BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Have you ever noticed that food modifies our social interaction in ways you don’t normally imagine?

I’m not talking about parties, or dinners with family and friends. Nothing fancy. No linen tablecloths, penguined up waitstaff, or $200 bottles of champagne that taste like crap. I’m just talking about average, everyday noms. The basic sustenance one tosses down their neck in order to fuel the body.

Am I making sense here? Yeah, I figured not. Let me see if I can explain my thoughts on this. You see, contrary to what you might think, I’m not actually a very social individual. I know, I know – I blog twice each week, have pages on all of the popular social networking sites, and I do a lot of book signings. And, if you follow any of my silliness you also know that I  have friends. Yeah, big shocker, I know, but I really do. Some of them even like me. Others, like say Rhonda and Dave are really worshipers of The Evil Redhead, although they don’t mind if I cook for them while they prostrate themselves before E K. (Note that I said prostrate, not prostate.)

Now, I also want to make something clear so there aren’t any misconceptions – I’m not a total misanthrope. Just a partial. What I mean to say is, I enjoy social interaction with my friends (Yes, Rhonda and Dave too), and I have a blast meeting new folks at book signings. However, I also like my quiet time. If you look at my Meyers-Briggs it will tell you I’m an introvert. So, while I really enjoy myself when I am “on” – which is what we tend to call it when I am being that M. R. Sellars guy as opposed to just plain old Murv – I find it equally enjoyable to switch “off”. I’m one of those folks who can become overwhelmed and needs to hit the reset button – you can ask my friends. Even when we have gatherings with all of the folks I dearly love, you will sometimes find me sneaking out on the back deck, beer in hand, just to get away from it all for 5 minutes. I’m even known to bum a cigarette now and then –  and other than some brief topples off the wagon due to extreme stress in my life, I haven’t smoked for 15 years. (except cigars, but that’s a different story.)

So, I think you can see what I’m talking about here. Or, maybe I’ve just muddied the waters. I’m good for that at times. But, either way, let’s get back to the pizza…

The other night, after a marathon writing session during the day, I was not in a mood to shuffle pots and pans in the kitchen. Nor was I in any frame of mind to socialize. This isn’t unusual when I have an intense writing day. After spending a nail-biting, totally immersed span of time in my imaginary world, I need to decompress. And so, I submitted the necessary paperwork in triplicate, prostrated myself, turned on my obsequious lackey charm, and obtained approval from the Evil Redhead to run out and grab pizza for supper.

Down the street from our home we have a chain pizza joint. It’s named after a Roman emperor. Not sure if it’s Julius or Augustus, but either way I’m sure you know which one I am talking about. The dude with the toga adorns their box. Well, as I am sure you are probably aware, they have a special deal on pizzas ready to go. Just drop in and if you are satisfied with plain old sausage, pepperoni, or cheese you are all good. 5 bucks and you are out the door in under 60 seconds – unless they are really busy. And, on this particular occasion they were…

I jumped into line and a minute or two later I was asking the guy behind the counter, “What do you have ready to walk?”

He looked and replied, “Cheese.”

Well, that would cover the O-spring, but E K likes pepperoni and I am a sausage guy. So, I elected to pay for my trio of pies and wait. So had several other folks.

Now remember, at this point I was in no mood to socialize with anyone.  My fictional characters had used up every ounce of my energy earlier in the day. My brain matter was fried. However, this is where the “food modified social interaction” suddenly comes in. There I stood next to the “Group W Wall” with a whole gaggle of folks I had never met and was never likely to meet again.

Less than a minute into my wait the guy next to me looks over and says, “What’d’ja order?”

Instead of giving him a who the hell are you look, I smiled and said, “All three.”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “I’ve been waitin’ on sausage.”

“We ordered supremes,” a couple two windows down along the wall offered.

“Special order, eh?” I grunted.

“Yeah, we aren’t in a hurry,” the male half of the duo replied.

A lady who was two or three back from me in line plopped herself into a seat next to where I was standing and said, “You know what I hate? When someone who comes in after me gets their food first.”

“Uh huh,” I said. “Kinda makes you rethink your menu choices doesn’t it?”

She nodded and said yes. The couple laughed. The guy next to me chuckled and said, “That’s a fact.”

The guy behind the counter called out one of the orders and the person who had been waiting jumped forward. Heretofore he had been completely silent, not joining into the impromptu “Group W” conversation, but once he had his pies he waved at all of us on the way out the door and said, “You guys have a good night.”

“You too,” we all returned.

Nice guy. Not very talkative, and he probably kicks his dog and steals cable when the rest of us aren’t around, but there at the pizza place he was a hell of a guy.

A minute or so later the lady who had voiced her loathing of people who were behind her in line getting their food first was called up for her order. In case you forgot, she had been behind me by 2 or 3 customers, yet I was still waiting. But, there was no animosity there. I was happy for her that she now had her pie in hand. Still, the guy next to me and I made a joke about it anyway – all in fun, of course. The couple down the wall thought it was funny. So did several other folks in the crowd. We aren’t sure if the lady thought it was funny because she was out of there so quickly that the displaced air from the door didn’t even get anywhere near her ass. I suppose that for her the magic of the social interaction was gone. She wasn’t like us any longer. She was with pizza, and we were without. She was better than the rest of us now… She had her food and it was time to “move on up”.

I really don’t blame her though. A few minutes later the guy next to me had his and was waving on the way out the door. Soon after that I had mine and was making a beeline for the exit. The couple who had ordered the supremes was still waiting. I smiled and said, “Hope yours are ready soon!”

They smiled back and said, “Us too. Have a great night!”

I returned the pleasantry and headed for my truck, secure in the knowledge that my new found friends would soon be with pizza, just as I was.

I don’t think we’ll be exchanging Christmas Cards or anything like that. In fact, if by some odd chance any of us run into one another at the grocery store or gas station in the future, we probably won’t even blink because we’ll be in ignore the world mode.

But, for a few minutes that foggy night in January through the social magic of food we were a tight knit group of friends, standing around waiting for our 5 dollar pies… Unwittingly, we had each become beneficiaries of The Pizza Effect. Of course, since everyone went their separate ways, I can’t say what each of them learned from this flash of intimate social experience. But, I definitely know what I took home.

Three pizzas. 1  cheese, 1 pepperoni, and 1 sausage.

More to come…

Murv

Part 1 of 2

We don’t have an Alice’s Restaurant here in town. I wish we did… Then I could write a song about my little story here and be famous like Arlo Guthrie. But alas, we don’t, so no Thanksgiving Dinner that can’t be beat for me… Well, that’s not actually true, but the person who generally prepares it is named Liz… Or, every other year, me… Just not Alice… I did actually know an Alice once, but she never cooked for me, so I don’t think she counts…

Either way, once upon a time we had a place called Charlie’s. Served the best biscuits and gravy this side of the Mississippi, outside of homemade of course. But, unfortunately, Charlie’s is long gone. I think a plumbing outfit is in that spot now (see footnote)…

But, I’m getting off the subject, as usual…

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, or happen to be a Facebook friend, you’ve more than likely noticed my recent tweets / status updates lamenting the fact that I recently had to deal with a bogus traffic ticket.

And, that’s the subject I am going to focus on here…

You see, this blog entry is all about Adventures In Night Court… Not the old Night Court with Harry Anderson… After all, Anderson and Larroquette were a riot, and Markie Post… Well… Let’s just say she made the screen a whole lot of fun to look at in addition to being funny.

No, the Night Court I’m talking about wasn’t funny. It was an annoying waste of 3 hours for me. Of course, it probably will be funny once I get done writing about it, because I am going to endeavor to tell you about the weird that went on during my 180 minutes in close proximity to Hell. But, as usual, that remains to be seen. Guess I’ll just have to start writing and see what happens…

Now, to properly grasp the reason I visited Hell’s waiting room – also know as the City of Saint Ann Municipal Court – we have to start at the beginning. Wouldn’t you know it, the beginning involves Hell House… Please note, that the name of the city has NOT been changed, because very simply the citation is a matter of public record… And, in that public record is the City of Saint Ann Missouri’s side of the story. Not mine. Therefore, here you have my side, being made a matter of public record as well. I did, however, change the names of individuals involved just because I’m a nice guy. The real names are a matter of public record too, but I really doubt any of you will go look them up.

And, also for that record I’m sure you will note that my story is flip and punctuated with observational satire.  Otherwise this would just be me griping about getting a ticket… However, since the officer involved elected to try his hand at writing fiction I thought I’d try my hand at writing reality. I just figure I’ll make it funny so it’s worth reading…

To make a long story short, back in early October Scuba and I ventured off to “The Depot,” better known as “Home Depot,” in order to obtain some materials necessary to the completion of a project or two over at Hell House.  One of these items was a long section of wire rack shelving for a closet. We put it into the bed of my truck, along with the other materials, then secured it firmly in the center, jutting out at an upward angle so as to not present a hazard to other motorists. It was long, and it hung over the rear of the vehicle, as one would expect. We looked around for flag material, but found none (I forgot that I had a plastic, orange emergency flag under the seat in the cab, but we’ll get to that in a bit…)

So, we couldn’t find a flag, however, in the state of Missouri, per Missouri Vehicle Regulations, revised statutes (August 28, 2009) section 307.170 item 5 – Projections on vehicles:

All vehicles carrying poles or other objects, which project more than five feet from the rear of such vehicle, shall, during the period when lights are required by this chapter, carry a red light at or near the rear end of the pole or other object so projecting. At other times a red flag or cloth, not less than sixteen inches square, shall be displayed at the end of such projection.

The piece of shelving projected 4 feet 10 1/2 inches from the back of the truck. We knew it would be prudent to have a flag, however, we also knew full well that we were still perfectly legal, not to mention the oblique positioning of the item rendered it harmless to all around us (except perhaps extremely low flying aircraft… and I mean EXTREMELY LOW.) Furthermore, if one employed the Pythagorean Theorem, the actual end of the item was only projecting 4 feet 7 inches from the rear of the vehicle as measured parallel to the cargo box.  The point here being that while we were close to the limit, we were still legal, so off we went.

Just over two miles down the road – and oddly enough, just over two miles from our destination – flashy red lights appeared in my rear view mirror. The thing is, I had seen the police car traveling alongside us. I had watched him drift back and slide in behind us. I even told Scuba, “This cop is getting ready to pull us over.”

Officer JellyDonut, though I didn’t know his name at that particular moment, proceeded to follow along behind for several blocks. I began to wonder if perhaps I was wrong, because if he was going to pull me over he had plenty of opportunities to do so safely and with room for us to pull off the road. But alas, no, he elected to make the traffic stop. But, for some unknown reason he waited until I entered an intersection. He stopped at the white line, because as I entered the intersection the green light flipped over to yellow. In my rear view I saw him come to a halt. Then, as the light was going from yellow to red, he lit up his light bar and sped into the intersection to chase me down – what with me being a hardened criminal trying to make an escape and such.

Doing as one should do, I pulled over, immediately turning onto a side street so as to be out of traffic. I parked, shut off my vehicle, removed the keys from the ignition and placed them on the dash. I then extracted my license from my wallet, as well as my registration and insurance card, placing them on the dash as well. Then rolled down my window, and waited patiently with my hands in plain sight.

Officer JellyDonut extracted himself from his cruiser. And kept extracting himself from his cruiser… And kept extracting himself from his cruiser…

Eventually, when he had gathered himself and hitched his belt up underneath a belly that Santa Claus would have endeavored to reduce, he lumbered the 35 feet or so from his vehicle to mine. This took a good minute and a half if not longer. When he arrived at my window he was huffing and puffing as if he had just chased us on foot. To be honest, I wasn’t feeling particularly confident in his ability to protect and serve should the need truly arise.

I was immediately given the impression that he was angry with me for making him get out of his car, because the first words from his mouth (once he caught his breath) were, “Where’s your flag!”

“We don’t have one,” I replied.

“Why not?” he barked.

Scuba piped up. “We don’t actually need one, and we’re just going up the road.”

“That’s more than two feet!” the officer announced in a very agitated voice. “You have to have a flag on anything more than two feet.”

Now we knew we were screwed. Number one, we had ourselves a cop who either didn’t know the law or was making it up on the fly because he figured he could. Number two, we had a pissed off cop – probably because we interrupted his lunch, but that’s just speculation on my part – and when you have a pissed off cop you can’t even reason with them. Even my cop friends will tell you that. My only hope at this point would have been to distract him with a dozen donuts, but I didn’t have any on hand.

Besides, I was taught that you don’t argue with a police officer. Enough said.

At this point, although I had been more than cooperative as well as appropriately respectful and polite, Officer JellyDonut proceeded to announce in no uncertain terms, “I’m writing you a ticket! Give me your license and insurance card!”

By the way, the exclamation points punctuating the officer’s dialogue aren’t just there to end the sentences. Everything with him was an angry declaration.

Knowing that discussion was out of the question and that arguing would only serve to get me a pair of bracelets of the type I am only good with if E K is the one applying them, I kept my mouth shut other than to say, “Yes, sir,” which is pretty much what I had been doing all along except when other words were necessary due to a direct question. Each of those sentences, however, always ended with, “sir.”

After the arduous huffing and puffing 35 foot trek back to his vehicle, the officer piddled about calling in my license to make sure I wasn’t a hardened criminal who had gone around putting envelopes underneath piles of garbage. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about that. It’s part of the job and necessary – remember, I write books about cops and portray them as the good guys. I know what they are up against. I like cops. Some of my best friends are cops (hey, I couldn’t resist that last one)… However, there’s a bad apple in every bunch, whether it be rotten to the core or simply bruised and mushy. It seemed to me that what we had happened upon on this particular day was an entire barrel in and of itself that wasn’t even good enough for making cider.

So, on with the story. Unfortunately for Officer JellyDonut, he had not captured the Kowalski* of Saint Louis. I say unfortunately because this seemed to agitate him even more. He got out of his car, and got out of his car, and got out of his car (you get the idea) then rummaged about for several minutes in his trunk. Eventually he came to the back of my truck with a tape measure the size one might find in my wife’s purse – i.e. pretty small (make all the jokes you want she doesn’t use it for measuring that.)

Officer JellyDonut then proceeded to huff and puff around the back of my truck, bending the measuring tape, slapping it around, dropping it, wrapping it around things, and generally re-enacting a scene from a Three Stooges short.  With Curly or Shemp. Not Joe, although Joe had is good points.

But, moving right along…

Scuba and I watched the officer as he measured from several inches inside the cargo bed of my truck (as opposed to the actual rear of the vehicle  from whence the measurement was supposed to be made) to the far end of the piece of shelving, all while a nice, arcing droop fell along the middle of the tape. At one point Scuba even remarked, “Do you think I should go out there and offer to hold the stupid end for him?” (the stupid end, in case you haven’t already figured it out, is the start of the tape, as in end that doesn’t require reading.)

After several more minutes of huffing and puffing I was finally presented with a traffic citation to sign, which stated I was being charged with – “Reckless driving due to not having a flag on a load that extended more than 2 feet beyond the rear of the vehicle.” It also included the wholly inaccurate measurement of 5 feet 3 inches. Please make note – Per Officer JellyDonut himself, I wasn’t operating the vehicle in a reckless fashion other than the whole not having a flag thing, which legally I was not required to have in the first place.

Officer JellyDonut informed me that I had a court date of December 1st, but that if I wished to plead guilty I could just go by the City Hall any time before that and pay the fine. He then started the long trek back to his vehicle, whereupon I annoyed him even more by calling after him and asking for a copy of the citation, to which he replied – after staring at me for several seconds as if I was some sort of alien with three heads – “Yeah, I guess.”

Yeah, I guess? I can’t be positive about this but I’m pretty sure they are supposed to give you a copy of the ticket… But, I digress yet again…

It was about this time I remembered the emergency flag underneath my seat. I asked him if that would suffice to which he replied, “Maybe.” We won’t even go into his strongly implied threat that I might very well be pulled over again because the flag was safety orange instead of red.

Scuba and I attached the orange plastic to the load and climbed back into the truck to head on our way. I watched in the rear view as  Officer JellyDonut made a swift turn into the Burger King across from which we had been parked.

I guess with all that hiking and measuring he had worked up an appetite, and it was time for something that didn’t involve jelly, icing, or glaze…

More to come…

Murv

To be continued in Part 2: The Group W Bench…

Footnote: A little bit of trivia, just for the hell of it: Charlie’s, the Eat-Rite Diner (another Saint Louis institution), and a little mother-daughter run place in small town Michigan called “The Spot” were the combined inspiration for “Charlie’s Eats,” the diner frequented by Ben and Rowan in the RGI novels.

* Kowalski is the name of the main character in a cult classic movie titled, Vanishing Point. The character drives cars for a company and… well, either follow the link in the body above for a full synopsis, or watch the movie. I highly recommend option 2, but watch the 1971 original, not the remake.