BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Eighteen year old girls can be a lot of fun.

Okay… Let me stop you right there you dirty minded monkeys. That is NOT what I am talking about. I am talking about being an uncle to a niece who just turned eighteen and the hilarity that can ensue at a family gathering… Especially when said uncle makes his living with words, and moreover, he’s me. (Hey, nobody else was patting me on the back, so I have to do it myself…)

At any rate, we just had a family gathering to celebrate the “fourth quarter birthdays.” We used to do a separate party for each, but as the family grew – and aged – it became hard to schedule multiple gatherings each month and still have time for things such as, oh, I dunno… Work. Sleep. Grocery shopping… you know. Extracurricular activities of a sort. I know that makes us a bit selfish, but it’s just one of those things…

But, back to the story. Among the fourth quarter birthdays is that of one of my nieces, and as we have already established, she recently hit the “Big One Eight.” Of age to vote, sign legal documents, etc.

How did she celebrate this milestone? I mean, besides the family gathering, of course.

She went out and had a hole poked into the side of her nose.

Now, for the record, I don’t give a flying rat’s arse about that. I see more folks with metal in their faces than you can shake a stick at – and I mean a really big stick. Seriously.

Now, to be honest, I don’t find it attractive at all. In fact, I find it more than just a bit silly and a whole lot stupid. But by the same token, it ain’t my face, so whatever trips your trigger. I’m not about to think any less of you for it, because truth is we all have our moments of stupid.

Let me repeat – if you want to impale yourself with ornamental finials and tie tacks, go right ahead. Whether or not I think it is stupid has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not I like you, will hang out with you, or will perform CPR if you are in distress. What I’m saying here is keep your hate mail to yourself. I am not discriminating against you, nor am I being intolerant of you, nor am I repressing you because I think it is stupid to poke holes in your face. I am simply expressing my feelings on the subject, just as you are doing the same by walking around with a diaper pin through your lip and a key fob sticking out of your eyebrow.

However… If you happen to be my niece and you show up at a family gathering with a hunk of metal sticking out of the side of your face, you should expect repercussions. I cite the following –

Merpizm 11/21/10: “If you say something stupid, I’m going to make fun of you. I expect no less when the roles are reversed.”

~ M. R. Sellars

The above quote also applies to DOING as well as saying…

And so, my dear niece arrived at the party. I had already heard that she experienced much disappointment in the fact that her Grandparents – and even her parents – had eschewed comment on her proboscis bauble. Since she, like all of my other nieces and nephews, is a pretty cool kid, I felt bad for her, in a sarcastic uncle sort of way, of course.

Merp – Hey… Niece… C’mere for a sec.

Niece – What?

Merp – [cocking head to the side for a better view] You set off metal detectors with that thing?

Niece – Yeah… Right… Very funny, uncle Murv.

Merp – So… How’d it happen?

Niece – What do you mean?

Merp – Horrible explosion at the jewelry counter and you didn’t duck soon enough? Or did you just fall on it or something?

Niece – It didn’t “happen.”

Merp – You mean you did it on purpose?

Niece – Yeah. It’s how I celebrated my birthday.

Merp – Really? I ate lasagna and cake to celebrate my eighteenth. I didn’t poke holes in my face.

Niece – I didn’t poke holes in my face.

Merp – Ummm… I hate to tell you this but you have a hole in the side of your nose. That’s part of your face.

Niece – I mean I didn’t do it myself. I had a professional do it.

Merp – A professional… You mean you paid someone to poke a hole in your face?

Niece – Yes.

Merp – Seriously? How much it cost you?

Niece – [pulling back hair to show something akin to Trigger’s horseshoe sticking out of the top of her ear] Well, for the cartilage piercing and the nose  piercing it was fifty bucks.

Merp – Wait… You willingly had TWO holes poked in your head in order to celebrate your birthday?

Niece – Yeah.

Merp – And you paid someone fifty bucks to do it?

Niece – Yeah.

Merp – I wish you’d called me first. I’ve got a hole punch at home and I would’ve done it for free.

Niece – [Laughs]

Merp – Really. In fact, I’ve got a three hole punch. I would’ve done three all at once, no charge. I even would’ve sterilized it first.

Niece – Yeah… right. These holes are smaller.

Merp – [Shrugs] No problem. I’ve got a stapler too. Next time you want to put a hole in your face let me know. I’ll bring it along.

Niece – Funny. Right now I’m thinking about getting a tattoo.

Merp – Really. Now you want someone to draw on you with a motorized needle?

Niece – Maybe.

Niece’s Mom – Where are you wanting to get this tattoo?

Niece – On my foot.

Merp – What’re you gonna get?

Niece – I don’t know yet.

Merp – Well, if you’re gonna get it on your foot, have ’em put Rue Britannia on the bottom of your foot and call it good.

Niece – Why?

Merp – So you can be just like Bullwinkle.

Niece – Bull who?

Merp – Bullwinkle. You know, Rocky. Bullwinkle. Moose and squirrel. Watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat…

Niece – What?

Merp – You don’t know who Rocky and Bullwinkle are?

Niece – I’m only eighteen.

Merp – If you’re old enough to go out and have a hole poked in your face, you’re old enough to know who Rocky and Bullwinkle are.

Niece – [Redirecting] It would hurt to get a tattoo on the bottom of your foot.

Merp – Sugar, I’m here to tell you it’s gonna hurt no matter where you get it…

Niece – [Sigh] You know, it’s just an earring.

Merp – What is?

Niece – [pointing at gas cap on the side of her nose] This.

Merp – Oh… Honey… You must’ve missed a biology class. That’s your nose, not your ear.

Niece – You know what I mean…

Merp – I think maybe your stupid hasn’t worn off yet.

Niece – What stupid?

Merp – The one that overtook your brain when you willingly paid someone  to stab holes in your face.

Niece – They didn’t stab holes in my face. They used a needle.

Merp – Okay. So did you have to shove a cork up your nose for them to push it into?

Niece – They didn’t use a cork.

Merp – Well how in the world did you fit an apple up there?

Niece – [Attempting to remain indignantly eighteen but her  “OMG Uncle Murv” sigh is overcome by her own laughter]

Merp – Did they give you an instruction guide booklet with that thing?

Niece – No.

Merp – No? Well what happens if you get a booger caught up in there? How do you know what to do?

Niece – I sneeze.

Merp – Then I guess if someone is sitting on your right they should duck so you don’t shoot their eye out if that thing flies outta the side of your nose, huh?

Niece – The post is at a right angle.

Merp – Pointing up or down?

Niece – Up.

Merp – Well there you go. That just makes it easier for boogers to get caught on it.

Niece – I have a friend who has one. I’ll just ask her.

Merp – A booger?

Niece – A nose ring.

Merp – I really think you should go back and ask for the instruction guide booklet. I mean, you paid fifty bucks and all…

I could go on, but I’m already over one-thousand on the word count, and I’ve heard that shorter blogs are “in” these days. Suffice it to say, the razzing went on for better than an hour while her younger sister sat and listened. After all that I’m pretty sure we won’t have to worry about her setting off any metal detectors when she hits eighteen. Not at any family gatherings where Uncle Murv is present, anyway…

More to come…

Murv

At first glance one might think I am talking about a bygone birthday. In my case, it would definitely be a “reflection” because 30 has been shrinking in my rear-view mirror for quite some time. In fact, I’m relatively certain by this point it has disappeared over the horizon, because I have very little recollection of it, save for the “sexy nurse” singing telegram my wife sent me – not stripper mind you, it was a singing telegram.

And the reason it sticks out in my mind is that E K, in her infinite evilness, sent her to my place of employment for maximum embarrassment. She’s kinda like that, as I’m sure you’ve already surmised.

But, first glance isn’t what I am talking about today. I’m actually talking about -30- as in the editor’s symbol meaning “The End”… “Fin”… Over… That’s all she wrote… Stick a fork in it, I’m done.

Yes, the good ol’ -30- is a “symbol” that denotes to an editor that there a no more pages. The end has been reached. And, it is something I type at the end of every manuscript.

Now, in this day and age, you will find agents out there who are so full of themselves that they issue stringent guidelines about this practice. I actually read an agent’s submission guidelines and he had such a stick up his bung hole that he literally stated he would automatically reject anything with a -30- at the end because he “should be able to tell where the end was without any help. And, if he couldn’t, then you obviously don’t know how to write.“

I think this particular agent has control issues and was probably spanked too hard when he was a kid. Or, maybe his wife slaps him around and he doesn’t know how to cope with it. Who the hell really knows? All I can say is, dude, get over yourself. You probably need to be on anti-psychotics, but who am I to say. I’m not a doctor. I just write books for a living, so what do I know, especially when it comes to something like putting a 30 at the end of a manuscript?

But, I suppose you may wonder, “Why 30?”

Well, I have no clue. I seem to recall hearing the story once upon a time, but years and alcohol have relegated it to a filing cabinet I am unable to locate. Suffice it to say, I learned a long, long time ago, that I was supposed to put a -30-, or even a 30 in a circle, at the end of my copy before I turned it in. This was taught to me by Martha Ackmann, my Journalism teacher, about whom I have waxed nostalgic in the past.

Now, it is entirely possible that they don’t teach kids to do this anymore. I haven’t been in a Journalism class in nigh on to 26 years now. Things change… I know this. However, the fact remains that the -30- is something I not only learned, but it became so ingrained that it eventually morphed into a major part of my writing ritual. Without it, I feel unfinished. Incomplete. Without end.

Literally. And, yes, maybe even a bit literarily too.

Now, this is not to say that I write -30- at the end of my to-do list,  grocery list, or sappy love notes I leave for the Evil Redhead (which reminds me, I’m probably due to scribble one of those to stuff into her lunchbox…) However, at the end of any and all of my manuscripts, novelettes, short stories, articles, or any other writing project, I most definitely do. Once I have done that, I can move on to the next part of the ritual – a glass of scotch and a really good cigar while sitting on my porch swing.

But, now that the -30- is typed, the scotch is imbibed, and the cigar is nothing more than smoke & ashes, what happens?

Well, I’m afraid that’s a story for the next blog entry…

More to come…

Murv

-30-