Dodo Eggs

“I wonder why she does that?”

Jennifer sits in the row beside me then up one desk.  She has her elbow propped up on her history book, her chin planted on her palm, and fingers curled onto her lower lip.  It’s the unassuming look of someone who is bored by the lesson.  What she doesn’t realize is that I’ve been watching her chew the nail on her right index finger for the last minute.

“Hmmm,”  I squint to get a better look then confidently nod.  “She seems satisfied with the progress she’s made on the index finger and it looks as if she’s ready to move on to the naughty finger.”

She does.  The move was as subtle as her mildly illicit activity.  I scan the room once more.  It’s true; I’m the only one watching.  Returning my gaze in her direction, she’s already moved to the ring finger.

I was going to ask her to the Sweetheart dance next week but instead I’m thinking of offering her a new pair of nail clippers and some hand sanitizer.

“Why does she do that?”  I ask myself.  “With all the time she obviously spends applying foundation, blush, eyeliner, eye shadow, lip gloss, and fitting her big red nose why is she too rushed for some quick finger nail care?”

After class, I’m sitting in my dorm room with my history book resting in front of me just as it did during class.  There’s no reading occurring.  The information is stuck to the page without the hope of rescue.

“I wonder what the appeal of chewing on your nails is?  If you think about it, your hands and feet are like your body’s ambassadors to the world.  They touch and step on hundreds of surfaces everyday that are shared by less sanitary people.  However, unlike your feet nothing protects your hands.  Every bit of foreign contact from doorknobs to pencil sharpeners is direct with your skin!  And then you want to bite the tips?”

I studied my fingernails for a few seconds.  A few are almost a sixteenth of an inch in unruly length.  Understanding sometimes requires stepping into another’s shoes.  In a moment of sheer experimentation, I try biting off the first.  And then I realize the smooth, satisfying experience of Paleolithic nail care!

Years later, I still catch myself biting my nails whenever they grow anywhere beyond the fleshy part of my fingertip.

I took a bad habit for a test drive and wound up adopting the dumb behavior.  I can’t help but believe that most bad habits start this way.  Some sucker thinks, “What’s the big idea?  What’s the appeal?”  Tries it and is quickly leached.  At least Jennifer wasn’t sitting in class sucking on a cigarette.

On a related note, I was standing next to my classroom door between classes as one of my goofier students ambled up to me.

“Hey Mr.Teply, look at your nails would you?”

“Why?  What’s the joke?”  My rule, as always, is never trust a seventh grader.

“Just do it please.  There’s something I need to know.”

I studied Curtis a bit longer in an effort to discover the meaning behind such an unusual request.  Coming up empty, I went ahead and turned my palm towards my face and curled my fingers in to make a loose fist.  There was nothing unusual about my nails.

“Good job, Mr. Teply!  You passed this important test of manhood.  If you had done this…” He raised the back of his hand and straightened his fingers.  With a slight lean to his head he gave his hand a coy look.  “…we would have known something was wrong with you.”

Then he walked into class.

When I was young, my biggest hobby was collecting baseball cards. Anytime I found change in my pocket, I would ride my bike to the grocery store and buy a pack or two. I did this fairly often for someone who didn’t have an allowance. The trick, as any corrupt accountant will tell you, is finding creative means for financing your endeavor. For instance, coins could always be found in the folds of the couch, the car’s ashtray, the pants my dad wore yesterday, and the stash intended for my brother’s braces.

The packs had nearly thirty cards and a stick of gum (if that’s what you want to call it). I always chewed the gum then molded it into cute animals using cigarette butts and bottle caps I found in the parking lot. It’s really a wonder I wasn’t sick more often.

What confused my mother about this hobby was the need for a monthly price guide to determine which cards (players) were worth anything.

“Why don’t you just watch the games?” She would glibly ask. “That way you would know who was playing well.”

Watch the games?! Are you kidding me?! The tension at a typical baseball game is barely enough to pull you from a light nap! Look, any sport where you can successfully work a crossword puzzle AND follow the game leaves a lot to be desired. (What’s an eight letter word for slow sport? It has several Zs in it.)

Do you realize that baseball managers are routinely interviewed during the middle of a game? How many other sports would allow such a thing. (You want to interview the football coach right now? He’s in the middle of a game you moron! He’s busy!)

One of the biggest problems is the ball movement to superstitious exercise ratio. The typical baseball game lasts about three hours. During all that time, the ball is in motion only twenty minutes! The rest of the time you’re watching the players run through their goofy, lucky routines. Here’s a quick rundown…

CATCHER: Scratch crotch – adjust facemask left then right – flash gang signs at pitcher

BATTER: Tap plate with bat three times then each cleat – adjust helmet five times – take two billion practice swings – adjust crotch

PITCHER: The farther you spit from the mound the more luck – nod to both the catcher and the first basemen in that order – rub lucky sandpaper – of course, adjust crotch

SPECTATOR: Crochet your entire Christmas list AND keep up with the game at the same time.

Anyway, my view of baseball cards was much an art dealer’s view of his stock. The name on the bottom determines the value and that’s all that’s important.

Extra inning #1: In grade school, my parents forced me to go out for little league. Its experience lasted one year and I hated every minute of it. I was even scowling in my individual picture. I had a grand total of one hit for the entire season. Man, did I stink.

Extra Inning #2: On the bright side, I was the only kid who insisted on tucking his ears into his cap. No one else perfected this aerodynamic technique. It was very useful considering the horrific winds in far left field.

Extra Inning #3: The only positive association I have with baseball was in college. I was sitting next to the future Mrs. Teply watching our “improvised” college team play in a church league. Mrs. Teply’s old boyfriend was the catcher. He ambled up to the plate and squatted down. As his nylon baseball uniform thinned over his rear one could see the effervescent hint of neon green! The guy was playing catcher with neon green, man panties on! I wasn’t sure if Mrs. Teply noticed so I pointed it out. At that point, it was safe to say he was “OUT!”

I’m sitting in the back corner of Mrs. Medder’s study hall with my math book open but completely ignored. Instead, my head is turned to one side; my eyes pulled over my shoulder. In the corner are bits of pencil shavings and stray hairs mixing with the wispy, phantom mass of common dust. There’s no telling how long it’s been there.

I take a silent breath then puff toward the corner. In response, the entire delicate mass shudders a bit. Making the dust bunny dance is the closest thing I have to telekinesis. I imagine myself as the great North wind driving my wares into a fragile tropical hut. It gives me a reason to live.

Being a high school senior isn’t easy especially when your schedual drags you into a study hall at the end of the day. Each day it seems my purpose is to heat the chair I’m sitting in. If the school administration was to place a fertile egg under my posterior, I’d probably be able to hatch it.

“Can I see Matt for a moment?” The voice belongs to Miss Leber the band director. I pop out of my seat then pause waiting for the blood to recirculate.

Mrs. Medder looks at me as if I hadn’t heard. “Matt, I believe your wanted in the hall.”

I skip into the hall ready to move boxes of food into the back of the cafeteria. My shoulders adjust to the prospect of carrying heavy speakers out of the gym. I’m ready for anything that involves movement.

Miss Leber pulls me away from the door and asks, “Matt, are you busy during this period?”

I stifle a laugh. “Well, I am shepherding my flock of dust motes. I’m hoping that whoever sweeps the room continues to leave the back corner alone. I’m not sure what I’d do without them.”

“Very amusing. Look, Sam Hair is currently doing the bass drum for the band and I want you to come in and try to it.”

My eyes narrow a bit. “Sam Hair? But Sam has cerebral palsy. The only place he could keep a beat would be in his head.”

“I know.” Miss Leber’s started chewing on her bottom lip. “He wanted to participate in band so I gave him a shot with the drum and now I don’t know what I was thinking! Obviously, he can’t keep proper time so I need you to help me out. Can you?”

“Will I earn a band pin for my varsity letter? The girls really like that gold harp.”

“Sure, why not. You know the school gets like a hundred of those for about twenty dollars.”

“One final thing then. During the Christmas concert’s playing of Silent Night, I’ve always thought a kazoo solo would be…”

“No, don’t even bring it.” She turned and marched back down the hall. “I’ll see you tomorrow during this period.”

The next day Sam was in the back of the percussion section with a triangle in his hand. The expression on his face was a little hard to read. It was a hybrid of bitter rejection and the thrill of a new love. I decided everything was ok as long as Sam wasn’t sitting directly behind me.

I made the most of my opportunity to awaken my musical talents. With practice, I even learned two different paces (or times or pentameters or rhythms…heck I don’t know, I could go fast or slow!)

At the end of the year, Miss Leber was true to her word. I was called to the podium during awards night with the rest of the band members. And if you look at my varsity letter closely, you’ll see two gold pins sticking through the front. Turn the letter over and you’ll spy the proud gold harp of a band letterman.

Note: Except for the kazoo exchange, this story is absolutely true. When I tell people I went to a small high school, I use this story to help emphasize the point.

Sam and I are sitting in the booth of a common fast food restaurant. Both of us have the day off and our spouses have run off to the next great garage sale. I’ve taken the greasy, wax paper wrapper off my breakfast sandwich and stuffed it into the plastic cup that was once filled with orange juice. A minute later, Sam does the same because he’s unoriginal and likes to copy me. (Watch what happens when I yawn.)

Our seats allow us the benefit of a large window and a convenient view of the front counter. It’s the perfect perch for people watching. Neither of us can figure out why the goofy looking adolescent taking orders refuses to release more than one space age packaged jelly at a time. Many customers are forced to ask twice or make return visits.

“So, what grand discovery do you suppose your wife will come home with?”

I start to spin my cup. “I don’t know. One thing’s a given. It won’t be anything I’m all that interested in. Sometimes at night I’ll catch Melissa telling our boy tales of the magic rummage sale where clean tables are stacked high with designer shoes, rare knickknacks, and practically new appliances all for only fifteen dollars.”

Sam nods, “Yea, Marisa used to rope me into driving on those little excursions. Never again! I saw more out of date women’s clothing than my grandmother’s closet. All I really saw were piles, and I mean piles, of baby clothes. I even saw one were the lady was trying to sell the mini boxes of cereal that she had stolen from a motel! She was asking a dime a piece!”

“Hey, you know the saying, ‘Get it for free, sell it for a fee.”

“No, Matt. You made that up didn’t you.”

That’s when I noticed a beat up, rust fringed pick up pulling into a parking spot near my window. A moment later, a young man wearing a loose, stained basketball jersey stepped out. He complimented the uber-casual look with wide jeans, a ball cap turned backward, and a tattoo that said something akin to “Yo’r Mama.” His companion (I didn’t see a ring, and yes, I looked.) Was a woman who easily outweighed him by sixty pounds or more. She wore a tight tank top (Why? Gracious, why!?) and sweat pants. She tossed her cigarette butt to the asphalt before reaching in and grabbing a child whose hair was tangled into a Celtic knot.

“Look, at this family coming in but don’t really look.”

Sam gave me a deadpan look. “I’m not blind. They parked just outside our window.”

“Here’s what I don’t understand. Don’t we have stereotypes for this very reason?! Don’t those folks who ever look into a mirror and say, ‘Holy Cow, baby, did you realize we look just like white trash? We’ve got to do something about this!”

“You’re sounding arrogant.”

“I am not! Look, there are only two options for these folks. Either they don’t care or they’re too stupid to realize what they look like. If they don’t care, then it’s as if they are willingly assigning themselves to that sort of scrutiny.”

Sam hunched his shoulders a bit as they shuffled by the window. “Maybe they don’t have any money.”

“Don’t give me that! Even poor people are smart enough to handle something with buttons! And heck, I could teach a chimp to brush hair! No, it takes a certain amount of effort to look purposely bad.”

Just then our wives drove into the parking lot to retrieve us. Both popped out of my wife’s SUV and opened the back hatch. Inside were garbage sacks filled with someone else’s garbage (aka amazing bargains). Both females waved for our attention. Fred looked and the women started jumping up and down pointing to their haul in mock celebration. Melissa even held up a new, mildly tacky lamp she had just found.

“Uh, Matt, your car is filled with garbage sacks and it looks like our significant others are thrilled. I don’t’ see any junk in that pickup’s bed.”

“Shut up Fred, the women are just trying to be funny.”

I’m sitting in the church’s back room. The room smells musty and it’s a little cramped. There are boxes of Sunday school materials, TV carts, old books on old topics, and a podium still smoking from its near misses with fire and brimstone. Oh, yea, and a huge gray tub of old Halloween candy.

There’s no one in the room with me. I’m completely alone. The box beckons and I become entranced by its corn syrup call.

I open the box by gently sliding the gray lid aside. I don’t take it off (that would be too obtrusive). The sea of candy forms a kaleidoscope of alluring colors. So many choices! I reach in and begin sifting through before coming to some quick conclusions.

*Who eats Now & Later!? Add water and it becomes an adhesive strong enough to hold your dentures in! Or pull them out! There are other fruity or taffy options. Pick one now and then later.

*Bottle Caps are poorly designed. Just like the soda at the DodoEggs.com Manhattan Headquarters it’s flat the second it touches your tongue. Why don’t they make them with the same pop / fizzzzz technology they use in Pop Rocks? Think about it… “Bottle Caps, now with Fizz!” It might make the candy relevant again.

*Tootsie Pops are great! But why do they sometimes develop such a sharp edge? I’ve bled after eating one before! I’ve even heard of a guy in Manhattan mugging a couple with a particularly jagged Tootsie Pop. You’d better be careful sucker!

*Why would you eat a Tootsie Roll when real chocolate is available? No, really, why?

*Also, do you think Nerds could spruce up Grape Nuts cereal? They have the exact same consistency.

*Do remember the 3,545,368 scenes in cartoons where the character slips on a banana peel? This really doesn’t happen but you know what could work? If you spilt a couple small boxes of those sugar coated ball bearings, it might slip someone up.

*Who would win a brawl between a bag of M&Ms, Skittles, and a Box of Milk Duds?p>

One thing I don’t find in the tub is any real chocolate. Ten minutes pass and I’m still tossing waves of sugar candy around the tub looking for chocolate.

A moment later, Mrs. Teply waltzes in, “Oh, there you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you…and look what you’ve found!”

She reaches in and immediately pulls out a Milky Way.

Dr. Peter Holms was a little like the mechanic in a small town. It didn’t matter what was the problem with your car you only had one option. It didn’t matter whether it was a bad fuel pump, worn tires, or a slight tear in the upholstery if it had to be fixed you went to the same guy. In a medical sense, Peter Holms was that guy.

To prove my point, Dr. Holms delivered my mother, my father, and me! He wasn’t an OBGYN just one of the few guys in a white coat at the clinic. He would have delivered my brother as well but Dr. Holms decided to go golfing that day so his son made the catch.

I don’t know Dr. Holms’ exact birthday but it wasn’t long after the turn of the century. Near the end of his career, the two nurses on either arm were needed to prop the good doctor up and escort him down the hallway. No doubt an important part of his bedside manner was having the pretty nurses help him stay upright.

So in high school when I needed an ingrown toenail cut out, my mother took me too…anyone but Dr. Peter Holms. She had endured the good doctor’s Civil War era style of medicine and wanted to save her eldest from such a cruel fate. A much younger practitioner whose clinic had been built after 1980 removed my nail.

Unfortunately, his work didn’t last. A little less than a year later, my toenail had regrown and was again causing a stubbed toe to draw tears. My mother was in another state so my grandmother (a Peter Holms devotee) came to my rescue.

“Dr. Holms know how to fix things like that.” My grandmother boasted. “Did you know he delivered you too?”

When Dr. Holms (a much younger eighty-something at this point) shuffled into the examination room, I was sitting on the exam bench with my tender foot outstretched off one end. One look and the doctor ordered a nurse to fetch a bucket of ice and a washcloth. Dr. Holms produced a rubber band from his pocket and with a twirl of his fingers wrapped it around the base of my big toe.

“Now keep this in the bucket of ice until I get back.” He ordered. The ice and washcloth showed up. With the exception of my big toe, the doctor wrapped my foot with the washcloth. Like unchilled Champaign, Dr. Holms jammed my foot into the bucket of ice. “I’ll be back in a while. Don’t take that out.”

(Attn reader: Please keep in mind, this story takes place in the 1990s! Not the 1890s! We have options other than ice for numbing nerves.)

The next twenty minutes were painful. I filled my mind with images of my current love interest and the video game I was doing my best to win. My grandmother sat nearby trying to occupy my mind with idle chit-chat regarding my grades. I wasn’t that interested in my grades when I felt fine! There was no way I was going to discuss Latin based prefixes and suffixes with pain marching unhindered up my leg!

Finally the good doctor returned with a handful of gauze and what are best described as the iron hedge clippers gardeners use for inch thick limbs. He took my foot out and placed it on the exam table.

“No you tell me if this hurts and I’ll just put your foot back in the ice for a while.”

My grandmother was in the room so my answer ( $#^&&&!$ that! Get this thing over with!) was kept inside. I more eloquently replied, “Yes, sir. It’s fine.”

With that, Dr. Holms, all one hundred twenty pound of him, stuck the bottom edge of the clippers under my nail and began leaning into it. Like a surprise twist in a horror movie, the gruesome scene happened too fast for me to avert my eyes. I could still feel it of course, but what was another dose of pain? My teeth clenched and I may have shed a tear or two.

A few seconds later, Dr. Holms stood up and wrapped my foot in gauze. “He’s all done. Take care of yourself son.” Then he left to return the clippers to guy who maintains his lilac bushes.

Since then, my nail has always been too scared to grow back (at least not properly).

I found out recently that Dr. Peter Holms finally retired. Three months later he died. If I’m not mistaken, they immediately packed his body in ice and shipped it to the Smithsonian. The curator’s had reserved a spot in their display, “Dawn of Medicine” just for the good doctor.

One of the virtues of DodoEggs.com is our amazingly flexible standard of truth in reporting. If the facts don’t match the comic intensity, we stretch them. It allows us write with one foot in the cruel mud of reality and one in the leftover poo-poo of our imagination. As I mentioned in the DodoEggs.com’s very first post (Laying Dodo Eggs), it’s how I made it through college.

But this post is truth to the very last fiber. It’s the painful story of health care on the distant, high plains of central South Dakota. It’s the story of Peter Holms the standard bearer of the medical profession in a rural town.

If you think about it, it’s no huge surprise that there aren’t many doctors in Dakota. Think about a heady young man or woman fresh out of medical school and eager to do the things that mark a medical doctor’s existence. Here’s the priority rundown…

1) Buy a home that’s too big (Maybe two).

2) Buy a car that showcases your newfound status (Maybe two).

3) Begin forking out $$$$$ for malpractice insurance

(Here’s an idea, start a fund where you place 4/5ths of the money you would have paid in malpractice insurance. Then have your patients sign a waiver saying that they will not name you in a suit regardless of the circumstances and you’ll cut them a check from that account. That’s right buy off your patients! I’d sure consider going to a doctor that partially paid me back. It works for credit cards! Oops, I’m rambling…)

4) Begin doling out $$$$$ for the student loans you’ve accumulated.

5) Begin associating with birds of your feather.

(Bonus if you wind up in the society pages gingerly holding a plastic cup with some highbrow adult beverage in it.  I’m sure they’re smiling trying to  rationalize why any one should care that they attend parties and fund raisers.

Those magazines completely annoy me. WHAT’S THE POINT? Should the rest of us who don’t have money or time to hobnob cut out their pictures and laminate them? Try it with your friends then trade.

“Hey, I’ll trade you one Bob Stanford for your Susan Monroe. He’s the vice president of Waxford Woodard Investments you know but I think he’s about to be promoted.”

Oops, rambling again.)

Rural South and North Dakota really doesn’t offer the high volume / high dollar clientele that allow a new doctor to really cash in on his long years of school and take care of the above five priorities. So you can’t imagine that successful doctors are rushing to the bitter cold winters, lack of foreign car dealerships, and declining population (North and South Dakota as a whole are slowly growing but the rural areas have been losing people for years.).

Remember Peter Holms? I mentioned him as a long time doctor in a rural part of South Dakota. I have an interesting history with this man and it accentuates the somewhat unique nature of medical care where I grew up. I’ll share it with you in tomorrow’s post.

I’m perched over a wide circular watering trough watching bugs dance over the surface like figure skaters.  The corners of four pastures converge here and the tops of the fences span the water’s dark surface.  It isn’t much of a seat.

The water isn’t dirty but it is cold enough to make you regret falling.  A thick moss grows along the bottom and sides of the well fed trough stealing all the light.  It’s impossible to see anything more than a couple of inches below the surface.

I grit my teeth and reach in the frigid pool.  My hand immediately comes into contact with the moss’s slimy surface.  I grasp it and tear the moss free from its anchor.  The dripping green wad is slung over the fence’s top flicking water everywhere.  I reach in again and again.

With a grunt, I keep adjusting my seat in the vain hope of finding a comfortable way of sitting on and inch and a half of weathered board.  I’ll have all I want soon and the water bugs, which were frightened by my work, can get back to their almost pointless skittering.

When I accumulate enough of the long, stringy slime, I hope back onto the hard prairie soil and begin wringing the water out.  The hot sun helps dry my raw material.  Before long, I am twisting the moss and tying the ends together.  I create a length of what I termed, “grassy twine.”  It isn’t real strong and the smell is bad.  Then again, what else to I have to do?

“Matt!  Matt!  C’mon!  Dog-gone it, it’s time to eat!”

Grandpa is walking my direction.  He’s a tall man sun browned with overalls frayed at every end.  His amble is gawky to watch.  His arms swing low and his knees flare out a bit as he takes each step. 

“I wish you boys would quit playing around that stupid tank!  You could fall in and that’d be the end of ya!”

Leaving my grass twine hanging over the fence, I begin running toward the house.  I don’t get far before a strange stone catches my eye.  It looks a little like an arrowhead.  After picking it up I race over to my grandpa.

“Na,” He looks at the quartz rock then tosses it aside.  “That isn’t an arrowhead.  I’ve been looking one on my land my entire life and I thought I’d never find one until one day I finally did.”

I asked if I could see it.

“Na, I’m not real sure where it is.  I think grandma probably put it someplace.  Anyway, I know I’ve got one.”

The idea stuck with me.  Looking for something extraordinary among the countless ordinary.  Scattered over miles of the Great Plains and hidden with the innumerable stones there still had to be arrowheads to be found!

I won’t spend my life working the land and thus having a chance to look for an arrow head but I did find a different pursuit.  Among the billions of coins that cross people’s hands there must still be silver coinage from before 1964.  There still had to be old bills stashed for years in back vaults!    

What did the moss have to do with anything?  One day after pulling cash from the bank, I noticed that one of the bills resembled that deep, strong green of the moss and wasn’t the olive color ink that marks newer bills.  I examined the ten and found that it was printed in 1950.

Years later, I’m still looking.  Believe me, it does make each and every handful of change a good bit more exciting.  At the grocery store or the gas station, whenever coins pass my palm they get a quick examination.  I’ve found countless wheat pennies, a silver quarter, and a mercury dime.  Finding the extraordinary from the mass of normal coins is always a bit exhilarating.  I’ll not miss my next one.

I walked into the student lounge after my Black-Market Accounting 6103 class let out.  It was Friday afternoon and except for two losers nursing the pool table, the place was empty.  That’s when I noticed Ben sitting on a couch along the far wall.  He was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, head hanging low.  Behind him was our rival’s mascot, a leprechaun of all things, hung in effigy.  Both looked to suffering from a dearth of good luck.

With a nonchalant air, I eased over to the vending machine nearest Ben’s solemn perch.  I didn’t have any change and except for the freeze-dried package of ketchup-covered strawberries nothing held my interest.

“Oh, hey Ben, what’s going on?”

He barely looked at me.  “Oh, not much.  I’m just sitting her chill’n.”

“Great, but unless you’ve cut a rap album or you’re wearing twelve ounces of cubic zirconium you can’t say ‘just chill’n.”

Ben offered a lifeless grin.

“Well, then what’s the problem?”

Like a drawbridge, his torso slowly straightened then fell against the wall.  It kind of looked like the leprechaun was kicking him in the head.  “Rachel broke up with me.  It’s kind of got me bummed.”

I didn’t say anything about society no longer using bummed and proceeded to, “Well that’s rough.  Did she say why?”

This is where his face really soured.  “She said, “God has told me we aren’t to be together anymore.”

The opportunity was there and I couldn’t resist, “Really?  Did this come as a total surprise to her?  Was she crazy about you this morning only to find smoldering stone tables in her front yard that read, ‘Thou shalt break up with Ben?”

“I guess so.”  Ben finally smiled.  “Actually I thought things were going pretty well between us.  It kind of stinks when it’s God who supposedly delivered the message.”

“Did she say there was any other reason?”

He shook his head.  “Nope, all she would say is that God told her it was time to break it off.”

“Well, there’s a ninety percent chance she’s just blowing smoke down your stovepipe but even if she sincerely believes that God gave her an inspired nudge, she probably shouldn’t tell you that. 

I mean, think about this knot.  What if you approached some girl you just met and said something like, ‘Hey baby, I know we’ve only just met but God told me last night that we should start dating?”

He sat up, “Wait, that’s it!  I’ll wait a week then tell Rachel that God instructed us to start dating again.  Whatever needed to be learned was and we can be together again!”

I grimaced a bit.  “Ben, you’re sounding desperate.  There are other females out there I promise.  God has provided a wonderful bounty.”

“I guess.”

“Here’s what you need to remember, even if you feel God leading you away from a relationship don’t use that as your reason for breaking up.  Use any pretence you want, no relationship is perfect, but don’t peg the entire decision on God then shrug.  It’s just bad taste.”

“Hey, I’ll add that to the end of the letter I’m writing her.”

“Ben, hold on a second…”

There aren’t too many things better for a middle-aged man’s ego than when PYTs (Pretty Young Things) look at him and giggle.  (I mean that is the positive sense, of course.)  They may look a bit too long and the brave ones may even wave.

It seems unlikely but this has happened to me before.  Being married, how am I to react?  Disgust?  Confusion?  Giddiness?  I wind up giving them a flat smile and go back about my business.     

(Sometimes I would casually mention these encounters around Mrs. Teply.  I would smile, chuckle a bit, and raise my eyebrows.  This is why I’ve never bothered to take an IQ test.  Anyone stupid as I am would be profoundly disappointed with the results.  Egad!)

During this last summer, a couple of PYTs were sitting in chairs near the edge of the shallow pool.  I was on the stand nearby watching dutifully over the lives of small children.  I knew they were sitting there but I wasn’t paying them any sort of special attention.  When the rotation finally came around, Rachel took the rescue tube from me and waited for me to hop down.

“Hey, Mr. T” She whispered.  “Those girls over next to the shallow zone are really checking you out.”

“Thank you Rachel.  And how should his affect my behavior?”

Rachel took on a nonchalant expression.  “Well, I don’t know.  I’m just telling you because I thought you’d want to know.”

The knowledge did change my behavior a bit.  Instead of my casual, lackluster saunter back to the guardroom, I used my trusty straight posture, commanding stride.  There’s a difference but you may only notice if you were an aficionado.

Another twenty minutes and the rotation returned Rachel to the guardroom.  “My my Mr. T, I noticed you used your patented constipated, purposeful pace on the way back to the guardroom.  I think they were watching you.”

“Alright, you caught me straightening my posture, big deal.”

“Are you going to walk by again?  I’d kind of like to see your gritty, stoic amputee.  Yea, I’d bet those girls would like that too.”

“No,” I replied.  “In fact, I think I’ll but an end to all this right now.”  Then I raised my voice to gather the attention of the other guards (mostly female).  ”There’s an easy way to dump cold water on this whole deal.  Are you ready?”

“Go ahead, Mr. T.”  Rachel replied.

“Then think about this.  I’m closer in age to forty than I am twenty.”

For females who hadn’t graduated from high school or were only a couple of years into college (that being everyone within earshot), “forty” equated to “old man.” 

The looks on Rachel and the other’s faces changed instantly.  It looked as if they were fitting me for a coffin.  “Boy Mr. T, you’re sure right about the cold water thing.”