Some people eat crawdads from the bucket and toss the shells on their tray.
Other people dump out the crawdads on to their tray and put the empty shells back into the bucket.
“It’s cleaner that way,” they say. “You’re putting the trash back into the bucket.”
Except that all the juices pour out on to the tray when you dump out the bucket.
Which is right?
To me, It doesn’t matter how I shuck the crawdads and where I toss the shells, as long as I save a few tails to bring home.
(Nardo loves the smelly little things.)
Tag: personal
Never again
Every now and then, I have a drink, but not as much as I once did.
Yeah, in my prime, I was a drunk.
My college transcript was done with a breathalyzer.
Used to drink four margaritas at Cabo’s, or nine Red Bull and Jagermeisters somewhere else.
Said “Never again” enough to make Elie Wiesel demand royalties.
And my old pal Jack Daniels, well, he’s been married three times: Coke, diet Coke, and Coke Zero.
Ain’t alimony a zero-calorie bitch?
Nowadays, maybe some wine, or coffee needs a dash of Bailey’s, but just for flavor, mind you.
Drunk?
Never again.
The Black Sheep
I don’t talk to my family much.
I figure there’s seven billion people in the world, right?
So after spending years with them, day in and day out, isn’t that enough?
Compared to the billions of people I will never meet, it’s practically obsessive.
If we are all equal, why are they any different?
I mean, when you walk into a library or a bookstore, do you get the same book over and over?
Or do you wander the isles and reach for new adventures… new worlds to explore?
You can only say Goodnight to the moon so many times.
Target Cat
Nardo is a classic ginger tabby cat.
His coat is two different shades of orange in a swirling pattern.
On either side, it looks like he’s got some kind of target.
Well, it looked like.
He’s sixteen years old, and what he hasn’t licked out from his coat, he’s worn out.
Still, when he’s curled up on the bed with his “good” side facing up, I can still see the target on his side.
I reach down to pet him on the target.
His eyes open slowly…
And he bites my hand.
Yeah, the little furry bastard still has it.
The Tumbler
I keep my ideas for stories with me like a pouch full of interesting stones I collect during my walks.
When I get home, I load them all into a rock tumbler, add abrasive, and let the drum turn for a few hours.
I stop the drum, and pour it out on the table.
The surviving stones have had the rough edges knocked off of them, and one or two are nice and shiny.
And the rest have been pulverized to grit and dust.
Not all is lost, because they will serve as the abrasive for other ideas I have.
The Speed Of Think
I’m often complimented for the volume of my creative work and the speed with which I write it, but when it comes to writing, I’m actually rather thoughtless.
You see, if I write slowly, I give myself time to think.
Being a pessimist and my own worst critic, I’ll think I can’t write, so I stop writing.
But, when I write faster than I can think, I never have time to think I can’t write, so I write even more.
And the creativity comes from not having time to think of things I’ve thought of before, so it’s all new.
Verification
When customers call us, they’re supposed to answer a verification question.
If they don’t have a verification question on file, they need to log into our site and set one.
“But I’m not in front of a computer!” they growl.
I wonder if they pull this crap on people at the bank.
“I left my checkbook and wallet at home,” they yell. “I don’t know my account number. I have no ID. And I never let you put my fingerprint on file. Now give me my money.”
They are resellers, who are entrusted to other people’s stuff.
Seriously misplaced trust.
Ornaments
I’m Jewish, my wife’s a witch, and we put up a tree for the holidays.
I do it because it’s fun, pretty, and the cats like it.
Some cats sleep under the tree.
Others like to burrow into piles of gifts like mountain lions in caves.
And then there’s ones who bite off the plastic needles and barf them up.
Our littlest cat, Myst, likes to pick off the ornaments one by one.
My wife yells at her, but she keeps doing it anyway.
“Why does she keep doing that?”
(Don’t tell her I spray the ornaments in catnip, okay?)
The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Every year, I get asked the same question.
“What do you want for Christmas?”
Hrm. I have no idea.
I’m rather content with the stuff I’ve got.
Maybe an extra scrub brush for the carpet cleaner when the cat vomits, but beside that, I’m good.
“You don’t give scrub brushes for Christmas,” she says.
She dumped a pile of catalogs in my lap, and leaves more and more catalogs out for me to review.
I look through them, all full of crap I don’t want or need.
Then, I spot something.
A paper shredder.
For all these fucking catalogs.
Perfect.
Thicket
When I was growing up, one of our neighbors was a farmer who had a small apple orchard behind our house.
We’d chase fireflies there in the summer. Dazzling lights.
A ticket in the middle of the orchard was home to a family of rabbits, and our dog would chase them around.
Once, the dog tried to go into the thicket, and needed help getting back out.
I used Google Maps to look the place up, and the orchard and thicket are gone.
The farmer sold to a developer.
All that remains are memories and the scars on my arms.