Quick Fried to a Crackly Crunch

Well I finally talked Other Bill into going to a free lunch sponsored by the Neptune Society, those guys who have been promoting cheap cremations for the last few decades. All I wanted them to do is tell me how much it ran to toast a dead body, but apparently you can’t be privy to that information unless you set up a visit with a counselor or attend one of these lunch things that are advertised in the paper.

Other Bill never wanted to deal with this. In fact, I had to twist his arm years ago to agree to getting our wills written. He likes to joke about wanting us to die together in a plane crash so no one will find our bodies, or just having wicks inserted in our heads so when one of us stops breathing, all the other has to do is light a match. But reluctantly he went along this time.

I’ve had a long-standing beef with the whole funeral home industry for years which I have previously documented here. Now that funeral homes and cemeteries have gone hi-tech, there is no end to the number of gizmos and gimmicks they will try to get you to sign up for. No one is going to be able to walk up to my final resting place and through the miracle of wifi and global positioning, see my professionally produced (at a huge fee) videography, because my crispy remains will be in some unknown place or at the bottom of some body of water, probably illegally. They won’t be on anyone’s mantle, either.

My feeling on the afterlife is pretty cut and dry; i.e., you’re dead. So why set aside an obscene amount of money for a satin-lined Posturepedic coffin to lie back and rot in? Your spirit, your love, your sense of humor, all the things that people will remember you for are also gone. All that’s left is your decaying vessel, so let’s deal with that as quickly and cleanly as possible and call it a day, shall we?

So we get to this tv-lined sports bar and go to the special event room, where a young Peruvian lesbian greeted us and gave us some paperwork (which didn’t have the cremation price on it). In a few minutes three more men, all older than us, sauntered in. Two of them, who clearly were in their 80’s (and probably not planning on living much longer), started hitting on her. Telling her what a beautiful woman she was. Asking if she was single. She handled it with grace and dignity, because not doing so could easily have cost her a sale. But c’mon, guys. Okay, so it’s not always easy to zero in on a person’s sexual orientation; I’ll give you that. But what did you think your chances were, being a half-century her senior, that after your death discussion that she’d go home, pack a bag and move in with you? 50-50? Not even close. So cut that shit out, for God’s sake. It’s 2016, not the year YOU were born.

One guy in particular was a pain in the ass from the get-go. Besides practically wolf-whistling and making goo-goo eyes at the presenter, he also, instead of sitting at the table set out for him, imposed himself on a kindly French gentleman, who, I suspect, would have rather sat alone.

The guy also gave the waitress a hard time. He wanted a full sandwich and a salad, when the menu option was for just half a sandwich and a salad. The waitress said he could add a salad to his full sandwich for three dollars, but then he played stupid, giving her the “I don’t understand why he gets a sandwich and salad and I have to pay $3 for mine” routine.

Then before the knockout lesbian could barely open the presentation, he started going on and on about how he wasn’t planning on dying, because he was happy just as he was alive.  If there had been a buttered roll on my table, I would have thrown it at him.

So the presentation went along well enough and was moderately interactive, with other Bill and I being the only other two in the room to verbally participate.

The presenter talked about how funeral homes will always try to “upsell you” by preying on your emotional state and talking you into things you don’t need, like a pricier casket or other extras they say your loved one would have wanted. This led to a discussion about pre-planning and making your needs known.

But the thing about the Neptune Society is, there is a base price (and I won’t tell you want it is. Go to your own old man lunch) that requires you to die within a 75 mile radius of your local Neptune Society crematorium. After that, it’s three dollars a mile, just like the $3 side salad that the waitress gave that old fart for free because she was sick of the harassment.

Three dollars a mile. Who knew that dying was like renting a car?

Okay, so we got it. In order for it to be effective, you had to really sign up with the premium account that was $500 more, and then you could die anywhere you wanted to, without incurring any mileage surcharges.

But what really frosted my fine hairs was that both packages came with a “beautiful cherry box” that held a commemorative picture frame and an urn to put your loved one’s ashes in.

If that’s not upselling, I don’t know what is. Before I could ask if it was cheaper to buy it without the made-in-China box and cheesy frame, she said it was all part of the complete package and could not be excluded from the deal.

So then they gave us the price of both versions. The annoying man who wasn’t planning on dying just got up, tossed his napkin on the table, and walked out of the room. His French table partner rolled his eyes, and I gave him a sympathetic look.

The patient presenter chatted with us for a few minutes, and acknowledged that we were a couple even though we didn’t use the secret gay handshake. We said we wanted time to discuss it, even though, for me at least, once she uttered the word, “urn” all bets were off.

One of the hooks to the program was how easy this would make things for your children. At the time of your death all they would have to do is remove your membership card from your wallet, call the toll-free number, and everything would be taken care of. No fuss, no muss. Our presenter said, “What would you rather give them: The card or the phone book so they could start calling funeral homes during their beginning stages of grief?”

I don’t think we’ll need either the card or the phone book. All we’ll need is Google. You can get a non-Neptune direct cremation for around $500. 

We’ll use the savings to pay for a full sandwich and a full salad. And dessert, please.

Photo Via Flickr User Justin Dolske

billwiley.blogspot.com by Bill Wiley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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Dreary Air

I would like to publicly express my gratitude to all of the super-budget, “no class” airlines for still offering free bathroom privileges. I’d also like to thank the FAA for mandating gratis oxygen and life vests, in the case of an emergency situation. (Someone I know actually stole a life vest off of a jet, just so he could watch one inflate when you pulled that cord. It was something to see, and unexpectedly loud.)

Honest to God, these airlines really hate us. Except for the free use of their toilets, they have taken away everything that could possibly make flying a pleasant experience. Being the cheapskate I am, I am now a master at making online reservations with these guys. If you actually speak to a reservations representative or even get a passing glimpse at a gate agent, they charge you.

I’ve flown two of these airlines, and they want you to pay a la carte for everything. After clicking NO for booking a hotel, renting a car, buying travel insurance, paying for a carry-on bag smaller than a deck of cards, or forking over money for airport check-in, you are asked if you want to reserve a seat on the plane. I realize that to the inexperienced skinflint traveler this may be a little off-putting, because most people think that by this time they already have made the reservation, but no. Instead, you are presented with a floor plan of a no-class small jet, and are offered the opportunity to BUY a seat for ten to fifty dollars. The first time I thought about flying on Inferi-Air, I shut down the app at that point and decided to drive, because I didn’t want to tack on an additional $40 to $200 for a trip for two. The secret is to realize you can skip the seat reservation  process, which then puts you at the mercy of Air Unfair, which will assign you and your spouse two center seats at opposite ends of the jet so in case you crash, you don’t get to die together. This is why I always bring walkie-talkies on the airplane. No one ever asks you to turn off your walkie-talkies, so they are perfectly legal.

One airline, Spirit, gives you the chance to pay a dollar to use napkins made of recycled paper on the flight. I am dead serious about this. Look, Spirit, you are dealing with the cheapest of the cheap Americans here. If loved ones are willing to die without the ability to hold hands on the spin-out, do you really think their resentment will be curtailed long enough to give you a buck for asswipe napkins? Give it up. How desperate can you get?

One thing you can’t help but notice on Air Despair are the measures they have taken to make you uncomfortable. The $10 seats, which are also the free seats if you fail to reserve them, no longer have creature comforts like padding or springs in the seats. The chairs, which are sixteen inches wide, are made of molded plastic, like the ones in your music room in elementary school. They are covered with Velcro-attached vinyl covers that can be easily removed in case you vomit on them, because Air Contraire does not offer complimentary barf bags.

Once you get off the ground and you radio your loved one to make sure they haven’t thrown up, you can sit and relax. Notice I didn’t say that you can sit BACK and relax, because the music room seats do not recline. Even the $50 seats are static. Now would be a good time to look in the seat pocket in front of you to see how much you have to pay for a cocktail and a nutsack. Sadly, you can’t, because there is no seat pocket. There is only a bungee cord that holds in the FAA-mandated emergency card. Also there is a little brochure obviously put together by a graphic design intern at Nightmare Air, and when you unfold it you discover that two bottom shelf cocktails and half a corn chip will set you back $24.95. Perhaps you’d like to pull down your tray table so you can prop up your iPad and watch a movie. Sorry, gotta keep that on your lap, because your snack “tray” is the size of an emery board and will not support electronics.

I shouldn’t be so hard on these budget carriers. Seriously, a hundred bucks to fly a total of 1200 round trip miles can’t be beat.  If you are okay with not-even-a-chance frills, you’ll be complacent here.

In 1964 I took my first flight on Continental Airlines.  There were sticks of gum and a pack of four Parliament cigarettes placed on every seat before you boarded the plane. There were removable doilies on the headrests to guarantee you had no hair-generated bugs passed from the previous passengers. The stewardess gave me little pin-on wings and let me go up and look inside the cockpit. There was a choice of two hot meals served on china with stainless utensils. The cushy seats reclined way back, and they offered you pillows and blankets so you could actually sleep. You could check three suitcases for free. The well-put-together stewardesses wore crisp uniforms and nifty pillbox hats.  Before the plane took off, they came down the aisle with an assortment of magazines and newspapers for you to read. And this was coach, not first class

On Air Bedsore, there is none of that, and none of the modern nice-to-haves like internet access, TV channels, or headphones for music are offered. The one perk is that the arms of the chairs do fold up so the stranger next to you can release his bulbous spare tire into eight of the sixteen inches you are allotted.

And the flight attendant is either a bitter woman who can’t get hired anywhere else because she is in her late 50’s, or some grimy grunge boy with over-gelled blue-black dyed hair and outstretched piercings. Gay men wouldn’t touch jobs on Aer Dingus with a ten-foot oxygen hose. On my last flight I listened to one of the attendants spew forth to her co-worker the tale of her husband who left their family last year in the middle of a mid-life crisis. Admittedly, this was better than being able to watch a Lifetime movie on the non-existent screen built into the absent headrest in front of me. Her co-worker was too involved in picking at his acne to respond to her plight.

Just when you think you have endured all the abuse and humiliation that a passenger can take, they make an end-of-flight announcement that physically hurts. You are asked to bring your unreclinable seat back to its upright position. Really. They rub it in. And then the punk/goth/unbackground-screened, dirty-t-shirt-wearing flight attendant comes down the aisle begging you to sign up for the Disrep Air Mastercard, which comes with 40,000 free miles, redeemable for two more round-trip flights from hell.

And because you had to ask, yes, I filled out the application. Other Bill and I have another short flight to take in six weeks, and I want Air Beware to pay for it.

Hopefully I’ll remember to buy fresh batteries for the walkie-talkies. No one likes to die alone.

billwiley.blogspot.com by Bill Wiley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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Happy Holidays from UPS

In October of 2014, United Parcel Service unveiled its UPS Access Point program. An access point is, allegedly, a network of retail establishments with convenient hours, staffed by UPS-employee-trained, um, professionals who know how to give you a package or accept a package for shipping.

Initially it was started in urban areas to help curb rising thefts of packages left on doorsteps. Given what I went through last week—that’s right, Christmas week—I think I’ll trust future packages with the thieves. If only I had that option.

So the Tuesday before Christmas, a UPS driver stuck a pre-printed label on my door, saying a package was left at 4101 (street name deleted).

Be aware that I wasn’t expecting a package, but Other Bill thought it might be a sweatshirt he ordered but wasn’t expecting that soon. This was the first time UPS didn’t just leave the package hidden in the bushes next to my front door, which has always worked out just fine. But apparently our address has been Access Pointed.

So Wednesday I went to this UPS Access Point at 4101 (street name deleted). It was a sushi bar. I wasn’t about to go into a sushi bar and ask if they had a package for me. It was just too ridiculous to believe. So I got back in the car and started to go home and noticed that there was a second business at 4101 (street name deleted) in the same plaza. I’m not kidding. Same address, different business. It was a pharmacy. But there was a tiny US Postal Service sign on the door of the pharmacy, so I was less embarrassed asking a postal employee if they had my UPS package than I would a busboy or fish cutter, so I went in.

Not wanting to interrupt a somewhat lengthy conversation by the two allegedly-trained-by-UPS-employees, I patiently stood there waiting while they discussed the Christmas shopping they still had to do. They rattled off lists of recipients and what they were getting, sizes they wore, possible prices or deals they could get on the stuff. You know: critical information employees must spew out in order to keep a customer waiting. One of them must have heard my teeth grinding, so she took my door sticker and shuffled off to the little package closet where the not-ready-for-home-delivery packages were.

The lady picked up each package, dusted it off, and went over each package with a magnifying glass and a lice comb. “What’s the name?” She asked for the third time.  I told her Other Bill’s last name and mine.

Heavy packages, light packages, small packages, large packages, envelopes of varying sizes, plastic pouches: each was examined with unnerving scrutiny. She brought out several different packages and handed them to me, asking if they were mine. Well, none had our names on them or our address, so I guessed they weren’t.

“Sometimes they put a sticker on them that covers the name,” she said, although none of the ones she gave me had the name or address hidden.

Finally, about fifteen minutes later, she concluded, “I don’t think it’s here.”

“Well it should be here,” I said. “They left the sticker on my door yesterday, so it should have been delivered here yesterday afternoon.”

She shrugged. “I dunno,” she said.

“Is there a number I can call?” I asked.

“I dunno.”

Really? An allegedly trained-by-UPS-employees employee, and she didn’t even give me the 800-PICK-UPS number that I already knew.

Gnashing my teeth still, I left the ambiguous address, drove home and called UPS.

Let me tell you something about 1-800-PICK-UPS. You can’t speak to a human unless you have a tracking number, and if you have a tracking number, they give you the pre-recorded status of your package, which I already knew was wrong. I desperately wanted to speak to a human.

“I’m sorry,” the recording said, “you need to enter your tracking number.” I pressed zero.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, “I didn’t quite get that. Please say your tracking number.”

“I don’t have it,” I tried.

“I’m sorry, I still didn’t get that. Please enter your tracking number.”

“AGENT!” I screamed.

“I can get you to an agent, but first, please say your tracking number.”

“FUCK YOU!” I barked, and then, I kid you not, the clouds parted, the sun shone through my front window, and a miracle occurred. I was actually transferred to an agent.

“Due to unusually large holiday call volume, you may experience extended wait times. Your call will be answered in nine minutes.”

Great, that should be time enough for the Valium to kick in, I thought, swallowing a pill.

Finally a human came on. I gave her my tracking number, and she told me the package was on the truck and would be delivered to my door by five o’clock. I immediately regretted not saving the Valium for a more difficult situation. She also told me to sign the back of the door sticker and put it back on the door. Although I planned to be home all night and would eagerly be there to assassinate the UPS driver, I did what she said.

Is anyone surprised that UPS did not show up with my package by five o’clock, or any time after that on Wednesday? Of course not. I don’t know why I even bothered to leave the outside light on until 7:00.

So Thursday, Christmas Eve, I was released from work early, and I got home and called PICKUPS, gave the recorded lady my tracking number, and she said, “Your package can be picked up at 4101 (street name deleted) today before seven PM.”

It was 2 PM, so I had time. Back in the car. Drove by the sushi bar to the second 4101 and walked to the back of the pharmacy to the Access Point, where the lights were off. The pharmacist said they had closed at 1 PM because it was Christmas Eve.

So, okay, no Christmas surprises for us, I figured. I contemplated calling UPS back, barking expletives to the recording again, waiting 10 minutes for a human and saying the same thing to her, but by this time there was no point. I’m sure the package, whatever it was, would be safe in the closet with the magnifying glasses and nit combs.

Friday was Christmas. Movie and Chinese food, so no one even thought of the elusive UPS package.

So Saturday I called 4101 to see if they were open, and Other Bill and I drove back over there. I let him go in and do the work, since I had failed twice. I sat in the car with my emotional-support-better-than-Valium dog. Ten minutes went by, and I knew Other Bill would not be coming out with a package. A while later he came out and said I should come in to help explain what I’d been told on the phone by UPS.

This time there was a different woman at the UPS Access Point Genius Bar. I told her that UPS told me that the package had been delivered there on Wednesday at 4:30, about an hour after I had been there the first time.

“Well sometimes they tell you it has been delivered when it really is still on the truck,” she said. And then she rambled on about a personal shipping experience she, even as a trained-by-UPS-employees employee, had had, but I didn’t comprehend it, because I was too busy hemorrhaging from my ears and eyes at this point, so I felt my way out of the store back to the calming nature of the dog, who stopped the bleeding with her tongue. Other Bill, the compassionate one, I’m sure said nice things and thanked the Genius Bar employee for her assistance.

Back at home, I once again summoned 1-800-PICK-UPS, but I was too embarrassed to say “fuck you” to the recorded lady in front of Other Bill, so I slurred mock tracking numbers over a period of several minutes until I was transferred to an agent with a five minute wait time.

By then I just wanted to know where the package was from so we could determine if it was the missing sweat shirt. “Of course,” said the agent, and in a minute she said, “Okay, this package was sent to Tina (last name deleted), shipped from—”

“Wait, hold on,” I interrupted. “You’re telling me after all the shit I’ve been through that this package is for my next door neighbor and the driver put the sticker on the wrong door?”

I didn’t hear her answer, and I probably said something worse than what got me to an agent in the first place on Wednesday, and then I hung up on her.

Today the sweatshirt arrived, and it was waiting on my doorstep in a US Postal Service Priority Mail box when I got home from work.  Unfortunately it was the wrong size, so we have to send it back.

I wonder which carrier I should use.

Chatty Catheter

Take away my microwave. Hell, take away my smart phone. Just leave me with Turner Classic movies and a video recording device.

Because there is a tropical storm thumbing its nose in the Atlantic this morning, I altered my schedule when I woke up. Normally I feed the dog, let her out, and get on with my day. But today I tuned in to The Weather Channel hoping to catch the latest Tropical Update. Instead I got Al Roper (who apparently has been super-sizing his Happy Meals again) babbling about climate change. After that, he cut to Local on the 8’s, which, is just Muzak with a map of today’s high temperatures across the country. They can squeeze a lady into a box the size of a credit card and have her give me turn-by-turn instructions from here to Walla Walla, but they can’t figure out how to cut to a local station to tell me if I should pack an umbrella today.

So after Nothing Local at 5:58, there were four minutes of unending commercials. And the dog was getting impatient. She was giving me that you’ve got one more minute and then you’ll be going for the mop look.  Normally I don’t watch commercials. I usually watch commercial-free Turner Classic Movies or skip through them because I pay a monthly fee to digitally record the shows I want to see.

So I learned that apparently there is a biiiiiiiiiiig market in the country for catheters. I don’t know why. I don’t want to know why. Just thinking about a catheter makes parts of me pucker and my stomach do a little flip.

I don’t want to see them, either, but there they were, in plain sight. If you call a toll free number, you can get a free catheter sampler pack, including the ever-so-popular pocket catheter. What does that do? Drain the coins out of your pants?

Apparently there are many different catheters to choose from.  “Hundreds of choices” according to the website I visited (and left an everlasting historical imprint on my work computer for my superiors to wince at). But in the commercial, words like “pre-lubricated,” “no-drips, no mess,” “reduces UTI’s” and “reduces friction and pain” send my nausea level to the puking point. For Chrissake, I just want to see if I need to lower my storm shutters! Have a little dignity, Weather Channel!

You know, Other Bill has to have medicine shot into his eye every eight weeks. Yes, a hypodermic syringe stabbed right into the white of his eye. If traffic is bad, it can take us over two hours to get to the doctor who performs this procedure. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do it at home? Let’s do a commercial for that.

Attention Ocular Melanoma and Macular Degeneration patients! Now you can get your Avastin injection supplies delivered directly to your home at no cost to you! We’ll automatically bill your insurance company or Medicare! Call this toll-free number now to receive your free syringe sample pack, including the popular ten-penny needle! Less trauma! Less bleeding! Fewer Infections! Less screaming!

Let’s see how much puckering occurs across America when that airs.

Why are we forced to face the gross realities of life on commercial TV? You never saw commercials for vaginal dryness in the 50’s. Can’t we please go back to that? I guess it all started with commercials for Preparation H and “feminine protection.” Half of us menstruated, and a third of us suffered some symptoms of hemorrhoids, so let’s get bleeding orifices out of the closet and onto the dinner table where we could engage them in a gleeful discussion. Say it loud: We ooze and we’re proud!

And don’t think for a minute that you can alleviate the gross-out factor by animating it. I can gag just as hard watching the slimy green snotwads in a Mucinex commercial or those horrific creatures in the Lamisil commercials that rip off a big toenail and start boring down underneath it.

  

Remember this?

It appeared at the end credits of TV shows up until 1983. It was a way for networks to voluntarily abide by a code of decency that lasted from the fifties until the National Association of Broadcasters was sued and made to end it all. Okay, call it censorship. But it would be nice if we had something like this for commercials.

I’ll be glad when the day comes when we all have internet access and we can all get information voluntarily through a search engine. That way those who want exclusive deals on douche bags and enemas can look for them privately without disturbing the rest of us in the family room.

My stomach and puckering parts will be much happier then.

billwiley.blogspot.com by Bill Wiley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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Yowzers!

Remember that old Black Flag Roach Motel commercial with the tag line: “Roaches check in but they don’t check out”? And do you recall the Eagles’ Hotel California line: “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave”?

Sticking with this theme, a woman in South Africa named Sonnet Ellers invented a female condom that was supposed to discourage rapists at the 2010 World Cup, which apparently is a hotbed of rape for riled-up, partying straight men.

The condom is designed with sharp, inward-pointing spikes that are harmless to the penis upon insertion, but will dig into and shred the penis upon withdrawal. Think of Chinese finger traps but  much more damagomg. After its claws dig into you and you walk away screaming with it stuck to your manhood, the condom can only be removed surgically, which would allegedly encourage a suspicious ER doctor to report the patient to the authorities.

I will never again return a rental car and drive over those tire-shredding spikes that warn you with the “Do not back up! Severe tire damage will result!” signs without wincing a bit.

Ms. Ellers’ plan was to distribute thousands of these devices to women during the World Cup event, provided she got production-funding donations. Snopes.com reports that there is no evidence that this ever happened. Maybe her GoFundMe account didn’t receive a lot of support. Certainly not from male World Cup, so to speak, attendees that year.

The device is called the Rape aXe.

There is no evidence that I can find that the device is available now for sale, but if you go hunting for one on the web, you can find a lot of blood-thirsty Lorena Bobbitt wannabes who find the device as desirable as the most popular, hard-to-find Christmas gift that every child wants. It’s the Teddy Ruxpin/Beany Baby/Tickle Me Elmo/Cabbage Patch Kid of the contraception community. Without receiving an answer, Estelle Davis of Oakland comments, “Is the Rape-Axe available for purchase in the United States?” Similarly, “Christina” in Pennsylvania questions, “I too would like to know if Rape Axe is available for purchase in the United States.”  This, no doubt, has given Pennsylvania women named Christina a tough time getting dates.

Granted, I think that rapists certainly deserve something like this Medieval Surprise. If it were up to me, their punishment would to be as physically and emotionally scarred as their victims. But if I were a woman, I’d certainly have some safety concerns about walking around wearing razor wire in my vagina. I would be worried about something disintegrating and having the whole thing backfire on me.

Maybe the device isn’t for sale, but some women are managing to get their, uh, hands on them. Recently I was told that on a Spanish TV channel’s court show, a man was suing a woman for damages he received after having consensual sex with a woman who “forgot” she was wearing that cheese grater inside of her. I have a couple of questions about that. First, how long was that thing in there, and how do you forget that your vagina is armed and dangerous?

And secondly, is it really worth $5000 to go on TV and let the world know you got your pecker caught in a Veg-o-Matic?

I think not.

billwiley.blogspot.com by Bill Wiley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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"The" Teddy

When I was in kindergarten, there was a kid named Teddy who lived in a great big house. His family had a lot of money, and Teddy was quite outspoken. He wasn’t good at sharing, and he snapped at anyone who encroached his surroundings or tried to play with his many things.

That year around Christmastime, the Ideal Toy Company came out with the “It” toy of year. He was a mechanical plastic basset hound that came with its own leash. When you pulled on the leash, all these gears would start grinding, and Gaylord’s battery-operated four legs would start moving, so the dog could actually walk with you. Not very fast, mind you, but you could crawl right beside him. Gaylord also had a magnet hidden in his snout. When you walked him to his steel bone, it would attach to his snout, and it looked like the plastic pup could fetch and carry his own bone in his mouth. Gaylord could even walk backwards. He was totally cool.

Everyone wanted Gaylord. Even I, a cat person, wanted Gaylord. It was like having your very own robot. Gaylord, however, was out of most families’ budgets for toys. And I suppose most parents thought: let’s get him a real dog, or he already has a dog.

So right after Christmas break, our little school van pulled up to Teddy’s mansion, and out pops Teddy with his shiny new Gaylord in tow. At a snail’s pace, they proceeded to the van as we all lined up at the windows to see the actual “It” toy crawling in all his glory. Teddy beamed with pride and ignored the bus driver’s call to “pick up the dog and get on the bus. He was like the new Miss America parading down the runway. Look at me! Look at us! Look at what I have!

Finally, the bus driver got sick of this grandstanding and got out of the bus. Before she could reach Teddy though, he snatched up his pet dog, slipped past the driver and into the van.

“Nobody touches this dog! He’s MY GAYLORD!” He warned us. And the rest of the day, he guarded Gaylord as if he was the president, not letting anyone get near his prized plastic hound. No one was allowed to pull Gaylord’s leash or to walk with him or even get near him. “GET YOUR OWN!” Teddy would yell at anyone approaching his perimeter. Gaylord made this one-day appearance solely to make us jealous and was the star at show and tell that day, although by the time show and tell came around, we had already been shown and told more than we wanted.

Everyone was pretty sore about that Gaylord day. We tried not to show our envy, but Teddy already knew the truth. Teddy never seemed to mind that people hated him, or at the very least, had ill will toward him. He seemed to be happy in his assumption about himself that because he had more he was better and always right.

Teddy was always the attention seeker and a showoff. He picked fights with people and then blamed them for “starting it.” He cried when he didn’t get his way and bullied little girls, using words we’d never heard before. He got in trouble sometimes for interrupting the teacher to voice his opinion, and since all of us at kindergarten were given swimming lessons, Teddy was the first to show off that at age five he had already learned to do a back flip off the side of the pool. The owner of the school warned him, after the first back flip, never to do it again, and he was even paddled for disobeying that order and made to leave the pool and get dressed before swim time was over. He didn’t care. No one else could do a back flip. He never realized that it wasn’t that we couldn’t; it’s just that we wouldn’t.

One day during free swim I wandered into the deep end and looked down at the drain. There was someone down there, but they weren’t moving. He had black hair like Teddy. I called out to the school owner that someone was stuck down on the drain.

What happened after that was a blur. A man dived down to the bottom of the pool, and someone else yelled, “Everyone get out of the pool NOW” I watched adults jerk kids out of the pool by their arms. I saw the diver rise out of the water with unconscious Teddy, and I remember an ambulance coming and taking him off.

Later we learned that someone had seen Teddy do a back flip again, and apparently he banged his noggin on the side of the pool and was knocked unconscious and sank down to the bottom of the pool. No one talked about karma back then, but I don’t think I was the only one who thought he had it coming.

Teddy lived to tell about both the incident and all the presents he had gotten while he was in the hospital.

I think sometime afterward we got lectured again to remind us that back diving and “sailor diving” (where you dive into the pool head first with no arms over your head) were strictly prohibited, and that anyone caught doing that would lose their pool privileges for the remainder of the year.

There was no reward for the kid who discovered the little brat lying on the bottom of the pool. No thank-you letter from Teddy’s parents, certainly no Gaylord reward. We kind of just went about our business, continuing to hate Teddy for being rich, arrogant and a show-off.

I never knew what happened to Teddy. He probably grew up and went to private school and became successful and as rich as his parents. I scoured Google and Facebook without success to find him.

But when I was watching the Republican debate last week and saw Donald Trump shrugging, making faces, blaming others, calling people names and insisting the world revolved around him, I thought: Teddy. This is what Teddy turned into.

billwiley.blogspot.com by Bill Wiley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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How to Die and Make the News

Recently a five-year-old girl was killed when a large sturgeon jumped out of the Suwanee River and landed on top of her in the boat she was riding in. Tragic, indeed, to die so young and in such a bizarre way.

But frankly, I think sudden, unexpected, and quick death is the best way to go. Everyone wants to die in their sleep, but too often that is preceded by prolonged pain and suffering. Although sudden death is probably the worst case scenario for the friends and families of the victim, I’d sure choose it over, say, months or years of chemo, throwing up, wasting away, enduring pain, shitting myself and prolonged anguish every day. Here are some choice methods for quick deaths that have taken place, so keep these in mind should you be diagnosed with cancer of a major organ. I’m not suggesting you take a dive into a wood chipper, mind you. There are other ways.

Spring Forward, Fall Back. Three Palestinian suicide bombers died an hour before their planned demise and took no other victims, because the bombs had been set to go off by someone else on daylight savings time, and the bombers already switched their watches to standard time.

Isadora Duncan Wannabe/Safety Line Death. In Seattle, Jackson Roos was riding a zip line in his back yard when the safety line caught on his helmet and choked him to death.

When You Gotta Go, You Gotta Go. A man who couldn’t hold it any longer and went between subway cars in New York City to take a dump and died after falling onto the tracks and was crushed by speeding subway cars.

Isadora Duncan Wannabe II and III. A burka-wearing Muslim woman in Sydney was strangled when her scarf wrapped around the axle of the go-kart she was speeding around in and strangled her. In Turkey, another was beheaded doing the same thing.

Unsafe Sex. A man in the Ukraine had both legs severed, and his girlfriend was killed after being run over by a train while having sex on the tracks.

Where’s the Beef? In Brazil, a man sleeping next to his wife died of internal injuries after a 3,000 pound cow fell through his corrugated roof. The wife and cow were unharmed.

Leave it to Beaver. Attempting to take a selfie with a beaver, a Belarus man was killed when the beaver bit him, severing an artery in his leg.

I Did it for the Snake. In order to win a pet ball python, a 32-year-old Florida (where else?) man died after winning a cockroach-eating contest in 2012.

Wile E. Coyote Wannabe. A woman in England survived a 100-foot fall after a flock of sheep charged her and the motorcycle she was riding. The woman survived the fall but was struck and killed by the bike. She then held up a sign that read, “Ouch!”

Death by Pharrell Williams. 32-year-old, overjoyed non-seatbelt-wearing, car-selfie posting Courtney Sanford, not paying attention to her driving, wrote on Facebook from her car, “The happy song makes me so HAPPY!” seconds before plowing head-on into a recycling truck.

Going Up, Doctor? A physician, after boarding an elevator at a Texas hospital, was decapitated when his head got caught between elevator doors, and the car of the elevator ascended. Third floor: fabrics, notions, kitchenware, and torsos.

Is it True Blondes Have More Fun? While driving in England, a hairdresser was incinerated after hair bleach chemicals leaked out, forming a flammable gas. The woman then lit a cigarette.

Wile E. Coyote Wannabe II. James Heselden, the owner of the Segway Company, died after driving a Segway off a cliff in Yorkshire, England.

Bazooka Joe. A Ukrainian student had his face blown off after dipping a piece of gum into an explosive compound.

Death by Office Supply. You know those pneumatic lifts that raise and lower your desk chair at work? Once one exploded and sent metal chunks deep into the rectum of its Chinese victim, who bled to death. Sit down, make yourself comfortable.

What Kind of Proof? While testing a bullet-proof vest, a Denver man died after being stabbed through the vest into the heart by his uncle.

Look Out for that Windmill, Too.  A child was electrocuted while trying to retrieve golf pall at a miniature golf park from a small pond. An electric pump had malfunctioned.

There Once Was a Dog With a Bone.  A Limerick, Ireland woman died from an allergic reaction to the semen of a dog she just had sex with. It’s always nice when someone dies doing something they love.

Shit Happens. While attempting to repair a septic tank he’d entered, a Russian man drowned after inhaling its toxic fumes. Not to be outdone, his wife also fainted after inhaling the toxic gas, fell in and drowned. I hope the mortician charged extra.

On the Upside, He Stayed Fresh for Days Afterward. A 50 year old man from Surrey England, perished from autoerotic asphyxiation after wrapping himself in three rolls of plastic wrap.

Lucky Strike. A North Carolina man set himself on fire after accidentally drinking gasoline from a jar and then lighting a cigarette.

Where’s My Tip? A 67-year-old Texas man died of cardiac arrest while receiving a lap dance at a strip club.

Third Time’s a Charm. In 1995 after failing to kill himself with a shotgun blast first to the chest and then to the neck, an Austrailian man finally succeeded by aiming closer to his heart. What a trooper.

Wedgie from Hell. A 33-year-old man pulled the back of his stepfather’s underpants over his head. The elastic was so tight against his throat that he died of asphyxiation.

Death by Method Acting. Lee Halpin, a 27-year old documentary filmmaker on homelessness died of hypothermia while immersing himself in the lifestyle of his subjects in Newcastle, England.

Chicken Soup for the Soul. In 2012, a nursing home patient in Rio was killed when a nursing technician accidently hooked up her feeding tube to her IV. Her veins were then filled with soup. Must have been tough getting that matzo ball into those arteries.

Worse than Sturgeon. In Bolivia a drunken teenager committed suicide by jumping out of his canoe into a known piranha-infested river.

Worse than Piranha. And of course there was the case of 28-year-old Texan Tommie Woodward, who, ignoring the pleas of knowing people and a “No Swimming—Alligators!” sign, declared, “Fuck that alligator,” took a dive off a dock and was dragged down and ripped apart by the eleven-foot gator who was quietly hiding under the dock, waiting for him.

So after considering things a bit, maybe a little long-term suffering wouldn’t be such a bad thing. A little Demerol or morphine could make things a lot more tolerable. I’d like to go out the way dogs die when you put them down. One shot to make you unconscious, followed by an injection to stop the heart. Simple. Painless. And no underwear band to pry off from around your neck.

Source: unusualdeaths.com and others

billwiley.blogspot.com by Bill Wiley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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