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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
My dog is an idiot.
I suppose all dogs are idiots, in their own slobbery way — and to be fair, my dog’s generally one of the least lamebrained canines I know. But being the Queen of the Douchebags doesn’t make you a genius; it makes you a douchebag with a tiara, and a pretty good parking spot. My dog is that douchebag.
Lately, she’s taken to ‘hiding’ bones. This is patently ridiculous for two reasons: first, what’s ‘hidden’ to a mushbrained mutt like her is merely ‘behind the couch’ to the six-foot-tall bipeds living in the house. Similarly, ‘almost inaccessible behind the radiator’ to her is only ‘pain in the ass to retrieve’, for those of us who’ve managed to sprout opposable thumbs.
“The difference between a ‘shitpile of bones’ strewn through the house and ‘almost as many’ is not easily discernable to the naked eye.”
And we always end up retrieving those damned things, because while the dog is quite adept (for a mutt) at hiding, she’s not so good at the finding that you’d think would naturally follow.And if you’ve ever had a bone hidden hehind your radiator, then you’ll know — as the tantalizing delicate aromas of dog drool and dead animal carcass waft through your living room — that it’s best not to leave it there. And so, our dance with the douchebag dog goes on.
The radiator bones aren’t the worst, though. Sure, you might suffer second-degree burns on your arms while fishing the things out, but what’s a little blistered skin between friends? I much prefer that to the bones she drags outside through the doggie door.
Most of the time, we don’t even realize she’s taken one of her toys for an ‘excursion’ outside. The difference between a ‘shitpile of bones’ strewn through the house and ‘almost as many’ is not easily discernable to the naked eye. We only find out that she’s keeping a cache out back when, weeks of rain and muck and filth later, she drags the thing back inside the house.
Naturally, like any triumphant archaeologist, she has to parade her find around the house. Never mind the mud and leaves and bugs she might trail across the floor — a nasty fetid bone find in the back yard is Big News™! And we humans should be just as excited about it.
We are, of course. Just in not quite the same way. And the bitter irony of these weathered bones is — the dog’s not really that excited herself. Once she gets over the initial glee — ‘I found a bone! I FOUND A BONE!!‘ — she realizes the bones don’t taste nearly as good as the dozen other bones she hasn’t trotted into the elements, and loses interest.
Soon after, the filthy bone disappears again. Three weeks later, we see it, in even worse shape now, in the dog’s mouth as she takes a victory lap with it through the kitchen. Then it’s dropped and forgotten again. Then hidden, caked with new filth, and dragged across the carpet for a while. The best we can hope for is to clean the thing up, hide it behind a radiator somewhere, and hope she can’t get to the stupid thing. Somehow, though, she always seems to find the bones she doesn’t hide herself. I think she’s toying with us.
The other reason ‘hiding’ bones is cockeyed, even for a canine, is that we have never, in all our time together, taken a bone away from the dog. In fact, more often than not, we’re the ones giving her the bone in the first place.
(Even when we’re not — like if someone buys the pooch a present — she thinks it came from us. I mean, we explain it to her, very patiently, before we give her the new treat.
‘This came from my parents! My pa-rents. Paaaaarents.‘
I don’t think she gets it, though. We even used to show her the receipts, to drive the message home. She eats those. It’s like an appetizer to her. So we gave up, and take all the credit now. Much easier.)
So who is she ‘hiding’ bones from, then? Us? The neighbors? An imaginary pack of pilfering pooches she’s dreamed up? I have no idea. All I know is, if I step in another pile of sloppy bone dirt, or have to dive under another searing-hot radiator for a bone again, I may hide one of the damned dog’s bones myself for a while. One of the bones attached to her, that is.Wonder how long it’d take her to find that?
Permalink | 1 CommentI’m finding there’s an upside to this cold I’ve had the past few days. If I pay close attention to my condition, and am very careful with my CD selection, my singing along with songs in the car sounds much more realistic.
Before we argue that point, though, let me first point out that I have no native musical talent whatsoever. I can’t play an instrument, I couldn’t carry a tune in a reinforced metal bucket, and my singing voice sounds disturbingly like a castrated hyena. Some might say a hyena, during the actual act of castration. It’s not a pretty sound.
So when I ‘sing along’ to songs in the car, you can be sure three conditions have been met:
“I can’t play an instrument, I couldn’t carry a tune in a reinforced metal bucket, and my singing voice sounds disturbingly like a castrated hyena.”
To be honest, I usually can’t be very sure I’m actually ‘singing’, per se. Certainly, I feel like I’m shouting along, near the top of my lungs. But all I hear are the dulcet tones of Mike Doughty, or Dave Matthews, or Bob Mould. Some of whose tones are more ‘dulcet’ than others, perhaps, but you get the idea.
Occasionally, one of my raspy warbles will sneak through the music to assault my ears, and I’ll spend a few songs whispering along to the music instead. Even I don’t want to hear that shit, and I’m the one it’s coming out of. If that tells you anything.
So finding a way to better match my humble harmonizings to real music is a godsend. And for me, it seems a mild illness is the answer. Here’s what I’ve found so far:
Severe Nasal Congestion is perfect for singing along with Billy Corgan. Your nasal whine and stuffy whistling should fit nicely into a Smashing Pumpkins song like, say, ‘Today’ or ‘1979’. If you’re light-headed and puffy, the Punkins are your friend.
If, on the other hand, you’re suffering from Chronic Wheezing, you’ll want to try something raspier. I’d suggest one of Alex Alexakis’ numbers from Everclear. If you can approximate ‘Heartspark Dollarsign’ or ‘You Make Me Feel Like a Whore’ without hacking up a lung, then you’re a craftier crooner than I. I hear Alex keeps a ‘loogie bucket’ in the recording studio, just in case.
Finally, if you’ve got a Persistent Sore Throat and Cough, then you’re in for a treat. You’re ready to emulate, for instance, just about anything David Lowery ever sang with Cracker. Sure, their big hit ‘Low’ is reasonably melodic, but his really good shit is far edgier. I defy anyone to listen to the outstanding ‘St. Cajetan’, for instance, and tell me Lowery doesn’t sound like he’s in the advanced stages of tuberculosis. In the best, most musically kick-ass way possible, of course.
Smoke a few fat stogies on top of that whooping cough, and you might even be able to pull off a Tom Waits song or two. Just have the oxygen tank and transplantable lung at the ready. Safety first, young kareoke Jedi.
And if you can sound anything like Courtney Love during her Hole years, you’ve gone too far. I enjoy her music a bit more than I’m really comfortable to admit, but I would still swear that she sings through one of those electronic voicebox gizmos they give to laryngectomy patients. That, or she’s humming through a stoma.
(Come on, it’s Courtney Love. Just look at the woman; you know she’s got one somewhere.)
Of course, for most of my cold I’ve been hopped up in a NyQuil haze. So while my voice might’ve worked for many of the above bands, I rarely had the energy to manage more than a mumble.
Which turns out to be ideal for singing along with early R.E.M.! Bless you, Michael Stipe; bless you and your unintelligible gibberish. You’ve made this virus sing!
Permalink | 1 CommentI’ve been sick the past few days. Just a cold, nothing too serious — but last night, things took a turn for the worse.
By which I mean ‘gross’. But I’ll do my best not to offend anyone, save possibly the performers in a particular off-Broadway show. We’ll get to that.
Anyway, last night I was snoozing blissfully away, when I was awakened from my NyQuil-induced coma. By a stomach ache. A real gurgler, too. To that point, my illness had displayed no gastrointestinal symptoms; it was a garden-variety sniffles ‘n’ sore throat kind of thing. Rather pedestrian as sicknesses go, really. But that was going to change very quickly.
Sensing that I wouldn’t be able to doze back off and ride the churning crisis out till morning, I booked a beeline for the bathroom. And I took a crossword puzzle; this was going to take a while.
Now, I’m not going to get into graphic or unbecoming details here. Suffice it to say that the next twenty minutes or so were unpleasant in a number of ways, and reminded me of a Blue Man Group show: I had no idea what was happening, there were noises I’d never heard before, and by the end, there was toilet paper everywhere.
I’m just glad I decided not to sit in the ‘poncho section’. Don’t ask. Just don’t.
After the smoke had cleared, I gathered myself and went back to bed. There hadn’t been time to check the clock on the way out, and I was curious what time it was, so I checked. And found that it was twenty minutes before my wife’s alarm goes off.
“I had no idea what was happening, there were noises I’d never heard before, and by the end, there was toilet paper everywhere.”
Now, that didn’t mean much for me personally. I’m not a light sleeper, by any means, and sleep through her alarm — and often, mine — on a regular basis. I could sleep through a freight train running through the living room. With Doctor NyQuil in my corner, I could probably have slept through a train running through my colon.
(Though perhaps not, since that’s pretty much the feeling that woke me up. But I digress.)
But the first thing the missus wants to do in the morning is hit the shower. Which is in the bathroom. Which I’d just vacated, and left in a sad, sickly, and savagely subpar state of affairs. The old commercials claimed that the smell of Coast soap would ‘wake you up in the morning’. I had a feeling that she’d certainly be awake when she hit the bathroom — but she might not be very happy about it.
Still, there was little I could do. Weakened by illness, sedated by medication, and exhausted by the horde of demons that had apparently just torn through my digestive tract, I was fast asleep before I knew it. And, as promised, I slept through my wife’s alarm. And mine.
When I did wake up, four hours later, my wife was nowhere to be found. This is unusual, but not completely unprecedented. She usually says goodbye before leaving for work at approximately the asscrack of dawn, but at that unholy hour, I’m sometimes too out of it to remember, or even wake up enough to properly respond. I imagine some mornings, it’s sort of a ‘drool once for ‘Love you!’; drool twice for ‘Have a nice day!‘ proposition for her.
(Just to cover all the bases, I try to drool continuously during these conversations. It’s no good for the pillowcases, but it speaks volumes that I can’t possibly manage at that time of day.)
So, I assumed she’d left for work already. Still, given the adventures of the wee hours past, I half-expected to find her ashen and naked in the bath, clutching the shower curtain and gasping, ‘the horror… the… horror!‘
Luckily, that wasn’t the case. Also luckily, the one ‘Dances with Dysentery’ episode is the only one this illness has offered so far. Just to be safe, though, I’ve got a backup plan. If the tummy rumbles visit again tonight, I’m taking a poop on the porch. That way, she won’t even notice until she’s out of the house, and with any luck will think it’s some prankster kids in the neighborhood. Or possibly a bear.
An extremely unhappy bear, perhaps, with stomach parasites, a burrito fetish, and too much roughage in his diet. Still, at least we can each have a nice shower in the morning. That sounds like progress to me.
Now, it’s time for another visit from Doc NyQuil; g’night, kids!
Permalink | 1 CommentSometimes, it’s the little things — or their conspicuous absence — that makes all the difference.
Our new office building comes with a wealth of amenities and features. The views, for instance. We’re in a reasonably open (read: well-to-do) section of Cambridge, and the designers took the opportunity to include floor-to-ceiling windows on most floors, so that we may look out on the vast expanse of people and businesses that make far, far more money than we could ever dream of.
(Whether that’s meant to motivate or anger the inhabitants hasn’t been explained to my satisfaction yet. Either way, it sure keeps people stabbing away at their keyboards. And some day, perhaps, each other.)
“It sounds like a cross between a junkyard car crusher smashing a Volvo and a sumo wrestler squeezing open a watermelon between his cheeks.”
The other — some might say ‘intended’ — purpose of the sprawling windows is to better see the structure of one of our rivals, in the building next door. The gentlest among us contend that being within eyeshot of each other will bring us closer, and foster a spirit of collaboration. The rest of us don’t question it much, and dutifully line up for the hourly ‘Taunt ‘n’ Moon’ sessions like good little boys and girls.
(I kid, I kid. We hardly ever moon anybody out of those windows, partly because it’s rude and childish.
But mostly because it’s still freezing in New England, and no one wants to call the emergency number because their ass is stuck to a window pane. That’s a steep price to pay for lording it over a bunch of people you’ve never actually met.)
Rumor has it that our place was built one floor higher than our friends’ place next door, in a deliberate attempt to send a message. Personally, I think there’s a more concrete explanation — if our roof wasn’t higher than theirs, they’d know right away where the flaming bags of poop were coming from. As it is, they can’t possibly tell. But the maintenance guys are going to be in for a surprise, the first time they go up to check the A/C units. Hope they’ve got galoshes.
The windows are just one of the new office toys, though. There’s also the private parking. My buddy and I play a game I call ‘Garage Roulette’ — if you park on one of the upper levels, you have to brave the elements outside to get into the building. If you park in the basement, you can take an elevator into the office — but it’s dark and scary down there, with far greater potential for being stabbed and stuffed in some dude’s trunk. What do you do? What do you do?
(My strategy? ‘Always bet on black’. I figure being waylaid in a dark, musty basement somewhere is probably in my future, anyway — why fight it, and walk through half a foot of snow when I don’t have to?
Besides, I figure if I look tough down there and park next to a car nicer than mine — no problem there — who’s gonna want to bother with me? Also, I dial ‘9-1’ before I leave my car, spray a ‘mace radius’ in front of me as I walk, and won’t let anyone ride the elevator with me. Safety first!)
Of course, ‘windows’ and ‘parking’ only scratch the surface of the fun to be had at the new place. How about the motion-sensored lights, for instance? Those are a hoot.
In our little neck of the cube farm, the sensors seem to be in the hallway leading up to the area. So, if it’s a light-traffic day — everyone’s working hard at their desks, say, or a mooning truce has been called for a couple of hours — then *click*, out go the lights.
Which I’m sure would be entertaining, for anyone watching our plight. Though not nearly as entertaining as the next bit, wherein six or more of us maniacally waggle our arms over our heads like panic-stricken chickens, trying to trigger the sensor to TURN THE DAMNED LIGHTS BACK ON. I’m just waiting for someone to disable the thing, to see how long we’ll keep it up. My money’s on twenty minutes, at least. We’re persistent little cusses, you see.
Finally, we come to the beverage situation in our new digs. And this is where things get a bit dicey. But first, the good news. The powers-that-be have seen fit — being hopped-up caffeine junkies themselves — to provide free coffee and hot tea to all the employees in the building. They’ve scattered these magical little machines, three or four per floor, that serve up piping hot quaffs in an instant.
They’re impressive, really. Next to the machines are these little foil-topped thingies that look like overgrown creamer cups. You stick one in the machine, drop down a cup, push a button, and *gggggrrrrrrrnnnnngggggghhhhhhh* there you go. Hot coffee. The machine even disposes of the cup for you.
(Either that, or the cup is crunched up in your drink, too. Given the unholy noise the thing makes, it wouldn’t surprise me. It sounds like a cross between a junkyard car crusher smashing a Volvo and a sumo wrestler squeezing open a watermelon between his cheeks.
Which cheeks? Don’t ask. You wan’t cream and sugar with that, bub?)
Personally, I’m not a coffee drinker, so the machines are less helpful to me. I ingest my daily dose of caffeine in cola form, and that’s where my problem lies. In our entire building — nearly ten floors of shiny new carpet and steel — there’s exactly one soda machine. It’s in a break room, on the second floor. And it’s a Coke machine. That helps me not.
See, I’m a Pepsi man. And I know there are a lot of people out there with me, and many more out there agin’ me on this. And that’s fine. This is not about fanning the flames of the Great Cola Wars of the last millennium. I think we can all agree that no matter which cola we prefer, the other one tastes like carbonated bat piss. That’s called ‘common ground’, folks.
All I’m asking for is that choice, you see. And so far, it’s not been forthcoming. Maybe there are plans for another machine. Or maybe we’ll get a street vendor out front, peddling Pepsis while his monkey grinds and dances.
(Hey, what can I tell you? We don’t get many street vendors in Cambridge. How the hell should I know what they do any more?)
Meanwhile, I manage on my own. Some days, the trucks — you remember our food trucks, right? — have Pepsi for me. Other days, I’ll remember to snag one on my way in. Often, though, I’m out of luck, and have one sad, grim option for cola-style satisfaction.
That’s when I discovered green tea. Though I’m not a coffee drinker, I do enjoy a nice tea now and then. I blame all the British comedies I watched growing up.
(How I avoided scones and kippers and cucumber sandwiches on the lawn, I don’t know, but tea, for some reason, took hold.)
Also, I’ve been a bit ill recently, and green tea is supposed to be good for you. So, I’ve been letting the little sumo in the coffee machine squish me out a couple of doses a day of the stuff. It’s not particularly delicious, by any means, but that just tells me that maybe it really is beneficial. If it were any tastier, I’d assume the health benefits were crap.
I’ve also discovered something else. By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, the green tea instabrewing in those little machines has approximately FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND TIMES the caffeine of a regular soda. Today, when the lights shut down, I didn’t wave my arms — I ran out, climbed eight feet up the wall, and banged on the motion sensor until it relented. I may be just a touch edgy on the stuff.
Also, I just spent several hundred words describing an office building. That’s definitely a bad sign. Starting tomorrow, I’m going back to the sodas. The sugar might rot my teeth, but at least I’ll be calmer again. How the hell do they expect us to moon the neighbors when we’re all so damned twitchy?
Permalink | 2 CommentsIt turns out, a friend of a friend of mine knows Peter King. That’s right, sports fans, Peter King. Celebrated sportswriter, Sports Illustrated columnist, Inside the NFL talking head, author of web-syndicated Monday Morning Quarterback, coffee nut, and resident New Jersey apologist — THAT Peter King. And through a deliciously twisty and serendipitous set of circumstances, I’ll be sitting in Mr. King’s Fenway box in a couple of weeks, during the Red Sox’ home opening series.
This is all very exciting. I see many of you staring at the screen, thinking ‘Who’s Peter King?‘, and ‘Why should I care about baseball?‘, and ‘What the hell does serendipitous mean?‘
Well, read up, home slice. I’m telling you — this is big news. I’ll try to use smaller words to explain it from here on out.
Of course, Peter King won’t actually be at this game, which is a pity for me. I mean, I do have the guy on my ‘Heroes’ list over there on the right sidebar. And it’s pretty fricking rare that I get a chance to rub elbows with any of those.
I met Jake Johannsen once, between shows one Saturday night at the Comedy Connection in Boston. He was performing. I was giggling and staring at my shoes. Very smooth, I was. The exchange lasted maybe twelve seconds, and our elbows were never in danger of rubbing together, or even touching. He seemed like a really nice guy, but how would I know, really? I’ve had closer encounters with toll booth operators.
That’s the only ‘Hero’ listed I’ve ever met in person. To be fair, not all the ‘Heroes’ are meetable, exactly — three are dead, seven are (or were, for the most part) television shows, one was a ‘comedy troupe’, two are web comic strips, and another’s a muppet.
(This sort of breakdown amongst the entities I most look up to should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been reading carefully to this point. Given my influences and tendencies, I’m frankly surprised myself there aren’t more animated characters on the list. Not to mention more that spent their early years with Jim Henson’s hand up their asses. I’m all grown up now, but I still idolize at a third-grade level.)
Careening back to the point, then.
“You want to drink beer at Fenway, you’d better bring your checkbook, your first-born, and a left nut you don’t mind trading in.”
I’m really getting excited about this game, Peter King in the house or no. It promises to be a great game (against the Blue Jays; what would those dome-dwellers know about playing outside in the cold?), a great time (*cough* *kaff* private bar *cough*), and easily the best seats I’ve been in at Fenway Park.
(Did I mention there’s a private bar? That’s the rumor.
Of course, in Boston ‘private bar’ could well mean a six-pack of Sam Adams in a cubbyhole under the seat, for eight bucks a pop. Still, that’d beat the hell out of freezing your ass off waiting in line for another brew out on the concourse.
Better price, too. You want to drink beer at Fenway, you’d better bring your checkbook, your first-born, and a left nut you don’t mind trading in. It’s a little expensive, is what I’m saying.)
Anyway, it should be fun. And just think, that’s Peter King’s box. Why, just a couple of days later, he could be sitting in the very same seat. Or leaning against the very same gum I might accidentally leave on the armrest. Or reading the ‘Yankees Suck!’ I’ll probably carve into the seat back. Or standing by the empty bar, wondering how the hell a month’s worth of beer could just disappear like that.
Oh, yeah. This game is going to be good. Play ball.
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