Observations in Miniature: Different Drivers

If you see yourself amongst these people it might be time to change your driving habits.

Granny Driver – If the only part of your body that I can see when I’m behind you is your knuckles on the steering wheel and the floral arrangement on your hat then you might be too shriveled and old to drive. The lines on the road are there for a reason. Your car is not a pinball that can careen happily back and forth over three lanes hitting the guard rails and bouncing back into traffic. Here’s a clue, that 1962 decommissioned aircraft carrier on wheels without power steering that you drive and can’t seem to control needs to be dry docked, yes, sent to that great resting place for over the hill vessels and stripped down and the excess scrap metal used to build a wing on the new children’s hospital. I’m sure you make great cookies and someone out there loves their granny but the fact is that you’re a horrible fucking driver and I’d feel a lot safer with you behind a pair of knitting needles than the wheel of a car.

Middle Aged Corvette Guy – I don’t know what’s shinier the bold spot on your head or the wax job on your cherry red Corvette. For God’s sake button up your shirt, I could stuff three throw pillows with all the chest hair hanging out of it. And that gold chain with the medallion on it that’s blowing up in your face in the wind isn’t helping matters, it makes you look like a retired porn star. Do you feel the need for speed? Are you randy from the Viagra cocktail you just ingested with the Bloody Mary? Here’s a clue you aren’t going to hook up with a hot 21 year old babe no matter how much pheromone cologne you douse yourself with so stop cursing night clubs and start cruising the retirement village, the women there, many of whom use walkers, won’t be able to run away from you like everyone else does.

Monster Truck Guy – Yeah, Mopar, I get it you’re car part savvy. Nice decal of a guy peeing on the window on the back of your cab. How original, a W 04 and an American Flag bumper sticker on your tailgate. You have a lot in common with George Bush don’t you? Do you guys get together and discuss how getting rid of the dividend tax has allowed you to expand your investment portfolio? Oh, you don’t have an investment portfolio? Stupid me. When it’s snowing out and you pass me going 75 mph do you really think that even with your 40 inch super knobby tires you are going to be able stop on a sheet of ice? No? So, slow the fuck down because the person you hit could be me and if you do I sincerely hope you kill me because if you don’t I’m going to get out and strangle you with that stupid Rebel flag hanging in the window of your cab.


Sports Car Punk - You are not Vin Diesel and no matter how many fins and pieces of plastic you super glue to your Honda Accord it will never be a Ferrari. And yes, I am giving you a dirty look. You just passed me doing 125 mph in your tuna can on wheels and nearly ran me off the road. You are not playing a video game and the world isn’t out to get you, that’s the carbon monoxide talking, which is leaking into your car from that loud muffler you “self-installed” on your car. Here’s a clue, instead of working 60 hours a week to buy new accessories for your $2000 dollar car why don’t you study and get good grades, go to college, and then become something? Then you really will be able to buy a Ferrari and will become something else other than a pain in my ass whenever I drive through the Giant parking lot.

Seat too far back guy – Does your car have a front seat home slice? Why does it look like you’re driving sitting in the back seat? Are you wearing stilts so you can touch the gas pedal and breaks? Take your feet off the dashboard, you might need them to stop your car and turn down the fucking bass on your stereo, my coffee cup just vibrated out of its holder. I get it, you’re laid back, too cool for the front seat, there’s a bigger party going on in the back seat, but you’re not really driving your car are you? You’re improvising, lunging forward when you need to stop and straining like a mother fucker to even get the tips of your fingers to touch the steering wheel. Improvising is fine in Jazz or even when your boat is leaking and you plug the hole with a hotdog roll but when you’re driving it can be deadly so be a big boy and move up to the front seat so we all feel a little safer on the road.

Minivan Momma –Your days of driving like a maniac were over the day junior’s umbilical cord was cut so don’t try to pass me with twelve kids in that underpowered three cylinder minivan from 1985, you’re just going to sit in the passing lane unable to build up enough speed to beat the old guy on the side of the road in a wheelchair. You didn’t just cut me off and then flip me the finger did you? Calm down, try to show some restraint in front of the horde, I’m not trying to beat you to Chucky Cheese, there will still be pizza there if you’re ten minutes late. And please put some clothing on, you’re not Hugh Hefner, stop wearing your pajamas when you’re running around town, coupled with your unkempt appearance you look like a deranged circus clown. Be careful and remember the little ones in the back of your minivan are the future of our country…God help us...

Observations in Miniature: People in the Gym II

If you see yourself amongst these people it might be time to change your gym habits.

Naked Guy – For God’s sake throw a towel over yourself when you’re in the locker room, it is not a nudist retreat. If you want to be naked in front of people do a Google search under “exhibitionist” and find a healthy alternative for your weird behavior. I don’t want to look up from tying my shoes to see your unit swaying in the breeze. You are the reason I spend only nano seconds in the locker room. Some men like to walk naked amongst other men and actually search out places where other men can be found naked. They are GAY and maybe you are too! And if you insist on sitting on the benches for God’s sake please put a towel down first or better yet put some fucking clothes on.

Mr. Upper Body –Evidently you bought your Arnold Schwarzenegger Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding at a fire sale and the section on legs was burned away because your lower extremities look like they belong to an anorexic nun. When the circumference of your biceps is equal to that of your thighs it might be time to give up some of the time you spend on power curls and do a few sets of squats. Of course this could make you sweat and disrupt that avant-garde gel creation that is holding your hair sculpture up but in the end you won’t look like you traded legs with Don Knotts and women won’t be laughing behind your out of proportion back.


Ms. Steroids- Is that a beard or are do you moonlight as a chimney sweep and forgot to wash the soot off your chin this morning? Here’s a clue women aren’t supposed to have beards or testosterone levels higher than a 340 lbs NFL lineman. That bulge in your pants that looks like a trouser weasel is your clitoris which has grown large enough from your anabolic adventures to be noticed from across the gym. Don’t you think it’s odd that they moved you to baritone in your church choir? The science experiment is complete, you proved you can turn yourself into a man, now get off the juice before you start to look even more like the Reverend Al Sharpton than you already do.

Mrs Mom and Mr. Dad – First and foremost the gym is not a playground for underprivileged children. Do not bring your kids to the gym and let them hang from the lat pulldown and swing like drunken acrobats. This is neither amusing nor original; monkeys have been doing it for millions of years. If you want people to see how cute your children are make them sit at the protein drink bar and memorize the Gettysburg Address. Then, after my workout, when I’m getting a protein drink I’ll listen intently to them quote Abraham Lincoln. Otherwise lock them in your minivan or leave them at home locked in a closet but don’t bring them to the gym.

Neurotic talking guy – When I’m in the middle of a set of squats and the veins are popping out of my forehead don’t tell me about how you had to take your cat to the vet last night because it wouldn’t eat for a week. First off I hate cats and second of all I DON”T CARE! I’m sure what you have to say would be interesting to someone that has been stranded on a deserted island for thirty years and is starved for conversation of any type but I’m not that person. You’ve stretched my 45 minute workout into an hour and a half because you can’t keep your pie hole shut. I have a solution to your verbal diarrhea. Go see a therapist. You pay this person to listen to your boring stories and then they actually say something back to you which in case you haven't noticed is how a conversation is carried out!

Mr. Gear – Do you really need a Nike backpack with a thirty piece endurance silverware set to complete your wimpy circuit training? Do you really think a four hundred dollar pair of suction cup sneakers is going to help you dunk a basketball? Is that two hundred dollar silk Adidas sweat shirt with Pele’s name stitched in gold on the back going to get you the hot chick in spandex doing the Butt Blaster? Are you even listening to that $600 dollar Ipod strapped to your arm or are you just pretending to listen to it and are really trying hear if anyone is talking about how cool you look? If you answered no to all these above questions you are well on your way to recovery. If you answered yes to even one of these questions then you have serious gear issues and need to refocus your energies on your physique, particularly that big roll around your midsection and your third chin because when those hand stitched Terrell Owens Body Armour underwear come off you’ll have only your original gear for women to focus on and by the looks of you they will be sorely dissapointed.


Treadmill foot smacker – okay jackass quit fucking smacking your feet when you’re running on the treadmill. It is perhaps the most annoying sound I’ve ever heard in my life and you’re treading dangerously close to me grabbing you by your thin runner’s neck and snapping it. We all see you’re using perfect form and that you’re throwing your long legs out like a giraffe and hoisting your elbows up properly like a Nazi storm trooper. Now, slow the fuck down like a normal human being and quit making a spectacle of yourself. We all know you were some big shot in cross country running once upon a time but those days are over and no matter how good your form is you can't run back to them.

Full Body Spandex Guy – Please tell me you have underwear on under that Spandex body suit. Are you friends with naked locker room guy? Does walking around in nothing but a form fitting swatch of spandex make you feel closer to nature? I have an idea. Why don’t you and naked locker room guy come to the gym at 4:00 AM. No one is in the gym at that time so you will probably be able to work out naked and no one will know. Just make sure you put down a towel before you sit on the fucking equipment.

Surprise for Luch

Surprise for Luch from the soon to be pieced together book; American Dream Woman: Waxed Parts

In a penthouse suite in the Hilton in downtown Harrisburg, as the early evening gave way to the darkness called night or as the polish call it Wieczór późny, thirty people commixed for the reason of bidding a fair adieu to our friend Luch who was to set sail for distant lands, i.e. Iraq, in two weeks time. Yes, it would be memorable event but not for the reasons normally associated with such affairs. No, it would not be a night of cordial introductions and gently sipping Chablis, my friends would not and could not let a party of this nature proceed in a boring, civilized manor. It isn’t their nature or mine. There would have to be mayhem, intoxication, carousing and at least one fight to complete the evening. I’m just grateful no one fell off the balcony, although several came close and other than the broken furniture, salsa and popcorn ground into the carpet and the bathtub full of people that overflowed no real damage was done. It is all so vivid in my mind…well, the part before I started drinking but I think I can more or less recall what happened after that.

“We’re getting in the elevator now,” my friend the Weasel said, into his cell phone.

“I’ll see you in a minute,” I said, closing my cell phone. “Okay, everyone Luch is on his way up, go hide on the balcony.”

The thirty or so guests that had attended shuffled from the parlor out onto the balcony.

Amongst the guests were nine of Luch’s family members, including his grandmother who smoked a corncob pipe and swore like a coal miner and his uncle who flew in from California on a military transport. His uncle, Champ, was a former CIA operative and was decked out in full camouflage and combat boots. He didn’t follow the rest of the guests out onto the balcony but instead walked around the table of food poking at various appetizers with a large Rambo knife.

“Do you want to hide?” I asked.

“I don’t hide,” Champ said, running his hand through his salt and pepper flat top.

“Right,” I said. “Would you like a fork?”

“Never use them,” he said, stabbing a cheese ball with his Rambo knife and biting it like an apple.

“Right,” I said. “You don’t want crackers with that do you?”

“Do I look like a cracker eater to you boy?”

The way Champ stared at me with his cobalt blue eyes made me feel, exposed, vulnerable, and naked. No doubt this was taught to him for interrogation purposes while he was an undercover operative in the CIA. Luch had mentioned something about him having spent a lot of time in South America and torturing people with ABBA records.

“Okay, D.B, Wilson, assume slovenly positions on various pieces of furniture.

It had been my idea to keep only the scruffiest and oldest of Luch’s friends, who included me, visible for the grand entrance. He would be let down when he saw only us, the usual rowdy crowd, sitting there drinking beer and then when he was at his lowest we’d lead him out to the balcony where everyone else was hiding.

The door burst open and Luch and the Weasel stepped into the parlor of the suite.

“Surprise,” D.B. said, holding his beer up above his head.

The crooked smile that had been stretched across his face disappeared, replaced by a look of bewilderment. It was obvious he was under whelmed.

“To Luch,” I said, raising my beer.

“Surprise,” the Weasel said, twirling an American flag.

“Whatever,” Luch said and cracked open a Coors Light.

“Don’t get too excited it can cause heart palpitations,” I said.

“Everything’s a ha ha with you people,” he said taking a healthy slurp from the Coors Light that had magically appeared in his hand.

“Drop the military speak your starting to freak me out,” I said.

“What’s wrong with military speak,” Champ said, setting his cheese ball and knife down on the table.

“Champ what are you doing here?” Luch asked his uncle.

“I heard you were having a party. So I came,” Champ said. .

“From California? This is weird,” Luch said, “where are the chicks? The least you could’ve done is gotten some strippers.”

“Better yet how would you like to see your grandmother naked?” D.B said. “Because she’s out on the balcony.”

Before I knew what was happening Champ had leaped across the table of food and was strangling D.B.

The balcony doors flew open. “Surprise,” everyone yelled.

“Help,” D.B cried.

“That’s my mother you’re talking about,” Champ said as he tried to strangle D.B.

It took several of us to pry Champ off D.B. I was just thankful that he hadn’t had his Rambo knife when he attacked. Wilson, a veritable pharmaceutical warehouse, slipped a tranquilizer in a beer and gave it to Champ who guzzled it without stopping for a breath. This seemed to calm him somewhat and he sank back into a plush chair and gnawed on his cheeseball.

The evening from that point on progressed without a hitch. There was much back slapping and pledges to write to Luch and he grinned his crooked grin and drained Coors Light after Coors Light. And then there was a loud knock on the door. Woops, did I say the evening progressed without a hitch?

D.B. did the Mic Jagger chicken dance all the way to the door and opened it.

“Hi there security we followed a trail of crushed peanuts back to your room,” a security guard in a captain’s suit said. “Evidently someone is hiding an elephant up here or being very goddamn sloppy. We also have noise complaints.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” D.B. said.

“That’s because you’re the ones making the noise,” the security guard said.

“Oh, right,” I said. I folded up a twenty dollar bill and slipped it into the security guard’s hand. .

“Thank-you sir,” he said, stuffing the bill into his blue polyester pants.

“Hey, what are you doing?” a guy standing along the wall said. “They’re being noisy and bothering us.”

The complainer was a rather husky individual, with three chins and coconut sized man boobs. I wasn’t scared but respected the immovable force that he might be if I tried one of my patented Karate styled kicks on him; I might lose one of my Burmese jungle boots between the rolls that hung from his sides. There was also the matter of his blubbery entourage which totaled two but on a Richter scale might have caused a 3.0 if deck they were standing on gave way.

“It’s under control,” the hotel security guard said.

“The fuck it is,” the guy said.

The Weasel, about five nine and one-hundred and thirty pounds lunged at the guy. Luckily I was close enough to grab hold of him before he flung himself in front of what was tantamount to a speeding eighteen wheeler.

“Ho there big guy,” I said.

The Weasel’s legs spun madly as I held him around the waist.

“Okay, let’s get back to our rooms,” the security guard said.

“This isn’t over,” the big burly guy said. “I will be back.”

“Oh, it’s over,” Champ said, pointing his Rambo knife with the cheeseball on the end at them.

“And who do you think you’re going to do scrub brush?” the big guy said, hitching up his khakis.

“I’ll carve that blubber off your sides with my knife, wring it out and use the oil to power my Skidoo when I trek across the Himalayas next winter,” Champ said.

“Come on lets get out of here. These guys are crazy,” the big guy said.

“That’s right, I’m crazy,” the Weasel said.

“Thanks again,” I said, to the security guard.

We went back inside and gathered everyone together. We had planned to take the party out on the town for a few hours and then end the party back at the room. Since I had the keys Luch, Champ, and I were the last ones to leave the room.

“Okay, let’s get out of here,” I said.

“Those cocksuckers can’t tell us to be quiet,” Champ uncle said. “Come on.”

Luch and I followed him out in the hallway to the elevators. He looked up to a service panel in the ceiling.

“Boost me up,” Champ said to Luch.

Luch obliged and boosted his uncle up to the ceiling panel in front of the elevators. Champ quickly removed the screws and climbed up inside.

“What are you doing?” Luch asked.

“Payback. Now hand me my bag,” Champ said.

I hoisted his bag up. He turned on a flashlight.

“We’ll be at the Hardware bar if you want to come down. His arm shot out of the hole poised in the thumbs up sign and then quickly disappeared and the panel slid back into place.

“Let’s get the Hell out of here,” Luch said. “We don’t want to be around when he has his revenge. It’s never pretty.”

We went down the elevator and burst out into the cold night air. Everyone else from the party had already headed out to the bars downtown. Thanks to his whacky uncle Luch was missing his own party.
* * *

At the Hardware bar Luch, D.B. the Weasel and I positioned ourselves on the second floor loft which overlooked the dance floor where most of the guests from Luch’s party were dancing. I like to be able to look out over the dance floor and observe people. This night’s scene was another spectacle of the mechanical dance of despair and envy that engulfs the sweating masses. I am not above it but simply outside it. I’ve never been one to dive into the crowd, to follow. And maybe I’m not a leader of many men, which in history makes you great but I am a leader unto myself and have taken myself into life’s battles without the comfort or need to be part of a group. If I fuck up I want all the responsibility if I don’t fuck up I want all the glory because in the end the people around you aren’t going to crawl into the cold dark box with you. Unless one of those closest to you is a necrophiliac and well, I don’t want to go into the details that might accompany such a thought..

“Man I have bad gas,” D.B, said, letting loose a fart that rattled the fixtures on the walls.

“I know I heard you that sounded like a honking goose with its head stuffed in an empty mayonnaise jar. You need to get some Beano or something. That flatulence is starting to wreak havoc on your personal life.”

“My personal life is fine but she will make it better,” D.B. said.

Coming at us was one of the women from our party. She was a slender brunette fitness fanatic with enough energy per square inch in her supple body to pry the lug nuts off a rusty eighteen wheeler with her armpits. She appeared to be crying.

“What’s up you guys,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

“Angela, what’s wrong?” D.B. asked.

“I don’t know. What’s wrong with me? No one likes me. I can’t get a boyfriend,” she said.

“Gee, I wonder why,” D.B. said.

The Weasel stepped between them before Angela bitch slapped him.

“I like you,” the Weasel said.

“I’m the prettiest girl in three counties and look at my abs,” she said pulling up her shirt.

The Weasel ran his fingers across her abs. “Nice,” he said, smiling out of the corner of his mouth.

“Do you want to see this dancing queen shake her abdominals?” she said.

“Yes, yes, I do,” the Weasel said.

They headed down the stairs to the dance floor but I didn’t follow. I was having too good a time watching people and besides if I’d step on someone with my Burmese jungle boots I’d probably crush their toes.

“I should go dance on the bar,” Luch said, slurring his words.

“Guys aren’t allowed to dance on the bar,” D.B. said.

“How much do you want to bet?”

“Fifty bucks.”

“You’re on,” Luch said, downing the rest of his Coors Light.

They took off for the bar and there was but one. Yeah, that’s right, me. I was the one, who as usual was sequestered to the outside of all activities, just where I like it but soon enough I grew tired of watching people twisting like reanimated corpses with some strange outer space bacteria attacking their central nervous systems.

I drained my Guinness and made my way down to the dance floor. D.B. was doing the Mic Jagger chicken dance across the top of it. I’d have to have a talk with D.B. He’d been doing the chicken dance much too much lately and it was beginning to worry me. I swiftly traversed the dance floor careful not to appear as if I was dancing and made my way out the front door.

Immediately upon exiting the Hardware bar I noticed a young lady from the gym where I workout. I remembered from her nametag that her name was Erica. She was crossing the street. I followed and as I crossed to the other side I brushed up against a BMW.

“Watch the car,” the owner of the BMW said.

I smiled and gave him the finger.

Erica entered the Brick House, a German establishment that specializes in waitresses clad in lederhosen and tall frothing glasses of Franzinkaner. I followed.

Once inside I found the place to be packed so I positioned myself at the top of the stairs. I looked far and near and didn’t see her. I began observing the hula-hoop hip gyrations of a twenty-something female dressed tightly in a swatch of wool sateen when the crowd of people on the dance floor parted as if split in half by an invisible snow plow. I wondered what all the ruckus was about until I saw who it was. It was Erica.

Her hips swayed hypnotically like two cantaloupes wrapped in a hammock that was blowing gently in a breeze on some tropical island. I would need all my mental faculties popping in a synchronized fashion if I was going to make this happen. I went deep into a trance and collected myself, picturing a goat on a far away mountain top smoking a hookah. “Ah, ha,” I said, coming out of the trance. The people next to me moved.

“Hey, there,” I called.

She looked up.

“What are you doing here,” she said. “I’ve only ever seen you in the gym.”

“Yes, well, I like the smell of moldy gym socks in the morning, athletes foot, and stair step aerobics.”

“You’ve never done stair step aerobics.”

“I didn’t say I did. I merely said I liked them and that would be in an observational capacity.”

“In fact I’ve never seen you work out,” Erica said, seductively running her index finger along her bottom lip.

“I don’t workout in the strict sense of the word. I like to watch people workout. It keeps the muscle between the ears lubricated.”

You’re going to say something and screw this up aren’t you?” she asked.

“I see my reputation precedes me. I’ll also have to let you know I’m not a dancer. That can sometimes end a relationship before it gets started.”

“I don’t care about dancing.”

She looked down at my Burmese jungle boots and then at the five days of scruff on my face.

“What do you do?”

“I do as little as possible. It’s the American way.”

“I’m tired of liars and cheats.”

“I am neither a liar nor a cheat. In all the infinite ways I can fuck things up I am merely me. I’m not sadistic and I don’t have the energy to be vindictive.”

“It takes up so much energy,” she said.

“It really does. Excuse me,” I said, and turned to pick up my beer on the bar.

In the time that I’d turned to retrieve my beer the guy whose BMW I’d brushed up against outside had moved in on Erica. He looked like he might have been a mannequin in the showroom window at Macy’s, with high angular cheekbones and hair that flowed off his head like flames off a burning ball of gasoline soaked newspaper. I don’t have cheekbones and what little hair I have can hardly be said to flow and therefore I already had two strikes against me.

I watched as this guy gradually backed Erica into a corner. She looked over his shoulder; her eyes wide, as if to say help me. I started to walk away. I knew I wasn’t flashy enough to outdo this guy. I don’t care to be. If there’s one thing I can’t stand its guys that overdo flashy; the cocksuckers that relentlessly hound and badger until women break down to their phony charms. These are the same women that find themselves thirty years later sitting in their local Moose club drinking shitty liquor and wondering what happened to their lives. I’d tell them they ended the minute Mr. Charming opened his mouth and the glint from faux gold teeth blinded them but no one wants to hear that.

“Where the Hell are you going?” D.B. asked.

“D.B., what are you doing here?” I asked. “You were well into the chicken dance when I left the Hardware Bar.”

“We can talk about that later,” D.B. said. “I saw you with Ms. Hotty pants and you let Mr. BMW take her away. What is wrong with you lately?”

“I’ve given up.”

D.B. smacked me hard across the face. Instantly my inner Curly came out and my feet churned as I repeatedly and involuntarily smacked my nearly bald forehead.

“Hey you, BMW cocksucker,” I cried.

“What did you just say?” he asked.

“I said, hey you BMW cocksucker.”

Sweat was poring from ever inch of my body, my Burmese jungle boots were quickly filling up. I hitched up my pants and fondled my brass knuckles belt buckle.

“Fuck you,” he said, taking a step towards me.

“Kick his ass,” D.B, said.

“Is that your BMW being towed over their?” Erica said.

“Oh, my God, my BMW,” he said and rushed down the stairs and out the door.

“Come on let’s get out of here,” Erica said and we fled out the back door and hightailed in back to the Hilton.

* * *

As we waited for the elevator to come down in the lobby the fatty patrol that had bitched about our noise level was getting on the elevator beside us. They were carrying buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken and gripping them like they were the last jumbo Dixie cups of fountain of youth water. I growled like a mad dog and they ignored me.

“Come on,” D.B. said let’s get on this one.

D.B. and Erica pushed into an already full elevator and I tried but wouldn’t fit.

“I’ll catch the next one,” I said.

I got in a separate elevator and went up. When I reached our floor my elevator lurched to a stop. The doors didn’t open.

“I’ve got you you fucking punks.”

I knew that voice. It was Champ. It sounded like he was in the elevator shaft somewhere.

“No, it’s me Luch’s friend,” I yelled. I’m one of the people that helped set up the party for him. I’m going back up to rejoin the party now.”

“Shut up you goddamn punk or I’ll cut the cable on this elevator and send you straight to hell,” Champ screamed.

“Was this all because I asked you to hide?” I yelled.

He cackled like a mad man.

“I never hide. I’m always there in plane sight. You just don’t know where to look,” Champ yelled.

“This will teach you to complain to hotel security,” he said.

“I’m not those guys. They went up in another elevator,” I screamed.

The lights went out. I heard Luch’s uncle moving around above me and then it was silent. I opened up my cell phone so I could see and noticed Erica’s cell phone number there which I’d programmed in on the way back from the Brick House.

I pressed send and after about for or five rings she answered.

“Who is this?” she said.

I could hear heavy breathing in the background.

“It’s me.”

“You’ll have to do better than me,” she said.

“I was just with you at the Brick House. I saved you from the guy with the BMW.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. There was silence and I heard the smacking of lips and then a surprisingly loud fart that sound like a honking goose with its head inside an empty mayonnaise jar.

“I’d recognize that fart anywhere,” I said. “D.B. is that you?”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“D.B, I know that goose honking fart sound of yours anywhere,” I said.

“That stinks get out of bed,” Erica said.

“It’s only a fart,” D.B said.

“D.B., it is you,” I said.

The phone went dead and I slumped against the back wall of the elevator. I thought how life is a ultimately a strange tangle of events, like the vines twisting through the tree tops of a jungle canopy, with each bend and break representing choices and opportunities and their consequences. I felt like burning down the jungle.

I noticed a lot of peanuts on the ground and started eating those when my cell phone rang again.
“Hello?” I said.

“It’s me,” Erica said.

“I’m sorry about that. I’ve been drinking a lot. Your friend D.B. was doing that Mic Jagger chicken dance on the end of the bed and I thought it was cute. The next thing I knew we were making out.”

“Damn him and that chicken dance,” I said.

“I want you to come up here,” she said.

“I would but I can’t I’m trapped in an elevator.”

“If you don’t want to come up just say so. You don’t need to make up excuses.”

“No, I’m not really. I’m really trapped in an elevator.”

“You know I really tried to get past what people say about you but you won’t let me. You just can’t be straight with anyone can you?”

“No, I am I’m being straight. Luch’s uncle did something to the elevator and trapped me in here.”

“Don’t call me again,” she said.

“Wait,” I said but it was too late the battery on my phone died. I hadn’t even called anyone to get me out of the elevator.

I jumped to my feet and started pounding on the elevator doors. “Let me out of here,” I cried. I pounded on the doors for a minute or two and then exhausted I fell to the ground, curled up and fell asleep.

* * *

The next morning I awoke on the floor of the elevator as the door opened. A group of Boy Scouts stood outside staring at me. They were there for some sort of fire starting competition.

“I have a bad case of vertigo,” I said jumping to my feet.

“He’s drunk,” I heard one of the boys say.

“Yeah, and you little cocksuckers discriminate against gays. You sold cookies outside the ACLU because they called you on your homophobic views. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Why won’t you let a gay kid build a popsicle log cabin and make pinecone Christmas ornaments with you? Are you afraid they might be better than yours?”

Some of the kids started to cry and I ran out of the hotel and onto the street and the new day’s sun warmed my face. I looked up at the hotel and new that another chapter of my life had ended. Luch was going to Iraq, Wilson was headed to Florida, D.B. had already moved down around Philly and the Weasel was busy teaching senior citizens badminton six nights a week at the YMCA as a condition of his probation.

Me, I am off to D.C. on Wednesday to meet up with my brother. He told me he’s gotten in with a group of friends that will keep me on my toes and that he knows a certain blond secretary that seems just crazy enough to tame me. I’ll believe it when I see it.

So goodbye to the old group, you’ll all still be in my dreams and D.B. I think Philadelphia might be a good place to get in trouble, so pencil me in for an upcoming spree of debauchery. Like I’ve said all along I need to keep moving. In fact I want to build up so much momentum that I kick through this earthly canvas and into dimensions unknown. Maybe then I can slow and will know peace. Until then remember that you’ll never know me as well as you think you do. I won’t allow for it. I like being on the outside looking in. The joke is that I am the joke.

P.S. Erica you left your spandex halter top in my Jeep. I’m outta here.

Observations in Miniature: People in the Gym

If you see yourself amongst these people it might be time to change your gym habits.


-Mr. Glory Days – The glory days are over. Take off your high school football jersey; it only fits as a belly shirt now anyway. We know that once a couple of centuries ago you made all conference at tackle in high school and all twelve of the girls in your senior class swooned whenever you walked into a room. Now, you’re just the fat balding guy with the high blood pressure that turns lobster red trying to bench press the same weight as the twenty-five year old “punk” on the bench next to you. You couldn’t still “suit up” and kick the ass of the kids playing “ball” today. Get on the treadmill and cut down on the carbs (beer) you don’t need the bulk anymore. It’s over. Let it go. Slide into old age with some dignity.

-Mr. 70’s running short guy – The seventies are over so please stop wearing those damn nylon running shorts that show half your ass, the ones that aren’t made with enough material to make an eye patch for a squirrel. No one is impressed by your skeletal runner’s physique. Start eating carbs, a lot of them and for God’s sake stop doing exercises that cause you to bend over. And on a side note please shave that tuft off chest hair off that sticks out of the collar of your Adidas tank top.

-Circuit Yoga lady – Get the fuck out of the lotus position and off the bench I want to use. My testosterone levels are peaking I didn’t come to the gym to attend a sit in. There is a time and place to be laid back and it’s not on the machine I want to use that you’ve been hogging up for the last half hour. You might also want to get some conditioner for your frizzy red hair and pick the burrs out that have been stuck there since Woodstock.


-The Screamer – Did you just see the headless horseman or are you trying to workout? Quit screaming! A twenty pound barbell curl shouldn’t illicit the same screams that a birthing mother would make. A little grunt is okay and sometimes unavoidable but if you really want to get noticed this isn’t the way to do it. What you need to do is remain quite and reserve all the energy you waste during a workout screaming and use this energy store to lift more weight. You’ll get bigger and stronger and women will notice you for the right reasons, because you’ve transformed yourself, not because you’re screaming like Linda Blair in the Exorcist.


-Ms. Aerobics freak – How long are you going to stay on the stair stepper? You were on it two days ago when I left and I can see by sweat stain in the carpet surrounding you that you haven’t been off of it yet. The gym is not your home. It is a place to go and workout. There is life outside the gym. Go find it. Live a little. Eat a French fry. Get really wild and eat two French fries. You’re not going to one day slide exhausted off the end of the treadmill and into the arms of Mr. Right. He’s left the gym and is at a bar buying the chunky girl with a life a drink.

-Mr. Sweaty – If you smell like a Bermuda onion and you look like you’ve been swimming with your clothes on at the end of your workout please carry a beach towel and a spray bottle of disinfectant spray around with you when using the different machines. There’s nothing worse than sitting on a bench and sliding off of it because someone with overactive apocrine glands doesn’t think it’s his responsibility to wipe up the sweat he’s streaked all over it.


-Mr. Steroids - Are steroids really going to help you become a better auto mechanic? You’re not a professional athlete. Why do you need to take drugs? Is your ego really that small or is it your penis? No, not everyone is giving you dirty looks or thinks they can beat you up, that’s just the extra testosterone talking so don’t freak out when you look in the mirror and see someone across the room that is laughing. And a note on clothing, a skull and cross bones bandana wrapped around your head, yellow bodybuilder sweat pants with flowers on them, and a tank top that says “Kill” on it is not formal wear. You look like a reject from the Pirates of Penzance musical. Go off the juice and take care of your heart before it explodes.

-Hot Spandex Lady – If you don’t want guys to stare out you, which obviously you don’t because you give them the look of death every time they even casually glance in your direction, then wear something less revealing than the rubber band and two peanut shell aerobics outfit you wear every time you come to the gym. What is your game hot spandex lady? I just don’t get it but I’d like to.