Stuart R. West's Blog, page 24

The Man Who Ruined Bowling

Maybe that title's a little misleading. Fact is, I've never liked bowling. But because of my own personal Bowling Bully, I'll never pick up a ball again.

It seems like all of my life I've been dragged into bowling alleys. From an early age, I thought it was kinda dumb, barely a sport at all. I didn't like the sounds of the alleys (thrumble, thrumble, thrumble, SPACK-BAK-CLACKETY-CLACK!) and I certainly didn't like the idea of sharing shoes with fellow sweaty outta shape men (and isn't bowling the sport for sweaty outta shape men?).

But everyone I know has always wanted to have a bowling experience with me. A rite of passage, I suppose...to HELL.

Which brings us to "Brad."

Really it's my fault that I found myself bowling with Brad in the first place.

Let me 'splain... I knew Brad back in the day when he worked at the same company I did. He was an affable enough guy and we became acquaintances. First came happy hour, then came friends, then came Stuart in the bowling alley.

Most definitely against my will, I was dragged into the alleys of deep, dark depression.

It's funny you don't really know someone until you either A) get hammered with them (I had many "friends" turn into ugly, violent drunks); or B) go camping with them (I wouldn't know, though, because a guy's gotta draw the line somewhere); or C) go bowling with them. 

Things got worse with Brad. MUCH worse. 

Once I entered the loud and odoriferous den of despair, I discovered Brad fancied himself an expert bowler. On the other hand, I knew I was a horrible, no-good, embarrassment-to-amateurs bowler. I had been conned.

Nine outta ten balls I sunk into the gutter. Hell, I didn't even have the coordination to ever launch off the correct foot. Just isn't in my clunky nature.

And every time I sunk a ball into the gutter, my ego sunk even further. Mainly because Brad sat at the table, roaring with giddy delight over crap beer, basking in his moment of supreme schadenfreude. 

See Brad laugh! See him giggle like the broken wind! Listen as he brags about how well he handles big balls! (Hold up...that didn't sound right...)

He didn't stop at guffawing. Soon, the "good-natured" insults began. 

"Hey! Hey, Stuart! Your lane's the one in front of you! Hoo-HAH!" and "Ha! I didn't know you were blind!" and "Maybe you'll get one pin this time! Ha HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!" and other choice bon mots.

As if my fragile male ego hadn't been battered enough into the gutter, the next thing I know, Brad's got his arms around me, trying to show me his alley expertise. Completely emasculating.

I slunk out of that hell-hole vowing never to bowl again.

And I haven't.

Coincidentally enough, on my last visit with my daughter, she told me of her last time in a bowling alley. A chip off the ol' block, she was dragged in kicking and screaming by a "bowling ace." He then berated, laughed, hooted at, and denigrated her lack of alley skills. I'm so proud of her.

Anyway, this guy, too, ruined bowling for my daughter for life. We commiserated (even though we both agreed "the sport" sucked to begin with).

Let's put an end to bowling alley bullying (say that three times!). Make a difference today. Only you can do it. Help save the children. Please send money and gifts to me, Stuart R. West, care of Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley (or should that be "Bowling Alley?") to help me battle against bowling bully PTSD.

Speaking of shameless plugs and desperate Trumpian level grifts for your hard-earned cash, check out my short story horror (and dark humor) collection, Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley. There aren't any bowling bullies in the tales, but there are some dark characters that could give Brad a run for the gutter. Plus, it's one alley that's even scarier than a bowling alley.

 

Cat Terrorism

No one believes kids, especially parents. I still carry a grudge over the long-ago case of being falsely accused of...*gasp*...making faces at the neighbors' cat.

Years ago, when my brother and I were in early grade school, we were easily bored. Nothing to do. Zilch. Nada. There were three (on clear days, maybe four) TV channels. Not that it mattered. In our house, friggin' Lawrence Welk ruled the TV. Trying to force a kid to sit through that mind-numbing series of dance numbers, old people music, accordions, and toothpaste smiles would drive any kid out of the house, even me, a notorious reader and homebody.

So outdoors my brother and I ventured, searching for something--anything--to do. As it was during the aftermath of a rain storm, we thought it'd be mighty keen to catch falling raindrops from the tall trees in our mouths. Desperate measures for bored kids.

To this day, I still remember spinning around the driveway, eyes closed, mouths open to catch drops from neighbor Walter's hulking tree between our houses.

Now, Walter was a curious sort. My dad didn't particularly cotton to him as he considered him somewhat of a "sissy."

"Why is Walter a sissy, Dad?" I asked one day, because again I was super bored.

"Because he's a bachelor and has three cats," said my dad with a self-satisfied, prim set to his lips which he thought explained it all, but it didn't, not one bit.

Anyway, shortly after our innovative game of catching raindrops orally, we soon grew weary of that challenge and trundled back inside to be tortured by some sisters warbling like rabid birds on "The Lawrence Welk Show."

All was fine until the next day when the doorbell rang. I gave it no heed as I was upstairs busy setting up my menagerie of stuffed animals in an elaborate court martial trial because that's the kinda kid I was (my brother's teddy bear, Tweaky, was the accused and I had already made up my mind that he was guilty, guilty, GUILTY!).

"Boys! Get down here! Now!" 

My brother and I knew Dad's tone quite well, usually the precursor to the dreaded belt. But, honestly, for once I couldn't even imagine what I'd done. I'd been on decent behavior for at least 18 hours. I mean, c'mon!

Down the stairs we trundled, heads down in a walk of shame, tails between our legs.

"Boys, what do you have to say for yourselves?" Dad grimaced, his mad face pinched tighter than a vice. 

"Um, nothing...I guess..." I said.

"You know who that was?" Dad hitched a thumb behind him. "That was Walter! He said you were outside yesterday making horrible, just horrible, faces at his cat!"

"What?" I thought back, couldn't take the credit for this random act of cat terrorism. "Dad, we didn't make any faces at any cats! Really! I never even saw a cat--"

"Don't you lie to me! Walter said you were making horrible faces! Screwing up your mouths and rolling your eyes back into your head and trying to scare his cat!"

"Dad! We didn't even see the dumb cat! And I swear we weren't scaring any dumb ol' cat because--"

"Save it! Now you're really in trouble for lying, too!"

Well... After that, things get a little hazy. I'm sure tears were spilled over the incredible and tragic injustice done to our poor lil' fragile childish selves, forever making us distrust adults (and cats) again.

No matter how much we protested--and granted, we were no angels, but this time we were completely innocent (which made me change my mind about sending Tweaky to the firing squad once I resumed my mock trial upstairs)--Dad wouldn't believe us, his mind made up by Walter and his poor, mistreated cats. J'accuse!

And, really...even if we had been making faces at a cat (which we weren't!), so what? My brother and I still can't get over it.

Parents. Hmmph.

While on the topic of questionable parenting, have you met the father in my "farm noir" horror thriller, Godland? He's not gonna get father of the year, that's for dang sure! (Every time I think of the great traumatic "Cat Incident of 1968," I think how worse things could be such as in this novel.)

 

Death Race 2021

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! Vrooooooom!

"Say, Leroy, you spot that fella over yonder? On the sidewalk? One with the sign?"

"I sure do, Norwood. What about him?"

"Well, the second he steps off the sidewalk, you know what we're gonna do?"

"No, I don't, Norwood. What?"

"Wayull, what would the one true President, Donald J. Trump do?"

Scratches chin. Tilts head back. Light bulb! "He'd call him names and make him cry, Norwood!"

"You dayum numbskull!" Norwood swats Leroy with his "Southern Pride" cap. "No, you idjit! Okay, what would MTG do?"

"Who?" Leroy closes one eye and shoots the other toward the sky.

"Don't you know nuttin'? Marjorie Taylor Greene!"

"Oh, right. The hottie. Wayall...she'd prolly shoot him daid for our civil liberties!"

"Well, sir, you got that right. But that ain't what I'm aimin' for." Sighs, then spits chewing tobacco out the window. "Let me make it easy for ya, since God skimped on yore brains, Leroy. What would Dale Earnhardt do?"

Leroy raps his finger on his jaw. Switches his lips back and forth. Suddenly, his eyes widen with clarity. Celestial trumpets fill the truck! Tim McGraw blares from the radio! "I got it! He'd run him over. Daid!"

"Now yore cookin'! Let's go get him! 200 bonus points if the feller ain't from Amurica! Yee-HAWWWWW!"

No, this isn't from an updated "Death Race" film, nor is it some horrific Dystopian science fiction book. Welcome to real life in the "America First" era!

This week, Republican legislators in Oklahoma and Iowa (with more states lining up) passed a bill which would give immunity to drivers who run over and injure protesters in the streets.

Yep, you read that right. Total insanity. When I saw this article, I couldn't believe it, thought it was surely a prank. But it's not. It's terrifying.

These so-called "lawmakers" are so afraid of the Black Lives Matter movement, that they're deputizing every crazy redneck with a pick-'em-up truck to run them down. All in the name of "America First," of course.

Free speech is now punishable by death. A "Citizen's Murder," if ou will. And it's legal! Fun!

Guys, what happened to America? How did we get so out of control and crazy?

Well, I can start pointing fingers, but I'm not going to play their game. 

No, the hell with that! Trump's "America First" doctrine has been the worst thing that's happened to this country since disco. His fascist and racist protocol has unleashed America's inner beast; it's been growling and seething behind white picket fences and covered up by mild smiles and manners for decades. Simmering like a pressure cooker.

Now, the GOP has handed the so-called "downtrodden white man" get-out-of-jail-free cards to kill freely. These incredibly stupid legislators don't realize the chaos they're about to unleash. Cars will become the new guns.

There was a time I actually admired the GOP. I never agreed with them (except for when I was a little kid and didn't know any better), but at least they stood for admirable ideals. At least I understood them. Now it's all gone to hell.

Even Trump recently said that if Republican politicians don't follow his "America First" protocol they just won't survive. For once, I agree with him. Damn it. 

Some old-school Republicans are remaining quiet, cautiously hoping Trump's relevance will fade away and take all of his vitriol, divisiveness, lies, hatred, and racism with him. But he's still making headlines and his army appears to be growing, with crazy-ass psychos like Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene leading the way. A lot of these extremist "Republicans" are basking in the nutty headlights.

And how did M. T. Greene even get into office? Why are people giving her the chance to remain in the news? Glory-seeking publicity whores and insaniacs comprise a lot of the "new GOP." 

Get this...despite there being at least 156 mass shootings in the United States in less than four months, M. T. Greene is holding a raffle and giving away an AR-15 gun to the lucky gung-ho winner! All in the name of defending our civil rights, of course. Is this the actions of a "law-maker?"

But those evil, scary, nasty protestors need to be run over for daring to speak their minds. Right. I think their civil rights are kinda being left behind with skid-marks on their bodies. Isn't hitting someone with your auto illegal anyway, for God's sake?

Finally, I know that protestors from both extremist sides of the political aisle got violent. That's wrong, always will be. But what about the non-violent protestors (which MOST of the protests in the states have been, but they're not newsworthy)? What about my scenario above where the guy has to leave the sidewalk to go home?

Easy prey! Bam! Yee-HAWWWWW!

Good God, I never thought I'd say this, but "Come back George W. Bush. You don't seem so bad now."

Stuart R. West's Amazon book page, featuring many tales of horror, humor, suspense, thrills, mystery, and other goofy stuff. Go on and click...looks like the world's gone crazy so you have nothing to lose anyway.
 

Lickin' Loomis

One of our new dogs, Mr. Loomis, is a licker. No, not the fun kind of human-loving, face-licking dogs. I mean "the other kind" of licker. That is, he's never met a surface he doesn't like to lick.

Floors, beds, sofas, furniture, electric sockets, you name it. If it exists Mr. Loomis is gonna lick that sucker.

Why is this? No clue.

Mr. Loomis is a 13-year-old Lhaso Apso, kinda a cranky old man of a dog. Generally speaking, he's friendlier to floors than people. Could it be senility? Doubtful. There's nothing wrong with his taste buds. Surely, after a while, he'd catch onto the fact he's licking up dust.

My daughter thinks she has the answer. She'd read that when dogs lick surfaces and floorboards and such, they have upset stomachs and are trying to hurl. During the nightmarish time when we took in my daughter and her two demon dogs, she said her smallest devil, Baron, constantly licked the floorboards in her bedroom. It was the first thing he'd do every night before going to bed.

(Come to think of it, our floorboards could use a good cleaning now; I'd invite Baron back over to clean house, but I think my wife's hair would turn white overnight.)

Anyway, I don't think Mr. Loomis is licking surfaces because he's nauseous. He eats well and I've never seen him toss his cookies.

The American Kennel Club, smarty-pants as always, tells me that Mr. Loomis is licking furniture because he's bored. Dogs are creatures of habit and changes in their routine can make a dog anxious. Repetitive licking releases endorphins and is a way for dogs to self-soothe.

Well, okay, let's say I buy that reason. What do I do about it? Mr. Loomis can't hear very well and his cataracts keep his vision pretty bad, not to mention it takes him forever to walk anywhere. How do I entertain him? Dance for him? That's probably not a great idea, for if the neighbors saw that, they'd surely call the local nuttery or police or whatever.

Other dog experts (and there are a hella lotta them out there, every one with a different opinion) have differing viewpoints. One suggests my dog is depressed. So...I guess I have to find a good doggy psychologist.

Another expert says that allergies can cause a dog to act in "strange and mysterious ways (Hmmm, maybe it's no coincidence what dog spelled backwards is!)." But if I buy into this theory, wouldn't floor dust make an allergy worse?

Either way, I'm not complaining. Not only do we have two new fine and furry and funny companions, but the house has never been so clean! It's like having a four-legged Roomba (and his tail acts as a fine feather duster as well).

While we're on the topic of "strange and mysterious ways," all of my books can be pretty much summed up as having been written in that sorta mind-set. Go on and take a gander at my Amazon page and pick up some pages of strange!

 

 

Guilt-ridden Games

The past thirteen months have fostered a lot of addiction. Of course I'm talking about the vilest form of addiction around, the most insidious and life-altering type of addiction that's helping to destroy the world: phone games.

Sure, I've played them before. But not to the point where I'm all in now. And I'm very, very mad at myself for falling into the vast black hole of games. In fact I used to scoff at people who couldn't put their phones down in public, banging their finger away while trying to blast an asteroid or whatever.

Now, I'm one of them. 

My name is Stuart. ("Hi, Stuart.") And I'm a...a...*gasp, choke*...gameaholic.

There. I said it. And I know I'm not alone. For crying out loud, gaming has become one of my first go-to morning rituals. I can't start my day properly without "gaming maintenance."

See, these game-creators and destroyers of souls are truly heinous people who know exactly what they're doing. My game of choice (before I turn to my other games) is "Angry Birds 2." When I first got into it, it seemed perfectly harmless, just kind of passive, mindless entertainment I could amuse myself with during long car rides. But the gaming maintenance alone is intense. Every day you're expected to play the daily challenge along with other tasks. Not to mention gain (through side games) 5 apples a day to keep your lil' cute "hatchling" fed. What happens if you don't feed your hatchling?

To my great shame, sadness and dismay, I found out. Time had run out and "Boney (they encourage you to name your hatchlings, thus establishing a close loving connection. You devious bastards!)" shed giant, sad cartoon tears, slung a bag over his shoulder, and slumped off my phone screen to never be seen again.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo... (Screaming while standing out in the pouring rain with my fists clenched into the air).

So, so sad. And manipulative. And these gaming gurus are thriving during our pandemic, grifting rubes (such as myself) into playing along, ladling on the guilt like chow at the soup kitchen. (I honestly had no choice--absolutely none, whatsoever--to raise a new hatchling and name him Boney again, in hopes I could forget the nightmare of seeing my initial hatchling heartbroken and run away to die of starvation).

The manipulation doesn't stop within the game itself either. The ads that you're forced to sit through are evil as well. They're always trying to sucker we poor fools into playing games "to win real money!" (I gotta admit, my defenses were at a pandemic low at one point and I almost succumbed to this poisonous apple). 

Then there are the ads for all of these cool animated games with animated tasks like saving a King from drowning. Now I've been conned into a couple of these before. And they're NOTHING like what was advertised. Usually, it's just some poorly animated dumb guy building a garden at a snail's pace.

Tricky, these people are. Shameless, too, for preying on a shut-in world.

You know, it used to be my annoyance started and stopped when "friends" kept inviting me to play Candy Crush on Facebook. Now I've succumbed to the tempting, albeit hollow, promises of phone games.

So, my fellow humans, I say we toss off the shackles of our gaming-induced slavery and revolt! Throw down your phones now and go take a walk!

I plan on doing that just as soon as I complete my Angry Birds daily tasks. Maybe... Hang on... Just another hour...

Speaking of shameless manipulation, I actually enjoy being manipulated by a good book. Now, I'm not saying that my horror thriller, Dread and Breakfast is good, mind you. That's your call. But I did set out to manipulate the reader with many terror-filled twists and turns inside the Dandy Drop Inn. Come on over, check in, and find out if I succeeded (I'll wait for you to finish your current game).

 

A Hole in the Head

The other day I was dying on the treadmill. My wife walks in and says something, but I can't remember what it was. (Side note to my wife: I do listen to you, I do! But I was on the treadmill fighting for my life!). Anyway, for the purposes of this post, my response was what mattered.

I said, "I need that like I need a hole in the head."

Now I know it's a stupid saying, but it's something I picked up from my dad. She looked baffled so I told her that my dad used to use that idiom. She said, "I know, I know. My dad used to say it, too. I think it's kind of a dad thing."

Great. So I'm becoming my dad. What next, unfunny Dad jokes? (Wait...my daughter would probably say I already jumped that shark a long time ago.)

I started wondering about the origins of "hole in the head" comments (anything to take my mind off my on-going torture by treadmill). Later, Professor Google told me some things that weren't too enlightening. First, the good prof  stated the idiom originated because bullets to the head caused holes and nobody wanted that. Thanks, Professor Obvious!

Second, the prof quit fooling around and said the statement possibly originated from the Yiddish saying,
"Ich darf es vi a loch in kop" Source: theidioms.com"Ich darf es vi a loch in kop" Source: theidioms.com
"Ich darf es vi a loch in kop" Source: theidioms.com"Ich darf es vi a loch in kop" Source: theidioms.com"Ich darf es vi a loch en kop," which translates to "I need it like a hole in the head." Still not very helpful when it comes to the psychology of these drama queens. 

Most interesting is the 1959 Frank Sinatra comedy called, A Hole in the Head, I'm guessing a violence-filled yuk-fest taking place in a hospital's emergency room.

Anyway (back to my conversation with my wife while the treadmill punished me), I felt like I needed to defend my usage of such an antiquated saying, so I blurted out, "Okay, it's a dumb thing to say because we already have five."

My wife furrowed her brow and said, "five what?"

"Five holes in the head."

I could tell she was counting, eyes Heaven-ward, straining her mental abacus. "No, there're seven."

"Seven? But...but the eyes aren't direct holes. I mean...we have pupils filling them!"

"No, they're considered holes. As we saw in that film last night, they can be pretty vulnerable, too."

Now, I had already apologized for making her sit through Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer the night before, so I didn't want to reopen that particular can of worms.

"Huh. Are you sure eyes are considered holes?"

"Yep. And actually we have eight if you consider the foramen magnum where the spinal cord goes into the skull."

Sweating, panting, out-of-breath, considering the very vulnerable nature of our bodies, and becoming kinda grossed out, I said, "Okay, I think I'm done with this conversation now."

I have a lot of fun--as do my serial killer protagonists--with heads in my darkly comical thriller trilogy, Killers Incorporated. See how much fun by giving 'em a read: Secret Society, Strike, and Killer King.

Terrorizing Kids for Fun!

Okay, I didn't really terrorize kids for fun. It was purely an accident.

A little back story... Next door, a really great young couple moved in. After attempting to muzzle one of our barking dogs in the back yard, I ran into them. They told me they were having a family gathering the following day due to a death in the family. 

I said, "That's a really nice idea. I'll try and keep the dogs inside and quiet."

A plan had been set.

So, that morning I took the dogs on two different walks, each more hellish than the last, to try and wear them out. Only one who got worn out was me, natch.

I kept them inside for as long as possible while the gathering next door raged.

After much whining and staring at the back door (and that was just me), I saw the neighbors had moved the party indoors. For the most part. Sure, there were two small girls throwing something back and forth, laughing and having a good ol' time, but that was it. Let them empty their bladders (the dogs, not the girls), toss a few cute barks the kids' way, then I'd bring 'em back inside. (Lord knows I tried to take them out on a leash in the front yard to bathroom them; of course I had no luck. But Mr. Loomis--who weighs all of twenty-one pounds--took three embarrassing poohs on our earlier walk. More than he weighed).

Sure enough, the other dog, Bijou, started barking her head off.

I rushed outside and said, "Hush, girl!"

The two girls stopped playing. Bijou quit barking. One girl gaped at me. I gaped back at her. The other girl looked at her playmate. Bijou stared at me, then back at the girls. Mr. Loomis was oblivious. I tried a creepy smile (the only kind I can muster when I force a smile). Both girls looked at me. Then they screamed and tore inside. 

I imagined them telling all the adults about the cranky, scary ol' man next door who told them to shut up.

Fun!

Honestly, I had good intentions. And, really, is this worse child abuse than subjecting your kid to the imminently creepy Elf-On-A-Shelf routine? Talk about lifetime scarring.

While I'm not terrifying kids, I do enjoy trying to scare adults. More fun! (Hmmm, I'm sensing a pattern here). Why not give my historical ghost spook-fest, Ghosts of Gannaway , a whirl? Based on true events (except, you know, for the horror and ghost stuff).

 

Alkatraz Packaging

Man, I do hate "Alkatraz Packaging."

You know what I'm talking about... The type of packaging that sadistic packagers gleefully construct so as to render it impossible to open (or reseal).

Take for instance the dreaded "clamshell" that a lot of smaller hand-held electronics come in. Made out of a plastic so durable and impossible to penetrate, you could use the same material for car tires. Even scissors can't open them.

One time I tried to force my way into such a package to retrieve a phone. Tearing the plastic was a waste of time. Scissors didn't succeed. Without resorting to explosives, I grabbed a sharp kitchen knife and went to work. My hand steadying the package slipped. Worse, the knife slipped into my hand. Blood sprayed. And within the impenetrable package, the phone mocked me.

You need a damn You Tube video on how to safely open these hazards of packaging.

And how about those infernal pump bottles, host to a ton of bathroom products like moisturizer? They're great...when they work. Usually, I follow the simple directions of turning the pump counter-clockwise and get nowhere. Just watching the dry pump twist round and round and round and round...

What do you do with it? It's kinda worthless. Once--and to my great shame--I took a bottle back because it wouldn't open.

The clerk squinted at me. "What's wrong with it?"

"Ah...manufacturer error," I said, hoping to mask my lack of packaging skills with corporate-speak.

"Whaddaya mean?"

"The...um...pump doesn't work."

"Whaddaya mean the pump doesn't work?" Puzzled, the clerk picked the bottle up and studied the problematic pump. "Looks fine to me."

"It doesn't work!"

"Sure it does. You do know how to use it, right?" He leaned over the counter and smirked.

"Never mind!" I grabbed the bottle and what was left of my pride and raced out of the store.

Packaging problems are everywhere. Oh, what about those damned packages that contain lunch meat or numerous other edibles? The packages that boast, "Easy Re-Seal!"

Yeah. Sure. Easy for those with patience and nimble fingers, maybe a safe-cracker, but definitely not me. Sure, they're good for diets because you can't ever get to the food, but that's about it.

First, I can never rip the teeny-tiny tab off where it menacingly states "Tear Here!" with a big red arrow pointing toward it. The rare times I've managed to pinch the tab, it never comes off in one strip. So I'm left staring at baloney that I can't get to, while my stomach growls.

Not having learned my lesson before, I usually go for scissors next. Naturally, I always cut it below the "E-Z Reseal" feature. 

I'm just not cut out for modern packaging. It imposes a serious safety risk on me, harder to figure out than Ikea furniture. Talk about the ultimate in planned obsolescence...by the time you finally figure out how to get to your booby-trapped prize without killing yourself, there're newer models on the market. 

Of course, I'm the guy who was banned from using plastic wrap because I can't tear it right and it usually ends up all over myself.

While we're yakking about impossible to figure out things, have you read my book, Corporate Wolf? Not only is it a horror-filled, black comedy, but there's a cracking murder mystery. Just who is the werewolf?

 

Who Slew T. T. George?

Let's study the scene of this most monstrous of crimes...

Yes, that's me as a kid. All slender and with hair and stuff. Next to me is prime suspect number one, my younger brother. He doesn't really look that way. Most of the time, anyway. It's just his way of trying to scare me, seeking kicks where we could get them while the adults ignored us. In my arms, from left to right, are Chimpy, T.T. George, and Tweaky.

Now, the late T.T. George was my prized teddy bear, the top banana in my menagerie of stuffed animals. I'm not sure where I came up with the name, T.T. George, but knowing what a precocious lil' tot I was, I'm sure I thought it was clever, urbane, and perhaps even a nod to one of my favorite actors at the time, Michael J. Pollard.

I was a weird kid.

"T.T." didn't even stand for anything. It was just what it was, a very zen-like teddy bear.

The late Mr. George had more lives than Trump has get outta jail cards. He'd been old when I got him (I believe already used from a garage sale, but I honestly don't remember) and my mom kept resurrecting him as his body fell apart. In his last incarnation, Mom had reupholstered him in corduroy, an odd choice, but hey, anything for Mr. George.

He had a long, good life until... Until several years ago, when I found him in my mom's basement...gulp...sob...beheaded! Even worse, his head was nowhere to be found. Creepy.

I'm verklempt right now. Hang on...I'll be all right...just give me a few...oh, the horror! The horror!

Anyway, flanking the headless body of T.T. George were prime suspects number two, Chimpy (my second-in-command and *usually* faithful sidekick to T.T.), and prime suspect number three, Tweaky (my brother's teddy bear pictured above in the football jersey; and by the way, Scott, someone who names his bear "Tweaky" has no right to make fun of the name of my late, great T.T. George! Ahem!). Suspiciously, Chimpy and Tweaky still had their heads.

I smelled foul play. The game was afoot!

I had my three suspects. Now I needed motive. Quickly, I ruled out Chimpy. Why would he have beheaded his best inanimate pal? Unless, of course, he held a long-time jealous grudge over my T.T. George preference. Still, it didn't fit with his solid, stellar, stuffed character.

Next, we had Tweaky. There had always been inter-family rivalry between the two bears. Still, I just couldn't pin the blame on him while looking in his cold, dead, brown marble eyes.

That left my brother, who surely in a fit of rage, beheaded T.T. George. I'm onto you, bro, sleep with one eye open!

(Then again, it could've been the ravages of time, but that would have made a much duller post).

While on the subject of cracking good murder mysteries, you won't find it in Bad Day in a Banana Hammock! But you will get low-brow larfs, high-brow thrills, and really odd characters doing very odd things!

 

Taking Number Two For Granted!

Everyone knows that I have no shame here at Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley. I tackle the gamut of topics ranging from sensitive to exploitative to controversial. This week is no different as I tackle the fine art of pooping.

First, a disclaimer: as I'm perpetually eight years old, I've always found the art of pooping to be hilarious, accompanied as it is by delightful sounds and choice odors.

But when does pooping become not so funny? When you're blocked from doing it, that's when.

No, no, I'm not talking about constipation. You kidding me? I'm as regular as a Trump lie.

I'm actually speaking of the boundaries put upon pooping by tragic household disasters.

Last Sunday, my wife awoke to the unpleasant sight of unspeakable things floating in the basement. The sewage line had backed up. Super! On a Sunday! Even superer! And we couldn't poop! The superest!

Disheartened, I knew right then that chili was off the menu.

So, I held on as long as I could, but come noon time, my bowels started bitching. My wife suggested running up to the local convenience store.

I said, "No way! Everyone who goes in there is sick!"

Finding the right, relaxing, quiet public pooping hole is a problem. I have shy bowels. I need to be alone to complete my task. After much agonizing internal debate, I ruled out numerous venues and settled on the grocery store. The john is located in the back, is big, and relatively clean. Most of the time.

Now pooping in public poses an even larger problem in this Covid scary world. Touching things I usually wouldn't  touch even in a pre-Covid world was bad enough. But wouldn't you know it...some guy decided to join me in the stall next door.

Uh-oh.

To make matters worse, my bowels locked up as I tried to figure out what the snuffling, shuffling mystery man looked like and why he had decided to torture me. And then his coughing began. Constantly. No doubt sick. Plus I'm damn sure he wasn't wearing a mask behind closed doors.

My best bet was to try and ride him out. Nobody likes to meet fellow poopers outside the stalls of shame. But he stayed the course, a true endurance breaker. Finally...finally...he flushed. But he wasn't done yet. It took him a shockingly long and horrible eleven minutes to dress. Had he stripped down naked? I heard clanks and yanks and mysterious clicks and lotsa rustling. Had he donned a suit of armor? Just what was he up to?

At long last, he leaft. And then the next guy took his place. Giving in to the inevitability of having disgruntled and full bowels, I flushed. Only to notice that the toilet was leaking water at my feet, thus soaking my shoes.

To this day forward, I vow to never take the privilege of pooping for granted again.

Speaking of crappy things, why not give my shameless comedy-mystery, Bad Day in a Banana Hammock a read? Read it proudly on public transportation and laugh your head off even if you don't find it funny. But I guarantee you the looks you get will be priceless.