No Light At The End Of The Tunnel

I had surgery on my right foot exactly four weeks ago tomorrow. I am not saying it was a mistake to have the surgery done but I am not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. There is still a tremendous amount of pain, I am basically homebound, and a deep depression is starting to set in. The simplest things that you always take for granted are now things that seem like the impossible dream. Something as simple as getting in your car and driving down to the grocery store whenever you need something I cannot do. I have to have someone take me. Walking my dog has become a Herculean task that takes every bit of my strength and energy. Taking a shower requires a two hour rest period and a thirty minute nap after I get out.

My "friends" list is dwindling by the day. Don't et me wrong, my friends are flung all over the globe and I do not expect a visit or anything from each and everyone but a text message to check on me once in a while would be nice. I have not heard from several people that I considered close friends since the day before my surgery. Some of these people I heard from every day. I can't really blame them. Sometimes life gets in the way and not everything goes as planned. I hope they are alright and I hope they are safe. I realize that in my condition I cannot help them but I am always here to listen.

Steve Gets A Job

I got one of those phone calls the other afternoon that everyone dreads getting. This phone call was not bad news but for me, it was bad enough. Steve broke down and got a job. A real, honest to goodness, his name is on the schedule, legitimate paying job. The bad news for me is that he got a job with the company I work for, working the same shift, that I do. I am out because of foot surgery and as soon as Steve told me the news, I implored him not to tell anyone he knew me.

I did give Steve credit for getting the job on his own and I told him I was proud of him then I turned around and immediately started a pool as to how long he would last. I generously gave him a month. That is how much faith I had in him. Most everyone else in the pool gave him less than a week and there were a few that had it down to hours instead of days or weeks. That is what friends do for each other.

The Karma Of The Drunkenman Dinners

The other night at work I found myself stocking that delicacy of the single man also known to Steve as his dinner and to his friends as the "drunkenman dinners." Those dinners are the frozen microwave meals that Steve used to dress up with hot sauce and a 12 pack chaser that was "Hmmm, hmmmm bitch!" delicious. It was an ironic twist to a messed up summer for me. I could not help but laugh at this karmatic punch to the balls that had been delivered to me via a frozen turkey and dressing dinner with a small slab of chocolate cake.

I recognized most of the dinners because they had taken up space in my freezer at some point and time during mine and Steve's coexistence and they look as bad while you are stocking them as they do when they are staring at you from the freezer. Steve had so many of those things in my freezer that all that was left in there when he move was a single toaster strudel. I should have bought one of the drunkenman dinners in honor of Steve but I knew that I wasn't going to be eating it. No amount of hot sauce or beer could dress those up enough.

The Wrath Of The Red Head

During the course of the eleven months of Steve being my roommate, I discovered that Steve was afraid of many things- bees, spiders, work, a shower- but the thing that Steve was most afraid of was my friend and landlord's wife, Lucy. Steve was susceptible to the power of suggestion and a mutual friend of ours convinced Steve that Lucy had a red head's temper and would fly off the handle at the drop of the hat. They even went so far as to tell him that her wrath had been directed at Steve a couple of times for things he had done. Steve was bound and determined that he was going to stay on Lucy's good side. I knew that the story of Lucy's temper to not be true but I played along because the story helped keep Steve somewhat in line.

Oliver and Lucy paid us a visit one weekend and Steve was paranoid the entire time Oliver and his family were here. They arrived late one Friday night and one of Oliver's children needed to use the bathroom and Steve came running down the driveway, threw open the door and said, "I have to clean the bathroom!" I did not know what was going on because I had never seen Steve clean anything much less the bathroom. I watched in amusement as Steve cleaned his bathroom as well as anyone could in two minutes.

Steve spent the entire weekend avoiding Lucy and Oliver (also to my amusement) and I am reminded of the song by the Kinks, "Destroyer." There is a line in the song that says "Paranoia, the destroyer." I could not even begin to make a list of all of the things he was paranoid about.

Life Interrupted

There are certain times that occur during life where your life is interrupted for a while. Most of the time, it is just for a short period of time. There are others when it is for a much longer frame of time. There is nothing that you can do about these interruptions. You just have to adapt to the changes and move forward.

I am getting ready to face one of those "life interrupted" events. I know what it will be like going in but I do not know what it is going to be like coming out the other side. It is the not knowing the bothers me the most. That and having to put my complete trust in someone that I do not really know. The surgery I am facing is very extensive with multiple facets and it can best be compared to lining up dominos. They all have to be lined up just right in order for the "trick" to work. It may be up to a year before I know if the trick worked like it was supposed to. The pain will have to be navigated like a riverboat going down the Mississippi but pain is something I have dealt with.

When I have one of these "life interrupted" events, I always have these plans to write the next great American novel but all seem to be able to do is write in my journal that no one gets to read or bang out a few blogs that no one reads anyway. This time around I have to do things differently. This may be a life altering event that completely changes my life and I have to be prepared for that. I also have to look at this as an opportunity to do things I have always wanted to do. This is my opportunity to right years worth of wrongs. It is up to me to make the best of this opportunity.

Steve The Hunter

Steve always had a variety of weapons lying around the house and with Steve being an alcoholic, I was never quite comfortable with this. He kept a loaded pistol in the desk drawer, a loaded 12 gauge shotgun behind his bedroom door, and his crossbow with a sight on it was always ready to be fired. I felt like I had a liquored up version of Elmer Fudd as my roommate.

I came home one day and Steve was sitting out on front porch smoking a cigarette and he had the crossbow leaned up against the door. I looked at him and I asked "Well, is it duck season or rabbit season?" He didn't catch the Looney Tunes reference. His answer was "I am going to shoot that dog that has been getting into the garbage." One of the neighbor's dog's was raiding the garbage on a nightly basis.

When Steve drank, he was annoying as hell but he usually kept the stupidity to a minimum. I said "Steve, you are not going to shoot the dog. It is not the dog's fault the owner is an inconsiderate idiot." He ended up putting the crossbow up. I don't think Elmer Fudd ever needed a babysitter.

The Great Explorer

There were times when Steve worried me and aggravated the hell out of me at the same time. He went through this outdoorsman phase that really aggravated me. One of the things I did to help myself relax after a stressful day on the job was to come home and take Molly for a long walk through the woods and down to the creek. It was also a quite, peaceful walk and one that Molly and I looked forward to.

One day I came home and leashed Molly up and headed down the trail through the woods and I had almost made it to the creek when I happened to turn around and there stands Steve with his dog Mandy on a leash. He had staggered down the trail and was standing there huffing and puffing like he was drawing his last breath. Drinking 16 hours a day did not exactly put you in good physical condition.

He looks at me with his bloodshot eyes and said "We thought we would join you." Mandy was looking at me with such a look of hope on her face, I could not be mad at her. My first thought was, "That's great. Who the hell is going to help him back up the hill?" I already knew that answer and the largest part of me wanted to leave his ass down there.

Molly and I finished our walk and headed back up the hill. I told Steve I would be back in a few minutes to check on him. I took Molly back to the house and against my better judgement, I went back and checked on Steve. He had made it about ten feet further up the hill in 15 minutes before he had to stop and smoke another cigarette. If it wasn't for the fact I thought he might burn the woods down, I would have left him. I took Mandy from him and at least took her back to the house.

I went back down there for the third damn time and I had visions of me kicking Steve in the ass every time we took a step up the hill. "What" kick in the ass, "did you think", another kick in the ass, "you were doing?" and another kick in the ass. Dare to dream.

Lectoris Cave

Lectoris Cave is Latin for "reader's beware" and yes I had to look that one up. I write many blogs. Most of them I try to make funny because I love to make people laugh (I have found out if is much harder to do with the written word), and my sports blogs are more serious but I am working on making them better and more analytical rather than just a regurgitation of last night's action. I am working on developing a writing style and cultivating an audience. Cultivating an audience has been a very long and slow process.

Not everyone is going to like everything I write. I am open to constructive criticism but I guess it is up to me to decide what is constructive and what is not and what is downright mean and what is not. Some bloggers are successful but I am not. I have always taken the approach that I write for myself because I enjoy doing it. That being said, I do get a charge out of people reading my blogs and any comments they may happen to make. Just like a baseball player, I check my stats everyday. I am about to take it national and we'll see how I do.

I am definitely not in it for the money because I really haven't made a penny yet. I have sat down and written a children's book. I was shocked because it actually has potential. I even have an illustrator lined up. I am applying for a copyright now. Who would have thought that?

Road Trippin' With Steve

A friend of mine and Steve's, Oliver, decided to take Steve on a road trip to try to dry him out. This trip was all at Oliver's expense. The deal was that Oliver would foot the bill for the trip but Steve could not have one sip of alcohol the entire time. Oliver's theory was that if he would get him away from his natural surroundings for a long weekend, he could monitor his alcohol intake and this would help prove to Steve that he could make it without alcohol.

What Oliver had not planned on was Steve drinking a whole weekend's worth of alcohol in the six hours it took for him to get to Steve's house. Oliver told me that Steve had consumed, guzzled, thrown back, and slammed down 32 beers in those six hours. Oliver told me when he arrived at Steve's house, Steve was sitting in the driveway in a sea of empty beer cans with an overnight bag ready to go. Steve's motto was "no beer left behind" and although he had tried his best to drink all 48 beers from the two cases he had bought, he could not finish them before Oliver got there. He thought he should be allowed to take those on the road trip with him. Oliver denied Steve's request and he had to leave them behind. Oliver let Steve pick the destination and after being denied California, Steve ultimately settled on Memphis. He thought it would be cool to go hang out with the ghost of Elvis at Graceland.

Steve had the ability to be obnoxious when he had that much to drink and I cannot imagine a nine hour road trip in a car with him. I would have stopped at a rest area in the middle of Tennessee under the pretense of using the bathroom and I would have burned the tires off of the car heading back home. Oliver said that Steve did stay sober all weekend long but he drove him bat shit crazy. When I think of Oliver trying to help Steve out like this, I think of the quote attributed to Clare Booth Luce "No good deed goes unpunished." Steve promptly "rescued" those 16 beers he deserted upon his arrival back home. Oliver had a great theory but it was a failed experiment.

Steve's Twelve Pack Plan To Sobriety

I only knew Steve for about a year but within that year, several people tried to help him become sober so he could realize his potential as a human being and to live a few more years. Steve got together with a friend of ours who had counseling experience and they developed steps that Steve could follow and become sober. They decided that the best way for Steve to become sober was to slowly wean himself off of alcohol by slowly decreasing his alcohol intake.

It was a good idea but Steve decide it would be a better idea for him to decrease his alcohol intake very slowly. We are talking snails pace slow. This is what I call "Steve's Twelve Pack Plan To Sobriety." Steve estimated that he drank about 24 beers a day. He believed that if he decreased his beer intake by a beer a day for that month then at the end of two years, he would be completely sober.

When Steve first told me his plan, my initial reaction was "you cannot be serious." Oh, but he was. It was sheer genius on his part but I am thinking that Alcoholics Anonymous would not endorse this program for anyone. Ever. Needless to say it really didn't work for him and it definitely did not work for his "sponsors", namely those of us that was putting up with him.

The Economist

When I moved into the apartment, everything was in Steve's name. The power, the cable, and the lease and just general monthly bills were all in his name. I did not have a problem with that because I would just give Steve a lump sum at the beginning of the month that would take care of my share of the bills. I would always give him cash because who writes checks any more? After a couple of months I noticed that if the amount was like $603.50, Steve would always insist on getting that fifty cents.

Whenever he needed me to pick up something at the store for him (I quickly became Steve's "shop at home" network. He stayed home and stayed drunk while I did the shopping) and the cost would be $10.75, I would just say, "Make it $10 and we will call it even." After about three months of him insisting on that extra fifty cents, I started insisting on the exact amount and I didn't care if it was three cents. My philosophy was "I am not going to quibble over something less than a dollar" because if fifty cents is going to break the bank at this point, I was in more financial trouble than I thought. Steve's philosophy was "I need my money badder than a hog needs slop" because every penny helped him remain drunk, unemployed, and at home. I always thought Steve should go into politics where he could put his budget plan to good use and start his own business program at Milwaukee's Best Ice University.

Steve The TV Repairman

I was Steve's roommate for about eleven months. When I first moved in, our mutual friend told me that Steve was a "functioning alcoholic." I did not know exactly what that meant but I eventually figured out that it meant you could not tell if he had drank one beer or one case of beer. He acted the same no matter how much he had to drink. There was no slurring of the words, no loud behavior, or any of that.

I had a job and Steve didn't. I worked with the public and the only human contact Steve had was with the cashier at the grocery store where he bought his beer and the clerk at the liquor store. I would come home at the end of the day and see Steve's drunk ass sitting there watching bad movies on the SyFy Network or Judge Judy and I would want to twist his head off like the cap on a Jack Daniel's bottle. I just wanted to go in my room, kick back and watch some TV, and just forget the day.

One of the things that I eventually picked up on when Steve had to much to drink was that he liked to follow me around the house and talk to me. One night he stood in the doorway of my room while I was trying to watch The Big Bang Theory and droned on endlessly about some bullshit. I turned up the volume on the TV. Steve talked louder. I turned up the volume some more. Steve started yelling at me. I turned the volume down during the next commercial and Steve told me, "Something is wrong with the volume control on your TV. It got pretty loud there for a few minutes. I was afraid you couldn't hear me." He offered to take a look at my TV. The poor drunk dumbass was clueless. For a brief moment, I thought about beating him with the remote control but I did not want to risk breaking the remote.

The Judge

Steve was always watching TV. If he was awake, the TV in the living room was on. One of his favorite things to watch was shows like Judge Judy and The People's Court. He watched these things for hours at a time and luckily for me, that is all one of the television on our cable network showed. I think Steve's biggest aspiration was to be on one of these shows. He may have even wanted to sue our landlord from one of the many face plants he did on the property. He was always blaming his bad feet but I am sure it was the lay of the land that made him dive face first into the driveway. I would have loved to have seen that episode. If you are going to dream in a drunken stupor then dream big. He was also always wanting me to watch these shows with him. I politely watched them a couple of times but I got tired of watching people present their "cases" to a retired judge who probably knew less about the law than I did. These shows have zero entertainment value for me. Steve was always theorizing about how he would present cases to the judge and I guess that is where his law degree from the Jack Daniels School of Law comes in handy.

I Feel The Spirit

My ex-roommate Steve had an uncle that had supposedly been in the mafia and then turned Baptist evangelist. His uncle was a combination of Joe Pesci in Goodfellas and Jim Bakker the televangelist gone wrong. I was lucky enough to be informed that Steve had an audio tape of one of his uncle's sermons that he insisted that I sit down and listen to. Steve insisted that I sit down and listen to this at least once a month until I pretty well knew the tape verbatim.

The first time Steve insisted that I listen to "the sermon from the mount" he said that "it would really put the spirit in me" and that listening to his uncle's tape "really motivated" him. Of course, when it came to Steve I had to wonder what it motivated him to do. Drink more? Be lazier? Watch more bad movies on the SyFy channel? Eat more "Drunken Man" dinners?

The first time I heard the time, I sat there and politely listened and I must say it did motivate me. It motivated me to barricade myself in my bedroom and put in ear protection so I wouldn't have to listen to it any more. About a month later history repeated itself and he wanted me to listen to it again. Let's just say there wasn't going to be a third time although Steve tried. I told him I had heard it before. Steve insisted that I hadn't. I gave Steve the Reader's Digest condensed version of the tape and Steve looked crushed that I had heard it before. He said he didn't remember me listening to it.

I told our friend about the tape and he confided in me "I have listened to that tape a thousand times." I guess I wasn't the only one that needed to "feel the spirit." Steve had the spirit coursing through his veins but it came in the form of Jack Daniels rather than the word of God.

The Drunken Man Dinners

My alcoholic ex-roommate lived off of Hungry Man Dinners and had at least one a day. I told my friend about this particular dining habit and he started referring to them as "drunken man dinners" and thus a cooking legend was born. Steve missed some serious endorsement opportunities.

The camera shows Steve in the kitchen taking a drunken man dinner out of the oven and starts his sales pitch. He staggers over to the dining room table and slurs "A drunken man dinner and a case of beer with a Jack Daniels chaser. Just like my Mom used to make." He then stumbles and face plants right into the mashed potatoes. These are the things that commercial legends are made of.

Steve had this toaster oven that he swore by and I made the mistake of opening it one time and it had about two years worth of crumbs and crud in it. I don't think he had cleaned it since the Clinton administration but since he was the master of the toaster oven and an expert on drunken man dinners, I thought maybe it added flavor. When I moved in, the microwave looked just as bad but since I used it, I cleaned it myself.

When Steve moved out, he cleaned out the freezer and I was shocked to see that I only had one item in the freezer- A box of toaster strudels. The rest of our space was taken up by drunken man dinners and other toaster oven meals that only a drunken man could see as gourmet cooking at it's finest. I now have a craving for a drunken man dinner but I am out of alcohol.

The Face Plant

I see videos all the time on Youtube and on other video sites of people face planting. Face planting is the art of falling down and not being able to brace yourself for impact and your face is the first thing that hits the ground. It can be quite comical for the viewer and a little painful and embarrassing for the face planter. It has probably happened to all of us at one point and time.

Steve turned face planting into an art form. It was almost like watching a Three Stooges short or a Charlie Chaplin movie. He fell off the porch, he fell while being on flat ground, he fell down the mountain, he fell in the house, he fell in the neighbor's yard. Steve stood a chance of face planting wherever he happened to be standing. According to Steve, alcohol was never the problem. It was always his feet. He never quite connected the dots. His feet didn't work because of the alcohol.

One of my favorite Steve face plants had to be Memorial Day of 2015. He was having people over to the house because he was having a cookout. To say he was "three sheets to the wind" by the time they got here is an insult to the phrase three sheets to the wind. Everyone was playing lawn darts and Steve was sitting in a chair watching everyone play and then he decided to get into the game. I am standing back watching all of this and thinking "Now there is a good idea." Steve tried to get up and it is hard to describe what happened next but I will try.

When Steve stood up, he couldn't quite get his feet under him and he looked like he was doing a cross between the Funky Chicken and the Electric Slide. He staggered across the yard doing his hybrid dance and I was watching him the whole time. As he tried to gather his feet under him he started picking up speed and his body was well out in front of his feet. I knew he was going down. He did this little dance for about twenty feet and then it was face first into the gravel driveway. He didn't even brace himself for the impact. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cheer his athletic prowess or to be worried about his safety. He did not feel a thing. He swore up and down the next day that he did not have a drop to drink.

I was telling our friend about it later on that week and because Steve's drinking exploits were already stuff of legend, I asked my friend "How much would Steve have to drink to face plant like that?" His answer was, "Enough to float a battleship." I don't think Steve is quite ready for Dancing with the Stars but I can see a new dance craze sweeping the land.

Steve The Dog Walker

Another one of the hats Steve wore around the house was dog walker. Unfortunately the dog being walked was my dog Molly. After Steve's dog got tragically killed, I gave him more leeway with Molly than I ordinarily would have. I was afraid that Steve would let something happen to Molly in his highly inebriated state or maybe even fall on her doing one of his "face plants." I did make it clear that if something happened to Molly under his watch I would shove a Jack Daniel's bottle right up his ass without the benefit of getting to drink it first.

Steve staggered all over the neighborhood with Molly in tow. He took her to the neighbor's house, down to the mailbox, down to the creek, and they pretty much staggered all over the neighborhood. For whatever reason, Molly liked the booze hound Steve. Every once in a while she had to snap at him as a means of telling him he stepped over a line. As Charlie Murphy once said, "He was a habitual line stepper." I think she felt a compassion for him. When he moved out about three months ago, Molly went into a deep depression for a couple of weeks. She even started sleeping in Steve's closet. I can only imagine what their walks were like but at the end of the day, Molly was always waiting at home for me and that is all I could hope for. It was probably more of a scenario where Molly helped Steve find his way home or when Steve was really sauced, she acted as his seeing eye dog.

Tittyous

Every once in a while, the woman whi is my girlfriend "invents" a new word that I should probably enter into the Urban Dictionary. Yesterday's word was "tittyous". She was attempting to say the word "tedious" but it came out "tittyous." I immediately thought of what context that word could be used in the English language. I think it could be used as an adjective or an adverb and the definition could be "Acting like or in the process of being a titty," with titty being defined as sometimes looking good but for the most part useless." A friend of mine's father used to tell my friend when he complained about doing his chores, my friend's father would say "C'mon, Gene, don't be a titty!" So don't be tittyous in your actions and first and foremost, don't be a titty.

Steve The Exterior Decorator

Steve wore many hats during his time as my roommate and one Saturday morning he thought he would try his hand at "exterior" decorating. I remember one of the Cheers story lines for a short while had Norm Peterson as an interior decorator. He had a flair for interior decorating but he had to act gay in order to attract clientele. Steve didn't have to act drunk because he really was drunk.

I got up this particular Saturday morning and I look out of my living room window and Steve is in the front yard messing around with the lawn furniture. I had two plastic lawn chairs and a table that I had bought on the cheap at Wal~Mart. Steve would move one of the lawn chairs over a couple of feet under a tree and stand back and study the chair intently for a couple of minutes and then he would study the chair at a different angle. He would then position the other lawn chair with it and then the table in between the two. He would adjust them a couple of inches one way or another and then study the set from all angles. It looked like he was getting ready for a tea party but I am sure his brand of tea would have been a special blend of iced tea from Long Island.

When he was finished with his "work" he stood back with a look of pride on his face. I stood at the window watching this the entire time until I could finally stand it no more. I knew better than to ask but I had to find out what the hell he was doing. I leashed my dog Molly and walked outside and casually asked what he was doing.

"I am rearranging the lawn furniture. The creative juices are really flowing today. It looks good, doesn't it? " I don't think it was so much the creative juices as it was the cheap Canadian whiskey he drank.

The sad part was is that Steve was serious. I complemented him on his expert placement of the lawn furniture and I said "Steve, you are a goddamn genius!" In his state of constant inebriation, Steve completely missed the sarcasm. He thought I was serious. I went on to tell him that he had staggered, I mean stumbled, into a new career path, "Steve the Drunk Interior and Exterior Decorator."

Barbecuing Steve Style

Steve's drunk ass was always wanting to barbecue and I know if I heard the phrase "jerk marinade" one more time, I was going to shove a grilling fork in his ass. One day he staggers into the kitchen and offers to grill us some hamburgers. He didn't want to grill me just a hamburger, he wanted to make it his way. He gets the hamburgers out and soaks them in tabasco sauce and barbecue sauce and when I objected to this torturous treatment of the hamburgers, he said after they were grilled, I would not even be able to taste it.

He went out to the grill and came back in about 15 minutes later and I could smell the tabasco sauce as soon as he walked in the door. I politely told him I was not eating that so he wolfed down both burgers and was telling me the entire time I did not know what I was missing. Yes, yes I did. Five minutes after he finished them, he was vomiting in the kitchen trash can. When I asked if the burgers were just as good coming back up as they were going down, he swore up and down that it was not the burgers. He went and passed out shortly after that. Maybe he should have had his own cooking show "Drunk Grilling With Steve." Justin Wilson stayed sauced on his Cajun cooking show but the difference is, Wilson could actually cook.

He Held On To That Cigarette

One of my first stories about Steve has to be the "cigarette incident." When I moved in, Steve told me he only smoked about three or four cigarettes a day and he probably should have amended that to three or four packs a day.

It was getting close to the winter time so Steve started going out back on the balcony to smoke. We had been roommates for about three months and by this time I had started shutting myself in my bedroom to get away from him and his stories. I was in my room about 7:30 one night and I heard something fall on the balcony and it shook the house. I came out of my room to see what it was. I see Steve through the back door laying on the balcony. I was afraid he had a heart attack or something. I tried opening the back door but from where he was laying he was blocking the door and I could not get it open.

I yelled through the door, "Steve! Are you OK?"

"I think I hurt my hip."

After several attempts to get out the back door and he wouldn't budge, I said, "Forget it. He'll get up when he gets up," and went back to my room.

I came to check on him about 15 minutes later and I finally managed to get out the door. He had fell in a pile of dry leaves with a lit cigarette and Steve AKA Boozo the Clown AKA Drunkenstein kept smoking the damn thing. That drunk dumbass could have burned the house down but he kept laying there smoking that cigarette until he had smoked all of it. He was proud of the fact that he had smoked the whole thing while he was laying there and thought it was quite the athletic feat worthy of ESPN's Sportscenter or the Drunk Hall of Fame.

I asked him what happened and his version was that a bench sitting on the balcony had flipped over on him when he sat down on it. The closer to the truth version is that his drunk ass went to sit down on it, missed the bench, and fell on his ass. The important thing to remember is that he held on to that cigarette and smoked all of it.

Thus The Story Begins

First of all, I recognize the fact that alcoholism is a disease. I consider it an infectious disease that affects everyone in the alcoholics life. The alcoholic does not realize that. It affected me, even as his roommate, more than I am willing to admit. I am trying to make light of a very serious, debilitating illness but I can only deal with serious issues with my sense of humor. It seems to be the only way I can process information and I deal with it the only way I know how.

My friend referred to Steve as a "functioning alcoholic." I was not exactly sure what that meant but I quickly learned the meaning. You could not tell how much Steve had to drink at any point during the day but if he got to where he was falling down drunk, he had drank enough to kill 99.9 percent of the human population. In the 10 1/2 months he was my roommate, I only saw him that way three times although he drank from the time he woke up until the time he went to bed.

Drunk And Drunker

I used to have an alcoholic roommate. Since I was an aspiring writer, he always wanted me to write his story. He thought his life was that fascinating. Outside of the fact that he was the only man on the planet that drank Milwaukee's Best Ice with a cheap Canadian whiskey chaser, and that I have never seen a man drink that much and still be functional and still be alive, his life was not that fascinating.

For reasons of anonymity I will call him "Steve." I was telling a mutual friend of ours Steve's delusions of grandeur and he met the story idea with the proper amount of skepticism. He asked me "What are you going to call it? Drunk and Drunker?" We both laughed at that but there is a ring of truth to it. Our friend asked me "How are you going to start it? 'Well, there was this one time I was drunk...' or 'I got drunk this one time and got my ass beat...'" We both laughed about it but as Steve and I continued to be roommates, I realized that he did have a fascinating story, just not one the Walter Mitty type of story that he envisioned. Steve was a legend in his own mind so Steve here is your wish, I am writing your story but it is from my perspective.

The War On Estrogen

Philosophical Wars are being waged all of the time in society. The war on Drugs, The war on Poverty, the war on illiteracy.... and the list could go on. One war that the media of any kind or politician will never talk about that goes on a lot of the households in the United States is the war on estrogen. It is a battle that men lose everyday.

A friend of mine called me the other night and he was had a battle on his hands. He has a wife and two teenage daughters and they were all going nuts at the same time. He made them all go shopping to get them out of the house so he could have some peace and quiet. No matter how much money his wife and daughters spent, it is a small price to pay for peace of mind. Another friend of mine isn't married now but he has five daughters and two sons. The estrogen has the testosterone outnumbered in that household. All five of his daughters will be teenagers at the same time. If they all turn out to be as nutty as is wife is/was, he will be ready for the Federal Witness Protection Program in about five years. How did man go from being the King of his castle to being a serf in the livery stable?

My advice to both of my friend's is this. Find a room in your house, preferable the basement, that you can turn into a "man cave." Get you a big screen TV, every sports package on the satellite known to man, a well stocked refrigerator, a well stocked bar, and maybe even sound proof your man cave. Put in a great sound system, maybe even surround sound, a gaming table, the most up to date gaming system, plant your flag and declare your man cave an "estrogen free" zone. Make your man cave an up to date version of the Bat Cave complete with a kick ass muscle car for a clean get away if you have to make one.

Memory Lane

I was going through some old papers of mine that I dug out of my storage unit and buried deep down, way in the bottom of a box, I found a ticket stub for a Loverboy concert that was held at the Asheville Civic Center on September 11, 1983. That was my Senior year in high school.

It was a big deal back then because no big bands came anywhere close to my hometown. Loverboy was just getting their start and I believe this was a tour that supported their second or third album. Yes, there were albums back then. A group named Zebra opened up for them. I think just about everybody that was anybody from my high school went to that concert. I was a nobody and I even went. Try to picture Revenge of the Nerds Goes to a Rock Concert.

The concert was on a Sunday night and my friend Jeff came and picked me up at my house in his old Subaru. We went and grabbed something to eat, probably McDonald's, and headed towards Asheville which was about 25 miles from my house.

The Asheville Civic Center was only about ten years old, it was a dump even then, and 31 years later it is still being used and still a dump. We had the standard "stadium seating" meaning that we stood on the floor for about three or four hours listening to the bands play. I remember very little about Zebra and they only had one album out and had gotten very little air play. Loverboy was beyond loud but the acoustics in the Civic Center were not that good. I couldn't hear a thing for about three days after the concert. I did learn what "contact buzz" meant that night as the guy standing beside us must have smoked a bale of marijuana during the concert.

The concert was great, it kicked off our Senior Year with a little bit of style and everyone showed up at school the next day wearing a Loverboy t-shirt. I made the mistake of buying a muscle shirt (how many muscles can a teenager that is 5'8" and 125 pounds actually have?) and I caught hell for it. It was also overcast and chilly that next day after the concert and I damn near froze to death but I refused to wear a jacket because I wanted to show all of my classmates that I was at that concert. Nerds can rock on, too.

Being Uncle Dan

Someone asked me the other day why I did not talk about my only niece much. Niece's are much harder to be a bad influence on. As an uncle, you almost feel guilty about it. I took my responsibilities as an uncle very seriously. I let my nephews know early on that they were there for my amusement and we took it from there. It was my duty to get them into trouble and laugh like hell when they did.

This philosophy did have its drawbacks especially when they got to be of school age. If my nephews farted in church or some other public place, Uncle Dan got a phone call. When they said a cuss word or flipped someone off while there parents were driving down the road, Uncle Dan got a phone call. My favorite had to be when one of my nephews taught his kindergarten class how to play "pull my finger" during "show and tell" one day. I was a proud uncle because he just wanted to share his wealth of knowledge with his classmates. I still got a phone call.

As they got older, I was able to introduce them to the real world or at last the sleazier side of it. I got to take them to their first Hooter's and their first strip club. One of my nephews was so paranoid about his first Hooter's trip that he tossed his "to go" box of perfectly good Hooter's wings out of his car window on the way home because he was afraid his Mom would find out. I still got a phone call.

A World Upside Down

You learn a lot about yourself when your world gets turned upside down. I started working third shift a couple of weeks ago and that demands a complete shift in lifestyle. It was a choice I had been thinking about for a while and after my last surgery, I needed to take a step back and take a closer at where I am and where I am going.

This is not a new debate for me because I have been debating a radical change for quite a while now. I just need to take that leap of faith and trust in myself and my instincts. I have spent my entire "career" with one company and big business being big business, loyalty is rarely rewarded. That place has chewed me up and spit me out. My body and my psyche are bruised and damaged but that I can survive.

This latest surgery on my shoulder was a real eye opener. I found out that I am not bouncing back as fast as I used to. I returned to work four weeks ago and my shoulder is still not one hundred percent. That should really not be a revelation because I am not "ten foot tall and bulletproof" any more in spite of my best efforts.

I decided to scale back my responsibility at work (with some of my company's insistence, of course) and now I am just a "flunky." All I have to do is punch the time clock and I am happy with that. A tremendous weight is off my shoulders and it gives me more time to do what I really want to do, and that is write. Nothing may come of it but life needs to be about what I want to do, rather than what I have to do. I need to live the life I want because existing is not living. It has nothing to do with money because I have found that I really just need the necessities not all of the extras.

Numbers Part I

A friend and I were talking the other day and the subject of "numbers" came up. Numbers in this context were the number of people that you have slept with. I honestly do not know my number. Numbers were never important to me. I can give a ballpark figure but that is about it. A good friend of mine, who died from cancer three years ago, knew his exact number even though it increased exponentially every time he told the story.

I have no doubt that it was a high number but he wrapped his whole identity up with his number. He was "that guy" in every sense of the word because since he was my roommate for a while, I saw how he treated women the morning after. They would have been better off he would have written them a short note and taped cab fare to their foreheads and he disappear for a while the next morning for the kind of treatment they received.

When I saw him the next day he had to give me the details, none of which I wanted to hear. I would mess with him and talk football or some other sport the entire time and it got quite comical. The conversation would go something like this.

"Did you hear me with that girl last night?"
No. The Panthers play the Vikings today.
Are you sure? We made a lot of noise.
Yes I am sure the Panthers play the Vikings. They have an excellent chance of winning.
She blew me twice.
The Panthers defense may be the best in football.
I took her home this morning and got rid of her.
The kickoff is in about twenty minutes.

I finally decided to somewhat play along so I said, "She blew you, huh?"
He would throw up two fingers and say "Twice!" like that was some sort of sex record and a band should start playing and confetti should fall from the ceiling. We repeated that a few time and every time he would say "twice" I would laugh like hell.

A Man Of Letters

I have always enjoyed a good, old fashioned hand written letter. I remember when I was growing up my Grandmother used to write my Aunt Minnie at least once a week and my Aunt Minnie only lived 25 miles away. My Grandmother used to give me enough money to go to the store on the corner to buy her some stamps and me a comic book. I recently came into possession of several of those letters and it makes me feel close to a woman who always managed to dote on me no matter what the circumstance.

Some of the women I have dated and I have tried letter writing "campaigns" before but they usually waned after a short period of time. I have kept all of those letters I received from them in a place where no one can touch them. I read through them once in a while because the letters still mean something to me.

I was rummaging through some of my stuff when I was cleaning out my storage unit the other day and I came upon a box full of my papers. I picked through a few of them and I found one that caught my attention. It was an e-mail I had printed off dated July 20, 2008. This woman and I had developed a harmless flirtation but it wasn't going to go anywhere because she was married. She was not happily married and that is why she was putting herself out there.

"I'll tell you why you fascinate me. Because you are really cute, smart and not like a dork smart, you are super funny, seem so down to earth, I think you do like strip clubs but probably not as much as you make out, and on the outside you seem like a hard manly man, but I bet you are like a teddy bear. Not a lot of men keep journals much less tell a chick they do."

The woman was born with a heart defect and was not supposed to live past the age of 15 or have kids (she had two) but unfortunately she was living on borrowed time. I moved away and we stayed in touch and the last time I heard from her a couple of years ago, she had been put on a heart transplant list. I found out not like ago that her time had ran out and she passed away. I will always cherish this "letter" from her.

A Psychiatrist's Dream

I include a lot of music and lyrics into my blogs because music and the lyrics often says things I can't or says them better than I can. I had pulled out some old CD's this afternoon I had burned within the past ten years and was listening to some artists that have long been forgotten (at least by me) and I had to look a few of them up to see who they even were. I have eclectic musical tastes and I often connect memories to certain songs. Every time I hear a certain song, a particular memory will come to mind. Not all of the memories are good and when I hear the song, I immediately turn it off.

This afternoon a song entitled "Your Guts... I Hate 'Em" by an interesting group called Reel Big Fish started playing. I remember the song very well. The memory this song sparked was this was the song that was playing when a female friend of mine came to pick me up at the Nudie Bar when I was too drunk to drive myself home. This female friend and I were both having relationship problems at this time and this song really fit our mood.

"I wrote this song about you
Just to let you know that I hate your guts
And I think you suck"

This female friend and I ended up having sex that night so we were able to channel our anger about our relationship problems into each other and I always think of her every time I hear this song.

The Party Is Over

11 weeks of my life that had such potential to really get some things accomplished, to clear my mind, and unite my body and soul, came crashing down around me with hardly a sound. I have to return to work tomorrow and these 11 weeks may have been the most counterproductive that I have ever spent in my life. It seems that I have spent the entire time dealing with everyone else's issues and problems, some life defining and some trivial, but I could not seem to heal myself.

Therefore I get to start over one more time but at least I have the opportunity to start over. I do appreciate what I have, where I have come from, and the direction I am going. I have seen those that lie, cheat, and steal prosper and I believe in the goodness of the universe and all it has to offer. It is time for me to receive the best the universe has to offer.

The Gold Digger

I ran into a woman the other day that I had gone out with about four or five years ago. Some friends and I had gone out for a late lunch at the Cracker Barrel and I was waiting outside as she was coming out the door. My first thought was "this woman is pretty hot" and then she turned around and I recognized her. She recognized me as well and gave me a hug. It surprised me so much to see her, it threw me off my game. I did manage to get out that it was a great surprise to see her and the last I heard she was remarried and living in Florida. She muttered something about she "was going through it again" so I assumed she meant divorce.

Outside of her looks and the fact that she had lost weight and the body was now smoking hot, was the fact that she had the uniform on of the Cracker Barrel waitress. My friend saw us hug and talk for a few minutes and he asked me about her. I told him that she and I had gone out a couple of times several years ago but I thought she was a gold digger. She had grown accustomed to a certain high standard of living and wasn't going to settle for anything else. I found it ironic that she was now working at the Cracker Barrel and just a little bit karmatic. I know that is not a word but it is my blog. I am sure she will keep digging until she finds another pot of gold.

I have dated several gold diggers over the past ten years or so and I discovered several things about myself and about that type of woman. What do I have to offer the gold digger? They love the sex, they love my sense of humor, and they love my personality and intelligence, but all I really have to offer as far as "gold" goes is $500 in rolled up change in a sock drawer, a Toyota with over 160,000 miles on it and taped up windows, and a career as a retail flunky. I may hate country music but I am living a country song if anyone ever has.

The Falcon Has Landed

I was standing in my kitchen the other day when a Falcon landed on my balcony. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime kind of moments. That was the closest I had ever been to a Falcon. It was mere feet away. Luckily the door was closed but I could see him through the glass door. He was such a powerful, majestic bird. He sat there a few minutes while I ran and grabbed my camera. I got in a few shots before he flew off. He reappeared a few moments later and this time I just admired him. He flew off again, this time up on the roof but he was gone for good.

I can trace my heritage in the mountains of North Carolina back to the 1780's. Most of the mountain people believed in signs or what most other people would call superstitions. If certain things happened it meant something. A lot of people believe in signs from God. For example, one of my uncle's told me one time that if you heard a Mourning Dove, it meant that it would rain within 24 or 48 hours or something like that. I remember him telling me that when I was about 16 years old. Every time I hear a Mourning Dove, it rains within a day.

The more I thought about the Falcon landing on my balcony and what a rare occurrence that was, I got curious about what that meant. It had to have some kind of significance attached to it. I turned to the internet to do some research. I found a website entitled whats-your-sign.com that provided an answer. I don't know if it is "the" answer or not but I guess it is all in what you believe.

"The Falcon animal totem represents visionary power, wisdom, and guardianship. This powerful bird awakens visionary power, and leads you to your life purpose. The Falcon carries with it a message of transition- perhaps in your vocation, work, career, etc."

When?

For the first time in my life last night, I had an automobile accident that was deemed my fault. It was decided that I ran a stop light. I have my doubts but I was honest and told the officer I did not know if I had the green or the red light. I am now going to pay the price for that honesty because the other party was believed and I received the citation.

In the past year I have seen those that lie and cheat prosper and I am no saint but I try to live a life where I treat people as well as I can, I try to be upfront and honest, and do right by people. I have made mistakes, I have committed wrongs, but I tried to admit those mistakes and offer an earnest apology. It seems that I am rewarded for trying to do the right thing with the absolute worst that people have to offer.

I am having a crisis of faith and I am losing complete faith in humanity. It seems that all I can depend on my fellow man for is to do the wrong thing. People that I honestly believed were people of faith have turned out to be the worst. They seem to believe that the rules of morality and human decency do not apply to them. That is very disappointing to me and that seems to be the cause of my crisis of faith.

I do not seek revenge and I do not wish ill will on anyone but when is my faith rewarded? At the end of my life? My spirit is broken and might even be beyond repair. I am not used to this feeling of complete helplessness.

Change

I also wrote a blog that I posted on Molly's World also entitled "Change." I listen to a lot of music and I have very eclectic musical tastes. There are certain songs I can listen to and the lyrics really speak to me. It is almost like they are saying "Dan, I need you to listen to this. This is important. It is going to mean something to you."

I heard an older song the other day by a 1970's group, Little River Band, entitled "Cool Change." There is a line in it that goes:
"Lots of those friendly people
They're showing me ways to go
And I never want to
Lose their inspiration."

A friend of mine has been trying to get me to leave my job for the longest time and now that time is dangerously close. My body is broken and my spirit may even be more broken. The strength of my spirit has never been a problem before. They are slowly but surely breaking my spirit. My spirit has always really been strong.

I want to make it through the next three or four months until I have my next surgery. My circumstances dictate that I need to stay there through the end of the year. I will have to bite a lot of bullets during that time. Keep my mouth closed, be non-confrontational, and stay focused on doing my job. One day at a time.

The only problem with this whole scenario is that I really do not have a backup plan. I know I want to write but that is a very hard way to make a living and I may have the slight opening that I need to get started. It is a free lance writing job but right now, I need to focus on building up any kind of writing resume.

Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said "If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." I need to change directions.

Mr. Potato Head

My roommate is finally gone and I have a two bedroom apartment to myself. The silence is almost deafening. I keep trying to talk my landlord into putting in a hot tub so I can have some small scale, Hugh Hefner type parties here. My landlord's wife thinks I would turn it into something sleazy so she quickly vetoed the idea.

I have been sitting here looking at the beautiful green, tree covered landscape of Butt Mountain (and I am not making up the name of it) and trying to put my life in perspective. Sometimes that is a very hard thing to do. The past year has not been easy on me and it has taken its toll both physically and mentally. I am still facing two more surgeries before the end of the year. I am missing more parts than Mr. Potato Head.

Friends and family keep asking me about my future. I do not plan that far in advance any more. As Stephen King said in his novel 11/22/1963, "life turns on a dime." I do not know where I will be or what I will be doing a month from now much less anything farther out than that. It seems that everyone I come in contact with is trying to make sure that I am six feet under by then anyway. Life is short and needs to be lived, savor the good moments, and put the bad behind you as quickly as possible.

I remember what a man I used to work with told me one time. His family was tremendously wealthy. His father had built a business and was a multi-millionaire, his sister (who was smokin' hot by the way) had married a big time Hollywood Director/Producer, and his other sister had married a contractor who was also a millionaire and Sam changed oil for a living and had to make his own beef jerky and sell it to help make ends meet. I was teasing him about it one day and I said "Fred, you're family is worth millions. What happened to you?" He told me "I come to work everyday, treat everyone is well as I can, and at night, I sleep like a baby." He was right.

Every Picture Tells A Story

A blog I posted several days ago about my "addiction" to these dating websites as initiated quite a bit of debate among my female friends and I. I have a girlfriend now and I should take my profile down. I know that. I am not "active" on this website, I am not trolling for one night stands or anything like that.The women's profiles on this dating website make me laugh and have become an inspiration for many of my posts on this blog.

This one woman's profile I saw on there yesterday needed to go viral. Her picture was obviously her mug shot and she used the caption "Waiting" for the picture. Waiting on what? Bail money? I lost it when I saw this. I would love to hear about what kind of attention she gets from that profile.

I really have to wonder if these women even look at their pics before they post them on there. I am not photogenic and I had to search far and wide to find at least one flattering pic of myself I could put on there. I know these women could do the same. There has to be one picture out there where you don't have a mustache or a goatee, you don't look like an axe murderer, or you don't look like a patient at a mental hospital. At least one picture. That is all you need.

The North Carolina Tarheels Were Our Bond

My father was tough on me growing up. I was the oldest son and I believe he was tougher on me than he was my brother and my two sisters. My father and I were very different people. He was a man of the outdoors and I preferred reading a good book to holding a fishing pole in my hands.

The one thing that my father and I were able to bond over was the North Carolina Tarheels, especially the basketball team. Pops had been following the Tarheels since the 1957 Championship team of Head Coach Frank McGuire and Lennie Rosenbluth. He and I disagreed on Dean Smith as a Coach. He thought Coach Smith was a great innovator and teacher but lousy at the X's and O's during a game. I thought Coach Smith was the standard at which all other coach's should be measured.

Growing up I was regaled with stories of Billy Cunningham (my Dad's favorite player), Charlie Scott, Bob McAdoo, Phil Ford, and Mike O'Koren. I remember watching Phil Ford and Mike O'Koren play and Pops and I watched the 1982 Championship game together and we celebrated when they won it all. It was more about the basketball than it was the football and we watched as many games as possible together. Pops passed away in 2007 and when the Tarheels won it again in 2009, there was a big element missing for me and that was Pops wasn't there to celebrate.

I hardly ever missed a Tarheel basketball game until Pops passed away in the middle of the 2006-07 season. He passed away at the end of January and I don't think I watched a game for the rest of that season. The excitement just wasn't there any more and even eight years later, it is not as exciting as it used to be. Happy Father's Day, Pops! I miss watching the games with you.

I Am Free

Freedom. You have nothing holding you back and nothing weighing you down. You are not obligated to anything or anyone. It is a powerful feeling. There are many things in life you can become free from. You can become free from bad relationships, free from jobs, and free from anything that is weighing you down. In this case, I am free from a bad roommate. I did not realize he was a bad roommate until after he was gone. Now that he is gone, I feel such a tremendous sense of relief and freedom. He was a burden I did not realize I even had.

My mind is free and clear and I am thinking with such clarity right now. I do not have to be back at work for two and a half more weeks now and it is time to get some productive writing done. I can actually finish a complete thought now without being interrupted by the nonsensical conversation of an alcoholic roommate. Martin Luther King was right. "Free at last, free at last! Thank God almighty, I am free at last."

99 Words For Boobs

I think I found my theme song for the Sleaze Triathlon. It is a song called "99 Words for Boobs" done to the tune of "99 Red Balloons" by Nena. It is a great song and also highly informative. I learned a lot. The video starts out kind of slow but it picks up strength in the middle. I do have to wonder why there is an odd number of boobs unless they are referring to 99 pairs of boobs. That must be it. I don't think I see 99 great pairs of boobs throughout the course of my day, especially now that I am out injured for a while, but it is not for lack of looking.

The Sleaze Triathlon

In my last post, I mentioned an event I would like to call the "Sleaze Triathlon." It would be a combination of a Wet T-shirt contest, a mud/jello wrestling competition, and I believe I would change the third event to a Pole Dancing competition. The wet t-shirt contest would be something along the lines of the ice bucket challenge. The water needs to be ice cold to bring out the best in the competitors. Jello wrestling would be preferable over mud wrestling because it is more colorful and less messy. It is also edible. The scoring for the pole dancing competition would be based on dancing, a minimum amount of pole tricks, and stage presence.

They hold triathlons all of the time but any clown can run, bicycle, and swim. The Sleaze Triathlon would show case the athleticism, strength, and the beauty and creativity of the big busted woman. No Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner's allowed.

My Muse

On the television show Castle, Nathan Fillion's character Richard Castle follows detective Kate Beckett around and uses her as his "muse" so he can get inspiration from her. I don't know if there are any rules or a handbook on how to pick out a muse but my psychotic rants have evidently drawn the attention of several women wanting to take credit for it. If my massive following on Google Plus of 17 ever grows any, being my muse may mean something, but right now, it is not really a lucrative position.

I do really appreciate those that have volunteered to take credit and I hope they realize that most of it is a product of my extremely warped sense of humor. Maybe my should be the winner of a wet t-shirt contest. Maybe I should hold a "Sleaze Triathlon." The overall winner of a wet t-shirt contest, mud wrestling, and jello wrestling gets to be my muse. Now that is what I call inspiration.

I draw my inspiration from lots of things. Some come from personal experience, some come from experiences that have been related to me, while others are a product of my sometimes overactive imagination. I believe that is why many that read my blog see my blog as pure fiction, especially the parts that are based on my version of the truth.

Addictions

Addictions can take the strangest forms. There are the usual suspects- alcohol, drugs, even sex. My addictions are a little bit different. I am addicted to dating websites. I still have a profile up on a few even though I have had a girlfriend for about eight months. My profile is about as vanilla and generic as it gets. My girlfriend knows nothing about it and she would probably be pissed if she found out. I cannot say I would blame her.

I am not even "active" on them any more but I still find myself trolling them once in a while. These dating websites and the women on them make me laugh. People enjoy lying to themselves or they enjoy lying to strangers, take your pick. Maybe they are just trying to get their foot in the door, charm the pants off of them (literally), and take it (or leave it) from there.

I do not care what anyone says, 90% of the attraction is physical. The profiles that make me laugh the most are the one's that say of you are looking for a one night stand, pass them by. Then in their profile pics, they have boob shots, bikini shots, or shots of them in the tightest pants possible, showing off their ass. No sexual imagery there.

Then there are those that have pics on there that are blurry or old (one woman has a pic on there that is dated 2001), pictures of them with men, and one woman even had some wedding pictures on there. Exactly what message are they trying to send? They spout visions of honesty, romance, and soul mates or forever partners. I guess spouting images of neurosis, psychosis, or even halitosis would be a real turn off. They want you to have a good job because they usually don't. When I need a good laugh, I troll the dating websites.

One more thing before I go. What is up with the women in the Greenville, SC area? Are there no men down there that are worth anything. At least 75% of the women I encounter are from that area. They either want to escape from down there or they have already plowed through the qualified dating candidates. Based on my passed experiences, if I become single again, I would have to pass on anyone from that area. No offense to anyone but....

Microbreweries Versus Strip Clubs

The Hendersonville planning board voted to allow microbreweries in downtown Hendersonville and now it just has to be voted on by the Hendersonville Town Council. This reverses a decision that the town council made a few years ago banning microbreweries from the downtown area. The reversal of this ban is entirely monetary. The commonly held belief is that Hendersonville is losing money to Asheville and all of it's microbreweries, it is losing tax money, and more tourism dollars.

Several years ago the Hendersonville Town Council heard a rumor that someone was going to apply for a permit to open a strip club. The Town Council rushed some laws through that would make it virtually impossible for anyone to open a strip club or even want to open a strip club. I wonder if the Town Council will reverse that ban? I think I should apply to open a microbrewery/strip club and put it right on Main Street, Hendersonville.

It is legal for women to go around topless in downtown Asheville. They have a rally every year during the summer to prove how legal it is. You will see the saggiest, hairiest, ugliest titties you will ever see, during this rally. There is one strip club in the city of Asheville and they have so many rules and regulations, they practically have to have a lawyer present when they open the doors. Yet it would be legal for a group of women to stand out in that parking lot topless as long as men were not paying to see it. The dancers cannot even stand outside in the parking lot and smoke, but a group of topless women can stand out there and it be perfectly legal. What is the difference? Strip clubs are discriminated against. People can go out and drink themselves senseless but God knows we would hate to have a man get a lap dance.

The Value Of Platonic Friendships

I really value my platonic friendships and I have many of those. Contrary to popular belief, I do not want to sleep with every woman that I am friends with. The "friends with benefits" scenario was never that beneficial to me. My platonic friends have helped me through many of my relationship struggles and have quite often come to my defense when some of those relationships went bad. My platonic friends know me better than the women that I go out with and they know what kind of person I am.

I know this is going to come as a complete surprise to some, but I do have a sense of morality and I try to treat people as well as I can. One of the reasons that my platonic friends and I get along so well is because we do not have the pressure of being in a relationship because whether anyone wants to admit it or not, relationships change things. They change attitudes and actions and sometimes whole personalities. I would rather keep a lifelong platonic friendship than ruin it with a temporary relationship.

Shutting Down

Last night as I was laying in bed contemplating the meaning of life I decided that my body is broken and my spirit is crushed. I cannot even roll over in bed any more without a body part screaming in pain. I look like a turtle trying to flop off it's back. My spirit has been crushed by family and friends, some of whom I consider in my inner circle.

I do not know how to go about repairing my body or my spirit. I do not know if they are repairable. There are nights I lay there hoping that the Grim Reaper will come to summon me in the middle of the night. I do see the Grim Reaper as being a smoking hot brunette dressed in leather, kind of dominatrix style, with a great body. If you are going to dream, you might as well dream big- preferably 36 DDD big.

Philosophy

I was reading Stephen King's On Writing the other day and one of the quotes he uses in the beginning of the book is "liar's prosper" attributed to anonymous. I have really struggled with that concept for the past month or so. I do not exactly live a puritanical life but I do try to be honest with the "emphasis" on try to be honest. I am not going to steal from anyone, I am not out to hurt anyone, and I do have to wonder why anyone would want to do that to me.

A person can justify any of their actions to help themselves sleep at night or maybe they have such a complete lack of a conscience, they can do whatever they want to, and it does not bother them at all. I do not think I swill ever understand the lack of consideration people have or their total immorality. It is a debate I could have for the rest of my life and still not understand.

The Law Of Averages

You would expect that the Law of Averages would dictate that something would go right for me once in a while. I am not even talking fifty percent of the time or no where near that. I would settle for the average of The Mendoza Line which for you non-baseball people is twenty percent.

Physical Therapy on my shoulder is not going as well as I think it should. After four weeks I can scratch my nuts and put on my t-shirt. The job opportunities are really rolling in with that skill set. I work with my team of therapists one hour a day three days a week doing these goofy ass exercises that I think they come up with just to see how silly people look while doing them.

I get a letter from my place of employment today telling me that since I am broken down and can no longer do what is required of me, they are going to offer me "alternative placement" in an equal or lesser position. I would be willing to guarantee it is lesser. I have 24 hours to accept whatever position they come up with whether it be janitor or what or I will be terminated. The letter I received came registered mail and it clearly states that my signature is required that I received this letter. My roommate found it sitting in a chair on my front porch. I did not know it was there.

Shortly after I received this letter, my girlfriend decides to have a meltdown and calls me up. She is only speaking in "blubber speak" and I cannot understand a word she is saying. I don't speak or understand "blubber speak" so that was a very short and frustrating conversation. She then decides to hang up on me. I consider myself a very giving and understanding person but I have reached my limit for the day.

Strange Dreams

Every once in a great while I will have a strange dream that is just too good and too strange not to write about. Last night I dreamed that I had traveled to Russia with some kind of tour group. We were in St. Petersburg and I was paired up with some girl in the tour group. She was smoking hot and had the sexiest Russian accent. We were getting ready to tour this one building with the rest of the group and I realized I had left my camera back on the tour bus. I really needed my camera. I was standing there looking at all of the gleaming church spires and everything of St. Petersburg and thought I may never get here again, so I went back to the tour bus with this girl to grab my camera.

The tour bus was packed full of packages and luggage so I had to unload about half of it to find my camera. I finally find my camera and I set it on the ground beside me and repack the bus. I had a hard time getting everything back in there but I finally did it. I turned around to get my camera and it was gone. I start panicking and I see someone carrying away the empty box that is was in. I chase him down and say "That is mine. What are you doing with it?"

He identifies himself as a Russian KGB agent and he tells him in a thick Russian accent "The camera is long gone. It is worth very much money on the black market."

"How do I go about getting it back? That is my damn camera!"

About that time the KGB agent sees two guys walking down the street, and he yells something at them in Russian. They respond by pulling out two AK-47's and start shooting. Me and the girl dive to the ground and I shield her from the bullets by jumping on top of her. (She was hot and it is my dream. I should get to play the hero in my own dream.)

The KGB agent pulls out an AK-47 and returns fire killing both of them. The agent then takes off down the street, running towards a man dressed like Santa Claus. The Santa Claus had a long, flowing white beard and he was sitting in an ornate, shiny bright red sleigh filled with Christmas packages. The girl and I jumped up and ran after the agent.

Santa pulls out an AK-47 of his own and starts shooting and tries to take cover behind the sleigh. The girl and I once again dive for cover. After a brief firefight, our super agent quickly lays Santa Claus to waste and it is over.

The agent walks back to us and tells us that our camera is probably in a pawn shop near where Santa had left his sleigh. The black market for cameras such as mine is huge in Russia and bring big money on the black market. Me and the girl went in, quickly found my camera, and I claimed my camera. The girl and I quickly caught back up with the tour group. Just another day in the life of a Walter Mitty wanna be.

Via Con Deniro

Loosely translated, Via Con Deniro is Latin for "go with the money." When you get to be my age, money seems to be the motivating factor as to whether a woman will go out with you or not. I have been on a lot of these dating websites where the woman says that she is looking for love, a nice guy, a man who will treat her well, and blah blah blah.

Let me introduce you to another Latin phrase (one of my own creation) "pantus loadius." This basically means what a pant load and somebody just filled there underwear with a big load. The first thing a woman and actually this could apply to men too, notices is the looks. Then comes the profile. If you mention anywhere in your profile that you are "independently wealthy", your inbox will be blown up. If you mention that you are a retail lifer, should have been a character in Revenge Of The Nerds, and do not own a house near a lake, pond, or even a small creek, then your inbox will collect dust and more than likely be inactivated by the dating website.

There are two ways you can handle this. You can use the late comedian Sam Kinison's philosophy of "Fuck the truth. Lie your ass off." That may work for the first date or two but the truth will soon come out. Maybe you will get laid by then. You can't hide the truth forever.

If you choose the honesty route, you had better prepare for a lot of alone time, develop a fondness for porn, and get used to talking into the clown's head for the happy meal of your choice. I would also stay off the dating websites because you are going to attract psycho's like it is a bad episode of Supernatural.

A Kick In The Nuts

There are times in life when you just get completely blindsided and I have slowly figured out that the majority of these blindside hits are going to come from family members. By the time you realize what has happened, it is over. I am still stunned by this turn of events and it came from a place I did not know existed. I became suspicious about a month ago but hearing the facts of the matter are much colder and much different than just being suspicious. Bam! There it was in black and white. Events like this have happened way too much over the past couple of years. I must be the most trusting, gullible person on the face of the earth to continually believe that people have the best of intentions and they would not do this to me. Bam! There it is I am trying to pick up the pieces and examine my options. There are none. Game Over.

Fried Green Tomatoes

A woman I was dating about nine months ago made me sit down and watch Fried Green Tomatoes. I had never seen it before and I might have been the only guy on the planet that had never been forced to sit down and watch that movie. I would have to question the manhood of any guy who wanted to watch that movie on his own. Fried Green Tomatoes was your basic tear jerking, chick flick that revolved around a hair salon in a small town.

Now that I am dating a hair stylist, I have come to realize that there is more drama that goes on inside these places than should be allowed by law. It is usually only women that work there and that is a recipe for disaster. Put a few women inside an enclosed space like a hair salon and it gets more catty than the cat habitat at the local zoo. I know more about these other women than I ever really wanted to. I know more about their relationships, they come to me for advice (who am I? Dr. Phil), and they all want to hang out with me.

I offered to dole out some spankings when the other women needed it but that idea was quickly frowned upon and I was told how disgusting I was. In my defense, I do give good spankings.

Physical Therapy

I have been undergoing physical therapy for the past week and it is the usual mixed bag of people- therapists and customers. We have the old and the young, the smartasses and the dumbasses, and the grouchy old SOB's and the young and hot.

The guy that owns the place has been my therapist of record until the other day. The other day was when this young honey walked in- dark hair, slim figure, nice body, and very pretty. The young lady was missing something that the rest of us seemed to have- slings, bandages, and braces. I do not even know why she is there but the owner has made her his pet project like he is training her for the Olympics.

When she walked in, I ceased to exist, as far as therapy was concerned. I was immediately passed down to the underling therapists and eventually ended up in the hands of a student intern. I am not saying that the intern will not eventually be good but right now, she is pretty clueless but at least she had nice, soft hands. I might as well go to a massage parlor in Charlotte which, to be honest, was my first choice anyway. I would get more attention and a happy ending.

I can't say I blame the old guy because I probably would have done the same thing. My customer service philosophy has always been "help the honey's." I guess that customer service philosophy can extend to any business model.

In Defense Of Strip Clubs

The latest strip club under attack from law enforcement is Platinum Plus in Greenville, SC. Law Enforcement officials conducted the usual "undercover" investigation much like officials in Charlotte, NC did about two years ago. The officials in Charlotte targeted the dancers themselves and arrested them. The officials in Greenville learned after Charlotte's mistake and targeted the club and the club owner.

Greenville has a history of trying to get rid of the strip clubs down there. They repeatedly targeted Diamond's and eventually shut it down about 15 years ago. They charged Platinum Plus with running a prostitution ring, dancers performing oral sex in the VIP rooms, and a list of other infractions. There is more oral sex and sex for that matter that goes on in the parking lot of Wal-Mart's than goes on in strip clubs. I do not see law enforcement officials sitting out in the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart investigating that or even thinking about shutting them down.

I only caught the tail end of an interview with the owner of Platinum Plus on TV last night and I am glad they are going to get their day in court. I honestly do not believe that law enforcement officials want that. It might expose the investigation for what it was and that is that Platinum Plus was guilty before the investigation ever started. Is Platinum Plus going to get a fair hearing? Probably not.

A Hot Nurse

It finally happened. After seven major surgeries, fifteen procedures, and hundreds of doctor visits, I finally got a hot nurse. It happened when I had my rotator cuff surgery last week. I usually get the nurse that is old, grouchy, and has a goatee better than mine.

The nurse comes downstairs and called out my name. I saw her rounding the corner and I thought "she must be here for someone else." When I heard her call out my name it was shoulder be damned, I jumped over two rows of chairs and a coffee table (a slight exaggeration there) just to make sure she was not going to move on to the next patient.

My nurse was late twenties, very cute, and had a nice body, but of course was married to a Doctor. My relationship was only going to last about four hours with her anyway and about three- fourths of that time I was going to be unconscious, so it really didn't matter. Most guys have a "nurse fantasy" and there are porno websites devoted to such fantasies (not that I have ever seen any of them).

After my surgery was over, the nurse was processing me out so I could leave and she referred to my girlfriend as my "friend" while my girlfriend was sitting there. I do not know what kind of shit I had been talking to the nurse before my girlfriend showed up on the scene but I got to hear about the nurse's comment all the way home. I believe a man should get a free pass for whatever he happens to say while under the influence of anesthesia.

I did learn one harsh reality while I was under "Nurse Goodbody's" care. Just because she is a hot nurse, does not mean she can start an IV. By the time she got done, my hand looked like a pin cushion and she had to call another nurse in to do it for her. A week later my hand is still swollen and hurts like hell from where Nurse Goodbody used it as harpoon practice. As my grandfather used to say "all that glitters ain't gold." My update to that is "but it sure is pretty to look at."

Inspiration

I found out the other day that a friend of mine's wife was interested in writing. I was pretty sure that I was not her inspiration and she confirmed that when she said "but I am not writing about strip clubs." I told her that strip clubs was the newest genre of writing. I like to refer to it as "50 shades of singles." My friend and her husband thought that was pretty funny; her, not so much. I believe she will probably be pretty successful with her writing career; me, not so much.

Stephen King has always said that even if he never made a penny writing, he would still be doing it because he enjoyed it. The fact that people read it and he makes money at it as a double bonus. With that being said, I will take my loyal following of 16 on Google Plus and continue to write. I do believe that most of my followers are ex-girlfriends checking up on me to see if I was saying anything about them but like Stephen King made reference to, they are still reading it. I might have the smallest following with the largest amount of hate mail.

Hot Tub Manager

My girlfriend is a little on the gullible side which makes her an easy mark for me to have a little bit of fun with especially when it comes to anything sleazy I have allegedly done or might do in the near future. I have been kidding her for the past couple of months about me talking my landlord into getting some hot tubs on the property and letting me manage them.

A couple of weeks ago some plastic septic tank units were delivered to the property for some cabins he is going to build and my girlfriend came over later that afternoon. She saw them and asked what they were. I told her that I had talked him into my hot tub idea and that he was going to let me be the "hot tub manager" and I could quit my regular job to do this full time. She got pissed but she never would admit it. It was like a dark cloud passed over her face.

I could not convince her that this was not true and that they were septic tank units instead of hot tubs. I had to take her over to them and show her where they said "septic tanks" on them. She still stayed pissed at me for the rest of the night because she believed it was possible that I could talk my landlord into that. She was also pissed because I thought it was funny. I could call it "That Guy's Hot Tubs- Before You Get Dry Let Those Titties Fly". I like the sound of that.

That Guy: The College Years

If Saved By The Bell can do a very tame version of the college years, so can I. In college, I was that guy. I drank a lot, I was sleazy, and I was only concerned with what benefitted me. Some would say I am still that way. One woman I dated said that my belief that I am not that guy was "bullshit." She is entitled to her opinion, no matter how wrong and deluded it is.

In college, I played the part of the drunken college guy and I had plenty of friends to lead me astray. Think Animal House without the fraternity. I was more like the character "Larry Kroger" played by Thomas Hulce. Mostly on the outside looking in but I did manage to get lucky once in a while. My friends were kind of like a fraternity of misfits. I had a great time. I will be the first to admit that.

Most of my stories involve me drinking. It was courage in a bottle. I made a drunken ass of myself more times than I care to remember and quite a few I do not remember at all. I was, and still am, a shy person. I had my share of relationship disasters (like watching a train wreck) but at that time, I preferred not to be in one. It made life much simpler. The funny thing about that was that as soon as you told a girl you did not want to be in a relationship, she had to have you.

College was where I had my first stalker. Having a stalker was like a badge of honor for me. It was great until she came after me with a gun and I had to hide out at my friend Mike's apartment for two weeks until she calmed down. The night I broke up with Krissy, I was pretty ripped. I had some action lined up for later that night but I needed to get rid of Krissy first. I tried to be the good guy and let her down easy. I gave her the "you are too good for me" speech. She countered with "You want something worse than me?" I'll be damned. She had me on that one. I ended up getting rid of her, I slept with one of sorority sisters later that night, and that was when the gun came out. You would think I would have learned my lesson.

Something Has Got To Give

Something has got to give in my life and so far it has been my body but my stress level has been under attack lately. I grew up believing that a diagnosis of stress was a cop out for not being able to deal with life. You dealt with problems as they came up and you moved on. I really don't believe that any more. I want whoever is in my life at the time I die to add up all of the years that my job and my family has taken off my life.

I do not think that a stress free existence is possible any more. There are methods that can be used to reduce stress but I just need to figure out what they are. Getting rid of my family is not an option (at least a legal one) but not getting involved in all their drama is an option. Sometimes I feel like I am living a reality show.

Work is another story. I should work in a stress free environment. The powers that be have decided that is not possible. My job is not as difficult as they make it out to be. I know what my job is, what my priorities should be, and I should be able to just go in and do those and go home at the end of the day, knowing that I did the best I could do. They just cannot let it be that simple.

Boozo The Clown

I will be the first to admit that I know nothing about addiction and I have never really been around an alcoholic before. My roommate is an alcoholic. Since I am an aspiring writer, he suggested that I write his memoirs. A mutual friend of ours suggested the title "Drunk and Drunker." I came up with a nickname for him, "Boozo the Clown." He thinks he has led the most interesting of lives. I would beg to differ but then again, I do not see the world through "beer goggles." I have much different viewpoint than he does. Boozo the Clown sounds like a bad kids show on The Simpson's. I do not see myself writing his memoirs. I would have to get drunk first.

Common Courtesy

I have always considered it a common courtesy if you are going to hold an "event" and you actually want people to show up, you need to extend an invitation a couple of weeks ahead of time, so people will know what is going on. I think it is rude behavior to send someone a text message a day before you are planning something and expect you to be there. I have prior commitments I have to honor because I made those commitments. That seemed like a simple choice to me. The other party asked first and I accepted. Those are my plans, love them or hate them, I made a commitment.

Strippers And Porn Stars Part III

A lot of strip clubs have Porn Stars come in and do "feature" dances where they have the stage all to themselves for about an hour or so two or three times a night. They typically sign autographs and pose for pictures with their fans after their performances, for a fee of course, and most of them seem to make lots of money.

Most Porn Stars have huge ego's to go along with their huge boobs and that is why I have always preferred the local dancers in the clubs. I have seen some big names over the years- 1980's Porn Star Ginger Lynn, Jenna Jameson, Tera Patrick, and Kaylani Lei. Kaylani Lei was my favorite of those. She had a great stage show and she was the only one I met after her show. She seemed like a genuinely nice person and probably talked to me one-on-one for about ten minutes.

I have also seen some interesting feature acts at strip clubs. There was Roxy Leroux who advertised herself as the "world's tallest stripper" and she was 6'10" with her heels on. She was very pretty but she had legs for days. There was Alyssa Alps with 54 triple somethings and I saw her at a club called The Landing Strip in Greenville, SC. She came out and danced exclusively to country music. I do not know if that was her favorite type of music or she thought country music might appeal to us dumb hicks, but I only know of one other dancer that performed to country music and I have been going to strip clubs for twenty years.

I guess the moral to this story is to go local and to buy local (so to speak). I have met some beautiful women over the years at the local clubs that would really put these feature acts to shame and I am glad they decided to stick around.

Strippers And Porn Stars Part II

Strip Clubs are the ultimate places for guys to hang out. You can hang out with your friends, drink a beer or two, and get a few lap dances from your favorite entertainer. There was always a certain etiquette that my friend and I tried to follow and that was always built around respect for the dancer.

Dancing in a strip club is a vocation she chose and she is there to try to earn a living. That being said, it is also my money and I get to choose who I spend it on so the respect needs to be a mutual thing. I am more apt to spend money on a dancer who shows a willingness to sit down and talk with me for a few minutes and make an effort to get to "know" me. The girls that blow by and ask if I want a dance and never say a word to me is a real downer. There is a lot to be said for the art of conversation.

I have met a lot of interesting dancers over the years. I have met several that were in law school and they almost made me want to get arrested but, not in the club, and I needed to wait until they got out of Law School. I met another girl who had double majored in Chemical Engineering and Biology at North Carolina State and yet she made more money dancing. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person but she made me feel like my Master's Degree Diploma was written in crayon. I met one girl recently who believed in reincarnation. She believed she had been a 12 year old Polish girl in a Concentration Camp in WW II. It was a real pleasure talking to these women and they went far beyond the realm of just being dancers.

Strippers and Porn Stars Part I

A blogger friend of mine and I were talking the other night and we were talking about ways to make our blogs better and how to expand our readership. We were talking about who we wanted our audience to be and who we were writing for, what age group, what kind of marketing we could do, and things like that. I have always been told to "write what you know." I know sports, history, and surprisingly enough, strip clubs. I know them from the customers point of view and it is always different from the outside looking in.

I started writing a book about mine and a friend's strip club experiences about three years ago. We went on a five day strip club binge about ten years ago and had a fantastic time. It was lap dances and VIP's from afternoon until late into the night.

Strippers are unique people. I became pretty good friends with some of them and still stay in touch with a few. I became well known throughout the strip clubs in Charlotte and still have a few that remember me even though I only get to Charlotte about once a year now. I am usually remembered for my silver, colored salt-and-pepper hair and the fact that I am a nice and respectful guy. I can live with all of that.

Life And Philosophy

Me and a Thai friend of mine were having a discussion the other day (she thinks I should move to Bangkok) and she is, by nature, very philosophical. I don't know if that is because she is a practicing Buddhist but every once in a while, she comes up with a philosophy that makes perfect sense. Today she told me if "If you stay in the same place, you will continue to have the same problems." A very simple but powerful statement. That statement can apply to life, to work, to school, or relationships. Moving to Bangkok would be very extreme for me but to quote the rock group AC/DC maybe I need to "Shake my foundation" a little.

Wino

The Late Richard Pryor used to do a routine he called "Wino." It was about the neighborhood wino and Pryor basically walked you through a typical day in the life of the wino and the wino's exchanges with people that lived in the neighborhood as he staggered through on his way home.

My exchanges with my alcoholic roommate are not closed to being that funny but I guess it is more of a sad/funny situation. There are days when I come home from work and I really just want to hear the sound of silence. With my roommate, I am never that lucky. I am never, ever that lucky.

When I get home from work in the afternoon, my roommate is sitting on the coffee table (why use a couch or a chair? He does have the decency to have a seat cushion on the coffee table) drinking his Milwaukee's Best Ice out of the can through a straw watching bad "B" movies on the SyFy network. When he has had enough of those, he watches every "Judge" show on TV that luckily for me comes on back-to-back-to-back-to-back. He thinks he has watched enough of those shows to where he could pass the Bar Exam. I doubt that he has passed many bars. If you are going to be delusional, be delusional big.

When he is really drunk, my roommate finds religion. That was also in Richard Pryor's "Wino" skit. "Yeah, I know Jesus. I remember when the boy got kilt. It was on a Friday.... down by the Railroad Depot. I tried to warn him. I said Boy, don't you go down there fucking with them Jews without no money." My roomie wants to slur his religious convictions to me and I realize "thou shall not get sauced" is not a Commandment, but I still find something wrong with that picture. I also get to hear about how his uncle was an ex-Mafia member turned Baptist Preacher. Luckily for me, my roomie has one of his sermons on tape. He makes me listen to that with him "for inspiration." The only thing it inspires me to do is to get up and leave.

Roomie is blessed with no shame, a cast iron stomach, and an amazingly resilient liver. I should be so lucky.

Boobs, Beer, And Basketball

This weekend was made for guys. Those guys. I have a three day weekend and I plan to fill it with boobs, beer, and basketball. Going to a strip club and watching a sporting event can be a real experience. Having a mostly naked woman sitting on your lap is the ultimate fan experience. Most strip clubs have big screen TVs and the key is to get there a little bit early so you can get a good seat, get a beer, and a enjoy a few lap dances before the game begins. If the game your watching is going real well you can even squeeze in a lap dance during commercial breaks. If your team wins, celebrate with a trip to the VIP Room. Go to your favorite strip club this weekend, drink some beer, watch some college basketball, and definitely see some boobs. It is ACC Tournament weekend and my North Carolina Tarheels have already made it to the semifinals. I know the perfect way to celebrate.

Drunk And Drunker

My alcoholic roommate wants me to write his Autobiography because he has had such a fascinating life and believes his story is worth telling. When I told a mutual friend of ours this, he suggested the title of the work be Drunk And Drunker. I thought that was funny.

My roommate believes that every story he tells is completely fascinating and just may include the meaning of life somewhere within its fabric. His Uncle was a member of Al Capone's gang until he turned Baptist Preacher, and that is just one of many. He has made me sit down and listen to the tape of his Uncle speaking to a congregation many times. Every time I listen to it, he swears I have never heard it before.

My roommate is right about one thing and that is there is a small part of me that would like to live his life. I would like to be able to sit around and drink my self senseless every day, not have to worry about work or any responsibilities at all, and depend on the kindness and support of life long friends to make it through life. Being a responsible adult really does suck and I wish I could stay drunk and drunker.

Staying drunk all of the time also includes the ability to have an excuse ready every time something goes wrong in your life, an excuse everyone should believe because it is the gospel and is the ticket to get out of everything. When the book comes to an end, all you have is a trail of empty beer cans and an emptier life.

Crashing The Family Reunion

It was late in the last semester of my Senior year in college and graduation was only about two or three weeks away. My friend Stan and I epitomized poor college students. We did not have two nickels to rub together between the two of us.

We were driving around Boone early one Sunday afternoon and we saw a sign for a family reunion at one of the local parks. I didn't think anything of it and Stan turned to me and asked in that deep, gravelly voice of his "You hungry?"

"Hell yes. I guess it is going to be peanut butter sandwiches again."

"Nah,let's see if anybody in this family can cook." He pulled into a parking place at the family reunion and he said "Follow my lead. He quickly added, "What is the worst they can do? Kick two hungry, upstanding college students like ourselves out?"

We tried out best to blend in, listened to a few bits of conversations and figures out that if anyone asked, we were Uncle Joe's second cousins from Virginia and we were indeed students at Appalachian State.

We were doing pretty well but some of the family members started getting suspicious when Stan was stuffing fried chicken legs in his pants pockets on about our fifth trip through the serving line and we quickly made our escape after that. We had a great meal, met some new friends, and adopted a family all at the same time. If would have only been right if we would have shown up the next year as well but we didn't.