Stuart R. West's Blog, page 21

Making an Honest Woman

Since when were all women considered dishonest? Sure you got your Bonnie Parkers, Martha Stewarts, and Marjorie Taylor Greenes, but that's hardly a blight on all of womenhood, right?

The other day I was watching some lousy, dull, supposed romantic comedy starring James Garner and Natalie Wood. (It was so awful, I'm intentionally not mentioning the name of the movie so YOU don't have to watch it.) Near the end, tall, hunky James Garner pretty much demands that he's going to marry Ms. Wood because "I'm going to make an honest woman out of you." He says it again a minute later.

Yow!

What does this imply? That all women are born dishonest (kinda like we're all born innocent until we sin) and women's only salvation is to have some big, dumb caveman swoop in, clobber them with their clubs, and drag them to the altar? Praise be to all big, dumb men for saving women!

Sigh. 

You know, I'd heard this stoopid saying many times before when I was just a wee tot (probably from my grandma or mom), and just stored it away as another silly nonsense saying that had no business in the "real world." But it all came rushing back to me with this dumb movie.

Wow. How insulting. First of all, some of the strongest people I know are women (I'm looking at you, wife). Second, this ridiculous saying treats women as nothing but problems to be fixed by men (the forerunner of mansplaining? And we men just LOVE to fix problems for the helpless ladies, who for years we have envisioned as lil' Mary Tyler Moore crying in the kitchen over burned biscuits, so it'd be up to us men to swoop in, patronizingly tell them they were being silly, chuckle at their helplessness, and show them how to scrape off the burned sections. Ta-DAAAAA! You're welcome!). Third, why are women dishonest and not men? Particularly when it's been proven that men are liable to be more crook-worthy. I point you no further than to politicians.

As your man in the field, I chose to look into this sexist, dumb saying. In fact, I'll mansplain it very simply for my female readers. (Ducks and covers.)

First up, let's take a look at what old, wise Ms. Merriam Webster had to say. The definition is "to marry a woman (especially a woman one has had sex with)." Horrors! Living in sin! And it's entirely the woman's fault, natch, wink, nudge. There's that classic double-standard that's still prevalent today; a man who sleeps around with a lot of woman is admired by his fellows, while women who do the same thing are denigrated. Been that away since I was a teen. Hey, I don't make the rules, I just report them.

Another website claims the saying has been kicking around since the 1600s. Henry Fielding used it in his popular comic novel, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, back in 1749. Others claim the saying originated in the 1950s, that last bastion of human decency (or so the ol' folks think) where premarital sex was as abnormal as women in pants. I daresay the Bible may have had something to do with it...you know, with Eve, the temptress, leading Adam astray with her apple of evil seduction. Things don't get much more dishonest than that, right?

On the flip side, there is the phrase, "I'm going to make an honest man out of you." But, alas, it basically has the same meaning: the woman has led the decent man astray with her temptations and the only way out is to force him into marrying, thus making him "honest" again.

Women just can't win without men. Or so men think. 

Speaking of really dumb men, my corporate satire/horror/mystery novel, Corporate Wolf, is just chalk full of them. Give it a read, ladies and see if you can't recognize some of them. I'll wait right here until you're done reading.  Hello? Anyone still out there? HeLLOOOOO?

The Fatal Sting

Some years back, I used to take my daughter down to see her grandmother in Florida for a week during the rough Kansas Winters. Our vacation. My mom, being a "snowbird" and all, offered us a place to stay in her apartment, so hey, cheap vacation. Sure, I had to sleep on a leaky air mattress, but it was free board. (Just tell that to my back).

Anyway, one fateful trip, while my mom and daughter were hanging out, the weather had grown warm enough for me to venture into the ocean. I dipped my toe in the water. Kinda cold, but I wasn't going to let that deter me. After all, it gave me bragging rights back home for swimming in Winter.

However...and this is a HUGE however...I had been made painfully aware that Daytona Beach had a jellyfish problem that year.

"Be careful in the ocean, Stuart," my mom had warned me. "The jellyfish are bad this year."

"Jellyfish? Ha!" I scoffed. "What's the chances of one getting me? C'mon! I mean, yeah, they're gross with their translucent umbrella heads and hanging tendrils and itty bitty brains that you can see and all, but how could a mass of jello hurt a man?"

"No," said Mom, "their bite can kill you. I'm just saying..." And she did say it, all the while shaking her head in that manner she had.

But she was just being Mom, no problem for me. Stupid, stupid, way stupid me.

But it was a gorgeous day! Surf's up! Cowabunga! Where the hell's Moon Doggy and Frankie and Annette?

I went running down the beach like an out-of-control, out-of-shape maniac while kids and teens spread in my insane wake. 

Splash!

Ahhhh. Hmm, I thought, damn cold now that I think of it. But I lingered on, a man on a mission.

Suddenly, I felt this sharp sting on my ankle. Holy crap! I looked around and saw something swimming away, but couldn't make out what it was in the water. But I knew, oh yes I KNEW, it was a jellyfish.

First I was in shock. Then the pain started spreading, the poisonous venom traveling through the highway of my body. I trudged out of the ocean, ready to drop dead at any instant. 

Apparently I'd been in the water longer than I thought as the beach had cleared out. All but one boy building a sand castle.

"Hi," I said, trying not to act like stranger danger. "What happens when you get stung by a jellyfish?" I asked this as calmly as I could, thinking it was a perfectly fine question for a grown man to ask a young boy on the beach.

After finishing building his latest parapet, the kid calmly said, "You die." And not once did he take his eyes off his sand project, the little son of Satan with his cold, dead voice! Couldn't he see I only had minutes to live?

Then like an inspirational bolt of lightning, I remembered something. Somewhere I had read that if you're stung by a jellyfish, get someone to pee on the wound.

I was caught in a real dilemma. On the one hand I was near death, nailed by a stupid jellyfish with its stinging cells it uses to fight off predators. On the other hand, I might appear as a predator, asking a young boy to pee on my leg.

Decisions.

Death won out. I thought of what my daughter would think if I got busted for lewd behavior or worse. Better to face an agonizing death by jellyfish then wind up the most unpopular guy in prison.

I stumbled up the beach, made it across the highway, and back to my mom's apartment. The sting had subsided a bit. No longer did I feel its mighty, stupid power coursing through my veins. Sure there was a mad welt on my leg, but I'd take it. After all, I had looked death in the eyes of a jellyfish (wait...they don't have eyes, do they?) and beat it!

But I stayed land-locked the rest of the trip.

While we're on the topic of predators, in my book, Corporate Wolf, there appears to be a werewolf picking off various corporate raiders and go-getters. Some might say "no loss," but hey the fun's in the trip, right? Check it out on Amazon here. I understand it makes a great stocking stuffer (as long as your loved one has damn big feet).

 

 

 

 

A Matter of "Moist"

Pity the poor, little, abused word "moist." For whatever reason, this word has been relegated to being the unloved, misunderstood, red-headed stepchild of the ABC's. Its power is phenomenal as a large number of women have taken to hating the very sound of the word, reducing them to shuddering in revulsion.

Why?

Let's look up the definition. "Slightly wet; damp or humid." Seems pretty innocuous to me, right? Further research leads me down a giant, moist rabbit-hole with one source calling it "possibly the most hated word in the dictionary."

This phenomenon escaped me for a while until several years back when I caught an episode of the amiably goofy sit-com, "How I Met Your Mother," wherein Allyson Hannigan's character confessed to a deep hatred of the word "moist," so naturally Neil Patrick Harris' character repeated the word over and over and over in a one-man, off-off-way-off Broadway show. Funny, but hardly damning evidence. And honestly, I kinda thought this was where the rare phenomenon began and ended: a dumb punch-line in a dumb show.

Until I started meeting women who confessed to despising the word. Someone tell me why!

I know, let's consult a very knowledgeable source, "the BroBible." They take it a step further and claim that EVERY woman hates the poor lil' word. But I'm kinda hesitant to take anyone who calls themselves "the BroBible" at their word.

So let's move onto a more credible source (barely): Cosmopolitan Magazine. They report that an Oberlin College psychologist, Dr. Paul Thibodeau, conducted a study (the doctor was having a slow year, I suspect) on why the hate for "moist." Interestingly, he discovered that men dislike the word as well. Out of a study of 2,500 people, 18% had issues with the word. Those most likely to be impacted moistly tended to be highly educated females.

Doc Thibodeau and his colleagues threw a bunch of words at the study's participants, some rhyming with "moist," like "hoist." No one had problems with hoist, foist, or anything else that sounded like it, so he came to the conclusion that it's not the sound of the word.

The study also found that the word is generally associated with gross bodily functions. (Now I could give examples, but I don't want you spitting out your morning coffee).

One final hypothesis is people think moist is gross because everyone else does. You know, the lemming effect. Kinda like The Big Lie (wait, how did that slip in here? Sorry, sorry, sorry...). 

Bouncing back to the BroBible for one last tidbit of interest (true or false and not mentioned in the Cosmo article) is they claim Dr. Thibodeau's study found one other factor in that women were disgusted by the word because they'd heard it associated with another foul word, such as a body part or article of clothing. Well... Sounds to me like these women are hanging out with the charmers at the BroBible headquarters, maybe.

It got me thinking about other reviled words (and whether other college studies waste money studying these phenoms).  Oxford Dictionaries and other sources have compiled a handy-dandy list of the nine most hated English words. Topping the list is--wild guess--"moist," the clear winner. The next word is a puzzler: "flap." C'mon, those birds aren't going to fold and unfold their wings! Third is "whatever," which I totally get (even though I use it constantly), as it's extremely dismissive. The following two words must've come from old fuddle-duddies: "dude" and "like." Granted, I've heard some, like,  teenagers who use these words, like, five times in a sentence, dude. Hey, how did "literally" get on the list? Probably because people overuse it? I mean, like, literally! "Flaccid" comes in next, no explanation necessary. "Panties" has the number 8 position. My sister-in-law is both affected by this word and moist. Recently, she said, "they're not panties! They're underwear!" When you come right down to it, it does seem kinda...I dunno, baby-speak. Finally, rounding out the list is "pus." WHAAAAAT? Who doesn't like pus?

There you have it.

As a writer, of course, it's my duty to write as many of these words into a sentence as possible: "Literally in the wind, the moist panties flapped flaccidly on the clothes-line, next to the dude's pus-stained Tee-shirt...like, whatever." Hey, I never said it'd be a good sentence.

Moist is a perfectly fine word. Truly there's no other way to describe good cake. "Man, this cake is damp" just doesn't cut it. And moist has been a word since 1325 A.D. so it has legs (although maybe that's why France invaded England. You know, for their overuse of the word). Don't you all take "moist" away from me!

Have a moist day.

Now that I've got that off my chest, Corporate Wolf is a particularly moist book. I mean that in the best horror novel tradition possible, of course! In this werewolf, darkly comic tale, the blood flows moistly. Check it out here!

The Traveling Insominac

Recently, my brother-in-law suggested I devote my blog to hotel and motel reviews based on my notoriously trouble-prone visits to such fine establishments (you guys remember when a raging redneck woman and her seven foot tall, taco-eating, cowboy boyfriend tried to beat me up at a hotel?). While the idea has a certain bit of merit, I'm not quite all in because of two reasons: 1) I don't want to sleep my way across the country (you know what I mean!); and 2) I pretty much don't sleep in hotels because the crazies and screamers always seek me out. I guess I'm a crazy magnet.

Be that as it may, I've deemed myself "the Traveling Insomniac." Case in point...

Couple weeks ago, my family and I found ourselves hunkered in at The Rodeway Inn in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Now, Broken Bow is near both the Texas and Arkansas borders, so you can pretty much guess what the townsfolk are like (or at least the ones I kept running into at the hotel). Masks were nowhere to be found and accents were so thick, you could cut them with a chainsaw.

Upon entering our hotel room, I plopped down on the bed to test it out. Suddenly, thunder boomed. Or I'd been magically transported to a bowling alley as echos bounced, rumbled, and crashed through the room. Upon further inspection, the box spring appeared to be a metal filing cabinet. All of the rooms had these hollow, metal "box springs." Clearly, the hotel owner got a good deal at an office supply store fire sale.

My wife had business to attend to in town, so she stranded me in the room. Well, I thought, at least I have the TV to keep me company. When I turned it on, polka music blared out of the speaker. A huge, grimacing old guy in a red suit was torturing his squeezebox and grimacing down at a poor woman, sweating all over her like the alien queen drooling onto Sigourney Weaver in Aliens. The credits came up: "Big Joe Polka Show Classics."

When I tried to change the channel with the remote, Big Joe went nowhere. Desperate, I tackled the buttons on the side of the TV. Still nothing but Big Joe polkaing his way into my nightmares. Truly I was in Motel Hell.

When I turned the TV off, some guy started screaming outside, pounding on a nearby door. His continued rant of "Hey! I ain't no peepin' Tom! Hey! Hey! I ain't no peepin' Tom! Hey!" hardly lent him credibility as to his peeping Tomlessness. Regardless, whoever was behind the door felt the same way as he finally left unfulfilled.

There were quite a few suspect fellow motel inhabitants. One old guy decked out in camo kept walking by our open door and peering inside. Maybe he was the "Not No Peepin' Tom" guy. I'll never know and I sure wasn't going to ask.

Later that night, nearing the wee hours, I began to drift off. But it didn't hold, as people started yelling. Worse, there was a small dog yipping above us, little paws click-click-clicking across the uncarpeted floor. Not to be outdone, a large dog started barking next to us. In some colossal inside joke of the Fates, my wife and I had been placed in the "Dog Wing," while the rest of the family had nice, quiet rooms.

After very little sleep, the next morning I dragged my way to the coffeemaker, my only salvation. Yet the tray to hold the coffee was missing. My wife told me to just go next door to the combination casino/convenience store to get some coffee.

"Unacceptable," I shouted. "The hotel already lied about the free breakfast (everything was under construction), so I'm not about to give up on my coffee! It's one of my rights as a hotel-stayer! First Polka Joe, then the not-a-peeping-Tom, then the dogs, then--"

"Yes, dear."

Grousing and grumbling, I stumbled my way to the front desk. Except the back door was locked. Freezing, I walked around the building to the front door. Only no one was there. "Back in a minute" stated a hastily scrawled message on the desk. So I waited. And waited. And waited...

Finally--FINALLY!--a young woman wearing her daisy dukes cut-off shorts (who should've known better) trots in through the previously locked back door. Smiling, she says nothing. For whatever reason, the onus was on me to start the conversation.

"Hi. Um...do you work here?" I had to ask, because daisy dukes hardly seemed like professional hotel attire.

"Yeah." Still grinning at me, she offered nothing else.

"Okay, well, my room doesn't have a coffee tray. Could I bother you to get one?"

"Well, I would, but I'm locked out of there." She hitched a thumb toward the front desk. "There's supposed to be somebody else here."

"Huh." Clearly, Hell was shoving me into round two. None of this made any sense, particularly to my addled brain.

"Somebody should be here soon," she says.

So, again we waited. And waited. And waited...

"I guess someone decided to sleep in this morning," I offered.

"I guess. I'll bet things were pretty rowdy here last night."

"You could say that again," I said (hoping she wouldn't, so I don't know why people use that tired cliche). 

"Last weekend, we had to call the cops, 'cause ever' body got drunk by the pool (which was closed and "under construction") and started just a'wailin' on each other."

"Sorry I missed that," I said. "But I sure didn't miss all the dogs last night."

"Oh, yeah." That one really put a smile on her face.

At long last, some other guy (again in shorts!) shows up and unlocks the front desk door. I explain to him my coffeeless problem. They appeared to be at a loss as to where to find a tray.

"Well, how about I just get a new coffeemaker?" I asked.

At their wits end, they finally tell me that they'll bring a tray to my room. Thirty minutes later, the tray was delivered. Right at the moment when I was finally falling asleep to the dulcet sounds of Big Joe and his polka horrors.

While not quite as nightmarish as my recent motel stay, nightmares do abound in Dread and Breakfast, probably one joint you might want to avoid if you value your life. 

 

The Penis Patch

It's my finger!
 

No, the title doesn't refer to a perverted pumpkin patch. Get yer minds out of the gutter! Rather I'm here to relate a true, traumatic tale of tears and...well, a tear.

Everyone who knows me is familiar with my constantly fluctuating body weight. What can I say; I'm an ever-evolving work in progress. Alas, these days, my pandemic pounds are on the upper end of the scale.

What's the point to all of this when you want to read about the "Penis Patch," I hear you shouting at your computer screens? Patience.

Anyway, my added weight makes it pointless to go drop sixty bucks on a new pair of jeans when I hope to lose the weight again. So, I go shopping at "Savers," a local chain of so-called, higher quality thrift stores.

And when I say "shopping," it's a guy's favored way to "shop:" dash in the store, grab something that looks passable and is close to the desired size, and get the hell out.

That's what I did. 3 minutes, Boom! "New" pair of jeans. Or so I thought.

Of course I hadn't tried them on until we were out of town recently. And after trotting them out in public, getting comfy in them all day, it wasn't until I sat down when I realized something ghastly. There was a denim patch right over where the penis sat.

 Horrors! 

The mere thought I was wearing some guy's hand-me-down jeans and his monster junk burst the jeans wide open was nearly too much to handle. I felt a good need to scrub with a Brillo pad. And now that I'd finally noticed the patch, it was extremely noticeable.

Quietly, I called my wife over. She responds with a laugh, and says, "We need to go get you some new jeans. Now."

I poo-poohed the notion, assured her they'd be fine. After all, we had places to go, people to see, and penis patches to show off.

That's when things got worse. Much worse. Exposingly worse.

The penis patch didn't hold. Soon it ripped open and there I was, flapping in the wind. In public. Now I knew what it felt like to wear crotchless chaps. Mercifully, my two nephews were with us, so I had them run subterfuge and walk in front of me.

Later, at the hotel, I just accepted my loss and pitched the ill-fated jeans into the trash, where I can only imagine the house-cleaning staff's reaction upon discovery.

So, let my tragic tale of tears, a tear, and undesired exposure ring as a warning to every guy out there; there's a reason used jeans cost seven bucks.

While we're on the topic of "tearing," in my short story collection, Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley, there's a Bigfoot tale that's a "ripping" good time, if you get my drift, along with many other fine stories beloved by a couple of my relatives. 

The Ghost in the Toilet

Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary story! Ripped from the channels of reality TV comes the true, sensational story of one man's castle being invaded by supernatural entities from out of this world...(cue Rod Serling)...I bring you the tale of the Haunted Toilet.

Oh, it began benignly enough. One night, while asleep upstairs, I was awakened by a low moaning, a lonely cry in the night not unlike a mournful train's nocturnal lamenting of its lonely stature. My wife can sleep through a tornado, so I slipped out of bed, damn near slipped on the stairwell in the dark, and followed my ears. Kinda like an auditory-based Toucan Sam.

The noise grew louder as I inched down the hallway, resoundingly thunderous as I approached the bathroom. The moan reverberated into my teeth fillings and gave my Spidey Senses a good tingle. The moan then morphed into a hungry monster's growl, a runaway train headed straight outta Hell. Behind the closed bathroom door lurked...whatever. With a trembling hand set upon the door and my other fist pulled back to defend myself, I kneed the door open. Flipped on the light. And...

Nothing. The sound stopped. Cold, dead silence. And the bathroom was empty.

Now, this was disturbing on soooo many levels. First of all, the bathroom is my favorite room in our house. It's my special place where I can go, sit, let it all hang out, and just be me. A quiet place of contemplation, a safe place, an area where I can mentally work out all of the fixes of the world. And as soon as I pull up my big boy britches and leave, like a fading dream, all thoughts slip away and return to the reality of here and now. It's my Man-Cave.

So the idea of something intruding upon my Fortress of Solitude and Business didn't sit right with me. Felt it deep in my bowels.

That day, the toilet remained quiet.

However, around 3 a.m., just like the night before, the moaning began again. A repeat of the previous night, I raced down the stairs, while the din grew like audible mold. When I crashed open the door, the ghost once again fled.

This routine continued every night. At first, I thought I was going crazy. I didn't really fancy explaining it to my wife. So I took video proof that night. It's around here somewhere...lemme see...here it is! Turn the volume up on your computer so you can bear witness to the aural horrors I've been suffering: 

Exhausted, the next morning I explained our predicament to my wife. "I think we need an exorcist."

She stared at me, the longest slow-burn in history. Finally, she said, "How about a plumber?"

After some thought, I gave her a reasonable reply. "Nah, that won't work."

I was at an impasse with the ghost in the toilet, the lycanthrope of the lavatory, the boogieman of the bathroom, the phantom of the privy, the wiccan of the water-closet, the poltergeist of poo...call it what you want, but I was desperate to get rid of it, so I could get "normal" again. In every way possible.

So, it was time to consult an expert: anime.

Let me explain: anime caters to very niche audiences and tastes, most of them unfathomable to me. There's the requisite under-age school-girl in their outfits fetishes, the rapey tentacle monsters, the over-the-top and grotesque violence, no difference in appearance between children, men, and women, and last but not least, ghosts in the toilets. I don't make the rules, I just report them. There are numerous films and anime series about haunted toilets. The Japanese truly understand the sacred nature of the porcelain throne, one sub-genre I immersed myself in.

But after my immersion, I climbed back out, none the wiser on how to vanquish the ghost in the toilet. (Instead I had a massive headache from the non-stop screaming of ghost toilet anime).

Who or what is haunting our toilet? Furthermore, why? It might be Elvis. Yeah, it's gotta be Elvis. After all, he died on the toilet, therefore his soul is restless. ("Whole lotta movement goin' on.")

I'm at my wit's end. Scared. Snippy. Constipated. And the ghost moans on...

Happy Halloween, boo!

And the ghosts don't stop there. As a matter of fact, there's a veritable parade of ghosts in my historical-fiction, horror thriller, Ghosts of Gannaway. Read it, but fair warning: DO NOT read it on the toilet. Check it out here!

 

A Fond Farewell From the Funny Farm

Recently, I lost my father-in-law. Or, I should say, "we" lost him, because it was a huge loss to everyone who knew Van McQueen.

I truly loved him, as did everyone who ever were lucky enough to become his friend.

I'd met my future wife well over 20 years ago and once things turned serious, dread set in because it became time to meet the...gulp...dreaded future in-laws. 

I'd been down that path before and the results weren't pretty. So when we pulled into the McQueen driveway for the first time, I saw a sign out front that said, "Funny Farm." It didn't exactly signal an easy ride.

I thought, "What fresh hell is this?" I imagined all kinds of insanity, all sorts of dysfunction, cray-cray bleeding off the walls like some outtake from Kubrick's The Shining.

But it was amazing. "Funny Farm" more than lived up to the title in a good way. Laughter was a way of life for this caring and giving family. Sure, the comedy sometimes came up on the short side of vaudeville shtick, but by cracky, this family loved one another, made each other laugh (constantly!), and appeared to actually enjoy one another's company. They weren't just going through the obligatory, familial necessities, griping inwardly until the current holiday of hell was completed. It was refreshing.

Leading the family love and merriment was Van, the patriarch. It astounded me--no, it shocked me--that he and his wonderful wife, Patricia, accepted me, warts and all, into their family. And, damn I have warts, practically a leper. Immediately, I'd become indoctrinated into the Funny Farm as one of them. Bring on the white coats, I shouted!

Surely, I thought, it couldn't have been easy for Van to welcome me into the family. I mean, c'mon, I'm a big, dopey, awkward, bald guy who looks like Uncle Fester on a happy day, not exactly any father's dream of their only daughter's life choice of a partner. But accept me they did. No questions asked.

Later, I found out that was Van's character to everyone who hovered within his orbit. Man, the guy was full of love and sharing and helping out others in need. A trait he passed onto my exceptional wife and her bros.

Likewise, Van and Patricia immediately accepted my daughter into their family as one of theirs as well. (Truth be told, though, I kinda think Van warmed up to my daughter before me. That's okay, I woulda picked her over me, too!) For crying out loud, once Van and Patricia found out my daughter had a penchant for blowing up cars, they fixed one of theirs up and gave it to her. Van's generosity extended to material goods as well as being a gracious, sharing person of spirit. (Aside to my daughter: quit blowing up cars!)

Sure, Van and I went through a couple prickly moments, most of them regarding my use of the toilet in their small house. Toilets were important to both of us, a trait we shared.

Once while taking my afternoon constitutional at the Funny Farm, I overheard Van say (and it's not hard to hear in the small house), "Dammit, every time I need to use the bathroom, he's in there!" Well...it wasn't true, but maybe seemed like it. Hey, I eat like a king when I'm visiting there. Okay, okay, maybe it was true.

Which lead me to wonder (while pondering on the toilet), how in the world did a family of five live together in such a compact house, use a single bathroom, and still not murder one another during all of those years? I mean, my wife went through the hours of long prep of big-hair stage back in the day.

The answer is simple: love and laughter. Van gave and got in equal doses, his wonderful cackle of a laugh shaking the timbers of the house and spreading the mirth like wildfire.

I was so happy that a lot of the family got to have one last hurrah at a friend's cabin last Summer, my first foray into camping. Van found it quite hilarious how I thought what we were doing was camping. He regaled me with tales about how his father and father-in-law took him on a torturous-sounding camping trip where they froze in a tent, snickering that I wouldn't survive a minute. I had no doubt. But it made Van laugh, so I was more than happy to play the punchline. Hey, payback for all the laughs he'd supplied through the years.

The last camping trip.
 

When Van entered the hospital, ailing, he wasn't eating. The nurse asked him if there was anything he'd like. He responded, hand held high, "a large Scotch and water."

At his grave-site, we--I am proud to be considered part of the family--toasted him with a shot of Scotch.

The world is slightly worse with the loss of Van, but I know he lives on, his generous, loving, and hilarious spirit enriching everyone whose path he crossed.

Love you and miss you, Van. Thanks for everything. I vow to use your toilet with the utmost of care.

Cheers.

Let's All Go to the Drive-In...

Since the onset of the Covid slaughter, there have been many things I miss, most of them I took for granted. I suppose I always thought I'd be able to dine out, hang with a pal, and go to the movies on an instant whim. (Dumb, dumb, dumb, sooooo stupidly naive, dumb, dumb...) Yeah, there are temporary patches: take-out, zoom calls, and streaming (boy, have we been streaming a mean streak!), but it's just not the same.

Then on a fine recent evening, my daughter sent me an urgent text: "Dad! Come on down Saturday night and we'll go to the drive-in!"

Blink. Blinkety-blink-blink-blink. Then... Oh, my stars and garters! Fireworks! Jubilation! Twenty-six trombones and...whatever that stupid song is that now I can't get out of my mind!

My daughter had found a truly creative work-around to my movie going withdrawl.There are only a handful of drive-ins left in the country and one of them happens to be in my daughter's small (oh, so very small) town. It's a town where a man's merit is measured by the size of his pick-em-up truck and women are encouraged to be brassy and sassy (just as long as they don't brass and sass their Man). Also, for whatever reason, an independent study I've conducted found that approximately 43% of the female population is named Barbie. Not Barb or Barbara. Barbie. And they're grown women. Don't ask me why.

Anyway, I have fond memories of going to the drive-in when I first started driving. Mainly because it was a cheap night out with even cheaper beer and you got to see 3, count 'em, 3 movies! It was a magical place where you couldn't even see the screen and there were so many distractions that movie-viewing wasn't even the main reason to be there.

So...with great expectations and high hopes, we loaded up the cooler and headed for the Starlight drive-in.

Man. My fond memories must've been based purely on nostalgia.

We came early, wanting to stake out a good spot. The problem was "Jeep-O-Rama" took place earlier in the day on the drive-in lot and most of the "jeepers" decided to stay on. First, we tried the closest spot we found, but my daughter got creeped out having two open jeeps flanking us, rowdy and dumb drunk guys leering down at her on both sides. We kept moving until we settled into a "safe-spot." On one side was a mother and daughter duo that we felt a kinship to and the other was some ol' grizzled fart, just cussin' up a storm in his station wagon. We were home.

We were also right behind the concession stand/bathrooms/projection booth. (Although calling it a "projection booth" doesn't seem quite right as it's all computerized now, instead of having the traditionally hammered sot behind the projector who could never be bothered to keep the film in focus.)

The concession building was painted a stomach-turning nauseous green, a color I haven't seen since the sixties (pre-mod era, natch). Some distracting blonde in a very tiny shirt and shorts that weren't much more than a thong continued to walk to the trash can, carrying a dainty piece of trash each visit. And during each visit, she'd look around to see if anyone was noticing her (and how could you help but NOT notice her). She made at least a dozen trips, when one would've sufficed.

Just like the magic of the drive-in, my daughter's town is a magical place, a fantastical area where Covid doesn't exist. Or so the townsfolk would like to believe. Covid's right up there with snipe hunts, Santy Claus, and honest politicians. No one was masked. Now, that was part of the allure for me of going back to the drive-in: a safe environment. But as my bladder grew fuller, I became more worried as I'd be the only one masking up when I went to the bathroom.

But mask up I did and off I went, stumbling over the rise and falls of graveled bumps, seeking out the bathroom in the dark. Once I reached my destination (the lights were burnt out, so I oscillated between men and womens until a woman finally came out of one door), and with a great deal of trepidation, I entered the Bathroom of Doom.

Now, this REALLY took me back. Even masked up, the overpowering stench nearly floored me. Waste of all three sorts (figure it out) decorated the floor. An army of flies swarmed me, a B-horror movie victim. An open toilet, no stall, and clearly people were more interested in using it as long-distance practice then getting close to it (and I couldn't blame them). And the urinal trough (something I thought went out of style with leisure suits) was an appalling mess. Needless to say, there wasn't any soap or paper towels, so I did my business and got out fast before Big Brutus came in and beat my ass for wearing a mask.

Finding my way back to the car wasn't easy. After the sickeningly yellow light of the bathroom, I came out into darkness, dizzy and disoriented, an uneasy feeling that all of the occupants in the trucks and jeeps facing me were watching me. And they probably were. After stumbling way off course, I finally made it back to our car. Whew.

The first movie ended and rolled immediately into the next flick. Rip-off! Back in the day, part of the fun of the drive-in was the intermission show and previews, but I guess Mr. and Mrs. Starlight wanted to get to bed. We didn't stick around and got the hell out of there.

What were the movies? Didn't matter, nor did I pay much attention as there was too much going on everywhere else. I'm glad to have had the experience, but I don't know that I'll go back again (like eating Rocky Mountain Oysters). I'm thinking my love for the drive-in was purely nostalgic after all.

While on the topic of nostalgia, come on down and visit Peculiar County, a mighty nostalgic tale of growing up in the '60's in a small Kansas town. Albeit with ghosts, murderers, things that fly in the night, witches, and other delights. It's absolutely groovy!

 

Dr. End Of The World

In my never-ending quest to discover the cure to my on-going ITCHY-ASS, ALL-OVER skin problem (about the best medical explanation I've received so far and that was my own scientifically based self-diagnosis), I found myself returning to the charms of my allergist.

I've spoken of this doctor before. Usually, he's very welcoming in a Mr. Rogers sorta way. No, no, no, not the "Hi. Don't worry, I won't kill you" Mr. Rogers, but rather, the Mr. Rogers who invites me into a cozy teaching environment as he painstakingly talks down to me using small words and drawing pictures of what ails me in the most child-like fashion. Sorta like I'd stumbled onto a "kiddy doctor."

Fascinating and rather endearing (if not at all slightly creepy), I almost look forward to our frequent visits. (Emphasis on almost; I'd rather he find a cure to what ails me). Yet he keeps me on my toes and I never know what he's going to pull next. He's making Medical Appointments Great Again (MAGA! Too soon?)!

We'll call him "Dr. Rogers." Can I call him "Dr. Rogers?" I don't care, from now on he's "Dr. Rogers."

On our last visit (and visits they are rather than appointments, because that's just the way Doc Rogers swings), the surprises kept coming.

"So," he suggested while poking me with Popsicle sticks (and I think he might just be pulling one over on me with this method, but whatever), "you should write an end-of-the-world book."

The good doctor has always found it fascinating that I'm a writer, so I humored him. "I already have," I said, referring to Zombie Rapture, my sorta end-of-the-world, pseudo-zombie, satirically religious, darkly comic horror thriller (which is now out of print, because publishers are having a hard time at it these days, but I digress. Dammit.).

Wide-eyed, Doc steps back. "Did everybody die in your book?"

"Um...well, no. But a lot of people do die. There are a few survivors." It's at this point that I begin to realize he may indeed be the scary, serial killer Rogers type as he seems truly excited about mass deaths.

He says, "Well, we're all going to die."

"Yeah, eventually we all die." I shrugged.

"No, I mean, everyone's going to die soon. Whether it's Covid-12 or Covid-74, it's going to wipe everyone out. The end of humanity. Why?" He scoots in closer, now in full professorial, space-intruding mode, then flips out a finger. "Because A) we're more mobile these days. Back in the days of Spanish Flu, we survived because people didn't have the ability to travel everywhere. Now, Covid's spreading everywhere people take it. And B) the political, moral, and social division over the issues of survival."

"Yep, everyone's politicizing this horrid disease, making it their own while everyone's dying. But, with the vaccines--"

"And if Covid doesn't get us, then global warming will."

"That's what scares me," I said.

"It's true. We're all gonna die," he continued. "I heard it on NPR."

"Well...if you heard it on NPR, then it must be true." Couldn't help but get a little snark in, but I think it went over Dr. Doomsday's head as he was on a roll.

Suddenly, Nurse Save-the-Day bursts in.

"He's written an end-of-the-world book." The doc gestured at me. "Now, I'm telling him about my book where everyone dies. It's like that song I was singing the other day, about the end of the world..." He stared off into a dreamy apocalypse, while snapping his fingers hoping to grasp the song that eluded him.

I offered, "'The End of the World As We Know It,' by REM?"

He nods, points at me, and says, "That's it." So he starts singing it. I join in. The nurse rolls her eyes and remains silent. But I didn't want to leave on such a somber note, always leave 'em wanting more!

But as I drove home, I realized how right Dr. End of the World was. But it wasn't really Covid or global warming that was going to get us, but rather people's stupidity and selfishness.

Get your vaccines, people. Mask up. Socially distance. Quit being dumb. Don't make me come over there.

(For God's sake, I went to the doctor for itchy skin and all I got was an end-of-the-world lecture).

Hey, let's jump into the Way-Back machine and visit a time when people weren't as mobile and there wasn't a dreaded plague wiping out the population. I'm talking Ghosts of Gannaway, my historical-fiction, ghost story, mystery, suspense thriller about the small mining town of Gannaway, Kansas where there're some mighty good folks butting heads with some particularly nasty rich folks. Ghosts, too. Lotsa, lotsa ghosts and chills. But no epidemic...wait...almost forgot about the Yellow-Eyed Fever... But don't let that stop you from visiting scenic Gannaway RIGHT HERE.

 

 

Timberrrrrrrr!

After many, many years (centuries!) of debating that great philosophical, navel-gazing question designed specifically to aggravate oh-so-serious grad students and stoners alike, I now have the definitive answer to the age-old quandary, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

The answer is a resounding, plodding, disappointing, and rather anti-climactic "no." (Even if the tree did fall on Schrodinger's cat's box). You're welcome!

Let me explain...

A couple of weeks ago, a lazy Sunday, I was lounging about on the sofa in the rec room watching some dumb, old horror movie (that's just a given), while my wife was watering the tomato plants in the back yard. Comfy suburbia.

Then my wife opens the back door and says, "Stuart, come here. Now."

Grumbling, figuring I'm in for a lecture about something I did (or didn't do), I mosey out back, gloves up and ready to parry. I say, "why can't you just tell me what's wrong and don't go through the...the...uh...HOLY CRAP!"

The neighbor's Maple tree had toppled over and obliterated our fence, a disheartening and rather scary sight of nature run amok. Crazy. It had been a beautiful day, no storms, not even windy. Just...boom.

But it really wasn't "boom." More like a geriatric, toothless cat's "phttt." Only our back deck had separated me from the destruction and I hadn't heard a thing. Even scarier, my wife had been standing thirty feet away, hose in hand, and watched entropy happen.

I asked, "Did it make a loud thud? I didn't hear a thing! Nothing! Did it scare you? Did you scream, I would've screamed, a manly scream, but I would've screamed! Did you want to run like in all the old disaster movies and try and outrace it only to find yourself doomed once you thought you'd cleared it? Did you get an adrenaline spike, first surprise, then shock, then fear, then relief you weren't flattened?"

You see, all of these thoughts did just surge through me and I attributed them to my wife as well. But, unflappable as ever, she said, "No, not really. I just watched it fall. It was kinda cool."

And, apparently, it didn't make a sound outside either. "Just a 'whoosh,'" she said. Although a "cool" whoosh.

Huh. There you go, philosophers. Doesn't matter if anyone's around or not, a falling tree doesn't make a damn sound. (Here, let me just kick that pesky Schrodinger's cat outta the way...)

Anyway, we alerted the neighbors. They, too, were in the house and hadn't heard anything. When they came out, they were quite shocked. 

I said, "Well, hey, at least it left a pretty clean broken stump."

"Oh, yeah," swiped the neighbor, "that's a really good thing."

"C'mon, silver lining and all," I mumbled as I Charlie Browned outta there, head hung low.

So, the neighbors were really cool about it and everything. They got right on it. The very next morning, a dozen mercenary, crazy-ass, chainsaw-wielding acrobats were on the case, juggling live chainsaws and taking risks that would've sent Evel Knievel into a thumb-sucking, fetal position. Cleared up in about two hours.

The problem was the fence. And it still sits busted up like a drunken giant had taken a face-plant and jacked up his dental work. 

No fault to the neighbors. Get this, local fence companies won't tackle a job if it costs less than $2,000. Which is ridiculous. There must be a lot of busted up fences in the Kansas City metro area collecting rust. 

Once they finally got some guy out to quote it, he said, "no." The reason being, the fence wasn't regulation size. The earlier installer, for whatever reason, had cut the height down all along the bottom. 

So there it sits.

Eat it, Nature. I'm keeping a running tally. It's Nature 3, Stuart a big fat whopping zero. I'm out! Of course if you factor in global warming, we're all about to be out. Game over.

Have a nice day!

Speaking of nice days, Zach Caulfield's having a bad day. A really, really bad day. In fact, you might call it a Bad Day in a Banana Hammock. Why is it so bad? Well, for starters, Zach wakes up in a strange bed, with no clothes and no memory and a nekkid, dead guy next to him. Of course, to prove that he's not gay (priorities; Zach's not too bright), Zach must find out what happened and that's where his easily irritable, highly competent, extremely pregnant, sleuthing sister comes in. Hey, this is just the first several pages! Find out how bad a day can get HERE.