How I Spent My Inauguration Day, by Bill Wiley

 

January 20, 2021

Hello, beautiful, warm Florida winter day. And what a day it would be. The Orange Menace would leave the White House, and sanity in Washington would be restored. On top of that, Other Bill had a 2:45 appointment at Marlins Park to get his first Covid vaccine. It only took 109 phone calls to try to get scheduled the previous day, but by gum we had done it.

 

I was not fortunate enough to qualify for getting a vaccine due to the vast generation gap between Other Bill and me. 21 years to be exact.

 

(Editor’s Note: It’s 21 months, not years.)

 

So at about 1:45 we turned off the TV and got into my 12 year old Honda Civic and headed down to Miami.

 

(Editor’s Note: Due to the advanced age of the author and his illogical fear of getting lost (he does have a GPS), it should be noted that he is terrified to drive down I-95, recently renamed the George Zimmerman Honorary Expressway of Death. After crossing the county line, all music is turned off, and conversation is ceased so all that is audible is the weeping and gnashing of teeth of the driver as luxury SUV’s and sport bikes flip him off and try to run him off the road. And now, back to his story.)

 

We made it confidently and safely to Marlins Park, an enormous baseball stadium that looks like a giant spaceship. There were no vaccination signs, so after passing what I thought were blocks of parked cars, I found a policewoman and asked her where the entrance for the Covid vaccine was.

 

“See these cars?” She asked, doing a sweeping, Carol Merrill arm gesture aligning with the rows of “parked” cars. “This is the line for both testing and vaccines. Go down to 17^th Street and make a left, and find the end of the line.”

 

I thanked her, and we went on our way. Seventeenth Street was 5 blocks away. The end of the line was Mallory Square in Key West. After we arrived, I made a U-turn and began what was to be a generational wait in a car with granite seats.

 

(Editor’s Note: The end of the line was only 7 more blocks.)

 

Thus began hours of horn honking and clogged traffic turning onto 17^th Street. Some entitled cars cut in front of us, and we could do nothing about that, because this is America, and even worse, Miami, and if you want to live, you just assume that everyone has a Glock-in-the-box or an AR-15 on the floorboard. There was one mild altercation with a woman in a giant Lexus (it’s always a Lexus), whom I thought was cutting in front of me, but was just making a turn from the wrong lane. She zipped down her enormous window and cursed a blue streak at me. Fortunately, it was in Spanish, so there was no way for me to be offended, because, um, nolo comprende, as they say in the Latin legal community.

 

At one point a cop came into my view. I could hear him asking the person in front of me if they were there for a test or a vaccine.

 

“Great!” I told Other Bill. “The line should be cut down now, because probably half of these people are here for a test and will go into another lane somewhere.”

 

It was the first of many ultra-naïve statements I would make that day.

 

Indeed, the cop wrote something on the windshield of the car in front of us, and they got out of the line and drove away. So the line decreased not by 50%, but by one car.

 

The officer came and asked me why we were there, and I almost said, “because there’s nothing I like better than idling and wasting gas,” but quickly thought better of it.

 

“We had a 2:45 appointment for a vaccine,” I said. At that time, it was 3:30.

 

“That’s okay,” he said, and he scribbled a day-glo “V” on my windshield, and we proceeded with the speed of a banana slug.

 

“So what time do you think I’ll get the shot?” Other Bill asked me.

 

“Hmmm, I don’t know, 4:30?”

 

That was ultra-naïve statement number two.

 

An hour later, or was it two? Who knows. The entire process was a time warp. Anyway, eras later, we pulled into a stadium entrance and the single lanes then became three lanes. Now we were progressing, I thought.

 

That was unspoken ultra-naïve statement #3.

 

Not long after that, everything stopped. No one moved for a half hour. People began getting out of their cars. To stretch, to smoke. I got out, brushed the granite dust off of me,  and did some attempts at toe-touches. It was then I looked back and saw that the long line behind us had disappeared. What had happened? Were they sent home? This was unanswered question number one.

 

We both began worrying that due to the prolonged stationary status of the cars, combined with the disappearance of the line behind us, they had run out of the vaccine. I thought it would only be a matter of minutes before they would make us turn around and go home.

 

(Editor’s Note: Nothing about this prolonged shit show was measured in a “matter of minutes.”)

 

Many moons later, traffic began to crawl again until we reached a turn in the road.  More delays as three lanes were merged into two. As we made the turn, I assumed we were now in the final stretch of the process.

 

That was mega-naïve assumption #1.

 

Not long afterward, the 12 year old Honda Crapper began to complain. When I stepped on the gas, it sputtered and snorted and stalled. Repeatedly. Visions of pushing a dozen-year old piece of junk the rest of the way danced in my head. I wondered how many people in line were running on empty. There would be money to be made here as a gasoline vendor or snack seller.

 

I eyed two porta-potties that were put out for law enforcement use. I had earlier consumed my recommended daily allowance of iced Diuretic Tea, and although I didn’t  have to go, I thought it would be a wise idea. Since we were once again not moving, I put on my rubber gloves and adjusted my N-95 mask and proceeded to go to the can.

 

(Editor’s Note: Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, the author has become a paranoid germaphobe. He has had to file environmental impact statements with the EPA due to the volume of PPE he’s gone through. He is easily spotted at Aldi, being the only one wearing an Ebola-grade hazmat suit with taped gloves and cuffs. He keeps a bottle of isopropyl alcohol in his crappy Honda Civic for post-possible-exposure gargling and nasal snorting. “It may sting a bit,” he says, “but it kills bugs dead, like Raid.” And now, back to his show.)

 

After that, I threw out my gloves and went and cleaned my hands.

 

(Editor’s note: That would be a Silkwood shower with the above mentioned alcohol with a side of Brillo.)

 

There was a cop at the “last” turn in the road, and Other Bill asked her if she knew how much longer it would be.

 

“Mmmm, probably two more hours,” she said.

 

It was then I wanted to go pick a fight with one of the people who had earlier cut in front of me. With any luck, maybe he would shoot me in the head. We were already on hour 3.

 

Instead I insisted that Other Bill go use the Porta-Potty. 

 

“But I don’t have to go,” he said, like a toddler.

 

“Will you be able to say that in two hours when you can’t get back to the john?”

 

Reluctantly, he complied and then came back and washed his hands.

 

(Editor’s Note: Other Bill thinks the author’s worries about sanitation are ridiculous, but he nevertheless appeases him by washing his hands in isopropyl whenever he touches something.)

 

There was another lengthy pause with no movement. Were the shot-givers taking a lunch break? Unanswered question #2.

 

In time, an official with an iPad stopped at our card. “Do you have your bar code?” He asked.

 

“I never got a bar code,” Other Bill said.

 

“They should have sent you a bar code,” he said.

 

OB then tried to shift the blame to me, “Did you get a bar code?”

 

Let us take a short time out to talk about Other Bill’s complete inability to comprehend technology. Every time he has to sign in to an app, he doesn’t remember his login credentials, and then gets mad at the laptop for not letting him change the password. I have watched him look for hours to try to locate the Escape key on his keyboard. I have endlessly shown him how to share a URL, yet he still struggles mercilessly. The primary macro that runs in his brain is text that reads: “I don’t know how to do that.”

 

Editor’s Note: Other Bill just finished reading the above paragraph and didn’t understand it.

 

I am sure there was a bar code on his phone, or in one of three of his email addresses, but he insisted he never got anything.

 

Naturally, he doesn’t have any of those email accounts on his phone, because his phone is pretty much a single-task machine. Making calls is its only function.

 

So then I began the Herculean task of trying to install his Gmail account on my phone. My phone is a 2006 Android relic that should be hanging in a technology museum somewhere. We were in the heart of Miami, yet I could not get a signal. Then we began worrying that if we couldn’t get the damn bar code we’d have to go home. 

 

“What’ll happen if we can’t find the bar code?” Other Bill asked the portly official.

 

“Well, you can still stay in line and see if the nurses will still give it to you.”

 

I hadn’t cried for a long time. It had been hours since my ugly Lucy-esque bawling during the inauguration when the poet spoke. I felt that familiar tingle in my sinuses.

 

(Editor’s Note: It was the isopropyl.)

 

Cowering in fear, we soon were approached by Ashley. Sweet and understanding and well-informed Ashley, who also had an iPad, but also had an alphabetized list that was as thick as the Biden family Bible seen earlier that day. Other Bill’s name was on that list, so in no time he was registered, and she put another mark on our windshield. We were so grateful and relieved that we are going to buy her a Mercedes SUV.

 

(Editor’s Note: No, they won’t.)

 

There was another tortured lifetime of no movement, so I decided to walk up to try to see the front of the line. I walked up until I could see a tent, which I assumed was the vaccination site. That was mega-naïve assumption #2.

 

I told Other Bill when I got back that there were “only” about 30 cars to the tent.

 

The sun was setting, but we stayed put.

 

The two adjacent lanes split off. We passed the empty decoy tent I saw earlier and made another turn into a dirt parking lot with another 18 blocks’ worth of zig-zagging cars. Suddenly, I felt the urge for a cigarette. For the first time in 40 years. I wouldn’t have said no to a bottle of vodka, either.

 

As we joined the zigzag, Other Bill passed the time and started naming drivers for each car. There was Smokey, directly in front of us, who got out of his car every hour and smoked a cigarette.

 

(Editor’s Note: Every time Smokey lit up, your author would shut the car windows to keep out the Covid Smoke Germs.)

 

Each time we zigged or zagged, Other Bill would continue the stories he made up about Smokey, OT (which stood for Old Timer) or Whip, who was the one who always whipped around the hairpin turns, and the woman he called Mo, named for no apparent reason.

 

(Editor’s Note: By this time, the author was biting his tongue, trying his best to not shout out, “Will you please shut the hell up about these characters and get me a Benson and Hedges Menthol Light and a fifth of Absolut?!” He passed the time trying to calculate how much it would cost him to divorce Other Bill. Sadly the bottom line was too much.)

 

I was worried sick about the dog, because she had never been left alone at night this long. By then, I figured, she had already peed in the house. Likewise, I also had to pee again.  I have to confess that during this pandemic I keep a portable urinal in the back seat of my car, because when I take Other Bill to the oncologist in the mornings, I have to sit in the car for hours while he goes down the assembly line of doctors, technicians, and nurses. So while that is going on, I can simply relieve myself into the pot when I’m in the back seat. I figured that it might be just as easy in the front seat. At this point we were too far away from the porta pots and were not allowed to leave our cars. So I set to work.

 

Big mistake. I won’t go into details except to say that I may never wear those pants again.

 

(Editor’s Note: Those pants are still unwashed and in the laundry hamper.)

 

By the time we realized it would be after 8 until we could leave, it was dark as midnight out. After our 18 zigs and zags were complete, another official stopped us and asked us for our consent form.

 

“I don’t have a consent form,” Other Bill told her. I knew it was somewhere in his email with the bar code.

 

The official supplied him with a blank form. 

 

Now, I have been meaning to keep a pen in my car at all times, but they tend to get tucked into a shirt pocket and taken inside the house and then washed in the laundry. All we had was a Sharpie. It wouldn’t do.

 

“Do you have a pen?” Other Bill asked her.

 

“I’ll find you something,” she said, and soon returned with a stubby golf pencil. 

 

Naturally, neither of us brought our reading glasses, because we had no idea we would be filling out a paper form in the dark with a writing device that wouldn’t fit in our hand. Other Bill, with his eye problem was more useless than I was, so I started checking boxes.

 

I came to section 2 of the form, which asked, inexplicably, for insurance information. I was ready to spit nails. Fortunately, the official told us we could skip the insurance data, and Other Bill put his card away, which he couldn’t read. I think it might have actually been his library card, but since it’s not nice to tease the blind, I said nothing.

 

By this time we could see two never-before-seen tents, and we were happy to see masked workers entering data into iPads and giving shots.

 

Then a National Guardsman came by and asked how many shots we were getting.

 

“Just one,” I told him.

 

Oh good grief, I thought, we have sat here six hours, and now they are counting people to see if they have enough vaccines. We gritted our teeth and held our ground.

 

Unknown minutes/hours later, a nurse came and also asked how many in our party were getting shots.

 

“One, unfortunately,” I said solemnly, pointing at Other Bill.  “Just him.” 

 

“Do you want to get one? I can give you one if you want one,” she said.

 

I looked up, and there was a blinding halo glowing around her head, and I heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

 

“Are you serious? Really?” I asked, close to tears.

 

(Editor’s Note: Again, isopropyl.)

 

“Sure, no problem,” she said. “Let me get you a consent form.”

 

Other Bill told her he loved her and would have hugged her, had it been legal for him to exit the Civic.

 

We were both ecstatic. We couldn’t believe we were that lucky. She came back with a fresh consent form, and I was shaking as I filled it out with the nub of graphite.

 

The vaccine is very fragile and has an out-of-freezer shelf life of 4 hours. Since we were second-to-dead-last in line by that time, we learned that they had two use-it-or-lose-it syringes left. I was lucky enough to get one of them. 

 

And then, after 6 and a half hours, it finally happened. I have been never been happier to take a needle in the arm in my life.

 

(Editor’s Note: Except for that one time the author tried heroin. JK!)

 

We never got the woman’s name who made our day (and night). But we will find out and buy her a Lamborghini.

 

(Editor’s Note: In the unnamed woman’s wildest dreams.)

 

So after the shot, we were released, and we were ready to get home. The dog was hours late for her evening meal and potty walk. But we couldn’t go yet. We were directed to another lane where we had to sit for another 15 minutes, presumably to be monitored for reactions.

 

And then it was over. We raced home in the I-95 express lane.

 

(Editor’s Note: The author always sets his cruise control at 55 and not a click higher.)

 

It was once again a beautiful day. Biden was in office, Trump was at the beach, sulking and calling attorneys, and the two of us were 50% vaccinated against this horrible disease.

 

And when we arrived, the dog was there, toy in mouth, happy to see us. Miraculously there was no dog poop or pee anywhere. It was a great day after all.

 

(Editor’s Note: Look on the dog’s favorite chair you never use. You’ll find a gift from her.)

 

The best news is, we get to get to go through it all again in 3 weeks.

 

Maybe this time Other Bill will bring his bar code.

Using my unsurpassed skills as a graphic artist, I have made this map of our journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fireworks in the Cold Mouth

When I was a kid, I was fortunate enough to escape the Florida heat and my messy, angst-filled adolescent life there and spend summers in Denver with my Aunt Kay and Uncle Earl. Once or twice during the summer Earl would fire up his massive Ford LTD and head up to the Dolly (shoulda been Dolley) Madison Ice Cream store at University and Bonnie Brae. I guess the franchise didn’t realize they spelled her name wrong until after they did the paperwork, and then decided: Screw it. I’m not paying for that just because it's missing an E.  Earl would come back with peppermint ice cream for me, because he knew it was my favorite, and butter brickle for the two of them. I usually ate twice the peppermint compared to what the two of them consumed of the brickle.

 

I had been a picky eater all of my life, and my aunt had a way of getting me to try new things that no one else had the patience for. I wouldn’t eat apple pie until she made me taste hers. Before Aunt Kay got me to try a mixed green salad with homemade dressing, I would only pick at an undressed iceberg lettuce wedge. I never had lettuce and tomato on a hamburger until she got me to sample one. She always made sun tea with a mix of gunpowder and jasmine teas, which I would only drink with a fist full of sugar added to the glass. She reduced my sugar allotment until I discovered that it tasted so much better unsweetened. I still drink it every day. She would always say, “What’s the matter? Are you afraid you’re going to like it?” I had heard stories from my cousins about her setting the clock on the oven and standing over them with a fly swatter until they ate their vegetables. I think they always complied by eating or hiding the vegetables in a drawer at the end of the table before the timer rang. She was always much more gentle with me. It was because I was so crazy about her and loved both of them so much that I figured the least I could do for their hospitality was to be a little daring with new foods.

 

So there came a time where I had eaten all of the peppermint, and all that was left was some butter brickle. Just the word “butter” when paired with “ice cream” didn’t sit well with me.

 

“Why don’t you try some?” She offered.

 

“No, thank you!” I said politely.

 

“What’s the matter? Are you afraid you’re going to like it?”

 

Reluctantly, I took a small teaspoon of it out of her bowl and put it in my mouth, and the strangest thing happened. The clouds in the sky parted, and a flock of angels appeared, crooning Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. Fireworks of brown sugar syrup exploded from my taste buds. Where can I meet the person who created this wonderful concoction so I can thank them, I wondered.

 

And just then a tiny hologram of DollEy Madison appeared on the platter of leftover corn flake chicken.

 

“Congratulations, Bill!” She chimed. “You are now one of the chosen who holds the secret of an obscure ice cream flavor. Share it sparingly, for it will not be around forever.”

 

And then she disappeared. And Earl never again had to bring home two different flavors. We all shared a butter brickle bond.

 

It was just the best stuff in the world. But Dolley was correct. Eventually her ice cream store went out of business, and the butter brickle became extinct as things like frozen yogurt and gelato, and the I-gag-when-I-think-about-it Dippin Dots took over the frozen confection world.

 

Off and on throughout the years, I tried to find a company that made my favorite dessert, but it was nowhere to be found. A few years ago before we flew out to San Francisco for vacation, I found online an ice cream shop in Oakland that served butter brickle! After the plane landed and we settled in at our one-star hotel, I couldn’t get to the BART station fast enough so I could once again, after four decades, have those wonderful exploding taste buds, and maybe once again see the hologram. Maybe this time it would be a Kay and Earl hologram! So we schlepped over there, and in eager anticipation, I ordered 3 large scoops of it, as did Other Bill, because I assured him that it would be the the culinary experience of a lifetime. What they brought out wasn’t butter brickle, and it was grey in color. It even tasted grey. It was slimy and chalky at the same time. I took a few bites and left two and a half scoops on the table. Grey matter ice cream was a huge disappointment. Even Other Bill couldn’t stomach it, and that speaks volumes. It is a known fact that he will eat rotten catfish nuggets just so they don’t go to waste.

 

The old adage “If you want anything done right, do it yourself” applies here. So this weekend we paid five bucks and a bag of avocados for an electric ice cream maker. If you think I have the patience or the youthly muscles to sit and turn a crank for 45 minutes while not watching porn, think again. 

 

Even with electricity, ice cream is a pain in the ass to make. And it is crazy expensive. To do it right, it takes 2 days to cook the milky, sugary mixture, chill it overnight, mix in more ingredients the next day and go temporarily deaf while the machine screams, whines, and churns.

 

The best thing about making your own ice cream is that you can be sure it is real, high-fat, high-sugar ice cream with no artificial ingredients. Look at store-bought ice cream cartons carefully. Most of them say, ”Frozen Dairy Desert” or “Janitor in a Drum.” It’s not real ice cream and tastes pretty nasty.

 

I haven’t had real butter brickle ice cream in probably 50 years, but tonight I again the tasted the frozen delight that Uncle Earl treated us to every summer. Again my tastebuds sparkled and an orchestra played. I thought a hologram was about to appear, but it just turned out to be my cataracts. 

 

In the end, it’s worth the cost and aggravation to have my taste buds conjure up those memories. So thank you, Dolley. And thank you, Uncle Earl and Aunt Kay.

Corona Falls

As soon as I retired, I shifted into budget mode. I asked myself what I could do to reduce costs and maybe at the same time save the environment.

Myself answered, “think about paper.”

My first idea was to stop using paper towels. My aunt Kay made hand-drying towels using old cut-up bath towels with strings attached that looped over a kitchen cabinet knob. So I set out and hacked up a bunch of ancient towels, stitched seams in them with my Viking sewing machine (the same model Kay had), and I attached loops of seam binding to them to hang on suction cup hangers in the kitchen. In two and a half months, we have gone through just two rolls of paper towels, thank you very much

But then there was toilet paper.

Do I have your attention, Corona virus losers who are now Googling “corncob wipes?” So I decided to get ourselves a bidet attachment for our toilet. This was the end of December, before the words “social distancing” became a catchy phrase.

I bought one for thirty bucks. I could have bought a used one for less, but, hey, c’mon, I have SOME dignity, don’t I? All the You Tube videos looked like it was a simple, ten-minute installation, so in just a few days, the butthole washer arrived.

True to form, I installed it with nothing more than a screwdriver and a pair of pliers. I had seriously debated earlier about buying one that was more complicated and would give our puckers a heated douche, but decided that, hey, this is Florida. The tap water here is never that cold.

So just as I was putting the tools away, nature called, so I sat down on the toilet seat and gave it a, how you say, shot. 

My life has not been the same since.

That fountain spray of water couldn’t have been aimed more perfectly. Immediately I thought, “How did the makers of this device know exactly the right trajectory that would both feel arousing in an analingal kind of way and cleanse better than a pressure washer on a sidewalk?” It was amazing. It was tingly and effervescent, as if someone was feeding my anus a Perrier with lime. I was liking it too much, and I found myself dancing around on the toilet seat so the spray could hit other areas. Think Hokey Pokey: You but your butthole in, you put your butthole out, you put your butthole in and you shake it all about. I didn’t want to even get off the toilet, but I forced myself to. I have an addictive personality and didn’t want to spend the whole day there. Plus I had to figure out the drying issue. 

I had read on a no doubt unreliable website that in Europe, people keep small towels next to their bidets to dry the drippings. I thought, well, maybe I’ll stich up some butt-drying towelettes one day, but for now, I just unrolled a few squares of toilet paper and patted my boyhole. Amazingly enough, there was no brown mark. 

There are times, as an old man, that you have poop episodes which frequently involve wiping and smearing for hours. You have to flush multiple times so as not to stop up the toilet and back up the septic tank. Sometimes you have to do the Bunny Hop out to the garage with your shorts around your ankles because you mistakenly thought two rolls would be enough. Often you think you are done wiping, but then another milky turd slips through and you have to start from “square” one. With the bidet, you can flush out your hole until eternity and only wipe once, when you are sure there is nothing more to get rid of. Score one for ecology!

Americans, as a (w)hole, don’t know what to make of bidets. They think that they shoot up dirty, bacteria-infested used toilet water into your b-zone, but the truth is, bidet water is the same stuff that comes out of the tap that you would drink from if only you weren’t some sort of giant-Lexus-SUV-driving, white-priviledged, entitled, designer-water-drinking, environmental pariah who doesn’t give a shit about the plastic problem we have on earth.

Wait, I am getting off track here.

So we have been enjoying the bidet titillation for a couple of months now, and then, out of nowhere came the Corona virus, and people are now Desperately Seeking Charmin. Since I retired and got off a lot of my anxiety meds that I needed so I wouldn’t murder my supervisor and supervisor’s supervisor and chief of police, suddenly, I am less anxious about everything.Could those meds have been making me anxious? Nah, it was just the paper-wiping holes I had to work for.

Other Bill still has toilet paper supply anxiety, even though he too is a proponent of the bidet by a, um, wider margin. So because I am retired and we joined Sam’s Club so we could get free drugs, he sent me off earlier this week to ensure we could get to the year 2525, if you were still alive, without having to re-purchase toilet paper.

As a new customer to the big box world, I often lose my shit (in keeping with the theme of this essay) when I go into Sam’s Club. I always get migraine auras walking through there. Horrific hot white light and tons and tons of plastic that I know isn’t going to get recycled, will end up on Plastic Island in the Pacific, where no one gets voted off. 

Normally when I’m there, in order to avoid the headache, I just beeline to the pharmacy, pick up my free bottle of antidepressants and get the hell out. But on that day I had a mission to procure rolls of old school flushable anal cleaner for Other Bill. That involved wandering around 134,000 square feet (look it up) of overlit retail space.

Because it was the early days of Corona, (well, early for Americans, because Cheeto-head initially said the whole thing was fake news), I saw that no one was leaving Sam’s Club without an Eiffel Tower of toilet paper and a pickup load of bottled water that came from the same source as my bidet but packaged prettier. I was too embarrassed to ask where the TP was, so I had to roam aimlessly to try to locate it.

Sam’s Club has no sense of organization. They have tube socks next to the coffee which is next to the 6 pound bag of feta cheese which is next to the iPad that is bigger than your living room TV, which is next to boxes of 3,000-count tampons, which is next to a 20 pound opaque tube of what they call ground beef that you can’t see but could just as easily be wet topsoil. It’s like the stock people are all on meth and just find a hole anywhere to shove stuff in.  

Weeks later, dehydrated and reminiscing about my doctor who used to give me Percocet for migraines, I finally arrived at the almost empty aisle of toilet paper, and with the help of a sweet old lady in a wheelchair, we hoisted up a shrink-wrapped load of 45 rolls of septic safe generic toilet paper. 45 rolls! Who buys that? Who has room for that? I have never bought that much toilet paper at one time in my life.

I called an Uber and had them deliver the huge package to my car. I gave her a big tip and a good review because it wouldn’t fit in my trunk, and she helped me tie it down on the roof of the Civic. When I got home, I had to shoehorn the huge package in through the garage door, and then I swallowed a fist full of free Lexapro and called Other Bill on the phone.

“Honey, you’ll have to park outside the garage in the driveway when you get home tonight. But I can guarantee you you’ll have a clean butthole for years to come.”

And after I calmed down, I thought that maybe we should get a second bidet for our other toilet. When two men in their mid-sixties with unpredictable colons live under one roof, you can never be too careful. I looked all over the place online, even at analdouche.com, and the cheapest one I could find was $47. For a used one. 

Price gouging during a state of emergency is illegal. I’m calling the cops. But not the chief of police. That bitch hates me.

I love retirement.

A Gift from God

Every day around 4 pm, I take our dog, Jackie, out for her second walk of the day. We live in an older part of the city where blocks are bisected with alleys where people can throw their yard clippings and store their garbage cans. It’s so much more civilized than having to haul cans to the street twice a week. 

Jackie and I like the alleys. For her, there is always something interesting to sniff or to attempt to snack on before I pull her away. I like alleys because I don’t feel inclined to pick up her poop with a bag. It’s an alley. It’s a wasteland. 

Or is it?

I have found many useable discards during our walks. On one walk I found two dozen big plastic storage tubs with lids. We brought them home. One day we will pack them with our possessions and move to an assisted living facility. It’s called planning ahead.

Old Handi-Cart

Another time I was very excited to bring home a big plastic wheelbarrow-like device that tilts down so you can rake leaves into it. They used to make these things out of steel, and they were called Handi-Carts. Now they are plastic and are made by, I dunno… Tupperware? My alt Mom, my Aunt Kay, had a Handi-Cart, and we spent endless hours throwing weeds and such into them and wheeling them back to her alley in South Denver. So more and more, alleys are kind of sentimental to me.

Plastic-Cart

Oh, and then there was the time I found a potted marijuana plant in the alley behind a former house-flipping neighbor whose home was frequented by the police for domestic disturbances. We won’t discuss what I did with that. Suffice it to say, like more than half of the things I buy to plant in the yard, it died.

So this afternoon, Jackie and I were strolling down the first alley south of our house.  Every other day we walk down the second alley south of the house so she has more time on her feet. And she knows when it’s the second alley day, because if I try to trick her into walking down the first alley, she pulls on the leash and gives me a dirty look.

As we approached the end of the alley (and she still hadn’t pooped and had therefore forfeited her end of walk treat), I looked to my right and saw a banana box filled with Whitman’s Sampler boxes. Lots of them.

Continuing with the alley sentimentality theme here, a Whitman’s Sampler is a box of assorted chocolates. I don’t know why they are called Samplers, but it has something to do with embroidery and the fact that they have been in business since 1842. Sentimentally, my father always used to give my mother a one-pound Whitman’s Sampler box on Valentine’s Day. Dad was a very practical guy, so I’m told, and he told my mom, “Why piss away money on a heart-shaped box draped in satin ribbon and only get a half pound of chocolate, when, for the same price you could get a pound of chocolate, for Chrissake.” My mother, who ate candy like a child on Halloween when she gave up smoking, did not disagree. And my family, all of them, loved the word “Chrissake.” And I still do. I especially like that Spell Check can’t figure it out, for Chrissake.

So still stunned by what I saw, my first reaction was that someone had thrown away a bunch of empty Whitman’s Sampler boxes.  I used to keep my mother’s empty Valentine boxes to stash gumball prizes, favorite Hot Wheels cars, Super Mini-Balls, and my hand made Creepy Crawlers. At first I thought maybe I found a collection of vintage toys, but again, the boxes were all unwrapped. 

I peeled off the cellophane of one box and opened it to make sure it wasn’t filled with exploding manure, making me an overnight YouTube sensation. True to form, it looked like my Dad’s Valentine gift to my mom: glistening milk chocolates of all varieties. Only this was a 12 ounce box instead of a pound. It’s like now when you can get a 4 ounce six pack of Coke and can think it’s not bad for you. I counted the boxes. There were seventeen boxes of them. I was looking at almost 13 pounds of free chocolates. Needless to say, I didn’t do the math until I started this paragraph.

This was like one of those awful “Only in Florida” or “Flori-Duh” website offerings, I thought. How could this happen? “Man Wakens from Diabetic Coma Begging for Gumball Toys.” Am I dreaming? What do I do now? The thing is, time was of the essence. If I left the box there, I risked having someone else take possession of it. Naturally I thought, “You can’t eat this.” The chocolates looked normal, but what if it was laced with crack or PCP or cocaine or that stuff that killed Michael Jackson or even worse, CBD oil? What if it was really a box of Coronavirus? 

But then I though, “WWOBD?” What Would Other Bill Do? And then I knew what I had to do. I hefted up the box, which was easily 20 pounds. Banana boxes are double thick and heavy. Plus I had a 40 pound dog yanking on the leash, sending me tripping back up the alley in my flip flops until we finally made it home. I dropped the box in the foyer. Okay, so it’s not really a foyer. It’s a walkway where everyone sheds yard waste and tiny palm nuts when they come in. 

I was sweating like a rotting peach and jumped into the shower. Not long after I got out and dried off, I heard the garage door hum open, and Other Bill came inside, home from work.

I kissed him and said, “Come here, I want to show you something.”

“Is it something bad?” he asked.

“No. Well, maybe,” I said.

He looked down at the banana box, and his bright blue eyes bulged. He knew there were no vintage toys inside.

“Where did you get this?” 

“I found it when I was walking Jackie.”

“Who would do this?” he asked. The humanity! And then I realized I had done the right thing by schlepping it home.

Without even pausing, he dug into the tiny pleated cupcake holder of chocolate covered peanuts and snarfed them down. Didn’t even think about it being poison or contaminated. An hour later, he ate another. An hour after that, I had one. 

As of this writing, we are both still alive.

You Take Me to the Nicest Places.

Now that I’m retired, I get to repeat the phrase I’ve always longed to say: I’m living on a fixed income. It is a built in excuse for being cheap. Sorry about this cheap bottle of wine I brought to your party, but I’m living on a fixed income. I would love to contribute more than $10 to your campaign, Mr. Buttigieg, but I’m living on a fixed income.

I will be the first to admit I’ve always been cheap. And anyone who has ever known me will not disagree. When my father died when I was a pre-schooler, the first thing out of my mouth wasn’t “what happened?” or “how did he die?” but instead was, “how are we going to pay for everything?”

After that, and my mother took over, being cheap was pretty much hammered into me at every turn. I was told to order the cheapest thing on the menu, to walk home from school instead of paying a dime for the bus and to always buy used, never new. I bought clothes from the thrift store after I got my first job and Mom stopped paying for them, and I still do today.

But nothing drives cheapness home like when I am forced to find overnight lodging. When I was a kid and we had the rare opportunity to travel, motels were $20-$30 a night. The $30 ones sometimes had Magic Fingers bed vibrators, which I loved, but we usually had to settle for beds that didn’t jiggle.

And today, I can’t understand why a place to stay overnight costs ten times that. Look, Other Bill and I love to visit San Francisco, but try finding a room for less than $250 or $300 a night. You can’t find one on line. You have to go to my own personal Dark Web of Lodging Dives to find it. We have always stayed at a place that doesn’t link to travel websites. When we first started going, we could get in for around fifty bucks a night, but it has been slowly rising, and I’m sure it’s close to a hundred now, if not over.

One time we arrived there in the middle of the night and got to the room, and there was only a single bed. We went down to the front desk to address that, but the clerk said she wasn’t allowed to leave the desk unattended, but if we wanted, there was a mattress in the basement we could schlep up to our room. So we did. Fortunately it was still in the plastic wrap, but we had to fold the flimsy mattress in half to get it into the tin can of an elevator.

There are no frills at the places we stay. And by frills I mean things like bath soap, ice, swept floors and washcloths.

The next time we stayed there I noticed that the bed was unusually firm. After a week we took the sheets off to wash them (you were expecting, maybe, maid service?), I realized that for the past 7 days I had been sleeping on a box spring.

A few years ago we stayed at a cheap motel in Tampa. I grabbed the phone book to look up an address (you were expecting, maybe, Wi-Fi?), and a hypodermic syringe fell out. Other Bill looked horrified, and I tried to cover by saying, “Oh, it was probably just a diabetic who left it behind,” but the trace amounts of blood left in it proved me wrong.

Our shabby accommodations rarely feature “free breakfast.” If it does, breakfast consists of a Little Debbie snack cake and a canister filled with Cheerios that you can scoop out with a paper cup. (You were expecting, maybe, a spoon?)

We recently took a trip to Wildwood, Florida. That’s where I got my first speeding ticket when I was 18. The sheriff had radar, but fortunately not much of a nose, because I was drunk at the time. Anyway, take a look at this picture, and pay attention to the scale. I used a quarter so you could understand the size of the white thing.

You probably think that this is a sliver of soap that a normal person would probably throw out, but you’re wrong.  This is actually what a national budget hotel chain considers a bar of soap.  This is not an optical illusion, and this soapette is brand new, unused, right aout of the bag. We considered ourselves lucky. Oh, and they had washcloths, too!

We’ve been to this chain more than once, mainly because they allow you to bring your dog in the room.  And if your olfactory bulb is even half alive, you’d know that as soon as you walked in the door. Here’s a picture of the door of a neighboring room in Wildwood. Looks like a dog was left out all night and was scratching to get in.

But the room was $50, and it had two perfectly fine beds, a TV, a spitting shower, and a great view of the drug dealing and prostitution in the parking lot of the adjacent truck stop, so we didn’t really need a TV. Still no Magic Fingers though, except maybe in that parking lot.

It’s nice that Other Bill puts up with this. Other men, I’m guessing especially straight men, don’t have this luxury of understanding spouses, because let’s be clear: most of these places are not in the nicest of neighborhoods. But Other Bill makes friends with the homeless people in the neighborhood and actually bought one of them a pair of shoes. How do you not love a guy like that? Even I wouldn’t do that, because, well, see paragraph 2.

Before I retired, people would say, “Wow, I guess you can finally live a little, travel, stay at nice places?”

It’s a nice fantasy, but I doubt I’ll be able to change my ways. 57 years of Life Without Father still has its skinflint claws embedded in me. It’s one of the several characteristics about myself I hate. I still pick up a penny in a parking lot, even though it hurts my knees to stoop down. I hang clothes on the line instead of opting for the more convenient and slightly costlier electric dryer option. I never run my car through an $8 car wash when I can do it for free by hand in my driveway. It would take years of therapy to change this, and there are still no guarantees. Every time I catch myself choosing price over comfort, I ask myself, why, Why, WHY?

Because I’m living on a fixed income. I have an excuse now.