Driving to Marion Correctional Institute on a cold Saturday afternoon, I played Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” in my head. Besides “Jailhouse Rock,” it was the only prison song I knew. 

Who’s to say if this helped lighten my anxiety. All I knew was that sometime ago with the church I’d nonchalantly signed up for my first prison visit, thinking little that that day of service might actually come. And now – tada! - here it was. 

Our car carried us mind-numbingly up 23, toward our dreaded destination. Jess sat passenger, warming up her voice with the songs on the radio. She’d agreed to sing at the prison church service and would be the only female on stage. For all I knew, it’d been months since the prisoners had last laid eyes on a woman. I chose to think about Johnny Cash, instead.  

I dimly remember having a slightly selfish motive for going. Somehow, someway during the trip, I hoped to build more compassion for the downtrodden and for humanity, in general. What better way to do so than to toss myself into the center of the dregs of society.

Once there, I half-expected the prison chapel to be a dingy gymnasium. There’d be a makeshift stage and some plastic chairs set outside a beat-up, chain-linked fence for containing the prisoners. I imagined the guards occasionally clubbing a prisoner on the head if one tried to reach through and grab a piece of one of us. Innocently, having never set foot in a prison, I knew only this kind of scene. Perhaps, it came from too many movies, from the various concoctions of jailhouse life Hollywood has served up over the years. 

But, things looked a bit differently. The prison chaplain, a quiet bearded priest with a collar and a ball of keys on his hip, led us through several prison gates, closing each behind us with a definitive clank. Through the network of iron bars, I watched for signs of chaos or take-over attempts. I saw no prison riots, no Hannibal Lectors, either. Oh, you had the prison bars, the razor wire, strung along the compoud walls like deadly tinsle, and all of that, but minus these minor distratctions, the prison chapel looked, well, like a church. The room was spacious, the ceiling rose several feet, and an aisle split two lines of wooden pews.

Hmm…where do the prisoners sit? I saw no fences, no cages, nor anything else to keep us safely secluded.  Maybe they’d come chained together in black and white striped singlets, as was George Clooney and his buddies in Brother Where Art Thou? and forced to sit in the back with stern-faced guards in sunglasses standing over them.

“How many women you got coming?” asked Pastor Buddy, the prison pastor, a bald, friendly man who had used a cart to help transport our band equipment across the prison.

“About five or six,” I said, unsure. Although I tried to act indifferent, my eyes must have given away my thoughts: why do you ask?

“They won’t hurt anyone. Most of the guys are Christians. But keep the women seated inside of you. Some like to ask for phone numbers and addresses. Don’t give it to them.”

 Don’t worry, Pastor Buddy, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Before I could raise the long list of other concerns I suddenly had, such as prisoner-to-guard ratios and where the best place to go incase of a tornado, Pastor Buddy had moved on, leaving me alone to consider the increasing horror of my thoughts.

For the next half hour, I sat stiffly in the front pew, watching Jess and the band set up on stage. I considered the endless dangerous possiblilites of sharing a pew with convicted criminals. Would they start pushing me around about where I live? I shivered at the thought, or was it from the icey draft from the open barred windows.

Then, I worked through several scenerios of muscle-bulging inmates, smiling menacingly as they carried Jess away. Trying hard to squelch any instinctual thoughts of every-man-for-himself, I turned my focus to how, if the occassion called for it, I might protect my wife. My muscles suddenly felt useless and weak. Chaos was inevitable.

Like Jason Bourne, I scanned the place for useful objects to defend Jess with – a music stand, a microphone, my belt? How much more effortlessly could an inmate turn the same objects on me? I wouldn’t stand a chance. Suddenly, I pictured myself on the ground, helpless, arms covering my face, at the receiving end of a keyboard, a crash of dissonate chords breaking the air with each blow.

But then something gave me a moment’s relief: on my side, would be the adrenaline of pants-wetting fear. This promised an element of superhuman strength to my flick of a body, the kind that gives a toddler the strength to lift a car off his pinned parent. Wild with fright – this was my only means of defense.

To get a grip, I went exploring. The service was scheduled to start in an hour. To set up, the band and I had arrived two hours before the other church volunteers, so besides us and a few nice volunteers in navy pants, the room was empty.

In the back of the chapel, I found some christian literature available for the inmates. I leafed through a few pamphlets. Then, before venturing out, I poked my head outside the room. I scanned the solid block walls and linoleum flooring of the hallway to make sure no prisoners had got loose before it was time. I did not want to end up a human bargaining chip for some desperate criminal trying to bust out of the Big House. Hey, I must admit, stereotypes I didn’t even know I had filled my head. I’d seen Shawshank Redemption and various scenes of Cool-hand Luke; I though I was wise to the going-ons in prison.  

My hallway adventure lasted only a minute before I made my way back to the safety of the chapel room. In the doorway, I ran into a bright, cheerful man who I’ll call Roy. He was on his way out, without a trace of fear in his face. This put me slightly at ease. I laughed inside, feeling ridiculous for overreacting all this time.

“Hi, I’m Roy,” he said, offering a friendly handshake.  Roy was lanky and bald, and wore a tightly-trimmed gray beard with a matching gray sweatshirt. His face beamed. He wore navy pants, so right away I pegged him for a volunteer. Although, I did not know what church he was with. 

I introduced myself and reached for his extended hand.

“I’m looking forward to worshipping with you today,” he said.

“Yeah, me too,” I said, awkwardly.

Then, he took off happily down the hallway in search of a friend.

Nearly fifteen minutes had passed before I saw my new friend Roy again, lounging in a pew and chatting with other volunteers in navy pants. I joined Roy and his friends, took a seat in the pew behind them. Roy turned and gave me a warm smile, which instantly included me into the group. I got some more questions ready to ask him, such as what church he went to? and, how long has he served in the prison ministry?

I figured, as long as I stuck with Roy, when the prisoners rolled in, I’d be okay. He really seemed to know his way around. 

“I’ve never been to prison before,” I confessed (like he couldn’t tell).

My words surprised me halfway out my mouth, because suddenly something clicked. I understood something I had missed earlier.

“What’d it feel like when those gates closed behind you? Weird, huh?” said Roy.

“Yeah, it was kind of weird…”

Wait a minute…navy blue pants… Nearly everyone around me has them on. I’m a volunteer, and I’m not wearing navy blue pants. What’s Roy’s tag say: I-N-M-A-T-E…ooh!

“I’ve been here sixteen years,” said Roy. “When I first got here, it was a very dark place. Of course, I was a heathen then. But God is doing great things in here. You can feel his Spirit at work.”

A young man sat next to me, clutching a Columbus State University class scheduling booklet.

“I get out in ninty days,” he said.

He planned to go to college and get a degree in business management. Then he told me about his plans to one day open a ministry for the youth called 3-to-6 – the peak time when kids got into the most trouble. Nonprofit businesses need managers, too.

“But the main goal is to save souls,” he said.

When the rest of the church finally arrived, many wore the same nervous, unsure faces I must have worn. Won’t they be surprised to learn about the good men who live here, harmless, loving, ready to serve, filled with a thirst for God, identifiable only by their navy pants and their broken hearts.

Nonetheless, my heart went out to my fellow church members. I sympathized with them as they absorbed their cold new surroundings with wide eyes and uneasy smiles, trying to pick out the inmates from the rest of us, trying to crowd out the piercing question with an open mind: Are the prisoners dangerous?   

“Can I get you some coffee? water?” Roy asked me.

“No, I’m okay, Roy. But thanks for the offer.”

Categories: Christianity, Community
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Kick-the-Can is a sore subject for me. I have nothing against the game itself. No, all kids should play it; there should be city leagues. 

But when I dare tap into the shadows of my elementary years, I see a sad sight, a kid, his eyes boiling with tears beneath a hot head of curly brown hair. Scuffed knees top his grass-stained socks, and his shorts are much too short by today’s standards. Once again, head hanging, he drags himself across the summer grass, the endless stretch of connecting neighborhood backyards, in route to the wounded milk jug. It is caved in on one side, where just moments ago a foot had met the plastic with mean force, echoing like a gunshot between the houses and throughout his soul. Again, all his prisoners are free, and his hard work is ruined - an endless, ruthless cycle.

With all the neighbor kids back in hiding, the world is a ghost town. The birds in the trees chirp occassionally to break the twighlight silence only to mock him. Tears in the kid’s eyes smear together the rich summer colors with a liquid worn out sky, as he goes after the confounded milk jug. This time they had booted it clear to Mrs. Moon’s. She’d probably come out and yell at him for setting foot on her grass. 

For two hours now he has been it. Now, two options lay before him: (1) he can retrieve the milk jug, set it back in its place, and go back to work again, collecting his escaped prisoners; or, (2) he can run the risk of being called a baby, quit, and go inside. If I know the kid as well as I think I do, he will choose the latter. 

This is how it was for me growing up. My neighborhood pumped out a brood of mean-spirited kids who shaved and would knock endlessly at my door to get me, a first-grader, to play kick-the-can.

“Come on,” they’d say, “we need only one more player.” Through my screen door, they’d disarm me with pleasantries and warm smiles, insisting we were friends and I’d be well liked – because that’s all I ever wanted, anyway – if I’d just come out and play this once. This time it’d be different. Besides, I’d be selfish not to play, because if I didn’t, mysteriously, no one else could. And, of course, young and naive as I was, I’d play. And two minutes later, I’d be forever it.     

Kick-the-can was a big deal in our neighborhood. I don’t know who invented the game. Perhaps its orgins are from the Deep Depression, when all that anyone owned was an old can. As for us, we prefered an empty milk carton, because it got good hang time. Also, I vaguely remember the older neighbor kids having me stick my nose in it and breathe the carton’s spoiled insides – “Take a whiff,” I can still hear them saying - so there may have been other more sinister reasons why.   

Kick-the-can is not a complex sport. A can is placed in a designated spot, preferably, a nice dirt spot in someone’ s yard, but any agreed upon spot will do.  The person who is it (I’ll call him the ”jailer”) (which usually was me for hours on end) guards the can with his life. Everybody else hides behind houses, cars, bushes, or if they’re a good climber, in a well foliaged tree. The jailer (which, again, was usually me) must round up everyone he sees in hiding and put him in jail.  This is done by calling out the name of the spotted person and where he is hidden, and running like a maniac to jump the can and complete the prison sentence before some jerk kicks the can half way to China. For example: “I see Jason! Jump the can!” Once all have been captured, someone else gets to be it.

Whenever the can is kicked, everyone runs free, hollering and taunting the jailer all the way to their new hiding places. Say twenty kids are playing and nineteen are imprisoned, if the twentieth man kicks the can, everyone is free, the game starts afresh, and the jailer (which was always me) experiences the soul-wrenching feeling of having two hours of his hard labor, not to mention his only chance at freedom, crumble into oblivion, right before his eyes.

Sometimes, if the neighborhood kids were feeling particularly merciless, they’d form a terrible, human kick-the-can train. Appearing suddenly from behind a house or an oversized pine tree, they would rush the can. Of course, the jailer must shout the name of and jump the can for each person he sees. Impossible. Under such conditions, if the fourth of fifth person were unable to make it, the ”caboose” would, and off to Mrs. Moon’s yard I’d go, building up the courage to quit. 

The kick-the-can train was only one of the many strategies used against me. Another good one that particularly irked me involved switching shirts or hats and running behind the house to the opposite corner from where I saw them. They’d emerge about five minutes later after I’d shouted their name: “That was Scott you saw. I’ve been hiding here the whole time. And plus, this is a red shirt, see? It’s different than the blue one you saw. Now, close your eyes and count to fifty while I go hide again.”       

Besides this, we played many more neighborhood games. But whatever the game, they would all end in the same result: me crying and going inside. As a matter of fact, now that I think about it at the ripe old age of 32, that probably was the game. Anyway, my point is, if you’re a counselor and you want to get to the bottom of my psychological problems, kick-the-can is probably a good place to start.

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The oval is dead. Yes, you heard me right – the oval is no longer. And if you think that’s bad, the diamond’s dead, too. I first suspected they’d been running with the wrong crowd and had come to the typical tragic ending. Ended up, however, they were victims of a certain group’s desperate need to do something. 

My wife, a very reliable source and highly esteemed preschool teacher, told me the sad news just the other day. Her job is to know and love everything there is to know about shapes (and storytime). “What’s this, kids?” “Oball…(in unison)”

So you can imagine the gasps throughout the preschool halls the morning the moms arrived, kids in tow, and announced how if their child were to mark ”oval” for its corresponding shape on the kindergarten entrance exam, they’d wind up infinitely wrong, and perhaps a year older than their graduating class. Nope – now it’s called an ellipse. And the diamond, a rhombus.

The hard, cold imaginary truth of the matter is that this is what happens when you get a bunch of shape experts in the same room together. Realizing the shape field has experienced next to zero major achievements since King Tut’s day, when the wheel was dubbed the circle, and, therefore, their paychecks might be in danger, they did what any normal shape experts would do: they held a convention.

Someone needed to invent a need for change - and fast. Otherwise, what in the world were they getting paid for? No, seriously, what?   

 Since all the good shapes were taken, the assembly of minds unamiously agreed that the only real route to take was to rename a couple well-known ones. If anything, this would at least confuse the general public, not to mention the up and coming kindergartners, long enough to secure their jobs for the next few years (and, fingers crossed, open the opportunity for a nice Time Magazine write-up). Plus, the ellipse and rhombus sound a heck of a lot smarter than an oval or a dumb old diamond.

Well, this is all fine and well, I guess. A shape expert’s gotta make a living, too. But it dawned on me that I suddenly stood outside the with-it crowd. I no longer knew my shapes. I was an oval living in an ellipse generation. And, chances were, from old habit, I’ll still go on calling an oval an oval, only to be met, no doubt, by snickers and secretive giggles from those young lads in the know. I will be labeled with the folks who either can’t help or insist on calling a movie a picture show, or an automobile a horseless carriage.       

Worse yet, what about cards?! The Queen of diamonds is now the Queen of rhombuses (or rhombi; whatever its plural form). It’s dreadful; we are witnessing the extinction of those who call a spade a spade! This here was too much. I sat down, took some deep breathes. My head swam with the sense of a world spun out of control. Suddenly even my neighborhood felt strangely unfamiliar, like I’d slipped into a deep coma and woken up on Mars. I panicked, fearing for the triangle’s life, then the circle’s. Where does the terrible momentum of shape renaming stop? And, what about America’s votes on the matter? Does democracy only reach so far?

 Soon they’ll probably change my name. So, to avoid forever getting stuck with something ridiculous, I must get a jump on these guys. For now on, I declare my name to officially be Eoj (which is Joe spelled backwards) Oval (in memory of) Diamond (also, in memory of), Sr. (incase there’s ever a junior).   

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According to Yahoo! News, a man was recently spotted on Mars. This of course was made possible only through the highly technological advancements of satellite camera. The headlines of this real life ”My Favorite Maritan” chilling on the red terrain, made my pulse quicken and my imagination run wild. How’d he get there? Are there more of them? And, more importantly, does he love or hate President Bush?

So you can imagine the let down once I discovered that, in this special case, it turned out to be nothing more than a rock formation that just so happened to look like a man. Yes, this lame fact had been confirmed by ”scientists.” As the imaginations of my Martian-crazed mind lay dashed to pieces on the rigid red rocks of Science, a new, and perhaps more mysterious set of questions presented themselves: who are these so-called “scientists” referred to in nearly every serious news article?

In order to get to the bottom of this, I decided, on the spot, to conduct a make-believe study involving billions of imaginary tax dollars. I lounged back in my desk chair, threw ball with my very persistant 9lb dog, and turned my brain loose on getting the inside scoop on this slippery tribe of brainiacs. This of course required little to zero research on my part, seeing I really hate research.

Scientists – the term sounds so vague, yet so profound. At the thought, I am immediately wisked away to the picture of lab-coated men in spectacles and clipboards, huddled around a tall cylinder glass casing. Inside is Einstein’s brain, suspended in a preserving liquid of sorts, kept alive through, you guessed it, Science. A network of tubes hooked to the famous brain feeds directly into a massive mainframe that burps out only the purest forms of intelligence in regular intervals, such as the devastating ripple effect that would certainly transpire if Burger King really did stop selling the Whopper.    

The weird thing is, any latest news article about the discovery of an unusual back molar found in a remote field somewhere overseas that further proves -”according to scientists” -that man evolved from kangaroos, or the like, sends me nodding hypnotically along, powerless against the scientists’ rule of my mind. Unusual teeth equals evidence of evolution – check. Well then, I thought, if that’s the case, I know how the scientists could cut travel costs. If it’s unusual teeth they’re after, they need look no further than the closest county fair.  

Anyway, in my head, I decided to do a little experiment of my own, to see if these scientific claims wielded the same power on the minds of others. I went around making outlandish claims to all sorts of people. For example, I’d confidently state something like,”Bananas are really cocunuts in disguise.” If challenged, I’d simply say, “according to scientists.” 

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Case closed. “I mean, if ’scientists’ said it…”

I tried the same experiment using God, who made the scientists, in place of ”scientists”. “You know, according to God, the first man was fashioned from dirt,” I’d say. Surprisingly, this didn’t convince anyone. Instead, I was met with a fusillade of questions.

“Which god? you’re god? how do you know your god is the right god? And you can’t tell me the words of the Bible have remained unchanged, untampered with all these years, what with human error, not to mention corruption.”

“I’m just kidding,” I’d respond, “I meant to say, ‘according to scientists’.”

“Well, in that case…”      

On another occasion, I noticed that the scientists can be real pranksters.  Why, just the other morning, I checked the news and was briefly paralyzed with horror as the headlines read something to the effect of ASTROID HEADS FOR EARTH, and below that, “scientists say”. It will arrive next Tuesday, and, if you’ve seen the movies Deep Impact and Armaggedon, you know what that means. The fact that the death asteroid would miss earth by millions of miles (which, apparantly, is quite close when you’re dealing with space), was cleverly hidden in the middle of the story - after I’d called off work and put in several calls to Ben Afleck about what to do. “False alarm,” I called to my wife. 

Billions of asteroids fire through space everyday. Why bring it up, unless to frighten the pajama pants off the reader? Practically speaking, if you’re going to talk killer, earthbound astroids, the least the scientists could do is rattle off the vastly unlikey odds that it might nip a polar ice cap or something. And start by saying, “Earth’s okay. Everyone will live.” No, the scientists have a different agenda: devilish pranks.    

And which scientists? All scientists? Every single one? It seems they always all agree. This is amazing. We should pattern world peace after these guys. You’d think there’d be at least one renegade, lounged in back, cooly blowing smoke rings, who’d occasionally object to a theory or something. (ex. “I don’t believe Barium is an element.”) 

Anyway, after all the hard thinking about scientists, my head started to ache. I’d learned some very interesting things about scientists today. And they are very smart, indeed. There’s no arguing that. But I thought of something the scientists probably never even considered: what if the Martians are made of rock?  

Categories: Mystery, Science
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“What was that?” Jess asked, oh, around 3am. “Was it the wind?” The wind had plagued Jess’s mind ever since earlier that morning when she read in the news that”violent winds” were on their way. ”Violent winds…oh no…” I’d responded, feigning fear.

“You heard it, too?” I shot back, still in a partial coma. Before Jess confirmed it, I half-thought I had dreamed the thud against our house. To best describe it, it sounded like the UPS man had hurled a package against our front door.

So, I got out of bed to better analyze the situation. The pine trees in the backyard were going nuts. In the midst of the angriest wind I’d ever known, the treetops acted as though, at any minute, they could snap off and blow to China. Was the three little pigs wolf outside? I wondered if any shingles were left on my roof. 

In front, banging furiously at our front door step, a strip of siding hung by a string from the exterior of our house, as if a mighty gorilla had been working at it all night. Somehow, it held on all through the night, a miracle in itself. 

Not about to tackle a home repair project at three in the morning, I went back to bed feeling uneasy, listening to the wind slap against our bedroom window, feeling like one of the disciples stuck in the middle of the stormy Sea of Galilee, while Jesus snoozed away somewhere below deck. Wake up, Jesus, before our house blows away! 

The next morning I groggily drug myself out of bed to go fetch our trashcan that had blown into the street. I was just happy it was still in the vicinity. The wind had died down just a tad, but it still blew mean and with a Siberian sharpness. I moved to the side of the house, stepping over the articles of my neighbor’s trash now in my lawn (hey, I didn’t know they brushed with Colgate!), where I gathered a particulary large cardboard box I knew to be missing from the trashcan.

I went back inside thankful that I had made it through the wind storm of January ’08. I had learned a hard lesson, indeed: violent winds ain’t no joke.   

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Saturday evening, Jess accidentally knocked herself out on the pills her doctor had prescribed for some back pain she’d been having. That sneaky blinding pink “MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS” label on the pill bottle, slipped right past our noses (when’d that get there?) and without warning, Jess soon nodded off into a deep sleep that’d make Rip Van Winkle jealous. Our conversation leading up to the intoxicated moment went something like this: “You want to play a game?” “Sure…zzz…”

 If you don’t count the tv remote, it was good that Jess had refrained from operating heavy machinery. However, she did drive home on the stuff, and I half-wanted to check her car for dings, animal fur, or perhaps, an embedded lawn ornament.

Abandoned and left with nothing to do, I went right to work at mindlessly zoning out on random fixtures in the living room. When that grew tiring, I thought it might be good to check Jess’ pulse and wait for clear signs of breathing, just to be safe. I did the same with our dog, Phoebe, who lay beside her as though she, too, had gotten into Jess’ pills. The silent, sad walls of the house began to get to me, however, and though Jess and Pheobe snoozed away within arm’s length, they seemed a million miles away. Part of me couldn’t help but feel a little insulted that no one invited me to the 24 hour sleep-a-thon.

After an instance of self-pity, I adjusted to the realization that I should be happy because the night was mine to do whatever I pleased - as long as I did it very quietly, so not to wake the house. But the quiet was too much. For a split moment, I flashbacked to high school library. My chest tightened. I sensed that all too familiar pinned up adolescent rambunctousness. The urge to suddenly bust out laughing and wing paper wads at someone swept over me. Then the fear - I felt eyes on me. Mrs. Matthews was here, I knew it. Any second, she’d emerge from her hiding place, out of the deep dark shadows of the book shelves, and kick me out for another two weeks for being “too loud.”

At the risk of going completely insane with high school flashbacks and the maddening silence, I flipped on the tv. Jess was out for the night, anyway, no matter what ruckus I caused. Instinctively, I landed on the History Channel, which, to my delight, happened to be showing MonsterQuest, a documentary featuring daring scientists and cameramen tracking the jungles of developing countries, hot on the trail of the most notorious mythical creatures, such as the Lochness Monster, Big Foot, and Danny Devito. This noble expedition is done, of course, in the name of Science and, the less advertised, to get to the bottom of what the heck’s in the water that’s making the locals crazy.

But, if you ask me, I don’t think the locals are crazy at all. In fact, they are quite brilliant. What’s better to boost the economy of a poverty-stricken country than the monster tour biz? There’s always a market – man’s innate curiosity – and there’s practically no overhead, just a map and a perhaps a monkey in a mask.

And that may be precisely what we had on our hands here. This particular episode starred ”the real hobbit”, named after the loveable, tiny furry-footed creatures in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings novel triology. In short, the real hobbit is described as an orange-haired, three-to-four foot tall monkey-like creature with a human face (perhaps Gilbert Gottfried’s) whose favorite hide out is the thick jungles of Sumatra, Indonesia. According to eyewitnesses, it has the exact dimensions of the native orangutan – but that’s not what it is! Okay?!

Sometimes, I guess, this baby Chewbaca comes out and says hi to the villagers in his own special monkey-man sort of way by grabbing at roots and bolting up the overgrown side of the nearest dormant volcano when spotted. He’s not particularly violent or cheerful. In fact, the locals call him Orang Pendak, which means “we don’t know what he is or where he came from, but he’s very dull and could certainly use a shave.”

Before the expedition began, the scientists hired the local monster tourguide who had a booth set up right next to the “COCONUT DRINKS FOR 3 BANANAS OR TWO CHICKENS” stand guy. (By the looks of the place, I guessed barter system.) He didn’t speak a lick of English, but in his perfectly urban American translated voice, he went into wild detail about his confrontation with the real hobbit. Upon seeing him, the tourguide froze, he recalled. The real hobbit, probably startled by the monster tourguide bursting in on him in his jungle bathroom, did the only thing a real hobbit knows how: he grabbed at roots and made for the dead volcano.      

To my knowledge, no one’s actually ever held a conversation with the real hobbit. But the general consensus is that he is very intelligent. This was largely confirmed by the way the camera now and then panned in on the treetops, implying that the real hobbit could be cleverly hiding up there, watching (and eating popcorn) as his own search party stumbled through the jungle below calling out his name as if for a lost dog.

Turned out, after a half hour or so of watching these guys tromp around, stopping occasionally to comment on caches of animal dung, I realized the real hobbit was about as exciting as a hermit in need of a haircut. The Orang Pendak was rather a bore. I mean, he could have at least earned the reputation of raiding the village and terrorizing some chickens, or something. But he wouldn’t even give us this.  

To be honest, I didn’t stick around for the second half of MonsterQuest to find out if the scientists ever found him. Chances are they didn’t. Otherwise we’d have heard about it in the news by now, probably on E!, posing as Michael Jackson’s newest pet, or something. But if the scientists ever decide to go after it again, and they need something to slow the little guy down to make him an easier catch, I know where they can find some stuff that beats any tranquilizer out there on the market today.

“Right, Jess?”

“Zzz…” 

Categories: Mystery, Nature, Television, Travel
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God takes on a different light when your head’s buried inside the toilet.

The stomach flu of the century struck my system sometime after lunch on Friday. At first it disguised itself as nothing more than perhaps an office thermostat malfunction (stuck at around 100 degrees) and a small upset stomach. 

“Are you hot?” I’d ask my co-workers.

“Yeah, it’s a little warm,” one would say, nonchalantly, tugging at the front of his shirt just to humor me.

A little warm? You mean it doesn’t feel to you like someone is holding a lit match to your neck? – I didn’t say this, but this is how it felt to me. 

Four hours later, I might as well have swallowed dynamite. I rocked back and forth on all fours moaning with cold sweats, cheek-to-cheek with the toilet seat, which I wished I’d cleaned last week like I was supposed to. My skull throbbed and somehow my senses mysteriously heightened to superhero proportions. All light, even invisible light, tore at my retinas. Even the gentlest brush against the skin felt like a million paper cuts. Everything hurt and smelled bad. Everything threw my stomach into a mess of pain. Crouched in the fetal position like a sick and useless Peter Parker, I tuned my newly acquired supersonic hearing to the conversation of the bugs outside: “Bzzz…bzzz…it’s cold out here.” “Yeah…bzzz…look a light!”  

I was convinced the end was near. And I welcomed it.

It’s interesting to note the quick progression of theology that drifts through the mind of someone who, believing God is good, thinks he’s dying. At first, attempting to gain a proper prospective regarding this violent illness, I accurately nailed down the right source for the hostile feelings I was having toward involuntary retching. No, man, you got it all wrong. It is not vomiting that you hate. No, no, it is the thing that makes you vomit that you hate. (A good part of the disillusionment of the sickness played out with me talking to myself.)

This new line of thinking helped set me straight. I held my head up with the cold, hard porcelain of the toilet seat and  marveled at another one of God’s little miracles, so often overlooked. NEW APPRECIATED FACT: God, in all His infinite wisdom, installed in the human genetic make-up a remarkable mechanism that tells the body when to expel bad Chinese food or any other poison from the body.

I considered this miracle for an extra minute before I thanked God in my own special way by cranking my mouth open wider than I had ever dreamed (or hoped). I watched firsthand as God’s perfect plan unfolded into action. The first round of flu escaped my body in a warm wondrous rush that sent my spine crashing to my sternum. Then again. Five more times for good measure. My heart miraculously did not explode. Praise, God…Bleh…

“Joe…do you need anything?” asked a meek voice. The words drifted in like a weird dream. To my half-coherent skull, it sounded distant and small, like how a speaking mouse might sound. Married a little less than two years, Jess had never seen this ugly side of me before. She didn’t quite know what to do with me. And neither did I.

Instead of answering the mouse voice, I did a sort of backwards half sumersault - a skill involving nothing more than letting go of the toilet - into the bedroom closet (which connects to the bathroom), where I lay in an icy sweat, mumbling the jabber of the seriously sick.

On my back, in the closet, among the nauseous light that burned like the Saharan sun, and the tossing shadows, I resumed my theological studies. During a brief session in between stomach cramps, I moved past considering God’s creations, namely the gag reflex, and on to the mysteries of pointless suffering.

Does this terrible pain inside my stomach count as pointless suffering? And, why would a good God allow it? After who knows how long, the answers to these questions failed to materialize. This of course was of no surprise, given the fact that brilliant philosophers and theologians have been wrestling with these very questions for centuries with no definite conclusions. Chances were, a man, lying in his closet, half mad with the flu was an unlikely candidate for stumbling upon any keys to discovery.

It didn’t matter anymore anyway, because the second wave of flu came on strong and mean. The pain buried itself deep inside my gut and the world spun around like the Gravitron at the Ohio State fair. No more questions, no more thoughts. Everything seemed to boil away. Suddenly, Reality became quite simple; there was me, the pain and God. 

In some circles, my prayer that night doubtfully qualifies as a prayer at all. But it counted to me, because I really, really meant it, and I really, really meant it to be heard: “God, help me!”   

When the sickness finally lifted, it goes without saying that I had not exactly joined the ranks of, say, St Augustine, Calvin or Kierkegaard. However, I was able to establish three certainties: (1) God knows how to win my full and undivided attention; (2) God is good, for He created Gatorade for such occasions; and (3) If it is possible, I always, always prefer less excruciating pain in my interactions with God – please?!

Categories: Christianity, Life
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Jess and I ate very little before heading to Friday night volleyball at the church. As a result, an hour on the court burned up all my energy, turned me into a mindless zombie behind the net. Jess felt it, too, except whereas mine targeted mainly my central nervous system, her condition hit a little lower, rounding out into monster hunger pains.

With one more game left to be played, Jess and I couldn’t do it. Somehow it seemed an impossible task. So we decided to ditch out a little early, dragging our pathetic selves to the car. Instead of driving directly to urgent care, we stopped at the nearest restaurant.

“Panera closes at nine,” informed the man in the parking lot, who seemed to have materialized out of the thin air. A Panera employee? He lugged an invisible colored garbage bag stuffed with a variety of Panera bread, like he’d just looted the place and was now making his get away. Ruled by our stomachs, we didn’t make much of it and took the man’s word for it. So we turned around and ran through our other options.

We ended up at Max and Erma’s across the way because it was close and they have the best Mexican chicken tortilla soup. Or so we thought.

That night, the service was painfully slow. Our waitress was overwhelmed and apologized  a lot to her tables. (In her defense, I’d say she’d been triple sat – you servers can relate.) An adjacent couple in a booth received their Diet Pepsis but not until after they’d finished their meal. The couple was not happy. Earlier, the woman had ordered the Mexican chicken tortilla soup and promptly sent it back. This should have been our first sign that the chefs in back were having an equally hard time as our server. On its late return, the soup still apparently was short on chicken. Giving up, she managed to digest it as it was.

 Finally, just as we started to get frightened that we’d never see the food we ordered, a never-seen-before server came flying around the corner with our soup and half turkey sandwich. The sandwich looked shirveled and bite-sized. The bottom was soggy and the lettuce purple and wilted. But…it tasted good. The soup, not so much. It had roughly the same color I’d expect pepper spray to have if it came in liquid form – mustard yellow. The tiny bail of tortilla stips on top was just a dot in the middle of the Olympic-size bowl of soup. 

I took a bite. Its temperature was lukewarm, but the spice invaded my throat like I’d just devoured a fistful of nettles. It tasted like…like…formaldehyde, maybe? My throat instantly raw and my insides burning like an active volcano, I grabbed my glass of water and sucked on the straw like there was no tomorrow. Then, I took a frantic mental inventory of our neighboring table’s waters as well as all other potential water sources - the tap at the bar, the Max & Erma’s toliet (the tank water, not the bowl, of course – gosh), the tears streaming down my face – in case our server failed to return in time and I was about to human combust. Thankfully she arrived with a pitcher of water. “Yes, please.”    

“O man!” Jess exclaimed, misty eyed, “this is a spicy batch!”

Suddenly it became clear to us that it wasn’t that the chicken had been left out of the soup, as the woman who’d choked it down before us had suspected, rather it had simply melted to oblivion before it hit the table.

Sweating, Jess managed through more of her soup. When she came back up, her lips were swollen and chapped, like she’d just eaten a very messy tube of red lipstick. My lips and tongue stung dearly, worse than if I’d kissed a colony of red ants. We traded sounds of agony until finally our soups were gone. Oh man did that hurt.

Afterward, my stomach was very upset at me. Once home, I had half a mind to swallow a tray of ice cubes, just for any kind of relief. My tongue and lips stung right up until it was time for bed. And as I lay down to sleep, I wondered, face burning, if all this could have been avoided if only we’d played that last game of volleyball.

Categories: Food, Sports
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“I’m buying new jeans!” I announced to Jess one morning after realizing I full-blown dreaded “Jeans Day” at work. It was a startling realization, indeed, but admitting there’s a problem is the first step to recovery. 

Jean’s Day came every Friday and served as the employees’ lone reward for making it through the work week. It allowed us little people to break free the protocol fetters of corporate dress, ditch the Khakis and throw on a nice, comfortable pair of denim. It was the unspoken substitute for a raise, and yet, I found myself staring at my closet, yearning to slide on a pair of dress pants instead. What was the matter with me?

After dismissing the Freudian blaim-the-parents theory, I made a loose review of my jean situation. There, I discovered the source of these ailing emotions. Basically, I had three pair left to my name – my Abercrombie’s, my Gap’s and my Plato’s Closet Abercrombie Super Flairs, cut an inch too short. Now, three’s not a bad number, but, the problem was, they were all on their last leg – no pun intended.

I ran all three in an even rotation, washing only when necessary. My Abercrombie jeans, however, developed a hole in the knee which grew bigger by the day and I was down to two I could wear confidently in public. 

To be fair to the reader, it must be mentioned here that I do own a fourth pair of Abercrombie jeans. These have seen Clinton’s presidency. Three months ago, without warning, all the denim blew out in them, thankfully leaving intact the zipper and seat for me to work with. It was as if all the thread went on strike at once. When I wear them, a distance observer may question if I’m even wearing pants, for a fair amount of skin shows. It’s not unusual for a pocket of car keys to swing out the fashionable hole in the thigh, banging in perfect measure on the outside of my pants as I walk. Now, the ragged bottoms are buried in my dresser drawer, sprung free only for roofing projects.    

My two remaining jeans neither feel nor look cool. My “Super Flairs”, well, let’s be honest, are just a dumb pair of jeans. They’re stupidly cut and their bell bottoms could devour the thickest of walking casts. It also has the annoying habit of exposing the entire length of the white of my sock as well as revealing a pale sliver of leg whenever I sit.

My Gap jeans are equally annoying in that the leg cuffs have somehow disintegrated, leaving holes big enough to loop the heels of my shoes. An overly bouncy step is greeted with a tug in back.

Anway, I hadn’t bought new jeans in over five years. Strangely, it made me nervous. I wasn’t exactly up-to-date on the jean fashion, and it pained me to waste a $100 on a pair. I’d given up on buying second hand clothing, which were always an odd fit anway, broken and stretched as they were by the bulges and curves of the original wearer. 

So, in an effort to avoid the mistake of buying jeans I’d later become embarrassed about wearing, I conducted a secret (and somewhat disturbing) market research analysis. I spent much time in crowds eye-balling the backs of men – never in a weird way, mind you, but strictly for the gathering of data.

In church, my most effective studies took place during the meet-and-greet, when people stood up. I’d shake their hands – “good morning” – then once they turned I’d go right to work absorbing their backsides, taking extensive mental notes. Although, it likely made everyone involved quite uncomfortable (this couldn’t be helped), it was necessary to discover the brand of jeans guys my age were wearing these days. 

After weeks of reading the butts of men, the belt soon became my greatest enemy. It hid the brand names, making the process most tedious and bothersome. It took several extra glances and a problem-solving mind to piece together the information that was only half-showing that I so desperately needed.   

But finally, after weeks of living like this, I concluded my research and felt happy with the results. I headed over to Macy’s to find some Levi’s. When I first got there, Jess spotted a table of some with cool washes and cuts. Having done my research, I knew the style now leaned toward a tighter, straighter leg look. I excitedly grabbed a pair of what was called the ”skinny” fit in my size and made a beeline for the dressing rooms. Jess thought I needed the boot fit. To this, I insisted that she get with the times.

The legs of these pants tappered so hard that I could barely get them on over my socks. After a good five minute struggle, I finally got them zipped and buttoned. I faced the dressing room mirror, and staring back at me was a sight so ridiculous that it had to be illegal. I busted out laughing. It was nothing short of denim spandex. Jess hurried in to see and buckled in laughter. I didn’t know I had a gut… 

“You really need the boot fit,” she said. This time I agreed.    

Miraculously I peeled the things off. In the end, the boot fit was what worked. They fit perfectly, and jeans never felt so good. Jess gave the thumbs up and we both drove home with smiles on our faces.

Now I need to find some shorts for summer that fit. Just do yourself and me a favor, will ya? Email me the brand and style of shorts you wear and we’ll just call it the day.   

Categories: Fashion
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Today is the start of my vacation!  And since today’s schedule holds no particular shape or form, I decided it only necessary that my writing should follow suit. I just want to free write, and maybe in the end something I wrote will maybe make sense to someone somewhere. That’s the cool thing about writing, so much of it is subjective. So take from it what you will.

Yes, that’s right, no work for me today. But poor Jess had to still go in. Something about a potluck, a secret angel (same thing as a secret santa, I guess) gift for a co-worker, and one last Christmas shin-dig for her preschool class before handing the rowdy buggers over to their parents till next year, all wound up on sugar overdoses and ideas of presents.

This morning I slept in just a bit. Instead of my usual 5:45am early rise, I allowed myself an extra hour or so to make it a solid eight hour night. Jess, running late, barked instructions from the shower how to make the fruit smoothies. This, I knew, was serious business. In the past few months, She had grown highly disciplined in the art of morning smoothies. Being my first attempt at it, I could tell in her voice that she didn’t trust me all the way. Neither one of us did.

“One kiwi, one banana, one canned fruit, one cup of yogurt, six frozen strawberries, six ice cubes, and then press ‘mix’. Run it until the noise stops,” she said. “And make sure the lid is on tight or it will blow all over the place.”

I entertained the image of the purple smoothie dripping from the counter tops.

“Six ice cubes?” I asked

“Six ice cubes.”

In the kitchen I gathered all the necessary ingredients, as directed, and tossed them in one by one into the blender. One banana – check – that was easy. Six ice cubes and six frozen strawberries – check – easy. But when it came time to add the kiwi, unfamilar with the fuzzy walnut looking thing (are there kiwi trees?), I was forced to go back for further instruction.

“Do I just throw the kiwi in with its skin?” I asked.

“No, peel it first.”

My confidence shaky, I approached it as I would an orange: gouged out the navel, then tore at the opening in hopes the skin would detach as one easy sheet. But the kiwi’s skin is thin and frail and pulled off only in tiny bits and pieces. Five minutes later, I found myself still picking at the stupid thing, the same method I’d probably employ for plucking a very small chicken. Kiwi stuck under my fingernails and my hands were sticky and useless. But finally, after extreme persistance, the green, fleshy fruit stared back at me, naked and defeated. This was one fruit I’d be happy to blend. Later, I’d learn that a knife works better to slice the skin off, a little insider information sure to cut the terrible task down to thirty seconds.

The canned pineapples were last to go, but not without a fight. Is the fruit in rebellion? The tab broke off when I tried to open it, and Jess, with towel on head and rolled eyes, shoved the unruly can in the electric can opener, which I still can’t get to work.

“Haven’t you ever opened canned fruit before?” she asked.

“Yeah. Twenty years ago,” was my only line of defense.

Freed from their imprisonment, I dumped the pineapples into the blender and hit “mix”. Jess disappeared down the hall to what sounded like rocks in a garbage disposal.

In the end, it all turned out. And, I don’t mean to brag, but let’s just say I make a pretty darn good smoothie. Jess soon relieved me of my work and poured a glass for her and one for me, then outfitted both with straws. We prayed first, still unsure if smoothies count as food to be blessed. After two slurps, Jess shot up with her cup, indicating it was time to go.    

I waved good-bye as Jess smiled brightly back. Jess’s smile and her car shrunk into the gray distance. With her gone, all that was left to watch was the quiet sky, thick and lonely, like a colorless smoothie. Then, studying the rich purple contents of my glass, I realized Jess was my bright-colored smoothie in an otherwise gray morning. I took another sip from my straw. It tasted great. And the kiwi was definitely worth all the effort.                

Categories: Food, Life, Marriage
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