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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Besides writing regularly here — and here, and here — I also occasionally submit pieces to sites that actually can reject them.
And often, they do.
Such was (sort of) the case with the following snippet, which I flung over to Demockeracy, for their recent essay contest on ‘Real Estate’s Next Hot Spot’. You can’t ‘reject’ an entry for a contest, per se; the piece can only win, lose, or earn an ‘honorable mention’.
It didn’t win. It didn’t earn an ‘honorable mention’. You do the math; I’ve got a tub of ice cream to eat and a blanket to hide under for the next three days.
In the meantime, they didn’t seem to like the piece below, but maybe you will. Maybe they’re just located in California and don’t have a sense of humor about it. Who knows?
But if you’re looking for a fancy summer home where the tourists won’t bother you — for the next few to few thousand years, anyway — then read on.
Real Estate’s Next Hot Spot
Tired of those winter blahs, but can’t afford to buy an expensive house on the beach? Then we at the Cataclysmic Condominium Corporation have an exciting new real estate opportunity for you!
Located in sunny Searchlight, Nevada, our ‘soon-to-be-shoreline’ beachhouse condominiums are spacious, modern, and — best of all — affordable. That’s because Searchlight is currently a near-forgotten ghost town in the middle of the Mojave Desert. But when the ‘big one’ hits, sinking California thirty fathoms into the sea and bringing the Pacific Ocean right to the patios of these fabulous condos, will the prices stay this low? No way! That’s why you need to act now to get in on the ground floor.
Not literally the ‘ground floor’, of course; we’ve built our condominium complex on anchored stilts, anticipating the frothy ocean waves to come. Our brand new pier will one day jut majestically into two hundred yards of deep sea water. Jet ski rentals are already available — we’ve thought of everything!
“Earthquakes, tsunamis, global warming, meteor impacts, nuclear explosions, floods, erosion, and Justin Timberlake are just a few of the dire imminent threats to the very existence of the state of California.”
You’re a shrewd investor. We at Cataclysmic Condominiums appreciate that. You’re wondering how we can be so sure that three hundred miles of dry land west of Searchlight will soon be submerged into the Pacific. And the answer is — it’s inevitable! The list of natural and manmade disasters poised to doom California grows longer every day. Earthquakes, tsunamis, global warming, meteor impacts, nuclear explosions, floods, erosion, and Justin Timberlake are just a few of the dire imminent threats to the very existence of the state of California. And when it’s gone, who’ll be left to enjoy the sunny beaches? That’s right, you — in a Cataclysmic Condo in the tropical ocean paradise of Searchlight, Nevada.
So invest in one of our gorgeous units with all the comforts of home and an ocean view arriving soon. Disaster may not strike today, or tomorrow, or in the next hundred thousand years. But when it does, you can be one of the lucky few waiting with a beach towel and a margarita in hand to cash in. Come join us in Searchlight, where our motto is: “Someday, surf’s up!”
Permalink | 1 CommentFirst stop on the train today, pulling into Bugs & Cranks station:
These Irish Eyes Are Watching the Braves — A green-tinted St. Patty’s Day gaze at the latest news from Braves camp.
Now let’s keep the train rolling. All aboard!
Today, I’m playing that time-honored, oft-attempted, and entirely unwinnable game: I’m waiting for the plumber to show up.
Plumbers are members of a mysterious secret society — including cable guys, delivery people, and, depending on your neighborhood, the cops — that unfailingly knows how to catch you at the worst possible time. Either they employ a crack team of very talented psychics, or they have cameras in every room of every household in the world. I suspect they’re watching us from the wall outlets; the electricians must be in on it, too.
“I don’t even get a halftime pep talk, or cheerleaders to distract me. It’s like playing golf, without the funny pants and ball washers.”
My ‘appointment’ this morning was standard issue for a plumber — ‘between 8 AM and 10 AM’. As the words were uttered, the game began — a contest I cannot hope to win, or even draw. I don’t even get a halftime pep talk, or cheerleaders to distract me. It’s like playing golf, without the funny pants and ball washers.
When you play the ‘waiting for the plumber’ game, there are three possible outcomes:
1. If you forget the plumber is coming and sleep in, the plumber will arrive at a sane, reasonable time in the middle of the expected window. You’ll either wake in a panic when the doorbell rings, and greet your plumber wearing your footie pajamas and a bad case of bedhead — or you’ll cower silently under the covers, and reschedule with a now-angry plumber later on.
And let me tell you — you don’t want an angry plumber. That roto-rooting snake thingy they carry isn’t just for clogged toilets. Or so they’ll tell you.
2. If you diligently set your alarm, wake up, and make yourself presentable — well earlier than the appointment window, to be safe — then the plumber will assuredly arrive as late in the interval as possible. Including up to three hours after it.
Also, it’s no good waking up extra early, getting dressed, and then feigning sleep under the bedcovers to make the plumber come on time. They start watching the cameras hours before the appointment, to put the kibosh on that sort of trickery. Plus, at that hour you’re likely to fall back to sleep, and then you’re right back at #1 again.
3. If you’re very clever, you can manage to maximize the sleep you get, schedule your morning prep to end exactly at the start of the appointment window, and enjoy a nice relaxing cup of coffee or tea while you wait. Should you be the sort who can pull off this tricky bit of time management, you receive a special reward — the plumber won’t show up at all.
They hate you well-organized people, sitting there smugly sipping from your alphabetically-sorted mugs. They bail, just to teach you bastards a lesson. It’s the one subject on which plumbers and I agree.
This time around, I’ve taken door number two. I set the alarm for 7:30, woke up on my own fifteen minutes early, and was showered, dressed, and miserable by twenty til eight. My pants are on backwards, I showered with toothpaste, and I may have eaten my watch, but I’m available to meet the plumber when he arrives.
At ten.
Or twelve.
Or Thursday.
Get me the Gatorade and a spit cup. This game’s going into overtime, coach.
Permalink | No CommentsBaseball buffs, please to be checking out Bugs & Cranks, where a new post awaits your perusal:
The Replaceables: AL Edition — Like the NL version, one player per team not earning his keep.
That’ll do for now. Let’s get this ball rolling.
My wife, wonderful woman that she is, made tacos for lunch today. I’m a huge fan of tacos, not least because I can load them up with hot sauce and jalapeno peppers. In general, I like my food like I like my burlesque — as spicy as possible, and if somebody’s not sweating, then they’re not doing it right.
“The day there’s no hot sauce in my fridge is the day they pry the last nacho from my cold, dead fingers.”
So, I scampered off to the fridge to pick out some sauces. I keep a whole door shelf devoted to pepper sauces and mixes, with around thirty to choose from on any given day. You never know when a meal will come along that you want to kick up a few notches, so you have to stock up. The day there’s no hot sauce in my fridge is the day they pry the last nacho from my cold, dead fingers.
I like to mix and match a little with something like tacos, so I grabbed three bottles from my stash — the Walkerswood Scotch Bonnet™ (nice heat with some tang), Pickapeppa™ (almost no heat; sweet vinegar flavor), and Xtra Hot Ring of Fire™ (good habanero heat with smoke).
I assembled two tacos, and prepared to sprinkle on hte bottled goodness. Hot sauces in these slender little bottles have a tendency to settle, so it’s a good idea to mix them before using. I gave the Walkerswood a good shake, up-and-down, and drizzled it on.
Then I gave the Pickapeppa a good shake, up-and-down, and poured it on, too.
Finally, I gave the Ring of Fire a good SHAKE, up-and…
The next sound I heard was a wet, sloppy *ger-bloop*. I remembered then that I’d dropped that bottle a while back, and while the bottle was unharmed, the lid had broken in half. I left it resting on top of the bottle, more for looks than anything else. These rather important details came back to me as I watched the lid skitter across the counter, and sank home when I heard various sickening *splat*s on the floor, stove, counter, cabinets, and the plate I was using.
Of course, none of the sauce actually hit the tacos. That would be too easy.
I think I also felt a drop of the stuff land in my hair. I couldn’t worry about that, though — I had to get the obvious mess cleaned up first. My wife would be back for her lunch any minute. She’s not a big ‘heat’ fan — and wonders sometimes if all of those bottles are strictly necessary, the poor misguided girl — so I couldn’t very well let her see a mess like that. So I grabbed two fistfuls of paper towels and scrubbed what I could. By the time she walked in, the mess was no more, the kitchen was clean, and I was cool and nonchalant. She never suspected a thing.
But I never got a chance to check my hair.
So if she nuzzles up next to me on the couch tonight and gets all teary-eyed and sniffly, I’ll know she’s not feeling romanitc. It’s just that I’m hot.
Hot like Fire™!
Permalink | No CommentsUp top, I’d like to direct your attention to a new Braves post over at Bugs & Cranks:
All Quiet on the Grapefruit Front — It’s quiet in Braves’ camp. Too quiet.
And now, on with the show.
There are times when I still act like a kid. Like most waking moments, for instance. Just ask my wife. And usually, acting like a kid is fun.
But not today.
“Work, school — it’s all the same thing, really. You get up early, schlep your way there, spend all day having people tell you things you don’t understand, have lunch, get yelled at for sleeping at your desk, and go home.”
Last night, I heard there was a snowstorm headed our way. We might get six inches of the white stuff, maybe even eight. The flakes were due to start drifting overnight, which meant Friday morning would dawn on a glistening white sheet of beautiful fallen snow.
For ‘real‘ adults, that’s a downer. A snowstorm means digging out your car, and shoveling your steps, and salting the sidewalks, and trudging around in clunky wet boots. I’ve got the same issues now, too, of course. But snow still means to me what it meant when I was a twelve-year-old boy:
NO SCHOOL TOMORROW!
Or in this case, work. Work, school — it’s all the same thing, really. You get up early, schlep your way there, spend all day having people tell you things you don’t understand, have lunch, get yelled at for sleeping at your desk, and go home. That’s just about every weekday I’ve spent between the ages of six and thirty-six. The wheel just keeps on spinning.
But one thing that can stop that wheel, besides weekends and delicious vacation days — is snow. And I’ll gladly trade an hour or two of shovelling for a full morning in my jammies and an afternoon nap on my couch. So I was positively giddy last night, with the prospect of a late-winter blizzard coming to brighten my March. I even sang ‘The Snow Song’:
‘Snow, snow, snow, snow —
If it comes, I won’t go.
I tell you, it better show —
Snooooooooow!!‘
(No, it’s not fricking Gershwin. I wrote it when I was nine. Cut me some damned slack.)
So I went to sleep — when I calmed down enough to go to sleep — looking forward to a wintry start to a spectacular three-day weekend. I woke up early, pounced out of bed, and sprang to the window to find….
Nothing. Not one damned snowflake. The whitest thing in front of me was my reflection in the window. The kid in me curled into a fetal ball and threw a temper tantrum. Either that, or I had heartburn from last night’s hot wings. Whichever it was, I was pissed. But I had to go to work. Just like any other stupid day.
So I grumbled through a shower. I groused while I got dressed, bitched through breakfast, and carped all the way to the car. I slumped into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and as I pulled out of th edriveway, I watched a single, lonely flake drift out of the sky and flutter onto the windshield. Then another. And another.
It snowed all the way to work. When I went to lunch, it was snowing sideways. When I left for the evening it was falling thick and heavy, like white globs of goose guano hurtling towards earth. The ride back home was long, icy, and treacherous. And when I arrived at my house, I found the six-to-eight inches I was expecting on my sidewalks and street — not conveniently keeping me from getting out to the office, but now preventing me from getting back in.
I dug my way to the house. The child inside me kicked me in the nuts. And now, I hate snow just as much as any grown-up, shovel-toting, dead-inside adult. Damn those meteorologists for getting a guy’s hopes up.
Permalink | No CommentsWhen it comes to baseball, I consider myself a fan of the game. No matter who’s playing, I can appreciate the rituals, the nuance, and the subtle strategy involved. Or I can have fun watching the Yankees lose a game — whichever’s more convenient.
Then there’s the brutal ballet of pro football. The spine-jarring hits, the mano-a-mano battles in the trenches, the dance of the receivers and defensive backs across the field. It’s elegant, even beautiful in a certain way. In the right frame of mind, I could watch just about any NFL matchup.
“If college hoops was outlawed tomorrow, it’d save me an awful lot of time to obsess over something else I have no control over — like the weather, or the prime interest rate, or what color drapes my wife wants in the bathroom.”
That brings us to college basketball. I don’t love college basketball. I don’t even like college basketball, exactly. I have one team that I live and die with, whether I like it or not. ‘Love the game’? Screw the game. If college hoops was outlawed tomorrow, it’d save me an awful lot of time to obsess over something else I have no control over — like the weather, or the prime interest rate, or what color drapes my wife wants in the bathroom.
True, I’d never be able to celebrate another of my team’s wins — and there are a number of wins, I’ll admit. But many of those wins are less than significant — if you beat Southwestern Vermont Agricultural & Technical Community College by three at home in December, is it really cause for cracking open a bottle of champage?
(Not unless you want to get a good buzz on, so you won’t think about what’s going to happen when your squad plays a real team. And even then, you’ll want something like tequila, rather than champagne.
Gotta get there fast, before the panic sets in. Champagne is for rich people and basketball fans without OCD.)
On Sunday, the teams for this year’s ‘March Madness’ hoops tournament were selected. Sixty-five teams were selected — including a few that would have trouble keeping up with that Vermont A&T CC team. But not my team. And that hurts.
My team was supposed to be included. I even went out Sunday evening to watch the tournament selection show. And that’s way too much Gumbel to be exposed to without a payoff at the end. I got no payoff. I got nothing but a big fat spoonful of Gumbel, with a side of Billy Packer and a glass full of Clark Kellogg to wash it down. That might be part of a balanced bullfest, but it tastes like ‘bitter’ to me right now.
So, I’m out. As far as I’m concerned, basketball is over, at least until the fall. I’m not watching any stupid games, I’m not filling out any stupid brackets, and I’m certainly not listening to any more stupid Gumbels. I’m in full-out boycott mode. March Madness can suck suck it from three-point range.
Meanwhile, all of the people who care about such sporting events still care about this one. And several of them so far have assumed that I care, too. When I do not. Not in the slightest. This has led to some awkward situations, of course.
First it was my boss, who asked me this morning what I thought of some matchup or other. I half-lied and told him that I don’t follow college basketball. Then I really lied, and said it was a ‘religious thing’. Which I followed with a whopper lie, explaining that the sweatshirt I was wearing at the time with my school’s name on it was in support of their three-legged race team. Gee, do they have a basketball squad, too? Gosh, I never realized. Whaddaya know.
Then, my buddy emailed me about a $10 tournament pool he’s entering, and a bracket suitable for printing. He’s seen me watch basketball before, so I had to take a different approach. I tried telling him my printer was broken; he offered to bring one over himself. I tried telling him I was broke, and he offered to lend me the ten bucks. So I told him that someone stole all my pens, I’ve forgotten how to read, and my arms have temporarily fallen off, so I can’t fill out a bracket. He seemed to buy it, but I’m in for another awkward explanation next time I see him.
It seems like everyone’s been talking about this damned tournament the past couple of days, and I’m tired of it. Even my wife is against me on this one; when I got home tonight, we had this exchange:
Beautiful Patient Wife: ‘Who would you take on a neutral court — Ohio State or Florida?’
Bitter Unstable Me: ‘Who cares? Screw ’em both. Basketball sucks.’
Beautiful Patient Wife: ‘Don’t be mad just because your team didn’t make it. I’m reaching out for help here.’
Bitter Unstable Me: ‘Okay, I’ll help. Your bracket’s going to lose. You’re wasting your money. And your team — who somehow eked into the stupid tournament — is going to lose in the first round. If not before. Also, you’re a big poop.’
So now, thanks to college basketball — which I hate, by the way — I’m sleeping on the couch for the next three weeks. At least from there, I’ll have control of the remote. And we’re not watching ESPN, or any basketball, or any bullshit reeking of Gumbel, at least until September. Bah.
So. Is it baseball season yet? I’ve got a few weeks to kill here.
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