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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Last night, I went to a Red Sox game. They say that if you pay close enough attention at a baseball game, you’ll see something you’ve never seen before. I’m pretty sure they meant on the diamond, really. But hell — it’s a long game, and beating the hell out the Reds. So, in the process of seeing something in the game I’d never seen live — a one-hitter — I also tried to find a new tidbit of knowledge off the field, too. And here’s my report:
The first thing I noticed, while waiting in line for a bag of peanuts, is how freaking little ‘personal space’ children seem to need. I don’t deal with the things on a day-to-day basis, you understand, so I’m not terribly familiar with their ways. And apparently, one of their ‘ways’ is to brush up against the legs of whatever larger mammal happens to be near them. Poking with the elbows seems to not be out of the question, either — but the tykes’ parents get a little miffed if you poke back, I found.
Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m not entirely averse to the kiddies. They’re welcome to wander around whereever they like, dropping drool and snot and asking weird, surreal questions like, ‘Why do we pee?‘
(And I even know the answer to that one — we pee so we’ll always have a way to melt ourselves out, in case a snowbank ever falls on us. That’s easy. Ten thousand year ice age, plus evolution, equals urinary magic. I mean, duh.)
So, the kids are fine. And a ballpark is one of their havens, of course, so I’ve got no complaints, generally speaking. But honestly, now — if I really wanted something leaning on my thigh and schnuffling snot all over my pants leg, then I’d slather peanut butter back there and chase down the dog. No thanks, there, junior.
Anyway, it’s moot, really, because I’ve always known that kids have faulty ‘proximity to strangers’ alarms. So I didn’t really learn that last night. At least the little buggers gave me a bit of space at the urinal. Guess they didn’t want to see why I pee, eh?
So, next lesson. Remember that bag of peanuts I bought, five or six paragraphs ago? Well, about an hour and a half later, I was struck by the realization that a bagful of peanuts feels way heavier when they’re inside you than when you’re just walking around with the bag. In my hand? Maybe a pound or so. In my stomach, even without the shells? Approximately the weight of a Chrysler LeBaron. With mag wheels. And a sumo wrestler stuffed in the trunk.
(Oh, and by the way, I don’t like to see ‘sumo wrestler’ and ‘stuffed in the trunk’ in the same sentence, either. I’m just telling you how it felt, is all.
And while we’re at it, I know what you dirty pervs were thinking when I talked about the peanuts being ‘inside you’. That’s just nasty, people. Just a waste of good peanuts, if you ask me. And for chrissakes, if you must go there, at least shell the damned things first. You don’t know where those things have been.)
But, to be fair, I’ve stuffed my gob full of goobers before, so I knew what would happen. Bloating myself with peanuts and beer is nothing new for a Fenway trip, so that was nothing I hadn’t seen before.
No, it wasn’t until the sixth inning at the ballgame that I saw the off-field ‘thing I’ve never seen before’. At one point in that inning, the couple sitting in front of us in the bleachers stood up. And the woman… had the flattest ass I’ve ever seen on a female of the species. Ever. It was frightening.
And don’t get any ideas that I was checking her out, now. First of all, between watching the game, fighting through random children, and gobbling down peanuts, I had no time for that sort of nonsense. But when people three feet in front of your face stand up — and when you’re a lazy old guy, who’ll get up when the game’s damned over or when you need a beer, and not before — then you’re going to end up with an eyeful of ass. No way around it, really.
Except that, with this particular girl, there wasn’t even an eyeful there. She was a slender girl — not outrageously skinny, as far as I could tell, just thin. But she apparently was otherwise occupado when they were handing out the heinies. Maybe got a double-dose of brains, and she’s really smart. Maybe she can run really fast. Or maybe she had three boobs. I don’t know. All I can tell you is that she’s missing an ass from her inventory; I can only guess where it might have gotten off to.
Now, I’ve seen this ‘lack of ass’ phenomenon before — but never on a woman. Occasionally, you’ll see a guy that looks like he’s smuggling a black hole in his back pocket, and it’s sucking his rearcheeks into it. But women are curvier, or so I thought. This chick was just… sort of lumpy and flat back there. When she stood up, her pants looked like a napkin draped over a bed of gravel.
And that, folks — that was something I’d never seen before. Mission ac-freakin’-complished. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get rid of some of these damned peanuts. Wish me godspeed. Go Sox!
Permalink | 1 CommentYou know, sometimes you write a post… just to get something the hell out of your head. And this — this is one of those posts. Yesterday, I woke up with a tiny kernel of the idea below. I’m not sure whether I should be more embarrassed that I thought of it in the first place, or that I’ve now burdened you with it. Have a drink for me, won’t you?
And now, without further excuses…
Announcer: And now, welcome to the studio your host — he’s the powder on your doughnut, the blow in your bowl, the chef with the all the best shit; it’s Termel Johnson, with another round of ‘Coke Cuisine’!
(Whooping and general mayhem surge through the studio audience. A pair of wobbly gentlemen attempt to rush the stage, but fall — literally — a few feet short. In the back, a boob is flashed.)
Termel: Hey, yeah. All right. What’s up, y’all? I’m Termel, and I’m gonna gourmet the shit outta this joint. I got some pots over here, and they’s veggies in the fridge, and I just scored a half a key of the finest Nicaraguan blow you ever laid your nostrils on. So let’s get fun-kay with some… Coke Cuisine!
Now, today we’re gonna talk about the sweet stuff. And I’m not just talkin’ ’bout that sweet piece of hootchie that hangs by the dumpster behind the studio, either. Bonita! I’ll be by for you later, girl! I hook you up, baby.
All right. So today, we gonna make us a three-course gourmet dessert. First, we’ll need a box of brownie mix. Like this one, right here. Okay, let’s get this shit into the bowl. Sweet. Looks like a big pile of chocolate blow, dunnit? Yeah, but don’t be fooled — I did a couple of lines of that shit once; I couldn’t taste food for a week. You think the crank is bad? Stay away from the sugar, baby. That’s bad medicine.
Anyway, brownie mix. Now, we gotta have a couple of eggs. Don’t worry about the shells, now — by the time you eat these babies, you won’t know the difference. Now, throw in some milk. It don’t matter how much. Hell, use water, if you want. OJ works, too. It’s all good. And just mush all that shit together with your hands now. Watch those open sores, now.
Okay, now for the good part. Just before you pop the brownies in, add a half an ounce of your coke. This is important, now — just a half. Any less than that, and you’ll actually be able to taste the damned nasty things. Any more, and you’ll notice a metallic, bitter aftertaste. Oh, and also — you’ll go blind. So be cool. You might want to write that step down.
So now, mix all that shit together, throw the pan in the oven, and… hell, I don’t know. Leave it for ten minutes — twenty, maybe. Whatever. Just do a couple of lines with the leftover goods, and the shit’ll be done. Done enough, anyway. But don’t get too far gone, man, and forget to use a potholder. Them ovens are dangerous bitches. Hey, just like Bonita! Aw, yeah. Almost forgot about her. Y’all can have this batch, now — I’m gonna go let her lick my fingers. This’s been Coke Cuisine. Blow appetit, peeps.
(Termel exits stage left. Stage hands are overrun, as the crowd surges forward to get their hands on the brownies. The camera zooms out and the credits roll, as a small, grandmotherly woman wields a rolling pin, snatches a brownie, and escapes backstage. Another successful show.)
Christ. Thank goodness that’s out of my head now. Sorry you people had to see that. Much more of that bullshit, and I’ll be afraid to wake up at all. Sheesh.
Permalink | 4 Comments(Yeah, I’m back-posting this for yesterday. I was going to post it, and got busy. But it still counts, dammit. Plus, the post is about yesterday, so there you go.
Okay, okay — so really, the post is about me being a frigging cluebag. But only as it applies to yesterday — or rather, not yesterday. Look, maybe you should just read the thing. All this explanation shit is only going to confuse you.)
Never trust a mother-in-law, folks.
Like you need me to tell you that, right? For most people, ‘in-laws’ are right up there with ‘lawyers’, ‘telemarketers’, and ‘Charles Manson’ on the list of people you wouldn’t take candy from. But I’m not that way — no, really. I’m an easygoing sort. Amiable. Trusting.
Yeah. ‘Gullible‘. Screw you, too. I’m tellin’ a story, here.
Anyway, here’s the thing — my mother-in-law was planning on coming to town this past weekend. Only, a couple of weeks ago, she left us a message saying that she can’t make it until next weekend, instead. So far, so boring, right? Stick with me — we’re getting there.
So, in her message, she said the following:
‘Getting a ticket for the 10th was just crazy — Father’s Day traffic must be screwing it up — so I’ll be up on the 16th, instead.‘
Fine. Different weekend. No problem. But heeeeey… that’s right. Fathers Day is coming up. Nice catch. I’ll remember that.
And I did. I tucked that little tidbit away from two weeks, and on Thursday — at the last possible moment, really — I ordered a gift to be sent to my dad. Go, me — not forgetting Fathers Day. For a guy like me, that’s a personal frigging accomplishment. I put it on my resume, even.
Only — and this is the part all of you already know, of course — Fathers Day wasn’t this week. It’s next week. Something else entirely must’ve been screwing the air traffic pooch this weekend, and I was foiled — again, albeit accidentally — by the mother-in-law. I even gave ol’ Dad a call Sunday afternoon, just to say… ‘What the fuck? It’s not Fathers Day? Oh. Talk to you next week, then. And don’t open any packages until next weekend. Damn.‘
So, I got a bit of ‘gentle ribbing’. Not gentle enough, though — see how he likes it next year, when I poop in a box, and send him that. Oh, it’ll show up the right week, though. Then we’ll see how funny it is that I can’t read a calendar. Try wearing that around your neck, pops.
Permalink | 1 CommentSo, maybe I’m just dense.
(Yes, that’s right, peanut gallery. Let it all out now. I can wait. Bring it on, bitches.
Done yet? Let it go, now. Shake it twice and zip it up, there, bucko. We’ve got a post to get to.)
So, anyway, maybe I’m not the slipperiest stripper on the pole, metaphorically speaking. That’s fine — I can deal with that. After all, we can’t all be the fuzziest handcuffs on the headboard, right? Again, metaphorically. Keep it in your pants, Elmo.
But I can usually decipher the news items that I encounter online. I may not get all the details, or understand the fancy big words, but I manage. Usually. But there was a story yesterday that stopped me in my boxers.
(What? It’s a figure of speech — ‘stopped me in my boxers’. Plus, I read it right after I got up, so it’s even true, too.
No, no — don’t try to picture it, dammit. Nobody needs to see that. Just move on, for chrissakes. Smartass.)
At any rate, the story was about the aging of the human population. Apparently, a study was done — in New York and Austria — examining the time at which we hit middle age. Apparently, it’s taking us longer and longer all the time. I knew we were a lazy bunch of bastards, but to procrastinate on getting old? Damn, that’s just pitiful, people. Get the hell on with it already.
(Oh, and regarding the title of the post, just in case you think I’m singling the Euros out on this one… I already know I’d never want to ask for change in New York. At best, that gets you a slap, or a ‘Fuggedaboutit‘. At worst, they might find you in a dumpster in Brooklyn. The part of you they don’t find stuffed under a bush in Central Park, anyway. Ouchie.)
Anyway, there was one bit in the story that I did understand. It went like this:
‘In 2000, the average German was 39.9 years old and could expect to live for another 39.2 years, according to the journal Nature.‘
Fine. You live for thirty-nine; you’ve got thirty-nine left. That’s ‘middle age’. That’s math I can handle, right there.
So, here are the next two paragraphs — the ones that made my head wiggle and my sphincter twitch:
‘But by 2050 the average German would be 51.9 years old, yet could still expect to live for another 37.1 years.
That would effectively mean that middle age would not arrive in Germany until a person reached the age of 52, rather than 40 as it was in 2000.‘
Now… wait. Thirty-nine and thirty-nine makes sense to me. Fifty-one and thirty-seven?! So ‘middle age’ is fifty-two? Wha? Does somebody out there have the secret decoder ring that makes that math work out? Even if — for some wigged-out reason — the ‘magic number’ of years left after ‘middle age’ is thirty-nine… then in 2050, it would be at age fifty, not fifty-two. Are they smoking something in Austria — or the Upper East Side — that I’m not aware of?
I mean, I’m no Leonhard Euler over here — hell, let’s face it, people; I’m barely even Leo Fibonacci — but I just can’t make the numbers work. I’m not saying they don’t work, necessarily, with a few creative equations and some algebraic hand-waving… but it damned well doesn’t follow from the data presented. Not as obviously as they make it seem, anyway. I’m a moron, folks, but I’m not that big a moron. Some-fuckin’-body needs to show their damned work.
Maybe it wouldn’t mean so much to me… but I’m leveled out at cruising altitude, hurtling headlong toward middle age myself — whenever the hell it starts. So, I’d like to know when it’s coming. You’ve got to prepare for that kind of thing, you know. Nobody wants to hit middle age unexpectedly — or sober, for that matter. Just tell me fricking when. I’ll meet you there.
Permalink | 4 CommentsI think I know what it is, folks. It’s simply too damned hot to write. That must be it.
Summer in New England has all the subtlety of a ‘desperate housewife’ at a poolboys’ convention. There’s rarely a springtime to speak of in this part of the world, and this year is no different. A week ago, we were wearing parkas and mukluks, freezing our nads off and feeling like someone had been jamming a popsicle up our collective ass for the past six months. Now, it’s eighty degrees by sunrise, and I sweat when I breathe. ‘April showers’, we hardly knew ye.
(Oh, and speaking of popsicles up the ass, just a quick public service FYI to the married gents out there: If, at any time in your marriage, your wife turns to you in bed and growls,
‘Yeah, we’ll I’m not an Eskimo, got it?‘
…then you’ve made a tactical error somewhere along the way. It’s gonna cost you. Don’t argue; just buy the flowers. It’s much easier. Trust me.)
Now generally, I don’t do a lot of complaining about the weather. The way I see it, that’s what we’re keeping all those millions of old farts around for. If we wanted to sit around and watch the Weather Channel for six hours a day, and debate the meteorological implications of the latest low front moving in, then we could just euthenize the hell out of the geezers, and save ourselves the stewed prune money.
But, of course, we don’t want that. We’re not monsters — mainly — and we certainly have better things to do with our lives than read barometers and feed grandpa into the wood chipper. Plus, somebody has to eat those fucking prunes, and it’s not gonna be me. There’s ‘regular’, and then there’s ‘Vesuvial’. No, thanks.
(Kids, it’s a volcano. Vesuvius? You with me? Pompeii? Buried in ash, all that jazz? Eh, never mind. Pretend I said, ‘Mout Saint Helensian’, if that helps. Or ‘Krakatoal’, maybe — but if you didn’t get ‘Vesuvial’, then that’s probably doing you no good, either.)
Anyway, where the hell was I? Oh, right — the weather.
So, I’m not a big weather hound. But I can’t stand being hot. And, this being New England, there’s damned little air conditioning available. Oh, sure, they install it in the offices and restaurants and such. And it’s a damned good thing — right now, the only thing getting me up on a weekday to schlep into the office is the thought of a nicely chilled cubicle, where I can slouch and nap at a cozy sixty-eight degrees. It’s heavenly.
At the house, though… not so much. We’ve got a window unit in the bedroom, sure, but it’s little help. I’m pretty sure it’s older than I am, for one. I’m surprised it doesn’t have a hand-crank to start the damned thing. And the — oh, I don’t know… seven BTUs or so that it puts out are usually sucked into the hundred-year-old walls before they reach our sweaty, clammy selves. You’ve pretty much got to sit on the unit to get any relief from it.
(But then, that’s pretty much the way most ‘units’ work, eh, kids? Hiyooh!
Yeah. Never let it be said that I won’t take an easy one-liner, once in a while. All this story-telling bullshit is hard, dammit.)
Now, we’ve thought about having a system installed — but there are three problems with that. First, it’s expensive as hell. And there’s always that little voice in the back of your head, reminding you of your responsibilities and priorities, keeping you on the right track. And it’s true, I suppose — why dump a bunch of cash into air conditioning, when there’s still beer and strippers and porn to pay for? Thank you, little voice. You’ve shown me the way, once again.
Then, there’s the issue of needing someone else to install such a system. Contractors in New England generally seem to exist to tease people like us:
‘Oh, sure — we’ll come look at the job… never!‘
‘Yes sir, absolutely we’ll send along our estimate… psych!‘
‘No problem, we can stay under your budget… for about an hour!‘
Creamy onion Christ dip on a cucumber, just give me a damned wedgie and get it over with, ya bastards. Stop hazing me, and do the frigging work!
But no. It’s a game of some sort, and you’ve got to play it, or it’s no soup for you! Or, in this case, no non-sweaty ass crack for you! Which is worse than no soup, believe me. Maybe still better than soup down the ass crack, but it’s not good.
Of course, the biggest barrier to getting yummy A/C for the house is my wife. Not that she’s an unreasonable gal, or anything like that. Christ, she’s still married to me, if that tells you anything about her superhuman tolerance for bullshit. But she gets cold rather easily. So she hates the winters here. She’s constantly chilly, wrapped up in a blanket while it snows and howls and frosts outside — it’s very cute, in a sad, pitiful way.
(Yeah, I told her that once. I woke up that night with her perched over me, aiming to do god-knows-what with the business end of a popsicle. Turns out I’m not an Eskimo, either. Yowie.)
So as far as I can tell, she actually likes the miserable heat that we suffer here for… well, okay, only about six weeks a year, actually. But dammit, those are intolerable weeks! Unless your preferred temperature is eighty fricking degrees — hers is; just ask her — then it’s a humid little slice of hell.
But I’m not quite sure what she’d do to me, right on the heels of winter, if I had it my way. If it were up to me, we’d have a central A/C unit pumping sweet chilly goodness into every room in the house, twenty-four seven. We’d walk in from work, and see our breath in the foyer. We could build snowmen in the living room, break icicles off in the kitchen — maybe we’d even go sledding down the basement stairs. But she’d never go for it. Six months of winter is enough, apparently. And that’s fine — but do we have to have six months of Hades the rest of the year? Does ‘sixty degrees’ have a twenty-degree restraining order around it, or what?
Eh, fuck it. I’m too hot to bitch about this any more. I’m gonna go take a cold shower to cool off. Not that kind of a ‘cold shower’, mind you. I’m mostly too hot to think about that sort of thing, either. On the other hand, that time I mentioned, when she had the popsicle? I’ll never look at a fudge creamsicle quite the same way again. Brrrrrrrr!
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