It Was Either That or A Tote Bag

Every now and then, we here at Acme Gravel and Sprockets take a quiet moment to reflect that, hey, there are worse jobs.

Delivering food on roller skates, for example.  Or crime-scene sanitation. 

Or working where Margaret does.

“Don’t,” she says, “Tell anyone where this came from, but this is a gen-u-wine email from our VP.  Oh, and don’t tell them I work at Global Stickers.”

Sure, I say.  That’s safe with me, Miss Margaret Olson, 5248 Lefse Boulevard.

Random Capitalization and Punctuation included for your Pleasure.

Team,

Recently I noted on the company bulletin board that the TPS reduction goal for 2016 was met!  This was a great accomplishment.  We here at Global Stickers had committed to providing a Pizza Party to the Company in the event we reached our Goal, and since we did, Global Stickers is excited to be providing that Pizza Party. 

Organizing the Pizza's for your team will be the responsibility of the Manager and supervisor. You will have this party on April 1.  Two pieces of pizza per person will be purchased.  Drinks will not be provided.  Multiply the number of people by 2 and divide by 8 to get the number of large Pizza's to order.   Pizza’s must be cheese, pepperoni, or sausage. 

You may order from anywhere in town as long as it is Domino’s, Costco, or Pizza Hut.  No other’s allowed! I would order them in the morning or even the day before to give them time to fill the order.  I have a script if anyone need’s it.

The supervisor or manager should pay for the Pizza's and expect to be reimbursed.   Write clearly, using black or blue ink.  Be sure to include the name of your department, if anyone took more than two pieces, and the exact start and end time of your celebration.  I will review. 

Thanks for the determination you’ve shown this last year, and I look forward to posting this coming year’s next initiative.  Fingers crossed for next year’s reward:  tee-shirt’s from last year’s Inventory Lock-In!

Best regards,

Snidely W. Lash, PhD, OCD, SOB

A Two for One Deal

He’s reaching for the glove box as we pull up to the red light. 

He pulls the coupons from his breast pocket.

“What are you doing?”

He glances from the coupons to the light to the paper-clipped offers he’s taken from the glove box.

“Organizing,” he says.

“Hmm,” I say.

“What?” he says, turning bright blue eyes at me.  “A man’s got to organize.”

I keep my own counsel.

He looks up at the light again.  “No, really,” he says.  “Sitting at a red light is an excellent opportunity to go through your coupons.”

“Maybe for you to go through your coupons,” I say.  “I like to do mine while showering.”

He has the sense to grin.  “Like this one,” he says.  He checks his rear view mirror, then pulls a small piece of paper from the pile  “You see this?  Because we went through the paper this morning, I know this is on sale, limit of ten.  I’m going to get ten at the discounted price, but the coupon I have says buy one, get the second for free.”  He smiles.  “I’ll be swimming in Dr Pepper.”  He leans over, takes my hand.  “Don’t you want to be swimming in Dr Pepper, Pearl?”

I turn to look out the window, mostly to hide my amusement.  “You buys you ten, you gets you eleven.”

He squeezes my hand quickly as the light changes, then puts both hands on the wheel.  We pull ahead.  

He is smiling into traffic.  “Pearl,” he says quietly.

“Kurt,” I say.

Medical Advice That Will Blow Your Mind

Pearl will be taking a break from writing for a while in an attempt to get her her head -- and maybe even her life! -- in order.  I will be around, of course (how could I leave you, especially in springtime?), and will assume that you are wishing her the best as she moves out of her home (June 8) and on with a new phase in her life.

She will stop referring to herself in the third person once the fog has lifted..



I come from a long line of people who believe that nothing says “cure-all” like a good bowel movement.

“Mom, I’ve got a headache.”

“Have you pooped?”

We’re full of home-y advice like that. Mustard plasters, vinegar on sun burns, baking soda on bee stings –

You may lose what respect you still have for me, but I’ve got a cousin who claims that his mother used to blow cigarette smoke into his ears to combat earache.

She claims to have learned it from her mother (my grandmother).

As someone who was privy to the fact that grandma would sneak a smoke in the bathroom, standing on the bathtub and blowing it out the fan to avoid detection from grandpa, I can’t help but wonder if this was her way of having a cigarette without having to hide it.

Why blow it out a window all alone in the bathroom when you can sit on the davenport and blow it – in a curative fashion, of course – in a kid’s ear?

I’m just surprised she didn’t have a use for the ashes.

Still, I wonder about the rhythms of the body, the things we think are good for us, the things we know are not.

Me, for example.

“You sound nervous,” Mary says.

“Nah,” I say. “I’ve just had to go to the bathroom for the last hour, hour and-a-half.”

She laughs, a pleasant sound that promises commiseration and, if you’re lucky, lemon bars later.

“I’m not kidding,” I say. “I keep thinking that I’m going to do just this one more thing…” I trail off, switch ears. “You’re lucky you’re at home.”

You can almost hear her shrug over the phone. “Meh,” she says. “The difference is that at home when you finally give in and run to the bathroom you can do that weird little dance all the way there without someone asking you if you’re gonna be okay.”

“I waited until mere moments before disaster a couple weeks ago and then got stopped just short of the bathroom by someone with a spreadsheet question. The roaring panic in my head should’ve been audible, but he didn’t appear to have heard it.”

“Where do you suppose that comes from,” Mary muses. “Were we not allowed breaks as children?”

“Perhaps I’m afraid I’ll miss something,” I suggest.

“Perhaps you need someone to blow smoke in your ear.”

I laugh. This is why I call her.

“Hey,” I say, warming to the subject, “If blowing smoke in the ear is good for earache, where are we gonna have to blow that smoke when I can’t tear myself away from my desk long enough to –”

“Hey,” she says, mock-stern. “We don’t talk like that.”

"No,"I say, smiling. "We don't."

Minneapolis, Late Saturday Night

The bus has taken on a warm, smoky glow.

“My name is Louis,” the bus driver had said.  “Drunk women call me Louie.  And I don’t mind at all.

“There’s only one rule tonight, and that’s that there is no rule.  This is a party bus, a drinking, dancing, smoking bus.  Dance, laugh, shout.  You need cigs?  I’ll stop.  You need something at a convenience store?  I’ll stop.  Keep all your lovely bits inside the bus, though, let’s not attract more attention than a black and pink bus already does.  Now let’s have a good time!”

This is not, of course, the trusty #17.  This is not a commute.

This is an adventure. 

It’s Erin’s bachelorette party.  Home from Arizona and full of the love that a two-year absence and a well-run pub crawl can spur, the sun has gone down, the music has been turned up.

“I THOUGHT I SPOTTED AN OLD HIPPIE,” LouAnn shouts.  We have similar dance moves – Soul Train comes to mind – and we high-five.

“I GOT ABOUT SEVEN INCHES CUT OFF ABOUT A MONTH AGO,” Megan yells.  “YOU DON’T THINK IT LOOKS CHOPPY?”

“I’M SECOND-HAND SMOKING OVER HERE, MAN,” shouts Kim.  “I TELL YOU WHAT – I’M GONNA GO IN THE NEXT BAR, EAT A LOAF OF BREAD AND ME AND MY GLUTEN ALLERGY ARE GONNA CLEAR THIS WHOLE BUS.  YOU FEEL ME?  YOU’RE JUST ONE SLICE OF BREAD AWAY FROM THE GASSY EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME.”

The black and pink bus slides majestically down the cobblestoned roads to the river, down by the Grain Belt sign, down by where the 35W bridge collapsed. 

Diana hands me a beer. 

“HISTORIC MINNEAPOLIS.”

I nod, move across the aisle from one side of the bus to the other to sit next to her.  “Can I just tell you that I’m pretty drunk right now?”

“You could tell me,” she says, “but I wouldn’t beli - hic! – I wouldn’t beli – hic! – I would be disinclined to have faith in your assumption.”

We grin at each other.  “Nicely done,” I say. 

She shrugs.  “English is my native language.”

We twist in our seats, look out the windows to the brick, to the river, to the stark beauty of the leafless trees against the starlit skies.

Behind us, music I don’t recognize throbs, bass-heavy.  Beautiful women dance in the aisle, shouting encouragement and jokes.  Outside, Minneapolis moves silently from winter to spring.

Diana wraps her arms around me, and I rest my head on her shoulder.

“We are the luckiest women in the world,” she says. 

I nod.  “I am inclined,” I say, “to have faith in your assumption.”

And His Shoes Make Him Run Faster and Jump Higher, Too

You remember my friend T, right? The man who believes almost every woman he sees is beautiful? The man whose sudden and pert-near evangelical love of his lawn (The Book of Scotts Turf Builder) has changed his brown weedy yard to a lush, green carpet?

He now has furniture concerns.

To wit, he believes his dresser drawers are up to no good.

“Everything I put in there comes out smaller,” he says. “My t-shirts are all tight in the middle. They didn’t used to be!”

That’s right. The dresser in T’s bedroom is shrinking his clothes.

I’ve seen T’s dresser. It’s a battered blonde wood piece of furniture with missing drawer pulls – and while I’ve always stood four-square against this very type of dresser, it does not appear to be any more a clothing-shrinker than my own.

And none of my shirts are, uh, too small.

None! I don’t care what you’ve heard!

Of course, T may claim that it is faulty furniture that has caused his t-shirts to reduce in size, there is also the fact that cotton t-shirts and hot dryers are natural enemies.

There’s also something to be said of his love of the all-you-can-eat banquet.

For now, however, I will play along with his dresser drawer theory. Why not? It makes as much sense as his belief that there are beautiful women everywhere he goes; and maybe I’ll get a free t-shirt out of the deal.

Mary and Pearl Go To Florida; or Why Yes, I Do Drink ‘Em Eight at a Time. Why Do You Ask?

Hey!  There you are!  Today’s story is a continuation of yesterday’s, wherein I find myself pressured to play pool, which was a continuation of the story the day before where Mary makes a friend.

You can also ready about our adventures at airline security here and here.

Because what says “trip to Florida” more than security hassles and bar friends?

Peter Frampton’s doppelganger has fallen on hard times.

It doesn’t seem to have affected his ability to slam a beer, however; and Mary and our new friend Ken watch bemusedly as the scrawny man holds up a proprietary finger.

“I’ll take another, Arlene, and how about a –“  He turns to me.  “You want a drink?  I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Gin and tonic,” I say.  “Extra limes, please.”

“AWWWWW!” Mary moans.  I turn around to see a woman in a college sweatshirt lose her turn on the wheel.

“You’re taking that Wheel of Fortune thing kinda seriously over there,” I call out.

“I am a simple woman.  I have simple pleasures,” she says.

There is the sound of quarters being slammed, the sound of balls dropping.

Mr. Frampton sets the rack on the table.

“Hey,” I say.  “Would you mind if I rack ‘em and you break?  It’s been years since I’ve played, and I don’t want to start this game with a lousy break.”

“You’ll do fine,” he says, reaching down for the balls.

“I’m serious,” I say.  “I was never much of a breaker, and it’s been so long.”

He shakes his head.  “Nope,” he says.  “I like to rack ‘em.”

I take a deep breath.

Arlene brings our drinks.  “Thank you,” I say.

I notice that Peter doesn’t tip.

I select a stick, roll it around at the unoccupied end of the table.  I find a straight one on the third attempt and chalk it.

I turn around.  Mary has turned at the same time.  She raises one eyebrow.  I curl my lip at her.  She goes back to Ken and the Wheel of Fortune.

“OK,” I say.  I bend over the table, concentrate on the bright yellow ball at the head of the triangle – only to feel Mr. Frampton creep up behind me.

I whirl on him.  “So now you want to break?”

He gives me an oily smile.  “No, no,” he says.

“Then get away from me,” I say, smiling.  I bend over the table again, pull the cue back –

In the history of breaks, they will speak of this one.  Rarely does one witness such slop, such disregard for the beauty and grace that is the game of billiards.

The edges of the racked triangle roll anemically just inches from their original positions. 

The core remains unmoved.

Not a single ball goes in. 

I turn, humiliated.    “I haven’t played in years,” I apologize.

“Can’t win ‘em all,” offers Ken.

“Or even some,” Mary winks.

“Why you little…” I threaten.

“Why I oughta…” Mary returns.

Mr. Frampton has been waiting for me.  “Go ahead,” I say. 

“I wanted you to watch,” he says.

And that’s when it happened.

Ball after ball after ball, I watch as the man who had begged me to play pool, who promised a friendly game, ran the table. 

Following the “break” – and there’s no other way to remember it than with quotation marks – I didn’t play again.

“Eight ball,” he says – is that a smug tone? – “corner pocket”. 

And it was over.

He reaches for a hug.  “Good game.”

I push away.  “What was the point of that?  Seriously.  I’m having a good time with my friend, I tell you ‘no, I don’t want to play’ how many times, you beg me to play, tell me it’ll be a friendly game, and then you run the table?  What is that?”

“Do you want to play again?”

I am incredulous.  “What?!” 

I turn to Mary, who is now standing next to me.  “Dude,” she says.  “Not cool.”

He grins.  “Let’s play again.  No showboating.  A nice friendly game.”

“Forget it,” I say.  “We’re done here.”

“But –“

Mary puts a hand on my back, guides me to the bar.  “You heard her, buddy.  Nothing personal, but time to take a hike.”

“Well can I at least –“

Mary and I say it together:  “NO.”

“This guy bothering you ladies?”  Ken, Korean War Vet, drinker of Windsor Cokes, rises.  He looks happy.  He looks like he’s thinking of cracking his knuckles. 

“Not anymore he ain’t,” Mary says.  She turns to him.  “You was just about to leave, wudden ya?”

Peter Frampton’s double returns to his end of the bar.

And a gin and tonic, extra limes, appears.

“From Lance,” Arlene says.  Lance, AKA Peter Frampton, raises his beer at me.

“Lance,” I say, “thank you, but don’t buy me any drinks, okay?”

Lance, however, doesn’t take direction well, and in the next hour, five G&Ts line up in front of me.

Mary signals Arlene over, slips her a ten.  “Arlene, honey, if he’s gonna keep buying her drinks she’s not going to drink, can you make ‘em Windsor Cokes?” 

“Sure can,” she says. 

Mary leans over, wraps an arm around me.  She hasn’t had a drink in five years, but the arm around my shoulder remembers those days fondly.  “Who really won that game, huh?  Free drinks for Ken!”  Mary chuckles, squeezes me tighter. 

“Ya still got it, Pearl.  Ya still got it.”

Mary and Pearl go to Florida; or Mr. Frampton Appears to Have Fallen on Hard Times

A continuation of yesterday's story, which was a continuation of Monday's and Tuesday's.  Catch up, won't you?  I'll wait right here.  Ooooh, maybe I should pick up some Danish...


The bar could be anywhere. 

Mary digs an elbow into my ribs.  “Whaddaya think?  Think we’re the prettiest gals here?”

We laugh.  “By way of having all our teeth,” I say.

“And hair.”

“And,” I say, quietly, “by being among a handful that don’t appear to have a meth problem.”

She nods.  “All situations should be judged thusly,” she says.  I give her a look.

“What?” she says.  “You aren’t the only one who gets to say stuff like that!”

And we laugh again.  Because we are funny.

It’s early evening.  The bar is three quarters full, Wheel of Fortune is on the TV in the corner, and a song about somebody sic’ing something on a chicken is on the juke box.

But like stepping into the shower with your socks on, something seems wrong. What is it? What's that -- Hey!  What’s that smell?

Ah.  Cigarette smoke.

“Smoking in a bar,” Mary says.  Suitably, she sounds almost breathless.

“That’s crazy.”  I say.  “Remember when that was allowed?”

“Pew,” she says, wrinkling her nose.  “We’re gonna stink.”

“You’re gonna stink,” I say.

“No, you,” she counters.

And we laugh some more.

“Hey.”

I turn around.  A man best visualized as an aging Peter Frampton is standing there.

This is not lost on Mary, who starts to hum “Do You Feel Like We Do” under her breath. 

He is thin, and, somehow grubby, although it’s hard to pinpoint why.  Perhaps because he has spent far too much time in the sun.  Perhaps he just needs a good moisturizer. 

“Do you play pool?” he says.

I shake my head.  “Haven’t played in years,” I say.  “Anyway, I’m here with my friend.”

“Yeah,” he says, “but you could still play pool.”

“I could,” I say, “but I’m not.”

Mary starts to laugh, and Mr. Frampton finds this reassuring.

“But you could,” he says.  “Please?  Please play pool with me?”

And just like that – just like that! – I resolve that I will not play pool with him.  “No,” I say.  “Thank you anyway, but we’re on vacation and –“

He breaks in.  “Somewhere north, am I right?”

Mary, a woman most accurately described as having a current skin tone closely resembling her original, fresh-out-of-the-box color – that is to say, alabaster – laughs.  “We got ourselves a live one!” she hollers.  The guys at the bar turn around, give us the once-over, and return to the Wheel of Fortune.

“Come on.  Please,” he says.  “Just play pool with me.”

“Why?” I say.  “Ask someone else.”

“You’re the prettiest gal in here.”

I turn to Mary, our eyes lock, and our jaws drop in mock indignation.  “I’ll have you know, sir,” Mary says, puffing her chest, “that I’ve won a number –“

“—a number!” I shout.

“—of competitions based solely on my looks!”

“And your ability to hold your liquor,” I add.

“And your liquor,” she concedes.

But Peter Frampton is not dissuaded.  “Please,” he says.  “It’ll be an easy game.  No showboating, no pressure.  A friendly game.  I just want to play pool with you.”

I look at Mary, who shrugs.  “Go ahead,” she says.  “I’ll just sit at the bar and talk to—“  she leans over, taps the shoulder of a Korean War vet, from the looks of his jacket, “—what’s your name?”

“Ken,” he says. 

“I’m gonna talk to Ken here,” she says.  She sits down on the stool next to Ken.  “Go on.  Have fun, kids.”

Is there more?  Honey, we’re almost up to 600 words already, and you know there’s more!

Mary and Peggy go to Florida; or Small Bar, Anytown, USA

Did you miss me incur the pudgy-fingered wrath of airport Security?
Did you miss Mary actually get detained at airport Security?

It's not too late to catch up.  Go on -- take a click or two!  I'll go get a coffee and meet you back here in just a few...

In many ways, it’s a bar like any bar in the United States.  A pool table, a juke box, the smallest stuffed deer head I’ve ever seen.  It’s Florida, though; and this means that the bartender is 12, maybe 13, and the average age of the clientele is 70. 

Mary is seated next to a man in a silk VFW jacket.  He is grizzled.  Perhaps he drinks a bit.  A veteran of the Korean Conflict, Ken has a sparkle in his eye.

“I wasn’t always an old man,” he says to her.

“I’m not sure you’re old now,” she says.  “I see ya lookin’ at me.”  Ken has the look of the rake about him. 

“Ya see that guy over there?” he says.  “The one checking you out?  I could kick his ass for you, then write a song about it.”

Mary laughs, takes a drink of the Diet 7-Up in front of her.  “You’d do that,” she says from around the straw, “for me?”

“Damn right I would,” he says.  “That’s the kind of guy I am.”

I have been silent.  My ears on Mary and Ken, my eyes on the TV at the end of the bar, the drinks keep piling up in front of me. 

If that fluffy headed idiot thinks he can buy me off with drinks…

“Why don’t you just go ahead and drink them?”

I turn away from an episode of King of the Hill.  “Because I’ve got my own.”

“Well, I’ll take ‘em,” says Ken.  “Mary?  You want a couple of these?”

Sober for five years, Mary shakes her head.  “Uh-uh,” she says.  “But I’ll take your popcorn.”

Ken slides the popcorn over and then stands, places a hand on Mary’s shoulder.  “How long you here for?”

“Just a couple more days,” she says.

He nods briskly, removes his hand.  “Then I’ll say my good-byes now.  And I’ll give you this.”  He holds out his hand.  In it is a hundred dollar bill.

Mary looks at me; I look at her; and after the briefest of pauses, we nod at each other.

She smiles at him tenderly.  “Sorry, Ken,” she says.  “We are women of independent means.”

“It would make me happy,” he says, “to know you two had a good time here.”

“Man, meeting you is what makes it a good time.  You know that.”  And Mary, not one for extravagant displays of affection, puts her hands on his shoulders and kisses him on the cheek.

“You’re a good-lookin’ man, Ken.  Don’t you go forgetting me now.”

Ken tips his hat.  “Not likely, ma’am.”

Wait.  What fluffy headed idiot?  Come back tomorrow if you dare..