Auld Lang Sinuses

I was perusing other blogs today and noticed a trend of people either regurgitating their New Year's resolutions or offering up their 2005 Year in Review. I say "regurgitating" because if you think about it our new resolutions are really just rehashed versions of those of auld lang syne . . . and the lang syne before that . . . and the one before that. While the year in review is no new idea, I think VH1 has driven it into the ground. I'd like to think I have better uses for my blog than competing with Mo Rocca. Besides I still think Martha Stewart was railroaded, but that's another story.

I spent the last workday of 2005 knee-deep in tissues soaked in my own snot. Some of my next-cube neighbors are either sick or well on their way. I guess I'm just another domino in the chain. I can't smell a thing which is probably for the better considering what this ailment has done to my gastrointestinal system. On every fifth Kleenex I had to excuse myself to the bathroom because I started my nose bleeding again. Once when I returned to the tiki cube I noticed a drop of dried blood on the tip of my nose. I licked my thumb and rubbed my alae nasi trying to get the blood off. When saliva didn't work, I came up with the ingenious idea of using Purell instead. Not smart. There is a reason they call this stuff hand sanitizer and not nose sanitizer. My nose was chaffed from multiple blowings and the alcohol in the Purell stung like hell. It was like dousing your face with cologne right after shaving, only the burning sensation is concentrated on the sensitive tip of your nose. Snorting sulfuric acid would probably not have burned half as much as this did.

To make matters worse I had a disengaged scab in my nose that wouldn't come out no matter how hard I blew. To my coworkers I must have sounded like the big bad wolf only congested. I used a Kleenex and tried to discreetly pull out the coagulated bloodsnot. It was still putting up a fight so I yanked it. Turns out it was attached to one my nose hairs. This hurt so bad my eyes started to tear up. It was then that I began to wonder why nasal grooming has to be such a painful endeavor. If in my old age my nostrils become hirsute, I think I will just settle for having an unkempt schnoz.

On a lighter note I treated myself to lunch today at Ledo's Pizza. I ordered the Buffalo chicken sandwich which was dumb. I had ordered this once before and didn't particularly care for it. Why I thought it would taste better this time I don't know. It didn't. The sauce tasted like it was made with a bit of ranch dressing, some tobasco and fourteen cups of salt. Still I ate this in record time.

Please note that when I eat lunch out I am not only trying to escape work, I am trying to escape humanity. If the restaurant is basically empty, kindly do not choose the booth adjacent to mine when making your seat selection. I do not care to listen to your conversation anymore than you care to watch me pull bloody boogers out of my nose. Today a family of four (mom, dad and two twenty-something sons) just had to sit as close to me as possible. The son facing me was a dead ringer for Shoney's big boy. I don't just mean in girth. I mean he had the look right down to the swoopy hairdo. It wouldn't surprise me if he owned a red and white checked apron.

The family was well behaved until the song Drift Away started playing. Actually they were still tolerable when the song started playing. It was when it reached the chorus that they got on my nerves. At that point, father and both sons began singing in three-part atonal unison:

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away.

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away.

Skinny brother was going for a third refrain on this line when thankfully he was cut short by the lead singer singing the correct lyrics. Dad made some reference to how this song would be a good one to sing Karaoke. Yuck. Their conversation died down and I mistakenly thought I was through having to hear them sing. No such luck. When the chorus repeated so did they. It sounded like bellowing cats. The next song was by INXS. Thankfully the tone-deaf family didn't know the words and went back to their meat lover's pizza.

As for me, I took a cup o' kindness yet, for Auld Lang Syne

Brush with scamsters in Bushnell, Florida

My wife and I pulled off the I-75 freeway to gas up and get a bite to eat in a small town called Bushnell, Florida. With still over three hours to go on a ten-hour trip to Naples, we had reached that point on the journey where getting there was no longer half the fun. What better way to cure travel crabbiness and curb the appetite, we thought, than with cholesterol on Texast toast? We headed for Waffle House.

Route 48 west of I-75 in Bushnell is a fairly secluded and desolate neck of the woods. A slightly dilapidated motel with a weedy parking lot sits next to a gas station with pumps that predate the '79 oil embargo. Our Waffle House was across the street from them. The town is midway down the state directly across from Orlando. Those who have visited the Sunshine State know that an imaginary line runs across it separating the two Floridas -- the northern section with its mobile homes and confederate flags and the southern half with its septuagenarians and gated golf communities. Judging from our surroundings, we were north of that line.

The restaurant was pretty empty, but there was a lone woman dining at the counter and a couple sitting in the corner booth. The man and woman in the corner had a large duffle bag and a pink bookbag sitting on the floor beside them. He was yammering on his cell phone at volume ten about being broken down and needing the rear half of a drive shaft for a 92 Dodge pickup with extended cab. The waitress, who was as big around as she was tall, was trying to cater to his dilemma. She offered him a phone book and told him she knew someone who would help install the part if he could find one. An older woman who looked like Polly Holliday on crack manned the grill. Elaine and I took the booth closest to the exit.

The waitress asked what we would have to drink and she brought us a coffee and cherry coke. As we perused the sticky menus/placemats we were treated to more of the stranded man's phone conversations. We're sitting at a Waffle House . . . We're right off the expressway . . . I just need the rear half. He interspersed his phone conversation with demands of the waitress. Where am I at? . . . What's the phone number here? . . . Do you have a pen? The woman with him looked like hard living, but she couldn't have been more than 20. Twice I think she caught me staring at her.

The waitress came back to our table and asked, "Have you two figured out what you want to drink?", then realizing she had already served our drinks she burst out laughing. I wish I could be as easily amused as this woman. We ordered our food and chowed down like there was no tomorrow. That frycook sure could make a mean patty melt. By the time I was half-way done with my sandwich, the stranded man approached my table.

"You look like a movie star," he said pointing at me. "I just haven't figured out who you look like." His woman motioned for him to return to his assigned table. "Me and this cat are gonna go sign autographs," he said. It was then that the smell in the air changed from griddle shortening to fish. I just gave the courtesy smile and went back to shoving meat and fried onions down my throat.

Before we got up to pay, I looked outside and saw two other men with duffel bags crossing the parking lot of the retro gas station. Meanwhile the woman from the counter was outside rummaging around under her car seats for the change she needed to pay for her meal. When we made our way to the register the man on the cell phone became agitated. He wanted his check and he wanted it right then. When the waitress couldn't find it quickly enough, he wanted to know quickly how much they owed. When she asked if he still needed the number for the would-be mechanic he said that his situation had been taken care of. In the short time it took us to pay our check a white van with spiked rims pulled up in front of the restaurant. Other men, all dressed alike, were unloading duffel bags onto the sidewalk. It was weird. I asked my wife if she wanted me to drive. "No, get in the car," she said. We did.

As my wife backed the car out of the parking space, I watched the van to make sure it wasn't attempting to pull forward. I don't know what was going on, but part of me wondered if we had been marked for an episode of bumper car insurance fraud. We made it out of the parking lot with little circumstance, but we did keep an eye on our rearview mirrors to make sure we weren't being tailed by the duffel bag gang. I don't know for sure that some scam was about to take place but Elaine and I both got that creeped out feeling. That alone was enough to make us weary. We opted to stop somewhere else for gas.

The whole kerfuffle raised certain questions. Was the woman at the counter going out to her car to signal the rest of the duffel bag gang? And what was with all those duffel bags anyway? Did the van have any connection to the chatty Charlie in the corner or was that mere supposition on my part? Was the couple part of a larger organized crime ring? Maybe a cult? Does a 97 Dodge pickup with extended cab really require a two-piece drive shaft? Explain your answer.

Making the most of down time at work

Today a glitch in the inner-workings of our comany's phone system crippled my work productivity. Some of my coworkers relish these times, but I normally do not. One of the benefits of work is that it supplies you with tasks, however mundane, so as to occupy your time and alleviate boredom. Had I felt more productive I would have probably found something else to do. There are, after all, other aspects of my job description that do not involve the phone. I could have offered to help someone else, but this would have involved more effort on my part than I really wished to exert on a two-day work week. This time I opted to simply enjoy the hourly paid downtime that life sometimes affords us. I blogged.

I discussed blogs with my sister on our recent trip to Virginia. She said that short and blase blogs were often sub-par because they do not satiate the voyeuristic cravings of those who read them. Since I too prefer to read blogs of people who describe the daily debauchery and drudgery that is their workday, I'll throw in some of my own. I work in a maze of cubicles where people are glued to their monitors and their phones. When I first arrived I found the monotony of the setting outright funny. I knew if I was going to work there though something had to be done. So I decorated.

People now refer to my cube as the tiki hut. I covered the walls with reed fencing from Home Depot to give my cube that island cabana look. I brought in some plants. My supervisor gifted me a hula skirt that I hung up over the bookshelf. I have two inflatables in my cube, a monkey and a palm tree. I fashioned some artwork out of bamboo, box frames and borrowed graphics from the innerweb. On ebay I found some tchotchke that looks like a doll made out of two coconuts. I covered my monitor in leopard print. Two luau-style Chinese lanterns hang from the ceiling and a parrot sits on top of my CPU. Unlike the inflatables the parrot looks real. This is cool until he falls from his perch and it looks like there's a dead bird in my cube.

A coworker and I have decided to start walking to shed off some unwanted pounds. She visited me today and suggested we also keep food journals. I can't see this happening on my end. A food journal reminds me of when I was in elementary school and we had to write down what we ate for our three meals. This exercise was always prefaced by the old adage of breakfast being the most importabt meal of the day . . . blah blah blah. Having to do this always resulted in me lying about my eating habits and instead writing what I thought the teacher wanted me to say. Even as a kid I knew not to admit that I regularly feasted on Reese's peanut butter cups and fistfuls of Honeycomb cereal fresh out of the box. I'm no fool.

Expando pants mean comfort and haute couture

I'm getting fat. I wasn't always fat. When I was in college, my drivers license claimed I weighed in at 142 pounds. This was a lie. Because I didn't want anyone who looked at my drivers license to know I really only weighed 135, I bumped it up to what I thought was a more suitable weight for a guy my height. Those were the days. By the time I hit my late 20s I made it to 175. Three years into my marriage I found ten more pounds, and since then, I've probably found close to ten more.

My waist size , as you might imagine, has only expanded with my poundage. I remember the days of the 29-inch waist but that was when I could down an entire box of Smurfberry Crunch while watching Moonlighting on tv. I now fit into size 36 pants but find this is more easily accomplished if I'm modeling britches with the Fatty McFat expandable waist band. One probably shouldn't rely on elastic when searching for clothes but these pants are so comfortable and they don't leave those chilblain train tracks on your hips the way less forgiving pants do.

As embarrassing as this is to admit, I went to two Target stores this weekend looking for just that style of pants. Target apparently is discontinuing them and had them marked down to the ridiculously low price of $14.98. That I consider Target a suitable outlet for men's fashion is probably not to my credit, but the less I spend on clothes the more I can spend on baby . . . and snacks. Sadly Target didn't have the Elasto-Pant in my size. The smallest they had was a size 40. I'm sure there's somebody out there who needs a faux-forty waist size but it's not me. I can still get through the bathroom door. I looked at them and suddenly felt better about myself.

Gift exchange is the reason for the season

December is upon us once again. This means that along with pulling out the tangled string of lights and rusty tetanus-ridden ornament hooks, we wrestle with age-old holiday traditions. Some of them survive from year to year because we enjoy them. Others we observe but secretly wish they would disappear and find their way to the closet of the Ghost of Christmas Past next to the Yule log and door-to-door carolers.

One of these less desirable traditions for me is the office gift exchange, where there are suggested minimums and maximums for the dollar amount to be spent. Many times we purchase things for people we don't even like, or worse yet, grab some holiday recyclable from the “gift drawer”. If I'm told what I can and can’t spend on someone I only see at the water cooler, is this really a gift or is it just another checkmark on my to-do list? I have enough in my inbox without having to worry about buying something for the corporate brownnoser or the coworker who insists on being a chatty Charlie in the men’s room.

I'm not certain where holiday gift giving came from, but I'd guess it dates back to the wise men who brought gifts to Mary and Joseph. These guys showed up with frankincense and myrrh. If that’s not the ultimate re-gifter I don’t know what is. Were these wise men or just wiseacres? What smartass would bring scented herbs to a baby shower? Hopefully one of them had the courtesy to bring a receipt for Christ’s sake. Not that it would do the Holy Mother any good. You know those camel cruisers got that from some store in Persia, so unless it was from an international chain the Blessed Virgin doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of taking it back for a refund.

If you are reading this and contemplating getting me a gift for Christmas, consider this permission not to. If you are contemplating getting me a baby shower gift, just remember: swaddling clothes—yes; potpourri—no.

Thanksgiving in Norfolk, VA

My lovely wife, Elaine, and I spent our Thanksgiving this year with my sister and her husband, Karen and Ron, in their turn-of-the-century home in downtown Norfolk. Also making the pilgrimage from Georgia to Virginia were my parents. Since they, unlike the aforementioned family members, did not request their names be specifically mentioned in my blog, I'll change them to protect the innocent. Let's just call them Tom and Barbara White. While I'm thankful to be home, I have to say that this past holiday weekend was one well spent.

Having decided to make the trip up in two days instead of one, Elaine and I stopped just short of Durham, North Carolina to rest our weary heads in a Microtel Inn. We checked in on Wednesday night around 11:30 PM, just in time to catch the tail end of Dolly Dearest, a B-rate horror movie showing on some equally B-rate cable channel. Creepy though it was, I won't be adding the flick to my 5-star movie list. Even creepier however were the the faint stains on the wall of our room. They were illuminated by the irridescent glow cast by the tv. At first glance I suspected they were perhaps the mark of a previous traveller who was watching something other than Dolly Dearest on tv, but on closer inspection I noticed that the spots on the left side of the wall extended out to the left while the spots on the right extended out to the right. I'm no crime scene investigator, but I couldn't help but wonder if I was looking at a poorly painted over blood stain from some unfortunate soul's gunshot wound. I know it sounds sensationalistic, but these things happen at roadside motels. I chose not to share my suspicion with my wife when she came out of the shower.

We arrived in Norfolk around noon on Thanksgiving Day. Karen and Ron greeted us along with their two Boston terriers, Pinky and Dinky. No, I haven't changed her pets' names at their request. Their names truly are Pinky and Dinky. No sooner than we could get our bags upstairs, they served us champagne and snacks. Let me just add here that nothing makes family gatherings more enjoyable than booze. Even Karen's olives were vodka infused. Ingenious! Karen and Ron are definitely members of the culinary cognoscenti. He's a sales rep for Waterside Fish & Produce, a major distributor of prime meats and cheeses. Many of his customers are those restaurants you find reviewed in the local newspaper's Food and Wine section or the pricy pages of Zagat. This skill set also makes him a damn fine chef. You've never had turkey until you've had Ron's turkey.

As for the Thanksgiving dinner, my sister's dessert took the cake. Actually it took the doughnut. She used Krispy Kreme doughnuts to make a bread pudding. I'll have to ask her for the exact recipe, but as I recall it used 16 dozen doughnuts, 42 eggs and 98.6 pi r squared bricks of Plugra® butter. Ok, I'm exaggerating, but it was one pan of sticky rich goodness. That's for damn sure!

On the Friday after Thanksgiving my dad met me and Elaine and walked with us from the Tazewell Hotel to MacArthur Park, Norfolk's downtown mall. I have to preface by saying that I enjoy seeing Christmas decorations in downtown areas. Wreaths, trees, stockings and ice skating rinks all have their place during the Chrismukah season. Norfolk had all that which was good, but it also had this never-ending chorus of recorded children's voices singing early traditional carols in high-pitched falsetto voices. It was being pumped over a vast outdoor sound system. You couldn't escape it. It was just plain eerie. The closest thing I can think of to compare it to is the theme song at the end of Poltergeist. You know the part where kids sing over and over, "la la laa ... la la laa ... la la laa laa laa?" That's what it sounded like, only they were singing The Holly and the Ivy and Bring us a Figgy Pudding or whatever that song's called. I'm sure it was supposed to be festive, but it just sounded like holiday badness.

While I'm on the topic of holiday badness, I have to bring up the Chronicles of Narnia exhibit at MacArthur Park Mall. Apparently this is something that Disney is sponsoring at a handful of malls around the country. I wish I could find a picture on the innerweb so you could see just how campy this is. As though going to the mall to tell Santa what you want for Christmas wasn't commercial enough, now at eight malls in the country a kid can step through a huge wardrobe and into a snowglobe that simulates what the characters in C.S. Lewis's Chonicles of Narnia experienced in his children's book series. Mall goers eventually make it to the line to see Father Christmas, where for $15 you can sit in his lap and he'll give you a snowglobe that doubles as an ad for the new Disney movie playing at the theater upstairs. Bizarre as this whole thing was, we enjoyed watching the usual array of picture posers, greed list holders and terrified crybabies line up for Santa.

This is a total non-sequitor, but according to a recent article in Norfolk's newspaper, The Virginian Pilot, 3 per cent of Virginia Beach's population is Filipino. They had an article about four thirty-something guys who sit around in a basement chewing the fat and then broadcast their discussion over the internet. They call themselves the Sini-Gang. I've never been overly concerned with Filipino-American issues, and before I read the article I might have told you that the Philipines was somewhere east of Pittsburgh, but I did visit their site and it's some pretty funny stuff. Check it out here.

Speaking of Virginia Beach, my sister invited me and Elaine to see her shop there. Karen runs a bridal boutique that specializes in gowns imported from across the pond. I promised her a plug on my blog. Clients typically make reservations for shopping and browsing so we had the place to ourselves. Of particular interest was the shop's portfolio complete with photos of local brides and debutantes. A hanger really doesn't do justice to a wedding dress.

Click It or Ticket can stick it

Forcing motorists to wear seatbelts is one of the most innane laws ever concocted. It ranks up there with blue laws and profanity laws. It should not be the role of our government to tell us how to protect ourselves. If I'm not buckling in a child, that's one thing. I'd even go so far as to say if I fail to buckle myself up when I've got a kid in the car that's another thing. But if I as an adult make a conscious choice not to wear my seat belt, this should not infringe on any law. If I run a red light, I've created a traffic hazard. That merits a citation. Driving at night with no headlights is dangerous to others. That merits a citation. Who's rights have I stepped on by not wearing my seatbelt? No one's. What's next? The you're-eating-too-much-sodium law or how about the didn't-bundle-up-enough-for-the-cold law?

I'm ranting in response to the court invitation I got from the Duluth police department today. Coming back from the library and creeping along at a speed slower than a one-legged man can hobble, I was approached by a cop who was walking his motorcycle down the dividing line between lanes of people coming up on a red light. I presume his soul intention was to find people who don't buckle up in two-mile-per-hour traffic. Those daredevils! Alas, he found one as he pulled up next to my passenger side window and peered in. I returned his quisitive look with a smile and a wave. He gave the universal hand signal for roll down your window, Scofflaw. I did and he inquired as to why I wasn't wearing my seatbelt. I recognized this as the epitomy of all retorical questions. What possible answer could I have provided that would have persuaded him not to write me a ticket?

Having pulled over into the turn lane as instructed I waited shamefully as he pulled pad and pen out of his side compartment. "Man, why aren't you wearing your seatbelt? It's Click It or Ticket. Everybody knows that," he said.

"Well, I didn't know," I said smiling.

"You do now," he said smiling. He then proceded to write me a ticket for failing to wear my seatbelt.

I didn't see the benefit in sharing my disdain for this stupid law with him. His job isn't to make the laws; he just enforces them. And he was quite pleasant as far as cops go. What pissed me off was his comment as he had me sign the ticket.

"Yeh, you need to wear your seatbelt for the next two weeks," he said.

"What about after two weeks?" I asked, handing him back the signed ticket.

"Well, you're supposed to wear it all the time, but after two weeks Click It or Ticket will be over."

In other words, he openly admits that Click It or Ticket is merely a financial ruse of the Duluth Police Department designed to bring revenue into the city. I guess somebody's gotta pay for those Christmas lights and decorations around their downtown area. I don't know what a beat cop's salary is, much less how much it costs to maintain his motorcycle and the gas to power it, but surely it doesn't justify the fifty lousy dollars I'll have to pay for this harmless infraction. Take note, Duluth taxpayers. These are your tax dollars at waste.

Georgia native makes global plea to blog watchers

I sent out a bulk email last night inviting almost 500 people to check out my blog. After emailing these unsuspecting souls, I couldn't decide if having done so would be looked at by them as vain on my part or just plain desperate. A blog by its very nature does lend itself toward vanity. The author thinks that he has some unique take on life and that people actually care to hear it. But being conceited is of little worth if you don't also have blog watchers who further inflate your ego by letting you know they've read your blog. Hence my desperate call for more of them.

I admit that I did not actually know all the recipients of this message. Many of the addresses were some I swiped from other bulk emailings I have received. If you have reached this site because you got an email from some Kevin guy you didn't know, you likely either a) did community theater with someone who emailed the both of us, b) took a real estate class at the law offices of Weissman Nowack with me, or c) got word of a Nigerian banking opportunity at the same time I did. In other words, you and I most likely know someone in common. Think of it like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, only this is with a different Kevin and there are fewer degrees. If on the other hand you and I do know each other, thanks for humoring me enough to point your browser in my direction. You have proven yourself to be the kind of person I would lend a cup of sugar to or ask if I could borrow two hundred dollars. On second thought, scratch that. We're getting kind of low on sugar.

In the brief time since I sent out the email, I've received a variety of responses. As I had hoped, some people looked at it as an opportunity to fill me in on their lives. Some shared good news, others bad. I now have a growing list of people with whom I feel the need to touch base (aside from an impersonal bulk email of course.) So far I've only had one nervous nellie write back that if I did not remove her name from my list, she would report me as spam. Ooooh. Go on, Webenezer Scrooge. Make my day.

The to-do list: one down and umptine million to go

On the side of our refrigerator is a house wish-list my wife composed a few years ago. It lists home improvements we aspire to have completed someday. When she first handed it to me, I read it and nodded at her approvingly the same way she does to me each time I tell her I'm going to lose weight. It doesn't bother me that we don't have a built-in shelving fixture under the bathroom counter or a nice piece of art hanging over our fireplace. It's not that the items on the list are financially undoable or that I don't think these would be worthy ways of bettering our home. It's just that by nature I'm a rather stagnant person. I don't look for things to make me happy; I look for happiness in the things I have.

On the flipside, when you're in a relationship, this Zen philosophy only works to the extent that the other person will allow it. If my wife is unhappy, I can rest assured my happiness too will be short lived. Call it the law of spousal transferrence of mood. When looked at from this perspective, my theory of finding happiness in the things around me is shot all to hell. Passively seeking contentment stops being the path to nirvana and starts becoming the downward spiral to marital malfunction.

Back to the house wish-list. We recently completed another item on the list, namely getting new floors installed. I confess this makes all the difference in the world. Our house is easier to clean and it's much more attractive. Come to think of it, I'd have to say the same thing about the last improvement we made which was putting recessed lighting in the kitchen and dining room. While not an official item on the list, moving the tv out of the living room and into our new tv lounge was another brilliant idea my wife had. My reaction was the same after all three of these things. Why did we wait so long to make such a vast improvement, I thought. I suppose one of the more beneficial things about marriage is having unlimited time with another person so you can help them mend their backward ways. Even more beneficial is having another's perspective to show you how you can make your life better than it was before you met them.

Burger King character or Satan's spawn?

Have you seen the new Burger King commercials? The Burger King guy with the gargantuan plastic head and crimson red eyes is pure evil incarnate. The creepy factor on this guy is way off the charts. If his looks alone weren't reason enough to make you question his motives then surely his reckless behavior would be. I'm talking about the commercial where they show him drilling bolts into a steel girder as he and another guy are standing God-only-knows how many stories high off the ground on an I-beam at a construction site. Near the end of the commercial, the Burger King slaps his construction coworker on the back so hard that the coworker almost plummets to his doom.

Luckily the other driller catches his balance thus saving himself from an otherwise fatal fall. This Burger King character doesn't make me want to buy a hamburger; he makes me want to buy a gun.

More puzzling to me is why the Burger King is working part-time at a construction job. Can he not find work elsewhere? Doesn't he get enough hours at the 2.7 gazillion restaurants he has in the world, what with openings and birthday parties and such? I don't mean to make snap judgments, but is he really cut out for construction work? Any moron can hold a drill. That doesn't mean he needs to be assembling architecture. I can't help but wonder if the Burger King was taken on in order to fill some hiring quota. Can't you just picture a foreman saying Well, last week we hired two Inuits and I've already got a Pacific Islander on drywall . . . Hmm, maybe we can keep the people at EEOC further at bay if we hire a member of fast food royalty. What if this commercial takes place at the site of an under construction McDonald's? Am I the only one who sees what havoc could be reeked by a disgruntled Burger King wielding a power tool thirty stories high? I shudder to think.

No sir, the Burger King is not your friend. If ever there were a reason to invoke stranger danger it would be because of him. I never thought I'd see the day that I could say Ronald McDonald would make a safer playmate for one's child, but it's true. Speaking of children, when I was in second grade, my class got to tour a Burger King in the late 70s. I remember the deep fry matron telling us the reason the hamburgers tasted so good was because they cooked them with fire. Now I know her secret. It's eternal hellfire.

Yummy treats and politesse abound at GA French Bakery in Duluth

On two occasions this week I visited the GA French Bakery (3512 Satellite Blvd., Suite 5, Duluth, GA 30096; 770-622-2682) near the corner of Satellite Boulevard and Pleasant Hill Road. My first visit was on Wednesday when two hours into a crumby work day I decided that the only thing that could sway the on-coming crabbiness was sweet sweet pastry. GA French Bakery was a place I had passed several times and even stopped at once before but for whatever reason I hadn't made it a regular stop on the periodic midday hunger run.

Famished for something sweet and anxious to refresh my French, I greeted the baker with a hearty Bonjour. The display case was filled with a variety of flaky pastries, both fruity and chocolaty. There were cookies, brownies and danishes along side the traditional croissants and baguettes. The cakes and pies were nothing like the bland thawed imported varieties you get at a restaurant. These were real desserts -- manna in filo dough.

Not knowing the French equivalent for cinnamon roll, I ordered "deux cinnamon rolls et une baguette, s'il vous plait." The baguette was an afterthough just because they looked and smelled so delicious. We chatted a bit en français, the baker and I. He remarked on my level of French (the surefire way to serve any francophile's ego.) When he rang up my total I reached for my debit card. He responded with a wave of the finger and told me he didn't accept credit cards but would gladly accept a check. After furling through my wallet for cash or check I could see that my cash was limited to four dollars and I had no checks. My total was six dollars and something. Mildly embarrassed for having a stomach bigger than my wallet, I asked, "Ben . . . combien pour les deux cinnamon rolls alors?" Now the total came to three dollars and some odd cents. Hurrah! I handed him my cash. He gave me the change.

"Vous pouvez avoir la baguette," he said nudging the baguette toward me.

"Pardon?" I asked, not sure if I understood him.

"Vous pouvez prendre la baguette," he said reassuring me it was okay to take it.

"Que vous êtes très gentil," I said and told him I'd gladly pay for the baguette on my next visit.

I returned today for more cinnamon rolls and to compensate the baker for the bread. He politely declined the offer which I found to be most gentlemanly. If he had silver candlesticks and a goblet he might have offered that as well. Maybe if this baby's a girl, we'll name her Cosette.

In utero pictures of baby

Some pictures paint a thousand words. These on the other hand leave me speechless. Proud and joyful, but speechless. Any guesses on whether it's a boy or a girl?

Waffle House patron needs drugs to stay alive

This past Sunday my wife and I went to the local Waffle House to dine out . . . in so far as feasting on greasy hashbrowns and gristle can be construed as dining out. Waffle House is a diner of the greasy spoon variety. Though it's a national chain each establishment attracts a local element of color particular to that vicinity.

Sitting at the counter was a gentleman who had four prescription pill bottles lined up next to his plate. Four! Why anyone would proudly display his drugs of choice for fellow restaurant goers to see is beyond me. Even more baffling is the fact that someone who feels he needs multiple medicines to keep him alive would even set foot in a Waffle House, much less eat the food. I made a brief attempt to look over and inconspicuously read one of the labels but it was to no avail. The print was too small. I did recognize one of the caution stickers on the side. It said TAKE WITH FOOD.

Dental damn

Today I had the long-dreaded honor and pleasure (read sarcasm) of visiting my dentist. Although I'm not as hesitant to go as I used to be, lying down in the torture chair while people pump novocaine into my gums and soft rock into my ears is certainly no picnic. After today I am not so much a dentist phobic as I am a dentist skeptic. Don't get me wrong. I don't begrudge anyone the opportunity to take money be it from my own pocket or that of my insurance company, but shouldn't there at least be a pretense of medical care? Today took the cake.

I showed up for my appointment with the hopes of getting a filling in my lower-right molar. My dentist and his underlings refer to this tooth as Number 31. I call it that tooth that constantly aches and has a black hole visible to the eye. Heidi Hygienist, known for her love of horses and good personal demeanor, examined it and informed me that it looked as though I had lost a filling. She took x-rays and cautioned me that Number 31 needed to be built up and crowned as soon as possible or else it would likely require a root canal. "The only reason your face isn't swollen up," she said to me," is because you're not to that stage yet." I took this to mean I was facing an abcess if the problem wasn't taken care of immediately. Though marginally concerned, I took comfort in the fact that I was here to have that very tooth mended.

Enter the dentist. He poked and prodded. To Heidi Hygienist he called out tooth numbers and codes known only to those who speak Dental-ese. This, I was told, was my new treatment plan. For some I imagine the treatment plan consists of coming in for a professional brush and floss. For me, treatment plan is synonymous financially with second mortgage or child's college education.

Once the good doctor and Heidi Hygienist came up with the treatment plan, they sent me to see the gum lady in the back corner chamber. Her cell is equipped with an oversized plastic model of the human mouth. Amazingly the mouth strikes me as one that needs no treatment plan. The gum lady informs me that I'll need to come in several times for a deep cleaning. I admire her tact in explaining a deep cleaning, which I know is code for pulling ones gums away from the teeth, scraping the otherwise gum-covered parts of the teeth and sending one home with a $300 bill and antibiotics. I suppressed the desire to tell her I've been to two periodontists in my 33 years and am familiar enough with deep cleanings to know that I'd rather walk across hot coals . . . to Saskatchewan than live through another deep cleaning. Once the gum lady was through shaming me, I was escorted to the front desk.

"Am I done?" I asked assuming this song and dance was supposed to be a predecessor to the real reason I came, getting my tooth filled.

"You're done," the gum lady said with her periodontist's wet dream of a smile.

"Am I not getting my tooth filled?" I asked the dentist who had now migrated to the front desk.

"Since it had been a while since we've seen you, we just came up with a new treatment plan today."

My number 31 looks exactly like it did when I walked in, only now my insurance company is a few dollars poorer.

The Nashville network

My recent visit to Nashville made for a nice contrast to my childhood visits to Tennessee. As a kid my family would occasionally make sojourns to the twin cities of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, both fun places known for hayseed kitsch and cuisine. Nashville bore the signs of most major cities, skyscrapers, parking garages and rerouted traffic. Smaller than Atlanta in both size and population, Nashville is a much more walkable town. Shops and boutiques are concentrated on a few convenient blocks. Restaurants emit smells of everything from wings any way you like 'em to Chinese stir-fry. I passed on the tour of the Grand Ol' Opry and the headquarters of CMT. I did see budding country music singers waiting to be discovered as they played on the streets outside these places. I heard Rockabilly bands blaring from the bars. That was as close as I needed to come to local music.

Yeh, baby, yeh

Someone once told me that nothing changes your life as much as when you find out your expecting. Now I know he was right. Though it seems like only yesterday, actually three weeks have passed since I awoke to my wife screaming from the bathroom for me to come look at two straight lines on a home pregnancy kit. Hesitant to get our hopes up prematurely we quickly decided to opt for a second opinion. An immediate visit to the doctor confirmed our suspicions. "You're definitely pregnant," he announced.

In just a few short weeks we are becoming the quintessential parents to be. We pair first names with our last name to see how they sound. We map out where new furniture will go in the back bedroom. Our nightstand is stacked with books titled The Mother of All Pregnancy Books, Pregnancy Sucks and Pregnancy Sucks: For Men, the last of which I confess I purchased of my own volition. We have books on naming Baby, raising Baby and decorating for Baby. We question who to tell and when. What about budding grandparents? Should some friends know before others? At what point do you tell the boss?

While we're excited to step into the parental mold, we strive to avoid stumbling into certain stereotypes. No one likes going to a dinner party only to find you're seated next to the couple who only talks about their kids? Even more annoying (and rude) is the child-wielding couple who nags childless people wanting to know: (a) why they don't have kids; and (b) when they plan to get some. On a different note, I hope I can instill enough self-worth in my child so that after he makes the honor roll, I don't have to cement his ego with a bumper sticker.

Cool peeps

I opened the refrigerator today only to find a package of Peeps left over from what I assume is last Easter. That my wife and I have six-month-old leftover chilled holiday candy is surprising enough. What really threw me off guard though is that I must see them countless times when going to get a coke and yet I only now realized they're in there. That means I usually don't look at them with anymore skepticism than I would the ketchup, the olives or the crisper drawer. Worse yet, I now wonder if they date back to an even earlier Easter. After all, Peeps probably have a shelf life of a gazillion years. I would throw away the little blighters, but I think they might work like baking soda and absorb odors.

I can't say I don't like Peeps because I don't recall ever having eaten one. For me they fall into that category of seasonal candy you grew up with but never cared for. I feel the same way about those hard candy-coated marshmallow Easter eggs. Ditto for candy corn and those chewy sugary waxy pumpkins that come out around Halloween. Yuck. That stuff just looks like a root canal waiting to happen.

Green card not required

This past Labor Day weekend I added another country to the list of places I've been. Nogales is a Mexican border town just south of Arizona. Catering to U.S. tourists, merchants are hawking everything from locally crafted trinkets to non-prescription (at least in Mexico) pharmaceuticals. Suburban Sally can buy margarita glasses at one store and Oxycontin just next door. Prices are always negotiated and the U.S. greenback is the currency of choice.

Sightseeing in this place is amazing. In just the few hours I was there I saw a guy chasing a chicken, two six-year-olds peddling bracelets, a live donkey painted to look like a zebra and a sign that read "REAL CUBAN CIGARS -- NO BULLSHIT." I passed on the bracelets, the cigars and the donkey. To the guy chasing the chicken I got close enough to snap a picture, but I sure wasn't going to lend a hand. Tourists don't participate; they spectate. The average tourist here is fat, forty and flippant. I was an exception. I'm only 33.

Gas hysteria

Human corpses are floating through the streets of New Orleans and Atlantans are concerned there will be no gasoline. I feel like I am in one of those picture puzzles from Highlights magazine -- the kind where you had to find what was missing from the picture. Only now what's missing isn't a rear wheel on a bicycle or a scoop of ice cream from a cone. It's compassion and sense. Does our burning desire to fill our tanks really override the concern for our neighbors three states over? Have we forgotten how stupid the apocalyptic people looked on January 1, 2000 when they all had to report back to work on Y2K+1? Is our memory span really this short? Sheesh!

Testing testing 1...2...P

A French lab claims a urine specimen Lance Armstrong provided in 1999 has tested positive for steroids. Results of this test aside, does anyone else find it gross that the French leave old frozen urine samples lying around? I can see freezing sperm, embryos or even your body if you're into cryogenics, but what good is frozen urine? Come to think of it, the Metro stations around the seedy Pigalle district in Paris smelled pretty pungent when I was there, but I always thought the assailants were local. Has anyone tested to see what those yellow cancer bracelets are made of? I suppose nothing says refreshment like an ice-cold pee-cicle on a hot summer's day.

Large Ladies

Apparently there are two women's bathrooms where I work and one is bigger than the other. Recently on the communal printer I found a memo that read "BLUE EARRING FOUND IN LARGE LADIES RESTROOM." I paraded the memo around and asked people why plus-sized women got their own bathroom. Few found this as amusing as I did.

Don't drink the Kool-Aid

Some people market products. Others market skills. The people who most amaze me though are those who make a living marketing themselves. The motivational speaker is the first guy that comes to mind, but really several types fall into this category: politicians, religious leaders, philosophers, etc. Instead of producing a tangible good or provide a service people would rather pay for than do themselves, these people do little more than employ the gift of gab. Those who can't rely solely on their personality offer us a carrot. They may have a small line of products available for purchase, or they may offer the secrets to getting rich. Some have both, but they usually pester you to buy something from their catalog.

Monolingualism can be cured

Today I ran into an old college classmate from a French course I took fifteen years ago. Oddly enough, I was conducting a children's program in French when she spotted me. We tried to think of people we knew in common. The only people we could come up with was a French family we each had lived with as exchange students. It got me to thinking of what opportunities I have been afforded simply by knowing another language. Not only have I had the opportunity to live in another country, but I've also taught the language. The impact I may have had on those children's lives pales in comparison to what they gave me. I befriended a Cameroonian refugee a few years back who spoke no English. French was our common language. He's since gone on to immigrate and owns a moving business. French has also served as a common thread in some cases. I hired a contractor who spoke French with a heavy Brooklyn accent -- his mother was from Bordeaux, and a Chinese guy who replaced our windows had worked as a waiter for a couple years in Luxemburg. Imaginez!

Languages are all around us and yet the dominant monolingual culture remains steadfastly just that: monolingual. Our newly ranked largest ethnic minority hails from Spanish-speaking descent, yet most Americans insist on pledging allegiance to the language, indivisible with liberty and English for all. A French proverb says that a man who knows two languages is worth two men. If that's true, I wonder what will happen to the now-dominant English-only speakers who are quickly being encroached upon by bilinguals. Something tells me those who choose to succeed will learn a second language. Those who don't will continue to argue over something so trite as [ask] versus [ax].

Stranger danger

Most children won't hesitate to sit on Santa's lap or offer a hug to a theme park cartoon character come to life. I remember being at the grand opening of a Burger King years ago when the Burger King himself invited a group of us kids to come up on stage. His magic had been sub-par and his exaggerated beard and mustache were so artificial looking that they weren't so much accessories to his costume as they were impediments. Nonetheless I, like most kids, jumped at the chance to do his bidding.

The exception to this is the kid who immediately starts crying and clinging to Mom or Dad for fear of being handed over to whatever super-human cretin is before him. Those kids I always saw as immature crybabies, overly paranoid and underloved. Now I wonder if they aren't the smart ones. After all, what doofus runs up to an oversized plushy he doesn't know from Adam? Maybe these kids weren't so afraid of the character as they were of what would become of the mindless masses rushing up to it. Looking back, those screams were probably the prophetic cries of a kid who foresaw the eventual demise of kinder-civilization as we know it. Good times. Good times.

Betcha can run fast in those

I came home this evening to find that my wife had bought me a new pair of shoes. Putting them on brought back memories of buying shoes as a kid. It always happened around the first of the school year. The shoe sales weasel would press on the shoe and ask how it felt. I don't know why as a kid it never dawned on me to say, "It feels like your mashing on my toe," but I didn't. Instead I would perform the routine geek-walk up and down the aisle of the shoe store. If they were Red Goose shoes I got a prize-bearing golden egg from the campy goose egg dispenser by the register. Any familiar adult I ran into for the next week would say the same thing: "Ooh, new shoes. Bet you can run fast in those?"