It’s Not You, It’s We

The Man Crush

The original idea for this piece was something about couple’s crushes. You know the feeling, when you and your spouse or partner or whatever find yourself falling a little in mostly platonic love with the Smithersons, those cool new parents who just joined the PTO, and suddenly your inviting them to parties and going out for cocktails with them and wondering whether they would consider joining you on your summer vacation? That’s a couple’s crush. I worked on this piece for a really long time, too long, and the digressions and locutionary contortions were epic.

There was a complicated explication of crush roles and responsibilities: 

For the sake of grammatical clarity we’ll call the one with the crush the “crushee,” as in they who have been crushed. Unlike other acts of romantic violence, the crushing has no real offender, not in the operative sense of the word. The “crusher,” aka they who inflict the crushing, does not inflict harm purposefully. There is no malicious intent. The crushing is an accident, caused by their boundless, unbridled irresistibility.

And this bit, a rumination on the various types of standard-issue, non-couple crushes: 

The One-Way Crush – In which the crushee’s affections are not reciprocated by the crusher. Otherwise known as “unrequited love.” Symptoms include waiting, weeping, sitting alone in dark rooms listening to sad songs, frequent masturbation and unchecked consumption of high-caloric snack foods.

The Mutual Crush – In which I like you, you like me and we dance around the subject for the duration of at least one cocktail before retreating someplace private to collapse in a tangle of naked limbs and clawing fingers. Results are varied, running the gamut from post-coital amnesia to unplanned pregnancy and/or marriage.

The Man Crush – In which a member of the male persuasion displays an unseemly degree of interest in George Clooney. May also refer to a “bromance,” in which a man much prefers the company of his comrade(s) in gender, drink, gaming and general vice to that of his vice-averse girlfriend and/or wife.

The Wrong Team Crush – In which a heterosexual crushee’s affection is misdirected toward a crusher whose sexual preferences are clearly homosexual. Symptoms include the delusional belief that the crusher’s sexual orientation will magically change if only he/she would give straight romance a chance. Terminal.

There was a lot of other stuff too. The enterprise was irrevocably doomed when I tried working in geometrical constructs. In struggling to portray two-person crushes as lines and four-person crushes as parallelograms, I was obstructed by my own hopeless ignorance of mathematics. Four drafts, five weeks, pretty much a complete write-off. 

Mercury in Retrograde Killed My Goldfish

The Evidence

“Mercury in Retrograde” is this thing that happens a couple/few times a year when the relative aspect of Earth, Mercury and Sun make it appear as if Mercury has changed direction and started moving backward through space. During these periods, electronics seem to go on the blink and everything feels more complicated and your more mystical friends will blame their screwed up lives and dead pets on the vagaries of astrology. In this piece, I labored mightily to couple every other planet in our solar system with a corresponding temporary state and describe its influence on earthly matters; for example, “Venus in Furs,” “Saturn in Gastric Turmoil,” “Uranus in a Sling.” A wreck, really. A real “what in bloody hell was I thinking” piece of crap that took three weeks to write and shall never see the light of day. 

Sagamore

The Sagamore

Something I heard while listening to This American Life inspired me to consider my favorite bridge, and I decided on the Sagamore, one of two that connects Cape Cod to mainland Massachusetts. See, when I was a little kid, up until about the age of seven, my family lived in Western Mass and vacationed for a few weeks every summer on the Cape. Those are fond memories. Fondest of all was the feeling I had every year when we crossed the Sagamore, the true moment when you’d reached Cape Cod. We ended up moving to the Cape in 1975 and I never again had that “we’ve made it to Cape Cod” feeling. I wanted to somehow capture that; how the experience of being on vacation, of losing one’s self and one’s troubles, is itself lost when you make vacationland your permanent residence. Oh, and along the way this started to become a story about my parents and their sad, short marriage, with a bit of grisly folklore (ever heard of iron workers entombed in the bridge’s cement pilings, anyone?). More than I could chew, as they say.

Be Still My Fibrillating Atria

Back in July my heart went on the fritz. It’s called “atrial fibrillation” and it wasn’t the first time I’d had it. The first time was ten years ago and I thought I was dying. The second time was six years ago, and I thought I was dying that time too. The third time was two years ago, and I although I didn’t think I was dying I did get pretty pissed off. The fourth time? I thought I’d write about it, and did for two straight months until I changed my mind, deciding I was in no mood to cast my infirmities as entertainment for a callous world. 

But since it’s the start of a New Year and I’m cleaning up shop, I felt like some of this was pretty decent and share-worthy.  An excerpt: 

Every so often my heart does this strange thing called atrial fibrillation (also known as A-fib, if you’re feeling short on time). Technically speaking, A-fib describes a cardiac arrhythmia or irregular heartbeat. The upper chambers of the heart, called the atria, stop beating in the usual, rhythmic way, and start quivering instead. Imagine if you will a spasmodic gerbil, tweaked on meth and hell-bent on escaping the Habitrail that is your thoracic cavity. It feels a lot like that. Maybe a little worse. 

A-fib can result from poor heart health, as it sometimes does for people with coronary heart disease or severe hypertension. But people with otherwise healthy hearts can experience it too. A-fib with no underlying heart cause is commonly called Lone Atrial Fibrillation. That’s the type I am diagnosed with. I’ve always liked the name. For a cardiac condition, it sounds unusually dashing and mysterious, as if it might, in the face of extreme peril, show up on horseback, masked and mighty, guns a-blazing, to save the day! 

Causes of Lone A-fib can include an overactive thyroid, excessive consumption of adult beverages (otherwise known as Holiday Heart. If that’s not a Bruce Springsteen song, it should be), stress, allergies, certain foods and beverages, sand in your bathing suit, etc.; in other words, living. You might not be aware of this, but scientists have discovered that living can kill you. 

The trigger for my atrial fibrillation has been very consistent over time. Three of the four times I’ve experienced A-fib it’s started suddenly, with me running to my car in a rainstorm. I shit you not. You’d think by now I would have learned to stop this extremely dangerous activity.  

My cardiologist – yes, I have a cardiologist. It’s part of the A-fib package deal. Visiting his office is an object lesson in humility, to be the only 40-something in a waiting area filled with elderly, slow moving, heart clutching near-deathers. You can’t help but worry that your chances of long-term survival are royally screwed – he speculates that A-fib may be triggered by the sudden release of adrenaline in my system, the result of moving abruptly from a state of rest to a state of urgent activity. The prescription for future wellness is simple, then; DON’T DO THIS! Exceptions should reasonably be made in the event that I’m chased by something large and carnivorous, like a bear, for instance. In such a situation, a little pesky A-fib will likely come as a welcome respite from the greater concern. 

A-fib is not an immediately life threatening condition. Many of your friends and family, when they hear about this thing that put you in the E.R., will assume you’ve had a heart attack. They’ll send well wishes or premature condolences, bring casseroles and lasagnas to your house, offer to help with laundry and dishes. When the meal is finished and the kitchen cleaned up, you can break the bad news to them: you’re going to live! 

Some people require no medical intervention at all to stop their A-fib. Their heart converts back to normal sinus rhythm on its own. I have never been so lucky. Once started, my A-fib hangs on like a dog to a bone.  

If it doesn’t stop on its own, that’s when you seek medical assistance. If A-fib persists too long, like 48 hours or more, it can become quite serious, causing clots and strokes and vegetative states and other unpleasantries. Then you need to go on anti-coagulants, blood thinners and all that, bad stuff that greatly increases your risk of bleeding out from a minor shaving nick. 

There are three primary types of E.R. treatments for patients with A-fib: 

The first is called the “wait and see” approach. First time A-fibbers might be admitted and observed, treated with little more than aspirin and electrolytes and maybe a beta blocker, to slow the heart rate and convert the rhythm back to normal sinus mode.  

The second is called chemical cardioversion. This involves the administration of a little drug cocktail, an intravenous martini of various channel blockers and anti-arrythmic agents. As luck would have it, though I have no other known allergy to medication, I am allergic to a key ingredient used in chemical cardioversion. This was discovered during my second episode, when my arm broke out in hives and the itch was on a beeline for my heart. The bartender quickly unhooked me from the diltiazem drip and needled me with antihistamines until the reaction subsided.  

“Lucky you were in a hospital!” he chirped. 

The ER is life in microcosm; exceedingly long periods of boredom punctuated by brief moments of sheer terror. 

With “wait and see” and chemical intervention off the table, I’ve graduated to the third type of treatment – electrical cardioversion. 

Electrical cardioversion is performed in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the hospital. The ICU is like the Emergency Room’s Emergency Room. If someone is going to die in the ER, they’ll kick it in the ICU. And you’re wheeling me in there? Great!  

The procedure goes like this. A bunch of doctors and nurses show up and introduce themselves. There’s The One in Charge, The Alluring Doctor-in-Training and The Antediluvian Nurse Who’s Shift Is Almost Ended. I won’t remember their real names; that’s perfectly normal. I’m a little distracted, what with all those patient defibrillation tropes from popular culture flashing through my memory: “CLEAR!” *BAMF* beepbeepbeep…. 

The One in Charge explains the game plan. First, they’ll sedate me with Propofol. They’ll slip me a little Fentanyl too, “to manage the pain.” 

“Pain?” I whimper unintentionally. The Alluring Doctor-in-Training, practicing her bedside manner, makes a pouty lip and nods. 

“We’re going to start with 100 joules of electricity administered through paddles attached to your chest and back. It doesn’t feel great.” 100 joules of electricity! I don’t have a good frame of reference, but that sounds like a lot. My mind wanders some more, wondering what the toaster/fork = joules conversion rate is.

“The Propofol should take care of that. It’s an anesthetic with terrific amnesiac qualities. We’ll give you a low dose. You’ll be in a semi-conscious state, so we can talk to you, ask you embarrassing questions, shock you, stuff like that. When it’s over, you won’t remember a thing. Probably.” 

“Propofol? Isn’t that…isn’t that the drug Michael Jackson overdosed on?” 

“Good memory! We’ll try not to give you that much. So listen, people sometimes have a bad reaction to this stuff. Your body forgets to breath. If that happens, we’ll get you on a respirator. Open your mouth.” 

I dutifully complied. 

“How many fingers can you fit in there?” I liked the One in Charge. He seemed like a good guy, a regular Joe in his fleece, North Face vest; the kind of guy you could get shitfaced and go fishing with. Hoping to likewise impress him, I got a little show-offy and attempted to insert my whole fist. 

“Whoa. That’ll do. Three fingers is plenty. Just want to make sure there’s room in there for the intubation. I know it sounds a little scary, but the good news is you’re in the ICU. If you’re about to die, there’s no better place to be!” LOL! ROFLMAO! VHGJIYVYUFJMMMFAO!! Hospitals are funny.

On these sedatives, you go into a state of semi-consciousness. You’re awake, but barely alert. You’ll answer questions. You’ll register pain. Later, I asked whether I made a sound when the shock was administered and was informed by the attending nurse that I made, in her words, “sounds of anguish.” 

“What did they sound like?’ I asked. 

“AARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH! Sort of like that.” 

Yes, sort of exactly like that. Hopefully, there won’t be nearly as many “sounds of anguish” in my writing experience this year. Happy New Year, everyone!

To: Martha, From: Santa

From Wonkypedia, the encyclopedia that’s free for a reason

For other uses of “Christmas Plunger Incident”, see Christmas Plunger Incident (disambiguation)

This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources.

The Christmas Plunger Incident took place on the morning of December 25^th, 1978, when Martha Abbott opened an oddly shaped, poorly wrapped holiday gift given to her by her husband, Winn Abbott. The gift in question turned out to be a simple plunger, yellow-handled with a black rubber cup, of the variety commonly used to unblock toilets.

Background

Winn and Martha Abbott were married on May 22^nd, 1971. It was Winn’s first marriage, Martha’s second after an initial attempt was scrubbed due to a slight misunderstanding over the paternity of their son Brendan, then just an infant.

While a kind and loving father to his adopted son, Winn Abbott soon proved himself a less than ideal helpmate to his wife.  Drink was thought to be the main problem. It is often said of people in the grips of alcohol addiction that they “struggle with alcoholism,” though for Winn there was no struggle; he gave himself to it whole-heartedly.

In the years that followed, the toll of Winn Abbott’s dependency mounted. His career prospects plummeted, losing consecutive jobs as manager for a machine parts manufacturer, then as a middle school mathematics teacher, and finally landing as co-manager of a convenience store. He was quarrelsome with his wife and disinclined to come home at night, choosing instead the company of old high school and college friends at a bar called the City Line where, it is rumored, a stool was permanently reserved in his name. On the evenings when he stayed home, he would frequently fall asleep while seated on the toilet and could not be woken up, a problem in a house with one bathroom. Martha was forced to send their son Brendan outside to the backyard in order to empty his bladder before bedtime. This “pathetic display of indignity,” according to statements Martha Abbott made in papers filed for divorce, “was the second-to-last straw.”

The Incident

The Christmas Plunger Incident took place in the family home of Martha’s older sister, Barbara “Babsy Tits” Gill (1), in Chicopee, Massachusetts, where the Abbott family (including Martha, Winn and Brendan Abbott, aged 10, their only son) traditionally spent the Christmas holiday.

Others present that morning included “Babsy Tits,” her second husband Jim Gill, daughters Karen (aged 15) and Beth (aged 8); Nick and Flo McConnell, parents of “Babsy Tits” and Martha, grandparents to Karen, Brendan and Beth; and Maurice “Mo” Bronsky (friend of “B.T.,” godparent of Karen, former college roommate and current drinking partner of Winn), showing off his young, new bride, procured via mail order, whose name no one present could pronounce or later remember.

Christmas morning started normally enough, with a reasonable amount of festivity and cheer. There was coffee and cocoa with peppermint extract and rock candy; there were pastries and soufflé and German stollen dusted with powdered sugar. Johnny Mathis warbled from an 8-track. Here and there people drank a Bloody Mary, a profane choice for such a holy morning depending on who was asked. Children circled the tree like a bullying mob, gleefully trashing the carefully presented tableaux of gifts, tossing aside the wrap and the boxes and the treasures once concealed.

When all the presents were believed to be opened and thoughts were turning to clean-up and preparation for Christmas dinner, Winn Abbott surprised his wife with a final gift he’d produced from a secret hiding place, suspected to be the trunk of his Mercury Grand Marquis.

Martha Abbott accepted the gift with a mixture of curiosity and excitement. While everyone around her looked on, she weighed it in her hands and shook it by her ear, wondering aloud “what on earth can it be?”

Any warmth she had felt for her husband quickly dissipated when the wrap was torn away and the true identity of the gift was revealed. It came as a shock to Martha since “plunger” was neither a considerate gift nor an item on her Christmas wish list. In fact, the Abbott family already owned a plunger in passable working order. Adding insult to injury, Winn Abbott had left the price tag on, irrefutable proof that he’d not even sprung for a top-of-the-line model.

Reactions to the Incident

There would be many points-of-view expressed in the moments immediately following The Christmas Plunger Incident, much conjecture as to what in the world was he thinking?

The apologists in the group defended the gesture on merits of practicality. “A plunger is handy,” they said. “You’ll thank him later.” It should be pointed out that the apologists’ ranks were few and exclusively male and both were more or less ejected from their own marriages within the year for reasons only tangentially related to their opinions about the plunger.

“Maybe he had a coupon,” offered family patriarch Nick McConnell, a man who kept his money in his mattress and intimately understood the liabilities of unchecked thrift.

“Babsy Tits” Gill’s position was characteristically succinct: “He’s an asshole.” In this opinion she evidently had her supporters.

Martha Abbot’s reaction was more visceral than the rest (2). She descended upon her now estranged husband in a fury, wielding the plunger as a weapon and clubbing him with it in a manner reminiscent to witnesses of an Inuit hunter clubbing a seal. Only when she attempted to impale him with the handle’s butt-end did onlookers intervene to pry the two apart.

The Aftermath

In the days following the Christmas Plunger Incident, relations between husband and wife grew unusually cold. Martha and Brendan drove about town visiting local retailers, collecting the cardboard boxes which they would soon use to pack their belongings.

Realizing he’d taken his trademark insensitivity one offense to far, a wounded Winn Abbott strove for forgiveness. He cut back on his drinking, brought home flowers, and set an alarm before his evening constitutional, to prevent bathroom oversleeping.

Unfortunately, his efforts at redemption were too late.  On January 20^th, 1979, Martha Abbott and her son Brendan officially completed their separation from husband and father. They moved several hours away, to a brownstone apartment in the historic, former whaling center of New Bedford, Massachusetts, leaving Winn with little but his vices and the last Christmas gift his wife had given him, a medal of Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.

See Also

• Plungers
• Johnny Mathis
• Saint Jude

Notes

(1) The sobriquet “Babsy Tits” was given to Barbara Gill by her first husband, Timothy “T-Bird” Gill, and kept alive by her brother-in-law Winn Abbott long after “T-Bird” went to prison for tax evasion, much to her chagrin.

(2) There has been some disagreement whether Martha Abbott’s assault on her husband was a part of The Incident or a result of it. The author contends that the “plunger beat down,” as it has come to be called, was not a part of The Incident proper, but a response to The Incident by its principal victim. Those with differing opinions can post their own Wonkypedia articles under the provisions and protections set forth in the policies of “disambiguation.”

References

Abbott, Brendan (2011)

Who's Hotter?

The United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, aka the “Super Committee,” was composed of 12 seasoned politicians, six each from the Democratic and Republican Parties. Like exalted members of some Bizarro World Justice League for policy wonks, they were handpicked by their party leadership and sent away to some remote atomic bunker or college dorm room for three months to solve our nation’s debt crisis. Perhaps not surprisingly, they failed abjectly and emerged from their sequester like voles from a hole: confused, blinking, greased to the elbows in take-out fried chicken and Crab Rangoon. Not a pretty sight.

Of course, no human being can reasonably be expected to think “debt reduction” for three straight months, (especially) not even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Like most elected officials, these guys obviously had a little spare time on their hands. Let’s just say the conversation sometimes drifted. Here are a few more things the so-called Super Committee failed to agree upon:

The enforcement of Robert’s Rules of Order in pick-up games of paintball. Senator Jon Kyl (R- AZ) motioned to make the pejorative phrase “Move THIS, Muthafucka!” a required declaration whenever a player executed a successful hit. Before a vote could be taken, Xavier Becerra (D-CA) effectively “moved to amend” by sneaking up behind the Senator from Arizona and shouting “Butt Munch!” while unloading his pistol execution-style into the back of Kyl’s head.

A sidebar discussion over the Obama administration’s handling of troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan digressed into a heated debate over which strategy, Surge or Withdrawal, was the most effective method of non-contraceptive birth control. Partisan chaos ensued.

Breaking Bad: Season 3 VS. The L Word. “Walt and Jesse would kick those lesbians’ asses!” boasted Jeb Hansarling (R-TX) to Patty Murray (D-WA). No amount of internal gerrymandering could bring the sides together so, in a rare gesture of compromise, the Super Committee rented season two of Mad Men instead, ignoring the childish protests of Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), who ‘d already seen it and insisted on spoiling the ending.

The Hottest White House Press Secretary in History? Dee Dee Myers or Marlin Fitzwater? While everyone agreed in principle that Fitzwater resembles the Penguin from Batman, Republicans insisted that he was “way, way hotter” than Myers, with her “shockingly small bosom and Jezebel-eyes for George Stephanopoulos.” In the end, the conservative side of the rec. room invoked cloture and filibustered the vote, perhaps realizing that the position they occupied would not poll well with American voters.

Purple Haze VS. The Chronic. Super Committee members were again divided when attempting to IM their order for an ounce of “medicine” from Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) super secret, ultra-exclusive marijuana dispensary and home delivery service. Failing to reach consensus, they ended up ordering both. Unbeknownst to members of the GOP (now referred to as Team Penguin), Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), a political colleague of Frank’s from the state of Massachusetts, had a coupon in his wallet offering 20% off the second baggie (of equal or lesser value). Though the savings could have contributed to the $1.3MM debt reduction objective, they went unreported to Kerry’s committee colleagues and were instead auto-deposited to President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign fund.

The value of the gratuity paid to one Mr. Raj Donda, Mehndi Artist, for services rendered at the United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction Henna Tattoo Party. Unfortunately, Senator Kerry did not have a coupon for this.

Who is the most 1%? Super Committee members put their bank statements on the table for nonpartisan analysis by a moonlighting member of the Congressional Budget Office, who noted in her final report that everyone in the room had “more money than God.” Dissatisfied with the inconclusiveness of the ruling, they turned to an independent arbiter – the avowedly apolitical pot delivery kid, who after 15 seconds of thoughtful deliberation awarded the prize to the Republican side, for their “really bad hair and Vineyard Vines ties.”

 (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

Music grammarians made much of this popular Stones song’s lyrics upon its release as a single in 1965, pointing out the use of the English colloquial double negative resolving to a negative in the song’s title. In truth, Jagger’s balls were being tongue-in-cheek. They meant for the negatives to cancel one another out, resulting in a positive. “Of course we can get satisfaction, you silly twit!” they shouted at a particularly comely, young female journalist, interviewing Jagger for the British music magazine Melody Maker.  “We can’t not get it anytime we want! ‘Losing streak,’ our arse! We’re bloody Mick Jagger’s balls! Let’s have a bang then, shall we?”

Paint It, Black

Official liner notes attribute writing credit for the dark 1966 hit Paint It, Black to Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, but true rock insiders know that Jagger’s balls did all the heavy lifting. The titular “It” refers not to any “red door,” as famously noted in the lyrics; “It” was actually Jagger’s willy, getting far too much of the world’s attention and fomenting discontent for other members of the band inside his pants.

Let’s Spend The Night Together

In what may be the nadir of rock star narcissism, Jagger’s balls cast caution and biological imperative to the wind and fell madly in love with one another in 1967, entering a brief, torrid affair that inspired this sexually forward anthem and gave new meaning to the phrase “jumping in the sac.” Their respective roles in the relationship were never clearly sorted out or agreed upon, and the frisson of new romance quickly wore off when the right ball became jealous over the left ball’s subsequent flirtation with David Bowie. 

Sympathy For The Devil

Satanic rituals, devil worship, soul corruption? None of the above. Jagger’s balls had merely drunken too much whiskey and went off on a bombastic tirade claiming responsibility for all mankind’s atrocities. Mick, all the while sleeping like a baby, awoke to find the lyrics to this 1968 hit scrawled in blood on the walls of his London flat, along with mysterious exhortations to “mind the bollocks,” and “don’t forget to pick up milk on your way home.”

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

The ubiquity of this 1969 Stones hit is owed to the common misconception that Jagger and Co. were sharing some nugget of sage wisdom with listeners, some pure and simple, Zen-like maxim that might open our eyes to truth and beauty and fundamentally transform our innate greed to beneficence and generosity. Not so fast, Grasshopper. In truth, Jagger’s balls were singing to him. The thing Mick wanted was BIGGER balls, to which his balls were all, like, “uh, no. You get what you need.” According to inside sources, Jagger even consulted a physician about the possibility of surgical enhancement. The physician’s assistant, Angela Merkin, R.N., famously managed to distract him from the idea with little more than a rubber glove and a whiff of nitrous oxide, so inspiring another Stone’s classic, 1973’s Angie, renamed from its original, working title, Turn Your Head And Cough.

Gimme Shelter

From the seminal 1969 album Let It Bleed, Jagger’s balls wrote this tune after participating in a traditional “ice swim” while on tour in Helsinki, Finland. Mick’s cremaster muscle contracted so vigorously his testicles were rumored to have ended up in his throat. Band mates Keith Richards and Bill Wyman came to the rescue by fashioning a makeshift “Jaws of Life” out of available utensils from a caterer’s food preparation cart.

Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?

Mick Jagger was a childlike 28 years old when this song was released, on 1971’s Sticky Fingers. “Childlike” like an adult who does scads of illegal drugs and consorts licentiously with star struck groupies. It therefore came as something of a “Gordon Bennett” when Jagger one day discovered the starch let out of his shorts and his knackers, overtaxed and thoroughly depleted, drooping lower than an old codger’s on a hot, summer day. “Banging against his knobby knees, they sounded like castanets,” observed Keith Richards. Turning a bad situation to their advantage, Jagger’s balls briefly teamed up with Charlie Watts, who played off their syncopated rhythms as if they were a second drummer.

Brown Sugar

Jagger’s balls were at the forefront of the civil rights movement, about three feet further forward than Mick himself, which made for an unusual spectacle during marches. Unfortunately, one would never know that from the racially tinged lyrics of this controversial 1971 hit. “Slavery and cunnilingus are metaphors for freedom,” Jagger’s balls would later answer critics, somewhat obtusely. “Stupid wankers.”

Shattered

“Laughter, joy and loneliness

And sex and sex and sex and sex

And look at me! I’m in tatters!

I’m all shattered, shattered.”

After nearly two decades of abuse, Jagger’s balls were clearly crying out for mercy. Help came from their close friends, famed film auteur and New York City mainstay Woody Allen’s balls, who referred them to a notable Freudian psychoanalyst. The lyrics from this 1978 song were lifted almost verbatim from transcripts recorded during their subsequent treatment for anxiety and depression. Through rigorous therapy they discovered that the problem wasn’t New York or the rock & roll lifestyle per se; the problem was Disco. Having sorted that out, Jagger’s balls were given a clean bill of health, a pat on the back, and a whopping large medical bill that took the proceeds from several hastily assembled Greatest Hits compilations to pay.

Start Me Up

With the release of 1981’s Tattoo You, Jagger’s balls were ready to throw in the towel. Tired of the constant touring and increasingly unhappy about misattributed songwriting credits, they took a cue from former band mates Brian Jones and Mick Taylor and announced their resignation from the band. Start Me Up was their swan song, a final huff of good old fashioned strutting bravado made all the more ironic since even a 12-volt battery and set of jumper cables couldn’t start Jagger’s balls at this, the twilight of their career. They retired to a chateau in the south of France where they live to this day, sipping tea, puttering in the gardens, patiently awaiting their proper recognition and gold-plated enshrinement in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

When she called their two kids to let them know the news, they feared for her sanity and requested hard evidence. Frobisher, always full of adequate ideas, posed for a picture while holding up a current issue of People magazine, the publication date prominently displayed. He did a woefully bad impression of the Sexiest Man Alive; brittle, grey lips spread thin across the bony contour of his face in a wan, toothy grin.

Ellen sent them the photo in an email; the image of a corpselike figure in their parents’ kitchen, mugging for the camera, only made their worry more severe. Flights were hastily arranged, bags were packed, pets were deposited with neighbors, all in record time.

The family would finally have its long awaited reunion (the last time didn’t count as Frobisher had been dead and therefore didn’t get to see his children). Ellen was delighted. “And it only took your resurrection to get them off their lazy asses,” she noted wryly, adding an ice cube to her fourth gin martini. “It’s a darn good thing we didn’t cremate you.”

*

Their oldest, Paul, was first to arrive. “Jesus dad, you look like shit,” was the best that he could muster.

Abby, their youngest, got there soon after, her raw, red face battered by a sea of tears. She clutched her little girl to her breast for security. Scott, her wary husband, trailed behind her like a piece of worn-out luggage. The baby, intrigued by the funny green tint of her grandfather’s face, reached out and gave him a playful pinch. Frobisher’s anatomy was still a bit unstable, his skin still moldering and vulnerable to the slightest provocation. That very morning he’d gone out to the curb to collect the newspaper and found himself using it as a shield against a murder of crows that descended upon him in the dull morning light, mistaking him for a carrion meal. The baby’s playful assault caused a piece of Frobisher to fall off. Not an irreplaceable piece, thank goodness, but a sizeable chunk of flesh nonetheless. While Ellen ran off to locate the first-aid kit, Abby swooned and Paul went glassy-eyed and dissociative and pardoned himself to the kitchen to pour a drink, calling back to his father in the hall, who seemed like a stranger to him, “can I get you one as well? Or will you be going soon?”

The two questions on everyone’s lips were these: “What was it like?” and “How did you get back?” Offering further proof that he was in fact Charlie Frobisher – patriarch of the Frobishers of Wenham,Massachusetts; lifelong middle manager; golfer of unremarkable handicap – and not some hallucination mutually experienced by the grieving, he answered the second question first, as was his habit.

“I woke up sneezing in the cemetery, with a damn cat licking my face. You know how allergic I am.  Well, I was confused as hell. Thought maybe I’d blacked out drunk, maybe someone had slipped me a Mickey. Only I couldn’t recall being at a bar, or being anywhere for that matter. My senses were all ass backward. It’s like I was hearing with my tongue and seeing through my nostrils, which was tough, you know, because I kept sneezing.”

The deep, dug-out hole in the ground beside him failed to clarify his situation. Matters were made significantly more alarming by the nearby gravestone etched with his name, his birth and evident expiration dates. Frobisher shivered and checked his fingernails for signs of dirt, but they were cleaner and more trim than he ever remembered keeping them, a mortician’s manicure. The bells in his head were ringing and his brain throbbed like a hammered thumb, vestiges of a nasty embalming fluid hangover.

His senses scrambled to man their proper stations and his breath dangled in the frosty air before him like a ghost in a noose. And then he remembered.

“I would like to tell you all, but you’ll need to bear with me. It isn’t entirely clear, see. It’s kind of like a dream you wish you wrote down in the middle of night, but you couldn’t find a pen. The next morning, all you have are fragments.

“I recall there was an airplane in a lighting storm. I was on the wing, me and the seven dwarfs. Those were some anxious moments. Let’s see, what else…oh yes, I recall being on a unicycle, a very tall one, and just careening out of control while the folks around me smiled and waved, and coming to a rather abrupt and messy stop by colliding headfirst into a mountain of fresh ground beef. I know how that sounds, but it didn’t seem at all weird at the time. I recall that the buffalo wings are delicious…”

The closest Frobisher could come to giving any meaningful account of the afterlife was to say that it felt like he was the one still alive, and everyone else had died. The dwarves and the raw hamburger meat notwithstanding, life in death felt quite normal. There were no angels walking around on clouds. The light was pretty much the same. The sun rose and set, unless it was raining. The dead went to work each day. While the details remained hazy, Frobisher felt certain of this: death was a simulacrum of life, with the difference being that very strange things – the kinds of things that normally happen in dreams – seemed perfectly commonplace.

Oh, and there was this. In death, there was no such thing as death. The dead couldn’t die again. Consequently, there were no such feelings such as loss or sorrow; not in the purest sense, anyway. Yes, you might lose the keys to your Batmobile – Frobisher remembered taking his out for a 300 MPH joyride along a curvy, mountainous New Hampshire highway just before it transmogrified into a 12-point moose and left him stranded on the shoulder of the road, wearing nothing but a ukulele and a smile – but everyone you loved would be there for you tomorrow.

 “Did you see Aunt Margaret?” asked Abby.

“No sign of her,” Frobisher said. There was a moment of silence around the table, the sound of a family’s suspicions confirmed that their father’s maniacal, recently deceased sister had probably gone to hell.

“Well, what about a family? Obviously we weren’t there. Did you have a death wife and death kids?” Ellen was clearly onto something.

“The people around you are different people than the ones you knew before…you arrive to a new family, and new friends, and while this may sound troubling, these people immediately seem familiar to you. You’re at once aware that you’re meeting them for the first time, and that you’ve known them forever. Death is like a perpetual experience of déjà vu.”

“What was her name?” Ellen pressed, her question pointed and flinty.

“I think…I’m not 100% sure, but I think it was Beverly.”

“That bitch you dated in high school?! The one with the aneurysm!?”

“It’s very difficult to recall,” Frobisher said to her back as she stormed out of the room. “Like I said, I couldn’t find a pen!”

*

Abby had serious misgivings about going public with their father’s story, not that keeping it a secret was a viable option. Everyone they’d ever known had attended the funeral service or sent their condolences. The wake was open casket, eliminating the “hospital mix-up/mistaken dead person’s identity” alibi that Scott unhelpfully suggested. Someone was bound to ask questions.  

“Don’t you worry that undermining mankind’s faith so thoroughly might lead to, um, you know, worldwide hysteria? People are going to go ape shit,” was her incisive prediction.

Paul had other ideas. He had always nourished a creative and entrepreneurial spirit – while other children hawked lemonade for pennies, he self-published a series of comic digests about plucky siblings, man-eating rabbits and the perilous paradox of time-travel. And he didn’t bother selling measly, one-off copies – he sold yearly subscriptions at ten dollars apiece, achieving a minor but enduring celebrity within his elementary school and local community. In his father’s present circumstance he recognized an unparalleled business opportunity.

Licensing.

Frobisher would be a star, an icon of unparalleled renown, a celebrity bigger than any that ever lived or died, bigger than James Dean and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley and The Beatles all rolled into one. A trillion-dollar enterprise, in need of some good sound management.  Paul was never more confident in a business plan analysis then he was in this.

Abby had seen this look in her brother’s eyes before, the beady leer of avarice. “You have no idea what people will do,” she warned. “The believers will flock to our doorstep by the thousands. A pilgrimage like never before. The skeptics, too. Tens of thousands, more than our plumbing can accommodate.”

“We’ll get Porta-Potties,” Paul said.

“How about crowd control? Have you thought about that, Paul? This town doesn’t have enough cops to manage that kind of crowd. You’ll need to conscript the National Guard. Our neighbors are going to be so pissed.”

“Don’t be such a Cassandra. Look at this t-shirt design I made up.”

*

Frobisher was not a religious man. Raised Catholic by parents whose adherence to the strictures of the church was at best half-hearted, he remained a member of the congregation just long enough to receive first communion. He was never confirmed, never attended confession, and recalled almost nothing of the Holy Scripture. Whenever “The Bible” came up as a category on Jeopardy, he would shout out “What is Leviticus!” in answer to every clue, a strategy which had a very low success ratio.

Father Sheahy, head of the local diocese, paid them a visit at Ellen’s behest to offer spiritual perspective and advisement. He ingratiated himself with the family by arriving with a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies. When Ellen, intending a compliment, blithely referred to them as “sinful,” the Father hiccupped a nervous chuckle.

“There are a handful of resurrection stories in the Bible. The most popular one you probably know. ‘And the third day he rose again,’ so goes the Nicene Creed. I’m speaking of Christ, Our Savior, of course.”

Ellen pardoned herself and reached across the table to grab a second cookie. Frobisher nodded and scratched absent-mindedly at his forearm.  He had lately shown some promising signs of healing; a flush of pink was returning to his cheeks, his ears and extremities. Mottled with the cadaverous green, his face faintly resembled the textile pattern on a preppy tie. With the slow healing, his skin had recently become extremely itchy.

“There are others?” he asked.

“They pop up here and there. Peter raised Dorcas. Paul raised Eutychus. In the Gospel of John, Jesus resurrects Lazarus. It was an exceedingly rare event, as miracles tend to be. Saved for special occasions, you might say. When someone needs to prove a point.”

“What about this?” Frobisher gestured to his face and hands, which though they were on the mend still appeared a bit decomposed. “When Jesus was resurrected, he didn’t look as bad as this, did he?”

“Well, he was only dead for a day and a half. That accounts for it, I’d say. Not much rotting to be done in a day and a half.”

Ellen wiped some chocolate from the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “Father Sheahy,” she said. “What about immorality? Is it possible that Charlie is immoral?”

“Immortality,” Frobisher corrected her. Ellen was still a little woozy from the effects of alcohol and depressants. He reached beneath the table and patted her knee.

Father Sheahy smiled. “While it isn’t a foregone conclusion, I would say – given the course of recent events – anything is possible. Unfortunately, there’s only one way to find out.”

“What’s that?”

“We’d have to try and kill you, naturally. Not that I’m advocating such a thing…”

*

Vans from the local news affiliates lined up along the curb, their mast-like antennae extended high into the sky, ready to transmit Frobisher’s story over roof tops and tree canopy. The lawn was littered with collapsible camp chairs and coolers. Several camera operators, large men with baseball caps and bushy beards, sat around a folding table, passing the time with a game of rummy, cupping their cards in their hands to prevent reflection in their mirrored, aviator sunglasses. Reporters dressed as if for job interviews paced the corners of the yard, talking to themselves, practicing their lead-ins, eager for their once-in-a-lifetime shot at the national news.

Paul was out there too, cordially receiving their guests, handing out some of the hundred promotional coffee mugs he had screen printed with the photo his mother had sent them; Frobisher, looking very cadaverous, beneath the tagline:

Resurrected and it feels so good!

Charlie Frobisher

1953 – 2010

2010 – ???

 The scorch of his mother’s and sister’s disapproval seared his face as he came through the front door.

 “Why do you assume it was me?!” he protested. “It could have been a neighbor who tipped them off! Dad hasn’t exactly kept a low profile, taking out the trash and all that. It could have been Scott,” he said, waving a thumb at his brother-in-law, an unlikely scapegoat, fallen asleep on the sofa while watching a baseball game. “It could have been that priest!”

“You’re father isn’t ready for this! He’s very self conscious about his looks! He hasn’t even seen a doctor yet!” Ellen was shrieking. She was hoping to keep her husband’s situation a secret. While she hadn’t completely thought through the logistics, she had settled on a strategy of implausible deniability. They would simply reintroduce Frobisher into mainstream life and pretend like nothing untoward ever happened. Most people wouldn’t say a thing, figuring they were the ones going crazy. Others might casually mention the funeral service, but Frobisher and Ellen could breezily dismiss it as “a misunderstanding” and quickly change the subject. This was Ellen’s plan. The media circus setting up a midway on their front lawn was seriously foiling it.

Frobisher wandered in, carrying an open beer bottle and a bowl of pistachios. “Can you guys keep it down? Poor Scott is trying to sleep,” he said, turning sideways to shuffle past them in the narrow hall on his way to his favorite living room chair. He stopped to peek out a window and let out a low whistle.

“They’re here to speak to you, dad. Have you had a chance to look at the notes I gave you?” Like any good publicist, Paul had prepared his client with talking points to sate the media.

“Why can’t I just tell them the truth?”

“Because frankly the truth kind of sucks. Don’t get me wrong, the beginning is strong. The part where you’re taking a shower and then BAM, you shed the mortal coil, pulling down the shower curtain with you, I kept that in. And the end, where you wake up next to your own grave with a cat licking your face? That is fucking dynamite!”

“LANGUAGE!” Poor Ellen was apoplectic. Abby gripped her mother’s arm tightly, staying it from lashing out and slapping her insensitive older sibling across the face. Paul ignored them both. He was on a roll.

“But the middle…the middle is weak. You’re going to lose the audience with that crazy shit about dreams. If people discover that heaven is all rainy days and 9-5 work schedules and cars with noisy mufflers, they’ll get so depressed they won’t even want to kill themselves. People can’t bear very much reality.

“Take the moment you realized you were dead. You said that you woke up in a hotel bed next to some woman who was not your wife…”

“She was my death wife. There was no hanky-panky going on.”        

“Regardless, it isn’t exactly family-friendly. We’re going to have a lot of kids watching. Instead, I think you should tell them there were clouds and harps playing. Tell them you stood in line at the pearly gates, shook hands with Saint Peter. Say you got fitted for your wings! Endorse the clichés! Give the people what they want!”

“I haven’t showered”

“No hurry. I’ll keep them entertained. Oh, and dad? It wouldn’t hurt if you threw a little God in there too. It’s in the notes. See bullet five.”

To be continued…but don’t hold your breath.

This dude pressed “Exit”. Shit is serious.

Near the top of every modern day remote control are a series of buttons indicating the various pieces of electronic equipment you have stacked in your walnut-brown entertainment console like a ziggurat to the Gods of Home Media: VCR, DVD, AUD, TV, CBL. Pushing CBL/Power followed by TV/Power makes television shows appear, that much you know. You need to push the CBL button again if you wish to access the interactive program guide, and the TV button again if you want to adjust the volume. Don’t touch any of the other buttons, for the love of God. VCR, DVD and AUD are known as the “Fuck Everything Up Buttons.” And see that button in the upper right, the one mysteriously labeled STD. I wouldn’t touch that one unless you have cheap, unlimited access to antibiotics.

Actually, the remote control is silly with buttons you’ve probably never touched. If you’re anything like me, you’re afraid to touch them for fear that they’ll unlock a door to some other dimension, or at the very least royally screw up your television. To you I say this – fear is good. Let us review:

The “Master Power” Button

Don’t be flattered by the naming of the “Master Power” button. You are not the “master” of anything. It’s a canard. The “Master Power” button is the cable company’s version of the famed Milgram experiment in social psychology, a means to test your obedience to their authority. Unfortunately if you wish to watch American Idol, you’ll need to press this button. Just know who’s in charge. 

The “Set-up” Button

The Set-up Button is the portal to a Matrix-like web of menu options that will confound your faith in the objective reality of existence. Pressers of the Set-up Button can only be saved by an emergency, two-hour phone date with a thickly accented, unduly deferential customer care provider who serves as a kind of home electronics shaman and apologizes a lot. You’ll live a much simpler, happier life if you don’t press the Set-up Button.

 The Buttons of Redundancy

Somewhere on your remote you’re likely to find a cluster of buttons with names like “Guide,” “Info” and “Menu.” These pretty much all take you to the interactive program guide, owned and operated by the bots who hostilely overthrew the publishers of the once-popular, weekly periodical TV Guide. There may also be a button named “Settings.” This sounds a bit too similar to “Set-up,” if you ask me. I think it’s a trap. Oh, and the button marked “Exit”? I know a guy who knows a guy who pushed it and woke up with a black eye at the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel, Weehawken-side. You have been warned.

The “Answers” Button

What does this button do? Is it like some kind of Magic 8-Ball, filled with fortunes and good, sound advice?

 Q: Is there a reason why I can’t DVR more than two shows at a time?

A: As I see it, yes. You’re looking a little fat there on the sofa. Go out for a walk or something.

Q: Should I watch the MTV show Skins?

A: My sources say no. You’re too old for that shit. People will think you’re a perv.

True story: because I am a crackerjack researcher, I elected to press the “Answers” button and, well, get some answers. Without explanation, the station mysteriously changed to something called Kid Shows On Demand. I am left to assume that the Question, preprogrammed by Time Warner for the convenience of busy and/or distracted parents, is something like “mindless activities to distract my impossibly needy, pain-in-the-ass children?”

The “Aspect” Button

Once upon a time my sturdy, dependable, 500 pound, solid-state Magnavox television – the same one I’d been watching for 15 years – utterly shit the bed, and I was forced to upgrade to a newfangled, flat screen, HD Samsung. High Def! I was pretty excited, particularly when, while watching Lost, I could actually see the dirt trapped in Ben Linus’s pores. Then something strange and calamitous occurred. I noticed that the tip-top of everyone’s heads were cut off, and the info ticker that runs along the bottom of most news programs had similarly disappeared. How did this happen? No matter what I tried, I couldn’t fix it. I was just about ready to box the TV up and return it as defective when I thought to call my thickly accented, unduly deferential friend at Time Warner Customer Care.

 “I’m sorry, Mr. Tabb. You must have accidentally pressed the Aspect button. Press it again and everything should be fine. Very sorry.”

 That was irritating.

 The “Fav” Button

Don’t be fooled by this button, “Fav” isn’t even a word. Oh sure, maybe its short for “favorite,” but according to the helpful web site www.all-acronyms.com, it might also stand for “Fast Attack Vehicle,” “feline ataxia virus,” or “floppy aortic valve.” If any of these things show up on your doorstep, you’ll be awfully sorry you pushed the “Fav” button. Not worth the risk, I say.

The “Live” Button

Think about it. Virtually everything on television is pre-taped. Even sporting events and awards shows and Saturday Night Live are on a short broadcast delay, to filter out obscenities and wardrobe malfunctions. It’s not as if you can just flip to live programming whenever you please. So what is this “Live” button, and what does it do?

The problem is one of grammatical usage. Because this is television, we assume that “Live” is an adjective; that we will see real, live people doing real, live things in real time. Wrong! The word “Live” on your remote control is actually a verb. If you press it, your TV will self-destruct and you’ll be forcefully jettisoned into the actual, participatory world where people LIVE, where they interact and physically engage and almost no one knows who Boston Rob is, never mind how many times he’s lost Survivor.

Sounds terrifying, right? I seriously wouldn’t advise it.

Originally published at Writing Writer Writest, March 3rd, 2011.

My Big Fat Greek Jaw.

The length of time you’re a member at a health club is inversely proportional to the amount of exercise you’ll get there on any given day. Newcomers exercise the most. Sheltered by their anonymity, they’re free to lift and crunch and squat and grunt without the disruption of idle chatter.

We veterans of the gym, survivors of the fitness fads of the last decade – kettlebells and cardio striptease, Pilates and Zumba, Shake Weights and Thighmaster – we barely exercise at all anymore, at least not in the traditional, holistic sense. Who can find time, what with all the talking?

The regulars do a lot of talking. It’s tough to avoid. When you see each other three or four mornings a week, every week for years, you naturally find yourself getting a little chummy with the naked guy standing next to you in the shower. Not like mind if I share your soap chummy – just friendly and sociable. Although I have once or twice unwittingly transgressed an invisible boundary by complimenting a fellow gym member on the invigoratingly spicy scent of his peppermint body wash. That’ll get you a few weird stares.

Over time, talking has replaced my old workout routine. It’s a good thing too since weight lifting made my muscles sore and cardio made my heart beat really fast, like any second I might keel over from a massive myocardial infarction. I pay too much money in monthly membership fees to die in this gym.

Let’s just say that all the chit chat hasn’t amounted to wasted time. When performed correctly – not idly, but with intent and purpose and plyometric intensity – talk can be an excellent form of exercise. Though my calves and quads and traps and delts are verging on total atrophic collapse, my jaw is in tremendous shape.

Not to brag, but I’ve got a jaw that would make Jay Leno and Maria Shriver clench with envy. The muscles of my jaw are seriously ripped.

Training an iron jaw requires an almost single-minded devotion to chatter. The repartee out here on the gym floor is voluble, fast paced and prone to change direction without notice. If you’re not in top verbal form you risk giving yourself a temporomandibular hernia.

My warm-up involves five minutes on the recumbent bike, brushing up on the latest celebrity gossip with a tattered, community copy of US or In Touch; five minutes on the mat doing some ergonomically dubious abdominal crunches and other humiliating genuflections (got to keep that diaphragm toned for optimal projection); and 10 minutes of vigorous gum chewing. Two pieces of thick, rubbery grape-flavored Bubble Yum can really help to loosen up the old pie hole.

The guys I work out with have been doing this for a long time. At forty-something, I’m the youngest by about a generation. They’ve really taken me under their flaccid wings. We’re kind of like The Klatsch – not the rebellious, politically active English punk rock group of the late 70’s, but a bunch of old men clad in breathable, moisture-wicking fabrics, sitting around a coffee shop, chomping on Swisher Sweets and trading war stories about prostate exams of yore.

To the unschooled eye it might appear that we’re just loitering around the Thigh Abductor machine, shooting the shit, critiquing the anatomies of other gym members outside our exclusive coterie. They’re right on that last count, but there’s so much more to our fitness program than that.

Mike H. has been teaching his kids the value of a dollar. Ronny D. is a master on the subject of motor oil viscosity. Jimmy P. is a walking, talking, local police blotter. Todd R. is well respected for his dialectical exegesis of the day’s horoscope. And me? I have an uncanny ability to presage the tribulations of Charlie Sheen on any given day. Frankly, my contribution is little more than a parlor trick: hookers, coke, cutlery, Two and a Half Men. I’ll never be too far from the mark, though those gold teeth really caught me off guard. Nonetheless, Jimmy P. is awestruck by my special skill. “It’s like you got unfettered, real-time access to the GPS coordinates of his Hollywood Sock,” he marvels.

Our routine is designed to hit the whole jaw; the large and small muscles, the fast-twitching and the slow-twitching muscles, for balanced strength and tone. Exercises include the Witty Repartee, the Derisive Jesting, the Insulting Retort and the Backhanded Compliment. There’s also the Stage Whisper, the Hearty Guffaw and the Gratuitous F-Bomb. We try to do about three sets, twenty reps of each. Mike H. is a hell of a guy to have around during these workouts. He’s an excellent spotter.

I know I’ve really put my jaw through its paces when I’m out of breath and my coffee cup is empty. Next comes the cooling off period. For me that involves 5 or 10 minutes watching the Today show in the member lounge. I don’t know if it’s the real deal, or just an illusion caused by the 55” large screen television, but Matt Lauer has an outstanding jowl.

Then it’s back to the locker room, where the cronies and I unfetter ourselves of those confining gym clothes and strut around like paunchy Roman statesmen at the public bath. We shave, we stand on scales or lounge in the sauna, our towels strategically draped to avoid getting staphylococcus on our dangly bits. If you think about it, it’s really a continuation of our workout since we’re talking all the while. I guess you could say we’re “peacocking,” showing off our handiwork, mandibular and otherwise.

They say that a strong jaw line indicates strength and fertility. Judging by the stares I get out in public, the way people shrink from my presence, it clearly makes me more intimidating. And why wouldn’t it?  My masseter is so chiseled it makes granite weep. My temporalis bulges with predatory crushing power. My pterygoids are absolutely popping. I mean literally, when I chew, it sounds like someone is twisting a sheet of bubble wrap.

For illustrative purposes, if a tight, toned abdomen is said to resemble a “Six Pack,” then my jaw compares favorably to a “Day Laborer’s Lunch Box”; squarish, sturdy, roomy, capable of safely keeping a sandwich, thermos of soup, apple, chips, cookies and a six pack. Actually, I’m a little concerned that my jaw is getting too big. It’s throwing off the symmetry of my face, causing the shape of my head to resemble a grotesque pear.

Maybe it’s time I start looking for a new gym.

"Yep, you definitely got a bad case of bird's nest in your arse."

The house next door was vacant for a long time. Foreclosed, bank-owned, it was in such extreme disrepair that animals had moved in and taken over. Raccoons were having vocal, non-consensual sex in the branches of the oak outside your son’s bedroom window. Bats were pimping. You swear you saw a possum shooting up. It was like Menace 2 Society: Wildlife Edition.

Thankfully, a contractor came along and bought the place, evicted the beastly tenants, and restored it to its former grandeur. Now the work is complete, the house is under contract, and soon you’re expecting new neighbors!

Waiting for new neighbors to arrive can provoke anxiety. You’re never sure what you’re going to get. Will you get good ones — warm, generous, funny people who eschew lawn statuary and enjoy cocktails on the porch at dusk? Or bad ones — trash hoarders, serial porch screamers, and owners of untrained pit bulls?

No wonder you’re feeling unsettled. You’ve got a lot at stake. If they’re bad neighbors, you have little recourse short of moving. Or arson. But don’t get carried away. In uncertain situations, it helps to think positively. We recommend that you practice a little visualization:

Expect them to be a husband-wife team of professional physicians, the kind who will gladly share useful medical advice and possibly even administer free care in emergencies and will not recoil in ethical horror when you semi-jokingly plead with them to write you a prescription for medical marijuana.

Expect them to have a pantry larded with the rarest spices known to mankind, and a similarly high-quality CD collection, along with a very liberal lending philosophy.

Expect them to fill the air with the delicious smell of bacon every Sunday morning. Also, expect them to save you a piece. And a steaming hot cup of coffee. It would also be good if they didn’t ask too many questions about their missing New York Times.

Expect them to be insanely hot, the sort of hot that keeps you up at night tossing in your bed, imagining all the freaky-deaky, neighbor-on-neighbor sex-capades that might transpire in an alternate, spouse-swapping universe.

Expect them to casually mention inviting your family over for dinner someday. Don’t expect that will ever actually happen. If you invite them for dinner at your house, expect them to accept your invitation, only to back out at the last second, claiming migraine or back spasm or dissociative fugue. Try to remember, being a doctor is stressful.

Expect them to close their windows and keep the screaming down when they’re intercoursing. Unless they’re insanely hot, in which case you can and should expect them to keep their windows open wide and to project and enunciate their enthusiasm, like some raccoons you used to know.

Expect them to maintain a fast and powerful unencrypted wireless network connection that you can pirate anytime, day or night.

Expect them to leave their sidewalk unshoveled after winter storms. They are physicians after all, busy tending to the needs of elderly patients who have injured themselves shoveling their own sidewalks after winter storms. Be a good neighbor. Shovel for them. Especially if they’re hot.

Expect their hotness to increase the overall hotness quotient of the neighborhood by at least 2,500 points, and your property value assessment by approximately $15,000.

Expect free babysitting.

Expect their kids to be the same gender as your kids, just a little bit older and one size larger at any given point in time, so that you can reap the benefit of well-maintained, designer-label hand-me-downs.

Expect them to show up at the neighborhood cookout with expensive micro-brewed beer and fine cuts of steak. Enough for everybody. Expect them to raise their eyebrows a little when your ill-mannered children bogart the s’mores.

Expect them to have a pain-in-the-ass dog that barks at every passing car and snarls at you every time you take out the trash and occasionally breaks loose to terrorize your children. Oh wait. That’s your dog.

Expect their cat to use your vegetable garden as its litter-box-away-from-home.

Expect them to participate in the annual neighborhood camping trip. Expect their gear to be a lot better and more watertight than yours. Expect them to emerge from their five-room, air-conditioned tent in the morning looking like L.L. Bean models. Expect them to have a kick-ass camping coffeemaker powered by the wind and their fine looks and minty fresh breath. Expect to accidentally sink one of their very expensive kayaks. Expect them to look a little uncomfortable when the next night’s campfire, a real barn burner fueled by pressure-treated wood, old car batteries, and polyurethane children’s toys, rises to apocalyptic heights, causing the leaves of nearby oaks to curl up and die.

Expect them to someday discover that you wrote that “freaky-deaky, spouse swapping” thing about them, probably by reading it on your stupid blog, and for relations between your families to grow painfully distant and palpably uncomfortable as a result.

Expect them to be distraught when their garden-pooping cat goes missing. Expect them to remember that time when you said you weren’t “a cat person.” Expect to be at the top of their list of suspects in the cat’s disappearance. Expect them to plaster the neighborhood with tear-stained signs offering a surprisingly generous reward for its return.

Don’t expect to receive said reward when you discover their cat accidentally trapped in your garden shed.

Expect your requests for a prescription refill to go unanswered.

Expect them to erect a full privacy fence along the border between your properties. Expect that any handwritten note of apology attached to a ball or Frisbee and thrown over the fence into their perfectly manicured yard will also go unacknowledged.

This article was originally published by The Morning News, December 14th, 2010.