Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux

[m3a1]

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The Billmeister is the unrivaled master of the Barbie Wave whereas I prefer the Disney Princess style...

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[rickf]

You kind of "Fill" that drivers compartment don't you?
Is that an illuminated Boom box? Tell me you weren't blasting Grandma got run over by a Gamma Goat?!!

[m3a1]

Actually, the crew compartment of the Goat is VERY generous in terms of its size. In fact, it is, hands down, the most comfortable of all my MVs.

That said, the pedals are WAY forward so, after getting in, I have to slide the seat way forward. Between the size of my belly and the size of the steering wheel...well, it looks cramped....but it ain't.

[m3a1]

The day before yesterday, the Billmeister and I decided to make the rounds in San Antonio and see what the off-road & 4 wheel drive stores had to offer. Oh boy, did we come away disappointed. However, I did not go with the intention to buy, but rather to find out who some of the lesser manufacturers were and hoping against hope that I would actually get to do some touchy-feely on a few minor things that I intend to buy in the near future. To some small degree, I achieved the former and absolutely none of the latter. On-line retail sales must really be where it's at nowadays because brick and mortar stores sure haven't got it. I haven't the slightest idea how they pay the rent.

I did buy myself a Rivet Nut Installation Tool Kit which was far better than the Harbor Freight one I already have. To be installed correctly, this type of fastener requires a good, inflexible installation tool and if the tool is weak in any way you'll have plenty to talk about after you remove a lame rivet nut that isn't tight to the panel.

Ask me how I know.

This purchase had merit, considering that my Harbor Freight rivet nut installation tool is about as firm as a bowl of spaghetti. A proper tool needs to be as stiff as King Charles' upper lip.

(My apologies to our British cousins. I couldn't resist the analogy.)

I also bought a cheap Hecho en Taiwan-o Roll & Pitch Indicator decorated with two separate visuals of modern jeeps; one, a front view for ROLL and the second, a side view for PITCH. Each is surrounded by a fixed ring consisting of reference marks whose meaning is utterly vague (and the whole thing is fully illuminated, by golly!). As the vehicle pitches and rolls (feeling seasick yet?) the jeep images rotate and kind of point to the various reference marks. Entertaining, but in my world, really quite pointless.

B.S. Off Road Equipment Badge - AWARDED!

I bought it, not because having that sort of information actually matters to me but because it terrifies the passenger and gives them something to gawk at while playing the Who's-Gonna-Scream-First Game. With the indicator located directly in front of the mortified passenger, it should provide the driver with a subtle (and unfair) advantage. While I will be calmly looking out the window where the REAL action is (squirrel!), my horrified passenger's eyes will be unavoidably zeroed in on the gauge; a gauge far more edgy-looking than, say, a happy little bubble bobbing about in the arc of liquid-filled glass tube.

But, it's illuminated? REALLY?! I'm certainly not going to go mucking about in the darkness in the middle of nowhere with my expensive equipment! NnnnOPE! And what do all these little marks really mean? There is no 'Stay-Away-From-This-Mark' indication and no place that is marked 'Death Zone' (with a laughing Devil face surrounded by flames). Understand that every vehicle is different when it comes to Center of Gravity (there's that term again!) on the X-Y-Z axis which means this little device could be made vastly more convincing by perhaps adding a little ring with a blaze orange arrow; something that could be dialed in to a vehicle's specifics and represent it's particular If-You-Go-There-You-Will-Die-A-Horrible-Death limits in Pitch and Roll.

I suppose that's what Dymo Tape is for, especially when one end is trimmed into a little arrow demarcating a specific spot. Dymo tape is boring, utterly anachronistic, yet effective...and as an added bonus, it comes in different colors and it's convincingly 'old school'. The real problem with Dymo Tape is, not everybody can handle it. Give it to one guy (or gal) and he'll mark a rev limit or a roll-over point and be done with it. Give it to another guy (or gal) and 40 minutes and several rolls of Dymo Tape later, EVERYTHING has had a label put on it. Even obvious stuff gets labeled, like "DOOR", "SEAT", "WINDSHIELD", "THIS SIDE UP" and...

"VOMIT BAGS ARE LOCATED IN THE SEAT BACK IN FRONT OF YOU".

Okay, vomit bag instructions may not be over the top but you get the point.

Suppose I repurpose the power source and install a blinking red light coupled with a small, terrifying piezo buzzer in it; something that I can secretly toggle from the driver's position just to add to the passenger's growing conviction that he (or she) is about to die....

pinned in the wreckage...
upside down...
after rolling into a nameless, bottomless ravine...
and after being completely swallowed up by the underbrush...
and after coming to a very sudden stop against a very large rock...
and after having a rather large tree fall on the whole thing...
and then be eaten by some strange, off-brand creature like, Ring-Tailed Bandicoots...during their mating season.

That wouldn't be fun...but it would make a helluva story for the victim's kids to tell their kids. Better than, "Grandpa died peacefully in his sleep".

Bleh.

Now, because I know Rick is about to reply with one of his many legendary 'Back In MY Day' stories, I'm going to steal his thunder for a moment. He's about to tell us about his old off-road racing days, back when HE-men ruled the earth. His ancient machine was utterly devoid of such modern conveniences. What they used to do was duct tape an empty beer bottle to a piece of twine; twine which was braided from the hair they harvested from his crew chief's chest (a burly dude appropriately named, Harry) and suspend said empty bottle from the roll cage. If the bottle swung over and bonked anything, like maybe Rick's helmet, things were getting dangerous. If the bottle swung over and actually BROKE against his helmet...well, HANG ON RICK! Oddly, such a device DOES have bragging rights because unlike my piece of kit, his was ALSO a yaw indicator, thereby one-upping the modern device, making it 50% Mo Bettah. And if the bottle broke, eventually someone would come along, turn the vehicle (and Rick) back over. THEN, somebody (or everybody) would empty ANOTHER bottle. Harry would tape one back in place and Rick would be off to the races, again! YeeHawwwwwwwww!

(Insert picture of Slim Pickins HERE - waving a cowboy hat whilst astride an atomic bomb and riding it all the way down to the target.)

Goodness! Enough of this nonsense!

BTW Rick, one package arrived today. THANK YOU!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program - Mister Magoo.

Nope, you couldn't be that lucky. This is not quite that entertaining..

At the checkout counter of one of the 4WD retailers, there was a gaggle of piratey-looking guys engaging in the modern version of fireside pub banter. This modern version is where everyone gaggles up around the cash register (since there is no fireplace) with the counter guy acting as a sort of pseudo-barkeep/master of ceremonies. I would not have been the least bit surprised if they all suddenly began singing Monty Python's I'm A Lumberjack Song. Their banter, which when translated from a lot of not-so-technical off road jargon (meaning most of it was pretty much a matter of opinion with very little of anything to back it up) was entertaining. It all pretty much boiled down to a good natured shvantz-measuring contest.... and I was the 'new guy'.

*sigh*

This sort of thing was something I had to listen to and endure, every darned day for four years in Afghanistan...because Mercenaries (particularly young ones who have only 1/3 of their Been-There-Done-That Merit Badges) are, at their heart, rather insecure fellows. Not enough hugs from Mommy, methinks.

But, because this particular topic was off-roady-type stuff, and because I had more important places to do and things to go, I played the trump card almost immediately. (No, not THAT Trump.) Out came my video of the M561 Gama Goat and then as an added bonus I laid the half track on them just to really pin their ears back and keep any possible rebuttals to an absolute minimum. Well, it got real quiet really fast and Bill and I, being smooth criminals, moonwalked out of there like Michael Jackson leaving everyone wishing they hadn't bought Fiats painted in Skittles colors.

Yup. Mine IS bigger..

and greener..

and WAY louder!

After lunch, we treated ourselves to a visit to San Antonio's areas bestest surplus store where I came away with a great find. Got myself a largish Hardigg transit case ( of the 42.75" x 30.75" x 27.34" flavor). I thought it would be the perfect case to go on my 762 trailer. Take that along and going camping with the jeep would be a breeze (and a lot less crowded in the Jeep). I asked the fellow behind the counter how much and he had to call the owner. In the meantime, I went out and double checked the case for problems while Sir Billiam shopped inside. Finding the case to be in primo excellante good condition, I went back in. The price was very affordable, and a bonafide STEAL considering its size and condition. I won't say what that price was because you'd spit out your coffee and need to have your computer fixed. Let's just say I paid as fast as I could before anyone decided they wanted more for it.

Bill was ready to go so we both marched out the door. He turned left to get the Suburban and bring it over. I turned right to go fawn over my new GBB (Great Big Box) and there on the ground was a nice $20 bill. "HEY, BILL", I exclaimed as I pointed to the $20 on the ground. Bill turned and looked at it, looked at me, looked back at it, shook his head at my usual, unbelievable luck, muttered something about my ALSO getting a $20 discount and then turned back to go get the truck.



SKIPPY THE KID is on Christmas break from John Deere College and he was finally back in town so yesterday, Bill and I made sure to arrange to spend some time with him. Skippy is notorious for being late (or not showing up at all) and knowing this, we finally gave up on him and headed up to Kerrville to goof off at Harbor Freight. Luckily for Skippy, he called just before we got on the interstate which meant an immediate change of plans (again). Bill and I took a right turn and visited the rummage store at the north end of town, thus giving Skippy time to make his way to my place.

Actually, there was a legitimate purpose for my going to Harbor Freight. I was going to select the cheapest furniture mover dolly they had. It was something I planned to massage into a trolly for the doors of the Jeep (meaning whatever doors happened to be off the Jeep at any particular time). Hard-skinned doors are best stored vertically and in such a way that they are kept from harm. Whatever I selected would need to have several structures added to it to create a vertical support.

Killing time at the rummage place paid off in spades when we came across some rather nice chrome-plated steel retail clothing racks which were cleverly constructed so that they could be disassembled and boxed into the smallest possible space. What this meant to me was, a full sized rack could be taken apart and reassembled into a more compact and useful trolly already equipped with vertical supports. PLUS, I would get to keep the extra fasteners which would be tossed on the pile with everything else. I would have to put some plywood across the base and some pool noodles on the verticals but otherwise, the old commercial clothing rack would be perfect.

Understandably, the rummage store didn't want to part with the nice racks, chiefly because they have use for such things but they WOULD part with a third one which was a bit rusty and not very presentable for use as a retail rack. The cost? Free?! Even MORE perfect! I like 'free' and I don't care what it looks like as it will spend all its time in a dark storage unit.

Pool noodles, on the other hand.... well, they aren't on the shelves at this time of the year. The way things are going in retail sales I imagine all the summertime kit will hit the Walmart shelves about Dec 26th. I suppose I'll have to be patient until then.

We grabbed the booty and headed back to my place and beat Skippy there by about 5 minutes. We used those 5 minutes to disassemble and reassemble the rack to the desired configuration. NICE!

Skippy showed up, looking hungry as always. We headed out for some pizza at the same place Xloflyr and I had just visited. Afterwards, we decided to pay Frank The Wizard a visit just to extend to him the season's greetings. Making our way over there we came across a curbside treasure. Half a sheet of plywood. Not pretty, but serviceable and exactly what was needed to complete the new Door Trolly.

Now, if I could find some free pool noodles or discarded pipe insulation, I will have achieved the trifecta!

Cheers,
TJ

[rickf]

Actually, Back in my four wheeling days.......................... Yup, you knew it was coming. I did have one of those tilt meters, Had one in my old 70 Bronco and several other vehicles. I can tell you that a CJ-7 with 10" of lift and 15-35" tires will push it to 41 degrees and not roll, until you hit that little root. Then it is all over. And yes I was watching the meter because I really wanted to know the limits. I did have it on 60 degrees all the while making forward progress but that was kind of cheating, I was in a deep washout and I was actually laying on the sides of the tires but since I have lockers in the front and back differentials I was still able to keep driving forward. Once I got to the end of the washout I did have to have a few helping hands there to push it back down on all fours. The right side tires were a couple feet above the ground. Somewhere I have that on video but it is super 8 video and I am not sure I have any way of playing it let alone converting it if it is even still usable. Plus if I did then everyone would get to see me in real life from the 80's.

[m3a1]

Rick in his prime. Probably a sketchy looking dude.

Second package arrived! Again, THANK YOU!

[m3a1]

It never ceases to amaze me what a big difference little things can do to improve the appearance of a vehicle.

By way of example, the factory chrome headlight bezels do little to improve the look of the ol' square-eyed YJ series of Wrangler. Remember the great hew and cry over the square headlights? Well, in my humble opinion, it wasn't necessarily that the headlights were square, though the departure from the 'normal look' of a venerable Jeep grille was substantial enough to warrant an outcry of some merit. But, actually, the chrome bezels made the darned headlights look far too BIG. With chrome surrounds, the Jeep looks like it has Marty Feldman eyes. They just bug out at ya. They're goofy. They're tacky and they scream, 'I'm a suburbanite with a Jeep'!

Consider the following photo and see if you don't agree -

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I ordered up a set of black bezels and installed them. No change in shape, or size. Just black. Oh boy, OH BOY! What an improvement.

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Cheers,
TJ

[Horst]

agree!

[m3a1]

Went to a Christmas party with my wife last night. Normally, I avoid other people's parties like the plague owing to having a lack of any control over whatever weirdness might crop up and we cops, particularly retired cops....well, we hate surprises...and debauchery. Surprises, coupled with debauchery...even worse. As long as there is nothing exceedingly strange, overtly unusual or altogether unexpected, I'm happy. I never want to walk in on stupid stuff like a Christmas-themed Pajama Party (especially when I'm over-dressed for the occasion and going commando because... laundry day was yesterday and I didn't do laundry). What's with Christmas Pajama Parties, you ask? Just use your imagination. They're the ones where you're supposed to pretend to stay up late and wait for Santa and everything that goes with so-called adults, staying up way past their bedtime.

Weird.

Also, I don't want to walk in on some of the party guests engaging in (insert your favorite illegal or immoral or misplaced thing here).

I object to those parties where some genius with an IQ of 4 has hired 'little people' (or whatever we're calling themselves at the present time) and they're milling about just below eyesight while dressed like elves, tugging on your pants leg and offering to 'get you on the naughty list'. I'm sorry, but I'm a traditionalist and rather conservative. You can bet if Peter Dinklage is there, he's probably going to be one of those angry, South Pole Elves. Just thinking about this sort of thing makes my palms sweat.

Heaven forbid I find myself coming to a party and finding something REALLY random like normally sane people hiring themselves out to perform as Human Statues in a reenactment of Baby Jesus in the manger. That sort of thing immediately transforms me into an ugly Tourist who will try absolutely anything to get a British Royal Guard to sneeze or do some other silly thing. If I could only get Mary to break character and try to shoo me away, I would consider that a BIG win.

However, I felt confident that things at THIS party would be fairly traditional when, in the midst of putting our party AWAY (yup...STILL. Still putting stuff away. I'm doing that at my own pace, thank you very much), I was called upon by The Good Doctor to cough up two banquet tables, three table cloths, three centerpieces and twelve folding chairs, a truck to deliver them in, consuming 17.34895 gallons of diesel....

...and partridge in a pear treeeeeeeeeeee.

Annnnnd I was to deliver them to Dr. So-and-So's home the day BEFORE the party.... which was in another county which added another hour of drive time to the whole effort.

Fabulous.

On the 'Day Of', Doctor Smith took me in tow and we went shopping. I couldn't imagine what we were shopping for but there we were, butting heads and rubbing elbows and generally competing with all the other morons...errr...all the other Christmas Shoppers at one of the upscale local venues designed to bleed people's wallets dry in a flash. This is a place I normally avoid like the plague. It is NOT a place for cheapskates like me. If, by chance I find something I DO like, I snap a picture of it and shop for it elsewhere.

From above, I imagine we all looked like a bunch of trout trying to get to the spawning area...all of us trying to make that big leap up and over the waterfall. There was spirited competition in the air. Not at all like the two women fighting over the last Cabbage Patch Doll. Remember that travesty? Just a lot of folks cheerfully trying to fill their loved one's stocking.

Finding a parking space was surprisingly easy. All one had to do is drive to the furthest reaches of the realm and there were plenty of spaces. Hiking to where the financial blood letting was being held was also a breeze. I guess all that physical therapy I had earlier in the year paid off. Hiking BACK while saddled like some bedraggled beast of burden...well that was something else entirely. I know what Mary's little donkey felt like when they finally reached the manger behind the Motel 6. Poor thing.

I will admit, it was nice to get out and see all the lovely holiday decorations. Malls, particularly open air malls, spare no expense decorating for Christmas. There is an actual psychological science to all this retail stuff. Happy shoppers spend more money and shoppers in a festive mood open their wallets and lay down like lovers (I borrowed that phrase but it is SPOT ON) and they do it without regret....until December 26th. And then they do it all over again but in reverse and even the smiles are turned upside down. It's the thing. You know. THE THING.

RETURNS.

Anyhoo, we were there were all the happy shoppers, some with a string of small children trudging along behind, in chains. For crying out loud! When did we begin putting leashes on our kids?! Is this LEGAL? Apparently, I need to get out more.

Some shoppers had kids in clever little wheeled conveyances. Those kids fortunate enough to being riding would soon be forced to schlep around when carrying the many last-minute holiday purchases became more important than having the kid wheeled about in false royal comfort. Then the contraption would be laid out like a tiny bed with wheels and used as a trolly. Cleopatra never had to get out of that thing she rode around in but, in today's society the kiddos take a back seat (if they are extremely lucky) to boxes and bags. If they're not lucky, they get put afoot and then the crying begins.

Some shoppers had their tiniest tots strapped to their chest (oddly, facing forward). I cannot imaging being a tot and having to experience that. It must be like being a tiny little Mad Max chained to the front of a War Rig in FURY ROAD. Terrifying! No wonder these tiny humans look so wide-eyed. They gawk at everything and everyone as they bob along. Everything they see is a threat! Remember putting your kid in the basket of the shopping cart and racing around the store like a lunatic in some reenactment of Mister Toad's Wild Ride? Exhilarating for children old enough to utter the words, "Go FASTER, Daddy!" but for the smallest among us? Probably not such a good idea. But there they were, out there bangin' away with the rest of the gladiators... all of us fighting for our personal space whilst searching for that perfect gift.

Merry Christmas, kid. Hope you survive it to have another one.

With our hands and arms full I trudged behind The Good Doctor, back to the car. It was a long way back to the car. Far longer than it was going to the mall FROM the car. Then, you could actually see the destination. Now, the parking lot was full and I couldn't see the car from the mall. Did I mention that the parking lot has a swale in it? It was conveniently located halfway between our car and the mall. So, we quite literally had to walk uphill, both ways.

The Good Doctor (a person who God has not gifted with a keen sense of direction) kind of went a little wide (ignoring the self evident Shortest Distance Between Two Points Theorem). After a few (or 10) of my comments about our present path went ignored, I simply put my head down, shut my mouth and tried to keep up like a good little mule.

After a while (and I DO mean A WHILE because we parked WAY out in the cheap seats) I became vaguely aware of a nagging sense that I was being followed; perhaps even stalked. Theft does occur in parking lots. Robberies, not so often but even that had its upside. I was beginning to happily fantasize about some goon leaping out at me, sticking a gun in my face and yelling, "STICK 'EM UP" and then relieving me of my burdens. This was beginning to seem like a blessing. Once he got his hands on the bags, I'd knock him senseless, take his gun (and add it to my collection) and leave him there, unconscious. Yup, unconscious, disarmed, face down and arranged with his backside in the air to add to his embarrassment. I would leave him thusly arranged, between two really expensive cars because you KNOW their owners aren't going to lift so much as a finger to aid him. Maybe an Audi and a Bentley.

And you KNOW there would be selfies.

So, I did a quick 360 lookabout and made a mental note of a Subaru with a rather pleasant-looking lady behind the wheel and her equally pleasant-looking Poodle happily staring at me through their windshield. I went back to trudging. After another mile of NOT being robbed, the feeling of being followed persisted and I did yet another 360 lookabout. The same car with the same happy woman and happy poodle was still behind us and NOW, behind her was a small conga line of cars. We were not blocking traffic and no one was making any attempt to breeze past us. Yup. We WERE being followed.

Did someone want my signature? I AM kind of big deal around these parts. Nobody has ever heard of me, but I AM a big deal. Just ask my wife.

Nope. They wanted our parking spot and when I said we were parked in the furthest reaches...well, we were in the LAST parking space at the very end of the parking lot. The lady in the Subaru officially had dibs. By this time, we had been together for so long we might have been on a first name basis except for the fact that there was a lot of steel and glass and plastic and holiday purchases between us. Everyone else? Persona non grata. They were just grimly hanging in there, just in case Subaru Lady muffed the landing and had to be waved off for a go-around.

Doc finally saw her Doctor Car a couple of rows over and ducked between several parked cars to get to it which may have been misconstrued as rudely trying to escape the caravan behind us. I promise you, she wasn't trying to be rude but sudden movements like that can cause stampedes. But I was feeling the Christmas Spirit so I stopped, put my load down, turned and faced Subaru Lady, bid her to look at me and expertly mimed a "We-Are-Parked-Two-Rows-Over." I was a traffic cop for many years. I can communicate exceptionally well with hand and arm gestures. I daresay I would probably make an excellent LSO or Handler on an aircraft carrier. Subaru Lady acknowledged me with a thumbs up but failed to salute. San Antonio is a military city and I was kind of disappointed I didn't get a salute. I picked up all my stuff and sort of followed Doctor Smith's path to the car. When I got there Subaru Lady and her happy little Poodle (both still smiling) were there waiting for me with the conga line stalled behind her....

[m3a1]

We finally went to the party. Oh goody...another 35 minute drive. My legs were smarting after all that hiking (not as young as I used to be and feeling older than I should have felt). One of the undeniable benefits of The Doctor Car is the heated seats and the seat massage option which can be used in conjunction with the heat for a double whammy if you so desire. There are ANOTHER 39 different comfort settings so those fancy seats NEVER get boring. One particular setting even feels like eight tiny reindeer walking up and down your backside. How they ever got them stuffed into that seat is beyond me. Nonetheless, there it is and there they are. Must be their day job...

By the time we got to the party (as I mentioned, ALSO a Doctor's house), my car seat had done its work. I was not only refreshed. I was also invigorated, just as those settings had claimed. By the way, doctors are regular folks. They are us, imbued with a high level of training and a strange ability to function without sleep. Other than that, they're just people just like us.

We were almost the first ones there. On the way up the sidewalk, The Good Doctor told me the party was being catered. I winced because, with catering, I would have to be on my very best behavior but, she went on to say that it was catered by Olive Garden, all of which had been paid for by her el-cheapo physician's Group. I immediately relaxed because (1) I happen to like Olive Garden because it ain't too uppity and (2) Olive Garden means snooty people in black aprons and starched white shirts wouldn't be standing stiffly behind the food and giving me the hairy eyeball like the guards at the penitentiary do. In fact, the the Food Police weren't there at all.

When present the Food Police can be real jerks in that they avoid conflict by insisting on serving you your portions, THEIR way...with the appearance of 'pinky up'. Ask for your food any other way and you're made to feel like you're rocking the boat (so you don't ask) In that way, they are also making sure guys like me don't take ALL the Kalamata olives or all the Pepperoncini peppers or all the salad croutons for myself. BUT, put everyone in olive colored clothing and even though they might still be serving Olive Garden food, behaviorally, it's really nothing more than an Army chow line. You get what they serve you, how they serve you and....MOVE ALONG, BUB. But as I said, the Food Police were absent so, I didn't have to be on my best behavior.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Doc rang the doorbell and while we were waiting, I asked The Good Doctor who I was supposed to send the bill to. "The BILL", she asked, deadpan. "Yeah, for the tables and chairs and tablecloths and the centerpieces", I replied. "DON'T", was her curt reply.

I had heard her use that tone before.

That one word meant,

Don't you dare.
Don't even think about it.
Don't even mention it in your smart-alecky way.
Don't work it obliquely into a conversation.
and finally...
I will CUT you if you do!

We were welcomed in warmly, by our host who used the the Mk.1 Mod.0 Holiday Salutation and I replied with the Mk.1 Mod.4 Substitute Standard Holiday Salutation Reply. This exchange is kind of like a challenge and a password. Niceties observed, I handed over the MK.4 Mod.4 Gift For The Host which contained some attractive holiday coffee cups (mugs) and some hot cocoa in a clever holiday tin. I observed there could have been ANYTHING in that tin... but kept it to myself (chiefly because I didn't want to hear "DON'T" again.) Momentarily, we were granted entry and once inside, I noted that the tables and chairs and centerpieces looked rather familiar. Nice set up. Looked kinda familiar...somehow, which was ANOTHER observation I kept to myself.

And THERE is was. A veritable mountain of food. Nothing stood between me and Olive Garden but a lot of foil. I have never been foiled by foil and I squeaked, "Oh BOY!" The Good Doctor grabbed my arm. "WAIT! Wait till the other guests arrive!" I know. I know. No manners. In fact...

I'm barely house broken.

I brought something else along, just to keep things lively. I brought my personal box of Cards Against Humanity, plus two expansion packs just in case. No manatees were harmed in the making of these cards (that's the running gag I share with my daughter). Har-Dee-Har-Har. The box says it's a game for truly horrible people and that is the gospel truth. Horrible People are MY kind of people. The misfortune is, some folks genuinely aren't truly horrible people and if those less-than-horrible people are present....well then, the cards stay in the box. If I was truly horrible AND naughty (as naughty as I would LIKE to be) I'd pull the cards out anyway but, there were also children present and some of the concepts on the cards are shamelessly expressed in colorful language.

If you have never played this game, I will warn you in advance. Topically, it is a no-holds-barred, all-inclusive game. Meaning, EVERYBODY and EVERYTHING is on the table during the game and nobody...NOBODY gets a pass. Damaged humanity and the damage humanity does is examined in every minute detail. In this game, you will find out just how twisted the other players are while all the veneers of their civility are neatly scrubbed away. Points are awarded at the end of each hand by the winner of that hand demonstrating they are the worst, most twisted, depraved example of humanity on planet earth. As an added bonus, the game comes with several blank cards so, if the pre-printed responses aren't horrible enough, you can write yours in with a Sharpie. DANG!

Well, almost everyone showed up and FINALLY I was allowed to eat. Just about everything on OG's menu was there and it filled our host's kitchen counter (which is as long as an international airport's runway). I tackled the salad first (I LOVE their Italian dressing) and everyone at my table (well, actually ALL the tables were MY tables, but I digress)...everyone noted that I was grazing. Shamelessly, I said, "Well, I'm fat" and went back to eating. I ate some of the other stuff later but OG always starts me out with salad and I'm a staunch traditionalist. If I had said, "Well, I'm a traditionalist" everyone would have looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears. I am content with being grey-haired, overweight and having a I-don't-give-a-hoot attitude. It's liberating. It's far better than being shackled by trying to be a young, thin and respectable fellow.

My persona is WAY more fun and I embrace the madness.

The Good Doctor's daytime counterpart showed up with her husband in tow. She arrived, wearing a naughty elf costume and he was wearing a XMAS themed jacket with a black collar (note that I didn't write that as Christmas). It wasn't a XXXMAS themed jacket. As I mentioned, children were present. This guy plays in a band and has for some time now. He even gets paid for it. So he has some edgy clothes in his closet. Well now, things were looking up....or so I thought. Then he began setting up karaoke which is really his wife's THANG. Oh, please God... NO.

Any moment now, people were going to get up, grab a mic and willingly bombard the rest of us with karaoke. Really bad, BAD karaoke. Being deaf has its advantages. I sat there alone, with my box of cards and weighing my options and trying hard not to be noticed. Surely they wouldn't REQUIRE participation. Thus far, I had been the invisible man. Nobody said anything about my abstaining from the set-ups so if I didn't sing, I probably wouldn't be in too much trouble. I find liquor disgusting by the way. YECH! Why do people put it in their mouth?

Well, everybody was up there sooner or later and eventually, someone noticed me. Obviously, my wife had ratted me out. "Nah, you don't wanna hear me sing" I said to anyone who looked like they might care. Truth is, I hadn't wanted to hear THEM sing but, the fact was, they WERE having a grand time and I didn't want to be a Grinch and spoil things. I talked to XMAS Jacket Dude. I said, "There's no way you're gonna find this song." What I gave him, he couldn't find on the karaoke internet. I literally broke the internet in one try. "That's gotta be a sign. I'm gonna sit down now." "Ohhhh no you're not", Xmas Jacket Dude replied.

Now, since this karaoke session began, I had found myself listening to some of the most lame-O modern music that is out there (and I'm not adding off-key singing to the equation). All my fellow party goers were quite a bit younger than me. None of the music I was hearing stirred MY blood. So, since someone had stuffed a hot microphone in my hand, I decided to use it. "Okay folks. How about some E.L.O.?" The crickets were chirping. "E.L.O.! You know...E.L.O.!" People were looking at me like my dog looks at me when I play the harmonica.

Which reminds me....Happy Hanukkah, y'all.

I was incredulous. "Y'all have never heard of ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA?!?"

Stoney silence ensued. I was LITERALLY with the heathens. I said E.L.O. and all they heard was the indecipherable sound of Charlie Brown's teacher's voice. Womp, womp-womp womp womp womp. This was going to be like flicking a Bic in front of a bunch of cave men.

I looked over at Xmas Jacket Dude and raised an eyebrow. He grinned. I whispered, "Get me, Rock & Roll Is King." His grin got even bigger (he knew it and he knew what effect it was going to have on these noobs) and he set it up. Now, I had only sang that tune about 1000 times and that was all the practice anyone needed. It was music with a beat that never failed to get me fired up. I grew up with E.L.O. These people were about to be served a big heapin' helpin' of ROCK.

Now, I'm not Freddy Mercury, or David Bowie, or Jeff Lynne or (insert your favorite performer here) but I grew up in a time when music was delivered as if from the heart. That music captured us, framed our lives, and showed us the way. We kids sang...a LOT. Many of our country's young men were on the other side of the planet visiting with the Southeast Asians and most parents treated their remaining children like we were the last, most precious things on earth. Even with all the evil in the world being spread, thickly, across the evening news, we youngsters all still sang songs together, out loud, and unashamedly. Singing was cool and everybody wanted to be cool. We expressed the simple joy of just being alive through song. My youth spanned several eras of absolutely wonderful music.

Musical things were happening so fast one could hardly keep up and a surprising amount of it has stood the test of time. My mother claimed I had perfect pitch (she was probably just being a boastful mother) and my hearing was still good then. The only thing all this stuff has to do with doing karaoke at the Christmas Party at age 63 is that, despite my weathered, tired, and rather dog eared appearance, the ol' pipes are still very much intact and the youngsters were about to get an object lesson in Rock & Roll.

XMAS Jacket Dude hit the button and before it was over, I was watching and getting a LOT of participation from the heathens. They didn't know the words but they loved the beat and almost everyone was up off their chairs. I can't take credit for the music but I had just pulled a magic act on these people that would be hard to beat. I had never sung in front of anyone like that...and certainly had never been the 'front man' but I'll admit....I kinda liked it....

and may do it again.

Cheers,
TJ

[rickf]

And no alcohol was involved? I used to play in a band but I was never much of a singer.

[m3a1]

I'm not a teetotaler but liquor ain't my thing. Some common liquers, such as Bailey's Irish Creme, mixed in with coffee or such....sure. Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge is good when added to desserts but I wouldn't sit down and drink it. Nope. My mother shoved way too much cough syrup down my throat when I was a kid. Orange, cherry, grape...all of it totally awful so that put me off just about any kind of liquor.

I don't have what you'd call a discerning palate. I'm just more of a beer guy but then, mostly with food and MAYBE a bit of whiskey to go with a campfire after a hearty meal.

[m3a1]

By golly, I have questions and I need answers!

I was revisiting my latest Christmas-flavored trip to the mall and mentally reviewing all their Christmas-flavored decorations. This was some really high end decor and all of it was oversized to some degree. One cannot decorate a mall by using normal-sized decorations. Not because of its quality (I have found you can achieve a LOT and pull off miracles using the cheapest stuff). But, you can't do that at a mall. All of the usual stuff to be found at the usual retailers is too small and the space to be decorated in a mall is IMMENSE. So, all the decorations there end up being ridiculously large. LARGE, like the strawberry in Woody Allen's movie, SLEEPER. Regular? NOPE! Largo, or better yet, Giganté! As shoppers wend their way through a Christmas-flavored mall, they are surrounded by giant ornaments, acres of glittering bunting and absolute truckloads of oversized holly. I won't even begin to go into all the lighting.

When the Texas power grid collapses, will anyone put the malls on the Naughty List? NOPE. Not a chance. Like Rock-n-Roll, Commerce is king.

On a more personal note, I always stop below the supersized mistletoe (every mall has at least one) and I pucker up for a big kiss. It looks like my eyes are closed but I'm actually squinting, just in case. So far, no takers. Disappointing! We consumers do our shopping in venues that, if you're really aware of your surroundings, will make you feel like you're in a movie set for Toy Story, or maybe Honey, I shrunk The Kids, or maybe even A Bug's Life. I find myself intrigued and creeped out all at once. In America, bigger is better....even if it makes you feel small.

I wonder what they do with all that stuff after it's taken down.

Do they carefully clean and pack it away and then shuffle the stuff around between distant venues to be re-used?
Do they actually sell the stuff, or do malls simply rent it?
Is it Halloween on one side and Christmas on one side and Valentine's Day on the other side? If not, here's your opportunity to revolutionize an industry!
What does one do with giant 6' Christmas ornaments that are stacked into a 10' tall pile of giant Christmas ornaments... when it's not in use?
Giant wreaths probably don't store well when laid flat and they would also be the perfect place for spiders to take up residence and if they get dusty they would be a 24 Karat gold-plated bugger to clean. If stored to be reused, do they hang, hermetically sealed, on special racks?
Do they throw a bug bomb or two in there before putting stuff away?
Where do such things go between seasons? I've never once heard of a paint shop refinishing giant Christmas ornaments. If that happened you KNOW there would be a picture of it SOMEWHERE because paint guys are exceptionally proud of their craft.

These are the sorts of questions that keep me awake at night.

Yes, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus but, sorry, we still don't know one darned thing about all those mall decorations.

These are questions that are useful to consider, whilst killing time waiting for The Good Doctor to get through with her shopping in some fancy-pants store. If you look very carefully you might find me standing in the mall like a stone in a brook, with shoppers flowing around me like water as I contemplate each Christmas decoration. I am like a ghost amongst the living. Yeah, I operate on an entirely different plane of existence; a region of reality where one can take apart the bricks and mortar of our reality and study them more closely. Others see a giant, gleaming Christmas ornament. I see something that must be designed to an exact size and shape, its basic materials carefully selected, then built, finished, crated, shipped, uncrated, put up and taken down. What happens after that is a mystery to me.

I NEED TO KNOW THESE THINGS!

Speaking of bricks and mortar, you won't get the pleasure of being amongst giant Christmas ornaments when you are shopping online (unless you're shopping with Barrango) and even then they're only virtual. Virtual, unless you buy something from them and then you'll have to wait till it's delivered. So my advice to you, Dear Reader, is...bundle up and go outside into the cold. YES, do shop in the real 3 dimensional world. Brick and mortar stores are still a thing....unless you're wanting 4WD stuff. At least look out the window! I assure you, the graphics are AMAZING.

Cheers,
TJ

[D Pizzoferrato]

TJ, back during my miguided youth, I worked for a local company that specialized in providing seasonal displays and decorating for malls. These packages, which included themed animations and villages, as well as mall decorating, were proposed to, and then rented to the malls. Two or three 24 foot U-Haul trucks would be required for a large mall. We designed and built our own animations, village store fronts, large ornaments, etc. On staff were carpenters, artists, electricians, welders, painters, etc. We had a very large vacuum form machine to make almost anything. The company owned the display goods, which were stored on the upper floor of our facilty, sorted by holiday and theme. Packages were pulled and inspected prior to the season and repairs were made. Christmas, Easter and Back to School were our gig with malls. I don't think much has changed since then as malls don't have the staff to pull this off themselves. I worked with a lot of creative people back then and learned many skills. And you all thought I only knew about army trucks. Now you can ponder other things as you fight the sleep demons.

[m3a1]

As I suspected...SOMEONE would have some insight into this.

Speaking of decorations, my kid brother sent an Instagram link with some photos of my home town's elaborate Christmas decoration on the town square (circa 1957). Annually, Santa would visit the town square on weekends in December (where does he find the time?!) for the whole Sit-On-Santa's-Lap-And-Pretend-NOT-To-Be-On-The-Naughty-List thing. As I grew a bit, so grew the feeling that Santa's whole Naughty v. Nice List was actually rather slack considering its effects on his business model and work load.

I was generally a pretty well-behaved kid but there were a few questionable moments here and there. I had never planned to be naughty. It just happened. Kids my age rarely ever had any sort of plan. So, when I was asked if I had been good by ANYONE (including Santa)....I would lie like a rug. Got away with it, too. 'Naughty' is a relative term. Naughty, you ask? As compared to what? Kids these days...they can't keep their mouths shut. Their every movement; their every declaration is being recorded by some new-fangled device, to be used as evidence against them later. The kids in my day knew how to keep secrets. Not anymore.

I my buddies and I deduced Santa's all too famous N v. N List probably consisted of nothing more than a mimeographed copy of the rolls of the people who were locked up in the penitentiary. NO ONE wants to visit the pen. Especially Santa. The Naughty List would also include those other people. People who were only to be found on the WANTED Posters in the U.S. Post Office.

When things were really dull in Kidsville, we would 'gaggle up' and ride our bikes across town to the hallowed halls of the United States Post Office and gawk at the WANTED posters and take note of the beady eyes, the narrow gaze and the furrowed brows of truly B-A-D bad people. Oh my gosh, the things they had done and the crimes they had committed! Every once in a while, even some woman would step over the line which added to the ever-growing mystery of womanhood. Our little cabal consisted of only boys. These other women weren't the least bit like our sainted mothers. Often as not, they were were wanted for the juiciest crime of all. MURDER. Bloody MURDER! Had some kid's mom had finally gone off the deep end?

The thought gave all of us a shiver.

We could only speculate on the particulars of the criminalis methodo used by these people who had left polite society behind. It might be something far worse than our young minds had been exposed to in that great board game, CLUE; a game which seemed to be standard issue back in the day (every family had one). One thing was assured - these people were found on those WANTED Posters because, apparently, they couldn't be found anywhere else. They were hidden among us... somewhere... and they were most definitely on the Naughty List. Yikes!

Now, 1957 was only several years before my time. Judging from the photos in the Instagram, I had really missed the boat. Someone had constructed a garish Toy Land venue for Santa; a fabulous holiday castle, complete with ramparts and turrets and fabulous holiday greetings plastered on the front and sides in equally fabulous giant script with fabulously giant toy soldiers guarding the entrance; an entrance flanked with Christmas trees which were also (you guessed it)...

rather fabulous.

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Not bad for a little podunk farming community with a huge railroad running through it from every point on the compass! We Ohioans always gave Santa his due. It was like being union. SantaFans Local #4337. Everything we did was ostensibly for the betterment of the group and I didn't know anybody who would willingly thumb their nose at Santa. If we had a volcano nearby we probably would have been throwing virgins into it once a year, or maybe even twice a year... just in case (but only the homely ones). The virgins would be free to climb back out if they wanted because in reality, one never knows when an extra virgin (or two) might come in handy.

Ohioans are not wasteful. Ohioans are sensible folk. We just don't take unnecessary risks. We play the game and play it well.

Yup. Things were pretty fabulous in 1957 even if we didn't have volcanoes (which would have been WAY cool and would also have pretty much laid low those kids who always won the Science Fair competitions with their stupid, lame-O clay volcanoes). In 1957, he Korean War was in the rear view mirror. Literally in the rear view mirror were the early versions of car's big tail fins. By the way, WAY TO GO, DETROIT! I was born in 1959 so, technically, I was around for the very biggest of the big fin cars. I took no notice of them at the time but in my defense, kids DO have more important things to think about.

Like the big fins, I have no direct memories of the castle, either. Something like it usually went up year after year until the notion of treating our kids to something extra-EXTRA special finally died out. As for the castle, well, put that kind of work into something and it's certainly gonna be used more than once. Alas, the castle went away before I was big enough to participate in the rituals. What I remember from personal experience was a sort of gingerbread house where Santa held court. It was largish by kid standards, but rather small if you were an adult. In fact, there was very little room in it for parents. It was magical, yes....but definitely not fabulous.

The photos of the castle reveal that it was two stories tall and about the size of a small house. In comparison, the gingerbread house of my time was smaller than the Little Rascals' He-man Women Haters Club. It was simultaneously a gingerbread house on the outside and a gingerbread hut on the inside, with an unpainted plywood floor. I remember thinking the unfinished floor looked cheap but one simply does NOT criticize Santa's place of business...and certainly not with everything riding on good behavior. Good behavior includes displaying good manners so, nothing would be said about that lousy plywood floor. Besides, this gingerbread house was clearly a rental property and in this place, we kids would be sent to stand tall before The Man.

Because of the cramped quarters, we also had to choose between taking only one parent inside with us....

or our lawyer.

Hmm.. Decisions, decisions. Come to think of it, my Dad WAS a lawyer at the time but he wisely left these momentous and possibly life-altering exercises entirely up to my mother.

We kids were also strenuously instructed by our mothers to give Santa the fat envelope they had prepared. In theory, my Letter To Santa (containing a list of gifts I would like to receive) would be inside that all-important envelope. I believed the idea behind delivering the letter in person was that it provided insurance against our wigging out in front of Santa and temporarily being rendered incapable of human speech. I have seen the result and it was hard to watch. Those kids came trudging away from their face-to-face with Santa, looking completely dejected...like someone stole their family bible.

The envelopes I would deliver year after year were always carefully sealed by my mother with her extra special arterial red wax using her extra special stamper that was brought out only on extra special occasions. It was kept in the box it originally came in. One of my mother's special talents was, keeping stuff in the box the stuff came in for, like, FOREVER. Her sealing wax kit would always be found, front and center, on the middle shelf of the lower half of the hutch my father had made for her. In this way, it was always readily available in case something needed to be sealed in an emergency.

Dad: Honey, there's a break in the water line and our basement is flooding!
Mom: Don't worry, Bob, I'll get the sealing wax kit!

Me: Mom! There's a naked man peering in our windows!
Mom: Tell him to wait right there, mister! I'll get the sealing wax kit!

My sister: Mom, I think I'm finally old enough to do the thing. (You know! THE THING!)
Mom: Oh no you DON'T, young lady! Not until I get the sealing wax kit!

My kid brother: Mom! I cut my finger off with the X-ACTO knife!
Mom: AGAIN?! I'll get the sealing wax kit!

Mom's extra special seal had a base relief image of our family crest on the stampy bit which looked suspiciously similar to everyone else's wax-seal-family-crest-stamper thingies I had ever seen (except the letter changed from family to family). The sealing wax kit was probably just a whole lot of bunk offered by an ad found on the pages of Readers Digest and my mother fell for it hook, line and sinker. So too did a lot of my other friend's mothers. In fact, they ALL had 'em and had they had probably got themselves a real deal for buying in bulk.

Shopping by mail was a big deal back then. Brother, don't I know it! I recall trying to explain to my mother why sea monkeys were an equally important thing to purchase by mail but...well...you know.

Because the envelope with which I had been entrusted was sealed, I reckon there was probably at least ten, maybe twenty bucks in there along with my letter to Santa.. Heck, maybe a hundred bucks if our parents were really on to us. *sigh* Our parents knew us only too well and it might just take a hundred smackers to keep us on Santa's sunny side. What would that be in today's money?

This sort of thing was 'grease for the skids' as my Dad used to say. Yup. Ben Franklin can right a whole lot of wrong.

Before we kids were taken to see Santa, we were made to eat our dinner (every last bite) because eating or perhaps not eating had something to do with starving kids in China. I can only suppose that a lot of adults were still hacked off about China's involvement in the whole Korea thing which is a legitimate beef. Language is tricky and darned confusing. If Mom mentioned starving kids in China and if I was feeling uppity enough, I would smartly ask Mom the obvious question, "If they're starving, why don't we send them our leftovers?"

HAW! Out of the mouths of babes! This query would always be met with a narrowed gaze and stony silence. The whole Starving-Kids-In-China concept made absolutely no sense and we kids were expected to accept it without question. The theory that stuffing kid's faces HERE, while other kids were starving THERE is, well.... pretty hard to swallow....unless one comes to grips with the possibility that there was a darkly nefarious, more adult plan afoot. In fact, one might conclude if we ate more food, meaning if we ate EVERYTHING on our plate, we might have had an unwitting hand in starving those other kids in China.. Wuff! We were being turned into co-conspirators by our parents....and at such a young age! At this rate, we would all have our own personal Wanted Poster by the ripe old age of 12. Well, I hope the photographer gets my good side.

Come to think of it, maybe THIS was why all the envelopes to Santa were so well-padded. Money talks. YIKES!

Anyhoo, after dinner we were scrubbed until we were pink, dressed in our Sunday best; had our hair brushed and our teeth combed and then brought before Santa to be examined, nay, SCRUTINIZED, and then possibly cross examined with only-who-knows-what kind of judgment forthcoming. Oddly, the question that NEVER came up was whether or not I had been eating everything on my plate. Was Santa in on this whole thing? Perhaps the ChiComs had even launched a missile at him...

and you know what they say about payback.

As to all the other questions put to us, I knew all the fellas in my inner circle were lying like rugs too. You could bet your bottom dollar on that. I also knew they could be counted on to NOT rat me out. Like a bunch of convicts waiting our turn to go out into the yard, we would wink and nudge each other and acknowledge our unspoken contract to remain silent while standing in line outside the gingerbread hut....errr....gingerbread house. We were the cons and the adults were the bulls and our silence reigned supreme. Tthey none the wiser for it.

Whichever elf was in charge of the Naughty v. Nice List was definitely on the take and if he (or she) wasn't, he must have been a totally incompetent nincompoop so, in the end, I always came away from a visit with Santa Claus feeling pretty confident the results would be in my favor.

After having met with Santa well before the big night we kids would go to our beds on Christmas Eve secure in the knowledge we had all the bases covered, so we slept soundly, knowing Santa would almost certainly bring us SOMETHING on our wish list.

Merry Christmas to all and in the meantime....at least TRY to be good.
Cheers,
TJ