explaining things

there are a few things i can explain to keaton correctly, like how to get to the post office.
there are a few other things i don't explain to her ever, like why i'm in the bathroom so long.
but there are way too many things i can’t explain to her and shouldn't try, but explain them anyway, like how i set her prized tomato plants ablaze with just a jammed stapler.

about my two traffic tickets

by age 21 i had collected the two traffic tickets in my life.i need to talk about them because they still bother me.
ticket one came from speeding on the ny thruway in my red 1968 opel cadet station wagon.
if you know the car, that statement is an oxymoron.
in fact i'm pretty certain that if you look up oxymoron in the dictionary, there is a picture of a speeding 1968 cadet wagon.

sort of like that one in the picture, except my beloved opel was redder, and without the elephants and desert, nor the shenigans going on inside the cabin.

so then, how did i accomplish this seemingly impossible feat?
they got me coming down a steep hill in the catskill mountain region going 71 in a 60 zone, 70 being the required downhill speed of an opel to climb the next hill before the week was out.
that's how!
and i suppose my wild, shoulder length hair didn't help much in the whole matter.

but that isn't the ticket that has me steamed.

it is ticket number two.
i was going through a green light on the heels of the slow driver in front of me.
she looked to be nine hundred years old based on the amount of blue in her hair and the spotted, knuckled phalanges that clutched the steering wheel in a virtual death grip.
i entered the intersection on green, only to witness an entire amber episode waltz before my eyes, exiting the intersection in deep red.
that kind of slow driver.
i smiled to the cop in the squad car facing me on the opposite side, as i motioned to the slow vehicle in my way.
he was having none of it.
and after he pulled me over in front of an emptying grammar school for all the school children to see, he didn't much like my story or my looks.
probably the bandanna was too much for him.
so, yada yada yada ... a ticket for snailing through a green light.
and to this day, the moment i see amber i slam on the brakes.
doesn't matter where.
even watching tv.
i just did it during the chase scene in the dark knight, nearly kicking over the coffee table.
all because of that dumb ticket from 1972 when i was young, restless and bandanna'd!

running with the geese

i said, can you feel the excitement? it’s that time of year again.
keaton said, oh no, you're not going to run with the canada geese again are you?
i said, gotta hon! barefoot too! it’s what makes me a man and attracts you to me.
she said, what makes you a man is all that stuff between your legs. what attracts me to you remains one of the great mysteries in my life.
to which i sharply replied, you’ll come to learn some day that what attracts you is my running with the geese! oh yeah, and my vacuuming skills.

call me mr. any day

i said, "hey i was just up in the bathroom reading your more magazine—"
"uh oh!"
"no. seriously. i was and it said that women ... let me be clear ... mature women—"
"be very careful."
"um ... mature women like you that look marvelous—"
"oh brother!"
"well anyway, mature women like you who look terrific would take a man with a great sense of humor over a good-looking, six-pack abs schlub any day of the week!"
keaton thought for a moment, then chuckled, "now that's really funny."
i thought, bingo! just call me mr. any day.
then i said all humbly, oh ... it was nothin'.

sneakers and life

there was a time not all that long ago that i used to measure my remaining years in the number of sneakers i'd have to buy.
calculating the rate they lasted with an expected slow-down in high impact activity, i was figuring i had three pairs to go, with an outside shot at four.
in human years that came to 45-60 left to go.
not bad really.
except today i don't know.
they just don't make sneakers the way they used to.
and in all fairness, i don't live life the way i used to either.
now i might be looking at seventeen pairs to go, which sounds promising, but sadly amounts to twenty years or less based on my updated formula.

i'm thinking this is all the doing of some highfalutin ceo who figured out it's more profitable to shorten the life span of sneakers and make them real expensive to boot—the complete opposite of a life well lived, which i guess isn't all that profitable by big business standards.