I'm a Loser

 

I stood and introduced myself at my first Losers Anonymous meeting. 

“I’m John and I’m a loser.”

The group replied in unison “Hi John.”

The group leader said “Tell us what brings you here, John.”

I said “I think it all started when I was a boy playing with dolls while all the other boys were out playing baseball.”

The group leader interrupted me. “No, John, that’s not being a loser.  That’s perfectly normal. Try again.”

So I came up with another example. “I first realized I was a loser when bullies started calling me a loser.”

The group leader stopped me again and said “Wrong again John.  Kids who call you names are not bullies.  Think harder. Why are you really a loser?”

I dug deep and told the truth about why I’m a loser.  “I’m a loser because I have no real friends, so I have to get all my emotional support from anonymous strangers in secret meetings.”

The group leader was glad to hear that.  He said “Good job, John.  Now you understand.  Welcome to Losers Anonymous.”

DRAW YOUR GUN!

 

“Draw your gun!”

“No.  You draw yours first!”

Although we were facing off in the street for a shootout, we weren’t gunslingers by trade, so our marksmanship was rusty.  My opponent shot at me first, missed by a mile, and struck the blacksmith between the eyes.  I fired a couple wild ones, killing the bartender and a madam.  He fired, missed me again, and killed the teacher.  I fired a couple shots back, hitting a rancher and a gambler.  After a couple more bullets and a couple more bodies piled up, we took a break to reload and chat. 

He said, “You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”  I admitted he was right because the barn directly behind him didn’t have a single hole in it.   

I said, “You shoot like a girl.”  That was a lie.  Any girl in town could’ve shot us both dead by now. That’s how bad our aim was. 

Rested up and reloaded, we began firing away again.  We accidentally shot and killed a dozen drunks and gamblers through the saloon walls.  Schoolchildren dropped dead from our bullets in the schoolhouse door.  The entire choir perished in the pews.  When the smoke settled, we looked around and saw nothing but dead bodies.  Not a soul in town was left alive.

I said “I’d like to stop shooting now, if you don’t mind.”

He said “I agree. All this gunfire is leading nowhere.  Let’s do what we came here for.”

So we walked together into the bank. 

 

Make The Call

 

Make The Call

I should call my old friend Craig.  We had some great times together in that one summer so long ago.  We climbed trees, rode bikes and threw frisbees all summer long.  We had just one summer together before he moved away, but it was the best summer of my life.  Since then, he’s always been on my mind, and I always wanted to call him to find out what his life was like, but I was afraid he wouldn’t remember that summer as fondly as I did.  Maybe it hadn’t been such a big deal to him.  After all, it was just one summer.  So I didn’t call. 

Craig hung out at our house so much that my mother thought of him as second son.  Since then, she has asked me a number of times whatever happened to him.  She said I should call him, but I didn’t call. 

I searched online and found out Craig went to an elite school, had a great career in a big city, and travelled the world.  His social media posts showed countless friends and admirers. I was sure he wouldn’t remember me, just one kid from one summer. So I didn’t call.

More years passed, my curiosity grew, and I realized life was too short to wait any longer.  When I called, his wife answered the phone.  She instantly knew who I was because Craig talked so much about me.  He told her all about that great summer when we were best friends.  He followed me online and meant to call me, but he put it off because he didn’t know if I’d remember him.  She said he died just a week ago.    

I meant to call my mom and tell her the sad news.  She had been so fond of him.  But maybe she didn’t remember him like I did.  He was just one friend from one summer.  I figured she didn’t remember, so I didn’t call her. 

Burnout

 

Burnout

I hate my job.  I hate my boss.  I used to show up early and work late, until I burned out.  Then the raises stopped and promotions ended.

My marriage was the same way.  I loved my wife.  We did everything together for years, until we had to work longer hours to get raises and promotions.  Then we saw less of each other and grew apart.  Even love can burn out.    

We love our kids, but we pressure them too much to succeed in academics and athletics, because we want them to get scholarships and grants, just like we did.  They’re burning out too.  

Now I sit in my office and stare out the window at all the people going to work.  Some look happy.  They must be new to the workforce, in their early twenties.   The older ones look burned out.  They must be my age, approaching thirty.      

 

My DEA Career

 

My DEA Career

When I joined the DEA, I imagined I’d be inserted into a drug cartel as an undercover mole, gain the drug lord’s confidence, move up the ladder to the top, then bust the entire operation and save thousands of Americans from addiction.  The DEA had other plans.  They sent me to a border crossing and told me to take pictures of any suspicious looking characters.  I took a lot of pictures of shady types, but they all turned out to be other undercover DEA agents.    

My next assignment was wiretapping every phone conversation near the border.  Unfortunately, the only calls I intercepted were carry-out orders from the local DEA office. 

Finally, the DEA gave me a good assignment.  They gave me a moving van and sent me across the border to impersonate a coyote.  I couldn’t find any migrants who wanted to make the crossing voluntarily, so I rounded up innocent peasants and paid them to get in my truck for a ride.  I met my quota and got a promotion.   

I was so successful at kidnapping that they moved me to narcotics smuggling.  I travelled to central American villages, bought drugs with taxpayer money, paid locals to shove bags of it up their butts, drove them across the border into the US, and handed them over to the authorities.    

The DEA was so impressed with the large quantities of drugs and migrants I smuggled that they held a press conference to brag about their accomplishment.  They displayed pictures of all the drugs I’d confiscated.  Then the DEA announced the arrest of most dangerous narco-trafficker of all.   Me.

 

Road Rage

 

Road Rage

She passed me on the right, flipped her finger, then cut me off, so I honked my horn and flashed my lights.  She sideswiped me, forcing me into a ditch, then she lost control and ran into a tree.  I jumped out of my car and threatened her with a baseball bat, but she came at me with a shotgun.  Cars stopped and their drivers hopped out to take videos.  The witnesses took sides, some attacking me and others going after her.  By the time the police arrived, a riot was underway.  The police called SWAT, but that wasn’t enough.  SWAT called the FBI, which called the governor, who called in the national guard.  The area became engulfed in flames, tear-gas, and pepper spray.  The press arrived and broadcast the chaos around the world. It looked like America was about to fall.  Russia used the diversion to surround Kiev.  China sent warships toward Taiwan.  When North Korea readied its missiles, the US had no choice but to go nuclear. In the last moments before total annihilation of all life on earth, I apologized to the other driver for not being a better father and teaching her better driving skills.     

Rid of the Kids

 

Rid of the Kids

At Summer’s end, we finally got rid of our damn kids.  When they rolled away in that big yellow bus, we danced in the street.  After a summer of screaming at those little creeps, we needed a break.

My wife and I bickered over which one of us would be forced to watch our evil offspring.  My wife avoided parenting on weekdays by working late, so I retaliated by avoiding raising the rugrats on weekends by fishing and playing golf.  That’s teamwork. Our lazy, worthless kids didn’t care.  They just stayed up in their bedrooms cyber-bullying other kids, group-texting pictures of their privates, and hacking the school to change their grades. 

Daycare was so expensive that we had to get a second mortgage, but it was worth it just to get those worthless kids out of the house for a while. Next, we looked into boarding schools, but they were already so full of spoiled brats that the schools were starting to release some kids on early parole.   

When our dumb kids graduated high school, we were ashamed to learn they’d only learned to read at an 8^th grade level and still received certificates of participation.  They all got into college easily after we took out third mortgages and paid the universities their ransom.  In college they learned to read at a 10^th grade level and burn the flag. 

When the kids graduated college, we expected them to find entry level jobs and live in affordable housing, but they just returned home, went back to their bedrooms upstairs and tried to make a living as social media influencers with a dozen followers.   

The years went by.  Our kids moved away, married, and had children.  When they experienced the horrors of raising terrible kids themselves, they finally appreciated what we’d gone through.  So they called and flattered us, lying about what great parents we’d been to them and begging us to babysit our annoying grandchildren anytime. 

We agreed, for a price.  We charge them top dollar and put every cent of it in our nursing home account.  Now they drop the grandchildren off at our house as often as they can; workdays, evenings, weekends, holidays, you name it.    We know that one day our greedy offspring will stick us in an institution full of geezers, but when they realize the inheritance is gone, they’ll walk away and never visit us again.  Just like we did to our parents, and they did to their parents, and so on. 

 

Halloween

 

Halloween

Every year of my youth, on Halloween, I dressed up as Satan and knocked on all the doors of my Christian neighbors, demanding treats and threatening tricks.  I always got treats because there’s nothing scarier than a 10-year-old with horns, hooves, and a dozen eggs. My parents would watch from the street behind me to make sure I didn’t get poisoned or molested, especially at old lady Hatchet’s house. 

Crazy old Mrs. Hatchet lived in a peeling Victorian down by the cemetery.  She only came out at night to feed the rats and trim the poison oak.  I saw her gardening in her moonlit yard with a pick and shovel once.  She was digging a hole six feet long and six feet deep, a bit too deep for flowers.  Maybe potatoes, I thought.      

At age 12, I was almost too old for trick-or-treating, but I could still fit in my Satan outfit, and I still craved candy, so out I went on the hallowed eve in my horns and hooves.  My parents warned me to stay away from old lady Hatchet’s.

After tricking and treating door-to-door all night, I approached the last house, crazy old Mrs. Hatchett’s.  The gate was locked, so I hopped the fence.  The doors and windows were boarded up, so I yelled “Trick or Treat!  Open up!” which got no response.  I tried yelling “Pizza delivery,”  which didn’t work either.  I tried yelling “I have a warrant!”  Nothing doing. 

Maybe Mrs. Hatchett was hurt in there.  Maybe she fell down the stairs and was still breathing on the foyer floor.  I could try CPR on her, if her mouth wasn’t too gross.  Or maybe she was dead on the kitchen floor and her cats were eating her corpse.  I should break in and call the police so they could notify her next of kin.  It wouldn’t be breaking and entering, it would be search and rescue.  I’d be a hero. 

So I shimmied up the downspout to an upstairs window, broke the glass, reached in and turned the latch, raised the sash, and climbed inside.  The room looked familiar.  I sneaked down the hall and checked the bedrooms one by one.  Mrs. Hatchet was nowhere to be found. 

The wallpaper had a familiar pattern, and the furniture reminded me of something long ago.  Maybe I had been here before.   

I found Mrs. Hatchet at the bottom of the stairs.  She looked familiar, like I’d seen her face before.  I gave her CPR until her brittle old ribs cracked under my hands.  That was the end of Mrs. Hatchet.   So I ran home.  Dad called the police and Mom scolded me for going to the old lady’s house.

At my murder trial, the prosecutor told the jury that the state had demonstrated the main three elements required to convict.  1. Opportunity: I admitted I was at the scene.  2. Means: my hands, which matched the imprint on Mrs. Hatchet’s ribcage.  But what about 3. Motive?  How could he prove motive?  I had no motive.  Surely this was the weakness in his case. A fair jury couldn’t possibly convict me without motive.

But the jury turned on me when the prosecutor asked one last question:

He asked me, “Mr. Hatchet, when you killed your grandmother, did you know that you were the sole heir to her fortune?”  So that’s why she seemed so familiar.

 

 

Alphabetical Order

 

Alphabetical Order

I took the wrong pill this morning.  I display all my medicines in alphabetical order, starting with Aspirin and ending with Zinc.  So naturally, Viagra is right next to Vitamins.  This morning I thought I took my vitamin, but instead I took Viagra.

Viagra lasts hours, so before I got in the car I grabbed an ice pack for my lap, thinking it might control the swelling.  It did not.  In fact, when the ice was lodged firmly in my crotch, it not only didn’t control the swelling, it produced condensation that wet my pants.  So I turned on the car’s heat and aimed the dash vents at my lap, hoping the heat would help dry things off.  Big mistake.  The effect of heat on unwanted erections has not been thoroughly researched, but I found it backfires and makes things worse.  Erections thrive on attention, any kind of attention.    

They say texting while driving is dangerous, but let me tell you, driving while excessively aroused can be just as dangerous.  If the erection in question pokes its head up too far, it can hit the steering wheel and affect turns or lane changes.  So when I swerved to avoid a squirrel with a nut, my erection impeded the wheel rotation and I went into a skid, crossed the shoulder, hopped the guardrail, careened down a ravine, flipped over, and landed upside down in a creek.  There I was, hanging upside down by my shoulder harness, an airbag in my face, and that damn erection looking straight down at me, mocking me.  I hoped the cold creek water rushing into the car would deflate him.  I hope he’d be gone before the EMTs arrived.  No such luck. 

To my dismay, the first EMT to arrive on the scene was female.  She crawled down the embankment, stuck her head in my driver side window and said “Sir, I’m EMT Laura.  Are you alright?”  I said “I think so.  Can you give me a moment to compose myself?”  I hoped she’d take the hint and go away while I tried to conceal my pup tent. But she didn’t leave.  Instead, she reached in to undo my seat belt and bumped the boner with her elbow.  She said, “Sorry sir.”  I said, “I’m so embarrassed.”  She said “No problem.  I’ve seen it all.  Missing limbs, decapitated heads.  A little boner is no big deal.”  I said “Little?”

She asked “Sir, how did this happen?”  I said, “I keep my pills in alphabetical order, so Viagra is next to Vitamins.”  She said “That’s not what I meant.  I meant how did the accident happen?”  I said “Oh, my penis did it.  It took control of the steering wheel and took a sharp right.”

She reached in to grab my emergency brake lever but grabbed my love handle by mistake. It liked being manhandled and responded with a nod.   I said “Sorry.  I’m so embarrassed.” She put on a pair of those blue rubber gloves they use for collecting evidence and said “Sir, your body won’t fit through the window with that rod in the way, so I’m going to have to use the Jaws of Life.”  I said “Be gentle.” 

The jaws ripped the roof off my car with ease.  She dragged me out of the wreckage, up and out of the ravine to the road, where more EMTs had just arrived to help.  When they laid me on the stretcher they got a good look at my prominence, pointed at it and laughed.  One of them said “Laura, he likes you!”  Another said “Be careful!  It might bite!”  Laura ignored their jokes, strapped me to the stretcher and rolled me into the ambulance.  Then she hopped in beside me to take my vitals on the way to the emergency room, while I lay on my side facing away from her to hide the hardness. 

At the hospital they rolled me into the emergency waiting room and checked me in.  The young gals at reception got a good laugh when Laura explained my situation.  Then they put me at the end of the line behind the other patients with more serious problems like coughs and sniffles.    Laura stayed with me.  I asked “Why are you still here?  Don’t you have more accident victims to save?”  She said “No.  My shift just ended.  I’ll stay with you until your wife arrives.”  I said “I’m single.  I live alone.”  She said, “Then why did you take the Viagra?”  I said “Alphabetical order.  Viagra was next to my vitamins.”  She said “Oh.  I forgot.  You told me at the accident scene this was all an alphabetical order thing.” 

Finally, after six hours of rigidity, they decided it might be serious and put me in a room. A few nurses came in to size me up.  Then the attending physician arrived with a group of interns on their first rotation.  My prominence was a teaching tool. 

I tried to shrink my joystick by thinking about my ex-wife, who could discourage a dork like nobody’s business.  Then I tried imagining men in the gym shower room, which is usually a real turnoff for me, but this time it backfired.  My personal growth continued.

Finally, my EMT Laura came in and sat on the bed beside me to console me.  She asked, “Is it going down yet?”  I said “No, it’s up to my navel.”  She put her hand on my thigh and slid it toward the problem.  It bobbed and throbbed in response.   I asked “Why are you jerking me around?  Isn’t this unprofessional?”  She said “Yes, but I can’t help it.  This morning I accidentally took Ecstasy instead of Estrogen.  I keep them right next to each other, in alphabetical order.”

She talked to the nurses and they all agreed to hold me overnight.   

 

Zoey's Hobbies

 

Zoey’s Hobbies

Zoey bought a piano and planned to take lessons.  But she worked all the time, had no time to play it, and it just sat there, gathering dust.  So she dusted it daily, polished it weekly, and wished she could play.  

Zoey bought a horse and planned riding lessons but had to cancel them for lack of spare time.  The stable owners fed, groomed, and exercised her horse for her.  She wished she could ride but was too busy with work.  

Zoey married the man of her dreams.  He was perfect, but she worked days, and he worked nights, so they rarely had time together.  They planned dates and vacations together but cancelled every time because of work.    

Zoey had a baby.

Mom Got a Facelift

 

Mom Got a Facelift

Mom got a facelift.  Now people think she’s my sister.  Cringe.  Why can’t she just act her age and accept the way she looks?

My sister got a tummy-tuck and a boob job.  Now all the guys chase her and ignore me.  Why couldn’t she just accept the way nature made her?

I’m not like them.  I believe we should be judged by our minds, not our bodies.  So I studied hard and got a doctorate in biogenetic engineering. 

Now I'm a scientist and I’ve discovered a way to stop the aging process.  I can eliminate illness and prolong life.  I've tested it on myself and it works.  I may be able to save humanity, but even more important: I look fabulous. 

The Mailperson

 

The Mailperson

Every day, catalogs fill my mailbox: hundreds of glossy pages of trendy women’s wear, reams of suggestive lingerie.  I even receive a magazine full of pleasure devices for working women with limited time for interpersonal relationships.  I don’t know how to cancel them so they go straight from my mailbox to the recycling container in my driveway.  I hope all those glossy supermodels don’t realize their beautiful faces end up crumpled and soggy under beer bottles and soda cans.   

Long ago, I regularly received birthday and holiday greeting cards from family members by snail-mail, but now I only get such greetings via social media.  There was a time when I corresponded with faraway friends in longhand on colored note paper in matching envelopes, but no more.  Now I get instant texts and emails for everything.

You’d think that all this digital communication and the death of snail mail would mean a lighter load for my mail carrier.  Not so.  Now she packs her little white jeep so full of catalogs and bulk rate advertising that it sags on its shocks. 

Yesterday, by chance, I was wandering about in my driveway trying to get good cell reception when the mail person pulled up and handed me my daily pound of catalogs by hand.  When our eyes met, our faces grinned, because this was a rare occasion, being face to face with another human being in the real world.  We were so unaccustomed to seeing people in real life, not online, that this was a special moment.  My heart fluttered.

She was my age.  We reminisced about our mutual analog history.  We had read the same hard-covers and paperbacks.  We both still had leatherbound photo albums with yellowing photos of swim teams and summer camp.  We’d both had checkbooks, typewriters, and remembered when phones were attached to the kitchen wall by long curly cords.  I prayed she was real and not some gamer’s avatar. 

Her route awaited.  She had to move on because the postal service monitored her route and location by GPS.  If she spent too long in one place, they’d think that she might be forming a personal attachment instead of maximizing productivity.  As she pulled away, I impulsively asked for her phone number.  Her red, white and blue government jeep paused, she stuck her head out the window, and yelled out her home address, just the number and street, no name, zip code, or town.  Just the number and street.  It sounded very familiar.  I memorized it, turning it over in my head, ran inside, and searched it on the internet.  There it was, digitally projected on my screen from some faraway data center full of the all the personal data of everyone on earth.  I felt lucky then to have internet resources and computer skills.  Maybe I’d found the woman of my dreams after all these years of connecting solely with others by zoom and chat.  Where did she live?  Was she within a single charge driving distance?  Yes, there she was, dropped like a pin on the map I’d quested.  She’s lived right next door to me for ten years.

 

 

A Punch In The Nose

 

A Punch in the Nose

Tommy punched me in the nose.  When I saw the blood on my shirt, I ran home crying to mom.  She said “You poor thing” as she cleaned my face.  Then she held me in her arms until my tears stopped, singing “Hush little baby, don’t you cry.”  That night she gave me ice cream and let me stay up late.  When she tucked me in, she said “Don’t worry baby, I’ll always be here to keep you safe.”

The next day Tommy said “I’m sorry I punched you yesterday. Are you okay?”  I told him I was better than okay.  I told him how mom fixed me up, held me close, and spoiled me with all her love and attention. 

So he asked me to punch him in the nose.

Breaking Up

 

Breaking Up

She looked directly in my eyes and said “I think we should start seeing other people,” which meant she was already seeing other people.  Why couldn’t she just be honest and say “I don’t love you anymore?”  Then she’d have a clear conscience and I’d be able to move on with my life sooner.   

My next girlfriend was dishonest too.  She didn’t want to tell me to my face that we were finished, so she accused me of groping and got a restraining order requiring I stay five hundred feet away.  I called to ask why she lied, but she blocked my number.  I emailed her but went straight to spam.  If only she could have been honest and just told me that she no longer loved me.  She’d feel better and I’d have closure. 

My third girlfriend really wanted me out of her life completely.  She must have been afraid to confront me and hurt my feelings, so she faked her death instead.  They found her car, burnt to a crisp at the bottom of a cliff, with a stolen cadaver inside similar to her except for the dental records.  That’s what gave her away.  She went to jail for falsifying dental records and cremation without a permit, and I ended up hurt and confused.  Why couldn’t she just tell me she didn’t love me?  She would have felt better about herself, and she wouldn’t be picking up litter by the highway in an orange jumper.  Why is it so hard to be honest?

So I went to a therapist for answers.   She said that maybe it wasn’t my girlfriends’ fault at all.  Maybe it was me.  Maybe I was trying too hard to maintain failing relationships because deep inside I was trying to win the approval my mother had never given me. It all made sense.  I realized then that my therapist was the only honest woman I’d ever met.  I told her I’d like to see her for as many appointments as possible for as long as it takes, even if it takes the rest of my life.  She said no, she couldn’t see me anymore because she was retiring immediately and moving to the Yukon.    

 

 

 

The Sneezers

 

The Sneezers

Anthropologists study human civilization, culture, society, psychology, philosophy, religion, and language.  That’s a wide scope, so it’s divided into derivative specialties.  Mine is linguistics, which includes early languages and nonverbal communication.   My sub-specialty is pre-lingual body language, which includes hand signs, grunts, and bodily functions.  Like sneezing.  My research began with the Sneezers of the Amazon, who live deep in tropical forests and communicate primarily through sneezes.  For example, a long sneeze means “Hello,” a short sneeze means “Goodbye,” and a double sneeze means “We should get together again sometime.”  There’s more to it, but allow me to move on to the Burp people of Tanzania. 

Subcontinental Indian lore had it that the original Sanskrit came from the Burpers, who emanated a staccato of burbs in series, not unlike our morse code.  Until this day, in many modern cultures, one burb means “Supper was great,” Two burps mean “Thanks, Mom,” and three burps mean “Dad, let’s watch the game.”

Then there are the Farters of Mozambique.  Their language consisted of high squeaky piccolo farts all the way down to trembling tuba farts.  The Farters were loners who didn’t share caves.    

Hiccups are still a mystery.  Because they are so repetitive and involuntary, they may have originated as religious rituals or war dances.  Some say hiccups are just a way of saying “Not tonight, I have a headache.”  Congress has authorized massive funding to study hiccups’ effect on global warming.    

Lastly: yawning.  Contrary to popular opinion, yawners are not sleepy or bored.  I’ve just finished a study of my own lecture students and concluded that yawning is an expression of keen interest.