Rocket Surgery

The Holiday Season is almost over and I will be the fist in line say Hell Yea! Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with my family and watching my girls open up their presents, but it seems to me that the holiday seasons bring out the weird in everybody.

We have been on the go for quite some time and I found myself low of provisions at my home. I decided that a Whopper sounded great as this was the last commercial I saw on television. Admittedly the Whopper Virgins add campaign is a little awkward. I mean what if people at Burger King didn't do their research and ended up in some place that worships cows and then they started feeding their product to them? It is just one more reason for the rest of the world to hate us. We have the best intentions, but what's the adage, The road to heartache is paved with good intentions.

I drove to our local Burger King establishment and got in line. I was the only person in line and the lady behind the counter was in her mid to late 40's and obviously questioning every bad decision in her life. She just stared at me. It was one of those moment of silences that makes everyone uncomfortable. I decided to break the silence by blurting out my order. She looked at me with a look of disgust and then walked away. She stuck her head through the widow to the prep area and barked at a couple of people back there.

I stood there patiently and didn't move. I really wanted my food and was not in the mood to go anywhere else. By this point, I am still trying to be polite, but my patients is running thin. She came back over and instead of any sort of polite introduction, she barked at me and said, "What do you want." I still wanted to give her one last chance since this is the Christmas season, you know, Peace on Earth and all that Happy horse shit. I gave her my order and she pushed it into the computer and started to assemble it.

Se turned back to the prep window and started to scream at the people behind there for being so slow. She yelled for fries, she yelled for burgers and she yelled just to be yelling. Now I have worked in a fast food joint before and looking up on the walls, I could see where she had won all of these customer care awards. I must have caught her on a bad day. Sorry about her luck, I don't take this sort of behavior. If the person is mad at me that's one thing, I don't do the verbal abuse of a subordinate. This is Burger King for Fuck Sake!!

A little girl walked up and wanted to change the toy she got in her kids meal. A simple request, but she snatched up the toy and I could hear her cursing the little girl under her breath as she swapped it out. I was done. I was just waiting for her to come back to me and I was going to say something, but she turned again and fired someone in the prep area. I understand sometimes people need to be fired from their jobs, but this was not the time or way to do it.

I then saw her assemble my order. She took the food and placed the food in the bag like Jordan placed a basketball into a basket. She slammed the food down. She was mad, but I was going to get even. She handed the food to me and started to turn away. I yelled at her to get her attention and said, "If your so good, fire everyone and do it all yourself." She stared at me for moment and then started to turn away. By this time we had a crowd behind me but I was not about to let this go. "By the way, you messed up my order. I ordered.." and told her "and received..." and I told her what I had received. She started to apologize, but I cut her off. I dropped the hammer on her, "Stop eating the fries, your ass is too big to fit behind the counter, stop being so nice to the customers, I would love nothing more than to dump these burgers everywhere, but you would just have one of the help clean it up, You have to be the pissiest person I have ever seen at a restaurant."

I turned and walked out. Everyone was staring at me. Fixing a burger is not Rocket Surgery. She made it one of the most unappetizing visits to any restaurant. I don't wish ill on anyone, but I wouldn't mind if she had an accident with large box of lettuce or something.

Healthy competition

I have a friend who is blind. This is and of itself is not that big of a deal. My father was a Special Education teacher while I was growing up. He has since retired from the noble profession, but I have spent a lot of time with people with different handicaps. I never really thought about my buddy being disabled and I don't treat him that way.

We have many spirited debates about the different aspects of life. Most of these debates revolved around sex. I have heard complaints from him that he does not get it enough from his wife to which I fired back that he wants it 5 or 6 times a day and the poor woman would be walking with a permanent limp. I also know he cares about his wife, but I also tell him that his ideal woman is someone upright and breathing. He huffed about this to which I corrected myself and said, "I'm sorry, I forgot, they don't need to be upright." He called me a nut for this.

He is also an avid Wii player. He is pretty good at it. When I say, I beat him 3 times out of 5, it's true. He is good but not as good as me, but then again I cheat. Think what you will, I will cheat to win even with a blind guy. He has had a Wii for quite some time and he told me that he and his wife would play naked Wii sports from time to time. When I told him that I had purchased a Wii as well, he said, "You going to play naked Wii sports?" "NO!" I said, "Not with you." He chuckled and said, "Not with you goof." and before he could finish his sentence, I interrupted him and said, "I don't think my wife will want to play with you either." He told me to shut up and and go away.

Crash Landings

I found out today that I am being transferred for my job. The only thing that would have made the day better would have been to see my Manager's face when she found out about it. You all know who I am talking about yes, T-Bag. She is off of work for the holiday season. I really have my doubts that she even knows how to spell Christmas.

I will miss everyone I work with but with a few exceptions. My blind buddy and and I went to the happiest place on earth (McDonald's) the other day and he got sick. He was mentoring a couple of new employees and asked me to take over. I thought he was coming right back, but after a while, I began to wonder. I went into the bathroom to find him sprawled out on the floor. I kicked into action, but he said he was okay and that he didn't need any help. I was going to go in for CPR, but I am still a little queasy about kissing another guy. By the way, this isn't the first time I found a buddy of mine passed out on a restroom floor. I know I talk about the restrooms a lot, please don't take it the wrong way. My room mate in college shot gunned a Fifth of Jack Daniels and then headed off to the bathroom. He too was gone for a while. I went and found him passed out on the floor with his pants off. I am not really sure why his pants were off, but I had to drag his drunk ass back to our room. I was really worried about him for a while, but he started to come around and I eventually fell asleep. Later that night, I was on the top bunk when I heard him get up. He stood up and I clapped him on the back and said that I was glad he was up when I heard him taking a piss. He pissed on our alarm clock and fish tank. Yes the fish and radio both died.

Speaking of taking things the wrong way, there is a guy in my office whom shall remain nameless, but he bares a striking resemblance to Charlie Brown. Today we were talking and he was rather restless. I asked him what was his problem, and he said that he was waiting on a marriage certificate to clear a claim. I, being the magnificent smart ass that I am fired back, "Congratulations, who's the lucky lady." To which he replied, "You assume it's lady." Obviously this is a gay joke, but the thing was, he was not joking. I forgot he called to work a couple of weeks ago on the 'National Call in Gay day.' It's an awkward moment to say the least when someone comes out of the closet.

Nothing party's like a rental

So far, Blitzen's ass has cost me $5600.00 plus $250.00 deductible. The damage done to my car when I hit the deer was a little more extensive that what I expected, but I do take solace in the fact that somewhere in Central Ohio, there is a deer running around with the word FORD tattooed across the rear half of his body.

Life has been chaotic since this all happened. I have met several different people with varying degrees of morality in all of this. I have been relatively docile during this entire process allowing myself to be lead around by the hand, but when I was sitting at the dealership, I started to emerge from my shell. The girl behind the counter was nice enough and she was kind enough to get me a rental car and here is where it gets interesting.

Enterprise stepped up and provided a car for me. When the Enterprise guy showed up and asked for me, I numbly followed him out into the rain to see a 2007 Kia Spectra sitting there just idling. I looked around for a second hoping this was not the car I got to drive for the next couple of weeks. It is a good enough car, but this is the exactly same car that my wife drives. I just wanted a different car just to be driving something different. I looked at the car and told the guy, "Ah, I see you brought me an Asian Bentley."

He chuckled slightly at the crack, but I could tell he did not want to be there. It was raining and as he was just trying to do his job, I asked "Can I trade it it?" He replied "For what." Without hesitating, I fired back, "A Ferrari?" He chuckled again, but he was getting colder as the weather and answered my question, "No, we're all out." I am not one to just let something go so I continued, "How about a Porsche, BMW, Audi?" He just shook his head. "Volvo?" I just wanted to keep beating this dead horse.

The walk around ended extremely abruptly. There was nothing else to say. I had pushed him to his limits and he was finished. He showed me where the door was and I signed the paper work and then sat down in the car. Just as I was about to close the door all the way, I had one last jab for the guy, "Nothing party's like a rental." and shut the door. The look on his face almost made the whole ordeal worth while. Yea maybe it was a bit of an asshole thing to do, but I just felt like being an asshole. Freud can go get bent.

Revenge for grandma Pt 2

The assistance I received from the different sources was running at about 50%. Half of the people I talked to were helpful and the other half, well, Let's just say, they had been in the back hollow too long.

The AAA person was about as helpful as "tits on a boar hog," as my father would say. She called back to my cell phone twice, but both times it went strait to my voice mail but she did not leave a call back number each time. Both of her messages were saying that I should call her back. I would have loved to call her back, but first, no number and second, no power on the cell to call her back. I guess she thought I was joking when I told her that I didn't have any power left.

The tow truck driver was an interesting character. I can only guess that he ate too many paint chips growing up. He just would not stop talking the entire time. I know his entire family history dating back to Columbus's first trip to the New World. I also know each and every job he has ever worked at. Talking to him was like talking to a mule. He hewed and hawed and brayed and getting a word in edgewise was impossible. I just let him go and do his thing. He also thought that he belonged on the Formula 1 Circuit. With a rollback and my car sitting on the back of the truck, the dude broke the sound barrier twice while coming back. He also thought that red lights were more of a suggestion than an actual law to be obeyed. He thought on the subject was "I'm bigger than they are, I'll win."

The State Trooper which showed up was the nicest person I had to deal with. She was very professional and I am eternally grateful to her. She was pretty, but had shorter hair than I do. (please see "Going Bald and Loving it.") My girls instantly fell in love with her. My oldest stated that she wanted to be a police officer when she grew up. Now just a week prior to this, she told me she wanted to be a magician. I am not holding my breath for either.

My girls and the Trooper all shared cookies and my oldest got the chance to sit in the front of the car with the Trooper. I told my daughter to not touch anything in the front of the car. I could just imagine her hitting the trigger on the riot shot gun and blowing a hole in the roof of her car and knocking the light bar off of the top of the car.

When my parents both finally showed up, My mother took pictures of the girls in the back seat of the police cruiser (for future use). She also took pictures of my girls with the Trooper. The three of them charmed each other and had a blast. The Trooper said that was a get out of jail free card. My response was that it might get her out of jail, but it would not save her from me.

When they had left the scene, the Trooper asked if there was anything else I needed from her. I told her that I wanted to borrow her gun for a few minutes. She laughed but said that she did not give her gun to anyone. I told her that was just as well, I would probably end up missing some appendages before it was all said and done. I also told her that I didn't plan on shooting the deer, but was just going to beat it to death.

Out of all this excitement, the deer got up and scampered off. Now to those tree hugging ass grabbing numb nut PETA lovers. I am all about being humane to animals, but the deer species just hit my shit list. I now put them on the same par as snakes, spiders and yeti as animals I wouldn't mind being served as test animals in a lab somewhere.

If the deer had not run off, I would have put it out of my misery by choking it to death or ripping it's throat out with my own teeth a la Jeremiah Johnson, but I digress. Anyone who has killed a deer at the expense of their car, you have my sympathy and I now have a new wish for those people in life of whom, I care very little about.

Revenge for grandma

As the song goes, "Grandma got run over by a reindeer..." I will say I took revenge upon the deer population yesterday in her memory. I am not a doctor but I was able to put the front end of my car half way up the ass of a deer yesterday.

I was driving back from my parents house yesterday. I was on this two lane country road and everyone in the car was asleep. Things were going great, we were making good time, I was listening to my music the sun was starting to set and all was perfect with the world. The weather was unusually warm for a December and we had just finished up a really nice weekend. I had a chance to have dinner with my best friend and his family on Saturday, the Cincinnati Bengals had just one a football game and all just seemed right with the world.

I had rounded a bend in the road and was just about to the massive four lane highway which would whisk us safely home. That's when I saw Blitzen. He had darted across the road well ahead of me and my instincts took over. I let off of the gas and gently tapped the breaks on my car. I watched the first dear run into the field to the right when in the corner of my eye to the left, I saw the second deer. I will affectionately refer to this deer as a Cannon Fodder.

Cannon Fodder broke for the same field as Blitzen had gone. Cannon Fodder was a lot farther behind his buddy and when I saw him start onto the road, I tired to push the clutch and break pedals through the floor board of my car. It was my version of the Flintstones, but to no avail. As CF crossed into my lane he stopped, (dip shit) and looked up at me. Just before I gave him the rectal exam from hell, our eyes met. He seemed to be daring me to hit him. I guess he thought I had that insurance which pays you cash when you can't work.

When Cannon Fodder and my car met, my car initially won. Cannon Fodder shot strait up into the air like an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. He looked at me the entire way up. It was kind of funny to see the shock and awe in his eye. CF seemed to be questioning why I would do such a thing. As he went flying through the air, his body had been pitched up side down and in true Wylie E. Coyote fashion, his legs were still running.

The impact stalled my car out. CF landed on the road a few feet from the car and cartwheeled into the weeds. By now, everyone in the car was awake and wondering what had happened. I was looking over the bent hood of my car at the deer and trying not to curse profusely. We were in a blind spot in the road so I started the car up and and drove it to the side of the road and started to make the phone calls.

My first call was to my father, I needed to secure transportation for myself and my family. My father, who has also bagged a deer with a Minivan, asked me what was wrong. I told him I had hit a deer. My father is a great guy, but I was under a lot of stress at this point in time, and he said "You hit a what?" I have been a smart ass for the better part of 10 years and even now that pops up and I fired back. "I hit a big brown furry creature with my fucking car!" There was a moment of silence and the he asked me where I was at. I told him and he was on his way. I then called the State Police and AAA. And all was well.

So I lied. By now "dear" readers of my blog, you should know that things are not that simple in my life. It turns out giving a deer a tattoo with a Ford hood ornament is the easy part. Dealing with the people who specialize in this sort of thing is a whole different ballgame.

I called AAA for assistance, and as it turns out, I got a person who had been on the job for approximately 4 hours. She was a new hire and I know she meant well, but evidently she had not been farther away from home that 400 yards. She asked me what City and State I was in. I told her that I was not in any city, but on a country road. She asked me what state I was in and I told her Ohio. There was a long pause and she asked me again what city I was in. I was not in any city and she had a very difficult time grasping this concept. Ohio is a big state filled with several metropolitan cities, but I was not anywhere close to any of these. She didn't seem to grasp the concept I could not be in any one of these areas.

To be continued...

Nudity and Uniquie uses of the English language

During my pre-marital days, if someone would have told me that I would live with four females and there would be vast amounts of nudity, I would have jumped at the opportunity. I would have gone into this situation without thinking twice. As the old adage goes, be careful of what you wish for as you just might get it.

I have a wife, two daughters and one cat, a female. Of coarse, the cat is always naked, but that does nothing for me. The rest of the girls in my household all subscribe to different levels of nudity. I like most men will say that my wife is not naked enough. My two daughters, ages 5 and 2 prefer to have the minimal amount of clothing.

I would have never have thought I would have used the sentences, "Put your pants back on while you are eating dinner," and "You have to wear panties, ALL THE TIME." In the evenings, I would be sitting there watching television or surfing the Internet and see one if not both of my daughters run through the house naked. When it is bedtime and clothes are being changed, there is a high possibility of streaking in my house.

My girls are the center of my universe. They are wonderful and at any moment in time, something can be said which is one for the ages. They are still working on mastering the English language, but their use of the language is quite unique. Here are some examples:

While sitting down to dinner one evening, all were eating quietly and not doing a lot of talking when the sound of tearing burlap echoed through the dining area. Everyone looked up and my youngest daughter said, "It was me." I am jealous of this. Just to have no inhibitions and to crank one out whenever you want. It's cute when they do it, rude and obnoxious when I do it.

My oldest came back from visiting our elderly neighbor. She was excited and could hardly talk. Once we got her calmed down, she said, "He got stung in the face by a Yellow Coat." My wife and I were perplexed for a second when we realized she was talking about a yellow jacket, a flying insect which really hurts when it bites.

Again, my oldest was in preschool when she came home one day and said that one of her teachers, "Caught on fire." Now to think that people were spontaneously combustioning at daycare is a bit disturbing. When we pressed her for more details, she said that "Ms. P..." the head of the day care center, got mad at one of the teachers because she was late and "Set her on fire." We figured out that the other teacher was fired, but sometimes, you just want to set someone on fire at your work, sure the paperwork for HR would be a bitch, but justifiably worth it.

I have argued with daughters and told them no they could not have any more Butter Hands. What they really wanted was Butter Finger candy bar. They also did not want to cut there Feet Nails. Instead of Toe Nails. It makes sense when they say it, but when I say it, people look at me funny. The same with the nudity, I walk outside naked and the police are called, when my girls dart outside missing articles of clothing, it's cute. This whole double standard is a pisser if you ask me.

Job opening

During this day and age, the economy is one of the top conversation pieces. I will not claim to know exactly what the economy is, but all I know is that it sucks. I just know that I have to pay more for something that is not worth as much as it use to be. Due to the higher costs of everything, I have decided to start my own business. Now it is scary starting my own business, in this day and age, but I have a sure fire way of making money with a new business without any initial capital. I am going to call this business, Nut Cracker Inc.

I have chosen this title due to the season, but it also to help sum up the business. The idea came about when I was talking to a buddy of mine. He told me that he was having problems getting motivated. He was complaining that he just had not drive to get up out of bed in the mornings. I then asked him, "If someone came over every morning and gave you a swift kick in the nuts, would that get you out of bed in the morning?" He laughed and said yes.

This is where the idea first got me. This is a motivational business and the motto of the company will be, "We bust your balls for you." I am sure there are other mottoes which could be used and I think when I franchise the business, I will allow the different owners to pick their mottoes from "We kick because we care," "No nuts too hard to crack," or "We rack 'em so you don't have to."

This type of business would be recession proof. In fact, the deeper the recession gets, the more business there will be. For a nominal fee, one of the employees would show up at your house every day between the hours of 7:00 and 9:00 a.m. They will not knock but just come strait into your house and strait up to your bedroom or wherever you are and politely say, "Good morning sir, I am here to kick you in the crotch today, are you ready?" and them BANG! Done deal. Once you sign the contract with us, we will come over every day until you can pay the termination fee of $12,675,000. 00. The idea is that if you can pay this fee, then you have made it and are successful and you don't need our service anymore.

I am working on other business ventures but this is the one I am going to focus on now. If you are interested, please feel free to contact me I will be launching the day after yesterday and not a moment after tomorrow.

Male Enhancement

The radio, Internet and television is filled with "male enhancement" commercials. Each commercial goes about it in a different way, but ultimately the the message is the same. They all claim to make your Johnson bigger. Great, good for them, but here is my first problem with this whole concept. These commercials tout the benefits of having a bigger talliwhacker, but it's not like you can show it off. You start flopping it out in public then instead of being called a stud, you get thrown in the Slammer and you are now traded like a commodity on the stock market for a pack of smokes and a candy bar. Oh and by the way, you have a new nick name - Prison Bitch.

The second problem is all of these snake oil medications have not been tested by the FDA. The FDA isn't much of a safety net, but it's better than nothing. These commercials never tell you what the side effects are. Now, I don't know alot about medicine, but it seems to me that as this takes effects and grows your one eyed trouser snake, it would also enlarge other parts of your body as well. My question is why would it not make your ears grow or your nose grow or make your boobs bigger. I mean it seems to me it is a little too difficult to target just one area of the body to get it to grow through the use of a pill.

I would think that if this really did work on the soft tissue of the body such as a man's junk, then it should work for women. I don't mean that they will grow some sausage, even though I know a few women who...never mind. It seems to me if this was going to work, they would also just change the name and market it towards women to increase the size of the "dirty pillows." I just can't believe I am the only one who has ever thought about this.

I also blame the people who market this stuff through the use of email on the restrictions placed on Internet usage at work. You don't want to accidentally print out a "Smilin' Bob" coupon and it get stuck in the middle of a presentation you are giving which might make or break your company, just an all around bad idea.

Finally I am going to say this is sexist marketing. There are many different female products on the market which are dedicated directly to them. This product is directed towards a guy in order to please a woman, but this assumes a woman wants you to have a larger pork sword. I don't doubt that women don't want to have sex, its just that they don't want to have sex with the guys they could have sex with. This snake oil is targeted towards a guy who has no self esteem and even with a huge slong, they would still be sitting at home every night not doing anything but staring at their enormous manhood. I would suggest just buying a Ferrari and getting it over with, it may mean you are trying to compensate for something but the upside is that you get to where you are going faster.

Sad but true tales of idiots.

Humanity fascinates me. It is one of those things which really is special in this universe. The advances in art, science and mathematics are astounding, but on the opposite side of the same coin, I am amazed at how low people can sink. Now I am not talking about the those that have given up, that will be saved for another time, but what I mean is those people who start talking before they start thinking (if they ever did think in the first place).

Taking disability claims wears on a person. I have seen some good things and some bad things, but the majority of what I see falls in the middle. There have been numerous occasions when I am going through the interview and I get to the point where I have to ask about the different medications they were on and invariably I run across someone who says they are taking the medication Ambien. We have all see the commercials for this particular medication so I won't go into what it is suppose to do. My next question for the person is to ask if there are any side effects. There have been four such occasions when the person sitting across from me says that the side effect they experience on this medication is sleepiness.

I got into an argument with a co-worker a few months ago. I don't really care that much for this individual. I understand gravity takes its toll on the human body, but she seems to be more affected by it that others. It's not that her breasts sag, but her entire body sags. I just want to walk up to her and pull her hair up and stick a dowel through the top of her scalp to keep her skin from falling off of her body. She is one of the most negative people I have ever met in my life. She has never had a kind word to say to anybody or anything. I will refer to her as Taco Biter. (You can figure this one out on your own later.) She had to sit next to me to interview one day. Normally she does not sit next to me, but her usual spot was occupied. She walked up to the desk usually occupied by a good buddy of mine and made a rather rude comment about what a messy work station he had. She was genuinely disgusted. I let the first remark go, but the second remark was one that I would not stand for. She said that he was all show and questioned his integrity. I went off on her. I told her that she should really "try to do some work around the office and he and I didn't have time to make our desk look as pretty and clean as hers as we work for a living." She got mad and complained to my supervisor who blew her off. I was extremely pissed at her and had to get out of the office for a while. By now it was lunch time and I headed to the happiest place on Earth, McDonald's. It was my intention to just go thought the drive thru and be done with it. When I got to the ordering stage of the process, I ordered a large Chocolate Milkshake and fries. The woman on the other end said that the large shake machine was out of order. Okay great, I was really pissed off and it was not her fault that I was in such a rotten mood, but I shouted back, "Well is your small shake machine working? Give me two small shakes." Her response was not what I would call too customer friendly.

My final tale for this time comes from my time at a pizza store. I had ordered a large pizza and a drink and went down to the store to pick it up. I am a cheap bastard and did not want to pay the $2.00 delivery charge. I had my daughter with me and when we got to the restaurant, the guy behind the counter said they had been having computer problems and that my order would be ready in a few minutes. It turns out that a "few minutes" was more like 45 minutes. This entire time, I had a 3 year old who was getting cranky and hungry. I was trying to keep her happy when another customer walked in the door. I heard her say, "I'm sorry, but I am really running late. I ordered a pizza a while ago and I hope you didn't throw it out." She gave her name and the guy behind the counter gave her the same spill, but he said her order was in the oven and that it would be out in a couple of minutes. She took her seat and waited. We continued to play for a little bit and then I heard the guy tell her that her order was ready. She stood up and went over to the cash register and said, "Since you made me wait, I feel that you should take off some of the price of the pizza." I was floored. The guy behind the counter felt like it was a little bit of an awkward situation. Never one to pass up a change at a little poetic justice, I stood up and said, "Wait a second, you were late and just by happenstance, your pizza wasn't ready. If your pizza had been done on time, and you were late, by your own logic, they should charge you double for having to wait on you." She got pissed at me and started to cuss at me. She was extremely mad and continued to rant and rave at me for being an asshole and some other much more colorful terms. I did not get into it with her, but instead knelt down next to my daughter and said, "Honey, you see how that woman is acting and hear how she is talking, I never want to hear you act that way in public, that's not how big girls behave." I really thought that she was going to come over to where I was at and hit me. I would never have fought back and would have taken every blow that she could have dished out. I will never hit a woman, but I would have followed her out of the restaurant got her licence number and called the cops on her. Public humiliation is always the best.

Toilet talk

One of the great mysteries of life is why women always go to the bathroom in packs. There are many theories about why this is. In my own musings, I just assume that females go in packs for support. Now to clarify "support." If some of the women's bathrooms are like the guys bathrooms, then I would assume in order to complete the transaction, they just don't want to sit on the toilet. I don't blame them, I prefer home field advantage when I want to complete a major transaction. I really don't want to "dock with the mother ship," if you know what I mean. I would want some assistance when coping a squat and I just assume that's what they are doing. It just makes the most sense to me.

I am here today to dispel one of the great myths about guys when they hit the Head. (By the way, the term Head comes from the Navy. That's what the shitters are called on the high seas." The is sort of a true story about what happened to me the other day when I went into my office's bathroom to see a man about a dog.

I walked into the bathroom, politely called the restroom, I have come to find out since leaving West Virginia. (In polite society, one should really refrain from calling it a brick shit house.) I digress, I walked into the bathroom, excuse me restroom and and had to wait in line. Now there are three stalls built in to accommodate heavy traffic. Problem is, there is just one Urinal. Since I just needed to complete a minor transaction, I decided to wait in line instead of going into one of the stalls for more privacy. This is just guy etiquette. Now if you really have to go in a hurry and everything is backed up, the sink is acceptable, but only in dire situations and the transgressor is required by state law to wipe it down afterwards.

The guy at the pisser was just finishing up when I entered. He glanced over his shoulder at me but did not say a word. Now rule number one, and probably the cardinal rule of male bathroom etiquette. You Never NEVER ever talk to the guy standing next to you. If you are in a stall that's one thing, but you never talk to another guy when he has his hand on the "Wedding Tackle." This rule was observed and he flushed and then stepped to the side, closed up shop and started to wash his hands. I bellied up to the starting point and started to get down to business when he started to talk. I wanted to scream at him, I had lost my concentration and couldn't start until he shut up. I did not back away from the urinal but let him say what he wanted to say. "That water is cold." he said going to one of the oldest jokes in the book. I was aggravated, but fired back, "And deep." He stopped drying his hands and just walked out without saying another word.

I again started to undo the proverbial barn door when in walked a good buddy of mine. This individual has a disability in which he cannot see. This has not stopped him from becoming one of the most productive people in my agency. He also prefers the handicapped stall for the room and ease of movement. I tend to agree, if I am in public and need some privacy, I always head to the handicapped stalls, there is just so much more room in there. He grunted to me as he entered and I started my business. I heard the toilet flush in the stall but it just did not sound right. There was just no gurgling from the bowl like I expected. He then asked me to come into the stall with him to check it out. I asked if his pants were down and he answered no. I shot back, "well mine are so you will have to wait for a second, I am not coming in there if you're sporting wood." He just laughed and said that he wasn't.

I finished up my business, washed my hands and then headed into the stall where he was at. I peeked around the door and saw that the toilet was just about ready to overflow. The flushing mechanism was not working, but thank goodness, there weren't any floaters to cause any "issues." He asked if he could use it and I told him, "Go ahead if you want to give the twins a bath, the water is up to the top of the bowl." He laughed and walked away from it. He went over to the other stall and sat down.

I hung in the bathroom for a second longer just to make sure there were no problems when I heard him say, "I hate using this stall, it feels like I am sitting on a toilet." I paused for a second to make sure he understood what he said and the I said, "No shit Sherlock, what did you think it was, a throne? You know they just call it that, it's not really." He laughed again and harder this time.

He called me a nut and I walked out to face the rest of the day. Now this all really seems to be an extremely powerful and moving drama about the inner workings of a working men's bathroom. I will admit his is little or nothing to do with the rest of my day, but I enjoyed my brief couple of minutes in my own little zen induced paradise. Yea it smells funny at times, but this is the only place a guy can be completely alone with his thoughts and NO, no one has ever tapped their foot under the stall door at me. GO HOME LARRY CRAIG.

Medieval torture

I went to the dentist this morning. He is a nice enough fellow, but I realized the following...

My dentist Genghis Khan reincarnated.
My dentist is a Sado Masochist.
My dentist feels no pain and therefore refuses to give any relief to his subjects.
My dentist still uses the same tools that the Spanish Inquisition used to extract confessions.
My dentist is a fan of random beatings.
My dentist got his degree from an Internet school based out of Cuba
My dentist hates puppies (well I don't know, I made this one up)

My dentist is a good guy, I have to admit that. He is very professional and does a good job. I will end up going back to him in 6 months because I evidently have the long term memory of a Lemming. I recommend everyone go to the dentist but only if you have perfect teeth and you brush, floss, and use mouth wash 15 times a day. Otherwise, just mail your teeth to the dentist and don't forget the SASE.

Webester's 9th and other tales

I spend all day listening to people telling me how bad their life has become. I am able to forget most of them. Some of them I can't forget even if I choose to forget, but then there are the ones that are able to hit me with something that I never thought I would see or hear in my life. Some people just really don't know what they say. Here are just a few of those times.

I spend close to 8 hours per day in front of a key board. I get a lot of practice typing and have been able to sustain upwards of 120 words per minute. Typing is just one of those things I do. It is something I take for granted. I was taking a disability claim for an individual and as I was transcribing what he was saying into the computer, my fingers were flying over the keyboard. He stopped talking and I was thankful for the break as he was talking fast. He proceeded to ask me, "Are you typing?" I nodded yes as I looked at him. I finished typing and left my fingers hovering over the keyboard. I have had many people say something about my typing and so this was nothing new, but what he asked me next floored me. "Are you typing words?" He actually asked me this. I didn't miss a beat and answered "No, mostly sentences, and some paragraphs." What I really wanted to say was "No shit Sherlock."

I am not a doctor and never will be. I have no drive or desire to pursue this career path. While taking yet another disability claim, the individual in front of me was filing due to some mental problems. This is nothing exciting to write home about but as I was wrapping up the interview, this guy off handedly mentioned that he was taking a medication which treated diabetes. Now this opens up a whole can of worms. I basically had to start all over again with the interview because of this new disability he mentioned. What he said next was something that really floored me. I started to gather the information about his newly revealed condition when he said, "The last time I went to the hospital, the doctors were pretty excited about something else." He paused for a second and then went on, "The doctors said I have something called Ending disease." I had to think for a second and then I heard myself say "End Stage Renal Disease?" He got all excited and started nodding furiously. End Stage Renal Disease is where the kidneys of an individual completely shut down. He went on and asked me "Is that bad." I tried to be as casual as possible when I told him to go directly to the hospital and tell them that you have ESRD.

Darwin had a theory which can be applied to most of the people I talk to on a daily basis. The retirement claims I take are some of the easier claims I take. Most of the time the people are put together pretty well. Well mot of them. I had a nice lady whom was a little over the top but otherwise manageable. I was just using the terms of my job like adjudication, monthly earnings test and windfall elimination provision. She went so far as to compliment me on my use of vocabulary. At the end of the interview when I told her that she was retired, she let out an audible sigh and told me that she was extremely nervous about the entire interview. The she said, "I was so nervous, I bet you could see the perforation on my forehead." She laughed heartily and then said "I bet you didn't know I could use big words as well." I fired back, "No I didn't." Now go and get your 9th edition of Webster's and look up the word. I know what it means and if her head is perforated, then she has more problems then when to start taking her cash benefits.

Going bald and loving it

Looking up at the television monitor of a local convince store, I couldn't help but smile to myself at the poor guy who's head looked like a dome light. A full head of dark hair encircled a small patch of nothing at the crown of his head. It might as well have been a halo surrounding him. The black and white images shifted to another camera and then I realized I was the guy with the dome light shining brightly.

I have never been one for hats, I have never been one for hair, but like like Cinderella says, "You don't know what you got till its gone." At first I was crushed. I realized it was too late to go out and buy a hair piece of some sort. Now I am not opposed to these devices and I am sure they serve some sort of purpose but wearing a dead squirrel on my head was never really a thought. The next thing which crossed my mind was medication. I quickly ruled this out as my natural fear and freaky side effects took hold. I could see myself walking into my place of employment the next week with hands which resembling a Yeti, a bald head would have been the least of my worries.

The most troubling aspect of going bald was that no one had bothered to mention the fact that I was going bald. If I see one of my buddies walking around with his fly open, I tell him. If I see a buddy with a piece of lunch in his teeth, I tell him. I guess that no one told me because it's not like I could close up shop so to speak or brush my teeth and get rid of the offending piece of spice. The simple fact was that I am going bald and I seem to be the only one who cared.
Most of my friends are bald by choice. I looked around at the guys who I hang around with and realize the majority are bald by the stroke of a razor. Sure one of my buddies took a chunk out of the top of his head one time when he rushed the process. I decided that I was not going to rush evolution by taking this route. Besides, I am not a big fan of shaving and this just seems like too much effort for what what my body was doing naturally.

The first time someone pointed out my baldness in public, I was surprised that I was not mortified but instead amused that someone would take the time to comment on my hair style or the lack there of. The person inquired about my lack of hair as if I had made a conscious decision to reduce the hair count on my head. My natural tendency towards sarcasm got the better of me and I replied that I was loosing my hair because I was thinking too hard and I had burned it off with the powers of my mind. The conversation went then deteriorated much like my hair line into jokes about the satellite system NASA was planning to launch to study the surface of my skull and possibly build a way station on their next stop to Mars.

Accepting the fact that I am a bald man, slightly overweight, and a weakness for beer and buffalo wings gave me a sense of peace I have never experienced before. I understand I am who I am and hair or the lack thereof does not define me. So what if I am now more aerodynamic, I just chalk it up to eliminating my carbon foot print by reducing drag when I stick my head out the car widow. When I was growing up it was a mortal fear of mine that I might go bald. Now that I have stared my fear in the face of the television monitor, life is really not all that bad at all.

Promoted to a level of incompetence

My job is filled with all manners of stress. There is the stress from the dealing with the public, there is the stress of processing claims in a timely fashion and then just to make matters worse, I have 2 managers who think the best way to get you to do your work is to hover over your shoulder and tell you how to do everything.

I try to get to work at 7:00 a.m. each day just so I can avoid my office manager. I know she is incapable of getting to work at any decent point in time and this is when I get a chance to get all of my work done. I am able to get more work done between the hours of 7:00 and 8:30 than what I do the rest of the day. My manager, whom I will from now on loving refer to her as Teabag, cannot understand how in the world I can do my job without her being in the building.

I guess I lost a lot of respect for Teabag when she told me that she had "...raised 5 sons..." and that she can "...handle a bunch of workers." I have two daughters. I don't treat my coworkers like I treat my daughters and if anyone thinks that running a complex agency is the same as raising children, then you really have your head stuck so far up your ass, you are looking out your nose.

She had sent an email message to the entire office stating that there would be a staff meeting from 8:15 through 9:00. I am always game for a good dog and pony show, and planned my day accordingly. I put off a couple of appointments for tomorrow thinking that I had a meeting today. At the appointed time, I shut down my work station and headed to the meeting area only to get the announcement that the meeting was re-scheduled until tomorrow. She had successfully ruined two mornings in the span of a few minutes.

A good friend of mine told me that everything she speaks, I should turn my bullshit radar on. My response was that as soon as she opens her mouth to yawn, my bullshit radar goes crazy. After the events of this morning, I had settled into a routine of listening to my music, approving and denying claims and just generally being productive when she showed up at my desk. Anytime she shows up, I get a cold chill down my back. I tried to ignore her for as long as possible but the she started talking in that shredded glass on a chalk board voice she has and asked if I knew anything about computers. A point of interest was that she had approved a mini-promotion for me to become a Site LAN Coordinator, a computer specialist. I was amazed that she asked and as I nodded my head she explained what she needed.

She told me about a report which was do at our regional office and that she needed help with an
Excel spreadsheet. Now Excel is not my best program, but I can get around it well enough. She stated that she was having problems with a particular spreadsheet and needed help getting it to "work." I am thinking that since this is a government agency, there is some sort of bars or graphs or some formula which needs to be added and expanded. I got up from my computer and headed into her office. When I got there I saw what her delima was. She needed to have 35 rows on a spread sheet and she only had 27. This fix is just a few simple clicks of the mouse and it was done. I asked her three times if this was all she needed. I thought I was being tested or something and as she repeated told me that was all. I couldn't believe it. This was a trick they teach you the first day of any basic computer class. I added this as fast as possible to first appear to be efficient as possible and two so that she could not see how I did it. Making her come to me every time she needs to have something done with a computer program is a humbling experience for her that I relish.

She is a true to form promoted to a level of incompetence professional. I am one of those guys who's a pain in the ass to try to manage as I question everything possible just to be questioning everything. She expects brick in the wall obedience. We don't get along. But hey, it's my job to be me. I know it drives her crazy and I can't help but dig it.

Love in the real world

I have often wondered about the word "LOVE." To use one word in the English language to describe a feeling always bothered me. Now all words are used to describe, define or name an object, tangible or otherwise, but this was one of those few words which really did not sit well with me. If I say I love pizza, this statement is true, I really like pizza, but then I turn right around and say I love my two daughters. Now this is either a really big compliment to the cook of the pizza or an insult to my daughters.

I am careful to use the word love. It is one of those overused words in the English language whose meaning has deteriorated to the equivalent of tourist junk on the side of the English language roadside. I also pride myself in being a writer with my stock and trade being words. I will be the first to admit that I have no idea what word I could create to replace love. I would dare purpose reserving the word love for something more basic, raw and real.

Everyday at work, I run into clients whom have been married for just a few months and then got a divorce, and then I get to meet those people whom were married for 45 years. Every once in a while I run into a widow that meets my idea of true love. Now, I am not in love with this person, but for all the ups and downs in life this widow had stuck with their spouse the entire time. Usually they have passed away a month or so ago and the person sitting across from me seems to be doing okay with the loss. A close inspection of their eyes reveal this is one of the last things this person wants to be doing or will do. I am so jealous of these people. I call it the Three Month Rule.

The three month rule is simple, basically if a spouse passes away, the length of the marriage is moot. It is the how the time is spent during the lives which matter. These 3 mothers cannot survive without the other person and die shortly after the death of the spouse. Nicholas Sparks wrote a novel called the "Notebook." The basic premise of the story is what I am talking about here. While his book was partially based on real events, I see this sort of story at least once a week. I am sad for those people, but at the same time, I am happy for them at the same time, not everyone is able to find this version of love. I hope to be one of those people.

I am married and have two beautiful girls. I hope and pray that they are able to have this experience in life. I hope they are able to find a person to spend the rest of their lives with which makes living in the good times and the bad times worth it all. I like to think I have found the same thing.

My wife and I have had a moments. There have been good ones and there have been bad ones. Some of the bad ones were epic in nature, the good ones were not always recognized at the time, but looking back on our relatively short marriage, I can't imagine life without her. This morning, after she and I had both been awake for a time, I put my arms around her and gave her a kiss on the top of her head. The moment only lasted for a short period of time, not even a fraction of a second in the ethos of time, but that was my moment, she allowed me to have it and to her, I am eternally grateful. No matter what happens, that will be mine and mine alone.

I also only have 3 real friends in this world. I have many many associates in which I have a vested interest. Some of my associates, I have never met in person thanks to today's technology with the Internet. I have met thousands of people in my life time through the course of my work and will continue to for the rest of my life. Out of all of these people, only 3 I have the honor of calling my friends. They are all different shapes, sizes and colors. What sets these 3 apart is that they will tell me the truth for my own well being. They do not tell me what I want to hear, they don't tell me what they think I should hear. They tell me what's what. The loss of these three people in my life would be devastating. Without my wife, my daughters and these three people, life is pretty hollow. I sincerely thank these people for being in my life. For them I get up every day, I fight the good fight, I want to be a better person for them.

To those I have mentioned, please take this from the bottom of my heart. I love you all. I still really dig pizza, but you all justify waking up and living each and every day.

Let it cool first...

Friday was just another day at work. It was the first week of the month and my office was slammed. The lobby of my office was packed with people. Sometime earlier that day a large group of Russian students came in to the office for work purposes. This put a strain on the man power available for claim processing. As I was between scheduled appointments, I was required by my supervisor to call people to my interviewing station to try to help with the sheer volume of people. I am sure that we had violated the fire code because so many people were in the lobby, but hey we are the feds so we can do whatever the hell we want, and on Friday, we wanted to see how many people we could cram into our lobby.

I called one of the people back to my window and he was a huge dude. He sat down at my desk and thrust a hand full of papers at me. I tried to be friendly and introduced myself, but he was having none of it. When I looked at the documents he had handed to me I realized I was looking at a Death Certificate for his mother. Now, I have talked to many many people whom have lost loved ones, but what set him apart was the fact that his mother had passed away that morning. I glanced at the clock on my computer (thank you Mr. Gates) and saw that it was 3:24. She died at 7:55 in the morning.

I was shocked for a moment. I wanted to tell him to let her body cool first before you start reporting the fact that she HAD DIED. I mean, this was some one's mother. I am not sure how many mothers people get, I only have one, but he was really all about getting this done and with a quickness.

Here comes the philosophical issues related to this lengthy narrative. The funeral homes are required to report the death of an individual to all the relevant authorities and my agency is one of those authorities. The normal grieving process takes some time. People have their own way of grieving and I am not one to tell someone how to do this, but in my infinite cynicism, when someone comes into my office that fast, it usually means they want the money the deceased was receiving. It all comes down to money. There is a very specific list of people I can pay survivor's benefits to and he was not on the list. I was looking forward to telling him this, but did not get the chance. As soon as I gave him the paperwork back, he bolted and I have no contact information on him. Chalk one up for the loss of humanity.

Missing teeth in the Cog of the Machine

I work for a federal agency which is one of the largest employers in the USA. I love this country and just want to be able to leave it a better place than what it was when I started with it. I will admit that since I am still gainfully employed by said agency. I know how this agency works and in this economy, I am one of the few people who can honestly say, my job is guaranteed.

The older and more crippled the population becomes, the more work I have. I take retirement and disability claims all day long. Every once in a while, I am able to help someone truly in need. I will be the first to admit I am a self centered, egotistical asshole. When someone is truly bettered by my actions, I have a reaction which I really am not able to fathom. I get jealous of these individuals. I am a total stranger to them, I will only talk to them for an hour or so and I change their lives forever. It's like I have to save the world, but who is going to save me.