Growing Pains

"Can I let the dog in?"

Today is Bree’s birthday, and she is ensuring that the whole family does not forget.  Thirteen years old. An unlucky number for even the most loving parent or older brother.  For marking the threshold into the teenage years, my baby sister, the youngest of my siblings has emerged into the second-most-difficult epoch of her life since she began teething.

She welcomed this Dark Age by chatting with her friends for an hour . . . each.  Afterwards she scanned through several photos on Facebook, confirmed the release date for The Disney Channel’s Princess Protection, and played a round of Tetris. Then she found me on the couch, commencing a thirty minute tirade on how yesterday I had only managed to take her to the scrapbook store, and not managed to rent any movies.

“You promised,” she pouts even as I type.

“I said we would try to do both.”

“You lied.  Promise breaker.  I really wanted to go to the tape store,” she says, transcending the pout into a whine.  I continue to work, which only seems to infuriate her more.  She flops down on the couch.

“What are you watching?” she asks, clearly disgusted by the black and white screen.

“Ten Angry Men.  Watch it.  It’s quite good.”

“Hmph, I could be watching Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, if someone had gone to the tape store yesterday.”

“I drove you to the scrapbook store,” I remind her – teenage girls can be quite forgetful.  “We spent nearly one hundred dollars on cardstock and stickers.”

“But I really wanted to rent movies.  The scrapbook stuff – I told you – was only if we had time!”

“And I told you that we should leave after about fifteen minutes.  You told me that you wanted to look around some more.  You wanted to find something . . . what was it?  Ah yes, something cute and fashionable.  You settled on that prom dress sticker.”

“You said ‘should’ not ‘must.’  I would have left if you said ‘must,’” she argued opening the sliding doors.  “Can I let the dog in?”

“No.”

“Pleeeease . . . she’s such a good girl, Murph.”

“I’m allergic.  No.”

“She’s my puppy.”

“It’s not your house.”

“It’s not yours either.”

“No, but the proprietors have left, putting me in charge.  Thus, my word outranks yours.  No dog.”

“Promise breaker,” she pouts again walking off towards the table, stuffing chocolate kisses into her pockets.

Being the older brother in a large family often plays out like a referee in any major sport. It is your job to maintain peace and order often by reinforcing rules that you hold little credit in creating.  Thus at any one time, you are simultaneously loved and hated by any number of groups in the house.

“Why can’t I go out?”

“Mom said ‘No.’”

“Pleeease . . . if I’m home in an hour no one will know.”

“Well, mayb . . . no.  Absolutely not.”

“Murph, you’re a real killjoy, you know?”

“Can I cut the grass now?”

“Dad said not while he wasn’t here.”

“Come on!”

“Sorry, bud, I . . .”

“Murph, you suck!”

“Dad, wants you to clean your room, Kev.”

“After this movie . . .”

“Now, man, if it’s not done, I get in trouble too.”

“One more second.”

“NOW!”

“Sheesh, who put the stick up your butt?”

As such you feel more like a Grinch than probably any other member of the family.

With the two youngest I took particularly care.  It is often common knowledge that as families increase in size the rules and strictures that govern the older siblings tatter and fade among the younger brood.  Nap time, a 2PM tradition that often pulled me away from Tom and Jerry cartoons, thus giving Mom a one to two hour rest, gradually was ignored with Kevin and Brigid.  The age at which the younger siblings could organize sleepovers likewise dropped from fourth grade to second grade.  The words ‘Dumb’ and ‘Stupid’ – horrid curse words in our time – became more acknowledged as well in the daily vernacular, though never allowed in reference to each other.  ‘Fart’ still to this day earns fifteen minutes with a bar of soap.

Thus, as the family grew, the older siblings took greater responsibilities in watching and caring for the youngest.  I burped, changed diapers, babysat, and rocked Brigid and Kevin to sleep.  We watched them as they took their first steps, said their first word, and sat on the toilet sucking on a bar of Irish Spring for the first time.  In a way, we took an active role in raising my siblings.  Thus it pained me to see my little sister slowly grow into a teenager . . . and a total pain in the my neck.

Where in the world did I go wrong?

“Can I get a new camera?” Bree pleads the next day.  My little sister has already shuffled my iPod a dozen times, switching alternatively between Carolina Liar’s “I’m Not Over” and Lady GaGa’s “Poker Face.”  I try suggesting another song, but almost crash into an old lady, who cuts me off and honks.

“Why did she honk at me?” I mutter, somewhat flustered.  “Girl, if you ever become a woman-driver, I’ll disown you.”  She fiddles with the iPod again, ‘Just Dance’ erupts for the tenth time.

“I might consider it if you buy me a camera,” she repeats as I pull the Explorer into the video store.

“You know, I’m not exactly . . . employed at the moment.” I stress this point, hoping that she’ll link my financial freedom with a nine-to-five workweek.  “Didn’t Santa get you a camera for Christmas?”

Together we walk into Hollywood Video, practically sneaking past the manager, who during our last several visits has propositioned me to join their Netflix-ish rental club, a surprisingly complicated point system that eliminates late fees and replaces them with lengthy calculations.  Frankly, I’m content with old system: pick up DVDs, check out, and return them on time . . . or not.  After all despite the fees, if we never had to return anything on time, the kids and I would never return anything; more and more DVDs and games would disappear in the accumulated flotsam that we have circulating around here.  My face is already plastered in several of the surrounding libraries for extraneous fines, and I cannot afford to change my name and address again for a misplaced copy of Steve Zahn’s Strange Wilderness.

Absently I peer through the DVD covers, mildly curious about the promotions for the latest monster/sex romp movie: Jason and Freddie meet the Saw, Sobriety Sophomores and the Jello Factory, Iron Maidens in Cancun: A Documentary.  When I was five, a cursory search through the local video plaza’s latest horror flicks drove me indoors for weeks, afraid to find a fifty-foot nuclear lizard outside my window.  Suddenly I reconsidered bringing Brigid here.  Luckily enough her attention was still fully focused on digital cameras.

“Look they’re not that expensive.  Eighty bucks or so . . . hey can we get this too?  Mom says its okay as long as someone watches it with me.” She thrusts a pink DVD into my face, nearly squashing my nose.

“Bride Wars?” I shudder at Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway towering over the New York skyline in matching Bridezilla attire.  “I suppose that ‘someone’ is me.”  Bree giggles.

“Alright give it here.”

“Good, now all I need is a camera . . . oh and Hotel for Dogs. Here you go . . . and I will be happy.”  I add the DVD to the growing stack in my hand.

“What happened to your old camera?” I ask.

“It . . . um dropped a little.”

“If I recall, the lens no longer retracts.  At all.  The power light flickers, beeps, and dies.  Some problem with the ball bearings due to intense collision.  Cheaper to buy a new one than repair.  Something like that.”

“I didn’t break it though,” Bree protests at my widening frown.  “My friends had it and we were at the pool and Ashley wasn’t giving it to Kelsey and . . .”

“Crash.  Snap.  Oops . . .”

“Yeah,” my little sister smiles, an adorable extremely guilty grin playing on her face.  “But I learned my lesson and now I need a new one.”

“No, no way.”

“Ok, look you owe me, Promise Breaker!”— This is apparently my new name – “All I wanted was some movies, which you promised me.  And now we couldn’t go until two days later.  Two days!”

“We’re at the video store now!  How can you still hold that over me?”

“Because you broke your promise,” she reaffirms with a huff.  “Besides I didn’t get a birthday dinner, so you owe me.”  And with that she folds her arms and walks away, refusing to talk to me for the next hour or so, which lasts for about five minutes after I buy her an vitamin water, red-flavored.

I flick her ears a bit, until finally she breaks a smile, and we drive home, singing annoying songs to no one in particular.

Word Families

Every family possesses a language all its own, independent of its own nation, region, or race. Here in the U.S. despite the fact that we all (supposedly) speak the same tongue, we rarely understand one another. As Mark Twain reminds us during one of his visits to France: In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language. Perhaps French families teach their children a different form of the language then our American textbooks teach us.

Our family is no different; in a house of eight kids (give or take several) and two frazzled adults (not to mention aunts, uncles, cousins, and a multitude of friends), our home rivals the population of a small mid-west town. As such, variations in language emerge everyday to confuse and bewilder those foolish enough to believe that vocabulary should remain static. The following represents only a small chunk of aberrations of speech typical of the Murphey family:

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A – (noun) abbreviation for ass or mule, an irritating individual

Etymology – a truly worthless substitution used by Mother Murphey in order to insult someone like my brother Sean without being crude (i.e. actually saying the word ‘ass’). Though the insult endures despite the replaced terminology, Mom still affirms that it is a much politer method to degrade an insufferable twit.

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Mo-gift – (noun) a gift or present given to another solely for the benefit of the giver (presumably because both individuals live together)

Etymology – derived from the Christmas gifts given by my Aunt Mo, such as a blender to her husband, an iron to her daughter, and a Steel Magnolias DVD to her son

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Ijit – (noun) A poor driver (i.e. one who drives too slowly, cuts others off, sidles between two lanes, drives without headlights in the rain, or generally reads, texts, shaves, applies makeup, picks nose, cleans car, or checks email all while driving)

Etymology – typically an ijit applies only to others never the speaker regardless of how many infractions he or she commits while condemning others.

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Warsh – (verb) to clean, wipe clear

Etymology – origin unknown; however, Mom affirms that this word is quite common across the country (none of my college friends can confirm this despite their state of birth). Often mispronounced by the general public as ‘wash’ (note the absence of the ‘r’); after years of usage, this word earned several younger Murpheys poor scores on their Spelling Bee’s

See Also: Warshington D.C., Warshinton state, General George Warshington

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Moth-van-bush-wooken – (part.) to shove up in one’s face

Etymology – created by Pat’s good friend Matthew, who irritated by the tendency of ESPN newscasters to make up words (i.e. winningest) wished to illustrate just how easy it is to report the sports when proper diction is no longer required.

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Which-come – (noun) a missing object; a lost tool or instrument so well hidden that its very name eludes the speaker

Etymology – My family’s word for anything we cannot remember: “Ok, so we have our hammer, nail gun, and the jigsaw . . . where’s that whichcome I left here?” “Your iced tea is behind you, Dad.”

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Japanese porn – (noun) manga or anime

Etymology – Sigh. Ok, so one little misunderstanding and my hobby deteriorates into an activity for freaks or deviants . . . anyway, term derived by Murph’s brothers and sisters after browsing through some Love Hina comics he had received for Christmas. Despite my constant and continued protests, this appellation continues. I am so sorry Mr. Miyazaki.

Of Fiends and Fountain Drinks

In these times of financial difficulties (i.e. “Hey! Where’d all my money go?”), lifestyle changes are expected.  Many of my cousins upon graduating high school have shied away from out-of-state education, investing in used cars, gas stations and morning commutes from home; others have ignored the traditional college altogether, seeking apprenticeships in trade schools, community colleges, or donning their suits or aprons in the work force.  In the Murphey house, with several of the siblings already in college, expenses have been tight: fewer meals outside the house, more carpooling, and no unauthorized visits to the bookstore . . . unless somehow linked to another far-more-necessary errand such as picking up the kids from practice or restocking our dwindling supply of breath mints.  You know . . . essential stuff.

Yet even my weekly rations of manga and short-story anthologies must be curbed.  Barnes and Nobel employees find me staring longingly at the latest Bestsellers like a twelve-year old at a pet store.  No one seems to mind me petting the spines, but when I start chatting up the authors many of whom have been dead for centuries, someone typically comes and asks me to leave.  This never halts my conversations but out in the parking lot, people seem to mind less.

As with most problems, money is the issue.  Therefore, in order to satisfy my bibliomania I’ve curtailed other less-necessary addictions like eating (half-portions), gaming (goodbye WoW), and education (graduated . . . finally).  One final expense remains: raspberry iced tea.

No force on earth, save its total destruction (thus rendering this whole argument moot), can sate my hourly need for half-way decent tea.  Other men have their Starbucks and Bud Light; I have my Lipton.  I cannot change this.  What I can do is try to cut down on the cost of my caffeine, thus saving capital for more pressing addictions: books and comics.

Thus I put my college math to work for me.  Borders like many cafés offers refills on a few of their beverages for a discounted price (50 cents or so, not including tax). Therefore my $2.40 iced tea with a refill actually decreases to about a buck and half.  As the number of refills gradually increases – assuming of course the serendipitous occasion of finding myself at the bookstore all day – the average cost per cup will decrease to about fifty cents.  My costly obsession with caffeinated beverages might actually provide a useful everyday application to my high school calculus and save me money in the process.  A rare treat indeed!

After all, apart from simple arithmetic and remembering how to spell ‘cat,’ how often can we honestly admit using those high school factoids oh so necessary for our mid-terms and pre-lunch pop quizzes?  Without the aid of Wikipedia, the name of the 30^th president, conversion of meters to inches, and forty or so state capitals are long forgotten, buried under years of academic trivia, for use only during reruns of Jeopardy or boring parties.  Thus, it’s a real pleasure when I can apply these archaic mental-nuggets for use in my daily life.

Back to the calculus.  Stopping at a red light I formulated the following equation:

(2.40 + x(.50)) / (1+x)                                      x = being the # of refills consumed

Cost of Iced Tea per Refill at Borders

Naturally the more I drink, the less spent per cup, offering more capital to invest in novels, Japanese comics, and the like.

Last Tuesday gave me the chance to test my theory.  The boys’ graduation practice ran a little longer and so I found myself with another hour at Borders to snoop through the shelves and tempt myself to some new fiction.  I managed to refill my cup three times, and as you can see from the graph, decreased the cost of my drink to nearly a buck.  With each delicious sip, I managed to steal the wealth of corporate America through some legal loophole.  I felt empowered, heroic like that weary young man, who upon returning from war and torture abroad built his keep among the trees, thieving spoils from the wealthy and distributing it to the destitute.  The Robin Hood of book buyers.

Yet all great ideas have their flaws.  Mine revealed itself half-way through my third cup while gazing at a polar bear peeking from the cover of a travel anthology.  My body twitched.  My breathing faltered.  I tried desperately not to think of flowing water, but row after row displayed rushing rapids, majestic waterfalls, and winding Amazonian rivers.  Instinctively my feet rushed me to the bathroom until my brain kicked in, reminding me of my half-filled cup, my sole source for more tea and economic superiority.

Alone without a Wingman, my options were limited.  Cutting my losses did not seem feasible; I had at least two more cups of tea left in me and another half-hour before I needed to don my chauffeur’s cap again. Carrying the cup inside the restroom likewise proved unsavory.  Most bathrooms – public or otherwise – possess an unsanitary aura, a gastronomic No Man’s Land, at least for items which you might like to stick into your mouth minutes afterwards.  Crossing the lavatory threshold drink in hand to me is akin to washing the cup with toilet water.

The Robin Hood of book buyers.

Few other choices remained.  Relinquishing my plastic chalice on the small table set aside for unpaid merchandise, I went about my business quickly, aware that some conscientious employee might toss my cup. Or worse, defilement.  Literary souls inevitably breed oddity; it’s what makes us so interesting . . .  and dangerous. Immediately I checked the remaining dredges of iced tea for tampering: any unnoticed fingerprint marks, lipstick, or powdery residue – I imagine passing out among the audiobooks only to wake hours later in tub of ice with only one kidney.  Finding no traces, I returned to my browsing and another refill.

An hour and a half later, my cup full once again with tea, three books in hand, I strode to the counter for check out, confident that I had saved myself ten dollars at least of valuable income.  In celebration I added another ten-dollar manga volume to my arm.

Arriving at the counter, I smiled at the cashier, dropping my pile before her, half-wondering if she would be interested in the results of my little science project.

“Hey Miss, did you know that I reduced the cost of six iced teas to nearly fifty-cents per glass.  Whatcha think about that?”  Her eyes glisten.  Her cheeks blush.  Her hands grab hold of my shirt.  As our bodies disappear beneath the counter, the remaining customers shout in unison, “Get a room!”

Or not.

I set the books too close to the sub-counter magnet, which triggered several loud beeps somewhere near the register; the cashier stepped on something near the floor silencing the alarm. Several armed guards and German shepherds shuffle away, disappointed.  Meanwhile she stared at my pile and counted.

“You know,” she said, “if you pick up one more book you can get one of these free.”

“Huh?  What?”

“Buy four get the fifth free,” she said pointing to the various cardboard signs stapled to the shelves around the store.

“Really?!”

I affected some surprise at this, having spent nearly two hours at the bookstore without noticing the words ‘free’ and ‘books’ together.  Then with a quick look at the clock, I took off again towards the children’s lit.  Ten minutes.  If I grab another eight dollar book (the price of my less-expensive purchase), I’ll have essentially just robbed the store.  When people think of me, the word ‘badass’ rarely comes to mind.  Nonetheless, I felt like buying a belt-chain and not recycling my old Snapple bottles.  That’s right, tossing ‘em in with the plastic bags and used iTunes gift cards.  Hardcore . . .   Desperate times, they can bring out the worst in all of us.

Road-ents

Katie called me today with some disturbing news.

“Murph,” she said.  “You know how before I left you warned me about that tick you found on your dashboard today?”

“Yeah,” I responded, recalling the large eight-legged blood-sucker skittering around my volume control, nearing digging into my skin like a mole.  “The parasite was big too.  I nearly crashed into an old woman and half-a-dozen parked cars before I could kill it.”

“Right, well I got off the interstate a moment ago when I felt something crawl along my feet,” Katie told me dramatically.  “I was like ‘Oh my gosh!  A spider! I got a friggin’ wolf-spider in my car.  It’s going to bite me and I’m going to die.’  Guess what it was?”

“I don’t know . . . a tick?”  Frankly I find ticks to be much more frightening than spiders . . . well at least the normal spiders we have around here, which are nowhere near as big as some of the South American varieties.  Those monsters kill birds.  Have you ever seen a spider take down a crow?  If so, I highly recommend the Delmarva area.

“No!  A mouse!” she nearly screamed over the phone.  “A mouse.  In.  My. Car.  And then when I got to BJs to meet Mom, there was another one in the passenger seat, munching on something.  Sitting on its hind legs like it owned the joint.  Murph, my car is infested with mice . . . Stop laughing!”

“Sorry,” I say wiping the tears from my eyes.  “Just be careful on the way home though.  Mice sometimes can chew through wires and stuff.  I don’t know much about your car, but I’m sure some of that must control your brakes, accelerator or your radio, right?”

“Oh thanks, Murph,” Katie sighed.  In the background Mom asks her which brand of trash bags we need.  Kate repeats the question to me.  I tell her the largest brand they sell with handles.  “ . . . yeah, the ones with the blue handles there.  Yeah, those.  Well, you know whose to blame, right?”

“Sean, didn’t necessarily bring the mice in your car, girl.”

“But he’s been driving it for the last few weeks, leaving me with no gas and a backseat full of empty drinks and McDonalds trash.  Mouse treats.  I probably have an ant problem too.  Army ants with my luck.  Or snakes.  Ugh, snakes . . . I’m going to kill him.”

“Well, they would get rid of your mouse problem . . .”

“Uh, thanks but no thanks.  I’ll take my chances with Mickey and Minnie . . .”

Studies in Stereotypes: Trekkies

Common practice in today’s world takes great joy in reproofing stereotypes.  Artists in particular relish breaking down the barriers that all too often pigeonhole groups of individuals with various – and often untrue – adjectives: stupid, violent, awkward, materialistic.  One could hardly dispute the honesty and justice of such protests, expounding the potential of each individual regardless of race, creed, sex, or homeland, stimulating understanding and erasing bigotry en masse.  Yet most reformers stop there, forgetting to seek the honesty and justice among the stereotypes as well.  After all, stereotypes – unlike rumors – possess some and popular foundation in truth.  Often outward beauty reflects inward beauty, power corrupts government, crime-ridden cities, bucolic paradise, the French chef, the Irish drunk, the girl cooking and sewing, and the boy grunting, spitting and scratching – all in the same fluid motion no less.  We cannot hope to surmount our prison walls if we ignore their existence.

Over the past week or so I’ve had the opportunity to encounter several of these proven stereotypes, instances where despite my best efforts at iconoclasm, some habits are just too deeply ingrained for escape.

#1: Trekkies look like Trekkies

Last Sunday Dasad treated me to an IMAX showing of Star Trek.  He has been a long time fan of the movies and the Next Generation series, thus like Virgil he was to be my guide for the day.  As expected the line began early and the theater despite its large size was sold out the day before; thus we made sure we arrived a good forty-five minutes beforehand.  A group of ten or twelve people clustered near the entrance and so until the crowd became more substantial, we wandered over to the arcade.

One of the travesties of the modern world is the death of the arcade.  With the omnipresence of the home theater and game systems, most surviving arcades are the digital descendant of the ghost town: empty corridors, blank flicking screens, broken controls, lilting broken tunes emanating from crane games sparsely piled with stuffed representations of decade old cartoon series.  The change machine worked though.  Changing my dollar to some tokens we took our chance on the crane game, which true to form slipped down and up Shrek’s bulbous head as if made of soap.  Two dollars lost and no (working) game in sight, we scuttled over to the line which had doubled in size within a few minutes.

Normally at the house and in public, I attempt to diminish the weirdness of my more geeky hobbies through a combined use of sleight of hand, explanatory argument, and large words:

• “Weird?  He’s an addict, Mom.  A physical representation of addiction and evil’s ability to erode good.  Gollum is one of the most unique and important characters in literature;”
• “So what you’re saying is that heroes don’t matter, huh?  That heroism and the ideals of these heroes don’t play a role in our daily lives.  So what if they wear tights.  Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it;”
• “It’s just the art style, guys.  If you look beyond the semi-naked nubile eye-candy, the stories are quite good, entertaining yet poignant.”

Yeah so, it doesn’t always work.  Nonetheless I continue to plug away, a never-ending (and possible futile) crusade to convince others (and possibly myself) that what I do has value beyond escapism.  The irony is that while Dasad and I try claw our way from the muck and mire of stereotype, others seem to revel in it.

No one donned any costume.  Apart from one bearded shaggy guy with oddly pointed but otherwise natural ears, no one looked like a Volcan. Or a Klingon. Nevertheless everybody in line looked like Trekkies.  It’s hard to communicate in words how my fellow movie-goers struck me, no general pattern or scent – although Dasad argued that his neighbors exuded a rather unpleasant funk.  I will say that if you consider an average shape or size for the human body, these people were the outliers, individuals much too tall, short, hairy, or obese, whose collective differences were not so much uniform as much as uniform in their collective differences.  If that seems a little confusing, just imagine fifty or so characters from the Where’s Waldo books decked out in sandals, cargo shorts, and a black T-shirts that read “There are 10 types of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that don’t.”

One lady, her frizzy grey hair tied off in a bun, wore cut off jeans, a tucked in T-shirt like the ones they wear at summer camp and a Transformers backpack, adorned with Muppet pins.  She talked freely and happily with a giant, a seven-foot man with a face that reminded me of my old physics professor: his eyes, nose, and mouth hidden behind a bushy mangled mop of black hair.  If the man had a beard or if the mange stemmed entirely from his head, I could not tell.  The woman snorted every now and then at something the bushman said when the line suddenly began moving.  Dasad and I entered the theater and found our seats.  A pod of Asian kids sat behind us, discussing the mechanics of something they saw on MythBusters.  A phone rang a few aisles up, playing a few measures of Final Fantasy’s ‘Vamo’alla Flamenco’ before cutting off (yes, it bespeaks my own level of depravity that I recognized the tune).  Below us several kids practiced holding the gap between their third and fourth fingers – I still need masking tape and/or rubber bands.

We sat next to a rather obese couple, a man and his wife, their bodies overflowing atop and around the arms of their chairs. While the pre-movie ads rolled, the lady squeezed through the row and left the theater.  Dasad leaned over to me.

“Now there’s a never-ending cycle,” he whispered.  “Fat people get married, reproduce, and have kids who cannot help but become fat as well, right?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Think about it,” he continued.  “It’s in the genes, right?  No way to escape that.”

“Not necessarily,” I say in a low whisper, a little embarrassed.  “Obesity is not necessarily genetic.  Even if it were two people with the same phenotype, the same characteristic, may yield different children.  Mom and Dad both have dark hair, but Pat and Sean are blonde. And you also have to take into account lifestyle too.”

“Right, so a child living in such an environment will do nothing but eat.  It’s doomed to follow its parents’ footsteps.”

“Again,” I said after a minute, “lifestyle isn’t like computer programming.  Kids react differently depending on their parents.  They might rebel or seeing the health issues their parents have or might have, they might become fitness gurus or baggers at Trader Joes.”

“Still it’s more than likely . . .” Dasad said.  “It’s just rather sad and disgusting.”

“Dude, I wouldn’t say that.  Stereotypes can be quite misleading.  They might be a nice couple: kind, courteous, generous, loyal, hardworking.  The kind of people who do anything for their friends, family or even their co-workers.  They might even . . .”

Just then the woman returned carrying a mega-sized drink, a tub of popcorn and a pizza.  She bit into a slice of pizza navigating through the seats and shoes, balancing the rest of the food on a cardboard tray.  Still walking she twisted to take a sip from her cup; a glob of tomato sauce fell onto my pants leg.  Pepperoni splattered my shoes.

“. . . be rather disgusting, yeah.”

EPILOGUE

Before closing up shop here I should note — stains notwithstanding — that the movie was awesome.  I’ve seen it twice, and frankly if you’re able IMAX is the way to go.  As I said to Dasad, if the original series had only a smidgeon of the humor and charm of the flick, I might have joined his Trekkie club long ago.  He only nodded.

“Yeah, it was pretty good.  Even after the second time,” he said.  “When I got back home last Friday, I even dreamed about it some.”  Now I believe in karma, that all things balance themselves out, that those that mock and deride others will eventually get their comeuppance.  Thus I felt fairly certain that the following conversation will come back to haunt me one day.

“Dreams, eh?”  I mutter, feigning boredom. “So you dreamt of space hotties, huh?  That semi-clothed green-skinned alien girl was pretty hot, right?  Was she on the spaceship with you?”

“Huh?  Wait . . .”

“Were Kirk and Spock there too?  What were they doing?  Wait . . . I probably don’t want to know that.”

“Hold on . . .”

“And that bald guy from X-men.  Capt. Piccadilly, right?  Did you dream of him too?”

“Picard.  His name is Picard.”

“So you did dream about him . . .” I laugh.  “He’s buff.”

“Look, dude, I’m not that much of a geek.  It was just this one time.  I do not dream about the Enterprise every night.”

“Uh huh . . .”

“Seriously.”

“Ok then, but seriously you had to think the whole space/time thing was kinda lame, right?  That aspect was a little cliché,” I said matter-of-factly.

“No, well, it was their way of staying true to the canon of the original films while totally changing everything,” Dasad sighed.  “Frankly I thought it a little weak too.  Also while the characters were great, the villain was horrible.  No pathos.  Nothing like the Borg or Khan.  Now there was a villain.  He had the intellect, power, and every reason to hate Kirk and the Enterprise.  I remember when I first saw him . . .”

“You got really turned on, didn’t you?” I laugh.

“Okay look, you suck.”

“Did you see Ricardo Montalban in the Naked Gun too?  Or was he only sexy in that Alladin vest and long flowing Bon Jovi locks?”

“I hate you.”

The Fool’s Guide to Wine-Tasting

The first skill of any successful wine connoisseur necessitates the ability to speak the lingo or at least French. I reason that people are more likely to tell you what you’re suppose to taste if can correctly pronounce the label. This in turn allows the fake connoisseur to easily impress his or her friends while still having little to no idea about which you are talking. Take for instance Saturday’s wine tasting party at one of the local colleges, a lavish affair full of wine merchants and connoisseurs alike, the perfect setting to test my use of the vernacular:

“Yes, this particular white possesses a good finish with an oaky flavor, cultured for years by the French who as you well know, know wine,” the attendant laughed, after I had correctly pronounced Viognier. Vee-oh-nay.

“Oh yes, that is oaky,” I tell Mom and Tiff with a sip.  “I can taste the oak.”

“Can you?” Mom asks.  “Is that the sharp bitter taste?  Is that the oak?”

“Uh . . . sure,” I shrug.

“I don’t know about trees,” Tiff scowls, “but this definitely tastes like unwashed Frenchmen. Next table!”

Tiffany’s aim for the evening – apart from making goo-goo eyes at the chocolate fountain – which I had seen first and thus claim dibs – was to locate a brand of white wine as sweet and drinkable as Linganorre’s Mountain White.  In her efforts to locate said brand the countless sampling had induced a fit of intense giggling, which Mom echoed, much like a mother loon cooing over her child’s first manic dive into the water.

Station 5 featured two white wines and a Merlot, which Mom sampled.  Tiff chose the cabernet, while I sought the subtlety of the Pinot Grigio.

“And you sir?”

“Yes, can I have a bit of the Grigio, please?”  I said this nonchalantly, well-practiced in my wine-merchant slang, certain that the attending seller would immediately sense that cultured air – or at least the reek of wino.  Possibly he would proffer a full glass instead of the usual sampling to reward me.

“Excuse me?”

“The Grigio.  The Pinot Grigio,” My use of the vernacular was perfect.  I ordered my wine with suave charm, a Yankee-born Sean Connery introducing himself as the world’s foremost secret agent.  In true Bond style, I tried to straighten my tie but, upon finding none, feigned a neck rash.

“Uh . . . we don’t have any Pinot Grigio here.  Only a Pinot Noir . . . Um, sir, do you need some ointment?”

“Oh no, no, I’m.fine.  Just a bug bite.  You say pinot noir?”

“Yes, would you like a sample?”

“Um, sure,” I fumble.  My eyes glazed a little, refocusing on a spot just to the right of the man’s ear. “Musta’ve read the label . . . wrong.  That’s red, right?”

“Yes, sir,” the server smiled.  “Dry but an excellent wine.  This particular winery has been growing grapes for nearly fifty years in Napa Valley.”  He poured me a hearty glass – perhaps out of pity – and turned his attention to another taster.

Humbled, my feet shuffle me over to the girls, who naively – and effectively – decided their next selection solely on the color.

“What is that you’re have, Murph?” Mom asked while Tiff finished off her sample, coughing.

“Oh some pinot noir,” I shrugged sipping slowly, rinsing away the unpleasant taste of humble pie.  “It’s not bad.  Dry though, not a lot of taste.”  That guy in the movie Sideways waxed poetry about pinot noir; therefore, until inspired or drunk, I would uncover its secrets.

“Ugh . . .” Tiff moaned.  “Like sandpaper in the throat.  I think I need a chocolate fountain to wash this down.  If only we had one near . . . oh, there she blows!*”  [NOTE: This last phrase was in truth not uttered at all but is merely the product of interpreting the speaker’s squeals (Kyaaa!) and the author’s latest literary excursion through the works of Herman Melville.]

My sister-in-law scampered off to cavort among the strawberries and pound cake, piled near the fountain.  Pat had joined us again when she returned, her cheeks full with chocolate-dunked fruit, her chin adorned with a chocolate-goatee.

“They turned the fountain off.  It’s just a chocolate pool now.  I had trouble dipping the pound cake without causing any to crumble,” Tiff said, stabbing a piece of chocolate-coated cake with her skewer.  “But if you pierce it lengthwise, directly in the center, all is good . . .”

Pat and I discovered the entrance to the kitchen and positioned ourselves appropriately in front, like roadside bandits lying in ambush.  Quickly we relieved our servers of their dainties: barbequed pineapple-chicken, steamed shrimp and peppers, spinach pasties, and warm asparagus wrapped in prosciutto.  Using complimentary glass clips, we attached our wine glasses to our plates as we walked around, giving Dad the opportunity to talk to some clients.  Mom sampled some cheeses that supposedly enhanced the taste of her merlot.

“Hey hon,” Pat said turning to Tiff.  “Do you want some che . . . uh, what are you doing?”  My sister-in-law was sucking on her glass clip.

“Awhaaa,” she laughed, re-attaching her clip.  “Some chocolate fell on it.  I was just cleaning it off.  Hey, Ms. Patty, we should try the other room again.”

Mom walked home with nearly twelve-hundred dollars worth of wine, procured with the wine god’s blessing in raffle.  The prize proved a double-edged sword though as upon discovering the one-hundred dollar per bottle price tag, she vowed to never open any of it.

Humbled I walked out, my head full of wine and empty of all pretension . . . or my precious jargon.

On the way to the car, lumbering under the weight of six bottles of wine and one faux copper-green fiberglass bowls each, Pat and I pleaded with our claustrophobic mother to take the elevator in lieu of walking down the required four flights of stairs.  Under the influence and fearing the safety of her swag she relented, confident that if the machine should fail ample rations – of the liquid variety – would be available until help arrive.

As the doors swung shut, sealing her inside, Mom’s eyes bulged with terror.  Wildly scanning our cell, she screamed: “Oh no!  Does anyone have a corkscrew?!”

We of course did not, but Tiff eased Mom’s panic with a little MacGuyver-ism.  “Don’t worry Ms. Patty, if we need to, we can just break off the neck and drink it that way.  You know, like pirates.”

Somehow this seemed to work, though honestly how she intended to break off the neck without breaking the bottle or worse spilling the wine is beyond me.  Still Mom calmly stood (or wobbled) while the elevator continued its ride down, choosing to breathe again only when the doors opened.  Laughing the girls met the cool night air, and discussed their favorite brands as we walked to the car.  Half-way home I managed to glance back at Mom, as she fallen fast asleep her arms gently embracing the two large tubs of wine, cuddled beside her.

Pest Propaganda

Ehrlich Pest Control just posted a new series of commericials that had the boys and me cackling on the drive to school this morning.  Taking a cue perhaps from the Grimm fairy tales or the more bloody inspirations behind many nursery rhymes, the folks at Ehrlich (or their skilled ad agency) have devised the following songs, which I reprint from memory.

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey
When along came a spider
who was dead right beside her . . .

The pest control company is mentioned then as the voice of storyteller fades away here, menacingly as if barely able to restrain her giggles.  Frankly the thought of a dead spider lying beside me as I sit down is actually much more frightening than a live one.  Does Miss Muffet continue to eat her curds and whey, shrugging off the dead arachnid?  She should at least consider the presence of toxic fumes.  Moreover, are not spiders more like Nature’s own pest control?  Is this the way Ehrlich deals with the competition  — like Al Capone in The Untouchables?

Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse never ran up the clock
That’s because the Ehrlich-man killed him . . .

Again the frankness of that last line, perfectly executed by the storyteller — think Mr. Rogers, calm and soothing — brought us to tears, laughing and nearly rolling the SUV into the median.

The final ad was sung by a chorus of young giggling girls (perhaps daughters of the first Miss Muffet’s storyteller), which would sound creepy and unnerving regardless, but the ad compliments the tone by including their faux-innocent laughter as the song closes:

Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run,
They all ran away from the Erlich-man
Who left them dead in the back of his van
Three blind mice . . . (music ends; girlish giggles fade into the company identification)

Shudder.  We nearly swerved into oncoming traffic on that one.  Doing away with all pretense of Disney’s happy singing mice, the ad really nails the head on what the company seeks to accomplish.  Honestly if I were any rodent I’d welcome the Erlich-man scythe as long as he kept those girls muzzled on a short leash. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the recordings on the web to humor (or unsettle) you for the rest of the day, yet I did manage to uncover this interesting gem:

Tea-ed Off

Dunkin’ Donuts’ iced tea is the worst, foulest muck that I have ever tasted.  Granted having never actually tasted authentic outdoorsy muck, grime, or slime before, I suppose my digust is a bit of an exaggeration.  Nonetheless even the dysentery-drenched swill that circulates through the wells of many a Mexican pueblo refreshes the body more than the rust-tinted (-flavored) pint sitting atop my desk.  Ugh . . .

Most iced tea in truth is an acquired taste, particularly when you choose to abscond on the sweeteners.  Sugar (much like salt on anything else) can overpower the taste of tea, much in the same way that the letters N-E-S-T-E-A does.   To DD’s credit though, I’m told that their coffee greatly surpasses even Starbucks in terms of taste.  Ryan and Sean stand by their Coolata’s, especially as their exams roll around.

Sincerely, I wonder how our students and professors would manage without their caffeine-fix.  Most of the academic community — not to ignore the rest of the world — runs on coffee, alcohol, and late-night adrenaline bursts.   Learning necessitates chemical stimulation, like soldiers tripping-out on LSD in Vietnam.  An unjust comparison perhaps, but I like to consider our addictions now and then, that which drives us forward (or backwards) each and every day.  After all each of us has our own personal demons with which to contend, addictions and obsessions of every shape, size, and political party.  Some, like the swill melting before me,  are worse than others . . .

And in my case sugar-coating only makes it taste much much worse.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism. — Carl Jung

Fun with Treadmills

Yesterday’s post about treadmills made me think about this video by the band Ok Go.  Speaking as someone who has no rhythm whatsoever, it’s always interesting to see other non-professional-dancer-types simply create their own styles.

Personally I’ve always been more a hand-jive kind of ‘dancer.’ While driving in the car, I usually let my hands catch the rhythms and beats, waving my fingers about like a conductor in a symphony orchestra.  For that reason I cannot help but appreciate the following video:

Yeah, that’s more my style.  What kind of dancing (or hand jive) do you enjoy?

Lightning Crashes

Internet deprivation has once again driven me to people-gaze at Panera Bread. Last night with the sound of thunder and a few rogue sparks, our modem fried: circuit boards blackened, wires caramelized. The sequence of events that followed our bandwidth’s demise is akin to the first radio broadcast of Wells’ “War of the Worlds:”

FLASH! BOOM!

FLASH!

BOOM!

Zap!

Pop!

Fzzzzzz . . .

Screaming . . .

“Murph, the internet died!”

“No Internet? Son of a &%$@! What about my &#%$ exam tomorrow?!”

“Wait, that means Xbox Live is down too . . .”

“What no Call of Duty? No COD?!”

More screaming ensues. Fire, flames, flood . . . The dead rising from their graves . . . Dogs and cats living together . . .

You get the point. Needless to say the fam is quite indisposed at the moment. Shut off as we are from the digital world, it’s like we’ve gone back in time to the early 80s or worse, the 70s. Shudder. My job as the house’s IT specialist (Ha!) is to carry out any necessary or immediate digital transactions in their stead. I scribe a list or two, much like a digital grocery list, and venture off into the world to search for potential WiFi hotspots . . . hopefully one with food too.

This morning as storms slide silently across the sky, butting up against one another with the grace and violence of rival hockey teams, I shuffled out into the rain, seeking potential hotspots like early man sought the warmth of campfires. Nowadays even the supermarket offers WiFi access beckoning laptop owners with Starbucks coffee and a buy-one-get-one-free deal on eggs. After some deliberation (having skipped breakfast, an omelet sounded good), I drove to Panera, deciding against the much preferred local booksellers in exchange for Panera Bread’s above-average iced tea and a WiFi connection without the fifteen dollar access fee.

Luckily they were still serving breakfast.

One egg sandwich (Wahoo!) and a half-a-gallon of unsweetened tea later, I settled in my chair and examined my fellow customers while my laptop blinks and buzzes to life. The bakery was veritably empty (the din of my laptop’s start menu sounded like a foghorn), only a dozen or so old women and men spending their retirement munching on Asiago-baked bagels and reading the latest Patricia Cornwell.

Stretching my legs toward the fire I noticed . . . did I mention there was a fire? No? Ah well, much like those found in a ski lodge (or at least those ski lodges I’ve seen on television), the fireplace sat in the middle of the room, encased in iron and mesh and formed the lower portion of one of the bakery’s supporting pillars. Three soccer moms had also cuddled up beside the gas-powered furnace, warming water-soaked feet and discussing the benefits of various exercise equipment:

Woman in Sneakers: “Look, you don’t understand. Everyone says the Elliptical feels better on the knees, but you have to work twice as hard to even feel tired.”

Woman with Floral Purse: “But a treadmill is just running. You can do that anywhere.”

Sneakers: “Not in thirty-degree weather you can’t.”

Woman with One Eyebrow: “Martha’s husband, Bill, nearly died on a treadmill just last year. Alice, you remember.”

Sneakers: “He was close to eighty though.”

Eyebrow: “Six children, nine grandchildren . . . shame.”

Pause.

Purse: “Alice, how much did you pay for your Elliptical again?”

I tuned out the eavesdropped conversation as the women discussed prices, department sales, and their children’s third quarter grades. My attention returned to my email. One of my classmates had written to me, eagerly asking if I passed my Comprehensive Exams. Over the past semester after a poor showing during the first round of exams (I got a little too creative with my essays and failed – I promise to write more on that debacle later; professors despite popular opinions do not appreciate thematic subtlety.), my professor worked with me to help shape my writing into something more straightforward, indifferent, and blunt like a fill-in-the-blank quiz. Another fail and I’d be forced to shell out more tuition for another round of classes. No one wanted that – least of all me.

Master's Degree . . . Wahoo!

I had anticipated the exam results in another week or so; thus, with beating heart, I filtered through the last day’s mail, avoiding several Victoria’s Secret ads and a 40% off Borders coupon – save those for later. A quick scan of my inbox found the desired email. Praise be . . . I passed my Comprehensive Exam. Masters Degree! Another letter or so behind my name. Another piece of paper . . . Wahoo!

In celebration I consumed a tomato and mozzarella Panini and another large iced tea – ‘cause that’s how I roll. Immediately I signed onto Gmail and told Dasad, who after happily congratulated me, waited a few seconds before popping the dreaded question:

“So now what?”

The question seemed to hover in the air for several precious minutes, while I attempted futilely to understand what he meant. No dice. Instead I watched an old lady in pink sweats and matching headband refill her coffee before responding.

“Wait . . . Huh?”

“Job-wise, what’s the plan now? Library? Some office somewhere? That government job you talked about? What?”

“I-I don’t know,” I typed, including the stammer for effect. Don’t get me wrong. The question presented itself each and every day for the past twenty-years or so, but finding myself with little to no resources to adequately answer it, I proceeded to procrastinate my response, putting any serious thought until school ended, until I graduated college, until I finished my research, until I got my Masters. Now I began to wonder if I could push the decision back until I got married, but realized the wait would be too long even by my standards.

Still the books don’t buy themselves. Writers are more numerous than PhDs; the market is saturated as any blogger can admit. Perhaps it’s time to stop seeking an ideal job, and instead find something stable . . .

Still stability was never my thing; I approach jobs like a nomad considers borders. One comes to relish the absence of routines, tomorrow’s unexpected creation or journey. As Weezer sings (da da da . . . sucking up to Bob, growing old and hoping there’s a God) too many of us live merely to extend existence, cradle to the grave with my hand on the snooze alarm.  And that doesn’t sound very appealing either . . .

Still one must grow up sometime – in theory. I suppose that I’m still looking for that perfect middle ground . . .

“Well,” Dasad writes. “Personally I think you’ll get bored at a library. Too much repetition, you know? Not enough reading or at least discussion about reading.”

“Yeah . . . You wouldn’t happen to have any positions like that at your place, eh? Storytime leader for the IT consultants?”

“Would there be nap time and snacks?”

“Sure.” After all everyone loves cookies and sleep.

“Will look into it,” Dasad writes following up with a smiley face. “Just nothing too fantasy-based. If I can’t stomach Tolkien, any lesser master will send me retching . . .”

“You kiddin’? Nothing but O’Henry for this soon-to-be-unemployed student.”

“Ha,” Dasad laughs. “Tales of hobos and tramps, eh?”

“We all have our heroes. Poets, writers, and academia-addicts like me need to extract inspiration from somewhere. Why not the wandering minstrel or out-of-work vagabond? As long as it gives me story-fodder and time to write, right? Maybe I’ll consider teaching for a while too. At least then I’ll have my summers off . . .”

“Bum, why not just work for the government?”

“And eschew my last ounce of dignity?” I laughed taking my last sip of iced tea. “Even gypsies have their pride . . .”

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else. — James Barrie