Happy Anniversary To Us

Kelli and I have been married two years today.

She’s been sicker than a dog the past few days (which in our house is saying something) but looks to be rebounding slowly. Darn winter cold/flu season anyway.

~~

On another note, I think I was a bit too proud of the Red Hat Society piece. I left it up on top for a week because, honestly, I thought it was near genius. After a week, it seems barely clever. And nary a mention from either Susie Bright or Simon and Schuster. I didn’t expect Ariel Levy’s editor to get back to me but Susie’s answered an email before. Oh well, I still think she’s the bees-knees. She’s just a busy little sexpert.

And it’s not supposed to work the way I daydreamed anyway. I shouldn’t be “discovered” and given a huge advance because I’m so stinkin’ funny. I guess I should be working my butt off and polishing and editing and then whoring, whoring, whoring it to anyone who will read it.

For what it’s worth I’ve amassed a good 250 pages of stuff just in the blog. Tying things together (if possible) or expanding on one or two that could be folded together nicely would still yield a good amount of material. We’ll see where it goes.

Imagine me, a guy who thought he could write a little and decided to start a blog which forced me to write more often, in under a year I’ve got all these delusions of adequacy.

Oh well, dream big or why bother dreaming, huh?

More soon.

To everyone reading this: you rock. Of this I am sure.

The Red Hat Society = Women Gone Wild !

From http://www.redhatsociety.com:

While visiting a friend in Tucson several years ago, Sue Ellen (Cooper) impulsively bought a bright red fedora at a thrift shop, for no other reason than that it was cheap and, she thought, quite dashing. A year or two later she read the poem "Warning" by Jenny Joseph, which depicts an older woman in purple clothing with a red hat. Sue Ellen felt an immediate kinship with Ms. Joseph. She decided that her birthday gift to her dear friend, Linda Murphy, would be a vintage red hat and a copy of the poem. She has always enjoyed whimsical decorating ideas, so she thought the hat would look nice hanging on a hook next to the framed poem. Linda got so much enjoyment out of the hat and the poem that Sue Ellen gave the same gift to another friend, then another, then another.

One day it occurred to these friends that they were becoming a sort of "Red Hat Society" and that perhaps they should go out to tea... in full regalia. They decided they would find purple dresses which didn't go with their red hats to complete the poem's image.

The tea was a smashing success.

Soon, each of them thought of another woman or two she wanted to include, and they bought more red hats. Their group swelled to 18, and they began to encourage other interested people to start their own chapters (18 women don't fit well around a tea table). One of their members passed along the idea to a friend of hers in Florida, and their first "sibling" group was born.

Sue Ellen's fondest hope is that these societies will proliferate far and wide. We have now held three successful Red Hat Society conventions — entire hotels filled with women of a certain age wearing red hats and purple outfits! Could world domination be far behind?

World Domination Indeed. Here’s where my conspiracy theory begins.

“Women of a Certain Age” Oh how I love that term. Now that very young girls have embraced what writer Ariel Levy calls “the Raunch Culture” and wear the Playboy bunny logo on belly shirts or “With These Who Needs Brains” tube tops, I find myself rather fond of “women of a certain age.” In an time in our culture when fun-loving Tara Reid simply looks like a burn-out train wreck waiting to happen any day now and when Drew Barrymore is the poster child of “oh I’ve been there, did that, and got the t-shirt when I was age 11 through 14,” koo-koo-ka-choo Mrs. Robinson has less of a scandalous air than when the movie first came out. Mrs. Robinson was simply a woman mature enough to know what she wanted sexually. Good for her!

I grew up in a culture where the media taught boys that when girls or young women had slumber parties it was all semi-nude pillow fights leading to the inevitable bisexual explorations. Mmmmmm. Oh, the lovely delightful soft- and hardcore perpetual fantasies of the feisty co-ed. Who am I to dispel this myth? Why would I even want to? Heck, I’m a guy who while I was single, desperate, and dateless, thought that Maxim and FHM magazine were on the right track. Well, until I saw the (now former) editor in chief of Maxim magazine on an infotainment “debate” on culture and realized that taking “how to pick up hot young loose chicks” advice from a guy who looks like Bill Gate’s geekier younger brother was probably a mistake.

Back to the Red Hat Society Conspiracy Theory.

Friends, this is about sex.

If the younger set is all trip-hopping, Bacardi Breezer swilling, skank-dressing, sex crazed, female chauvinist pigs then “women of a certain age” should get a piece of that action but in a much more refined manner.

Who are they kidding? “Red Hat” is obviously a reference to the head of a penis. Pink, red, or purple hats? It’s all a matter of the firmness of your grip, ladies. Accessorizing with a scarf is a matter of personal choice: wear one if you enjoy the look of an uncircumcised member or don’t if you prefer your penises cut into a crew neck instead of the traditional turtleneck.

The addition of feathers and other outlandish paraphernalia are the equivalent of those colored bracelets junior high school girls purportedly wear signifying what sexual activities they are willing to engage in.

This is an underground movement, gentle reader, and it’s motivated by unbridled lust of our elder stateswomen. Despite the crap that MTV and FHM and Maxim are trying to sell, hot sex does not end at age 29. You don’t have to go back to Mrs. Robinson to see that this notion is creeping to the forefront of our culture. I’ll bet you’ve heard of Stifler’s mom. I bet you are well aware that Stacy’s mom has got it goin’ on. The youngest Desperate Housewife is 30 and the rest of them don’t take her seriously anyway. And unlike Sex in the City, DH is a show men watch too.

The grandmas have got it goin’ on too. The next time you see a “little old lady” wearing a big flowery hat, know it well that she’s looking for hot action. And I’m not talking about ‘grandma’s getting on the bang-bus.’ “Women of a certain age” will demand sheets with a high thread count as well as steamy hot lovin’.

Gentlemen, the Red Hat movement is upon us. You’d better get your shit together if you intend to keep up with this trend. If you are planning on going through a mid-life crisis where you get to divorce your long-suffering wife and date some “hot young chick with more boobs than brains,” well you go ahead. I suspect your ex will simply don a red hat and find a satisfying and varied adventure of her own.

If you are married and your wife is suddenly disappearing to lots of RHS “teas,” that’s your cue to start paying a lot more attention to her at home - and I don’t mean you need to clean the catbox more often. Get your ass out of the recliner and put a little romance back into the game. Treat her like you did when you were dating. Don’t just love her, LOVE her.

Also, losing some weight will make your dick look bigger. Or at least that’s what they say in Maxim.

~~

Photos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Society
www.redhatsandmore.com
www.gawker.com
www.maximonline.com
Fiddlest

Oh and just a tiny word to those with no sense of humor: I mean no disrespect to the lovely ladies of the Red Hat Society. This is my attempt at satirical cultural commentary. Send hate mail about my writing, don’t bother defending anyone’s or any group’s honor, k?

Also, kudos to Susie Bright and her audible program In Bed with Susie Bright for bringing Ms. Levy to my attention.

Grow Up!

Okay, so I’m just as nerdy and geeky as anyone who maintains a freakin’ web log.
I freely admit it. But some things just go a little too far.

Witness this:

Perhaps if I felt a little… oh, I don’t know… inadequate in the light saber department… I’d want to wear a pair of Star Wars boxers.

Did I mention that I don’t wear boxers because of that whole “grandfather clock” thing?

Well, never mind about that.

But here’s where it goes too far. On the back of these boxers there is this graphic:

Well, I guess one person’s “dark side” is another person’s “fine bootay.” Or someink.

Maybe it's the cold medicine talking.

Oh... Now I Get It

Someone put brochure cards for a rustic inn in Willow, Alaska in the dispatch breakroom the other day. That’s cool, I’m always interested in brochures, if not necessarily spending any time in Willow. Nothing against Willownians, but there’s nothing in Willow that I can’t find in a hundred other locations in Alaska.

Well, maybe.

I am not a graphic artist, nor have I ever spent the night at a Holiday Inn Express, but I did take a two day seminar in graphic design which changed the way I look at things like brochures.

Here’s my assessment of this lovely piece:

You've got to admit, the name is strange. What the hell is a gigglewood anyway?
But I digress.

Calling Willow "the perfect midway retreat between Anchorage and Denali" is stretching things a little bit. If you are driving from Denali and get all the way to Willow, then not continuing on to Anchorage is just plain lazy. But it works for a selling point to the tourists, I guess.

The pictures are blended well and the whole thing gave me a good feeling about spending the night at the luxurious Gigglewood Lakeside Inn.

Except for the name. What the hell? Gigglewood… I did not get it.

Then my eye hit the bottom of the stairs. Oh my.

Get out! That thing has veins and stuff.

Well, at least it's pointed the right direction.

Easy Come, Easy Go

The State Of Alaska has this great thing called the Permanent Fund. The fund is currently about $30 Billion which is invested in companies outside of the state so that we’ll have a couple of sheckels to rub together once the oil is gone. The earnings of the fund are used partly by state government, partly reinvested back into the fund, and partly distributed as a dividend to the citizens. Getting at the principle requires a vote of the people, not just an act of the state legislature. It’s pretty stinking brilliant really.

There is a personal connection to the fund: My grandfather was a member of the board of trustees of the fund (he may have chaired the board briefly).

Anyway, what you folks from the Outside probably know of the fund is that each year Alaskans (currently defined as someone who has lived in Alaska for at least one year) get that dividend check each October. No one wants to lose that “free money” so I’m fairly certain the Permanent Fund is safe from a big spending spree of the state for some time to come.

The amount varies but this year each Alaskan got a check for $845. That’s $1690 for Kelli and I. Usually this means I pay off some credit card bills and Kelli gets the dogs’ teeth cleaned and checked, etc. This leaves us a couple of bucks to get myself a new MP3 player or whatever, Kelli gets herself some Fiestaware or whatever, and it makes Christmas shopping more fun and less stressful.

Yet each year something comes up. Last year it was $3000 of vet bills for Sugar Baby.

This year we got to take Bailey to the vet on Halloween. She threw up her dinner. For most dogs one would just say “ewww,” clean it up and move on. For Bailey it’s a little different. She’s an insulin dependent diabetic and so we had loaded her up with insulin as she was eating. By throwing up her food that means she was fully loaded with insulin but with no food. Bad juju.

Two days in the animal hospital and $985 later, she’s back and good as new. Sure we will have to keep an eye on her for a couple of days to make sure she doesn’t throw up. Oh and we need to make sure the poop is of proper poop-like consistency: not too runny but not so firm that she’s straining.

It’s a delicate balance.

I’m not complaining. Luckily the state paid for the vet bill (by way of the dividend) and both the babies are happy and back home.

While my friends are enjoying their new iPods and Fiestaware, we are reaping the benefits of two healthy dogs.

Until next year about this time.

Slips of the Tongue

Oh get your head out of the gutter.

Have you ever said something but even as you said it you wanted to reel it back in?

One of my lovely coworkers yesterday received a call about a motor vehicle accident involving a single vehicle striking and killing a moose (not an uncommon occurence).

In a moment which I completely sympathize with, she found herself asking the caller "Is the moose still dead?"

You cannot make up stuff like this. While it probably did not inspire a whole lot of confidence from the caller, it makes me laugh.

The Shocking Death of Pastor Stew

(AP) 11:54 a.m. ET Oct. 31, 2005

WACO, Texas - A pastor performing a baptism was electrocuted inside his church Sunday morning after adjusting a nearby microphone while standing in water, a church employee said.

The Rev. Kyle Lake, 33, was stepping into the baptistery as he reached out for the microphone, which produced an electric shock, said University Baptist Church community pastor Ben Dudley.
Water in a baptistery usually reaches above the waist, said Byron Weathersbee, interim university chaplain at Baylor University.

Lake was pronounced dead at Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, nursing supervisor Pat Mahl said. The woman being baptized apparently had not stepped into the water and was not seriously injured.

Pastors at University Baptist Church routinely use a microphone during baptisms, said Jamie Dudley, the wife of Ben Dudley and a business administrator at the church.

“He was grabbing the microphone so everyone could hear,” she said. “It’s the only way you can be loud enough.”

About 800 people attended the morning service, which was larger than normal because it was homecoming weekend at nearby Baylor University, Dudley said.

Lake had been at the church for nine years, the last seven as pastor. He had a wife, Jennifer, a 5-year-old daughter and two 3-year-old sons.

At a remembrance attended by about 1,000 people Sunday night at First Baptist Church, Ben Dudley told the UBC congregation that they would move forward as a church.

“I don’t know how, when, why, where or what’s going to happen, but we will continue as a church in the community because that is what Kyle would have wanted,” he said.

Happy Not Quite Halloween

Two separate callers today, on the business line and thankfully not 911, called to ask if it was okay to "trick or treat" tonight, since tomorrow is a Monday.

I suggested that, while the police department has no official policy on the practice of pagan rituals, it was not illegal to don a mask and ring your neighbor's door to ask for candy any ol' day.

I did caution them, however; that one would be less likely to be mistaken for a burglar and shot and/or pepper-sprayed if one did such a thing tomorrow night which is actually Halloween, but that the choice was up to them.

I do hope they choose wisely!

I Love Citizens!

People seem to love these stories. Please stop me if it gets boring.

And I realize that when I get home I'm just a citizen like these folks:

1) October 25, 2005

Woman calls 911 because she was chipping ice in her freezer and punctured the lining. She tells the fire department dispatcher that it "started spraying out some sort of gas"

Fire dispatcher asks: "so is this a freon leak?"

Citizen says "I don't know, it's a Frigidaire."

(call taken by the woman known alternative as Jerbear or TK-Ho depending on if she’s answering her cellphone or competing in a Tae Kwon Do tournament)

2) Today, October 29, 2005

Man calls me because his grandfather is having difficulty breathing. I transfer him to the paramedic dispatcher.

Medic dispatcher asks: "does he have history of heart problems"

Citizen: (talking to Grandpa): "Do you have heart problems?" then answers "Not right now"

Medic dispatcher clarifies: "Does he have a diagnosis of heart problems?"

Citizen: (talking to Grandpa): "Have you had hypnosis heart problems? (speaking more clearly for grandpa to understand) "HYPNOSIS, have you had HYPNOSIS?"

3 ) Before my time, probably apocryphal, but still a good story:

Citizen calls because she believes her husband has died in his sleep.

Medic dispatcher says "Is he breathing?"

Caller: "I can't tell"

Dispatcher: "Get a mirror hold it up to his mouth. Now tell me if you see a reflection"

Later, supervisors discussed with the dispatcher that what she told the caller was actually the test to see if the patient was a vampire, not the test for respiration.

I love my job.

Has anyone seen Domino ?

I want to see this movie. Mostly I want to see it because the trailers lead me to believe it will be a lot of fun: quick-cut, gritty, complex. Something like the remake of “Get Carter” but without Sylvester Stallone’s usual brand of bad acting screwing things up.

But then I read a little about the actual person who was Domino Harvey. She died of a drug overdose on June 27^th this year at age 35.

the real Domino Harvey

She was born three and a half months after I was. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Well, not that I should have died first, that’s not what I’m getting at. It’s just that she died young. And she died bitterly.

She was undeniably unhappy. She had sold the rights to her life story but could not get script approval. Some reports say she was very upset that the script “cleaned up” some of her life (her bisexuality) but at the same time promoted itself as having some really raunchy scenes. How would you feel if you sold your story and then they picked and chose which things would be acceptable to a mainstream audience and which would not?

At the end she distanced herself from the film and all members of its production.

Oh yeah, and she was on house arrest awaiting prosecution for methamphetamine trafficking. She was out on one million dollars bail and was looking at a life sentence if convicted. She denied all charges.

While she was on house arrest she had three minders, hired to keep her from using drugs or alcohol. She was, however, taking Zyprexa, Trazodone, Clonazepam, and Mirtazapine at the time of her death so it is clear she was suffering some serious mental health issues. Her minders report she had been feeling lethargic and had been hearing voices that night as she filled the tub to take a bath. They later found her unresponsive as the result of a Fentanyl overdose.

The thing is: I want to see this movie. Yet I’d much rather see a documentary about this complex person who was Domino Harvey. I guess I’ll wait for the DVD.

If you see it in the theater, let me know what you think.

~~~

Zyprexa (generic name: Olanzapine) is usually prescribed for Schizophrenia and/or Bi-Polar Disorder

Trazadone (brand name: Desyrel) was originally prescribed for Depression but is most often prescribed for difficulty sleeping.

Clonazepam (brand name: Klonopin) is usually prescribed for Panic Attacks

Mirtazapine (brand name: Remeron) is usually prescribed for Depression

Fentanyl (brand name: Duragesic Patch or Actiq Lollipop – no kidding, a little heroin sucker) is a strong painkiller. It’s usually used when nothing else works and when the subject has chronic pain. It’s also the “knockout gas” that the Russians used to subdue the terrorists in that theater in Moscow but also killed a hundred and sixty hostages in the process. Word on the street is that some folks will chew their Duragesic patches in order to get the drug into their system faster. While I try not to judge, I think these folks might be considered "junkies."

Games People Play

Lots of sad things happen at my job. Lots and lots and lots. Too many to dwell on. Babies die heart-breaking deaths, children die accidental deaths, teenagers die stupid senseless deaths, adults die horribly sad deaths, the list goes on.

The first year or two, when all these tragedies are new, it has a heart-dampening effect on a dispatcher. After nearly ten years in, I’ve learned to use my feelings to either empathize with the families of the victims or as motivation to do my best to do the most efficient job I can thereby getting help to them as quickly as possible.

Then I leave the bad things at work. Nothing good comes from bringing the darkness home.

Happily, sometimes we get calls which are just so wonderfully absurd that they can brighten nearly any otherwise crappy day. Here are two such calls.

1) Picture it: It’s a lovely Monday 11:30AM on a spectacularly sunny summer Alaskan day. There is barely a cloud in the sky and the cartoon birds are chirping and landing on the outstretched cartoon fingers of cartoon women singing cartoonish songs.

Then the call comes in. A caller describes a scene right out of a movie: a rather large woman handcuffed a very skinny man, quickly shoved him in the trunk of her Saab, and drove off with him locked in the trunk. The calltaker quickly enters the call and the dispatcher immediately sends the area cars racing to intercept this abductor and rescue the victim. The first several officers arrived and performed a perfect felony traffic stop. They surrounded the car, weapons drawn, and ordered the woman out slowly. They had the woman back up to them and lay on the ground where they handcuffed her and took her to the back seat of a patrol car. Then they let the man out of the trunk.

Upon further investigation it was determined that this was not a felony crime but rather a… um… er… well… a nooner. What the witness reported turned out to be a fun little bondage game played between a consenting couple.

Lesson: Love the kink but keep it indoors or at least not in a public place. Also the man could have received a citation for not wearing a seatbelt.

~~

2 ) Skip merrily to today:

911 hang-up from a residence. The calltaker loads the call and then recalls the residence, getting an answering machine. She leaves a message that the police will be dropping by for a visit. She then recalls several minutes later to have a lovely conversation with an embarrassed gentleman.

Here’s my rendition of the call (this is not an actual transcript):

911: “We received a 911 call from your residence, what’s going on today?”

Male Resident: “Um, nothing.”

911: “Okaaaaay. Who called 911 then, did you misdial?”

Male: “Well… um… I did.”

911: “Is there someone else there with you?”

Male: “No, I’m alone now.”

911: “Okaaaay, so why did you call?”

Male: “I was sitting in my recliner and my wife jumped on me, knocking it backwards with her on top of me. Um… I told her if she didn’t get off of me that I would call 911. She didn’t so I called but she got off so I hung up.”

911: “So you were in a physical fight then?”

Male: “No, no… it was certainly not a fight. It was… um… (sigh) well, it was erotic playing gone awry.”

911: “Oooooooooh, I see. So you don’t need the police, fire department, or paramedics?”

Male: “No, no. I ... um… I just thought I hung up and the call did not go through.”

911: “Aaaaaaaah - Okay. Well if no one there needs the police I’ll go ahead and cancel the call.”

Male: “Yeah, I’m sorry I called.”

911: “Okay, well have a good day sir”

Male: “(chuckling with embarrassment) well I think I might in a little while.”

911: “ooooooooooo-kay, b’bye now”

Note: Yes we did talk to the female half a bit later, so it was determined to be a-okay.

Lesson: Like diamonds, 911 is forever. The second you hit that last “1,” we gotcha till we’re ready to let you go. A little like a bondage game of our own. But not as fun.

Play safe now,

Your buddy Eric.

~~

Pictures from:
http://www.imsplus.com/ims34.html
http://www.hawaii.gov/dot/publicaffairs/ciot/
http://sj.blacksteel.com/

Lovely food, ironic name

They call them bottomless fries but it seems the more I eat, the more bottom I have.

A shame really.

Oops!

Y’ever have a day when everything is going well, then you screw something up and don’t even realize it until later?

It doesn’t have to be a big mistake, although it could be. It could be something that only you will ever know about. If you are like me, it haunts you.

The beautiful thing about my job is that, to be successful, you have to own up to your own mistakes immediately. It’s better to rat out yourself than be “caught” later appearing either oblivious or as if you were trying to sweep something under the rug.

I tell my recruits that the folks who are good dispatchers are the ones who second and third guess themselves and who agonize over their errors, at least for a day or so. I also say that those folks will probably die early of a stress-related illness, but that they will be good dispatchers in the meantime. I’m smiling when I say this, but I’m not entirely kidding.

Two months short of 10 years on the job and I’m still screwing up here and there. Again, usually nothing serious – it could be a typo like putting a description in a call like “SUSP LSW (last seen wearing) BLU BBCAP, GRN SHIT, BLK PANTS.” Oh yeah, he’s really wearing a blue baseball cap, a green shirt, and black pants but GRN SHIT sometimes leaps out of your fingers and into the call.

Sometimes it’s a misstatement on the radio. In the heat of dispatching six officers to six different calls in a hurry so they didn’t decide to do something on their own and get tied up while I still have dozens of calls waiting for officers, I once sent an officer to a non-injury accident involving a green Chevy sedan and a “Black Suzuki Grand Viagra.” My co-worker RR immediately said “Yeah, comes with its own lift kit.” Okay, so it’s really called a Grand Vitara. The fact that a dozen officers called in to mock me on the phone afterward was punishment enough.

All this babbling being said, here’s something in the news that takes a little of that sting away. No matter what stupid mistakes I have made at my job, I have yet to make one like this:

Car Ticketed With Dead Body at the Wheel

AP Oct 21, 6:26 AM (ET)

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - A traffic warden slapped a parking ticket on a car which had its dead driver slumped at the wheel outside an Australian shopping mall, an official said Friday.

The body of the 71-year-old man, whose identity was not immediately released, was discovered Thursday in a parking lot in the southern city of Melbourne, The Age newspaper reported Friday.

The man had been reported missing nine days earlier and was known to be seriously ill, the newspaper said.

Nevertheless, a parking officer who inspected the vehicle failed to notice the man inside and issued the parking fine two days before his body was discovered.

Paul Denham, the mayor of Maroondah council, where the man was found, said the parking officer was "distressed" to learn that the dead man had been inside the car.

"Our local laws officer checked and wrote out the ticket at the rear of the vehicle and placed the ticket from the passenger side on the windscreen," Denham said in a statement. "The local laws officer did not notice anything unusual regarding the vehicle, and is extremely distressed to have learned of the situation."

Kelli  

In case you missed the news

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Your Mission

“Another Story” by Frisbie. This is the best song I’ve heard all year and it comes from an album released in 2003.

All the songs on “period.” were written by the band’s drummer, Zack Kantor. The thing is: Kantor suffers from bipolar disorder and left the band in 2003 due to his struggle with the illness. “period.” contains Kantor’s previously unreleased songs recorded live by the remaining band members who performed all of the music acoustically with two guitars, a bass, and NO drums.

There’s this really talented chick who writes for the Chicagoist who recommends the entire album. I just ordered the album and therefore have not listened to so I cannot yet recommend it in its entirety but if “Another Story” is any example this is a kick-ass band.

I’ll put the song up on the MyFamily site for J-bro, Terri, and Mom but everyone else who reads this needs to go to www.cdbaby.com and order yourself the album. Tell them you heard about from a Chicagoist interview. Really. Stop reading this and go there now and buy it. You’ll be glad you did.

What are you waiting for?
Now!
You have your orders.

Who Links Here

No Stories Today

other than the story of me being home sick.

I’m listening to Summer Melancholia; watching baseball playoffs; sweating off a fever; ripping some discs to MP3; wondering why I’d never heard of a band called Frisbie (“another story” is the real deal) or singers named Justin Roberts or Rhett Miller and why I had never before explored The Shins or The Jayhawks; suspecting that Terri and Jason know these bands; offering crunchies to my dogs who always appreciate something to eat; thinking I need to get busy, to clean up the house some, to cook something for dinner so that Kelli will have a home-cooked meal waiting when she gets home; not feeling the least bit hungry myself; feeling so tired but knowing laying around will only make it worse; feeling guilty that my recruit will get another fill-in trainer in my absence but that I will drag my butt to work tomorrow unless I need to be hospitalized because she deserves continuity plus I hate taking vacation time for illness.

Blah. Bo-ring in E-land today.

Tell me a story.

The Unhappy Meal And Other Checking Out Stories

Warning: Gross-out material ahead. None of this is particularly funny, just perversely morbid.

When I first posted this in April, I started with a little diatribe about how suicide is selfish and I had no sympathy for those who succeed, but did for their families.

Well, except for example number 1, it turns out I do have some sympathy for the folks who choose to kill themselves.

If you are reading this and feel suicidal, there are plenty of folks to call. Call me (even at home), call the police, call your local crisis line, call the number listed under this paragraph. Call someone, please.

All this being said, everybody loves a good story, so here are the top three suicides that occurred while I was working (I was there, these are absolutely true):

1. A man in his early 20’s or late teens killed his mother for reasons which now escape me. He left his dead mother and a note in their residence then drove to a popular coastal lookout point. He backed up to a large wooden post and parked. He then cut the seatbelt out of his car. He looped one end of the seatbelt around the post and fed the other end into the drivers side window car and looped it on his head. Then he hit the gas and the car took off. Soon the man’s head was ripped off of his shoulders and rolled into the bushes while his car continued until it hit a tree.

I have this vivid memory of going to a roller rink as a child. The snack bar offered liquid refreshment in the form of soda but also juice and lemonade which were dispensed from glass upside-down fish tank looking things that had a continuous stream of juice or lemonade running down the inside of the clear glass. We’d call this bug-juice. The victim’s car looked much like those bug-juice dispensers because, when the victim’s head came off, the blood sprayed out of his neck, hit the roof, and ran down the inside of all the closed windows.

I am impressed both by the uniqueness of this method and the fact that this guy saved the taxpayers from a lengthy trial and incarceration.

2. A depressed, intoxicated, and possibly homeless woman in her late 20’s went to a floor near the top of a hotel at which I used to work and jumped. While I worked at this hotel we had a few jumpers but this was the first one I had from the other side. What makes this woman special is that she took the plunge from the side of the building were the loading zone was located. She dove 16 stories and landed in a bucket of glue.

I cannot make this up.

Parked into the loading zone was a contractor’s pickup which had tools and a five gallon bucket of glue in the bed. The victim landed half on the bucket, spraying glue 15 feet up the side of the hotel, and half on the side rail of the bed, creating a nice u-shaped dent.

This woman gets points, even from the East German judge, for artistic merit.

3. This one is worthy of a Stephen King story and much more sad than the other two.

We got a call from the manager of a McDonald’s restaurant who wanted to report one of his employees as missing and possibly suicidal. The worker in question suffered from some sort of developmental disability and had been having a rough time. Before leaving on his lunch break he mentioned that maybe he should just kill himself. His coworkers did not think much of this statement, indeed did not mention it to the manager, until the victim failed to return from lunch.

We broadcast a locate message to all units in the area and soon dispatched officers to the restaurant to contact the manager and make the report. Before officers arrived we received a call from the manager who stated the employee was dead.

The employee had not left the premises during his lunch break but instead climbed into the industrial trash compacter located at the rear of the restaurant. There he waited. There was no way to operate the “compact” function from inside the compacter. This poor troubled soul sat in a stinky, dark, metal container listening to the echoes of his breathing and the beating of his heart and waited for a coworker to push the “compact” button. Shortly after the manager called us, another employee pushed that button. The second employee heard the screams and looked to see the victim’s legs in the compacter.

Three things immediately struck me about this call (it was definite an “oh shit” moment in the room):

a) imagine being the victim inside the compactor just before the button was pushed

b) imagine being the employee who has to live with pushing the button

c) imagine the shock of crime scene team officers who were processing the scene while the drive-thru was STILL OPEN AND SERVING CUSTOMERS.

Chilling.

Life Lessons Redux

At 10:23pm on Sunday March 12th, 2000, my recruit and I got a call from one of those doc-in-a-box walk-in clinics. They had a male patient with head lacerations. He wasn’t very forthcoming about how he got the injuries but after repeated questioning by the doctor he said that, after a verbal argument with his wife, he hit himself three times in the head with a bedpost.

My recruit was puzzled about how to put this in the computer: was it a suicide attempt? an assault? Perhaps I’m a bit cynical but this would be the first person I’d ever heard of that had attempted suicide by bedpost. We have had lots of folks jumping off of buildings or taking pills or shooting themselves. Once in a while we’ll have a hanging. A bedpost would be stinkin’ creative. And anyway, I’m thinking his soon-to-be-ex wife was responsible for putting the guy under the influence of a bedpost, but that’s just me.

Lesson: well… that whole “don’t go to bed angry” rule seems to apply here.

~~

A couple of weeks later (and I’ll confess, not on my shift, but I’ve got the paperwork to prove that it really happened) we got a call from an Anchorage Refuse garbage truck driver.

First let me paint a little picture for you: Garbage trucks have a ladder that runs from the front bumper up to the front lip of the trash area, just about dead center so it’s not a big obstruction to the driver’s line of sight.

The caller was doing his nightly rounds emptying Dumpsters™ when, as he’s driving alone down the street in the middle of the night, a guy climbs down the ladder face-first from the top. Scares the bejeezus out of garbage man. Think about it: Even if you were getting a bit sleepy or distracted by loud Tom Waits music, you’d probably make a trash deposit of your own in your coveralls if you saw a guy climb DOWN YOUR WINDSHIELD as you are driving down the street in the middle of the night. So the driver slams on the brakes and calls on his radio for his dispatcher to call the police.

A quick investigation revealed that the subject (who took several years off the life of our friend the garbage man by making his grand entrance) had been sleeping in a Dumpster™ and had been dumped into the truck without the driver noticing (not hard, I’m sure).

Sadly, he hadn’t JUST been dumped into the truck. He’d been dumped at least four Dumpsters™ before and the driver had turned on the compactor at least three times. Three times! The guy was in pretty bad shape (had at least one broken arm, a broken leg, and a broken collarbone) but he was darn lucky to be alive. God watches over those sleeping in the trash too, apparently.

Lesson: don’t sleep in Dumpsters™... ever. Better to smack yourself in the head with a bedpost a couple of times. Then you’ll at least go to the hospital in a more comfortable vehicle.

~~

(Originally posted March 28, 2005 when NO ONE read my blog. I spruced it up by adding some pictures because I think it deserves a re-telling. You’ll be the judge).

Photos:
http://rubberlineinc.com/LIDS.htm
http://www.humbleabode.com
http://www.tigerdude.com/garbage/frontload/index.html
http://www.co.rowan.nc.us/es/EMS/Station%2082/Front_of_Ambulance.jpg