Keen Keith

Dear Priceline - Regarding Green Motion - Heathrow

2018-10-23T13:49:00.002-07:00

UPDATE:
My bombardment of information to Priceline was heard! A chief executive read this blog and took action. He sent this to the Rental Car management team at Priceline who also read it. They reached out to Ace Rent A Car who then immediately called Green Motion Heathrow's owner and had my money refunded. Priceline has been helpful after having my story sent down from the top of their corporate structure, but they say they are not in position to dictate to Ace Rent A Car who they can an cannot partner with. I don't love this answer, but what this does is it means I should now be putting pressure on Ace Rent A Car to sever their relationship with Green Motion Heathrow. To date Ace Rent A Car has done nothing to imply they are planning to end their affiliation with Green Motion Heathrow. I am gathering as much information as possible from past customers who have also been defrauded in an effort to end this revenue stream for Green Motion.

Please email me your experiences at GMHfraud@gmail.com. I am collecting this information so I can share with Green Motion's affiliates just who and what this company is. Nobody should be directed there only to become the next victim of fraud.

ORIGINAL TEXT (sent to Priceline):

I am a price shopper. I need to say that up front because it’s what has led me to your website many times in the past. And I’ve endured some bumps in my travel along the way in pursuit of saving a buck. I’ve flown Spirit Airlines in the past which I booked through Cheapoair.com…if you’ve ever done something similar you know the downsides to something like that. So to a pretty high degree I’m used to putting up with long lines and sub-par service when I travel.

Having said that, until now, I have never felt the need to go back and warn others to avoid my experience. Over the past few weeks I have been trying to reach someone of sufficient authority at Priceline who will really, truly listen to my experience (and those of many, many others). All I can seem to reach is the front-line customer service representative telling me that my comments are being forwarded to the appropriate people and that they are being taken seriously and that a resolution is being attempted. The only resolution I want from Priceline is that they stop doing business with Green Motion, or at the very least Green Motion – Heathrow. Let me explain…

For my 40^th birthday my wife gave me the trip of a lifetime (to date). We flew to London, did a quick tour of Scotland including playing golf at The Old Course at St. Andrews, we attended a Chelsea soccer match at Stamford Bridge, we then toured England with our remaining days. Along the way we traveled by air, train, underground (subway) and rental car. We had some timing issues with some of the modes of transportation that were minor hindrances, but nothing out of the ordinary during an international trip. However, all that changed when I booked a car through Priceline. I sincerely hope someone actually reads through my experience, understands it, empathizes with it and values it because it’s important that your company knows what fate it is sending your customers to. It’s important that you realize that Priceline is built on improving the travel experience and that, when partnered with seedy rental companies, it is actually ruining that experience for many of your customers.

Back to our trip…we were planning our trip on the fly, usually booking our place to stay through Airbnb just a day or two in advance (and at one point about an hour in advance). At a certain point we determined that we would need to rent a car in London the evening of Sunday 9/30. We didn’t know exactly what time as we were spending the entire day on a two person, fast-forward sight-seeing London adventure. We did this on foot and via the underground. Our plan was to get to the end of our packed day of tourism and then make our way to Heathrow where I booked us a car through Priceline at ACE Rent A Car.

You see, I have rented through ACE in the past. It’s typically cheap, which I like. It’s usually off-premises so it takes longer to check out, but to me that’s worth the price savings. We were planning to rent for 4 days and the total cost listed on Priceline was only $41.71 (American) in total. It was a great deal. It noted that there was a “Shuttle Service” to get there and booked it because I was familiar with ACE and was comfortable to that end. Biggest mistake I’ve ever made while travelling. Ever. My chief concern was that I needed an automatic transmission which I was able to reserve. I failed to see that I was only allotted 360 kilometers for that price (which I think is a typo as England uses miles and the guys that worked there stated the same number in miles). This was limiting, but not terrible but plays into the story later.

Shortly after 5:00 pm it became apparent that we wouldn’t make it to Heathrow for a few more hours so I called the toll-free ACE phone line. They transferred me to “the local branch”. The phone rang for several minutes and then disconnected. What I mean by this is that I let the phone ring (unanswered) so long that it actually timed out. Not knowing what else to do I then assumed I had fulfilled my responsibility to reach out to them and went about getting to their location as soon as possible.

“Shuttle from the airport”

We picked up our luggage, got on the underground and headed toward Heathrow. Upon arrival I looked up instructions online about the “shuttle”. A few things here:

1. Hotel shuttles are not allowed at Heathrow…they have “Hoppa Busses”.

2. It was much easier to find the bus depot than the hoppa bus pickup. The lady working at the bus depot directed us back to the terminal where the buses take people to various hotels

3. There was a 5 pound per person charge to ride the hoppa bus (something I was unprepared for, so I ended up paying a terrible exchange rate to get the proper currency…and later found out that I could have used a credit card).

4. The bus runs MAYBE every 20 minutes. It felt like a very, very long time.

But I would argue that consumers should know about all this hassle up front…in detail. Once you experience it you can find references to pieces of the headache it is to get there in the fine print, but until you read the reviews of all the frustrated customers you really don’t know how bad it’s going to be. I have rented off-site countless times in the past…this was the worst experience I’ve ever had. Unfortunately the web-reviews of angry, frustrated customers are the only realistic online descriptions of the experience.

Experience at the rental counter

Upon arrival at the Holiday Inn Express where the rental company is located I looked around and had to double check that I was in the right place. Why? Because it turned out I wasn’t renting from ACE at all, I was renting from a company I had never heard of called Green Motion. At this point it was roughly 9:00 pm and we were 2.5 miles (and 10 pounds…or $13) from the airport…we were stuck in the trench I had somehow dug for us...marooned here with really only one option: namely, endure whatever lay ahead.

I entered the small rental office and was third in line with two people already being helped (so, kind of fifth in line). There were three young men working behind the counter. One of them was loudly and constantly complaining that he was long overdue to have left for the day. He refused to help any of us. He was jovial and actually kind of funny, but he didn’t do a thing to help move the line along. As I waited I observed the sales pitch the two guys actually helping customers pressed on all the people in front of me. It took well over an hour for me to finally reach the front. If you’ve never had to wait in one of these lines, just know that it wears you down. You’ve traveled a long way to get in the line and all you want is to be freed of this place so you can go fine a pillow to lay your head down. The last thing I observed before my turn was one of the sales guys badgering an Irishman in front of me into taking the full damage waiver at 99.99 pounds per day.

When I was finally ‘helped’ it went as follows:

1. “What’s your reservation number?” I handed him my phone with the Priceline reservation listed. He couldn’t find it in the system. After a few minutes of searching his computer he asked what time my reservation had been. I said “5:00”. He said because I was so late (I arrived before 9:00 and it was now after 10:00) that the car I had reserved was already rented to someone else and they couldn’t honor the price. To which I replied “I called you shortly after 5:00 but none of you answered the phone. It rang for several minutes but nobody picked up. Eventually the system hung up on me.” To which they replied “did you email us?” “No, I called you.” “Oh, dang, if you had emailed us then we would have a record of it and I could honor the price.” “Give me my phone. I’ll show you the duration of the call I made to ACE…you know, the one you didn’t answer?” After several more minutes they somehow collectively decided to honor the price as reserved on Priceline.

2. “Do you need more than 90 miles per day? That’s all you have available in your price. It’s $6.50/day to get unlimited mileage.” I decided to take that because we didn’t want to be limited and we were considering driving to Wales. I didn’t love it, but it was there on the Priceline reservation…I had just missed it because I’m used to always getting unlimited miles. (It would be nice if the distinction between unlimited miles and limited miles were more clear on your reservation page).

3. I had to explain to them that I had a temporary driver’s license from Oregon. Because this was my birthday trip it had coincided with my driver’s license renewal. I had the old permanent license with a hole punched through it along with the paper copy of the updated one that was valid until I received the new plastic copy in the mail. I let them know that I had just a few days prior rented from Sixt with the same license. Their response was “we can’t do this…we believe what you’re saying but our manager won’t let us do things like this.” I can’t tell you the amount of anxiety these guys were giving me. There is a sign posted on the wall behind them stating that it is a crime to assault Green Motion employees. At first the sign seems laughable, but then you go through the emotional grind they subject you to and you quickly begin to understand why people want to hit these guys. I don’t know how to describe what it’s like going in there, but I’m trying my best to put you there. I’m not embellishing any of it…but I digress. Eventually they relented on the temporary license. I don’t know what changed their minds or if they even planned on denying me in the first place. It could well have been a tactic to wear me down. I truly don’t know.

4. Now it was time for them to tell me how much I need to buy their insurance packages. I’m used to this from every other car rental experience I’ve had…or so I thought at the time. I explained to them that I have $50,000 of physical damage coverage through Visa just by using the card I was renting with. Their reaction to this was so well-rehearsed it was comical. The guy that I was talking to looked at the other guy and literally said “how do we even do that? I’ve never rented without an insurance plan.” You and I know they are getting commissions or bonuses on up-selling ‘insurance’. But listen to me when I say this…these guys were not going to let me rent this car without buying one of these plans. They literally told me they didn’t know how they could let me take a car without purchasing a plan. Think about that for a minute. Not “you understand you’re liable for anything that happens to the car if…” but “we can’t rent this to you unless you purchase at least our base package”. This is where your Priceline price guarantee is being broken. They simply are not honoring the reserved price. After a couple minutes of song and dance about how nobody has ever gone without insurance they finally were able to locate a form where I signed on for the full liability of the vehicle. He was still acting as though he didn’t know what to do. It had a place for the rental agreement number and my signature. It couldn’t have been more straight-forward. I signed it and as he was scanning it the other guy hit me with this “you realize you’re accepting an unlimited excess by declining coverage, right?” To which I replied “no, I don’t even understand how you’re using the word ‘excess’ in this context.” He then went on to explain that the security deposit they put on my credit card would be “unlimited” unless I chose one of their plans. I said, “my card obviously has a credit limit like every other card on the planet so you can’t put an unlimited deposit on it.” He said “there you go, I don’t see how we can let you do that.” At this point I’m exhausted, I’m angry and I just want to get in a car and make my 2 hour drive to our destination. I said “what does your cheapest plan cost?” It was 9.99 pounds per day. I told them if they gave me unlimited mileage for free I would take their cheapest plan. They then tried to explain all the levels of plans in as confusing a way as possible. I had trouble following most of it and didn’t need physical damage insurance to begin with so I told them to give me the base plan and let me get out of there. They then put a 1400 pound security deposit (what they apparently termed ‘excess’) on my card and pointed me to the hotel, telling me to walk all the way through to the back to pick up the car. Did I say 1400 pound deposit? Yes I did. It was something like 300 at Sixt…a much more reputable company.

Experience getting possession of the car

My wife and I walked to the back lot. It’s a pretty long walk. I went into the office and a decent enough young guy told me he’d bring the car up. We walked to where he was going to meet us. As we got there a big, young employee of Green Motion got into a car that had been returned and literally peeled out, screeching the tires for a 30-40 yard drive to the washing tent. He skidded into the spot there. I point this out for two reasons. First, there was an Asian woman standing nearby who had been in line ahead of me and was nearly hit by this guy. It was dangerous what he was doing and it was also totally unnecessary. He apparently wasn’t being supervised because nobody said a word to him. He showed no regard for the safety of anyone, let alone Green Motion customers. Second, that’s the kind of care the employees have for these vehicles. They are NO DOUBT damaging these cars if not intentionally, then through reckless behavior. You probably already understand where this is going, but this is a vital point for later. The employees are treating the vehicles in a way that is damaging them post-check-in. Think about that…if the car has already been inspected then the file has been noted about any additional scratches. But if the guy washing the car damages it then whatever damage he causes is done post-inspection. It’s not logged in the system so it puts a huge burden on the next customer to inspect and find the scratches that are created by this guy who is tearing around the parking lot.

The young man who brought our car around said that because the lighting was so poor he couldn’t do a walk around with me. I was to email the listed address by 10:00 in the morning to show any damages that were not already shown on the diagram of the vehicle. The diagram showed many scratches and dings. His casual “sorry, I can’t do a walk around with you right now” should have been a red flag for me, but as I’ve stated before I’ve never been taken advantage of like this at a car rental company so I didn’t know to have my attorney hat on.

Experience with the car

The next morning we slept in, having been up late trying to rent the car in the first place and then making a 2 hour drive. We had spent roughly 90 minutes, maybe even a bit more, renting the vehicle. I didn’t think to do the walk around of the car until about 10:30. There were minor scratches all over the car. I didn’t think much about them because many were noted on the diagram and they were all light, surface scratches. I did find a chip on the handle of one door and an unnoted scratch on the rear bumper. I took pictures of these, updated the diagram and emailed it to the Green Motion email address. In retrospect I should have taken a full video of the entirety of the vehicle…but is that really what you want your Priceline customers to do when they use your services? Is it?

Understand the importance of the above paragraph. I found 2 blemishes during a casual inspection of the vehicle. On the check-out report there were already 10 scratches/dings noted on the car in their system. I added two more after my inspection. That means there were AT LEAST 12 notable blemishes noted on this car. How can you expect a customer to inspect a vehicle and keep track of scratches that are literally numbering in the teens (because, as you’ll soon find out, they added 3 more upon my return).

I drove the car a lot, but I was careful with it. I didn’t park under any trees. We never heard anything hit the car while I was driving it. We didn’t scrape even so much as a curb. Nothing. There were no scratches added to the vehicle while we had it. None. I am an honest person and I stake my personal reputation on it. You can give me polygraph test. That car was in the same shape when we returned it as it was when we left that lot.

When we returned the car it was before hours. We had a morning flight and I had never flown out of Heathrow so we arrived early. We found an open spot near the return area (although there were no obvious signs stating where exactly to park rental returns before hours). We looked for a key drop and found none. We walked through the hotel to the Green Motion office and as I was about to drop the keys in the slot I realized there was someone inside. I popped in and said we had just returned the car around back. The young lady said I had to give the keys to the guys in the back. I said I had just come from there and everything was closed (it was 6:00am). She said her colleagues had just headed back there and I needed to go meet them. I was annoyed at this as I had just come from there and the older man working behind the desk said I could leave the keys with them. Worst mistake I could have made, but I had a bus to pay 10 pounds for so we could get to the airport.

We caught the hoppa bus and went on our way, but I had a nagging feeling that I had made a mistake by not being present at the check-in. As I said, I had never flown out of Heathrow (or any other European airport) so my number one concern was making the flight on time and getting on our way home to see our kids. Obviously, in retrospect, I would have gone back and done the walk around. It’s much harder to rip someone off to their face than it is after they have flown home to another continent.

Post-rental experience

I have an app that keeps track of my credit card transactions. We returned the car on Thursday, October 4^th at just before 6:00 am. I found a charge on my card on Saturday (through the app). There was a pending transaction for $1,783.68. I didn’t know if this was the security deposit or if it was an actual charge. I figured it was the security deposit since I knew the car wasn’t damaged in my care. When the charge went from pending to a true charge I decided to get in touch with Green Motion. They don’t have a toll free number to call. As far as I can tell they don’t have any kind of corporate contact availability. I had to use their website to put through an inquiry about the charge. I did so on 10/9 (according to the time stamp…I don’t know if that is London time or Portland time). Their response came on 10/9…again I don’t know what local time…and just asked for my rental agreement number and my name. It was then that I saw an email that had come in after 1:00 in the morning my time that stated very generically that I was being charged for:

The total repair will be made up as follows:

ANY scratch 16mm to 200mm - PAINT BROKEN, NOT DENTED - £579.50 + £0.00 VAT
ANY scratch 16mm to 200mm - PAINT BROKEN, NOT DENTED - £579.50 + £0.00 VAT
Alloys wheels 19" or bigger or any Diamond Cut alloy scuffed > 15mm up to a maximum of 100mm - £125.00 + £25.00 VAT
- £29.17+ £5.83 VAT

Total Damage Price - £1,313.17 + £5.83 VAT

That was when I learned what they were trying to do to me. I forwarded this email back to Elysia, the person who had asked about my rental agreement number. Eventually, on 10/15 I did finally receive a reply from her including pictures of some scratches that they claimed had occurred during my time with the car (they did not). I was charged nearly $1800 and the pictures didn’t come until a week and a half after the car’s return. If it’s not obvious to you what’s being done here, they are preying on overseas customers. They knew I was flying out of the country and they charged my card days later. I now know I should have jeopardized making my flight (I had a decent enough time cushion) and gone to the back to make them tell me to my face that they would be stealing from me. Or, perhaps they wouldn’t have challenged me in person (I tend to think they wouldn’t have).

I have asked them how I can dispute these charges with them. They have not replied.

Resolution

First let me say that I was being truthful about Visa insuring the car. I made a call to them and they have noted the file to indicate that I may have to file a claim. To my knowledge, backed up by conversation with Visa, this will be a covered claim. What this means is that I’m not fighting for ‘my’ money at this point. If Green Motion wins (and they shouldn’t…they are thieves) it is insured and it will not come out of my pocket. I’m spreading this information as far and wide as possible because it’s the right thing to do. Because I need to stop others from being subjected this kind of legalized theft.

I have filed a dispute with my credit card company indicating that I believe this charge is fraud. And it truly is. I don’t know if those scratches were on the vehicle when I checked them out or if they were added later by someone after I dropped the car off. Either way, they know what they are doing. They are advertising a ‘too-good-to-be-true” daily price then holding YOUR (Priceline’s) customers hostage to either buy the full damage waiver for over 10x the reserved price OR taking their pound of flesh off the back end by making up damages that were either preexisting (and barely noticeable) or they’re adding scratches after the fact which is an even more blatant type of fraud.

I have contacted you, Priceline, many times now. I have not asked that you refund my money, although I wouldn’t turn you down if you did. What I want from you is for you to sever your relationship with this Green Motion. Your relationship appears to be with ACE in the first place. As stated, I have rented from ACE before and they have been fine. It is their agreement to usher people to Green Motion in the name of ACE that must be terminated immediately.

Online Reviews

I understand that I am but a single person on a big internet in a big world. In fact, never have I felt that to such a degree as I have attempting to speak to someone of importance at a company, Priceline, with a share value north of $1,800. Except that a great deal of my argument has less to do with my personal experience and more to do with the experiences of MANY others.

1. Trip Advisor

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g186338-i17-k4478457-Green_Motion_Car_Rental_Heathrow_Airport-London_England.html

Following the above link will lead you to a post that someone took the time to write on 5/11/2011. This is from an Australian person who has only posted once on Trip Advisor but felt compelled to do so to warn others. You can read through the 237 responses spanning 7 years on your own time (I know you won’t). However, I just read through all of them. There are 106 negative reviews vs 16 positive reviews. Post #129 caught my attention as it notes that 2 ½ years ago this company was under investigation for the volume of complaint against it:

129. Re: Green Motion Car Rental Heathrow Airport

Mar 22, 2016, 12:34 PM

I am staggered these people are still in business. What I spoke with Trading Standards after my incident with these criminal fraudsters, I was informed they were the subject of a current investigation due to the sheer volume of complaints they (trading standards) have received. However, two years later they are still at it??!

Here is another list from a more recent complaint showing additional links to feedback about this company. Note that the first link takes you to a newspaper article detailing how Green Motion treats customers:

https://www.vergelijkautoverhuurders.nl/reviews/green-motion/; https://www.yelp.com/biz/green-motion-car-and-van-rental-orlando; https://www.trustpilot.com/review/greenmotion.co.uk; https://www.reducemyexcess.co.uk/car-hire-reviews/green-motion.aspx; https://www.tripadvisor.co.za/ShowTopic-g186216-i15-k4154008-Green_Motion_car_rental_deception-United_Kingdom.html;

This listing (although from a website designed for people like me who feel wronged) has good information from consumers. I deeply deeply hope that you will take the time to investigate it:

https://green-motion.pissedconsumer.com/review.html

2. Yelp

https://www.yelp.com/biz/green-motion-london-heathrow-airport-middlesex-3

15 reviews, 2 are positive, one neutral. By my count that’s 12 negative and most felt as though they had been defrauded.

3. Press

The following article properly summarizes what Green Motion is doing and how it is taking advantage of its customers. Please read it in its entirety (I know it’s long and arduous, but this is a company that is bringing down Priceline’s reputation).

The Guardian (https:/…green-motion-car-hire-bills)

This article was published in June of this year and details what so many of us have experienced.

From the article:

• They are wildly overcharged for small blemishes, which may have been there before hiring – such as £400 for a barely visible scratch.
• On collection, staff often fail to mark existing damage on the rental agreement. On return, staff pore over the car looking for the tiniest blemish.
• Blemishes are found on the underside of bumpers and bodywork that cannot reasonably be seen when hiring.
• Staff will often identify a piece of damage in a way that suggested they had prior knowledge of its existence.

…

How is it able to offer such low prices? Maybe an indication comes from its job adverts for vehicle inspection staff. The ads say that they will be paid a bonus, even though the job does not involve sales. When we posed as a possible job applicant, we were told that we would earn commission, although the details would only be revealed at interview stage.

4. Priceline

Do you have a mechanism for customer reviews? If you do I can’t seem to find it. I have not been able to share my experience with other Priceline customers. Please direct me there if such an option exists. And if there isn’t…why not?

Conclusion

I’m begging you to take my feedback seriously. I have never complained to anyone about a car rental company before. You have to see the pattern here. You have to know that you are sending your trusting customers to a ‘partner’ who is very likely to steal from them. Green Motion – Heathrow is literally defrauding YOUR customers. I can’t imagine that nobody on your management team cares about this. Perhaps I’m naïve? Maybe this is just part of the process and you take the bad with the good? But I won’t stand for it. I won’t be stolen from. I simply won’t.

After sending this letter to your customer service team I will be packaging this, along with the correspondence I have with customer service and the very scant information I have received from Green Motion themselves, and sending it to the board of directors for Priceline. I will be sharing this information and my plea to Priceline with every travel message board I can find.

Please, please…PLEASE stop sending the next victim to this scam! Please?

Sincerely,

Keith Hattori Jr.

Adventures in Youth Sports - 6 Year Old Soccer

2018-03-01T10:22:00.001-08:00

The older I get, the better I am at recognizing my faults when interacting with others. That doesn’t mean I’m good at correcting my faults. That doesn’t even mean I necessarily WANT to correct my faults. I’m just saying that in recent years I have developed an ability I didn’t have before that allows me to analyze a situation (usually after the fact) and figure out where I was the culprit or the instigator. I’m not yet to the point of feeling as though I was ‘wrong’ very often but who knows what my 40’s might bring?

So, in my experience, the three areas of my life that seem to be magnets for the most conflict are as follows: Social Media (duh), Driving, Youth Sports…not necessarily in that order. I’ve already blogged about conflict while driving at least once (maybe more times than that?…dammit, memory, would you just WORK again?) so I won’t address that too much here. And one day, probably AFTER Dennis Yamnitsky’s memorial service, I will probably write up something about my social media experiences. But for today…today let’s dive into the wonderful world that is the sideline of a youth sporting event.

How many different people do you think have cast an F-bomb in my direction while watching my kids’ sports in the last 3 years? If you said 3 you’re probably low but those are the only ones I have actually HEARD because they were very very apparent and direct and LOUD. Unce, tice, fee tines an eff you.

Before I dive into Episode I of the “Eff You Sports Dad” (actually it turns out I already did Episode 1 and completely forgot about it because I write so infrequently! Episode II will be forthcoming) series let me back up to my very first sports confrontation as a dad. It was so long ago now that I’m sure the other parent was found in a gutter with a needle hanging out of her arm and that the kid involved was long ago sentenced to life in the state pen. That’s right, this was about 7 years ago when my oldest was playing 6 year old soccer.

What’s great is that I was the assistant coach to Bobby Dickerman who is like the most positive, upbeat dude you could ever want to meet and have your kids play sports for. High fives all around. I sat next to him at the Positive Coaches Alliance seminar a few weeks back and he could have been teaching the class. To me it was like a foreign language (hash tag kidding not kidding…did I do that right?).

Bobby Dickerman - How could you not love playing sports for this guy???

Well, one day Bobby couldn’t make the game which made me the head coach and we were playing against a team that had a bully kid on it. Even at 6 years old there was one completely undisciplined kid (we will call him Shtunk) who just shoved the other boys over, gave not one but two craps about ‘rules’, called names, cussed at our players and didn’t talk back at his mom (the assistant coach of their team…we’ll call her Shtink) so much as YELL back at her when she occasionally attempted to correct him. In my harsh blogger-speak it was obvious this kid had no father-figure.

So there was a rule at this age that was kind of unique. There were little pop-up goals but there were no goalies. To keep kids from guarding the goal (goalie style) there was a coned-off area about three feet in front of each goal in which neither team was allowed to kick the ball. This way if the ball was rolling in, it would roll in. This was not a rule that Shtunk cared about. As I said, for this one game Bobby wasn’t there to be the good guy and my frustration, if you were watching me and not the game, was visible on the sideline. Shtunk kept kicking the ball out of the no-touch zone (thereby taking goals away from our players) and was truly unteachable. And Shtink, as I said, was their assistant coach…and their head coach was missing on top of everything so she was also in charge. Every time I became frustrated Shtink had some sarcastic remark for me…she took it upon herself to strain to hear what I was saying to myself and project it across the field for all to hear. It was clear that the Shtunk apple was leaning right up against that Shtink tree…a real Shtunk off the ole’ block. I did my best to ignore her but did come back with things like “you have to teach him the rules…all the other kids are playing by them.” Anything I was going to say to her at that point was going to be taken negatively so that’s about all I offered.

Well, the next time we played against that team (a few weeks later) both our head coaches were back. Their coach was the kind of guy you would see driving around with metal testicles hanging off the back of his truck…you know the guy. He’s brawny and unshaven and walks real shouldery and loves NASCAR. And he came in with a major chip on that shouldery walk. Why? Because Shtink had been chirping in his ear about me, that’s why. And it was evident all the parents had been riled up too because they were loud and it was all directed at me. Whatever. I’m a big boy. I rise to adversity. I drive a Toyota Prius.

So Shtunk did the same thing he always did a couple times in the game. I can’t remember how it was handled. But then, in the second half, it happened. One of our better players saw the other team take a shot and he just started sprinting. He caught up to the ball just short of the goal and slid and kicked the ball away. Total rule violation. First time I’d seen anyone on our team do that intentionally all year. I’m sure I hung my head. And this is what was amazing…the entire side of the field…all of their parent section just lost it! “OOOOOoooohhhhh…THAT’s AGAINST THE RULES!” “CHEATER” it was loud. They’d been waiting all game for it. I took a few steps toward them and yelled “That’s a goal! It counts as a goal.” I mean they’re pissed at me (thanks to Shtink) and now they’re trying to belittle this really good natured 6 year old on our team. Well, the testicle truck guy’s wife, who I actually went to high school with, wouldn’t let it go. Yelling. Yelling. She’s in crazy good shape and muscular and looked and acted roided up…it was literally just like having Jillian Michaels go off the rails nuts at you. Finally I just said loudly while pantomiming like I was talking to a little kid “If you (pointing at them) can’t cheer (making an exaggerated slow, silent clapping motion) for your (pointing to them) kid (pointing to the kid who just scored the goal) when he scores a goal (pointing to the goal) then I can’t help you (animatedly shrugged my shoulders while shaking my head condescendingly).” Then I clapped toward the kid and told him “nice goal, kid!” because nobody else was gonna do it.

Terrifying

After the game the kids did the handshake thing or high five or whatever. Their coach didn’t participate. I walked up to him to clear the air. What was great about this is that Shtink was over on the sideline yelling at Bobby to go break this up because (loudly) “they’re gonna fight! They’re gonna fight!”. It was nuts. I just went over and talked man to man with the guy about where the conflict originated and how I thought this obnoxious woman on the sideline was just an instigator, agitator, perpetuator, alligator?, and escalator of conflict. I remember saying matter of factly “I don’t have a conflict with you” kind of pulling from Martin Blank’s “there is no us”’ conversation in Grosse Pointe Blank. I addressed the rule that I had been concerned about and gave him my concerns about the way the Shtink had played, shook the man’s hand and walked away. That was it. We never played them again. I couldn’t recognize any of them if I saw them now. And I’ve grown up a lot since then…or have I?

I guess you’ll have to wait for next time when things get crazy at 7th grade soccer.

The Crappiest Teacher

2016-01-07T11:12:00.001-08:00

Artist's rendition of what Ms. Vasbinder might look like today

I said aloud in the car yesterday that I thought I might write a blog about the crappiest teacher I ever had. My 11 year old son asked me “what if she sees it?” with concern in his voice. And it reminded me of just how I felt when I was in her class. It reminded me of a time when I, too, feared the judgment and respected the opinion of any person who the school district assigned to stand in front any class I was enrolled in. His question reminded me of a time in which I might be scrambling to reword the previous sentence because it ends in a preposition for fear of the dreaded red mark!

But a lot of that changed in 8^th grade and red marks be damned! Maybe it was because I was beginning to come of age. Maybe that was when I transitioned from shy little guy to obnoxious goofball. Or maybe, just maybe, I began to dole out respect to teachers based on their character and teaching ability simply because I had to endure a year with Ms.Vasbinder…a lonely, chain-smoking bar-fly whose hypocrisy knew no bounds.

I’m pretty frequent with the humble-brags and here’s another: I was one of those kids in all the advanced classes (until my junior year in high school when I became too lazy to yearn for this thing the grown-ups called ‘achievement’). In 7^th grade the advanced Language Arts was taught by Mr. Fuller. He was a nice enough guy. We all liked him. And we envied the hell out of him because he was totally dating Ms. Weber whose classroom shared a door with his. And Ms. Weber made your imagination run a little wild because you were a 12 year old boy and she was your basketball coach…

What was I saying? Oh, right…most of us did just fine in Mr. Fuller’s advanced LA class and were moved along the following year to 8^th grade advanced LA class. Where we were introduced to…DUN DUN-DUNNNNNNN!...Ms. Vasbinder…aka The V.

I wish I could tell you my first impression of her, but there were a lot of teachers at Rowe Jr. High and the day I met her I probably met 6 other teachers. What I can tell you looking back is that she had a very raspy voice, she smelled of cigarettes and she ALWAYS wore what was either an oversized sweater or an undersized knitted dress with stretch pants (yes, I know this is now fashionable with leggings replacing stretch pants, but I can assure you that in 1993 it wasn't and it wasn't flattering for her).

It’s been so many years that I can’t remember too many details, but I can tell you this with certainty: The V did not like men.

One of our term-long study units was on sexism. And there are, of course, many many many valid points to be made on that subject. But it was clear from the beginning that Ms. Vasbinder wasn’t teaching this class to make kids aware of and to recognize sexism. The V was speaking directly to the girls in the class and leaving the boys to sit aside as bystanders. I would give you examples, but this was 25 years ago and most have faded away. What I can tell you is that instead of creating an environment of equality in her classroom she clearly was building a female-empowerment space to intentionally ostracize the boys. From a distance you might see that as constructive in a creative way that flips social convention on its ear with a larger purpose creating a new perspective on gender relations. But I’ll tell you this, (insert fart noise here) it wasn’t. In fact, the other class (there were two advanced classes) had a male revolt of sorts. They turned the entire session on its ear and wrote about the objectification of men through song/media/advertising. As for me and my class? Us guys just whimpered, cowered and conformed.

The three units I remember studying in the V’s class were 1) Sexism 2) The Holocaust and 3) Discrimination. All I remember about the Holocaust section was that The V encouraged all the girls in the class to openly weep and sob with her while watching videos. They were incredibly sad videos but the weeping and wailing made me just want to leave. Which I did the moment the bell rang. On my way out the door I noticed The V hugging and consoling her fellow mourners.

The last unit was on discrimination. And this is really the reason I’m writing this post. You see, there are many types of discrimination in the world. But when you’re an active life-victim like The V it’s impossible to fully grasp the larger picture while blinded by your own emotions. The V assigned a paper. Each of us was to write about a time in our own lives when we felt we had been discriminated against. Well, to that point…despite being half-Japanese…I swear to you I couldn’t think of a time I had been discriminated against on the basis of race, sex, religion. Knowing that the class was mostly a bunch of white kids from Milwaukie I didn’t know what anyone was going to write about. I didn’t know many racial slurs at that point in my life. I simply hadn’t been exposed to it…despite this bleeding heart trying to cram it down my throat to make me feel guilty about it.

Then it hit me…my topic. You see, in jr. high I had always felt out of place. I had a solid group of friends but we were not at the top of the social pecking order. There was clearly a caste system in our jr high, like most others. And between my horrible hair, crooked teeth, acne, membership in the band and poor fashion sense (anything neon is cool, right?) I didn’t often feel great about who I was or where I fit in. So I chose to write about feeling picked on and belittled by kids who were cooler than I was. And I included my sister in that group of kids because she hung out with more popular kids than I did. I wrote that she and others called me names like ‘nerd’ and ‘dork’. It was hard to write and it was hard to really think about and put into coherent thoughts. But I wrote it and I turned it in and I was proud that I had at least dug deep and found a place in my life where I felt there was discrimination. I could have just made up a story about someone slanting their eyes at me and calling me names but I’m not the type to fabricate things like that.

I got the paper back with a big, fat D -. I had never had a D in my life. There were notes all over the paper about how this was not the assignment. I felt like Ralphie seeing his teacher’s response to his Red Rider Bee-Bee Gun essay. I had poured my heart into it and it had been rejected...much like I had felt this school’s social order had done all along.

You probably think that’s the end of the story. You probably think I’m just whining because I got a bad grade on a paper one time and I didn’t get along with the teacher. Well I’ll tell you this…that wouldn’t be worth writing about. What IS worth writing about is this: when I got home from school my sister was there and one of her friends was over. And this is what my sister had to say: “Ms. Vasbinder showed me that paper you wrote about me. She said you were being a whiny little baby and that you deserved an F for writing it. She said she likes me and she thought I should know you were writing about me.”

Wait, what? I was asked to write about being discriminated against. I did just that and the authority figure who assigned it took this paper to the person I wrote was discriminating against me so that together they could perpetuate the ridicule? I guess it would take 25 more years and the internet to make it not okay for teachers to bully their students. Because that’s what The V was. She was a biased, cruel, dirty person who took out the frustration of her own failed life on select students, most of whom were male. She was an oversized bully who would have better served society by staying 100 yards from any school yard than by teaching.

I was glad that when I tried to Google her before I wrote this that a) I couldn’t find her on the internet and b) I couldn’t remember her first name.

And just to prove to myself that The V was a dark soul who had it out for me I tried a little experiment. I had written a research paper on the early life of Adolf Hitler as part of her Holocaust unit. She gave me a B -. I worked my ass off on that paper and she gave me a B -. Two years later I had to write a paper for my sophomore English class. It had to be a biography. So I took that B - paper from The V and I turned it in to Ms. Nemes (who, by the way, was totally dating Mr. Gilbert and made your imagination…). When I got that paper back it had a big, fat A on it.

And one day I still believe I will walk into a depressing little alcoholics’ tavern and see a solitary lump at the end of the bar and I’ll think to myself:

“I think that may be Ms. Vasbinder but it’s hard to tell because of the glare of the neon lights reflecting off her shiny, balding head.”

2015-10-23T11:31:00.004-07:00

37 Years a Curmudgeon

I was once at an Eastern Star (what the old-timers call “lodge”…think The Masons) installation for my grandma and I heard someone at the microphone refer to my grandpa at a “curmudgeon”. My grandpa didn’t know what that was so it kind of pissed him off. I guess the guy at the mike knew what he was talking about (although, in general my grandpa was one of those guys who would go far out of his way to help just about anyone in any situation).

Well, now I’ve reached that age where 40 is on the horizon and my body doesn’t always do what I ask it to anymore. So you get to listen to me slap on my suspenders, yell at the kids to get off my lawn and complain about the government.

1. My Finger Hurts

There’s a scene in Happy Gilmore where a lady at the retirement home complains to Ben Stiller’s character as she is being forced to relentlessly sew. She says “my fingers hurt.” His response? “Now your back’s gonna hurt cuz you just pulled landscaping duty.”

Well, I’ll tell you something. My finger hurts. And my back doesn’t feel so great either. The middle finger on my right hand is sore at the first knuckle. I don’t remember doing anything to it, but every time I make anything more than a typing movement it really hurts. I’m 37 and my wife asked if I have arthritis…and she was serious…and I didn’t know the answer.

And just about every day I get up out of a chair at some point and say “oh, hello there back…thanks for reminding me you’re there.” It wasn’t too many years ago I didn’t even know I had a back unless it itched in a spot I couldn’t quite reach. Now I’m aware of it…ALL THE TIME.

2. Customer Service is Garbage

I called the eye doctor’s office a day before my followup appointment during my trial week of contact lenses. I said I needed another brand because these ones were uncomfortable. Andrew, the lazy dope of a receptionist who has no customer service skills, replied “oh…Abie just left for another office but I’ll try to get her a message.” The tone he used when he said “try” had two meanings: a) I was really burdening him and this was going to be a difficult task b) there was no way in Hell Andrew was going to call Abie. I showed up the next day for my appointment. Andrew had no idea who I was (my third time there in a week) and Abie had no idea I wanted another brand of contacts. Result? They gave me a new brand in the wrong prescription. So I have been wearing glasses all week instead of trialing the contacts because I can’t very well be blurry all day. It’s exhausting. Screw you, Andrew.

I also had a debacle trying to get an exchange on the MLB.com baseball (Cubs) shop website. That’s a whole blog unto itself. I hate that place. Two hours of my life later I have nothing to show for my efforts. They literally ‘accidentally’ hung up on me AND put me on hold for 10 minutes because of an ‘emergency’.

And would it KILL any single fast food or fast casual employee to grab a moist towel and wipe down a few tables? Are employees allergic to terry cloth? Why do I have to ask every time I go somewhere for one of the 4 gossipy employees doing nothing to break away from their catty chat about Tracy and how she was flirting with Jimmy to wipe down one of the EVERY TABLE IN THE STORE for me to sit at because they are ALL covered in food? And why, after they have wiped down said table, is it STILL DIRTY??? For this we are asking THE LAW to pay them $15/hour?

3. Warranties

Remember when you would go to a store and buy something and then it would perform the function for which it was MADE and you didn’t have to worry about it? Remember when even if that item broke you could take it back and the store would replace it? What the hell happened to THAT? I guess you can still find it at Costco, so that’s good. Other than that every store basically asks you to gamble your money, one way or the other, on whether or not that piece-of-crap-Made-in-China thing is going to make it 12 months. “Sir, this is a $1,000 TV…are you sure you don’t want to lay down that side bet of $150 that it’s going to roll over and die like a diseased feral cat? Roll the dice, sir, it’s fun!” Screw you. Everybody knows that side bets are sucker bets. If this TV breaks I’m going to punch you in the face…which is really going to piss off my arthritic finger.

4. Lanes Merge

There are four working theories on how to merge in a “this lane ends” scenario:

a. Left-Wing Driver Guy:

Tra la la, I have a bunch of socialist bumpers stickers on my car so I’m far too intellectual to care about things like driving etiquette. I’m not really even certain which lane I’m in and the divinity of nature is far too important for me to do anything but weep about my carbon emissions while I’m driving, let alone pay attention to merging lanes.

b. Continuing Lane Only Guy:

This person finds the long line and stays in it no matter what. When you are this person you hate the guy in the right lane with a passion. You say things like “What? Is he so much more important than the rest of us? What an a-hole.”

c. Merging Lane Only Guy:

This is the a-hole. But the thing is, if we all played by either b) or c) theory then there wouldn’t be an issue here. But there are two competing theories in play. So this guy, who rides the ending lane all the way until he’s about to run into the barricade, pisses off the other people. And the other people want to punish him. Everybody thinks they’re in the right. There are a lot of slow motion near fender benders that really nobody is going to let happen, but everyone claims they will. There is also a lot of cussing behind closed windows. Also, many of this guy is driving a BMW.

d. Merge Before the Lane Ends Guy:

This guys screws up the whole system. He’s your typical timid driver. He wants the advantage of the fast lane, but he’s insecure about it. So he stops halfway up the waiting line and turns on his blinker until some a) lets him in because she’s so involved in her Ani Defranco music that she didn’t notice the line was moving…or that there was a line…or that there’s something called ‘shampoo’. Meanwhile the true b) people are irate because now d) has merged in before the lane ends and c) is zooming by to merge in up there too…all the while pushing the b) line back into oblivion.

The point is we all need to subscribe to one system. My suggestion is that all of us b) drivers literally smash into every c) driver out there. Also, the a) drivers need to have their licenses taken away and d) guy should be confined to the retirement home.

5. Gluten

Sure, some of you may be allergic to gluten. But you know what? Most of you aren’t. And I don’t care. I really don’t. Unless you’re in front of me at Chipotle the ONE TIME the line isn’t 20 miles long. AND YOU INSTRUCT THE EMPLOYEES TO STOP THE LINE AND WIPE OFF ALL FOOD SERVICE SURFACES FOR 5 MINUTES BEFORE PREPARING YOUR FOOD. Sure, you’re 23 and you and your life partner have bonded over this hypochondriatic sense of self-righteous gluten evasion. But you know what? The only damn thing on that line that has gluten in it is a stack of tortillas that is sealed in a plastic package. Every one that has gone down that line was on a sheet of foil. If you want the employees to change their gloves, be my guest. But you, ma’am…sir, you are a self-important tool. And I’m hungry. If I take a bite out of your arm in lieu of my carnitas bowl, will that make you change your actions next time? WILL IT?

6. Microsoft Windows

Windows 8? That was a joke, right? Oh, yes, I upgraded to 10 for free. IT’S THE SAME PROGRAM! Hate.

7. Your Dog

I know you don’t think you’re part of the problem. But you know who isn’t part of the problem? Me. Do you know why? Because I don’t have a dog. Your dog barks at 6:30 am and it barks at midnight. Sometimes the excuse is ‘there was a raccoon’ and sometimes it’s just ignorance: ‘I had no idea…’. Your dog craps in my yard and sometimes you even pick up that steaming hot pile of dog ass. But even when you do pick it up you’re leaving feces, excrement, sh*t smears in my grass and I’m going to step in it (or roll in it when I’m playing with my kids). Also your dog leaves snot on my arm. It glues my arm hairs together. It makes me go to the dry cleaners and pay $8 to have my pants cleaned. Your dog knocks over my kids and licks my sandwich when nobody is looking. But we live in a society where all of this considered cute because dogs are basically stupid people. So maybe I AM the problem. But still, just for good measure, screw you and your baby (dog). Keep it out of my grocery store you selfish prick.

8. Healthcare Costs

We always talk about how everyone needs to have health insurance. But you know what we really need? A healthcare system that doesn’t gouge the crap out of us every time we get a paper cut. Do you know what insurance does? Creates a GIANT bucket of money so hospitals can charge outrageous prices for just about everything.

When Taela and I were first married she cut her hand washing dishes. We went to the ER to get her stitches. The itemized bill came. Suture string? $65. Latex gloves? $30. Umm…what? Yes, I’m serious. And that was 15 years ago!

Ever notice that different clinics and different pharmacies charge different prices for the same care or drug? No, you didn’t. Do you know why? Because none of them ever talk about prices. It’s all hidden behind the copay on your insurance. Is there ANY OTHER SERVICE/ITEM IN THE WORLD that you buy that doesn’t show you the price before you pay?

We get mad at this guy:

Because he is openly holding sick people hostage. But the entire medical industry does this! They just don’t openly throw it in our face.

Conclusion:

Get off my lawn!!!!!

Youth Sports

2015-07-08T11:15:00.001-07:00

One of the things I have begun to figure out as I have grown older is that there is a story behind every headline. So often I scroll through the news and I read some sentence fragment in bold print and draw critical and judgmental conclusions from it. But the more I live the more I realize that I get myself in some situations and there are a handful of small steps, some of which aren’t all that irrational, that lead to whatever situation I happen to be recounting in my head. There is, of course, at each step the option to walk away…but we’re all human beings right? We all have the “fight or fight” instinct, right? Wait…wasn’t there supposed to be an ‘L’ in there somewhere?

So this past winter I was at my son’s basketball game. He was 10 years old at the time and on a team of 5^th and 6^th graders. Remember that 6^th graders are technically middle-schoolers now so we’re not talking about tiny little children running around here. One of the kids on his team has a very ugly (please shave it now!) dark but not whiskery teenage mustache. One of the kids clearly has BO.

The point is that while these are kids, they are kids who are at an age where they need to be playing the game by the rules. And, as with any youth sport, the referees are a total crap shoot. Now I’m not talking about literally firing guns at feces here, I’m talking about the dice game craps. Or, as Mama always said, youth sports is like a box of chocolates.

At this particular game our family had a pretty good turnout. The folding chairs line the sideline and we occupied 7 of them. We were near the end of the court and were seated as follows: my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, my dad, my 3 year old son, me, my wife, my 8 year old daughter, some guy, his 8ish year old daughter.

Well my father-in-law, John, gets into any game he attends. Doesn’t matter if it’s minor league baseball or youth soccer or church league softball…John hates poor officiating. And he’s vocal about it. He also happens to look exactly like every adult male cast member from Duck Dynasty. So his manner is abrasive when it comes to being a spectator. I happen to be similar in that regard, but I do my best to be sensitive to the fact that someone’s parent is likely sitting somewhere near me.

During this game the referees were seemingly calling some rules but not others. Two of the things they just kept allowing were travelling and double-dribbling. For you non-sports folks out there those are the rules that relate to how you have to bounce the ball while moving around on the court. They are foundational to how basketball is played. So when the refs kept not calling it John would bark something and then I would yell out something like “come on! You’ve gotta call that!”.

After another of these incidents a voice came from my left. “Are you guys coaches?” I ignored it because nothing good could come from walking down this path. 15 seconds go by. “Are you coaches?” I turned to him and played dumb “What?” “Are…you…coaches?” “Are we coaches?” “Yes. Are you coaches?” “No, obviously not. We’re sitting over here. (as opposed to the other side of the court with the team)” “Then shut up.” “These kids need to learn how to play the game the right way.” “F%@# you.”

Screeeeeeeech….this thing just got bumped to a whole new level. I have some decisions to make here now. This guy is sitting next to my sweet little daughter. My wife is between us. His daughter seems unfazed so I can only assume this guy acts like this regularly and she’s going to grow up with a warped sense of what being a human living in a society is supposed to look like. Decisions, decisions. My blood is pumping.

“You’re going to say that right in front of my kid, huh?” (More slowly this time) “F % @ # YOU”.

There are certain lines you do not cross with another man. I don’t pull out this rule often, but I do believe in it. One time a neighbor who I like and get along with was mad that there was cat poop in his bark dust so he flung it all over onto my walkway and my house and I nearly stepped in it before I realized what he’d done. There are certain lines you don’t cross with another man. I gave that neighbor a pass on that one but I did talk to him about it and let him know I was aware he was flinging crap at my house. And had he done it again we would no longer be cordial neighbors.

Back to this situation at the basketball game…there is no solution here that will not leave me with regrets. I was at a cross roads. Either I can do what really SHOULD be done and tell the guy to follow me outside and break his nose. But then I end up in the newspaper tomorrow (or the following Thursday…whenever it is the newspaper actually gets delivered anymore). And that leads me back to my original point: every headline has a story. Everyone to the last person will read the headline about the two guys who got in a fight at the youth basketball game and shake their heads and talk about the demise of society as morons are fighting over youth sports. But this wasn’t about youth sports. This was about learning life lessons about how not to conduct yourself with other adults in front of their spouse and children. I truly believe even now I SHOULD have punched this guy. And a very big part of me regrets not doing it.

What I did do was say “You’re a really classy guy. Class act.” And then full on turned my back to him. Now the astute reader is remembering that my back turning, while demeaning to him, has left my wife and daughter kind of isolated by this guy. I thought about that too. But the truth is my daughter didn’t know what this guy was talking about. And had I traded places with her I’m almost certain we would have fought. It’s an aggressive move and I was literally trying to stay out of the newspaper, really.

A few minutes later a hand came into my vision. He was trying to shake my hand. “I’m sorry.” I looked at him. I almost shook it out of pure instinct…someone extends a handshake you usually take it, right? “Last week the parents were pretty out of control and I got pretty worked up.” So I looked him right in the eye and said “apologize to my daughter.” He did. She had no idea what was going on. I think he extended his hand to me again and I turned my back again. That’s the last I saw of him. Never looked at him again.

My wife says I should have accepted his apology. And to an extent she’s right. But my point is that he needs to learn you don’t go where he went. I don’t know who’s right…maybe we both are.

Good news though! I didn’t end up as a punchline at the water cooler. I didn’t lose my reputation or job. I didn’t get a black eye. All I lost is a little bit of self-respect. But I don’t really count that up very often anyway.

36 Years...What I've Learned Along the Way

2014-10-11T07:52:00.000-07:00

I chose this picture solely because my daughter is pretty.

I recently had my 36^th birthday and it got me to thinking. It got me to thinking about how long it takes for life experiences to become wisdom. I mean, I'm in my late 30's now and I feel like I'm still learning new things, new perspectives every day. But I have picked up a few things along the way and I thought maybe I would just put them in a list here in case some of you hadn't yet learned some of them. So, in no particular order, below are all the things I know...my collective 36 year old wisdom...

– You and your spouse can be soul mates. You can eat together. You can sleep together. You can shower together. You can make love together. But you never, never poop in front of each other.

– If you pluck out your nose hairs they WILL come back thicker than before...and then you'll pluck them out again.

– Socks are only gross once you take them off...same as underwear.

– There is no such thing as “bad pizza”.

– People LOVE to spend other people's money.

– Tracy Chapman is a woman.

– 1 in every 4 times you lend something out you will never see it again.

– There is no immune system capable of combating the disease-incubators we also refer to as “children”.

– 65% of junk email is specifically about my“junk”.

– Don't lose your retainer.

– The tighter the jeans, the higher pitched the voice.

– Always keep a spare towel with you.

– Never put yourself in a position to ask “do these back rolls make my tattoo look fat?”

– You don't sing as well as you think you do.

– There is absolutely no good reason to board a plane early.

– Everything in the world, no matter how dangerous, is statistically safer than driving a car.

–        People who think they are smart rarely change their minds. People who ARE smart are open to new information.

–        When you are not home, your dog is outside barking.

–        I like turtles.

–        Celebrity is moronic and may eventually lead to our ultimate downfall.

–        Social media is the modern day lynch mob...and nobody seems to care.

–        'Irregardless' is not a word. It just isn't. Don't say it. Ever.

– People are inconsiderate and self-interested.

– 80% of drivers are the self-proclaimed best driver in the world. 10% of drivers live in fear of those 80%. The rest are Asian women.

– Man's finest achievement may very well be pants with zip-off legs.

– Credit card debt is bad.

– Cold cereal is better as a late night snack than as a breakfast food.

– Hair shouldn't be very important...but it is.

– Hate is a word that should be avoided at all costs...except when discussing the New York Yankees.

– Money is a tool...and so is Ryan Seacrest.

– Friends who don't recommend that you watch Impractical Jokers are not real friends...seriously, watch this show.

– And, most importantly...Life is short...don't screw it up.

How not to be a host family

2014-09-05T00:40:00.000-07:00

My high school baseball coach was a pretty damn cool guy named Jim Hoppel. He was ex-military and just tough as hell. He was the kind of guy you just couldn't seem to get one over on too because he was always a step ahead of you.

I remember one time we were having a little scrum after practice. It had been raining out and, as often happened, a bunch of the guys on the team broke out into various wrestling matches. Why did we do this? Because we were stupid teenageboys. Well this particular rainy afternoon my best friend to this day, (not yet Dr.) Scott Kennedy, decided he would take on Coach Hoppel. Scott was a good sized kid. He had played linebacker and tight end on the football team and he had wrestled for the school as well. But nobody had ever had the guts to mess with Hoppel. It was pretty incredible because before anyone really knew what was going on Scott had both a) done the stupidest thing any of us had ever seen by taking on The Man and b) amazed us all by getting up in Hoppel's chest and driving him back-pedaling and seemingly off-balance toward a large puddle out behind second base. Holy crap! Scott's gonna get him!

Then, in no more than a nanosecond, JimHoppel bent the laws of physics. I swear to you he was literally falling backward into the puddle with a 220 lb athlete grabbing hold of his shirt right up in his chest and driving him downward when all of a sudden Scott is flying and twisting in the air over Hoppel's body and being half thrown and half pile driven like a rag doll square onto his back into the middle of this brown, muddy puddle. It was perhaps the quickest movement I have ever seen and yet I'm positive I watched it in slow motion. There was no real explanation to where the torque came from to wrench Scott over him like that, but WHIP-WHOOSH-SPLAT. Scott is on his back. But Hoppel isn't done. You see his hand pull up Scott's shirt, he closes his fist, rips his hand away from Scott's exposed belly then thrusts his fist into Scott's face, like a freaking flash, and yells “ODD OR EVEN? ODD OR EVEN????” Then hethrows the belly hairs down onto Scott's astonished and defeated face and casually walks away as if nothing has happened. I'm telling you, I'd never seen anything like it before nor since.

That story was actually a bit of a tangent. I just got to remembering it because Jim Hoppel was the reason I was able to play on a couple of all-star teams that traveled on behalf of the Oregon Baseball Academy (OBA) back in those days. Am I about to brag that I was kind of at one time technically (did I mention “kind of”?) an all-star? Noooooooooooo. This story isn't about the fact that on this particular trip I batted .500 including 2 home runs and a third shot off the very top of the fence. It's not about the fact that more than half my hits were for extra bases and that, oh by the way, this was actually the best pitching I probably ever faced in my life. I'm actually pretty sure that a one-day-to-become MVP of the National League played for the team that beat us in the championship game...a guy named Jimmy Rollins.

None of that is what this story is about. This story is about what happens when unprepared people take 4 complete stranger teenage boys into their home without forethought.

You see, at the time these OBA teams would keep these trips inexpensive by a) driving most of the players across multiple states in a 15 passenger van and b) having us crash with host families instead of hotels. So after a very long, cramped drive from Portland to Salt Lake City with a bunch of sweaty, randy, dirt-bag, 17 year old baseball kids we were doled out to a group of awaiting hosts.

Our host family had a decent sized house so instead of bunking with one other guy I was put in a house with 3 of my teammates. One of the guys was a friend and classmate of mine named Jeff Brunold. He was the only other kid from my high school on the team. Jeff was an amazing hitter, but had his senior season cut short because of a self-inflicted broken finger. He had slammed his helmet down (with his finger still in it) after a second baseman had made an amazing diving catch against him. There was also a self-confident, baby-faced kid from a private school in Portland named Ash (it's unbelievable I just found this guy on the internets!) and a tall, goofy redneck from Hermiston named Eric (I actually can't remember his name but Eric will do). We were all picked up by a couple in their early 50s in their minivan. The drive to their house was quiet.

We arrived at their house as it was getting dark outside. When we walked in and started down the hallway it wasn't too difficult to put the pieces together...we were in SLC, there are pictures of about 8 kids on the wall...this is a Mormon family. Well...I wasn't a drinker so this probably wasn't going to affect me a whole helluva lot. STOMP! What the?...STOMP STOMP! Hands flying around. Hands. Awkward silence. What the?... “Boys, this is Lucas. He's our 10 year old. He's deaf so what we do is stomp on the ground to get his attention. He feels the vibrations...it's a way of hearing us.” Whoa! Okay. We're not in Kansas anymore.

So, stomping aside, this household was freaking weird. It just felt strange being there. The dad was a little too old. The mom was a little to submissive. The cute daughter had a picture on the wall, but we never saw her (trust me...we were looking). The reason this family hosted us was because their son who was our age was on the host team scheduled to play against us in the tournament. I have never seen a kid less interested in playing baseball. In fact, he never once spoke to us while were there. Not once. He kind of looked like Napoleon Dynamite and it felt as though his dad had forced him to play ball and he felt like we, as ballplayers, were somehow competing for his dad's affection. Does that sound weird? It was.

The only thing I remember about this kid is that he brought his girlfriend over and watched TV with her a lot. I remember the mom telling us he was “courting her” which was a phrase I didn't know and didn't bother to investigate. I just figured that nerdy boys in SLC 'court' nerdy girls while the rest of us “go out” with them. Whatever.

So that first night it was about 9:00 when we had all our stuff put in the bonus room where we slept. That was when the parents came in and told us it was time to go to bed (and by "bed" I mean the floor and a shoddy sofa) and they would see us in the morning. What?!?!?! I'm 17 years old, I have two baseball games tomorrow, I'm crashing with three other guys, I've been cooped up in a 15 passenger van all day, I'm in a strange town and you're telling me it's 9pm so it's time to go to bed? They disappeared. We hung out for about 10 minutes before deciding we were hungry. All four of us tip-toed our way into the kitchen to investigate. Nothing. What? Nothing. If you've never been a teenage boy maybe you don't know what it's like to be in a constant state of starvation. Where is the food? We went to sleep (a couple hours later) hungry...empty...

The next morning it was cold cereal and off to the field. When we returned in the evening we were expecting dinner, but I don't think they were expecting to feed us. I'm pretty sure they scraped together some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We didn't have much to do since our “host brother” was literally hiding from us (I pictured him cowering under his covers occasionally poking his beady little eyes out to make sure we weren't standing there taunting him with our baseball gear reminding him how inept he was at the game his father loved). We still hadn't seen the cute sister featured on the wall in the hallway. At one point I poked my nose into the garage (hoping for a fridge with something...anything...in it PLEASE FEED ME!) and found it was packed from wall to wall with electric wheelchairs and wheelchair parts. To me it was like a junkyard for all the mutant toys created by the psychopathic neighbor kid in Toy Story.

After dinner (or, as we called it, snack time) we asked if there was a store we could go to (BECAUSE WE WERE STARVING!). They told us we could walk down to the local grocer...it was about a mile away. And so we walked. Well...actually this Suburban full of girls pulled into a driveway about a half mile from the house and we asked them to drive us. They were cute and we were idiots so they quickly dropped us off at the store then high-tailed it out of there. Thanks ladies, I don't blame you.

I remember specifically that Jeff and I bought some food and we started telling the 20-something cute female checker that we were stuck in the host-house-from-hell. They were keeping us alive on a minimal diet and they all stayed locked away in their rooms during the few hours they were awake. She said something like “awwww...I wish I had room to have you crash at my apartment.” Missed opportunities...

So the next day they promised us a feast. And, for the one time, a feast we had. They barbecued hot dogs (pretty sure they were the Bar-S dogs made from chicken, pork and turkey parts [what in the world are gibblets?]). I was able to eat at least two and maybe three dogs along with all the fixings. A couple other host families and teammates were there, so we figured they were just putting on a show to make it appear they were indeed nourishing us. And something amazing happened at the bbq. The girl on the wall came out of her room. She ate with us. I don't remember her speaking. But she was there. She had a sweet face and shiny smooth hair. And when she was finished eating she dissipated...vanished into thin air never to be seen by any of the four of us again. To this day I question her actual existence. It's entirely possible that in my state of prolonged malnourishment and teenage hormones I simply imagined that there was a cute girl in the house. If you ever bump into Brunold or Ash or even (probably not named) Eric, ask him.

Well, all of us had been complaining to the coach about the living situation. I'm sure we embellished, but it really was a crappy host family. We may as well have been staying in a cheap motel. We complained about the lack of food. About the lack of interest anyone in the family took in showing us anything. We rightly complained about the stupid kid who was supposed to be showing us around but instead was “courting” (whatever that meant). To be frank, I was a little worried my body might end up buried in that wheelchair graveyard.

So they gave us a new home! No kidding. We finished our last game on like day 4 and our coach let us know that our bags were at the field and a new family was going to take us in. Like a stray dog through an open door I was giddy, wagging my tail and looking for somewhere to pee. So this lady picks us up in her mini-van. She had two little kids (I really can't say how old...maybe 4 and 6?) so we're packed in there pretty tight. I didn't really think much of it when she a) got lost on the way to her house and b) came to a stop at a green light. I should have. Oh...and I don't recall saying goodbye to or thanking or even seeing the other host family again. It was a clean divorce...we let them keep the kids.

We did eventually get to her house. She introduced us to her husband. She let us know they were the one non-Mormon family in Salt Lake. And then she said the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. She said, “here in this freezer we stocked up so you can feel free to have anything in here any time you want. We just stocked up at Costco.” Is this heaven? “No, it's Utah.”

Next morning we head up for breakfast. 15. I think they had Eggos for us. As many as we wanted. It was awesome. Butter, syrup, mmmmmore please! Wait...15 what? Oh right. 15 as in 15 empty beer cans upside down in the kitchen sink. Wow. Well, maybe that accounts for the stopping at green lights and whatnot. But who cares? They're nice and there's food and their house downstairs is perfect for us and I just used all three forms of the homonym "thare" in one run on sentence! They had a Nintendo downstairs and a TV. The kids liked playing with us. We were allowed to walk around the neighborhood. All the world was right.

One night we put an old shoe on top of a rock wall and threw dirt clods at it until it was knocked off (I made the final blow). One night we went on a walk and found a construction site...climbed into a big backhoe, found the key and tried (unsuccessfully) to fire it up. One night we walked by a sign outside a music shop that read “BEAT THE RUSH, REPAIR YOUR HORN TODAY.” About two seconds later it read “BEAT THE RUSH, REPAIR YOUR HORNY TOAD.” Word play high jinks!

Over the course of a few days the other guys had hit if off pretty well with the dad. At this point he was pretty clearly an alcoholic. Every morning there were X-teen empty beers in the sink...this was a nightly ritual. We were downstairs when the drinking happened so we didn't really know the routine, but the evidence was clear. So the other guys were asking him to buy us beer. We had some money our parents had given us for the trip...we just needed a buyer. He wasn't opposed, but his wife was. So the deal was dead. I really didn't care because I didn't drink. You may or may not believe this, but my first sip of alcohol was when I was married and nearly 22.

So the last night came around and, no shizz, this guy comes through with a half-rack of cheap beer. Eric grabs one. Ash grabs one. Jeff grabs one. Eric goes for number two. Door opens. The mom comes in. The poop hits the fan. She looks at us like we're the devil and yells something. She then marches straight upstairs and we start hearing an argument. It's not good. “How could you?” “Contributing to the delinquency of...” “Supposed to be supervising them!” “What about our kids?” “I'm taking the kids and leaving!” What? Yes. That's what happened. Rustle-rustle-rustle. Plead, plead, plead. Door slam. Car engine. Doppler effect (vroooo-ooo-oooommmmm). No more mom. Dad comes downstairs, points at all of us and says “You little sh*ts! You had to ruin it for all of us, didn't you?” Door slams. Car engine. Doppler effect. We're all alone.

We were all pretty shaken up. I didn't feel guilty because, as I said, I didn't even want the beer. The other guys kept drinking as they contemplated the consequences of what had just happened. We had just broken up a marriage. I did the only thing I could think to do. I went upstairs and microwaved one of those amazing frozen, single-serving, deep-dish pizzas they used to sell by the barrel at Costco and licked the silver cardboard lining clean.

The next morning the dad had come to his senses. He was sober. He was sorry. He apologized to us and told us this had been bubbling under the surface for a long time. He would drop us off at the field with our stuff because it was the last day and we were headed home after the game. We found out at the field from the mom's sister that this was the first time anything like this had ever happened between the two of them. She had never taken the kids and left...ever. To this day I wonder what ever became of them, but I don't really remember anything about them other than that amazing pizza and I don't think they make those things anymore.

Oh...and that last day was the day I hit both those home runs AND the ball off the top of the fence. BOOM!

Norm makes a friend

2014-08-18T01:23:00.000-07:00

Trivia question: What's better than having a time share in a tropical paradise?

Give up?

Answer: Having a close relative that has a time share in a tropical paradise.

My dad and step-mom bought an annual two weeks in Cancun a number of years ago. They went for the best weather weeks of the year. And the best part about it is it has two separate rooms that both have access to a common living area. So Dad and Catherine can (and do) take the main living quarters while another couple can (and does) take the secondary bedroom/bathroom area. AND...get this...we're as close as blood relatives can get (my dad and I even have the same NAME), so Taela and I typically get precedence for the years that we choose to go. We have been down there 4 times now and it's freaking muy bueno!

Relaxing in Cancun

Well, it had been a few years since we had taken advantage of this amazing standing offer so Taela talked me into going this year. I was all “ok...if that's what you want, honey” out loud while internally I was all “how great is it that my wife thinks she has to convince me to vacation in paradise?”

So there's a really great group of people that all time-share down there the same time every year. We have come to know many of them because Dad and Catherine are tight-knit in this group. They are all nearly inseparable...during happy hour. I mean there's a lot of bonding to be had when you're laying motionless in the sun for hours and hours on end....looking forward to that refreshing margarita at whatever o'clock. The point is there's a great group of folks from all over the country and may different walks of life who have made a little community and it's totally boss.

Happy Hour Group

Well...because we have been down there a few times before we are pretty much over the touristy things to do. We don't need to go to the markets anymore. We sure as hell don't need to see another bull stabbed to death by a scrawny looking matador (which literally translates to “killer”). But there was one thing I had always wanted to do but never had. I wanted to go tour Isla de Mujeres. Was it because “Isla de Mujeres” means “Island of Women”...no-ish. It was because I had heard...and seen in some pictures, that La Isla was still somewhat authentic to what vacationing in Mexico used to be 30 years ago. Quaint little towns with small markets. Cantinas on the beach without all the corporate fanfare. Places where locals sought their own recreation, not bikini contests (yes, we actually stumbled across a bikini contest up the beach from our resort on hotel row this past trip).

So a handful of us from the happy hour group decided we would head over to Isla de Mujeres and form what the regulars call a Biker Gang to tour the island. Why do they call it a biker gang? Because what you do is go over there and rent either a golf cart (wuss) or a motor scooter (macho, macho man) to drive all over the island seeking the sights and sounds of paradise.

Most of the Biker Gang

So I'll fast forward a bit. The Island of Women is beautiful. There are amazing little towns with old buildings and narrow streets that give you a feel for what it's really like to live in a small Mexican community. There are breathtaking views everywhere. We ate on the beach at a restaurant that serves a bbq mackerel platter that's just incredible. Oh, and there was a cat walking around in the sand begging for our fish. Oh, and the bbq grill was dirty and disgusting and right next to the piss trough they called a men's restroom. Oh, and Taela and I witnessed the garbage man literally vomiting as he took in the rotting fish stench of the restaurant's refuse. Talk about being in Mexico!

Me, Taela and Norm @ Playa Tiburon

Wood pile and fish prep

But by far the highlight of our time on the island, the magical island of women, was our trip to the little roadside stand that the ladies in the group love to visit on every trip. The women from a lovely little family sells all sorts of decorative seashells right in front of their home. We made a special trip to the far end of the island just to buy from them.

So our chain of motor scooters came to a stop across the street from this roadside stand. We all dismounted our bikes like Ponch and John...moving a bit more slowly than normal because it gave us an air of authority. What I haven't yet mentioned is that at least 3 members of our biker gang were active or retired cops. We were bad arse!

Biker Gang...preparin' to transact

Shells were not the only available merchandise

Well the ladies are all looking at the shells and the little 13 year old girl is doing a good job explaining all about them. This is a male conch, this is a female...blah blah blah. The matriarch of the family is sitting behind in a spot back behind the booth. She is holding a very young baby and casually supervising the older daughter's saleswomanship.

My lovely wife loves babies!

I notice that my dad and Norm have moved off into the only shade to be had over against a wall. They've had enough of women fawning over dead mollusk exoskeletons and it's hot so why not take a break from baking in the kinda-near-equatorial sun? Oh...Norm. Norm is awesome. Norm is, if you watch Parks & Recreation, exactly like Ron Swanson except with personality. Norm is the guy that doesn't have to say much but you know he probably has the answer. He has one of those mustaches that makes him instantly respectable (as opposed to those mustaches that you want to singe the ends off with a lighter). Norm is the guy in the room that everyone instantly likes and they should.

Norm & Keith Sr. - Shady

So my dad comes back to the group to take some pictures. This leaves Norm on the wall by himself. Now, coming down the wall (seemingly out of nowhere) is this skinny dog. I'm not too keen on dogs myself so it puts me on guard a bit. I mean, who knows what this dog's intentions might be? Maybe he wants to bite me or my wife. Maybe he wants to give me a disease. Maybe he wants to rub his gennies on my leg. But lucky for me Norm is between me and this dog. And the dog decides to befriend him. I open the camera on my phone and snap a few shots of the dog with Norm. They are literally dancing with one another. Norm says something like “this is so cool! Strange dogs usually shy away from me.” This is kind of weird because Norm and Lori have pugs and there is no stranger dog than a pug. But Norm and this dog are bonding big time. Dancing, petting. At one point the dog gives a little dog lick kiss right on the ole mustache. Adorable!

Then s*** got real.

The dog leaves Norm in the dust, trots back behind where the woman is rocking her baby and grabs something out of a small trash can with its mouth. It carriers this thing 40 feet down the grassy strip next to the wall. It starts tearing into it to open it up ready to greedily devour its contents. Words cannot describe the rest. But fortunately, video can.

Warning...what you are about to see is real and unedited. If you have a weak gag reflex you should stop now and assume the worst. Otherwise...enjoy!

The Fix

2014-02-10T20:31:00.000-08:00

My wife, Taela, is amazing. She is great at everything she does because she has the rare ability to focus on things she has passion for. She's an amazing musician, an exemplary nurse and a wonderful wife and mother.

She also has the ability to make big, life-altering decisions at just the right time. Without her instinct and drive we wouldn't have reaped the benefits of buying our first house when we did nor would we have locked in a historically low interest rate when we most recently refinanced our current home. But most of all Taela has known when it's time for us to make-a somebabies!

I was always one of those people that thought there was going to be some moment in time when everything would be perfectly ripe for adding to our family. I was going to be successful and have a great job making tons of money. We were going to be living in our dream home...that kind of thing. But Taela knows more about life than I do. And people kept telling me what everyone else in the world already knew...namely that there is no perfect time to have kids. Kids are additional human lives brought into your family for which you have ultimate, constant and enormous responsibility.

So first we had Caleb. Anyone who knows us knows how amazing he is. Then we had Tenley. Equally amazing! Then there was this period of a few years in which I was (I thought) completely satisfied by the general size of my fatherhood. But people would ask me all the time if we were going to have a third and the answer I gave would always sound like this: “I think we are set, but my wife has this biological need to have a third. Her work has her delivering babies all the time so I don't think that need is going to go away.” She would say either we had to have a third or I needed to “get fixed” because being in between was too much for her.

And so along came Micah. That kid is fantastic. She was TOTALLY right. He's the funniest little booger and our house wouldn't be complete without him.

And then it was time to “get fixed”. Here's the thing...I didn't even know I was broken! The only thing I knew about getting a vasectomy was how pitiful my cat was in the aftermath of having him neutered. And that was pathetic. He rolled off my bed and dragged himself after me any time I left the room. But he didn't have the strength to do anything but squeak. I certainly didn't want that to be my fate.

Well, fortunately for me it turned out that getting a vasectomy and being castrated are two (slightly) different things. The doctor explained that he would be going into something he called my “scrotum” (a word with which I was unfamiliar) and he would be cutting and tying off my “vas” (which, he corrected me, is not the same as a “vag”). After thevas is severed my sperm would no longer be able to do something called “fertilize eggs” which apparently has literally absolutely nothing to do with Scotts Turfbuilder or store-bought chicken products sold by the dozen.

My instructions for the procedure were as follows:

Shave everything you can reach “down there”
Wear tighty whities

So apparently I'm supposed to be en vogue and out of fashion all at the same time!

My wife drove me and the kids to the doctor's office. The family waited in the...drumroll...waiting room while the procedure was performed. In my head it was going to go like this: a pretty nurse was going to “prepare the area” and compliment what she saw. The doctor was going to numb me up, then badda bing! badda boom!..five minutes later I'm sitting in the car with a bag of frozen peas in my lap. Instead it went like this:

I was told to get naked and lay on a table. An unattractive nurse very clinically sterilized my bag of goods and failed even one time to mention anything about how nice they looked even as she was poking my nads through a hole in a sterile cloth. The doctor then entered and we immediately began talking about golf. He was very good looking and he was a better golfer than me AND his junk wasn't laying out in the open for both of us to look at so I felt at a distinct disadvantage. Talk about not being in a position of power. For just a moment I considered the idea of trying to get aroused just to get the upper hand, but quickly decided he would probably take that as a compliment which would only further humiliate me.

The doctor was very good about letting me know what each step would entail. First he was going to numb up the right side. He stuck a needle in somewhere and I felt some uncomfortable pressure before the blissful numbness. The numb was delightful. I then began studying the ceiling. I looked for shapes in the texture. I listened for sounds outside the room. I considered what it would be like to have an out of body experience because, quite frankly, anywhere was better than here. I felt him go in through his freshly cut sac hole. I felt tugging and pulling. He said something about how my skin was nice and easy to incise. We then uncomfortably laughed about how old men have thick scrodes. He said I was going to smell something. It was going to be my burning flesh. It was a pretty gnarly smell, but hey...unlike where I'm writing this right now this was no day at the beach. I could deal with a little barbequed Keith smell. And then it was done! No big deal...well...halfway done.

Time for the left side. Needle poke: numb. “Can you feel this?” No. “How about this?” Nope. “Okay...here we go.” Home freeeeeeeeeeOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!

Me: “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts” It was odd because I was looking right at this guy and I swear that, visually speaking, he wasn't turning the screws on a vise with my left testicle about ready to pop inside it. But that's exactly how it felt! “Hold on...I'll numb it more.” It took precisely 11 hours and 47 minutes for him to administer the additional anesthetic...or so it seemed to me. It was probably more like 30 seconds but it was an eternity that I have never forgotten.

After that he continued about his work and the pain was, mercifully, gone. But as he worked I felt strange. I felt the same as I did the time I gave blood. I know what you're thinking...you're thinking “like a wuss?” Yes...kind of. But also like I was going to pass out. That was a huge shot of adrenaline for a naked guy who just had his tube tied. He said he'd keep an eye on me and I wouldn't be the first guy to pass out on him during this procedure (are you sure you're doing it right???). Tug tug, pull pull, sizzle sizzle, sew sew...

After it was complete he gave me a few minutes to compose myself. Then he had me stand up and slowly put my underwear on (not provocative-like, but careful so as not to blow a gasket). I had brought boxer-briefs (because I didn't want the hot nurse to say something like “1982 called and they want their panties back”). The doctor looked at me like I'm an idiot (I feel like I type that a lot) and says these underwear won't provide as much “support” as the tighty whities. As he said “support” he cupped his hand under my balls and lifted them up...apparently because I was such an idiot as to not know what “support” means. Then he went and grabbed a huge wad of gauze...I'm talking 30, 40 pads of it (which has to be about $1,500 worth when itemized on an ER bill) and shoved it all under my dangles. I must have looked exactly like one of those ballet dancers (come on...you know they stuff).

The doctor then gave me a sealable container and told me to “fill” it in a few weeks after I had sufficiently “flushed out my system”. I was to bring back my pearly treasure for them to examine.

Then he walked me out to the waiting room and presented me, like announcing the happy couple at a wedding, to my family. And there I stood...bruised but not broken. Sad but not dead. Manly but not really.

They asked me how I was. “A bit woozy but fine.” They were proud of me and sympathetic. We got into the elevator and went down to the first floor. I took about 10 steps down the hallway toward the exit and said to Taela “I can't make it to the car. I need to sit down or I'm going to pass out.” We found a chair in the hall and I sat in it. I breathed in deeply. You know the old ladies that volunteer at the hospital and just sit up front and welcome you but they don't really know enough to answer your questions? That lady was sitting at a desk right next to us. She was probably 90. Taela asked what she could do. I said I wanted to get down on the floor because if I fainted I was going to fall there anyway. So I slowly got down and laid on my back on the floor of the hospital. The old lady at the desk began laughing. “Huh huh ha ha ha ha ha!...you don't look very good! Ha ha ha ha!” Well at least I don't look 90.

I almost passed out, recovered. After 5 minutes or so I stood up and we walked out the door only to stop 20 feet short of the waiting car (where the kids were already buckled in). I had to sit down against a concrete pillar. Another 5 minutes and Taela was helping me into the passenger seat to return me home...a mere shadow of the man who had left so boldly on this adventure not 90 minutes before.

And then, for the rest of the weekend, peas on my crotch and sports on TV.

Progressive, Flo, and the Snapshot Discount

2013-11-26T15:39:00.001-08:00

“That’s a buncha bullcrap” is the only thing you can really say about Flo. So you’re telling me that this actress who was relegated to the phone systems closet in Mad Men has somehow “made it” because she is now in some hypnotic white room staged as a woman we all want to punch in the face? If I hadn’t been with Progressive for the past 15 years I would boycott them based on their ad campaign alone.

Ever heard of the “Snapshot Discount®”? Of course you have. That’s because you heard it from That’s a Buncha Bullcrap Flo. What That’s a Buncha Bullcrap Flo is trying to get you to do is put a small device into your car that will allow Progessive to track you 24 hours a day for 6 months. Now THAT’S A BUNCHA BULLCRAP!

Initially we tried the Snapshot Discount® because we drive our SUV pretty infrequently and they offer up to a 30% discount with it. We ordered it and followed the instructions by putting the device into the OBD-II slot under the driver’s side of the dashboard. This is the slot that DEQ uses to test your emissions and the mechanic uses to charge you $100 to “diagnose” your Check Engine Light. It’s basically a USB port to your car’s computer system.

So we put the device in and started driving very carefully. VERY CAREFULLY. Because we soon found out that there were a few things Progressive was looking to ding us on:

1)      Number of trips
2)      Mileage
3)      Driving during DANGER hours
and finally…
4)      Hard Braking Incidents (Now That’s a Buncha Bullcrap!)

Hard braking incidents, as defined by Progressive, are times during which your vehicle is decelerating by at least 7 miles per hour per second. Think about that. How long does it take you to go from 22 mph to 15 mph? No idea, right? That’s why THAT’S A BUNCHA BULLCRAP!

We actually did very well with the SUV. We ended up getting an initial discount of the full 30%. You get that after 30 days. Then they tell you to leave that damn device in your car until the end of the 6 month policy! Now THAT’s a buncha bullcrap.

So we left the device in for months. Every time you drive the damn thing you drive in fear. You think about it constantly. You worry. You fret. You joke about it listening to your conversations but you end up believing it so you have phony confersations with your spouse about how safe you are (while you’re flipping the bird at a 90 year old woman who just cut you off…hypothetically). So after having this little demon in our car for nearly half a year I finally received an email from That’s a Buncha Bullcrap Flo to return the device. We had earned a (I guess) permanent discount of 28%. Shwew!

Well, you know I bought a Prius. What I might not have mentioned was that while I’m getting amazing gas mileage I actually have to pay a higher insurance premium than the Subaru it replaced. Why? I don’t know. It doesn’t make much sense other than Prius drivers are typically the worst drivers on the planet. What is it about environmentalism that makes people such a bad fit for soceity? The point is that we ended up putting the device in the Prius and then checking the log on the website daily. That’s a Buncha Bullcrap! I was getting hard braking incidents on top of hard braking incidents. And they added a really nice new feature to the Snapshot®…it beeped at me when I had an “incident”. Except that it didn’t beep every time! So now I’m thinking I had two incidents in a week when really I had 7! NOW THAT’S A BUNCHA BULLCRAP!!!!

By the end of the Snapshot® trial I had lost 6 pounds, 3 years off my life and was rewarded with a 2% discount. Thanks for nothing, That’s a Buncha Bullcrap Flo, thanks for nothing.

The Fountains - 01 Pilot

2013-02-17T23:36:00.002-08:00

The following is my first attempt at a serial. Later I will hopefully add many installments and introduce many characters. All of it is true and occurred at my first place of employment. I hope it's as entertaining now as it was nearly 20 years ago when most of happened...

She was older than me. Quite a bit older.

I was 15 and it was my first day joining the wonderful American workforce. I had gangled my way down the long corridor to the employee lounge where the time clock was bolted to a wall and punched in. For the first time in my life I was on the clock and something about that felt powerful. Every moment I spent that first evening in my short-sleeved light blue striped shirt and navy shorts felt like a million bucks...that's because it was a million bucks, or at least it would have been after 200,000 hours. Now it's illegal to pay a $5 wage in Oregon, or anywhere in the US for that matter, but on that day in that place when I was 15 and she was much older than me it was empowering and wonderful and I felt alive.

Her name was Francis...but let me back up a bit here...

Adam McKenzie was one of my best friends in middle school and high school. He was one of those guys that was good at everything. He ALWAYS made straight A's. He was tall and good looking. He was a solid athlete. He came from an amazing family. And he was the first of my friends to get an actual, real life, paying job. You see, his brother was a food server and was able to put in a good word with Rosalie who hired Adam in a snap. When you're paying $5/hour and you find a good employee, you take his word when he recommends another person eager to serve.

Despite being in the same grade Adam was a year older than me, so it was natural for him to find employment first. And it was after he was hired that I began to notice something different about him. It seemed that every time he wanted to do something such as “eat lunch” or “go to the movies” he could. Why? Because he had these strange little green rectangles in his wallet that he told me were called “money” and he could actually trade these slips of paper for pretty much anything he wanted if he had enough of them.

Well, the style in the early 90's didn't include any tailed coats, but I'm here to tell you that didn't stop me from instantly riding Adam McKenzie's coattails right to his boss for an interview. Now what was it I was saying about Adam? Oh right, he was good at everything and, fortunately for me, that included being a model employee. So like his brother before him, his word to Rosalie was as good as gold for the beneficiary and in this particular instance that beneficiary was me.

After filling out my very first application, having my very first interview and completing my very first W-2 I was ready to make my very first taxable income. I nervously walked my skinny legs into the kitchen that first day, worried to death because Adam wasn't working that shift. I was told to ask for Toby.

“I'm Toby. Put on a hairnet,” said a small, mid-20's, possibly recovering drug addict, certainly living in a trailer, GIRL. (Years later I would have a similar situation come up on my first day working at Oswego Lake Country Club...the day I sought out my now very good male friend Jade to issue me my uniform). The thing about Toby was that if life hadn't aged her so prematurely she probably would have been pretty.

Wait...did she say “hairnet”?

So Toby was the Assistant Dining Room Manager, or perhaps The Assistant to the Dining Room Manager or maybe she was the Dining Room Manager who was the understudy to the Kitchen Manager. In any case, Toby quickly showed me how to line up cups and fill them with the correct beverages. Then it was time to hit the floor.

You see, there were two sides to the food service business. There was the back of the house (the kitchen) where the food was prepared. And there was the front of the house (the dining room) where it was my job to put a smiling face on the establishment. After being learning some menial tasks in the back of the house, it was time to walk through that understated doorway from the heat of the industrial kitchen onto The Floor where the real action took place.

And that's when I met her. “Francis, this is Keith” said Toby rather loudly. “What?”. “This is KEITH!”. “What?” “KEITH!” Me: “Yes, I'm KEITH!” Francis: “Oh, Keith...rhymes with teeth.” I laughed. “Don't laugh, now I'm serious. Now I will never forget your name.” And, by God, from that day for the next 5 years that 90 year old woman, Francis, never did forget my name. I told you she was older than me.

And thus began my adventures working at The Fountains at Town Center Village. I was about to find out just how much fun assisted living could be.

It's what's on the inside (of the tortilla) that counts

2013-01-30T23:42:00.001-08:00

A few years ago I found a small monthly tear-off calendar at work and put it on my desk. On it I taped this picture:

Each time I ate a burrito I would mark it on the calendar. I called it my Burrito Calendar. I love burritos.

In light of this I have decided to bring you my Top 5 Burritos in Portland list. There are many, many possible criteria for a list like this, but I have simplified the process. I have simply ranked these stuffed tortillas of goodness in the order of how much happiness they give me while I am eating them. So, without further ado, because prior to this statement there was so much ado, I give you...drum roll...the list.

Trivia: "Burrito" is Spanish for "little donkey". Also, "Boca Raton"...as in Boca Raton, Florida...is Spanish for "Rat Mouth".

Honorable Mention: King Burrito

Ingredients: Unknown

Listen, I have never been to King Burrito. I don’t even know where it is. But one time I attended a networking luncheon put on the Portland Business Alliance and everyone had to go around the room and tell their name and where they worked. I stood up and said “I’m Keith, I work at such and such and, sadly, I’m a huge Chicago Cubs fan which means I’m basically a loser all the time.” You probably think that has nothing to do with King Burrito. Well, it kind of doesn’t and you’re a know-it-all. Pipe down and let me explain. The next time I had to give my name, rank and serial number I was at a South Portland Business Alliance meeting and when it came to me I said “I’m Keith, I work at such and such and I LOVE to eat burritos. I’ve eaten 34 of them this year (this was in March).” After that people came up to me and told me all sorts of things about burritos. A recurring theme was a food cart called King Burrito. If that young, eager Farmers insurance agent is this worked up about a burrito served out of a wagon then I’m all in and you, King Burrito, have just narrowly missed my top 5.

Note: See, I told you I've never been there. I just checked the website and it turns out it's not a cart at all, it's a hole in the wall taqueria!

5. Chipotle Mexican Grill

Ingredients: Carnitas
White or Brown Rice
Black Beans, but the Pinto Beans w/ Bacon are equally good
Corn Salsa
A little Sour Cream
A TON of Cheese

I know, I know…I’m choosing a huge corporation with a major ownership stake by McDonald’s as my #5 burrito. So what, you hoity toity snobby food critic? It’s freaking delicious and it’s big enough to make me full. The employees are great because, as corporate (as opposed to franchised) employees they have to do pretty much anything you say. They are friendly and helpful and, hey, owner Jim isn’t breathing down their neck about food portions like Jen does over at every Subway shop in the Milwaukie/Clackamas area.

At Chipotle you are basically on an assembly line of delicious tortilla stuffings. The key here is you can never have too much cheese, so you order like this: “Put on a ton of cheese. Just when you think you’ve put on too much add one more handful.” It has taken years to perfect this request because they are trained to put on small sprinkles thereby making you ask for more countless times like the girl giving free haircuts at the beauty school who is too scared to cut anything off. BUT…they HAVE to give you as much as you want despite however many fingerfuls it takes. Tell them to keep going until you say “stop” and you’re golden…or white, since the cheese is an amazing blend that looks the color of a Wisconsin girl in winter.

4. Muchas Gracias

Ingredients: Refried Beans
A Chile Relleno
Cheese

I know I know…you’ve been to Muchas Gracias and you love the Oregon Burrito. Good for you. Go write your own blog. As for me, I too have had the Oregon Burrito and it’s decent. I happen to think the potatoes take away from the flavor instead of soaking up the flavor, but maybe I caught the OB on a bad day. Here’s my take on burritos: if you can put a relleno in the middle of it, it’s good. I first encountered this in a crappy hole in the wall down in LA with my dad, stepmom and sister. My dad took us to the most likely place to get shot in the entire city so we could have some authentic LA Mexican food. People don’t smile in that place…that is until I bit into my chile relleno burrito! Then I was smiling and I think my obvious lack of gold teeth targeted me as an outsider.

That said, I brought that mentality back to Oregon with me. So, screw you Oregon Burrito, I’ll take the Mexican Burrito. Oh…you can’t find the above item on the menu at Muchas Gracias, you have to ask for it special. Just say “Give me the KeenKeith special”. They will look at you like either a) they don’t speak English well enough to know what you’re saying or b) you’re an idiot. After you get past that embarrassment you simply say “can you squirt some of your lardy lard lardy beans onto a tortilla, smother it in cheese then add a relleno?” They will say “yes, that will be $4” and you’ll be the fattest, happiest person on the block.

1c. Cha! Cha! Cha!

Ingredients: Seasoned Ground Beef
Rice
Cheese
Potatoes
Peas
Almonds
Raisins

Thought I was kidding, didn’t you? Well I’m not. They cook up the meat with all this crazy crap in it that doesn’t seem to go together at all, then they serve it to you in this yellow wax paper as if to say “no, we really are Latino”. I have yet to meet anyone who loves this burrito the way I do. It’s tied for number one for me and I struggled with this because it’s on an equal plane with my numbers 1b and 1a.

So you get this burrito, you unwrap it and wad up the yellow wax paper and set that aside. You then grab the green sauce and just drench the tortilla with it and dig in with a fork and knife. No regrets…no regrets.

1b. Super Torta

Ingedients: Chile Relleno
Rice
Refried Beans
Guacamole

The above is a description of the Super Burrito. Running a close second is the Chile Relleno Burrito which is just as wonderful as the dangerous Los Angeles burrito my dad risked all our lives for. Honestly, the only way you can do wrong with Super Torta is by not going there. They have tongue on the menu which in and of itself makes it an authentic experience. You can also buy rock candy out of their quarter machine. Rock candy? Yes, rock candy. I have always assumed that's because there's so much poverty in Mexico that people have to eat rocks there.

1a. Bajio Grill

Ingredients:
Interior: Shredded Beef
Sweet Rice
Refried Beans
Exterior: Cheese
Sour Cream
Sweet Vinaigrette Salad Dressing

“What?!?!!!??!! Salad Dressing? Grosssssssssss!” Shaaaaaaadup. It’s awesome. So this is another assembly line burrito. They have a location in Clackamas in the Home Depot parking lot on 82^nd. They are opening a new west side location, I think it will be in Beaverton.

So the shredded beef is amazing. It tastes like Yankee Pot Roast…which is weird because Yankees are Northeast and this place is definitely shooting for Southwest. I don’t care about that. What I care about is how mouth wateringly good the meat is. How sweet and soft the rice is…and most importantly how tangy delicious that salad dressing is. It’s literally the best salad dressing I’ve ever tasted and I don’t even bother with the salad anymore. I could drink that stuff straight from the container. Instead I have them soak the burrito with it.

The Latino workers look at me like I’m nuts when I ask for the salad dressing, but the white guy knows us and doesn’t even ask. He doesn’t eat his burrito that way, but he can identify with our American urge to smother everything with sweetness. The only think that would make this place better is if I could find a way to actually bathe in the sweet vinaigrette. I’m sure it would make my skin soft, smooth and scrumptious.

Well, I hope you're able to visit all of the above fine establishments. Also, visit this place just north of SE 92^nd and Foster.

I have never been there but the following is a list of reasons you should patronize this establishment, which also happen to be reasons I will soon be trying it out:

1. The interior walls are bright green which makes it light up like lime sherbet at night.

2. Check out the police car. Ever gone to a crappy restaurant with police officers eating there?

3. Note the nutty yellow bird on the sign...it's practically screaming "I'm delicious!"

4. Some dude apparently likes to mess with his bicycle in the alley.

5. Look at orange shirt guy. Any Mexican food place in a neighborhood where you have to constantly be looking over your shoulder MUST have great food. I'll bet they even serve tongue.

If you have yet to develop your burrito pallet I suggest you get on that right away. The burrito craze has grown so wildly that there is a section on Weidler over near Lloyd Center that has a Muchas Gracias, a Chipotle, a Taco Bell and a Q'Doba Mexican Grill within a half block of each other.

Oh, disclaimer: burritos will make you fart.

The Fresh Prince of Happy Valley

2013-01-13T00:49:00.003-08:00

Every day I grow more disgusted with our culture's idol worship of celebrities. For whatever reason we are fascinated by the people we know most about...because every piece of their love life and career moves are published in gossip rags. We have blurred the line between entertainment and reality to such a degree that people no longer want to know where one ends and the other begins.

As celebrities grow to accept their own importance and the roles they play in the sad lives of their adoring fans, many come to the conclusion that they need to write a book about their adventures. Never mind that most of their life has been an open book pasted on the pages of countless magazines. Never mind that they're not good writers so someone else will actually pen the “autobiography”. There is a demand, so it must be done. If you have someone else write it, they will buy it.

Well, I have a suggestion. In an age of soundbites and the brevity of Twitter...at a time in history when we have moved from telephone conversations to texting instead, I believe that we need a new format for biographies. Anyone writing an autobiography should adhere to a new set of rules. If your life is worth writing about, someone who actually knows how to write will take care of that after you're dead. If you're looking to write a book about yourself while you're still living then I believe you have a duty to your readers to keep within the confines of the new autobiography. The format is called ABoBA which stands for “Auto Biography of Bel Air”.

ABoBA-

The rules of ABoBA are simple. You must write the highlights of your life story into the context of the theme song for The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Go ahead and listen just in case you haven't had this song stuck in your head for the past decade and a half. After that you you can find my first shot at an ABoBA. When you've finished reading mine please write one for yourself and post it in the comment section below.

Remember, I'm the one who told you that Spider Yelling would sweep the nation (it did even better than that by going international). Soon everyone will be writing ABoBAs of their own. We should probably start the #ABoBA now as well. Remember, much like all good resumes fit on one page, all good life stories fit the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song!

ABoBA by KeenKeith

This is a story all about how

I grew up and life turned out.
I'd like to take a moment, no time to dilly dalley
I'll tell you how I came to rule a small castle in Happy Valley.

In the SouthEast Portland suburbs, born and raised!

Milwaukie was where I spent most of my days.
Chillin' out playin' Backyard baseball like a fool.
Shootin' some b-ball at Hector Campbell School.
When some skater guys, they were up to no good
Started making trouble in my neighborhood.
Got shot with one little beebee, my Momma freaked out!
She said, “We're calling the police man to take them down”.

Applied to several colleges, and chose one that was near.

Met a girl who's fresh and the future's lookin' clear.
If anything I could see no if, buts or maybe's
So I ringed up her finger and we had ourselves three babies.

I pulled outta waiting tables, then campaigns into insurance.

Caleb, Tenley, Micah help me keep up my endurance.
Wrote an early 90's rap song now it's time for the final tally.
I can sit on my throne as a king in Happy Valley.

Ok...now it's your turn. Post yours below.

An Open Letter to Red Box

2013-01-06T12:45:00.001-08:00

Dear Red Box,

I am forever glad to have met your acquaintance. You probably didn't notice me, but I certainly remember the first time I saw you. You were so new and so different. Like the video game console in The Last Starfighter, you seem to have been dropped into the dirtiest, crappiest place in our society (McDonald's) yet you had a magnetism stronger than my ability to resist.

I approached you, or you pulled me near...I'm not sure which. I touched your screen. I scrolled through your movies. It was foreign and strange and I didn't exactly know what to expect or how to react to your ease of use. Eventually I found a movie I was interested in watching. That was when you said those two sweet little words. “One dollar” you whispered in my ear. One dollar? Are you out of your mind? Of course not. You don't have a mind. You're a box that happens to be painted red. And you are wonderful.

You see, oh dear Red (pause for dramatic effect) Box, I had long ago terminated my relationship with Blockbuster and Hollywood. The thoughts of the local independent movie rental shops were but a fleeting memory. Even having mentioned these, your competitors from times past, should imply that my grooming in movie rental selection was borne of stores with open floor space and racks upon racks of films categorized as “Drama” or “Comedy” or “Horror” or, along the much coveted exterior wall, “New Releases”. My habit was shared universally with all of America. I would enter the store, turn left, find the wall 'o new releases and browse the up to year-old releases that I had pored over probably just a few nights before. Much like the common “so many channels and nothing on” I would search through the endless alphabetized boxes looking for that gold nugget I had somehow missed each and every other time I had combed this same spot.

And I remember the last time I ever walked into a movie rental store. It was a Hollywood near my house. I was looking for “The Nativity”. Hollywood had it for rent. The cost was $4.99 for a five night rental. This was a full two dollars per night higher than my previous rental which had been a couple of years prior. The clerk was kind enough to point out that I could purchase the DVD for the same price from the used movie bin. Really? I can rent it or buy it for the same price? Have you considered adjusting your pricing model to compete with this spaceship from the future called The Red Box? “No,” she assured me. She had it on good authority that you, The Red Box, were nothing but a mere fad and that your financials were suffering. You were but a fleeting mistress and would fade into oblivion akin to the LaserDisk. As I said, that was the final time I set foot in a movie rental store. As far as I know that rotund and brawny gal died in the great Hollywood implosion of a few years ago clinging to the idea that I somehow wanted to spend $5 to borrow a movie for a few nights.

So, Red Box, you win. I have a Netflix account and it's great, but it can't satisfy my completely. We watch the occasional streamed movie that the rating matrix swears we will judge 4.5 stars out of 5. But when we are itching to see a new release we drive up to the local Albertsons (thank you for not limiting yourself to the golden arches!) where there are not one, but two kiosks. For impromptu movie night, you are always there for me. And your ease of access is amazing. Your app allows me to choose and reserve a movie from my phone! I know you care for me as I do you because you hold the movie for me personally. All I have to do is swipe my credit card...wait...credit card? All love comes with a price. $1.20? What's twenty cents between friends? I need you Red Box...I need you.

All that said, I have a grievance to air. You see, I used to feel special. I felt chosen. I was “in the know” because of our relationship. But do you know who now knows you and utilizes your comforts? Everyone. Oh, and also Everyone's brother. Am I greedy? Am I jealous? Do I fear being lost amongst the crowd of your admirers? Hardly. You think too highly of yourself. Don't forget that you are nothing but a large red container filled with usually disappointing “entertainment” created by large corporations whose political agendas typically clash with my moral compass.

My problem, dear box, is that when you make yourself available to the masses you invite the lowest common denominator to frequent your services. What I ask for is a clear instruction manual on a flashing, brightly lit marquee above each kiosk. And I ask for severe consequences struck upon those who choose to disregard these rules.

Rule #1

No one under the age of 16 is allowed to browse movies without an adult present. Multiple times I have stood in line behind 12 year old girls who browse their way through each and every movie. In the old brick and mortar stores this would have been perfectly acceptable. It wouldn't have bothered anyone because we could simply walk around her and search through the wall of entertainment at out own paces. However, considering the necessity of your screen, oh Red (pause for dramatic effect) Box, I am completely paralyzed by the indecision of the adolescent dingbat standing between me and your glory. What's more is that this girl, no matter how many times it happens or which little girl it is, HAS NO CREDIT CARD! Why? Why is it, you ask, that she is standing here reading the description of Men in Black III? Seriously? Men in Black III???? Here's a description: The unwatchable threequel to a marginal movie made before you were born regarding ridiculous aliens and subpar dialogue. Has anyone, in the history of Earth, ever...EVER read the full description of Men in Black III? Yes. The girl in front of me at Kiosk B. And why was she there alone? Because her father has become so annoyed by her insistence on inserting the word “like” into each sentence three times that he couldn't stand grocery shopping with her. So he walked in, sent his offspring to annoy The Red Box and checked off the list his wife made him in peaceful solitude. Shame on you Crappy Father. Shame on you.

Rule #2

Where there are two kiosks, there is one line. I don't care that some people have reservations on one box and one on another. People can sort that out from the front of the line. What I'm saying is this: if I arrive first, Billy don't get togo in front of me simply because Billy be standing to my right. There is one line or there will be martial law. Perhaps the rule should be “if you feel like you're getting away with something then you shouldn't be doing it.”

Rule #3

You can read no more than 3 descriptions in one visit. Here's the deal...if you're looking to watch a movie how much do you want to know about it anyway? In life there used to be a thing called a “pleasant surprise”. I fear that with today's 24 hour news cycle we feel the need to process so much surface level information that we have lost that splendid satisfaction from having been blind-sided by a good story. The description, or what used to be the back of the box, tells you nothing about the quality of the acting, the dialogue, the cinematography...it tells you a brief synopsis of the story which isn't going to tell you if you'll enjoy it anyway. Do you think the back of the box on Sideways will make you want to follow the romantic journey of a down on his luck wine enthusiast as he rediscovers his spirit in a tale of frolicking in the beauty of the California wine country? Come on.

Rule #4

If you spend more than 3 minutes on your turn you are required by law to rent something. The penalty for breaking this law is death.

And now, fair Red Box, I bid you adieu. If you will kindly implement the above rules if use immediately I will remain your most obedient and loyal servant. Thank you for finding a business model that allows me minimal contact with humans as we continue to evolve into a society with our eyes glued to screens instead of one anothers'.

Your affectionately,

Keith

PS – The Dark Knight Rises was really good.

Youth Soccer (or Get out of the way, my girl's better than you)

2012-09-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

The following story is true. Names (and, to a degree, pictures) have been changed to protect me from being identified by the participants as a real prick who can’t deal with their kids.

My daughter plays soccer. She is six years old and loves playing the game. Last year was her first year playing on a team and she was fantastic. On average she scored 3 goals per game and made as many as 6 in one game. It was a lot of fun to watch.

This year my daughter is playing on a completely different team. Unfortunately this team has 8 kids on it that actually want to play all the time. Because they play 4 on 4, only half the team can play at any given time. The coach has decided the best way to divide up playing time is to come up with two teams of four and play them in alternating quarters. The teams are not always the same.

Cast:

Awesome Girl (my daughter)

Awesome Girl

Other Girl (not my daughter, the only other girl on the team, once wore a tank top that looked exactly like a wife-beater ribbed sleeveless t-shirt to practice

Other Girl

Little Dude (little islander kid who goes to my daughter’s school and has a hilarious little sister)

Little Dude

Blondie (little blonde kid who can play well but has a short attention span and tends to cry easily)

Blondie

Beaker (skinny little guy who is a little slower to develop than the rest of the players, the coach’s kid called him a stupid idiot at the first practice)

Beaker

Coach’s Kid (good player, not what you might call sensitive to the feelings of others)

Coach's Kid

Big Kid (he’s as big as my 8 year old, faster than any other kid in the league and has some real soccer skills)

Big Kid

Wrong Way (close friends with Big Kid, whines when Big Kid has the ball and doesn’t pass to him, doesn’t know which goal is which, kicks the ball out of bounds more often than in bounds, yells at other kids when they are in the right)

Wrong Way

So, as I said the team is split into equal halves each game. Tonight Awesome Girl was put on a team with Beaker, Big Kid and Wrong Way. The only consistency so far with team selection is that Coach’s Kid and Big Kid have never been on the same team and Big Kid is always on the same team with Wrong Way. The truth is that most parents don’t want their kid playing at the same time as Big Kid because he’s so good. He has actually started passing recently, but he’s so much better and faster than the other kids that it’s hard for any of the rest of them to touch the ball when he’s in there. The exception is that Wrong Way’s parents always want he and Big Kid together because they’re friends. Their families are close and there seems to be some kind of family agreement that Big Kid will pass to Wrong Way whenever he can.

Well, now think of this from my perspective tonight. Big Kid has an agreement to pass the ball to Wrong Way. When he’s unable to, he’s so fast that he’s dominating the ball anyway. Poor Beaker doesn’t really stand a chance out there and my little Awesome Girl is kind of lost in the mix trying to get to the ball, but being constantly out-raced to it by Big Kid.

Understand that we only get one game per week and it’s 40 minutes long. This means that I have exactly 20 minutes per week to watch Awesome Girl in action. The first thing that goes wrong tonight is when Beaker is taking a goal kick. This is when you stand by your own goal and pass to a teammate. Well, Wrong Way decided he would make a hard charge at Beaker right as he was kicking the ball, presumably because he was jealous Beaker got to kick it. He was succesful in his aggressive charge at his teammate and had the ball bounce right off his leg and into the other team’s goal. Wrong Way jumped up and down and looked over to his enormous mom. “I made it!” Well, Wrong Way has been instructed about a thousand times which way he’s supposed to be going, but he doesn’t care. A goal is a goal, no matter which end of the field it’s on. His mom tries to tell him that his goal doesn’t count, but he doesn’t get it. Because he doesn’t listen…ever. If I were coach I would tell him it’s not that the goal doesn’t count, it’s that you’ve just hurt your team and scored for your opponent. But I’m not the coach and that’s certianly for the best.

Well, after that Wrong Way’s parents decided to correct the problem by telling him to stand by the other goal. Which he did. Literally. He stood in the middle of the other goal like a goal keeper (there are no goalies at this age level). He was standing in the way of the goal so if any of his teammates were going to score he could stop the ball, turn and try to kick it in for his own glory. Imagine a waiter standing up against the bar to take drink order only to then turn and ask the bartender for the drink simply so he can steal the tips. Same thing. Oh, and the goals they use are about 4 feet wide, so he’s taking up most of the goal. It’s not like it’s a regulation size goal and it would be easy to score around him.

So the first quarter ends and Awesome Girl has played pretty hard, but hasn’t had the chance to score yet. She really wants to score because she hasn’t at all this year (mostly because of the way this team is set up). She is used to scoring every game but the parents think it’s cute when she comes close because she’s a girl. They don’t understand that she actually is a good soccer player. A few nights a week she has me set up obstacle course drills for her to navigate with her soccer ball. She runs these courses for upwards of an hour nonstop getting better and better. She’s talented, but she also works hard at it. I’m not just being a dad here, she’s actually a good player with skills that the other kids don’t have because she practices her butt off.

The last quarter begins and I have told Awesome Girl it’s her time to take that ball on her own and score no matter what. The first thing that happens is she has a shot at a breakaway at midfield. Well, she had a shot at a breakaway. It ended when Wrong Way jumped in front of her, bent over and picked up the ball right from in front of her foot. Thanks Wrong Way…it would be nice if your parents would tell you not to do that. I yell “No Wrong Way! What are you doing?!!??!?!?”

The next thing that happened was Awesome Girl came in from the side and was about to take a shot at a wide open goal. She was DEFINITELY going to score. That’s when Wrong Way came out of nowhere and stole the ball from her kicking it the wrong way back up the field. The ball came bounding back and Awesome Girl kicked it toward the goal, but there was Wrong Way standing right in the middle like a goal keeper and he succesfully took another goal away from my daughter. It was driving me INSANE!

Then Awesome Girl had yet another chance. I had just yelled “Get the ball and take it in yourself! Don’t let your teammate steal it from you! Score!” She did exactly that. She took it from the other team, dribbled in from the side, turned a tough angle shot into a more makeable one and kicked it hard at the middle of the goal. Problem was, there was Wrong Way standing there in the middle of the goal…like a goalie. And again he succesfully blocked the goal like he was Hope Solo in the World Cup.

Almost immediately the whistle blew and the game was over.

Maybe it was the caffeine in the Excedrin I took before the game. Maybe it was the smoke in the air from the forest fires. Maybe it was a paternal instinct to want the best for my daughter. But I can’t take this anymore! I’m losing my mind! I get to watch my amazing daughter play for 20 minutes of game action per week and without fail there is one single kid out there crapping all over her glory. I just want to shake his huge mother. Just shake her and ask her why she keeps allowing this to happen. Why? WHY? I want to shake the coach and shame him into making his own kid play with Big Kid and Wrong Way. I want to scream and yell at Wrong Way until I am the first person he has ever obeyed in his entire 6 years on this planet.

But instead I will continue to do what I always do…make comments under my breath on the sideline making the other parents think (realize) I’m a jerk. Listen, all I want is for my daughter to taste the success she derserves. Your kid doesn’t work for it. Your kid doesn’t give a crap. Your kid doesn’t even know what success is. He doesn’t know which way he’s going. He doesn’t care about anything except kicking the ball. It doesn’t matter which direction. It doesn’t matter if it’s in bounds or out of bounds. He doesn’t know the difference and you haven’t taken the time to teach him the difference. Please just tell him to get out of the way. Please!?!?!??!!?

Who knew being a parent was going to mean having to deal with other people’s kids? Bleh!

Baseball, rage and a cheating umpire

2012-09-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

Lori Chipman

Growing up I always wanted to be a baseball player. In fact…sorry Lori Chipman, not to minimize what you and I had in second grade – it was real…baseball was my first love. What’s great about baseball is that it’s a slow moving game which teaches you how to constantly fail. Come to think of it I don’t know what I like about baseball, but I loved the hell out of it none-the-less.

The reason I’m telling you this is that as I was driving around Springfield a few months ago I was reminded of something that happened on a baseball field 18 years ago. It was the only moment in my life I can say I completely, without a doubt, lost every measure of control. That’s not to say I don’t fly off the handle from time to time. When it comes to driving and sports I step into combative confrontation constantly, compadre. What I’m telling you is this particular time I didn’t lose my cool, I lost my flippin’ mind.

I was 15 years old and we had a baseball tournament down in Springfield. Being the extremely responsible adolescent I was, I couldn’t go down and stay with the team the first night because I had to work at the crack of dawn the second morning of the trip. My mom was gracious enough to drive me the nearly 2 hour drive down to game 1 (which I pitched, took a no-hitter into the 6^th inning and won) then turn around and drive me back home.

Saturday morning came and I rode my bike to work at 6:00 am, served two meals (breakfast and lunch) to a bunch of elderly people who had trouble remembering their own names and rode my bike home at 2:45 as quickly as possible. My mom then again loaded my skinny butt into the stretched black Ford Aerostar (which would later be the ‘limo’ I took to Sr. Prom) and headed back down to Springfield.

My team had won early in the day and I was playing with them in the nightcap. We were facing a solid team that had also won its first two games. Their pitcher was a kid they had brought in from another team just for this tournament. He was a big ole’ horse. He threw hard…there was a reason they had invited him to play. We were getting their best…actually better than their best.

Shaun Vodka

Well, the game was going along like any other game. Very little scoring, both teams playing hard and playing well. We had Shaun Vodka on the mound so you know the other team wasn’t hitting well. Vodka’s fastball and curve both looked like they were shooting straight out of his ear. He could gas it up there in the low to mid 80’s. He was usually, and this night was no exception, very difficult to hit.

Then it happened. I was at bat and Luke Parker was on second base. The pitcher wheeled around and threw a dart to second. The shortstop slapped down the tag as both players fell to the ground. “SAFE!” yelled the umpire. I continued watching. The shortstop had fallen on Luke and he wasn’t making an effort to get up. After 2 or 3 seconds of being used like a couch cushion Luke stood up. When he stood it caused the other player to fall off of him (he wasn’t hurt, he was just resting there I guess). The guy didn’t want to fall to the ground so he kind of clung on to Luke’s jersey so Luke shoved him away...not violently. The field umpire closest to the play said nothing. The umpire behind the plate yelled “you’re outta here!!!!” Huh?

Oh no you di-ent. Oh yes, he di-id! The umpire standing more than 120 feet away decided he had observed enough malice to kick Luke out of the game! All of the parents, including Luke’s dad and Dan Nelson’s dad (from this point Dave and Ron), started yelling at the umpire. It was a horrible call. It was confounding really. But what are you going to do? This guy is making 10 bucks to stand there in 85 degree heat umpiring a bunch of testosterone filled little pricks so you’re not exactly getting a guy with a helluva lotta astute judgment.

Luke was a good ball player, so it was going to hurt not having him in the game. Coach Hoppel called me over after the inning said “Keith, you’re at short”. I wasn’t really an infielder at that point in my ‘career’, but I was a competitor. I ended up playing a very good shortstop for the rest of the game. But that’s not what I’m trying to tell you about. What I’m trying to tell you about is Dave and Ron…first. You see, Dave and Ron are still yelling at the umpire. Sometimes loudly, sometimes with quieter condescending remarks. Sometimes with personal insults. The umpire wasn’t liking it too much. Dave was a fiery guy, but he was also a fair guy. He knew his kid had been wronged and he had some paternal instinct kicking in. Ron was an understated fireball. He could softly tear you apart through his mustache and with Dave going crazy next to him it gave him license to belittle this skinny douche of an umpire all the more. It was on.

Now a good umpire would have taken an authoritative course of action that included a verbal warning to the fans followed by an ejection with the possible warning that they risked forfeiting the game for their kids. That’s what a good umpire would have done. But a good umpire wouldn’t have overstepped his partner’s call on the field and thrown a kid out of a game for pushing a body off of himself. A good umpire wouldn’t have had to buy a child’s catcher chest protector to fit his wussy-esque frame. A good umpire wouldn’t have whispered in Coach Hoppel’s ear “if your parents don’t quiet down you’re going to lose this game.” Wait…what?

Oh…that happened. And then so did the calls. I came up to bat with a runner on base. I had doubled off the wall in my first at-bat so I knew I could hit this guy. I fouled off the first pitch. Strike one. Second pitch came in. A curve that had slipped out of the pitcher’s hand a little. It came across at eye level. I stepped out of the batter’s box and heard “Strike Two!” I turned and looked at him and said “What the hell?” Maybe that’s what I said. Maybe I said “are you serious?” Maybe I said “are you f*@%ing joking?” I’m not really sure, but I said something. The next pitch was in the dirt, but I swung…and missed…badly. I figured I had to swing at anything at that point. But one of the odd rules in baseball is you can get to first on a strikeout if the catcher misses it. So I ran, I ran like all hell had broken loose. And I made it. Safe at first. And the moment my foot hit first base the umpire yelled “Foul Ball!” I think it was then I pointed my finger at him. “I didn’t foul that and you know it!” I was yelling as I came back to the batter’s box. Not a word from this 40 year old twerp. The next pitch I swung (again, I didn’t really have a choice) and I foul tipped it. The ball deflected off the catcher and fell to the ground. I stepped out of the box to get my composure a bit and the umpire said quietly to the catcher “pick it up and tag him.” I looked back at the umpire, confused. My mind started trying to connect the dots. None of this was computing…foul ball, tag me and I’m out…wait a second…was he? Was he claiming I hadn’t fouled it and that I had just struck out? Oh Sh9t! I started running to first again, this time I was literally yelling as I ran…”Thaaaaaaaaaat’s the ooooonnnneeee ---- I Fooooooouleddddddddd youuuuuu moroooooonnnnnnn!” The catcher picked up the ball and easily threw me out at first. I turned and started to make my way back to home plate to give the umpire a piece of my mind when coach stopped me and pushed me back toward the dugout. Fine.

Well, the rest of the game went exactly the same way for all of us. Balls were called strikes. Safes were called outs. But Shaun Vodka was mowing down the other team despite the lying, cheating, dirty condom of an umpire. So the score was tied 2-2 in the bottom of the last inning. There was one out and a runner had made it to second base. He was the winning run. Shaun stood on the mound and came set. He stood there motionless and all of a sudden the spineless gimp behind the plate yells “Balk!” When I think about it now it was actually pretty brilliant. You see, for those of you who don’t know baseball, pitchers are not allowed to make flinching or deceptive motions once they come set just before they start their pitching motion. If they do it’s called a “balk” and any runners on base get to advance one base. This diarrhea-faced umpire was getting creative with his spiteful cheating. So the winning run just moved up to third base with only one out.

A few pitches later Shaun threw a pitch that landed in the dirt. The catcher missed the ball and Shaun ran home to take the throw trying to tag out the runner who was attempting to score. The play was incredibly close. When I replay it in my head I think he was out, but you obviously know by now that it didn’t really matter whether the kid was safe or not…he didn’t have to get within 10 feet of home plate and the run would have counted. I heard the umpire yell “Safe!” and the next thing I know I’m sprinting.

Now remember, I’m playing shortstop. And I’m running as fast as my 15 year old legs can carry me. At this point things get a little fuzzy. I know I was running in the general direction of the umpire. The other team was mobbing the kid who had just scored in a celebration around home plate, so when I arrived there was a sea of blue uniforms in my way. I remember looking around quickly and not seeing the douche in black anywhere. Then I saw him…he was 30 feet beyond the backstop and he was walking briskly away. I remember pushing through the other team and basically flying the remaining 20 feet to the backstop fence and hitting it at top speed…in the air. My fingers latched on and I was a few feet off the ground stuck to that chain link like Spider Man. And I started yelling. And I wasn’t yelling things you yell in front of crowds of your mom…although I did use the word “mother” a few times. I distinctly remember screaming from the top of my lungs that he was, to quote Naughty by Nature, “another way to call a cat a kitty”. I used every word I could think of. And I yelled for a good, long time. Then I said something I had never said before and have never said since: “Come back here! I’ll kill you!” I’ll kill you? What the hell? Who am I?

But it’s not the words that have really stuck with me all these years later. What really shook me was the adrenaline coursing through me like electricity. It was a frightening high. To this day, I honestly believe that had the umpire not fled (and after I started yelling his walk turned into a dead sprint toward his car) I would have leapt on him like a Chimpanzee and beaten him until multiple people had pulled me off. I remember seeing him run away and feeling both a sense of exhilaration from the off my handle rage and deep regret that I wasn’t going to be able to bludgeon him. Honestly, the only reason I can think of that I didn’t chase after him was that I was too enraged to think about going through the dugout 15 feet to my right to get behind the fence. I was out of my mind. I don’t really know how to convey it even now. Because as I’m typing this there is still a part of me that wishes he would have stayed just to see what I was capable of. Yet, having been to that place of unbridled fury, I know I can’t let myself get there ever again.

Here is what he looked like running away:

So you’re probably thinking that I eventually let go of the fence and calmed down and started laughing about the absurdity of it all. You’re probably thinking I finally came to my senses and realized that it was just a game and it didn’t really matter. Wrong. What actually happened is that Coach Hoppel’s brother, Coach Hoppel, grabbed me from behind and yanked me down off the fence. He got in my face and said something along the lines of “this is why we lose games because we’re always blaming umpires and not ourselves.” To which I replied with what I can only imagine was the coldest, darkest, deepest stare back into his eyes that Doug Hoppel ever received. I nearly punched him in the face. And, quite frankly, he deserved it. I played my ass off in that game and I played my heart out too and none of us deserved to have that tournament cheated away from us. If Doug didn’t see it that way then he was a fool.

After things had settled down Coach Jim Hoppel took us down the right field line and gave us the post game talk. During the talk, I was still so lost in anger that I didn’t hear a single word despite being right there in the thick of the huddle. I was doing everything I could to calm down, but it was a slow process. It was like trying to digest liquid hate and it was going to take longer than 20 minutes for me to ‘let it go’. Later Jim pulled me aside at the motel and apologized for “saying that”. I quickly accepted his apology without asking what the hell he was sorry for. Later on I asked some of the other players and they filled me in. It turned out our coach was so angry about how we had been wronged out of the game that in front of me, his half-Japanese player, he said he “wanted to Jap-slap that umpire as much as anybody.” I thought it was big of Coach Hoppel to apologize, but the truth is I never would have known he said it.

There really isn’t a moral to the story, but I do feel compelled to point out that I learned something about my temper that day. I learned that there are limits you can’t let yourself surpass. I realize that other people have stories about actual fights they were in, but this story isn’t so much about the heat of the battle as it is uncontrolled hatred. I literally would have beaten that defenseless twig until someone stopped me or until my knuckles couldn’t bear it any further. So I guess the moral of the story is sometimes you just need to walk away and hope that someday you have the opportunity to piss all over their grave.

I bought a Prius

2012-06-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I finally did it. I found the Prius I was looking for and I pulled the trigger and bought it. I had been searching craigslist for months in cities from Portland to Seattle to Missoula to San Antonio and everywhere in between. After a few dead ends including a fantastic plan that had my dad and step-mom buying the car for me in Missoula and the bizarre correspondence with self declared "Bomb Wife and Loving Mother" Whitley Evans, I was finally able to find a 2006 Prius with only 80,000 miles on it in great shape (it has a few scratches and dings, but nothing I’m concerned about) for the price I wanted! It’s great. The lady I bought it from is a physician who works in The Dalles (why The Dalles is special enough to get a “The” in front it as though it’s as important as “the flu” or “the clap” or “the herpes” or "The Oprah" I don’t know, but it could be because it is home to the world famous Spooky’s Pizza). She was selling the car so that she could buy a motorcycle. She was going to be hitting the gym this year to build up enough strength to manhandle a Harley around. Whatever, it’s a goal.

She wanted to sell the car TODAY when I met her Saturday and she wanted the money in cash. Yeah, no red flags here…but I happen to be one of those idiots who thinks “I’m a pretty good judge of character” and I trusted her story so we drove to the credit union. At the credit union I made her show me her ID to match up the name on the title with some photographic evidence that she is who she said she is. She again insisted on cash instead of a cashier’s check because she thought it would be fun if this was as close to a drug deal as possible. It was pretty fun…watching all those hard earned $100 bills get laid out on the table one by one and knowing they were going from me to someone else. She remarked “isn’t it funny that this (pointing to the stacks of paper money being slid into an envelope very drug-dealesquely) equals that (pointing to the north wall of the credit union beyond which the car was sitting)”. Yeah, hilarious.

If I’m being completely honest, Alison was a very very very nice woman and I couldn’t have been happier with her as a seller. She said she would be willing to make right anything that turned up in the inspection I would have later in the week and again I believed her because I’m such a great judge of character and I had judged her character as strong. I hate it when I realize I’m “that guy” but when it comes to “good judge of character guy” I’m pretty sure I am him. What a jerk.

So I took the Prius down to Wentworth to check it out. Why Wentworth? Because I don’t trust mechanics but I know a Wentworth. For the fantastic price of $89.95 (I have no idea if that was a good price since I called nobody else) I found out that I wasted my $89.95. The car is in perfect shape. The brakes are good. The battery is strong. It’s a great car. I didn’t really waste the money…I bought peace of mind blah blah blah. Some might say “I WENT and it was WORTH it!”

As a bonus, when the mechanic was doing the inspection I walked around the streets of beautiful inner SE Portland. I came around a corner after admiring endless gutters full of litter. Lo and behold, in front of me was a small fat man in a tiny three wheeled vehicle. Who be you, sir? Who do you think it was? If I told you his first name was Douche would you know? That’s right, fresh from writing two parking tickets it was Meter Maid Douche Thoreson making yet another appearance in my life. He had already altered my life negatively by putting in motion the events that led to me to quitting Meals on Wheels. Here he was, looking me in the eye without an ounce of recognition. So I followed him on foot, trying desperately to keep up with the ice-cream-man-motorized-tricycle the good citizens of Portland had bought for his use. About block three of what I now refer to as “the chase” I watched him write a ticket then he stopped at another car and was radioing it in to headquarters. I can’t imagine the poor depraved soul who has to answer this idiot’s questions all day: “Yes, Thoreson, that car is registered and has just as much a right to park on the city street as anyone else” day after day after day. Anyway, as he was radioing I just stood there 10 feet away and stared at him. He stopped radioing. “Hey, remember me?” No. “You wrote me a couple of tickets a few months ago.” Oh, around here? “No. I’m the Meals on Wheels guy.” Oh yeah. “I wanted you to know that for the last ticket you gave me when I called you a 'Meter Maid B**ch' I drew a picture of you calling you a douche, wrote that you were everything that’s wrong with the city of Portland and they gave me nearly all my money back.” Oh yeah? “Yeah…I guess that’s how you beat the rap. You make fun of the Meter Maid.” Huh.

That was it, that was all. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for me. I was able to let him know just how little his job is worth. Despite the fact that he makes legitimate money for the budget, the way he uses no discretion when issuing tickets has led to the courts giving back fines to people who draw pictures of him as a fat idiot in a bicycle helmet.

But I digress…the Prius is so great. I drove it for 8 days before I had to fill up the gas tank. That was over 375 miles. It cost me $27.49 to fill the tank. Much of that driving has been with the entire family of 5 in it because the back seat is big enough to fit the three kids. What I have noticed, however, is that because there is a real-time fuel-efficiency meter and I know exactly how much gas I’m using at any given moment I now drive like a grandma (no offense to the grandmas out there). I never want to use the gas because the electric is free. I’m quickly turning into an old Asian woman behind the wheel…but for $27.49 I’m okay with that.

Then Sunday I went and bought this putter.

Now I’m an old man on the golf course who can’t bring himself to bend over a regular putter. Essentially I’ve become a senior citizen in a week’s time which wouldn’t be so great if it didn’t get me discounts at Sayler's Old Country Kitchen with their weather-beaten sign that’s nothing more than a revolving picture of a 40 year old sun-bleached t-bone steak. I don’t know what color to call it, but I wouldn’t say it’s “steak color” at this point.

Anyway, I’ll see you on the roadway…probably in my rearview mirror yelling at me because I’m going 8 mph under the posted speed limit while I’m laughing about how I’m currently getting 75 miles to the gallon which is pushing up my 45 mpg average for this particular tank of gas. Fred Flinstone didn't get this kind of gas mileage!

My lucky day at the gas station

2012-06-01T00:16:00.002-07:00

It seems like every time I think of something interesting to write about the story ends up making me look like the idiot. This post is no different. I usually consider myself to be pretty intelligent but you can see from my occasional lapses in judgment that I keep my brain pretty well in check with poor decision making.

So a couple years ago I was driving home from work and was low on gas. I decided to stop at the Johnson Creek exit off of I-205 to hit the Fred Meyer gas station. This is typically a pretty congested area at rush hour, but the low fuel light was on and the only gas stations between Freddy’s and my house are terribly overpriced.

So I exit the freeway and take a right down toward 82^nd Ave. The plan is to cross 82^nd in the far right lane (there are two left turn lanes and two straight lanes) then turn right into the Fred Meyer parking lot. I’m in luck because there are only about 10 cars in front of me waiting at the red light and…dumb-frocking-luck!...the light turns green as I’m approaching. As I draw near the line is doing what all lines do at green lights, namely, it’s stretching out like an inch worm as each driver slowly reacts to the car in front of it. (Sidenote: I fantasize nearly every day that just one time when the light turns green every driver in line will start moving forward all at once in a synchronized motion thereby saving everyone valuable seconds which over the course of my life would save me a day or two). I happen to be the very best driver ever to sit behind the wheel of a Galapagos Green 2003 Honda Element (insert bread box or toaster joke here)...

...so I have my speed measured out just right so that I won’t have to brake when the guy immediately in front of me starts moving. It’s then I begin to realize that my plan has been foiled. As I approach I can see that the maroon pickup in front of me isn’t moving at all. As I draw even nearer I see him turn on his turn signal. Great.

Blink…blink…blink…goes his signal. He’s not moving. I finally have to hit the brakes as I approach. He just sits there. A car tries to let him in. He’s too timid to take advantage of it. That car passes, another tries…same result. I throw up my hands and say to myself “come on!” I see his beady little eyes in his rearview mirror. He sits there…blinker blinking. There are cars lining up behind me. The light turns yellow. He flips me off. The light turns red. He moves over to the straight-only lane immediately left of where he was. Great..he’s just prevented 8 cars (most importantly ME) from making this light and he’s going straight through this light anyway…wait a second. Did he flip me off?

I pull up next to him and roll down my window. He doesn’t roll his down. “Why did you flip me off?” He holds up his fist. At this point I size him up. He’s kind of a squatty, nerdy dude in a t-shirt that’s a little too tight for his beer belly. He may or may not live in his mom’s basement and he’s probably 37 years old. Wait…did he just raise his fist at me like he wanted to hit me? I mouth as I’m doing hand motions to communicate through his window “roll down your window (making circular motion with my closed hand) so we can talk (making an opening and closing motion with my fingers and thumb like a sock puppet) about why (I shrug my shoulders) you (I point at him) flipped me off (I point at my middle finger).” He holds up his fist again. “Oh, I see (pointing at my eyes). You’re a real brainiac (I point at my temple). “ He points to the gas station. “Okay. I’m (pointing at me) going to the gas station (I make a nozzle-like motion then point to the gas station) to get gas. You (pointing at his stubby little figure) can follow me (I wave him over like we’re playing red rover) if you want.”

The light turns green and I go to the gas station. I look in my side view and see he’s followed me. Great. So I know I’m going to have to get out and go talk to this idiot to make sure he doesn’t follow me home. Time to go into defuse mode. I get out my credit card so I can start getting gas before walking over to talk to this numb nuts. I turn to the attendent at my window…oh crap. That’s no attendent. That’s Stubs McFistyfart.

Him: “You’d better think twice about who you threaten.” He’s still not intimidating me, honestly, but he’s probably off his rocker so I try to swallow the sarcasm I want to use. This is a critical point and something that didn’t come naturally.

Me: “You think I threatened you? You flipped me off. Tell me how you think I threatened you.”

Him: “You were tailgating me.”

Me: “Do you know what tailgating means? You were at a complete stop at a green light. How could I have been tailgating you? Tailgating implies that you were actually moving.”

Him: “You’re lucky I just got out of prison or I would drag your a—out of that car and beat the living sh-- out of you.”

Me: (Well this just took an unexpected twist. I wonder if he could actually do it). “I guess it must be my lucky day then.”

Him: “Yeah, I guess it is.” He starts to walk away, looks back and says “you’d better think about who you threaten.”

Me: “I DIDN’T THREATEN YOU. GET A GRIP.” Did I really say “GET A GRIP”? No, but I think I said something in my head like “holy s…that was as close one. And these business casual threads ain’t fightin’ clothes.”

I watched him drive away as far as the eye can see to make sure he couldn’t follow me home.

This is what he would look like if he was in a giant diaper and was fatter and less beardy...and had a soul:

Oh, remember how his little truck just sat there blinking at the light? Well that’s exactly the opposite of what his eyes did when he was (note the irony) threatening me. This dude was calm and cold. I was full of adrenaline and thinking about how to use the door of my toaster as a first strike weapon. I had just figured it would take about 15 seconds of me holding my own before a gaggle of gas station attendents would break up the fight and call the police when he started walking away.

To quote Headliner from Arrested Development in their smash hit ‘People Everyday’: The moral of story is you’d better look very hard at who you step into. You might get killed or shot and it’s not worth it. Africans need to be loving each other and you’re not.

Wait a second. I told you I was going to look like the idiot in this story. Nevermind about that, I’m obviously the hero.

D. Thoreson: Meter Maid, The Final Chapter

2012-05-08T11:31:00.000-07:00

I never expected that there would be a part three to the Meter Maid Douche Thoreson story. If you haven’t read Part 1 and Part 2 yet you should do so now by clicking on them here:

D. Thoreson Meter Maid

D. Thoreson Meter Maid Number 2

In fact, if it’s been a while since you read them it’s probably a good idea to skim them before reading on. I had little need to do so prior to writing this final installment because the emotional trauma I endured loathing this public payroll leach is now seared into my memory like the fish you ate that gave you food poisoning. Now every time I have to feed a meter in the City of Portland I taste the vomit all over again.

In “D. Thoreson Meter Maid Number 2”, my less-than-subtle title intended to make you associate Douche’s name with poop, I told you all about my experience in the court room. As it turned out, going to parking ticket court is about as far from television courtroom drama as anything you could imagine. It’s just a judge hating his assignment and time after time reducing fines by 50% regardless of any other factors. It’s a gigantic waste of time…and money since you have to pay to park downtown where court is held.

As you probably remember, I made myself the bad guy back in “D. Thoreson Meter Maid” when I used an expletive in reference to The Douche on the parking receipt I left in the window as I delivered Meals on Wheels. What you may or may not have realized is that my trip to court was for the original parking ticket. The ticket I received after taunting Douche with my note was still in process at the time of the last writing. That was by design because I wanted to see how court went the first time to determine if it was worth my time to waste Douche’s and Multnomah County’s time by again pleading not guilty and demanding a trial. Well, after my experience I realized that I had done about all I could do and reaped basically no reward.

So, reluctantly, I decided to plead “no contest” and kiss my $39 check goodbye instead of demanding to be heard by someone who wasn’t interested in listening. Here is a copy of the letter I sent to the court:

If I’m being completely honest, time has healed some of the wounds from this experience. I don’t have much pent up malice left in my heart for ole’ Douche anymore. This is despite the fact that the City of Portland has now issued me 3 parking citations in the past 6 months while the person who smashed out my window and stole two GPS units from me walks free. Priorities…

I will say that I do feel a sense of loss after having quit the Meals on Wheels route. When I quit it prompted John to quit which prompted Peggy to quit which shut down our company’s participation with Meals on Wheels altogether. Since that time Francis passed away. She was 94 and had outlived two husbands and a daughter. It was her time to go, but I was still sad to hear the news. Last I heard, Ron was still up on the 6^th floor in his wheel chair telling stories. I think about him sometimes. He’s the kind of guy who leaves an impression on you.

Well, back to my third and (hopefully) final ticket. Imagine my surprise after sending THAT letter in my defense when an envelope arrived at my home this week. I took it inside and opened it up. At first I thought the court had decided to charge me MORE after reading through my case. My blood was beginning to boil again, but alas the court wasn’t charging me more. The court was cutting me a check in the amount of $33.

I was still found guilty, but ultimately my fine ran to a net total of $6. That means all in all it cost me the price of a burrito to have a 10 minute heated conversation with Douche Thoreson after calling him a female dog. If it were a Mastercard commercial it would look like this:

One undeserved parking ticket and subsequent afternoon in court: $24.50.

One parking ticket received in retaliation for calling a man a “B---H”: $6.00.

Being able to loudly tell a meter maid his true contribution to society in front of a handful of random strangers and now the entire world through the magic of the internet: PRICELESS.

One final message to you, D. Thoreson, spelled out with my fine money:

The Prius

2012-04-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

Recently I have begun to consider buying a Prius. My car is getting to that point where things are going to start breaking down with regularity and I’m tired of spending so much on gas…speaking of gas, if your wife ever asks you what you want from Costco and you’re on a new health kick because your blood work came back with a computer generated note reading “you’re on borrowed time” don’t tell her “get me a healthy snack food” because she’ll come home with a full pallet load of Fiber One bars that, when you eat one, will make you fart hard enough to literally propel your office chair forward a measurable distance.

So I’ve been talking to everyone I know who has a Prius and researching the internet about them. I asked a guy at work about his and he said it’s fantastic and later followed up via email to tell me how buying an environmentally conscious car can allow me to be a better salesman because it will help me to forge an instant bond over political issues. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the only political statement I’m making is “I’m cheap”.

When I want to buy a car I basically search craigslist every day for weeks to get a feel for prices and what year and mileage I feel comfortable with at my price point. I’ve been doing this with Priuses for a while now and I know what I’m looking for. The only problem is that as gas prices started to spike, the market for used Priuses went out of whack and the only way to get one for blue book price was to buy one with a rebuilt or branded title. I’m not going to buy a previously totaled hybrid car I know nothing about so I’ve been patiently waiting for a good deal to come along.

That’s when it happened. One Wednesday afternoon when the insurance world was quiet I ran my typical search parameters on craigslist and the perfect one popped up. It was a 2006 for the price I wanted to pay, which immediately led me to believe it was previously totaled. I was shocked and excited to see that had not been totaled. It had 98,000 miles on it, which wasn’t ideal but was acceptable because I know these cars can go a few hundred thousand miles if you take care of them.

I sent the following email to the posting address…the person who posted the ad was named “Whitley” so I went with the personal touch:

“Hi Whitley, I’m looking for a Prius right now and yours seems to have everything I’m looking for. I wish it had a few less miles, but I would have to pay more for that. Are there any little nuisances or minor issues with the car? Pretty much all craigslist ads seem to read the same…great care, runs well…I’ve never owned a hybrid so I’m not great at knowing what questions to ask. I would be interested in taking a look at it this week if possible. Thanks, Keith.”

I received a reply not long after:

“It’s a good car. No issues that are not listed. Give me a call when you would like to look at it or if you have any questions. 503-310-XXXX. Thanks, Whitley Evans” (I added the XXXX so I’m not advertising anyone’s phone number on my blog).

Ok, sounds legit.

“I am unavailable tonight, but could come take a look/test drive tomorrow after work if that fits with your schedule. Let me know if that works. Keith (cell number)”

Reply:

“Tomorrow night is fine. Give me a call when your free. I’m available all day.” (“your”…grrrrrr)

Awesome. The ad says this is in Gresham which isn’t far from me. I can head out there, fall in love with this car (because I’m already in love with the price) and buy this thing before the weekend.

The next day came and I thought I would cut out of the office a little early to go check this car out. I called the phone number and left a voicemail asking to come look at the car this afternoon. An hour went by, two hours, three hours. Hmmm….maybe this guy’s a flake. Oh well…you can’t throw a rock in the city of Portland without bouncing it off a Prius and having it ricochet off another Prius so no big deal.

I leave the office later that afternoon and head toward home. I’m not 2 minutes from the office when the phone rings. I look at the number and it starts 503-310 so I’m thinking it’s this dude, Whitley.

“This is Keith, how can I help you?” (it’s a work issued phone and it’s still technically business hours)

Young woman’s voice: “Paul?”

“No, this is Keith.”

“Dad?”

“This isn’t Paul and I’m not your dad. Who is this?”

“Did someone call me from this number?”

“Are you selling a Prius by any chance?”

“Uhh…oh yeah! In fact I’m driving around in it right now! I’m sorry, my phone said my dad called me, that’s funny. I just told it to call him back and it called you. I thought you were my dad’s friend pulling a prank.”

“No prank here. Your email said you were available all day today. Can I still come out and see the car?”

“Uh, no. I’m busy today, but I’m available all day tomorrow. Text me when you’re available.”

“Ok, will do.”

Okay, that was a ditz. Did she really just drop a ‘who’s my daddy?’ on me??? I need to hit the Google machine to see if this is legit or not. Craigslist is a weird place and I don’t want to get jerked around. Well, Google didn’t have much to say. How about Facebook? Okay…here’s something. Here’s a Whitley Evans from Gresham…wait…Holy S. What the hell is this?

Ok, dude, is this legit or not? Apparently this Facebook account has been used when Whitley commented on some pregnancy Facebook site so I am led to believe it’s a working account. She’s describing herself as “Bomb Wife and Loving Mother” so it’s probably not one of those “come to my website to view the really good pictures” kind of deals. But seriously, why is this chick trying to seduce the camera with her cleavage as she’s sitting in the driver’s seat of the Prius I want to buy? It doesn’t add up, but I can’t think of how this could be a scheme so I’m still giving Whitley the benefit of the doubt.

So the next day I text, as instructed.

Yeah right…now you’re just screwing with me. Jerk…oh wait…I sent it to the wrong number. I was off by a single digit!

No reply. At this point the craigslist ad has been flagged for removal so I’m sure there’s no Prius for sale. Maybe Paul and Dad were really getting a kick out of the phone calls to Whitley’s phone. Who knows? The fact is I’m probably better off not test driving anyone’s car whose plunging neck line is that low. I’d hate to start giggling when asking about the front air bags. God forbid I can’t figure out the controls and I have to ask “how do I turn your headlights on?”

Enough…I’m still looking for a 2006ish Prius with 100,000 miles or less if you know anyone.

"Daddy has peanut butter running through his veins."

2012-04-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

For most of my life I basically believed I was invincible. The most severe injury I’ve ever suffered is a dislocated shoulder. The most serious illness I’ve ever had is probably the strep throat. Well, now that I’m pretty much in my mid-thirties, it turns out I’ve outlived my invincibility. In fact, I’m highly vincible. I’m now just hoping I can delay vince as long as possible. Damn you, vince…which leads me to my next point:

I haven’t been feeling well lately. It’s part of the reason I haven’t been writing as often. I just haven’t had much energy. I have been getting headaches many afternoons. I feel lethargic. Everything has felt heavy and burdensome.

Cut to seemingly unrelated scene: I am on my wife’s insurance plan through her job at Providence. Embarrassingly, I paid for my own insurance at my current job for a year before realizing that I was free to add to Taela’s plan. Even more embarrassing? I work for an insurance agency. So anyway, Providence said they would give us each $400 in “walking around money”…or maybe it’s to pay for medical bills…if we each take a blood screen at Quest Diagnostics. Taela and I went in one morning only to be told that we are supposed to fast before the test. I said “I’m as fast as I’m ever gonna be” but it turned out they meant we weren’t supposed to eat or drink before they drew blood. I said “Edward didn’t care what Bella ate before he sucked her blood” but they didn’t think that we very clever so we left.

Taela went back and had the screening done. I went in by myself about a month later. I walked into the tiny little waiting room and there was an old couple there. The seats were set up with three in a row, then a small table then two more seats. The old people were whispering something to one another as I walked in. Apparently they didn’t want me to hear it because they shut the fudge up immediately when they saw my imposing figure step in. I was dressed for work which meant slightly worn-out business casual pants that are a little too snug in the waist for my comfort and saggy in the butt along with a recently ironed, but still somehow aggravatingly wrinkled dress shirt.

So, anyway, I walked in and the old woman was startled by me and she scurried all 4 feet to the front desk to sign in. I signed in behind her and turned to sit down when I noticed something that immediately teed me off. The old man was sitting in one of the three seats to the left and he had his jacket and some sort of reading material laid out on the chair next to him. The old lady was sitting in one of the two seats on the other side of the small table. So, somehow, these two people have found a way to take up damn near all of the 5 seats in the waiting room and I have to choose between sitting next to the man’s crap or his old lady. After making a crude silent joke to myself about how these two things are probably synonymous (hardee har har!) I chose the latter. I figured if two people are going to take up an entire waiting area I was going to make it uncomfortable for them too, so I snuggled in next to somebody’s great grandma, laid my computer bag down next to her and proceeded to play Words with Friends on my phone. I mean, come on old people…you’ve been married for 75 years. Go ahead and pretend like you can put up with sitting next to one another.

When it was my turn I gladly followed someone in scrubs back to a little drab room and answered some questions...probably because I trust anyone in scrubs. Yes, I fasted as quickly as I could. No, I don’t smoke (and neither should you). The punk-rock-by-night medical-assistant-by-day who was helping me seemed disinterested but cordial enough. She put my arm in an automated blood pressure cuff and pushed the button. Literally as the thing is inflating to take my blood pressure she starts rolling up my sleeve and talking about the my veins and how she’s going to stick a sharp metal object in there in order to suck out my blood. I’m not a pansy about needles (don’t verify this one with my wife as she may or may not have the same opinion), but when you’re in the middle of taking a blood pressure test it’s probably best for accuracy’s sake to keep the thoughts of dermal penetration to a minimum. Well, it was all over in a minute or two (“That’s what she said! That’s what she said!” Michael Scott) and I was on my way after having nailed yet another test in my illustrious life.

Then the results came. Now I’m no scientist, but if I were I would tell you that when a test says your triglyceride level should be below 150 and yours is 585 you’re probably doing something wrong. Fortunately my cholesterol was right in the sweet spot of ‘expected’. It is supposed to be between 125 and 200…mine came in right between those at 199. My body mass index was above normal as well at a not-so-svelte 27.2.

This was all very shocking to Taela which is weird because she’s seen me naked. Then I realized something: I’ve been feeling like crap lately because I’ve been eating like crap and not exercising at all. Again, I’m no scientist, but I put this all together on my own. I thought back to all the Carl’s Jr. meals and bags of potato chips and midnight milkshakes and realized something…there are consequences to my dietary choices. Who knew…and why didn’t they tell me?

Here is a pie chart of my recent eating habits:

So now I’m basically going to get back to healthy by going on a diet I have titled “Not Eating Like a Jackass”. Every now and then I say “no I don’t need thirds” and I’m trying out something called “white meat” for a change (I know this sounds like overt racism, but in my research I have learned that this is an actual term for certain meats that did not come from a cow). It’s interesting…not quite like burger, but still very edible.

To tie it all back together, since the day my wife convinced my kids that I have “peanut butter running through” my veins, I have begun to eat more like a responsible adult and I haven’t had any headaches. I’m still slow and fat, but I choose to play the Wii games that make me stand up so I’m making some progress on the exercise front too. My sister told me to watch “Forks over Knives” on Netflix, but I said “hell no, I ain’t gonna be no Vegan!”

In closing, I will now blog more often because I have more energy. I haven’t had any headaches in two weeks. Soon the chins around my throat will shrink and my fat-induced sleep apnea will subside and I’ll be as energetic as that horrible little should-be-smashed to bits by a Louisville Slugger pink bunny from those battery commercials.

Little Slice of Paradise

2012-03-13T01:16:00.000-07:00

Long ago my wife’s family made Disneyland their primary vacation destination. In fact the first time I ever stepped foot inside the Wagner house (I was there to “study”) it was apparent from the multiple Disney frames depicting various trips to the Magic Kingdom that Disney was a big part of this family’s life. On our first anniversary Taela and I drove to Disneyland from our apartment in Klamath Falls. In fact, in the 11 ½ years we’ve been married I have been to Disneyland at least 5 times. Why am I quantifying all of this? I don’t know. Oh yeah…I was going to tell you how much my wife loves it there. The place instantly turns her into a little girl again. Her face lights up like Christmas morning. Disneyland literally alters her personality. It truly is magic for her.

As for me, my Disneyland is a mystical golf haven on the southern coast of Oregon named Bandon Dunes. Bandon Dunes recently overtook Pebble Beach as the top ranked golf resort in the United States. It features not one, but four world class golf courses. Many holes are built on the cliffs above the ocean. Teeing off at Bandon Dunes is like travelling to Scotland 100 years ago except instead of waving your magic wand to get there all you have to do is drive up in your SUV and plop down your credit card.

A couple of weekends ago I made my fourth trip to Bandon Dunes. Last year we put together a group of six guys and had the time of our lives. This time we had three of us (Bryan, Scott and me) for the first day, then James joined us late on day two. Because James wasn’t able to play on Friday we were matched up with a stranger. His name was David and it turned out he was a nice enough guy. He said he was the “assistant dean” of the University of Washington. The four of us had played a few holes together and we were having a good time. I started off not playing very well and I was aggressively cussing out Bryan for beating the hell out of us and taking all our money. Bryan Gray (not to be confused with Brian Gay, the PGA Tour player...he gets that all the time) is a former club pro (well, assistant pro but try telling him that) but he hadn’t played a round in 8 months so it’s not as if he was on top of his game.

In any case, I was having a great time despite consistently hitting the ball like a giant turd face. Scott was trying not to absolutely lose his mind because he was playing like a blind leper.

We got to about the 6^th hole and I had already put down a Heineken. I figured it was time to wash that down with a Coke Zero so as Bryan was teeing the ball up I cracked open my pop and took a mouthful. The problem was that this soda was really fizzy and it hit the back of my mouth kind of funny. Instantly it triggered a cough that sent the entire mouthful of Coke Zero flying. The ocean happened to be to my right…the wind comes in consistently from the ocean…David happened to be standing to my left…sorry David. As I coughed I could see the foamy spray take flight. I looked up and there was nothing to be said or done. The only guy in the group that I didn’t know was now wearing the entire first would-be-gulp of soda delivered straight out of my mouth. I absolutely spewed my drink all over this guy’s jacket as he was wearing it. I’m certain some got on his face and probably even in his goatee. He didn’t laugh.

On Saturday we hit the course early. I could tell you all about how the sideways hail storms came in a couple of times. I could tell you about how the group in front of us was slow and made us wait all day. I could tell you how beautiful the course was. I could tell you that Scott hit every ball he swung at (unlike the day before). But you don’t care about all of that. If you want to go to Bandon Dunes then go there yourself. It’s amazing and it’s somewhat affordable in the winter time. As a golfer it’s damn near as good as it gets.

I could tell you all sorts of things about the golf rounds, but instead I’ll tell you that after 36 holes of golf we headed into the pub for some dinner. We were all exhausted and sore…and hungry. Three of us ordered the Bandon Cheeseburger (which comes with Tillamook instead of Bandon cheddar cheese, by the way), one of us ordered Fish & Chips. I was one of the burgers and when it showed up I was elated.

It was finally time for me to fill my belly up with something hot and greasy. I picked up that big, round, heavy burger and brought it to my mouth. I took a giant bite and began to chew. Mmmmm…what’s that?

“Guys.” What? “Holy S.” What? “Look at my plate.” What? “Look at it!” What? “Right there.” Oh no.

There on my plate, right in the middle of where the bun had been resting, was something you never want to see mixed with your food. Was it a bug? No. Was it crusted on food? No. Was it a hair? Yes. Well that’s not so bad, right? It was a body hair.

I'm not going to say exactly which part of the body this particular hair appeared to have come from, but I think you know. I will remember Bandon for a lot of things...unfortunately causing me to lose my appetite while eating a delicious cheeseburger is now one of them.

You're welcome

2012-02-21T23:30:00.000-08:00

As a way of saying "thank you" to all of you for reading my blog, I thought I would share with you my favorite thing. Enjoy.

D. Thoreson: Meter Maid Number 2

2012-02-15T22:20:00.000-08:00

Well, this past Tuesday the 7th was the day I had been looking forward to for nearly two months. Was it the day that I was going to Bandon Dunes to play world class golf for three days? No, it was the day I was scheduled to have my say against Meter Maid Douche Thoreson in court. I was scheduled to appear at 3:30 pm. The following is a timeline of events (it’s best if you click the time listed before each entry):

2:42 pm – I find a parking spot near the court house and pay $2.40 for 90 minutes of parking. That was the max for the space I parked in and by my math it meant that I would have 42 minutes to give my long monologue on the official record.

2:44 pm – After a brief conversation with a woman on the street corner about how people who blare their music in their cars loud enough for everyone else to hear never play jazz or classical but at least it’s not music I listen to so it won’t get stuck in my head, I walk into the court house. I try Door #1…oops, employee entrance. Door #2…oops, locked. Monte Hall would have been proud of me as I step through Door #3 and walk up the steps.

2:45 – I slowly take off my belt in front of the young ladies at the front entrance. Why? Because there’s a metal detector. There are three young women, all moderately attractive, working the metal detector…I don’t know why. Maybe it’s so angry hardened criminals like me can start our trials with happy thoughts. Thanks ladies…I’m off to fight The Man.

2:47 – I walk all the way around the first floor following some sign telling me I need to check in at room 106. I finally find a short line of people waiting for the two clerks assigned to parking tickets.

2:55 – After one of the clerks returns from the break he took instead of helping me I approach the window and read a sign that tells me parking tickets won’t be on the docket unless I check in before 1:30. He says the sign is true. I say I was supposed to be here at 3:30 for a parking ticket. He says “oh, you already have a trial?” I say “yes”. He says “oh, then just walk into room 112 and the judge will call your name.” That makes sense.

2:59 – I enter the court room. There are 3 other soon-to-be defendants sitting there. One is a middle-aged woman, one is a twenty-something guy with greasy hair and one is a bigger guy with a beard. I sit down in the row with the lady in it and get comfortable because I’m going to be here for a while.

3:02 – The judge has been sitting there silently and asks the court clerk or stenographer or whoever what time it is. She says it’s 3:02. He says “oh, I couldn’t see that far without my glasses.” The judge then announces that court will adjourn until 3:30. His Honor appears to be about 75 years old. He looks bored out of his mind. I imagine he is heading to his chambers to take a nap.

3:06 – I ask the lady next to me what she’s in for. She says she got a ticket for parking in a carpool space. She says the ticket said something about improper display. I say “oh, it wasn’t where it was supposed to be?” and she says “no, it was hanging from the rearview mirror like it does every day. I don’t know why I got the ticket.” I forgot for a moment, but she’s just reminded me…everybody’s innocent here in Shawshank. It’s clear this woman is a dangerous maniac and a true hazard to the city. It took a fine, fine peace officer to bring this lunatic in off the streets. Did I mention her ticketing officer was one D(ouche) Thoreson?

3:27 – The room now has just less than 20 defendants and two meter maids have entered. One is a fat woman with oversized glasses, a look on her face that you’d expect which seems to say “I don’t give a crap about anything”, and she appears very likely to have an attraction to women. The other guy looks like a good enough guy. He has a beard, is in relatively good shape and his face makes you think he smiles nearly as often as a normal person.

3:29 – Did a lady in the court order out for a feminine flush? Because in walks none other than The Douche himself.

3:30 – Judge Banks (or Blanks or something) introduces himself. Then he throws out a scare tactic. He says “anyone who wishes to change their plea to no contest or guilty will be moved right to the top of the docket and we’ll have you out of here right away. For those of you who demand a trial we’ll get to those after I go through each case. We will have a brief recess at 5:30 and return after dinner at 6:15.” I can see the fear in the faces of my fellow felons. They don’t know what they’re going to do. They have places to be. The letter said to be here at 3:30…it didn’t say prepare to stay all night! My meter is going to expire at 4:12…this could get interesting.

3:42 – Thirty minutes left on my meter. I’m starting to fret. The judge has been going through the cases one by one. ¾ of the people are changing their pleas to “no contest”. They realize they are essentially pleading guilty, but their time is worth more than the fine. It’s the system. It’s there to waste your time just enough to make you pay the fine and walk out the door. Every single time someone pleads “no contest” the judge cuts the fine exactly in half and the person walks out the door. Every time. It should be noted that every person who had tickets for little or no reason ALL were ticketed by Thoreson. One guy put his receipt on the wrong window. The carpool lady actually did nothing wrong. One guy had a bike rack that slightly covered the month of expiration on his license plate. I’m telling you, D. Thoreson is a turd cadet and he must be stopped.

3:54 – The ancient judge calls for someone who had failed to show. This actually happens quite a few times. When this happens the person is found guilty and the entire fine stands. But for this particular defendant the judge asks the meter maid a particular question. “Why was the person ticketed on a holiday…Monday, December 26^th?” The meter maid replied…and I quote…”That was only a city-recognized holiday, not a meter holiday.” Are you serious? So you’re saying that the City of Portland shuts down on some “holidays”, but still sends out maids to ticket people who dare to park on their day off? It’s sickening, just sickening.

3:58 – The judge calls for Keith Hattori. “Here, Your Honor”…I’m polite when I respect authority. Well, that’s the last thing I’m going to get to say for quite some time.

4:10 – I’m starting to panic. I’ve already called Taela and told her I’m going to be late. I told her I might get another parking ticket while stuck sitting here in parking court. It’s finally time to make a break for it. I exit the courtroom, head down the hall and out the doors. I quickly throw my credit card into the machine and buy another 90 minutes. I hop into my car and drive halfway around the block hoping that I’m far enough away from my previous spot to be in compliance with the parking ordinance that I don’t completely understand. I know that I can’t simply “feed the meter” but I’m not sure how far away I actually have to move. I run back to the courthouse. I again strip down and go through the metal detector. I jog back down the hallway and slip into the room. I’ve missed nothing. I glare at Thoreson. He sees me and quickly averts his eyes.

4:16 – The fat lesbian meter maid approaches the bench and says she wants to dismiss one of the cases. She gives no reason at all, but from the back of the room two very cute young girls stand up. One of them says thank you, the other giggles as they both leave the court.

4:18 – The judge has called all the names and it is time to start the “trials”. He looks at the stack and says “Well, officer Thoreson only has one case remaining. Mr. Hattori, please approach the table.” Crap. First? I wanted to see how this trial thing goes before diving into it. Oh well, you play the hand you’re dealt.

So D. Thoreson and I must sit next to one another at a small table and share a microphone. The judge asks us to raise our right hands and solemnly swear that we will tell the truth. Hell yeah, judge, I plan to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth…so help me God.

Thoreson gets to speak first…this ought to be good. I stare at him from two feet away, my eyes burning holes in his temple. I stare with the hatred of a thousand tortured souls. I cringe at every word as they burn scars on my heart:

“My name is Darren Thoreson. I am employed as a parking enforcement officer with the City of Portland. I was so employed on December 19^th, 2011. On that date I noticed a green Subaru parked in a metered 15 minute spot and issued a citation for $40.”

His Honor looks at me with a hollow, unfeeling gaze. “What say you, man?” (or something like that).

“Well, Your Honor, to be honest I’m kind of a rookie at this. I’ve never testified before.” That’s okay, son, just tell me what happened. (I caught myself expecting him to pat me on the hand and tell me it’s gonna be alright). “Well, our office has been delivering Meals on Wheels every Monday for many years. I have been in the rotation for about 5 years now…well, since this incident we’ve had to quit doing the route. About a year ago a stop was added to the route at the John Ross Building. We were told by the people at Loaves & Fishes that we could park there without paying for parking and we should put their big red magnet on our car door to clearly show who we are. After receiving the ticket I found out that this is the only stop of all the routes from the Multnomah Center that requires parking. Other centers are aware of a permit through the city that is necessary to obtain parking privileges, but our center was unaware until I received my ticket. You can see from the pictures that I had a Meals on Wheels magnet, a sign on my dashboard and two large coolers for holding food inside the vehicle. I was delivering to a service-disabled Vietnam veteran who has a terminal illness linked to Agent Orange. He is confined to a wheel chair. He is the last stop on the route. When I returned to my car on that particular day I found that I had received a ticket and was pretty shocked.”

Then His Honor asked Darren Thoreson “do you have anything more to add?” He had nothing more to add. Nothing about profane notes. Nothing about our conversation. Nothing about how he’s a douche for writing the ticket and how it should be dismissed. Nothing.

“Well, I’ve heard enough then. I’ll reduce the fine by half and you’ll receive a $20 refund in the mail in a few weeks.” Frick. I thought there would be some back and forth. Some rebuttal. Something!

I went there for conflict. I appeared in the name of justice. I came thirsting for vengeance and blood and hatred and battle. Instead I got twenty bucks.

Damn you Darren Thoreson. May your old age bring you unsated hunger.

D. Thoreson - Meter Maid

2012-01-25T17:13:00.000-08:00

“Have you ever had a severe lapse in judgment?” I asked my coworkers when I stepped into the lunch room when I returned from Meals on Wheels yesterday.

Why is it that I have a knack for making an abrupt transition from the good guy to the jerk?

It all started back in December. I was making my rounds on the Meals on Wheels route that I do regularly. John and Peggy are also on the team and our office covers Mondays so each of us delivers every third week. This day in December was like any other except I had promised Ron a special sandwich from the best food cart in the city, Rip City Grill. You might remember Ron from my first ever blog post. If you don’t, you can and should read it by clicking THESE WORDS.

So I stopped at Rip City Grill (side note: I treated Jesse to Rip City Grill for his birthday back in September and received a parking ticket for my generosity) to buy a sandwich for Ron. I had never done this before. I’m sure it’s against the rules to go out and buy additional food for the seniors on the route, but you read the story about the giant turd…this guy is awesome. He deserves this sandwich (and there’s no telling what it might turn into).

Well, I buy the sandwich and drive the two blocks to Ron’s building. Like Peggy, John and I have done every week now for a year I park in the 15 minute slot, put the sign on my dashboard, add the magnetic sign the senior center gave us that reads “Meals on Wheels” to my door and head to the front of the building. When I get to the 6^th floor Ron is really touched that I would buy him this sandwich and we talk for quite a while. As you shouldknow, Ron’s a talker and we get to chatting for probably 25 minutes. Eventually I make my exit and when I get back to my car there it is: a $40 ticket from the City of Portland. All I can tell you about what I felt at that moment is pure emptiness. I just felt my stomach sink. I already had the previous parking ticket from this neighborhood and now a Meter Maid named “D. Thoreson” had taken it upon himself to ruin my day. And he did too…he ruined it. I felt victimized.

Well, I have probably told the story about this parking ticket aloud about a hundred times by now and I won’t bore you with the details, but here’s the short version. You have three options when you get a parking ticket in Portland: 1) Pay the ticket 2) Pay the ticket and submit a letter 3) Pay the ticket and request a hearing. I chose option 3 and have my day in court coming up on February 7^th.

So at this point in the story I’m the good guy. I’m the volunteer who has been wronged by a twerp Meter Maid that exercises the small amount of authority he has on everyone he can because he’s small. The problem is pretty much encapsulated by the previous sentence. What’s the tone of that sentence? It’s the same tone that I used to take with my sister before she finally splayed me open with a nearby cutting tool. It’s the tone that you take when you feel anger and you’re ready to tear someone down. One thing I’m not good at is letting things go. And D(ouche) Thoreson has really pissed me off.

So fast forward a couple months to Monday. I have my court hearing coming up in two weeks and I’m mentally preparing every day. I’m ready to go down the list of why I’m right and in the process casually mention what is wrong with Douche Thoreson from an ideological standpoint. My working bullet points are as follows:

· Why should the City of Portland be taking a cut from the people who are spending their time and gas performing social services?

· Meter Maids have the ability to discern when someone is truly deserving of a ticket and Douche obviously doesn’t understand that it’s not in the City of Portland’s best interest to deter volunteers.

· If the City of Portland wants to fine me for bringing food to a disabled, terminally ill Vietnam Veteran who is slowly losing his bodily functions because of Agent Orange then perhaps this issue is bigger than I thought and KATU local news would be interested in it.

· The parking spot I was in is located on a street that always has open parking…it’s not like parking downtown where the spaces are at a premium.

· We’ve been doing this for over a year…why now?

Well, all this logic went out the window when I saw a meter maid on a bicycle as I was approaching Ron’s building. I parked the car and bought my 15 minute pass for $0.40 and was about to put it in the window when Satan jumped into my head and said “Douche Thoreson has wronged you…you need to punish him.” Now the obvious answer to this is “get out of my head, Beelzebub.” Unfortunately my answer was more of a question “how can I do that?” Well, it turns out the Devil is pretty stupid. He says “you need to write something on your parking receipt.” That’s stupid. So I did it. Here is what I wrote:

Alright, good, screw that guy.

So I made my way up to Ron’s and he was feeling pretty talkative. I can’t just leave his place while he’s telling me about his disease and his Christmas visitors and giving me a small piece of framed art that his brother loved and he hated and while he’s remembering my name because it rhymes with teeth. I’m about 5 minutes late getting back down to the car and you already know what I found.

Standing there, about to get back on his two wheeled chariot (aka bicycle) is none other than Douche Thoreson himself. I didn’t know for certain that it was Douche, but I asked and sure enough it was him. Here is a picture I drew of Douche:

Did you just write me another ticket? “Yes.” Was I over time? “Yup, five minutes. I’d have given you a warning if it hadn’t been for the note you wrote.” I didn’t actually think you’d see that. “We see everything.” Of course you do. “And it’s going in the case log for the judge to see too.” Oh, that’s very frightening. Listen, I’m sorry I wrote what I did. It was obviously stupid and I regret it and I owe you an apology because it was uncalled for and, quite frankly, out of character for me. But here’s why I wrote it…do you remember writing me a ticket right here a couple of months ago? “No.” Seriously? “Yes.” Does this jog your memory at all? (At this point I went into my car, got the magnet out and slapped it on the door and then took out the other ‘Meals on Wheels’ sign and put it on my dash). You seriously don’t remember this? “Well, yes, I do remember seeing this in the case files for the court date that’s coming up.” Yeah, so tell me why you’re claiming that you would have given me a warning today, but you actually ticketed me last time when my car looked like this. “If I gave a pass to everyone who wrote a note then nobody would get a ticket.” Are you seriously giving me the slippery slope argument? As though everyone who writes a note has a legitimate claim that they are doing charitable work? You actually seem to think that it’s your job to hand out a forty dollar fine to the guy who is taking lunch to a service disable Vietnam veteran who is confined to a wheel chair in his 6^th floor condo and can’t get food for himself. “Yes, that is my job.” Then you just don’t get it. It’s too bad you can’t use rational logic because you’re deterring people from doing good. “Well, if you write ‘Meter Maid Bitch’ on a parking receipt you’re going to get a ticket.” Yeah, but let me tell you why I did that. I wrote that because the ticket you gave me last time was so egregiously unfair that I can’t quit being pissed about it long enough to have stopped myself from doing something so stupid. Do understand that? “You shouldn’t have argued with me. Now the judge will get the notes from this case when you come to your hearing for the other ticket.” How am I arguing? I’m simply laying out the facts from my perspective. I don’t expect you to change your mind. You don’t appear to be capable of that. For you to do be a meter maid you have to act as though punishing everyone you possibly can always puts you in the right. You’re basically a ticket robot (I didn’t say “ticket robot” but I wish I would have). “I’ll see you in court.” Oh, you’ll see me in court twice. I look forward to it.

And I do look forward to it. At this point I’ve written away any chance of getting any of my fine back. I’m just going in to get my money’s worth. The only thing I have to be really careful about is to keep it civil enough not to be found in contempt of court. I don’t think that’ll be an issue, but I obviously still haven’t let go of the anger I have toward this guy so anything’s possible.

You know, by the end of writing this I was supposed to have learned my lesson and calmed down but just thinking about it again makes me want to wring that Douche’s fat neck.

Now that the City of Portland/Multnomah County has fined me $80 during my Meals on Wheels delivery I have decided to quit doing the route after nearly 5 years of service. I figure I’ll make up that money in saved gas from not doing the route. So congratulations Douche, you truly did your job. At the time of this writing Peggy might decide to salvage the route, but it looks as though our company will discontinue our service for Meals on Wheels. “Officer” Thoreson, you have made the world a better place. Bravo.

Also, if you happen to know and like this Douche Thoreson, screw you too.

For some tips on how to avoid a ticket and how to eliminate any "need" for this idiots's public employment click here: Douche is a DOUCHE!