BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I make no apologies. I’m an overprotective dad. I mean, just look at what I write for a living. Because of the research I do in order to write those books, I know crap that you should be freakin’ ecstatic that you don’t know. I’m dead serious. Some of the sh*t I’ve learned about sociopaths wakes me up in the middle of the night, drenched in a cold sweat and reaching for the Glock in the nightstand.

THAT’S why I’m an overprotective dad…

Still, that doesn’t mean I’m not a bit silly too. After all, it’s a moral imperative. Dads are supposed to embarrass their kids. It’s an inalienable right. It’s handed out to you the minute you become a father. Trust me. It’s in the paperwork. No kidding.

And so it came to pass that coldness crept into our city as winter descended upon us. And with said cold came bundling up when walking the child to school – what with being an overprotective dad and all, not to mention that I’m wheels down and about to do a three point on that half-century mark, so the doc wants me to exercise. I sit on my ass all day, slinging words, so my fingers are getting all the workout.

But I digress…

Like I said, so it came to pass, and with it passing came the following conversation:

“Do I look sufficiently weird?” I asked.

E K looked me up and down. “Oh yeah…”

“O-SPRING!” I yelled. “Time To GO!”

(thumpita, thumpita, thumpita… came the child down the stairs.)

Around the corner the O-spring came, then screeched to halt, staring at me. Then she moaned, “Daaahhhh-ahhhhhhhhddddddd!”

“What?” I asked.

“You’re wearing THAT to walk me to school?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Daaahhhh-ahhhhhhhhddddddd!” she moaned again, rolling her eyes in the process.

“What? Do I embarrass you?”

“Well, yeah…” she replied.

“Good,” I told her, suddenly channeling Macaulay Culkin from the movie Uncle Buck, in a paraphrased sense, of course: “I’m a dad. It’s my job.”

And so off we went. I trailed along behind at a short distance… Until we got close to the school, of course. Then I closed the gap. I had to make sure all of her friends knew I was her dad…

ANATOMY OF AN EMBARRASSING DAD

TO READ CAPTIONS CLICK PHOTO AND ENLARGE – MAY TAKE A MOMENT TO LOAD

TO READ CAPTIONS CLICK PHOTO AND ENLARGE - MAY TAKE A MOMENT TO LOAD

More to come…

Murv

It’s still painful to talk about. I know it has been a whole week now, but it seems like it was only yesterday. The horror of it all is still fresh in my mind, and I find myself waking up in a cold sweat as the nightmares plague my slumber. I guess that’s what I get for surviving…

It was cold. Especially for Florida. Of course, it was also early November and George Bush had stopped denying global climate change, so those were just the dice Momma au Naturale dealt us. The Sunshine State caught in the grip of a cold snap of epic proportions. Unbelievable as it may seem, when the sun dipped below the horizon the mercury would plummet into the danger zone. Yes… the 50’s. I actually had to wear my hoodie.

EK, John, and Murv - Prior to the ill-fated Trick or Drunking Expedition

Earlier in the day, provisions had been running low. That’s how it is with Corona and lime when you are at a festival in Florida. One minute there’s enough, the next, not so much. We scraped together a twenty from my wallet and handed it off to the provisions maven. We never saw her again. Who knew a Jackson could take you that far…

Well… Not far enough, because that’s about the time the trolley broke down. Any seasoned Festival-goer knows that when the Trolley breaks down you’re as good as dead – but we weren’t ready to give up. Steeling our resolve, we grabbed our plastic cups and set out down the pass to go “Trick or Drunking.” We’d heard a rumor that Pirates had set up camp below, and if we could make it there, perhaps they would share their rum with us. Or not. One never knows about Pirates, but we had to try.

The trip was arduous. We lost three on the way, not sure if they succumbed to the cold, were eaten by the rogue bear, or simply turned back. Eventually, however, we made it to our destination. After much parlay, the assignation of Piratey names, and selling off E K to the “Feral Cathouse” run by the Buccaneers, we were accepted into the fold and beaten severely about the head and shoulders – and livers – with rum that had been shown a picture of fruit punch. But it wasn’t allowed to look for very long, as it was only supposed to pick up a hint of the fruity punchiness…

Sometime during the darkness, a roving band of strange women, each dressed in black and adorned with bright red lipstick, descended upon the Pirate camp. Even the Pirates cowered, powerless against their overwhelming osculation. And yes, they scurried about like little pixies, kissing all of the male types and leaving gihugic Angelina Jolie lip prints on our faces.

We were sore afraid, and a bit titillated as well, but that’s a different story.

Eventually, seeing as we had brought the strange women upon them, the Pirates made us walk the plank. Being on land already it wasn’t much of a plank, however, there was the mountain, for we eventually had to return to our base camp at the summit.

John – as in John Gramling… Yes. THE John Gramling – downed what was left of his punch drunk rum and pointed at the distant lights in the sky. He burped, hiccuped, and then said, “I ain’t climbin’ that mountain.”

E K, who had been kicked out of the “Feral Cathouse” for torturing the clientele looked ahead and replied, “Psshaw! It’s just a gentle incline.”

“It’s a damn mountain,” John repeated.

And so we braved the cold, the wind, and the bear, stalking off into the early morning darkness (it was after midnight) and climbed the Altoona Mountains there in Florida. Just her worship THE E K, and me…

We never saw John again. Rumor has it RD ate him when the Pirates finally ran out of rum, but then, RD is like that. (You’d understand if you’d ever met RD…)

And there you have the true story of The Gramling Party. I’m sure that mountainside is haunted now… By John and a case of Corona. Maybe I’ll go back and look for him some day. I’m pretty sure he forgot to take the lime with him…

More to come…

Murv