A Few Burning Questions: Things that Make Me Go Hmmm

Okay, the weekend is upon us again.  It’s been a pretty good week.  It was pretty productive for me.  How about you?  I got a lot done, and I was still able to get me some rest.  I even managed to get a little time in for myself this week. 

But in my idleness, I began to think.  Well, I think all the time, but during this time, a number of questions came to me that I just can’t seem to answer.  Maybe you can help.

Why do people with foul breath like to chat so much?  I have a good friend.  He’s a very amicable fellow, loves to talk, and is an excellent conversationalist.  He can go on for hours and never be boring.  But his breath stinks.  He seems to have the condition that my uncle always referred to as zack-ly.  That is when your breath smells exactly like your behind.

And when you are talking to him, it’s almost like you get caught up in this foul green miasma.  Even after you are out of his presence, you can still smell his breath.  It’s almost as if it gets caught up in the fabric of your clothing or something.  He has to know his breath stinks to high heaven.  Can’t he see the disturbed, pained expressions on people’s face as they talk to him?  Why doesn’t he just shut up?

But speaking of chatty people…

Every time I am in a hurry and run into the store just to pick up a few items, I always end up in the line with the chatty check-out person.  Why?  I know this has happened to you.  You are in a hurry, but you have to stop by the store to quickly pick up just one item.  But there is just one line open, and that one line stretches to the back of the store, and the check-out person is the jolliest person who has ever lived and is holding marathon conversations with every customer.

All the while, you are looking on from your place at the back of the line and checking your watch, silently seething.  I do believe in service with a smile, and I love a cheerful check-out person, but by all means, greet the customer, smile, and keep the line moving.

But speaking of long lines…

Did Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton sell his soul to the devil in exchange for success?  Recently, I ran out of ink at about three in the morning, and I desperately needed to print a document.  So I saddled up and headed to Wal-Mart since that is the only thing seemingly open at that hour.  However, once I got there, I could not believe my eyes.

It was three in the morning, but at Wal-mart, it was like high noon on Main Street.  What in the hell of department stores are all these people doing out shopping at Wal-Mart in the wee hours of the morning?  And not only that, it was the motley-est, half-nakedest, most oddly clad, weirdest, most inbred, most tattooed and pierced bunch of human beings I have ever witnessed in the same place at the same time in my life.

It was if the dregs of the earth seemed to converge on Wal-Mart at the same time.  And there I was standing right in the midst of it all.  Suddenly the thought came to mind, if I am here with them, what is wrong with me?

But speaking of tattoos and piercings…

It seems that a number of young people are choosing to adorn themselves with a multiplicity of tattoos and piercings.  Do they ever expect to find a job?  In one of my classes, I have two students who are actually a married couple.  They are about nineteen or twenty years old and both are very smart and very attractive individuals.  They are perhaps the very best students I have had in quite a while.  But both are covered from head to toe in tattoos and piercings.

The young man even has this disk through his earlobes that is opening this big hole that is about one inch in diameter.  It certainly occurred to be that if they are in college, it could reasonably be assumed that they do desire to enter the workforce one day.  But who is going to hire them with them looking like that?

I checked my class rooster so that I might ascertain just what their majors might be, but it said undecided.  So, curiosity finally drove me to just ask them.  Both said that they planned to be elementary teachers after college.  Elementary teachers, huh?  Okay.

But speaking of jobs to do…

Why does my wife get to dictate what I do with my weekends?  Every weekend, my wife presents me with this honey-do list a mile long.  But she doesn’t refer to it as a honey-do list or a to do lists, but a list of “suggestions.”  She suggests that I do these things that weekend.  However, I know that if I don’t at least make an attempt to get to some of the things on the list, they’ll be repercussions and consequences.

Nothing on that list coincides with what I had planned for the weekend, my weekend that I earned through a week of tiresome, unrelenting work in the salt mines.  Well, today is my day.  Damn that list.  She knows what she can do with that list.  I tell you what I am going to do.  I’m going to…  Wait a minute.  Here she comes.  Gotta go.  Holla.

Do you have any burning questions to add to the list?

The Chronicles of Max Reddick #1: #housemackfail

This one goes out to all the young and up-and-coming housemacks, those who put in work at the crib on the daily.  I want to give you this advice and leave you with this lesson so that what happened to me does not happen to you.

So, my wife and I were in the bathroom getting ready for work, and as our custom, we had this deep philosophical conversation going on.  And that’s not unusual because often we’ll debate the same subject for days.  But this morning she made the mistake of re-hashing old material so I found myself losing interest until finally I turned my attention to the television.

What is the proper expression of fear for a man? (No, I did not scream, and that snake was awfully big)

Okay, I know that spring is in full swing, and summer is just around the corner;  I just had my first snake spotting of the year.  Since I have been authoring this blog, several times I have related stories of the snake problem we have around our home [See here, here, and here].  We live in a semi-rural area and have a pond in the backyard.  Plus, we have an abundance of insects which brings the frogs around the porch to dine, which, in turn, brings the snakes.

I Hate It when that Happens!: Just a Few Things that Really Get My Goat

I’m a mild-mannered kind of guy.  In fact, I take great pride in my aplomb, my reserve.  Not a lot things get to me and cause me to blow my usual cool.  But then again, there are a few little things that simply get my goat, they cause me to grit my teeth and clench my fist and make an audible growling sound.

And I hardly complain, but when I do, everyone seems to think I’m just acting like an old grouch or something.  But everyone has their limits.  But anyway, these are a few little things that come readily to mind that simply grind my gears:

New and Unique Uses of Gravy that You Probably Never Even Thought Of

Okay, I’m still doing the whole raw fruits and vegetables and whole grains thing I mentioned last week.  I did have to make a few adjustments, though, to keep my system from continuing to go haywire.  And, I must admit, I did have a few weak moments in which I ate something I shouldn’t have, or I freaked out about not being able to enjoy some of those foods I most enjoy.

For instance, one day this past week I went into the deep freezer to check on my emergency pork chop stash…  Wait a minute.  You don’t have an emergency pork chop stash?  I do.  Or at least, I did.  I kept mine way in the back right underneath the Eggo frozen waffles just in case some natural or man-made disaster threatens the world’s pork chop supply, or in the case of nuclear winter, I figure I will have the last pork chop known to man, and then I will be made king.

But anyway, my wife had given my emergency pork chop stash away, and for a minute or so, I had a major anxiety attack, but I took a few deep breaths and said a few “WOO-SAHs”, and I managed to get over it.  But then I developed a strange obsession with gravy.  That’s right, gravy.

For the rest of the week, all I could think about was gravy.  I even had this dream in which I was having a conversation with Oprah, and we were sipping gravy from these delicate little tea cups.  But in a week in which gravy was the foremost thing on my mind, I thought of some unique uses for gravy which I will share with you.

You can use gravy to stick stuff together  When I reveal this one, you are going to be made that you hadn’t thought of this already.  But when I was in first grade, we did this project with my first grade teacher, Mrs. Lane, in which we made our own paste, and then we made these paper mache animal figures. 

And what did we make this paste out of?  Water, flour, and a little corn starch.  And what are the ingredients for good gravy?  Exactly!  Now you and I are there.  We are seeing eye to eye.

So, you could just whip up a big batch of gravy and start sticking stuff together.  You can even use your gravy/paste to wall paper a couple of those rooms you’ve been wanting to wall paper.

Sisters, you can use gravy to seduce your significant other  Listen, sisters, because I am getting ready to drop that knowledge on you.  This is what you do.  Whip up a good batch of gravy.  Then take a little bit and smear it on those pressure points just like you would perfume.  You know those pressure points—the inside of your knees, the inside of elbows, the inside of your wrists, and behind your ears—that heat up as your body temperature rises and intensifies the smell of the fragrance.

When your significant other comes home or comes over, just give him one of those tight soul hugs and let him get whiff of that gravy.  Now, once the smell of that gravy hits his olfactory glands, even if he is the most dedicated vegetarian, his primal instincts will keep in, so just hold on, baby.  He’ll turn into some ravenous lovemaking beast.

 You can use gravy to relax after a long day  Last year when we went on vacation, my wife spent an absolute fortune on some kind of mud bath.  Spa personnel submerged her in a tub filled with warm but supposedly sterile mud (How do you sterilize mud?) that was meant to draw the impurities out of skin.

The whole thing seemed a little far-fetched to me, but couldn’t you achieve the same thing with gravy?  All you would need to do would be to fill your tub with nice, warm gravy, and climb right in.  And this is the biggest selling point.  You could put a plate of biscuits right there on the side of the tub, and as you are relaxing, as those impurities are fleeing your body, you could swish a few of those biscuits around in the gravy and have yourself a nice snack.  Mmmm.

You can use the gravy to entertain your children  I remember when I was a child, we had this thing called a Slip-N-Slide.  With the Slip-N-Slide, you would attach a water house to this long sheet of plastic, and when you turned the water on, the water would come through these little holes strategically placed in the plastic making it very slick.

Then we would get a good running start and slide the length of the plastic.  It made for hours and hours of fun, but most importantly, it kept us out of my mother’s hair for a while.

But in this day and age, water has become a scarce resource.  We just can’t waste water like that anymore.  But wouldn’t gravy serve the same purpose?  If you spread a long plastic tarp with gravy, wouldn’t gravy be sufficiently slick?  In this way, you can do your part in preserving one of our most precious and necessary resources while keeping your children entertained for hours.  It’s a win-win for everybody involved.

You can use gravy to entertain yourself  I must admit that I was kind of disappointed that this last idea was taken, but it is a good idea nonetheless.  Who knew that people were actively “Gravy Wrestling”?  But evidently this activity is limited to the United States.  Perhaps other nations are just too stuck up to engage in such activities, or they have enough sense not to waste time or resources.

Anyway, you and your significant other can fill a plastic kiddie pool with gravy, and either naked or in bathing suits, engage in a little physical activity—gravy wrestling.  And when you get all tired and hungry, you can go get those biscuits left over from the whole bathtub episode to wipe each other down.

And for you more adventurous, outgoing types, you can even host a gravy wrestling party.  If you are single, you can invite a bunch of your single female friends and some of your single male friends over for a gravy wrestling party.  You could put everybody’s name in a hat and whoever name a person draws is who they wrestle.  In that way, you are providing the entertainment and putting people together all at the same time.

We here at the Max Reddick Institute for Gravy Research are always looking for good ideas as to how we might use gravy in service to mankind.  Do you have any ideas?

A Few Random but Important Life Lessons from Max Reddick

Day by day I am getting older and older. Who knows? By now I might even be old and just not know it. The signs are everywhere. The other day someone referred to me as “a middle-aged gentleman.”

And my doctor insisted that I get my prostate checked because every man “my age” should do so. In a cruel twist of fate, I did get the little short doctor as opposed to the doctor who played basketball in college when I went in to get my check-up, but this diminutive man had deceptively huge hands.

Also I got a colonoscopy because of my family medical history. The next day the doctor emailed me pictures of the inner walls of my colon. I would have been okay with him just telling me that everything was okay. What the hell do I do with pictures of my colon walls? Post them to Facebook?

Anyway, one good thing about growing older is the wisdom you manage to amass over the ages. I’m perhaps still a big fool, but I’m not as big a fool as I used to be. Let me share some random but nonetheless important lessons I have learned over the years.

Do you remember that young lady or that young man you had such a crush on in high school? When you see them at your twenty-fifth class reunion, you will be glad that she or he wouldn’t give you the time of day. Almost the whole of my high school tenure, I had this crazy crush on a certain young lady. However, throughout high school she wouldn’t give me the time of day. I don’t want to embarrass anyone by using real names, so we’ll just call her Bootzilla. I just wasn’t cool enough for her. Anyway, a few weeks before my twenty-fifth high school reunion, my mother informed me that she had stopped by the house, left her number, and requested that I give her a call.

So, I called, and we had a pleasant conversation. But after that initial conversation, she insisted on calling me almost every day. I sensed that something was wrong because she was way more excited about seeing me than I was about seeing her. Now, I don’t talk about people. I don’t believe in calling anyone ugly because there is beauty in every human being. But in the same instance, I talked to her for about a hour straight at the reunion, and I am still trying to figure out just where her beauty was. Maybe I missed something.

Men, trimming your toenails are an important part of good grooming. I had an aunt who would always fuss at my uncle about clipping his toenails. According to my aunt, my uncle’s toenails were so long and sharp that they would tear her good sheets at night. It was all fun and games then, and I had a few laughs at my uncle’s expense until I had my own long and sharp toenail episode.

When I was in graduate school, my directing professor called me in for a informal meeting. Since I didn’t have any classes that day, I just threw on some shorts and some flip-flops and went on in. Well, while she was talking, she glanced down in the direction of my feet, and her face suddenly twisted into the look of abject terror. Curiously, I looked down to see what had scared her, and I too recoiled. My feet looked like huge eagle feet. They were all crusty and ashy looking as if I had skateboarded barefoot to campus, and my toenails looked like short but sturdy knives.

Since that time, I have gotten a regular pedicure whether I needed it or not.

If you see someone with a grimace on their face coming out of the bathroom holding their stomach, don’t go in! Recently during a doctor’s appointment, the nurse sent me into the doctor’s office unisex bathroom to give a urine sample. However, just as I was going in, this tiny little lady with this huge frown on her face came out holding her stomach. Well, not suspecting anything, I went in anyway.

No sooner than the door shut behind me, I knew I had made a tremendous mistake. The stench was so very overwhelming that I know with some sense of certainty that that little lady couldn’t have done all this by herself; there had to have been four or five huge, burly, hairy back men in there with her helping her out. So, with one hand I am searching for the doorknob and with the other hand I am looking for the light switch in case those four or five lumberjacks are still in there. However, I am having no luck at all, but just as I am about to give up and let the funk take me, the nurse heard me scratching at the door and let me out.

If your wife tries to talk you into joining her on a raw fruit and vegetable and whole grains diet, do not do it; no good can come from it. My wife suggested that we go on some raw fruit and vegetable and whole grains diet that this fruitcake at work told her about. According to my wife, the diet would clean the toxins out of our systems. Of course, I wasn’t with it, but she kept bugging me and bugging me until I finally gave in.

About two days into this whole thing, and my digestive system is like the bullet train; whatever goes in one end reaches the other in record time. Several times I was tempted to cheat, but since I had promised by wife I’d stick with it for at least a week, I stayed the course. However, on the fourth day I’m sitting in my office choking down this spinach salad with raisins and purple onions covered with this all natural peanut butter dressing when I feel myself getting light-headed and I pass out. Ironically and for some strange reason, though, when I finally came to, I was in Kentucky Fried Chicken, and since I was already there, I decided to buy me that three piece meal deal.

Well, I get back to my office, and I am eating this thing like it is my last meal. But as soon as all that greasy fried chicken and fixins’ hit my stomach, my stomach twists into some kind of complicated Boy Scout knot, and I run to the bathroom with an alacrity that I didn’t even know I still had. And minutes later as I am emerging from the bathroom holding my stomach and my face all twisted into a frown, here comes the dean.

What knowledge have you gathered over the years that might be beneficial to others?

A quick note from Uncle Remus on Confederate History Month

People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them. --James Baldwin (via @beautynubian)

Hiya doing, boys and girls? Uncle Remus here. You know, just the other day, I was telling Aunt Jemimah and Uncle Ben that it was high time for me to make a comeback. Don’t get me wrong, though. Many negroes is coon-ing, but ain’t no negro alive able to coon like I can.

But when Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell issued his proclamation earlier today proclaiming April Confederate History Month, I slapped my knee, did a little buck-jump and yelled, “I’m back!” So, I got in touch with my agent, Pat Buchanan, faster than a negro running from work, and wouldn’t you know it, the offers started coming in. Some new station called Fox News fell all over themselves trying to book me.

But then here come the uppity negroes and they liberal friends trying to throw shade on my hustle. They talking about slavery being all caught up in the history of the Confederacy. Slavery? You mean negroes still complaining about slavery? Y’all negroes need to just move on.

Talking about subjugation and degradation and God given, inalienable rights and other big words you just know they liberal friends done put in they mouth. Negroes don’t even talk like that. It’s just too hard to get they big, greasy soup coolers and thick tongues to even pronounce words like that.

Don’t they realize just how romantic a period the ante-bellum south was? Didn’t they see Gone with the Wind? I’m telling you, some folk just ain’t grateful. Shiftless negroes.

And then they done gone to phi-lo-so-phi-sizing, talking about Governor McDonnell and his ilk trying to pull together an uninformed base by appealing to their basest instincts. Or trying to conjure up old worn out images and symbols to excite, or incite if you listening to Max Reddick, a bunch of folk living in the past, too frightened to move on.

But there has been one huge disappointment, though. BET co-founder Sheila Johnson chose to issue a statement condemning McDonnell’s Confederate History Month proclamation. She wrote something about “[I]ts insensitive disregard for Virginia’s complicated and painful history.” Can you imagine anyone connected with BET having the nerve to be all indignant? Talking about the pot calling the kettle black!

But don’t you worry about old Uncle Remus though. ‘Cause they is a handful of negroes over here at Fox—good people, salt of the earth—who told me folk, especially negroes, would respond like that. But they let me know that I was doing God’s work, so keep on grinnin’, get my check, and just move on.

But to show y’all I ain’t in the least bit bitter, Imma’ leave you with an oldie but goodie to remind you of the good old days.

And don’t just sit there like you ain’t feeling it. Just get on up, and join me. And if you feel like it, dance a jig. Be yo’self. Let that negro dialect out. It’s Confederate History Month, y’all! We all should be celebrating!

Because (Sometimes) I’m Just Immature

Okay, my friend Issa Rae sometimes does this thing on her blog the she calls “Because I’m immature.” It’s one of my favorite features on her blog. And this morning I am facing a “Because I’m immature” moment myself that’s costing me dinner and a show.

Don’t get me wrong, now. Most of the time I act very mature. I handles mine! I work very hard to provide for my family as well as give back to my community, and I give my wife and children as much of my time as I can. Isn’t that the very definition of maturity?

But every now and then the kid kicks in, and I do something crazy and off the wall. And usually when I have these episodes, my wife just happens to be there to witness either the whole thing or, at the very least, the aftermath.

However, after almost eighteen years of marriage, she has grown used to it. Or, perhaps, learned to tolerate it. Most of the time she just shakes her head, tsk-tsk-tsks, and maybe scolds me. However, every now and then, it costs me a dinner and a show or something to make amends for my more crass, egregious moments. Here are just a few that come to mind.

I Maintain a Subscription to Mad Magazine and Fight with My Teenage Son Over the Latest Issue when It Arrives My wife always points out the bookcases of serious books—literature,philosophy, and theory—throughout our home. And then she points out my collection of Mad magazines stacked in a corner of my closet and asks me to explain the correlation. But there doesn’t need to be an explanation. Sometimes I like foolishness, and Mad magazine has been a reliable source of foolishness since I was a child. Besides, all work and no play makes Max a dull, forty-something year old man.

And furthermore, if my son wants to read the new issue first, he needs to get his own subscription.

I Eat Fruity Pebbles from a Big Mixing Bowl while Watching Adult Swim Perhaps my wife would have reason to complain if this was all that I did while she was off working all day. Or if all I did was to sit around all day playing video games, but I don’t play video games; those are for kids.

But I work very hard for very long hours and believe I should be left to my own devices when I get a rare moment to relax. However, she does have a legitimate complaint when I don’t immediately wash my Fruity Pebble bowl. Once Fruity Pebbles dry out, they become like concrete and are almost impossible to get out.

I Eat Candy Incessantly and Swallow My Gum I really can’t explain this one. For some reason I really like candy, especially lemonheads, and because I am grown and can afford to buy lots of candy and no one can keep me from doing so, I can eat as much candy as I want. You can’t stop me. You are not the boss of me!

My wife has pretty much learned to live with this behavior, but after all these years, she still can’t get over the whole swallowing of the gum thing. She says that, first and foremost, swallowing your gum is absolutely gross, but how is this gross? It’s my gum. It would be gross if I swallowed someone else’s gum.

But recently she did have reason to fuss about it. During a rather long road trip, I managed to chew and swallow a whole bag of blow pops. Well, by the time we reached our destination, my insides were all gummed up by all the gum and nothing could pass through.

So as she administered some medication to break my internal logjam, she fussed and fussed and fussed which the children found to be rather humorous.

The Naked Shower Dance So, right before bed my wife begins to tell me this story of something that happened on her job. Well, at first I’m interested, but about an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes into this thing, I’ve lost all interest, and finally I just drift off to sleep.

But not to be undone, she picks up the story in the morning right where she left off. And I’m still cooperating. I’m responding where I’m supposed to respond and expressing surprise and concern where I am supposed to express surprise and concern, but the story does not end.

Finally, she’s in front of the mirror, still talking, and I’m coming out of the shower. Suddenly, a little voice in my head, I believe it was the devil, tells me to back ‘dat thang up! So, I fling the towel aside and begin to back that thing up. She gives me the side-eye but continues talking.

Then the voice tells me to do the naked running man. And of course I oblige. Now she has stopped talking and is just looking at me with this incredulous look on her face which I mistakenly take as a look of appreciation. Finally the voice, which clearly did not have my best interest in mind, tells me to get all up on her and do the prep.

Now she is just plain pissed. She grabs her things and stomps out of the bathroom, leaving me standing there naked and vulnerable and waiting on the voice to tell me what to do next, but the voice has deserted me.

She didn’t answer her phone until the early afternoon, but that was okay because by that time I had perfected my apology and secured tickets to a show she wanted to see.

What things do you or your significant other do that might be considered immature?

College Was a Different World Indeed: My College Memories

So, the other day I’m sitting at my desk in my classroom as the students began arriving for class. Because they seemed particularly animated about something on this afternoon, I paused for just a minute so that I might determine what had them all stirred up, and before long it occurred to me that they were simply getting their plans together for the upcoming spring break.

And, amused, I just had to smile for a second or two as I remembered spring breaks past and the whole undergraduate college experience. Do you remember those? Or, if you did not attend college, do you remember just being young with no real responsibilities and just living life to the fullest?

I studied hard, and I studied long, but I did get in my foolishness. In fact, there are some days I remember this episode or that episode, and it suddenly dawns on me just how horribly things could have turned out. When you are young, you are often under the impression that you are somehow invincible, but only later and in hindsight do you realize that though you thought you knew it all, you really knew very little.

But after listening to my students, I took stock of my plans for spring break, and oh, how things have changed. Instead of Freaknik or Daytona Beach, my spring break plans consist of catching up on all those household chores that I have fallen behind on. Plus, I have a doctor’s appointment for a colonoscopy and a prostate exam. I just hope that for my prostate exam, I get that doctor with the little tiny hands as opposed of the one who played basketball in college.

But anyway, here are those memories of college life that stand out for me:

The Church Lady Well, the Church Lady was not this lady’s given name; it was the name that I and some of my close friends gave her in our freshman year. It seemed for the first two years of school, we had practically every class together. And she would show up every day, for each class, dressed like it was Easter, big hat and all. I just couldn’t figure it out. It all seemed like overkill to me.

One semester we took an 8 AM class together. I would drag in to class in flip-flops, a tank top, gym shorts, and crusty to be damned, and there she would be sitting right up front, frustrating everyone with that big hat blocking the board.

Over the years, we became friends though. In fact, she is my colleague at the college where I now teach. And guess what? She’s still showing up everyday dressed like it’s Easter morning.

Ramen Noodles A week or so ago I came across this article about a chef selling a bowl of ramen noodles for $100 dollars. You know I had to do a double take. One hundred dollars for a cup of ramen noodles? The chef stated that the many years of tradition and experience that went into each bowl justified that price.

Well, doing college I ate many, many bowls of ramen noodles. I bought Ramen noodles by the case. In fact, I ate so many ramen noodles during college that the very sight of ramen noodles makes me gag now.

And it has been my observation then and now that ramen noodles are an integral part of the college experience for many students. So, along with that college tradition and experience, cheap, cut-up hot dogs went into my ramen noodles. I wonder how much I could have charged.

Financial Aid Dispersal Day on the Yard You could always tell when the financial aid, student loan, and scholarship checks arrived because suddenly everything on the yard would seem brand new. Everyone on the yard would show up in new clothes and shoes. Some even showed up to school driving new cars or cars with new rims and booming systems. And for a week or so, ramen noodle sales dropped precipitously.

For a brief minute, everyone on the yard was some sort of tycoon. But of course the money soon ran out, and everything returned back to normal. Speaking of return, I had a friend who took her financial aid money and purchased a $600 Gucci purse that she had had her eyes on for quite some time. And she strutted around with that purse like she owned the world for a while. But then one day she asked me to take her to the mall to return the purse. It seems she had run short of cash and really needed that $600 dollars she spent on the purse.

My Oldsmobile Cutlass Brougham I was intent on buying me a car. Suddenly, the Mercury Comet my dad bought for me just didn’t suffice. My dad recommended that I wait until he could go with me to purchase my car so I didn’t end up with a lemon. Instead, I decided not to wait for him and go at it alone.

I ended up buying a 1981 Oldsmobile Cutlass Brougham for $700. The advertisement in the paper said low miles and one owner, but low miles really meant the low 100,000s and the one owner must have driven that car to hell and back, but I bought it anyway.

Six months later the car developed a problem. I don’t know if it was the engine or the transmission, but you could push the pedal all the way to the floor, and the car wouldn’t go over forty miles an hour. Then came the unexplained fumes. From some undetermined location, these noxious fumes would fill the car whenever you drove it. But did that stop me from driving it? Not at all.

I, along with my frat brothers, would drive along at forty miles an hour for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time until we got light-headed. Then we would pull over and step outside the car for a while so that we could clear our heads. We might have shown up a little late and light-headed, but we did not miss one party in town.

Impromptu Road Trips Some of the best times I had as a college student were on those impromptu road trips we took all over the Southeastern United States with no planning and very little money. Somebody would just show up and excitedly inform us about a party or a Greek show in this city or that city, and we would just look at each other, shrug our shoulders and hit the road.

Sometimes I marvel that we ever made it there and back in one piece and without incident. But the old saying goes that God gives special attention to fools and babies, so perhaps that figured into the equation.

I remember one such trip from Jacksonville, Florida, to Virginia Beach, Virginia, for a Greek show and party. Seven of us stuffed ourselves into my line brother’s ancient Toyota Celica hatchback/deathtrap with a suspect braking system and tires so bald that you could see the air in them. There was an eighth but we had to leave him behind to make room for the case of oil and transmission fluid we had to take with us; every time we stopped for gas or to get something to eat, we had to replenish the car’s fluid levels.

We drove there, partied until the wee hours of the morning and had breakfast, took a quick, uncomfortable nap in the car, and then drove back. One the way back, we had just enough money for gas. In fact, we must have rode for about an hour or so on pins and needles as the gas light glowed ominously red.

Was it irresponsible? Were we a bunch of fools? Yes, but when you are young, you sometimes simply don’t think of such things. And not only that I had more fun than I have ever had in my life. I just hope my kids have a bit more sense than I did.

What are your fondest memories of college or of just being young?

A Few Office Nuisances that Cause Me to Cringe

I found out long ago that when working a job, often though you might absolutely despise the job you are doing, the people working with you and around you often make that job bearable, sometimes enjoyable even.

For instance, I worked as a telephone operator and customer service agent while going to college. Now, the job itself left much to be desired. First of all, it was monotonous. Sitting there hour after hour taking inbound calls and then simply pushing a couple of buttons to connect them is boring, mindless work. Then you got those customer service calls from irate customers with problems usually of their own doing who seemed to want only to berate and insult you.

But the people working with me made the job enjoyable. Between calls we talked and laughed and acted a general fool which usually kept us entertained through the night. I don’t know what I would have done had that cast of characters not been assembled in that place.

However, after all those years in college and grad school, I have finally landed my dream job. But now those people who work with me sometimes make me absolutely cringe. In fact, a colleague commented the other day that I seem to be more comfortable and at ease around the students as opposed to my faculty colleagues.

It took everything in me to tell him that despite all their degrees, despite all their collective knowledge and experience, my colleagues seemed so absolutely pompous, dysfunctional, and out of touch with reality at times that spending so much time with students is the only thing that keeps me from breaking with my usual aplomb and cussing someone slap out.

But anyway, these are the office types that get on my last nerve and make my job more trying than it should be:

The Office Know-it-all

Never mind that this person is the least educated person with the least experience on the staff. Never mind that this person does not even serve in a professional capacity; she is a paraprofessional hired by the state to gather statistics and enter them into a database. However, this person seems to be an expert on any and every subject you can think of.

They are an expert gardener, dog trainer, home builder, medical practitioner, cook, painter, herbalist, nutritionist, professional trainer, and the list goes on and on. But I found out a way to shut this person up last week. In the middle of a longwinded exposition on some subject, I interrupted to ask, “What did you say your degree was in again?”. Evidently, this is a subject she was not a well-versed in because she ran off like a roach when you turn the lights on.

The Office Butt-in-ski

In my case, the office know-it-all and the office butt-in-ski are often the same person. But we have more than one of these on staff. You know the type. They happen up on a conversation and just insert themselves into the mix. Usually they don’t even have a good grasp as to what the conversation is about. They just seem to hear one or two trigger words that set them off and BAM!, they have hi-jacked the conversation with their own extraneous, patented form of BS.

The Office Stand-up Comedian

Perhaps you have crossed path with this office nuisance. This person is under the delusion that they are indeed funny. And the simplest, most mundane question becomes their excuse to launch into their stand-up act. But the thing is, they are not in the least bit funny. In fact, they are usually corny at best and obnoxious at worst.

Usually, I try to be patient and respond with a polite chuckle in those places in which I think a polite chuckle belongs, where I sense a punch line belongs. But as of late, office stand-up comedian, these monologues have become absolutely unbearable. Not only that, you have begun to recycle the same old unfunny stuff. Who writes your material?

The Office Hypochondriac

Usually each time I see someone for the first time in the day, I greet them with a “Hello. How are you today?”. However, I learned long ago not to extend this greeting to the office hypochondriac. Why? Because they will invariably tell you in vivid and graphic details to include frequency and consistency of stools.

It seems they have an encyclopedic knowledge of all possible ailments that might afflict humans, and at any given time, find themselves victim of one or several of these many ailments.

By the way, office hypochondriac person, your vivid description of the bright red scaly rash underneath your breasts last week really grossed me out. This is not something you share with people with whom you only have a casual relationship. But when you pulled down your shirt just enough for me to see evidence of that rash in the valley between your breast, I was completely undone.

That was enough to turn a professed breast man such as myself virulently anti-titty. Thank you.

The Office Dirty Old Lady

Okay. I will admit that I encouraged this behavior at first. The whole thing started really benignly. There is an older white lady on staff who has a wonderful sense of humor and is really a pleasure to be around. So, she started out with some stock English department sexual innuendo, something about dangling participles. Get it?

And I thought her jokes were a little ribald but nonetheless clever, so I joined in and added one or two cleverly nasty bits of my own. My open participation only seemed to encourage her until this thing has crescendoed to the point at which her funny, clever sexual innuendo has become openly outright filthy and suggestive.

Recently, after one such exchange, I felt so absolutely dirty that no shower could wash the shame away. And then one night after spending the evening trying to contemplate what I might do to nip this in the bud, I had this crazy dream in which she clad in a Wonder Woman costume used her golden lasso to subdue me. I will spare you the dirty details.

Did I leave any “office nuisances” out? What types do you find around your office?

Five Products You Shouldn't Scrimp on Despite the Recession

Image Credit: Mark Stivers @ www.markstivers.com

In a recession, cutting corners here and there to save a little money is a necessity. And thankfully I have been blessed with a wife who is a master of doing just that. She’s great at finding bargains and saving money. My uncle once joked that she held on to a penny so tightly that she could make Abraham Lincoln fart.

However proud I am of her bargain finding/money saving skills, I refuse to go shopping with her. It’s no in and out proposition. It’s instead a harrowing, tedious experience. I just don’t have the patience needed to clip coupons, consult other stores’ sales pages for price matches, and then calculate the exact price per ounce for each item before it gets in the basket.

Every now and then, though, I’m called on to run to the store for whatever reason, and my ineptness at the whole bargain hunting/money saving game becomes plain. My attempts to save a little money usually end up terribly. Since the recession began, I have found that recession or no recession, there are some things you just can’t scrimp on. This is my top five:

Fruit Loops

Public Service Announcement: Fruit Loops and Fruit Rings are not the same things! I found this out the hard way. I just went out to pick up a couple of breakfast items when I spotted this huge bag of Fruit Rings on sale. For the same price as a 17.2 ounce box of Fruit Loops, I could get this ridiculously large bag of Fruit Rings. Of course I thought, Fruit Loops/Fruit Rings—it’s just a matter of semantics. Right?

So, my children helped me to lift the ridiculously huge bag of Fruit Rings into the basket, and we headed home. Two hours later we were all writhing in pain with stomach cramps. Moral of the story: stick with the brand name cereals.

Colognes/Perfumes

So I’m standing in line at Walgreens to purchase some Pepto-Bismol to combat the Fruit Rings induced stomach cramps when I spotted this sign advertising these knock-off designer fragrances. The sign read, “Same great scent as [insert your favorite fragrance here] but at half the price.” As I waited for my turn, I decided to smell a couple of the men’s fragrances, and they did smell incredibly like the original. So, I decided to take a chance.

A few days a later I’m sitting in a meeting, smelling all good with my knock-off fragrance on. Then I felt a little itch coming on. Then the itch became uncontrollable. Before long everyone is shooting these frightened glances in my direction. So, I excuse myself to the bathroom.

I look in the mirror, and my neck is all red covered with this fine rash, and my head is swollen into the shape of a light bulb. My only consolation is that as the pretty young nurse gave me a shot in my behind to counteract the allergic reaction, she gave me a compliment on how good I smelled.

Bacon

I am a connoisseur of fine bacon. I especially like that thick-sliced, rind-on bacon. But nothing ruins a good breakfast like cheap bacon. You know what I am talking about. That bacon that shrinks to the size of a stick of gum once you cook it and is so wafer thin that it seems to dissolve on your tongue.

I work too hard and too long to have to settle for cut-rate bacon, and I am sure you do too. Look for savings somewhere else. I suggest you invest in some good bacon, and then buy the frozen, store brand vegetables.

Lotion

Just because they stick the label “With Aloe” on lotion, does not necessarily mean it’s an effective emollient. That’s just a marketing gimmick. And when it is labeled “With Even More Aloe!”, well that’s just a scam.

So, I get up, take a nice hot shower, and then slather myself from head to toe with this new, inexpensive lotion I was trying out. Feeling all fresh and clean, I go to the library, and I’m sitting there looking perusing a few books, when this lady compliments on the interesting pattern and texture of my socks. It took a second to register that I was not wearing socks.

I looked down at my ankles, and just as I had expected, alligator skin. I looked at my knuckles, and they along with the rest of my hands were goose gray. I pulled up my sleeve, and my arms looked like they belonged to the tinman from the Wizard of Oz.

As I hurried toward the exit, I could feel my skin hardening and cracking beneath my clothes. By the time I got home, I looked like a ghost from head to toe. Not wanting to throw the whole bottle out, I tried using it again, only this time I used two layers of lotion. Then three layers of lotion. But the lotion just didn't work.

Either I am the ashiest brother in the world, or this lotion just absolutely sucks.

Toilet Paper

Need I even add any commentary? Any time you can buy so much toilet paper that you have to get another grocery cart, for the same price as you would pay for a twelve roll pack of your regular toilet paper, it’s too good to be true. Only bad things can come of this. Either you are purchasing an incredible amount of twelve grit sand paper disguised toilet paper, or the paper is so thin that you are just setting yourself up for a smelly, disgusting mess.

Either way, whatever you do, don’t scrimp on toilet paper. Even if you have to put something back, reach upon the top shelf and get the good stuff.

Are there any additional products that we just shouldn't scrimp on?

Shakepeare's Sonnet 29 translated into the Negro dialect by Maxwell R. Reddick

William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29—When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes

(translated into the Negro dialect by Maxwell Reddick)

Wheneber meh luck done run plumb out and folks is looking at me crazy,

I just goes somewheh and sits by mehself thankin’ and stankin’

Even dey gud Lawd above ain’t even payin’ me no mind,

I just shakes meh head and wundeah how I gots meh-self in this heah predicament,

Sometimes I just wishes I be somebody else,

Somebody dat ebery-body lubs and that has friends an’ such,

I wishes dat I has some kind ah talent, some-ting,

Dem tings I likes the most, I hab the bery least of;

And sometimes I almost just hates meh-self,

But den I thanks ‘bout you, baby, an’ I feels betta’

Just lak a bird sanging when dey sun comes up in dey morning

Sanging so loud dat it can be heard to high hea-ben;

An’ baby wit’ dey good lub you gives me, I is rich

An’ as long as you heah wit me, I wouldn’t eben change places wit a king.

[Original sonnet]

Some stuff I saw this week but can’t tell anyone because they wouldn’t believe me anyway: The Good Greens Edition

Sometimes I feel like Cassandra. Remember Cassandra? She was that character in Greek mythology who was granted the gift of incredible insight by the gods, but in the same instance, the gods cursed her so that no one would even believe her.

As I travel about, I see all kinds of fantastical, unbelievable things, but when I tell others about what I have seen, no one will even believe me. So, I just drop them off here, and you have the option of believing them are not; I just want to get them off my chest.

Since our last episode, these are just a few of the crazy things that I have seen or that have happened to me.

Penguins in My Bed

If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you know that when I eat pork or fried or spicy food before I go to sleep, I have these crazy, fantastical nightmares. Yep, I have had another crazy dream.

So, a few days ago I just happened to be in the vicinity of my daughter’s school, so I decided to stop and pick her up and take her to lunch so that we could spend a little quality time together. I asked her where she wanted to go, and she recommended this little rib joint that we have not been to in quite some time.

We went to the rib joint, and we both ordered a rib sandwich and fries absolutely drenched in the spicy sauce. She is her father’s daughter. But before I even got up from the table, “the ‘itis” was all over me. I could barely make the drive home.

When I got home, I lay down to take a nap and fell into a deep, deep sleep. And while sleeping I began to have this all too vivid, all too lifelike dream. I dreamed that about a half dozen or so penguins jumped up into the bed with me and began squawking uncontrollably. I kept trying to shoo them out of the bed so I could return to sleep, but they kept squawking louder and louder.

Finally, I raised my head up to look at them and found that their feathers seemed awfully dry and dusty. So, I began to appeal to them to just quit squawking, and I would find someone to take them to water. But they just got louder and louder…

…and then my wife shook me awake. When I awoke, there stood my wife with my two children standing behind her with their eyes as big as saucers. My wife told me that I had been calling my children to come get the penguins out of the bed and get them to water for a while.

I immediately called my partner RiPPa to tell him about this foolishness. RiPPa told me that he was busy with his new baby daughter and didn’t have time to play games with me. I called OneChele and she was even less congenial.

You believe me don’t you?


Black Santa Drops His Weed

So I attended a charity Christmas party during the break which featured a black Santa. During the party as the organizers lined the children up to speak to Santa and receive their gift, I excused myself to the restroom.

I entered the restroom to find Black Santa putting the finishing touches on his whole Santa Claus getup. We exchanged greetings, and he departed. But just as he left, I saw a suspicious looking rolled up baggie on the floor. I took a closer look, and my suspicions were confirmed. I thought to myself, “Did Black Santa drop this?”

And then I got my answer. Black Santa stuck his head back inside the door and asked, “Brother, did you happen to see a bag of weed somewhere in here?”

I pointed to it. He retrieved it and thanked me.

I immediately fled the restroom to tell my wife so that she could help me figure out how to handle this. Did I tell the organizers that Black Santa was really a big pothead? Did I keep it to myself? But my wife just looked at me incredulously: “So you’re saying you just saw Santa smoking weed in the bathroom?”

“No, he wasn’t smoking it. He just has it with him! He put it in the inside pocket of his Santa jacket”

“So he just showed you his stash out of the blue?”

“No, he didn’t ‘just show it to me.’ He dropped it and picked it up and left.”

She just wouldn’t believe me. In fact, she suggested that I pour out my eggnog, surrender the car keys to her, and just blog about it when I got home. I just dropped it. But I can but only admit that Black Santa was the merriest, jolliest old elf that I have ever witnessed.

The Secret Ingredient to Good Greens

One Saturday during the winter break, I stopped by one of my fraternity brother’s house just to wish him and his family a happy holiday. When I arrived, his wife and mother-in-law had just returned from a marathon shopping expedition, and his mother-in-law sat in the family room with her feet soaking inside this big, huge, blue-speckled cooking pot.

We had a wonderfully uproarious conversation. His mother-in-law was pretty funny. We finally got around to talking about the cooking pot she was soaking her feet in. I commented that on one side of the pot, the speckles came together to form a frowning face because the pot was not being used for its expressed purpose.

Anyway, we enjoyed each other’s company so much that she invited me to return the following evening with my family for dinner. Of course the very next evening I returned with my family in tow. And let me tell you one thing—this woman put on a spread! But as I looked around the kitchen at all the delectable dishes she had prepared, my eyes fell upon a particularly pot on the stove, a big, huge, blue-speckled cooking pot with a distinctive pattern which looked as if the pot was frowning.

I went over to take a peek in the pot. Greens! And just then from behind me I heard my wife say, “Miss May Francis, I cannot wait to taste your greens. They smell absolutely delicious!”

Immediately, I ran into the family room like Will Smith running to save the world in any of his movies to warn my family about the greens. I got to my children first.

“Listen, don’t eat the greens. That woman had her feet in that pot that she cooked them in.”

My daughter looked at me curiously. “What are you talking about, Dad? She just went in there and put her foot in the pot?”

My son was even less credulous. He told my daughter, “I think Dad has a little too much time on his hands lately. He seems to be just making up stuff. The other night I heard him telling something to Mother about smoking weed in the bathroom with Santa at that party. Mother was not amused. We need to find him a creative outlet.”

Undaunted, I went to warn my wife. “Don’t eat those greens! That woman had her feet in the pot”

My wife questioned me, “Well, when did that happen? Since I’ve been here she hasn’t moved from that spot on the sofa. Did they bring the pot of greens in here?”

“No, see yesterday when I was over here…”

She cut me off and would not allow me to finish. She instead suggested that I put down the scotch, surrender the car keys to her, and blog about it when I got home.

And as we were eating dinner, everyone complimented the cook on what a delicious dinner it was, especially the greens. Then my fraternity brother intoned, “Mother May Francis, these greens are good. You must have used your secret ingredient because you really put your foot in this batch!” I began to choke on a lima bean.

After the whole choking episode ended, I loaded up my plate with greens. If you can’t beat them, join them. And everyone was right. The greens were absolutely delicious