Dogs

I went over to this woman’s house because I had to talk to her to do my job. I got out of the car, thinking of how to be adult, and these two 120-fucking-pound dogs stand up like they’ve just smelled blood and run across the lawn toward me.

All right, I like dogs. They make me feel like a four-year-old retarded half-pumpkin child of the Sun Kingdom. However, they also scare the shit out of me if they have owners who train them to scare the shit out of people by charging them and acting like they want to kill them.

(Side note: Whenever you’re with friends and there’s a big dog without a leash in the area, there’s always that one friend who knows exactly what to do if things go bad. “Dude, you just trick him by going like this. And then you, you know, just fucking bam or whatever.”)

Anyway, when these dogs charged me I got back in my car. Hey, fuck you, there was no fence and the dogs looked pissed. If it makes you feel better, I felt like a junior pussy for doing that and not meeting them for a fight. Also, I briefly got pissed about the whole situation, but that feeling was quickly overridden by shame.

So then this 30-year-old just-entering-the-workforce-and-feeling-good-about-my-tie dude comes out of the house acting like he thought I was confused about where to park or something. “It’s all right,” he said, smiling. “They won’t hurt you.”

No.

Wrong.

Fuck that.

This situation should have been arranged beforehand. Obviously, from your reaction, this happens all the shitting time, and you’re either allowing or goading (I said it) these dogs into being complete douche bag dogs.

It’s like me hiring a homeless guy to hang out on my lawn, drink and ask people for money whenever they came to the door. “‘Who’s what guy? Oh, that’s Daryl. He’s cool. Just ignore him.”

Look, if a dog licks my hand or sniffs my sack, cool. That’s how dogs do things …
Wait. I just realized that everytime the owner of a huge fucking dog was present when his huge fucking dog ran at me — barking, snarling and, in general, telling my central nervous system to instruct my body to shit my pants — that owner acted like:

1.) That guy I just mentioned. Like, “Oh, silly me. My son forgot to pick up his skateboard from the sidewalk. I’ll have to remind him. But kids will be kids, you know.”

2.) They’ve never seen their dog act like this before, ever. “Hey, King. King! Get over here, now. Now! (turning to me, serious) I am sorry, sir … (turning to dog) Sit down, sit! (turning to me) I am sorry. I … (can’t find words to express disgust with dog).

All right, Guy No. 2, thanks for at least trying to cover up the fact that you buy animals to help you be a fuckrod. Hats off.

More importantly, which song/member is your favorite?

Them

I hit myself in the face with a dumbbell last week. I was in the gym and not depressed. I looked around after I did it, this way and that. No one. But I kept checking.

Safe? Safe.

But when I got home, I looked at my battered face in the mirror. (As opposed to a polished piece of brass?)

Safe?…

Safe my scrote. Safe my wrinkly, old scrote. The dumbbell had left a red bump right in the middle of my forehead. What? Really? Fuck.

Dude, come on. Fuck.

At one point, I brushed my hair towards it, towards the  bump. I don’t know if I actually thought that my hair would cover it up or if brushing hair over blemishes was a habit from a time when I didn’t have a buzz.

Habit, I think. Habit from a time when I had bad acne because that bump in the middle of my forehead looked like a pimple. I could tell people were looking at it. I wanted to explain myself. “It’s not a pimple. I know you’re looking at it. That’s cool. Hard not to, I guess, but let me tell you…”

And I wanted to tell them what happened, but I couldn’t. Well, I suppose I could, but this is what it would sound like. “This is not a pimple, this is where I hit myself in the face with a dumbbell.” So, to them, I just had a pimple.

Today, I had both bad intentions and time to waste. To them.

This is what happened:

One, I don’t have a long distance phone plan because my phone is what is called a “land line” by phone companies to make people with home phones and no children feel better about not having a cell phone and there are some, like my neighbors upstairs, who don’t care about that feeling of empty squareness and that’s okay because they’ll come down and use phone anyway and, as long as I have a flat local rate, hey, that’s okay but, old young foot down, I’m not risking a long distance bill or anything I’m responsible for on their asses — no, I won’t fucking do it because, yes, I’m a miser and, yes, they’re domestically unstable and, yes, I gotta eat, too, Ethics.

So, I remembered, I needed a new phone card.

Two, I ran out of whiskey this afternoon and the leftover wine sitting on my stove has probably gone bad and that’s really bad for a weird Australian Cabernet-Merlot blend that actually tastes like two wines mixed together and not just bad like how you think a blend like that would taste but I’m going to leave it sit there so I can cook with it and, really, by “cook with it” I mean pour into the pan for imagined zest when I make egg sandwiches.

So I needed more whiskey.

So I went to Wal-Mart and bought (1) a 1000 minute phone card and (2) a bottle of Wild Turkey Bourbon. The cashier made me show off my unsettling purchase because she didn’t believe that was me in my ID picture. So I showed her a gym card issued in another state, and she gave me the booze.  “They never do us right in those pictures, do they?” she half-asked.

As I left, thinking about how I could fit that into a novel, I saw two old men sitting in front of the photo station. One, with rashy age spots, was comatose. The other was talking to him about arthritis. He was holding a biography of Hitler in his lap.

Then I went outside. And rain fell all across America.

Death

The first time I got sick with a high temperature, I think it was 103, I knew I was going to die. When my mom came in to say high or refill my ginger ale I would stretch out my arm like a Hebrew prophet and make small talk. That was big of me, I thought, not to bother her with my death. She didn’t need to know. She had her life to live.

That was 6th grade and I didn’t die then. I didn’t die this week, either, but I had a cold that might have been Typhoid Fever. “Ugh,” I said this week. “Ughhhhhh.”

The nice thing about Typhoid Fever is that someone might have given a five-syringe fuck about your illness. But no one, absolutely no one, cares if you have a cold. This goes especially for “bad” colds, because that’s the kind of jackass says they have. “No, dude, this one totally sucks, you don’t even know.”

Maybe not. But I do know that I also don’t care if anyone has a cold (unless, of course, that person is “me”) and I don’t know if anything short of explosive diara could change my mind.

Even then, I would just wear a rain coat.

Anyway, when I have a cold, the world needs to (a.) stop and (b.) congratulate me when I do absolutely anything.

Instead of this, everyone just gave me advice that I could have figured out from Grandma Applesauce’s Great Big Book of American Idioms. Stay warm, get rested, plenty of fluids and chicken noodle soup really does work, you know.

I wish someone would have at least had the courtesy to have given me a fever. I would have taken 101. That’s all I needed. I would have been in business then. I would have had to have stayed home and quarantined my ass.

You know, with the exception of the stomach flu, having a once-a-year kind of fever is, in a way, an interesting experience. You’re under four feet of blankets and your head’s swimming around in this punched-in-the-ear trance.

The only good thing about the stomach flu, or any sickness that makes you vomit, is the feeling you get after you’re done vomiting. You can be covered in vomit with your eyebrows doused in toilet water, but you feel like you could bless all of Asia with the sense of life and gratitude you have.

“It’s all right. Hey, listen. Everything’s going to be all right. And you. Yeah, you. Take this seed of love and spread it.”

Worse

I put my computer up on computer stilts so it won’t overheat and burn its brain out like its been promising. Whirr! it says. Whirrrrrrrrr! These stilts, which my computer is moderately attracted to, are four overturned highball glasses. But I don’t mind using these, because, really, if I ever needed four extra highball glasses in my dining room-sized apartment, valuables, such as my aroused computer, would get fucked up anyway.

All right, it’s not really that small. But I’m only saying that, God, because I feel like if I don’t, I’ll get punished later. I already had something like that happen. At least five and possibly as many as 19 people I know have used chap stick around me and heard, “Chap stick? Huh. I don’t really need chap stick.” I didn’t say it in a snide way, but it was unnecessary. I also should have guessed untrue, because I have both terrible and dry skin. I try not to say that, though, because it puts the person I’m saying that to in an uncomfortable situation. It makes them lie, or worse, try to make it better with a compliment, i.e.:

You: Shit, I have terrible skin.

Friend: Yeah … but at least you have a cool jacket.

Anyway, my mouth is all chapped now and I look like a lazy clown. Having something weird on your face also makes people hate you, so I’m staying in tonight.

Well, I’m not a salesmen who has aided in the death of a significant portion of my species, so that’s good. If only (and I’m talking to you, Hispanic shrimp guitarist) I could say the same thing for those joyful, personified animals on food labels or restaurant signs. Sometimes, it’s obvious the animal was in on the deal, because said animal is serving up dinner in the picture. “More, sir? No? Well, if you need seconds, I have 200,000 dead countrymen slaughtered in the back, so eat up!”

I don’t think they’ve ever used “countrymen”, but the war rhetoric in the news is at least unchecked. Yes, I’ve mentioned the word “bloodshed” before, which is used all the fucking time … Wait, look:

• Washington Post: Baghdad plan will begin amid continued bloodshed (Continued bloodshed?! But, Washington Post, how much blood has already been shed by the goodly steel of man’s violent passions?)
  
• CNN: Amidst bloodshed, millions of Muslims pray for peace (Nice archaic trump on the Post’s futuristic “amid bloodshed.” Pff. Thou art a skilled wordsmith.)
• NBC affiliate: Week-Long Bloodshed in Iraq Kills about 1,000 (Does that even make sense? Shouldn’t it be “week-long bloodsheding in Iraq…”?

But I guess it could be worse, like a Barak Obama speech or something. Too soon? Too soon? All right.

Futrinklowski

Ring-ring. Ring-ring. R–

Woman: Hellooooo?

Caller: Hi.

Woman: Hello!

Caller: Uh, hi.

Woman: Hi.

Caller: Hi. I mean, Hi … Hey, is Mr. Futrinklowski available, please?

Woman: Hi.

Caller: Is Mr. Futrinklowski there?

(No response)

Caller: Hello. Hello?

Woman: Hi.

Caller: Is Mr. Futrinklowski there, please?

Woman: Who?

Caller: Mr. Futrinklowski.

Woman: I’m not Mr. Futrinklowski.

Caller: Yes.

Woman: I said, I’m not Mr. Futrinklowski. I’m not… whatever that name is.

Caller: Yes. Is Mr. Futrinklowski there?

(No response)

Caller: Hello? Is Mr…. Is Mr. Futrinklowski in the building?

Woman: In the building?

Caller: Yes.

Woman: I’m sorry, you’ve reached a residence.

Caller: Who?

Woman: A residence.

Caller: Ah.

Woman: A res-i-dence. I own this house.

Caller: Oh.

Woman: I’m divorced.

Caller: Yes.

Woman: Divorce… Hello. Hello?!

Caller: OK, I mean…

Woman: It was under his name. But, you know.

Caller: I was looking for a Mr. Futrinklowski.

Woman: I’m Mrs. Hammond. Who are you looking for?

Caller: Was your husband Mr. Futrinklowski?

Woman: I said I was divorced.

Caller: Did a Mr. Futrinklowski live with you?

Woman: We built this house.

Caller: Mam.

Woman: Yes?

Caller: Was your husband Mr. Futrinklowski?

Woman: I’ve never heard that name in my life. Never.

Caller: OK, sorry about the–

Woman: Never!

Caller: Yes, I’m sorry. I must have just dialed the wrong number.

Woman: I think you have dialed the wrong number.

Caller: Yes.

Woman: No Mr. Futri…no one with that name lives here. Not ever, to my knowledge.

Caller: I’m sorry about that.

Woman: Not here. Maybe down the block

Caller: Oh.

Woman: I said I don’t know anyone by that name.

Caller: Yes.

Woman: Not one person.

Caller: OK.

Woman: Sir, excuse me, but I believe you have the wrong number.

Caller: Yes.

Woman: This is 932-388-5611.

Caller: OK.

Woman: 932-388-5-6-1-1.

Caller: OK, thank you.

Woman: 1-1.

Caller: Yes, thank you.

Woman: People dial 1-2 sometimes.

Caller: Oh… huh.

Woman: At the end of the number. Instead of 1-1.

Caller: Hmm.

Woman: Yes?

Caller: Sorry about that.

Woman: Did you mean to dial 1-2, young man?

Caller: No. I was trying to reach Mr. Futrinklowski.

Woman: I never heard that name before.

Caller: Yes.

Woman: Hello?

Caller: Thank you.

Worms

Over and over my mom tells this one. It’s not a one that I’m allowed to be embarrassed by, and it’s not one that I am. It’s just one — one of those stories — that you feel like could get embarrassing soon. But it doesn’t. So you do your best to redirect your mom’s best intentions.

This one’s about guns and seasons. Initially, my mom didn’t want toy guns in the house. My mom, she sometimes drinks wine, sometimes plays acoustic guitar, all the time loves Buffy Sainte-Marie and occasionally attended a Quaker church in college. She also voted for George McGovern and was interested in special education. So, you know, maybe a social progressive like how most people are social progressive at sometime in their life when, all of a sudden, they love humankind. Anyway, I don’t think the no-gun thing wasn’t spun by isms or politics. Still, its rule worth thinking will work.

But, so it happened, three boys who were her children had access to Saturday morning television. Also, my dad had a rifle hung up in the basement. I never saw him touch it, except once. “Don’t ever touch this,” he said. I asked him recently why he even had one, outside the fuck-that-shit libertarianism he had in him. “Eh, I used to be into that stuff more,” he said.

My mom said she made me a sandwich once and I chewed it into the shape of a pistol. But the one (the story) I was talking about was this: after mom had conceded to the personal possession and use of toy fire arms in the house, I came up to her one day and asked her, in short square sentences, for my gun. I was 15.

No, not really, I think I was three or something. Anyway, she didn’t know what gun I’m asking about because there was a plastic arsenal in the house as it was. Eventually, she figured out I wanted the the paper towel holder.

Then I went outside with it (toddling along, I’d like to think) and shot at people.

Not at animals, though. I even made friends with worms.

Wait, this was in December, so worms were dead or hibernating or on vacation. Or ice skating. Anyway, I lost the paper towel holder. Mom didn’t know where. But in April, when winter actually ends in northeastern Indiana, she found it.

So that’s the one. That’s the story.

Moms.

But I never tell mine.

One time, my brother, me and my friend Andrew were building what we were convinced would be an igloo. It was high school and we were in our backyard. My brother, two years more impressionable than me, was carving out a middle from the humongous-ass ball we’d packed. This would take forever. Anyway, as my brother was working, only his legs sticking out, Andrew and I thought if would be funny if we threw a bunch of snow on him. You know, trapped him inside the igloo.

Later, when we pulled him out — oh, 15 minutes later — he was screaming. Then, for a second, he couldn’t talk. He was so scared in there. His body, trying to figure what was happening, told him he was going to die. “You are cold and your arms are pinned,” his body said. “No one around here is going to help you. And, it if I had to guess, you are going to die.”

My dad, who never made anyone ever feel like they were going to die, tells a story where he wasn’t in a backyard. He was six, walking to school. Some friends dared him to run up a fire escape. The owner came out and yelled at him.

He’s a quiet man.

My brother, a tall man, still brings up that igloo story when we fight.

My mom, like all moms, loves everything I do. She considers everything I do to be done with great talent.

No one knows.