Piccolo's latest AF escapade  and the link to the ranger story got me searching the archives for some of the famous funny stories. Assembling these was fun and I laughed until my sides hurt. It'll take me a while to post them all, but here goes. To begin with, Pic's SEC tales.

ETA For those who have been thanking me - I couldn't have done it without a couple of threads in the archive by Genesmith, Jrodwi and thompsondd. Of course, the real credit goes to Piccolo, Treetop, Gabby, etc. who wrote these in the first place.

OK, I'm doing the quote format on this one, but after that just please understand that all of these came from someone else.

SEC files: the first “seeing eye cat” tale
Yesterday I was shoveling my truck out, and in the glove box, I found the temporary handicapped parking thingie the doc gave me when I busted my foot. That was a hands-down 'keeper', so I put it back in the glove box.

Last night the wife really started in on me about something dopey. I beat a hasty retreat to the basement; in fact it was so bad that the CAT beat me through the door. We sat there in the easy chair and watched TV (both put there for that purpose) and grew bored.

I decided to sneak out to a movie, but it wasn't fair to the little guy leaving him there.
So I grabbed a 4' white 7/16 dowel and spray painted the end 10" or so red, grabbed my sunglasses, and put the cat in his harness and clipped on a leash. We sneaked out the back door and into the pickup.

We drove off and I decided that it would be cool to see a movie if we could pull it off.
So when we got near the theatre, I put on my shades, pulled the handicapped thingy out and hung it on my mirror. I parked in a handicapped spot, grabbed the lease and the cane and kitty and I started toward the theatre with kitty playing the role of 'seeing eye' cat.

Some guy and his sweetie were getting out of their car, and she'd seen me get out of mine. I asked him, a real doofus, to lead me to the door. He took my arm and led the way.

You should have seen her trying NOT to wet her pants. She was funny. She wasn't stupid.

I was poking things with my cane, got to the ticket counter and bought a ticket and stumbled around until an usher led me into the theatre and seated me. Kitty sat on my lap throughout the movie. (Ghost ship. Save your money.)

After the movie, the usher came running and helped kitty and I leave the theatre.
Kitty on the leash led me to the truck, and I got in and we drove off.
Kitty got an extra treat for his 'Academy Award' performance.

NOBODY––-NOT ONE PERSON AT ALL––-CHALLENGED ME IN ANY WAY!!!! The people around us are stupid, lazy, or scared.

About 6 or 7 years ago, I decided to go out on Opening Day of deer season. At the last minute, I decided to take the little guy with me. Although there is a law against using dogs to hunt deer in PA, there is no law I knew of against taking a cat with me.

I got everything together the night before, of course, and in the morning I grabbed some cat food and fished a couple of tuna cans out of the trash and washed and dried them.

Every year I go out and I spot at least a couple of legal deer, yet I haven’t shot one in years. I’m the laughingstock of the Sportsman’s club I belong to when it comes to deer hunting. Truth is, I’m too damned lazy to shoot one.

At one meeting, I boasted about actually taking ammunition with me ‘in case one of them tries to trample me’.

The guys chuckled.

“Hey, it’s dangerous out there,” I said in a pouty-like defensive voice. “A guy could get killed.”

More laughter.

Opening day is a special time for me that has little if anything to do with shooting an animal. It’s simply a day when I take a rifle for a long walk in the woods.

The rifle stays in the safe all year and I guess it’s entitled to getting out and being taken for a walk every so often.

I harnessed up Tokie and we hopped into the pickup. I improvised a litter box on the floor by putting some kitty litter in an empty beer case.

It’s a trek to the happy hunting grounds and I generally stop for breakfast along the way. There’s this little place that makes a pretty good breakfast. Of course, I had forgotten that I wouldn’t be able to go in with Tokie. Then again, I figured it might be worth a try.

We pulled into the lot and moseyed on in. There were a bunch of hunters wolfing down all the stuff that their wives raise hell with them for eating.

“Hunting cat?” one of the hunters grinned.

“You got it,” I said. “He’s got better sense than I do.”

Most of the guys there chuckled.

“You can’t bring an animal in here,” said the owner.

“Any off you guys object to the little guy sitting under my chair while I grab something?” I asked aloud.

Most of the guys shook their heads to indicate that they had no problem. Nobody voiced any objections.

“Nah, cats are pretty clean animals,” said one guy.

“Sit in the corner bench and keep him out of sight,” said the owner, looking around like some Mafioso making a drug deal.

I was genuinely surprised. I was pretty sure someone would object until I thought that most of these guys probably have animals at home themselves. Most of their hunting dogs probably sit next to them during dinner.

I fished the tuna cans out of my pocket and put water in one and some food in the other and slid them under the bench. Then I ordered breakfast, and an extra piece of ham.

Tokie ate and jumped up alongside me on the bench, but on the inboard side where he wasn’t too obvious. He curled up and took a quick little nap. Then my breakfast arrived and I cut a piece of ham up, fished up the tuna cans and set them up quietly on the bench.

I really had to do this to keep him from hopping up on the table and getting both of us tossed out. Tokie ate some of the ham and behaved himself. That’s pretty unusual behavior for a cat.

I ate, paid the bill and stuffed Tokie under my coat and sneaked him out because a couple of other people had come in while I was eating. No telling if any of them would start something. I agree that animals probably do not belong where food is being served to the public, and I can see where someone would gripe. I don’t mind this too much.

The thing that pisses me off to no end is the cruel, gutless bastard that really doesn’t mind a situation at all, but simply starts something because he can. This truly frosts my ass.

Had anyone voiced an objection, I’d have taken the little guy out and ordered a ‘to-go’ order with no problem. The ones I’d like to smack are the ones that publicly go along with something than quietly complain to the management. If you have a problem with something, say so. Don’t backstab me.

Anyway, we got to the State Game Lands, and geared up and started off on a long walk down the open swatch by the power lines. I moved slowly because Tokie was being a cat and taking his own sweet time, sniffing everything and exploring the Great Outdoors.
A hawk floated above us lazily, and Tokie made a beeline for a thicket and got under cover. Like most cats, he’s pretty instinctive.

From time to time, we would hear a shot, sometimes two and I knew someone somewhere had harvested venison.

It was around mid morning when the little guy stuck his nose up and headed into the trees. About five yards into the woods, I saw what he was looking for, a gut pile. He sniffed and licked, but I wouldn’t let him eat. I snagged him up and took him away.

About 100 yards away, I took out the tuna cans and fed him again. Another hunter passed and looked and grinned.

“Hunting cat?” he asked with a grin.

“Highly trained,” I answered with a grin.

“Two firsts,” he said. “First time I’ve seen a cat on a leash and first hunting cat I’ve ever seen.” He chuckled a bit.

The look on his face told me he wasn’t fooled.

He reached down and gave Tokie a friendly little pet and continued his hunt.

We went back out into the power line area and moseyed around until lunch and then retreated into the tree line after air support prepped it.

I got out the tuna cans and my lunch, and Tokie being Tokie gave me his look so I peeled off a piece of roast beef and put it on top of his cat food. He ate it in seconds.

Then I reached into my pack for my bayonet, fixed it, jammed the rifle bayonet first into the ground and pulled out a ‘do not disturb’ sign and looped the string through the trigger guard.

Next, I tied Tokie’s leash to my wrist, placed my back against a tree and dozed off for a while.

I woke up about an hour and a half later feeling a claw in my thigh. I woke and saw the little guy looking up at something. It was a pretty good-sized buck.

This happens to me quite often on opening day. I take a nap and when I wake up, I see deer. It’s goofy, but it happens more often than not.

Tokie gave a loud ‘Meow’ and I’ll be damned if the deer didn’t mosey on off somewhere. Seeing we were more that 20 feet from the truck, I really didn’t care.

I loosened the leash and gave him a lot of slack while I refilled the tuna cans with food and water and watched him go off and dig a hole and poop and quickly refill it. Then I watched him eat.

We started back slowly toward the truck and the little guy caught a whiff of something, so we wandered in that direction. Another gut pile. I scooped him up and carried him part way back to the truck.

We arrived at the ‘parking area’ and there was a Game Warden. He was checking tags. He saw the pair of us and the look he gave us was priceless.

I cased my rifle and put my stuff in the back of the pickup.

“You didn’t unload your rifle,” said the Game Warden.

“I never loaded it,” I replied.

“Please check it anyway,” he said.

I opened the back of the shell and picked up my rifle, uncased it and held it up for him.

“The bolt’s out of it,” he said. “And there’s a bayonet in the case. What’s with the bayonet?”

“Bolt’s in my pack. Never put it in,” I replied. “Bayonet is so I can stick it in the mud and use the rifle to hang a ‘do not disturb’ sign when I take a nap. Ain’t nothing worse that being in dreamland and having someone shake you up and ask you if you’re all right.”

He laughed outright. Then he reached down and gave Tokie a little pet.

“I’ve seen hundreds of hunting dogs, and if he was a dog, I’d be carting you off,” he said. “Never seen a hunting cat,” Said the Game Warden.

I opened the pickup, Tokie got in, I followed and we drove home after another adventure together.

I gave him a lot of leash. He took every inch of it, and I enjoyed watching him.

The SEC and the bookstore.

This is one of the first times I took Tokie out in his role as the Seeing Eye Cat. Many of you guys have read of our earlier adventures, but not this one. I’ve kept two stories hidden, and I’m in the process of trying to find out if the other one can be posted. The other one has only been heard by two Arfcommers, Sgt Hoskins and Offctr.

I’m not worried about the criminal liability of this one because it’s water under the bridge. I very seriously doubt the police are interested in this as of now. I also never posted it because I sort of lost the fight and the victors write history. I didn’t get away with this one cleanly.

Far away and long ago, Tokie and I wandered into a bookstore. On a short leash, I could make it look like the kitty was leading me around.

When we got in the door, I stopped for a moment and said in a clear, loud voice “Is there a service desk nearby?”

A teenager answered, “I’ll come and get you.”

“I heard you. Don’t bother.” I replied.

And Tokie and I went over to the service desk.

I took my cane and gently felt around for feet and asked whomever if I was in line.

“One step to your right,” someone answered.

I stepped to the right.

“One step forward.”

I stepped forward.

“You got it. I’m the guy in front of you, I’ll get you there,” said the voice.

“Thanks, Pal,”

“Nice looking cat you got there. He ain’t no guide animal, is he?”

“Managed Health Care,” I said. “Bastards wouldn’t get me a dog.”

“Oh, my Gawd!” he exclaimed.

“Hey, half a loaf’s better’n none,” I answered.

We made small talk, as we were third and fourth in line. Finally, I worked myself to the head of the line.

The teenager asked me what I wanted.

“Do you have a basic book that teaches Braille?” I asked.

She proved herself to be an imbecile.

“Down that row,” she started.

“He can’t see. Directions are worthless to him. Take him there,” Said the woman behind me. “Let him take your arm. Damned kids.”

“Either that, or she could tell my cat,” I chuckled. “Thank you.”

A few people laughed.

She came around the desk and gave me her arm and carefully led me to the bookshelf.

“Hand me a basic book on learning Braille, please.” She did, and led me over to the top of a low shelf and opened it.

“I’ll be OK,” I told her. “Just need to show the little guy a few things. Someone will be here to pick me up.”

She went back to the desk.

I opened the book to the ABCs part and touched the raised letters as if I were reading them. Then I picked up Tokie. I touched his paw to the raised letters.

“This is ‘A’”, I said. “This is ‘B’…this is ‘C’…”

A few people passed me with a confused look on their face. A couple of the smarter ones snickered. They knew what I was up to.

It wasn’t long before the manager came charging up. She looked like a horrible old harridan with no sense of humor whatsoever.

“What are you doing,” she demanded.

“Seeing if I can teach my Seeing Eye Cat Braille,” I said.

“You gonna buy that book, or what?” she demanded.

“If it works, I’ll buy it. If not, I’m not.” I said simply.

“Baloney. Take your cat and get out of here.”

A big, beefy Irishman interrupted. “The guy’s blind, give him a break.”

Then the big fellow tipped his hand. He smirked at me and then winked. I almost lost it then and there, but somehow managed to hold it together.

“He’s not blind!” said the old bag.

“Then why does he have a Seeing Eye Cat?” the Irishman shot back. His breath smelled like he’d had a couple Jameson’s under his belt, sort of like I’ve had as I write this.

“Take your cat and leave,” she said to me.
I put the little guy back down on the deck and decided then and there that unless the police were called, I was damned well going to brass this one out. Deny it, even if they have pictures.

“Tokie, we’re out of here.” I said to kitty.

Wickedly, I gave the little guy a lot of leash. On a short leash, I could act like he really was a trained guide animal. On a long leash, I was at his mercy, so to speak.

“Keep a soft, civil tongue,” I said to the manager. “My animal doesn’t like fast movements or loud noises.”

“Just leave,” she said, sounding like a real shrew.

The cat, being a cat, took a short cut under a bench. I ran into it, almost went ass over teakettle and followed the leash. I crawled under the bench to follow. I got up on the other side and the little guy cut a corner and I plowed into a bookshelf and almost knocked it over. The old bag was not amused. The big Irishman almost wet his pants.

“Lady, quit scaring my animal.” I almost shouted.

Another ally appeared. A Birkenstock hoofed, braided armpit, liberal do-good Humboldt honey jumped in. Unlike the big Irishman who was feasting on the uproar, this idiot actually thought she had a liberal cause to support. She looked like the kind that got pissed off if you held the door for her. A real mouthy idiot.

There’s one good thing about these idiots, they’ll fight to the death for you if they think that they’re defending something idiotic.

“That’s a guide animal,” the Humboldt honey protested. “You’re scaring him.”

Tokie went under one of those chrome inverted U things with a metal base they put in aisles to advertise specials in. I plowed into it and knocked it down. It got tangled in the leash and I fumbled around with it, set it back up and felt under the crosspiece and followed the leash. I crawled through the hole.

“Lady, you’re scaring the animal,” protested the big Irisher.

A glance told me that he was trying not to wet his pants. He was positively amused. On the other hand, out little Humboldt Honey was ready to go to defend the rights of the blind and their Seeing Eye Cats.

“You’re scaring the poor man’s guide animal,” she shrieked.

That started to draw a crowd. A couple more people showed up.

The old harridan started to freak. “Margaret, call the police,” she shouted.

“Yeah! Call the police,” shouted the Humboldt Honey.

“Call the fuzz,” laughed the Irisher. “This old bag is assaulting a blind man.”

A voice from the desk: “What should I tell them?”

“The man’s not blind,” shouted the old bag.

“Then why does he have a Seeing Eye Cat!” shouted the laughing Irisher and the serious minded Humboldt Honey in unison.

“Tell the police the man’s not blind?” asked the teenager behind the desk.

By this time, the cat was the only one in the whole place that knew the right thing to do.

He made a beeline and led me to the east wall where there was a door and he started scratching it. It was a fire door, alarmed with a panic bar. I mimed feeling the perimeter of the door.

“That’s a fire door,” shouted the old bag.

“Push it! It’ll get you outside!” shouted the Irishman.

I pushed the panic bar, the door opened and as the alarm went off, I shuffled out the door. The Irishman followed, laughing himself silly. “I have to buy you a drink,” he said.

The old bag freaked. She ran to reset the alarm and call the fire department to cancel the call. AND call the police.

But when she went for the phone, she gave me the instant I was looking for. I scooped up kitty and started off.

“This way, I got a van,” said the Irishman. “And I got a bottle!”

We wove through the lot and the three of us ducked into his van. He had a jug of Irish there, but thank God it wasn’t too full. I took a snort.

He fired up the van and parked it in a ringside seat where we could see through the storefront window.

We spent the next 45 minutes in the van peeping out the windows watching the police go into the bookstore, interview people and leave. The Humboldt Honey took the longest. We both knew that she was trying to hang the store manager for abusing a poor blind man.

Finally the poor police officer left. The look on his face was priceless. He looked like he was going to close one eye and fart because he knew he didn’t know whether to shit or go blind!

I never pulled a Seeing Eye Cay foray in that township again.


And I really miss the little guy.

OK, guys. You know the basics.

We arrived at the polls in Bob’s full size pickup and Kitty and I got out and I grabbed my cane and sunglasses. I short leashed Kitty; he heeled pretty well and actually looked like a Seeing Eye cat is supposed to look. I took Bob’s arm and we entered the building and got in line.

We’d been in line just about a minute when a poll worker came up and asked me if I had any special needs. That was nice of him. Bob answered him.

“I’ve got 20/20 vision and need to be escorted to the booth by a blind man,” he said.

“Err, Son, didn’t you mean that the other way around?” he responded. He was a pretty old guy, in his 70s. He could call us ‘Son’ if he wanted to.

“Whatever,” I interrupted.

Our asses were now covered. We had told the truth.

We waited in line, and as to be expected, some big oaf passes by and damned near stepped on Kitty. Kitty responded with a vicious clawing of the asshole’s leg. Haven’t seen him do something like that in years. The asshole got pissed and mouthed off about animals in the polling place.

“It’s a guide animal,” said a Soccer Mom.

“I don’t care what it is, if he claws me again…”

A lot of people started looking at the asshole, and he realized he wasn’t too popular. He made one more face saving threat.

“Touch that animal and you’ll be shot dead!” said a voice behind me. I knew her. I ‘bout like to shit. It was the woman from down the street. She’s really nice, and is one of my admirers. She’s a real Amazon. “Blind people with Seeing Eye cats are permitted to carry licensed handguns to protect their cats from Seeing Eye dogs.” She said. “Federal Law. John Kerry fought for that bill, along with Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer.”

The poll worker came charging over and in a loud voice said something about no firearms in the polling pace. He nodded in my direction. “Except for him,” he said.
“Sounds like something those idiots would do,” said an unknown voice.
The whole line chuckled.

The asshole didn’t know whether to shit or go blind, so he closed one eye and farted. He moved away.

My neighbor lady chuckled. “Hey, Pic, wait’ll I tell my husband about this,” she said.

We laughed. I patted my underarm. The Soccer Mom directly behind me looked concerned. Could it be true? Was the blind man packing?

Silence.

A little kid with his mother started trying to play with Kitty in a way I knew he didn’t like. I signaled Bob, who started coughing heavily. The instant everyone started looking worriedly at Bob, I cracked the little bastard with my cane.

Whack!

The little yard ape ran back to the safety of his mother. Smart little crumb snatcher, it ever I ever saw one.

As we got to the front of the line, I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out an Irish Whisky bottle full of tea and took a healthy swig and passed it to Bob. He took a swig and offered it to the Soccer Mom behind us. She looked pretty upset and refused.

Now the pistol packing blind guy is half in the bag? Legally? John Kerry sponsored the bill? WTF?

When we were at the front of the line, the woman asked me my name, and I gave her Neighbor Bob’s. She dug out a card and asked me to sign it.

No way in hell was I going to forge his signature, so I said to him, “Take the pen and keep my writing on the line. I’ll sign. We’ve done this before.”

Bob took the pen, put it on the line and I placed my hand atop his and we buffaloed them. Our integrity was still intact. We had done nothing really wrong. It was really Bob’s signature.

To ham it up a bit, Kitty led me right into a pole and I hit harder than I thought I was going to. I bounced off and plowed into a voting machine. It almost got knocked over!

Close call.

“You ought to take that damned cat to a Chinese restaurant” growled Bob.

Everyone looked aghast. Except for the big guy that had felt the wrath of the SECs claws.

“Yeah,” said the big oaf.

“You keep out of this while you have a head on your shoulders,” said the Amazon from down the road. You even look at that kitty again and I’ll slap you silly!”

Everyone looked at her and busted up. The big guy turned red. Again.

Bob and I entered the booth and he voted.

We started off. The Soccer Mom who was behind me mumbled something about this being the first time she’s voted for a Republican POTUS in her whole life.

I guess she figured that she sure in hell wasn’t going to vote for anyone that would allow a blind drunk to carry a pistol. I say take the votes any legal way we can!

I let Kitty lead me into another post on the way out. BAM! I hit again.

“I need a fuckin’ drink,” I said, shaking my bruised head and pulling the Jameson’s jug out and taking a snort.

This drew pretty good looks. Horrified looks.

Then I short-leashed Kitty and the three of us stumbled across the lot, got in the pickup and started it up. A cruiser instantly blocked us. I rolled down the window.

“You were drinking? Asked the LEO.

I offered him the bottle of iced tea. He didn’t even sniff. He’s the same LEO that came to the house after we raised hell at Builder’s Square years ago.

“Didn’t you learn when your wife made you sleep in the basement for six weeks?” he asked.

He laughed and shook his head, got back into the car and drove off.

Kitty gets steak tonight.

As you know, the SEC is getting pretty old, and really isn’t getting around on the Seeing Eye cat circuit too much these days, which is a part of life. He’s coming near to the end of his. I’m sure going to miss the little bastard when he’s gone. We’ve sure had a hell of a lot of fun together.

Last year, I asked you guys to write the CO at Camp Perry and ask if I could get an exception made to the ‘No Pets on Post’ rule. The CO’s email box was stuffed.

Which really made no difference because I couldn’t get the time from work to go to Perry, anyway. Oh, well.

Still, Commanding Officers do not like having their in-boxes stuffed with requests for permission to bring Seeing Eye Cats on post, and I sort of thought that someone might be laying for me. I was right. Sort of.

Anyway, I was at Perry and happened to run into a familiar face from a couple of years back. Maybe even last year. Although I get to Perry pretty much annually, I generally get to shoot High-power every other year. When I’m not shooting, it’s usually a hectic run to shop on Commercial Row and stock up for a year’s worth of supplies and a couple T-shirts.

The familiar face was Sp/4 National Guardsman and had served as an MP for the last couple of years. We chatted and I mentioned something about a guy supposedly planning to bring a Seeing Eye Cat on the post. He grinned.

“Ya know, last year, we were supposed to be on the lookout for someone like that and run him and his cat off post if we saw him. Some idiot stuffed the CO’s email box by posting his email addy on some shooter’s forum or something. I don’t think he himself gave the order to run the guy off, but it came from somewhere,” he explained.

“Yeah? I saw the guy with the cat and I can tell you for a fact that he’s here on post,” I said.

“Really? The guy that wanted to bring his cat with him to the Garand match last year?”

“The very guy. He’s got a cat with him, too.”

“Huh,” he mused. “I think there was a case of beer or something as a reward for nailing his sorry ass.”

“Well, he’s here,” I said.

“I ought to check up on this,” he said.

The seed was planted.

I figured it’d take a couple hours before every MP on post was looking for the SEC. The battle of wits was on!

Could I manage to hide the SEC from the MPs for three more days? This was going to be interesting.

Of course, I had allies. Many ARFCOMMERS would stick their necks out a bit to help me get away with it, and there were a few junior shooters that know about the SEC and would help me out of youthful exuberance. Time to put word out that the chase was on.

It didn’t take me long to get word out to my allies that the chase was on and the MPs were looking for the guy with the SEC. Of course, I had a distinct advantage in that they didn’t know exactly who it was that they were after. Sometimes the best place to hide is in the lion’s mouth.

A pair of MPs was walking between clusters of hutments when the first shot was fired. A teenage girl I had quietly recruited at Celeste Denson’s CeCa earplug clinic fired it. I had been careful NOT to et Celeste know what I was up to. Although she has a wonderful sense of humor, she is a woman of great integrity. I didn't want her to get caught in the middle.

The teenaged girl's brother was entering the family hutment as a pair of MPs went by, and she sang out in a loud voice.

“Don’t let the cat out!” she fairly sang out to her brother. This was a pretty good shot. The MPs were smart enough not to be seen peeking into the hutment occupied by a female. Still, they moseyed down and hung out a bit. They were hoping that there was a cat in the hutment and that it escaped. I quietly walked past suppressing a smirk

I new the 2 MPs would hang out there until they were called to go somewhere else.

I grabbed the cat cage out of my pickup cap and took it inside my hutment and left it where it could be seen only by peeking through a window. I tied the end of his long leash to the top carry handle and opened the cage. I’ve done this in motel rooms before. Kitty gets a little running room and can’t escape when a door gets opened. This way, you don’t have to shout out a warning not to let the cat out when you receive a visitor.

I doubted the MPs would be looking in this hutment for the SEC.

KY23 knows. He kept quiet. I’d bet that you could have beaten him senseless before he’d say that there was a cat in the hutment, and for good reason.

It was just as darkness was setting in when the second shot was fired, and it actually caused a pair of MPs to call another pair as sort of a backup.

Half a dozen fired a volley when they started wandering around calling out for a lost cat.

“Here, Kitty. Kitty, Kitty,” they sang out. When the MPs came around the corner after hearing it, they clammed up and shuffled round looking as guilty as hell. This caused the 2 MPs to call another pair and the 4 of them started calling out for the imaginary lost cat.

The SEC was now well hidden from the MPs, there was no way in hell they were going to catch us.

The following I took care of business. My teenaged girl co-conspirator fired another shot, with the expected results. She was glad to, as she wasn’t a shooter and was a bit bored.

I shot the Springfield match that afternoon, and later that evening some of the young people fired off a couple shots. This kept the MP pretty busy.

That evening a sharp-eyed Sp/4 bringing the cat cage to the pickup nailed me, but the MPs were to be disappointed. Here was no cat in it, and I was using is as a laundry hamper. For a second, there they acted like they’d brought a desperate criminal to justice.

Disappointment. No cat, no crime.

Later that evening, an ARFCOMMER was heard making cat meows. This drew a pair of bored MPs.

But there was no cat to be found. No cat, no crime.

The next day, I was slated to shoot the JCG on the afternoon relay.

The morning was spent on commercial row. A shooter’s wife told me that she was shouting, “Don’t let the cat out!” every time her husband entered their hutment. I think her hubby was an ARFCOMMER. She noticed the MPs walked by their pace slowly.

I shot the JCG match and spent the night at Perry, and left the following day around noon. I hadn’t been caught.

Why was KY23 never going to admit to ever seeing the SEC?

Simple. He hadn’t. The SEC had spent the whole time in Pittsburgh with Mrs Pic!

The cat I had with me was a stuffed toy.

Ya can’t catch a cat that ain’t there!

I had to go to the water department today. The new building is nearby, and is sorta built in a ravine of sorts. When you drive by it, you are actually looking DOWN at the building, which is pretty huge, and the Maintainance building that's a hell of a lot bigger.

Because of the odd-colored green roof, the pair of buildings is known throughout the area as 'Emerald City'.

Kitty and I went in, I was in sunglasses with cane. We stumped up to the receptionist and I picked up kitty.

"Kitty, does this look like Kansas?" I asked.

Then I looked toward, but not directly at the receptionist, and told her: "I'm here to see the Wizard to get my eyes fixed And, Oh, to have this bill reviewed."

The woman busted up laughing.

"I've been wondering when someone would actually have the nerve to ask and see the Wizard," she said. "The nickname 'Emerald City' really does fit."

"My wife says that this bill is wrong," I said.
"Would you read it to me?"

"OhmyGod!" she said. "You really are blind."

She took the bill and left for a few minutes.

When she returned, she told me that the bill had been paid a while back.

"I know, it was screwed up then and I was trying to see if it was going to be sent out screwed up again. I figured that someone just quick-fixed it the last time and the wrong data was still on the computer."

"I'll check." Gone again.

She returned.

"You were right," She said. "I fixed it. This time you'll get billed for the proper amount."

Kitty and I left, and in the process, I 'accidentally' ran into a doorjamb.

Off we went, hopped into the pickup and drove off, swinging my cane out the window. I wonder if she saw.

All in all, a pretty good deal. I managed to save a Mrs Pic a headache. She gets worked up when stuff like water bills get screwed up.
Bill problems. Gotta go BACK to Emerald City. The Water Department.

Last time I was there the SEC was still with me and we had a little fun.

In I walk, go to the desk and explain the problem. The woman askes me if I once had a vision problem. I KNOW where this is going. Busted.

Almost.

So I tell her I was legally blind for seven years.

"Cornea transplant?" she asks.

"Cat died," I reply.

"I remember the cat," she said. " How did that get your vision back?"

"Seven or eight years ago, my wife rescued a stray cat. I didn't know I was allergic to them and after a couple weeks , my eyes shut solid. Doctors couldn't figure it out. I asked my HMO for a guide dog, but they only offered to train my cat to do guide duty. All along it was making me worse, and nobody ever had a clue. The cat was keeping my eyes shut. When the cat died, my eyes got better.

"Really?"

"What do you think," I snapped indignantly. "How would you like to spend seven years being led around by a damned cat?"

She didn't know what to say. I'm sure she figured it was all bullshit, but she knew if it wasn't, it could cost her job.

She changed the subject, took instant care of the bill and got me out of there fast.


Not bad for off the top of my head, Huh?

The reason for no SEC tales recently.

02/10/2004 : 14:41:21

Kitty and I are laying low.

We're waiting for the heat to die down.

Boy, we really went and did it this time!

It's been a couple of months, and I don't see us rearing our heads for AT LEAST a couple more weeks.

We came DAMNED CLOSE to being on nationwide TV and giving a certain anti RKBA reporter some SERIOUS payback!

My recon sources tell me that we got reported to the PGH PD.(Who are probably ROFLAO’ing)

I’ll be damned if I know who this caller is. I figure he’s a cop, because he knew just about everything. This tale of woe would NOT be written if it weren’t for an anonymous phone caller. He called when I was at work, and made Mrs Pic pretty nervous. Mrs. Pic told him to call back when I was home.

He did, and filled me in on the details of what later happened in the TV station AND the Police station.

I respected his anonymity. I made no effort to *69 him or find out who he is.

I KNOW that the caller has visited this website. Maybe as a member, maybe as a lurker. I don’t know. I THINK he’s a cop.

Anyway, thank you, Mr. Caller.

The SEC in Lowe’s

A lot of readers think that I have the little guy trained. Come on, think about it. Has anyone ever seen anyone get a cat to do anything that a cat didn’t want to do? Hah!

Fat chance! You should live so long!

No, a cat is a cat, and trying to get a cat to act like a dog is like trying to get a brick to carry on an intelligent conversation. On the other hand, one might have better luck with a brick.

The SEC will walk with me on a damned short leash, but that’s about all. The only reason the little guy will do that is because he knows that it’s the only way he can get out of the house.

Today I decided to take the little guy into Lowe’s. I also decided, rather foolishly, to put myself at the mercy of the little bastard. I decided to give him a long leash and see what happened.

I short-leashed the little guy into Lowe’s and got him into the main aisle before I cut him some slack. The place wasn’t too crowded, so I felt safe doing so. Of course, being a cat, he promptly jumped on top of a display and took a nap, leaving me standing there with my thumb up my ass and a leash in my hand for about twenty minutes.

I stood there and muttered threats, much like Popeye in the early cartoons.
After about twenty minutes, I grew impatient and growled at him. He woke up, hopped off of the display and started down the aisle. After a couple aisles, he wandered into the tool cage, with me firmly attached to the little guy.

Of course, someone offered to help me.

“Yeah, could you direct me to the Paint Department?” I asked.

He started to give me directions. I interrupted.

“Don’t tell me, tell HIM.” I said shaking the leash.

“The cat? Can I give him directions?”

“Absolutely.”

So the tool guy gets down on his knee and starts giving the cat directions.

Of course, the cat looks at him with a bored look of scorn.

When he’s done, I shorten up the leash and the two of us go straight to the paint department, with the tool clerk behind us, slack-jawed. We got to the paint department and the woman there asks us if she can help us.

I tell her to get out a color chart and explain that the cat needs his scratching post and climbing post painted. She asks me what color. I tell her to ask the cat. I pick the little guy up onto the counter and she lays out a color chart.

“What color do you want, kitty?” She asked.

The cat sniffs the color chart like he’s trying to make up his mind.

“Meow.”

So I put him on the floor and tell the woman that we’ll be right back when Kitty decides. The woman looks astonished and we leave.

Kitty seems to want to head in the direction of the lumber section, I give him slack and follow. He promptly cuts a corner and runs me into a post. Whack!

“Ouch! Dammit, pay attention!” I almost shout.

I hear a snort behind me. A glance out of the corner of my eye tells me that the tool guy, probably at the direction of his boss, is following me. This is getting interesting.
Kitty whips a U-turn and we’re back in the main aisle, still headed for lumber.

We’re now dead center in the main aisle and ahead of us is one of those dopey signs announcing some type of sale. The frame of the sign is like an upturned U with a crossbar in the center, below the sign is a two-foot square hole.

Of course, Kitty makes a beeline for it. Straight through the hole. I feel the obstacle with my cane, shove my cane in my belt, and gingerly feel the rim of the hole. I get down on my belly and crawl through and get up again.

I shortened up the leash and picked up Kitty.

“Next time you pull that stunt,” I tell him. “I’m going to replace you with a German Shepherd and take you straight to a Chinese Restaurant! Chin Ho offered me two fifty a pound for your sorry ass!”

The woman beside me looks pretty shaken. She’s probably a cat owner.

I put kitty down, he heads down another aisle, cutting the corner again, and I promptly run into a display and knock out the corner of it. There is now a pile of tape measures on the floor.

“I’ll get it,” says the kid shadowing me.

Kitty gets more threats, whips another U-turn, and we’re off toward the lumber department.

By now, at least a dozen people are shadowing me. Some are amused, but most of them are looking out for my welfare. A management type seems to have figured me out, but dares not say or do anything, lest he be pounced on by an angry mob that will insist that kitty really is a Seeing Eye cat.

A kid of about twelve or thirteen asks me a question.

“Hey, Mister, were you born blind, or did you have an accident?” he asks.

“What?”

“What made you go blind?”

“Masturbation,” I reply, seriously. “I didn’t believe the Nuns at school, but it really does make you go blind.”

The kid pales and takes off. Probably a St Ignatius kid.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a guy about 40 trying not to pee his pants.

Laughing his ass off, he says, “You probably ruined him for life.”

We move on. Nearing the lumber department, I hear a voice. “Piccolo, is that you?”
I ignore him. Dammit! Ratted out by a fellow ARFCOM member! Now I wish I had brought my chain saw! I’d cut the bastard lips to hips! So I ignore him.

At the lumber department is a huge, wide open door, and kitty makes a beeline for it.

Out we go and I shorten leash and we head for the pickup.

NO––––Say Again––––NO animals are to be hurt in any way in this possible caper. NONE!

You need a 4' by 1/2 inch dowel painted white with a red, say 6" tip, a pair of sunglasses, a leash and a harness for the cat.


BEAT THIS:



OK, I needed a hand with this one, so I grabbed Neighbor Bob and his
kid. Bob drove, we arrived and he took my arm and led Kitty and I to the
door and in we went. The old bag was there.

You guys all know the type, she was probably pretty about 55 years ago,
and as her beauty faded, she replaced it with makeup and cheap perfume.
She's also the type that comes totally unglued easily. I think the
Wallyworld people won't let her wear any cheap perfume, which is a relief
for everyone.

When we got near the old bag, she came toward us and offered me one of
those dopey little go-carts in a VERY loud voice.

Any of you guys out there that are genuinely handicapped can tell the
rest of us that people often do this to them. It is really annoying to
them and it was annoying to me.(Just because your legs may not work
doesn't mean you're deaf, dammit!)

I politely asked her how she expected me to steer one of those dopey
carts. She got a bit embarrassed.

Duh!

Anyway, she fawned over me a bit and asked me if the little guy was a
real live seeing-eye cat.

"Absolutely," I replied.

Bob squeezed my arm and off we went to sporting goods. I hit an end
counter with my knee, another with my foot, and plowed into a support post
and chewed Bob out for not paying attention.We got to sporting goods.

I wanted to buy a box of .223 ammo any watch the clerk get weirded out.

What I DIDN'T know is that Bob and darling daughter had already
rehearsed their act.

The sporting goods guy came out. He asked me what I wanted, and I told
him I wanted a box of .223FMJ 55 grainers.

"A gift for a friend?," he asked.

"Nope. For my Mini-14," I replied. "Anyone tried to break in and
they're toast."

"How do you shoot, are you just legally blind, or what?"

"Blind as a bat," I replied.

Bob's kid spoke up: "He shoots for a living. He's a trickshot."

He gave the kid a dirty look.

"We all work for Barnum and Bailey," said Bob."He's a trickshot, I'm an
accountant and my wife's a lion tamer."

The guy gave Bob's kid an apologetic look.

"Do you work in the Circus?" he asked the kid.

"Yeah, I work with him," said the kid, looking at me. "He shoots the
pinwheel I hold."

"You hold up a pinwheel and he shoots it?"

"Yes, I hold it in my teeth and give it a spin. When he hears the whir
it makes, he shoots."

"How long is the stick?" he asked.

"About four inches", said the kid, casually.

The guy went straight into shock when he heard that.

The clerk recovered and looked at Bob.You raise your family on the road
in the circus,Huh? how many kids do you have?"

"Had 4, got 3 now.We lost one some time back."

He didn't ask how. But the dubious look he gave me made me think that
he thought I'd shot one of my buddy's kids under the Big Top.

Then he asked me about the little guy and said that he was the first
seeing eye cat he'd ever seen. I explained that Bob's wife, the lion
tamer, had trained the little guy in her spare time, and went on a while
about the advantages of seeing eye cats over dogs.

He asked me what defensive measures I take if a dog tried to attack the
little guy.

I explained to him that there was a little known Federal Law that
permitted blind people with seeing eye cats to carry concealed handguns to
defend their cats from vicious dogs.

"Gee, who da ever guessed?"

It was the kid that saw her first, and gave me the high sign. Out of
the corner of my eye I saw the 'People Greeter'. She'd left her post and
was nearby picking up the phone. The kid sidled near her, and listened.

"Cops," said the kid.

The jig was up!( Leonard Skinner music here: Give me 3 steps)

The old bag looked up at us. "I've seen you in here before, and you're
not blind. It's against the law to bring an animal in here!" she nearly
shouted.

Had she threatened me first with the cops, I probably could have
'brassed it out' with threats of a huge lawsuit, but she had gotten uppity
and called the bulls first.

I scooped up the little guy, and Bob tossed his truck keys to the kid
who took off like a shot. It's common knowledge that the township out
here has EXCELLENT police response time.


Bob and I walked pretty quickly to the door, as not to stir up too much
attention and when we hit the pavement, the little guy went up under my
sweat shirt and promptly got really pissed off and started scratching
the hell out of me. Ny new asshole is now about three inches above my
naval.Bob was heading straight for the truck. I headed toward the exit.
Nobody followed us into the lot, but the old bag stood in the door,
trying to keep her eye on me.

By the time Bob got to the pickup, the engine was running, and all the
doors were unlocked. He unparked and headed toward me at the exit. The
kid popped open the door, and we made a pretty good 'Bonnie and
Clyde'exit. Out to the highway, we hooked a right and not an eighth of a mile
down the road, we saw the local LEOs coming with lights flashing.

I let Kitty out of his hiding place inside my sweat shirt, and he
looked pretty upset, but got over it. Three miles down the road, we got on
the Interstate and we were home-free.

I wonder what had happened if we hadn't unassed the area fast enough
and had gotten caught.

SEC files: Another “seeing eye cat” tale

I ought to tell you about the time a couple years ago the pair of us got into some real deep doo-doo.

The wife came home, went looking for kitty, and knew I was out shopping for building materials. Thought I'd leave the little guy in the pickup. She tried to come to the rescue. Finds the truck. No cat. goes inside, sees me with sunglasses, cat and cane.

So she has a snit and snatched the cat and started to walk off.

I simply plowed into a pile of insulation, knocked it over, fell on my ass, started swinging my cane and shouted: “Help me! For God's sake! Someone is stealing my seeing eye cat!"

Some guy sees me, sees the wife starting to run and grabs the wife. HIS wife grabs kitty, brings him to me, hooks him onto my leash and helps me up.

The guy who grabbed her hauled out a cell phone and calls the LEOs.

When I heard that, I made some quick excuse and kitty and I boogied. We were leaving in the pickup as the LEOs were coming in.

Wife had to spend better part of an hour trying to explain to LEOs what she was doing trying to steal a seeing-eye cat from a blind man. Of course, a couple dozen honest citizens were telling the LEOs that it REALLY WAS a blind guy with a REAL seeing eye cat, and looking at the wife like she was some kind of evil witch. Why she got off the hook is beyond me, but she didn't get locked up.

Cost me 5 weeks on the cot in the basement, but it sure broke her of the habit of starting spats in public (I hate that $hit. No excuse for public spectacles)

To this day, if my buddy even says 'seeing-eye cat' within earshot of her, I get a REAL dirty look.

Women have NO sense of humor

OK here it is. Final SEC results

My neighbor's kid took a spill at basketball and got a pretty healthy sized bruise. No biggie.

The next day at school, the math teacher, a 1st year, high-strung rookie about 23-24 yo) took 1 look at the bruise and instantly called the child welfare people without asking anybody anything about it. Bam! just like that. No chain of command thru the principal, no questions, no nothing! That ain't right!

Of course, there was a brief investigation. No wrongdoing of any kind, still my neighbor was pissed of to the max because he was 'now in the system'.

I got him calmed down and what we did was evil.

He called the school and told them that I was going to pick up his kid after basketball practice. He gave me a note. He waited at home.

I took kitty and we got out of the pickup around the corner, out of sight. Kitty and I did the SEC bit and Trish and Ms Crunt were at the door. I handed the note to the teacher and Trish led me off to the truck asking me who was driving. I said I would if she told me which way to go.

Then Trish asked if we could go to the rifle range on the way home.
Ms Crunt went through the roof babbling all sorts of craziness about a blind man driving and taking a little kid shooting. She followed us out to the truck screaming and babbling all sorts of shit. God, it was funny! Kitty made a beeline for the truck, as he HATES yelling. I followed, guides partly by cane, partly by Trish.

With her carrying on and Trish and I totally ignoring her, it's a good thing there were no witnesses. They'd have taken all three of us straight to the booby hatch.

We got in and fired up the rig and drove off amid threats of LEOs and Child welfare people.

Fifty feet out, we both started laughing so hard I almost had a for real accident.

The bait had been put out, the trap set.

Shortly after I dropped Trish off, Bob got 2 calls, 1 from the principal and the other from Child welfare. Meeting set for after school Mon.

Bob later said that he fenced pretty well with them and managed to make Ms Crunt look like the idiot she is. ('Whadda ya mean blind guy?' He's a Merchant Marine Officer!)

Then he went in for the kill.

He dialed me on the cell phone and I was there inside a couple of minutes, in a jacket and tie, wearing sunglasses. Trish met me at the door and took me to the conference room by the hand.

"That's him! There's the blind man!"

I took off my sunglasses and looked at her like she was nuts.

"You're gonna get fat if you keep up your exercise program," I said.

"What?"

"Running off at the mouth, jumping to conclusions, and dragging a good man's name through the mud is NOT good exercise," I said.

"But you has a cane and a guide animal!"

"The cane was a stick. I twisted my ankle a bit. Blind people use a foldup cane, if you never noticed, and the animal was a CAT. Who ever heard of a seeing eye cat? That's a good one, Seeing Eye Cat!"

I shook my head, looking at her like she was nuts, and laughed.

The kiddie cop laughed outright. "Seeing eye cat, that's pretty good," he said.

Even the principal smiled.

Ms.Crunt sat there looking pretty damned stupid!

The kiddie cop asked about the rifle range.

Mike said that Trish goes there to practice her Archery so she'll be ready for Spring Archery season, coming up soon. He pointed out that archery was a SCHOOL ACTIVITY and Trish took it last year, and planned to take it again.

As far as the rifle part went, He said that although he never owned a firearm and didn't see getting one in the future, that he wanted to have his daughter learn to safely know how to handle one in case someone ever handed her one.

Then he said, "Capt Pic is on several fine rifle teams and is obviously the guy to teach her. He's actually shot in the National Matches!"(Yeah, the JCG and Springfield matches. BFD)

The kiddie cop seemed impressed, which surprised me to no end. He actually said gun safety was a good idea!

Ms Crunt pouted. She looked on the verge of tears.

I then answered several questions about Bob and his relationship with Trish and then was asked to take Trish home.

We quietly hung outside the room for a while before we left, and there was all sorts of teary sobbing as the Kiddie cop and the Principal went to work on poor little Ms Crunt.

They hammered her big time.

I heard the principal tell little Ms Crunt that "If she saw 50' flames, she was NOT to call the Fire Department until she had notified her first!" More tears.

Trish and I left,with me stopping off on the way home at the liquor store for a 1/2 pint. I was shaking like a leaf. The after action shakes.I needed a belt just to settle down.

We waited about an hour.

Bob returned.

Final score: Lions-5; Christians-0.
1.Teacher on probation.
2. Principal pleading for no lawsuit.(agreed)
3.Kid gets tuition for free to grade 12.
4.Kiddie cop made everything go away except 1st contact report, and put a note on that declaring initial complaint proved to be a questionably criminal act on the part of Ms Crunt.(ouch!)
5. Trish pulled out of Ms Crunt's math class and put in another a bit more advanced, and the teacher there is supposed to 'work with Trish' to help her catch up.

Bob owes me a steak dinner,and a new pair of shorts. Kitty gets gourmet food and goes back into retirement.

SEC and I get an eyeful.

The pesky little bastard woke me up early, so we went out early. I grabbed a breakfast sandwich at the local 7-11.

We went to the park, which is near a bus stop.I had my cane and shades on. We sit on a bench and I break open my sandwich and open a can of food for Kitty.

At the nearby bus stop I watch a woman hand this fat broad something. She goes into the park. She pulls a 'Leggs egg' out of her bag.

She sits down on the bench across from me. Takes a quick glance at me and hikes up her skirt and promptly starts changing her panty hose.

I was looking into space. About the time she was pulling her panty hose up, I raised my shades and said:

"Hmmm. My kid brother's Basset Hound has better makings than you."

She lets go a scream.

"But I thought you were blind!"

"What ever gave you that idea?" I asked.

"You got a cane and sunglasses and a guide animal!!"

"It's bright out, this is a walking stick, and whoever heard of a cat as a guide animal?

Besides, you made a really big mistake."

"What's that?"

"You thought."

Thank God the bus arrived.
This whole mess started as a trip to visit the vet. As I was leaving, neighbor Bob hopped in with me just to get away for a while. I had packed my white cane and shades because Dr Shirley thinks it’s funny to see us come into the clinic like that. It draws looks from patients.

Kitty was OK; this was more of a social visit. Dr Shirley had moved and her clinic was across town. I was glad to see her, and so was Kitty. After a brief visit, we left.

On the way back, Bob and I decided that we ought to eat and decided to reroute down to the Strip District. This is the area in Pittsburgh where a lot of good foods come into town, and is just about the only place in the area where one can get decent seafood. At least in my opinion. We decided to hit Wholley’s Seafood for lunch.

”Bring Kitty in with us?” asked Bob.

”Why not. We’ll get him a little piece of halibut.” I answered.

”Ever occur to you that the little guy might go nuts in a seafood place?”

”I planned on it”, I replied.

”A cat in a seafood restaurant oughta be more chaotic than 19 blind lesbians on a tuna boat! Oh, well, what the hell.”

I grabbed my cane, doffed my shades, grabbed the little guy and off we went. Kitty was making a beeline for Wholley’s.

None of us wanted to get booted out, so we played this deal pretty straight. Some boss type looked at us, but decided that he’d probably better shut up and take us at face value. A blind patron, his pal and his guide animal.

He even asked if kitty wanted anything and fixed him up with a very nice piece of baked halibut. Free. Pretty nice of him.

Bob and I had a cup of chowder and a pretty good fish sandwich. We all ate and left.

Bob was chuckling that we’d gotten away with bringing Kitty in with us.

We were headed back to the truck when I saw her.

”Bob, target of opportunity, range 75 yards, It’s that damned reporter that raised hell at the match a while ago” I said, quietly.

”Oh, shit!” said Bob. And with that, he peeled off out of formation like a P-51 pilot after an ME-109. He vanished.

Kitty and I proceeded and the reporter addressed me. I played dumb and kept moving.

”Hey, you with the cat!” she said, loudly.

”Who, Me?” I asked.

”Is that a guide animal?” she asked.

”Now what do you think?” I answered, just on the edge of nasty.
”Would you like to see yourself on TV?”

”Whadda you, some kind of magic eye doctor?” I snapped.

”Oh, I’m sorry”. Anyway, I’m a reporter from STUV-TV and we’d like to interview you. We’ve never seen a cat used as a guide animal and it might make a pretty good human interest story.”

Bam! Snagged the bitch! Payback time!

A few years back when the media was playing the “militia scare” business up, this little twit had shown up at a local sportsman’s club and shot film of the rapid fire portion of the National Match course, zooming in on 2 National Guardsman and a Vet in BDUs. That evening it was aired in the context of being some sort of ¡ “Paramilitary training” going on in the area. The club came damned close to shutting down their DCM/CMP program for a while.

And here I had the bitch! Cameraman and all. HAH! I’ll fix THIS twit!

So I gave her an interview.

I stood there with Kitty, and looked off center toward the camera and explained how Kitty had been trained by a retired Barnum and Bailey lion tamer, and that HMOs are starting to use trained cats instead of dogs, and in general, with a straight face, gave her the biggest crock of pure, 100% unadulterated first-class bullshit that I’ve ever produced.

When the interview was over, Kitty and I started up the sidewalk. Neighbor Bob popped straight out of nowhere and rejoined the formation. He had pretty much heard it all and was laughing himself silly.

We drove home and watched the news nightly for the next week.
Nothing.

I went back to work and forgot about it. I guess they figured out that they’d been had and hadn’t used the tape. It became a dead issue.

I was at sea weeks later, and as I crawled out of the rack, my shipmate looked at me.

”Some guy name a Bob called. He says call home” He said.

I called. Mrs. Pic told me an anonymous caller that was looking for me worried her. She said that there was something about the voice that worried her a bit. She also gave him a date to call me.

I assured her things would be all right, and reminded her that the .45 was ready to go.
A few days ago, when I got home, the caller called again.

He told me that there had been chaos in the TV station a day after the interview. Just a couple minutes before airtime, the cameraman had run a computer search on the subject of “Seeing Eye Cats” and had gotten a link to ARFCOM. Chaos had reigned as they replaced the interview at the last minute with some copy they had on file about something or another. (Mrs. Murphy supplies Mexican Army with Clam Chowder comes to mind.)

Had the interview aired, there would be a good chance that a competitor would have aired it poking fun at the other TV station. This means it probably would have gone national.

The following morning the reporter stomped down to the Police Station demanding that the evil perp that had lied to her be apprehended. The desk sergeant took her complaint and told her he’d look into it.

(Right now my vision is in Black and White. Ol’ Sarge picks up a foot tall Mike: “Calling all cars, Calling all cars, Be on the lookout for a guy with a Seeing Eye Cat¡. Approach with caution! Cat has been reported to be an extremely vicious trained attack cat (Sirens start to whine. A Motorcycle cop adjusts his cap, pulls down his goggles, kick-starts the Harley and comes out from behind the billboard. I watch too much AMC)
Truth is that he most likely tossed the complaint into the trash can, or perhaps used it to entertain the oncoming shift during briefing.

He also asked me NOT to bring Kitty into the city for a while.

Whoever you are, Thank you!

Quoted:

This is a PRE SEC tale of Tokie and I, happened about 10 years ago before i started doing the sunglasses and cane business. It really isn't too pretty a story, but I suppose I ought to tell it if the coast is clear.

All I will say is this: It involves a smart ass 17 YO punk kid, a cat, $10, some missing teeth, and a lesson taught regarding cruelty to animals.

The $10 wasn't paper money.

FWIW, the atty visit is family business.OK this is well before Tokie became the Seeing Eye Cat and shot to stardom at AR-15.com. This was when he was just another nobody cat that had been rescued by Mrs. Pic.

Shortly after the little guy came into my life, we found out he was sick. He was eating like a horse, but not gaining any appreciable weight. A trip to the vet and blood work told us he had a thyroid problem. We took him to Cleveland Clinic for radioactive iodine therapy; the offshoot being a visit from the Atomic Energy commission, thanks to Neighbor Bob putting a Nuclear Waste sticker on the trash cans which is another tale of laughter in itself. Oh, well. Someone remind me to tell that tale of woe and governmental stupidity. If it hadn’t been so funny, I swear I’d have shot Neighbor Bob.

Anyway, the little guy got better and would walk with me on a leash and I often took him on my rounds.

Work was going OK; except my vessel had been sold out from under me and I had to go through the madness of the bid process to find another permanent job. I never lost any work, though. I worked relief where they sent me, but I was truly a gypsy. I never knew how long I would be, or on what boat, so instead of using the company supplied bedding, I brought my own in the form of a lightweight sleeping bag. The sleeping bag started getting a little funky, so it was wash time.

Everyone knows that the average washing machine is a little too small for sleeping bags, so it was Laundromat time.

I had gotten off the day previously and still had the sleeping bag in a backpack. I decided to get that job taken care of. I put Tokie on his leash and we hopped into the pickup and off we went to the bank to get some scratch. We entered and the teller smiled, but did not boot us out. Banks are hit or miss over some things, and although this was not a case of Tokie being in his more famous role of a Seeing Eye cat, it did look a little odd. The teller was amused, so the bank let us slide.

I got myself fifty bucks walking money, two twenties paper, and ten bucks silver for the Laundromat. The paper went into my jeans pocket, and I dropped the roll of quarters into the patch pocket of my barn coat. I noticed the quarters were in a new style roll of some kind of plastic shit and scowled until I remembered I had my rope knife in my pocket.

We got to the strip mall where the Laundromat was and I got out of the pickup with Tokie on his leash. He balked a little at first, but started walking alongside me. I had parked some distance away from the laundry.

We wandered up to the start of the sidewalk and started down the strip, sassing by one of the stores. Someone looked at the sight of a cat on a leash and looked amused. We walked on.

A big teenager came toward us, head on from the other direction, and I gave him a passing glance. When he got closer, I looked a little closer. He was about seventeen or so. On an even closer inspection, I realized he was one of those ‘overdeveloped’ kids.

Most of us have had a kid like that with us in school. I know I did, his name was Larry. Larry was taller than the rest of us, and had probably started shaving at about ten or so, daily at about eleven and by the time he joined Scouts, he probably had the 5 O’clock shadow by two in the afternoon.

Larry was a pretty good kid, really. He was sort of a gentle giant. However, some of these overdeveloped kids either from teasing or whatever can turn into bullies. Something told me the kid in front of me had shaken down more than one of his schoolmates for their lunch money.

I hoped he didn’t have a penchant for animal cruelty. I wasn’t going to stand for that for an instant. We faced each other and made our passing arrangements. One whistle. We would pass each other portside to portside, and I veered off to my right to facilitate a save passage. Tokie was hipped up on my portside.

This was my first mistake. I should have held out for a two whistle passing situation, and put Tokie against the building, where he would have been a little safer. The kid held course and speed, but I was still a bit wary. Instinct.

At the last minute, I jerked the little guy out of the way of a mean spirited ‘accidental’ kick.

My temper flared and I called the oversized yard ape a few of the things I heard in basic training and started in on his parentage, birth and legitimacy. Instantly, I knew I had my hands full, so I opened the door to the floral shop, tossed Tokie inside, leash and all, shouted for someone to hold on to him, closed the door, dropped my pack and faced the oversized orangutan.

I wasn’t going to start anything, but I wasn’t going to give an inch over this kind of shit. Not from snot nosed kid like this, or anyone else, for that matter. There was no excuse for this and I wasn’t going to put up with it.

I sucked it in for a second and decided I was going to play this one to win. Not just the battle, but the war. I was not going to go on the offensive. That would be a case of winning the battle and losing the war. I wasn’t really going to go into a defensive position, either. That could be a losing situation. My plan was to try putting myself into a counter offensive situation. He would start it, and I would finish it. I also knew that I had witnesses. The florist had snagged Tokie’s leash and looked out the door window.

I was a bit out of practice. It had been quite a while since I had been in combat, but I guess I hadn’t really forgotten everything. Of course, to the soldier, combat is pretty clear. Win or lose. This was different. I didn’t want to wind up in jail, either. The kid was, after all, a kid. He was boy in a man’s body. In court, they’d put him in a Buster Brown suit, give him a lollipop and he’d look like a nice little boy some mean old guy brutally assaulted for no good reason. I’d hang.

We exchanged insults, I was soft, and he was very loud. This was another thing in my favor. The witnessing florist couldn’t hear me, but she heard his threats. They were loud, ugly and violent. This was in my favor.

I egged him on quietly another time and he played into my hand. He shoved me.

I hit the wall harder than I had to, for show and bounced off.

“Don’t hit me!” I shrieked in a loud, high pitched panicky voice. He neared me again. I held up my left hand as if to fend him off and he neared me closer. Suddenly, my left hand thrust forward and arrived in his face. My index and middle fingers hit his eyes.

Moe Howard would have been proud of me. All of those episodes of The Stooges I had watched over the year had paid off. I had disabled my opponent with a near perfect Three Stooges two finger shot in the eyes. However, I realized I had screwed up. I had pulled the punch a little too much.

I figured I had only a few seconds before the shit was going to hit the fan and that things were not going to be very nice. My kindness was hurting me badly. I pulled the punch because I wanted to simply temporarily disable him. I didn’t want to detach retinas or do permanent damage.

I figured I had a couple of seconds, and it was time to end the fight here and now. I balled my fist and at the last minute, realized that I was making the same mistake twice. My hand darted into my coat pocket and I grabbed my ten dollars laundry money and stepped to his left side and waited a second for him to move his hand. He moved it out of the way, exposing himself for a good shot and I took it. I hit him as hard as I could, heard a snap and wondered if I had busted a finger like I had years ago.

The kid hit the pavement like he was a sack. His mouth was a bloody mess and I knew it was over, at least the combat part. I also knew I had to boogie on out of the area, and fast.

The door to the florist shop opened and two women walked out. One of the women looked at the kid, then at me.

“That kid has been trouble for months,” she said. “He finally got it.”

The other woman looked at him a bit more carefully.
“Why didn’t you just shoot him?” she asked. She was being sarcastic.

I lifted my coat, exposing a .380 automatic. “I didn’t think that was necessary,” I said. That opened here eyes wide for a second.

“I guess you’re right,” she said. I relaxed a bit. I knew these women would tell the police what happened and put me in a good light. I snagged Tokie and started to leave.

“Leaving?” asked the florist.

“Yeah, I’m an adult and he’s a kid,” I said. “Under those circumstances, I’m going to wind up in jail. If I leave and you two tell the cops what happened, there’s a good chance they won’t come looking for me. They’ll take your word for it.”

“I think you’re right,” said the older woman, thoughtfully.

The younger woman then did a funny thing; she took some flowers out of a vase and poured the water on the kid. He moaned softly. “They do this in the movies,” she said.

I took off.

Three miles down the road, I pulled into a bar with Tokie and downed a fast triple shot of brandy. I was trying to beat the after action shakes, but I was too late. The bartender knew something was wrong, so he ignored Tokie. The shakes started in hard, so I downed another. Then I realized I had slammed about 8 ounces of hard liquor on an empty stomach. I was hosed. Driving home was out.

I asked for the phone and called Neighbor Bob at work. He grabbed an employee and was there in about fifteen minutes. They took my truck home with me in it.

About a week later, I ran into a cop I knew at the 7-11 and he gave me an odd look and asked me a couple vague questions, I gave vague answers. I swear he knew about it.

A month later, I passed by the florist again and she told me that she didn’t think I had anything to worry about; it seemed the cop who showed up knew the kid was a troublemaker, too. She also told me she had overheard the paramedics say it looked like a broken jaw and some missing teeth.

I’m not really proud of this, but it is part of the relationship I had with Tokie, and it belongs with the Seeing Eye cat stories. FWIW, I have changed the places slightly and mentioned no names.

I’ll say this: If Tokie was still alive and this happened today, I swear I’d do it all over again. I can’t stand animal cruelty.

SEC and the porn shop.


It has been about 12 hours since I got home last night and I have very mixed emotions. The whole evening was one of truly wild craziness, and Neighbor Bob is probably still shitting little green apples. He’s a pretty straight, solid family type.

When we got home, the 45 YO Registered Nurse next door had LEOs in her yard. The LEOs waved us over and we had to deny just about everything from breathing to conspiring committing long hair. I think I managed to get off the hook by admitting that I was D.B. Cooper. Whatever. As Richard Nixon said, “Deny it, even if they have pictures.”

This was not one of the local LEOs that I knew, and conspiracy to do serious bodily harm is not to be laughed at. Still, with no rehearsal, the RN and I managed to deny everything.

Earlier that night I had loaned her my chain saw as a tool to run some asshole off with whose dog was using the neighborhood lawns as a toilet. Apparently, she had chased the asshole down the street, babbling incoherently giving the dirty bastard a greater fear than that rank amateur by the name of Charles Manson was capable of on the best day of his life.

Idiot had called the cops.

After a series of dubious looks, the LEO left. Connie invited us in for a drink and an after action report. Bob, being very polite, did something totally out of character. And why not? The whole night was a Total Zoo. And it was only about 8:45 PM. Time to go out and do some serious drinking. Delayed stress was on the way. All three of us were shaking like dogs shitting peach pits.

We barged into Connie’s and headed straight for the liquor cabinet. Bob grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on, a bottle of rum and poured about six ounces down this throat. Connie stared. This was not like Bob at all. I polished off about 2 and ½ inches of Irish Whisky from the last of a jug of Jameson’s. She didn’t bat an eye. She also didn’t bat an eye when I opened her refrigerator and whipped out a knife and cut off a chunk of meat for kitty, who had been in the middle of the ruckus.

She’d seen it before. More than once. She’s been one hell of a neighbor, and is a damned good holistic nurse to boot. She knows Mrs. Pic doesn’t serve red meat and she has had me over for a steak dinner more than once.

And no, I ain’t hitting it.

She also displayed her ability to do the right thing once more; she handed us beers.

We were both still shaking. So was she.

I tossed the empty jug out and Connie told us about chasing the damned dog owner down the street with my chain saw, cursing loudly. About this time, the pair of neighbors from across the street knocked on the door and entered. Don and Dawn, Fred and Lois. Lois immediately asked if they could borrow my chain saw. I agreed.

Connie handed me back my .38. It was unfired. I checked. Thank God.

I also went into Connie’s garage and felt the chainsaw. It was a bit warm. It had been run. I brought it up and handed it to Lois. Lois is pretty competent; she grew up on a farm.

Visions of Lois chasing the owner of the Phantom Crapper Dog down the street did not bother me one bit. She has a pretty good head. I offered her the .38, and she refused.

“I got a .45,” she said. “Empty the litter box since you emptied on his yard?”

I stared. Word was out. “Today was trash day,” I said.

“Where the hell were you two, “ asked Connie.

“Out,” I said. Bob and I got up and headed to my house. Bob went straight to the reefer and grabbed each of us a beer.

Where had we been?

We had been to the porn shop with the Seeing Eye Cat.

We pulled in driving Bob’s truck. Bob held my arm and I had kitty on my leash and had my white cane and sunglasses on and in we went. This place is the epitome of a dirty bookstore, with peep shows for all types, all types of porn for every taste. The place draws weirdoes like a magnet, and here we were.

Once inside I stumbled around like Ray Charles. Bob took one look and realized he was out of his league. For certain, this place was weird.

It was also packed. The place reminded me of the song Dr Hook recorded years ago about ‘Freaking at the Freakers Ball’, or some such shit. There was a couple there, he was about 20, and she was in her mid 40s. They bore a strong family resemblance. Mother and son? I really wondered. This place was scary.

But not really weird enough for me. At least I won’t admit it. There’s really nothing here to hurt you, but this place is truly strange.

Bob adjusted and started looking around. The woman behind the counter was a beefy bleached blonde with enormous tits that looked like she could beat the holy hell out of the pair of us before breakfast. She was to be feared. I think she had been the onetime rough and tumble Madame of a whorehouse that had been closed down by the state police a while back. She sure looked tough enough.

I remembered her from when I had bought something there for a bachelor party about four years ago.

I managed to halfway fool the woman, but she appeared skeptical about whether the cat really was a guide animal. She said nothing. In fact, she seemed amused. Some scabby-faced guy mumbled something about being allergic to cats.

Bob said to him simply, “There are 50,000 carry permits in Allegheny County.”

“You packing? “ he asks.

“No, I’m criminally disabled for hacking up as asshole that gave a pal of mine shit once,” he said.

“Then you ain’t carryin.’”

“No, but HE lives in Allegheny county,” he said, nodding to me.

“But he’s blind.”

“He ain’t criminally disabled,” said Bob. “ All he’d have to do is pass it to me. Blind people with Seeing eye Cats carry to protect themselves from Seeing Eye Dogs.”

“Stay away from him,” said the beefy blonde. “he’s a guide animal.” She was laughing her ass off.

He wandered off. He looked kind of shaken up.

Next thing, Bob, whose curiosity overwhelmed him, opened a box that held a 16” warty dildo and held it up. “You gotta be kidding,” he said. The beefy blonde gave him a dirty look.

“You’re not supposed to open boxes,” she said.

“It was already opened,” he said.

Kitty obviously wanted to leave.

“Give it here,” I said.

I felt my way down the leash and held the dildo under kitty’s nose. The plastic aroma made kitty snort.

“It’s been used,” I said. “Cat’s sure got a better nose than I do!”

“Someone oughta call the Board of Health,” said Scabby-face, indignantly. “That can spread disease!”

The blonde instantly threw all four of us out, Scabby face, Bob, Kitty and I. All four of us, out the door. Scabby Face hit the bricks fast. He was gone in an instant with a look of fear in his eyes.

We both laughed. A first for both of us. Kicked out of a porno shop! Weird, but not totally.

It was the parking lot that got totally strange.

Some wholesome, clean-cut guy came up to me. About 20 feet behind him was a woman dressed in an outfit that would make a stripper blush. I looked over his shoulder, appearing to be blind to him, but my eyes were popping out of the sockets.

She was in the tightest little black dress I’d ever seen, fishnets, spikes, false eyelashes and fingernails. I think the dress was actually an undergarment made to flatten a woman out. She was pouring out of it, and there was one hell of a lot to pour out!

The guy seemed pretty unsure of himself, and somewhat embarrassed.

“My wife has a fantasy,” he said. “To be pimped out. It’s gone on ever since she had a breast augmentation.”

I nodded.

“She says one time and it’ll get out of her system.”

I felt bad for the poor bastard. On the other hand, she made me pretty damned hard!

“Fifty bucks,” he said. “she’s yours.”

“Has she ever lost a child?” I asked.

“How’d you know? A couple years ago,” he said.

“Counseling,” I said. “Take her to counseling .Same thing happened to a pal several years ago. They got lucky and worked it out. Know another guy. Same thing, only he didn’t get lucky. Once wasn’t enough, she became a whore and last I heard, died of an O.D.”

“Fifty bucks’ll get you anything,” she said. She hadn’t heard her husband and I.

I grinned and pulled out my wallet.

“Don’t have fifty,” I said.

Bob hadn’t heard hubby and I, but he heard her.

“Hey, Pic, if you need money, I got some,” he said.

I gave him a dirty look, and he picked up on it. Thank God. Visions of babbling my way out of this were clouding my brain. The woman was HOT. Hotter than the 20 year old sandwich shop clerk, and the sandwich shop clerk had been dressed and designed by a professional drag queen. Ain’t NOTHING hotter than a woman that’s been dressed and made up by a drag queen! Most of them look pretty good, and when you got a drag queen designing the real thing, got good materiel to work with, things give the word ‘hot’ a new dimension. She was hotter than the 20 year old chick!

“Only got ten,” he said.

Kitty pulled on the leash and we wandered off to Bob’s truck. Praise be to God.

Behind us, the guy was stuffing his wife into the family car, and off they went. She looked pretty disappointed, but off they went.

The beefy blonde looked out the door, so Bob and I grabbed kitty and we hopped into Bob’s truck and left.

I already told you about what we came home to.

It’s been a hell of a night!

Well, I did it. I got him in the damned leash. Flight jacket and welding gloves and I took him for a walk of sorts.

I seriously hate to tell you guys this, but this is POSITIVELY not the animal for the job.

There is no way in hell this is going to fly.

I'm sorry.

Fact is, Tokie was one of a kind. I've never seen an animal like him before or since. He was a man's cat; he was an officer and a gentleman with a kittytude.

He was a high-stepper and he would walk along with me proudly as though he had a sense of purpose. There was an air about him that was special. Men that HATED cats would watch him and comment "Now THAT'S a neat cat.

He had the saddest eyes, though.

I disciplined him once for pooping on the floor, and the look he gave me was one that crushed me. It was a look of hurt, anger and the face of someone that has been cheated by his best friend. Ten minutes later, I found out why he had pooped on the floor. His litterbox was a mess. I was the one that had let him down.

I apologized as best I could, and never let his box get so full again.

I also never disciplined him again, either. I never had to. If he did anything to upset me, I'd look around and see that I had failed somehow.

I learned a lot from that demanding little kitty. All 7-1/2 pounds of him.

I'll never forget the look he gave a waterproofing salesman one day. Tokie sat down next to him and the salesman swept him off onto the floor. The look he gave the salesman was priceless, it said clearly 'You're in deep. deep shit."

Then he looked at me as I was quietly getting up to my feet and smiled. He knew.

I didn't throw that salesman through a closed door that day because Mrs Pic opened it before I could. (She later regretted it because she wanted a new door and it was a couple years before we got to replacing it.)

Then the little guy jumped up on the window sill and watched the salesman chase all of his paperwork around, scattered by the wind. He seemed amused.

He was extra affectionate after that. A pest, really.

He ruled the Piccolo household, like a Field Marshal.

I don't think he liked a whole lot of people. He didn't hate them, I think he just didn't have time for their shit or their stupidity. When the teenager at the mall actually got down on her knees to give the cat directions, (For you newbies, he was playing the role of a Seeing Eye Cat, I was playing the blind man.) the teenager was speaking to him in baby talk, like he was a little kid.

Tokie's face was priceless. It read, I'm not stupid, you are!

I think we're all going to have to face it. The era of the Seeing Eye Cat is over.

When Tokie died, they broke the mold.

It's going to take another special kitty to fill his shoes. Don't plan on it happening soon.

Again, I'm sorry.

Shortly after Tokie and I became a team, it was discovered that he was sick. It was a thyroid condition and the best route to take to get him squared away was radioactive iodine. He was taken to a clinic in Cleveland, and I consider it to be the best $1000 I ever spent.

When I went to pick him up about a week later, the reunion was a sight to behold. We started screwing around in the waiting room playing like a couple of little kids, The woman behind the counter called the animal techs out to watch and when we were leaving, a couple of them told me that getting to see a reunion like Tokie and I had was worth the lousy pay they made.

I also was told that the little guy was supposed to sleep in the other room for a couple of weeks, but I was not planning on having any kids, so I didn’t worry too much about it; Tokie slept on the bed with me. Actually, we slept on the couch because Mrs. Pic was worried about it the radioactivity. She worries too much about nothing. They also told me that his used kitty litter was radioactive and had to be held in a separate trash can for a couple of months before it could be disposed of with the regular trash.

OK, fine. Back then, Neighbor Bob and I were finishing our childhood, or having our second childhood. Whatever. Anyway, we were always pulling dopey little pranks on each other. Bob asked me about the trash can that was always outside the garage and I told him about the radioactive waste.

A few days later he had to go to the hospital for tests and hornswoggled one of the horsepistol people into snagging him a radioactive waste sticker out of X-Ray or someplace. He sneaked by and slapped it on the trash can. It was cute, but his timing was lousy. I think he was paying me back for stuffing a store mannequin into a body bag and putting it in his trash on trash day. The trash guys panicked and called the cops and the resultant circus was pretty entertaining.

Tokie had been home for a little six weeks, I was working a three on/three off rotation and the kitty litter trash can was filling up pretty fast.

The woman across the street was pregnant at the time, knocked up higher than a kite, Hormones were raging, and her head wasn’t really screwed on too tight. I was at sea, but due in later that evening when she noticed it the sticker. Bob had wandered up the house to ask my wife when I was due in because he wanted to borrow my Sawzall or something. Maybe he was visiting Nurse Connie, I forgot which. Anyway, the woman across the street spotted him and called him over.

She asked him about the nuclear waste sticker on the trash can, and Bob forgot that pregnant women have no imagination or sense of humor.

He told her, with a straight face that I had built a small reactor in my basement and not only was getting free power, but was selling it back to the power company. Most people would have rolled their eyes at such an off the wall answer, but most people are not suffering from a hard pregnancy, either. She was a real mess at the time without any help from anyone else.

She took Bob’s word as Gospel and reacted.


I don’t know exactly she called, but it was not the local police department, and I can only imagine her babbling incoherently blithering on and on about her fears of having a three headed kid with nine fingers on each foot and a three foot-long tail. I feel bad for whoever took that call.

I pulled in later than evening, and I remember and it was a hot day, hotter than hell. When I got home, I noticed the litter box needed a little cleaning, so I emptied it into the trash can. When I opened the trash can, it about liked to knock me clean across the driveway with six weeks of sun baked cat urine.

The Air conditioning in the house was acting up and I would have slept pretty poorly, except for the help of a couple gin and tonics. I sacked out, not waking up Mrs. Pic.

I woke up a little late the next morning I was up early. I ate and sat down and started reading the paper and unwinding. It was shortly after nine when I saw a car park on the street outside the house and saw two men get out. I looked out and saw it was a government automobile.

These two clowns started putting on white disposable suits. If you pinned a long tail on them they would have looked like a couple of sperms from a Woody Allen movie. It was pretty funny. Then they opened the trunk and got some kind of machine out. I grabbed a GI .45 automatic, jacked one in the pipe, set the safety, stuffed it into my belt, and covered it with a shirt tail. Then I bowled down the stairs into the basement and into the garage, opened the garage door and met these two clowns in the driveway.

“Who the hell are you and what do you want?” I demanded.

I got some mush faced answer about being some kind of Federal agents and one of them showed me some kind of ID that I saw right off meant that the pair of them were paperwork commandos. One of them asked me about my reactor.

“What reactor?” I asked.

They explained that they had gotten a report of some kind about some guy running a homemade reactor in his basement and that he was storing nuclear waste I a trash can outside his garage.

“Are you Federal marshals?” I asked.

“Well, no, but if we need one….” The little guy started.

“Stop,” I interrupted. “Let’s do this right. Let’s get one. Wait right there.”

The neighbor diagonal to me was an FBI Special Agent, and I saw his car was home. I remembered he was on vacation and ran over to his place. He was up, doing something or another to his lawn.

“Grab your gun and badge,” I said. The Atomic Energy Commission is at my house and they might need an FBI agent.”

The look on his face was priceless. He took one look across the street at the two clowns and went agape for a second, and then he went inside and came out with his badge and his pistol in his belt and wandered over.

The two clowns hadn’t bargained for this. Tom, the FBI agent asked the two clowns a few questions and had a real amused look on his face when the pair of them explained that there was supposed to be a reactor in my basement.

“Let’s go in and check,” I said. “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” And I looked at Tom. I drew my .45, cleared it and handed it to Tom. The two clowns almost shit themselves and Tom smirked. Tom knew I was a shooter, and we had shot a couple matches together. He wasn’t too worried.

The machine the clowns had was a Geiger counter of some type and they wandered around my basement for a few minutes, getting only what they reported as slightly higher than average readings. It was probably a small amount of residue from the kitty litter box.

It was starting to get pretty warm outside, and after snooping around for a few minutes, they started outside and looked at the trash can and the Geiger counter started really making some noise.

The little guy pulled the lid open and reeled at the nasty stench of six-week old cat urine.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a sick cat?” he asked.

“You never asked,” I replied innocently. I turned to Tom, “Did you hear them ask?”

“I don’t believe I did,” he replied, chuckling.

Then Tom handed me back my .45 and the two clowns stared a second, took their leave and went to their car, climbed in and drove off quickly. They were in such a hurry they simply tossed the Geiger counter device into the back seat and left in their sperm suits on.

I never saw them again.

Other Piccolo tales:

I was doing an errand a while back for my mother-in-law, who still works
40 hrs/wk at a rest home. Seems some of the people there wanted colored
sheets instead of white ones. I offered to make a Kmart run.

Martha Stewart was on sale that day, do I tossed 2 dozen pastels in the
shopping cart. To the checkout. Nosey(White) woman in front of me :"What
are you doing with all those pretty pastel sheets?" She asks.

First thought: Tell her I was running a whorehouse.

I open my mouth:"I'm the Grand Dragon of the local KKK chapter, and since
we started accepting minorities and women, we've changed our colors to
show that we're a much kinder and friendly hate organization!"

I glanced behind me and cringed. The woman behind me was Black. Ouch. I
braced myself for the worst.

The Black woman looked at me with a smirk, and asked me if I had an
application and how her and her husband wanted to sign right up! She
carried on about how much fun it would be to roar around Pittsburgh in
pickup trucks at 3 AM burning crosses, etc!

Needless to say, the woman in front of us stormed off in a huff, and we
both laughed ourselves silly. The clerk almost peed her pants.

Shooting Santa:

My dad had a pretty punk childhood, and he sure decided that ours was
going to be at least memorable, and fun, too.

The year that the youngest discovered the whole story about Santa is one
Christmas I still laugh about to this day.

We had just come in from Midnight Mass and sacked out. About the time we
had dozed off there were two huge loud blasts, a womanly scream, and a loud
shout.

"I got him! I got him! And we're having reindeer for dinner, too!"

Of course, we tore down the stairs to see what was going on.

There was the old man holding a smoking shotgun with a HUGE grin on his
face. The dining room window was open.

"Some guy in a red suit with a sled full of stuff being towed by deer was
trying to break in! I got him! Santa is dead!"

My brother and I stared at each other and laughed ourselves silly. My
sisters looked confused. We headed back to bed.

My mother, of course, was throwing a conniption. My father was uncontrite.
We overheard him.

"I've been waiting for this for years," he said. "Just another milestone
in the raising of children."

We could actually hear Ma. She was so pissed off we could actually hear
her keeping quiet.

Flying with Teddy Roosevelt

A kid, a soccer mom, a WW2 vet and Piccolo in a checkout line.

Kid, looking at my flight jacket. "Were you a pilot?"

'Forward Air Controller for Colonel Roosevelt in Cuba," I said with a smirk.

Mother looks at me, probably thought of the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

Kid gives me a dirty look. Starts counting on his fingers. Looks at me.
"You have to be about 125 years old," says the kid.

"127, actually," I reply.

The old duffer behind us rolls his eyes. I wink at him. The old guy grins.

The mother looks confused.

"You don't look 127," says the kid.

"That's because I don't drink any cheap liquor. Only the good stuff." I
reply.

Mother looks TOTALLY addled.

I point at the old guy. "He's only 36, but he looks that way because he
drinks cheap whisky," I tell the kid.

Kid looks at the old guy. "You really 37?" he asks.

Old guy grins, gives me a smirk, looks at the kid. "That's right. See
what cheap liquor does to a guy?"

Soccor mom just didn't get it.

I've said it before, there are a lot of kids out there that are a hell
of a lot sharper than their parents

Teaching Respect:

Home depot. Returning something.

A thoroughly disgusted 85 yo man tottered up to the service desk, I stepped aside, noticing his WW2 Navy ball cap.

He started to speak, but his voice was too soft to be heard well by the service clerk, so I offered to translate.

Seems he came in with his son and his son left him in hardware.

I knew what to do. I asked him his son's name, and age.

I grinned at him. "Us old Sailors gotta stick together," I said.

I turned to the service clerk. "Give me the mike," I said. "I'll do the necessary."

"Will Timothy Kozlowski please report to the service desk before he finds out that 57 years old is not too old to go over his father's knee!"

You shoulda seen the old guy's face light up.

Seconds later a red faced guy that looked in his early 60s charged up.

"Who said that," he roared.

"I did."

"Who are you?" he damanded.

"I am Captain Piccolo, and old sailor friend of your fathers, whom you ditched in hardware."

"Yeah, well....."

"Well, what!" I interrupted "If your old man needs a hand getting you over his knee, all he has to do is let me know. I'll help."I shot back. I removed my bridge and buttoned it into my pocket.

THAT got his attention. His eyes grew wide.

I turned to the old codger, "Us old silors have to stick together, don't we?"

"Absolutely," he said. His face lit right up.

I turned back to Sonny Boy. "You got one father. Treat him with a little respect. You're only a few short years from wishing you had...and wishing your kids show it to you."

I turned, picked up my exchange, turned, winked at the old guy and got a big snaggle-toothed grin in return and walked off.


Made MY day!

The ranger story:

OK, this is an Internet forum. I have NO privacy here. Some questionable things happened. I will give you the gist of what happened, but I will also cover my ass.

Before I went in, I had reconnoitered the AO pretty well. I wanted the lay of the land. The recruiters was not really out in the hills, but it wasn’t in downtown Pittsburgh, either. It looked pretty good in that I could probably get away with a certain amount of mischief without getting carted off. There was also a back entrance/exit. I parked in the back, with my truck facing out to facilitate a Bonnie and Clyde exit if things got too weird.

I slipped in the back way. I was wearing a slouch hat, jeans, high boots, and brown canvas coat with a wide belt around the waist. The belt held a tomahawk and a knife. Over my shoulders were a possible bag and a powder horn. There was also a trench knife strapped to my right calf. I was carrying my Pennsylvania rifle in an Indian style soft leather case. But the stock was sticking out.

The local Marine recruiter was also on hand, but he was hanging next to his car, and planned to mosey on in a moment or so later, so the sergeant couldn’t put two and two together as easily.

The Marine was right. The Army sergeant was a dumb ass, which surprised me to no end. The services generally send out their sharpest as recruiters. This was a true exception to the rule. The sergeant also looked like he had been in for well over ten years, another thing about him that was questionable. When a sergeant hasn’t made staff sergeant after 12 years, he’s usually given the boot. This guy looked like he was on thin ice.

We met as I was walking in the back door and he was sneaking out for a smoke.

“You the Army guy,” I asked.

“Yes, I am,” he replied.

“I wanna be a Ranger,” I said, holding up my Standing General Orders.

We stepped outside and he lit up, and offered me a cigarette. I shook my head in refusal. “Smoke knick-knick, in a pipe,” I replied.

“What are those?” he asked.

“My General Standing orders when I get to be a Ranger,” I answered.

You should have seen the look on his face. I don’t think he knew whether to shit or go blind, and I bet he didn’t have halfway enough sense to simply close one eye and fart.

“ I take coenzyme Q-10 for my memory so I don’t forget nothing,” I said.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked. I knew this was going to be pretty sad, sort of like taking advantage of the village idiot. I seriously thought of leaving then and there. This wasn’t very much fun at all.

“What’s your second order?” asked a voice behind me. I turned and faced what looked like a pretty squared away Sergeant First Class.

“Have my musket clean as a whistle, my hatchet scoured, have 60 rounds of powder and ball and be ready to go in a minute’s notice.”

“You’re too old to be a Ranger,” interrupted the sergeant.

“I can whip your ass,” I replied. Then I reached into my mouth and pulled out my bridgework and buttoned into my pocket. “Wanna rassle?” I asked, with a hillbilly grin.

The SFC damned near busted out laughing, and the sergeant paled. The Marine approached. He had heard the exchange and snickered.

“Know how to use that tomahawk? Asked the SFC.

I pulled it out and took 3 or 4 fast steps toward a nearby pole and let fly. The hawk turned once and stuck. It LOOKED like a perfect shot, but to a hawk thrower, it was actually a near miss. The handle was parallel to the pole, I like it about 45 degrees for penetration.

The three of them looked at me wide eyed.

I retrieved my hawk, and re belted it.

Then the SFC asked to look at my rifle.

“This is a working rifle,” he said. “Not a collectors piece. You any good with it?”

“Barked a squirrel off’n a tree a few days back.”

“Barked off?” asked the sergeant.

“Yeah. When ya hit a squirrel with a .50 caliber ball, it makes a real mess,” I explained. “Ya clip the branch he’s on and he’ll fall to the ground and knock himself out, so ya finish him off with the hawk. Better eatin’ that way.”

I looked at the Marine and winked. “See that parked car about 200 yards away? Look at the antenna. See the ball on top it?”

The Marine squinted for a few seconds. “Yeah.”

I poured maybe 4-450 grains of FF down the bore of the rifle, winked at the SFC. The sergeant saw the lead ball in my hand, and the Marine and the SFC watched me palm it and replace it with a pair of Styrofoam earplugs. It’s an old trick, makes a pretty food fireball and a huge cloud of smoke.

“What if the police show?” asked the SFC.

“Tell him it was a kid with fireworks,” I said.

I primed the pan, and shouldered the rifle, UN shouldered it, took out my glasses, re shouldered it, looked. Then I UN shouldered it, licked my thumb and wet the front sight, took off my glasses and in one swift movement, re shouldered, aimed….

“Hey, you can’t shoot….”

BOOM!

The Marine, standing well off to the side wasn’t engulfed too badly in the smoke cloud. The 2 soldiers were. The Marine looked at the car and squinted. “Got it,” he said.

The sergeant looked both terrified and astonished.

“Hmmm….” Said the SFC to the sergeant, winking at me. “Start filling out the paperwork for an age waiver for this guy. He’d make a pretty good Ranger. He seems to already be trained” He turned to me and told me to ditch the rifle. I did.

The sergeant looked really flustered.

“He’ll have to go through Jump school.”

“What’s that?” I asked, dubiously.

“Ya learn to jump out of airplanes,” he said.

“Jump out of airplanes? Really? How high are they?”

“I don’t know, maybe 2000 feet,” he answered.

I put on a scared shitless look. “I don’t know about that,” I said. “What do they teach at Jump school?”

“How to use a parachute.”

I gave a HUGE sigh or relief. “Oh, they give you parachutes to jump out of the planes with. Thank God! I guess I can do that.” I deadpanned.

“Of course,” he said, rather smugly. Both the Marine and the SFC turned to bust up.

We went inside and I gave them some information and the sergeant started filling out the paperwork requesting an age waiver. The Marine, the SFC and I headed out to the nearby shop for a cup of coffee and laughed ourselves silly.


Over the years I’ve posted about giving the recruiters the business. The job sucks and sometimes it needs a little help. I decided to help it out a bit.

Jameson’s bottle: Check
Iced tea: check
Funnel: check

Jameson’s 12 bottle: charged.

Leather helmet: Check
Goggles: Check
White scarf: Check
Leather jacket: check
Riding pants and jackboots: Check.

So clad, I hopped into the pickup and off I went. I got lucky, the recruiter was in.

“How ya doin’, Sonny. Name’s Crash Murphy. Hear ya need pilots. I’m a pretty good stick and rudder man. Can fly anything.”

“What the…” said the recruiter. His jaw hit the desk. The look was priceless.

“Damned granddaughter put me in some kinda old folks home, the nurse took my whisky away and with no whisky I aged 5 years in the past six months. Just walked out, bought ma a case and I feel younger already. Lookin’ for a flyin’ job. Almost had one crop dustin’, too, except the whelp told me I was too old so I busted him in the nose. Figure I can hide out in the Air Force until the heat dies down.”

“We can’t hide a criminal,” the sergeant protested.

“Back in ’38 Jimmy Cox joined the Air Corps to stay out of jail,” I said. I took a four-ounce pull out of the jug. “Have a snort.”

“I can’t drink here,” he protested.

I looked at him. “How old are you?”

‘Thirty two,” he replied.

‘You look like hell, Son. You need a drink. Been drinking two bottles a day since ’33 when I shot that blamed oversized gorilla off the Empire State building. New York State’s been buyin’ my hootch ever since! Take a snort!” I put the jug on his desk in front of him.

He sniffed the end of the jug and realized it wasn’t whisky. He looked embarrassed.

“What can I do for you,” he asked me evenly. He now knew it was a prank.

“You’re doing it already. You’re a United States serviceman and recruiting duty sucks. Sometimes it needs a little help. A laugh at my expense costs nobody anything.” I replied.

He laughed for a good 20 seconds, stood up and looked at my outfit.

“You got it to a ‘T’, he said. “You look like Billy Mitchell!” He furrowed his brow. ‘Are you in a hurry? He asked. I told him I wasn’t.

“Let’s see if the major’s still in the area. He’s had a rough time lately, and this might help him a little. Give him the same spiel you gave me.”

He picked up the phone.

About fifteen minutes later, in popped the major.

I gave him basically the same spiel. He looked totally overwhelmed, and thought he was going to shit himself when I took a good 8 ounce pull off the Jameson’s bottle. Then I handed the jug to him in such a way that he HAD to grab it. He sniffed the bottle and scowled.

“What are you here for?” he asked.

‘Recruiting duty often sucks and can use a little help,” I replied.

He looked at the sergeant. “You brought me here for this?”

I interrupted. “He brought you here because he probably thinks you’re one hell of an Air Force officer that’s been working too damned hard and needs a little break.”

The major’s face turned beet red. He looked really ashamed of himself. I could feel the burn on his face from where I stood.

“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” he said. “I’ve been a first class bastard for some time now.”

He looked at me, the red was slowly going away. “That your brand? Jameson’s?”

“Yeah, but not the 12 year old stuff because I can’t often afford it.” I replied.

“Can you stick around? I’d like to run over to the drugstore for a throwaway camera and take a picture of you. The outfit is classic.”

“Sure.”

He walked out the door, stopped, looked back in at me and doubled over laughing.

He was a lot later than I thought he was going to be, not that it mattered.

When he arrived, he had a camera and a brown paper bag. I posed for the photo op and gave the major my email address. He said he’d send me copies, which I will post when I get them.

Then he grew serious. “Thank you, sergeant,” he said. “And thank you, Crash. I’m a little embarrassed that it took a good sergeant and you to pull me out of a mean funk. Enjoy this.” With that he handed me the bag. It contained a bottle of Jameson’s.

“And no drinking and flying,” he said with a laugh, and left.

The sergeant looked relieved. He looked at me. ‘Thank you for making my boss laugh.” He said, simply.

“Hey,” I said. “Us NCOs have to stick together”

“NCOs?” he asked.

“Sure,” I replied. “Army. Early ‘70s. I got out as a Spec 5. If I wasn’t a vet, then how would I have known that recruiting duty sucks.”

He chuckled. “Thanks again.”

I left and hid the jug in neighbor Bob’s garage, a place for which I have the key. Mrs. Pic has visited the place once or twice when I’m gone and if she saw the jug, she’d say something, not that I’d catch hell, but she’d get pouty.

Besides, Neighbor Bob’s wife is going out of state this weekend, and I owe him a few snorts.

Betcha the sergeant sends me a set of Air Force wings.

Louie and I Man the fighting tops.



Louie and I were in our third year of Cub Scouts and the fall tour sponsored my the military was a visit to the USS Constitution, ‘Old Ironsides’, located in Charleston, Mass.

This was not really as exciting as it sounds. My aunt had taken me to see ‘Old Ironsides’a few months earlier during the early part of the summer when my mother was in the hospital. My aunt was a new schoolteacher and decided her nephews needed some ‘cult-chah’ and dragged my kid brother and I through the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (booooring), the Boston Science Museum (pretty neat) and to keep our interests up, we went to see Old Ironsides The Navy’s ‘canned tour’ was pretty good, and they had let my brother and I play with the smashers, the heavy 32 pound guns.

Still, I wasn’t going to miss out on a trip with the guys, so I went. Louie and I teamed up again, as usual.

This was a great deal. Mrs. Broomstick was no longer our Den Mother, Mrs. Lewis was ands she was pretty good in that she didn’t over mother us and raise hell over what we ate. She had several kids of her own, mostly older, and she had a lot of things figured out. She figured out that simply feeding us was good enough and that there were better things to raise hell about than a couple of lousy peas left on the dinner plate.

One other thing she had figured out is that Dr. Spock was an idiot.

I heard her tell my mother that once. She raised her kids the old fashioned way. She used common sense.

‘Mother’ Davis was Cub master. This was about three or four years before we started calling him ‘Mother’. Back then he was simply Bob Davis to adults or Mr. Davis to us kids. A couple years later, he became a Boy Scout leader where he earned the nickname ‘Mother Davis’.

Mr. Davis, I later learned had been a Navy veteran of WW2 and his battle station on an Attack Transport was the helm. During Okinawa, he had spent a hellish 70 hour-long stint at the wheel dodging Kamikazes. He was pretty proud that ‘his’ Marines had gotten into Okinawa all right. I learned this later in Boy Scouts.

He was also sometimes a real character with a real deadpan sense of humor.

At the Pack meeting, he explained that we were going on the tour with another Pack from across town. This was pretty neat because we knew most of the guys in the other Pack from school.

Two Packs of Cub scouts, almost 100 kids were lined up and Mr. Davis got in front of all of us and carefully explained that Constitution was a bona fide Naval vessel and that we were to show her some respect. We were supposed to board her properly and demonstrated the proper way to board.

We started up, following Mr. Davis. He was wearing his old Navy cap.

When he got to the top, he faced the Officer of the deck and saluted.

“Former 1st Class Petty Officer Davis requests permission to board, Sir,” he said.

“Granted.”

Mr. Davis faced aft and saluted the colors.

Then he stood next to the Officer and watched almost a hundred Cub Scouts board.

“Cub Scout Johnny Smith requests permission to board, Sir,” giving the two fingered Cub Scout salute.

The officer of the deck returned the salute, and the Cub Scout faced aft and saluted the colors.

Mr. Davis watched the scene repeat itself almost a hundred times with a big self-satisfied look on his face. The poor officer of the deck must have worn out his arm returning all the salutes, but he did, returning every single one crisply.

Another officer, one with oak leaves on his collar, watched and chuckled at the hapless officer of the day. So did a Chief. Louie and I knew what Chiefs were from out trip to Wasp, two years earlier.

“Hey, Chief,” I asked. “You let the captain run the boat?”

Mr. Davis laughed out loud, the Chief grinned appreciatively and the officer with the oak leaves on his collar points smirked.

“The Chief does a pretty good job of keeping an eye on me,” he said.

They all laughed.

“I like you, kid,” said the Chief.

They laughed again.

After the last of us boarded, the tour started.

The Navy was smart, figuring that no human should be forced to give a tour of any type to 100 children of Cub Scout age, split us into a couple of groups. Anything over one thousand, two hundred and thirty four questions in a two-hour period was enough for anyone. The two packs were split up, which was a pretty good deal, considering we got to pal around with other guys we knew, but shared Cub Scouting in common.

Seeing that I had been through the tour and had briefed Louie, we plotted out escape.

We didn’t want to be sailors. We wanted to be Marines.

Mrs. Lewis had shown us a picture book about Constitution at our Den meeting. One of the pictures was a picture of US Marines on the fighting tops. They were shooting muskets at the British from a platform halfway up the masts. We asked her about what the guys there were doing. She read us the cutline.

‘Marines man the fighting tops during a battle in 1814’, read the cutline.

The mentality of being a basic rifleman is something that someone is born with, or one does not have it. Louie and I must have had it at the time. The picture fired our imaginations.

We both knew where our spiritual battle stations were.

Anyway, we sneaked out of the tour and hid near the officer of the day. Sometimes the best place to hide is in the lion’s mouth.

“Wait until he’s talking to a pretty lady,” said Louie.

We waited. Shortly thereafter, a woman from the Baltimore area showed up and came up the gangway. She had to be from Baltimore because she had a set of breastworks that looked like they came from Fort McHenry.

While the officer of the deck was busy with her, Louie and I interrupted.

“Permission to man our battle stations,” I asked, giving the Cub Scout salute.

“Granted,” snapped the officer, returning our salutes.

Our little asses were now covered!

John Paul Jones would have marveled. The Gunnery Sergeant of Bon Homme Richard would have been in tears of joy seeing the speed the ‘tops were manned!

We did not climb the rigging, nor did we scale the mast.

No way in hell. There is a proper nautical term for what happened next.

Louie and I swarmed up the ratlines, and in record time, too.

Seconds later, two ten-year-old wannabe Marines were on the fighting tops of the forward mast. How we got up there without being caught is still, forty-two years later, beyond me.

Still, we were there.

We sat there, out of sight and enjoyed the view.

Then we did sort of a dumb thing. We looked down.

We were a bit scared. The Officer of the Deck looked like a small dot from there. Slowly we relaxed, and the inevitable happened. We started fucking around, which is to be expected of ten year-old boys.

It wasn’t long before one of us did something stupid like shout “Land, Ho!” or something dumb like that. It wasn’t much, but it didn’t take much, either.

That’s when the shit hit the fan. Chaos on the main deck

Orders were being barked and suddenly we saw a sailor start up the ratlines toward us. He was coming up the starboard side. At a glance, we saw that all the action going on below was on the starboard side.

So Louie and I started down the port side ratlines as fast as we could. I guess we figured that if we could hit the deck running, that we could scurry below and mix in with another group of Cub Scouts. They’d probably give up if we did that.

We were pretty close to the deck when we both saw that there were people headed toward us to head us off, so when we were pretty close to the deck, we both jumped.

Busted!

I landed in the arms of a pretty beefy Chief. The grip he held me in let me know that I wasn’t going anywhere.

The officer with the oak leaves caught Louie and they both fell in a heap. Louie bounced up like a cat and took off like a shot. He almost made it, but was nailed cold by a sailor that scooped him up like a sack and returned him to the Skipper, the Chief and I.

“What were you doing up there,” asked the Captain.

“Me and Louie are going to be Marines when we get bigger,” I said. “We were just manning our battle stations.”
“We had permission,” added Louie.

“Who gave you permission?” asked the Skipper.

“He did,” we both said, pointing at the Officer of the Deck. “He said we could man our battle stations!”

“Mister,” said the Skipper. “Do you have any children?”

“No, Sir”

“When you have children, you’ll learn.”

“Yes, Sir.” He looked embarrassed.

The Skipper and the Chief exchanged looks. They seemed somewhat amused. But were trying to hide it.

“I’m glad I have girls,” said the skipper.

“Hell, Sir,” said the Chief. “In a couple of years, you’ll gladly trade stuff like this when the girls discover boys and you find a dozen young men outside their window baying like hounds.”

The Skipper turned ashen.

“That’ll be enough of that, Chief. But I do take your point.”

We got off pretty easily, with a lecture of sorts. The skipper also told us that we couldn’t do Marine things until we were actually old enough to be Marines.

“We figured that if we learn to do Marine things now, we’d make stripes faster when we went in,” said Louie.

“You two will do OK just the way you are,” said the Chief.

The Skipper and the Chief were both kind men and they escorted us back to the tour.

“Why did you guys start running? Asked the Skipper.

“Because you were chasing us,” I answered.

The Chief actually laughed outright.

“Yeah,” said Louie. “And if we were caught, we’re supposed to try and escape.”

“You two will make pretty good Marines,” said the Chief.

It was well over thirty years before I found out why we never caught hell for this from Mr. Davis or Mrs. Lewis. I found out from ‘Mother’ Davis a couple years before he died.

He told me that he figured that two ten year old boys that had been caught raising hell by a Navy Chief had gotten whole lot more of a punishment than they deserved.



edited to add, these days it's pretty funny telling Marines that 'When I was a whole lot younger than you, I was manning the 'tops on Old Ironsides!'

Partial Camp Perry report.

I arrived on Sked, and checked in with Celeste Denison, the woman that makes earplugs.

Next stop was to check in at CMP and get my shooting sked. While there, I met a guy grumbling about the squadding and trying to get it fixed. He said that he thought the CMP people were stupid. I admonished him to keep a civil tongue to the women there, and then registered.

Then the Old Home week started and I met a few other people I had met over the years.

I went to housing and got my barracks assignment and drove to the barracks. En route to the barracks I met a Marine I knew from years gone by. He was now out of the Corps, shooting as a civvie. He asked me if I could still hold my whisky and had all the women in Port Clinton chasing me and we laughed. More on this later. It’s a funny tale of woe.

Fuck it. Interlude time. I’ll tell it now.

Back about 6 years ago when I turned 50, one of the younger Marine shooters kidded me about being old, having just turned 50. He asked me if I could still hold my whisky and if women looked at me anymore.

He wasn’t being out of line; he was just being a young man. There was nothing more than a good natured japing.

A couple nights later, I went to dinner off post with this corporal, another corporal and a sergeant.

I had done my homework earlier that day, having chatted with the head waitress. She was a woman in her 40s. I told her that the mean young guys were picking on me and making me feel bad. She laughed and thought a moment or two. “Looks like a job for Joanie,” she said, and laughed.

Then she looked at me. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Piccolo,” I replied.

“Well, Piccolo, you are going to become a whisky drinking chick magnet.

“Whoa!” I said, “I can’t get screwed up1 I have to shoot tomorrow!”

She grinned, “Let me take care of it,” she said.

I returned to post.

A couple hours later, I suggested to my victims that we go off post and eat.

The food at Perry is truly lousy. The sergeant and the corporals were glad for the respite. We left. The sergeant drove.

We arrived at the restaurant and the head waitress greeted me warmly. She looked at the 3 young Marines and said to them, “Piccolo is in town and they’ll be a lot of broken hearts when he leaves!” I blushed, and the 3 Marines looked at me with curiosity.

We were seated.

A man was having dinner with his wife, got my attention, winked at me and to my surprise, fingered me to his wife. She grinned at him, and he got up and left for the bar. A minute later, she had the waitress deliver me a drink, a shot. The waitress told me “It’s on her,” pointing at the woman and handing ma a napkin. I looked at the napkin and grinned and put it in my pocket. Then I looked at the woman and thanked her. She gave me a sexy wink.

A couple minutes later, her hubby returned, and held his hand over his mouth to keep from busting up and winked at me. I relaxed. I knew the fix was in. The head waitress had put the fix in with the locals. I’d bet over half the people in the joint knew what the deal was, because about half the people there looked at me and smirked.

About 5 minutes later, a woman came by and handed me another drink, this one a double. I downed it; it proved to be iced tea. She told me to make sure I called her while I was in town, took the glass and smirked at me as she left.

Scenes like this happened several times during out meal, but it was the arrival of Joanie that took the cake. To this day, I don’t have a clue who Joanie is, or what she does, but I have to say she has missed her true calling; she belongs on stage.

In walked Joanie, the three Marines saw her coming before I did. There was Joanie, a flaming redhead with a colossal mane of flaming red hair, pouring out of a little blue dress. She made a beeline to me, yanked my chair back and handed me a double (iced tea) Jamison’s, which I knocked back.

Then she sat on my lap.

“You BASTARD!” she said, excitedly. “You didn’t let me know you were in town! If you don’t come by tomorrow night to pick me up at 8, why I’m just going to get in my automobile and drive down to Camp Perry and chase you down.”

The Marines were astonished, and red faced.

Then she looked at them. “You young guys don’t know squat about what a woman wants! Piccolo here is like good whiskey. He may be a little old, but he’s just so damned smoooooth!” she said. You should have seen the look on their faces.

Another woman sent me over a drink, a single, but it was real. The head waitress was really on her game. She knew I need it to make my breath smell like I had really been drinking whiskey,

Shortly thereafter, we paid up and left. My bill was for my dinner and only two drinks. The Marines had seen be down about 12 doubles, either delivered or sent over by as many women and were astonished.

Needless to say, the head waitress got one hell of a tip!


When we got outside, I offered to drive us back to post, the look I got was priceless. These guys had only had a single beer apiece, one of the corporals none. They were pros that knew they had to shoot the next day.

When we returned to post, the mouths started running.

I fished about half a dozen napkins out of my pocket and grinned. Only one had a phone number on it. I decided to call and thank the woman, and found the number was the Port Clinton Police Department. I laughed.

But this is ancient history.

I got to the barracks and Lo and behold the mouth I had met at CMP was pissing and moaning and bellyaching about the location of his bunk. I shook my head, and headed to my assigned rack. Seem that he was some kind of self-appointed leader of a group from a club from down my way and was angry that housing hadn’t assigned all his pals down a neat little row.

He wanted everyone to swap around.

Normally this isn’t a big deal, but he ran his mouth and heels dug in. I opened my footlocker, grabbed a bar of soap and a sock, put the soap in the sock and hit my bunk with it hard. I think someone got the message.

I was embarrassed, as he was from my neck of the woods, even though I didn’t know him. The rest of his people looked embarrassed. They should have. He bickered with a couple other guys, but stayed clear of me. I’ve seen this before, but not over barracks assignments.

It was pretty quiet that night.

The next day I shot the carbine match. I wasn’t squadded until the last moment and had to run a couple hundred yards and got there in prep time. I didn’t have time to set up my scope, nor did I have time to grab a spotter, so I went in out of breath with the rear sight out of zero and went with that and hoped for the best. I did poorly, but who cares?

The worst day shooting is better than the best day working, so all was well.

Part2


Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention. After I set myself up in the barracks, I delivered a 30 pack of Coors to the Marine Barracks. I owe them, and am glad to pay. A few years back they convinced me to pull my uniform out of mothballs and wear it. I hadn’t worn it in public since I had been spit on at Logan. I was glad I did. I posted the results here.

The beer, in a cooler, had a funny note on it, telling the Marines that although they were bigger, stronger, better trained and deadlier than I was; they are in no way better looking.

(Why, I’d push my wavy hair back and flatten out my pencil thin moustache and when I’d walk into the room, women would swoooooooooon!)

I knew they’d be grateful and laugh.

Later that night, we had a couple and I sacked out. I wanted to shoot the Springfield match and they had other things to do. Drinking too much beer wasn’t on the list.

I was scheduled for the PM squadding on the Viale Range, so I ate and went back to the barracks. The guy in the next bunk was a serving Army LTC. To this day, I cannot address an officer by anything but by rank. I was an NCO and NCOs address officers either as ‘Sir’ or by rank.

It should be carefully noted that this officer was shooting on his own nickel. He had taken personal leave.

We chatted, and he proved to be a very interesting person. He was a teacher that quit teaching to join the Army as a private. He made Sergeant before he applied for OCS.

Perry draws interesting people; you just have to pay attention.

I caught a nap, and geared up for the Springfield match and headed down. It took me a while, but things at Perry happen pretty slowly for me. There’s always someone I either know or I get to meet someone new. The place is magic for me.

I shot in the early PM relay.

He guy next to me was a double amputee from Walter Reed, lost both legs. The range guy wasn’t really the man for the job. Read: Idiot.

He started hassling the poor bastard for his ‘Medical waiver’ allowing him to shoot the offhand in the prone, insisting he shoot from his wheelchair.

“If I shot a 30/06 from a wheelchair, the recoil would knock me on my head,” said the amputee.

“He’s wearing his medical waiver,” I interrupted. “Where you been?”

I then turned to my scorer, “Let’s swap,” I said. “I’ll shoot next relay.”

Before my scorer could answer, I turned to the amputee, “Hey, asshole,” I said. “Just release the wheel-brake. I served on ‘Old Ironsides’. We’ll just treat you like one of the old guns. Every time you fire, I’ll just push you back into bay!”

The amputee looked hurt for a second, looked at my face and grinned. He caught on fast. He knew I was on his side.

The flustered range guy called the RO over and everything got squared away, and I knew I had made yet another friend.

Both of us heard later that the idiot was pulled off the line and replaced.

I didn’t hit shit at the Springfield match. Oh, well.

After I scored for the other guy, it was pit time. Three jet skis wandered into the impact area and caused cease fires while the Coast Guard and Naval Militia chased them off. It was frustrating.

It was when the match broke up I heard the ‘line of the year’.

The targets were put away, the gear stowed, and the pits were unsealed.

We were all hot, tired, dehydrated, beat, craving liquid, sunburned and generally fried.

From this, a voice was heard: “Well, Guys, Let’s go up to the tent, collect our medals, take them downtown to Port Clinton, and trade ‘em for pussy!”

It must have been his timing, because I had to stop about six times to laugh between the pits and the tent, which was only 300 yards away.

It was a stupid thing to say, but it had come out of nowhere and hit my funny bone pretty hard.

What was pretty neat, though, was when I was headed back to the barracks and a Marine I knew took one look at me and handed me a cold one out of a cooler in the back of his truck.

It tasted damned good.

I returned to the barracks and the contingent that had made a stink a day earlier was pretty quiet.

I ate early and wandered over to the awards ceremony and saw a 13 year old go ‘Distinguished’. Cool.

When It broke up, I got to meet Gunny Ermey and he gave me one of his challenge coins! I bet him $10 I’d beat him in the JCG. He tried to beg off until I suggested we make it payable to Toys for Tots. He grinned.

‘You’re on,” he said, with a smile.

From there, I fell in next to the Marine formation and watched a promotion to Gunny and another one to Sergeant, as well as some other stuff.

I paid a visit to a tugboat the other day. We were tied up, and so was the tug. I knew a couple of the guys on it and decided to drop in.

“Look what the tide washed in!” said Bill Hoffman. I grinned.

“Pic! We were talking about you the other day. Last week I met Dave De Stefano. He says ‘hi’ and told me to tell you he still owes you a thousand bucks. What’s that about, anyhow? Is it over that coat you gave him ten years ago?”

I grinned. “Yeah. What’s Dave up to these days?”

“Kee-rist! Than must have been ten years ago,” said Bill. “Was it that old rag he wore for years with that patch sewn to the back?”

I laughed like hell. “The very one,” I said.

“Dave’s working for an outfit out of Norfolk,” said Bill. “He says he still has the jacket. Found it in his basement a couple of months ago, and started wearing the damned thing again.”

The skipper looked up from his coffee. He grinned.

“I heard something about that damned jacket years ago, but it’s always nice to get the story from the horse’s ass.” He said. I smirked.

“Guilty as charged,” I replied.

Dave was a former commercial fisherman that wandered into the tugboat business after trying his luck on the beach for a few years with a very remarkable lack of success.

When I met him, he was a green deckhand and was ‘working over’, in other words his tour was up, but there was work available. He could use a few extra bucks and decided to work nine weeks straight. I believe he was on week eight when Old Man Winter decided to show up a little early that year.

The weather sucked the day I met him, and he was dressed a little light for the season. I simply offered him a jacket out of my fine collection of worn threads and torn rags. I believe it was my correct size, which is to say it was too small because I couldn’t stuff a couple layers under it.

The jacket I gave him was a Goodwill special, and for some reason long forgotten, it had, stenciled across the shoulder blades ‘Advertise here, $10/month’. Some guys sometimes stencil their names on the backs of float jackets, but this one had it the ‘Advertise here’ thing stenciled across the back when I snagged it at Goodwill for a couple of bucks.

I remember finding the damned thing. When I saw the back, I knew it was a Goodwill ‘keeper’.

“What do I owe you?” Dave had asked.

“A thousand bucks,” I deadpanned. When I saw the look of alarm on his face, I grinned. “You can owe it to me forever, but just don’t beat me out of it,” I said with a wink.

“Thank you,” he said simply.

“Just don’t win the lottery, or I’ll have to collect,” I answered.

I gave him my usual spiel about the damned young kids they were sending out to sea these days and he smirked.

We both knew we had each made a friend.

Dave finished his tour and got off, and left the coat aboard in his locker. He simply added it to his collection of seagoing clothes.

At that time we were both working for a different outfit, which was OK, except it was a bit too much micro managing and they had a few idiots in middle management places.

One of these idiots was an excellent example of the kind of leader that one did not aspire to be.

He was mean, petty, vindictive, cruel, self-centered and had a world-class knack for creating insurmountable problems out of thin air.

Of course, the problems were only solvable by him, and someone generally found himself in hot water or thrown to the wolves.

Anyway, sometime during the next tour, Dave came up to me bitching how a certain supervisor had seen the jacket and raised hell about it, citing the usual shit about being unprofessional in appearance and things of that nature.

I knew that the supe was simply being a cowardly prick and was singling out Dave because he was new and was simply an ordinary seaman, and therefore vulnerable. He had overlooked that the skipper of one of the tugs standard uniform was shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops. The reason for this is simple. The cowardly little prick knew that the tug skipper would tell him to go piss up a rope.

As he told me the story, another guy named Louie showed up. When he heard about the jacket, he grew pretty pissed off. He’d crossed swords with the little prick, too. We all had.

“You guys ought to find someone that wants to rent the back of the jacket,” he chuckles. “That might shut him the hell up.”

“Sounds like a pretty good idea to me,” said Dave.

“Want to stick it to him?” I asked, with an evil grin.

“Maybe next tour. I’m sitting for my AB when I get off. As soon as I get that I don’t give a shit. I can go anywhere and get a job.” He replied.

I gave him my phone number, and forgot about it for the rest of the tour.

We were working 3 weeks on/3 off at the time, and a couple days after I got off, the phone rang. It was Dave. He had gotten his Able Seaman ticket and was tickled pink. The Coast Guard had given him credit for some of his commercial fishing sea time. He was now an AB Limited. In another year and a half of sea time, he could have it automatically upgraded to Unlimited.

In fact, Dave only needed about ninety days more sea time to get his AB Unlimited. The Coast Guard had been good to him and honored a hell of a lot more sea time from fishing than they had when I sat for my ticket.

Still, it was an AB ticket and was good in it’s own right on just about any tug requiring an AB. He was good to go.

We chatted and he told me he no longer cared if he got the axe because he already had a couple of pretty good standing job offers.


After I hung up with Dave, I instantly, called a friend of mine that had been a self-employed cabinet-maker. The business had folded, but I knew he still had some of the stationary and maybe one or two T-shirts left over.

I actually hit the jackpot. He had a leftover jacket that was a small size that he had never gotten rid of. It had an embroidered logo on the back. We instantly cut the logo off of it and his wife hemmed the edges of it.

Two hours later, we were both sitting behind an old fashioned typewriter writing a letter, the gist of which was this:


Dear Sir or Ma’am,

Please forward this letter to the deckhand that was wearing a green jacket emblazoned with “Advertise here, $10/month”. I believe he was on the tug ‘Stalwart’ about a month ago. I am interested in advertising my cabinet company on the back of his jacket.

Thank you.

Dear aspiring advertising entrepreneur,

I am the owner of a small cabinet shop in the western part of Pennsylvania, but occasionally do business in the Philadelphia area.

While on a dinner cruise aboard the ‘Spirit of Philadelphia’, we passed the tug ‘Stalwart’, where I saw you working on deck. I noticed the back of your jacket indicated that you were willing to rent it for advertising space at the rate of $10/month. I am interested.

Based on the premise that you would wear the jacket six months of the year, I would enclose my company logo and a check for sixty dollars for the next year if you agree.

Call me back if you are interested.

Signed,

Larry Ferguson

On the bottom on the envelope, we had written: “to the man on the tug ‘Stalwart’ with the green jacket.”


A couple of days later, one of us mailed it from Wheeling, WV and the trap was set. If anyone tried to figure out where it came from, they’d look at the postmark and try pin it on whoever lived in West Virginia. I called Dave and we agreed on how he was to handle it. He also told me that no matter what happened, he wouldn’t drag my ass into it.

It was a thoughtful gesture, but the truth is that at that time I was looking for greener pastures. I really didn’t care either way.

It was crew change day and we were both, as usual, early. Crew change was scheduled for noon, but we had both arrived sometime well before 0800 and had left the compound for breakfast. We were back in the compound at 0900.

The super had put word out that Dave was to be sent to the office upon arrival, and Dave reported in at about 0915. I was already in the office discussing something or another with my port captain, but the truth is that I was only there to see the fireworks.

As soon as Dave entered the super’s Dilbert’s cubicle, it started.

“What’s this shit, what’s this shit?!” shouted the super, shaking the letter at him. “What’s this all about?”

Dave took the letter and read it and played the look of a man surprised that he had just won a contest he had never entered.

“Huh,” he said. “Looks like I’m about sixty bucks richer.” He then started to pocket the letter and turned to walk out.

“Give me that letter,” demanded the super, loudly.

“It’s my damned letter!” Dave shot back, just as loud. “It’s addressed to me, it specifically told you to forward it to me!”

“It’s addressed to the company,” the super shot back.

“Look at the bottom of the envelope, it specifically asked you to forward it to me!”

The loud speaking drew one of the higher-ups like a shot. The higher up was some kind of vice president. He appeared almost instantly.
“What’s this all about?” asked the vice president.

“It’s all about this guy trying to steal my letter,” said Dave, indignantly.

“What letter?” asked the Veep.

“This letter,” said Dave, holding up the letter. “It was addressed here with specific instructions to pass it on to me.”

“May I?” asked the Veep.

“Yes, sir,” said Dave and handed him the letter.

The Veep read it, grinning while he did. When he was finished, he laughed outright, and handed Dave back his letter.

“Do you know who wrote it?

Dave looked at the letter briefly. “I don’t know of no Larry Ferguson.”

The Veep smirked. “Good luck on your new advertising career. Let me know how you make out.”

Dave looked up at him. “Five bucks a month my wife doesn’t know about means a six-pack without having to listen to my wife raise hell with me,” he said.

The Veep chuckled, and Dave left quickly. He had won.

I listened as the Veep chewed out the super for being an asshole.

I’ll admit, I didn’t her it all, but from where I was, my port captain and I got the gist of it. We both grinned. My port captain hated the asshole almost as much as I did.

“Wonder what that’s all about?” he asked me, rhetorically.

I gave my port captain a knowing look. “I’ll tell you later,” I whispered.

A few days later, a small package arrived at the office, addressed to one Dave De Stefano. It contained the logo, a spool of dental floss and a needle.
It was delivered to the tug the next time it tied up at the office, and Dave opened it up and neatly sewed the logo onto the back of the jacket.

He was kidded about it for years.

The super was ‘de hired’ a couple years later when the company sold off some of it’s assets and Dave stayed on the tug and went to work for the new owners.

As for the super, he has tried for years to get back into the business with a remarkable lack of success, and I doubt he will unless there’s a miracle.

Believe it or not, when guys go for job interviews, more than one of them has asked the interviewer, “Does So-and-so work here? Because if he does, this interview is over because I won’t work where he works.” The former super’s chances of getting back into this industry are pretty slim.

As for Dave, he’s gone far. He now has a 1600-ton Master of Oceans license and runs a salvage tug out of Norfolk, Virginia where he lives with his wife and kids.

Like I said earlier, he supposedly still has the jacket. I wonder how nasty it’s gotten over the years.

I (Piccolo) was taking my friends kid home from a match. He was 11 at the time. It was a hot day.

7-11. 2 cokes hit the counter and I ask for a pack of smokes.

guy behind me starts getting on my case about smoking. I pick up the pack and stuff it in the kid's pocket and tell him I quit 20 years ago, and I'm just picking up a pack for my kid.

Dumbass goes ballistic. I wink at the 2 cops behind him. Then I say:

"He's a good kid, only smokes when he drinks."

More passionate screaming, then he turns to the 2 smirking cops and demands action.

the poor cops realize this is oneof those idiots that will call the CLEO if they don't do something. One of the pair comes forth, put's his hand on the kid's shoulder and asks him why an 11 yo kid would smoke and drink.

"Because My Uncle Piccolo says that good whisky washes the dope out of my system!"

2 copws lost it, and the idiot finally figured out he'd been had and ran off in tears, much to the laughter of everyone present.

The Flaming Backpack story~

Originally posted by mr. wilson:

Saved this off from the old TREETOP thread.

Time: middle of June, 2001.

Situation: Stopped at inspection in Burbank Airport.

Before I moved my Fiancée out here to Arizona, I was living alone out here preparing our future, and she was still living at the house we shared in California.

We wanted to make sure that AZ was going to work out for us, and find a way to transfer her job out here.

We took turns traveling to see each other, every other weekend or so. Usually I would fly out there with no extra complications at all.

I packed very light every time, always bringing only a backpack as carry-on, and no checked baggage. I like to be at the airport for as little time as possible, and don't like waiting for luggage.

Plus I've had bad experiences before where luggage never shows up.

This particular trip, I had decided to do some work on her car that I'd been neglecting, so I brought out a few tools with me. I was planning on adding an alarm system to her car, and brought mostly electrical tools (at the time I worked with mobile electronics for a living). I just brought the stuff out in my backpack like I always do.

After a good weekend together, the time came for me to fly back to Phoenix.

We arrived at the airport a little behind schedule (bad traffic); said our good-byes; and I ran through the hallways hoping to get on the plane, relax, and get home.

By the time I got to the gate area, it was getting pretty close to my departure time. I've missed flights before, and I was praying it would all work out this time.

When walking through the gates, I did everything exactly as I always do. I put my backpack on the conveyor belt, emptied my pockets into the little basket, and took off my belt buckle to put in the basket too.

My belt buckle always sets off the metal detector for some reason, so I've gotten used to just tossing it in with my pocket stuff.

The attendant made me turn off and on my cell-phones, to show that they were real or whatever (I had 2 at the time, one with my old CA number, and one with my AZ area code).

While I was simultaneously putting my belongings back in my pockets, showing that my phones were real, and trying to keep my pants from falling down since they had no belt buckle, the commotion started.

Three or four security officers were speed-walking to the gate area, and the attendant watching the x-ray monitors started wigging out and pointing at the screens to security and all the other airport employees in the area.

I figured someone had tried to smuggle something through, or there was some questionable objects in someone's bag.

It turns out they were looking at my backpack.

Everyone was serious as could be, and freaking out. At first I was wondering if a rat had crawled into my bag or something, not having a clue what they were freaking out about.

Just then 2 guys corner me, and one of them grabs me by the arm to pull me aside.

Anyone who knows me would know not to grab me by the arm and try to tug on me, but these guys didn't know me from Adam, and tried to muscle me out of the path of other people.

Bad Idea.

My instinct was to pull away from them, and free myself from their grip. I was immediately successful. They were telling me (excitedly) to calm down, and I was telling them to keep their hands OFF of me. I think they understood, because they didn't touch me again after that.

I'm asking them what the heck was going on, because by this time they've got a couple other guys coming over too. The other people coming through the gate area are being held back, and I realize it's just me and a bunch of security guys and airline employees in the vicinity.

The guy who looks like he might be one of the higher-ups starts walking to a counter, holding my backpack out very carefully, like when you take a dirty diaper to the trash.

He actually looked frightened. Another guy comes up to me and asks me "Is that your backpack?"

"Yes, what's the problem?"

“Has anyone else had access to it, or held it for you?"

"No and No," I responded.

"What do you have in your backpack?"

"Some clothes, some tools, and some other stuff. What's the problem?"

"Tools, huh?"

"Yes, tools."

"Do you have a hammer in there?"

"A hammer? No. Why?" I couldn’t see where this was going.

"Are you sure you don't have a hammer in there?"

"Yes, quite sure." I couldn’t understand why a hammer would be reason to hold back a plane, or what they saw in my pack that would look like a hammer.

One of the guys rummaging through my backpack then starts walking to the man questioning me, looking like he just happened across the mother-lode.

He's holding a brown plastic East-German AK buttstock out at arms length, practically shouting "Look what was in there!! Look what was in there!!"

Everyone starts wigging out at this point.

The man questioning me says "What's this??!!!"

I say "It's a buttstock for a rifle. It's a harmless piece of plastic."

The fat white guy who originally was monitoring the screens stepped in all hero-like and butted in: "I'm not new to this. I've seen those before. It's a survival rifle that comes apart and folds up inside itself!!!"

He was as proud as could be, like a guy who single-handedly smashed a drug cartel.

Unfortunately for him, he was more mistaken than even Miss Cleo ever could be.

He'd mistaken a plastic AK Buttstock for an AR-7(a medium sized .22lr rifle which breaks down and packs neatly inside itself, designed for camping or backpacking-it’s about 3 times the size of the small plastic buttstock I had with me)!

I explained that it's NOT a "survival rifle", or anything remotely close to that. I explained that it was an almost non-functional piece of a rifle, that I was bringing it with me to replace a stock I had at home. It was truly the only gun-related thing I had in the backpack, except for the new issue of Shotgun News that was with my other mail.

The question guy said forcefully “You can't bring this on the plane."

"WHAT?? It's just a piece of plastic!" I was sure he would understand if I explained it was harmless.

"I'm sorry; you can't bring it on the plane. It's a gun part."

"Why not? It's a harmless six dollar piece of plastic!"

"Well, we don't know if you have the rest of the gun somewhere on the plane already."

This is when I just about lost it the first time.

I tried my best to keep my cool, and asked "So you're accusing me of trying to build a gun on the airplane??"

"Well, not exactly, we just don't know if you are or not."

"If you're accusing me of something, you’d better be sure of what you're talking about.

I'm a regular citizen just like everyone else trying to get on this plane, and you're making me out to be a terrorist or something. I'll say it again. IT'S A HARMLESS PIECE OF PLASTIC!!"

"I'm sorry; you can't bring it on the plane. You can check it in your checked baggage if you want."

"I don't have any checked baggage."

His tone got even more serious as he asked "Why not?"

"Man, this is past ridiculous, bring over somebody in charge".

"I'm in charge of this area. I could bring over my boss, but you won't be happy with that."

"Bring him."

He talks on his walkie-talkie for a second, then sneers and says "He's on his way."(giving me that "You'll be sorry" look.)

By this point I'm frustrated as hell. They're holding up my plane and still making everyone else wait. On top of my embarrassment was my irritation. I just wanted to get home.

By now I was thinking more rationally and trying to find an end to the whole thing.
I then asked "Can I just have you throw this thing in the trash and be on my way?"

"You mean you don't want it?"

"Of course I want it, but I'd rather spend the $6.00 for a new one later than deal with this BS now."

"Well, I guess you could do that. You can't bring guns on the plane."

I explained that I've brought similar gun parts on an airplane before, never once having an issue. He didn't believe me.

I figured that maybe I could find a way to keep some of it and asked "Can I take the metal parts off of it and keep them before throwing away the plastic?"

"Yes, can you do that?"

I start looking through my backpack for a small screwdriver to remove the buttplate and sling swivel, and something catches the other security guy's eye in there. I start removing the parts from the buttstock when I realize something.

"Why is it that I can't bring the plastic part on because it's a gun part, but you’re letting me bring the metal parts on the plane when you know that they're gun parts also???"

His reply had nothing to do with my question. "What's that guy holding up?" (pointing to the other guy digging through my backpack AGAIN.)

"That's my soldering iron. I told you I had some tools in there."

"I know that's not a soldering iron. I've seen soldering irons before, and they don't look like that."

"It IS a soldering iron. It's powered by butane rather than electricity."
[The Blue-Point(Snap-On) soldering iron is the one I used when working on cars, because it's a lot more convenient than bringing over my whole soldering station from the workbench.]

"What? Butane? You can't bring that on the plane either!"

"What do you mean?"

"You can't bring anything with compressed fuel in it on the plane."

My phone starts ringing. I grab the wrong one at first, and then answer the right one. It was my Fiancée; I told her I'd better call her back. The guys interrogating me looked at me like I'm a freak for having two phones.

I'd just gotten done removing the metal parts from the buttstock, handed the plastic part to Mr. smartypants, and was about to put the screwdriver away when I started smelling smoke. I looked over, and my backpack had FIRE coming out of it...

Apparently a female employee inspecting the soldering iron had screwed around with it, turning it on before placing it ON TOP OF MY MAIL in my backpack. I start smacking the backpack, trying to get the fire out, and the woman starts SCREAMING.

She was yelling "That's FIRE!! You can't bring fire on the plane!!"

I was seriously ready to strangle someone.

I got the fire out, with minimal melting to the backpack. She was still frantic, yelling about how I tried to smuggle "fire" onto the plane.

I was very upset, done thinking clearly, and started yelling back.

"You stupid woman, YOU did this!"

"No I didn't. It just happened by itself!"

"It couldn't have happened by itself. It was turned off, with the adjustment at minimum. It's now on at full blast, where I've never had it before!"

"I didn't do it, YOU did it!!!"

Of all the things I hate, and there are a few, one of the worst is being accused of something I haven’t done. Especially by the person who’s actually at fault.

At this point I’m pretty sure I was shouting. "Don't accuse me of things I didn't do! You turned on my soldering iron, and you caught all my stuff on fire!!!!!"

She practically burst into tears, and was escorted away by some other guy, still yelling at me about how I tried to burn down the plane.

By this point there's no fixing the situation, and almost no escaping it. I thought I was going to jail for sure, for disturbing the peace, if nothing else.

I took a moment to catch my breath, and talked directly to the head honcho who'd I guess been witnessing most of this fiasco.

He was at least calm with his words: "I can't let you take the soldering iron on the plane. You'll have to leave it here."

"Can I just check (what's left of) my backpack as luggage, and put it in there?"

"No, you can't even put something in checked baggage if it contains pressurized fuel.

Not even a cigarette lighter."

I was so depressed at this point. I wasn’t about to throw out a $95.00 soldering iron that I’d need the next day at work, and I was just hoping that they weren't going to have me carried out by the Police.

I did some quick thinking, and asked if I could have someone come and pick up the soldering iron, and the buttstock, and just mail them to me in AZ. The guy said yes. I called my Fiancée and asked her if she could do that, and she said sure.

She'd already been driving towards home for 20 minutes at least, but she turned around to come back.

I was finally allowed on the plane, I was the last one on board since they'd been holding the plane for me, and I had to sit in between 2 more idiots. I was sweating like a whore in church, and I had no cash on me for a drink.

I was SO exhausted.

I called my Fiancée when I landed, and she'd gotten my stuff. Problem was the guy who gave me the most trouble was HITTING ON HER!

She asked where the counter was that I'd told her to go to, and the guy told her he'd show her for $10.00. Very professional. He was hitting on her some more, and being a total smartass.

If he’d known her temper, he wouldn't have done that. She laid into him something fierce, and said that “if they didn't have such incompetent morons working there, that she wouldn't even have to be wasting her time there”.

The guy finally left her alone, she went home, she mailed me my stuff, and there's the end of the backpack story.

Looking back now, there are definitely some things I should’ve done differently. For starters I should’ve been more aware of the laws and restrictions regarding what can be brought in carry-on luggage.

I’d never even considered that a soldering iron would be a threat or a danger to anyone. This was before the terrorist attacks on the twin towers, and security was quite a bit more lax back then.

I’d hate to see what would happen to someone attempting to board an airplane with those things these days!
How about the little old fella that showed up at the range with the 500 A-Square . . . . . . pistol !

NOTE: This is the no shit truth. I was present and I am relating this to the best of my memory.

An old friend of mine and I were out at the French Creek PA public range about 8 years ago. French Creek was (is?) a pretty nice range with about 12 100yard lanes, a 25 yard pistol range, and an area to shoot clays. We were both working over our Glock 23's and our hunting rifles . . . deer season was only a month away and all of us know that it takes at least 3000 rounds for an ARFCommer to get "ready" for the hunting season. At the time my main hunting rifle was a 1943 Enfield No4 Mk1 that I had purchased at Boscov's for $40 . . . man those were the good old days .

It was getting later in the afternoon and we were getting reay to pack our stuff up. The range was getting crowded and we both had our Ruger MkII's in the Jeep - we were getting ready to head out to our private hunting reserve and bust some small game. Then, about three lanes to our left, a little older fella starts bringing forward his rifle cases and stacking them up at his station. When he finished, he started unpacking his stuff and lo and behold - the first case had what I remember to be an LAR Grizzly or some sort of single shot .50 cal. At this point, all shooting on the range had ceased - this rifle had pretty much grabbed the full attention of everyone on the range.

Before I go any furthur, let me describe this "little old fella". He was about 5' 4" and weighted perhaps 120 pounds soaking wet before a good crap. He appeared to be in his late sixties. He had that particular hunched over stance that told of a life spent working hard outdoors with his hands. The top of his sunburned head was completely bald, but there was a fringe of wild 2-3 inch long hair sticking out at the base of his skull and at his temples . . . kind of a Woody Allen meets Friar Tuck sort of thing. His clothes probably would have stood up by themselves if he had taken them off . . . hygiene was definitely not on this guys list of priorities. He had money (the new Range Rover and expensive weaponry gave it away) but it was completely obvious to everyone assembled that this guy was a real, all-American, true blue psycho. Perhaps the clothes didn't denote insanity, but his constant stream-of-consciousness conversation with himself just gave it away. Here's a sample from memory:

HEHEHEHeeee . . . easy now . . . eeeeeasy . . . it's just a little punch and all the work's done . . . *snicker**snicker* . . . slowly . . don't let little ol' me down . . . squeeze . . . fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck . . . little more . . . . BBBBAAAARRROOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!!!! (sound of .50 cutting loose) YOU SONOFAMOTHERFUCKINSHITBIRDWHORE!!!! A BULLET THE SIZE OF MY MOTHERFUCKIN THUMB AND YOU MISS (slaps rifle and scope) WHY YOU LITTLE MOTHERFUCKINASSLICKINWHOREMONGERING PIECE OF SHIT I'm TRADING YOU FOR A SACKOFSHIT MARLIN!!! (throws spent casing at target)

After a couple of rounds of this, he finally gave up and set the .50 aside. He pulled out a slightly smaller case and noticing that we were standing right behind him, signalled for us to step up and check out what was in the case. Lying in the case, nestled in foam, was the most insane pistol that I had ever seen.

After talking to him for a few minutes we realized that this guy was absolutely fixiated with owning and firing the most gonzo crazy assed pistols that money and insanity could buy. 500 Linebaugh wouldn't even get a rise out of him . . . if it was designed for a pistol it was by definition boring. The Thompson - Center was initially appreciated, but soon lost its luster. Then suddenly, while crushing .338 caliber bullets into a supermax load for one of his SSK anti-aircraft pistols, he had the idea for the ultimate pistol that would lay it all to rest. Forever. He immediately called his gunsmith (SSK??) and asked if they would build him a .50 BMG pistol. They said (and I qoute) FUCK NO. No one could shoot it and or even hold it up to fire it . . . they simple wouldn't even consider doing it. The man he spoke to on the phone JOKINGLY said that he should "limit himself to rounds that can fit into a Weatherby magnum action". He was joking, but the little old fella took him at his word.

Research soon showed him that the nastiest, most impressive, and dick stiffening round that could fit into the mammoth Weatherby action was the 500 A Square - - - a .460 Weatherby Magnum necked up to take .50 BMG bullets. He called back his gunsmith and related his new plan. The gunsmith (who by now had probably picked up in the fact that this guy was a loon), told him that he would not build it because no one would or could shoot it. No one (the gunsmith stated) could fire such a device without permanent injury. The little old fella promised proof and hung up the phone,

The next day, he said, he visited his local gunsmith and ordered a braked .460 Weatherby magnum and 20 rounds of ammo. When it arrived, he said that he promptly whacked off the stock right after the pistol grip. Donning a football helmet and a PAST shooting glove, he proceeded to video tape himself cranking off 10 rounds from the bench with this beast. With his hand and elbow still numb (I'm guessing) he proceeded to mail the video to his gunsmith, reiterating his idea for a 500 A Square pistol.

Six months later his local gunsmith called and said that he had received a package. Upon inspection, the package turned out to be a 500 A Square bolt action pistol. It had a 16 inch long bull barrel with an integral brake in all stainless. The black fiberglass stock was reminiscent of the old Remington XP-100 with the pistol grip near the center of gravity so that you could actually hold it up. With the Leupold, it had to weigh at least 10 pounds. It was a single shot . . . you had to pull the bolt out of the rear to load it.

In the shipping box was a note. The gunsmith stated that if received videotape proof of the weapon being actually fired from a standing off-hand position, the gun was free. Otherwise, there were instructions to contact him for billing. The little old fella had never had the nerve to fire it yet and wanted to crank off a couple of rounds from the bench before he broke out the video camera. We were his first audience.

So here we were on a gorgeous fall day, all staring at this beast. The ammo came in a nice plastic box . . . I really didn't believe the old guy until I saw those rounds. It looked like something out of a freakin' A-10. He carefully pulled the bolt out and dropped a round in. He slid the bolt home and applied the safety.

He tried to get situated on the bench, but it was too short for him to get into a position that he was comfortable with. He was obviously completely pant-shitting terrified of this weapon. He knew that it was going to kick his ass into a new dimension of hurt, but it's hard to back out with 25 folks stand around eagerly awaiting your imminent demise.

I donated my field jacket for him to fold up under his elbow and one of the other folks present found a five gallon bucket for him to sit on to get far enough back from the bench. With the front of the stock resting on a couple of shot bags, he took his position behind the monster.

AWFUCKAWFUCKAWFUCK . . . ITS GONNA HURT LIKE SHIT . . . easyeasy . . . <quiver in voice>. . . fuckin crazy ass gunsmiths . . . slow . . slow . . . awwwwwwwwwwww (finger tightening) WWWWWWWWWWW . . . .

BAAARROOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!

Fire totally obscured the target and I could feel a punch from the shockwave from behind the old guy. Shit was blow off of benches for two or three lanes on both sides of that massive brake. The old fella was pushed clear off of the bucket and has lying on his back with the pistol in the dirt held in both hands above his head. As the echoes of that shot were still ringing through the trees we all could hear the little old fella say . . .

". . . fuck that. I'm paying for this bitch."

Everyone on the range nearly shit themselves laughing.. We laughed so hard that we couldn't even help the little old fella load up his Range Rover. It was a solid hour before we trusted ourselves to drive.

For years after that all one of us had to do was say "fuck that" in that little old fella tone of voice to send us into gales of laughter. Sometimes the truth is MUCH stranger than fiction.
Ryan’s Steak House
Now, I know that there is a lot of embellishment that occurs on this group and I am aware that a small number of things are perhaps sheer fabrication, but I have a story to tell that is the absolute truth.

Funniest damn thing that has ever happened to me. A couple of weeks ago we decided to cruise out to Ryan's Steakhouse for dinner. It was a Wednesday night which means that macaroni and beef was on the hot bar, indeed the only night of the week that it is served. Wednesday night is also kid's night at Ryan's, complete with Dizzy the Clown wandering from table to table entertaining the little bastards. It may seem that the events about to be told have little connection to those two circumstances, but all will be clear in a moment.

We went through the line and placed our orders for the all-you-can-eat hot bar then sat down as far away from the front of the restaurant as possible in order to keep the density of kids down a bit. Then I started my move to the hot bar. Plate after plate of macaroni and beef were consumed that evening, I tell you - in all, four heaping plates of the pseudo-Italian ambrosia were shoved into my belly. I was sated. Perhaps a bit too much, however.

I had not really been feeling well all day, what with a bit of gas and such. By the time I had eaten four overwhelmed plates of food, I was in real trouble. There was so much pressure on my diaphragm that I was having trouble breathing. At the same time, the downward pressure was building. At first I thought it was only gas, which could have been passed in batches right at the table without too much concern.

Unfortunately, that was not to be. After a minute or so it was clear that I was dealing with explosive diarrhea. It's amazing how grease can make its way through your intestines far faster than the food which spawned the grease to begin with, but I digress... I got up from the table and made my way to the bathroom. Upon entering, I saw two sinks immediately inside the door, two urinals just to the right of the sinks, and two toilet stalls against the back wall. One of them was a handicapped bathroom. Now, normally I would have gone to the handicapped stall since I like to stretch out a bit when I take a good shit. But in this case, the door lock was broken and the only thing I hate worse than my wife telling me to stop cutting my toenails with a pair of diagonal wire-cutters is having someone walk in on me while I am taking a shit.

I went to the normal stall. In retrospect, I probably should have gone to the large, handicapped stall even though the door would not lock because that bit of time lost in making the stall switch proved to be a bit too long under the circumstances. By the time I had walked into the regular stall, the pressure on my ass was reaching Biblical portions. I began "The Move."

For those women who may be reading this, let me take a moment to explain "The Move." Men know exactly what their bowels are up to at any given second. And when the time comes to empty the cache, a sequence of physiological events occur that can not be stopped under any circumstances. There is a move men make that involves simultaneously approaching the toilet, beginning the body turn to position ones ass toward said toilet, hooking ones fingers into ones waistline, and pulling down the pants while beginning the squat at the same time. It is a very fluid motion that, when performed properly, results in the flawless expulsion of shit at the exact same second that one’s ass is properly placed on the toilet seat. Done properly, it even assures that the choad is properly inserted into the front rim of the toilet in the event that the piss stream lets loose at the same time; it is truly a picture of coordination rivaling that of a skilled ballet dancer.

I was about halfway into "The Move" when I looked down at the floor and saw a pile of vomit that had been previously expelled by one of those little bastards attending kids night. It was mounded up in the corner so I did not notice it when I had first walked into the stall. Normally, I would not have been bothered by such a thing, but I had eaten so much and the pressure upward was so intense, that I hit a rarely experienced gag reflex. And once that reflex started, combined with the intense pressure upward caused by the bloated stomach, four plates of macaroni and beef started coming up for a rematch.

What happened next was so quick that the exact sequence of events is a bit fuzzy, but I will try to reconstruct them as best I can. In that moment of impending projectile vomiting, my attention was diverted from the goings-on at the other end. To put a freeze frame on the situation, I was half crouched down to the toilet, pants pulled down to my knees, with a load of vomit coming up my esophagus.

Now, most of you know that vomiting takes precedence over shit no matter what is about to come slamming out of your ass. It is apparently an evolutionary thing since shitting will not kill you, but vomiting takes a presence of mind to accomplish so that you do not aspirate any food into the bronchial tubes and perhaps choke to death. My attention was thus diverted. At that very split second, my ass exploded in what can only be described as a wake...you know, as in a newspaper headline along the lines of "30,000 Killed In Wake of Typhoon Fifi" or something similar. In what seemed to be most suitably measured in cubic feet, an enormous plug of shit the consistency of thick mud with embedded pockets of greasy liquid came flying out of my ass.

But remember, I was only halfway down on the toilet at that moment. The shit wave was of such force, and of just such an angle in relation to the back curve of the toilet seat, that it ricocheted off the back of the seat and slammed into the wall - at an angle of incidence equal to the angle at which it initially hit the toilet seat. Then I sat down. Recall that when that event occurred, I was already halfway to sitting anyway and had actually reached the point of no return. I have always considered myself as relatively stable gravitationally, but when you get beyond a certain point, you're going down no matter how limber you may be. Needless to say, the shit wave, though of considerable force, was not so sufficient so as to completely glance off the toilet seat and deposit itself on the walls - unlike what you would see when hitting a puddle with a high-pressure water hose; even though you throw water at the puddle, the puddle gets moved and no water is left to re-form a puddle. There was a significant amount of shit remaining on about one-third of the seat rim which I had now just collapsed upon.

Now, back to the vomit...

While all the shitting was going on, the vomit was still on its way up. By the time I had actually collapsed on the toilet, my mouth had filled up with a goodly portion of the macaroni and beef I had just consumed. OK, so what does the human body instinctively do when vomiting? One bends over. So I bent over. I was still sitting on the toilet, though. Therefore, bending over resulted in me placing my head above my now slightly-opened legs, positioned in between my knees and waist. Also directly above my pants which were now pulled down to a point just midway between my knees and my ankles. Oh, did I mention that I was wearing not just pants, but sweatpants with elastic on the ankles. In one mighty push, some three pounds of macaroni and beef, two or three Cokes, and a couple of Big, Fat Yeast Rolls were deposited in my pants...on the inside...with no ready exit at the bottom down by my feet. In the next several seconds, there were a handful of farts, a couple of turds, and the event ended. Yet I was now sitting there with my pants full of vomit, my back covered in shit that had bounced off the toilet, spattered on three ceramic-tiled walls to a height of about five feet, and still had enough force to come back at me, covering the back of my shirt with droplets of liquid shit. All while thick shit was spread all over my ass in a ring curiously in the shape of a toilet seat.

And there was no fucking toilet paper. What could I do but laugh. I must have sounded like a complete maniac to the guy who then wandered into the bathroom. He actually asked if I was OK since I was laughing so hard I must have sounded like I was crying hysterically. I calmed down just enough to ask him if he would get the manager. And told him to have the manager bring some toilet paper. When the manager walked in, he brought the toilet paper with him, but in no way was prepared for what happened next. I simply told him that there was no way I was going to explain what was happening in the stall, but that I needed several wet towels and I needed him to go ask my wife to come help me. I told him where we were sitting and he left. At that point, I think he was probably assuming that I had pissed just a bit in my pants or something similarly benign.

About two minutes later, my wife came into the bathroom not knowing what was wrong and with a certain amount of worry in her voice. I explained to her (still laughing and having trouble getting out words) that I had a slight accident and needed her help. Knowing that I had experienced some close calls in the past, she probably assumed that I had laid down a small turd or something and just needed to bring the car around so we could bolt immediately. Until I asked her, I'm sure she had no idea that she was about to go across the street and purchase me new underwear, new socks, new pants, a new shirt, and (by that time due to considerable leakage around the elastic ankles thingies) new sneakers. And she then started to laugh herself since I was still laughing. She began to ask for an explanation as to what had happened when I promised her that I would tell her later, but that I just needed to handle damage control for the time being. She left.

The manager then came back in with a half-dozen wet towels and a few dry ones. I asked him to also bring a mop and bucket upon which he assured me that they would clean up anything that needed to be cleaned. Without giving him specific details, I explained that what was going on in that stall that night was far in excess of what I would expect anyone to deal with, what with most of the folks working at Ryan's making minimum wage of just slightly above. At that moment, I think it dawned on him exactly the gravity of the situation. Then that manager went so far above the call of duty that I will be eternally grateful for his actions. He hooked up a hose. Fortunately, commercial bathrooms are constructed with tile walls and tile floors and have a drain in the middle of the room in order to make clean up easy. Fortunately, I was in a commercial bathroom. He hooked up the hose to the spigot located under the sink as I began cleaning myself up with the wet towels.

Just as I was finishing, my wife got back with the new clothes and passed them into the stall, whereupon I stuffed the previously worn clothing into the plastic bag that came from the store, handing the bag to my wife. I finished cleaning myself off and carefully put on my new clothes, still stuck in the stall since I figured that it would be in bad taste to go out of the stall to get redressed, in the event I happened to be standing there naked and some little bastard kid walked in. At that point, I had only made a mess; I had not yet committed a felony and intended to keep it that way.

When I finished getting dressed, I picked up the hose and cleaned up the entire stall, washing down the remains toward the drain in the center of the room. I put down the hose and walked out of the bathroom. I had intended to go to the manager and thank him for all he had done, but when I walked out, three of the management staff were there to greet me with a standing ovation. I started laughing so hard that I thought I was going to throw up again, but managed to scurry out to the car where my wife was now waiting to pick me up by the front door.

The upshot of all this is that I strongly recommend eating dinner at Ryan's Steak House. They have, by far, the nicest management staff of any restaurant in which I have eaten.
" It was supposed to be a happy family outting for a night of holiday fun. So the wife and I decide to go take our kids to see the Christmas lights at a local event called "the festival of lights"(no less). So before we go to have holiday cheer we decide to go grab a bite to eat . I was enroute to Red Lobster when upon entering the parking lot my wife discovers the newly opened Chinese buffet nextdoor to my choice. Now this was about 1930 and the Festival of Lights closed at 2100 hrs so she felt that if we were to make it in time we should opt for the faster of the two...

So off to the buffet we go...The food was awesome! Crablegs,Crab Rangoon,Shrimp..Fried,broiled,baked,steamed...blahblah blah....Any type of Chinese food possible! So we finish up and I decide to grab some chocolate Ice cream to fnish off the 3lbs of food I just ate. "After This",I said,"and we will be off!"

So we finished up about 2015hrs and we are off to see the lights.

The "Festival of lights"takes place in the Huntsville Botacical gardens every year and hundreds of local businesses bulid this grand "Seasonal" light display in which patrons drive this 2 mile long circle where there displays may be seen.

We get to the entry area and there are 100-200 cars in line waiting to gain entry into the park...so we join in and the joy of my children is at an all time high!

THEN IT HAPPENS!!!

My stomach starts churning and grumbling!! We are about 3 cars to the entry area and there are about 100 cars behind me and no where for a turn around.....The whole time my kids are in light heaven.."oh boy look daddy!!!"...little did they know!!

So I pay to get in and I ask if they have any restrooms but of course that would be too convenient for the ass explosion that was about to occur!Answer=NO!!

As we start our tour of the light show I notice that this thing is absolutly bumper to bumper traffic moving at about 1.5 mph for two miles...NO WAY IN HELL AM I GONNA MAKE IT!!

I hadn't said anything to anyone of my delima but my wife looks at me and notices that I am sweatting and looked..."Destressed" and begins to ask me what is wrong and I tell her..."I am about to burst!!"
She asked,"'Pee???" and I responded "I PRAY for pee!!"..All the while we had moved about 30 feet!! I had well over 10,000 feet to go!!

Now the "Cramps of DEATH" have me in their clutches in bumper to bumper sight seeing traffic. So at this point I know I am about to crap myself with no access to du'toliet! And I told my wife that I was about t abandon ship and crap in the Huntsville Botanical Gardens on Christmas eve with a few hundrend families bearing witness..I would surely make the front page of the Huntsville Times!! I could not let this happen!! So I begin to bargin with the "poop god's" for mercy as my wife begins to explain to our kids that daddy is not feeling well and not to listen to the words that are coming out in rapid progression, All while she looked for a makeshift catch basin!!

Now it's decision time...Consulting the poop gods has failed!! And I know that Im either going to let the beast explode with fury or Im going to cause thousands of dollars in damage to the beautiful Botanical scenery by engaging the 4wheel drive and screaming across the briliantly lit landscape!!

I can hear the voices in my head....You can make it..just hold on!! My faith was lacking in the musculature of my rectum to fight the doo-doo demons!

As I begin to progress through the park I am hit with the most intense birthing pains imaginable! So I reverted back to my wife's childbirth classes....Breath damn-it...BREEEEATH!!! OOOOOHHHH.....AHHHHHHH....OOOHHHH...AAAHHHHHH!!! for the remainder of 1.5 miles I did this until I saw the end of the show and the gate to exit the park!!! IM GONNA MAKE IT!!! Talking about a case of "tight ASS"" I had it...

So I reach the pavement and the nearest convenience store is about .5 miles away..So floor it!! My kids are screaming like it was the end of the world and my wife is preparing me for my quick dismount my taking the wheel and unlatching my seatbelt!

I get to the store and run in ...."Bathroom!!!" is all I could say to the two pretty college girls behind the counter...they saw the panic!!It was evident!!

I get in the restroom and SHAZZZZZZZZZZZAM!!! Relief!! I could hear the girls laughing ..it was quite funny now that I think of it....but FUCK THE CHINESE and MSG!!

My poor kids thought I had lost it!! My wife still laughs about it..So. I thought I'd share it with you!!

Another excerpt:

" Well I have some situations in where I have experienced the same thing during service calls in customer's homes. I have had times that I jam on the gas and clinched my butt SO TIGHT that my body LITERALLY lifts off the seat and you would swear that I was fastened to a backboard.

That is when you make deals with the poo poo gods where you look at the clock and you negotiate. You ask the poo poo gods "OK It is 4:45... all I ask is 15 lousy trivial minutes. You can unleash your wrath at 5:00... PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE!!!"

So as you get to your off ramp you realize that it is 4:58 and you are still 5 minutes from home. you can feel the poo poo gods starting to cash in on the deal YOU made and you are now praying to the traffic light gods for all greens!

4:59.. Flight liquid shit is preparing for departure and it is right on time. Butt traffic control is renegotiating but Captain Peanut-Splash is not having any of that. So Butt traffic control decides that it is forcefully gonna close off to all departures.

That is when your spinal column lifts itself off the seat, your butt cheeks clench to the force equivalant of 453 PSI. and the sweat is pouring out.

5:00... TIMES UP!!.... You make one FINAL PLEA to the Poo poo gods saying "WAIT!!! ITS NOT 5:01 Yet... I still have TIME!!!!!!"

You get to the house.... run like hell yelling at the dear children that are the twinkle of your eyes to "MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!!!" Get to the can and the ....


"SPLASHDOWN!!!!!!!!!" Congratulations... you have appeased the poo poo gods and for a reward, your ass now gets about a dozen "dry heaves" and "leg twitches" for clamping up so tight.

That about explains it??
The MRE date:
I had a date the other night at my place. On the phone the day before, the girl asked me to “Cook her something she’s never had before” for dinner. After many minutes of scratching my head over what to make, I finally settled on something she has DEFINITELY never eaten.

I got out my trusty case of MRE’s. Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Field rations that when eaten in their entirety contain 3000+ calories. Here’s what I made:

I took three of the Ham Slices out of their plastic packets, took out three of the Pork Chops, three packets of Chicken-a-la-King, and eight packets of dehydrated butter noodles and some dehydrated/rehydrated rice. I cooked the Ham Slices and Pork Chops in one pan, sauteed in shaved garlic and olive oil.

In another pot, I blended the Chicken a-la-king, noodles, and rice together to make a sort of mush that looked suspiciously like succotash. I added some spices, and blended everything together in a glass pan that I then cooked in the oven for about 35 minutes at 450 degrees.

When I took it out, it looked like, well, ham slices, pork chops, and a bed of yellow poop. I covered the tops of the meat in the MRE cheese (kinda like velveeta) and added some green sprinkly thingys from one of my spice cans (hey, if it’s got green sprinkly thingys on it, it looks fancy right?)

For dessert I took four MRE Pound Cakes, mashed ‘em up, added five packets of cocoa powder, powdered coffee cream, and some water. I heated it up and stirred it until it looked like a sort of chunky gelatinous organism, and I sprinkled powdered sugar on top of it. Voila––Ranger Pudding.

For alcoholic drinks, I took the rest of my bottle of Military Special Vodka (yes, they DO make a type of liquor named “Military Special"––it sells for $4.35 per fifth) and mixed in four packets of “Electrolytes - 1 each - Cherry flavored” (I swear, the packet says that). It looked like an eerie kool-aid with sparkles in it (that was the electrolytes I guess… could’ve been leftover sand from Egypt).

I lit two candles, put a vase of wildflowers in the middle, and set the table with my best set of Ralph Lauren Academy-series China (that shat is farking EXPENSIVE… my set of 8 place settings cost me over $600), and put the alcoholic drink in a crystal wine decanter.

She came over, and I had some appetizers already made, of MRE spaghetti-with-meatballs, set in small cups. She saw the dinner, saw the food, and said “This looks INCREDIBLE!!!”

We dug in, and she was loving the food. Throughout the meal, she kept asking me how long it took me to make it, and kept remarking that I obviously knew a thing or two about cooking fine meals. She kind of balked at the makeshift “wine” I had set out, but after she tried it I guess she liked it because she drank four glasses during dinner.

At the end of the main course, when I served the dessert, she squealed with delight at the “Chocolate mousse” I had made. Huh? Chocolate what? Okay… yeah… it’s Chocolate Moose. Took me HOURS to make… yup.

Later on, as we were watching a movie, she excused herself to use my restroom. While she was in there, I heard her say softly to herself “uh oh” and a resounding but petite fart punctuated her utterance of dismay.

Let the games begin.

She sprayed about half a can of air freshener (Air Freshener, 1 each, Orange scent. Yup. The Army even makes smellgood) and returned to the couch, this time with an obvious pained look.

After 10 more minutes she excused herself again, and retreated to the bathroom for the second time. I could hear her say “What the hell is WRONG with me???,” as she again send flatulent shockwaves into the porcelain bowl. This time, they sounded kinda wet, and I heard the toilet paper roll being employed, and again, LOTS more air freshener.

Back to the couch. She smiles meekly as she decides to sit on the chair instead of next to me. She sits on my chair, knees pulled up to her chest, kind of rocking back and forth slightly. Suddenly, without a word, she ROCKETED up and FLEW to the bathroom, slammed the door, and didn’t come out for 30 minutes.

I turned the movie up because I didn’t want her to hear me laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my cheeks. She came out with a slightly gray palor to her face, and said “I am SOOOOOO sorry. I have NO idea what is wrong with me. I am so embarrassed, I can’t believe I keep running to your bathroom!!” I gave her an Immodium AD, and she finally settled down and relaxed.

Later on, she asked me again what I had made for dinner, because she had enjoyed it so much. I calmly took her into the kitchen and showed her all the used MRE bags and packets in the trash can. After explaining to her that she had eaten roughly 9,000 calories of “Army food” she turned stark white, looked at me incredulously, and said “I ate 9,000 calories or dehydrated food that was made 3 years ago?” After I
concurred, she grabbed her coat and keys, and took off without a word. She called me yesterday. Seems she couldn’t shate for 3 days, and when she finally did, the smell was so bad, her roommate could smell it from down the hall. She also told me she had been working out nonstop to combat the high caloric intake, and that she never wanted me to cook dinner for her again, unless she was PERSONALLY there to inspect the food beforehand.

It was a fun date. She laughed about it eventually, and said that that was the first time she’d ever crapped in a guy’s house on a date. She’d been so upset by it she was in tears in the bathroom while I had been in tears on the couch.

I know, I’m an azzhole, but it was still a funny night.

Squirrel Encounter
- author unknown
I never dreamed slowly cruising on my motorcycle through a residential neighborhood could be so incredibly dangerous! Little did I suspect. I was on Brice Street - a very nice neighborhood with perfect lawns and slow traffic. As I passed an oncoming car, a brown furry missile shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in front of me.

It was a squirrel, and must have been trying to run across the road when it encountered the car. I really was not going very fast, but there was no time to brake or avoid it –– it was that close.

I hate to run over animals, and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but a squirrel should pose no danger to me. I barely had time to brace for the impact. Animal lovers, never fear. Squirrels, I discovered, can take care of themselves! Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on his hind legs and facing my oncoming Valkyrie with steadfast resolve in his beady little eyes. His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed and leapt!

I am pretty sure the scream was squirrel for, "Bonzai!" or maybe, "Die you gravy-sucking, heathen scum!" The leap was nothing short of spectacular… as he shot straight up, flew over my windshield, and impacted me squarely in the chest.

Instantly, he set upon me. If I did not know better, I would have sworn he brought 20 of his little buddies along for the attack. Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of activity. As I was dressed only in a light T-shirt, summer riding gloves, and jeans this was a bit of a cause for concern. This furry little tornado was doing some damage!

Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and leather gloves, puttering at maybe 25 mph down a quiet residential street, and in the fight of his life with a squirrel.

And losing...

I grabbed for him with my left hand. After a few misses, I finally managed to snag his tail. With all my strength, I flung the evil rodent off to the left of the bike, almost running into the right curb as I recoiled from the throw. That should have done it. The matter should have ended right there. It really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one of the pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and I could have headed home. No one would have been the wiser.

But this was no ordinary squirrel. This was not even an ordinary angry squirrel. This was an EVIL MUTANT ATTACK SQUIRREL OF DEATH!

Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands and, with the force of the throw, swung around and with a resounding thump and an amazing impact, he landed squarely on my BACK and resumed his rather antisocial and extremely distracting activities. He also managed to take my left glove with him!

The situation was not improved. Not improved at all. His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him. I was startled, to say the least. The combination of the force of the throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars, and my jerking back unfortunately put a healthy twist through my right hand and into the throttle. A healthy twist on the throttle of a Valkyrie can only have one result. Torque. This is what the Valkyrie is made for, and she is very, very good at it. The engine roared and the front wheel left the pavement. The squirrel screamed in anger. The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy. I screamed in ... well . I just plain screamed.

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a slightly squirrel-torn t-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, and roaring at maybe 50 mph and rapidly accelerating down a quiet residential street on one wheel, with a demonic squirrel of death on his back. The man and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder.

With the sudden acceleration I was forced to put my other hand back on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike. This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices, but I really did not want to crash into somebody's tree, house, or parked car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the throttle... my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to mash the back brake, but it had little effect against the massive power of the big cruiser.

About this time the squirrel decided that I was not paying sufficient attention to this very serious battle (maybe he was an evil mutant NAZI attack squirrel of death), and he came around my neck and got INSIDE my full-face helmet with me. As the faceplate closed part way, he began hissing in my face. I am quite sure my screaming changed intensity. It had little effect on the squirrel, however. The RPMs on the Dragon maxed out (since I was not bothering with shifting at the moment), so her front end started to drop.

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a very raggedly torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, roaring at probably 80 mph, still on one wheel, with a large puffy squirrel's tail sticking out of the mostly closed full-face helmet. By now the screams are probably getting a little hoarse.

Finally I got the upper hand ... I managed to grab his tail again, pulled him out of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This time it worked ... sort-of. Spectacularly sort-of ...so to speak.

Picture a new scene. You are a cop. You and your partner have pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with your windows down to do some paperwork. Suddenly a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a torn T-shirt flapping in the breeze, and wearing only one leather glove, moving at probably 80 mph on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder roars by, and with all his strength throws a live squirrel grenade directly into your police car.

I heard screams. They weren't mine...

I managed to get the big motorcycle under control and dropped the front wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign of a busy cross street. I would have returned to 'fess up (and to get my glove back). I really would have. Really... Except for two things.

First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned about me at the moment. When I looked back, the doors on both sides of the patrol car were flung wide open. The cop from the passenger side was on his back, doing a crab walk into somebody's front yard, quickly moving away from the car. The cop who had been in the driver's seat was standing in the street, aiming a riot shotgun at his own police car. So, the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to "let the professionals handle it" anyway.

That was one thing. The other? Well, I could clearly see shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery from the back seat. But I could also swear I saw the squirrel in the back window, shaking his little fist at me. That is one dangerous squirrel. And now he has a patrol car. A somewhat shredded patrol car ... but it was all his.

I took a deep breath, turned on my turn-signal, made a gentle right turn off of Brice Street, and sedately left the neighborhood. I decided it was best to just buy myself a new pair of gloves. And a whole lot of Band-Aids
In the spirit of such threads as “you can’t bring fire on a plane!” and the overtly embarrassing barf incident at the buffet, I bring you my tale of personal agony not for the sheer emotional release of it but more for the betterment of mankind... and I emphasize the man in “mankind.”

My story begins during what was supposed to be merely a pleasant ride home from a friend’s house about 35 minutes from my own home. We had been hanging out watching a couple of movies in the basement but it was getting late. I said goodbye and hopped into my green ‘96 Blazer and headed out. I had just graduated high school and life was good... right up until I got into my vehicle.

I noticed a slight dull pain in the one place men pray to never get pain. That’s right... something wasn’t quite right with my kiwis. “No biggie,” I thought... perhaps I just hit a bump or sat on it wrong. Testicles are sensitive creatures and this is nothing to worry about.

As the I made my way home, the pain became greater and greater. By the time I got to my driveway and out of the car, I could barely walk. I got inside and looked at the stairs and thought to myself, “there is no way in hell I am getting up those.” Climbing them would be akin to scaling the Great Pyramid... with someone kicking you in the jibblies.

I quietly made my way to the computer room and gently, oh so carefully, sat down. The pain was unbearable. I immediately opened up several Internet Explorer windows and typed feverishly into Metacrawler, Alta Vista, and Yahoo search engines. This was before the Google craze, so I had to sift through an abnormal amount of fetish porn. After clicking on any website with the keywords “acute pain in the testicles,” there was only a few logical conclusions: I have testicular cancer, I’m going to die, and, at this point, the latter is perfectly acceptable.

It was past midnight after this enlightening medical lesson and the pain had subsided enough for me to brave the Great Pyramid and sleep in my room. No position was comfortable in bed and trying to “support the boys” was even more painful. At some point, I passed out... most likely in tears out of fear of my impending death via cancer of the balls.

I woke up mid-day to an empty house and only a dull pain in my dirty bits. I solemnly picked up the phone and called my doctor. The secretary asked what the reason for my requested visit was and I could only whisper “acute pain in my... testicles.” She made me an appointment right away. Clearly, she was married and knew that no man would call a doctor over such a thing unless he was near death.

I slid into my Blazer and made my way to the doctor’s office. God indeed has a sense of humor because the very next song on my CD player was “Big Balls” by AC/DC. The irony was not lost on me and I promptly turned on the radio instead. The album was on sale at Sam Goody... I should have skipped it in hindsight rather than give God a medium through which to mock me.

Regardless of musical torment, I pulled into the doctor’s office a few minutes later and walked in with as little limp as possible. I checked in with the receptionist and she smiled and asked what the appointment was regarding. Swallowing my pride, I sheepishly told the second woman of the day “acute pain in my testicles.” Receptionists must be trained not to chuckle out loud and she merely told me to take a seat.

Within a few minutes I was called in. I eyed the elevated bed they make you sit on and reflected upon how easy an SUV is to get situated in as opposed to this torturous device. The doctor came in soon after and wasn’t nearly as shy as I was.

“Acute pain in the... testicles?”
“Yep...”
“It could be a number of things... one could be twisted or...”
I cut him off and blurted out “it’s cancer isn’t it?”
He said I was jumping to conclusions but, regardless, we would need to do a testicular exam. So after telling two women that my berries were not in working order, I proceeded to let a grown man play with my partners in crime.

Much to my happiness, he explained that there did not appear to be anything wrong. No twisting, no lumps, nothing! A few minutes prior I was about to request that they be removed but apparently the problem was not that bad.

He calmly asked for a little more history of the prior evening, to which I will relate to you all. I was indeed leaving my “friend’s house” but I failed to mention to all parties involved that it happened to be my girlfriend’s house. My first girlfriend.

We admittedly did a little bit of messing around in the basement... nothing to write home about but just enough, in the end, to write a story about. My doctor pried for more information in timeline form and I began to wonder if he wanted me to start dictating a romance novel.
“Did you ejaculate?”
Well, geez Doc... that’s rather blunt. If you must know “I did not...” He paused and smiled ever so slightly. The bastard knows something that I don’t...
“It sounds like vasocongestion.”
“Vaso-what?” I replied.
“It is a buildup of blood when a male is very... errr... excited. When said male does not... errr... release it can cause a great deal of pain. It is quite common and almost expected. Most people refer to it as ‘blue balls.’”
I was beginning to catch on. “So how do I cure this little problem?”
He stuttered a bit... “One just needs to, uhh... release.”
I excited blurted out, “You mean I just have to spank it??”
“Yes... err, uhh... release.”
“Hell, I can do that!”

After a bit of awkward silence, I thanked him and he left me to myself so I could get dressed. I walked out of that room with a big ol’ shit eating grin on my face. No cancer, no death, and a new excuse to spank it. Life doesn’t get much better than that.

I approached the other receptionist, with whom one must check out with upon leaving.
“I take it everything went well? Do you need a prescription filled?”
I couldn’t help myself. “I’ve had the prescription for years... I just didn't know the dosage!”
The joke was lost on her.

I hate to leave the story at a rather anticlimactic ending, pun intended, but I never did again experience Blue Balls. I will, however, forever live with the burning memories of what it feels like to look death in the eye and come to learn that I just need to play with myself.

This story, however, is intended to better mankind. My father taught me all of the important stuff in life: How to shoot, work on the car, re-use underwear, and fart in a manner that generally goes undetected by others. The one thing he apparently skipped over was the inevitable condition in which your testicles feel like they’ve been tap-danced on.

To all the fathers out there... tell your sons about the horrific affliction known as Blue Balls. Avoiding it will only do one thing: Traumatize the poor bastard to the point he actually goes to the doctor.

To this day, my father doesn’t know about the grudge that I hold against him. I’d imagine that one night in the future, after a few beers, I’ll let the story rip, just as I have let it flow on a few rare and alcohol-induced occasions.

And there is my most embarrassing story. May it bring you all a few chuckles and make the lives of your sons less dramatic.

Haha, and Underdog75's reply:

One night I went to sleep a happy and healthy 18 yr old male, The next morning I awoke a very unhappy and very painful pup, My problem you see wasnt with my "Berries" as you put it, but with my, well... you get the point. I awoke to a rather large, ....well swolen to be exact, member. The fact the it was swolen didnt worry me too much, as with any heathly young man I had awoken to many a stiff member, The problem lay in the fact that it waas easily twice its normal size, trobbing pain and the fanciest shade of vermillion I'd ever seen.

Of course my first thought was VD!. Well my first thought was actually WTF!. So technically my second thought was VD OMFG!!!!
To the ER for little Udog!.
First problem was the cute little nurse or whatever that was at the front desk,. "What seems to be the problem"? see asked. "Um" "Um, I have a knot in my groin"......Yeah that's the ticket, quick thinking Udog, just stay calm and cool.

So i wait the longest 45mins of my life before im allowed into the back....Second problem.... I was taken to not a private room but a large room seperated by "sheets" dividing the room into 4 parts. 4 occupied parts.... Where I was instructed to remove my clothing and wait.....
10mins later.... Third problem.... A nurse...A female nurse comes in and asks to see my swolen groin....

Reluctantly I do so, to which see replys.....at 100Db's..... "THAT NOT YOUR GROIN, THATS YOUR PENIS SON"... You coulda heard a pin drop, well you could if not for the laughter coming from my follow "Roommates".... "What is it"? I ask, "Will I live"?.....More laughter...
"I Dont know son, I aint never seen that before"......Great..... Not only do I have VD, Ive got some new terrible strain.
"You'll have to wait for the doc"

In comes the doc, "It says here youve got a swolen area......" ......." THATS NOT YOUR GRION, THATS YOUR PENIS"........ laughter.....,. I know doc, is it VD, Am I going to die? "Doesnt look like any VD Ive ever seen".....More laughter from my roommates.... "We'll run a test or two, but I think its and allergy". An alergy? to what? "HAVE YOU HAD YOUR PENIS ANYWHERE ITS NOT SUPPOSE TO BE?" laughter.... a lot of laughter. J... C... doc! like WTF are you talking about? "Never mind well just run a quick swab"

Now the average male penis is pretty sensitive as it is, but try to imagine the averge male penis 2 times to big and the prettiest shade of vermillion, and mix in the BIGGEST GD COTTON SWAB ever created by man and you get the point.....

To make a long story short, the day before I had picked up my GF from the dentist and she was happy to see me., very happy and, how should I put it,, "Greatful"

Thats how I came to learn that lttle Udog was allergic to Flouride

I like this one....

The horror of blimps
Last week while traveling I stopped at a Zany Brainy store and saw that they had a blimp for sale. It's called Airship Earth, and it's a great big balloon with a map of the Earth on it, and two propellers hanging from the bottom. You blow up the balloon with helium put batteries in it, and you have a radio control indoor blimp.

I'd seen these things for sale in Sharper Image catalogs for $60-$75. At Zany Brainy it was on clearance for $15. What a deal!

Last night my wife was playing tennis and it was just my daughter and I at home. I bought a small helium tank from a party store, and last night we put the blimp together.

Let me tell you, it's quite a blimp. It's huge. The balloon has like a 3 ft diameter.

We blew it up with the tank attached the gondola with the propellers, and put in batteries.

Then we balanced the blimp for neutral buoyancy with this putty that came with it, so it hangs in the air by itself neither rising nor falling.

It was easy and fun, and then I blew up another balloon and made Mickey Mouse helium voices for my daughter.

My three year old girl loved it. We flew the blimp all over the house, terrorized the dog, attacked the fish tank, and the controls were so easy my daughter could fly.

Let's face it, blimps are fun.

Alas, the fun had to end and my daughter had to go to sleep. I left the blimp floating in my office downstairs, my wife came home, and we went to bed, and slept the sleep of the righteous.

At this point it is important to know that my house has central heating. I have it configured to blow hot air out on the ground floor and take it in at the second floor to take advantage of the fact that heat rises.

The blimp which was up until this moment a fun toy here embarked on a career of evil. Using the artificial convection of my central heating, the blimp stealthily departed my office. It moved silently through the living and drifted to the staircase. Gliding wraith like over the staircase it then entered the bedroom where my wife and I lay sleeping peacefully.

Running silently, and gliding six feet or so above the ground on invisible and tiny air corrects it approached the bed.

In spite of it's noiseless passage, or perhaps because of it, I awoke. That doesn't really say it properly. Let me try again.

I awoke, the way you awake at 2:00 AM when your sleeping senses suddenly tell you without reason that the forces of evil on converging on you.

That still doesn't do it. Let me try one more time.

I awoke the way you awake when you suddenly know that there is a large levitating sinister presence hovering toward you with menacing intent through the malignant darkness.

Now sometimes I do wake up in the middle of the night thinking that there are large sinister and menacing things floating out of the darkness to do me and mine evil. Usually I open my eyes, look and listen carefully, decide it was a false alarm, and go back to sleep.

So, the fact that I awoke in such a manner was not all that unusual.

On this occasion I awoke to the sense that there was a large menacing presence approaching me silently out of the gloom, so I opened my eyes, and there it was! A LARGE SILENT MENACING PRESENCE WAS APPROACHING ME OUT OF THE GLOOM, AND IT COULD FLY!!!

Somewhere in the control room of my mind a fat little dwarf in a security outfit was paging through a Penthouse while smoking a cigar with his feet up on the table, watching the security monitors of my brain with his peripheral vision. Suddenly he saw the LARGE SILENT SINISTER MENACING FLOATING PRESENCE coming at me, and he pulled every panic switch and hit every alarm that my body has. A full decade's allotment of adrenaline was dumped into my bloodstream all at once. My metabolism went from "restful sleep mode" to HOLY ****! FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE OR DIE!!!! mode" in a nanosecond. My heart went from twenty something beats per minute to about 240 even faster.

I always knew this was going to happen. I always knew that skepticism and science were mere psychological decorations and vanities. Deep in our alligator brains we all know that the world is just chock full of evil and monsters and sinister forces aligned against us, and it is only a matter of time until they show up. Evolution know this, too. It knows what to do when the silent terror comes at you from out of the dark.

When 50 million years worth of evolutionary survival instinct hits you all at once flat in the gut at 200 mph it is not a pleasant sensation.

Without volition I screamed my battle cry (which is indistinguishable to the sound a little girl makes when you drop a spider down her dress (not that I'd know what that sounds like,) and lept out of bed in my underwear.

I struck the approaching menace with all my strength and almost fell over at the total lack of resistance that a helium balloon offers when you punch the living **** out of it with all the strength that sudden middle of the night terror produces.

It's trajectory took it straight into the ceiling fan which whipped it about the room at terrifying velocity.

Seeking a weapon, I ripped the alarm clock out of its plug and hurled it at the now High Velocity Menacing presence (breaking the clock and putting a nice hole in the wall.)

Somehow at this moment I suddenly realized that I was fighting the blimp, and not a monster. It might have been funny if I didn't truly and actually feel like I was having a legitimate heart-attack.

On quivering legs I went to the bathroom and literally gagged into the toilet while shaking uncontrollably with the shock of the reaction I'd had.

Unbelievably, both my wife and daughter had completely slept through the incident. When I decided that I wasn't having a heart attack after all I went back into the bedroom and found the blimp which had somehow survived the incident.

I took it to the walk in closet and released it inside where it floated around with the air currents released from the vents in there. I closed the door, this sealing it in, and went back to bed. About 500 years later I fell asleep.


***

At about 7 am my wife awoke. She had been playing tennis and wasn't aware that we have assembled the blimp the previous evening, and that is was now floating around the the walk-in closet that she approached.

The dynamic between the existing air currents of the closet and the suction caused by opening the door was just enough to give the blimp the appearance of an Evil Sinister Menace flying straight toward her.

This time the blimp did not survive the encounter, nor almost, did I, as I had to explain to my very angry spouse what motivated me to hide an evil lurking presence in the closet for her to find at 7 am.

I can order replacement balloons on the Internet but I don't think I will.

Some blimps are better off dead.

GabbasaurusRex  [Team Member]
6/20/2007 11:12:38 PM CDT
In the grand tradition of GabbasaurusRex's bad ideas that never occured to her that they might be bad ideas, I bring you....Cheap Allergy Medicine Meets Copious Amounts of Caffiene.

Yesterday, I had a wicked allergy attack. I couldn't stop sneezing and my eyes were puffed up to the point of obscuring my vision. Every time I sneezed, I had to blow my nose. Every time I blew my nose, I had to wash my hands. By the end of my work day, my hands were completely dried out from excess washing and my nostrils were rubbed raw, not to mention I had gained first-hand knowledge of how a person with OCD spends their day.

This morning I awoke with a runny nose and the decision that I was not going through that again. Digging through my medicine cabinet, I immediately bypassed the Benedryl because of its comatose side effects and instead picked up a nondescript brand-X box of allergy medicine. Noting that my current form of torture known as itchy eyes and nonstop sneezing were present in the list of symptoms this little orange pill claimed to alleviate, I dug out half the recommended dosage, downed it in one gulp, and headed off to work.

45 minutes into my shift, I felt that little orange bitch kick in. I didn't feel drowsy or groggy, just a little tired, smiliar to how I felt in middle school when I'd get up at 5 a.m. to complete my science homework that was due 3 hours later. Worried that I would start dragging, I fixed a second cup of coffee and pounded it.

That ended up being a huge mistake.

Allow me to provide a bit of a disclaimer. I've been drunk. I've been high. What I experienced next wasn't really either. Usually, when you're drunk or high, it is:
A. Enjoyable
B. Expected
C. On your own time.
I wasn't fortunate enough for any of those categories to apply to me. I mean, I'm standing at the counter scratching my nose, and the next thing I know, I've entered this unknown dimension. Colors are so much brighter than they used to be, yet everything seems so far away. If I turned my head, I had to wait for the room to catch up with me. My brain was telling me to relax and go with my instincts but my body was saying, "You're out of your element, Donnie." My world was just not right and I didn't know how to cope. I consoled myself by chewing on my knuckles.

I was rapidly on my way to becoming temporarily, undeniably fucked up. The worst part is, I knew it was going to get worse before it got better.

I wandered into the kitchen to dig my phone out of my jacket. Next to the coat rack is a mirror. My reflection startled me, like someone who discovered they were no longer along in the room. I blinked. My pupils shrank and then quickly returned to their normal size. Holy shit, that's weird. I blinked again.
*Blink*
.....
*Blink*
.....
*Blink*
Whoa.
*Blink*
*Blink*
*Blink*
*Blinkblinklblinkblink-*
"…Gabrielle?"
I turned my head to see my boss standing in the door with a quizzical look on his face. I paused, then said, "I have to go to the bathroom."

After a trip down the hall to the restroom, stopping only to stare at the brightly lit EXIT sign for a moment, I retreated outside and called my boyfriend. This whole thing was weirding me out, and I needed someone who could think clearly.

The dickhead was no help. He just laughed at me when I explained what happened. At mention of the two cups of coffee I had drank in hopes of counterbalancing Agent Orange's side effects, he exclaimed, "Oh jesus, you're mixing drugs?! There's your problem!"

I felt panicky and strange. I didn't like talking because it made me all too aware of the movement in my jaw, like the pronunciation of each syllable was really just the bottom portion of my face falling off, changing its mind halfway through, and snapping itself back into place. I hung up with Captain NoHelpWhatsoever and found my way back inside.

My boss had decided the best thing he could do was to only delegate me one task so I could focus solely on that, and stuck me on the register. Somehow, through my clouded, tripped-out mind, I could still manage numbers and cash, though it took every one of my synapses that I could force to work together – the rest, apparently, had gone on strike. I kept my head down and refused to make eye contact with customers knowing that a direct look would only result in questions I was not in the mindset to answer. It actually wasn't terrible, though. I kinda felt like Rain Man. The downside was that my hands could not stop shaking as a result of the excess caffeine coursing its way through my bloodstream. Whether the customers thought I was being aloof, snotty, or suffering from Parkinson's, I'll never know. I can live with that.

Once our lunch rush ended and the deli was once again quiet, the boss stepped out to retrieve the mail. This occurred only after I had assured him I wouldn't wander off and make friends with the front end of a semi. He returned less than two minutes later to find me stacking boxes of tea.

"What are you doing?"
"You don't like it?"
"I don't...really understand it," he replied, gazing at the box of Lemon Lift tea sandwiched between boxes of Cranberry Apple and Mint Medley.
"It's a traffic light."
(Silence)
"You see, the green one-"
"-No, I get it."
"Okay."
"...What happened to your face?"
"What?"
"One of your cheeks is bright red."
"Oh. Yeah. I slapped myself to see if it would help."
"And did it?"
"...."
"...."
"...My face hurts."
"...I think you should go and sit down."
"Yeah."


I spent the remainder of the hour sitting in a chair and staring at the cracks in the ceiling. The effects wore off shortly thereafter, enabling me to drive home so I could sit on my couch and feel like a fool.

I seem to be the poster child for bad ideas most people wouldn't even think of trying: Head-On, DIY bikini waxing, and now mixing allergy medicine with copious amounts of caffeine. I suppose I'll laugh about this in a week. Right now, I'm just wallowing in shame and battling a runny nose.

As a joke, I was recently mailed a stick of HeadOn by another board member. I laughed it off, stuck it in my bathroom, and didn't give it a second thought for another month or so.

Well, last night I got curious.

I open the box and begin checking the product out. Basically, it's a medicated balm to help alleviate migraine pain. I myself have never been unfortunate enough to be dealt a migraine, and directions specifically state that it shouldn't be used if you don't have a migraine headache.

Do I listen? Of course not.

Anyone who's seen the commercials for this particular product know that you are told to "apply directly to forehead" about 46 cajillion times. The part that makes me curious is why something that looks like a gluestick would work by smearing it all over your forehead. I check the directions out to see if there's more to it; there isn't. You take off the cap and rub it all over your forehead, just like the commercials say.

So I do.

It's colorless, odorless, and I have to guess if I've missed any spots. Once my forehead is covered, I wait.

Nothing happens. I'm severely disappointed.

When I'm laying in bed reading, that's when I noticed that my forehead is tingling. That's kinda cool, it does something after all. I finish the chapter. Now my forehead is tingling a lot. Not only is it tingling, but it feels cold, too. I wait for the HeadOn to wear off. It doesn't. Now my forehead is completely cold, and it's starting to make me feel really uncomfortable. I rub my forehead to see if it does anything. It just makes it worse. I get up and go to the sink to wash off the product, but I guess it's too late. It's working its headache magic, and it's really bugging me now.

I feel like the top half of my face is no longer there.

I tie a scarf around my head to see if that will warm it up at all. That does nothing but make my head itch, so I take it off. In a fit of desperation, I smack my palms to my forehead. That seems to help a little bit. I lay down in bed and try not to move my hands too much.

I spent half an hour with my hands pressed againt my forehead to make sure it was still there. The irony of this situation is, I ended up getting a headache from all my running around.



It's never a good idea to take medicine for a condition you don't have. Sometimes people are dumb and do it anyway. Last night was one of those nights. My lesson is learned. At least for a while, anyway.

For me it was two.

I posted something about me and Teddy at San Juan Hill, and somebody replied that I was a poser and one of those guys that sold beef jerky at gun shows.

Someone came to my defense and posted this:





AND INSIDE OF 5 Minutes the guy that had called me a poser IM'd me and apologized profusly!

You gotta be shittin' me! How many 130 +YO men post on this website?







The other one was when the OP asked 'how hard do you party?"

I replied that after a couple cases of Heineken, 2 quarts of Jack Daniels, six or eight joints, four hits of good Orange Owsly LSD, three Quaaludes, six reds, two grams of coke, three tooies and a couple of serious snorts of crank was my limit. After that, I had to find a designated driver.


I got an instant IM trying to send me to send me to AA!

Did he take count and think? That's enough to kill 4 elephants!


Makes me wonder.




It cracks me up!

How about the little old fella that showed up at the range with the 500 A-Square . . . . . . pistol !

NOTE: This is the no shit truth. I was present and I am relating this to the best of my memory.

An old friend of mine and I were out at the French Creek PA public range about 8 years ago. French Creek was (is?) a pretty nice range with about 12 100yard lanes, a 25 yard pistol range, and an area to shoot clays. We were both working over our Glock 23's and our hunting rifles . . . deer season was only a month away and all of us know that it takes at least 3000 rounds for an ARFCommer to get "ready" for the hunting season. At the time my main hunting rifle was a 1943 Enfield No4 Mk1 that I had purchased at Boscov's for $40 . . . man those were the good old days .

It was getting later in the afternoon and we were getting reay to pack our stuff up. The range was getting crowded and we both had our Ruger MkII's in the Jeep - we were getting ready to head out to our private hunting reserve and bust some small game. Then, about three lanes to our left, a little older fella starts bringing forward his rifle cases and stacking them up at his station. When he finished, he started unpacking his stuff and lo and behold - the first case had what I remember to be an LAR Grizzly or some sort of single shot .50 cal. At this point, all shooting on the range had ceased - this rifle had pretty much grabbed the full attention of everyone on the range.

Before I go any furthur, let me describe this "little old fella". He was about 5' 4" and weighted perhaps 120 pounds soaking wet before a good crap. He appeared to be in his late sixties. He had that particular hunched over stance that told of a life spent working hard outdoors with his hands. The top of his sunburned head was completely bald, but there was a fringe of wild 2-3 inch long hair sticking out at the base of his skull and at his temples . . . kind of a Woody Allen meets Friar Tuck sort of thing. His clothes probably would have stood up by themselves if he had taken them off . . . hygiene was definitely not on this guys list of priorities. He had money (the new Range Rover and expensive weaponry gave it away) but it was completely obvious to everyone assembled that this guy was a real, all-American, true blue psycho. Perhaps the clothes didn't denote insanity, but his constant stream-of-consciousness conversation with himself just gave it away. Here's a sample from memory:

HEHEHEHeeee . . . easy now . . . eeeeeasy . . . it's just a little punch and all the work's done . . . *snicker**snicker* . . . slowly . . don't let little ol' me down . . . squeeze . . . fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck . . . little more . . . . BBBBAAAARRROOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!!!! (sound of .50 cutting loose) YOU SONOFAMOTHERFUCKINSHITBIRDWHORE!!!! A BULLET THE SIZE OF MY MOTHERFUCKIN THUMB AND YOU MISS (slaps rifle and scope) WHY YOU LITTLE MOTHERFUCKINASSLICKINWHOREMONGERING PIECE OF SHIT I'm TRADING YOU FOR A SACKOFSHIT MARLIN!!! (throws spent casing at target)

After a couple of rounds of this, he finally gave up and set the .50 aside. He pulled out a slightly smaller case and noticing that we were standing right behind him, signalled for us to step up and check out what was in the case. Lying in the case, nestled in foam, was the most insane pistol that I had ever seen.

After talking to him for a few minutes we realized that this guy was absolutely fixiated with owning and firing the most gonzo crazy assed pistols that money and insanity could buy. 500 Linebaugh wouldn't even get a rise out of him . . . if it was designed for a pistol it was by definition boring. The Thompson - Center was initially appreciated, but soon lost its luster. Then suddenly, while crushing .338 caliber bullets into a supermax load for one of his SSK anti-aircraft pistols, he had the idea for the ultimate pistol that would lay it all to rest. Forever. He immediately called his gunsmith (SSK??) and asked if they would build him a .50 BMG pistol. They said (and I qoute) FUCK NO. No one could shoot it and or even hold it up to fire it . . . they simple wouldn't even consider doing it. The man he spoke to on the phone JOKINGLY said that he should "limit himself to rounds that can fit into a Weatherby magnum action". He was joking, but the little old fella took him at his word.

Research soon showed him that the nastiest, most impressive, and dick stiffening round that could fit into the mammoth Weatherby action was the 500 A Square - - - a .460 Weatherby Magnum necked up to take .50 BMG bullets. He called back his gunsmith and related his new plan. The gunsmith (who by now had probably picked up in the fact that this guy was a loon), told him that he would not build it because no one would or could shoot it. No one (the gunsmith stated) could fire such a device without permanent injury. The little old fella promised proof and hung up the phone,

The next day, he said, he visited his local gunsmith and ordered a braked .460 Weatherby magnum and 20 rounds of ammo. When it arrived, he said that he promptly whacked off the stock right after the pistol grip. Donning a football helmet and a PAST shooting glove, he proceeded to video tape himself cranking off 10 rounds from the bench with this beast. With his hand and elbow still numb (I'm guessing) he proceeded to mail the video to his gunsmith, reiterating his idea for a 500 A Square pistol.

Six months later his local gunsmith called and said that he had received a package. Upon inspection, the package turned out to be a 500 A Square bolt action pistol. It had a 16 inch long bull barrel with an integral brake in all stainless. The black fiberglass stock was reminiscent of the old Remington XP-100 with the pistol grip near the center of gravity so that you could actually hold it up. With the Leupold, it had to weigh at least 10 pounds. It was a single shot . . . you had to pull the bolt out of the rear to load it.

In the shipping box was a note. The gunsmith stated that if received videotape proof of the weapon being actually fired from a standing off-hand position, the gun was free. Otherwise, there were instructions to contact him for billing. The little old fella had never had the nerve to fire it yet and wanted to crank off a couple of rounds from the bench before he broke out the video camera. We were his first audience.

So here we were on a gorgeous fall day, all staring at this beast. The ammo came in a nice plastic box . . . I really didn't believe the old guy until I saw those rounds. It looked like something out of a freakin' A-10. He carefully pulled the bolt out and dropped a round in. He slid the bolt home and applied the safety.

He tried to get situated on the bench, but it was too short for him to get into a position that he was comfortable with. He was obviously completely pant-shitting terrified of this weapon. He knew that it was going to kick his ass into a new dimension of hurt, but it's hard to back out with 25 folks stand around eagerly awaiting your imminent demise.

I donated my field jacket for him to fold up under his elbow and one of the other folks present found a five gallon bucket for him to sit on to get far enough back from the bench. With the front of the stock resting on a couple of shot bags, he took his position behind the monster.

AWFUCKAWFUCKAWFUCK . . . ITS GONNA HURT LIKE SHIT . . . easyeasy . . . <quiver in voice>. . . fuckin crazy ass gunsmiths . . . slow . . slow . . . awwwwwwwwwwww (finger tightening) WWWWWWWWWWW . . . .

BAAARROOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!

Fire totally obscured the target and I could feel a punch from the shockwave from behind the old guy. Shit was blow off of benches for two or three lanes on both sides of that massive brake. The old fella was pushed clear off of the bucket and has lying on his back with the pistol in the dirt held in both hands above his head. As the echoes of that shot were still ringing through the trees we all could hear the little old fella say . . .

". . . fuck that. I'm paying for this bitch."

Everyone on the range nearly shit themselves laughing.. We laughed so hard that we couldn't even help the little old fella load up his Range Rover. It was a solid hour before we trusted ourselves to drive.

For years after that all one of us had to do was say "fuck that" in that little old fella tone of voice to send us into gales of laughter. Sometimes the truth is MUCH stranger than fiction.

Ryan’s Steak House
Now, I know that there is a lot of embellishment that occurs on this group and I am aware that a small number of things are perhaps sheer fabrication, but I have a story to tell that is the absolute truth.

Funniest damn thing that has ever happened to me. A couple of weeks ago we decided to cruise out to Ryan's Steakhouse for dinner. It was a Wednesday night which means that macaroni and beef was on the hot bar, indeed the only night of the week that it is served. Wednesday night is also kid's night at Ryan's, complete with Dizzy the Clown wandering from table to table entertaining the little bastards. It may seem that the events about to be told have little connection to those two circumstances, but all will be clear in a moment.

We went through the line and placed our orders for the all-you-can-eat hot bar then sat down as far away from the front of the restaurant as possible in order to keep the density of kids down a bit. Then I started my move to the hot bar. Plate after plate of macaroni and beef were consumed that evening, I tell you - in all, four heaping plates of the pseudo-Italian ambrosia were shoved into my belly. I was sated. Perhaps a bit too much, however.

I had not really been feeling well all day, what with a bit of gas and such. By the time I had eaten four overwhelmed plates of food, I was in real trouble. There was so much pressure on my diaphragm that I was having trouble breathing. At the same time, the downward pressure was building. At first I thought it was only gas, which could have been passed in batches right at the table without too much concern.

Unfortunately, that was not to be. After a minute or so it was clear that I was dealing with explosive diarrhea. It's amazing how grease can make its way through your intestines far faster than the food which spawned the grease to begin with, but I digress... I got up from the table and made my way to the bathroom. Upon entering, I saw two sinks immediately inside the door, two urinals just to the right of the sinks, and two toilet stalls against the back wall. One of them was a handicapped bathroom. Now, normally I would have gone to the handicapped stall since I like to stretch out a bit when I take a good shit. But in this case, the door lock was broken and the only thing I hate worse than my wife telling me to stop cutting my toenails with a pair of diagonal wire-cutters is having someone walk in on me while I am taking a shit.

I went to the normal stall. In retrospect, I probably should have gone to the large, handicapped stall even though the door would not lock because that bit of time lost in making the stall switch proved to be a bit too long under the circumstances. By the time I had walked into the regular stall, the pressure on my ass was reaching Biblical portions. I began "The Move."

For those women who may be reading this, let me take a moment to explain "The Move." Men know exactly what their bowels are up to at any given second. And when the time comes to empty the cache, a sequence of physiological events occur that can not be stopped under any circumstances. There is a move men make that involves simultaneously approaching the toilet, beginning the body turn to position ones ass toward said toilet, hooking ones fingers into ones waistline, and pulling down the pants while beginning the squat at the same time. It is a very fluid motion that, when performed properly, results in the flawless expulsion of shit at the exact same second that one’s ass is properly placed on the toilet seat. Done properly, it even assures that the choad is properly inserted into the front rim of the toilet in the event that the piss stream lets loose at the same time; it is truly a picture of coordination rivaling that of a skilled ballet dancer.

I was about halfway into "The Move" when I looked down at the floor and saw a pile of vomit that had been previously expelled by one of those little bastards attending kids night. It was mounded up in the corner so I did not notice it when I had first walked into the stall. Normally, I would not have been bothered by such a thing, but I had eaten so much and the pressure upward was so intense, that I hit a rarely experienced gag reflex. And once that reflex started, combined with the intense pressure upward caused by the bloated stomach, four plates of macaroni and beef started coming up for a rematch.

What happened next was so quick that the exact sequence of events is a bit fuzzy, but I will try to reconstruct them as best I can. In that moment of impending projectile vomiting, my attention was diverted from the goings-on at the other end. To put a freeze frame on the situation, I was half crouched down to the toilet, pants pulled down to my knees, with a load of vomit coming up my esophagus.

Now, most of you know that vomiting takes precedence over shit no matter what is about to come slamming out of your ass. It is apparently an evolutionary thing since shitting will not kill you, but vomiting takes a presence of mind to accomplish so that you do not aspirate any food into the bronchial tubes and perhaps choke to death. My attention was thus diverted. At that very split second, my ass exploded in what can only be described as a wake...you know, as in a newspaper headline along the lines of "30,000 Killed In Wake of Typhoon Fifi" or something similar. In what seemed to be most suitably measured in cubic feet, an enormous plug of shit the consistency of thick mud with embedded pockets of greasy liquid came flying out of my ass.

But remember, I was only halfway down on the toilet at that moment. The shit wave was of such force, and of just such an angle in relation to the back curve of the toilet seat, that it ricocheted off the back of the seat and slammed into the wall - at an angle of incidence equal to the angle at which it initially hit the toilet seat. Then I sat down. Recall that when that event occurred, I was already halfway to sitting anyway and had actually reached the point of no return. I have always considered myself as relatively stable gravitationally, but when you get beyond a certain point, you're going down no matter how limber you may be. Needless to say, the shit wave, though of considerable force, was not so sufficient so as to completely glance off the toilet seat and deposit itself on the walls - unlike what you would see when hitting a puddle with a high-pressure water hose; even though you throw water at the puddle, the puddle gets moved and no water is left to re-form a puddle. There was a significant amount of shit remaining on about one-third of the seat rim which I had now just collapsed upon.

Now, back to the vomit...

While all the shitting was going on, the vomit was still on its way up. By the time I had actually collapsed on the toilet, my mouth had filled up with a goodly portion of the macaroni and beef I had just consumed. OK, so what does the human body instinctively do when vomiting? One bends over. So I bent over. I was still sitting on the toilet, though. Therefore, bending over resulted in me placing my head above my now slightly-opened legs, positioned in between my knees and waist. Also directly above my pants which were now pulled down to a point just midway between my knees and my ankles. Oh, did I mention that I was wearing not just pants, but sweatpants with elastic on the ankles. In one mighty push, some three pounds of macaroni and beef, two or three Cokes, and a couple of Big, Fat Yeast Rolls were deposited in my pants...on the inside...with no ready exit at the bottom down by my feet. In the next several seconds, there were a handful of farts, a couple of turds, and the event ended. Yet I was now sitting there with my pants full of vomit, my back covered in shit that had bounced off the toilet, spattered on three ceramic-tiled walls to a height of about five feet, and still had enough force to come back at me, covering the back of my shirt with droplets of liquid shit. All while thick shit was spread all over my ass in a ring curiously in the shape of a toilet seat.

And there was no fucking toilet paper. What could I do but laugh. I must have sounded like a complete maniac to the guy who then wandered into the bathroom. He actually asked if I was OK since I was laughing so hard I must have sounded like I was crying hysterically. I calmed down just enough to ask him if he would get the manager. And told him to have the manager bring some toilet paper. When the manager walked in, he brought the toilet paper with him, but in no way was prepared for what happened next. I simply told him that there was no way I was going to explain what was happening in the stall, but that I needed several wet towels and I needed him to go ask my wife to come help me. I told him where we were sitting and he left. At that point, I think he was probably assuming that I had pissed just a bit in my pants or something similarly benign.

About two minutes later, my wife came into the bathroom not knowing what was wrong and with a certain amount of worry in her voice. I explained to her (still laughing and having trouble getting out words) that I had a slight accident and needed her help. Knowing that I had experienced some close calls in the past, she probably assumed that I had laid down a small turd or something and just needed to bring the car around so we could bolt immediately. Until I asked her, I'm sure she had no idea that she was about to go across the street and purchase me new underwear, new socks, new pants, a new shirt, and (by that time due to considerable leakage around the elastic ankles thingies) new sneakers. And she then started to laugh herself since I was still laughing. She began to ask for an explanation as to what had happened when I promised her that I would tell her later, but that I just needed to handle damage control for the time being. She left.

The manager then came back in with a half-dozen wet towels and a few dry ones. I asked him to also bring a mop and bucket upon which he assured me that they would clean up anything that needed to be cleaned. Without giving him specific details, I explained that what was going on in that stall that night was far in excess of what I would expect anyone to deal with, what with most of the folks working at Ryan's making minimum wage of just slightly above. At that moment, I think it dawned on him exactly the gravity of the situation. Then that manager went so far above the call of duty that I will be eternally grateful for his actions. He hooked up a hose. Fortunately, commercial bathrooms are constructed with tile walls and tile floors and have a drain in the middle of the room in order to make clean up easy. Fortunately, I was in a commercial bathroom. He hooked up the hose to the spigot located under the sink as I began cleaning myself up with the wet towels.

Just as I was finishing, my wife got back with the new clothes and passed them into the stall, whereupon I stuffed the previously worn clothing into the plastic bag that came from the store, handing the bag to my wife. I finished cleaning myself off and carefully put on my new clothes, still stuck in the stall since I figured that it would be in bad taste to go out of the stall to get redressed, in the event I happened to be standing there naked and some little bastard kid walked in. At that point, I had only made a mess; I had not yet committed a felony and intended to keep it that way.

When I finished getting dressed, I picked up the hose and cleaned up the entire stall, washing down the remains toward the drain in the center of the room. I put down the hose and walked out of the bathroom. I had intended to go to the manager and thank him for all he had done, but when I walked out, three of the management staff were there to greet me with a standing ovation. I started laughing so hard that I thought I was going to throw up again, but managed to scurry out to the car where my wife was now waiting to pick me up by the front door.

The upshot of all this is that I strongly recommend eating dinner at Ryan's Steak House. They have, by far, the nicest management staff of any restaurant in which I have eaten.

Another along the same line

The MRE date:
I had a date the other night at my place. On the phone the day before, the girl asked me to “Cook her something she’s never had before” for dinner. After many minutes of scratching my head over what to make, I finally settled on something she has DEFINITELY never eaten.

I got out my trusty case of MRE’s. Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Field rations that when eaten in their entirety contain 3000+ calories. Here’s what I made:

I took three of the Ham Slices out of their plastic packets, took out three of the Pork Chops, three packets of Chicken-a-la-King, and eight packets of dehydrated butter noodles and some dehydrated/rehydrated rice. I cooked the Ham Slices and Pork Chops in one pan, sauteed in shaved garlic and olive oil.

In another pot, I blended the Chicken a-la-king, noodles, and rice together to make a sort of mush that looked suspiciously like succotash. I added some spices, and blended everything together in a glass pan that I then cooked in the oven for about 35 minutes at 450 degrees.

When I took it out, it looked like, well, ham slices, pork chops, and a bed of yellow poop. I covered the tops of the meat in the MRE cheese (kinda like velveeta) and added some green sprinkly thingys from one of my spice cans (hey, if it’s got green sprinkly thingys on it, it looks fancy right?)

For dessert I took four MRE Pound Cakes, mashed ‘em up, added five packets of cocoa powder, powdered coffee cream, and some water. I heated it up and stirred it until it looked like a sort of chunky gelatinous organism, and I sprinkled powdered sugar on top of it. Voila––Ranger Pudding.

For alcoholic drinks, I took the rest of my bottle of Military Special Vodka (yes, they DO make a type of liquor named “Military Special"––it sells for $4.35 per fifth) and mixed in four packets of “Electrolytes - 1 each - Cherry flavored” (I swear, the packet says that). It looked like an eerie kool-aid with sparkles in it (that was the electrolytes I guess… could’ve been leftover sand from Egypt).

I lit two candles, put a vase of wildflowers in the middle, and set the table with my best set of Ralph Lauren Academy-series China (that shat is farking EXPENSIVE… my set of 8 place settings cost me over $600), and put the alcoholic drink in a crystal wine decanter.

She came over, and I had some appetizers already made, of MRE spaghetti-with-meatballs, set in small cups. She saw the dinner, saw the food, and said “This looks INCREDIBLE!!!”

We dug in, and she was loving the food. Throughout the meal, she kept asking me how long it took me to make it, and kept remarking that I obviously knew a thing or two about cooking fine meals. She kind of balked at the makeshift “wine” I had set out, but after she tried it I guess she liked it because she drank four glasses during dinner.

At the end of the main course, when I served the dessert, she squealed with delight at the “Chocolate mousse” I had made. Huh? Chocolate what? Okay… yeah… it’s Chocolate Moose. Took me HOURS to make… yup.

Later on, as we were watching a movie, she excused herself to use my restroom. While she was in there, I heard her say softly to herself “uh oh” and a resounding but petite fart punctuated her utterance of dismay.

Let the games begin.

She sprayed about half a can of air freshener (Air Freshener, 1 each, Orange scent. Yup. The Army even makes smellgood) and returned to the couch, this time with an obvious pained look.

After 10 more minutes she excused herself again, and retreated to the bathroom for the second time. I could hear her say “What the hell is WRONG with me???,” as she again send flatulent shockwaves into the porcelain bowl. This time, they sounded kinda wet, and I heard the toilet paper roll being employed, and again, LOTS more air freshener.

Back to the couch. She smiles meekly as she decides to sit on the chair instead of next to me. She sits on my chair, knees pulled up to her chest, kind of rocking back and forth slightly. Suddenly, without a word, she ROCKETED up and FLEW to the bathroom, slammed the door, and didn’t come out for 30 minutes.

I turned the movie up because I didn’t want her to hear me laughing so hard that tears were streaming down my cheeks. She came out with a slightly gray palor to her face, and said “I am SOOOOOO sorry. I have NO idea what is wrong with me. I am so embarrassed, I can’t believe I keep running to your bathroom!!” I gave her an Immodium AD, and she finally settled down and relaxed.

Later on, she asked me again what I had made for dinner, because she had enjoyed it so much. I calmly took her into the kitchen and showed her all the used MRE bags and packets in the trash can. After explaining to her that she had eaten roughly 9,000 calories of “Army food” she turned stark white, looked at me incredulously, and said “I ate 9,000 calories or dehydrated food that was made 3 years ago?” After I
concurred, she grabbed her coat and keys, and took off without a word. She called me yesterday. Seems she couldn’t shate for 3 days, and when she finally did, the smell was so bad, her roommate could smell it from down the hall. She also told me she had been working out nonstop to combat the high caloric intake, and that she never wanted me to cook dinner for her again, unless she was PERSONALLY there to inspect the food beforehand.

It was a fun date. She laughed about it eventually, and said that that was the first time she’d ever crapped in a guy’s house on a date. She’d been so upset by it she was in tears in the bathroom while I had been in tears on the couch.

I know, I’m an azzhole, but it was still a funny night.

Squirrel Encounter
- author unknown
I never dreamed slowly cruising on my motorcycle through a residential neighborhood could be so incredibly dangerous! Little did I suspect. I was on Brice Street - a very nice neighborhood with perfect lawns and slow traffic. As I passed an oncoming car, a brown furry missile shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in front of me.

It was a squirrel, and must have been trying to run across the road when it encountered the car. I really was not going very fast, but there was no time to brake or avoid it –– it was that close.

I hate to run over animals, and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but a squirrel should pose no danger to me. I barely had time to brace for the impact. Animal lovers, never fear. Squirrels, I discovered, can take care of themselves! Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on his hind legs and facing my oncoming Valkyrie with steadfast resolve in his beady little eyes. His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed and leapt!

I am pretty sure the scream was squirrel for, "Bonzai!" or maybe, "Die you gravy-sucking, heathen scum!" The leap was nothing short of spectacular… as he shot straight up, flew over my windshield, and impacted me squarely in the chest.

Instantly, he set upon me. If I did not know better, I would have sworn he brought 20 of his little buddies along for the attack. Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of activity. As I was dressed only in a light T-shirt, summer riding gloves, and jeans this was a bit of a cause for concern. This furry little tornado was doing some damage!

Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and leather gloves, puttering at maybe 25 mph down a quiet residential street, and in the fight of his life with a squirrel.

And losing...

I grabbed for him with my left hand. After a few misses, I finally managed to snag his tail. With all my strength, I flung the evil rodent off to the left of the bike, almost running into the right curb as I recoiled from the throw. That should have done it. The matter should have ended right there. It really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one of the pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and I could have headed home. No one would have been the wiser.

But this was no ordinary squirrel. This was not even an ordinary angry squirrel. This was an EVIL MUTANT ATTACK SQUIRREL OF DEATH!

Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands and, with the force of the throw, swung around and with a resounding thump and an amazing impact, he landed squarely on my BACK and resumed his rather antisocial and extremely distracting activities. He also managed to take my left glove with him!

The situation was not improved. Not improved at all. His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him. I was startled, to say the least. The combination of the force of the throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars, and my jerking back unfortunately put a healthy twist through my right hand and into the throttle. A healthy twist on the throttle of a Valkyrie can only have one result. Torque. This is what the Valkyrie is made for, and she is very, very good at it. The engine roared and the front wheel left the pavement. The squirrel screamed in anger. The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy. I screamed in ... well . I just plain screamed.

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a slightly squirrel-torn t-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, and roaring at maybe 50 mph and rapidly accelerating down a quiet residential street on one wheel, with a demonic squirrel of death on his back. The man and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder.

With the sudden acceleration I was forced to put my other hand back on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike. This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices, but I really did not want to crash into somebody's tree, house, or parked car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the throttle... my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to mash the back brake, but it had little effect against the massive power of the big cruiser.

About this time the squirrel decided that I was not paying sufficient attention to this very serious battle (maybe he was an evil mutant NAZI attack squirrel of death), and he came around my neck and got INSIDE my full-face helmet with me. As the faceplate closed part way, he began hissing in my face. I am quite sure my screaming changed intensity. It had little effect on the squirrel, however. The RPMs on the Dragon maxed out (since I was not bothering with shifting at the moment), so her front end started to drop.

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a very raggedly torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, roaring at probably 80 mph, still on one wheel, with a large puffy squirrel's tail sticking out of the mostly closed full-face helmet. By now the screams are probably getting a little hoarse.

Finally I got the upper hand ... I managed to grab his tail again, pulled him out of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This time it worked ... sort-of. Spectacularly sort-of ...so to speak.

Picture a new scene. You are a cop. You and your partner have pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with your windows down to do some paperwork. Suddenly a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a torn T-shirt flapping in the breeze, and wearing only one leather glove, moving at probably 80 mph on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder roars by, and with all his strength throws a live squirrel grenade directly into your police car.

I heard screams. They weren't mine...

I managed to get the big motorcycle under control and dropped the front wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign of a busy cross street. I would have returned to 'fess up (and to get my glove back). I really would have. Really... Except for two things.

First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned about me at the moment. When I looked back, the doors on both sides of the patrol car were flung wide open. The cop from the passenger side was on his back, doing a crab walk into somebody's front yard, quickly moving away from the car. The cop who had been in the driver's seat was standing in the street, aiming a riot shotgun at his own police car. So, the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to "let the professionals handle it" anyway.

That was one thing. The other? Well, I could clearly see shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery from the back seat. But I could also swear I saw the squirrel in the back window, shaking his little fist at me. That is one dangerous squirrel. And now he has a patrol car. A somewhat shredded patrol car ... but it was all his.

I took a deep breath, turned on my turn-signal, made a gentle right turn off of Brice Street, and sedately left the neighborhood. I decided it was best to just buy myself a new pair of gloves. And a whole lot of Band-Aids

The horror of blimps
Last week while traveling I stopped at a Zany Brainy store and saw that they had a blimp for sale. It's called Airship Earth, and it's a great big balloon with a map of the Earth on it, and two propellers hanging from the bottom. You blow up the balloon with helium put batteries in it, and you have a radio control indoor blimp.

I'd seen these things for sale in Sharper Image catalogs for $60-$75. At Zany Brainy it was on clearance for $15. What a deal!

Last night my wife was playing tennis and it was just my daughter and I at home. I bought a small helium tank from a party store, and last night we put the blimp together.

Let me tell you, it's quite a blimp. It's huge. The balloon has like a 3 ft diameter.

We blew it up with the tank attached the gondola with the propellers, and put in batteries.

Then we balanced the blimp for neutral buoyancy with this putty that came with it, so it hangs in the air by itself neither rising nor falling.

It was easy and fun, and then I blew up another balloon and made Mickey Mouse helium voices for my daughter.

My three year old girl loved it. We flew the blimp all over the house, terrorized the dog, attacked the fish tank, and the controls were so easy my daughter could fly.

Let's face it, blimps are fun.

Alas, the fun had to end and my daughter had to go to sleep. I left the blimp floating in my office downstairs, my wife came home, and we went to bed, and slept the sleep of the righteous.

At this point it is important to know that my house has central heating. I have it configured to blow hot air out on the ground floor and take it in at the second floor to take advantage of the fact that heat rises.

The blimp which was up until this moment a fun toy here embarked on a career of evil. Using the artificial convection of my central heating, the blimp stealthily departed my office. It moved silently through the living and drifted to the staircase. Gliding wraith like over the staircase it then entered the bedroom where my wife and I lay sleeping peacefully.

Running silently, and gliding six feet or so above the ground on invisible and tiny air corrects it approached the bed.

In spite of it's noiseless passage, or perhaps because of it, I awoke. That doesn't really say it properly. Let me try again.

I awoke, the way you awake at 2:00 AM when your sleeping senses suddenly tell you without reason that the forces of evil on converging on you.

That still doesn't do it. Let me try one more time.

I awoke the way you awake when you suddenly know that there is a large levitating sinister presence hovering toward you with menacing intent through the malignant darkness.

Now sometimes I do wake up in the middle of the night thinking that there are large sinister and menacing things floating out of the darkness to do me and mine evil. Usually I open my eyes, look and listen carefully, decide it was a false alarm, and go back to sleep.

So, the fact that I awoke in such a manner was not all that unusual.

On this occasion I awoke to the sense that there was a large menacing presence approaching me silently out of the gloom, so I opened my eyes, and there it was! A LARGE SILENT MENACING PRESENCE WAS APPROACHING ME OUT OF THE GLOOM, AND IT COULD FLY!!!

Somewhere in the control room of my mind a fat little dwarf in a security outfit was paging through a Penthouse while smoking a cigar with his feet up on the table, watching the security monitors of my brain with his peripheral vision. Suddenly he saw the LARGE SILENT SINISTER MENACING FLOATING PRESENCE coming at me, and he pulled every panic switch and hit every alarm that my body has. A full decade's allotment of adrenaline was dumped into my bloodstream all at once. My metabolism went from "restful sleep mode" to HOLY ****! FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE OR DIE!!!! mode" in a nanosecond. My heart went from twenty something beats per minute to about 240 even faster.

I always knew this was going to happen. I always knew that skepticism and science were mere psychological decorations and vanities. Deep in our alligator brains we all know that the world is just chock full of evil and monsters and sinister forces aligned against us, and it is only a matter of time until they show up. Evolution know this, too. It knows what to do when the silent terror comes at you from out of the dark.

When 50 million years worth of evolutionary survival instinct hits you all at once flat in the gut at 200 mph it is not a pleasant sensation.

Without volition I screamed my battle cry (which is indistinguishable to the sound a little girl makes when you drop a spider down her dress (not that I'd know what that sounds like,) and lept out of bed in my underwear.

I struck the approaching menace with all my strength and almost fell over at the total lack of resistance that a helium balloon offers when you punch the living **** out of it with all the strength that sudden middle of the night terror produces.

It's trajectory took it straight into the ceiling fan which whipped it about the room at terrifying velocity.

Seeking a weapon, I ripped the alarm clock out of its plug and hurled it at the now High Velocity Menacing presence (breaking the clock and putting a nice hole in the wall.)

Somehow at this moment I suddenly realized that I was fighting the blimp, and not a monster. It might have been funny if I didn't truly and actually feel like I was having a legitimate heart-attack.

On quivering legs I went to the bathroom and literally gagged into the toilet while shaking uncontrollably with the shock of the reaction I'd had.

Unbelievably, both my wife and daughter had completely slept through the incident. When I decided that I wasn't having a heart attack after all I went back into the bedroom and found the blimp which had somehow survived the incident.

I took it to the walk in closet and released it inside where it floated around with the air currents released from the vents in there. I closed the door, this sealing it in, and went back to bed. About 500 years later I fell asleep.


***

At about 7 am my wife awoke. She had been playing tennis and wasn't aware that we have assembled the blimp the previous evening, and that is was now floating around the the walk-in closet that she approached.

The dynamic between the existing air currents of the closet and the suction caused by opening the door was just enough to give the blimp the appearance of an Evil Sinister Menace flying straight toward her.

This time the blimp did not survive the encounter, nor almost, did I, as I had to explain to my very angry spouse what motivated me to hide an evil lurking presence in the closet for her to find at 7 am.

I can order replacement balloons on the Internet but I don't think I will.

Some blimps are better off dead.

In the grand tradition of GabbasaurusRex's bad ideas that never occured to her that they might be bad ideas, I bring you....Cheap Allergy Medicine Meets Copious Amounts of Caffiene.

Yesterday, I had a wicked allergy attack. I couldn't stop sneezing and my eyes were puffed up to the point of obscuring my vision. Every time I sneezed, I had to blow my nose. Every time I blew my nose, I had to wash my hands. By the end of my work day, my hands were completely dried out from excess washing and my nostrils were rubbed raw, not to mention I had gained first-hand knowledge of how a person with OCD spends their day.

This morning I awoke with a runny nose and the decision that I was not going through that again. Digging through my medicine cabinet, I immediately bypassed the Benedryl because of its comatose side effects and instead picked up a nondescript brand-X box of allergy medicine. Noting that my current form of torture known as itchy eyes and nonstop sneezing were present in the list of symptoms this little orange pill claimed to alleviate, I dug out half the recommended dosage, downed it in one gulp, and headed off to work.

45 minutes into my shift, I felt that little orange bitch kick in. I didn't feel drowsy or groggy, just a little tired, smiliar to how I felt in middle school when I'd get up at 5 a.m. to complete my science homework that was due 3 hours later. Worried that I would start dragging, I fixed a second cup of coffee and pounded it.

That ended up being a huge mistake.

Allow me to provide a bit of a disclaimer. I've been drunk. I've been high. What I experienced next wasn't really either. Usually, when you're drunk or high, it is:
A. Enjoyable
B. Expected
C. On your own time.
I wasn't fortunate enough for any of those categories to apply to me. I mean, I'm standing at the counter scratching my nose, and the next thing I know, I've entered this unknown dimension. Colors are so much brighter than they used to be, yet everything seems so far away. If I turned my head, I had to wait for the room to catch up with me. My brain was telling me to relax and go with my instincts but my body was saying, "You're out of your element, Donnie." My world was just not right and I didn't know how to cope. I consoled myself by chewing on my knuckles.

I was rapidly on my way to becoming temporarily, undeniably fucked up. The worst part is, I knew it was going to get worse before it got better.

I wandered into the kitchen to dig my phone out of my jacket. Next to the coat rack is a mirror. My reflection startled me, like someone who discovered they were no longer along in the room. I blinked. My pupils shrank and then quickly returned to their normal size. Holy shit, that's weird. I blinked again.
*Blink*
.....
*Blink*
.....
*Blink*
Whoa.
*Blink*
*Blink*
*Blink*
*Blinkblinklblinkblink-*
"…Gabrielle?"
I turned my head to see my boss standing in the door with a quizzical look on his face. I paused, then said, "I have to go to the bathroom."

After a trip down the hall to the restroom, stopping only to stare at the brightly lit EXIT sign for a moment, I retreated outside and called my boyfriend. This whole thing was weirding me out, and I needed someone who could think clearly.

The dickhead was no help. He just laughed at me when I explained what happened. At mention of the two cups of coffee I had drank in hopes of counterbalancing Agent Orange's side effects, he exclaimed, "Oh jesus, you're mixing drugs?! There's your problem!"

I felt panicky and strange. I didn't like talking because it made me all too aware of the movement in my jaw, like the pronunciation of each syllable was really just the bottom portion of my face falling off, changing its mind halfway through, and snapping itself back into place. I hung up with Captain NoHelpWhatsoever and found my way back inside.

My boss had decided the best thing he could do was to only delegate me one task so I could focus solely on that, and stuck me on the register. Somehow, through my clouded, tripped-out mind, I could still manage numbers and cash, though it took every one of my synapses that I could force to work together – the rest, apparently, had gone on strike. I kept my head down and refused to make eye contact with customers knowing that a direct look would only result in questions I was not in the mindset to answer. It actually wasn't terrible, though. I kinda felt like Rain Man. The downside was that my hands could not stop shaking as a result of the excess caffeine coursing its way through my bloodstream. Whether the customers thought I was being aloof, snotty, or suffering from Parkinson's, I'll never know. I can live with that.

Once our lunch rush ended and the deli was once again quiet, the boss stepped out to retrieve the mail. This occurred only after I had assured him I wouldn't wander off and make friends with the front end of a semi. He returned less than two minutes later to find me stacking boxes of tea.

"What are you doing?"
"You don't like it?"
"I don't...really understand it," he replied, gazing at the box of Lemon Lift tea sandwiched between boxes of Cranberry Apple and Mint Medley.
"It's a traffic light."
(Silence)
"You see, the green one-"
"-No, I get it."
"Okay."
"...What happened to your face?"
"What?"
"One of your cheeks is bright red."
"Oh. Yeah. I slapped myself to see if it would help."
"And did it?"
"...."
"...."
"...My face hurts."
"...I think you should go and sit down."
"Yeah."


I spent the remainder of the hour sitting in a chair and staring at the cracks in the ceiling. The effects wore off shortly thereafter, enabling me to drive home so I could sit on my couch and feel like a fool.

I seem to be the poster child for bad ideas most people wouldn't even think of trying: Head-On, DIY bikini waxing, and now mixing allergy medicine with copious amounts of caffeine. I suppose I'll laugh about this in a week. Right now, I'm just wallowing in shame and battling a runny nose.

As a joke, I was recently mailed a stick of HeadOn by another board member. I laughed it off, stuck it in my bathroom, and didn't give it a second thought for another month or so.

Well, last night I got curious.

I open the box and begin checking the product out. Basically, it's a medicated balm to help alleviate migraine pain. I myself have never been unfortunate enough to be dealt a migraine, and directions specifically state that it shouldn't be used if you don't have a migraine headache.

Do I listen? Of course not.

Anyone who's seen the commercials for this particular product know that you are told to "apply directly to forehead" about 46 cajillion times. The part that makes me curious is why something that looks like a gluestick would work by smearing it all over your forehead. I check the directions out to see if there's more to it; there isn't. You take off the cap and rub it all over your forehead, just like the commercials say.

So I do.

It's colorless, odorless, and I have to guess if I've missed any spots. Once my forehead is covered, I wait.

Nothing happens. I'm severely disappointed.

When I'm laying in bed reading, that's when I noticed that my forehead is tingling. That's kinda cool, it does something after all. I finish the chapter. Now my forehead is tingling a lot. Not only is it tingling, but it feels cold, too. I wait for the HeadOn to wear off. It doesn't. Now my forehead is completely cold, and it's starting to make me feel really uncomfortable. I rub my forehead to see if it does anything. It just makes it worse. I get up and go to the sink to wash off the product, but I guess it's too late. It's working its headache magic, and it's really bugging me now.

I feel like the top half of my face is no longer there.

I tie a scarf around my head to see if that will warm it up at all. That does nothing but make my head itch, so I take it off. In a fit of desperation, I smack my palms to my forehead. That seems to help a little bit. I lay down in bed and try not to move my hands too much.

I spent half an hour with my hands pressed againt my forehead to make sure it was still there. The irony of this situation is, I ended up getting a headache from all my running around.



It's never a good idea to take medicine for a condition you don't have. Sometimes people are dumb and do it anyway. Last night was one of those nights. My lesson is learned. At least for a while, anyway.

I don't think I have ever laughed so hard or for so long!

Yeah, Pic is one of the good guys here.

This IS a tag! I forgot a few of these.

Gotta save this!

my god those are some funny stories.

I coughed up a lung laughing  Especially that fucking squirrl attack story.

The stories of the cat are so good.  I had a cat that was kind of strange like that.  Maybie not like Tokie, but, unlike any other cat I have ever seen or heard off, & I've been around cats all my life.  Really endearing w/ his little personality.  He got hit by a car recently  Its funny how much an animal can mean to you, even a cat.

Awesome!!! Thanks for taking the time to post these.

Thanks for doing the legwork.  I know we already have about 20 too many subforums, but it would be great to have an "arfcom classics" forum.  For that matter, just a tacked thread at the top of GD with links to them all.

If this doesn't deserve a bump, I don't know what does

Oh holy hell, I haven't laughed this hard for months.  Thanks for the compilation!

tag for posterity

A bump and tag.




 

tag for great justice

Bump, for the good old days.

I've never read anything that made me laugh as hard as the squirrel story!

Permatagged

tag for home

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Ryans steakhouse was fucking epic.

tears streaming down, sides hurting epic.

Thanks very much for sharing those Wdsman !

Great stuff.

OH DEAR GOD!!!!!!! "RYAN's"   I had forgotten that story.