100% Completely True Recollections with absolutely no embellishment, whatsoever.

"Dude, this weekend we're thinkin' about havin' pumpkin carvin'. You in?"

As soon as Cousin Leroy asked that question, I knew I should have hung up the phone, changed my number and moved far, far away where he could never reach me again. But I was an idiot, so I stayed on the line and contemplated accepting his invitation. During my internal deliberation on whether or not to accept his invitation, I thought long and hard about the potential for disaster. Sure, all of the ingredients for certain doom (Cousin Leroy, sharp objects, pumpkins) were present but I did a some quick calculations and postulated that my total finger loss for the night would be somewhere around the seven and a half percent range, give or take a tenth of a percent. If my theorem was proved to be correct I'd only be losing a mere two thirds of a finger. For a family outing, that really wasn't too bad.

Once I was comfortable enough with my potential for personal harm, I shifted gears to access the situation in terms of personal property damage. However, I knew that would require some pretty advanced trigonometry and there just wasn't enough time for trig, which of course disproved my High School Math Club's slogan "There's always time for Trig!"

Since I was unable to extrapolate precise numbers, I just assumed personal property damage would exceed my wildest expectations, which was par for the course of a family outing.

At that point, I shifted gears once again and reflected on the innumerable occasions in which Cousin Leroy and his wife had halfheartedly suggested having my wife and I over to their house for dinner. Every single solitary one of these occasions was exactly the same. While preparing to leave one of our get-togethers, Leroy's wife would fill their Tupperware with leftovers while Leroy made a sandwich for the road. He would then take a bite, suck his teeth and say, "Dude, thanks for having us over. We'll have ya'll over to the house sometime."

So, with promise of minimal damage, I gladly accepted my very first invitation to Cousin Leroy's house, with a simple, "Sure, I'll be there."

However, there was no answer on the other end of the phone. Instead there was nothing but a dial tone. Apparently Leroy mistook my brief pause for a dropped call and hung up. A few moments later, the phone rang again.

"Dude, I've been calling you for like a half an hour and I've just been getting a busy signal," Leroy huffed, tipping me off that my "brief" pause was not nearly as brief as I'd thought.

"Oh . . . really? That's weird, maybe something's wrong with your phone, because mine's working fine," I needlessly lied.

"Oh . . . ok, well, uh, we're thinking about doing it Friday, like around six o'clock or so. How does that sound?" Leroy asked.

"Sure, six o'clock sounds great. We'll see you Friday."

That Friday, on my drive home, I was looking forward to finally going to Cousin Leroy's fabled house and seeing it with my own eyes. However, as soon as I pulled up to the apartment complex I could see that a large crowd of people, all with pumpkins in hand, had gathered in the courtyard in front of my apartment. Among the few dozen people standing outside my apartment, I only recognized a few: Fee, D-Love, Buttons, Cousin Leroy and his wife, and my neighbor, Cool Dad, along with his boys, Sport and Champ.

Seeing these familiar faces didn't even prompt me to ask myself the obvious question, "Why is everyone meeting here if we're going over to Leroy's?" because I already knew the answer. It was never part of the plan for anyone to go over to Leroy's that night. No, instead, he had planned the entire time to have the event at my apartment. Honestly, at that very moment, all I could do was blame myself for not assuming that from the start. Seriously, why wouldn't I?

Hanging my head with disappointment, I got out of the car and approached the crowd only to be greeted by my very nervous wife, excitedly rambling, "Pookie, where's the food? Did you bring any food? Please tell me that you have food in the car because we don't have enough food for all these people. So did you bring food? Like for everyone? Because we just don't have it here. So is it in your car? Please tell me it's in your car. It's in your car, right?"

Before I could even address her concerns, I was hit by a barrage of questions from hungry would be pumpkin carvers. "Where's the food?" "Did you bring the food?" "Is there any food?" "Where's all the food?" "Ba-Har! Where's the grub?" "Anyone bring food?" "Where's the food?"

Above the rustling of the crowd, Cousin Leroy could be heard, bellowing out, "Duuude! Let me through," and just like that, everyone stepped aside, allowing Cousin Leroy access to the front of the crowd where he triumphantly stood before them, proclaiming, "Listen up, everyone! I know Mac totally screwed us by not bringing any food, but I took care of it. I ordered pizza for everyone! So everyone relax. While Mac goes to pick up the pizza, let's all just try to forget about what a terrible host he is and instead just try to enjoy carving our pumpkins."

Though Leroy's decree seemed to pacify the crowd, I was a bit less than happy. However, rather than strangling Cousin Leroy to death where he stood, like I had been doing over and over again in my mind since he began talking, I realized that if went to pick up the pizza, I would be removing myself from the carving situation completely. In turn, the total percentage of possible fingers to be severed during the carving would fall from the previously projected seven and a half percent to less than one percent. So with that in mind, I went to pick up the pizza.

One hundred sixty three dollars and fifty six cents later, I returned with fifteen large pizzas as well as all ten of my fingers. In typical fashion, no one offered to help bring the pizzas inside, so I had the pleasure of doing it myself and despite popular belief, carrying fifteen large pizzas all at one time wasn't as simple as it sounded. Since I couldn't see over or around the boxes, I had to take it slow and, step by step, use one foot and then the other to feel my way to the door.

After carefully balancing the pizzas between my knee and my chin, I was able to reach out and turn the door knob. Then it was just a question of getting the boxes through the door. Again, step by step, I somehow made it through.

Once inside, I was greeted with a friendly, "Bout time you showed up," from D-Love and a "Yeah, bout time, fat ass!" from Buttons as he punched me in the kidneys. Though the blow nearly brought me to my knees, I was able to maintain my balance and more importantly, the balance of the pizzas.

Though everyone was glad I "finally" showed up with pizza, there were no offers to help me put them on the table. However, I did receive some advice from Cousin Leroy when he so helpfully informed me, "Dude, you're gonna have to move the pumpkins off the table before you can set those pizzas down."

And yet again in typical fashion, no one offered to clear the carved pumpkins, or jack-o-lanterns as I liked to call them, off the table to make room for the pizzas. So that meant temporarily sitting the pizzas next to the table, on the floor, while I cleared the jack-o-lanterns off the table. And since there was no room anywhere else for the jack-o-lanterns, that meant that they too had to be transferred temporarily to the floor.

While I was moving the jack-o-lanterns from the table to the floor, I came across one that had yet to be carved. As soon as I picked it up, Cousin Leroy looked over from across the room and said, "Oh, hey, Mac, that one's yours. I saved it for you."

For a moment it was almost touching to think that Cousin Leroy had saved a pumpkin just for me. But then the bitter sweet moment turned to horror when he tossed a butcher knife at me, adding, "Oh and here's a knife so you can carve it. Catch!"

The moment the word "Catch!" left his mouth, time stood still. I fearfully watched as the knife came hurdling toward me in slow motion. With each rotation of the knife as it spun through the air, I envisioned losing much more than seven percent of my fingers. But in a split second, instinct took over and despite the impending doom that was staring me in the face, I was able to take a step back, successfully dodge the knife altogether, and save my precious fingers, all in one cat-like maneuver.

The only problem with taking a step back was that I failed to compensate for the virtual pumpkin patch I'd just created on my dining room floor. As it turned out, despite popular belief tripping over a pumpkin was much easier than it sounded. Luckily enough, I didn't happen to land on a pumpkin, which I imagine wouldn't have been very comfortable. Instead I had the great fortune of landing on a nice, pillow soft, stack of pizzas.

"That was so not cool," Cool Dad coolly observed with the utmost of coolness.

Once the pizzas were ruined, the Pumpkin Carvers cleared out quickly in search of another free meal. However, Cousin Leroy and his wife stayed behind to salvage what they could from the pizza wreckage and placed it into some Tupperware to take with them. As they exited, Cousin Leroy grabbed a slice of pizza, took a bite, sucked his teeth and said, "Dude, thanks for having us over. We'll have ya'll over to the house sometime."

~True Story.

As long as I’d known my wife, she had never been one for scary movies. Usually the commercial for a scary movie alone would be enough to send her into a state of panic, turning on all the lights and hiding under a blanket on the couch. Having seen her reaction to just the commercials for horror films in the past, I was nearly floored one night when Fee decided to master her fear of scary movies by watching a TBS presentation of “Night of the Living Dead.” Since it was edited for television, I figured no harm would come from watching it.

Four minutes into the movie, all of the lights in the apartment were on, the channel had been changed to MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16” and Fee was hysterically rocking back and forth on the couch, still shell shocked from what she’d seen.

Sometime later I was able to convince Fee to come bed and at that point, I assumed the worst was over. I was wrong.

At three o'clock in the morning I was jostled awake by my very frightened wife, hysterically whispering, "Psst! Psst! Psst! Pookie, there's someone at the door."

"They'll go away . . . go back to sleep," I mumbled, effectively kissing away any possible chance I had of getting a decent night's sleep.

"Go back to sleep? Go back to sleep? Some psycho-mutant-vampire-zombie-crack head is trying to break into our apartment and eat our faces off and you don't even care. You just want to go back to sleep and let them eat my face. I can't believe you. You're unbelievable."

"Ok, I'm up. I'm up. I'm up," I muttered, throwing back the covers, stepping out of bed, and adding, "Sit tight. I'll see who it is."

"Are you crazy?" Fee squealed while scrambling to pull the covers back up to her face. After she was 99% hidden away, with only her eyes and a bit of her forehead peaking through the top of the covers, she returned to her panicked whisper, "You're just going to leave me here so they can eat my face after they're done eating yours?"

"Nobody's getting there face eaten. I'm going to go answer the door, tell them to leave, and come back to bed with my face in tact and uneaten," I whispered in the most confidence i nspiring manner.

"You promise?" Fee asked, lowering the covers in a trusting gesture.

Before I could answer her, with a "Yes, I promise," the door bell rang again and all trust was lost.

"Oh my god, they're going to eat our faces!" Fee shrieked as she tucked herself completely away under the covers.

"They're not going to eat our faces," I repeated. "I'll be right back."

"Fine," Fee cried, "Go get your stupid face eaten off."

"No one's going to eat my face, I'll be right back."

Before I could even take one step out of the bedroom into the hallway, Fee, jumped out of bed, shouting, "Wait! You can't just leave me here! I'm coming with you."

A few moments later I was standing in front of the door with a very frightened Fee crouched down, hiding behind me. As I leaned forward to check the peephole, Fee began tugging at my shirt tail, franticly warning, "Don't do it. Don't check the peephole."

"Why wouldn't I check the peephole?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know, so they don't suck your face off through the peephole!" Fee snapped. "God, use your head!"

"Ok, seriously, I'm opening the door now," I said as I reached for the door knob. This action, of course, prompted Fee to sprawl out on the floor and strike a pose reminiscent of the chalk-lined bodies in police movies.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm playing dead so when they look at me, they'll think I'm already dead and then they won't want to eat my face off," Fee whispered.

After trying to think of something to say in response to Fee's idea of playing dead, I ultimately came up with nothing and decided to just open the door to see who it was that had been ringing my doorbell at three o'clock in the morning. As it turned out, there were no psycho-mutant-vampire-zombie-crack heads to be found. Instead, standing on the other side of the door were two obviously intoxicated teenage boys standing on either side of a man in his early-to-mid forties, wearing a leopard skin smoking jacket, holding a pipe in one hand and a snifter of brandy in the other.

"Oh, good, you're up," he began, "I'm hosting a little a pre-Halloween soiree for the boys tonight so I thought I'd do the neighborly thing and extend an invitation your way."

Though I was tempted to slam the door in his face, I had to ask, "I'm sorry, but who are you?"

"I'm your new neighbor. All the kids call me Cool Dad, so feel free to do the same," he smiled before talking a sip of his brandy. He then pointed to the teenagers, one at a time, explaining, "These are my boys, Sport and Champ." He then took another sip of brandy and just for clarity added, "Champ here is the eldest."

Not caring even in the slightest bit, I attempted to hurry them along. "That's great to know, Cool Dad. I'm Mac and that's my wife, Fee, over there on the floor. It was nice to meet you. Good night."

However, before I could shut the door, Fee popped up to join the conversation. "Did you say there was a soiree? I love soirees."

"Well, then you're going to have the time of your life tonight, little lady," Cool Dad began. "You see, at Cool Dad's soirees, there are no rules. That's why there so cool."

"I'm sure they're the coolest," I interrupted, "but it's three o'clock in the morning, the word soiree is being used way too frequently for my taste, and I have to get some sleep before I go to work tomorrow so . . . "

Before I could finish, I was cut off by Fee, whimpering, "Oh, come on, Pookie, a soiree sounds really cool. Let's go. Come on. Please? Please? Please, please, please? Pretty please?"

"No, we're not going and that's the end of story," I asserted.

Forty six "pretty pleases" later, we were walking across the hall to Cool Dad’s pre-Halloween soiree. We had barley set foot into Cool Dad’s apartment and Fee had already let out a blood curdling scream. As it turned out, Cool Dad neglected to mention that his pre-Halloween soiree was a costume party . . . and that zombies were a popular costume choice amongst his guests.

“ZOMBIES! RUN!” Fee shrieked as she dived for the doorway, oblivious to the fact I was standing in said doorway. With her adrenaline fully pumping, Fee hit me with enough force to send me sailing into the air like a paper airplane.

By the time I went crashing down in the hallway, I realized two things. The first was that Fee was an incredibly fast sprinter as she already run down the hallway and safely locked herself inside our apartment. The second was that the thunderous pop I’d heard coming from my shoulder when I landed was a sure fire signal that I would need medical attention.

Later that night, as Cool Dad drove me to the emergency room, I swore I’d never watch another scary movie with Fee as long as I lived.

~True Story.

Two years ago, D-Love got married. Shortly after doing so, he and his wife put in an offer for a new home on the North East side of town. After closing on the house, D-Love made it very clear to me that it was my responsibility to rent a truck, box up their belongings, and any and all of their home furnishings to their new address before they returned from their honeymoon. After all, I was assigned the title of "Assistant to the Best Man" in his wedding, and that was one of the many, many contractual obligations that came with assuming the position.

After completing my Assistant to the Best Man duties, several weeks passed and though I'd heard from Fee that D-Love had returned from the honeymoon, I'd heard nothing whatsoever from D-Love, himself. I thought it was odd that he hadn't called to chastise my decorating scheme, as I was sure it wasn't up to D-Love's standard of feng shui, or to belittle me for organizing his DVD collection alphabetically by title, rather than by his preferred method – reverse chronological by mood. However, strange as it was that he hadn't called to dish out a tongue lashing, I was sure it was inevitable and the stress of waiting was starting to take its toll.

A few days later, I was getting a bit sick from sleepless nights, worrying what may happen when D-Love finally decided to call, so I figured it would be better to just suck it up call him myself in hopes that he would be impressed enough with my initiative to spare me a lecture on feng shui. However, calling him presented a "slight" problem. The slight problem was that do to a mix up at the phone company involving several alleged unpaid bills, I had no home telephone. That combined with the fact that I still trying to wait it out and see whether or not the whole "cellular telephone craze" was going to last, I had no cell phone.

So with no home phone and no cell phone, I was completely phone-less.  For the most part, it didn't affect me though, because I would just use Fee's cell phone. However, Fee had just purchased a brand new, state of the art cell phone with text messaging. That being said, using it was off limits because she was competing for the title of "2005's 24/7Text-Queen" and needed it all times.   

I found myself in the rather unique position of being phone-less. So, on a particularly frigid fall day, I had to call D-Love from the pay phone, outside the convenient store, down the street from my apartment.

After D-Love accepted the charges for the call, I began the conversation in typical fashion. "D? What's up man? It's Mac."

"Oh . . . it's you," D-Love sighed with even more hostility than usual. "So what? You're too good to answer any of my emails?"

"You've been sending me emails? I'm sorry man, but I don't have the internet," I apologized.

After a slight pause, D-Love took on the most seriously concerned tone I'd ever heard him use, asking, "Are you telling me you . . . You don't have the internet?"

"No. I don't even have access to a computer now that you moved out, so it's not like I have any real use for the internet," I explained.

D-Love's concerned tone shifted towards a bitter anger. "Well, you know what I don't have any use for? A friend who doesn't have the internet, a computer, a cell phone, or cable . Mac, you need to step
into the new millennium and until you do, all I have to say is . . . frenemy mode activated."

For a brief moment I thought he was joking, however, the sound of the receiver beeping on the other end was a sure indicator that he was serious. By the time I realized that the decade long friendship I'd put my entire heart and soul into had just dissolved over my technological short comings, it started to rain. And it wasn't just a little misty rain either. No, it was a hard, nasty, British style rain with those enormous water balloon drops that explode with an extra little burst of super-wetness when they land. They were the kind of raindrops that always hit you in the face, no matter how much you try to cover it up . . . to say the least, it was a long, sad, wet walk home.

By the time I got home, I was soaking wet and fairly certain pneumonia was setting in, however that was the least of my worries, for as it was, D-Love's "frenemy" embargo was in full effect and Fee was none too pleased.  

"I am none too pleased," Fee huffed without even pausing to look up from the text message she was sending, "I just got a text message from D-Love and he informed me that frenemy mode had been activated. Do you have any idea what that means?"

"Actually . . .  no. I have no idea what that means . . .  but I'm sure it's bad," I answered as I stripped out of my wet clothes.

"A frenemy is like a friend that’s also like your enemy and Pookie . . . it's bad. It's very bad. It's so bad that it's like really really bad," Fee explained, clearing up any possible confusion . . . all the while, her thumbs blazing in text messaging fury. “I mean, God, Pookie . . . it’s bad. You do realize, now that frenemy mode has been activated, you’re going to lose all benefits of BF status?”

“What’s BF and what are the benefits?” I asked as I covered myself with a mound of blankets on the couch.

“Uh, hello? BF? Best friend, duh, where have you been? And don’t act like you don’t know the benefits of being D-Love’s BF. I mean, seriously, BF status with D-Love means you get to do all kind of great stuff, like getting put charge of his day to day special projects and being able personally assist him on his super secret special projects . . . but in frenemy mode . . . you don’t get to do any of that stuff, Pookie. All you’ll be able to do is just, like, hang out with him and stuff like a normal person . . . and I know that’s really going to suck for you because I know how much it means to you being D-Love’s BF.”

After hearing Fee’s explanation of the entitlements I would possibly lose during the switch to frenemy mode, I fought through the violent shivers that were rattling my body down to the core, using nearly all of my remaining energy to ask, “S-so you’re s-saying d-during fre-frenemy mode, I’ll be d-downgraded to h-hanging out pri-privileges only?” so that I could be sure I wasn’t just suffering delusions of grandeur brought on by the pneumonia.

“Yeah, sucks, huh?” Fee answered, confirming that I was far from hallucinating and that the effort I’d put into fighting off sleep for another moment was well worth it.

“Yeah . . . that’s uh, th-that’s t-t-too b-bad,” I whispered as I drifted off to sleep inside the afghan cocoon I’d created for myself on the couch.

Though I’m sure the pneumonia should have killed me on that particularly frigid day, I somehow made it through the night and awoke the next morning feeling more rested than I’d ever felt in my life. Without weight of D-Love’s oppression crushing my spirit, I was a free man. Free to be happy and enjoy all that life had to offer . . . as long as frenemy mode was still active.

On the eve of the two year anniversary of frenemy mode’s declaration, the embargo was still in full effect and life couldn’t have been better. My new job as a Government employed graphic illustrator was full of exciting and challenging tasks that made each and every work day a fulfilling, life enriching experience. The positive work environment combined with eager and energetic co-workers as well as a competitive Government pay scale all helped turn what started as a just another dead end job into a fascinating career.

Aside from success at work, I found myself making great personal strides as well. I had finally over come my smoking habit. I lost weight. I won friends. I influenced people. And the icing on top of the sugary sweet cake that I called my life came piling itself on when Fee and I finally took our engagement to the next step and got married. Even though D-Love was in attendance as one of my groomsmen, I was able to survive the ordeal unscathed, with my sanity in tact, thanks to the hands-off policy stated in the Frenemy Mode Proclamation . . . the official notarized document D-Love’s lawyer drafted.

Yeah, life was good. Nothing but glorious sunsets, sweet flowers, fine wines and wedded bliss were in my future . . . then something went horribly wrong.

A few days after the honeymoon, I came home from another great day at the office to find a Time Warner Cable Television Installation Specialist in the living room of my apartment, crouched down beside the entertainment system, hooking a coaxial cable to my television.

“Uh, I’m sorry, what are you doing?” I asked, as perplexed as I’d ever been.

“Oh, I’m just finishing up in here. I already hooked the cable modem up in the back room, so you’re internet is fired up and ready. I’ll be outta yer hair in just a ‘sec,” the cable guy informed me.

“There must be some sort of mistake. I didn’t order cable. I didn’t order the internet either. I don’t even have a computer,” I began to explain only to be interrupted by a loud, “You do now!” coming from an all too familiar voice from a dark corner of the room.

My heart skipped a beat as D-Love stepped out of the shadows with a wide smile. “Consider it my wedding gift,” D-Love smirked.

“Consider what your wedding gift?” I cringed.

“Look around you, Mac. It’s time you stepped into the he new millennium. And that’s my gift to you. I’m bringing you into the new millennium, bud. So I signed you up for the whole enchilada, baby - the total package. Cable. Internet. Cingular wireless. And a pimped out new iMac cuz that’s how I roll,” D-Love explained.

“You signed me up? You mean like ‘I’m going to have to pay for this stuff’ signed me up?”

“Oh, yeah, they’re gonna bill you for this stuff, Mac. They don’t just give it to you for free, otherwise they would go out of business . . . geez, get with it. But, hey, you can thank me for all that later. Right now, I want to get down to business and give you your real gift,” he said while presenting me with an envelope.

I opened the envelope to find a very official looking, notarized certificate. I began reading it aloud “This BF Upgrade is hereby presented to Mac . . .” and at that point I quit reading. My jaw dropped and my grip loosened. I tried to clench the paper in my hand, really I did, but my brain just wouldn’t communicate with my fingers. As the BF Certificate went sailing to the floor, I looked over at D-Love. He was smiling with his arms stretched widely in preparation of an impending hug. With each inch closer to the ground the paper came, I could feel D-Love’s hug getting more and more inevitable. By the time the piece of paper landed on the carpet, it was too late. I was in mid-hug with D-Love, which according to the BF Certificate meant I was in compliance with the rules and regulations of the contract and I’d accepted the terms for being D-Love’s best friend. So there I stood, hugging D-Love in front of the Cable Guy in my apartment and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that things were going back to the way they were . . . frenemy mode was officially over.

-True Story.

The moment I opened the door, the shouting began. “Welcome to Schmoe’s!” they shouted. “Welcome to Schmoe’s!” I hadn’t even taken a full step into the restaurant (I was doing that “one foot in/one foot out” thing in the doorway, trying to make up my mind) and I already had at least forty six different people shouting at me.

“Welcome to Schmoe’s!”

For a moment I thought about turning around and driving far, far away from the headache I was sure would follow from attempting to order a burrito during the dinner rush at the trendy new chain restaurant. However, before I could blink, think, or say a word, I was shoved through the entryway by the mob of burrito fanatics rushing in behind me. Then, in a whirlwind of confusion, before I knew it, I had somehow become part of the mob and, at that point, I knew there was no turning back. No getting out. No leaving. For better or worse, like it or not, I was going to order my first burrito from Schmoe’s Southwest Grille.

“Welcome to Schmoe’s!” the shouting continued as I was pushed and prodded by customers in front, behind, beside and even above of me . . . yes, it was so crowded that people were actually hanging from the ceiling . . . seriously. Adding insult to injury, the surrounding customers were a veritable who’s who of worthless human beings.

Going down the mental check list, I spotted (in no particular order): a cell phone chatting yuppie, a soccer mom who got stuck taking the team of hell raisers out for some post game grub, a teenage couple obscenely groping each other, a creepy old guy in an overcoat watching the groping teenagers just a little too closely, either several smelly guys or possibly just one super smelly guy . . . it was hard to tell in that kind of a crowd. . . one old lady with way too much perfume, and, as always, an angry old man aimlessly ranting to no one in particular that hamburgers should still cost a nickel.

Worst of all, one of those hippie moms that allow their four year child to make their own choices was heading up the front of the line. Her daughter, who actually was a cute kid and I have nothing against, was busy being a four year old, day dreaming and staring into space. However, the mom was holding up the line to repeatedly ask her day dreaming four year old, “What do you want? Do you want a taco? A taco? Do you want a taco? What do you want? Do you want a taco? Do you want a taco? What do you want? Do you want a taco?”

“Just get the kid taco and get the hell out of the way!” I screamed . . . in my mind. In reality, I stood in line silently waiting for my turn to order like an idiot. The waiting continued for quite some time as the hippie mom made her way through the ordering process, which was set up in a sort of assembly line fashion, where each individual worker had one task to perform. One guy took your order, another guy heated up the tortilla, another guy down the line sprinkled on some shredded cheese and then things continued on down the line. That of course meant, any time the hippie mom was presented an option, “beans?” for instance, it gave her ample opportunity to raise my blood pressure while asking her daughter “Do you want beans? Beans? Do you want beans on your taco? Beans? Beans? Do you want beans?”

Sometime later, the hippie mom had completed her order and the pace of things began to step up. Perfume Lady, Cell Phone Yuppie, Soccer Mom, Super Smelly Guy, Angry Old Man, Groping Teens and Creepy Overcoat Guy all made their respective ways through line and finally – FINALLY – it was my turn.

“Welcome to Schmoe’s! Can I take your order please?” The first guy in the assembly line asked.

“Yes. I’d like a chicken burrito, please,” I promptly responded.
“Sir, you’re going to have to be a little more specific. We have nineteen different chicken burritos,” he informed me.

It was then that I realized, during the commotion and chaos of standing in line, I hadn’t even looked at the menu and I was operating under the blind assumption that a chicken burrito would be a staple of a burrito restaurant. I was wrong. Schmoe’s Southwest Grille did not serve self explanatory items like “Chicken Burritos.” Instead, they served things with cute names like “The Dreaming Doodad” and “The Silly Snugglebug.” Each of these “cute” items had an even “cuter” description, like “all white meat chicken, pulled from the sky, kissed by the sun, and intertwined by fate.”

Instead of attempting to read through each and every item, I pleaded with the Order Taking Guy, “Seriously, you don’t just have a chicken burrito?”

“We have nineteen of them, sir. If you need more time to make up your mind, you can step out of line and allow someone else to order,” he snapped before shouting, “Welcome to Schmoe’s!”

“I don’t need more time to make up my mind. My mind is already made up. I want a chicken burrito,” I explained.

By that time, someone who I assumed was the manager (mostly because he was wearing a shirt that said “The Manager”) relieved Order Taking Guy of his duty. “Welcome to Schmoes!” he shouted. “May I take your order, sir?”

“Ok, maybe you can help me out. I’ve been trying to order just a plain chicken burrito,” I began, this time hopeful that the manager would understand where I was coming from. However, I was cut off by the manager, who rudely interrupted with, “Sir, unless you order something from our menu, we’re going to have to ask you to leave . . . Welcome to Schmoe’s!”

At that point I decided to just rattle off the title of the first thing I saw on the menu, “I’ll have a Squeezy Slapenheimer, please.”

“Sir, the Squeezy Slapenheimer is a ‘lunch only’ item. You need to order off the dinner menu,” he corrected me, before adding, “and as I’ve said before, you need to order something or we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

“You can’t make me leave,” I asserted.

One minute, twenty nine seconds later, several large assembly line workers escorted me off the premises, shouting, “You’re no longer welcome at Schmoe’s!”

-True Story.

 

Once upon a time, my fiancée bought me a pink shirt. According to her, I was thrilled about it. I was also very touched that, with D-Love’s help, Fee personalized the shirt by spelling out “Pookie” in faux diamonds on the left breast pocket with her “As seen on TV Bedazzler.”  I was thrilled indeed. So much so, that I told her I had to wait until a special occasion to wear it. Several weeks past and luckily no such occasion arose.

Over time I had gradually moved the shirt from the front of the closet, where it stared me in the face each morning, to the very back . . .behind a box of old sweaters . . . under a pile of old blankets . . .  where it became a distant memory. For quite some time, I lived contently with the thought that only a monumental occasion would jar Fee’s memory enough to unearth the shirt. Luckily for me, my life was boring and nothing ever happened. Then one day, I got a new job. The first thing Fee said was, “Pookie, that’s great, now you get to wear your pink shirt!” I was pretty “thrilled.”

In the early morning confusion of my first day of “real” work, I somehow managed to slip out of the apartment without alerting Fee to the obvious fact that I wasn’t wearing the pink shirt. However, shortly after running out the door, I realized that I had forgotten something of moderate importance - it had somehow slipped my mind to inform my previous employer that I would be relinquishing my thrown as “Supreme Chancellor of the Dewey Decimal System.” So, as I stood in the parking lot, I fiddled with my keys and contemplated whether or not to risk exposing the fact that I neglected to wear the shirt just order to say my final “goodbye” to the library. After a few more minutes of fiddling, which I thoroughly enjoyed, as I’d always been quite an avid fiddler, I ultimately decided to suck it up and brave going back inside to break the news to one of my soon-to-be-former-co-workers.

From the moment I entered the hallway, I could hear muffled sounds of someone giggling with delight. As I approached the door to my apartment, the giggling grew louder and more distinct. It was Fee. I would recognize her giggle pattern anywhere; three “hee hee hees” followed by a very squeaky fart . . . she would always let one slip when she laughed, yet for some unknown reason it never stunk.

I opened the door and walked in, just in time to catch the tail end of yet another one Fee-Love’s inside jokes. Fee was sitting at the breakfast table, giggling and passing unscented gas, while D-Love sat across from her, shoveling in spoonfuls of cereal. Neither of them acknowledged the fact that I had entered the room. Instead, Fee continued to giggle and D-Love chewed as fast as he could in order to get back to his story.  Obviously he couldn’t chew fast enough, because all of a sudden, in mid-chew, D-Love picked up a glass of orange juice, took a sip, shrugged his shoulders and nonchalantly muttered, “So then I said, shama-lama-do.” As a result of his comment, Fee erupted into the most uncontrollable fit of spastic laughter I had ever witnessed.

Granted I had missed the entire set up of the joke and I had no earthly idea what the punch-line meant, but I was sure it was supposed to be funny in some way, shape or form, so I politely asked, “What’s so funny?”

Finally noticing I was in the room, Fee and D-Love looked up from the breakfast table and stared at me, both in their own unique ways. Fee stared at me with a puzzled look on her face and D-Love gave me the evil eye between sips of orange juice. After just a few seconds I began to feel a bit uncomfortable. In an effort to break the tension, I nervously asked, “Ok . . . seriously, what’s so funny?”

D-Love spat out a sip of orange juice and immediately launched into another one of his tirades, waving his arms as he lectured, “My god, Mac, look at yourself!”

Fee then followed, asking “Pookie, what on earth are you wearing?”

“Uh . . . clothes,” I replied.

“Uh, where’s the shirt we set out?” D-Love asked with a roll of the eyes.

“What shirt?” I asked in an attempt to play stupid.

“The pink shirt we made for you. I set it out for you this morning. Why didn’t you wear it? Do you not like it? Is something wrong with it?” Fee asked concernedly.

“Well,” I began, “I just didn’t think today was a special enough occasion to wear it, so I wanted to save it for something really special” I explained as best as I could.

“Nonsense!” D-Love snarled as he slammed down his glass. “Today would have been perfect and you know it!” he shouted as he stood up from the table. “Now, you’ve ruined breakfast,” he said in a disgusted huff. “I’ll be in my room,” D-Love snapped before turning to Fee to add a very half hearted, “jibba jabba.”

“Jibba jabba,” Fee whispered to D-Love as if painfully disappointed. She then looked at me with a rather doe eyed sad look and pleaded, “Pookie, it would mean a lot to D-Love if you’d wear the pink shirt.”

“I don’t care what he wants. I’m not wearing that stupid pink shirt,” I asserted  . . . in my mind. In reality, I said “ok” and then walked into the bedroom and picked up the shirt that was laid out on the bed. Just as I began picking it up, D-Love popped his head in the door and gave me the evil eye, commanding, “Iron it before you wear it.” He then flung a can of starch at me and shook his head as he sighed, “Pfft . . . show some pride.”

Not wanting to incur the wrath of D-Love, I began ironing the stupid pink shirt. Since D-Love was still in the room, hovering above me, I couldn’t skimp on the quality of the ironing job. This of course meant applying not one, but two coats of starch to bring it up to par with D-Love’s ironing standards. In the middle of my second coat of starch, I looked over my shoulder and found D-Love, arms crossed, nodding his head in approval. He must have been pleased with my ironing skills. He then must have assumed I was capable of ironing a shirt without supervision so he exited the room without so much as a single word.

It wasn’t until I was nearly finished ironing the stupid pink shirt that I remembered why I had even come back inside in the first place. I had to quit my job. Well, I didn’t have to quit my job but I was going to anyhow just to appease Fee and D-Love. Once I refocused on quitting my job, I put down the iron and walked into the living room where I picked up the phone and called the library.

Then I may or may not have had a very “heartfelt” conversation with Ethel, in which she may or not have wished me well, saying something to the effect of, “Dearest Mac, you’ll be greatly missed. And even though you’re irreplaceable, we’ll still somehow manage to get along without you . . .  though it will be nearly impossible.” At that point, she may or may not have sniffled as she shed a tear, adding, “You’ve always been the glue that held this place together.”

After Ethel may or may not have dried her eyes, she may or may not have continued, “After all, I speak for everyone in saying we hold no ill will towards you. We all wish you luck in your pursuit of bigger and better things.” And just as Ethel may or may not have been saying “we’ll miss you” in six different languages . . .  she was always quite worldly . . . I caught a whiff of something burning. It smelled as if a nylon poly-cotton blend fabric was smoldering in the distance. It was.

I ran back into the bedroom to find the iron that I carelessly laid down was burning a nice little iron imprint into the left breast pocket of the stupid pink shirt. So I snatched up the iron and wafted the fumes away, praying that neither Fee nor D-Love would notice them before I could throw on the shirt and run out of the apartment. But I was too late.

“Pookie, what’s that smell?” I could hear Fee yelling from the other room. Not wanting to tip her off to the fact that I burnt my shirt, I stalled, “What?”

“What’s that smell?” She repeated. “It smells like a burnt shirt.”

“You better not have burnt that shirt!” D-Love chimed in.

Not wanting to raise their suspicions, I cleverly covered my tracks. “Oh, you smell that too? I don’t know what that is. It’s definitely not a burnt shirt or anything like that. I don’t know what it could be,” I lied as I threw the shirt over my head and slipped my arms through the sleeves in one fluid motion.

Just as I finished sliding the shirt on, D-Love rushed in and popped the cap off of his magic marker as he surveyed the room. “What’s going on in here?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” I instinctively replied as I placed my hand over my heart, covering the burn on my left breast pocket. My heart was pounding so fast in fear of getting busted that my mind went blank. I then blurted out the first explanation I could think of, “I’m . . .  uh . . . saying the pledge of allegiance.”

My pledge of allegiance story was perhaps the dumbest alibi in history; however I was pretty certain D-Love bought it. After all, he didn’t refute my comment in the least bit. Instead, he just gave me an evil eye, hoping I’d crack under the pressure and fess up. But I never cracked. I held on strong until D-Love shook his head in defeat and placed the cap back on his magic marker. “Very well,” he sighed. “You’ve won this round.” He then gave me one more evil eye just for good measure and exited the room, closing the door behind him.

With a relieved sigh of victory, I took my hand off of my chest and looked down to see a hideous black mark on an already hideous pink shirt. Once again I was “thrilled.” Then I took a few moments to gather my thoughts and put myself back together so that I could plot out my escape. I cracked open the door, careful to stand behind it just enough to cover the burn on my left breast pocket. I peaked out into the hallway and saw that D-Love’s door was shut. He was more than likely getting dressed for work. A wave of relief washed over me. If he was busy getting dressed then the only thing I had to worry about was slipping past Fee undetected. The only problem was that I didn’t see or hear any signs of Fee.

My mind began wondering as I imagined she was standing on the other side of the door, poised and ready to strike. If she busted me with the burnt shirt, she would surely tell D-Love and god only knows what would happen . . . well, more than likely he’d just give me a mean look and tell me to change shirts. However, I was in no mood for mean looks and I was running late enough for work as it was, I didn’t have time to iron and starch another shirt to D-Love’s freakishly obsessive standards.

Just as I began to wonder where she could be I heard the kitchen faucet turn on. I immediately assumed Fee washing out the cereal bowls from breakfast and I just flat out didn’t have time to assume otherwise. Had I sat around and worried about it any longer, my window of opportunity to bolt would have closed. So just like that I decided to make a run for it. I flung open the door and “sprinted” down the hallway, and by “sprinted” I mean “power walked” . . . I was never much of an athlete. As I “sprinted” past the kitchen, I heard Fee’s voice yell out, “Have a good day, Pookie!” I was “sprinting” so fast that I didn’t even have time to acknowledge her. Before I knew it I was already in the hallway and all I could think was “wow, I was right, it was Fee in the kitchen.”

The next thing I knew I was approaching my car in the parking lot. Since I was home free, I shifted gears from “power walk” to “leisurely stroll,” which was a nice change of pace. I then reached into my pocket and fiddled with my keys for a moment while I reflected on my victorious get away. As I fiddled with my keys and congratulated my own brilliance, I started getting a strange feeling, a bad feeling actually. Then my heart skipped a beat as I came to the earth shattering realization that on my first day of work, I was going to wear an iron scorched pink shirt with half melted sequins on it . . . It was a special occasion indeed.

-True Story.

During my three year reign as “Supreme Chancellor of the Dewey Decimal System,” . . . well . . . as a “Library Technical Assistant,” every single morning of my life was exactly the same . . . crappy. This of course was a direct result of my crappy morning routine, which was crappy, by the way, through no fault of my own. After all, I never intended on having a crappy morning routine. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t just wake up one day, fling open my window, wave my scepter in the air and decree to the peasants, “from this day forth, each morning shall suck incredibly! So shall it be written, so shall it be done!” Well, sure, I made several proclamations per week because I was a man of the people, but that particular declaration was never made. But that was neither here nor there. The point was that I didn’t plan it out.

Had I actually planned out a morning routine, it would have been awesome. So awesome that it would have inspired envy and gossip. Well, it wouldn’t have been tabloid worthy, but it certainly would have had potential to be the centerpiece of conversation around the water cooler at work. Between sips of coffee, the other librarians would gossip, saying things like, “You hear about Mac? . . . One hell of a morning routine he’s got.” And then the new guy from Interlibrary Loans would interject, asking, “Why are we standing next to a water cooler if we’re all drinking coffee?” And then the other librarians would socially ostracize him for drawing attention away from the gossip worthy awesomeness of my morning routine . . . and he would totally deserve it.

Sadly, that fantasy never materialized due to sheer lack of planning. I never planned my routine because, facing facts, it wasn’t up to me to plan. No, it was up to fate. And fate decided that I would wake up at exactly seven thirty five every morning. And it was fate that left me just enough time to hop in the shower for two minutes and forty seconds . . . the bare minimum it took to wash up with some Power Scrub Body Wash. I found its Mountain Mist scent refreshing and revitalizing.

After the world’s quickest shower, I would brush my teeth as I was drying off. Then I would take a look in the mirror and realize I looked like crap. I would then briefly entertain the notion of shaving. But then fate would step in amidst my morning disorientation and I would miraculously remember two valuable pieces of information. The first was that razors are insanely sharp and the second was that I was still really freaking tired. At that point, based on what on what little information I had, I would use my keen detective skills to deduce that there just wasn’t enough time to shave successfully, and by “successfully” I mean “without a trip to the emergency room.”

So it was always then that, rather than shaving, I’d just rush out of the bathroom and throw on whatever clothes were clean enough to wear. Then I’d give my fiancée a kiss goodbye and I’d rush out the door, at about five ‘til eight, usually still a little soggy feeling from the shower . . . uh . . . I mean refreshed and revitalized from the crisp clean scent of Mountain Mist Power Scrub Body Wash . . . making me fifteen minutes late for work.

And that was the crappy morning routine I went through every single day for three solid years. It was monotonous. It was boring. But it was fate and no force on earth could change it. However, that’s not to say that my fiancée, Fee, and my best friend and roommate, D-Love, together referred to as the single entity, Fee-Love, didn’t try they’re absolute best.

Fee-Love, as they were affectionately dubbed by friends and co-workers as a means to pay homage to inseparable Hollywood power couples like Bennifer and Brangelina, spent every waking moment together; partying, vacationing, laughing at inside jokes, speaking in code languages, and planning my life for me. Fee-Love’s first step in planning my life was to set me up with a job. Sure, I already had a great job, and by “great” I actually just mean “adequate,” but Fee-Love failed to recognize that working in a library was work at all. Apparently they were under the impression that for the past three years I was unemployed and that I did volunteer work at the Library for forty hours a week. So, unbeknownst to me at the time, Fee-Love used their connections to set me up with my “first” job in a marketing department for an undisclosed government agency.

As it was explained to me the night before my first day of “real work,” I needed to make every effort to wake up early in the morning and start my day off right so that I could lay the foundation for a solid morning routine right from the beginning. Not to mention it was important to be on time for my first day of “real work.”

I attempted to explain to Fee-Love that waking up before seven thirty-five was impossible. That it was just out of my hands. That it was fate and it couldn’t be changed. However, they assured me that my first day of “real work” would be different; that they would see to it that I was up and ready to start the day at six forty-five; that there would be no excuses for being late to work.

But as fate would have it, I began my first day of “real work” just the same as every other day . . . by mechanically hitting the snooze button at six forty five on the dot, the very second the alarm starting buzzing its annoying alarm clock buzz. However, attempting to work against fate, precisely nine seconds later, my loving fiancée, Fee, who was the epitome of a “morning person,” stretched out her arms with a smile, signifying another wonderful night’s sleep, and threw back the covers, ready for another glorious day. She then tapped me on the shoulder, saying “Time to get up, Pookie.” No sooner than the word “Pookie,” left her mouth did she hop out of bed and begin singing rather loudly. She continued singing as she gleefully bounced around from room to room, turning on every light in the apartment, as she made her way to the bathroom.

Since neither the soft glow of sixty watt light bulbs gleaming in the hallway nor the faint sounds of Fee’s singing in the bathroom were enough to fully wake me I was able to lay in bed in a vegetative state for another nine minutes until the snooze button did its job again at six fifty-four, triggering the alarm to sound off its annoying alarm clock buzz. But once again fate prompted me to hit the snooze button for another nine minutes of vegetative bliss. However, that morning my second round of snoozing was cut short. This was due to the fact that as seven o’clock on the dot, Fee rushed back into the room and flung open the window curtains, cheering, “It’s seven o’clock! Time to wake up, sleepy head! You’ve got your first day of real work today!”

Normally a large blast of sunlight hitting me directly in the eyes was just enough to cause me to roll over and cover my face with a pillow, but it never fully woke me. So to ensure that I woke up on time, Fee then hopped back into bed and repeatedly shook me until my thousand pound eye lids cracked open just enough to make out a faint blur of her face outlined by her spiky hair. I can only imagine that Fee mistook my slightly opened eyelids as a sign that I was wide awake and ready to engage in a riveting conversation. I imagined this, of course, because the very second my pupils became visible she immediately began recapping her previous night’s dream without taking a single breath.

“Pookie, last night I dreamed I was still a little kid and then this Chinese guy with a tattoo of a frog on his face killed my uncle with a stapler and then he looked over at me and since I was a little kid I was crying when he looked at me you know and he said he was going to kill me too by baking me in a pie with raisins and then he was going to eat me and then all of a sudden the frog tattoo on his face turned into a real frog and jumped off his face and landed in my lap and then me and the frog became friends and the Chinese guy just disappeared or something, I don’t know what happened to him, because I was too busy hanging out with the frog who sounded just like this kid I knew in high school.” Then in an attempt to get my mind working in the early morning hours she ended her dream recap with the burning question, “that’s crazy. True or false?”

Fate decided I would fall back asleep without answering her. It was at that point that Fee made one final effort to wake me by enlisting the help of D-Love. “Code Red!” she screamed. A moment later, D-Love triumphantly burst into the room with his fist in the air, drawing attention to his secret decoder ring. I may have just been halfway dreaming, but I’m almost certain that when he entered the room a flash of light shone forth from his ring as he exclaimed “Fee-Love activate!” But I may have dreamed that . . . it could go either way really.

After he burst through the door, he then leaped across the room and jumped on the bed where he straddled my head and farted directly in my face, waking me instantly. As fate would have it, I awoke from D-Love’s nasty colon blast to the face at seven thirty-five on the dot, leaving me just enough to time to hop in the shower, brush my teeth, think about shaving and then decide not to, throw on some clothes, kiss Fee goodbye and run out the door at five until eight. After all, that was my fate and nothing could alter it.

-True Story.

The day before Thanksgiving, I got a call from my mom. “I think Super Big Mart’s having a sale this Friday on those USB thing-a-ma-jigs.”

Not sure my mother even knew what a USB thing-a-ma-jig was; I had to ask, “Ma, you know that’s for your computer, right?”

“Yes, I know it’s for the computer. Your dad said we need one. You’ll have to come over and show us how to use it later, though.”

“All you have to do is plug it into your USB port,” I explained. After a solid minute of dead silence on the other end of the phone, I added, “You actually have four USB ports on the front of your CPU . . . they’re all labeled ‘USB port.’”

“Oh, I don’t think we have a CPU,” she responded.

“Ma, you have a CPU,” I assured her.

“You’ll have to come over some time and show us what you’re talking about,” she sighed.

“Or I could just show you when we come over for Thanksgiving,” I offered. “By the way, what time did you want us to come over tomorrow?” I asked.

“Uh . . . uh . . . yeah . . . uh . . . about that . . . ” She continued stalling and floundering about until she came up with the brilliant idea of faking a call on the other line. “Oh, I have a beep . . . uh . . . I gotta go.” Her rouse may have fooled me if she actually had call waiting. But that’s neither here nor there. Rather the point was that, for the first time in my adult life, I was going to attempt to brave the “Black Friday” frenzy in order to get my mom a new USB thing-a-ma-jig.

Around eleven o’clock on Thanksgiving night, I drove down to Super Big Mart in an attempt to get a jump on the competition, however, rather than seeing an empty parking lot, I was greeted by several hundred anxious shoppers in sleeping bags. Even though I wasn’t the first in line, I was still quite confident I had gotten an adequate enough jump on the opposition to secure myself one of the USB thing-a-ma-jigs my mom so desperately needed. However, after waiting in line for less than a minute, I found out just exactly how wrong I was.

The angry mob of shoppers had grown so impatient that some pushing and shoving began in line shortly after my arrival. Before long, the pushing and shoving turned into punching, kicking, and biting. Punching, kicking, and biting, quickly turned into chaos.

A little bit later, just as the last car in the parking lot was being flipped over and set on fire, the doors of the Super Big Mart went swinging open, signifying the official start of the “Black Friday” free-for-all . . . every thing up until then was just a warm up, apparently.

Once inside the Super Big Mart, I was immediately sideswiped by an elderly woman riding one of those motorized shopping carts as she screamed, “out of the way, fat ass!”

After getting back up and brushing myself off, I spotted several dozen rampaging soccer moms with my peripheral vision. They were working as a “team” to more efficiently scoop up every sale item in their path. Not wanting to be caught up in the fray and thrown into one of their carts, I made a quick dash for the electronics department, just barely outrunning them.

As soon as I rounded the aisle that separated electronics from toys, I was punched in the jaw by a little girl. She must have suspected that I was trying to snatch up the last “2-hot-4-U” edition Bratz doll, hence she screamed, “The doll is mine, fat boy!”

I would have chastised her for being rude to a grown-up, however, she was kicked in the back by a toy thieving soccer mom before I could set her straight. And yet again, before I could even say a word to the deranged soccer mom, she was jumped by the rest of her “team” . . . apparently they all wanted the same “2-hot-for-U” edition Bratz doll.

While the soccer mom’s clawed at each other’s throats, I was free to venture into the electronics department, which was quite the surreal experience. Considering the signs of the apocalypse I’d seen around the rest of the store, I imagined irate shoppers would have been roasting a sales clerk on a spit over a stack of burning DVDs, however, nothing out of the ordinary was going on at all.

There were only a few customers in sight and none of them were acting foolishly, so I casually strolled over to the USB memory cards and picked one up. No sooner than my finger tips touch the card did a blood curdling scream come from a foot away, nearly rupturing my ear drum. “NOOOOO!”

I looked over my right shoulder and saw a woman, crushed under a pile of rubble . . . where the rubble came from I had no idea. She looked up at me from the rubble, coughing and struggling to speak, whispering, “those aren’t on sale . . . don’t waste your time.” Then she either passed out or died . . . it could have gone either way. But that wasn’t important. Rather, the important thing was that the USB thing-a-ma-jig wasn’t even on sale.

At that point, all that was left to do was fight my way back out of the Super Big Mart and go over to my parent’s house, so that I could explain to them how exactly they would use their new gadget. “Just plug it in here,” I clearly demonstrated.

“Then what?” my mom asked.

After three and a half hours of repeatedly explaining how to drag and drop files into a folder, my mom told me to just keep the USB thing-a-ma-jig for myself because it was “just too complicated” for her to use.

-True Story

My grandfather once told me that he built his own house with his bare hands. As the story went, he was out wandering in the woods one morning and he stumbled upon a rather quaint clearing near a river. He was pleased with the view so he thought to himself, “Yeah see, I’ll build a house right here, see,” because apparently everyone said “see” a lot back then . . . even in their thoughts.

After choosing his location, he knocked down a tree and whittled the entire house out of a single log, using nothing more than elbow grease and moxie. According to my grandfather, that was how everything was built during the Depression because ordinary folks could neither economically nor socially afford even the most rudimentary of tools. Apparently purchasing a hammer required months of scrimping and saving just so you could walk barefooted for fifteen miles, up hill, in six feet of snow, and risk social persecution for shopping at the town’s general store . . . which was run by suspected Communists . . . it was very taboo. For these reasons, my grandfather, like many others, had to rely on moxie to get things done.

Unfortunately for me, my grandfather’s moxie and natural woodworking ability were not inherited traits. However, big ears and a hairy back were. But that’s neither here nor there. Rather, the point was that my grandfather built an entire house by himself with his bare hands and, just two generations later, I was incapable of assembling so much as a piece of pre-fabricated furniture.* With that in mind, this past weekend, I was a bit hesitant to take on Fee’s latest home improvement request.

She had just purchased a new bridal magazine and, according to her, it didn’t look right sitting on the coffee table. Apparently the natural colored stain of the coffee table was “way too crazy light” and needed to be “totally darker” to complement the cover design of the newly purchased magazine. Because that made such perfect sense, I agreed to re-stain the coffee table, despite my carpentry handicap. After all, it wasn’t like I had to “build” anything. All I had to do was strip off the old light colored stain and slap on a new coat of dark furniture stain. To my best estimate, I was looking at doing a total of maybe a half an hour’s worth of work.

Three days and eight trips to House Depot later, I was still searching for a varnish remover capable of stripping the original coat of pure evil polyurethane off of my coffee table from hell. I had tried E-Z Strip, Strip-A-Way, Liquid-Strip, Liquid Varnish Remover, Varnish-Blaster, Varnish-B-Gone, Holy Water, Moonshine, Varnish Stripper, and even Doctor Morgan’s Old Tyme Varnish Removing Tonic. Nothing worked. However, I still wasn’t ready to give up.

So as I hopelessly wandered down the seemingly endless aisles of House Depot, looking for a miracle, I couldn’t help but think about my grandfather and how he built his house with nothing more than his bare hands. Just as the realization that I was a complete failure in comparison to him began setting in, a glimmer of light hit my eyes. I looked up and saw bright and shiny new varnish removing product gleaming on the shelf. As fate would have it, it was called Moxie.

After reading the label, which promised to be 15% stronger than the other leading brands, I quickly snatched up a bottle of the extra strength varnish remover and rushed home to try it out. When I opened the bottle, a choir of angels began singing Hallelujahs. Sure, Fee happed to be listening to a religious music CD in the other room, but I still took it as a good sign.

Moments later, I began a very liberal application of Moxie Extra Strength Varnish Remover to the coffee table. As directed, I waited ten minutes for the Moxie to set in and “loosen” the varnish before I began scraping it from the table. However, when I began scraping, the only thing to come off the table was the Moxie . . . no stain came off at all, proving Moxie to be a rip-off. To say the least, that did not sit well.

After a brief period of cursing, I may or may not have broken the coffee table in half by throwing it out into the street. Then I may or may not have gone out and bought a new coffee table that was already the color Fee wanted. Sure, I may or may not have “built” the coffee table, or even stained it, but it was heavy and I carried it into the house which definitely took some moxie, so I’m pretty sure my grandfather would be proud.

-True Story.

*For more on this, check out "Some Assembly Required" from the book, Magic Marker Mustache Mayhem and Other True Stories.

A few weeks ago, my brother, Mr. Perfect, and his perfect family were in town to spend the weekend with my parents. My fiancée, Fee, was invited over for dinner that Saturday night so that she could visit with the family. Surprisingly enough, I was allowed to come along with her.

When we arrived, I was foolishly expecting to see my four year niece, Princess, all dolled up in some sort of precious little girl outfit, like a Sesame Street dress with matching Elmo shoes. However, “precious” was not a word that could be used to describe her outfit.

“Kid’s grow up so fast these days,” my brother sighed as my four year old niece sashayed into my parent’s living room, wearing a pair of hip hugger jeans and a baby t-shirt with picture of an anorexic, bug eyed, prostitute exclaiming, “You’re boyfriend wants me!” It was later explained that since it was a “Bratz” t-shirt, it was appropriate attire for a four year old.

However, at that particular moment, before I knew the rules of what constituted “hip” clothing for a little girl, I just sat there with my jaw dropped as I tried to find something, anything, to say. But I just sat there, muttering, “Uh . . . uh . . .”

Sensing I was at a loss for words, Fee decided to verbalize our collective thoughts, gasping, “Oh . . . my . . . god .  .  .” however, the tail end of her sentence didn’t exactly share my disposition, “Pookie, she’s got the Cherry Blossom Louis Vuitton. I thought it was discontinued . . . ugh, I’m soooo jealous!”

My mom then chimed in with, “Awww, did Princess get a new purse?” To which my niece responded in her cute little four year old voice, “Shh! I’m own da fone!” Oddly enough, I hadn’t noticed until then that she was in fact on the phone . . . the Bluetooth earpiece was hard to spot from across the room.

A few minutes later, when she ended her phone conversation, Princess sauntered over to where Fee and I were sitting. She then placed her hand on my knee and looked up at me with sad, puppy dog eyes, pitifully sighing, “Unca Mac . . . I need a new fone.”

“You need a new phone? What’s wrong with the phone you have?” I asked.

“My fone don’t got mp3, Unca Mac . . . n’ I need mp3.” As she explained her predicament, my brother hung his head in shame. His wife then supportively placed her hand on his shoulder as he shamefully admitted, “It’s true. Her phone has no mp3 capability.”

“Is that really such a bad thing?” I asked.

“She’s the only one in her class without mp3 capability,” my brother sniffled as he wiped a single tear from his eye. His shame then transformed into rage as he pumped his fist toward the heavens shouting “It’s an absolute travesty!”

Once he finished his maniacal outburst, he buried his head in his wife’s shoulder and broke down in tears. “Shh . . . it’ll be ok,” his wife whispered while patting him on the back. “It’ll be ok.”

At that point, Princess Perfection, looked at me again with sad little puppy dog eyes, asking “Will git me da new fone?” Before I could even answer, Fee scooped Princess up in a hug and began sobbing, “Of course, we will, sweet heart, of course we will.”

It was then that I did something I never thought I would do in my life. I went out and bought a cell phone with a built in mp3 player for my four year old niece. A half an hour or so later, I returned with the phone she so desperately “needed.”

I’m not sure what I was expecting to happen when I handed her the phone, but I imagined the  words “thank you” to be involved at least several dozen times. However, when the moment came for me to give her the new phone, she didn’t say thank you at all. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders, sighing, “Unca Mac . . . I need a new fone.”

“Uh, sweetheart, that is a new phone,” I explained.

“No . . . I need da new fone wit da camera,” she replied as she handed back the cell phone I had just purchased.

For the second time that day I was completely awestruck. I just sat there with my draw dropped as I tried to find something to say. Once again Fee spoke for me, sighing, “Kids grow up so fast these days.”

-True Story

Growing up, I was never a fan of family oriented holidays like Christmas or Easter. In fact, I wasn’t too crazy about any holiday that was only considered “successful” after loving and attentive parents made immense personal and monetary sacrifices in an effort to bring joy to their children in the form of unforgettable vacations and lavish gifts. Halloween, on the other hand, could only be considered “successful” after unconcerned and uninvolved parents turned their children loose to bug neighbors for free candy. I loved Halloween.

Since my parents were never involved in my costume choice, I picked the same costume every year – Cinderella. Sure, it earned me the nickname “Cinderfella” clear through high school, but at the time it was a small price to pay for the insane amount of pity candy I raked in each year from sympathetic neighbors. They would always react the same way. They would open the door and see my brother dressed as a super hero. Then they’d take one look at me, a husky little boy, awkwardly stuffed into a bejeweled blue dress, and hang their heads, mumbling “poor bastard . . . parents must really hate him.”

After taking a moment to collect their thoughts and choke back their tears, they would then put on a fake smile and say “well, aren’t you . . . uh . . . pretty? Here, have two pieces of candy.” Most years I doubled my weight in sweet, sweet pity candy. It was awesome.

However, the pity candy came to a screeching halt in 1990, when my mom, for the first time ever, actually decided to get involved in Halloween. It was during the height of the Captain Planet craze and my brother cleverly decided at the last minute that he wanted to be Captain Planet for Halloween. My mom thought it would be cute if some of his classmates would go trick-or-treating with him as the Planeteers.

After a few threatening phone calls, my mom was able to organize a car pool for four of the five planetary elements– “Wind,” “Water,” “Earth,” and “Fire.” She was somehow unable to get anyone to agree to dress up as “Heart.”

While I was getting into costume that night, my mom broke the news that I would have to be Heart.

“Mac, you’re going to be Heart this year,” she explained as I was searching through a Lego box for my wig.

“But, Ma, I’ve already got a costume,” I explained as I triumphantly pulled the wig from the box.

“You’re not going as Cinderella again this year! The neighbors are talking about it! You’ll be Heart and like it,” she said as she snatched the wig from my hands. I knew if I didn’t hold my ground and stick with my Cinderella costume, the pity candy would be gone.

“Never! I’ll never be Heart!” I screamed just before adding some pretty impressive numbers to let her know how serious I was, “Not in a trillion gazillion years!”

Five minutes later, I was the lamest Planeteer ever. The other kids at least looked like their Planeteer alter egos, with officially licensed Captain Planet merchandise, but my costume wasn’t even close. It wasn’t even a costume. It was just one of my brother’s old “I New York” t-shirts.

It was humiliating enough to go trick-or-treating dressed as “Heart,” but what made it so much worse was that every single one of our neighbors felt the need to mock me, saying, “Ooooh, Captain Planet and the Planeteers! Wait . . . who are you supposed to be?”

“I’m Heart . . . can I have two pieces of candy now?” I’d reply. They would then roll their eyes and sigh, saying, “Heart . . . pfft . . . here’s an apple.”

That year I ended up with seventeen apples, a dozen oranges, nine boxes of raisins, and a dollar thirty four in mixed change.

It was an unsuccessful Halloween to say the least.

-True Story.