rustypants speaks

we were young. 23 years old. we had been married a year and were moving from cincinnati to washington d.c. we lived in a third floor apartment in an old house (damn, that place was hot!) and had packed for days.

when i rented the u-haul and the tow-hitch for the car, i was wiped out. lise was famished.

but our friends – oh, they were the best friends in the world.

they showed up on moving day and as a collective, single-minded unit informed us that they, not us – THEY were going to pack the truck for us. we were so grateful and we stood by in the apartment while they climbed all those twisting, winding, creaky old stairs, grabbed another load, and took it down to the truck. they were the awesomest friends ever for packing the truck for us.

we went down, closed up the truck, put the lock on, hitched our hideous ’81 datsun 310gx to the back, and had a tearful goodbye. our friends hugged us hard, cried, & promised to keep in touch. we thanked them profusely for making our day so much easier before we began the 550 mile trek to d.c. and swore we’d never forget what they meant to us.

our friends left. we got in the truck. we looked at each other with the kind of love that only newlyweds have for one another. we held hands, wiped away the last of the tears, and fired up the truck.

i lightly depressed the gas pedal to pull out when the most horrendous sound i’ve ever heard crunched into my ears from behind.

me: wtf?
lise: sounded like the truck.
me: i barely touched the gas!
lise: sounded like a wall fell somewhere.
me: we better check this out before we go.

we unlocked the padlock, flipped the handle, and pushed up on the door.

it was stuck. wedged. jammed. superglue of the gods held that door shut tight.

our friends, whom we loved, had truly packed the truck. and no one gave a second thought to placement of any items. they were just… chucked and tossed wherever they could find.

it was elementary physics. sadly, none of my friends were physicists.

a tradition as old as civilization itself, the end of a meal at any chinese restaurant is always pure joy. how can you go wrong with those sometimes flaky, sometimes rock-hard, sometimes bland, sometimes sweet fortune cookies served after you’ve stuffed yourself silly?

who passed on the tradition to me? i’d be hard pressed to remember at my advanced age, but i will say that once it clicked, it’s never been forgotten.

the check comes.
the fortune cookies, individually wrapped, are placed before you.
the fight to get the one meant for you.
the crinkling of the cellophane.
the cracking of the cookie.
your fortune revealed!
BUT
incomplete!

much breath has been wasted arguing about the proper phrasing necessary to reveal one’s true fortune, but i have come to the conclusion that the only totally encompassing and acceptable phrase is “in your shorts” – it fits almost all situations and fortunes equally well.

many years and hundreds of fortunes later, i’ve whittled down to two the ones that truly reveal the power of chinese fortune-telling and the magic phrase needed for complete revelation.

fight with me if you must, but i will go to the grave standing by my fortune-unlocking, future-revealing phrase. you need to try it yourself – order some chinese tonight, crack that sucker open and give it a run. let me know how it ends. add your own phrase if you must, but at least give this one a shot.

and besides: what guy doesn’t want great physical powers and an iron constitution… in his shorts?

when i was in middle school my family went to catholic church every sunday.

it was lame no matter how “cool” they tried to make it (the “guitar service” at st. theresa’s comes to mind…) and it always seemed to take forever – but i always loved staying overnight at my best friend’s house on saturdays – besides the fact that we had a great time being silly and staying up all night, ken’s family went to St. Simon’s church – NOTORIOUS for the 15 minute sunday morning mass!

wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, drop your dollar in the hat, dominus vobiscum, sit, kneel, stand, greet your neighbor, “body of christ” “amen,” Christianos ad leones, “great sermon, father!” *ken’s dad starts car up* back to the house you go.

surely our motivations were wrong, but doggone it – it’s middle school, dude! long live st. simon’s 15 minute mass!!

or is benjamin linus really jon weatherly?

linus: the leader of The Others
weatherly: refers to the other CCU profs as “those others”

linus: buggy eyed
weatherly: bugs eyes out at incredulous statements

linus: condescendingly sarcastic
weatherly: well, duh

linus: asks cryptic questions that rarely get answers from dumbfounded captives
weatherly: asks cryptic questions that dumb students don’t know the answers to

linus: is cruel to his captives
weatherly: routinely abuses students trapped in his courses

linus: uses classical conditioning to train his captives and underlings
weatherly: uses classical conditioning to train his students and underlings

linus: always has a way out planned in case of emergency
weatherly: thinks several steps ahead of the present situation “just in case”

linus: has lived his whole life on an island
weatherly: thinks he is an island unto himself

linus: ends up in Tunisia
weatherly: likes dizzy gillespie’s A Night in Tunisia

linus: frequently uses aliases such as henry gale and dean moriarty
weatherly: frequently uses aliases such as SWNID and michael j. fox

linus: captured, imprisoned, and attempted to brainwash his daughter’s boyfriend to end the relationship
weatherly: promises much of the same for any boy trifling with his daughter

uncanny similarities.

the email surprised me, i’ll admit. my reaction surprised me, too.

i thought the anger had passed. i really hadn’t thought about it in a while.

but last saturday it reared its ugly head again and i was left angry and speechless.

i received the following email that day:

it was one of the two pastors who screwed me over two years ago from impact church. and after that anger and bitterness passed, i laughed out loud at what the email was asking me to do.

“confirm that you are, in fact, friends with _____.”

and i thought about how “friends” don’t do what he did. how “christians” aren’t supposed to do what he did. especially in light of our extreme need of being ministered to during one of our most difficult times. and how no ministering was offered, only an offer of hush money to cover up their gross mishandling of the situation. and how i was allowed to come up with whatever lie i wanted to tell the church about why i “decided to leave” and they would parrot that to cover their asses, offering no chance of any reconciliation, only more lies and fabrication.

and after i laughed a bit, i thought about how surprised i am at the disappointment that still resides in me because of that situation. i lost a church family because of this guy’s mismanagement. i lost a trust that has always been fragile for me. my integrity was trashed in order to save his (and with the church’s money to keep it quiet).

dunno. the guy certainly has a pair, though.

mile 50 (12-21-07):

dolby and i are on the road to cincinnati. lise flew to toledo on the 19th. i had school until 11am (when my principal, who could kick your principal’s butt, told me i could take off). i got home, loaded up dolby and we hit the road. we’re in the car chillin, although dolby’s not particularly happy after about 200 of the 750 miles. poor guy.

mile 750 (12-22-07):

it’s 2am. i’m dead. we arrive at the house after too many stops for pooping and eating and running around. dolby’s thrilled. i’m just dead. everything’s vibrating.

mile 780 (12-22-07):

christmas dinner at my brother’s house in Monroe, Ohio. good time. good food. good company. debbie (sister-in-law)’s parents were there. my niece. my mom and her man. it was a good time. everything’s still vibrating.

mile 810 (12-23-07):

on the road again. this time 210 miles north to toledo to spend the day with lise’s family and pick her up to come down to the house. everyone was there but for her brother, sean, who has taken up long-haul trucking on a temporary basis to stockpile some cash and pay off some bills. he was missed, but we did have a good time! the picture to the right is NOT how i felt after 6 hours with the in-laws, but simply a mask one of my nephews left laying around. the switch is actually a comb. or is it? come a little closer, family!! muuuahahahahahaaaa…

mile 1245 (12-24-07):

had christmas eve dinner with my mom, her man, and my uncle. had a good time with untraditional christmas cooking that included some of the best potato soup i’ve ever had (even o’charley’s!). we played ping pong (got my butt kicked – damn this tennis elbow and carpal tunnel) and hung out for the evening.

mile 1290 (12-25-07):

christmas day was spent with my dad and his wife’s family – good food, good company again – i swear i’ve gained 4-5 lbs of the 50 i’ve lost back. gaah! we had a great time hanging out with everyone and catching up.

on the way there we stopped and bought Hot Fuzz, one of the funniest movies i’ve seen in all of 2007. seriously, i’ve not laughed like this over a movie in a long time. if you’ve not seen it, pbbbtthhh! jog on! mom had a coupon for hollywood video, and we got the thing for $7 and change. woo!

mile 1331 (12-26-07):

my friend mark meyers and his excellently cool wife melinda came in from minneapolis, MN and they spent the day with us on wednesday – i miss mark a lot. and his excellently cool wife is so excellently cool! we hung out, grabbed mexican food, drove to mt. adams and snapped disturbing photos of misunderstood minnesota rituals (such as the one at left, “face licking”) and concluded our day by playing simpson’s monopoly (how did this end? well, let’s just say that when lise tried to set mark up for the win, melinda and i formed an air-tight alliance and brought mark down to his knees). we were sad to see them go, but then SOMEONE has to go back to minnesota and freeze their asses off for the local economy.

that evening, several of our kids (ha ha – they ain’t “kids” anymore – “college attending adults”) from youth group past came over (including rocky and racecarr, seen left) for pizza, hilarity, hot fuzz (the movie, duh), and lots of talking. i’m so proud of these kids that i could pop. i love hearing about how growing up, college, jobs, etc. are going. rocky and i talked long into the evening about politics, school, christianity, and family – it was a great time.

mile 1402 (12-27-07):

today was a day of running around, relaxing a bit, making a trip to steve and barry’s for some shirts and stuff, getting things done around the house, and seeing my mom. lise got her old small group together and went out to dinner, then back to the house for fun, food, and games. they had a great time! christy came over that night for a couple hours and filled us in on her life and times, and then we kicked her out to get some sleep.

mile 1474 (12-28-07):

mom and i went to jungle jim’s today and bought staples (read: sauces and stuff you can’t get anywhere else, at least not in p-cola) and had donato’s for lunch. this evening was spent over at my brother’s house in Middletucky, OH with the family. definitely a good time eating, talking, and playing Rock Star. there exists some footage of my dad playing this game that will no doubt end up on youtube at some point.

mile 1540 (12-30-07):

back on the road again. i’ve said this before, i’ll say it again: i’m getting too old for this shit. driving 750 miles in one clip is too much for my ragged old body. but here we are again. the house is cleaned up and taken off the market. everything’s shut down and put away. the car’s been packed since the night before. the dog sits in the back seat looking sad (HE knows it’s 12 hours cooped up in the cramped car) and i’m getting ready to eat a blackberry jam cake muffin leftover from the previous weeks partying.

mile 2263 (12-31-07):

the drive is as long and painful as anticipated but it’s good to be home. we pull in late on the night of the 30th, unpack the car and pass out where we land. first thing next morning, we log mile 2263, ending at pensacola beach where it’s in the mid 60′s. the water’s warm, the air is warm, and the company is just right. we’ve had a great holiday visiting with family and friends that we sorely miss. now it’s good to be home and relaxing together before the craziness of real life returns.

• many thanks to the folks calling, emailing, texting to make sure lise and i were ok after the tornado ripped it’s way through pensacola on thursday. it got within 8 blocks or so of my school and we lost power from 10:15am through the end of the school day, but there was no damage and no one was hurt. definitely made for an interesting day, though!
• funny thing about the tornado: lise and i had NO IDEA that a tornado was going through until my dad sent me a text message saying he saw on the news (in CINCINNATI!) about it and wanted to make sure we were ok. even at the school, we didn’t know.
• many folks are asking how we’re doing since the news we received last wednesday and the answer is: we’re as ok as we can be. we’ve decided to stay the course down here and see where it leads us, but it won’t be without pain and (obviously) sacrifices we weren’t thinking we’d need to make. we’re ok.
• i finished reading Roots by Alex Haley a couple weeks ago. i remember watching the miniseries on TV waaay back in the 70′s when i was a wee lad and it must’ve made an impression on me – as i read the book i very easily visualized scenes and remembered in some cases what was coming next. it was a very good book, despite the apparent “controversies” surrounding Haley and the writing. recommended reading.
• florida has a Sunshine State Young Reader’s Award that is voted on and given each year. our librarian walked each class through this years books and i was so impressed that i took some of our classroom money and bought a couple copies to read aloud and share with the students – two standouts from the list include The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and A House of Tailors. both are excellent books with edward tulane being my favorite.
• we’ve kept with our decision to not watch any television and have been watching a lot of movies recently. we’ve also discovered Scrubs again for the first time. we’ve seen maybe one or two shows a season but always seemed to be busy the night it’s on – we rented season three and laughed our butts off. i love dr. cox.
• hollywood video is going out of business in several locations here in p-cola, and i stumbled on their liquidation sale at one store – all dvd’s were $1.99! now, there weren’t that many left, but i did end up with 12 movies, several of which are absolute favorites – the biggest of them being Cinema Paradiso. this movie won the best foreign film Oscar back in 1988 – lise and i saw it last year for the first time and we were totally floored with how incredible it was. what a sweet and touching movie! finding the director’s cut version for $1.99 made my week.
• red tide has hit the gulf coast in our area and it’s made it nearly impossible to go to the beach this week. we went last saturday and as we got out of the car, i said, “something doesn’t smell right” – dead fish floating all over and the water was a murky brackish green color. it’s spread up and down the coast and is still affecting the water. seafood friday is still on the schedule for tonight but i’m not sure how long we’ll be on the beach. :-(
• no bites on the house yet. may end up dropping the price yet again – at this point we’re losing more money than it’s worth, but dropping the price means we’ll lose even more. gosh, we just didn’t think it’d take this long!
• we’ve got a birkenstock store here in pensacola that’s bigger than any we’ve been in yet. it’s called comfort zone and one thing that makes it unique is that they have a LARGE “discount” section – we’ve NEVER seen this before from a birk dealer. i found a pair of waterproof birkenstock sandals, normally priced at around $180, for only $19.95. they’re fantastic! woo!! nothing like being flat broke and being able to say you bought a new pair of birkenstocks, yo.
• i’m heading out of school to hit maria’s seafood for some shrimp, then heading home to pick up the wife. be well and thanks for reading.

my friend matt was telling me about adding my new address to his gmail address book when he was given the following option:

i sure wish i could say i did it on purpose…

it was great seeing family and friends today at the house before we left

but all these goodbyes are killing me – i forgot how much it hurt

we leave tomorrow morning

one of the great benefits of being a youth minister is getting to attend weddings of past kids. and this weekend we went insane and drove to maryland to witness the wedding of karen and her man kevin. and it was awesome!

karen is absolutely one of Scott’s Girls. and you can read about why here.

the wedding was great. shortest one i’ve ever been to.

“do you take her?”

“i do.”

“do you take him?”

“i do.”

i now pronounce you….

it was pretty wild. :-) reception rocked. seeing her family again for the first time in several years rocked.

more stories and pictures to follow. we’ll be in maryland til sunday morning and then heading back to cincinnati.

you MIGHT be able to click here to see the other wedding pics. if not? sorry!