The Dentist Will See You Now

You know the dream. You’re strapped into the dentist chair. A small gathering of people are on hand to watch your final moments, their eyes brimming with contempt. You scan the room for the sympathetic face of a friend or loved one, but find only icy stares and the sterile implements of the agony to come.  “I want my mommy,” you murmur. But mommy didn’t get you into this mess, and mommy wants to remember you as you were in better days. So save your tears, big boy.

A last phone call pleading for clemency goes unanswered. As the clock strikes twelve a signal is given by someone in a ghastly teal jumpsuit. Before you can speak, you’re injected with something that makes you feel numb and anxious at the same time. Room spinning, feeling woozy you think, flattering yourself with a puffed-up comparison to Superman fighting off the effects of a close encounter with kryptonite.

Leaving Tijuana

I’m not exactly sure how we wound up in Tijuana a second time. Maybe I was drowsy after a big lunch and grunted agreeably when someone said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be fun to go to a heartbreakingly depressing slum that sells cheesy souvenirs to tourists?” Or, maybe I wasn’t even in the room when the nonsensical decision was made.  Maybe it was just assumed –- me being the fun-loving guy that I am -- that I would gleefully jump at the chance to wallow in squalor and sleaze again south of the border.

The adventure began, innocently enough, with a trip to San Diego to attend a 50^th wedding anniversary bash for my wife’s Uncle Joe and Aunt Aggie. It doesn’t take long to notice that life is good in San Diego. It’s a sun-splashed coastal city with pristine beaches, charming adobe buildings with red tile roofs, historic Spanish missions, and highway signs that clearly tell you how close you’re getting to the border of Mexico.

Tonight On PBS

To anyone who says “there’s nothing worth watching on TV anymore,” I politely but firmly put my hand on their shoulder, look them compassionately in the eye and ask, “Are you getting enough fiber in your diet?”

The question throws them at first (just as I intended), but the cryptic nature of my query also gets them thinking. They wonder who I am. They wonder why I’ve violated their personal space by putting my hand on their shoulder. Perhaps most pressing of all, they wonder whether or not I’m armed.

Sensing their discomfort, I tell them “Yes, I am armed . . . armed with good news about the current state of viewer supported public television.” Now, before you get the wrong idea, I’m not one of those TV snobs who claim to only watch the news and public broadcasting. The truth is, before I downgraded my TV service to basic cable a couple of years ago, my curiosity about “what else is on” was usually limited to random searches for basketball games, Seinfeld reruns, and intellectually stimulating biographical profiles like the E True Hollywood Story entitled “Yasmin Bleeth: The Curse of the Baywatch Bombshells.”

Let There Be Lights

When my wife asked me last week to hang Christmas lights on the house, I became dizzy with anticipation. Not Christmas spirit dizzy. More like impending disaster dizzy.

The problem wasn’t a lack of experience with hanging holiday lights, mind you. Through the years, I’ve successfully hung lights on a wide variety of items living and dead, including: Christmas trees, shrubs and hedges, a fake ficus tree, shelving and furniture, and an un-hung screen door that served as a surrogate tree the year my wife and I started dating.

What was so intimidating about this particular holiday project was that I’d never hung lights on the outside of a house before. Along with the risks and challenges of a guy with a fragile sense of balance standing high atop a low-budget ladder, there’s the issue of how to attach the lights to the house in a fashion that will keep them hanging after you let go. Which, when you think about it, is really the most important part of light hanging.

Clean Freaks

Domestically speaking, I’m a tidy guy. I make the bed.
I hang up clothes. I take out the garbage. I put newspapers in the newspaper rack and books on the bookshelf. I even use an aesthetically pleasing pyramid approach to stacking up mail, with magazines and catalogs on the bottom, postcards and other direct mail pieces in the middle and bills and letters on top. Hey, there’s a right way and there’s a wrong way.

Based on my proclivity for putting things in their place, you might assume that my house would be a pristine environment where visitors take their shoes off at the door and receive a list of do’s and don’ts to follow while inside.  Not exactly. If you want to dig up some dirt on me, here’s my dark secret in a silver dust bin: my tidy streak comes to a screeching halt when it’s time to actually clean anything.

To Soup With Love

I’m very fond of soup. So fond, in fact, that I sometimes invent new soup to get me through those times when traditional options are unavailable. The other night I answered the call of necessary invention with a good old-fashioned empty-out-the-fridge soup de jour.

I heated up some broth in a big pot on the stove and threw in a happy anarchy of ingredients. Tiger shrimp. Sauerkraut. Bow-tie pasta. Artichoke hearts. I named it “Lizzie’s Leftover Lullaby,” not in honor of anyone I know named Lizzie, but because I liked the way “Lizzie” sounded with “Leftover Lullaby.” LLL, as I now lovingly refer to it, turned out to be a deeply rewarding culinary experience that was good to the last slurp.

I Brake For Gators

People say that swimming in a lake where there's alligators is dangerous. But I say driving a car is much more dangerous.

Especially if there's an alligator in the backseat.

Beat Writer's Block Now!

Hey, get a load of me – I’m writing again! Just seconds ago I wrote the feisty, fear-nothing heading “Beat Writer’s Block Now!”

Riding a wave of fresh momentum, I followed that heading up with the rousing opening sentence “Hey, get a load of me – I’m writing again!” Some bloggers and Tweeters pounced on the line, calling it “self indulgent,” “childish,” and “a desperate cry for attention.” Let them snipe all they want. I wrote it, I’m glad I wrote it, and by writing it, I’ve sent this message to the vile nemesis of writer’s everywhere: “Writer’s Block is a Big Fat Crock!”

Wow. Okay. I have to admit something. A few minutes went by after I wrote “Writer’s Block is a Big Fat Crock!” and before I wrote the words you’re reading now. Okay, 20 minutes. That’s the problem with writer’s block: It can sneak up on you. In fact, it can strike even after you’ve written something as rhythmic and triumphant as “Writer’s Block is a Big Fat Crock!” It can strike especially after you’ve written something as rhythmic and triumphant as “Writer’s Block is a Big Fat Crock!”   

Ode to Grilled Cheese

No need to reinvent the wheel,

grilled cheese is the perfect meal.
Take some bread and toast it lightly,
Soon you’ll want to do it nightly.

What’s for dinner? I’m begging, please:

Grilled cheese! Grilled cheese! Grilled cheese!

Making it is no big deal,

eating it makes grown men squeal.
Melt a brick of swiss or cheddar,
soon you’ll feel a whole lot better.

Shout it from the tallest trees:

Grilled Cheese! Grilled Cheese! Grilled Cheese!

Add tomato for some zing,

batta-boom, batta-bing,
A glass of milk, some chicken noodle,
it’s like it was when you were little.

Gush the words out like a sneeze:

Grilled CHEEESE!! Grilled CHEEESE!! Grilled CHEEESE!!

The Crouching Speed Bump: A Short Play

The scene is a small claims court where motorist Alan Williamson is bringing legal action against a local speed bump.

JUDGE: Please state your name and complaint before this court.

AW: My name is Alan Williamson and I’m seeking damages for pain and suffering against the speed bump that attacked me and my Ford Mustang on the morning of January 21.

JUDGE: Is the accused speed bump present in this courtroom?

AW: Oh yeah, he’s standing over there in full view, unlike the morning he was playing crouching tiger, hidden dragon in the middle of the road.

JUDGE: Broward County speed bump # 237853-G, please identify yourself.

SPEED BUMP: I’m here your honor, which means the street I’m assigned to protect is currently at the mercy of reckless, whiny, self-absorbed motorists like Mr. Williamson.

AW: Your honor, I object to the name calling. I could have called him “Bump-a-Lula Boy” but I held back.

JUDGE: Objection sustained. I’ll do the name calling in this court room. Okay Whiny Why Me, describe what happened on the day in question.