Just returned from Little Sister's wedding (I don't know that I really should call her my little sister anymore, but I know I shouldn't call her by the names I used to throw at her) and I wanted to give everyone the low down, but that's going to have to wait. Sorry. Get used to it, though, life is full of disappointment.
Unfortunately, since mid-last week through this coming Sunday, I'll be running ragged with house cleanup projects (it's the big loose trash pickup beginning this weekend ... whoopee!) and possibly another trip to California for my cousin's 21st birthday (now that will be blog worthy).
So, in the meantime, read the archives, comment (call me a dirty old man with poop mouth if you like), and I promise to come back primed to knock your hair back. Of course, if I do find time this week, I will jump on the blogo stick and share what just smacked me in the nose.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
The little truck that could
The lean, mean green machine turned 10 years old yesterday (March 19). That's a banner acheivement in the history of Michael Melissa (I often speak of myself in the third person, it gives me a sense of omniscience) since I can't even make a pair of tighty whitey underwear go 10 years let alone an automobile.
Before she came into my life, I went through cars like they were disposable hunks of metal. Granted it was never my decision to get rid of a vehicle, instead it was my driving (in)ability that deemed the vehicle expired. You can only roll a car once before an insurance adjustor rules it too smushed to drive. It got to the point where horse and buggy was a better option. Hell, if the HOA in our neighborhood would have allowed a stable of ponies, I would have become the D. Wayne Lukas of West Vegas.
The roster of cars I went through before the Green Machine reads like a '70s/'80s scrap heap of used cars. My old man had a fettish for Subarus, so of course, I landed two of them: one was the first car I bought with my own cash (had rake a crap load of yards - and in the middle of a pine forest that ain't no small task - which was better than the alternative: blowing drunk vets as they stumbled out of the American Legion hall); the second Subaru was a hand-me-down from the old man that we resurrected with parts from my first Subaru which I decided to roll while messing with the tape deck (damn The Police, it was their tape that wasn't playing right). As an aside, the Gray Ghost (that's what the old man called it, I think to sell me on driving this to school on a daily basis; his thought was that if I told my friends that it's name was the "Gray Ghost" they wouldn't laugh as hard ask whether it was safer to just walk the 50 miles from school) was our Duke Boys car, meaning the old man would take that Subaru in the backwoods behind Melissa's Idyllwild Compound. So he was thrilled to breathe new life in to the Gray Ghost. I tried to modernize it with new fenders and a paint job befitting of a '79 Subaru hatchback that was rumbling around the hill 11 years later.
My first car was the family truckster for many years, a '72 Plymouth Duster that preceded me by a few months and came complete with a vinyl roof and bucket seats. The parental units spared no expense. That car saw some great action. Get that mind out of the gutter ... not that kind of action; it took the mountain roads of Idyllwild at 60 with a berrings squeal we could never accurately locate. And when I hit the orange groves in Hemet, well, let's say that old Blue Beast could still hit 80 on her good days.
The Duster came into my possession because I said I wouldn't drive the '76 Chevy Nova my dad won in a poker game with my grandma (hey, we play for keeps in this family; I tried to wager off my sister in a high school craps game for a stack of hall passes that would have got me out of fifth period so I could head over to the golf course for twilight hours. My friends wouldn't take the bet). That decision would come back to haunt me in the end, but more on that later.
After the Subaru twins, came my first real car. I talked to Loanshark Louie in Idyllwild and he dropped the few Gs on my that I needed to land a '89 Mazda 4-door 323. It had so much pep, I think that little car would have challenged Tony Stewart at Daytona any day of the week, and had a shot to win. I guess her speed was misleading. I thought I had enough time to make a right and outrun the two-tone Chevy Destroyer, or whatever the hell was bearing down on my, instead the drunk, expired-license Vegas burnout wanted to sit in my back seat, in effect making my Mazda a hatchback with a tweaked chassi and no trunk space since it was in my backseat now.
I drove my uncle's hand-me-down early-80s Toyota Supra for a few months before deciding I was smart enough to head over to a car lot and negotiate my own car price. The car salesman knew just what I wanted and how much I should spend on a '89 2-doorPontiac LeMans. He failed to tell me that it was not front-end crash resistant, however, which I tested on a rainy Vegas day (how many times does it rain in Vegas, really, that's just my luck).
Remember that Chevy Nova I mentioned? Yeah, the one I didn't want. Guess what I inherited? A five-cylinder, 2-door Chevy Nova that rumbled when started and sounded like it would eat Honda Civics and Mini Coopers for lunch. God does have a sense of humor, doesn't he? Jerk off.
The Nova lasted longer than my last two cars combined, which was unfathomable. I even offered to park it around the corner to not bring down the home values in our Vegas neighborhood, but my good friends Dina and Shane - who live in Montana, so I'm sure they are used to seeing cars parked out front that are on the verge of crumbling into scrap when the garbage truck rolls by - said as long as I kept it covered or slapped the fake impound sticker on the driver window I could park it out front.
After the Nova, I was due for some luck and a little vehicular treat (in Vegas, vehicular treats can be found aplenty). And this is where the Mean Green Machine comes into play. 10 years later, my little baby still runs strong - thanks to Dave's Tire Corrall and Auto, who just wired up a new alternator to keep the Mean Green Machine running strong. She's got a 111,000 miles on her - a trek to Butte, Montana, and Rosarita Beach, Mexico, will rack up the miles quick - but runs like its only 70,000. Those two hamsters have pedaled their little paws off.
And now that I've written this, I'm worried that I might jinx my good luck with the Mean Green Machine and some blue hair who forgot to take his/her medication will make my little truck into ground beef tomorrow.
Before she came into my life, I went through cars like they were disposable hunks of metal. Granted it was never my decision to get rid of a vehicle, instead it was my driving (in)ability that deemed the vehicle expired. You can only roll a car once before an insurance adjustor rules it too smushed to drive. It got to the point where horse and buggy was a better option. Hell, if the HOA in our neighborhood would have allowed a stable of ponies, I would have become the D. Wayne Lukas of West Vegas.
The roster of cars I went through before the Green Machine reads like a '70s/'80s scrap heap of used cars. My old man had a fettish for Subarus, so of course, I landed two of them: one was the first car I bought with my own cash (had rake a crap load of yards - and in the middle of a pine forest that ain't no small task - which was better than the alternative: blowing drunk vets as they stumbled out of the American Legion hall); the second Subaru was a hand-me-down from the old man that we resurrected with parts from my first Subaru which I decided to roll while messing with the tape deck (damn The Police, it was their tape that wasn't playing right). As an aside, the Gray Ghost (that's what the old man called it, I think to sell me on driving this to school on a daily basis; his thought was that if I told my friends that it's name was the "Gray Ghost" they wouldn't laugh as hard ask whether it was safer to just walk the 50 miles from school) was our Duke Boys car, meaning the old man would take that Subaru in the backwoods behind Melissa's Idyllwild Compound. So he was thrilled to breathe new life in to the Gray Ghost. I tried to modernize it with new fenders and a paint job befitting of a '79 Subaru hatchback that was rumbling around the hill 11 years later.
My first car was the family truckster for many years, a '72 Plymouth Duster that preceded me by a few months and came complete with a vinyl roof and bucket seats. The parental units spared no expense. That car saw some great action. Get that mind out of the gutter ... not that kind of action; it took the mountain roads of Idyllwild at 60 with a berrings squeal we could never accurately locate. And when I hit the orange groves in Hemet, well, let's say that old Blue Beast could still hit 80 on her good days.
The Duster came into my possession because I said I wouldn't drive the '76 Chevy Nova my dad won in a poker game with my grandma (hey, we play for keeps in this family; I tried to wager off my sister in a high school craps game for a stack of hall passes that would have got me out of fifth period so I could head over to the golf course for twilight hours. My friends wouldn't take the bet). That decision would come back to haunt me in the end, but more on that later.
After the Subaru twins, came my first real car. I talked to Loanshark Louie in Idyllwild and he dropped the few Gs on my that I needed to land a '89 Mazda 4-door 323. It had so much pep, I think that little car would have challenged Tony Stewart at Daytona any day of the week, and had a shot to win. I guess her speed was misleading. I thought I had enough time to make a right and outrun the two-tone Chevy Destroyer, or whatever the hell was bearing down on my, instead the drunk, expired-license Vegas burnout wanted to sit in my back seat, in effect making my Mazda a hatchback with a tweaked chassi and no trunk space since it was in my backseat now.
I drove my uncle's hand-me-down early-80s Toyota Supra for a few months before deciding I was smart enough to head over to a car lot and negotiate my own car price. The car salesman knew just what I wanted and how much I should spend on a '89 2-doorPontiac LeMans. He failed to tell me that it was not front-end crash resistant, however, which I tested on a rainy Vegas day (how many times does it rain in Vegas, really, that's just my luck).
Remember that Chevy Nova I mentioned? Yeah, the one I didn't want. Guess what I inherited? A five-cylinder, 2-door Chevy Nova that rumbled when started and sounded like it would eat Honda Civics and Mini Coopers for lunch. God does have a sense of humor, doesn't he? Jerk off.
The Nova lasted longer than my last two cars combined, which was unfathomable. I even offered to park it around the corner to not bring down the home values in our Vegas neighborhood, but my good friends Dina and Shane - who live in Montana, so I'm sure they are used to seeing cars parked out front that are on the verge of crumbling into scrap when the garbage truck rolls by - said as long as I kept it covered or slapped the fake impound sticker on the driver window I could park it out front.
After the Nova, I was due for some luck and a little vehicular treat (in Vegas, vehicular treats can be found aplenty). And this is where the Mean Green Machine comes into play. 10 years later, my little baby still runs strong - thanks to Dave's Tire Corrall and Auto, who just wired up a new alternator to keep the Mean Green Machine running strong. She's got a 111,000 miles on her - a trek to Butte, Montana, and Rosarita Beach, Mexico, will rack up the miles quick - but runs like its only 70,000. Those two hamsters have pedaled their little paws off.
And now that I've written this, I'm worried that I might jinx my good luck with the Mean Green Machine and some blue hair who forgot to take his/her medication will make my little truck into ground beef tomorrow.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Baseball fans know it all by 10 years old
Have you ever talked sports with a 10-year-old? You say something mildly negative about their favorite team like, "I think that Trevor Hoffman guy on the Padres is washed up, plus he picks his ass in the bullpen." And invariably the 10-year-old baseball fan will get angrier than a cat in a pillow case, "Shut up, poopy head! Hoffman is the greatest thing since Pac-man and Gummy Bears. He's going to save 486 games for the Padres this year. He's rad!"
I could tell the kid they don't play 486 games in the season, but I'd have better luck teaching my dogs how to mow the yard. I could talk baseball with the kid until I'm Dodger Blue in the face, but if I laid down any hint of smack, the kid would start balling and call for his mom. She'd come over, ask what I said, and of course I'd reply with another nugget of truth: "Tony Gwynn was a glorified slap hitter with a squeaky voice and a healthy fettish for women's bloomers."
"Shut up, butt face!" She'd reply, "He could still hit .516 and club 61 homers in a season. He's groovy!"
Hey, I was like that when I was a kid. My Dodger myopia new no bounds. Steve Sax was a perennial MVP candidate, Mike Marshall was the second coming of Babe Ruth and Franklin Stubbs would lead the Dodgers to 15-straight world titles. You couldn't tell me that Enos Cabell and Ed Vande Berg wouldn't amount more than 300 pounds of dead weight, they were the key links that would net the Dodgers another World Series title. Hell, the Blue Crew could have fielded the shmucks from the Gashouse Gorillas and faced Bugs Bunny every game and I would have still fought with every hair on my ass to convince folks that the Dodgers would win the World Series.
It takes an 18-year stretch (and counting) without a world title to jade a kid (and now an old kid), though.
Talking to San Diego Padre fans is like talking to a group of rabid 10-year olds. They may know the players names and they're stats, but objectivity doesn't come with the job description I guess. And God help you if you're caught wearing a splash of Dodger Blue (or a hat, like yours truly) at their ballpark during the regular season or spring training. That's like a Charger fan seeing someone in Silver and Black, we'll foam at the chops and pack together like a litter of puppies on a slow-witted cat.
During Sunday's scouting session - I'm a Spring Training scout for the Dodger, although they never return my scouting phone calls and fail to respond to repeated e-mails (it must be a problem with their communication lines) - I learned Padre fans, while not lacking in team spirit or passion, are not much different from that 10-year-old hyperfan. I was discussing the Padres as a team with a friend of my uncle who happened to be in town to catch some spring games. We questioned San Diego's geriatric starting pitching staff, which includes Greg Maddux, 40, and David Wells, 43, the latter was "pitching" on this fine Arizona day (I'm not sure handing the ball to the hitter so he can toss it up in the air and wail it to the outfield wall is technically pitching). As we continued on our scholarly, $6 beer-aided disertations, and above described Friend of the Friar turned in her seat and slurred: "The way you're both talking I thought you might be Raider or ..."
She stopped mid-sentence because she spotted my blue LA hat. "Or Dodger fans."
It felt like she kicked me so hard in the sack that I could taste my marbles. Raider fan? Is this what the world has come to, labeling people willy-nilly as Raider fans. Why not jam a screwdriver into the back of my knee while you're at it? Raider fan, wow. Call me a raper of dogs, a feline fillander, but not a Raider fan. That's just plain rude.
So I retorted in the only fasion I know how, "Souldn't you be grazing in a pasture right now. Let us adults talk while you finish your fried twinkie and trough of kettle korn."
I'm nothing if not mature when it comes to fellow baseball fans.
And just a week before that incident, I was talking with a group of fans - again at the Peoria stadium - about teams' fans and I made the mistake of saying that San Diego fans have their share of bandwagonners. When they're sports team do well, folks from San Ysidro to San Clemente seem to become Padre or Charger fans, and they all claim to be longtime supporters. I could ask them where they were when the Bolts were 1-15, but my guess is they'd respond with, "Shut up, toe sucker! The Chargers have never had a losing season." Yeah, and my piss tastes like Rum Punch. In fact, I think I'll bottle it as sell it to Safeway.
Out here it's not much different. During a Diamondback-Dodger game last season, the D-Backs pulled comfortably ahead, which led to one overzealous 40-year-old turned 10 year old Snake fan to turn, point at me (I'm wearing my Dodger shirt and hat, so I'm not hard to miss in a crowd of purple) and yell "Kobe sucks." And the thought occurs to me, Diamondback fans still aren't sure how baseball is played. Do they wonder why there aren't free throws when a batter hits a foul? What does Kobe Bryant and the Lakers have to do with the game on the field? How does this rattle-waving nimrod know whether I'm a Laker fan, a Suns fan or a Hawks fan. Hell, one look at my five-foot-five frame, and he should have figured basketball ain't my drink of choice. If you're going to run smack, please relate it to the sport you're watching. That's all I ask.
This isn't to say Dodger fan are the MIT grads of the baseball realm. Actually, it's the complete opposite. Watch a Dodger-San Francisco Giant game from Dodger stadium and listen as the fans from the leftfield pavilion chant "Barry sucks" from the first inning to the ninth. Really, is that the best they can come up with? It makes little sense since - and this pains me to no ends to admit this - he's been a helluva a player for 20 years (steroids aside, allegedly). That's like chanting Michael Jordan sucks or Peyton Manning's a girl.
We're a funny species, sports fan. Fiercely loyal to shirts and pants, willing to come to blows for guys we've never met, will likely never meet and some not the most quality of human beings. We'll bash our own, but God save the outsider who thinks it's hunky-dory to follow suit and claim Sandy Koufax was an overrated slug who was lucky during his six years of domination.
That guy would find me peeing on his leg in the Dodger Stadium men's room.
I could tell the kid they don't play 486 games in the season, but I'd have better luck teaching my dogs how to mow the yard. I could talk baseball with the kid until I'm Dodger Blue in the face, but if I laid down any hint of smack, the kid would start balling and call for his mom. She'd come over, ask what I said, and of course I'd reply with another nugget of truth: "Tony Gwynn was a glorified slap hitter with a squeaky voice and a healthy fettish for women's bloomers."
"Shut up, butt face!" She'd reply, "He could still hit .516 and club 61 homers in a season. He's groovy!"
Hey, I was like that when I was a kid. My Dodger myopia new no bounds. Steve Sax was a perennial MVP candidate, Mike Marshall was the second coming of Babe Ruth and Franklin Stubbs would lead the Dodgers to 15-straight world titles. You couldn't tell me that Enos Cabell and Ed Vande Berg wouldn't amount more than 300 pounds of dead weight, they were the key links that would net the Dodgers another World Series title. Hell, the Blue Crew could have fielded the shmucks from the Gashouse Gorillas and faced Bugs Bunny every game and I would have still fought with every hair on my ass to convince folks that the Dodgers would win the World Series.
It takes an 18-year stretch (and counting) without a world title to jade a kid (and now an old kid), though.
Talking to San Diego Padre fans is like talking to a group of rabid 10-year olds. They may know the players names and they're stats, but objectivity doesn't come with the job description I guess. And God help you if you're caught wearing a splash of Dodger Blue (or a hat, like yours truly) at their ballpark during the regular season or spring training. That's like a Charger fan seeing someone in Silver and Black, we'll foam at the chops and pack together like a litter of puppies on a slow-witted cat.
During Sunday's scouting session - I'm a Spring Training scout for the Dodger, although they never return my scouting phone calls and fail to respond to repeated e-mails (it must be a problem with their communication lines) - I learned Padre fans, while not lacking in team spirit or passion, are not much different from that 10-year-old hyperfan. I was discussing the Padres as a team with a friend of my uncle who happened to be in town to catch some spring games. We questioned San Diego's geriatric starting pitching staff, which includes Greg Maddux, 40, and David Wells, 43, the latter was "pitching" on this fine Arizona day (I'm not sure handing the ball to the hitter so he can toss it up in the air and wail it to the outfield wall is technically pitching). As we continued on our scholarly, $6 beer-aided disertations, and above described Friend of the Friar turned in her seat and slurred: "The way you're both talking I thought you might be Raider or ..."
She stopped mid-sentence because she spotted my blue LA hat. "Or Dodger fans."
It felt like she kicked me so hard in the sack that I could taste my marbles. Raider fan? Is this what the world has come to, labeling people willy-nilly as Raider fans. Why not jam a screwdriver into the back of my knee while you're at it? Raider fan, wow. Call me a raper of dogs, a feline fillander, but not a Raider fan. That's just plain rude.
So I retorted in the only fasion I know how, "Souldn't you be grazing in a pasture right now. Let us adults talk while you finish your fried twinkie and trough of kettle korn."
I'm nothing if not mature when it comes to fellow baseball fans.
And just a week before that incident, I was talking with a group of fans - again at the Peoria stadium - about teams' fans and I made the mistake of saying that San Diego fans have their share of bandwagonners. When they're sports team do well, folks from San Ysidro to San Clemente seem to become Padre or Charger fans, and they all claim to be longtime supporters. I could ask them where they were when the Bolts were 1-15, but my guess is they'd respond with, "Shut up, toe sucker! The Chargers have never had a losing season." Yeah, and my piss tastes like Rum Punch. In fact, I think I'll bottle it as sell it to Safeway.
Out here it's not much different. During a Diamondback-Dodger game last season, the D-Backs pulled comfortably ahead, which led to one overzealous 40-year-old turned 10 year old Snake fan to turn, point at me (I'm wearing my Dodger shirt and hat, so I'm not hard to miss in a crowd of purple) and yell "Kobe sucks." And the thought occurs to me, Diamondback fans still aren't sure how baseball is played. Do they wonder why there aren't free throws when a batter hits a foul? What does Kobe Bryant and the Lakers have to do with the game on the field? How does this rattle-waving nimrod know whether I'm a Laker fan, a Suns fan or a Hawks fan. Hell, one look at my five-foot-five frame, and he should have figured basketball ain't my drink of choice. If you're going to run smack, please relate it to the sport you're watching. That's all I ask.
This isn't to say Dodger fan are the MIT grads of the baseball realm. Actually, it's the complete opposite. Watch a Dodger-San Francisco Giant game from Dodger stadium and listen as the fans from the leftfield pavilion chant "Barry sucks" from the first inning to the ninth. Really, is that the best they can come up with? It makes little sense since - and this pains me to no ends to admit this - he's been a helluva a player for 20 years (steroids aside, allegedly). That's like chanting Michael Jordan sucks or Peyton Manning's a girl.
We're a funny species, sports fan. Fiercely loyal to shirts and pants, willing to come to blows for guys we've never met, will likely never meet and some not the most quality of human beings. We'll bash our own, but God save the outsider who thinks it's hunky-dory to follow suit and claim Sandy Koufax was an overrated slug who was lucky during his six years of domination.
That guy would find me peeing on his leg in the Dodger Stadium men's room.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Shock the monkey
Lightning shot out of my ears when Wife imparted this dandy bit of information to me while I was at work Wednesday.
Allow me to dial this latest tale of woe back a notch. Since mid-December, our power company SRP (I think it stands for Slow Responding Pricks, because when our power goes out we receive the same message: "We're working on it, delays may reach until ... oh hell, you don't have power so none of your clocks will work and time is meaningless to ya - when we finish our six packs and decide to move off our barstools we'll look into your problem) was tearing up the streets inside our little Phoenix commune. Open trenches large enough to hide troops of angry hobbits lined our streets, and our front yard became the designated parking lot for their rigs and equipment. By the way, when a machine has a warning pasted in bold red and black letters on the front that states "For qualified personnel only," it really means that jack ass homeowners, like yours truly, shouldn't go tweaking with it after the homeboys call it a day and head home. All this work was so they could update the electric lines that ran under the street. Silly me, not seeing any work over the past few weeks, I assumed these schmucks were done. I should have known better, they work for a utility company, nothing is ever done, it's always in a perpetual state of progressive futching (you'll have look that word up in your Melissa-to-English dictionary, folks).
Flash to this week. Basking in the glow of UNLV landing a seven seed in the NCAA Tournament, I had a lovely date planned for the Friday morning game. In nothing but my Runnin' Rebels hat and lucky boxers, my ass would be perched on our leather couch and I'd be screaming "Rebels!" until my lungs bled and my throat blistered.
SRP foiled all that because they hate me.
Some lacky left a sign on our door yesterday stating that they'd have to shut down electricity to our commune - some 30-40 houses - as SRP replaces the old electric line. Guess what time they are replacing said line. Well, let me put it this way, I'm pretty sure he left the sign on the door because he knew if I met the dude face to face I'd rip his arms out of his sockets and spank his ass with his hands.
That's right, they are shutting down the power from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. - and if the math is right, that's the same time as the UNLV-Georgia Tech tourney game. It's only the biggest game for us Rebel fans in 15 years, but obvioiusly the jerkoffs at SRP must be University of Nevada, Reno fans (too bad they'll be one and done come Friday night). That's the only reason for them screwing me over.
I've learned to adapt and overcome such haters in life. I consulted with Phoenix Valley bar afficionado and fellow drinking buddy Marc on where I could sit and watch a basketball game at 9 a.m., and to his credit he pointed me in the direction of Uncle Charlies just up the street. The fact that he was willing to help was much appreciated, especially since: 1. I planned to do a shot for each three pointer made by the Rebs and he'd miss that fun because he has to work that morning; 2. His Northern Arizona University Lumberjacks barely sniffed the tournament this year, succombing to some school called Weber State (when did Weber become part of the United States?); and 3. UNLV crushed NAU 93-43 in December (that's a 40 point difference if you're scoring at home).
Of course, this could be retribution for that loss and Uncle Charlies is really a gay bathhouse. If that's the case, maybe I can get the SRP guys a gift certificate to the joint for stealing two hours of my electricty. It's the least I could do.
Allow me to dial this latest tale of woe back a notch. Since mid-December, our power company SRP (I think it stands for Slow Responding Pricks, because when our power goes out we receive the same message: "We're working on it, delays may reach until ... oh hell, you don't have power so none of your clocks will work and time is meaningless to ya - when we finish our six packs and decide to move off our barstools we'll look into your problem) was tearing up the streets inside our little Phoenix commune. Open trenches large enough to hide troops of angry hobbits lined our streets, and our front yard became the designated parking lot for their rigs and equipment. By the way, when a machine has a warning pasted in bold red and black letters on the front that states "For qualified personnel only," it really means that jack ass homeowners, like yours truly, shouldn't go tweaking with it after the homeboys call it a day and head home. All this work was so they could update the electric lines that ran under the street. Silly me, not seeing any work over the past few weeks, I assumed these schmucks were done. I should have known better, they work for a utility company, nothing is ever done, it's always in a perpetual state of progressive futching (you'll have look that word up in your Melissa-to-English dictionary, folks).
Flash to this week. Basking in the glow of UNLV landing a seven seed in the NCAA Tournament, I had a lovely date planned for the Friday morning game. In nothing but my Runnin' Rebels hat and lucky boxers, my ass would be perched on our leather couch and I'd be screaming "Rebels!" until my lungs bled and my throat blistered.
SRP foiled all that because they hate me.
Some lacky left a sign on our door yesterday stating that they'd have to shut down electricity to our commune - some 30-40 houses - as SRP replaces the old electric line. Guess what time they are replacing said line. Well, let me put it this way, I'm pretty sure he left the sign on the door because he knew if I met the dude face to face I'd rip his arms out of his sockets and spank his ass with his hands.
That's right, they are shutting down the power from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. - and if the math is right, that's the same time as the UNLV-Georgia Tech tourney game. It's only the biggest game for us Rebel fans in 15 years, but obvioiusly the jerkoffs at SRP must be University of Nevada, Reno fans (too bad they'll be one and done come Friday night). That's the only reason for them screwing me over.
I've learned to adapt and overcome such haters in life. I consulted with Phoenix Valley bar afficionado and fellow drinking buddy Marc on where I could sit and watch a basketball game at 9 a.m., and to his credit he pointed me in the direction of Uncle Charlies just up the street. The fact that he was willing to help was much appreciated, especially since: 1. I planned to do a shot for each three pointer made by the Rebs and he'd miss that fun because he has to work that morning; 2. His Northern Arizona University Lumberjacks barely sniffed the tournament this year, succombing to some school called Weber State (when did Weber become part of the United States?); and 3. UNLV crushed NAU 93-43 in December (that's a 40 point difference if you're scoring at home).
Of course, this could be retribution for that loss and Uncle Charlies is really a gay bathhouse. If that's the case, maybe I can get the SRP guys a gift certificate to the joint for stealing two hours of my electricty. It's the least I could do.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
One ball man
Doogie Howser, my physical therapist, is one sadistic SOB.
I arrive scant seconds before my appointment. Huffing, puffing, wheezing, spitting out blood I crumple on the front desk trying to muster enough strength to sign my name before the clock ticks past 2:30. I hate being late, so I roared through the streets like Tony Stewart navigating a field of rookies at Talladega Motor Speedway (oh yeah, that's right, I just pulled out a NASCAR reference), parked the car in the middle of the parking lot not caring if I blocked some blue hair from making it to the early bird dinner at Hometown Buffet after their appointment at the heart doctor, I wasn't going to let Doogie Howser have the satisfaction of watching me stroll into his office late. I hurdle a hedge like I'm a steeplechase pony and boll through a grazing pack of seniors, cutting around them like I'm LaDanian Tomlinson on a touchdown run, not minding the series of firecracker pops shooting through my left ankle. As I saw it, Doogie will work on the wheel anyway. He'll make it all better as long as I ain't late.
"He's not in yet," said the overly cheery receptionist. She smiles showing more teeth than her mouth can contain. "You'll have to give him a bad time about beating him into the office."
I figure she's giving me carte blanche to let Doogie have it without repercussions. Surely, she'll have my back if I give him a ration of shit.
"Look who decided to show," I say when Doogie finally wanders in. I figure it took him a long time to chain up his bicycle. That could explain his tardiness.
"Ha! You're a funny guy, meat. Let's see how funny you are after five minutes on the bike."
"Is that all you got? Five minutes, doc, I can do with two ankles taped together."
"Funny, you should mention that," he pulls out a roll of duct tape the size of an old west-wagon wheel and then motions for me to sit on the stationary bike. He tapes my ankles together, smiles like he enjoys pulling the wings off of flies, and motions with his hands for me to start pedaling. "How high of a resistance does this thing go? Nine? That's sounds perfect. This will help something, I'm sure (but I don't know what), so keep going until I tell you to stop."
I go until my quad muscles are jiggling lumps of jello and sweat pools in my butt crack leaving me with a waterlogged pair of jockey shorts and a horrendous sweat stripe along my back side. All the while, I'm waiting for overly cheery receptionist to step in a say, "Hey, Doogie, ain't that enough?" There's nothing. That teaches me I can't trust overly cheer receptionists. They're just as evil as pre-pubescent doctors.
Finally, he has mercy on me (or his day was almost over, not sure which one) and tells me to step on this trampoline, of course balancing on the bad ankle. Once I'm semi-balanced he chucks a ball the size of a classroom globe at my junk and my hands get down just fast enough to deflect it away. He says the point is for me to remain balanced on my sissy ankle as he heaves this ball in my general direction, and I'm supposed to catch it. Doogie says he thinks this helps my range of motion - great, he thinks it helps - but I think this exercise is more physical therapy entertainment for the "doc." The ball is never thrown at me, and every time I have to lunge for his pass or risk the ball going through the window and Dr. Howser tacking the cost onto my bill. You talk pain, looking at the bill is more painful than what I did to the ankle to land in this torture chamber.
"C'mon meat, you gotta catch it, and stay balanced."
"Give me something I can catch, munchkin."
He didn't take too kindly to my attitude and again whaled a throw right at the jewels. I catch the shot but go sprawling into the skeletal remains of likely the last person who talked back to Doogie.
"OK, let's strengthen your toes, meat."
"Doc, it ain't my toes that need work. It's the shredded strands in my ankle that need fixing."
"Pipe down, meat, or I'll stick you back on the bike. Now, grab this towel with your toes and pull the end towards the foot. Do that 50 times and then you can go."
I give it a go until my toes feel like their strong enough to crack open beer cans, bring the beer to my mouth and when done crush it against my forehead. They feel stronger than my biceps. When father-in-law needs a hand lifting stuff I'll use my toes to do the heavy business. I'll save my string bean arms for bigger projects, like lifting my new flat-screen plasma TV on to the wall (when Wife comes to her senses and realizes our lives are unfulfilled without such a necessity).
"Good work, meat. And to whet your appetite for your next visit, next time we'll have you balance on a three-inch wide beam 70 feet up while I shoot tennis balls at your gonads. How does that sound?"
"Wonderful, doc. Why don't you also take a sledge hammer to it as a stress test?"
"Great idea, meat. I'll consider that."
I arrive scant seconds before my appointment. Huffing, puffing, wheezing, spitting out blood I crumple on the front desk trying to muster enough strength to sign my name before the clock ticks past 2:30. I hate being late, so I roared through the streets like Tony Stewart navigating a field of rookies at Talladega Motor Speedway (oh yeah, that's right, I just pulled out a NASCAR reference), parked the car in the middle of the parking lot not caring if I blocked some blue hair from making it to the early bird dinner at Hometown Buffet after their appointment at the heart doctor, I wasn't going to let Doogie Howser have the satisfaction of watching me stroll into his office late. I hurdle a hedge like I'm a steeplechase pony and boll through a grazing pack of seniors, cutting around them like I'm LaDanian Tomlinson on a touchdown run, not minding the series of firecracker pops shooting through my left ankle. As I saw it, Doogie will work on the wheel anyway. He'll make it all better as long as I ain't late.
"He's not in yet," said the overly cheery receptionist. She smiles showing more teeth than her mouth can contain. "You'll have to give him a bad time about beating him into the office."
I figure she's giving me carte blanche to let Doogie have it without repercussions. Surely, she'll have my back if I give him a ration of shit.
"Look who decided to show," I say when Doogie finally wanders in. I figure it took him a long time to chain up his bicycle. That could explain his tardiness.
"Ha! You're a funny guy, meat. Let's see how funny you are after five minutes on the bike."
"Is that all you got? Five minutes, doc, I can do with two ankles taped together."
"Funny, you should mention that," he pulls out a roll of duct tape the size of an old west-wagon wheel and then motions for me to sit on the stationary bike. He tapes my ankles together, smiles like he enjoys pulling the wings off of flies, and motions with his hands for me to start pedaling. "How high of a resistance does this thing go? Nine? That's sounds perfect. This will help something, I'm sure (but I don't know what), so keep going until I tell you to stop."
I go until my quad muscles are jiggling lumps of jello and sweat pools in my butt crack leaving me with a waterlogged pair of jockey shorts and a horrendous sweat stripe along my back side. All the while, I'm waiting for overly cheery receptionist to step in a say, "Hey, Doogie, ain't that enough?" There's nothing. That teaches me I can't trust overly cheer receptionists. They're just as evil as pre-pubescent doctors.
Finally, he has mercy on me (or his day was almost over, not sure which one) and tells me to step on this trampoline, of course balancing on the bad ankle. Once I'm semi-balanced he chucks a ball the size of a classroom globe at my junk and my hands get down just fast enough to deflect it away. He says the point is for me to remain balanced on my sissy ankle as he heaves this ball in my general direction, and I'm supposed to catch it. Doogie says he thinks this helps my range of motion - great, he thinks it helps - but I think this exercise is more physical therapy entertainment for the "doc." The ball is never thrown at me, and every time I have to lunge for his pass or risk the ball going through the window and Dr. Howser tacking the cost onto my bill. You talk pain, looking at the bill is more painful than what I did to the ankle to land in this torture chamber.
"C'mon meat, you gotta catch it, and stay balanced."
"Give me something I can catch, munchkin."
He didn't take too kindly to my attitude and again whaled a throw right at the jewels. I catch the shot but go sprawling into the skeletal remains of likely the last person who talked back to Doogie.
"OK, let's strengthen your toes, meat."
"Doc, it ain't my toes that need work. It's the shredded strands in my ankle that need fixing."
"Pipe down, meat, or I'll stick you back on the bike. Now, grab this towel with your toes and pull the end towards the foot. Do that 50 times and then you can go."
I give it a go until my toes feel like their strong enough to crack open beer cans, bring the beer to my mouth and when done crush it against my forehead. They feel stronger than my biceps. When father-in-law needs a hand lifting stuff I'll use my toes to do the heavy business. I'll save my string bean arms for bigger projects, like lifting my new flat-screen plasma TV on to the wall (when Wife comes to her senses and realizes our lives are unfulfilled without such a necessity).
"Good work, meat. And to whet your appetite for your next visit, next time we'll have you balance on a three-inch wide beam 70 feet up while I shoot tennis balls at your gonads. How does that sound?"
"Wonderful, doc. Why don't you also take a sledge hammer to it as a stress test?"
"Great idea, meat. I'll consider that."
Friday, March 09, 2007
At a loss for floss
There's one thing that will send me into the cold sweats and make my sphincter shrink down to the size of a pin head, and that's the impending dentist.
I see that little reminder card - it's hot friggin' pink (the color of gums, or the blood the vampire dental hygenist draws when she gets to workin' with her assortment of hooks) so I really can't miss it - and begin to tremble as I realize the date is closing in on me, really suffocating to the point that I think I swallowed a bowling ball. Then comes the call to remind me that I have an appointment with the vampire, and the voice on the other end is sadistically cheery, I'm sure happy to hear my defeated "OK." She gets off on hearing the pain in our voice, and I'm sure she sits around the corner from the vampire's den of pain, giggling with when she hears my squeals of anguish.
The vampire, brandishing an implement that could disembowel a person from neck to nuts, nudges me along like I'm a prisoner of war into her room of pain where pictures of fellow tortured patients adorn the walls as a reminder to what happens if you speak up in pain.
"You don't have to strap me in this time, really," I say as I watch her hold the tie downs out so I can get into the chair.
"Oh no, buddy, I don't want a repeat of last time. Get you ass in the seat, or so help me, I'll shoot enough novacaine in your ass to numb it for the rest of the month."
She cinches me down in the chair and starts rifling through assorted hooks, spikes, picks and knives, holding up each one so I can get a look before she shakes her head no and moves to the next tool. She does this a dozen times before deciding on a link of rusty barb wire. I shake my head no and she replies with a toothless smile.
"Open wide, meat, it's go time."
My mouth is open as wide as an airplane hangar and she tells me that's not enough.
"I have something to help you out," she pulls out a hunk of a two-by-four and taps it between my upper and lower jaws. "There you go, now I have some room to work."
She goes town, "cleaning" my front eight, digging like she's expecting to find a vein of gold running through my gums. All the while she's gabbing about spring training baseball and how her family is planning a trip to a game this weekend. Great, I think, she's going to live it up at the yard this weekend, meanwhile I'll be slurping my meals through a straw for the next few weeks because this buthcher wants to carve her initials into my gums. She asks me a question and I try to answer before she stabs my tongue and pulls on it.
"If I wanted you to answer, meat, I'd tell you to answer. Got it? I do the talking, you do the bleeding. Ah, looky here..."
On the hend of her red-stained surgical glove his a hunk of of pepper the size of a Lincoln's head at Mount Rushmore, and then she asked me the inevitable question that lands me in hot water every time I visit the blood suckers.
"You haven't been flossing have you? Go ahead, I want to hear what you have to say for yourself."
"Well..."
"Silence, tooth killer! I will not hear your excuses!"
"But..."
"No more," she pulls out a Makita wireless drill and slowly moves it toward my mouth. "If you don't floss regularly before your next visit, I'm taking them all out. You can gum corn on the cob during those summer cook outs for all I care. If you can't take care of your teeth, you don't deserve them."
The vulture hygenist goes back to "cleaning" (I guess we have different ideas of what cleaning really means; to me I think of Windexing a window and wiping away the film, maybe scrubbing the tracks, while apparently the pain-in-the-mouth Olga thinks cleaning means sandpaper the teeth smooth before spearing bits of plaque and tartar). She pulls my cheek away from my molars and wedging her elbow in there so the cheek doesn't snap back. She pokes around my choppers, looking for something in particular it seems, and not finding it. I'm guessing the amount of blood she's sprouting is hiding what's hidden. It must be like a Texas oil field in there, with new geysers erupting with each poke and scrape.
"OK, meat, now it's time to polish these useless hunks of ivory. What flavor of polish would you like: rotted eggs or baby poop? Nevermind, I'll choose for you."
Once she finishes shining up my choppers, I'm left wondering if a buffalo carcass left in the desert sun would taste better than what she just used, and before I can ask for maybe a splash of scope to freshen up the taste she leaves the room and is replaced by the madman dentist who's wild hair and mangled beard leads me to believe they'll give a dental license to any homeless bloke.
"You have too many teeth," he says, "let's make some room."
"Here's the thing, Doc, I kind like this set. How 'bout we make a deal. I floss regularly, show you I'm worthy of keeping my set choppers in tip-top shape, and you let me go. If I don't maintain them to your satisfaction, the next time I show up you can rip away."
He laughs like I'm riffing onstage at the Improv. "Great idea, I'll give you six months."
They release me from their torture chair and hand me a bag with a tooth brush, a roll of gauze for the open wounds along my gum line, and of course floss.
And when Wife asked me how it went, I told her they're going to fill my pie hole with cement, effectively closing off the orifice, and forcing me to eat intravenously for the rest of my life.
"Finally," she says, "I'll get some peace and quiet around here."
I see that little reminder card - it's hot friggin' pink (the color of gums, or the blood the vampire dental hygenist draws when she gets to workin' with her assortment of hooks) so I really can't miss it - and begin to tremble as I realize the date is closing in on me, really suffocating to the point that I think I swallowed a bowling ball. Then comes the call to remind me that I have an appointment with the vampire, and the voice on the other end is sadistically cheery, I'm sure happy to hear my defeated "OK." She gets off on hearing the pain in our voice, and I'm sure she sits around the corner from the vampire's den of pain, giggling with when she hears my squeals of anguish.
The vampire, brandishing an implement that could disembowel a person from neck to nuts, nudges me along like I'm a prisoner of war into her room of pain where pictures of fellow tortured patients adorn the walls as a reminder to what happens if you speak up in pain.
"You don't have to strap me in this time, really," I say as I watch her hold the tie downs out so I can get into the chair.
"Oh no, buddy, I don't want a repeat of last time. Get you ass in the seat, or so help me, I'll shoot enough novacaine in your ass to numb it for the rest of the month."
She cinches me down in the chair and starts rifling through assorted hooks, spikes, picks and knives, holding up each one so I can get a look before she shakes her head no and moves to the next tool. She does this a dozen times before deciding on a link of rusty barb wire. I shake my head no and she replies with a toothless smile.
"Open wide, meat, it's go time."
My mouth is open as wide as an airplane hangar and she tells me that's not enough.
"I have something to help you out," she pulls out a hunk of a two-by-four and taps it between my upper and lower jaws. "There you go, now I have some room to work."
She goes town, "cleaning" my front eight, digging like she's expecting to find a vein of gold running through my gums. All the while she's gabbing about spring training baseball and how her family is planning a trip to a game this weekend. Great, I think, she's going to live it up at the yard this weekend, meanwhile I'll be slurping my meals through a straw for the next few weeks because this buthcher wants to carve her initials into my gums. She asks me a question and I try to answer before she stabs my tongue and pulls on it.
"If I wanted you to answer, meat, I'd tell you to answer. Got it? I do the talking, you do the bleeding. Ah, looky here..."
On the hend of her red-stained surgical glove his a hunk of of pepper the size of a Lincoln's head at Mount Rushmore, and then she asked me the inevitable question that lands me in hot water every time I visit the blood suckers.
"You haven't been flossing have you? Go ahead, I want to hear what you have to say for yourself."
"Well..."
"Silence, tooth killer! I will not hear your excuses!"
"But..."
"No more," she pulls out a Makita wireless drill and slowly moves it toward my mouth. "If you don't floss regularly before your next visit, I'm taking them all out. You can gum corn on the cob during those summer cook outs for all I care. If you can't take care of your teeth, you don't deserve them."
The vulture hygenist goes back to "cleaning" (I guess we have different ideas of what cleaning really means; to me I think of Windexing a window and wiping away the film, maybe scrubbing the tracks, while apparently the pain-in-the-mouth Olga thinks cleaning means sandpaper the teeth smooth before spearing bits of plaque and tartar). She pulls my cheek away from my molars and wedging her elbow in there so the cheek doesn't snap back. She pokes around my choppers, looking for something in particular it seems, and not finding it. I'm guessing the amount of blood she's sprouting is hiding what's hidden. It must be like a Texas oil field in there, with new geysers erupting with each poke and scrape.
"OK, meat, now it's time to polish these useless hunks of ivory. What flavor of polish would you like: rotted eggs or baby poop? Nevermind, I'll choose for you."
Once she finishes shining up my choppers, I'm left wondering if a buffalo carcass left in the desert sun would taste better than what she just used, and before I can ask for maybe a splash of scope to freshen up the taste she leaves the room and is replaced by the madman dentist who's wild hair and mangled beard leads me to believe they'll give a dental license to any homeless bloke.
"You have too many teeth," he says, "let's make some room."
"Here's the thing, Doc, I kind like this set. How 'bout we make a deal. I floss regularly, show you I'm worthy of keeping my set choppers in tip-top shape, and you let me go. If I don't maintain them to your satisfaction, the next time I show up you can rip away."
He laughs like I'm riffing onstage at the Improv. "Great idea, I'll give you six months."
They release me from their torture chair and hand me a bag with a tooth brush, a roll of gauze for the open wounds along my gum line, and of course floss.
And when Wife asked me how it went, I told her they're going to fill my pie hole with cement, effectively closing off the orifice, and forcing me to eat intravenously for the rest of my life.
"Finally," she says, "I'll get some peace and quiet around here."
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Therapy just brings out the pain
I finally broke down and entered therapy.
I know, it's been a long time coming, at least that's what Wife has been saying for the past seven years. Unfortunately for her, this isn't the kind of therapy she was hoping for.
The ankle doc must have been tired of me; he'd seen me twice and obviously my hard-nosed questions of "will I be able to walk again?" and "Will I be able to pick my ear with my middle toe?" was enough for him to kick me off to another doc like I'm a hand-me-down sweater from an older sibling. He prescribed a therapist - I'm sure Wife put him up to it because I'm a complex riddle wrapped in an enigma and she wants to get to the bottom of me - to build up my ankle's self esteem and get to the root of its depression.
That's how I ended up in Doogie Howser's office yesterday.
"So, what is this quack going to do for my squeaky-hinged extremity?" I ask the receptionist, trying to use as many medical terms as I can pull from the vastness (emptiness?) of my brain.
"He'll build strength and improve the ankle's range of motion," she says. "Now fill out these papers so we know who to call when your foot falls off and an address to send it."
She drops "these papers" - a stack that makes "War and Peace" look like a short story - into my lap and I my thigh bones bow under the weight like weak book shelves. The papers basically absolve the therapist from any wrong-doing. So when Doogie forgets I've been on the treadmill for seven-and-a-half hours, leaving me footless because the range-of-motion exercises worked so well that the foot actually unscrewed like a cap to cheap bottle of wine, I can't come back and sue the snot-sleeved punk. Not too mention, they make me sign a hippo form, too, so they can keep my case of butt lice a secret, but hinders the process because they refuse to call Wife to pick me up if I actually lose the foot citing the hippo oath as the reason for their omerta, in essence leaving me as a ward of the therapy office.
With a severe case of hand craps from filling out their forms, I finally meet the doc, and he really is Doogie Howser. He's a 12-year-old with a stethescope. He should be out doing what I did when I was 12: Throw rocks at friends (I still do that, so I guess you don't really outgrow that age).
"So, your ankle is bothering you?" Doogie says, his voice cracking over the last syllable in bothering so he sounds like Peter Brady.
"Did you read that all by yourself, doc? You're pretty smart, aren't you? Does your mommy know you're out of your play pen?" I said, wondering if I'll have to tie his shoes if they become unlaced.
"How did you hurt it?" Doc asks.
"Chasing hooligans like down the street before you TP my olive trees in the front yard."
"Didn't catch them, did you, gramps? Nope, I'm guessing not since you're in here looking for my help. Well, let's see what kind of damage you did. Stick your leg out straight."
He bends the food down at a 45 degree angle to the leg, no pain, no worries. Then Doogie stands up from his high-chair, takes my ankle in his bottom hand and with his top begins pushing down more until my foot is supporting his 12-year-old weight.
"How 'bout now, smart guy? Does it hurt?"
My yelp is my answer.
"OK, let's see where your range is at."
He takes my foot in both hands like it's a water main valve and begins cranking counter clockwise, and my fear of him improving the range of motion on my ankle is quickly coming true as he works his ass of to unscrew the appendage.
"Hey, Doogie, you ain't sealing off the Panama Canal, here, you can stop twisting," I say, half-screaming, half-crying, half wishing Doc cRipple had just amputated the damn limb and let me gimp through the rest of my life enduring the inevitable cat calls of "stumpy" where ever I went.
"OK, fine. Now walk to the other end of the room, double-hopping before each step on your bad foot."
"You mean to where the skeleton is?" I ask through sobs of pain and nerves because therapy offices really shouldn't have naked skeletons dangling from hooks out in the open for Joe Patient to see. Looking at the skeleton, I could see Doogie's plan as plain as the hair on my toes, I'd get down there, hobbled and weak from my excursion and his evil henchman Igor would leap out and haul me into their evil labratory whereupon they'll hollow out my insides to create their clone army to fight along with the blue-hair army Dr. cRipple is building across the street.
"Do I have to?"
"Do you see that little machine with the wires over there," he says, a wry smile makes his eyes shine and gives me the willys. I nod slowly, cautiously, like as if I was watchining all the misdeeds I had done in my life and not enjoying the show.
"Lets just say your testicles won't ever act the same if you don't."
Fair enough, so I start my double hop to the other end of the room. I get about three feet down before Doc tells me to stop.
"What?" I ask, afraid he's going to take a sledge hammer to my good ankle.
"You didn't say mother may I."
Ah, a 12-year-old's sense of humor.
With that task done, he has me hop back on the table and shows me some exercises to work on before our next visit. I would have been fine with another visit, had he not punctuate it with a maniacal "muwahahahaha!" That's about the time my bladder let go.
"Now, I'll know if you've done these exercises between visits. I've installed a camera and microchip into the exercise strap. If you fail to do your work, I'll instruct the strap to grab you by your junk and haul you down here where Igor will work you out. It won't be as pleasent."
Once the exercises are done he gets me back on the bench and wheels over the little device with electrical wires.
"Stretch out your leg."
"I don't wanna," I say, escaping to my own 12-year-old dialect.
"I can put these other places."
Just like when Wife threatens the same sort of harm, I dutifully stretch out my leg so Doogie can run electricity or radiation or whatever the hell that little device pumps into my body (if I had any luck, it would pipe beer into my veins, but we all know I'm not that lucky). He flicks the machine on and suddenly electric bolts shoot through my ankle and exit through my nose, singing the nose hairs ringing my breathing receptacle.
"Well, you're done, beefcake. How do you feel?"
I think I slur out worse than when I came in, but I don't know for sure.
"Great, see you Thursday then."
If there was any positive to this visit to Doogie the Therapist, it was the fact that I believe I left with telekinetic abilities thanks to the electric machine. Plus, my junk is still intact, and that's always a fear when I visit a doctor or dentist (the latter I visit today. Maybe he can give me ESP to go with my telekinisis.)
I know, it's been a long time coming, at least that's what Wife has been saying for the past seven years. Unfortunately for her, this isn't the kind of therapy she was hoping for.
The ankle doc must have been tired of me; he'd seen me twice and obviously my hard-nosed questions of "will I be able to walk again?" and "Will I be able to pick my ear with my middle toe?" was enough for him to kick me off to another doc like I'm a hand-me-down sweater from an older sibling. He prescribed a therapist - I'm sure Wife put him up to it because I'm a complex riddle wrapped in an enigma and she wants to get to the bottom of me - to build up my ankle's self esteem and get to the root of its depression.
That's how I ended up in Doogie Howser's office yesterday.
"So, what is this quack going to do for my squeaky-hinged extremity?" I ask the receptionist, trying to use as many medical terms as I can pull from the vastness (emptiness?) of my brain.
"He'll build strength and improve the ankle's range of motion," she says. "Now fill out these papers so we know who to call when your foot falls off and an address to send it."
She drops "these papers" - a stack that makes "War and Peace" look like a short story - into my lap and I my thigh bones bow under the weight like weak book shelves. The papers basically absolve the therapist from any wrong-doing. So when Doogie forgets I've been on the treadmill for seven-and-a-half hours, leaving me footless because the range-of-motion exercises worked so well that the foot actually unscrewed like a cap to cheap bottle of wine, I can't come back and sue the snot-sleeved punk. Not too mention, they make me sign a hippo form, too, so they can keep my case of butt lice a secret, but hinders the process because they refuse to call Wife to pick me up if I actually lose the foot citing the hippo oath as the reason for their omerta, in essence leaving me as a ward of the therapy office.
With a severe case of hand craps from filling out their forms, I finally meet the doc, and he really is Doogie Howser. He's a 12-year-old with a stethescope. He should be out doing what I did when I was 12: Throw rocks at friends (I still do that, so I guess you don't really outgrow that age).
"So, your ankle is bothering you?" Doogie says, his voice cracking over the last syllable in bothering so he sounds like Peter Brady.
"Did you read that all by yourself, doc? You're pretty smart, aren't you? Does your mommy know you're out of your play pen?" I said, wondering if I'll have to tie his shoes if they become unlaced.
"How did you hurt it?" Doc asks.
"Chasing hooligans like down the street before you TP my olive trees in the front yard."
"Didn't catch them, did you, gramps? Nope, I'm guessing not since you're in here looking for my help. Well, let's see what kind of damage you did. Stick your leg out straight."
He bends the food down at a 45 degree angle to the leg, no pain, no worries. Then Doogie stands up from his high-chair, takes my ankle in his bottom hand and with his top begins pushing down more until my foot is supporting his 12-year-old weight.
"How 'bout now, smart guy? Does it hurt?"
My yelp is my answer.
"OK, let's see where your range is at."
He takes my foot in both hands like it's a water main valve and begins cranking counter clockwise, and my fear of him improving the range of motion on my ankle is quickly coming true as he works his ass of to unscrew the appendage.
"Hey, Doogie, you ain't sealing off the Panama Canal, here, you can stop twisting," I say, half-screaming, half-crying, half wishing Doc cRipple had just amputated the damn limb and let me gimp through the rest of my life enduring the inevitable cat calls of "stumpy" where ever I went.
"OK, fine. Now walk to the other end of the room, double-hopping before each step on your bad foot."
"You mean to where the skeleton is?" I ask through sobs of pain and nerves because therapy offices really shouldn't have naked skeletons dangling from hooks out in the open for Joe Patient to see. Looking at the skeleton, I could see Doogie's plan as plain as the hair on my toes, I'd get down there, hobbled and weak from my excursion and his evil henchman Igor would leap out and haul me into their evil labratory whereupon they'll hollow out my insides to create their clone army to fight along with the blue-hair army Dr. cRipple is building across the street.
"Do I have to?"
"Do you see that little machine with the wires over there," he says, a wry smile makes his eyes shine and gives me the willys. I nod slowly, cautiously, like as if I was watchining all the misdeeds I had done in my life and not enjoying the show.
"Lets just say your testicles won't ever act the same if you don't."
Fair enough, so I start my double hop to the other end of the room. I get about three feet down before Doc tells me to stop.
"What?" I ask, afraid he's going to take a sledge hammer to my good ankle.
"You didn't say mother may I."
Ah, a 12-year-old's sense of humor.
With that task done, he has me hop back on the table and shows me some exercises to work on before our next visit. I would have been fine with another visit, had he not punctuate it with a maniacal "muwahahahaha!" That's about the time my bladder let go.
"Now, I'll know if you've done these exercises between visits. I've installed a camera and microchip into the exercise strap. If you fail to do your work, I'll instruct the strap to grab you by your junk and haul you down here where Igor will work you out. It won't be as pleasent."
Once the exercises are done he gets me back on the bench and wheels over the little device with electrical wires.
"Stretch out your leg."
"I don't wanna," I say, escaping to my own 12-year-old dialect.
"I can put these other places."
Just like when Wife threatens the same sort of harm, I dutifully stretch out my leg so Doogie can run electricity or radiation or whatever the hell that little device pumps into my body (if I had any luck, it would pipe beer into my veins, but we all know I'm not that lucky). He flicks the machine on and suddenly electric bolts shoot through my ankle and exit through my nose, singing the nose hairs ringing my breathing receptacle.
"Well, you're done, beefcake. How do you feel?"
I think I slur out worse than when I came in, but I don't know for sure.
"Great, see you Thursday then."
If there was any positive to this visit to Doogie the Therapist, it was the fact that I believe I left with telekinetic abilities thanks to the electric machine. Plus, my junk is still intact, and that's always a fear when I visit a doctor or dentist (the latter I visit today. Maybe he can give me ESP to go with my telekinisis.)
Monday, March 05, 2007
Pain never hurt so good
One can only watch so many TiVo'd reruns of Dharma & Greg before wanting to grab the remote and shoving it through an ear - sideways - while gulping down a Hefty-sized bag of Cheetos (the Puffs because the crunchy Cheetos remind me of dried, orange boogers).
That's what my six weeks off the bad left wheel had left me - a weak ankle, orange fingers, a savant memory of Dharma quotes and an ass that has formed a butt pod into the leather couch. My sole form of exercise during the lay off had been chasing neighborhood kids (known around the Compound as toilet-paper, orange throwing hooligans) who venture across my garden of rocks and desert weeds in hopes that I'd be suckered into buying they're cookie dough/chocolate bars/3-foot bongs. I can't support these nose blowers pimping out foil-wrapped or tub-encased diabetes.
So I decided six weeks was enough. It was go time.
With my foot deflated from looking like a Macy's Parade float - "Look kids, it's your favorite cartoon character: Swollen, black-and-blue Foot. Yes Jimmy, that's toe jam hanging down." - I noticed my ass sticking harder and deeper to the couch. The couch was giving me signs, too, at least that's how I read the loud suction sound when I'd rise from the cocoon for my seventh beer half expecting to see the couch swallowing my spleen.
So, with thighs made of guacamole thighs and a belly with more jiggle than Charo, I hauled myself to the Medieval Torture Gym. Dr. cRipple gave me a clean bill of health but prescribed physical therapy which I partake in later today (be sure to check here for all the fun-filled details). I suspect I'll be the youngest dude in the joint, and the blue hairs will likely come at me like spider monkeys, to suck away my life force. I can see them lathered up in denture cream so when they do leech on to me I can't shake them off easily like their annoying mosquitos in a gerriatric jungle. Maybe that's Dr. cRipple's plan, lure me into an office with promises of a rejuvenated ankle that will help me leap medium-sized puddles in the work parking lot - pain free - when, in fact, he's using rabid seniors to feest on 30-something year olds so he can harvest ankle parts and build a marching army of cloned chin-whiskered grammas hell bent on stealing the world's supply of creamed corn because that's what the clones need for fuel.
Wow, I need to lay off that eighth cup of coffee in the morning.
Anyway, it was time to reaquiant myself with the masochistic pleasure of squat thrusts and ab crunches. With enough duct tape wrapped around my ankle to bound a kidnapped sorority, forcing me to walk with more of a limp than when I originally flattened my left wheel, I gimp my way into the gym and over to the stretching mats to see what muscles have shriveled up into a strips of jerky. I expected to hear rips, tears and snaps of dried meat and sinew with each stretch. I thought the three shredded ligaments would unhook from the bone and flap along the joint's side like strings tethering said black-and-blue foot balloon. Instead, it screamed: I love this shit! Give me more! I crunched the ab muscles and I heard them grunt "bring it on sissy boy. I can do these all day." I move over for pull ups and dips, no problem. "That's all you got, butt pincher? Take off the training wheels and do some work." Finally, I went for bicep curls and shoulder lifts and I made those bad boys my bitch. "Give me more weights," I yell across the gym. "What's this, these barbells only go up to 75 pounds. My right nut can lift 75 pounds. Give me MORE!"
I move from one machine to the next, lifting a high school trainer off the triceps machine because, dammit, my body's been waiting six weeks to feel some pain other than occasional kicks in the side from sleeping Wife. A muscle head sits down at my - My - lat machine, so I politely tell him to move it or I'll beat the crap out of his steroid supplier. He obliges because he knows that once I get done with the supplier, I'll turn my exercise-craved body on him and whoop his butt three ways from Sunday. Why? Because I can.
However, every happy story has some degree of hardship in it. That came when I hit the elliptical machine. Forty-five minutes? No problem. This machine will bend to my endorphin rush just like the squat thrust machine. I go to town, running like I'm being chased by angry villagers because I just defiled the one virgin in town, paying no heed to the thin lines of pain seeping up through the ankle. Ten minutes in, OK, I can do this all day and twice on Sunday (unless there's a Dodger game, then maybe only once and a half). Fifteen minutes, still feeling good, but crap why does my ankle feel like it sprung a slow leak? Twenty minutes in and it's like I'm running on a wheel with just one lug nut holding it together. By the 28th minute I decide to call it quits mainly because I thought my achilles tendon would shear off and roll halfway up to my leg and try to escape my body through some other out hole.
I leave the Medieval Torture Gym feeling somewhat good about myself, if for no other reason, I didn't have to watch another Dharma & Greg rerun.
That's what my six weeks off the bad left wheel had left me - a weak ankle, orange fingers, a savant memory of Dharma quotes and an ass that has formed a butt pod into the leather couch. My sole form of exercise during the lay off had been chasing neighborhood kids (known around the Compound as toilet-paper, orange throwing hooligans) who venture across my garden of rocks and desert weeds in hopes that I'd be suckered into buying they're cookie dough/chocolate bars/3-foot bongs. I can't support these nose blowers pimping out foil-wrapped or tub-encased diabetes.
So I decided six weeks was enough. It was go time.
With my foot deflated from looking like a Macy's Parade float - "Look kids, it's your favorite cartoon character: Swollen, black-and-blue Foot. Yes Jimmy, that's toe jam hanging down." - I noticed my ass sticking harder and deeper to the couch. The couch was giving me signs, too, at least that's how I read the loud suction sound when I'd rise from the cocoon for my seventh beer half expecting to see the couch swallowing my spleen.
So, with thighs made of guacamole thighs and a belly with more jiggle than Charo, I hauled myself to the Medieval Torture Gym. Dr. cRipple gave me a clean bill of health but prescribed physical therapy which I partake in later today (be sure to check here for all the fun-filled details). I suspect I'll be the youngest dude in the joint, and the blue hairs will likely come at me like spider monkeys, to suck away my life force. I can see them lathered up in denture cream so when they do leech on to me I can't shake them off easily like their annoying mosquitos in a gerriatric jungle. Maybe that's Dr. cRipple's plan, lure me into an office with promises of a rejuvenated ankle that will help me leap medium-sized puddles in the work parking lot - pain free - when, in fact, he's using rabid seniors to feest on 30-something year olds so he can harvest ankle parts and build a marching army of cloned chin-whiskered grammas hell bent on stealing the world's supply of creamed corn because that's what the clones need for fuel.
Wow, I need to lay off that eighth cup of coffee in the morning.
Anyway, it was time to reaquiant myself with the masochistic pleasure of squat thrusts and ab crunches. With enough duct tape wrapped around my ankle to bound a kidnapped sorority, forcing me to walk with more of a limp than when I originally flattened my left wheel, I gimp my way into the gym and over to the stretching mats to see what muscles have shriveled up into a strips of jerky. I expected to hear rips, tears and snaps of dried meat and sinew with each stretch. I thought the three shredded ligaments would unhook from the bone and flap along the joint's side like strings tethering said black-and-blue foot balloon. Instead, it screamed: I love this shit! Give me more! I crunched the ab muscles and I heard them grunt "bring it on sissy boy. I can do these all day." I move over for pull ups and dips, no problem. "That's all you got, butt pincher? Take off the training wheels and do some work." Finally, I went for bicep curls and shoulder lifts and I made those bad boys my bitch. "Give me more weights," I yell across the gym. "What's this, these barbells only go up to 75 pounds. My right nut can lift 75 pounds. Give me MORE!"
I move from one machine to the next, lifting a high school trainer off the triceps machine because, dammit, my body's been waiting six weeks to feel some pain other than occasional kicks in the side from sleeping Wife. A muscle head sits down at my - My - lat machine, so I politely tell him to move it or I'll beat the crap out of his steroid supplier. He obliges because he knows that once I get done with the supplier, I'll turn my exercise-craved body on him and whoop his butt three ways from Sunday. Why? Because I can.
However, every happy story has some degree of hardship in it. That came when I hit the elliptical machine. Forty-five minutes? No problem. This machine will bend to my endorphin rush just like the squat thrust machine. I go to town, running like I'm being chased by angry villagers because I just defiled the one virgin in town, paying no heed to the thin lines of pain seeping up through the ankle. Ten minutes in, OK, I can do this all day and twice on Sunday (unless there's a Dodger game, then maybe only once and a half). Fifteen minutes, still feeling good, but crap why does my ankle feel like it sprung a slow leak? Twenty minutes in and it's like I'm running on a wheel with just one lug nut holding it together. By the 28th minute I decide to call it quits mainly because I thought my achilles tendon would shear off and roll halfway up to my leg and try to escape my body through some other out hole.
I leave the Medieval Torture Gym feeling somewhat good about myself, if for no other reason, I didn't have to watch another Dharma & Greg rerun.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Drug paraphernalia
I left work early yesterday.
My guts were in upheval, twisting into positions I thought weren't humanly possible and my ass was a volcano of molten ... well, you get the idea. My stomach was doing more flips than Mary Lou Retton after drinking two gallons of Jolt Cola. And my head felt like it was caving in and splitting at the same time.
My insides were a freeway free traffic when I threw some water and bread down the gullet.
My skin hurt.
My hairs hurt - all of them (if you catch my drift).
My body couldn't figure out if it was hot or cold. I was menopausal without the raging mid-50ish housewife hormones.
That was yesterday. Today, things are returning back to normal inside Temple Melissa. I stayed home from work as a precautionary measure, afraid that the office wouldn't forgive me if the cramps returned and I left a stench in the men's room that would incinerate the next visitor.
I don't get sick often, maybe once or twice a year with the sniffles. I don't get flu shots because I don't get the flu and I think its a medical industry scam. They tell people if you don't buy a flu shot you'll catch this insidious disease and puke yourself to death. So what do they do for the suckers who want (brainwashed) a shot - they inject them with the flu, presumably so they can infect those people who didn't buy a flu vaccine and the medical industry can say "see, you schmucks, you didn't pay into our program so now you're going to die from a runny ass."
Wife, who has a one of those stock tests this weekend to keep her license so she can keep me living in the manner I have become accustomed to, went on full-scale flu lockdown. She tented the compound, chained me to the bed - giving me just enough slack to make it to the bathroom - so I wouldn't contaminate the "safe zones", and donned a gas mask when delivering me fluids and drugs. That's something we don't have a shortage of - drugs. If your tongue is coated in hives and sprouting sprigs of poison ivy Wife has a syrup or pill for it. She cleared off my nightstand and set a pharmacy worth of flu suppresant drugs down giving me so many choices that my head leaked brain fluid from my ears.
"What's your symptoms?" she asks.
"My ass is a torch and my head feels like a match. Oh, and it feels like someone is taking a cheese grater to my skin every three minutes."
"Hmmm, every three minutes, eh," says Dr. Wife. "Well, take this stuff that dissovles on your tongue, then mix this powder with water and drink it with a straw. That's important, if you don't drink it with a straw, liquid will seep from your toenails and your testes will swell to the size of hot air balloons. Once you're done with that, takes these six pills, that will cure your head problems."
I do all that, and wouldn't you know it, I'm feeling much better now. I don't know if her mix-and-match remedies did the trick or if my body just needed to get rid of the virus, but either way I dont feel like I'm having anal sex with the flu monster, anymore.
My guts were in upheval, twisting into positions I thought weren't humanly possible and my ass was a volcano of molten ... well, you get the idea. My stomach was doing more flips than Mary Lou Retton after drinking two gallons of Jolt Cola. And my head felt like it was caving in and splitting at the same time.
My insides were a freeway free traffic when I threw some water and bread down the gullet.
My skin hurt.
My hairs hurt - all of them (if you catch my drift).
My body couldn't figure out if it was hot or cold. I was menopausal without the raging mid-50ish housewife hormones.
That was yesterday. Today, things are returning back to normal inside Temple Melissa. I stayed home from work as a precautionary measure, afraid that the office wouldn't forgive me if the cramps returned and I left a stench in the men's room that would incinerate the next visitor.
I don't get sick often, maybe once or twice a year with the sniffles. I don't get flu shots because I don't get the flu and I think its a medical industry scam. They tell people if you don't buy a flu shot you'll catch this insidious disease and puke yourself to death. So what do they do for the suckers who want (brainwashed) a shot - they inject them with the flu, presumably so they can infect those people who didn't buy a flu vaccine and the medical industry can say "see, you schmucks, you didn't pay into our program so now you're going to die from a runny ass."
Wife, who has a one of those stock tests this weekend to keep her license so she can keep me living in the manner I have become accustomed to, went on full-scale flu lockdown. She tented the compound, chained me to the bed - giving me just enough slack to make it to the bathroom - so I wouldn't contaminate the "safe zones", and donned a gas mask when delivering me fluids and drugs. That's something we don't have a shortage of - drugs. If your tongue is coated in hives and sprouting sprigs of poison ivy Wife has a syrup or pill for it. She cleared off my nightstand and set a pharmacy worth of flu suppresant drugs down giving me so many choices that my head leaked brain fluid from my ears.
"What's your symptoms?" she asks.
"My ass is a torch and my head feels like a match. Oh, and it feels like someone is taking a cheese grater to my skin every three minutes."
"Hmmm, every three minutes, eh," says Dr. Wife. "Well, take this stuff that dissovles on your tongue, then mix this powder with water and drink it with a straw. That's important, if you don't drink it with a straw, liquid will seep from your toenails and your testes will swell to the size of hot air balloons. Once you're done with that, takes these six pills, that will cure your head problems."
I do all that, and wouldn't you know it, I'm feeling much better now. I don't know if her mix-and-match remedies did the trick or if my body just needed to get rid of the virus, but either way I dont feel like I'm having anal sex with the flu monster, anymore.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)