Impromptu High School Reunion

It all started with Doug. Doug was a fun guy who I had been close friends with off and on since grade school. Over the course of time, families and crap happens and old friendships kinda fall by the wayside.

So I was surprised to get a message on Facebook from Doug. "Hey, just a blast from the past," it read. I was shocked (because the last time I'd run into Doug and family was at a local eatery and the reception I got from them was sorta chilly), so of course the first thing I did before responding was to check it out and make sure it wasn't really some creepy middle-aged troll in his mom's basement.

It was really him! So after a few months of hemming and hawing around, we decided to meet at a local bar. "Blast from the past" didn't even begin to cover it. We reminisced about past good and bad times, much hilarity ensued, copious beers helped, and we ended up shouting "TEQUILA!" at frequent intervals.

About a month later, Doug invited me to join him at a neighborhood brewery. I soon found out he was sorta a "VIP" there, or more likely a "frequent flier." So we bellied up to the bar and beers were downed. Soon, Doug was waving at a woman at the end of the bar. 

She came over and it took a minute, but I recognized her as well. It was a girl we'd gone to grade school, middle school, and high school with. She had always been very friendly and likeable and (as both Doug and I had thought) innocent and angelic. Man, were we fooled.

I knew she didn't recognize me at first. So I jut out my hand and offered my name. Recognition flooded her and she launched into a solid and long hug. 

"Oh, I haven't seen you in forever!" she exclaimed, embracing me and patting my back like a TSA agent. And I had changed quite a bit in "forever."

"What I remember about you the most was your wavy red hair," she said.

"Yeah, um, it's been some years since I've had that. I remember playing against you in a chess tournament in sixth grade."

She said, "Did you beat me?"

"Yes," I replied, "but I think I cheated." (No "thinking" involved. I had her in check and didn't call it out. So when I took her king, she fought me a little on it until she kindly acquiesced.)

We talked about fellow class of 79 graduates and gossiped and then she regaled us with some wild stories. In sixth grade, she went to a sleepover and brought vodka! (In sixth grade, Doug and I didn't even know what drinking was.) Then she told us how she and another "angelic" good girl painted some bawdy slurs about our heinous vice principal on the school steps.

Wow! All these years, she and her sidekick had us fooled that they were sweet innocent girls who never got into any trouble.

Soon, another guy wandered up to our small group and said, "I just had to say hello before I go." Another class of 79 grad! Unbelievable (although I'm not too sure that the newcomer and I actually remembered one another). But more stories, more good and bad times, and lotsa tea was spilled.

Later I asked, "who else is gonna show up? Bob Bellman?" ("Bob Bellman"--NOT his real name--was the notorious high school bully who ran over my friend with his car. But you can read all about that in my book, Tex the Witch Boy.)

Doug and I outlasted the other two grads and drank the day away with the promise that we'd all get together again soon and invite even more graduates from the class of 79.

Now that I'm waxing all nostalgic and crap about the days of high school, now's as good a time as any to pimp out my book, Tex, the Witch Boy. It's a mystery, thriller, paranormal, comedy, romance tale largely detailing my traumatic days of high school. Read for yourself why our vice principal was so heinous RIGHT HERE!

Raccoon Rescue Team!

Honestly, my wife should be granted an Honorary Raccoon merit badge. As a child, she and her family rescued a raccoon that was stuck inside a tree.

Our next foray into raccoon rescue sadly had a grim outcome. A pregnant raccoon had fallen down our chimney. Now our chimney hasn't been functional in years, so basically it's just a hole in the middle of our house. For days, we couldn't figure out where the sudden influx of flies and horrible odor was coming from. Then we finally pulled the blocking board from the chimney and voila! Hello hotel!

When the animal guy came over to remove the remains (possibly the least romantic job in the world), even he was retching and gagging through his mask.

He said, "If I were you, I'd get that chimney capped." 

When we found out how much it would cost, we scoffed, said, "What're the chances another raccoon could fall down our chimney?" and went on our way.

Flash forward to the present. While our two nephews were visiting, we heard squealing sounds and finally tracked it down to the chimney. With horror, I said, "Not again."

The 3,000 pound piano had to be moved as it sat in front of the boarded up chimney (thank gawd rain had delayed the nephews' departure). Then our youngest nephew slipped his phone behind the board and took a picture.

"It's a raccoon," he said. "A little one. I'm not touching that thing."

The three of them concocted a plan. My wife found a big cardboard box and had it positioned over the board while our older nephew was to slide up the board leaving no choice but for the raccoon to leap into the box. And me? Hey, someone had to video the historic event (from a distance, natch).

"Now!"

The board slid up. The raccoon did nothing. The board slid back into place.

The raccoon rescue brain trust reconvened. "I think with these oven mitts, I can grab him and put him in the box," said my wife.

I took a few more cautionary steps backward.

On all fours, my wife scrambled after the raccoon, while it avoided her at all costs.

Finally, "Got him! He's in the box! He's in the box!"

I opened the back door to let my wife, the box, and the raccoon out.

In the yard, my wife put the box down on it's side with the top open.

"Be free, little one," I yelled with necessary dramatic flair. "Go on! Off you go!...Um...c'mon, get out of the damn box..."

Yet Rocky wouldn't leave the box (I had taken to calling him "Rocky.") My wife shook the box, then tilted it. Nothing. Rocky was clawing onto the box for dear life.

After a while, it was decided to leave the box open and let him come out on his own. Except he wouldn't.

Night fell. Still in the box.

"Honey," I said (talking to my wife and not Rocky), "we've got to do something. The dogs probably need to pee."

So my wife moved Rocky and his box to the side of the house where our fence would keep the dogs from getting him.

In the morning...success! Rocky had finally left us (and his box) in the middle of the night, moving on to forge his own path in the big world. They grow up so fast...sniff...

Alright, while I have critters on my mind, there's a whole menagerie of creepy-crawly critters to be found in my short story collection, Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley. I'm talking Bigfoot, giant bugs, and other various forms of varmints and monsters. Gotta catch 'em all! HERE!

Ooooooh, That Smell!

I'm not talking about that crappy arena rock song from Lynyrd Skynyrd (You old-timers remember them? From back in the  70's when all music was crappy?) when I say "Oooooooh, that smell!"

Nope, I'm talking about our oldest dog, Bijou. Monday morning I let her outside to do her stuff and when she gets back inside she pops up next to me on the love seat. And I get a good whiff of her.

"Good God!"

I've never smelled anything like it. But then that wasn't quite true. I knew the offending odor from somewhere before, but I couldn't quite place my finger on it. But my nose sure did. Like a nightmarish, musky, rotting smell, the odor permeated the room, the house, my shirt, and permanently scarred my olfactory system for life.

I stood up and ran from the room, hoping she'd follow me. She did. Then I jumped back into the TV room, shutting the dog gate behind me. Still that smell followed me around like a heat-seeking missile.

I couldn't escape it. Soon I resorted to kicking her out in the backyard (along with her little brother). I figured a good long stay outdoors might diminish the stink. After about at hour I went outside. Even in the open air, her odor assaulted me.

I noticed a side of her coat was rough, so she'd rolled in something, God only knows what. Sneakily, I approached her slowly with the hose. But once she saw the burbling water, she ran away. After playing tag for a while, I finally gave up.

Back inside, I finally came upon a solution. A solution that wise men resort to as their last ditch effort. I texted my wife. "When you get home, you need to give Bijou a bath. You'll see." (She excels at this job, something I'm not well-equipped for.)

So my wife threw her in the tub. After a while, I'm cooking dinner, and she calls out, "Wow. She still stinks. Back in the tub with her."

But she still reeked, even after her second bath. Just not as badly. All night long she kept "eye-begging" to hop up into my lap. Sadly, I dejected those puppy dog eyes.

That night, about 4:30 in the morning, I woke up with a real eureka moment. I finally recognized the odiferous odor: dead animal carcass.

Okay, now on the "Walking Dead," I understand the survivors' need to wear human entrails on their body to be able to move amongst the zombies, but why in the world would a dog think it a grand idea to roll around in a dead critters' remains? Claiming their territory? Geeze, next time just plant a flag or something.

Speaking of furry, smelly varmints, have you heard the one about the business corporation that has a werewolf amongst the employees? No? Well, then, by skippy, you've got to read my darkly comical, satirical, horror, mystery, thriller Corporate Wolf available right here!

Fun With Eye Surgery!

I swan (and you all KNOW how much I hate swanning), once you hit a certain age, it all goes careening quickly downhill from there. Take my latest checkup with my optometrist...please!

"Stuart, your cataracts have grown," said the doctor.

"Um...does this mean surgery?"

"I'm afraid it does."

Of COURSE it did. So off to an ophthalmologist I went, my wife riding shotgun. When the nurse tested my left eye, apparently I couldn't even read a six-inch tall single black letter. Which prompted my wife to laugh (tough crowd, tough crowd).

So Dr. Doogie Howser (I have shoes older than him) came in and told me he was going to hack off my cataracts.

"Wait...what? Wait!"

"I'll go in there and slice your cataract off and replace the cloudy filter on your eye with a new filter."

"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEE," I said.

The day of the procedure I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything. Already it had started out miserably.

When I got to the surgical center, there were over a dozen people (all appearing disgruntled) in the tiny waiting room. Once they called me back, all sorts of fresh hell broke loose.

They handed me paper after paper (with the tiniest print ever; ironic, yes?) that I couldn't read and told me to sign them. Then the nurse put me through a barrage of questions. ("Name, date of birth, favorite boy band, etc."). Once they found a bed for me, they took me into a massive room with about twenty beds, with a variety of people laying on them, looking like some kind of war-time hospital room. There were moans and groans and snores. I very much wanted to get outta there.

A different nurse came in and went through all of the same damn questions again ("Stuart West, April 1961, Back Street Boys, etc.") and they began to put eye drops on me.

"To help numb your eye," said the nurse.

"Ahhh...please give me a lot of it," I said.

Then I noticed this old, shaky, bald, hunched over man wobbling around, clearly in worse shape than I was. I wondered why they let this clearly out-of-it patient roam freely through the room until he stopped by my bed and picked up a chart.

"Hi, Steve, I'm--"

"Stuart," I corrected even though he had no interest in getting my name right.

"I'm Mark, the anesthesia nurse."

Pause. Blink. Ponder. He waited for my response. I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Really?"

"Now this chart says you're...160 pounds and 5'6" tall..."

"Yeah, no. That's a mistake," I said. "A big mistake."

The wrinkles on Mark's head crinkled like ripples in a pond. "Hmmm. Now...which eye is being operated on?"

"My left one," I said.

"You left your eye where?"

"No. My left eye. Left!"

"You left your eye where?" Mark repeated before finally cracking a smile.

"Ohhhhhhhkay, I see what you did there, Mark. Eye humor." I so wanted to tell him that his joke wasn't funny nor did it even make sense, but I was kinda at everyone's mercy.

"Are you feeling pretty relaxed after the medicine we gave you?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I haven't had any medicine!"

"Hmmm." With that Mark waddled off to the guy next to me where he continued to harass the patient with his tired, same ol' schtick.

Soon they began to roll me into the surgical room, aka "The Polar Experience." Cold doesn't even begin to describe it.

"How're you doing, Stuart?" asked an unseen nurse.

"Kinda nervous. Um, could I get some medicine to relax me? Maybe? Please?"

The nurse laughed. Then strapped my head down to the point where I couldn't move. "Dr. Howser works under a microscope, so don't move a muscle," she directed.

Dr. Howser whizzed in (at least I assume it was him) and said, "Okay, we're going to start now. You won't feel a thing."

"Promise?"

The operation began. A series of bright lights blinded me (well...blinded me even more than I was) while a nurse kept squirting stuff into my eye. Soon I could see and feel something working around the perimeter of my eye. Cutting into it!

"Alright, we're halfway through. I cut out the cataract," said Dr. Howser.

"Great," I said, tied down and at a loss for words.

"We're in the home-stretch now." Soon enough it was done. They unwrapped me and put a plastic "shield" over the eye. 

"Wow," I said. "I can already tell that I can see better." I wasn't really sure if that was true or not, but I couldn't think of what else to say.

"Well..." said Dr. Howser. "That was a huge cataract."

They wheeled me back into the war room, where I immediately hopped out of bed, ready to get the hell out of there before they started hacking at my eye again.

The following week was recovery. And I had to wear the horrible eye shield every night while I slept. But I had got through it. Until in two more weeks when Dr. Howser will slice open my other eye.

AIEEEEEEEEE!

Speaking of things that make me scream, I have to make a blatant plug for my short story collection, Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley. It's full of horror, humor, and twists. But I'm especially proud of the final novella, "The Underdwellers." I believe it's the the scariest and most intense thing I've written. But don't take my word for it! Lay down some bucks and find out for yourself right here!

Toilet Lid Mind Blower

In our household, the breakdown of duties have been divided up. Having drawn the short straw, I got toilet cleaning detail.

Now admittedly, lately I haven't been as regular at it as I used to do (way back in the days when I had ambition and gumption {whatever that last word is}), but it's just hard to get excited about sticking your head in the toilet and scrubbing.

Years ago, my wife had given me very detailed instructions on how to clean a toilet: "You have to really stick your head inside to see the grime and gross stuff. Then you scrub and scrub and scrub...." She even bought me a special brush to take care of such matters.

It wasn't until later that she hit me with a mind-blower. "You're supposed to take the toilet seat off every time you clean!"

WHAAAAAAAT? I never knew that. Did you guys know that?

She proceeded to show me how it's done. "You twist the two knobs and yank!"

Surely I can't be the only house-husband out there who ever knew that this was a possibility, right?....RIGHT?

Google wasn't much help in aiding in my information gathering and need to feel I'm not alone in my lack of toilet knowledge. "While not all men know to remove the seat for cleaning, it's a recommended practice for ensuring a thorough and hygienic cleaning of the toilet. " Thanks Ms. Google!

I mean, where exactly are you supposed to learn this information? My parents certainly didn't teach me that info. And I sure don't remember ever seeing them remove the toilet seat.

And even though I skipped school quite a bit in my delinquent days, I'm willing to bet that toilet cleaning was never a hot topic.

I swan...I'm STILL capable of learning new stuff.

Speaking of things going down the toilet, be sure and check out my Zach and Zora comical mystery books where it's hard to believe at how low I can stoop for a laugh!

Get 'em here: Shameless Plug!

The Politeness of Brits

The politeness of our friends across the sea, the British people, never ceases to amaze me. It even extends into popular culture.

The other day I was watching an old British cop movie where the policeman (or "Bobby," if you will), pulled a pistol. He hollers (but never too loudly, mind you) after the fleeing criminal, "I shall fire this gun in the subjunctive."

Yow! You won't hear that in American cop films today! No, you'll more likely hear something along the lines of "You have the right to remain silent...forever, mother f@#$er!"

Sigh. Talk about the "ugly American."

This behavior even extends to trash TV reality junk. Lately, my daughter has hooked me on some of the trashiest TV shows in history. One is called "Love Is Blind," a ludicrous foray into bottom of the barrel humanity at its ugliest, involving numerous scandals, lying, cheating, and overall bad behavior. (Addictive though it is).

Not so the British counterpart of "Love Is Blind." Therein, the participants are exceedingly polite, scandals very rare and usually reduced to nothing more than a quick peck on the cheek that has not been revealed. In other words, very boring trash TV.

Now...why is this? Part of the reason must pertain to the old "keep a stiff upper lip" idiom usually associated with the British, wherein they generally remain calm and stoic in the face of potentially upsetting situations. Of course this can't be true all the time. Even Hugh Grant's gotta lose his temper on occasion.

Their polite behavior definitely isn't a result of their weather! No, they face ugly, gray, rainy skies on a nearly daily basis.

Maybe the British accent puts a delightful sheen on everything they say. Take for instance, a radio chat show about the importance of buttons, wherein the heavily accented host makes buttons sound fascinating. But this doesn't go any further into explaining their actual behavior.

I can definitely explain part of the "ugly American" behavior, a difference in our politicians. I've read a lot about their lousy leaders, but at least they don't rant, rave, rape, belittle, bully, lie, and ignore the US Constitution like a certain horrific president of ours. "Lead by example," so the ubiquitous "they" say.

(Following our shambles of a presidential election, BBC reporters were astounded at our choice of American presidents. All I can is "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry....")

But no, I believe that the overall politeness attributed to the British comes down to cultural norms. Ms. Google, my research assistant agrees with me, where she explains "politeness and good manners are seen as important in British culture passed down through generations." (The only American "Norm" I can think of is the overweight barfly on "Cheers.")

Collectively, we as a nation could learn a lot from our British friends (and please, let's remain friendsies despite the actions of our president!).

Hey ho, speaking of ugly Americans, there're plenty of them staying at one of the Midwest's finest bed 'n breakfasts, the Dandy Drop Inn. See how I, as an author, corrected their bad behavior in my horror thriller, Dread and Breakfast!

The Secret To Cutting Good Cheese

 

On occasional weekend nights, my wife and I enjoy dinners of wine and cheese (and not to worry, Mom Patricia! Carrot sticks, too, I promise! We mustn't forget the carrot sticks!).

Recently, we agreed it sounded good for Sunday.

"But," my wife warned, "I'm cutting the cheese. I've never liked the way you cut the cheese."

"What? All of these years and you've never told me that you don't like the way I cut the cheese!"

"Yes, I have."

"What's wrong with my cutting of the cheese, for crying out loud?"

"You cut the pieces way too big and you do too much."

I thought about it, grumbled and groused and finally said, "I'm sorry you don't care for the way I cut the cheese."

We let that one hang in the air like a smelly...well, you know.

Later that night--after I carefully inspected her cheese cutting "prowess"--I remarked, "There's no difference in the way you cut the cheese than the way I cut the cheese!"

"Yes there is."

"No, there's not. These pieces are just as big as mine. I don't know what you're talking about!"

"When you cut the cheese, you always make huge chunks," she said.

"No I don't!"

"Yes, you do."

Before our war on cheese escalated, I said, "I really don't want to argue now. Maybe about in an hour."

She laughed and said, "It's a date!"

But I whispered, "I cut the cheese much better than you do."

Speaking of stinking up the place, check out my Zach and Zora comedy mystery series. Zach, a good-hearted (but very, very dumb) male stripper has the unfortunate luck of stumbling across quite a few murdered bodies. And it's always up to his long-suffering, usually pregnant sleuth sister to bail him out of trouble! Check out the zany hijinks and fun murder mysteries here!