stories

It's Monday night and I'm undulating like a stadium-ful of spectators doing The Wave, except they're horizontal and I'm vertical, scrabbling to stay in a massage chair doing its best to hurl me to the floor. My sudden urge to spend an hour pampering myself has granted this woman permission to dip my feet in scalding pink wax, attack my heels with pumice, nip and tuck and grind and slap and tickle things half to death...and apparently pummel my spine. This isn't the way I remember pedicures, but it certainly spices up an already varied week.

Friend of mine, out running in her neighborhood, was attacked by a pair of pitbulls. Or rather, they attacked her dog, a huge, fierce-looking beast who runs with her and may be the world's largest pussycat. The pitbulls grabbed her dog by the neck; she threw herself over the dog as a human shield, screaming. Six cars slammed to a [...]

My friend, buddy, co-president, rescuer, artist and just-all-'round good guy, Dennis McConnell, died yesterday, from the wicked disease, AKA cancer. His family sent out notice of his death in typical Dennis fashion:

The albino guy at the counter was nearly blind and almost deaf, so naturally the government put him in charge of answering the phone. They gave him a larger-than-life phone straight out of the Roaring 20s, sporting a big red light where the dial should be. Whenever someone called, the phone would emit a soft brrrrring and flash its light. He couldn't hear its ring and could barely see the light, so periodically he'd pick up the handset and shout "Hello, HELLO?" Nothing there of course, so he'd slam the handset back into its cradle, then pick up the whole phone, peering anxiously at the light. In the hour I watched him, the phone rang twice. Both times he missed. Right about then I coined a word for such things: Bureaucrass.

My cross-street neighbor Kim strolled up the driveway yesterday to see what I was up to--Shelby and I were cleaning out the vibratory tumbler, getting ready for the next grit--and casually mentioned that the Admiral was dead. "Committed suicide," she said, and frowned at my look of surprise, "I can't believe you don't know that. How could you NOT know that--there were police cars and sirens and lights and ambulances all over." Apparently I was out that night.