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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Two Braves baseball bits of mine over at Bugs & Cranks to kick things off:
The Littlest Challenge — It could’ve been a big trade. But really? Not so much.
Big Fat Doughnuts — The Braves have thrown up more zeroes lately than a bulemic on a Cheerio diet.
And on that food-related note, on to more gastrinomical shenanigans.
Being a full-time smartass isn’t always quite as fulfilling and glamorous as I might make it seem here. This is never more evident than when I’m hanging around in the kitchen with the missus. I’m supposed to be ‘helping’, but it rarely ever works that way. Three recent examples:
#1. The Tuna Trip-Up
Last weekend, I decided to make a tuna sandwich for lunch. The usual procedure for eating tuna in our house includes giving the mostly-empty tuna can to the dog. It’s her little treat; she loves licking the last little flecks of fish out of the bottom of the tin.
(Also, we’ve heard that fish is ‘brain food’, so we’re hoping some of it finally takes hold in the mutt. If she ever stops walking in her own turds in the back yard, we’ll know our plan has worked.
Until then, maybe we should start force-feeding her cod liver oil. She’s got a long way to go.)
“A sane man would let it go at that. Even an insane man, if he’d taken a stupid minute to think about it, might wise up and say nothing.”
Anyway, on this particular day, we were out of tins of tuna. But we did, for some reason, have one of these fancy new pouches. It’s the same fish. Tastes the same on a sammich. But there’s nothing to give the dog. If I handed that bag to the dog, she’d go completely ape shit, rip it into shreds trying to find the tuna, and then where would I be?
Mopping fish flecks and bits of bag off the kitchen freaking ceiling, that’s where.
So I pulled the tuna out of the bag, with the dog all the while giving me the big pitiful sad-eye treatment. I negotiated her down to three Snausages not to talk, and was just about to discard the evidence when my wife walked into the kitchen.
She saw me, standing three steps from the garbage can, and said those eight little words every married man hopes he’ll never have to hear:
‘Awwww… she can’t lick tuna off your pouch!
A sane man would let it go at that. Even an insane man, if he’d taken a stupid minute to think about it, might wise up and say nothing. Me? Without missing a beat, I shrugged and said:
‘Hey, it works just fine with Jiffy. Why not Starkist?‘
My wife wouldn’t sleep in the bed with me for three nights. And I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure when she came back, she started keeping a taser on her bedside table. Also, I’m pretty sure she’s never buying — or eating — tuna or peanut butter again.
Sucks to be the dog, eh?
#2. The Fruit and the Loon
We recently signed up for a service with a local organic market. It’s often hard, with our whirlwind schedules, to find time to eat properly and get all of our minerals and vitamins and humours and stuff. So every two weeks, some guy from this market brings us a big box of fruit and veggies, so we’ll always have fresh produce in the house.
Not that we always eat the produce, mind you. We’re still just as busy, and I’m still not sure I want cauliflower anywhere inside me. But we make an effort now — and I’ve never eaten so many mangoes in my life. Baby steps, I suppose. Baby steps and bok choy, apparently.
We got our shipment this past Thursday, and — for whatever reason — it was heavily slanted toward the fruit side. There were a couple of potatoes, and a zucchini or two, but everything else was a fruit. We got apples. We got oranges. We got bananas, pears, and peaches. There’s an avacado, and grapes, and raspberries, and the list just goes on and on. I counted, and determined that we had no less than ten kinds of fruit in the house.
When my wife got home later that evening, I informed her of this fact, and escorted her to the kitchen to witness the cranium-curdling cornucopia for herself. When she saw the enormous pile of produce on the kitchen counter, she exclaimed:
‘Wow — I haven’t seen so many fruits in one place since our wedding!‘
She was referring, of course, to the spread at our reception. We were well-stocked on pineapples and strawberries and the like for the post-nuptial festivities, and that’s what she was thinking back to.
Obviously. I knew this. And yet, I couldn’t stop myself from blurting out:
‘Well, yeah. But to be fair, they were mostly on the bride’s side of the aisle.‘
This time, she wouldn’t let me sleep in the bed for three nights. I had to schlep through the weekend on the couch downstairs. And in case you’re unaware, a sackful of Granny Smith’s makes a lousy pillow. The more you know.
#3. Killer Cereal
Just a few minutes ago, the missus came home from work. It’s getting late, so she decided on a light dinner — a quick bowl of cereal.
Fine. I’ve been there myself. Sometimes, the easiest meal is the only one worth eating.
Only she’s not eating ‘normal’ cereal. Somewhere along the way, she decided she’s not getting enough fiber, or grains, or umlauts or something, so she switched brands. And when I walked into the kitchen to check on her tonight, she was pouring herself a bowl of Mueslix.
Eek.
I must have made a disgusted face — maybe even a frightened litlte squeal — because she looked up at me with an expression that plainly said, ‘What? What is it now?‘
Then she said:
‘What? What is it now?‘
I couldn’t help myself. I’ve always had this thing about Mueslix.
‘Well… it’s just… you’re eating Mueslix.‘
‘Yeah? So?‘
‘Well, I know that ‘Crispix’ is ‘crispy times two’. So Mueslix is two times… what, exactly?‘
She blinked. Then she opened her mouth, as if to say something reasonable, thought better of it, and dumped the box and the contents of her bowl in the garbage. I think maybe I ‘won’ this round, but frankly, I can’t be sure.
All I know is, I’m probably sleeping on a bag of apples again tonight. It’s a good thing we’re not actually eating that fruit, or it’d be an awfully long night.
Permalink | No CommentsI had a very interesting experience this afternoon. I had a meeting with a guy — a long-time and well-known Boston-area humorist, actually — to pick up lunch and chat about a few ideas. The chatting and the lunching were certainly interesting — but they weren’t the most interesting part of the experience.
The most interesting part was the actual meeting.
You see, I’d never met this man before. I knew what he looked like, from seeing pictures of him in his online articles. And he knew what I looked like, from the mug shot perched atop this page. But nobody ever looks quite like their photos, so hooking up wasn’t as easy as it might seem.
“I daresay that, unless you’re a client of some ‘lonely hearts’ kinky hookup club, you just don’t find yourself meeting strange men in public places with only a picture and name to guide you.”
Think about it — how often do you find yourself meeting a complete stranger outside the context of your home, office, or circle of friends? In social situations, there’s usually a mutual friend available to introduce you.
(Or, in my case, to remind you over and over what the person’s name is, and whether they have any lawsuits pending against you yet.)
And at the office, it’s even easier. If no one introduces you, it’s no big deal. That’s what business cards and name plates and appointment calendars are for. In most situations, it’s clear who all parties are, even if they’ve never met. We can tell the bosses from the lackeys, the executives from the serfs, and the bootlicking weasels from the boot-wearing other weasels, based on context, cues, and which people have shoe polish dribbling down their chins. In fact, I daresay that, unless you’re a client of some ‘lonely hearts’ kinky hookup club, you just don’t find yourself meeting strange men in public places with only a picture and name to guide you.
So today, when I found myself meeting a strange man in a public place with only a picture and name to guide me, I felt more than a little odd. There was a line outside the place we’d agreet to meet for lunch, which meant all sorts of people milling about. I thought I spotted my man standing alone near the line, but I wasn’t immediately sure. So I stared at him for a good full minute, then shoved my hands in my pocket and approached him.
‘Um… hi. John?‘
He looked up and gave me a little smile. It’s possible that he dragged his toe back and forth on the ground, coyly.
‘Yep, that’s me. Charlie?‘
I could feel the people around us watching, and probably wondering why the Boston Chapter of the Lonely Hearts Kinky Hookup Club, Man-On-Man Division was filming a commercial outside their taqueria at lunchtime. We couldn’t have looked or felt more awkwardly uncomfortable if we’d just met in a singles bar. Or by the dumpster behind a Chippendales. Or at a glory hole in a Shell station bathroom.
(Okay, I stand corrected. Apparently, we could have felt more awkwardly uncomfortable — like, say, the way I’m feeling now, after the examples I just gave.
I really should learn to leave well enough alone. I am not going to sleep well tonight.)
What I’m saying is, it was pretty awkward. After that initial exchange, I wondered whether my next question should be:
‘So… who gets to be on top?‘
Luckily, I didn’t say that. And we had a nice, normal conversation while we waited in line for burritos, which we ate while chatting over a few ideas that were the focus of the meeting. Again, in a nice, perfectly normal, un-lonely hearts kinky hookup kind of way. After the first twelve seconds or so, all that awkward, weird ‘meeting up with strangers’ stuff was forgotten.
Still. He did insist on buying lunch. Which was a very nice gesture, to be sure. But you know what that means.
I would so not get to be on top.
Thank goodness we were only meeting to talk, or I’d have been awfully upset. As it was, I made out with a free lunch, an interesting conversation, and something to write about tonight. Maybe this ‘meeting strange men from the interweb’ thing is okay, after all.
Permalink | 1 CommentSorry to be AWOL for a few days, but it’s good to be back in the writing saddle. First, a look over at Bugs & Cranks at a hitter gone cold at the plate:
Andruw Who? — Who are you, and what have you done with our sure-slugging center fielder?
And now for something much, much warmer:
It’s been a hot couple of weeks around New England this month. I’m not really a ‘hot weather’ sort of guy. And so I’ve been complaining, nearly hourly, about the heat, the humidity, and the uncomfortable clammy stickiness of various undergarments I might be wearing.
My wife has been present for many of these complaints, and they must have finally gotten to her. Realizing that the only other options for shutting me up would be moving to Alaska or shoving my carcass in a deep freezer, she broke down and did the humane thing today — she suggested that we go buy an air conditioner.
“Sadly, our local Home Despot was fresh out of liquid nitrogen-powered cooling assemblies. Nor could they help us with dry ice generators, industrial walk-in freezer motors, or anything including the words ‘subzero’, ‘cryonic’, or ‘Eskimo approved’.”
To be fair, we already had one air conditioner, in our bedroom. And on hot summer nights, it does make sleeping bearable — and frosty cool. But opening the door to leave our room is like walking into a blast furnace. I suspect that the heat driven out of the bedroom mingles with the other heat in the house, works itself into a tizzy, calls its heat friends around the neighborhood, and they all wait in ambush outside the door. If you ever want to experience the life cycle of a frozen microwave pizza, I can help you out. It’s not delivery; it’s Di-fricking-hellish.
So the missus relented and offered to help me pick out a window A/C unit for the living room downstairs. With enough oomph — I was thinking ‘liquid nitrogen cooling jets’ — it might even make some of the other rooms habitable.
(And if not — who cares? We spend ninety-five percent of our waking at-home time in the living room. If I have to sweat it out making beer withdrawals or deposits in the kitchen or bathroom, respectively, then so be it. Just so long as the living room is at least as cold as the beer when I get back.)
Sadly, our local Home Despot was fresh out of liquid nitrogen-powered cooling assemblies. Nor could they help us with dry ice generators, industrial walk-in freezer motors, or anything including the words ‘subzero’, ‘cryonic’, or ‘Eskimo approved’. ‘You can do it, we can help’, my sweaty ass.
Eventually, we picked out a model with a beefy BTU number and brought it home. It’s a heavy little monster, leading my wife and I to believe that loading it into the car, heaving it out, and huffing it up the stairs to our house constituted the ‘hard part’ of the installation.
Silly us. You’d think we’d know better by now. I blame the heat strokes and strained backs for clouding our judgement.
I’ll spare you the gory details of the four-hour assembly process. Suffice it to say that the very first step in the instructions was to remove a series of screws holding two very solid and heavy bits of metal together. They actually asked us to partially dismantle the air conditioner when we were supposed to be putting the pieces together. But that’s not the bad part.
The bad part was, we couldn’t do it. One of the screws refused to come out. Just flatly refused. Oh, it would turn. Apply a screwdriver to the head, and the thing would spin like a happy little top in its screwhole. It just wouldn’t go anywhere. It just sat there smugly, twirling around without lifting out, as if to say:
‘Looking for some cool air, eh? Well, screwhole you!‘
In our battle plan, we assembled an impressive array of tools to attack this screwy bastard. Pliers, knives, an entire family of screwdrivers — at one point, we brought in salad tongs from the kitchen. Nothing. For nearly an hour we fought one stupid, tiny 3/8″ screw keeping us from cool comfort, involuntary shivers, and pointy nipples. Finally — finally! — I poked and pried the thing enough to get the screw threads on track, and removed the beast from our new air conditioner.
And it was all uphill from there.
Maybe I’m just unfamiliar with the ways of the modern air conditioner. Perhaps the doodads and thingajiggies and shoddy parts are all par for the course these days, and that’s just how it is. But we spent the next three hours pushing things into holes too small for those things, screwing screws into holes too big to hold those screws, and wondering why in the hell we had fourteen parts left over at the end of the assembly. But assemble we finally did, and now, thank the gods, we have a working air conditioner.
Which is a goddamned good thing. Because after all that, we fricking needed one. Next time, remind me to just ask for a box fan and save all the bullshit. Even the liquid nitrogen sprayer isn’t worth this kind of trouble. Sheesh.
Permalink | 1 CommentThe missus and I recently celebrated our wedding anniversary. We’ve been married for eleven years now; for a while, we tried to follow the ‘traditional’ gift ideas suggested each year.
Yeah. That didn’t last long.
Oh sure, the first year is ‘paper’, which is fine. You can buy books, or tickets, or all sorts of other pulp-prepped pretties. Then there’s stuff like ‘cotton’, which gets you clothes or sheets or something, ‘flowers’ (duh), and ‘wood’. Who wouldn’t like a nice set of shelves, or a new baseball bat? How much more romantical and shit can you get?
“Who wouldn’t like a nice set of shelves, or a new baseball bat? How much more romantical and shit can you get?”
But after a half-dozen years or so, the so-called experts run out of good ideas. On the list for year nine is ‘willow’. Willow? I don’t know whether they mean the movie or the tree; all I know is that I don’t want either as an anniversary present. And neither, I suspect, does my wife.
From there, it’s all downhill on the traditional gift list. I haven’t looked lately, but the last few years were just ludicrous. They want us to celebrate our bonds of marriage with crap like ‘feldspar’, ‘sock puppets’, ‘lighter fluid’, or ‘sawdust’. Something like that, anyway. Like I said, I haven’t looked in a while.
Anyway, we decided to forgo the tradition a few years ago, so we could actually get and receive presents we actually want. Usually it works out great. This year… well, we’re getting there. Eventually.
For my part, I got the missus one of those fancy fruit-brand MP3 song gizmo thingies. She’s got a long bus-‘n’-train commute to work, so I figured a few tunes would make the time go faster. Now she can listen to something uplifting and motivational on the way to the office — like ‘Sixteen Tons’ or ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’. I’m just here to help.
My wife, sweetheart that she is, got me a GPS doodad for the car. It’s the perfect gift — I’m always getting lost, and when I do get lost, I always do the wrong thing to get back on track. If I miss making a left, I’ll take the next right to compensate and get way off track. If I miss a highway exit, I’ll do doughnuts through the next rest stop and hope it works itself out. And if I ever take the wrong road off a roundabout — well, let’s just say I hope the airbags still work. So you could say I’m a prime candidate for GPS assistance.
There’s just one little problem.
For nearly a week now — just about the entire interval since our anniversary, I haven’t actually seen my car. It’s in the garage, rendering my movements quite limited — and the GPS grounded.
Uh oh.
I know how these things work — this is just like that Gift of the Magi story. She gets me the sweet tool for the car, and then the car goes on the fritz. I get her a piece of stereo equipment for her commute, and… what? Her office moves across the street from our house? Boston digs up its subway system and fills in the tubes? She suddenly goes deaf?
Damn. I knew this anniversary present thing would bite in the ass eventually. I so should have given her the sock puppets instead.
Permalink | 2 CommentsFor the past two days — and, I’m told, for the upcoming weekend, too — I’ve been carless. Completely and entirely without vehicle. Deprived of ride. Persona non automobila.
I had no idea how naked I would feel without forty-five hundred pounds of steel, chrome, and pleather wrapped around me, but I’ll go on record here to say that it’s a very uncomfortable experience. I wouldn’t recommend it. And I’m starting to feel a little drafty.
“I’m not going to get very far without the car; I’m starting to feel like I’m under house arrest, without all the judiciary flip-flops and courtroom histrionics.”
The main problem here is where we live. It’s a nice enough area, but it’s not terribly close to convenient public transportation, like the Boston subway, express busses, or those little swan boats you rent to paddle around the pond in Boston Common. Not that I’d particularly want to commute down the Charles River in a swan boat, mind you, but if we were a little closer to the river, maybe I’d think about it. We’re in an inconvenient spot, is what I’m trying to say.
Given where my office is now, and the transportational gyrations I’d have to go through to get there from here without a car, I’ve worked at home the past two days. My usual commute is around twenty minutes. WIthout my ride, I’d have to take a bus a couple of miles to the subway, then take one line downtown to catch another line outbound to my building — around an hour-and-a-half trip each way, I’d say.
When you add in time spent in meetings, eating lunch, and sobbing quietly at my computer, I’d basically be getting to work and turning right around to leave again. This way, I’ve been able to get up and be productive right away. Sobbing in my pajamas first thing in the morning is saving me tons of time. I should’ve thought of it sooner.
Getting all that work done has left plenty of time for fun — but my options are limited there, too. I’m not going to get very far without the car; I’m starting to feel like I’m under house arrest, without all the judiciary flip-flops and courtroom histrionics.
That said, some items on the old social calendar require leaving home — and are not to be missed. Like last night, when the playoffs in one of my volleyball leagues was scheduled in a gym a mile or so away from my house. My options were grim — a cab would be awfully expensive, even for the short ride. I’m not a Zipcar member. And there’s not a single bicycle, skateboard, Segway, or pair of inline skates in the house. So what’s a fat lazy old coot already scheduled to get his exercise for the month to do?
Finally, I found the answer. While looking for emergency horse and buggy rental information on the internet, I came across something called ‘walking’. Like I mentioned, we’re too far out in the ‘burbs for this ‘walking’ phenomenon to catch on much, but it looks like it’s all the rage in the big cities these days. Rumor has it that people in New York City have fifty different words for walking. Amazing.
I downloaded an instruction sheet — something about flinging each foot in front of the other in succession — practiced on the sidewalk outside for a while, and gave it a shot. It wasn’t nearly as tricky as I thought it would be. By the time I was halfway there, I had really gotten the hang of it. I consulted my cheat sheet and even tried a few variations. I ‘sauntered’ for a while, ‘ambled’ around one corner, and ‘strolled’ for nearly a whole block. Then I nearly pulled a groin attempting to ‘mosey’, and went right back to basic walking. No need to swing for the fences the first time out.
In the end, though, I made it. I ‘walked’ all the way to the gym. Oh, I got a ride home afterward — I’m no fool over here — but I proved to myself that even out here in the suburban wastelands, I can occasionally squeak by without a car. I might even try some more of this ‘walking’ business tomorrow.
Just don’t ask me to mosey any time soon. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.
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