BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Kids can flat out scare the crap out of you.

Just so we are on the same page, I’m not just talking about when they run into the street without looking because they are chasing an errant soccer ball, or even when you find them trying to stick a fork in an electrical outlet. Those are definitely heart stoppers, but I’m talking about a different kind of scared. Honestly, maybe scare is too strong a word. Perhaps surprise, flabbergast, or shock might be better choices.

What I am talking about are the things they say that carry connotations that they don’t even understand. And, when you get right down to it, we’re all guilty of it as some point in our lives. I can clearly recall an incident where I said something that caused my father to raise an eyebrow one day. If I am recalling his facial expression correctly, I think it was something along the line of “crap, how do I handle this one?“

In my particular instance, it was during a fairly hot summer when central air was a pipe dream for us poor folk, and the only reason we even had a window unit was due to the fact that my sister had fallen and broken her collarbone. Since she had to wear an itchy, bulky brace, and she was only about 6, we had to keep her cooled down lest she toss and turn, which would only serve to aggravate the fracture. As I recall, that particular summer the entire family pretty much slept in the living room where the window unit was installed.

But, back to my jaw dropper… I was around 10, so I hadn’t quite entered puberty, but was kind of on the edge of that slippery slope, so I suspect my parents were already on high alert and looking for the first signs of pimples, wet dreams, and a sudden lack of “cooties” in the opposite sex. I think that’s probably what made my comment such a shocker for my dad. We were sitting in the living room, watching TV, and out of the clear blue I announced that I felt like I needed to “take a cold shower.”

My father jerked his head toward me and stared like I had just grown antlers. The reality of it is, I was hot and sweaty. I had been outside playing with friends a bit earlier, riding my bike and all that jazz, and unfortunately that window unit simply wasn’t keeping up with the heat that day. Of course, a few years later I came to understand the underlying significance of the “cold shower,” and it suddenly dawned on me why I had damn near given my father a heart attack.

Well, just the other day, I had an opportunity to experience something similar, and if my dad was still with us, I’m sure he would be laughing his a$$ off. Oh, who am I kidding… He’s probably standing behind me right now, doubled over in laughter… I just can’t see him.

So, anyway, on with my bout of heart palpitations… Whenever the weather is nice I walk the offspring to school. It’s a good way to spend some quality time with the kid sans distractions like Nintendo DS, TV, and in recent months her discovery of the telephone. It’s also a good way to get some exercise. A leisurely walk to the school, then after I drop her off I take the long way home and pick up the pace to get the blood flowing and burn some calories.

As it happens, during the week in question the kid was on spring break, so we made it our habit to walk to the post office each morning to check the PO Box, and drop off any mail we might need to get out that day. That way we stayed in the habit of walking and still got some exercise. As usual, we would chit-chat about stuff, most of which I don’t really understand, but I listen anyway – apparently there’s some kid named after a northwestern state who sings on TV, and she’s friends with some guys who are brothers in a band, and some guy in that same band named Rick or Nick or something like that is really cute. Plus, if you log on to something-or-another-giggly-wonky pets dot com, you can have a pet monster and get points or some such.

You know what I’m talking about… The stuff that is important in a 9-year-old kid’s life. And, like a good parent you listen and do your best to interact so that the child understands that they are important.

So… On the day in question, the short person was finished telling me about which of her friends in school was “in love” with which of the brothers in the band that the “state kid” knows. She was quiet for a bit, then moved on to one of her quests for information about the origins of her parents. Kids will do this every now and then… Stuff like, “When did you meet Mommy?” and “Why do you and Mommy do that kissy-kissy thing when she leaves for work?”

Typical kid questions.

Well, this particular quest started innocently enough by her asking how to pronounce the name of a particular local Real Estate firm we happened to pass by during our walk. I told her, then added that her grandmother, (my mother, who unfortunately passed long before the offspring was born), had worked there a long time ago.

This, of course, led to, “When did she work there?”

To which I answered, “Oh, a long time. Probably about 25 years ago.”

“25 years! That’s a really long time ago.”

“Yep. I think it was probably even before I met your mother.”

After a few seconds spent walking along in silence with her pondering the sidewalk ahead of us, she asked, “How old were you when you met Mommy?”

“Well,” I said. “Let me see… I think I was 23.”

“23? How old are you now?”

“Old.”

“Are you 48?”

“I think I’m 47.”

“You don’t know for sure?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s 47.”

“How can you not know for sure how old you are?”

“When you get to be my age, it really isn’t that important. But, yes, I’m 47.”

“Okay, so you were 23 when you met Mommy?”

“I think so,” I told her, then did some quick math aloud. “Let’s see, I’m pretty sure I turned 24 very shortly after we met. Then, we moved in together and a few months later we celebrated my 25th birthday at the little apartment where we lived… I definitely remember that for sure. So, yeah, I had to have been 23 when we first met.”

Kids minds working the way they do, she abandoned the whole age issue itself and asked, “What did Mommy get you for your 25th birthday?”

Now dear readers, please remember that E K and I were relatively poor back then, as I outlined in the “Mahwage” blog entries. So the love of my life made homemade stir-fry – yes, I know, I’ve pointed out that she doesn’t cook. But, when I can convince her to get into the kitchen, she makes the best stir-fry on the planet. Topping off the meal as a centerpiece of the birthday celebration – foodwise, at any rate – was a big, decorated chocolate chip cookie. This was, of course, followed by the crowning jewel, that being “adult activities”. These shall remain unwritten. Suffice it to say, they also remained unspoken, but in that moment were certainly remembered fondly, which I think added to my shock.

I shrugged and answered the offspring’s question. “A big cookie.”

My kid stopped dead in her tracks and yelped, “A Big Pussy?”

I almost dropped the grocery bag of sundries we had picked up from Walgreens a couple of blocks back. My heart jumped into my throat, my eyes bugged, and I spun around to look at her with what I am certain was horrified shock on my face.

“Cookie…” I replied. “She gave me a big chocolate chip cookie that said happy birthday on it.”

“Oh,” the offspring said with a nod. “I thought you said she gave you a pussycat.”

Upon hearing her explanation, I was able to start breathing again.

Like I said, I’m sure the departed souls of my parents are having a good laugh over this one. I think my saving grace in this instance is that we weren’t in the middle of a crowded store with dozens of onlookers.

But, just to be on the safe side, I think maybe I’ll take the kid to have her ears checked before I answer any more questions…

More to come…

Murv

Here’s the deal… I don’t lie so good.*

Well, let me qualify that… You see I don’t lie so good in person. I lie great on paper. Do it all the time. Hell, I’ve got 9 complete volumes of almost 100% pure fabrication available in bookstores with a 10^th on the way later this year. So, like I said, it’s the whole in person lying thing that doesn’t work out well for me.

And, I guess that’s why I simply could not believe I was getting away with it.

“Getting away with what?” you ask.

We’ll get to that in a bit… First I should warn you that we need to chase a random chicken or two in order set the table… Of course, you already knew that would happen, didn’t you?

Here’s the deal – I’ve given this whole lying thing a lot of thought. Now, don’t get me wrong, I was brought up to be truthful, and that’s exactly the kind of value system I am trying to instill in my offspring. But, after ruminating long and hard on the subject, I’ve concluded that there are two sub-classes of lie that are ethically permissible under particularly defined circumstances.

The first is kind of obvious – we all know that there is that occasional, proverbial “white lie” that gets told, even by the most honest person. Sometimes it’s a minor twist of words, and other times it could merely be a lie of omission – for example, kind of like when I didn’t tell E K she had forgotten to put the tuna in the tuna helper – (Young And In Lust… I mean, Love… 01/11/2009). Know what I mean? I “kinda lied” for the express purpose of saving her embarrassment. It was one of those untruths you have to use every now and then to simply avoid hurting someone’s feelings, and by default they come under the heading of tact. Therefore, if used properly they can be forgiven. Yeah… Basically “tact lies” are like “free lies”. No dogma or anything such as that attached, because it usually affects more good than harm. That’s what makes it a “white lie”. Of course, they are only sans dogma if you follow the rules.

Granted, even “tact lies” sometimes backfire, or even glance harmlessly off the target and fall by the wayside. If you let them spin out of control, however, they could detonate in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you never know who might get hurt, so you have to be careful. For instance, there are times when you might well be better off to just bite the bullet and tell Aunt Bernice that her “Famous Candied Turnip Upside Down Pickle Relish Tart” really isn’t a family favorite and you wish she’d stop serving it to you, especially since it sent everyone to the hospital emergency ward the last go around. But, you should always keep in mind that these are judgment calls. If you aren’t going to suffer any ill effects from said foodstuff, and you don’t want to make Aunt Bernice cry or anything such as that, it might be prudent to invoke the “tact lie”. There are times when you just need to say, “This is delicious,” choke it down and smile, then feed the remainder to the family pet while Auntie is out of the room.

But, this first classification really isn’t the issue here… Read on…

The second class of permissible deception is, of course, lies told in the commission of a practical joke. Now, I’m not talking about practical jokes like the kind the underwear model from “That 70’s Show” does on TV. I personally find those to be completely ridiculous. Therefore, it is important to remember that these lies are bound by even stricter regulations than “tact lies.” You see, with the “practical joke deception lie” the fun needs to be harmless. Yes, by its very nature said fun is going to be at the expense of someone else, however you need to be absolutely positive that they will be willing to pay that price. What I mean is, you simply have to be cognizant of whether or not the dupe / mark / “victim” is going to find the joke funny, or be hurt physically or emotionally. If either of the latter is going to be the case, then the fun isn’t really harmless, is it?

Now, the exception to this is a state of agitation we will call “momentarily miffed”. Generally, this is okay, in my book at least, primarily because my definition of the phrase is, “a split second of prime annoyance that immediately turns into laughter because the situation is just so damned funny.”

So, unless I have missed my guess, I think you’ve probably figured out by now that what I was amazed to be “getting away with” was a “practical joke deception lie”. If you haven’t picked up on that, start back at the beginning and read very slowly. If it still doesn’t dawn on you, simply drop me a line and I’ll send E K over to explain it. Note that if you choose the latter option you should be absolutely certain that your health insurance premiums are up to date, as E K can be somewhat intense with her explanations, especially if she thinks you are merely being stubborn or not paying attention.

So, now that we’ve fricasseed that chicken, let’s run over to the other side of the yard and chase that Rhode Island Red over there. Trust me, I’ll eventually get back around to the bucket of extra crispy I sat out on the table at the beginning. I always do…

I need to take this opportunity to point out that I’m not an actor.

First off, I don’t have the looks. But mostly, I simply don’t have the talent. It’s just one of those things. You either have it or you don’t. Once upon a time I actually did have it, but then I lost it at a very early age, somewhere along Purchase Parkway in Kentucky, but that’s not even a chicken, that’s an opossum, so we’ll follow it a different time.

Back to that acting thing – when I was in high school I was actually a member of the Drama Club. Mrs. Osthoff, our faculty advisor, was terrific. She made the whole process fun for everyone involved, no matter what the level of talent, and strived to make each student feel important. But, whenever time rolled around for us to do a school play, I was always the groomsman and never the groom. What I mean is, I was customarily tagged to be the “student director” instead of onstage talent. As far as any type of onstage part, if I was especially lucky I would be cast as the “only, and I mean only if everyone else is sick or dead, last resort understudy” for the least significant and smallest role in the play. Yeah… The likelihood of me seeing costume and makeup was actually less than me being able to get a date with a cheerleader. (Although, I did eventually marry one – okay E K likes to point out that she wasn’t a cheerleader, she was on the drill team – close enough in my book, so maybe the above wasn’t the best analogy…)

But, I digress…

Like I said, Mrs. Osthoff was good for making everyone feel important, so she painted a vivid picture of the necessity for a student director, and in doing so shored up my self-esteem. Still, I wasn’t exactly stupid. I also took it as a fine piece of anecdotal evidence that served to tell me I was never going to be hitchhiking to Hollywood and making a name for myself – at least, not on the silver screen.

However, as with many other rules, this one had an exception. In my case, it was radio. You see, as I’ve mentioned before our school had a student run radio station. Of course, the transmitter was low power so on a clear day if you had a high end stereo system, a kite attached to it by 1000 feet of 16 gauge braided copper wire, an entire 75 yard role of aluminum foil that was crumpled into a Buckminster Fullerine type of configuration and tied to the kite’s tail, then held your head cocked to the left with your tongue sticking out “just so,” you could actually tune in KRSH-FM to catch a program or two. But, this would only work while standing on top of the Chuck-A-Burger, which was positioned diagonally across the street from the school.

Okay, so maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Truth is we had relatively solid broadcast range of about 1 mile, give or take. After that it started getting a bit dicey and a good FM antenna was definitely a must. But, I suppose I should move on. What I’m driving at is the fact that one of the things the drama club did in addition to the annual stage play was the re-creation of old “Shadow” radio plays. Yeah, “who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, yadda yadda…” That “shadow”. The funny thing is, whenever we would record a radio play, I seemed to suddenly come into my own.

What I mean by that is, I would be cast in a major role. In fact, I was always cast as the villain of the particular episode we were taping. I can still remember the first role I had – I was an aspiring mystery writer turned burgeoning, sociopathic, paranoid-schizophrenic almost serial killer.

Hm… That kind of explains some stuff, doesn’t it?

Still, what this illustrated was that I did in fact have some minor sort of acting props. Just not if you could actually see me. Of course, as years wore on and I learned more and more about body language and the like, so I suspect I’d be a bit better at it now than I was back then. Not that I have any intention of trying, mind you. I’m definitely still not an actor, especially in close quarters.

You see, I have been told that no matter what the timbre of my voice, the posture with which I stand, or the gestures I make – or even, don’t make – my eyes give me away. I’m not entirely sure what it is about my eyes that betray the fact that I am spinning a yarn or hiding a truth. I suppose it could be that they are brown, and the old adage says that having brown eyes means you are full of sh*t.  Who knows?

All I can say is that I was told this by a girlfriend way back when, so I took it to heart. Back before E K and I got together, I had a tendency to wear sunglasses – or at the very least, tinted lenses – constantly. This annoyed her because it made it hard for her to “read me”… But, back then, since I was worshiping her from afar, I didn’t want to risk her catching on to the fact that I had fallen for her.

Okay… Now that the table is set, is everyone ready for that bucket of extra crispy?

Good… So, I’m sure you are wondering just exactly what it is I was lying about.

Why, Tupperware, of course…

More to come…

Murv

… To be continued in – But, It Was Right Here…

* Yes, I know “so good” should be “very well.” Don’t make me repeat my disclaimer, because if you do I’m gonna send E K after you.