- Raven said, "You two can have three days of honeymoon, at my place... if you want."
- Angel began to cry. "Thanks Rav."
-
- After Raven left, Angel and Doug plopped down, side by side, on the soft over-stuffed sofa. Each took a deep breath.
- "Well daddy, and now my husband - what now?"
- Doug looked at her and said, "I’m not sure. We need a real place to stay and some money."
- Doug looked around at Raven’s lavishly furnished living room. "It looks like Raven has money to burn." He fingered the soft velour fabric of the sofa. "Does she have some sort of other income? I mean other than what she makes, well did make, above the VFW hall?"
- "She’s never said anything about how she lives. This place is a surprise to me. It’s huge!"
- "Did she charge extra, for... her services?"
- "No. I don’t think so. She does do some work on the side but that only happens maybe once a month. You know, specials, like she’s going to do in Olympia and Seattle this weekend."
- Doug fingered the fabric on the sofa again. "Maybe she robs banks."
- "Yeah, that could be it.", Angel giggled.
- "Yeah, that’s probably it. She probable has guns in the house."
- Angel hunkered down and looked from side to side, "Maybe we should search the house."
- "Maybe."
- "Bandits usually keep their guns in the bedroom, well that’s what I’ve heard." Angel got up and tip-toed toward the bedroom. She stopped and looked at Doug. "Well are you coming to the bedroom, or not?"
- Doug smiled, "The bedroom is the logical first place for us to go... I mean to search." He got up and placed both his hands in her hips, and tip-toed toward the bedroom behind her.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, January 26, 2008
1/26/2008
1/07/2008
- - MAD DOG 20/20 - -
- Angel and Doug waited in the reception area of Timberhill Hospital, for Raven to pick them up. Raven was one of the three quick-date gals that had worked with Angel above the VFW hall.
- Raven arrived ten minutes late. She blamed the rain and stupid drivers for her delay, but really she had stopped at Cindy’s Java Hut and bought three large Mocha Delights with extra foam.
- Doug and Angel were going to get in the front seat of the silver Cadillac, but Raven said, "You two get in the back, I’ll chauffeur."
- After they got in, Raven drove the car out from under the hospital’s portico then stopped. She handed the Mocha Delights to them.
- "You two sit back there, take a swig of Cindy’s finest, get a big foam mustache, then give each other a big honeymoon kiss."
- They did!
- Quickly, Raven picked up her camera and took a picture. It was the only wedding picture Angel and Doug would ever have.
- "How about I drive you two to my place, show you where the bedroom is... then leave? I’m scheduled in Olympia for three bachelor parties, one tonight and two tomorrow night. Then I have to go to Seattle and stay with Mom and Dad for a night, to make up for missing them on the holidays.
- She took a sip of her mocha.
- "I was, you know, scheduled, on Christmas and New Year’s Eve. You two can have three days of honeymoon, at my place... if you want."
- Angel began to cry. "Thanks Rav."
-
- Dr. Rasher browsed his wine rack. He picked the most expensive bottle of French Chardonnay he had. He had bought it at a wine auction for $126. One dollar above the other guy’s bid.
-
- Dr. Rasher drove around the circular driveway of Mrs. Jenkins’ estate and parked. By his wristwatch he was four minutes early. Looking at the watch brought back a bad memory, he cussed the watch. "Piece of crap!"
- He had bought wristwatch at the hotel gift shop where the wine auction had been held. A week later, one of his patients noticed the watch, and rolled up his sleeve, and showed Dr. Rasher the same watch. The patient said, "I’m surprised you shop Wal-Mart."
- That afternoon, Dr. Rasher put on a baseball cap and sunglasses and sneaked into Wal-Mart. He learned he had paid $63 too much. Wal-Mart sold them at the ‘Clearance Corner’ in their jewelry department.
-When he got to his office, he tossed the watch in the trash.
- The next morning his nurse handed the watch back to him and said, "I have no idea how this got in the trash, but here it is. I’m surprised you shop Wal-Mart."
- A few days later, Dr. Rasher went to McDonald’s for a lunch salad. Behind the counter was a young girl, another of his patients.
- He finished his salad and left the watch on the booth’s table... that was intentional... leaving his money clip on the booth’s seat wasn’t intentional.
-He estimated the clip held three of the four twenty-dollar bills he had started with that day.
- That evening the McDonald’s girl brought the watch back to him... but not the money clip.
- Dr. Rasher thought, "The third time’s a charm."
-
- He picked up the bottle of Chardonnay and walked toward the elaborately styled front door of Mrs. Jenkins’ estate. Before he could press the doorbell button, she opened the door.
- "Good evening Sampson. Prompt! Nice!"
- He handed her the bottle. "Were you waiting at the door?"
- "No. I don’t wait at doors. The security system beeped when you entered the main gate."
- She looked at the bottle.
- "Oh! I have about half a case of this in the wine cellar."
- He looked around the foyer and noticed a security panel. Its monitor displayed a sequence of pictures of the main gate, and the circular driveway, and his car. She pressed a few buttons on the security panel then shut its door. He didn’t ask what she had done, but it made him feel like he was her prisoner.
- He sniffed the air and smelled garlic. "Are we having scallops in garlic sauce?"
- "No. I didn’t cook, I ordered Domino’s pizza."
- "Chardonnay and pizza?"
- "No. I bought a bottle of Mogen-David. I love cranberry juice and Mad Dog 20/20 wine spritzers, and pizza with extra cheese... I own Domino’s Pizza in Sanonte."
- She didn’t offer to give the bottle back to him. He glanced at his watch and made a mental note that he had been in her house less than a minute, and already he was out $126 for wine and wouldn’t get to taste it. He felt slightly taken advantage of.
- What he didn’t know was her plans for him that night. She was going to take him to the cleaners... she owned the dry cleaners too.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, January 6, 2008
- Raven arrived ten minutes late. She blamed the rain and stupid drivers for her delay, but really she had stopped at Cindy’s Java Hut and bought three large Mocha Delights with extra foam.
- Doug and Angel were going to get in the front seat of the silver Cadillac, but Raven said, "You two get in the back, I’ll chauffeur."
- After they got in, Raven drove the car out from under the hospital’s portico then stopped. She handed the Mocha Delights to them.
- "You two sit back there, take a swig of Cindy’s finest, get a big foam mustache, then give each other a big honeymoon kiss."
- They did!
- Quickly, Raven picked up her camera and took a picture. It was the only wedding picture Angel and Doug would ever have.
- "How about I drive you two to my place, show you where the bedroom is... then leave? I’m scheduled in Olympia for three bachelor parties, one tonight and two tomorrow night. Then I have to go to Seattle and stay with Mom and Dad for a night, to make up for missing them on the holidays.
- She took a sip of her mocha.
- "I was, you know, scheduled, on Christmas and New Year’s Eve. You two can have three days of honeymoon, at my place... if you want."
- Angel began to cry. "Thanks Rav."
-
- Dr. Rasher browsed his wine rack. He picked the most expensive bottle of French Chardonnay he had. He had bought it at a wine auction for $126. One dollar above the other guy’s bid.
-
- Dr. Rasher drove around the circular driveway of Mrs. Jenkins’ estate and parked. By his wristwatch he was four minutes early. Looking at the watch brought back a bad memory, he cussed the watch. "Piece of crap!"
- He had bought wristwatch at the hotel gift shop where the wine auction had been held. A week later, one of his patients noticed the watch, and rolled up his sleeve, and showed Dr. Rasher the same watch. The patient said, "I’m surprised you shop Wal-Mart."
- That afternoon, Dr. Rasher put on a baseball cap and sunglasses and sneaked into Wal-Mart. He learned he had paid $63 too much. Wal-Mart sold them at the ‘Clearance Corner’ in their jewelry department.
-When he got to his office, he tossed the watch in the trash.
- The next morning his nurse handed the watch back to him and said, "I have no idea how this got in the trash, but here it is. I’m surprised you shop Wal-Mart."
- A few days later, Dr. Rasher went to McDonald’s for a lunch salad. Behind the counter was a young girl, another of his patients.
- He finished his salad and left the watch on the booth’s table... that was intentional... leaving his money clip on the booth’s seat wasn’t intentional.
-He estimated the clip held three of the four twenty-dollar bills he had started with that day.
- That evening the McDonald’s girl brought the watch back to him... but not the money clip.
- Dr. Rasher thought, "The third time’s a charm."
-
- He picked up the bottle of Chardonnay and walked toward the elaborately styled front door of Mrs. Jenkins’ estate. Before he could press the doorbell button, she opened the door.
- "Good evening Sampson. Prompt! Nice!"
- He handed her the bottle. "Were you waiting at the door?"
- "No. I don’t wait at doors. The security system beeped when you entered the main gate."
- She looked at the bottle.
- "Oh! I have about half a case of this in the wine cellar."
- He looked around the foyer and noticed a security panel. Its monitor displayed a sequence of pictures of the main gate, and the circular driveway, and his car. She pressed a few buttons on the security panel then shut its door. He didn’t ask what she had done, but it made him feel like he was her prisoner.
- He sniffed the air and smelled garlic. "Are we having scallops in garlic sauce?"
- "No. I didn’t cook, I ordered Domino’s pizza."
- "Chardonnay and pizza?"
- "No. I bought a bottle of Mogen-David. I love cranberry juice and Mad Dog 20/20 wine spritzers, and pizza with extra cheese... I own Domino’s Pizza in Sanonte."
- She didn’t offer to give the bottle back to him. He glanced at his watch and made a mental note that he had been in her house less than a minute, and already he was out $126 for wine and wouldn’t get to taste it. He felt slightly taken advantage of.
- What he didn’t know was her plans for him that night. She was going to take him to the cleaners... she owned the dry cleaners too.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, January 6, 2008
1/04/2008
- - X. L. R. (IT SEEMED APPROPRIATE) - -
- At 12:22 AM Dr. Rasher called Millie Jenkins. Her bedside phone awakened her, she had forgotten to switch on the answering machine.
- "Who is this?", entered Dr. Rasher’s ear, he looked at the time.
- "Hello, Mrs. Jenkins this is Dr. Rasher. I’m sorry to call you so late but I think..."
- Millie interrupted him. "Have you been drinking?"
- "Uh...yes... wine, a nice Chardonnay... French, but I’m not drunk. I think..."
- "How very pleasant to receive a call from someone I don’t like, and so considerate of you, to call in the middle of the night! Thank you all to hell, Sampson! May I call you Sampson?"
- "Uh... yes. And again, I apologize Mrs. Jenkins, truly I... uh... may I call you Millie?"
- "No! You may call me in the morning!" Millie hung up, switched on the answering machine, and pushed the ‘Mute’ button.
- She noticed there was one message waiting. She pressed the ‘Caller ID’ button. Her son BJ had called. She checked the message’s time. He had called when she was in the shower. Or, as she would say, "Enjoying my evening ablutions." She thought if BJ’s call was important he would have called a second time, he hadn’t. Millie smiled after thinking of how she snubbed Dr. Rasher. She lay back in bed, and looked at Harold’s pillow. "Harold... I miss irritating you like that. I think your doctor has figured out how to weasel out of his problem." She patted Harold’s pillow. "Goodnight dear." She giggled, "No Harold. Not tonight. I have a headache." She moved around, found the warm spot, and went back to sleep.
-
- BJ had called his mother to tell her he wasn’t going to meet her for breakfast the next morning. Instead he was going to be the Best Man at a wedding.
-
- A little past 9 AM, while sitting on the edge of her hospital bed, Angel and Doug were married.
- After saying their ‘I DOs’, there was a small wedding reception. The wedding cake was two Twinkies, cut in half, and coffee in cardboard cups to replace Champagne.
- BJ gave his Best Man speech in which he told them they could check out of the hospital the next day, and if the twins continued to gain weight, they could go home too... within a week or so.
- Angel thought BJ’s speech was the best speech ever given at any wedding reception. Her only concern was that there was no home, to go home to. Her apartment above the VFW no longer existed. There was no longer a second floor to the building. The early December storm had demolished the roof, and the building had been rebuilt into a single story structure. And while they were in the hospital, Doug had been evicted from his apartment.
-
- After completing her activities as Bridesmaid, Nurse Louise Rencher was given the honor of entering the twin’s names into Timberhill Hospital’s computer system. She entered the name Mark in the, ‘FIRST NAME’ box, then replaced ‘Left Foot Trauma’ with the letter ‘L’, and finally entered Furr as the baby’s last name. She entered Luke R. Furr as the second baby’s name.
- The names weren’t chosen from the Bible. Both Angel and Doug were ‘Star Wars’ movie fans. Doug named Mark as a tribute to Mark Hamill. Angel chose Luke because Luke Skywalker was the name of Hamill’s character in the movie series. The ‘L’ and ‘R’ initials, instead of names, honored Nurse Rencher’s temporary names for the twins, (Left Foot Trauma and Right Foot Trauma). As Doug pointed out, his middle name was just the letter ‘X’, so single-letter middle names seemed appropriate.
-
- Dr. Rasher called Millie Jenkins about the same time, as Angel and Doug’s wedding reception ended.
- "Hello.", entered Dr. Rasher’s ear.
- "Hello. Mrs. Jenkins this is Dr. Ras..."
- Millie interrupted, "Sampson... this is much better timing...are you sober?"
- "Yes."
- "Good! Now you may speak to me."
- "I can give you my third of the bar!" Dr. Rasher blurted out, hoping to avoid an interruption.
- Millie smiled and waited a few seconds. "How very kind of you. When?"
- "After you contest the will!" He waited again.
- "On what grounds?"
- "You can claim Harold was insane, because of his brain tumor."
- Millie nodded when she heard Dr. Rasher’s suggestion. It was the same one she had been talking about with her lawyers.
- "I know some psychiatrists that will..."
- "Sampson! Let’s not discuss this over the phone. Join me for dinner this evening. I’ll cook fish, you bring wine... a nice Chardonnay... French."
- "Uh ... okay."
- "Come at six o’clock. "
- "Okay."
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, January 4, 2008
- "Who is this?", entered Dr. Rasher’s ear, he looked at the time.
- "Hello, Mrs. Jenkins this is Dr. Rasher. I’m sorry to call you so late but I think..."
- Millie interrupted him. "Have you been drinking?"
- "Uh...yes... wine, a nice Chardonnay... French, but I’m not drunk. I think..."
- "How very pleasant to receive a call from someone I don’t like, and so considerate of you, to call in the middle of the night! Thank you all to hell, Sampson! May I call you Sampson?"
- "Uh... yes. And again, I apologize Mrs. Jenkins, truly I... uh... may I call you Millie?"
- "No! You may call me in the morning!" Millie hung up, switched on the answering machine, and pushed the ‘Mute’ button.
- She noticed there was one message waiting. She pressed the ‘Caller ID’ button. Her son BJ had called. She checked the message’s time. He had called when she was in the shower. Or, as she would say, "Enjoying my evening ablutions." She thought if BJ’s call was important he would have called a second time, he hadn’t. Millie smiled after thinking of how she snubbed Dr. Rasher. She lay back in bed, and looked at Harold’s pillow. "Harold... I miss irritating you like that. I think your doctor has figured out how to weasel out of his problem." She patted Harold’s pillow. "Goodnight dear." She giggled, "No Harold. Not tonight. I have a headache." She moved around, found the warm spot, and went back to sleep.
-
- BJ had called his mother to tell her he wasn’t going to meet her for breakfast the next morning. Instead he was going to be the Best Man at a wedding.
-
- A little past 9 AM, while sitting on the edge of her hospital bed, Angel and Doug were married.
- After saying their ‘I DOs’, there was a small wedding reception. The wedding cake was two Twinkies, cut in half, and coffee in cardboard cups to replace Champagne.
- BJ gave his Best Man speech in which he told them they could check out of the hospital the next day, and if the twins continued to gain weight, they could go home too... within a week or so.
- Angel thought BJ’s speech was the best speech ever given at any wedding reception. Her only concern was that there was no home, to go home to. Her apartment above the VFW no longer existed. There was no longer a second floor to the building. The early December storm had demolished the roof, and the building had been rebuilt into a single story structure. And while they were in the hospital, Doug had been evicted from his apartment.
-
- After completing her activities as Bridesmaid, Nurse Louise Rencher was given the honor of entering the twin’s names into Timberhill Hospital’s computer system. She entered the name Mark in the, ‘FIRST NAME’ box, then replaced ‘Left Foot Trauma’ with the letter ‘L’, and finally entered Furr as the baby’s last name. She entered Luke R. Furr as the second baby’s name.
- The names weren’t chosen from the Bible. Both Angel and Doug were ‘Star Wars’ movie fans. Doug named Mark as a tribute to Mark Hamill. Angel chose Luke because Luke Skywalker was the name of Hamill’s character in the movie series. The ‘L’ and ‘R’ initials, instead of names, honored Nurse Rencher’s temporary names for the twins, (Left Foot Trauma and Right Foot Trauma). As Doug pointed out, his middle name was just the letter ‘X’, so single-letter middle names seemed appropriate.
-
- Dr. Rasher called Millie Jenkins about the same time, as Angel and Doug’s wedding reception ended.
- "Hello.", entered Dr. Rasher’s ear.
- "Hello. Mrs. Jenkins this is Dr. Ras..."
- Millie interrupted, "Sampson... this is much better timing...are you sober?"
- "Yes."
- "Good! Now you may speak to me."
- "I can give you my third of the bar!" Dr. Rasher blurted out, hoping to avoid an interruption.
- Millie smiled and waited a few seconds. "How very kind of you. When?"
- "After you contest the will!" He waited again.
- "On what grounds?"
- "You can claim Harold was insane, because of his brain tumor."
- Millie nodded when she heard Dr. Rasher’s suggestion. It was the same one she had been talking about with her lawyers.
- "I know some psychiatrists that will..."
- "Sampson! Let’s not discuss this over the phone. Join me for dinner this evening. I’ll cook fish, you bring wine... a nice Chardonnay... French."
- "Uh ... okay."
- "Come at six o’clock. "
- "Okay."
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, January 4, 2008
1/03/2008
- - DR. RASHER’S DILEMMA - -
- Pete, the hawk-nosed, bartender at Cuck’s Bar and Grill, had just gotten the channel-select button to work, on the bar’s TV remote. He was euphoric, he was going to call the bar’s owner and brag about his victory, but it was after midnight..
- The bar’s owner wasn’t asleep.
- Dr. Rasher, was in his Jacuzzi, drinking a glass of wine and mulling over a dilemma.
-
- He was a Baptist, and also a one-third owner of Cuck’s Bar and Grill, and that paradox caused his dilemma... Baptists don’t own bars.
- Not many Baptists drank alcohol either, but he wasn’t going to stop having wine while inside his own home.
-
- Dr. Rasher was a proficient enough doctor, but he had a harsh bedside manor, which was interjected with sharply-worded judgments of what the patients had done wrong, which had therefore caused their illness.
- Most patients he scolded, changed doctors. His practice was barely profitable. Money from the bar, allowed him to payoff his credit cards, and to afford expensive wine.
-
- His dilemma had two parts, as all dilemmas do.
- He couldn’t afford to lose any patients. Most of his patients were non-drinking Baptists, and if they found out he owned a bar, many would change doctors. If they did, then his practice would become more of a hobby than a source of income.
- He wanted to keep his patients and his one-third ownership. One would have to go.
- He couldn’t get out of being an owner. He hadn’t bought the one-third ownership. It had been willed to him by Harold Jenkins, Millie’s husband.
-
- Harold and Millie’s courtship and marriage had been a mixture of hate and love. It boomed and sparkled like skyrockets on the fourth of July.
-
- There was a prenuptial agreement!
-
- Millie didn’t like Dr. Rasher, and changed doctors. She urged Harold to do the same, he didn’t, and that irritated her.
- Harold weighed all the factors. He didn’t like Dr. Rasher either, but irritating Millie provided enough pleasure to offset the pain of Dr. Rasher’s sharply-worded reprimands.
- Millie’s IQ was almost high enough to qualify her to join Mensa. She quickly realized why Harold had remained Dr. Rasher’s patient.
- With that knowledge, her whole attitude changed, and her revenge began... a double-cross. She faked being irritated at him knowing that he would remain a patient and accept the pain of Dr. Rasher’s criticisms, as long as he thought, he was irritating her.
-
- A few months ago, Harold began having headaches, he called and made an appointment to see Dr. Rasher.
- There were tests... and more visits... and more tests.
-
- A month after the tests started, instead of Harold calling Dr. Rasher, Dr. Rasher called Harold, and asked him to come in... there was an explanation for the headaches.
-
- In his sharp-tongued explanation , Dr. Rasher accused Harold of poisoning his body with drugs, during his youth, and with alcohol, tobacco, and wrong-foods throughout his adult life. He told Harold he a brain tumor, and that the cancer had spread to his lungs, kidneys, liver and pancreas. There wasn’t any treatment, and he was going to die within a month... two at the most.
-
- Harold sat on the edge of the examination table and went through the classic five steps of grief in slight less that five minutes. Harold astounded Dr. Rasher.
- Denial took less than a minute. Anger about the same. Bargaining took the longest. Depression was dispensed with quickly. Acceptance was quick too.
-
- When Harold left Dr. Rasher’s office, both were smiling.
-
- A week later, Harold discovered Millie’s double-cross. He frowned, he had been out-witted again. He began pacing and drinking Scotch, two things he did while working out a problem. When the second glass of Scotch was finished, he sat down and smiled, the problem had been solved.
-
- In Harold and Millie’s marriage, he had the money, and she had the brains. He had never been able to outwit her, and stay in the driver’s seat of their marriage for very long. She had always managed to unseat him and regain the top spot.
-
- Harold called his lawyer and changed his will.
-
- He gave his one-third ownership of Cuck’s to Dr. Rasher. It was Harold’s last boom in his marriage, his last grapple with his, hated and loved, Millie. He thought he had a way to get back in the driver’s seat, and remain there for at least five years and maybe forever.
-
- Shortly after their honeymoon, Harold and Millie called a marriage counselor. The counselor explained to them that all marriages become games, and the games had names, and the name of their game was ‘Uproar’. The counselor smiled and explained that both of their personalities fitted together perfectly, as the game’s players. The counselor told them that if they stayed married, their life together would be one of punch and counter-punch, it would be filled with absolutely everything except boredom.
- Their marriage lasted close to fifty years, and spawned one son, BJ, who became a nurse and worked at Timberhill Hospital, in Sanonte.
-
- Harold had his lawyer draw up a contract for the transfer of his one-third ownership of Cuck’s, to Dr. Rasher. The contract contained a binding clause that stated Dr. Rasher had to offer to sell his third to the other two owners before offering it for sale to the public. That was a standard clause.
- What wasn’t standard, was a special clause that stated the other two owners could take as long as five years to reject buying Dr. Rasher’s third.
-
- Harold was a salesman and sold Dr. Rasher on the idea of accepting the one-third ownership, even thought it was against Dr. Rasher’s religion.
- When Harold mentioned how much money his portion would be, Dr. Rasher considered accepting.
- When Harold mentioned that if owning it was against his religion, then he could sell it! Dr. Rasher accepted.
-
- What Harold didn’t mention was the special clause.
-
- Dr. Rasher stood up in the tub and turned off the Jacuzzi’s jets. He cussed Harold for not mentioning the five year delay clause. He stepped out of the tub and began toweling off.
- By the time he was dry, he had thought of a way to end his dilemma. Without checking the time, he reached for the phone.
- At 12:22 AM Millie Jenkins was awakened.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, January 2, 2008
- The bar’s owner wasn’t asleep.
- Dr. Rasher, was in his Jacuzzi, drinking a glass of wine and mulling over a dilemma.
-
- He was a Baptist, and also a one-third owner of Cuck’s Bar and Grill, and that paradox caused his dilemma... Baptists don’t own bars.
- Not many Baptists drank alcohol either, but he wasn’t going to stop having wine while inside his own home.
-
- Dr. Rasher was a proficient enough doctor, but he had a harsh bedside manor, which was interjected with sharply-worded judgments of what the patients had done wrong, which had therefore caused their illness.
- Most patients he scolded, changed doctors. His practice was barely profitable. Money from the bar, allowed him to payoff his credit cards, and to afford expensive wine.
-
- His dilemma had two parts, as all dilemmas do.
- He couldn’t afford to lose any patients. Most of his patients were non-drinking Baptists, and if they found out he owned a bar, many would change doctors. If they did, then his practice would become more of a hobby than a source of income.
- He wanted to keep his patients and his one-third ownership. One would have to go.
- He couldn’t get out of being an owner. He hadn’t bought the one-third ownership. It had been willed to him by Harold Jenkins, Millie’s husband.
-
- Harold and Millie’s courtship and marriage had been a mixture of hate and love. It boomed and sparkled like skyrockets on the fourth of July.
-
- There was a prenuptial agreement!
-
- Millie didn’t like Dr. Rasher, and changed doctors. She urged Harold to do the same, he didn’t, and that irritated her.
- Harold weighed all the factors. He didn’t like Dr. Rasher either, but irritating Millie provided enough pleasure to offset the pain of Dr. Rasher’s sharply-worded reprimands.
- Millie’s IQ was almost high enough to qualify her to join Mensa. She quickly realized why Harold had remained Dr. Rasher’s patient.
- With that knowledge, her whole attitude changed, and her revenge began... a double-cross. She faked being irritated at him knowing that he would remain a patient and accept the pain of Dr. Rasher’s criticisms, as long as he thought, he was irritating her.
-
- A few months ago, Harold began having headaches, he called and made an appointment to see Dr. Rasher.
- There were tests... and more visits... and more tests.
-
- A month after the tests started, instead of Harold calling Dr. Rasher, Dr. Rasher called Harold, and asked him to come in... there was an explanation for the headaches.
-
- In his sharp-tongued explanation , Dr. Rasher accused Harold of poisoning his body with drugs, during his youth, and with alcohol, tobacco, and wrong-foods throughout his adult life. He told Harold he a brain tumor, and that the cancer had spread to his lungs, kidneys, liver and pancreas. There wasn’t any treatment, and he was going to die within a month... two at the most.
-
- Harold sat on the edge of the examination table and went through the classic five steps of grief in slight less that five minutes. Harold astounded Dr. Rasher.
- Denial took less than a minute. Anger about the same. Bargaining took the longest. Depression was dispensed with quickly. Acceptance was quick too.
-
- When Harold left Dr. Rasher’s office, both were smiling.
-
- A week later, Harold discovered Millie’s double-cross. He frowned, he had been out-witted again. He began pacing and drinking Scotch, two things he did while working out a problem. When the second glass of Scotch was finished, he sat down and smiled, the problem had been solved.
-
- In Harold and Millie’s marriage, he had the money, and she had the brains. He had never been able to outwit her, and stay in the driver’s seat of their marriage for very long. She had always managed to unseat him and regain the top spot.
-
- Harold called his lawyer and changed his will.
-
- He gave his one-third ownership of Cuck’s to Dr. Rasher. It was Harold’s last boom in his marriage, his last grapple with his, hated and loved, Millie. He thought he had a way to get back in the driver’s seat, and remain there for at least five years and maybe forever.
-
- Shortly after their honeymoon, Harold and Millie called a marriage counselor. The counselor explained to them that all marriages become games, and the games had names, and the name of their game was ‘Uproar’. The counselor smiled and explained that both of their personalities fitted together perfectly, as the game’s players. The counselor told them that if they stayed married, their life together would be one of punch and counter-punch, it would be filled with absolutely everything except boredom.
- Their marriage lasted close to fifty years, and spawned one son, BJ, who became a nurse and worked at Timberhill Hospital, in Sanonte.
-
- Harold had his lawyer draw up a contract for the transfer of his one-third ownership of Cuck’s, to Dr. Rasher. The contract contained a binding clause that stated Dr. Rasher had to offer to sell his third to the other two owners before offering it for sale to the public. That was a standard clause.
- What wasn’t standard, was a special clause that stated the other two owners could take as long as five years to reject buying Dr. Rasher’s third.
-
- Harold was a salesman and sold Dr. Rasher on the idea of accepting the one-third ownership, even thought it was against Dr. Rasher’s religion.
- When Harold mentioned how much money his portion would be, Dr. Rasher considered accepting.
- When Harold mentioned that if owning it was against his religion, then he could sell it! Dr. Rasher accepted.
-
- What Harold didn’t mention was the special clause.
-
- Dr. Rasher stood up in the tub and turned off the Jacuzzi’s jets. He cussed Harold for not mentioning the five year delay clause. He stepped out of the tub and began toweling off.
- By the time he was dry, he had thought of a way to end his dilemma. Without checking the time, he reached for the phone.
- At 12:22 AM Millie Jenkins was awakened.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, January 2, 2008
12/31/2007
- - WINE INTO WATER, TWICE - -
- On the morning of December 30, 2007 in Bordeaux France, Dr. Canon Wilcox’s wife Lenore, was electrocuted in her new Jacuzzi, in her (still being remodeled) bathroom.
-
- Lenore placed that morning’s half-empty, third glass of wine on the edge of the tub and got in. She was ready for jets of water, and bubbles, she flipped on the switch to start the pump. Nothing happened.
-
- Her electrician Paul Toussaint, should have been at her house, and on the job, he wasn’t. He had, had a flat tire. While changing it he discovered the spare was flat too.
-
- Lenore got out of the tub, she was wet and angry. She opened a small access door near the base of the tub and looked in. She hoped to find a RESET button, to push. There was a button, she pushed it. She got in the tub and flipped on the switch to start the pump. Nothing happened.
- She got out of the tub and pulled up on the handle to drain the water. Nothing happened.
- She walked across the bathroom, opened the door to the shower, reached in and turned the handle. The water flowed, she looked at the drain, it wasn’t blocked, she didn’t understand why it drained but not the tub. She stepped into the glass enclosed shower.
- Eleven minutes later she got out of the shower, toweled off, applied a body moisturizer, picked up her hair dryer and sat on the edge of the tub.
- She took another sip of wine and looked at the shower drain then at the tub’s drain handle. She yanked up and down on the handle a few times. Nothing happened.
- She began drying her hair. She bumped her half-empty glass of wine into the tub’s undrained water. She reached in to retrieve it. She stuck her leg out, to maintain her balance on the tub’s wet edge. Something happened.
- Drunk and off balance, she slipped and fell into the tub, while holding her hair dryer.
- It was 8:02 AM in Bordeaux. Eight time zones to the west it was 12:02 AM in Sanonte.
-
- As Lenore was being electrocuted in her Jacuzzi, in Bordeaux, Pete was involved in his own electrical happening, but it involved much less amperage. He stood behind the bar of Cuck’s Bar and Grill, and picked at a piece of Jalapeno pepper inside the bar’s TV remote control.
- He hooked it then slowly pulled it out. He snapped the case back together and pressed the channel-select button, it worked. He was positively euphoric! Man vs. machine, and man had won! He reached for the phone to call the bar’s owner, but then looked at the clock. In was two minutes past midnight in Sanonte,
- Pete thought the bar’s owner would be asleep, he hung up the phone.
- The bar’s owner wasn’t asleep but fully awake.
- Dr. Rasher, was in his Jacuzzi, drinking a glass of wine, and mulling over his dilemma. He sat his half-empty glass of wine on the edge of the tub and reached up to adjusted the mixture of air bubbles and water flow. When he thought they were about perfect, he reached for his glass of wine. He didn’t have his glasses on, he misjudged the glass’s position and bumped it with his thumb, it fell into the water, and hit him on the knee. Other than that, nothing happened. He continued to ponder his dilemma.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 31, 2007
-
- Lenore placed that morning’s half-empty, third glass of wine on the edge of the tub and got in. She was ready for jets of water, and bubbles, she flipped on the switch to start the pump. Nothing happened.
-
- Her electrician Paul Toussaint, should have been at her house, and on the job, he wasn’t. He had, had a flat tire. While changing it he discovered the spare was flat too.
-
- Lenore got out of the tub, she was wet and angry. She opened a small access door near the base of the tub and looked in. She hoped to find a RESET button, to push. There was a button, she pushed it. She got in the tub and flipped on the switch to start the pump. Nothing happened.
- She got out of the tub and pulled up on the handle to drain the water. Nothing happened.
- She walked across the bathroom, opened the door to the shower, reached in and turned the handle. The water flowed, she looked at the drain, it wasn’t blocked, she didn’t understand why it drained but not the tub. She stepped into the glass enclosed shower.
- Eleven minutes later she got out of the shower, toweled off, applied a body moisturizer, picked up her hair dryer and sat on the edge of the tub.
- She took another sip of wine and looked at the shower drain then at the tub’s drain handle. She yanked up and down on the handle a few times. Nothing happened.
- She began drying her hair. She bumped her half-empty glass of wine into the tub’s undrained water. She reached in to retrieve it. She stuck her leg out, to maintain her balance on the tub’s wet edge. Something happened.
- Drunk and off balance, she slipped and fell into the tub, while holding her hair dryer.
- It was 8:02 AM in Bordeaux. Eight time zones to the west it was 12:02 AM in Sanonte.
-
- As Lenore was being electrocuted in her Jacuzzi, in Bordeaux, Pete was involved in his own electrical happening, but it involved much less amperage. He stood behind the bar of Cuck’s Bar and Grill, and picked at a piece of Jalapeno pepper inside the bar’s TV remote control.
- He hooked it then slowly pulled it out. He snapped the case back together and pressed the channel-select button, it worked. He was positively euphoric! Man vs. machine, and man had won! He reached for the phone to call the bar’s owner, but then looked at the clock. In was two minutes past midnight in Sanonte,
- Pete thought the bar’s owner would be asleep, he hung up the phone.
- The bar’s owner wasn’t asleep but fully awake.
- Dr. Rasher, was in his Jacuzzi, drinking a glass of wine, and mulling over his dilemma. He sat his half-empty glass of wine on the edge of the tub and reached up to adjusted the mixture of air bubbles and water flow. When he thought they were about perfect, he reached for his glass of wine. He didn’t have his glasses on, he misjudged the glass’s position and bumped it with his thumb, it fell into the water, and hit him on the knee. Other than that, nothing happened. He continued to ponder his dilemma.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 31, 2007
12/30/2007
- - AND THE BEAT GOES ON - -
- With a straight-pin, Pete picked at a small green flake inside the nacho-cheese filled remote control, for Cuck’s Bar and Grill’s no-so, wide-screen TV. Mentally, he clearly spoke a sentence, (I wish I could get that piece of Jalapeno to move.)
- Louise and BJ sat in a booth, across from where Pete sat behind the bar.
- Louise handed BJ a red-wrapped box. "Here. Merry Christmas, it’s a present. Don’t use it until you’re all healed... down there." Louise pointed toward BJ’s lap.
- "Thanks. I didn’t get you anything."
- "That’s okay, I didn’t get you anything either." Louise pointed to the box. "It was for my secret lover. He dumped me tonight... I took it back."
- "You mean Dr. Wilcox?" BJ ripped at the red-wrapping.
- "Does everybody know we were secret lovers?"
- "I think so." BJ opened the box and pulled out a small bottle, he looked at the label. "I can’t read this."
- Louise said, "It’s mint-flavored body-massage oil. Ever use it?"
- "No."
- "Do you want to?"
- BJ shook his head. "Can’t. The girl I dumped tonight is on a plane to England, I don’t think I’ll never see her again."
- "How did you get her to leave the country? I wish I could get Canon would do that."
-
- Dr. Canon Wilcox’s wife Lenore, was being electrocuted in her new Jacuzzi, in her new bathroom, in her new house, in Bordeaux, France.
-
- In two hours, Dr. Canon Wilcox would get a long-distance phone call. Six hours after the call, he would be on a plane to France. He wouldn’t be happy, but he wouldn’t be very sad either.
-
- Louise would get a call from Canon as he was flying to France. She would have mixed feelings. A little sad and a little ashamed that she didn’t feel sadder.
-
- In a few days BJ would have an opportunity to use the oil. The opportunity would free him from the guilt he felt about his relationship with his second cousin.
-
- Pete hooked the green flake of Jalapeno with the straight pin, then slowly pulled it out of the remote control. Pete was happy.
-
- At Lenore Cox’s funeral, Petrie Dubois, her interior decorator, would actually cry tears, but he wouldn’t send many flowers to the funeral.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 29, 2007
- Louise and BJ sat in a booth, across from where Pete sat behind the bar.
- Louise handed BJ a red-wrapped box. "Here. Merry Christmas, it’s a present. Don’t use it until you’re all healed... down there." Louise pointed toward BJ’s lap.
- "Thanks. I didn’t get you anything."
- "That’s okay, I didn’t get you anything either." Louise pointed to the box. "It was for my secret lover. He dumped me tonight... I took it back."
- "You mean Dr. Wilcox?" BJ ripped at the red-wrapping.
- "Does everybody know we were secret lovers?"
- "I think so." BJ opened the box and pulled out a small bottle, he looked at the label. "I can’t read this."
- Louise said, "It’s mint-flavored body-massage oil. Ever use it?"
- "No."
- "Do you want to?"
- BJ shook his head. "Can’t. The girl I dumped tonight is on a plane to England, I don’t think I’ll never see her again."
- "How did you get her to leave the country? I wish I could get Canon would do that."
-
- Dr. Canon Wilcox’s wife Lenore, was being electrocuted in her new Jacuzzi, in her new bathroom, in her new house, in Bordeaux, France.
-
- In two hours, Dr. Canon Wilcox would get a long-distance phone call. Six hours after the call, he would be on a plane to France. He wouldn’t be happy, but he wouldn’t be very sad either.
-
- Louise would get a call from Canon as he was flying to France. She would have mixed feelings. A little sad and a little ashamed that she didn’t feel sadder.
-
- In a few days BJ would have an opportunity to use the oil. The opportunity would free him from the guilt he felt about his relationship with his second cousin.
-
- Pete hooked the green flake of Jalapeno with the straight pin, then slowly pulled it out of the remote control. Pete was happy.
-
- At Lenore Cox’s funeral, Petrie Dubois, her interior decorator, would actually cry tears, but he wouldn’t send many flowers to the funeral.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 29, 2007
12/28/2007
- - CUCK’S LOST AND FOUND - -
- On the 25th, Angel (ex-Pearl), and Doug came out of their comas. Each coughed, and moved, and talked to BJ and Louise, then drifted into normal sleep.
- On the 26th, Angel and Doug were moved out of the ICU.
- BJ and Louise would keep the memory of that Christmas day for life, and tell that story, whenever they were asked about working on Christmas.
- The 27th was cold and windy, it rained all day. At 4:01 PM, Nurse Louise Rencher clocked out, and left Timberhill Hospital.
- Dr. Canon Wilcox sat in his silver Cadillac, with the defroster and heater, on high. He watched Louise as she maneuvered around the puddles covering about half of the Employee Parking lot. It was a long walk to the last parking spot, in the last row.
- Louise got to her Toyota, and got in.
- When Dr. Wilcox saw the windshield wipers on Louise’s car begin their rhythmic movement, he put his car in gear and drove away. He turned east on Hillcrest, toward his mountain cabin instead of west toward his beach house.
- When Louise saw the silver Cadillac turn east, she smiled.
- Dr. Canon Wilcox and Nurse Louise Rencher were secretly dating. They met at his mountain cabin a few times a week.
- Louise parked under the cabin’s carport. From the trunk, she picked up a red-wrapped box, her Christmas gift for Canon.
- Canon was sitting on the porch swing, waiting for her.
- "Damn that Betty Furr! I’m soaked to the bone!" Louise smiled. "However, there is a silver-lining. I absolutely, positively must get out of these wet clothes, including my bra and panties. I must get buck naked... to avoid a head cold or something." She kissed Canon.
- Canon smiled.
- She handed the red-wrapped box to him. "Here’s something for when I get, buck naked."
- Canon stood up, but he didn’t move toward the cabin’s door. "I talked to Betty today." He handed Louise a slip of paper with a number on it. "Merry Christmas. It’s the number of the closest parking spot to the Employee Entrance. Well... the closest one that was available."
- "Oh thank you!" Louise kissed him again. "Betty’s been such a bitch to me, I don’t know why."
- "Well I do. Last winter, she thought you and Doug, were having an affair."
- "Really? Doug and me... boinking?"
- "Yes, That’s why she assigned the bad parking spot to you. I told her that you had never dated Doug, that you had been seeing someone else for a long time."
- Louise waved the piece of paper. "Thanks again. I’ll make up some excuse and stop by her office tomorrow. Get a feel for our new relationship." Louise looked at Canon, then nodded her head toward the cabin’s front door. "Why aren’t we inside? Where I can get buck naked!"
- "Because we need to talk... just talk... with our clothes on."
- "Talk about what? If you’re not in the mood that’s okay. I’m not really wet-to-the-bone, just my raincoat and shoes. I’ll stay clothed, I promise."
- "Okay." Canon jangled his keys. "But we need to talk about our relationship."
- "Oh! That sounds serious. Hurry, I’m cold."
- Canon opened the door.
- "Is it serious, serious? Did your wife find out about us?"
- "No."
- "Is she still living in Paris?"
- "No, she moved to Bordeaux."
-
- In the rain, Robert Jenkins held his umbrella over Pamela as she got out of his car. She situated a small plastic shopping bag between them, they huddled together, and hurried toward his apartment
- In her best fake-English accent, Pam said. "Very generous of you to share your water-deflecting contraption with me, Squire Jenkins."
- Mimicking her accent, BJ said, "I’m forever at your service, Lady Jenkins. I’ve thought of applying for a patent. I’ll call the contraption a Topskin."
- Pam laughed. "Oh sir! They won’t sell well, not with a name like that. Ladies will think of the word foreskin."
- "Do ladies think of such things?" BJ opened the door of his apartment.
- Less than five minutes later, both were in bathrobes, sitting on opposite sides of his dinning room table.
- Pam dumped the contents of the plastic shopping bag on the table. She sniffed the wrapper of a sandwich. "Onions... yours." She slid the sandwich toward BJ. It knocked a napkin off the table. She leaned down, picked up the napkin, and glanced between his legs.
-
- Louise removed her coat and shoes, then sat on the center cushion of the sofa. "Light the fire please, I’m cold."
- Canon lit the fire then walked to the bar. "I’m glad you like your Christmas present. Do you want a Manhattan or an Old Fashion?"
- "Will I be staying here tonight, or driving home?"
- "I don’t know."
- "Are we breaking up?"
- "I don’t know."
- "Well, what do you know?" Louise began to rub her toes.
- "I talked with Betty today. To get you a closer parking spot. It was a long talk. She knows about us." Canon mixed a drink.
- Louise shook her head. "A few days ago, she asked if I knew Dr. Wilcox, She’s a bitch!"
- Canon began to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace.
- "I think she was blackmailing me... a little bit."
- "What do you mean, a little bit? Getting blackmailed is like getting pregnant, it doesn’t happen in little bits."
- Canon sipped his drink. "She complained that her paycheck wasn’t quite enough. She said it should be about a hundred dollars a week higher. She said that she could only afford to fly to Paris on her current pay, but if she had a raise, then she could fly right over Paris and go to Rome."
- "Innuendo!" Louise kept rubbing her toes.
- Canon kept pacing. "Yeah. But then... she ask me if my wife was still living in Paris or had she already moved to Bordeaux."
- "Damn!"
- "And then she said that she thought you needed a raise too, but only fifty dollars."
- "Me?" Louise tilted her head. "Why?"
- "She said so you could get out more, go to parties, look for a guy, an unmarried guy. She emphasized the word unmarried."
- "Huh! So Betty wants us to break up, or she’ll tell your wife?"
- "Bingo." Canon sipped his drink.
- "Does she know how we feel about each other?"
-
- Pam straightened back up and put the napkin on the table. She looked at BJ and pointed toward his lap. "I see you still have yours."
- BJ followed the direction of her pointing finger and looked down at his sandwich. "You just shoved it to me."
- "Not your sandwich, your foreskin."
- "Oh. Yeah." BJ shrugged.
- "Why?" Pam took the wrapper off her sandwich. "Last summer, you wrote in my birthday card that you were going to get circumcised. I remember the sentence. It’s not a sentence, one usually finds in a birthday card. I kept the card, I showed it to Adrian."
- BJ licked a drop of onion juice off his finger. "I thought I’d let my wife decide."
- "Wife or fiancee?"
- "Wife."
- "So your foreskin is some sort of a bizarre wedding keepsake, present?" Pam smiled.
- "It’s timing. I was engaged last summer."
- "Darlene?" Pam squeezed mustard on her sandwich.
- "Yeah, Darlene. She wanted me to get it done, but two months later, we broke up."
- "Lucky you! You missed a bullet." Pam snickered. "Well... you missed a knife." She bit into her sandwich. "I love these things, no calories. I wish you’d send me one every week."
- "Send me a money order, I’ll send you a sandwich."
- "Alternate! One week send me a Foot-Long-Plus, Dawg House Mastiff, with chili and extra cheese. Then a St. Barnard with sauerkraut and extra cheese."
- BJ released a long low burp.
- "I’ll take the sandwich to the ‘Cock & Hen’, and cut a couple inches off the end, and trade it to Huntley for a pint of Guinness. He’d do that for me. He lusts for me... I think. He lusts for Adrian, why not for me too?"
- BJ burped again. "That’s twisted."
- "Adrian said, Huntley has a foreskin. I like them. I’ve liked them ever since I played with yours. Remember?"
-
- Canon had stopped pacing, his drink glass was empty, he stood facing the fireplace.
- "Well?" Louise said loudly.
- He turned. "Huh?"
- "Well what about Betty? Wake up! Does Betty know how we feel about each other?"
- "No... I guess."
- "You guess?"
- He shrugged. "She tried to blackmail me. She thinks we love each other, and our love is her leverage for blackmail."
- Louise walked to the bar and made two Manhattans. "Sit down Canon."
- Canon sat on the fireplace’s hearth. "I don’t want to get divorced. I don’t love her, but we’ve been married for years. She’d get everything in a divorce. It was her money that paid for my schooling. She had lawyers, there’s a prenuptial agreement."
- Louise handed him a drink and kissed him. "It’s a good thing you’ve a doctor. You wouldn’t make a good private investigator. You don’t have a devious mind... I do! I have a plan."
-
- BJ shook his head. "Pam! Change the subject."
- She giggled. "Well? Do you remember what I said, when I played with your foreskin for the first time?"
- "We were nine. No! I don’t remember."
- "I said, I wish I had one."
- The memory came back to BJ. "Yeah. And I wondered which of us was built wrong."
- "If we get married, I want you to keep it."
- "Second cousins shouldn’t marry."
- Pam scooted her chair away from the table. "It’s not against the law."
- "They still shouldn’t marry."
- Pam stood up and dropped her bathrobe.
-
- Canon gulped his drink. "What’s you plan?"
- "Counter-blackmail."
- Canon stood up. "Huh! That is devious!"
-
- Pam walked into the bedroom, her voice drifted back to BJ. "I could drive to the airport and wait there for a couple of hours. Or, we could spend a couple of hours in here."
- BJ stood up.
-
- Pete had the night shift at Cuck’s Bar & Grill. The place wasn’t as full as usual. The door opened, Pete looked at the new face. Louise Rencher bumped into the doorjamb. Pete watched as she staggered past the coatrack and toward a booth. She turned-in at the first booth and plopped down.
- BJ looked at her, "Louise?"
- "Hi, BJ, I’m drunk."
- BJ leaned toward her and slid his hand under her hip. He pulled out a knit cap. He wiggled it at her. "My cap."
- "Sorry." Louise focused her eyes on BJ’s nose. "I didn’t see it... or you... I’ll move."
- BJ focused his eyes on her hip. "I’m alone, stay if you want."
- Pete approached the booth, he looked at Louise. "You staggered in. I think you’re too drunk to drive. I’m afraid I can’t serve you. That’s the law."
- Louise gave Pete a drunken military-style hand salute. "Okay chief. Then I’ll have a Martini. Hold the ‘mar’, and hold the ‘tini’, but don’t hold the glass, I want my fingers wrapped around a stem."
- Pete shook him head and thought to himself, only drunks and Californians talk like that.
- When Pete turned toward the bar, Louise called to him, "I really do want a glass, I’ll give you five dollars for an empty glass... with a long stem." She looked at BJ, "I can afford to do that. I’m going to get a fifty-dollar-a-week raise."
- BJ looked up from her hip, and stared at her breast.
- "I’m up here BJ." Louise tilted his head up. "I need to talk. My secret lover just dumped me. I need help getting through the five stages of grief." She giggled.
- BJ stared at her lips. "How about that. I, was involved in a dumping tonight."
- "Are you the dumper or the dumpee?"
- "I’m not sure."
- "Why not?"
- "I think it was mutual, maybe." BJ burped. "I said I was going to get circumcised."
- Louise looked toward BJ’s lap. She handed him a red-wrapped box. "Here. Merry Christmas, it’s a present. Don’t use it until you’re all healed... down there."
- "Thanks. I didn’t get you anything."
- "That’s okay, I didn’t get you anything either." Louise pointed to the box. "It was for my secret lover."
- "You mean Dr. Wilcox?" BJ ripped at the red-wrapping.
- "Does everybody know we were secret lovers?"
- "I think so." BJ looked at the bottle’s label and squinted his eyes. "I can’t read this."
- Louise said, "It’s mint flavored body-massage oil. Ever use it?"
- "No."
- " Do you want to?"
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 27, 2007
- On the 26th, Angel and Doug were moved out of the ICU.
- BJ and Louise would keep the memory of that Christmas day for life, and tell that story, whenever they were asked about working on Christmas.
- The 27th was cold and windy, it rained all day. At 4:01 PM, Nurse Louise Rencher clocked out, and left Timberhill Hospital.
- Dr. Canon Wilcox sat in his silver Cadillac, with the defroster and heater, on high. He watched Louise as she maneuvered around the puddles covering about half of the Employee Parking lot. It was a long walk to the last parking spot, in the last row.
- Louise got to her Toyota, and got in.
- When Dr. Wilcox saw the windshield wipers on Louise’s car begin their rhythmic movement, he put his car in gear and drove away. He turned east on Hillcrest, toward his mountain cabin instead of west toward his beach house.
- When Louise saw the silver Cadillac turn east, she smiled.
- Dr. Canon Wilcox and Nurse Louise Rencher were secretly dating. They met at his mountain cabin a few times a week.
- Louise parked under the cabin’s carport. From the trunk, she picked up a red-wrapped box, her Christmas gift for Canon.
- Canon was sitting on the porch swing, waiting for her.
- "Damn that Betty Furr! I’m soaked to the bone!" Louise smiled. "However, there is a silver-lining. I absolutely, positively must get out of these wet clothes, including my bra and panties. I must get buck naked... to avoid a head cold or something." She kissed Canon.
- Canon smiled.
- She handed the red-wrapped box to him. "Here’s something for when I get, buck naked."
- Canon stood up, but he didn’t move toward the cabin’s door. "I talked to Betty today." He handed Louise a slip of paper with a number on it. "Merry Christmas. It’s the number of the closest parking spot to the Employee Entrance. Well... the closest one that was available."
- "Oh thank you!" Louise kissed him again. "Betty’s been such a bitch to me, I don’t know why."
- "Well I do. Last winter, she thought you and Doug, were having an affair."
- "Really? Doug and me... boinking?"
- "Yes, That’s why she assigned the bad parking spot to you. I told her that you had never dated Doug, that you had been seeing someone else for a long time."
- Louise waved the piece of paper. "Thanks again. I’ll make up some excuse and stop by her office tomorrow. Get a feel for our new relationship." Louise looked at Canon, then nodded her head toward the cabin’s front door. "Why aren’t we inside? Where I can get buck naked!"
- "Because we need to talk... just talk... with our clothes on."
- "Talk about what? If you’re not in the mood that’s okay. I’m not really wet-to-the-bone, just my raincoat and shoes. I’ll stay clothed, I promise."
- "Okay." Canon jangled his keys. "But we need to talk about our relationship."
- "Oh! That sounds serious. Hurry, I’m cold."
- Canon opened the door.
- "Is it serious, serious? Did your wife find out about us?"
- "No."
- "Is she still living in Paris?"
- "No, she moved to Bordeaux."
-
- In the rain, Robert Jenkins held his umbrella over Pamela as she got out of his car. She situated a small plastic shopping bag between them, they huddled together, and hurried toward his apartment
- In her best fake-English accent, Pam said. "Very generous of you to share your water-deflecting contraption with me, Squire Jenkins."
- Mimicking her accent, BJ said, "I’m forever at your service, Lady Jenkins. I’ve thought of applying for a patent. I’ll call the contraption a Topskin."
- Pam laughed. "Oh sir! They won’t sell well, not with a name like that. Ladies will think of the word foreskin."
- "Do ladies think of such things?" BJ opened the door of his apartment.
- Less than five minutes later, both were in bathrobes, sitting on opposite sides of his dinning room table.
- Pam dumped the contents of the plastic shopping bag on the table. She sniffed the wrapper of a sandwich. "Onions... yours." She slid the sandwich toward BJ. It knocked a napkin off the table. She leaned down, picked up the napkin, and glanced between his legs.
-
- Louise removed her coat and shoes, then sat on the center cushion of the sofa. "Light the fire please, I’m cold."
- Canon lit the fire then walked to the bar. "I’m glad you like your Christmas present. Do you want a Manhattan or an Old Fashion?"
- "Will I be staying here tonight, or driving home?"
- "I don’t know."
- "Are we breaking up?"
- "I don’t know."
- "Well, what do you know?" Louise began to rub her toes.
- "I talked with Betty today. To get you a closer parking spot. It was a long talk. She knows about us." Canon mixed a drink.
- Louise shook her head. "A few days ago, she asked if I knew Dr. Wilcox, She’s a bitch!"
- Canon began to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace.
- "I think she was blackmailing me... a little bit."
- "What do you mean, a little bit? Getting blackmailed is like getting pregnant, it doesn’t happen in little bits."
- Canon sipped his drink. "She complained that her paycheck wasn’t quite enough. She said it should be about a hundred dollars a week higher. She said that she could only afford to fly to Paris on her current pay, but if she had a raise, then she could fly right over Paris and go to Rome."
- "Innuendo!" Louise kept rubbing her toes.
- Canon kept pacing. "Yeah. But then... she ask me if my wife was still living in Paris or had she already moved to Bordeaux."
- "Damn!"
- "And then she said that she thought you needed a raise too, but only fifty dollars."
- "Me?" Louise tilted her head. "Why?"
- "She said so you could get out more, go to parties, look for a guy, an unmarried guy. She emphasized the word unmarried."
- "Huh! So Betty wants us to break up, or she’ll tell your wife?"
- "Bingo." Canon sipped his drink.
- "Does she know how we feel about each other?"
-
- Pam straightened back up and put the napkin on the table. She looked at BJ and pointed toward his lap. "I see you still have yours."
- BJ followed the direction of her pointing finger and looked down at his sandwich. "You just shoved it to me."
- "Not your sandwich, your foreskin."
- "Oh. Yeah." BJ shrugged.
- "Why?" Pam took the wrapper off her sandwich. "Last summer, you wrote in my birthday card that you were going to get circumcised. I remember the sentence. It’s not a sentence, one usually finds in a birthday card. I kept the card, I showed it to Adrian."
- BJ licked a drop of onion juice off his finger. "I thought I’d let my wife decide."
- "Wife or fiancee?"
- "Wife."
- "So your foreskin is some sort of a bizarre wedding keepsake, present?" Pam smiled.
- "It’s timing. I was engaged last summer."
- "Darlene?" Pam squeezed mustard on her sandwich.
- "Yeah, Darlene. She wanted me to get it done, but two months later, we broke up."
- "Lucky you! You missed a bullet." Pam snickered. "Well... you missed a knife." She bit into her sandwich. "I love these things, no calories. I wish you’d send me one every week."
- "Send me a money order, I’ll send you a sandwich."
- "Alternate! One week send me a Foot-Long-Plus, Dawg House Mastiff, with chili and extra cheese. Then a St. Barnard with sauerkraut and extra cheese."
- BJ released a long low burp.
- "I’ll take the sandwich to the ‘Cock & Hen’, and cut a couple inches off the end, and trade it to Huntley for a pint of Guinness. He’d do that for me. He lusts for me... I think. He lusts for Adrian, why not for me too?"
- BJ burped again. "That’s twisted."
- "Adrian said, Huntley has a foreskin. I like them. I’ve liked them ever since I played with yours. Remember?"
-
- Canon had stopped pacing, his drink glass was empty, he stood facing the fireplace.
- "Well?" Louise said loudly.
- He turned. "Huh?"
- "Well what about Betty? Wake up! Does Betty know how we feel about each other?"
- "No... I guess."
- "You guess?"
- He shrugged. "She tried to blackmail me. She thinks we love each other, and our love is her leverage for blackmail."
- Louise walked to the bar and made two Manhattans. "Sit down Canon."
- Canon sat on the fireplace’s hearth. "I don’t want to get divorced. I don’t love her, but we’ve been married for years. She’d get everything in a divorce. It was her money that paid for my schooling. She had lawyers, there’s a prenuptial agreement."
- Louise handed him a drink and kissed him. "It’s a good thing you’ve a doctor. You wouldn’t make a good private investigator. You don’t have a devious mind... I do! I have a plan."
-
- BJ shook his head. "Pam! Change the subject."
- She giggled. "Well? Do you remember what I said, when I played with your foreskin for the first time?"
- "We were nine. No! I don’t remember."
- "I said, I wish I had one."
- The memory came back to BJ. "Yeah. And I wondered which of us was built wrong."
- "If we get married, I want you to keep it."
- "Second cousins shouldn’t marry."
- Pam scooted her chair away from the table. "It’s not against the law."
- "They still shouldn’t marry."
- Pam stood up and dropped her bathrobe.
-
- Canon gulped his drink. "What’s you plan?"
- "Counter-blackmail."
- Canon stood up. "Huh! That is devious!"
-
- Pam walked into the bedroom, her voice drifted back to BJ. "I could drive to the airport and wait there for a couple of hours. Or, we could spend a couple of hours in here."
- BJ stood up.
-
- Pete had the night shift at Cuck’s Bar & Grill. The place wasn’t as full as usual. The door opened, Pete looked at the new face. Louise Rencher bumped into the doorjamb. Pete watched as she staggered past the coatrack and toward a booth. She turned-in at the first booth and plopped down.
- BJ looked at her, "Louise?"
- "Hi, BJ, I’m drunk."
- BJ leaned toward her and slid his hand under her hip. He pulled out a knit cap. He wiggled it at her. "My cap."
- "Sorry." Louise focused her eyes on BJ’s nose. "I didn’t see it... or you... I’ll move."
- BJ focused his eyes on her hip. "I’m alone, stay if you want."
- Pete approached the booth, he looked at Louise. "You staggered in. I think you’re too drunk to drive. I’m afraid I can’t serve you. That’s the law."
- Louise gave Pete a drunken military-style hand salute. "Okay chief. Then I’ll have a Martini. Hold the ‘mar’, and hold the ‘tini’, but don’t hold the glass, I want my fingers wrapped around a stem."
- Pete shook him head and thought to himself, only drunks and Californians talk like that.
- When Pete turned toward the bar, Louise called to him, "I really do want a glass, I’ll give you five dollars for an empty glass... with a long stem." She looked at BJ, "I can afford to do that. I’m going to get a fifty-dollar-a-week raise."
- BJ looked up from her hip, and stared at her breast.
- "I’m up here BJ." Louise tilted his head up. "I need to talk. My secret lover just dumped me. I need help getting through the five stages of grief." She giggled.
- BJ stared at her lips. "How about that. I, was involved in a dumping tonight."
- "Are you the dumper or the dumpee?"
- "I’m not sure."
- "Why not?"
- "I think it was mutual, maybe." BJ burped. "I said I was going to get circumcised."
- Louise looked toward BJ’s lap. She handed him a red-wrapped box. "Here. Merry Christmas, it’s a present. Don’t use it until you’re all healed... down there."
- "Thanks. I didn’t get you anything."
- "That’s okay, I didn’t get you anything either." Louise pointed to the box. "It was for my secret lover."
- "You mean Dr. Wilcox?" BJ ripped at the red-wrapping.
- "Does everybody know we were secret lovers?"
- "I think so." BJ looked at the bottle’s label and squinted his eyes. "I can’t read this."
- Louise said, "It’s mint flavored body-massage oil. Ever use it?"
- "No."
- " Do you want to?"
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 27, 2007
12/25/2007
- - MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS - -
- Between collecting vital stats and logging them into the Timberhill Hospital’s computer system, the two nurses at the ICU nurse station nibbled at the food on their Christmas lunch-trays.
- The smell of roasted turkey, cornbread dressing, and hot yeast rolls drifted throughout the ICU.
- When the smells reached Pearl’s bed. The neurons in her brain dispatched modest electrical impulses to her mouth and she began to salivate.
- Pearl woke up from her coma and coughed.
- Both ICU nurses, Louise Rencher and Robert Jenkins, walked toward her bed and stood, one on either side. Both nurses knew that coming out of a coma was confusing. Neither were surprised at what was said by either patient.
- Pearl opened her eyes and look at BJ and said "The turkey sure smells good Dad."
- In the bed next to Pearl’s, her words reached Doug’s ears and he woke up. He coughed a few times then opened his eyes.
- Louise turned to his bed. Doug looked at her and asked, "Why did you say Angel?"
- Pearl squinted her eyes at BJ and said, "Because that’s what you and Mom named me. Angel Barbara Collins."
- Doug looked at Louise and said, "Oh! I get it A-B-C."
- BJ muttered, "Ha! A-B-C. Well how about that."
- Then Doug and Angel (ex-Pearl), drifted into a normal sleep cycle, not into comas.
- BJ and Rencher smiled at each other, walked back to the ICU nurse station, and recorded that both patients simultaneously, came out of their comas at 12:34 PM December 25, 2007. It was a memory each would keep for life, and the story they would tell, when asked if they hated working on Christmas.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 25, 2007
- The smell of roasted turkey, cornbread dressing, and hot yeast rolls drifted throughout the ICU.
- When the smells reached Pearl’s bed. The neurons in her brain dispatched modest electrical impulses to her mouth and she began to salivate.
- Pearl woke up from her coma and coughed.
- Both ICU nurses, Louise Rencher and Robert Jenkins, walked toward her bed and stood, one on either side. Both nurses knew that coming out of a coma was confusing. Neither were surprised at what was said by either patient.
- Pearl opened her eyes and look at BJ and said "The turkey sure smells good Dad."
- In the bed next to Pearl’s, her words reached Doug’s ears and he woke up. He coughed a few times then opened his eyes.
- Louise turned to his bed. Doug looked at her and asked, "Why did you say Angel?"
- Pearl squinted her eyes at BJ and said, "Because that’s what you and Mom named me. Angel Barbara Collins."
- Doug looked at Louise and said, "Oh! I get it A-B-C."
- BJ muttered, "Ha! A-B-C. Well how about that."
- Then Doug and Angel (ex-Pearl), drifted into a normal sleep cycle, not into comas.
- BJ and Rencher smiled at each other, walked back to the ICU nurse station, and recorded that both patients simultaneously, came out of their comas at 12:34 PM December 25, 2007. It was a memory each would keep for life, and the story they would tell, when asked if they hated working on Christmas.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 25, 2007
12/24/2007
- - JASPER’S PROBLEMS - -
- At 10:03 AM Friday December 21, Jasper entered the Sanonte police station. He told the receptionist who he was, and showed her his Emergency Medical Services ID and asked, "Could I get the last name of the female that was in the car accident that happened early Wednesday morning, the 19th?"
- Ruth looked at him. "Why?"
- "I need her name for my ambulance run-report form." He handed her the form and pointed at the empty, ‘LAST NAME’ line.
- Ruth looked at the form. "Her first name isn’t on the form."
- "It’s Pearl."
- Ruth showed the form back to Jasper and pointed at the ‘POLICE ACCIDENT NUMBER’ line. "All you need on this form is the police accident number, and you’ve already got that."
- "Yeah... uh, I guess it’s a new rule or something."
- "You don’t need her name, just the accident number."
- "Yeah, but my boss said I had to fill in all the lines. So, I need her last name."
- "Did - You - Not - Hear - Me?"
- Jasper’s anus tightened. "But..."
- Ruth handed the form back to Jasper, then handed him a business card. "There’s my name and number. Now! Go back to wherever you came from, and have your boss call me."
- "I don’t want to go there, it’s Friday, it’s my day off."
- "Then have a nice day. Goodbye!"
- Jasper had run head-on into Ruth, one of Sanity’s immoveable-objects. She could be classified as an irresistible-force because she was immense, three-chins of fat.
- Jasper sat in his old pickup, and pondered his next destination, while he waited for the defroster to clear the fog from the windshield.
- Late Saturday evening, Ruth baked six German Chocolate cakes which didn’t turn out well. Sunday Ruth didn’t go to church, instead she baked twenty-four, single-serving, English-style pork-pies. The cakes and pies were for her church’s Christmas Eve bake sale, held immediately after the candlelight Christmas carol sing-along. She was going to bake Devil’s Food cakes but that didn’t seem to be religiously-correct as birthday cakes for Jesus.
- Sunday morning, Jasper handed the ambulance run-report form to his boss, Lou.
- Lou glanced at the form and pointed to the empty ‘LAST NAME’ line. "You missed her last name."
- Jasper’s anus tightened. "The receptionist at the police station wouldn’t give it to me."
- "Why not?"
- "She said all I needed was the police accident number."
- Lou scowled! "Who the hell is she to tell us what to put on our forms!"
- Jasper’s anus tightened even more, he shrugged. "I don’t know. That’s what she said, just the number."
- "Go back there and get the last name!"
- "It’s closed."
- Lou glared at Jasper, "Police stations don’t close."
- "The reception area does on weekends, it’s a cost cutback, budget crunch thing."
- "Why didn’t you fill out this thing Wednesday or Thursday, why did you wait?"
- Jasper’s anus was so tight that if he farted, the note would be so high-pitched only dogs could hear it.
- "If the report ain’t filed in five days, we can’t bill the client. Go back tomorrow. Get the name!"
- "It’s close Monday, and Tuesday too... for Christmas." Jasper handed Ruth’s business card to Lou.
- Lou looked at the card. "Only her work number on this thing. Closed my ass! I’ll call her at home."
- Jasper’s anus loosened. "I’ve got to go to the bathroom."
- The yellow wall-phone rang in Ruth’s kitchen. Myrtle Bingham’s bulldog, Daphne, barked at the noisy thing on the wall. Myrtle shushed Daphne. "Hello, Ruth Bingham’s residence, Myrtle speaking."
- "Uh... hello, this is Louis Scotch. May I talk to Ruth please?"
- "She’s busy. Can it wait? "
- "It’s a police matter about a car accident."
- "OH MY!" Daphne sensed Myrtle’s alarm and barked.
- Myrtle yelled to Ruth, who was in the bathroom. "Sis! There a man wants to talk about a police matter."
- After washing her hands Ruth answered the phone. "Hello."
- Lou explained who he was, and that the ambulance run-report form must have all lines completely filled in and also it must be filed within five days, and he needed the woman’s last name. "The company changed its policy and all forms must have full names on them to be legal."
- Ruth looked at the six lopsided German chocolate cakes, as Lou talked. She hadn’t begun her baking until late Saturday evening. She baked six bottom layers, placed each bottom on a piece of cardboard covered with waxed paper, then baked six top layers, spread frosting on the bottoms, set the tops in place, and frosted the tops and sides, and then went to bed. They weren’t lopsided when she went to bed. But the tops were still warm and the heat melted the frosting and the tops slid off to one side.
- Lou repeated what he thought was an irresistible-force. "So again, to be legal, the form must have a full name." That was a lie.
- Ruth hesitated a few seconds. "Well, in that case. I have a PC here at home that I can use to access police information. But I can’t give out police information over the phone." That was a lie.
- "OK, I’ll send Jasper out there."
- "Tell him, don’t let the cat in."
- Ruth’s message wasn’t heard by Lou. He missed it because he had already moved the phone away from his ear.
- Jasper hurried up the sidewalk toward Ruth’s porch to avoid getting wet from the drizzle. A Calico Cat paced back and forth on the porch. It rubbed its tail against the brass plate on the bottom of the Ruth’s front door. It meowed at him when he shook the water off his cap. He knocked on the door. The cat stopped pacing and sat next to the door. They waited. The lock on the front door clicked. Myrtle opened the door and looked at Jasper’s bushy handlebar mustache, Daphne did the same. Out of the corner of Daphne’s eye, she saw the Calico Cat zip through the open doorway. Daphne barked and chased the feline intruder toward the kitchen. The two animals had never been friends.
- "Here comes CC and Daphne!" Myrtle yelled to Ruth at about the same time both animals reached the kitchen.
- Ruth waddled as fast as she could toward the back door. Daphne and CC began to lap the kitchen like it was a NASCAR racetrack. CC was a skinny Calico Cat owned by a fat woman. Daphne was a fat bulldog owned by a skinny woman. They were on their second lap around the kitchen by the time Ruth got her immense body to the back door and opened it. CC raced out the door, Ruth shut the door, Daphne skidded into the door. The race was over.
- Myrtle closed the front door behind Jasper and stared at his mustache again. "Hairy."
- "No, my name’s Jasper."
- Ruth entered the living room. Daphne followed her, and barked at Jasper. Myrtle pointed at Daphne then to a chair. Daphne followed Myrtle’s hand signals. She was glad to sit on the chair and recover from the ordeal of eliminating cats from the house.
- Ruth folded her arms and looked at Jasper. "You let the cat in."
- Jasper shrugged.
- "I told your boss to tell you not to let the cat in."
- "He didn’t say nothing about a cat."
- "He didn’t?"
- "No."
- Ruth looked at Jasper. "Do you know how to bake?"
- "I eat pizzas mostly, I bake them."
- "How about cakes, know anything about baking cakes?"
- "No."
- Ruth gestured for him to follow her into the kitchen.
- Daphne panted for air and didn’t follow them.
- In the kitchen, Ruth pointed at the six lopsided German chocolate cakes. "You let the cat in. The dog chased the cat. They bumped into the cakes, now look at them, they’re lopsided, they’re ruined. I can’t sell them like that at the church bake sale. Your boss owns me for the cakes, they’ve eight dollars each."
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 23, 2007
- Ruth looked at him. "Why?"
- "I need her name for my ambulance run-report form." He handed her the form and pointed at the empty, ‘LAST NAME’ line.
- Ruth looked at the form. "Her first name isn’t on the form."
- "It’s Pearl."
- Ruth showed the form back to Jasper and pointed at the ‘POLICE ACCIDENT NUMBER’ line. "All you need on this form is the police accident number, and you’ve already got that."
- "Yeah... uh, I guess it’s a new rule or something."
- "You don’t need her name, just the accident number."
- "Yeah, but my boss said I had to fill in all the lines. So, I need her last name."
- "Did - You - Not - Hear - Me?"
- Jasper’s anus tightened. "But..."
- Ruth handed the form back to Jasper, then handed him a business card. "There’s my name and number. Now! Go back to wherever you came from, and have your boss call me."
- "I don’t want to go there, it’s Friday, it’s my day off."
- "Then have a nice day. Goodbye!"
- Jasper had run head-on into Ruth, one of Sanity’s immoveable-objects. She could be classified as an irresistible-force because she was immense, three-chins of fat.
- Jasper sat in his old pickup, and pondered his next destination, while he waited for the defroster to clear the fog from the windshield.
- Late Saturday evening, Ruth baked six German Chocolate cakes which didn’t turn out well. Sunday Ruth didn’t go to church, instead she baked twenty-four, single-serving, English-style pork-pies. The cakes and pies were for her church’s Christmas Eve bake sale, held immediately after the candlelight Christmas carol sing-along. She was going to bake Devil’s Food cakes but that didn’t seem to be religiously-correct as birthday cakes for Jesus.
- Sunday morning, Jasper handed the ambulance run-report form to his boss, Lou.
- Lou glanced at the form and pointed to the empty ‘LAST NAME’ line. "You missed her last name."
- Jasper’s anus tightened. "The receptionist at the police station wouldn’t give it to me."
- "Why not?"
- "She said all I needed was the police accident number."
- Lou scowled! "Who the hell is she to tell us what to put on our forms!"
- Jasper’s anus tightened even more, he shrugged. "I don’t know. That’s what she said, just the number."
- "Go back there and get the last name!"
- "It’s closed."
- Lou glared at Jasper, "Police stations don’t close."
- "The reception area does on weekends, it’s a cost cutback, budget crunch thing."
- "Why didn’t you fill out this thing Wednesday or Thursday, why did you wait?"
- Jasper’s anus was so tight that if he farted, the note would be so high-pitched only dogs could hear it.
- "If the report ain’t filed in five days, we can’t bill the client. Go back tomorrow. Get the name!"
- "It’s close Monday, and Tuesday too... for Christmas." Jasper handed Ruth’s business card to Lou.
- Lou looked at the card. "Only her work number on this thing. Closed my ass! I’ll call her at home."
- Jasper’s anus loosened. "I’ve got to go to the bathroom."
- The yellow wall-phone rang in Ruth’s kitchen. Myrtle Bingham’s bulldog, Daphne, barked at the noisy thing on the wall. Myrtle shushed Daphne. "Hello, Ruth Bingham’s residence, Myrtle speaking."
- "Uh... hello, this is Louis Scotch. May I talk to Ruth please?"
- "She’s busy. Can it wait? "
- "It’s a police matter about a car accident."
- "OH MY!" Daphne sensed Myrtle’s alarm and barked.
- Myrtle yelled to Ruth, who was in the bathroom. "Sis! There a man wants to talk about a police matter."
- After washing her hands Ruth answered the phone. "Hello."
- Lou explained who he was, and that the ambulance run-report form must have all lines completely filled in and also it must be filed within five days, and he needed the woman’s last name. "The company changed its policy and all forms must have full names on them to be legal."
- Ruth looked at the six lopsided German chocolate cakes, as Lou talked. She hadn’t begun her baking until late Saturday evening. She baked six bottom layers, placed each bottom on a piece of cardboard covered with waxed paper, then baked six top layers, spread frosting on the bottoms, set the tops in place, and frosted the tops and sides, and then went to bed. They weren’t lopsided when she went to bed. But the tops were still warm and the heat melted the frosting and the tops slid off to one side.
- Lou repeated what he thought was an irresistible-force. "So again, to be legal, the form must have a full name." That was a lie.
- Ruth hesitated a few seconds. "Well, in that case. I have a PC here at home that I can use to access police information. But I can’t give out police information over the phone." That was a lie.
- "OK, I’ll send Jasper out there."
- "Tell him, don’t let the cat in."
- Ruth’s message wasn’t heard by Lou. He missed it because he had already moved the phone away from his ear.
- Jasper hurried up the sidewalk toward Ruth’s porch to avoid getting wet from the drizzle. A Calico Cat paced back and forth on the porch. It rubbed its tail against the brass plate on the bottom of the Ruth’s front door. It meowed at him when he shook the water off his cap. He knocked on the door. The cat stopped pacing and sat next to the door. They waited. The lock on the front door clicked. Myrtle opened the door and looked at Jasper’s bushy handlebar mustache, Daphne did the same. Out of the corner of Daphne’s eye, she saw the Calico Cat zip through the open doorway. Daphne barked and chased the feline intruder toward the kitchen. The two animals had never been friends.
- "Here comes CC and Daphne!" Myrtle yelled to Ruth at about the same time both animals reached the kitchen.
- Ruth waddled as fast as she could toward the back door. Daphne and CC began to lap the kitchen like it was a NASCAR racetrack. CC was a skinny Calico Cat owned by a fat woman. Daphne was a fat bulldog owned by a skinny woman. They were on their second lap around the kitchen by the time Ruth got her immense body to the back door and opened it. CC raced out the door, Ruth shut the door, Daphne skidded into the door. The race was over.
- Myrtle closed the front door behind Jasper and stared at his mustache again. "Hairy."
- "No, my name’s Jasper."
- Ruth entered the living room. Daphne followed her, and barked at Jasper. Myrtle pointed at Daphne then to a chair. Daphne followed Myrtle’s hand signals. She was glad to sit on the chair and recover from the ordeal of eliminating cats from the house.
- Ruth folded her arms and looked at Jasper. "You let the cat in."
- Jasper shrugged.
- "I told your boss to tell you not to let the cat in."
- "He didn’t say nothing about a cat."
- "He didn’t?"
- "No."
- Ruth looked at Jasper. "Do you know how to bake?"
- "I eat pizzas mostly, I bake them."
- "How about cakes, know anything about baking cakes?"
- "No."
- Ruth gestured for him to follow her into the kitchen.
- Daphne panted for air and didn’t follow them.
- In the kitchen, Ruth pointed at the six lopsided German chocolate cakes. "You let the cat in. The dog chased the cat. They bumped into the cakes, now look at them, they’re lopsided, they’re ruined. I can’t sell them like that at the church bake sale. Your boss owns me for the cakes, they’ve eight dollars each."
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 23, 2007
- - ON OCCASION, TIME SEEMS TO STOP - -
- At 10:03 this morning, Friday December 21, Pearl moved her index finger again. And again the movement went unnoticed. The neurons in Pearl’s brain dispatched modest electrical impulses from one to another, and activated a pleasant dream.
- It was the day before Thanksgiving. Pearl and Doug were visiting her parent’s who lived about 8 miles north of Ramona, California.
- "Angel? Where are you?"
- "Over here Dad."
- "You should come over here, the berries are easier to reach."
- "I’m fine, Dad."
- "Doug? Where you at?"
- "He went back to the house with a full pot to give to Mom."
- Pearl flipped her finger at a bee to scare it off a blackberry, it stung her on the right breast.
- Robert Jenkins, the ICU nurse, didn’t see Pearl’s finger move. BJ was checking her pupils which didn’t dilate when he shined a light in her eyes. He turned away from her bed and recorded the negative response on her chart.
- Pearl’s heart stopped beating and her heart monitor screeched its nerve-jangling alarm.
- BJ looked toward the nurse’s station, a nurse and doctor were already running.
- In the bed next to Pearl, the screeching sound entered Doug’s ears. The faint beeps of his heart monitor sped up. His eyes were closed but his head raised about an inch off the hospital’s thin pillow.
- In Doug’s brain, the neurons dispatched their modest electrical impulses from one to another and activated, not a pleasant dream, but instead a nightmare re-play of the few seconds just before the car crash.
- "Oooo!" Pearl moaned!
- Doug looked at Pearl, "Another contraction?"
- "Yeah."
- "What’s the time, how far apart are they?" Doug looked back at the dark, wet, blacktop road, just in time to see, a white-tail deer jumped out of the woods and onto the shoulder of the road. It jumped again and landed in Doug’s lane of the road. It froze, its eyes reflecting the car’s high-beam headlights.
- Doug jammed on the brakes and whipped the steering wheel to the left. The tires skidded on the old wet blacktop.
- "Hold on, Pearl!"
- "Angel!", she yelled!
- Doug yanked the steering wheel to the right. The left-front wheel fell into a deep water-filled pothole.
- For Doug, time seemed to shift into NASCAR super slow-motion, car-crash re-play.
- The car rose upward like an Olympic swimmer launched from a diving-board. As the car turned gracefully in the air, Doug had time to estimate how the car would land. He reached for Pearl.
- The car slammed upside-down, onto the road’s muddy shoulder. Doug and Pearl’s seatbelts didn’t keep them from smashing their heads against the car’s roof.
- When the air bags deflated, Doug’s upside-down body, hung pressed against the steering wheel and the car’s horn.
- Doug’s nightmare re-play of the accident ended there, the following wasn’t in his memory.
- The car missed the deer, it un-froze, then crouched down, and leaped twice, and disappeared into the woods.
- A hundred feet south of the accident, the sound of a car’s horn entered Myrtle Bingham’s bedroom and into her good ear. She woke up just enough to roll over and put her good ear against the pillow. She farted. She rubbed her nose. She was hungry. She had to pee.
- She covered Daphne with the blanket, and got out of bed. She heard the car’s horn.
- Before going to the bathroom, she looked out the window and saw a car’s headlight pointing upward, she picked up her cell phone and headed toward the bathroom. While sitting on the john, she keyed in 911. Before the call was answered, she wondered who would answer if she keyed in john 3-16.
- Daphne, Myrtle’s overweight bulldog, got out of bed and followed Myrtle down the hallway. She sat in the doorway of the bathroom, cocked her head, and looked at Myrtle with a cell pressed against her ear.
- The ICU doctor listened for Pearl’s heartbeat, "No heartbeat! AED stat!"
- The nurse unwound the wires of the device, prepped the metal surfaces, and handed paddles to the doctor.
- The doctor placed the metal surfaces against Pearl’s chest.
- In Pearl’s dream, another bee buzzed out of the blackberry bushes and stung her left breast.
- BJ, and the doctor, and the nurse all snapped heads toward Pearl’s heart monitor when it stopped screeching and began its faint beeping, signaling each of Pearl’s strong, regular heartbeats.
- The ICU doctor lifted the paddles from Pearl’s chest, "Damn! That’s odd!"
- BJ muttered, "Huh. I’ve never seen that before."
- The nurse stared at the AED’s lighted display, "You didn’t zap her!"
- "No!", the doctor listened to Pearl’s strong, regular heartbeat. "She’s back! Damn! I’m good! I’m gonna ask for a raise."
- BJ and the nurse looked at each other and smiled, then said in unison, "Me too."
- The faint beeps from Doug’s heart monitor slowed back down, his head settled back onto the hospital’s thin pillow, and he lapsed back into a coma.
- At 10:03 this morning, Jasper entered the Sanonte police station. He told the receptionist who he was, showed her his Emergency Medical Services ID, and ask her if he could get the last name of the female that was in the car accident that happened early Wednesday morning, the 19th.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 21, 2007
- It was the day before Thanksgiving. Pearl and Doug were visiting her parent’s who lived about 8 miles north of Ramona, California.
- "Angel? Where are you?"
- "Over here Dad."
- "You should come over here, the berries are easier to reach."
- "I’m fine, Dad."
- "Doug? Where you at?"
- "He went back to the house with a full pot to give to Mom."
- Pearl flipped her finger at a bee to scare it off a blackberry, it stung her on the right breast.
- Robert Jenkins, the ICU nurse, didn’t see Pearl’s finger move. BJ was checking her pupils which didn’t dilate when he shined a light in her eyes. He turned away from her bed and recorded the negative response on her chart.
- Pearl’s heart stopped beating and her heart monitor screeched its nerve-jangling alarm.
- BJ looked toward the nurse’s station, a nurse and doctor were already running.
- In the bed next to Pearl, the screeching sound entered Doug’s ears. The faint beeps of his heart monitor sped up. His eyes were closed but his head raised about an inch off the hospital’s thin pillow.
- In Doug’s brain, the neurons dispatched their modest electrical impulses from one to another and activated, not a pleasant dream, but instead a nightmare re-play of the few seconds just before the car crash.
- "Oooo!" Pearl moaned!
- Doug looked at Pearl, "Another contraction?"
- "Yeah."
- "What’s the time, how far apart are they?" Doug looked back at the dark, wet, blacktop road, just in time to see, a white-tail deer jumped out of the woods and onto the shoulder of the road. It jumped again and landed in Doug’s lane of the road. It froze, its eyes reflecting the car’s high-beam headlights.
- Doug jammed on the brakes and whipped the steering wheel to the left. The tires skidded on the old wet blacktop.
- "Hold on, Pearl!"
- "Angel!", she yelled!
- Doug yanked the steering wheel to the right. The left-front wheel fell into a deep water-filled pothole.
- For Doug, time seemed to shift into NASCAR super slow-motion, car-crash re-play.
- The car rose upward like an Olympic swimmer launched from a diving-board. As the car turned gracefully in the air, Doug had time to estimate how the car would land. He reached for Pearl.
- The car slammed upside-down, onto the road’s muddy shoulder. Doug and Pearl’s seatbelts didn’t keep them from smashing their heads against the car’s roof.
- When the air bags deflated, Doug’s upside-down body, hung pressed against the steering wheel and the car’s horn.
- Doug’s nightmare re-play of the accident ended there, the following wasn’t in his memory.
- The car missed the deer, it un-froze, then crouched down, and leaped twice, and disappeared into the woods.
- A hundred feet south of the accident, the sound of a car’s horn entered Myrtle Bingham’s bedroom and into her good ear. She woke up just enough to roll over and put her good ear against the pillow. She farted. She rubbed her nose. She was hungry. She had to pee.
- She covered Daphne with the blanket, and got out of bed. She heard the car’s horn.
- Before going to the bathroom, she looked out the window and saw a car’s headlight pointing upward, she picked up her cell phone and headed toward the bathroom. While sitting on the john, she keyed in 911. Before the call was answered, she wondered who would answer if she keyed in john 3-16.
- Daphne, Myrtle’s overweight bulldog, got out of bed and followed Myrtle down the hallway. She sat in the doorway of the bathroom, cocked her head, and looked at Myrtle with a cell pressed against her ear.
- The ICU doctor listened for Pearl’s heartbeat, "No heartbeat! AED stat!"
- The nurse unwound the wires of the device, prepped the metal surfaces, and handed paddles to the doctor.
- The doctor placed the metal surfaces against Pearl’s chest.
- In Pearl’s dream, another bee buzzed out of the blackberry bushes and stung her left breast.
- BJ, and the doctor, and the nurse all snapped heads toward Pearl’s heart monitor when it stopped screeching and began its faint beeping, signaling each of Pearl’s strong, regular heartbeats.
- The ICU doctor lifted the paddles from Pearl’s chest, "Damn! That’s odd!"
- BJ muttered, "Huh. I’ve never seen that before."
- The nurse stared at the AED’s lighted display, "You didn’t zap her!"
- "No!", the doctor listened to Pearl’s strong, regular heartbeat. "She’s back! Damn! I’m good! I’m gonna ask for a raise."
- BJ and the nurse looked at each other and smiled, then said in unison, "Me too."
- The faint beeps from Doug’s heart monitor slowed back down, his head settled back onto the hospital’s thin pillow, and he lapsed back into a coma.
- At 10:03 this morning, Jasper entered the Sanonte police station. He told the receptionist who he was, showed her his Emergency Medical Services ID, and ask her if he could get the last name of the female that was in the car accident that happened early Wednesday morning, the 19th.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 21, 2007
- - TIME FLIES, FINGERS DO TOO - -
- At 1:36 AM Wednesday morning, the emergency room at Sanonte’s Timberhill Hospital, got very busy.
- Two unconscious bodies were brought into the ER, both were victims of a single-car accident.
- Jasper, a medic in the ambulance, had visited the VFW’s second floor, he knew the woman’s first name was Pearl. He told one of the gurney-pushers that during the drive to the hospital, he had dug around in the man’s pants pockets and found a wallet, and the man’s name was Douglas X. Furr.
- At 5:07 AM, both Doug and Pearl were out of the ER and into Timberhill’s ICU. Both were classified as "stable", but both were still in comas.
- At 7:50 AM, the ER staff was having a party in the hospital’s lunch room. Coffee, in cardboard cups, and Twinkies, cut in half, were being consumed to celebrate their night’s work.
- The ER doctor said, "Well done staff, well done! Two bodies off the truck, one birth, four bodies into beds, and zero bodies out the back door. Well done."
- Pearl was no longer pregnant, she had two premature boys by cesarean section. However, they were co-joined, the old term is Siamese twins. They were joined at the foot by a thin band of skin. The doctor quickly cut the skin so the "premies" could by placed in separate incubators.
- At 7:51 AM, complications arose, in the hospital’s admin-office.
- When the hospital’s admin-clerk Betty, (as in Douglas Furr’s ex-wife Betty), reviewed the forms filled out by the doctors and nurses since she left work yesterday, she spotted an error and said, "Gotcha again bitch!"
- She sipped her coffee and waited for the hospital-wide synchronized wall-clock to reach 7:58 AM.
- (Hours earlier, Louise Rencher, the maternity nurse, had entered the birth statistics for Pearl’s babies, onto the hospital’s computer system. She entered "left foot trauma", in the ‘MIDDLE NAME’ box for the first boy, removed through Pearl’s C-section, and "right foot trauma", in the ‘MIDDLE NAME’ box on the second certificate.)
- At 7:58 AM, Betty cleared her throat then flipped on the hospital’s public address system and said, "Nurse Rencher come to the admin office before clocking out." The word "please" wasn’t anyplace in Betty’s broadcast.
- Nurse Louise Rencher gritted her teeth so hard some Twinkie filling squirted out of her mouth. She wiped her mouth then left the hospital’s lunch-room party.
- Betty and Louise are enemies. They lambast each other every chance they get. Think of them as co-joined, not by skin, but by an invisible filament of twisted raw nerves. The feelings became mutual years earlier, when Betty got a parking spot closer to the Employee Entrance, than Louise.
- Louise questioned Betty’s random assignment of parking spots, by picking a name out of one box and a parking spot number out of another.
- Betty seemed incensed by Louise’s innuendo and said, "That’s the way the numbers came up. I was lucky."
- "Right! Lucky!", said Louise. "So were most of the doctors."
- Betty said, "I wear wool suits during the rainy winter months. You wear synthetic nurse-pants. If I get wet my suit shrinks."
- "I get wet too, you know."
- "Buy an umbrella."
- Parking spot assignment, was the trigger for the mutual disgust. Before the disgust was mutual, it had been one-sided. Betty thought Doug was having an affair with Louise.
- Betty reacted by buying twin beds to replace her and Doug’s king-sized bed. She told Doug he had ‘Restless Leg Syndrome’, and he kicked her at night.
- After the bed switch, she said, "That should fix the problem, maybe now your legs will become less active."
- At 8:03 AM, Louise opened the door to the admin-office, and glared at Betty, "What!?"
- Betty snorted. "It’s crap!", she pointed to the PC’s birth certificate screen, "Using the ‘MIDDLE NAME’ boxes like that, is the dumbest crap I’ve ever seen. Even candy-stripers ain’t that stupid."
- Louise yelled, "There ain’t no box on the stupid PC screen for notes... plain old notes. So I used the ‘MIDDLE NAME’ boxes. I hate PC’s. My shift’s over. If you don’t like what I did then fix it yourself!"
- Betty yelled, "I don’t have access! I can’t change the stats. It takes a nurse or doctor to do that. You Rencher... you have to fix your crap!"
- Louise yelled, "No! The mother is in a coma and can’t talk! Leave it like it is until she can talk!"
- With her teeth gritted together again, Louise walked away.
- It was almost a clean break, but then Betty spoke, "Gee, I hope you don’t get hit by a truck or something. I mean, I’d have to ask a doctor, maybe Doctor Wilcox, to fix your screw-up. You know Doctor Wilcox don’t you?"
- Doctor Wilcox and Louise were dating, it was supposed to be a secret.
- As Louise left the admin-office, her right hand was the last thing Betty saw, it had one finger pointing up.
- Betty returned the one-finger salute and said, "Gotcha again bitch!"
- At 8:11 AM, the best finger movement in the whole hospital went unseen. Pearl moved the index finger on her right hand.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 19, 2007
- Two unconscious bodies were brought into the ER, both were victims of a single-car accident.
- Jasper, a medic in the ambulance, had visited the VFW’s second floor, he knew the woman’s first name was Pearl. He told one of the gurney-pushers that during the drive to the hospital, he had dug around in the man’s pants pockets and found a wallet, and the man’s name was Douglas X. Furr.
- At 5:07 AM, both Doug and Pearl were out of the ER and into Timberhill’s ICU. Both were classified as "stable", but both were still in comas.
- At 7:50 AM, the ER staff was having a party in the hospital’s lunch room. Coffee, in cardboard cups, and Twinkies, cut in half, were being consumed to celebrate their night’s work.
- The ER doctor said, "Well done staff, well done! Two bodies off the truck, one birth, four bodies into beds, and zero bodies out the back door. Well done."
- Pearl was no longer pregnant, she had two premature boys by cesarean section. However, they were co-joined, the old term is Siamese twins. They were joined at the foot by a thin band of skin. The doctor quickly cut the skin so the "premies" could by placed in separate incubators.
- At 7:51 AM, complications arose, in the hospital’s admin-office.
- When the hospital’s admin-clerk Betty, (as in Douglas Furr’s ex-wife Betty), reviewed the forms filled out by the doctors and nurses since she left work yesterday, she spotted an error and said, "Gotcha again bitch!"
- She sipped her coffee and waited for the hospital-wide synchronized wall-clock to reach 7:58 AM.
- (Hours earlier, Louise Rencher, the maternity nurse, had entered the birth statistics for Pearl’s babies, onto the hospital’s computer system. She entered "left foot trauma", in the ‘MIDDLE NAME’ box for the first boy, removed through Pearl’s C-section, and "right foot trauma", in the ‘MIDDLE NAME’ box on the second certificate.)
- At 7:58 AM, Betty cleared her throat then flipped on the hospital’s public address system and said, "Nurse Rencher come to the admin office before clocking out." The word "please" wasn’t anyplace in Betty’s broadcast.
- Nurse Louise Rencher gritted her teeth so hard some Twinkie filling squirted out of her mouth. She wiped her mouth then left the hospital’s lunch-room party.
- Betty and Louise are enemies. They lambast each other every chance they get. Think of them as co-joined, not by skin, but by an invisible filament of twisted raw nerves. The feelings became mutual years earlier, when Betty got a parking spot closer to the Employee Entrance, than Louise.
- Louise questioned Betty’s random assignment of parking spots, by picking a name out of one box and a parking spot number out of another.
- Betty seemed incensed by Louise’s innuendo and said, "That’s the way the numbers came up. I was lucky."
- "Right! Lucky!", said Louise. "So were most of the doctors."
- Betty said, "I wear wool suits during the rainy winter months. You wear synthetic nurse-pants. If I get wet my suit shrinks."
- "I get wet too, you know."
- "Buy an umbrella."
- Parking spot assignment, was the trigger for the mutual disgust. Before the disgust was mutual, it had been one-sided. Betty thought Doug was having an affair with Louise.
- Betty reacted by buying twin beds to replace her and Doug’s king-sized bed. She told Doug he had ‘Restless Leg Syndrome’, and he kicked her at night.
- After the bed switch, she said, "That should fix the problem, maybe now your legs will become less active."
- At 8:03 AM, Louise opened the door to the admin-office, and glared at Betty, "What!?"
- Betty snorted. "It’s crap!", she pointed to the PC’s birth certificate screen, "Using the ‘MIDDLE NAME’ boxes like that, is the dumbest crap I’ve ever seen. Even candy-stripers ain’t that stupid."
- Louise yelled, "There ain’t no box on the stupid PC screen for notes... plain old notes. So I used the ‘MIDDLE NAME’ boxes. I hate PC’s. My shift’s over. If you don’t like what I did then fix it yourself!"
- Betty yelled, "I don’t have access! I can’t change the stats. It takes a nurse or doctor to do that. You Rencher... you have to fix your crap!"
- Louise yelled, "No! The mother is in a coma and can’t talk! Leave it like it is until she can talk!"
- With her teeth gritted together again, Louise walked away.
- It was almost a clean break, but then Betty spoke, "Gee, I hope you don’t get hit by a truck or something. I mean, I’d have to ask a doctor, maybe Doctor Wilcox, to fix your screw-up. You know Doctor Wilcox don’t you?"
- Doctor Wilcox and Louise were dating, it was supposed to be a secret.
- As Louise left the admin-office, her right hand was the last thing Betty saw, it had one finger pointing up.
- Betty returned the one-finger salute and said, "Gotcha again bitch!"
- At 8:11 AM, the best finger movement in the whole hospital went unseen. Pearl moved the index finger on her right hand.
-
- That's the latest from Sanonte, or Sanity
- G, December 19, 2007
- - IT CAME UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR - -
- Merry 2007 Christmas, from Sanonte, Washington.
(pronounced locally as - Sanity, no joke)
-
- The "Home of the Fern Farm", that’s what the city-limit sign boasts. Also, it says the population is 8270. The count didn’t go up after I moved here, maybe somebody left, or died.
- As I write this, I remember the initial culture shock I felt when I moved here in ‘01. The greater Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, D/FW, has a population of 5+ million, the entire state of Washington has less.
- A few Sundays ago, December 2nd, I walked to Cuck’s Bar & Grill in downtown Sanonte to watch that weekend’s rerun of a NASCAR race.
- As you might imagine, The bar’s sign is a frequent target of a one-letter name change by high-school boys. Cuck, died last summer from a heatstroke, he was born in Browerville, Alaska. His headstone hasn’t received the same attention as his bar’s sign. Maybe a benevolent spirit has protected the granite monument, or maybe the high-school boys still have limits in this small town.
- I sold my TV when I retired and move here. On weekends I go to Cuck’s to get my TV-fix. My doctor said I need to walk for exercise. Cuck’s is about a mile and a half away.
- I have type-2 diabetes, so I don’t/shouldn’t drink anything alcoholic. Pete, the hawk-nosed bartender, mixes a VBBM for me. That’s a Virgin-Beer-Bloody-Mary, with long skinny sticks of carrot and celery as the drink’s garbage. It’s twelve-ounces of non-alcoholic beer, and four-ounces of Mr. & Mrs. T’s Bloody-Mary mix, the original flavor, not the spicy.
- The drinks are normally $5.00 but Pete only charges me a $1.00. I think he likes to have a non-drunk to talk to, and I’m the only one in the bar that stays sober on Sundays, or any other day, or night.
- That Sunday morning, Pete turned on the bar’s, not-so wide-screen TV. Instead of the usual clear cable picture, he got a scrambled mess of bouncing zig-zag lines. Pete had been late paying the cable bill.
- Standing on a three-step stool to reach the TV, Pete pushed the channel-select buttons. Only the ON/OFF button works on the remote, ever since it was dropped in the nacho cheese sauce, and all the insides got gunked-up.
- Pete said he remembered he could tune-in a regular TV broadcast that wasn’t blocked by the surrounding mountains. He finally got a snowy picture from a PBS station in Seattle.
- I silently rejoiced. I’ll admit it, I’m a TV snob, I love PBS. I forgot all about NASCAR and thought, "Ah! Cultural TV!"
- The PBS station was showing a documentary about the mating practices of jungle animals in South America and Africa. A solid hour of Parana fish mating, giant pythons mating, tigers mating, parrots mating, elephants mating, gazelles mating.
- Immediately after the TV show ended, all the bar’s patrons raced for the door, excusing themselves saying they were going home and talk with their wives or girlfriends.
- After the rapid exodus, sitting next to me was Doug, an ex-mill worker, but since his divorce, he was just another Sanonte-drunk.
- He mumbled, "I’m gonna call Betty", then he blinked a few times and re-mumbled, "I mean, call Pearl".
- He began a rambling conversation as he patted his pockets for his cell phone. The conversation was one of those bare-all things that only drunks and Californians feel open enough to have.
- Betty is Doug’s ex-wife. Pearl is one of Sanonte’s three quick-date gals. Pearl became the un-named central character, during Betty and Doug’s courtroom divorce drama.
- The three quick-date gals, rent some rooms above the VFW hall. There’s a small brass plaque on the door, it reads, "YOU PAY, YOU STAY".
- Please don’t assume I know about the plaque because I made a personal visit to the rooms above the VFW hall - Doug told me.
- He said that last Christmas three men from the east, brought the quick-date gals presents of frankincense, myrrh, and the brass plaque.
- I thought, "three men from the east", about 42 miles east I’ll bet. Three politicians from Olympia, Washington’s state capital.
- This Christmas, Doug said he plans to give Pearl, and only Pearl, a Christmas present. It’s a one-year pre-paid contract for home delivery and pick up, of all-natural cotton dippers.
- Pearl is pregnant, she’s huge, and she’s due sometime in late December or early January.
- Doug said he’s a little puzzled about Pearl’s ‘situation’. He said, "Pearl’s been careful, very, very careful. She’s claims she’s never had a date without a premium-quality condom, which she personally puts on, and takes off of every date."
- His eyes got a little glassy, maybe from the booze, or maybe from a memory, he said, "I just laid back and she..."
- He stopped there, then mumbled, "Let’s just say, I can personally certify her claims."
- Only drunks and Californians feel open enough to say things like that. Doug isn’t from California, he’s a drunk from Sanonte with absolutely zero self-esteem. He’s like the TV remote, all gunked-up inside, his self-esteem button doesn’t work.
- He said that early last summer, Pearl exposed all her intimate details to Dr. Rasher, who is an immigrant to Sanonte from West Virginia, a Baptist, and male.
- Apparently, Dr. Rasher looked at a calendar, counted off nine months, tapped his finger on December 25th and said, "So, you’re somewhat like Mary, you’re pregnant and the true father is, in your case, completely unknown. How interesting."
- The next day, Pearl changed doctors, she called Dr. Chin, who is an immigrant to Sanonte from China, a Buddhist, and female. Instead of Dr. Rasher’s drug regiment to control birth pain, they’re discussing acupuncture.
- Doug said, he isn’t in favor of drugging the mother and therefore drugging the baby, through the placenta, but he’s trying to talk Pearl out of acupuncture.
- He said he wanted to be with her in the delivery room but seeing needles, even tiny acupuncture needles, enter her flesh would make him pass out.
- He stopped patting his pockets for his cell phone, eased off his barstool, steadied himself, then staggered out of Cuck’s Bar, and turned left toward the VFW hall.
- Pete got back up on three-step stool and adjusted the TV. He said the he had called the cable company, and they said the service should be turned back on by Monday.
- I looked around the empty bar, then toward the TV. The picture was less snowy after Pete’s adjustment. The next show on the PBS station was Puccini’s opera "Turandot".
- Doug should have stayed at Cuck’s and watched it. It’s a love story based on a man’s bold love for a princess, and as a kicker, it had English subtitles.
- In the past I would have stayed and watched it, but instead I thanked Pete, paid him for the drinks, and left.
- When I stepped out of Cuck’s B&G, an odd warm humid winter-wind slapped me on the back. In a few hours the wind would become the colossal record-setting storm of early December ‘07. It would rip the roof off of the VFW hall, and that would change everything.
- As I walked home, I wondered if I had changed, during the last six years from a, D/FW metroplex, PBS opera watching, snob, to a Sanonte "home-of-the-fern-farm", NASCAR rerun watching, barstool warmer?
- By the time I got home, the wind was stronger, it pounded me on the back. I realized that I had changed and I was glad. I realized that small-town life has it’s own true cultural rewards, and personal joys, and calamities.
- The storm would be a calamity, it would knock down miles of power lines, and Pete’s TV cable, and smash buildings, and cause the rivers to overflow their banks.
- Last Thursday, December 13th, Sanonte’s strip-mall was powered back up and Wal-Mart was open.
- I met Pearl at McDonald’s inside Wal-Mart. She squeezed mustard on her French fries then sprinkled on plain M&M’s. She’s very pregnant, and she’s from California, and the conversation was very open.
- She told me that Doug was her baby’s father, and she knew he loved her, and she loved him. She said that last summer Doug told her, "I melt when I see you. I love you. But only a miracle could make me feel man-enough to ask you to marry me."
- Both Pearl and I think the miracle has two parts. The storm ripped the roof off the VFW hall and flooded Pearl’s apartment, and also the quick-date gal’s place-of-business.
- Pearl had no place to live or work. Doug offered her an unused bedroom, and she accepted. Part one was complete.
- We think the second part of the miracle will be eight pounds of baby, and Doug will feel man-enough to pop the question. She said that when he did, she would have to tell him that her real name wasn’t Pearl. It was about as physically far away from a pearl as it could be.
- She smiled and said, "My real name is Angel."
-
- Merry Christmas from Sanonte, or Sanity.
- G, December 17, 2007
(pronounced locally as - Sanity, no joke)
-
- The "Home of the Fern Farm", that’s what the city-limit sign boasts. Also, it says the population is 8270. The count didn’t go up after I moved here, maybe somebody left, or died.
- As I write this, I remember the initial culture shock I felt when I moved here in ‘01. The greater Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, D/FW, has a population of 5+ million, the entire state of Washington has less.
- A few Sundays ago, December 2nd, I walked to Cuck’s Bar & Grill in downtown Sanonte to watch that weekend’s rerun of a NASCAR race.
- As you might imagine, The bar’s sign is a frequent target of a one-letter name change by high-school boys. Cuck, died last summer from a heatstroke, he was born in Browerville, Alaska. His headstone hasn’t received the same attention as his bar’s sign. Maybe a benevolent spirit has protected the granite monument, or maybe the high-school boys still have limits in this small town.
- I sold my TV when I retired and move here. On weekends I go to Cuck’s to get my TV-fix. My doctor said I need to walk for exercise. Cuck’s is about a mile and a half away.
- I have type-2 diabetes, so I don’t/shouldn’t drink anything alcoholic. Pete, the hawk-nosed bartender, mixes a VBBM for me. That’s a Virgin-Beer-Bloody-Mary, with long skinny sticks of carrot and celery as the drink’s garbage. It’s twelve-ounces of non-alcoholic beer, and four-ounces of Mr. & Mrs. T’s Bloody-Mary mix, the original flavor, not the spicy.
- The drinks are normally $5.00 but Pete only charges me a $1.00. I think he likes to have a non-drunk to talk to, and I’m the only one in the bar that stays sober on Sundays, or any other day, or night.
- That Sunday morning, Pete turned on the bar’s, not-so wide-screen TV. Instead of the usual clear cable picture, he got a scrambled mess of bouncing zig-zag lines. Pete had been late paying the cable bill.
- Standing on a three-step stool to reach the TV, Pete pushed the channel-select buttons. Only the ON/OFF button works on the remote, ever since it was dropped in the nacho cheese sauce, and all the insides got gunked-up.
- Pete said he remembered he could tune-in a regular TV broadcast that wasn’t blocked by the surrounding mountains. He finally got a snowy picture from a PBS station in Seattle.
- I silently rejoiced. I’ll admit it, I’m a TV snob, I love PBS. I forgot all about NASCAR and thought, "Ah! Cultural TV!"
- The PBS station was showing a documentary about the mating practices of jungle animals in South America and Africa. A solid hour of Parana fish mating, giant pythons mating, tigers mating, parrots mating, elephants mating, gazelles mating.
- Immediately after the TV show ended, all the bar’s patrons raced for the door, excusing themselves saying they were going home and talk with their wives or girlfriends.
- After the rapid exodus, sitting next to me was Doug, an ex-mill worker, but since his divorce, he was just another Sanonte-drunk.
- He mumbled, "I’m gonna call Betty", then he blinked a few times and re-mumbled, "I mean, call Pearl".
- He began a rambling conversation as he patted his pockets for his cell phone. The conversation was one of those bare-all things that only drunks and Californians feel open enough to have.
- Betty is Doug’s ex-wife. Pearl is one of Sanonte’s three quick-date gals. Pearl became the un-named central character, during Betty and Doug’s courtroom divorce drama.
- The three quick-date gals, rent some rooms above the VFW hall. There’s a small brass plaque on the door, it reads, "YOU PAY, YOU STAY".
- Please don’t assume I know about the plaque because I made a personal visit to the rooms above the VFW hall - Doug told me.
- He said that last Christmas three men from the east, brought the quick-date gals presents of frankincense, myrrh, and the brass plaque.
- I thought, "three men from the east", about 42 miles east I’ll bet. Three politicians from Olympia, Washington’s state capital.
- This Christmas, Doug said he plans to give Pearl, and only Pearl, a Christmas present. It’s a one-year pre-paid contract for home delivery and pick up, of all-natural cotton dippers.
- Pearl is pregnant, she’s huge, and she’s due sometime in late December or early January.
- Doug said he’s a little puzzled about Pearl’s ‘situation’. He said, "Pearl’s been careful, very, very careful. She’s claims she’s never had a date without a premium-quality condom, which she personally puts on, and takes off of every date."
- His eyes got a little glassy, maybe from the booze, or maybe from a memory, he said, "I just laid back and she..."
- He stopped there, then mumbled, "Let’s just say, I can personally certify her claims."
- Only drunks and Californians feel open enough to say things like that. Doug isn’t from California, he’s a drunk from Sanonte with absolutely zero self-esteem. He’s like the TV remote, all gunked-up inside, his self-esteem button doesn’t work.
- He said that early last summer, Pearl exposed all her intimate details to Dr. Rasher, who is an immigrant to Sanonte from West Virginia, a Baptist, and male.
- Apparently, Dr. Rasher looked at a calendar, counted off nine months, tapped his finger on December 25th and said, "So, you’re somewhat like Mary, you’re pregnant and the true father is, in your case, completely unknown. How interesting."
- The next day, Pearl changed doctors, she called Dr. Chin, who is an immigrant to Sanonte from China, a Buddhist, and female. Instead of Dr. Rasher’s drug regiment to control birth pain, they’re discussing acupuncture.
- Doug said, he isn’t in favor of drugging the mother and therefore drugging the baby, through the placenta, but he’s trying to talk Pearl out of acupuncture.
- He said he wanted to be with her in the delivery room but seeing needles, even tiny acupuncture needles, enter her flesh would make him pass out.
- He stopped patting his pockets for his cell phone, eased off his barstool, steadied himself, then staggered out of Cuck’s Bar, and turned left toward the VFW hall.
- Pete got back up on three-step stool and adjusted the TV. He said the he had called the cable company, and they said the service should be turned back on by Monday.
- I looked around the empty bar, then toward the TV. The picture was less snowy after Pete’s adjustment. The next show on the PBS station was Puccini’s opera "Turandot".
- Doug should have stayed at Cuck’s and watched it. It’s a love story based on a man’s bold love for a princess, and as a kicker, it had English subtitles.
- In the past I would have stayed and watched it, but instead I thanked Pete, paid him for the drinks, and left.
- When I stepped out of Cuck’s B&G, an odd warm humid winter-wind slapped me on the back. In a few hours the wind would become the colossal record-setting storm of early December ‘07. It would rip the roof off of the VFW hall, and that would change everything.
- As I walked home, I wondered if I had changed, during the last six years from a, D/FW metroplex, PBS opera watching, snob, to a Sanonte "home-of-the-fern-farm", NASCAR rerun watching, barstool warmer?
- By the time I got home, the wind was stronger, it pounded me on the back. I realized that I had changed and I was glad. I realized that small-town life has it’s own true cultural rewards, and personal joys, and calamities.
- The storm would be a calamity, it would knock down miles of power lines, and Pete’s TV cable, and smash buildings, and cause the rivers to overflow their banks.
- Last Thursday, December 13th, Sanonte’s strip-mall was powered back up and Wal-Mart was open.
- I met Pearl at McDonald’s inside Wal-Mart. She squeezed mustard on her French fries then sprinkled on plain M&M’s. She’s very pregnant, and she’s from California, and the conversation was very open.
- She told me that Doug was her baby’s father, and she knew he loved her, and she loved him. She said that last summer Doug told her, "I melt when I see you. I love you. But only a miracle could make me feel man-enough to ask you to marry me."
- Both Pearl and I think the miracle has two parts. The storm ripped the roof off the VFW hall and flooded Pearl’s apartment, and also the quick-date gal’s place-of-business.
- Pearl had no place to live or work. Doug offered her an unused bedroom, and she accepted. Part one was complete.
- We think the second part of the miracle will be eight pounds of baby, and Doug will feel man-enough to pop the question. She said that when he did, she would have to tell him that her real name wasn’t Pearl. It was about as physically far away from a pearl as it could be.
- She smiled and said, "My real name is Angel."
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- Merry Christmas from Sanonte, or Sanity.
- G, December 17, 2007
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