Mother's Day has come and zipped by once again.
No one deserves a more awesome Mother's Day gift than my truly wonderful, warm and caring mother-in-law. Caregiver extraordinaire, she had her hands full with ailing friends and neighbors while not saving much time for herself.
Which is why my wife and I decided to travel to Oklahoma Friday night, then my wife would take her mother away for a quick, relaxing getaway. That left me with my wife's father overnight. Bonus points: my wife's bro came down to spend time with us as well, cool guy that he is.
So, I'm thinking: kick-ass! Manly macho coolness! We're gonna sit around, drink beer, belch loud and proud, pass gas (maybe even light one up with a lighter for the more daring of us), and visit a strip bar! Hoo-HAH!
No repercussions! Heck-fire, the women wouldn't be back until Sunday. Hellz yeah! Rah!
Sigh...
It's funny how hopes get dashed quietly sometimes, weaker than a feather silently drifting down to the floor.
What did we three rugged, manly-macho-men neanderthals do on our free pass?
We went shopping for flowers and cosmetics for Mother's Day. I considered trying on some khakis to see if they made my butt look big. Honestly, we probably would've done each others' hair, but have you seen me lately?
By days end, my bro-in-law left and we two remaining masculine men packed it in by 10:00. Shopping can be SOOO tiring. Oh, sure, when our prostates called out to us in the middle of the night, we stumbled quietly past one another to conquer the bathroom, but we did it in the most macho of ways: in our boxers.
Frankly, I welcomed the women back with open arms, not to mention more than a little relief. Living like a caveman for 24 hours plum tuckered me out.
The men in Gannaway, Kansas, don't get more rugged, working the mines as they do all day long. Did I mention the mines are haunted? No? Did I tell you that Ghosts of Gannaway is based on a true story?
Between marriages, my heart belonged to one woman. Of course I'm talking about Lady Gambling, as fickle and unfaithful as they come, worse than a bus-load of film noir femme fatales.
When the gambling riverboats (a weird Midwest law: casinos were allowed in Missouri, but only if they were on the water. Go figure. I suppose the lawmakers thought the water would wash away our sins. Welcome to the Midwest!) came to town, those friends of mine who were bachelors at the time had nothing better to do than to squander our paychecks every weekend at the boats.
Oh, it didn't begin like that. When we first started going, I was on a streak. Every time I'd walk in there, plop down five bucks on the blackjack or roulette tables (I never played craps; I didn't understand it and besides--sniff--what an incredibly crass and vulgar name), and in a manner of minutes, I'd turn five into fifty to one hundred bucks. Easy!
Of course this didn't last. My luck fizzled out. Lady Gambling had found a new sucker to tantalize and tease and lead on, only to abandon me by the side of the road like a sneaker (and where DO those roadside shoes come from anyway?). My increasingly desperate motto became: "Surely, my luck can't be this bad all night, right? Right? For the love of Pete, right?"
Well...
One night I got extremely cocky. Hoping to recoup some of my losses at the Blackjack table, I put fifty bucks down on a King . I mean, come on, the dealer was showing a six, a notorious bust card! The dealer hit me. Another King!
"Split 'em," yelled my buddy.
I did the only wise thing , split them, dropped another fifty bucks.
"Hit me," I declared, my senses absolutely a-tingle. Lady Luck had wandered back into my life.
Another King! What were the chances? After purchasing more chips from the dealer, I split them again. $150 down, couldn't possibly lose, a sure bet.
My friend agreed. He started "churning the butter" and singing, "We're going to Sizzler, we're going to Sizzler, we're going to..."
The dealer hit me with a Queen, a nine, and a Jack. Sweet! Looking pretty at 20, 19, and 20. Until of course the dealer turned over a four. Then an Ace.
21!
The world went out from beneath my feet. A cartoon trombone mocked me: wah, wah, wah, wahhhhhh. The dealer smirked, scraped up my chips, said, "Guess you're not going to Sizzler."
No. Sizzler was off the table. In fact, that month I got used to Ramen noodles again, just like in college.
As we left the Infinite Palace of Despair (which it shall now always be referred to), shoulders down, and wallets light, I vowed to break up with Lady Gambling. After next weekend, of course...
While we're on the subject of unlucky people, take a gander at my characters in Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley, my short story collection of horror and humor. All of these folks have the unfortunate luck to reside in God-forsaken Kansas, or at least a haunted version of it (which isn't too far off the mark). Read it and gasp! (And thank your lucky stars you don't live here!)
As per our agreed upon division of labor, I found myself in the kitchen the other night preparing a turkey-loaf for my lovely wife. My own kitchen-sink recipe, the ingredients called for a pound of turkey, an egg, various spices (whatever I can find; the loaf's never the same twice), catsup (and am I alone in thinking that "catsup" should be spelled the way it's pronounced? I mean, come on!), Worcestershire sauce, blue cheese crumbles, chopped vegetables, and a sliced thumb tip.
Wait...what?
To quote that great television educator, Ernie, "one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong."
Yep, my thumb got in the way of chopping vegetables. Just call me "all thumbs." Except, of course, I'm a little less all thumbs now.
Shock's a funny thing. At first when I sliced my thumb, it hurt like crazy. Just for a second, though. I stared at the wounded digit, saw there was inexplicably no blood. Huh. Weird. Then blood started spraying everywhere, a delayed action.
My shock was delayed as well. At first I started giggling. See what I mean about shock being a funny thing? Then crazed panic set in. I wrapped tissue after tissue around my spurting thumb, couldn't quite stem the blood flow. As I debated back and forth about driving myself to the ER (my wife was working late)...
"Stuart, you better go."
"Nah, shut up, Stu, it's just a minor flesh scrape."
"I mean it, you might need stitches, Stuart!"
"Give it a rest, Stu! Do I tell you how to live your life?"
Near hysteria, I thought of the old Saturday Night Live skit with Dan Ackroyd dressed as Julia Child when he cut his finger and arterial blood spattered everywhere. Monty Python and the Holy Grail played out in my mind: "It's just a flesh wound" said the armless and legless knight.
Finally, I let reason guide me. I swathed many bandages around my thumb and finished making my turkey-loaf.
And, lo, it was good.
When my wife came home, she sighed, and said, "Please clean your blood up off the floor." Like it was an every-day occurrence or something.
Speaking of blood, a fair amount of it gets splashed around in my historical tale of horror and hauntings, Ghosts of Gannaway. Loosely based on the events in Picher, Oklahoma, this sucker was a monster to write, but I'm proud of the results. Read it already!
I should've known something was wrong from the minute we approached the Arby's located in Paola, Kansas (Where? Don't ask, don't tell.). The ominous marquee stood tall against the cloudy skies, an eerie arbiter of an ill wind blowing our way. The sign--more of a threat--read, "Fish is back." Short, ominous, and sharp like a knife.
I didn't want to go to Arby's for lunch, rallied against it. But my daughter insisted, especially since she was gung-ho to try their gyros.
"Fine," I said in my best possible hissy-fit manner with arms crossed and brow thoroughly furrowed. "But I'm not gonna like it. Humph."
I knew this to be the case. I never have, never will like Arby's. Inexplicably my wife loves it. I dunno. Can you really truly trust a place that serves something called "Horsey Sauce." Brrr. (Now I know where all of those broken-legged race horses end up.)
My daughter pulled up to the drive-thru menu. I leaned across to get a better gander. Okay, something called a King's Hawaiian Chicken Bacon (aka, Heart Attack in a Greasy Bag) sandwich looked passable, so I chose that.
"Squawk, conk, glonk, degga-wat-hey," the speaker box blared after we'd placed the order. I shrugged, nodded to my daughter. Whatever the Arby's employee had said probably didn't matter. Surely, they couldn't mess up that order, right? I mean, right?
Uncertain, my daughter said, "Okay" and we pulled forward. Where we waited. And waited.
A deceptively cheery employee cranked open the window, her smile a flimsy cover for secret evil, leaned out and said, "We've got to grill some fish, so it'll be another minute, okay?"
My daughter, polite and nice, smiled and said, "Okay."
The Arby's troll withdrew back into her secret cavern, all the while plotting against me. (I mean it's not really considered paranoia if Arby's is truly out to get me, right?)
I considered what had just happened. Finally, I asked my daughter, "Why do we have to wait for them to grill fish?"
She stared at me. Blinked. Said, "Good point. Neither of us ordered fish. I just kinda went with it." Then she laughed, man, did she laugh. Along with all of the Arby's employees inside no doubt.
Finally, the sack of doom was thrust through the window. We drove back to my daughter's house, her laughing all the way. "What if they gave you a fish sandwich, Dad? Their fish is the worst. Do you want to check it and go back?"
"Oh, hell no!" I'd had enough Arby's humiliation for one day. Sure enough when I opened my "prize catch," a heaping portion of fried (not grilled, even) fish stared up at me. I felt like Charlie Brown at Halloween.
Heed my tale, oh hungry travelers, and avoid the siren call of Arby's threatening sign, "Fish is back." Because, clearly, they left off the most important part of the message: "...and we don't care if you order it or not, because it's what you're going to get."
You'll find a whopper amount of big fish stories in my horror short story collection, Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley (although, true, none of them are quite as horrifying as our nightmarish excursion into the dreaded landscape of Arby's; thar be rough seas ahead matey, arrrrrr.)
Now that I've inserted that infernal country song earworm in your head...you're welcome!
Hair's a persnickety beeyotch.
Speaking from a male's perspective, the older you get the more apt it is to vacate premises where you'd like it to be and migrate toward unexpected places. Go figure.
I've been balding for a while. No problem, I own it. But, geeze, who wants hairy ears? It's like the follicles decided to abandon their proper head roost and move a little south, set up camp on my lobes. Crikey, the first time I noticed a long hair jutting from my lobe in the mirror, I shrieked. I looked like I'd stepped straight out of a Dr. Seuss book: the oddly baldly, fully woolly lobe-a-teer, with a long hair from ear to there.
What kinda cosmic joke is this? I don't understand what possible good a long hair sticking out of an earlobe can bring. It's not like it fights off bugs or pests, so eat it, Darwin. Conversely, maybe God's having quite a laugh on us.
I'm not alone in nature's malicious malady. Some time ago, I had dinner with a friend and I couldn't take my focal point off of his ears. We're talking bushels of bristles. If someone had lit a match near him, the entire restaurant would've gone up in a wildfire. Next time I saw him, he'd performed some much needed spring cleaning. Clearly, his wife finally had "the chat" with him. (It happens; my brother's in-laws gave him a Christmas gift of a nose and ear trimmer. Talk about tough love.)
Likewise, my legs have become as hairless as a French bicyclist. I could be a leg model (except, of course, that people have told me I have the legs of gnarly Ents).
My daughter has buckets of hair. Even though she moved outta the house a couple months ago (and only stayed a couple of months), I'm still finding her hair everywhere. Taunting me. "Nah, nah, you had your day."
It's like that Dashboard Confessional song... "Your hair is everywhere..." Just not in good places, and clearly not what the band meant.
Maybe it's time we follicularly challenged made a stand. Start trending it, become the new too-cool-for-school. #BraidNoseHair. #HairyEarsHaveFeelingsToo.
Speaking of hairy situations, things couldn't possibly get worse for the unfortunate (and secret-holding) weary winter travelers tucking in for the night at the creepy Dandy Day Inn. If you have hair, it'll stand on end when you read Dread and Breakfast! Hair-raising guaran-damn-tee!
