My Bud

This past winter was pretty bad by all accounts.  It was one of those weather events that take place every decade.  You know where you have a shit ton of ice and snow for three months of the year and then the next 10, hardly any?   Yeah. That was what this past winter was like.  It reminded me of the last big winter we had.  That was back in 2003.    We got a lot of snow dumped on us.  So much in fact, most of my town pretty much shut down and I was able to walk up the middle of a major roadway to the grocery store in the early evening without encountering a vehicle.

It was February 2003 and also President’s Day Weekend.   I was living in a townhouse with a small patch of yard off my back stoop that ended in a chain link fence.  Beyond the fence was brush.  And In that brush there lived a rabbit, which we named Russell.  I don’t know if it was a boy or girl, but we were pretty sure the same rabbit kept coming to my back door.

We had been feeding Russell for a while and, at one point, were able to feed him/her directly from our hands.  And when the snow hit, we felt bad because we had sort of screwed Russell by feeding him/her.

(I’m going to just keep calling it a him for the sake of this story.  Any objections?  Good.)

So, because Russell had sort of become accustomed to us feeding him, he might have had trouble foraging for himself.   I got a box and some alfalfa hay and set up a little shelter on my back stoop.  I had hoped I would look outside my dining room door and see Russell asleep in the box, snuggled and warm.  But that Friday, when I looked out, I saw something else, a threat.

Instead of Russell, I saw this black and white cat sitting next to the box where some food had been placed for Russell.  Fearing this stray cat would attack Russell, I leaned out the door and tried to shoo it away.   The lanky cat looked up at me and mewed this long mew that seemed rather pathetic.  But I wasn’t about to doom Russell, so I continued to shoo away the cat and eventually, it left.  I went about my day and when my girlfriend came over that night, she looked out the back to see the cat had returned.

“There’s a cat out there!”

“Again?  Dammit, I shooed that thing away this morning.  I don’t want it eating Russell.”

“YOU DID WHAT?!?!?!”

“I shooed it away.”

“Oh my God!  What is wrong with you?  There’s like a foot of snow out there.  The poor thing!”

“Just leave it be, it will go back to its home.”

“I don’t think it has one.  I’m going to go get it.”

“Don’t do that!”

This was the normal routine.  She would see some animal outside roaming around, go get it and then we’d be stuck with a big ass dog or something… actually I would be stuck with it, while we located the owner.  I should mention that I am allergic to cats, by the way.   My eyes puff out, get itchy and watery, and I sneeze.  It’s not fun.  Also, my lease forbid cats unless I paid an extra fee, probably for cleaning.

But off she went, anyways.  I’d hear this exchange of her calling it and it mewing at her go back and forth for a few minutes.   Eventually, she got it to come to the door.  She opened the sliding glass door and waited.  Within a few minutes, the cat just slinked right into my dining room, snow up to its hips.

“Well, now what the hell am I going to do with it?”

“Name him.”

“You do realize I am allergic?  And that I am not allowed to have a cat?”

“So?”

That was it.  That was her argument.  She excused herself and went to the store.  

“I’m just going to get a cheap litter box and some food.  We’ll figure out where he belongs in the morning.”

February 2003

She came back with a litter box, a mini cat tree, food, and treats.   I was livid.   But he looked pathetic.  He appeared to be emaciated and had been in a fight because he had fur missing and some scratches on his neck.   My girlfriend gave him some milk.  We determined it was a him, while Russell was just assumed to be one.  And we gave him some food.  And against better judgment I let the cat stay in my bedroom with the litter box next to my bed.   During the night, I heard him use the litter box and the stench was almost as bad as the sound.  It was like a scene out of Dumb and Dumber.  I could literally see his face in excruciating pain.  He looked like he was actually sweating from the duress. 

In the morning, we took him to the vet.  He was suffering from malnutrition, some cuts, a touch of frostbite, and he was riddled with worms.  Apparently, he had been on his own for a while.  He had now become my responsibility.    It helped that I had an extra day off from work to deal with this, but I still wasn’t happy about it.  I didn’t exactly have a say in the matter.  Still, the bastard was cute and had a lot of personality.  So, I kept him.  Now, I just needed a name.  Drake, Ash, Shadow.  All rejected.  Baxter?  No, too commercial.  I’m an actor and this was a tuxedo cat, so Oscar seemed to be the most appropriate.   

I spent the evenings with him sitting next to me on the couch and when I would go to bed, I would usually close my door.  Thankfully, I moved the litter box to another bedroom, but still, he wanted to be with me.  So, I’d leave the door open and he’d come in and get on the bed.  Then, he’d promptly, walk around my pillow, stepping on me and getting in my face.  He was a real pain in the ass.  Eventually, I figured out that if I sat with him on the couch long enough, he would fall asleep, and then I could sneak upstairs as long as I left the TV on with a timer set.   That way I could get a night’s sleep without his interruptions.   Some days, he figured out my plan and raced me to the steps.

He had some pretty interesting habits.  He would walk up to a toy and promptly stomp on it with his back paw.  He loved sitting on the tile at the bottom of my steps, where it was cool.  He would sit in the window and just chitter at the birds.  He also liked sitting on the arms of my couch with one leg dangling to the side.   He had these huge back legs that were white and resembled those socks you wore up to your knees in the 70s.    We also developed a bit of a rapport with each other.  I would see him in the morning before I’d go to work and would head boop him on my way out the door.  We even came up with a voice with him that was sort of a caricature of a friend’s.   It wasn’t until he came face to face with a dog at the back window that he made this noise that sounded like “Water, Water, Water, Water,” that made me realize that the voice I did was actually spot on as his own.

But he was also ornery.  And my then girlfriend now, at that moment, fiancée made the determination that he needed a playmate.  I needed to get another cat.  So, I adopted another tuxedo cat named Emmy.  Get it.  Oscar and Emmy.  He was never a huge eater but he was a big cat.  I want to say he was part Maine Coon except he was a short hair.   We had to keep Emmy separate from him because she would woof down her dinner and then go after his. 

I outgrew the townhouse and moved into a house with my fiancée and two cats, followed by two more, twins Willow and Lucy. Oscar was a bit of a puss and hid immediately, while Emmy explored.    He was burdened with being the only male cat in the house and even though he asserted his dominance, Emmy never submitted to him.  She was taken from her mother and litter mates too soon and developed an OCD about things like eating.  In fact, at one point, she tried and succeeded in nursing off of Oscar, though he never produced anything except self-shame over the matter.  I always said I had three cats, Emmy, Willow, and Oscar, and Oscar had a cat, Lucy.   Lucy seemed to follow him wherever he went.  If he lied on the couch, she snuggled up on top of him, almost.  If it was dinner time, he’d take his time coming to the kitchen and even wander through, but Lucy would cut him off or go round him up vocally and physically.   When we slept, he would lay on a pillow between us, and then of course, Lucy would come up and get in his face.  He put up with a lot.  For almost ten years he and I just shook our heads at each other over how we lost control of things.   Then again, I never wanted him in the first place.  

 Snuggle buds

After my daughter was born, Oscar started to become a lap cat.  He loved having his ears stroked as he sat on your lap.  He loved it.  He’d purr like an engine then he would shake his head out when you stopped.    Among his growing number of idiosyncrasies, he added busting down the unsecured bathroom door while you were in there, hopping up on the edge of the tub to watch the water droplets roll down the side, and not really eating the shreds or chunks of wet food, but eating the gravy.   He’d even get on the floor and roll on his back, enticing me to join him, only to move just out of reach when I would get down on the floor with him.  Still, every morning when I would go to work, I’d call him up on the piano bench and head boop him as I left.

Waiting for the head boop

Then, in 2012 and 2013, we were beset by fleas thanks to the strays in the neighborhood.  They somehow found their way onto our clothing and then onto our indoor only cats.   We wasted a lot of money on sprays and collars and eventually kicked the cats out of our bedroom at night because we were finding fleas in our bed.

After a while I noticed Oscar was losing weight.  He had always been big, somewhere in the neighborhood of 12-14 lbs.   Now, I could feel his breastbone under his neck.  We took him to the vet and learned he had lost considerable weight.  I thought it was due to the stress of the fleas.  Turns out, it wasn’t.   One day, we noticed a pile of cat shit on the carpet.  We didn’t know who to blame, one of the drawbacks of having four cats.    Then, again, another pile.    Soon, we realized it was Oscar.  We also realized there was blood in the stool.   Another trip to the vet solidified my fears.  He had a mass in his stomach and he had lost more weight.

We treated him with metronidazole thinking it was simply a bacterial infection or parasite.  That and steroids should have done the trick, though it was hard to give him the metronidazole because he would instantly drool everywhere.  Two rounds and no change in his condition started to scare me.  They did a sonogram to confirm the mass and did a biopsy that showed no cancer, so the determination was Feline Inflammatory Bowel Disease or IBD.  He would go, straining to do so, and then vomit from the effort.   He was now 7 lbs.  This once magnificent animal was half the cat he was a year ago.

There isn’t a cure and eventually it will cause him greater discomfort and more weight loss as the tissue builds up preventing the cat from getting nutrients.   Nausea sets in and he even refuses to eat.  This is what I had to look forward to.

So, I kept him on Prednisolone and he would get IV fluids to combat dehydration.   His urine was becoming dark and more pungent from the lack of water in his system.  Some days he would be just fine, playing and ornery. Others, he’d sit, uncomfortably, not laying on his side, like he was prone to do, curled up with his belly out, enticing me to just rub the shit out of it, showing me the shaved patch from his sonogram, a reminder of what was happening.

Last month, I went away for the weekend and I was informed that he simply refused to eat.  When I got him, he looked haggard, his fur not as silky as it used to be and there were cracks in his fur where I could see his skin between it.  Petting him, I could feel his skeleton under the skin.  This once beefy boy was not fragile and clumsy.  He didn’t slink around anymore.  He slipped around the floor with no weight to keep him grounded and solid.

My little girl went to the beach last week, and during our nightly calls, she asked if Oscar was still alive.  I said yes, he was right there next to me, but he was barely there.  He wouldn’t show interest in water or food, only responding to treats with very little success in chewing.  He wasn’t going to the bathroom that I could tell, but I would find brownish red splotches around the floor in the morning.  I was convinced that I wasn’t going to let him starve, so I grabbed a dropper and would take as many teaspoons of wet food gravy and water as I could get in him.   By Wednesday, he was scaring me.   I took him to the vet with the full expectation that I was going to put him down.  I cried most of the way there, cursing all the times I didn’t want him on my lap because I was busy or didn’t want to deal with the allergies.  Per usual, he waited until I was five minutes away to decide to shit in the car, mostly liquid.   

I arrived at the vet’s and took him inside.  He sat next to me, reeking of cat shit, which was now stuck to his tail.  I cleaned him up as best I could, but it was pretty bad.  Then, he started sniffing the air.   On the counter above us was a canister of treats.   I grabbed some and he began woofing them down, two, then three, then four more he ate.  I took him into the room.  5.58 pounds.  But now he was acting like there was nothing wrong with him.   There I was ready to make the toughest decision I’ve ever had to make and he rebounded on me.  It was like he simple needed to go.  I begin to think I should just drive him around every day before feeding him.  They gave him an IV of fluids, a vitamin B and anti-nausea shot.   He showed more life than he had all week. So, we went home. 

I had a night off from tech rehearsal but I was still exhausted.  I would wake up at 5:15am, give him his steroid pill, get a shower, go to work and leave at 4pm.  I would then go directly to my father-in-law’s to take care of his cats because he was also at the beach.   After feeding them, changing their water, and cleaning their litter, I’d go home, change, give Oscar his second pill, make myself a sandwich for dinner and then eat it on my way to the theater.   At 9:45pm, I’d return home, feed my cats, sit for a moment, and then take Oscar into the bathroom with the remaining dish of mostly gravy.  I would struggle to get that and water into him and then clean him up as best I could.  Then I would collapse and sleep for about five hours, ready to do it all again in the morning.

His marked improvement from the vet’s lasted all of 12 hours.  By Friday evening he was back to not eating anything.  In fact, he fought me more with the dropper.   I was worried more about him than ever.  So, I brought basket where he’d been sleeping most of the day into the bedroom and put him on the bed with a towel.  It was hard to get over that smell but I didn’t care.  I could reach out and rub his ears.   At one point, I even saw him cleaning himself.  Maybe, he was coming back from it.  I was at the point where I couldn’t take time off to deal with him in an extreme case.   I was screwed if he needed to go back to the vet, because I had a show on Saturday and Sunday afternoon.   All I wanted, at this point, was for him to make it until Sunday night, when my little girl got home.  I was determined to make sure he was fed and as comfortable as possible until her return.  A week ago, I almost prayed he went in his sleep.  That I could take care of it before she got home and spare her the pain of being here when it happened, but by Friday, I felt as if I wanted a return on my investment in him.  It was selfish, to be sure, but I already felt like I wasn’t giving him all I could and wanted him to hold out a little longer.

I was supposed to go out Saturday night but decided to stay in and look after him.  After all, I didn’t exactly have the energy or money to go out, so a nice quiet evening with him on my lap was in order.    I did my routine and took him to bed, again.  His breathing was raspier, now, and looked to take more effort to do so.  Around 3am, I heard this thump.  I shot up and looked around.  Hopefully, he just wanted a drink and decided to jump down and get one from the dish next to the bed.  I looked under the bed and he was just sitting there, like he normally did.  He acknowledged my presence and I kind of asked if he was OK, not really expecting an answer, but still looking for one.   He appeared to be fine, so I went back to bed. 

About 10 minutes later I heard this awful howl and cry.  I woke up again, and looked around.  I called out to him and then came around the other side and looked under the bed.  He was lying on his side, facing away from me, not moving.   He hadn’t been on his side in months.  I started to panic.  There was a small puddle of barf next to him.  I reached under and grabbed him and never acknowledged my presence.  I picked him up and lay him on the towel.   He was limp.  His eyes were blank.   I screamed out in shock but couldn’t understand why I wasn’t crying.   I just looked at him, calling his name in an empty house.   I leaned my ear to his chest and there was a release.    I’m by no means religious, but it was like I just heard his life leaving his body.   Then, there was nothing.  No beat, no movement, nothing.  He was gone.    

Then I wailed.  I screamed like a child.  I didn’t care.  I just looked at him, there on the bed, gone. 

I gathered him up and swaddled him in the towel, placing him gingerly in the basket.  I couldn’t leave him in here with me.  I wouldn’t be able to sleep.  So, I took him downstairs and placed him in the bathroom that nobody but myself actually uses.   He laid there with his face down into the basket, covered up.  His ears still poking out of the towel.  Those ears, that  I would I rub for hours, were the only thing left that I could look at.   It’s juvenile and silly, but I would bite them gently, at times, tugging just enough to get a purr out of him.  Now, that was gone, too.   All I could do was sleep.  It was the only thing I could do at 3:30am on a Sunday.

At 10:00am I called the vet’s and explained what happened.  They would be open until 12:00.  I still had a show to do.   So, I made that last drive, rubbing his still visible ear the whole way.  I wanted two things back from them.  The basket he slept in and his remains.  ONLY HIS REMAINS.  The towel and pad from inside the basket could be destroyed as far as I was concerned.    In about 7-10 days I’ll get a small oak box.  That’s all there will be. 

In the end, he made the decision I couldn’t.   I don’t know anything about awareness in animals but maybe he didn’t want me to struggle, thinking I made a mistake.  Maybe he didn’t want Bailey to see him go.    Truth is, he was gone a long time ago.  That big beefy boy that would rear up like a bronco against your leg stopped being Oscar at the end of April.    I leave in the morning, still expecting to see him on the bench.  I get a shower every morning, still expecting him to bust down the door.  I still sit there at night, expecting a visitor on my lap, or next to me, curled up like a cute little sonofabitch.

He went from my life, like he came in, all tail and ears.  He was emaciated then and he was at the time he called it for me.   He was an asshole that I loved like a child.  My sidekick, my Chewbacca, my friend, my Oscar.    I didn’t mind the allergies so much the last few years, but I know I didn’t pay him half the attention he deserved.  Life simply got in my way, like he would, walking through the kitchen.  And the others.   Bailey found out after she got home and cried terribly.   On Monday, Lucy, his cat, was wandering around looking for him downstairs, crying out.  At dinner time, she stood outside the kitchen, looking for him to show up.  I even forgot as I got down four bowls and realized what I had done.   Every drive home and every quiet moment is another reminder that he’s gone.  His favorite toys sit on the floor, no longer being stomped or batted around.    I miss him so much.  And he was the perfect cat.  No two ways about.  He was a social creature, always entertaining.  He was magnificent in his look and posture.  He was the height of too muchness.    

And I didn’t even want him.

Oscar
2002-2014

Phone a Friend

A coworker brought this up to me and it made me wonder the following:

“Do people spend long amounts of time talking to their close friends on the phone?”

By that, I mean, the friends that they see on a regular basis. Not the ones they haven’t seen since childhood or went to college with and only see like once in decade. I’m talking about classmates, coworkers, neighbors.

The reason I wonder is that with the technology we have, the ability to talk on a phone is probably the least of the features people want when they shop for a phone. People want texting and Internet and apps. And do people even worry about home phones anymore?

If talking on the phone with a friend for more than ten minutes is a out of date practice then I weep for the new generation. Let me set up a scenario for you.

Circa 1987, there was a show on MTV called Remote Control. Most will only know that this is where Adam Sandler became well known and moved onto Saturday Night Live from there. At its zenith, MTV could balance shows with music videos but… that ended with a loud thud around 1992. That’s another story.

Anyway, after a long day of seventh grade, I came home and turned on the television to see this new show on MTV. The next day I told my friend about it and he said he had seen it, too. So, the next time it was on, I called him and we pretty much sat on the phone for a half hour, bullshitting while watching this show. There was no important discussion; no need for a call. It was just two friends watching the same show, in two different houses, at a time when a stretched phone cord could be considered lethal to someone under five foot had they ran from one room to another.

I cannot remember the last time I spent a half hour talking with someone on the phone without an explicit purpose. “We have Facebook and texting and email, who talks 30 minutes in a row? How do you get anything done?” We’ve become so task oriented in life. If we can’t get it done while doing two other things, we don’t do it. I can’t sit in a meeting unless I’m troubleshooting one issue, reading email, and IM’ing another person about another issue all at the same time. I am not that important of a person. I could only imagine someone with three letters in their title. You probably never see those people laying on their bed with a phone pressed to their ear to the point of sweatiness discussing their favorite show with their friends. These are things we don’t do anymore.

Do teenage girls call teenage boys anymore? Is this something I’ll need to deal with when my kid is ten years older? Her generation will never know the pains of my generation when it comes to a house telephone. We had one line, no call waiting, and no answering machine before 1984. That was when we had two high school students in the house at one time.

When we moved into a new house in 1984, we had a second line set up for my brother and sister, but still no call waiting or answering machine. In fact, we still had two rotary phones and a push button one, all corded. Then, when my brother and sister were off to college or working late nights, my parents had another push button phone put into their bedroom. Still no call waiting but we did have an answering machine by 1987.

In fact, I don’t think my parents have call waiting in 2012, but they have upgraded to wireless handsets and both have cell phones. That’s why I don’t know how much of an impact the phone will have in my life when my daughter gets to be a teen. She’s certainly not getting a cell phone… at least one that can text or take pictures until she’s 18. (I know. I can wish, right?) If anything, I’d like her to be only able to call us or the police from a cell phone until she’s 18, but I know that’s not going to happen. In any case, I have a cell phone. My wife has a cell phone. We don’t use our home phone that much except for other calls, that we usually don’t answer as it is. We mostly have the ringer turned down because stupid calls come at inopportune times. We can called ID on our television, so we know if we want to answer it, anyway.

But even in the most extreme cases, I won’t care that my kid is on the phone, unless she’s talking long distance to a friend, for hours, or if she’s calling a nursing home for me. Then, I might cut the cord. Or… at least the power.

Worst Facebook Friend Ever

This is an open apology to all my friends on Facebook. I admit that our friendship has not always been one of reciprocation. For the most part I like being a part of the fb community and try to hold up my end of the bargain but alas I am not. I can try to blame it all on my work. Not the work I do but the place where I do it. We aren’t allowed cool things like fb or YouTube and just the mere mention of a lottery number or fantasy football site sends the huge Websense page flashing across our screen like we are a huge scumbag that is looking at porn. We’re not, Big Brother. But to say that I don’t have time at home to catch up is also a lie because as my wife often puts it, I am married to my laptop and my wife and daughter are just unused icons on the desktop of my life. I know that’s not true and for the life of me I can’t justify that I am actually doing work, that is part of a job, while I am propped up in my recliner with butt perfectly aligned with the worn indentation of said chair. But let’s get to the mea culpas.You send me plants for my L’il Green Patch and I eventually get around to accepting them and for that I am sorry as much to you as the rainforest. You offer me wire taps and punching bags to further my ascension to Mafia King and what do I do? Send you another stupid nine of diamonds. You offer me tons of cool gifts for my pad and they eventually get plopped on a counter somewhere but all I can do is nail you with a water balloon and that happens ever so rarely, anymore. I thank you for the duck, sheep, goat, and even that elephant that is on my farm but I apologize for not chasing the foxes away and for sending you yet another red gazing ball which makes six you’ve received from me this week. You poke and poke and poke me over and over and I don’t even acknowledge that sheep you threw. I like it, it’s soft, and this one isn’t lost like the one you asked me for help with on your farm.

You’ve probably been wondering why I haven’t joined your causes and groups and all I can say is that I still have 36 gifts to accept from Willy’s Sweet Shop. I really am a supporter of sleeping, the dislike button, and things that begin with the letter Zed but I just haven’t been able to think a fifth favorite cereal and candy bar that I like for my top five list. I promise I’ll get to them right after I try and figure out which cartoon character is which in this quiz I forgot to take.

I am really sorry that you all got hit with a bug last year after one of my other friends get hit with an email virus which sent me a message like something to me in the vein of “You always did look good naked.” I accidentally opened it because knowing them, this would have been funny. It wasn’t and everyone on my friends list got nailed and my computer was screwed up most of December. I swear it won’t happen again.

And I also apologize for bombarding you with these stupid blog posts, my shirt designs, and links from consumerist and YouTube. You are actually sending me quality gifts for my restaurant, mafia, island, castle, mob, amusement park, flair board, green patch, aquarium, YoVille pad, sweet shop, Farkle game and various farms. I guess I am a horrible friend. Good thing you have lots of them to balance me out. Thanks for being there. Here’s to good friends. If I could send you all a gift or poke or whatever I would but fb seems to only let me choose so many and I always forget who I missed the first time around. How about I promise to like everything you say on your status update? Deal? Ok. Good. I’m glad we had this chat. I only wish we could have done it on fb but I always seem to be offline.

Best Friends

My daughter has a best friend and she’s only two. I would think that, at such an age, she would not be able to comprehend the idea of friendship. She gets it, though. It’s not the kind of friend you find on Facebook. There was no need to confirm or explain the details. It just automatically happened. One day, she looked up and there he was. She smiled and that was all it took.

She makes time to sit and watch Sprout or just run around and play with her friend. They don’t spend every waking moment together, but they are pretty close. My wife asks her what she thinks of her friend and she simply replies, “My favorite.” They share adventures together and sometimes a cup of “pretend” tea. There has even been a muffin or two served. She even wears an oven mitt when she gets into her play oven to retrieve them. My wife pretends not to notice because she likes to just sit and watch them play, uninterrupted. They even share secrets. She has whispered in her friend’s ear a few times, although she doesn’t understand the concept of volume enough to bring it down to where nobody else can hear it.

I’m sure, one day, like most of our childhood friends, they will grow distant. Eventually, she’ll move on to new friends, but I hope she never forgets her because the first “best friend” is the one by which all others shall be measured against. I remember my first best friend when I was a child. I was probably only two or three at the time but, I still recall the times we spent together. It’s not the same thing, but with friends, it doesn’t matter. Friendship is universal, no matter what the case.

Little One's Best Friend

Princess Leia and Kindergarten Redemption

It seems the older I get, the more I can spin silly and pointless stories by weaving the tiny, fine threads of relevancy into a thicker, more industrial strength rope of crap. Since I have been on a back to school kick this past couple of posts I thought I would share a first day of school story from my own life.

I was recently in a conversation with someone about how some schools, nowadays, offer all day kindergarten to students. I was taken aback by this revelation as I was firmly rooted in the mythos that kindergarten was a half day rite of passage for children. That first foray into public education was a small step, to be taken, and not a full gallop into eight hours of instruction. Besides, at the age of five, what can they be teaching kids that takes eight hours? Times have changed, I guess. In my day, I had afternoon class which meant I could sleep in and watch most of The Price is Right before having to be educated in subjects that aren’t as nearly as important as how much denture cleaner costs and should I bid a dollar, confident in everyone else’s inability to understand the actual retail price of a Zenith floor model television set in a fine oak cabinet. These are practices that would not be exercised again until I reached college some 13 years later and could schedule all my classes around this meticulous study of the economy and retail industry.

From the moment I set foot into the viper pit that is the public education system, I knew I needed to choose my path very carefully. I was in a strange land with unfamiliar native mores. I looked around at all the kids playing together and knew that this was something that could make or break me over the next 12 years. I was a little hesitant to jump in right away. Even though I had spent the previous year in preschool, I had reservations about doing this on a daily basis for the next nine months.

In preschool, I was known as a man who could get things. Other kids joined in my reign over the plastic kitchen sets. They would partake in my practical jokes, hurrying back in from recess to hide underneath the tables, in an attempt to confuse the teacher of our whereabouts. Once, I even convinced a friend of mine to help steal another classmate’s sandwich and we flushed it down the toilet. In preschool, I was someone. But in the real world, I was just another kid, like everyone else. And that world was about to get bigger as the one person who knew me was about to leave.

My Mother was getting ready to head for the door and for a moment I thought I could not hack this dreadful experiment. I could feel the knot tighten in my throat and the burning sensation in my eyes. Soon the air was filled with falsetto ranged wails and streams of tears, flowing down the doughy cheeks of a child not wanting to be left behind by his mama. But they were not my tears or my wails that had pierced the atmosphere. Before the first drop could form in the corner of my eye, another child standing a few feet away from me had begun to sob uncontrollably and latched onto his Mother’s leg with a vice like grip. I stood there gawking, not at his performance, but at the reactions of the other children in the room. All forms of play and interaction had ceased. All attention was focused on this child, flailing around at the door. His mother trying to pry his clasped hands from around her thigh, now numb from lack of blood flow. As the minute long exchange took what seemed like hours, we all witnessed the equivalent of the first day for fresh fish in Kindergarten. Somebody always breaks down crying. Happens every time. The only question is, who's it gonna be? It's as good a thing to bet on as any, I guess.

After the spectacle had ended, my Mother looked at me and we both shared a look of understanding. The kind of look that says, “I love you, but I can’t show it right now or I’ll never survive past recess.” She nodded and left. For the next four hours, I would have to fend for myself in this uncharted territory. An explorer in a foreign world of sand boxes, story times, and milk and cookie lunches. I figured I better make friends fast or I will be swallowed up by the system. Another casualty of social calcification, doomed to a lifestyle unfit outside these walls.

I scanned the room for someone I could interact with and not be dismissed as weak and inferior. This small towheaded boy sat on the other side of the room and I struck up a conversation. He was a rather quiet but cordial kid named Richie. We became friends that first week of Kindergarten. On the playground we took to imagining ourselves in the Star Wars universe. I was, of course, Han Solo and he was my loyal Wookie companion, Chewbacca. The merry go round was our Millennium Falcon and the slide that stood nearby served as The Death Star, with it steps on either side, an arched ladder in the back, and a space underneath to hold an imaginary Princess Leia. We made various attacks on that slide in many offensive campaigns against the Empire, which were real girls, at that age, always returning to the merry go round in victory after freeing the invisible Princess. Those were definitely the greatest days of my early scholastic career. Soon those days, like many in my youth would be over, converting to a sepia toned flash of synaptic nostalgia.

One night, a fire had broke out at Richie’s home and they had ended up moving away. I never heard from or saw him again after that. He faded into the tapestry of my mind and serves as a small, but bright stitch on a much larger and faded canvas of memories. I have no idea where he is in this world but I still remember the days of him gurgling out a passable bark as Chewbacca. His own voice, used so little in our conversations, is gone from my recollection.

There have been times when I have visited my parents’ home, nestled among the trees on the ridge overlooking my old Elementary school. I would stand on the edge of their yard, near sunset, looking down at that same playground that served as my “Long long ago in a galaxy far, far away” nearly three decades prior. The playground equipment still stands, however, standing on the edge of the merry go round, today, would invariable spin the metal plate off its axis, grinding it into the concrete slab beneath it. With my 30 years of growth, attempting to fit myself underneath the slide would result in needing the jaws of life or a really good can opener to extract me from my confinement. Those relics of recess past were better left seen at a distance in the pristine condition I could make out with my strained eyesight. Getting closer would reveal the Monet-like painted truths, rusted and worn and in places missing paint. Those chips could probably be found in the stomach contents of a small child enrolled in the school or a thirty-four year old, suffering from acute lead neuropathy.

In any case I hope my friend is out there, somewhere, doing fine. I hope one day I can shake his hand. I hope I can tell him that the continued missions of Han Solo in those days, minus Chewbacca, were victorious yet not as fun without him. I hope.

Ballad of the Bud Under the Bed

The house as it looked in 1987

Somewhere outside of Virginia Beach, in the community of Sandbridge, located in a house on Bluebill Dr, sits a can of Budweiser, 22 years past its expiration date, underneath a sofa bed. It sounds unlikely, but I’d like to think that it is still there waiting for me to return one day to drink it. I know the truth of the matter is that the can was probably discarded not long after that fateful week in 1987 when my friend and I stole it.

I was just 12 years old and the both of us were determined to get wasted. Our families had rented this house for the week and my friend and I shared the bottom floor bedroom that consisted of a bathroom and a sofa bed. We were no stranger to sharing living quarters as we had both spent a week, the previous year, in another house in the same community.

The seeds of anarchy and delinquency may have been planted the previous summer, over quiet discussions in our room. I remember a blaring radio playing the Beatles cover of "Twist and Shout", which had become popular again thanks to Ferris Beuller’s Day Off and Back to School. We may have used the noise from the radio to mask our strategic plotting, though I don’t remember the specifics. In any case, we were ready to spring our plan into action this year as we had the bottom floor all to ourselves. We could come and go as we pleased, just by sneaking out the front door. We could escape into the night and do the things that kids our age do out and about in the summertime night like walk around and wonder, “Okay, now what?”

But we didn’t. We were committed to the task. Our plan was simple and only had four goals.

1. Steal a beer from our parents’ stash in the upstairs fridge.


2. Hide it in our room until we were able to consume it without getting caught.


3. Get drunk like adults did.


4. Gain some insight into adulthood, letting the mysteries of the universe reveal themselves.

That’s what we thought would happen. At our age, we figured that there had to be some all important reason to consume alcoholic beverages. We were warned against it as children, yet I can remember on occasion my Father would sit me on his lap and let me sip small quantities from his can, much to my Mother’s dismay. In fact, there is a much recalled incident at family gatherings about a time when my whole family was kicked out of a Lum’s restaurant, because my Father gave my brother a tiny sip of beer. Surely, there was some cosmic conspiracy over this act and we were about to find out why.

First we had to take a look at our surroundings. The house provided just the right amount of concealment for our plan to go off without a hitch. Coming through the front door you could turn right into the garage or turn left up a spiral staircase to the main floor. Going straight would lead you into our room. Actually, the house was quite nice. From what I remember it was a house that might have belonged to the realtor and had just been put on the market as a rental. It wasn’t on the ocean and in fact it was on the opposite side of a canal that fed into Shipps Bay. We had a paddle boat docked at the back and an in ground pool, complete with deep end and diving board to entertain us. Now we had an additional part to our plan. Get drunk and go swimming. The reckless abandon, by which we had conspired to be bad, was astounding.

Early into the week we managed to complete step one of our dastardly deed. It was a quiet evening and while our families were swimming or otherwise distracted, we snuck a can of Budweiser from the fridge. Racing back down to our room, we needed to conceal the contraband. We couldn’t proceed to step three since it was still early in the evening, so we halted at step two by placing the can underneath the sofa bed. It was easily accessible, yet undetectable to the naked eye. When the time was right we would continue with Operation Inebriation.

During the rest of the week we continued to enjoy our time at the beach, always keeping a thought towards our plan. There were two instances when we almost cracked open that can, prematurely. “No,” we thought. We had to wait for the right moment. It was like one of those 80s adventure computer games. We were given an object that could only be used once and at the appropriate time. When the time was right, we would know it. Until then, maintain appearances, don’t let on what we had done and don’t tell anyone else. That meant keeping secrets from the other kids in our group that were also vacationing at the beach but at different houses. Holding onto that secret was at times exhilarating and also excruciating. We had this forbidden object just inches from where we slept at night that could elevate our cool factor into the stratosphere and yet we feared telling them because they might inadvertently blab to an adult. That would have been instant death to our plan and us, for that matter. Still, we kept visible within the circle of friends and went about our week.

Our friends were staying in houses right on the beach and even though we had the pool, they had the view. Actually, the one had a great view of the house directly across the street. The only other guy friend our age was staying at this huge house directly across the street from a place with two girls. We had come over for the last night of our vacation for a group dinner. We found our friend hanging out on the topmost deck, plugged into his walkman, blasting Def Leppard’s "Hysteria." It had just been released that month and he was already wearing it out something fierce. He didn’t even notice us sneaking up on him. When he did acknowledge us we asked him what he had been up to and his response was, “Watching some girl show me her underwear.” We both did a double take and then looked across the street at the house facing us. There, in front bedroom, were two girls waving at us and making silly body movements.

My partner in crime and I looked at each other in agreement. Those girls could share in our plan. We could have a party. We didn’t exactly know what we could do. I mean I had grown up watching stolen HBO, so I kind of knew what this all meant. I never actually imagined being in a position that resembled it, though. I began to think this could actually be the best vacation ever. We had an in with the girls. Just get them to come down and talk with us and we could let them in on our plan to get drunk. The beer was still sitting, hidden, in our room at the house. We could all sneak away and hang out at our place and go night swimming. It had to have been the best plan ever thought of by a 12 year old in the history of adolescence.

We quickly started making the universal sign for hello by flailing our hands around like we had no bones in our arms. They continued to duck down behind the balcony wall, holding up an errant bra that they had brought with them from their room. A bra, regardless of being removed from the person twirling around, was still like catnip to a teenager. We continued to use semaphore like movements to try and signal them down to the beach. Eventually, they got the hint when they saw us descend the staircase from our balcony and sneak across the street to their side. Not wanting to alert the adults, we snuck around the outside of their house in a wide circle. We ended up on the beach about a hundred feet from the steps up to their house and then ran all the way to meet them.

“Hey.” We said, out of breath.

“Hey,” They said, not knowing what to make of this rag tag bunch of misfits before them.

“So, like how old are you?” Good. Good. Establish a baseline. We don’t want to give alcohol to them if they are too young to handle it. Of course, everyone knows that the constitution of a 12 year old far outweighs one of a ten year old.

“I’m twelve and she’s thirteen” One of them said.

“Excellent,” I thought. Being the youngest of the three guys, I felt a sort of inclusion into the group with the confirmation of one of the girls being the same age as myself. I was worried that, if they were older than me, I would not stand a chance competing with my older, wiser friends. Yet, I still held the ace in my pocket…or more to the point; underneath the sofa bed at our house, a couple miles away.

We conversed for a little while longer, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves from inside the house. I feverishly searched for a way to introduce the idea of going back to our place for a late night swim and beer bash. However, they admitted that it was time for them to go. Alas, the opportunity never presented itself to include them in our scheme and they disappeared forever, another footnote in the annuals of summer flings that almost were. But we didn’t dwell on the matter. We had bigger fish to fry.

After dinner, my friend and I returned to our house and began to pack up our things. We knew what lay in store for us and didn’t want to have to try packing after our long night of consumption. We thought it best to get everything out of the way, freeing us from performing tasks that required dexterity and balance the next morning.

Being the last night in the house, we thought it appropriate to give the pool one last swim and spent a couple hours that the night contemplating our place in the universe while doing cannonballs off the diving board.

The eleventh hour had drawn on and we retired to our room. We decided to try and stay up as late as possible, outlasting our parents. We didn’t want them to come down and check on us in our drunken state. We took turns manning the staircase outside our room, keeping watch for adults or nosy siblings. Soon, the house went quiet and we too had ultimately just collapsed from sheer exhaustion. The heavy meal, the late night rendezvous and jog up the beach, as well as the swim was the final nail in our coffin, taking every last ounce of energy we had left.

The next morning brought on the hustle and bustle of packing up cars and checking on rooms to make sure nothing remained. We insisted to our parents that we had checked our room completely and that nothing was left behind. Neither one of us had a moment to snag the beer from under the sofa and stick it in our bags. We figured, if anything, we could transport it home and then sneak out to the park one night and finish what we had started. Unfortunately, we had no chance to stealthily slip the suds into our sacks and it remained behind like a fallen soldier in combat. The battle was lost. The opportunity missed. The beer left under the sofa bed, in the house on Bluebill Dr., in the community of Sandbridge, just outside of Virginia Beach, sat like a testament to what might have been.

While we may have only met two of our goals that summer, we took that first step towards being initiated into adulthood. As teens, a stolen beer is a rite of passage. It's intoxicating just to take it, undetected, not knowing that first stolen beers are usually nasty and warm and really don't do much for you other than make you sick. Those last two goals were a fictional representation of what we held in our minds as absolute truths in life.

It wasn’t until 22 years later that I finally understood the fourth goal. Yet, I confess, I never completed it. The mysteries of the universe were still that to me, a mystery. I still don’t understand why we thought that one beer would be enough to get us both drunk. I still don’t understand how we were going to travel, on foot, to a house somewhere in a two mile radius from our position that night. Neither of us bothered to pay attention to directions. Perhaps those are mysteries that only a kid can understand. Kids still believe in their immortality and the awesome power of a summer vacation giving them wisdom. Kids are kings among pessimists, always thinking that the future is bright and go on forever, like a sandy beach in summer.

The house as it looks today, 2009

I'm sorry. Eleven Years Too Late

We met in high school and sort of got put into that same social group of misfits and outcasts. You had such a strange personality and at times I even felt that I couldn’t connect on your level. Even your name was different than any I had ever known. Yet, there was more going on there beneath the surface, but I was too stupid and immature to realize just how unique an individual you really were. For all your quirks and unashamed security in how you presented yourself, I, like most people, simply chalked it up to you just being a little weird. I’m sorry it took 11 years to realize it.

The times that I didn’t have my head up my ass were fun. Regardless of your style, you made it worthwhile. There was the games of hide and seek, or a variant of such, in your old Victorian home that kept us all laughing until our sides hurt. Once, we came to your place and just sat out on the roof watching the trains go on by through the neighborhood. You let me call your parents by your personal nicknames for them. I’m sorry I took advantage of your friendship.

We would watch crazy movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Clue at your house. Sometimes I would wonder how someone could love Rocky Horror as much as you did? You had several versions of the soundtrack and I thought that odd. Yet, in my own personal library I have multiple versions of the Star Wars movies in various formats and I don’t find that out of the ordinary. I’m sorry I was a hypocrite.

When you needed someone most, I didn’t see it. You had a rough time with a relationship and even after it imploded, you gave me and other friends all the liquor from the wedding that never was. We spent that summer driving around with a floating bar, always remembering to put more ice in the trunk until we finished the beer. We had that party at that lodge in the woods and I bartended with your booze. I’m sorry I didn’t make you another drink.

We hung out in small amounts and sometimes I felt that best. I was such a prick. Anybody in this world should be happy to have a friend call them even when they would rather not be bothered. I’m guilty just like everyone in the world, perhaps more so, because I could see what I was doing. I wasn’t oblivious, I just choose to continue the practice. You would call, and I would either be busy or wouldn’t answer the phone. It’s not that I think I was that important, but you were. You deserved my time and I didn’t give it. I would have rather sat at home in silence or with the inane blaring of a show on television that I half ignored than hear your voice and your thoughts. You wanted to hang out and I acted like I was too busy for you. I didn’t even have a job at the time. I had all the free time in the world, yet I couldn’t be bothered. I’m sorry I didn’t answer you.

Then it all stopped. You were somewhere in the world and I was in my own place. You were a picture in a yearbook or an anecdote that I would pull out when I would talk about my old life. Maybe you finally realized I wasn’t worth it. I mean, how dare I believe that my presence would be uplifting or warranted. Maybe you were happy I was so far on the peripheral that the thought of our time together was a footnote when you heard a song or watched a movie. I’m sure there were other people who saw what I didn’t and they took the time. Now, I’m probably extremely arrogant or pretentious to assume that my friendship was anything special. The fact that I’m even writing this, now, means I think having me as a friend was worth something and that’s a pretty big showing of testicular fortitude on my part. It wasn’t until 11 years went by and then someone, who I hadn’t spoken to in nearly as long, said you were sick and that there probably wasn’t much more time left. Suddenly, I could make time. Finally, I got it. I had decided that I had been stupid and should come see you. I’m sorry I didn’t.

I can make 1000 excuses as to why I didn’t. The biggest was that I was embarrassed. I should be the last person you would want to see. Where was I? Like every other time you were in my life for one reason or another, I dropped the ball. There’s always tomorrow, right? At one time or another we probably both had that same thought. Maybe not at the same time but more than likely we both looked ahead at our future and figured there would always be more time for everything. You got robbed. I’m sorry I have time and you don’t.

I was so wrapped up in my own self indulgent bullshit that I could never find five minutes to get in touch with someone who I used to call my ‘friend’ without pausing. I threw that term around like I had a sense of entitlement. I didn’t put nearly enough time into what that word meant. Now I don’t have that chance. No, not chance, privilege, honor, freedom, pleasure. Any number of words could describe what your friendship meant and that is gone. I’m sorry I let you go. I’m sorry I was an asshole. I’m sorry you took a chance on my sorry ass. I’m sorry you got sick. I’m sorry you died. I’m sorry Margd.

I Don't Remember You, But Your Facebook Rings a Bell

If you’ve ever wondered what happened to that summer camp love from across the lake or that girl you met on the beach during a family trip to the shore, look no further than Internet Social Interaction Sites. In a world dominated by technology, the ability to find anyone, anywhere, is entirely possible without working for the government or as a private investigator. All one needs is a few pieces of information and they can let the Internet do the crawling.

The world, as we know it, is shrinking. People are connected to each other in more ways over the Internet than they are in real life. In an odd twist of fate, the world seemed to be moving away from social interaction by inventing new ways to be anonymous. Message boards, chat rooms, and the advent of email nearly stole every last drop of emotion and personality from interactions. We could hide behind our keyboards and avatars and just type away. But with the acceptance of sites like MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Friendster, and Facebook, even at the corporate level, the prospect of being anonymous is disappearing faster than unregistered Internet domain names.

I possess a somewhat odd eidetic memory. While I can’t recall that my wife just asked me to take out the trash, I can remember someone that I met 20 years ago by name, face, and various personality traits as vividly as if I met them a week ago. Some memories are just burned into my subconscious like the high score screen of a Pac-Man game is burned into the monitor. Sometimes, I do forget a few details but, for the most part, I’m fairly accurate. I can remember songs on the radio, weather conditions, all the minutiae that surrounds a particular event. It is quite frustrating when I can remember these things but others have no idea what I’m talking about.

In the case of people, I can remember someone I may have just met for a moment. Not everyone knows or remembers who I am, although most people who meet me for the first time say I remind them of someone they have known all their life. A few details given about the relationship sparks their memory, or at least their politeness as they lie and say they remember me. Most often, because of what sounds like an uncommon last name, I am constantly asked if I am related to someone they know. There are a few rare cases which are the exception to the rule but I am usually never related to their person they are referring to.

So, now here we are at the end of the first decade of the 21st century and I’ve probably met close to 25,000 individuals, in person, over the course of 34 years. That’s not counting online friends or people I’ve spoken to in groups. Now, I’ve seriously whittled down the frequency over the years since college. I would say there was a brief spike when I manned the phones of a call center because in actuality there were relationships established due to the nature of the business. But think of it. The normal everyday person probably meets close to 60,000 people in their lifetime. How do you expect to remember even a tenth of that?

During my life, I have attempted to keep in touch with numerous people that I made friends with in college or at work. I spent four summers working in amusement parks. Five years in college which consisted of two different universities. I’ve been on vacation to various beaches along the Eastern United States and I’ve worked at various jobs in different cities across the South Western corner of the state. Those, that I’ve had the pleasure of calling a friend, have scattered to the four winds or married. Yet, thanks to my memory and a little help from the Internet, I’ve managed to find some of them. Again, it takes a little jogging of their memory, because quite frankly, I’m just an oddball with a weird ability to recall people. It would be arrogant to think that I made a lasting impression on anyone, especially after only meeting them for a day or a week. Still, memory being what it is, I’ve sought them out and added them as friends on Facebook.

There are some that I attended school with for only a semester. I worked in a scene shop for three months during my Freshman year of college and to pass the time I carried on a sort of pre Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon type game with a guy who introduced me to my first college beer, Reservoir Dogs, and an awesome three tiered grilled cheese sandwich at a local pub in Myrtle Beach. He now works in the Southwest. I’ve also found at least ten others from my days there. All of them only knew me for a semester and that was 15 years ago.

I have a few friends from my Amusement Park days. One, is probably the coolest gal I’ve ever met. I’m not sure she understands her coolness factor or perhaps she does and is modest about it. I had a particularly rough summer my second year, the product of working there with someone I was dating. To make a long story short, my girlfriend took off for three days with some guy and I was a bit upset. She found me alone in a bar, drinking and playing with those trivia boxes. Now, for whatever reason, she felt the need to saddle up at the table and keep me company, ultimately forced to listen to my sob story. She could have been at anywhere else having drinks bought for her by better looking and cooler guys than me, yet she sat there while I wallowed in my own stupidity. I hadn’t spoken to her in 10 years. We now rib each other with pop culture idiosyncrasies associated with our status updates.

The two newest friends in my arsenal are a couple of girls I met while vacationing in Myrtle Beach as a teenager. It was one of those weird things where myself and a friend kind of just became part of a group of kids who hung out together during the week one year and by some stroke of fate ended up staying in the same group of condos the next year. I kept in touch for a little bit through letters and pictures but we all grew up and eventually the letters stopped coming and going. I never forgot their names and happened to find them just after the new year. I haven’t spoken to them in nearly 20 years.

Most of my friends on Facebook are people I went to high school or college with over the years. A few are from previous work related relationships. There are those oddball ones that thought I was someone else and added me as a friend, not realizing I wasn’t who they thought I was. It’s here I find the few quirks with my memory as I may or may not have ever met them, but have accepted their friend request out of shame for not remembering them if I have.

I have to date, 164 friends on Facebook and I probably speak with about 12 with any great frequency. The others are those who I’ve reconnected with and then that’s it. There have been some back and forth “pokes” or green patch requests. I’ve had a few mob wars invitations and some flair exchange hands but for the most part, I’m just a notch on their friend wall. It almost seems common practice or courtesy to accept a friend request from anyone. This might be the reason I’m friends with the lead singer of a local rock band, who just happened to graduate with my sister from high school, and an actress/comedian known for her innuendo laden phrases as a spa manager on one show and the host of another on HGTV.

The oddest turn of events on Facebook has been how people in various aspects of my past seem to know each other as witnessed on my news feed as they exchange wall posts or gifts. A girl I met through another friend’s girlfriend at a local university happens to be friends with a guy I work with, currently. I met each of them almost a decade apart and unknown to the other. Oddly enough, the one, I met before I met my wife, the other went to high school with her. Another friend, who I met in my days as an Amusement Park worker is a friend of and former classmate of a girl who I worked with until a couple years ago. Again, you’re talking almost ten years between the time I met one to the other and they already knew one another.

I find this phenomenon crazy because it just goes to show how truly small this world is. Granted, this covers people I’ve met in a geographic radius of less than 40 miles but to give further credence to this concept, consider this. My first semester of college was spent in Myrtle Beach. During that time I became friends with a girl, who lived right down the hall from me. She grew up in upstate New York and was childhood friends with a cousin of mine. This same cousin is the son of the guy who was the source of The Baseball Story. To tie this all together, I happen to be able include myself as a degree of Kevin Bacon. I was an extra in Sudden Death which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme. He was in Bloodsport with Victor Wong, who was in Tremors with Kevin Bacon. There you have it. Now, if I could get on Kevin Bacon’s list of friends on Facebook, I’d be connected to everyone in the world. That’s a lofty goal for a guy who can’t remember to put the lid back on the Rice Krispie Treats container, as evidenced by the call I just got from my wife.