Hazardous to pests and oafs

Sometimes I just can't help myself. Blessed (or cursed, more like) with an innate sense of curiosity, said curiosity has gotten me into a few messes during my lifetime. And yet, none quite as messy as a couple weeks ago.

I was upstairs in our office, fiddling around on my computer when I noticed a strange new item I hadn't seen before.

What's this strange, yet oddly compelling and weirdly attractive item I've never seen before, I pondered. Where did it come from? What is its purpose? I'm absolutely drawn to this mystery item with the attractive design wrapped around it, so much so that I MUST hold it.

So, curiosity drew me to it. Or I should say curiosity drew it to me. And you know what they say about that poor, damned cat, right?

I clutched the mystery obelisk around its middle and it clutched me right back. I gasped, a short intake of shock. 

What fresh hell is this? Why won't it let me go??? Am I in a Hellraiser movie???

I shook my hand, panicking, yet the stubborn object held on, much worse than my several Super Glue mishaps in the past. I jumped out of my chair, used my other hand to pull it away, yet that hand became equally ensnared around the insidious man-trap. Using my body, I pushed it up against the wall. Now my shirt was glued to the damned, damnable object from Hell.

Hopping around the room, waving my arm like a hillbilly who bit off more than he could chew (or vice versa) when he went noodling for the king of catfish, I flailed into plants and knocked over lamps.

"Help," I screamed. "Help! Help!" But it was to no avail. I was alone in the home. Unless you count my freaked out dogs who were just staring at me.

Finally, through the grace of God (and leverage, can't dismiss leverage), I managed to dislodge the hellish man-trap and flung it across the room.

My hands still sticky, I phoned my wife. Stat. "WHAT was that damned thing?"

After she was finished laughing at my trauma, she said, "A gnat trap. You're not supposed to pick it up. Duh. Now go wash your hands thoroughly."

Well. Did I feel stupid. But in my defense, there was no packaging. Packaging that might've said...oh, I dunno..."Warning! Harmful to pests, insects, and big, dumb, oafish men." Furthermore, why in the hell would the manufacturers make a pest trap so...so...damned attractive?

It's not like a pack of flies (are they "packs?") say to one another, "Hey, Charlie, check out that way-cool design on that decidedly retro-looking obelisk over yonder!"

"Wow," says Charlie, "I find myself strangely compelled to land on it to check it out further! But look out for the big, dumb oafish man sitting next to it."

Instead of a compelling design, I would rather have them imprint "WARNING! STICKY AS HELL!" all over it in big, bombastic, dreadfully dark letters. I doubt it would make much of a difference to gnats.

Speaking of guys who make some really dumb decisions, meet Tex McKenna, the protagonist of my Tex, the Witch Boy trilogy (well, quartet, kinda). But unlike me, Tex is a teenager, so making bad decisions is tantamount to growing up. (There's, um, no excuse for me, however.) Tex is also a witch and embroiled in a serial killer murder mystery at his high school. It's complicated. To find out how complicated, check the books out here!

"I Don't Want To Die For David Sedaris!"

We had tickets to go see David Sedaris, had 'em for a long time. But the closer the show date came, I started having doubts. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

I had no doubts regarding Sedaris, a particularly insightful and amusing anecdotist. But with the show in October quickly approaching, my doubts began to solidify.

The day of the show, I was getting dressed. Kinda hemming and hawing and dragging my feet.

"This shirt feels too small. Does it look too small?" I whined to my wife. Standing in front of the mirror, I looked like a tightly packed sausage, splitting at the casing.

"Does it feel comfortable," she asked in return.

"I guess. If I suck my gut in."

"You can suck your gut in for David Sedaris," she said.

Then it hit me. Jackpot! The answer to my doubts about going to the show that night. "But...but...I don't want to die for David Sedaris!" 

For you see, it was the time of the year and I had yet to get my new Covid shot. Now I know that these days it's practically de rigueur to stop worrying about Covid and move on with your life. But not too long before this October play-date, I had attended a funeral of someone who had passed away from the dreaded disease. And from what I'd been reading, the newest Covid strain was making a dent into people once again. I wasn't quite ready to throw the mask back on (and how did I tolerate that for as long as I did?), but the old creeping, crawling, scary fears were coming back.

Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't for lack of trying that I'd failed to acquire my shot. I'd been trying for three weeks.

At my grocery store, I thought I could waltz right in, wait five minutes and get jabbed like I'd done in the past.

"Do you have an appointment?" asked the pharmacist on duty.

"Ah, no...I didn't know I needed one."

"Yes. We're kinda short on vaccine this year, so we're only doing it by appointment."

So, I needed to cut a little red tape. No problem. I whipped out my phone and asked, "So...what's your phone number?"

She looked at me incredulously, tolerating no fools. "You CAN'T just call now for an appointment." I could tell she struggled to tamper down an eyeroll. "We don't have any openings until next week."

"Okay. So...can I sign up now?"

"It's best if you do it online." She tapped on a flyer with the website address.

"Fine!" I huffed and screamed on the way out. "But if I die, it's on YOU!" (Note: I only imagined shouting this last line. Not even I'm that big of a jerk.)

When I got home, I prepared for battle with technology. Great, I thought. It says I need good, clear photos of my health insurance card.

So, through extraordinary pains and effort, I took photos of my card. As a cute bonus, I held it up next to my face to show the pharm tech my winning smile. I emailed the pics to my computer and began to complete the process of online appointment setting.

But the mindless automaton behind the process told me, "I'm sorry. We can't find any stores in your area."

WHAT? I was just there! Stoopid, stoopid, stoopid damn automaton couldn't find a grocery store right in front of you, grumble, brumble, grumble...

So, Plan B... While picking up a prescription for my wife at our local pharmacy, I asked the pharmacist, "Hey, do you have to have an appointment to get a Covid shot?"

She said, "No, we take walk-ins."

I checked the time. "Great...but I can't do it now. I've got somewhere to be." (Like she cared about this or something.) "I'll just come back tomorrow! How does that sound?"

"Sounds good," she said in a manner that was decidedly not so good.

The next day there was a different pharmacist on duty. "Hi, I'd like to get my Covid shot!"

"Well, we have plenty of the vaccine on hand, but we're doing it by appointment only," he says.

"What? But...but...but..."

"And we're pretty full up now. I think the first opening is...next Monday."

"Okay," I groused, "Sign me up."

He taps another flyer. "Scan this and do it online."

Once home, I go to work. Photos of insurance card? Check. Did it find my store? Check. Will I be able to sign up for...for...

"I'm sorry," the screen read. "At this time there are no available appointments." To make matters worse, the automated response didn't sound "sorry" in the least.

Out of desperation, I went through all of the local (and near local) pharmacies and grocery stores I could find on my phone, frantically searching for the life-saving vaccine. I struck out time and time again. It was quite a different scenario than when the vaccine first hit here. At that time, the government was actually paying people to get vaxxed. Now you couldn't buy a shot.

Finally--FINALLY--I was able to beat the system and schedule an appointment a week out from the date. Days after my David Sedaris show. Gulp!

You know, I had Covid once before. But mercifully, it was after I'd had the first shots, thus rendering what could've been a death sentence into about four days of misery. I don't have time or patience for Covid deniers. Frankly, I can't even believe there are such a thing. Anyone who believes that Covid isn't real is an idiot and a walking insult to the three million plus people who've died from it. So kindly keep your stupidity to yourselves. Along with your germs.

I survived the Sedaris show (and had forgotten my mask, too, showing how used to life without it I had become!), but the two guys behind me had me scared. The only two guys constantly coughing throughout the sold-out auditorium.

While I'm mulling over stupid people, guys don't get any dumber than Zach, one half of the protagonist team in my comic mystery Zach and Zora series. It's that old cliché of a dunderheaded male stripper with a heart of gold who can't help but stumble across corpses all the time, until his long-suffering, usually pregnant sister, Zora, has to find out who the true murderer is. Be there for all the laughs, murder, mystery, and wicked dance moves you can handle. Start at the beginning with Bad Day in a Banana Hammock!

Mr. Fix-It Has Gone Missing!

A feeling of dread fell over me like a purple bruise-colored storm cloud. Again, I checked that I had the right hours on Mr. Fix-It's shop. Yep, 10:00 A.M. The neon sign in the window declared "Open" in bright, cheery, yellow letters. Yet it didn't match my mood as I pulled on the door handle again, just making sure I hadn't lost that much muscle mass due to aging. Or maybe latent OCD. Either way, it remained locked.

I rattled the door, thinking that possibly Mr. Fix-It--another victim of inescapable aging--had pulled a morning siesta, dozing off behind his desk while watching day-time, screaming TV. My hands cupped, I peered into the store-wide window. Nothing. Not even a shining ray of hope beaming from beneath the bathroom door.

Huh.

I went to my car, thought I'd wait it out. In the car, my mind rattled like a maraca tossed around by a bratty toddler. 

What could've possibly happened to Mr. Fix-It? It reminds me of that true crime mini-series I watched where nobody knew the housewife had been brutally slaughtered behind her locked doors. Mr. Fix-It's gotta be raking in the cash for all of those high-dollar repairs. A victim of robbery. Better call Five-O.

But before I did that, I called the store number and watched carefully as I sat parked mere feet from the front window. Looking--no, hoping--for movement inside.

Instead, I got a cold, metallic, recorded voice. A voice that sent ice slaloming down my ski-slope of a back. A voice from beyond the grave. "Hello, you've reached Mr. Fix-It. I'm sorry we're unable to help you right now because we're with another customer. Please leave your name and number and we'll get back to you shortly. Have a nice day."

I held the phone glued to my ear as the line went dead. As dead as Mr. Fix-It, no doubt. Slowly, the phone dropped to my side. Could I be misreading the happenstances? I squinted, looking inside again. Maybe Mr. Fix-It was helping a secret customer in the back room, a celebrity perhaps who wanted to keep a low profile, not wanting to let Joe Public know that he had a vacuum cleaner on the blink. 

But...but...there ARE no celebrities in Kansas City. Yet...the recording steadfastly insisted that Mr. Fix-It was with another customer.

So, I waited. I picked up my phone, dialed in 911. My finger hovered over the button, close to detonating. 

But what would I be detonating?

Wait, just wait, wait a gol-darned minute! What if Five-O suspects me? After all, my fingerprints are all over the door handle, my DNA smeared onto the plate-glass window. Maybe Mr. Fix-It had even installed a security camera, capturing footage of me, madly yanking at the door. No, better to keep it cool. That's right. Play it cool, reallllll cool, the way I roll.

So I rolled out of there, taking back roads all the way home, my gaze glued onto the rearview mirror, looking for Johnny Five-O's red and blue cherries to be twirling a psychedelic light-show of guilt, guilt, GUILT.

The following week I had many restless nights, unable to sleep. Wondering if I did the right thing. 

What if I'd left Mr. Fix-It, laying in a pool of his own blood, gasping for breath, holding onto dear, sweet life, scrawling my name in his own blood and implicating me, thus sending me down the river, where I'd end up in the Big House, wearing caked-on deep-blue mascara while holding onto a big thug's belt-loop?

What other options did I have? Friday night as I lay in bed, sweating, expecting the worst, and knowing that the even worse worst was just around the corner, I made up my mind. A decision that would undoubtedly change my life forever.

After my sixth night of sleeplessness, I decided to return to the scene of the crime.

With great trepidation, I drove to my destiny, fearing I'd see yellow tape in front of Mr. Fix-It's store, designating it a crime scene. I pulled in front of the store, parked and turned off the ignition. No crime tape, but the cops had probably already been there and were looking for me by now, APB's posted city-wide. The neon light in the door still proclaimed "Open," but that didn't signify anything. I wondered if Mr. Fix-It still lay rotting in the back room, starting to stink by now, flies buzzing around his corpse and starting to lay eggs in his ears.

Then...suddenly...the door swept open. Broom in hand, Mr. Fix-It stepped out!

Near tears of relief, I jumped out of the car and ran to Mr. Fix-It, my voice trembling as much as my hands.

"Mr. Fix-It," I screamed, "I've been so worried! I was...I came here last Saturday at 10:20 and you weren't here!" My arms wanted to wrap around Mr. Fix-It's neck and pull him into a long, loving embrace, but my mind--somehow, wisely--forbade the move.

Mr. Fix-It took a step back and said, "Oh. On Saturdays, we sleep in a little bit and don't get here until 10:30."

My mouth dropped. A blood red veil shaded over my line of vision. I stumbled back a step, felt my hands shaking again, this time not out of a sense of great loss and morbid fear, but out of an uncontrollable, inevitable, building rage.

"What?" The only word I could mutter.

"Saturdays we like to take it easy and grab an extra half hour of shuteye before we get here, " he said, smiling a very dumb, caught with his hand-in- the-cookie-jar grin.

"But...but...your door...your website...says you open on Saturdays at 10."

"Oh, well." Still grinning like a mischievous school-boy who'd been held back for fifty years, he shrugged.

"God dammit," I raged, "maybe you should fix your stupid website! Or how about you fix your DAMN ALARM CLOCK, MR. EFFING FIX-IT!"

Another shrug was his way of apologizing. "What can I say?"

So I took out a gun and shot him. Hey, it's Kansas.

(The story you've just read is true. Sort of. Kind of. Maybe if you're really drunk and half-out of your mind, it's true. Whatever, it's true enough.)

Speaking of huge-ass lies, most of my books are filled with characters spouting them. That's where the mystery usually comes from. I mean, come on, how many murderers tell the truth right up front? Check out my Amazon page to get started! 

The Curse of Halloween 2023

The day after every Halloween, a curse falls upon our house. No, for a change, I'm not talking about American politics. That's a curse of a different sort.

Rather, every day following Halloween, something shrinks in our house. This year it was a wine glass.

Check out the photo above...

No, it's not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary story! And we didn't buy cutesy Matryoshka doll wine glasses to nest within one another.

These matching set of glasses were gifted to my wife this year at a work party. And they were of the same size. 

Not anymore.

After using them Halloween night, my wife put hers into the dishwasher. The next morning...it HAD TURNED INTO A SHRUNKEN HEAD VERSION OF IT'S FORMER SELF! AIEEEEEEE! *Choke!* *Gasp!*

Perfectly reduced including the slogan upon the glass, identical in every detail but size.

"The curse is back," I said.

"I know. And I really liked those glasses," said my wife.

"Well...you do drink smaller wine portions than me," I volleyed, trying to be the optimistic, "glass-half-sized"...er, I mean, the "glass-half-full" kinda guy that doesn't come easily to me.

I suppose our curse started about four years ago. The first thing we noticed that had shrunk around Halloween was the economy, and hence, our budget.

Now I hear all of you supernatural pooh-poohers saying, "That's no curse! That happened to everyone!"

I say thee NAY for I have the startling facts that I'll lay out upon you.

The following year, I awoke after Halloween and threw on the EXACT, SAME (REDUNDANT) SWEATSHIRT I'd had on the night before. Yet...and yet...it had mysteriously shrunk, particularly around the gut! The night before it had fit. But the cold hard facts were plain and staring me in the face: we had a Halloween curse upon our household.

You want more facts? The next Halloween, THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO MY JEANS! I couldn't even button them the following morning! And they hadn't been in the washer or dryer either!!!

Clearly, our house is built upon an old Indian burial ground. Hey, I don't make stuff up. I'm a hard-hitting journalist who just reports the facts. And I believe all of the facts presented to me on TV and the internets.

While we're on the topic of all things spooky and Native American supernatural hijinks, check out my book, Ghosts of Gannaway. It's another hard-hitting piece of journalism about a cursed mining town, culled from the true facts of yesteryear. And every...WORD...IS...TRUE! (Well...except for the stuff about the curse, the ghosts, the haunted museum, the murders, the...)