Pink Eye Romance

I think we can all agree that "Pink Eye" is one of the worst ailments that can befall someone. Especially when you're younger. You may as well be wearing a huge-ass scarlet letter over your eye or the mark of Cain. Watch people avoid you at all costs, crossing the street to get away. I mean, it's not like an STD. No, those people are lucky and can hide their ailments within pants.

Not only is pink eye extremely irritable and annoying, it's just flat-out ugly and gross. (Just ask my daughter; once she had to wear an eyepatch to an outdoor concert.) And God help the hapless kid who becomes afflicted by the pink curse while in high school.

No one wants to be near you when you've got pink eye. Just one of life's harsher facts.

Now let's jump into the Way-Back Machine and travel back to my wild and wooly bachelor days full of non-stop fun and partying and nary a single adult care to get in my way. There. We're here! Did you have a pleasant trip?

But what's this? Oh nooooooo! Poor Stuart has pink eye!

And with just two days until he and his friends' big party at the Berdella house (okay...it wasn't really the "Berdella house" but my good friend--host of the party--lived one block away from notorious Kansas City serial killer Bob Berdella. The more you know!).

What was poor Stuart to do? He'd already invited a girl that he'd had romantic dalliances with during college. But with his eye all swollen and watery and itchy and redder than an angry sunset, he couldn't possibly attempt to kiss said girl.

So Stuart groused and grumbled until the big day of the party. When his guest showed up that night, he noticed she had a long lock of blonde hair uncharacteristically swooped over one eye.

"Hey," Stuart said, "You might want to keep your distance from me 'cause I got pink eye."

Suddenly, she swooped back her hair exposing a swollen, watery, itchy, and redder than an orangutan's bottom, eye. 

Celestial trumpets sounded! Clouds parted! Somewhere dogs and cats hugged it out! 

Stuart had no choice but to grab the girl and kiss her.

Thus began the Summer of pink eye romance.

It's as they say, "God loves a fool with pink eye." (Or maybe I've got that quote wrong...)

Now that I'm in a silly, kinda pink eye mood, I may as well plug my shameless Zach and Zora comical mystery series. Take one stupid male stripper, mix with his usually pregnant, bright sleuth sister, and stir into a murder mystery with nutty characters, thrills, spills, suspense, and embarrassing humor and you have the Zach and Zora series! Don't be left out in the cold! Check out what all the cool kids are reading here!

The Self-Preservation of Running Away

Fighting sucks.

I don't care how cool, bad-ass, or "romantic" movie tough guys make it look, but it's pretty much the epitome of uncool.

Not that I've been in that many fights. Most of my so-called "fights" were with my brother, one where I gave him a blue ear and he gave me a fat lip all transpiring on our iced over driveway one morning before high school. And, of course, there have been the requisite fights with friends, but that usually involved copious amounts of alcohol, so those really don't count. Oh, and how could I forget getting punched by school bullies for being overweight or "different." But I'd hardly call those fights, as one-sided as they were.

It's weird, really. Guys are brought up to envy all of the tough guys in movies, the kind that sew up their own wounds without even flinching. (Yeah, right; digging a splinter out is agonizing enough.) My so-called "friends" in high school were a bunch of knuckleheads who thought it was really cool to get in fights with strangers. They saw it as a sort of rite of passage into manhood. Or something. I remember hearing about one tale where they got into a huge, massive knock-down drag-out in a pizza parlor parking lot. Fun! Glad I didn't attend that night's festivities.

In college, I found some more like-minded individuals who also thought fighting was stupid and, well...you know, could be considered dangerous. Except there's always that ONE guy who's looking to fight. Once we were in a small town bar and a burly local yokel bought us a round of milk. Most of us went along with the joke at our youthful expense, tipping our glasses toward him, and chugging it. Then our one acquaintance clenched his fists and said, "C'mon, let's go get him."

Well, no. Why put yourself into the path of danger over a dumb glass of milk?

So, our acquaintance called us a bunch of "pussies" and chose not to hang out with us very much after that. Which was fine with me.

The one thing tough guy fighting movies fails to teach young men is that when you hit someone, it definitely doesn't sound like a firecracker report. I remember the first time I threw an admittedly weak punch at some kid on the playground, the resultant expected CRACK never ensued. More like kinda a weak OOF or worse, a dull THUD. So in shock was I over my lack of soundtrack, the other guy took advantage and pummeled me. Lesson learned!

So, my next tactic at dealing with avoiding fights was to try and talk my way out of it. That never worked out so well. Actually, in defending a friend three times, I've been cold-cocked and knocked out, thrown out of a bar where I landed on my chin and required stitches, and tossed out of another bar. Once again, I learned a valuable lesson: apparently my golden gift of gab is highly overrated in my eyes. Or more than likely, I'm just one of those guys that other guys want to punch.

And one other thing bad-ass battle movies fails to portray realistically is that these altercations are rarely actually "fights." You remember how Clint and Charles (or Jason and Vin for you youngsters) would trade blows back and forth with a worthy foe until good ultimately won out after twenty minutes or so? Remember those fights? Well, they're one big damn lie! Fights are always--ALWAYS--one-sided, with the brute (always my opponent) wailing on the underdog (always my position) relentlessly until the loser (moi) lays in a broken, bleeding heap. And it's usually so fast, that it's over in the blink of an eye or until bouncers or whoever intervenes.

Where's the "romance" in that, would-be tough guys?

Either way, my fighting days are at an end. The only safe way to handle a fight is to run away. And, there's the rub. Now that I'm old and fat, my running days are pretty much over, too. (Pretty sure my bar-going days are a thing of the past, too. Not hard during a pandemic.)

So, kids! And adults who never grew up! Heed my words! Your movies are built on a foundation of lies, as far removed from reality as politics today (and in many ways, its pretty much the same thing). Don't give into the fists. It's much better to be considered a "pussy" than end up in the hospital and/or jail.

You've got a lot to answer for, Clint and Charles (and Jason and Vin and...)!

While on the topic of tough guys, my anti-hero, Leon Garber, from my Killers Incorporated trilogy, is by no means a traditional "tough guy." Instead he chooses to kill people by using his wits and a minimum of physical exertion. (Okay, fine, there IS the whole thing about killing people, but at least he picks off despicable, evil victims.). Find out more, right abouuuuuuuut...HERE!