Counting Footprints

SHAKING OFF WRITER'S BLOG BLOCK, THIS WAS MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT WRITING SINCE BECOMING SEPERATED.

Wearing no more attire than is necessary, I am strolling the beach without a care or responsibility in the world. It is midday but time does not matter. There are no clocks or signs of civilization. The sandy terrain shifting around my footsteps form ankle-high casts like memory foam. The ocean waves churn a blend of turquoise water and white caps in mesmerizing randomness. Flying seagulls looking for their next meal complete my soundtrack.

Capturing my line of sight, the sky is a solid blue canvas accented by small cumulous clouds. These clouds float like marshmallow glory. The faithful sun beams glitter upon the blanket of sand before my trek. My body finds ultra comfort in not only the sunshine but the rewarding low humidity. I am walking against a gentle breeze by my own choosing. My exposed skin is cooled by the welcoming feeling of Mother Nature’s invisible powers. As I breathe in her blush, my nostrils flare to catch refreshing doses of moist salt air.

The temperature beckons comfort with a 75 degree holding pattern. Test tube mercury has never been so stable. The forecast calls for only a fifteen degree difference between sunrise and sunset…enough certainty of variance to appreciate the passage of time but relish being alive in the moment.

I am in tune with the simple pleasures of the awe inspiring world around me that appear both fictitious and authentic…as if I am walking on literary sand of a romance novel’s folded page. I happen to look down at the goose bumps on my forearms that conjure my contentment when I am reminded that I am not alone. There is a warm flesh and blood hand lovingly gripping mine. I look over to the person that is half my whole. A burst of fireworks fuel my smile. Neither of us needs to say a word so we defer to companionship’s silence. It’s all been defined in the beauty of landscape and intimacy anyway. Her finger locked grasp represents a blessed union of mutual respect and equality. We leave only our footprints behind. Everything lays ahead.

UPS and Downs

Of the conclusion that I had every detail worked out with monolithic UPS, I emailed the Ebay purchaser. I instructed him to put the package slated for return shipment out on his open porch. He must live in an awfully safe Florida neighborhood, because he left the package on his porch for three days and two nights without a truck ever making pickup while I waited for it here in New Jersey. Given Florida's notoorious humidity, thank goodness that the contents was sports memorabilia and not aged cheese.

The Ebayer emailed me back outraged about the lack of service on his porch. At the mercy of the mail, I immediately called the worldwide leader in the shipping business. My loose-lipped temperament outran my patience. I went through two UPS frontline staff until a distinguished sounding manager interceded with an improbable explanation.

“Oops, we forgot to inform the local UPS to pick it up. They were in that area plenty but did not know to pick it up. It is our problem on our level. I apologize.”

On the other end of the phone, my face went beet red thinking what brown has done to me. "You think?"

The manager brainstormed, “Wait a minute, the problem could also be that it may be a non-portable item for mailing.”

I queried, “What do you mean? As the original shipper, may I remind you that I lifted it? This is a return to sender situation. I am 48 years old living with an average life expectancy of 78, how much longer can I expect to wait for this shipment?”

“Okay, it’s coming, guy.”

“Need I mention that you greeted me with an admission of Oops? If you guys are the tightest ship in the shipping business, you are now dealing with the loosest cannon in the Ebay business.”

“This isn’t how we do business, sir.”

I commented, “So far it is. You guys ought to merge with Fed Ex and just be called Fed Up!”

Yes Jiminy There Isn't a Santa Claus

The fake Santa Claus jostled into place the loose bed pillows underneath his bright red borrowed suit. With his body perspiring in the thick costume, he waddled into a fourth grade elementary school classroom yelping a round of his best ho-ho-ho’s. The elementary school children responded favorably with surprise and adulation. Twenty-four hours earlier, the fun-loving man playing iconic Santa Claus provided custodial care by wielding a wet mop in this same classroom.

In on the ruse, the teacher welcomed Santa Claus with Season’s Greetings.

“Merry Christmas!” shouted Santa Claus to Jewish and Gentile children alike.

The man playing Santa Claus had a pinch too much entertainer in him for perhaps even the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. He moved around the classroom greeting kids. Santa danced as if he had bells on his feet. He soon waddled to an aisle seat to his left. Santa stopped at a desk of his choosing hoping that his deliberate actions appeared random. Praying that his full white beard would not wardrobe malfunction, Santa hunched his upper body towards a sheepish student.

“Have you been a good boy?”

With all of the yelling, Santa’s voice sounded hoarse by now. This aided not only his disguise but concealed his identity. The male student, however, appeared shy about receiving individual attention. He squirmed in his seat and said nothing.

Good Ole Saint Nick needled him. “Santa thinks you have been naughty this year. I hope it isn’t going to be a lean Christmas for you.”

About this time, the boy’s eyes met Santa Claus’s eyes. Between the two sets of almond pupils bore a trace of familiarity. The boy searched for the gift of right words.

Another classmate broke-up the holiday cheer. “Jim, that’s your brother, stupid! You know, the school custodian.”

Nightmare Before Thanksgiving

Why do we need to push up the Christmas holiday season before giving Thanksgiving its proper due? It is only after the hustle and bustle of Thanksgiving that I can begin to think about shopping and unwind enough to enjoy Christmas music. It is a pet peeve to hear radio stations playing Christmas music before the arrival of Thanksgiving. Bing Crosby's voice confuses me on what Americans need to be next thankful for on Thanksgiving and Christianity has got nothing to do with my November holiday meal. The last time I checked Rudolph the Rednosed Reindoor flew only one night in late December and there isn’t even venison in a turducken! Yet the gaudy department store displays of Christmas holiday decorations seem to want to trump Thanksgiving. If only Thanksgiving had a commercial upside, retailers would be traditionalizing us into decorating our front lawns with glow-in-the-dark strung turkeys.

Am I missing something here? Do farmers need to lull turkeys into a false sense of security by piping Christmas music into the farm pens? The stupid dodo bird turkeys hear the cheery rump pa pa pum music and think they got a stay of execution then the mercenary farmers sneakily yell off with their heads. Remembering the pilgrims and the birth of Jesus should be separate and not equal. I don’t hear anyone setting off firecrackers on Easter morning so don’t go playing Little Drummer Boy in my ear until Black Friday cometh. Celebrating gifting before fowling seems like a misgiving.

Almost Making a Killing

Before my recent vacation in Atlantic City, New Jersey, I did not know anything about horseracing. Maybe it should have stayed that way. Why people call them ponies I have no idea because through the snowy picture of the casino simulcasts they looked all grown up to me. When I asked a patron why domesticated animals like donkeys or llamas do not competitively race the way humans force horses and dogs, he knew I had never been to a racetrack. He pushed up his Johnny Olson glasses like a crack reporter then returned to some filler newspaper devoted to nothing but assigning numbers to silly horse names. Without him saying a word proved the beginning and end of our relationship.

After placing a first bet, a track announcer on the simulcast reported that the next race is for horses who have never won a single race. My wife and I giggled at the contradiction. I now felt foolish holding my tendered ticket like it was some unclaimed prize pack for dopes. I held onto my foolish thoughts this time though but cannot get past the notion that these loser horses should be fired as racehorses and sent out to pasture. The race saw none of the horses we bet even finish in the middle of the pack.

For an entire afternoon, my wife and I randomly bet horses whimsically called Coy Cat, Red Delicious, Bold Ocean, etc after extrapolating their odd names to some insignificant meaning in our lives. I pickup the jargon of win, place, show and learn about trifecta but my lackluster horses want none of the winner’s circle.

While attempting to simply wager on a horse to show, the casino worker agreed that it was a good bet but he would not allow me to gamble.

I asked, “Why not?”

“Eight horses scratched on the sloppy track….there are only three horses left. Blame it on the hurricane!”

I walked back to my video monitor with disappointment hanging on my face. I explained to my wife that the odds were too much in our favor for the house to accept my bet because of inclement weather. Wouldn’t you know it? Emerging from the rears of the thin field kicking up brown muck, my horse predictably finished dead last. I curse the casino that had refused to turn my bad luck around.

So I gathered my wits and looked for a favorite. I searched the whites of my pockets and found three crumbled dollars and four quarters. I am all in as they say on a number five horse called Libor Lady to win. My horse won first place in a photo finish. From my comfortable perch inside the casino, I had won my first horserace, the next to the last race at the famed Churchill Downs. High fives go around the booth. By our hooting and hollering, the other grumpy betters must have thought we won a 99-1 long shot betting the mortgage.

I pocketed my gross winnings…$6.80 cents, a full $2.40 more than I actually gambled on Lady Libor. Feeling like lady luck was with us, we left horse and buggy for the self-park garage. From this paddock, I jockeyed my car into an ungodly Nor’easter formerly known as Hurricane Ida. The sideways rain and sixty miles per hour winds did not deter me. I had a coupon for a little out of the way Italian restaurant and nothing was going to stop me from saving a few bucks. I grabbed the reigns of my steering wheel as the wind moved my car side to side. Low-lying streets were flooded and visibility was nil but the endless sloppy track was wide open. I shoot to the inside lane never looking behind. After getting into a car accident with another moving vehicle, I realized that I should have scratched myself from this last race. This coming from the horse's mouth, I almost made a costly killing on the track.

The PH Factor in Grass and Lovemaking

It all started when my lawn care service recommended that I lay a blanket of limestone down to improve the PH balance on my Kentucky bluegrass. On the sun-filled weekend that I earmarked doing the recommended yard work, I still had not bought my first bag of lime. That is when the situation took a strange metaphorical seedy twist of fate for the better.

A white powder coat appeared on my front grass. My initial hair-scratching inspection concluded that it looked just like lime. Alas, I found an overturned open container of Vagisil vagina deodorant in my driveway. I learned that the vagina deodorant had been a checklist item on my teenage stepson’s scavenger hunt the night before. How and why its contents spread across my lawn remains not only a mystery but also a question I refused to spend too much time on as a parent.

Two weeks following the outpouring of vagina deodorant on wilting summer-ending grass and no limestone application, I wish to report that my lawn has never looked more lush and fertile. I half-expected my grass blades to curl symptomatically but they are standing tall. The PH balance also seems to be in a state of self-correction and I have no presiding need to add pounds of backbreaking lime.

I am now scouring pharmacies for the unlikely RX score of vaginal deodorant in ultra concentrate bulk sizes for the freshest smelling lawn in the neighborhood. I may just switch from the professional advice of a lawn doctor to a down-to-earth gynecologist. I am even considering penning an article to Home and Garden magazine about my rare find. For the curious passerbys carrying blankets, I may need to stake a sign in my lawn saying NO LOVEMAKING ALLOWED.

Making Scents in Atlantic City

I spent the better part of three days in Atlantic City on vacation. It was so relaxing that I did not want to checkout of the stately room inside Bally's casino. I purposely gave the casino only a handful of my money yet I came away with so many cherishable scents during my stay from the boardwalk to the spa.

-The splendid aroma of my 32 ounce morning coffee.

-The penetrating menthol smell of the aromatheraphy inhalation room.

-The charged ionized air before a dark clouded thunderstorm.

-The chlorinated water of the indoor heated hotel pool.

-The smell of fashion trendy women’s perfume carrying across the casino floor.

-The refreshing salt-water smell of the spritzing Atlantic ocean.

-The clean smell from a Noxema facial wrap.

Death Wish in the Driveway

As I put my car in reverse, I hear thump, thump, thump. Curse words erupt from my leather cockpit because this was the definitive sound of a major flat tire. I sling myself out of my God-forsaken car, fully expecting the worse in the indignity of my own driveway. I circle the vehicle. Curiously, the air pressure in each of my tires looks more than adequate.

I get back into my car and try again. The same repetitive thump follows me halfway down the driveway. Exiting the car, I check inside my trunk for something rolling around. Everything seems secure. At my wit's end, I literally stand around my vehicle while scratching my head.

Not knowing what else to do, I get back into my car. This time I reverse faster than normal while dismissing the lunacy of expecting a different outcome at a higher rate of speed. Thump, thump, thump. I put my cursing aside after concluding with a gulp in my throat that I have repeatedly run over a defenseless toddler. Manslaughter charges run rampant through my active imagination, one that comes complete with the soundbite of a Judge's gavel.

I lay down in the driveway where I literally shimmy underneath my car. As I lay on my back staring at the empty undercarriage, an adult possum jumps from my wheel well overtop my prone body. Claws and fur fly in slow motion over my defenseless body before I catch another glimpse of him scampering away through a brush thicket.

The possum had been running atop my moving tire like a personal treadmill. This possum wasn’t playing dead. Nope, this one had a death wish. It is not everyday you wheely come across an endangered species.

A Mountain Called Ozark

Danny Ozark with Joe Tornatore

Former Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark’s passing this week at the age of eighty-five was a life that spanned extra innings. His stellar managerial career came within a big inning in a decisive playoff series of ultimately managing a champion. Almost tragically, the Phillies team he built, spoon-fed, and managed from basement dwellers to perennial contenders won the 1980 World Series only a year after his firing. This is how the ball bounces in the fatality of life.

I met Danny Ozark on a gorgeous day for baseball in 1997. By age seventy-three, however, the rawhide of baseball had been woven through his life yet somehow his forty-something inch waist still proudly stuffed into the pinstriped Philadelphia Phillies uniform like a throwback to yesteryear. As I approached the dapper uniformed don in a hideaway restaurant, Danny was hungrily eating his way through a stack of flapjacks perched in his counter seat.

I introduced myself then said, “Danny, I just came from the park. There are no children, no spectators for the charity softball event.”

As he fathomed this scenario, maple syrup seemed to suspend drip from his fork. Showing his genial leadership qualities, Danny Ozark expressed to me in parental tones that the game must be played. Unfulfilled charitable contributions aside, two dozen former major league baseball players did not travel across the country to not pick up their gloves or grab a bat.

During the ballgame, it was an awestruck sight watching the old man bearing red and white pinstripes register putouts from infielders Al Oliver and Bert Campaneris on a lumpy field of weeds and clay. I knew firsthand that Ozark would be taking to the grave his lifelong love for baseball. Like any fallible human being, it would not be without regrets.

With Ozark’s death, I only have my own personal memories of him to hold onto. I can almost hear him smack his floppy first baseman’s mitt on this day, field the sea of criticism he endured for not making a late inning substitute for fielding liability Greg Luzinski after Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, or uttering classic malapropisms during post-game interviews.

If I ever visit his gravesite, I might be tempted to draw chalk lines atop the dirt that buries Danny Ozark because this was a thoroughbred baseball man. Rest(in Peace) assured, Danny Ozark is asking dearly departed Harry Kalas now if half this afterlife is ninety percent transcendental. Life like baseball contains errors, the least of which are syntax.

Danny Ozark 1923-2009

Lunch Brake

A corner liquor store receiving a truck delivery of alcohol to fuel bloodstreams ensnares traffic. The oversized truck plugs the narrow One Way Street and prohibits passage. I am the last car in the gridlock. After a few minutes into the waiting game, the car in front of me suddenly starts to reverse but there is no place to go except through me. I beep my horn but the impatient driver keeps coming. I shift my car in reverse mode to avoid collision. An SUV rounding the corner unexpectedly turns onto the same street. I tap my brake but swipe the SUV behind me at about two miles per hour.

Three males get out of the SUV leaving a young child inside and unattended. The situation goes from bad to worse. For some unknown reason, residents start throwing things at the idling first car from their stoops. A football is hurled hard through a passenger side window of a car parked two ahead of me. After the glass shatters, the occupants exit their affected car. Feeling like a sardine in tin, I look around at the grit of my dire surroundings. This is the same bad section of town that entrenched gang members killed one of their own for missing chapter meetings.

With all that is going on around me, the paws of three males try to gain entry at my doors. The driver is as big as a refrigerator. He shouts, “Man, open up. You hit my car.”

I shake my head in agreement but do not open my car doors. Instead, I push a button that closes my moon-roof because I am afraid they might try to eject me from my seat. Emotions but not myself shoot through the roof.

A second male comments, “Oh, no, he didn’t.”

“Eugene, he’s dissing you.”

Eugene looks upset. “Don’t do me like this! Man up.”

I crack my driver’s side window like a minimalist. I explain, “If you haven’t noticed all hell is breaking loose. This ain’t no hit and run. I’m sorry for hitting your car. I’m not going anywhere but I’m not exiting my car either. It’s not exactly safe at the moment.”

The men who had vacated their parked car begin fighting the residents in the street. Women and children run and scream. Everyone male from teenage years and up is either a hooting and hollering sightseer or a combatant. Rocks hurl. I am worried that guns will be drawn. The men surrounding my car pay little attention to the danger.

Eugene orders, “Watch him. Don’t let him leave.” His complete attention now turns to the melee. He shouts at the fight spilling down the street. I incredulously watch him head towards the fisticuffs. I hear Eugene offer a street fighter a vote of confidence.

“That’s how you hit him, Akel!”

My cell phone is inside a jacket pocket that I left in the trunk. My car is being guarded by men who I do not trust. After about the fourth time Eugene's loyalists remind me that I am not going anywhere, Eugene returns to the scene of the accident. He apprises his friends of a recent development.

“Dang. They just crashed my sister’s car on the next street.”

"Damn G, what are you gonna do?"

Fear twitches my face at unsavory angles. My voice crackles. “This is a riot.”

Eugene talks through my cracked window while the two others send out text messages. “Dawg, they listen to me on this block. Don’t be scared. I run this block.”

As Eugene offers me reassurance about his positive influence in the neighborhood, my focus shifts from his imposing presence to the action spilling behind him where a vexed man swings an ax at a rabid man hell-bent on taunting him. In between his ax missing and sparking the street, he is hit by roundhouse punches. Sweat cascades down my forehead. With all of this unlawfulness, I do not know what is taking the police so long to arrive and restore order. For some strange reason, I think about Tracy Chapman's song Across the Lines. I start calculating probability odds of Eugene owning a valid driver’s license, carrying car insurance and vehicle registration without any arrest warrants or drugs in his possession. The possibilities prompt me to feel him out on his commmittment to reporting this accident to authorities.

I reason, “G, let’s call the police. Use your cell phone.”

Eugene wants to parley my transgression into a shakedown. “Nah, money talks.”

I argue, “I don’t have any money on me to settle this.” My streetwise talk is like a survival instinct taking over me. “Ugh, I just hocked a gold chain for lunch money.”

He barks instruction. “Leroy, go into Millie’s house and fetch some gasoline.”

The thoughts that race through my mind in my parked car could have gotten me a speeding ticket. Leroy hustles from Millie’s house with a red container of gasoline about the same time I check for my running shoes. The direct sunlight reveals gas swishing around the container like it is itching for something combustible. Eugene pulls a white tee shirt from the back of his vehicle. He bunches it up then soaks it in gasoline. I convince myself that he is going to torch my car with a homemade molitov cocktail. Everything seems to be going up in flames and I will be burned alive unless I can outrun three men twenty years my junior across ground of their own choosing.

Eugene stands between the two vehicles now with the gas-soaked rag. As I plot my next move, he does the unthinkable. In a circular motion, he buffs the paint marks off his SUV. He then walks over to my car. I shed actual embarrassment as he literally cleans my car. He asks me to step out of the car to admire his work. I hesitate but muster enough courage to finally venture out of the vehicle not knowing if it is the right move but hoping meeting him halfway will offer closure to the incident. His car is no worse for wear and my car carries none of his paint now but shows a small dent.

A middle-aged woman comes over and talks to Eugene as if I were not there, a proposition to my liking.

She asks, “What’s his story?”

“He’s shitting bricks because he hit my car.”

“G, what’s he doing around here?”

“He made a wrong turn.”

“I’ll say.”

Eugene clarifies, “He said he was going to Donkey’s bar for a cheese steak.”

I add, “Two cheese steaks.”

“Whatever." replies Eugene. "Stop trifling. I told you I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“You were right about that. I was wrong about that. G, are we cool now?”

“Yeah, we cool.”

“I’m driving off if you're cool with that?”

“That’s cool.”

I hand wave. “Thanks for accepting my apology.”

I get back into my car and quickly lock the doors as all of my G's turn to willikers. I start my car then put on my right turn signal. As I slowly drive around two bleeding adversaries combating in the street, I realize my psyche is withstanding a greater dent than my car.

Beamer Me Up Snotty

“Hey, what do you think you're doing? My son and I took the time to move several shopping carts away from our Beamer and you rolled up to park next to me.” --snotty idiot BMW owner heading into an arts and crafts store.

Clutching my curled 40% off sales coupon, I said, “Buy the whole shopping mall and erect a No Tresspassing sign and maybe we will talk. Right now that is free public parking.”

Enemy Vine

My friend Rich is a professional gardener whose love of the land is as rich as the soil. For my vegetable garden this year, he recommended that I plant a new breed of tomato plant all the rave called a Rutgers. Named after the school that developed and patented her, this breed of tomato is known for its heartiness and robust taste.

So after searching what seemed like the world for a select tomato plant invented not too far from the neighborhood, I found four plants at a shore point Home Depot after coming up empty-handed everywhere else.

The plants were not even into the ground and I could not wait to bite into my first ‘mater. Low and behold, between the four plants planted and spaced evenly apart, yellow jackets decided to nest underground. In the spring, my stepson sprayed a can of Raid around the opening but it not only did not touch the cave dwellers it voided the plant's chemical free advertisement.

Soon it looked like an insect airport with the yellow jackets coming in for a landing at the base camp one by one. They had scouts, spies, worker bees, and a couple of hit men perched on the side of the house wary of intruders. The success of the underground hive made a mockery out of my garden’s tilled ground, new mulch, and hankering for fresco tomato gravy.

When my bumper crop of green tomatoes started to disappear, I started to scratch my head. Even my safety dance in between the insect flights to water me ‘maters must have looked silly to the animal watching me.

Not too long into my sleuth invegitative reporting regarding the missing tomatoes, I spotted the thief, a burly groundhog wandering up the hill from the woods. He walked over to my garden as if he had been there before. Hanging upside down on my metal cages, he wrestled green tomatoes from the stalks and ate me ‘maters on my wood deck as I cursed him from behind the patio glass.

When the groundhog decided to burrow right in between plant 2 and plant 3 on a later forage, he discovered what I had worried about all season. The groundhog dug right into the yellow jacket nest and imploded it. I have not seen the groundhog in awhile for reasons I can only nightmarishly imagine but his hole, the bees, and my suddenly growing green tomatoes remain.

I doubt they had this much trouble in the Rutgers laboratory but it is a jungle out there. Now it is back to me verses the yellow jackets in the race for a later taste of this frigging mater.

Catching Rainbows

This washed out picture does not do justice to the maginificient luminous rainbow that formed after a recent rain shower. Right out the front door to our house, the color-rich rainbow could be viewed from arc to arc for about seven minutes. Our house sat like pot of mortgage in the middle.

In all of my 46 years, I had never seen a complete rainbow from one side to the other in such dramatic fashion. I made the most of the time that it could be seen. Grabbing my camera and camcorder, my wife and I took stills and home movies of the rare atmospheric event.

Appreciating rainbows are alot like not taken life for granted. You never know how long we are here to catch the next rainbow nor how long we or the rainbow will last.

Playing the Baby Mama Card

When I dine alone, the company that is kept around me is sometimes as savory as the food. At the Golden Corral restaurant, I watched a man have dinner with a woman blessed by stunningly exotic South American features. Sitting at the table next to me, they shared a lot of introductory information. My keen eye for matchmaking concluded it was early in their relationship.

The man explained in laborious detail no shortage of past relationships with a curled lip. Thank goodness, he dined at a mega buffet because he had many failed marriages to bemoan. He spoke about children spread across the globe, child support payments and non-payments, prenuptials ending in restraining orders, wives he tried to control and own but ultimately divorced and disowned. He did not seem to realize he was not making a good impression upon this woman who had grown ripe for indigestion. I truly felt sorry for the woman but in between my plates of sirloin steak smothered in fried onions and mushrooms, my ears kept pressed to the gossip grindstone.

The man’s cell phone kept ringing an inordinate amount of time. Finally, he picked up his cell phone, covered the phone with his hand, then informed his date that he was on the pone with baby mama #3. He then told his divorced wife Ginger that he was on a job and traveling on interstate 95 heading to Georgia. Either my eyes deceived me at this point or this South American beauty just turned into the most gorgeous road checkpoint I had ever seen. Never mind telling a boldface lie in front of your date or that seventy-five miles per hour on an interstate never sounds like clanking utensils.

Unable to smooth-talk baby mama #3 on the cell phone in public earshot, he left her alone at the table to reflect on an imploding date. She sat pushing her food from one side of the plate to the other. With no dirt to eavesdrop, I paid a timely visit to the bathroom. Before I unzipped my first article of clothing, I recognize the same man’s voice echoing from a bathroom stall.

He vacillated between sweet, angry and constipated while tethered to the phone. Identifying his caller by the moniker, baby mama number #4 with no shame, I heard him contesting unpaid medical bills. He begged her for a little something something mattress mambo if he wrote her a check for $100.00 the next time he saw her. He showed his unselfishness by letting this baby mama know he was free around midnight this coming Saturday night. Then he unspooled toilet paper on the roll.

Hearing him talk and defecate seemed like a waste of my time. I left the bathroom and returned to my seat. While I chewed the fat on my next course, the man, for lack of a better word, returned to his table. I captured his surprise with satisfaction. The South American beauty was long gone, probably last seen buying a home pregnancy test at the closest drug store.

“That is stone cold.” he said aloud.

I allayed, “You will find another girlfriend.”

“Nah dawg, she stuck me with the bill.”

“Didn’t you pay upfront before your meal?”

“Yeah but dawg, I had my sights on her loaning me $100.00 tonight for another bill.”

Kelly's Hero

Around two am one night, I wound up surfing the boundless internet. I comparatively shopped for the best music download site to become a new member. The house was so quiet that I could hear my fingers click mouse buttons. I end up on a reputable site that came highly recommended by a consumer’s group. They advertised the one time fee of $34.95, which entitled members to unlimited downloads for a lifetime. No less than twelve million original songs plug it's database, none of it shareware. Still skeptical, I read the terms and conditions before I clicked to the final page that beckons my wallet to open. I decided against making the purchase but saved the site to my favorites server list to return to at a later time. When I tried to exit the screen, a pop-up message appeared at the center of my screen. An instant messenger I am not, so the pop-up screen with bells and whistles startled me. The following is the transcript for the conversation that followed.

“Before you leave the website, do you have any questions?”

I see a designated typing box for me to reply. My fingers slowly type out, “Who me?”

A ticker appeared on the screen alerting me that my agent is sending a reply. “Hello, my name is Kelly. Do you have any questions about our music club?”

On a portal page where I was prompted to relinquish my credit card number and personal information, and set my password, I did not expect to become interactive with somebody watching me. Then I drew the obvious conclusion that I am being dupped by automated replies. I attempted to elicit abstract thinking. “Is it me or does this deal seem too good to be true?”

Kelly answers, “We are the number one music download site…blah blah blah”.

About two minutes of information exchange occurred. Kelly’s responses seemed straight forward and impersonal like the hunk of metal I envisioned. I thought to myself. This world has gotten to be so technically sophisticated that a robot has jumped onto my computer screen approximating human contact. I decided I would be a protagonist to this façade; a crusader for simpler times when you could pick-up a telephone, call a business, and talk to someone live.

I typed, “I am attracted to your candor and helpful nature. You are a breath of fresh air in a world gone awry. Thanks for being there for me when I need it. I am going to take a chance here. This might come as a shock to you but I love you.”

My canned display of emotion would certainly blow the circuit board on the robotic teleprompter in the sky. The ticker flashed that my agent is sending a reply….

“Thank you. I am blushing.” typed Kelly. “That is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me online but I have something to tell you too…I am married. I adore the movie Sleepless in Seattle though.”

We all get caught with our pants down from time to time.

E-ZPaint on the E-ZPass

I handpicked my 2007 Nissan Altima for its matching color scheme of a gray leather interior with a solid color gray exterior from a catalogue. After the car was shipped to the dealership, I raced to the lot to sign on the dotted line. I drove home inhaling that addictive new car smile which I have learned is curing out gassing plastic. When I transferred my E-ZPass transponder to my pristine new car, I knew something was imperfect from my obsessive-compulsive standpoint.

There is always something wrong from my vantage point. It is just a matter of identifying the problem and figuring out how to fix it. I was never a fan of E-ZPass because of the glue pads that adhere to the windshield. So I fixed that problem with Velcro strapping that I attached to the arm of my rearview mirror. Although I fixed that annoyance, something else still bothered me.

My white EZ-Pass transponder shone like a beacon through the windshield against the dark gray backdrop of my cabin. I know this would not matter to 999 out of 1000 people but I try not to live anyone else’s life. So the white contrast annoyed me until I could not stand for the color inconsistency. With nary a witness in sight, I hand painted my transponder using gray acrylic paint. I am thankful the neighbors did not get a glimpse of me trying to mix paint in my driveway to color match a transponder with the décor of my car.

Less than one ounce of easy paint later, I restored perfection. It was time to sit back in the driver’s seat and relax. The next day, I received a surprise package in the mail from the New Jersey Motor Vehicles agency. Although I read the enclosed letter as a pedestrian, it drove me crazy.

Dear Mr. Tornatore,

In an ongoing effort to maintain the highest level of service to our E-ZPass customers, we have identified your transponder as outdated and we have enclosed a replacement unit.

The letter literally laughed at me. I held the shipped white transponder in my hand only a matter of seconds before it entered my artist studio. My paintbrush had not even dried by the time I grabbed it again. I painted the new unit gray before it knew what hit it. If there is any good reason these units cannot come in different colors, my paintbrush wants to know about it.

Forest through the Trees

Our three-tier backyard deck has now taken me half of a summer to complete in drips and drabs. Mistakes, repairs, powerwashing, painting the uprights, and staining the deck boards has killed half of a summer. Faulty plumbing fixtures, a broken big screen TV, and a leaky roof have derailed the completion of the deck and caused empty white rabbit pockets and headache.

Last week, while plugging along on the final coat of stain on the top deck, I heard an unmistakable sound with only a few boards to go. The savage sound frightened me but not for the reason you might think.

A deadwood tree severed from its root moorings and began what seemed like a slow motion fall through the canopy of the woods. As I turned to see what direction the tree fell, my personal safety seemed an after thought. I concentrated on all of the toil I had poured into this deck that I didn’t want go to waste.

I shouted to the tree Gods. “Not the deck! Don’t hit the deck! Not the deck!”

The tree caused a sensational whooshing noise against the ground but missed the deck by the safety net of fifty yards. My next-door neighbor ran out of her house in hysterics but I went right back to staining better wood than what fell. I want this deck done before it is time to store the deck furniture for the season. After all, I can just about see the forest through the trees now.

When Your Number Is Up

Bingo selected me as a Camden County Superior Court juror. Out of seven hundred prospective jurors, I was the only one who yelled “Bingo” when my number was called in a downstairs holding tank. The tightly wound crowd exhaled laughter at my antics. To the contrary, I waited 45 years to serve as a juror on a criminal trial and having my number called was one step closer to the juror’s box. All of my years watching forensic television would finally pay off. Even the elevator ride up to the courtroom smelled like justice. Inside the icy courtroom, I listened to four days of testimony and evidence on a graphically portrayed child molestation case. After closing arguments, the judge read every element of the nine indictable counts pending. Not for the squeamish, just the reading of the law took over an hour. After which, I anticipated deliberation by organizing my wealth of input and insight. That is until a high-heeled clerk stood and spun a wooden bingo wheel for no apparent reason. The bingo wheel was an antiquated apparatus that looked like it had been hand carved by a convict's penknife at the turn of the century. Bearing a grimace, the clerk read number 183.

“Juror number 183, Joseph Tornatore, kindly take a seat behind the prosecutor.”

My demotion to alternate juror became a part of the proceedings. I sat stunned and my body language read nothing but disappointment. I slouched my way from the juror’s box to the empty seat behind the prosecutor who is actively referring to his juror’s chart in a reshuffling of the judicial deck. It was hard to put my downward spiral feelings into words until I conceptualized that my right to vote on the case had been denied on Election Day. The bingo wheel spit out another number. A middle-aged man shrugged his shoulders then joins me in the last-minute excusal. A sheriff escorted us to a seclusion room where sensory deprivation awaited. The sheriff stood guard just outside our open door. We were prohibited from leaving or using cell phones. Hours passed. Occasionally, I heard the raised voices of the dozen jurors deliberating the defendant’s fate in the sealed off room next door. I gave myself a once over. This is the only point of a criminal trial where a defendant has more freedom and rights than jurors.

I would have argued passionately without signs of fatigue that the defendant was guilty on five of the nine charges. The real jurors voted not guilty on all nine counts. I could not believe what my ears heard as the foreman kept echoing not guilty. The defendant's number wasn't up, only mine was yet he showed not one iota of reaction at the verdicts. I have an idea what the defendant was thinking and it was in line with my gut. I can spell it out for you…and Bingo was name oh.

Soul in a Bowl

The culmination of life amounts to the indelible imprint on our soul. I see no other explanation than humans being an intelligent model designed by a higher power. From the moment we arrive on this earth, we squirm free but are subject to physical boundaries and its nagging mortality. Gravity and the laws of the universe begin to press on us in a mad mad world.

I have never prescribed to one lifetime being enough time to get things right down here. Reincarnation seems plausible for it would mean the marriage of one soul to many lifetimes. I believe that our thoughts are not only real things but they are as important as our actions. For this reason, I believe that life also occurs on a subconscious level. Reactions to past thoughts become our fate, destiny, and karma. An individual’s fate is simply the rebounding effects of previous choices remembered by its soul. I believe the soul of each individual has purpose driven fate.

We live for today but ultimately we are here for a better tomorrow. In the meantime, souls have debts to pay over the course of many lifetimes. God is not keeping tally with a scorecard. God has created us as free will beings exercising our own destiny. We are small worlds unto ourselves and entire universes effecting each other in an ever-changing matrix. Contrary to crime and punishment sociology, sin is really crime against ourselves. Since our conscious mind is not always in tune with our subconscious, it is up to each individual to derive purpose and meaning from free will choices. The green green grass of our soul wants it that way. Time and space do not matter as much as we have been conditioned to believe in this measured existence, for poor choices can substantially derail the development of an infinite soul.

What is with all this heavy introspection on Freudian Slips? I just got to thinking of my purpose driven life while scrubbing toilet bowls in an interfaith church for supplemental income.

Slim Pickings

Two of my favorite pastimes are writing and eavesdropping. Pastimes recently collided while my pen idled with blank copy inside a crowded doctor’s office in downtown Philadelphia. As if summoned to stage, a peculiar looking hillbilly followed a regularly dressed man into the office.

After registering with the receptionist, the unlikely duo sat down within my listening distance. The hillbilly immediately came under everyone’s scrutiny from head to toe. Wrapped around the crown of his misshapen head, a dish towel crudely doubled as a bandana. On a ninety degree day stifled by humidity, he chose to fashion himself in a tee shirt and a sweatshirt. Below two layers of clothing, he wore dungaree shorts that looked like they had been artistically frayed by a pair of scrapbooking scissors. Color faded tube socks stretching to his kneecaps stuck out of combat boots. His unintentional appearance gave him no more credibility than a circus clown.

“I’m grateful for hiding me out on da boat on da river, boss.” thanked the hillbilly. “Da coppers never looked for me there.”

“Never mind about that.”

The hillbilly decided, “I’m right plumming to sharpen the machete when we get back to da shop.”

“You do that, Slim.”

Slim seemed to broadcast his every thought. “Maybe I’ll try out that new fangled machete by hacking da brush back yonder of da fence. It’s a sight for four eyes.”

“Four eyes? You mean sore eyes.” corrected the boss.

“No.” contradicted Slim. “I’m talking about me and you, boss. We’s got four eyes. Count’em.”

“Whatever. Just make sure all your work is done first before you go gangbusters.”

“Yessum, boss.” answered the hillbilly. “Work done before I get me to swinging the machete.”

A lull in the conversation allowed my pin backed ears respite while my scribbling pen kept up with the unfolding story. I knew I would be hard-pressed to invent a story this rich in character, this good in dialogue. Freudian Slips kept the live microphone on these characters.

As if wanting to prove he never earned a black belt in critical thinking, Slim invited more puzzling conversation. “I’m right fixing to pick poison ivy and swallowering me some of them there poison ivy leaves.”

The boss crinkled his newspaper shut and looked up for the first time. “Only nubian goats can get away with that. Why would you do that, Slim?” he asked disappointedly.

“One of my kin claims he made himself immune to the pestilence by eating poison ivy.”

“It sounds to me like someone in your family is trying to kill you! Don’t be stupid, Slim.” remonstrated the boss. “You keep flapping your gums with such nonsense in public and people are going to think differently of you.”

“I reckon that I’m gonna be different no two ways about it. So it might be hot doggie and kraut for lunch but I’m picking and eating poison ivy before dinner.” promised Slim. “Yep, gonna finally cure myself of da rash or croak trying.”

“Die trying is more like it. I’m telling you as your boss and as a trusted friend, don’t eat poison ivy on my property.”

“Don’t ya worry none, boss. I got me in my pocket that in-surance card ya gave to me. Just in case, ya know? Hospital has to take care of me with in-surance. They will put me somewhere if I eat poison ivy even this far from home. If I ate me poison ivy leaves in da big city what hospital da ya thin they would take me to?”

The annoyed boss concluded, “The mental hospital!”