The Universal Hot vs. Crazy Matrix - A Man's Guide To Women

Well the busy summer is just about over so it is time to check in again.  I recently saw this video on youtube, and although some might find offensive I think it is pretty damn funny and not entirely inaccurate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwbKYcBdVyk

(If this link does not work, just go to youtube.com and enter 'Universal Hot Crazy Matrix' into the search and choose the one that is 5:08 long.  You should watch this before you read any further.)

And while at first I thought it was just a hilarious bit, I began to wonder how accurate the chart it.  As the guy says this is not a static environment...women can jump from point to point on the chart on a moment's notice, so to get an accurate reading you have to obtain a cluster of data points and take the average.  So I devised a series of five questions with situations that a woman might find herself in along with four possible answers to each question.  We already know how hot a woman is in our mind on the typical 1-10 scale, so these questions are devised to determine the other axis...the 'Crazy' scale which runs from 4-10 because as the guy said, they are all at least a 4.  I had my wife take the test.  I already know that in my mind she is an 8 hot (9's are models and the only 10's are a few of the Victoria Secret girls).  After evaluating her answers on the test below, she came up with a stunning 4.8 on the crazy scale.  I scored a unicorn!  The four possible answers for each question are lettered 'A' through 'D', but keep in mind her answer can fall in between an A and a B, sort of like a B+ or A-.  Have your wife/girlfriend take the test and see how she sizes up using my 5 research questions:


1)  The first question deals with ‘Jealousy’.  I will provide you with a scenario.  Read all four answers provided and choose the answer accordingly which most closely describes you.  You can also say you are between answers…like ‘between B and C’.

You are walking in the mall with your dude.  Suddenly you hear an excited female voice call out your dude’s name and she comes running over with a big gooey smile on her face.  She is hot.  She is your dude’s ex and she is ignoring you and gushing on with your dude about how it is so great to see him.  Do you:

A)   Smile, reach out your hand and introduce yourself, and then excuse yourself saying you are going to step into the nearby Victoria Secret to do some shopping and let the two of them catch up for a couple minutes, completely secure in the knowledge that he is with YOU now and you have nothing to be jealous about because you would not be with him if you did not trust him.

 

B)   Stand there staring at your dude, waiting for him to recover from the awkwardness of the situation and introduce you to her, then politely listen to her mindless drivel until she gets the hint and moves on.  After she is gone you let it go, knowing that of course he isn’t a virgin and that past girlfriends are bound to pop up now and then.

 

C)   Stand there glaring at the two of them, tapping your toes impatiently, until you finally can’t take it anymore and grab his arm and lead him away from her.  You then spend the next 10 minutes grilling him on who that chick was, and how many more of his past wh*res you are going to have to be subjected to.

 

D)  You punch her in the face, and then him in the face…twice. 

2)  This next question has to do with the concept of levels of ‘Rage’.  Again I will give you a situation and the 4 possible outcomes.  Review carefully and give your answer to the best of your knowledge.

It is a late Saturday afternoon and you just got home from spending a ridiculous amount of money to get your hair/nails/eyebrows/whatever done.  You walk into the living room where your dude is watching NASCAR.  You stand there clearing your throat, waiting for him to notice you.  He doesn’t.  So you say:  “Hi honey, how’s the race going?”  He slowly turns his head to you.  With glazed eyes from 4 ½ hours of NASCAR he says:  “Huh?” and then turns back to the TV.  You:

A)   You remember that men do not care how big your eyebrows are, how you style your hair or what color your nails are painted.  You understand that unless the body part that you had worked on was your boobs, men do not have any interest.  You realize that we love you for you, not for your waxed eyebrows.  So you leave and go paint your toenails.

 

B)   You say:  “Hey!  How do you like my hair?”  Without looking he says:  “You look great honey!”  You mutter:  “Assh*le” under your breath and leave the room.  You then go paint your toenails and your daughter’s toenails.

 

C)   You march in front of the TV so he has to look at you.  When he tries to see around you, you grab the remote, shut off the TV and then throw the remote at him.  He ducks, says:  “WTF?” and you yell at him for 10 minutes about being an insensitive dick.  You run out of the room crying, and then go paint your toenails, your daughter’s toenails, and your son’s toenails.

 

D)  You punch him in the face, twice.  Then while he’s unconscious you paint his toenails.

 

3)  This next question has to do with the concept of ‘time’.  Again I will give you a situation and the 4 possible answers.  Review carefully and give your answer to the best of your knowledge.

It is 7:00 pm.  You are at your house getting ready for a night out with your dude.  The big concert you are seeing at the Xcel Center in St. Paul starts at 7:30 pm.  There is an opening band that he really wants to see, but you do not care about them in the least…in fact you dislike them.  They will play for one hour, from 7:30 pm to 8:30pm.  You are a 30 minutes drive from the arena so every minute you take from here on out is one less minute he gets to see of the opening band.  He has been ready for an hour and is patiently standing by the door, but periodically glancing at his watch and getting more antsy as time moves on.  You on the other hand have just gotten out of the shower.  You plug in your hair dryer and sparks fly out of it rendering it useless.  So you:

A)   Look at the clock and realize that you are going to be late and feel bad about it.  Even though you do not care for the opening band, you know that your dude likes them a lot so you decide that your hair does not matter in this situation.  You realize that he knows what you look like and knows how pretty you are with or without your hair blown or piles of make-up on.  So you quickly run a brush through your hair, throw on your clothes and rush out the door with him at 7:10 pm so he will get to see 50 minutes of the opener.

 

B)   You realize that time is running short, but you still want to look good.  Not taking into account that you are a half-hour drive away you think you have plenty of time to make the opener.  You forget about blow-drying your hair, but you take time to get your make-up on just right and pick out the right clothes and shoes.  You are ready at 7:30 pm, meaning he only gets to see the second half of the opener.

 

C)   You have no idea what time it is and you cannot understand why your dude is just standing by the door.  When the hair dryer fries you get pissed and demand he go to the neighbor’s house and borrow their dryer.  While he is gone, instead of getting dressed or do anything to facilitate you getting out of the door faster, you mix yourself a drink.  When he gets back with a dryer you take your usual sweet time and are finally ready at 8:00 pm, meaning your dude will completely miss the opening band.

 

D)  As always you have no idea what time it is and you do not care.  And why is your dude is just standing by the door?  Moron.  When the hair dryer blows you get pissed and demand he go to the store and buy you a new dryer.  While he is gone, instead of getting dressed or do anything to facilitate you getting out of the door faster, you mix yourself a drink…and then another…and then another.  By the time he gets back you are pretty drunk and do not care about the concert or getting there on time.  Having given up on seeing the opening band, he tries to rush you along so you won’t miss too much of the main act.  This really pisses you off so you get in a big fight and rip up the tickets and throw them in his face, thus ending the ‘night-out’.

 

4)  This next question has to do with drinking.  There are a million scenarios we could have used for this one, but I picked one that I am sure we are all familiar with.  Again I will give you the situation and the 4 possible answers.  Review carefully and give your answer to the best of your knowledge.

It is 7:30 pm on a Friday evening.  You have been at the bar with co-workers for happy-hour since 5:00 pm.  It is a festive crew and everyone is whooping it up, buying rounds of beer, doing shots, and getting drunker by the minute.  The people at the table next to you are even more loud, obnoxious and spilling beer all over the place.  Your boss is there.  A cute co-worker from the other side of the building has been eyeing you all night.  You are supposed to be on a late 9:00 pm date with a new guy you just met.  Your car is in the lot but you would probably blow over the .08 BAL legal limit if tested.  You:

A)   You have been drinking a glass of water between every beer/shot to keep you from drinking even more than you have been, and to eliminate any possibility of a hangover tomorrow.  You are a happy drunk instead of an angry drunk so after telling the loud people next to you a funny joke you politely ask them to move to the empty table over in the corner.  All evening you have been humorous, entertaining, telling good stories, listening attentively when others are telling stories, and buying your share of rounds…all of which impresses your boss.  You have been lightly flirting with the cute co-worker, and you invite him to join your fantasy football league so that you can get his phone# and email address.  You tell everyone you must call it a night, then call a cab to get home and get ready for your date.

 

B)   You started out drinking a couple of waters but now it is just alcohol.  You take a shot of tequila and shout over to the loud table next to you to shut up and quit spilling their damn beer.  You started off funny and entertaining, but have been getting louder and sloppier as the night wears on, knocking a beer over on the table which does not impress your boss.  You run your hands up and down the leg of the cute coworker and give him your phone# with a wink.  After some deliberation, the rest of the crew talks you into taking a cab instead of driving.  So you have one more shot and then take the cab home to get ready for your date.

 

C)   You have been drinking steadily since the moment you got there and are now hammered.  You stumble over to the loud people next to you, pick up one of their beers and dump it all over their table.  Then you come back laughing like it was the funniest thing anyone has ever done.  You order a round of shots and then laughingly tell the waitress to put it on your boss’s tab.  He is not only unimpressed, but getting concerned at your loud boorish behavior.  You knock over two beers, tell a few jokes that go nowhere while laughing loudly at them, and everyone is staring at you.  Your cute coworker excuses himself to go the bathroom so you follow him and try to make out with him at the entrance to the bathroom.  After getting rejected, you return to the table angry, down two more shots that you found on the table, grab your keys and announce that you have somewhere better to be.  Your boss demands that you give him your keys and he calls you a cab.  You get home, pass out, and never hear the door knocking for your date.

 

D)  You have been drinking 2 drinks for every 1 drink that everyone else is having.  You always have to be the drunkest and craziest at every public function that you attend.  You have not paid for a single drink and have knocked over almost as many as you have drank.  People are leaving just to get away from you.  You tell the cute co-worker that you want to f*ck his brains out right there in the bar.  He leaves.  As an angry drunk, you stumble over to the loud table next to you and tip it over sending beer and glass everywhere.  The manager is called and he runs over to kick you out of the bar.  You start screaming and yelling that you are going to sue him.  You tell him his bar sucks and then grab your keys to drive home.  Your boss tries to wrestle the keys away from you, but you vomit all down the front of his shirt.  Feeling renewed, you try to climb behind the bar to poor yourself a fresh drink.  The cops are called and you spend the night in detox, with charges pending.

 

5) The final question has to do with financial savvy.  This time I will give you 4 possible scenarios.  Review carefully and decided which one most closely describes you:

A)   You have a checking account and a savings account both with comfortable balances.  You have never paid a bill late or bounced a check in your life.  You have excellent credit.  You have several credit cards, but you never carry a balance.  You have a stocks & bonds portfolio earning money with your job’s HRA and/or independently.  You get a nice tax refund every year.  You have no problem lending people money, but you hate to owe anyone.  You use coupons when food shopping and try to shop on Wednesdays when it is double-coupon day.  You rarely impulse buy stuff just for the sake of buying it, unless it is something small like a CD.  On large purchases like TV’s or cars you research carefully for the best deal.  In short you are incredibly responsible with money.

 

B)   You have a checking account and a savings account both with something in each.  You sometimes pay bills late and have bounced a few checks.  You have fairly good credit.  You have several credit cards, but you carry a balance on one of them.  You have an HRA at work, but contribute just a small amount.  You break even on taxes every year.  You owe friends money, but they know you are good for it and you will pay them back eventually.  You do not use coupons but you are not against them if you happen to have one.  You love to shop for yourself within your means, but you own way more clothes than any one person needs.  On large purchases like TV’s or cars you do not research, but go with what you want.  In short you are somewhat responsible with money, but can be reckless at times.

 

C)   You have a minimal checking account and no savings account, often living paycheck to paycheck.  You sometimes pay your bills late and are no stranger to bouncing a check.  You have poor credit.  You have two credit cards, but they are maxed out.  You have no HRA or any financial plan for retirement.  You owe back taxes.  You owe all your friends money, to the point that they have stopped helping you out.  You think coupons are a waste of time.  You love to shop for yourself and do so in stores, online, and on the Home Shopping Network.  You judge your boyfriend by how much stuff he buys you.  Large purchases like TV’s or cars always get repossessed for lack of payment.  In short you are irresponsible with money to the point that it is a problem in your life.

 

D)  You have no checking account or savings account or credit cards because no bank will have you due to your abysmal credit score.  You always pay your bills late if at all.  Your poor credit score has a lot to do with the 2 times you have declared bankruptcy.  You just applied for a credit card that has a 28% interest rate, a $400 credit limit, and a $275 filing fee…just so you can get the $125 available credit to go shopping with.  You have zero financial plan for retirement and do not care.  The IRS is after you, and debt collectors are constantly calling you.  You owe everyone money, to the point that you have few friends left.  You hate coupons.  You are a shopping junkie.  You leach off your boyfriends until they wise up and dump you.  Large purchases like TV’s or cars are not an option since you do not have any money.  In short you are the worst with money to the point that you should be in jail and probably will be when the IRS catches up with you.

When you get your 5 answers you need to convert the letters to numbers.  Here is the conversion chart:

A = 4
A-/B+ = 5
B = 6
B-/C+ = 7
C = 8
C-/D+ = 9
D = 10

You then add up total of the five numbers and divide by 5.  That is where your woman falls on the 'Crazy' scale.  As I said my wife Nadia scored an impressive 4.8 so she is an 8/4.8 'Unicorn'.  If she was any less-crazy I might start wondering if she used to be a dude.  When finished with the test, she came up with a question for me however.  I don't what the hell she is trying to get at, but I will show it to you anyways:

I am trying to talk to my husband about something that I think is really important and hoping that he will let me vent and listen to me so that I will feel better about whatever it is.  His response is:

A)   Sits and listens to me until I am done venting and then asks how he can help.

 

B)   Listens for 1 minute and then throws a half-assed solution my way that I obviously already considered with no thought behind it just to shut me up.

 

C)   Pretends to be listening but is actually looking at his phone the whole time and has no idea what I am talking about.

 

D)  Starts playing ‘Smoke On The Water’ on his electric guitar with the amp cranked to ‘10’ to get me out of the room asap.

Munich, Germany

So picking up where my 8/16/13 blog entry ‘Austria’ left off, my girlfriend Lona and I left Vienna, Austria the night of 8/26/90 on an overnight train to Munich, Germany.  We were in the last month of a backpacking trip through Europe that started in Greece back in April and would not end until September in Ireland.  We were still a bit buzzed from spending the afternoon drinking in the park with three homeless people we had met in Vienna, and we were dead tired.  We could not find an empty sleeper car though so we gamely sat in our uncomfortable Eurail-pass seats and tried to get some sleep.  What helped was the scruffy guy sitting a few seats behind us in the back corner that offered us some hash.  Lona declined but I took a hit and then we went to sleep.  We were woken up at 4:30 am to the sounds of scary men in uniforms with guns stomping through our car.  It was the German border patrol and they were checking passports.  I was nervous, thinking about the hash and for a split-second thought of the acid I had brought from the USA to Europe 4 months earlier.  That was long gone though as we had eaten it all in Greece before leaving for Italy.  The guards stared sternly at us and our passports, stamped them and moved on.  The scruffy hash-guy was nowhere to be seen and I sleepily wondered what became of him.  We fell back asleep but not for long as we were only a couple hours from Munich.

We got off the train at 7 am on the morning of 8/27/90 and began searching for the cheap-hotel/youth-hostel information board that was in every train station.  Suddenly a lady ran up to us holding a fanny-pack and in broken English asked if it was ours.  HOLY F*CKING SHIT!  My fanny-pack containing both of our passports and several thousand dollars in travelers checks.  Everything that was of any value to us was in there and I cannot even fathom what we would have done had we lost it.  I’d had that thing strapped to my waist and tucked under my shirt day and night for much of the last 4 months, but for some reason I must have unsnapped it on the train, left it on our seat and walked away.  We thanked her profusely and then set about finding our next place to sleep.

After cashing in some of our travelers checks for Deutsch Marks we found a circus tent that offered foam rubber pads and blankets for $4 per night.  Interesting.  Gross, but interesting.  We were so elated though at having all of or money back after our near miss in the train station that we decided to splurge and get a real hotel room.  It was $53, but it had a shower and laundry and we felt like we were in heaven after our last few nights on the trains.  We took a shower and a nap and then pored over the Let’s Go Europe book that had been given to us in Zurich and decided how to spend our day.

First we took a city train to the Deutsches Museum.  As the world’s largest museum of space and technology it was freaking huge and cost us 2 Deutsch Marks each to get in.  We had a lunch of white sausages at the restaurant at the top of the museum, and then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around looking at the 28,000 various objects on display.  After a train ride back to our hotel we did our laundry and headed for the nearest outdoor beer hall.

We walked over to Lowenbraukeller, Lowenbrau’s version of the quintessential German beer hall:  good beer, great food, fun crowd, and awesome barmaids.  As an import-beer in the United States Lowenbrau gets a bad rap, but over there straight from the tap it was awesome.  The sausage-potato soup we ordered was absolutely delicious.  The clientele was drunk and festive.  And the beautiful, strong, blonde waitresses with ample breasts heaving out of the top of their tight German barmaid outfits while carrying ridiculously large trays covered with huge mugs of beer were incredible to watch.  It had all of the right ingredients for the perfect evening, except we were almost out of money and the banks were closed so we could not exchange any more travelers checks.  We had just enough Deutsch Marks left for two beers each and the soup.  Two beers was not enough for this wonderful place and we sat at our outdoor table wistfully looking around at all the happy drunk people.  Could we somehow finagle a beer or two out of a friendly face…latch onto a nice table where people were buying rounds and the table was covered with beers?

Suddenly to our left I heard some Americans talking.  Hmm…with a big charming smile I walked over to a table of six obviously American tourists and asked where they were from.  As was the custom when talking to strangers in Europe they started with the nearest large city, which was Chicago.  I brightened and said:  “Oh really?  Me too!”  Then the process of narrowing down the location continued when I said:  “Actually, I’m more up by Milwaukee, north of Chicago.”  “Oh really?  Us too!”, one of them proclaimed.  ‘Awesome’ I thought to myself.  Then one of them said:  “To be more specific, we’re from Waukesha, a suburb of Milwaukee.”  This was going better than I could have ever imagined.  “Me too!" I exclaimed.  "I went to Waukesha North High School!”  Then one of them said:  “Well, actually we’re from the little town of Wales, just west of Waukesha.”  Unf*cking believable.  “Me too!" I said.  As it turns out, they were three middle-aged couples from Wales, WI visiting Germany together.  Not only were we neighbors, but when I had my paper route as a kid I used to deliver the Milwaukee Journal to them.  Crazy…I was in a beer hall on the other side of the world talking to some ex-neighbors.  After all that I figured they would just have to invite a nice young couple like us to sit at their table and have beers with them.  Nope.  After a small chat, with us still standing there uninvited to sit down, they all just stared at us like they were waiting for us to walk away.  So we did.  Bummer.  ‘A-holes’ we thought.

Dejected at our failure of procuring any free beers, we went back to our table and nursed our final beer.  We had fun people watching but our night there ended when we sadly witnessed something I have never seen before or since.  The whole time we were there I simply could not get over the strength of the amazingly beautiful barmaids carrying HUGE trays around over their heads with a dozen gigantic beers in huge heavy glass mugs on each tray.  In addition to their strength I admired their prowess, zooming through the crowds with these things and then carefully unloading them at a table.  I happened to be watching one particularly buxom lass when suddenly one of the beers slipped off the tray as she was walking and crashed to the ground with a deafening ‘CRASH!’.  Beer and broken glass splashed everywhere.  Her tray was now off-balance though and the sudden loss of weight on one side of the tray caused the other side to dip down.  So then another beer slid off that edge and came crashing down with an equally large ‘CRASH!’ and splash…and then another and another…  By now everyone in the beer hall was looking at her in horror as the scene repeated itself over and over again until all 12 beers had taken turns committing suicide, jumping to their deaths off of the tray.  When the final beer came crashing down and the poor barmaid was left holding an empty tray, the place was utterly silent and I have never felt so bad for anyone.  I could not stand watching the poor woman’s distress anymore so when she ran to get a mop we left, not wanting to have to watch her clean up the huge pile of glass and beer.

We got to bed at 11:30 pm.  The next morning was 8/28/90 and our plan was to go to the city of Rosenheim for a festival that we had heard about.  It was not Oktoberfest time yet, but it was summer and there were a lot of festivals around Germany.  We decided we would spend the day there partying at the festival and then take an overnight train that night to Berlin.  So we ate our free breakfast and packed up all of our newly-laundered clothes thanks to our wonderful hotel and headed for the train station.  It was only a 45 minute train ride to Rosenheim, but we must have gotten bad information because when we got there we could not find any festival.  So we tried to get a room but there were not any rooms available anywhere.  I tried to call ahead from a telephone booth to Berlin to book us a room there for the night, but I could not seem to get through to anyone and it cost us $4 for nothing.  I got really mad and took it out on Lona, swearing and being a dick.  Sorry Lona.

So we got out our Let’s Go Europe and tried to figure out where to go next.  We looked at a few cities between us and Berlin, but knowing we had only scratched the surface of all the cool stuff to do in Munich we decided to take a train back there for more sightseeing.  First we went to St. Peter’s Church (Peterskirche) and climbed the 306 steps to the top of its 92 meter tall tower.  Built in 1150 it is Munich’s oldest church, it has eight clock-faces and great views of the city.  Then we made it over to the Glockenspiel for the 5 pm viewing of its show.  It has 43 bells and 32 life-size figures that re-enacts a couple of stories from the 1500’s.  After the 15 minute show we went to the Hofbrauhaus, one of Munich’s oldest beer halls founded in 1589.  We had dinner there and got fairly drunk on their incredible beer.

After many beers we headed to the train station for the 10 hour overnight train to Berlin.  The train was so packed though that there were no more empty seats.  We tried every car and could not find two seats together.  We headed to where the sleeper cars were and could not find any space there either so we just laid our backpacks down in the hallway and used them for pillows as we tried to sleep on the floor.  Luckily we were still buzzed because the floor was disgusting, full of sticky beer and spit and garbage.  We tried to get some sleep but it was loud, with drunk people stepping over/around/on us all night.  We finally woke up for good at 7 am in Berlin on 8/29/90.  We had a blast in Munich, but we were really looking forward to seeing the Wall in Berlin…or what was left of it as it had just come down on 11/9/89.  I will pick up there on a future blog entitled ‘Berlin, Germany’.

Last Weekend

So last Friday me, Nadia and our two kids Autumn and Jack drove from Minneapolis to Milwaukee for the weekend for our niece’s graduation and four out-of-the-ordinary things happened.

First of all, Friday June 6^th was the 13-year anniversary of my wife’s dad’s death.  He died while on vacation in Milwaukee, visiting his son’s family (my wife’s brother).  It was his wedding anniversary and he was at a Milwaukee Brewers game with his wife and their two young grandkids when he suddenly died of a heart attack in his seat.  Just horrible.  So half-way to Milwaukee my wife Nadia was commenting on how it was ironic and sad that we were going to visit her brother in Milwaukee on the same day that their dad had died there 13 years ago.  Suddenly on I-94 the car started making a horrible scraping sound.  We got off at the next exit which led to a small town and I pulled into the parking lot of the nearest gas station.  The front of the heat-shield under the engine had come loose and was scraping the ground.  Holy hell, we were in a small town in the middle of nowhere and I thought we were f*cked.

I went into the station and the kid behind the counter told me there was a garage just down the street.  We headed down the road and suddenly there was Steve’s Auto Shop there on the right.  Nadia’s dad’s name was Steve.  A nice young man with a ‘Steve Jr.’ patch on his chest was standing there almost as if he was waiting for us.  He told us to pull in and said to keep the car running, don’t even bother to get out.  He jacked the front end up, crawled underneath, replaced a couple of screws and said we were good to go.  He would not even let us give him any money.  It reminded me of the scene in ‘Groundhog Day’ when Bill Murray would change the flat tire for those old ladies.  It was totally crazy cool.  ‘Steve’ had saved us.

The second thing that happened was later that day when we had made it to Nadia’s brother’s house.  Our niece had gotten a bunch of checks for graduation presents and she had them all stacked on a table.  I walked by and happened to notice the top check was from a ‘Lucille Daggett’.  That name sounded familiar so I asked my sister-in-law who Lucille was.  She said it was her aunt.  I told her I come from a Daggett family on my grandmother’s side, Meryl Daggett.  We laughed at how wouldn’t it be funny if we were related.  She then asked her Dad in the next room about it and he came in and said Meryl sounded familiar.  Then we threw around some other familiar family names and then he said, wait, here’s a weird one from long ago:  ‘Dorcus’.  Oh my god, we have a Dorcus in our family tree too!  I am having my aunt send me a family tree, but it seems likely that we are all related by blood through the Daggett family…so my sister-in-law may also be my distant cousin or something.

The third thing that happened was Saturday night at the graduation party when my 2-year old son Jack and I were wrestling.  It was about 8 pm and we were just about to head back to our hotel soon.  I was on the couch and he was jumping all over me and the couch when suddenly Jack started crying.  I am not sure what exactly happened but he was crying and holding his arm.  He is normally pretty tough but he would not stop crying and was holding his arm close to his stomach and would not move it.  I thought I must have broken his arm so we rushed him to the nearest ER.  They took x-rays and nothing came up so after awhile a doctor came in and said his elbow is probably just dislocated.  Then she just snapped it right back in place.  Totally better.  Jack was back to his ol’ happy self like it never happened.  Phew!  We did not get back to hotel until 11pm, but were so glad it was nothing serious.

The fourth thing also involved Jack.  For some reason throughout the whole weekend he kept telling us when he had to pee.  So we would rush him to the bathroom, take off his diaper and he would go in the potty.  He had gone in the potty-chair at home every once in awhile, but this was the entire weekend!  He was so excited, and so were we.  He did not pee in his diaper all weekend.  So when we got back on Sunday we stopped and bought him a pack of Spider-Man big-boy underpants and now he is out of diapers.  He potty-trained himself over the weekend!

Anyways, I hope you all had a good weekend and I hope this one coming up is even better!  I’m going to see Bob Weir’s band Ratdog tonight at the Northrop Auditorium…and looking forward to hanging out with my friends Mitch Marshall, Thor Ekblom, and my old friend Travelin’ Dave who is driving up from Milwaukee.

Living With One Arm

Two weeks ago I had rotator cuff surgery on my right shoulder.  The pictures above are step-by-step photos taken during the surgery as the tear in the rotator cuff is being sewn up.  I first hurt it about 5 years ago while playing softball for a local Minneapolis beer-league team, the Gonghitters.  We were an awesome, fun bunch of friends and we had a lot of good times and even managed to win a few ballgames.  One night while playing in center-field I tried to throw out a runner in a close game and I felt my shoulder pop as I had given it all I had on the throw.  Raging shoulder pain and my right arm was dead.  For the rest of the game and the season I was relegated to playing first base.  It hurt but as long as I did not make any throws or try to reach something from a high cupboard I could live with it.

 

Coincidentally later that summer I injured my left shoulder during a routine drinking accident.  I was at a family reunion in Amherst, WI playing ‘kick-the-can’ with all my fun, cool cousins at my aunt and uncle’s farm.  It was about 1 a.m. and while running around with a huge beer mug full of cheap wine in my left hand I slipped on the wet grass.  My feet went out from under me while rounding a corner and my main concern was saving the wine.  As my feet slid out to the right my arm went out to the left and I landed flush on my left side with my arm straight out.  My beer mug was still in hand resting on the ground, vertically with wine intact.  Phew.  I was drunk but vaguely aware of intense pain in my left shoulder.  The left was not as bad as the right, but now both shoulders were shot.

 

When we got back to Minneapolis I went to a doctor and was prescribed physical therapy.  Over the last 5 years I would rehab the shoulders for awhile, they would feel better, but then the first throw of a ball or pulling my kids on a sled and the shoulder(s) would be shot again.  More rehab in my gym at work, I would feel better for awhile, then throw them out again.  I finally decided this April to have them re-looked at by a doctor.  X-rays determined the left side had a torn labrum, and the right side had a torn labrum and rotator cuff damage.  A follow-up MRI on the right side revealed the rotator cuff was indeed torn.  With my 2 and 4 year old kids starting to get into sports, I decided I wanted to be able to play ball with them and it was time for surgery.  I would have surgery on the right side, and then rehab both sides with physical therapy.

 

The surgery was fine but I do not remember much of the 3 days afterwards as I was zonked out on Oxycontin and Percocet.  While sitting home on the couch those first few days I made the mistake of watching some of my dvr’d TV shows, including the season finale of ‘The Following’ which I now have no recollection of.  I do not enjoy being a zombie as well as the constipation that goes along with it (is that why zombies in real life are so angry?) so I quit the pills cold turkey after the third day.  The constipation and fogginess ended but I went through a withdrawal period complete with hot flashes, nausea and massive headaches.

 

That is all over with now but in the weeks since I have had to wear a sling on my right arm 24 hours a day, taking it off only for showers and my daily arm exercises.  I cannot lay down flat with it on so I have to sleep in a recliner chair surrounded by pillows.  I have to wear it for one full month before it comes off permanently and I start physical therapy.  My wife Nadia and the kids have been great, picking up the slack on all the chores around the house while Dad slums around.  I had taken 2+ weeks off of work, but after 8 days I got bored of sitting around the house watching soap operas and decided to come back to work.  (On that note, ‘Days Of Our Lives’ has gotten really juicy lately...I am so glad that jerk Nick is finally dead...or is he?!).

 

Learning to be left-handed sucks though.  Showering and getting dressed for work takes twice as long.  Brushing my teeth, shaving, combing my hair, wiping my butt, eating...it all sucks doing it with the wrong hand.  I have gotten used to it, but a few things still remain a challenge.  The little things that require two hands like tying my shoes, reading the kids a story, putting on a coat or buttoning my shirts and jeans are maddening.  I now only wear pullover shirts (a challenge in itself) and have abandoned jeans in favor of my black Hugh Hefner lounge pants with an elastic waist band.  Putting on my seatbelt or belting my kids is a struggle and has turned me into a contortionist.  Typing is no picnic and after 8 hours at work sitting in front of a computer my shoulder gets a bit sore.  A lot of little things that I normally take for granted have now become work.

 

I have also found out that it is hard to pee with one hand.  Try it guys, peeing with only your left hand.  Usually I hold my shirt up with left hand while my right hand does all the heavy lifting, shaking, etc.  It is difficult with just one hand to pull down the front of my lounge pants, pull out my weiner and hold my shirt up while peeing.  Just this morning here at work my shirt slipped down and fell in front of my weiner while it was going.  The onrushing pee soaked my shirt, splashed down onto my pants and while trying to get everything back in its right place I got pee all over my hand as well.  Gross.  I washed my hand in the sink and used water and a paper towel to mop up all the pee on my clothes, but my clothes are all wet.  I made a dash for my desk and have not moved since.

 

As I said typing is a pain and this story is taking awhile.  My clothes are starting to dry off now and I should get back to work, so I think I will close this entry.  All in all this surgery and the follow-up care has not been nearly as bad as I thought.  You do what you got to do and move on.  It has made me appreciate both my arms and how hard life must be for amputees.  I am looking forward to getting the sling off in two weeks and get on with rehab, but in the meantime I may start bringing an extra pair of pants to work...

1994 New Years Eve w/The Radiators In Colorado

A couple of days ago I was at work listening to the cd’s of a 12/30/94 Radiators show at the Double Diamond in Aspen, Colorado.  I had a huge smile on my face thinking about the whole trip surrounding that concert and the next night's concert.  I was there with my then-wife Lona, my best-'man’ at my first wedding Debbie Hentches, and my buddy Sean Morrison.  This is one of the great things about live bootlegs...you can pop a cd into your boom-box at work, strap on your headphones, kick back with your feet up on your desk and suddenly you are right back at the show 20 years earlier with a rush of memories flooding your brain.  Again, I do not condone any of the stuff we did, but it happened.

With the death of Bill Graham in 1991, the Grateful Dead's extravagant annual New Year’s Eve shows in California had come to an end.  Needing a new outlet to satisfy our NYE craving for music and good times we turned our attention to the Radiators.  We had made the journey down to New Orleans in 1992 and 1993 seeing the Rads there at Tipitinas both years, but in 1994 the band decided to mix it up and do their NYE run of shows in Colorado.  They were in Vail on the 28^th, Aspen the 29^th and 30^th and then Denver for the grand finale on the 31^st.

Well I guess we were going to Colorado then, so I asked my mom for a snowboard for Christmas.  I had always wanted to learn how and what better place than Colorado?  Lona and I put out feelers to see who wanted to come with.  Our friend Debbie who lived nearby us in Madison agreed to come, and all it took was a quick phone call to carefree Sean up in Minneapolis for him to say:  “Of course, when are you picking me up?”  With family Christmas obligations and a long road-trip between us and Colorado in uncertain weather, we decided we would just go to the 12/30 and 12/31 shows.

Debbie was on probation for a DWI and was not supposed to be driving but she had the best car.  So on Thursday morning 12/29/94, Lona and I piled into Debbie’s car with my snowboard strapped to the side and we made the 4-hour trip to Minneapolis to pick up Sean.  After dinking around in Minneapolis for awhile we finally began the 1100 mile trek to Aspen with Sean's snowboard strapped to the car as well.  Taking turns driving we arrived in Denver around 11am on the morning of the 30^th where we stopped for lunch and a beer.  We still had another 200 miles up to Aspen and after getting into the mountains it began snowing heavily.  Night fell quickly and we had a ways to go as the travel was extremely slow in the mountains.  We were worried about missing the show and we got lost, but eventually we made it to Aspen an hour before show time.

We were sitting in Debbie’s car, parked in downtown Aspen chilling out and thinking about getting something to eat.  Deb was in the driver’s seat, Sean riding shotgun, and Lona and I in the back.  Sean cracked his window and lit up a joint.  The area was well lit with people walking by on the sidewalk right past the front of the car.  It made me nervous but Sean did not seem to care and was just happily puffing away when two cops with cowboy hats suddenly walked up and asked Sean to step out of the car.  Oh no...Sean had a long history with cops, and Debbie was sitting in the driver’s seat with no license.  Thankfully the cops were totally cool.  They told Sean to put it out and be more discreet in the future.  We happily ran across the street into the Double Diamond bar and had a great time dancing to the Radiators and bouncing around on the super-bouncy floor.  Was it really a trampoline-like floor or did I just imagine that?  I still do not know.

The concert ran into the wee hours of the morning, so instead of paying for a hotel that we would barely use we decided to drive the 200 miles back down to Denver after the concert.  The sun was up as we approached the signs off of I-70 for the famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre just 10 miles west of Denver.  None of us had ever been there, but we had all heard of it of course as the place had been hallowed grounds for the Grateful Dead for many years.  We decided to check it out and in the middle of winter on a Saturday morning the place was completely devoid of people.  We figured out how to get in and wandered around in awe at the beauty and history of the place.  Eventually we made it to the stage where on the new-fallen fresh snow that carpeted everything we proceeded to jam out on our air-guitars, playing for 9,000 imaginary fans who were going wild.  It was great thinking about how we were standing and ‘jamming’ on the same stage that the Beatles and the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix and countless other heroes had also played on.

After a bit we got back on the road to Denver, although we were actually heading to the awesome house of the awesome parents of my long-time awesome friend Cire Wonhsak.  I have known Cire since I was 3 years old when our dad’s first met at their jobs at General Electric in Schenectady, NY.  Even though we have not lived in the same city since I was 10 years old we have remained in contact ever since, drifting in and out of each other’s lives around the country at opportune moments.  This was one of those moments.  His parents lived in a huge house in a very nice suburb of Denver, and they were out of town for the weekend.

We managed to find Cire’s house later that morning on 12/31/94.  It was large and amazing and Cire made us feel welcome.  After getting some much needed sleep we were ready for the Radiators that night at the Ogden Theater in Denver.  Spoiled by our spacious surrounding which sure beat sleeping in the car as we had done the past two nights, we were in for even a bigger surprise as Cire told us he got us a limo to the show that night!  His new girlfriend Amy Yamasaki arrived early that evening and the night began.  It would be Cire and Amy's first and last date.

Cire had one more surprise for us.  After the six of us piled into the limo he pulled out a small glass vile of liquid LSD.  Clean...pure...the real deal.  It was a full vial which is about 100 drops, or hits, of acid.  We all had plastic cups of beer, so Cire handed the precious vial to me first to carefully pour a drop into my beer and pass it on.  In the dim light and shaky ride however we hit a bump and I accidentally dumped the whole vial into my beer.  ‘Holy f*cking sh*t’ pretty much summed up the mood as I confessed to Cire that most of the expensive contents now resided in my beer glass.  We held the vial up to a dome light and sure enough, it was almost empty.  What now?  It is not like we could save what had now become the world’s most expensive beer for another time.  We all stared at the mysterious liquid for awhile and then made a solemn decision.  We did not know what else to do so the six of us split the whole beer.

After taking turns passing the beer around and nervously taking sips until it was gone, we arrived at the Ogden Theater.  It was an extremely cold night and supposed to get much colder and snowy.  The limo driver assured us though that he would be waiting right outside after the concert so we left our jackets in the limo.  It was a fantastic show and of course very trippy with the massive amounts of acid running through our brains.  I do not remember seeing much of Cire, Amy, Sean, Debbie or Lona during the show though as I wandered around the beautiful theater taking in the whole scene while riding the musical wave of the Radiators.

After the show the limo was nowhere to be found.  It was insanely cold and we were wearing nothing but jeans and tee-shirts.  We waited in the lobby of the theater for the limo as long as possible, but eventually we got kicked out.  The cold was weird in that I knew it was incredibly cold, but I just willed my body to not be bothered by it.  I was 28 years old and was beginning to figure 'life-stuff' out, including the fact that everything seems to work out if you let it.  So I just decided to relax, and...let everything work out.  This was before cell-phones were standard, so we went across the street to a gas station and waited inside while Cire started making phone calls.  It took awhile but eventually he got through, just in time as the store-clerk was getting sick of us and was trying to kick us out.  When the driver showed up Cire gave him a piece of his mind, but we finally made it back to the house.

We spent the rest of that night/morning hanging out in the large downstairs basement/rec-room with the trippy green carpet and the big TV with the video games.  Unfortunately Amy started losing it after awhile and was not happy with the whole scene.  It was her first time tripping and not only was the acid strong, but I guess with the large amount that we all took it shook her that it was seemingly never-ending.  I felt bad for Eric having to deal with that while he himself was tripping, but eventually we all went to sleep for awhile.  The acid was strong but it was so clean (not cut with speed or any other crap) that we could go to sleep, get some rest and wake up still tripping.

A couple hours later that morning on New Year's Day Sean woke me up and said he wanted to go snowboarding.  He said he felt fine and that he would drive.  I was nervous as I had never boarded before and we were in the Rocky f*cking Mountains.  I was still feeling the acid and at first resisted but Sean is hard to so say no to.  Plus now that we had been tripping so long, that state of mind was now the norm so I decided to just go with the flow.  After a bit of convincing Lona and Debbie agreed to come as well and we all piled into the car and headed for the Arapahoe Basin about 60 miles west of Denver.  The girls decided they would just stay in the lodge and have a few drinks by the roaring fireplace, but Sean and I boarded all day.

I do not know if it was the acid that made it possible, but snowboarding for the first time ever in the Rockies while trying to come down from 15-20 hits of liquid acid seemed fairly easy.  I just stood on the board and let gravity do the work.  Sean tried to teach me a few things but the words he was saying did not seem to transfer into actual advice that I could follow so I just nodded and let nature and instinct take its course.  It was simply awesome and we had a blast.  I had no major crashes and was feeling pretty good about myself until we decided to head back down for good and meet up with the girls in the lodge.  While boarding on a snow-covered wooden walkway from one section of the hill to another I cracked my knee hard on a wooden railing and it ballooned up like a bowling ball.  Sean had to help me to the lodge and when we got inside he carried me around on his back.  We had a drink with the girls and then headed back to Cire's place.

That night we headed to a local bar to watch the Minnesota Vikings take on the Chicago Bears in the Wildcard round of the playoffs.  Amy was long gone and was never coming back, so it was just the five of us.  I felt bad that I'd had a hand in ending Cire/Amy, but he was cool and we had a great time that night eating bar food, drinking pitchers of beer and playing pool.  The only downer was the fact that the Vikings were 6-point favorites and ended up losing to the Bears 35-18.  Dammit.  Seemingly every year of my 48 years of life the Vikings have invented some new cruel way to break my heart.

We went back to Eric's place, got a good night's sleep and the next morning on 1/2/95 we loaded up the car for the trip back to Minneapolis and Madison.  We still felt the acid a little bit that third day after taking it, but we could tell that it was finally wearing off and we were feeling somewhat normal.  We made it back to Minneapolis, dropped off Sean and then headed home for Madison.

Just seconds ago I got off the phone with Sean who still lives in Minneapolis but I have not seen in a couple of years.  We had many laughs over the memories of that trip and vowed to get together soon.  I hope that we do, but with my young kids and his young grandkids time is precious and limited.  I love Sean and that crazy carefree time of my life.  Thank you to the Radiators and my friends for making those times possible. 

Bathtub Mishap #1

A few nights ago I was giving my 4-year old daughter Autumn and my 2-year old son Jack a bath.  No problem.  I have done this at least two nights a week for the last four years.  It is a little more challenging with two kids involved, but no big deal.  The biggest challenge is getting the little nudists into the tub.  They love running around the house naked at top speed yelling and laughing and making us chase them around.  Once we get them in the tub things can get pretty wet and sometimes they fight over the same toys but mostly bath-time is fun time.  This night was a little different though.

We were about half-way through bath-time.  I was just getting ready to end play-time and start wash-time.  Autumn was on the left half of the tub and Jack on the right.  Suddenly Jack stands up, leans back, and with hands on hips he makes the perfect little-boy fountain you see in rich people’s fancy yards and gardens.  He was pointed in the direction of his sister, landing a few inches short of where she was sitting.  Jack was looking down admiring the nice stream but Autumn was not so appreciative.  Her jaw hung open and for a few moments she just stared while the steady stream did not quite hit her but was splashing her the nonetheless.

And then:  “Daddy!  Daddy!!” she yelled as she looked up pleading for help.  She obviously did not care for the unsolicited golden shower/bath she was receiving from her brother.  I sprang into action and grabbed Jack’s little weiner with my left hand, not hard but pinching off the stream while I picked him up with my right arm.  I did a quick 180 and plopped his naked butt on his own ‘big-boy pottie’ and released his weiner.  I hoped he would continue peeing into his fancy little pottie which sings to him when the two metal contacts in the bottom of it are connected by liquid.  As per the rules I would then reward him with a chocolate chip and I would be hero-daddy for my quick-thinking and lightning-fast reflexes.

No.  That is not what happened.  I have not had to clip off my own stream for probably a year or two and I guess I forgot what it was like.  Usually it happens when you are peeing somewhere that you are not supposed to be like on a tree at the golf course, or on a dumpster in the alley out behind the bar.  As you know guys, when someone comes along and you have to instantly cut it off it is very disconcerting, slightly painful, and not a fun experience.  Well that is what Jack was going through and he was extremely pissed off, no pun intended.

One minute he was happily relieving himself and showing off his penile prowess to his sister, and the next minute his father is pinching said penis, ending his relief.  When I plopped him on the pottie he had a furious look on his face as he eyes went from his weiner, up to me, back down to his weiner, back up to me.  He simply could not believe what I had done to him and he burst out crying in anger, pain and frustration.  I implored him to keep on peeing and I would give him a chocolate chip.  He just screamed all the louder because nothing more would come out.  I had pinched it off and that was that.  I had ruined it for him.

Just then Autumn of course stood up and started dancing up and down in the pee-water, lifting one foot up and then the other in an effort to get away from the water while screaming “Ewww, Daddy, Daddy!!”  This was all going horribly wrong.  My wife Nadia appeared in the hallway staring at the situation that I had quickly turned into mayhem.  Both kids were screaming as she sprung into action, picking up Jack to calm him down while I pulled the plug on the bathtub.  We drained out all the pee-water and started the bath over.  Lesson learned…next time I will remove Autumn from the bathtub, not Jack.  And more importantly:  never grab another person’s weiner unless they really want it to be grabbed.

Tummy Tuck?

Tummy tuck?  No.  Did I finally got that prosthetic cotton belly-button that I have always been craving?  No.  A double C-section?  No.  Triple hernia surgery?  Yes.  The surgeon went in and found two more than he was expecting.  They knew that I had an umbilical/belly-button hernia, but when they got in there they found two more hernias.  After an 'Air Mishap' that occurred six weeks ago on a flight from Minneapolis to New Orleans as well as countless flare-ups over the years, I knew I had hernias that eventually needed to be fixed.  I have complained about it at every routine check-up for the last 30 years.  After years of turning my head and coughing while he/she plays with my balls though, they still always told me that I did not have a hernia other than in my belly-button.

It all started in about 8th or 9th grade.  I was participating in the Presidential Fitness Challenge at school where you had to do a series of events in gym class like push ups and pull ups and running and stuff.  When you reach certain goals you get points, with the eventual goal of getting the Presidential Physical Fitness Award patch.  One day in gym class I was doing the sit-ups test when suddenly I felt a weird pain down in my gut.  I lifted my shirt up and there was a golf-ball sized lump sticking up out of my stomach!  What the hell?!  I took a quick look around to see if anybody noticed, and then pushed it back in.  I was embarrassed and thought I was some sort of a freak.  I had no idea what had happened and did not tell anybody about it.

The last straw (we'll call it 'Air Mishap #7') was Friday, 1/17/14 while on board a flight from Minneapolis to New Orleans to see my favorite band the Radiator's now-annual anniversary gigs at Tipitinas.  As a private pilot I am of course fascinated by flying and always have to have the window seat.  So we were rolling down the runway on take-off and I was the third seat in sitting next to two strangers.  I was leaning forward looking out the window when suddenly it happened...a hernia on my left side popped out.

Normally when that happens I just stand up, arch my back as much as I can, push the thing back in my stomach and I'm good.  But this was not normal.  I was in an airliner lifting off the ground at 160 mph, my seat in the forward-upright position and the overhead bin directly above my head.  I could not stand up or arch my back, so I just pressed on the bulge and hung on for dear life.  The pain was immense.  It felt like someone's fist was in my stomach grabbing and twisting my intestines.  I could feel the muscles moving around and when I lifted my shirt to look I could see my skin rippling and undulating.  It looked like there was an alien in me trying to claw it's way out.

For about 5 minutes I fought with the hernia and stared at the red flight-attendant call button overhead.  Was my hernia strangulating?  Was I going to have to make the plane turn around and land back in Minneapolis?  Would I be on the news?  Could I do that?  There was no way I could endure this for 2 hours.  Sweating and gritting my teeth and wondering what I should do, it finally stopped all of a sudden.  Phew!  No more leaning forward to look out the window for the rest of the trip...and I knew I had to get this thing fixed soon.

The surgery was set for Friday morning, 2/21/14, and I had to be at the hospital at 6:10am.  Due to the blizzard that Minneapolis got hammered with the previous 16 hours, I got up at 4:30am to blow the 12" of fresh snow out of my driveway so I could get to the hospital.  It was actually several feet deep over much of the driveway due to the high winds and drifting snow.  I threw out my back in the process but managed to finish by 5:30am, leaving just enough time for a quick shower and off to the hospital.  I was not supposed to eat or drink anything before the surgery, but I drank some shower water without thinking.  Habit.  On the third big gulp though I remembered and spat it out.

I could barely walk due to my bad back, but I shuffled into the hospital and began the process.  I got naked, donned the blue paper dress, had meetings with nurses, vital signs taken, belly shaved, met the anesthesiologist, IV installed in my hand, doctor came in and drew circles on my stomach, and then they finally led me to the operating room.  I was actually looking forward to the surgery so that my back could get some relief from the follow-up pain meds.  They strapped me down on what resembled a cross and the next thing I knew it was a couple hours later and they were waking me up.  Very strange losing time instantly like that.  I thought about my anesthesiologist friend Cire Wonhsak.

That was a week ago.  The pain pills helped for the three days that I stayed on them, but the back pain is still there and my front side feels like the Minnesota Vikings have relocated their new stadium site to my stomach and have started construction on it.  Also, after a couple of days the bruising and blood in my abdomen began migrating south to my nether regions.  Yes, my penis and balls are purple and swollen.  Normally I wear boxers, but I needed more support so I had to send my wife Nadia out to the store to buy me some Fruit Of The Loom briefs.

I went to lunch with Mitch Marshall and Ted Booker yesterday at Joey “mother*cking” D's.  It is a greasy Chicago-style hot dog/pizza joint on the south-side of Minneapolis.  With the abdominal bloating and constipation I figured their food would clear me right out.  I have seen better men than me taken down hard by Joey D’s though, so when it came time to order I chickened out and just went with a bland burger and fries.  It was great seeing my best buds, except hanging with those two always means a lot of laughs which kills a guy with stomach stitches.  Love hurts.

All in all though surgery is not so bad.  No more hernias I hope, and now I need to decide what to fix next.  The nerve damage in my left elbow from a drinking accident that leaves my fingers numb whenever I bend my arm for very long...or the torn rotator cuff and labrum in my right shoulder I got from playing softball...or the torn lateral meniscus in my right knee that I got from playing kickball.  It's hell being 47 years old and falling apart.  But maybe if I hold out long enough I can get some bionic parts!  I loved The Six Million Dollar Man when I was kid...so awesome...I always wanted to be that man, going on OSI missions with Jaime Sommers and hanging with our bionic dog Max.

Air Mishap #6

As some of you may remember from my earlier blog entries (‘Air Mishap #’s 1 through 5’, dated 8/16/11 through 2/17/12) for better or for worse I have my pilots license and have had a few ‘incidents’ in the air.  Although all of those incidents that I wrote about happened while I was piloting the plane, a recent incident I had while flying with the good people of AirTran got me thinking about other incidents in the air while flying commercial.  I will tell you about a couple of them…mishap #6 in this blog entry and #7 in a future entry.

Air Mishap #6 occurred on a Monday morning, May 4^th, 1998.  My girlfriend at the time Mugsy and I had just seen our favorite band the Radiators five nights in a row in New Orleans, as we were down there for the great annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.  We saw the Radiators three nights at Tipitinas, then Saturday night at the House Of Blues, and then finally in their traditional Sunday evening spot closing out Jazzfest on the Polaroid Stage.  As I learned over the years, Jazzfest is a marathon not a sprint.  The tendency when you get down there all excited for the festivities is to hit it hard right out of the gate, but you have to pace yourself.  After years of practice I had settled into the following routine:  Wake up at 11am and head to the Jazzfest fairgrounds for a day’s worth of incredible local and national musical acts on the dozen or so stages scattered around the racetrack while drinking tons of water and stuffing myself silly with local fare from the hundreds of awesome food booths.  Deep breath.  Head back to the hotel at 7pm.  Sleep till 10pm.  Then head out for the nighttime activities which consists of more incredible music at all of the clubs around town.  Get back to the hotel at 6am.  Sleep till 11am.  Repeat.

So Mugsy and I had run the musical gauntlet and survived a week in New Orleans.  It was time to drag our wearing bones on to our Northwest Airlines flight and head back home to Minneapolis on the other end of the Mississippi River.  We got up Monday morning, took a cab from our hotel to the airport, and we were running late so we pulled an O.J running through the airport.  Remember when “pulling an O.J.” meant running through the airport jumping over people’s luggage trying to make your plane?  “Go O.J. go!”  Now it means to viciously murder someone.  Ahh how times change.  Anyways, we had not had time for anything to eat so on the way to our gate we quickly stepped in to a magazine store and grabbed a Nestle Crunch candy bar.  Our flight was already boarding when we got there so we jumped in line and made our way to our seats.

We were on the left side of the plane, halfway back, in seats A & B with the aisle next to us.  I had the window seat and Mugsy the aisle seat.  Mugsy peeled open the wrapper on the Nestle Crunch bar and placed it on the armrest between us.  It was already broken into a bunch of small pieces.  As the plane taxied to the runway we watched the flight attendant explain to us where the exits were and how our seat belts worked while we took turns reaching down and grabbing chunks of the candy bar.  Eventually we were cleared for takeoff and started to accelerate down the runway.  I was intently watching out the window and munching on a bite of the candy when suddenly I felt Mugsy violently jabbing my arm.

“What the hell?!” I said, and turned around to see her muffling a scream with one hand and pointing down to the Nestle bar with the other.  I looked down at the chocolate and wrapper.  The two of us had eaten most of the candy bar, but what was left was writhing with half-inch long white maggots.  My stomach flipped in revulsion, first at the sight of the maggots and then at the realization that we had probably eaten a bunch of them along with the chocolate.  Come to think of it, it did taste a little funny but neither of us had noticed at the time as our attention was elsewhere while we were eating the chunks.

The plane was just lifting off and Mugsy quickly unbuckled her belt with no problems, thanks no doubt to the thorough instructions she had just received from the stewardess.  With one hand still over her mouth trying to hold back the puke, she began running down the aisle heading for the bathroom in the back of the plane.  She got about halfway there when a stewardess stood up and loudly yelled:  “Miss!  You have to take your seat!!”  Everyone in the back half of the plane was staring at her but Mugsy kept on running for the bathroom.  She almost got there when the stewardess intercepted her, blocking the aisle and demanding she go back to her seat.  Mugsy shouted:  “You have a choice!  I’m either going to puke on you or in the bathroom!”  The stewardess quickly stepped aside and Mugsy made it just in time, puking her guts out in the toilet.

While this bit of drama was going on I grabbed the pile of wrapper, chocolate and maggots and rolled it all up into a ball and stuffed it into a barf bag.  I too felt a bit queasy but managed to keep everything down.  The stewardess ran to my seat asking what the hell was going on and I thrust the barf bag at her and told her to throw it out.  She grabbed it and I explained that it was full of maggots, and then she looked like she was going to puke.  Mugsy came back after a bit, pale and shaken and we sat there trying not to think about the maggots.  The rest of the flight though I kept picturing myself reaching down, grabbing a maggoty chunk of chocolate, placing it in my mouth, slowly chewing the chocolate and maggots into mush, and then with a swallow introducing them to their grave that was my stomach.

If any of you know Mugsy, you know that she was not one to take things quietly and rationally.  When we got home she wanted to call the newspapers, the TV stations, the President of the United States if need be and demand justice.  She wanted to sue Nestle for hundreds of millions of dollars for emotional damage.  Irreparable pain and suffering.  I thought it was kind of cool that we had eaten maggots and lived, but Mugsy was out for blood.  So I called Nestle and tried to explain what it was like living with an angered Mugsy.  Living with a happy Mugsy was hard enough but the alternative was a very hard cross to bear.

After many phone calls and hours of being on hold and days of negotiating with them, we finally came to an agreement whereby they would refund us the cost of our airplane tickets.  It was not hundreds of millions of dollars, but I got Mugsy to agree to the $250 that we would each get.  Even though I had paid for both tickets, I gave her $250 out of the $500 that we received from Nestle so she could have some semblance of satisfaction.  I was amazed that we received even a dime, so I was more than happy to get $250 out of the deal.  I would eat a pile of maggots for $250 any day.   On that note, lesson learned:  always look before you eat.