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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Last night, the missus and I went out for dinner with a few friends. I play softball on Sundays, and it’s a long-standing after-game tradition that the team should get together to drink enough beer and eat enough delicious dead animal parts to counter any health benefits we might gain from exercising on the field. Then, we eat and drink some more, just to be safe.
On this particular gorge-fest, I was in the mood for wings. HOT wings. I like spicy food, and when I order it, I’m not dicking around. This particular joint has a disclaimer on their hottest style of wings:
‘Atomic Hot — don’t say we didn’t warn you!!‘
“I ordered a batch of wings from the waitress, and asked her to tell the chef I said his hot sauce tasted like watery ketchup, and that I probably had disparaging things to say about his mother’s hot sauce, too.”
Promising. I ordered a batch of wings from the waitress, and asked her to tell the chef I said his hot sauce tasted like watery ketchup, and that I probably had disparaging things to say about his mother’s hot sauce, too. I figured if the wings came back so-so spicy, then he probably spat on them, or worse. If they were five-alarm hot, then he just loaded the pepper sauce onto them.
They were screaming hot. Just the way I like them. Mission accomplished.
(How do I like them, exactly? Let’s just say I like my wings like I like my women — when they get close, I want my lips burning, my brow sweating, and a side of bleu cheese for dipping. And if there’s celery involved, who am I to argue?)
And maybe the chef still spat on my wings — so what? With that kind of heat, anything living in his saliva was dead before it hit the plate. This was the good stuff. You could sprinkle anthrax and bubonic plague into this sauce, and you’d be fine. I’m talking ‘hot like a napalm enema’ hot here. And that’s hot.
Now, as a frequent consumer of wicked spicy consumables, I knew what I was in for. These babies were going to hurt. The first pain would be in the mouth and throat area. Lots of burning around there. I was prepared for that.
The second pain of eating spicy foods is a bit delayed. And often prolonged. I believe it was around three in the morning when I first ‘heard the call’, and shuffled into the bathroom. This pain was, of course, in a different place. Not the mouth. More southern.
If my body were France, this pain would be somewhere down in my Mediterranean area. If I were America, it would be in my Mississippi delta. And if I were the size of all of North America — not out of the question, if I keep eating the wings — the pain would be roughly on the underside of my Yucatan peninsula. You get the idea.
Still, I’ve been down this highway before. It’s not always a pleasant ride, but I know the drill. No surprises there.
I did, however, make one rookie mistake. Before I went to bed, I took out my contact lenses, and put them in their case to soak overnight. I had washed my hands, to be sure. But apparently, I hadn’t scrubbed my hands, to ensure that any lingering hint of glorious pepper oil was banished from my fingers. And so, those contacts weren’t ‘soaking’, really. They were simmering in a stew of capsaicin and saline, lying in wait to cockblock my corneas and set me crying like a little girl without a Barbie. And I never saw it coming.
This morning, I showered as usual, brushed my teeth, and slid the first lens out of the case. I popped it into my eye — and immediately felt the wrath of a hundred thousand Scovilles singing my sclera. Between the squinting, the tears, and a fuzzy orange haze, it took me a while to get the contact back out. By then, I was bloodshot, blubbering, and blind in one eye.
I’m sure a real man would have put both lenses in, and waited for the oils to clear. Me, I rinsed those bastards in cold water for a good ten minutes before I even dreamed of trying again. Maybe I’m just a pansy that way. I’ll simply have to learn to live with it.
So, I got a third kind of ‘burn’ from my hot wings that I wasn’t at all ready for, and not remotely happy about. From now on, I’ll soak my hands in an ice bath for a few hours after eating spicy foods, and before I dare touch my contact lenses. Or I’ll take them out, and then eat them. I’m sure they’d be tasty, and it beats the hell out of jamming pepper sauce into my eyeballs. There are only so many orifices that hot food should hurt. And I’m sticking with the two I’ve dealt with before. This is no time to be a hot sauce hero.
Permalink | 9 CommentsThe missus and I are in the midst of a home maintenance crisis. It involves our yard.
Our lawn is not an ideal lawn. It’s not large, nor particularly beautiful. The grass is spotty in some places. Much of it resides on forty-five degree slopes in front of and behind our house. Most of our interaction with said lawn involves trimming the grass, pulling up weeds, and discouraging various critters from setting up camp. In short, it’s usually more trouble than it’s worth. If our lawn were a cartoon character, it’d be Nelson Muntz, ‘haw-haw‘-ing at us every time we step out the door.
But like the parents of a petulant child, we do the best we can to make our yard presentable, and to keep it from offending the neighbors. Normally, I’d say we do a pretty reasonable job, given the lawn’s natural state of unruliness, and our decidedly green-free thumbs.
(Actually, my wife does have some talent in the gardening area. She plants flowers around the joint occasionally — in part, I think, to convince the rest of the lawn to straighten up and behave. In response, the lawn develops brown patches and sprouts toadstools. There’s just no reasoning with some yards.)
Recently, though, the lawn has been winning. Apparently, it finally realized that if we weren’t going to give up on grooming it, it would have to attack the middlemen. It went after our tools.
It’s a brilliant plan, really. No matter the dedication one has for his or her work, if the proper tools aren’t available, then the job simply can’t be done. Could a baker bake without an oven? No. Nor would a carpenter be much use, without hammer and nails. Where would a stripper be, without her G-string and pasties? Not onstage with a wad of sweaty dollars in her garter belt, that’s for sure.
“Just remember — no other lawn will ever touch you like that, and when you find yourself out of fertilizer and full of gopher holes, don’t you dare come crying to me“
Our lawn’s no chump. The lawn understands this. And somewhere along the way, it formed a conspiracy with our lawn management utensils, and convinced them to go on strike. All of them, at once. It was thorough, too. This weekend, every single gizmo we have developed — or faked — a mechanical failure. Every single one is on the fritz — the lawnmower won’t mow, the weed whacker won’t whack, and the garden weasel won’t… okay, fine, we don’t actually have a garden weasel, nor am I entirely sure what those things are for, exactly. But rest assured, if we owned a garden weasel, right now it wouldn’t be doing whatever the hell it is that it’s supposed to do. The lawn would’ve seen to that.
Personally, I’m leaning towards the ‘tough love’ treatment in this situation. If the yard wants to be unkempt and unruly, then fine. What do I care? Go ahead, grow your grass three feet tall and full of weeds. I’m not going to stop you. Just remember — no other lawn will ever touch you like that, and when you find yourself out of fertilizer and full of gopher holes, don’t you dare come crying to me. That ‘dew welling up on the clover’ look doesn’t work on me any more, mister.
Of course, my wife says I should get off my ass and fix the lawn gadgets, or bite the bullet and buy new ones. Can’t she see? That’s just what the yard wants us to do! Spend time and cash and effort trying to make it pretty, and then it’ll just grow more, and gather leaves and pine cones from all over the damned neighborhood, and we’ll be right back where we started. That lawn is using us, and I for one think it’s time to say ‘no mas‘. Let the bastard mulch itself for a while. I’m putting my foot down.*
(* ‘Putting my foot down’ is a temporary measure, of course. If I’m lucky, it’ll buy me a week or two of blissful yard work-free weekends.
More likely, I’ll be out there tomorrow with a screwdriver and a socket wrench, beating the shit out of the lawnmower in frustration because it won’t start any more. The only real question is whether I’ll accidentally bang the gas tank and setting myself and the lawn on fire, instead. In my book, that counts as a ‘draw’.)
Permalink | 1 CommentI had a rough morning today.
I thought — as evidenced by my earlier post that the furnace fiddlers were coming by today to replace the heater in our house. The missus told me a few days ago that they’d be here on Friday, and that they’d show up at 8:30. In the morning.
Of course, what I neglected to remember was that they’re scheduled to arrive next Friday at the asscrack of dawn. Not this Friday. Hence the rough morning.
“I couldn’t have been moved with a cattle prod and a caffeine IV drip.”
Normally, I work my way into the day fairly leisurely. Wriggle out of bed, crawl to the bathroom. Mosey to the computer to check email. Basically, kill as much time as possible before I have to put on pants and face the daily grind of office life.
Today, though, there was no slouching around in my boxer shorts. I leapt out of bed — literally leapt, like some maniacally-medicated Baryshnikov — and hustled to the shower. That was eight AM. Four minutes later — in case the contractors showed up early — I was squeaky clean, dripping wet, and towelling down as fast as my sleepy fingers could rub. I nearly lost an eye.
All that, to be clothed and presentable by a quarter after eight, and for what? Nothing. Ten hours later, I find out I had the wrong week, but when I finally left the house at ten thirty this morning, I was cursing the furnace-installing industry like a rum-swilling sea dog.
(Of course, once it was clearly my fault, then it became ‘a perfectly understandable mistake’. History is dictated by those who write it down first, and I’m the douchebag with the keyboard. Get used to it.)
It’s amazing how a break from the normal morning routine can affect your whole day, though. I sailed through the day at work, no more or less idiotic or addled than usual. Until four in the afternoon.
At four, I hit what runners call ‘the wall’. I call it ‘Peanut Butter Snoozy Time’.
(No, peanut butter’s got nothing to do with it. Either you get it, or you don’t. Move along; there’s nothing else to see here.)
I went from wide awake and marginally productive to face down and drooling on my keyboard in three seconds flat. And no conceivable stimulus — no legal stimulus, anyway — could pull me from my near-slumber back into the workday. I couldn’t have been moved with a cattle prod and a caffeine IV drip. I was gone. Drained. Zonked.
And I blame my early-morning muddleheadedness for every bit of it. If only I’d had my customary time to slouch in my underpants, staring slack-jawed at my email login screen for an hour or so this morning, I’d have been right as rain all day. As it was, the fisheyed gaping hit me right in the middle of the afternoon. Not nearly as convenient, especially seeing as how I was in the middle of a planning meeting.
Boss: So Charlie, what do you think of all this?
Me: …
Boss: Charlie?
Me: …
Boss: CHARLIE!!
Me: Mrf. Uh-wha?
Boss: The project plan. You on board with this?
Me: Uhhhh… sure. It sounds great.
Boss: Really?
Me: Absolutely. Great plan.
Boss: Mmm-hmm. You sure about that?
Me: I couldn’t be more excited about it.
Boss: Because we just voted to make you wear lederhosen for the duration of the project.
Me: Um…
Boss: And you have to give all the status reports.
Me: Uh…
Boss: For the whole team.
Me: Er…
Boss: In a high falsetto voice. To the tune of ‘On Top of Old Smoky’.
Me: I see. I guess I zoned out for quite a while, huh?
Boss: Just long enough. Any longer, and we’d have thrown in a striptease. You’re lucky.
Me: I’d say we’re all lucky, sir. I doubt they make nipple tassels that would match lederhosen. Not this side of Dusseldorf, anyway.
I suppose that’s what I get for spacing on the furnace date, and losing a whole morning for no good reason. Or for not listening closely enough when my wife is talking. I’m sure there’s a ‘life lesson’ in all of this somewhere, but I’m too damned tired now to decipher what it is. I’ll just go to bed, and figure it out in the morning. Right before I sign up for those alto signing lessons. This is going to be one bitch of a project.
Permalink | 3 CommentsA few years ago, I bought my mother a book. It was called Everything I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten. I never read it myself, but I’m told it’s a folksy, common-sense look at the important lessons we’re taught at an early age, and how we can apply those basic concepts to our daily adult life.
Sounds iffy when you put it that way, no? The only three things I learned in kindergarten were:
“The leg cramps on the way up are nothing, compared to the rope burn on the way down.”
Where would I be if I’d taken those lessons to heart? I’d be a thirty-something single firefighter with an unnatural aversion to tater tots, that’s where. Frustrated? Maybe. Lonely? Probably — though also cootie-free. But happy? I’m not so sure. I’m thinking the lessons learned in kindergarten aren’t so universally applicable, after all. The pop psychology self-help section of the bookstore fails us again. Oh, gasp. Say it isn’t so.
Still, I like the idea that a particular time of life or activity could provide a metaphor for an enduring and effective worldview. I just don’t think ‘kindergarten’ qualifies. But with what shall we replace the book, on mothers’ and guidance counselors’ coffee tables? Here are a few possibilities:
Everything I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned from…
The Smurfs
1. ‘Handy’ is one of the worst nicknames you could possibly be stuck with.
2. People who own cats are evil.
3. If there’s one hot blonde chick and a whole bunch of guys around, she’s not doing any of them.*
(*aka ‘The Cheerleader Theorem’)
Watching Scrambled Playboy Cable Channels on the Television in My Parents’ Bedroom
1. You can get away with a lot more, if you learn what ‘Mute’ means.
2. Pizza guys get way more action than I would have expected.
3. A squiggly, discolored nipple is often better than no nipple at all.
The Summer Before Sophomore Year in College
1. Poetry can get you laid, but only if it’s good.
2. My previous lesson about pizza guys was grossly incorrect.
3. Nobody wants to hear my poetry.
Junior High School Gym Class
1. The leg cramps on the way up are nothing, compared to the rope burn on the way down.
2. If you play it right, there’s a certain sad dignity in being picked last.
3. ‘Handy’ is absolutely the worst nickname you could possibly be stuck with.
My First Trip to the DMV
1. Asking, ‘What’s this pedal do?‘ is not an appropriate icebreaker.
2. Everybody in the world has a cooler car than I do.
3. I’m roughly as photogenic as a petrified buffalo turd.
That Time With the Girl in the Back Seat of Her Powder Blue Volkswagen Beetle
1. Girl cooties may not be the dangerous health risk we were once led to believe.
2. If you fumble with the clasp long enough, she’ll eventually take it off herself.
3. The leg cramps on the way up are nothing, compared to the rope burn on the way down.
My Ninth Grade Homeroom Teacher
1. Being sent to detention means you won’t go to college, and nobody will ever love you.
2. It’s entirely possible to drink yourself stupid before eight o’clock in the morning.
3. Spending time with teenagers will rob you of your soul.
That Winger Concert I Got Dragged to in 1989
1. Guys have no business wearing spandex.
2. Drunk big-haired girls will show you their boobs at the drop of a hat.
3. A squiggly, discolored nipple isn’t always better than no nipple at all.
There you go, kids; how’s that for a post? Start with pop psychology, end with Kip Winger’s spandexed asscheeks, and a callback reference to scrambled 80s porn. Where else are you going to get that kind of quality? Who loves ya, baby?
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