“Gail,” I said, “the pizza is here are you hungry.” She kept snoring, a light very feminine snore. “Gail,” I yelled, she awoke, startled, I was immediately sorry I hadn’t taken the time to walk over and gently shake her awake, but it was too late for that, the damage was done. Oh yes, she was annoyed, and angry, and it was a righteous anger.

Later the boys and I sat down to watch a movie, I, thinking the anger had passed, made a crack about sleeping beauty and the beast reappeared and took me to task once again.

I tried to defend myself with the only possible tool, humor.

“You do the same thing to me,” I said.

“Never,” she replied.

“Uh huh,” I said.

“Give me a single example of where I yelled to wake you up.

“You do it almost every morning,” I said.

“Okay smart ass,” she said “explain.”

I looked at my audience, the boys, and smiled.

“Yap Yap,” I said, doing my best impression of our barking dog Chole and then in what I must say was a pretty good impression of my wife noble effort to get the dog to be quiet so I could sleep a little longer yelling, “CHOLE QUIT BARKING, CHLOE, CHLOOEE!”

I continued to address the boys, and on other mornings it’s “Harry leave Tegan alone, in an equally loud voice. Harry and Tegan are cats, Harry a young male and Tegan an elegant old lady.

I looked over at Gail to see whether I was off the hook yet, or still in the stew of my own making. The boys were laughing, and she had the hint of a smile on her lips.

“Tegan’s a person too,” I said.

ShareThis

Some would say that not only am I an atheist but a rather outspoken one, and I am, but I’ve mellowed over the years.

There was a time when my car sported the magnetic bumper sticker, “Religion is the Problem not the Solution,” magnetic because the religious, at least a sizable contingent of them, contrary to their claims are not very tolerant. A keyed door panel convinced me it wasn’t prudent to have such an in-your-face message permanently affixed to my car.

But back to the story of my bumper sticker and those loving tolerant God fearing souls who populate our cities and towns. I was driving down Interstate 15 one Sunday afternoon with my family, this was when gas prices were under two dollars a gallon and my two boys were young, maybe six and ten. We pulled even with another car, an older couple, perhaps on their way to visit their grandchildren, or maybe on the way home from church.

They looked over at us, and seeing, what I’m sure they thought was the standard issue happy Christian family out for a Sunday drive, smiled their we-approve smile. And then, a strange thing happened, we pulled slightly ahead of them and they noticed the bumper sticker. Their smiles immediately turned to frowns, and the frowns to sneers, their heads then snapped to the straight ahead position, and they changed lanes increasing the distance between our cars as fast as they could.

You’d have thought we’d turned into the devil and his minions, so much for “love your neighbor as yourself.” In the past 30 years an intolerance toward nonbelievers has, I believe, increased. Indeed, I still believe that religion is the problem and not the solution.

ShareThis

I didn’t hear her because I was standing 150 feet away at home plate.

There was glass all over the floor, and there were bits of glass nestled in the African violets on the window sill. One violet, a shy blue, was on the floor, tethered to its pot by a single root, and there was a baseball next to it.

The game stopped, each of us, my cousins and some neighborhood kids, stood at our positions and looked at one another like nine and ten-year olds do when they know there is going to be trouble.

“Who is going to get the ball?” said the pitcher.

Everyone was looking at me.

“You’re closer,” I said.

“Yeah but you hit it,” he said, and the others nodded.

I dropped the bat and started the long walk to the house. The field was Grandma and Grandpa’s front yard. The yard was longer than it was wide, and the house was set back a considerable distance from the road. Home plate was near the road, Grandma had insisted; she didn’t want us running into the road for a long ball. On the third base side was a row of lilacs, they had been growing for years and were more like trees than bushes and a ball that rolled into them was always good for an extra base. On the first base side a row of roses that would, in a few years, be destroyed by a flood from a nearby creek. And in deep right field just to the side of the house, a willow tree that I would fall out of the very next summer.

I walked through the front door, Grandma was standing in the living room, and she was smiling. I didn’t understand. I was expecting the worst. There was glass all over the floor, and her plant, the precious violet, roots dangling, was sitting next to the baseball I had been sent to retrieve. She said, get the dustpan and a broom and I’ll help you clean up. And then, as I left the room, she said it again, “Did you see that Lorus, he knocked the dickens out of that ball.”

ShareThis

I asked her if there was a comma after belcher.

“It’s a vacuum cleaner,” she said.

I said, “There’s a vacuum called the Belcher Norman?”

“Listen to this,” she said, “When you first turn it on, this bag-less upright burps like your Uncle Morty on Thanksgiving.”

“We don’t have an Uncle Morty,” I said.

She ignored me and continued, “The review says it’s no bargain, save your money, it says.”

“So there was a comma,” I said.

“Yes, a comma,” she said. “You don’t belch that much. Now if I’d said have you heard about the farter Norman …”

ShareThis

I read somewhere, that beginning in the nineties, pushing the close button an elevator did nothing, but it didn’t stop me or others from pushing the button anyway, sometimes repeatedly. And when the door eventually closed we felt the power of a prayer answered, or in my case the laws of physics confirmed.

I’m an itinerant button pusher. I’ve pushed buttons on more than one continent. I not only push the close button in the elevator, but in my impatience I push the open button too. If there were a button for the sunrise and the sunset, I’d be pushing it as well.

And the button you push at the crosswalk, I’ve always wondered if it really worked or if the light changed on its own like the closing door on a modern elevator. I’ve never tested it and given my disposition never will. If it works it should only take a single push, right? But, if you’re like me you push it at least twice, and if there is someone already there you can’t trust that they’ve pushed it even if you saw them do it. You walk past them, careful to avoid eye contact, you can almost hear them saying, “I’ve pushed it you idiot, do you think I don’t know to push it,” but that doesn’t stop you, you push it again, twice. A friend told me she was once standing at a crosswalk when a fellow arrived, and before pushing the button he said, “I know you’ve already pushed it but I can’t help myself.” Button pushing must be in our genes.

There are other buttons I push, and not always intentionally. When I push the volume button on the TV remote it pushes my wife’s, are you deaf button, and when the timer set to announce it’s time to remove the baked chicken from the oven is 20 or 30 seconds from sounding I push the button to cancel it thereby insuring that we will eat sooner. If she sees me near the stove, or for that matter if she sees me near anything with buttons, she warns me off. “You don’t want to push that button, do you?” she says. I look at her and our eyes meet. It’s test of wills. We’re like a couple of gunfighters in the old west. She says, “go ahead, push it, make my day.” I back off, I always back off, she’s a crack shot and I know it.

We’d be better off without so many buttons. I’m willing to do my part; I can do without. We should start with my wife’s buttons.

ShareThis

I left a detailed message. The following day not having received a response I called Jenny again.

“Hello, this is Jenny I’ll be out of the office until next Monday if you need help you can call my backup Mindy at extension 2323456″

“Hi this is Mindy I’m on the phone or away from my desk. You can reach my backup Jenny, at extension 6363478, or leave a message.”

Once again I left a message, a few hours later I received a call.

“Hi this is Jeff returning your call to Jenny,” he said.

“I just called her backup Mindy,” I said.

“Do you know Mindy’s last name?” he said.

“No, but I can give you her extension.”

“Good I can e-mail her and tell her I’m handling this,” he said.

“Great,” I said.

“Hold on while I send the e-mail,” he said.

“What?” I said.

Silence, and then:

“How can I help you,” he said.

“You can give me the information I requested from Jenny,” I said.

“Can you tell me what that was?” he said.

Exasperated, I go through my questions again.

“Okay if you’d like to hold on I can get the answers for you it will just take a minute,” he said.

“Why don’t you get the answers and call me back.” I said.

“Well—okay, I can do that,” he said.

A few minutes later the phone rings, I answer.

Hello, this is Norm I’m either on the phone or away from my desk, but you can reach my backup at . . .

“Huh,” he said.

I paused for a moment and then said, “Jeff, is that you Jeff?”

“Yes, It’s Jeff,” he said.

Thanks for waiting Jeff, I was either on the other line, or away from my desk.

ShareThis

It’s the gravity that gets us all in the end, and then keeps us in place. Gravity is an argument against there being an afterlife, as much trouble as we have with it while were alive, tugging at us constantly, being dead we have no way to fight back. It holds us in place while the critters pick at our bones.

“Gravity has spoiled my golf game too,” he said. “I give the ball a whack and gravity pulls it back to earth a lot sooner than it used too. I think gravity is getting stronger,” he said. “You probably don’t notice it since you’re younger, but I do.”

The gravity theme was repeated several times during the evening and all in reference to being ninety years old, and how it was killing him.

“Food tastes like crap,” he said. I don’t really give a damn what I eat anymore, and with the gravity tugging at me all the time the food just forms a lump in my stomach.”

“I feel like Sisyphus,” he said, “I’ve been pushing that rock up the hill for ninety years now, not as long as Sisyphus, but a long time, and sometimes I feel like just letting it go. Like the bumper sticker says, ‘Obey Gravity, It’s the Law’.”

ShareThis

And those Amazon Book guys trying to save a few words by offering to let you pre-order a book. Of course it’s not really a pre-order it’s just an order. You are ordering it for future delivery just like every other book you order from them. It’s just going to take longer to get to you. What they mean is an advance order. So why don’t they just say that? Can’t they spare a few more words, after all they’re in the word business.

And what’s with a preview, are you really going to look at something before you look at it. I don’t think so. I know these are small things, and I understand if it doesn’t bug you the way it bugs me. I could go on you know, there is preowned, preteen, preposterous. I’ll stop now, but don’t pretend it’s not a problem. You need to be prepared.

ShareThis

“I don’t wipe anymore,” he said.

“You don’t wipe,” I said.

“I haven’t wiped all winter,” he said, “my wiper is broken.”

“Your wiper is broken,” I said.

“Yes, my wiper is broken.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well the last time I tried to wipe nothing happened,” he said.

“Nothing happened?”

“That’s what I said, nothing happened.”

“I think this is the kind of problem you need to solve,” I said.

“I’ve tried,” he said, “I ordered a new one.”

“You ordered a new one; what does that mean?” I said.

“I ordered a new motor,” he said.

“Huh”

“I tried to get one on the cheap, but found that I could only get one from the source,” he said.

“You don’t mean from God do you?” I said. “You’re not going to quote scripture to me now are you?” There’s a time for wiping and a time to refrain from wiping; Ecclesiastes 3:?.

“Of course not, I mean the Toyota dealership, my car’s wiper motor is on the blink, I need a new one,” he said.

“Ha ha! I’ll bet you think you’re clever, a funny guy, don’t you?”

“Hey, there’s nothing funny about not being able to wipe.”

ShareThis

“You parked behind Gail’s car,” I said.

“And,” he said.

“Well, unless you want to do a butterfly we’ll have to take my car to the movie,” I said.

The butterfly is the name we gave to a frequent maneuver on the British comedy Butterflies. The car someone wants to take is always the one blocked in by the other cars. In the show it is usually Adam’s and Russel’s job to perform the maneuver. The maneuver is what rights the situation. The butterfly, is the alpha and omega of driveway management.

That’ll teach you to throw trash back there,” he said.

I grabbed a garbage bag and while handing it to him said, “Why should I care, I don’t sit back there.

He reached as if to take the bag, smiled, and then let it fall to the floor.

ShareThis