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I was sent a nifty email earlier this week, entitled “you know your [sic] from delaware when . . .” I figured it might be fun to deconstruct it a bit, based on my own personal Delawarean experiences. LET’S KICK IT.

You know you’re a Delawarean when:

• You know where, what and when the Hummers Parade is held.
  To be honest, I’m only dimly aware of the Hummers. I know it’s basically a Mummers ripoff, and everybody gets pretty drunk, but I couldn’t tell you where it occurs. Does it go down on New Year’s? Not being a saxophonist, I just don’t follow this topic much.
• “Vacation” means going to Rehoboth or Cape “Cantaloupe” Henlopen.
  Rehoboth is a good time, I’ll grant you, although I do tend to roll to other places on vacation. Like, say, Lewes. Har! Just playin’!
• You know the best subs come from Capriotti’s.
  Capriotti’s jaun is admittedly hell of good, although I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this whole franchising in Vegas and Florida thing. I keep getting visions of this guy getting shot in the head in a boat.
• You used to play in the wooder in the crick, and caught fraugs.
  I remember growing up that my neighbor buddy Craig used to say “crick” when he meant “creek.” It really weirded me out. Somehow, I have avoided getting a weird Delaware accent, although I’m sure my friends would tell me otherwise. Also, the crick by our house was sadly deficient of frogs, so Craig and I usually would have “rock fights.” Whaddaya want? We were idiots.
• Your school classes were canceled because of 3 snowflakes.
  That’s only downstate; all the stuff in northern New Castle County would usually stay open unless we got more than a couple of inches. One odd, glaring exception: the weather guys spent two or three days saying that a monstrous storm was coming and we could expect 8-10 inches. The night before the storm was due, they took the precaution of cancelling school for the following day. The next day, we got a light dusting of maybe a half-inch of snow, which melted by 2pm.
• The whole state panics and uses all of their road salt for those 3 snowflakes.
  Maybe that’s a downstate thing again. (They call it Slower Lower for a reason, you know.) I vaguely remember hearing about how we were running low on salt and sand during the winter of aught-four, but that was also the year that the entire state shut down for a week because we got two feet of snow (on a day I was hoping to fly back from Texas, no less). So I think we can be forgiven.
• You love the beach but hate the tourists.
  God, do I hate tourists so much. THEY BLEED ME OF MY WILL TO LIVE. And they talk funny.
• You know about punkin-chunkin and you have your favorite chunker.
  Punkin Chunkin’ is a Sussex County tradition, involving the engineering of massive catapaults and crane-mounted airguns used to fling pumpkins over great distances. It’s pretty freaking righteous. Read more here. I do not, sadly, have a favorite chunker. That would be like having a favorite bowler.
• You know someone who went to school with one of the Capano’s [sic].
  Probably. Who that might be, I dunno. I assume they all went to Catholic school; I know some Catholic school peepz but haven’t yet broached the subject of Capano classmates.
• You’ve eaten scrapple sandwiches.
  I’ve eaten scrapple many times, although not in sandwich form. Usually we just fry it and cover it in maple syrup. Good times.
• You can identify all the major types of manure by smell (especially chicken!)
  Any idiot can identify chicken manure. It’s simple: think of the worst smell ever to erupt explosively from a baby’s diaper, and then imagine the smell that would come of concentrating and then BURNING it.
• If it takes more than an hour to drive to, you’re not going.
  Yeah, that’s pretty much true. I have friends who think nothing of a two hour drive to come up and hang out for a few hours and then drive home. But I remember distinctly thinking, on many occasions, “If I’m going to drive four hours out of my way we’re gonna stay there at least 3 days and really get our money’s worth.”
• You know what a “slippery” dumpling is.
  I have no idea what this means. Aren’t all dumplings slippery? I think somebody was high when they wrote this.
• You know who YouDee is.
  
  YoUDee is my HOMESKILLET.
• Somebody in your family has worked for the DuPont Company.
  My father-in-law. And in fact, the company I work for maintains Dupont’s computers and handles all the IT stuff. So I work on Dupont stuff all the time.
• You think the “Apple Scrapple Festival” is perfectly normal, except for all those granola types running in the 5K race.
  I have never heard of this, but I’d like to be a part of it.
• You think, maybe, just maybe, you might get a White Christmas. Then it rains.
  Every #&*@ing year, in fact.
• The highest point in the state is a rise on the golf course.
  It’s not entirely clear what golf course they mean, since there are like a metric buttload of them in the state. Based on a little research, I think they might mean Biderman Golf Course, which I think is attached to Vic Mead Hunt Club. It’s the nearest golf club that I can find to Centerville, which according to this Geological Survery page was long rumored to contain the highest spot in the state. In the end it doesn’t really matter, since the highest point in Delaware is in a trailer park just off Ebright Road, close to the PA/DE border. Altitude: measurement at Ebright Road is 447.85 feet, and the trailer park is believed to be one or two feet above that.
• The state has one hill. You’ve been sledding on it.
  I bet they mean a rather sizeable hill in Brandywine Creek State Park. A lot of sledding occurs on it, although I’ve never done it, myself. I would usually go over to my boy Josh’s house because his neighborhood had better hills than mine, and in DE the roads usually just freeze so you can actually use a Radio Flyer (an actual “sled,” as opposed to a toboggan; sleds are useless in snow because the runners just sink in and the wood that you sit on just rests on the top of the drifts) and get up a rather sizeable head of speed if the hill is long and graded.
• You remember WAMS and WCAU (BARSKY in the morning!).
  Neither of those stations ring a bell. I do remember Barsky, but not the station from which he broadcast. I am, however, a mere youth. I could wax nostalgic about Eagle 106, though.
• You know NewERK is in New Jersey, but NewARK is in Delaware.
  One thing that always has surprised me about new students at UD (we get a LOT of Jerseyans and New Yorkers) is that they seem to grasp this very quickly. After the first month, I almost never hear students mispronouncing the name of the town. It almost makes me think Long Islanders might not be collectively moronic. (You know I just playin’, boo! Me and Long Island are like THIS: [crosses fingers] Although I have to admit, I’ve never been there, and God willing, never will.)
• You know how to carefully pronounce the name Foulk Road.
  I was unaware that it posed difficulties for visitors. How are people pronouncing it that’s incorrect? Foh Ulk? Are they inserting random zeds, like Fizo to the Izulk? (Fizo to the Izulk is a superb name for a band.)
• You talk of Northern Delaware and the entire Eastern Seaboard as “above the canal.”
  Northern Delaware, yes, but the Eastern Seaboard I usually refer to as “The Eastern Seaboard,” or, “The East Coast.” Also, a large percentage of the Eastern Seaboard is actually south of the canal (most of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, all them other states down yonder), so this doesn’t even make sense.
• You know if another Delawarean is from southern, middle or northern Delaware as soon as they open their mouth.
  That’s because people from Sussex and Kent counties tend to talk like they’ve been sniffing chicken manure for too long.
• You know the name of every street in Delaware, but have no idea what the route number is.
  This one intrigued me because it describes my father, and yet I couldn’t be more diametrically opposed. My dad talks about growing up and living off of Limestone Road and Kirkwood Highway, things I usually refer to as “Route 7” and “Route 2.” I have always identified major Delaware roads by numbers, mostly because a route number usually describes the best way to get somewhere, while the actual street names may change frequently. Route 4, for example, as it meanders from Newark to Wilmington, is named East Chestnut Hill Road, Ogletown-Stanton Road, Stanton-Christiana Road, Mitch Road, West Newport Pike, West (and then East) Market Street, East Newport Pike, South Maryland Avenue, North Maryland Avenue, and finally plain old Maryland Avenue as it gets into Wilmington. There ain’t no way I’m calling that anything but Route 4.

  Little known fact: Foulk Road is Route 261.

• When you want to go out for a nice dinner, you have to switch states.
  While that may have once been true (back in the 50s, I’d say), nowadays Delaware is chock full of really good places to eat. Mostly just in Wilmington, of course, with a few nice places in Rehoboth run by gay men. I recommend the Corner Bistro and Moro as stellar examples of service and food. (Be prepared to shell out the bank, particularly at Moro; Sarah and I ate there about a year ago and spent over $200 with wine and booze and tip. It was so good I nearly wept.)
• You can remember when Maryland Bank (MBNA) swallowed up Ogletown and Putt-Putt.
  Any idea what the hell this means? Putt-putt? I’m so confused.
• Everywhere you go, you always run into someone you know or went to school with.
  Very, very true. Delaware is a small freakin’ wonder, I tell you. It’s getting to be pretty rare that I don’t don’t meet someone that doesn’t know someone I know. Two examples:
  1. My father went to high school with a nice fellow, also named Dave; they were in band together and apparently were thick as thieves. Dave’s later went on to marry a nice lady named Leslie, who has since become my mother-in-law’s good friend. Think that’s small world? Dave and Leslie’s son Keith sang in the choir at my father’s church for a while.
  2. A guy I did a show with last summer is dating a guy who is a good friend of another guy who is a good friend of mine. (You think Delaware is a small world; the Delaware gay community is smaller yet.)
• You know what Newark Night and First Night are.
  I do, and I avoid them. (Tourists, you know.)
• You know exactly which roads to avoid due to the CONSTANT road construction.
  Well, the state finally beat me. They’ve torn up every road around my neighborhood, but apparently I wasn’t pissed off enough to suit them, so now they have taken to tearing up the roads in my actual development, for no discernible reason. And pretty much only at the end of my street, so I have to drive around the long way if I want to get out. Bastards.
• You love Dollie’s salt water taffy and Grotto’s Pizza.
  I’m pretty sure it’s Dolly’s, not Dollie’s, but either way it is awesome. Grotto’s Pizza, on the other hand, is acidic, over-sauced dreck. That being said, it’s totally awesome when you’re beyond drunk. Although, if you’re beyond drunk, it’s probably because you just came from Mug Night (where is Mug Night on this list?), in which case you should go across from the Stone Balloon to Margarita’s and get the best pizza in Newark.
• You know where all of the late-night 24-hour rest stops and restaurants are.
  Hardly valid anymore; there are dozens of 24-hour diners in Delaware now.
• You can remember when Christiana Hospital was a field with cows.
  I can honestly say I do not remember this. Although I’d love to see photos.
• You remember when Christiana Mall had a Galaxy arcade.
  This I do remember. It had a movie theater too! I wonder what they did with the actual theaters; I know they don’t actually show them anymore, but did they fill them in with other crap? I can’t remember. Milo says they’re still there, just unused.
• When you go out of state to shop or eat, you are always surprised about the tax.
  Yep. Every time. Never fails to irritate me, too, particularly in places with high sales tax like NYC.
• You know the differences in housing in Elsmere, Pike Creek, and Greenville.
  I’m not sure exactly what this means. I know that the homes in Pike Creek are moderately expensive, the homes in Greenville outlandishly so, and homes in Elsmere are extremely cheap and mostly minority-owned.
• You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Delaware.
  I’d say I get some, probably even most, although some (MBNA? Ogletown? Putt-putt? What the hellacious poon burglarization is that?) confuse the hell out of me.

I’d like to point out a few notably Delawarean things that went unmentioned:

• The Stone Balloon and Mug Night (see above).
• The Wedge.
• The Charcoal Pit! How could that go unmentioned? One of Delaware’s most famous institutions. Just bizarre.
• Something about Dover Downs? Or even better, Brandywine Raceway?
• How about knowing why one wall of all the old powder mills at Hagley was built of wood and faced the river?

I dunno how that stuff was left out. What other notably Delawarean things did we miss? Leave me some comments, booz.

At the risk of sounding like a decrepit old geezer, playoff baseball games are on too freaking late. I can sort of understand why the scheduled start is 8pm on the East Coast; we wouldn’t want Californians missing out on games between Houston and St. Louis. But I do not think it is strictly necessary to waste 30 to 40 minutes on chitchat with Jeannie Zelasko such that the actual game commences at almost 9pm.

Last night I fell asleep in the bottom of the 7th, which was like 11pm. I’m glad I have a DVR, since I was able to get up this morning and watch Albert Pujols hammer one off the train tracks at Minute Maid Park, which made me all giddy and woozy.

That’s really all I had to say, except that Craig Biggio looks like a Little Leaguer in his batting helmet. He’s got the smallest head of any player. He’s like the anti-steroid.

In talking to Ian and Henna a few weeks ago, it was revealed to me that they had been planning to run a 5K supporting Delaware Hospice, but it had been rained out in that weeklong torrential downpour thing we had going on last week. It was rescheduled for the morning of Saturday (2 days ago), which was a notable empty spot on my calendar. So I said, “Hey, I haven’t run a 5K in like 18 months, can I crash in on yo shoznitzel?” (We like to get all ethnic at our parties after a few bottles of Pinot Noir.) They said, “Hells yes, boo!”

I figured it’d be best if I prepared, so last Monday (7 days ago) I threw on my nifty running shoes (New Balance, model 766NY, $79.99) and left the house. I figure I went about a mile, ’cause I ran for 12 minutes or so (pausing only to retie my shoes) and that’s about how long it takes me to run a mile. (My only other 5K experience in May of 2004 had me completing 3.125 miles in 35 minutes and 36 seconds. I’m both fat and slow, which is why I’m very pleased to not be a gazelle.) I made one slight mistake: I had read a lot about the importance of stretching AFTER the workout, so I figured, why bother stretching twice? I’ll just run a ways and then have a nice stretch.

The next day (Tuesday (6 days ago)), I could barely walk. Getting out of bed, my calves were so tight I couldn’t get up and down steps. It was like when I demolished my ankle last January wrestling in snow. (It hurt a lot and crunched like a Solo cup under a car tire.)

Wednesday (5 days ago) was even worse; the tightness hadn’t subsided at all, and whatever leftover endorphins had been helping the pain were long since peed out. I was unhappy, and seriously considering bailing on the whole 5K thing. I mean, c’mon, I had only gone a mile and could barely move! 3+ miles would obviously result in death and tragedy and HW losing the house and expensive car!

On Thursday (4 days ago) the pain was pretty much gone, but in the morning my calves were still tighter than Don Rickles’s bung. In the afternoon things had loosened a bit, so I was feeling a little better about my chances for Saturday morning. A little stretching and a good warm up, I figured, would enable me to at least get through the first mile, and then if I had to I could switch to a leisurely walk, and admire the jiggling bootays of the speedwalkers as they passed.

By Friday (Yes, 3 days ago) I was feeling gravy, so that evening I chatted with Ian about where we was gwine to meet and greet and whatnot (8:30 at the registration jaunpiece).

Saturday (2…screw it), I awoke before my alarm, which was good because I hadn’t set it properly the night before. I got up, hoping to enjoy a couple bowls of cold cereal to carb up for a good run, only to remember that Sarah had finished off the milk Friday night. So I ate cold pizza instead, and cursed.

I drove out early to the race venue (the Riverwalk in Downtown Wilmington), got myself all registered up, and began stretching and jogging lightly to loosen up my various cloits and gloits and muscklez and the like. Ian and Henna arrived at the indicated time, and we stretched together, and then walked over to the starting line, where we admired a very skeevy man’s semi-shaved chest (he apparently enjoyed running sans-shirt, based on his deep and even tan; I guess we should feel lucky he didn’t want to run sans shorts, although he wore them low enough that we all got a great view of his ass-cleavage. I’m not gonna lie, though, the man had pecs of solid gold) and stretched a bit more (I wasn’t playing around with stretching anymore).

They said GO and off we went. Ian set the pace for the first few hundred yards, and then I realized that if I was going to finish, there was no earthly way I could go that fast, so I wished them well, slowed down, and set my mp3 player to “play the mad tunezz whilst I try not to pass out” mode.

By mile 1, my calves were deeply angry with me. “Hey…didn’t we go through this the other day? Are you an idiot? I’m going to seize up and trip you into the river!” was what they would say if they could have talked, but luckily they can’t, ’cause I think the mouths would have skeeved everybody else out. I figured I’d keep running for as long as I possibly could (even though the main pack of people had moved so far ahead of me that I wasn’t even sure I was still on the correct course most of the way), so I kept chugging along.

(BTW: Obviously, I don’t have a problem with the incredibly fit folks, ranging in age from 15-30, that flew away from me at the start, and passed me coming BACK shortly after I got through mile one. I didn’t even get angry at the little kids that did the same before I got even halfway through the second mile. When the 60+ crowd went by me, sweating profusely, not long before I hit the turn, that didn’t irritate me at all. But when the first speedwalker, who started 2 minutes AFTER I did, wiggled by me like I was standing still before I even hit the first mile marker, I wanted to spit on her. Man, did I hate her.

I also should admit that I did get a little bemused when, not longer after I bid Ian and Henna adieu and slowed my pace to something more manageable, the girl in worse shape than I chugged by me and put me in last place. I did, of course, get my vengeance later.)

The turn was around Frawley stadium, so when I got around that and the friendly race marshal told me I was doing great despite the agonizing pains in my chest and right arm, I figured I might as well just go the rest of the way and damn the consequences. So I kept on going, right through mile 2, and then at about 2 1/2 miles, I spotted the girl that had passed me early on. Her pace had slowed, and I knew she was mine. I wasn’t finishing last…not that day! NOT EVER! YEEEEAAAAAHHH!!!!! Adrenaline is a wonderful drug. (Particularly when inject it into you eyeball before a race!)

Plus, “2 Points for Honesty” by Guster came on, which happens to be in exactly the right tempo to run to when you need to pass somebody and gain some ground. I was hindered a bit by a weird sensation in my left shoe; it felt like either the sock had folded over on itself and was pressing oddly against my sole, or the rough skin on the bottom of my foot had split wide open and was bleeding and getting goo all up ins my shoe.

Nevertheless, I caught and passed That Girl, and then found myself at the 3 mile marker, at which point Ian ran back and encouraged me to the finish line. (He might have actually cupped my package to help support its extreme weight and help me finish more easily.) Then I finished (time: 35:31, an improvement of 5 seconds!), spit in the grass a few times, walked around for a while, and sat down to stretch and take my shoes off. The weird thing in my left shoe turned out, luckily, to not be a mass of blood and goo, but just a rather large blister, which hurts EVEN NOW.

After a good stretch, we wandered back over to the registry area to get pretzels and oranges, which is when I stopped and said, “Holy s***, is that a KEG?”

Oh yes. A keg it was.

The race organizers had thoughtfully found someone to donate a quarter-keg of what turned out to be Magic Hat Number 9. It was post-race heaven. And I drank of that sweet nectar.

Then I fell down.

At this point, I’ve pretty much given up on maintaining a normal human sleep schedule, mainly because I’m clearly an alien. I seem to require the same total amount of sleep, ie about 1/3 of my day, like everyone else. Unfortunately, I appear to be designed for a 30-36 hour day.

My job doesn’t help; sometimes I’ll be able to get myself into a relatively normal sleeping schedule, going to bed at 11, waking up at 7, all that. Then something will happen for work that keeps me up all night and sleeping during the day, and I’m screwed for WEEKS. Suddenly I’m going to bed at 11, tossing and turning until 1:30, and then not able to get out of the sack until 8:30 in the freaking morning, and tired like a 20-inch spinning rim. (Get it? Rims have tires on ’em! Nevermind. Jerks.)

From time to time I get the opposite extreme, which is actually quite awesome; I’m able to fall right asleep at 9:30 or 10pm, and I’m up at 5 or 6 in the morning and can do things around the house or get some exercise before driving into the office at 7. It’s just flat out kick-ASS. And it happens every couple of months for no apparent reason, and usually lasts a couple of weeks until I have some kind of all night outage at work, which throws me right back into falling asleep at 3am and waking at 9.

I have a hard time with sleep transitions. It usually takes me an hour to fall asleep, and I have a VERY hard time getting up, particularly if I’ve had less than 8 hours. On weekends, of course, all bets are off; I’ll either completely wake up at 7 am with no chance of returning to sleep (usually after staying up until 3 the night before), or I’m in the oven until 1pm and uselessly groggy for the rest of the day. It’s almost as if my body wants me to stay awake for 20 hours or so, and then sleep for 10. If only my busy schedule would permit this.

I’ve tried just about everything to help me fall asleep; warm milk, a little pre-sleep nooky, truly vast amounts of alcohol, nothing seems to make a significant difference. And I hate lying in bed and not DOING anything. If I’m asleep or watching TV, bed is totally awesome, but if I’m just LYING there, then I’m thinking. And it’s usually not anything good. When it IS something good, I’ll never remember it the next day, and I hate to get up and write it down for fear of totally screwing my sleep for the night.

When I sleep, I dream about people beating on my wife’s new car with baseball bats, which sends me into a screaming tantrum. I lead a terrifying life.

Good job, Blue Hens! You had 5 yards to go for the touchdown, a full set of towns, over a minute left to play, and one timeout. And you managed to not only fail to score, but prove me right in many ways! And for this, I thank you.

I didn’t actually go to the game because it was raining semi-torrentially, and also we were having people over afterwards to eat and drink and be merry, so we stayed home and cleaned and watched the game on TV. Sarah was semi-dozing on the couch nearby, but the game was making me anxious, which of course woke her up. When the Blue Hens got to the 5 yard-line, I turned to her and said, “Hey, watch this, they’re going to throw four incompletions and lose. It’s gonna be GREAT.” (Sarcasm runs rampant at Hearndom.)

The whole game, however, was a lengthy set of miscues and horrible plays, caused by the fact that Koach K.C. Keeler insists upon running a college-ized version of the West Coast offense, with a lot of short passes. I hate the West Coast offense, not because I think a short passing game with emphasis on timing is bad, but because teams that run the West Coast offense don’t run the ball enough. The Eagles, a pretty damn fine NFL squad, pass on something like 70% of offensive downs. Which drives me slightly batty.

At the college level, where you’re dealing with much weaker talents, relying on a heavy passing offense is like driving to work in a 1978 Corvette. When it’s “firing on all cylinders,” it’s awesome. But when it breaks down, it’s just tragic. (I prefer to rely on the 2001 Camry of offenses, the Option Run.)

In games where the wet weather is a factor, passing the ball is just an invitation for turnovers. RUN THE FREAKING BALL! Go conservative, and let your defense make a few plays, maybe create a few turnovers. Just pound the ball and take as much time off the clock as you can while you have control of it.

Koach Keeler made a few horrific decisions. Down 10-6, with about 7 minutes left and the ball at the 20, he decided to go for the first down on 4th and 7 instead of kicking a field goal. Sure, the figgie would have left them down 10-9, but the odds were good they’d get the ball back (which indeed they did, TWICE more), and then at the end of the game when they found themselves on the 5 with a minute left, they could have leisurely pounded the ball and then spent their last time out with just a few seconds left to get the kicker onto the field.

But just as Keeler clearly doesn’t trust his running game, he doesn’t trust his kicker either. They went for it, and failed, on fourth and 7, turning the ball over on downs for something like the 87th time.

And then, at the end of the game, with a chance for a touchdown from the 5, his play calls went:

Pass: incomplete.

Pass: incomplete.

Pass: incomplete.

Pass: incomplete. Game over. Matt screams.

At least the Eagles can blame their loss on Sunday on injuries and a porous defense that I’m proud to say is the cornerstone of my fantasy team.

I hate football.

My days are getting pretty boring. Spend a bunch of time at work putting out small fires, come home, work on things around the house for a little while, maybe play some video games and drink a few beers, go to bed. Sometimes the fun gets broken up by a rehearsal of some kind, but mostly I’m leading a lazy life of leisure.

Clearly, I need to enliven things a bit.

Here’s my plan: I’m going to take up a new sport entitled Interstate Jogging. It involves running briskly along the side of I-95, dodging the bottles of pee being thrown from cars. Plus it’ll help get me in shape for all the times I have to run from cops, what with pedestrian traffic being illegal on interstates. Better yet, it’ll help keep my reflexes in check if I periodically sprint across the highway during rush hour!

Or maybe not. Hm. I’ve got it! Cricket Checkers! It’s just like regular checkers, except that when you king someone, a large robot whacks you in the kidneys with a cricket bat. No padding, ’cause padding is for girlie men, like Warren Sapp! Actually, now that I think about it, that game sounds a little too similar to Cricket Spades, which I played for a bit last spring. I’m still peeing blood.

Maybe I should take up acupuncture or yoga or something more calming. I dunno, though. My life is calm enough. I don’t want to start falling asleep while driving. Wait a second. That sounds pretty damned exciting. I’VE GOT IT! Narcoracing! You take powerful depressants of some kind, fall asleep, and have someone place you behind the wheel of a car, put a brick on the accelerator, throw that thing in gear, and have them shock you awake with electrical impulses after you’ve built up sufficient speed.

That sounds like it’d go great with Interstate Jogging, actually.

I’m getting pretty freaking tired of weather in the Gulf. Admittedly, that’s a rather preposterous thing to say considering that I don’t live there, and my only real inconvenience is some extra hours of work. If I lived there, I’d probably be living in my wife’s car and prostituting myself for cat food and gravy mix.

Still. The company I work for has computers down there in a number of places, mostly attached to refineries and the like, so every time a monstrous storm comes wafting through, I get to work vast hours fixing things. Between that and blood and money donations to various hurricane-related charities, I’m starting to get a mite irritated.

What makes it even worse is the fact that FEMA has turned out to be run by people who are as lazy as I am, which is SERIOUSLY challenging my reality. I always pictured FEMA as being run by Tommy Lee Jones in that silly movie about volcanoes popping up in LA, what with the self-sacrifice and sprinting away from exploding buildings with small childrens in his arms and all that. Now it turns out they’re mostly interested in making sure that nobody gets to assist in rescuing victims unless all their forms are stamped in triplicate.

Plus, they’ve gotten like 40″ of rain down there over the last month or so, and around here we’re nearly in drought conditions. My lawn looks like a giant dog peed all over it. I haven’t had to mow it in weeks, and I’m starting to be concerned about brush fires. Particularly since more and more of my neighbors seem to be somehow making a living out of walking around smoking blunts and taking enthusiastic swigs from bottles wrapped in lunch bags.

That’s right. South Central does it like nobody does. I’m moving to Antarctica. At least the weather there is predictable.

I present you with a quote from a song that you probably have not heard, by a band of which you undoubtedly are unaware. The Band: Billy Pilgrim. The song: “Hurricane Season.” The quote:

The quarter moon like chalk on a slate
Board the windows up before it’s too late
The weather man and my horoscope both agree
It’s not in the stars tonight for folks like me

People on the Gulf Coast are right now probably thinking “F the horoscope man, I’m moving to North Dakota.” And you could hardly blame them. My boss wondered aloud the other day if the people that were bussed from New Orleans to Houston were saying “Are these damn things just going to chase me all the way to California?” It even begs the question: “God, what did I do wrong?”

Well, I dunno what that might be. I’m sure people, conservative people, probably think that the awesome and moderately sinful things that occur in New Orleans have brought down might wrath. I think that’s just silly; if God didn’t want people to get horribly blasted and flash their boobs at strangers, S/He wouldn’t have invented beads.

Some really weird folks think that the area’s massive oil production has angered the environmental gods, who are getting their vengeance, but those people are hippie commie liberals and would sell your skin to the Rooskies if they caught you driving anything but a solar powered motorcycle.

Me? I just like to think that Moses and Elijah are up there toking on a massive gravity bong and playing with Wind Dreidels. Sounds as likely as anything else.

http://www.bushclintonkatrinafund.org/

I’ve been digging wells for 4 years now, and nobody does it better or faster. I can punch through your foundation and dig down to the water table in one day, and you’ll have a non-federal water source for however long you can keep the government from finding out. I also set up the filter and pumping apparatus, and maintain it for a nominal fee.

“Look at it as an investment, Mr. Hawkins. Today’s published rate for water is $17 a gallon, and that’s assuming you get in line early enough to get a few jugs before they run out. With a family of 5, you go through almost 3 gallons a day, right?”

“Yeah, if we can get it.”

I smiled. “That’s $51 a day. Over $18,000 a year. I charge $14,000 for setup, and $2000 a year for filtering service. My wells are guaranteed to provide up to 15 gallons of drinkable water per day.”

“And if the government finds out?”

“Then you lose your well and pay a fine.” And, like every customer who’d been caught so far, try to give me up to the feds in exchange for leniency. Which is why no customer ever learned my real name, saw my real face, or heard my real voice.

Lionel Hawkins seemed about average, as far as customers went. He didn’t like disobeying the government, but his wife was pregnant again. The other three kids had been born dangerously underweight, each worse than the last. Mrs. Hawkins just couldn’t get enough water. I hoped they’d be able to keep the well until she had the baby; most customers averaged around 6 months before the secret got out. They try to sneak some clean water to a sick friend and get picked up, or one of the kids lets it slip at school, and that’s that. The Commission descends, the well is destroyed (often along with the house), and somebody has to come up with a 6-figure sum. If Mr. and Mrs. Whoever can’t pay the fine, they go to jail for 5 years, and the kids go into foster care.

“I’m not sure I can come up with $14,000 right now. What kind of financing can you get me?”

“Sir, I’m not a car dealer. This is not a legal enterprise. You’ll have to arrange that stuff yourself. Also, I ask that you pay the yearly filter fee up front, so I need $16,000 from you before I can start work. In cash.”

“You expect me to have sixteen grand in cash laying around here somewhere?” I knew he did. With the state of the banking system, the best way to secure money was to buy gold with it and lock it up at home. I also knew, from the background check, that Lionel Hawkins had more money than most.

“Sir, there’s no hurry. Gather the funds and email me when you’re ready, and I’ll schedule a time to come back.” He’d had to wait four months for me to fit him into my schedule the first time. I’m not really all that busy, but I find it does help people make decisions more quickly when they think I won’t come back for half a year. I turned and headed for the door.

“Wait. If I can find the money, you can start today?”

“And you’ll have carbon-filtered water in time for dinner.”

“Okay. If you want, you can go get started while I look for the money.”

I’d heard that one before. “No rush. I’ll wait while you look.”

By 6pm I was done. The Hawkins’ foundation had been thicker than usual, and it took me until 2 or so to get through that, but once I reached dirt I was home free. The pump and filter took me about an hour, and then Mrs. Hawkins took a drink of water straight from the spigot and hugged me.

On the drive home, I thought about her baby, and made the call. It would have been nice to wait a few months and give them more time, but I needed the money right away. My bookie doesn’t empathize well.

“It’s me.”

“Whatcha got?”

“Hawkins. 779 Spirit Drive, in Delton.”

“Thanks. Anything we should know?”

“The woman is pregnant, about 4 months along. Can you hold off and give her enough time to have the kid?”

A sigh. “You know the pressure on the Commission to crack down. I’ll put a note in the file, but no promises.”

“Thanks.” I hung up. It was out of my hands.

Sorry I was out of commission for what, 10 days now? Last week was absolutely HELLISH at work. I probably can’t go into a great deal of detail, but here’s a vague recounting.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I was scheduled to work 8am to 8pm shifts at an offsite location, so on Tuesday (we were of course off for Labor Dabor on Monday), I went in at 8, stayed until about noon, and went home to rest up for the long shifts. At 6pm, I woke up and returned my boss’s call, and discovered that Things Were Broken. (Understatement being the hallmark of all great writers.) So I went to work at about 7pm, and went home at 7am. The offsite work was pushed back about 8 hours, so somebody else covered the 8am to 8pm shift, and I got there around 7:30pm Wednesday and stayed until midnight Thursday night, getting two short catnaps of about 15 minutes each.

The best part? I got home around 12:30am, and then was so revved up that I couldn’t sleep. I finally passed out around 2am and slept until noon, blowing right through my 8:15am blood donation appointment.

It was quite a lengthy week, although to be honest it was almost all technical, problem-solving type of work. I rather enjoyed it, since I spend the bulk of my office time doing paperwork and attending meetings and checking Fark for NSFW links to email to myself for later viewing at home.

I have mucho more pics of Nathaniel that I hope to have up soon; HW loves her new car; we had a party last week at which Things Got Out Of Control; and we are doing some rearranging of things at the house which will involve me building some shelving in my basement office, so I might take some pictures of the progress and share with you the agony of trying to do woodworking while being as dextrous as an acoustic ceiling tile. Wish me luck.