Blunt Wit

One lazy summer afternoon in my youth with nothing better to do we devised a wicked new game. Using a rickety ladder I climbed up on the roof and threw darts at a dartboard propped at an awkward angle against a tree down below. My two younger brothers sat under the eaves of the house. They came out to collect the handful of darts after I let off a volley and would then gently toss them back up for me to launch the next round.

I know at least half of your brain is thinking … hell, what an invention. Roof darts, I wish I had thought of that. JD you’ll be rich beyond your wildest dreams! While the other half is thinking … that JD, what an idiot, that’s got to be the stupidest idea since the bass-0-matic.

Anyway, after a few gripping minutes into this endeavor, I fired a volley of three darts simultaneously while withholding another three for individual throws. My elder younger brother thinking that I had sent them all, suddenly came darting out to collect them. At that very moment I loosened a single red dart at the bull’s eye. And I still contend to this day that never as true a twang as ever been tossed in the history of the sport, and I clearly would have hit the bulls eye square, if not for his bone-headed move.

Anyway, the dart entered smack in the back of his head.

The terror I felt in that moment still haunts me to this day. I thought I had killed him … a direct dart to the brain! Without thinking, I jumped down from the roof thus spraining my ankle in the process. Ouch! Such agony as I hobbled over to him. He just stood there looking at me with a blank stare like I was some sort of lunatic.
“Are you alright?” I yelled.
“What?” he returned quizzically

Hell, he didn’t even realize that he had a red dart sticking out of the back of his head like some bloodied single feather on an Indian scout.

I told him to be still as I reached around and plucked the dart out of his head. Like an idiot, I explained to him what had happened. When full realization he had been red-darted hit him, he began balling.

“Wah, wah, wah!”

In the ensuing mayhem, as usual, I got blamed for everything bad in the world. I was subsequently punished. He, no worse for wear, got the sympathy of friends, relatives and complete strangers. Life’s so unfair sometimes!

So what’s the worse you’ve ever done to your brother or sister? What the worst thing they’ve ever done to you?

© 2008 Bluntwit.com

So for my last blog I offered up A terrible confession of an imaginary affliction in which I afflicted my poor mother with imaginary tuberculosis to escape the clutches of a smoke deranged serial killer.

The week prior to that fateful train trip we were nestled around a circular table of a ritzy hotel restaurant high above the Shanghai skyline. Around the dais sat my friend Dave, his girlfriend, his Japanese godmother, my mom and me.

An outbreak of Hepatitis A raged in the streets below, apparently ignited by a rogue shellfish some days earlier. I could be wrong but I could have sworn I saw crustacean wanted posters dotting the city. For the uninitiated, Hep A spreads like wildfire, mostly through improper food handling. The Chinese government had practically locked down the entire city. Food stands and most low-end restaurants were shuttered. And it seemed as if banks were being robbed right and left as everyone wore suspicious white face masks.

Being the self appointed expert, I took the liberty of ordering a pot of Jiaozi, or boiled dumplings, for everyone. I then haughtily went about explaining the proper technique for eating these scrumptious delights properly.
“First step is to grab your bowl just like so.”
I poured a smidge of soy sauce into my square bowl.
“Not too much, not too little.”
“Dip in just like so … and eat.”

Everyone fired silent darts at my condescending and typically long-winded explanation as they were hungry after a long day of sightseeing. When the dumplings arrived, they soy sauced up their respective bowls and dove into them with gusto. Just then the waiter came up and with a look of sheer horror blurted out,
“You are all eating out of the ashtrays!”

Everybody simultaneously barfed up their partially digested dumplings. My face beeted red. The waiter immediately changed out our ashtrays for proper dipping bowls. I tried to make light of the situation,
“Look on the bright side. At least by using ashtrays we were significantly cutting down our risk of contracting Hep A!”

So tell me, what’s your most embarrassing moment?

© 2008 Bluntwit.com

Today I must finally assuage my conscious and confess my inveterate moral turpitude as for years I’ve been harboring a deep, dark secret. In short, I’ve been a bad boy.

The wellspring of my guilt occurred in the yingwo, or hard sleeper section, of a 35 hour train trip from Beijing to Hong Kong some years ago. I was traveling with my mother who had decided to visit China for the very first time and take advantage of the fact that her eldest son had been studying there for a year. He neglected to tell her he still couldn’t use chopsticks or even fly a kite properly.

Ah, and for the uninitiated, the accommodations on the train to Hell are more comfortable than your average yingwo.

Anyway, when we arrived at our assigned cubby hole there were folks huddled around the single fold down table puffing furiously on unfiltered cigarettes.

Ok my memory might be playing tricks on me. Let’s try again.

Anyway these two smokers barely noticed us through the haze as we piled into the upper bunks on either side. The shorter of the two wore black and sort of glared at the world through the shifty eyes of a possible serial killer. The other one had that dull stare of an unwitting accomplice. Together they scared me.

Once the train had pulled away the two men redoubled their smoking. My Mom, clearly in agony, looked across at me and said, “Tell them to stop smoking. I can’t breathe. And if you don’t, I WILL.” (Not that she could, as she only spoke the sliverest of Chinese and they didn’t speak even a wink of English).

Now I had a quandary. I had lived in China for a while and had various run-ins with these lawless types, impervious to any of the decorum that keeps a normal, polite society from falling to pieces. They would sooner kill you as spit on you. And there was the whole ‘face’ issue. You must never, ever cause such ruffians to lose face. So I wavered. And my mother suffered and seethed. She again threatened to take matters into her own hand when suddenly it came to me!

“Cough,” I said to her, “Loudly and often.”
She looked perplexed so I repeated my entreaty with maniac zeal.
“Cough. Cough. Cough.” She hacked.

I approached them nervously. I noticed the smaller man’s yellow, nicotine-stained fingers as he took a long, lazy drag.
“I apologize in advance,” I said in Chinese, “but the woman here is my mother and she has been afflicted with a bad case of Tuberculosis and your cigarette smoke is inflaming her raw, gnarled lungs.”

At that both men’s eyes grew wide with fright as they extinguished their cigarettes and rushed off to find a safer locale. Thus, we enjoyed the entire trip in relative smoke-free seclusion. My mother asked me what I said to them and I told her that I had simply asked politely that they not smoke as it bothered her.

To this day I have not confessed the fact I afflicted her with such a malevolent, spur-of-the-moment imaginary disease. I thought putting the story out there and confessing in the relative anonymity of the blogosphere would start the healing process. Sorry Mom.

Do you have any deep, dark secrets you to want to own up to and assuage your conflicted conscious?

I’ve come across several characters recently and had been struggling mightily to figure the impetus to write them up in a blog when my daughter came along and sparked my imagination. I’ve long since learned to take fickle inspiration whenever and wherever she strikes.

So I had dropped my daughter and her friend Jessica of at the watering hole. And by that I mean the lake and not the local dive bar. They were there just long enough for me to drive the ten minutes back into town when she called.
“Can you come pick us up?”
“What? I just dropped you off.”
“Yeah but the beach is covered in goose poop and the entire place is crawling with sketchy characters.”

I imagined a prison break and all the escaped inmates frolicking in puddles of grey-green goose droppings. Then the image in my mind morphed into Bill, the friendly neighborhood lunatic and The Walker, the Forrest Gumpian older gentleman with the flowing white beard that pops up power-walking all over town. Maybe they were the ones harassing her and swimming with the minnows out at the lake.

Normally, Bill can be heard slurping on a small coffee while amply filling out one of the wide chairs in the corner of Starbucks. He talks to himself incessantly and on rare occasion to the other patrons. But mostly he burps. Not ‘excuse me’-one-off burps, no, he averages a good solid five burps a minute. Kind of like a symphony of digestive genius.

In between burps, he also carries on rather interesting conversations with himself. I must admit to eavesdropping on occasion. While sometimes the topics range into the absurd, at other times, he scores good points in an intellectual debate with himself.

The Walker, on the other hand, is all over. It’s almost as if there he has four identical twin Santa Clause brothers ambulating all over town. He is everywhere. I see him traipsing resolutely by the hospital one moment and in front of Long John Silver’s the next. He always looks straight ahead, arms pumping forward, legs churning. Like a vagabond postman, he walks rain or shine (though I’ve yet to verify him in sleet). His long flowing silver beard hangs down over the same sweat encrusted white t-shirt.

I often wonder what motivates him. What drives him pace after pace? Is he running away from something or perhaps towards something, some destiny perhaps? Or does he simply walk for walkings sake?

Have you run across any sketchy characters of late? Care to expound?

So if you have never heard of CL or Craigslist then you are probably not of this earth. I even heard whispered they are currently in the process of setting up a CL for the moon, although the only listings so far are a few used golf balls and a couple of old tattered flags.

Contrary to popular wisdom, CL was not founded by Jenny Craig, the uber-dietress, as an online swap mart for plus-sized clothing. No it was started by Craig Newmark, a Jenny Craig devotee no doubt, whose primary motivation was to access erotic services at rock bottom prices.

But of course you know CL is so much more than a cheap call out service for sleazy strumpets. You can make actual platonic friends, find your very own best friends with benefits and buy used stuff. In fact CL has almost single handedly put the newspaper classifieds and exotic call girl operations out of business.

So, recently I entered the market for a mountain bike. As you know I am frugal (a nice way of saying CHEAP), so I found the (used) bike of my dreams on CL. It was a brand-spanking new Trek 8500 that had only been driven by a little old Grandmother to Church on Sunday mornings. I arranged to meet her at a local pick up joint (Home Depot). At the appointed time she didn’t show.

Stood up!

How dare she!

Later when I reached her on the phone she said her husband had vetoed the sale.
“Well, then why did you put it up on Craigslist if you weren’t interested in selling it?” I perplexedly queried.
“I thought it would be fun.”
“Ack,” as I coughed up a hairball.

My estimation of CL took a major hit.

Then, a month or so later, tired of the incessant extortion at the gas pump, I decided to invest in a (used) scooter for puttering around town. I located the perfect bike – sleek, fast and cheap. This time I asked the owner 40 questions to establish general sanity and we agreed on a price and a time the next morning for me to swing by pick it up. Wouldn’t ya know, I drove 45 min to her house and she wasn’t home, or at least wouldn’t answer the door after much ringing, knocking, cursing and screaming.

Damn!

Stood up yet again!

I guess the only consolation was that I hadn’t been calling folks in regards to erotic services … that would have really sucked.

Have you ever been stood up?
Have you ever used CL?

Myth of Iraqos

Double-ya was the son of a highly respected and talented Kennebunkportian artisian, Ay-chya.

He was known for his skill at drinking games, drug-laced tirades, malapropisms and evading military service. His father, Ay-chya, angered the good king Saddos and was eventually imprisoned with his son in the labyrinth of Iraqos. Wherein they wandered about without a goal, without a hope.

Then Ay-chya devised a clever plan. He would strap on wings like an avian predator and fly the confines of that quagmiric maze!

So out they flew. Double-ya’s father warned him not to not fly too high, too near the hot desert sun, or too low, near the insurgent waves of the sea.

Double-ya grinned (ch)impishly and became overwhelmed with the thrill of the power.

He felt invincible as he soared high above the common concerns of those watching from far below. As he flew higher and higher and farther and farther from the prosaic man and woman on the ground, the glue of logic holding his wings together melted. Then, he plunged down, down to his demise.

Leaving the poor citizens of Iraqos a huge mess to clean up …