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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Well, that was an interesting day.
I woke up this morning with no voice to speak of. And no voice to speak with, either, of course. Just in case you weren’t paying attention. The best I could manage was a guttural, squeaky growl. Think Louis Armstrong, if he were half-parrot. Or Tiny Tim, with a set of balls.
Given the sore throat I had, I was better off not trying to talk, anyway. So, for most of the morning, I didn’t. I got to work, said, ‘Hrrggnnnhhh‘ to my officemate, and kept quiet until lunchtime. I’m guessing my parents would have appreciated more mornings like that out of me growing up. But I digress.
Lunch today was a mini-reunion with a few folks the officemate and I used to work with. So, we walked to the restaurant — twenty minutes or so, with him doing the talking, and me doing the nodding, the thumbs-upping, and the ‘hrrggnnnnhh‘-ing.
(No, I wasn’t just saying ‘hello’ over and over; it was the only damned sound I could make. Cut me some slack, dammit. I’ve been sick.)
When we got to the restaurant, I made an encouraging discovery, though. As long as I kept drinking fluids, I could talk. Which was good, because it’s no fun trying to catch up with people by playing charades. Maybe that shit works at the Marceau family reunions, but not for me.
(And yeah, that’s Marcel, not Sophie. I’m pretty sure she’s not a mime, which is what I was going for. Be sure to keep up, there, folks.)
Anyway, the problem was, I had to constantly keep drinking to keep the voice working. Water, then soda, then another soda, then back to water. And as a bonus, my throat felt better, too — even when I ate my burger. Which seems weird to me, you know? When you’ve got something sore and swollen, cramming something into it usually doesn’t make it feel better. That goes against every prison movie I’ve ever watched.
So, that worked for lunch. To get through the afternoon took four bottles of water, two sodas, and a Gatorade. So, I could talk, which was nice and all. But I also had to pee every six minutes, which wasn’t terribly helpful for getting work done. And three more waters since I’ve been home — mainly so I could call the pizza guy and tell the dog to get the hell off the couch. Not exactly the most exciting use of the old vocal cords. Not like in all those prison movies. Meh.
Permalink | 1 CommentMeh.
This is no good. I’m all achy and tired, with no energy. I’m cranky, lazy, and out of sorts. On the way to work, I couldn’t stop sweating, and on the way home, I couldn’t get warm. Monday Night Football’s about to come on, and all I want to do is crawl under a blanket and sleep until morning. There are only two possible explanations:
Either I picked up a bug during Friday night’s softball playing/rugby watching extravaganza, or I’ve hit menopause.
The latter seems fairly unlikely, of course. For one thing, I’m only thirty-five. For another — not a woman. I’m no anatomical whiz, but I’m pretty sure you need a vagina to go through menopause. The penis-packers, we get stopped at the door by the menopause bouncers. On the other hand, I have no desire to sleep with men, so maybe it is menopause, after all.
(Of course, I’ve never had the desire to sleep with men before, either, so that’s probably not relevant. Maybe if I’d gone to sleepover camp when I was a kid, eh? Who knows.)
Nah, it’s not menopause. We fellas walk a different path into our golden years. Mostly involving baldness, sports cars we don’t need, and uncomfortably intimate prostate exams. Honestly, I think I’d prefer the menopause. I can handle a few hot flashes and having my boobs squished by a health professional every now and then. Hell, I might even like it. Try me.
Meanwhile, I’ve got to shake this bug. I’ve got a full week of nonsense planned, and snorking phlegm all over myself and others is probably not going to help matters. Especially because there’s a wedding involved, at the end of the week. I hear that blowing snot onto the bride is generally frowned on in our particular culture. If we were Mayan, maybe. Or Sumerian. But it’s not going to fly in Wakefield, MA; I’m pretty sure of that.
So, I’m out of here for now. ESPN just moved over from NFL pregame banter to figure skating coverage, so it’s time to find the remote, take some NyQuil, and sleep through the game. Nothing like the dulcet tones of a drunken John Madden to lull you to sleep. Nighty night.
Permalink | 2 CommentsFolks, I saw something last night that reminded me of an old Irish saying:
‘I like my women like I like my potatoes: mashed up and lumpy and mostly skinned.‘
No, I didn’t watch one of those ‘hooker killing spree’ Law and Order: SVU episodes. Which is, of course, every SVU episode, pretty much. Dead hookers or kidnapped kids; those are just about the only choices with that show.
At any rate, it was nothing nearly so murderous as all of that. Last night, I had a softball game — and when we got to the field, there was a rugby match going on. A womens’ rugby match. Womens’ college rugby, even. Now there’s a trifecta, people.
I’d nver seen womens’ rugby before — or any rugby, in person, actually. Just a few minutes here and there on ESPN, when they’ve run out of sports that I actually understand. So I didn’t have much context for all of the running around and grabbing and tackling the girls were doing last night.
Which made it spectacular! Now, if they could just make unis out of lingerie and Cool Whip, then we’d have ourselves a sport.
Nah, I’m kidding. I have much respect for the girls out there playing rugby — even the ones who aren’t hot. Honest. Those girls were tough. And a couple of them were paying for it. This one girl came off the field, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t know what century she was in. I saw her shuffling around and leaning on a friend on the sidelines for a few minutes, then lost track of her. Maybe she sat down, or went to have a lie down. Or hell, maybe she went back in the game. Just point her toward the other team, and yell ‘sic ’em!‘. Tough chica.
There were others, too. The stocky girl limping away from a scrum, with one sock pulled down and her jersey turned halfway around. The skinny dark-haired girl with sideburns — I would swear she was Ralph Macchio’s sister — who got tagged under the chin and kept playing. And the tiny little blonde girl with a deep blue shiner under her left eye; she played defense, chased down everybody, and I never saw her miss a tackle. A real trooper, she was. She’ll make someone a great wife someday. Or bodyguard. Or banshee. She was crazy.
But they’re out there, doing something I won’t do. I like to think that I’m fairly adventurous, but I am never playing rugby. It’s not that I’m afraid of getting hurt, exactly — hell, given my age and state of physical health, I could get hurt anywhere. I’m just waiting to break a hip getting out of bed, or dislocate a shoulder while I’m brushing my teeth.
It’s just that I’ve got this picky personal policy that I’m not going to engage in any activity that requires me to tape parts of my body down so they don’t get ripped off. Call me a pussy, if you like. I just value my appendages, that’s all. Some more than others, but they’re all very dear to me. Like my little fleshy children, they are.
So, there you go. My first girls’ rugby experience. I can’t tell you the final score. I can’t even tell you who won. Hell, if we weren’t at Harvard’s field, I couldn’t even tell you who was playing. But there was some heavy hitting out there, and those were some tough damned girls. And now… now, I’m suddenly hungry for potatoes. I’m off for a snack. Ciao, baby.
Permalink | 3 CommentsDear car,
No. Just — no.
We’ve been through this before. We both know that you’re just begging for attention. I see that little Service Engine Soon light — again — but I’ve had it. I’m ignoring it. Really, I’m serious this time.
Look, it’s not like we don’t see each other every day. We spend quality time together on the way to work — weaving through traffic, flipping off pedestrians, listening to our CDs. Remember how we used to sing ‘Karma Chameleon‘ at the top of our pistons, with our windows down and the wind wafting through our grills? Oh, those were good times.
But that was before you started with the nagging. Seems like every time I turn around, it’s Service Engine Soon. After a nice weekend jaunt — Service Engine Soon. On the way to the grocery store — Service Engine Soon. Coming home from the office — Service Engine Soon. Hey! I’ve been at work for hours, dammit. Why don’t you ‘Service Me Soon‘, for once? Service this.
Okay, okay — I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. Still — I’ve put up with a lot, over the years. And you’re not the easiest vehicle to live with, you know. But I’ve never said a word when your Gas Tank Empty light comes on. Like, every fricking week. But do I complain? No. I open your flap, and I fill you up. Hey, I’m not being crass — that’s what you asked for, isn’t it?
See, this is just what I’m talking about. I can never tell what you want. I turn on your lights for you at night, then you beep at me if I forget to turn them off. You howl and flash if I don’t strap myself in — but you won’t let me go unless I take the seat belt off. I’m tired of the mixed signals.
And now again with the Service Engine Soon. At first, I thought you turned that on for me. I was genuinely concerned. I wanted us to be together always, and I thought you were on board. Until the first time that light came on — and I saw that look in your headlights when the mechanic dug in. Oh, don’t try and hide it; it was as clear as the tailpipe under your bumper. How do you think that made me feel, seeing another man’s greasy wrench under your hood? I have eyes, you know.
So, you know what? Forget it. If you’re not going to put any effort into this relationship, then neither am I. I don’t care if your muffler falls off, and your tranny goes to hell. I’m not taking you to the garage. Oh, I’ll feed you — I’m not an animal, for crissakes — but you can forget about that ‘other man’. You’re my car, dammit — and if I can’t have you, then no one will. I’ll be the only man behind your wheel, baby.
There, now, don’t you feel better? Me, too. Tomorrow, we’ll go for a nice ride to the office. Won’t that be nice? Now pucker up those spark plugs; let’s kiss and make up.
Love and hugs and STP motor oil,
Charlie
Permalink | 3 CommentsOur dog is a douchebag.
Now, I could back that up in many ways, citing examples and video evidence, where necessary. I could cross-reference multiple posts on this site, and all sorts of incriminating pictures that have never seen the light of day. But for now, I’m simply going to describe her nightly routine. That alone should be convincing enough.
We’ve provided the dog her own blanket, which we keep on the living room carpet. And when I say ‘provided’, I actually mean ‘caught her sleeping on enough times to never want to touch it again, so we chucked it into the floor for good’. And when I say ‘her own blanket’, I mean ‘four of the damned things that she’s sullied with her nasty horsemeat drool’. She doesn’t quite have a blanket in every room — yet — but the bitch is close. A princess, she is. A smelly, slobbery, furry, loopy little princess. Think Paris Hilton with more back hair.
Anyway, she’s got a special little game she plays with the living room blanket. Most evenings, the blanket is stretched out over the rug — because the wife and I run a tight ship, and we’re not going to stand for a crumpled bunch of linen on the living room floor, dammit. In other words — if my wife hasn’t fluffed the blanket, it’s in a pile in the middle of the floor. You guys know how that works around the ol’ house.
Now, around eight o’clock, and usually when only one of us is home, the dog will decide she needs to be under said blanket. So she’ll paw at the edges, apparently believing in her tiny little brain that pulling the blanket towards her will magically lift a corner into the air. I don’t know what kind of Houdini shit she’s been watching on TV, but it doesn’t work that way in my world, what with the laws of physics and all.
So, at best, the dog manages to scrunch the blanket back into a messy little ball. Which I get blamed for. Fuzzy little bitch.
The only way to stop the scratching and pawing, of course, is to walk over, lift the blanket, and tuck the dog underneath it. That’s what she wants. Wintertime, summer, it doesn’t matter. It could be one hundred and nineteen degrees, with the blanket actually melting into her fur, but that’s what she wants. It’s her little doggie schtick, apparently.
So, is that the end of the game? No. That’s way too easy, and eight in the evening is far too early for the dog to sleep peacefully and faithfully at our feetses. No, the first round of the game usually lasts about three minutes. At that point, something will trigger the pooch — one of us humans coming home, or getting off the couch, or the phone ringing, or a butterfly flapping its stupid goddamned wings in Bangladesh, for all I know — and the dog will stand up and investigate the disturbance. As best as a dog can, at least, with a brain the size of a raisin and a blanket over her head.
Eventually, after much tripping and shaking, she’ll free herself from the blanket — leaving it, naturally, in a messy pile on the floor. And once she’s satisfied that the sky isn’t falling and we’re still here, available to feed her Snausages on demand, she’ll want to be back under the blanket. And so the cycle of the doggy douchebaggery starts anew.
Most nights, it takes maybe three or four tries to get her settled in for good. I don’t know whether she falls asleep in there, or just stops giving a damn about what we’re up to, but by eleven o’clock, she’s usually pretty immobile. And by the time I hustle her off to bed, a couple of hours later, she’s damned near immovable. It takes a good ten minutes to get her out, up the stairs, and settled into her spot in the bedroom. On the extra pillows that she slept on for three months before we ‘provided’ those to her, too.
You know, I take it back. Even that Hilton bitch doesn’t get this kind of royal treatment. Jesus.
Permalink | 1 Comment
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