BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

This is actually a Halloween story. So, why am I not deploying it on Halloween? Look back at the 10/31 blog and ask that again… I may be as stupid as I look, but I’m not about to trump the anniversary wishes to the redhead. That would be suicide.

So anyway…

Back in nineteen-hundred and eighty-five… No, not like the McCartney and Wings song… The REAL nineteen hundred and eighty-five. October, more specifically. If you want to get right down to it, October 31st, hence the whole Halloween thing. (And yes, for those of you who have been following Brainpan Leakage and have read the “Mahwage” chronicles – linked on the right – this was just a few short months prior to me doing the whole love at first sight thing with E K… But that’s another story and I already told it.)

BR (Before Redhead) I worked for American Home Video. Then I didn’t. It’s a long story involving Radio Shack, a buyout, and subsequently the unceremonious expulsion of original employees. So be it. I was fashionably unemployed with bills to pay, a bit of cash in the bank, and no standing prospects. However, it had been a number of years since I’d been on a vacation and as it happened some very good friends of mine had moved to Aberdeen, South Dakota of all places. Why? To manage a Domino’s pizza joint, but that’s another story too.

At any rate, I packed a bag, took some cash out of the bank, then hopped into the Mustang – yes, I used to be cool – and jammed gears westward then northward, to go visit. In all honesty, while this was sort of a spur of the moment thing, it wasn’t wake up one morning and go. I planned it for a few days so that my ducks were all in a row. Got myself a real, live folding map – back then we had BBS’s, not Internet, so there wasn’t a Google maps option. The Interwebz were in their infancy and called ARPnet; and they belonged primarily to the government and military.

But I digress…

The thing is, I planned it out a bit. Then, one day, I jumped in the ‘Stang and hit the road, not even thinking about the date, or what it means to a good chunk of the folks in the United States. Back then we were under the double-nickel law – that being “I can’t drive fifty-five” but you’d damn well better unless you want a ticket. Therefore, the trip was going to be about 13.5 hours. No biggie. I was in my early twenties, my prostate was normal sized, and I had a damn good bladder. Besides, we DID have rest areas back then.

Still, it was a long trip. Long about Council Bluffs, Iowa, I got hungry. And a little sleepy. So, I jumped on an exit, downshifted, and rolled myself into the palace of the golden arches. Back then my metabolism could handle that sort of crap being thrown at it.

Without paying much attention, I stretched, then wandered in through the door. As I stepped up to the register a voice said, “Welcome to McFatty’s, how may I help you?”

I replied, “Yeah, I’ll have a McBigButt with Fr…” at that moment I looked up in the direction of the voice and was greeted with the face of some kind of insane, spree-killing clown. I screamed, “GAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

The insane, spree-killing clown screamed, “GAAAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!”

We both involuntarily jumped back a step. Well, maybe the insane killer clown did it involuntarily. Me, I was fully conscious of putting some distance between me and all that facepaint.

“What the…” I said.

The insane clown, which turned out to be a young lady of about 19 or 20 screwed up her face and gave me a look like I’d lost my mind. After a few seconds passed she said, “Happy Halloween.”

“Crap,” I muttered, looking past her and seeing the rest of the workers in various odd attire. “That’s today… No wonder all I could get on the radio was Purple People Eater, Monster Mash, and Martian Boogie…”

I ended up having a McBigButt, Large McFry, and a Large McCoffee.  But, I decided to eat in my car rather than deal with the freak show inside. Good thing too, because the McCoffee turned out to be McBattery Acid and I had to dispose of it on the parking lot. It left a pothole I’m afraid, but given what might have happened if I’d tossed it into the trash with the McScraps… Well… I shudder to think about it.

After that, I hit the interstate once more, flipping through the stations until I found something non-Halloweenie. As it happened, the first thing I found was the theme from Miami Vice. I opened the sunroof, jammed the clutch, and aimed myself for the hub city of the Dakotas. By the time I arrived I had forgotten all about the incident – and the fact that it was Halloween.

Imagine my surprise when I rolled into town at the height of the madness…

More to come…

Murv

So, my kid is brilliant.

I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. In fact, I’ll repeat it again right now for good measure. My kid is freakin’ brilliant. She’s in the gifted & talented program at her school, she has a reading comprehension level umpteen jillion grades ahead of her own, and a vocabulary that will sometimes astound you. Not always on top of the slang, as evidenced by an earlier blog entry, but hey, I’d rather she not be.

So, why am I telling you this? Believe it or not, it actually has something to do with the story.

You see, being brilliant – I did mention that, right? Anyhow, being a brilliant child, the O-spring is also enrolled in the College For Kids program at a local community college campus. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s kind of a neat deal. Gifted kids from all over get to come and take classes in all sorts of things – from oil painting to biology to robotics to chess to geo caching, and a ton of stuff in between. They have two sessions – winter and summer. Winter happens on Saturdays for 5 weeks. Summer happens for one straight week in August.

See where I’m heading?

Yeah… See there, you’re brilliant too… Anyway, the O-spring managed to pull the three classes she wanted this session, (like the real deal, it doesn’t always work out that way), which means we have to head out the the college right around morning rush hour.

Being a bit anal retentive about punctuality, we tend to leave a little early, just in case something happens to slow us down, and then we spend 15 minutes sitting in the lecture hall doing that Dad – Daughter bonding. This means she talks to me about Pokee-Man cards and I listen. Sometimes we even talk about things that old dad actually knows something about, such as writing. She has it in her head that she wants to be a writer. I have yet to find a suitable way to discourage her from that folly. Who knows? Maybe she will actually be successful at it, unlike her pops. Time will tell… But, I digress as usual.

On the day in question we were heading up the main drag, only a couple of miles from home, and we ended up stuck behind some guy in a four door sedan who either had no idea where he was heading, or simply wasn’t awake. From what I could see, the only thing of real interest to him was his cigarette. Well, that’s not entirely true. He was also deeply involved in some sort of driving game which entailed speeding up, slowing down, and going from 40 to 0 in nothing flat for no apparent reason. Another apparent part of the game’s strategy was to make sudden swerves to the right, then jump back into the lane.

This went on for a good mile or better, with me unable to get around him due to other traffic. Eventually I began to mutter all manner of expletives, some of which I had been using for years, others of which I had learned from Luets (my multi-lingual buddy). I even made up a few names for the guy and issued detailed instructions – upon deaf ears, of course – about what he needed to do with his car if he wasn’t going to take the time to learn how to drive it.

The O-spring watched and listened in silence. She’s heard ol’ pops rant before, so this was no big deal. She just watched the idiot in front of us, and waited to see what would happen.

Finally, cigarette man screeched to a halt, turned on his blinker, and made a painfully languid turn into the parking lot of the McDonalds. Thankful that I was now going to escape the rolling roadblock and still have plenty of time to arrive at the college for the first class, I sped up and pushed us along on our way.

My 10 year old daughter, still quiet, swiveled her head to watch the lurching car putter around the McDonalds parking lot as we drove past. Before the arches had even made it into my rear view mirror, she clucked her tongue and in a matter-of-fact tone announced, “Well… Apparently somebody hasn’t had his Frappe yet this morning.”

Told ya’ she was brilliant. How could she not be? With a sarcastic mouth like that, she’s obviously got my DNA…

More to come…

Murv