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The Curse

You would think that if You needed to hire a witch doctor, one would have to travel to Africa or South America.
 
Nope. Yes I can actually hire a witch doctor in Atlanta who specializes in lifting curses. It costs the paltry sum of $1,000 to cast out demons and
curses. Unless you know that you a specific demon inside you. That will cost an extra $500.
 
Yes, they have a list of demons on their website. Like a menu
 
Just pick one, pay your thousand plus dollars and you can say adios to ole Beelzebub.
 
So why am hunting down a Witch doctor? Well, it seems the curse has struck again.
 
Every time we get ready to go on a trip, something wicked this way comes.
 
My lovely wife and I were scheduled to go on a short vacation to New Orleans this morning. The trip was a Christmas gift from our kids.
 
We had reservations at the Hotel Astor Crown Plaza in the French Quarter, a list of places where we wanted to eat and a coupon for beignets and cafe au laits at Cafe du Monde.
 
But, as it always seems to happen when we get ready to go somewhere, tragedy struck.
 
And once again, it struck me.
 
I don’t know why the bad luck curse never pounces on my beautiful wife.
 
She’s certainly not living a life of high moral standards. I saw her gleefully grind up a bunch or egg shells in the food disposal the other day and I’m pretty sure that PETA would not appreciate that.
 
So, yesterday evening, I started to have some abdominal pain. Nothing severe. I had purchased some potato salad and eaten it earlier that day and thought it might be food poisoning.
 
You can never trust premade salads that come from grocery store.
I thought getting a hot bath would make me feel better. Or maybe I would pass out from the pain and drown. Either way, I’d get relief.
 
But as I lay there in the water, my pain began to get much worse.
 
If I was going survive being stuffed with beignets like a fat, juicy tick, I’d have to get to feeling much better.
 
I didn’t.
 
Finally, I broke down and told my wife that I needed to go to the hospital. I know she likes bargains and considering all of the trips I have made to the hospital lately, sure we were due a free surgery.
 
Or at least a discounted enema.
 
I got to the ER at Grady General last night about 7:30 and the moment I stepped though the door, I knew I had made a mistake.
 
Every seat in the ER lobby had someone’s sick butt in it. I asked the woman at the check-in window how long it would be before a doctor could see me.
 
She laughed and replied “several hours.”
 
If this was another intestinal blockage like I had a year back, I would not last ‘several’ hours, so I got back in the car and we headed to Thomasville.
 
It only took the people at Archbold only a few minutes to take me back and I was in a bed and heading down for a CT scan faster than the folks at Grady Archbold could get a fresh body bag ready.
 
Long story short, I didn’t have a blockage. Or a blood clot.
 
Nope, this was fresh condition. The doc said that my appendix was ‘bad’ need to come out.
 
Now, if it were up to me, I would have sent my appendix to remedial classes.
 
Maybe some after school detention until it got its crap together.
 
My surgeon suggested a different course of action.
 
“Let’s cut that sucker out!”
 
He said it with a little too much enthusiasm which made me wonder if he was thinking more about all the new accessories he would be buying for his yacht this spring instead cutting me open.
 
But I didn’t care. I have good health insurance.
 
“Do it!” was my reply.
 
I’m now lying in my bed on the 6th floor dreaming about beignets and women exposing their ta-tas in order to get some beads.
 
I’m wearing one of those hospital
gowns that ties in the back. I have showed my shiny white ass to multiple people since yesterday and have not gotten a single bead tossed my way.
 
As I sat here contemplating my sad lot in life, I have come to the conclusion that I am cursed.
 
Apparently, at some point in my life, I must have pissed off a gypsy or stole the parking space from a warlock at Walmart.
 
That can really be the only explanation.
 
I haven’t run over any little puppy dogs or pushed down any old ladies.
 
Well, at least not lately.
 
So, all I can think of is that at some point in my life I have pissed off someone who deals in the dark arts and they cast a spell on me.
 
I’m not sure what kind of spell it is but it must have something to do with me leaving the house and going on vacation.
 
Somewhere out there, somebody is cursing me by sticking a pin in a doll that looks surprisingly like me. Or mixing up a fresh batch of eye of newt and nightshade.
 
The Witch Doctor in Atlanta offers several services that is supposed to protect me from these mischiefs.
 
Loa atonement. Creeping Death, Quetzalcoatl, Haunting Girdles. And my personal favorite- the lotus swarm. My wife would probably object to that one.
 
The Witch Doctor also sells various potions and products that may help me have better luck.
 
I can buy a paste made from ground up mummies that is guaranteed to bring me peace. Just not better rub in your eye.
 
I can also buy an amulet made from wormwood and even a real human skull.
 
I’m not sure what to do with that last one.
 
Maybe I should set it on the dashboard the next time I leave on a trip.
 
The Witch Doctor said he could provide me services in person, over the phone or via Zoom. Didn’t know they were so technical advanced.
 
All I know is that I am tired of going to the ER every time my wife and I drive across town. So as soon as I get out this hospital bed, I’m ordering me a used skull and maybe a couple mouse embryos. Supposedly, you boil the mouse carcass and make a nice tea that will help ward off the evil eye.
 
I’m about to get the Witch Doctor on a Zoom call.
 
I’m either going to get better or tomorrow, I’m going to wake up with an a toe growing out of my forehead.
SNP

Second Responder

I’ve never sat in that seat on an airplane where you’re responsible for helping save everyone if the plane goes down.

I don’t know why they have never asked me. I’d be a good second responder.

Oh, I’m not good enough to be a first responder. But I would make a darn good second responder. Or maybe even a third.

So what makes a great second responder? Being able to scream really loud.

I’m good at that.

I don’t think I could save someone if they were hanging half out of a plane.

That’s a job for a first responder, not a second or third string guy like me.

So why am I worrying about this? Have you not seen the news lately?

A few weeks ago, a window ‘plug’ on an Alaska Airlines plane blew out while the plane was about 20,000 feet above Oregon.

Luckily, nobody got sucked out of the plane.

That’s good. But maybe it would not have happened if a first responder had been sitting in that seat. These are the people who pull victims out of burning buildings or move the power lines off your house so you won’t get electrocuted when you step outside to pee off the front porch.

If I had been in that seat, I can guarantee you that the headline would not have been about the window blowout but the crazed man on row twelve who was screaming at the top of his lungs, “We’re all going to die!”

That’s what second responders are good for. Screaming.

If someone had been sucked out of the window, I’m sure I would have tried to grab them. But if their body was outside but their legs were still in the plane, I would have done what every good second responder does.

Pushed them out.

Come on, you know you would, too.

Imagine that you’re just sitting there enjoying yourself, eating your little bag of pretzels when bam! Now suddenly some dude is hanging outside the plane while his feet thrash around, kicking you in the face and making you spill your complimentary ginger ale.

My natural reaction would be to give the guy a good shove so he will stop kicking me.

And well… sorry sir but I have only one shirt and I don’t want ginger ale stains and pretzel crumbs all over it when we land. So, adios amigo!

I know that sounds harsh but I am not a hero. At least not in those kind of circumstances.

If you need someone to get your kitten out of a tree or lick a stamp for you, I’m your man. But if you want me to save you from being sucked out of a plane going 600 miles per hour while flying ten miles above the Earth, you should probably be sitting next to Hans Solo.

I mean, I would try to help but I’m sure I’d get distracted by the fact that I would be pissing my pants and screaming “Help me, Jesus!” at the top of my lungs.

Now don’t get me wrong- I am not completely useless. I know CPR.

Well, I am supposed to know CPR. I took lessons when my lovely wife and I were foster parents but that was like twenty years ago. I’m pretty sure that CPR techniques have changed since the 1990s.

Back then, they taught us to really go to town when you do chest compressions. Is that still how it’s done? Especially in the MeToo age.

I mean, if a woman is having a heart attack, am I allowed to
even touch her? Do I need to get her consent?

In writing?

What if it was someone like Gal Godat or Salma Hayek?

You’re supposed to rip open the victim’s shirt, right? Or at least that’s what they do on TV. So, what happens if Salma has a heart-a-stroke and I am the only one available to resuscitate her?

I thought about that.

Here we are riding along at 35,000 feet. Just me and Salma. I’m drinking a ginger ale. She’s having tequila. We’re talking about her being in a movie that

I wrote just for her, ‘Beach Blanket Yahtzee.’ And suddenly, the window blows out and Salma’s eyes roll back in her head and she begins to foam at the mouth.

Now, since we’re sitting in the emergency exit row, it falls upon me to throw Salma on the floor, rip her shirt off and…

Ooh… those are quite….

Concentrate, fool. Just interlace your hands and put them right there between her…

And that’s when my wife appears and tosses me through the open window.

A first responder would be professional and just put their hands on her chest and…

Well, as a second responder, I would pause, assess the situation before I touched her and…

… promptly get arrested by the Sky Marshal.

The next time I get on a flight and the flight attendant asks me if I want to sit in the emergency aisle, I’m going to first look around and make sure that Salma or Scarlett Johansson are not on my flight.

Yes, you get lots of extra leg room in the emergency aisle but at what cost?

I’m pretty sure you are required to stay vigilant in that seat. There will be no naps. No double scotch’s. Or movies. Any movie really but especially ones starring Salma, Scarlett or Gal.

A second responder like me has to be constantly alert. Just in case the door blows open and I need to do what second responders do: assume the fetal position and scream like an 11 year old girl.

And what happens if we make it to the ground and they deploy that blow up slide?

As the emergency aisle guy, I am supposed to ‘assist other passengers’ as they use the slide to evacuate the plane. It is the important part of my job.

Yeah, I am supposed to but I wonder if I would actually step up and be a hero if the plane does start to crash?

Think about it. There will be stuff flying all around the cabin- cups, magazines, pretzels, body parts. Combine that with all of the passengers who would be screaming and running up and down the aisle while on fire, and I might to start having second thoughts.

All I have to do is jump. But I can’t. I’m a second responder.

The first responder’s job is to go up front and put out the fire. As a second responder, my job is to push people down that slide.

I can do that. In fact, I would probably enjoy that.

And if Salma happens to be on my flight, I’ll make sure to push her down the slide last. I mean. I will need somebody to break my fall, right? And she has these nice big…

You know, on second thought, maybe I should just take the train.

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Me for President

Somebody asked me this week which candidate I was going to vote for in the upcoming presidential race.

I didn’t have to think about it long.

“Neither.”

I’m sorry if this ruffles the feathers of any of my friends on the right or the left.

But dang…

I can either vote for an 81 year old guy who falls up stairs (I’m not sure how you do that) or another 80 year old dude who is so easily angered that he would stab his own mother in the back.

I’m sorry but I feel the way a lot of Americans do about the upcoming presidential race.

If my only two choices are an octogenarian who wants me to stop driving my truck and switch to an electric vehicle that will have to be charged by the time

I get to the end of my driveway. Or another octogenarian who thinks Kim Jong Un is a ‘nice guy.’ (He’s not)

So, I am stuck.

Neither one of those old codgers is suited to be the leader of the free world.

And apparently neither party seems to care that Americans don’t want either candidate.

A new poll shows that over 70% of American voters don’t want either guy to be president. 70%!

It’s sorta’ like an arranged marriage. We would rather choose our own candidate (and spouse) without any ‘help’ from all those people who think they know what’s best for us.

So, with no viable candidate for my vote, I’ve decided that maybe I should run for president.

Don’t laugh. I’m not the only village idiot who has ever wanted to be president. There have been plenty before me.

There’s Jonathan ‘The Impaler’ Sharkey.

Who wouldn’t want a guy called The Impaler in the White House. Sharkey is a self-proclaimed vampire and only drinks the blood of women because “women are beautiful…they have such beautiful necks and arms.”

I would love to see his campaign commercials.

Then there’s Vermin Love Supreme.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that is probably not the name his mama gave him.

Vermin is a performance artist who wears a big boot for a hat and carries around a 6-foot tooth brush.

Of the many killer promises he’s planned if elected, the ones that stand out the most involve a law requiring everyone in America to brush their teeth, research devoted to the concept of time travel, a free pony to everyone in the nation, and zombie apocalypse awareness.

Free pony? Sign me up!

There are hundreds of nut jobs who have run for president so I wouldn’t be the first.

So, what do I promise if elected the 47th President of the United States?

Well, the first thing I would do is have everyone call me The Claw.

I know that sounds weird but imagine how fearful our enemies would be when they were told by their chief of staff that there’s a phone call from The Claw.

Bet those folks in Yemen would think twice about messing with somebody like that.

And then I would do away with income taxes. I hate paying taxes and I know you do, too.

So what would I do to raise money? Have a bake sale.

Our annual budget is about $6.3 trillion dollars. So, in order to raise the money we needed, the government would have to sell 12.5 trillion cookies at fifty cents each.

There are roughly 3 million federal employees so each of them will have to sell 4,666,000 each.

Or we could just hire three Girl Scouts and have the money by Tuesday.

And finally, as president, I would make sure that America is never out done by any of those Eurotrash countries from across the pond.

No way are we going to let those commie-loving socialists in Norway, France or Azerbaijan pretend they are a better than America. No way!

If they have a four day work week, I’ll propose a three day work week.

If European workers only work 30 hours a week, I’ll mandate a 20 hour work week for Americans.

If they get six months off for maternity leave, I’ll make sure new American mothers get six years off.

I would lower the drinking age to three. Hey, if people in Italy allow their kids to drink wine from a baby bottle, the least we could do would be to allow our toddlers to crack open a cold one after a long day at daycare.

I’d lower the national debt by selling Oregon and Washington to Canada. Maybe even California so we can have a little pocket money. Nobody will miss those states.

And everyone will get 9 months of vacation every year. And a free pony.

Hey, if Vermin Love Supreme can do it, so can I.

So, who would you rather have as president? Two guys who are older than air conditioning or someone who is going to give you 9 months vacation, a drunk baby and a free pony?

Pretty clear choice, right?

I won’t be on the ballot so you’ll have to write me in.

Don’t worry. Unlike our current choices for president, I have no previous political experience. I’ve never held public office. I don’t know anything about international relations, the capital of all the states or who is on Mt.

Rushmore.

But unlike the other two guys, I don’t need a diaper. Or a muzzle.

Sounds like I am the perfect candidate.

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Go, Dog, Go

I usually don’t write obituaries for dogs. Maybe I should. Might be a good side gig.

Nevertheless, this week I had no choice but to give the final send off to our old dog, Tilly.

So what made Tilly so special that I would waste 1,200 words on her? I guess the answer to that is nothing.

Tilly was just an old mutt who did what she was supposed to do. Nobody really noticed her much.

She was just an old a mutt trying to make her way through the world.

Kinda’ like most of us.

We have always had an ‘outside’ dog at our house. They’re different from our ‘inside’ dogs who are pampered and sit around all day, watching television and getting scratched behind the ears.

The outside dog had one job: to be the first line of defense in case the bad guys attacked.

Because of that, most of our outside dogs were mean.

We had a couple of bull mastiffs years ago. I don’t know if you know what that is, but they are big, nasty looking things.

Anyone who dared come to our house without permission was putting their life in serious danger.

What the bad guys didn’t know was that to us, they were big fluffy babies who would be more likely to slobber you to death rather than tear out your throat.

But those big dogs don’t live very long so a few years ago, we found ourselves without a yard dog.

The bad guys were not going to give up trying to breech our perimeter, so we needed another dog.

Somehow, I convinced my wife that we didn’t need to spend thousands of dollars on new purebred dogs. We needed a junkyard mutt.

So off to the Humane Society we went. We had one goal in mind: get a dog who will kill everyone but us.

That’s what I told to the lady at the Humane Society.

“We need a killer,” I said.

She smiled and nodded.

“We’ve got the perfect dog,” she said.

We followed her into the big kennel where there was row after row of dogs that people had just thrown away. There were cage after cage of dogs.
Some were barking their heads off. Others were huddled in the corner, trying their best to avoid eye contact.

Some dogs just lay there. They had long ago given up on ever leaving this place.

The woman stopped in front of one of the cages, pointed and said that this was the one.

“She’s came here as a puppy. That was five years ago.”

I was shocked but more than that, I was saddened. How in the world had this dog spent five entire years living in this cage?

We looked through the wire and saw a little dog lying on what looked like an old bath mat. She was all different colors- grey with white and brown streaks.

It was pretty obvious that Tilly had come from what we would now called a ‘blended family.’

We asked the lady what breed she was.

“Who knows? But I believe there is a wolf somewhere in her lineage.”
I could see it.

Tilly looked like a cross between a Belgium Malinois, a husky and a wolf. It was quite intimidating.

I made eye contact with Tilly and could see such sadness and despair in her eyes. It was pretty obvious that she has gone through this many times before.

People had stopped and looked at her it but since she had such a wolf-like expression, they just moved on. In to the younger, prettier, more purebred residents of this room.

Just by looking at her, I could tell that she had given up. She knew she would die in this cage.

Well, not if we could help it.

We signed the papers, paid the feed and loaded the old girl up.

When we got Tilly home is when the magic really began. She jumped out of the car and just stood there for a moment on the grass, looking down.

I wondered if in the past five years, she had ever felt grass under her feet.

From the way she was looking down, it was pretty obvious that this was an unusual feeling for Tilly.

She finally looked up to us as if to say, “am allowed to run?” I waved around at the yard and told her to enjoy.

And boy did she.

For the first couple of days, all Tilly wanted to do was run. It reminded of that part of the movie where Forest Gump says, “I had run for 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours.”

Tilly would have probably run for three years if we hadn’t stopped her.

Slowly, the shy dog from the kennel who would not let you touch her began to open up and act like a real dog.

She started doing the things that real dogs do like digging holes in our flower beds, chewing on lots of hambones and chasing cats.

She was finally living her best life. Well, at least until the UPS guys started pulling up to our house.

I don’t know if she had been run over by a delivery driver in her previous life.

Maybe that was why she has been at the pound so long.

Or maybe she didn’t like the color brown.

Whatever the reason, she really came to life when those big brown vans pulled into our driveway. That’s when Tilly turned on ‘wolf mode.’

She barked and howled. She nipped at their feet and chased a few back to their trucks.

She HATED the UPS guy with a passion. But I also think that maybe she felt like ‘well, these people adopted me to be a watch dog. Time to earn my keep.’

It got so bad that UPS drivers began to just pull into our driveway and ‘toss’ our packages out the door. I’m fairly certain that there was a note on our address that said ‘crazy dog.’

We had many a broken and dented Amazon delivery during the Wolf Years.
Then Tilly started getting old- just like the rest of us.

At first, she just sat around in a hole she dug in the flower bed. Then she started just wandering around like a dementia patient.

Can dogs have dementia?

I don’t know but for the last couple of years, Tilly has just been lying around.

She still barked at the UPS guy but didn’t get up and chase him anymore.

We would see her walking around aimlessly. Sometimes in the backyard, sometimes in the front yard, sometimes in the Christmas tree farm.

After all those years in a cage, I guess she just wanted to be free. And after all the times being passed over, she finally had somebody who loved her.

I found Tilly lying in the flower bed a few days ago. She looked like she had passed away in her sleep.

She had lived in a cage for five years. And with us for eleven years.

We had given her a decade of freedom to just be a dog. And she relished every moment.

My lovely wife tells me that when she was little, one of her dogs died. She insisted on having a proper burial for the puppy so she had her father dig a grave and put the dog on a nice ‘coffin’ (a cardboard box).

As they stood beside the grave, her dad decided to say a few words. He was a tall man who didn’t mince words.

Her dad looked down at the dirt and recited a line from one of her favorite children’s books.

“Go, Dog, Go!”

That sounded like the perfect eulogy for Tilly.

She had lived in a cage without anyone to love her for a third of her life.

She was now up in doggy heaven where she would spend most of eternity just running. She was finally free.

Go, Dog, Go.

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Bad Luck

Do you believe in luck?
 
Ask most people if they think they have ‘good luck’ and most people will say yes. Actually, 91% claim they do.
 
That can’t be right. If almost everybody has ‘good luck’ then luck means nothing.
 
And what exactly is luck?
 
Webster says luck is success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions.
 
I guess it would be reasonable to expect bad luck is just as common as good luck, right? So, if that is true, why don’t more people admit it?
 
Well, I will. If good luck is swimming upstream, then I am apparently floating downstream. On a leaky inner tube.
 
I don’t know if I really believe in luck. If it is real, then I definitely have had bad luck.
 
At least in 2023.
 
My year started off pretty good. I was looking forward to two great trips that my beautiful wife and I would be taking – one to Italy and another to Alaska.
But it didn’t take long for my luck to take a nasty turn.
 
First, I hurt my shoulder and had to have rotator cuff surgery. I was hoping to do it before we went to Italy in April but spent the first four months either fighting with my insurance company or trying to get an appointment with a surgeon.
 
It didn’t happen so I had to go to Europe with a busted wing.
 
My company had been awarded a huge contract to do some video work for the State of Florida. It was going to be a windfall for us.
 
Thinking that the contract would come through, we spent thousands of dollars on some new equipment.
 
And then Florida decided to cancel the contract. No work. No huge payout.
 
Instead, I had $12,000 worth of new equipment that will take me years to pay off.
 
I got home from Italy and had surgery on my shoulder two days later. And then months worth of rehab.
 
Or shall we say, physical torture.
 
I finished my therapy and looked forward to cruising through the rest of the year.
 
Lady Luck had a different idea.
 
I was in my office one day when I got a call from the Treasury Department saying I owed several thousand dollars to the FCC that I didn’t even know about.
 
Wait. What?
 
I fought it but this was the federal government.
Insert ‘I Fought the Law and the Law Won’t’ by Bob Marley here.
 
There went my bank account.
 
At this point, I was beginning to see a trend. This was a textbook example of bad luck.
 
I figured I had to do something. And quick.
 
I tried to find a rabbit’s foot but apparently PETA has prevailed and we no longer chop the feet of furry little bunnies.
 
Bummer.
 
I tried burning incense. That’s how the ancient Egyptians would rid themselves of evil spirits.
 
I did nothing to change my
luck and now my house smelled like burnt hay.
 
I tried carrying a four leaf clover. And then a horseshoe.
 
I don’t know how many times I had to explain to my clients that the rusty horseshoe hanging around my neck didn’t mean I was a rapper.
Things seemed to be better for a while. I gave up the Thug Life and left my horseshoe home.
 
I hadn’t even gotten back the house. Speeding ticket. $280.
 
And then I got real sick and had to go the hospital. If I just had a rabbit’s foot.
I wondered if the hospital would cut off one of my feet to hang around my neck. They claimed they feared chopping off one of my feet may be considered malpractice.
 
Sissies.
 
I didn’t die. My luck wasn’t quite that bad. But I did have to go get a bunch of tests that included sticking long needles into my various veins.
 
Then the holidays got here. My wife owns a Christmas tree farm where I play Father Christmas on the weekends.
 
We were expecting a big season. And then the rain came.
And it didn’t stop.
 
We had to close the tree farm for several days because of bad weather. And that meant no customers buying trees.
 
This was the last insult.
 
I could understand why God was punishing me- I do stupid things all the time. I’m always forgetting to take out the trash, empty the dishwasher or close the lid of the toilet so the dogs won’t stick their heads down in it for a quick slurp.
 
But why was God punishing my lovely wife? She hadn’t done anything.
 
Well, she did make me smell some spoiled milk last summer. That is definitely punishable with eternal fire and brimstone.
 
Luckily, the year was quickly coming to a close. My bad luck year only had a few more days to torment me. Surely, the Gods had deemed I had suffered enough.
 
But then Lady Luck said, “Here. Hold my purse.”
Just a couple of weeks before Christmas- the day when all my family would be home all together for the last time this year- our heat pump decided to go belly up.
 
A voltage spike blew out the outside unit, our expensive Nest thermostat and the blower in the attic.
 
The bill to fix it? $5,000.
 
So here I sit on the last night of the year in my sweatsuit, socks, gloves, hoodie and heavy coat – still no heat- contemplating the year that was.
365 days of bad luck.
 
It’s too late to catch a rabbit and do some foot butchery. Too late to throw salt over my shoulder or pretend to be the Notorious B.I.G. and hang another horseshoe around my neck.
 
I’m starting the New Year with a new attitude. I have decided that I don’t believe in bad luck.
 
But if I’m wrong, if you happen to catch a bunny with nice little feet, please call me.
 
Just in case.
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What a Difference

Every morning, Facebook sends a photo to my phone from some event that happened in the past.
 
Sometimes I look at the photo and think, ‘Wow- that was a long time ago.’
So this week, as I was starting my day, I opened my phone and saw the Facebook ‘suggestion’ for that day.
 
It was a photo from back at Christmas when we were in the throes of the Covid pandemic.
 
All I can say is what a difference three years makes.
 
There were people in holiday garb, masked and standing six feet apart, rubbing alcohol on their hands as they gave each other the side eye. They looked miserable.
 
And, in a way, I guess they were.
For some people. But not me.
 
No, I was not a big fan of people getting sick and dying. I’m not Hitler.
I would characterize myself as ‘people avoidant.’
 
It’s not that I don’t like people. I do. Just every now and then, I like to get away from them so I can have a little ‘me’ time.
 
Don’t you ever just want to spend the day not having to talk or even see anyone.
 
I know that sounds quite humbugerry but the holidays are the only time I get to have a few days without email, texts, phone messages and zoom calls. .
 
Looking at those old photos reminds me how much has changed since 2020.
We spent our time washing and rewashing our hands until there was little skin left. Or debating whether a bandana, a scarf or a N95 mask was better.
 
We didn’t go Christmas shopping – at least not in person.
 
And forget going to a Christmas party. Seeing people face to face was sure uto spread the plague?
 
We thought all those things would never end. We would never be able to get together with friends or co-workers and drink some nasty eggnog while claiming we really like it.
 
We wouldn’t even be able to gather with our family for a Christmas dinner.
Nobody wanted to give the Black Death to grandma.
 
You think getting run over by a reindeer is rough. Try having a tube down throat, wondering if this would be your last Christmas.
For some people, it was their last Christmas.
 
And when it was all over, we just went back to our regular habits. Coughing on each other. Going out to dinner. Touching stuff.
 
I looked at the photo again and noticed how fragile and despondent we all looked.
 
No parties. No gift exchanges. No fatted goose on the table.
 
Dr. Fauci said if we did any of those things, we would surely die a horrible death with such fun stuff as blood coming out of our eyeballs.
 
That was three years ago. And most of us have forgotten what it was like.
 
I have. I don’t wash my hands as regularly as I should. I don’t wear a mask. I have a little card proving mmm that I received the Covid vaccinations- and the booster.
 
It’s back to our normal lives.
 
But will anything ever be normal again?
 
Just one nasty variant of the virus could put us right back where we were three years ago.
 
Masks. Hand sanitizer. Social distancing.
 
So, what have we learned from all of that? Besides how to cough into our elbow.
 
Well, this is what I learned.
 
Christmas is not about presents. I know the Grinch said that but it’s the truth.
I cannot remember most of what I got last Christmas. I’m sure it was wonderful but a year later, I couldn’t tell you what I got last year or the year before that.
 
It’s just stuff. It’s not important.
 
What I like the most about Christmas isn’t wrapped up in colorful paper and ribbon. It’s not even watching all 2,419 corny Christmas movies on Lifetime.
 
It’s people.
 
Some people who I hardly ever see, like my daughter in Phoenix. My son in Atlanta who I don’t see enough. My granddaughter who is growing up so fast, I hardly recognize her from week to week.
 
I don’t care about presents. Just the people I miss and love.
 
This year, nobody in my house will be wearing a mask. Or sitting across the room by myself because they have a runny nose, which we all know is a sure sign of the Black Death.
 
This year, we will all be together in one room and there will be plenty of laughs and love.
 
And not one single mask in sight.
 
Oh, what a difference three years make.
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The Christmas I Almost Died

I’ve almost died several times in my life.
 
There was that time I fell off our roof when I was five. My brother convinced me that if I tied a bed sheet around my neck and jumped off the roof, it would act as a parachute.
 
He was wrong.
 
Or the time I swallowed not one but two live goldfish. I was trying to get the attention of my group at church.
 
Swallowing one golffish is okay. Two? Not so much.
 
But the real time I almost died- I mean escaped by a thread- was Christmas 1969. I was seven years old.
 
We would always visit my dad’s parents in Whigham during the holidays. It was one of the few times that all of the aunts, uncles and cousins would all get together for a big meal and to open presents.
 
When all us kids got together, trouble was not too far behind. Especially if it was me, my brother and one of my cousins.
 
But this particular day? Well, we went a little too far.
 
My grandparents lived in this big old white house in Whigham. Across the street was several hundred acres of woods.
 
And that is where we got in the most trouble. In the woods.
 
While our parents were sitting around talking and getting lunch ready, the three of us went exploring.
 
We told them we’d be back before lunch and into the woods we went.
My bother, cousin and I had done some pretty stupid things over the years. We had grown a crop of wild ‘rabbit tobacco’, dried it over a fire and tried to smoke it.
 
It was horrid.
 
And we had built a homemade go cart from parts and pieces we found at the junkyard. The thing had a tendency to overheat and catch on fire but that didn’t stop us from driving it all over the woods.
 
But that was nothing like the stunt we pulled during the Christmas of 1969.
I don’t know whose idea it was but that person almost got us killed.
 
We’re walking along in the woods, looking for something to vandalize, when somebody spotted a bush that was covered with these plump, purple berries.
We were country kids and knew that these berries were poisonous. So we didn’t eat them. No, what we did would have been a lot less painful.
 
One is us knuckleheads had the bright idea that we could use these berries to play a joke on our parents.
 
If any of us had any sense, we would have shut it down right there. But we were little kids and common sense was still quite a few years into the future.
 
“We can smear them all over Jeff and tell our parents he has been in an accident. It will be hilarious.”
 
“Why me?” I asked.
 
“Because you’re the baby.”
 
I was seven. Not a baby but I didn’t argue. Maybe the one who was ‘dying’ would be treated with a little more compassion than the two perpetrators.
 
Wrong again.
 
I don’t know which one of us bozos thought this would be a fun thing to do but it was decided that my brother and cousin would smear the red juice from these berries all over me. And then they would run into the house screaming that I had been run over by a car.
 
Now, if one of us idiots had stopped right there- just one of us- and said, “This is a bad idea!” we would have avoided what was about to come.
But nope. We were nitwits.
 
So, my brother and cousin grabbed a big handful of those purple berries and began rubbing them all over me. On my face, my arms, in my hair, all over my clothes.
 
When they were finished, I looked like that scene in the movie, ‘Carrie’ where they dumped a bucket of blood all over Sissy Spacek.
 
We practiced what we were going to do. My brother and cousin would run into the living and scream that I had been run over my a car. That was my cue to come through the door- actually I was going to crawl, dragging my two broken leg behind me.
 
It was going to be hilarious. Our parents, however, had a different opinion.
Satisfied that I was sufficiently covered with the fake blood, we headed back to my grandparents house.
 
As we stood in front of the house, preparing to launch our prank, I had a quick idea flash across my dumb mind.
 
‘You about to make a huge mistake,’ my mind said. Foolishly, I ignored that little voice.
 
But I didn’t have the luxury of telling my brother and cousin about my hesitation. They ran forward, across the porch and burst through the front door.
 
They had both somehow been able to muster up some tears as they proclaimed to all my relatives that little brother had been run over by a car.
That was my cue.
 
I threw myself down on the porch and then crawled through the door, moaning and writhing in pain.
 
My performance was Oscar-worthy. My parents were obviously not members of the Academy because they didn’t burst into applause at my performance.
 
Upon seeing my bloody body, smeared head to toe with berry juice, my mother let out a shriek that I am sure probably contributed to my grandmother’s early death a couple years later.
 
She jumped up, grabbed me and yelled for my father to go get the car so we could go to the hospital. My dad sprang from his rocking chair and began to run towards the the door.
 
That was the moment that my brother and cousin burst out laughing.
My mom, a little perplexed at their inappropriate behavior, reached down and wiped a finger across the blood splattered on my face.
 
At this point, I should have been smart enough to admit that this was all a hoax. I was okay.
 
But I was young and quite stupid, so instead, I screamed as if she was poking her finger down into a bullet wound.
 
A good actor never breaks character.
 
My mother raised her finger to her nose and I saw her face change from a concerned mother to the furious, potential murderous levitation she was about to become.
 
Realizing that this was not blood smeared all me, she dropped me
back to the floor with a thud and turned to my father.
 
She didn’t have to say a word.
 
My father grabbed me and my brother by our necks and dragged us onto the porch. The next sound I heard was his leather belt being whipped through his belt loops.
 
As he laid into me, my mother came flying through the door She was as mad as a three-legged dog trying to bury a turd on an icy pond.
 
Somehow, while screaming statements such as “I’m going to beat you to death” and “stand still so I can hit you”, my mother managed to pull a long wooden spoon out of her purse.
 
That was her weapon of choice. A good stiff spoon.
 
My dad continued applying a few stipes to my little behind while my mom attempted to kill my brother with that spoon. After a few minutes, they switched off.
 
My brother got the belt and I got the spoon.
 
And in between the crying and screaming for mercy, we heard our uncle whipping our cousin in the living room
 
Unlike my parents, he obviously didn’t care if other people watched him deliver a little discipline to my cousin’s rear end.
 
Mercifully, the beatings ended with the warning from my mother that if we ever tried something like that again, she would beat us to death.
 
I do believe she meant it.
 
But what I remember most about this whole situation was how we seemed so unfazed by it.
 
We took our lickings, dried our tears and went on playing. Well, after I went to the bathroom and scrubbed all the ‘blood’ off of me.
 
We didn’t call DEFACS or our attorney. We didn’t go online and spend the next week complaining about how our parents were sadistic monsters.
 
We didn’t ask to be emancipated.
 
Nope, we cleaned ourselves up and headed back to the woods.
And we never pulled a stunt like that again. My mother’s wooden spoon guaranteed that!
 
Child psychologists claim that spanking a child normalizes the act of hitting someone and any parents who still do it should be sent to a maximum security prison to spend the remainder of their lives in solitary confinement.
 
These are the same people who used to claim that New York City would be underwater by 1990.
 
I don’t know about all that but I do know one thing. I will NEVER try to prank my mother by smearing berry juice all of me.
 
I learned my lesson and I can honestly say that I will never do that again.
But if I do, my mom is ready. She’s 88 years old and still has that wooden spoon in her purse.
 
And she is not afraid to use it on me.
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Grow Old With Me

There used to be a sign in our bedroom that reads, ‘Grow Old With Me.’
My wife hung it there.
 
She was a beautiful young woman of just 22 years old when we met. On Monday, she will turn 60. In March, I’ll be 62.
 
I guess it happened just like the sign says. We grew old.
 
I sometimes pull out old photos of my wife from those early years. She was so beautiful when I met her.
 
She still is.
 
I don’t know how she did it. I became an old bald troll. She stayed forever young.
 
I guess I never expected to grow old. Call it Peter Pan Syndrome. When you’re young, you expect to be young forever. But despite how much I have resisted, time it marched right along without me.
 
Years passed like a slow conveyor belt. Steadily. Repetitive. Never slowing down.
 
And now, I’m in my 60s. And she will be joining me this week. And I still cant believe it.
 
We grew old. But at least we did it together.
 
I guess when she got a little mileage on her, I could traded my wife in for a new, younger model. I know plenty of guys who have done that.
 
They’re the ones you see on Facebook smiling from the front seat of their ridiculously shiny convertible sports car.
 
They seem happy, but I wonder if that is true.
 
Every time I see one of these guys in his 60s with their convertible sports cars, hair implants and young thing on their arm, I think to myself back to that day in 1987 when I stood up before family, friends and God and pledged that we would be together until ‘death do us part.’
 
A lot of us say those words on our wedding day. Most don’t really mean it?
I did.
 
I didn’t pledge to stay married to her as long as she was young and beautiful. Or if she stopped adoring me like she once did.
 
Neither of those mattered to me. I loved her and was committed to the long haul.
 
And it’s been a long haul.
 
Now, looking back at all of those years, I wonder how they went by so fast.
It seems like only yesterday, we had three little kids running around the house. Now, no one runs around our house.
 
We’re trying real hard not to break a hip.
 
We had a ‘surprise’ birthday party for my wife on Saturday night. We invited her closest friends and family to come help us celebrate.
 
While people were mingling around, we showed a slide show featuring old photos from last sixty years.
 
As I watched it, I tried to find pick a photo that most aptly represents her life.
About twenty photos in, I found it.
 
It was a photo from back when we were youth pastors and took our youth to Mexico on a mission trip.
 
One of the places we worked while there was an orphanage for young children who had been abandoned by their parents. One little girl had been tossed out of a moving car by her parents and in the process of them driving away, they ran over her.
 
The little girl was twisted with two mangled and useless legs.
 
People in that area of the world are very superstitious and they treated the little malformed girl like she had leprosy. She or her parents were paying for some grave sin and that was the reason for her vilification.
 
Most days, she sat in her crib, ignored by the small staff at the orphanage. No one wanted to touch the little cursed girl, in fear that her condition was a sign of grave bad luck.
 
The young girls on our group all grabbed the beautiful little cherubs until all the cribs were empty except one.
 
The little twisted girl with the bent, useless legs was forgotten.
Until my wife showed up.
 
She grabbed the little girl and carried her outside so she could
watch all the other children having fun.
 
The staff frowned. The little girl had been a burden since her arrival. She couldn’t walk. She couldn’t work.
 
She didn’t contribute. To the orphanage. To society.
 
The moment my wife picked her up, the little girl clung to her like she was never letting go.
 
There was good reason. Since the little girl was malformed and considered cursed, no one at the orphanage would touch her. They were afraid that whatever curse had befallen the little girl may actual infest them.
 
My wife didn’t believe in those superstitions and talks of curses. She picked up the little girl and held her for the entire day.
 
The little girl had head lice and a soiled diaper but my wife didn’t care. This little girl desperately longed for someone to show her love and that’s what she got from my wife.
 
I have a photo of the two of them sitting on the steps together. Little children completely surround my wife who is sitting and holding the little crippled girl in her lap.
 
The little girl clung to her like a life raft.
 
The one thing we asked people coming to the birthday party was write a letter telling my wife how much they loved her- and something special they remember of their time together.
 
I didn’t write a letter. That photo of my wife holding the little girl with the twisted limbs was my letter. This was the essence of her life. Helping others.
In fact, looking back at the past 37 years, that has been the purpose of her life.
She is the reason we became foster parents. She is the reason we took in wayward teenagers who had been kicked of their homes.
 
She is the reason that Elevate is so successful every year and she is the one who decides to make it free for all the artists.
 
She has lost money on every Elevate for eight years. Eight years! And yet, she continues to do it.
 
She is the reason scores of needy families and businesses in this area have received a free Christmas tree over the last few years.
 
She has given away thousands of dollars worth of trees and doesn’t think twice about it.
 
When I asked her why she continues to do Elevate and give away so many trees every year when she loses money on both.
 
Her answer was simple. And indisputable.
 
“Because it makes people.”
 
And that has been her answer for the last 37 years that I have known her.
 
Why are you doing this? Because it will make someone’s life easier.
 
I doubt turning 60 will change her. She will keep on helping people have an easier, happier life as long as she can.
 
That’s who she is.
 
She’s older. I’m older. I guess we are finally growing old. Together.
 
I’ve been asked over the years how to have a successful marriage. I never hesitate to respond the same way every time.
 
Find a good woman who loves you- and loves others more than herself.
 
It’s worked for me.
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Plain Ole Coffee

Does anyone still drink just regular coffee?
 
I am a coffee snob. I’ll admit it.
 
I like coffee but I have certain standards.
 
It has to be good.
 
No gas station sludge. No instant. No big frozen mug of liquid that is mainly sugar with maybe a splash of espresso.
 
I like just plain ole coffee. But plain ole coffee is hard to find these days.
 
I had a break in Nutcracker rehearsal this week and it was cold outside. The perfect weather for a nice plain ole cup of hot coffee, so I went to the coffee shop.
 
Certainly they have just regular coffee that’s better than the black swill they serve at gas stations.
 
I stepped up to the counter to order and looked up at the menu on the wall.
 
Nowhere did it list just plain coffee.
 
There was cappuccino, flat white, breve, macchiato, cold brew, frappes, and a whole bunch of other drinks I could not pronounce.
 
I looked for just the plain coffee but didn’t see it listed.
 
I asked the young woman behind the counter if she had just plain coffee.
She looked back at me with an expression of confusion on her face.
 
“Plain coffee? You mean like just a cup of coffee?” she asked.
 
“Yes. Just a regular cup of coffee. You have that?”
 
“Sure,” replied, pointing to the menu board over her head. Would you like pour over, espresso, French press, cold brew?”
 
I wasn’t sure.
 
“Which one is just coffee,” I asked and the young woman snickered.
 
“They’re all coffee, sir.”
 
Yeah, whatever. I’ve been drinking coffee since middle school and none of those sounded like the coffee my mama would brew in her old, stained Mr. Coffee.
 
I asked the young woman if they just had a pot of coffee back there that they could just pour into a cup and hand it to me.
 
“Sure, but wouldn’t you like to try something a little more…. sophisticated? Maybe a frappe?”
 
Humans have been drinking coffee since the 15th century. It was cultivated in what is now Iran and first consumed by people in that region.
 
I’m pretty sure the people back then did not drink cappuccino, cold brew or frappe. When you ordered coffee, it came thick, strong and black.
 
And that was what I wanted. Strong and black.
 
I asked the woman what a frappe was and she said it was coffee and ice cream blended with ice and my choice of flavorings. I asked if they just had coffee flavor.
 
She laughed. I didn’t.
 
I assume you that she thought I was some kind of slow-witted dolt. But that has been the way my ancestors have been drinking coffee for generations.
My dad used to fill a thermos with hot black coffee and take it to work with him.
 
I think the thing held twelve cups. He would drink all of them by the end of the day. Twelve cups!
 
But the oddest method of consuming coffee was the way my grandfather did it.
 
When I was a little kid, my dad’s father came to live with us for a couple of years. He had suffered from a stroke but he was weird long before he moved in with us.
 
Each morning at breakfast, I would watch him and marvel at the way he drank his coffee.
 
He had to have a cup and saucer. No styrofoam cups or insulated mug. He was a cup & saucer man.
 
Instead of drinking his coffee like the rest of the 7 billion people on the planet, he would take his coffee cup and pour a little in his saucer. He would swirl it around and around to cool it and then slurp it from the saucer.
 
Loudly. Apparently that was a part of his strange ritual. Swirl and slurp, swirl and slurp.
 
It would drive my mother crazy. I thought it was cool.
 
I attempted to do it and just sloshed coffee all over my scrambled eggs. No slurping for me.
 
He was the same guy who would stack his food in a big pile and eat it all mixed together. Meat on the bottom. Then mashed potatoes and on top of that he would pile layer after layer of vegetables – and then cover the whole thing with gravy.
 
I asked him why he ate that way once and he said that it’s all going to the same place so what difference did it make.
 
I tried his method of stacking my food in a small tower and eating it all jumbled together. It was pretty gross.
 
But that method of swirl and sip and food stacking was nothing compared to the way he brewed his coffee.
 
Most of us put ground coffee in a coffee maker or use a single serve ‘pod.’ Not my grandfather.
 
He would take a small pot of water and put it on the stove. When it boiled, he would get a big spoonful of coffee grounds and just drop them into the boiling water.
 
After a few stirs, he would pour it into his cup. No filter. Grounds and all. Hardcore.
 
He didn’t die until his 90s so I guess ingesting coffee grounds wasn’t lethal.
The young woman at the coffee shop set my plain black cup of coffee on the counter.
 
“That’ll be $5.35,” she said.
 
I looked down at the cup. Certainly at that price, there should be some gold bullion floating on the top. This must be the world’s greatest cup of coffee.
 
It wasn’t.
 
“Would you like a shot in your coffee, sir?”
 
“A shot of what? Bourbon?”
 
“No silly… a shot of flavor.”
 
I declined. I’m pretty sure that my grandfather didn’t drink his coffee with a shot of elderberry flavor.
 
I told her black was fine and she looked at me oddly. Apparently I am the only person who has gone into the coffee shop and ordered just plain coffee with no flavor shots, steamed soy milk or whipped cream.
 
“Would you care for cream, sir?”
 
“Sure,” I said to the young woman behind the counter.
 
“Good. Which do you prefer- almond, soy or oat milk?”
 
Now I didn’t graduate with an agronomy degree but I am
smart enough to know that you can’t milk a almond tree or an oat or soybean plant. If they do have udders, they must cut those off before they show up in the grocery store.
 
“You got just milk?,” I asked.
 
“You mean from a cow?”
 
“Yeah, from a cow.”
 
“You must mean milk-milk.”
 
I tried really hard to not roll my eyes but has nobody ever told this young woman that the only place to get milk is from a mammal. And soy, oats and even almonds are not milk.
 
I poured some of that milk-milk into my cup and added a couple of sugars. Yeah, I like regular coffee but I’m not an uncultured cretin.
I
took my cup and said thank you. I almost asked for a saucer so I could ‘swirl and sip’ my coffee but I just figured that would irritate all of the other people in the shop enjoying their caramel mocha frappuccino with oat milk.
 
So, I just took my cup and left with my plain, no-frills coffee.
I took a sip and burned my tongue.
 
I guess that swirl & sip thing wasn’t so stupid afterall. Next time I go to a coffee shop, maybe I’ll bring a saucer.
 
And a cow.
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DNA

A few years ago, my wife got me an Ancestry subscription.

She says it was so I could discover where I came from.

I know where I came from. Archbold Hospital.

I think she just wanted to make sure that she hadn’t reproduced with a flat-headed Neanderthal.

I don’t know if you have done one of these tests but they send you a bunch of instructions and a little glass vial. You’re supposed to spit into this little vial and then put it in the mail.

That didn’t sound real scientific to me. Forget all the stuff you see on Grey’s Anatomy or CSI where they use blood and various other bodily fluids to catch the killer. This was spit.

I didn’t have to swab my cheek or stick one of those plastic sword things up my nose and tickle my brain like they did when I got a COVID test.

I swear that the last time I got tested for the virus, the nurse stuck that thing so far up my nose that I had some brain damage.

I still can’t remember my home telephone number.

No, this test is a little more primitive. No swabs up the nose or scrubbed against your cheek. Nope, this one was high tech.

I just had to spit into the little glass vial, seal it up and mail it.

I was a little skeptical about how accurate this spit thing would be. I mean, what if I had Chinese for lunch? Would the test come back claiming that one of my ancestors was a Cantonese plumber?

Or if I happened to eat some collard greens and fatback for lunch, would they claim my ancestors were a bunch of dirt poor sharecroppers?

They were but I don’t need to be reminded of it.

I took the little vial from my packet and marveled at how small it was. It might be a little tough getting my spit in that little thing.

I was right.

In my first attempt, I dribbled spit all down my hand.

My second attempt wasn’t much better. I drooled on my shirt.

This was embarrassing. Maybe my ancestors were all Neanderthals. I’m sure if you went back in time and asked one of my caveman relatives to spit into a tiny vial, he would probably look at you and say, “Gronk!” which means “you want me to spit in that little thing” in Neanderthalese.

Somehow I managed to get some spit in the vial on my third attempt. Thank goodness, too, because it was starting to get a little tough to work up enough spit.

I sealed up my little vial of dry spit in the envelope and mailed it off.
Now all I had to do was wait. And wonder.

Would they discover that one of my ancestors was one of the great kings of Persia or maybe I was the great great great great grandson of one of our nation’s founding fathers?

It would be cool to be able to tell people that I am a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson.

The results of the test came back a few weeks later.

I was not a descendant of a great king or even a mediocre founding father. It didn’t have to be Thomas Jefferson but maybe I could be related to somebody like Gouverneur Morris.

He was the guy who came up with the phrase ‘We the People’ that kicks off the Constitution.

I opened up the envelope. There was no mention of Jefferson or even that Morris guy.

Instead of the ancestry people telling me about my famous relatives, it told me what I already knew.

My people came from France and Germany, with a little Irish tossed in. If any of them were famous, my test didn’t mention it.

I was hoping for more information than just what countries my distant relatives inhabited. Maybe the revelation that I was 75th in line to the British throne. Or maybe the surprising discovery that one of my relatives invented Velcro or two-sided tape or something like that.

Nope. My ancestors were a clan of under achievers.

No famous scientists, Nobel Prize winners or even a D-List celebrity like Steven Seagall. Certainly there had to be somebody rich or famous in my lineage.

Nope. I am apparently the descendant of a long line of poor mediocre Europeans.

They did nothing spectacular in their lives. Well, except creating me.

Now scientists say that they can take a little of my DNA and tell me if I am going to develop prostate cancer or a cold sore.

I’m not so sure how I feel about that. Do I really want to know that I will die at the age of 97 from a nasty case of anal cancer?

Nah, that’s okay, doc. I would
prefer that my eventual demise be a surprise.

Not a surprise like “Oh, look! That meteorite is heading straight for us!”
No, something more like my doctor calling me in to his office to tell me I have less than a week to live. And would I please clear up my bill before I meet the Grim Reaper.

It’s been a while since I got my test back and I still get emails from the Ancestry people telling me they have found one of my long-lost relatives.

I rarely open them. I don’t want to find out one of my relatives is a one-legged pool cleaner in Las Vegas. I’m already depressed that I’m not related to Princess Diana. Why do I need to know that my relatives are just a bunch of ordinary people who never signed the Constitution, never was President of the United States or even graduated high school.

No, when you guys find out that I have famous relatives like Barbra Streisand or that guy who yells ‘Score!’ during all those foreign soccer games, give me a call.

Until then, if anyone asks me what my Ancestry test showed, I’m going to just tell them that Adolf Hitler is my uncle, on my mother’s side, twice removed.

Hey, if I can’t be famous, at least I can be notorious.

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