The Two Types of Gym Coaches

You know, I still have nightmares about being back in Junior High gym class. (This along with forgetting about a college class until the last day and walking in bare feet into the world's filthiest bathroom are my other reoccurring dreams from Hell.)

It was back in Junior High that I discovered that gym "teachers" were sadists. We had two and they alternated dishing out torture. Of course being overweight made me an even larger target (I suppose the pun is intended. Sigh.). 

But these two guys were beasts. For any given reason, they enjoyed making us run around in endless circles in what they gleefully called "the world's smallest indoor track." When one of us didn't chime right up for roll call it was push-ups and laps. And while we sweated and panted and gasped for dear life, they stood on the side giggling and grinning like sadistic mad men.

It didn't stop there. They loved pitting us tiny and meek and weak seventh graders ("sevvies" as we were disdainfully referred to) against the ginormous ninth graders (who to me looked like animals; some of them had beards, for God's sake! in the dastardly exercise in sadism called "dodge ball." It didn't take me long to figure out how to get out of the game with very few injuries; when an errant ball flew over my head, I'd reach up and "accidentally" touch it. Then I'd yell, "I'm out, coach!" I pity my fellow soldiers-in-arms who never learned this valuable survival technique.

The worst thing these two monsters had us do was the outdoor twenty minute run. In blistering heat. For crying out loud, I couldn't go five minutes without stopping to catch my breath. And they'd get pissed at those of us who walked (while stepping around those students hurling or laying in the grass holding their sides in pain).

Which led to a visit to their office because I walked at least half of the course. Now, I knew what went on in their office. They actually had a paddle and whupped boys who they considered "bad" on the arse.  Don't know how they got away with this back in the seventies, but they did it all the time. 

Coach Supple (we'll call him that, because...well, that was his name) had taken his usual stance, leaning over the shower stall wall and ogling all of the boys (I know, right?), when he shouted, "West! In our office. NOW!"

I said, "Ummmm...can I get dressed?"

"No! I gave you a command! Get in there now!"

Humiliated, embarrassed, dripping wet and starkers naked, I slapped feet into their office of doom, cupping my junk while standing in front of the two grinning mad men. Then they commenced to break me down psychologically by calling me names and screaming at me. 

I very much wanted to avoid the paddle of pain, particularly as I didn't even have on shorts to protect my arse, so I broke into tears, hoping to tug at their heart strings. Foolish me, I should've know they didn't have any. But my ploy worked, they were disgusted by me, threw a towel my way, and told me "clean yourself up and get out of here!"

Fun!

And that's why I avoided my one year of mandatory gym in high school until my senior year. Big mistake as I was the only senior in the class. But I put it off for two years because I really didn't want to suffer through more sadistic gym teachers.

It was tough and due to all of the exercise, I managed to drop one hundred pounds for the first time. And surprise of all surprises, this gym teacher was a nice guy.

For instance, when I aced a written test about the rules of sports, he called me out by name to brag me up. Even better was the day we had to run and jump outdoor hurdles. Now, I don't jump. Not very graceful, I envisioned myself tripping over every one and plummeting to the concrete, tearing my knees open and bleeding a bloody river. All to the lovely sound of humiliating freshmen laughter.

But to my astonishment, Coach Geiss (again, his real name. Hey, I don't mind calling out the good and bad guys in this post!) considered me when it came to my turn. After a minute, he said, "West, you look a little pale. Why don't you go lay down on the bench in the locker room."

Incredibly grateful, I couldn't help but smile as I pretended to be feeling sick and walked past the coach. Who gave me a quick pat on the back. He may as well have winked at me, too.

So, eat it, Coaches Corder and Supple, you mean, sadistic, violent jack-asses who appeared to enjoy watching boys shower! Coach Geiss showed how to do it with grace and humanity.

Whew. Glad to get that off my chest.

While I've got sadism on the brain, meet Leon Garber, protagonist of my darkly comic thriller trilogy, Killers Incorporated. Leon's a successful accountant, handsome, appears to have it all. He's also a serial killer. But hang on! He's the good guy! Some of the other serial killers he comes across...not so much, giving my junior high gym coaches a run for their sadistic money. Heads are chopped, dropped and swapped in the first book, Secret Society, and that's just the beginning! Check 'em out here!

Sleep Apnea-Nation

I put it off as long as I could, really I did. First, my sadistic dentist had proclaimed me as having sleep apnea after I took some lousy, at-home test. (I thought "how in the hell can my dentist accuse me of having sleep apnea when the lousy, dad-gum test kept me awake all night?") But she hollered, "J'accuse! You have zee sleep apnea!") 

She wanted to fit me for this two-piece device that would jut out my lower jaw, which sounded tantamount to torture. So I kinda said, "Uh, yeah, no thanks. If I couldn't sleep with the test, how in the world do you expect me to catch some z's feeling like a faulty, high-wired cyborg?"

Time went on. And my wife started telling me I've stopped breathing in my sleep at times.

To which I shunted it off again. Now, you gotta understand where I'm coming from. I always kinda thought "Poo poo, sleep apnea is one of those made-up things that the entire medical community is using as a go-too tool to sell CPAP machines."  Kinda like how I viewed "restless leg syndrome," which I attributed to anxiety or too many Red Bulls. So...I likewise thought if I could lose some weight, then that'll solve my so-called sleep apnea problem. Ta-daaaaaaaaaa and BOOM!

Plus I didn't want to end up with one of those damn machines strapped onto my face like an Alien face-hugger.

But my wife persisted. And after a couple of friends told me that they loved their CPAP machines and it helped them get great sleep, I began to break my iron will on the topic. (Okay, it's maybe more like a "tin will.") I gave in.

After over a month of not hearing from the CPAP people, I contacted my doctor who kicked their butts into gear and scheduled a meeting. At the CPAP meeting, there was another cranky guy (I think everyone who gets a CPAP is a high-ranking member of the Cranky Guy Club.) who had no interest in social niceties, but made sure he let us know that he was getting a CPAP under duress by his insurance, so he could eventually get some sorta surgery. Waaaaay beyond my paygrade to comprehend.

So the CPAP woman (we'll call her "Ms. CPAP") displayed a slew of mannequin heads with devious-looking devices strapped onto their Styrofoam faces. I went in thinking I could get away with just the simple little nostril clips, but when I tried it, it was like standing in the dead center of a hurricane with wind blasting me at full gale.

So Ms. CPAP brought out a "face-hugger." After a ton of adjustments and lessons and instructions and eye-rolls, I didn't really get the hang of it. I just wanted to get the hell outta there.

With CPAP in hand, we drove home. All day long, I was full of trepidation about the torturous night of insomnia that lay ahead. Once nighttime fell, I spent too long reading on the porcelain throne, postponing my inevitable destiny of doomed anti-sleep.

At long last, it was time. Filled with dread, I crawled into bed, strapped the monstrosity over my head and around my mouth and nose. And hit the "on" button...

I lay back and thought, "Hey, this isn't so bad! It's not like the massive wind tunnel I experienced this morning in training. Why...I could get used to this...I could....I....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..."

The next morning, refreshed and vibrant, I found out why it had been so easy. Apparently, I had never turned it on.

One month later, I'm still trying to get used to it. The humidity element feels like it's going to drown me at times. Once it quit working and I issue you a challenge--just try and get a human on the phone at CPAP headquarters (go on, try it, I dare you! I've got a Kenny G song forever seared into my brain as a result of being on hold for half a day.). And to my ears, every night I sound like an annoying, asthmatic Darth Vader on steroids.

But...everyone keeps telling me it's good for me. And everybody can't be wrong.  Right?  RIGHT???

While we're on the topic of making fateful decisions, check out my book Godland. We have an embittered farmer, a New York corporate raider, two teenage high school girls, and a failed small business owner. What do they have in common? I'm afraid you'll have to read to find out the shocks and twists as past and present collide, and secrets are revealed as these disparate people gather at a desolate Kansas farm for a hellish night not everyone will survive. Plus they've all made some bad decisions (see how I finally tied it into my post?) Visit lovely Godland here!

When Angels Die...

My wife and I were enjoying a sparring match of words and wits. So what else is new?

"Every time you get in a mood to do outside work, you never leave me a clear path in the garage to get the trash/recycling bins out," I said. (Side note: I don't think we've had a car in the garage since we were married. It's a place to store junk when there's no more room in the house or basement. Or Hell.)

"Well..." she rebounded, "...every time you help me with a project, I have to clean up after you."

"That's simply not true," I objected.

"Ha! Oh yes it is!"

"No, it's not," I calmly stated. "Because I don't help much with your projects any more. My back and knees, you know." (My go-to "get-out-of-jail-free" card.)

"And every time you cook," she continued, "I spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning up the mess after you," she fearlessly lobbed back at me.

"Yeah? Well, every time you go shopping, our living room looks like an Amazon warehouse," I countered.

"Fine," she said, "but every time you open stuff, you leave your trash laying on the counter or a table."

Hmmm. I have to admit, she had me there. But I ain't nothin' if not an underdog and who doesn't love a come-back? I thought long and hard and came up with this non-sequitur gem of Trumpian proportions: "Well...every time you kvetch at me, an angel dies!"

Case closed, another win!

Speaking of total nonsense, check out my comic thriller, Chili Run. Beyond the rather *ahem* disturbing title, it's based on a dream I had where I was forced by bad guys to run across downtown Kansas City to retrieve a bowl of chili. Naturally, in nothing but my tighty-whities, a recurring nightmare that  a lot of guys are familiar with. You can find Chili Run here, the perfect thriller for the reader on the go.

Boys Weekend!

I hadn't had a bonafide "boys weekend" in about twenty years, so I jumped at the chance when "Tom" and "Darren (Note: to protect the innocent, names have been changed so I don't get sued.)" invited me to go to Darren's Summer lake cabin in backwoods Oklahoma.

Now, I love both these guys, met them back in my college dormitory way back in the stone ages. But due to adult issues (soul-deadening work, marriage, kids, divorce, trauma, stuff), I hadn't seen them in about half of my lifetime.

I wondered if things would be awkward or if we could pick up right where we had left off thirty years ago. 

The answer is "YES, you CAN go home again." Honestly, it was like things hadn't changed since college.

Well, with some exceptions...

First of all, we three still enjoy our most favorite thing about college: BEER. Yayyyy! And it flowed pretty much non-stop at the cabin that weekend. The great equalizer.

When Tom and I finally arrived at the cabin from Kansas City (we were talking in Tom's truck and ended up missing our appropriate exit, thus delaying our arrival by an hour-and-a-half), it was clear that Darren had begun without us. So we had some quick catching up to do, so sooooo much beer drinking, we forgot to eat dinner.

Soon, we lapsed into imitating old college professors and an annoying girl from our dorm, and reminiscing about good (and some not so good) memories from college and the years after. We caught up on family, friends, careers, everything we could think of. Sometimes, stories were repeated often because with all of the flowing beer, it was hard to keep up. In other words, nothing much had changed in forty two years. Except...

Okay, there were a lot more pounds and a lot less hair, to be expected. And then we lapsed into what all 63 year old men talk about: health issues. While Tom and Darren broke out their cigars, drinks in hand, we went around sharing our medical trauma and history. And we all agreed that once you hit 60, it's all downhill from there. (Okay, Darren said it was 62 for him, but it's still in the range).

Scars were shown, heart monitors displayed, massagers brought out for bone-on-bone arthritic knees, wounds marveled at, operations deliberated on, hemorrhoid stories shared with gusto, and just an overall wonderment permeated we three kings of Oklahoma as to just how we got in such shape and why our bodies had started to betray us so quickly. (Surely it had nothing to do with our mutual admiration for beer.)

It seemed like just yesterday, we were living wildly at Naismith Hall in Lawrence, Kansas (home of the Jayhawks!), and having the time of our lives, the whole world in front of us and we on top of it.

Age happens.

Politics does, too. This topic I had been dreading. Not only is the whole country divided (thanks to a certain orange abomination and convicted felon), but it's struck several chords of disharmony amongst my divided friends in Kansas City. I have yet to have a good, mutually eye-opening conversation that ends well with anyone on the opposing team.

Now, Tom and I were firmly in the same camp as we talked through a lot of our fears and anger and worries about what passes for politics these days as we drove to Oklahoma. But I knew Darren was defiantly and proudly in the other camp.

By and large, we kept politics out of the round-room convo Friday night, but it crept into our lakeside chats by Saturday morning. Amazingly, things were kept civil, but of course no minds were changed. As I knew they wouldn't be. When Darren wanted to start whipping out his phone to show "proof" of his arguments, I tried to steer the pow-wow away and back to decrepit, blue-haired advertising professors who barked (long story).

In college, I was far from political. Didn't really care about politics, to be frank. I had more important things to think about: beer, girls, friends, and grades. And Darren called me out on that. He was right. I really didn't start getting political until the Obama era. When my wife said to read the news once in a while. (And we all know how that ended up.)

So some things had changed: Politics. Weight. Health issues. Age. Life. But in many other ways, it was like we'd never broken up the band and for one fun weekend, we were living like college-aged rock stars with great camaraderie once again.

And I can't wait to do it again. If I can get my walker up the stairs and get a new supply of rubber underwear for those incontinent nights, that is, you damn young whippersnappers!

While on the topic of people who refuse to grow up, pity poor Zora, a beleaguered, often pregnant sleuth who has her hands full with numerous children and a man-boy husband. But when her vacuous, dunder-headed, immature, yet good-hearted male stripper brother keeps finding himself suspected of murder, Zora has no choice but to find the real killers and keep her nitwit brother out of jail. Read the zany, comedic mystery romps that comprise the Zach and Zora series available here.