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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
I’m sleeping on a time bomb. Literally. Sort of.
Literally, in the sense that what I’m talking about is my bed, which is indeed where I sleep. When I’m not napping at my desk. Or under my desk. Or near my desk, in case I need to pretend I’m doing something important.
But not literally, in the sense that I don’t actually have a time bomb in my bed. That’s ridiculous.
(Actually, my bed is more like an atomic bomb. Spend some time in there, and you’ll feel the ‘fallout’ for days.
Oh, yeah. I went there.
On the other hand, you might also lose your hair and get nauseated by prolonged exposure. Sometimes an analogy is just a little too good, you know?)
Anyway, the thing is this: a couple of weeks ago, I moseyed into the bedroom after taking a morning shower, slipped into my skivvies and — as is was my custom — flopped rather ungently onto the bed for a quick after-shower rest.
“All that lathering up and scrubbing off and opera singing in the shower really takes it out of me. Sometimes I need a few minutes to regroup.”
(Hey, I’m an old man over here. All that lathering up and scrubbing off and opera singing in the shower really takes it out of me. Sometimes I need a few minutes to regroup.
Especially if I’m doing Carmen. The soprano parts are a real bitch first thing in the morning.)
Usually, the bed cushions me in its pillowy goodness, and I’m soon up and refreshed and ready for a full day’s napping in and under and near my desk. But this day — this day was different. This time, when my freshly-buffed self flopped onto the bed, the mattress decided to join in. And flopped down on one side, all the way to the floor.
I nearly rolled off onto my nightstand. Which would have been a very awkward situation, if I’d landed on top of my alarm clock.
(She’s a married appliance. And the last thing I need is a toaster oven out for vengeance who knows where I sleep.)
I stumbled to my feet and assessed the problem. It seems there are three slats running side-to-side under the mattress, holding it off the ground. And my wanton floppage had apparently hit above the head-most board just right, ripping it past the screw and letting the corner of the mattress plummet to the ground. It was not encouraging.
But I sucked it up and repaired the frame, to the best of my ability. Which meant throwing the mattress and box springs off into the floor, gingerly replacing the screw back in the wrecked hole and setting the frayed board ever-so-precariously back on top. Not so much a ‘repair’, really, as a delicate and dangerous game of bedroom Jenga. I replaced the mattress and sheets, and no one was the wiser.
(Well, I was a little wiser, myself. For starters, after all that futzing around I needed another quick lie down. And this time, I chose the couch. And I didn’t flop.
Instead, I sort of oooozed onto the surface. So at least I learned something. Namely, to fear the destructive power of my own freshly-laundered ass.
I could put that a different way, I suppose. But would it make things any better, really?)
I went on my merry way and completely forgot about the ordeal — until that night, when it was time to jammie up and crawl under the covers. I didn’t want a repeat of the collapse. So I slipped as daintily as I could into bed, like a princess sleeping on a pea. Or a princess who needed to pee, maybe. I haven’t done a lot of detailed princess behavioral study. But they seem pretty dainty overall. I can do that. I’m forty percent daint, in fact. On my mother’s side, mostly.
Thankfully, I made it through the night without bringing the bed down again. And every night when I’ve crawled into bed since then, I’ve been double-super-extra-special careful not to rock the board, which was barely hanging by a screw thread when I put it back together.Much less after some lumbering hairbag like me slept on it for a few nights.
Clearly, the bed is going to blow one of these nights. Where by ‘blow’, I mean crash to the floor on my side, dumping me unceremoniously into the floor — or into the waiting harlot arms of the alarm clock. I’ll probably be awake at the time — and flopping, because I’ve forgotten my predicament — so at least I’ll be able to catch myself.
My wife, on the other hand, usually goes to bed earlier than I do. She’ll be asleep, and depending on the severity of the fatal flop, quite possibly launched off the lurching mattress toward the wall opposite. If she’s lucky, my chest of drawers will stop her.
If she’s unlucky, the window will be open. And she’ll wake up outside, asking what the hell she’s doing on the sidewalk in the middle of the night with skinned knees and barely any clothes on. And then I’ll be in trouble.
(Probably. My only saving grace is that those are not questions that you generally find yourself asking your husband or wife. I’m not entirely sure you’d want your spouse to have those answers. Or to know that you need them, actually.)
So I’m just waiting for that fateful, forgetful night when I throw caution — and my ass — the wind and plop heavily into the sack, breaking bedsprings and boards and possibly marital bonds along the way. Could be tonight. Could be next week. Maybe I last until fall; it’s hard to say.
All I know for sure is, that bed’s going to fall. Again. And I’m very probably going to be the one to make it happen. And from what I know about Newtonian physics, memory-foam mattresses and our customary bedtimes, there’s a very good chance that my wife will be sent briefly airborne when it does.
Come to think of it, I’d really rather have that time bomb under my bed at this point. Literally. Amybody sleeping on a time-release explosive out there who wants to switch?
Permalink | No CommentsToday was my first day back in the office after a week’s vacation. I think if I had one recommendation for someone coming back from vacation, it’s this: don’t.
Come back, that is. Stay in your blissful world where the sun always shines, the margaritas flow like mountain streams and you while your carefree days away gorging on delicacies, basking in the sun and forgetting all those nasty hard two-syllable words like ‘meetings’ or ‘yesboss’ or ‘career’.
(Or stay in Maine, if that’s as fas as you got. It’s better than slaving your life away in a cubicle.
That’s your new state motto, Maine. You’re welcome.)
I was hoping for a little pick-me-up this morning, to get me back into ‘work’ mode. So I wandered into the kitchen on the way out the door and saw that my wife had bought something in a little plastic container labeled “BRAIN FOOD”.
Great, I thought. That’ll be fish, probably, or some ‘smart’ lab-made concoction of custom-made amino acids and neurotransmitter precursors, probably mixed with wheatgrass or flax-something and passed off as ‘good for you’ because it tastes like chewing on AstroTurf. Or it’ll be the brains of dead scientists, which we can eat to discover their hidden secrets. Their delicious hidden secrets.
But it was none of those things. I looked in the container, and it was full of nuts and raisins and sunflower seeds. That’s not brain food. That’s caveman food — old-old-old-school hunter and gatherer stuff. And from what I understand, those mouth-breathing club-toters weren’t especially smart at all, schlepping around with no power tools or pocket calculators, falling into tar pits and pedaling with their feet.
“Will some far-distant descendant of mine be the one to rekindle the use of fire or find a land bridge to gentler terrain, saving the human race after a brutal global freeze, nuclear winter, gigantic flood or worldwide rioting and chaos following the next set of Star Wars sequels?”
I gave the label of this supposed ‘brain food’ a suspicious eyeballing. Nothing fancy on it; just the nuts and berries and such that I could see clearly inside. No modern medicinal magic. And no brains.
I decided either it didn’t work at all, or it was some kind of time-release deal. And if it wasn’t going to raise my intelligence for another seven hundred thousand years, then it wasn’t a helluva lot of good to me. If I ate the stuff, it was to come up with a way to slip out for a nap after lunch — not to survive the next ice age. I’m a little more ‘instant gratification’ than that.
Still, I didn’t have a lot of choices for pre-work breakfast. We hadn’t been to the grocery store since our trip, so I could have ‘brain food’, mayonnaise, or milk six days past its date. Or beer. Lots and lots of beer — but that seemed unwise at nine o’clock on a Monday morning.
(You see? See what coming off vacation does to you? It warps your mind into thinking ridiculous things like that.
On vacation time, the only good reason not to have a beer is that you’re already having one. Oh vacation time, why hast thou forsaken me?)
So I gave this ‘brain food’ a shot. I opened the lid and peered inside. Looked like rabbit food.
I sniffed it. Smelled like termite food.
I scooped up a handful and ate it. Tasted like hippie food. Not bad, per se. But lacking in what your more omnivorous gourmands would call the three Ts: Taste, Texture and T-bone steakiness. I scarfed a couple more handfuls and scurried off to work.
Did it make me feel smarter? No. Did I find an excuse for that midday nap? No. Will some far-distant descendant of mine be the one to rekindle the use of fire or find a land bridge to gentler terrain, saving the human race after a brutal global freeze, nuclear winter, gigantic flood or worldwide rioting and chaos following the next set of Star Wars sequels? Unlikely. Even if he’s smarter, he’ll still be lazy. You can’t fight genetics.
(Also, I don’t have a kid, so I don’t know where the guy would come from in the first place. Unless someone’s out there working on cloning me from my toenail clippings or something.
Which could totally work, until the clones go crazy and rip out of their pens, zinging everyone in their path. They can call it ‘Jurassic Snark’. I’d enjoy that.)
So things went pretty much the way I expected. The first day back to work after vacation is like volunteering at a proctologists’ medical school.
There’s a lot of paperwork, you don’t get to sit down much and everyone seems glad to see you.
Wait. What did you think I was going to say?
Oooh. You nasty.
Permalink | No CommentsIn the spirit of keeping my damned fool mouth shut — because I see what happens when I don’t — I don’t believe I mentioned that I’m taking a comedy sketch writing class this summer at ImprovBoston.
Or if I did mention it, at least I didn’t post a list of ridiculously bad ideas beforehand, scaring off the class and the instructor and prompting IB to delist their phone number.
The learning. I’m doing it.
I even missed the first week of class. So now everyone involved has something invested. They can’t quit now; they’ve already got a head of steam. I’m in, baby.
This afternoon was the second class — my first — and I only learned about our ‘homework’ yesterday, which was to write a full sketch to read through aloud. Based, presumably, on the wealth of things that we learned in Week One. Unless we were in Maine, dodging moose and clogging undersized toilets. Which I was.
“You dig in there with a mouthful of lip gloss or Vaseline, and you’ll slide right onto the floor.”
That odor wafting through right now? That’s disaster on the wind.
So my writing job yesterday was a sketch, which I produced, and presented today during the class. My writing job today, I’ve decided, is to plop that sketch below for your laughing-and-pointing-style entertainment and maybe watch some TV. Hey, if you weren’t in class this afternoon, then it’s new to you. My job is done. Yesterday, as it turns out. Sweet.
Before the ‘reveal’, this quick teaser: We read through the text, and it got a few giggles in the places I’d hoped. The instructor nodded and said:
“Hey, that was great. Nice job. Just one thing… what’s ‘motorboating’?”
Whoof. Well, it’s not like it’s central to the sketch or anything. I explained as gently as I could — if you’re also in the dark, UrbanDictionary also explains it, though somewhat less… gently — and he said:
“Oh. I see. Okay, it makes more sense now. Wow. Okay. So. Who’s next?”
Maybe I should have kept my damned fool mouth shut for another week. Anyway, if you’re still on board — or ‘outboard’; I say, that’s a joke, son! — here’s the sketch:
World Motorboat Finals
[As the announcer speaks, a handful of men in light athletic gear mill around, exercising their lips and making ‘motorboat’ noises.]
ANNOUNCER: Good evening sports fans, and welcome to the one-hundred-and-eighty-fourth annual Motorboating Championship Finals. We’re here tonight under the stately double domes of the Dolly Parton Expo Center with an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at these remarkable athletes as they prepare for the fierce competition ahead.
[Announcer approaches one of the ‘athletes’ nearby.]
ANNOUNCER:With us now is tonight’s favorite to take home the fabled Golden Orbs, Chet Reynolds. Chet, if you would, please tell our viewers what you’ve done to prepare for this year’s Finals.
CHET: Well, Joe, it’s the same as any tournament, really. Get up at dawn, do some light cardio, and then I’m in the gym for six or eight hours to train.
ANNOUNCER: And what sort of exercises do you do?
CHET: Oh, pretty standard stuff. A few hundred lip lifts, kiss the heavy bag in the afternoon, blow bubbles through a few boxes of bendy straws. The usual.
ANNOUNCER: Any other warmups as the day approaches?
CHET: Around two weeks to go, I’ll practice on watermelons. Then muskmelons for a few days, and finally honeydews. You’ve really got to work up to the honeydews.
ANNOUNCER: Uncanny. Any last-minute preparations?
CHET: Nothing special. Did my practice runs, took a nap, and just gargled a gallon of sardine oil. I’m balmed up and ready to nail this.
ANNOUNCER: Well, I [with revulsion at Chet’s sardine breath] *detect* that you’re raring to go, Chet, so give ’em hell down there!
CHET: [exercising lips while jogging in place] Thanks, Joe!
[Chet jogs offstage. Throughout the rest of the segment, intermittent loud ‘motorboating’ noises can be heard from offstage.]
[Announcer approaches another ‘athlete’.]
ANNOUNCER: And here we have last year’s Most Valuable ‘Boater, Dirk Langley. Dirk, you just finished competing in the double-D round. What’s the playing field like tonight?
DIRK: Oh, it’s definitely championship caliber. Lots of space to maneuver in, no lumps or ‘dead spots’, virtually hair-free. Maybe a little softer than I’d ideally like.
ANNOUNCER: And how does that affect your preparation?
DIRK: Well, you’ve got to think about traction. You dig in there with a mouthful of lip gloss or Vaseline, and you’ll slide right onto the floor. You need something with grip.
ANNOUNCER: And what are you going with?
DIRK: It’s my own mix. Equal parts Chapstick and Elmer’s Glue, with number two pencil shavings mixed in.
ANNOUNCER: And how’s that working for you?
DIRK: Like a dream. Had my personal best time. And got a phone number.
ANNOUNCER: Chaptastic. Anything else we should know about?
DIRK: Yeah. There’s a mole just left of midfield that could cause some real problems. Nearly skidded a cheek out over there, myself.
ANNOUNCER: Electric. Motor on, Dirk.
[Announcer moves to another ‘athlete’, this time much older.]
ANNOUNCER: And over here — oh, my. It’s the legend himself, Beau ‘Evinrude’ Rudinski. Beau, it’s an honor. I’ve been a personal fan of yours from way back — before the overbite surgery, even.
BEAU: Well, thanks, son. The sport and I have come a long way since then.
ANNOUNCER: Tearjerking. Now, you’re a nine-time World Motorboat Champ. Voted ‘Lips of the Millennium’ by the national press. The only athlete to ever complete the grueling coast-to-coast Hooter’s Marathon Challenge. And the records! I hear you once ‘boated non-stop for an incredible sixty-three hours and nineteen minutes. Is that true?
BEAU: Yeah, that’s right. Couldn’t feel my chin for a month after that. It’s not an “official” record, though.
ANNOUNCER: Oh?
BEAU: Silicone.
ANNOUNCER: Ah. You? Or her?
BEAU: (shrugging) Both.
ANNOUNCER: Scandalous. And the transition to dentures — how is that? Slowing you down at all?
BEAU: Not one *brrrp*. I may be getting old, but I’ve got the lip speed of a man half my age. Just wait til we hit the freestyle round. You’ll see.
ANNOUNCER: Tasty. Now-
[The motorboating offstage stops with a howl and gasping from an unseen crowd. Chet walks slowly back onstage, gingerly holding his face.]
ANNOUNCER: Chet! Chet! What happened out there?
CHET: I fink I bwew a wip.
ANNOUNCER: Ouch! How did it happen?
CHET: I hawve no ideaw. One milnute I wuls fine, then *bwammo* — this bwa stwap came owta nowhewe.
ANNOUNCER: Haunting. Do you think you’ll make it back for the coconut shell bikini round?
CHET: I dunk know, Joe. I’m gonga hab a wot of swe-wing.
ANNOUNCER: I imagine you *were* swearing, Chet. That must’ve hurt!
CHET: No. SWE-wing.
ANNOUNCER: Yes, I’d say you’ll have trouble spelling for a while, too.
CHET: SWE-WING! SWE-WING!
ANNOUNCER: Chet, I can’t understand a word you’re saying. You should really get some ice on that lip, or before it starts swelling.
[Chet limps away, dejected.]
ANNOUNCER: So that’s the latest from the Parton Center and this year’s World Motorboating Finals, where in the blink of an eye — or the snap of a strap — these brave slobbery competitors can go from the thrill of mammary to the agony of the teat. Good night!
Permalink | 1 CommentIt appears the world will have to wait a little longer for my foray into the arena of sitcom writing.
(You hear that enormous underground ‘WHOOOOSH‘? That’s the world, breathing a subterranean sigh of relief.)
I found out today that the writing class my friend Jenn is teaching — which was scheduled to start today, as it happens — was canceled. Today. Seems a little last-minute to me, but I suppose I can’t tell the local Adult Education concern how to run their curriculum. They’re likely too busy setting up for their ‘Wok Around the Clock’ cooking class and ‘ESL for Cab Drivers’ course. More on them in a bit.
First, an apology to Jenn. She warned me after my Mustn’t-See TV post last week that I might drive prospective students out of the class with that kind of talk.
(Presumably because they’d see that all the good ideas are already taken. I didn’t ask for her actual reasoning — in case it wasn’t that — so I’ll just assume I’m on track. Seems about right.)
So when I came up with the idea I was actually going to develop in class, I discreetly mentioned it to her in a private email. It’s a sitcom about zookeepers.
(I know, I know. But please — try and hold your applause until the end of the post. Otherwise, we’ll be here all night.)
Soon afterward, she wrote back — to tell me that the class had been canceled. And that if it hadn’t been canceled, she was strongly considering bringing a dunce cap to the classroom.
I was disappointed, of course. It would have been fun to see whatever other student she was referring to stuck in a dunce cap. But I replied to say, ‘Hey — since our Thursday nights are free now, why not get together and chat about this zookeeper bombshell?’ She said, ‘Fine.’
Then she canceled that. Which leads me to the only conclusion I can logically draw:
“I can just see them now, sitting in a darkened classroom, reading notes by the light of a low-powered flashlight, talking about character development or story arcs or how tight the cleavage shots on the lead actress should be.”
Jenn and the other students are having the class without me.
I can just see them now, sitting in a darkened classroom, reading notes by the light of a low-powered flashlight, talking about character development or story arcs or how tight the cleavage shots on the lead actress should be. And all the while wondering:
‘Did he buy it? He’s not coming, right? Was that a noise outside? Is he here? OHMIGOD, IS HE IN THE BUILDING?!?‘
(Well, I say “I can see them now”. But that’s just a figure of speech, of course.
There’s a big shrub covering most of the window. And they’re learning in the dark. So it’s all shadows, really.
Note to self: Buy a pair of those infrared ‘Buffalo Bill’ goggles. Better for reading the chalkboard, I’ll bet.)
I suppose I can’t blame them. I did throw ‘Buried, with Children’ and ‘Plumb and Plumber’ out there. Still, it seems a little extreme. They even had some lady from the Adult Education place call me to ‘confirm’ the cancellation. Which went about as well as everything else in this sordid tale of woe. Our discussion of the monetary ramifications of the situation went hauntingly like this:
Adult Ed. Lady: So, we’ve got two options. We can either refund your class fee or apply it as credit on another class. Is there another class you’d like to take now?
Me: Well… all your classes started this week, right?
Adult Ed. Lady: They did.
Me: So I’d have already missed one?
Adult Ed. Lady: That’s right.
Me: That doesn’t sound ideal.
Adult Ed. Lady: Well, the credit would be good for our fall or winter classes, as well.
Me: I dunno. Maybe I’ll just take the refund.
Adult Ed. Lady: No problem; I’ll just need the card number that you used to enroll.
Me: Oh. I don’t have that card any more. The bank switched me from Visa to a MasterCard last month.
Adult Ed. Lady: Oh, of course. You bank with <LocalFeeSuckingBank>, I bet.
Me: Hey, that’s right. I do bank with <LocalFeeSuckingBank>. How’d you know?
Adult Ed. Lady: They did the same thing to me! Switched cards on me, changed the numbers… what a mess, right?
Me: I know! That card went in the trash weeks ago.
Adult Ed. Lady: I completely understand.
Me: Great!
Adult Ed. Lady: So.
Me: So?
Adult Ed. Lady: Would you like the refund, or the class credit?
Me: The refund, please.
Adult Ed. Lady: Great, I’ll just need the card number.
Me: The one I signed up with?
Adult Ed. Lady: Right.
Me: From the card I don’t have?
Adult Ed. Lady: Yes.
Me: The card I trashed weeks ago?
Adult Ed. Lady: Exactly.
Me: I don’t have that card.
Adult Ed. Lady: I see. Well, then.
Me: Yes?
Adult Ed. Lady: Would you like the refund, or the class credit?
Me: Can I get the refund?
Adult Ed. Lady: By the sound of things… no.
Me: But you’re still asking the question.
Adult Ed. Lady: Standard procedure, sir.
Me: I see. Is this, like, a police confession kind of thing? Where if I don’t actually say the words myself, it doesn’t count somehow?
Adult Ed. Lady: I’m not sure, sir. But please — refund, or class credit?
Me: Any way I could get a store voucher out of this deal somehow?
Adult Ed. Lady: Store voucher?
Me: Somewhere that sells infrared goggles, maybe?
Adult Ed. Lady: I don’t think so, sir.
Me: Ah.
Adult Ed. Lady: So. Refund, or class credit?
Me: *sigh* Class credit, I guess.
Adult Ed. Lady: Well done, sir. Everybody gets it right, in the end.
So I’ve got class credit at the local Adult Education emporium, good through the end of the year. Maybe in the fall I’ll sign up for ‘Ballroom Basket Weaving’ or ‘Interpretive Beginner Microsoft Office’ or something, just to use the cash.
But this time I’ll keep my damned fool mouth shut about it beforehand. Even if there are zookeepers involved.
Permalink | No CommentsThe problem with making life hard for yourself is that even when other peoples’ lives are actually genuinely hard and yours is easy, you can usually find a way to make your life hard again.
In other words, there’s no way to win. Or, as I’ve been putting it around the office lately: ‘Hope is for babies.‘
(It hasn’t caught on as our group motto. Yet. A select few people are resisting it on the basis of the message being ‘too dark’ and ‘overly pessimistic’ and ‘what the hell is wrong with you, anyway?’
Oh, they’ll come around. I was like them once. I just hope they ‘see the dark’ in time to have it printed on T-shirts for the next group picnic.
At least, I would hope that — if I were still wearing Pampers and drinking from a sippy cup. Have I taught you people nothing?)
“A four-day vacation requires at least two days of recovery time, before doing anything resembling work. And those two days need another, and ideally a weekend, to properly gird you for the grind to come.”
Speaking of the office, it’s their fault I made my life hard again. Sort of. I had some extra vacation days lying around that I needed to use, so I decided to take the rest of this week off. The missus and I drove home from Maine last night, chatting about our immediate plans. She talked about sorting through bills and checking on email, unpacking, doing laundry, prepping for work today, and on and on. Exhausting stuff.
As though four days’ vacation is sufficient preparation to tackle that kind of mountain. It’s insanity. A four-day vacation requires at least two days of recovery time, before doing anything resembling work. And those two days need another, and ideally a weekend, to properly gird you for the grind to come.
Clearly, my wife needs a better union. Or a union at all. Maybe a consciencectomy. Something.
Meanwhile, my plan was nothing. No work, no play, and no immediate laundry emergencies to tackle. I planned to re-acquaint my ass with my living room couch for a few hours, maybe eat some food, lather, rinse, sleep for fourteen hours, and repeat until the week was over or bedsores started to form, whichever came first.
That’s when I got the text message. One of my softball teams had a game in the evening — and they needed me. In italics, even. Whoa.
Now, I know the real score, of course. They don’t need me, precisely. They need someone who can approximate my skills — grounding weakly to third, taking ground balls off the chest, and misremembering how many outs there are when coaching third base. Impressive stuff like that.
So it’s not as though I’m ‘irreplaceable’. Or even ‘irrepressible’. I’m just one of the few people they can reach via text message and have show up within a couple of hours. Having no life comes with a price. Sometimes a life is thrust upon you, two sweaty hours at a time.
(It sounds a lot dirtier when I put it that way.
Which is why I put it that way. Duh.)
So my non-plans were out the window. Speeding home from points north, I sorted out a schedule and told my teamies they could count on me. To ground weakly to third and flub grounders, as usual. But the text had caught me unprepared — I wasn’t ready to play, hadn’t considered playing, and certainly hadn’t planned to play — unless it was in a dream, while I was snoozing on the couch mid-evening. So when I arrived, I was in no way mentally prepared to play.
Now, you may be thinking: ‘Is it really necessary to ‘mentally prepare’ yourself to play a slow-pitch low-pressure C-league softball game?’
Evidently, it is. If you’re coming off a vacation, not especially bright and not very good at softball in the first place — yes. Yes, it is.
I stepped onto the field the same way I always do, took the same practice grounders, rearranged the dirt in front of me as usual for no good reason other than seeing real ballplayers do it on TV, and patted down my glove to make sure the ball had a nice soft place to land. Just like I always do.
But something was missing. My ‘eye of the tiger’ was gone. I had the toenail of a calico, maybe, or the gallbladder of a tabby. At best. My mind was elsewhere — in Maine with the moose, probably — and the ball seemed to know it. It’s like there was a big fat bullseye on the ground between my legs, just under where I dropped my glove.
The very first hit of the night — slow grounder, right to me. I dipped down and came up firing… except I forgot to catch the ball in between, so it kept rolling toward the outfield while I tossed an airball to first base.
Next inning, ball off the shoe. In the third, I fielded cleanly — and then nearly took a girl’s head off winging it wildly eight feet wide of the first baseman.
(It missed her, thankfully. By a couple of inches, as she ran to the base. But it could have been ugly.
Let’s just say that if she were a little slower then, she’d be a lot slower right now.)
The whole game went more or less like that — a near-comical parade of poor fielding, wild winging and narrowly-escaped vicious injuring. When the game was finally, miraculously over — somehow, we won despite my seven-inning Helen Keller impression — I scuttled home to think about what I’d done. And to hope that the team captain didn’t ‘lose’ my number, for good.
Because I’m not to blame here. Clearly, it’s Maine that’s at fault. If I hadn’t been soaked in it for the last four days, I’d have been my usual regrettable-but-passable self out there. Not the whirling dervish of suck the vacation turned me into.
So that’s how my vacation ended — with a reminder that when you go away, you might as well stay away. You’ll be ruined for anything useful or constructive for a long, long time after you get back. Which is the same thing I tried to tell my wife when she decided to toddle off to work today. The poor, unsuspecting little girl.
She said she’d ‘hope for the best‘. Hope she packed a pacifier to the office today. Coming down from vacation is brutal, yo.
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