Tin.Can.Goat

I stepped through the café door and walked to the table where my friends were enthusiastically waving me over. 

“Hey guys, what’s up?” I said, and shook my Pepsi cup. “Just getting some water.”

“We were waving you away,” Pete said. He sipped his coffee and continued to drawing circles on a yellow pad in front of him with his other hand. “What’d I say about eye contact?”

“I gotta run,” said Joyce, and she patted me on the shoulder as she passed. She’s a sweet person.

Travis looked up from his pie. “Where you going? Take me with you.”

She paused at the door. “I don’t know…force myself to take a shit, or something.”

“I’ll still go.”

She paused and looked at Travis, biting her lower lip. “Alright,” she said, and jerked her head towards the door before turning and walking out.

Travis scrambled past and kicked his dropped fork under a nearby counter.

I sat across from Pete and watched him draw circles. “What’s with the circles?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said, and took another sip of coffee with his free hand.

“Doing art?”

“Nope.”

“Math?”

He stopped and looked up at me.

I looked away. “I guess not. Are you bored?”

“Starting to get that way.”

“Maybe switch it up. Try trapezoids, or something.”

“Not from the circles.”

“You want my red pen?” I pulled the pen from my shirt, and offered it across the table. “It’ll help break up the color.”

“Listen, my arm hurts. It’s been numb all morning and drawing circles seems to loosen it up.” Pete rubbed his elbow. “That’s all.”

“I hear ya. My upper lips been hurting me all morning.” I poked my finger into my lip. “Feels like I was punched.”

“Did you wake up in an alley?”

“No. Why?”

“You weren’t punched. Probably just jammed your toothbrush up there.”

“Ah,” I said, and ran my tongue across my gums. “I’d say that’s a pretty good guess.”

He continued drawing circles.

“Is it working?” I asked.

“I said it was,” he said.

“Oh yeah. You did. Sorry.” I took a sip of water. “Hey, you ever think about what sense you would hate to lose, if you had to lose any? Like, any you couldn’t live without?”

“I wouldn’t mind sound right now,” Pete said without looking up.

“For me it’d be sight. I mean, I’m blind already without my contacts. But losing my sight would definitely suck.”

“Yeah, that’d be a tough one.”

“Not because I’m afraid of the dark though. I’m more afraid that people would mess with me.”

Pete stopped drawing and looked up. “How so?” he said.

I flicked my pen and it spun across the tabletop. Pete caught it and rolled it back to me.

“Well,” I said. “I have bad short-term memory. If I don’t put something in the same place—especially at home—I cannot find it again.

“Take last night, for example. I put my pants next to my alarm clock—“

Pete raised his eyebrows.

“It was convenient. Anyways, I get out of the shower this morning and my pants are gone. I looked all over the area. I even got down on my knees and looked under the bed. I could swear to you that I put them on the nightstand last night, but now they were simply…gone. Like magic.

“So my wife hears me in there making a fit, and she says, ‘What are you looking for?’.

“‘My damn pants,’ I say, and she walks over to the dirty-close hamper and lo, picks up my pants.

“‘These?’ she says, and I snatch them out of her hands.

“‘Yes,’ I say. ‘How the hell did they get over there?’

“‘I was folding clothes,’ she says.

“‘These weren’t folded,’ I say, accusingly.

“‘No, but they were on the alarm clock, and in the way,’ she says, and walks out of the room.

“I tell you Pete, she was messing with me. I should have followed her into the hall and seen if she was laughing at me.”

Pete looked at me, his jaw slack. “Did you say, ‘lo’?” he asked, and stood up from the table, gathering his stuff. “Listen, I’d really love to stay, but I, um, I don’t know…I guess I feel a shit coming on too.”

“Ok man,” I said. “I’ll catch you later. Come see me.”

Pete waved over his shoulder as he exited the room.

I really like these guys.

[741]

My thumbs are a conversation starter.

Even now I’ve started one and you are reading it.

I never really considered writing about my awkward thumbs before, but a recent experience during my karate class two weeks ago forced me to realize that writing about it was necessary. I figured it best to educate people before they meet me. At least, this way, we should be able to forgo the typical “Oh my God!”’s, the “WTF?”’s, and the “Dude, seriously. You sure those aren’t toes?”’s.

“This guy is kicking my butt,” I said. I touched my enflamed pectoral, and winced. “I’m getting way too old for this crap.”

“Suck it up old man.”

I looked at John. At 58, and 20-years my senior, he was in awesome shape. His remark bit, and I muttered a retort under my breath.

He winked, and with a jump, pulled out twenty full chin-ups.

I stared. A twinge crossed my eyes. One of jealousy, yet mixed with admiration. Oh, if only he’d drop and break his hip, I thought. But he landed with a delicate thup and, bent over at the waist, shook the sweat from his hair.

“You wouldn’t be so fat and out-of-shape if you did this every day,” he said. “Once a week is pathetic.”

“This is my second.” I said.

He looked at me and kissed a bicep. “Cannons. Next time I’ll get fatty over there to hug my legs while I do it.”

I glanced at the overweight teenager sitting cross-legged against the far wall.

“Yeah, him,” the old man said. “The one that looks like a thinner, younger version of you.” He cockatieled in the mirror. “Getting too strong. I could use a challenge.”

“I am not that fat.” I poked my thumb into my abdomen. “Just a little pudgy in the middle.”

“Good Lord, look at those meat hooks.” He grabbed my wrist and turned it over in his hands. “With these meaty palms and the thick covering of fur, you look the offspring of an orangutan.”

“No, now look—“

“How did you escape?”

“Escape?—What?”

“From Dr. Moreau.

“I’ll bet he’s super pissed he lost the likes of you. Probably the closest looking thing to a human he’s engineered. An anthropologic marvel.”

“Whatever,” I said, and followed him back onto the mats.

Our instructor paced as we lined up, his thumbs locked in this belt. “On your bellies,” he said. “Time for some pyramids.”

I sat up, and raised my hand. “Is that like diamonds?”

He put his hands up in front of his eyes. “Triiii-aaaaangle. See how my thumbs and forefingers make a triiii-aaaaangle?”

I nodded.

“Then it’s a triangle. If I moved my thumbs down like this—”

I interjected, “Then it’s a diamond. But my thum—”

“Triiii-aaaaangle.”

Someone behind me sighed.

“Sir. I know what you’re saying, but what does—“

“What does it matter?”

I nodded.

“It matters, because the diamond works different muscles in your chubby arms than the triangle.”

He knelt down in front of me. “Now look. Put your hands down on the mat like this.

“See how mine is the shape of a triiii-aaaaangle?”

“Yes sir.”

“Ok, do that.”

I placed my triangle on the mat, and he rocked back as if I were diseased.

“What the hell is that? Looks like an experimental aircraft.”

“Language!” The school-owner’s wife called out from the back office.

His eyes rolled up and he scratched his head. “Language? What the he—?” He dropped his hand, and several parents shook their heads. “Oh yeah.”

“Sorry ma’am,” he called out to her. “Slip of the tongue.”

He dropped next to me. “Sorry about that. So here, put your weird Hobbit hands down again.”

I did. But my thumbs fought me and forced themselves in to a diamond, or inverted into a Star Trek insignia.

“Not so far out,” he said. “You’re not that badass—”

“Language!”

He rolled his eyes, and continued. “Bring that triangle-vagin—” He paused, his eyes wide and lips pulled back as he listened.

Nothing.

He continued. “Nah, not like that. You want it back here, more under your chest, like so. Yes, like that. Good. Good, Nancy.

“Ok, from now on, make sure both the diamond and the triangle are right there. Your breastbone should be bumping that di-mangle every time you go down.

“Think of it this way. When I was in the Corps, my D. I. said, ‘Picture you got your lady down there. She’s all spread-eagle on the floor under you. Waiting on you to get hard and show your peck—‘“

A scream, shrill and piercing, bansheed from the back. His eyes widened and he fell back onto his rear. “Guy!”

“Right,” he yelled back, and looked around at the curious pre-teens in the room and their shocked parents who lined the walls. He nodded to the parents. “Sorry ladies, I was getting a little carried away.”

“Guy!”

He glanced at the hallway to the office and stood. He brushed dust, hair, and a finger nail from his pants, and said, “I need to go for a few. Let’s, um…let’s do some…um…Jumping Jacks. That sounds—well, it just sounds right. And about now it just sounds pretty safe.”

He pointed at me. “Lead the count for me.”

I nodded and watched him stutter-step to the back, and close the door behind him.

We stared in silence as the door rattled from the muffled voices. I looked at the students in front of me, and shrugged. “Ready?” I said.

The kids snapped to attention with a well-chorused, “Sir!”

We exercised, and I shook my head as I watched two women at the back of the class laugh and giggle as they scratched their armpits, and mockingly charaded the peeling of a banana.

[958]

I nodded to my buddy as I walked out the office door and into the hallway. He looked at me as if he had something to say, but I hurried past. After two, 32-ounce cups of water, I was intent on getting to the restroom before I wet myself.

I hurried inside as the door closed behind me and sucked the last of the fresh air out of the room with a woosh. The air inside smelled of rancid vanilla and bleach and I held my breath as I neared the urinal.

I’m not the most social of people and even though I tend to favor walls and couches at parties, I still find the ability to converse with those around me. But when it comes to public urination, I wholeheartedly prefer to stand alone.

I learned of dudeiquette (dude-etiquette) while in the Army and since my induction, I follow my training to a “T”. I make no exceptions. I refuse to go outside the lines or bend the rules. I don’t pilot flights over the no-fly zone. I’m a straight shooter and that’s it.

One of the major dudeiquettes is the dudeiquette rule of restroom spaciousness. This rule states that men, when entering a restroom, must leave at least one urinal or stall between the other man/men in the room. For the most part this is easily achievable, but a few exceptions exist.

I will describe two such exceptions here:

Exception #1: If the restroom houses an odd number of body-waste receptacles (in this example I’ll use three) and two of said receptacles are occupied in accordance with proper dudeiquette, the next man to enter the restroom must wait until one of the odd-numbered receptacles is vacated.

Never during this waiting-period should the waiter look at the backs of the disposers. Nor should the waiter turn his back and look at the disposer in the mirror. This dudeiquette rule provides a safe-disposal environment for any man who may or may not have a block against social-urination.

Exception #2: If the restroom in question houses the infamous trough-urination system, space equal to the width of one 300 pound man should be left between each disposer at the trough. This provides a space equal to that of an odd-numbered receptacle restroom.

In the instance that a social-urination challenged man needs to dispose, this man must wait for a closed-boxed receptacle to vacate. Or, if possible, this man should first inebriate himself before attempting the trough-urination system.

Remember, to avoid confrontations or envy, the eyes at all times are straight forward and never down.

I released my breath as I disposed. With my free hand I pulled my shirt up over my nose as a sort of make-shift filter. It didn’t work.

The door opened and a man walked in and placed his tattered black-leather briefcase on the counter behind me. The door wooshed and he stepped next to me with a zip and a sigh. I rolled my eyes, first rule of dudeiquette neglected.

I held my tongue, but only because I needed my mouth for channeling my breath away from my nose.

I finished my disposal and became the next to break dudeiquette as I looked up when the man next to me emitted a low-pitch rumble. I felt myself the bigger man and provided him a courtesy-flush as he emitted not once, but twice more.

He seemed sure of himself as he smirked at me in the mirror while I washed my hands. I nodded to him in the mirror and exited the restroom.

I stopped to check for new mail and as I walked back to the office I passed him in the hall.

He stood by the elevators, his tattered briefcase in his hand and a slight smirk across his face. His smirk widened as I passed, my cell-phone vibrating noisily in my back-pocket.

It’s then I noticed the vibrating of my phone sounded oddly similar to the sound I’d assumed he’d emitted in the restroom.

Dudeiquette aside, I now felt the idiot.

[675]

Dear Dell,

Today I pay my account in full.

Today I say adieu after our three years together.

Before I leave, I would like to impart a few kind words. A benediction of life, if you will.

My dearest Dell, I would like to say “thanks” in advance for allowing me to never purchase a Dell product again. I thank you for the crummy Dell Financial Services customer service I received from the non-native English-speaking customer representatives who had accents so thick that I couldn’t understand anything they said.

I thank you for the 39-dollar fee you charged me for paying my payment on the day that it was due. I thank you for not mentioning on my statement that I must actually pay my bill the day before it’s due to avoid this fee. I know, I know…the fees are because of CheckFree and the way they operate. I understand it is not your fault, but I thank you for not mentioning all this on my statement.

I thank you for closing my account as requested. I received the confirmation by e-mail almost immediately. I will keep my printed copy of this as not only proof of the account closure, but also as a memento of our time together.

I thank you in advance for not allowing me to open another account with your crappy company ever again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not switching to Apple. I hate the whole Apple mythos. I do want to say that because of this instance, I am happy to never be a Dell customer, or Dell supporter, again. From now on, I will save my money and buy a Toshiba, or Sony, or something from the—half the price of Dell for the same item—ibuypower.com.

I am a little down-hearted about our parting. I tried to support Dell, even when others put you down. I showed my friends my awesome Dell Mini 10. I bragged about my XPS. I said good words about my kids Inspiron. But after this crap with the customer service and the sneaky way I was charged a late fee on the day my payment was due, I have to reiterate that I am done with Dell. I am hurt that it all ends this way and that I am now lashing out by telling everyone how much I cannot stand your company.

It’s not that I want to be this way, but sometimes my mouth just can’t contain what my mind thinks. As you know, word of mouth is awesome. Whereas I used to sway people your way—I got two of my friends to buy minis—I now chase people away with a big, brambly stick. My parents are one of these. No, they never bought a mini, but they were in the market for a new PC—as was I since my XPS is a couple of years old now—but now I will take us all somewhere else. My sister just paid cash for a new netbook a couple of days ago, but it wasn’t a Dell. Nope, I talked her out of it. I told her I really liked mine, but then I explained to her how much better the Toshiba was. Can you believe she actually paid 80 dollars more for the Toshiba than she would have for the Dell? Wow.

Oh well, thanks for the memories,

Phil

Oh! p.s., as an aside, I want to thank you for not putting my account number anywhere on my account page on your website. It’s great that I have to dig up an old paper copy, or wait for the PDF of my statement to download to retrieve my account number. I have a feeling you might say that you don’t display my account number because of security reasons, but I ask, why then can I select any of my electronic statements from my account page and there in the PDF is my account number? Why do you bury it so? Why must I progress through a six-step click process to find information that Dell requests on everything I fill-out or submit on your site? I don’t know the answer to this, but it sure adds to frustration.

*****

Dear Mr. McClellin,

Thank you for contacting us about your account.

Our sincere apologies for any difficulties you may have encountered during your interactions with DFS. While we realize that only our future service opportunities can restore your confidence in us completely, we want to assure you that your experience was unusual.  We strive to provide our customers with friendly and efficient service, and hope that any future service opportunities result in your complete satisfaction.

Please accept this email as confirmation that we have waived a late fee of $39.00 as a one-time courtesy. The credit will be reflected on your next regular statement.

Please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns about the Dell Preferred Account. Agents are available Monday – Friday, 7:00 AM – 8:00 PM CT, at (800) 283-2210. You may also contact us online at www.dell.com/dfs.

Thank you for your continued business.

Sincerely,

Gaylord

Dell Financial Services

Customer Care Department

*****

Dear Dell,

Sigh.

Sincerely,

Phil

[857]