Play Ball. It's Tradition.

My Dad – who grew up loving baseball and was a pretty good pitcher – was on the verge of playing for St. Louis when he was drafted into the army. Dad came out of World War II with a bad shrapnel wound to the head that forever ruined his pitching and, consequently, his dream of playing in the major leagues. But Dad never lost his love for baseball.  He also loved watching football.  He couldn’t care less about basketball because a) he never went to college and b) he was kind of an Archie Bunker, and there were just too many non-white players in basketball.

Mom, sadly, had no interest in sports. She was clueless.  If I had told her the Indians were playing baseball in December and were wearing brown and orange uniforms, she would have believed it.  The only time she noticed a televised game was when there something else she wanted to watch on TV; then it was a source of profound irritation.  During a football game she’d ask, “How much longer is this going to be on?” and then Dad and I would tell her, “Don’t worry, they just sounded the two-minute warning.” Of course, then we’d laugh like hell when Mom actually thought that meant “two minutes.”

Sadly, not one of his three children inherited Dad’s athleticism.  My brother hated all sports; I’m not sure why, but I think it’s because playing in any sport requires some degree of focus in order to not die, and Bill has never had any focus.  When he was a child, he would throw objects up into the air and watch them plummet to earth, ultimately landing on top of his skull (maybe could that be considered a legitimate sport? Bonk Ball?). Bill also loved getting wasted (buzz ball?) and finding creative ways to elude law enforcement (fuzz ball?)*. As for my sister – well, she always got bored too quickly.  The day I took Dad to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, Barb spent the afternoon shopping and dining on pancakes.  Barb likes to tell me that perhaps she would consider sitting through a game if the players had to juggle knives while running the bases, or if the outfielders had to catch the ball while whistling and hopping on one foot.  (Apparently, Barb has no interest in a sporting event unless there’s some element of immediate danger and/or personal humiliation involved.)

Out of the three kids, I came the closest to sharing Dad’s appreciation of our national pastime. I wasn’t athletic enough to be much good at playing softball and baseball (although I enjoyed it – translation - it was one of the few gym activities that didn’t make me puke), but I was a great spectator.  I loved watching baseball on TV with my father, and can remember how much fun I had going downtown to the old stadium to see players like Joe Charboneau, Buddy Bell, Andre Thornton and Dennis Eckersley. Oh, and I was totally in love with Duane Kuiper (as were most of the girls at Willowick Junior High), but he ran off and married somebody else, so it’s best we don’t talk about him again. 

Now, given this was Cleveland, I probably don’t have to tell you that the Indians sucked back then (for any out-of-towners reading this, it’s safe to assume that if a sports team was in Cleveland, it had way many more bad years than good).  It was considered a decent year if we finished in fifth place. Also, the Indians didn’t have the luxury of playing in a park that was intended for baseball, like Jacobs Field (sorry, but I’m not calling it Progressive Field, now or ever, and you can't make me). Back then the Tribe played baseball in a football stadium, so with the exception of Opening Day or the weekend the Yankees were in town, the place was mostly a yawning sea of empty chairs dotted with an occasional cluster of drunken fans.  I can remember how easily my friends and I annoyed the crap out of centerfielder Rick Manning because we wouldn’t stop yelling insults from the bleachers.  Ah, those were the days.  We were young and we stupidly and optimistically believed a losing team could still perform miracles. Also, that’s where and when we finally got to drink beer (which probably accounted for much of the afore-mentioned stupidity/optimism).

Of course, baseball wasn’t always a bust. I did get to see Len Barker’s perfect game on television (and wrote about it in my diary because hey, even back then I knew I’d probably never see another one!).  I do recall 1995 and 1997 when the Indians went to the World Series … and even though the Tribe wasn’t victorious, this town finally got to be happy and optimistic (without having the “stupidly” attached to it).  Also, the Indians had really memorable, nice-guy players in the 90s: Orel Hershiser, Charlie Nagy, and Omar Vizquel, among others.  It was just a fun time to be a fan. 

Not for Dad, of course.  Dad didn’t watch sports to have “fun” in the traditional sense … he just loved to bitch, and he found reason to bitch about everybody, no matter how fleetingly fantastic they were.  There I’d be, cheering on Jim Thome during a season when he was trying for 50 homeruns, and Dad’s contribution was generally, “He’s too fat - they should get rid of him.”  Everybody was “awful,” “terrible,” “sickening,” or “pathetic.”  And yet... if a game was on television... he never missed it.  I think Dad somehow found tremendous joy in criticizing base-running, crotch-scratching millionaires.

(I, of course, am nothing like him, and I am certainly thankful for that.)

But Dad didn’t confine his rancor to baseball.  I watched football games with him as well – well, at least up until halftime.  Dad often missed the ends of Browns games because Sam Rutigliano or Bill Belichick or (insert any name of a luckless head coach) was “awful,” “terrible,” “sickening” or “pathetic.”  (If those guys had needed to run anywhere, I’m sure “too fat” would have been thrown in there as well.) Usually Dad would fly into a rage over the Browns’ predictable “run-run-pass” offense and, fearing he’d have a heart attack, would spend the second half of the games puttering outside in his garage.  Then, when it was all over, he’d wander in and casually ask me who won.  If the Browns won, he’d grunt and saunter back outside to rake a leaf, shovel dog poop or avoid my mother. But if the Browns lost, then he’d laugh sadistically and shout, “Good!” “Good for ‘em!  That’s good! I hope they lose every game! They’re ______!”  (Insert “awful,” “terrible,” “sickening” or “pathetic.”)

And no, football wasn’t always a bust.  We never made it to the big show during my conscious lifetime, but we came close. Those were exciting times. Of course, then somebody from another team would intercept the ball in the end zone or drive their offense 98 yards down the field and break our hearts all over again, but it was so much fun thinking “this time” would be different.

I guess I got to thinking about all this today when I was driving to work and heard the latest Indians’ commercial on the radio … it has something to do with “tradition.” I think maybe this marketing move is replacing the “What If?” campaign we heard all summer... at least until it became apparent the end of that sentence was, “the Indians crash and burn again this year?” But seriously – “tradition” – well, I’m kinda thinking they should have thought that one through.  Cleveland teams have a tradition of losing, and often losing at the last possible minute. Cleveland fans have a tradition of being amazing resilient and incredibly enthusiastic about mediocre to poor professional teams. We are a people who, in the face of awful, terrible, sickening and pathetic reality, still show up and believe that somehow it’s all going to change one day.  As we say goodbye to another disappointing season of baseball and try to believe another new quarterback is going to be the Chosen One who finally lifts our curse, we mentally prepare ourselves for yet more disappointment … because yes, that is our tradition.**

*My apologies to our esteemed law enforcement community. You guys are the greatest, and I’m sorry Bill put you through hell.

**Well, until this year.  This year we’re going to win the whole thing. I just know it.

Brenda, Barry and Blossom

"All my dreams are dead."  

This was my reaction upon receiving my ticket in the mail to see Barry Manilow at Blossom - a ticket for a last-row seat in the pavilion.  I was heart-broken and totally convinced that God hated my guts. Did He not know that Barry was the love of my life?  I had posters of this blue-eyed, golden-haired, sequin-suited superstar taped all over my bedroom walls. I played his "Live" album until my parents developed an irrational hatred of the man.  (To be fair, how many times can a reasonable person listen to the "You Deserve a Break Today" theme from McDonald's?) And that ticket had cost me a whopping nine bucks...money I had carefully saved up from babysitting my next-door neighbor's kids (one of whom reads this blog, I might add - you know who you are, Lynn!).  I had washed dishes for that money, pulled weeds for that money, and endured Dad's endless criticism of my lack of weed-pulling skills for that money. I suffered, man.  I suffered for Manilow.  And this was my reward? I deserved to sit in the front row.  No ... rather ... I deserved to be backstage, groveling at the feet of my first love, because of course nobody in the universe loved him more than I did.  Nobody.  Not his friends, not his mother, and not the God who created him. 



Of course, this was 1978, and I was 15 at the time.  I kept a diary back then, and those exact words - "all my dreams are dead" - still haunt me. Why?  Well, it's disturbing on way too many levels. For one thing, the writing was so embarrassingly bad. (Oh look, here's another diary entry where I dream of someday growing up and winning "bunches and bunches of Pulitzer Prizes.") For another, the dead dream phrase was not exaggerated.  That summer before my very first concert - Barry Manilow at Blossom Music Center - I thought of Barry during every waking moment. I counted the days until the show.  When it came to the sum total of every conscious fantasy I had, Barry was the one, the only, the beginning and the end. I was obsessed...consumed...and completely out of my mind.  

And, in 1978, no performer was bigger than Barry.  He sold out three nights at Blossom - including the lawn - to the tune of 60,000 seats. His songs were all over the radio; his album sales were insane; he even had his own television specials. (Back in the 70s, our "reality" TV was something called the "variety show," during which truly talented people would entertain us.  Those were some good days.) 

Even at school, Barry was a topic of conversation.  He was cool because he was uncool.  It's hard to explain, but in that era there seemed to be a backlash to just about everything. If Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were popular, disco was its opposite, and so disco became popular.  And if disco was popular, singer-songwriters like Manilow, John Denver, Neil Diamond and The Carpenters were disco's opposite, and so they became popular.  I don't think a lot of people understand how our society's collective mood swings back then contributed to a really interesting decade in music.

Because Barry sang songs that appealed to the vulnerable and insecure, many vulnerable and insecure teenagers loved him.  However, many equally vulnerable and insecure teenagers (who were presumably ashamed of these qualities) hated him, so the pro-Barry and no-Barry camps occasionally clashed.  My most vivid memory of this particular pimple popping involved a jukebox.  At North High, we had a commons area which served as a lunch room.  In the mornings, however, this was where the kids met to socialize and frantically copy each other's homework.  It was an area that had become increasingly attractive because the school had purchased a couple of arcade games: one was video football, the other Space Invaders.  Video games were brand new back then, and students used to get to school extra early just to have a shot at playing them.  Consequently, the area was constantly packed with kids pumping quarters into the jukebox that sat nearby.  (If there is anyone younger than 40 out there reading this, a "jukebox" was a great big box that contained something called "records" which used to contain actual "songs.")

As for the students, we pretty much fell under one of three labels:  jocks, browns or burnouts.  Jocks ... well, they were the popular kids, the athletes, the ones everyone else avoided.  Browns were the smart/creative kids ... the A students, the band members, the drama crowd, the ones everyone else avoided.  And then, finally, there were the burnouts ... the bad kids, the druggies, the ones who were always in trouble, and yes - the ones everyone else avoided.  


So ... my friends and I - "browning" our lives away at our usual table by the window - would listen to David Bowie, Boston, and the soundtrack from "Grease" with little complaint, but every morning - EVERY morning - we had to hear Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" played with sickening repetition.  To hear that thing played six times before the opening bell was not unusual; I think the burnouts (who surprisingly had lots of money) may have been trying to brainwash us.  For me, brain-bleeding was more accurate  Fortunately, we had successfully petitioned to have Barry Manilow's "Ready To Take A Chance Again" added to the box, so we decided (oh, who am I kidding, I decided), that for every time we had to listen to Floyd, they were going to listen to Manilow.  Well ... it didn't quite work out that way.  The very first week we tried to do this, the Floyd followers responded by banging the jukebox against the wall, causing Barry's record to skip.  Naturally, when Floyd came on, we did the same thing.  I vaguely recall this episode escalating into a shouting match with at least six students playing tug-of-war with the jukebox.  Sadly - but justifiably - we all got yelled at, and both Barry Manilow and Pink Floyd were forever banned from our  listening pleasure.  (Sorry, Barry - I meant well.)


At home, my parents just kept telling themselves my Manilow addiction was just some sort of hideous phase that was bound to magically end when I started acting like a normal teenager.  I'm not sure what a "normal" teenager would have been to my Mom and Dad, because they were constantly at war with my older brother and sister.  I think, though, my parents cherished some sort of twisted fantasy in which I would be this nice, stable kid who got A's, moved out of the house at 18, got married to some equally stable man and had a bunch of stable kids. When all that happened, maybe then I'd finally stop playing the "Live" album.  


But my Dad - who knew I was crazy - stupidly offered to drive me and my friends to Blossom to see Barry, which was kind of a big deal because none of us were old enough to drive yet.  He even sat in the parking lot during the show and waited for us.  I can still remember the sweet sound of Dad cussing non-stop when it took him two hours to get out of the Blossom parking lot, which embarrassed the hell out of me in front of my friends.  Dad sure could swear. He died in 2010. 


It's strange ... looking back on it all ... that I don't remember much from the actual show.  I'm pretty sure Barry was there - in all his gold-studded, white-jumpsuited glory - but I think the serotonin rush in my brain might have brought on a seizure that would explain the memory loss.  My diary entry from the day after isn't much help ... it's mostly incoherent babblings from somebody who might have just experienced the Rapture. But, in the end, all the suffering -- as only a 15-year-old can suffer -- was worth it.  


Here in 2012, it's 34 years later and yes, I have a ticket to see Barry Manilow at Blossom Music Center tonight (Aug. 2).  I never stopped being a fan ... probably because Barry never stopped performing, and I never stopped enjoying his performances.  I'm too old to care if Barry's cool. When it comes to temperature, I only care if I'm cool (especially at an outdoor venue in August).  My dreams and Barry have pretty much parted company over these last 34 years.  But tonight, when I sit back and listen to "Mandy," "Weekend In New England" and "I Write The Songs" one more time, I can close my eyes and, for a short precious while, pretend it's 1978 when nothing else mattered.  I know I'll have plenty of company during my time travel; I think Barry still sells out so many of his tour stops because the world is full of people who need to leave 2012 for awhile.  Tonight I'll be surrounded by lots of people who, like me, "deserve a break today."  We can all listen to his music and be 15 again. 

And maybe tonight I can even pretend that my Dad is still waiting for me in the parking lot. 

P.S.  Barry is still creating some incredible music.  Check out his latest single from "15 Minutes," his latest and greatest CD:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C72-IBJ1oxg

Two Weeks of TV Hell

Sorry about my mini blog break … I’ve spent the better part of the last two weeks doing rain dances out in the front yard.  As your brown lawns and dying flowers can attest, they haven’t worked.  I was walking barefoot in the back yard the other day and realized very quickly that it was a really awful, bad – I mean BAD – idea. Paper cuts on the bottom of the foot are not funny, even when they are a direct result of my stupidity. 

As for the drought, I see the weather gurus are again promising rain, as evidenced by last night’s FOX broadcast that went something like, “Thunderstorms are in the forecast! They’re coming! Really, this time we’re not lying to you! It’s going to rain and everything.  Maybe.  There’s a chance.  But it’s a GOOD chance.” (This may not be the exact quote, but you get the idea.) Of course, last week they told us the high temperature wouldn’t leave the 80s, and I understand it’s supposed to be 95 today.  Joy.  I’m considering having my cousin placed on suicide watch because her Saturn doesn’t have working air conditioning. 

And, these days, I mainly watch Dick Goddard.  The guy’s been around Cleveland television so long he’s like everybody’s surrogate grandpa.  He’s a really sweet guy and I love it that he’s into feeding animals and rescuing homeless cats and dogs, so if he’s wrong about the weather I can’t get too frustrated with him.

Anyway, the main point of this entry isn’t to bitch about the weather (although if I’m walking and breathing, how can I not?).   I want to stress that life in the dust bowl is a tad tough these days, and one of my few remaining joys is summer television. There was a time when I boycotted reality TV … now, apparently, I can’t live without it.  I’m not sure when that happened.  Yes, my brain melted sometime around the middle of June, but my addiction was in place long before then.  One nice thing about reality TV is that there’s plenty of it to watch while many other shows are in re-runs.  Hooray … I’m happy Somebody Somewhere figured out that many of us who don’t have lives from September thru May don’t suddenly become social butterflies in June, July and August.

Now, the Olympics start tomorrow, and I know a lot of folks are really looking forward to this every-four-year-event.  I am really happy for you guys, truly.  But I am not one of you. Don’t misunderstand me – I love the IDEA of the Olympics.  I love the whole Kumbaya-ness of the world’s best athletes getting together and competing for gold medals that are mostly silver (okay, what’s THAT all about?). I think it’s great that the adults of the world can unanimously get behind the idea we still need to play games and win at stuff.  And yes, when America wins a bunch of medals, I think it’s pretty cool that “we’ve” won those medals, even though “we” aren’t actually competing.  (I think the worldwide fascination with sports in general stems from mediocre human beings like myself needing to vicariously win at something, but I’ll save that for another post -- and another therapy session.)

And yes, I’ve been known to watch 10 or 20 minutes of gymnastics if I’m channel surfing and stumble across it, because I’m in total awe of humans who can do things that would otherwise kill me.  Even when I was a kid I couldn’t hang from the monkey bars at school without falling and cracking my head open on the concrete. But I don’t go out of my way to watch them … and I don’t watch them for long … because I truly can’t handle the circus quality of the event.  There are athletes doing stuff all over the place, so when I become aware that I’m only seeing what the camera happens to be pointing at, it sort of takes some of the fun out of it for me. For an easily distracted person, it’s not a great set-up. And, to make it all even more unappealing, the games are in London.  London’s a great city, and that’s great programming news for Europeans … but here in America, when we’re all coming home from work, we’re not going to see a lot of “live” action.  Thanks to the time difference, any primetime viewing is going to be tape-delayed and, let’s face it, if you really cared who won, wouldn’t you already have looked it up on the Internet … or had it streaming live to your iPad as it happened?  Also, while it’s great that current technology now allows everybody to view EVERYTHING (because I know there are people in the U.S. who can’t sleep until they know who won the gold in archery), you somehow have to prove you’re a cable subscriber if you want to log in for the live feeds.  If you care.  Which I don’t. But I like the IDEA of the Olympics being simple for people to access.  Complications upset me even when they don’t affect me simply because I know they’re out there.

But, honestly - beyond hoping to win crap at McDonald’s - the Olympic Games hold very little interest for me. Fortunately, they’re airing on NBC (WKYC here in Cleveland for most of us), which is good news for me. I don’t watch a lot of stuff on NBC, so at least I don’t have to worry about my summer TV addiction being disrupted by some goofus jumping off a cliff. 

You’d think, right?

Wrong.  I was watching “So You Think You Can Dance” like I do every Wednesday night when the hostess, Cat Deeley, announced some bad news: There will be no new shows for the next two weeks because of – ha ha – some little sporting event.  WHAT?  Did The Powers That Be in TV get together and (wrongly) decide that everybody is watching the Olympics anyway, so let’s just dump re-runs out there?  Or is there some sort of Olympics non-compete clause (that would be ironic, wouldn’t it?) that the programming gods have to honor?  Or are we being forced to watch weightlifters and high-adventure sailing competitions because these same gods got together and decided we should?

Maybe it’s the advertisers’ fault.  Somehow  - if there’s disgruntlement abounding in TV land – isn’t it always their fault?  If they’re the source of money, you know somehow they have to be the source of this inexplicable evil.    

So … the next two weeks are going to be a bear.  It’s still not raining (uh … the sun is SHINING, Dick. Hello? Put down that puppy and tell me why that is, please) so I imagine I’ll be spending my evenings outside with the garden hose not watching the Olympics. 

Hope “we” win stuff.    

Links:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/weird-olympic-facts_n_1701690.html

http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2012/07/24/sports/nh5766016.txt

Puff Me Up!

Hey, boys and girls – to start off today’s blog post, here’s a pop quiz.  See if you can guess what all these have in common:

H.R. Pufnstuf (Sid & Marty Krofft Saturday TV show from the 70s)

Violet Beauregarde (“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”)

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (“Ghostbusters”)

and...

Randy wearing the snow suit in “A Christmas Story”

Give up?  

Not one of these characters was ever more swollen and puffy than I am.  

Today’s discussion is about allergies … or, in other words, why God has put this curse on my immune system.  I go to Mass every week.  I DO try.  So what’s up with that?

Okay …. He doesn’t hate me, I know that.  I just tend to get a little frustrated when I can’t remember what my ankles used to look like.  And, given that I’ve been living on Claritin D for the past six weeks, I don’t think I’ve slept for more than four straight hours during any given 24-hour period.  I need to breathe. I need to go to work.  Everything else is secondary. I know the constant buzzing in my ears is annoying, and I do wish the voices in my head would stop, but I figure there will be time for that in the winter.  December is a nice, calm month.  Nothing ever happens in December, right?  

Okay, I do realize I’m not special.  Years ago, a doctor in Willoughby told me that he’d never met any native Clevelanders who could breathe out of both sides of their noses at the same time. He said it had something to do with living by Lake Erie. Of course, I also recently had a doctor tell me – after extensive allergy testing – that the only thing I was officially allergic to was cockroaches. Now … my house doesn’t have roaches. I’ve never seen a roach in this house.  But, ever since the test results, it’s given me something new and horrible to think about when I turn out the lights and try to go to sleep every night.  What if there ARE roaches but I don’t see them?  Do they swarm at night?  Are they plotting with the spiders who live in the garage?  And if they’re here, why isn’t Miss Kitty stepping up and informing me? Oh, I forgot – she’s too busy attacking the vermin living in the Invisible Realm.  I see her pouncing on things that aren't there and I can't figure out if she's seeing things, I'm seeing things, or if that thousand legger is still running around the living room (those little devils are hard to see).

So I ponder these things, lying in the dark.  Know how kids worldwide fear the monsters living under their beds?  They don’t know how good they’ve got it.  I've decided that living longer doesn't make the monsters go away, it just makes them more creative in coming up with ways to kill me.

But back to my allergy issues.  I know what you’re saying (because I’m psychic as well as delusional):

“Are you drinking enough water, Brenda?”

“Are you eating too much salt, Brenda?”

“Have you stopped drinking caffeine, Brenda?”

“Why are you always writing about bugs?”

And my answers, of course, would be, “Absolutely … not at all … of course… and Because I Like It." And then I’d pause and suck down yet another Diet Coke and chase it with two cans of Spicy V-8 juice because nothing else feels good when I’m depressed and it’s this hot outside.  

Yes, I realize water’s important … but it tastes terrible, I’m sorry, it just does.  You know how we’re all supposed to drink, I don’t know, twenty liters a day? (which would be the equivalent of what’s sloshing around my joints?) If I’m lucky,  I can drink a couple small bottles without gagging.  I’ve tried dumping fruity powders in the stuff but, with every swallow, I feel like I’m being punished for something.  And yet, okay, I know it’s good for me.  Diet Coke, on the other hand, is not.  I’m positive my ol’ pal “DC” is directly responsible for that massive kidney stone I had surgically removed while I was working in Miami a few years ago.  And, when I’m having a rare, objective, out-of-body experience while I’m drinking it, I realize I’d probably live longer drinking battery acid.  Diet Coke is my best friend and is not good for me.  On the other hand, I've always had a history of choosing friends who are a little messed up and probably not all that good for me either.   At least my fun friends fit that description. 

And don’t get me started on the V-8.  There are five foods on this earth I would never give up even if you promised me a million bucks for doing it: shrimp, lobster, chocolate, V-8 and tropical-flavored Smarties. It’s really sad and pathetic not one member of the fruits and vegetables family made that Top Five (unless you count the V-8, but I think that’s kind of pushing it).  Sure explains a lot, though.

As for salt, well, I don’t see it.  I mean … c’mon …. How much sodium could a tiny little 5-ounce can of Spicy V-8 have, right? 20mg? 30? 50? 330?  (Guess which stinking number is the right one).  This is just so not fair.  Shouldn’t the drawings of the colorful vegetables on the can automatically cancel out some of the life-shortening essence of this magical drink?  And I never use a salt shaker, not even when I’m eating Campbell's Soup or General Tso's from Chin's Pagoda.  So really, how could I possibly have salt issues?  

I could give up the caffeine, but we all know that’s so not going to happen.

The drugs help a little.  I’m not a big fan of Zyrtec, but my sister is.  As long as all my Claritins have a “D” at the end, I can survive.  I also have a colorful collection of various snot-blasters sitting in my medicine chest. But I really miss the Dr. Neil nasal rinse I used to use. I had total faith in the stuff until some news show reported that a few people were getting fatal brain infections from amoebas swimming in the tap water.  (Is an amoeba a bug?  If it can kill you, it should be).

Changing my diet seems to be the most logical plan of attack.  But, given that I’m willing to make exactly zero compromises with my current lifestyle, I guess I’m stuck looking like Jabba The Hutt every time spring and summer rolls around (which is what I’ll be doing on the floor if this gets any worse).  Still, it could be, in fact,  a lot worse.  Years ago, when I had to take steroids for my uveitis, I turned into a human blowfish. When my sister visited from California that winter, she took one look at me and cried. 

What's Bugging Me Today

This morning I woke up at 6 a.m., turned on the news and sat in the living room chair, waiting for consciousness to kick in.  This is my daily routine.  This morning, however, while I was staring off into space waiting to care, I spotted a thousand-legger scurrying across the carpet.  Now… I like to name the insects I encounter, because it makes me feel guilty after I bludgeon them to death with the heel of my shoe.  I could have chased Bob down if I had been 20 years younger and my legs weren’t still sleep-frozen. Or, Miss Kitty could have pursued a new toy if she weren’t 15 years old and no longer giving a shit about anything except sleeping in the sun and mooching food off my plate.   So, without conflict, Bob darted behind the sofa and hopefully, if he knew what was good for him, committed suicide.  

Having lived in other parts of the country, I’ve come to realize not everybody gets to enjoy the company of these rotten little centipedes, so I’ve included a photo.

"Hi, I'm Bob!"

Isn’t he cute?  Now, I realize centipedes are supposed to be our friends, because they eat loads of other disgusting things, like spiders (who are all secretly plotting to kill me, by the way), flies, ants, and other assorted vermin.  But they’re nicknamed  “thousand-leggers” for a reason … they’ve got all those skinny legs flailing around, they climb on anything, and they mindlessly run around without really caring if they’re heading out the door or up my pant leg. The only thing worse than smashing Bob with a shoe (which then involves hauling out the Shop-Vac) is drenching him with something sticky. The Aussie Instant Freeze I use on my hair is effective, but then poor Bob has to slink off into the Insect Afterlife while leaving several of his stuck-to-the-floor, ghoulishly detached legs behind him.  It’s as gross as it sounds. 

For me, bugs have always been lumped into four categories: pretty bugs (like butterflies and lightning bugs), annoying bugs (like houseflies and certain unnamed male relatives), icky bugs (centipedes, bed bugs, mantises … mantii?  What’s the plural? Do you know? Do I care?) and bugs that are secretly out to kill me (spiders and anything from the bee/wasp/hornet family). 

I know I’m not alone.  Maybe you hate Bob as much as I do.  Maybe you’re sitting out there trying not to feel like something’s crawling up your back. (Oh stop ... there's nothing there.  Really.)

When I used to be an apartment dweller, it wasn’t too bad … well, okay, I’m lying, the balconies at Shoregate Towers used to be a haven for spiders.  I’m not sure if it was because the buildings were so close to Lake Erie, but I never once sat on my balcony.  My brother – who has been bitten by poisonous ants, snakes and spiders several times in his life (he made it, but I understand they all died) – would sit out there, smoke, and see how many spiders he could kill using his hand.  This was his idea of Saturday night fun.  Me, I can’t even squish one with a tissue because I’m convinced it could somehow crawl out of my grasp and kill me.

I’m not sure where the fear of bugs started.  I’ve had spider-infested nightmares ever since I was bitten as an infant, so that might be part of it.  Or maybe stepping on a bee when I was four and spending that 4^th of July watching fireworks with my foot taped up has stayed with me too long.  Oh, and then there was the time a bee stung my back while I was on the freeway driving home from work several years ago. I think, however, the worst influence had to be a horrible Saturday morning TV show I watched while growing up in the 70s.  Anybody remember this Sid & Marty Krofft classic?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bugaloos

It had these goofy people dressed up in puffy, Technicolor bug costumes complete with antennae and wings. I still remember parts of the theme song … It went something like:

“The Bugaloos!

The Bugaloos!

They’re in the air and everywhere!

On the loose …

Out of sight …

In your hair …”

(That might not be exactly right, but that’s kinda how I remember it).

I put it to you … who wouldn’t be screwed up after that kind of programming? 

Living in a house these past two years hasn’t made things much easier.  For some reason, spiders just love me.  They spin webs all over my car (even after I’ve had it washed and detailed) and the overhead beams in the basement are infested with them.  I’ve called exterminators, but then the spiders just temporarily move out to the garage where they hold block parties and laugh at my idiocy.  I always imagine a scene similar to the one from the Hitchcock angry bird move, where all the spiders are just spinning their webs and plotting my destruction.  “Okay, Lois … so…you know the plan for today? You’re going to drop on her head when she comes in for the birdseed while Richard jumps on her hand and tries to kill her.”

Still … it could be worse.  I used to live in Florida where, let’s face it, every day was like Jurassic Park.  Alligators crossed the street, flying cockroaches dive-bombed our picnics and I spent the entire time I was there watching the ground when I walked, because Death By Fire Ant wasn't as uncommon as it damn well ought to have been.  At least in Ohio a person can walk barefoot in the grass, and there's something disturbing about a world where you can't do that.