My nephew smells

Recently I had an opportunity to spend some quality time with my nephew. He is a normal, seemingly well adjusted smart kid (I can fix that), but he has a unique peculiarity – he smells. Now don’t get me wrong he does not openly exude Durian stink like me, on the contrary he seems to smell rather WELL actually. Yes, like some kind of teen wolf with twilight vibrato in his vibrissae, the kid literally howls at any noun that sticks a stiff scent up his septum.

For normal humans, a fresh out-of-the-oven loaf of bread, or maybe a steak dinner will call for some olfactory attention and lead us to the meatus. But this youngin’ will nose-over airplanes, cardboard, leather footballs, plastic bags – you name it. Whatever IT is, if it is in front of him with little wavy lines rising to the sky, he’ll not just give a dime of his time, but he’ll volunteer a snifty scent nasal nudge.

This is in direct conflict with my basic skunk rule of survival – smell only when you fear for your life or eat corned beef and cabbage. That means I avoid the mall perfumery , the food court and BOTH the rhino and the plasty with my oh so sensitive sinuses. Also under no circumstances can you fall for the spousal stink trap of “Smell this – does the milk seem bad to you too?” respiratory ruse.

I’ve heard of some of those ice cream flavor gurus being supertasters but I’ve never heard any good things about people who smell a lot. I could understand this ‘talent’ if my nephew was hatched on my side of the coop, since my genes and cells are laced and padded with defective scratch n’ sniff anomalies a-plenty. But this kid is from the wife’s familial vine-line so I thought that her DNA pool was highly chlorinated and not nearly as murky as my chromosome-light side of the short bus.

Regardless of his ‘smell-tale’ heart, it doesn’t take ‘Nostril-damus’ to predict that my nephew’s future will really STINK! Not because he’s destined to have trouble with adolescence, his parents or homework, but because he starts high school in the Fall. You remember that place don’t you . . . the cafeteria wreaks of bleach and tater tots, none of the boys shower after P.E., and the girls all douse themselves in competing and conflicting ‘Eau de toilette’!

The black flag of victory

Since I am a bit of a dirt dweller myself, other than lawyers, I don’t have too many phobias concerning bugs and high-flying insects. With that said however, I do not prefer eating, hearing or sleeping with lofty crawlies of any kind, no matter how beneficial or environmentally attractive they are to mankind. I know I am considered to BEE close-minded and a Neanderthal ‘buzz-kill’ in the eyes of today’s ‘accept and settle’ culture. But honestly, I work hard to stay on my side of the swatter and I want bugs to show some self-control and keep their probosci to themselves too!

Why is it whenever I meander out to the junk-mail box in a perpetual sleep-deprived stupor, I receive my own personal air show and am routinely accosted by unidentified buzzing objects (UBO)? I rarely ask for such top drawer attention or expect recognition for the contents of any of my drawers for that matter. Only on special occasions like kin-folk weddings and voodoo blood-lettings do I sweat so alluringly and carry buckets full of rancid chicken pickens and grill thrills. I even hide from the FedEx guy and the Wells Fargo wagon unless they need me to punch their buttons so why would I ever want to commune with, much less SEE bees?

I know what you are thinking “Don’t sweat it, like your blog they’re insensitive irritants so that’s what they’re supposed to do – BUG YOU”. The issue is a matter of respect for myself and others in the ‘NoMo insectual” community. I don’t ask or tell my ilk to go out of their way to bump n’ run into horse flies or other insects with throat problems and mess up their family harmony. I have enough class to know when my stinger’s exposed I never buzz, and only rarely whine, while circling around other people’s sweaty foods and hairy hides.

I likely would not have a problem with the high and flighty bugs in my life if they would just back off their ‘bizzy’ schedule a tad and stick to Dolly Parton’s nine to five instead of 7/11’s twenty four / seven . I’ve grown tired of getting thumped in the rump and playing badminton with these little winged shuttlecocks by my moonlight. I think It’s high time for one side or the other to give-up but I refuse to wave white. No my red badge of discourage shuns surrender and will never budge to bothersome bugs or nettlesome gnats, because my victory FLAG only comes in one intoxicating shade – BLACK!

Bells N’ Whistles

For an old guy I still try to embrace new technology. In fact as often as I can I hug the new dishwasher and tell it how much I love it while stuffing its craw with greasy fowl leftovers and bowls of dried-on Midwest grits n' bits. I don’t particularly care how clean the dishes get as long as it steams my corn and is silent but NOT deadly to my inbred clan. Yes, other than a few muted arcade beeps, every time I open the thing, the dishwasher returns its gratitude for being a member of the family by simply existing in silent bliss.

Unfortunately most technology in our noisy lives often plots to bite us on the otitis. How can Monks and other old world primates like myself ever hope to achieve inner peace when everything now ‘burps’ ‘slurps’ and keeps ‘waxing on’ UN-poetically in my ‘Eire’ canal? Today it is clear that my gizmo and gadget habit works overtime to hammer my anvils and hum on my drums even without a formal proposal of marriage.

For example, by now Juan Valdez must be deaf since whenever I add water to the coffee machine it tweets like a fruit-loopy wet toucan. The water pot pumps, pops, and creaks with groans of protest. When the brew cycle is complete it peeps incessantly like a hungry hen and screams even louder when it shuts itself off. Who designs this ear muff stuff - horrible aural sadists? If I’m allowed to ignore my kid whenever I want then why can’t I motor my ‘Hoveround’ to end of the driveway in peace and ignore my seatbelt’s chirpy chimes too?

I’m not against new fangled progress but I can’t be the only Amish sympathizer to want technology’s bells without a clapper or its whistles without fipples. I accept that the world needs to slobber over clobber but I’m just not sure if in my own home sanctuary all that stuff needs to beep, bleat & peep MORE than I do. Don’t worry I’m not a crazy shut-in yet and can take the strain. But I am a little worried about those steamed cobs though . . . the corn have started shoving sticks in their ears.

A Dirtier moniker

After nearly a third of a sesquicentennial of living and irritating other people’s spider senses, I have decided that I need a gritty nickname. Yes, before I make that final belly-flop into a shallow worm-ridden mulchy grave, I need some kind of hip ‘callsign’ and an icy-hot image.I think having a ‘too cool drug mule’ moniker is a necessity if I ever end up in a 6 X 9 foot cell with other amoebae, compare scars with Topless Gun pilots, or become a rap music star with a toothy, gold grill!

You see, I got kind of jealous recently when I sour-noted a concert line-up of noisy music dudes named ‘N. E. Yo, Pitbull, and T. Pain” performing for a morning TV show. Not a plain vanilla, Anglo-Saxon grunt name to be shared among them. So obviously to be ‘phatter’ than I already am I’ll need to combine some USDA choice meaty nouns with at least one initial. So where do I go to register a sheik hipster image like those music guys and what government agency is responsible for taxing society’s patience?

Are there any official pre-requisites for my new responsibilities and image as a self-involved ‘blogga’-gangsta’ idol? Maybe I need The Donald’s whispy locks, Mickey’s oversized ear buds, or a Hitler ‘half-stash’ to dress up the rebel ‘tude? I was hoping the warehouse-mirror sunglasses, ‘finger thickin’ good’ gold chains, and beltless n’ baggy pants were good enough to make a splash in today's modern blue gene pool?

Now admittedly I am kind of a ‘dough-so-soft’ wimp, so for my new image I should probably shy away from the calloused and brawny, testosterone belching, smelly-man ‘nom de fumes’. I was however thinking that I do happen to know my way around buckets of butter pretty well, so maybe a catchy caloric name like “I.M. Greezy.” or “Tubb E.” would fit the BILL? No rush though; I still have time to hone my future edgy, bad-dog, blogging moniker. I am lucky since I have a few years stock of my current library bookplates and the laundry labels my Mom used to sew in my CAMPground skivvies – ‘Der T. Drawers’!

THE morning paper

Every morning I quietly hobble from my coffin to retrieve not one, but TWO different newspapers. I have to keep up with the daily demand for wrapping up wedding gifts, lining bird cages with paper mache and of course the never-ending need for dead fish n’ chips grease absorbing diapers . Oh sure I peruse the headlines for the important stuff too like the movie start times or the daily horror-scope. But primarily I just like to see how tall a Jenga tower of newsprint I can build to test my wife’s forklift skills on the way to the recycle bin.

We have a love/hate relationship with our paper boy even though he is actually a 40 year old man who drives an even older van in the wee wee hours of the morning. On the one hand he does give us our daily fix of inane news along with an array of conversation starters during our Pop Tart time. But you would think the guy would have the decency to place the papers neatly on my doorstep instead of ejecting papers out of the window anywhere but on the giant driveway landing zone. I think he purposely spaces his nightly emissions as far apart as possible and plants them in the wet grass, muddy gutter, or up in the trees so I can play ‘Where’s Waldo’ every morning in a 6 A.M. stupor.

The paper-pusher is just bitter because he is STILL dealing to newsprint junkies even when most of his peers have moved up in the publishing cartels to become octopi ink-milkers or ‘blah-blah’ blogging barons. It also may be due to the fact that nobody else on our street gets a morning paper anymore so he has to drive far out of his way to throw stuff ONLY at our house. Except for the ‘newsies’, what other career allows you the luxury of pitching softballs at interviewees, hitting the comic books to do research, or throwing high priced yet worthless pre-paid projectiles at your clients’ houses.

As gasoline prices rise and the route delivery biz dies, I try to keep abreast of the changes afoot for those parts as well as the rest of the lifeless body of the newspaper industry. Despite the waning few of of us die-hard, hard-headed Cro-Magnons who still need to let our knuckles do the dragging through WalMart ads, I’m afraid the ‘dailies’ destiny is dier . Yes as soon as wireless bandwidth makes that next big speed leap for the finish line, the paperless e-book revolution will definitely spell doom for my newspaper dude and his ‘van-do’ attitude. This foreboding change to my breakfast ritual may seem alien at first. But luckily in our shack's litter box, I can always take pillow-soft comfort in at least one close morning encounter, of THE paper kind!