SOCCER IS BORING

Is it wrong to say that I can't wait until the World Cup is over? Soccer is just SO FRIGGIN BORING I can hardly contain myself. You can waste more than two hours of your life seeing them run back and forth, and at the end of the game the score is still zero-zero. The Brazil World Cup is played on partially natural turf, and the stadiums are brand new, so you can actually compare which of these is more boring: watching the grass grow, watching paint dry or watching soccer.

I would rather watch curling, women's figure skating, even biathlon. They have a biathlon, a triathlon, a pentathlon and a decathlon, but they have no sexathlon. That would be six events, all related to sex. I can guess what the events would be, although I am too much of a lady to say what they are here. I will say that in this competition, "sticking the dismount" is NOT something to be proud of.

Even car racing is easier to watch, even though it's so dull you're basically just waiting for someone to crash so you can go, "COOL!" Wouldn't it be more interesting if a deer bounded into the middle of the road like in real life? Or if there were a million potholes, or if people insisted on not using their turn signal?

No one can even tell you how long a soccer game is. It's supposed to be 90 minutes, but the referee can just tack on extra minutes to the game based on how long he thinks injuries or penalties took. If someone gets injured during a penalty the referee scratches his head for 5 minutes and you can tack THAT on to the end of the game too.

I saw that a guy was kicked out for biting another player on the shoulder. How stupid is that? How many goals are you going to score with your shoulder? He should have bitten him on the foot, or taken a divot out of his head so the ball goes off in some cockeyed direction. Apparently it was the third time he has done this. Instead of biting three different guys, he should have bitten the same player three times; he could have gnawed off his ankle by now. Thank god they kicked this guy out- he could have finished off an entire team- Cameroon, or even Turkey. I heard they are going to have to put him down. This biting is certainly not something I would do, but only for dietary reasons; is a white soccer player considered red meat or white meat?

And good luck getting his mail- we used to have a chow chow and the UPS guy was so convinced he would get bitten by him that he used to leave our packages 50 feet from our house.

Soccer fights are the fifth stupidest fights anyway. Basketball fights are the best, football fights next, then baseball fights, then hockey fights. A guy who picks a fight in soccer has to run 15 or 20 minutes to get to the guy he wants to fight with, and by that time he is so winded he just stands there hunched over with his hands holding the bottom of his shorts while the other guy pushes him over with his index finger.

Then there is the TV announcer who yells, "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLLLLL!!!" at the top of his lungs. People love him, because compared to the game itself, all that noise seems interesting. I find it supremely annoying, and before I can hit the "mute" button, it sets off my car alarm. I go make a sandwich and when I come back he is still at it. Yes, I admit I used to make the same call on a particularly successful date, but I quickly outgrew that kind of behavior about two years ago.

They even had an opening ceremony for the World Cup with a concert and everything. JLo was up there shaking that big ass of hers at Pitt Bull. It seems like no one can make a song these days without Pitt Bull. I recently recorded a song in my basement, and to save money I used an actual pit bull, but it ate two of my microphones.

At the bar, the fans were rabid (possibly something they caught from Pitt Bull), cheering every time the Americans got close to the goal (742 times) and even louder when they scored (0 times). USA lost the match, but since they did so well scoring NO goals, they let them keep going in the tournament.

The fact that I can't stand soccer doesn't seem unpatriotic to me, since it's called the World Cup and I'm disagreeing with the entire rest of the world. When I put it like that it seems completely normal for me.



Incidentally, players from Chile, Mexico, Bosnia and Herzegovina are banned by team rules from having sex during the World Cup. I don't really know if that means for the whole month of the tournament or just while they are on the field. The rule makes these players definitely NOT players. Americans have no such rule, and can have sex with anybody they want, except for players from Chile, Mexico, Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the way, if it Herzegovina, you're not doing it right.

I LOST MY FRIGGING WALLET

I lost my frigging wallet. Can you believe that? I have never lost my wallet in all my 55 years. Even when I was 6 months old I never lost my wallet. Sure, I have lost everything in it at one time or another. I have certainly lost all my money here and there, mostly there, at the stripper bar, where they nipple-and-dime you to death. I have all these silver dollars that come out of the parking machine at the train station, and you can't believe the dirty looks I get when I drop a few of those down somebody's G-string.

They call them "gentleman's clubs" now. If you don't act like a gentleman there, i.e. asking to see women's vaginas, you will be escorted out, which is another laughable euphemism. If you get escorted out of a stripper bar at least you have the escort.

Anyway, losing the money was the least of my problems. I had all my personal information in there, and someone could easily steal my identity. Can you imagine anything worse? Not for me, but for the poor person who has to assume my identity. Have you taken a good look at my identity recently? Multiple people with multiple personalities? And none of them good? And can you imagine my poor wife?
"Honey, these dishes are in the dishwasher wrong again," I point out, just trying to be helpful.
"Also, could you put the silverware in pointing up?" Says the guy assuming my other identity.
"Sure, and how about at least one of you taking out the garbage?" Says my wife.
"I took it out last week," I say.
"I didn't exist last week, or I would have done it." Says my other identity.
"Do you both have to live HERE?" Asks my wife.
"I would have chosen a four-bedroom," says my other identity.

I have always assumed my identity but I don't actually have any proof.

I really thought that someone would find my wallet and mail it back to me, but it never happened. If I found a wallet I would mail it back to the owner, after subtracting the cost of shipping and handling. I don't want to rip anyone off, so I would handle the wallet accordingly based on how much money was inside.

I had my social security card in my wallet. Everyone says, "You idiot- why did you keep that in your wallet?" I don't know, I just felt socially insecure without it I guess. Besides, if you're not supposed to keep it with you, why do they issue a wallet-sized card? They should have put it on 8 1/2 by 14-inch legal paper.

I also had my car registration in there. Everyone says, "You idiot- why did you keep that in your wallet?" I don't know, I just figured if I lost my car, at least I won't have to replace the registration. Besides, the car already has the registration sticker on it, and my wallet doesn't have any stickers at all.

Not only that but I actually had a check in there made out to my friend Julie, to buy her tennis racquet. Who is going to be the bank teller that gives $234 dollars to a 320-pound black man named Julie so that she can buy a tennis racquet?

I had my health insurance spending account card in there of course. When I went to physical therapy they asked me for my co-payment, and of course I didn't have the new card yet.
"What about a credit card?"
"Hmm... I don't seem to have anything that's what you might call 'payment related.'"
"No problem."
"What is that machine? We've never used that before, have we? That looks like some boarding, and some water? What is that sticker that says 'Guantanamo Bay' on the side??"
I also found out that when they set the electical stimulation machine to "high" it acts as a taser.

I had my license in the wallet, so now there is no proof that I can drive, other than my awesome ability to parallel park. I can parallel park anywhere. I have even parallel parked parallel to a park. "Your rear wheels are the key to parallel parking," I always tell my wife, "you should always put them four inches from the curb." "Shouldn't they remain at the back of the car?" She asks.

But what if I get stopped for a DWI and the cop asks to see my license, proof of insurance and registration?
"Officer, I'll get to you, but first I'd like to report a stolen wallet."
"Get out of the car and keep your hands where I can see them."
"Would you like to hear the alphabet without several of the letters? Would you like to hear me count backwards from 98 to L? Would you like to see me walk a perfectly straight line half standing and half lying down?"
"I need to see some identification with a picture on it."
"Officer, I have some identification with Benjamin Franklin's picture on it, if you know what I mean."
"What?"
"Actually I don't have that either, since I lost my frigging wallet. The only thing I have replaced so far are some pictures of my cat. But I am in one of them, and that should be a satisfactory form of identification since NO ONE ELSE in the world would have a cat THIS ANNOYING. Would you like to see the photos?"
I was arrested, but on the plus side, so was the cat.



Incidentally, our current system of Social Security is based on the English "Poor Laws" of the 1600s. To me, there are so many poor laws, especially the ones that make it illegal for me to go 50-mph in a 30 -mph zone. Have you ever gone 30 miles per hour, except on the way to get to 50 miles per hour? I would hate to look outside my car after an hour and think, I should be 20 miles farther. It's pathetic. When I was on vacation a lady asked me if I was retired, and I didn't know whether to be flattered because I looked wealthy enough to be retired, or be insulted because I looked old enough to be retired. But it was a moot point- it turned out she asked if I was retarded.

OUR HAWAIIAN VACATION

When you picture paradise, what is the first thing you think of? RIGHT: Dana Delaney naked in "Exit to Eden." What's the second thing? The island of Hawaii. The natural beauty of the island is daunting; where else can you find a desert, a rain forest a beach and a volcano existing side by side? The only things they do not have on the island are the letters C, F, G, J, Q, S, X, Y or Z. Meaning that Scrabble there is dangerous and unrewarding. The correct spelling of the 50th state is Hawai'i. It's one of those weird punctuation flukes like that little doohicky that comes out of the bottom of the "c" in "facade."

Our vacation started on Oahu, the most populous of the eight main islands. The opulent Royal Hawaiian Hotel is at the north end of Waikiki Beach, with great views of the Diamond Head crater. Since I'm still in shoulder surgery recovery mode, the doctor told me NO surfing, not even body surfing, unless I was using someone else's body. Even channel surfing was to be done carefully, and no pay-per-view channels.

After relaxing on the beach it was time to take our bus to the luau at picturesque Paradise Cove. There were plenty of activities for the kids, tattooing, spear-throwing and rock-bowling. If your kids don't care much for you, this is not the place to be, as they will be armed much of the time. All this was presided over by cute girls wearing coconut shells and grass skirts. If I had a weed-whacker in that place there is no telling what I would do.

When are we going to eat around here? When pigs fly, I said to myself, and no sooner did those words not come out of my mouth than did a pig emerge from the ground instead, dug up by two dudes wearing native tattoos, although one looked like it had the Lakers logo. How long the pig had been there, and how they knew where it was I have no idea.

We ate like King Kamehameha as the hula dancers bobbed and swayed to the lilting music of an excellent band, followed by the Polynesian fire dancers. One of the fire dancers also ate fire. I don't know how many calories fire has per serving, but this was a pretty big kahuna.

We went north in a tour bus the next day. Beautiful Sea Life Park near Makapuu Beach is a great way to see marine animals in their natural habitat: giant metal tanks. I scheduled a little dolphin surprise for my wife, and a "dolphin touch" for myself. Once in the water, I wanted to instead touch the dolphin with my words and my music. As I sang an original song it appeared quite moved. In fact, it moved so fast I couldn't catch up to it to do the second verse. Then it was time to tickle the dolphin. I was told that the dolphin's blow hole is sensitive, and to avoid touching it. I was told this by the dolphin. I assured him that the same thing goes for me. The trainer warned that the last dolphin was tickled to death, so go easy. I tickled it pretty good, but instead of laughing it splashed the crap out of me with its fins AND its tail.

My wife swam with the dolphin. For approximately 3 seconds. This activity is not too cost effective if you figured out the dollars per second, but it's a bargain when I found out what they were charging the dolphin. Dolphins are not as smart as they think they are.

We travelled west the following day. The USS Arizona Memorial sits astride the 97-foot beam of the battleship sunk there by a Japanese fighter plane 73 years ago. The Arizona remains today as it was then, settled on the floor of Pearl Harbor. Oil from the hull still seeps noticeably to the water's surface, an eerie reminder of the 1,777 men buried inside, plus the remains of many survivors whom Navy divers interred there upon their deaths, per their wishes. Moored a couple hundred feet away, the USS Missouri represents the end of the Pacific Theater of World War II, as the Arizona marks its beginning. Here, on the "Surrender Deck," Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed the articles of surrender in Tokyo Bay in the presence of American and European military and dignitaries. Touring these two sites was as moving as it was interesting. Most of these battleships are named after a state of the Union, and thank goodness they didn't choose a crap state like Rhode Island for these important exhibits.

Next day it was on to the big island of Hawaii, to visit our gracious hosts Jenn and Jeff and their furry friends in their beautiful home that he built himself. Not so impressive when you consider that I built SEVERAL out of Lego, back in the day. In the morning we toured the farmers market, where I bought three used farmers at an attractive price. I also picked up a Hawaiian shirt. I needed something loud enough to drown out possible crying babies on the flight back to San Diego (THREE plane rides).

In the afternoon we relaxed and snorkeled near the tidepools of Kapoho Bay. The wildlife scenery underwater was breathtaking. It literally was since I didn't have the snorkel attached properly.

At night we hung out in the lanai, drinking, talking and playing songs on the guitar and ukelele. If you have never heard a rock song played on a ukelele you are probably missing something, but you'll get over it. Their dog has a habit of coming up to you from behind, with that pointy nose- I thought it was that damned dolphin again.

The next day we hopped in the rent-a-car and drove north along the coast and around the top of the island, drinking in the spectacular views along the way. At home in Westchester, driving in the car, the scenery is so lackluster that I usually just watch it on the GPS screen, where I can at least change the color, instead of looking out the windshield. But in Hawaii each mile brings a new seascape. We turned on the radio- If you were expecting the gentle steel guitars and ukeleles of hula music, think again, because the music of Hawaii is modern reggae. It fills the airwaves all day and all night, and seems totally appropriate.

We stopped at a scenic overlook that we almost overlooked, then we did. Do not get lost travelling in Hawaii. Getting directions goes something like this:
"Do you know how to get to Kalaeloakalanianaole Highway?"
"Simple: You take Moanaluamokapupali Freeway until you get to Wilikinawaialae Drive, then make a left onto Kahuapaanikahekilihalawa until you get to Main Street, then it's not near that."
"Got it! Thanks!"

Back for dinner in Pahoa with Jenn & Jeff, we were told that the mahi mahi would be upgraded, possibly to a mahi mahi mahi. The town of Pahoa is filled with colorful and eccentric characters, which is a nice way of saying that they all look like they are there hiding from the government, their parents or their children, or were kicked out of a circus.

Next day Jeff took us on a tour of what used to be Kalapana, a small town buried by a volcanic lava flow in 1986. What ash-hole would do such a thing? We found out when we toured the Kilauea volcano, or as Dan Quayle would say, volcanoe. When you look around the site, smoke rising everywhere around you and the awesome fact of the smoldering crater right in front of you, you can't help feeling that the gods must be angry. Was it something I did? I threw a kleenex out the car window but I figured it was biodegradable? Just to be on the safe side I impulsively pushed a teenage girl into the volcano as a sacrifice. I hope she was a virgin, but come to think of it she looked like kind of a slut. But it's the thought that counts.

Then it was time to say goodbye to the Hawaii, and our hosts Jenn and Jeff, who were so much fun and so generous with their time and with their island. Words could not describe how we felt, so I made one up. A combination of "aloha" ("hello/goodbye") and "mahalo" ("thank you"), "maloha," I decided, means "Thanks! Gotta run!"



Incidentally, the largest mountain in Hawaii is Mauna Kea, at 13,796 feet. However, if followed to its base at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, it stands at about 33,500 feet, taller than Mount Everest, and the only mountain where you need to switch from snow skis to water skis halfway down the slope.

I MAY BE ENTITLED TO LARGE SUMS OF MONEY!

I'm not a particularly litigious person, and when I fell on the ice at the train station and tore my rotator cuff, I was prepared to take it in stride. Which is ironic, because I couldn't even take my stride in stride, and that's why I fell on the ice and tore my rotator cuff.

At the time I did not know I had injured myself, figuring that my well-rounded ass had absorbed most of the blow, padded from years of being spanked by my parents, teachers and boy scout leaders. I was not even in the boy scouts.

I thought I simply hurt myself. I even played tennis the next day. But the more people I talked to, the more they convinced me that I should be seeking a large settlement. I have a personal injury for god's sake! An injury is so much more personal when it happens to YOU. I have both pain AND suffering. Does anyone skip the pain and just have the suffering? I may be entitled to large sums of money!

Which lawyer should I go to? I see them on TV: the one with the big handlebar mustache? The lawyer who makes a big show of donning an extremely large hat while he is talking? What about the TV barrister who fills the entire screen with his big, fat, read-headed, bearded face, talking about personal injury while invading my personal space? Maybe Cellino and Barnes, with their pretty song? I sang it in the shower, and then I slipped and fell, but it was my own shower, so I settled out of court. The lawfirm Weitz & Luxenberg specializes in mesophelioma. I heard about their website on the radio: weitzlux dot com. But on the radio it sounded like " white sluts dot com," so I did check out that website, but it was all about lawyers and other boring crap.

Some lawfirms specialize in these weird drugs or operations that caused weird problems. "Did you take Risperdal? If your teenage boy took Risperdal and grew female breasts and started lactating, contact us immediately!" If I had female breasts when I was a teenage boy, I don't think I would be so quick to part with them. Who knows when I might see another pair?

"Did you have vaginal mesh?" The very thought of whatever that is made my head spin. But then I thought about it a little more and thought, hey- if it keeps the damn deer out then I'm in favor of it.

"Do you have 'Non-24?'" YES! I think I do! What is it? "'Non-24' is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder." Where those stupid bugs come by every 17 years and make such a racket you can't sleep? I HAVE THAT! "If you are blind and either can't sleep or have chronic sleepiness you may have 'non-24.'" I'm not blind usually, but when I'm asleep my eyes are closed and I can't see a damn thing! I THINK I HAVE NON-24! OH MY GOD!

"Do you burst out crying, or laugh uncontrollably?" You might have pseudobulbar affect! They used to call this: somebody with PMS watching their kid's driving test. But now there is a clinical name for it, and they are trying to convince people that they have it, so they can create a market for prescription drugs. "Don't call them crazy!" the commercial implores. "Around the bend? Perhaps. Screw loosey? Maybe."

Drug companies are hard at work every day creating pills to cure stuff. Sometimes they have the pill first, and they are left to figure out the stuff that it cures. After a little bit of testing in the lab, it turns out that there are a few side effects. The pills cure your pseudobulbar affect, but you may suffer from acne, shingles, dog bites, sunburns, sideburns, earthworms, bed-wetting and "non-24."

"Also, occasionally death." They include death right after the headaches and listlessness. They figure if the headaches and listlessness didn't kill you, death certainly might, so they had better mention it. However, it is only occasional death, so it's not like I'm dying all the time, just once in a while. By the way what a tease it is to say the word "listlessness" right in the middle of a long list.

Aren't they aware that every commerical like this is going to spawn a zillion hypochondriacs who think they have this condition? Everyone knows at least one hypochondriac at work. I had a co-worker one time that used to wipe down the phone with disinfectant before using it. "Hey you never know where that phone's been," she would say. I said, 'It's always been right there." I think she was afraid that germs might be transmitted THROUGH the phone.

"Is this Rene?" "Yes, whom is this?" "Never mind that, Rene. Do you have any open sores at the moment? And by the way it's: 'Who is this?'" "I do have a paper cut where I tried to file my nails into the wrong folder." "Would you mind holding me next to your sore for a minute?" "Wait a second- is this an air-borne germ?" "So? You were born in Piscataway."

The eighties called: they want their cooties back.

Anyway, I did end up going to a lawyer, about two months after the fact. "Were there any witnesses?" he asked. "YES- I saw the whole thing." I said. "The other side might try to assert that you did something to cause the accident," he said. "You mean something stupid?" I asked. "That might be easy to prove. They could have a parade of witnesses waltz through to testify that I do more stupid things every day than most people do in a week." "Were you tripping when you fell?" he asked. "No," I said, "that wore off in the 70's." The lawyer declined to take the case, but If one of the witnesses fell and injured himself while waltzing through in a parade he could have had a whole new case.



Incidentally, as I was researching the syndrome of "non-24," I came across the following sentence: "The majority of patients with non-24 are totally blind, and the failure of entrainment is explained by an absence of photic input to the circadian clock. However, the disorder can also occur in sighted people for reasons that are not well understood." I could well understand why this was not easily understood this. PLUS, as I was reading this, my foot fell asleep. Coincidence?

A GOODBYE TO A FAVORITE FRIEND

Every morning for the past fifteen-and-a-half years before I left for work I have walked across my front lawn with a good friend of mine, stopped for a moment, turned and walked back. I gave her a tasty snack, and she thanked me with two kisses on the cheek. I sat down and fixed her beautiful red hair for a few minutes, and then stroked with my hand the results of my grooming while discussing with her how I would like her behavior to be for the rest of the day.

I have every reason to believe that that small amount of attention had made her life a little longer and my own life a little better.

For those six to eight minutes each day I did not watch TV, listen to the radio, use a mouse, use a phone. I did not multi-task. I did not text, I did not sext, I did not message. I did not plan. I did not stress. I did not fret.

I expected little in return. I got by far the better end of the bargain.



Thank you for being my friend.

WINTER SPRINGS ETERNAL

Jesus Christ are we done with this goddamned winter yet? I'm sorry to yell but this has just gone on far too long. I'm sick and tired of it. I'm actually sick and tired because I have a cold, but if we are still blaming colds on the lack of warmth, then I can go back to yelling at the winter. I never knew that HELL could be so friggin' cold. If I wanted to live in Syracuse I wouldn't have bothered to graduate.

I've been living in the Northeast all my life and have seen my share of rough winters. Every year the TV weathermen and weather chicks, who get paid by the idiotic phrase, come up with a new one every year. They made up the term, "Wind Chill Factor" so that they could tell you that it's cold AND windy. "Dew Point," is a cocktail of numbers brewed together that pilots use for judging the possibility of icing. I have used the formula to evaluate cupcakes and it works. "Real Feel Temperature" was invented for those to whom the actual temperature did not feel real enough.

This year they have come up with: "The Polar Vortex." It sounds to me like they spent a lot of money on the word "vortex" and were waiting for another word to come along to use with it. It sounds pretty high tech, like it should be flying around the mountains of Pakistan flushing out terrorists. Next year if we had a "Polar Vortex Matrix," it wouldn't surprise me.

All this harping on how cold it is and the fact that it's going to be EVEN COLDER TOMORROW made me intermittently sad and angry, sometimes violent, and almost always cold. I call this the "Bipolar Vortex."

They say that we are losing our polar ice caps, since all the snow has migrated down here to my driveway. Every day brings a new snowstorm with it. As the snow fell gently around the property, making nary a sound, a peaceful smile came over my face. "Isn't it beautiful?" I ask my wife. "Our cable's out," replies my wife. "FUCK THIS CRAP!" I ejaculate.

To get back the romantic mood I attempt to start a fire. In a nick of time, I remember to start it in the fireplace. Some crumpled newspaper (I start with the unfinished Monday New York Times crossword puzzle, which was harder than usual), a little kindling strategically placed, some logs stacked to allow the flow of oxygen and VOILA! Nothing. "You have to heat the draft," says my wife, romance still in the air. "I know you have to heat the draft. Or is it the other way around?" I reply, a hopeless romantic.

Of course I forgot to bring the firewood inside to dry. I suggest that we might use one of the kitchen chairs. "When was the last time we had more than three people sitting in there?" I query. By this time I have burned about four months-worth of newspapers, giving the illusion of a blazing inferno and also singeing off my eyebrows.

I remember that there is a ton of dry firewood under the eaves from hurricane Sandy, in the form of a 20-foot uncut tree trunk. My idea is to feed it into the fire perpendicularly, a little at a time, over the course of about 14 hours. My wife gives me a little look with her eyes that might mean that she thinks I am a genius.

Meanwhile I have run out of newspapers and I am burning our past tax returns. You are supposed to save them for ten days. Or is it ten years? Oops. The ashes from the paper have almost reached the top of the fireplace, and our carbon footprint has swelled to Wilt Chamberlain size. Remember when Wilt Chamberlain said he slept with 20,000 women? How the hell would he remember them all? I'm thinking he slept with the same slut maybe 6,000 of those times and didn't even remember. "Wilt the Stilt" they called him, but they only mention the one stilt. How did he stand up, unless....?

So now more smoke is coming out the front of the fireplace than is going up the chimney. "When was the last time we had the chimney cleaned?" I ask. "Sixteen years ago when we moved in," she replies. I remember my wife called a chimney sweep company, and I was kind of expecting a British bloke with a top hat. Instead, this little Spanish guy showed up who looked small enough to scale down the chimney and scrub it by hand. I asked him if he could sing or tap dance, but he didn't seem to speak any English. I broke into "Chim Chim Cher-ee" to get him started. "Chim chim-a-nee, chim chim-a-nee, chim chim che-ree!" I sing, but he looks like he is pointing to his crotch. In retrospect, I realize now that he wanted to use the bathroom. I don't know where he ended up going, but now that I think about it, our damper was damper.

I hear the plow guy outside, so I head out to see if he wants some hot chocolate. But he is already gone, and so are most of our driveway lights. He has plowed the blacktop into a perfect sheet of ice, like a zamboni. So I have to sprinkle rock salt, and as I descend the 45-degree ski slope of our driveway, I realize I am sliding inexorably down towards the mailbox. I am still tossing the salt granules as I go, and it looks like a weird wedding reception.

But here we are in April, and March came in like a lion, stayed like a lion, married, had cubs, and ate the lamb. But at least finally enough snow has melted around our mailbox so that we could retrieve our newspaper from January 3rd. You know what the headline was that day? "Snow Blankets Area!" It sounded so warm in print, but would have been warmer if a blanket had blanketed the area.



Incidentally, the polar vortex is actually a never-ending cyclone that pushes air masses around near the North and South Poles. It represents a constant low-pressure area, so if you can get a job there, not much will be expected of you.

THE ONE-ARMED MAN

Life as a one-armed man in a two-armed world is murder. And I really mean murder- I get the feeling that there is a guy following me around who thinks I killed his wife. Can you see me even trying? "Hold on baby could you turn around? I can't kill you from this side because I need to hold the knife in my left hand." I can't even weild a knife lefty, although I can brandish not too bad.

But it has been hard. I'm ostracized at clandestine "business meetings" because one hand won't wash the other. I'm scoffed at in the ballgame bleachers when the wave goes all the way around the stadium, makes it through my left hand then comes to a screeching halt at my right hand, and they have to start the thing all over. At Gospel revivals when it comes time to Put My Hands Together, Jesus is looking down from the stained glass window, rolling His eyes.

My life right now is like that episode of "Flipper" where Flipper gets his ventral fin caught in a propeller and has to learn how to masturbate with his dorsal fin. Was Flipper a boy or a girl? I don't suppose it matters much.

All of a sudden I'm a southpaw. I used to be a northpaw, but my slip and fall pulled it southeast, and the surgery yanked it back northwest. I tried to write lefty, and discovered that it really didn't make much different to my handwriting, which either way is read from bottom to top, like Chinese, only taller. Typing isn't much better; I have to avoid certain words altogether, which has stunted my vocabulary. Words that I use often, like "lumpy," I have to type with one hand.

My right arm is in a sling, which I usually keep tucked underneath my shirt so I don't have to remove it to get dressed (the sling not the arm). So my right sleeve hangs limply at my side, causing people to think the injury much worse than it actually is. Until my hand pops out of the bottom of my shirt like a rogue Muppet. Sometimes it retrieves the mail like "Thing" when I am asleep.

I was hoping that I didn't need "Tommy John" surgery, since I would rather have it performed by a qualified doctor than an aging ex-ballplayer with one bad elbow. I even fantasized that I could pioneer a NEW type of procedure, and have it named after ME! Can you imagine the glory? My OWN infirmity! I pictured an operation that grafted tissue from my ass and had it implanted into my elbow, thereby reducing the need to distinguish one from the other.

I went to a dinner party recently, and it became apparent that I could not cut my food and might do something gross. My friend Matt had to cut my food, and offered to feed me if I promised to do it like in "Clockwork Orange."

No matter how hard I try I can't use a scissor lefty. Try it yourself sometime and you'll see what I mean. I remembered that you're supposed to use a PAIR of scissors, and that was twice as ineffective.

I'm finding it hard to blow my nose. I never realized it was a two-handed operation- I only have one nose; am I using one hand for each nostril? Or putting on my socks- I get them almost all the way on, and on the final pull the heel ends up on top. I have to leave my shoelaces tied in a double knot so I can slip my sneakers on and off.

I couldn't live upstairs with the grownups so I had to make do downstairs- my wife calls it my "nest." It consists of a pullout couch, a phone, a TV and a computer. The pullout couch is kind of a cheapo - if you lie in the wrong spot it starts to fold back up into a couch, so you need to plan an escape route.

There really isn't a hell of a lot to do with one hand. I did do a lot of gambling- me and the one-armed bandit are basically both in the same boat. I had to find one that was righty. I was going to try poker but didn't want to lose the only good hand I had left.

I'm in physical therapy three times a week. My physical therapist used to work on some of the Knicks- Patrick Ewing, Bill Cartwright, etc. She is big on stretching, and she must be good at her job because look how tall those guys are?

In my spare time (which is the only time I have right now) I am fabricating a better story than that I was walking along and all of a sudden I was on my back like an upside-down beetle. Tearing up your shoulder just by being a pedestrian is so... well, pedestrian.

So if you happen to be a fugitive, and you are wanted for murder, and you need to find a one-armed man to clear your name and avoid the death penalty, it really isn't that hard. Just look for a guy with a runny nose and sloppy arts and crafts who swallows food whole and can only do half the wave at the ballgame, and arrest him on the spot.



Incidently, people who are left-handed process emotions differently than their right-handed counterparts, according to the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. Much more fascinating is that there is no more Life Magazine, but we have a Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. Speaking of right-handed counterparts, that reminds me I need a new washer for my cold water faucet.