Little Dumber Boy

Christmas of 1978 was a good one – despite the fact that my brother received the three Tonka trucks that I had on my wish list. Years later Santa admitted that she must’ve mixed up the gift tags.

 The evening before, we had our annual Christmas concert at church. As a fifth-grader, my group was the highlight of the performance. My family arrived late. The standing-room-only crowd spilled all the way back to the exit signs and piled themselves into folding chairs hastily lined in the aisles. I quickly ditched my family and wedged my way into a pew near the front.

 The show had already begun. We’d rehearsed our song many times. I knew it by heart. I quickly made a mental checklist of what I had to do. Sing loudly. Enunciate. Make eye contact. Smile.

I’d barely prepared myself when it was our turn to go on. Because I sat on the end of the row near the wall I lead my group to the stage. Hundreds of eyes stared brightly at us – eagerly anticipating the harmonious notes ready to burst from our joyous mouths. I steadied myself, and silently cleared my nervous throat. Pastor gave us our cue and we began singing.

Shockingly, my first words were not the lyrics to the song. Surprised at what I heard, I stopped for a moment – trying to get my bearings. Had they changed the song at the last minute? I was late, so I likely missed any last-minute directions. I managed to mumble my way through a verse until I realized what song we were doing. It was a simple one – a number we’d done many times as little kids.  I quickly composed myself and began belting it out.

Throughout our performance I noted the eye contact from the audience was phenomenal. They were beaming – almost giddy with excitement. Seeing this, I stepped up my showmanship and began grand hand gestures like Pavarotti performing opera in front of the Pope. Even my little brother was locked onto me – grinning from ear to ear while nodding his head in gleeful approval.

 When we finished, I galloped down the altar steps to a resounding applause, plunked myself into a pew, and basked in the glow of a show well done. The moment was fleeting as I watched the next group take center stage. The singers were all of my friends and classmates. Slack-jawed, and bewildered, I listened to them sing the song I’d expected to perform. I glanced to my right. Sitting next to me was a row of little kids. Really little kids. In my rush to get into the church after arriving late, I’d seated myself with the kindergarteners. Slowly it dawned on me what had just happened. I sang with the kindergartners! The congregation enjoyed my performance because they watched a five-foot fifth-grader in high-water pants and a clip-on tie make a buffoon of himself with a group of toddlers.

Waves of embarrassment flooded over my face. My mind raced as to why this had happened. Was Pastor teaching me a lesson for uttering the f-word on the Vacation Bible School bus earlier that summer? Was God punishing me for thinking impure thoughts while ogling Tina Carrigan’s nubile figure in her nearly transparent baptismal dress after a full-body water immersion ceremony?

 

I don’t remember much about the moments afterward. It’s likely my ego has clouded my memory to protect my personal posterity. Since that day I’ve had hundreds of red-faced moments, but it’s been nearly 40 years since I’ve sung in public.

City Suckers

This week my 11-year-old boys and I took a vacation to Hellwaukee Milwaukee to watch the Brewers. We hoped to go somewhere further from home, but we didn’t have the money time. As a family, it doesn’t matter where we go, as long as I have beer fun. So we loaded up the convertible mini-van and hit the road.

Less than hour into our trip and we were already flying through our cash traffic. The boys begged me to suggested we stop for lunch. Our freeway exit had all the major fast food chains, so we had no trouble finding the Walmart parking lot for lunch meat sandwiches a pleasant place to dine.

When we got into town we checked into the city dump our motel to unpack. In the lobby, we listened to two urban gentleman arguing over the price of a delivered pizza discussing the social benefits of cultural diversity. At the stadium, we enjoyed having most of our bleacher section to ourselves - until a 400-pound loudmouth a husky, jovial gentleman and his frat-boy buddies co-workers sat directly in front of us. The excess girth of their sweaty shoulders actually enveloped the backs of their seats and brushed against our knees. The big guy sucked down $8.00 beers like Prohibition was being re-instated after the game enjoyed himself immensely.

The next day we spent our life savings the morning at the zoo. This was the perfect place for me to maximize quality time ogling young moms in tiny sun dresses bonding with my sons. Endless exhibits of lethargic and sad exotic animals could be smelled seen everywhere. After hours of walking around the 30-acre complex we wished we would have worn more comfortable shoes taken an extra day to see it all!

That afternoon the boys and I hung out in the street construction downtown area. We kicked back in an open-air restaurant and doled out as much money on two craft beers as I would on a 30-pack of Blatz enjoyed the city slicker life. After that, it was down to the waterfront to scrounge for a parking spot see Lake Michigan. We took off our shoes and tip-toed around a dog crapping on the beach through the sand. We climbed way out to the end of the rugged breakwater and didn’t want to sit down because the rocks were covered with seagull shit the view was inspiring.

The drive home couldn’t happen fast enough passed in the blink of an eye. My boys, God damn bless them, passed out rode peacefully – leaving me with five hours of boredom to reflect on the joys of this family vacation. We took a break at the village park in Cadott to watch a creeper drive through the park looking for something to masturbate to stretch our weary legs.

Once parked safely in my driveway, I leaned back into the head rest and whispered softly to myself, “WTF did I just do?” “OMG, I can’t wait to do this again.”

Take Me Out to the Bowel Game

I’ve shared this story as a speech when I taught freshman and sophomore English classes. It’s difficult to re-create some of the sounds using a keyboard. ~TWW

Baseball is my sport. It has been for 40 years. The first team I ever played on, in Minong back in ’74, didn’t have real uniforms. Somehow I got a colored t-shirt and used an entire roll of my grandma’s masking tape to make the number “1” and spell out the words Little League Baseball - on the front and back. The homemade shirt was so stiff it felt like I was wearing a suit of armor.
Though I played in more than 100 games from Pee-Wees to Majors, to Babe Ruth to Morning League, and eventually to high school – only one game stands out in my memory.

We were playing at Haugen early in the summer after eighth grade. Haugen is a dot-on-the-map community north of Rice Lake. All of the kids in town went to the same school as those of us from Rice Lake, but we played on several different baseball teams, based on where we lived. I didn’t start many games back then. I was skinny, kind of weak, and there were a lot of kids much better at baseball than me.

On this day I was in the starting line-up, playing first base. The bleachers behind me were filled with a bevy of hot girls from school. I played it cool, chatting with them as I threw ground balls to my teammates, non-chalantly warming up as if I were the team’s star.

With my first at-bat, I lined a frozen rope into the right field gap. The ball left the sweet spot of the bat the way it’s supposed to. It kept going and going, rising at a perfect ascent toward the fence.
Most of my hits were awkward little dribblers that rarely left the infield, but this hit was the kind that makes the newspaper. Thundering down the line toward first base, instantly basking in the glory of my athletic manliness on full display in front of the dreamy-eyed girls, I could see the two outfielders turn their backs to me – which indicated they were chasing the ball. This meant I surely had a double, maybe even a triple! Rounding first, and in full mode to go to second, I looked up to see the right fielder no longer chasing the ball. He was picking it up and turning to make the throw to second base. Not only was I not going to get the triple I envisioned, I was probably going to get thrown out at second. My moment of glory was fading before it even happened. By this time I was more than half-way between bases when I put on the brakes – and tried to go back to first. Stopping the momentum of my 120-pound frame took all the strength I could muster. Every muscle in my body needed to get me back to first, quickly.

That’s when it happened. I farted. Loud!

Not a little fluff. Not an SBD. L-O-U-D! Smack-dab in the middle of my crowning moment as a ball player, and my sphincter betrayed me. Stumbling and bumbling my way back to first, each step was met with the resounding reverberations of unintended intestinal eruptions.  My mind raced as fast as the tainted wind that gusted from the seat of my jock strap.

As a kid, I watched a lot of World War II movies. All I could think of at this moment was the sound of Japanese Kamikazes, as their planes whistled and buzzed, spiraling into splashing, ocean explosions. I envisioned myself as a character in an action movie, streaking across a battle field in slow motion. You know the scene, the one where someone is lamenting in a long, drawn-out shout. That was me – except for the interspersed flatulence. “Ohhhhhhh nnnooooo, (insert juvenile fart noise made by sticking out a wet tongue)  Nnnottt nnnowww,” (insert fart noise made by placing hand under armpit and pumping arm rapidly) By this time the second baseman had the ball and he was coiling his arm to fire it to first. With my balance lost, I bear-crawled my way back to the bag - each footstep forcing out a sound like someone tap dancing on almost-empty squeeze ketchup bottles. My last lunge sent me airborne, crashing into the dust at first base. The last sound I remember, before nearly blacking out from mortifying shock, was the splattery report of a party balloon accidentally released mid-blow.

I lay there, face down in the dirt, hoping never to get up. Ball players, specifically boys, are relentless when it comes to razzing their buddies – especially when it comes to episodes like this. (I’m so thankful I wasn’t that kid who got the boner in the locker room shower – or the kid with the port wine stain birthmark in his butt crack.) I knew I couldn’t lay there forever. I had to face my fear like a man. Surely the girls were recoiled in horror, or worse yet, were pointing at me, doubled-over with laughter.

Making my way to my feet, carefully ensuring I was always in contact with the base, I stood up – prepared for the worst. This is where I expected to sulk from the field with my head hung in shame. An embarrassment of this magnitude mandates shunning by the cool kids, possibly even banishment from certain social circles. My eyes regained focus, and my ears picked up noises other than my leaky colon. A few scattered claps were followed by an “Atta boy!” and a “Woohoo!”. The first baseman said, “Nice hit.” Stunned, looking around the field and the stands, it became relievingly obvious that no one heard the sour notes tooting from my butt trumpet.

I don’t recall if I eventually scored that inning, or if we even won the game. I told the kids in my English class that winning or losing doesn’t matter. Play hard, do your best, be ready for your moment to shine, and fart as if no one is listening. ~TWW

No Phony Misery

No Phony Misery

The year; 1980. The place; a secluded back room in the middle school library. The participants; me, (a nerdy seventh-grader), a pair of way-out-of-my-league stuck-up eighth-grade girls, and a vending machine snack.

We’d just returned from lunch and took our seats at the table in the back room. Seventh grade was the first year for middle school students to have a schedule that included changing classrooms for each individual subject. The period following noon hour was my study hall. Nervous about messing up my schedule and making a fool of myself, I was on-time, properly seated, and well into Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five when the young ladies strolled in – tardy and talking. The girls, poorly feigning interest in their homework, began whispering and giggling. Vonnegut is difficult to understand, even with complete concentration, let alone for a 13-year-old staring into the faces of gorgeously-hot, rude chicks.

As it turns out whispering and giggling were the least of my worries. One of the girls reached into her purse and plopped a bag of Corn Nuts onto the table. That was the day I discovered I had a problem.

Misophonia is a medical/psychological affliction related to the general discomfort or dislike of certain sounds. “General discomfort” is a kinder and more pleasant description for how I describe my own internal reaction to specific sounds. Hatred, seething anger, and rage are more appropriate definitions for my level of intolerance. Knuckle-popping, gum chewing, slurping, sniffling, and open-mouth breathing by the people around me makes me slip into Stage-One fight or flight mode. But hearing someone eat is my pinnacle of torture.

The study hall girl, bless her bitchy heart, tried her best to be discrete by painstakingly opening the crinkly, vacuum-sealed plastic pouch as tormentingly deliberate as possible. In the pristine auditory environment of the isolated library her repeated fumbling and manipulation of the stubborn sound grenade in her hands was only slightly less disturbing than listening to someone attempting to make cellophane oragami while wearing mittens.  For what seemed like the same amount of time it takes to actually grow corn, she twisted and tore at the resilient four-ounce bag.

“Use some FUCKING SCISSORS!” I pleaded silently.  Eventually she squeezed the bag so hard that one end popped open, shooting several kernels of the nacho cheese-flavored dynamite onto the table. After a muffled guffaw from the hungry heathen, and an animated spit-take from her partner, she tossed a nugget into mouth and bit down with a ravenous disregard for civility. The ensuing moments tripped a switch inside me.  It wasn’t so much as a switch she tripped in me – it was a trigger – like on the gun I wanted to fire into her noisy face.

 Audible human mastication is a repulsive cacophony of crushing, grinding, sucking, licking, swishing, breathing, and swallowing. For most people, sound travels through the ear, over the tympanic membrane, past the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup. It continues through the cochlea, the auditory nerve and up the central auditory pathway until it reaches the auditory cortex. The sound level increases along this entire journey. Once it reaches the auditory cortex it is processed and diffused.  In my case, when the sound is processed it doesn’t diffuse - it makes me want to throw a hammer THROUGH A WINDOW!

My eyes secretly bore a hole through my book and into her discordend soul. “Ka-pow, ka-pow, ka-pow, pow, pow, pow, crunch, crunch, crunch, mince, mince, mince…” Over and over again, the hollow sortie of horrific explosions echoed from within her head and into my nerve center. I casually glanced in her direction hoping to re-read the label on her bag to be certain she wasn’t eating a peanut butter and gravel sandwich, or a pack of firecrackers. To her credit, she wasn’t chewing with her mouth open – I have a buddy who does that. This guy chews like a garbage truck, and so do his kids. Another friend politely likened my buddy’s family’s eating etiquette as caveman-ish. I was thinking it was more like a National Geographic movie of hyenas feasting on carrion in the wilds of the Serengeti. One time, I was trapped in a vehicle with them for nearly an hour as they ate gummy bears, taffy, and beef jerky. It was all I could do to keep myself from grabbing the steering wheel and hurtling us into a bridge abutment.

With white knuckles and a bulging vein in my temple I survived that afternoon in the library, but my condition has gotten worse. My wife and her family are wonderful people, they’d do anything for anybody, but their table manners are atrocious. For 20 years I’ve eaten all my Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas meals in another room. Their fork scraping, full-mouth talking, and plate-licking often leave me slipping in and out of a coma. Sometimes even my own chewing sets me off. I have to crank up a Megadeth CD to get me through the squishy smacking of a braunschweiger and Velveeta sandwich.

The causes and cures for Misophonia are unknown. The actual numbers of sufferer is also unknown - as many of us keep this secret to ourselves. If only the guy clawing his way through a bucket of popcorn in the movie theater knew that the man sitting directly behind his seat was fighting an overwhelming desire to choke the shit out him. Or, if the hospital receptionist was aware that her saliva-infused gum snapping made me seriously consider running my ear drum through with a crochet hook.

The last several years of teaching school have tested my ability to cope with my disorder. Relentless pen clicking, foot tapping, pencil scratching, and sniffling have pushed my limits of neurological endurance. Recently, a student sat in my classroom and sniffed back a drippy nose for twenty minutes before I quietly rose from my chair and politely handed him a box of tissue. He waved me off, inferring he didn’t need any.  I re-offered the box and he looked up at me somewhat annoyed that I didn’t understand him the first time. Briefly I considered telling him that hearing him suck his snot in reverse hyper-speed and swallowing it was going to make me puke, but I decided to pull several pieces from the box, lay them on his desk and walk away.

For now I’ll suffer in silence until some kind of medicine or therapy is developed to ease the anxiety of my daily life. Don’t be surprised if the next time I’m invited to dinner I slip in a pair of ear plugs and ask if we’re having cotton candy. ~L