The Breeze

We called him The Breeze. I think it’s because no one was sure where he came from, or how he got there. He just blew in one day and no one would admit to being friends with him – let alone having invited him. Everyone just assumed that someone else had brought him along. It was amazing how quickly we accepted him as part of our little group, which is strange, because he didn’t really fit in. Breeze used to terrorize the little kids of the neighborhood by running around in a Ronald Reagan mask, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and shooting them with a submachine water gun. On more than one occasion, as we were riding in the car, he would light firecrackers and spinning blossoms from his cigarette and toss them at pedestrians. Then, he would stick his head out the window, look back and laugh hysterically as they jumped around trying to get out of the way. I don’t think anyone else thought that this was funny. But no one said anything to put a stop to it, because we all assumed that he was someone else’s friend, and we didn’t want to be offensive.

One night we all decided to go to a sushi restaurant. I’m not sure whose idea that was. Certainly not mine – I can barely tolerate cooked fish – but we ended up there. Breeze was along, and sat back in the booth smoking a cigarette (it was legal to smoke in public in those days). He ordered an iced tea, and by the time our meals arrived, he had finished about half of it. While we sat talking, the Breeze began stealing items off of our plates and putting them into his glass. No one noticed this for a while, but when we did we all just sort of fell silent at the same time. We stared in fascinated horror, mouths open, as he took his fork and began to mix and mash the entire concoction of tea, rice, raw fish, parsley, wasabi and ice. For good measure he garnished it by tapping the ashes off of his cigarette onto it. Then he held up his glass and stared at the green-pink-gray mixture, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Um.” Someone started to say, but then fell silent again.

Breeze looked up at us, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes, and said, “What will you give me if I drink this?”

“Twenty bucks!” Someone said almost instantly.

Breeze just smiled all the wider, “From each of you.”

There was a brief discussion, with some protesting, but in the end we all agreed that if Breeze could choke down the entire glass, we’d each give him 20 dollars. To prove our sincerity, we each produced a 20 dollar bill and put it in the center of the table.

I would like to say that he tilted the glass back and chugged the whole thing in four swallows. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. Breeze took a couple of large gulps, got a funny look on his face, and spewed the entire contents of his stomach onto the table. We all jumped up in horror, trying desperately not to retch in turn. Everything on the table was covered in puke. It was like that scene from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, only it wasn’t as funny to experience in person as it was to watch it in a movie. The Breeze wiped his mouth with a napkin, gently picked up the vomit-soaked pile of twenties, and asked us if anyone wanted their money back. There weren’t any takers, and Breeze made off with $100 that night.

I’m not sure what happened to the Breeze. Shortly after that incident, a few of us started hanging out with a different crowd, and we lost touch. I expect he either ended up in prison, or wound up with a successful career designing some of the more disgusting stunts for Fear Factor. I’ll probably never know, since I don’t think anyone ever told me his real name. I only bring it up now because Lynyrd Skynyrd was just playing on the radio and all of those memories came flooding back. I expect if Ronnie Van Zant were still alive I could suggest a change to the first line of that song.

“They call me the Breeze. I keep blowing chunks down the road.”

Back to School Night of the Living Dead

Seriously. What’s the point of Back to School Night? I mean, I know what it’s supposed to be about, but it never really seems to achieve any of its goals.

• Parents are introduced to the faculty – A good idea, but in the context of Back to School Night, an impossible goal to achieve. Anyone who’s ever been to one of these things knows that it’s so crowded and noisy, and the school’s P.A. system is so bad, that if you don’t sit in the first four rows, all you are able to hear is, “I woul…mufflemufflemuffle… introdu… mufflemuffle… ipal, Mr. Smi… mufflemuffle.”
• Parents get to show their support for their children’s education – My children know I support their education. If I didn’t support their education, I wouldn’t be doing their homework for them every night.*
• Teachers get to meet parents and talk about their plans for the year – This only works in an elementary school environment. If the students have several different teachers, each one is only alloted 10 minutes to sum up their entire academic plan of action, and half of that time is spent getting parents in to the classrooms. And “meeting” parents? Forget it. Oh, sure they shake your hand and introduce themselves, but if you were to meet them on the street the next morning they wouldn’t know you from Adam. Not that I blame them. They’ve got over a hundred parents to meet.

This year my youngest daughter entered Jr. High Schoo… er… excuse me, I’ve been told that the new politically correct term is Middle School (though I don’t know what people find offensive about the word “Junior”). Her Back to School Night was on Wednesday, and since her mother was busy with prior obligations I took her (we usually go together). Something hit me that night, as we sat listening to her science teacher talk as fast as she could. I’m older than half of my daughter’s teachers this year! And in some cases, a lot older. Her science teacher, for instance, looks like she just graduated from High School. It was an odd feeling, because up until this point, I’ve always considered teachers to be older and wiser than me. That’s why they’re teachers. I suppose, with my wife being a kindergarten teacher and everything, I shouldn’t feel that way. I guess I did and just didn’t realize it. It was weird. I almost wanted to jump up and say, “Hey! You’re just a little kid. You can’t teach my child!” I resisted the urge, but it was there. So, I guess one of the purposes of Back to School Night this year was to contribute to my midlife crisis. Thanks Back to School Night.

As we walked home that night (we only live about 3 blocks from the school and I couldn’t see a reason to waste the gas), my daughter babbled on and on about nothing-in-particular. “I know. I’m talking too much and not making any sense.” She told me. “I do that when I don’t have much to say.” No, I thought, you’re my quiet one. You only babble like this when you’re excited about something. I doubted that it was Back to School Night, since she had looked as bored as I was through the whole thing. Then it hit me. She’s happy to be spending time with me! My eyes started to fill with sentimental tears.

That’s when the zombies attacked…

*If any of my children’s teachers are reading this… I was just kidding about the “doing their homework for them” thing. Really.

The Hits Just Keep on Comin’

One of the more fascinating things I’ve found about WordPress, since moving my blog here, is their Blog Stats screen. On this screen I can view all kinds of information about how many total views the site has had, what posts are generating the most traffic, where people are coming from in order to get here and much more. One of the most interesting things about this, is that it tells me what search terms are being used to get people here. Today someone searched for the words “doggy poo” and ended up on my site. I can only hope they were looking for information about the movie which I reviewed some time ago. Someone else typed in “plastic chickens.” I’m not even going to speculate about that one. Perhaps the strangest one I found was “burning sensation on top of my head.” I hope whoever was looking for that found what they were looking for. I doubt that they found it here.

Oddly enough, the day the site generated the most hits (so far) was the same day that I posted an article with the word vagina in it. Coincidence? Perhaps. Maybe if I post another article with the word vagina in it, it will tell me something. Of course, I’m not sure that I want a lot of visitors that come here simply so they can read the word vagina in one of my posts.

Well, whatever the reason was that got you here, I appreciate you stopping by. Thank you. Especially if you’ve taken the time to read any of the nonsense that I post.

vagina

Overheard in my Car Pt. V

Me: What’s that?
TR: Hm? Oh. It’s just an old note I found in the back seat.
Me: Whose is it?
TR: Something V was writing to S. Must have fallen out of her pocket.
Me: That loser? What does it say?
TR: “Dear S, How are you? I am fine. I was wondering, what do you look for in a girl?”
Me: Pfft! That’s an easy one. [Passable imitation of Mortimer Snerd], “Duh. I like girls that have a vagina… Uh… Erm… Breasts are also good.”
TR: That’s about right, too.
Me: “Duh. And if she’s breathing, and at least semi-conscious that would be a plus.”
TR: I mourn for the male species.
Me: Me too. Especially ones like S if they come around my girls.
TR: Dear, we’ve been over this before. You can’t kill them and leave their bodies to rot on the front porch.
Me: Sure you can! There’s a law. “Fathers can kill any boys that come near their daughters and leave their bodies to rot on the front porch as a warning to others that may attempt to approach.” I remember reading it somewhere.
TR: That’s not a law.
Me: Well it should be.

By Any Other Name

A co-worker and I used to play a game that went something like this:

“Hey. If Tuesday Weld married Rick Monday, she’d be Tuesday Monday.”

“Yep, and if Minnie Driver married Gary Cooper, she’d be Minnie Cooper-Driver.”

“Well, if Ivana Trump married Winnie the Pooh, she’d be Ivana Pooh.”

This would go on for several minutes until we couldn’t think of any more, or until the boss came by and wondered how we could possibly be getting any work done with all that laughing going on.

Names are funny things – and not just the ones that you make up with your co-workers. I sometimes wonder what parents are thinking when they name their children. Back in 1882 Texas governor Big Jim Hogg named his daughter Ima, not realizing his mistake until it was much too late. In 1942 Mr. and Mrs. Butkus christened their bouncing baby boy “Dick.” With a name like that, you’d have to play football or some other macho sport just to keep people from laughing at you (and play he did, right into the Football Hall of Fame). In high school, my wife’s P.E. coach – Mr. Butts – had a daughter named Rosie. My father-in-law swears up and down that he had a school chum whose name was Torkelson Twit. Once in a while I’ll come across someone from another country with a name that has a funny English meaning. For instance, one of my best friends in high school was from China, his name was Hung Mac. I’ve often wondered if the reverse is true, and American names sound weird to people in non-English speaking countries. “He says his name is ‘John Smith.’ Hahaha!” “You’re kidding, right? Do you think he knows what it means?”

Perhaps worse than funny-sounding names are boring names. I meet people named John Johnson, or Rich Richards and I can’t help thinking, “You must have had extremely dull parents.” I mean, talk about unoriginal! “What did you name you son, Mr. and Mrs. Roberts?” “Oh, his name is Bob.” “You named your kid Robert Roberts?”

At one point in history names actually meant something. People were given names by what they did, or who they were. A while back, out of curiosity, I did some research on my own name. I found that my first name means “War-like” or “Warrior”. My middle name means “Courteous”. And my last name means “Brown”. I suppose that translates into “The Courteous Brown Warrior.” I’m not sure that that really fits me. I mean, I try to be courteous whenever possible, but I’ve never really felt war-like… Or brown for that matter. How would a courteous brown warrior act, I wonder? ([taptaptap] “Pardon me sir, but may I slay you?”). And why “Brown”? I am far from brown. In fact, one of my nicknames in high school (and one I was never very fond of) was Casper – because I was so pale. Frankly, I don’t think my parents had any of this in mind when I was named. My mom was just fond of my first name. My middle name was a nod to my uncle – my dad’s older brother. And of course I inherited the last name.

I remember reading that there are some cultures (though which ones they are, I can’t recall) that don’t name their children until they are much older. The name they are given at birth sort of acts as a placeholder until they grow up and are given their “real” name. That way their names are a more accurate reflection of their character and personality. In these cultures, being given a true name is a rite of passage – and until they “come of age” they call their children something like “Snot” or “Squirt”. It’s an idea I like, though I haven’t done this with my own children… but, come to think of it, little Stinky might appreciate it if I did.