Mixed Messages

I was sitting in a bus minding my own business. As if that alone doesn’t scream ‘fiction’ I assure you, it is not. I was quietly listening to the music that was being shoved into my ear hole and staring blithely into the ether.

Then something moved into my sight line. And it flummoxed me. Not that I hadn’t seen it’s ilk before but I was not usually befuddled when coming across it.

It was ass advertising. Words, phrases, the backside bon mots that are so prevalent in today’s society.

And I don’t like it. You can’t plaster some letters on your posterior and force me to believe it’s gospel. That’s like giving yourself a nickname.

“Hey guys, from here on out I want to be called The Expediter! ‘Cause I always deliver!”

“What if we just called you The Expired? ‘Cause once we beat your head in with this collection of truncheons that’ll have a better chance of sticking.”

But it’s also the distraction. Am I ogling girls or doing flash cards for a spelling bee?

But I’m not thinking about that with what’s happening in front of me. What I’m thinking is,

“Nah! I must be wrong. There’s no fucking way her ass says that.”

But I’ll tell you, until very near the end of my ride, I truly thought her ass read Ample Butt.

So, with that bounding around my skull, this collection of words got stuck.

So many words and phrases
bombard us through the day.
A slick ad here, two flyers there.
They’re virtually everywhere.

But one place should be sacred.
A single place that’s left alone.
You don’t need words on asses
so leave your buttocks alone.

Readin’s for books and obscure foreign movies.
We ain’t here for learnin’ just a quick look.
Nothin’ too long just your ass while it’s movin’.
So do us a favor and leave your buttocks alone.

Girl watchin’s been here since Jesus
was out slaying pterodactyls.
So you know it’s got his blessin’
just like blow jobs and anal sex.

You may think your ass is juicy,
sexy, fierce, or too hot for you
but truth be told it’s a nuisance
distracting attention from you.

Readin’s for books and obscure foreign movies.
We ain’t here for learnin’ just a quick look.
Nothin’ too long just your ass while it’s movin’.
So do us a favor and leave your buttocks alone.

Don’t think I’m being selfish
I’m trying to help you too.
Sometimes your words gets mixed.
It happened to me, it’s true.

She’s bending over, squatting down
So I’m trying to take a peek
but her ass words were confusing
so I stared like a perverted freak.

She was trying to say Apple Butt
but in her folds and indentations
it sure looked like Ample to me.
So heed my words before you strut
make sure your ass is all ad free.

Readin’s for books and obscure foreign movies.
We ain’t here for learnin’ just a quick look.
Nothin’ too long just your ass while it’s movin’.
So do us a favor and leave your buttocks alone.

Free At Last!

Gayle Haggard: My husband Ted Haggard is free from homosexual compulsions – for real this time

When asked how he achieved such a miracle, Haggard said full credit goes to, “The amazing over the counter product, BeenGay.”

“Are you, you know?”

Everything was set we were just waiting for the clock to hit the right time and we’d go to work.

So I was milling around talking to some people I know and a few I don’t. Some of the people I didn’t know knew of me so kept a safe distance (liking that) except for one woman who was getting a little close.

She was play/flirting between other conversations. I just rode one conversation into the next checking the clock.

I guess the flirting lady saw the countdown until I was locked in a studio for an hour or so grabbed at the last moment of conversation.

“So, I heard you are, ah, are you, you know, in a sort of committed relationship?”

“Yep.” I say getting off the chair and heading to the control room. “I should be committed and she’s sort of the reason.”

I close the door flipping the “On Air” sign as I pass.

Vegetarians

They’re not bad people.

Annoying? Sure as fuck!

I was listening to a vegetarian extolling the virtues of a vegetarian and/or vegan lifestyle (how come if it’s so healthy they all look like they just got rescued from Belsen?) when I had to stop them.

Okay, I didn’t have to.

I wanted to.

Very, very badly.

I said that was all fine and good for them but I’m sticking with the meat.

“Because you can’t have meat without me!”

You know what I’ve found about vegetarians? They have as much of a sense of humor about their lifestyle as mothers with new borns do about baby bouncing jokes.

Epiphany

Okay, that may be a little grandiose for what actually took place but there were two startlingly realizations.

1) my girlfriend actually laughed at something I said.

That’s amazing. It’s been said she’s not a fan. That’s putting it mildly. When I spew my life punch lines the usual response is,

“Stop being stupid.”

And I’ve found saying anything close to, “Yeah, bitch! Those stupid words put a roof over your head,” don’t get the same response as when someone like Jamie Kennedy (who, by the way, put together a pretty damn sweet documentary called, Heckler, about hecklers and the state of criticism. Check it out) recites them.

So I don’t bother saying it.

Proving, at least to myself, my stupidity only goes so far. So there!

And the more important one:

2) the females in a mans life believe they are three year olds in a room filled with only electrical outlets and butter knives.

Everything we do is on the precipice of disaster. We get scissors and am reminded not to run. We get a drink and am reminded the mouth is in the front. We start to speak and am asked if our fly is up.

And I take serious umbrage with that. I was a three year old Peak Frean (Peak Freans are a very serious cookie after all).

It wasn’t until years later when sharp, hot, or sticky things should have been pushed to the middle of the table around me.

Those two concepts coalesced in my head when I was getting dressed for an event. Please turn the monitor away from the children for a moment because I must reveal something.

When I am changing for an event, when the process begins, I am ofttimes naked.

Okay, the kids can come back now.

Mommy and Daddy hate you and wish you were a puppy.

Ha! I can’t believe you fell for the old ‘it’s safe for the kids’ trick.

I’m in the bedroom changing. I’m not thinking much about it because I’ve already been told what I’ll be wearing so all I have to make sure is the correct appendage squeezes through the correct hole.

Even I’m good at that.

Now.

From the other room, totally blocked to my movements, my girlfriend calls,

“Make sure you don’t walk past the window naked. I don’t want our neighbors to see you naked.”

While the startling concept of men being three year olds in the minds eye of their loved one I say,

“But how am I ever going to make friends?”

With laughter came an epiphany light.

How Long?

There are certain inevitabilities in life. Wash your car, rains. Win the lottery, find out your relatives are genealogy savants. Ask how long things will take, you’ll cause them to take longer.

Starting three days ago this woman began calling to ask, each and every time, if we could accommodate her and, now this is the important part, how long it would take to complete the transaction.

Knowing me as you do, understanding my desire to limit the amount of time, quality or non, with other humans, I tend to make transactions quick, complete, and flawless. Quick so they don’t linger; complete so all questions are answered, flawlessly so they never have reason to speak with me again.

Oh, I know that last one is highly flawed for something considered flawless, but, the best laid schemes of mice and men go fuck themselves because of stupid fucking fucks who have to fucking keep babbling long after their fucking usefulness has fucking expired. At least I think that’s the Burns quote. I may have to look it up. I think he swore a little more.

I explain to the woman that it’s neither a long nor painful process although it has been both. I, having the yeoman’s duty during it, will do my best to assure a speedy completion. Have I mentioned I had to say that to her every day one to three times a day. Why, you may ask, did she keep calling? Daily her light grew long as the last remnant of summer struggled to hold a’light.

Translation: bitch can’t get her shit together in a timely fashion.

She finally arrives. Of course, she enters through the wrong door, so must waste valuable time rushing about to find the correct location. Once that task is complete she does with each and every ‘how longer’ does, to man or woman, they do not shut the fuck up.

Holy Mother of Mute! Please strike this woman down!

While her palavering I gather my tools to expedite this obviously pressing situation. While I’m doing this she is flipping out like a bat stuck in a beehive hair-do. The reason for her frenzied behavior was not my faineant manner. It was due to the fact that the incorrect door, one of two methods of egress mere yards from one another, she entered has locked behind her. Security, you see.

“How can I get out of here? This door is locked. How long is this going to take? How can I get out of here? This door is locked. How can I get out of here? Is this going to take long?” She states while rattling the door.

“The longer you freak out, the longer this will take.”

Although this does not expedite matters it gives her a moment to think of something else. That something is, inevitably,

“Did he just say that? Is he the rudest person in the world or what?”

I go through the process with her speaking, albeit with less freaking, the entire time. I ignore her because she’s mainly repeating herself. I complete my side of the agreement, in less than thirty seconds, and give it to her. Which she looks at as if I’d just proffered her an alien aorta for her to gleam afflatus from. I explain, rudely speaking over her, I know, her part of the procedure and continue along with my tasks.

Near completion, and fully sure I’ve not entrapped her in some kidnapper lair, I hand her her items and begin to complete, in hopeful silence, the remainder of my task.

“Do you know where Garfield Street is?”

“I am not sure but I can look it up.”

“Garfield Street. It’s supposed to be around here. To the right or left.”

I know most of the streets around here and that one does not sound remotely familiar. I know I’m only going to open up a new bag of ranch scented bile but I need to clarify something with this woman. You see, this establishment resides at the limits of two cities. As pained as I was by this, I had to ask what city the street in question was supposed to be a member of.

“This city.”

Do you even know what city you’re in you fucking troll? Entered my head while I calmly, and with not a hint of expression, looked over a map. There was a Garfield Terrace.

“Maybe that’s it. Maybe when I looked it up I got it wrong. The map on line could have been wrong. It could have been an old. Map. Maybe it was one that Columbus used once he arrived here. So, yeah, maybe the map an online was old.”

I’m sorry about the last paragraph because I mostly made that up. I was busy, not paying much attention, but knew, emphatically, she was blaming someone else for this tiny mistake. Well, maybe it’s a larger mistake.

“The problem is, that terrace is on the other side of the city.”

“Then that map is really wrong.”

Yes, I agree. That is the case. Just get the fuck out!

Oh, sorry. I think I got a little of my inner head hate on you.

I begin to flip the map to the neighboring city when she asks me if I know a specific bus line. I tell her that I’ve never actually seen that bus pass these streets she tells me I’m as miscalculating as Columbus*. That may be true, but, I can get to where I need to be once I’m allowed out of this hellhole.

“Where are you going?” I attempt to find a spot in the universe we can find to use as common ground. She mentions an exact spot in Boston where, hallefuckinglujah, I know a bus that will get her to the portal. On time or not is not my issue.

“Well,” she says putting on her friendly voice writing my directions down. “This didn’t take long at all.

It’s all perception, lady, it’s all perception.

* I looked it up, the bus she wanted didn’t come within six miles of this location.

Thug Poet

I deal with all manner of society. I say that not to curry pity nor have you question the life choices I have made.

I state that as a solid fact.

When people, normal, nice, recently bathed people arrive within my proximity you rarely hear me speak of them. Oh, they exist, it’s just that they are unremarkable for my uses. I enjoy them immensely yet they do not fit within the confines of the type of human I so often mention.

Good thing there’s no lack of assholes then, huh?

A brutish man bursts into the building. All bravado and bluster. He starts dictating the how’s and why’s of our transaction.

I counter with the rules and regulations of not only the company I work for but also the laws of the Commonwealth and the United States which would look unkindly upon his desires.

I quickly surmise that, due to his countenance (steely), adiposity (grand), and stature (imposing) he assumes I’ll wither in his company.

But I stand resolute. I am not swayed by the height (eight or so inches above mine) or weight (150 plus pounds over mine) differential. I am also not induced by his elocution. As a matter of fact, inside my head all that is being volleyed about is the line,

“I’m being menaced by a poet.”

Albeit a poet of the modern day. Meaning his iambic pentameter was born of the street not the drawing room.

As he pulls out all his maneuvers (or, in the vernacular: busts a move) he must get a sense I’m not swayed by his oration. So he leans in, his girth casting a shadow over me.

I do not allow this attempt at coercion to reign o’er me. While leaning in he continues his philippic prattle. I take this time to, once again, think,

“I’m being menaced by a poet.”

Before leaning into him and, in my first ever rap battle, poetry slam, confabulation contest or whatever it is called by the youth of today, I respond to him with,

“You may think you got over
but that’s your surprise.
You see me as smaller
but that’s a disguise.
My balls are so big they
leave dimples on my thighs.”

We stood there for a few beats, silently. I’m looking at him. He’s looking at me. It’s his move.

He moves on.