The Best Worst Trip Ever, Part One

My dad loves the Beach Boys, so I grew up listening to “Sloop John B.” In the song, Brian Wilson sings, “This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on.”

That was how I felt at approximately 8:15am on Tuesday, November 17, 2009.

Let me give you a short prologue.

Back in August, my friend Elizabeth had asked me to take a look at the website of a luxury resort in Turks & Caicos where she and her husband, along with several of their friends, owned a condo. I made some recommendations, and over the following months, what began as a favor for a friend grew into a six-page proposal for online marketing.

Elizabeth called me on Thursday the week before to tell me that my proposal had been approved. The Tuscany was my biggest client to date, and represented a major turning point in my career as a freelance marketer and copywriter.

I was very excited.

The next day, Elizabeth booked plane tickets for herself, Paul Hassell, and me. Paul is a talented outdoor photographer who would be taking the pictures and shooting the videos that would bring the spice to all The Tuscany’s marketing initiatives for the next eight months.

Synchronizing the schedules of four busy people had taken hours of phone calls and emails, but by the grace of God, we had managed to carve out three full days to work between two days of travel.

I was working out the final details with Elizabeth on the phone—everything from international cell phone coverage to sunscreen—when she reminded me to bring my passport.

Still incredulous that so many variables had worked to our favor, I hung up the phone and bounded up the steps to my room. I keep my passport in my humidor whose humidifier I never remember to fill. At least my passport smelled like a pipe-smoking old man.

I opened it up to reassure myself that everything was in order, and that’s when my stomach did a back flip: as of May 20, 2009, my passport was expired.

On Monday at about 4:55pm, I gave Elizabeth, my friend Ben’s mother-in-law, the worst possible news, given our unique circumstances. Her response was two words: “Oh —!”

Use your imagination.

We agreed that the first order of business was to drive to the Post Office before it closed and see if they could offer any advice. I pulled in the parking lot four minutes later and slipped through the door before the woman locked it.

“Oh, you’re a sneaky one,” she said.

I smiled.

I waited in line for the woman on the far left to finish up with an elderly woman.

While I was waiting, I noticed that the post office worker had a cross taped to her plastic name plate. Cards with scriptures printed on them were also taped in several places.

This was encouraging. As a Christian, she might be more willing to help me.

“What can I do for you?” she asked in a voice thick and sweet with molasses. This was the voice of a woman who was happy because I was the last customer of the day.

“Well, I’ve got a big problem,” I said.

“Don’t tell me that!” she said. “It’s the end of the day.”

I went on to explain that my flight for Turks & Caicos left at 9:30 the next morning and my passport was expired.

The smile on her face sank into a frown.

I finished with the backstory. “Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

“Oh, you’re screwed” was her answer.

Thank you for your help, ma’am. And for the encouragement.

I’ll see you at church on Sunday.

Aspiring Pervert at Subway

We were sitting at a Subway just off the Athens, Tennessee exit on I-75 North.

I was enjoying a $5 Footlong, buffalo chicken this time, rather than the usual Spicy Italian. Travis was having the same, and Joe was eating the Spicy Italian.

We were just three travelers on our way home from the Atlanta airport. This was the final “automobiles” phase in our “planes, trains, and automobiles—and buses” tour of the East Coast, from New York to Knoxville in a day.

I look out the window and see a young Caucasian male bent forward at the waist, running awkwardly back to the Pontiac sedan still idling.

The car tears out of the parking lot.

I take another bite.

Travis is talking to the middle-aged woman at the next table. Listening to their conversation, I realize that I’ve missed something.

“What happened?” I asked.

Travis and the woman take turns telling the story.

The guy I saw scuttling back to the car had run up to the window, pulled down his pants and underwear, and pressed his genitals against the glass. The problem was that he came in too fast on his approach and smashed his testicles. In effect, he junk-punched himself with a plate glass window.

What I had seen was a man who had just set on fire one of the major nerve centers in his body because he wanted to play exhibitionist on a Monday night doubled over in pain as he returned to his getaway car.

A total of five customers and two employees were present in the restaurant. Only two of them saw what happened, and only one of those, Travis, saw the teenager’s mistake.

The woman at the next table said, “You know what we call that? A pervert.”

The only evidence was a foggy smudge on the window.

Joke’s on you, Mister Backfiring-Public-Exposure-Aching-Groin-Idiot.

Homeless Man and Crack Ho

Last night, I stopped a homeless man from choking a crack ho.

When my roommate Adam Brimer and I came out of Barley’s after swapping stories about our transformative wilderness experiences and our girlfriends—rest assured, there were no measuring tapes or trophy cases involved—we heard shouting.

An older man was chasing a heavy-set woman wearing heels and a gold blouse around my 4Runner.

“Gimme back my money! You stole my thirty dollars!” He was brandishing his cane in the air. He must have had bad knees because he kept his legs straight, and that caused him to wobbled from side to side as he hurried after her.

“I didn’t do nuffin!” the woman shouted back, beating a hasty retreat down the sidewalk.

“You took it out of my pocket!”

This kind of shouting match is no extraordinary occurrence in the Old City. The shelters and ministries like Knoxville Area Rescue Ministries and The Volunteer Ministry Center on Broadway and Central are less than a mile away, and many of the homeless men and women hang out and panhandle on Market Square or along Jackson Avenue. Men wearing several musty layers of mismatched clothing and missing several teeth are a part of the landscape, the same as the historic brick warehouses and the famous JFG sign.

At first, I slid into the driver’s seat and started the car while Adam stood on the running board and watched the fracas.

She underestimated how quickly the old man could move even without his cane to steady him. He caught up to her, pinned her up against Adam Fulton’s white sedan, and clamped both of his hands around her neck.

“Uh-oh,” Adam said.

I looked over my shoulder and saw what was happening.

We both sprinted over there.

Adam grabbed the man’s backpack and one of his arms. I grabbed one of his thumbs and used it to wrench that hand from the woman’s neck.

She was wimpering, “Help me, help me.”

After a few moments, we got the two separated. The woman adjusted her clothing, then turned around and walked away.

The old man was beside himself. “Don’t let her get away. She got into my pocket and took my $30.”

“I didn’t take nuffin from you,” the woman said.

“What reason would he have to accuse you then?” I asked.

She just looked at me then kept on walking away.

At that point, I was pretty sure the old man was telling the truth. He was probably only in his fifties, or maybe early sixties, but life on the street ages people prematurely. His lips curled in over his gums, and his eyes had that rheumy, yellowish look of constant irritation and addiction.

I learned in a course in college that the vast majority of people on the streets end up there on account of mental illness, substance abuse, or a combination of both.

“Man, she stole my money, man!” he threw his metal cane on the ground. At least while it was down there he couldn’t whack me with it.

I asked him to tell me what had happened, but he kept saying over and over, “She got in my pocket and stole my thirty dollars and, man, you just let her get away with it.”

“We weren’t just going to stand there and let you choke her,” I said.

“She stole my money, man.”

“I believe you, but it wasn’t right for you to choke her.”

“Was it right for her to steal my thirty dollars?”

“Of course not.”

“Man, it’s not fair,” he said and stamped his foot.

At this point, Adam Fulton and Cade Benedict came out of Barley’s. When they walked up, they were wide-eyed, looking back and forth between Adam, the homeless man, and me.

“Do you mind if we take my car?” Adam said, so we took a few steps back. They left.

“Call the Po-lice,” the man said. He just wasn’t going to let it go.

“I’ve got three dollars,” I said. “You can have it. It’s all I’ve got. What do you need?”

I offered him food.

“I want my money back. Let’s go find her.”

“You know she’s long gone.”

“Man, if you hadn’t come along, I’d have my money.”

I realized we weren’t going to get anywhere. He was going to blame me for stepping between him and what he saw as the quickest way to get his money back—depriving that woman of oxygen. I understand that people on the street live by a different code of ethics, one based on survival, not niceness. If Adam and I had simply driven away, however, my conscience would have eaten at me.

What was the right thing to do? Simply not get involved?

The theme of Sergei Bondarchuk’s Soviet film adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace has something to say about such situations:

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

I handed the homeless the three dollars, and said to Adam, “C’mon, this conversation is over.”

“Man, why’d you get involved, man? She stole my money, and you did nothing. Call the police, man. You came in, and now I ain’t never gonna get it back.”

I think having compassion for the homeless, for the down-and-out, for the bums, whores, and junkies, is a rare trait indeed. I don’t claim to be the most compassionate man living in North Knoxville. More rare than compassion, though, is the willingness to speak truth to people who are accustomed to being ignored, or at best, bribed to go away. I hope that’s what I did.

I turned back around.

“Listen,” I raised my voice this time, “I don’t know what happened before we got out here, but I do know that when I saw you choking a woman, I wasn’t going to stand idly by and let you do it. I don’t care if it’s you or anybody else, it’s never right to choke a woman. She may have stolen your $30. I’m not saying that’s right, but what I am saying is that it was wrong of you to do that to her. You’re not going to blame me for what happened. She stole your $30, huh? Well, you must have given her the opportunity.”

Once we were in the car, all Adam and I could do was laugh at the incredulity of the situation. Adam works for Knoxville News Sentinel, and one of his gigs was shooting a prostitution sting. He now knows one when he sees one. We had just wrestled a toothless homeless man with a cane off of a prostitute who probably outweighed him by fifty pounds.

That just doesn’t happen every day, so we laughed.

More Elusive Parts of Frog Anatomy

While weaving through the desks and chairs inside her portable with bluish-green aluminum siding the color of a corroded penny, Mrs. Menefee fanned herself.

“Is hot in here? Is anyone else hot? I’m burning up.” She’d open up the windows and double-check to make sure the air conditioner was on full blast, even in winter. We could see our breath, and we wore our winter coats.

Now I realize she must have been going through menopause, hot flashes and that sort of thing. She perspired as though she were playing a game of pick-up basketball. Beats of sweat quivered on her upper lip, and when with one of her hands planted on my desk and the other on my shoulder, she’d come by to offer an encouraging word or check our progress, I couldn’t help but stare at them. They quivered. They could roll off and splash on my homework at any second.

She had given us tapeworms to dissect.

Tapeworms could regenerate damaged parts, which sounded like something straight out of a Marvel comic. The body of the rowdy, incorrigible Wolverine healed almost instantly from wounds that would kill a non-mutant without an adamantium skeleton. If you cut a live tapeworm an inch from the tip of its arrow-shaped head down the middle of its body, it would grow back two heads. Other than this remarkable ability to become even more disgusting, the tapeworm was boring.

Frogs, which came next, were a different story. For some reason, Mrs. Menefee told us all to them.

Trying to choose a nickname for the hard, chemical-smelling frog on my dissection trays seemed strange. We were about to cut them open after all, though I suppose that I, like most boys, welcomed any opportunity to get away with something, to pull a prank or test a boundary. The hard part was not thinking of names but deciding which one of my least favorite teachers would receive the honor, and with it, a scalpel in the anus.

Nothing makes for an exciting day in science class like dead amphibians, razor-sharp knives, and Mrs. Ferguson, the saggy-breasted librarian, whose translucent white belly would soon regret the demerits that she gave me for talking.

Despite the morbid humor of my group of friends, we all enjoyed finding the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, stomach, and the more elusive parts of frog anatomy.

Mrs. Menefee must have understood our need to destroy because after we had played Operation with our frogs, she told us that we could do what we wanted with them for the last five minutes off class.

My response was to take a pair of shears and cut mine up into little bits. Unsure of what to do next, I then stacked them in the middle of the tray. At the table next to mind, Carter Bradley was being admonished for putting part of his frog on a girl’s bare skin. Many of the other kids had simply thrown what was left of their unfortunate pets, mostly skin and skeleton, into the garbage cans.

Though I’m sure those frogs were bred and raised for the purpose of wide-eyed faces hiding sick senses of humor, opening them up, removing their miniature organs, and dumping them among the snotty tissues still seems like a waste.

Not to say I was a great respecter of life at that point in my life, but to say that my friends and I were in-between: we had retained enough of our childish wonder to marvel at the frozen architecture of their delicate bodies which had at one point enabled them to eat bugs, jump, and swim. At the same time, we jockeyed for position, who could be funniest and secure the girls’ admiration; who could shock the other friends and show boldness by pushing the limits of decency.

How strange to touch the preserved body of a creature once living! Perhaps some educator back when decided that dissecting frogs could teach the double lesson of anatomy and mortality—the fragility of living, breathing, pulsating existence.

Dissecting a frog would mean more to me now, that dear members of my family have died; people in high school and college with me; a girl I took to homecoming one year; a girl I studied with in Vienna, Austria; my father’s father who bequeathed to me his bony brow, his love of the written word, and his gregariousness. Dust animated for a day or for one hundred years inevitably completes its journey where it began. The rest of us are left to wonder where they are, if the stories of heaven are true.

In the seventh grade, we held death in our hands, yet we waited impatiently for the signal to sever the webbed feet and crack the tiny skull. We couldn’t wait to peel back the clammy skin and glimpse the fine, white muscles underneath before shredding them. I’m afraid the mysteries of biology and locomotion were lost on us.

I don’t know what I would do differently, whether if I were the teacher, I would speak in terms of science or faith; whether as the students slid their frogs out of its plastic sleeves, I would tell them to the dead creatures a number or a name.

Perhaps, instead, I would place a live frog, kicking and croaking, in each pair of  upturned palms and say, “You decide whether this frog lives or dies. If you decide to save its life, you must find it a good pond or river, then let it go. If you decide to kill it, you must do so at the front of the room where everyone can see. That’s the cost of being human.”

I wonder, if Mrs. Menefee had tried to teach that lesson, would we have learned it. Would one of my classmates squeezed out a fart and ruined the seriousness? I suppose it’s never too late to start learning the cost, the danger, of deciding for ourselves which life is sacred and which should be snuffed out.

Crap Artist, Literally

What happens at a place is made more dramatic by the expectations we bring into it.

I went to college at a small, private, liberal arts school called Lipscomb University. Two theologians, David Lipscomb and James A. Harding, founded it in 1891, and over a hundred years later, many of the doctrines defining the Restoration in general and Stone-Campbell Movement in particular were still evident in its rules, practices, and traditions.

Students attended chapel every day. Boys were allowed in girls’ dorms only during designated hours, and vice versa. We were prohibited from using any form of tobacco on campus and from drinking while we were enrolled in classes, regardless of whether or not we were of age. Curfew for weeknights was 12am, but the administration graciously extended it to 1 on the weekends.

For the most part, it was a wonderful place to get an education. I’m convinced that the rules forced us to be more creative—in how we broke them.

On weekends, I’d sign out of the dorm to my parents’ house, fifteen minutes down the road, and on Friday and Saturday nights, I’d sneak back into the dorm through a first-story window left open by my friends Justin and David for that purpose.

Both semester of my freshman year, which was the only year I lived on-campus, I lived on the second floor with another alum of David Lipscomb High School, David Binkley. We’d played football together. On some Friday nights, my mom would cook dinner for five or six of us sophomores, then full of spaghetti or Taco Ring or another one of her delicious recipes, we’d put in the Last of the Mohicans soundtrack and speed to the field to get dressed out.

A few more of my high school friends were on the second floor of High Rise, and others were scattered throughout. We had a good mix of locals and out-of-towners, so that those of us who had grown up in Nashville could show the newcomers around. They could return the favor on weekends when we’d take road trips to their parents’ houses.

All in all, I’d say Lipscomb University fostered a wholesome environment. The professors were required to be members at churches of Christ, so if we went to church, we’d see them in worship on Sunday mornings.

No matter what faith or code of conduct the faculty and administration endorsed and enforced, one variable was always outside of their control—students.

This became clear one night in the commons area of the second floor. Our RAs, Kyle and Sean, called a floor meeting on a Thursday night.

When I walked in, many of the guys were already standing around in clusters, talking and cutting. Two of them were shooting pool.

“Does anybody know what this is all about?” I asked no one in particular.

No one had a clue.

More guys drifted in, and at 7pm sharp, Sean walked in with his clipboard and took roll. He was frowning.

A couple of people were missing, and he made a note of this.

Kyle was about 6’8” and played Center on our basketball team. We’d just gone Division I that year, so our chances of a long season were slim. He was leaning against the hand railing. You could see down into the lobby where two guys were watching SportsCenter and playing ping-pong.

“Okay,” Sean began, “I don’t know which one of you thinks he’s an artist, but this is not cool.”

We all looked around the room. What was he talking about?

“Kyle and I—“ he nodded at his fellow RA, who hadn’t yet spoken a word, “had the pleasure last week of cleaning up your crap. By crap, I mean crap, literally, feces. Was it on the floor in one of the bathrooms? Oh no, you freaks, that would be too predictable. No, one of you decided to smear it on the wall like a chimpanzee.”

He scanned our faces while shaking his head in disgust.

“Did the culprit stop there? Oh no. He decided that once wasn’t enough. Kyle and I thought that perhaps this was an isolated incident, so you can imagine our—how should I say it?—irritation when we discovered that the bandit had struck again. I mean, seriously, whoever you are, what is freaking wrong with you? That’s just messed up. We don’t really expect that you’ll turn yourself in because the kind of person who does this sort of thing in the first place probably isn’t the kind of person with that kind of balls. Be that as it may, if it happens again, we’re going to make it rain. Does everybody understand?”

We all said yes, then the meeting broke up.

I don’t know what kind of childhood causes someone to make a magic marker of a turd, but as a group of us walked over to the cafeteria for dinner, I think we were all secretly impressed. That’s really sick, and I kind of wish I’d thought of it, albeit with the appropriate tools like a face mask and yellow dishwashing gloves.

You never know what to expect at a Christian school. You could be un- or pleasantly surprised, depending on how warped your sense of humor is.

Naked Bike Wreck

Farkle forces people to gamble with their comfort. That’s why it’s my favorite game.

It is similar to Truth or Dare, only without the truth option. Before the night is over, all the players know that someone will have to do some undesirable task or challenge. If, rather than bullets, Russian Roulette involved drinking the hair stripped from a hair brush then submerged in eight ounces of water, then it would be the same as Farkle.

The following are some of the consequences I have endured:

· licking a dirty basketball a full revolution
· eating a katydid
· drinking a concoction of such ingredients as Papa John’s garlic sauce, whey protein, pickle juice, habanero pepper sauce, and mayonnaise
· imitating different animals for 30 seconds
· a swirly
· spankings
· putting alligator clips on my nipples for thirty seconds
· Sharpie mustache
· a variety of activies involving various degrees of nudity
· running up a half-mile long hill in cowboy boots without a shirt on in below freezing tempature
· giving or receiving a snorkel
· wetting my face then putting it in a fireplace full of ash
· doing laps in a salt water pool in the middle of winter

All of these pale in comparison to the consequence suffered by my friend and roommate at the time, Greg Hill, on one fateful night in the spring of 2007.

Lucas had invited the eleven freshman guys in the bible study he led to come over and play Farkle. They would start showing up at our apartment in half an hour. We were trying to convince Greg that he should play with us. On his way upstairs to change into more comfortable clothes, he let out a deep breath and told us that he was tired. He’d had a long day with the after-school care program at the YMCA. Staying up late trying not to lose a game he’d never played was the last thing he wanted to do.

Your chances of losing were slim, we reasoned. After all, we would have a total of fourteen players, if he joined us.

The odds encouraged him.

“Okay, guys, I’ll do it,” he said with characteristic bravado, a smile spreading across his face. “Just don’t let me down.”

He punched me in the shoulder. He must be feeling good now. Nothing like gambling with your hours of sleep to cheer a man up.

He thumped up the wooden stairs to his room to get ready.

The pack of freshmen guys showed up soon after he came back down. We cleared the coffee table, and Lucas and I explained the rules of six-dice Farkle to all the first-timers:

· 1s and 5s always count as 100 and 50
· You can’t get on the board with a score of less than 1000 points, but once you’re on the board, you can end your turn at 50, if you want.
· Three of a kind are worth the number times 100. (For example, three 3s are worth 300.)
· Straights are worth 1000 points.
· If all the dice are scoring dice, you have to roll again. If you farkle, then you lose the point total you just earned. If, however, you roll more scoring dice, you add these points to your total.
· If any dice roll off the table, then you must roll all the dice again.
· 6 of a kind is the number times 1000. (For example, six 3s are worth 3000.) If you roll six 1s, then you score 10,000, and the game is over.
· The game goes to 10,000. After one player reaches that score, the rest of the players drive up their scores in the consolation round so as not to be in last place.
· In the game of Farkle, the point is not to win so much as not to lose. The last-place loser is the only one who suffers the consequence.

We began.

With so many players, the game started to drag. Some of the guys had trouble getting on the board, and as the other players drove their scores higher and higher, they participated less and less in the banter, and they wore the same weak smiles that you might see on a guy’s face when he runs into his ex with her new boyfriend. Greg was among these.

I hated to see him not enjoying himself. After all, I’d helped Lucas talk him into playing. He was probably cursing himself for choosing a raucous party with teenage boys instead of his pillow. He finally squeezed above 500 on one turn, and his face lit back up.

Someone broke the 10,000 ceiling, so all that was left was the consolation round.

Greg wasn’t last, but he also wasn’t out of danger.

What is it about really wanting to win or at least really not wanting to be the loser that sets us up for failure?

Greg’s turn came about halfway through the last round. His first roll produced 300 points, which, if he had stopped there, would have proved to keep him ahead of the last loser. Everybody was yelling advice at him—eleven experts who’d only just learned the rules and strategy themselves.

I tried to get Greg’s attention and persuade him to stick with what he had, but he was too distracted. It was like a scene from Wall Street, noise and mayhem, every man screaming what he wants another person to do.

Rather than silence everyone to clear his head, Greg panicked and threw the last of the dice. Nothing. He’d farkled and lost the 300.

One by one the other players rolled better scores, and in an awkward moment of silence, Greg realized his stupidity and started cursing.

That was not the moment to say I told you so.

Our apartment in Sequoyah Village was situated in the middle of Sequoyah Hills on the corner of Kenesaw and Keowee. Kenesaw ran up and over a hill and t-boned the dog park. On the other side of the park was the Lake Loudon.

Because he had lost, the male code of Farkle honor obligated him to take off all his clothes, ride three-quarters of a mile to the park, run through it, and jump in Lake Loudon.

His set jaw and deliberate stalking movements around our den were a warning that any trash talking or sarcastic congratulations might provoke violence. After putting a plastic grocery bag over the seat of my Gary Fisher, I piled in with the rest of the guys, and we drove to the park to wait for his arrival.

After about ten minutes, a tall white shape crested the hill. We started cheering. Encouraged by our support, Greg gave the air a couple of punches. He must have started enjoying himself because he was putting on a show, weaving side to side while picking up speed going downhill.

That moment of glory while he was bathed in streetlight and feeling the crisp air rush across his skin was about as good as it was going to get for Greg that night. He soon saw the same thing we did: to his right and to our left, a car was curving around the bend on Cherokee Boulevard.

I could almost see the gears turning in his head: Do I slow down and wait for the car to pass or do I try to beat it?

You already know what he chose.

Greg stood up again and started hammering the pedals. He was cranking them as fast as he possibly could, his legs a yellowish blur.

At first, we thought he was going to make it. He hit Cherokee Boulevard and was almost through the walking trail before the car’s proximity spooked him.

You’ve probably seen how cars in the distance will seem to move very slowly then all of the sudden appear right next to you. “I never even saw the car coming” is something people say after car accidents.

As Greg crossed the walking trail, the car was right there, thirty feet away.

Everybody knows you don’t hit the front brakes when you’re going really fast. Everybody knows that you always double-check which is the front brake before you go down a hill in the first place. Greg must not have reacquainted himself, because he panicked and mashed the front brakes. The disc brakes on my bike are much more responsive than ordinary v-clamp brakes. The bike kicked up onto its front wheel like an angry bronco bucking up on its two front legs.

Greg’s momentum carried him over the handlebars, and he landed right in the middle of the road.

The black Chevy Camero screeched to a stop about five feet from one of the strangest sights the driver must have ever seen: a big heap of naked man picking itself up and limping off the road. I hustled across the street to pick up my bike and waved at the driver as way of an apology. He honked the horn twice and drove off.

At this point, Greg was standing in the grass just within the curve of streetlight cutting into the darkness of the dog park. He was bent slightly forward, had his hands on his hips, and was rocking slowly backward and forward, moaning, “Uhhhhh aaaahhuhhhhh. Uhhhhh. Awwwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhh.”

“Somebody please put a towel on him!” I yelled.

One of the freshman guys ran and got a towel from one of the cars, and Lucas gave it to Greg who put it around his waist.

The rest of us approached with caution.

Greg had a tear below his chin where he’d bitten through his lower lip. His left shoulder was bright red and oozing lymph where the asphalt had scraped off the skin, and his left knuckle and knee had also made contact with the road.

We all stood in a semi-circle of awkward silence, waiting for him to say something.

“Do I still have to get in the river?” he said, his voice sounded thick from his swollen lip.

“No!” we all said in unison.

It was so pathetic it almost wasn’t funny.

The other guys all piled back into the cars, and I rode my bike home. Most of them had already left by the time I pulled up.

Greg and Lucas were upstairs where Lucas was down on two knees dabbing Greg’s knee with hydrogen peroxide and then Neosporin.

Five minutes later, Greg was in his room, and Lucas and I were in the room that we shared.

Complete silence.

“What—just—happened?!!” Lucas hissed in the dark.

“I don’t know!” I whispered.

Our laughter and incredulity had been pent up for too long. We didn’t want to laugh in front of Greg and upset him even more, but what had happened was one of the funniest and most bizarre occurrences either of us had ever seen. We hated that he’d gotten hurt, but 6’4” of naked man tumbling through the air was too good. Laughter rocked us both for the next half hour. We had to be quiet so as not to wake Greg, but trying to suppress that kind of hysterical giggling makes it even worse. Contents under pressure will explode. We laughed harder for our relief that our stupid game hadn’t resulted in Greg getting hit by a car.

How do you explain that to the ER doctor?

Crying Wolf

Every family develops its own mythology—stories that help explain what happens around the house, on vacation, out in the yard.

I could say the following to any member of my family and get either a laugh or exasperated sigh:

· “Don’t knock out my contact.”

· “Stuffed crust pizza isn’t any good.”

· “I’ll have the chicken filet.”

· te-TAN-us

· “Your face looks like you got attacked by a squirrel.”

· Paco

· Bubba

Maybe for you it’s an old college injury of dad’s: his knee cap came out of place and slid around to the back of his knee. That’s why he never runs, only walks. Oh, he’ll run down a Frisbee or trot after one of the grandbabies, but you’ll never see him sprint. He doesn’t have an MCL.

A family also builds its own private vocabulary.

About halfway through high school, I made up the word “stoinker.” It sounded bodily, euphemistic, vaguely offensive. My older sister Elizabeth was in college at the time and was so pleased with my neologism that she drew a sign on poster board and put it in her dorm window:

“HAVE YOU CHECKED YOUR STOINKER TODAY?”

The response was favorable.

Certain personality traits lend themselves to mythologizing, and in light of certain events, even common words can take on mythic proportions and special connotations. Most of these small, quite ordinary happenings take place on the way to the grocery or church or baseball practice.

One of my family’s favorite stories took place my eighth or ninth grade year. Elizabeth was in the car, which meant she was still in high school. We were all riding in the blue Suburban one Sunday morning on our way to church.

Across Hillsboro Road from Hillsboro Church of Christ is my favorite field in Nashville. A small stream lined with tall hardwoods forms two of its angles and Tyne Boulevard forms the other. A scattering of large trees grow in the field and throw pools of shade over the tall grass. When autumn comes, huge bales of hay appear. Any breeze blowing from that direction smells of sunlight, and clover, and faintly of cows. Too few of these fields exist now in Green Hills and Forest Hills. One by one, they have morphed into developments with enormous brick houses sprouting like so many warts or toadstools.

Not this field though. This is the field that in your dreams draws you into its golden center. Your eyes feast on its tiny, delicate flowers; your hands, on its springy grasses; your ears, on noisy grasshoppers and happy birds. Even the purple-headed thistles are welcome, like an awkward cousin.

This is also the Field of the Wolf.

That morning, just before my dad turned right into the church parking lot, my mom drew all of our attention to a dark dot in the distance. It appeared to be moving.

“Look! A wolf!”

“A wolf?” my dad asked.

“Yes!” my mom said, “A wolf.”

My dad took his foot off the accelerator. We all got a chance to take a good look.

“I don’t think that’s a wolf, Mom,” I said.

“Yes, it is!”

“It’s probably a coyote or somebody’s dog.”

“No, it’s a wolf! I can tell by the sleek look of the fur around its face.”

“Mom, it’s a hundred yards away. You can’t even see its face. We can barely even tell that it’s in the canine family, let alone talk about its fur. Besides, I read in Field & Stream that wolves haven’t lived in Tennessee for a hundred years. They’ve only recently reintroduced small numbers into the Smokies with hopes that they’ll survive, and I doubt that one made it all the way over here.”

“Well, I don’t care what ya’ll think. I know it’s a wolf.”

She folded her arms, and by this time, the car was parked. We all went into church.

My mom has lived to regret that conversation. Her side of the family is known for—how should I say this?—their tenacity. Okay, stubborness.

To give you another example, my great-grandmother, Nanny—married name “Pearl Legate,” no joke—told my maternal grandfather, “There is no room for sons like you in heaven.”

Ouch. This happened after he took her keys away because she vanished for hours one day. She’d gotten lost in her car and couldn’t remember how to get home.

I don’t guess any of us likes having our independence taken away.

In the years following the wolf incident, whenever we see an animal that is obviously a horse or cat or whitetail deer, one of us will point and shout, “Look! A wolf!”

Though she is finally able to laugh, my mom maintains to this day that the creature, possibly canine, did, in fact, though we could barely tell whether or not it was an animal, possess the texture and suppleness of fur characteristic of wolves.

Has my mother ever seen a wolf? No. Has she ever seen a nature show on television about wolves? Possibly. Is she willing to stake her credibility on superhuman vision and esoteric zoological knowledge? Absolutely.

Stubbornness. She may as well have said, “I could tell it was a cockatiel by its brilliance of its emerald plumage and the dramatic curvature of its beak.”

 You can’t get away with anything in our family.

If you’ve got any of your own myths to share, please do so in the “Comments” section below.

Finally, an iPhone app I can fully endorse

The iPhone has created buzz for some time now. Its applications, or “apps,” will do everything from make a fart noise at your cocktail party to straighten your pictures on the wall.

A new app will enable parents to talk to their children even less and instead turn their brains to mush with flashing lights and colors. It’s like Baby Einstein on the go!

iStoryTime reads stories to kids. Six stories are currently available for $1.99 each. They have fascinating titles like “Fred the Fish and the Squash That Goes Squish” and “Mommy and Daddy Are Going on a Trip.”

“You’re So Special That I Never Spend Time with You,” “What Mommy Means When She Says You Were a Big Accident,” and “My Daddy is angry, and My Mom’s Depressed” are due to appear in the spring.

iStoryTime offers some obvious advantages over real books. First, the obvious: parents can now focus on all the things they loved to do before their offspring ruined everything. Second, since there are no pages, the children don’t have do lift a finger, thus exacerbating childhood obesity.

FrogDogMedia, the company that designed the app, plans to release a dozen more apps targeted toward children. The LoveMe app will give kids the verbal affirmation that they need to become well-rounded, mature adults.

The HugsKissesAndOtherNonSexualizedNonIncestuousAffection app will warm the glass and plastic of the eye phone to 98.6 degrees, the body temperature of a healthy human being. Combined with the synthetic skin iPhone cover, this app mimics human touch and gives youngsters what they most need—intimacy and security.

Other apps, such as MommyCanYouHelpMeWithMyPooPoo and UhOhIJustThrewUpMyLunchable, will take care of those nasty messes that make one’s spawn less than desirable housemates.

A child never has to snuggle up in your lap and point to the pictures again! iStoryTime takes all the hassles out of putting kids to bed. Buy it today.

Using Bricks to Open Windows

“Like using bricks to open windows.”

Known for his quotable quotes and colorful aphorisms, my friend Steve Loy delivered this little beauty while surveying the damage.

Let me start from the beginning.

Five holly bushes grew in front of the large, yellow American Four-Square house in which I live. My landlord and friend, Patrick, thought that “Big Bird”—as his wife has dubbed the house—would look better without the misshapened holly bushes crowding the steps up the front and left side porches.

Pretty soon after moving in, Patrick and I were able to yank two of the bushes out of the ground, using my 4Runner and a ski rope borrowed from Patrick’s father-in-law. The rope broke on the third holly bush—dry rot.

Worse things can happen.

Ten months later, the three remaining holly bushes were a constant reproach. Still intact, still ugly, they taunted me ever time I walked up the steps—“We’re still here.”

Big Bird was built in 1899, and 110 years later, he’s a little worse for the wear. He sometimes collects water in his basement, he has cracks in his ceilings, and his porches are—how should I say it?—sagging. Patrick is a pastor, and his pastor’s income stands before these major and minor renovations like David before Goliath. Patrick sometimes feels the burden of responsibility that comes with faithful stewardship of a historic building. He’ll sometimes say things like, “Why did I buy this crappy house?” We laugh as though he doesn’t mean it, but we both know better.

I thought the absence of the three remaining holly bushes might cheer him up. We’re trying to “live in community,” and to me, that sometimes means taking care of an undesirable task for a close friend, especially if he is dreading it. If you’ve ever painted a room, or even an entire house, you know that volunteering to do something for somebody else for free is a lot more enjoyable than doing it for yourself or getting paid.

On a Monday morning, I decided to “eat the frog” and rip up the holly bushes, meaning cross it off my list first thing so that I could focus on other tasks.

Steve loaned me his $300 rope with carabiners, the Arnold Schwarzeneggar of ropes, 5800 pounds of tensile strength! The rope was actually growing chest hair.

Steve offered two words of caution:

1) Use the carabiners attached to the rope, and you won’t have knots to untie.

2) An objects in motion will travel toward its anchor point.

Apparently, he had earned this wisdom the old-fashioned way: time wasted on loosening knots and a huge dent in the tail gate of an otherwise new truck.

Glad to have friends with more life experience than I have, I nodded and did what any full-grown man would do: I ignored his advice.

Neither of these outcomes could possibly happen to me. I was, after all, invincible. I didn’t have my master’s in English for nothing. Too bad about the dent though.

The first and smallest bush came out easily. This boded well.

For the second, I backed the 4Runner into the yard and wound the rope a few times around the trunk of the largest bush then passed it through the carabiner.

Tying the other end to the towing package on my truck, I had too much rope to spare, so I doubled it over and used three cinch knots to make it fast.

Here comes the fun part.

I dropped the truck into low gear and gave it some gas. The engine roared, the tires tore up the grass, the rope creaked, and the bush…

stayed.

Crappers. I thought I might get lucky, have to dig around the roots first.

When I went back around to the back of the truck, I saw the error of my ways. I should have listened better to Steve: a fist-sized rock of rope had replaced my knot.

My fingers came nowhere close to budging any of the pieces of rope. Who would have thought that the force of a V6 engine and the grip of new Michelin tires could do that?

Idiot.

How was I going to pay for that rope if I had to cut it? A master’s in English doesn’t go as far as you might think. Or as far as I thought, I should say.

Over the next forty-five minutes, I used the following items in an attempt to loosen it: two hammers, a flathead screwdriver, a wood chisel, the arm to a car jack, a pick ax, WD-40, a crow bar, and a spattering of bad language.

Much more was on the line than having to pay for a new rope if I cut off the old one.

Knowing how to use tools is a kind of credibility with men, like winning an arm wrestling contest or charming women. None of these is something you could put on a resume, but “I can crush this can on my forehead” is certainly more impressive than “I can do your accounting” on your average Saturday night.

Though I suppose you can get paid for a operating a backhoe is worth something, the lack marketability of using many tools doesn’t discourage us from placing weight on the ability.

My friend Bear can get just about any machine started. He’ll tinker with it, adjusting the choke and throttle, checking the oil and gas, making sure the sparks plugs and wires are clean and tight, and then he’ll yank a cord or flip a switch and the engine will come to life. I, on the other hand, might need fifteen or twenty minutes. I’ll succeed eventually, but he just has the knack. I respect that.

The bottom line is that men love to exude an aura of competence, confident control, inexhaustible resourcefulness.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not haunted by feelings of inadequacy. The question, “Do I have what it takes?” doesn’t plague me. I know my worth isn’t tied up in changing a flat tire in five minutes or less. However, I’d still rather my hands be skillful allies than a source of embarrassment. I think most men would agree, and I challenge you to find a man who doesn’t care whether or not he can build a good fire. If he really doesn’t care, I guarantee that he owns a pair of high heels.

Remember in cartoons how when one of the characters was facing an ethical dilemma, a six-inch-tall blue angel and a red devil of similar height would materialize on either shoulder and give their arguments for right or wrong. Instead of the angel and devil, my peanut gallery is a group of older men who stand in the corner of my mind and evaluate my performance.

If I excecute well, they say nice things:

“That boy can swing an ax!”

“That man can certainly use a hammer.”

“That guy knows how to back up a trailer.”

If I screw up, they shake their heads and glance knowingly at one another.

None of us can possibly be good at everything, but even though the ability to code a website is much more lucrative these days than building a deck, there’s some mysterious authority in sweat, brawn and deftness with tools. Being called incompetent is close to being called a coward.

A scene from Castaway speaks to the heart of this seeminly innate desire to be capable, physically strong, dextrous. Tom Hanks’ character finally succeeds in building a fire, and then dancing around it, he cries, “Ah, look what I have created!”

I’d like to believe that if the world to revert to the Stone Age, or Bronze Age, or feudal Europe, I wouldn’t end up with my skull staved in and my woman somebody else’s concubine. I’d like to believe I could survive in the wilderness. I’d like to believe I’d survive a war.

Why is “expertise” such an attractive word?

I don’t think I’m alone in this. If you don’t know how to hunt, fish, cook over a fire, land a punch, and romance a beautiful damsel, then what have you got going for you? A high-definition television? Leather upholstery in your luxury sedan? Perhaps these measures of our substance are the residue of gender roles reinforced by centuries of patriarchy.

Women have another type of inheritance altogether. How is a woman made to feel about herself if she can’t have children? Can’t cook? While men are off winning bread with the sweat of their brows, women run the household. One woman receives a compliment on her dress, and she responds by confiding what an incredible deal she found at T.J. Maxx. Of course, she doesn’t want the other woman to go buy the dress, she merely wanted her to know that she knows how to shop, how to stretch the cents. This expertise is a kind of credibility. Women sniff out sales while their men build the Tower of Babel.

“Take one small bite and be as a god? What a ridiculous bargain! I mean, why wouldn’t I taste the forbidden fruit…for free! It would be a sin not to.”

So you see why I had to undo that blasted knot even if it made my fingers bleed. We’re talking about the difference between respect and being denied entrance into the fraternity of men. Getting that rope off my truck was a guarantee that I would never need Viagra.

After much self-deprecatory interior monologue, I finally freed the rope.

I said thank you to Jesus and meant it.

I’m not proud of what happened soon afterwards.

I dug around the roots of the holly bush, reattached the rope, and climbed back into my 4Runner.

Nothing happened.

I went inside and changed into my Mountain Khaki shorts and tennis shoes. I took off my glasses and put in my contacts. Business time.

Round 3.

Nothing happened.

Round 4.

Nothing happened.

Now I was getting a wee bit irritated.

I hacked at the roots of the holly bush as though they were responsible for my broken leg in eighth grade. My broken heart at 16. Not getting into Columbia for grad school. (I didn’t want to pay that much for a writing degree, but it would have been a nice gesture on their part.)

In my truck, I put it in the lowest gear and slammed on the gas.

Tires screeching, back end fishtailing, then…

WHAM!

Cussword.

I put it into park, got out, and walked around to see what had happened.

The rear door was dented in two places: on the right side of the fender and on the left side of the door itself above the license plate, below the window.

Idiot.

I sat down in the middle of the road.

Steve Loy: 2.

Austin Church: 0.

The peanut gallery of tool-proficient men didn’t even shake their heads. They just walked away.

About ten seconds later, Patrick and Jason emerged through the hedge that separates our side yard from the alley.

“What happened?” they asked.

“I’m an idiot,” I said.

“At least you didn’t break the window or one of your tail lights,” Jason said.

True enough.

Everyone had some commentary to offer.

Caroline observed, “Your morning of manly endeavor didn’t go so well,” to which I replied, “When does manly endeavor ever go well? This is how wars get started.”

Our neighbor, Ty, told Caroline later in the day, “That man just needs to get laid.”

Maybe so. I don’t really know much about that sort of thing. I never got the sex talk.

Rather than rip out the final bush, I took my new ax and hacked it up. Don’t ask me why I didn’t do that to the other two and save the body damage to my truck, not to mention two hours of my time. You may as well ask why people are violent.

Before you get depressed, I want to reassure you that this story does have some redemption in it.

When I backed into an old red Pontiac Grand Am in the Walgreen’s parking lot, my fender was already dented, so you couldn’t even see the new damage. Great.

Why am I so selfish?

September 18, 2009

Dear Tadd of Soccer Taco Downtown,

Thank you for taking time out of your day to serve me lunch.

Please allow me to share the 7 aspects of my dining experience which I most appreciated:

1)    You did your utmost to avoid coming to our table except to write down our orders and pick up your tip. Respecting our privacy was your top priority.

2)    When you brought the bill, you chose to avoid the hassle of including the nickel. Change sliding around on the black plastic bill tray? How frustrating! Who wanted that nickel anyway? Why don’t you just put it in your piggy bank? You were entitled to it, because I, affluent as I am, don’t hold congress with paltry coins anymore. I deal strictly in bills. Anything else is below my economic stratum and insults to my pedigree.

3)    You recommended the fish tacos, which weren’t on the lunch menu, because your extraordinary gift of discernment told you immediately that lunch menus are to me as Windows operating systems and fuel-efficent cars. I own a Mac and drive a gas-guzzling 4Runner. Why? Because I can. I can pay the dinner price for an entrée at 7am if I want. I use George Washingtons to shine my handmade shoes.

4)    You acted all chummy, which I didn’t deserve. It’s as if you were saying that even though we are separated by this artificial divide of server/customer, that doesn’t mean you have to do the job for which you’re getting paid. You’re right: at any moment, the tables could be turned and I could be serving you refried beans. I won’t forget it.

5)    You never brought the queso that I ordered, yet it showed up on my bill. How clever of you! I never would have thought of that. Invisible cheese dip like the emperor’s new clothes. I didn’t even know all the kitchen staff were laughing at me?

6)    You are a Caucasian male. In the past, someone with your skin tone waiting tables at a Mexican restaurant would undermined my confidence in the cuisine’s authenticity. Now, I realize the error of my ways: a white man can bring his poor work ethic and sense of entitlement anywhere. Equal Opportunity Employment working in reverse is a beautiful thing.

7)    When I asked for more salsa and you said, “No problem,” I thought I had inconvenienced you and distracted you from a much more important task. When the salsa never came, a wave of relief washed over me. I hadn’t been a nuisance after all! These pesky wants of mine are always causing friction in my relationships. More salsa would simply have confirmed my neediness and insecurity. Your longsightedness was a much-needed wake up call.

Can’t wait to eat at Soccer Taco again! I forgot to say I’m sorry that I only tipped you 16.8%. That was an affront to your exemplary service, and one that remains a canker in my soul. Please accept my apologies.

Your Most Humble Servant,

Austin L. Church

We’ll call it our DeSextroyer.

My dad plays golf and runs his own independent insurance agency, Church & Associates. He’s proud of the fact that he’s kept the same hair pick and same pair of hard contacts for over twenty years. For twenty-one years, he’s used the same Simplicity Buccaneer riding mower to cut the lawn. When it breaks down, he gets it fixed.

My dad always showed up at my ball games and took me on fishing trips, just the two of us. Now that I’m older and live two and a half hours away, he calls me to see how I’m doing. I find it really easy to talk to him about my business, my finances, my girlfriend, my church, and my community. Most of the time, he even asks before he offers advice.

If you asked me to describe my dad in one word, I would say that he is “dependable.”

He does what he says he’s going to do. He follows through. He’s a man of his word.

Yet, just when I think I have him pegged, he’ll come out of left field with something “hip and cool,” as he likes to say. We were taking a walk around the neighborhood, and he was telling me about a recent talk given by the youth minister at the church where my dad is an elder. The youth minister was asked to educate the parents about a new trend among teenagers:

“Sexting.”

Apparently, horny kids will take pictures of themselves naked and deliver these photos via text message to their boyfriends and girlfriends. Something tells me that more often than not the boyfriends are the ones requesting such pictures.

Some of the images end up on the internet. Imagine that.

Duh. Hel-loooo. The guy who persuades his girlfriend to send him 2.0 megapixels of her breasts is the same sleazeball who will post the shot online.

“No, baby, listen, I’m different. Please send the picture. It will be our little secret. I’m not going to run off and tell all my friends. You can trust me.”

Yeah right, pal. Guys who say “You can trust me” are the last ones you should trust. They’re like the people who say, “I like deep conversation,” who wouldn’t know a deep conversation if they ran over one with their Jeeps.

A trustworthy man, a man with class, a gentleman, wouldn’t ask for the nude photo in the first place. If your sixteen-year-old son cannot exercise self-control now, he’ll soon be the predator slipping a rufi into some sorority girl’s drink and justifying his actions by saying, “She didn’t say no!” Right, because she was semi-conscious and trying not to black out. We’d all appreciate it if you ran for public office in thirty years.

Sexting.

My dad’s occasional knowledge of pop culture never ceases to amaze me. Even if he doesn’t know how to send a text message, he is “hip and cool.” I’m not in the least afraid to become more like him. When I hear myself saying things like, “Hold your horses!” or “Let’s get the show on the road,” I smile.

If only we could both be like McGyver and use his favorite hair pick, his Braun electric razor, the blade from his Simplicity riding mower, and parts from his Daiwa fishing reel to make a ray gun that would castrate every sexting jerk in the universe.

We’ll call it our DeSextroyer. To express their everlasting gratitude, parents of sexting-liberated teenagers would sing songs about us and submit entries to UrbanDictonary.com and Wikipedia. We will be crowned with laurel and receive the Nobel Peace prize.

I’m Paying You to Make Me Feel Foolish?

Family Vacation.

I supposed these two words shake up a different cocktail of emotions in everybody.

I think of two things: seafood and awkward photographs.

Bring on the Admiral’s Feast. I’m no sailor, but I’ll prove that a man can work up a mean hunger doing nothing much at all. Peel-and eat shrimp. Broiled scallops with paprika and lemon butter. Bronzed mahi mahi. Garlic encrusted grouper with steamed vegetables. Delicately fried crab cakes made from 99% real lump meat. Mixed green salad with tomato vinegarette.

We eat and eat and eat then we go back to the house and have dessert—homemade Kuhlua cake; Key Lime pie; Ghiradelli Chocolate Chip Cookies; Blue Bell Ice Cream.

At breakfast we talk about lunch. At lunch we talk about dinner. At dinner we talk about what we’re going to do that night.  The whole family gets caught up in that delicious beach rhythm…eat, recuperate, eat, rest, eat, beach, eat, sleep.

My family always goes to Nashville-on-the-Gulf, otherwise known as Destin, Florida, and we always eat at the same restaurants—Pompano Joe’s and The Back Porch, McGuire’s Irish Pub, Dewey Destin, Mellow Mushroom one day for lunch, and the perennial favorite, The Red Bar in Grayton Beach.

Last year saw two departures from the usual routine: 1) we gave Harry T’s a second chance; 2) we paid a photographer to take a family portrait.

We all get to pick the restaurant one night of the vacation, and my older sister chose Harry T’s. Kids eat free on Tuesday nights.

My oldest niece Emery was riding on my shoulders when we came up to the restaurant. Giggles the Clown was outside painting faces.

Imagine the dry, cracked mud in a dry riverbed. Now imagine painting it white and smudging two red circles, almost like the Japanese flag on elephant hide. That would be Giggles’ face with the addition of some skinny yellow teeth and watery blue eyes.

She was in her late 50s or early 60s. Her voice sounded like someone had sanded down her vocal cords before scoring them with a razor.  A forty-year relationship with Marlboro comes at a cost. The crispy blond hair with grey roots and sagging breasts must have come from a relationship with something or someone else.

Placing her hands on her knees, she bent over and asked Emery if she wanted her face painted. I think I took a step back. Emery put her chin down and bit her lip. She scooted so close that she was leaning against my right leg, and her little hand tightened around my fingers. Poor thing. The tears were coming. She had a dilemma:

Giggles’ sidekick was tying balloon animals, and she wanted one. She did not, however, want Giggles within a ten-foot radius. I didn’t blame her. If you’ve ever seen demonic clown in Stephen King’s It, then you understand.

Giggles the Clown

A balloon animal wasn’t worth getting her face eaten off as she was dragged down to hell by this painted harpy who was all up in her business. Reinforcements, however, showed up just in time. Elizabeth and Jim calmed her down, and she later strutted up to our table wearing a balloon crown.

At dinner, my seared tuna was delicious, but the basket of fried something that my dad ordered tied his intestines into knots. He was still feeling rotten on Thursday evening when we surprised my mom with the family portrait she’d always wanted: our family wearing white shirts and khaki shorts on the beach with the sea oats, sand dunes, and ocean. You’ve probably seen it on Christmas cards.

My younger sister did all the research and hired a photographer named Steven Frame to meet us in the Wal-Mart parking lot. A photographer with the last name of Frame? Appropriate.

His wife came with him, and at first I liked him. He got us all situated for this shot ::

Big, Happy Family.

Mom was very happy.

Everything would have been perfect if Professional Photographer didn’t suggest couples shots too. He took shots of my mom and dad; then, my younger sister and my brother-in-law; then, my older sister, her husband, and my nieces; then, my two sisters and me; then—

“Why don’t we get a shot of you?” he said.

“Just me? No, I don’t think so.”

“C’mon. It will only take a second.

“I’d really rather not.”

“Oh don’t be a spoil sport. Just go sit right over there, and I’ll snap a few quick ones.”

Emery had her dilemma, and I had mine.

Not only was Mr. Frame reinforcing the fact that everyone else in my family had someone except me, but he was also insisting that I sit for my high school senior pictures, as a 26-year-old.

Let’s me get this straight, I’m paying you to make me feel foolish? Like a bad haircut. Super.

Whatever. Sometimes the most direct route to comfort is through extreme discomfort. Like removing a splinter or running the metal nail file underneath an ingrown toenail.

Fine. Let’s get this over with. I hate you.

Fake smile. Sand up my shorts. Praying Mantis-like positioning of bony knees and elbows.

Here was the result ::

Look at this clown!

Mental note ::

· Hold myself and cry tonight in my empty bed.

· Find photographer’s home address and exact vengeance.

· Go out for the football team this year.

· Ask out gorgeous blue-eyed waitress at Café 4 as soon as I get back to Knoxville.

The Ugliest Couch in the World

For those of you who didn’t know, I’m in the marketing and advertising business.

I help people sell stuff.

A great headline has many jobs to do with just a few words. It gives a first impression of a business, product, or service; it attracts attention; and it must persuade people to read the ad, to ACT.

Headlines accomplish these three objectives in a variety of ways. Here’s a list from a short video offered by the 30 Day Challenge that offers 7 possible angles for headlines. The samples are my own creations ::

· Ask a question.

“Are you happy with your paycheck?”

· Allude to a surprise.

“You may have money hidden around your house!”

· Share a secret to stir up curiosity.

“What Your Boss Doesn’t Want You to Know”

· Offer a relevant tidbit of news.

“Niche Internet Marketer Makes $10,000 in first month”

· Appeal to a deep desire.

“Do you want the peace of mind that comes with financial security?”

· Offer a quick fix or easy solution.

“You can get out of debt in 6 months.”

· Offer a benefit

“Spend less time worrying about bills & more time doing what you love.”

Another effective angle that I have discovered through experience involves a dash of humor, a pinch of hyperbole, and a just a smidgen of defying people’s expectations, offering the exact opposite of what you think your target audience wants or needs. Take, for example, the Craigslist ad that I posted yesterday. My mom bought me a couch at a garage sale, and my new roommate has much nicer furniture. What to do?

The Ugliest Couch in the World

Just in case you can’t read it, here’s the text::

Today is the best day of your life.

Why?

Because you have the chance to own the Ugliest Couch in the World.

This abomination was produced sometime in the 80s. It had to be. The broad stripes of hunter green, marigold, navy, and red look like they belong on a Ralph Lauren sweater from that era.

This seating solution would be the perfect compliment to a frat house, sorority slum, or opium den. It can comfortably accommodate 4 generous backsides.

This couch is 100% all-natural. No testing on animals. No genetically modified materials.

Decrease your ecological impact by saving this unique piece of furniture from the landfill.

Enjoy the peace of mind that comes from knowing you’ve done your part to preserve our planet for future generations.

But wait…there’s more!

This stylish sofa comes with a slipcover!

The purest of chocolate browns, this bonus item is less than a year old and comes with its very own carrying case.

Though the cover alone could cost you almost one hundred smackers on the internet, you get both the couch and the cover for…

the low, low price of…

$50.

Or best offer.

Please act quickly because this lovable lounge-piece is one of a kind.

Moral of the story:: People love the absurd. Give it to them. It rarely undermines your professionalism or credibility, and you’ll probably sell what you want to sell. I sold the couch in less than twenty-four hours. For more than I originally asked.

Playboy, Creed, and Captain D’s

While we’re on the subject of crappy gifts, I’d like to talk about high school graduation.

Yes, this august time of the year, in late May or early June for most schools, is a time of transition, an end of curfews, a temporary season for making big mistakes with boyfriends and girlfriends heading off to other colleges at the end of the summer. If your loins are burning, it must be love.

The sky rained monogrammed towels, Dr. Seuss’s Oh, The Places You’ll Go, mass-produced journals from Borders, leather wallets, shower caddies full of cleaning supplies, bodywash, and loofahs, and, of course, hammers and screwdrivers.

You feel hope burgeoning inside of you: you will soon be free of your parents’ clutches. No more probing questions like, “What time will you be home?” and “Who is going to be there?” No more criticism for too much cleavage or midriff showing. No more pesky parents or older brothers of voluptuous young women to deal with. Only the good stuff—ill-fated romance, substance abuse, and general mediocrity.

High school graduation is a time for ugly tattoos and regrettable piercings, tassels hanging from rearview mirrors and overpriced class rings finally put where they belong—in a dresser drawer.

Three of my friends and I bought an ‘88 Volkswagen Golf and used it to run over people’s bagged leaves and For Sale signs.

My girlfriend and I made the imprudent decision to stay together over the summer. There’s nothing like accumulating three more months of sweet memories, only to break up only seven hours before she left for Clemson. I’d recommend it.

My favorite memory by far, however, is the gift that I received from my grandma.

She loves to write letters, and in her familiar cursive, I read those cringe-worthy words:

“I saw this, and I thought of you.”

She’d ordered from one of those glossy Franklin Mint inserts in the Sunday paper. I’m pretty sure that the same company that took her money is the one flooding the market with commemorative plates and spoons, the kind that gather dust in glass cases. She hoped I liked it.

“This” was a pocket watch.

A bit impractical but cool nonetheless, you’re thinking.

I’d have been inclined to agree with you if the pocket watch weren’t made of imitation gold. On the front of the case was a lacquered Confederate flag. The watch face itself was a colored etching of General Robert E. Lee in a three-quarters view. His face was pensive, still smarting from the loss.

I was never one to call the Civil War, the “War of Northern Aggression,” or one to defend my freedom to fly the rebel flag, claiming, “It’s heritage, not hate.”

What heritage are we defending? A way of life built around oppression, exploitation, racism, and hate? An economy dependent upon slave labor?

No, thank you.

Racism, prejudice, and bigotry are too resilient to need any encouragement. I am suspicious that they still lurk somewhere in my subconscious. I don’t want to be racist, but passing a man with dark skin on a dark street in a bad part of town, I have felt my heartrate increase, my hand brush across my wallet in my back pocket, my awareness sharpen in preparation for what?

Unfortunately, yes. Racism is malaria. When our immune system weakens, it rears its ugly head. When the right circumstances strip away the trappings of my education, political correctness, or empathy, I make judgments based on skin pigmentation.

I thanked Grandma for the watch and hid it in a dresser drawer. The summer after my senior year of college, I sold it for $25 on eBay to a guy in the U.K.

What did he want with it?

Crappy gifts cause us to wonder, if only for a moment, what their givers see in us. Something we’d rather not be there?

Pocket watch with a confederate flag. Do I come across as a person who is very proud of my Southern heritage? I love sweet tea and the vegetables with all that brown sugar, bacon, and butter. Is that the same thing as hating black people? I sure hope not.

Please no one give me a subscription to Playboy or a Creed album or a gift certificate to Captain D’s. My self-respect couldn’t take it.

The Crappiest Gift Ever

“I saw this, and I thought of you.”

Shiver. Whenever someone use those words, I now assume that I will dislike whatever that person is about to give me.

“Don’t look the gift horse in the mouth.”

Whoever engineered this drivel never had to fake gratitude. Opening a gift in front of someone is bad enough without having to participate in that exhausting charade of protecting the giver’s feelings and honoring her good intentions. The gift giver’s bright, eager eyes, that expectant smile, the enthusiastic nodding of the head as the wrapping falls away—we’ve all been there.

“Oh, thank you.” You cock your head to one side and push up your bottom lip into that frown which is supposed to convey how deeply you are touched. “That was so thoughtful of you!”

You’re thinking something else entirely:

I hope she didn’t notice that I used the word “thoughtful” and never said that I liked or even appreciated the gift. This terrible present is yet another indication that you do not, in fact, “get” me, know me, or understand my likes or tastes in the least. You wasted your money, and now I remember why I get ulcers and diarrhea over the holidays.

“It’s the thought that counts.”

Oh, you thought of me, did you? Well, try not to think so much in the future. Keep your mind to yourself.

Insensitive? I think not. Holding onto junk that you dislike for the sole purpose of deceiving your friends, relatives, and acquaintances is like cleaning your plate because the kids in Africa are starving. Who really benefits? My garage sale? My weight problem?

When am I going to find the time to put this piece of crap on eBay?

****

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love books. I do not, however, love every book. This qualification is important.

Anyone who knows me well also knows that I’m not a flag-waving patriot. Red, white, and blue are not running through my veins. They’re not running much of anywhere these days, what with their strict diet of Diet Coke, hamburgers, and channel surfing.

I’ve traveled to enough places outside the contiguous forty-eight and have had enough conversations with people in other countries to gain perspective on our politics and culture. The good ole U.S. of A. won’t be winning any beauty pageants this year. Our country, history, government, and culture have attractive attributes, but I’m not blind to their blemishes.

So when I was working at a church and Christmas rolled around, I should have seen it coming:

“I saw this, and I thought of you. I know how much you love books.”

[Oh no.]

“You shouldn’t have!”

[Really, I wish you wouldn’t have.]

“Open it!”

“Right now? I don’t want to make the other kids jealous. HA Ha ha…”

[Use joke to disguise mounting tension. Did she hear the fear leaking into my laughter?]

“Go ahead. I want to see what you think.” A beatific smile spreads across her face. She lifts her chin to better relish my reaction.

I was cornered. I had no choice but to unwrap the rectangular package.

When we are backed into this uncomfortable situation, we work slowly. We have never before taken so long to pick at the tape. We have never before gone to such lengths to keep the wrapping paper intact. When have we ever reused wrapping paper? Never. That’s irrelevant. We’re buying ourselves time. We’re taking a crash course in method acting. We’re summoning everything we learned in previous experiences with crappy presents:

Crinkle the skin around the eyes. This has to look sincere or she’s gonna know I plan on selling it or throwing it away. I probably won’t even be able to regift this turd. If she cries, I could lose my job. Inhale. Deep breath now. Exhale. I must convince her that this is the best gift I have ever received. How could she have possibly known? Fake, incredulous laughter. Has she been reading my journal again? You’re sneaky. Give her a wink. Beat a hasty retreat. Recuperate on the weird bed in the bathroom.

As I tore the paper away, I saw that I had my work cut out for me:

· Bald Eagle.

· American Flag.

· Terrible book cover design.

· Glossy finish.

· Smaller than normal size suggesting purchase at discount store.

If I fooled her into thinking I liked this, I was a dramatic genius. The next Keanu Reeves.

Wait a second…what’s this? Could it be? Yes, it is! She’s been distracted by another conversation, Mrs. Temple’s recipe for green bean casserole.

I’m saved. Hallelujah!

Already on the move, I say, “Thank you so much! I’ll see you later.”

Half listening, she responds, “Oh, okay. You’re welcome. Glad you liked it.”

Never said I liked it, but what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.

****

The crappiest gift that I’ve ever received?

Giver: Grandma

Occasion: Christmas

Date: 3-4 years ago

Gift: 1) a miniature of the Parthenon; 2) a pair of cuticle scissors.

Please share the crappiest gift you ever got in the Comments section below.

The evil of automatic toilets

“I knew a man who, in the age of chainsaws, went right on cutting his wood with a handsaw and an axe. He was a healthier and saner man than I am. I shall let his memory trouble my thoughts.”

—   Wendell Berry, “Feminism, the Body, and the Machine”

I understand Berry’s meaning in this excerpt: machines and tools entice us with their promises of speed, convenience, and efficiency, but progress comes at a cost to our sanity and health.

Certain technological advancements fail to impress me. I doubt that organization will be effortless once I get a Crackberry. If I installed a GPS system in my 4Runner, I’d probably forget to turn it on until I was already lost. Some of my best discoveries came when I was trying to find my way, a bit like the occasional surprise on a roll of 35mm film. Those accidental exposures turned out to be some of my favorite shots. We make take more pictures with digital SLRs, but do we capture better images? I am unconvinced that a luxury sedan and a camera phone make life better, and even with improvements in healthcare, most people still live the seventy or eighty years, the same as people described in the Psalms who lived hundreds of years before Christ.

Not all progress is bad. Take, for example, the men’s restroom near the parking lot at Clingman’s Dome. It has a wall of waterless urinals like big white noses. To their credit, the technology saves 40,000 of water per year—per urinal?—and uses a biodegradable liquid, replaced three or four times a year, to filter the waste before it enters the septic system.

Now there’s some technology and engineering I can endorse proudly. If we must lay asphalt from the parking lot to the summit and built a concrete spaceship on Clingman’s Dome so that on a clear day people can take photographs they’ll never look at again and see seven states that seldom interested them before, then at least on the hike up, we men can empty our bladders into the finest vitreous porcelain waste receptacles that ever richocheted urine onto our shorts and bare shins.

I am glad that people in wheelchairs can see the ridges, the color of deep sea rolling away as far as the eye can see in waves of lighter and lighter purple and blue, even if the conveniences that the park service has gone to great lengths to install have scattered the wildness, the wilderness, of those ancient Appalachian mountains.

Let me tell you what is not progress.

Twenty-four miles away in Gatlinburg—home of the foot-long corndog—is a breakfast place called The Pancake Pantry. I’d recommend the Shoney’s breakfast buffet instead. Not only do you get all the chewy bacon you can eat and all the bad coffee you can drink, but you might also get a waitress with common.

Last Thursday morning, I took some Couchsurfing.org friends to see the Smokies. We met my roommate, a photographer for the Knoxville News Sentinel, for breakfast after he finished a sunrise shoot up on Clingman’s Dome. I don’t eat a lot in the mornings. All I wanted was hashbrowns, bacon, and one pancake. I asked our waitress at The Pancake Pantry about the most economical option for getting those three items.

The tip of her pencil was poised, and she held the ticket pad ready.

“Hashbrowns come as a side, but you can’t order one pancake,” she said.

“I can’t order one pancake, even if that’s all I want.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Pancakes only come in threes.”

I waited for her to tell me that she was joking. She stood there in her cotton dress and apron staring at me, so I ordered pigs-in-a-blanket instead.

Stupid.

I can’t order one pancake? I have to order three? What sort of racket are they running at The Pancake Pantry? Gatlinburg already has a weight problem, not to mention an air-brushed t-shirt, hokey museum, and cheap souvenir problem, without the support of the Three Pancake Law. I can buy a “real Samurai sword” made in India, “authentic Moccassins” at a China Factory Outlets store, and other knockoffs in a town of worthless choices, yet I can’t order one pancake.

Ma’am, let me get this straight: I have to order too much food? I can’t just order a modest amount to get me to the next meal? You’re that fond of throwing food away?

Once you enter Gatlinburg City Limits, the Realm of Three Pancakes, two pancakes becomes an impossibility. Paying for one pancake is about as likely as a Dolly Parton sighting, black bear mauling, or getting your money’s worth.

The real problem at The Pancake Pantry is their toilets, not their excess. The men’s bathroom has automatic toilets.

I hate automatic toilets. That blinking red light lets you know your butt is about to get soaked. Some genius engineer with a doctorate from MIT or Berkeley thought that these upgrades would be sanitary. He should have thought a little harder. Even if the toilets, soap dispensers, faucets, and hand dryers are all automatic, we still have to touch the lock on the stall, the bathroom door, and the door at the front of the restaurant. If we pay with cash, we come into contact with more bacteria. Chairs at the table, menus, ketchup bottles—who sanitizes these things? Please.

Automatic toilets have a placebo effect. They reassure us that we are avoiding contact with other people’s fecal matter and snot, but I have a hunch that a lot of the people who are sick in the first place are people with poor hygiene. They pee all over the toilet seat and don’t wipe it off. They don’t wash their hands and leave colonies of staph and flesh-eating super-bacteria on every communal surface in a five-mile radius. They are the one sink five fingertips into the after dinner mints’ dish. They are the ones who touch three toothpicks when taking one. They wipe their noses with their hands before taking the black padded meal ticket folders from the waitress and spreading their invisible germ love all up in The Pancake Infirmary.

You know this is true.

If we already have to share public spaces with unsanitary people, is it then necessary for me to sit on an automatic toilet and have it splash my bare bottom with cold, urine-infused water two or three times during my anxiety-ridden bowel movement?

Supposedly, I stand to gain something from automatic toilets, but I haven’t the faintest idea what that may be.

Lean forward to put my elbows on my knees?

All the waste I just deposited in the toilet is now dripping off my bum. There’s nothing that gives a man the confidence to go and face the world like sitting in his own urine.

Stretch to read the graffitti on the door?

Whoosh! Enema. I must be at Splash Country.

Shift my weight from one cheek to another to wipe?

A vortex threatens to suck my bowels straight down the drain while showering my backside. Automatic toilet, you just canceled out all my work. Talk about time-saving, sanitary devices! Now I get to spend a couple of minutes patting my rear dry.

If I wanted a colon cleansing, I’d buy that solution at Walgreen’s or buy a bidet and turn it up to 11. As it were, I just wanted to do my business in peace and leave with my dignity intact. Now, my boxers are sticking to my butt. I love technology.

Automatic toilets are essentially adult diapers. No matter how you sit, no matter how careful you are, you will have an accident. You’re going to get wet.

Give me a handsaw and an axe. Give me a good old fashioned toilet with a lever right there on the side. I’ll send my one pancake to a local river, my butt will be dry, and everybody goes home happy.

Who are the parents of these kids?

“What your parents don’t know can’t hurt them.”

Too true.

That said, however, I’d like to offer two variations ::

1) “What our parents don’t know can hurt us.”

–> That one’s too serious, so I want to run with this second one ::

2) “What our parents do know can hurt us.”

Let’s be honest. When in our adolescent years we deflected unwanted scrutiny with half-truths and avoided uncomfortable questions with subject changes of breathtaking deftness and subtlety, we weren’t as concerned with our parents’ peace of mind as we were with our own freedom to continue to make bad decisions and fraternize with characters of ill repute.

Right before I pulled out of the Donut Den with two dozen free jelly donuts that Ted gave me and my three partners in crime, I wasn’t thinking, “Gosh, I really want my parents to get a full night’s rest and wake up refreshed, confident that all their children love God and serve their neighbors. I really want to honor my parents by living up to our family’s reputation in Nashville. I should go home and read Romans before bed.”

No.

I was thinking, “There’s nothing like the sound of a lemon-crème filled pastry exploding on the windshield of a car doing 60 miles an hour! The only sound that even comes close is that of a twenty-pound pumpkin demolishing a metal mailbox. And maybe angel choirs. But I haven’t actually heard an angel choir yet, so that doesn’t count.”

I practiced the “What my parents do know can hurt me” doctrine for most of my adolescence, though never with more fervor than a particular Sunday morning my sophomore year of high school.

The night before was Halloween, and my mom, with typical generosity, had agreed to let me borrow her Jeep Grand Cherokee. What was she thinking, right? We don’t have any Irish blood to speak of, but I definitely got the Blarney through my paternal grandfather. I also talked my parents into letting me take the family Suburban on a road trip down to Key West for spring break of my freshman year of college. To my credit, I always returned the vehicles in pristine condition.

I cannot, however, say the same for other people’s vehicles and pieces of property that crossed my path.

Let me go ahead and clear something up about young Christian males:

They love vandalism.

If that seems to clash with their belief system, well, that’s because it does. I’ve never met a person whose behavior is in perfect synchrony with his religion, creed, or code of ethics. Regardless of his beliefs, every person I know is a hypocrite.

Of course, Christians are no different. “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Lay down your life for your brother” get thrown out the window with any variety of projectiles—balloons, eggs, donuts, festive gourds, even biscuit dough.

Rather than invalidate Christianity or discredit Jesus’ claim to be the son of God, this inconsistency illustrates one of the foundational tenets of the Way: sanctification, or being set apart and made holy, is a lifelong process. Christians screw up their whole lives; they are vandals until the day they die.

That said, Romans 7 and 8 were no excuse or justification for my recreational activities during adolescence. These chapters do, however, help to explain how sin and right standing before God can coexist, how our heart’s desire to do what’s right and our actual behavior are mismatched socks, how I could ride in the between my two sisters on our way to church, admire the previous night’s skullduggery, and savor the sweet irony of my parents’ conversation all at the same time.

The “Pumpkin Patch,” as the hand-painted sign called it, sold pumpkins in Brentwood as a way to fund different benevolent projects and activities. On Halloween night, all the volunteers must have been at their homes, welcoming little ghosts and princesses or taking their own kids trick-or-treating. The tent was empty, and the pumpkins, unguarded. We reasoned that the more pumpkins we took, the fewer the Methodists had to haul off to the dump. Some fine logic, that.

I backed my mom’s Cherokee into the front lawn of Forest Hills United Methodist Church, and my friends loaded the cargo space up to the ceiling with pumpkins. We spend the rest of the night destroying mailboxes, For Sale signs, road signs, anything else that could be altered by the impact of a pumpkin traveling at high speeds. Rest assured, no animals were harmed in the making of this film.

Our path of destruction extended to Kingsbury Drive, which was my family’s customary route to church.

Surveying the wreckage—orange shards of rind, stringy pulp, and seeds splattered all over the driveways, yards, and road; mailboxes mangled or completely separated from their posts; twisted metal of now useless signs—my father said with disgust:

“Who are the parents of these kids?!!”

[You are! Ah hahahaha… ]

If the slightest giggle, chortle, or snort escaped, I knew I was toast—no social life for months. Trying to contain that kind of laughter was like letting roaches crawl up my legs. The discomfort soon gives way to euphoria.

If my parents ever suspected my guilt, they never showed it.* We made it to church where I shared with my friends the bravery, self-control, and selflessness of the morning’s journey.

I’m not proud of what we did, but I am glad we didn’t get caught and punished. That’s no fun for anybody. What our parents do know can hurt us, so I’m glad the only casualties were the property of strangers. Happy Halloween. By the way, recent victim of a drive-by gourding, have you heard the good news?

Replacements for your defunct mailboxes are available at your local hardware store.

*Mom and Dad,

If you read this, keep in mind that I returned the Cherokee without a scratch and that sanctification is a lifelong process. We’re saints in the embrace of a loving God, and I’d still like to go on family vacation in October.

Sincerely,

Your Loving Son

My Hand-Tempered Soul Mate

The other day I wrote about a trip to Home Depot. I bought an ax for $26.97 with a helve made from petroleum by-products and a head pooped out by a machine in India. Don’t get me wrong, I still felt capable of killing an enemy chieftain with a hand-fletched arrow shot over my shoulder from 100 yards out while riding a galloping stallion. You may call me “Thunderwolf.”

If I had walked into Lowe’s, rather than Home Depot, I would have been able to kill said chieftain with a throwing knife from that distance while riding said stallion and composing sestinas to commemorate the occasion.

Here’s the ax I wanted to buy. I know it’s a sin, but I covet it. I do. I could conquer Andorra with this ax, allow only safe water bottles for the storage and consumption of liquids, make croquet the national sport, and force the entire country to eat organic foods.

Sweet Sassy Molassy :: My One True Love

This tool was forged by Hephaestus himself in the primordial fires underneath Mt. Olympus. He dubbed it “The Big Sur.” Here’s the rest of the description ::

Our axes are hand tempered in Maine by one of America’s oldest axe companies. The helves (handles) are made of 30″ American hickory, and are designed and hand painted by designer and Best Made co-founder Peter Buchanan-Smith. Each axe is hand engraved with our signature X mark.

When you order one of these beauties, please buy one for me too. I’ll write you a thank you note in cursive on this stationery that my parents got me when I graduated from high school.Their friends gave me towels and leather wallets, so I had to show some gratitude. The ivory paper feels really nice and has dark gray ink.

But wait…there’s more! I’ll cook you dinner. I’ll wash and detail your car. I’ll save your children’s lives. I’ll write a series of blog posts about why you are the awesomest person ever and that’s why you were allowed to purchase two of the awesomest axes ever.

I’m starting to grovel, aren’t I? I’ll just never be happy without this ax. It is my soul mate.

You better watch what you say

My group of friends in Knoxville is planning a camping trip for mid-September up at the Elkmont site in the Smokies.

Last night, Ben and I went to Home Depot, and I bought an ax. I wanted one with a titanium-reinforced wooden handle—maybe in a classic ash—and precision-machined head plated in the same alloy that NASA uses in the shells of its spacecraft. I wanted an ax that I could pass down to my son’s son’s son. The head should be around long after all those single-use plastic bottles have finally decomposed.

I had to settle for a composite handle and an ax head made in India.

While I was looking at axes, I also saw Estwing hatchets. And 22 oz. Fat Max framing hammers. And thick leather work gloves suitable for training birds of prey. If you ever need a Harris Hawk or Golden Eagle to sit on your forearm without puncturing your flesh with its talons, Home Depot’s got you covered.

I didn’t realize I was interested in falconry until I went to Home Depot. In fact, when I walk into that tan-and-orange warehouse of tool love, I discover needs I never knew I had. Roll of 7mm plastic for vapor barrier liners? Yes, please. Step ladder? I’ll take three. Dewalt variable speed drill and table saw? Take them out to my truck. Do as I say. Where are the Husqvarna chainsaws? I have credit.

I start dreaming up projects that I had no previous inclination to undertake. I believe myself capable of designing and building a stained and weather-proofed deck with stainless steel grill and smoker, outdoor fireplace, and tiki torches. Why wouldn’t I?

I see visions of an immaculate fescue lawn with weeping willows, birches, and dogwoods and the finest treehouse ever built. Swiss Family Robinson eat your hearts out.

Since when have I been a builder? The past doesn’t matter, because when I walk into Home Depot, I remember something important:

I am a man.

My chest swells, and I walk with the strut of a professional bull rider.

I can kill deer and catch fish. I can build a fire with wet wood. Though I’ve never been in a fight and though I have no enemies to speak of, I am confident I could best all my foes in hand-to-hand combat. Don’t provoke me.

My steaks are bloody, and my coffee is as black as oil. I am able to handle a horse, beautiful woman, profanity, and hard liquor with equal poise and skill.

I know an incessant hunger for beef jerky.

I have wide shoulders and sound limbs, and taken with my castle-storming brow, high cheekbones, and angular nose, it’s safe to say that my forbears were rulers of men.

I am also a person of fine sensitivity—complex and deep feeling—but my emotions never blow me about like a leaf. I can compose both witty and serious verse, depending on the occasion.

Sure, Home Depot is a big box corporation that can cripple local economies and put mom-and-pop hardware stores out of business, but I may need a snow shovel at 8:45 one night, and a man must be resourceful and come up with the necessary resources under any circumstance. I am a freakin’ man. I break the spirits of wild mustangs and tear apart live rattlesnakes with my teeth.

I may make my living with a computer, but don’t be fooled. I own an ax. You better watch what you say.

How I lost my curfew

If I would have described my parents as strict when I was sixteen, I see in retrospect that they simply cared about me. Like most good parents, they understood that children need rules. They need someone to say no.

Children thrive inside of healthy and reasonable boundaries, and caring parents create such boundaries because they recognize that chores, good manners, and, in their teenage years, a curfew don’t keep their children from expressing themselves but rather help them mature into well-rounded individuals.

The physical borders of the canvas determine what can be painted there. Poets use rhyme, meter, and line breaks to draw out unlooked for words and meanings. Constraints create rather than limit creative possibilities.

Is a child so different than a poem?

None of us lives in a vacuum, and we’ve had experiences with people who don’t play well with others. You may have heard someone say that children don’t have problems, only parents have problems: children amplify or illuminate their parents’ idiosyncracies and mistakes. The parents who believe in “free expression”—a decision to not spank their kids, which as I’ve observed, easily morphs into an absence of any discipline whatsoever—can handicap their children.

While the enlightened parents rant about the moral superiority of sparing the rod and the irreparable harm that violence does to children’s delicate psyches, their little jerks are interrupting the conversation, ripping toys out of the hands of other kids, or yanking on the dog’s tail. Cool. Thanks for providing our community with another egomaniac.

Without pruning, they grow wild and unmanageable like a forgotten hedge. One person calls it freedom, and another calls it neglect.

Teachers, coaches, and other parents will spend the next two decades trying to finish the job that the parents neglected, attempting to drive a few fundamental truths through the thick skulls of someone else’s spawn:

· Nobody owes you anything.

· Your entitlement complex will undermine your ability to maintain healthy relationships.

· Don’t think that you can trample social etiquette and then be praised for your boldness and originality; cool disregard for other people’s feelings and needs is not the same thing as “being true to yourself.”

· Temper tantrums are an unsophisticated form of manipulation; they irritate us and make you look foolish and immature.

Complete freedom is a mirage the same way true democracy is a myth. Even if we somehow managed to traverse the desert and attain that oasis, we would discover within it a pervasive sense of disquiet—a directionless, purposeless abandonment to our own whims and petty lusts. Left to our own devices, would we really choose altruism? No.

If we could do anything we wanted, we would either do nothing or destroy ourselves. Put a bunch of children in a room with no supervision and see if something doesn’t end up broken and someone crying. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is an allegory of men left to their own devices. Without discipline and fences, we are babies with breasts or facial hair. We must be taught that a life characterized by self-sacrifice and service to others is a life of richness and contentment.

****

The summer after my senior year of high school, I was dating a girl who had been accepted at Clemson. We both knew she’d be leaving, but we waited to break up until seven hours before she drove out of town. I would not recommend sprinting toward the cliff in this fashion, but that’s another story.

With characteristic shortsightedness, I spent every free hour I had with this blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty. The four cylinders in my ’88 Honda Accord LXI, “The Toast,” would whine as I raced my love-drunk self home, trying to cross the threshold before the stroke of midnight when the carriage reverted back to a pumpkin and my parents’ leniency might change into house arrest.

Since my bedroom was downstairs and theirs was upstairs, I had to go up and kiss one of them goodnight before going to bed. This was the way they checked the time and kept tabs on my nocturnal comings and goings.

Of course, they wanted to know who I was with and what we were doing, but if I called ahead to tell them that the movie had run over or that I needed to stop for gas, they wouldn’t convict me on a technicality.

My dad is a heavy sleeper, so when I came in late, I often went to my mom’s side of the bed to kiss her goodnight. The blessed darkness hid my lips, which always felt heavy from kissing my girlfriend.

My goal was always to be as quiet as possible. They needed to remember in the morning that I had satisfied the requirements of our arrangement, but I wanted drowsiness to prevent them from focusing too much on the exact time of my arrival.

Sleep, my pretty, sleep. Don’t worry about the time. Let’s not get caught up in minutes and seconds. Sleep. Sleep…

One night, I got in about 12:15am, which wasn’t too bad, and I crept upstairs to say goodnight. My mom would typically wake up when she heard me come in the room, but this time, she stayed asleep.

I put a hand on my dad’s shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. He shifted and sighed but didn’t wake.

“Dad…” I whispered.

Nothing.

“Dad.” A little bit louder.

Nothing.

“Dad!”

He opened his eyes.

“I’m home,” I said.

He just stared at me.

“Good night.”

“You have spots on your face.”

“What?” I asked.

“You have spots on your face.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Dad, I don’t have spots on my face.”

“Yes, you do.”

“C’mere to the bathroom, and I’ll show you.”

He lifted the covers off himself, rolled out of bed, and in a strange role reversal, followed me to the hallway bathroom like an obedient child.

Once I’d flipped on the light, he stepped in and we looked at my face in the mirror.

No spots on my face.

“See, I don’t have spots on my face.”

“Why did I think you had spots on your face?”

“I don’t know.”

He laughed.

“Go on back to bed, Dad.”

“Okay,” he said.

“See you in the morning.”

****

A few nights later, I came in about the same time and went to my dad’s side of the bed. The same as the last time, I shook his shoulder. Once. Twice. Three times…four.

He never woke up, so I went back downstairs and went to bed.

The next morning at breakfast, he said with an overtone of accusation, “You didn’t come up and say goodnight when you got in last night.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, I don’t remember.”

“I shook you like five times, and you never woke up.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

He had no choice but to believe me, because he knew I never lied to them.

We never had a formal conversation puting an end to my curfew After that brief exchange, I stopped going up to say goodnight, and my parents never mentioned it. The lifting of my curfew carried a note of sadness: I was growing up. I didn’t have to race home anymore, run red lights, keep out a keen eye for the Brentwood fuzz who loved nothing better than pulling over punk high school kids who might have some booze or weed. I had my parents’ trust, and discovered that being trustworthy is a lot less sexy than being irresponsible.

What would life be without rules to break? What would we do for fun?

Getting even with a little girl

We’ve all done things that draw other people’s criticism and even scorn.

Standing up for what you believe is often difficult, especially if your friends and family refuse to support your decision. Posterity will decide which people were right and brave and which people were complacent and fearful.

The story I’m about to tell you went down in a little place called Wien, Österreich, where the beer flows like wine and the women flock like salmon to the shores of Capistrano. But before you interrupt to tell me that you don’t speak Spanish, content yourself with this English translation: Vienna, Austria.

I spent three months studying art, world literature, German, and a beautiful young woman who served the students breakfast in Hotel Theresianum. We nicknamed the “Frühstück Fraulein.” The day we were to leave and loading luggage on the bus, I walked up to her and said, “Du bist sehr schön.”

She smiled and said, “Thank you.”

She spoke English? Of course she did. I could have bestowed sweet romance on her that whole time. We could have watched cheetahs wrestle rabbit carcasses off the zipline at the Tierpark and tear them into pieces. We could have drunk Kinderpunsch and held hands at the Christkindlmarkt. Crappers.

Everyone in Vienna spoke English. The waitress at the crepes place and the waiter at the Greek restaurant would listen for a moment as we stumbled over the um-lauts, long vowel sounds, and strange clusters of consonants—“Ich möchte einen Salat und die—no—den—no—das Crepe mit…—before gently interrupting. “Would you prefer that I speak in English?” Ms. Fancy Pants would say.

“Ja, bitte.” I had to get one last German phrase in to prove that we Americans at least try. We’re good for more than obesity and other insatiable appetites. For example, my own state of Tennessee gave the world whisky, rock ‘n roll, and country music. Or at least, Jack Daniels, Elvis, and Music City.

A stereoptypical conversation went something like this:

Wiener: “Hallo, wie geht’s? Was ist deiner Name?

Me: “Ich heisse Austin. Ich komme aus der USA.”

Wiener: “Cool. Which state are you from?”

Me: [thinking, Of course you speak English. You probably speak five other languages too.] “Tennessee.”

Wiener: “Oh, home of Elvis, Jack Daniels, and country music.”

Me: “Yes, you’re right.” [thinking, My education is worthless.]

Wiener: “So, do you like the Diskothek?”

Me: “Umm…maybe. Probably. Do they serve hot wings there?”

****

Wieners may be polyglots and have their superior mass transit system, world-class art museums, centuries-old coffee culture, architecture and landscapes steeped in history and tradition, and pastries filled with marzipan and Nutella, but they cannot resist our holidays disfigured by commercialism to the point of grotesqueness or our bad action movies. Ha.

Two of our chaperone-professors brought their daughter with them to Vienna. When orange and black tissue paper streamers began appearing in store windows, the Reeds asked all the students if we would help make Halloween special for their daughter Keegan by letting her come trick-or-treat at our hotel doors.

If trick-or-treat is what the little girl wanted, then trick-or-trick is what she’d get. I’ve always known a good opportunity when I saw one, but before you jump to conclusions about my character, let me give you some background on this little nine-year-old cupcake.

She slapped one of the students in the group and then enjoyed the spotlight when she stood up in front of the entire group to apologize. She bossed us around like some blond-headed female Napoleon. She would walk up to me, put her cool, moist hands on each side of my face, and lay her head on my chest. I guess it would have been kinda sweet if her hands were warm and dry and if she didn’t always tell us to be quiet and brag about all the time she’d spent traveling outside the U.S.

You get the picture: very intelligent, precocious child with no siblings and no children her own age who wanted to impress the cool college kids by trying to act their age. Maybe you had a little brother or a next door neighbor who fit this description. Recipe for disaster.

Nobody else was doing anything about this problem, but real men don’t wait to be asked. They just make something happen.

When my best friend Hunter and I went to Zielpunkt, a small grocery store near Südtirolerplatz, to buy whatever is was we’d be dropping into Keegan’s pillow case, we didn’t make our way to the candy aisle. Oh no. This sting operation required more than candy. Attila the Hun-eybun had to be stopped. No more of this crinkly skin around my eyes as I fake smiled my way out of another awkward hug. No more conversations ended abruptly when she came up to the dinner table and made herself out home. She wasn’t our mascot or our pet. She was our arch nemesis, which necessitated trickery, trickery not treatery.

In the refridgerated section amongst the sheep’s milk cheeses and cold cuts, we found the golden ticket—18” gorgeous inches of vacuum-packed mackerel with a dark green back and silver-striped sides.

****

That night, we heard a knock on our door. The time had come.

Hunter and I glanced at each other then walked over to the door. I held the package behind my back while Hunter opened the door.

Keegan was dressed in a black unitard. Her mom, whose class I loved and offspring, well—, had drawn whiskers on her face with mascara. She had on slippers and a head band with triangular cat ears. She hadn’t quite grown into her baby fat yet, so I tried not to make eye contact with the black mashed potatoes around her midriff.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Trick-or-treat!” she sang, her face lit up with expectancy.

“Trick,” I said and shoved the fish package into the pillow case she held open.

We slammed the door in her face, and when we heard another knock at the door, we refused to budge but basked in our glory.

Count it.

Score ::

20-year-old male…1

9-year-old girl…0

You might say I’m cruel. Or that I hate children. Or that as a young adult I should have been mature and exercised more patience with a mere child who was probably lonely and just wanted to hang out with the big kids. That’s garbage. I’m a hero.

Tired Jesus, Kneeling Leper

It’s easy to read the story told in Matthew 8.1-4 and take in nothing. After all, this one man with a skin disease represents one of hundreds that Jesus healed.

Why should we pay attention to him?

As he was fond of doing, Jesus withdraws to “the mountain.” One gets the idea that this time spent alone in the divine silence is manna in the desert for Jesus. He hungers for the still, small Voice—a single tongue of flame guttering in the dark. After the crowds of followers, skeptics, and spectacle-seekers sap his strength, he withdraws to the mountain to replenish his spirit with prayer and solitude. Prayer is protein. It rebuilds those broken-down muscles of compassion, patience, and gentleness.

Too often we forget that Jesus was fully human. He had limitations. At times his mind and body experienced deep fatigue. He probably felt anti-social at times, tired of the crush of the masses, weary of the motion and noise. Imagine the overwhelming burden of need that came with the crowds: people missing noses, slobbering on themselves, jostling one another to touch him; people freed from demons who later spread lies about him, called him the Messiah only to demand his death, ate a miraculous feast yet went home unchanged; people addicted to sex, people drunk on wine, people too fat with affluence to walk the hard road of discipleship.

Yet, Jesus always comes down from the mountain, always returns, reaches out his hands to touch, and offers his words to cleanse. On this particular occasion, the need comes in the form of a leper. Perhaps Matthew remembers this particular sick man because he kneels at Jesus’ feet before saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”

If I am on my knees, I can make no demands. I can only ask—beg even—in humility. My posture forces me to be honest about my need. I can’t fix myself. God loves a broken and contrite spirit. Jesus heals a kneeling man.

I wonder if Jesus had circles under his eyes, if he sighed or if he smiled.

Without hesitation, he heals the man and charges him to hold his tongue and make his offering to the priests: “Don’t talk about what happened here today and do what Mosaic law requires. No fanfare and no aplomb, please. No celebrity and no primetime interview.”

Jesus prefers to work behind the scenes, out of the spotlight. He loves the quiet, and that’s where we most often encounter him. He waits for us up on the mountain the same way the Father waited for him.

Jesus is a genius at healing.

In the quiet hours before the day’s busy-ness begins, we get on our knees and ask our questions:

How shall I praise you with my life today?

What does loving my neighbor look like today?

Lord, how do you want to make me clean today?

Christians and Sex

* WARNING :: Read at your own risk. The following post is inappropriate for people of all ages. If you are uncomfortable with your sexuality or if a young white middle-class male’s detailed recollections of sex ed classes at a small private Christian school offend you, find another blog to read or subscribe to Joel Osteen’s podcast.

When I was in the first grade, I tasted my first croissant—delicate layers of buttery flakes. Narrow-minded Americans like to say crap like, “The French would be speaking German if it weren’t for us.” Or they’ll interpret that country’s reluctance to support ours in Operation Iraqi Freedom as cowardice. Sink your teeth into a warm croissant, and you’ll know that the French are doing exactly what they should be doing. They’re bakers.

Back to the subject at hand: not only did my friend Allie broaden my culinary horizons, but she also told me in the first grade that babies come into the world after a man’s sticks his thingy in a woman’s thingy and pees.

That sounded worse than eating a thousand bowls of my mom’s sausage and corn soup. When I turned up my nose at this, my least favorite of her creations in an otherwise delicious and satisfying lineup of dinners, she’d always say, “But you love sausage soup!” How is it that are parents are always telling us what we like? Imagine if I said, “But, Dad, you love to watch me try to beat Super Marios Bros. 3!” or “But, Mom, you love to clean up my vomit for me!” Sheesh. No, I don’t like your nasty sausage soup, and yes, I now know that the stork theory of procreation was complete bologna. Thanks for lying to me.

“Gross!” I said to Allie. “I never want to do that.”

“Me neither,” Allie agreed.

On the playground in front of W.P. Scales Elementary, we pledged never to urinate on our spouses. I hope to uphold that sacred vow until my death.

I still didn’t learn the “full truth” about sexual intercourse—or at least a simplified and distorted version of it—until I got to David Lipscomb Middle School. My parents never sat me down for a proper birds-and-bees conversation, but I don’t want to criticize them. I doubt either one of them got the sex talk from their parents.

Ordering a couple pizzas and popping in the Harry and the Hendersons or Swiss Family Robinson VHS was a much more comfortable way to spend a Saturday night than the following hypothetical conversation:

“Austin, pretty soon your body will start going through some changes and you’ll feel strange new urges. Girls won’t have cooties anymore. In fact, you’ll want to see them naked. I know, crazy, right? You’ll feel all hot and sick, and your stomach will be full of sloshy acid when the pretty ones are around. Just don’t get a girl pregnant. Now, run off and play ping-pong with Hunter. Dinner’s at 6.”

A void of real knowledge left me vulnerable to the slang, urban legends, and perverted humor that proliferated at David Lipscomb Middle School. Most of my friends knew as little about sex as I did. The two boys who gave me my schooling on the subject were the two who had access to a Playboy.

They were the ones who explained the euphemisms in movies like Billy Madison, which hit box offices when I was thirteen.

“What does [insert lewd phrase here] mean?”

“[Insert graphic explanation here.]”

“Oh. Oh!”

To their credit, my dad did present me with a thin, hardback volume on the same occasion that he asked, “Do you have any questions about?”—[awkward pause]—sex?”

[“God, if you’re up there, please end this punishment.”]

I could feel my heart beating in my face, and my dad was blushing. Seeing your father blush is like seeing him naked. It’s worse than seeing him cry. The conversation ended there. God does answer prayers.

I put the book in a drawer in the den. I most certainly did not want that thing in my room. Besides, the one or two times I need clarity about some piece of misinformation I’d taken away from the lunch table, it was about as helpful as watching a bull elephant mount a female on the nature channel. Guess I was on my own.

I’ve already written in part about the sexual education classes that I endured at David Lipscomb Middle School, thanks to Dr. Leeper. Happy for a break from our humdrum routine of recess, gym, classes, lunch, and chapel, our rambunctious group of boys spilled into “Multimedia”—what we called the room where such programs took place—to find an unembarrassed man standing beside an overhead projector in place and sheaf of transparencies.

Dr. Leeper wasn’t one for niceties or throat-clearing, so with medical detachment, he proceeded to outline the different stages of sexual development in both men and women. If he was aware that his audience was composed of adolescent males whose volatile bodies were teetering on the edge of some new change or animal desire at that very moment, he didn’t betray this awareness. He even left time for Q&A at the end.

My friend Jay decided to throw our guest a curveball and asked, “Is there any such thing as a queef?”

“I suppose,” the impassive Dr. Leeper replied, “that with repeated thrusting, air could become trapped in the vagina, and it might make some sort of sound upon release.”

Holy crap. Did he just say that? I need a shower. He didn’t even blink. He just stood there and gave us an honest answer. Trying to hold in the laughter felt like trying to keep a animal from clawing its way out of my chest. Forbidden laughter is always the best.

****

Our eighth grade Bible teacher took it upon himself to supplement our factual knowledge of puberty and sexual organs with sexual acts themselves and their spiritual ramifications. Apparently, just seeing some diagrams and bullet point lists wasn’t enough to keep all of us Christian young men from making mistakes in Ladytown.

This lesson plan was aimed at us boys. It was the girl’s responsibility to help us exercise self-control, seeing as they had no desires of their own. I think the girls may have had it even worse than we did. At least we knew it was natural for us to have sexual desires. For a woman to have libido was similar to one wanting a career—frowned upon. Women were supposed to be pure and chaste, which meant, in a word, sexless. Of course, this was never articulated, but silence on a subject can become its stigma. Why would be talk about something shameful?

On the chalkboard, he drew a horizontal line with tick marks at regular intervals, and then he divided the baseline he had drawn with a vertical dotted line. Next came a series of acronyms.

The finished drawing looked something like this ::

The acronyms represented the following::

H — Hugging

HH — Holding Hands

LK — Light Kissing

HK — Heavy Kissing

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

HOSPOC — Hands On Sexual Parts Outside Of Clothing

HOSPIC — Hands On Sexual Parts Inside of Clothing

DH — Dry Humping

OS — Oral Sex

AS — Figure it out.

SI — Sexual Intercourse

I guess he hoped the chart would illustrate progressive phases of sexual intimacy, and the dotted line between HK and HOSPOC would clarify the boundary between sexual purity and sexual sin.

When he began explaining what the different acronyms meant, a ripple of laughter passed over the room. Just as quickly, it gave way to silence and extreme discomfort. Any ambiguity about the rightness or wrongness of what happened at the Halloween party last year or in the basement over at So-and-So’s house vanished.

I didn’t want to look around the classroom and see how other people were reacting. My first kiss didn’t even come until the summer after my eighth grade year, but I didn’t want to make eye contact and accidentally establish some kind of association with the dirty boys, and neither did I want to catch the eye of our teacher. I would blush, which he might take as a sign of my guilt.

How could I help but be uncomfortable? How often do you learn that Jesus’ blood only had thirteen chromosomes and listen to intricate arguments about what “counts” as sex in the same classroom? I’d just heard my Bible teacher use the words, “heavy petting.” That sounded like a way to accidentally kill a rabbit or gerbil.

If fixing those terrible acronyms into our memories was his objective, I guess that makes me one of his success stories. I could also sing the preposition song we learned in English class, but “until-by-into-after-from, across-against-with-toward-on-out” never made me break out into a cold sweat on a date.

O the Horror of that Dotted Line! No gray area, no indulgences, and no mulligans.

How was a red-blooded male supposed to survive on so lean a diet?

****

I was discussing this chart with one of my mentors the other day. It’s always good for a couple of laughs, but Jerry brought up a good question: “What should he have told you instead?” As it turned out, he’d led a whole retreat with some of the youth at his church and their parents. When asked the age when kids are ready to have sex, he told the parents, “When they’re ready to have a baby.”

Now that all my friends are getting married, we’ve started having honest conversations about sex. Apparently, it’s noisy, messy, and sometimes disappointing. It takes practice.

Hmm. No one ever told us that. Great sex takes practice. It’s this multi-faceted gem we’ve been given, a desire that’s both simple and complex. My best friend told me his wife hates to clean the toilet and thinks it’s sexy when he does it so she doesn’t have to—when he puts her needs, comfort, and pleasure before his own. Another friend told me that marriage is “the daily choice to serve.” When he doesn’t make that choice, his marriage suffers. When he doesn’t put his wife’s needs first, their sex life suffers. Why would she want to give herself to someone who has been selfish?

So, after twenty-seven years, my sexual education has brought me to this insight:

If you treat sex as just another appetite to be filled, you miss its profound beauty, mystery, and pleasure. It will become just another bodily function, and if even it doesn’t become an addiction and destroy you, it certainly won’t satisfy your need for intimacy, to know and be known, to love and be loved.

On the other hand, if you view sex as another opportunity to serve your spouse, then you will find fulfillment. Selflessness is the key to great sex.

I going to tell my kids about that. Maybe I’ll post a series of short videos on YouTube. My friends can hand a USB drive to their kids and say, “Watch these.”

We’ll also give them to our parents and say, “I hope you all are still having sex, but if you’re not, maybe these videos can help. I’ve also got Harry and the Hendersons on dvd if you prefer.”

Bet You Couldn’t Do It

No one likes a rude awakening.

A baby crying or a phone ringing in the middle of the night; a full bladder or a dog barking while you’re trying to take a nap—these bring out the worst in me. If I haven’t gotten enough sleep, I prefer not to speak for at least two hours. Please don’t ask me if I like the blueberry muffins. Please don’t whistle. In fact, could we just sit here and enjoy some peace and quiet because your chipperness feels like roaches crawling around inside my skull. Thanks.

If you let me wake up on my own, you’ll love me.

To date, the worst way I’ve ever been woken up occurred in Guatemala during a ride on a “chicken bus” from Antigua to Guatemala City.

I was told that to even fall asleep on a chicken bus is quite a feat, kind of like the Gallon Challenge or not falling in love at summer camp. Chicken buses are old school buses that have been recommissioned to serve as public transportation. I don’t know if the drivers are also the owners through contracts with the government, but each has a personality all its own with maps, the faces of celebrities, political leaders, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, football loyalties, quotes, and a nickname for the bus itself. Their paint jobs are all so loud with yellows, greens, reds, oranges, and blues that it’s difficult to tell them apart.

Every bus blasted reggaetón, which on the ubiquitous blown speakers, sounds like rapidfire Spanish spoken underwater backed by tinny electronic snares, tuba glissandos, thumping bass you feel in your chest, and stock keyboard riffs off an an 80s-era Yamaha with a twin in your little sister’s closet. Oh, and both male and female singers must throw in a stretched out “Yay-yeah” or “Woah-oh” to prove just how passionate they are about that raw gangsta livin’. If an untalented polka band developed a crack habit and started wearing gold chains and New York Yankees hats, they’d soon be playing reggaetón, just in the Black Forest.

In other words, reggaetón is really good.

If you’ve ever heard Daddy Yankee, then you know what I’m talking about.

At first you think, “Oh, this is fun. Makes me want to dance!” but after eight hours of swirling salsa, electronica, and hip-hop, every song sounding the same, on a tour bus to Rio Dulce, you are certain that Satan’s music of choice is, in fact, reggaetón and hell is a cramped, sticky bus with too few mildewy seats and a pudgy woman sitting on top of your arm on the arm rest making it sweat, squawking incessantly into her cell phone and pausing only long enough to jiggle with a “Ha Ha Ha” that is loud and forced and thus aggravating whether you speak Spanish or not and her ample behind is bouncing inches from your face and you’re just hoping that seam holds and trying to read War and Peace and pretend that you’re happy to be traveling but really you’re playing a film over and over in your mind of what you will do after you’ve finally had enough and have stood up and pushed the people in the aisle so hard that they topple like dominoes but stay stacked up on the floor because they’re too frightened of the gringo de loco to move or complain and that fat harpy has finally shut up, thank heavens, because you were about to do something really ugly.

Hypothetical situation, I promise. I would never respond to such frustrations with violence or weightism.

I must have been very tired because taking a nap on a chicken bus, or any type of public transportation in Guatemala for that matter, required a tenacity and focus typically attributed to samurai, packs of wolves, and Irish women.

Though spending the night in hostels will save you some quetzales, sleeping in a cinderblock room between dirty sheets in a room full of strangers isn’t the ideal environment for eight hours of shut eye. Other than Mona, an Emory student whom I met on her way to language school, I knew no one.

Despite the reggaetón and vendors shouting, “QUE-sa-DI-lla! QUE-sa-DI-lla! QUE-sa-DI-lla!” and the heat and all the people squishing into the seats and aisle, I succeeded in falling asleep on the ride from Antigua to Guate.

What woke me up was the driver slamming on the brakes going downhill. My inert body lurched forward, and my nose making impact with the metal handrail on top of the seat in front of me.

Gosh, if there’s anything I hate worse than being woken up in the middle of a nap, it’s large quantities of mayonnaise, and if there’s anything worse than having a conversation with someone who has a globule of mayonnaise in the corner of his mouth, it’s hitting my nose.

All those nerve endings are just begging to send waves over pain washing over your brain. You can’t do anything but wait for them to pass. It’s like someone pinched you with a hot curling iron or eating too much wasabi or one of those iceberg zits you get on occasion on the edge of your nostril? 25% above the surface and 75% below?

You’d try to pop that bugger, and the pain gathered at the top of your skull and squeezed tears from your eyes. You said bad words. You look at yourself in the mirror to see if you’ve make any progress. Other than some pink indentations from your fingernails and making the now shiny, tomato red zit even more angry, you’ve accomplished nothing. You just have to sit there and wait for the white flickerings of pain running up into your head to subside. Then, you’d have to try again without any guarantee of success. I shiver just thinking about it.

So I was on a bus, my nose throbbing with its own heartbeat, hoping it didn’t bleed, when I saw why the driver had slammed on the brakes going downhill.

Uniformed men with guns.

One of them boarded the bus and gave some sort of command. All the men got up out of their seats, grabbed their luggage, and got off the bus. Sweet. Maybe I’d get held for ransom. What a story!

I wanted no part of this interesting development so I simply stayed seated.

Some of the women turned and looked at me, the uncooperative gringo.

Whatever.

The back door of the bus opened, and I could hear the men unloading luggage.

Another uniform came down the aisle from the back and said something to me in Spanish.

“No, sir, I don’t follow Days of Our Lives, but like you, I’ve wondered, ‘Don’t any of these people work? What’s that? No, I don’t do any professional modeling, although I did wear a tuxedo once in a brochure for a heating and air company and have killed a grizzly with my bare hands.”

We didn’t seem to be understanding one another.

I guessed at his meaning, grabbed my backpack, and followed him to the back of the bus. Outside, two or three men gestured for me to put my luggage on the ground and unzip it.

About this time a man who spoke English came over and explained: apparently, highway bandits ride the chicken buses and once they’re on one of the several isolated stretches of road between cities, they’ll pull out some sort of weapon and rob everyone else on the bus. Then, they’ll simply get off the bus and have a partner in crime swing by and pick them up.

Sounded like a pretty good gig to me. I’ve always wanted to either rob a bank then give the money back or escape from prison. Maybe robbing chicken buses would be just as exciting. I’d be like a reverse Robin Hood—robbing from the poor and using the money to eat more sushi and trick out my mountain bike.

With a little planning and some good old fashioned elbow grease, I bet I could organize a posse of rich white guys to prey upon poor people of other nationalities and ethnicities. Wait a second…why is this starting to sound so familiar?

If you were Robin Hood, what would you wear?

How to Lose a Potato Gun

Lipscomb was a dry campus and had a strict no-drinking policy even for upper classmen who lived off-campus. This policy was the cause of most critiques and criticisms of Lipscomb that I heard, but in retrospect, I almost appreciate the rule because it meant we had to be more creative in how we had fun.

One night in early fall I was invited along on one such non-alcoholic adventure.

As a way of introducing me to their culture, my Gamma Xi friends helped me into the back of a Toyota pick-up, and we sped away from campus, south on Hillsboro Road, out into the neighborhoods and pastures that make up Williamson County.

****

Green rolling hills and gorgeous fields flanked by hardwoods and creeks are the reason I loved growing up in Brentwood. Drive five minutes in any direction, and you find yourself breathing in fresh air and watching whitetail deer graze in the same fields alongside cows and horses. If you drive towards Franklin on Franklin Pike, you might see goats and chickens on a rocky hill and a Sonic half a mile down the road.

For now, the unincorporated communities scattered in and around still have more grass and trees than glass and pavement, and Walgreen’s and Starbucks are sequestered in Brentwood, Cool Springs, and Franklin, though I know the slow, sad encroachment of urbanization and sloppy development will soon replace the Brahma bulls and hay.

****

We turned off Hillsboro Road onto a backroad called North Beech Road. The tree branches form arches over the narrow road.

The truck I was riding in skidded to a stop, and we all hopped out. As with most endeavors involving young men with too much time on their hands and resources to waste, no one seemed to have a clear understanding of why exactly we were here.

Someone had constructed a potato gun out of a length of PVC pipe, a canister of hairspray, and super glue. Brandon had brought his shotgun. What he planned to do with it, I don’t know. If you’re a guest, it’s polite not to ask questions, though I guess that’s how you end up at the wrong place at the wrong time, as I did.

Things like war, genocide, and corruption in the government get started because people don’t ask important questions. Or because they do. That, however, is a rabbit trail for another time.

After a brief discussion on the part of the unofficial leaders, who were carrying the guns, it seemed that I had been invited along to witness the maiden shooting of the potato gun.

Apparently, the potato gun wanted company, so the shotgun obliged. The shotgun might also be helpful in destroying God’s creatures for no reason whatsoever, except to remind the shooter that he can still hit something. That, however, is a rabbit trail for another time.

We’d parked in front of a pasture enclosed by a slat fence. A yellow bulldozer and backhoe sat out in the middle of the field. I put my hands on top of the metal gate, preparing to climb over. It fell over with a crash that bounced around in the quiet. That was easy, I thought.

We all started walking toward the closest bulldozer, as good a destination as any, but when we’d gotten about halfway, something like a bark came out of the darkness.

I turned around.

It wasn’t a bark, it was a yell. The origin of the noise was holding a rifle. The barrel caught moonlight.

I took a few steps back to better hear what he was saying. I looked to my right and left, and the other guys were just as confused as I was. We hadn’t done anything wrong, unless you count pushing over a gate that was leaning against the fence. At the same time, we weren’t supposed to be there and looked guilty simply because a group of college boys must be up to no good.

Typically, someone in the stranger’s position would wait long enough to see if we were up to no good, call the cops, and wait for the proper authorities to catch us red-handed.

PA koww! PA koww!

The stranger fired the rifle twice. He wasn’t waiting for no cops.

“Get the f*** over here now! You’re trespassing on private property.”

Oh crap. This guy was a loony tune. This was how middle-class college boys in their late teens get raped, eaten, or killed—Deliverance; Pulp Fiction; any variety of prison movies.

A handful of the guys, maybe three or four, took off running to my right.

Even from where I was and in the darkness, I could see the veins pop out in the man’s forehead and neck as he described all the terrible things that would happen if the runners didn’t come back.

Those of us who chose to obey his orders walked back the way we’d come and soon found ourselves standing in front of a pudgy man with a shaved head. His pale scalp was shining. Standing with him was another man.

“All of you sons of b****** get in a line. Now! I said, Get in a line!”

He was standing maybe five feet away when he squeezed off another round. PA koww! The report ricocheted inside my head.

[Think, Austin, think. What would Steven Segal do? Have you learned nothing from fifteen years of bad action movies? Okay, but where was I going to find coconut paste, a thermos, parachute pants, and a chimp fluent in Russian? All was lost.]

The older man said, “Now, son, just calm down. Why don’t we just call the police and let them sort this whole thing out?”

[Great. We got the father-son dream team here. The older man cool and level-headed. His son obviously frustrated by his hair loss and lack of authority in any social arena. Quick, somebody give him a hearty plug of Beechnut.]

“The police ain’t gonna do nothing. They’re not going to protect our property.”

“So this is your land?” Brandon asked.

The older man, the father, answered him: “No, we just work here. We live in that trailer over there and keep an eye on things.”

“Well, we haven’t done anything wrong,” Brandon replied. He was empty-handed. He must have left the shotgun out in the field.

“Shut up!” the son screeched. “We saw you carrying something, and if you weren’t up to no good, then why are you here in the first place?”

I now realized that this man was having his moment in the limelight. He’d probably never been a hero in his life, and right now at this very moment, he choosing his own adventure. His friends would be so impressed. His boss was going to promote him. Denise would finally let him spend the night. He wasn’t about to let some rich kids outfox him.

Russ chimed in: “We were going to shoot a potato gun we made. We’ll go get it and show it to you, if you want.”

“Stay where are and no more talking. I’m the one who’s going to be asking the questions.”

I bit my tongue before I said, “No one asked you a question,” but I decided that being a smart aleck might not be the best idea when you’re dealing with a vigilante construction worker who had already fired his weapon three times and obviously believed that he was Clint Eastwood or John Wayne in a spaghetti Western. All he needed was a Backwoods cigar, a wool poncho, and a name like Butch or Rosco.

I wonder if a car had driven by, what would the driver have thought?

Five guys standing about two feet apart with their backs to a field. A skinny, somewhat bow-legged man in his early fifties and a younger man pacing in front of them with a rifle in his hands who would have resembled a starving tiger were his belly not spilling over his jeans.

At this point, father and son got in an argument about the proper course of action. The son was losing ground, and with it, his newfound glory. The older man finally turned to us and said, “Ya’ll get outta here and don’t come back. If we see you, we’ll call the cops.”

His son looked like he was passing a kidney stone. Yet again, his father had prevented him from saving the day. He could have been William Wallace in Braveheart but in carpenter jeans and a wife-beater.

We walked back to the truck and took off. No reason to press our luck.

This experience was much better motivation for graduating than anything my parents, high school teachers, or mentors might have said. I certainly didn’t want to be Mr. Clean with a bad diet and inferiority complex.

I do wonder how the story would have ended if we’d all been about six deep in the Natty and feeling invincible. Somebody might have gotten shot, which would have been awesome.

Too Good to be True

Too good to be true. Aren’t we all?

We’re all messy with scar tissue and various types of stupidity, so I’m not saying that I’m perfect or that I’m not a piece of work myself. I’m saying that what we are on paper—our professional and social resumes, our accolades and exploits—counts for less than how we respond to disappointment. The adhesive of our hopes and desires doesn’t stick well to other people, no matter how glamorous, sexy, or accomplished they may be.

I was a victim of my own expectations.

Her hair was a shiny black that it took on a bluish tint in the right light. She was Albert Pujols now and Willie Mays back when. She was way out of my league. (This was before I stopped believing in leagues.)

I met her at Fido where I sat down at a two-top next to her and pretended to read. Of course, I was having trouble comprehending more than a word at a time: an attractive woman sitting close by is a lot like someone holding a hand next to your face without touching it. You can pretend likes it’s not there, but that won’t do much good. Brothers pull this stunt to annoy their sisters: “I’m not touching you. You can’t tell mom because I’m not touching you.”

My friend Jim came up and talked to this Rapunzel in her High Tower of Beauty. He introduced me to Samantha. While they were talking, I pretended to go back to pretending to read, but I was really just eavesdropping.

Jim eventually left, and I got up to pour myself a glass of water. I offered to bring one to Samantha. She said yes please and thanked me. As I handed her the glass, I noticed that she was eyeing my Bob’s Candy Sticks that I’d snuck into the bill when my parents treated me to dinner at the Cracker Barrel. I know desire when I see it.

“Do you want some candy?” I asked.

She blushed.

“Sorry, yeah, I love candy. You don’t mind?” she said.

“Of course not,” I said, and thought, “Girl, for you I would fight Al Qaeda on a unicorn with only a copy of Bible as a weapon.”

We started talking.

I was in.

****

Fast-forward a couple of months. I ran into Samantha several more times at Fido and at a couple of Jump, Little Children shows (latterly know as Jump).

I asked her out, and she gave me her number. This was promising on multiple fronts: 1) she was gorgeous95, which meant that looking at her gave me a stomachache; 2) she was working a full-time job and going to school full-time, which meant she was smart, ambitious, and hard-working; and 3) she taught the five-year-olds at her church, which meant she was spiritual as crap.

This could be it.

When the big night arrived, I picked her up, and we drove to 3rd & Lindsley where a singer-songwriter we both enjoyed, Sondre Lerche, was playing.

This is where the ax would fall.

We found an empty table up on the mezzanine level, and a waitress brought us menus.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“Not really. You?”

“I’m not super hungry, but I could eat. What if we split an appetizer?”

“Sounds good,” she said, and we both read the different options: chips & salsa, loaded potato skins, chicken tenders, quesadillas, 3rd & Lindsley Buffalo Wings.

“Hey, are buffalo wings really made out of buffalo?” Samantha asked.

[Oh no. Seriously? Surely she was being facetious. Surely she saw that episode from Newlyweds with Jessica Simpson or the Pizza Hut commercial. Surely she was testing my own knowledge of pop culture and gullibility.]

“Oh,” I laugh. “You’ve seen that Pizza Hut commercial with Jessica Simpson?”

“No, what commercial?”

Disappointing.

Start small

Truth sometimes comes to us when we least expect it.

By that, I mean people whom we barely know can surprise us with words of wisdom, a divine kick in the pants. Without their even knowing it, God uses strangers and acquaintances to speak to us—to answer a question that has mired us down, to rub salve into an old wound, to stir up our passion and restore our vision.

****

My mom tells me that on Sunday mornings during the sermon I would scribble on the back of attendance cards. I did this even before I knew how to write letters or words. A love for pen, ink, and paper, for words and stringing together meanings with them, is hardwired into me. Dogs bark, hawks dive, and I write. I guess that’s how it’s always been and is always going to be.

Our natures—our gifts and God-instilled vocations—and how we spend the hours and days God gives us often diverge. I know I should carve out time to spend writing and you know you should be building homes or nurturing children or composing symphonies, but instead of cultivating our callings, we fritter away time sleeping in or reading People magazine or creeping the Facebook profiles of acquaintances. Okay, I don’t read People magazine, but you know what I’m talking about. Everyone eats a different lotus. We all while away our lives, anesthecizing our hearts and minds with television and sloth.

I indict myself.

I watched more movies than I wrote stories or poems even during graduate school. Though my whole reason for being there was to focus on my writing, I got sucked in to watching episodes of Arrested Development and hanging out with friends. Neither of these is evil; in fact, they are both good. Humor and relationships? Two of God’s good gifts to us.

We do need leisure. We most often choose, however, not true leisure, which comes with the deliberate purpose of disconnecting from busy-ness and appreciating simple gifts, but laziness—allowing our passions to gather rust.

For me, this complacency came with a kind of haunting, a specter of guilt hovering in the corner of the tv room, above the notebook half full of unfinished poems. Enjoying our vacations is more difficult if we’ve neglected our vocations. Without work, rest becomes lethargy. Doing nothing is unproductive if that’s all we ever do.

Edmund Burke said that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” I agree, but would amend his observation this way: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is a flyspeck of unpracticed discipline.”

Over days, years, and decades, these specks accumulate into a thick layer of dust. We can’t stop sneezing from it, and we can’t keep our eyes open while sneezing. We lose our vision, and with it, our fire. This deadening happens one day at a time, one happy indulgence and one sad lapse at a time.

The answer is not to kill ourselves with productivity but to start small, mustering the tiniest measure of discipline each day. Twenty push-ups. Seven new lines of free verse. Breakfast dishes cleaned and put away. We don’t run marathons or chase giants from the land overnight. Do less rather than more at first, but do something.

What got me to thinking about this was a brief conversation with my friend Will’s girlfriend. Claire was in town from Delaware. We’d only spoken once on the phone but never met. I’d sent her a link to one of my blog posts as an afterthought.

She approached me after church on a Sunday night.

“I thought your writing was beautiful. Really. Thank you for sending it to me,” she said.

“Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“Do you write often?”

“Yes, well, not as much as I should. You know how it goes, you have the best of intentions and then the time slips away from you.”

“You should write.”

“I know, I try.”

“No, you really should make a point of it.”

Now, the conversation was getting awkward. I didn’t even know this girl well.

“Yeah, I know. I really need to get my act together.”

“Think about it this way,” she said. “Are you prepared to withhold this gift from people who need it?”

That floored me. I’d always thought about my gifts as belonging to me, mine to do with as my time and desire allowed. When I felt like writing, I wrote. When I felt like taking a two-month break from starting or finishing anything, I wrote nothing. All that is necessary for many people to go untouched, uninspired, unchanged, is for me to follow my feelings, to follow the muse and pick up a pen only when I’m in the mood. I’d never considered that having a way with words was a gift entrusted to me, something which didn’t belong to me but which I was supposed to share.

What if my dad had chosen to love my mom only when he was in the mood? What if doctors showed up for work only when they’d gotten enough sleep? What if Jesus had said, “Gosh, I need a break from being the messiah. I’ll start back again next week when I’m less busy”?

Truth comes at unexpected times from the puzzling lips of strangers:

Are you prepared to withhold this gift from people who need it?

Start small. Stick with it.

[One morning five years from now, you’ll wake up, have a good stretch, and smile because you are living it, you are becoming who you were created to be. Each of us is a promise of who we are meant to become.]

Frat Pappy

I was eating the Eddie’s Special at Shono’s for lunch yesterday with my friends Joe and Ben when our conversation ran into a roadblock.

We have the appellation “Frat Daddy” for the member of a fraternity who epitomizes the sleazy values of his brotherhood, but we have no fitting name or title for the bro who finally finished his degree after seven years of debauching himself and accepted an entry-level position with a modest salary and no responsibility to be performed in a gray cubicle at a medium-sized office park.

The three months that this ex-Daddy spent putting a positive spin on his mediocre grades and status as his fraternity’s Social Director so that his resume would exceed 100 words in length gave him some perspective: Would he ever again enjoy the popularity, the notoriety, the glory, that were once his after he nailed that 4 minute, 37 second keg stand in late November of 2008? Those were the days. Why shouldn’t he continue on as a mentor and consultant with his beloved frat? The siren song of the dank bars and 12-hour tailgate parties was calling to him. He could not quit now. He owed it to himself, his parents, and his country to drink himself into a stupor on weeknights and rack up a few more counts of public indecency.

What should we call the Frat Daddy who technically graduated but never left? The de facto king of Natty and corn hole whose every ambition, whose very reason to exist, is caught in the time warp of College?

Yesterday, Joe suggested “Frat Papa,” but I think “Frat Pappy” is even better. Pappy is, of course, a synonym for grandfather, and if a Frat Papa is still skipping classes and leeching money from his parents, then a Frat Pappy carries the venerable distinctions of a diploma, pile of credit card debt, and aging Chevy Tahoe. A Frat Pappy has the social network needed to get his fleshy paws on the White Lightning.

Now that we’ve decided on the title, let’s catalog some of the bearer’s attributes, which include but are not limited to the following ::

· wraparound polarized sunglasses or Ray-Bans with Croakies balanced on the back of his neck and worn both indoors and outdoors
· a closet full of Polo clothing in a palette of pastels
· large, fuel-inefficient vehicle with a Browning decal on the back window; may have 4-wheel Drive gummed up through lack of use
· a can or dip or pouch of chew within arm’s reach
· lip or gum cancer in the early, undetectable stages
· alcoholism
· a prodigious gut, or “spare tire”
· three to six total pairs of boat shoes, loafers, Wallabees, and flip-flops
· seer sucker garments in at least three colors
· a personal appearance that elicits the following or similar remarks from concerned friends or past acquaintances: “Wow, he’s really let himself go.” Or “That’s what you call hard livin.’”
· mysterious hair loss
· purplish or swollen skin underneath his eyes
· an encyclopedic knowledge of his alma mater’s football and/or basketball team(s), more impressive considering that he was unconscious during the games themselves
· affinity for red meat
· fondness for profanity
· corpulence
· an astounding tolerance for alcohol
· a way with women that most often causes women to walk away from him
· habit of calling these same women derogatory names while they are walking away
· strong love or hatred—nothing in between—for the bench press
· unlimited supply of friends with lake houses
· various and sundry parts of North American game animals strewn about his room and vehicle
· the makings of a turkey gobble
· Koozie collection
· multi-daily use of cologne
· claims to have bought a beer for Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, or Will Ferrell
· boring job
· spiritual complacency
· existential torpor

We hope this catalog will help you identify and classify the Frat Daddy, ubiquitous at your local dive.

Please take a moment to append additional attributes in the Comments section below. Thank you.

Tripping over Chains

Remember how in middle school all you wanted was to not stick out?

All you wanted was to not be the guy with acne so severe that his face was purple and pitted; to not only be the first guy to start puberty and sprout pit hairs but also not be the last, the 5’1” shrimp with a hairless body and picolo voice; to not only be the first girl to grow boobs and catch the eye of every hormone-crazed male in a two-mile radius but also to not be ignored—in the middle; interesting without being weird; smart without being nerdy; a nice house in the neighborhood of Average; a respectable B and occasional quiet A.

All you wanted was the camouflage of normal.

****

Standing out on the baseball diamond, basketball court, or gridiron, however, came with a welcome, positive attention, as long as you weren’t too cocky about it. No age group tolerates a smug winner for any length of time.

Amongst boys, the caste system of athletic prowess emerged in gym class in the form of “choosing teams.” I was rarely chosen first and never chosen last, which was fine. We played a game called battle ball, which was dodge ball with a few different rules. You had your Justin Chunns, who threw the ball hard enough to leave a welt on exposed flesh, or worse, give the slow kid on the opposite team a concussion. You also had your James McCarthys, who had to be on somebody’s team but just not yours, you hoped. Even if he could sometimes hustle his bulk out of the way of Justin Chunn’s screamers, he had arms of putty. One morning, he was the only member of his team left. His teammates knew they were done for, but unperturbed, or insolent at least, he was giving my team “the retard,” smacking his hand, bent at the wrist, against his chest and baring his upper gums at us.

My best friend Hunter hit him mid-insult, right in the sternum. The impact sat James right down on his fat butt while his face opened in a look of surprise. We laughed about it for days, James McCarthy talking trash and eating it in front of everybody. Funny as it was, I knew the incident also came with a warning. That’s not the kind of story you want circulating about you. If we ostracized him for that, then my friends would ostracize me, if not for less than certainly for not much more. The average middle school kid will seize any opportunity to push the weaker member of the herd under the bus.

For gym class at David Lipscomb Middle School, we changed into uniforms—purple cotton shorts without pockets and gray heather t-shirts with “LIPSCOMB” across the chest. After soaking these clothes with sweat during furious, argument-ridden matches of badminton, battle ball, war, volleyball, basketball, or the dreaded physical fitness tests, we were never given adequate time to clean up. Without time to use the communal showers in the basketball locker room—which probably would have embarassed us even if we’d been allowed—we threw on our jeans or khakis and polos, and in an effort to mask that I’m-pubescent-and-I’ve-been-perspiring odor, similar to the smell of rusty swingset chains, we doused ourselves with Brut cologne or Right Guard aerosol deoderant.

The caste system of athletic prowess bled out into broader social circle. We took up again the daily gauntlet of trying to be cool.
In retrospect I know middle school would probably have meant a tough four years no matter where my parents had chosen to send me, David Lipscomb Middle was wretched. I got made fun of all the time. I yearned for acceptance while looking for ways to keep a low profile. An invisibility cloak would have been a godsend. What was expected of us and what was assumed about the content of our character because we attended a private Christian school was a far cry from what actually happened in the trenches. Christian school or not, kids are kids, and they can orchestrate and survive acts of subtle and shocking cruelty.

****

Outside the gym, running from one corner of the brick façade to the trunk of a magnolia was a chain. Its ran through three short metal posts and sagged almost to the ground. To hop over it required the barest minimum of athleticism.

I’m pretty sure that I saw squirrels doing backflips over the it. Why wouldn’t they?

On this particular day, I was walking with two or three friends, most likely the guys who I liked 75% of the time and loathed the rest. I decided to get a running start and leap over the chain. What concern should I have? I jumped over it every day. The negligible danger made it a tad bit more exciting than walking around, and you don’t want to be the guy who walks around the chain.

As I came down on my left foot preparing for my big jump, I managed to plant it on a round stick hidden in the grass. The stick was big enough to roll, and with my forward momentum, roll it did. My leap was over before it began: I slid forward, and off balance now and unable to catch myself on anything, the chain caught me at my shins.

I fell face first on the sidewalk. Fifteen or twenty of my classmates watched it happen.

Though, nothing had happened to my face, my wrists were torn up and sore for days. Worse than the superficial scratches was the notoriety. I was now the guy who had tried to jump over the chain and busted.

Though I doubt that tripping over the chain had any long-term negative impact on me, I do remember it. Perhaps that should tell me something. Those memories of humiliation can shape us more than an A on a difficult test or a kind word from a teacher or even the acceptance of one’s peers when it finally comes. They can morph into handcuffs, shackles, bags of stones that we carry everywhere. We forget how to jump. We forget the taste of freedom.

Telling those stories about our weakness or awkwardness, exclusion or rejection, fear or failure breaks their power over us. Writing has always provided this kind of purgation for me. I follow the bread crumb trail back to the witch’s house where I was afraid and isolated. Back at that place of pain, I discover that the witch is dead. I can see myself splatting on the concrete and laugh. Why? Because it’s funny, and laughter heals wounds.

At one time in our lives, we all had the courage to leap over chains, it’s time we remembered how to take risks and laugh at our failures.

Hug Me Pillow

Are you single?

Does the prospect of spending the rest of your nights alone in bed fill you with bitterness and despair?

Do you long to be cradled in the burly arms of an underwear model or kindergarten teacher as you drift off into dreams less sweet than your real life?

Or perhaps you’ve got a hankering for a shoddy product assembled in the two-thirds world by a hungry child with sore fingers. Any fans of the Snuggie or Peekaru out there?

Boy, have we got a surprise in store for you!

Go ahead and take that vow of celibacy with perfect confidence. Finally end it with your lying, cheating, man-slut scumbag  boyfriend.

You won’t need a man once you own the Hug Me Pillow.

Are you lonely?

For years, you’ve watched from a distance as chronically single men poured out their hearts to and enjoyed a meaningful connection with blow-up plastic dolls. Lars and the Real Girl is proof of that.

But what recourse did you have as a chronically single woman, an aspiring old maid and spinster aunt? While your womb was shriveling and drying up like a puddle in July, you watched all your siblings and friends find companionship, intimacy, sexual fulfillment, and the joy of rearing children.

Now you can enjoy all the benefits of covenantal love without any of the hassles! With your Hug Me Pillow, you never have to sleep in an empty bed again. You know that unoccupied space in your queen-sized that came to signify your discontentment, crushing disappointment, and perpetual heartache? Well, now that void will be filled by a u-shaped pillow with fused fingers and an “incredibly soft microfiber” shirt.

For only $21.97, you can turn your greatest reproach—your inability to remain in a healthy romantic relationship—into the envy of all your friends.

Act now.

Overstock.com has only 2.5 million Hold Me Pillows available. That the original manufacturer couldn’t sell these premium imported goods is a riddle similar in magnitude to that solved by Oedipus when facing the Sphinx after he murdered his father Laertes but before he married his mother Jocasta.

What you may misinterpret as a misspelling on the web page devoted to this loveable pillow—“piece of mind”—is really a double entendre. When we say “piece of mind,” we mean you’re getting a piece. You’re getting not only the peace of mind that comes from knowing you have money to blow on any piece of garbage that you stumble upon online but also literally a grayish chunk of your brain. For you to even entertain buying this product, someone must have pried open your skull and cut out part of the central control of your body’s nervous system. You have probably begun to lose control of body functions, such as involuntary bowel expulsion, and you may have begun eating the flesh on your fingers.

Ah...soul mate.

That’s why this soothing polyester arm and partial torso is perfect for you! This pillow is your soul mate.

Don’t wait. Order today.

Regulate your circadian rhythms, guarantee REM, protect against intruders, kill roaches, mow the lawn, vacation at the beach, pay your mortgage and utilities bill, make beautiful memories, and create a legacy with your Hug Me Pillow—a mail order husband without the price tag.

Read this rave review from Anonymous in Alaska:

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Do you want to be truly known and loved for who you are? Find a good church. Do you want a series of one-night stands, no strings attached? Call one of our sales representatives. You can be happy in as little as 4-6 weeks.

Take your place among the ranks of the immortals with the Hug Me Pillow. Get made fun of by your two friends.

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Get out your credit card.

Do as we ask, or we’ll kill everyone you love.

Gutsy but not Smooth (Part II)

Even though the brunette and I had made eye contact several times over the course of the weekend, I’d never talked to her.

The two halves of the wedding party never mingled enough to provide a natural opportunity for conversation. At the dozen or so weddings of which I’d been a part, the bridesmaids and groomsmen showed up ready to be friendly and have a good time, but by contrast, most of Bear’s friends were married and uninterested in getting to know Lauren’s friends, the majority of whom were in relationships anyway. The wedding rehearsal and hours leading up to the big event looked like a middle school dance, with boys on one side of the outdoor church and girls on the other side.

Despite this segregation, the brunette acted unsurprised when I said hello and introduced myself. I mentioned the peculiar aloofness on the part of both sexes, and she echoed my surprise. We agreed that people at weddings sometimes prefer to catch up with old friends and acquaintances rather than make new ones. That was especially true, she added, of families who get to see their out-of-state cousins, aunts, and uncles very often.

Our conversation got off to a smooth start. Her name was Emmy. Yes, she danced, and yes, she would dance with me.

Asking a girl if she danced would seem like a strange question to someone who grew up outside Church of Christ culture in the South where a truly sincere Christian must practice abstinence from the Big Five: Drinking, Smoking, Cussing, Gambling, and Dancing. However, at a wedding where both of the families attended Churches of Christ and at a reception where the woman in question was taking pictures, not dancing, I had no guarantee that this lovely young woman was an infidel like me.

Once she agreed—to my great pleasure and relief—I found myself in another pickle. The band was playing a country song, and though I grew up in Nashville and own cowboy boots and a guitar, I don’t know how to dance to country. Wildhorse Saloon was never my idea of a good time.

What kind of moron asks a girl to dance, and then asks her if she minds waiting until the next song? Brilliant, Austin. Fine show.

Emmy assured me that she didn’t mind waiting. God must be on my side.

While we were waiting for the song to end, I was trying to tell her that I hadn’t done too much time bumping and grinding.

I always found myself asking the following question: How does mimicing sexual intercourse on a beer-slick dance floor glorify God? Shaking my groove thing to booty rap would confirm what I already knew —that I found the way young women move their bodies sexually stimulating. Shoot, the way a woman’s body moves of its own accord was sexually stimulating. I’d known that since puberty. Don’t get me wrong, I love dancing, but I need no encouragement in the area.

Attempting to open up this thought process for Emmy was a tactical error.

What I meant to say was, “I haven’t spent a lot of time bumping and grinding with girls. When I go dancing with a big group of friends, we all kinda dance in the same space. I don’t dance with a particular girl so much as an area.”

This is what came out instead:

“Yeah, I don’t really dance with girls.”

Emmy cocked her head to one side and looked at me as though I’d just said, “Aliens are our friends.”

“Oh gosh, that didn’t come out right,” I said.

You would have thought English was my second language the way I was stumbling over my words. Those two degrees in English were really coming in handy. If I wanted to salvage the conversation, I had one of two options—1) scramble to explain what I’d meant and risk digging a deeper hole, or 2) say something even more absurd with hopes that I would make her laugh.

I went with Option 2:

“What I meant to say was that I really only dance with guys.”

[She laughed. Phew. A narrow escape. I have got to start thinking before I speak.]

I then explained briefly that I was talking about bumping and grinding, which seemed to make sense to her. About this time, her uncle, the father of the bride, sidled up and added to the fun:

“Stop talking and ask her to dance already!”

[Wow, Mickey, thanks! This conversation was going great, and you just made it even better!]

“I already have,” I replied. “We’re just getting to know each other a little bit.”

Let’s see, what had Emmy gotten to know about me so far?
1) that I had enough guts to walk up and start a conversation with her;
2) that my thoughts and words got jumbled;
3) that I may or may not have Tourette’s;
4) that I was a prude who couldn’t bump and grind without a guilty conscience.

No doubt, she was intrigued and ready to follow me around the world.

“Good,” Mickey said with a toothy grin on his face. He drifted off.

What did this brief interaction tell me? Her family was watching us.

That’s exactly what I needed! A bigger audience! I was so impressive to my audience of one, why not add another two dozen spectators? I always wondered what it was like for that one contestant in the Miss America pageant. One year, I was watching it with my family, and my Aunt Kay was entertaining us by pointing out which of women had breast implants—“Miss Alabama? Oh, definitely! You see how round they are? Real boobs that big aren’t perky.” Soon after Miss Alabama came Miss So-and-So, who tripped on her evening gown and tumbled head first down the steps.

What did that kind of humiliation feel like? Now was my chance to find out. Hopefully, the wedding videographer would capture some of it for posterity.

The country song ended, and the Dj put on something funky. Thank heavens. My goofiness is much less apparent on the dance floor. Emmy was fun. She obviously enjoyed dancing and was patient with my stiff gyrations. We danced for several songs, and I had a chance to ask questions about her work, her city, and her family.

She was a pharmacist, which meant that she was intelligent and had discipline. She described Winston-Salem as “a good Baptist town,” which meant that her faith was a priority. Her father was the hardest working man she’d ever met, which meant that she had respect for him. A Mississippi farmer, he’d moved his family to North Carolina to better support them by going to work for a trucking company.

Right about the time our conversation took stride, we noticed that we were the only two people left dancing. Either we could be the center of attention or walk off. We walked off.

****

Over the course of the evening, I kept asking Emmy to dance, and she kept saying yes. Mystery of mysteries.

At one point, I took a bathroom break, and while I was washing my hands, the stranger next to me broke the silence:

“Saw you out there dancing with my niece.”

[Yep, her family was definitely watching. ]

“Yeah, she’s a lot of fun.”

“She’s a pharmacist, you know.” Emmy’s uncle delivered this piece of information like he was giving away a secret: “Want to know where to get good moonshine?”

Apparently, I looked like the type of guy who needed a sugar mama.

“That’s what she said,” I replied.

“Sure is cute.”

Was he trying to sell me a car?

“Very,” I said, and wanting to change the subject, “How do you fit into this whole mix?”

He told me about his sons, how all the cousins had grown up together and were really close. I told him that I have ten first cousins on my dad’s side, and it was the same way with us. I liked big families. We shook hands outside, and he returned to his family.

This was getting better and better.

I walked with my friend Will and his wife Lacey to my truck where he was keeping his clothes, and grabbed a pen in the process.

I’d made up my mind: I was going to get her number. Taking risks is the fountain of youth, and I had nothing to lose. My cynicism needed a good punch in the mouth anyway.

Back at the reception, I picked Emmy out of the crowd.

When I touched her elbow, she turned and smiled.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

“No, not yet. My family’s staying until Justin and Lauren leave.”

“No, I’m leaving.”

“Oh! Sorry, I thought you asked… .”

“I just wanted to say that I enjoyed dancing with you and getting to know you a little bit.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be in Winston-Salem, but if I am, I’d like to give you a call. Would that be okay with you?”

[Ambiguous and noncommital. Smooth move, Austin. Women love a man without a plan.]

“Yeah, that’s fine,” she said.

I reached into my jacket for my pen.

“Who knows…maybe in the next seventeen years, I’ll take a roadtrip there.”

[Just shut up, you cottonheadedninnymuggins. Shut up.]

She gave me a polite laugh. “Okay, it’s area code 803…”

I wrote her number down, and if I were smart, I would have said thanks, given her a quick hug, and made a graceful exit. Apparently, graceful exit isn’t in my repertoire. I like to make an impression, which means, I like to leave a girl feeling like she’s eaten some bad shrimp.

What I was thinking is, “It’s rare that I actually write down a girl’s phone number anymore. I always just put them straight into my cell phone.”

Is that what I said? Oh no. If I started out the evening with a moronic comment, I should finish it with another, put some pretty book ends on it.
“I couldn’t tell you the last time I got a girl’s number.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Oh gosh, I just made myself sound like a total loser.”

She laughed.

“What is I meant to say is that I can’t remember the last time I actually wrote a girl’s number down rather than putting it in my cell phone.”

Why did I think my method for securing phone numbers was worth mentioning in the first place? Was this interesting? No. Would she think I was a weirdo for writing her number down on my arm? Probably not. Did I stand to lose something by flapping my jaw? Yes. “Hey Emmy, did I mention how boring I am? That I make banal observations all the time? Didn’t mention that? Well, I do. Wanna go out on a date? No? Didn’t think so.”

Luckily, before I could say anything else to make Emmy pity laugh, groan, or yawn, the Dj put on “Sweet Caroline.” I grabbed her hand and said, “C’mon, we have to dance with this song.”

Thanks, Neil Diamond. You saved me yet again.

The song ended, and I said goodbye to Emmy without further incident. After doing some silly dancing with Joe, the groom’s 77-year-old father, and some of the groomsmen, I drove home.

****

A few weeks later, I was telling my friend Patrick’s wife Caroline about the wedding. The stories in which I say something stupid to a girl are her favorites. I wish I had fewer of them. After I finished recounting the latest series of blunders, she shared an insight:

“You’re not very smooth.”

She has a point. Other people don’t have these stories, and being bold and being smooth are not the same thing. In fact, unless accompanied by confidence, poise, and charisma, boldness may simply set the stage for bad jokes, not wit; awkward conversation, not flirtation and laughter; hasty apologies and retreats, not chemistry and the prospect of romance.

Of course, making conversation with a woman carries inherent risk. She could snub you, or she could give you the local Rejection Hotline. Or, she could be a complete psychopath and tattoo your face on her abdomen. You never know what’s going to happen.

However, swallowing my insecurity, complacency, and cynicism to walk across that cavernous room, or pick my way across that crowded dance floor, or maneuver around the tables at that coffeeshop, reminds me that though fear of rejection may cast a long shadow, it is innocuous when I stand over it.

Taking risks keeps the rust knocked off my courage.

The enduring value of those conversations, no matter how brief, and interactions, no matter how warm or forced, is what they teach me about myself. Embarassment cannot kill me.  Though enjoyable, the admiration of a pretty woman cannot tell me who I am as a man, and her affection cannot guarantee happiness or wholeness. Rejection may cut my pride, but it can say nothing about my worth in the eyes of God.

It took me a long time to realize that most girls are nervous when a random guy walks up: What if he’s a creep? What if he only talks about himself? What if he’s cheesy and I have to be nice and laugh at his bad jokes? What if he’s funny and sweet and smart but doesn’t ask for my number?

Their confidence is as imperfect and liable to falter as my own. They know they should just be themselves and offer an ultimatum, “Accept me as I am or leave me alone,” but they also have to fight the compulsion to impress.

What happened with Emmy? I’m not telling, but I’ll share what I learned:

If I sometimes lack heart-melting swerve, then perhaps I can offer a woman honesty, authenticity, and a willingness to admit my faults. These have more mileage in any relationship, and my female friends have reassured me that kindness and sincerity cover a multitude of amorous evils. Even saying the wrong thing can be endearing.

That’s good news for a man with plenty of guts and unreliable game.

Gutsy but not Smooth (Part I)

I’m a recovering cynic.

I’m getting to the age where all my friends are married, engaged, or in serious relationships, so when I’d see a girl my age at a wedding without a rock on her finger or a guy standing next to her, I’d assume that she was carrying around enough baggage to move to Europe.

About six months ago, I had the realization that if any of these single women noticed that I was wearing no wedding band and had brought no date to the rehearsal dinner or ceremony—the perfect way to ruin otherwise good friendships with females—then they were probably making the same assumption and concocting alibis for me: “He’s a player” or “He must be gay” or “He was born with both male and female genitalia” or “He eats children.”

A by-product of disappointments and heartbreaks that we’ve left unaddressed, this subtle cynicism uncorks the finest vintage of our creativity. I often overlooked the simplest, and most plausible, explanation, “Like me, she just hasn’t met the right one.”

I recently attended the wedding of a high school friend, Bear, which caused us to miss our annual flyfishing trip in central Idaho. His wedding was the first of four over four weekends in four different cities. He asked me to be an usher, which meant buying a summer suit for $100 at S&K. Now that’s what I’m talking about! Why ask your friends to pay $150 to rent a tux that they can only wear for one night when you can ask them to buy a suit that they can wear for ten years?

Bear always was practical, and there’s nothing like a suit or tuxedo to put me on my worst behavior. By worst behavior, I mean the type of boldness that has for years helped me entertain my friends and family with the cringe-worthy tales that result. I have a reputation to keep up.

Married men never cease to live vicariously through single men, and my friends at the wedding were no exception. They were all concerned with whether or not I found any of the women attractive.

My flyfishing buddy Rob was the most persistent:

“Dude, you need to be meeting these girls!”

“Why?”

“Hellooo, because some of them are hot.”

“Like who?”

“What about her?” He pointed out a blond girl on the dance floor, holding up her dress with one hand and punching the air with the other to The Commodores’ “Brick House.” She was more like a stone castle.

“Yeah, don’t think so. Maybe her?” I pointed out a really cute brunette on the opposite side of the dance floor. She was taking pictures of the other bridesmaids dancing.

“Why don’t you go talk to her?” he asked.

“Do you really think I’m going to meet somebody at a wedding? Does that actually happen outside of romantic comedies?”

“People do it all the time.”

“Well, I did ask Bear about her. She’s a cousin of the bride, and she lives in Winston-Salem. Long distance relationship. Don’t know how I feel about that.”

While I was talking, the brunette had walked around the dance floor with her camera and was now standing about fifteen feet away with her back to us.

“What have you got to lose? I think you should go talk to her,” Rob said.

I knew that Rob had no expectation that I’d actually do it. I wanted to see the look on his face, and he was right, I had nothing to lose.

“You’re right,” I said and walked over to her.

Here we go, I thought.

Any Word but Pornography

I generally avoid patronizing bloated national corporations that devour small businesses and cripple local economies, but Panera makes a decent Everything bagel and the hot tea is tolerable. I could get out of there for under $5, which complimented the pittance I earned as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Tennessee.

One morning at the Panera on the Strip in Knoxville, I ran into Becky, a nursing student whom I’d met through Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) at UT. We chatted and joked while she organized some notes on her computer and I congratulated myself on getting up early, which, I have discovered, is my Achilles’s heel and the key to getting anything done.

Becky and I have similar senses of humor, and we’d spent enough time together for her to know my character. For a woman to know your values, lifestyle, and the substance of your relationships is important if you plan on making sexist, politically incorrect, irreverent, suggestive, or awkward jokes. You have to establish a rapport before trying out some of your edgier material. Otherwise, she’ll tell all her friends that you’re a misogynist, bigot, God-hater, pervert, or social bumpkin. Seizing that golden “That’s what she said,” opportunity in mixed company isn’t worth the fleeting pleasure of a few chuckles from the guys and stink eyes from the women. One unsavory comment can cement your reputation as an all-around creep.

Believe me.

Another nursing student named Jane came up to the table where Becky and I were sitting. Silky blond hair, blue eyes, delicate features, dazzling white smile—Jane possessed the classic kind of beauty that causes men double take over their shoulders and have car accidents.

I was definitely headed for a wreck.

Jane asked Becky how she thought she’d fared on a test they’d taken that morning. Neither was confident in her answer to one particular question: what did the letters of the nursing association, N.H.P., represent? They tossed ideas back and forth.

“National Healthcare Professionals?” Jane asked.

“No,” Becky said, “I don’t think that was it. Maybe Nursing & Healthcare…something?”

While they were trying to unravel this mystery, I was strategizing—1) how to enter the conversation; 2) how to impress Jane with my intelligence and charm her with my wit; and 3) how to make her fall in love with me without falling in love myself. I needed to do all this in sixty seconds or less. After all, the future of our children depended on it.

One of girls was suggesting another option:

“Nurses for Healthy… .”

I had my door. Time to walk through it.

“Pornography?” I said.

Becky chuckled. She gets my sense of humor, and knows I’m not a pervert.

Jane, on the other hand, stared down at me, a mixture of shock and disgust on her face. She looked at me like I’d just confessed to cheating on her best friend or like she’d just caught a noseful of hot trash. I represented everything that she hated about men.

Well, that didn’t go well, I thought.

One type of humor involves predicting what people expect you to say then defying those expectations. For example, if someone asked, “Hey Austin, what’d you do today?” I might reply, “I spent all day cremating bodies and drinking lemonade.” Of course, that couldn’t be farther from the truth, no matter what I actually did that day. That’s what makes it funny. Perhaps I have a warped sense of humor, but this type of absurd response to a common question gets a laugh most of the time.

You also have to consider the questioner’s lifestyle and sensibility. For example, when my grandmother asks me how I’ve been spending my time, I like to tell her that I’ve been doing speed and carousing with beautiful women. Does she get offended? No, she giggles, and tells me that I remind her of her husband, my grandfather. She has never used illegal drugs or engaged in promiscuity, and she knows I haven’t either. Telling my Grandma about it even if I had would be ludicrous. That’s why it’s funny.

The more outlandish, illegal, or immoral the activity I proffer, the more delighted the other person typically is. I say “typically” because on occasion I do misread my audience.

N.H.P. could not possibly be “Nurses for Healthy Pornography,” but it still wasn’t a hit with Jane. You win some, you lose some.

Rather than risk being turned to stone by Jane’s gaze, I got back to work on my laptop.

****

Fast forward about two years.

I went to see my friends, the Dirty Guv’nahs, play at The Square Room. After the show I found a camera on the stage. Looking at some of the pictures gave me a pretty good idea that it belonged to one of Jane’s friends because Jane was in a lot of the pictures. A guy named Casey I’d met a few times knew Mary Catherine, the owner, and promised to return it to her. I met Mary Catherine later at a Sundown in the City and told her about my encounter with Jane.

Mary Catherine shed some light on her friend’s reaction to “Nurses for Healthy Pornography.” The time I offended her in Panera coincided with Jane’s discovery of her boyfriend’s second computer which he used to look at pornography. He kept his other computer clean because he knew that she checked the cache on a regular basis.

In using that word “pornography,” I had churned up for Jane three years’ worth of deceit, anger, frustration, disappointment, and disgust.

Oops. How do you apologize for that?

Here’s the apology I would have given:

“I’m sorry that many men settle for false intimacy, and rather than address their own fears and insecurities, they make a hiding place in lust and perpetuate an industry that objectifies women and adulterates the good gift of sex. I’m also sorry that I have a twisted sense of humor and made light of something that has been a source of pain for so many.”

Mary Catherine assured me that Jane is a kind, gracious, and forgiving person and that if I had chosen any other word, my first interaction with her would have been much different. Why couldn’t I have just said “puppies” or “pepperoni” or “prancing”?

My sense of humor is always getting into trouble. It needs a good spanking.

Moral: N.H.P. stands for “Never Horse around about Porn.”

I am clairvoyant

Today, the mailman left definitive proof that I am clairvoyant.

He returned a letter I tried to send to my mom because I put the mailing label where the stamp belongs. I also wrote my return address in the upper left-hand corner. Mr. Mailman was kind enough to write “Stamp” and draw an arrow indicating where the postal system expects me to conform to convention.

Upon finding letter, the mailman probably chuckled then congratulated himself on his extraordinary competence and attention to detail. He would never forget to put a stamp on an envelope. He probably called his wife while he was writing “Stamp” on my letter and declaimed the absent-minded baboon whose mail he has the misfortune to deliver every day. His wife probably cooked him a steak dinner and peach cobbler to show him that she was proud of him.

Well, the joke’s on you, Mr. Mailman. I did that on purpose. I sent that letter to see if you were paying attention. I don’t even need the postal system. I can scan documents and send them to my mom faster than you can roll down the window in your mail truck to flick your booger out the window. My letter confirms my worst fears: the postal system is doomed. If mailmen and mailwomen can’t see beyond something as trivial as an unstamped letter, how will they have the vision to adapt to the current technological milieu? Here I give him a letter with perfectly legible script and printed type, and he still can’t deliver it.

My gift resides not only in my ability to predict the demise of an obsolete organization like the Pony Express but also in my ability to envision a world not floundering in the Dark Ages of stamps, but one which uses owls, Passenger Pigeons, butter, and magic to transport our important messages and parchments.

I am clairvoyant: the future is clear: the postal system is doomed.

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. Please plan accordingly.

Sweet, Necessary Craziness (Part II)

Let me share an example from high school. I’ve already written about my first kiss, which occurred the summer after my eighth grade year, but my first relationship of any true depth—or trauma—began about halfway through my freshman year. This girlfriend was the first in a series of what my dad, with sarcasm that I inherited, calls “real winners.” Facebook, and perhaps good taste, prevent me from using her real name, so let’s call her Jezebel.

Spending time with Jezebel was like spending time in Colorado. I attended a wedding a couple of weekends ago in Breckenridge. I needed sunglasses during the ceremony, the sun was shining so fiercely at Ten Mile Station, 11,000 feet above sea level. During the reception, however, the sky dropped sheets of wet snow. Hot and cold, hot and cold, that’s what dates with Jezebel were like.

Unlike other cold-blooded creatures, she did not take on the temperature of her environment; the environment took on the temperature of her heart, meaning that temperature inside my car would drop about twenty degrees once she shut the door.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “Well, she just didn’t like you that much,” and that would be a logical conclusion. You can, therefore, understand my confusion when her friends told me that she’d told them that I was the only guy she wanted to date. Hmm. When we actually spent time together, she welcomed my presence and conversation about as much as a rash.

I gained some insight into this frigidity later on, but between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, I bloodied my head—and my heart—trying to analyze my way through a wall of ice.

She lived a good forty-five minutes away from me, so on date nights, we’d meet at a halfway point, Bellevue Mall. After buckling up in the passenger seat of The Toast, my ‘88 Honda Accord, she would stare straight ahead and say nothing.

“How was your day?” I’d ask.

“Fine.”

[Here we go again. Lucky me, getting to romance Jadis, the White Witch of Narnia.]

“What did you do?” I’d ask, trying to get some traction.

“Not much.”

[Maybe English isn't her first language. Maybe she's uncomfortable trying to form whole sentences with subjects, verbs, and predicates. I wish I spoke Spanish.]

“Were you just hanging out at home all day?”

“Yeah.”

As you can imagine, this kind of painstaking conversation would snuff out my excitement. Where does one purchase a down jacket for the heart, to keep out the cold? If I were smart, I would have gutted my savings account to acquire one.

On one particular night, I decided to take Jezebel to Calypso Café. By the time we drove across town and pulled into the parking lot, I was as love-starved as a man marooned on an island, Robinson Crusoe or Tom Hanks’s character in Castaway.

We sat down at a two-top where I ordered a Chicken Breast Pita with Aruban honey lime sauce and Jezebel ordered the Tropical Chicken Salad. After fifteen more minutes of extracting words like so many molars and incisors, our food came.

Maybe it was a desperate need for comic relief, or maybe someone pumped nitrous oxide into the room because there was a simple explanation: Calypso Café mixes curry into the mayonnaise used in its chicken salad. Whatever the root cause, when the waitress set down Jezebel’s plate, I lost it.

Ice cream scoops of bright yellow chicken salad? How absurd! This was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. Tears streamed down my face as I approached the border of lunacy.

I met Jezebel’s stony gaze. She failed to see the humor of the situation.

“Stop laughing at my food, ” she said.

“I can laugh all I want. I’m paying for it,” I replied.

I’m not saying that was a sweet thing to say, but even sweet guys—I was one of them at the time—reach their limit of patience.

What she said next shocked me into silence, though I should have known that her meanness would trump mine. She’d had more practice.

“And that’s your privilege.”

[Did I just hear her correctly? Did she just say that it’s my privilege to punish myself by taking her out on dates? No. She. didn’t.]

*    *    *    *

Whenever I tell this story, the listeners, especially the men, say, “I hope you took her home!”

I wish I had. I can’t even remember what happened later in the evening, but I’m pretty sure we ended up making out, which always left me with one of two feelings. Either I felt like I was kissing a mannequin because Jezebel’s face was frozen and unresponsive, or on the rare occasion that she opted to come alive at the stroke of midnight and kiss me back, I felt like she wasn’t sharing intimacy with me as much as using me for momentary escape.

If that scene in Forrest Gump in which Jenny prays, “Dear God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away,” were a physical gesture, kissing me was Jezebel’s prayer asking someone to help her escape.

From whom or what she never told me.

All I remember about that night are her words of entitlement: “And that’s your privilege.”

Behind what I have since dubbed her “Princess Complex”—her assumptions that 1) as a man, I was obligated to practice chivalry and bear the full financial burden of our relationship and that 2) she was under no corresponding or complementary obligation to care for me—was a deep reservoir of pain. Ghosts hovered above those waters.

Later experiences caused me to reflect back on my relationship with Jezebel, and I found reason to believe that they were the ghosts of men with ugly appetites.

Ten years passed before I began to understand that her treatment of me had almost nothing to do with me at all. Her inability to love and care for me said nothing about who I was then or who I am now. I carried that cargo of lies for over a decade, and if I hadn’t paid close attention to each new woman, then those lies could have shaped my perception of myself and my relationships with women for another ten years.

The point I want to make in this essay is that knowledge gained from an experience with one woman is not necessarily applicable to subsequent experiences with the same woman or a different one. Experiences with new women, however, can untie the knots of our past relationships. Becoming a student and choosing to learn from women rather than dismiss them as crazy persons necessary for sexual pleasure and procreation gave me greater access to myself.

Sure, you could argue that if I had avoided Jezebel’s crazy country, then I never would have picked up the cargo, but as a traveler, I want to carry myself with more grace and dignity than that attitude allows. It suggests a fundamental antagonism between men and women that I refuse to endorse.

Men and women need one another’s differences. Both sexes need the other’s craziness to stay sane. I should not have allowed Jezebel to speak to me that way, but neither should I have run away. I should have asked more questions, and without trying to save her, which was and is beyond my power, I should have left her country better than I found it. I hope I did.

I also hope to call one and only one country home one day. I will need a lifetime to learn how to appreciate her sweet, necessary craziness, and she, mine. We all need a lifetime to be changed.

Sweet, Necessary Craziness (Part I)

Men love to compare women to just about anything.

Cars, natural disasters, weather patterns, flora, fauna, precious metals and gems—you name it, women have borne the burden of these comparisons.

Ever since Adam woke up from his afternoon siesta, put his fingers in the space where one of ribs had been a mere thirty minutes earlier, and turned over on his side to discover that standing underneath an olive tree nearby was a new creature, Woman, men have searched their dark minds for a bright spot, the right analogy to shed light on woman’s mystery and to help them make sense of Adam’s and their own bafflement, relief, hunger, and even fear in gazing upon Eve, who was, most likely, lost in thought, winding a lock of hair around her fingers, and ignoring her slumbering counterpart who resembled her but whose anatomy was awkward by comparison and certainly not begging for poetry.

When was the last time you heard a woman say that a man’s skin was as delicate as a rose petal and his porcelain cheek blossoming with the faint flush of dawn? It’s probably been awhile. Women do use metaphorical language to describe men, but most often, their monikers and epithets fall in the categories of barnyard animals and uncomplimentary euphemisms for male genitalia.

Though I risk such categorization, I’m want to put forth a metaphor that has helped me explain why even though I grew up with the advantages of a good mother and two patient sisters, I was by no means prepared for the gauntlet of romantic relationships.

Each woman is her own country.

I can move to Paris or Lyon and spend months or years learning the language, the finer points of French cuisine, the country’s history, artistic movements, literature, etiquette, religion, social mores, and geography, but if I moved to Germany, none of this specialized knowledge would do me a bit of good. Could an intimate knowledge of Notre Dame’s architecture serve me at the Frauenkirche in Münich? Could I order a “le croissant au jambon et de fromage” at the Hofbräuhaus?

No, I’d be starting from scratch. The only thing benefiting me when traveling from one country to the next is a certain attentiveness to how one becomes immersed in a culture. I’ve been told that learning more than one language at a young age nurtures that part of our brains and keeps it active and vital. We stay adept at learning languages. The children of bi-lingual households have an easier time learning their third language and their forth and so on.

Gaining knowledge of one country, of one woman, is useful only if in the process the traveler, the man, learns to become a good student. After I learned to become a student of one woman, becoming a student of another was easier. The specialized knowledge I took away from one relationship—Charlotte’s favorite drink at Starbucks or the emotional and spiritual wounds she received from her parents—was worthless, but my heightened sensitivity to both the main storyline and the subtext prepared me for interactions with other women.

Even if the table manners and the Christmas traditions are different in a new woman-country, an intelligent man will cultivate the ability to listen well and observe her nuances and quirks, to remember precisely and adapt to her tastes and preferences.

We’re talking about the art of survival here, but we’re also talking about service and healthy compromise. Compromise is the grease in relationships founded upon sacrificial love and mutual service, but unfortunately, many men fall prey to a poisonous mindset that says compromise is weakness. Women must be contained. They must be mastered. They are countries that need conquering.

These same men say that women are crazy. Declaring that they’re crazy, as though one were delivering some sort of edict or universal truth, gives men the excuse they need to avoid entering the mysterious, infuriating, and intoxicating world of Woman; to avoid confessing our need of them; to insist on a reality governed only by logic and linear thought.

Needless to say, most men lack the courage to dwell long in a realm where they must seek to listen and understand, rather than dominate and control. Most men are afraid to become students of their girlfriends, wives, lovers, sisters, and mothers because of what they stand to lose in the way of power and authority. They choose not to feed their understanding and empathy, but their machismo, because patriarchy is the duct tape that holds their world together. Being in charge offers men the false guarantee of a coherent world: man knows his place, woman, hers, and everything makes sense. The earth continues to spin on its axis while men wear the pants.

What would happen if men relinquished the surplus fabric of their pants and everyone wore shorts? God knows.

That’s a subject for another essay. The point I want to make here is that knowledge gained from an experience with one woman is not necessarily applicable to subsequent experiences with the same woman or another woman down the road.

Life is like pulling teeth

Consider the phenomenon of teeth-pulling: an older, larger, and stronger human creature offers to snap a bone off your face.

No wonder kids find the whole experience terrifying. Adults have even developed a special lexicon in an attempt to disguise the trauma. After “working” on a tooth for a minute, the adult tells the child, who now has tears in his eyes, that it’s “not ready,” meaning, “All the pain you just felt accomplished nothing. You now have six or seven days to dread the repeat of this exercise.”

To make tooth-pulling seem less like punishment, adults created Tooth Fairy. Whether the prize was a quarter or a five-dollar bill, they believed that the promise of wealth would assuage their children’s fears. How typical.

I didn’t like the idea of any strangers being in my room while I was sleeping. I don’t care if you’re a leprechaun, troll, or the Tooth Fairy. Wearing velvet and having a fat bank account changes nothing. Where I come from we have one name for people who hang out at night in the rooms of other people’s children: Pervert.

“I’ll spend the money if you leave it, Mr. or Mrs. Tooth Fairy, but I’d prefer you just keep your filthy paws out from underneath my pillow. What do you do with all those teeth anyway? Sell them to Oscar Meyer for use in their hotdogs? Go find friends your own age, you sicko.”

One time, I decided to pull my own tooth.

I tied a piece of dental floss around the loose tooth, then gave it a tug to see how much force was necessary. Yikes! It was still in there pretty good. Plan B was to tie the floss to a door then slam it shut.

As I was pacing around the den trying to psych myself up, my older sister Elizabeth walked in the room.

“What’s that?!!” she asked, but before I could answer, she grabbed the floss hanging from my mouth and yanked on it.

Sure enough, the tooth flew across the room and landed on the carpet. Not knowing what else to do, I burst into tears.

“I was going to pull it!” I yelled. “I was going to do it myself. Why did you do that?”

“Well, now you don’t have to worry about it.” She smirked and walked off.

She received no punishment, and I found a dollar underneath my pillow. This is the world we live in. I’m sure I’ll have to pull some teeth one day, distracting my little ones as though I were about to give them a shot. “You’ll feel a small prick. What’s your favorite color? Okay, there, all done.”

I’ll also probably find myself using other grown-up propaganda like, “This hurts me worse than it hurts you,” and “You’ll understand when you’re older.” Will I understand or will I just stop asking difficult questions?

Despite the borderline lies and clever half-truths, parents must carry an open wound in their hearts for their children. No matter what lengths they go to to share their own experiences, provide instruction, and protect their little ones, they still must send them out into the Savage Land of bullies, cliques, and crushes. No one writes a manual on how to navigate with grace and poise the hurt and disappointment of that fly ball you dropped or piano recital you botched.

Kids never know what they’re supposed to be feeling or how they’re supposed to act or what any of this is supposed to mean. Nothing can prepare you for the endless procession of traumas and triumphs that is childhood: getting made fun of or ostracized at school; getting your heart broken by a girl; not making the team; not getting the part; not winning the election; listening to your parents fight. Kids would eat their vegetables every night if it meant avoiding these rites of passage.

At least when your uncle tries to pull a tooth that’s not ready, the pain is temporary, and you know who to blame. I’m still waiting to find money under my pillow for all the other bloody noses and ugly heartbreaks. I should have racked up at least a couple million bucks by now. I have a hunch that I’m the only one keeping track.

Rather than give my kids money, I’ll share with them what I’ve learned: the less you blame others for your suffering, the more space you will have in your heart to store up joy. Your heartache does become money. In looking for ways to listen well to other people’s pain and quiet it, you will experience healing. Lay down your life, and you will gain it.

If that doesn’t do the trick, I’ll buy them ponies.

Puberty is a dark room

When I was going through puberty, my nose changed shape. I tracked down my mom and shared this alarming discovery:

“Mom, I think I need to go to the doctor. I think I’ve broken my nose! It’s been straight for as long as I can remember, but now it has a bump in it!”

She reassured me that my nose was not, in fact, broken, and that when our bodies start maturing, our facial structure also goes through some changes.

How could either of my parents have explained puberty?

“Oh, by the way, in the coming months and years, your balls will drop, and your pee-pee will develop a mind of its own and will never do as told. Your relationship with this organ will be best described as ‘love-hate.’ Also, you’ll grow hair in places you’d rather not discuss, even with your pediatrician, and your voice will sound like somebody took it out of your throat and whacked it a few times with a hammer. The bones in your nose, cheeks, and brow will swell and change shape forever, and you’ll soon discover that girls do not, in fact, have cooties. On the contrary, they have boobs. For many years after, boobs will somehow be the center of the universe. This will seem ridiculous to you because when your mind rises from its fog, you realize that they are simply sacks of fat with milk-producing glands designed to sustain new life. You cannot, of course, seek help in divining these mysteries from the people who carry them around. You will come across either as a pervert or a weirdo. So, please just bottle up your confusion and do your best to navigate, well, your whole existence while obliterated on a cocktail of hormones. Oh, and don’t screw up. After all, our family has its reputation to consider. Prayer and scripture might help, but you will feel guilty when in the middle of Philippians your mind wanders and you realize you’re thinking about boobs. Again. We’re your parents and we love you and we just wanted to give you a heads up. And remember, you can tell us anything.”

“Yeah, sure. I really want to sit down with you and go over the smorgasbord of sexual lore I’ve picked up at school. Please confirm what’s true and pluck out any misinformation. We can get some bubble gum ice cream at Baskin Robbins, watch The Goonies, and make an evening out of it. I’ve put it down in my calendar. Can’t wait.”

No one I know got a thorough briefing on puberty or sex. A man named Dr. Leeper came to David Lipscomb Middle School a few times to arrange some transparencies on the overhead projector. “Here are the different stages of sexual development for males.” A pack of 6th and 7th grade boys ran down the checklist in their heads to see how far they had progressed and how far they had to go before this affliction called puberty would desist.

“Okay, I’ve sprouted a few pit hairs and woken up horrified that I’d wet the bed at fourteen years old, but then upon closer examination, I discovered that I’m now at Step 4 on Dr. Leeper’s development chart. The horror! The horror!”

[Joseph Conrad was onto something in Heart of Darkness, but it had nothing to do with colonialism, self-worship or the depravity of man.]

One year, Dr. Leeper made the mistake of opening up the floor to questions. He may as well have chummed shark-infested waters, drawn a knife across his forearm, and jumped in. Every smart-aleck in two grades finally had his opportunity to confirm or disprove certain urban legends which I won’t discuss here.

I came out of those sex ed classes thinking that line drawings of women’s internal architecture looked like something that would grow on the ocean floor, something that looked like a vegetable but was carniverous. When we compared notes with the girls, who had endured through their own sex ed classes, we found out that they knew even less than we did.

“Vulva? Fallopian tubes? Don’t those go somewhere on an engine? Sounds like an import, maybe a Ferrari.”

All you wanted was to be cool and to avoid sticking out in any way. You don’t know what you’ve done to deserve punishment, but it must have been very bad. Puberty is a dark room where a teacher you don’t know calls on you to answer questions that you didn’t hear in the first place.

“Welcome to adulthood, children. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

My First Kiss

First kisses can beautiful, psychedelic, and terrifying experiences.

Like LSD, crystal meth, or hallucinogenic mushrooms, they can forever alter your neurochemistry. “Just one,” you tell yourself. “I’ll just eat one of these bright red Amanita Muscaria mushrooms and have a story to tell my friends.”

Oh contraire, my friend. You’ll ruin your life.

I was in the 8th grade. Sarah’s friends made it known to me that I should make our mutual crush official by asking her to “go” with me. That seemed so 5th grade to me, yet going against their better judgment to appease the women they want is something that men do all the time. Pubescent males, in particular, have this Achilles’ heel, not that they have much wisdom or discernment in the first place.

I’d grown up hearing my parents preach that compromise is to relationships what oil is to engines, so I went ahead and asked her.

I was fifteen and couldn’t go pick Sarah up, which meant that my dear old dad had to drive me out to her house anytime I wanted to see the object of my affections. Sarah and I always came back to my house, or my parents took us to the movie theater or mall.

Sarah and I made plans to have a date the same night that my parents were headed over to my grandparents house to play cards. We were stuck. We had no choice but to tag along.

My dad was driving the blue Suburban, my mom was riding in the passenger seat. Sarah and I were sitting in the second seat. I was trying to figure out how to hold her hand without my dad being able to see in the rearview mirror, as if he would have cared.

As I was conceiving my plan of attack, my dad slammed the brakes, something smashed into our truck, and gray-brown fur flashed across the windshield.

We’d just bagged us a whitetail deer.

Back in 1997, a lot of the land on either side of Hillsboro Road, heading into Green Hills, was still undeveloped, and the woods ran right up to the road. Opossums, raccoons, deer, coyotes, foxes, rabbits, and roughly a billion suicidal squirrels would cross from patch of trees to the other. Sometimes, you’d see the carcass of a smushed opossum or the sharp stink of a careless skunk.

My dad drove straight to my cousins’ house, and Uncle Scott came out to look at the damage. He stuck a fingertip in some mud on the side of the truck, and after smelling it, wrinkled his nose and frowned. It wasn’t mud.

“You scared the crap out of that deer,” he said.

How come he got to say “crap,” and I didn’t?

Eventually, we did make it over to my grandparents’ house. The adults played Hearts upstairs, and I escorted my lady down to the basement where the cousins played pool on the same table our parents had grown up using and ping-pong on the table that Granpa Parkes had built himself.

I hadn’t made up my mind to kiss Sarah that night. Just the thought of actually closing my eyes, leaning in, and pressing my lips against hers made my stomach feel as though I’d lost my wallet or caught a kickball with my groin. When Sarah and I were together, I could think of little else. I mean, how did it feel? Would I be “good”?

I’d experienced the paralysis that came from a similar interior monologue while sitting next to a girl in a dark movie theater. Staring at her hand out of the corner of my eye, I faced that moment of truth:

“Do it now, Austin. Take her hand right now. Okay, okay, relax. Oh no, I’m sweating! Cardinal Sin of Handholding #1: Nobody wants to hold your sweaty hand. Why does she look so calm? She’s just sitting their watching the movie like I’m not even here. Maybe she doesn’t even care if I hold her hand. Maybe she doesn’t even want to be here. She probably doesn’t even like me. What was that? She smiled at me! There is hope! Okay, do it now, Austin. Take her hand right now…” and so on.

I’m sure the girls had it just as bad, if not worse. They had to worry about some putz asking them out on dates. Even if they liked the guy, they had to think about what they were going to do if Prince Charming got handsy. Or, maybe he was a really nice guy and lacked boldness, and she had to sit there wondering what was taking him so long.

Well, cowardice, for one thing. Fear of rejection. Insecurity. Ladies, you can be guaranteed that no matter how exciting or suspenseful the movie, your date took you to a movie for one reason and one reason alone: to hold your hand, put his arm around you, make out, or something similar.

However much we men may love superheroes or cowboys or chase scenes or watching the good guy get the girl while reducing the villain to a mewling babychild, we love females more. Have you ever stopped to wonder why movies are the default date? Movies are about the worst possible way to get to know someone and find out what you have in common. Spending two hours sitting next to someone you barely know and watching as a man and woman onscreen end up together in bed despite all the odds isn’t the best way to decide if you want this woman to be the mother of your children, if you want this man to open salsa jars and drive to the store for tampons.

Movies are really about that electricity of touch. Darkness dials up the voltage. I want to get drunk on her perfume, her closeness, her warmth, her softness, our arms grazing, a glance, one corner of her lips turned up in a smile. Of course, the uncertainty enhances the excitement, and as the feelings fade, a deeper, more stable intimacy should replace the physical and emotional fireworks.

Perhaps I had no intention of kissing Sarah for the first time. Perhaps I had every intention of kissing Sarah for the first time. Considering all the hormones coursing through my veins, I’ll bet it was both—hoping that I had the guts to kiss Sarah for the first time.

The year before, my seventh grade year, I’d dated a girl named Lauren. Our group of friends went trick-or-treating in Kyle’s neighborhood on Halloween night. To encourage me to make a move, my buddies and the rest of the girls kept on walking ahead of Lauren and me to give us time to ourselves, only to catch up with us after a couple of minutes, pull me aside, and ask, “Did you do it? Did you do it?”

I was always a romantic, and my first kiss seemed like a special rite of passage, not the sort of thing you waste on any girl who catches your eye. This type of nudging from my friends diminished its significance. I really just wanted them to leave me alone and make up my own mind about when was the right time and which was the right girl.

Though I meant it as no slight, I never did kiss Lauren. Still a lip virgin a year later, I was in my grandparents’ basement teaching Sarah how to play pool, which supplied a convenient pretense for putting my arms around her.

At one point, I tickled her, and when she wriggled away and faced me, our eyes locked and with that peculiar gravity, I leaned in and touched my lips to hers.

When I pulled back, she was smiling.

I was very pleased with my boldness and with her reaction, and planned no other operations for the evening. We continued playing pool until my dad yelled from the top of the stairs that it was time to go.

The wonderful thing about tickling is that the girl inevitably ends up in your arms. So long as you can discern when enough is enough, tickling is one of the most effective and versatile tools in our flirtation arsenal. On the way to the stairs, I grabbed Sarah’s calf or jabbed her in the side.

Apparently, this set the mood because when we got to the stairs and I flipped off the overhead basement lights, the yellow light from the stairwell caught Sarah’s face, and she had The Look. How I knew what The Look looked like or what it signified, I cannot tell you. No one taught me. I just knew somehow that The Look means business time.

I leaned in to kiss her again. Our lips met, and something strange happened. She stuck her tongue in my mouth.

Woah! I guess I figured that we were working on my timeline. One thought entered my foggy mind: “I have to fight back.”

I returned the favor, and we had a fist fight with our tongues for a couple of seconds. Then, it was over. Sarah wiped her mouth, and not knowing any better, I thought this was normal and did likewise.

Unfortunately, I chose to commemorate that momentous occasion by making an observation.

“That was weird,” I said.

Sarah just smiled and started up the steps.

“Idiot!” I thought. “Why’d you have to go and open your stupid mouth and say the something so stupid?”

****

I thought about nothing but kissing and my embarrassing little speech for the next twenty-four hours. Sarah and I talked on the phone the next night. I couldn’t leave it alone. I couldn’t let her think I was that uncool.

I took the conversation there: “I can’t believe what I said after we kissed last night?”

“What?” she asked.

Surely, she couldn’t have forgotten.

“Don’t you remember?” I said. “Right after we kissed I said, ‘That was weird,’ like the dumbest thing of all time.”

“I completely forgotten about that!” Sarah said and start laughing.

“Idiot!” I thought. “Why’d you have to go and open your stupid mouth and say the something so stupid?”

At that point in time, I was unacquainted with a quote that is most often attributed to Mark Twain: “It is better to be thought a fool, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

Moral: After kissing a girl, say nothing. Give her a hug, hold her face in your hands and smile at her, or tuck her hair behind her ear—all these are fine. If you must wipe your mouth, do so discreetly, and make a note to yourself to learn better technique. If the kiss is a disappointment, you can whisper, “Let’s try that again,” but don’t come crying to me if that backfires. I warned you.

Does anybody have any good first kiss stories?

The Pannus

Most of my friends are at least in their mid-twenties. All of us are at the crux. We must decide either to embrace healthy dietary and exercise habits or capitulate to the slow and debilitating onslaught of the Pannus.

Many of you may not know what the Pannus is and what it represents. Like you, I once was ignorant of this word and the corresponding posture towards life. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia, the web’s foremost authority on the Pannus, which will illuminate this phenomenon:

Pannus is a medical term for a hanging flap of tissue. When involving the abdomen, it is called a panniculus and consists of skin, fat, and sometimes contents of the internal abdomen as part of a hernia. A pannus can be the result of loose hanging tissues after pregnancy or weight loss. It can also be the result of obesity. A pannus can come in many different sizes and shapes and can become very large, even hanging down below the knees. The extra tissue of a hanging pannus can make personal hygiene difficult. Skin conditions such as yeast infections under the pannus are common problems. A massive hanging pannus can get in the way of walking. A smaller pannus can be an annoyance with clothing as the individual sits or stands. (Source)

Sweet Sally, I think I’m going to have nightmares.

The Pannus is more than rolls of belly fat. The Pannus is a state-of-mind. I had two years of Latin in high school, so I can tell you right now that the Latin word panis means bread. The Greek word pan means “all” as in “pantheism” or “pangaea.” Thus, the Pannus means “all-bread,” or “Pillsbury Dough Boy.” Expressed in layman’s terms. The Pannus means “letting yourself go.”

We’ve all thought about it: Nobody wants to be that guy at your ten-year high school reunion. When you see him, you almost cuss. You’re that shocked. It’s as though he’s gone fuzzy around the edges. Somebody erased all the lines then pumped him full of lard.

Bear with me as I paint a picture for you:

[Some of the former dorks, thespians, and computer geeks are standing in a corner of a rented room drinking punch and dropping chip crumbs onto the floor. In walks Dudley, the all-star quarterback, now part-time father and real estate salesman. Conversation ensues.]

Ralph: “Good gracious, is that Dudley?”

Sarah: “What happened to him?”

Russell: “Boy, did he let himself go!”

Ralph: “He looks awful.”

Sarah: “That’s what happens when you date Natty Light for about 15 years.”

[All three laugh.]

Russell: “How much do you think he’s put on?”

Sarah: “Fifty or sixty pounds at least!”

[Sarah begins to feel bad about her enthusiasm.]

“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had two kids, and I can tell you right now that it’s a struggle to find time to exercise. But there’s a difference between putting on a few extra pounds and begging for a heart attack.”

[Dudley walks over. He smiles at nods at the three.]

Dudley: “It’s been a long time.”

Russell: “No doubt. How’re you doing, Dudley?”

Dudley: “Pretty good, pretty good.”

Russell: “Where’d you get that beer? I must have missed them.”

Dudley: [He winks.] “Oh, I brought it. I’ve got some more out in my truck if you want one.”

Russell: “Oh, that’s alright. Thanks for offering. I was just wondering.”

Dudley: “Cool. Well, you guys take it easy. I’m gonna go says some more hellos.”

[Dudley wanders off.]

Ralph: “Holy crap. He brought his own beer.”

Sarah: “Yes, he did, and he finally earned his name.”

Russell: “Sarah, that’s terrible.”

[All three laugh.]

This scene, though fictitious, illustrates what can happen when we fail to guard against the Pannus. Sure, we can make jokes about our compromises by slapping our bellies and saying, “Why have a six-pack when you can have a keg?” We can create imaginary ailments as conversation pieces. Take, for example, Dunlap disease: “Your belly has done lapped over your belt.” Or Thangdo: “Your gut sticks out farther than your thang do.”

Our metabolisms slow down, and other responsibilities and obligations cut into the time we once used to stay in shape. Life happens, and poor time management skills and a lack of self-discipline plant us on the couch.

Letting ourselves go happens slowly and subtly. You still feel like you’re sixteen, then, one day, you look down and realize you can’t see your feet. The Pannus has struck again.

I know what you’re thinking:

“There’s no such thing as Pannus envy. How can I be on my guard? What can I do to protect myself?”

There is hope. I’ve compiled a list of questions, known as The Pannus Prognosis, to help you identify attitudes and assumptions that make you susceptible to the Pannus.

Instructions: Ask yourself the following questions and keep track of your answers. Give yourself a 5 for every Yes and a –5 for every No.

1) Could one healthcare professional locate my genitals without assistance?

2) Do I have the mental and emotional fortitude to put a pint of Ben & Jerry’s back in the freezer after opening it?

3) Do I still have what people refer to as a chin?

4) Am I able to get out of bed without help?

5) Can I remove the rings from my fingers?

Next, give yourself a 5 for every No and a –5 for every Yes.

1) Do I have any body parts I wasn’t born with? (Examples: a panniculus, turkey gobble, or muffin top.)

2) Do I often partake of the Captain Ds?

3) Do the good folks down at my local Golden Corral or Ryan’s Steakhouse know me by name?

4) If bacon were a person, would I date him or her?

5) Do I consider butter a food group?

6) Have I ever found missing objects on my person while naked?

7) Do I own a Snuggie?

8. Do I wear sweatpants anywhere other than the gym and grocery store?

9) Have I ever lived or do I currently live in the state of Texas?

10) Do I ever unbutton my pants during or after a large meal?

Now, calculate your score out of a possible 75 points.

If you scored 50 or below, you are at risk. 50 and above means that though the Pannus may yet overtake you, your appearance at your high school reunions probably won’t make people gasp.

Keep in mind, however, that this test is still in its trial phase.

People all over the world, especially in the United States, are counting on you to help make the Pannus Prognosis into an effective tool for the diagnosis and treatment of The Pannus.

Please submit your own questions in the Comments section.

The Toast

My dating history is a mashup of triumphs and failures.

My longest relationship to date was a nine-month soiree with a lovely young woman named Lindsay. I remember the very first time I saw her. She was walking through the rows of cardio equipment at the Maryland Farms YMCA. I was running on a treadmill and talking to Shannon, a curvy blond bombshell. Shannon was a year ahead of me, and took a new interest when she found out what I’d scored on the ACT. We were in Mrs. Rickleton’s art class when Mrs. Simons brought in the paper reports for everyone who’d taken the test. I was in the middle of a project, so I told Mrs. Simons to just set my scores down on my desk.

Shannon couldn’t stand it. “Don’t you want to know what you got?” she asked.

“Sure, but I’m in the middle of something. My score isn’t going to change if I finish this, and if I didn’t do as well as I would have liked, well, I can wait on that kind of disappointment.”

She asked if she could look, and I told her to go ahead.

Her response after looking over my scores? “Austin, I had no idea you were so smart!”

I just smiled and said thank you, but I thought, “Shannon, I had no idea you were so adept with backhanded compliments.”

From that day until Shannon graduated, she regarded me with a mixture of awe and playfulness. I became a curiosity of sorts, something you admire anytime you’re in the shop but something that you’d never buy. If I had been a bit more naive, I would have thought this special attention from Shannon suggested a special affection. I knew better, however. She just thought I was smart because of a silly number, which piqued her interest in my opinions on a variety of subjects. I was more a plaything than a serious love interest.

On this particular day at the Y, she wanted to know what kind of girl I was interested in.

Without hesitation, I pointed—discreetly, of course—at Lindsay. “That kind of girl,” I said.

Lindsay had curly blond hair down to her shoulders and very large blue eyes. Her cheeks were always flushed, and she was almost as fair-skinned as me, except she was the type of white that became tan with enough quality time roasting in the sun. My skin just turned red and started to itch. Thanks for nothing, genetics. Lindsay was the star player on her lacrosse team, I found out later. If she played, they won. If she missed a game for some reason, they lost.

Lindsay was the type of pretty that I found magnetic at the point in my life. She was perhaps the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in person. That meant that I should never, under any circumstances, go over and talk to her.

My quick reply must have surprised Shannon. No opinions or philosophy this time, no, just a straightforward answer: that girl.

”Why don’t you go talk to her?” she asked.

Strange creatures swam through my stomach. Obviously, Shannon didn’t understand how it worked. You don’t just go talk to a girl that pretty. At the time, I had the notion that women of a certain caliber of attractiveness were beings of absolute confidence with formidable powers of critique. She would make mincemeat of me with these weapons. From her lofty abode in the ether of physical and mental charms, she would brush aside my pathetic attempts at conversation and humor. She would single out every mistake I made and reduce me to putty.

No, one didn’t simply walk over to a goddess and ask her what her name was and where she went to school. Aphrodite was born with her Ph.D. in captivating, befuddling, and destroying mortal men. Circe turned men into swine. The Greeks built mythology around natural phenoma. They must have watched beautiful women turn men into slobbering fools; otherwise, the stories wouldn’t exist.

Thankfully, Lindsay left the room, and without looking like a coward, I could tell Shannon that I had missed my window.

This all happened in the spring of my junior year of high school, and over that following summer, I ran into Lindsay a couple more times. A mutual friend introduced us at a Jars of Clay concert at the Harley Davidson dealership in Cool Springs. Out of nervousness, I had been rolling up a piece of paper into a ball between my fingers, and when she turned to ask me a question, I threw the paper ball at her. I guess this was a juvenile attempt at flirtation. It hit her in the forehead. She raised an eyebrow and said, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” I said, thinking though was “You idiot! Is your brain damaged?”

I ran into her another time when I went to hang out with our mutual friend John over at another friend’s house. Towards the end of the summer,  we talked briefly at Dancin’ in the District. That’s when we found out that we had the same last name. Yikes.

John was doing some work over at Forest Hills Baptist one afternoon, and I dropped by to say hey. School had started up again at this point. We were both seniors.

He must have picked up on the fact that I was interested in his friend Lindsay. He himself had been interested in her, but he said he was fine with stepping out of the way if I wanted to pursue her. I’ll say this, different girls have come and gone, but John and I are still friends. Both John and Lindsay were involved with FCA at Brentwood High, and I was involved with a homeless ministry downtown through Lipscomb High.

What if I invited Lindsay to ride along with me one evening and McDonald’s hamburgers? We could get to know one another a little better, and I could get my foot in the door under the pretense of ministry.

[Attention, Women, this is a classic Christian nice guy move. If some guy with a crooked smile on his face asks you to volunteer at the mission, or hand out clothes, or go rake an invalid's leaves, then beware. He's really asking you out on a date, but he doesn't have the cajones to do it straight up. He wants to see who you are in a variety of environments. He's trying to put together the full picture so that he can be sure that you're worth the risk of rejection. He may also ask you to “hang out.” This is the nebulous no-man's-land between friendship and romance. Ask him what his intentions are.]

While I was in the middle of pitching my idea to John, he was dialing a number.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Calling Lindsay,” he replied.

“What?!! I wasn’t even sure—”

“Lindsay? Hey, it’s John…I’m doing fine, how are you?” John was now talking to her. I guess he’d made up my mind for me.

He handed the phone to me. We talked for awhile, and she agreed to go downtown with me.

We passed out 25¢ McDonald’s hamburgers to the homeless men who gathered on Demonbruen near the mission. My teacher and mentor Mr. Millson was there to give me some good-natured ribbing in front of Lindsay. I made a mental note to thank him.

The homeless men drifted away when the food ran out, and the rain began to fall again. It had been raining off and on all day. As Lindsay and I drove away, she mentioned that her church had already started. I invited her to go to church with me, so we went to youth group at Hillsboro Church of Christ.

When class ended, the rain had let up. I opened the door for her, and she leaned over to unlock my door, which, according to Code of Dating Ethics I’d developed with my friends, was a good sign.

I settled into my seat and started my ‘88 Honda Accord Lxi. My dad bought the car for $1000 from one of his clients after a hailstorm had totaled it. He fixed everything that needed fixing, and my parents surprised me with it the summer after I turned 16. Although I was grateful for their generosity, I’d wanted a ‘73 International Scout that my dad and I had looked at in Belle Meade. The man who was selling it had done all the work himself. It was beautiful—hunter green with white shearling seat covers. It was also $13000. I would have looked so awesome in that truck—the original SUV. Visions of my cruising around in the summer without the hardtop evaporated. Instead, I received an Accord with a leaky seal around the sunroof.

The “Toast,” as I called my champagne-colored means of transportation, would sometimes hold water between the roof outside and the ceiling upholstery inside. None of the water seeped through to indicate the reservoir above my head, so I had no way of knowing whether or not I was about to get soaked on any particular rainy day. Sometimes, water dumped all over me. Sometimes, it didn’t. Hit or miss. How exciting!

Of course, on the rainy day that I had the girl of my dreams in the Toast and wanted desperately to come off as charming, smooth, and impressive, this special feature of my car slipped my mind. I pressed the clutch and put the car in first gear. I gave her a little gas and turned to the right.

Remembering what happened, I can see a gallon of mean-spirited water pooling invisible above my head then pouring out the crack underneath the sunroof cover. At least half a gallon fell on my head, soaking my hair, shirt, jeans, boxers, and the seat itself.

I was too shocked to speak. I pressed the brake. You can imagine what that would look like from the outside looking in. Dumping a bucket of water on a guy’s head while he’s in the middle of trying to woo his quasi-date. Talk about ruining a guy’s game, or as my friend Kyle called it, his “swerve.”

Lindsay was bent forward laughing so hard that her face was almost touching her knees.

I squeaked out a few words, “I’m not really sure what to say except I can’t believe that just happened. I am so embarrassed. I hate this crappy car.”

Lindsay was near tears at this point and waved her hand at me as if to say, “Too much! Too much!”

Nothing to do but press on, so I gave the Toast a little gas and straightened the steering wheel. Now, you can imagine what was left of the rainwater above our heads shifting to the right and pooling above her head.

A moment later, the Toast dumped half a gallon of water on Lindsay’s head.

I hated my car, and I hated my life.

How does one apologize in that situation? “I’m sorry that my car gave you a shower. I wish I could say it won’t happen again, but I cannot make that guarantee. You are very pretty and sweet, and I hope this doesn’t ruin my chances of dating you, but I completely understand if my mode of transportation makes you vomit a little bit in your mouth and associate that taste of swingset chains with my face.”

What I did say was, “I. Am. So. Sorry.”

Lindsay was gracious: “Don’t worry about it. It’s just like we were standing outside in the rain.”

“But,” I responded, “It’s not too much to ask that when you’re actually inside a car, you stay dry.”

She just laughed, and we started talking about other stuff. I drove her back to her car at Granny White Park. We talked for awhile longer, and I mustered up the courage to ask for her number.

She gave it to me, and we dated our whole senior year and through the summer right up to seven hours before she left for Clemson. A couple of months into her first semester, she met the man who would later become her husband.

Looking back, I guess that the Toast was a blessing in disguise. Those invisible buckets of water got my relationship with Lindsay started in the best way possible: I couldn’t be too cool. I had to be myself. When your underwear is wet and your quasi-date has to hold out her shirt so that her bra and goodies won’t be visible, you can’t take yourself too seriously. You may as well just laugh and savor the moment. Relationships are messy, but at least they give us good stories to tell.

6th grade was hell

The 6th grade was a bad year for me.

I hated middle school in general. Even though I went to a public elementary school, my arrival at a private Christian middle school in the 5th grade signified my miseducation in matters pertaining to sex, girls, profanity, cruelty, ostracism, tribalism, sarcasm, and all the other -isms and social spasms you can imagine.

The school itself was fine. The vast majority of teachers were kind and truly cared about the students. The problem had more to do with the age group than the particular setting. If William Golding had chosen a Christian island for Lord of the Flies, then he would have had no less material. All the brutality and moral depravity gains more subtlety.

Left to our own devices, we use our creativity to invent ways to consume one another.

We may never have killed a wild boar and smeared its blood on our faces, but we did orchestrate a lie so that one of the boys in our grade would be led to believe that both boys and girls have menstrual cycles. For boys, this was called “shooting your dot.”

****

“Billy, have you shot your dot?”

“No?”

“Hmm. Guess that means we’ll have to kick you out of our cliques and pretend like you don’t exist. Sorry about that. Check back in with us in a few months. After a few more gauntlets of hazing, public humiliation, and paperwork, we’ll consider letting you back in. To be one of us, you have to be a real jerk, and you’re too kind, compassionate, and gullible. We really need to stamp out your trust in other people.”

****

I got made fun of all the time. Admittedly, some of my comebacks were less than clever. That time I changed the lyrics to Peter Frampton’s “Baby, I love your way” and sang it to Adam trying to deliver the death blow? Yikes. If I had been a spectator listening in on this playground altercation in front of Harding Hall, I would have used the words of the Grail Knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade after Donovan drinks from the wrong cup and his skin melts off like cheese and his skeleton explodes. In a dry, British accent, Robert Eddison says, “He chose…poorly.” Indeed, I did. I had one foot in high school before I lived down that lameduck comeback.

Don’t let me forget puberty. Thanks to mandatory chapel services every day, there was always a chance to read scripture, lead singing, or pray in front of an audience of my peers. Without fail, my voice would crack. I’d be reading a passage in Luke and reveling in my rich, new baritone and then KAPLOWEY! My voice would jump an octave.

[“Who was it? Which one of you just kicked me in the groin? I wanna know who it was! God, I thought you loved me, and then this? Again?”]

Sixth grade got off to a decent start. I got Mrs. Bornstein for homeroom, which, I was told, was best-case scenario. We went to church with her. She lived in our neighborhood. I already had an in. Great. “Maybe this year will be better than the last.” [Counting Crows, “Long December,” Thank you, Adam Duritz, for your optimism. I wish it had been true for me.]

Foolish little boy with my naive belief in people’s goodness.

I brought some of it on myself. For example, when Mrs. Bornstein went out of the room one day and left us to work quietly on our homework, I took the opportunity to climb up on my desk and shake it, shake it. I figured that I had a good 5 minutes of tomfoolery. In the words of my dad, “Wrong-ola.” Mrs. Bornstein had forgotten something she needed for her errand and walked back into the room right as I was settling into my groove.

She jerked me right down from my glory, and from that day forward, I had to go with her whenever she left the room. To copy papers in the main building, to visit other teachers, to grab something from her car, I was the ignoble one who had gotten caught. The pariah of shortsighted choreography.

Mrs. Bornstein told my mother who later told me that these were some of her favorite times during the day, when the two of us left the classroom to take care of the endless procession of details and administrative task that make up the life of a teacher. Apparently, when you separated me from my peers, I was a sweet, polite, precocious youngster who talked to Mrs. Bornstein like an adult.

Talking was something I was good at. I finished up the 6th grade with 27 conduct marks, meaning that over the course of ten months, a teacher recognized my exceptional gifts for disrupting class and ignoring directions. If conduct marks were grades, I was the Salutatorian, bested only by Lauren, who broke 30.

I came in 2nd in the spelling bee because I misspelled “Leviticus.” I added an extra “c”: “Levicticus.” That “c” stands for “C’mon, you idiot” or “cad.” I’ve never entered a spelling bee since.

I was always in a pickle, but sometimes, it wasn’t my fault. Out on the playground one day, I found a tomato hornworm moth caterpillar that resembled a bright green hotdog with white stripes. I was carrying this prize around on a stick and showing it to people. Making the girls say, “Oooh, gross,” was passion of mine then, and still is, really. The whistle blew, and recess was over. What to do? Mrs. Bornstein was walking in front of me on our way back into the portable. I was in the middle of scheming how to smuggle the caterpillar inside the classroom when she turned, saw what I was carrying, and said, “Put it down, Austin.”

I should have just dropped the stick and the caterpillar along with it. That was have been the shortcut. Instead, I held onto the stick and tried to sling the caterpillar off of it. That little booger had a good grip. I shook the stick a little harder. Then, as in all those moments that don’t go according to plan, time snapped into slow motion. The caterpillar finally flew off the stick doing somersaults in the air. Higher, higher, forward, forward—it landed on Mrs. Bornstein’s shoulder. She felt it and looked at her shoulder. She then let out a scream that chilled my blood. I never heard a dying horse, but I think it would sound like my 6th grade teacher with a green striped hotdog on her shoulder.

How did this happen? I was trying to do exactly what she’d asked. Naturally, she didn’t believe a word of it.

O Cold Silence of the Heavens!

My younger sister started at David Lipscomb Middle School that year. One of the bullies in my grade, Carter, started picking on her, nothing mean, just a little flirtation. Guess who got to tell him to stop? This guy. My mom told me that I needed to stick up for my sister and protect her, so the next day at school, I walked up to Carter and said, “Stop talking to my sister. She doesn’t like it.” He was so surprised that he just stared at me for a few seconds before he responded, with a touch of sheepishness, “Okay.” That was the end of it. Phew.

I wasn’t a bully, but I also wasn’t a poster child. On the one hand, I made high enough scores on the standardized tests that my teachers told my parents how special I was. On the other hand, when David refused to let me borrow a pencil during Mrs. Anderson’s Geography class, I grabbed a handful of his shirt and yanked him out of his desk.

Of course, Mrs. Anderson came back in the room right as he was getting up off the floor.

“What’s going on here?” she demanded.

And I was in trouble. Again.

It was in Mrs. Anderson’s class that I cheated the second and last time of my academic career. We took a short quiz on our homework, some pages from Island of the Blue Dolphins. I couldn’t remember the dimensions of the island, so I took out my paperback book, found the answer, and wrote it on my paper.

When I got my quiz back, I’d made a perfect score. Then, I started to feel guilty. I erased the answer I’d looked up then wrote in my first answer. I walked up to Mrs. Anderson’s desk and showed her my quiz.

“You counted this one right, but I think it’s wrong.”

She smiled and replied, “My mistake is your gain.”

This made me feel even worse, but I was a coward. I never told her the truth. Maybe I should give her a call today and let her know.

Dancing on my desk, lame comebacks, Conduct Marks, puberty, caterpillars, bullies, my moral decay—none of these was as bad as betrayal—getting pushed under the bus by one of my closest friends. Let’s call him Andy.

On an ordinary day, after taking a test, Andy and I walked to Harding Hall to use the restroom. We’re standing side-by-side at two urinals, and I turn to ask him how he thought he did. He said that he thought he did okay.

We finished up, washed our hands, and went back to class.

Over the next few days Andy spread a rumor that he caught me looking at his penis while we were peeing. This, of course, was ridiculous. All I had done is ask a run-of-the-mill question about the test we’d both taken.

I became the new scapegoat. If I had a dollar for every time one of my former friends walked up and with a sneer called me “gay” or “faggot” or “homo,” I would be rich right now. I could have started a college fund for myself and gone to school anywhere in the country. I don’t remember getting my feelings hurt by the names themselves. Middle school kids are unoriginal and predictable with their villification. They have small vocabularies, and after the first few skirmishes, you know what to expect. I think I just got sick of trying to ignore them. Even insults lacking cleverness will wear down your patience and poise after while.

I confronted Andy about the whole situation. At first, he denied any involvement. Idiot. We were the only two people in the bathroom. Later, he admitted that he’d told some people.

“But that’s ridiculous, Andy. You know very well that nothing of the sort happened. All I did was ask you about the test.”

The amazing thing? He agreed. His justification for what he’d done was that he needed to take some of the heat off himself. In a truth-or-dare game a few weekends before, he’d admitted to masturbating. Our two friends who were also present lost no time in violating his confidence and telling everybody. Their motivation? A smoke screen. Both of them had also discovered autoeroticism, but kept this fact from Andy. They diverted attention from themselves by betraying him. He made up a story about me to give our classmates something else to talk about.

Knowing why did little to make me feel better. After awhile, people found something else to talk about, and I was never able to monetize all the jabs about homosexuality. Too bad. I hated urinals for years, especially those troughs you sometimes come across in stadiums and locker rooms. Stare straight ahead. Focus on the boogers people have wiped on the tiles. What do they resemble? A hippo? Pamela Anderson?

I suppose 6th grade settled into a routine. I got a mild concession in gym class. I had a cute girlfriend named Christina who I’d met at the pool the previous summer. She was in the fifth grade and froze up every time I talked to her. Our infrequent phone conversations were filled with awkward pauses, so I made a list of questions to ask her. My older sister found this list and thought this was the funniest, dorkiest thing she’d ever seen. Whatever.

I want to gather every middle schooler in the world in a giant arena and give a speech:

“I’m sorry. I hated middle school too. Let me give you some advice. 1) Trying to be cool is the biggest waste of time imaginable. I wish you’d take that to heart and just be yourselves, but you won’t. 2) Don’t spread rumors about people. They’re rarely true. Don’t be cruel. I don’t care if people have been cruel to you, don’t be cruel. 3) Only girls have menstrual cycles. 4) If you must insult someone, do it with style. Never, never, never sing an insult, especially not one based on a cover song by Big Mountain. 5) Stand up to bullies. 6) Don’t cheat. Cheating makes you stupid. 7) Puberty does end. Ask your parents about sex, not your classmates. 9) Violence is self-perpetuating. It accomplishes nothing. People hurt you because they themselves are hurting, but that’s no excuse. 10) Middle school is like a snapshot of the world in all its messiness, ugliness, hurt, and beauty. Without Jesus, we are hopeless. Thank you.”

[I exit the stage, shiver, and offer up a prayer of thanks for making it out of the arena without being killed and roasted on a spit by middle schoolers.]

Jim’s package

I am fortunate to come from a family of verbal blunderers.

My mom has often brought laughter to dinner conversations without ever intending to make a joke.

Her younger sister Amy was born the year my mom married my dad. Amy is only about six years older than me and has always been more like a cousin, but she is definitely my mom’s sister, as the following story illustrates.

We were celebrating my brother-in-law Jim’s birthday with my mom’s side of the family at P.F. Chang’s.

Jim was sitting in the middle of our big table on the opposite side from me. Different family members assembled a few cards and a wrapped gift in front of him.

Amy was sitting a few seats to his right.

There was a brief lull in conversation.

You know the kind. They happen for a number of reasons. Someone makes an awkward or offensive remark. Two people are angry with one another, and this conflict balloons into a palpable discomfort. Or, perhaps, nothing at all is wrong, and the momentary silence signifies a simple shift in a number of conversations, all at the same time. When I was younger, I remember other kids pinning superstitions to this kind of pregnant pause—a ghost passed through the room, an earthworm died in France, an angel got its wings. I believe in supernatural occurrences like miracles, but I don’t think two seconds of silence in a room mean that a sherpa in Tibet got indigestion from unpasteurized yak’s milk at the same time a 23-year-old gas station attendant outside of Glasgow found some euros in an old jacket. C’mon, people.

In an Asian fusion chain restaurant on West End Avenue in Nashville, Tennessee, my aunt Amy scanned our faces and offered her explanation for those two seconds of silence:

“We were all just sitting around staring at Jim’s package!”

I, for one, was doing nothing of the sort.

Amy’s observation created another two or three seconds of silence before we all burst into laughter.

Amy was confused.

“Think about what you just said.”

Her double entendre finally sank in, and she turned red.

My family isn’t one that passes around lots of dirty jokes and sexual innuendo, so Jim’s birthday was a very special occasion indeed.

Piercings and Bill Leftfoot

I celebrated my graduation from high school by doing things of which my parents would disapprove.

Rebellion is nothing unique to me. We see the light at the end of the tunnel—freedom! No more rules, no more curfew. No more questions about where we’re going, who will be there, or when we’ll be home. No more comments on our clothes, our language, our tardiness, or our laziness.

I was free to slouch into mediocrity and complacency, squandering my glorious potential on Super Smash Brothers and sleeping in.

My first act of defiance was to take myself right down to Icon Piercing, then occupying a couple of rooms above the Dairy Queen on West End Avenue, and get my cartilage pierced. What I hoped to accomplish by paying someone to punch a hole in my left ear is a mystery. I suppose it was self-expression, but I do wonder whether I would have done it if my parents had said, “Do what you want. We don’t care.”

To my delight, they were displeased. When my ear got infected and I had to go to the doctor for antibiotics, their displeasure only deepened. No matter, I was my own man, and they could take their disappointment in my appearance and my choices to someone who cared. I was so independent, free-thinking, and original, right?

When my grandfather saw my piercing, all he said was, “I wish that wasn’t there.”

My next step into adulthood was one my parents didn’t know about until last weekend. Certain acts of stupidity need eight to ten years to become funny. My friends Jonathan, Will, Bear, and I pooled our capital and bought an ‘88 Volkswagen Golf hatchback for $350.

This is perhaps the best decision I have made to date, other than following Jesus.

We first ripped out everything in the interior of the car that didn’t required tools. This included the center console and the glove compartment.

Why?

Because we could. It was our car.

We then found heavy sticks and a couple of metal pipes to store in the cargo space. At stoplights and intersections, we would pile out of the car, choose a weapon, and do as much damage to the paint job and body as we could before the light turned green. This was particularly fun to do in the middle of Green Hills.

The car had some mechanical problems. For example, if you shifted into reverse, you could only go backwards for a few seconds before the clutch popped the car out of gear.

We had no license, registration, or insurance for the Golf. This made every adventure a bit more exciting. Without a muffler, our little hatchback was louder than the biggest truck you’ve ever seen. I do not exaggerate when I say that you could hear it coming two miles away.

One time, the engine caught on fire in Jonathan’s driveway. We all stood around looking at it while Jonathan ran inside then ran back out carrying a single glass of water.

We all stood back as Christopher started it up. It ran better. The fire must have burned away all the impurities.

In between beating sessions and the nights when we would go for joy rides and run over people’s bagged leaves, For Sale signs, and trashcans, we parked the Golf in one of Lipscomb University’s parking lots.

One day, after we finished eating at the meat market where I choked on my beef stroganoff, we were approached by one of Lipscomb’s security guards. Back when I was in high school at David Lipscomb on the same campus, we parked across the street in a lot that belonged to Granny White Church of Christ. People kept breaking into the cars during school hours and stealing cd players. To remedy this problem, Lipscomb hired two of the oldest men in Nashville. Even after securing the protection of the Geezer Patrol, the break-ins continued. I wondered if the new security guards snoozing away in their Buick boats had anything to do with it. After school, they’d be asleep with their heads back. No doubt my car and my valuables were in capable hands.

I want to say it was Carl who tapped on the window of the Golf after lunch that day. He asked what we were doing.

“We just finished eating lunch.”

He asked if we had permission to park our car at Lipscomb.

We reassured him that we were both students at the high school.

He asked to see our IDs.

Yeah, about that, well, we didn’t have them on us. It was summer after all.

He asked Bear what his name was.

Bear turned to look at me then said to Carl, “Bill.”

“Bill what?”

Bear looked at me again. “Leftfoot. Bill Leftfoot.”

Of all the phony aliases he could have chosen, Bear picked the one that sounded least plausible. I did a Google search just now with “Bill Leftfoot.” No one in the history of humankind has ever been named Bill Leftfoot.

Carl the Geezer wasn’t buying it. He asked us to step out of the car.

Bear politely ignored him, put the car into reverse, put the car into reverse again, and a third time, and we finally drove out of the parking lot. I turned around to look at Carl in his white synthetic cowboy hat. Poor Carl. Even with the car’s mechanical problems, we would be in the next county by the time he got back into his car. No chance of a chase.

We didn’t have the car for very long after that. Parking on Lipscomb’s campus was asking for trouble, so we moved it three miles down the street to Belmont’s campus. We went to get it one day, and it was gone. Probably towed by some beastly man with no concept of how to love a car well.

My dad sells insurance, so everything mentioned above would have stressed him out if he’d known back then. Sometimes, oftentimes, what our parents don’t know can’t hurt them.

They never mean to smother us, only love and protect. They’re just human.

We have to teach them that the world needs piercings and Bill Leftfoot. The world needs the sound of a metal pipe putting a dent in an ‘88 Volkswagen Golf hatchback in the middle of a busy suburban shopping district. The world needs risk-takers and people who challenge our conceptions of what “normal,” “presentable,” and “appropriate” look like.

The world needs you to be yourself—to become more fully alive.

Just please don’t blame your arrest and jail sentence on me.

I hate cats

I hate cats.

I say that with the full knowledge that hating cats is all the rage right now. All sorts of people hate cats then go eat sushi then film themselves tweeting about these activities on their Twitter feeds then upload these videos to YouTube. They do all this while wearing v-neck t-shirts from American Apparel and skinny jeans and plastic Blue Brothers sunglasses in fluorescent green and pink. These people have long conversations about the drawbacks of cats while smoking organic American Spirit cigarettes and listening to A.A. Bondy and Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes.

However, before you lump me into the same category as the chic cat haters who drink Sparks and refuse to wear deoderant, please hear me out and then decide whether or not my feline vitriol is justified.

****

My family had lots of cats when my two sisters and I were younger—Cinnamon and Sugar, Emily and Bubba. I forget what happened to the first two, but when I was walking through the garage one morning to get to my car, I discovered a bloodied and torn-up Emily laying on the polished concrete. I went back inside to tell my mom that Emily had had a run-in with a coyote or raccoon or disturbed teenager. Poor Emily died soon after.

Bubba disappeared my junior year of college around Halloween. The police had found evidence of Satanic rituals in the hills surrounding our neighborhood, so I hoped that a pack of hungry coyotes were the culprits. I’ve heard that cats wander off to die alone, so maybe it was just Bubba’s time. Who knows.

Cats were never my favorite. I prefer dogs. However, I never bore any true malice towards them. They don’t love you the ways dogs do, and they stare through you like they know every sin you’ve ever committed. They act likes monarchs, as though in their generosity they allow their owners to continue living in the house so long as they continue to pay homage: small cans of Salmon Florentine with Garden Medley. If the owner defaults on said tax, the cat punish disobedience with needle-sharp teeth and feces-infused claws. It is not for nothing that cats lick their privates and store up dangerous bacteria. Provoke them, and you will be sorry.

I learned this the hard way.

My dad was in the hospital having the latest in a series of surgeries trying to correct a congenital problem with his intestines. A deep-fried meal at Harry T’s in Destin, Florida, precipitated the latest clog in the plumbing—he’d been fine for ten years—and my mom finally convinced him to go to the hospital on a Saturday night.

I had planned to return to Knoxville to resume my job hunt, but I wanted to wait around until I knew what was wrong with my dad. The doctors were deciding whether or not he needed surgery on Monday morning. On Sunday night, I invited my friends Hunter, Holly, and Chelsea over to grill out some hamburgers. I was going in and out taking the burgers and seasoning to the grill, so Max the Cat escaped the house. Max is notorious for not wanting to come back inside but on his own good time.

Right about the time we finished dinner, it began to rain. I knew my mom would be upset with me if I left their precious, if demon-possessed, cat outside to get soaked. Even though I thought a good dousing might help his bad attitude, I went outside to find him.

Max was sitting on the brick window ledge outside the den.

I petted him with my right hand to calm him down before trying to pick him up. Once he seemed pacified, I reached forward with my left hand to scoop him up.

Max chomped down twice on my left wrist.

At this point, I was holding him by the scruff, and he was hissing at me.

Whatever. He could suffer in the rain if he was going to be a jerk. Par for the course.

I went back inside to hang out with my friends, who heard the story, saw my bleeding wrist, and agreed that cats are Satan’s special agents of destruction and pain in homes around the world.

Before I went to bed that night, I got a blanket, went back outside, and captured Max. Nobody likes to get bitten, but Max is an animal, so what did I expect? I’m not cruel.

I noticed that my wrist had begun to swell, and I no longer had full range of motion. Interesting.

When I woke up, even bending my wrist was painful.

I went to the hospital and found out that my dad was having surgery, which went very well. After seeing him, I said my good-byes and drove home to pack up my truck to head back to Knoxville. I stopped at my grandparents’ house on my way out of town to pick up a rug.

While telling them about what happened with Max, I noticed that red streaks were running from the bites all the way up to my armpit. I’d seen them earlier but thought I must have just been scratching my arms.

Nope.

My grandparents suggested that I call my uncle Nathan, who is a doctor. He’d already written a prescription for some by-mouth antibiotics to treat the infection from the bites. When I described the streaks to him, he told me to check myself in to the emergency room at Saint Thomas hospital where he works.

Long story short, I checked myself in and had to stay two nights.

My parents’ cat put me in the hospital for two days. Max the Scourge of the Devil injected me with Bartonella bacteria when he bit me. I got Cat Scratch Disease (CSD). Why? For trying to bring him in out of the rain.

“But he’s just an animal!” you argue. “He didn’t know any better!”

Well, over $2000 in medical bills later, that’s not even the point. I was hooked up to an IV getting liquid antibiotics to keep the infection from spreading to my heart and thus to the rest of my body. My dad was six doors down and on morphine. He couldn’t sleep because he was in so much pain. All sorts of visitors stopped in to see me after they checked on him.

Why was I in the hospital? A stupid, malicious cat.

Talk about feeling ridiculous. Cancer? Heart disease? Kidney stones? Broken bone?

No. A mean cat.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I don’t intend to be shamed.

I’m sure your cat is lovely, a perfect doll. It probably makes you dinner and pays your taxes. It’s probably never put you in the hospital.

Well, bully for you. I hope your cat love affair lasts a lifetime. I hope you grow older together and reminisce on the front porch.

I hate cats. I’d be a fool not to.

If you can think of a good reason for me to reconsider, please feel free to share. Until then, I assert that cats love evil.

Mexican ketchup

So my family has started reading Gu.e.

They now stop themselves in the middle of telling stories: “Oh, I shouldn’t say that. It might end up on Austin’s blog.”

Great. Now they’re going to practice self-restraint and try to be normal, and I’ll have nothing to write about.

I think that if I am going to write, then using family for material is a given. Flannery O’Connor is known for saying that if you make it out of childhood, you have enough to write about the rest of your life. Well, I never plan on making it out of my childhood, so let the anecdotes, absurdities, and irreverent banter continue to flow.

Since I now have to be careful what I say about my family—poppycock!—I’ll only be sharing hypothetical stories. Writing a book like Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes could get me in big trouble. His memoir didn’t exactly describe his family’s halos and laud their generous virtues.

I’d rather not have a falling out with my family. Spending time with them is one of my favorite pastimes, and I’m still on my parents’ cell phone plan. There’s a lot I stand to lose by alienating them.

I’ve been told that I’m allowed to write about my relatives after they’re dead.

Super. What if I die first and the world misses out on all those stories? I have a responsibility that I intend to honor. My family toes the line of sanity, and people need to know about all that ridiculousness.

I drank an Americano and came up with a solution: anytime I write about my family from now on, I’m writing about hypothetical situations. Understood? I’m not saying it did happen, I’m saying that on December 23, 2007, the following situation unfolded, and the family involved may or may not have been mine. I’m not pointing fingers.

That said, if you happen to know someone in my family, don’t go up and say, “Hey, I read Austin’s blog post, ‘Mexican Ketchup,’ and I can’t believe you said that.” You could make a fool of yourself because IT MAY HAVE HAPPENED TO SOMEONE ELSE’S FAMILY. Ha.

Do we have an understanding? (I’m narrowing my eyes and giving you a significant look.)

Good.

****

Every year, the dad’s side of somebody’s family eats at Kobe’s Steakhouse off of West End Avenue. We’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember.

Kobe’s is a hibachi-style Japanese restaurant where a chef cooks your food right in front of you. The chef’s antics and canned jokes make the meal more a performance than a quiet affair. He’ll use a spatula to flip shrimp tails into his shirt pocket, his hat, or someone’s glass of water. He’ll stack slices of onion into the tapered cone of a volcano, pour vodka through the hole in the center, and light it on fire.

This particular year, our chef was Hispanic, not Asian.

No biggie, right? I’m sure he’s got the skills if he’s got the job. What does his race have to do with anything?

He says hello to everyone and begins setting out the shallow rectangular dishes for the dipping sauces. While he’s ladling out the soy-based sauce for steak, he says, “Japanese A1.’

Ha, ha, we’ve heard it a dozen times before. Everyone gives a courtesy laugh, and we go back to our conversations. This is what is expected of us. We know the script, and we play our part.

Once the Hispanic chef has passed out the Japanese A1, he starts on the reddish dipping sauce for chicken, seafood, and vegetables.

“Japanese ketchup,” he says.

Ha, ha. We all laugh, and we turn back to our conversations, but wait, our hypothetical Grandma has something to say.

She leans forward, making sure that he notices her, then makes a joke of her own, “You mean Mexican ketchup?”

He gives her a crooked smile, then turns back to his work.

[Silence.]

What just happened?

Did she really just say that?

I don’t know what was worse, what she said or what my hypothetical self did before I could catch him.

I kneed her under the table. She was sitting to my left, and I whacked her with my bony kneecap.

What just happened?

Did I really just do that?

She turns to look at me with a smile on her face. She shakes her shoulder and crinkles her nose—that posture that says, “I made a funny, didn’t I!”

Yikes.

Grandmas are tricky creatures.

You never can tell what they’re going to say. They are given to extravagant acts of generosity and waking up at 4am to do crossword puzzles. They know how to make biscuits, and they know all the high-scoring two-letter words in Scrabble.

I have two of them. They never cease to amaze me. I might get a random check for $100 in the mail for “gas money” or I might get something less tangible, like a story to tell.

But like I said before, I am not saying that this happened in my family. This may just be something I heard about on Facebook or CNN. Okay? Do we have an understanding?

Good.

In praise of 7s and 8s

My dad gives great advice.

He has a tendency to “sermonize,” as I call it, but those times when he gets straight to the point always end up being pure gold.

He also has an excellent sense of humor that few people have experienced in its purest form. When I would come home early from a date and he’d still be up, sitting in his red leather throne and watching Letterman, he thought it was funny to ask, with one eyebrow raised, “So what base did you get to?”

I knew better than to be embarrassed. It was never a serious question demanding a serious answer. The only reason he was even comfortable saying this aloud was that he assumed that I kept my hands to myself, which I did. Having two sisters gives you special insight into the damage done by sleazy guys with busy hands. Every girl is somebody’s sister or some dad’s baby girl.

I’ve dated more than my dad ever did, but he’s had more experiences with people.

If I remember correctly, he was standing at the kitchen sink, and I was sitting at the table. I must have gone through some minor break-up in the recent past that precipitated the following conversation:

“Austin,” he said, “Do you mind if I give you some advice?”

“No. Go ahead.”

“Okay. You’ve brought some pretty girls home over the years. In fact, most of them have been gorgeous—9s and 10s. The trouble is that you are disappointed time after time when they don’t seem to have much character or a very good sense of humor. They don’t treat you well, or they’re high maintenance, obsessed with their looks. You get your hopes up and you get let down. Don’t get me wrong: it’s important to be attracted to the woman you’re going to marry. By all means, date pretty girls, but all I want is for you to consider bringing home more 7s and 8s. I’d like to see more 7s and 8s around here. They’re the type of pretty you want to grow old with. 7s and 8s turn into 8s, 9s, and 10s the longer you know them.”

He had a point. I call it The Sunflower Principle, and I’ve written about it elsewhere.

Achtung, everyone: forget about 9s and 10s.

Remember that scene in A Beautiful Mind when Russell Crowe’s character, John Nash, realizes that if he and his friends all go after the hottest woman at the bar, then none of them will take her home, they’ll offend her friends in the process, and every one of them will still be alone? Nash has a revelation that he later applies to economics: if each one of them pursues one of her friends, they all have a much greater chance of success. In that fictional scenario, competition over the hottest woman guaranteed failure.

What he meant to say is that 9s and 10s are responsible for all the brokenness in the world.

Thank you, Dad, for good advice, even if you generalized.

Perhaps the world holds two or three women with perfect features and curvy, athletic figures who score a 10 out of 10 on the hotness chart and love Jesus (which is important to me) and like thought-provoking literature and films and eat sushi and nurture insatiable wanderlust and take good care of people and love kindness, compassion, and justice and want to recycle and support local businesses and ride bikes to work and eat organic foods and live within their means and don’t cake on the make-up and read poetry and refuse to answer their cell phones when in the middle of a conversation and aren’t afraid to go for days without showering. Maybe up to half a dozen of these women exist…

in the minds of sad saps who are afraid of commitment and believe that love is a feeling, not something we practice.

These are men whose fathers were playing golf and eating cheeseburgers on the day that they were supposed to tell their sons, “I’d like to see more 7s and 8s around here.”

Three cheers for 7s and 8s!

9s and 10s can have their big boobs and chiseled abs and eat a turd.

Farkle

My favorite game in the world is Farkle.

Why?

Because Farkle is the best game in the world.

Why?

Because the loser suffers the consequence that all the players agree upon beforehand.

That means that some unlucky person—or unlucky people, depending on the consequence—has to do something embarrassing, disgusting, or hilarious. I’ve played this game all over the world with people of all ages. From snarfing down gobs of mayonnaise to streaking through the suburbs, Farkle will deliver the best stories you have to tell. Every time. It’s like Truth-or-Dare without the Truth option.

I’ve posted a video on YouTube to give you a taste of the realm of possibilities.

Please watch the video. I promise that you will be irrevocably touched.

Thermometer? I’d rather die.

Talking to Rachel last night, I realized that sharing certain occurrences from childhood—out of context—enables you to see them in their true light.

Telling an objective third party makes you see just how ridiculous certain precautions actually were.

If we got sick when we were small and young, my mom mistrusted the temperature reading she got by asking us to hold the thermometer under our tongues. We must have fidgeted, which would, of course, mask a life-threatening brain fever or onslaught of flesh-eating bacteria from the Eagle Nebula.

The remedy?

She stuck it in our butts.

Seriously?

Sheesh, I’m embarrassed even thinking about it now. Talk about a shiver running down my spine: watching her use Vasoline to lube up a piece of glass with mercury, a harmful element, inside. Knowing that I would have to lie on my stomach on the den floor and wait as she administered this device which was supposed to be a part of the cure.

Nonsense.

“Yes, I feel like garbage. Oh? What’s that you say? I’ll magically feel better if you stick something up my butt? Okay! Sounds peachy!”

Oh sure, and then Michael Jordan is going to come to my birthday party and carry me around on his shoulders. 

Could all the doctors, scientists, and inventors not cast a care to all the poor children out there stretched out in all their shame in the most frequently traveled room in the house with only Granny Dean’s afghan to cover their fragile pride?

Granny Dean’s afghan had holes in it, so the thermometer could stick through. Our tiny bums were like creme-colored hillocks skewered by a radio tower. I was getting a signal and a message alright: never tell anyone that you’re sick. Terrible things happen to tender places.

There’s a thought that will put the chill of death in your bones: Dad walking through the den and oopsy! wasn’t watching where he was going and stepped on the thermometer and drove it like the point of a spear through the delicate tissue of your something-you-need-intact-to-be-a-confident-adult.

It could have happened. Seriously.

Holy crap. I can’t believe the modern kid doesn’t have to go through this rite of passage. They get a slight tickle in the ear canal, and voila! no more cause for concern. 

“No, Mom, I don’t have a fever. Even if I did, I’d rather die from it than endure another one of your medical treatments.”

I know she did her best. My dad, too. But for the love of all that is holy, please don’t stick glass in my butt! Not in the name of science, not for the sake of my health. Just please let me die here with my dignity intact. And no, I don’t want any orange sherbert and Sprite. 

Thanks for nothing, 1980s.

Their Best Life Now

Some of you may like Joel Osteen. This post isn’t intended for you.

This post is intended for people who would like to “bless” their friends with a free gift, 30 Thoughts for Victorious Living, video streaming, weekly podcasts, and daily devotionals, compliments of Joel Osteen Ministries.

A couple of years ago, I decided that my best friend Hunter was in need of such blessing.

I followed two easy steps:

1) I went to my e-mail and copied his e-mail address.

2) I signed him up for what at that time were called Osteen’s “Daily Word” and “Weekly e-Votional.”

I care about Hunter a lot. The great lengths I went to to ensure that Hunter didn’t miss a single inspiring message from Joel bear testimony to that love and affection. We’ve known each other for about 23 years, and his spiritual vitality is as important to me as my own.

As with most of my selfless gestures, I forgot about signing him up.

One Saturday night when I was home visiting my friends and family in Nashville, I went over to Hunter and Holly’s apartment to hang out. We took their dog Kiev on a walk. Hunter filled me in on a problem he was having. His inbox was filling up with spam from Joel Osteen Ministries. He’d unsubscribed twice from the distribution list, but the inspiring messages kept coming.

You can’t stop a revolution.

Hunter’s next strategem was to use stronger language in his reply e-mails. Maybe that would convince them.

I was at this point in danger of giving myself a hemorrhoid from holding in my laughter. For my health, I finally released my pent-up jubilation.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“I signed you up for that!”

He called me a name I won’t repeat.

I am proud to say that Hunter was only the beginning. I’ve signed up most of my friends. More people should find themselves in his dilemma. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. We must find creative ways to follow through with this responsibility. If we truly care about those closest to us, we should practice utmost diligence in collecting their contact information—multiple e-mail addresses, phone numbers, mailing addresses, and social security numbers.

Remember that we are to love our enemies. I can’t think of a better way to love them than to open up the floodgates of the golden globe above the stage in the Houston Astrodome. If you have trouble finding a valid e-mail for your enemies, check Facebook. 

We need to put Joel Osteen Ministries in contact with as many people as possible, so that Joel can give our loved ones their best life now.

It’s the right thing to do. We owe it to them.

>> Please post your success stories in the comments section of this blog. Let the encouragement flow like new wine!

least masculine souvenir of all time

I spent two months in the summer of 2004 working with Warringah Church of Christ in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. My best friend Hunter and another friend from Lipscomb University, Benji, were also there.

We stayed with different families from the church for one or two weeks at a time.

We especially enjoyed living with the Lubens. Bob refurbished vintage surfboards and liked to drive fast. Linda made us laugh with her impromptu mothering and cooked lamb roast on Sundays.

Most Australian homes have no central heating and air. Summertime in the States corresponds with winter Down Under. The Luben household used space heaters in different rooms. Your feet would get cold if you walked around without shoes on.

Bob was proud of his house shoes. He encouraged us to try them on, insisting that they were an Australian original, a great souvenir. He’d bought them from a guy who set up a table at the local mall. He was right-the shearling kept your feet warm and the sheepskin leather was durable. They even had a decent sole for going to get the paper or taking out the trash.

I like to buy souvenirs that have some purpose other than cluttering up the top of a dresser. I don’t ever want to buy hutches or shelves or cabinets to hold mementos from my world travels. Give me something like a satchel or wallet or shoes that I can use often.

Those boots made in Australia were right up my alley-functional, well-made, and authentic.

I bought a pair. I loved them. My feet stayed toasty warm, and I found them for cheaper than what Bob had paid.

Our two months came to a close, we packed our duffels and our backpacks, and the three of us returned to the States.

Back in the good ole U.S. of A., I was in for a nasty surprise.

I’m the only straight male in the country with a pair of Ugg boots. Bob led me astray. Those boots are not meant for chopping wood and butchering wild beasts. No, middle school girls cruise around the mall in them, and sorority girls of ill repute wear them in the summer.

Just when I thought I was being smart by passing up the didgeridoo and boomerang, I get stuck with the least masculine souvenir of all time. I may as well have start wearing pants with “Juicy” across the butt and saying, ”like,” every other word.

At least I petted a koala.

¿Cuantos anos tienes tu?

I took my first trip out of the country the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school.

My three best friends and I went to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, with our youth group from Hillsboro Church of Christ.

At this point, I had two years of Latin under my belt and spoke not a lick of Spanish. We visited a cathedral on a hill overlooking the city, and my classical training enabled me to translate a passage of scripture on one of the stained-glass windows: “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” (Luke 2:52)

Pretty impressive, right? I could conjugate the crap out of the Latin verb meaning “to kill”—neco—but I couldn’t communicate with other human beings. Try this on for size: “Ego amo magnam tuum praedam.” “I love your big booty.” I put together that sentence for the construction paper cards we made on Valentine’s Day. 

Yet, if I’d drifted away from the group, I wouldn’t even have been able to stop someone and ask, “Have you seen a big group of loud gringos carrying bags full of tourist crap?”

As much as I loved my Latin teacher Miss Tracey and appreciated her willigness to treat me as a unique person and not just another drone passing through her class, Señora Lindsey, David Lipscomb High School’s Spanish-speaking titan, might have saved me from my most embarrassing moment in Honduras.

Our group was staying at Baxter Institute, a bible school that trained preachers to minister in Honduras and other countries in Central and South America. We ate our meals with the faculty and students in an expansive dining hall in the campus’s main building. Scott, my youth minister, encouraged us to spread out and try to get to know some of the students while we were eating. Some of them spoke a little English, but most smiled and said, “Buenos,” the same as us.

One morning at breakfast, my gregariousness got the best of me. As I put my tray down and settled into my seat, I turned to the young Honduran man next to me and said, “Me llamo Austin.

He told me his name.

“¿Cuantos anos tienes tu?” I asked. I thought I was saying, “¿Cuantos años tienes tu?”

What’s the difference? you might be wondering. Well, the difference is you either ask a guy how old he is or you make a complete fool of yourself. The accent mark above the “n” in “años” is called a “tilde” and happens to be crucial.

I found this out the hard way. Tildes signifies that you’re supposed to add a “y” to the pronunciation of años, as in  “AHN-yose,” not “AHN-os.” Latin has no tildes.

I asked, “¿Cuantos anos tienes tu?” and thought I was saying, “How old are you?” or literally, “How many years do you have?”

My new friend was confused. He leaned away from me, looking at me like I’d just grown horns. He turned to his friends at the table. For a moment, everyone was silent, then they all erupted into laughter.

He turned back to me and held up a pointer finger. 

“Uno,” he said.

Why is that little tilde crucial? 

Because I’d just asked a stranger, “How many anuses do you have?” 

I’m just glad his answer was one.

If anybody has Rosetta Stone software for Spanish, please let me know.

You have to get up anyway

My freshman year of college at Lipscomb University, I lived next door to a guy who chose his own nickname.

He was short and skinny with lots of freckles and blond hair that he spiked up with product. He believed that he had lots of game.

I didn’t think too much about our proximity at first. He seemed nice enough.

My roommate and I chose beds and settled into our room on the second floor of High Rise. David put some tin signs with John Deere, Remington, and Coca-Cola on them. They helped masked the sanitarium white of the cinderblock walls. We each had a closet and a desk, and we shared a mini-fridge and futon. Our parents retreated to Nashville’s suburbs. Life was sweet.

I took fourteen hours that first semester. My earliest class started at 9:00am—Introduction to Psychology. I’d get up at 8:45, put on a hat and my clothes from the day before, and slide into my desk right before Dr. Turner cleared his throat.

Steve’s earliest class began at 8:00am. He needed an hour to get ready, so without fail, he’d wake up, turn up the music on his computer, then walk down the hall to the shower. His roommate was never around. Otherwise, we never would have had a problem. As it was, the 10″ subwoofer hooked up to Steve’s computer made the tin signs on our wall vibrate like a hoopty with a system and some serious amps.

BBBBRRRRRrrrrrr. BBBBRRRRRrrrrrr. I’d sit in bed listening to Boyz 2 Men or ‘N Sync or A Cappella and get more and more irritated. After all, I wasn’t supposed to wake up for another hour and a half.

We took the tin signs down, but that didn’t help much. More extreme measures were necessary.

Steve would leave his door unlocked, so I let myself in and turned down the volume, assuming that he’d get the picture.

No such luck.

For a couple more weeks, the bass sounded like two lost whale lovers sounding to each other in the fathomless deep. I was starting to feel just a touch of resentment.

Now I need my sleep. As I’ve gotten a little bit older, I can catch the crankiness before I aim it at anybody. I know to keep my mouth shut and make the best of it. However, when I was 19, I had less self-control and more passivity.

One morning while Steve was in the shower, I went into his room, shut off the music, and unplugged his computer.

Surely he would get a clue. Surely he would notice the silence in his room and a light bulb would click on in his brain, “Oh! People are trying to sleep. Perhaps I should be more considerate, and if I must have late 90s pop with my Fruit Loops, the least I can do is turn down my Mariah Carey.”

No such luck.

The aural terrorism continued.

I may have, as a general rule, disliked and even avoided confrontation, but every man reaches the breaking point. It was time to make something happen.

I waited until I knew Steve was back in his room from his shower, then I knocked on his door. The music was so loud he couldn’t hear me. I turned the knob and walked in. 

“What’s up?”

“We need to talk.”

He furrowed his brow.

“Okay,” he said.

I decided to use tact and logic: “You turn up your music really loud as soon as you get up, then you go straight to the shower. You’re not even listening to it. My first class isn’t till 9. I don’t get up till 8:45. Your music wakes me up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Would you please find a way to keep it down so that I can sleep?”

I am still amazed at his response.

He replied, “You have to get up anyway.”

Was he joking?

I stared at him. He stared back at me. Nope, he wasn’t joking.

Perhaps all of us are egocentric. Our selfishness is as large as greed and as small as the volume of KC & Jo Jo’s “All My Life” at 7:07am. Those of us who have brothers and sisters and received socialization at school, on sports teams, and in youth groups could sometimes face concrete evidence of our selfishness by taking offering an apology and accepting some measure of responsibility. We agreed to try harder to be more considerate in the future.

Steve was unfazed. Apparently, thumping bass was his birthright.

He ceded this birthright when I gave up on diplomacy and threatened violence.

I have to respect his blind allegiance to himself though. 

That kind of self-centeredness becomes a caricature like big, floppy ears or a lumpy nose. It’s so absurd that it’s almost endearing. Almost.

I’m glad I didn’t stuff him out the window. I guess no college experience is complete without some inconsiderate or kooky roommates. Steve was only the beginning.

Tape Ball to the Face

One of the crowning achievements up to that point in my life was knocking a squirrel out of a tree with a rock. It fell off the branch, hit the ground, popped up without the slightest trace of embarassement, and ran right back up the tree. 

Throwing one object at another seems to be hardwired into boys. 

Most sports are built around this concept. I’ve thrown rocks at squirrels, poppers at passing cars, donuts at windshields, water balloons, snowballs, grapes at my tennis coach, queso dip at a girl named Sarah, darts, Frisbees, pencils at acoustic ceiling tiles, eggs at everything, pieces of firewood at streetlamps, bottles at road signs, coins, mud, and large insects.

Now that I think about it, I realize that a large portion of my life has been spent chucking the any projectile at hand at a target.

Don’t think that this stops when boys grow into men. 

I was teaching English to four classes of juniors and two classes of freshmen at David Lipscomb High School. Quite a few of my students sang in Concert Choir, Chorale, or the Freshmen Choir, and on one particular day most of my second class of freshmen were gone all day because they were singing at a choir festival on Lipscomb University’s campus.

I was twenty-three years old at the time and had zero education classes under my belt, but I was no dummy. I wasn’t about to teach that day’s lesson to half the class only to repeat the exercise the next day. What I didn’t know then but soon discovered was that I’m a better mentor than high school teacher anyway. I loved spending time with my students outside of class because that’s when real learning was most likely to happen. I jumped at any opportunity to escape those four white cinderblock walls with them.

Inevitably, when my students discovered a wrench in the gears of our normal routine, they would ask to go to Lipscomb University’s Student Center, which was a short walk across campus and sold all kinds of food and candy.

I had no reason to say no that spring day, so we strolled across campus. They scattered into the bookstore, Uncle Dave’s, and couches and chairs all over the lobby.

We hung out for a while talking and cutting up until it was time to shepherd them back for their next classes. We walked from the main lobby through the bookstore to a door on the side of the building, which lets out onto the lawn between the Student Center and Elam, one of the girl’s dorms.

For some reason, Anna was carrying around a tape ball, and when I saw Jennifer, a girl who had been in the youth group when I was the interim youth minister at Hillsboro Church of Christ, a sequence of synapses fired down an old path and all my boyishness was brought to bear on the situation at hand. 

[Enter slow motion.]

Jennifer and her friend Kayce were walking up the stairs to the side entrance of Elam.

I held out my palm to Anna, and said one word: “Ball.”

For whatever reason, she didn’t hesitate and dropped it into my hand without question.

I’m left-handed, so I switched hands, reared back, and hummed that tape ball straight at Jennifer.

Or so I thought.

Somehow, in the immediacy of the moment, my vision became skewed, and I missed a key element in the equation: another girl, a stranger to me, was walking up the stairs ahead of my friends.

Oh no.

As I mentioned before, I had at this point entered samurai consciousness, and the action was unfolding frame by frame.

The stranger stepped up onto the short covered walkway that led to the door. She must have seen movement with her peripheral vision because she turned to her right.

At that very moment, the tape ball made impact with her forehead, right between her eyes. This was perhaps the finest result that my otherwise average throwing arm has every produced.

She roared something like, “BRRroagggghh!” and bent over double. With her left hand still covering her face, she used her right hand to pick up the tape ball, which she then tossed over the railing with the sissy throw of a very angry and unathletic person.

“I’m so sorry!” I yelled. “It was an accident. I wasn’t aiming for you at all!”

She said nothing, just yanked open the door and disappeared inside. 

The door shut with a click.

Perfect silence.

Jennifer and I stared at each other. We both turned to look at the blank face of the door. I turned to my left and right and looked at my kids. They looked back at me. Their eyes were wide, but no one moved.

Then, we all started laughing, and continued to laugh for the next thirty seconds.

My boys unfroze and gave me high fives. With their jaws dropped, my girls said, “Mr. Church, that was terrible.”

Twenty yards away, Jennifer was wiping tears from her eyes. She threw the ball back to me, and I returned it to Anna.

“Do you know her?” I asked.

“No!” Jennifer said.

This precipitated another round of laughter.

“Well, if you ever see her again, tell her I’m sorry, will you?”

We said our good-byes then walked back over to the high school.

News of my latest goof as a young, inexperienced teacher circulated amongst my other classes. If anything, my students treated me with more respect. After all, my aim that day was awe-inspiring. Yes, I was a human being who sometimes exercised poor judgment but at least was willing to apologize for my lapses and missteps. 

The tape ball incident also helped cement my reputation as a teacher unafraid of throwing curveballs at my students. They couldn’t pigeonhole me as some curmudgeonly young fart without a funny bone in his body. Being consistently unpredictable can be the most effective form of classroom management. 

Teach with no regrets.

Moral: Everything you need to know about teaching you learned at recess in middle school.

Peekaru

Have you ever wanted to take on the road those delightful Dutch Ovens made possible by your nightly gastro-intestinal complaints? Have you ever wanted a way to capture the flatulence of your precious children and save those sweet gifts of methane?

Now you can!

Thanks to American ingenuity, the Peekaru provides a solution for both those problems! These easy-to-use Portable Dutch Ovens ensure that your child’s farts stay where they belong—close to your heart.

Click here to see pictures of fun-loving models with other people’s babies wearing FartSacks in the season’s hottest colors. Boy are they having fun! On the go, at the grocery, sightseeing at the pyramids—you’ll be the talk of the town with this fashionable fleece Womb-with-a-View. Peekaru? Peekaboo? Kangaroo? Right-O! Now we can all be marsupials!

The Best Product Since Snuggies!

 

“Hey, everyone, look! A head is growing out of my chest! Is it my conjoined twin? Silly, you! No! It’s my baby boy!” 

Best of all, they’re environmentally friendly! Every Peekaru saves 25 bottles from going into a landfill. So, with three babies suffocated for every 100 Peekarus sold, the Peekaru is the perfect way to diminish our ecological footprint and control the population! Way to go us!

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Brought to you by the country that gave you Snuggies.

Shame on me

In honor of April Fool’s Day, I’d like to list some of the pranks and mischief that I’ve orchestrated in years past:

High School

1) Stealing the ball from Coach Tillman’s mouse so that it wouldn’t work. Once he discovered what was happening, he asked for a backup from Phil Sanders, the IT guy at David Lipscomb High School. I searched until I found the backup then I stole it as well. Coach Tillman found this quite frustrating, which pleased me.

2) On occasion I found a tube of lip balm on the floor in the hall. In the afternoon, just before I left school for the day, I’d screw it all the way up then cake it behind Coach Tillman’s door knob. That way, he wouldn’t be able to see it when he unlocked the door and grabbed it to let himself into his room. I enjoyed the thought of his disgust and surprise as the lip balm coated his fingertips.

3) After a half-day at school, I ate lunch with some friends at San Antonio Taco Company, known to locals as “Satco.” Jonathan and I saved our leftover queso dip. We drove down to the football field where the track team was practicing. I motioned to Sarah M., who walked over. When she was in range, I threw the styrofoam container of queso dip at her. It hit her in the neck. Cheese splashed up the side of her face into her hair. It dripped down her front and down her back.

4) David, Justin, Jonathan, and I threw a four-foot-tall blue stuffed animal, a bunny, off the Natchez Trace bridge. We then drove to the bottom and ran over it a few times. The decency left in us said it was wrong to litter, so we took it with us and junked up Jonathan’s Explorer with styrofoam pellets. Sorry, Nonny John.

5) On three consecutive weekends, Jonathan, Will, Justin, and I cruised the streets of Brentwood and Green Hills looking for roadkill. Each Saturday night, we crammed one dead animal into Brittany’s mailbox. A raccoon, a big turtle, and a oppossum. Sorry, Brittany.

6) We tipped over a port-o-john in my neighborhood.

7) At the Coming Home football game my senior year, I put a dead squirrel in a brown paper bag. This bag I put on the condiments table at the concession stand with its tail sticking out.

8. We stuffed a dried-Christmas tree in Barrett’s Jeep.

9) We ordered 10 pizzas to a certain Geometry teacher.

10) I was Student Body President my senior year, and thus, was in charge of making announcements in chapel. A few days a week, I worked in nonexistent announcements about Zach Morris and other pop icons whom the teachers wouldn’t recognize. The students laughed, I kept a straight face, and the teachers were very confused.

11) Coach Tillman was also my youth minister. Jonathan, Will, Justin, and I went on a mission trip to Honduras with him. Without asking for permission, we trekked two miles through the crazy streets of Tegucigalpa to buy condoms at the Pali grocery store. These we unwrapped and put in Coach Tillman’s bed. He was displeased.

12) Our friend Ted’s father owned a donut shop. We’d roll in a few minutes before midnight just as Ted was closing the shop down. He’d give us all the jelly donuts that hadn’t sold. We would then cruise around and throw them at cars passing the opposite direction. The sound of a jelly donut hitting a windshield at about 60 miles per hours is akin to the laughter of a child in its ability to thrill the soul.

13) Certain mailboxes were found in the middle of the yards of their respective owners. Certain metal trashcans had dents so large they were no longer functional. I know nothing about that.

14) At fast food drive-thrus, we would either order items that weren’t on the menu or make ourselves impossible to understand. One lady at Krystal had the pleasure of taking my order for a pitching wedge. As you can imagine, she was confused. She told us to drive around to the window. You should have seen the look on her face when we drove through in reverse. She started laughing and told us to get on outta there.

15) Waiting until Coach Tillman left his room before sneaking in and turning off everything.

16) Squirrel crepe

17) The time I used a piece of bad modern art to befuddle driver’s at a busy intersection. This was also the only time one of my ideas made the newspaper.

College

1) I moved the pizza guy’s car when he was delivering a pizza to Fanning. I was on a double date at the time. He came out of the building holding the warmer. Bewildered, he just looked from side to side. His shoulders drooped. We had to get out of there after he saw us laughing.

2) Justin and I yanked the Toucan Sam hanging from the ceiling by fishing line in Uncle Dave’s while Jessica was working. 

3) “Borrowing” the maintenance golf carts. Sad day when they started locking them up.

4) Sneaking into a Jars of Clay concert in Allen Arena by climbing up the roof then putting on yellow Staff t-shirts David found in a box.

5) My younger sister Laura and I sent our cousin Jessie a taco through campus mail.

6) “Napkin Surprise” every day at lunch. INSTRUCTIONS: Take half the stack of napkins out of the basket. Scoop the nastiest leftovers on your tray on top of the remaining napkins. Smush the rest of the napkins on top of the food, thereby disguising it. Wait several days. Return to the table and check the surprise, or know in your heart that the surprise has touched the life of someone else.

7) Paging myself over the intercom in the High Rise lobby.

8. Pretending to be the Domino’s guy, calling random numbers in Elam dorm, convincing these strangers to buy the pizza for $5 so it wouldn’t come out of my paycheck, then watching from a corner as the girls came down with their money in hand, the pizza guy nowhere to be found.

9) Setting up a table and chairs in Lipscomb University’s commons area called “Bison Square.” Petioning people passing by for their contact information, signatures, and beer of choice. The petition was to get beer on tap in the cafeteria. Lipscomb is, of course, a dry campus. Drinking can get you kicked out. The signees were nervous, asking me if my petition was “for real.”

10) Staging very loud arguments in the library so that Mrs. Byers, the eagle-eye librarian, would ask us to leave.

11) During one of my rotations as the worship leader for University Bible, “UB” for short, an extended chapel service on Tuesday and Thursdays, I told over 2,000 people that we were going to start the morning off with some calisthenics. You could have heard a pin dropped. I think the only person who laughed was my friend Wilson McCoy. 

12) Using the words “pissed off” in a chapel talk and doing damage control for weeks. Being fussed at by everyone from the Dean of Campus Life to the elders at my church at the time. For some reason, providing the “context” for my word choice and explaining the words’ rhetorical effectiveness failed to appease any of these concerned individuals.

13) Wrapping up a 2-liter bottle of urine and giving it to a girl named Emily for Valentine’s Day. Strangely, we never went out on a date.

14) Picking the flowers around campus and giving them to girls. I’ve always been a hopeless romantic.

15) Potlucks in the library study rooms.

16) Carrying a tiny watergun in my right hand and soaking the front of people’s pants while engaging them in conversation.

 

• Please don’t judge me for any of the above. I’m a changed man. I did not send my mom an e-mail today telling her that I’d been laid off because of the economy. She did not write me back and say that she almost threw up after reading my e-mail. What sort of sick person would play such a cruel joke on his own mother? The woman who gave him life? Shame on whoever it was.

Lady lost her head

I’ve only made it into the paper once that I know of.

For years, I drove down Granny White Pike on my way to David Lipscomb. On the front porch of a house just past the intersection at Tyne sat a three-foot tall head. The head was white with colorful tattoos all over it. 

More pieces of bizarre modern art were scattered around the lawn.

My freshman year of college I finally decided to do something about it. I alway signed out on the weekends to my parents’ house to get around the 1:00am curfew. Most of the time I’d sneak through the window of Justin Chunn’s and David Lavender’s first story dorm room, and sleep in my bed in High Rise dorm.

This weekend I’d decided to crash at home. My dad had agreed to let me borrow his ‘98 black 4Runner. I picked up some friends, and we all went to Rites of Spring at Vanderbilt. Guster played. They were one of my favorite bands. The music and the rich, blond girls in their North Face jackets were making my head spin. Emily Waddell asked if I had been drinking. Nope. Just high on life, baby cakes.

After the show, we were looking for some mischief. The time was ripe.

We drove to the house on Granny White. 

In retrospect, we could have been a bit less brazen. I backed down the driveway, then Marshall, Justin, and Mike walked up to the front porch of the house, hoisted the head, and carried it back to the 4Runner. We loaded it then drove down the street 50 yards to the intersection. We then unloaded the giant head and positioned it in the middle of the intersection. Easter Island had come to middle Tennessee.

I parked on a side street near my cousins’ house.

Five or six of us hid in the honeysuckle bushes and watched the glorious confusion. The head acted as an impromptu police officer. It was about 1am at this point, but we weren’t seeing any roll-through stops, no sirree. The cars stopped, rocked back on their tires, and inched forward. Drivers rolled down their windows and leaned out to better understand this visitation. Their noses were a foot away from the thing.

A high school couple drove through the intersection and parked their car. She hiked up her prom dress to walk, and he carried the camera. A third friend hurried up to take their picture. They stood on each side of the head grinning. 

A guy I knew from Lipscomb named Ross showed up with another guy I didn’t know. They leaned out like everybody else. Something must have struck their fancy because they parked, walked back to the head, and began to carry it off.

This could ruin everything.

Summoning my best God voice from Vacation Bible School, I yelled, “Ross! Put the head down!”

They dropped the head then turned circles in alarm.

I started to feel bad. 

“Hey, Ross, it’s Austin. Put the head back. I’ll explain later.”

“Oh,” he said to the honeysuckle bush. “Okay, dude, no problem.”

They drove off.

This went on for fifteen or twenty minutes and then came the climax.

We heard somebody walking down the street from the direction of the head’s house.

A skinny middle-aged woman stomped to the middle of the intersection. She glared all around her. Bent at the waist with her chin stuck out, she unleashed her fury:

“I don’t know who you are, but I know you’re still here, and you’d better leave because the cops are coming and if you’re still here, you’re all going to be in huge trouble.” She continued on like this for awhile, with an even temper at first but crescendoing until she was really mad.

Apparently, we had just been introduced to head’s owner. If I were her, I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it either. One of her friends must have driven through the intersection, seen the head, and given her a call. The head must have been too precious, too steeped in sentimental value, for her to appreciate the hilarity of the situation: a giant white tattooed head sitting in the middle of an intersection in a suburb on a quiet night in spring. That’s what I call good humor.

We walked back to my truck, I dropped my friends off at their various places of residence, then we all went to bed.

Matthew Netterville was reading The Tennessean the next day when he saw the headline: “Lady lost her head.”

He’d walked over to join in the fun the night before. He told us all about it later.

Whoever wrote that headline, I want to shake your hand. Thank you for getting it. Thank you for supporting random acts of unkindness. Thank you for taking a stand against bad art.  

Thank you for joining us in our quest to disrupt suburban complacency and irritate comfortable middle-aged Nashvillians.

As for the head, well, it found a new home in the lady’s garage. We never saw it again.

Head, you are gone but not forgotten. Your fame was short-lived but your legacy will touch posterity.

age, gravity, sun damage, and slower metabolism

While I was finishing up my master’s in English, I was working as a Teaching Associate. Two classes of First-Year Composition 101 made the mistake of registering for my class. 

Poor children. None of them knew what to do with a teacher who knew their tricks better than they did themselves. I assured them that however proficient in the art of sarcasm they believed themselves to be, I was better. I’d had more practice. “Please don’t tempt me,” I said. “I’d enjoy it too much, and nobody likes cleaning up a mess.” I suggested that we start from a baseline of respect instead.

My class was built around discussion, dialogue. We read articles, and then we talked about them. My class was straightforward: do your homework, participate in class, do your best to write with simplicity and clarity, and you’ll be fine.

Of course, as many of them did none of these as did them all. I had trouble pushing a thought through their thick, complacency-encrusted craniums: I will know whether or not you read when I call on you to participate in the discussion.

Who needs quizzes? Sure I gave them as a formality, but I just threw them away. I knew if Kevin or Justin or Laura or Blake did their homework simply by watching their faces when I asked, “Do you think a woman donating her eggs is a decision that is hers alone to make?”

Nervous titter. Glancing around the room. Eyes drop down to desk. Color appears on cheeks. 

“Umm… .”

“You didn’t read the assignment, did you?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s okay. I expect more from you in the future. Please pay close attention and try to participate.”

I never humiliated them. Communicating my disappointment and my desire for improvement was effective enough without dressing them down in front of their peers. I always disliked the teachers who used fear. They never earned my true respect, just lip service with a snarl.

One particular day in late summer, I held one of my classes outside behind the humanities building. Knowing their tendency to disconnect and look for four-leaf clovers, I asked them to sit in a circle. Never underestimate how adolescents will self-correct when people their own age are watching.

I had assigned Dave Barry’s essay “Guys vs. Men.” I didn’t enjoy the essay that much. Barry makes the easy jokes at men’s expense and reinforces stereotypes of masculinity rather than disrupt or at least challenge them. 

Regardless of my opinion, the essay provided an accessible springboard for the issue of gender and harmful or unhealthy gender constructs. Most of the girls in that class spoke up that day. They talked about their fathers, brothers, and boyfriends. Most of them wanted to date a “gentleman.” Gentlemen were scarce.

The first time I called on Kelsey, she deflected. Rather than interrupt the flow of the dialogue, I moved onto somebody else. I eventually called on her again. What did she think about the essay? Was Barry’s essay part of the problem?

She threw daggers with her eyes before saying, “Stop calling on me. I obviously didn’t do my homework.”

Hmm. Bet she has a great relationship with her dad. 

Her attitude was the sort I refused to tolerate. I decided to nip it.

“Kelsey, you are in no position to be making demands.”

Her eyes went wide, and she sat up a little straighter. She was cute, slender, and bitchy. Just the sort of girl guys fall over themselves to ask out. The sort of girl who is accustomed to getting whatever she wants.

I never did have much of a stomach for that sort of girl. She took part in our discussion from then on.

I hoped she cleaned up the attitude because playing the victim will only take you so far. Not to mention the effects of age, gravity, sun damage, and slower metabolism. Kelsey, force a man to love you for your mind and heart.

I saw her the other day and said hi. She was with a slouchy guy who looked like he knew how to bake space brownies. 

Sure, I judged by appearances. You can’t win them all. Maybe the joke’s on me for remembering her.

Roll-through stop

Let me make a suggestion.

If you are fifteen and learning how to drive, angst-ridden for no good reason and straining to distance yourself from your parents who “just don’t understand you,” you need to remember that everything you say can and will be used against you. Your intellectual parry-and-thrust is less impressive than you think.

After you do a roll-through stop turning from Shackleford onto Granny White Pike and after your father tells you to pull over, “That’s enough for today,” and after you yank the Suburban over onto the shoulder and get out and slam the door, please oh please if you know what’s good for you don’t yell the following:

“You think you’re a good father just cos you take me fishing once a year.”

Rather than get angry as you had hoped, your father—now in the driver’s seat—will look at you for a fraction of a section before bursting into laughter. Your mother and two sisters, who are riding in the back seat, will do the same. 

Rather than make these foolish mortals feel the hot blast of your wrath, you have just logged another entry in the family quote book, an entry that will bring joy to audiences for years to come.

Keep such retorts to yourself. I can promise you that they’re not nearly as stinging and bullet-proof as you think.

In fact, you’ll be better off if you just keep your stupid adolescent male mouth shut. Put it all in a journal.

newfound autonomy

Allow me to make a recommendation.

If you are fifteen and snot locker drunk on the hormone cocktail that God designed to turn us into adults, I’d advise you to go bite your pillow or journal or take a walk rather than say this to your parents:

“You’re not my moral compass anymore.”

They won’t think it’s cute. They won’t respond to your newfound autonomy with pride, excitement, and encouragement. 

If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep such epiphanies to yourself.

Abandonment & Deportation

During the train ride home the full implications of the day’s events began to sink in. 

Where was Hunter?

The day had started with a good jolt of adventure, eating a Käsekrainer and running through the streets of Vienna to catch our train. Once we had crossed the Hungarian border, Hunter realized he’d left both his Eurail pass and his passport on his dresser in the hotel. He’d told me to have fun for the both of us, so against my better judgment, I rented an inappropriate bathing suit and spent an hour or two exploring the amenities of the largest medicinal baths in Europe.

I’d eaten dinner by myself in a Chinese restaurant with plenty of time to catch a train back home to Vienna.

Now, as the train finally pulled into the Westbahnhof and I took the U-bahn from Reumannplatz to our familiar stop at Südtirolerplatz, I grew more and more anxious. 

I may as well have run I was walking so fast. I should have gotten off the train with him. What was I thinking? I was so shocked to see men with guns take him off the train that my thinking was sluggish. What he said had seemed like the best idea until the doors to the train closed in a rush of air. I had abandoned him.

I grabbed the first person I recognized and asked him if he’d Hunter.

“Sure, he’s upstairs in your room.”

I ran up the five flights of stairs and burst through the door.

He was sitting on his bed, looking calm as can be.

He looked up when he heard me and grinned.

“What happend?!!”

“Well, they kept me in some building for a couple of hours. I just journaled the whole time. It really wasn’t bad at all. Then, they put me on a train back to Vienna and gave me this letter.” He showed me the piece of paper, an official-looking document in Hungarian.

He continued: “You know how Anna who works at the front desk is Hungarian? Well, I got her to translate it for me.”

“What’d it say?”

“It said I’m not allowed to go back to Hungary.”

On one glorious day in the fall of 2002, I rented a speedo in Budapest while my best friend of sixteen years was deported and asked never to return.

We both laughed until we cried. 

Serious lapses in judgment become some of our best stories.

I was a Greek god

After a Käsekrainer, a traumatic train ride to Budapest, and renting a “bathing suit,” I was walking down the stairs to the pool. One handing was holding up my bathing suit in the back, and another in the front. My “bathing suit” failed to cover everything.

This was less clothing than I’d ever worn in public.

However, once my feet touched the cool tiles next to the pool and I looked around, all my fears vanished. I was by far the youngest, fittest, and most attractive person in the room. I don’t say that to toot my own horn. Whoever tells you that Americans are the only ones for whom obesity is a problem is a liar. Hairy guts were hanging so far over speedos that my only means of discerning whether or not these men were even wearing speedos was the bright fabric on their sides and back. We’re talking waistlines that were punishing the elasticity of lycra or spandex or whatever material from outer space that speedo uses. These elderly Hungarian men were pushing fabric technology and human anatomy to new limits. They were pioneers.

Although I don’t recommend such comparisons for eradicating self-consciousness, I confess that after a quick glance around the massive indoor pool, I was filled with Pride. I had nothing—nothing!—of which to be ashamed.

Come butt crack, come glimpses of pubic hair, I was a Greek god among overweight, arthritic, and sluggish mortals!

My spirits revived, and I sampled everything the spa had to offer: mineral baths, swimming pool, hot tub, sauna, and steam room. People were drifting in and out of a particular door. I decided to explore.

Outside was a heated pool. Steam was curling off its surface and scattering in the breeze. Snow danced in the air. 

Ha! All the young people were out here. So I wasn’t alone!

I slipped into the heat, and waded around for awhile, still wondering what was happening with Hunter—to Hunter!—at the moment. I decided that I’d had about as much fun for the both of us as there was to be had. I ran back inside to change.

That image is frozen in my mind though—orbs of light burning in the darkness, laughter and snatches of Hungarian, snow, wind, steam, and the statues on a pedestal in the middle of the pool somehow sad and pensive.

I changed, thanked Mr. Cabana Boy, my only acquaintance in the place, and walked out into the park. I knew how to get back to the train station from the previous trip, so I started walking that direction.

To burn the florints I had left, I ate a lonely five-course dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

Soon, I was fully, warm, and sleep, riding a train three and a half hours back to Vienna. 

Where was Hunter?

[To be continued...]

renting a “bathing suit” in Hungary

After a Käsekrainer and a traumatic train ride, I arrived in Budapest.

Three or four weeks earlier, when I’d visited the city with Hunter, Holly, and Rebecca, our train had stopped at the largest of Budapest’s three railway stations, Budapest Keleti pályaudvar. I anticipated arriving at the same station, following familiar landmarks to the City Park, Városliget, and then taking Hunter at his word—“Enjoy yourself for the both of us”—by doing something relaxing at the Széchenyi Gyógyfürdő, the largest medicinal bath in Europe.

When I got off the train, I recognized nothing. Surprise! I was at another station, Budapest nyugati pályaudvar. Whether it’s the lingering effect of the Cold War or a resistance to Western culture, I don’t know, but few people that I encountered in Budapest spoke English. Maybe I tried to communicate with the wrong people. In fact, I know I tried to communicate with the wrong people because of what happened soon after.

Rather than feel sorry for myself, I got some Hungarian forints from an ATM and bought a map. The green swatch of the City Park was more blocks away, at least 20, then I cared to count. Nothing to do but start walking.

Outside, snow was falling. Everything seems quieter when snow is falling. The streets were empty of people. A few cars stirred the snow as they passed. Loneliness. Where was Hunter? What was happening to my friend? 

At least I was wearing my North Face down vest and wasn’t cold.

I began to enjoy myself—the ornate facades of the old buildings, the sky of gray and white, the bittersweet melancholy and poignant reflection that often accompany solitude. We miss people more when they’re gone. We notice so much more and thus have more to share when we’re alone. Solitude makes people more precious.

After about an hour, I was climbing the steps to the lobby of the spa.

I found a guy about my own age who appeared to work for the spa. 

He must have gotten his hands on an English dictionary because he knew a few words, but not enough to form into sentences. After some wild gesticulations and calling for backup, he finally drove his point home: everything was closed but the baths, pools, sauna, and steam room. No massage this time.

Where could I change? I asked with an absurd pantomime of removing my clothing and swimming motions.

He seemed to understand and motioned for me to follow him. He led me upstairs, let himself in behind a desk, located a key, then showed me to a tiny wooden stall. These were set up in rows like lockers. He opened the door for me, dropped the key in my hand, smiled, and sauntered off.

Okay, now I was going to enjoy myself.

Wait.

I had no bathing suit. I had no towel. I had only one pair of underwear.

This is where the story gets a little strange. I was determined to make the most of my time in Budapest because I was worried about my friend and I’d never had a massage and wanted one and had missed the cut off twice in a row and I hadn’t ridden three and a half hours to be deterred by something as simple as having no bathing suit.

I marched back up to the desk and got the guy’s attention. In perhaps the finest feat of nonverbal communication of my life, I told Mr. Cabana Boy that I needed something to wear. He squinted his eyes at me and tapped his lips with a finger. I tried again. This time, he jabbed a finger at the ceiling as if to say, “Aha! I’ve got an idea.” He ducked down under the desk, and I could hear him rummaging around.

He reappeared holding some fabric. I wouldn’t call the fabric trunks or even shorts. If I didn’t know there were pools of water somewhere in the building, I would have thought he was holding a washcloth. There just wasn’t enough material there. He stretched it out for me to see a pair of trashy men’s underwear, the kind that guys who shape their eyebrows wear. The kind that guys who go to the tanning bed wear. This was a Speedo glorified with about an inch of leg.

Do you have anything else? I gestured. 

He was confused.

Do I have any other options?

He tapped his temple then held up his hands. He didn’t understand.

Why was this day trip to Hungary challenging everything I believe in like sticking by my friends and not renting bathing suits and a comprehensive boycott against Speedos?

Fine. Whatever. 

How much?

He was confused.

I took the change out of my pocket and slapped it on the counter.

He shrugged and took a medium-sized coin.

I attempted to say thank you, but the look on my face probably said otherwise.

I locked myself in my booth, undressed, and put on the thing.

It was very uncomfortable. It was grippy. I wanted it to get its hands off of me. I wanted to charge it with sexual harassment.

It was dark blue with some broad stripes.

I looked over my shoulder into the full length mirror. Yep. My butt crack was hanging out. 

I pulled up the back then looked down. Yep. Indecent in the front now.

If you’ve ever seen the Seinfeld episode where Kramer wants to borrow Jerry’s swimsuit, then you’ll understand what I mean when I say that my boys were definitely out of their neighborhood.”

I had just paid money to be 95% naked in eastern Europe in front of complete strangers without a partner in crime.  

 

Fine. Whatever. If was going to gird my loins with a garment belonging to a 9-year-old boy, then you bet your baloney I was going to do it with confidence and price. Behold, Spa Men and Spa Women! Michelangelo’s David in the flesh!

I took a deep breath and followed the signs to what I hoped was the pool. 

 

[To be continued...]

Boobs on the screen

I was showing my Freshmen one of my favorite movies—Dead Poets Society—as an introduction to our unit on creative writing.

During one of their meetings in the cave, one of the boys takes out a dirty magazine.

I’m standing at the back of the class, engrossed in the movie, and then—

Boobs on the screen.

Oh no.

Should’ve previewed the movie.

Since when did Dead Poets Society have boobs on the screen?

I race to the front of the room trying to block everyone’s view with my body. The boys have their eyes glued on the screen—they’ve never paid such good attention. The girls passed around nervous laughter. They all have the same look on their faces that says, “Hee hee…what’s happening? Is this okay? Hee Hee.”

No, all you sweet, innocent children. It’s not okay. Your teacher is an amateur. He wanted to get every conceivable mistake out of the way his first year, so that he could relax for the rest of his career.

Train ride to Budapest

If you missed the first part of this story—Käsekrainer—please read it now.

Hunter and I were about halfway through our train ride to Budapest. We were very pleased with ourselves for making our train just before it pulled out of the Westbahnhof, and we’d even managed to eat lunch along the way.

We’d made one previous day trip to Budapest with Holly and Rebecca. By the time we found Széchényi Spa in Városliget, the City Park, all the pools, thermal baths, and steam rooms were closed. The place was deserted except for a few elderly Hungarians and the person at the front desk who spoke no English. The four of us consoled ourselves with a lavish meal at the Vajdahunyad Castle’s restaurant. I have no clue what I ate, considering that one of the entrees was translated “piglets ripped in beer.” What the —?

This second time was going to be different. We’d taken an earlier train, and we’d run across the whole city if necessary.

The future was bright until we saw a man in uniform coming down the aisle, checking tickets along the way.

No sweat. I took out my Eurail pass and my passport. 

Hunter was scrambling. He was patting his pockets and upending his backpack. No Eurail. He’d left it in our hotel room.

When the man stopped in front of us, he had to pay €35 for his oversight.

After he bought the ticket, Hunter realized he’d forgotten something else.

His passport.

This is more serious than forgetting your driver’s license and receiving a citation from an overzealous cop. There we were, two young, white American college students, spoiled rotten, soaking up culture and sending the bill to our parents. We were across the border into an eastern European country, and Hunter had no official identification.

Sometimes, they checked passports, sometimes they didn’t. Maybe we’d get lucky.

Nope.

Pretty soon, a different man peered at the little booklets, stamping some, handing them all back with a thin smile.

He seemed to take forever to get to us. I handed him my passport. He looked at me, looked at it, stamped it, then gave it back.

Here we go.

Hunter handed the man his International Student Identification Card (ISIC). He started to explain that we were studying in Vienna, and he’d accidentally left his passport in the hotel room. Was that a problem?

The man spoke no English. He mumbled a few things in Hungarian then disappeared.

Hunter and I stared at each other. 

The man reappeared with the ticket checker. They had a conversation. They looked at us. They looked at my passport and Hunter’s card. They disappeared.

Right about this time, we stopped at a station out in the country.

Oh my Columbus and the Seven Seas, those men had guns.

They came in through our door. They grabbed Hunter by the arms and took his backpack. They had unreadable faces and hairy arms and guns on straps. I suddenly wished that I knew how to make a bomb out of a martini shaker and coconut oil. If only I’d paid closer attention to Steven Segal’s recipe in Under Seige 2!

The hairy men began to disembark Hunter. 

“Hey, do you want me to come with you?” I said, too shocked really to even consider the proper course of action.

He looked over his shoulder. “Naw, go have fun for the both of us.”

The doors closed, and the train lurched forward.

What just happened? Where was my best friend? Why was I still on the train? What kind of best friend watches strong, hairy men take away Hunter and just sits there?

I started to pray.

[To be continued...]

Living in Wake of a Miracle

Living in Wake of a Miracle

the impossible happened-
Rich Fields crooned,
Come on down!
As I rose on a tide of applause
and stepped into the aisle,
I caught a blast of air conditioning,
something prickling,
shrinking down there-
I was naked.
Sure, ratings would soar,
swelling Drew Carey’s feet
to fill Bob Barker’s shoes,
but my painfully pale body
all over the internet?-
I yanked up my lucky boxers
and threw on my socks, jeans,
and fluorescent orange t-shirt-
dressed and egaer to fill out
all necessary paperwork.

I awoke-I’d won nothing,
no fabulous array of swimwear,
no pontoon, no week in Fiji-
I would have settled for a blender.
I should have sprayed on a tan,
tattooed on my chest Barker’s face.
I could have been famous-
all those mornings-
sprawled in front of a tv awash
in candy colors, models
with permanent smiles,
shining cars somehow up
on stage-
sputtered out
at CBS studios in Los Angeles,
during a seven-hour wait-
pre-screened contestants
in a faded studio,
packed with desperate people.

Käsekrainer

While I was studying in Vienna with 29 other Lipscomb University students, I discovered the Käsekrainer—a sausage filled with piping hot cheese. When we broke for lunch between classes, we’d walk down to the permanent stand on the corner of Hanuschgang and Albertinaplatz and say, “Hallo, ich möchte einen Käsekrainer mit Brot und Senf, bitte.” “Hi, I’d like a cheese-filled sausage with bread and mustard, please.”

“Wien” is the German name for “Vienna.” Now you know why hotdogs are called “wieners.”

Eating these culinary delights takes strategy. We learned this the hard way, or at least one of us did. A couple of weeks into our semester, Hunter ordered a Käsekrainer for lunch. Their casings cook to a delicious crispiness. As his teeth chomped through, a stream of hot cheese shot out and hit Justin in the eye. He screamed in surprise and pain. The rest of us roared with laughter. Always point the sausage away from the crowd when taking a bite.

A month or so later, Hunter and I decided to take a day trip to Hungary once class got out. The train ride to Budapest was three hours long, so we needed to grab lunch before we got on the train. We had thirty minutes to get to the Westbahnhof and find food. Solution? Käsekrainer.

Something I’ll never forget: eating a cheese-filled sausage and running through the streets of Vienna with my best friend at the same time.

We made our train and settled in for three hours of indigestion.

[To be continued...]

red watery fu manchu

The summer after I graduated from high school, I went with the church youth group to a Navajo reservation in Tuba City, Arizona.  Our youth group happened to be staying in the same complex with another church group from California.  One kid named Joey asked if we had computers in Tennessee. We said, yes, and that we also rode mules to church and walked around barefoot.  The groups traded smart-aleck remarks abounded.  Who would have thought kids from California would be such morons? Stereotypes proliferated. 

Before long, one of their boys named Bart produced two pairs of boxing gloves.  

Maybe he wanted to provide some exercise, or maybe he wanted to settle our differences the old-fashioned way.  JP fought him first. He fared okay, so, even though I had no idea how to box, I let myself be talked into the next match. I gave myself a crash course in weight distribution. Make the fist as tight as possible. Avoid hooks, extend and hammer straight into the face. Strike with either the pointer and middle knuckles or from the middle to the pinky. Don’t glance off if you can help because that’s how the pinkies get broken.  I remembered I would be wearing gloves, and none of the techniques I had picked up from a friend of mine, who had earned a black belt in Judo, would apply.  I tried to remember what I had seen in movies.  I had a natural advantage as a left-hander. I tried to find something to stir up my bloodlust. I needed some adrenalin, some anger, and some luck.

We both came out swinging, a flurry of arms, gloves, and bodies that must have looked like the cartoon roadrunner’s legs when he escaped Wiley Coyote. I think my eyes were closed the entire time. My cousin Kristen elbowed me in the nose once playing tackle football, and it had never healed properly. After the first round with Bart, I could lick the metallic taste off my upper lip. I ignored it, and we proceeded to Round Two, fighting until my nose began to make a serious mess.  I reluctantly called the fight, though I hated to do it.  I looked like the loser even though I did not technically lose.  I went to the bathroom to clean up, and, in the mirror, I saw a red watery Fu Manchu from nostrils to chin with some sticky rouge on my cheeks.

I’ve been meaning to sign up for karate lessons.

my only even halfway real fight

Adam West was six inches taller than I. The actor who played Batman on television in the 1960s was also named Adam West, but all the jokes people made weren’t even funny the first time. Adam’s Q-tip head topped his gangly body. He was pigeon-toed and Catholic. He loved Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix.

I discovered later in high school that Adam has a good heart.

I have forgotten what he had said to make me so mad. I doubt that he delivered some terrible, many-horned insult but little jabs. Whatever his words were, something snapped inside of me. Acting before thinking and thinking nothing, I tried to punch him. 

I missed. I swung wide. How do you miss? 

I surprised myself as much as I surprised him. Neither one of us knew what to say. The bell rang soon after, and we walked back to the classroom in silence with our other friends. Half an hour later, we were painting pumpkins in Mrs. Jones portable, our hands speckled with tempera paint.

Adam came over to say that he was sorry. I also apologized, and we were friends again. It felt good.

That’s the only time I’ve ever swung at anyone in anger. I really wish I’d made contact. I probably won’t have another chance until I’m coaching my kid’s little league team and the ump makes a bad call.

Thanks, defective DNA!

Thanks to genes inherited from my mother’s side, I often get food caught in my throat. I have to eat slowly and chew consciously.

My mom and grandfather have the same problem. Eventually, a doctor will run a scope down my throat and ask me why I waited so long to get surgery. “Well, because I hate going to the doctor, I hate being sick, and I hate recuperating.”

I can feel food stick at the same place in my throat every time. A bottleneck of inflammation and scar tissue, narrowing of the esophagus—I’m sure my condition has a seven-syllable name and hefty price tag. 

Certain foods exacerbate the problem. After eating acidic foods like tomatoes and drinking acidic drinks like orange juice and coffee, I can feel my throat swell. I don’t know what set it off this morning, but I choked on my vitamins in the kitchen at work and had to run outside to barf them up in the grass. Granted, all that came up was water and pills, but still, so freaking embarrassing.

Me: “Hey, can I have a raise?”

Boss: “No. You vomit in front of our office. It’s not good for business.”

I’ve had this problem as long as I can remember. Pizza in Hunter’s rec room. I was near tears with panic before my bite finally slid down. Pork tenderloin in my parents’ kitchen. That time, I couldn’t breathe, and threw up in the sink. A few minutes later, I blew my nose, and chunks of pork came out. That’s something that should never happen to anyone. That’s when you know you’ve got a problem. Back when The Copper Kettle on Granny White Pike in Nashville was still the Green Hills Meat Market, I was eating beef stroganoff, and a piece got lodged in my throat. Had to throw that one up in Jonathan Stinson’s front yard. Seriously, Throat, it’s not funny anymore. No one’s laughing. In fact, everyone’s pretty grossed out: they have a hard time eating their lunches when I’m choking back up the water I just drank into my lap. Nothing better than choking and soaking the front of your pants with water-mucus at the same time! 

When I was teaching at David Lipscomb High School, I allowed whoever so desired to eat lunch in my room. The students were allowed to eat in the cafeteria or open classrooms like mine. For the most part, I enjoyed having them in there. Many of the regulars were in my fifth period class of juniors, so we got to know each other outside of the confines of Scottish ballads and dangling participles. 

My friend Justin Wright, a youth minister then and a fine photographer now, came by to eat lunch with me one day. I was eating leftovers from the Sunday lunch my grandmother cooked. She always sends home heaping plates of food with me. 

My choking mechanism always acts up when I try to eat and carry on a conversation at the same time. Sure enough, the roast beef traveled about halfway down then stopped. Have I mentioned that my eyes water and turn red and my nose starts running?

For Justin to see this didn’t bother me in the least. He’d seen it all before. My students were a different story. I was supposed to maintain a modicum of professionalism and composure. Sometimes, getting up and walking around helps my pathetic esophagus do its job, so I stood and made my way over to the trash can, just in case. That motion was enough for the beef to drop a few centimeters and cut off my air supply. Now it was the real deal. 

I turn around, and Justin looks up.

“Are you choking?” he asked and cupped both his hands to his neck, which is apparently the international sign for “A delicious piece of beef humiliated me in front of my 5th period.”

I nodded.

He ran over, put his arms around my middle, and fitted his fist into that cavity where my ribcage fits together. He pumped once. Nothing happened.

He caught my eye and said, “Harder?”

I nodded. 

He repeated the motion with more force.

The culprit shot from my mouth, ricocheted off the wall, and fell into the trash can.  

He dropped his arms, and I turned around. We looked at each other and shook our heads.

One of my students, maybe Houston, yelled from across the room, “We thought you were joking!”

I threw the rest of my lunch away.

I still need to get my throat checked out. But what would I write about?

Teaching Blunders #2: Rotisserie Chicken

In Republic, Plato penned a timeless aphorism describing human resourcefulness: Necessity is the mother of invention.

This is especially true of hungry 23-year-old single men. I am what Shane Claiborne, in his thought-provoking book entitled Irresistible Revolution, calls a “freegan.” I will eat anything that is free.

If you provide the food, they will come. Or, at least, I will. Church functions. Weddings. Seminars. Networking events. Roundtable discussions. You may have heard that the way to a man’s heart is through is stomach. This is only partly true. Plenty of women are lousy cooks. The food has to be appetizing. Glut us on fine victuals and sumptuous bebidos, and we get lethargic. Our thoughts get muddy as a spring creek. We really just want to bask in the sun and sleep off our engorged state. Blood migrating from our brains to our stomachs to aid in digestion—not the food itself—is responsible for a man’s willingness to make rash decisions and exercise poor judgment in the realm of matrimony and romance. If you remember Templeton the Rat from the cartoon movie Charlotte’s Web, then you have a good idea of what I’m talking about. 

We plan smorgasbords and we lose our senses. 

I was 23 years old, single, and teaching high school English and if you dangled the carrot in front of my nose, I’d agree to anything. When Bryan Solomon proposed that we roast three chickens in his electric rotisserie and spend 5th period celebrating Thanksgiving early, of course I agreed. 

Every man I know loves a hearty Thanksgiving repast, and having no kitchen in my classroom was no longer an obstacle.

Bryan got to school early the next day with all the ingredients. He stuffed a stick of butter and basil leaves inside of each chicken. He then rubbed salt and pepper into the skin. Oh sweet nectar of the gods!

My room filled with the perfume of roasted fowl.

I thought nothing of it. Why should I? It was, after all, my room. The first four classes of students wrinkled up their noses, but they got used to it by the end of class.

My mentor, Sharon Tracey, poked her head in the room just before fifth period.

She was furious.

Uh oh.

Why?, she wanted to know, was the hallway filled with smoke? Why did every classroom in our wing of Harding Hall smell like the Kroger deli?

Well, that was an easy one! Ms. Tracey. I told her that Bryan Solomon and I were roasting three chickens as a reward for good behavior in my fifth period class.

She didn’t smile. She said that the smell of roasted chicken was so small that students leaving the cafeteria downstairs were wondering what that smell was. Had she mentioned that the whole school was filling up with smoke?

[Boy, was this chicken going to be good!]

I asked her if she wanted any.

One side of her smile curled up in a smile of sorts. Ha! I had her! There would be no repercussions. 

She declined. She said that if I got it in my head to cook for my students in the future, would I please do it outside?

“Oh, absolutely!” I was adamant. “I had no idea this was going to happen. I just wanted to thank my students for being so well-behaved.”

She shook her head, finally grinned in earnest, and shut the door.

Ms. Tracey was the finest teacher I had in high school. I had her two years for Latin and two years for English. She is the reason I fell in love with writing. I owed her a wing at least.

Note to self: Rosemary would have been a nice touch.

Secrets for entrepreneurs

The secret to entrepreneurial success is simple:

Look for gaps in different industries and sectors of the business world. Think of possible solutions—the means by which you can fill these gaps. Snoop around and see if anybody else has noticed the same gap. Research these competitors and then offer a solution with superior performance, a lower price, or a better value.

Always keep in mind, price and value are two different animals.

I discovered this foundational business practices in elementary school, but every time I started a new business, my mom would shut it down. 

Let me share two examples.

Even in our current era of fiber optics and high-speed internet, iPhones and social media, people are still more likely to read a book recommended by a friend. People talking about the hottest new book creates a buzz, and the buzz spreads like a virus by word of mouth. Second graders are no different. Johnny reads a new book by Judy Blume or Roald Dahl or Maurice Sendak, and he tells Beatrice about it. She reads it and tells Mary. Before you know it, Johnny has started an underground movement. The very foundation of the library at W.P. Scales would quake as spoiled children rushed into the library clamoring, “I want it now!”

I was an enterprising youth, and I quickly made two very important realizations: 1) the librarian would let you check out a book more than once without returning it and 2) she would tell you who had the most popular books checked out.

“Why were these insights important?” you ask.

Once I knew the current keeper of the latest Buzz Book (BB), I could use my formidable powers of persuasion to talk him or her into letting me have it next. I was such a nice guy that I would even save these little lambs the trouble of taking the BBs back to the library. I would do it for them! then check it out in my own name.

Now, here’s the crux. Pay very close attention. When the other children asked about the BB, who had it? Yours truly. I’d check it out for weeks at a time. Who knows how I explained myself: “I’m a slow reader.” [Not true.] “My mother died.” [Not true.] “I’m astonished by Potter’s complex layering of metaphorical language and Peter Rabbit’s religious and socio-political nuances that she uses to challenge Gnostic heresy.” [I'm not even sure what that means.]

What matters is that I persuaded my peers and colleagues to pay me dimes and quarters—depending on demand and inflation—to rent the library books from me for a day or two. My piggy bank was filling up fast.

I’d barely even put the finishing touches on my system for keeping track of who had which book and for how long when my mom discovered my newfound wealth and snuffed out my startup. She thought it was unfair to the other kids. Nonsense. Why should I be penalized for capitalizing on their sluggishness? Early bird gets the worm. Fast talker gets the good books. 

I nursed my wounds in secret, and cooked up another scheme. You can’t keep me down for long.

When I saw a new opportunity, I pounced.

Origami was all the rage at school. I knew how to make a throwing star, and no one else did. I charged a premium for this expertise. The acoustic tiling in the classrooms rained money. I’d stockpiled $21 in an old pencil box before my mom found me out again. Sweet Child of Thor! Why couldn’t she just let me do my thing? I was racketeering my way to Fun-Dip and baseball card paradise, and all she could think about was unselfishness and friendship and sharing. Lame-O.

I work for a marketing, branding, and advertising firm now. I’ve joined Entrepreneurs of Knoxville. I’m like a predator hiding in the tall grass. I will make piles of filthy lucre, and you know what I’ll do with it?

Buy some candy, pay off my parents’ mortgage, and find creative ways to give away the rest. My mom was is one of the least selfish people you’ll ever meet. She loves to give. Giving is one of her passions. One of my passions is making her cry with happiness. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to make my mama cry. I’m going to make her proud.

Sorry that just got so sentimental, but seriously, go make your mama proud. Start a smart business and change people’s lives. Be unselfish and share what you earn.

That is all.

George Costanza lectures pigeons on foreign policy

George Costanza lectures pigeons on foreign policy

We had a deal:

you deface our monuments,

foul up our finest statues, okay,

we look the other way.

But, when we walk through Central park,

you skidaddle.

Never defecate on us.

Show some respect.

Don’t forget what happened

to your cousins, Passenger pigeons:

we posed with shotguns

beside mountains of them, millions.

We have pictures to prove it.

We ate like kings.

What I mean is

we have the means.

So, when I’m taking a nice stroll,

get out of the way

because I’m about to unleash.

I’ll bake you into an effin pie.

Temper temper

Teaching teaches you about yourself.

I required that all my students turn off their cell phones while in my class. I wasn’t a stickler on shirt tails and tardies. Shoot, I threw a plastic spoon at Carmen, a freshman girl, and hit her between the eyes. I’d asked her to stop talking several times. Despite my own flagrant disregard for decorum, I didn’t think my phone rule was too much to ask. If a student’s phone went off during class, I confiscated it, and the perpetrator had to wait until after school to get it back.

You can imagine how my jaw dropped when during the Anglo-Saxon literature unit test, one of my juniors, Tyne Brewer, raised his hand and said, “Mr. Church, I’m getting a call and it’s a long distance number that I don’t recognize and I’d like to take it.”

Five minutes later, after I finished sharing several “thoughts” with Tyne and the rest of my 5th period class, all the color had drained from his face and I had gained valuable insight into Mr. Austin L. Church, High School English Teacher:

I had a temper.

Some people spend years and thousands of dollars on therapists to learn such things.

I, however, got paid to discover these manifestations of my immaturity. Genius.

Teaching Blunders #1: Faux cocaine

I would like to share some advice on actions to avoid if you ever find yourself teaching English at a private Christian high school.

It’s 7th period. This is your fourth class of juniors. You’ve already taught this lesson plan three times, meaning that it is stale and you’ve refined it to the point that you always finish too soon. Letting your class go early attracts attention and makes you look like a slouch. You’d love to go to Portland Brew, order an Americano, and read a children’s book. You need to forget that you’ve been finding coarse, white hairs mixed in with the brown. Will the bags underneath your eyes ever go away?

You are tired. You’ve had a long day playing both babysitter and Mr. Keating from Dead Poets Society. Your judgment is skewed.

John Hillin walks through the door. He’s the first student in the room. His older brother was a year ahead of you in school. His older sister was two years behind you. You had two art classes with her. Your parents and his parents went to college together. Your families attended Harpeth Hills Church of Christ together for years. John reminds you a little bit of yourself as a junior. You like him. He’s confident and funny. He’s never disrespectful. You’ll be friends after you don’t teach here anymore. He could be a better student than he is, but you don’t blame him. You have your bachelor’s in English and still find it difficult to stay interested in the curriculum. You wish you could just teach creative writing workshops and spiritual formation.

Oh, you’ve drifted off into a reverie. John is saying something to you:

“Mr. Church, have you ever snorted pixie stick dust?“

“No. Have you?”

“I just did it for the first time a few minutes ago.”

[You're intrigued. Curiosity is your Achilles' heel.]

“Well, what’d it feel like?”

“I don’t know, it just felt funny. It tickled. Wanna try it?”

[This is the first interesting thing someone has said to you all day. You stand up straighter. You feel a new resolve. Just as you're losing faith in humanity, someone presents you with an opportunity to live life outside of a starched shirt and Brooks Brothers tie.]

“Absolutely.”

John pours a line of blue powder on the desk you inherited from the last English teacher, Mrs. Wyatt, bless her soul. Her students probably didn’t invite her into these kinds of experiences.

You press the pointer finger of your left hand into your left nostril, creating a seal. You lean over the desk and snort the dust. It tingles. A butterfly has just flown up your nose. You enjoy an inner calm typically absent this time of day. You are happy.

Other students drift into class. The bell rings. Other students are drawn into the excitement. They take lines of red, blue, purple, and green powder off your desk. Peace and goodwill abound.

The next time you look at the clock, you realize you have spent the first fifteen minutes of class encouraging your student to mimic the nasal absorption of illicit drugs.

You make an announcement to the class:  “It would probably be better if you didn’t tell your parents what happened here today.”

You know they’ll honor your request because keeping things from their parents is what they do best. Everybody loves being invited into a conspiracy. 

You teach the next section of Beowulf or Macbeth or Frankenstein or The Hound of the Baskervilles or whatever it is you’ve been doing. You find solace in knowing that this will one day be a distant memory.

***

I recommend snorting pixie stick dust. I also recommend practicing self-control until you are in the privacy of your home. 

Please learn from my lapse in judgment.

Moral: Crack kills.

“Excuse me, Sir!”

My mom is given to verbal blunders.

At dinner one night, she was describing an encounter she’d had that day at the grocery store. She’d drop a friend off to run inside then parked. She was waiting inside her blue Suburban. The windows were down.

A man pulled into the parking space to her left, opened his car door into her passenger side, shut the door, then walked inside the grocery.

My mom was stunned: he must have noticed the contact with her car, but he pretended as if nothing had happened.

Pretty soon, he reappeared, carrying a bag. He unlocked his car, struck my mom’s Suburban again as he opened the door, and bend down to get inside. 

My mother couldn’t stand it.

She leaned across the center console and said, “Excuse me, sir! Do you realize you’ve banged me twice?!!”

Still incensed when she shared the story, she failed to pick up on the humor until after we were wiping tears from our eyes.

Classic.

Prophecy

One day, just before the bell rang, my 8th grade English teacher asked me to stay after class. A murmur ran through the class: “Oooh….” Of course, everyone was wondering what had happened, what I had done.

In those two or three anxious minutes, I ran over every conceivable way I might have sinned against God or man in the past week. 

My classmates filtered out of the door. I took a deep breath and packed up my books. Here we go.

She met me at the door, put a hand on one of my shoulders, and said, “Austin, I’m glad you have a good heart because with the mind that you have, you could do some terrible things.”

Why would you ever tell an eighth grade boy that?

“Austin, you have the makings of an supervillain. Ever heard of Lex Luthor? Well, he’s got nothing on you. Congratulations on your epic depravity. By the way, you need a costume, either black leather or custom-tailored three-piece suits.”

How do you respond when someone says something like that?

“Thanks. I’m glad too. I don’t want to be evil, I want to be good!”

This came from the woman who often lost our tests. The woman who, when we read Flowers for Algernon, also entitled Charlie, brought Rorschach inkblot cards to class and asked different people in class what they say: a butterfly, a boy riding a horse, a four-leaf clover. She saved the best for last, polling the audience again. Somebody saw two fairies clapping hands. After a pregnant pause, she conferred this wisdom on us: “If you saw a vagina, you may have been sexually molested as a child.”

Wow. That’s the first time I’ve heard a grown woman say the word vagina.

The word introduced a palpable tension to the room. We all looked around at each other, trying to act cool and nonchalant while trying to pinpoint the people who looked ill-at-ease. All of us probably looked like the opossum in the garbage can with light in his eyes—feeling exposed but not sure what we’d done wrong.

This was the same woman who claimed to have an incisive gaze into my soul.

Sure. Next stop…world domination. Look out, Voldemort, there’s a new kid in town. He wears plaid Abercrombie & Fitch shirts and he writes poetry in private and he gets bad sunburns.

Boo! I just killed a planet in another galaxy. But now I want to play ping-pong and then maybe go to the basketball game tonight. Do you think Lauren’s cute?

This from a pubescent boy!

8th grade is an awkward year.

You are still part child, but you are also adolescent—seething with hormones, self-conscious, wanting to be noticed but not wanting to stick out in any way. 

I was burnishing my new shield—sarcasm. Buttressing my vulnerability with venomous humor became second nature. Take a swipe at me, and I’ll make you feel really, really bad about yourself.

I had a reputation for making girls cry. I don’t remember much of my meanness, only what these girls told me later in high school, once they had forgiven me and we were friends. One girl, Rachel, told me that she spent an extra half hour every morning straightening her hair because she was afraid I would make fun of her if she wore it to school curly.

Underneath this defense of mechanism of verbal parry and thrust, I was a sensitive person, adapting to an ugly environment, an experiment in social Darwinism at a Christian middle school. Perhaps I’m being overdramatic. Perhaps I was simple after all: better to make the other boys in my unstable confederacy of friends laugh at someone else’s stupid question in class or weight problem than absorb any more of their cruelty. When in Rome…

I regretted what I became. I know because I wrote a poem called “Reflections.” Of course, no one knew I wrote anything outside of class, especially poetry, and this was very uncool, I knew. Writing songs and playing guitar like Jimi Hendrix or Led Zeppelin was one thing, but writing poems would be perceived as nothing but “gay.”

I wrote in secret, and “Reflections” was a meditation on the devastation caused by unkind words. I thought of one boy in particular. He was always on the fringes of the popular crowd. He wanted in, but his social awkwardness and eagerness to please made him an easy target. Two of the popular boys gathered the rest of the chosen together and told the group that we were to tell the pariah that boys got their periods too. If he asked us if we’d “shot our dot,” then we were to say yes. A well-orchestrated charade in which we all played our parts, further wounding and degrading a classmate who wanted our acceptance and friendship. I participated with all the rest, and was ashamed of perpetuating the lie.

I was, after all, sensitive, and just a few years before, I had been the victim of tag-team bouts of public humiliation.

I wrote my poem for him, a confession to God and a plea for forgiveness.

When our 8th grade English teacher began soliciting submissions to the writing anthology, I gave her my poem.

In the words of the saint from Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail, I “chose poorly.” I couldn’t just be like the other kids and turn in a piece about our trip to Washington or my grandparents or the neologism that she made us define.

Oh no, I had to turn in something original.

Mrs. Piper liked my poem so much that she used “Reflections” as the name of the whole anthology. My poem became the front cover complete with an illustration by David Lavender. 

What this meant is that when a copy of the anthology went home with every one of my classmates, their parents would at least read my poem.

No longer did the Hastys or the Wests or the Howells simply say, “Hello,” and show me up to the playroom where the rest of the kids were hanging out.

No, they now regarded with a mixture of admiration and concern. I had, after all, written a thoughtful piece about the consequences of sarcasm and this from a pubescent boy! On the other hand, maybe I was depressed, and would grab a knife from the block on the countertop, slash my wrists, and bleed all over the kitchen floor.

I stigmatized myself by sharing that poem. Parents and classmates alike treated me as the oddball who had “deep thoughts” and wore my heart on my sleeve. 

I learned to keep my writing to myself unless I was writing a humor column for the school newspaper or research papers for English classes. 

I nurtured this contemplative side and resigned myself to never belonging, never being able to share all of myself with the people around me.

Of course, I believed a lie. People want and need that vulnerability from others. 

Humor has, at its heart, deep sadness. Many comedians are people with deep pools of pain.

Laughter transforms the brokenness of our lives into hope.

Banana Fo Fana

My parents were baffled.

Aside from being headstrong and unresponsive to discipline, they said that I was a sweet kid. For the most part, I did what I was told. More often than not, my irrepressible boyishness made them laugh, most of the time in disbelief. For example, I taught myself how to tie my shoes when I was three years old. My grandfather gave me Luna moth cocoon, and even though my parents said it was empty, I knew better. There was no hole in it! Moths have to chew their way out. So, I put it in a shoebox, and sure enough, a large powdery green moth with fuzzy antennae and tails on its wings hatched a week or two later. I trapped my sisters in their rooms by tying doors together across the hall. I built treehouses. I ordered the largest knife I’d ever seen from an ad in Boy’s Life. The pommel, which had a compass in it, unscrewed from handle. Inside was a survival kit including matches, fish hooks, fishing line, and a whistle. I tore up my face sledding off a three-foot high culvert a week before school pictures. What could they do but laugh?

One night, they got a call from my 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Bunny Ward. I’d been saying some naughty words at school.

Neither one of my parents has ever used profanity, except when repeating a story and only then with their voices lowered and no small discomfort. They wondered where on earth I’d learned the words that Mrs. Ward herself refused to say. She must have spelled them. I can’t imagine my 1st teacher saying, “Austin dropped the f-bomb in class today.”

They sat me down and asked me about it.

Of course, I had no idea what those words meant. I was just rhyming.

What?

Lightbulb.

I told my parents that I was just plugging words into the Banana Fo Fana rhyme. For example, who knew that what came out when I used the name Mitch, a boy in my class, offended some people. I was big into cartoons at the time and had no clue that silly, innocuous Donald Duck, when riding aboard the ship Fo Fana, could become the mother of all cusswords. We always knew he had it in him.

“Duck duck bo buck banana fana fo—[_ _ _ _]—me my mo much…Duck.”

My parents were relieved that I didn’t know what I was saying. They probably told me that if I needed to rhyme at school, I should do so in my head.

Apparently, somewhere in between building a block tower, learning to read, and nap time, I was cussing out the other kids without even knowing it.

I was destined for greatness.

Sweet, sweet Cheerwine

I got made fun of a lot in middle school, especially in 6th and 7th grade.

Even though I made good grades, I hated school for this reason. After one particularly rotten day of getting shredded by my “friends,” my mom could tell something was wrong. She always picked me up. Once I climbed into our Dodge Caravan and slid the side door shut, all she had to do was ask a question, “Are you okay?” and I burst into tears. I blubbered, “They—[breath]—made—[breath]—fun of me today.” I kept it pent up all day because I refused to cry at school. Only happened once: a single tear when I knocked heads with another kid so hard that I got a concussion.  

What got it all started was a lame duck comeback I made to a kid named Adam. Our altercation started on the basketball court during recess. I was an average player at best, but that gave Adam no right to be a ball hog. I gave him a piece of my mind about it. We were still bickering in front of Harding Hall after school. I’m sure we threw around lots of You’re a retards and You’re a queers.

My main problem was the complexity of my retorts.

Big Mountain’s cover of Peter Frampton’s “Baby, I love your way” was playing on the radio at the time, and I thought I’d use that as a springboard for the definitive insult of the day. Not a good idea. First of all, my insult required that I sing part of the song and change some of the lyrics. Here’s a piece of advice: never sing an insult. Here’s another piece of advice: if you have to explain your insult to the person you are insulting, then you’ve already lost the argument. Go ahead and just walk away.

News of my lame riposte spread. Before long, the whole grade knew. I was an easy choice for the position of whipping boy and scapegoat. Each day at lunch, Adam or Jay, the ringleaders, would choose the victim. Cory, Mark, or, on most days, me.

I took this abuse for months. 

Then, one day I bought a large drink from the cafeteria. I filled my paper cup with Cheerwine and had every intention of drinking it.

I chose a seat at our eight-person roundtable, fully prepared for another forty-five minutes of abuse.

Jay sat his tray down at the seat next to me. He pulled out the chair and stepped in front of it.

Without thinking, I did it, I sank to their level, I played dirty. 

As he bent his knees to sit, I emptied my full glass of Cheerwine into his seat. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t consider the consequences. My mind was on mute, and my body made an instantaneous tactile decision.

One. Two. 

His eyes opened wide as if to say, “Something’s wrong.”

I concentrated on my food.

His chair screeched on the floor as he pushed himself back from the table. Liquid sloshed and splashed on the floor.

I looked up in time to see him pull his jeans around to investigate the source of his confusion.

His bottom was tinged with red and dripping. He looked at his soaked pants, then looked up and scanned our faces. His face contracted.

Then, the most amazing thing happened: he burst into tears. This tough guy who made fun of me every day, who made my life miserable started crying in front of the whole cafeteria. I hadn’t even done that.

I felt bad. I had humiliated him. Even though I was no more a coward than he was, I’d become what I hated. I resolved that no matter what I wouldn’t use guerilla warfare anymore. 

Everything was different from that day forward. 

I soon learned to package my intelligence in sarcasm and direct that at anyone who rubbed me the wrong way.

I’m still trying to get rid of the bad habits I picked up in middle school. We were all just trying to survive.

Cheerwine helped me topple the biggest bully at school. Who would have thought.

A use for a time machine

I don’t have many regrets. Even my mistakes have shaped me into the person I am. You could tell your grandmother about the few skeletons in my closet and she’d probably laugh and tell you a few saucy stories about your grandfather.

However, if you offered to lend me your time machine for a few hours, I’d go back to 7th grade at David Lipscomb Middle School. I’d page myself over the intercom. I catch myself leaving Mrs. Yates’s study hall during 7th period, and I’d put a hand on my shoulder and say, “The bell will ring at 3pm. School will be out. You will wait until the rest of your classmates leave the room then you will walk over to your girlfriend. You will break up with her….”

At this point I’d slap myself across the face just to make sure myself was listening.

Now that I had my attention, I’d continue giving myself advice: “You will be tempted to say to your girlfriend, ‘You’re dumped,’ then walk away, simple as that, no formalities, no apologies, and no decency. At least be kind and find a way to be honest without causing her unnecessary pain. You owe her more than that.”

The problem is, you have never offered to loan me your time machine. You own no time machine. That one stays on my record. Thanks for nothing.

Pure genius

My genius as a child consisted not only of my proclivity for revolutionary ideas but also of my knack for identifying and nurturing the brilliant ideas of others.

When Will Burton came over to play and suggested that we throw all of my younger sister’s dolls into the Little Harpeth River, I knew he was onto something and put his idea into action immediately. We gathered up Laura’s dolls and tossed them into the creek one by one. They sank to the bottom. Ours was a shallow and slow-moving creek.

Satisfied that our work was done, we went back inside and were apprehended within seconds by my mom. She marched us right back outside and down to the creek where we waded in and retrieved the soaked and muddy dolls.

My sister wept, I got a spanking, and Will was sent home. He also received a spanking.

Sometimes, innovation comes at a cost—a Madame Alexander doll with soiled britches.

Squirrel Crepe

I never swerve to hit animals. They run out in front of me.

On my way to have breakfast with friends before school, I tagged a doe. I’d even slowed down when two other deer ran across the road. I looked both ways and let my foot off the brake, then wham! She came from the thick brush on the right just after the bend at the Inns of Granny White. She flew straight up in the air and landed in a pile in the middle of the road. Popping up as though nothing had happened, she ran down the embankment to my left and disappeared through the trees.

Excuse me? Did that just happen?

Squirrels are insane. IN-sane.

They run across the street then turn at look at you. They hunker down then fake-out—fake-out—fake-out—they shift back and forth, unable to choose an escape route. Ba-boomp: Squirrel Crepe. Why are they so indecisive? I’m in my car screaming, “Move, you idiot! I’m in a Honda Accord. You’ve got no chance of survival!” They just feint this way and that then bite the big one. What a waste. Even when I’ve swerved to one side, they run straight into my tires!

Gosh, I mean, what else can I do? These rodents have a death wish, and they’ll give it up about as soon as they’d draw you a map to the nut stockpile. I don’t understand it. The squirrel in Bambi seemed happy enough. All the squirrels in Nashville have father wounds.

I’m coming home from David Lipscomb High School one afternoon. It’s early October. A squirrel darts out into the road, and I think, “Here we go again, you freaks!” Sure enough, Squirrel Crepe.

But this unfortunate rodent wasn’t destined for the potter’s field. No, no. Wham! One of the better brainstorms of my career struck me.

I finished the drive home where I pulled together the necessary materials.

I went back, scooped the squirrel up, mummified him in plastic wrap, and put him in a shoe box. Next, I wrapped the shoebox like a birthday present. Next, I wrote a card and addressed it to Elizabeth.

My older sister’s birthday was a few days later, and I’d overheard my dad saying he was planning to drop off a card at Lipscomb University, which is fifteen minutes from my parents’ house, and send it to her through campus mail. If he was taking the card anyway, why couldn’t he deliver her special birthday surprise? Everybody love Squirrel Crepe!

Once my birthday present was finished, I found my dad and explained: “Hey Dad, I got Elizabeth an early birthday present. Do you mind dropping it off with the card?”

He agreed and commended me for my generosity and thoughtfulness.

On the following day, with my father acting as the courier, a squirrel run over by a car was sent through Lipscomb’s campus mail system. I think that has to be a first, but I hope it’s not a last. To send something through campus mail, you drop it off at the desk where a student receiving minimum wage takes it. The student fills out a card and puts it in the recipient’s mailbox.

As I found out later, Elizabeth checked her mailbox, and Happy Day! a card and package voucher were waiting for her. She claimed her prize and took it up to her room in Elam dorm. She read my card, thought, “Bud, how sweet!” and tore off the paper. She didn’t stop there. She saw brown through the plastic and thought, “Mmm, brownies…” and unwrapped the tasty treat.

Oopsy! Squirrel Crepe instead.

She screamed. Turns out, not everyone love Squirrel Crepe. In fact, I don’t know a single person who loves Squirrel Crepe.

What was I thinking?

Long story short, Elizabeth fetched our cousin Jenny who carried the crepe by the tail to the science building and threw it in a trash can.

Moral of the story: Recycle.

Bunnies and Puppies and Parents, Oh My!

My younger sister had all the pets that I didn’t want.

She had a guinea pig named Molly who she dressed up in doll clothes and pushed around in a stroller. If you’ve ever seen Dumb and Dumber with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, you’ve heard what you thought was the most annoying sound in the world. Lloyd Christmas demonstrates for a hitchhiker trying to kill them on their trip out to Aspen.

I assure you that guinea pigs are even more annoying. Not at first, mind you. At first, they’re a novelty. Then, you realize that the only noise they can make is a shrill, rusty Weeeee-weeee-weeee.

Laura once left Molly dressed in her Sunday best and strapped in the stroller all night. My dad lectured her about responsibility and taking good care of animals. He’s the most responsible person I know.

Laura also had rabbits. The first rabbit, Gus, a very sweet little guy with mostly white fur, died within a few days. He brought an illness with him.

Charlie, who was brown, and Sam, who was black, came next. They brought diversity to our family.

They survived long enough that my dad located a rabbit hutch made from 2×4s and chicken wire. He put it in the backyard under the locust tree. He moved it once a month because the rabbit droppings killed the grass. We always had one or two yellow squares of dead grass in our backyard.

This was a small price to pay because Laura seemed to really enjoy the rabbits.

That is, until the incident.

I could charge the story with drama, but I’ll get to the point: a neighborhood dog jumped our fence, ripped open the cage with his teeth, and ate Charlie. Simple as that.

Laura was, of course, angry and horrified.

My parents located the owners of the dog, an older couple. They agreed to pay for a new rabbit.

Laura didn’t want a new rabbit, she wanted Charlie back. My parents were in a bind.

Our Shih-Tzu Button came to the rescue. He escaped from the fence, found the older couple’s grandson, and bit him. No joke. What are the odds? Button had never bitten anyone in his life. Button never left the yard. In fact, he wore a trail on the inside of the fence because he always wanted to watch what was going on in the outside world.

Our next door neighbors had twin little girls, and even though Button’s rabies test came back negative, my parents decided to put him to sleep. I know that boy he bit must have been antagonizing him somehow, throwing sticks or rocks, calling him a piece of Shih.

So the Church family was minus one brown bunny and one black and white puppy.

We now had one big, black rabbit who would claw the blood out of you.

My parents’ solution?

Release Sam into the wild.

Good call, Mom and Dad: teach your kids a lesson about laws of nature and how the food chain works by placing a well-fed domesticated animal at the edge of the woods on our cousins’ property in Green Hills.

***

“Excuse me, Mr. Doglike Creature. What are you?”

“A coyote.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Mr. Coyote. Can you please tell me when they serve dinner here?”

“Right now.”

Suicidal newts

I love amphibians.

Talk about versatility: they can live in water or on land. Although I wouldn’t normally endorse Kevin Costner movies—excluding Dances with Wolves and Field of Dreams—I should confess that Waterworld is a guilty pleasure of mine, along with every other bad action movie produced since the mid-1980s—excluding Eragon and Troy with Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom. Costner’s character, known as “Mariner,” has gills behind his ears. He can breathe underwater. We presume that some cataclysmic natural disaster has melted the ice caps and flooded the whole earth, but Mariner can swim to the now submerged cities and bring back the world’s most valuable commodity: dirt.

That’s pretty sweet, you have to admit.

However, long before the movie premiered in 1995, I was nurturing my obsession with frogs. Catching one in the creek behind our house fueled my little tank of boyish joy for weeks. I remember running home with my prize, bursting through the backdoor, and racing around the house until I found my mom.

“Mom! Look–what–I–have.”

I would open my hands. “I caught a frog.”

“I see,” she would say. “That’s great, bud! Where did you find him?” She was always so good about mustering enthusiasm.

“Well, I was fishing behind Mrs. Culp’s house, and I got my lure tangled in a tree, so when I waded out to get it, I saw…” and my lengthy explanations continued from there.

I created a trap for the frogs that sat on the edge of a tiny pond draining into the creek. A trashbag with a string tied to the end closest to the pond ran a good distance away to a tree. The plan was to sneak up behind the tree, and if a frog was sitting on the trashbag camouflaged with mud and grass, then I would jerk the string, causing one side of the bag to flip over the frog. I was bummed every time I creeped up army-style, elbows and knees, to discover that all the frogs were safe in the scummy water. All I wanted to do was catch them. There was no need for them to be rude.

I begged my mom and dad for a small aquarium, and they acquiesced. My mom took me to an exotic pet store on Nolensville Road to look at all the rare creatures. I decided on a pinkish albino frog. Maybe he reminded me of myself. If I held him on his back, I could see his purple veins and his pea-sized heart making his translucent chest jump.

Frogs don’t shed. They don’t stink. They have short life spans and thus are useful for teaching little boys about mortality. They are good listeners and never argue. They make eye contact. They never bite.

Frogs are ideal pets.

Newts, on the other hand, are problematic.

I transitioned to Fire-Bellied Newts after the frog died. They seemed pretty cool at first with flames running down their stomachs and their sinuous ways. They were the vintage muscle cars of the amphibian world. Sometimes, you can’t judge the cuckoos by looks alone.

They have an inferiority complex because they only cost $2 apiece at Pass Pets in Cool Springs Mall.

Oh, I was excited at first, taking the knotted plastic bag from the clerk, my mother beaming down at me, my slippery friend suspended in aqueous animation. Everything seemed perfect.

Up to my room went the fire-bellied newt. Into his new home—a plastic bowl complete with two plastic beaches, a plastic palm tree, and a red plastic bridge, suitable for romantic evenings for two or contemplative evenings for one.

Newt paradise.

A week passed, the newt disappeared.

First question: Do cats eat newts?

All you can do is say, “Bad kitty!” and take another trip to the mall.

I got two newts this time. Why not?

They seemed content in Newt Paradise, just chilling all day on the beach, catching some incandescent rays.

We made sure Bubba the Cat stayed away.

A few days and one went missing.

Total newts purchased: 3. Newts accounted for: 1. Newt #3 went AWOL soon after. What was happening?

I found one dried and shriveled into black jerky underneath my bed, another behind my bookcase, and the third, the hardiest of the bunch, all the way across my room between a pair of shoes in my closet. I gave them everything, but all they could think with their limited educational opportunities and delusions of grandeur was “Give me liberty or give me death.” Pathetic.

Booger Box

Boys are disgusting.

I was one of them. I can attest.

1) A Masochistic Preoccupation with Bad Smells

My best friend Hunter broke his hand playing basketball in the gym at Brentwood Hills Church of Christ. He was always pulling back the edge of his cast trying to get me to smell it. He would smell it and wrinkle up his nose, “Whew, that reeks. Smell it.” When I declined, he would use the smell he’d offered me to take another whiff. 

2) Morbidity

After Hunter’s parakeet Ricky Bob died, his dad picked a spot in their backyard overlooking the Little Harpeth River and buried him in a shoebox. Hunter and I dug up the shoebox at regular intervals to get grossed out by Ricky Bob’s progressive decay. A couple of weeks passed, and he looked like a dog had used him for chewing gum. A month after the fateful day, his brittle white ribs were showing through his feather jacket.

3) Bodily Functions

This one goes without saying. A juicy fart is the apex of humor for boys, ages eighteen and under. On our eighth grade trip to Washington, D.C., we succeeded in lighting a fart. Aside from the smell of burning hair, it was adolescent hand-eye coordination at its best. The flame was electric blue. 

A righteous belch—IBC Root Beer out of the bottle is particularly helpful—comes a close second. If you’ve ever watched The Simpsons, you know Barney, Homer’s alcoholic friend. You also know that belches can provide pivotal plot transitions and are punctuation unto themselves. I’ve heard belches that ripped the fabric of space-time in undiscovered universes. All that you can do is say, “Amen,” as you bow your head.

4) Urination

We would climb out onto Jonathan’s roof from his bedroom window for the sole purpose of peeing from two stories up. Now, repeat this exercise in the most unusual places you can find. Compile a mental list to share with friends.

5) Boogers 

I never ate my boogers, but I always imagined that they tasted like seawater. As far as I know, Hunter never tasted his boogers either. He kept them. He had reserved a tin candy container for that purpose. Our name for it? The Booger Box.

It disappeared for several months, and momentous was the day it reappeared while we were rummaging through the closet up in Hunter’s rec room. Hunter opened up the Booger Box, and what we saw was confusing at first. All the boogers had grown fur. Yep, each one of the now indistinct boogers was now wearing a fleece jacket. 

All this seemed normal to us at the time, but I’m happy to announce that ours was the only Booger Box ever known to man. We were making history, first-man-on-the-moon caliber stuff, and we never even stopped to savor the moment.

Please be nice to Mary

Be careful about making accusations in front of a third grade girl.

Ms. Holloway was my third grade teacher. Will Burton swore he saw a pint bottle of Jack Daniels in her desk drawer. Although he may have been making it up to have a good story to tell, alcohol abuse would explain why we learned nothing in her class. Let’s see, I remember planting Impatients outside near the playground. I organized stacks of National Geographics from the 60s and 70s. Apparently, I had earned these “privileges.”

I remember playing Number Munchers on the Tandy computers in the classroom even after Ms. Holloway started teaching. My best friend Hunter and I were finally back in the same homeroom, and we both had to go to the principal’s office after making a disparaging remark about Chris, the new kid. He and Ryan Schmidt got into a wrestling fight on the kickball field, and even though Ryan ate his boogers and had hands so dry that his skin cracked and bled, we were rooting for him. At one point Ryan seemed to have the upper hand, and to encourage him further, we yelled at Chris, “Yeah, take that fat boy!”

Well, Chris passed on our little moniker to the principal. We were summoned, and in an effort to illustrate the gravity of the situation, she asked how we would like to be called “String Bean.” I, for one, could have cared less if someone called me a “String Bean.” This insult lacked that special zing important to verbal warfare at W.P. Scales Elementary. Hunter and I laughed all the way back to class. In retrospect, I don’t think we were very nice children.

At the Christmas party put on by the room mother, my nose bled into a bowl of M&Ms while I was filling my plate with food. When I got back from the bathroom, the bowl was in the same place, but all the candy was gone. For years, I believed that all my classmates filled their unsuspecting bellies with my blood.

Who knows. Maybe the room mother saw everything and threw out the M&Ms.

Ms. Holloway needed all the help she could get. She asked me to be in charge of the computers. I was home sick one day, and my mom got a call. Who was it? Ms. Holloway asking if my mom would bring me in for just a few minutes because she didn’t know how to turn on the computers and she needed them for class that day.

She would disappear from class for inexplicable reasons and would sometimes ask me to read the answers to the previous night’s math homework. I would sit on the front of her desk and swing my legs while I ran a finger down the page of her teacher’s edition.

One day, I left class to go to the bathroom. When I got back, I noticed that a boy on the opposite of the room from me was using my pencil. Why would he take it?

I was having none of it.

I walked right up behind him and demanded, “Give me back my pencil.”

“It’s not yours,” he said.

”Yes, it is. Give it back.”

Mary, who was sitting to this boy’s right, took my side. “Give him back his pencil.”

[Thank you, Mary.]

“It’s not his, it’s mine. Leave me alone.”

He then turned his attention back to me, which was a mistake because, seizing her opportunity, Mary grabbed the pencil in question, raised it above her head, and drove it point first through his t-shirt into the muscle on his right shoulder. It stuck there like an arrow.

The boy screamed bloody murder, all heads snapped our direction, and Ms. Holloway waddled over.

I don’t remember much of what happened after that except that the guidance counselor came and took Mary and the boy to her office. Somehow, I was forgotten in the fracas and simply walked back to my desk.

Lo and behold, my pencil—which, to my credit, did look exactly like the one the other boy was using—was on my desk where I left it. All that for nothing. A case of mistaken identity. Happens all the time, right?

The guidance counselor came back for me later in the day. She asked me what happened, and I told her the truth. I thought that he had taken my pencil because we were using the same kind. I was mistaken. Mary stabbed him.

“About that…,” the guidance counselor said, “Apparently, Mary has a little crush on you. I only tell you that because it helps explain why she felt defensive and wanted to protect you. So please be nice to Mary.”

She sent me back to class, and Mary reappeared a day or two later.

I never mistreated her, but I kept my distance after that. Girl was crazy.

Pet peeves

A motley list of things I dislike:

1. Ranch dressing

2. Celery

3. Most cats

4. Seeing people humiliated in public

5. Lukewarm coffee

6. A shower during which the water turns cold halfway through. One or the other, please.

7. Barbeque sauce or ketchup around my fingernails

8. People who can’t just say, “I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

9. Listening to twelve-year-olds talk on their cellphones

10. People talking on their Bluetooths.

11. People who wear sunglasses indoors

12. Sometimes feeling powerless to help people 

13. Old food left in the fridge to grow mold

14. Not being able to get a tan because my skin is so fair 

15. The movie Serendipity because it represents how myths of an ideal romance warp our perception of healthy relationships

16. Placing rules above people’s needs

17. My deviated septum. Thanks for the super genes, Mom!

18. Having to carry my cell phone in my front pocket.

19. Dreaming during the night about all the crap I’ve got to take care of the next day.

20. Sand in my mouth.

21. Throwing food out because it spoiled before I had an opportunity to eat it.

22. Pornography.

23. Hurting people’s feeling, especially when I was trying to make them laugh.

24. Showing my teeth when I’m asked to smile for pictures.

25. “Mayonnaise mouth” >> saliva that builds in the corners of some people’s mouths when they speak at length

26. Going days and weeks without spending time by myself in intentional solitude with God

27. Small talk >> I’d rather know about your first pet than your major in college but we have to start somewhere.

28. Seeing men mistreat women or children in any way

29. Miscellaneous trash in my car, especially used band-aids belonging to someone else

30. Unsophisticated bathroom humor

31. Bananas >> They make my throat swell.

32. Having to ask for help

33. Girls who dress so that their boobs are always hanging out.

34. Having water in my ears.

35. Hangnails.

Smooth move, idiot

Never entrust your sense of humor to people you don’t know.

I attended W.P. Scales Elementary from Kindergarten through the Fourth Grade. At the end of every year, each grade invited the parents to the special presentation the grade as a whole had been working on for weeks.

One year, we wowed them with a square dance in the gym. Rumor had it, Amanda B. was crushing on me, and that’s why she chose me as her partner. She was a pretty blonde girl about six inches taller than me. Holding her hands felt like digging a soda out of a cooler full of ice. “Cold hands, warm heart”? Well, her bloodpump must have been hot enough to make Satan green. With envy.

I also have hazy memories of performing on a stage of some sort—costumes made from construction paper; singing songs about American freedom or Johnny Appleseed; the tone-deaf kid causing all the songs to bottom out, bless his heart; flashes of light from the dark, gently quaking audience.

Another year, we painted a map of the United States on the playground blacktop that doubled as a basketball court. Each state was a different color. We were very proud.

On the big day, the parents met us in our respective classrooms, then we filed out in a mass of excited children and faking-it parents. I lost my parents in the tumult and ended up walking beside a girl from another homeroom.

An overweight woman was lumbering up the hill in front of us, one step at a time. We had to slow our pace to keep from bumping into her.

I turned to the girl and said under my breath, “Boy, that lady is struggling,” and chuckled to myself.

Her eyes flashed daggers as she responded, “That’s my mom.”

I slackened my pace to let my new friend walk on ahead.

My Last Spanking

My parents did not spare the rod.

I’m not complaining though. As far as I know, I turned out all right. I can’t think of any weird fetishes or phobias.

My stayed at home to take care of me and my two sisters while my dad brought home the bacon. They had three kids before my mom was thirty. People stopped her at the grocery store to tell her how cute we were and what hard work it must be for her to babysit all three at the same time. Their eyes must have popped out of their heads when she claimed us as her own. She weighed right at 100 pounds when she was married. Imagine a slender, former college cheerleader with long, chestnut hair in high-waisted bell bottoms and a striped rugby polo with a white collar. That was my mom.

Apparently, I was a “handful.” She tells me that I was really sweet, just headstrong. Let’s say, for example, that she caught me eating Oreos in the pantry. “No more cookies. You’ll ruin your dinner,” she would say. I probably still had my eyes locked on the jar, wishing I’d gotten there just a little bit sooner, or that I was wearing pants with pockets.

“Do you hear what I’m saying to you?” 

“Yes, ma’am.”

Satisfied that she’d made her point clear, she would go back to doing whatever she was doing. My mother is a miracle-worker when it comes to cooking and sewing. I’m not trying to reinforce gender stereotypes or anything. I’m just saying she was good.

Well, I apparently would wander off as though I’d taken her admonition to heart.

Until she let her guard down again, then back to honey pot.

She would, of course, catch me a second time.

“I thought I told you not to eat any more cookies. Didn’t I tell you not to eat anymore cookies?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then why did you eat more cookies?”

“I wanted some.”

“I’m going to have to give you a spanking.”

“Okay.”

She’d give me a spanking, but pretty soon, she’d find herself involved in this or a similar scenario.

“Spanking never seemed to work with you. It’s almost like you didn’t care. You understood that this was the consequence of doing what you wanted to do, and you were willing to accept this consequence.” She says that I was rarely disrespectful, and I always told her the truth. Discipline simply had no effect. 

She speculates that she spanked me four or five times some days. She’d call my Dad at work: “I don’t know what to do. I spanked him three times before lunch.” He told her to use him. She’d threaten me with spankings from him.

When I received said spankings, I might cry or pitch a fit, but I’m told my stubbornness remained.

I only remember being spanked a couple of times. I guess it was so normal to me after awhile that there was nothing special to remember. How many times do you remember brushing your teeth? You know you did it, you just can’t remember many specific instances.

One time, I laughed at my younger sister making the Walk of Shame from the kitchen through the den to the bathroom. We always got it in the bathroom, to save us from the embarrassment of the rest of the family watching or listening. I thought, ”Finally! Somebody else getting a spanking for a change!” The respite afforded me so much pleasure that laughter bubbled out of me. Wrong move. My dad yanked me into the bathroom next. 

The last time I got spanked I was eleven or twelve. I was taller and stronger than my mom at this point. She must have known this. I probably picked up on it. It was only a matter of time before we transitioned into grounding and losing privileges, the two classic punishments for your average American adolescent.

Anyway, I forget what precipitated the event. Depending on how old I was, I probably smarted off—a new trick I learned at David Lipscomb Middle School—or called my older sister a fattie.

Mom was scrambling to find the new paddle they’d borrowed from my great-grandparents. Thing was a whopper. You could put a small pepperoni pizza in an oven with it. The first time they took their eyes off of it, I’d hidden it underneath back issues of National Geographic in the cabinets in the den. I was no dummy. That wooden behemoth never touched me.

All she could find was a thin wooden paddle for which I’d redeemed tickets at the skating rink. The rubber string and rubber ball had fallen off. A child about my age stenciled a blue eagle on it, no doubt somewhere in Taiwan.

My mom sat down on the commode and bent me over her knee. (We did everything the old-fashioned way.)

When this cheap paddle made contact with my backside, it snapped in half.

[Never do what I'm about to tell you.]

I started laughing.

When your mom is pissed out of her mind at you, do what you need to do to cork it.

Maybe I was a dummy. The comic relief was too much. My mom had just broken a paddle across my butt. Who has the privilege of saying that? It was easily the most important moment in my life up to that point. (I was baptized soon after.)

As you can imagine, my mom wasn’t laughing. She didn’t appreciate the sweet irony of breaking one of my broken toys across my caboose and that while trying to teach me a lesson.

Her face filled with red like a thermometer.

She was too filled with rage to even speak in normal tones.

She growled something through clenched teeth that sounded like, “Go to your room.”

I was happy to oblige. I had several Roald Dahl stories to finish reading.

She never spanked me again, which is probably for the best.

Uh-oh

Growing up with two sisters and no brothers was difficult for a boy with a vivid imagination and a penchant for pranks. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sisters. They’re two of my best friends. However, when I hit them, they would just cry.

Bor-ing.

All I wanted was for them to hit me back. A scuffle, a few kicks to the shin, a little give and take—is that too much to ask for? Something more inventive than a tittie-twister. How about a charlie horse? A sucker punch in the stomach?

Oh, okay, you running to tell on me to Mom and Dad again. Well, that’s original.

One year for Christmas, my parents bought me a remote control truck, a monster truck with knobby tires and admirable ground clearance and a bar of plastic lights above the windshield.

My truck bogged down in grass like any other vehicle in its class, but buddy, on concrete or asphalt, it could move. Great acceleration, nice handling. My truck could even land jumps from a modest height, which is better than the garbage you had.

My truck battery was recharging in my room. I went upstairs to get it, and as I was carrying it back downstairs, I saw my older sister sitting crosslegged on the floor, watching television. Her back was to me, and here I was with a monster truck and a battery full of juice.

I had an epiphany. I’d play a joke on my sister.

I sneaked up behind her and buried the rear wheels in her long, brown hair. I then pulled the trigger on my remote control. 

The tires made a whizzing sound as they accelerated, and I thought, “Uh-oh,” as her hair turned into a bird’s nest around each black tire.

When she started screaming, I panicked. I flipped a switch, putting the truck in reverse. Unfortunately, the truck cinched itself even tighter against her scalp.

Her volume went up another 50 decibels.

Fight-or-flight, fight-or-flight. I ran for it.

My truck had to be cut out of her hair.

Ouch

My dad’s side of the family tells me I take after my Grandpa, Roger, meaning that, like him, I have a propensity for sticking my foot in my mouth.

I studied abroad in Vienna, Austria, the autumn of my Sophomore year of college. My younger sister started at Lipscomb University as a freshman while I was gone. She’s only a couple years younger than me, so we were very close growing up. Once spring semester began, I had a lot of catching up to do, meeting all her new friends, many of whom would become friends of mine.

One Wednesday night, we were at the college class at Harpeth Hills Church of Christ. She introduced me to a petite blond girl, very cute, a freshman like my sister. Let’s call her Sarah. 

We got to talking, and Sarah was really sweet. I was happy that class started soon after, so we had to sit next to each other.

She kept coughing.

I couldn’t just leave it alone. I had to be Mr. Funny Guy and charm her. I leaned to my right and whispered in her ear, “Maybe you should get that checked out.”

She leaned to her left and whispered back, “I have cystic fibrosis.”

A Man’s Pride

I was a born salesman.

My freshman year of college, I talked my parents into letting my four friends and me drive my mom’s blue Suburban down to Key West for Spring Break. What were they thinking, right?

We decided to make the eighteen-hour journey stopping only for food, gas, and restrooms. I’d gotten a job at J. Crew over Christmas break—please don’t judge me—and had a shift the night we were leaving. David, Chris, Hunter, and Justin swung by the mall to pick me up. We stopped at a Shell station for Red Bull then hit the interstate. Driving through Atlanta, someone busted out the Moon Pies.

Hunter had agreed to ride shotgun and stay awake with me, so the others dozed off one by one. 

We were in Florida by sunrise. I didn’t fall asleep at the wheel, but a whole hour passed without our seeing another car on the road. I’ve never been so delirious in my life. I started making promises to God. I started cussing a lot.

Now, let me fast-forward.

I have very fair skin. My “friends” in middle school called me Powder. Middle school is hard on the albino child.

While in Key West, I got the worst sunburn you’ve ever seen while wearing sunscreen. You could feel heat pulsing out of me. I was the colored of steamed lobster.

The night of the day this happened, we decided to take a bus downtown to eat. If you want good stories to tell, take the bus. Driving a car keeps you insulated from the outside world, all the people from whom your parents tried to protect you.

I’m sitting on a bus seat by myself wearing a green, long-sleeved linen shirt. Maybe you have a beautiful olive complexion and don’t know how it is. When you get roasted because you trace your heritage to a country that no longer exists—Prussia—you get cold at night. You sweat like you’re playing pick-up basketball, but you get cold.

So this hefty middle-aged woman with brown hair plops down next to me. She’s ready to talk. 

“Wow, you got some sun!” she said.

I think: Thanks a lot, lady. Why don’t you find somewhere else to sit?

I say: “Yep. I was even sitting in the shade.”

“Looks like it hurts.”

“Not too bad yet. If it starts hurting though, my aunt told me that putting vinegar on a sunburn will take the sting out.”

She leaned back to take me in, as if I said I’d been to the moon. She then shared this insight with me, “You don’t wanna smell like a douche-bag, do you?”

I thought: No, ma’am. No, I don’t.

I said: nothing. No class, no handbook, no mentor, no hypothetical interior monologue can prepare you for that question.

My sunburn started hurting the next day. Later in the week, it started itching so bad that I couldn’t fall asleep at night.

I never bought any vinegar. A man has his pride to consider.

Johnson’s Baby Shampoo

An unfortunate event occurred one day at Wildwood.

Wildwood was our neighborhood swim and tennis club. I took swimming lessons there. I learned how to play tennis and ping-pong. My two sisters and I were pool rats. Unless it was raining or my mom had errands to run, we were there, especially after we got old enough to ride our bikes the three quarters of a mile down Harpeth River Drive.

My best friend Hunter lived three doors down, and his family had a membership at Wildwood too. I had no brother and he had no brother, so we stuck together. On the days Marco Polo or Sharks and Minnows didn’t seem that appealing, we would take our fishing rods down to the pool. The Little Harpeth River ran behind the pool, and we knew a few good spots for warmouth, smallmouth bass, and bullhead.

On this particular day, we’d decided to swim the same as everybody else. Wildwood had the same rules as any other pool: No running. No glass outside of the eating area. No food in the pool. When one of the lifeguards blew the whistle and yelled, “Rest Period,” that meant all of the kids under sixteen years of age had to get out of the pool for fifteen minutes. I guess that gave the few older people at the pool a chance to do a few laps in peace.

The wind was blowing, making our wet skin cold, so Hunter and I ran to the bathroom. We were quite proud of ourselves actually, the idea being to stand under the hot water in the shower until we heard the whistle blow again. Side by side, with the steam curling up to the ceiling, and the sunlight slanting through the dirty windows above the lockers, we reveled in the warm.

Someone had left a bottle of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo in the shower, so Hunter decided that he might as well wash his hair if he was going to take a shower. He flipped the top and squeezed some into one palm.

The viscosity was all wrong though—too watery. He leaned in for a sniff, and his face puckered.

“Ah, it’s pee!” he screeched.

Of course I died laughing, and when out of his own frustration he tried to squirt some on me, I ran out the door.

My best friend almost washed his hair with urine.

Snuggies

I’d like to express my disappointment in the American people.

How in the name of the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria  has Allstar Marketing Group in Hawthorne, NY, sold 4 million Snuggies in under three months?

People want to know why the economy sucks? Everybody’s spending money on these abominations. Rather than save up for a down payment so that they can get a real prime mortgage one day, my countrymen and countrywomen spend $40,000,000 on blankets with arms. I mean, who really keeps a house that cold?

Reasons why Snuggies will hasten the demise of Western Civilization:

· They enable cult leaders and their followers to be more efficient. Rather than spend time making their own special uniforms, they can buy Snuggies and spend the time they save doing more proselytizing on college campuses across the nation. They can drink spiked Kool-Aid, propagate like rabbits, and wait for the mothership or the Feds—whoever gets there first—without their arms ever getting cold!

· They are manufactured in China. Surprise! We’re still exploiting cheap labor sources!

· They skew our concept of value. A direct quote from Scott Boilen, President of Allstar Marketing Group: “It’s a tremendous value in today’s tough economic times. In this type of economy, people are looking for a value, and this is certainly a value at the price point. …People are staying home more, and it makes them feel good” (Source). Who are these people and where did they get their concept of value? Looking like an idiot wearing a fleece garbage bag with arms isn’t my idea of a good value.

· They’re ugly. Look at this woman and her daughter-son. People have no self-respect these days.

· They reinforce ignorance. Fred Vanore of Blue Moon Studios, which produced the DRTV ads, speculates that Snuggie sells “because its time has come” (Source). So you mean to tell me that we’ve all been sitting around waiting for the next revolutionary idea or product to make a splash and, no, it wasn’t the cure for cancer, and no, it wasn’t an efficient way to provide water for thirsty people. Let’s see, we have Jesus, String Theory, and next up… a bathrobe and poncho rolled into one. Brilliant, Mr. Vanore. I guess you are laughing all the way to the bank with your El Camino of garments. What would have happened if you guys had brought your frontal labotomies together to come up with a really great idea, like a motorized couch or an alarm that goes off when people aren’t using common sense?

I can’t take it anymore. I’ve got to go for a run and pray that people will use the ten thousand billion synapses in their brains to solve some real problems, not flood the market with more cheap products manufactured in China.