As the Burger Turns part 8

Saturday, July the 4th, 2020 - Happy Birthday America!

Hey !! it is 5:00 a.m. once again and I am writing about Steakburgers and all the stuff around my career at the time. It's so exciting! Unless you have paint that needs to be watched while it dries and then this will be boring as hell in comparison. 

Check this out. Do you know what this is besides wrong?
10 @echo on
20 type "Hello World"
30 on break goto 10
40 goto 20

I am sure that the syntax is wrong, as I haven't used this in 30 years or more. Back in the olden days when there was such a thing as a mall and a store in a mall, I would approach the display computers and then using the old BASIC numbered line code, I would type in this and stuff like it. It used to drive the manager the Radio Shack in Greenwood Park Mall crazy and out of his mind. He sold the computers, but for a long time, he didn't have a clue how to operate them. I can still see him in the front of his store, saying curse word after curse word, yelling out stuff like "Got Dammit, Who did this you little assholes?  going to catch you one of these days!! sonofabitch!" I had a blast sitting at a table a few doors down drinking a soda watching him try to make it stop without turning it off. I would sit there and giggle my fat little ass off.

I used to do stuff like this, that is to write a quick little program that would do things like change the color on the screen a random color, change the C:/ prompt to say things that you probably shouldn't say on a computer screen in public (Like I would change it to say "Hey baby heh heh"), put 40 sheets of paper through the attached printer with no printing through them, and so forth. Occasionally I would write something like this which would just fill the screen one line after another or print it once, or display it once, and then when he tried to pause it would just start over and run again.  The more I learned the worse it got until one day I went by there and the floor model was a non-working display and the display model was inside of a glass-doored cabinet. Go me, I was a butt wipe huh?

Well, at least I wasn't a shoplifter. I learned that lesson at age 5 (and so did my ass cheeks). Here is a pro tip for you. Never shoplift a Resse cup from the pharmacy down the street that your mother sent you to. I was there to pick up something, along with a note from my mother. She knew the pharmacist personally, he knew me and she had given me a CHECK with our name, address, and phone number on it to pay for the item. Yeah, if you are going to steal, don't fill out the stupid thief application first. 

I was sitting here deciding on what direction to go in and ran a few thoughts through my mind. I've been retired since 2014 and I'm not used to thinking anymore, so that hurts my brain, and being the old worn out useless ex-grill jockey with a bad back that I am, some potential avenues came to mind. I was thinking that I could write about locations and the experiences at that location. Like I could probably spend a couple of paragraphs telling you about Franklin Road and Bob and Patty Piper or Bobby Daws, or Gary Gross or Crazy Mary the dishwasher, or the eccentric dishwasher I had at Castleton Square named Larry. Larry used to work on advanced mathematical problems and whenever he was caught up he would be writing out these complex math problems on the stainless steel with an erasable marker and try to figure out the answers. He was a closer. I let him do what he wanted, he could close the back area faster and cleaner than anyone, and nobody ever waited on their parts when he was working. 

I just figured No blood, No foul. Leave him be.

Or I could talk about the separate jobs I had and progressing through the ranks learning stuff as I went. I was a sponge and loved to learn and working at SnS there was always a meeting or a seminar or a training session to attend. They loved that crap, and I ate it up. I still have all of my DDI notebooks and look at them from time to time. You couldn't overtrain me as it was just making my knowledge base bigger and bigger. I am not the biggest brain there was but I was a repository for "Stuff". One time I answered some obscure who the hell would know this type of question in one of Dan Jarvis's meetings and he just looked stunned and said "Who knows this kind of crap?" I just smiled at him in return, because knew I wasn't the one that was going to be forever known for PPS (Pucks per Sandwich) as my sales driver. But I digress, and I usually do. Forgive me.

I could I guess, just start going through people and tell you how stories about old friends I think of fondly and how I remember people like Charles Frederick Beck Sr, (we called him Charlie of course), and how kind and gentle that man was. He was pretty large however he was also the most nimble big man I ever met, hell the most nimble person I ever met. It turned out he was a ballroom dancer in the past and that why he could move so well.  He could move in the dining room and never bump into anything. Boy not me, I would drag a highchair across two sections with me trying to get by some of the butts we had who worked there, and then I would trip over straw wrappers on the floor. It was ridiculous. 

Here I am circa 1980 and 1989 at Frankin Road. The first Office ever had in a restaurant was actually a shelf in a tiny bit of stockroom. The round safe was in the floor under my chair or just about there.

Me and Rick Daily

My office at Franklin Rd

I could tell you about the time Charlie saw a child choking, and he virtually sprang into action and snowplow like he just moved people aside and barrelled right through them, about five or so people who were standing in his way, he swept them aside, just moving them with his big arm, forcefully took the baby from the idiot that had her who was blowing in the baby's face as if that would solve the choking baby issue (If you can believe it! that guy was a doofus) and then immediately started performing the baby version of the Heimlich maneuver on the poor kid. I can still hear him saying "Breath baby breathe!" to this child and all of a sudden the baby spit out something it should not have had in the first place, like a jelly bean. He gently handed the baby back to its mother and said out loud (very out loud), "You don't give a 2-year-old a jelly bean!", You see Charlie had seen the whole thing develop. He was probably the only one who saw exactly what happened and Thank God he was there. Outside of me and him, I think we were the only two people who were in the vicinity who knew what to do. The sight of 6'3", 325 lb Charlie Beck barging through a group of people and grabbing that baby is one I will never forget. He saved that baby's life that day, of that I have no doubt.

Also, in my brain is the image of him ready to kill "Crazy Mary", the homeless and psychotic dishwasher, because she would not take a bus tub out of the dishwasher tub entrance window and put one down on the floor to make room for more to be placed in the window. It made him think of seriously trying to pressurize a reverse Heimlich on her, I am sure of that. I was walking up the alleyway from the back room, just about got to that area (at the old Franklin Road SnS), and I heard Charlie ROAR "PUT ONE ON THE FLOOR OLD WOMAN!", then he just sort of lost it, came straight at me to get to her as she was behind me and around the corner, and I swear to rudy, his eyes were blood red. I got in his way, and while he was trying to spike me like a football, I handed somebody my keys and told them to go push Mary out the back door and lock it behind her and tell her to take a break. Whew! Who knew restaurant work was going to be so hard! (And so much fun). 

I have no doubt I saved that old woman's life that day. Me and Charlie, a pair of lifesavers, who woulda thunk it?

But then I thought I probably shouldn't do that either because it would end up being an all-male review. I was such a flirt (and worse), and I absolutely loved women (especially ones that were a little older than me at times) that some of the stories would probably get me in trouble or put me in danger, embarrass my children, piss the people involved off and make them come looking for me or all these things at the same time. I have since talked to all of my children about my past and apologized for who I was, however, I am not interested in writing a tell-all of any kind, as most of it would just be a recitation of how much of a shithead I used to be, and who would want to read that? Even if you wanted to read it, I don't want to spend all day, every day on the phone apologizing and answering lawsuits for saying stupid crap on the internet. I'm not bragging and am not admitting to anything at all, but there was a good reason why God saw fit to make me get divorced from my first wife, let's just leave it at that.

I was a pretty good manager I thought, a great friend, a great listener, and a wonderful father when I could be and a disciplinarian or a guiding force when I had to be, but I do not think I was ever a very good husband. It was too complicated, took commitment I didn't know how to give,  and my heart was just never involved in the whole process. I was too young, I liked having fun way too much, I drank too much (at the time) not anymore, I liked running around and probably shoulda been smacked around a little bit as a result. 

This picture was taken at the 21st birthday party that John had for me at the old Brown Derby on Franklin Rd in Indianapolis Indiana. That drink is a bloody mary. I had been drinking there for 2 years when they threw this party. The manager was pissed off when he found out how old I was. My shoes got ruined that night, because they drug me to the car passed out, toes down, in the gravel, and wore the tops of them slap out. I woke up on my front porch, freezing (it was about 65*) and couldn't find my tie, my name tag, and my shoes were toast.

What a night. Yeah, I drank a lot of that drink but couldn't finish it.

John Fair, Mike Jordan and "Terry"

I thank my lucky stars that I waited a while and then LaDonna magically came back into my life once again when I could be more serious and also be a good man, partner, husband, and father. I found out much to my surprise, that it's just as much fun and maybe better to be a great partner, a great friend to not argue and to want to hang out with each other. I'm glad I figured that out before it was too late.

Yay! Go Me. The smartest thing I ever did was getting my head outta my butt and marrying her. 

February 14th, 1998

Nobody ever gets a second chance they say, and I am here to tell you, that is a dead wrong concept. You cannot approach it the same way you screwed up the first one, but if you truly want a second chance it is there. All you have to do is admit you need to change to be able to accept it. We have been together now for 24 years and have been married for 22 years. I have known her since I was about 17 years old and while she probably wasn't my first girlfriend ever, even though that is the story I tell everybody, she was the first one I was ever actually serious about, especially since high school. I was never a good boyfriend either. (Let me apologize to someone here, I'm sorry, Debbie L.from High school),  but I guess you live and learn.  I tell everyone that I am glad LaDonna and I didn't get married in the 70s when we dated the first time because it would not have worked out as stupid as I was back then. It happened for us at the exact right time, the stars lined up, she was available and I wasn't so stupid.

Go figure. I love this woman.

So I think I am going to try to stay Chronological going forward, although, with as many places, stores, states, and jobs I had, It will be tough. I know I will get at least a few of the details wrong, but my heart is in the right place, even If my brain is too foggy to get the details right.

Being a Curbie and a Grill guy

So back in 1974, I had a hairstyle that looked sort of like the current Bieber haircut and maybe it was a tad bit longer. I had hair and was proud of my hair. Two years prior to this before I worked anywhere my hair length was almost to the bottom of my neck or maybe a little longer. My Dad being the retired military man that he was, absolutely HATED MY HAIR, but got sick of yelling at me to get a haircut and I avoided him to avoid the argument. Prior to that, I think I went from the end of 8th grade until I started working st SnS before I got my first haircut since I had started high school. 

I was a sexy beast, just ask me I will tell you. Yeah, baby!

So anyway after before started working at the SnS at 2935 S. Madison Ave, near the corner of Madison and Troy on the south side of Indianapolis, I was employed at a gas station, pumping gas at what was then called Golden Imperial oil company. It was at 3102 S. Keystone, and I think it is closed now or has been bulldozed and turned into something else entirely. It was the Imperial, another name like Firebird or something then another name and then it became a Speedway. It was a Speedway for several years until they put one on the other side of the Interstate that was bigger, and more updated. I worked there until the recession of the 70s hit, when long gas lines ensued, and overnight the operating model of the neighborhood gasoline station changed. 

No longer would we service your vehicle, We stopped cleaning windows, checking oil or air pressure and the pumps were updated so they cleared automatically after the last sale. You no longer need some pimple-faced guy to go and turn the knob with his special shaped key so you could pump gas. Everything was on its way to being automated and the guy working there went from being an attendant to being a clerk. We also almost immedialtely stopped all of the work that went with being the attendant as well. No longer was there a need for a guy to paint the islands and no longer was there a need to run the buffer around all the red painted areas. The windshield water that customers used to clean the car windows, went from being changed 3 times per shift to once a day (if it got changed at all) in the morning, maybe, if you were lucky. That meant the business only needed a few employees and about 10 of us lost our jobs as a result. 

I don't think the restrooms have ever been cleaned since.

The first place I applied was Steak `n Shake. It was a little drive-In style restaurant with blinking running lights that looked like they ran all the way around the building and back when they were turned on and had a window on the front of the store where the food came out to be picked up and delivered by the curbies. Now that would be called a vintage look, but it looked pretty normal to me at the time because my oldest brother and some others in my family had worked at Steak `n Shake for several years in several locations in several states. As a matter of fact, the reason I looked there first was because of my oldest brother. He knew the night manager, Mr. Duncan (Wayne Duncan), and got me the interview and I didn't blow it and got the job. It wasn't hard to blow on the mirror and be breathing and I agreed to get a haircut before my first day so I won't beat that to death as I've already talked about it, and the rest is history. If you can believe it, I still have one or two friends from way back then that I occasionally talk to on Facebook. 

Here is what that store looked like, but this picture isn't actually the store, its just one that's like it. 

One of these has a drive-thru window stuck on the side of it when I started there none of them had drive-thrus.

The unique part about working at that particular restaurant was it was almost exclusively separated into customer type by eating area. Older people and families pretty much ate inside the building and younger folks and mostly teens (especially at night) would park on the curb stations and eat and socialize outside. On Friday and Saturday nights from just before Dark until closing time, the cruising would start and sometimes it kept up the entire night non-stop. When I say loop I mean loop by god. It was a continuous stream of moving cars all night long, some hot rods, some teenagers junkers, and some just badass race cars. The loop would start when cars would start to continuously drive between the White Castle which was about 1/2 mile or less south of Madison and Troy, then come north to the Steak `n Shake where they would enter the lot and drive all the way around the building in a circle coming in one driveway, then they would go out the other driveway and go North to the Tee Pee restaurant which was about 3/4ths of a mile down the road on the other side of the street, then they would go around the Tee-pee, come back out on Madison and head back to the white Castle and start the cycle all over again. 

The loop when it was active back in the day, would go on 7 days a week and every weekend, but it was busier and more noticeable on Friday and Saturday. On those two days, we had to have parking lot security, and most of the time it was a guy we called "Brownie", I have no idea why except I remember he wore a Brown Uniform. He was firm and tough and kept the peace but also was a lot of fun, most of the time no one had a problem from him. I remember him vividly though and the fact that he had several missing fingers, had a lead packed blackjack, and his quick mean right hand. Many times I saw people start fights that he ended with decision and quickness. 

Most of the time no one went to jail though.

On the weekends I loved working the curb. It was fun and I made a ton of money, and you wouldn't believe how much money was there to be made if you knew what to do to and were willing to earn it. There was the regular money, the tips from doing your job which was about 75% of the cash, and then there was the coloring outside the lines kind of stuff. Nothing particularly dangerous or life-threatening but stuff you could pick up an extra 5 bucks or so doing. For example, girls were always wanting me to pass anonymous notes to guys who were out on dates because of one reason or another. Usually, it was because either they were jealous or they knew the girl and wanted to get under her skin. The giggling was contagious and they would get me laughing and then I was useless until it subsided.

If I thought there was a chance of somebody getting actually angry I charged at least 5 bucks to deliver stuff like that. Sometimes it was harmless pranks and it just a note saying hello to the girl from her friends. Occasionally it was a girl asking an embarrassing question of an ex-boyfriend or a female rival trying to provoke a reaction from the male or the female. The note would say stuff like "Ask Doug if his penis still bends to the left?", or ask Poor Doug if his "Premature problem" ever went away?, which would usually provoke denial and yelling from Doug or yelling from the girl, either way, I scooted as fast as allowed. 

Sometimes the challenge was the occupants of the car would want to see if you could run their order from the window to their car at full speed without dropping anything. That one was easy because I was an expert at running full speed, in traffic, dodging the cars, stopping and hanging the tray all in one motion. I made a lot of money doing this and also made money dumping things on people on purpose, fulfilling a service provided usually by their ex-girlfriends, although once or twice it was the wife catching their cheating spouse. This was the kind of thing I charged the most for as it was the most likely to get you punched in the face. I could do this once or twice a night and make an extra $10 or $20 bucks or so. Unless Sheryl was the manager on duty. She started working at Stop-11 road and knew all the tricks. I never did it when she was there because I didn't want to pay for their meal if they complained. 

Sheryl was the coolest manager I ever worked for at SnS, but she would bust you in a minute if she caught you. Sheryl didn't play. She was always very observant and she paid attention to even the slightest thing. I learned to screw around in different ways when she worked because she would give you extra work in a heartbeat if she caught you goofing off.  She was also the one that taught me to use the moving cars as a point of balance, bouncing off the front and using your hand to slide around the rear of the car. Out attitude was if you were in the loop and you were in the way, you knew we were going to use you as part of the act. I don't remember anyone really complaining because that was one of the reasons they came there, was because of the excitement. She also always had a cool car, the first one I remember was I think a Ranchero. It got smunched when some idiot ran all over her at Southern Plaza, I was glad she didn't get hurt. Later on, she had this wedge-shaped car, I think it was a Triumph TR7 or something like that. I got to drive it a couple of times, man what a car! Later on, I bought a motorcycle from her, the same one I rode all over the place on with Stormin Norman.

There were a lot of characters who worked there, and our GM wasn't a dumb man either. I cannot remember what the names were of these two Iranian girls who worked curb there, but they were beauties! I mean stark raving drop-dead gorgeous. He approved the hiring of a lot of gorgeous females and I'm truly not sure why I ever got a job there. The girls made a ton of money and never did one single thing wrong. That was typical of the people he hired. Polite, respectful, and they did their jobs.  He had a knack for that and I never did know how he did it. They also never dated a single American, but a lot of slobber got dropped in the parking lot over those two. 

There was this one old guy with a bald spot who came in there all the time and drove a gold corvette. I didn't know him all that well and thought everyone liked him until I heard these same two girls talking about him and how creepy he was one day. Turns out he was a perv always looking for young girls, he was about 40 or so and wanted to date (and when I say date I mean he wanted to have sex with young girls, the younger the better), 16-18-year-olds. What a creep. 

The system they had was analog, no computers involved at all, even when you paid your bill. For the era it was however, It worked perfectly. You would take an order, tear off the ticket (which was an original and a copy), open the window and there was this little sharp spike just inside the window. I don't remember if you said anything to the inside, not really, but I think when I first started you said order in and closed the window. The person who was working the window would grab the ticket and then call out the order, the human equivalent of the touch screen that you see above every work station in virtually every restaurant today. There really wasn't a specialized language to calling out the ticket, not like at say Waffle House or in the movies where some guy will say "Two ribs on a raft" and it's supposed to mean two hot dogs to go or some such nonsense. 

Our system was much cleaner as you just called what you saw. There was an art form to it and remembering what you heard was truly a talent and a skill at the same time. My good friend and then Store Manager named Denzil Hannel had the absolute best ticket call skills I have ever heard bar none. His voice pitch would rise and fall and it sounded like music or maybe a drill Instructor calling cadence, it was a thing of beauty to watch him work the window. When the outsides orders were ready and the food, condiments, napkins, straws, and everything else was ready including your receipt copy, He would grab the exterior microphone and you would hear your number come up, "Number 11, your party is waiting for you at guest services".  Pretty much when Denzil worked the window, all of your food was there provided you could write a ticket properly, and you almost every time had everything you needed. You would run-up to the window (If you worked curb for Denzil you ran - period), get the tray, put it on your balance hand, and take off with it, to deliver to the car window. Sometimes in the middle of the rush at the busiest point, I could hear Denzil calling for "One case of meat, one box of Fies and one coke tank", make it T O G O (spelling out each letter). It was comic relief and working with him was a lot of fun. 

Later on, after I had broken my foot and had to be off for a while, I came back to work 4 weeks or so later, and this manager we had named Freddie Burgess saw I was limping a tiny bit and said to me"You want to work inside for a while until your foot is better?". Of course, I did because for whatever reason every stupid curbie thought life was better if you worked inside. It probably helped my career, but I was a dumbass. I never sweated or worked as hard as like that on the curb! He had me working the grill right off the bat and my first night, I got 5 minutes of instruction and he was gone. Here is the spatula, and the fork, there's the meat, you are on your own. See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya. 

The next part of this paper is called "My Struggles on Grill".

So after struggling for a day, two of the day shift cooks stuck around one night to help train me. One guy was named Wayne and the other guy was Duff. They worked with me for about an hour each and after that, I was much better. Wayne, however, was the fastest grill operator I had ever seen to that point. Duff wasn't as fast but he was more accurate. He cut cleaner from the grill, was better at scraping off the surface, and he taught me a lot of things that helped me later on. Freddie did the paperwork to move my job permanently inside but didn't teach me shit. 

After a shift with Wayne and Duff, I started working on my technique and speed. Pretty soon I viewed working the grill like performing for an audience and I would play to the crowd behind me and do all sorts of stuff. I flipped each patty while making the steakburgers, then started adding a rhythm to my work, and pretty soon in my mind I was playing the hits of the day while working grill. I got faster and faster and more accurate to the point where I could "snow" anyone working the dressing table, except for guess who? That's right, good old Sheryl. No matter how hard I tried I could not bury this woman and I gave it the old college try about two thousand times. 

She was the fastest dressing table operator I had ever seen. I would cheat and have somebody toast buns for me and she would cheat right back and have somebody work fries for her. I remember her voice, "I wish I had food to serve I have customers that are waiting!." It was sort of maddening. I mean we only had singles and Supers (Doubles) with and without cheese, ham sandwiches, egg sandwiches, Han and Egg sandwiches and toasted Cheese sandwiches on the menu (Maybe Triples too although I don't actually remember), and I worked my butt off trying to bury her in burgers. It never happened with her on DT. I was able to "Snow" anybody and everybody else at will but not her. 

It wasn't until I was talking with her years later that she told me what I failed to observe. We dressed every sandwich to order, with specifically whatever you wanted on the sandwich. She observed early in her career that usually most people gt the same base of Onion, Pickle, Lettuce, and Tomato (OPLT), so she pre-prepped every plate OPLT and added and subtracted from there adding wet dressings as needed. Essentially I was just watching her take every sandwich to the plate make a quick one half second two-handed adjustment and moving on. It was to me at the time, fairly amazing. In order to get faster and produce more,  I had to get slower, stop all the flipping, and work more deliberately. I never beat her though, as she was and is to this day, much smarter than I ever was. 

I always did like that about her. 

I'm still friends with her 44 years later.

-BigMike

A Lawless Society?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

I hear 45 caliber is just the right size

Monday April 6th, 2020 at purt near 5:30 a.m.

Look over yonder and sech and see ifn Grandma is home,

Hey younguns,

As you may know or not, I have a very high level of disregard for most advertising in most forms at most levels. Everything from the crap they hang on shopping buggies (yes, damn it,  I said buggies) and put up on the side of Taxi Cabs to the junk they hang in fast food restaurants to the crappy television characters they create. They (the advertisers and the agencies responsible) create this crap and then they barrage you with it over and over and over, until you want to shoot the TV screen or change the channel at the very least. The ones I hate the most right now are produced by Liberty Mutual and star that sonofabitch Doug and his stupid Emu. That comes on in any form and I am quick draw McGraw with the mute button or I will change the channel. It straight pisses me off to have to watch or even listen to that drivel.

My wife says I am taking it to the extreme as most people can simply ignore it or leave the room. I have to curse at it and take some kind of action. When it comes to advertising and the mute button I am my own voice over actor and am a drama King. Same with the dumbass Gecko and I especially have a huge loathing wide fiery space in my heart that was full of kindling and a raging bonfire for the stupid BOX character from Progressive. I know it seems like its all Insurance, however trust me, that's just right now. I have a lot of hate in a lot of varieties for a lot of that stupid shit. If your company puts out this nonsense, trust me, I won't buy squat from you for any reason unless and until you cease and desist with the crap.

Here's one thing I want to know though? Why does the woman in the State Farm commercial care what "Jake from State Farm" is wearing , and I wonder why in the hell that was her first question? What if Jake had been someone like me who would have recognized the female change in voice and responded with something like "What do you want me to be wearing honey?". I wonder why wasn't she shown as embarrassed after she asked such a stupid question or why didn't she at the very least apologize to her husband? What did she think he was doing at 3 a.m. in the living room fully clothed asking questions? Listening to a video of Pornhub on the phone? It's just ridiculous and they are just stupid (or we are I'm not sure).

Deep Dives are sometimes boring not scary

1. I am noticing stories that are starting to become more prevalent about how ammunition is becoming scarce. People are buying more and more and stocking up ( is it because they are scared?), and the usual places are running low on supplies. One of the people I follow on Facebook had a post where said he thought folks might be wiping their asses with it, hence the 45 caliber reference in the title, relating hoarding of bullets to the shortage of TP.
   
   Anecdotally it seems like shooting, home invasions, daytime robberies and burglaries are on the rise so maybe there is something to that element. It would be a mistake for anyone to come here as everyone who lives here is armed most of the time. Oh well. Buy bigger trash bags I suppose.
2. I was educated about the existence of a concept / video / theory called "Event 201" yesterday. I have not had a chance to look at it or research it so this is not my opinion on it, but at first glance it looks interesting. If you have more knowledge I'd be interested in hearing about it.
   
   Also apparently there are numbers which further illustrate the death issue surrounding Covid-19 and a different static measurement where by Closed Cases  (Had the disease and either survived or did not, the disease had fully run it s course) and Deaths as a percentage of those cases are around 21%.
   
   The death rate usually is expressed as a percentage of all cases (diagnosed, under treatment, survived and Died) versus those who have died. It is a different way to express the number and it excludes those diagnosed and in active treatment, unless the disease has run it course. I'm not sure I understand the significance.
3. The US Surgeon General Vice Admiral Jerome Adams (who is usually but not always a symbolic position),  was quoted yesterday as saying (sic) "The next week will be our Pearl Harbor event", apparently he was referencing the rising death toll of the illness called Covid -19. Scary when anyone talks like this.
4. How the hell does a tiger test positive for Covid-19 in a zoo, when there are allegedly not enough tests for humans to take, the labs are allegedly backed up for days/weeks and the vast majority of humans have no idea of their own exposure or status ? There is something odd and wrong about this and I'm not sure I get the logic.
5. Went to Home Depot yesterday. Had to pick up some drywall. Wow !!, What an amazing Clusterfied forcible anal penetration that was.
   
   First go stand in line, in the sun (and I mean all bunched up , but not me!!), then only one way in the store, one way only, one way to go shop, pay, exit either at the pro loading zone or the garden center.
   
   Placing an order ahead of time to limit time spent was pointless as even though the email said your order is ready , it was not and it took 30+ minutes once we pulled into the loading zone to get our drywall and the rest of the items we ordered. I know companies are trying to do their best to help us survive, however I have no idea what good they thought this did. Apparently they are only allowing a certain number in the store at once however it was pretty negated by the bunching around both doors, it was a little crazy.
   
   Have a wonderful sunny day friends and for God's sake, don't step in the dog poop!!

Big Mike

Be a Vigilante Superstar

Monday 03/30/2020 about 6:30 a.m. EST, from the studios of BigMikeRant Enterprises.

Morning people sunrise is about 30 minutes away,

Today's look at things or theme if you will I'm gonna call it "Be a Vigilante Superstar", and I really don't mean get a gun and go shoot people either or go enforce the law either.

There's enough of you keyboard Warriors to go around already. It's amazing some of the things I see and read online that folks will type into their browsers or make comments that you know good and well they wouldn't say out loud. They damn sure wouldn't say it around their kids, and if they said it around their significant other you know they would smack them upside the head for saying crazy crap that's in your brain,  out loud.

So why do you think people are so brave and run their mouths so obnoxiously online when you know they wouldnt do it in person? That's the folks I call Keyboard Warriors. They remind me of the kids that are pictured sitting at a window with a keyboard and mouse looking out the window with the caption" Reality- Worst Game Ever !!"

It's almost like playing Halo online and hearing some 12 year old tell you to "Shut up you old fart blanket", or some such nonsense. Its funny because they can't curse effectively yet, and they can't put words together that make sense anyhow, but they are also brave because they know Mom isn't listening and she's making lunch and they know that they can say whatever they want to as long as she doesn't hear him.

It's funnier than hell. I'm not an online gamer anymore but I would always do my part and teach them effective cursing at the very least. HA !

Tips to being a Vigilante Superstar

1. I've seen a lot of so called temporary changes in response to the Covid-19 virus pandemic that is sweeping the globe. Some of them make sense and some of them I am struggling a little bit to make sense out of, however its nice seeing people try trying to accommodate their fellow citizens in some manner. My doctor has a big sign outside his office that tells you to Stay in your car, Call the office and they will come out and get you when its your turn. No more waiting room. They come out wearing masks and gloves and escort you right back. My last appointment, for the first time ever was by telephone with my doctor. It went OK, he sounded very concerned and had a lot to say. That was unusual. I've also saw shuttered churches that have switched to online streaming only. My Friend Dr. Brooks Green conducted his sermon yesterday to an empty building but they live streamed the service. That was cool. Innovative thinking, Politics is busier than normal, somehow. For some reason I thought this would shut everybody up, sadly No. Coolest thing I saw was the Mayor of Chattanooga TN authorizing the delivery of sealed beer so you didn't have to go out to get it. BEER DELIVERY? I didn't see that one coming.
2. There was an article in the newspaper (Crap I'm old huh?) , about How to Prepare for and then Spend your stimulus check. DUH. As if. Stay in lockdown, pay your bills, when lockdown is over you are gonna get evicted if you don't pay your rent somehow. Seems like a stupid topic to me however I never account for stupidity well enough.
3. Liquor stores are an essential business however Hobby Stores like Hobby Lobby are not. Apparently Football, Baseball , hockey and Basketball are out but Golfing on the other hand is OK. Good to know I guess. Who Knew.
4. Spring has sprung where I live. I'm glad sitting on my ass winter is over. However this 6 meals a day quarantine is not gonna help and I am fatter than ever. Bring on the Zyrtec, However my wife has eliminated Ibuprofen from our pill consumption routines and switched us to Tylenol. I got the mandatory patient education warnings too. Okee dokey. Treat the asthma, Emphysema, COPD and full sinuses with everything but the NSaids. Boy am I glad she is around to manager that crap. I think we are about 12  days into this isolation quarantine stuff.
5. Liberty University students in SC, were told to come back to campus by the President of the school, Jerry Falwell Jr. He reopened the campus, said the wait is over and moved on. 12 students promptly came down with Corona Virus symptoms, 8 of them are in intensive care. What a dipshit.

Remember kids, it took 50 years to develop a vaccine for Polio , There is still no vaccine for the Zika virus, Aids, Ebola and a couple others. Like the coronavirus, no one has ever cured the common cold either and on average it takes about upwards of 16 years to make a vaccine that's effective. If you're looking for a quick cure, Its probably not gonna happen.

Thankx for Reading,

BigMike

Politicians are no Help and never have been

Over the years I have had occasion to listen to a great many political speeches and to pay close attention to the descriptions of a lot of political promises. In the final analysis I don’t know why WE ALWAYS fall for the same tired old crap but we always do. Politicians promise us the moon and deliver a piece of green cheese.

It happens every single stinking time.

It just irritates me that a politician can blithely promise anything and it is written off as a “Campaign promise”, and if we were to do the EXACT SAME THING at work, it would be called a lie and we would get fired. See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya !

I’m not going to go back to the beginning of time; however I am sure you will recognize a few of these gems.

• We are going to mark a DMZ at the 38th parallel that will define the two countries so that we can train the local troops, which will allow Americans to come home. This was the idea in 1955 in Korea. We still have thousands of troops deployed there and hundreds of other places around the globe that have very little to do with the original reason we went there to begin with. If you don’t believe me, just answer what the hell we are still doing in Germany, decades after WWII, and have thousands of troops deployed there and Korea and Japan and etc.

• We are going to create “Enterprise zones”, which will encourage investment in poverty stricken areas, thereby preventing gentrification and the wholesale destruction of local neighborhoods. This was the idea behind one plan pushed by Ronald Reagan, and was the force which basically unleashed “Eminent Domain” actions by localities, thereby ensuring the wholesale destruction of local neighborhoods.

• Tax cuts will help those less fortunate to be able to “Insert latest lie”. Tax cuts do not help low income wage earners. It is no help to have your taxes cut $5 per paycheck. When you roll it up it allows a politician to say they have cut taxes by millions or billions of dollars, however the individual person isn‘t helped at all. Someone who has a billion dollars on the other hand? Well I guess it depends upon if you call a 20 million dollars reduction in tax liability “help”.

• The latest round of tax plans, Housing ideas, College tuition programs that all the candidates are blathering about have one thing in common. They are all so full of holes, tests, disqualifiers and so called “means testing” that they are more confusing than a tax form and when you get right down to it, a very low percentage of affected individuals are eligible for their “savior” programs and an even lower percentage will take advantage of it.

Here is why Its just another lie.

If you have to be 100 % caught up on your mortgage payments, have great credit, have “X” dollars in savings then your program is not designed to help people that are “underwater” or “in trouble” on their home mortgages. It is designed to help the doctor that lives next door to the Politician and owns a million dollar (or more) mansion. It certainly will help no one who is currently in foreclosure or bankruptcy , because by virtue of the fact that they have had to declare bankruptcy , it virtually ensures they will have no money, be behind on mortgage payments, and have ruined or wrecked credit.

Who do these idiots think they are fooling anyway? Why don't they just have Ron Popiel do all the political ads? Then at least they would be funny, memorable and you wouldn't mind being lied to so much because you would know it was a ridiculous boast to begin with.

I'd love to talk more about it but my pocket fisherman in the glove box is calling.  We are having fish for dinner tonite and I'm gonna cook. Just put it in the Oven and "Set it, then Forget it!"

I see my wife on the corner over there. ":Hey Good Looking, I'll be back to pick you up later!!". 'Scuse me while I spray my hair on.......

An Important Lesson in Political Math

10 Steps to Bragging about what you are doing for the American Taxpayer

Or how politicians say they are saving you Money , therefore leading to their own re-election because of their historic voting , strong record and pro-business stance.

1. Propose a program that will lead to some dubious untested benefit that does not have to be quantified, qualified or proven. Do not worry about whether or not the program will work as the other party will bash it greatly no matter what you say nor what you do.
2. Come up with a final cost number in the Press release for the announcement of the Program something on the order of "Senator X says 60 Billion dollar jobs plan will help economy".
3. Also somewhere in the statement guess at the number of "jobs" (or other benefits) that will be created as a result of implementing your plan. "Senator X says his job plan will create 2500 jobs."
4. Ignore and do not count any jobs that are lost as a result of the plan and always count low paying non union jobs that replace high paying or unionized jobs as equal positions. For reference please see "NAFTA - What the hell happened to my job , by Dr. Suess"
5. Create rules for implementing the program that keep out the Riff Raff, meaning anyone who has no need for the money created by this program.
6. Add up the final expenses for the program and narrowly define as expenses only those items you really cannot blame on someone else. Assume this number is half of the original estimate no matter what the facts say.
7. Add up the final jobs you say were created for the program and narrowly define as a created job every item for which tips, wages or barter like trading was used to pay anyone like a paperboy, your babysitter or the morning wino you give spare change to on your way to work. Include the homeless bum who holds the "Will work for food sign at the Interstate".  Assume this number is double the original estimate no matter what the facts say.
8. Form exploratory committee and PAC to advise you on important issues. Staff both organizations with your cronies. Loan both organizations your top speechwriters. Have everybody except you put out press releases and articles to newspapers etc, saying what a wonderful job your program did for the American People. Have both organizations distort the facts and further muddy the waters by claiming wild claims like for example Tell one of them to say Your program has cured AIDS.
9. Book several appearances on Sunday Morning Talk shows and talk to Important Newspaper writers, television news celebrities Like Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer. Make no public comments until you begin to speak out on the issues.
10. Announce you are running for President and then ask for time to set the record "straight" in order to counter claim some of the more wild things that have been said in the past few days. Announce that your program saved the American Public 30 Billion dollars (Even though you actually spent 30 Billion dollars) and that it created 5000 jobs and spent less money than was projected in order to do so. Call this productivity at its highest level and then spend some time being humble , admitting somebody got it wrong by saying your program was a cure for anything.

Cue American Flag.

Cue Pictures of Family.

Fade to black.

Ride to Elected office in big black limo smoking fat black stogie.

Life is good.

Yay! The new TV season is being announced this week !!

By this time next week everybody will know whether or not their marginal network beloved show made it for another season or not. Shows will be added, cancelled and moved in record time. None of it will make any sense to average people. Most of us will not care one way or the other because the majority of the shows are crap to begin with and the planet will keep on revolving whether we like it or not.

Sigh. I should be sitting in the front room right now, like many of you, trying to figure out what to watch, if I didn't have a brain at all and couldn't entertain myself that is.

I have observations : (Check out http://TvByTheNumbers.zap2it.com/

Television production networks spend millions and millions of dollars every year trying to figure out how to have the best shows on television. None of them are ever successful for more than 4-5 years and then somebody figures out that some other type of show is better. Next thing you know, everybody is schlock-ing along making the next batch of TV goo for us to watch.

Its pathetic. First there was one good cop , forensic drama and then next thing you know there is 35 of them. What do ya think is going to happen to your content when you start boring me to death with something. You think that makes me want to watch more of it ?

The people who make decisions about TV shows really have no clue why those of us who were watching their crap aren't watching it any more. They are listening to all the wrong people for one. I'll bet none of them has went outside their comfort zones and asked real people questions in a dozen years or more. The reason why is they have been sold the lie about "Research" and statistics that have to do with demographics (age related analysis) and marketability, and sustainability. Problem is that has little to do with engaging content.

All these metrics tell you is that you figured out how to catch our attention for a few minutes in a virtual ocean of choices , and hardly any of your decision making has to do with content. How well you market a show has more to do with whether or not I'll give it a shot than the content does, as I have no idea what you are talking about before I watch it a few times. If I was able to "innately understand the characters" as I heard one of you idiots say this week, why bother marketing it? I can see it now "Hop on Pop - The TV Series".

The people who make TV shows have to bend to the will of dozens of other people in order to get a show on the air. It is a wonder anything ever gets made at all. (Network Exec - "Put a woman in it!! It has to sell product to women !! Flunky TV producer - "But sir Its a Gay prison drama!! ) Its one stupid decision, one cancellation and one more craze after another and real, thoughtful content or real funny content is never given a chance. If it doesn't sell to marketing folks who push their schlocky ads in the precious few minutes that there is in a show to tell the story line to begin with,then zip zam zowie am swoosh , its gone and to hell with it and good riddance. Until that is they start recycling the crap, over and over and over....

Marketing Folks , in turn have absolutely no clue what people like, they only know what we don't turn off. The whole entire TV industry is built around the concept of ratings, which is actually a system that measure the fact that "We didn't turn your crap off, we turned somebody Else's crap off." Is it any wonder we find other things to do ?

I'd just as soon hit my fingers with a hammer than watch some of the absolute crap you people put on and seriously think somebody will watch it. I'd much rather pay my best friend to tighten my testicles in a vice than to watch some of the tripe that you call "TV". "Medium", "V", "Outsourced" ? Seriously? This is the best you could come up with ? How about this. Whenever you have nothing but a snoozer loser to put on, first , send the producers back to the drawing board and tell them "This crap is not good enough". Then instead of subjecting us all to more of your choices made while on cocaine, put up a re-run of the best shows you ever made in the last ten years until they come up with something better.

We don't watch your crap because of a lot of reasons like maybe ; it is too narrowly focused (like on 8-13 year olds - like Hannah Montana), has too many themes going at once (a friendship/romance/action movie) or maybe, wait for it, because it was crap!

Really, there are hundreds of choices and you put a snoozer cheesy show up , nobody watches it and you think the answer is to spend less money, on worse shows, with lower budgets and this fixes the problem ? Jersey Shore is the frigging answer? Top Dog Chef of China next on the Food network. The food network ? Oooh, shows are too expensive to make , so if they are too expensive, we can't charge as much for marketing, which means the show has to cost less to make, which after all cheapens the show and its content, which means you are gonna stop watching it and you are gonna do it all over again with another batch of shows next year !!

You people are absolutely 100 % no kidding bat-shit crazy. Is Gary Busey is in charge of the TV Industry ?

I love the way they all sit around and moan about the loss of the attention span of the average viewer. Oh what a wad of baloney !! If only it were true.

See here is the problem. They all say they recognize that it is 1969 anymore and everybody all say they know that Wally and the Beav aren't plunked down in front of a 3 channel television anymore and that the landscape has changed dramatically. Then everything they do , regardless of what they say, is more of the same old hashed out tore up liquid logic from 1979.

Here are some truths they would be good to get in touch with :

1. We have more options now than we ever had before. When TV was a 3 channel deal, if we don't like what Dad was watching, playing outside on the step with a stick in the dirt was about the only option. How else do you explain playing cards clothes pinned to bicycle spokes ? or shooting each other in the eye with BB guns?



2. Now if your crappy show sucks, we can watch another TV in the house, probably a flat screen TV to boot. Or if we have a blue ray player or a DVD player (or even a CD or VCR) we can watch recorded content or make our own content and bore everybody else with it. Can you say YouTube? Or maybe if it is one of your kids they can yammer on the phone for hours or send text messages to 10 people at once. While they are driving. On their way to the library.



3. We also have phones that deliver content that is not as good as a TV, but the way TV has been going that ain't saying much.



4. Everybody has computers and i-Crap, and MP4G players and all the other cute little made up names for new gadgets. Oh and our phones, they are cameras, they play videos, they take pictures, they have Internet access, and when all else fails they have face book access as well. Angry Birds for cryin out loud, Angry Birds !!



5. Did I say Facebook? Ooh I'm selling cheesecake in my new shop and i need a baking pan can you get one for me. Jesus H. Christ on a crutch !!



6. We could watch out home theatre if we don't want to go to the movies (and apparently we don't like this activity anymore either), and there is all the various streaming content providers like Hula, Netflix, Flixter, etc. BTW-psssst If you didn't know, Sell your Blockbuster stock.



7. Normal options apply, we just can't go very far at $5 a gallon. So yeah, a road trip is in, but not more than 5 miles or so. The small percentage of us who don't spend all our leisure time stoned, drunk or naked have to do something to keep from going crazy trying to find something to watch in the wasteland of TV programming.


8. Did I say Porn ? There is more instant porn available today than ever before and its just getting bigger. Yes Mr. TV man you compete with porn. Get over it. If you didn't it wouldn't keep growing while all your stuff is dying. Well honey, there's nothing on TV, I'm going upstairs !!



9. Two Words. Massive Multi-player. go to google and look up MMORPG. - nuff said.



10. ....and saving the best for last - VIDEO GAMES of all kinds , but especially online game communities. Toasty !! Finish Him !! COD Black Ops ! Halo, friggin Halo !!

So keep your head in the sand and keep thinking if you just make one more reality show or one more schlocky cheezey gag me with a spoon sitcom that everything will get better. While you are doing that Netflix and Nintendo and Sony are getting rich watching you sit on your sorry asses.

Did I say that out loud ?

Thankx for reading my Rant

- BigMike

Some sayings I want to put on T-Shirts

Hey, these probably won't sell, but here is what I want to put on a bunch of T-Shirts and sell them.

It would make me happy anyway....

• "I see dumb people....."
• "Yes, as a matter of Fact, I do own the sidewalk, why do you ask?"
• "Your village just called, they want their idiot back"
• "I can only please ONE person per day. Today is not your day !."
• "Definition of stupidity. Look it up, you'll see your picture."
• "First Ammendment Rules !"
• "Sit down, shut up, Hold On.
• "Aw NO, not you !"
• "Don't go away mad, just go away !"
• "Defecation Occurs"
• "Life is just a bunch of Bovine Defecation"
• "As a matter of Fact, the world does revolve around me. Thankx for asking."
• "Hey Vanna, buy a vowel."
• "Ron White was right. You can't fix stupidity."
• "Do I look like a People person ?"
• "Lets say I got smart with you. How would you know it?"
• "Just because you keep looking, doesn't mean my brilliance will rub off."
• "Why are you stupid?, not my area."
• "Sorry, I don't know how to speak dumber, only slower."
• "The human excrement is about to impact the high speed device"
• "Dr. House is not amused with your B.S."
• "Don't speak, you'll ruin the illusion."
• "Hush ! Use your inside your head voice!"
• "Is it possible that you are as dumb as you look?"
• "Random selection is proven by your existence."
• "Remember that weird kid in third grade? You grew up."
• "Beauty goes skin deep. Ugly goes clear to the bone."
• "Yeah, I'm fat. But your UGLY and I can lose weight."
• "If you can read this, you can read."
• "Hydrogen is abundant. So is stupidity."
• "I looked up the definition of moron in the dictionary. It shows your picture."

Thankx for reading my rant.

-bigmike

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post.

Join my facebook group "We are all tired of Bickering Politicians" at

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=292482513888.

We would love to have your voice added to the noise !!

How to Defeat Terrorism in 2 easy steps

OK, before everybody gets all prissy, know I am writing this tongue in cheek. This probably would not work, but it would be pretty fun to try.

I have a suggestion on how to defeat terrorism. I think it would be easy to wipe it out and it would never come back.

See we are approaching the problem all wrong. We are approaching this issue like it is a military struggle and it isn’t. Militaries fight wars against other nations or nations states that have opposing armies. Using military strategies to defeat an opponent who doesn’t use conventional command and control structures is doomed to fail. Who do you go after if no one is really in charge? How do you defeat an enemy who does not have a traditional structure, who doesn’t group soldiers on the battlefield and whom you cannot even identify by uniform?

Its nuts.

Then we cripple the effort we do provide by instituting so called “rules of engagement” which basically are the way a politician has their say in a process where they do not belong in the first place.

The military doesn’t need more rules, if anything I would argue they need less rules.

1. 1. What would happen do you think, if we abandoned the traditional rules we fight under and just did to them , what they do to us only, make our response to their crap, a hundred fold in response?

Attack a building or a city in America, we fly a bunch of B-52’s and B1B Bombers to your home town once we figure out who you are and we just level it. Warn the residents if you like, but just make a pile of rubble out of anything connected to the terrorists. Then warn the rest of the world, you harbor terrorists or allow them to operate from your soil, sell them weapons, allow them safe haven, or assist them in any way and you are just as guilty as those bastards are.

How many cities would we have to just decimate until these buttholes got the message do you think?

1. 2. If that doesn’t work, go ask the big city cops to identify the Crips, Bloods, MS-13 members, the Aryan nation, every serial killer, the Mexican mafia and the biker gangs in their home towns and prisons in their states. These idiots don’t want to live free in America anyway, they want to live in prison. Take all of the toughest SOB’s you can find in every prison and street gang, and put them all on planes and put them in the middle of this crap.

Give them whatever arms they need and tell them if they ever want to come back to America, they have to fight these buttholes into submission and earn their way back in.

Who is Muqtada_al-Sadr ?

How long before every idiot who thinks they can issue a fatwa is wondering how to get their kids off of crack or meth and they won’t have any more time to screw with us?

How long before Muqtada al-Sadr , gets sick of drive by shootings before he asks us for help do you think?

How long before you could answer the phone in the White House and a Mullah would be calling saying “Please Mr. Obama, come back and help us get rid of the Hells Angels?”. Too bad there isn’t an Al Qaeda city we could bomb into submission , huh?

Sometimes I am a maniac !

Thankx for reading my rant !

bigmike

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post. Join my facebook group "We are all tired of Bickering Politicians" at

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=292482513888. We would love to have your voice added to the noise !!

The Jokes have Started for Tiger

 The Jokes have started.

 

Let the fun begin…

 

 

1.  Did you know Tiger isn’t a Tiger anymore? Yeah, now he’s a cheetah!

2.  It was just reported that Phil Mickelson contacted Tiger's wife to pick up some tips on how to beat Tiger!

3.  Apparently the police asked Tiger's wife how many times she hit him. She said "I don't know exactly… but put me down for a 5."

4.  Tiger Woods is so rich that he owns lots of expensive cars. Now he has a hole-in-one.

5.  What's the difference between a car and a golf ball?  Tiger can drive a ball 400 yards…

6.  What were Tiger Woods and his wife doing out at 2.30 in the morning? They went clubbing.

7.  Tiger Woods crashed into a fire hydrant and a tree. He couldn't decide between a wood and an iron.

8.  When asked if his wife struck him, he said " nah, she was just teed off and I was the tee.

 

And the beat goes on…..

 

Thankx for reading my rant ! 

 

bigmike

 

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/  

 

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post.

A vacation in an alternate universe

 

The man in the bed was a constant dreamer. He lived to daydream and ponder and could often be found with his head in the clouds , having no connection to his surroundings for hours on end. Today was no exception. He was frequently confused. After all, he was a man.

 

As the light came streaming through the front window, the sun hit him in the face and set off the inevitable but very slow waking process common in humans, he was in the last bit of a very exciting dream. "Shift, shift, make the turn, outrun the Russians !! "He was Jason Bourne in this one and it started to fade. Once eye clicked open, the other one stuck closed with what felt like a tasty jelly. All at once he sat straight up in bed "What the Hell", he exclaimed and then little by little his consciousness returned. The dream slowly began to fade. He blinked a few times, coughed, and then scratched. A primal stretch came over his body. He looked around the bedroom in the dim morning light. There to the right just as he had imagined, was a clock radio he couldn't place. Looking left he saw a nightstand he knew he had never saw before. A trash can with a big liquor bottle and fast food trash overflowing in one corner, a tiny refrigerator in the other. Cheesy curtains and a generic TV nightstand combo in front of him. "This blanket is strange, the pillows are different, this bed is all wrong", he thought. His mouth tasted like the bottom of a trashcan.

 

Today, started out like no other day, he thought,  as it slowly began to come into focus and dawn on his conscious being.

 

"I am ", he thought" in a strange bedroom, I've never seen before". He decided to investigate. Birds chirping in the background. Dogs barking in the distance. The roar and rumble of cars and trucks barely heard over the din of the TV. Throwing the blanket back, he looked out the front bedroom window. "How curious, I don't recognize a thing I am looking at", he pondered. "Ah, there is my car, down there in a parking lot". A view off in the distance of the Ocean, a big stretch of white sandy beach with a few early morning sun worshippers walking by the water. He looked down with his one good bleary blood-shot eye and realized he was stark naked. "Why do I have lipstick smeared all over my chest, and where did these scratches come from?", he was beside himself with no answers to all the questions. "Did he meet a girl and come back to her place? "Oh man, I have to figure this out and come up with some kind of good believable story to cover it, my wife is going to be pissed if she finds out about this one !"

 

He decided to look around this curious room and try to figure out where he was. Padding on bare feet , he went into the bathroom. "This just keeps getting weirder", he thought. Towels, washcloths, and clothes dotted the floor. Two Newspapers stacked on the floor next to the toilet. A couple of magazines were laying next to the Television. He noted a whipped cream can and a produce bag on the floor. Strawberries, bananas and cucumbers were in the refrigerator. The sink in the bathroom smelled like a horse farm. His clothes were strewn all over the room , battered about like he had taken them off in a strong windstorm. A bra and a swimming suit were hanging in the bathtub. "What did I do yesterday", he wondered. "How in the hell did I end up here?" "I wonder how much trouble I am in this time?", these thoughts started tumbling through his head, raging as a wildfire. The closet in the corner had his clothes, two suitcases and some female garments in it. The was all kinds of girl junk in the bathroom with lotions, crèmes, makeup's hair products, sunscreen, insect repellant and various other bottles of female goop.

 

One razor with one can of shaving cream looked to be the male contribution.

 

He started to imagine a scenario where he had spent the night drinking and chasing women. Maybe he had met up with a friendly girl, who had put him up for the evening. "I wonder if I will see her again?", he pondered. "When I do , will I know what she looks like?", "Will she recognize me?", "Why does my mouth taste this bad?" Just them the lock on the door started to rattle, he panicked. He was naked and somebody was coming in. He jumped out of bed and started looking for his clothes.

 

Just as he was pulling up his underwear, She entered the room. "Morning honey", she said. "I have breakfast from the Mickey D's across the lot., How did you sleep ?"

 

He was confused. His wife ? Mickey D's? across the lot ? Oh hell,  wait a minute",  he thought "Ocean?, I live 500 miles from the Ocean. Where the hell am I?, what is going on?", man now he was worried. "What did we do with whipped cream and produce?". His mouth tasted like he licked an ashtray and swallowed the butts. He didn't smoke. Did he travel in time and space? Was he in an alternate universe? He knew he had to answer and try to make a little sense. She couldn't know he had no clue where he was or if this was real. "Hi honey", he said, I slept pretty good , I guess". She smiled and said "Well get up and have some coffee and eat your breakfast and we'll go take a swim in the Ocean, and don't waste a lot of time getting going either, because I want to lay in the sun before it gets too hot. Remember you only got 5 days for this vacation, and even though this is just a Motel 6, I want to get as much out of these 5 days as I can."

 

He knew then that he was in an alternate universe, OR maybe it is possible he thought,that he should not have put the big bottle of Jack Daniels up in the front seat of the car with him as she was driving down here. Long trips had always made him nervous. She was a very bad driver.

 

Today, started out like no other day alright.

 

"But why, " he thought, "Does my mouth taste like the bottom of a trashcan, and what the hell was the produce for?"

 

 

Thankx for reading my rant , ...er, ah, story ! 

 

bigmike

 

Visit my blog online at http://bigmikerant.blogspot.com/  

 

I encourage you to leave your own comments or reactions to my rants (even if you don't agree with me) in the comments section on each post.