Walking

HR and I were walking around the parking lot of our building the other day, taking a break from our desks and enjoying some much-needed eye relief from our monitors.  We like to change our routes up each day, but if we’re short on time, then we just take a lap or two around the parking garage. 

As we rounded the corner, a car pulled in behind us.  Having nowhere else to go, we were walking in the lane, and the car seemed content to ride behind us, instead of passing by in the other lane.  When we were finally able to move over to let the car pass, it did so slowly, and there in the passenger seat was a white dog, giving us the most perturbed look I have ever seen.  He actually turned his head as they were passing, so that he could continue to give us that look the entire time.

At the very last moment, right before they pulled into the parking garage, I gave him a head nod to show there was no insult intended.  And without pausing, he gave me one back to show we were cool.  Dogs are awesome!

The Crooked Man

Excerpt from "For Hugh Hefner, gay rights were part of the sexual revolution" by Derek Hawkins, published in The Washington Post  on September 28, 2017.

The year was 1955, and science fiction author Charles Beaumont had, by most accounts, crossed the line with his latest short story.

“The Crooked Man” depicted a dystopian future where homosexuality was the norm, heterosexuality was outlawed and angry anti-straight mobs marched through the street chanting “make our city clean again!” Even the relatively progressive Esquire magazine had rejected the piece because it was too controversial.

But Beaumont found a fan in a young Hugh Hefner, who agreed to run it in his Playboy magazine, then less than two years old.

Outraged letters poured in to Playboy. Even readers of the pioneering nude publication found Beaumont’s tale of straight people dressing in drag and sneaking into dark barrooms to find partners too offensive for their tastes.

Hefner responded to the backlash in a defiant note. “If it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society,” he wrote, “then the reverse was wrong, too.”



I found this article on Hugh Hefner fascinating.  Not so much because of what he did or said, which is fascinating in its own right, but because of the description of the short story "The Crooked Man."  It led me to look up and read the story, which is contained below, if you're curious.  I was fascinated by the notion of a society in reverse, where heterosexuals were persecuted for their way of life.  More so, because it gives a glimpse into humanity.  Humans will always persecute other humans.  As much as homosexuals fight the persecution that they now find themselves in, if given the chance, they would become the persecutors.

I am also fascinated by this concept, because it exactly describes the state of the city of Sodom when God destroyed it.

Before they had gone to bed, all the mend from every part of the city of Sodom - both young and old - surrounded the house.  They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight?  Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."

Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, "No, my friends.  Don't do this wicked thing.  Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man.  Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them.  But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."

"Get out of our way," they replied.  "This fellow cam here as a foreigner and now he wants to play the judge!  We'll treat you worse than them."  

They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.  But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door.

Genesis 19:4-10

This was not only an acceptable way of life, but the homosexuals in Sodom were actually pushing their agenda and persecuting the heterosexuals.  I understand that Charles Beaumont's story was supposed to outrage people into seeing how wrong the persecution of another human being is because of their sexual inclination, and that heterosexuals would dislike it just as much if the tables were turned.  I hope we never get to a place where the tables are turned, but it was an eye-opening experience to imagine it.  While I don't agree with homosexuality, I don't agree in persecuting homosexuals either.  It is not my place to enact judgement on them.  

But it also scares me to think that based on the current trends and given enough time, our society might reverse itself.  People do not stop when they have equality, they keep pushing and pushing, selfishly driving their agenda to advantage.  That is human nature.  There is always an imbalance of power, and we as a society are seeing the see-saw slowly, slowly tip the other way.



The Crooked Man by Charles Beaumont (1955)

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . . who changed the truth of God into a lie . . . for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another: men with men working that which is unseemly . . .”
(Si. Paul: Romans, I)

He slipped into a corner booth away from the dancing men, where it was quietest, where the odors of musk and trangipani hung less heavy on the air. A slender lamp glowed softly in the booth. He turned it down; down to where only the club’s blue overheads filtered through the beaded curtain, diffusing, blurring the image thrown back by the mirrored walls of his light thin-boned handsomeness.

“Yes, sir?” The barboy stepped through the beads and stood smiling. Clad in gold-sequined trunks, his greased muscles seemed to toll in independent motion, like fat snakes beneath his naked skin.

“Whiskey,’’ Jesse said. He caught the insouciant grin, the broad white-tooth crescent that formed on the young man’s face. Jesse looked away, tried to control the flow of blood to his cheeks.

“Yes. sir.” the barboy said, running his thick tanned fingers over his solar plexus, tapping the fingers, making them hop in a sinuous dance. He hesitated, still smiling, this time questioningly, hopefully, a smile filled with admiration and desire. The Finger Dance, the accepted symbol since 2648, stopped: the pudgy brown digits curled into angry fists. “Right away, sir.”

Jesse watched him turn; before the beads had tinkled together, he watched the handsome athlete make his way imperiously through the crowd, shaking off the tentative hands of single men at the tables, ignoring the many desire symbols directed toward him.

That shouldn’t have happened, Jesse thought. Now the fellow’s feelings were hurt. If hurt enough, he would start thinking, wondering — and that would ruin everything. No. it must be put right.

He thought of Mina, of the beautiful Mina. It was such a rotten chance; it had to go well!
“Your whiskey, sir,” the young man said. His face was like a dog’s face, large, sad; his lips were a pouting bloat of line.

Jesse reached into his pocket for some change. He started to say something, something nice. 

“It’s been paid for,” the barboy said. He scowled and laid a card on the table and left.

The card carried the name E. J. Hodart, embossed, in lavender ink. Jesse heard the curtains tinkle.

“Hello, there! I hope you don’t mind my barging in like this, but — well, you didn’t seem to be with anyone . . .”

The man was small, chubby, bald; his face had a dirty growth of beard and he looked out of tiny eyes encased in bulging contacts. He was bare to the waist. His white, hairless chest drooped and turned in folds at the stomach. Softly, more subtle than the barboy had done, he put his porky stubs of fingers into a suggestive rhythm.

Jesse smiled. “Thanks for the drink,” he said. “But I really am expecting someone.”

“Oh?” the man said. “Someone — special?”

“Pretty special,” Jesse said smoothly, now that the words had become automatic. “He’s my fiancé.”

“I see.” The man frowned momentarily and then brightened. “Well, I thought to myself. I said, E. J., you don’t actually think a beauty like that would be unattached, do you?’ But, it was certainly worth the old college try. Sorry.”

“Perfectly all right,” Jesse said. The predatory little eyes were rolling, the fingers dancing in one last ditch attempt. “Good evening, Mr. Hobart.”

Jesse felt slightly amused this time: it was the other kind, the intent ones, the humorless ones like the barboy, who revolted him, turned him ill, made him want to take a knife and carve unspeakable ugliness into his own smooth, aesthetic face.

The man shrugged; “Good evening!” and waddled away, crabwise.

Now the club was becoming more crowded. It was getting later and heads full of liquor shook away the inhibitions of the earliest hours. Jesse tried not to watch, but he had long ago given up trying to rid himself of his fascination. So he watched the men together. The pair over in the far corner, pressed close together, dancing with their bodies, never moving their feet, swaying in slow, lissome movements to the music… The couple seated by the bar: one a Beast, the other a Hunter. The Beast old, his cheeks caked hard and cracking with powder and liniments, the perfume rising from his body like steam; the Hunter, young but unhandsome, the fury evident in his eyes, the hurt anger at having to make do with a paid companion, and such an ugly one. From time to time the Hunter would look around, wetting his lips in shame. . . . And those two just coming in, dressed in Mother’s uniforms, tanned, mustached, proud of their station . . .

Jesse held the beads apart. Mina must come soon! He wanted to run from this place, out into the air, into the darkness and silence.

No. He just wanted Mina. To see her, touch her, listen to the music of her voice . . .
Two women came in, arm in arm, Beast and Hunter, drunk. They were stopped at the door. The manager swept by Jesse’s booth, muttering about them, asking why they should want to come to the Phallus when they had their own sections, their own clubs . . .

Jesse pulled his head back inside. He’d become used to the light by now, so he closed his eyes against his multiplied image. The disorganized sounds of love got louder, the sing-song syrup of voices: high-pitched, throaty, baritone, falsetto. It was crowed now. The Orgies would begin before long and the couples would pair off for the cubicles. He hated the place. But close to Orgy-time you didn’t get noticed here; and where else was there to go? Outside, where every inch of pavement was patrolled electronically, every word of conversation, every movement recorded, catalogued, filed?

Damn Knudsen! Damn the little man! Thanks to him, to the Senator, Jesse was now a criminal. Before, it hadn’t been so bad: not this bad, anyway. You were laughed at and shunned and fired from your job, and sometimes kids threw stones at you, but at least you weren’t hunted. Now — it was a crime. It was a sickness.

He remembered when Knudsen had taken over. It had been one of the little man’s first telecasts; in fact, it was the platform that had got him the majority vote:
“. . . Vice is on the upswing in our great city. In the dark corners of every Unit perversion blossoms like an evil flower. Our children are exposed to its stink, and they wonder — our children wonder — why nothing is done to put a halt to this disgrace. We have ignored it long enough! The time has come for action, not mere words. The perverts who infest our land must be flushed out, eliminated completely, as a threat not only to public morals but to society at large. These sick people must be cured and made normal. The disease that throws men and women together in this dreadful abnormal relationship and leads to acts of retrogression — retrogression that will, unless it is stopped and stopped fast, lead us inevitably back to the status of animals — this is to be considered as any other disease. It must be conquered as heart trouble, cancer, polio, all other diseases have been conquered . . .”

The Women’s Senator had taken Knudsen’s lead and issued a similar pronunciamento and then the bill had become law and the law was carried out.

Jesse sipped at his whiskey, remembering the Hunts. How the frenzied mobs had gone through the city at first, chanting, yelling, bearing placards with slogans: “Wipe out the heteros!” “Kill the Queers!” “Make our city clean again!” And how they’d lost interest finally after the passion had worn down and the novelty had ended. But they had killed many and they had sent many more to the hospitals . . .

He remembered the nights of running and hiding, choked dry breath cutting his throat, heart rattling loose. He had been lucky. He didn’t look like a hetero. They said you could tell one just by watching him walk — but Jesse walked correctly. He fooled them. He was lucky. And he was a criminal. He, Jesse Martin, no different from the rest, tube-born and machine-nursed, raised in the Character Schools like everyone else — was terribly different from the rest.

It had been on his first formal date that he became aware of this difference, that it crystallized. The man had been a Rocketeer, the best high quality, and frighteningly handsome. “Mother” had arranged it, the way he arranged everything. carefully, proving and re-proving that he was worthy of the Mother’s uniform. There was the dance. And then the ride in the space-sled. The big man had put an arm about Jesse and — Jesse knew. He knew for certain and it made him very angry and very sad.

He remembered the days that came after the knowledge: bad days, days fallen upon evil, black desires, deep-cored frustrations. He had tried to find a friend at the Crooked Clubs that flourished then, but it was no use. There was a sensationalism, a bravura to these people that he could not love. The sight of men and women together, too shocked the parts of him he could not change, and disgusted him. Then the vice-squads had come and closed up the clubs and the heteros were forced underground and he never sought them out again or saw them. He was alone.
The beads tinkled.

“Jesse.”

He looked up, quickly, afraid. Then his fear vanished.

 A figure stood outlined against the curtains, quietly. A small, soft, clean figure, a softness there, and a cleanliness, cutting and dissipating the dark asylum of his memories like sudden sunlight, with all the good warmth of sunlight, and all the brightness. Mina.

She wore a loose man’s shirt, an old hat that hid her golden hair: her face was shadowed by the turned lip collar. Through the shirt the rise and fall of her breasts could be faintly detected. She smiled once, nervously.

Jesse looked out the curtain. Without speaking, he put his hands about her soft, thin shoulders and held her like this for a long minute.

“Mina—” She looked away. He pulled her chin forward and ran a finger along her lips. Then he pressed her body to his, tightly, touching her neck, her back, kissing her forehead, her eyes, kissing her mouth.

She pulled her head back and sat down, staring at the table. “Don’t do that, please don’t.” she said.

Jesse opened his mouth, closed it abruptly as the curtains parted.

“Order, sir?’’

“Beer,” Jesse said, winking at the bar boy, who tried to come closer, to see the one loved by this handsome stranger.

“Two beers. Yes, sir.”

The barboy looked at Mina very hard, but she had turned and he could see only the back. Jesse held his breath. The barboy smiled contemptuously then, a smile that said: You’re insane — I was hired for my beauty; I know that I am beautiful, hundreds would be proud to have me, and you turn me down for this bag of bones . . .

Jesse winked again, shrugged suggestively, and danced his fingers: Tomorrow, my friend. I’m stuck tonight. Can’t help it. Tomorrow.

The barboy paused a moment, grinned briefly with understanding, and left. In a few minutes he returned with the beer. “On the house,” he said, for Mina’s benefit.

She turned only when Jesse said, softly, “It’s all right. He’s gone now.”

He looked at her, at the pain in her face, and the fear; hard lines that lied about the love that was between them and had been for all these months. He reached over and took off the hat. Long tresses of blonde hair spilled out splashing over the rough shirt.

She grabbed for the hat. “We mustn’t,” she said. “Please. What if somebody came in?”

“No one will come in. I told you that.”

“But what if someone does? I don’t know. I don’t like it here. That man at the door, he almost recognized me.”

“But he didn’t.”

“Almost, though. And then what?”

“Forget it. Mina, for God’s sake. Let’s not quarrel.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Jesse. It’s only that meeting you like this makes me feel . . .’’

“What?”

“Dirty.” She spoke the word defiantly, and lifted her eyes to his.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“No. I suppose not: I don’t know, any more.” She hesitated. “Maybe if we could be alone together, I—”

Jesse took out a cigarette and began to use the table lighter. Then he cursed and threw the phallic object under the chair and crushed the cigarette. “You know that’s impossible,” he said. The idea of separate Units for homes had disappeared, of course, to be replaced by giant dormitories. There were no more parks, no country lanes. There was no place to hide at all now, thanks to Senator Knudsen, to the little spearhead of these great new sociological reforms. “This is all we have.” Jesse threw a sardonic look around the booth, with its carved symbols and framed pictures of entertainment stars all naked and leering.

They were silent for a time, hands interlocked on the tabletop. Then the girl began to cry. “I—I can’t go on like this,” she said. “I can’t. Jesse, listen; I came here tonight to tell you—”
“I know. I know how awful it is for you. But what else can we do?” He tried to keep the hopelessness out of his voice.

“We could—’’ the girl started, and seemed to change her mind. “Maybe we should have gone underground with the rest, right at the first.”

“And hide there, like rats?’’ Jesse said.

“We’re hiding here, aren’t we,” Mina demanded, adding, “like rats!”

He sighed. He could not remember seeing her quite so unhappy. Things had never been exactly right, never perfect, because she had always seemed to fight her instincts. Even her affection for him since that first time when he made her admit it, pried it loose from her. But he had thought this could be conquered . . . No; don’t think about it. Think about now, and how beautiful she is, how warm and vibrant and soft.

“It’s necessary,” he said. “Parner is getting ready to crack down. I know, Mina: I work at Centraldome, after all.

In a little while there won’t be any underground. He has a list of names a mile long already.”
Then, suddenly, the girl said. “I love you,” and leaned forward, parting her lips for a kiss. “Jesse. I do.” She closed her eyes. “And I’ve tried to be strong, just like you told me to be. But they wouldn’t leave us alone. They wouldn’t stop. Just because we’re qu. ..”

“Mina! I’ve said it before — don’t ever use that word!” His voice was harsh; he pushed her away. “It isn’t true! We’re not the queers. You’ve got to believe that. Years ago it was normal for men and women to love each other: they married and had children together; that’s the way it was. Don’t you remember anything of what I’ve told you?”

The girl stared downward. “Of course I do. I do, really. But it was such a long time ago.”
“Not so long! Where I work — listen to me — they have books. You know, I told you about books? I’ve read them, Mina. I learned what the words meant from other books. It’s only been since the use of artificial insemination — not even five hundred years ago.”

“Yes,” the girl said, sighing. “I’m sure that’s true.”

“Mina, stop it! We are not the unnatural ones, no matter what they say. I don’t know exactly how it happened — maybe as women gradually became equal to men in every way — or maybe solely because of the way we’re born — I don’t know. But the point is darling, the whole world was like us, once. Even now,” he said, desperately, “look at the animals.”

“Jesse, don’t you dare talk as though we’re like those horrible little dogs and cats and things.”
Jesse took a deep swallow of his drink. He had tried so often to tell her, show her, make her see. But he knew what she thought, really. She thought she was exactly what, the authorities told her she was.

God, maybe that’s how they all think, all the Crooked People, all the “un-normal ones” . . .
The girl’s hands caressed his arms and the touch of them became strange to him. I love you, Mr. Martin, even though you do have two heads . . .

Forget it, he thought. Never mind. She’s a woman, a very satisfying, desirable woman, and she may think you’re both freaks, but you know different, indeed you do, you know she’s wrong, just as they’re all wrong . . .

Or, he wondered, are you the insane person of old days who was insane because he was so sure he wasn’t insane because —

“Disgusting!”

It was the fat man, the smiling masher, E. J. Hobart. But he wasn’t smiling now. Jesse got up quickly and stepped in front of Mina. “What do you want?” he said. “I thought I told you—”
The man pulled a metal identification disk from his trunks. “Vice-squad, my friend,” he said. “Better sit down.”

The man’s arm went out through the curtain and two other men came in, equipped with weapons.
“I’ve been watching you quite a while. Mister,” the man said. “Quite a while.” “Look,” Jesse said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. 1 work at Centraldome and I’m seeing Miss Kirkpatrick here on some business.”

“We know all about that kind of business,” the man said.

“All right — I’ll tell you the truth. I forced her to come here. She didn’t want to, but I—”

“Mister, didn’t you hear me? I said I’ve been watching you. Let’s go.”

One man took Mina’s arm, roughly; the other two began to propel Jesse out through the club. Heads turned. Tangled bodies moved embarrassedly.

“It’s all right,” the fat man said, his white skin glistening with perspiration. “It’s all right, folks. Go on back to whatever you were doing.” He grinned and tightened his grip on Jesse’s wrist.

Mina, Jesse noticed, did not struggle. He looked at her and felt something suddenly freeze into him. She had been trying to tell him something all evening, but he hadn’t let her. Now he knew what he had feared. He knew what she had come to tell him: that even if they hadn’t been caught, she would have submitted to the Cure voluntarily. No more worries then, no more guilt. No more tender moments, either, but wasn’t that a small price to pay, when she could live the rest of her life without feeling shame and dirt? Yes. it was a small price, now that the midnight dives and brief meetings were all they had left.

She did not meet his look as they took her out into the street. He watched her and thought of the past when they had been close, and he wanted to scream.

“You’ll be okay,” the fat man was saying. He opened the wagon’s doors. “They’ve got it down pat now — couple days in the ward, one short session with the doctors; take out a few glands, make a few injections, attach a few wires to your head, turn on a machine: presto! You’ll be surprised.”

The fat officer leaned close. His sausage fingers danced wildly near Jesse’s face.

“It’ll make a new man of you,” he said.

Then they closed the doors and locked them.

Apathy is Still an Emotion

Last week, our microwave went out.  No warning.  Just gave up the ghost one night.  Luckily, we still had our old countertop microwave from our previous home, so I pulled it out, dusted it off, and set it up.  It was great.  I had forgotten how much I had loved that microwave.  Then, a couple of days ago, it too went out.  Barring the obvious concern that we have an electrical problem in our kitchen, the more pressing concern is that we don’t have a way to nuke food.  You don’t really realize how much you rely on a microwave until you don’t have one.  We use it to heat up leftovers, water, breakfast, and steamer bags of rice or vegetables.  In short, this greatly affects every single meal we eat.

So, I was at Wal-Mart today, and the wife asked me to look at microwaves…not as a permanent solution, but just something cheap to get us by.  I found something that looked passable and went to read some reviews online.  While I was looking at the web page, I noticed that the online price was $20 less.  My thought process was that since this is a piece-of-crap, throw-away microwave anyway, I don’t want to spend that much on it.  So, saving $20 to order it online seems like a good idea.  Not to mention that you can have them “ship” it to the store for free.  So, I placed the order and received the email that said it would be ready “Later Today,” and that I would get another email when it was ready.  This was around 5:30 p.m.   Yes, that will be significant later on.

I proceeded to wander around the store for an hour waiting for that promised email, which never came.  Finally, I added my wife as an alternate picker-upper, and went home.  When my wife went to the store to pick up the microwave, they couldn’t find it in their little room of treasures.  So, they looked up the order and told her that it wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow, because it was put in too late.  Now, imagine that I’m having a texting conversation with the wife the entire time this stupid charade is going on in front of her.  I was growing more and more frustrated by this stupidity.  I mean I had just SEEN them sitting on the shelf an hour and a half ago.

Finally, the wife handed the phone to the man behind the counter, and this is a rough idea of how the conversation went.  I will refer to the Customer Service Manager as CSM.

CSM:  Hello, sir.

Me:  Hi.  So, I’m not understanding the problem here.

CSM:  Well, the computer is showing that the order was placed at 6:15 p.m., which means it won’t be fulfilled until tomorrow.

Me:  But I have an email receipt that shows that I placed the order at 5:30 p.m., and it clearly says that the order will be ready “Later Today.”

CSM:  Well, I can’t speak to that, because I don’t personally send out those emails.  All I can tell you is what is in front of me.

Me [losing my patience]:  Oh…kay…then can you just go over and pick up one off the shelf.

CSM:  No, sir.  The people that pick up things off the shelf aren’t here anymore.

Me [really losing my patience]:  Are you kidding me?!  What if my wife goes over and picks it up off the shelf and brings it back to your little counter?  Can you process the order then?

CSM:  No, sir.  There is more involved than just picking it up off the shelf.  Those people also have a special scanner, and they are the only ones that can use it.

Me [totally lost it]:  Are you listening to yourself?!  My wife is standing right there in front of you!  Are you seriously telling me that you’re going to inconvenience her again by making her come back tomorrow?!

CSM:  There is nothing I can do, sir.

Me:  Can you cancel the online order and ring up the one off the shelf at the online price?

CSM:  No, sir.  If we go get the one off the shelf, then I have to sell it to you at the shelf price.

Me:  Oh…my…god!  This is ridiculous.  You have to know how ridiculous this is.  Fine.  Whatever.

We just took a customer service class at work.  In that class, they told us not to meet emotion with emotion.  Well, this guy couldn’t have been more apathetic or uncaring.  He was making no effort to help us.  He could have used a manager override to change the price of the shelf microwave.  But he wasn’t going to do that.  He didn’t care enough.  He didn’t care at all.  Well, I hate to tell him this, but apathy is still an emotion, and this was a complete failure.

So, here I sit writing this rant.  To quote Chaucer from A Knight’s Tale, “I will eviscerate you in fiction.  I was naked for a day, but you will be naked for all of eternity.”  Well, here you go Wal-Mart and stupid moron CSM.  You are eviscerated!

The Smell of the Sun

Have you ever smelled the sun?  I asked this question of HR, and she looked at me like I had lost my mind.  How do you smell the sun?  I guess specifically what I meant was getting a waft of someone right after they come inside from being in the sun.  When they have that warm, fresh, almost earthy smell emanating off of their skin, and it makes them seem so alive.  They smell alive with energy, with light, with potential.  That is how I imagine the sun smelling like…energy, light, potential…life.

Kate Kershner wrote about this on the website “How Stuff Works,” and she said that what we’re really doing is associating a smell with an object.  So, whenever we smell that smell, our mind is telling us that that is that object.  The problem with this is that it becomes subjective and different from one person to the next.  Whereas I associate the smell of the sun to warm, fresh, earthy smells; someone else might think of fresh laundry, or the beach, or rain even.

She goes on to say that we can’t possible know if the sun has a smell, because we can’t get close enough to sniff it.  So, what we’re really smelling is the air.  And according to one research study, air warmed by the sun actually smells differently than cooler air.  This is because molecules that carry scents are moving faster and more freely in warmer air, so we perceive more of them.  So, I guess I’m not so crazy after all.  I am smelling the warmed air on someone’s skin being carried in their wake as they come in from the sun.

Am I in Heaven?

ML, a Muslim that I work with, had surgery a few months ago on his back.  It was serious enough that it required him to be put under anesthesia.  When he came out of sedation, he found himself in a room surrounded by numerous female nurses.  Still groggy, he lazily asked, “Am I in heaven?  Are you my virgins?”  I asked him if he was disappointed with the selection.  He claims that he doesn’t remember even saying this, much less what he thought about the women.

As they wheeled him from recovery into his room, still mostly out of it, he saw a woman that he didn’t recognize standing in the room, frowned, and asked his nurse, “Who is that, and why is she in my room?”  The nurse said, “Sir, that’s your wife.”  His wife was not amused, especially after the virgins comment, which she apparently also overheard.

Now, his wife plays that trump card whenever she wants to get her way.  “You don’t want to eat what I want to eat for dinner?  Remember that time when you had surgery?”  And ML simply has to go along with it.  I’m wondering now if she made it all up just to get this lifelong trump in her pocket.  If so, that was brilliant!

Standing for the National Anthem - Part 2

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump decided to weigh in on the topic of athletes kneeling for the national anthem.  His view was that either the teams need to make them stop kneeling, or the players need to be fired.  Why our current president is running his administration through social media, I’m not sure, but his extremely stupid statements were probably the best thing for the movement against racial injustice.  His statements served to completely unify the NFL.  Three teams refused to even take the field during the national anthem, and every other team had players kneeling, sitting, or linking arms.  In one tweet, in one single act of insensitive thoughtlessness, the president managed to unify a divided nation and garnish an outpouring of support…for the other side.  At this point, I tend to believe that he’s just stupid.  But what if he’s not?  What if this is all an elaborate ruse; to be the goat, so that everyone else will come together?  It would be a strange way to go about it.

But what is even more confusing is what happened during the Pittsburgh Steelers game.  While the entire Steelers team decided not to even come to the field, one player, Alejandro Villanueva, chose to come to the edge of the tunnel and respect the national anthem.  A former Army ranger, he said that he felt it would be disrespectful to his former platoon and all military personnel to not at least be present.  He respected his team by not actually stepping foot on the field.

After the game, his head coach and several of his teammates denounced and ridiculed his actions.  They claimed that they had made this decision as a team, and that he wasn’t being a team player.  So let me get this right, you’re telling me that you’re supposedly kneeling for equality for everyone.  You’re telling me that the protest against President Trump is that everyone should have the right to express themselves and enact their freedom of speech, as granted by the United States Constitution.  But if someone chooses not to express themselves your way, then you denounce them and publicly ridicule them?  What a double standard.  Aren’t you doing to him exactly what you claim everyone is doing to you?

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the team and media made him feel so bad about his individuality, that he felt compelled to hold a press conference and apologize for his actions.  Apologize?!  For being respectful to a nation and the people that risk their lives to defend it.  Now, I know that this protest has nothing to do with the men and women of the armed forces.  I have no idea why that concept is even brought up.  They are protesting an ideal and the people that are tasked with protecting its people even from themselves.  But if Mr. Villanueva wants to honor his fellow soldiers, and he feels the best way to do that is to be present for the national anthem, then who are they to judge his actions, much less make him feel bad about it?!  He was caught in the middle of a war, and he chose the best way he could think of to be respectful to both sides.  He was present, but not on the field.  Strike two against the supposed protesters of equality.

To continue my praise for people who are finding ways to speak out in respectful ways, I want to jump over to the MLB.  For the first time, a player in baseball decided to join in the passive protests of racial inequality.  Bruce Maxwell, a catcher for the Oakland Athletics knelt during the national anthem.  But…but…he did so while still managing to respect the flag, the anthem, and the country by covering his heart while it played.  I have no issue with this.  It is a protest against an ideal and a situation, while respecting a nation.

I will conclude by expressing my problem with all of this passive protesting.  I said it before, and I’ll say it again.  It is not making a difference.  Nobody is talking about the impetus behind the protest.  They are talking about the action of the protest and the response to the action.  We have lost the goal amidst the chaos, and I wonder if months or years from now if anyone will even remember what we’re fighting about.

When all of this started last year, I told my father that I thought it was stupid what Colin Kaepernick was doing.  Purely because I felt he was going about it all wrong.  Kneeling was not going to change hearts.  All it was going to do was enrage them.  And that is exactly what has happened.  He needed to be using his influence and money to educate, to inform, and to push for productive change.  All it takes is one man teaching his child to be racist to continue the cycle to another generation.  But if you can get to that child and change his mind…to teach him compassion and to look at the heart instead of at the skin of a man…you can break the cycle.  If you can change police tactics to be more humane to everyone, to raise awareness about what’s going on, then you can break the cycle.  And if we’re going to truly do away with racism, from both sides (yes, black people are racist too), then we need to break the cycle.  Imagine all of these athletes using their influence and money for something productive…what a force they’d be.

Does He Bite?

I was sitting in a meeting at work today, and there was one guy sitting away from the table and against the wall.  I scooted over to give him room to join us at the table, but he just shook his head.  I said, “It’s okay, I don’t bite.”  After a short pause, I amended, “Well, actually I do bite, but I’m all gums.”

The Cajun Navy

During the relief efforts for people trapped by the flood waters of Hurricane Harvey, my friend JK and his wife went down to assist.  JK was assigned to a fire fighter relief unit, and his wife joined The Cajun Navy.

For those who don’t know, The Cajun Navy is a volunteer group out of Louisiana, comprising of private boat owners who assist in search and rescue efforts in Louisiana and adjacent areas.  This group was originally formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and reactivated again in the aftermath of the floods stemming from Hurricane Harvey.  They are credited with rescuing thousands of people during these disasters.  After Hurricane Harvey, they came over with their bass boats and jonboats, put into the worst of the flooded streets and neighborhoods, and rescued people that the “official” units could not or would not get to.  It is estimated that they actually rescued hundreds of people a day over the course of two weeks.

I wanted to take a moment to applaud and appreciate the volunteer efforts of ordinary citizens, like The Cajun Navy, for all that they do to help in the wake of natural disasters.  Without their efforts thousands of people might die or be stranded, waiting for “official” units to find them.  Their efforts are selfless and pass without awards, praise of heroism, or in some cases recognition at all.  So, this blog post is devoted to saying “Thank You.”  You are all heroes in my book.

A Greek Sliver

My wife had some ladies over for a Bible study tonight, and she had asked me to pick up a cake for dessert.  The only thing I could find at the store meeting her very specific requirements was called, “Chocolate Therapy.”  This thing was a double-decker chocolate cake with chocolate icing between the layers, chocolate icing melted and drizzled over the outside, and a giant chocolate rose on the top.  In short, we couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be therapy or put you in therapy.

When the meal was done, the ladies asked my wife to cut them a piece, and that is when the real fun began.  Each one asked for a sliver of cake.  Now, to a normal person that meant a very thin, almost invisible from the side piece of cake.  To my Greek wife that meant a quite large wedge of cake that stood about four to five inches off the plate…on its side.

When several of the ladies started to protest that they really only wanted a sliver, my wife said, “That is a sliver…a Greek sliver.”

15% or More

JC found a gecko in the bathroom last night when she went to take a bath.  She was trying to figure out how to get rid of him and had called us for advice.  I asked her if he looked like he was trying to sell her car insurance.  She laughed and said that she actually used to have car insurance with Geico, but had cancelled it.  I said, “Well, there you go.  He’s trying to win back your business.”

Toilet Seat...Up or Down?

Leave the toilet set up.  Put the toilet seat down.  This has been a struggle between men and women ever since the toilet seat was invented.  Men have the flexibility to sit or stand, so women usually argue that the toilet seat should be down, and men can either lift it or sit.  But I find this argument completely unfair and one-sided.  It puts all of the burden and effort on men to comply.  I contend that it takes just as much effort for a woman to put the seat down as it takes for a man to have to lift it back up again.

I have been married almost 14 years now.  At the beginning of our marriage, my wife complained almost daily about falling into the toilet at night when she was trying to pee in the dark, and I had left the toilet seat up.  (Personally, I found this statement so ludicrous that I laughed, which turned out to be a big mistake).  However, I complained just as much on those rare nights when I decided not to turn the lights on and ended up peeing on the seat, the lid, the garbage can, the floor, the wall, the toilet paper roll, and the doily on the back of the toilet.  All because my wife had gone to the bathroom and put the seat down…or possibly the seat and lid…and the backsplash went everywhere.  I was mad that I would have to scrub the entire bathroom at 2 o’clock in the morning.  (So much for not turning the lights on!)  It got to be where I started to instinctively grope around in the dark, trying to feel out the state of the toilet before proceeding.  (It should be noted that my father lost his man card when he suggested that if I just sat, then I wouldn’t have to worry about any of these problems.)

Something had to be done.  Life could not go on like this.  I was/am a very stubborn person.  If something seems to be a social injustice, then I refuse to comply.  If there is no factual evidence to suggest why I should change my actions, then I won’t do it.  And this issue with the toilet seat seemed completely one-sided.  So, I came up with a compromise, which I suggested to my wife.  When I got done using the toilet, I would put the seat down.  When she got done using it, then she would lift it up.  That way, we are both doing the same amount of work, and we were thinking about the other person and their needs.  Surprisingly, she actually agreed to this plan (I suspect mostly just to get me to stop complaining).

We lived in this harmonious state until that one fateful day when we were in the bathroom, not actually using the toilet, but doing something else around it.  Back at that time, my wife would keep an extra roll of toilet paper on the back of the toilet, so we didn’t have to do the pants-around-the-ankle waddle across the bathroom to the cabinet if we ran out mid-use.  So, one minute we are putting up a towel bar on the wall, and the next minute, the extra toilet paper roll gets bumped off the back of the toilet and “bloop” right into the water through the open lid.  Now, it should be noted that the seat was, in fact, down at that moment.

So, after fishing out the wasted, soggy roll of toilet paper, my wife and I decided together that a new solution was needed.  We agreed that the only truly fair solution was to put both the seat and lid down after each use.  Then, we both had to expend the same amount of effort (which satisfied me), we would always know the state of the toilet in the dark (which satisfied us both), and we wouldn’t have any additional extra-toilet-roll-on-the-back-of-the-toilet murders (which satisfied my wife).

The long conclusion to be taken from this is not to fight about the toilet seat being up or down.  Just agree to put the lid and seat both down every time.  In additional to the other things I’ve already mentioned, it just looks nicer.  Trust me, nobody wants to come to your house and see toilet water (or any other things) while they’re in your bathroom.  And if you’re a guest at my house, please remember this.  It will annoy me if you leave the lid up, in any state.

In the In-Between

When I was a senior in high school, I remember going to a movie one Friday night with some friends.  The older guy in front of us in line, seeing my letterman’s jacket, asked if we were seniors.  When we confirmed it, he told us that he had gone to the same high school, class of 1987.  I distinctly remember thinking that I can’t believe this guy is so old.  He had already been out of high school for ten years.  At the time that seemed unfathomable to me.  I was young.  I had plans.  I had no concept of “real” life.

Now, as my 20^th high school reunion draws near, I think how naïve I was back then.  That guy was only 28 years old.  He was still incredibly young and probably had many more adventures ahead of him.  I would love to be 28 again with so many unknowns and dreams ahead of me.  But I didn’t enjoy them at the time.  No, when I was 28, I was stressed and anxious.  I had just been downsized from my company.  I was worried about money.  I was stuck in an unpleasant marriage.  I was miserable.  I certainly didn’t have any adventures awaiting me.

I look at my life now, and I count the passage of time not in weeks, or months, but in entire years.  I was just telling my spousal unit the other day that I can’t believe it’s almost October again.  I remember handing out Halloween candy last year, and now here we are again already.  It seems that I am grossly aware that every day I grow further and further away from the day of my birth and closer and closer toward the day of my death.  I feel as if I’m in that in-between stage.  Halfway through and halfway to go.  I’m just afraid that the second half will seem to go so much faster than the first half.

Let's Get Quizzical

My company hosted an after-hours pub quiz contest in the atrium of our building today.  I originally had no desire to participate.  One, because I’m actually an introvert that everyone mistakes for an extrovert.  Two, because I generally don’t want to associate with the people at work more than I have to.  However, I was pressured into participating by my boss, so I went and tried to make the best of it.  The real reason for the contest was so that two members of the executive leadership team could fluff their feathers and compete for bragging rights on who knew the most useless trivia.  So, I assumed that the questions would be geared toward their interest level and general age group.  I was expecting it to be like those spelling bees where you get up and your word is “antidisestablishmentarianism” and your opponent’s word is “cat.”

But they did the right thing and hired a pub quiz coordinator, so that it was impartial and official.  The game was very well done…fun and well-organized.  There were six rounds of questions, each round with a theme; like music, movies, or all things from 1996.  I had a lot of fun and enjoyed getting to know the people on my team a little better.  Unfortunately, after being in second place for the entire match, Team Let’s Get Quizzical finished the game 4^th out of 7, after a horrendous depletion in the final round.  The only redeeming part of it was that neither of the two members from the executive leadership team won either.

Enjoying a Cold One

The weather the last couple of weeks has been beautiful here in North Texas.  So, I've taken to going out in the evenings and walking or running.  Tonight, I passed a group of guys sitting in the driveway in lawn chairs, enjoying a cold drink and shooting the breeze with each other.  You rarely see this anymore, as people prefer to come home, drive into the garage, shut the door before they even get out of the car, and essentially avoid everyone.  It was refreshing to see people turning off technology and getting back to socializing face-to-face.  There was something comforting and familiar about it.  It reminded me of when I grew up.

As I passed by on my way back home, one of the guys called out, "Do you need a cold beer to finish off your walk?"  I appreciatively declined, but it was nice to be asked.  It made me feel like I belonged.

Safest Place in Tanzania

Yesterday at lunch, ML was telling us the he was surprised that Dallas didn’t have a better, more widespread public transportation system.  I asked him what they had in his home town in Tanzania, and he said that a German company had come in to the country several years ago and set up a system of public buses.  They also worked with the city to create bus-only driving lanes on the roads.  ML said the issue with this is that bus drivers don’t feel like they need to stop…for anything…stoplights, cars, or even pedestrians.  It has actually become more dangerous to walk around the streets where buses are.  Apparently, there have been incidents reported of people getting off the bus, walking around the front toward the sidewalk, and actually getting run over by the bus they just got off of.

ML said the buses also operate like taxi cabs, in that they get paid by the number of fares they pick up.  So, buses will compete to pick up passengers waiting at stops.  ML was on a bus one time that actually rammed another bus to get to a bus stop first.  He said that both buses were slamming into each other all the way down the road.  That was the last time he ever rode a bus.  I told him that didn’t seem wise, because apparently the safest place is on the bus!

They didn't introduce public transportation, but population control!

Misty

When I was in junior high and high school, we had a dog named Misty.  She was a Terrier and Poodle mix, for which my father always called her a Toodle.  She was small with sort of shaggy black and white hair, and she was the most peaceful dog you ever saw.  That is unless she saw a squirrel in the backyard.  She had a particular aversion to squirrels, considering them intruders who needed to learn their place…which was not in her backyard.  She even went so far as to hunt them, lying in wait in the tall grass for hours, waiting for one of them bold enough or stupid enough to venture too far from the safety of the tree.

We had a huge Ash tree in our backyard that had split into three or four separate trunks about three feet off the ground.  One of the trunks sloped gracefully outward a little before turning and heading upward to the sky.  At the base of these trunks, there was a space big enough for a human being to climb into, and it didn’t take Misty long to figure out that she could actually claw her way up the side of the tree and into this space. 

So, one day she was out stalking a particularly arrogant squirrel.  He would creep away from the tree, looking right at Misty the whole time, daring her to try to catch him.  Slowly, slowly getting further and further away, confident that he’d be able to beat her back to the tree.  Misty waited, patiently, for the exact right moment, and when it came, she tore off across the yard like a bullet.  It took the surprised squirrel a few seconds to register that that black and white streak blazing toward him was not a good sign.  He jumped straight up in the air, did a 180-degree turn, landed, and took off for the tree.

To his credit, he made it to the tree first.  To his detriment, he didn’t realize that Misty had learned to climb the tree too.  Without even slowing down, she launched herself into the air, covering half the distance up the side before her claws even touched bark.  Clawing the rest of the way, she shot into the space at the base of the trunks, scaring the over-confident squirrel, who had enough instinct to dart up the gently-sloping trunk.  However, Misty didn’t stop in the space between the trunks, and used her momentum to barrel right up the trunk after the squirrel.  He just managed to get away, as she nipped at his tail.

Suddenly realizing that she was in fact a dog, and not a squirrel, Misty was forced to retreat back down the trunk to the space at the bottom.  But I swear she had a smile on her panting face, as she watched that a-lot-less-confident squirrel scamper to the Pecan tree next door.

Rock Star!

Today, I got off a particularly difficult phone call with my customer and one of their benefit vendors.  It was difficult because the vendor seemed a bit slow on the uptake and kept circling back around to questions that we had already answered.  At one point, she danced around my question instead of answering it.  This happened on three separate occasions with every repeat of the question.  Finally, I pinned her down and made her commit to something.

When we got off the call, I immediately received an email from my customer saying, “Thank you!  You are a rock star!  I just wanted to tell you.”  I couldn’t help but smile.  It made my whole day…my week even.  To think that something so simple could completely change someone’s mood.  All it cost her was a minute of her time.

The Acrobatic Squirrel

The squirrel that lives in the trees behind our house cracks me up.  This morning, I caught him hanging by his back legs off the power line, tail whipping back and forth, while he stretched his little body as far as it would go.  He was frantically reaching for the tip of the tree branch that stayed elusively just beyond his little claws.  Swinging back and forth, swiping at it as he went by, he finally managed to get the branch to move enough for him to grab it.  He yanked it toward him, let go with his back legs, and swung on the branch like a little Tarzan squirrel to the trunk of the tree.  From there, he did some pretty amazing acrobatic maneuvers to get from the tree to fence, and from the fence to the bird feeder.

All of that for breakfast…

Surprise Phone Call

This morning, my mother-in-law called me out of the blue.  My wife had told her that I was working from home, so she just decided to call me up to tell me that she missed me.  It was so sweet and wonderful, and I was so touched.  We chatted for about 5 minutes or so, and then she rang off.  Just like that.  I have a feeling that it’s going to be a good day.

Sean?

I absolutely hate getting people’s voicemails.  I never know what to say when that little beep plays through the headset.  I panic.  There is a long, awkward silence as my brain scrambles for something to say.  Do I go with something funny?  Do I use a fake voice?  Do I just do straightforward and businesslike?  Who was I calling again?  Is this the right number?  What name did the message say?  Why was I calling them again?  Have a waited too long to leave a message?  Should I just hang up?  Is it awkward now?  Do you think they’ll notice?

So, that’s why I came up with this surefire message that works in those moments when you blank out.  You can’t go wrong with this one.  And the beauty of it is that it works for all occasions.  In my loudest voice, I yell, “Sean?  Sean?  Is that you?  Sean?  I can’t hear you.  Are you on mute?  Are you talking?  Sean?”  And then I hang up.

The person you were calling will be so confused, trying to figure out if it was really you, and if you’re in fact crazy, that they won’t even notice the long, awkward pause at the beginning.

Ball Was Life

CC and I used to play together every single day.  We were best friends and inseparable from the age of seven all the way through high school.  We are still friends to this day, but we took very different roads in life after high school.  But that’s another tale.

At some point a few years after CC moved into his house, his dad put up a basketball goal in the backyard.  I guess I should paint a picture of how the houses were in my neighborhood.  The garages on most of the houses were detached and in the backyard.  So, there was a driveway that ran along the side of the house back to the garage in the back.  It was along this driveway, right in front of the garage, that his dad placed the basketball goal. 

The other odd thing about the houses was that the electrical lines ran along poles at the back of the properties in-between the houses.  So, wires stretched from the poles to the garages, and finally from the garages to the houses.  One of these electrical wires ran right in front of the basketball goal that CC’s dad put up.  So, the wire became part of the game, as we had to shoot high arcs over it to make baskets.

As if this wasn’t enough of an obstacle, CC’s dad also did a lot of woodworking in his garage.  So, he built a quite large wooden table that he kept in the driveway in front of the garage that he used to hold stuff while he was building it.  This table also became part of the game, as we had to shoot from behind it and run around it while we were playing.  The distance from behind the table and over the electrical wire was about the distance of a free-throw. 

So, many of our games (like 21) involved shooting from behind the table and trying to run around it to get the rebound before the ball bounced (or bounced twice, depending on the game).  The goal was to predict which way the ball would bounce off the rim, so you could choose which direction to run around the table.  Pick the wrong way, and you probably wouldn’t get there in time.  I was pretty fast when I was younger, so I had a good chance of tracking the ball down regardless, but CC was not blessed with those same skills.  Which meant that I usually won most games.

There were many such obstacles on our court, like the fire hydrant placed randomly on one corner of the driveway, the raised slab behind the house that was the foundation for an extension that was never completed, or the massive pecan tree that grew over the back of the goal.  As you can imagine many, many injuries were sustained on that court, but I can’t remember having more fun in my entire life.  I lived to come home and go over there and play, sometimes three or four hours at a time.  Ball was life, and I couldn’t get enough of it.