Barking Spiders and Stepping on Ducks

The conversation turned to flatulence. Let me rephrase… the conversation turned to the subject of flatulence. That’s better.

About fifteen or so fully-developed humans had gathered to celebrate the clock’s journey to 5 p.m., and someone had seen a recent episode of “The Doctors” that discussed the “embarrassment of flatulence.” The doctors opined that everyone has it, it’s a very natural process of digestion, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

Oh, yes, there is.

Before I lay out my case, let me confess to being very – yea, extremely – knowledgeable about this subject. In fact, if there were a kingdom of methane makers, I would be their ruler. Erect a totem pole of the top violators in the world, and you’d need a ladder to see my face.

I blame my short colon, but mostly because I can. A little dance with colon cancer in my 30s claimed about a foot of my digestive tract. I figure that leaves me with less time for the final product to manifest itself. Not so, I’m told by my cousin, Dan. He says it’s a family trait.

That’s comforting to know. At least, I’m not alone. It’s also an excuse not to hang around my family too much.

So, then, let’s assume that some of you that are reading this might consider yourselves challengers to the throne. While this is not really a contest, in fact, as with sin, we are all guilty.

We all learn ways to hide it. Personally, if you ever see me in the grocery store aisle that sells bleach and detergents, yeah, I don’t buy bleach and detergents. That’s an aisle where there aren’t a lot of people.

Company at the house for something off the grill? “Let me go check on the coals.” I don’t really need to do that. The way I prepare charcoal takes 45 minutes. All I really need to do is look at the clock.

Riding down the road with someone else in the car? “Wonder what the temperature is like?” Roll down the window, stick my hand out for a few seconds. Then, pretend they don’t know what I just did by announcing, “Yep, still hot.” Or, “Hey, I think it’s getting cooler.”

So, if it’s something that everyone does, what’s the problem? I’ll tell you what the problem is.

WHO JUST DID THAT???

It may well be that everyone does it, that it’s just natural, that it’s part of the digestive process, but somebody just committed a crime on the entire universe of all mankind and they must be called out!!

“What is wrong with you?!?!”

Fortunately, for me, no one ever knows. During several of the years I was on the radio, I had two female partners that sat together on the other side of the desk. One year, for Christmas they gave me a charcoal filter cushion. They giggled about it a bunch, but I think it was just because I have a boney butt, and they knew I needed some padding.

My brother-in-law has literally fallen out of the golf cart when riding with me, but I think he has balance issues.

Yes, friends, we all suffer, but we do our best to suffer silently. Silence is golden. Silence is also deadly.

Good luck.

Money for Nothin' (That Ain't Workin')

“Man, you work hard!” my neighbor yelled out as he passed by.

Immediately, two thoughts struck me. First: wow, what a compliment. Second: wow, what an idiot.

OK, maybe idiot is too strong, but come on, man. You know me! I don’t know what I was doing at the time – maybe pulling nails from a board or something, but working hard, I was not. I do not do. 

Not ever.

I made a career out of doing radio. Maybe, had it been talk radio, where you should at least know what you’re talking about, you could accuse me of ‘working’. But I spent my time at music stations. Play a few tunes, say something stupid, play a few more songs, repeat.

Here’s how hard it was: when I started in radio, we played records. Records became CDs, CDs became digital bytes. By the time I finished my career, music was simply a computer file. Touch it with your finger and it would play. Further, when it finished playing, it automatically triggered the next file (song) to play. It was - and still is - a process that would continue running itself until it was time for me to interrupt the flow and say something stupid again. I got paid for that.

That job required getting up early in the morning, but hard work? Hard-ly.

If you want a hard worker, I’ll introduce you to my workaholic wife.  She will not sit still and constantly has projects going. Drive me nuts.

Before her retirement, she oversaw the Georgia 4-H program in which thousands of kids gather at camps and do things that kids do.  Some of it is stupid, some of it inappropriate, but mostly, it’s just kids being kids, trying to have fun and learning the ropes.

But times being what they are, nowadays, when kids go off course, parents must be notified, counselors and administrators work overtime, and in some cases, cops must be called. Societal changes dictate that. 

She also was in charge of staffing county extension (county agent) offices during a period when state legislators were slashing budgets. She dealt with deep budget cuts. That meant deciding which counties would have agents, which could go without, and which could share agents. Egos were being bruised.

I won’t forget the evening a legislator approached her, asking when his county would be getting a new agent.

“You keep cutting my budget,” she said. “I don’t have enough money.”

“You’ll have even less if I don’t get a county agent soon,” was his response.

Feel free to take a moment, and consider that logic.

That stuff kept her up at night. Even as we both have retired, remembering that stuff is the reason I still roll over in bed and put an arm around her. Sometimes I toss a leg over her, too. Then, a kiss on the neck. Then, she throws me out of bed, thinkin’ I wanna be starting something, got to be starting something…

That I give up so easily means I won’t even work hard for that.

I think, though, I’m going to hold on to this. This one time someone accused me of working hard. In fact, I’m going to own it. When the day finally comes that I stand before my Maker, and he asks how I would define my life, I’m going to say, “I worked hard.”

Then, I’m going to hope he has a pretty good sense of humor.

Change of Seasons? Who Cares?

Two of my neighbors have just upgraded their TV service to HD, high definition. A third is on the verge. Big-screens are reasonably cheap, but that 55-incher you got ain’t no good if you can’t read the numbers on the shirts or see the ball in the air.

Welcome to football season.

If you’re on Facebook, your feed is likely filled with posts of mascots, flags, jerseys, and all manner of animals and emblems. Sports-talk shows have been giddy with their picks and prognostications for what’s going to happen over the next few months.

And as usual, I’m sitting here in my underwear, trying to figure out what it all means. And it does mean something. For one, it’s fall, by golly.

We could probably toss a coin over whether we love fall for the football or football because it happens in the fall. Glance around and see that the sumacs, dogwoods, and sourwoods – maybe even your maples – are signaling a change of seasons. Especially in the South, by the time kick-off comes around, we’ve had an evening or two where a cool breeze has dropped hints that this year’s hell-hot days are almost behind us.

Football season also makes us more social. If you go to the games, you may have met up with friends prior to the game for some food, toddies, and maybe a silly lawn game. Some of these friends are not friends any other time of year except at tailgate time. You likely sit with friends at the game. Even for those of us that simply watch the games on TV, it’s almost always with a gathering of friends.

Our usual bunch is mostly a Southeastern Conference crowd: Georgia, Tennessee and Auburn are represented. We try not to gloat when someone’s team loses, especially when they lose to our team. We all feel especially blessed that we have no one in our crowd rooting for Alabama or Florida, because then things might get really ugly.

And with the social aspect of pigskin season, there is food. Special food. Garbage food. Stuff you don’t normally eat because, really, isn’t your butt already large enough? But it’s football food! Gotta have it.

Finally, this time of year is about hope. World peace, financial market meltdowns, even your day-to-day struggles to pay the bills be damned! This is the year my team is going to win the national championship!

Not. Probably not. But maybe?

 The friends, then. The food. The color in the leaves, the change in the temperature, and especially the lower humidity that make being outside a pleasure all happen in tandem with our alma maters getting down to the business of what matters most: kicking somebody’s tail into next year!

Blow that whistle, ref! ‘Tis the season.