SHOW AND TELL: Some Things That Happened

To me. Yep. That's the unifying premise. They really happened.

Because we live in such an unhinged and worrisome time, I have decided to occasionally post notable and/or amusing things from my little world that have provided me with some counter-balance. I know there are many more important things that I should be writing about. But come on: everyone else on the internet seems to have covered most of that, ad nauseum. Rather than repeat any of that, I thought I would try this instead. And yes, I know I tried this once before. But leave it to me to try it again. Ladies and gentlemen, join me in a round of applause for “Seven more little things that I’ve been thinking about simply because they happened lately.”

1. RELEARNING AN IMPORTANT LESSON: NEVER EXPLAIN A JOKE.

This is a story about the day in which I was reminded that brandishing quirky humor in the real world has consequences. Specifically, I am referring to Thursday at Trader Joe’s when the guy at the cash register asked me what it said on the shirt I was wearing. Here is the shirt I was wearing.

I bought it from a website selling eccentric, funny shirts that sometimes really hit the spot for me. This one says “Little Fuckin’ Waterbug Picnic. Get out! You’re not invited!” It has drawings of some of the more note-worthy waterbugs who attended, alongside mentions of their names: Gaspar, Carla, Fernando, Esther and Higgins.

This is a very good example of the kind of joke that you should never, under any circumstances, try to explain to someone. I think it goes without saying that no joke should ever be explained. If it requires an explanation, it wasn’t working (for that person). But especially NEVER explain this kind of absurdist non-joke joke. It will be a guaranteed shortcut to pointless verbiage hell.

Be that as it may, on this day, this was the shirt I was wearing when I stopped at Trader Joe’s to buy a few things. How was I to know that the poker-faced guy at the cash register would stare at the piece of the shirt that was visible under my open jacket, and decide to use it as a way to start up a conversation?

“What does your shirt say?”” he asked, with a look of great hope that when the rest of the text was revealed to him, it would amount to a joke that would brighten his day. But when I looked into his trusting eyes, I immediately sensed that nothing about ‘a waterbug picnic’ or drawings of waterbugs with names like Gaspar and Carla was going to register as amusing to him. However it was too late. Now I was trapped, conversationally. So I started to stall, pretending I didn’t understand him. Unfortunately he repeated himself. I followed up with some careful hemming and hawing, but he was relentless.

Eventually I had no choice but to open up my jacket and let him see what the shirt said. He leaned forward and in the flattest voice imaginable, he read the text out loud. “It’s a little fuckin waterbug picnic.” he said, like he was reading me my Miranda Rights. Then he stared at me briefly, showing no visible facial expression at all. “Mmmhmm.” he said, as he turned abruptly back to the cash register. “Anything else I can help you with?” he said, robotically closing the door on our camaraderie forever. “Would you like your receipt?” “No thanks” I said, as I grabbed my groceries and, as quickly as possible, scurried in shame back to my car.

A comedian on a stage gets to have the last word with a nay-saying heckler. But if you expose a joke to the harsh glare of random public transactions, the heckler always wins. He never looked over at me again.

2. MY MYSTERIOUS AMAZON SECRET SANTA

When I looked thru the deliveries from Amazon that were piled on my doorstep, there was a package addressed to me that I didn’t recognize. Inside was a clear plastic tube of black, white and grey women’s ankle socks that I could not recall ordering. Intending to send them back, I went to the orders section of my Amazon account to initiate a return. But there was no record of them ever having been ordered. Next I went back to re-check the package and see if they had been delivered to the wrong street address. No. Everything on the mailing label was correct, including the spelling of my name. Nothing was out of place. Except for everything.

The only other possible explanation I could think of was that perhaps it was a gift. But from who? There was no gift card and no return address. This, of course, lead me to writing a flurry of random e-mails to a wide circle of friends who I thought might have decided it would be funny to send me a variety pack of socks as some kind of incomprehensible but possibly ironic ‘in’ joke. Or maybe this friend had somehow come into an enormous shipment of new socks, too many to store, and so was now farming them out to everyone they knew, randomly, just because?

When I eventually ran out of answers and was left with no one to thank, I opened up the sealed sock-tube package and started wearing the socks! And they were great! A really nice brand of all-purpose women’s ankle socks in neutral colors that fit me perfectly. Before they arrived, I hadn’t given any thought to the size of my dwindling sock supply. So this sudden unplanned sock bonanza came at such a good time that it felt like the work of an imaginary omniscient force in the universe, of whom I had not previously been aware, whose only task was tending to minor wardrobe details of the absent-minded dresser. This force had apparently been keeping a watchful eye on me and knew that these socks would be the perfect gift.

I am pleased to announce that I have really been enjoying my unexpected sock windfall. And though I never before thought of socks as something I might buy someone as a present, here is what I learned: the next time you get assigned to be someone’s Secret Santa, go with a proven people pleaser. Buy them socks!

3. THE NIGHT I WAS IN A REAL-LIFE MONTY PYTHON SKETCH.

When I watch police procedurals, I always wonder how I would behave if it were happening to me. But the way it played out the other night was a version of the scenario that my imagination never predicted.

It was about nine at night when I heard a lot of odd mechanical noise outside the window. When I went outside to see what was going on, I found Andy already standing in the driveway, staring up at an incredibly loud helicopter that was hovering over our house.

Someone in the helicopter was SHOUTING things thru a megaphone or a truly inadequate sound amplification system. His voice was so muffled by the massive roar from the helicopter blades that neither of us could make out ANY of what he was saying. “Why is he using a Mr. Microphone? “ was my first thought, “Doesn’t the city have enough money to buy him a functioning sound system?”

“I think I heard him say ‘house.” Andy said, which made me think the helicopter was probably from the fire department because our area has been in the path of wildfires before. So we both felt obligated to keep standing there, staring up at the chopper, until we could understand if we were being told to evacuate.

“Did he just say ‘hands’” I asked. “Yes. I heard him say ‘hands’” said Andy. ‘Why would he be yelling about hands?” I asked. And since neither of us had a clue, we remained in the driveway, trying to conjure sentences that contained the words HOUSE and HANDS. Unable to create one that offered any kind of urgent directive, we just stood there continuing to stare, like two feeble, ancient Londoners with ear horns from a Monty Python sketch, yelling to no one “Heh? Can you speak up a bit, mate, I can’t HEAR you.”

The following day, on ‘NextDoor’, we learned that neighbors a few blocks away could understand at a distance what we, directly under the chopper blades, could not hear at all. They all knew that the helicopter was LAPD. They also understood what the pilot was yelling to the two annoying dumb people in their driveway. It was “Go back into your HOUSE AND LOCK YOUR DOORS!’ (‘Whats ‘at, mate? Can you say it again but this time speak more clearly?’)

The rest of his message was apparently directed at some unknown perpetrator who was running loose in the neighborhood. To this person or persons, they were shouting “Come out with your HANDS up,” And “Surrender immediately or we will release the police dogs.”

So, to re-set the scene with these new details, there we were, two goofy hearing- impaired people, not only completely oblivious to imminent danger from an armed perpetrator but standing directly in the path of an unseen platoon of soon-to-be charging German Shepherds…who, I might add, I would have initially viewed with complete delight because “Oh boy, Andy! Look at these beautiful dogs!” And I guess those would have been the final words I spoke before I was totally trampled by a stampede of potentially armed assailants followed by horde of trained K-9 assassins.

4. When up on the roof there arose such a clatter…

Sorry for the proliferation of off-season Santa metaphors….but when I heard all those footsteps on the roof, I had no other frame of reference except old you-know-who and his eight tiny you-know-whats.

Of course, it was not he, two and a half months late. It was SEVEN (not tiny) peahens accompanying Bill, the peacock who stops by a few times a week for peanuts and what I believe to be a kind of peacock fellowship. Although we see him quite a bit, we don’t really know much about Bill. We have no idea where he lives or why he ever showed up to begin with. We’re not even sure that his name is Bill. But for no reason at all, we started to become fond of him.

However, this was before he decided to start bringing along his harem. At first, he and the sister wives all sat around on the roof of the house. That seemed pretty harmless.

But then they started to line up at the front door, like it was a soup kitchen. Out of respect for Bill, we gave in to the considerable pressure being applied and offered them all a couple of peanuts. But then it occurred to us that while the idea of feeding one peacock a few times a week remained moderately amusing, the idea of feeding eight strange peacocks, (some of whom might be pregnant) on a regular basis might be a bridge too far. An enormous flock of peafowl did not seem like ideal yard pals.

So we put away the peanuts, and the whole bunch of them got bored and left. For a few seconds, it was kinda sad. It was the minimum definition of ‘empty nester.’ But then a short while later, I saw them lined up around the corner in front of a food truck, so apparently they make quite a few regular stops in the area. Which, now that I think about it, is one more thing they have in common with Santa.

5. A CHANCE TO SHOW OFF

As you may know, from reading this page, I volunteer at a wildlife rescue center. Because of this, there are many odd skills I now know about animal care. One of the more impressive ones is the ability, on occasion, to re-capture an escaped bird mid-flight, using my bare hands. This is the kind of thing that I am seldom called upon to do in the domestic sphere…until the other day….

Yeah, no big deal. I just walked up that ‘dark-eyed junko’ ( Sure, I could identify him) and I picked him up and carried him outside.

6. Oh. One last thing: Apparently I now have the ability to STOP TIME.

Today I woke up at 5 AM, intending to get up at 6. My plan was to close my eyes again for about an hour and then, when I next hit consciousness, it would be time to get up. So I lay there, semi-conscious, with my eyes closed and, as an exercise, I reviewed my life from first grade to 12th grade. After about an hour of that, I was ready to get dressed and make coffee. But when I looked at the clock it was not 6 AM as I expected. It was 5:08.

At first I thought that was weird. Obviously I was lying there for AT LEAST an hour. So I decided to test this odd time warp by doing the whole thing again. Once more I closed my eyes for the requisite amount of time. This time I meditated and also had quite a few dreams. I rested peacefully for at least two more hours. But when I next checked the clock….it was 5:15.

At first I thought to myself “Something weird is going on here. This can not be real.” But after I tried a third time, and meditated for what was MINIMALLY an hour, the next time I checked, the clock said it was 5:20.

Now I had no other option but to face the truth.….I had STOPPED TIME! I know it’s difficult to believe. And as of now, I don’t know how I did it. Or how best to put my new super-powers to use. But I will let you know what I figure out and when I decide to inform the rest of humanity of the magnitude of my new unasked for responsibilities. I am going to need to handle them very very carefully.

7. Extra Free Bonus for having made it to the end of all this random stuff

Answer to your question: Its a baby squirrel. Once a week I feed neo-nate baby squirrels. Some haven’t even opened their eyes yet. Boy are they in for a shock.

.