William Douglas Little's Official Blog

Skoal Turds

2011-08-02T04:35:00.000-07:00

This is an excerpt from my forthcoming book: GIGGING FOR ROADKILL, scheduled for release in 2012:

... Growing up in rural America, there are certain things a part of everyday life that you just don't find in suburbia. For example, suburbanites can walk through a grassy field, (what they were taught to term a "meadow"), without ever looking down. This is fine, when that field ... er, "meadow", is located within a suburban, (read as: livestock-free), setting. Out here in BFE, however, we know that you never, ever traverse a FIELD without keeping your eyes to the ground. Those who walk forward, enjoying the scenery or with their head tilted toward the clouds looking for rainbows, will find themselves furiously wiping their shoes in the grass very soon.

But alas, there are other turds that are common in rural life, yet never found within the confines of societal dwellings. Yes, I'm talking about Skoal Turds. Skoal Turds are the tapered-ended, cylindrical-shaped little balls of spent chewing tobacco ejected from the lip of the user. The moistness of the user's spit holds the finely shredded tobacco together in its shape, leaving a little scat-like dropping upon the ground where it lands. Often times, if undisturbed by human hand or the elements, this little turd can ultimately turn as hard as a rock - its odd shape fitting nicely into the catch of a slingshot band and capable of leaving a huge welt on the back of the head of an unsuspecting victim. This means that Skoal Turds have a purpose other than just their initial life of providing a nicotine delivery system to the original user. They can be recycled as a great weapon against those who are annoying on the school bus ... at least, that's what we found out as kids.

Of course, Skoal Turds can be elusive. To find a really great one, you have to search long and hard and, more importantly, you have to know where to look. You're not likely to find a perfectly-hardened ST lying around on the floor of the woods, ("forest," for you suburbanites). In fact, the likelihood of finding a preserved Skoal Turd out in the elements is very slim, indeed. Chances are it would have been stepped on long ago, or washed away by a good rain. No, perfect Skoal Turds can only be found in a protective environment such as gym floors, or under the seat of a school bus, which is, of course, why we first learned of their value as slingshot fodder.

Of course, things are different these days. Finding a spent Skoal Turd on a school bus floor - even one with a rural route, I'd suspect - is probably impossible. And, even if you found a perfectly-preserved Skoal Turd somewhere, my guess is that having a slingshot of any sort is probably considered a terrorist act - even by a ten-year-old.

However, Skoal Turds can still be fun in this day and age, when you observe an unsuspecting Suburbanite encountering one for the very first time. Point in case: I was with a friend not long ago, whom I'd invited to my farm. This friend was a lifelong Suburbanite with literally no outdoor experience, though he fancied himself a well-read expert on wildlife and the art of tracking animals in the forest (woods). As we stood outside my newly-constructed "MAN CAVE," listening to me give detailed descriptions of the construction process, my friend bent down and began poking at the ground with a stick.

Watching, (somewhat in hilarity, somewhat in horror), I barely contained myself as he broke apart a hardened Skoal Turd on the ground and sifted through the flaky contents. Growing up rural, I'd certainly never witnessed this behavior before and it really quite intrigued me.

"Hey," he said in a high-pitched, surprised voice. "I've seen this on the web! You've got a Star-nosed Mole here!"

"A what?" I asked, more interested now in hearing his thoughts than in telling him the truth.

"A Star-nosed mole!" he exclaimed. "It's usually just indigenous to the Southern swamp and marshlands. You've probably seen pictures of them ... they have 22 protuberances - finger-like things - coming out of their nose. They look like they'refrom outer space!"

I just looked at my poor, confused friend as though his eyebrows had just caught fire.

"Anyway, they're totally cool! They're the only semi-aquatic mole on the planet and use a higher brain function than any other of their species. They actually feel around with their snout to find food, even sensing slight disturbances in water. I had no idea that they could be up this far North!"

"Well, if that's what's been tearing up my yard, I need to put out some mole killer. They are a huge problem here. But, what makes you think it's the Star-nosed mole?" I asked, now wondering if this actually had anything to do with the Skoal Turd he'd just picked apart, or if he was just thinking deeply while he played with the spent chaw?

"This scat I just found! These moles are known for defecating on top of the ground rather than in tunnels. You see, this contains only finely-chewed leafy material - roughages, basically. The Star-nosed mole is known to occasionally digest only roughages to cleanse it's system, purging it of any undigested remnants of the things it normally eats. Usually grubs in this area, I would guess. If you want to get rid of them, kill off the grubs - don't kill off the moles! These guys are one-of-a-kind, things of beauty! They should be protected! In fact, you should get the Conservation Department out here to do a study! This might be a huge scientific find!"

For more of this chapter, as well as the other great tales from growing up rural, look for my new book "GIGGING FOR ROADKILL," due out in-stores in 2012! Also, check out my column in the (now FREE!) Sullivan Journal Tabloid, on newsstands every two weeks!

LOL ... WTF?

2010-04-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

Texting acronyms ... little shortcuts that are supposed to be understood by all and make sending messages easier for everyone. Hmmph. The problem is, this lazy form of communication born of non-QWERTY keyboard usage has now infiltrated the rest of society and become commonplace in other forms of communication, such as e-mails and, (believe it or not), formal letters and job resumes. The "Headline Generation" seems to be getting more and more mindless and yet, nobody seems to mind!

Okay, maybe it's the writer in me that finds this offensive, I really don't know. Maybe the fact that I view the written word as a sacred form of communication and preservation is blinding me to the fact that many people just don't care that much about it? But seriously, if I receive a resume from a prospective employee that uses phrasing such as, "Looking 2 advance my career w/ a growing co and help u to build a strong futr," I'm putting it at the very bottom of the wastebasket! (And yes, that is a verbatim line from a recent resume.)

Granted, I'd much rather see someone write WTF than actually spell out the words. Sure, it means the same thing, but for some reason, acronyms are more widely accepted and easier on the eyes than their four-letter counterparts. I'm sure all of the MILFs out there know what I mean.

XMas is another that has always bothered me. No, I'm not a religious nut - I've actually gone from a C&E, (Christmas & Easter), to now just a "kids have a program, so I'll go and watch" attendee. Right. I'm sure that's probably frowned upon by many, but the fact is, I have my own relationship with God and it seems to work for both of us. Neither has to put in much time or effort to my saving and I, in turn, agree to be a good boy and help others when I can. Whatever. In any event, I remember learning in Sunday School, (I was probably 10 at the time), that "by writing XMas, you are effectively Xing Christ's name out of the holiday." That stuck with me. To this day I get angry when I see that abbreviation and if someone in my employ uses it, I come down on them like a fallen tree.

Sure, many will say that this is an empty argument - that we have much bigger things to worry about than the laziness of American writing habits. Hmm. Yes, but this speaks to the bigger picture, doesn't it? Look at all of the people who voted for Obama in the last election, who are now horrified by the mistake. (Yes, there are hundreds of thousands of them who now line the grounds of every Tea Party protest.) These people were part of the "Headline Society," as I call it. Those who listen to a 10-second sound bite or read the caption under a picture and figure they know it all. They listened to the message of "Change this, change that," and figured it sounded pretty good. What they didn't do was investigate Obammy's voting record, nor look into those whom he associated. Had they done that, they may not have been so quick to elect this guy.

I know, saying that extending our vocabulary to include real words rather than acronyms will solve all of our problems is ridiculous, but it's a start. If people start to re-evaluate the importance of communication and understand that doing a job right is as important as doing it at all, maybe we'll have a better chance of succeeding without dependence on a huge government? Maybe we'll get into the habit of actually working to achieve things rather than simply putting in the minimum amount of effort to achieve a specific goal. Or maybe, we'll just take longer to type stuff. Who knows? But hey, it never hurts to try!

WDL

News Channel 5 Interview

2009-11-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

Video from Channel 5 Interview last Sunday morning.

Finally, I'm Back

2009-11-17T13:57:00.000-08:00

After several long months of long hours, captaining the three ships that are my companies through very economically troubled waters, I'm glad to say that I'm back here, posting something to the blog. Granted, this particular post isn't that interesting - merely a "Welcome Back" to myself, of sorts, but the truth is that it's representative of so much more ... it means that I'm back into the groove of writing, which is where my heart truly lies.

You see, it's very hard to do what you truly love for a living. We all know this and very few of us are lucky enough to ever reach the point that our first love is our only profession. Personally, I've never reached that point ... not yet, at least. Granted, I don't have it bad. I own a motorcycle dealership and, since I love riding, one might consider that "doing what I love." You'd be partially right. There's a lot more to running a dealership than riding, however. A ton more, in fact, and most of that is like ... well, work. Secondly, I'm president of a large direct mail and direct marketing company. That's a cool job in that there are a lot of great people there and a lot of great clients that are truly fun to be around. However, when times are tough for everyone - like now - that too is a real job and not so much a labor of love. My other company, (the one that handles my newspaper and magazine columns and my book promotions), is also fun, in that I get to write for a living, create occasional ad layouts, do voice overs for cartoons and commercials ... all sorts of fun and interesting things. However, I've been so swamped with other things these past few months that I've been scrambling to get the columns out by deadline and while they've been good, it's not been "fun."

The fact is, I haven't written for pure, un-pressured "fun" in nearly half a year. However, all of that changed recently. You see, the PR Firm that handles stuff for my direct mail company did me a favor by sending out a bunch of press releases promoting the Books for Soldiers campaign with my book. That, in turn, resulted in a couple of recent interviews, (KMOX Radio with John Carney - a great guy, by the way, and KSDK Channel 5 in St. Louis on their Sunday morning edition of Show Me St. Louis). While doing these interviews, I was able to talk about the troops program and the different signings that I've done. I talked about the people that I've met along the way who really get a kick out of the tales in the book or from my various columns and how they always have a story to share, as well. And that, my friends, is why I write. It's about the stories. Sharing laughter with people is infectious, prompting them to share stories with you, but also with others around them. In the end, everyone gets a laugh and it brightens everyone's day just a little bit. The story teller feels good for having brought a smile to someone's face and the reader feels good because, not only did they get a laugh, but they've also been reminded of similar funny things that have happened to them. Over all, it reminds us all that life is filled with humor and good times - all you have to do is be in the mood to look for it.

And so, being brought back to the mindset of living for the laughs, I'm back to writing for fun. A renewed vigor and interest in not only sharing my tales, but hearing tales from others that will hopefully spawn more laughter and good mood to others along the path. Will I keep up with the blog indefinitely? I certainly hope so. Because after all, what I write here is not written for publication, profit or even publicity ... it's written for fun. And that, my friends, is what I love to do.

Until next time ...

All the best,

WDL

Just doing the job ...

2008-09-17T12:53:00.001-07:00

"Afternoon sir. I'm Trooper Cox with the Missouri State Highway Patrol," the motorcycle cop said as he leaned into my already opened window. I had seen both he and his partner parked on the shoulder as I came down the hill on Interstate 44. Unfortunately, the prospect of two motorcycles didn't throw any warning bells in my mind until I noticed the blue uniforms that they were both wearing. By then, the only thing I could do was merge into the center lane and feign innocence. Didn't work, obviously.

"My partner clocked you at 75-miles per hour coming down that hill and the limit is posted at 60. Is there any reason for the large difference there?"

Now how in the hell do you answer that question? I stared blankly as a million responses came to my mind ...

I didn't see you in time to slow down any further?

Because I slowed down before cresting the hill, just in case?

Uh, no sprechen ze Inglis?

What I finally settled on, I think, was something like "Because the speed limit is posted too low?" Of course, my sense of humor seems to get lost on most members of the Police, but at least this guy was extremely nice about it. He smiled as he asked to see my ID and proof of insurance.

"15 miles over the posted limit, I'm going to have to write you a citation for that. I know that's not what you want to hear." he said. "However, I'll be as quick as I can and get you back on your way." With that, he walked back to his motorcycle and took a clipboard from his saddlebag. I spent the next several minutes looking through my glove box, the center console, wherever I could in the car so as to look busy and not meet the knowing gazes of the cars passing me along the highway. After all, they were the very ones that I had blown past several miles before and I just knew that they were poking their passengers in the ribs and pointing, "Look, that jerk got a ticket! Ha! Good for the Policeman!"

When the patrolman returned with my Goldenrod copy of the certificate of driving excellence, (I've got quite a collection of these, I must admit), I thanked him for his professionalism and courtesy. I asked if he had saddlebags on that bike and, as he said yes, I handed him a copy of my book, (I had already inscribed a message to him inside the cover telling him to be safe out there). I pointed out to him that I had already been issued the ticket so it wasn't a bribe in any way, but a gift of respect for the hard work that the State Patrol does, (and a showing of no hard feelings as he was simply doing his job. I was, after all, the one breaking the law).

Now, in case there is some law against patrolmen accepting gifts even after issuing a ticket, I'll not say whether he accepted the book or not. It's very possible that he informed me that he could not and therefore refused. Basically, this guy was a great Trooper, kind, courteous and truly seemed to be one of the good guys. I respect that and wouldn't want to accidentally cause him any trouble while trying to praise him for his actions. My point is, that in a society where cops, military and other persons of authority are all too often disrespected by the media and the public, I think it's important to shed some light on the good ones. Of course, he could have let me off with a warning, but then I don't think I'd have written this posting.

As for the other drivers who I'm sure were laughing at me as they passed by? I waited until I was well out of the view of the good Patrolman and made it a point to catch and pass every last one of them. I even waved at a few who looked back at me with surprise ... just to show that there were no hard feelings.

All the best,

WDL

Drive Thru Etiquette

2008-07-19T18:49:00.000-07:00

"Yeah, hi. Give me two Chicken McNugget Happy Meals, one with a chocolate milk and the other with a white milk, please." I hate feeding my kids deep-fried crap as much as anyone, but sometimes in this world there is no other option. I waited for what seemed forever for a response. I was beginning to think that the girl working drive thru was either hearing impaired, or her headset had shorted out. Finally, she came with a crackled answer ...

"Sir? We don't have chocolate milk."

"You're out of it?" I don't know why I asked this, other than to make her rephrase her statement. Her tone, along with the wording she chose, made it sound as though she were calling me an idiot.

"No sir. I said, we don't have chocolate milk. You know? We don't sell it." (Smart mouthed little ... well, you know).

"That's funny, you've sold chocolate milk for several decades, right up through last Thursday. Did Ronald suddenly decide that was off the menu?" (Yup. She'd pissed me off. Didn't take much after the trying day that I'd had).

"Hold on." (Forgetting to turn off her microphone) "Hey, Melinda? There's some guy out here who is trying to tell me that we sell chocolate milk. He's being an asshole about it! (pause) No we don't! (another pause) Where? I've looked all over this stupid thing. (and another) Oh. Okay." (Obviously thinking she's turning her mic back on) "---------SILENCE---------"

(At least 60-seconds go by. A car behind me gives a quick warning beep of his gay little import horn. As I sneer into the side mirror, he quickly looks away as though it wasn't him. He was the only car back there).

"Hello? Just so you know, when you called me an asshole your mic was still on, so you probably turned it off, which is why I can't hear you."

"Um ... (another pause) ... will these be for a boy or a girl?"

Having one of each, I wasn't quite sure how to answer this. Did she think that one child was going to consume two Happy Meals? Was this common? I almost didn't doubt it. And why didn't she just ask if I'd like Transformers or Princesses? Why did it have to be a boy/girl thing? As it turns out, my daughter likes to play with the boy toys, so I wanted two Transformers Happy Meals. However, by answering two "boys", I'd certainly be giving my sweet daughter a complex. (Never mind the fact that my kids weren't even in the car with me ... it had been a long day and I was out to prove a point).

"Two Transformers Meals, please."

"So, two BOYS meals?"

Alright, now I was irritated. "No. Two Transformers Happy Meals. I'm not telling you if they are for boys or for girls. That is none of your business and not for you to label. A girl can play with Transformers, right? And, since you're getting snippety with me and you already have labeled me as an asshole, I'm going to take advantage of my newfound title and provide you with a little advice. Don't judge people by what they eat or by how they react to your dumb mistakes and don't stereotype your Happy Meals by gender when it's perfectly okay for a girl to get a Transformer meal or a boy to get a Princess meal for that matter, you understand?"

"Excuse me, sir? (Different voice). My name is Melinda and I'm the crew chief. I'm sorry that we had that confusion there. Could you please pull around to the window for your total?"

"Yes, Melinda. But you should tell the new girl there that her tone was quite rude ...

My statement was cut short by a long, high-pitched, tin-horn blare from behind me.

"HOLD ON, YOU STUPID JERK!" I yelled. My face was red and I knew that if my kids had been in the car, I would have certainly set a horrible example for them. A little sewing machine motor revved behind me and I swung my door open, bending my six-foot-seven-inch frame out to its full height. The car quickly backed up and raced for an exit.

"Sir? Are you there?" Melinda sounded concerned.

I thought about what I'd just done. To this woman, who was only privy to the audio version of the past thirty-seconds, I was pretty sure that I sounded like a raving lunatic or a very unfortunate sufferer of Terrett's Syndrome. There was absolutely no way I was going to show my face at that window. Besides, I was pretty certain that somebody would have been spitting in something by that point.

In a fraction of a second my mind decided that the best way to handle this situation was to flee. Flee, I did. I jammed the gear selector into drive and peeled away from the box, bumped over the curb and headed out the exit. In my mirror I could see a gathering of faces jumbled into the drive thru window protrusion like clowns staring out of a small car.

I raced to the next town another five minutes down the Interstate and pulled to the McDonald's drive thru order box. I was going to be late and wasting very expensive gas, but such is the price for being an asshole at the drive thru. I was truly feeling pretty bad about myself.

...

"Will those be for boys or girls," the new girl asked. The ill temper from the hard day flared with a slight redness to my ears as I replied ...

"Two boys, please." There. That wasn't so bad. Just suck it up and play the game and everything will work out fine. I actually felt a little better.

"Okay, sir? Which one gets the chocolate milk ... the first one or the second one?"

I shook my head in disgust and silently pulled forward. Since the meals were identical and they hand you the drinks totally separate from the meal boxes anyway, I guessed she'd just have to sweat out that tough decision. Maybe ... just maybe, it isn't me after all.

All the best,

WDL

Careful ... You'll Go Blind Doing That

2008-07-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I've been googling myself lately. No, you shouldn't think like that. I'm referring, of course, to Google - the search engine. And yes, I'm fully agreeing with those who think that googling one's self indicates all kinds of psychological problems. I don't deny it ... I just deal with it.

However, with the release of the new book I've become accustomed to googling the title, (as well as myself), to see where it's cropping up in the world of booksellers. I figure that the more places my book sells, the better chance I have of someone accidentally buying it, right? (What is this, I thought I ordered Grisham's new novel? Oh well, this one has a funny title, maybe I'll keep it).

When one googles himself, I've realized, one finds that the world is not, in fact, a small place. You go through life - each day feeling as though you are special - as though you've been put here for a specific reason and to do great things. You feel as though you are the one among billions, a true individual completely different from all others and certainly capable of great things. Then, you find that your name ... I mean "YOUR" name ... doesn't even come up on the first page of google. Sure, there are William Douglas Little's in the first spot, but you know what? Not me. There are William's (in bold), Douglas's (also in bold) and all types and sorts of references to Little (yup ... bold and independent of the first bolds). As for me? I show up on like page 1,928 ... somewhere under "... Little people find difficulty in a tall world." I don't know what that means, except obviously I don't google well ... yet!

Unlike it's author, however, my book googles well. MEXICAN BOWL FISHING finds my book, (and my site), at the very top now. Hooray for the techy guys at Merus Solutions for making that happen. Hey, we beat out Amazon, which is no easy feat!

The fun part, I've decided, is scrolling through the search results for the book, (my name results are just frustrating), and seeing where it is for sale around the world. The different sites are quite interesting and I thought, (obviously I need more hobbies), I would share some of the links with you. Why? I have no idea. I guess this blog was just getting too damned entertaining or something. Gotta bore it down a little ...

www.booktopia.com.au/mexican-bowl-fishing-and-other-tales-of-life/prod9781434382580.html finds the book in Austria ... or is .au Australia? Okay, whichever. Whup, it's in English ... must be Australia. At least they'll be able to read it there. Interesting, Australian dollars are either valued much less than the American dollar, (is that even possible?), or those poor people are going to pay through the nose for my book! (Or, more likely, they won't).

www.authorhouse.co.uk/BookStore/BookStoreSearchResults~SearchType~bis~SearchBisacCode~HUM000000-1.aspx Here's one in the UK, which isn't all that interesting. I mean, they're pretty much like us ... without the flouride.

www.libreriauniversitaria.it/books_family_relationships-FAM000-books_8.htm Is Italian. "You talkin' to me?" ... or I guess, "You talkin' di me" maybe? Well, I guess "di" is actually "by". Nevermind.

www.amazon.co.jp/Mexican-Bowl-Fishing-Other-Tales/dp/1434382583 this one cracks me up. Japan. And, I hope that it does well there. I'll never know as I can't understand the characters that they use for letters and I'm assuming I'll not be able to read the sales reports. I wonder if they'll be paying royalties in Yen? (Or is that China?)

Those are the most interesting thus far. Or, perhaps they're not that interesting at all. I suppose that's within the eye of the beholder. But then, how interesting did you expect a posting to be considering that the poster has admittedly been googling himself? Honestly.

Yahoo! is next, I suppose. (Maybe it's time I got a real life?)

All the best,

WDL

So Long, Answering Machine Days

2008-05-28T19:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it's happened. Somehow, we seem to be getting lazier. As if microwave popcorn in front of American Idol with a remote in our hands weren't enough, now we've all gotten to the point that we no longer record our own answering machine messages. I guess that's an outdated thing to say. The proper terminology should be voicemail. Afterall, answering machines were so last century.

Remember back in the 80's when those giant boxes with plastic fake-wood fronts donned phone tables and desktops in our homes for the first time? A full sized cassette tape took up a 5 X 4 area on the top and we'd listen to the screech of fast rewind after hearing our messages. It was, at the time, the coolest thing there was. We as a nation were excited to have an answering machine. So excited, in fact, that we'd group together as families and author the most creative messages we could come up with. Often an accapella, off-key song was the answer - usually to the tune of Happy Birthday for some reason.

"You've reached the Jones' res-i-dence,
And it on-ly makes sense,
That you'd get our re-cord-ing,
Leave a message after this sentence ... BEEP!"

I assume it was the novelty that went along with a newfound toy that caused us to come up with group messages to greet our callers. Or perhaps it was just a simpler time when families actually did things like that together ... as a family. It could be that it was the horrible robotic voice alternative, "Please leave a mes - sage af - ter the tone" that made us want for something more; something special. Or, maybe it was a time in history when every other call wasn't associated with sales or surveys (or for many these days, collections). We weren't afraid to answer the phone when home and we were actually excited to greet missed calls with something welcoming.
Not any more.

Now adays, everyone has a cell phone and everyone uses voicemail. The recordings are digital. Gone are the days of a distorted, worn tape mishaping the words and encouraging an exciting game of "what did they say?" Now, everyone just looks at a digital readout, (or iPhone users get a computer screen), where they can see the caller's name, time of the message, length of the recording and decide whether they even want to listen. There is no more intrigue, no more surprise. It used to be like opening a Christmas present or a box of Cracker Jacks, but now we have the ability to kill the messenger before even hearing the message. That's how much we care about our callers.

I've recently noticed that nobody records thier own messages anymore. 99% of the numbers I call are answered by the same, abrupt-sounding lady's voice telling me that "555-1212 is unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone. When finished recording your message, you may hang up or press one for more options." Did I dial the right number? Do I know if I've actually reached John Doe's telephone or just one of the 55-million other people who have the same dyke-sounding chick on their machine? Nope. Just gotta' leave the message and hope for the best. It's a gamble. Think about the poor sap who accidentally calls his mother's number thinking it's his girlfriend ... "BEEP! Hey baby, I was just thinking about what I'd like to do to you ..."

So I ask you, where has our creativity gone as a society? Where has the ingenuity and gumption gone that used to lather our taste buds in anticipation of a truly clever message? For me, I think the answer lies in the annoyance of most phone calls. It always seems to be someone who I don't want to talk to. You know, telemarketers, bankers, a spouse complaining. That last one slipped, I didn't mean to include that, of course.

If I had the guts to do it, I would make it a priority to have fun with my voicemail messages. I'd be honest and straight-forward in their delivery, not promising everyone that their call is important to me, but instead, telling them the God's honest truth ...

"Hi, you've reached my voicemail. Your call may or may not be very important to me, depending upon who you are and what you want. Therefore, leave me a message after the tone and if I call you back, you were important. If I don't, you may want to read into that. Thanks for calling! BEEP!"

Or ...

"Hi, this is my voicemail, which either means that I'm away from the phone or - more likely - I've looked at the number and determined that it is one that I don't want to answer right now. Think about it. It's a cell phone, for crying out loud. What are the chances that I really don't have it with me? BEEP!"

Any maybe ...

"This is my voicemail. What just happened was, I heard my phone ring and stopped my conversation long enough to look at the screen and see that it was you. Then, I rolled my eyes in a very exaggerated fashion, shook my head, commented to whomever I was speaking that it was "just you" and that "you could wait". I chuckled, then hit DISREGARD and went back to my life. Therefore, you can now choose to leave a message or not, depending on how all that makes you feel ... BEEP!"

Or, perhaps my favorite ...

"You've reached my phone. If you are a telemarketer, press END now. If you are a bill collector, press END now. If you are a disgruntled employee, press END now. If you are an attorney notifying me of my inclusion in the will of a long-lost and wealthy relative, or if you are Ed McMahon calling to inform me of my recent winning, please leave a message after the tone and I will call you back so fast your head will spin. All others, please press END now. Thank you. BEEP!"

But of course, there are those times that you don't want to be rude, only to drive your callers crazy. For that particular situation, may I recommend something along the lines of ...

"Thank you for calling. For English, press one now. Para español, pulse dos ... BEEP! YOU HAVE SELECTED PORTUGUESE: Muito obrigado pela chamada. Como posso ajudá-lo hoje? ... BEEP! YOU HAVE SELECTED HINDI: कॉल करने के लिए धन्यवाद . आज की मदद से आप कैसे कर सकते हैं ? ... BEEP! YOU HAVE SELECTED BULGARIAN: Благодарим ви за свикване. Как мога да ви помогне да днес? ..."

All the best,

WDL

Sorry I'm Late. My Bed Went Flat ...

2008-05-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

I'm an insomniac. I don't sleep. At least, I don't sleep well, which usually means that I'm up tossing and turning all night or I finally just give up and go do something. This little habit has been with me for years and unfortunately, it only gets worse the older I get.

I'm also a snorer. Of course, not actually sleeping much means that my snoring is kept to a minimum, but the second I do fall off ... look out! It's like the snarling of a medieval monster lurking in a dark cave; a sound that scares my children and causes my wife to punch my arm. It's a loud snore I'm told.

As if the first two imperfections were not enough, I also suffer from sleep apnia. You know, that's the thing where you suddenly stop breathing in the middle of the night, until either your brain kicks in and finds your lungs on break or - if you're married, this is your more likely scenario - your spouse pounds you in the chest thinking she's saving your life several times a night. Of course that does start my breathing again, but usually results in my waking up and falling victim to insomnia, all with a huge bruise on my chest. Nights for me are tough.

Because of the three reasons above, I don't often sleep in my own bed anymore. Waking my wife and children and being awakened to a savage beating have long since driven me to the practice of sleeping in the basement. It's cool down there and I have a TV that I can watch as loud as I want and plenty of books to read. (Yes, it's a finished basement. I'm not a total savage).

Without a guest room on the lower floor, I decided one night a few years back to make a small investment in an air mattress for comfort. I went to my local Wal-Mart, (it's always the Wal-Mart), and purchased a Coleman camping job that came complete with a plug-in air pump. Of course, I don't know where you'd plug that in if you were hiking in the wilderness, but then again, a true camper doesn't use air mattresses anyway.

This "bed" if you will, has served me for quite some time now. For several years I've crashed out on the air mattress and sometimes I'm lucky enough to fall asleep without the help of Lunesta. To be honest, the thing is pretty damn comfortable and I don't have to worry about rousing the natives or being pummelled in the wee hours of the night. Not a bad situation.

Recently, however, I found out that air mattresses are not forever. Everything was fine when I "went to bed". Even by the time I finally drifted off to sleep several hours later the sturdy old mattress was firm and comfy with no signs of aging. Unfortunately, that bliss didn't last through the night. Somewhere, something went wrong. My bed sprung a leak.

I woke up to my alarm clock the following morning and sprang to life, knowing that I had bumped back my wake-up time to the last possible moment. Coffee, shower, shave and drive were the only things on my mind that morning as I started to roll over and begin a new day. In hindsight I would probably say that intentionally waking late is not a good idea.

As I rolled to my left, I noticed that I was surrounded by something in the dim light. Both of my shoulders seemed to be pushed in, close to my body and I couldn't roll in either direction. I felt as though I were wearing a straight jacket and wondered if my wife had me committed somewhere during the night. I tried to sit up and found that my head and neck were securely held in place as well. My legs were pushed together and all I could think was that someone had buried me in concrete that had now hardened.

As my mind came more to life - both from the onset of panic and the braying alarm clock still raucussing in the background - my situation began to make sense. My bed had gone flat. Not the whole bed, or perhaps to say not totally flat would be more descriptive. The sides around my body ballooned upward and pushed in around me as though I were caught in a swimming pool cover. Lying on my back, my weight pushed me down into the nest of deflated rubber, pushing the remaining air to the sides, which then pushed further down on me as they bellowed full at the top like hands holding me below the surface.

I struggled like a swimmer running out of air and panic overwhelmed me. I began kicking my legs, which did nothing more than finally work them free and allow more trapped air to push them into the air at an awkward angle. My bad knee complained. My body was now at floor level, secured into position and my legs were sticking straight into the air as though I'd been half-buried upside down. It seemed hopeless.

I thrashed around some more, kicking, wiggling and bouncing; anything to work myself upward. Like quicksand, I only seemed to sink further and my legs extended higher. Across the room my alarm clock laughed at me with a high-pitched beep.

Twenty-minutes or more went by with me struggling until I was sweaty and spent, then resting momentarily before doing it all over again. In my mind I had left non-belief behind, now furious about my situation. In terms of the absolute, most ridiculous way to be trapped on the face of this green earth, I was sure that I was the first person suffocating in a damn air mattress. I was steaming! To make it worse, I had chosen to wake up late, which meant that my wife and children were long-since gone for school and work. I was upside down, buried in a Coleman camping mattress and certain that my body wouldn't be found until late that evening. By that time, I suspected, rigormortis would have set in, stiffened my body and caused me to pop from the mattress to the floor. They'd never know what killed me. Thank God.

After nearly a half-hour passed, with the damn alarm clock still screaming it's applause, I finally worked my way to an inverted position in which my legs canter-levered backward over my head and slowly squeezed the rest of my body over the head-side of the mattress. I oozed from the rubber like a foot pulled from deep mud and finally, my head popped free from its captor. I lay on the floor panting, enjoying every second of freedom and the cool, fresh basement air touching my sweat-soaked skin. I realized that I had just escaped the most embarrassing death a man could imagine; drowning in an air bed.

When I'd finally gotten my barrings, I rushed through my morning routine and sped to the office where members of my company's executive committee had been waiting at a conference table for more than 30-minutes. Coffee cups were empty and notepads were scribbled on. I was late and there was no way in hell I was going to disclose the reason.

I walked into the conference room, took a seat in my chair and in a casual tone stated, "Sorry I'm late. I, uh...

...had a flat".

All the best,

WDL

Book Tracking: Chapter One

2008-05-15T20:12:00.001-07:00

Being my first dive into the world of becoming a published author, I thought it might be fun to share some of the steps along the way. One, for those who may wish to undergo such a thing in the future, it may serve as an interesting base of knowledge for what to expect. Two, I've had so many people asking me about the book, I thought this might be a way to answer questions en masse. If nothing else, its kind of fun to see what is happening along the way.

I've already written an entry or two while I was working on the manuscript, so I'll just pick up from there and call this Chapter One. Everything prior was really just preparation anyway. With these entries, I'll keep you posted on what's happening along the way so that I don't have to go through it alone. You can share in the excitement and the (surely they're coming) disappointments of actually getting a book to the shelves. Oh boy, what fun. Here we go ...

Okay, in response to those who have been asking; the book manuscript is now officially finished. Well, at least the writing part is done and I feel like my brain is now recouperating from natural childbirth. Being a First Draft Freddy pretty much my entire life, the process of writing and then revising was a bit of a challenge for me. To be honest, most of my published columns are written in a single sitting. The only revisions I've been accustomed to were for cutting back the length to an acceptable magazine wordcount. So, trying to re-work, re-word, re-phrase and copy edit my own stuff was difficult. Yes, there is a copy editor who is working on this next, but I thought that doing the first stuff myself would keep the overall flow that I like to have in my writing. More conversational, I guess, than what the typical writer writes. If someone else is going to edit my work, I want to ensure that it retains my style rather than taking on thiers. Otherwise, what is the point, right?

The manuscript delivery process completed yesterday with the printing of several copies, dispursement to a few select "readers" who will critique it, emailing to a few different individuals who have agreed to review it and submission to the person in charge of copy editing. Her job is perhaps the most gruelling! Good luck there.

The next step in the process, I assume, will be to make whatever changes the copy editor suggests. I'm assuming there will be a lot. I'm also looking forward to the critique offerings coming back. I've got my suspicions that one or more chapters might not make it through to the final product, but I'm waiting to see what these people say. If they love them, then what the hell. You might too.

The worst part of the current procedure is waiting to see what the reviews are like. To me, book reviews are kind of like comments from a toddler. A five-year old has no problem telling the lady ahead of him in the grocery checkout isle that she has a big butt. "God lady, you got a big butt!" He notices and he says. Its that simple. When you let friends and family read what you've written, you're always going to get a response that considers your feelings. Even if they don't like it, a friend will usually focus on the parts that they did like or simply lie to you. A family member might be a bit more honest, perhaps offering an area where "you could do better" or "maybe you should rethink this", but they won't tell you the unbiased truth. Never will the woman who pushed you from her loins look at you and tell you your work sucks. If she does, you probably weren't a very good child.

The reviewer is different. When someone professionally reviews your work, they aren't taking feelings into consideration. They're going to tell you what they think, regardless of how you take it. They don't care how you take it because they don't know you from Adam. Like the toddler commenting on the stranger's butt, the reviewer will give a reflection of what they see. Its their job. Truth be known, they probably enjoy it. (Imagine a life where you could actually say what you wanted ... wow.)

So now I wait. I guess I'll need to catch up on other work in the interim. I should probably write a couple of more columns for the magazine and get caught up on that as well and, who knows, I may even post a few more things to this blog site. Now that would be a change, wouldn't it?

All the best,

WDL

Dog Megaphones

2008-05-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

I always said I'd never do it, but today, I had no choice. My wife's dog - a Golden Retriever named Comet - had to have his ACL reconstructed in a surgery last week. Today, we removed the bandages to reveal a scrawny, hairless leg that reminded me of an uncooked turkey drumstick. Not in a good way.

The long incision - now laced together with long stitches that look quite a lot like a football - injected a bit of familiarity in my mind. I had the same surgery a few years ago and share the same scar ... on the same leg, for that matter. I guess the two of us will look good together this summer.

Back to the point, it didn't take long for Comet to curl around and start licking the fresh wound. Of course, having experience with casts myself I didn't think much of it. After all, the itch that can develop beneath those things is enough to put anyone into the loony bin. A minute later, however, I noticed his head jerking back from his leg and a series of ripping sounds found my ears. It didn't take me long to realize that he was removing the stitches with his teeth - something that I didn't do following my surgery. Probably because I can't bend that far.

Knowing that the cut wasn't fully healed, and fearing a future of gangrene, I rushed over to the vet's office and stood in line behind a fat lady with a loud cat. Following her presentation, (handing the carrier off to a young girl who carted it into the back - the meowing fading behind a closing door), I stepped to the plate and asked for a megaphone.

"I'm sorry. A what?" came the reply. Evidently I wasn't speaking their language.

"A megaphone. You know, the thing that goes around a dog's head and keeps him from pulling stitches out of his leg?"

"Oh. A scratch collar." She was now laughing, as were her coworkers. Who knew that such a device had a real name?

The lady asked the breed of my dog, I assume for sizing, then disappeared and came back a moment later with a large, clear, U-shaped piece of plastic with Velcro and rubber weather stripping. I looked at the gadget and decided not to ask what it cost. Knowing would only make me want to construct my own and that never ends well.

I bought the collar and headed home. The emotions that went with me were mixed; concern for the stitches in one side of my mind, but quite overwhelmingly a concern for Comet's mental well-being flooded the other. I was somewhat reluctant to put the thing on him. I remembered the times before when I'd seen dogs wearing the megaphone. The pathetic look in their eyes told it all. They reminded me of the kid in the High School locker room who wore the huge orthodontic device that wrapped around his head like a big exclamation point saying, "Pick on me!" Did I really want to subject my dog to the same treatment as the nerd in Gym class? Purple Nurples, Wedgies and Icy-Hot in his underwear, or whatever the dog-equivalent to those pranks might be. It just seemed cruel, like I was destining the poor animal to future ridicule from the other neighborhood dogs.

When I arrived home, I found Comet on the front porch, again working on the stitches. The bottom of the scar had two long strings hanging loose like a Chinese-made plush toy and my decision was made. Damn the bullying from the community canines, the stitch-biting had to stop.

I removed the backing from the Velcro strips and placed the cone around Comet's head, then firmly affixed the Velcro as the vet lady had instructed. No sooner did I step back than Comet realized there was something still attached to him. He immediately went berserk, thrashing his head around, falling down and pawing at the plastic trap that now held his head. For several minutes he fought against the device, the whole time wobbling on his bad leg and then finally he cold-cocked himself into the side of the porch swing and gave up in either frustration or dizziness, I'm not sure which.

About that time my Alaskan Malamute came to the porch to see what the commotion was all about. I looked at her face and, the second she saw him, I knew exactly what she was thinking.

"HA! You got a LAMP SHADE! OH MY GOD, HOW FUNNY! My brother, the dweeb of the neighborhood ... for God's sake, don't let anyone see you! OH! What a riot ... you're a geek! Ha ha ha!" Dogs can be so cruel.

I've checked on the Retriever several times this evening, each time feeling sorry for him and resisting the urge to remove the contraption. Mostly I find him just sitting in the garage with his lamp shade held to the air. He looks like a hairy Victrola from days gone by.

My daughter asked me earlier today, "Daddy, what is that thing you put on Comet's head?"

"It's a satellite dish for his doghouse, sweetie. If he points his head due South, he can pick up Animal Planet".

"Huh-uh!" She exclaimed, laughing wildly.

My wife didn't laugh. She only gave me "the look".

All the best,

WDL

How Goes the Book?

2008-04-27T23:20:00.001-07:00

It seems that as soon as people find out that you're working on a manuscript for your first book, every time they see you the first thing out of their mouths is always the same, "So, how goes the book?" The tone of each person also matches; a hint of doubt encased in a friendly smile that says, "Uh huh. You'll never finish that thing."

The funny thing is, people seem to have no recollection of asking about the book. I'll see a friend on a Monday night and get the, "So, how goes the book?" question. The next morning its, "Hi Bob." "Hey, William! How goes the book?" Yes, I'm an insomniac but no, I didn't write another ten chapters over night. What is that all about?

Another thing I find interesting is the wording of the comment itself. "How goes the book?" Not, "How is the book coming along", or "Have you been working on the book?" It's always the exact same phrase, no matter the asker. "How goes the book?" Have people been talking to one another? Did someone instruct them to use that wording in particular? Where else in life do we phrase things this way? "So, how goes the job?" "How goes the life?" "How goes your sanity?"People never say that.

I'm to the point of paranoia now that I'm quite sure there is some sort of conspiracy going on. Somewhere, advertised in a medium that I'm not privy to, someone has assembled everyone who knows me to talk about my book. They've all decided that they have doubts about my finishing it and they've all been instructed to ask the same question, then report back to their leader. There only mistake is in the phrasing. I'm on to them and their dirty little game.

"So, how goes the book?"

"How goes the conspiracy?"

"What do you mean?"

"I know about it, Bob. The meetings, the questions, the doubts in your minds. Well, I'm here to tell you that you can report back that everything is fine with the book. I'm almost finished with the first draft of the entire manuscript! You can go and tell them that everything is hunky-dory here in authorville! That's what I mean!"

"You doin' okay? How goes the sanity, there buddy?"

Sure, writing a book is a stressful thing. Meeting deadlines, coming up with ideas, battling writer's block ... it's all there. But to be honest, I think I'm dealing with the stress quite well, don't you?

All the best,

WDL

By the way: The book is scheduled for release in August, assuming that I'm able to maintain my schedule. For all that have been asking, thank you for your inquiries. I appreciate the support. I'll post any further release information on this site as it becomes available. And that, my friends, is "how it goes"!

The Dark Night

2008-04-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

My house is a mine field. No matter how often we clean and "pick up", the floor of every room seems to magically become littered with toys that inevitably cause loss of balance when walking in broad daylight, much less the deadly nighttime bathroom trip. Helen Keller would not like it here ...

I remember quite well waking up at 3:18AM with a bladder that seemed ready to burst. The green numbers of the alarm clock winked back at me as I turned my head and tried to gain the composure necessary for a short jaunt to the bathroom. The time I remember well due to the sheer pain that frosted that journey. We tend to recall with the most clarity those things in life which cause us harm, after all.

I slipped my feet silently to the floor, ever-conscious of the other family members sleeping in the house. Without a sound, I lifted my weight carefully from the matress and rose to a vertical position, my arms instinctively reaching out for the rocking chair beside the bed. My instincts proved well as my hand gently brushed the back of the rocker sending it into a slow lullabye of motion in the silent darkness.

There was no moonlight that night to guide me, but with my heading now set by the rocker, I slowly lifted my right foot high into the air and brought it down ahead of me, my toes touching first to avoid any creaking of boards beneath me. Satisfied with the step, I lowered the rest of the foot and slowly transferred my weight, next lifting the left foot and repeating the motion to cover ground ever so softly. My wife snored on.

My left foot came down, the toes touching down in a perfect placement and, as I followed with the rest of my foot, already transferring my weight to raise the right, an instant of slight sticking found the nerves in the center of my left arch, sending a warning impulse to my brain, "You're about to step on something!" It was too late. The rest of my foot came down and by the time my heal touched the floor, the sword of a tiny plastic pirate punctured the skin and drove its way into the meat of my foot. I gasped in the darkness as the piece sunk home and I could already feel the trickle of warm blood spilling onto the carpet. Somehow, I stifled a scream.

Raising my left foot automatically, I realized that my right foot was still in the air. Physics, unfortunately, does not accomodate for the levitation of a 250-pound man and therefore, something has to come down. In this case it was my left foot that slammed to the floor, driving the plastic pirate sword deeper into the tender arch. I stumbled backward, my balance failing and both arms flailing in the darkness. My right foot finally found life and as the heel came down, with the bulk of my weight, it found only the slick cover of a Dr. Suess book, (The Foot Book, if I remember correctly, though that may have just been in my mind), which immediately slid backward on the carpetting, propelling me toward the dresser.

Had the dresser drawers been closed, the next event might well not have occured. I threw both arms behind me, sliding backward on the Suess book through the darkness with a pirate's sword sticking from my left foot and a trail of blood staining the floor. As my right hand felt wood, I immediately pushed downward in an attempt to stabilize myself and stop the rearward motion. Unfortunately, the wood that my hand had found was not the top of the bureau, but the edge of an open drawer, which gave way under my sprawling weight and came cracking from its sliders. As the drawer crashed to the floor, the back of it breaking completely away, my left hand caught a half-empty water glass that had been carelessly discarded on the top of the dresser. My head then passed where the drawer had been at a speed of about Mach-2, before breaking it's fall on the corner of the dresser, opening a gash in my scalp and leaving a lump the size of Iceland.

I hit the floor with my eyes open and in a slight twinkle of light from sources unknown, I had just enough time to see a glistening from the lip of the water glass as it crashed into my forehead. Unlike the movies, the glass didn't break, but instead dealt me a glancing blow between the eyes and on the bridge of the nose. I laid there for a moment, ready for my wife to hit me with the typical, "Are you trying to wake the whole house?", but it never came. I couldn't believe it.

Finally, I dragged myself into the bathroom, leaving a bloody trail behind me that could easily have been followed by a blind tracker and pulled the door closed behind me. From the floor, I reached up and flipped the lightswitch, bathing my world in brilliant light that hurt my eyes and made the new lumps on my head throb in protest.

Carefully, I reached down and pulled the pirate's sword from my left foot, biting down on my lip to keep from screaming at the top of my lungs. I could litterally feel every centimeter as it pulled against the flesh, slowly working its way out into the air. Holding the sword up before my eyes, I was amazed at the gruesome sight. A 2" plastic sword, soaked in the blood of an early morning battle. It had obviously won.

I crawled to the cabinet and dug out a bottle of Bactine, flipping the little lid upward and squeezing a good deal of the product into the puncture wound. Again a scream of death built behind my pursed lips and again I was successful at holding it down. The Bactine bubbled inside me and frothed its way out of my foot like a rabid dog in a Milkbone factory. Black spots floated in front of my vision and I nearly passed out from the pain.

Next, I pulled myself up the front of the cabinets high enough to get a look at my blood-soaked, swollen head in the mirror. I was grotesque; the Elephant Man after a good beating. Between my eyes was a golf-ball sized knot that reminded me of a blacksnake swallowing an egg. My nose was already black and blue and swollen to three times its normal width, giving it a long, snout-like appearance. I reached up and felt a bloody matte of hair on the back of my head where I'd hit the bureau, pushed out to a seemingly impossible distance by a mass of swelling so big it could have accomodated a second ball cap.

I spent the next twenty-minutes tending to my injuries, using nearly the full bottle of Bactine, several Band-aids and two wet washclothes, both of which bore a happy-pink color after having been rung-out. My foot throbbed in perfect rythm with the pulsing of the headwounds and I noticed that somewhere along the line I had sprained my left wrist as well. Injuries always seem to be on the left with me.

Finally, I made my way to the toilet and performed the task for which I had initially come to this room. God forbid I have to recross that treacherous zone another time later. Satisfied, I turned off the lights and stood motionless for a moment in an attempt to allow my eyes to readjust to the darkness. In my mind, I tried to remember where exactly all of the hazards had been so as not to reinjure myself during the return trip. Ultimately, I decided to crawl.

As I opened the bathroom door and began crawling across the floor, my bad knee made a slight popping sound in the darkness. From the bed, my wife suddenly sat up and yelled, "Are you trying to wake up the whole house?", then crashed back down to her pillow and back to sleep. After all of that, I still got the reprimand. Soured by the accusation, I climbed up into the bed and didn't care if I shook the mattress. I pulled more than my share of the covers around me, rolling her slightly onto her back in the process where she continued her light snoring as though nothing had happened.

The next morning, I was awakened by my wife frantically shaking me with concern in her voice. "What happened?" She yelled. "There's blood everywhere and you look like you've been in a prize fight!"

I could see the concern in her eyes and for a split second, I felt a warmth of caring and affection spill through me. Then I remembered her angry yell about waking the house up. Without missing a beat, I looked at my wife and said,

"You don't remember? How can you not remember waking up last night and hitting me in the head with that water glass? You pushed me into the dresser! It was horrible! How can you not remember?"

Funny. You'd think I'd feel some remorse over that.

Birthday Calendar

2008-04-21T18:58:00.000-07:00

I learned something new today. Of course, for someone with my poor memory, that happens pretty much every day, but today's information was special. Today I opened my e-mail inbox to find that my friend Ron had sent me a link to a Birthday Calendar on-line.

I first wondered - as I'm sure that you are doing now - what is a Birthday Calendar and why do I care? I hovered my mouse over the red X, fully prepared to send Ron's correspondence to the trash and lie to him about having read it if it ever came up. But then curiosity overwhelmed me enough that I moved the arrow to the link and clicked. On the site that popped up, I was instructed to enter my birthday and click GO!

In no time I was reading all about the day that I was born. At first, it seemed as though that might be an interesting topic. In hindsight, it only turned out to be depressing.

First off, I was apparently conceived on April 6th. I assume someone must have been sneaking around my parent's house to have known that for sure, but I trusted the information. After all, if you read it on the 'net, it must be true. Something about the date bothered me. In my mind, I couldn't tie anything of significance to it. What might have brought about my conception, I wondered? Now that I think about it, that's an odd thing to want to know. At the time, however, it was this thought that caused me to open a new tab and actually google the date. What I found was nothing. Nada. Zip. April 6th has absolutely no historical significance whatsoever. Unless, that is, you consider the fact that in 1898 they discovered the North Pole. Could it have been an overly raucous "North Pole Discovery" party that had gotten out of hand, eventually leading to little Billy some 9-months later? I had my doubts and realized that I may well be the product of something as simple as there being "nothing on TV".

Somewhat discouraged, I clicked back to the Birthday Calendar page to see what other things might pop out at me. What I found was that there isn't much about me that I find interesting. Damn. I used to think highly of myself.

In the year I was born, there were 3.7 million births in the U.S. That means that I'm just as special as 3,699,999 other people in this world. Maybe fewer, assuming that a few of them have since died. Pleasant thought, huh?

My lucky day is Saturday and my lucky number is 8. Great information to have, really. Now if I just had 4-more lucky numbers and a powerball ...

I also thought it interesting that my lucky dates are the 8th, the 17th and the 26th. Just below that it proclaimed that "Today is one of your lucky days!" Noting that today is not a Saturday, nor is it the 8th, 17th or 26th of the month, I'm not only depressed by the information, I'm also confused.

I was born under the sign of the pig. This actually does explain a lot.

To make matters even worse, the site tells me that my fortune cookie reads: "It doesn't matter. Who is without flaw?" Honestly, what kind of a fortune is that? It doesn't matter? Who is without flaw? Why not eat a bullet for breakfast tomorrow? That's not a fortune, it's a slogan for the Association of Helplessly Average Individuals. Where is the fortune in that? Why not just say "You are destined to be nothing more than mediocre." It reminds me of the last 400 soda bottles I've opened, the undersides of the cap reading "Sorry, you're not a winner. Try again!"

At the very least, I read on to learn that my birth tree is the Apple Tree. The description reads: Of slight build, lots of charm, appeal and attraction, pleasant aura, flirtatious, adventurous, sensitive, always in love, wants to love and be loved, faithful and tender partner, very generous, scientific talents, lives for today, a carefree philosopher with imagination. God knows that couldn't be further from the truth.

I read through the entire page, looking for anything that made me feel cool, special, better-than-average. There was nothing. My birthstone? Blue Zircon; something I've never heard of. Probably family of cubic zirconium. At least it didn't say coal. My lucky planet? Uranus. A name I can't even say without giggling. I guess it is suiting that it should remind me of a butt. The moon beneath which I was born was the waxing gibbous. (Insert own joke here).

After reading the page several times and realizing that it had absolutely nothing promising to offer, I realized that everything happens for a reason. I had actually learned a very valuable lesson while reading the words that told me over and over again that I was nothing special.

I learned that you can't believe anything you read on-line. It's all garbage.

All the best,

WDL

NOTE TO READERS: On a tip, I looked on Wikipedia and found that April 6th was the date of organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and it is also believed by many of The Church to be the date that Jesus was resurrected from the grave. I mention this in recognition of the significance of the events for those readers of the Mormon faith, (even though you'd be in trouble with The Church if they knew you were reading my blog anyway), as well as to proclaim that there is extreme significance to my date of conception after all! I knew I wasn't mediocre, and this proves it! After all, I read about it on the Internet ...

About Ten Minute ...

2008-04-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

"That will be about ... ten minute. Okay?" It was the same response that I've gotten from the local Chinese Restaurant for the past several years. Always about ten minute - never ten minutes (plural), always minute. What has continued to amaze me is the food is prepared in ten minutes, no matter what I ordered. Chicken Fried Rice, ten minute; Crab Rangoon, ten minute; General Tso's Chicken, ten minute. I'm guessing that people in China never have to wait very long for a meal. There is absolutely nothing that they can prepare that takes longer than ten minute (s).

In the past year, however, the owners had decided to retire and passed the operation on to their children. Immediately afterward, I noticed that the carryout service had slowed dramatically. I would call, just as always and the response would be the same, (ten minute), as it had always been. Upon my arrival, though, I now had to wait by the front counter for at least another ten minute before my food was brought out. Like most Chinese joints the majority of the facility is filled with tables, leaving very little room for a checkout counter. Because of this design flaw, the counter is wedged in between the buffet area and the front door, leaving only a small pathway through which to walk when filling your plate or exiting the building. Each time I arrived to find that my food was not ready, I was forced to stand uncomfortably, leaning against the side of the counter and actually excusing myself from the path of customers coming in or leaving. The increased wait time got to be quite a pain.

One particularly busy evening, I finally asked the young lady at the counter why it was that I had to wait so long when they told me "ten minute" on the phone? I had toyed around with it, giving them as much as twenty minutes on occassion, and nevertheless, I've had to stand for another ten minute each time.

She kindly looked at me and responded, "Okay. Ten minute".

Finally the aggrevation had gotten to me. I suspected that they were no longer even preparing the food until I showed up, so I decided to put my theory to the test. On a rather busy Saturday night, I ducked into the store's foyer without alerting the staff and tucked myself in behind a coat rack. From there, I removed my cell phone and called to place an order. I was actually able to watch as the girl answered the phone and wrote down my order in a ticket book at the counter. "Ten minute", came her reply and she hung up.

For the next ten minutes, I watched as the girl rung out several customers and flipped through the pages of a magazine. The ticket book hadn't moved from the counter. Then, after having waited exactly twelve minutes by my watch, I came out from behind the coat rack and walked through the inner door, the little bell tinkling it's warning from above my head. The girl looked up from her magazine and asked "how many?"

"I had a call-in order", I said, eyeing her and looking toward the ticket book.

She smiled and said, "Be just one minute", then turned and walked toward the kitchen taking the ticket book with her. My suspicions proven, I took position along the counter and carefully ducked other patrons who rudely squeezed past me as though I were there to purposely get in their way. I could feel my ears turning red with anger as I thought about the fact that they were purposely making me wait, simply because the girl was too lazy to take my ticket back after my phone call.

A moment later, movement caught my eye near the buffet and I spied a kitchen worker in a white apron filling a container with Chicken Fried Rice from the buffet bar. He then pulled a small, crinkly bag from his pocket and counted out six pieces of Crab Rangoon, carefully adjusting them to fit in the bag before spinning it closed. Another bag appeared, and into it went a rather burned eggroll that appeared to have been passed over by at least a hundred patrons that day. As I watched, I realized that he was filling my order from the buffet. Suddenly the ten minute timeframe made sense. How could I have been so stupid?

A moment later, the girl appeared through the swinging kitchen door with a large paper bag and smiled as she asked if I'd like soy sauce.

"Did they just get that off of the buffet?" I asked in a rather angry tone.

"You want buffet?" She replied

"No. I'm asking if they just got that food from the buffet."

(Smiling) "Okay."

"Why did you wait until I got here to get my food? Why didn't you turn in the ticket when I called?" Now people were beginning to look in my direction.

"I sorry?"

"You waited to turn in my ticket until I arrived, which means that I had to stand here for an extra ten minutes while your cook went and filled my order ... from the buffet!"

"You want buffet instead?"

I finally gave up. The girl didn't understand a word I was saying. She obviously knew only enough of the Queen's English to get her by; Smoking or non-smoking, Buffet or A1, Coca-Cola and a fair knowledge of how to count out American currency. Arguing any further would only have made me to look like an ass, (which though I am, I don't like to advertise it).

Two weeks later, I was standing in line at the local Wal-Mart store, waiting patiently and browsing the headlines of the weirdo gossip magazines. The girl in front of me was chatting on her cell phone to someone as she unloaded her cart onto the conveyer and by her rushed words and high-pitched laughter, I could tell that she was a typical teenager without looking. I tried to mind my own business.

"Oh my God! You know, I heard the same thing last Saturday night! I was talking to Amber and she was telling me all about the ... blah, blah blah"

As she finished her phone conversation and finally unloaded the remaining couple of items, I happened to look up at her face for the first time. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. It was the same girl who worked the counter at the Chinese Restaurant! Speaking better English that I do, at that! I stared for a moment, thinking that surely my eyes were playing tricks on me. Finally, as she was finishing signing the electronic credit card pad, I couldn't stand it any longer ... I simply had to know. I leaned forward, tapped her on the shoulder and as she turned toward me I could see a glint of recognition in her eyes.

"So, how long have you worked at the Chinese Restaurant?" I asked, proud that my cunningness and surprise would catch her off guard.

She looked at me, not with shock or disbelief, but only the same wide smile that I had seen so many times before. Without missing a beat, she replied ...

"About ten minute".

All the best,

WDL

Where've all the Good Ones Gone?

2008-04-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

What ever happened to giving an honest day's work for an honest day's pay? The more I think about the changes that have taken place in the job pool over the past several years, the more I wonder if my own recollection of working for someone else is simply skewed in some way. Did I act like many of the employees that I interview out there today? Something tells me that I don't think so.

While interviewing potential applicants for a job opening at my motorcycle dealership's parts counter a couple of years ago, I was astonished by the pile of applications before me. If the problems were left alone to the sections that detailed work history with perhaps hard-to-remember dates, or sections that dealt with medical history perhaps, I could deal with the information that I was seeing there. However, when rather hideous mistakes were obvious throughout the applications, I grew concerned for the well-being of our future society. With one application in particular, I noticed that the handwriting was very neat. Obviously the showing of someone who took great time in filling out the form and wanted to make an impression. I browsed through the application and noted a couple of misspellings - forgiveable things such as street names (Chouteau spelled as Showtoe). As the mistakes appeared in the addresses of the people listed as "reference", I could likely have forgiven them. However, as I looked at the front of the form for the name of the individual, I stopped short of placing it in the "possible" pile. The place of residence was listed as Burban, Missoura. I looked twice at the name, thinking that they couldn't possibly have misspelled their city of residence and must be referring to a town other than the nearby "Bourbon, Missouri". Never mind the state's name being spelled phonetically from the incorrect, yet common pronunciation. I followed the line to the zip code and, sure enough, it matched that of Bourbon. In a last hope of allowing some benefit of the doubt, I looked at the time of residence for the applicant. It turns out that they were a life-long resident of Burban. Apparently the town's school needed to work a little harder on that one.

Some of the other applicants finding residency in the "Rejected" pile included the man who was applying for a "Party" position. (It wasn't just that of course, he'd dropped out of highschool in 1989 and listed "Unemployment" as the only former employer). Probably not a candidate for employee of the month. One man answered the "ever been convicted of a felony" question with "only twice". A female applicant wrote "can remove my bra without taking off my shirt" in the "Special skills" section. Though interesting, I couldn't see that as a helpful talent in looking up motorcycle parts. Perhaps I'm wrong. As I worked my way through the stack, I noticed that the Reject pile on my left was growing steadily, while the Possible pile to my right was nonexistent. I wondered if maybe I wasn't being a slight bit too picky.

The next kid seemed acceptable. The handwriting was attrocious, but then, if we're judged solely on that I'd have never found my first job. The boy had no work experience, but liked to tinker with motorcycles and I thought I'd interview him. At least that put something in the possible pile. When I called him later to set an appointment, the young man corrected me on the pronunciation of his last name. It wasn't Smith, as I had read it from the application, but Barnhardt. He laughed. "I was pretty stoned when I filled that out and I was with my buddy Brian Smith. I must have written his name by accident, haha." I silently moved the paper from right to left as I informed him that I'd made a mistake in calling.

Of the three people I finally interviewed that day, one (I affectionately thought of him as "Iron Head") showed up to the meeting with at least twenty-pounds of pierced jewelry hanging from his face. I actually had to take a moment to stare and the only thought that crossed my mind was that he must never fly anywhere. I pictured him standing in a TSA screening line at the airport, removing all of the 50 or more pieces from his eyebrows and placing them in the gray-colored tray for X-ray. I had to stifle a laugh.

Of the remaining two, one offered that they had an active warrant for their arrest during the interview and wanted to know if they would have immediate vacation time ... in case something came up. Seriously, I can't make this stuff up. Again I could only stare, though this time it was past the person's eyes to the vast blankness that lay within their skull.

The final kid was clean cut and polite. I was instantly thankful that I had actually found someone who said that they wanted to "work their way forward in a progressive company" and referred to me as "sir". (Ass-kissing can get you a long way in this world). Being the last and only hope, I immediately offered the boy a job and was thrilled when he reported to work early the next day in a pressed shirt and with the overwhelming kindness of Eddie Haskell. Finally! I thought, someone who isn't a tattooed, pierced, vulgar person and they actually are coming to work for me! How lucky can I get? I felt as though I had just won the new employee lottery!

A month later, I sifted through the receipts again and watched the security camera footage for the umpteenth time as though something might change. Sure enough, right there on my screen I could plainly see the dapper, well-dressed young man of whom I was so proud, stealing money from the cash register.

Lucky me, indeed.

Excerpt: Shopping Abroad

2008-04-14T08:33:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of an ass when it comes to certain things and I've come to grips with that over the years. At least I can admit it, which - in any case - is easier than changing it. My wife has also somewhat come to understand that she cannot change this personality flaw; granted it's taken her more than 11-years to realize it.

One of the areas where I have a difficult time is in dealing with competitive situations. Like shopping. Of course, like most American males, I can pretty much find competition in anything that I do, but shopping - particularly shopping abroad where everything is bargained for - leads me to a place where the overwhelming forces of competition tend to take control and all of the excitement and adrenalin that go into winning course through my veins and lead me to a frenzied state of being from which there is no return without ultimate success. Unfortunately for many of the must-have-money vendors with whom I've dealt, I'm pretty good at this game.

When in Morocco several years back, my wife and I did a foot-tour of the city, ducking in and out of the shops and wheeling and dealing with street vendors selling everything from food to clothing, jewelry to snake charming. My poor wife simply wanted to experience the culture and I, of course, turned it into a game of pricing limbo ... "how low can they go". One poor kid, (and I use the term as sympathy for the situation, not in reference to the fact that he was obviously "poor" in a financial sense as well), came to me with some African hats. You know the kind; they look like a small red bucket with a graduation tassel hanging from them. Reminded me of something that a monkey would wear working a street corner with a guy playing a wind-up box. Anyway, I'm sure these hats have a proper name but I don't know what it is nor did I care at the time. I had no interest in the hats, but for the persistence of the vendor selling them, I suddenly felt the urge for a "game on" situation.

He had obviously seen me coming from a long way off. I was definitely the only 6-foot, seven-inch white guy on the street and lumbering down hill in his direction after a long day of bargaining abroad. My wife had pretty much had it with my antics and was walking quickly past the vendors only wanting to return to the cruise ship and get away from the stresses of shopping with me. As we approached, the vendor shoved a stack of the red hats toward me, hoping to get my attention. I raised a hand indicating that I wasn't interested, but he apparently saw me as a meal ticket of sorts and decided to persist. Careful what you wish for, young man ... you may just get your wish.

The poor kid was hungry for a sale and obviously saw me as an American right off as he spoke in very broken English, "Hat for you. Best money." I still remember the phrase well as his voice reminded me of the guy who played Tonto in the old Lone Ranger series. It was as though I were riding past on Silver and the adrenaline of promised competition was spit into my bloodstream. Best money indeed. We'll see about that, I thought. Never mind the fact that I had absolutely no use for the dumb hat!

My wife pulled my arm as I stopped and looked at the stack of hats in the young man's hand. "How much?" I asked. Immediately I could feel the dagger of a cold stare burrowing into my heart, but I countered by not looking in my wife's direction. Sometimes avoidance is the best mode of dealing with spousal abuse.

"Twenty dollars, American", came the vendor's reply.

"Twenty dollars? Are you on drugs?" He looked at me with confusion - my tone indicating that I was not going to pay the price - but the words apparently meaning nothing to him.

"Best money", he said. "You give?"

"Not interested", I said feeling my wife's shoulders drop in a sigh of relief without even looking her way. I began to take a step when the hats literally hit me in the chest.

"Best money." He repeated. It was like a challenging call to battle from another warrior.

"I'll give you a dollar", I said, not wanting a hat, but thinking that I'd give it to my nephew as a souvenir. The vendor turned and walked away. There's a first, I thought. Normally in a bargaining situation I'm the one to walk away. This guy just stole my line. I was a little upset by that, but thought that my marriage might be more important than a hat I didn't want and therefore I turned to follow my wife who was already several steps ahead.

I made it another twenty feet or so when the vendor came running back to me.

"Ten dollars, American", he said. Ah, now we're getting somewhere. The art of communication is amazing, as money tends to cross multi-lingual boundaries quite easily. Bound by my devotion to good bargaining tactics, I kept walking.

"Five dollars! American!" the vendor screamed at me from behind, the desperation in his voice was sickening. I stopped and turned, my wife pulling my wrist out of socket in the process. Fortunately for me, I'm much larger than she is and therefore her firm grip only succeeded in stopping her forward progress, instead of pulling me from my footing.

"Two."

"Five."

I wasted no time in turning and allowing my wife to force me back into the direction of the pier. She was still pulling hard on my wrist, her face contorted in a concentrated effort as though she were giving birth to a small pachyderm. I thought of a child trying to pull a heavy wagon and chuckled softly. The response was not well-received as she pulled harder.

We rounded a corner and continued on without distraction and I could now see the ship ahead tied to its moorings. Not far now, I thought, still somewhat miffed that I didn't get the dumb hat for my price. After all, that had been a pretty good deal considering the minimal effort that I had put into the bargain ... $20 to $5 was impressive. It could have been another notch in my ego's belt to brag on later.

As we drew closer to the docking area at the pier, I suddenly heard the sounds of fast-falling footsteps closing from behind. My immediate reaction was to reach around and make sure that my wallet was in my front pocket. As my hand patted my butt, a stack of red hats forcefully slammed me in the chest from the opposite side taking me by surprise and somewhat knocking the wind out of me.

"THREE DOLLARS! AMERICAN!" The vendor yelled at me in an upset tone - loud enough, in fact - that everyone standing within a twenty-foot circle stopped to look up at the commotion. Apparently this guy was pissed at me and for the moment, I wondered if I wasn't about to be stabbed. Looking him in the eye, however, I could tell that he was simply hungry and needed money for whatever reason. He had finally given up on getting what he wanted for the hats and decided that something was better than nothing. I assumed that the goods must have been stolen since he went so low, but at that point, I just figured that the guy was pretty desperate and three bucks wasn't outrageous for an authentic African hat.

Instead of pulling my wallet from my front pocket, I grabbed a loose wad of ones that I had placed separately in the pocket on the other side. I peeled off three and handed them to him only to have them snatched from my hand. He dropped the stack of hats, which I caught just before they hit the ground, and the vendor ran back up the street from where he had come. I stood there frozen, slightly slouched over and holding the entire stack of 5 African hats in my left hand with which I had caught them.

Glancing at my wife and without missing a beat, I said, "See there. 60-cents a piece ... best deal of the day and you were ready to pass it up!" Judging from her reluctance to talk to me, I’m assuming she didn’t approve. I felt bad for a time afterward thinking that perhaps I had taken the man’s only income for the day and left him short. Maybe he couldn’t afford to feed his family after falling victim to my bargaining super powers and perhaps his children went hungry that night. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that had he simply paid attention to me, he would have noticed that I was only bargaining for a single hat. After all, it should have been obvious. How many people really want to purchase five African hats at a time? I’ll never know the answer. Besides, I didn’t force him to sell them to me. In reality, I tried to walk away.

By the way, the hats are stored in my garage to this day.

All the best,

WDL

This piece is a partial chapter excerpt from my forthcoming book, which will be released later this summer. Please watch my blog for ordering and release information!

A Week in Juarez

2008-04-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

March 26th. That, according to my blogger dashboard, is the last time that I posted anything. Looking guiltily at my watch, I'm noticing that it's now mid-April and I've neglected my duties here. To be honest, I knew that I would. Life just works out that way, for me at least. It's like I'll get a nice groove going, gain the confidence to add yet another project to the mix and then WHAMO!, life hits me with the speed of a bullet on crack cocaine.

At least this time I have a fairly valid excuse. For the past week, anyway, I've been off in a realm of disconnectivity from normal life doing something that I've never focused on with much emphasis - helping someone else. It's interesting, really. I never intended to do good, it just sort of happened that way.

Basically as a religious person, I'm a dedicated C&E Methodist. (That would be Christmas and Easter for those not in the "know"). In the past couple of years, however, I guess my attendance has benefitted somewhat by the fact that my kids have been singing in the Kid's Choir and therefore I've put aside several Sunday mornings worth of sleep-in time to attend various services ... of course, my intentions were to be there to support my chitlins, not necessarily in a respectful praising of God. I know, I know ... I'm a heathen. In fact, my favorite time to go to the local Wal-Mart had always been during the "heathen hours" as I called them; that time on Sunday mornings when all of the good people were in church and the store was therefore somewhat palletable with fewer numbers of shoppers to get in the way.

It was sometime after this last Christmas past when one of the services I attended included a presentation outlining the mission trips of the previous year. During that presentation, they showed the faces of a Mexican family who benefitted through the efforts of a team from our church who had gone to Juarez through Operacion Hogar, (Operation Home as it translates to the Queen's English), to build a cinderblock home for them during the course of a week's time. The pictures were quite touching, the parents with their kids standing in front of their new dwelling, all of them appearing thankful and with a glimmer of newfound hope in their eyes. It was after that service that I had made the comment to my wife that the project seemed very interesting and that those who had participated certainly had something of which to be proud.

Apparently the following week, my wife mentioned my comment to the Kid's Choir director, (who also happens to be the wife of our pastor), who then mentioned it to her husband, (yes, same pastor), who then called me and invited me to lunch. $28 and an Applebee's Oriental Chicken Salad later I was looking over the paperwork involved with going to Juarez as a member of the 2008 team. What the heck, I thought. With just two companies to run, a book to write, a magazine column to work on and a blog to keep up with ... what's one more thing?

I still retained some of that lack-of-enthusiasm right through to my arrival in Juarez, (not to mention a newly acquired worry of well-being having seen the FOX News report of Britt Hume's that outlined the 200 shooting deaths in the past three months related to the warring drug cartels and the Mexican military presence in the area). However, arriving at the work site the first day, I slowly found my view on life morphing into something totally different.

Seeing a flat piece of desert situated along a sandy dirt road flanked by ramshackle buildings pieced together from wooden crates, cardboard and old matress springs, I soon realized how much of a difference a simple border can make. Realistically, there are those within our country who exist in sheer poverty and I don't want to take anything away from recognizing their hardships, but what I saw in Mexico was like taking the worst cases of poverty living here at home and multiplying it by the thousands all in rows along rutted roads. The number of unfortunate was astonishing and seeing the family, (three children, 3, 7 and 11 as well as a mother and father), living in a leaning shack covered over in old tar paper and shingles soon led me to believe that I was about to be a part of something that would actually impact the lives of these people forever.

By the fourth day, our efforts came to a crescendo as the tar and shingles were applied to the roof of the new cinderblock home. Though still only one room and smaller than most master bedrooms in America at that, the house gave a promise of better living and better things to come for this family. We had worked hard, hand-mixing cement and mortar with shovels and placing blocks one by one along the way; every muscle in each of our bodies aching from the task and each of us dead-tired by the end. But, to hear the family's mother tell us that she loved us and to have the children serve us a lunch that they had all prepared as a representation of their appreciation is a memory that will ride along in my mind to the grave.

The trip was a blast, a million humorous tales many of which will find a home in my forthcoming book, but contrary to my normal writing, this blog entry is not focussed on the humorous side of things. This is merely a sharing of the life-changing experience that I found on a poverty-stricken street in Juarez. There, through only a short week of sweat and hard labor, I and the other members of my team were allowed to play a role in the creation of a miracle for a family who had nothing. A stout, secure home with a solid roof overhead is now covering this family from the elements as they sleep at night and each of those beautiful children will leave for school Monday morning feeling more confident than they had before. Likewise, they will return to a home that is better than what they've known before ... a place where love is not only shared among them as a small family, but where they were able to experience the love of strangers helping to give them something better; something that will hopefully lead them to climb the ladder of life to a more financially successful being and then share the benefits that they acquire in helping others to their feet as well.

What we gave in Juarez was ourselves, not just our money. We showed love and compassion, we worked side by side with this family, (children as well), in the building of their home and helped them to realize what we in this country already know ... that anything is possible. We didn't give them a handout, but a "hand up" in that they saw what the devotion of a small group can achieve when we all work together. Perhaps those children will be inspired to find a life that does not involve falling to the streets and maybe, just maybe, they will learn to help others in forming a better way of life for all of those around them in the future.

As for me, I've learned more from the experience than I could ever share in words. I've learned that, while it is easy to comment on something, it is much better to become a part of it. While it is also easy to give to a charity, actually doing the work and seeing the accomplishment first hand is an entirely different experience altogether. And, while it is easy to get caught up in the goals and requirements that we set for ourselves in daily life, it all means nothing until we can find a way to help others along the way, sharing compassion and God's love, (or our own love if that's what you believe), upon our path. Sometimes doing only a little for someone else can impact them in a way that you cannot believe.

All the best,

WDL

Fighting Fires

2008-03-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

"Hey man, your Jeep's on fire!" The voice yelling to me was that of a girl that I was dating at the time. She had just come into a friend's restaurant where my Jeep Renegade was parked directly in front, very near the overhang of the front porch. My first thought was that she was talking to someone else. After all, "Hey man" could be anyone, right? As I watched her running toward me, my subconscious willed her to run right on by. The negative feeling of her message made me think that perhaps it was time to dump her and find a new girlfriend ... apparently my mind had no qualms with killing the messenger.

"Seriously, it's on fire! The Renegade is on fire!"

When I had purchased the Jeep, I had done so against the will of my father. (At that time in life, I did a lot of things against the will of my father, it seems). But alas, the car that preceded it had broken down and, rather than spend the $500 to fix it, I traded it in to a local used car dealership owned by a man referred to throughout the town as "Starvin' Marvin". My dad played golf at the same country club as him and was apparently well aware of the reputation that preceded him.

Trish grabbed my hand and literally drug me to the front door of the restaurant, my friend David closely in tow. It was his restaurant, after all, and the idea of a vehicle burning in his parking lot did not sit well with him. He stopped by the front door to dislodge a fire extinguisher as I pulled ahead into the cool evening air.

I looked at the billowing of smoke rolling from under the hood of the black jeep and watched in amazement as the golden eagle logo on its hood began to bubble like a newly boiling pot of water. My beloved eagle, the symbol of freedom from parental encasement that winked back from my hood each time I drove away from the house, was silently dying a slow, painful death before my eyes. With approximately $26 in my checking account that had been planned for beer on that very night, I knew right away that I'd be spending a lot more time at home during the coming summer. As I stood frozen in shock, staring at the demise of my new found love through tear-warped vision, David popped the hood latches and sent a billowing cloud of white rising through the image with a long blast from the extinguisher. Symbolism at work once more, my dreams of unrestricted roaming drifted away with the last wafts of smoke.

The damage from the fire was fairly extensive and the next morning Paul Griffith from the repair shop informed me that it would be a couple of grand to fix the Jeep. "Fortunately", he told me, "your insurance will cover it ... all but the $500 deductible, that is". $500, I thought. It might as well be a million! David had paid for the beer in light of my tragedy, but $26 was a long way from $500 when you work closing shift at McDonald's to supplement a small-market radio salary. With a car payment looming, insurance and other expenses, it would take at least six more paychecks to cover the deductible alone. I told Paul to hold off and caught a ride back to Starvin' Marvin's lot with a buddy.

"Your credit is good with us", Starvin' told me. "You made your first five weekly payments on the Jeep right on time, so you don't have any problem getting the Z. I'll go write it up for you."

Starvin' himself addressed the issue with the month-and-a-half old Jeep purchase and talked me into a trade toward a shiny red Nissan 300Z on the lot. They had "just gotten it in" and it was bound to be a "hot car", but he was willing to give me what I paid for the Jeep in trade, minus, of course the $2,000 repair bill and the five weekly installments that I had made thus far. It was only fair, he explained. I was reluctant at first, having initially gone there to complain about the mysterious fire so soon after purchasing the vehicle, but after about 20-minutes with Starvin's logic, I could hardly argue that it had obviously been my fault ... somehow. Besides, the T-Tops on the 300Z screamed out at me, beckoning me to a summer of wind-blown fun that only a red sports car with heated leather seats and a jammin' stereo could offer. How could I possibly argue that?

My father had a cow. "Why would you spend another $6,000 on a different car when you could have fixed the Jeep for $500? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!" Of course, he hadn't heard Starvin's logic behind the decision and besides, he'd yet to drive the 300Z. I finally gave up on the fight and gave into the flight, leaving the house in a cloud of burned rubber as I drove off into the night with a ZZ Top cassette howling through the T's.

A month and a half later, I decided to go visit my new girlfriend Kayt a couple of hours before my radio show. (Somewhere along the line I had decided that poor Trish had to go. How really could she expect to survive informing me that my Jeep was gone, after all? It was just too negative). I ran the Z hard up Interstate 44, blowing by the radio station in the 3-digit range in the hopes that my co-workers might be standing outside, impressed with my hot ride. I looked over my right shoulder as I sped past and indeed, one of my co-workers was watching from the parking lot with his fist held high in salute as I blew by. A flushing of pride touched my cheeks as I mashed my foot further to the floor, invincible as only a 21-year old can be. That was when all hell broke loose.

A loud, metallic bang was followed immediately be a sudden forward jolt that sent my face very close to the steering wheel. The car quickly lost all forward momentum and the speedometer dropped like a rock through its green digital display, the digits quickly counting down to near nothing. A gray cloud of smoke billowed up behind me as though I'd taken fire from an RPG and a slick of oil covered the side of the car distorting the reflection in the right hand mirror. I navigated the Z to the shoulder as it lurched to a choppy halt and cantered slightly off into the grass. A few moments later the co-worker arrived at my window to find me still sitting in the driver's seat trying to decide what had happened. It was obvious to him that I had thrown a rod right through the side of the motor. Starvin' Marvin strikes again.

A couple months following the death of the 300Z, and having replaced Kayt with Dawn - I mean come on, I was headed to Kayt's house when the car blew - I finally grew tired of borrowing a vehicle from my parents for work transportation. Without notifying my parents of my decision, (what am I, crazy?), I visited a Volkswagen dealership to check out the new Passat. It was a cool car, electric sunroof and power everything. German engineering that reminded me of a Mercedes on a budget. The heated leather seats were again an attractive addition and, though they didn't have the black color that I was fond of at the time, I decided that the trade value of the blown 300Z was enough to entice me to take the maroon model on the floor. After all, my credit was good enough to warrant it and the payments, while pushing the envelope of my budget, were within the grasp of what my mind specified as a basic need ... freedom.

I had finally grown up enough to move out on my own and was en route to meet up with Dawn one Friday night, when I noticed a smokey smell in the car. I sniffed the air mindlessly, Aerosmith pounding a vicious rendition of "Ragdoll" from the superior sound system, and wondered briefly if I had driven past some sort of brush fire. Oddly, I recognized the scent of electrical smoke and a brief flash of memory skittered through my mind; the strange bubbling of the golden eagle on the Jeep's hood. As I came back to reality, I noticed that I could no longer see the curvy road ahead of me from the thick plume of black smoke that had filled the car. I instinctively reached for the window button and found that it wouldn't work! Panicked, I did the only thing that I could think to do ... I opened the door and stuck my head out into the wind as I hit the brakes, trying desperately to breath and keep the car on the road.

I was in the middle of nowhere, a common place within Missouri, and the only hope I had was to pull off into a gravel driveway ahead. Driving with my right hand and holding the door with my left, I steered the car into the drive and applied the emergency brake to keep it from rolling backward into the vacant road. Looking through the windows, I could see smoke billowing from behind the rear seat back that appeared to be coming from the trunk. I reached back into the front door, popped the trunk release and ran to the rear of the car, throwing the trunk lid up as fast as I could. At that moment, flames jumped out at me, singing my hair and then immediately pushed their way through the back seat and into the cabin of the car!

I ran back to the front door and reached through, grabbing my wallet from the console and the "bag phone" cellular that I had recently purchased; the newest, coolest gadget to hit the market. Using the bag phone, I dialed 9-1-1 and was rewarded with a high-pitched siren sound telling me that I had no service in that area. Shocking.

As the flames rose from the interior of the car, I ran to the house at the end of the driveway and banged loudly on the front door until a lady opened up. "Help!" I yelled at her, "My car is on fire in your driveway! Call the fire department!" No sooner did I get the words out, and as if to emphasize my claim, a loud POP! sounded from behind me, which apparently was the noise of the emergency brake's cable snapping in the heat. The burning mass of metal began rolling backward, leaving the poor lady's driveway, crossing the road and rolling down a steep embankment on the other side. Thankfully no cars were coming.

Nearly a month later, Christy and I, (well, you didn't expect Dawn to make it through the car fire, did you?), went to an appointment at the VW dealership where I was presented with an official check in settlement of physical losses and the keys to a replacement Passat, (this one was black), in exchange for not pursuing any legal claims against the company. Unlike Starvin', they didn't try to tell me the fire was my fault and all in all, they handled the thing quite well. I still had the steep car payments, but the new car was the color that I had wanted all along and I was happy.

I continued to trade cars and girlfriends for a number of years until I finally settled down, both emotionally and financially. Now nearly twenty-years later, I look back on that time in my life and realize that my inability to commit to anything was directly related to my financial situation at the time. The constant trading of vehicles ensured that, no matter how much money I made, I was inevitably broke. Likewise, the swooning of new girlfriends and showering them with flowers and gifts had kept any remaining funds at bay. And, because I was always broke, I did what many of us tend to do ... I valued myself constantly by looking at the balance of my checking account. My own self-worth was, in my mind, directly related to the financial worth that I saw in the ledger and therefore my self-esteem was low. I realized that by valuing myself so low, I was also casting aside relationships thinking that presenting the facade of something new and exciting was more beneficial than actually letting someone get to know me for who I really was.

Interestingly, my late-blooming realizations have proved this point. I've been married for nearly 11-years, have two wonderful children, a 10-year old business and I've only owned two trucks during that time. Consequently, I've found that while we tend to spend more as we make more, money is still easier to come by when you consistently pursue the same long-term goal and work for one success rather than diverting attention to multiple short-term interests.

Coincidentally, as I've stopped burning relationships I've also not had a car catch fire. Of course, now having said that ...

All the best,

WDL

Waking with Friends

2008-03-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

I took the trash today. One of the perks, (assuming that it's really a perk at all), of owning a business is that you get to mooch services - such as trash pick up - from your place of work. After all, I'm essentially paying for the removal of the dumpster each week, why pay an additional $50 per month for service at home? It is a small thing, but I nonetheless feel as though I'm winning in a strange sort of way ... beating the system, if you will.

Aside from not having a scheduled "trash day" and instead procrastinating the task until a full load of garbage fills the garage with unfavorable aromas, there is another downside to having this little "perk". With no Sanitation Engineers to handle the grunt work, there is much more involved in emptying the garbage than simply rolling a can to the edge of the driveway. You actually have to empty the cans - bag after bag - into the back of a pickup truck and then unload the same cargo into the dumpster. This, obviously, offers a dual potential to experience a close contact with the very items that you had previously thought too gross to keep around.

With that understanding forefront in your mind, you'll better appreciate how I came upon the great thought that graced me today. I was emptying the bags from my truck bed when the inevitable happened; I inadvertently poked a thumb through the side of a bulging bag and immediately felt it slide into a mess of unknown goo. Noting that I splurge when it comes to trash bags - these were the Glad StretchFlex brand - this type of thing is much more rare than you might expect. However, I'm no stranger to the circumstances surrounding the occasional thumb-rupture and it pretty much happens the same way every time. The first thought to enter your mind is, I wonder what I just stuck my thumb into?

Immediately your mind races to recall all of the possible discards from the past week. What items could my family have thrown away that would have the consistency and feel of warm peanut butter? Could it be spent cooking lard or bacon fat? Unlikely, considering the amount of time that any of us actually spend cooking. Perhaps peanut butter? But why would anyone throw away peanut butter? You'd eat peanut butter and toss the jar, right? Having a child in the house still at the age of using Pull-ups, the answer was relatively obvious as my mind searched for other, less nauseating alternatives. I thought of looking, but ultimately I decided that there was no benefit in knowing. Whatever it was, it was going to be gross and I'd still have to wash my hand thoroughly before proceeding with my day. Looking would only verify the level of grossness and contribute to a conscious avoidance of that thumb for the next 24-hours. Finally, I did the only thing that a man can do in this position. I tossed the bag into the dumpster and, without looking, wiped my thumb on my jeans. To hell with it.

A couple of days ago a friend of mine was downsized. Not the product of a successful bout with Jenny Craig and no, he didn't do the finger in the throat thing after every meal. Instead, he was the victim of a company that is going through that "trimming the fat" stage and unfortunately saw him as fat. I was devastated to get the word from him, although knowing him as I do, he'll end up in a much higher position elsewhere very soon.

It was in an e-mail communication from him yesterday that he made an interesting comment, however, that I had to respond to after sticking my thumb in the crap. He had said that he was getting calls from fellow industry professionals inquiring about his well-being and mentioned that it was like being dead and attending your own wake. "I can see," he said, "who my true friends are and who was only befriending me for my position at the company". I thought about that and realized that, while knowing who your friends are, there are perhaps times that you are better off not knowing.

My personal experience in this was when I left radio. After spending 8-years in one form of on-air broadcast or another, it seemed that everyone was personally connected to me. I couldn't walk through the local Wal-Mart without spending at least 30-minutes talking with people who were just sure that I was their best buddy in the world, only to walk away time and time again not knowing where the hell I had seen them before ... or if I ever had. It was everywhere; people who knew me, people who liked me and people who wanted me for one reason or another.

Upon leaving the industry and stepping far away to open my own business, I suddenly found myself living another person's life. Where I was accustomed to people coming to me constantly, thinking that I was the person in demand, I quickly found myself meeting new people every day who were leery of me as I tried to sell them something. The roles had been reversed. I was the one coming up to people and trying to become their best friend and I could see that same "do I know you" look in their eyes that had clouded mine for so long. All of a sudden, I had no friends. It was like floating above that wake and looking down, only to see that nobody had shown up.

Knowing my friend as well as I do, and being familiar with the all-encompassing hours that he kept with the company, I was immediately worried that he too would find himself in that position. Except with him, it was not by choice. I hated the comment that he had made as I worried that by disassociating with the professional friends that he had kept - writing them off as only "business friends" - he would unintentionally outcast himself from everyone that he knew and find himself focusing on an empty wake rather than looking ahead to the great next step in his career.

Fortunately, having talked to this friend at length on the phone, I realized that I was crazy to think that he'd ever have such a problem. He's already leaving the country on a two-week long vacation before getting to the business of hunting jobs. And, he's already got two offers in the wait. Good for him.

That having been said, I recently was invited to a reunion at the radio station I left more than a decade ago. Having been gone from the industry for so long, I didn't quite know what to expect, but upon arriving, it was like coming home. The hugs and the smiles; the kisses and the actual tears from one of the office ladies was quite a sight. Many of the listeners were in attendance as well, and most hung around asking questions and conveying how much they missed the show even to this day. All of that made me realize that many of those whom I had so easily allowed myself to fall out of touch with, truly did miss me as an individual. Many of them, I now remember, even did try to call me at some point. Others claimed that they just couldn't because they were too hurt by my decision to leave, but didn't want to make me feel bad for having made it. I realized then that those friendships were as strong as any other. It was my own insecurity that had caused me to write off those people as not having been "real" friends. The people I reunited with that day didn't want an association with the popular morning show guy and they weren't after tickets to some upcoming concert. They simply found joy in reuniting with a long lost friend.

Sometimes, I guess, floating above your own wake isn't the best indication of who your true friends are. Many of your true friends may find it too painful to attend.

All the best,

WDL

Getting Started: Behind the Times

2008-03-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

Do you blog? Where's your blog? Have you got a blog? These questions seem to be coming at me from everywhere lately and, oddly enough, this is not a new thing. Blogging has been around since '99 - a product of the former century for God's sake - and yet I could only shrug my shoulders in reply and answer with an embarrassed "no". I'm a loser. I don't have a blog. Apparently I'm the last person on the face of the earth, judging from the shaming and sorrowful faces of those who had asked. It seems that, upon hearing that you don't have a blog, very few in the publishing industry want to know you. You quickly become persona non gratis in their eyes and the conversation abruptly ends.

Sure, I'm familiar with blogging, as much as I'm familiar with the art of self-mutilation. Of course, knowing what it is and having actually sliced your arms up are two different things. I recently realized that, if I really wanted to gain acceptance among my peers, blogging was essential. However, not only did I not have the knowledge of where on my body to cut, I didn't even know where to locate the knife. Fortunately for me, Colleen Brousil, my editor at MPN, was kind enough to lead me here to blogger.com. Duh. I guess now I can add "blogger" to my resume of uncomplicated accomplishments?

Though at this point I cannot promise a true outline of what you're likely to find in the future postings of my blog, my column, (as well as the book that I am currently working on), tends to focus on the more memorable - normally the most embarrassing - of life's experiences and the laughter and lessons that I've taken away from them. Not all that different by design, I suppose, from the format of a blog when you consider that I typically encounter tragically embarrassing situations each day and can therefore pass these off as a daily journal.

That pretty much covers the introduction entry. I should note that I have never so much as read another blog to this point and therefore have no preconceived notions of the format that these are supposed to be in. Therefore, I may well be breaking some ancient code of blogger society with this first posting and, if so, please forgive me. I am but an infant among the blogger-savvy and I'm sure that, given time, I'll do something much more embarrassing than whatever mistakes exist in this entry, which will inevitably allow you to forget all about my current shortcomings.

All the best,

WDL