I’m Sooooo Confused

Okay. We all know I’m not too bright. Indeed, Dumb As A Brick springs to mind. And we’re not talking a high quality class o’ brick here, Buckeroo. Not one of those snotty red ones with pressed corners. No. We’re talking cinder block. The kind that have big empty spaces in the forehead.

That being the case, I get confused. A lot. With extra stupidity and a large side of dim. In fact, you may consider what follows today as an official SOS, Mayday, and Oh-Heck-&-Halitosis we just took a low yield nuke up the left nostril. Which is all to say that I’ve say that I’ve listed some things below which really, Really, REALLY confuse me and I’m hoping someone out there—some wise and informative soul—will explain ‘em to me.

So, put your thinking caps on, assume a learned expression, and please send me your answers ASAP. Or, failing ASAP, then just generally SAP. People say that a lot about me. He’s the biggest SAP I know, they say. Nice to know that I’m outstanding in my field…

Anyway, here goes:


*

In the news recently there have been a number of disturbing stories about environmental/animal rights terrorism. There have been multiple fire-bombings of the offices and even the homes of individuals whom activists have judged unworthy of life. A neuroscientist at UCLA who uses animals in his work had his car blown up (it was a matter of only luck that he wasn’t in it at time). Last year, another scientist AND her family were attacked in her own home by SIX masked animal rights activists. Meanwhile, the FBI has officially listed Daniel Andreas on its most wanted list. Andreas allegedly firebombed the offices of companies and organizations that he felt were anti-Earthish.

But, the people responsible for these things are just a few extremists, right? Just a few crackpots? The bad apples which spoil the barrel of quite legitimate animal rights activists? Responsible organizations, like, say, People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) would never, ever, dream of doing such things, would they?

Right?

Well, then, how to explain another story, also in the news, but somehow not receiving a lot of attention? Everyone knows about how the Obama family got a new puppy. Less know is that Vice President Biden’s family also got a dog. They bought a little German Shepard pup from a legitimate and humane breeder by the name of Linda Brown.

Now, remember, the People Who Know Best have been telling us for years that if we’re going to buy a dog, we should only buy from a Breeder. They aren’t like those nasty “puppy mills” that used to supply pet stores. So we should all give kudos to the Bidens and we should all be happy, right?

Wrong. PETA decided that the Bidens should have gotten their new dog from a shelter. Much more humane, you see. BUT, Biden is vice president of the United States. He has all these Secret Service agents around him. Hard to get through a wall of Secret Service agents. They have guns. They shoot back.

So who does PETA go after instead?

You got it, Linda Brown.

She was PERSONALLY singled out for abuse in the organization’s advertising campaigns. Her business was repeated inspected by state authorities (apparently acting on PETA’s allegations that she was running a puppy mill) and, while she was ultimately cleared, she was out some $4000 in legal fees.

She is quoted in the press as saying that she will never, ever again sell a dog to anyone famous.

Now, all of this leads one to uncomfortable places. If there is a difference between the animal rights extremists and PETA, then why has PETA attempted to ruin the life of an innocent person? How far is it removed from the firebombs of the fanatics? How close is it to the masked thugs who invaded the home of a woman and beat up her husband?

And most of all, how do we bring ourselves to believe that this organization is benign? How do we convince ourselves that it doesn’t have, at its heart, cruelty rather than kindness? That its activists are not motivated by a love of the earth, by rather overt sadism? Who delight in making other humans suffer in the name of a good cause?


*

Next thing that confuses me…

There has been quite a bit of furor of late regarding the Obama recovery plan. I don’t know whether it’s a good one or not (I can’t balance my check-book, much less understand how to keep the national economy running) but it has been interesting watching the debate itself. Most (but not all) liberals and progressives are for the plan. Most (but not all) conservatives and libertarians are against it.

But, most interesting of all has been the “Tea Parties.” Certain groups of conservatives and libertarians are presenting their opposition to government intervention into the economy as resistance to tyranny, and so they link their protests to the Boston Tea Party of the Revolution. As you’ve doubtlessly heard, they state that their goal is to “teabag the White House”—this, of course, to the great benefit of late night talk show hosts and The Daily Show. Always nice to be handed a punch line on, as it were, a silver platter.

Okay, but what is far more curious is that “the Tea Party” begins to look more and more like a political organization, perhaps even an alternative to the GOP. That’s fine…political activism is an American right . . . but where things get hinky is in the Party’s relationship with Fox News, which has (more or less) openly sponsored the movement. Indeed, despite repeated (and heated) corporate statements to the contrary, there is some speculation that Fox basically created the Tea Party in all its baggy wonder.

Oh, and Fox News itself has become famous (some would say infamous) for its ultra-nationalist, ultra-Americanist, super-patriotic commentators, weeping over the fate of the nation, and launching into barely coherent rants about crypto-communism in the Oval Office.

But . . . Fox News is owned by Fox Broadcasting…which is owned by Fox Entertainment…which is owned by News Corporation . . . which is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Now, Murdoch is (at least according to the Wikipedia entry I just scammed) now an American citizen. But, he was born Australia and spent of his career there and then in Britain where he was associated with right-wing political organizations. He only moved his company HQ to the United States in 2004.

So, here we have the Tea Party, an organization presenting itself as the defender of American values and American liberty, that is (in effect) controlled and created by an Australian multi-billionaire who has spent most of his life anywhere but America.

And nobody seems to mind.

Which confuses me.

I mean, suppose that someone from some other country, say, China or Egypt, were to move to the US, buy a TV station, and began preaching Liberalism…

Can you imagine…even begin to imagine!…the pure hell sh*tstorm that would follow?


*

Last thing that confuses me…two apparently unrelated stories.

First story: like most everyone else with access to YouTube I was stunned by the performance of Susan Boyle, the Scot who appeared rumpled and plain on a TV talent show and then proceeded to blow-away the place. Like most everyone else, I found her story inspiring and her talent amazing. And, maybe, the thing I loved most about the whole affair was the sight of the program’s smirking judges getting plastered to the wall.

However, here’s the kinky thing. Since then, I’ve started to pick up jeers in the news and on the ‘net. A number of self-described critics are saying that Boyle is some kind of fraud. Those Who Know Best have begun to say that she was not as poor, as lonely, as disadvantaged as we thought… merely ALMOST as poor, lonely and disadvantaged. Therefore, they say, we should reject her. They say she is a fake Horatio Alger story, manufactured for the sake of ratings, and that we should not consider her “real.”

How profound and insightful of them, I’m sure.

Second story: In the news today I see that two men in Michigan have been arrested for (prepare yourself) burning a six year old child with a blow torch. The report, as I have seen it, is that the two men were brothers. One of them was the child’s father. For reasons not revealed, they allegedly took the torch to the child … for amusement? As a punishment? For simple cruelty’s sake? We do not know.

The men are in jail. The child is in protective custody.

And here’s what confuses me.

Given the second story . . . given its horror … given what it may say about us as a society, why does the first story exist at all?

That is, considering the enormity of the problems facing us, all the places where we might expend our energy to protect the innocent, to heal the sick, to feed the hungry…

Why is it that Those Who Know Best, secure in their corporate offices and tenured positions, have chosen instead to slander a powerless woman . . . whose only crime has been to pursue the personal expression and personal success which, or so they tell us, are legitimate goals for us all?


*

So those are some of the things that confuse me.

For all I know, they confuse you, too. But I’m hoping they don’t. I’m hoping that you’ve got some great answers. And you won’t mind sharing ‘em. Soon. By return email. Right now.

Cause, otherwise, I might just start suspecting that maybe . . . just maybe …a whole lot of people who are telling me that they’re morally superior and devoted to all things good and wonderful and American … are, in fact . . .

As full of sh*t as a Xmas Turkey.

And nobody wants me to think that.

Do they?

Onward and upward.



~Michael Jay Tucker














Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker
All rights reserved

Scholastic Inaptitude Test: A Quickie

Just a quickie today, because it’s late in the game and I’ve got deeds to do and promises to keep and lots (and lots) of papers to grade and a chapter to edit. So, sort of as a follow-on to S*cks to be me…

I’m teaching a lot these days. Sometimes it’s in person. Sometimes it’s online. Sometimes it’s English. Sometimes it’s History. Sometimes it’s at one college, sometimes another.

Now, this is interesting because I don’t have a Ph.D. and probably never will. But, the students don’t seem to mind, particularly. And this is in spite of the fact that one of my own former professors said that I was incapable of scholarship and that I was “Unfocused.”

Maybe my students tolerate me because they aren’t particularly focused themselves. Oh, not that they’re aren’t focused on getting their degrees…their eyes are on the prize indeed…but they are not, shall we say? Homogenous. They are a diverse lot.

In just the last couple of semesters I’ve had students who were from pretty much every place on earth. There was a Hungarian, a Peruvian, five Nepalese, an Austrian, a Moroccan, a Saudi, three Chinese, one Taiwanese (“I think of myself as a citizen of Greater China”), a Japanese, several Koreans, five or six Indians, an Ethiopian, a Columbian, a Nigerian, an Israeli on leave from his army service (he was a sniper by training), a Belarusian, two Bulgarians, two Russians, a Salvadorian (“I’ve survived three earthquakes”), an Ivorian, an assortment of Brazilians, a Venezuelan (“I decided I wouldn’t go back after I was kidnapped. I mean, the second time”), and, of course, just to top it off, a very articulate gentlemen who was born in Brazil but made his first fortune in Peru, travels the world as multinational consultant and was a visiting professor at MIT. But, you see, he doesn’t have a bachelor’s. Many European and South American educational system don’t, that is, require them. So, he was in my class…

This was, of course, in addition to the usual assortment of students who were more “typical” albeit not always less colorful. There was, for instance, the woman who bred ferrets for a living, the young man who had danced professionally with the Twyla Tharp Company, the Marine Corps vet who looked as though he were 12 (he was all of nineteen) and who had earned a Purple Heart in Iraq, and one very intelligent young man who identified himself as a “member of the deaf community” and came to class each week with two signing interpreters.

I like to think we get along fairly well. I watched with some amusement while the two Bulgarians discovered one another and began, over the course of the term, a mild flirtation. Then, too, there was the delicately negotiated relationship between the Peruvian, whose parents owned a Guinea Pig farm (her research paper was on the proper way of preparing one for dinner. It seems you serve them with potatoes), and the woman who raised ferrets and was, we soon discovered, a member of PETA.

But, my story actually doesn’t involve my class, but rather one of my professors. The same one I mentioned above. The one who said I was unfocused. He is very Focused. He is Tenured. He is Outstanding In His Field. He is a Recognized Authority. I came to call him “The Hindenburg.”

Anyway, one day, before I left his program (as unfocused as ever, as incapable of scholarship as before), I was standing in a hallway and happened to be telling some friends about all my many sorts of students. He came out of an office and heard me. Then, he looked a little pained and asked, “How do you stand it?”

At first, I thought he was joking. But, a glance at his face set me straight. He meant what he said.

I stammered out something about enjoying my work, and that the students were fascinating. Meshing my world-view and theirs was a delightful puzzle. Each time I succeed in teaching them something, it was a personal victory to be savored.

My professor looked at me coldly. His mustache quivered. Then, he said, “ I suppose . . . if you’re interested in …teaching.” He made the word sound like a disease. “Those kind of people.”

Then, with a dismissive shrug, he waddled off to some class or another. There, he would face (I knew) a comfortingly monolithic community. A bland assortment of suburban youth, secure in their upper- to upper-middle class privilege, would snore comfortably and non-threateningly in the tightly linear rows of seats before him. They would offer him no challenge. He would present them with nothing unexpected. Everyone would be happily focused.

And as he left, I realized something.

I do not miss being “capable of scholarship.” I do not mind being unfocused. I would rather strive (however feebly) to be a teacher than a Tenured Authority In My Field. I would rather stay among my night students and my part-time students, at Community Colleges and Programs of Continuing Education.

Or, to put it all another way…

Given a choice between my professor’s privileged Few and my energetic, exciting, and sometimes challenging Many, I’ll take the Many.

You meet a better class of people.

Onward and Upward.

































Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

S*cks To Be Me (#9): Slip sliding Aaawwaaay

So. Here it is. The pièce de résistance. Or maybe even an extra big pièce de résistance. Or, hell, a whole damn pizza de resistance. With anchovies and whip cream. And a side of slaw. And yes, that does sound revolting. And it is one of the many reasons I didn’t become a professional chef. You can thank me later.

Anyway…as you know, I’m doing a humongous series on my adventures in the last few months of 2008. It is titled Sucks To Be Me. And I’m understating. About the sucks part. I mean, the word “Vortex” springs to mind. Insert images here of whirlpools, undertows, ships going down with all hands, and Bermuda Triangles. With or without UFOs and giant squids. Your choice.

So far, I’ve gotten through Martha’s chest wall injury, my eye surgery, a flooded basement, and getting kicked out of a certain academic program by three professors who shall remain nameless. Except, of course, for a few quick references to Larry, Moe, and Curly. And Tweedledum and Tweedledee and Tweedledumber. And The Three Walking Analogs Of Rectal Gonorrhea. But, otherwise, my lips are sealed. I’m good like that.

Today, though, we are going to get to the final little chapter of my 2008 saga. It involves ice.

Lots of ice.

Lots and lots and LOTS . . .of freaking… ice.


*

Okay, so when we left off last time, we’d just had an ice storm. I had rushed outside to move the cars before Tom . . . the really nice guy we hired to plow the drive . . . arrived.

You see, as I said last time, we live near the top of a little hill where (in effect) three different roads intersect. The city snowplows coming from three different directions drop their snow . . . here. Which is how we normally end up with drifts of the stuff in our driveway that are “as high as an elephant’s eye.” Or, at least as its scrotum. Which is really more appropriate to the story. At least, when you think about it.

Most of the time, I go out with my handy little shovel and whittle that all away . . . after six or seven days of backbreaking labor. But, this time, because of the eye surgery and a few other facts (like realizing that I’m, shudder, 52 and not 25), I allowed Martha to convince me (she only had to bash me with the snow shovel two or three times) to hire someone with a plow truck to do it for us.

Ah, but the kicker is that to let Tom plow the drive, we have to get the cars out of it first. This usually means my hurriedly shoveling enough of the snow away so that I can back our cars out and then park them on the street while he does the rest.

Now, some more background. We have three cars. Two of these are Hondas. The other is a sporty little Toyota that used to be Martha’s pride and joy. She’s a car fanatic and she particularly loved her little Celica. The problem was that it is no longer easy for her to get into and out of it, so, a while ago we decided to get a more sensible vehicle and sell her old one.

That was the plan. It has been sitting in the driveway ever since. Somehow we never get around to selling it. Funny thing about that. And I’ve caught Martha standing in the driveway at mid-night, petting the car, and telling it not to worry because mama’s right here.

So, that’s the three cars.

I run outside to move them.

Then, I stop running.

However, I do NOT stop moving.


*

Everything . . . EVERYTHING … is covered with a sheet of ice. It had sleeted during the night and now the world is doing a pretty good impression of Ice Station Zebra. The sidewalk is under about a inch of the stuff and I seem to be drifting along, gently, toward the curb.

Well, “gently” may be a bit much. More like . . . well, did you ever hear that joke about the dancing chicken? The one they put on the hot plate? (“What do you think makes the chicken dance?”) Sort of like that. But with fewer feathers and more squawking.

*

I finally managed to come to a stop ‘round abouts the lamppost. I then take careful stock of the situation.

Oh, I say. Gosh, I add. Then I say something else. I will not record what it was. Suffice to say that it made some of the ice melt. And turned the air blue. And sent mothers rushing to cover the ears of the innocent young children. Who, of course, already used words like that and were texting their friends about the boring guy who didn’t even know how to swear properly.

Anyway, I finally made it to the cars and, after much bashing of ice off doors, I get them open and began my moving operations. Mine is a CRV and has four wheel drive, so it was pretty easy for me to get the thing out of the drive way and parked on the street. Martha’s had new snow tires, so it did pretty well, too.

That left . . . the Celica.

I got in. It sneered at me. I started it. It chortled. I started to back out. It began to giggle.

*

It was when I backed all the way out and was in the street that I realized something interesting was happening.

To wit… I was sliding.

I don’t mean that I was sliding forward. I don’t mean I was sliding backward.

I mean, I was sliding sideways.

I mean, the car was sliding SIDEWAYS…

I mean, I’m in the car and it is sliding In The Street . . . SIDEWAYS.

As in, the driver’s side door is even now headed toward the fence of the guy who lives down where the street curves to the left.

As in, yes folks, step right up… I’m screwed.


*

Now, I’ve been driving cars on the ice when they have decided to skid nose first into something.

And, I’ve been driving cars on ice when they have decided to fish tail their way into oblivion.

But I have never . . . ever . . . been sitting STILL in a car, and then had it slide. Sideways.

If you’ve never tried it, I suggest you give it a shot. It is a wonderfully quick way to get religion.

*


Somehow, I managed to get the car slowed down enough to point its nose down hill and toward the main street. Then, I managed to drift it to the intersection and make a right hand turn.

Crisis averted, right?

Well, no. ‘Cause, of course, I still have to get the car back UP the hill.

Okay . . . I’m not a great driver on snow. I’m not used to it. It’s particularly annoying because Martha drives in snow really, really well. So much for my macho image. Well, not that I had much of one anyway, but, it’s the principle of thing.

But getting back to my story…

I have to think this out. There is a short side of the hill and a long. I’ve just come down the short. But, it’s pretty steep and I don’t think I’ll be able to get the little car up it again . . . at least, not given the ice.

But if I drive down the main street a block, and make a right turn, then I’m back on our street and the Long Side of the hill. If I can get moving fast enough maybe I’ll be able get back up to our house.

Brilliant, I think.

I go down the block, I make my turns, I get into position, and put my foot on the gas!

By God! I find myself moving up the hill like a Celica-stallion! I’m sliding a little here and there, but I’m doing it! By God, I’m doing it!

And then…

This little old lady lives down the way. She is 339 years of age. And three quarters. She drives a huge Detroit beast of that sort that my son and his friends used to call a “Pimpmobile.” She has never been known to go faster than 25 mph. On the freeway. In the high speed HOV lane.

It is this exactly at this moment that she elects to exit her driveway. Into the road. In front of me. At a snappy six or seven miles an hour. And then, of course, she begins to slide backwards. Towards me.

At the last second I managed to get my car off to one side . . . well, technically, into a snow bank, but who’s being technical? She drifted on past me down the hill. She gave me a friendly little wave.

I think I heard later she finally stopped somewhere around Providence, Rhode Island. I understand she’s bought a condo there.


*

Okay, I say to myself. We’ll try this again.

I get the car dug out of the snow bank, drift back to the bottom of the hill, and once again, start the dash up the ski slope … I mean, the road.

And once more, I’m doing it! I’m doing it! I’m dashing along like Santa on Steroids! I’m almost to the top of the hill…

And then…

You know the guy on your street whose got no neck but lots of derriere? The guy who bought the pit bull so he’d have the meanest dog on the block? The guy who has a gun rack over his Jacuzzi? The guy who bought a four-wheel/four-door stretch luxury pickup truck (with DVD player) that he needs like a hole in the head because he never takes it anywhere ‘cept maybe the Mall? The guy who you’d like to ask, sorta in passing, Say, Just How Small Is Your Penis, Anyway?

Well, as I’m going UP the hill, our version of that guy in his shiny four-wheel drive is coming DOWN the hill, at high speed, taking his half of the road from the middle….

Wanna guess who ends up in the snow bank again? Wanna? Huh? Wanna?


*

Anyway, I finally make it back up the hill. I get there just about the time Tom, the plow guy, arrives.

He watches me fish tail into a spot sort of in front of our house. I roll down my window. He rolls down his window. “Like to a buy a car?” I ask. “Cheap?”

He shudders. “Think I’ll pass,” he says.

*

With Tom’s help, and quite a bit of sand, I finally get the Celica in place. Then, the driveway gets plowed. And everyone’s happy. Or, happier, anyway.

I stagger back into the house. Martha meets me and says, “You know, in the all the time you were out there, I didn’t see a single City snowplow or sand-truck. I think you ought to call the department of public works and complain.”

For a moment, I consider it. Then, I realize I already know what they’ll say if I do. They’ll apologize and then add, “We tried to get up your street an hour ago, but some damn fool in a Celica was sliding down it sideways and blocked the way.”

No, I think. I’ve suffered enough. Besides, we have a bottle of tequila in the cabinet. And it’s calling my name.

*

So, that was (mostly) the last of my adventures for 2008. There were a couple of more snowstorms, but no more sleet. Christmas came and we enjoyed it hugely. New Year’s followed, and we bid the old year farewell.

Actually, it wasn’t so much bidding it farewell as hoping we’d never see anything quite like it again. But, then, it probably doesn’t want to see us, either.

But, since then, things have been quite a bit quieter. My new bionic eye works fine. Martha’s gotten over the chest wall injury. The basement’s dry and the appliances work. I’m teaching and writing . . . though, I’m still trying to figure out what to do about my former dissertation committee. I had thought of inciting a crazed mob to grab torches and pitchforks and head up to the castle to scrag the good doctors Von Frankenstein. But, alas, all the lynch mobs I know are heading over to Wall Street. All those bankers, you see, taking bonuses…

I guess I can understand. It’s all a question of priorities.


*

So, that was the end of 2008. At least for me.

But…

Let me be serious for half a moment. I called this series Sucks To Be Me. But, come, it was hardly that bad. The eye surgery was scary, but it proved benign. Martha’s injury was painful, but, over time, she recovered. The appliances were (briefly) an inconvenience. But, they were only an inconvenience. I can survive washing dishes. My dissertation committee did me real economic and emotional harm. But, in the end, they were no more significant than any schoolyard bully. Perhaps it is true what they say about the banality of evil. Perhaps small evils are the most banal of all.

All in all, not so bad…

At least I do not know famine and slaughter, as does so much of the world. At least I do not have AIDS/HIV, the way that millions have here and abroad. At least I am not in a war zone.

Which makes me wonder . . .what would it take . . . how much effort would it be . . . to make my problems the worst the world knows?

It may be that the price cannot be paid. The effort would be too vast. The intent is too utopian.

And yet…

And yet . . .

Would it not be a lovely thing to try?

*

Onward and upward.



















Copyright© 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

S*cks To Be Me (#8): The Ice Storm

Okay. I swear. I promise. This will end soon. The S*cks To Be Me series will, eventually, stop. You will be released. Set free. Made Whole. And afterwards, you’ll be able to sit your grandchildren on your knee and say, Yes, I Survived The Great Tedium Deluge of 2008-09. And I recovered. Of course, it took many years of therapy. And enough electro-shock treatments to power an aircraft carrier. And that’s why my eyes are crossed. And we won’t mention that faint scent of singed rubber. But things are just ducky now.

Anyway…

As you know, I’m doing a seemingly interminable series on the wonderful little adventures I had at the tail end of 2008. You’ll recall that these included sheer terror, eye surgery, getting kicked out of my Ph.D. program (by a set of academic “advisors” who may be best likened to ambulatory excrement. With weevils), a flooded basement, assorted dead appliances, and, oh yes, a Christmas Tree that didn’t get hugged. And probably never forgave us for it. And developed a complex. But that’s what therapy is for. And, in the words of Freud, ah, to be Jung again.

Where was I? Oh, yes. So, last time, I’d just had my cataract surgery. After much dread on my part, it turned out to be quick, painless, and easy. I was in and out in like 20 minutes. In fact, I was a little disappointed. I mean, I was looking forward to all those wonderful opportunities to bore total strangers trapped with me on airplanes with stories about all the horrors I endured for Perfect Vision. But, no. Was not to be. Sad reality. I blame myself.

Anyway, so, I had the surgery. Everything was going fine. I figured now, finally, Things Are Going To Get Back To Normal.

Gosh.

Golly.

Darn.

You’d think I’d learn.


*

I had the surgery on December 15. That was a Monday. By Friday, it had . . . begun . . . to …snow.

And snow. And snow. And …snow.

By Saturday, it had snowed A LOT. There were happy little drifts of white icy shit everywhere. And, oh, by the way, if I ever get my hands on freaking Frosty The Snowman…well, let’s just say Napalm Enema and leave it at that.

But there’s more to the story. We live on a hill. Our street runs down from the hill and to the main street below us. But, there’s another street that intersects ours just about directly across from our driveway. In effect, we live on a three-way intersection.

Now, what that means is that snowplows coming up the hill … and snowplows coming down the hill … and snowplows coming along the Third Street . . . all meet. Right in front of our house. And stuff most of their freaking snow into our driveway. Meaning, quite literally, there may be four feet (or more) of snow piled up at the mouth of our driveway after any one storm.

This is known as life in picturesque New England.

Did I mention the Napalm enema?

*

Okay, so, what this means is that SOMEONE has to go out and shovel the aforesaid driveway.

Three guesses who that someone is.

You want some hints? Okay. There are two of us living in this house. There’s me. And then there’s Martha. We also have a dog. His name is Oreo.

At the best of times, Martha has some difficulty walking across uneven or challenging terrain—like, say, if it is knee deep in snow. And, right at the moment, she can’t stand on ice at all—the chest wall injury, remember?

Meanwhile, Oreo lacks opposable thumbs. Which means he cannot hold a shovel.

Lucky bastard.

*

So … a short time later, I am standing out in the snow.

Shoveling.

Alone.

While the left side of my head (the surgery side) sort of feels like somebody with a very large jackhammer is trying to get out. While tap dancing. In golf shoes. With extra long cleats.

I look up at the window of the house now and then. I see Martha. She sees me. She waves. She smiles. Then, she goes and has another cup of coffee.

I whimper a lot.

*

Anyway, for the next day or so, I feel like what’s left at the bottom of a birdcage shortly after Tweetie has a charming tête-à-tête with an E. Coli the size of a Buick. That, plus the fact that my eye surgeon just about had a cow when he found out I’d been doing major physical labor right after my operation … “You Did WHAT?”… made me admit that, yes, instead of shoveling snow myself, maybe, next time, we could actually hire someone to plow our driveway.

We answer a few ads on Craig’s List and, voila, the next thing you know we have an arrangement with a really nice guy named Tom. He’s got a diesel pickup with a plow and he’ll come on mornings after big snows. Cool.

In fact, it’s particularly cool because about a week later, we had another storm. A fairly sizable depression rolled up the coast, bringing with it all sorts of moisture, which it proceeded to dump on us.

But it was an odd storm. It didn’t start off as snow. Rather, it began as sleet.

Now, here’s a confession. When I was a boy living in New Mexico, I had no idea what sleet was. Oh, I knew the word. I’d hear broadcasters or my parents talk about “sleet and freezing rain.” But, I didn’t have an emotional understanding of the term. I didn’t really intuit, or grok, the genuine and inner meaning of Sleetness. Or the Gestalt of Freezing Rainism.

But how could I? I hadn’t experienced them. And, to quote another and better humorist, there are some things that cannot be explained to virgins in either words or pictures.

*

But, if, per chance, you are lucky enough to not have experienced sleet and/or freezing rain— and are, thus, sleet-virginal—then let me provide you with some background data.

Rain, when it falls, can get you wet. Snow can be slippery and block driveways.

But, sleet…

Sleet, or freezing rain, is partly water and partly ice. When it hits something, it sticks and freezes. In the winters here, after an ice storm, you’ll see cars, houses, telephone poles, power lines, and, most of all, trees absolutely glittering with ice.

It can be rather beautiful, actually, particularly on a sunny day. Envision a world in which everything is sheathed in white, all of it shimmering in the dawn, the light breaking prismatically into tiny, hard-edged rainbows.

Unfortunately, it is also deadly. The trees break under the weight of the ice. The power lines snap and drop live and sparking in the street. House roofs sag.

And cars?

Those slide helplessly in the road.


*

Just in case you’re wondering, pretty much everything in the previous section …particularly the cars and helpless part … is known as “foreshadowing.”

Great word, that Foreshadowing. Make a note of it. Might come in handy the next time you have to write an English paper or be pompous at parties while discussing pretentious European movies with no plot and no characters but great full frontal nudity. And I only read it for the articles.


*

So, late in December, but not quite next door to Christmas, we wake up and find ourselves in a gray, overcast day. From the windows we hear the little clicking noise of sleet on glass. If you’re interested, it sounds a bit like rat claws on hard tile. Really cheery.

I stagger out of bed. I look outside. The sleet is slowly giving way to pure snow. There are already two to three inches of it on the ground. That means that Tom will be here with the plow shortly. But he’s not here yet.

Ah-ha! I think, wisely. Here’s my chance. I’ll run outside (I decide) and move our cars onto the street. That way, Tom will be able to plow the whole driveway.

Boy, am I smart.

You betcha.


*

I grab my keys, slip my pants on over my PJs and head for the door.

It strikes me, as I go, that I haven’t seen any city-owned snowplows … or sand trucks…on the hill. Or on our street. Or on the intersecting street. Or on the main street down the way.

Well, I think to myself, if they’re not sending out sand trucks, it must not be that bad. Maybe the storm wasn’t as big as they expected. In fact, who knows? Maybe, at last, Things Are Getting Back To Normal.

Thinking thusly, I step outside and …

Do you know the term “helpless as a hog on ice?”

Look it up.

You’ll understand.


*

But that’s for next time.

Onward and upward.












Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker