Lab Coats and the Tiny Green Art Smock

I’m thinkin’ I’m invisible. Yup. Invisible. I drive a big black truck but no one sees me on the road. I go out to eat with my wife and get the humbling feeling that I’m making noises like the teacher from a Snoopy cartoon when I talk. And last night one of the shedders that I share my home with (under protest) ran headlong into my leg as I stood in the kitchen.

Invisible.

I’ve reached the not so enviable point in life where young people stare vacantly or roll their eyes when I talk, middle-agers tune me out, and short-timers crash into me when I stand patiently in checkout lines. No kidding, it’s as if when oldies reach the age of AARP, lime green spandex, and fear of bathing they lose all sense of spatial awareness. The other day I had a large heavy-breathing older fella stand so close behind me in line at the post office that I could feel his hot McDonalds breath on the back of my head. And I checked my wallet a few times because whatever he had in his hand – I’m hoping mail – kept touching the back of my pants.

 

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Frolicking Curmudgeon

Uh oh. Does everyone know what season it is? It’s here. The much anticipated Christmas Hallmark Channel season or what I refer to as the season of TV love triangles, tears, snowball fights, and hot chocolate. And much like the artificial world of afternoon soaps, Hallmark’s snow globe reality sets an expectation for holiday frolicking to which an employed guy – without access to a personal helicopter, yacht, hotel chain, or royal lineage – might have a problem measuring up.

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Festusitis

That’s it. I’m gonna start talkin’ like Festus Haggen. (If you don’t know the name, Google it.) He had his own little language going on, yet everyone seemed to understand what he was saying. I, on the other hand, have reached the ghostlike status of verbal invisibility, even when making an exaggerated effort to annunciate.

Siri started it, forcing me to focus on my lip movements to form words like a frightened immigrant. But it doesn’t matter. Either from lack of interest or short attention, my apparent semi-intelligible yammering is met with confusion. Even my wife’s dog stares at me in bewilderment with her head cocked, apparently thinking, “Did the giant say ‘TREAT?’ I think I heard ‘treat.’ Yeah, yeah… it was definitely ‘treat.’ So where’s my treat?”

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Raise A Shoe In Solidarity!

I’ve always maintained that there’s no such thing as a bad kid or a bad dog. They just need different levels of finesse. I say that having raised several dogs, a girl and a boy, and coaching kids of all ages. There are however, more and more rotten parents whose apparent structure-deprived lifestyles enable zoo-like behavior from their youngins. Continue reading “Raise A Shoe In Solidarity!”

Frog Soup

I think I’m tolerant. Mostly. I mean, I get kinda frustrated when I go through the McDonalds drive through for a medium coffee and routinely get the wrong change, but only because I’m pretty sure there’s a screen that recommends how many pennies, quarters, and ones to give back from a five when my coffee costs a buck-twenty-six. I’ve even tried to make it easy, digging in my change cup for a quarter and a penny to hand with a five-dollar bill. But my success ratio is dismal. I got $3.81 back today. Not $4.00, $3.81. I assume the difference was a tip. I couldn’t muster the energy to attempt to explain it to the cashier.

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