Shalom

"Really," I've said to my wife on numerous occasions, "we don't need to encumber the twinners with names dripping with Judaism because, coming from us-- they'll have the map of Israel tattooed on their faces anyway. No one will ever mistake them for anything other than Jewish. Trust me."

Honestly? We could name them (both boys) Brentwyck and Victoria, or (1 boy, 1 girl) Ghyll and Emmaline, or (2 girls), Brittania and Glucerna and still nobody would think that they are descended from anything other than the purest of Semitic bloodline. If you've ever seen pictures of my wife and I, or, better yet, the real deal in person: you know.

The elderly, toothless man yesterday knew.

My mother-in-law, my wife and I had just sat ourselves down in a booth at a greasy spoon diner for brunch on Tuesday. After the entire staff (admittedly, it was the waitress and her mom, the short order cook) were informed by my mother-in-law that we were expecting twins and I already wanted to crawl under the table and die, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, an elderly, bent-over man with trousers that might have fit him thirty years ago shuffled over to us.

"I just want to ask you," he said, looking directly into my eyes in an unsettling way, "are you a veteran?"

I stared at him. You didn't need to work in the mental health field or have your Cra-Zee-Meter set to "Sensitive" to know that something was... sensitive here.

"Um, no, I am not," I replied, hoping this encounter would be brief and painless. It was neither.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that," the old man said, and I don't mind admitting that I was briefly offended. Like, what-- I couldn't fight in a war? But, then, after a moment's reflection I thought two things: 1.) this guy is crazy and, 2.) frankly, I would imagine that, were I not me, I would be relieved finding out that our nation's safety wasn't entrusted to somebody like me, too.

"I'm a veteran," he contined, "I'm eighty-nine. I was at the Battle of Iwo Jima. Have you ever heard of that?"

"Um, yes, I have heard of that."

"I was hit three times," he said, "twice, in my equipment" (I assume he meant his military equipment, not his male... equipment) "and once in my head," he said, tapping his left temple.

I wish I could say that this was the first time in my life I had ever conducted a conversation with somebody who had been shot in the head, but it wasn't. I try not to make a habit out of it, as it can be unpredictable, but these things have a way of happening to me.

"All I want to say to you is 'Shalom'-- do you know what that means?"

I nodded my head, half in despair.

"You must be Jewish," he said definitively, then, he perhaps thought it would be polite to ask, "you're Jewish, aren't you?"

If I were at work at the psych hospital, I would have responded with my pat rhetorical game that I use whenever I am asked this question by a psych patient-- which I am asked with frequency. I usually come back with, "Why is that important to you?" or "I don't really think that's relevant to your treatment here." Unfortunately, I didn't think I could get away with that, in this little diner. So I told him that, yes, I was. Because, you know, he knew anyway.

"Well, I just want to say that I thank God for the Jewish people, and a lot of gentiles won't say that, but I really do thank God for the Jewish people. And, really, we're all the same. We all come from each other-- there is so much hate. But Shalom to you. I am thankful to God for the Jews."

I thought I would return the compliment, from someone who, had circumstances been very different, might not be alive were it not for soldiers who fought in World War II to say,

"Well, I am thankful for you."

And I thought we could shake hands in mutual... thankfulness and be done with it. But it didn't quite work out like that.

I mean, I did say that, and we did shake hands, but we would shake hands seven times before he finally walked out of the diner.

He asked me if I read the Bible. I said, "Not recently" and I was going to add, "why, has it changed much?" but I didn't think that would have been appreciated, or noticed by our uninvited guest. My wife repeated my response when asked. And my mother-in-law, ever the independent spirit, said, "Yes, I do."

It wouldn't have mattered much what she said, because his eyes were locked on mine.

"You should really read the Bible," he said. He wasn't exactly toothless, I noticed at this point, he had maybe three or four in there-- well, one full tooth, but the shatterings of several others, jagged and rough-- looking like mini polar icecaps. He recommended some passage, but I don't remember which book it was from. The number he cited was "53" and the only reason I remember that is because, of course, that's Herbie's racing number.

I was going to tell him that "53" was my favorite number, but, again, I don't think he would have cared. Nor noticed. Or heard.

I kept trying to end the conversation, using pragmatically-appropriate language and socially-acceptable and universally-recognized lingo and isms, but our elderly warrior was impervious to all of these shrewd techniques, just like, apparently, he could not be felled by Japanese mortars and bullets.

There were more shaloms and thank-yous and handshakes. Paper-thin handshakes.

He left. And, five minutes later, while we were eating-- while this Jew was consuming bacon, sausage, ham, pork-roll, and scrapple, all on one plate-- he placed two pamphlets about the Messiah on our table, thanked us again, and walked out.

The waitress apologized and confiscated the pamphlets.

"I keep those so that, when he comes back, I can give them back to him and say, 'Do you see this? You think people want to talk to you, but they don't.' and I give him the pamphlets back so he understands that you're just being polite, because nobody's going to tell him to go away. Nobody."

And, of course, she's right. And, also of course, she's doing a far better thing for him by serving him up a plate-full of reality rather than suffering through his diatribe with forced grins and false handshakes.

We do what we do because it makes us feel better, not him.

"Look," I said to my mother-in-law and my wife as we were driving home, "for a guy who's been shot in the head, he's not doing so bad."

Shalom, indeed.

You Never Know What You'll Find

The biggest cliche, I think, about the show "COPS," which I don't mind admitting to you that I love with all my soul, are the "talking head" pieces that welcome the TV viewer back from commercials. If you still watch TV on a television, you know what "commercials" are.

The typical talking-head piece is filmed inside of a Ford Crown Victoria and it's a shot of the officer behind the wheel, and he or she briefly pontificates, in that cop sort of way, on some aspect of policing-- more likely than not, the "Reader's Digest" version of his or her affiliation with law enforcement.

"Well, I grew up in Fort Worth, and my dad was a cop, and his dad was a cop. I got three uncles in the Fort Worth Police Department, and my dog's a K-9 officer, so this kind of just seemed like a good fit for me. I've been on the job now for fourteen years and I love comin' to work every day-- every day is different. You never know what you'll find."

I've come to grips recently with the fact that they, the police, are never going to accept me into their fold. While I have written a book on their behalf, donated to their causes, penned passionate essays in newspapers, given speeches at police cafeterias and assembly halls, while I have shaken hands with precinct lieutenants and captains and even the Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department, I won't be wearing their uniforms or enforcing their laws.

I do, however, work at a mental hospital, and as such I can faithfully state that their catchphrase, "Every day is different-- you never know what you'll find" holds true for me. When I slide my gold-colored key into that steel door in the morning, my coffee hot and my hair still wet, I can never quite tell what I will be greeted by.

"I'll never forget my first day here," a co-worker of mine said to me, half-wistfully, just the other day. "It was three years ago-- and the very first hour I was on the unit, this coked-up black guy wandered out of his room-- completely buck-ass naked-- into the hallway and started doing pushups. Then he stood up, peed into a paper cup, and drank it."

My first day was September 13th, and it's hard for me, almost three months later, to remember the exact details. But one thing I can say for sure: yesterday was different from my first day, which has been different from every other day since. On Sunday, I was running an art group for the acute ward patients. There was one of me, and six of them, seated around a long, rectangular table, making holiday cards. For whom, you might ask? Oh, well, one patient was making a holiday card for his daughter. Another patient made one for "the aliens." Another had a big bloody skull on the cover and was addressed to "obamanigger."

"I might not be able to mail that one," I told the patient in question. In truth, we're not allowed to mail anything to the White House, regardless of how the President's name is spelled.

While the patients were drawing, I had classical music playing and, for a rare moment, everyone was peaceful, focused, and content. And in walked Kim-Chee (not his real name!), a fifty-year-old Asian patient, wearing three pair of jeans. He had face cream all over every inch of his face-- maybe he had used five or six packets of it, and he looked like some kind of bizarre Kabuki performer from long ago, all you could see were these tiny little eyes peering out from behind this gloppy, white mask. Everyone at the table looked up from their holiday cards and turned to regard this sight. Kim-Chee looked back at us for a moment, the moment where I always wonder if something violent is about to happen, and then he turned around and walked out. My patients wordlessly returned back to their holiday cards.

This is one of the first jobs I have ever truly enjoyed-- which is funny, because I've had a lot of jobs in my life, and if you told me that I would enjoy being inside an acute mental institution, one of the most unpredictable and potentially violent places in the state, well, I would have told you that you were crazy. But I guess there has always been some part of me that thrives on a delicate mixture of predictability and chaos. The predictability is provided by the schedule, and the monotonous, mountainous paperwork, and the chaos is provided by, well, duh. But there's hope here, too-- it's not just about the zany antics and the unreal shit that they say, which shouldn't crack me up, but sometimes does. There is great, deft humanity here ensconsed within these cinder-block walls, and I'm privileged to be a part of it. You never know what you'll find. Sometimes it's an eerily familiar last name on the admissions sheet. Sometimes it's someone trying to choke themselves in the shower with a torn pillow case. Sometimes it's a faker, or a cutter, or a genius, or a soloist, or a racist. Jesus is here almost every day, in one form or another. A patient gave me a little card with his picture on it just yesterday. I put it on my wife's pillow.

Yesterday found me running art group on the acute ward again. An elderly man, white hair and a beard, frail and gowned with a flannel shirt on, too, was brought back onto the ward after being transferred here from prison. Who knows what he did. The nurse sat him down and covered his bare, spindly little legs with a blanket. As she did, she noticed that the front pockets of his flannel shirt were bulging impossibly. She told the patient to empty his pockets, and out came twenty or thirty ketchup packets, napkins, and plastic forks and spoons. She stood him up and had him reach into his diaper, which I thought was a little much, until he pulled out more forks and spoons. The nurse turned to me and we made eye contact as she picked up the utensils with a gloved hand, throwing them into a trash can nearby.

"Take your feet out of your slippers," she said to the patient, still looking at me. I smiled uncomfortably.

The patient sat down and slipped his feet out of his slippers. The nurse turned to me again.

"Are you kidding me? Really?"

She wrinkled her nose and furrowed her brow as she pulled out two sausage patties, one in each slipper.

You never know what you'll find.

Denied

Remember Charla Nash?

She's the woman who got attacked in horrific fashion by a chimp named Travis last year. Travis, who went completely bullshit, as wild animals sometimes do, ripped Nash's hands off, and her lips, eyelids and nose.

If you've seen the episodes of "The Today Show" or "Oprah" in which Nash appears, you can maybe partially understand the absolute horror of that event. Maybe. No offense is meant to Nash, but she now resembles something concocted by a Hollywood special effects department, and her physical and emotional health has been seriously compromised by the attack.

It's very difficult to look at Charla Nash but, when you do, it's very easy to understand how she has been traumatized. If you look at Frank Chiafari, you wouldn't be able to tell.

Frank Chiafari was one of the Stamford, Connecticut police officers who responded to the call for help at Nash's moronic friend's house that day. Travis went right for Chiafari, while he was still in his police car. The leviathan ripped the rearview mirror off the driver's side door, tore the door open and lunged at Chiafari. The officer managed to unholster his weapon and shoot the blood-soaked chimp, ending the maniacal rampage. Chiafari filed a worker's compensation claim, stating that he suffers from PTSD following the incident-- that he has difficulty sleeping, experiences flashbacks, anxiety attacks, night terrors.

The claim? Denied.

Why? Because, in Connecticut, only police officers who shoot people can suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

That's the rule. Sorry, Frank. I guess 200-pound Travis, covered in Charla Nash's lips and blood ripping open the door of your patrol car and coming within inches of eating your face just isn't scary enough to warrant your psychiatrist bills being covered by the state of Connecticut. I guess the message that Connecticut is sending with this law is that they acknowledge that shooting a person can be an upsetting event for even the most manly cop-- but you've got to be a real fucking pussy to get all blubbery and anxious after shooting a rabid dog lunging at your jugular vein, or a goddamn chimpanzee trying to nibble your nuts.

This not only blows for cops, it's a blow to cops. For decades and decades in this country, the stereotype of the police officer was macho-macho-man. They were expected to be the tough of the tough, to not take any shit from anybody, and to not be affected by anything, no matter how brutal or cruel, and police officers are often forced to witness some absolutely terrible things.

There was a time where a police officer could easily lose his job if he sought counseling from a mental health professional, and there's a generation of cops in America who would never dream of going to a shrink's office. There is a stigma that surrounds cops who seek counseling, and that's a terrible thing. Only very, very recently are officers being encouraged to talk openly about stressful situations they encounter, and are beginning to feel like their jobs will not be jeopardized if they do so.

Now, with its patently ridiculous decision in the Frank Chiafari case, the state of Connecticut is reverting back to the old way of doing things: take a brave police officer who was truly engaged in a fight for his life, and embarrass him, belittle him, pretend that his mental anguish after shooting a chimp isn't as great as it might have been if he'd shot a person.

According to an article I read about the case, "Ann Marie Mones, the city's risk manager, declined comment yesterday."

Well, I have a comment for you, Ann Marie:

Why don't we put you inside a car, give you a gun, and then sic a goddamn psychotic animal on you that is twice your size and has just already obliterated somebody else's face and body. Okay? Now, it tears your car door apart, it's gotten it open and it's comin' right at you, covered in blood. First, let's see if you even have the goddamn presence-of-mind, not to mention the balls to shoot it, and then, if you do, let's see if you can freshen up, comb your hair, brush your teeth, and report for work at 8:00 o'clock the next morning, making small-talk by the copy machine.

How Entertaining

Let's just be clear about something right up front:

Martha Stewart doesn't live here.

If she did, she'd probably be either handcuffed to a pipe in the basement lavatory, or her severed head would be the centerpiece on our dining room table.

Hungry?

In our house for a little less than a year, my dear, sweet wife and I are newly minted entertainers. Actually, we're more like probationary entertainers. If entertaining were more heavily regulated, as it should be, there would be a Field Training Officer stationed in our kitchen to closely supervise us on those dubious and exciting and rare Saturday nights when we decide to get a little frisky and admit a non-blood relative into our abode for a little chinwag and some home-made grubbage.

Now, at the risk of offending some "group" other other, my wife and I are social retards. Give us a Honda Fit and a six-hour ride to Rhode Island, or a sofa and two cups of tea and an episode of "Intervention" and we know just what to do-- very, very well. Throw a third or, God forbid, fourth person into the interior walls of our house, and our brains simultaneously catch fire.

Preparation for a guest is never fun, but I'm sure it helps to have several Dominican servants, a Roomba, or that mechanized bitch with the feather-duster from "The Jetsons " who, I think, would be the perfect combination of both. In the Apron home, it's just the missus and I, and our various, colorful mental profundities. And, at times, a dry Swiffer cloth.

The prospect of having anyone enter our home instantly turns me into a raving maniac. The thought of people who have the ability to observe, perceive, smell, judge, and then return to other people with similar capabilities and then report their and observations findings turns my stomach into eight-month-old ricotta cheese. I am able to see the disorder, clutter, and chaos that comes from activities of daily life engaged in by two busy, creative, harried, well-meaning though absent-minded people, but when I know someone is coming to our home, every item that lies in disarray suddenly has a bawling four-year-old child standing on it, screaming incessantly, wailing at the top of its lungs, begging to be changed or whatever four-year-olds scream about. In essence, every clump of dog hair, every coat carelessly thrown on the back of every dining room chair, every out-of-date Jo-Ann circular on the coffee table is instantly, suddenly, and dramatically calling out to me, loudly, to be dealt with immediately.

This is not pleasant for my wife.

I rush around like a wild animal, scooping up fur-coated dog toys, dragging my shoe-covered foot against the entire length of the living room rug to pick up dog hair (why vacuum when this is so much more... athletic?), I have three coats, three hoodies, one jacket, two hats and one scarf in my hands as I stumble upstairs and downstairs like a fucking lunatic. My wife, meanwhile, is in the kitchen, calmly wiping down the countertops, methodically making lists of everything we need from the supermarket, and trying her best not to get run over by the coat-covered freight train that is careening throughout the house.

Because I am obsessed with time, I am also constantly preoccupied that the concentration camp-style cleaning operations, the food shopping and, most importantly, the meal preparation will not be completed on time. Insecure, panicked and sweating out my ass, I pepper my wife with maddening questions and unhelpful comments.

"How much time does the lasagna have to cook for?"

"Shouldn't we have set the table already?"

"I wish this didn't have to cook for so long."

"What time is it?"

"Let's just scrap the bread."

"What time is it?"

"What if she gets here and it's not done?"

"These zucchini aren't going to be done in ten minutes."

"Why don't we have a bigger saucepan?"

"What time is it?"

That I have not yet been stabbed in the neck with a salad tong is a fucking miracle.

Of course, our guest, who was supposed to be at our house at 5:00pm, called at 4:54pm to report that she was just leaving her apartment, a mere 20 minutes away.

"Oh, so you mean you're going to be late?" I asked her. She laughed.

I'm glad people know me so well.

Entertaining is supposed to be entertaining, I think, but not for the people who are doing it. Once the company gets there, I'm usually more relaxed than I am before they arrive. I'm able to let down my guard, I can be funny and self-deprecating and spill liquids on my trousers and make awkward sexual comments or absurd cultural references that nobody else understands. This is what people expect out of a dinner with me, so they're not usually surprised, or disappointed. When my wife is involved, they know to also expect much cuteness, laughter, and delectable desserts. Tonight was chocolate-covered pecan bars, still warm and soft.

Thank God she's here. Because, when I get really nuts before the guests arrive, she's always there to soothe me, reassure me, give me some task to do that's nearly impossible to ruin, or shove a chocolate chip into my mouth to shut me the fuck up.

Fantastic Mr. Apron

My oldest sister is 42 or whatever. She lives in a spotless condominium that contains super-expensive white leather furniture that she is afraid to sit on. Nobody else lives with her in her condo, save for two stuffed dogs whom she calls Genevieve and Bedford.

Her idea of a good time is going over to my parents house so my mother can make her toast and eggs, and my father can make her coffee. Actually, she never really has a good time when she's there, so maybe it's her idea of a bad time, just with food. She is very fond of the coffee. After she's efficiently polished off a cup, the manner in which she attacks the innards of the basically empty mug borders on pornographic.

She has some sort of gastrointestinal malfunction that severely limits what and when she can eat. Though my oldest sister burps frequently, seismically, and athletically, I don't think she has farted since 1997.

She is frequently berated, belittled and beseiged with the inanities of an unappreciative family and an unkind world. It is because of this that my wife and I take my oldest sister out to the movies.

They're usually kid movies, because that's sort of where she's at. I don't suppose it's any coincidence that one of her favorite television shows is "Arrested Development" because that basically describes her perfectly. Her second favorite show, by the way, is "Sponge Bob."

I don't mind going to kids movies with my wife and my oldest sister. She can saddle up that tricycle anytime she feels the need to. Sometimes, though, I get sad when I think about what might have been for her. If my mother didn't get pregnant at 17 or 18 or whenever it was. If her first marriage didn't collapse. If my other sister and I hadn't come along. Would it have been radically different? Would we be seeing her on "SNL" or be greedily reading her "Going Rogue" right now?

Well, maybe it is good we came along after all.

When she was still living at my parents house at age 26, it was easy, and funny, for me to envision what the next fifteen-or-so years were going to look like for her. As we've grown older, I suppose it is still easy, though sharply less funny, to picture her future. Needless to say, it will most likely involve lots of plastic-covered furniture, a Jamaican nurse, a 20-year supply of Chocolate "Ensure" drinks, and several restraining orders.

Earlier this year she announced that, if her life doesn't change drastically by the time she's 50, she's buying herself a Maserati. Or maybe it was 45. I suppose I wasn't really listening closely enough-- which is typical, really. Not, of course, that her acquisition of a Maserati will encourage people necessarily to listen to her-- but they'll certainly see her coming.

My wife often tells me that I'm "a good brother." I don't really know what means. Is it sending holiday cards? Because, I don't do that. Is it sending funny emails to my sister when she forwards me text alerts from the local police department about college students getting donked on the head and robbed at gunpoint? Well, that I do-- but that's kind of just what I do. Is it taking her to the movies whenever something rated PG comes down the pike? Maybe.

Two weeks ago, we saw "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," and we all loved it mercilessly together. I think mostly because it's about a fucked up family that has a penchant for dressing interestingly and saying the wrong thing.

Travel Plans

My wife's funny.

We're trying to decide where to go on vacation this summer.

"We should go on one last big trip before we have a baby," she says. That sounds reasonable enough.

"Great," I reply. Where?"

"Oh, I don't know. Somewhere on a plane."

"Ah."

My wife loves to try and get me to do things I hate doing-- like recycling. And flying. She's not particularly dying to travel somewhere intercontinentally, but she wants to fly somewhere with me-- to get me out of my comfort zone. She feels this is good for me, the way that fathers feel that football is good for their pale, gawky, awkward sons. This sometimes covert, sometimes overt prodding is very similar to her insistence that I hold other peoples' children. I know part of the reason she wants me to do it is so that I get comfortable doing it, so that I'll hold our own child when we have one, and part of the reason she does it is so she can get that warm, gushy, schmoopy feeling a woman can only get when she sees her husband cradling a child, thus proving that he's not a total immature, knuckle-dragging, incompetent, retarded asshole. Every woman wants not to think that about her husband, and, even if it's true, no man really looks like that when he's holding a child, unless he's holding it upside-down, or over a balcony railing (no offense to the recently deceased).

We were originally planning on returning to Maine, like we had done last summer, only we would venture a little farther North than we did last year, to explore more of the state. I have recently been reading "Northwest Passage," an extremely poorly-written (lots of misuse of the contraction "it's" which is just unforgivable in a published work) biography of Stan Rogers, and then the idea hit me.

"Hey! Why don't we go to Maine for a little bit and then, you know, just keep going-- up to Halifax or Nova Scotia. We can go to a different country-- without flying!"

At first, my wife saw this for what it was: a totally transparent cop-out by an errant, insipid coward, but, the more I talked the idea up, the more it began to grow on her. Her parents had been up that way for a wedding recently and had nice things to say about the area. Bob, our friend who is building a master closet for us had been there with his wife and son and loved it.

"You know, instead of doing the drive, which friends of mine have done and they say it's lovely, but long, you can catch the auto ferry from Portland."

My wife's ears perked up at this. Here was an opportunity to go where I wanted to go, but to make me do another thing I don't like: travel by water.

Several years ago, we took the auto ferry from Plattsburgh, New York to Vermont and there are a couple pictures of me clutching onto the railing for dear life with a wince on my face that gives the impression some unseen bully had just smeared fresh blueberries all over my pants and called me a "faggot" but I was told I still had to smile for the picture. I think I ended up negotiating with my wife that, if I made it for the first half of the trip (probably around six minutes) that I could sit in the car for the remainder of the watery voyage.

I am very well aware that I am going to die one day, probably of a respiratory-related ailment, and though I'd like to put that off for as long as possible through constant calls to my doctor and a steady diet of maintenance inhalers, I am also pretty fanatical about avoiding dangerous situations that may hasten my demise. These situations include, but are in no way limited to:

Flying.

Taking the train.

Going out on a boat.

Flying.

Mowing the lawn.

Repairing the roof.

Walking during a thunderstorm.

Driving during a thunderstorm.

Flying during a thunderstorm.

Shoveling snow.

Getting into altercations or arguments with unknown entitites.

Parking near a BRINKS armored car.

Visiting an ATM after 7pm.

Eating the contents of any can with a visible dent.

Consuming food products past the expiration date.

Consuming medication past the expiration date.

Using public lavatories.

So I try to minimalize my chances of early demise by avoiding as many of those, and other, activities as I can, and yet, I still do lots of them-- though I'm pretty diligent about the dented can rule. You can easily spot me in the supermarket: I'm the guy obsessively fondling every goddamn can in the aisle like I'm a blind fetishist or something. But I'm really not at all crazy about flying, especially if there's no pressing reason to other than to get me to do it more (and of course, statistically, the more frequently you do it, the greater are your chances of dying while doing it-- so there) especially right before we're about to start trying to conceive. It'll make for an absolutely awful local news interview with my mom or sisters after we die over the Atlantic:

"And they were just about to start trying to have a baby.... *Boo hoo hoo!*"

Jesus-- fucking awful-- is that what I want the community to hear about me and my wife? During our honeymoon flight from Jakarta to Bali, the plane started going up and down like a fucking Yo-Yo, and that was all I could think about-- the inevitable, terrible interview sob-story that the vultures would just eat up:

"And *sniff sniff* they were on their honeymoon!"

Awful. Just fucking awful.

No thank you. I'll take that goddamn auto ferry, though. When's the last time one of those went down?

No, seriously-- will someone wikipedia that shit for me? I'm too scared to do it myself.

Poor Black Men

Pennsylvania's tawdry little laundry usually doesn't get aired in the national breeze, but today, thanks to local headcase Bonnie Sweeten, we're on the Today Show and shit.

Thanks, dear.

If you don't recognize her name, you will. She fabricated some cockamamie story (by the way, let's bring back the word "cockamamie." We can do it.) about being involved in a minor traffic accident and then being abducted with her 9-year-old daughter by two black men and stuffed in the trunk of a 1990s Cadillac. She made a "frantic-sounding" call to 911 from the trunk of the car reporting the abduction. An Amber Alert was issued.

But, strangely enough, when police found her SUV, there was absolutely no body damage to it. Hmpf. And airport security cameras at Philly International showed Sweeten and her daughter going through metal detectors before boarding a plane to Florida, mysteriously unaccompanied by two African-American gentlemen.

Bitchcakes was arrested yesterday at a Disney resort.

I know it's kind of Monday-morning quarterbacking to say that I knew this was bullshit when I first heard the initial reports on the news early yesterday morning, but I knew this was bullshit when I first heard the initial reports on the news early yesterday morning. None of it made any sense at all. Listen: if you ram some Philly homies' Caddy and start mouthing off, they're not going to waste time tying you and your daughter up and stuffing you in their trunk-- they're just going to shoot you in the fucking face. Come on. This is Philadelphia, not Sicily. People only get stuffed into the trunks of Cadillacs in mob movies.

The sad thing is, this piece of Bucks County white trash had to go and blame the brothas in her ficticious tale. It's always the brothas, you know? Can't you deranged, delusional people pick on some other minority group for a change?

"Oh my God! Police? Yes-- help! I was just abducted by three Serbian nationals wearing ski parkas and New Balance sneakers!"

Now that's more like it. Blame the Serbs. No, no-- blame the Libyans. After all-- those motherfuckers mowed down Doc Brown. Who knows what they'd do to you?

Do you remember the Runaway Bride from a couple years back? The chick who looked like a deer caught in a pair of Halogens? In 2005, Jennifer Carol Wilbanks got cold tootsies and disappeared, sparking a nationwide manhunt and speculation that her fiancee had killed her. Even though Wilbanks was nuttier than a chippendale dancer convention, she at least had the class and the creativity to claim that she had been kidnapped (and sexually assaulted, mind you) by a Hispanic male and a white woman. Now that's racial equality and harmony!

But this case is pretty much an abberation. Most people who feign abductions and criminal attacks against their personage make the ubiquitous and frankly lazy claim that "a black guy did it." And who'd really question that? Of course a black guy did it. Who makes up the overwhelming percentage of the prison population? It's a shame, really, because black guys have enough problems. I mean, sadly, plenty of black guys commit actual crimes. They certainly don't need the added burden of being accused of committing imaginary crimes, too. I mean, remember Tom Robinson from "To Kill a Mockingbird?" All he was trying to do was earn a nickel for bustin' up this here chiffarobe, and look what happened to him.

Thanks, Mayella Violet Ewell.

I remember a case in 1990. Prosecutor Sam Asbell put in an emergency call stating that two African-American males tried to ambush and assassinate him. When police arrived, they found his car riddled with bullet holes. It was soon discovered that Asbell fabricated the entire incident, shooting up the car himself. He's now a practicing attorney, which should make everyone feel good. And he'll probably be suing me soon.

But I'll win. I'll just say that I didn't actually write this post.

Some black guy did it.

Memories from an April's Fool

I'm really a woman!

No, just kidding.

I don't do April Fool's Day. I'd like to pretend that I don't put people through that shit in order to preserve their dignity, but really, it's just me hoping to lead by example, because I don't want anybody embarrassing me.

Selfish little prat, aren't I?

I'm petrified of embarrassment. People who know some of the things I've done on stage in plays might find that somewhat of a strange admission, but it's true. The things we do in a play are carefully calculated, and they're done specifically to provoke a response from the audience. You're in control of what is happening to you, what you look like, nobody else is doing anything to you, catching you unawares in your underwears. This is why I will never go to a comedy club, or any show that requires audience participation, which, of course, involves the possibility of being singled out, of being the straight man, of being embarrassed, of being April Fooled.

April Fool's Day reminds me of my time working on the ambulance. There's no sector of employment, I don't think, that is a breeding ground for practical jokes than first responder services. A cop I know once told me that, when tasers first came out, that one of his coworkers waited in a dark station room for his partner to come in and, as soon as his partner flipped on the lightswitch, the cop who had been lying in wait jumped up and tased his partner.

I guess it's good I never became a cop. Bro.

There are a lot of things I miss, though, about working as an emergency medical technician, wearing a uniform and a badge, getting discounts on doughnuts and coffee, going lights and sirens, the comfort and security of having a good partner, each and every day...

But I miss the fucking around the most.

When you're new, you're the one who gets fucked around with-- that's just the way it is. Being new on the job as an EMT is just like being a high school freshman, or a college freshman. Whoever you were before, well, that was before. I think I was called "New Jack" by a couple EMTs for at least my first six months on the job.

My first steady partner, a paramedic named Mitch, was a psychopath. He hated his job, he hated the company, he hated minorities and, well, he hated. He didn't hate me, though, until the day I got him fired. Until that point, while he would sometimes explode at me in fits of testosterone-induced rage, he and I got along, because I walked on eggshells with him and pretty much did whatever he wanted. If he wanted to drive the ambulance to his apartment and sleep, that's basically what we did. I would sit in the truck, panicked, clutching the radio just waiting for the call that we wouldn't get to in time because the fat ox was asleep on his couch.

Mitch was a practical joker. He used to love telling me stories of how, when he was on the local rescue squad, he would relish breaking in newbies. While on a scene, working up a patient, he would look over his shoulder at a green-faced EMT and say with urgency, "Hey, run to the truck, now, and bring me back the fallopian tube. STAT!" The panicked freshman would no doubt be running through the list of standard ambulance equipment in his head.

"Fallopian.... fallopian....I know I've heard that name before...."

Then they would proceed to hysterically tear apart the ambulance looking for the fallopian tube, probably thinking that the patient would promptly expire without it.

Mitch knew that I was probably too intelligent to fall for something stupid like that. He had another way of breaking me in up his sleeve. In an ambulance, there is a switch on the left side of the driver's seat, near the floorboard, that activates the auxiliary battery, which allows the emergency lights and the siren to function. You can still start the ambulance and run the radio and headlights, etc without the auxiliary battery switch engaged-- and it's easy for a newbie to forget that the switch is even there.

One day, Mitch and I went to a crowded convenience store to get coffee. "I don't want nothin," he said, which was unusual for him, tipping the scales as he was at 320 lbs. I left the truck and went inside for my coffee. It being around 8ish in the morning, the store was jammed with construction workers, contractors, business folk, nurses, teachers-- everybody in the neighborhood was grabbing their go-juice. I came outside and hopped back in the driver's seat, put the key in the ignition and started the truck. Instantly, the siren sounded full blast, scaring the shit out of everybody in the parking lot, and in the store. I almost shat all over my brand-new uniform pants.

"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!" I screamed, spilling scalding hot coffee on my leg and the seat. Mitch was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down his fat face. I fumbled and fidgeted with the keys and the siren switches to make the damn thing shut up. The emergency lightbar, by the way, was also flashing red. He had, of course, activated the auxiliary battery switch and hit all the buttons for the siren and the lights. It was a fucking ambush.

After Mitch got fired (that's a story for another time) and I started working regularly with Jake, I started getting more comfortable in my uniform, in my job, in my skin. Soon I was assuming the role of the prankster. I loved fucking around with our supervisor, Copley. He was a fat goober with a goatee-- he liked movies like "Anchorman" and his favorite show is "Airwolf," if that tells you anything, and it should. Our ambulance didn't see a lot of action on the street, and so we were constantly hanging around at our base, and constantly getting on Copley's nerves. Jake was an architecture student, and so he wisely used the time in between calls sitting at base reading architecture literature or doing coursework. I, being a Master of Education student, used the time to fuck around with my supervisor. I would find whatever props that were lying around the base and use them to entertain myself. One of my favorite activities was getting an old wheelchair from the garage and an orange traffic cone. I would sit in the wheelchair and put the orange traffic cone over my head (and face) and slowly, quietly roll myself into Copley's office, usually while he was on the phone. If that didn't get the reaction I was after, I would moan quietly and tip the wheelchair backwards until I would fall onto the floor.

One day, Jake and I returned to base and another crew was getting ready to hit the street.

"Where's Copley?" I asked quietly.

"In the bathroom," the EMT replied.

"Okay, good," I said. "Just be quiet, pretend I'm not here."

"Uh... okay," he said.

I hid under Copley's desk. Being extremely thin and flexible has its advantages. I waited and waited for him to finish his marathon crap and he finally came back and sat down at the desk. Miraculously, his knees didn't touch my face, which was inches away from his crotch & paunch bulge. Ever so quietly, I pulled out my cell-phone and dialed the phone number for the base. His desk phone rang.

"Qualcare Ambulance, this is Copley."

"Oooooohhhh..... Mooooooooohhhh...." I moaned into the phone. It took him a second, but then he opened his desk drawer and slammed it shut, right into my face. It hurt, but it was worth it.

"What the fuck? Were you, like, locked in the basement as a child?" he asked me as I cackled hysterically on the floor under his desk.

I also used to love lying down on spare stretchers and propelling myself across the garage by pushing off the wall with my feet screaming, "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!"

"Man, you retarded," one of my coworkers would say, shaking his head-- but smiling.

It was important to joke around in this line of work, because it gets to you. EMTs and paramedics have some of the highest rates of burnout, and so you have to let off steam. I got good at that part of the job. One day, our ambulance broke down and Copley had to drive an hour out of his way to pick me and Jake up in a wheelchair van.

"You can sit in the back, retard," Copley said to me as he opened the passenger door up for Jake.
"Fine," I said.

For the entire hour's trip back to base, I contorted my face, drooled, rocked back and forth and screamed like a mentally challenged individual, pressing my face up against the window to the horror of folks in cars passing by our van.

By far, though, the most fun I ever had was one day when Jake and I were at a hospital, picking up an elderly lady with dementia who was being discharged to a nursing home. She had a lot of belongings and clothes that were not yet put away into bags, so Jake and I, and two nurses were very busy with that. This hospital room had a floor-to-ceiling wardrobe with two long doors. I made sure that their backs were turned to me and, quietly, I cracked open one of the wardrobe doors and slipped inside. I could see through the crack between the two doors, and so I watched the nurses wandering around the room, collecting toothpaste tubes and nightgowns, and then I watched Jake, with two bags in his hands, stop, look around, and look around some more. He called to a nurse,

"Hey, have you seen my partner?"

She looked around too.

"No. Maybe he went to the bathroom."

Jake shrugged, put the two bags in his left hand and walked over to the wardrobe. I thought about screaming as soon as he opened the door, but I didn't want to scare the nurses or the patient, so I decided to just stand there, stoic. It worked.

"OH! FUCK! JESUS! YOU! Crazy sonofabitch!"

He clutched his chest and gasped for breath. I put my hand on his shoulder, my shiteating grin almost hurting, trying not to cry.

"Hey, do you need oxygen or something?"

Those days are gone now. I miss my old job sometimes, and around April Fool's Day I guess I miss it the most, because that's the part I enjoyed the most.

Happy April Fool's Day, Jake, Copley-- and even Mitch, wherever you are.