BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Anyone who has read any of the books in the Rowan Gant Investigations series knows who Detective Benjamin Storm and Special Agent Constance Mandalay are. Furthermore, anyone who has talked to me, or attended one of my writing or Q&A seminars knows that everything is book material in my way of thinking. That includes using various quirks or physical descriptions from the everyday reality to enhance the fictional reality, which is still fiction even if I call it a fictional reality. Make sense? Yeah, it doesn’t to me either…

But, here’s where I’m going with this – I use what I know to write stuff that I make up, but what I make up is exactly that – stuff I make up. It’s not real, and it doesn’t actually reflect a real reality.

Case in point, Ben Storm and Constance Mandalay. I should also say here – SPOILER ALERT if you haven’t read my books, or are only just starting to do so…

Ben is loosely – and when I say loosely I mean LOOSELY based on one of my very best friends of all time, a Metropolitan Saint Louis police officer. Their similarities being that they are both 6 foot 6 and the last person on Earth you would want to see coming through a door at you if you are doing something wrong. Other than that, I get “cop slang” from my friend, and of course, procedure and the like. However, that is where it ends. Ben is NOT my buddy, and my buddy is NOT Ben.

In the first few novels of the series, Ben was married to Allisson. She, in turn was LOOSELY based on my cop buddy’s wife – also a very dear friend. Hell, she took me shopping and acted as my fashion consultant when I was desperately trying to woo E K. She’s like a sister to me. However, once again, the LOOSELY based is just that. My friend worked in the medical field, so I made Allisson a nurse.

Constance Mandalay is a Bride of Frankenstein sort of character. By that I mean she is literally a hodge-podge of personality and physical traits from countless individuals, some of whom I know, some of whom I don’t know, and some of whom are also fictional characters from TV shows and movies. That isn’t to say that the pieces didn’t fit well together, because they did. She’s a great character… After all, she even has her own spin-off series now…

But moving right along…

Somewhere around the fourth novel, Ben and Allisson started having some relationship issues. My cop buddy and his wife were NOT mirroring this. Said issues were between the two fictional characters and only on the page. By the fifth novel, things had ended for them and Ben was moving on with his life. Since the young, pretty, intelligent, Sig Sauer packing FBI agent, Constance Mandalay, had been at odds with Ben on more than one occasion a natural progression took place – Tension turned into sexual tension, and they ended up dating.

Back here in the real world, my cop buddy’s wife was none too pleased about this, and she has been sure to let me know.

Every. Single. Time. I. Talk. To. Her.

And so, just the other night we were all together at Double D’s Pizzeria, which is owned by their son. We were having a bit of a planning meeting about the release party for In The Bleak Midwinter which will be taking place there at Double D’s. I brought them one of the ARCs of ITBM as a gift, and as she started flipping through it I made the preemptive comment, “Yeah, Ben and Constance are still dating.”

She looked across the table at her husband and said, “So you’re still having an affair with Constipated, huh…”

It’s a good thing Mandalay is fictional, because gun or no, I’m thinking she wouldn’t stand a chance against my buddy’s wife, and the nickname would be the least of her worries…

More to come…

Murv

Dads, as a general rule, should keep their observations to themselves, especially in the context of the mother, daughter, dad triangle.

Trust me, it’s easy to get lost in there. Easier than the Bermuda Triangle.

Such a sweeping statement, as usual, begs the question, “Why?”

The answer, simply enough, is “Y.”

You see, dads aren’t properly equipped in the genetics department. It’s that pesky optional vowel that is causing all of the trouble, apparently. Probably a throwback to some sort of Welsh ancestry, but who really knows. If there’s a Y, you’re pretty much out of the loop. Case in point…

We were sitting in the living room the other night – that being E K, the O-spring, and Moi – just vegetating and staring at the idiot box. We were probably looking at Castle, or some such. I don’t really remember, which is probably another Y affliction. But on with the example… The show broke for a commercial or two or ten, and on came an umpteen second spot for a department store chain and their gihugic, must-attend, low-Low-LOW price sale on all manner of latest and greatest fashionable women’s shoes. Of course, in order to illustrate how wonderful the selection, they proceeded to show umpty-jillion different shoes in the span of 10 seconds.

Now… I have nothing against women’s shoes. They aren’t something for which I go shopping – unless the redhead tells me to – but by the same token I don’t think there should be a ban on them or anything. Fact is, the redhead herself happens to have some pretty hot shoes. By themselves, not really so special, but when she’s wearing them… well, there’s a total package thing happening that… Well… We we won’t go there…

Back to the commercial. You see, as they prattled on about all of the different styles available, they proceeded to show all manner of boots. However, the thing about several of them was that they had no toes. Granted, it was partly because nobody was wearing them, but my point here is that there was no toe to the shoe. As in, whoever happened to wear them would have their wee little piggies exposed. Now, to me, given that these were boots – a type of shoe that is designed to protect not only your foot, but your ankle, and depending upon the type, your calf as well – it seemed a bit odd that one would go through all that trouble and leave the toes exposed.

I stated as much. Aloud. In the same room with E K and the O-spring.

“What kind of sense does that make?” I asked.

“I like them,” E K replied.

“Really?” I said. I’m sure there was a bit of incredulity in my voice, because the redhead complains quite a bit about her feet getting cold. Then I asked, “Why?”

With a dramatic sigh the O-spring took it upon herself to answer for all of shoe loving womankind: “You’re not a girl. You just don’t get shoes.”

Apparently it really is all about that Y. I guess the X’s have it…

More to come…

Murv