Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Incident at Starbucks

The SUV with the special license plate, the owner of which was apparently awarded a Bronze Star, was parked in one of two handicapped parking spaces outside of Starbucks and had no handicapped parking placard displayed. A woman was seated in the passenger seat. I went into Starbucks with Stacey, who was already dialing the police department. She stayed outside the door.

There were two men in front of me in line, directly in front of me, a very short, head-shaved guy, and in front of the very short, head-shaved guy, a normal-sized, wavy-gray-haired guy with spit-shined shoes, who I thought was probably the Bronze-Starred hero, who parked illegally, but who, at first glance, and second glance, too, obviously thought he was entitled to park where he wanted when he wanted because he was awarded a Bronze Star. Of course, I could have been wrong; and the very short, head-shaved guy was the Bronze Star recipient.

But I wasn't; and the normal-sized, wavy-gray-haired guy with spit-shined shoes got his small coffee ... tall for all those Starbucks aficionados, who might be offended by my unenlightened reference to cup size ... walked out of the building, towards the SUV with the special license plate, and his date with destiny.

I placed my coffee order; and from my vantage point at the window, I could see that the normal-sized, wavy-gray-haired guy with spit-shined shoes, who towered over the diminutive firebrand for the disabled, was not alarmed by her inquisition into his status as a member of the disabled community. He immediately swung open the SUV door and came around, brandishing a handicapped parking placard in his left hand, thrusting it in her face.

I went to the door, holding it ajar, not wanting to interfere at that point, but concerned. After all, she had a cane in her hand, which I know, from personal experience, she has used on occasion as an offensive weapon. Bronze-Starred hero or not, he carried only a handicapped parking placard in his hand.

"You don't look like you're disabled," she pointed out.

"I have a wooden leg," replied the normal-sized, wavy-gray-haired guy with spit-shined shoes and, now, a peg leg.

"Yeah, right ... you have a wooden leg," she said, her incredulity obvious.

And then, the woman in the passenger seat alighted from the SUV, apparently sensing that the normal-sized, wavy-gray-haired guy with spit-shined shoes and, now, a peg leg, was losing the battle, yelling, "I'm handicapped, I'm handicapped! Lady, what's your problem? I have a hole in my spine!"

"Wow!" Stacey exclaimed, with more than a hint of sarcasm, "He has a wooden leg, and you have a hole in your spine. What are the odds?"

Taken aback momentarily by that revelation, the woman with the hole in her spine, pointed out, "He doesn't have a wooden leg."

And Stacey replied, "Oh, really," sarcasm dripping, as she held onto the last syllable, relishing the reddening face and open-mouthed silence of the Bronze-Starred, normal-sized, wavy-gray-haired guy with spit-shined shoes and, now, without a peg leg.

And he sputtered, "I ... I ... I have an artificial part."

And Stacey guessed, "What, like a knee?"

"I have an artificial knee," he pointed out, trying to recover in this embarrassing predicament into which the woman with the hole in her spine cast him. "Want to see the scar?"

"I have two knee replacements," responded Stacey calmly, then added in, "and I have MS. If this is a competition, I win. And she didn't even get out of the car ... the one with the disability."

"Why is this any of your business anyway? Who are you? What makes you the handicap policeman of the world?" the Bronze-Starred, normal-sized, wavy-gray-haired guy with spit-shined shoes and, now, without a peg leg, but with a scar on his knee, countered, changing the subject, trying to go on the offensive in an effort to distance himself from his serious social gaffe.

Turning the tables, Stacey replied, "It certainly is my business. You, obviously, don't care about our rights. Somebody's got to do it."

"You need to get a life, lady," the Bronze-Starred, normal-sized, wavy-gray-haired guy with spit-shined shoes and, now, without a peg leg, but with a scar on his knee, pointed out in a sarcastic tone.

"You people are nuts," Stacey concluded, opening the car door and slipping into the passenger seat.

The woman with the hole in her spine said, "She's crazy. Let's go," to the Bronze-Starred, normal-sized, wavy-gray-haired guy with spit-shined shoes and, now, without a peg leg, but with a scar on his knee.

As it turned out, it was not a decisive win. And I went to get the cups of coffee from the little shelf that is too high for those in wheelchairs to comfortably get their hot drinks.

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Ronald Dotson decided that he'd better not go to trial on the breaking-and-entering charge. He entered a no contest plea to attempted breaking and entering. He hadn't yet entered the hardware store, I guess, to commit a theft offense. You see, the 5 foot, 4 inch, Dotson was apprehended back in October, 2006, about ten feet from a shattered plate glass window of Crandall Worthington Hardware shortly after the alarm sounded. The Ferndale, Michigan, police officer recognized him from a similar breaking-and-entering that occurred in July, 2000, in his city.

Over the years, I have found it hard to believe police officers when they claim, "Oh, yeah, I recognized him from a case six years ago," after they have had encounters with thousands of citizens and made hundreds and hundreds of arrests. You would think that there would be some doubt about the identification of Mr. Dotson. After all, he could have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, meandering down the street, wearing gloves, chancing upon the storefront where the window had been shattered by some young hooligans. After all, it was close to Halloween, and the Detroit area is notorious for pranksters running around and breaking windows and setting fire to cars, buildings, and people in anticipation of getting candy on Halloween.

But, as luck would have it, back in July, 2000, Mr. Dotson stole a female mannequin from a storefront; and so, the cop remembered him. After all, there was a mannequin in a French Maid outfit in the window of the hardware store, where the police officer found Mr. Dotson.

And Mr. Dotson was convicted in another suburb of Detroit in 1997, 2000, and 2004 for breaking into women's clothing stores in search of the ultimate artificial female.

And in 1993, he was in the alley behind a women's clothing store cavorting with three woman dressed in lingerie, all mannequins, seeking fulfillment.

At his hearing on Friday, he told the female judge, a real woman, "I thought I was getting my life together," which only a guy with a long criminal history could say with a straight face, especially after he was out of prison for six whole days before this last attempt to find the perfect woman.

The judge gave him 1 1/2 - to - 30 years in the slammer, hoping that he could get his life together there. And to think, he could have ordered his very own, hand-selected, Ladies Full Size Mannequin, Style No. MN-047, for $99, and had it by UPS Ground in five days.

Goin' to the Lie-barry

Let's see. Southern Methodist University seems to be willing to besmirch its name and honor and make space for W's presidential library. Fall on the sword for posterity, I guess ... the library is going to cost about a half a billion dollars. That's right, one-half billion. Nothing cheap for this president .... This library will rival the pleasure dome he's building in Iraq, of which we have not heard lately, that will house the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and all the U.S. people who live there.

The library, I understand from preliminary drawings submitted to the architects at KBR by the president, will be unique, as far as libraries are concerned. An excerpt from the drawing says ... "like the ride at Disney Whirld with the prezzes, accept there wood just be me, not all those other guys, and like the ride with that song I like about the wurld and Ronuld McDonuldBurger King should be part of it. Cuz he's a winner."

I'm trying to figure out what kind of papers are going to be in the library ... there can't be much in the way of scholarly works, except maybe greeting cards from Harriet Miers, stuff like that. So, I checked around with ... my sources ... and I was given a copy of one of the first things President-elect Bush wrote. It may be classified as top secret under some executive order. If not, it will be.

Choosing a Strategy in Iraq

"I've picked the plan that I think is most likely to succeed" -- George W. Bush, January 26, 2007, in the Oval Office with senior military advisers.

"Eeney, meeney, miney, mo. Catch a tiger by the toe. If he hollers, let him go. Eeney, meeney, miney ... No, no, no, I gotta start over. I don't want that one. Eeney, meeney, miney, mo ... my mother says to pick this one and you are going to be it ... err ... the one right here ... this one ... you are the one the A-mer-can pee-ple pick. See, Dick, that worked." -- George W. Bush, January 20, 2007, in the Oval Office, with Dick Cheney.

Passing of the King

I admit it. I went to Burger King. I wanted a vanilla milk shake, which didn't turn out as satisfying as I thought it would. Somebody fucked with the formula ... I remember the shake as being not as smooth, more icy, if I can describe it that way, than the one I had. Severe disappointment reigned.

And I also ordered chicken tenders -- I don't recall what they are called on the menu, but I know they are not called little pieces of ground, mashed, processed chicken pressed flat into the shape of crowns ... yes, fucking crowns, breaded and fried. At McDonald's, the chicken nuggets are ... well, nugget-shaped, kind of like fake cut-up pieces of chicken, dipped in some magical coating and fried up, which doesn't really fool anyone; but it's somewhat like eating real food, instead of eating fucking crowns.

The food isn't supposed to be part of this story, just a petty annoyance.

The Burger King is what I'm talkin' about here, that big-headed freak of an advertising gimmick wearing his royal robes, who will again make his Super Bowl appearance on commercials galore, and who is the subject of video games. Come on, people. This is fucking ridiculous. Video games ... I see a movie -- yeah, a movie, if Ernest can be the subject of a bunch of movies, so can the big-headed, smiling freak.

Burger King used to mean something ... the food was supposed to be better than McDonald's, kind of like real food ... yeah, we knew it really wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but tell me what ever is. But the burgers were fire-grilled, right before your eyes, with real ingredients, Heinz Ketchup, a real brand, instead of that McDonald's stuff they tried to pass off as ketchup, when we knew it wasn't even catsup, instead of already-wrapped-up burgers that were sitting in a bin under a heat lamp that were cooked on a grill out back somewhere out of sight.

And McDonald's had that damn stupid Ronald McDonald, who, when visiting the local "restaurant," would get in your face, invading your space, and the Hamburglar and that purple thing, whatever that was ... or maybe it wasn't purple and I'm thinking of some TV show ... I don't remember; but you know what I mean. At McDonald's, I felt assaulted. McDonald's was for kids, parents standing around, smoking in the parking lot.

Burger King, on the other hand, was for the connoisseur of fine fast foods, for the discriminating, adult palate. This was no place for children.

Yesterday, I walked into Burger King. And I was immediately confronted by a big-ass Burger King smiling head right there in front of me on a display that advertised Burger King bobble-heads. Collect all 8! NFL Burger King bobble-heads. I am all for David Letterman throwing them off the roof ... all 8 of them. Flash forward to the year 2065 ... and at Christie's, Lot Number 666, 8 Burger King bobble-heads for your consideration, in pieces, -- and with it, a box of little pieces of ground, mashed, processed chicken pressed flat into the shape of crowns ... yes, fucking crowns, breaded and fried, as fresh as the day they were made.

Oh, by the way, the chicken crowns ... don't eat them.

West 9th Street News

The sign hung over the door, one side facing north and one side south, was small, blue neon script announcing "West 9th Street News." The scantily-dressed mannequin and womannequin in the window clued in the passer-by about what might be found through the painted-gray door, Marlboro sign in the window and a small black metal sign with white lettering screwed to the left of the door handle just below the window telling the passer-by, "MUST BE 18 OR OLDER TO ENTER."

The store is open 24 hours; so, people can get "cigarettes" any time of the day or night. Three people work there, one on each eight-hour shift, the corpulent, white guy standing in the doorway with a cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth, the oversized, black guy standing in the doorway with a cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth, and the rotund, white woman standing in the doorway with a cigarette hanging out of the side of her mouth.

In the early morning, the men and women smoking outside the employment agency next door, waiting to be called to work that day, will be engaged by whichever West 9th Street News employee might be standing in the doorway, the omnipresent cigarette bouncing up and down as he or she converses.

The West 9th Street News is no more. Understand me, the store is still there. In the window, he wears a pair of white silk boxers with red hearts, bulge in place; and she wears a red, filmy chiffon top tied at the neck with red poms, a small white heart on a triangle of red silk strategically placed below the waist.

And the sign on the gray door tries to bar those under the age of 18 from entering still. The neon inside, allowing for easy navigation by those who venture through the door and advertising the store's hard wares, DVD's, and other items that might arouse the interest of those who pass by, still brightens the interior. And the employees haven't changed, except that she wears a dark-colored sweater, torn at the left elbow, in the frigid air.

This past Friday, arching over the storefront, thrust out from the building over the sidewalk, not discreet, an atrocity, purple and orange, was erected, as if we really need to be told, but in stylish lower case:

Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate

There are signs I've seen while wandering around the neighborhood.

This is what happens if you do not take the separate entrance for pedestrians. The entrance must be secret because I haven't seen a separate entrance for pedestrians. Of course, this lot is near one of the upscale condo buildings ... they might beam over to the lobby.

This one is across the street on the gate of a parking lot. The gate doesn't move up and down, like the one in the driveway to the underground garage in our building. I've been trying to figure out how a person could get a hand stuck under the gate.

And I have given wide berth to the little building down by the river, upon which this sign is mounted. I never realized how angry electricity can be.

Alien Invasion

We were in Kalispell, Montana, back in October, which was memorable for a number of reasons ... the espresso drive-thrus on like every other corner, the casinos at each gas station and check-cashing place at like every intersection, the gun shops next to the pawn shops in like the middle of each block, the beautiful Aspen trees along the Going-to-the-Fucking-Sun Road.

Our last day at the cattle ranch, we were out here in the fields ... and Stacey found a small plant ... a small, fuzzy, fern-like little plant. I agreed with her. I had never seen anything like it before, either. Interesting ... alien-looking, if you ask me.

Well, something very disturbing has happened. I must have had like spores or whatever on my shoes and brought these alien plants with me because they are like growing everywhere I walk the dogs. And I don't mean there's like a plant here and a plant there. I'm talking vast un-ending fields, unfettered in a new environment by the predators, weather, threats of being taken for a ride to the sun, or whatever limits their growth in Montana.

I am guilty of violating the prime directive ... guilty of unleashing an alien invasion.

Fuelman ... We Knew Him Well

Several years ago, I thought it would be cool to get the boys Fuelman signs for Christmas. Yeah, I'm a weird-o. Y'know, we'd be driving; and they'd say something like, "Look at that Fuelman sign, fucking cool." Yeah, they're weird, just like me ... what can I say. The good genes come from their mother; the torn jeans come from me.

So, I started making phone calls. Okay, yeah, I could have stolen a couple of the signs; but usually, they are up high and affixed to a pole by screws or the fixture that comes with the signs to hang them. Carrying a ladder to a gas station and messing with Fuelman signs could get one shot or arrested. Like I say, I made some calls, asking people along the way if I could buy two signs. No, I wasn't a distributor. No, I wasn't a station owner.

I finally got some kind of regional big-wig, who started laughing at my request. I explained that my two sons loved the signs. It would make a good gift. I could hang it up. He thought it was a great gift for my two small boys. Yeah, yeah, I told him ... yeah, they really think the signs are cool.

He's the one who mentioned that they were young. I simply didn't deny it. I didn't tell him that one was 21 and one was 17. Why destroy his illusion of two young boys playing with their toy trucks under the watchful eye of Fuelman, ever ready to re-fuel their vehicles?

The regional manager delivered two signs to the house, one red and one yellow. He thought that it would be neat if they each had their own. And he told me to forget about the charges for the signs ... he was happy to do this for the kids. Okay, maybe I should have said something about how old the kids were, how tall the kids were ... maybe ... but I didn't. I am filled with remorse. I am seeing a therapist.

I find it extremely difficult to put into words my utter disappointment, my disgust, as I drove down Detroit Avenue this afternoon. Someone needs to stand up for tradition.

Someone needs to stand up for what is fucking cool.

The new Fuelman sign sucks. Give me a fucking break, people! It's a stupid goddamn gas pump, not THE FUELMAN.

Who thought up this abomination? Where has imagination gone? Is change always a good thing? How much money was spent on the new design and the new signs? It's a tragic sign of the times.

I am saddened by the passing of an icon. As for the Fuelman. That was the last we ever saw of him. He lives now ... only in our memories.

Fuel -- Man. Oh, how hard is that to understand, ad man?

Eat the Wiener

I took this recitation of the facts directly from a motion to suppress evidence I filed a few months ago:

The defendant was operating a motor vehicle on Abbe Road with a passenger seated in the right front seat. The defendant had been at the Speedway gas station on State Route 254, where he purchased two cooked hot dogs and buns and a 40-ounce bottle of beer, which he intended to take to his residence and consume.

In his report, the trooper noted nothing unusual about the manner in which the defendant operated the vehicle. The trooper asked the defendant how much in the way of alcoholic beverages he had imbibed, to which the defendant had replied that he had a couple at home earlier and three beers at Rockers Pub.

Here's justice: The highway patrol trooper arrested the driver, believing him besotted. As for the sated passenger, he walked home a free man. And he took the bag with the two hot dogs and 40-ounce Miller purchased by the defendant.

Colts - Ravens Football Game

I took an interest in the Indianapolis Colts - Baltimore Ravens match-up in the National Football League sub-conference championship game or whatever the NFL lexical determinator calls it [You see, there's this person, identity unknown, who makes up the names of all things football-related. In the off-season, that same person is hired as a consultant by Major League Baseball; hence, we have names for the various playoff series and all the steroids the players never use. I digressed, and I apologize.].

Shortly after the first computer hard drive was made and way back before the Super Bowl when Roman numerals were used only by motion picture studios, in 1958 (MCMLVIII), the Baltimore Colts played the New York Giants in the NFL championship game, when the game was actually played in the year the season started, and beat the Giants in an overtime game that was televised nationally by NBC, the first football championship game to be televised across the United States. It is the football game that most assert was the seminal game in the NFL's rise to spectator sports supremacy in this country and the death of any chance soccer may have had to succeed as a major sport.

On the first day of Spring in 1961, before Roger Maris began his pursuit of the single-season home run record in the only sport that mattered, a 36-year-old advertising executive from New York City named Art Modell bought controlling interest of the Cleveland Browns, putting up very little of his own money. Modell made his mark by becoming the chairman of the NFL's Television Committee and, for three decades, shaped the television-viewing habits of football and non-football fans, while filling the team owners' vaults with gold from the ever-increasing revenue packages (including Monday Night Football, which opened with the Browns against the Jets from old Municipal Stadium in Cleveland) he would sell to the television networks.

The Baltimore Colts, along with the Wellington Mara's New York Football Giants, ushered the NFL into the living rooms of the American television-viewing public; and the Cleveland Browns, which broke the stalemate in merger negotiations with the American Football League and agreed to move to the AFL, and its young owner Art Modell were integral cogs in turning the television into a money-dispensing machine for the NFL.

In 1964, the Baltimore Colts dominated its opposition during the season and met the Cleveland Browns in the NFL championship game on a date indelibly etched in the mind of every Browns' fan -- December 27, 1964. The underdog Browns decimated the highly favored, Johnny Unitas - led Colts 27 -- 0 to win the last major sports league championship for the City of Cleveland.

The Baltimore Colts moved during the early morning hours on March 29, 1984, as a snowstorm hit Baltimore, to Indianapolis. Browns' owner Art Modell criticized the Colts' owner, Robert Irsay, for his greed and blatant disregard for the fans and the rich history of professional football in the City of Baltimore. Modell changed his mind ten years later about moving teams around the U.S. and took the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore after his own financial mismanagement of the Browns drove him to search for his pot of gold and abandon the City's rabid fans; and he was forced by those same fans to relinquish the proud heritage of the Cleveland football franchise to the fans and start anew with the Baltimore Ravens, stealing the Ravens' logo from a security guard in the process, some would say in typical Modell fashion.

The Colts, the Ravens, and the Browns are woven together in NFL history, and there was no fucking way I was rooting for the Baltimore Ravens yesterday.

Gout Pots and Pet Pee Pee

This morning, I headed out west to court and drove up the ramp to the highway behind this bus.

You figure it out.

On my way back, I stopped to get dried figs at the grocery store. The guy ahead of me in the check-out line was having a problem with the concept that the bank card reader was designed to read the magnetic strip on the back of his card. He could not figure out how to slip it through the groove. Finally, the cashier helped him out, but his difficulty gave me a chance to look at the cash register screen to check out some of the stuff he bought.

My attention was immediately drawn to the $2.99 he paid for each "GOUT POT."

What's a "Gout Pot?"

I entered it into the little Google box with quotation marks around it and came up with a reference in comments about Nakhla jasmine tobacco.

Then I came up with a French website, which may be closer to a solution because the guy was buying the "Gout Pot" in a grocery store ... food ... French cuisine ... hmmm.

But then there's another French website. I am not fluent in French, but I don't think this site has anything to do with food. It could be the "Gout Pot" is not a food item.

Any ideas?

More Troops, More Dead

The President of these United States of America has already started sending more living targets over to Iraq. There is no way to stop his troop build-up. The troops will be in Iraq, then Bush will ask for the money to pay them and buy them stuff; and at that point, who is going to stand up and tell him, "No more."

Bush the Lesser had the unmitigated gall to tell the American people, many of whom still believe that Iraq and Osama bin Laden were in cahoots, "On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq."

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Is there any more proof required that George W. Bush is, optimistically, a liar and, realistically, delusional?

Bush the Lesser also wants a billion dollars or so to re-build Iraq, along with the blood of more brave American soldiers. Get it from Halliburton, which cannot justify almost $1.5 BILLION the U.S. government paid during the Iraq occupation.

Let's see if the Congress has the guts to stand up to George the Lesser and cut the funding for his mission in the Mid-East (because there is no doubt that, according to the "domino theory," he will move into Iran and Syria), just as Congress cut funding for the tragic bloodbath in Vietnam when the original delusional president, Richard Nixon, was running the show.

Insanity in Sports -- Chapter 1

It's a well known fact that all major sports franchise owners are totally insane. I do not include Major League Soccer and Major Indoor Soccer League teams in the category of major sports franchises. Because "major" is in the name of the league doesn't mean it is "major;" and when the soccer people in the United States finally figure out that they have to rename the game "football," just like the rest of the entire world, then it might begin to qualify as a major sport.

Getting back to the insanity of sports, here's a small example of what I mean. There is a baseball player. Now, you might be thinking that I'm going to rant about the Chicago Cubs signing Alphonso Soriano to an eight-year, $136 million contract or whine about the San Francisco Giants inking pitcher Barry Zito to a seven-year, $126 million deal; but I'll let others comment on those obscenities.

I never heard of the player I'm writing about here. He's 34 years old, which is "old" by Major League Baseball standards. He's a catcher, who has been in the "bigs" for six years, meaning he spent a significant amount of time knocking around the minor leagues, some say, in an optimistic tone, honing his craft, whereas others say, hanging on. He's on the down side of a .241 lifetime average. By being on the down side, I mean that he's a part-time player, making it into 49 games last season in a 162-game season; and his batting average has plummeted in the last three years to a less-than-mediocre .219 in 2006. Many aficionados will counter that his forte is defense, with which I will not quibble; but his major league career over that six years encompasses a total of 261 games, not enough time to make many mistakes, in my book.

Adam Melhuse signed a one-year contract with the Oakland A's for the 2007 season for a base salary of $815,000. Insanity reigns.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER NAP.

it was exhausting dechristmasing the loft.

dog #3 won't stay where she is when i pick up the camera.

You've Got Mail

Back on December 20, our president, exercising some kind of unitary executive authority, about which there is nary a word in the Constitution of the United States of America, decided, in his Decider-mode, that he could open United States Mail any time he gets the feeling that there's something bad in the envelope or package. There was a law passed by his Congress, before some left for Christmas break and some for the unemployment office, which says that a warrant is required to open mail. Bush, in one of his signing statements ... this one saying he's not bound by the law ... said he could do it in an emergency.

So, he says he can open the mail with no warrant. He says he can listen in on phone conversations with no warrant. He says he can hold non-citizens forever without any due process of law. He says he can torture people ... or use persuasive non-lethal methods, which, in my book, would include shooting someone in the leg, holding a gun to their head, beating the crap out of them, and stuff like that until the people tell you what you want them to say.

As an aside here, I've finally figured out where the president gets his legal authority for all this stuff he believes he can do. 24. He watches 24 and figures that whatever Jack Bauer can do, he can do. You wait and see. Something will happen in the upcoming season premiere ... Jack Bauer will have to do something unbelievable -- like cut down all the trees west of the Mississippi to find a witness who saw the Ukranian brother-in-law of a Muslim guy who bought toilet tissue made of recycled paper make a bank deposit in an even-numbered amount -- and then Bush will say in a signing statement he can do that. And I'll let you in on a secret ... the first sounds of Jack Bauer's names are the same as that of our president. He believes that his almighty god worked that one out with the producers and writers of 24 and that it is no coincidence.

I have a plan on the mail thing. Let's all make it easy on W. Send him a copy of every letter you send by U.S. Mail. At the bottom, make sure you put "cc: George W. Bush." Your co-workers will really be impressed. Tell them that you know George wants to know what they are doing at work. That will impress them, also. Or they'll think you're a lunatic. The U.S. Postal Service delivers 212 billion pieces of mail a year ... even if 1/100th of 1% of that mail is copied to the White House, that's almost 100,000 pieces of mail a day going to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20500. And while you're at it, copy Dick Cheney with all your e-mail or take a moment and drop him an e-mail right now. He's been pretty quiet of late.

Engrave Her

I got an electric engraver from one of the close-out stores. It was like what ... two-ninety-nine or something like that. Cheap. Why do I need like a fancy engraver that they have at ... say ... Things Remembered or a place like that, if that's still in business. Whatever. I got this electric engraver a few weeks ago; so, ... notice the semi-colon ... I took it out of the indestructable, space-age polymer blister-pack -- I started doing that at about noon ... that was yesterday ... and I finally got the cobalt blue engraver out of the package this morning.

I've never had an electric engraver before, and you've heard stories about men who have literally gone like utterly insane and engraved nearly everything in sight around the house. I mean, I represented a guy who once tried to engrave his dog ... well, the dog's collar, while it was on the dog. Then the dog went berserk. And the guy tried to hold the dog down, then the dog like just reached back and bit the guy in arm or somewhere; so, the guy kind of like tried to engrave the dog's head with his electric engraver, and the wife was all mad at him; so, he said, "If you don't shut up, bitch, I'll engrave you." Well, the police thought that was some kind of death threat ... that he would kill her and bury her and all, "Your Honor, engrave, he wanted to engrave her."

Then it escalated to holding the wife hostage with his arm around her neck and the engraver right there at her temple, like he was going to engrave her skull or something; the engraver was electric, and not battery-operated, and there came a time when the plug came out of the wall socket ... and well, that was all she wrote for the guy. The police jumped on him and took him into like serious, unholy custody, ya know, just like L.A.-style, only this guy was white ... so CNN didn't show up with like its whole array of cameras and slo-mo equipment with special graphic capabilities to make the captions that tell us so much about what everybody is thinking and seeing and not seeing. No, nothing like that ever happened -- he just got arrested.

They said like he totally tried to kill her with a deadly weapon, but it was only a fucking electric engraver; so, it all got worked out as like a simple assault. And the dog, he was okay. I'll tell you this, though, about that -- back in the judge's office, "chambers," if you will, where the lawyers meet with the judge like totally out of sight and like totally out of hearing of the people in the court room, and, particularly, the guy ... the client ... the accused, who doesn't really especially need to hear everyone totally laughing their asses off back there.

Well, ... what, you're shocked? What did you expect to be happening? Like you were expecting everyone to be all solemn and shit and official-like, saying in hushed tones, things like -- "He held his wife at engraver-point, your Honor."

It's not like that at all ... it's like, "Whoa, what kind of loon is this guy?" and the judge says something like, "That's what happens when a guy gets an electric engraver ... the wife should have known that would happen," all the time guffawing, eyes watering, unable to catch his breath. The judge damn near had a heart attack right there. So, right away, when you're representing a guy like that, you like play into that game ... you totally give them the laugh; then you kind of like work out the deal, even though the guy has some serious problems and you try to get him some help for his anger ... anger management courses and the like ... and, oh yeah, you agree to forfeit the engraver to the police. The police like shit like that ... getting forfeited property, like Corvettes and SUV's and engravers, of course. You know, they have guns to engrave ... and handcuffs ... and prisoners.

Anyway, I got the engraver out this morning to engrave a name and year on a Christmas tree ornament. The directions are on the little cardboard insert; and believe me, I don't ordinarily look at instructions for power tools, but the second bullet point -- I did a double take, actually -- it reads: With the pollex, push down on the switch.

Pollex ... who the fuck wrote these instructions? Is there some kind of part called a pollex attached to this thing? There's no schematic with the fucking tool ... it cost only like two-ninety-nine; so what could I expect?

There's a button ... must be the "switch" they're talking about ... and there's a raised dial thingy ... probably to adjust the cut. And the little rubber cover of the tip. I take that off ... and where's the pollex? I mean, there's not much more on this thing -- at least, there's nothing that looks like a "pollex," whatever the fuck that is, to push down the switch. Totally fucking stupid instructions, if you ask me.

Husband: What the fuck is a pollex? It says, "With the pollex, push down the switch." What's a fucking pollex?

Wife: Your thumb.

Husband: Why the fuck don't they just say "thumb" then?

Wife: For times like this.

What the fuck.