My Demands

Sometimes it's hard to write what's really on your mind in a blog. Especially when you know so many people & their business that there's very little you can relay as an anecdote without a couple of your acquaintances getting together to decode it. The only thing you're left with are the thoughts you have that are not connected to anyone. And the reverse Rorschach representation of my thoughts would simply be of a sleeping mule. Not much going on in there.

Of course I have the usual thoughts that just about everyone else has from day to day. Every morning in the shower I think really, really hard on ways I could work it out so I could just towel off & go back to bed without someone showing up at my door saying, "No. No. No. No. No. No. Forget it. I figured you'd try this today. You're coming with me."

Or sometimes in my head I subtract from my current age the age that my father was at certain milestones in his life; such as getting married, having children, joining MENSA, TKO'ing Emile Griffith in the 7th round. Do that a few times a week & you go straight to the top of the waiting list for a donor ego. You'll be checking the radio on the fives of the hour to see if Rush Limbaugh or James Woods has been in a car crash.

And I used to think way too much about why french fries don't taste like they did as a kid. And don't give me that bilge about them using different cooking oil either. They stopped tasting right a long time ago - before everyone got on these short-attention-span health kicks. I think that if fries tasted like they used to, I'd be as big as... well... a little bigger than I am now.

It has to be that things taste different as we age. For instance, I don't like sweets very much. But I remember loving sugar as a youngster. Actually my change in taste probably happened right about the time my mother warned me to stop putting so much syrup on my pancakes. She said that if I didn't stop I'd have to sit at the table until I finished every left-over drop, sans pancakes. Well obviously Special-Ed here doesn't listen, just like the fat kid with his butt sticking out of the chocolate river in Willy Wonka.

When I had finished the pancakes, on my plate there was a lake of syrup deep enough to float a bath tub on. And my mother never went back on her word. Even if she wanted to, she never let us see her sweat. Here I am trying to spoon up globs of Log Cabin & somehow get my mouth open for yet another dizzying rush of sugar & nausea. I begged & pleaded but nothing doing. I must have sat there for a half hour. I'd have rather chugged a pint of brine than get that sticky mess anywhere near me after that.

My mother hates when I tell that story. It makes her cry. But at least it keeps me away from the cinnamon rolls today. However, that approach didn't have the same effect on my brother when he experimented with smoking. He now smokes like Mel Gibson.

Wait a tic, here I am trying to stay away from the tell-tale, breach of trust stories I have on all of you & I start down this dark road of revealing how I was abused as a child. How I was made to work for 15 hours a day in the tobacco fields near Greensboro. How at 8 years old I was forced to drag my father around to pubs & cult meetings in a rickshaw. None of that happened. I had the cushiest childhoood & am always surprised to be reminded of it when I hear other peoples' stories about their families. Some of you people are weeiirrd.

So be nice to me. You see how easy it is for me to start rambling? One day I might get to something on you. I could tell that one about the wedding in Mexico City, Laura. Or the story about the encounter with the great looking "woman" in the men's room at The Chute, Barry. So, as for my demands; I will require a slice of pizza...