Meeting Tiny Dancer

I don’t like the symphony. I don’t like ballet, either. At least, that’s what I think.

Last time I went to a symphony, I was ten years old, perhaps. My mom made me go - sorry, took me - to see the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. The concert lasted 19 hours, and I didn’t care for it.

So much for culture. Mama tried.

As for ballet, I’ve never seen it but just know I wouldn’t like it. I did see Miss Piggy do ‘Swine Lake’ on an episode of the Muppets. That pretty much confirmed my feelings on ballet.

I’m not a cultured guy. I’m just not. Getting older hasn’t helped. Instead of branching out, I’m digging my heels in, like I’m better off not experiencing new things.

Why?

Stubborn, lazy, ornery… pick one.

Word came I’d be meeting a cousin I’ve never met before. It’s odd to say that, but we live far apart. And don’t I have enough family already?

Anyway, he was gonna be where I was gonna be, so I’d finally get to meet him. And his wife.

Since he and I have social media in common, I knew he was married to a dancer from China. Not just any dancer, she dances leading roles for the Martha Graham Dance Company.

While I was looking forward to meeting her, there was a part of me that wasn’t so sure. Wouldn’t meeting her mean I’d eventually have to go watch her perform? And isn’t modern dance like ballet and therefore on the list of stuff I don’t want to see?

As she entered our house, I played gracious host and asked if she’d like something to drink. I had tea. I was confident Chinese drink tea and felt well equipped.

“Got any bourbon,” she asked.

Say what?

Oh, I had bourbon. In fact, I’ll be upfront about this: I’m a bourbon snob. While I absolutely do not buy bourbon based on price, I like good bourbon. It’s expensive sometimes.

I pour a little over ice as she requests. She sips like a pro and approves. She’s little-bitty; I’m betting she can’t hold her liquor.

I was a bit concerned about the menu. I wasn’t serving rice and wasn’t sure she’d eat steak. Aren’t cows sacred in China?

No? Wrong country? People in China eat something other than rice?

I’m kidding. Chinese probably think Americans only eat McDonalds. I’m not offended by that, actually.

“I love steak,” she informs me.

Turns out, she loves about everything edible, especially everything Southern. Bacon, biscuits, gravy… even fried okra, which I was also serving that night.

I learned something else that evening: dancers have a very active metabolism. Planning the meal, we had cooked large, figuring to have leftovers on another night later in the week. There were none.

Tiny Dancer can eat.

I also learned she has expensive tastes in bourbon. Later in the night, we did a blind tasting. Her favorite was Elmer T. Lee. There’s a store near me that sells Elmer for $199 a bottle when they have it to sell at all. Of course that would be her favorite!

But she was sweet and we liked her. So what happens next…?

“We’d love to see you perform,” says my wife. “Got any shows coming up in the South?”

No. Nope. Nuh-uh, I’m thinking to myself. She doesn’t.

She does. And in just a couple of weeks.

Dang it, boy!

I’ll do a time-jump here and tell you seeing her perform was a fine experience. Would I do it again? She’s family, so, um, yeah.

I kid, I kid.

After the show, we invited her to dinner. Two really fortunate things make this possible. First, there was another couple with us, so we could split the check. Secondly, there was a title pawn shop nearby where we could obtain financing for the meal.

It was a really good time, but I’m glad we live on opposite ends of the country. Girl knows I have good bourbon, and I still haven’t gotten the title to my car back yet.

The Collard Conumdrum

Courtesy of the Atlanta Journal Constitution

If you haven’t been paying attention to the news, there’s a collard crisis underway. Not making this up. The cultivar Southerners crave this time of year is in serious short supply.

Blame the elements. In the Southeast, too much rain has flooded fields. California collards are the victims of wildfires, either too much scarring from blowing ash or too much smoke to harvest ‘em.

For me, none of this is particularly bad news. I hate collards.

Every year I seem to find myself in the company of friends and/or family who want that traditional New Year’s Day meal of collards, cornbread, black-eyed peas and ham.

Each of those foods supposedly represents something, though I have no idea what it is. Except for collards. Because they’re green, I think they represent money. Eat collards on the first day and you’ll enjoy prosperity throughout the entire new year.

I’d rather be poor. Collards taste nasty and give me gas.

I hate black-eyed peas, too, though I can tolerate them if I’ve got enough chow chow slopped on ‘em. (Chow chow is pickled something. In the South, usually cabbage or squash. Whatever it is, it’s mission is to mask the taste of the peas. Ketchup also works in a pinch.)

This is my own problem, I know. I’m a Southern boy with a Southern pedigree a mile long.

Having grown up with considerable exposure to three sets of great-grandparents, I learned things kids today aren’t allowed to learn or are simply not exposed to.

One grandfather was a sawmiller who taught me how to make a corncob pipe and smoke rabbit tobacco in it. His wife - grandmama - was a sturdy woman who dipped snuff and tried to teach me how to milk a cow. (I never learned. I was afraid I’d hurt the cow if I squeezed that thing too hard.)

Another grandpa raised chickens and cows and plowed his garden behind a mule while grandma was making stew from the snapping turtle her brother had killed and brought into the house, swingin’ it by the tail.

On my mom’s side, one great-grandfather was a preacher. A Baptist preacher. That’s an important Southern distinction. Wouldn’t be as meaningful if I had to identify him as Episcopalian. People might think we were drinkers. You know, whiskeypalians. And my elders did not drink. Had to learn to do that on my own.

I’ve skinned and consumed a hundred rabbits and squirrels and gnawed clean their bones. I can pick out a ripe melon by thumping it. And I can fry you up a mess of okra that will absolutely make you weep.

I shouldn’t have to prove my credentials as a Southerner, yet I’ve had a constant culinary clash with many of the foods beloved in the South.

It’s not just collards I don’t like, it’s turnip greens, mustard greens, rutabaga and virtually all peas and beans. (Except pork’n. I love me some pork’n beans. Probably because you gussy them up with brown sugar and bacon.)

I don’t like boiled peanuts, either.

Something’s wrong with my wiring. I much prefer Italian food to Southern fare. Given the choice of pizza or fried chicken…

Wait. Bad example. I’d definitely choose the fried chicken. And anything that taste like fried chicken. Frog legs, for example. Yum!

But I love Italian food the most. I’ve wondered if the doctor who delivered me was Italian. Or maybe he had just polished off a pizza and the first breathe I drew on this earth was a whiff of his breathe.

Adding insult to injury, the friend who prepares our collards every New Years Day is Italian. She claims what she cooks are Italian-style collards.

I don’t fight it, but I don’t buy it. If I cook up a possum with pepperoni, does that make it Italian-style possum?

Debate that while you eat your collards. If you can find any.

Personally, I’m hoping to catch a break this year.

The Case For Nice Underwear

“Always wear clean underwear. You never know when you might be in an accident, and you don’t want people in the emergency room seeing you in dirty underwear.” - Your mom or someone like her.

‘Twas the day before Thanksgiving, and I was in the emergency room.

I had been golfing that day and couldn’t shake the uneasiness in my chest, so I quit halfway through the round and headed for the hospital.

Quick background: This had happened before. Seven years ago, I left the golf course, went to the emergency room and was invited to stay for a triple bypass. So I’ve got history. And trust me, that kind of history heaps a whole lot o’ paranoia on you when things start feeling squirrely in your chest.

I will say this: seven years ago, I was given an additional indicator something was amiss. That hot day in July, after finishing my round, I cracked open a cold beer and never took a sip.

There’s your sign.

Now, here I was again.

In the emergency room, the first thing that happens is a check of your pulse and blood pressure. My pulse was fine, but my blood pressure sent a message to Houston: We have a problem.

I’m not a guy that ever fights BP problems, but it was through-the-roof high. And that little piece of news was going to buy me an extended stay to ‘check on things.’

“Let’s get you into a hospital gown,” said the nurse. Oh, yeah… cute nurse. About age 30. Because when you’re a guy in your 60’s and you wind up in the hospital, you’re never gonna get the dude nurse who looks like he might have stayed up all night binge-watching Game Of Thrones and eating nachos. You’re getting the cute, young nurse.

And she’s just asked you to take off your clothes.

This is where UPS sets in. And it ain’t about nobody getting a delivery. (Though you could argue it involves a package.)

UPS = Underwear Panic Syndrome.

It’s real.

Underwear Panic Syndrome is that sinking feeling an older guy gets when the cute, young nurse is going to see his underwear, and he has no idea which pair he has on.

Let’s face it, y’all, we all have underwear that should have found the trash can a long time back. It’s got holes, it’s got a shot elastic band, it’s got (whispering…) stains! You know what I’m talking about here.

To further expound on UPS, here’s some info you didn’t ask for, but I’m a briefs guy. Always have been.

I get that briefs are not particularly cool, but neither am I. With briefs, I get the one thing I demand from my underwear: support for the troops.

Let’s keep everybody together. Nobody needs to be wandering off.

(For the record, briefs used to be cool. Google images of ‘Jim Palmer underwear.’)

In college, I experimented with a few things. One of those was boxers, because a lot of my friends wore boxers. I spent those few days doing a whole lot of… um, adjusting.

As I have lived my life and observed a few things, I’ve never regretted staying with briefs. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Women aren’t the only ones affected by gravity.

At one point in my morning radio show career, I had a mid-20s, male co-host who wore boxers. Because we’re boys, I suppose, underwear was a frequent topic of discussion. Our female partner was proud to proclaim her preference for going commando, so she mostly just refereed our briefs vs boxers arguments.

“You’ll regret boxers,” I would warn him. “Your knees will have playmates when you’re older.”

One day, he texted me from the local YMCA. He had just finished a workout and while in the locker room had encountered a much older man, shaving in front of the lavatory mirror. Nude.

My cohort had just seen his future. And I have never received a text containing so many exclamation points!!!

He now wears boxer briefs.

And maybe that should be my direction. Boxer briefs tend to keep all the eggs in the basket, as some of us prefer, and are probably considered cooler than briefs. Again though, I’ve experimented and still prefer briefs.

The UPS I suffered the day before Thanksgiving wasn’t as much about just wearing briefs as it was about the color of briefs I might have on.

Underwear multi-packs usually contain various colors: black, gray, blue, red, even white can be included. (Never brown, though. Wonder why? Especially for men of a certain age.)

I rarely wear the white ones, usually opting for another color. But what if I was wearing the blue ones? They’re not a manly dark blue. They’re a baby blue. Carolina blue. Might as well be tighty-whities, really.

As I unbuckled my belt to drop my drawers, I secretly prayed: please no blue, please no blue.

Ta da! Black! Yes!

But they were still briefs, and I still felt some pangs of shame.

To wrap up the hospital story, my blood pressure had gotten whacked out (I had wa-a-a-y overdone salty foods the day before), and I was released 24 hours later after extensive testing determined my heart is actually in excellent condition.

But comfortably back home, I’m thinking I need an undies upgrade. Maybe buy some boxer briefs to keep in the truck. Next time I take myself to the hospital, I can do a quick-change before walking into the emergency room to announce that I may be having a heart attack.

When the cute nurse tells me to undress, she will still see an older man with a ponchy belly, large love handles, a developing turkey neck and gray, thinning hair, but she’ll see I still got style.

She won’t say it out loud, but she’ll be thinking, “Hey, cool undies.”

Winner, winner, chicken dinner, old man!

You take your little victories whenever they come.

The Makeover

They are the words no man wants to hear. Ever.

“I think it’s time to freshen this place up a little.”

Nooooooo…..!! (echoing endlessly down the canyon).

“Don’t worry, we’ll hire it done. We won’t have to do a thing.”

Yeah, right.

Every piece of furniture is going to be moved to the center of the room and covered with a drop cloth. Every shirt comes out of the closet. Every can comes out of the pantry. Every picture comes down, every outlet cover comes off the wall, and every curtain comes down. And we won’t have to do a thing.

Is this a great country or what?

But a makeover was strangely necessary. For starters, a whole lot of thoughtful planning when this house was built had become a whole lot of obsoletefulness. (New word alert!)

The woman who built our house in the ‘80s planned it well. Not only were there phone jacks and cable TV connections in every room, some rooms had two of each - on opposing walls.

Moving into the house, we marveled at how thoughtfully planned it was, allowing for lots of flexibility in arranging the rooms.

Further, several rooms had speaker wire built into the walls. There was speaker wire built in on either side of the fireplace. Neat-o!

This place was wired to the max. That included a built-in alarm system with keypads at every entrance, a total of four. As part of the alarm system, there were smoke detectors in the ceilings, and glass-breaker alarms were placed anywhere entry might be gained by breaking out a glass window or door.

Yessir, this place was a well-planned, well-wired fortress.

Now, fast-forward about 30 years.

Welcome to a wireless world.

There are a whole lot of unloved jacks in this place. We still have wired speakers to the entertainment center, but we use wireless Bluetooth speakers more.

And about this intricate alarm system, it’s become nothing more than yellowing plastic parts scattered about the ceilings and walls in every room of the house. Heck, neither of us can even remember when it all quit working.

But… (dramatic pause) should we ditch it or replace it?

We’ve put smoke detectors in every bedroom and wireless cameras and alarms now notify us on our cell phones if something is amiss. But what about down the road? What if we wanted to sell this house? What is the buyer expecting?

I called a real estate friend.

“Take it down,” she said.

I balked at first. While it’s true the system hadn’t worked in years, the wiring was intact and probably just fine. Attach a new system and you’re good as new. And you’re telling me what?

“Take everything off the walls. It dates your house.”

Hey, tearing stuff down is a piece of cake.

Fixing gaping holes in the walls and ceilings is a whole ‘nother matter.

At this point, I would like to thank Al Gore for inventing the internet. YouTube has videos to help you fix almost anything.

Giving your place a fresh coat of paint ought to be easier. It’s hell.

Worse still, as we’re trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, my wife has this insatiable urge to ‘try something new.’

Let’s move the TV to that wall. Let’s try the sofa on that side. Let’s move this chest to another room.

Here’s an idea: let’s go to the Bahamas. And by saying, let’s - short for ‘let us’ - I mean, me. Because next time you want to freshen this place up, that’s where you’ll find me.

I ain’t ever doing this again. Ever.

(P.S. Fax machine for sale. Holla at me, if interested.)

My Epiphany

This is not a story about traveling to Italy. It mentions Italy because that’s where I finally found clarity for my life.

 Since clarity is a rarity, it is charity for me to share for thee.

 I’m not gonna lie. Since retiring, I’ve struggled.

While comfortably tucked into my career as a morning radio show announcer, I knew how my day would go. I’d finish up work around 10 or 11 am every morning, then go join the old fart golf group that teed off every day around lunchtime. Many years, I would play 150 days or more.

The point is, I knew what I was doing with my days. In retirement, I’m playing maybe 50 rounds a year. That leaves a lot of days in limbo.

To some extent, golf has been replaced by travel. Oh, it’s not all exotic. For example, we’re taking in more live concerts now, so sometimes our trips are just a quick overnighter to hear an artist we enjoy.

We’ve fallen in love with Nashville, Tennessee’s music scene, so we wind up in Music City way more than I would have ever imagined.

Still, we are trying to see some other parts of the world and recently returned to Italy for the second time in two years. And for a second time, we hooked up with a travel guide named Max.

On our first tour of Old Italia, it took Max about one day to figure out what we liked: wine. With lunch.

On our just-completed trip, he didn’t even ask what we wanted to see. Every day, he had arranged a wine tasting at a nice winery, usually with lunch thrown in.

Lunch often lasted for a couple of hours. Afterwards, Max would just drive us around until we fell asleep. When we woke up, he’d tell us of the nice places he had taken us and say something like, “too bad you slept through it.”

In the Tuscany region, we hit a couple of places that are actually referred to as wine castles. Translated to English, that’s a castle with wine.

A castle, y’all. With wine. Take a moment, if you need to.

Besides wine, another thing to love about Italy is gelato. Gelato is actually Italiano for ice cream, but gelato is better. It uses more milk…. something, something, something… so it’s not just like American ice cream.

Gelato is sold in a gelateria. If you think about it, that makes sense. Pizza is sold in a pizzeria; gelato, in a gelateria.

I’m a big fan of gelato. Specifically, coconut, though I’m multi-gelatinous and can swing many directions.

So, the epiphany: I want to open a gelateria in a wine castle.

When I told my wife, she suggested I build the castle from the corks we have in the basement.

30-gallon tub o’ corks. Just part of my stash.

It was meant as a snide remark, a dig at me for saving corks, even though I have no plan to do anything with them.  

But her idea is brilliant. A cork castle!

Enemy bullets would bounce right off the cork walls. And if someone bombed my castle, what’s the damage? Broken cork? No problem.

“Hey, we need more cork!” And out comes a corkscrew.

My cork castle would also be flood-proof. The same rains that floated Noah’s arc would float my castle. When the rain subsided, who knows what country my castle would have landed in? But it wouldn’t matter. The local chamber of commerce would welcome me. Because I’ve got a castle full of wine.

And gelato.

Who wouldn’t want to be my friend?

Beautiful minds like mine – and Steve Jobs – don’t come along that often. I can only imagine that you’re thinking, ‘Dang, I wish I had thought of that first!’

 But you didn’t.

Bring money. I will be charging admission.

Ciao.

If You Love It, Better Not Put a Ring On It

Maybe you’ve seen the post – or email – making the rounds about how ‘old’ people should present themselves?

It defines old as 60 or over. So much for 60 being the new 40, eh?

If you haven’t seen it, here’s a sample of some pairings it suggests you avoid: A nose ring and bifocals Miniskirts and support hose Unbuttoned disco shirts and a heart monitor Bikinis and liver spots Thongs and Depends.

Cute.

But on a more serious note, I’m here today to address the first item, the nose ring.

*GRUMPY OLD MAN ALERT*

I’m not good with some current trends.

If I’ve not mentioned it before, I hate tattoos. I hate them more on women than men. To me, they look trashy.

I’m trying to adapt. Mainly, because everybody but me seems to have one.

Also, I know some really quality, non-trashy ladies with tattoos. By ‘quality’ I mean I’ve Googled them and can’t find any pictures of them without clothes.

I’ve never liked belly button jewelry. (Unless you’re a belly dancer. In that case, you might as well put something shiny in that cavern.)

Nose and lip studs? Nope.

But I’m trying really hard to be a better person and stop judging the book by its cover. That’s probably my biggest flaw, honestly.

But the one decoration I do not get is the nose ring.

First thought: are you a dang cow?? If we go out on a date, can I hitch up a rope to that thing and lead you into the theater?

I don’t care how otherwise beautiful you are, inside or out, something hanging out your nose does not look good. And there’s nothing – NOTHING – you can do to change that.

Make it silver, gold, bejeweled, bigger, petite, or blessed by the Pope, it’s still something coming out of your nose and needs wiping.

I know, shut up ol’ man!

Potty Training

It’s been a few years since I’ve been to a Jimmy Buffet concert, but I learned a lot of stuff from those I attended.

Lesson #1: I will in fact open my mouth and let you squirt tequila in there from your super-soaker squirt gun.“What if that’s not tequila?” asks a suspicious wife.

If you can’t trust a Parrothead, who can you trust?

My inaugural Buffet concert was where I first saw women standing in line at the men’s rooms because of the much longer line for the women’s rooms.

Even before the show started, one of the ladies in our group opted to hit the bushes rather than wait in line.

Which brings me to Valuable Buffet Concert Lesson #2: People who squat behind the bushes to do their business are way more likely to have embarrassing chigger problems than people patient enough to save the squatting for the restroom.

Just so you’ll know.

Of potential interest, Chigger Girl had just started her new gig as a member of our radio morning show. She was positioned on the other side of the desk from me, and I’ll just say that it was helpful I knew what was going on. Otherwise, there was a lot of under the desk action I would not have understood.

Having women in the men’s room didn’t bother me. In fact, it made sense. That line into the women’s bathroom never let up.

A recent Facebook post from a friend visiting Portland, Oregon, expressed surprise so many bathrooms there are non-gendered. She clearly wasn’t used to seeing restrooms available to either sex, anyone who might be undecided or someone who might be a little of both.

Makes perfectly good sense to me, though.

For as long as I have been aware that lines into men’s and women’s restrooms are not equal, I’ve wondered why stadiums and concert venues didn’t have twice as many facilities for the ladies.

A woman going into a football stadium restroom at half-time is lucky to be out in time to catch the last half of the 4th quarter.

If nothing else, non-gender bathrooms level the waiting-time playing field. Even if we have different approaches to taking care of business, for the most part, we all are in a restroom for the same reason.

My observation is, Americans run behind Europe on this matter, and perhaps other parts of the world, as well. We’ve been in areas of Europe where you simply didn’t see bathrooms designated for a specific gender. It was just a bathroom; have at it.

I think I found the only restrooms in all of Italy that were specifically marked. Problem was, by then I was convinced they didn’t exist, and I wasn’t paying attention. I walked out to what appeared to be about an 8-year old girl child giving me quite the stink-eye.

I looked back to notice I had indeed just come from the women’s bathroom. I tried to make light of it. She wasn’t amused.

But we’re losing something with non-gender bathrooms.

Future generations will never know the cleverness of visiting a seafood restaurant and having to decide if they are ‘bouys’ or ‘gulls.’

Or being in a chicken restaurant with one sign saying ‘chicks’ and the other, ‘chick magnets.’

Or visiting a country diner with one sign reading ‘sausage’ and the other ‘eggs,’ then having to figure it out.

Will they know the difference between ‘tomcats’ and ‘kitty cats,’ or will everyone just be a cat?

Yes, the cottage industry of coming up with clever ways to say boys, girls, men and women will fade into obscurity.

Another tradition down the toilet.

A Foreigner In My Own Country

Just returned from a trip that included a few days in New York City. It wasn’t my first time. We were there just two years ago, so I knew I was getting in to.

The NYC skyline on a hazy day in Central Park

I love/hate that place.

The over-the-top weirdness of Time Square. Visiting the M&M store and paying $14 a pound for peanut M’s that would cost about $3 at my local grocery store. A truly unintelligible subway system. The fabulous – use your ‘jazz hands…’ fab-u-louus - Broadway shows.

It’s like no other place. It’s also like no other place should aspire to be, really. Especially the subway trains. The subway system there was designed by chimpanzees who then hired kindergarteners to draw the maps and legends explaining it.

Locals eventually figure it out by osmosis; visitors have no chance.  

The way we handle the trains is to wander around in the subway station looking lost until someone takes pity on us and helps.

Mostly, we just walk. We certainly don’t attempt to drive in that carnival.

If you do drive in NYC, you need to be fluent in ‘horn.’ It’s the official language of drivers there.

But here’s what I’ve figured out: Honkers are almost always several cars back in the pack.

The first car in line has stopped because it’s illegal to run over pedestrians. The second car can see what’s going on so sits quietly. Get back to about the fourth or fifth car and all they know is that the light is green and they ain’t moving.

*beeeeeep*

Honking changes nothing, but I reckon it gives the drivers a way to vent their frustration of being in a city where a billion people live and having to deal with another billion visitors who know it’s illegal for you to run over them with your car and will therefore cross the street whenever they dang well want, traffic lights be damned.

The other language of New York City is every other language in the world. Except English.

Look, I’m a bumkin in The City, but I’m telling you, it was rare to hear English conversationally spoken. On the streets, in the subways, in the bars (so I’m told), on the elevators, the conversations were almost always in a foreign language.

That’s more observation than complaint.

To start with, we all know that as a country we’ve become heavily reliant on immigrants for service work. The servers, dishwashers, attendants, hotel staff… the list is endless of jobs immigrants are willing to do for the opportunity to live in the States.

Now, couple that with all the foreign visitors who are simply making NYC one of their must-do destinations, and there’s a whole lot of no speak-y English going on.

What if, I thought… what if we passed a law that required everyone in an American city to speak only English. That would probably cut down on the crowds since so many people would have to learn the language instead of relying on a single interpreter to be the English voice for their entire bus.

Then there’s a possible downside. What if that law not only required English, but required the proper use of the language?

That would shut most Americans out of places like New York City.

So, let me just say this, y’all. I ain’t never gonna go back to that place. Not never, not no how. I don’t know what them farners are sayin’, an’ until them people done learned how to tawk like me, I’d just a-soon stay home.

Somebody fetch me a beer.

Tequila Songs

Just heard a song from Dan + Shay called ‘Tequila.’ Wow, a song about tequila. How novel!

While that oozes sarcasm, it’s a decent song, and so adds to an every-growing list of odes to a cactus.

Off the top of my head, I can probably name 9 or 10 songs about tequila. There are more, I know. Many more.

Almost all songs about tequila involve drinking too much. From there, we work on secondary themes, like being lonesome, drinking away a memory or doing something stupid.

Tequila songs can also involve a fair amount of promiscuity.

“Who is this cowboy
Who's sleepin' beside me?
He's awful cute, but how'd I
Get his shirt on?
I had to much Tequila last night.”
    - ‘Jose Cuervo,’ sung by Shelly West

Anyway…

Hello, everybody, and welcome to TEQUILA TALK. As your host, you should know I fancy myself a tequila aficionado (I drink it), a tequila snob (I like the good stuff), and I may be the only person you’ve ever met that has never gotten sick from drinking it. Like, ever.

Full disclosure: Oh yeah, I’ve overdone it. I’ve just never overdone it on tequila. And I’ll let my sainthood stop right there.

Tequila gets a bad rap, and it’s not to blame. Its smooth, sometimes smoky goodness is a delicious sip, either neat or over a little ice.

There are two main problems we have with tequila.

First, we’ve made it a barroom game to see how much of it we can drink before we puke. Secondly, and a contributor to the first point, barroom tequila shots are usually done with a low-grade product.

While anything calling itself tequila must, by law, contain at least 51% distilled blue agave, that leaves the other 49% to be distilled from something else. That’s very often corn syrup. And in these cheaper tequilas that nice golden color comes not from barrel aging, it comes from caramel coloring.

I’m not hating on Cuervo Gold, y’all. Despite it being made from a whole lot of sugar and only minimally-required blue agave, it doesn’t taste bad. But even folks who think it does taste bad are willing to toss a few down so we can part-a-a-a-y!!!

I’ll be worshiping at the porcelain alter later, but right now I have never been funnier, prettier, wittier or danced better!

The girl who cuts my hair told me she can’t drink tequila. And why?

“Well, one night…”

…and we all know the rest of that story.

Her drink of choice is vodka.

Have you ever, I asked, sat down with some friends and slammed shots of cheap vodka down your throat until you went blind?

Still, it’s hard to deny tequila has rendered some fun tunes. An all-time favorite became Pee Wee Herman’s dance groove: ‘Tequila’ by The Champs. In fact, that one may be the top tequila song of all time because of Pee Wee’s signature dance – let’s face it, tequila can lead to some pretty stupid dance moves – and because it’s easy to sing. The lyrical content of the song is a total of three words, and they are all ‘tequila!’

Speaking of lyrical content, Joe Nichols had a #1 hit with ‘Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off.’ Given its title, I’m not sure why it needed any lyrics. Seems fairly self-explanatory.

Emotional Support Animals

Did you see the recent news story from New Jersey about the woman turned away from a flight because of her emotional support animal?

In case you didn’t, the woman had been told in advance by United Airlines that she could not bring her emotional support animal onboard because they couldn’t accommodate the peacock.

A peacock, y’all! Her emotional support animal was a feakin’ peacock!

She showed up for the flight anyway. With the peacock.

Access denied.

Most of us watching or reading that story probably rolled our eyes and gave whoever else was around that look. You know the look.

‘Really?!’

Also known as the ‘is she on crack?’ look.

This story originally was going to be about her and others like her, people with emotional support animals (ESA). Specifically, people with unconventional emotional support animals.

People wanting to fly with pets has gotten so whacky that Delta has just updated it’s ESA policy, saying, “Customers have attempted to fly with comfort turkeys, gliding possums known as sugar gliders, snakes, spiders and more...”

I had planned to write about the peacock lady:

Ma’am, number one, that peacock don’t care about your emotions. And number two, I’m betting you’re single.

Then, a couple of things happened.

First, another ESA story emerged involving an emotional-support dog that attacked a passenger on a plane. In this case, though, the dog was a veteran’s ESA.

That a veteran is part of the story gave me pause enough. (Gave me pause… get it? Pause… paws… OK, not that funny). Even putting that aside, though, if you’ve ever owned a good dog, you know that dog does indeed care about your emotions.

So, what do I do? Leave out people with dogs?

The other incident derailing my original story involves a donkey. On my walk past a nearby farm just this week, I stopped and asked the young woman shoveling out the barn what happened to the white horse that had been there for years.

“The white horse died, but we may get another one. That white horse and the donkey were close. The donkey is really lonesome.”

What??

“When we buried the horse, the donkey stood nearby and watched the whole thing. It was like she was at a graveside service.”

The woman spoke of it all very matter-of-factly, like a seasoned farm hand would.

On the farm, when a large animal dies, you take your backhoe or whatever implement you have to dig a hole, you dig that hole, then push the animal in and cover it up. The facts of life.

She spoke just as stoically about the donkey’s loneliness. No emotion, just ‘yeah… the donkey’s lost her buddy. We may have to do something about that.’

But if a donkey can have an ESA, I knew my story-idea-in-the-making, poking fun of people with emotional support animals, was going south quickly.

So, I’ve decided to change gears. Let’s look instead at what other animals might make a good ESA.

Like, a turkey. If you ever breakdown emotionally and need a meal, voila! And after eating the turkey, you could be thankful. (Thankful… turkey… thanksgiving…? Is funny still not happening here?)

How about a fish? Imagine, a friend comes over. She needs to unload her troubles, so you dutifully sit and listen as she drones on, endlessly. And you finally say, “Why don’t you kiss my bass.”

But you mean it. What a friend!

How ‘bout a bumblebee? Maybe all you need to pick you up is a little buzz.

Speaking of buzz, what about a buzzard? If you’re a particularly deep person, a buzzard could pick your brain. (And any other parts. Once you’re gone, of course.)

Feel free to offer your own thoughts. There’s gotta be plenty of other animals that would make ESAs.

I’m sure you’ve heard about the (true story) incident recently involving a lady with an emotional-support hamster? After being told she couldn’t have it onboard a Spirit Airlines flight, she flushed it down the toilet.

You can Google up the details, if you want. It’s a weird story.

But I have to wonder what kind of person relies on a hamster for emotional support. I doubt that hamster cared about her emotions.

I bet she’s single.

How the Dominican Republic Was Ruined

Tibby note: Because a couple of radio stations put these tales on their websites, I try to adhere to their rule: If it can’t be talked about or said on the radio, the story won’t get posted. I like that rule. Sure, it’s my website, but I want you to enjoy my stories without being offended by their language. That said, I push those boundaries for the honesty of this story. I think you’ll understand.

It was a cold morning in January. Since we live in Georgia, it may have been 35 or 40 degrees. We were freezing.

Over breakfast, we discussed the possibility of going someplace warm for a few days. By noon, our travel agent had set us up at a resort in the Dominican Republic.

If you don’t have children, pets, or jobs (retired), spur of the moment vacations can happen.

We are fortunate to have a travel agent astute enough to warn us the great deal at this all-inclusive resort was due to the fact that it was brand-spanking‘ new. It’s likely, she warned, they don’t have all the kinks worked out yet.

No problem. We’re really easy travelers. Stuff happens, you roll with it.

Stuff happened. Funny stuff.

Upon entering the room – OK, it was a suite - our 19-year old host began pointing out the amenities.

A mini-bar in both the kitchen and the bedroom. Impressive. Except they were stocked with Coors Light.

“Can we get Presidente (local beer) instead?” I asked.

Holding up a can of Coors Light, he said, “This is Presidente, I think. Just a different style.”

No, buddy, that’s a can of Coors Light.

And since it probably came from the brewery closest to the Dominican Republic, I’m guessing it’s been imported all the way from Albany, Georgia.

But hey, he’s 19, and it’s possible he saw Presidente and Coors Light coming off the same truck from a distributor. He gets a pass on this one.

By the way, Albany, Georgia, has some rocks but is not in the Rockies.

Day two:

“Have you gotten your free welcome gift?”

No, we hadn’t. But we know this routine. Your free welcome gift comes after you attend a meeting pitching ‘membership’ in the resort’s brand.

Also known as timeshares.

Timeshares are fine for a particular type of vacationer, but we’re wanderers and not a good fit. So, we have learned how to say no politely but convincingly.

These guys were not (immediately) taking no for an answer and proceeded to point out that our gift would contain several bottles of local goodies: liqueur, vanilla, etc.

Because of the language barrier, it took a little time to get across to them that we don’t check luggage when we fly. We travel with carry-on bags only. There was no way we could take those bottles on the plane. Especially that 750 ml bottle of liqueur.

“Is no problem,” one explained. “You wrap it up in your dirty clothes and sneak it on.”

Hello! All these years of travel, and all I had to do to fool the x-ray machines was to wrap stuff up in my dirty clothes? I am such a dummy!

The IRS should let me write the trip off as an educational expense.

Speaking of educational experiences, boy, did we ever get one from a young group of fellow Georgians that set up camp next to us at a pool one day.

Keep in mind, it’s an all-inclusive resort. Drinks are free. As the liquor flowed, so did the conversation.

We heard about everything: trucks, tractors, favorite menu items at Burger King. It was all good.

Until someone got stung by a wasp.

Faye wasn’t the one that got stung, but it turns out, she’s had the worst recent experience because she’s allergic to bee stings.

“It caught me right on the back of my thigh, and it swelled up my leg from my knee all the way up.”

A girlfriend encouraged her to give out all of the details. “Tell ‘em about your butthole, Faye.”

“Aw, yeah, my butthole swole up something awful. It was a mess.”

Thanks, Faye. Thanks for the memories.

It's Halftime! Sombody Sing!

College football is my favorite sport. Our favorite sport. In this house, we default to college football regardless of who’s playing. That our favorite team was in the national championship game was huge.

We were glued to the TV for the night.

Entertainment at halftime had been announced: Kendrick Lama.

Cool.

Now, the sum total of my knowledge of Kendrick Lamar is that I have read he is Taylor Swift’s favorite rapper. While that little nugget didn’t make me inclined to rush out and buy his music, she seems to have pop culture figured out pretty well.  I’m thinking Mr. Lamar must have something going for him.

Was I ready to rap at halftime? Ehhh… we’d see.

For all the years I spent on the radio, playing country music, then pop music, I was never exposed to much rap music, and from what little I heard of the genre, it didn’t appeal to me.

I understand. I’m an older white male, and as we would say in radio: you are not the intended audience, sir.

But I was interested in seeing and hearing what Kendrick Lamar was all about. I certainly wasn’t turning off the game off, so it really didn’t matter who the halftime entertainment was, I would hear it.

Who knows? Perhaps I’d like it.

To say that I didn’t care for Kendrick Lamar’s performance isn’t really fair.  I didn’t give it much of a chance. For whatever opportunity I wanted to give myself to be exposed to something new, there are words associated with Kendrick’s music (and as an older white dude, I’d say words associated with rap music in general) that I’m simply not going to relate to.

Like ‘pimp’. And ‘gangsta.’

Yes, I know what they mean in a literal sense, but when I see Kendrick’s album, To Pimp A Butterfly, I doubt is has anything to do with him sending out a butterfly to sit on a flower, then bring him some money.

Still, it doesn’t really matter what the context is, those words are simply unrelatable for me.

That halftime show did bring me some enjoyment, but it came from all the buzz on my social media feed about Kendrick’s performance. Keeping in mind that people you are ‘friends’ with on social media are likely to be your peers, the halftime show was not at all a popular choice.

“Who decided we needed rap music at halftime?”

“Who chose this guy?”

“Is it a requirement that to sing rap music you have to grab your crotch?”

Hey, I can answer that last question by asking a question a young black person might have about country music. “Is it a requirement that popular country songs mention trucks?”

The cultural divide is wide. Sometimes miles wide. It can be amusing.

I spent my professional career in pop culture, hearing the music, watching entertainers, seeing the ebb and flow of trends. I can tell you I don’t get the crotch-grab just like I don’t get me and Lou Ellen driving my truck into the cornfield and dancing to the radio until dawn.

Given the choice, though, you know I’d be shuckin’ corn with Lou Ellen.

Trucks, gangstas, beers, Moscato… we all have our relatables.

As I read comments on Kendrick Lamar’s performance and factored in my own thoughts, it occurred to me I had become my grandpa. So had a lot of other people.

“They need to cut their hair. And those loud guitars…  That’s just not real music.”

My grandfather never quite got The Beatles.

The Pecan Pie Problem

I’m not sure when ‘The Season’ begins.

Is it Thanksgiving into Christmas, then into New Years? Or do we back it up to Halloween? Halloween into Thanksgiving into Christmas into New Years?

And why do we say ‘new years’ like there are several of them?

All I know is I eat a lot in ‘The Season.’

I’ve made pecan pies before, but making them this year was different. For some reason, this year I paid attention to what actually goes into making a pecan pie.

It may be because I’m trying (in vain) to reverse the slow trend of becoming a slightly larger person every year. I’m still trying to get my brain wrapped around this notion that what I put in my mouth has some direct correlation to the size of my midsection.

So... pecan pie:

-syrup
-sugar

That’s your pie: liquid sugar, granular sugar.

The sugars need something to hold them together, so let’s toss in a few eggs.

Of course there are pecans, but it could be anything. Want a peanut pie? Walnut pie? Use dill chips and it becomes a pickle pie.

The point is, we’ve named the pecan pie not after the main ingredients but after the only healthy ingredient in the thing. Rightfully, it should be called a sugar pie.

“Oh, you’re making sugar pies for the holidays? Do you do anything special?”

“Well, I like to top mine off with pecans. Adds a little crunch to the sugar.”

Years ago, I made a ‘dark’ version of pecan pie. Instead of a light corn syrup, I used molasses. Instead of white sugar, I used dark brown sugar.

I called it Pecan Mud Pie. I should have called it Pootie Pie. It hung around for days in unfavorable ways.

Pecan pie is hard to turn down, especially if you know the reputation of the person or restaurant that is offering it. Once you become known for making a good pecan pie, you are considered an excellent cook for anything else you make.

You could prepare an entire meal from canned food, nuke it in the microwave and serve it on plastic plates, and it would be the best meal ever.

Because we’re all just waiting on your delicious pecan pie at the end of the meal.

My pies this year were a failure. While they looked good coming out of the oven, apparently, I did something wrong. Serving them was serving a soupy, syrupy mess. With pecans.

They had good pecan pie flavor and got eaten (with spoons), but I doubt I will be asked to make them again for the family gathering.

I’m OK with that.

Maybe it’s just to discourage myself from eating something that will only make me a little rounder in the middle, but next time I’m serving pecan pie, I’m gonna call it like I see it.

“Alright now, I’m serving diabetes for dessert. Who wants Cool Whip on theirs?”

Mouthful of Nasty

Kids like gross. Always have. Toy makers know this and have been delivering gross toys for decades.

Garbage Pail Kids, Burp Balls, Queasy Bake Oven…. do a search for ‘gross toys’ and you’ll find not only the toys currently vying for your kids’ attention, you may also find what appealed to you as a child.

Anyone remember making creepy crawlers? Then eating them?

Seems like Santa Claus himself brought that one to my childhood house.

With no children of our own, our home these days is generally gross-free. (Pay no attention to anything my wife might say about me and Mexican food.)

But kids occasionally show up, and the ones we see most frequently know my wife and I are gamers. Ping pong, basketball, board games… we’re usually all in for whatever challenge gets thrown at us.

And that brings us to Bean Boozled.

For those not familiar with this game, allow me to introduce you. I’ll call it a board game but if it has a board, I’ve never seen it.

It does have a spinner. And jelly beans. What could go wrong?

The rules, as explained to us by the kids, are simple: Flick the spinner and whatever color it lands on, you eat a jelly bean of corresponding color.

That’s it. You now know how to play Bean Boozled. When you eat up all the jelly beans, refill bags are available at places like Cracker Barrel. That’s how wholesome the game is.

Except…

Each color jelly bean can have one of two flavors. One of those flavors is tasty; the other, not so much.

That brown jelly bean might indeed taste like chocolate pudding. But it might taste like canned dog food.  The white jelly bean? Could be coconut, could be sour milk.

I will attest that while I don’t really know what some of the gross flavors taste like (slimy socks?), they’ve done a pretty good job with replicating the taste of sour milk!

My wife and I weren’t the only adult players, but we hung in there longer than the others. One of them got a booger-flavored bean and dropped out immediately. My wife grabbed a trash can after her first bad bean. She was willing to keep going but prepared to unload any further undesirable flavors.

She didn’t last long.

I became a case study for stupidity. Not only did I hang in there until I had tasted all the flavors, good and bad, but when asked to play again the next night, I agreed.

My wife declined. So did the friend who went down on his first bean. “Tasted boogers all night,” was his excuse.

Nasty.

Which of course is why kids love it.

A Word For New Moms

Let’s jump right in.

Today’s gripe: Moms who put bows on their babies’ heads.

Random baby whose mom put her picture on the internet.

I seriously don’t get this. Every single girl child that pops up on my social media feed has a bow on her head. What’s going on here? Trying to make your baby look like… Dumbo? Minnie Mouse? A rabbit?

I have a niece claiming that just as with big hair, the bigger the bow, the closer to Jesus.

Yeah, we say that in that South, but it’s only because bad style needs an excuse, if you ask me.

A random baby that may or may not be family.

Not only is this a silly trend, some of y’all have pretty rotten tastes in bows.*

Somebody needed to say that.

What you see in those pictures is your little angel looking so precious. What I see is trouble looming. So let me just go ahead and prepare you for the conversation your surly teenage daughter is going to have with you in about 17 years:

“Can I ask why you ruined all my baby pictures by wrapping my head up like you were going to give it away for Christmas?”

“Can I get a tattoo? What do mean, you think it will make me look silly? Didn’t seem to bother you when I was a baby.”

“What’s with that bow? Had Wal-Mart run out of pretty ones or was Dollar General having a sale?”

I have another question. All of the babies I see have known fathers. Where are the fathers? Why are the dads not stepping up and saying something?

Be a man! Assert yourself! Or at least claim half ownership of rights to decorating the baby’s head and take the bow off.

I’ve never had children but I can assure you if my wife wanted to put a bow on Dumpling’s head, we’d be striking a deal. "Sure, you can put a bow on her head if I never have to do poopy-diaper duty again for the rest of eternity."

Something like that. I’m a b-a-a-a-d man!

Oh, I can feel your eyes rolling, moms. I know what you’re thinking.

‘Grumpy old man.’

But I know what you’re really doing. You’re trying to mask your baby’s fat head. 

Look, that’s just the facts of life. Most babies’ heads are too big for their bodies when they are born. What happened to just saying a ‘bless her heart’ and knowing she would grow into it eventually?

Has anyone considered that a fat-headed baby with a bow only makes fat-headed baby’s head look bigger?

Moms, trust me on this. Do your baby a favor. Buck the trend.

#saynotothebow (You can steal that; I stole your baby’s picture.)

No need to thank me. Just doing what I can to make you a better parent. Heaven knows, y’all need help.

There are acceptable occasions for 'bowing' the baby, though I'm saddened that this Georgia mom didn't know the 'G' was upside down.

*No specific accusations are intended for the babies pictured in this story. Although if the shoe fits…

The Eclipse: Just Add Water

It was something, the eclipse.

Especially to be in the path of totality where the moon would completely block the sun for a few moments.

The stars had aligned for us. And we were ready.

Plans had been in the works for months. One neighbor had ripped off some images from the internet and designed t-shirts celebrating the event. Another neighbor had purchased moonpies and sun chips for snacks.

There was beer.

About the only issue facing us was where to see it. In our area, watching the eclipse start to finish would take about 3 hours and options on where to see the sky for that amount of time were limited.

The few houses that make up our community are in a deep valley, heavily wooded, and a lot of the neighborhood only gets sunshine filtered through the oaks, maples and tall white pine trees surrounding us.

The day before the eclipse, several neighbors wandered up and down the lone dirt road that connects us and determined that the cabin on the end offered the best viewing from both the lower porch and in river itself. Sitting in the river is where many of us wanted to be.

More planning. A small tree would be harvested. It would be wedged between the rocks in the river so that floats could be attached. Further, the river was shallow enough at this spot that chairs could be put in the water.

Bonus: this cabin had a refrigerator in the basement. Those sitting on the porch didn’t have to walk very far to fetch and toss beers to those in the water.

The neck on this event was getting redder by the minute.

Everything went exactly according to plan. The sky was blue, the day was warm, the water was cool. And man, down in our valley where we have limited sunshine to begin with, when totality came, it got dark!

Perfect.

Except…

Many had gathered in the water a good hour or so prior to the start of the eclipse. The event had come and gone, and people were still in the water. Happy people, lounging in their chairs and tubes.

And there was beer.

We were into about the 4th hour of the party when someone just had to point out that no one had taken a bathroom break.

Here we are, lined up one behind the other in the water, and no one had stood up and announced that they would ‘be right back.’ No one had left the water to ‘take a break.’ We just sat in the river.

And there was beer.

These things go unspoken. Or should. But when someone speaks of it, smiles turn to sneers. Suspicious eyes are cast to everyone around.

Further, in the last couple of hours two pairs of those cheap eclipse-viewing glasses had come floating by us, meaning someone we could not see was upstream from us. At least two people, based on the number of glasses.

Were they also in the water? Did they also have beer? These are questions best unanswered.

 But the subject had been broached. Resolution became necessary.

In the end, we all agreed none of us would never do anything like that. Despite being older men and women, our friendship was strong and our bladders stronger.

Everything’s cool, everything’s OK.

One day, when you and your children are visiting the loveliest place on God’s earth you’ve ever seen, and you happen upon a pristine little trout stream, gurgling its way over the rocks, tumbling merrily to a larger river somewhere, and Little Precious looks up at you and asks, “Can I take a drink from it?”

Don’t be my dad.

My dad said, “Sure. Why not?”

Myself or Someone Like Me: The Avatar

When you’re 14, you’re never going to be old. Until one day you are.

When you get older, the best you can hope for is to be cool - the cool mom or dad, the cool aunt or uncle - and hope the young'uns around you see Rico Suave instead of Ricky Ricardo (who would have turned 100 this year).

That’s not the way it works, of course, but it’s really all most of us have to hang a hat on. That and our increasingly shiny heads.

Part of the perception of cool in this digital world is the ability to keep up with the latest ‘thing.’ Or at least to be perceived as trying to keep up.

So, when my teenage companions suggested I needed to be on Snapchat, I surrendered my phone.

“Set it up.”

If you’re not familiar with Snapchat, my best and shortest description would be that it’s texting with pictures.

There’s so much more to it, but that’s the basic function.

Further, unless you make a special effort to save a Snapchat, it disappears for good, typically after 10 seconds. There is a lot to like about that, especially if you are fond of sharing pictures of you doing stupid or illegal things (I’m guessing).

I suppose it’s because your chats disappear the Snapchat logo is a ghost.

The ghost is actually a blank canvas. You can insert a photo of you or anything else in that space. I had chosen to do nothing, and it was not sitting well with the 16-year old beside me.

She suggested I needed an avatar. In digital-speak, an avatar is a digital representative of you.

Think of it as a personal emoji.

For example, take your basic smiley face emoji 😊. Now, give Smiley Face some of your features, like the same color hair, that same skin tone, your dimples, glasses, if you wear them, etc.

You’re basically creating a cartoon character in your likeness.

You bet there’s an app for that. Several, probably.

Let the games begin.

She would look at me, then look at her options for designing me. “You need a longer face,” she commented as she picked a template to make that happen.

“His nose isn’t long enough,” her brother offered, thus involving himself in the process.

It started getting personal. Really personal.

My wrinkles were discussed. Scars and moles were talked about. And I guess I had bloodshot eyes that day because the question, ‘can you make the whites of his eyes red?’ was asked.

Assigning my avatar white hair was a no-brainer, but they argued over which available option looked most like a guy going bald.

 Ultimately, my avatar was finished. It's not easy seeing yourself through the eyes of a teenager, but I wasn’t too disappointed. Given that they were only creating my face, I avoided some other pitfalls common to men of a certain age:

-pot belly
-corroded toenails
-ear hair
-nose hair
-turkey neck
-baggy pants (‘cuz you got no butt)

I thought I got off pretty easy. The 14-year old thought his sister could have done a better job around my eyes.

“He’s got some pretty gnarly eyebrows.”

I do. And he will too one day. As we’re all fond of saying: There’s only one option to getting older, and you ain’t gonna like it much.

But I’m good with where I am in life. And I'm keeping busy by working on my own app, inspired by Snapchat. Since it will only work on teenagers, its working name is Teenzap.

Here's how it will work: use the app to take a photo of any teenager, and in 10 seconds, they will disappear.

Not the photo. In fact, you may want to keep the photo. It will be all that remains of that precious pimply face.

I'll keep you posted.

The Great Kitchen Catastrophe

It’s a very special smehell. I made that word up. It's a cross between 'smell' and 'hell.' 

We need a new word describing what it’s like walking into your house after your refrigerator/freezer has died and been left alone. Putrid, nauseous, toxic, oh my god, and liquid death don't get it done.

Who knows how long it had been dead. It had been two weeks since we had been around.

Neighbors discovered the problem. Ours is a close-knit community; everyone knows where everyone else keeps a spare key. If you don’t have something you need but your neighbor does, go get it. That’s how this started.

I received a text that someone or something was dead in our house.  “It’s not bad,” she wrote. “It’s really, really bad.”

She could have – I think I probably would have – just walked out and left it for the homeowner to figure out what was wrong. Instead, she and her husband decided to do a little investigating.

“Sniff the shower drain,” I suggested, thinking the septic tank might have a problem. By the way, you want to be pretty good friends with folks you suggest to go into your shower and sniff your drain.  Profanities could follow.

Looking for any obvious problems led them to eventually opening the refrigerator door. And immediately slamming it shut. It was a morgue in there.

Actually, no. There was life.

You know how your fridge has little vents? When motors aren't running and coolants aren't cooling, those vents become doorways for small creatures, hungry for a meal of spoiled, rotting food.

There were bugs.

Among the damage, a sealed pack of chicken that had swollen up and burst through the packaging. Same for the venison. Packs of ground deer meat had all breached the seals of their vacuum-packed plastic, warming to room temperature, oozing blood.

Yogurt had burst the seals of their individual cups and grown hair. Whomp buscuits – those you whomp against the counter to open - had broken through without being whomped and were molding.

And the bugs. It may have smelled like death, but certain unidentified insects were loving life: crawling, flying and feasting.

Clearly, the refrigerator had not just conked out yesterday. Alien life forms of this magnitude take time to manifest.

Public service announcement: Frozen okra will thaw into a gooey mess but will not explode through freezer bags. I’m not sure why you need that information, but now you have it.

Hazmat was called but refused to respond. So, friends stepped in to do what friends must occasionally do. Once in a while, you gotta step up to the plate.

First, all windows were opened. They found of couple of fans in our house, then brought a couple more of their own to prop up in those windows.

This cancelled the plans of our immediate next-door neighbors to eat lunch out on their deck that day. While they are a good 30 yards away, the stench from our kitchen was uncontainable. Those folks had other options of where they could be, so they packed up and left.

Like I said, it’s a real special odor.

Neighbors from both sides of the house came with garbage bags, willing to help clean out the fridge. While tossing out our food, one of them tossed his own cookies. Fortunately, he managed to make it outside, hanging his head out over the deck railing before that happened.

Ten full garbage bags and $5 later, the offending mess was deposited in the local dump.

The same friend who had lost his lunch cleaning out the refrigerator was around when we finally arrived two days later, offering to help me move the refrigerator out of the house. To fortify ourselves, we both took a shot of tequila. (We do a fair amount of fortifying around here.)

During the process of rolling it out on a hand truck, one of the fridge doors popped open. His tequila shot left his body as quickly as it had entered.

We refortified.

Eventually, we were able to wheel the refrigerator into my neighbor’s yard. The same neighbors that had left. Their yard. I used their hose, their water, to wash out meat juice and mold. Can’t wait for them to return. Precious memories aren’t the only things that linger.

The fridge made nice yard art, and we considered just leaving it there.

Back inside, my wife Beverly wiped down every counter and cabinet with all manner of cleaning solutions, going so far as to take down the curtains and wash them. Floors were mopped. Disinfectant was sprayed on the furniture. Plates, glasses, silverware, every pot and every pan got washed.

In tossing out all of the spoils of the refrigerator, the neighbors had left glass and canned items. Without much hesitation, we made the decision to toss everything that smehell had touched and start over.

Everything except the beer. It’s good beer, and the cans had not popped opened. I deemed them salvageable and safe.

Now, you could argue that beer which has been refrigerated, then brought back to room temperature, then refrigerated again will lose some flavor. You’d need to argue with someone else. My palate won’t notice, and I ain’t listening.

You could also argue, as my buddy did, beer cans that have been in such close proximity to the funk of rotting deer carcasses are contaminated and need to be replaced. But again, my ears don’t hear.

Those cans have taken a gentle bleach bath and are now chillin’ in a brand new refrigerator.

My friend has vowed not to accept my offer of a beer for the next year. Beverly has vowed that lips that touch those cans of beer will not touch hers for about the same period of time.

Don’t tell me I don’t know what it means to sacrifice.

I (Mostly) Don't Heart The 80s

I don’t even know what the commercial on TV is advertising. I only know it has Taylor Dayne’s ‘Tell It To My Heart’ as its background music. It’s a song you can still hear on the radio.

I hate that song.

I don’t hate Taylor Dayne. Good on her for singing an enduring song. I don’t hate the people that wrote it. Good on them for still having an income stream from all the radio stations that still play the stupid song. The TV commercial also provides them royalties.

Wikipedia says the songwriters almost didn’t submit the tune for publishing, thinking it wasn’t all that good. I wish they had stuck with that plan. Thirty years later, it’s still wrecking my eardrums.

Having spent my entire career playing music on the radio, it’s always fascinated me which songs become enduring ‘classics’ and which songs disappear from airplay. 

Let’s take any song from Celine Dion. Yes, she’s a 90s artist but a good example of the point I’m trying to make. In the 90s, Celine was all that, putting 21 songs on the Billboard charts. Four of those songs went to #1. Celine reached that pinnacle of getting air time on just about anything she put out. Honestly, I think she could have belched, put it to music, and it would have been a hit.

My personal favorite was “The Power of Love” which spent 4 weeks at #1. Where is it now?

Nowhere. That’s where it is.

How about the song from Titanic, “My Heart Will Go On?” Huge hit, as was the movie. Ever hear it on the radio anymore?

Look, I’m not here to advocate for Celine Dion. Personally, I own none of her music, and I don’t miss hearing the theme from Titanic on the radio. It’s just a curiosity as to how certain songs live on while others, arguably better, do not.

Let me ask you this: is ‘Tell It To My Heart’ a better song than Wang Chung’s ‘Dance Hall Days?’ Where is that song? It’s weird, inexplicable, and perhaps creepy lyrics are way more fun than ‘Tell It To My Heart’. Plus, it’s just as danceable.

Further, ‘Dance Hall Days’ can be heard in twelve movies, including Pretty In Pink. It’s also made a few TV appearances, including Breaking Bad and The Middle. It’s almost a quintessential 80s song, but you never hear it.

Another example: Rick Astley. ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ was a huge song, a world-wide #1. Google up the top songs from 1987 and there’s a bunch of ‘em you still hear. But none of them are Rick Astley.

From my days in pop radio, I know people (women, in particular) love the 80s. Still. Not me. Aside from a couple of her tunes, I thought Madonna songs stunk. Lyrically, most were pointless, just something to sing over a dance beat.

As my radio days were winding down, my morning show partner asked me if there was anything I would not miss. My answer was swift: I will never, ever, ever in the history of the universe listen to The Human League’s, ‘Don’t You Want Me.’ I will no longer have to play it, and I will never hear it again. Like ever.

My ears are tainted because of it.

Aaack! I said, “tainted.” ‘Tainted Love’ is another song for which I cannot understand the everlasting appeal. A wretched piece of pop junk.

I still love and listen to my old station, but when that song comes on, I take a break. That’s a polite way of saying I turn off the radio, stop the car, disconnect the battery, siphon out the gas, break out the windows, slash the tires, pour the gas on the car and set it ablaze.

A fiery exorcism of sorts.

But I know the reason both songs are still on the radio is that they test well. Meaning, people still enjoy hearing them.

Music is subjective. You like what you like, and sometimes there is no rhyme or reason as to why certain songs resonate. But if I’m a company executive in charge of my firm’s advertising and you bring me ‘Tell It To My Heart’ as my commercial’s background, I’m gonna Donald Trump you.

“You’re fired.”

If you suggest ‘Tainted Love,’ take cover. After I fire you, I may fire at you.
 

I Can Barely Bear Seeing A Bare Bear

Our bartender was Romanian but spoke pretty good English. Since he was working for a cruise line that caters to a mostly English-speaking clientele, good English was a prerequisite of the job, I reckoned.

“Can you speak French?” he was asked.

As the boat that employs him cruises the rivers of France, that was a fair question.

“No,” he answered. “I speak Romanian, Russian and English. That’s enough!” Then he laughed. “Do you know how hard it is to speak English? You have over 300,000 words!”

Whether that’s true or not, I’ve always thought what makes English difficult, even for those of us that have spoken it all our lives, is the way words sound the same yet are spelled differently (see my title), or that the exact same word can have different meanings (see my title).

In fact, once you read the rest of this tale, you can tell everyone you’ve read it.

But let’s move this conversation back to the barstool, because someone has just mentioned they had read that the most difficult word in the English language is…

RUN.

Eyebrows immediately furrowed in doubt.

Run? Really?

So, we decided to run it up the flagpole and see if we had indeed run into the toughest word in the English-speaking world.

Immediately, it was evident there are many ways to use ‘run’ that didn’t involve using your legs to move quickly from on point to another.

You run water either to run the washer or run a bath. If it’s the washer, then you gotta run the dryer.

The refrigerator runs. Let’s just hope we catch it before it gets too far away! (In today’s techno- world, you may have to explain what a prank call was to your kids or grandkids. I doubt they’ll immediately get the concept of dialing a random number and asking whomever answered if their refrigerator was running.)

We run the vacuum to clean the room, unless we’ve run out of time. Or run out of room.

We run our mouths. Too much.

We run for office. If we don’t run into our scandalous past, well, we’ve run a good campaign, I guess, so we can run for reelection.

Our watches run.

Our cars run so that we can run to the store. Just don’t let the parking meter run out while you’re inside or you run the risk of a ticket.

You’ve got a run in your pantyhose, by the way.

Had enough?

Me, too.

Perhaps ‘run’ is all the problem it’s purported to be. Regardless, I’ve run out of easy examples.

Besides, I need to run to the bathroom. For that, I will use my legs to move quickly from one point to another.

Hopefully, we have not run out of tissue.