anonymous, because "I don't want my hobbies to be known, especially by the people I work with" and "I rarely tell my friends, because I am afraid they might think I am weird."

Gee. Ya think? And even more importantly...he's got a job? And friends???

Just look at him frolicking in the streets with people. But the actual dogs he encounters appear smarter than people, displaying hesitance and fear at approaching him, at least at first. Dogs have always shown good taste.

How far will Toco take this? If he has a significant other, does this person control Toco's shock collar? Does Toco use a toilet or go in the backyard? Is Toco rewarded with gross dog treats? Is he spanked with a newspaper every time he misbehaves? Does Toco eat human food or dog food? YOU be the judge! 

But who am I to judge? If this makes Toco happy, and he's not hurting anyone, then more power to him for fulfilling his dream. As nightmarish as it is.

Speaking of nightmares, check out my book, Ghosts of Gannaway, a book chock full of nightmarish scenarios of ghosts, human and supernatural villains, an Indian curse, an attack of ravens, murder, photographs come to life, and lots of other creepy happenings. But that only tells half the tale: Gannaway is heavily based on true events that happened in a small mining town in Picher, Oklahoma. Sometimes the truth is scarier than fiction. Check it out here!

Pesca-what-now?

My wife says to me, "What do you think about pescatarians?" 

I shrug and say, "Hmmm. Kinda indifferent, really. Aren't those the guys on 'Star Trek' with the ridged foreheads?"

She responds with an award-winning eyeroll.

Next I offer, "Wait... They're the scary cult of Joe Pesci fanatics, right?"

"Don't be dense, dear."

"Okay, okay. I know it's the fish-like people of Pescaria. But are they ruled by Aquaman or Submariner?"

Alright, the above is malarkey. I actually knew what a pescatarian was, but wasn't quite sure I was ready to take the full plunge. You see, my wife and I are constantly on the lookout for diets that work for us. For a long while, the low-carb deal worked wonders. But the older we get, the harder it is to take off those well-earned pounds.

So. Pescatarian it is! (For those few who don't know, pescatarians incorporate fish into an otherwise vegetarian diet. We're vegetarians who cheat.)

Of course there're pros and cons to this diet plan. On the con side, no more meat. Boooooooo! But to be honest, lately I'd been giving that some thought. Not too long ago, I remember gnawing at a chicken breast and began to think about the ramifications of this poor, brave chicken who valiantly gave its life so I could chow down on its meat. Except...it didn't really give its life. It had no say in the matter. It'd been raised in a pen only to be slaughtered and sold as food. Gross! And I don't see President Biden "pardoning" chickens every day. 

As an animal lover, the whole meat-eating thing's been kinda bugging me recently. (And, natch, as a meat lover of nearly sixty years, I was also torn, struggling to leave my slavering, carnivore instincts behind.) But I took the splash and dove in (hello, fishies!).

Now I hear some of you saying, "Stuart, don't feed us that liberal, granola b.s. about meat is murder. Get a grip, man! Go hug a tree, feel good about yourself, then follow that up with a slab of A-1 cow ribs!"

To that I say, "Leave me alone, dammit!" (I was always a great debater.)

Others may say, "Pffft. Animals are dumb. They're here to supply us food. Besides...everyone knows animals don't have souls."

And I would respond, "We don't know that. There's no possible way to scientifically discern that. For that matter, we don't even know if we have souls. A soul is not a scientific construct!"

Now before you bible-thumping, meat-eating guys come after me with a pitchfork, I'll grant you this little bit of hypocrisy: If based solely on moral reasoning, I think it's a bit insincere for pescatarians to eat fish and not meat. Science has proven that fish can feel pain. So there's that. Also, they have a central nervous system. (Now I'm thinking about all of those hooks into their mouths. Yikes.) 

Why are pescatarians allowed to eat fish and not meat? Beats me. Maybe it's because we try not to think of fish in the same way as we do, say, cows. I mean, fish don't walk, right? And let's face it...fish are kinda gross. Far from cute. At least the edible kind. 

Perhaps it's because fish aren't as visibly prevalent as chickens, hiding out in the ocean doing God knows what. You know...outta sight, outta mind, fair game to eat, let's dine! Bam!

But based upon an intensely in-depth scientific study I conducted (I made it up), the real reason pescatarians allow themselves to devour fish? So they can eat sushi. Everyone knows humankind can't exist without sushi.

(I kinda think the real reason, though, is that fish provides a great deal of nutrients and vitamins, and on a straight-up vegetarian diet, you could become anemic. But THAT'S hardly fun to yak about.)

So, how is the pescatarian diet going for me? Well, I've only been on it for a couple weeks, having it been kickstarted by a freak storm knocking out our electricity for days, thus forcing us to toss out all of our meat. A sign!

But the results so far have varied. When I'm eating a celery, peppers, and other junk wrap, I can't help but think about a juicy hamburger.

Speaking of which, my wife picked up some plant-based "burger" patties called "Beyond Meat." It's beyond meat alright...beyond and all the way into the trash can. When I cooked a couple in a skillet, I made the mistake of cooking them as long as meat. Needless to say, the rank odor of burnt plants still fills the house. (I bet Moses could relate, burning bush and all.) I also made the mistake of thinking it'd taste just like a meat burger. Instead, it sorta tasted like cardboard. Only worse.

I miss pizza. But, hey! I always forget I can have a 52 cheese pizza (hold the veggies, please, just this once) and pretend there's sausage on it. 

There are other cheats, too, lots of substitutes. And of course, all the gross fish I care to eat. It's a much better diet than straight-up vegetarianism. At least I get sushi!

While on the topic of what seemed like a good idea at the time, meet my protagonist "Tex" McKenna, regular guy who just wants to survive the travails of high school, such as bullying. Problem is he keeps making bad decisions, teenage style. Also, he's found out he's a witch. Compound that with the mysterious repeat killer who's targeted him and his few, but loyal friends. It's all in Tex, the Witch Boy, the first in a series of books.

Lights Out 2: The Crappening

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the house...

And just like a crappy movie sequel that nobody wanted except for creatively-deficient and greedy Hollywood execs, our electricity went out again. Six days after the first traumatic five day, four night ordeal.

Mercifully, it was a lot less severe than the first go-around, but it was still agonizing. I couldn't believe it. I'd just got accustomed to having, you know, the simple things in life--lights, air conditioning, the ability to cook--and so naïve me, I settled into my comfy electric love-seat again. And outside, the winds picked up. Sirens wailed. Hail from Hell pounded down. Our larger dog jumped up into my lap (nearly rupturing me in the doing), her heart pounding against her chest. And the lights flickered. I moaned. Another flickering. I groaned. A third time, I'm getting angry. And on the fourth?

Ka-Blam! Crackle, snap, pop, baby, transformers blew all in a row like a string of firecrackers. Lights out! Again.

This time, I'm screaming and cursing at the top of my lungs. I'm pretty sure I heard a collective wail of agony and torment from around the neighborhood, as well. And there I was, stuck in the electric recliner again like a never-learning goofball.

But since our first outage, I'd developed a network of street-long neighbors who kept each other appraised of the situation. Seeing as how there wasn't anything else to do, I took to my phone and it started dinging away with panicked texts from our newly-formed neighborhood alliance.

To all of us, it just seemed cruel that the mad gods of climate change had decided to hit us again after not even a week-long respite.

I knew where to go on my phone to check out the damage and to see if we'd get a quicker response this time. Apparently, whatever the problem was, it showed that if affected about 100 of my neighbors, so I assured my network of pals that we'd get higher priority this time. My best informant (the last of the hold-outs to stay home from the last storm) took to her car to cruise the neighborhood and scope out the problem. An entire power-line at the end of two blocks had completely fallen down, blocking off the street.

So my initial assessment was correct: it's a major problem that would get immediate attention. However, it was also a huge-ass problem that would take time. And I wasn't reassured by the power energy company's on-line, rote complaint about "we're doing the best we can, bla, bla, bla, but it's raining outside, you suckers may have to wait a a couple days, bla, bla, bla, company line and read between the lines: you're gonna get hit with hella price increases next year due to these storms."

But as I said, this time things didn't seem as severe. It helped immensely having my wife home with me during this outing. Just several hours earlier, she had just got back from helping her mom out with projects for a week and was definitely happy to be home. You know...relaxing in a nice, cool, electricity-filled home.

But as the ubiquitous "they" say: misery loves company. (Seeing as how she'd missed the entire first storm, I was more than happy to share my misery pain and suffering and First World Problems I'd endured.)

While still stuck in my mandated reclining pose, she came downstairs to join me, flashlights lighting the way. We sat in the darkness for a while, just chatting. Finally, she said, "Well, I'm going to bed." Me? I wasn't ready to go to bed at 9:00 on a weekend, so I sat in the dark with my phone, investigating, complaining, trying vainly to get a human's response to no avail.

When I finally stumbled up to bed, I was hot, sweating, miserable. Until at 2:00 A.M., whizzzzzzz...the lights came back on! The air conditioning window unit kicked on! Huzzah! Hooray for the power company!

Then again, it's getting kinda ridiculous. Every time our power blows out (and it does so a lot in our heavily wooded area), we suffer as do the power and light workers who trudge out into the storm to fix things. But they keep applying Band-Aids to the problem, instead of fixing the deeper issue: why not bury the damn lines like everybody out in newer suburbia has had done?

Okay, I had to gripe! I hope--nay, I pray--next week at this time, you won't be reading about a third power outage. I write this as thunder is booming outside and the rain is crying down.

Sigh...

Speaking of traumatic times, every time I think I've got problems, I consider poor Shawn Biltmore. Shawn's a corporate drudge on the lowest rung of low ladders at a heartless, soulless corporation. He also hates his job, has women problems, and has just been bitten by a werewolf. Hijinx ensue in my bloody, darkly comical, horror mystery, Corporate Wolf. Check it out here before the next full moon!

The Night That the Lights Went Out in Kansas

Last week, tragedy struck. The electricity went out in my house for five days. Now, before you say, "Stuart, that hardly constitutes a tragedy," you'd best hear me out. Note that I didn't say five minutes, nor a piddly five hours. We're talking five DAYS. That's five days and four nights of sitting in the dark and sweating in the insufferable heat with absolutely NOTHING to do. That fully constitutes a tragedy in my book and I don't want to hear from any nay-sayers either!

It was a silent, but deadly storm (kinda like a fart) and it didn't last all that long, maybe 45 minutes tops. But the damage was incredible. And I slept through it all. I didn't mean to, mind you. But I was relaxed all the way back in my electric recliner with the dogs cowering on the floor below me and I nodded off. What awoke me was a series of transformers in the back yard cracking and popping like the Fourth of July.

And here's where the REAL tragedy hit. I was stuck in my recliner. All the way back, I couldn't scoot out to the footrest for fear that my weight might break it. Mercifully, my phone was next to me so I texted my wife with the tragic news. (Sidebar: While I was suffering the utmost in indignity and tragedy, my wife was gallivanting across the country with her mother, just having a merry ol' carefree time. The nerve!).

I wrote, "The power just went out and I'm stuck in our electric recliner with no way out!"

In return, I got no sympathy. Just much, much laughter and they shared my terrible predicament on our family group text thread. STILL no sympathy.

Finally, I put on my contortion pants and managed to roll sideways out of the recliner onto the other half of the love seat while my dogs watched this all in horrified bemusement, thinking "crazy-ass human."

Okay! Out of the loveseat! Now what? My phone was getting low on its battery, so I thought I'd call everybody I knew. But I couldn't get a clear message out and my texts weren't sending. However, I was able to get through to the electricity robot to report our outage, so that wasted a couple minutes. Finally, my neighbors got a text through to me and asked if I wanted to join them on a little neighborhood walk to survey the damage. I jumped at the chance, having not had human contact in over a week.

Except I couldn't get out of the house. A huge bunch of branches blocked my exit, barricading the stoop and stairs. With the help of my neighbor, we managed to move them and I tasted freedom! 

The damage was intense throughout the 'hood. Trees were downed everywhere. My deck furniture had all overturned, the table hurled out into the yard, the top having spun off like a Frisbee. There were more tree limbs covering yards than grass. Houses were damaged by fallen trees, windows had imploded (not sure how), and people were out in their yards taking in the catastrophe in stunned disbelief. It looked like a war-torn, devastated bomb-site.

Not really wanting to go sit by myself in the dark, I asked the neighbors to join me for a margarita on my deck. Hallelujah, they accepted.

You know, the first night was kinda fun in a strange way. There I was kicking it old school, like the pioneers of yesteryear, hanging out and reading by candlelight. Cool! I was somewhat giddy because I knew--absolutely KNEW--that the power would be restored sometime in the night and all would soon go back to being cool and comfy and kosher again.

So much for naïve optimism. After my neighbors left, I managed to bypass the electric company robot and got a person on the phone. She said, "Hmmm, let's see... Yes, there's been an outage reported in your area. Annnnnnddddd....okay, it looks like they had it set to be fixed by 5:30. Considering it's 9:00, that didn't happen. You're not alone, sir. There are 200,000 houses without electricity."

"200,000 houses! Um...then it's going to be a minute, isn't it?"

"Yes sir."

My heart sank along with any hopes of this being a temporary, minor electricity-free set-back. And with my phone dying, there was absolutely NOTHING to do. Potato chips were the only thing I could find in the dark to eat, not the most well-balanced meal in the world. And I know my wife has a battalion of flashlights strategically placed around the house for such an emergency, but I couldn't find a single one. Not in the dark, not with my phone on its last legs.

Remember what I said about being giddy, enjoying the ol' pioneer days as our ancestors had? By day two, I was kinda grumbly and mumbly, getting kinda pissy, sweating and bored and desperately needing some kind of human interaction and distraction.

By day three, I was like "SCREW Davey Crockett and those other pioneer guys! They never even knew the comforts--no...the NECESSITY--of air conditioning and electric lights so they were perfectly content to sit around campfires in their stupid coon-skin caps, doing absolutely NOTHING! DICKS! They probably didn't even READ!"

Thankfully, my daughter felt bad and came down the next day and took me to dinner before sending me back inside to the infernal house of doom and gloom, to sit in the dark and drink beer because there was nothing else to do.

Talk about tragic.

The next day, hey, whaddaya know? Another thunderstorm! Huzzah! Thus making it even too dark to read. In the meantime, I took to running my car in the driveway to charge up my phone. But after calling and/or texting everyone, I resorted to gaming. Which immediately sapped my battery again.

Our upstairs bedroom was absolutely sweltering, so I moved downstairs to the guest bedroom. But one of my dogs wouldn't come down, his whole existence being thrown into total disarray. So, in the dark, I stumbled up there, picked him up (his paws swimming at the air and fighting me) and carried him downstairs. Managed to do it without breaking a limb, too, a minor miracle.

And I was in for a horrible sweaty night. 

The kicker of it is while our entire block was out of electricity, all of the neighbors across the street never lost their power. Another of my fellow suffering neighbors said that after this was all over, we should have a party and not invite the people across the street. I agreed. We didn't want those stupid-head, electricity-enjoying jerks at our party, no way. Not after lording it over us lowly electricity-deficient people across the street. JERKS.

Meanwhile (when my phone had a full charge), I mercilessly stalked the power company's website map, taking note of when (if?) they'd ever assign a team to our problem. Sometimes we'd come close, with a team being assigned, only to have it go back to "waiting to be assigned." Over and over and over...

It turned out that there was a MAJOR problem with our block. Behind us and down about three houses, a colossal tree had toppled and completely broke off an electric pole. (A neighbor told me, 'Too bad the tree didn't fall the other way and take out the "Vets For Trump' sign.") So, the company took a look at that, shook their heads, and said, "Nope! We're not gonna waste four trucks and sixteen hours on a measly 60 houses being without power, when we can go for the larger outages in less time, and suck up all the heroic glory!" We had become marginalized because there weren't enough homes without power in our 'hood. We were near last in line.

The icing on the cake? The guy whose tree toppled the electric pole? He wasn't worried, because he had a ginormous, loud-ass generator! I felt like pounding on his door and yelling "let me in! I wanna stream some Netflix, dammit! Jerk-face! Hope you're enjoying your air conditioning!"

But hope springs eternal! My wife was finally--FINALLY--due back on the third day! HURRAH! Someone to share in my suffering and listen to my complaining and empathize with my endless pain!

The minute she stepped into the hot box, she said, "Uh-uh. Not doing it. Pack up! I found a dog-friendly hotel."

At long last (thanks to my friend, Yvonne, one of the last hold-outs on our street and my eyes on the ground), power was restored! HooRAH! And booooooooooo to the thousand dollars worth of food we had to toss out.

See what I mean by "tragedy?"

I swan (and you guys KNOW I hate "swanning") if any idiot climate change deniers starts spouting off their crap to me about how it's all bunk, I think a well-placed punch to their neck is a totally acceptable response. Then I'll lock them up in a hot box for four nights and five days.

Speaking of morons, they don't come any dumber than the protagonist of my comical murder mystery Zach and Zora series. You see, Zach (a male stripper, but call him a "male entertainment dancer"),  a dunderhead's dunderhead, just can't help but continue to find dead bodies of which he's usually implicated for the murder. Thankfully, his sharp (but much aggravated and usually pregnant) sister, Zora, is an accomplished sleuth who digs him out of more jams than a butter knife. Read the books that nobody's talking about and absolutely no one is clamoring for a fourth in the series (but it's coming one day, anyway), and start with the first, .

The King of Bathroom Reading

The reigning king of capitalism, Amazon, believes they have my number. They feel they know me very well. To my shock, horror and amusement, they sent me an email that read "Based on your recent viewing activity, we think you'd like the following books:

Learn a Lot While You Sit On the Pot and The Ultimate Toilet Activity Book and The Ultimate Bathroom Reader and, of course, everybody's favorite classic, Everybody Poops 410 Pounds a Year."  What's that now? WHAAAAAT? Where the hell did they get THIS???

To which I replied via email,  "Dear Mr. or Mrs. Amazon, Unrelenting King and Queens of Commerce:
It was with great curiosity that I read your recent recommendations for my reading pleasure. But...you don't know me. You think you may know me, but you don't. Why in the world do you think I'm so anal (tee hee). It appears that you believe my reading interests consist only of books about poop and sitting on the toilet. As far as I know, I've never read--or even looked at--books about the fine and fun art of pottying. I believe pooping to be a natural act that one can't seek guidance for from a Dick and Jane instruction manual. Perhaps you'd better have a chat with your algorithm department and see if the monkeys have gone rogue again.
Furthermore, it's more than a little scary that your fine company (that is intent on taking over the world) is spying on me (yet getting it wrong, mind you.). I've a good mind to contact congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and report you. After all, she knows about the intrusive and spying nature of her television set so I'm pretty sure I can get her to float a bill against your spying habits.
Finally, is anyone exempt from your insidious spying practices? Do you send (ex) President Trump notifications about his bathroom reading, suggesting titles such as How To Commit Espionage in Ten Easy Steps or Potty Reader For the POTUS or Classified Documents For Toilet Perusing? 
I think not!
So, kindly refrain from spying on me in the future (especially if you continue to get it wrong)! I expect immediate satisfaction. In other words, lady and/or gentleman, crap or get off the pot.
Love,
Stuart West"
Overall, I think it was a pretty forceful missive which I fully expect will have the Evil Amazon Executives shaking in their designer boots and they'll have no recourse but to shower me with fabulous settlement money! (Except...I probably should've left off that last remark about "crap or get off the pot." Um...maybe their algorithm department isn't so off the mark, after all!)
While we're kicking around juvenile humor, why not check out Bad Day in a Banana Hammock and its sequels? Guaranteed the only comical mystery series EVER that features a dunder-headed male stripper and his (nearly always) pregnant and exasperated sleuthing sister. For fine bathroom reading, look no further than HERE!

Hey, kids! Have you tried delicious mealworms? YUM!

In keeping with my rather dangerous (and at times unsavory), impulsive habit of eating before thinking, I picked up a chow mein noodle off the kitchen counter, ready to pop it into my mouth for a quick and easy snack. For once, however, my inner censor didn't malfunction and imprinted doubt in my mind.

"Hold on a second there, buster," it said (strangely in a 40's Bowery Boys Bronx accent),  "remember the other day when you picked up a chocolate chip off the counter?"

"Oh, yeah," I said out loud, chow mein noodle held firmly between my thumb and forefinger, while the dogs looked on questioningly, particularly since they couldn't see who I was talking to. "It turned out it wasn't a chocolate chip at all!"

"And," my inner censor pestered, "what happened next, wise guy?"

"Um...I discovered too late it was a dog food kernel. Yuck!"

"Well, well...don't you think that means maybe you oughta reconsoider that noodle?"

I stared at the crisp noodle. Sooo enticing. Sooo begging for me to eat it. Then I said, "hey, why would my wife be using chow mein noodles in a recipe? We typically never eat fried foods."

So close, yet so far, I lowered the crisp, delicious nugget from my mouth. My gaze wandered the kitchen.  

Messy countertops? Check. Container of dozens of dog pills, treats, doo-dads, gizmos? Check. Cans that neither my wife or I wanted to run down to the basement yet? Check. Bag of mealworms? Che--

Mealworms?

Hold on a minute... Mealworms? What the hell are mealworms?

I picked up the bag and had a look. Turned it over and over. A new kinda healthy cereal? No, it didn't have that kinda Kapow packaging. A healthy taste treat? Maybe, but why put the word "worm" into the title unless...unless...

Unless...

"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" 

Quickly--and quite dramatically--I hurled the offending mealworm toward the wall, hoping for a theatrical impact. Instead it just sort of fluttered to the floor, where to my horror, one of our dogs ate it.

When my wife got home, she had some 'splaining to do.

"What do you think they are?" she said. "Duh."

Well, that didn't really explain what they were, so I ventured online. (Now, some of you may be wondering why I didn't know what a "mealworm" was. It's quite simple: A} In my youth, I must've missed mealworm day at school; and B} I find worms to be of the most grotesque creatures on earth, hence why I don't go fishing and doubly-hence why I'm not all over the internet discovering the joys of wormdom. To quote my wife: "Duh.") But...being the intrepid reporter that I am--the things I do for you guys--I dug up what I could on "mealworms." (Yes, pun intended!)

Mealworms are the larval form of the yellow mealworm beatle, Tenebrio molitor , a species of darkling beetle. Which by no means makes them any less gross. Get this: the males emit a specific type of sexual pheromone. However, since there is so much inbreeding, the pheromone is diminished in the inbreeding hillbilly worms, and the females seek out the "outbred" ones. Good choice, ladies.

And hey! Mealworms are just adored by scientists and biologists because they're so honking big. Which in my book just makes them even squickier.

Here's where it gets really bad: people have been eating mealworms for centuries since they're purportedly high in protein. Some Asian countries sell them as street food. Why, you can even order up an insect burger with a high mealworm content! Yum. They can be processed into food products such as flour, which means that we've more than likely eaten mealworms in our lifetime. Finally, the European Union has approved them for human consumption. Thanks, guys!

"Wait," I said to my wife, "we're not gonna eat these, right? RIGHT?"

"Don't be stupid, dear," she said. "They're for the birds."

"Oooooooooooohhhhhhh," I replied. "But, then...why are they all over the kitchen?"

And from that point on, everywhere I looked, I found bags of mealworms. It rained mealworms. Like some sort of crazed Salvador Dali fever dream, I saw bags of mealworms on the kitchen counter, on top of the refrigerator, in the pantry. When I opened a cabinet, a bag fell down at my feet. Seeking solace in the garage, I found an industrial sized bag of mealworms. I had a nightmare where mealworms were re-hydrating and coming after me for revenge after I slurped down a massive bowl of them.

I think the European Union is trying to tell me something. Feeling kinda peckish now.

While I'm ranting about squirmy, gross creatures, you might find quite a few in my short story collection, Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley. Why, off the top of my head, I can think of giant spiders, a couple of Bigfoot ("Bigfeet?" "Bigfoots?"), sentient yet malevolent plants from elsewhere, monstrous trick 'r treaters, underground mutated murderous monsters, and more creatures, ghosts, and spooks than you shake a jack-o-lantern at. Ask for it by name, read it at night, and check under the bed. That's Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley by Whammo!

Whaddaya talkin' about, Whatabouters?

Between what passes for politicians these days and the media, my vocabulary is expanding daily. Let's see...we've got stagflation (the cost of stag films these days), polycrisis and permacrisis (I believe the first deals with plastic and the second is the fall-out from a bad perm job), gender food gap (everyone knows men eat more than women), tarmac-to-arm (it's gotta mean keep your arms off the tarmac or face the consequences. I guess.), and distorted to suit both political parties' oh-so-needy needs. I particularly enjoy the "war on woke." Which is just nonsense in both the figurative and literal sense.

Now we have the "whatabouters." Yep, the ex orange-in-chief is at the center of this stupid new term. What are whatabouters? I'm glad you asked! Whatabouters are Trump's allies who defend his acts of stealing classified documents by deflecting from the true issues at heart. Their defense lies in "Whatabout Hillary and her emails?" or "Whatabout Biden and HIS stolen documents?"

Furthermore, the whatabouters scream and cry that our Department of Justice is hypocritical, a two-tiered base of justice. Well. If that's the case, the whatabouters are careening down that slippery highway of hypocrisy themselves. They refuse to acknowledge that tRump is actually guilty of taking classified documents, lying about having them, instructing his lackeys to hide them, and then is moronic enough to admit to having classified documents that he acknowledges he shouldn't have in the first place WHILE BEING RECORDED!

So...whatabout Hillary and her emails? She was dumb and technologically inept, I'll grant you that. But she was cleared of doing anything dubious. Whatabout Biden and his documents? Whoops. He didn't even remember having them (could be a little senility at play), but as soon as he found out about them, willingly turned them over. A far cry from stashing them in a luxury bathroom after being instructed to turn the classified documents over.

Which brings me to the most important point of this post: Have you guys SEEN Trump's bathroom? Gah! It's grotesque. I mean, not grotesque in my recurring nightmare of having to walk barefoot in one of the most disgusting bathrooms ever sense of grotesque. No, the design of Donny's bathroom is grotesque. Like the man himself, the bathroom's fugly, disturbing, gawdy, flamboyant, and uncomfortable. It looks like a toilet-filled shrine to the White House. Who was his interior decorator? Lindsey Graham??? I highly doubt I'd be at ease enough beneath a chandelier to conduct my daily constitutional. And just what does Donald do with those classified documents that are easily reachable within toilet distance? AIEEEEEEEEEE! MY EYES! Some things you just can't unsee.

Anyway... Royal bathrooms aside, I don't want to hear any more about these "whatabouters" until they acknowledge the truth. This is getting ridiculous. Having to deal with election and Covid deniers was bad enough. And how about our so-called "lawmakers" actually do something worthwhile with their time like passing merit-worthy laws instead of Marjorie Taylor Greene shouting that her TV is spying on her? The state of American politics these days is absurd.

But not as absurd as the adventures of Zach (a meat-headed "male entertainment dancer") and Zora (his exasperated, usually pregnant sleuth sister) as they skirt the screwier alleyways of murder, mystery, mayhem, and male strippers! Find out what's got (not) everybody talking about in the first book of the series, Bad Day in a Banana Hammock!

Enjoy the Magic of the Movies!

I love the B&B Theaters, a humble little Midwest chain of multiplexes, I really do. There's a lot to love, starting with the recliners that make it feel just like home! And the theaters are usually so empty you can scratch yourself just like at home, too! But, man, the B&B's are beginning to annoy me.

Take "Enjoy the Magic of the Movies," their catch phrase. A little bit goes a long way. Every employee says it and they try and say it with a straight face, too. 

Of course they never say it with any conviction either; it's always just kinda mumbled, under their breath as if they were sorely embarrassed by having to spout it and why shouldn't they be? I defy anyone to try and say "enjoy the magic of the movies" without doing a spit-take! Go on...say it in front of a mirror. I'll wait. See what I mean?

Every time these poor humiliated, minimum wage earners are clearly forced to utter this inane declaration (B&B Theater Employee Handbook, Rule 1.7, Subsection 17), I'm absolutely certain they question their life decisions in how they ended up here and wonder if it's not too late for college. Or the military.

I do remember one fresh-faced kid who actually tried to spout it like an overly-caffeinated Doug Henning. If memory serves me correctly, he even added a little magical hand flourish.

"Enjoy the MAAAAAAGIC of the movies!" Hand up, grinning ear to ear, he awaited my response.

So blown away by his strange, yet oddly endearing enthusiasm, after hearing it repeated on auto-pilot by so many other prior employees, I was at a loss for words. Finally, I mustered, "Thanks, um, you too."

I never saw this "magical boy" again. I imagine I caught him on his first day. Before desperation had set in and he quit, opting to go over to the competition where they didn't demand you spout such nonsense.

Now, keep in mind, just like every other retail outlet these days, the B&B theaters are woefully underemployed. There are no longer people working the ticket registers. Instead, you go directly to the concessions stand where four teens await to spread magic all over you. So that's one less time you'll have to hear "Enjoy the Magic of the Movies." That's something, at least.

But this underemployment is getting out of hand. It's to the point where you pretty much self-serve yourself the concessions. And when you're shelling out twenty bucks for a drink and popcorn, wouldn't a little service be nice? Nope. They hand you a cup and an unsalted, unbuttered bag of popcorn and point you toward the row of machines, which is a bonus layer of Hell.

Let's start with the "butter" machines (or that strange deep-urine yellow-colored thick oily substance that passes for butter). Out of eight butter machines, only two work. It's been that way forever. A couple of the non-functioning ones have been battered because some brute didn't get his quasi-butter. I would think they'd get some guy out to fix these butter machines. But apparently the Fake Butter Machinery Union guys are on strike. Not much magic there!

Then you need a road-map to operate the soda machines. There are about a thousand options (and this is an improvement over the old days when the only sugar-free option was Pepsi), but most of them taste like sickly sweet colored water. I tried a sugar-free grape option (gross!), a sugar-free cherry limeade option (even grosser!), and finally landed on a "Sprite Lymonade (which tasted like seltzer water, but at least it wasn't grotesque)." But getting there proved to be the real up-hill battle. 

The theater uses touch screen machines that're pretty stressful. The machine does not want to give you any time to make your decision because it's a big stupid-face bullying machine. There are unnecessary menus within menus and I felt lost in the labyrinth of sub-menus, with no way out. When I waffled, the screen bullied me into making an under-duress decision and snidely claimed, "I'm sorry, but your time is about up." Then it had to gall to show a ten second countdown timer. Like it was going to blow up if I didn't make a decision. In full-on panic mode, I caved in to machinery terrorism and landed on the Sprite Lymonade button, a choice I regretted later.

To make matters worse, before the movie started, the B&Ber's had the gall to taunt me with an advertisement about a man enjoying his time at one of the soda machines. With an expression of out-of-control ecstasy, he started hitting all sorts of buttons, proclaiming things like "Fresh," "Fun," and "Exciting!" He sped this up, deliriously happy, rocking it like a pinball machine, while animated stars and firecrackers and bunnies and crap exploded all around him. Then...wait for it..."Enjoy the Magic of the Movies!"

Well. That wasn't MY experience with the machine. I never remember seeing the "Orgasm" button, for instance.

But there was a bit of magic to be had during the film (a fairly routine horror film). During one the of the movie's nighttime "scary" moments, the screen went completely dark with the audio still rolling. My friend and I sat in the dark waiting for something to light up the screen. I said, "Um, I don't think it's supposed to be this way." My doubting buddy kept on, until he finally acquiesced. (Naturally, theaters in their never-ending quest for cost-cutting rendered projectionists obsolete years ago).

Or was it a truly innovative tour de force of movie-making ingenuity leaving the viewer to imagine unseen horrors for a ten minute stretch?

Either way, I call it...MAGIC!

While I have magic on the brain, there's a ton of it lurking around the more frightening perimeters in my book, Peculiar County. The tale of a Midwestern mortician's daughter and her dalliances with ghosts, a murderer, witches, and something creepy that takes flight in the night, it's as close as I'll ever come to writing "magical realism." (At least I think so...it's been quite a few years since I studied literature, so maybe I'm just full of it.) Be that as it may, feel free to visit haunting Peculiar County right about here!

Xanax Anyone?

So my wife and I were at an estate sale (side-bar: going to these is one of my wife's new hobbies; I don't enjoy trawling through dead peoples' things, but I think my purpose at these deals is to provide muscle when needed). 

We're upstairs in this house, perusing the "rare" back issues of Entertainment Weekly (c'mon, these aren't rare!), when an older guy suddenly blurts out, "Hey, anyone got a Xanax? No? How about a Valium? Klonopin, then? Adderol?"

My wife and I shoot each other a look, then mutter, "Ah, sorry, we're...um...out of those right now." Another shocked couple in the room pretty much share the same reaction.

The drug-seeking estate crawler follows up with, "No? Dayum, I got a killer headache! Wow!"

Okay, there's a lot to unpack here. First of all, whatever happened to aspirin? Isn't that still the number one go-to headache reliever? Wouldn't random strangers at an estate sale be more likely to have some aspirin on them, rather than an anxiety tranquilizer?

I dunno. Maybe I missed something. Is this line of anxiety relief drugs so over-prescribed now that they're becoming so commonplace, that it's okay to ask random strangers at an estate sale if they're packing? And is the assumption that everyone is now taking these medications (maybe so; I mean, if everyone was truly Kung Fu fighting, I suppose everyone could be popping Xanax as well.)?

Secondly, I'm pretty sure tossing a stranger a Xanax is--if not illegal--highly frowned upon. Hang on (sometimes I forget there's something out there called the "internet."). Okay, I'm back. Yep, says so right here: because Xanax is a controlled substance, the illicit distribution of it is a crime.

Yow! Either we'd stumbled into a very sneaky undercover sting targeting random Xanax-slinging strangers at estate sales, or this guy was prowling estate sale to estate sale in search of a fix. (I wonder how much luck he had with this chosen venue.) Yep, those are the only two possible choices.

You know, usually when I go to estate sales, it's in search of cool, kitschy 50's or 60's Americana or maybe even a ginormous Hawaiian shirt. I wouldn't think estate sales would be a good place to score a tranquilizer, but I could be wrong. It's happened once before.

But the next time a rando at an estate sale hits you up for a Xanax, tell him, "No! I don't illicitly carry and distribute controlled substances because I'm not licensed to do so!"

It just might keep you out of jail.

Speaking of random strangers, a bunch of them (all with dark secrets, some worse than others) convene at a Midwest Bed and Breakfast during one of the worst winter storms in recent history. Of course I'm talking about Dread and Breakfast, where checking in is a breeze, but checking out just might kill ya! Schedule that getaway right here.