______________________

My distinguished panel of judges and I wrestled with many entries and almost came to blows in our struggle to choose the top three haiku – here are the results!

In Third Place, Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx wins the lightly used Continental Airlines Barf Bag for:

Anticipation
Like puppy dog tail wagging
June, July, August

In Second Place, Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx wins Nunzilla for the following submission:

Awakening minds
Butterflies’ wings emerging
An Aha moment

And finally, the First Place Winner of the snarky office door hangers, Xxxxx Xxxxxxxx submitted:

Will someone teach boys
To pull up their sagging pants
No peep shows at school
_____________________________________

Honorable Mentions abound (as will Mardi Gras beads):

Xxxxxxxxx Xxxxxx sent:
Darn, It is Monday
WhY am I here? Oh that’s right
I Get paid Friday

Xxxxx Xxxx says:
That Crow woman canÂ
clean and jerk three hundred pounds!
sixty pounds, five lifts

Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx opined:
I wonder today
at the students’ attitudes
and ask, “what went wrong?”

Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx also sez:
Apathy abounds,
Stealing moments on cell phones,
Ignorance remains.

Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxx ventures:
Hazardous meeting
The blowhard passes me by
I feign diffidence

and finally, for managing to sneak in the name of our first female Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry, Xxx Xxxxxx declared:

What is in a name?
Edna St Vincent Millay
Poetry? Oh yes!

(Nancy Boyd wouldn’t have worked quite as well in that one, would it, Jay?)

Thanks to everyone who participated – it truly was fun to wade through the submissions and hard to pick the top ones!

but i’ll never forget the last time i played a gross food game during youth group.

travis and i had been out earlier that week having lunch together when we realized we’d never been to the huge asian supermarket over by sharonville. after a tasty meal, we hit the store and were blown away by gross possibilities presented in the form of snacks and prepared foods comprised of creatures we thought to be inedible.

the most intriguing of these items?

prepared, shredded jellyfish with a spice packet. it looked exactly like cooked ramen noodles and the spice packet looked like capsicum pepper oil.

highly pleased with my find, that week at youth group i set out to find someone willing to give this sea-creature nastiness a try.

teenagers are easy and most can be bought for a very low price. in this case, cherry cordial offered to eat the jellyfish in exchange for a CD of some sort.

80 high schoolers gathered around to watch me tear the package open, take a whiff (whew! NASTY!), dump it into a bowl and offer him the spice packet (he declined, and wisely so, i think).

and we all held our collective breath as he took the first bite and chewed. and chewed. and chewed.

now, one rule of youth ministry “games” is that they must be quick. 80 kids who DON’T get to play MUST be entertained SOMEHOW. either all the jellyfish needed to be eaten, he needed to puke, or he needed to spit it out, and refuse to eat another bite. if one of these things doesn’t happen early, the chewing chewing chewing gets… old. boring. unentertaining.

and he chewed. and his face was scrunched and it was obviously nasty tasting. but he kept trying, and interest started to wane.

i began to pick on him and made my first mistake of the night: “c’mon, cordial! how bad could that stuff actually be? get going, fool!”

and he chewed, still on the first bite.

and i went over, teased him a bit more and then made my second mistake: i took one strand of the jellyfish and made a production out of putting it into my mouth.

and i chewed. and chewed. and wanted to puke. and quickly spit the salty, rubbery, foul-tasting treat out to much laughter and gagging noises from the crowd.

i handed cherry the CD, apologized to him for the jellyfish, and never played another gross food game during youth group again.

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.

the comment came on facebook where this unnamed individual had the unmitigated gall to say, “Uh….Scott….did you dye your hair BLONDE???!?!?!?!” and my response was along the lines of, “why are you picking on me? it’s gray – don’t be a meanie!”

i’ve had gray in my hair since the tender age of 16 when a quarter-size patch appeared near my hairline. it’s not a big deal, really.

but i’ll never forget the day ten or so years ago when i almost bought the farm because of gray hair.

lise and i were out together for the day. we were living in maryland and had driven up to lancaster, pennsylvania to drive around, get some lunch, shop amish, and enjoy the time with each other. it was approaching evening with the orange sun setting fire to the ground in the direction we’re heading. i was driving down the narrow road, shared with amish horse-and-buggy types in both directions, when, out of nowhere, lise swings her arm over and whacks me square in the chest, exclaiming, “Oh My Gosh!!!”

well, i about drove into a ditch, taking a couple bonnet-capped mennonites with us.

“what on earth’s going on?!? why are you hitting me and scaring me? What? WHAT??”

“you’ve got a gray hair in your beard!”

“WHA??? you almost get us KILLED because of a gray hair in my BEARD??”

we’ve laughed every time the story has been told in the intervening years, but at that point i was ready to open the passenger side door and leave her with electricity-less ones. thankfully her response was redeeming and to the point: “well, i still love you, even if you are old and gray.”

and indeed, that gray hair mated with others and their ilk have spread throughout my facial hair.

it’s not a big deal. really.

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!!

my school, st. antoninus, didn’t have a lot of good choices of priests at this point in my catholic school career. the old one was father hagedorn – he was probably 107 years old, shook uncontrollably, smacked his lips a lot, and paused too long and too often. father mick was no better – he was probably 21, a little too chummy with the guys and waaay too physical with the girls – we didn’t care for him and it was obvious that he was either on the lam or made too hasty a decision to enter the priesthood.

my best friends and i did our best to keep it as low key as possible but still eke some fun out of the experience. we sit together each week against better judgement but up to this point we’ve not gotten into too much trouble.

catholic church, in and of itself, has always been a boring thing for me. too pious, too organy, too… churchy, i guess. and when we had to go with our grade each week, oh, sheer torture! what’s worse: being in CLASS or being in CHURCH – haha, it’s a hard choice!

so picture this: four 14 year old guys: ken. brian. tony. scott. it’s spring. thursday morning. eighth grade church. front row. bored. hyms. father hagedorn. jesus hanging on the cross. robes. solemnity. holy water. communion. sit. stand. kneel. stand. sit.

and when the next hymn started up, my friend tony had apparently had enough.

we’re singing this hymn and this garbled noise starts coming from my left. it sounded like… a cat stuck in a washer? no. a record being played backwards! YES! that’s it!!

i and my other friends look at tony and he has his hymnal turned UPSIDE DOWN and is singing… backwards.

i’m not sure who started laughing first, but it was SO FUNNY. oh, we tried so hard to stop, but there was no place for the laughter to go. we grabbed our faces, nudged tony, laughed and hoped no one noticed. then, since we couldn’t stop, we started singing backwards, too. and laughed even harder.

we were lucky – no one came over and smacked us or told us to stop. we managed to get ourselves together enough that we got through the service and back to class in one piece. short bursts of laughter still plagued us during the day, but we were ok.

and then. at the end of the day. the very end of the day… we came back into our homerooms and sitting on our desks? THREE DETENTIONS EACH. signed by the director of catholic education for our school. he had been sitting in one of the wings of the church, hidden, and had seen everything.

and church, my friends, was NOT where we were to be goofing off and screwing around!

was it worth it? oh, when you can still laugh almost to the point of tears 26 years later – it’s definitely worth it.

the first time i ever gave blood was to get out of work for a little while. i was 18 and working for a department store when an announcement was made that anyone who gave blood at the bloodmobile that afternoon would get an hour off with pay. after giving, there were cookies and pop! omg! an hour off AND cookies AND pop!!! WOO-HOO!!!!

so i gave. and continued to give, long after the benefit of an hour off expired. it was helping someone, didn’t take much time, and hey – cookies and pop!

so i finally went to the NW FL Blood Center last week to give. nice folks. free t-shirts. free pop. free little debbies. there was a lot of attention given and you felt like a minor celebrity.

and then yesterday i get a call.

“mr. rust, this is _______ at the NWFLBC and i wanted to call and talk to you about donating again.”
“so soon?” i asked.
“well, you donated whole blood last week, and of course you have to wait 8 weeks between those donations, but mr. rust, your platelet count (insert long explanation of how rustypants’ count is THREE TIMES the normal count)!!”
“uhh… wow. should i be worried?”
“oh, no! this is great! you can give platelets every three days!!!”
“hey, cool,” i said, blind to what was coming next.
“platelets are crucial for cancer patients, leukemia patients, and others who have blood diseases! and because of their short shelf-life, we’re in constant need of people like you who have extremely elevated levels in their blood. think about all the people you will be helping – your one donation will probably help three people! (insert continued unnecessary encouragement on the importance of donating)”

i felt like a rock star. no lie. i was being courted with facts, t-shirts, candy, drinks, bring a dvd to watch if you want, we’ll sign you up to win a new car, your platelets are so sexy, mr. rust, i wish i could be the technician who centrifuges your blood, everyone should be so lucky to have your platelet count, would you sign my shirt, let me stroke your arteries…

“ok. sign me up.”
“really?”
“umm.” now i’m confused.
“it will take up to two hours to complete when can you come in?”

and then the sun rose. the lightbulb turned on. the cold water of realization hit.

they will never stop calling now, will they? i’ll be their rock star until my platelets rebel and stop kicking it so hard. then, and only then, will my star fall. and i’ll just be another has-been. a washout.

hey! helping others! cookies! pop! it’ll be worth it.

when i asked if that wasn’t a bit like a blind kid getting scolded for sticking his tongue out at another blind kid, i was warned & shushed again.

dang, the library police at those libraries for the deaf are tough!

“oh, cool,” i said.

“i’ve had it since i was younger. i’ve never had any kind of public pronouncement or anything, it’s something done in private, during my personal prayer time.”

“Oh, well that’s Scriptural.” and it’s true.

despite my background in non-charismatic churches, i have no problem with tongues and prayer languages that are exhibited in a Scriptural manner and context. why? um. well, it’s Scriptural, duh! now, having said all that, i have never been so moved by the Spirit to speak in tongues or prophecy, or any other type of Spirit-motivated manifestation of messages from God.

but the conversation i had with my new friend greg the other day brought back a rather amusing conversation had several years ago during bible college.

several of us were sitting around talking about the fruits of the spirit – my college was not a big tongues kind of place – if i remember correctly they believe that speaking in tongues ceased a couple generations after the apostles. i must’ve been sleeping during that class.

but there we were, talking away, and one of the guys was from the church of god movement – a charismatic / pentecostal / full gospel denomination that, if this dude represented all we knew about them, then the representation would be rather frightening – he began telling us how, when he was a young boy in the CoG church, they would “help the Spirit along” with certain phrases.

and we genuinely didn’t have any idea what he was talking about.

“certain ‘phrases’ – what does that mean?”

“well, if we were at a revival or something and we weren’t speaking in tongues, we were taught that after a while we should start saying the phrase ‘my knee, my toe’ over and over, slowly at first, then faster, ‘mykneemytoemykneemytoemykneemytoe’ until the Spirit finally kicked in.”

“kicked in,” i said, “like a lawn mower or something?” i had begun to visualize the Spirit waiting for the gas to meet the spark and then saying, “ok! here i come! you got the right combination at last!”

“well, kind of. it seemed to produce the right atmosphere for the Spirit to come.”

and the rest of us didn’t know what to say. so we said nothing, sitting in awkward silence until class started.

later, two of us were recounting this conversation with one of our professors. he said the phrases varied and the one he heard the most was “see my tie, tie my tie” – again, starting off slowly, increasing in speed until miraculously you were “filled with the Holy Spirit” and suddenly you’re speaking in genuine tongue-like fashion.

that kind of “priming the pump” completely takes away from everything the bible says about this type of spiritual gift – there’s no magic incantation or phrase or hokus pocus that will suddenly motivate the Spirit like this.

but when greg talked about tongues as a private prayer language, there is evidence of this in Scripture. to be certain, we could argue (and many have) until we’re blue in the face on the question of whether speaking in tongues genuinely exists in the present or not, but the bottom line is that the focus needs to be on the giver of the gift, not the recipient – working yourself into a babbling lather with ‘conducive’ phrases gives no glory to God.

gosh. i have no pithy one-liner with which to end this post.

i was the camp pastor that year and was teaching each morning, then teaching / preaching each night. i loved camp. it was awesome getting my own kids out of their element for a week, but it was great getting to know the other 70+ teenagers who were there as well. teaching has always been one of my favorite things.

but this group of guys – they were almost too cool.

so the first two days have come and gone. we’re on day three and these dudes were being cool with me and all, but i really wanted to connect with them and just hang and talk. figuring out how – what could we possibly have in common?

on the way back to my cabin that night, the ruckus was loud as ever coming from cabin three.

i stick my head in. their leader sees me and runs for the door – relief!

and there are twelve guys standing in a semi-circle – one is obviously the leader while another standing in a squat position opposite him about 15 feet away, is obviously subjected to some horrible camp ritual. how can i tell? he’s in his boxers and a look of impending pain and agony is on his face.

“dudes, what’s going on? can i play?” i ask.
*loud cheers from the peanut gallery*
“you want to play nutball??” comes the incredulous reply.
“hmm. nutball. never heard of it. sure, how do you play?”
*cool dudes look at me with suspicion, wondering if i’m going to break up their game or if i’m sincere. what they don’t know is: i’m up for just about anything*
“we take this… ball… we made from rocks wrapped in a sock, and have 2 teams. first team up picks a guy who pulls his boxers down just a couple inches, opens the fly and squats. the other team has a pitcher who takes the ball and whips it at the other guys’… er, nuts… and if he makes it into the open fly it’s a point – if he hits the guys nuts… that’s another point!”
*more cheers from the teams*

it was at this point that a dawning admiration and horror struck me. i had just volunteered to have a sock filled with rocks hurled at my exposed ballbag. on purpose.

“whoa! sounds cool – who’s winning so far? how high do you play to?” and other questions were asked in an effort to stall what seemed inevitable – i was going to get hurt in the name of making a connection with these guys. and it was hilarious hearing them talk all excited about this absolutely insane game of pain, hearing who had their privates whacked already, who had scored the most points, how you didn’t HAVE to hit their nuts but could actually bounce it off the opponents stomach and have it land in the hole of his fly (but what fun is that?), and the sheer awe of having The Camp Pastor want to play.

i realized that i was vested in this and might as well get it over with as quickly as possible. i talked a bit more and then it struck me.

boxers. you have to wear boxers. i didn’t have any boxers with me. and none of these guys had boxers that would fit.

disappointed groans came from all the guys as they realized i was not going to be able to play. i stuck around for a few more innings of the game, wincing in pain at each point scored, cheering as loud as i could, and then excused myself.

and those guys spent the rest of the week treating me like one of their own, connected, all because of a willingness to take part in their pain game.

all just a part of camp leadership.

i hear this squealed with joy by two of my girls tuesday morning just as i’m about to speak with our school’s data clerk.

“i’m back! how’ve things been while i was gone?”

“the sub was awful!” “so-and-so said this to that person!” “we didn’t even get to go outside!!” “please don’t go out of town again.” “can we please go outside today?” were among the overlapping responses from these two fifth graders.

“wow – ok, so things are ok, the sub was bad, she didn’t take you out, so-and-so is being nasty… anything else?”

“oh, yeah… ___________ got suspended for writing something really bad on someone’s shirt.”

“so i heard. sounds like ___________’s out for the rest of the year because of it.”

short pause…

“well, i guess we won’t have no more trouble the rest of the year now that she’s gone,” came one girl’s reply.

*data clerk unable to control her laughter in the background*

believe me, i tried. i tried hard. but unfortunately, the moment was so funny, the serious look on this young lady’s face so somber, i couldn’t help but laugh, too.

thus began an interesting conversation with my pastor several years ago.

“courtesy drops?” i asked.

“yeah. you know how in some churches there’s all that faintin’ going on up at the altar during service?”

well, of course i had. i was the youth pastor at an inner-city african-american church. it didn’t happen there much, but it did when other churches would come and visit ours. we had seen it at other churches more frequently. all those fine-looking ladies in their sunday best, large ornate hats on their heads and handkerchiefs in hand, walking up to the altar for prayer. and then it would begin.

sometimes it was subtle. a little moaning, a little movement, then the drop.

other times it was an all-out production. crying. yelling. waving the hanky. hopping up and down. then the big drop.

and there are folks whose job at church is to act as a “catcher” to the droppers. they stand behind the congregant waiting for the moment, then, arms extended, they catch the person who has been “slain in the Spirit” and gently lay them down on the floor until they come around. sometimes a cloth is placed over them, other times they’re left alone completely.

“so, what’s a courtesy drop?”

“well, apparently these two had visited a sister church somewhere in town and the pastor, he called people up for prayer, right? so folk are going up and getting prayed over, but there was no fainting going on. well, the one woman says to the other, ‘well, i felt bad for him [the pastor] that no one was receiving the Spirit, so i went up, done got prayed over, then did a courtesy drop so he felt like God was moving even if no one else was dropping. i didn’t want him to feel bad about hisself.’”

i stared at chris, waiting to hear him laugh and tell me i was gullible and easy.

“dude…,” i said.

“straight up!” he replied.

it was a funny story that we talked about many times afterwards, but i came to only one real conclusion: like we need to give people another reason to not believe or not trust, we have folks who fake things like this just to pump up the minister’s ego on a “slow night” at church?

wonder what the percentage of courtesy drops to real drops is?

me: well, i’m just excited about working with you guys.
student: why? what’s going to be different now?
me: well, we’re going to have a lot more fun now. i know the folks before me were kinda old and stuff and now it’ll be cool! i mean, i’m 24 years old!
student: um… i’m twelve.

my head popped. my ego deflated. my high-mindedness crashed. i had been served. by someone who was half my age and had no concept of being 24. yea, verily, this conversation HAD to happen (and thank goodness it came early).

and now i teach 5th graders who think 39 is the epitome of ancient. serves me right.

flowers
small pretty
smelling blooming picking
they smell wonderful. they smell disgusting.
stinking tooting embarrassing
stanky nasty
farts

when you need to come up with two things that are opposites, what’s more opposite than flowers and farts? hey, you’ve got to do something to keep their interest!

i knew she was mocking me, even if only lightly. the look on her face combined with the tone of her voice told me what i already knew: women just don’t understand.

when we moved to pensacola, we had three cars worth of stuff packed and that was it. in subsequent trips back to cincinnati, we’d load whichever car we had with whatever we could stuff in it and drive back with a few more of our precious possessions.

and on each of our return trips there was a small, slight, pleading voice calling me from the back yard.

i did what i could to ignore it. i’d hum. i’d crank the tunes louder and louder. i’d try and distract myself from the sound. eventually i began hearing the voice calling me down here in p-cola. sleepless nights spent trying to block out the voice, thrashing to and fro under the covers led to serious bouts of insomnia. a nervous twitch developed just under my right eye. the slightest whiff of a barbecue being lit sent my brain into a paroxysm of uncontrollable mental anguish. like a man whose arm has been amputated, the phantom limb cried out and i could feel the missing appendage tho’ it be seven hundred miles north, oh, sweet heavens, when will this torture end, when???

i knew before i broached the subject that i had to tread carefully. women, you understand, like the outcome but rarely understand the process and manly ego involved in grill cooking.

“so, i’m thinking that this next trip up to cincy… our list this time is really short. i ought to have a good amount of room leftover for my drive back.”

“that’s nice, dear. be nicer to drive without all that stuff in the back seat blocking the window.”

“yeah! but hey, i’m thinking that i’ll take a shot at bringing the grill down with me. if i can get it taken apart and i can clean it up good, lay a cloth down and bring it down in pieces and that way…”

and i could tell by the look on her face that everything after “bringing the grill down” was being translated as “blah blah blah blah…” and this is when she said it.

“don’t be silly,” she said. “when we have a little extra money, we’ll buy a new one.”

now, i knew she was going to say it. i had a script prepared in my mind and had rehearsed it in five different possible scenarios to convince her and show her that i’m not silly and that i was hurting, hurting in a deep, psychological, but almost physical way. but her gaze… oh, lord, her gaze shut me down. i went mute. drool pooled up at the front of my mouth and i barely shut it in time before it slopped over the front of my shirt.

“duh, uh, well… er, see… i mean…”

but by the time i regained my footing, it was too late. i could see by the smug look on her face that she chalked up another one to good old fashioned female reasoning. it took some doing but my fractured ego was taped back together and as i arrived in cincinnati a fortnight hence, the small, pleading voice had become a shrill scream.

the grill demanded satisfaction, it demanded a sacrifice. “take me to p-cola and cook on me or be cooked, sucker!”

as i took WD-40 to this 7 year old rusted, wobbly beast of a grill, i realized too late that i was to be the sacrifice!

jenny, our friend and neighbor, saw me fighting with the fused screws and gave me the same look that lise had given me. it was as though they had spoken via some internal woman-cam and a collaboration on the destruction of the fragile male condition was underway.

this, my friends, was like throwing propane on my fiery soul. i would not be mocked again!!

and two hours later, disheveled, bleeding, cold, filthy, unable to feel my right hand, and a second twitch doing a jig under my left eye, i emerged from the garage with the look of a crazed maniac. holding high the left leg assembly, i turned in triumph to jenny, playing with her children in their yard, and proclaimed in a loud voice, “A MAN IS NOTHING WITHOUT HIS GRILL!!!” and collapsed in a heap on the lawn.

*2 days later*

as i arrive back in pensacola, my wife rolls her eyes slightly at the grill-in-fifty-pieces and gives me that what-is-it-with-these-barbarians look and leaves me to cart the pieces to the patio of the apartment. my psyche lay in shards and i begin to doubt my own sanity until…

…until the first taste of scott’s famous garlic / worcestershire / dozens of unnamed spices / port wine cheese burgers touch her tongue and she utters in a flushed and breathless voice,“mmmm… these are delicious… oh! i’ve missed them!”

“i know,” i think to myself vaingloriously, “i know.”

it had been raining that day, so the ground was wet. the sun was gone and the fog was thick as pea soup in some spots. my penchant for driving late had begun to catch up to me as we were only three hours from where we started and we had seven hours left to go. i knew we were going to have to find a hotel but the nearest hotel we trusted was almost two hours from where we were.

my hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly that even in the darkness i could see the whiteness of my knuckles. driving in these conditions through the mountains of western maryland was not my favorite thing to do and even as i fought sleepiness i was hypervigilant about other vehicles and my surroundings.

the music was blaring out the speakers of my ’93 saturn SW2. lise was asleep (lucky dog). going 70 MPH, i had been driving a bit slower through this section because of fog banks sneaking up on us around sharp and steep bends. at the same time, i ran the tip of my tongue on the roof of my mouth to stay alert through the fog of my fatigued brain.

we were coming up to the top of one of the mountaintops when it happened.

the amount of time i had to make the decision could not be measured in minutes or seconds: choose the right one immediately or…

my right eye flinched briefly as i kept my foot on the gas, a slightly crazed grin forming on my mouth.

when we hit, i expected the world to stop, but the impact was much less stunning than i figured. the crunch of bones, the hair flying, the limbs severing, perhaps even the final yelp – it was all present as one would expect, simply not to the degree formed in one’s mind.

i laughed out loud as the car continued flying, and lise woke up almost in slow-motion, fear mounting in her eyes.

“wha…?” she had time to ask before i bellowed out even more laughter.

“a cat ran out of the woods and was dashing towards the highway in the path of our car,” i exclaimed between bursts of laughter, “i knew it was gonna be him or us and there was no way in hell it was gonna be US!”

as her fear subsided and the collision was processed, she turned to me and said, “you mean you couldn’t have swerved out of the way?”

and another split decision was made at that moment: instead of attempting to explain the physics of swerving out of the way of a careening, suicidal cat while barreling down the highway at 70mph on the slick, cold, mountain roads of western maryland at 11pm while half asleep at the wheel, i simply barked another laugh and said, “nope!”

and the thought of a ghost cat sitting on the side of I-68 waiting for sweet revenge was enough to keep me alert and laughing all the way to our hotel room.

at times, however, sam’s makes us laugh.

their christmas stuff? it was put out a couple weeks ago.

they sell all kinds of ridiculous stuff throughout the year that i cannot fathom the purchasers of such things.

but i digress.

since knowing we were moving to pensacola back in january or february of 2007, we’ve been more conscious than usual of lise’s skin cancer and our need to protect against it even moreso down here than in cincinnati. it’s always sunny down here (well, except for when the heavens are dumping a torrential downpour upon us).

sam’s club to the rescue!

back in march or april while twirling around the store looking at all the goods, i spotted something more ridiculous than usual. here we are in land-locked ohio, no beaches as far as the eye can see (unless you count the scary little one at East Fork Lake) and here, at sam’s club: a beach umbrella.

we’d seen them in some of the stores and shops down here on our vacations but they were always overpriced and rickety looking. this baby at sam’s club: metal, dude! big spike on the bottom! multi-colored fabric! water and oil resistant!

and the price? under $20.

well, who am i to argue? i plunked down my money, put the sucker in the garage and waited for the move. and now, six months later, this is what our umbrella looks like spiked in the sand on the gulf of mexico on a gorgeous sunday night at the end of september.

now if only they sold industrial strength drums of sunscreen, we’d be set.

at any rate, some of the kids know the correct combination of phrases, facial expressions, and bodily “moves” that will break my will on this rule.

most do not.

this past week brought the best attempt yet. picture this:

we’d just finished several weeks of review work that included looking at declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamatory sentences, their rules, usage, and much practice. the first test on this was a terrible failure and i gave a second test two days later just to make sure (much better results).

it’s monday. a bad day. frustrated with behaviors, i’m teaching my homeroom on the Smartboard new grammar stuff when one of my pain-in-the-rear kids raises his hand with a note in it for me.

while still teaching, i walk over, take the note from him, ready to ignore the question inside it.

the note reads:
“I need to go real bad. Can I please go to the bathroom? (interrogative sentence)”

i laughed so hard i almost went to the bathroom myself.

i wrote back to him:
“now that’s just pathetic!”

and i let him break my rule.

“oh, crap” was my immediate thought. this restaurant isn’t big enough for 20 people and here comes a group that size – suddenly i understood why the already narrow aisles were even more narrow as 4 long tables had been put together up the middle making passage near impossible.

you can picture what happened next: 20 folks cram themselves into the middle of the narrow restaurant, talking loud, blocking us into our table, getting in and out as they all tried to go to the buffet at once, etc.

well, i’m cool, right? i mean, i understand the fun of having a big group and going out to eat together! we do our best to not bother the other patrons and enjoy ourselves.

but then.

then one of them pulls out a camera. in the middle of the day. at the indian restaurant. and they begin taking pictures with a flash. in my direction.

and that was about all i could handle after the tenth picture was taken.

i made the ugliest face i could muster as the eleventh picture was about to be snapped and looked right into the camera – i transformed into THAT GUY.

and as the dude who took the picture went back to make sure it “took” – his face dropped. he shows the camera to a couple of his friends and i realize with dawning concern that one of two things can happen: they’ll “get the picture” and stop it…

or they’ll kick my ass.

thankfully, none of them even looked over in our direction, but the message must’ve been received because the camera was put away and we were able to finish our meal in peace.

at times, usually late at night in the throes of insomnia, i wonder if my picture is on some kind of “that guy who ruined our picture” website.

i’ve been learned by several southern scholars down here in pensacola in the correct use of the english vernacular and thought it was time to share some with y’all.

plumb – adv. – there seems to be no yankee equivalent to this one. example: “I plumb forgot.”

fixin’ – v. – yankee equivalent: “getting ready to” – example: “i’m fixin’ to kick your ass” or in the immortal words of country joe mcdonald, “i feel like i’m fixin’ to die”

reckon – v. – yankee equivalent: “guess” or “suppose” – example:
Scott: Looks like a big storm is brewing.
Southerner: I reckon so.

right powerful – adj. – yankee equivalent: “big” “huge” “monstrous” – example: “That there’s a right powerful storm brewin’!”

y’all – n. – yankee equivalent: you, singular – example:
Scott: Hey, Cole, what’re y’all doing?
Cole: I’m not doing anything.

all y’all – n. - yankee equivalent: you, plural – example:
Scott to his class: All y’all need to sit down, eyes up here and ready to work on writing!

of course you can mix and match these as you please (and everyone down here does):

“I reckon I plumb forgot all y’all was comin’ over tonight for dinner. I’m fixin’ to make me a right powerful feast for dinner.”

so please, take a moment and practice with a partner so that when you come to visit I reckon that you, too, will be prepared to speak southern.

there was a chill in the air, a crispness that doesn’t freeze you to the bone, but it’ll brace your face when you walk outside from the womb-like warmth of your toasty bed and apartment. i noted the bright sun shining on my frozen breath as i got into betty’s car for the long drive to columbus.

betty was old even back then. she was an antagonistic, warm, funny, deaf crusader for the disabled whom i had hooked up with the previous year. she had been in charge of a group for hearing impaired individuals and i was on my way to learning about my own disability. she dragged me along to functions and hearings in the area that would bring about change, making life easier for those with physical impairments and challenges.

as we drove north on I-71 i couldn’t help but notice that she was in the fast lane. why couldn’t i help noticing this? the myriad of cars passing us on the right side, cursing at us, giving us the finger and glaring evil, menacing looks through their rolled up windows.

“betty,” i began, “why are you in the fast lane driving 55 miles per hour?”

“why shouldn’t i be in this lane driving 55?” came the reply.

“well, for one thing, all these folks are pretty pissed off who are passing you by. and that middle finger they keep waving at you? that’s not a way of telling you they think you’re number one.”

“scotty.”

and then i knew i was gonna hear it.

“scotty, the speed limit is 55 miles per hour. i don’t think it’s fair that those people think they can drive whatever speed they want to and feel that i should just get out of their way. this is my way of making everyone follow the law! i’m trying to make things safer and remind people that laws are in place for a reason.”

so next time you get stuck behind That Old Woman on the highway driving the speed limit in the fast lane, just remember: they’re providing you a service and a friendly reminder.

and please… don’t tell them they’re number one.

but my story is two-fold.

several years ago i was invited to speak at a youth rally at a church in KY. the youth pastor (my friend jake) called me up one day and said, “dude, i want you to come and be the main speaker at this youth rally – can you do it?” “sure,” i said, checking dates, etc. “that’s awesome” he says, “but i have to tell you something… james (the pastor of his church) told me to tell you that he’s ok with you speaking, but that if you use the words ‘suck’ or ‘pissed’ in your message, you’ll never speak again at any youth rally at this church.” james, as you can tell, knew my love of these words.

“well, that blows!” said i, not necessarily with a straight face. but i agreed to refrain from using the words, and we shared a good laugh over that and joked about it in the weeks / months leading up to the rally.

come the day of the rally, i was on best behavior. no sucks. no bites. no pissed. good rally, good time, everyone was happy. i had one near-pissed but managed to catch it just before it came out of my mouth.

but that was only one part of this story.

the other part takes place some time later at cincinnati christian university.

CCU’s a good place. top notch professors, good administration, good education. most of the people there are awesome and i had a good time there. one thing they do is once a month there’s a commuter study break – donuts, coffee, juice, and staff comes and hangs with the commuters while we stuff our faces with free delicious donuts.

this one particular morning, jake and i are sitting at a table with three professors, one of whom is dr. north. north seems to have been at CCU for about 85 years, is a nice guy but VERY strict, very straightforward, straight-shooting, and while he’s got a sense of humor, it’s probably put to best use in a nursing home full of christians. so there we sit – jake and i are being our usual silly junior-high-minded selves and three starchy professors. we somehow get on the topic of language and i tell the above story to the assembled group, laughing and carrying on all the way. while explaining how james doesn’t want me to use the word “suck” in my message, dr. north interrupts me.

“well, scott” he says in his grandfatherly, pastoral way, “back in my day, the word ‘suck’ meant only one thing, and we both know what that was!”

and my world stopped. sounds went mute. movement froze. the lights dimmed. and there was only dr. north and me. can you picture my dilemma? can you hear what was racing through my antagonistic, smartass, anti-authoritarian mind?

dr. north, ultra-conservative old-fashioned ancient minister teacher author known throughout the restoration movement for his views on theology and church has just set me up.

and just before i open my mouth to say (with a fake puzzled look already plastered to my face), “why, no, dr. north, i don’t know – what DID it mean back in your time?” jake kicks me under the table. HARD. he had seen the look on my face, understood that the world had stopped and that i was about to attempt a take-down on the “don’t-trifle-with-me” CCU octogenarian. and he couldn’t let me do it.

and it sucked.

when i’m stopped at a red light and the person in front of me throws a cigarette butt out the window because they’re too damn lazy to put it out in their car and throw it away like a normal member of the human race, i can barely stop myself from getting out of my car, walking over, picking up the butt, throwing it back into the person’s open window and saying, “i think you dropped that.”

and then driving off.

except that one. the one you swore you wouldn’t rent unless it were the only one left.

and now. it is.

lise comes home with a movie called Snow Day, and by golly, i knew we were in trouble from the get-go when all the previews were children’s movies. then. then the main feature comes on and it’s a friggin nickelodeon film – holy crap.

chris elliott. chevy chase. a bunch of has-been actors. and no-names – oh, goodness, were there no-name actors! did i think it was going to suck? haha – DID I?

and for the next 90 minutes, we laughed our BUTTS off! it was SO STUPID and SO FUNNY! chris elliott playing snowplowman, the dude who can screw your chances of getting a second snow day – oh, it’s PRICELESS.

so today, in honor of our wonderful snow day, we watched it. and laughed.

and now, we’re in pursuit of “the elusive second snow day” – i wonder who snowplowman is in princeton city school district….

i’ve long had a fascination with certain album covers and have been known to buy albums by groups i’ve never heard of simply because the cover was so cool or captivating. i’ve gotten some incredible tunes this way over the years (and no duds come to mind in all of them). need an example?

i knew about the grateful dead in my musically formative years (read: junior high) but didn’t know about the music itself. none of my friends were really into the dead and i’m sure i’d never heard their music. we’ve all been hit with the Columbia House Record and Tape Club junk and i was no exception. the dead’s Europe ’72 album was among the offerings when i succumbed to the intoxicating offer and what a cover!! this sucker was a TRIPLE album (which meant it was like getting three albums from CHR&T – a sacrifice!!) and when it came all i could do was sit. and. stare. even if the music sucked, holy crap! what a great album cover! and luckily the album didn’t suck – it was fantastic music and the dead became a favorite.

around high school i started to branch out into jazz… slowly. one of the first albums i remember buying was miles davis’ tutu. why? geez, look at the cover! think about this picture in a 12″x12″ package – it was HUGE and how could you get away from davis’ piercing stare? picking the album up showed you the back and yet another huge picture of davis, this time with some intense emotion going on. i just couldn’t resist! this never did become a favorite, but it DID introduce me to miles and his trumpeting.

more recently i’ve discovered another favorite band called waterdeep. back in 1999 or so i was shopping for some new, different tunes – as i walked through the CD section of the store, waterdeep’s sink or swim album stood out something crazy. that green cover was the front, the yellow cover was the back. no track listing. just art. and i loved it. took it home, unwrapped it and found MORE art on the inside! oh, it was incredible! quickly waterdeep became a favorite! why? mellow, acoustic rock – here i’d found another jam band! when i saw them in concert the first time and they played on and on and on and sang so sweetly and played so hard, then so soft – oh. my. god.

i remember discovering santana via album cover, too. but if i’m going to be truly confessional, i must admit – the artwork was strange and awesome to be sure, but the reality is, as a junior high boy, seeing a pair of boobs on an album?? zow! i mean, sure that’s stupid now (hee hee), but back then?? woo! i was ALL FOR SANTANA, dude!! abraxas became a favorite and oye como va? oy, vey!

my final example will be another acoustic band – folksy rock band out of oregon called five oclock people. again, out looking for new music, the nothing venture jumped out at me with its simplistic artwork, conveying nothing and everything. i bought it, took it home, loved the inside artwork, too, and loved the band. then they broke up a couple months later.