Bargain Hunter

I was driving around with some friends and their kids a couple weeks ago, when the dad mentioned that he wanted to stop at a nearby outdoor equipment store.

There was a collective groan from the backseat, because the kids knew his browsing could quickly get out of hand and take up a large chunk of the day.

“Awww, no!” the older child whined.

But the younger sibling decided to put some firm limits in place.

“You can have five minutes there.”

Their dad laughed. “Oh, five minutes, that’s all I get, huh?”

There was silence for a moment before the tables were turned. A small but confident voice replied, “I can take it to three.”

Hold the Butter

A Facebook friend posted about an encounter at the movie theater that left him shaken, not stirred. He said he went to the men’s room before the show, and there were other dudes in there using the urinals.

This is not the troubling part.

One guy had brought in his movie snack. Rather than set it on the sink while he did his business, or even hold onto it (because do you really need two hands to complete this task?), he had elected simply to place it at his feet.

Shockingly, even this is not the troubling part.

The most worrisome aspect of the whole scenario was that the guy’s snack was not a sealed bag of candy. It was an open tub of popcorn.

Now, I don’t make a habit of visiting men’s bathrooms in commercial spaces. But I know what their aim is generally like in residential homes. So I can’t even finish this explanation without wanting to gag a little.

I especially hope this dude wasn’t attending a film with a date who was waiting expectantly for him to return from the concession stand with a treat.

I told this story to a male friend just to gauge whether I might be overreacting in my horror. When I got to the snack type reveal, he covered his mouth with both hands and gasped. And then I couldn’t stop laughing, because I’d never seen a man react that way before.

There’s a first time for everything, it seems.

Presidential Fitness

As human beings, our brains are programmed to see faces in everything. Perhaps that’s why, when I’m on my rowing machine and I look at the scratched-up wall on my right, I can’t help thinking that a rather sad, contemplative Abraham Lincoln is watching me work out.

It has just now occurred to me that I live on Lincoln Street. This is freaking me out a little.

Hammered Handyman

One of the very first houses I looked at last year, in my quest for a new abode, was a 1920s two-story on the first day of its listing.

My realtor met me at the address, and together we headed inside. We sensed something "off" right away, since the door was unlocked and there was a cigarette laying beside the sink.

We called out and looked around. Finding no one, we decided to just spin through as quickly as possible. The tour was interrupted about a minute later when a very disheveled, very inebriated man wandered inside. He wanted to tell us all about the house. Loudly.

Turns out he was the owner, who happened to live across the street and had decided to fix up and sell his second property instead of renting it out. He slurrily explained all the improvements he'd made -- personally -- to each and every corner of this "nice fucking house."

It took all my willpower not to say, "Sir, you're drunk NOW! How drunk were you when you were making home repairs?!" 

But shoddy craftsmanship wasn't even my main concern. The biggest problem was that he would still be living just steps from my front door, and might get the notion to drop in anytime in an altered state.

When he started profanity-laden price negotiations directly with me, I called it a day and walked off. He may have made some nice additions to the property, but the extra three sheets were not an effective selling point.

Rock Opera

So I have to tell you this story, because I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it.

A couple months ago, I went to an opera. My seat was about eight rows back on the main floor, and in the very front row sat a man who started making noises about halfway into the first act. 

The first few times, I didn't quite know what I was hearing. I thought perhaps there was some interference from offstage. However, after about ten minutes, it became clear that the low, guttural grunts were coming from the audience. 

I'm not trying to make fun of this person, because he evidently had a condition of some sort, and he deserves to come out and hear beautiful music the same as everybody else.

The noise, which I can only describe as the sort of surprised, huffing "Hoh!" you might hear from a large ape, wasn't frequent enough to distract me for long, and I soon tuned it out. Until the first applause break, when it turned into, again, what I can only describe this time as the sort of screeching you might hear from a very excited chimpanzee.

Everybody heard this. You could FEEL them hear it. And then the most extraordinary thing happened.

Instead of nervously laughing, or shooting the guy disapproving glares, or outright complaining about the outbursts, everyone in the audience simply cheered louder.

Like, really loud. It quickly turned into, dare I say, a downright raucous crowd. I even saw the conductor kind of look up, puzzled, and then delightedly launch back into the music with extra gusto.

This leads me to two possible conclusions. 1) That audience was just full of the best people, who amped up their reactions to make the man in the front row feel less alone.  Or . . . 2) Opera-goers are always secretly looking for any excuse to express their hardcore love of arias like they're at a rock concert.

Next time I'll throw up a sign of the horns gesture during some recitative and see who throws one back.

These are Not the Droids You're Looking For

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I was planning to watch a neighbor's house while their family was on vacation.

The first day that they were gone, we had a heavy rainstorm, so I decided to just do a general check inside to make sure nothing was leaking or awry.

I was prepared to do any number of things in the way of watchfulness and maintenance in their absence -- take in the garbage cans, collect random mail, empty the dehumidifier -- but what I was not prepared for was the 3-ft. tall Star Wars stormtrooper figure stashed around the corner in the basement rec room.

Now, I knew full well their son owned this toy. I'd seen it many, many times. I'd just never been confronted with it by surprise when I flipped on a light in what I desperately hoped was an empty house.

I don't think I screamed like a girl, exactly. It may have been a more primal sound that escaped my lips, somewhere between a shout and a growl. I think I dropped back in a defensive position. You know, in case I needed to battle the  . . . wayward child  . . .  or criminally inclined little person . . . who had broken in and taken over the place in the six hours it had been unoccupied.

That must have been what flashed in my mind during that nanosecond of terror. And honestly, it was almost scarier than seeing a full-sized figure. Because WTF?!

When my heart started again, the profanity started flying, and I conducted my domestic recon mission at light speed. Nothing like an extra shot of adrenaline to liven up your homework.

Mature Content

Here's how I know I'm officially old.

And no, I'm not talking about the moment when I realized that, from this point forward, any time I have a dessert, there better be coffee with it. Although that did happen. And if you serve me something sweet at an event without also providing a cuppa joe, I'm gonna be pissed.

I'm talking about the time when I finally watched the movie "Basic Instinct," (only 26 years late) which was supposed to be quite sexy -- and, truth be told, probably is, although Michael Douglas kind of killed the vibe for me. Turns out he's a dude I just want to see solving crimes, not getting naked.

Anyway, there's a moment in the movie when he takes Jeanne Tripplehorn home after a long day at the office, and in a moment of unchecked desire, he rips off her clothes to reveal some slinky undergarments.

It was at this point that I heard myself shout loudly and sarcastically, "Oh, like she wore those stockings to WORK!"

Are your wild days behind you when practicality pre-empts passion? Time will tell.

Cat Nap

There were several city workers milling about my street today, courtesy of a construction project in my neighborhood. It reminded me of last year around this time, when I looked out my front window to see a group of guys from the utility company gathered around a pickup.

See, they'd sent out a crew to move my gas meter from the inside of my house to the outside. And it was taking a LONG time. I watched this burly round-table through my blinds until one of the men broke off and approached the front door.

"Hey, what's going on?" I asked.

In reply, he muttered something about an animal. I immediately conjured some long-dead critter they'd unearthed in my basement. He must have seen the panic flash across my face, because he quickly said, "It's the foreman's cat. He didn't know it was under the hood of his truck this morning when he left."

My brief moment of relief was replaced by horror, as I'd heard similar stories about squirrels that had nested on a warm engine, never to scamper again.

"Oh no!" I said, and then proceeded to watch a group of grown men huddle together, retching, to deal with the grisly business at hand. From what I could glean, they sent in the newbie, wearing an air filtration mask and goggles, ostensibly because he had the smallest hands.

When the task was completed, they turned their attention back to my house, and before they took off, I asked the man if everything was ok.

"Yeah," he said. "We got it cleaned up. But now the foreman's gotta go home and tell his kids what happened."

And I thought, NOOOOOO. He most certainly does NOT have to tell this gruesome tale to his children. In fact, he should probably tell them anything BUT this story. There has never been a better opportunity to reveal the existence of a lovely "farm" where that cat now resides.

My hairdresser was recently telling me about a beloved dog she'd had in childhood that "went to live on a farm." She said she was well into her 20s before it dawned on her that her pet had, in fact, died.

"All that time I thought that dog was running happily through rolling green fields in front of a charming little farmhouse with a picket fence."

At that point, one of the other hairdressers started laughing.

"What's so funny about that?!" my hairdresser demanded.

"She already knows what it looks like." The other woman shook her head a few times and continued chuckling to herself. "She's got a whole picture in her head of what that farm looks like."

I can only hope that foreman painted a similarly comforting picture for his kiddos to take into adulthood.