Steve Dublanica's Blog, page 17

The Church of Steve

Recently, televangelist Jesse Duplantis proclaimed that God told him he needed to purchase a 57 million dollar Dassualt private jet to help carry out his ministry. The conversation allegedly went like this.

 GOD:  Jesse, you wanna come up where I’m at?

DUPLANTIS: What do you mean?

GOD: I want you to believe in me for a Falcon 7-X.

DUPLANTIS: Well, how am I going to pay for it?

GOD: Jesse, I didn’t ask you to pay for it, I asked to believe for it.

Well, believing is nice and all, but something tells me the guys at Dassualt don’t consider prayers a negotiable instrument. Somebody’s got to lay out the cash. Who? You guessed it.

Suckers.

Duplantis is one of those “prosperity gospel” hucksters who preaches that if God loves you then you’ll be blessed with riches and heath. If you’re poor? Well, not so much. These preachers all seem to enjoy high powered lifestyles; huge homes, nice clothes, fat bank accounts, capped teeth, fancy jewelry, big hair and yes, private airplanes. Duplantis already has three. I guess he was sleeping when the “Eye of the Needle” thing got covered in in seminary school.

I have no doubt that Duplantis will get his plane. Creflo Dollar pulled the same stunt three years ago and, despite the hue and cry, still got his 70 million-dollar Gulfstream!  That’s because these guys tell their congregations that tithing money to their churches is “an investment” and that God will pay them back sevenfold. And people buy into this malarkey and give until it hurts!  Man, I’m in the wrong business. I should start the Church of Steve.

GOD: Steve, I want you to preach my word to all nations.

STEVE: Lord, how shall I accomplish thy will?

GOD: Buy a $5000 suit, wear a Rolex, slick back your hair and get on television telling people whatever they want to hear. Then convince them to give you money they can’t afford and that I, the Divine ATM, will pay them back sevenfold.

STEVE: Will you really pay them back?

GOD:  Are you kidding? You’ve got mansions, jets and television stations to buy! Get cracking!

STEVE: Can I have a harem of smoking hot nubile acolytes?

GOD: Whatever floats your boat, Stevie.

So, without further ado, I present:

The CHURCH OF STEVE BUSINESS PLAN

Get ordained online for $19.95

2. Learn to speak in forked tongues.

3. Cook up a theology of new age Gnostic magical thinking bullshit and back it up with out of context Scripture quotes.

4. Tell everyone God can’t balance a checkbook and that He only trusts me with the deposits. Accountants? Audits? Get thee behind me Satan!

5. Find a sports franchise screwing over their home city and buy a stadium on the cheap.

6. Get struggling actors to play cripples who’ve been “miraculously healed” and tell then an agent from CAA will be in the pews. “(I guess I’ll have to do this in L.A.)

7. Get my wife Botox injections and teach her to perfect that blank adoring “deer in the headlights” stare.

8. Slip MDMA into the communion wine.

9. Marry 5000 people in a mass ceremony with an Elvis impersonator parachuting into the stadium singing, “A Little Less Conservation.” Trust me, I don’t want anyone talking about what I’m up to.

10. Get a TV ministry going, something like Sábado Gigante.  Sure, there’ll be lots of tits and ass – but it’s for Jesus.

11. Sell prayer clothes and tell everyone it’s God’s used hankie.

12. Recycle the grease from restaurant deep fryers and sell it as healing oil. Eco-concious and SANCTIFIED!

13. Start an orphanage in Belize and put those kids to work fulfilling E-commerce purchases!

14. Dance during services like my pants are on fire! They soon will be.

15. Get that plane! God is my co-pilot!

16. Bring back fully nude immersion baptism – but only for those with heavenly figures.

17. Write books titled Lotto Jesus, Cash and Carry the Cross and Suffering is for Suckers.

18. Develop an affinity for prostitutes and crack cocaine.

19. When caught with my pants down, wail, “I HAVE SINNED AGAINST YOU!” from the pulpit and be forgiven with thunderous applause.

20. Rinse and repeat.

Praise the Lord! I think I’m onto something here. Do you have any ideas for my new church? Let me know in the comments section below!

The post The Church of Steve appeared first on Waiter Rant.

When I Won’t Have to Leave Alone

I parked my car in front of my daughter’s school and walked up to the front door. As I rang the bell I smiled. This is the best part of my day.

The door buzzed and I walked in. “Whose daddy is here?” the teacher called out as I walked down the hall.  “Whose daddy is here?”

I heard giggling and the patter of little feet. Then my daughter poked her head around the corner and her face broke into a big smile.

“DADDY” she cried, breaking into a run. “It’s my Dad! My Dad!”

I knelt and held out my arms wide. One day Natalie won’t be so happy to see me. That’s the way it goes with parents and their children. But for now, I’m soaking it all up.

“Hello, darling,” I said, as Natalie crashed into me.

“Daddy…” Natalie cooed.

I planted a kiss on my daughter’s head and smelled the shampoo her mother used to wash her hair. “How was school?” I said.

“We played dinner party,” she said, taking me by the hand. “Come see.”

Natalie escorted me into the playroom and led me to a toy table groaning with toy food – plastic grapes, a rubber T-bone, pretend French fries, apples, bananas and a toy tea set.

“Wow,” I said, picking an item up. “That’s a lot of food. What’s this? A hamburger?”

“That’s bread,” her classmate said.

“Yum,” I said, pretending to take a bite. “Thank you.”

“Natalie asks a lot of questions,” her classmate said.

“We all have questions,” I said, smiling.

“I guess,” the girl said, rolling her eyes.

After collecting Natalie’s belongings and watching her hug everyone good bye, we walked to the car. “Do you want to go to the park?” I said.

“Yes, please!” Natalie cried. “Can I have an ice pop?”

I looked at my watch. Try as I might, I can never avoid the ice cream truck when I take my daughter to the park. Early, late – it doesn’t matter. The driver always seems to find us.

“We’ll see, Natalie. We’ll see.”

As we drove to the park I had the radio playing. Natalie asked, “What songs do you like Daddy?”

“I like lots of songs.”

“What’s your favorite?”

“Hmm…” I said. “Hang on for a sec.”

I pushed a switch on the steering wheel and, when the car’s computer voice prompted me, I asked it to play a golden oldie. “You’ll like this song, Natalie,” I said.

“Now playing,” the computer said.

Suddenly, I was a small boy sitting in the back seat of my parents’ Dodge, watching as rain drops pelted the rear window and danced across the thin orange wires of the defroster grid.  My parents were in the front seat and we were parked in front of some place. Then my father tuned on the radio and someone started singing about jet planes. I loved jet planes.

“I heard this song when I was little,” I said. “I’ve always liked it.”

“Sing it, Daddy,” Natalie said. So, I sang along.

So kiss me and smile for me

Tell me that you’ll wait for me

Hold me like you’ll never let me go

‘Cause I’m leaving’ on a jet plane

Don’t know when I’ll be back again

Oh babe, I hate to go

By the time Peter, Paul, Mary and I were done singing, we were already at the park and tears were running down my face. “You’re crying, Daddy,” my daughter said. “Why are you crying?”

“Sometimes we cry when we’re happy,” I said, wiping my face. “Daddy’s okay. Did you like the song?”

“That’s your song, Daddy. That’s your song.”

Soon my daughter was sliding down the slides, swinging on the swings and teetering on the see-saw. Parents smiled as she ran past and other children started following her, drawn into Natalie’s delight. Sitting on a park bench I thought about my emotional display. “Leaving on a Jet Plane” is one of my favorite songs because it’s one of the first I remember. I didn’t know what it meant then. Now I do.

One day, my bags will be packed and I’ll be ready to go. That taxi will blow its horn and I’ll leave on a jet plane – leaving Natalie behind. I’ll probably hate to go. But then I thought about my childhood and my parents. I thought of Natalie running into my arms. I thought about those signals of transcendence hidden in the everyday, the hymn of the universe playing just out of hearing’s reach. As I listened to children laugh and play, I sang to myself.

Dream about the days to come

When I won’t have to leave alone

About the time I won’t have to say

 Kiss me and smile for me

Tell me that you’ll wait for me

Hold me like you’ll never let me go.

If Einstein was right, there’s no past, present or future. And I’m beginning to think there will be no separation from the people we love or the very source of that love itself. Natalie and I will be together forever and I’ll never let her go. There will be no waiting for kisses and smiles. Why? Because maybe none of us will ever leave alone. Maybe we will all leave together and all arrive together. And maybe something we cannot imagine will be waiting for us with open arms.  Maybe we’ll break into a run too.

The ice cream truck arrived, singing its little tune and causing all the children to race across the playground, begging their parents for sugary treats. I bought my daughter an ice pop and soon her face was a riot of melted colors. As I wiped Natalie’s mouth with handkerchief, I said, “Don’t tell you mother about the ice pop.”

“Okay Daddy,”

“Let’s go home.”

The post When I Won’t Have to Leave Alone appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Let The Chips Fall Where They May

A while back, a young person told me, “I don’t want to have children.  Why should I bring another human being into this horrible world?”

I sat back in my chair, not knowing how to answer. There really is no answer. Many people choose not to have children and those reasons are often very valid. Sometimes they are not. But it’s not my role to judge people. So, I did the only thing I know how to do. Tell a story.

“When I was twenty-five,” I said. “I ran a group home for developmentally disabled adults.  Isaac, one of my residents, was about fifty years old and had Down Syndrome…

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid off,” the person said, cutting me off. “Having a child who’ll struggle all their life.”

“True,” I said. “Such children face challenges. But then I met Isaac’s parents. They were Polish Jews. They and their children were separated by the Nazis and sent off to the death camps. All their children died in the gas chamber. Somehow the couple survived and were reunited in a refugee camp. There they conceived another child – Isaac.

“And he had Down Syndrome?” the young person exclaimed. “How cruel.”

“Isaac’s parents were very old by the time I worked in the home,” I continued. “They had cared for him until they couldn’t and moved to Israel to live out the rest of their days. But they visited him once or twice a year, telephoned him all the time and made sure he was well taken care of.”

The young person stared at the floor, angrily.

“I will never forget when Isaac’s parents came to visit him,” I said. “The love they showered on him. The joy their child brought them.  But the thing I remember most was, when Isaac’s father was hugging him, I saw the identification number the Nazis tattooed on his arm.”

The young person stayed silent.

“I cannot imagine what Isaac’s parents went through,” I said, softly. “But it’s probably accurate to say they saw the worst that mankind is capable of. And yet, they had another child and loved him intensely.”

The young person said nothing.

“That’s the only answer I have,”  I said.

The young person got up and left without saying a word.

I will never know if I did the right thing telling that story. I will never know if  my words helped or hurt. But then again, the truth is the truth. Let the chips fall where they may.

The post Let The Chips Fall Where They May appeared first on Waiter Rant.

To Do List

The sound of the phone ringing punctured my sleep and my eyes snapped open. Staring at the ceiling my first conscious thought was, “Was that crack always there?”

Groaning, I picked up my phone. It was my town’s emergency response department. I was in their phone chain so I figured I had better take it.

“Dublanica,” I answered.

“Steve,” the emergency director, said. “We had a commercial fire at 123 Anywhere Lane. There was an apartment upstairs and the occupants have been displaced.”

“Be there in 20 minutes.”

Rolling out of bed, I headed to the bathroom. “Fire, honey,” I called to my wife. “You’ll have to take Natalie to school today.”

“Great….” my wife mumbled sleepily.

After a brief shower, I got dressed. Knowing I was going to a fire scene, I put on clothes I wouldn’t miss – which is almost anything in my wardrobe. Pulling up to the scene, the first thing I did was get a cup of coffee from across the street.  When you’re dealing with people in distress, achieving sentience is always a good idea.

“Don’t say, ‘How are you?’ I said to myself as I weaved between the fire trucks, hoses, oil filled puddles and broken glass. “Don’t say, ‘How are you?’”

“What happened?” I asked the first fireman I met.

“Looks electrical,” he said. “Burned out the first floor and lots of smoke damage to the second-floor apartment.”

“Everyone get out okay?”

“The fire woke the occupants up, but they’re okay. No injuries.”

Looking at the fire ravaged shop in front of me I said, “Thank God for that.”

“Over here Steve,” the emergency director called out.

“Morning,” I said.

“Thanks for coming out.”

I smiled. “That’s the job.”

“Yeah,” he said grinning. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Where are the occupants?”

“Right over here,” he said. “I’ll take you to them.”

The director introduced me to two young women. They were wearing sweat tops, shorts and flip flops. They looked like they had just rolled out of bed, which they had – running for their lives.

“How are you?” I said, automatically. Doh!

“We’re okay,” the first girl, said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I always say, ‘How are you?’ Dumb of me. Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Did you take anything with you on the way out?”

“Just our cellphones and purses.”

“So, you have IDs, credit cards, all that?”

“Yep.” The second girl said.

I went through my checklist of questions and ascertained their needs. “I’ll put you up in a hotel for a couple of days,” I said. “Until you figure out what you want to do.”

“Thanks.”

“Have you ladies had breakfast?” The answer was negative.

“Come with me.”

I walked the girls to a luncheonette where I eat all the time. “Please take care of these young ladies,” I told the waitress. “Breakfast is on the town. I’ll settle up with you later.”

“No problem,” the waitress said.

“When can we go back and get our stuff?” the first girl asked.

“As soon as they give the all clear.”

I took down the ladies’ phone numbers, handed them my business card and a supermarket gift card for fifty bucks. “In case you need to get a few things,” I said.

When I got to my office I hit the phones and set up the hotel room, talked to finance about getting petty cash to cover the breakfast and asked the emergency director when the ladies could retrieve their stuff. Half an hour. Then I called the displaced duo.

“You can get your stuff in half an hour,” I said. “Also, you’re booked at the Acme Hotel. Two nights. If you need more, let me know.”

“Thanks for all your help.”

“No problem.”

Cradling the phone, I looked at the clock. I was getting an early start on the day –  which was good because the items on my “To Do” list were threatening to multiply exponentially. Seniors who needed Meals on Wheels, getting Habitat for Humanity to fix up a house, volunteer schedules, a fundraiser, several phone messages and emails to swat down, people wanting to donate things, clients needing help with electric and gas bills, getting posters made up for the aforementioned fundraiser, thank-you letters (I have written hundreds at this point) greeting clients, processing purchase orders for all sorts of charitable requests and –  as always –  getting food for the pantry.

I clicked down my list and before I knew it, the day was done. Stomach grumbling, I went to the finance office, picked up the petty cash, and went to the luncheonette.

“How are you?” the waitress I talked to earlier, said.

“Good,”  I said, paying for the ladies’ breakfast plus a nice tip. “But I had a root canal the other day.”

“Egg salad for you then.”

“On white bread,” I said. “Thanks.”

“So how are those young women?”

“They took it pretty well,” I said. “But when the shock wears off it’ll hit them.”

My sandwich arrived and, as I ate, I looked at the news on my phone. I immediately lost my appetite.

“Another school shooting,” I said aloud. “Goddammit”

They never seem to stop,” the young man sitting next to me, said.

“Horrible,” I said. “And there was that school bus accident yesterday. Couple of kids killed.”

“They say the bus driver was trying to cross over the median to make a U-turn,” the young man said. “Went across three lanes of traffic and hit a dump truck.”

“I don’t think I’d want to live after a mistake like that.”

“I hear ya.”

“You have kids?”

“No,” the young guy said.

Is it just me, or is everyone getting younger? I once read that when you’re fifty, you’re older than more than half the people you meet.  “I didn’t have my daughter until I was forty-five,” I said. “And after I did, news like this hits me harder. I’d just go flat out insane if I was one of those parents.”

“I can’t even imagine.”

“It’s goddamn open season on children,” I fumed. “Goddammit to hell.”

I ate my egg salad because, although I didn’t want to eat, my body told me otherwise. On the morning of 9/11, despite my horror and tears, I stopped into a diner to grab a bite too.  No matter how bad things are, you must take care of yourself. As I slowly munched on my bacon and eggs  I watched on T.V. as the second tower came down; prompting a waitress to start screaming, “My niece is in there!”

Crazed gunman, innocent children dying, suicide bombers, zealots weaponizing cars, riots, wars and threats of war, poverty, people dying because they can’t afford a doctor, famine, toxic online outrage, nationalism, the erosion of truth, cynicism, class divisions and the ever-present predation of the weak by the powerful– it’s enough to drive you crazy. Sometimes I think the world’s going to end. And what will become of my little girl? Probably the same questions my parents asked during the tumultuous summer of 1968. When I was just a babe in the crib.

Then a line from the Bible floated into my brain. “And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”

Sipping my soda, the rational part of my brain told me that we’re living in the safest time in human history. Less people are lost to violence, poverty, hunger and disease than ever before. More people are educated. People live longer. Crime is down everywhere. Despite pushing eight billion souls in the world, we get along fairly well – at least compared to centuries past. But that’s cold comfort to parents whose child was shot dead in school or lost in a needless bus accident. For them the world will never be the same.

Outside, the afternoon sun was stubbornly trying to pierce the dark rain clouds boiling above and failing.  Sitting on my stool I felt very depressed. How do we stand in the face of evil? How shall we witness for the goodness of humankind? How do we maintain hope in the shadow of darkness? What can I do? Anything? Today, sitting at my favorite lunch counter,  it all seemed rather hopeless.

“Oh God,” I mumbled. “Thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.”

“What’s that, dear?” the waitress asked.

“Nothing Charlotte,” I said. “Just the bill, please.”

Walking to my car, I passed the burned-out storefront. Then I realized, and not for the first time, that I needed to keep my head down and keep moving. Work on that to-do list and then, when it’s finished, swat down the next one. Even when all seems lost, keep moving. There will always be something for me to do.

The end is not yet.  

The post To Do List appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Trying Too Hard

When I walked into the endodontist’s office his receptionist said, “Welcome back Mr. Dublanica.”

“There’s no ‘Welcome back’ when you come to the endodontist,” I said. “What you should say is,’ You screwed up and now you’re going to pay!’”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I’m kidding,” I said, smiling while I was still able.  I was soon ushered into the dental chair. Oh boy. Here it comes.

“I’m going to tap your surrounding teeth.” the endodontist said. “Make sure I’m working on the right one.”

“Go for it.”

TAP TAP. Nothing.

TAP TAP. Nothing.

“TAP……. JUMPING JESUS ON A POGO STICK! OWWWWW!

“That’s the one.”

“You think?” I moaned.

“Okay,” the endodontist, said. “I’m going to numb the area a bit”

“I’m ready.”

“This is going to hurt a little.”

The needle slid into my mouth and I got the pinch I expected. The needle must have had a motor of some kind because I felt a throbbing mechanical sensation in my mouth. Then the pain hit. It felt like an acetylene torch burning through a piece of steel. The flame started small, but then it got hotter and hotter until, in a shower of screaming, dripping, molten sparks, it punched through to the other side.

“ARRRGH!”  I moaned.

“Almost there,” the endodontist said.

He slid the needle out and then moved to a point in my jaw. That hurt like hell, but compared to what came earlier, it was a cake walk.

“All set,” the endodontist, said. “Now we’ll give it a few minutes to numb your mouth.”

“In all your years doing this,” I said, rubbing my jaw. “Has a patient ever hauled off and punched you in the face?”

Looking alarmed, the endodontist stepped back. “No, never,” he said.

“You’re gonna get some mental midget in here one day and trust me, he’ll take a swing at you.”

“I’m sorry it was so painful.”

“Oh man,” I said, loopy from pain. “I wrote a book about tipping once and, as part of my research, I interviewed people who worked in a dungeon in L.A.”

“Dungeon?”

“You know – whips, chains, leather….and they had a variety of torture rooms – including a dentist office.”

“You don’t say.” The endodontist said, looking nervously at his assistant. “Are you all right, sir? You seem out of it.”

“I’m fine.”

“Did you take any narcotics lately?”

“Last night I took a Vicodin to help me sleep.” (Sue me.)

“You don’t look like you got any sleep,” the endodontist said.

“Knowing I was coming here?” I said. “Nope. I did not.”

“I think you shouldn’t take anymore Vicodin.” Great. The doctor thought I was a drug addict.

“Trust me doc,” I said. “I never take that stuff unless it’s totally necessary.”

“You just relax,” he said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

While the endodontist was in the back evaluating my mental state, the anesthesia kicked in and the pain in my tooth vanished. Then the strangest thing happened, I felt my blood pressure drop and my body enter a deep state of relaxation. Taking my pulse, I noticed my heartbeat had dropped into the low sixties.

“All set?” the endodontist said when he came back.

“Let’s do this.”

The endodontist opened the tooth and exclaimed, “I can’t believe you walked around with this for so long.”

“It only really began to hurt yesterday.”

The endodontist chuckled. “Trust me, you’ve been feeling this for weeks, if not months.”

Several years ago, when my appendix decided to blow, I was admitted into the hospital with a 104 degree fever but no pain. Palpating on my appendix yielded little rebound tenderness. It took a CAT scan to diagnose my condition They offered me morphine but I refused. Later a doctor told me something I never forgot.

“You should have taken the morphine,’ he said.

“Don’t need it,” I said in my best John Wayne voice.

You probably experience pain differently,” he said. “Some people cry and scream. You however, get restless and irritable.”

“That’s nonsense,”

“Your girlfriend told me that you blew up on her.”

“Well, okay. Maybe I’m irritable.”

“And you’ve been observed twisting and turning in bed,” he said. “That’s pain too. You need to know that. You might not get classical symptoms of pain and be ignoring a problem.”

“Yes,” the endodontist said, peering into my bicuspid with a microscope. “The decay was really deep. And the surrounding area is also inflamed and bruised. You’ll need to go on antibiotics.”

Then I realized that doc from several years ago was right. For the past couple of months, I’ve had tension in my neck and jaw, pain in my sinuses. nifty headaches and have been slightly more irritable the usual. (Okay, a lot more irritable.) But the minute the nerves in my tooth were numbed, it all went away and my body, shocked at its absence, was thrown for a loop.

The endodontist was skilled and the rest of the procedure was painless and over quickly. When it ended, I walked into the receptionist area got the real pain. The bill.

“Maybe I can sell my Vicodin,” I said. “Recoup my losses.”

The receptionist giggled.  “Will you be paying by check or credit card?”

“Credit card, “I said, “At least I’ll get travel points.”

“You’re a funny man,” she said.

On my way out, I looked at the endodontist’s degrees on the wall. Columbia University. No slouch there. But I noticed he had only been practicing since 2003.

“Fifteen years, only.” I muttered. “Eventually someone’s gonna slug him.”

“You told him about the dungeon!” my wife exclaimed when I told her about my visit. “They must have thought you were nuts.”

“What can I say, honey?” I said, “Humor is how I handle stress, even if it’s only funny to me.”

“Well you can’t drink alcohol or eat on your left side for two weeks,” she said. “I’m going to cancel your birthday dinner on Friday night.”

“No arguments here.”

“I’m sorry your 50th was such a mess.”

“Can I have a do over?”

“Yes, dear. Maybe in June.”

That night, I fell into a deep, deep sleep. The best sleep I’ve had in months. I was an idiot to tough things out so long. I need to be more proactive and listen to what my body is telling me.

As I drifted off I thought, “Man, I really told the endodontist about the sex dungeon?”

Sometimes I try too hard to be funny. It’s gotten me into trouble before. It will get me in trouble again.

 

The post Trying Too Hard appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Captain Kirk

“Root canal,” the dentist said.

“Aw shit,” I said.

“Let me call the endodontist. Maybe he can fit you in today.”

“Okay.”

Sitting in the chair, I gingerly touched my bicuspid and was rewarded with a stabbing jolt of pain. Two weeks ago, the dentist filled it and I thought I had dodged a bullet. But then I had a terrible headache for a week and, after it went away, a persistent throb took up residence in my sinuses. Thinking I had an infection, I went to an ENT who snaked a camera down my nose and pronounced me clear off problems. “I think your issue is dental,” she said. “All those nerves are connected, so that probably explains the pain you’re experiencing. When I woke up the next morning, her diagnosis was confirmed. Tooth number thirteen was on fire.

“Yes,” I heard the dentist saying to the endodontist’s receptionist. “He’s in your system. You worked on him in 2010. Yep, that’s right. Today’s his birthday.”

I shook my head ruefully.

“They can see you at three o’clock,” the dentist said, holding the phone to his ear.

I looked at my watch. It was only 11:00 AM. My dentist is an hour away from my house. The endodontist was even further away. The thought of cooling my heels for four hours, getting a root canal, and then driving home didn’t appeal to me.

“No,” I said. “I’m not getting a root canal on my 50th birthday. Can they fit me in tomorrow?”

“If you get It done today,” he said, “The pain will stop.”

“Just give me a couple of tablets of Vicodin. I’ll be fine until them.” The dentist arranged the appointment for noon the next day. I took my birthday off from work. Now I’d have to take another. Just great.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” the dentist said. “But you waited too long.”

I patted the dentist on the shoulder. “The fault’s entirely mine.”

“I’m not going to be around forever,” he said. “Get in here regularly.”

“I will.”

As I walked down the stairs to talk to the receptionist about my prescription, I remembered climbing up these same very stairs back in 1973. I was five then and the dentist, who is a childhood friend of my father’s, had just opened his practice. I remember loving the nitrous oxide and the Snoopy toothbrushes I got after a cleaning. The dentist and my dad were 30 back then. Now they’re both 75 – grey haired and dealing with the vicissitudes of age. The hygienist on staff wasn’t even born back them. Shit, I don’t think she took her first breath until I got out of college.

Glumly, I got into my car and drove home; feeling old, tired and defeated. In my head, I calculated how much fixing this tooth was going to cost me. Thousands. Happy Fucking Birthday.

Then again, nothing really much was going to happen that day.   When I turned forty my mother and then girlfriend threw me a lovely surprise party. I told everyone I wanted no such thing this decade – just a small dinner with friends, maybe a big barbecue later in the summer.  Simple. No muss, No fuss. No fancy watch, no bacchanal in Vegas, no vacation to Tuscany. Fifty is no big deal.

But as I drove home in the thick midday traffic I felt a deep surge of anger. Maybe I should have insisted my 50th be a big deal. Maybe I should have thrown caution to the winds and bought a Rolex, gone to Vegas, or hopped on a plane to Florence. But what I will be paying for is a root canal and a crown. I felt cheated, ignored and forgotten. But, as a wise friend once told me. “After you have kids, nobody gives a shit about your birthday.”

As I drove down the highway the other drivers were driving either too fast, too slow, too aggressively, too distracted or too drunk.  “Assholes, all of them,” I thought. As I plunged into an abyss of self-pity, I thought about fifty years of wrong turns, going fast when I should have gone slow and vice versa; the people I ran over and the people who ran over me. All the while, my tooth was heralding the triumph of entropy over the Dominion of Man. I’m not going to be around forever either.

Pulling into my town I called the pharmacy. My Vicodin wasn’t ready. So, I went to the local luncheonette where they know my name and are always friendly. As the waitress me greeted warmly, I didn’t mention it was my birthday or that I was in pain. I just ordered a tuna sandwich.

“Rye toast?’ the waitress asked.

‘Just regular white bread today.”

Eating my sandwich, I dreaded going home and opening my mailbox. “If that AARP letter’s there,” I said to myself. “I’m going film myself burning it and put it on You Tube.” Hmm…that might raise a few eyebrows.

Halfway through my sandwich, a man in a business suit came in and sat on the counter. The moment he opened his mouth I knew something was wrong with him. He sounded like he had suffered a stroke. Looking over, I could see a scar on the side of his head. Cancer? Car accident? Mugging or warfare? Accident?  I’ll never know. But he was upbeat and told the waitress about taking his 90-year-old mother out for Mother’s Day. The waitress, who is a very sweet, listened to him like he was the only person in the world.

“I’m sure you made your mother very happy,” she said.

“That’s why I like coming here,” the businessman said. “You are all so kind to me.”  Come to think if it, that’s why I was there too.

Pushing my plate aside, I realized I was being childish. I was facing a root canal – not brain surgery or a bypass. Even though I’m lax with my dentition, I’m good with seeing the doctor and still healthy. Some of my friends never hit the half century mark. I also have a wife and family who love me, a healthy child, friends and accomplishments. I am a very lucky man.  I forget that sometimes.

My anger cooled and I thought about my pity fest in the car.  Everyone makes bad choices. Everyone acts like an asshole and a saint.  We are all the sum of those choices. Reflecting on that reality may hurt some sometimes, but the warm light we bask in always casts a shadow. As I walked out of the luncheonette I remembered an old Star Trek movie. In it, an alien mystic offers to take a suffering Captain Kirk’s pain away. Kirk refuses and William Shatner, in his usual over the top fashion, proclaimed:

“Pain? They’re the things we carry with us; the things that make us who we are. If we lose them we lose ourselves. I don’t want my pain taken away. I need my pain!”

Driving to the pharmacy, I picked up my painkillers and went home. Standing In my kitchen, I stared at the Vicodin tablets inside the bottle and decided against taking them. Today, I didn’t want my pain taken away. I needed my pain. It reminded me I was still alive –  or, at the very least, to go to the dentist more often.

But I’m not crazy, of course.  I took a cold beer out of the fridge, popped the cap, and toasted my fifty years on Earth.

“Here’s to you James Tiberius Kirk, “I said. “You were right.”

Fifty? What the fuck? KHANNNNNNNNNNNNN!  

The post Captain Kirk appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Ghosts

“There’s a ghost in my room,” my daughter wailed from her bedroom.

Sighing, I rolled out of bed and walked into Natalie’s room, figuring this was just another ploy to stay up longer.

“Where’s the ghost?” I said.

“There,” Natalie said, pointing to the wall.

“This?” I said, looking at the shadow from a tree dancing on the wall. “That’s just a shadow.”

“It’s a ghost and I’m scared.”

Flicking on the light, the shadow disappeared. “See, it’s just a shadow.” Then I turned the light off.

“Its back!” Natalie yelled.

I walked over to the window and held up my hand. “See my hand on the wall? It’s a shadow.”

“EEEEEK. A GHOST!” Natalie cried. I sympathized. When I was a kid the phantasmagoric shadows that played on my bedroom walls gave me the willies too. So, I sat next to her bed and stroked her hair.

“Daddy,” my daughter said, “Are there ghosts?”

“No dear,” I said. “Nothing for you to worry about.” Eventually my daughter fell asleep and I went back to bed. But as I stared up at the ceiling, I wondered if I had told my daughter a lie.

Lots of people believe in the paranormal. Me? I a skeptic about such things. Whenever I see one of those “Ghosthunter” shows on cable I think it’s just a bunch of spurious claims with fast cutaways and screeching music leading into ten minutes of commercials for hair loss fixes, diet pills, fitness gizmos, funeral insurance, diabetes supplies, catheters and cash for structured settlements. Seems their target demographic is a very unhappy lot. But people of all cultures have been seeing ghosts for thousands of years. You can’t dismiss centuries of anecdotal evidence out of hand. Those “pictures” of ghosts are very creepy too. Sure, some are done with photographic trickery, but some defy explanation. So, is there something to ghosts? Maybe.

My personal, lightly researched and highly amateur opinion is that ghosts are shadows in time. While we perceive time as linear (Possibly due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics) physicists have shown us that time is very weird.  General relativity shows us our view of “time” is “relative” to our speed and position in Einstein’s “spacetime” universe. And on the quantum level, or impossibly small scales, time devolves into a “foam” of probability or may not even exist in a way we will ever understand. But experiments have shown these theories produce reliable results repeatedly – so something is up. And some scientists even postulate that everything happening in the universe – from the Big Bang to me eating breakfast this morning – is all happening all at once.   Everything that has happened or will happened has already happened – we just can’t see it.

Maybe “ghosts” happen when, for whatever reason, the separation between our linear view of view of time and that “Eternal Now” blurs. Remember what Einstein said, “The distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion?”  Perhaps for a second, the illusion falters and we catch a confused glimpse of what’s truly happening all around us. Maybe what we’re seeing is just people in that past and future living their humdrum lives. Have you ever noticed how mundane most stories of ghost sightings are? A face in a window, a person walking down a hallway or a person standing in a field? I think you might just be seeing a shadow from another time flickering onto our sense of reality.

But how we react to this possible phenomenon, because it’s so weird, is to freak the fuck out, causing us to unconsciously project our cultural and personal experiences onto the event and conjure up bogeymen and poltergeists. Since humans are hardwired to find patterns, we create stories to make sense of these fleeting experiences.  But all it might be is a shadow in time and no cause for fear. It’s just one of those cool things that happen – like rainbows, blood moons, comets and eclipses. Those were once all things that awed and terrified early man too – but now they’re easily explained. Maybe even ghosts will eventually have a rational explanation.

Perhaps the same is true for the experience of “past lives.” I have had the sense I have lived somewhere before or was someone else.  Maybe, for a second, my brain perceived the consciousness of another person in the Eternal Now. But humans, being rather self-centered, make it all about them. “I was the King of France!” they’ll say. “I was Joan of Arc!” Hmmm. Rather grandiose don’t you think?  Funny how no one says they were a sex slave of Genghis Khan, a member of the SS or a leper in biblical Palestine.  I guess that’s not sexy. Maybe it’s just a stray thought from a person living in 1354 popping into our 2018 heads and vice versa. Hey, maybe that explains Nostradamus, Jeane Dixon and the visions of the prophets. Who knows?

Of course, I won’t tell my daughter any of this stuff. It’ll only scare her. Besides, one day she will have to deal with ghosts that are all too real – regret, love lost, trauma, bad memories, and unalterable choices. These are the things that try men’s souls. And unlike Casper and Bettlejuice, those ghosts can hurt us.

Lying in bed, I also watched the shadows from the tree outside my bedroom window dancing on the walls. My house was built around 1920. Maybe the house’s first occupant, long dead, is lying next to me or brushing his teeth in the bathroom –  oblivious to the fact we’re occupying the same place but separated by a hundred years. I can almost reach out and touch him.

I hope he doesn’t snore.

The post Ghosts appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Forbidden Fruit

A couple of days ago I was watching my old dog sleeping on his bed. In canine years, Buster must be well over a hundred.  Blind and mostly deaf, he is no longer able to traverse the stairs and spends of most his time sleeping in one room – his world getting smaller and smaller. But he can still sense when I come home and greets me, tail wagging.

I know that Buster doesn’t have much time left but, as I watched him sleep I realized that, other than his discomforts and limitations, he doesn’t seem very anxious about shuffling off his mortal coil. Humans, however, are very aware they are going to die. If we’re honest with ourselves it is a fact that frightens us all. 

But where does our fear of death come from? In Eastern Christian theology, the result of Original Sin is Death. And that sin is hereditary – every human being who’s ever lived has been afflicted with its curse. But when you read about the story of Adam and Eve, something interesting is going on. God tells the primordial couple they can eat of every fruit in the Garden – just not the apple from Tree of Life. Then why did God put it there in the first place?

If my dining room table is piled high with wholesome foods and one cupcake, if I tell my daughter she can eat everything but the cupcake – guess what? The moment my back is turned she’s going to eat the cupcake. And my wife is going to ask me why I didn’t hide the cupcake!  So why didn’t God hide that tree? Why did he tickle Adam and Eve’s interest in forbidden fruit?  Sure, the Serpent didn’t help matters but, in the end, I suspect God wanted Adam and Eve to eat that apple.

That sounds kind of inflammatory but, unless you take the Bible literally, you understand that Garden of Eden is just a story. A story written by people who were trying to explain the human condition as best they could in the time in which they lived. And they were wrestling with the same questions that bedevil us today. Why is there suffering and death? Why do we fear the end of life? Perhaps the answer lies in the evolution of consciousness.

If you buy what Darwin was selling, human beings evolved from lower life forms. As mutations occurred in our mammalian ancestors, any change that gave them a survival advantage got passed on. The seed of consciousness were probably also a mutation that, over time, blossomed into self-awareness. Now. there are many theories as to why this happened. Alien intervention ala Kubrick’s monolith? Or did our earliest ancestors munch on psychedelic plants that could’ve kick-started human consciousness? Maybe the Apple of Eden was just a really awesome shroom.

But we eventually discovered fire and began cooking our food – which helped release more of its nutrients and helped our brains get bigger and more complex. Neurons started linking up and, eventually, after a long period of time, humankind became self-aware. This might not have happened uniformly or in the same way for everybody. There’s a rather far out theory that posits early man’s proto-consciousness might have manifested itself as command hallucinations. “I did this because the gods told me to!” If true, that meant at some point, like homo sapiens living alongside Neanderthals, there were humans with modern subjective consciousness’s living with people who were always hearing voices in their heads. That must’ve been fun but, eventually, what we have today won out.

However it happened, human consciousness and the subsequent arrival of self-awareness gave humanity a massive survival advantage. We began to harness nature to our ends, developed language, art and science and our numbers exploded.  But there was a dark side to cogito ergo sum. Unlike lower life forms our newly honed minds began to realize our days were finite. We began to feel anxiety about death – maybe right around the time humans started burying their dead. Consciousness is a two-edged sword. Without it we never would have emerged from our caves and travelled to the Moon. But it also caused us to fear Death and, the desire to hide from or assuage that fear, brought very manner of suffering into the world. We cannot have the good stuff without the bad. Suffering, or more precisely, existential suffering, is the result of self-awareness. Consciousness is a blessing and a curse – it holds us up and pulls us down.

In Greek, the word for sin is hamartia – meaning “failure” or to “miss the mark.” We fall short or rather, do not become who we are truly capable of being. Some philosophers would call this a failure to be authentic. Wrapped up in our fears and everyday concerns, we “harden our hearts,”  spiritually ossify and close ourselves off from what is truly possible. And since sin is not just private but communal we also prevent other people from becoming authentic as well or “lead them into sin.” We have all hurt people and held them down. When we think of Death we are forced to reflect on our failures as human beings. No wonder we try narcotizing ourselves with booze, sex, drugs, delusional thinking, power and material things. Who wants to think about that kind of stuff? That causes us to suffer and watch as all our escapist stratagems fail.

There’s a great story about a rabbi who lived long ago. Old and wise, when he finally was staring death in the face, his disciples noticed he was uncharacteristically apprehensive and afraid. “Rabbi Moshe!” they said. “You are and a great and learned rabbi. Why are you afraid?’ “Because” the rabbi said, “I’m afraid I never truly became Moshe.” Death makes failures of us all.

Now I’m back watching Buster sleep. Unlike me, he has never missed the mark. He has always been the fullness of who he was meant to be –a dog. He does not fear death and therefore is incapable of sin. There’s a wonderful purity in that and, perhaps, a glimpse of Original Innocence. But we left the Garden of Eden a long time ago. Not because we were “cast out” but maybe, like all good parents, the development of consciousness was God’s way of nudging us out of the nest. And our explanations for all that followed are the imperfect jabbering of minds trapped within a constrained existence. But the echo of Paradise, like the memory of being cradled in out mother’s arms, remains with us still. The Tree of Life still calls to is.

Humankind is not a finished product. Our consciousness, even though it has released much darkness, is still evolving. Throughout history, philosophers and prophets have arisen to tell us everything is not as it seems – that we are called to be something more. Perhaps they intuited or caught a glimpse of where we’re headed. And I don’t think it’s an accident that most of the world’s religions place such heavy emphasis on helping your neighbor, humility, and showing mercy and compassion. In short, they all talk about love. Perhaps love will be evolution’s Omega Point – a point where our consciousness’s will no longer fear death and we will be freed from its sting. Maybe “God” knew that we had to leave Paradise so we could return to it fully. Then, as Teilhard de Chardin once wrote, “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

Getting up from my computer, I go into the kitchen and slice up Buster’s favorite treat – apples. They are good for him. Maybe biting into that Apple was good for us too.

The post Forbidden Fruit appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Prevailing Versus Winning

Last Saturday I was in a townie bar watching my wife do her standup comedy routine. I didn’t like the tavern at all. When I went to get a beer the bartender, who seemed overwhelmed by the simplest of orders, gave me $11 in change after I paid for a Pabst Blue Ribbon with a twenty. Before I had a chance to complain she disappeared, leaving the waiting customers shaking with detoxification tremors. I did not leave a tip.

After watching my wife’s set, I floated towards the back and stood against the wall while listening to the second comedian wax comedically about her divorce. As I observed the other patrons I noted, that for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t the oldest guy in the place. But I wasn’t the youngest either.

“Hey motherfucker!” I heard a man shout. “What did you say to my girlfriend?”

“Whatcha gonna do about it, asshole?” a second male voice cackled. I turned and found two young guys bumping chests a scant four feet from me.

“Wanna take a shot, brah?” the second guy, said.

The guy who was defending his girlfriend’s honor was about thirty, drunk, in good shape and being held back by lady love. The second guy, however, worried me. About twenty-one and jacked with young muscle and aggression, he wasn’t drunk and his beady eyes glittered with malice. Judging from his cruel lopsided grin, I figured this boy made getting into bar fights a habit.  The first man didn’t stand a chance. The second kid wanted to hurt him.

“You’re bigger than this,” the first guy’s girlfriend said. “Let it go.”

“He can’t say that to you!”

As the two men jostled verbally I thought about taping the first guy on the shoulder and saying, “Walk away. Tomorrow you’ll wake up unhurt and not in jail,” but decided against it. My days getting involved in this stuff are over.

A few years ago, I was working psych when a psychotic young man decided he was going to hurt an eighty-year-old lady. Without thinking, I intervened and got two left hooks in the jaw for my troubles. But adrenaline is a funny thing, you can get slugged in the face and not feel anything.  So, the kid and I got into it. While I had the benefit of being unmedicated, sane, trained and having danced this dance before, I was not allowed to hurt him – which kind of puts a damper on fisticuff options. In the end, I subdued him but screwed up my back and ended up in physical therapy for a month. I prevailed but did not win. Translation? I’m too old for this kind of shit.

“Please,” the girlfriend pleaded, putting herself between the two men and holding on to her boyfriend arms. “It’s not worth it.”

I unconsciously put myself out of range of either men’s fists but didn’t retreat any further. I was interested in how things would turn out.  Looking at the potential combatants’ feet I noticed Beady Eyes was set up like a pro –  balanced on the balls of his feet, hands resting gently on his hips. The boyfriend was flatfooted and his hands were pinned by his girlfriend. He was going to get his ass kicked. Bar fights don’t follow Marquis of Queensbury rules.

If the balloon went up, I was going to skedaddle out the exit nearby. But I’d have to move past the fracas to get there. Knowing that innocent bystanders often get caught up in these things. I didn’t want my dental work ruined. That’s when the cold part of my brain kicked into gear. Beady Eye was the dangerous one. Elbow him in the nose and then, when he was surprised by the pain, kick him in the side of the knee and lever him face first into the bar – and then get stomped by all his friends! Fuck that. If these two guys were going to get in a fight, let them. I’d just get behind the bar, grab a cold one, and watch the main event.

One of Beady’s friends stepped up, holding out his hands. “Brother,” he said. “Let it go.”

“He was saying shit about my girlfriend!”

“I didn’t hear what he said,” the friend, said. “But we don’t want any trouble. Go home.”

We don’t want any trouble. That probably meant Beady’s friends were going to pile on. The boyfriend was being given a warning.

“Okay, okay,” the boyfriend, said, realizing the odds were against him. “We’re going.” Then he grabbed his girlfriend and exited stage right.

Party over, everyone went back to drinking themselves into a stupor. Beady stood by the phone booth getting clapped on the back by his friends. “Way to go, man!” one of them said. “You showed him.” The kid soaked up the adulation, his face a sly mix of brutishness and stupidity. I shook my head. One day he might understand the difference between prevailing and winning, but not yet. With his mouth, he’d probably end up picking on the wrong guy and end up in traction – or worse. Bar fights are scary.

“So,” my said when I rejoined her. “How’d I do?”

“You killed them, babe. Good job.”

“What was going on in the back?” Annie said. “I heard a commotion.”

“Nothing really. Two guys getting into it.”

“Oh dear.”

“I can’t wait until you pay Carnegie Hall, darling. Better class of people there.”

When the night wrapped up I walked my wife to her car – feeling older, wiser and sad.

The post Prevailing Versus Winning appeared first on Waiter Rant.

The Title Belt

“Gee this is really fancy,” a parent said to me.

“Yeah,” I said, surveying the hangar sized childrens’ museum where we were holding my daughter’s fourth birthday party. “When I was a kid my mom made a cake from the box and we played pin the tail on the donkey.”

“She didn’t even hide the box?” the dad, said, laughing.

“I think I helped make the cake.”

“That’s how my birthday parties went,” the dad, said. “Things are more complicated now.”

My daughter first birthday was cake at the diner while she gurgled, oblivious to the occasion. Her second birthday went much the same way but, a few months afterwards, Natalie started saying, “When’s my birthday? I want a birthday party.” When we told her that it had passed she wailed inconsolably. For almost a year she’d start crying whenever she heard the “Happy Birthday” song.  Hey. it’s not my fault her neurons linked up just a tad late.

This year Natalie was extremely hip to her birthday. “It’s on January 16th” she’d say, proudly pointing to the Peppa Pig calendar hanging on her bedroom wall. “I’m going to have a party. Where are we going to have my party?”

“We’d better do something nice,” I told my wife. “Or Natalie may dump me in a crappy nursing home.”

“Or pull the plug if I’m not around to do it,” my wife replied.

“Is it just me,” I said. “Or do I detect an eagerness in your voice?”

After some back and forth over end of life wishes, my wife picked the kiddie museum as the venue and mailed out the invitations to Natalie’s friends and classmates. Twenty kids accepted. “This is going to cost us a mint,” I groaned.

“It’s January,” my wife said. “We can’t do anything in our backyard. Just chill.”

The museum was an excellent call. My daughter and her friends climbed on a fire truck, played grocery store, dug for dinosaur bones in a sandbox, played pirate, cavorted on the huge jungle gym, dressed up like princesses and knights, banged on drums, ate pizza and spiked their glucose levels with ice cream cake. The kids had a great time. Me? I was wiped out.

“You did good Dad,” one of my wife’s friends, said.

“I cannot believe what a production this was.”

“Enjoy it now. Trust me, when she’s fourteen she’ll want to celebrate her birthday without you.”

When the party finally ended, my wife said. “Can you pull up the van and load the presents into the car?”

“Where are her presents?”

“They’re in a cart with her name on it.” The “cart” in question was a big rubber tub on wheels overflowing with gifts. My kid made out big time. After offloading the birthday booty, I collected my wife and daughter.

“Did you have a nice time, Natalie?” I said.

“No! Whaaah!”

I smiled. “Do you like Mommy and Daddy?”

“No!”

“Do you like Peppa Pig?”

“NOOOOO!”

Not liking Peppa is anathema to Natalie so I knew my kid was fried. When we got her home, she cried for about twenty minutes and then passed out on my bed, lying on her stomach with her butt high in the air. We left her birthday gifts in the car, deciding to parcel them out during the week.

On Monday morning, my wife was sick and Natalie was running a small fever. After hanging out with twenty germy children, I wasn’t surprised.  When she was finished gobbling up her breakfast and sucking down fluids over her protestations, I asked Natalie if she’d like to open some of her presents. “Oh yes, please!” she cried. So, I dragged three presents from their hiding place and, in a blink, the floor was littered with wrapping paper, puzzles, new shoes and a fairy castle.

“Oh boy!” Natalie said. “A fairy castle! I want to play.”

“Be patient,” I said. “Daddy has to put it together.” My wife staggered downstairs, grabbed some coffee and watched as I presented Natalie with her newly assembled castle.

“You are the best daddy in the world,” my daughter said. My wife gasped with surprise.

“Thank you, Natalie,” I said, feeling myself tear up. “And you’re the best little girl in the world.”

“What about me?” my wife, said. To be fair, she did all the heavy lifting for the party. I just showed up.

“And who is the best mommy in the world?” I said.

“She is,” Natalie said, pointing to my wife  – who looked a bit put out.

“Good girl.”

When she’s older, Natalie will see her father was an amalgamation of contradictions, neuroses and fears that occasionally sparked with flashes of wisdom. But today, for a moment, I held the world title belt. And it was sweet.

Happy Birthday Natalie. You are the best thing about me.

The post The Title Belt appeared first on Waiter Rant.