The Ultimate Insult

A while back, I had a very restless, insomnia-filled night (that's not the unusual part of this true, traumatic tale). When I finally bumbled out of bed, I had only logged about three hours of sleep. So I was in a bad mood.

"I didn't sleep last night," I grumbled by way of saying "good morning" to my wife. "I feel like ca-ca poo-poo."

"Good morning to you, dear."

"What's good about it?" I snapped. "Where's the granola? WHY don't we have any granola? And where did you put it this time?"

"I didn't put it anywhere. If we have any, it's in the carb cabinet where it always is."

"And why are there so many damn packages in the foyer? It's like an Amazon warehouse! I can't even move!"

"Stuart," my wife replied calmly, "stop it. You're acting like our president."

Wow. That one took me aback. The ultimate insult, worse than anything I could imagine. Throwing tantrums worse than our wonderful president? Unthinkable. And it hurt. Badly. But the truth often does.

After thinking about it a while, I realized she was right and I was slinging my grumpiness at her. Caught in the crosshairs of my ire, we'll call it "friendly fire."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm tired and I didn't mean to take it out on you."

But while walking away, I grumbled, "But my tantrums weren't nearly as bad as Trump's."

While thinking of men behaving badly, my book Secret Society immediately came to mind. We have more serial killers running around than clowns coming out of a clown car. And wait until you meet the bad guys! Check out all the fun, thrills, suspense, mystery, and very dark humor in Secret Society, available here.

Strange New Species Discovery!

Recently I discovered something of great anthropological interest; a new breed of humanity that inhabit an island, far, far away from civilized humanity. They've developed their own curious language, bizarre dating rituals, wear little to no clothing, and have developed a dance uniquely their own.

Yes, it is I, Sir Admiral "Take A" Leaky, bringing you another important armchair anthropological discovery. I'm talking about, of course, the uncivilized inhabitants of Love Island.

This fascinating documentary series about a heretofore unknown species unravels in daily fashion, each day bringing a new discovery of this vastly different culture.

First of all, I have to wonder how these inhabitants came to live on Love Island in the first place. In an undisclosed location (clearly to protect their primitive lifestyle from civil people), these people all appear to be in their 20's (what would ordinarily be considered "Gen Z") and have great genetic qualities. There are no uggos in this collection of perfect human specimens. Which begs the question...who gave birth to this strange species? There are no responsible, older adults on the island, nor are there any children to be seen. How in the world can they sustain their lifestyle if they're all sterile?

Let's look at their curious language. "I wanna chop it up with her" is one such expression used constantly by the island's inhabitants (castaways?). After much consideration, I have decided it means that a courting male desires to chop up their meal (a boar, perhaps?) with his partner to be. Constantly they say "I ain't gonna lie," reaffirming their commitment to telling the truth (although, ironically enough, few of them do refrain from lying). "I'm standing on business" is a much used idiom that I haven't quite deciphered as is "I'm pressing down." Violence seems to be hinted at in their language. Finally, the inhabitants constantly brag that "I'd f*** with that." In civilized humanity, if someone were to say that, it would mean "giving one the business," but here it seems to be a statement of lust.

The new species on Love Island have no leader except for the rarely seen Queen of Love Island. Almost like a spiritual apparition, she appears in front of a ceremonial firepit, handing down orders as to what her minions shall do next, usually involving mating and sex. They are forced to "couple up" with someone for an overnight conjugal visit, all in the same bedroom, thus dispensing of rituals of civilized people such as dating, courting, and privacy.

The Love Island species appear to shun clothing at every possibility. The men lounge around in short shorts and the women choose to let it all hang out with a strap of dental floss set between their bottom cheeks, thus defying any possibility of comfort, practicality or sanitation.

No one appears to have a job, their days filled with working out, chatting, lounging pool-side and gossiping. A primitive culture, they seem to have a lot of growing to do as a people on the rise. But how far will it go? Does civilized humanity want these people to breed? Or were they themselves bred in test tubes?

Their extremely strange behavior might suggest such an origin. At every given chance, they change amorous partners more often than I change my underwear. The women have developed their own peculiar way of dancing wherein they thrust their bottoms in the air and make their cheeks flop up and down. This style was referred to as "twerking," and it's not a good look on anyone, particularly in civilized cultures.

The people of Love Island are worthy of much more study than I can provide from my armchair. Hopefully, someone will delve fully into this eccentric offspring of humanity and bring some much-needed clarity to this curious phenomena.

Or as my nephew put it, "Love Island represents everything that's wrong with humanity."

While on the topic of strange people and culture, I would be remiss if I didn't bring your attention to the folks of Peculiar County. Here, normal civilized people rub elbows with ghosts, witches, something that flies in the night, and murderers. Just another day in Peculiar County. You can visit right here!

A Mission of Cookies and Humiliation

I miss my mom. But I do swan (and all of you should know by now that I abhor "swanning"), she used to put me through the ringer.

Once Covid reared its ugly head, my brother, myself and my mom thought it a good idea that she just stay in her apartment and we'd do all the running for her. She was just too dang vulnerable at that point, mask or no mask (and we had no vaccines then, either). 

Honestly, I didn't mind putting together a list of her grocery needs and fetching them. It was ten times speedier than taking her with me to do her grocery shopping. Talk about a huge chunk of time lost forever. Once, she and I spent twenty minutes in the butter aisle alone. 

"How much is this one?" she'd ask and point at a box.

I'd tell her. Invariably, she'd come back with one of two of her usual responses, either "Hmmph" or "highway robbery!" We would then proceed to go through all the rest of the butter boxes and prices. Then she'd forget what the prices were and we'd start all over again. Behind me, a line began to form of impatient butter shoppers.

Anyway, one day I went to her apartment, ready to jot down her grocery list.

"Is that all?" I asked.

"Wait," she replied. She got up, went into the kitchen and brought back a half-eaten package of cookies, one of those see-through plastic containers half-filled with gross looking marshmallow cookies with an ugly aqua-colored frosting. She thrust the package at me. "Take these and get my money back."

I blinked. Stared at the proffered burden she held out to me. "Ummmm...what?"

"Take them back. They're awful."

"Mom...you ate half of them. I can't take them back!"

"I know what I know and I know that they're bad." (This was one of her favorite sayings and usually it signified that she wouldn't tolerate any fools and the argument was done because she knows what she knows.)

"But...but...Mom...if they were bad, why'd you eat half of them?"

"Take them back, Stuart. They're terrible."

"Mom...you know you can't return food just because you don't like it, right?"

To this, she giggled. Before I was chalking up her ridiculous demand as to her age, but the giggle signified she knew exactly what she was doing. A shrewd tactic, one designed to eat a half bag of gross cookies for free, a ploy worthy of the most tactical military minds of our times. Unfortunately, I was the expendable soldier tasked with carrying out this suicide mission.

Realizing that I couldn't stand up to my superiors, I set out on my mission of humiliation. Choosing to get that job over with before my shopping, head down, I raced to the customer service desk with cookies in hand.

"Can I help you?"

"Um...yeah...I hope so." I gave a little nervous chuckle, hoping to disarm the bomb I was about to drop. But instead, it took me back to the early days when my voice was changing. "I...uh...need to return these," I squeaked.

The grocery clerk grabbed the package, turned it over and over. First her eyebrows raised, then they plunged downward in a menacing scowl. Tough crowd.

"They're not mine," I hastily added in a weak voice. "They're for my mom. I told her that--"

"What's wrong with them?" Still turning the package over and over.

"My mom...NOT ME...says they were stale."

"But she ate half of them."

"I know, I tried to talk her out of this, but--" 

"Fine," she sighed. What little charm I thought I possessed wasn't nearly potent enough. Then she lightened a bit, looked around like a spy, finally grinned. She held the package out to me. "Want one?"

"Um...no thanks." 

First, they looked gross. Second, I thought it might be some kind of undercover trap to capture the notorious cookie bandit who'd been returning half eaten cookies across the greater Kansas City metro area.

I raced away and got Mom's shopping done in record time.

Mom, I miss and love you dearly. But not some of the things you used to send me out to do.

Speaking of guys who have to run fast out of necessity, consider the plight of poor Wendell Worthy. Bad guys force him to run across downtown Kansas City in a limited time to save his brother's life and bring back some takeout chili. Dressed in nothing but his tennis shoes and his tighty-whities. It's complicated. Read about the dangerous situations, wacky mishaps, and bizarre characters Wendell encounters through the night in my comical suspense thriller, Chili Run! It's the perfect book for the reader on the go.

Swimming in a Stream of Semi-Consciousnee

Four days ago I was stretched out on the love seat, covered in a blanket and wearing a jacket.

"Honey, I think I'm sick."

"Have you taken your temperature?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it's a lot of effort."

My wife took my temperature.

"Okay! 104 degrees! Honey, you're sick."

I've felt terrible all week, can hardly think. Wasn't even going to blog. But I thought, a great time to experiment. Here's my stream of consciousness blog.

The worst was the shivering. I shook like a meth addict in turbulent waters. Freezing. Pain relievers sometimes temporarily relieved the shakes. When I could keep them down. Every other time I made it rain from both ends. Pounding headache, little elves upstairs banging away on my brain. My diet has been the Gandhi diet, a little bread, a little soup, a frozen mini pinappel whip. If I live through this, I'll have kick-started my diet again. Fever dreams are horrible. When I can sleep. The first two days and nnights all I did was sleep. Last night It was a grand two hours. But when I do sleep, it's always fever dreams. Doing a repetitive task over and over always involving some stupid complex math equation. Two nights ago, I was robbing a jewelry store. It wasn't exciting, just boring after so many times. My idea of hell: repetition of hated task and then Donald Trump pokes me in the ass with a pitchfork, yells "Where's the military guard?" then sends me back to do the task all over again. And the hallucinations shoulld be fun, right? But they're creepy. Mostly they're audible. Once I heard my wife groaning as if she'd fallen into a deep well. Constantly I hear the ice cream man going by tingling his bells to The Entertainer. But I've had visual hallucinations too, especially the first two days. While I was napping, the blanket slipped up over my shoes and I swear one shoe winked at me. Another time I felt like I was in Disney's Beauty and the Beast with animated kitchen utensils dancing around me. Or maybe that was a fever dream, I dont know they're pretty close. The dogs are wondering why mom and dad are sleeping in different beds. "Bijou, why are our parents not together?" "Don't worry your pretty little head, Biscuit." My first assumption was that I had Covid again. I tested, then tested again the next day. Negative, just some horrific virus I picked up on our mini vacartiion before labor day. I haven't showered in three days. I'm trying to build up stamina and courage to get in there now and I can't think of anything I'd rather not do. I have no strength, expecially in my already bad knees. I've fallen at the top of the stairs going tto bed twice, thankfully forward. But one of these days the crummy gods of sickness are going to get me. But I'm despairing. One can only watch so much Netflix and when sick, never watch complicated murder mysteries from overseas. Going to shower nnow. Wish me luck!