This is a story of how I went from groggy to super-wide-awake, gaining the kind of clarity in two seconds that typically would require five cups of a beverage supplied by named Juan Valdez.

There was something. A creak. A whisper. Shuffling. My eyes opened almost involuntarily, and they noticed an outline at my bedroom door, framed by a nightlight across the hall.

The silhouette was still, a little more than four feet tall. Quiet. Could only be one thing.

“Bryson, buddy, it’s late, you really should be in bed at this hour.” That’s what I’d intended to say. What I heard was, “Whu …. Huh?”

Bryson, of course, hadn’t heard anything. He was sound asleep. If there had been enough light, his glassy stare would have given away his current state of not-even-semi consciousness.

I turned my head to see the glowing green numerals on the clock. 1:16.

When he started sleepwalking a few years ago, I would dutifully climb out of bed and gently steer him by the shoulders back to his room. I would lift him into his bed, tucking the sheet around him, giving him a peck on the forehead. I would watch him for a minute or two, making sure he was truly back to sleep, his brain settling into its usual post-ambulatory state.

“Bryson, you’re asleep. Go back to bed.”

That’s where I was at now. Words. Simple ones, the kind we can understand given the stages of sleep we were both at – his was at “sound,” I was hovering between “pre-REM” and “Please just go away so I can return to Slumberville.”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

Many people are under the misconception sleepwalkers are in a dream world, responding to stimuli found only in their heads. But Bryson will respond to outside stimuli, a cranky father for instance, as if he were awake.

But he was not. I knew the difference. Much of his sleepwalked seemed to stem from a desire to relieve himself, which he did surprisingly given the fact he was likely dreaming.

“OK, go to the bathroom, then back to bed.”

His head bobbed. It could have been a nod, maybe an involuntary spasm. Either way, I took it for acknowledgement.

Then he stepped forward. Brain, I said, is that right? Shouldn’t he have altered course to go toward the bathroom. Brain? Brain, are you online?

Bryson took another step forward. And another. Brain, we have a problem. Something is not right and we could really use the firing of a few synapses to explain the situation.

A light flicked on. Brain, that is not the light to the bathroom. Repeat, that is not the light to the bathroom. Explain please.

Brain, subject is entering light. Wait, not just light. Lighted room. Wait, not just lighted room. Closet. Lighted room is closet. Repeat, subject has just entered walk-in closet. Brain, please respond. Your assistance in this matter is mandatory.

Wait, change of position. Subject has turned. He is now facing to the left. Toward laundry basket. Brain, subject has stopped. He is now inserting both thumbs into waistband and

“Evacuate bed now! Repeat, evacuate bed now! Situation urgent!”

In a fluid move my body had not been capable of since I was 25, I threw off the covers and vaulted the width of my mattress to land within a few feet of Bryson (I should have thrust my arms up in Olympic fashion upon the perfect landing, but there were more important thing to do. Like scream).

“NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!”

Brain was back in full control. “Grasp subject around wrists and assume control of situation.”

No problem.

“Bryson, hey, this is not the bathroom.”

He twisted in my iron-like grip. “What? Yes it is.”

“No, trust me, it isn’t. Seriously. You’re in my closet. That’s not a toilet, that’s a laundry basket.”

I walked him the 12 feet away from the dream bathroom to the real one, where his motor skills took over and completed the task.

I steered him toward bed, wondering what book I should read for the next half hour to get back to sleep.

I am listening to Holaback Girl by Gwen Stefani. I heard it first at the gym since, for the most part, I listen to music from my teens. Not that I don’t keep up, I do. It’s a lot easier for baby boomers, since our music keeps cropping up, either as remakes or samples. My dad never had that luxury of turning on a pop-music station knowing that at some point, a tune from his childhood would flow from the speakers. In the 70s, my teens, no one was borrowing from Artie Shaw or Frank Sinatra. That was then, and it remained then.

As I listen to Holaback Girl, with its infectious beat and nonsensical lyrics, I am back at Marineworld, an amusement park in Northern California. Bryson has paused briefly in front of a basketball toss game on the midway. Or was it the football throw, or the baseball toss? I am not sure. But I am looking across the midway, next to the squirt-gun game (which we had already played, winning a stuffed monkey that Bryson gave to a little girl passing by, notching another smile – for him, for me, for a little girl we’d never see again who may or may not remember that time a boy just walked up and gave it to her).

It has been a hectic day, the park choked with high school students on an end-of-the-school-year field trip. Teens have been everywhere, in lins, in stores, in restaurants. Screaming. Cussing. Jumping over rails in line.

I am looking across the midway as Holaback Girl comes over the loudspeakers. I am familiar with it just enough to mouth the chorus, bobbing my head. Then my gaze settles on a girl, perhaps 15 or 16. Latina. Tank top and blue shorts. Black hair past her shoulders, clutching a stuffed animal. She is singing along, her hips swaying, stepping side to side in time with the beat. She dips one shoulder, does a slow shimmy as the other shoulder dips. Each shoulder then rises, one at a time, and she repeats the move. It is simple, yet with an elegance and grace that is surprising, that demands people to stop and watch. But no one does, except the young girl with her. She looks much like the teen, but is no more than 8. She is riveted to the performance in front of her, tries to copy it, remains about 1 ½-steps behind, enough out of time with the music to be jarring if it were not for her wide smile. She is laughing as (her sister?) dances and sings. The song continues, her dance is seductive.

That is all I remember. I am sure at some point that either Bryson said something to bring me out of the moment, or the crowd converged, or the song merely ended. It was a moment designed to occupy a single memory, a tic on the clock. And it firmly attached itself to Holaback Girl, the image coming back each time I hear that song, no matter where I am.

I had many such songs when I was younger, though my aging mind refuses to cooperate and keep them where they belong. They are gone, or perhaps a sliver might return when that song returns. Either that or the memory and song are disassociated. Through much of my 20s and 30s, there was a song that took me back to my old room, where I curled up in a beanbag chair, a ragged paperback resting on my knees. I cannot forget the book. The Exorcist, by William Peter Blatty. But I cannot hear that song anymore. I have no idea why the two had been linked. Was it my favorite song on an album I had listened to exclusively while reading? Had I reached a particularly compelling passage? I don’t know. And I miss that connection.

Other song-memories have lost their clarity. I remember working up the nerve to ask a girl to dance at a dorm party during my freshman year in college. I worked up the nerve because I knew the song well, That’s the Way of the World by Earth Wind and Fire. Every word, every beat was familiar. Yes, I could slow dance to that with confidence. But I was used to the album version. The DJ played the radio edit. Halfway through there was a stutter and I was hopelessly lost. It also was the song played at my wedding for the first dance with my new bride, but the tune already had its link. Though details aren’t as clear, I remember that dorm-room disaster dance more than the first dance. It’s not like you can choose.

You hear of other people talking about their song, of a melody that brings them back to a special moment. Music’s magic has not been the same for me. It brings back moments, whether they are magic or not. I’ve learned that the “special” part of it isn’t so important. Just sparking a particular memory is enough, like the girl who in the middle of her peers showed a lack of self-consciousness not characteristic of her age group. She danced for no one but herself.

Maybe it was a special moment after all.

Conversation between Dusty, a mutt, and Lizzie, a visiting Australian cattle dog:

“It’s time.”

“Time?”

“Time.”

“Time for what?”

“To go to the Go Out door.”

“The Go Out door?”

“The Go Out door.”

“Why?”

“To go out.”

“To go out?”

“Yes, to go out.”

“I don’t have to go out.”

“I have to go out.”

“…”

“So I am going to the Go Out door.”

“I’m coming.”

“Where?”

“To the go out door.”

“You have to go out?”

“No.”

“…”

“…”

“This is the Go Out door.”

“How do you know?”

“Because this is where I go out.”

“But you can’t go out.”

“Why not?”

“There is no place to go out.”

“That is because the door is closed.”

“Open it.”

“I can’t open it.”

“Why can’t you open it?”

“Because only the Food People can open it.”
“The Food People? It’s time for food?”

“No, it’s time to go out.

“…”

“So I am at the Go Out door.”

“Waiting for the Go Out people.”

“No, waiting for the Food People.”

“Not the Go Out people?”

“The Food People are the Go Out People.”

“What if the Food People do not come?”

“Then I push my nose against the Go Out Door.”

“That opens the Go Out Door?”

“No.”

“…”

“It brings the Food People.”

“How?”

“…”

“…”

“I don’t know.”

“Push the door with your nose.”

“I am pushing the door with my nose.”

“The Food People!”

“The Food People.”

“The Food People are here.”

“Because I pushed my nose on the Go Out door.”

“Your nose is magic.”

“Yes, my nose is magic.”

“Yes.”

“But not always.”

“Not always?”

“Sometimes the Food People do not come when I push my Magic Nose on the Go Out door.”

“They don’t come?”

“No. And the Go Out Door does not open.”

“…”

“Yes. The Go Out Door does … not … open.”

“Oh.”

“But I still have to go out.”

“What do you do?”

“If the Go Out Door doesn’t open?”

“Yes.”

“I go to …”

“Yes?”

“The Poop Place.”

“The Poop Place?”

“The Poop Place.”

“What is the Poop Place?”

“It is much smaller than the Go Out Place.”

“How much smaller?”

“Very much smaller. But the ground …”

“Yes?”

“Is much softer. And smells different.”

“Where is the Poop Place?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?”

“No. But it is close.”

“How do you know?”

“I can always find it with my nose.”

“Your Magic Nose!”

“Yes. My Magic Nose tells me where it is. Only …”
“What?”

“The Food People, well-“
“What?”

“After I use the Poop Place, the Food People bark at me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“They bark?”

“Loudly. So loud I put my ears down.”

“…”

“Then another thing happens.”

“What?”

“The poop disappears.”

“What?”

“The poop in the Poop Place is gone.”

“It’s gone?”

“Yes. Not like the poop in the Go Out Place.”

“…”

“You must be careful in the Go Out Place.”

“Yes.”

“And go only in the place you smell yourself in the Go Out Place.”

“Of course.”

“Yes.”

“I have to go out.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“But you said you didn’t.”

“Now I do.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

“The Food People are getting closer.”

“Yes.”

“Wag your tail.”

“OK.”

“Faster!”

“Why?”

“It pleases the Food People, and they are the ones who open the Go Out Door.”

“The Go Out Door is opening.”

“Yes. We are going out.”

“We are out!”

“We are out.”

“Only …”

“Yes?”

“How do we get back in?”

An actual excerpt from "What I did over my smmer vacation: the gross part"

(Background -- my 10-yr-old son and I were visiting my parents in an undisclosed locations. The names probably should have been changed to protest the extremely embarrassed.)

Everything was going nice and smoothly. Then dinner hit the fan.

We hade chosen Applebee’s because, well, it just seems that what people do when faced with so many decisions. They pick the easiest and safest, partially explaining the popularity of such mediocre restaurants like Applebee’s, Chili’s, TGI Fridays and the worst culinary offender of them all, Outback. I, for one, will never understand Outback’s appeal. It can’t be Foster’s, which somehow passes as beer in Australia (like we have something to brag about with Bud, Coors and Miller). I have been to an Outback only because of misguided friends who think a $50 gift card there is actually a good thing. However, when told there is a two-hour wait for a steak that is as overpriced as it is mediocre, even a gift card isn’t worth hanging with people stupid enough to take a coaster-shaped beeper who spend the wait talking about how nice it is when they’ve saved enough aluminum cans to be able to get out of the trailer park for a nice meal.

So we were at Applebee’s because Bryson’s grandparents, are, well, how do I put this – too old to worry about being discerning anymore. They smile when told the wait will “only” be 20 minutes. Hell, that ain’t nothing for the fine fare that is served at one of America’s finest dining establishments, heck no.

Once seated, each of us perused the 76-page menu (because when you don’t have quality, you better depend on quantity). Except for Bryson, who stuck to the kid’s menu. He is young enough to order off of it, too old to color it (guess that’s what they mean by being a ‘tweener).

A young, cheery woman approaches, her radiant smile almost screaming, “Sure, I’m making minimum wage right now, but I will make your brief stay here excruciatingly joyful if it kills me, because I’d do damn near anything for a 20 percent tip, so please don’t fill up on the appetizers.”

“Hey everyone and welcome to Applebee’s,” she said.

“What? We’re at Applebee’s? Holy fucking Christ, how in God’s name did that happen,” I wanted to say. But didn’t. One day I will. When Bryson is old enough to hear his dad curse for no good reason. Because he’s already heard me curse for good reason – like that time I was at stop sign and despite a lack of traffic, the three cars ahead of me were not moving, leading to a well-earned, “Will someone please fucking go at some point in time?”

“I know you probably haven’t had a chance to look at the menus,” she said, “but I can take your drink orders if you’d like.”

“Actually, I think we’re ready to order,” said my dad.

Yeah, the guy who comes here weekly and orders the same thing is ready to declare his food desires. Mom was ready as well. On those rare occasions when they do try a new restaurant, my dad looks up the menu on the Internet, and know what they are going to choose even before they leave.

It seemed everyone was ready to order. Dad asked for fish, mom chicken (most of which would go in a doggy bag that, yes, would go to there 18-year-old “You mean that dog ain’t dead yet?” Basset hound), Bryson mac and cheese, and me, well, the only page of the menu I was able to examine was alcohol, so I flipped to sandwiches and picked out the French dip. Mm mm mm, that’s good eating.

Food arrived within five minutes or so, since “profit margin” = “table turnaround” (and reflects directly on potential tips).

Bryson ate with the fury of a child who had not consumed solids for at least two hours. It took him longer to drench his dinner in ketchup than it did to eat. Dad had taken a few forkfuls of the halibut, while mom continued to talk about how delicious her chicken looked. She would not actually start eating it until well into the meal.

I dipped my tepid roast-beef sandwich into the slightly warm au just, which is French for “Whatever those drippings are at the bottom of the grease trap, add some water and heat it up.” Yeah, pretty much what I expected.

As I took my second bite, Bryson was done, my dad was surgically separating his green beans from his fish, and mom was searching for another adjective to describe her chicken (“This just looks so yummy.”)

I was dipping my sandwich when I heard a noise that, had I been in a hospital, I would have guessed someone else just died. It was a quick gag and silence, a breath so short it seemed to have been stolen away by Death.

I looked up and saw my dad’s eyes wide, cheeks bulging. He dropped is fork and quickly waved at his with his right hand as if to say, “Yes, I am choking to death but please don’t make a scene. This is, after all, Applebee’s.”

I could think of only one thing – “Please, if my dad is going to suffer a humiliating death at the hands of halibut, please let it be at a dining establishment that does not reek.”

Another gag and, still waving, he coughed up bits of fish swimming in a mixture of bile and saliva. Another cough, another upheaval of bile and saliva. Vomit, yet dainty vomit. His throat finally relented and allowed him air, my dad gulping it in in huge mouthfuls, coughing between each struggling inhalation.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, wrong pipe, that’s all,” dad croaked. “Nothing to worry about.”

And with that pronouncement, he picked up his fork and scraped the regurgitated halibut under the green beans and within 10 seconds, started eating again. With gusto. As if, it were possible, he would have ordered the halibut with a side of bile and partially chewed fish.

Once he seemed as if he would live to see another meal, I looked at Bryson, who had turned his head and was staring at the Applebee’s bar.

“Bud, don’t worry, he’s all right,” I said. “He’s not going to embarrass us by dying.”

He said nothing, but continued staring at the bar.

“Bryson, that’s rude,” I said. “He’s your grandfather. It was an accident. Now turn back to this table.”

He swiveled his head and looked at me. That’s when I knew.

This was only going to get worse.

His cheeks puffed up and his Adam’s apple bobbed. He bent over and there was a splashing noise of liquid on vinyl. Looking down, a thick, odorous liquid was splattered across the bench.

He convulsed again, and this time he struggled to hold it. Instinctively I grabbed a napkin and cupped it in my hands. He vomited into it like a pro. This time it was a viscous yellow liquid. Another gag and, napkin full, I balled it up, placed it on his empty place and grabbed my own dinner, holding the platter in front of him. A torrent of macaroni bits and fries spewed forth, engulfing the remains of my sandwich.

Later, after we had cleaned up and waited outside while dad paid the bill, I marveled at the talents of the stomach to separate and expel like ingredients. Ketchup, then cheese, than macaroni and fries. I wondered how we might be able to turn that into a circus act.

But only briefly.

Many years ago, my father surprised me when he asked for my help in buying a computer.

“What do you need a computer for?” I said. “You’re retired and you spend most of your time around the house. You get the newspaper and Time. What else could you possibly need?”

“The weather,” he said.

“Weather?”

“Yeah, I want to be able to look it up. Anytime, anywhere.”

“You could go outside for that.”

“Not if I want to know the weather tomorrow.”

And so we went down to the local computer store and bought him a machine that far exceeded his needs (and now, five years later, is hopelessly out of date, which is fine, he says, “because it suits my needs, like checking the weather”).

I was surprised again during a recent visit home when my mom asked for my help in buying a cellphone.

“Why?” I said. “You’re always home. Mobile phones are designed for people who are mobile.”

When my parents do go out, it is to shop for groceries or have lunch. Mostly lunch.

“We don’t go out to dinner,” my mom says. “Too crowded. Even at 4 now you’ll have a lot of people out. Sometimes we’d have to park two or three rows away from the front door. So now we just go out to lunch.”

This is not the demographic Alltel and Cingular had in mind when introducing unlimited anytime minutes for $79.99 with a free camera-phone. My parents’ telecommunication needs had been well-served by the touch-tone phone that had hung on the kitchen wall for more than 20 years. The six-foot radius of the cord satisfied their mobile needs.

A cellphone seemed about as necessary as dinner reservations. This is, after all, a couple that has refused to get an answering machine because, “If anyone wants us that badly, they can call back.”

“It’s not for me,” mom said. “It’s for your dad.”

Ah, so the gadget-master had something to do with this. My dad, like most men, has a desire for devices that is inversely proportionate to the device’s usefulness. When I was a young child with no understanding of man’s lust for gadgets – especially those that came with manuals that would be picked up only in case of emergency, like sparks and fire – I did not question my dad’s request for a bottle cutter. According to the commercials that blanketed each of our five available TV channels, with the Amazing Bottle Cutter, you could cut various bottles to make ashtrays and any other items requiring a cut bottle (which were numerous in the ads, but I think each was a variation on the ashtray).

My dad used the gadget to produce any number of weapons-grade cut bottles, not always successful in avoiding the lethal edges that never appeared in the ads. Many a Michelob bottle was magically transformed into shards, since the bottle cutter employed techniques (etching a line with the cutter portion, which was supposed to crack cleanly using heat and cold) that now would feed a generation of personal-injury attorneys.

Later on my dad would ask for, and receive, a winemaking kit (the smell from the first and last try lingered for weeks), a flashlight powered by squeezing its handle (leading to the invention of carpal tunnel syndrome), and a weather radio (real-time weather for those not blessed with windows and a door).

“Does dad really need a cellphone?” I said. “Or is this another bottle-cutter moment?”

“Well, he’d carry it,” my mom said. “But it’s for me too. Sometimes he’s out and I want to know I can call if I need to.”

So I accompanied my dad to the wireless store. Good thing because left to his own devices, and a clerk who could not understand how anyone could pass up unlimited minutes including voicemail and text messaging for just $79.99 a month, my father would have walked out of their with the Cadillac of phones when all he needed was a two-wheeler.

“Let’s call mom,” he said the second we stepped out of the store. “To see if it really works.”

Sure dad, because maybe the pixie magic required to make phone calls out of thin air hasn’t been fully charged.

“OK, just punch in the number-“

“Wait,” he said, holding the phone to his ear. “Something’s wrong. I’m not getting a dial tone.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” I said. “You dial the number first, then press the send button. The phone then connects and makes the call.”

“You mean I don’t need a dial tone?”

“You will get a dial tone, but only after you hit the send button.”

“What’s the send button?”

“That green one right there.”

“This one? It’s pretty small. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Size has nothing to do with it.” Why does that sound familiar?

“Is there anything I need to do before I just start dialing?” dad said. “Or do I just start hitting numbers?”

“You can turn on the phone.”

“Where?”

“That button on top.”

“Here? I don’t see a button.”

“Just press it and see what happens.”

A tinny chime came from the phone.

“Well, how about that?” dad said. “The button’s right there but you can’t see it. Clever.”

“OK, now dial your number and press that green button there.”

“No, you do it. I just want to watch for now.”

He was open to more hands-on exploring when we arrived home. For the next hour we added phone numbers to the address book (there were only five, though I regret not putting 911 on speed dial) as I showed him the various features.

“Now I’m going to show you have to use the voice tag,” I said. “That way you can just say the person’s name and the phone will dial it automatically.”

“Really?” dad said, his eyes lighting up like when he saw the Amazing Bottle Cutter for the first time.

“I’ve programmed a few, so let’s try this one,” I said. “Press this button here, hold it and say ‘Call mom.’”

He took the phone, put it an inch to his mouth and leaned forward. “Call mom.”

“No, you have to press and hold this button, then say it.”

“Call mom.”

“OK, first you don’t have to be so close to the phone. Hold it out here. Now when you press that button, you’ll hear a series of tones. Then say, ‘Call mom.’”

The phone beeped. “Call mom.”

“See, you have to press and hold the button,” I said. “If you just press the button, the phone beeps and your address book comes up. Here, watch.”

I press and hold, and the phone chimed. “Call mom.” A few seconds later, the kitchen phone rang.

“Got it,” he said, taking the phone. “I just press this and … Call mom.” The phone chimed.

“You have to wait for the tone,” I said. “Maybe it would just be easier if you dialed. Now let’s see if you’ve got voice mail.”

Abandoning all that my dad had taught me, I reached for the instruction manual, opened it to the appropriate page and learned how to do something without 15 minutes of fruitless experimentation. It was an odd feeling.

“This seems pretty easy,” I said. “I think I’ve got it. I’m going to call the number from the kitchen. Just let it ring.”

“OK.”

I lifted the kitchen phone off the hook and dialed. The cellphone trilled.

“Hello,” dad answered.

“Dad, what are you doing? I told you to let it ring.”

“I did let it ring. Then I answered it.”

“Well, hang it up. I need you to let it ring to see if it goes to voicemail.”

“But that phone doesn’t have voicemail. We’ve never had an answering machine.”

“Not this phone, the cellphone.”

“Oh, right, right,” dad said. “This phone is separate from the phone we have now, right? Or do we have to buy an answering machine? Because I don’t think we’ll want that because the only people who call us want to sell us new windows.”

The lessons ended shortly afterward. I just hope my dad never discovers the “Accessories” part of the menu. How am I going to explain web surfing and ring downloads?

“You have to get the Mango Sugar Glow, it’s absolutely amazing.”

I had just remembered that advice as I finished scheduling my “treatments” at Tucson’s Canyon Ranch, a very high-end fat farm that has a gym, hundreds of classes geared toward getting you to ear right and exercise, and a dozens of massages for people who forget to go to the gym and blow off diet class (which applies to 98 percent of the people here).

“OK, you’ve got the Hot Stone Massage, the Shiatsu Massage, the Swedish Massage and the Watsu Water Treatment Massage,” said the woman at the front desk. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, there’s some sort of Mango Massage, a sugar glow thing?” I said.

“You mean the Mango Sugar Glow? It’s absolutely amazing.”

“Yeah, that’s it. The Sugar Glow.”

“OK, let me print out your schedule for you,” she said as a machine below the counter began to hum. “You’ll need to arrive 15 minute before the appointment, just come back here to the waiting area and your masseuse will come out to get you.”

“Sounds perfect,” I said, pulling on the cottony soft belt of my plush white robe. Every guest here wears a robe and slippers because most of them are at some point getting a massage, and it’s just cool to walk around as if you’re at the Playboy Mansion. It’s amazing how quickly you stop worrying about robe gappage, since most people are strolling around in bodies you wouldn’t want to look, so voyeurism is about as much a part of this place as fried food (there are guys at the Ranch’s gated entrance whose job includes turning away pizza deliveries as well as any unauthorized food ordered by guests dying to eat something other than 2.5 ounces of boiled halibut served on a few sprigs of lemon grass, oh my God, don’t you people have a conscience?!)

“Wait, I forgot one thing,” she said, scribbling something on the schedule. “For the Mango Sugar Glow, go through the men’s locker room to the sauna area. Tell the attendant what you’re there for and he’ll take care of you.”

“Ok, no problem,” I’d already been to the men’s locker room, where you can toss your robe in a wicker basket and get a freshly laundered robe at absolutely no extra cost, though it’s probably factored somewhere into the $2,288 per week charge. Did I say meals are included? Because they are. That’s several ounces of fish and vegetables thrown in for free, a $12.18 retail value.

No matter, because it’s all about the massages. Well, except for that Hot Stone Massage, which consisted of an older woman hoisting smooth rocks from a crock pot and placing them on your body in places you don’t even think about until someone places a hot stone there. Near the end this rubless treatment, the attendant (she can hardly be called a masseuse, since that implies a massage is taking place) wedges small skipping stones between your toes. Perhaps they found this practice on the Abu Ghraib website.

It was nearing time for my Mango Sugar Glow, so I slid into my slippers, closed my robe and walked the quarter mile to the men’s locker room, passing the gym where the only sound coming from inside was that of crickets and the whisper of a tumbleweed.

I sat in a plastic chaise lounge next to the hot tub currently being shared by two large, sweaty, please-don’t-forget-your-robe men sipping in ice water with a wedge of lemon (damn, where’d they get the lemon? That could’ve been lunch). Men in robes occupied the other four chairs. Looked like the Mango Sugar Glow was a popular treatment.

I snagged a white fluffy towel from one of the 12 stacks of white fluffy towels strategically placed so that you would never be more than an arm’s length from cottony comfort. I put the towel under my head since I really couldn’t think of another use for it, and with the resort filled with such towels, it would be just wrong not to use one. Hey, it’s free. And now someone has to wash it (doing the math later, I discovered that of the $2,288 per week, $2,200 goes to the laundry. The rest is split between the kitchen and the guy who bitch-slaps the Domino’s dude).

“Mr. C--?” said a man who had emerged from the back. A white T-shirt clung to his wiry frame, sinewy muscles rippling along forearms that once belonged to Popeye look. His white pants lent to his clinical look, save for the snake tattooed on his left bicep, the serpent dancing as he swung his long arms by his side while walking toward me.

“That’s me,” I said. Leaning forward, I grabbed the towel and threw it into a small wicker basket that, I assumed, was for soiled linens. On its way to the basket, the towel was intercepted by a laundry attendant who, and I swear this is true, suddenly appeared as if out of a wormhole. As he disappeared into the back, I could swear each of the towel stacks raised the height of one more towel.

“Good, I’m Jim, nice to meet you,” he said, crushing my hand. “Now let’s see, you want the, uh, the Mango Sugar Glow?”

“Well,” I said, hesitating because the way his voice went up at the end of the sentence. It started as a statement, ending as a question. “Yeah, the, uh, Sugar Glow.” Had I just said “Sugar glow”?

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Could you just wait here a few minutes? I need to go over to the ladies’ side to get the mango, uh, glow.”

The two sweaty guys in the hot tub looked at me. Smirking. The other guys sitting in the plastic lounges pulled their robes a little tighter, eyes glued on their magazines that included Maxim, Sports Illustrated and Popular Mechanics (Popular Mechanics? Who knew that was still around?)

“Ladies’ side?” I said. “Why?” Just asking this seemed to rub more Sugar Glow into the wound.

“It’s not something we offer on the men’s side,” said Jim, emphasizing “men’s.” “Don’t worry, it’ll just take a few minutes.”

Before my testosterone levels dropped to levels from which they could never recover, I waved him off.

“No, that’s OK,” I said. “I really don’t know anything about this mango thing. A friend suggested it. A woman. So it really isn’t that important to me. At all.”

“OK, if you’re sure.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“If you’re still interested,” Jim said, “what we do on this side is a sea-salt scrub.”

“Definitely, then let’s do that,” I said. “Yup, sea-salt. Scrub. That sounds perfect.”

“It’s pretty abrasive,” Jim said. “But it’s a great exfoliate. Your skin will really breathe when it’s over.”

Exfoliate? Hey, Jimbo, doesn’t that belong on the women’s side?

“Sounds perfect,” I said.

Jim smiled. Not a warm “Welcome back to the men’s side” smile, but a “You say that now, but just wait” smile.

Whatever. Bring on the sea salt, baby. I looked at the two guys in the hot tub, hoping they had heard. About being rubbed with sea salt. Not about it being an exfoliate. But they’d closed their eyes, perhaps dreaming of a different ending for “Mango Boy” – “So this big beefy attendant has to go to the woman’s side because this guy insisted on being slathered with some kind of sugar lotion, can you just imagine his humiliation?”

Jim pointed to a door past the sauna. “Go in there and take a shower. Don’t dry off, though, just like on the table and drape this towel over yourself. I’ll be in in just a few minutes.”

White spotless tiles covered every square inch of the walls in the small room. A nozzle jutted from the wall, opposite a drain in the floor. A thinly padded massage table took up the rear half of the room, under which was the familiar stack of fluffy towels.

I twisted the knob underneath the nozzle. Needles of water splashed against my skin, and I turned slowly to soak myself. I turned off the water, grabbed and towel and stretched out on the table, waiting for Jim.

A few minutes later he entered with a clear plastic wide-mouthed bottle. He tipped it toward his palm and shook, a rattling sound echoing off the tiles.

“What I’m going to do,” he said, standing over me, “is rub this salt over your skin, removing the dead cells and reviving the skin underneath. All you need to do is relax. Oh, and let me know if I’m a little too vigorous. Some men have, you know, a lower tolerance for the scrub.”

You mean like men who ask for Mango Sugar Glow? Of course he meant that. Do your best, Salt Man, because I was about to prove I was no Mango Boy.

I closed my eyes as he started on my arms, a burning sensation that could only be caused by intense chafing. I could actually hear my top three skin layers say goodbye. What I could not hear was the distinct buzz of the power sander he must have been using.

“How’s that?” he asked, the salt creating its own wounds in which to be rubbed.

“Really nice,” I said, trying to remember if Jim had said this would take 30 or 45 minutes.

For the next several hours (I was surprised to find the clock had moved just 50 minutes during the procedure), Jim was careful to find every patch of skin previously exposed to air, removing it with the efficiency of a man who nearly had to go over to the ladies’ side, seeing his life flash before his eyes.

The worst was the inner thighs, where his hands came dangerously close to body parts never meant to experience salt crystals, let alone have them ground in. The towel did not stop Jim’s ruthless pursuit of skin cells more than a few days old. As he continued to scrape my inner thighs, I wondered if this was a feeling similar to that of a marathoner in the last mile of the race, his flesh rubbing together to a point where friction should set his shorts on fire.

“Everything OK?” Jim asked.

“This is great,” I said. “I can’t believe I’ve never had this done before.”

“Yeah, it really stimulates the skin.”

That made me feel good, indicating I still had skin left.

When it was over, I was glowing – a very bright red. I shrugged into my robe, a once comfy outer layer that now stuck with a million tiny barbs. I walked gingerly with legs spread, as if I’d just spent the last eight hours riding naked on a horse through Death Valley.

“A lot of guys are surprised how refreshed they feel after a sea-salt scrub,” Jim said. “All that dead skin was just suffocating.”

Yes, exposing muscle and sinew to air was certainly preferable to being suffocated by several layers of epidermis. At least that is what I expressed to Jim as I left, thanking him for his strong hands and determined nature.

“Yeah, it’s great to be able to breathe again,” I said. I just never thought I’d be able to do it through my inner thighs.

This is the story of Bryson’s first curse words. Well, at least the words I heard. Since then, having outgrown the innocence of childhood (which means coming to the realization that dad is not quite as omniscient as originally presented), he’s no doubt added many colorful yet profane euphemisms to his verbal repertoire, but knows better than to share such intimate knowledge of these aural perversities within range of his father’s acute hearing.

And that’s OK with me. Selective ignorance is a wonderful thing when used wisely.

Not that I think my boy frequently salts his language with the spice afforded by the English tongue. He is well aware of profanity’s stars (“Now presenting the one you’ve all come to hear, the head verbal honcho guaranteed to add a punch to any expletive, the F word!”), but probably has yet to express them in ways that indicate a knowledge of the word’s intimacies. I say this only because he still remains hesitant to say “sex,” instead spelling it out, criss-crossing the air with is right index finger when he comes to the X. At this point, the habit is more an endearment than anything else, though by the time he is married (in his late 30s, of course), it might be wise to abandon air-spelling and just come out with what you want.

Let us go back to the start of what surely will be a life partially dedicated to exploring the intricacies of the language as expressed when someone cuts you off in traffic.

Bryson was just 6 when I convinced him (promised him enough sweets and swag to keep him interested for an hour or so) to attend a baseball game while visiting his grandparents in Northern California. For me, it was a trip to one of the premier stadiums in the country, an emerald jewel on the lip of the San Francisco Bay. For him, it was a chance to score a bunch of stuff whose cost was inversely proportional to the probabilities he would want to keep it once TV was again available.

We rode BART into the city, Bryson disappointed there was no one selling BART-related Legos on board. Upon arriving in the City (snoblike reference to San Francisco), we disembarked, headed up the nearest stairway and found ourselves among many people apparently unaware of the advantages of bathing. Bryson was disappointed none were selling transient-related action figures,

It was a spotless sunny day, a fastball God hurled right over the plate. Perfect for a game whose outcome takes entirely too long to resolve.

We walked the half-mile to PacBell Stadium, Bryson climbing, swinging and jumping on all objects offering the opportunity, though not designed, for such antics. The urban landscape became his playground, which was fine until he ascended a statue of Willie Mays, making it precisely halfway to the delight of nearby tourists, cameras firing away.

Once inside the stadium, Bryson was much more focused. It was time for stuff. We hit every team shop (34) between the entrance and our seats on the third deck. On prior vacations, the rule was that I would buy him any souvenirs within reason, which he translated to mean “Stuff we could carry between us, as long as one of us was pushing a shopping cart.” A year ago the rule was changed. Bryson had $50 to spend each vacation, a decision that transformed Bryson from Mr. Moneybags to Mr. Totally Tightass With a Buck.

So we browsed. And browsed. And browsed. He finally settled on a two-foot-long souvenir San Francisco Giant bat. It was not surprising given his penchant for wielding blunt objects, but as long as I watched him closely, everything would be fine. Besides, I planned to ply him with enough crap that his hands would always be holding less lethal objects, like caramel popcorn and chocolate malts. And the resulting sugar-fueled euphoria, he would forget all about the bat.

The strategy worked perfectly. The bat was tucked safely away under his seat, which was in the first row of the upper deck. Where a metal railing and six-inch concrete lip was all that kept Bryson from a bat-related tragedy should it slip from his fingers and tumble toward the higher-income masses below.

The thought of such an occurrence made my daddy-sense tingle from the minute we sat down. Every 3.2 minutes, I would say to Bryson, “If you drop that bat, it’s gone. Hold onto it. With both hands. Don’t drop it. Because if you drop it, it’s gone. Seriously.” The warning came as Bryson poured 12 packets of ketchup on his hotdog. As he squirted another 17 packets on his fries. As he dabbed at his ketchup-sodden lap with a napkin.

In between warnings I watched the game as Bryson eyed vendors for upcoming purchase possibilities. I had hoped he was too busy wondering how in God’s name someone could eat a rock-solid chocolate malt with a wooden spoon to listen to the man one row up and three seats over who shared his enjoyment of profanity with every play not in the home team’s favor.

Besides that, it was a perfect day. I watched baseball, Bryson ate, I uttered the warning, Bryson ate. Beautiful.

Until the fifth inning.

“Hey bud, want a pretzel?” I said.

“No thanks,” he said. “I’m full.

“What? No, no, have a pretzel. Enjoy.”

“No, I’ve had enough.”

Then it hit me. I was now dependent upon baseball to entertain my son. Oh my God, what have I done?

“How about some licorice? An Icee? I could run up to concessions and get you a Milky Way or …”

“No, I’m done.”

Hands now free of sugar-imbued sustenance reached under the seat and came up with the bat. This called for strident action. The frequency of warnings was increased, as was the decibel level.

Bryson swung the bat back and forth, uttering low humming sounds as if wielding a Star Wars lightsaber. I was OK with this if it resulted in another inning or two of baseball. I returned my attention to the game and, after another half-inning in a very close game, my WPM (warnings per minutes) fell drastically.

My eyes focused on a deep fly ball, I heard something. A sound that did not belong. A clatter of wood upon concrete. As my eyes traveled from field to seats, I heard another sound that did not belong.

“Shit!”

In the midst of turning my head, my concern had shifted from “Jesus, did Bryson just drop the bat, is it now plummeting toward the unsuspecting fans below?” to “What did he just say?”

I stared at Bryson, his gaze meeting mine. My peripheral vision revealed the bat near his feet, but we’d get to that.

“What did you just say?” I asked, pronouncing each word slowly with as much Dadpower as I could muster.

A low, whispery voice answered.

“Sh-i-i-i-i-t?” Bryson said, drawing out the word.

“That’s what I thought. I can’t believe you said that. You know that’s a bad word.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, it happens. And what did I tell you about the bat? Give it to me.”

He reached down, grasped it and handed it to me. He knew he could have made a plea. After all, this was vacation, and Dad was much looser about the rules on vacations. But he knew the “shit” had ended any shot at mercy.

“Come on, let’s go,” I said.

Looking back, it would have been much more of a punishment to make Bryson stay and watch baseball. Actually watch it. And no doubt he never would have cursed in front of me, traumatized by having to watch baseball.

But I didn’t do that, much to my regret.

The next day, Bryson and I went to the nearby water park. No worries about plying the boy with treats this time. Waterslides would keep us occupied all day. The only fear I had was the crowds. The plan was to arrive about 15 minutes after the park opened, early enough to beat most the crowds but late enough so that the line to enter would have dwindled.

“That way we should be able to just about walk in,” I told Bryson as we got into the car. “Plus it’s a little cold still, so I don’t think we’ll see a lot of people.”

“We don’t want to spend all day in line,” said Bryson, who hates waiting in line almost as much as being forced to watch baseball. “That would be a waste.”

“Definitely. But I’m sure we’ve got it worked out just right.”

On the 20-minute drive, we talked about how perfect our plan was. We were smarter than all those suckers getting there too early or too late.

As we pulled into the lot to pay for parking (you get soaked here in more ways than one), only one car was ahead of us.

“See, this is how it feels to have a plan work so well,” I said. “I’ll bet about 15 minutes ago, there were a bunch of cars in line.”

“Yeah, those others weren’t thinking too well,” Bryson said.

“Not like you and I, right?”

“Right.”

The car was so full of smugness, we could barely breathe.

We turned the corner and I could actually hear the hiss of our perfect plan dissolving right in front of us. The line to get into the park blocked our path, forcing me to duck through a narrow gap between cars and park further away. Bryson, busy doing who knows what, didn’t notice.

I stopped and looked into the back seat. I had another plan.

“Hey bud, hop out and go get in line, OK? I’ll park and meet you.”

“Why?” he said, looking up at me.

“Well, the line is a little longer than I thought.”

“What?” He looked out the window and there before him were nearly a hundred people in bathing suits, each holding a towel.

“That’s the line?” he asked.

I nodded.

“God damn it!”

I stared at him, the dilemma clear. Do I do the right thing, having a discussion with him about right and wrong words as well as the proper way to express anger? Or do I tell him to hurry up and grab his towel and get in line?

Since this was the second infractions, sterner measures were necessary.

“Hurry up and grab your towel and get in line,” I said. “We’ll talk about this later.”

I have had many low points in my career as a journalist. Such as covering a Colorado high school football game when it was 10 below, trying to keep notes wearing ski gloves that kept my fingers a degree or two above freezing and upon returning to the office had about five minutes to decipher scratchings in my notebook that resembled petroglyphs inscribed by a prehistoric man with really bad sharp-stonemanship. Then there was the time I had to conduct an interview with Norm Macdonald, alleged comedian, while talking to his agent (also on the line) as he was in the midst of moving into a new home. Me--“Obviously things didn’t work out for you on Saturday Night Live, so did you need time to think about your career or did you want to go-“ Norm-“Jesus, hey Chuck, what the hell is my address here, I think I may have sent some stuff to the wrong place.” Chuck – “I’m not sure, look, is there some mail there? Or maybe you can look for a number somewhere outside.” Norm- “A number? What kind of number? Can you please just tell me where the f--- I am?”

But I could actually hear a the distinct scraping sound of my career hitting bottom (much like the sound that must have kept Ben Affleck awake as he made Gigli) when my office phone had not rung by 11 a.m. on a Monday.

Elmo had definitely blown me off.

Yeah, Elmo. Of Chicken Dance Elmo. Limbo Elmo. Tickle Me All The Way to the Bank Elmo. Yup, 2.3 pounds of foam rubber and red fuzz had told me in celebrity speak (refusing to return a call at the appointed time) to take a flying leap. Maybe I could understand if Elmo was an A-list Muppet, like Kermit or Miss Piggy. I could even understand if it had been Gonzo, because he’s kind of flaky anyway and spends way too much time with chickens.

But Elmo? High-pitched squeaky-voiced redheaded fuzzball Elmo? Whose habit of speaking about himself in the third person has worn thinner than Sesame Street’s relevance?

The publicist had given me a choice. I could talk to either Grover or Elmo in connection with an interactive health-related exhibit opening here soon, since it featured several Sesame Street residents. If I had my preference, I would have wanted to talk to Ernie because we are always striving to represent diversity, and it would have been nice to feature an alternative lifestyle.

Instead I chose Elmo because my instant reaction to Grover was, “What the hell is a Grover?” Besides, I had a picture in my mind when it came to Elmo (never mind it was of moms fighting over the Tickle Me Elmo doll several years ago, which I recall as “The Holiday a Vibrating Muppet Senselessly Boned America”).

After calling Elmo’s official representative (yes, a doll has someone to make appointments), it was set up for 10 a.m. the following Monday. I was asked to remember that Elmo was just 3 years old and, as such, could only answer questions appropriate to that age. So there went my first question – “Elmo, that high voice of yours. Were you neutered?” Which I had assumed would have been a mandatory part of the adoption process.

No matter. I could always ask Elmo his feelings on the – no, wait, that wouldn’t work. Maybe on how he views – nope, that would be inappropriate too, because I am pretty sure no Muppet has a sex life, especially a Muppet that is allegedly just 3 years old. So much for the goal of getting Elmo to say a curse word (a sound bite that definitely would have brought more than a few bucks as a ringtone).

As the appointed time approached, I connected and tested the tape recorder (would not want to misquote someone who is now in Bartlett’s for the quote, “Ooohh, that tickles, now get your hands off me, Michael”). My questions were lined up, ranging from “What’s you favorite color?” to “Have you ever been inside a Turkish prison?” the last to be used only if his agent was on the other line discussing his move to a better Sesame Street neighborhood.

Only the phone never rang.

“I’m so sorry, he was supposed to be in his office by now,” his publicist said. Elmo has an office. Salt in the wound.

“I guess this is the last day of taping and they’re all at the wrap party,” the publicist continued. “To be honest, I’m not sure he’s going to be here any time soon. Maybe it would be best if we postponed.”

I imagined Elmo at the party, having a few too many, bumping into that flaming yellow seven-foot bird and screaming, “You’re not so big!” Or Oscar following him around saying, “Tickle this, Elmo.” And of course the while thing is captured by Bert, who’s been working for the Weekly World News all along.

The bottom line, however, is that I was blown off by Elmo.

Think I’ll just sit down and watch Gigli so I can feel good about myself again.

A conversation that occurred during an official conference-room meeting that proves once and for all we will never be the subject of a reality show—

“The new Star Wars move is opening on, I don’t know. Like, in a couple of weeks.”

“Yeah, on a Thursday.”

“Thursday? What’s up with that?”

“I just love Boba Fett.”

“What?”

“Boba Fett. You know, the bounty hunter.”

“He was pretty cool. Remember how he died?”

“He was swept into some sand creature, that thing where all youl could see was is mouth coming out.”

“For a cool character, he deserved a lot better death than that. It kinda sucked the way he went.”

“I had a tree frog named Boba Fett.”

“A tree frog.”

“Yeah, a tree frog.”

“For a pet?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t have him for long.”

“Was he eaten by a sand creat-“
”So what happened to him?”

“It wasn’t really working out so I took him back to the pet store. Only –“

“Isn’t the real question here, ‘Why did you have a tree frog for a pet?’”

“-there was this older woman in there and she saw Boba Fett. She asked me if he was sick, if that’s why I was taking him there, and I told her I didn’t want him anymore.”

“Kinda tough to bond with a tree frog?”

“And she goes, ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to take him.’ So I handed him over. I don’t know what happened to him after that.”

“Did you think, like, ‘How weird’ when Star Wars came out and one of the characters was named after your tree frog?”

“What?”

“You know, you named this frog Boba Fett and, you know. The movie.“

(pause)

“No, I named him after the character.”

(suppressed laughter)

“Oh, right.”

“I love saying it. Boba Fett. BO-ba FETT. Boba Fett. That is so cool. Boba Fett. Boba boba boba boba boba Fett. See?”

“OK, so, where were we?”

Letter to a new father--

i am not going to bore you with this, but i cannot help but expound upon my favorite subject, that of fatherhood. it does make a big difference when you plan for it (and it was something i had anticipated for years before finally getting my wife at the time to agree to it, a necessity as she was the holder of the eggs).
it is by far the most rewarding endeavor i have ever been involved with, one in which i find new joy every day. early on it was the smiles and laughter. then the sitting up, the reaching out for things as he explored this strange new world (one of my favorite memories are the evenings i would bathe him, my chore - yeah, like it was a "chore" - and we would splash and talk and sing and i could not help but allow my mind to regress back to its origins, my thoughts and senses melding perfectly with that of an infant). then those tentative first steps, increased mobility. and the words. communication was such a wonderful breakthrough.
And eventually he was able to use that amazing ability to convey feelings. then those truly precious moments, like the one where i sat in the audience at dobson high as bryson was on stage reading from his essay about martin luther king (he won 2nd place in the district). i remember him calling me at work to tell me he'd won. i went absolutely nuts. i remember being told my quads story had earned first place in the annual gannett contest, but having my son tell me he'd jsut won 2nd place with his essay was so much more exciting. that's when it really hit me about my own accomplishments, why my mom and dad insisted on having my dean's list certificates, or the journalism awards i won while in college. life is good, but when things turn out for your child, life is great. and as wonderful as it is with your new daughter now, you will be shocked and amazed at how much better it's going to get.
i will pass onto you the one thing i am sure you already know, and as much as i have tried to accomplish this, it has proven to be impossible -- cling to every moment because they grow up so fast. i think i've done a pretty good job at that, realizing how swiftly days, weeks, months can pass. yet in two weeks bryson will turn 10 and i can't figure out what the hell happened to that decade. about a week ago i had turned out the light, put my head on the pillow and started thinking of just that: where did the years go? i started thinking of the things i've missed because his mom and i split up, wondering about what role i've played in his life. i had taken this journey over the last 10 years, but where had it led?
it was a feeling of aloneness, as if i'd done much of it on my own, that i'd had little influence on my son's life despite doing the best i could. a few days later i picked him up from school and, with this still at the back of my mind, i started asking him about his memories. what stood out, where i was in the recollections of a young boy. he remembered things that surprised me -- running along the sidewalk behind a plastic fire engine at the antfarm, being pushed while riding in a dumptruck, playing in the sand, spending 6 hours in the backseat of a compact car on the way to San Diego.
On and on. it hit me how i hadn't been alone on this journey at all. he'd been with me step by step, accumulating memories and knowledge, shaped and formed by those in his life. yes, an obvious conclusion, one i should have reached without such introspection, yet i was comforted. and i won't forget.
i've gone on way too long, but wanted to pass this along too -- though my dad was from a different era (and yours too, as you mentioned), and he did work a lot of hours every week, he was there for me. my memories are filled with visions of he and i playing football and basketball, building models, hell, even fighting over the length of my hair. he was never really my confidante, it just wasn't part of growing up back then. so with bryson, i hope to take the father-son bond that one step further and be the one he can come to with a problem, or at least a crisis. If not for the love and support of my own dad, i would be ill-equipped to do this on my own. what i do to help my son grow and mature is more important than anything i have ever done, or will do, at work.

Conversation between Dusty and Lizzie, male mutt and female cattle dog, part 4:

“Oh.”

“What?”

“That.”

“What?”

“That. Right there.”

“This?”

“Yes.”

“Lick it again?”

“Yes.”

“Here?”

“There.”

“Like this?”

“Just like that.”

“Uh oh.”

“Uh oh?”

“Uh oh.”

“What?”

“Something is different.”

“Different?”

“Different.”

“How?”

“Something came out.”

”Something came out?”

“Something came out.”

“What came out?”

“Wet. Pink. From inside.”

“From inside?”

“Yes.”

“From inside me?”

“Yes.”

“…”

“I think …”

“What do you think?”

“I think you are broken.”

“Broken?”

“Yes. Leaking. From inside.”

“Then stop”

“Stop?”

“Stop!”

“OK.”

“Um …”

“I stopped.”

“Yes, you stopped.”

“It’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone.”

“No more leaking?

“No leaking.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

“Do it again.”

“Here?”

“There.”

“Like this?”

“Like that.”

“Uh …”

“Just like that.”

“But …”

“Like that.”

“You’re coming out.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

“Stop!”

“I stopped.”

“You stopped.”

“It’s gone.”

“Good. No, not good.”

“Not good?”

“Not good.”

“…”

“Start again.”

“Here?”

“There.”

“Like this?”

“Like that.”

“You’re leaking again.”

“Yes, I’m leaking.”

“Stop?”

“No, don’t stop.”

“But you are broken.”

“I am leaking.”

“You are leaking.”

“But I …”

“Yes?”

“I feel …”

“Yes?”

“Not broken.

“Not broken?”

“Not broken. At all.”

“But you are leaking.”

“Yes.”

“From inside.”

“Yes.”

“But you aren’t broken?”

“No.”

“Then what are you?”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Really good.”

“Really good?”

“Really good.”

“Because of this?”

“Because of that.”

“Then i will stop.”

“Don’t stop.”

“I’m going to stop.”

“Don’t stop.”

“I’m stopping.”

“You’re stopping.”

“I’ll go again.”

“You will?”

“If …”

“If what?”

“Give me your food.”

“My food?

“Your food.”

“Done.”

“Then I will go again.”

“You’re going again.”

“Yes.”

“Yes. Yes. Yes. YES! Stop.”

“Stop?”

“Stop.”

“I’ve stopped.”

“You stopped.”

“…”

“…”

“Wanna turn?”

“OK.”

“Um …”

“What.”

“I can’t find it.”

“what?”

“The thing.”

“The thing?”

“The thing that breaks and feels good.”

“Oh. That thing.”

“That thing.”

“Good guess.”

“Here?”

“Yes, there.”

“Here?”

“There.”

“Here.”

“Yes. There. There.”

“I’m stopping.”

“Don’t stop.”

“I’ve stopped.”

“You stopped. Why?”

“Food.”

“Food?”

“Give me your food.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“OK. Here?”

“There.”

It is a genuine shame about Terri Schiavo. When she starved herself so many years ago, leading to a potassium imbalance would start a chemical reaction stopping her heart and leading to the death of brain cells responsible for such thoughts as “Does the way this Size 0 skirt has snagged my protruding hip bones make me look fat?”, spending the next 15 years with all the cognitive function of parents who allow their kids to spend the night at Neverland, who knew she’d become the poster victim for the “God, let me die already” movement.

Since her parents were the only ones more brain-damaged than her, Terri Schiavo was forced to spend much of her life turning liquid nourishment into human waste, the one task she truly mastered. If you think Michael Schiavo was happy once judges gave the OK to pull the tube, think of the smiles on the faces of her nurses.

Of course, there were reports Terri Schiavo wasn’t in a vegetative state at all. Never mind that her brain waves matched that of broccoli. Neurologists representing the Pro-“Let her suffer for the save of political purposes” movement insisted Schiavo’s brain was OK, if by “brain” you meant “skull Jell-O.”

One neurologist in Boca Raton put it his way in defending Schiavo’s right to a plant-like existence: “Take any vegetable, like a tomato, and leave it out for months and it starts to grow this fungus and pretty soon it’s growing everywhere and pretty soon it’s home to millions of intelligent bacteria and … what? Tomato’s a fruit? You’re shitting me.”

The religious right had a total spaz attack over the whole Schiavo thing. That, of course, begs this question: If heaven is so great, why the hell you fighting so hard to maintain a life where the only excitement is bedsore-cleaning day? Of course a good time was had by Muslim insurgents – “Those Christian infidels scoff at us for promising our fighters 21 virgins should they die in combat. At least we don’t force anyone to live life as a salad in order to avoid the afterlife. Now go blow yourself up.”

No one should have to suffer like Terri Schiavo. Well, that’s not quite accurate. Here are a few others who need their feeding tubes removed:

Robert Blake: He might wither and die before finding his wife’s real killer, but that is a chance we are willing to take.

Michael Jackson: That “Jesus Juice” crap only goes so far.

Anyone competing on Apprentice 3: The people Donald Trump should really be firing are the casting directors.

Donald Trump: Why not?

George W. Bush’s Approval Ratings: You want vegetative state? You got it.

Martha Stewart: She’s not that annoying yet, given that the court still has her by the ankle bracelet. But as soon as she makes that first holiday centerpiece out of her parole papers, it’s time to withdraw life support.

The marriage of Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt: Whoops, too late.

Pope John Paul II: By the time the cardinals are finished keeping him alive, he’s going to be the first animatronic pope appearing daily at Disney World’s Hall of Religious Leaders (“Jesus looks pretty lifelike, but I prefer the post-Resurrection Christ.”)

Anyone who tried to sneak in to the clinic and give Terri Schiavo a bottle of water: She was on a feeding tube. She cannot eat or drink. Who’s the one in the vegetative state here?

(Blogger’s note: We are not making this up.)

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Maybe the first thing you noticed about him was the large woven cowboy hat resting on his ears, tilted back just enough so that his bushy mustache enjoyed the sunshine his eyes were missing.

Maybe it was the long-sleeved plaid shirt and leather vest, a fashion dictated more by circumstances than weather on this warm spring day.

Maybe it was his leather chaps glazed in dust from the knees down, legs making a “chiff” sound each time he took a step.

But it was the pistols hanging at his side the kids stared at. As he walked back and forth in front of the crowd, no one bothered to gaze at the frontier façade behind him. Eyes were riveted to the long-barreled sidearms tucked into weathered brown holsters.

Nothing commands the respect of 200 fourth-graders like a gun that could take someone’s head off from 100 feet.

Fifteen minutes earlier at the Arizona Pioneer Living Museum, a park created to educate visitors about life from 1867 to 1903, two gunshots echoed across the desert, signaling it was about time for an important historical reenactment involving frontier justice.

Prior to that, the children had been wandering (under the careful eyes of chaperones who wondered who the hell thought it was a good idea to spend a day in the desert in a month not a member of winter) among log cabins, a one-room schoolhouse and a large steepled church, the only building you could see from the road (which tells you where the pioneers put their money).

Kids were scattered across 20 acres until those gunshots were fired. As soon as the sound died away, every 9- and 10-year-old headed toward the demonstration area.

“We must hurry so as not to miss the historical reenactment,” the children cried. Well, actually they didn’t say that. It was more like, “Dudes, come on, the gunfight is about to start! I’ll bet some guy gets his head blown off!”

They ran around the farm and skirted past a large pig in a small dusty pen, conditions that would convince even PETA that a future as pork chops would be more humane.

They raced past the sheriff’s office without even glancing at the man hanging from the gallows, a sight that held much interest earlier in the day.

“Hey look, that guy’s hung,” several kids shouted.

Well, maybe. We’ll never know for sure, will we?

Finally, with high noon approaching, the cowboy strode in front of the crowd that was perched on narrow wooden benches, the sun beating down. This time a silver badge gleamed from his vest, and two men of a rather dubious nature stood in the shade of the undertaker’s porch. At least you had to assume it was the undertaker, given the guy displayed in a pine box.

“See the dead dude?” one boy whispered to another. “That’s what they did in the olden days when it was too hot to dig a hole. They kept them there until, like, nighttime.”

“No way,” said his friend. “That’s how they advertised. It’s like a sign, only better because everyone notices a dead guy.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Voices lowered as the sheriff faced the group, everyone silent when he spoke.

“Welcome to the Arizona Pioneer Living Museum,” he said in a cowboy drawl, a cross between John Wayne and Fess Parker. “We hope y’all are enjoying your day and thanks for coming to visit. Uh, can everyone hear me?”

Those in the center who nodded and muttered yes were drowned out by those on the sides shouting “No!”

“OK, then, good,” the cowboy said. “Now before we show you a certain part of life in the Old West, y’all need to know something.” He unsnapped his right holster and withdrew a gun that could easily be mistaken for a cannon.

“How many of you know what this is?”

Uh, that’d be everybody, sheriff. What you have here are 200 kids who, since the age of 3, have witnessed a minimum of 5,829 violent acts each, through TV and video games. Not only do they recognize a gun, many could probably build one from scratch. And a few probably have.

“This here’s a gun,” the cowboy said, raising his voice to be heard over the chorus of “Yeah, it’s a gun!”

“But not just any gun,” he continued. “This is a Colt .45, the gun that transformed the west. It did a lot of good in the hands of people who knew how to use it and respected its power.”

“And a lot of bad in the hands of people who learned how to use it,” whispered a teacher.

The sheriff paused, twirling the gun on his index finger and then tossed it to his left hand and back again.

“Now before we go on, we need to make sure everyone here knows what guns are for, and what they aren’t for,” the sheriff said. “Because it’s one of the most important things you’ll ever learn.”

Now if you were to poll these 200 kids on what guns are used for, 98 percent would strongly agree with the statement, “For shooting people.” The other two percent would be at the gallows, poking the hung guy to see if he was real.

“A gun,” he continued, “is for keeping people safe. But you need to know how to use one or you could hurt someone.”

It is probable that when the inventor of the first firearm wrote up his mission statement, it included the phrase “to hurt someone.” The sheriff, however, had discovered an alternate use for a weapon. Perhaps his gun came with a force field.

“Take this gun, for example,” the sheriff said, lifting the weapon to chest level. “This is what’s known as a single-action trigger. Now watch what happens when I pull the trigger.”

He pointed the gun away from him, this thing that keeps you safe, and squeezed the trigger with his index finger. There was is a dry click heard only by the kids in the first few rows.

“Nothing happens,” he continued. “You know why? So you couldn’t accidentally pull the trigger and shoot. You have to pull back the hammer if you want to fire the gun.”

Apparently gunslingers in the Old West were very clumsy folks, pulling their triggers when they didn’t mean to. Or maybe it was because no one had yet figured out how to make a gun with a trigger that both pulled back the hammer and fired the gun (a problem since solved).

“Ya see,” the sheriff said, pumping the trigger, “there is no way this gun can fire. That makes it one of the safest guns in the world.”

A gun that can’t fire is safe. The children nodded. Of course. So if you only made guns that can’t fire, they’d all be safe. And that’s how guns keep you safe. Brilliant!

“So what you need to do to arm this gun is simple,” the sheriff said. “You need to pull back on this little thing here on the back, called a hammer.”

The old cowboy placed his left palm flat on the rear of the revolver and moved his hand toward his chest, as if petting the pistol. Another click.

“See how the gun is now cocked? It’s ready to fire.”

The kids smiled at knowing how to subvert that pesky little safety mechanism.

“But before I pull the trigger, you should know that this gun doesn’t have real bullet.”

An audible sigh of disappointment rumbled through the first few rows. The rest couldn’t hear and were oblivious to the revelation, eyes still glued to the cocked gun.

“We here at the museum use blanks, which make a lot of noise but no bullet comes out. But they can be dangerous too if you’re not careful. Watch what happens to this soda can.”

The sheriff leveled the weapon at a Pepsi can on a nearby table, placing the barrel inches from the innocent cylinder. A split second after a loud bang, the can was airborne, landing 20 feet away with a clatter. Another victim of random violence.

“Now imagine what that can do to you,” the sheriff said, retrieving the can and turning it slowly to reveal a small dent, pausing for effect. “And that was just a blank. Think of what would have happened had it been a real bullet. Because most guns don’t have blanks.”

A frightening revelation, that connection between guns and bullets. The sheriff had the crowd in his sights now, and was about to draw down.

“That’s why we like to have with little talk with y’all before we do out little reenactment,” he said. “I know what we do here looks like fun, but guns were never met to be toys.”

Tell that to the hundreds of factories in China churning out plastic pistols for the millions of kids packing artificial heat. No doubt, however, the sheriff spent many hours researching his facts to come to such a shocking conclusion about the gun-toy connection.

“And here’s what you really need to know,” he said, holstering his Colt .45. “Guns can be dangerous, especially in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what they can do. Children especially.”

Especially.

“So kids, if you ever come across a gun, you need to know thing – don’t touch it. Tell an adult. Because you may come across a gun almost everywhere.

“You see, there could be a guy driving down the road, and he has a gun. But then for some reason he decides he doesn’t want it anymore. He just rolls down the window and tosses it out. And that man has just created a problem.”

This scenario not only likely, but common if you think about it. The aforementioned man may just have gone through the drive-thru at McDonald’s ordering the Big Mac with fries and a Coke. And little did he know it was Be Safe Meal, part of a promotion between the fast-food giant and the NRA. As he turns onto the main drag, his eyes on the road, he digs into the bag and encounters something cold and metallic.

Pulling it out, he discovers a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun of undetermined origin (or a .45 magnum, had he supersized his order). And the hungry driver – a draft-dodging former hippie who took so much acid in the 70s it scrambled his brain chemistry to a point where he is now a supporter of gun control – rolls down his window and tosses it out.

And this man has just created a problem.

“Maybe you’re walking down that same road,” the sheriff said. “Probably on your way to school. And you look down and there’s a gun. Or maybe you’re on the playground. Or in a park. Maybe even you’re on backyard. And there it is. A gun.”

Perhaps the gun industry should concentrate more on proper waste-management techniques than on enforcing the Second Amendment due to this proliferation of disposed guns. People put out a black can for their trash and a blue can for their recyclables. Maybe what’s needed is a red can for the excess weapons, be they pistols, rifles or plastic explosives. And such cans should be equipped with a child-safety lid, one at least as sophisticated at the single-action trigger that made the sheriff’s Colt .45 the safest gun in the world.

“The fact is, you can find a gun almost anywhere,” he said. “That’s the plain truth. And when that happens, what are you going to do?”

There are questions you just don’t ask 9- and 10-year-olds. One of them is, “Do you want one chocolate bar or five chocolate bars before dinner?” Another is, “Would you like me to do your homework, though it means your learning will suffer?”

You also don’t ask kids, especially kids in large groups, what they would do when handed the life-altering power of a gun.

“I’d use it on Travis,” whispered one girl. Another boy said, “I would make sure we’d have recess all day.”

After an ill-conceived pause, the sheriff spoke amid the growing volume of conversations.

“Exactly,” he said. “You’d tell an adult. And you would not touch it.”

Yes, the children nodded. We would not touch it. Of course. To do so would be folly.

“So if you find a gun while you’re walking to school, or on the schoolyard, or even in your own backyard because it can happen anywhere, any time, what are you going to do?”

“Tell an adult!” they answered overwhelmingly, aware of the cadre of teachers sitting among them.

“That’s right. Excellent. Now we’ll begin our demonstration of how bad guys were handled in the Old West.”

For the next 10 minutes, the sheriff and two outlaws shot it out on the dusty streets of the Arizona Pioneer Living Museum, no doubt convincing children that guns, including those left behind on schoolyards and playgrounds or tossed from passing cars, were certainly not toys.