BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

On a recent episode of Castle, ABC’s “Moonlighting-esque” pseudo-police procedural, quick-witted “dramedy” – well, recent as of this writing which is somewhat in advance of official posting – author Richard Castle, portrayed by Nathan “Cap’n Tightpants” Fillion, was discussing with his homicide detective “partner” the life changing events that had brought them both to this point in their lives. “This Point” being what led them to be fascinated with murder and solving the mysteries surrounding same. His partner, Detective Kate Beckett, portrayed by Stana Katic, came to her profession due to the fact that her mother had been murdered. When the question was posed to Castle, he related an intricate story about his childhood and discovering the corpse of a playmate on a beach.

In response to this, Beckett is sympathetic at first, and rightfully so given the power of the tale, and the emotional response it evoked. However, within moments she asks something to the effect of, “Wait, did you just make that up?” To which Castle grins and replies, amazed that she would even have to ask, “It’s what I do.”

And so, we have the crux of the story here – “It’s what I do.”

The absolute truth of the matter is that I have stated that EXACT sentence countless times over the past decade. I’m a writer. A fiction writer. I make crap up all the time. It’s what I do…

Now, before you get the idea that I am taking them to task about this, I am most certainly not. I have yet to don an aluminum foil hat because I don’t in any way believe that someone is reading my thoughts or even following me around writing down what I say to use in TV shows. After all, the aforementioned phrase isn’t exactly some utterly unique combination of words – hell, one could even say that it was yet another homage to Fillion’s role in the series Firefly, more specifically the resulting movie, Serenity, as early in the movie he says to another character, “It’s what I do, darlin’… It’s what I do.”

Be that as it may, when it comes to making up stories, just like the fictional author Richard Castle, this real life author makes a living at it too – that’d be me, just in case I’ve lost you somewhere along this barnyard chicken chase…

There are those times, however, when also like Castle sitting across from Beckett, making stuff up is for reasons other than a paycheck. Sometimes it’s to whitewash over a painful truth (although I don’t recommend this reason, as it just gets messy and even more painful), or more importantly, in my case, to flex the neurons and keep the old brainpan engaged and entertained. Such was the case this past November 6…

E K, the o-spring, and I set out for Kansas. Not in search of Auntie Em, Dorothy, Ruby Slippers, Tornadoes, Toto, or even Wheat. Actually, a good friend was getting married and we were making the jaunt to attend the ceremony and following reception type festivities. I had dropped him a note letting him know we would be leaving STL bound for the KC area around 11:30AM. Unfortunately, we were delayed by about an hour. Not really a big deal. We still had plenty of time since things weren’t getting underway until 8 PM, however, when we didn’t arrive on schedule as expected, our friend, Duane, began to worry. Also unfortunately, due to recently losing his cell phone, Duane had also lost both E Kay’s and my cell numbers. Therefore, he did the only thing a panicky groom could do – he surfed over to a mutual friend’s Facebook page and left a note. And this, my dear readers, is where the snowball of “it’s what I do” began to form. Therefore, if we step back and look at what ensued in the proper perspective, it’s really all Duane’s fault. But, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself…

Within a very short few minutes after Duane left the above comment/message for Johnathan, we walked through his front door in Lenexa, KS. Of course, we were almost immediately subjected to a tongue lashing over not having called to say we were running late, whereupon E K kicked him really hard in the nether regions and asked him if he would really like to continue being so disrespectful to her. His response was a somewhat high-pitched “no”, whereupon she made him kiss her feet while he apologized profusely for daring to raise his voice to her supreme redheadedness. Still, as evil as she is, since he was getting married she had an attack of compassion and allowed him to live. She did, however, add the caveat “for now.” She then made certain the bride-to-be had her cell number on speed dial in case she needed her assistance in teaching Duane the proper hierarchy in the relationship. After all, E K is an expert and putting men in their place, which is usually somewhere in the general vicinity of the floor, or tied up in the basement, of course.

Then, the real fun began, and it didn’t even have anything to do with E K torturing Duane…

My phone did its little vibro dance and chirped out a metallic ding to notify me of an incoming text message. What you are about to read, with a bit of commentary added, are the actual text messages exchanged over the following hour…

5:04 PM Fri, Nov 6

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It’s Rhonda. Do-Wayne is on FB freaking customer you’re late. Give him a buzz, please. KTHXBAI!

5:04 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Damn this phone…. “freaking BECAUSE you’re late” ….stupid dictionary change my words….

Rhonda is another mutual friend. I love Rhonda like a little sister and her husband Dave like a little brother. And, I also love making stuff up to screw with them because they are both so good-natured about enjoying a well woven prank. Therefore, I had no choice but to reply with:

5:07 PM Fri, Nov 6

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You got access 2 cash? EK arrested

Her reply told me that the start of my story was misunderstood.

5:12 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Yeah, like I’d bail him outta that one. What’d he do THIS time?

Since Rhonda also knows Duane, she naturally assumed he had done something to antagonize The Evil Redhead, as he so often does, and that he was the one wearing handcuffs. After all, E K does have the “sexy dominatrix cop” costume from Halloweens past, and she’s not afraid to use it. I hastened to straighten out that particular point, lest the story forming in my head go unused, which would have been a crying shame…

5:14 PM Fri, Nov 6

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No hon kat in shawnee cty jail

5:15 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Ah. What’d SHE do?

At this point, even with it being a text message, I could sense that Rhonda was merely playing along, fully expecting my reply to be a punch line. However, my brain had been atrophying due to watching asphalt slip by the window for over 4 plus hours. It needed a bit of exercise and the story treadmill was already running. I couldn’t stop now… I mean, after all, it was a moral imperative that I see it through to a satisfactory conclusion.

As my mind raced, I also remembered something important – Whenever texting I tend to be meticulous about forming coherent sentences with full words. I’m just not the type to do text speak, unless I’m in a big hurry. It was obvious to my runaway gray matter that in order to be convincing, now would be one of those frantic times and I needed to start texting like a twenty-something.

5:18 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Argued w cop wtg 4 call frm atty

That prompted a query which told me I was on the right track…

5:21 PM Fri, Nov 6

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I’m assuming you’re yanking my chain, as you are apt to do…

As I suspected, Rhonda wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Not a problem. I was expecting as much. Besides, what fun would this be unless there was a bit of a challenge?

5:22 PM Fri, Nov 6

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I wish

My reply kept things rolling…

5:24 PM Fri, Nov 6

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I’ll need more convincing before I haul ass off this couch….

Now it was time to pull out some stops. We did a frantic search for a pair of handcuffs so that we could stage a mock arrest out on the street in front of Duane’s house that I could capture with my cell phone camera, then picture message to Rhonda. Unfortunately, E K had left her cuffs at home. Besides, we didn’t have a cop car or cop on hand to enhance the photo. I was going to have to paint the picture with words, and since that’s… yeah… what I do… I decided to become suitably distracted and leverage Rhonda’s imagination against her.

5:26 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Cant talk atty

I set it up…

8 minutes later I kicked the chair out from underneath the noose…

5:34 PM Fri, Nov 6

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F*ck! Hlding her ovr 4 bail hrng mndy

A minute after that, my phone dinged. Even the mechanical sound and jittery vibration of the electronic device came across as concerned and frantic. I read the screen, and announced to the audience sitting about the living room that the hook was set, the catch reeled in, and it was time for the reveal, because Rhonda had sent…

5:35 PM Fri, Nov 6

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We can get about a grand, probably…let me know.

Now, I need to point out something that is very important to this entire endeavor. Had this been executed in a different fashion, with me being the one behind the bars, I would have never been able to pull it off. You see, I started out being the cool writer guy and friend, but before long the redhead had taken my place. Yes. For some reason, Rhonda and Dave worship the ground she walks on. What this irresistible power she has over folks happens to be, I have no idea. My best guess is that it’s the red hair. In any event, at this point they were actually willing to scrape together cash and beat feet to wherever we were in order to rescue the redhead from the evil clutches of the local constabulary. Had the tables been turned, I’m betting it would have been more like, “You’re in jail? HA! Sucks to be you…”

Okay, just kidding. But not about the part where they literally worship the redhead, because they do and that’s what helped make the story work. While they wouldn’t have really just blown me off as far as being in jail, the joke would never have progresses beyond “Yeah, right, not buying it” had E K or Duane ostensibly been texting them that I was the “arrestee”.

At this juncture I made a voice call – something I would have done to begin with had this been real, not to mention that I would have been calling my attorney not my non-attorney friends. After all, this is definitely not something one handles via text message and we simply do not hit up friends for money over anything, period. It’s not how E K and I work.

Either way, after a single ring I connected with a somewhat frantic Rhonda. After weaving a bit more of the tale about how we’d been pulled over, E K had argued with the cop, then gone ballistic and started slapping him around which resulted in her arrest, I paused for effect.

I allowed her stunned silence to hang in the air for a moment or two, then let her off the hook, because even though Duane wanted to get back on Facebook and see how much farther we could take the prank, I’m nowhere near as Evil as EKay, and wasn’t willing to torture Rhonda any more than I already had. Especially since her husband, Dave, was in the background having a nervous breakdown while putting everything they own up for sale on Craigslist in order to raise bail money while simultaneously plotting a prison break. After all, this was only a joke and it was time for it to end before it got out of hand.

Besides, like I said, for some odd reason these two absolutely worship The Evil Redhead and we didn’t want them skulking about in the darkness trying to break her out of a jail she wasn’t even in…

And so, Rhonda called me a few choice names. We shared a good laugh. She made some threats that I am reasonably certain she learned from EKay, called me some more unrepeatable names (unrepeatable because I’m not even sure what some of them mean), and then we shared some more laughs…

A few minutes later while we were still waiting for the wedding hour to arrive, I felt compelled to warn Rhonda of impending bloggage…

5:45 PM Fri, Nov 6

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You know this is blog material

5:50 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Yeah

5:52 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Srsly 😀

5:53 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Poopie head….

While normally this would be the end, Rhonda decided to fire a parting shot…

5:56 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Plotting your demise as we speak….

But, I was ready for that one…

5:59 PM Fri, Nov 6

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You don’t scare me I’m married to EK 😉

There was only one response Rhonda could make to that trump card…

6:05 PM Fri, Nov 6

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Pbbbbbbbbbbb!

:-p’.

I suspect Rhonda and Dave will plot something good. These are some wayyyy smart cookies we’re talking about here. And, I’m certain it’ll be funny for all involved. Of course, if they get E K in on it, I might end up with a few size 7 stiletto heeled pump shaped bruises up and down my body, but what’s new about that? Like I told Rhonda, I’m married to E K – that’s par for the course.

Still, my friends should bear in mind something ultimately important about the whole making up stories thing:

It’s what I do…

More to come…

Murv

PS. BTW, if you aren’t already watching Castle, you should be.

123-4567?

987-6543?

566-3714?

I’ll be honest… I actually had some trouble deciding what title to use for this blog entry. (By the way – it will become apparent in about 4.33632 seconds that this entry is NOT about Jenny by Tommy Tutone…)

Other possible titles were:

1. “Been There, Done That…”
2. “Neener, Neener, We Were Here First…”
3. “She’s Got Legs…”
4. “160? Is That All I Get?”
5. “Blackberry? Isn’t That A Kind Of Cobbler?”

Of course, #3 was my personal favorite, but I suspect that was pretty obvious. As to how any of these potential titles fit in with 867-5309, or even how 867-5309 fits in with this blog entry for that matter…well, read on and I’m betting it will make sense at some point…

Of course, you know me. The “when” it will make sense might be a long time coming – reading-wise, that is – so, you might want to hit the restroom, refill your coffee, then get comfortable. Don’t worry, I’ll wait…

(do do, do Doo, do da, DOOOOO… do do, do Doo, DOOOP, Do doodle doodle, do do, do da, Doo, do do, DOOOOO, DOOP, Do doodle doodle DOOP, Do doooooo….) [give me a break… have you ever tried to convert the Jeopardy theme music to text? It ain’t easy, let me tell ya’…]

Okay, so everyone back? Got your drinks? Settled in? Good…

So… Since we are on the subject of converting things to text, I had occasion to spend a bit of time text messaging the other day. Now, I realize that a whole raft of you are adopting your best sarcastic voice and saying, “Yeah, good on ya’, Sellars. So you texted… You want a medal or something?”

Well… not a medal per se… How about if I put it into perspective.  You see, E K and I have cell phones… (Okay, okay, bite your tongues for a second here, I realize that’s not a big deal or anything)… The truth is, I have had a “mobile phone” since they were bigger than a breadbox and stayed permanently attached to your car. It was one of those technician things… Then, years later I upgraded to a bag phone – anyone remember those? Same as the car phone, but they stuffed all the crap into a glorified purse so you could drag it around with you. As an aside, I never did have one of the “pocket bricks” that were the size of a loaf of bread and qualified as the original “Cell Phone”… I just waited until cells were the size of double Whopper™ so that I wouldn’t have to wear a back brace while carrying it. (I’d already done enough of that lugging around the bag phone)… Of course, these days cell phones are only about a half inch shy of being the same thing as the communicator on Star Trek: The Next Generation… Just slap your chest and talk away… But, we aren’t there just yet.

Still, what started out as a somewhat flawed communications device attached to my car with a curly-q antenna has now morphed into this little flip open gizmo thingy about the size of a pack of cigarettes – actually, a little bit smaller I guess – that has eleventy-buh-jillion ring tones, takes pictures, surfs the web, acts like a PDA, and generally makes my life miserable…  And, of course, that is only because I am not packing around the latest and greatest innovation in personal communication such as a “chocolate covered blackberry moto razor iSomething-or-another”. Neither is E K. If we were, then we could probably fly the space shuttle remotely while listening to 47 gigabytes of MP3’s on top of all that stuff…

Now, I realize that may seem a bit odd – us not having the latest and greatest I mean – what with us both being techie types, even though I’ve retired from that segment of my life – well… in a professional sense, anyway… I still keep my finger in just in case I have to fall back on something… But, there goes that chicken again.

The point is, E K uses her cell primarily for work and emergencies. I use mine primarily for being able to call my girls – E K and the munchkin, obviously – when I am on the road touring and for emergencies. So, what does that mean? Well, pretty much it just means that we have a fairly basic calling plan. Ex-tee-ump minutes per month and that’s pretty much the extent of it. Therefore, we don’t “text” like most folks out there. For one, it costs us money. For two, well, we figure you call, say what you have to say, and there you go.

Now, it’s true that sometimes being able to send the equivalent of an “email” or “instant message” is an attractive option. I am more than willing to admit that fact. Perhaps the person you are trying to contact is in the middle of something and all you need to do is deliver a quick, “gonna be late for dinner” or something like that. So, I can see the allure. But, it’s just not something E K and I have ever really done…

So, here we are back around to the fact that I did do some texting the other day… No, I’m still not asking for a medal, but I think maybe you can see where this is kinda like getting your grandmother to try chicken tikka masala for the first time. It was a big deal for me to do this… Old dog, new trick… yadda yadda…

Anyway, I suspect by now you are figuring that something obviously had to  exert some manner of influence upon me in order to force a situation where this whole texting thing would happen. Well, you’re correct. As it happens it was the FBI.

(Waiting patiently for the surprised gasps to settle…)

Okay… not to worry. It wasn’t the FBI as in the whole Federal Bureau of Investigation or me being in some kind of trouble (at least, not that they’ve told me about). It was a friend who works for the FBI. He was in town on business, but had some free time and wanted to hook up for lunch and to catch up, etc… As it happens, he texts quite a bit, so that is how he contacted me. And, me not knowing if he was in the middle of a meeting or some such, found it necessary to “answer” him by texting back instead of just calling.

Well, as you might guess, this presented a bit of an obstacle for me… As we’ve already established, I don’t text. Never really have…  So I had no idea where to start. Still, I spent 25+ years as a computer tech, so it shouldn’t be all that hard to figure out.

Following the prompts I pressed the button to reply and it gave me a blank little screen that awaited my message. At this point in one of those flash back-flash forward moments I found myself wanting to pull a “Scotty” from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and just start talking to the damn thing. (Hmmmm… Nostalgia moment… I’m pretty sure I took E K to see that movie at the Northwest Plaza cinema back in ’86 shortly after we moved in together… I know, ignore the chicken, Sellars! Ignore the chicken!) Well, obviously I knew better than to babble at it, so I started poking around on the keys to make letters appear. After spending what was, I am absolutely certain, way too long to create a simple text message I succeeded in getting it sent. At this point, I was fairly proud of myself.

Seconds later, however, I was faced with receiving his reply, which in turn, deserved a reply… A bit longer reply.

Of course, I only had 160 characters. Well, that’s how it works on MY phone, at least… For all I know the rest of you texters out there can read this entire blog entry on your phone. (As an aside, are at least a couple of those potential titles starting to make sense yet?)

So, can you see where this is heading? Yeah, I know… The thing is, I didn’t want to do it, but I had no choice. Yes. I had to instantly teach myself a second language… Text Speak. I proceeded to reply with all of the necessary information required, however, I taught myself how to misspell things on the fly. I left out vowels, I replaced entire syllables with numeric values, I abbreviated, truncated, masticated, ameliorated, integrated, intimated, and generally adulterated the written word, all for the purpose of getting my point across in as few a characters and as quickly as possible. (the quickly part has to do with a whole ‘nother issue better left unblogged.)

Well, I don’t mind telling you, it was painful.

Really. I kept wanting to go back and fix the spelling errors and the like because the message looked like a teenage girl was sending a giggle-gram to her BFF (yeah, it seriously scares me that I know what a BFF is… I blame those cell phone commercials)…

But, I couldn’t… Fix the errors, that is… For one, I only had 160 characters to work with. For two, I would have been typing all day, being the inexperienced texter that I am. And, for three, I have no idea how they charge for these text messages, but I was already racking up enough of a bill as it was. If it was by the character, I would have been in deep crap…

I know… Right now you are saying to yourself, “Okay, Sellars… This little diatribe pretty much explains the “160” title and even the “Blackberry” title… But, what the hell does it have to do with the other three? Especially the one about legs?”

Glad you asked.

It was after I had labored over sending this series of text messages back and forth with my friend that something dawned on me. Kids today have this whole texting thing pretty damn easy… And, I mean besides the obvious part. You see, it was in that moment I realized I had been here, done this, worn a hole in the T-Shirt, long before the bulk of the “text generation” was even a glimmer in parental eyes.

You see, way back in the day, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and all that jazz – yeah, way back in the 80’s, we technicians carried numeric pagers. (before that we carried “beepers” that simply alerted us to call an answering service, but there goes a chicken again…) Numeric pagers were a marvel to us – yeah, I know, they even have text pagers these days. E K still carries on of those too… But, back to the numerics… They were a marvel to us because we could dial a number and punch in a number to call, so that the person being paged knew who to call instead of that extra step of calling the service, then calling the number, etc, etc… Remember, back then we didn’t have cell phones, we had to stop and find a payphone.

Okay… So we sent numbers to pagers… B F D… What does that have to do with anything? Well, being the industrious little geeks we were, we started figuring out little shortcuts. Anyone here ever watch Millennium? (that Megan Gallagher… man, I tell you…) My example here is that the main character, Frank Black, would get a simple page – “2000”. That was all it took and he would know the number to call. Well, us geeky types way back when were doing that sort of secret code paging even before Millennium came along…

It started simply enough – numeric codes established by service departments that would mean something to the tech receiving the page. Stuff like:

911 – Call the shop immediately

XXX-XXXX99 – (phone number appended with 99) Call this number ASAP.

XXX-XXXX – (just a phone number) Call this number, moderate priority.

XXX-XXXX00 – (phone number appended with 00) Call this number, low priority.

Of course, anything that starts out simply will eventually end up with layers of complexity that overwhelm the innate simpleness. Especially when electronics geeks are involved. Before long, more numbers were being added on to mean other things – almost like police call codes.

Then, it got really scary.

Anyone here remember that old joke you do with a calculator? The one where you tell a story while punching in a calculation for each element of the tale, and at the end you hit the = sign and have the punchline, which  is 71011345? or 55378008? (for those of you too young to remember this geekdom moment, if you turned the calculator upside down and looked at the display, the digital LED would be spelling out SHELL OIL or BOOB LESS… (it’s far more obvious with 7 segment LED’s than this particular font…)

So, did we spend the day saying SHELL OIL to one another, or calling each other BOOB LESS? Well, not really. There are actually a very limited number of things you can spell with inverted seven segment lettering, but we did manage to come up with a few initials that meant something.

And, what does this have to do with legs?

I knew you were going to ask that… Back when E K and I were dating, as well as during our cohabitation and early years of our marriage, there were times when I just wanted to let her know I was thinking about her. However, since there were no cell phones, and with her being in the field taking service calls that made it a bit hard. I didn’t want to cause her to pull over at a pay phone just for that.

Yeah, and?

I’m getting there… I’m getting there… As I’ve said many times before, I’m a leg guy, and E K has a fantastic pair said appendages. So, one of my fond nicknames for her, back then and even today, was/is LEGS.

Yeah, so you have a cutesy nickname for E K… Big deal… Just get to the point, Sellars…

Patience is a virtue, ya’know…

Well, to be honest I figured y’all would have been all over it by now…  But, just to cover all the bases, it’s as simple as this: Whenever I wanted to tell my dear and lovely I was thinking about her, I would simply page her with the following number: 5663714

On an upside down numeric pager that’s ancient, “First Generation Text Speak” for hi leggs:

Yeah, I know, the second “g” seems unnecessary, but remember, as mentioned in the Mahwage blog entries, she always wore Leggs brand stockings. Plus, without the extra digit in there, the “phone number” looked incomplete. And, well, since the pager belonged to the company it was our way of being “covert”…

I mean, what with E K actually being a sexy, dangerous, femme fatale secret agent* and all…

More to come…

Murv

* Regarding E K’s secret agent status. See blog entry: “Kay…Eeee Kay…” March 12, 2009