Writings . . .
The stories you are about to read all were given a Bronze Medal on the Helium International Website. I was completely floored when I saw this inkwell and feather adornment icon under my picture. And I hadn't even checked the site for almost a year! Well, thank you, all you fine folks at Helium.com.
It is officially springtime and you have not cleaned your bathroom since the last Ice Age. There are things growing along the edges of your tub and shower that you as a college-level scientist cannot explain. This is also why you are not married.
Being a bachelor in a one-bedroom apartment has its advantages. One, you can avoid the society in which you live and work. Two, you can eat whatever you like as long as it's fast. And, three, you can do household chores as the need arises. Usually what gets put off the most is the kitchen, living room and the area in which you bathe, brush your teeth and do things requiring a toilet. Well, heck, that describes your whole place!
First you attack the refrigerator by eliminating all containers holding specimens with layers of green slime and white fuzz. You can always get more Glad boxes for your next adventure into the vertical abyss. Then you search the shelves for half-empty beer cans and bottles. If they were half-full you would likely have a better sense of self and not be in this mess to start with. So much for the food storage department.
You now move on to the stove and microwave. Someone once told you that "Fire-in-a-Can" was the greatest oven cleaner on the planet. It is also safe on the plastic knobs and glass windows. In order to use this stuff you must wear welder's mitts and a face shield. But you CANNOT employ ordinary paper towels for obvious reasons. You must use rags that are impregnated with asbestos.
The kitchen is done. Why? Because the countertops are covered with pizza boxes that you are saving for a class project in architectural engineering. You have envisioned a cardboard skyscraper with an elevator made from leftover Spam cans.
A week later you decide to do something about the couch and TV. They are the only two articles of furniture you care about and you know that one day they might fetch a decent price at a yard sale. What with your university salary a new Lazy-Boy and a Sony plasma screen will undoubtedly grace your pad.
But what's out here is the dust. Mites are conducting acrobatic maneuvers during classic episodes of Seinfeld and Leave it to Beaver. This causes you to throw paper wads of student assignments to settle them down. Then you realize the cushions in the couch are not really all there is. After months of mismanagement you discover that you are absent-minded and stuffed many old magazines there for safe keeping.
Out go the mites and the magazines by a simple phone call to the folks who dispose of things starting with the letter M. These days specialized services are becoming more commonplace. You give the man a tip of five dollars after he hands you a bill of five hundred. At this time you believe it is a fair opportunity to vacuum the carpet. It was a year ago that you decided to sleep on the couch because the bedroom was off limits to anything resembling a biological entity. Your underwear, suits and ties are somewhat neatly arranged in a small closet. Why have the luxury of a full-size bed when you can fall asleep watching the Jay Leno Show and wake up to Good Morning America?
Another week later and you have mustered the courage to make a full assault on the bathroom. As stated earlier the fungus has more rights there than you do. Since you shave with an electric razor the tiny bits of hair have accumulated around the sink like a lumpy mass of dark velvet. The mirror will not disclose its viewer's image because the grime on the glass contains specks of Ultrabrite and Mennen splash-on cologne. You rinse the hair down the sink and clean the mirror by using your hand and hot water and then finalizing the process with a blowdryer. As with all medicine cabinets yours is full of Tylenol bottles and copious amounts of Tums.
In recent times you ate too much pizza and consumed far too much beer that your only course of action was to vomit in the garbage receptacle. This was because the sight and close proximity of your face and the commode made you want to throw up anyway. So without any further ado you douse the porcelain throne with straight Pine Sol and wipe it with a worthless beach towel. It goes out the window directly over an open dumpster below. There are two colors you associate with this piece of personal hygiene - pale brown and yellow - that when mixed together with a large green sponge produces a pleasant hue of beige against an otherwise white background.
On to the shower and tub. If you remember correctly the last time you made an attempt to scrub the stall was way back in the first few days you moved in. If it weren't for the seven bottles of shampoo, five bottles of conditioner and three bars of soap the smell would have left you for dead many moons ago. You observe the tile grout and give up throwing your fists in the air as the idea of making a difference completely evades your mind. In a fit of despair you think of having a maid come in and doing this but realize that they work by the hour and not the job. Going broke is not a conclusion that comes to you.
Well, you've broken a sweat on the last task of your endeavor. Time to call for a fresh Domino's pizza and a trip to the corner for a twelve pack of Schlitz. Your only wish now is a chance to do some light reading. As you sneak into your bedroom, not having ventured there for some time, you stub your toe on a stack of men's journals. You knock them over and grab the one closest to the floor. This reminds you that you failed to mop up the one in the necessary room.
With quick dexterity you flip off your shoes, get your socks wet, and do the shimmy-sham over the spots that give a rundown of your physical movements. It's as if you have a path to each of the three main objects there leading from the door. You make a mental note to buy more TP and leave with the April issue of Playboy tucked securely under your arm. You also pull out another fiver to tip the pizza man.
And now for a bit of information:
If you or someone you know has a parrot and wants to teach it to talk then Click Here!
Here we go . . .
THE BACHELOR’S GUIDE
by Oliver Robert Brett
It is officially springtime and you have not cleaned your bathroom since the last Ice Age. There are things growing along the edges of your tub and shower that you as a college-level scientist cannot explain. This is also why you are not married.
Being a bachelor in a one-bedroom apartment has its advantages. One, you can avoid the society in which you live and work. Two, you can eat whatever you like as long as it's fast. And, three, you can do household chores as the need arises. Usually what gets put off the most is the kitchen, living room and the area in which you bathe, brush your teeth and do things requiring a toilet. Well, heck, that describes your whole place!
First you attack the refrigerator by eliminating all containers holding specimens with layers of green slime and white fuzz. You can always get more Glad boxes for your next adventure into the vertical abyss. Then you search the shelves for half-empty beer cans and bottles. If they were half-full you would likely have a better sense of self and not be in this mess to start with. So much for the food storage department.
You now move on to the stove and microwave. Someone once told you that "Fire-in-a-Can" was the greatest oven cleaner on the planet. It is also safe on the plastic knobs and glass windows. In order to use this stuff you must wear welder's mitts and a face shield. But you CANNOT employ ordinary paper towels for obvious reasons. You must use rags that are impregnated with asbestos.
The kitchen is done. Why? Because the countertops are covered with pizza boxes that you are saving for a class project in architectural engineering. You have envisioned a cardboard skyscraper with an elevator made from leftover Spam cans.
A week later you decide to do something about the couch and TV. They are the only two articles of furniture you care about and you know that one day they might fetch a decent price at a yard sale. What with your university salary a new Lazy-Boy and a Sony plasma screen will undoubtedly grace your pad.
But what's out here is the dust. Mites are conducting acrobatic maneuvers during classic episodes of Seinfeld and Leave it to Beaver. This causes you to throw paper wads of student assignments to settle them down. Then you realize the cushions in the couch are not really all there is. After months of mismanagement you discover that you are absent-minded and stuffed many old magazines there for safe keeping.
Out go the mites and the magazines by a simple phone call to the folks who dispose of things starting with the letter M. These days specialized services are becoming more commonplace. You give the man a tip of five dollars after he hands you a bill of five hundred. At this time you believe it is a fair opportunity to vacuum the carpet. It was a year ago that you decided to sleep on the couch because the bedroom was off limits to anything resembling a biological entity. Your underwear, suits and ties are somewhat neatly arranged in a small closet. Why have the luxury of a full-size bed when you can fall asleep watching the Jay Leno Show and wake up to Good Morning America?
Another week later and you have mustered the courage to make a full assault on the bathroom. As stated earlier the fungus has more rights there than you do. Since you shave with an electric razor the tiny bits of hair have accumulated around the sink like a lumpy mass of dark velvet. The mirror will not disclose its viewer's image because the grime on the glass contains specks of Ultrabrite and Mennen splash-on cologne. You rinse the hair down the sink and clean the mirror by using your hand and hot water and then finalizing the process with a blowdryer. As with all medicine cabinets yours is full of Tylenol bottles and copious amounts of Tums.
In recent times you ate too much pizza and consumed far too much beer that your only course of action was to vomit in the garbage receptacle. This was because the sight and close proximity of your face and the commode made you want to throw up anyway. So without any further ado you douse the porcelain throne with straight Pine Sol and wipe it with a worthless beach towel. It goes out the window directly over an open dumpster below. There are two colors you associate with this piece of personal hygiene - pale brown and yellow - that when mixed together with a large green sponge produces a pleasant hue of beige against an otherwise white background.
On to the shower and tub. If you remember correctly the last time you made an attempt to scrub the stall was way back in the first few days you moved in. If it weren't for the seven bottles of shampoo, five bottles of conditioner and three bars of soap the smell would have left you for dead many moons ago. You observe the tile grout and give up throwing your fists in the air as the idea of making a difference completely evades your mind. In a fit of despair you think of having a maid come in and doing this but realize that they work by the hour and not the job. Going broke is not a conclusion that comes to you.
Well, you've broken a sweat on the last task of your endeavor. Time to call for a fresh Domino's pizza and a trip to the corner for a twelve pack of Schlitz. Your only wish now is a chance to do some light reading. As you sneak into your bedroom, not having ventured there for some time, you stub your toe on a stack of men's journals. You knock them over and grab the one closest to the floor. This reminds you that you failed to mop up the one in the necessary room.
With quick dexterity you flip off your shoes, get your socks wet, and do the shimmy-sham over the spots that give a rundown of your physical movements. It's as if you have a path to each of the three main objects there leading from the door. You make a mental note to buy more TP and leave with the April issue of Playboy tucked securely under your arm. You also pull out another fiver to tip the pizza man.
And now for a bit of information:
If you or someone you know has a parrot and wants to teach it to talk then Click Here!
The Prospector and the Lost Leg
by Oliver Robert Brett
by Oliver Robert Brett
My name is Mark. I have been a medical insurance company investigator for over 20 years. One day I was given an assignment that really threw me for a loop.
A man that I will call “Ben” has been one of our clients for seven years before I started with the company. When Ben was nine he had his left leg amputated from the knee down. As you might guess he was fitted for a plastic prosthesis.
He had immediate problems with his new leg causing him to walk with a very bad limp which resulted in a deformity of his hip. It was sad to hear this story. But the good news was that over the years our team of consultants and technicians found for him a better prosthesis than he ever had before and soon his hip displacement was gone. He was walking like a free man at last.
As a result of this Ben discovered a whole new world of opportunities, one of which was skiing. He and a buddy would often go during weekdays away from the crowds to enjoy the downhill runs at Kirkwood Ski Resort in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.
One bright and sunny morning they headed up Highway 88 from Stockton to hit the slopes. Ben and his friend arrived just as the weather was beginning to change from clear skies to light snow. Not being fazed by this they got on a lift and were riding it to the top when the chair came to an abrupt halt.
If you know anything about chairlifts when they stop you’ll understand how they will swing back and forth with the momentum. Well, at this time Ben’s leg shook loose and plummeted to the snow below carrying his boot and ski with it. He was frantic. His buddy was stunned. Snow was coming down heavier and heavier and they completely lost sight of the leg as it careened down the mountain.
When they reached the top of the lift Ben had to be assisted off the chair. Obviously. Then a ski patroller with a snowmobile brought him off the mountain to the aid station at the bottom. The folks there said they would perform an immediate search of the area. No luck. For two weeks a team looked for Ben’s leg, boot and ski as the snows kept coming down making it next to impossible to find.
That’s where I came in. I called the ski area and spoke with the lead patrolman, a guy named John, and he said the best solution he could offer would be to return to the mountain in the spring when the snow melts away. It might then reveal the leg and quite possibly the other parts. As I drove up the pass I couldn’t but think of Ben and the good possibility of finding his leg because I already learned that his spare was giving him soreness.
When I got to Kirkwood the place was empty except for a few workers handling lift equipment. I don’t ski so this was a totally new environment for me. What a likely story for a man with my tenure. Anyway, one of the staff members on site directed me to lift number seven and said he was aware of my coming. He made it clear that I would have to do some hiking. Good for me I brought a new pair of boots for just such an occasion.
Ben and I had a lengthy chat before I left and he informed me that they were about halfway up the lift when the leg came off. With my undergraduate degree in mathematics and a little geometry I deduced that the leg, with the ski attached, may have travelled roughly 20 yards and lodged next to a tree. There were a LOT of trees. What fun I was beginning to have. Lucky for me I wasn’t getting altitude sickness as I ascended the open space under the chairlift.
Then I heard music. Rock ‘n’ roll music. I think it was Jim Morrison and The Doors doing L.A. Woman. I didn’t think anyone else was around but the music kept getting louder. Then I saw a guy hauling a sled, the kind kids use for sliding down the snow. He appeared rather startled when I said, “Hello there.” He chimed back, “Yo, dude, what brings you up here, looking for treasures like me?” And treasures he had . . . hats, gloves, sunglasses, you name it he had it. I realized quite quickly that other people were probably dropping these things during their ride up the mountain.
So I casually walked toward him and introduced myself. He said his name was Mike and that he spent many spring days looking for lost loot. “See what I got here?” he said and dug through the pile to reveal -- yes -- the prosthetic leg WITH the boot still attached. Then he whispered to me, “I guess some poor sucker lost his leg, I’m gonna take it home and make a lamp out of it. Ha-ha.”
“Well, Mike,” I said, “that leg belongs to a friend of mine and he desperately needs it, whaddya say you give it back?” “No way, dude,” were his words as he started strolling away from the scene. I could hold myself no longer. I removed my standard issue .44 caliber Smith & Wesson and cocked the hammer. Click-click. He stopped dead in his tracks. No pun intended. Then he turned with his hands in the air and told me I could have it, as long as I didn’t shoot him first.
In all my years as an investigator I never had to fire a round except when an old woman’s dog came after me and I ended up shooting its ear off. No loss, the dog died well before the old woman. As I was saying, there were no lives to be lost and Mike was a swell chap when he handed over the leg and boot. “Can . . . I . . . go . . . now?” he stammered and I took my bounty and came back down the hill. Remind me to not get into these kinds of messes again. I prefer my desk job.
The following Monday I contacted Ben to inform him of the good news. He was ecstatic. He couldn’t wait to have his better leg back. And stump or no stump he was still determined to keep skiing.
And now for a bit of information:
Want to find that missing person in your life and what they're up to? Click Here!
The Battle of the Bird Feeders
by Oliver Robert Brett
John James Audubon said hummingbirds were "glittering garments of the rainbow." No wonder people love them so much. Also no wonder that I’m writing this story about these lovely birds. But what’s more important is how two good friends became so embroiled in their domestic habitat that it caused them to nearly kill each other. But let’s not blame the hummingbird.
In Fraser, Colorado there is a section of the woods called Icebox Estates. This is because the little town of Fraser is known as The Icebox of the Nation. On any given winter the temperatures may go well below zero for a whole season . . . or more. This is where I lived for a time, not knowing that one of my roommates and one neighbor would fight for the right to have the only bird feeders on the property.
Our place was a two-story duplex with garages out front and my bedroom in the back with my own bathroom. A very nice set up. Next door was my friend with his car repair shop in the garage and his bohemian living space in the rear. I used to love visiting him and hearing his tales that would crack up a frozen snowman. I called him a “wobblehead” because he was always doing this thing with his noggin that appeared to look like one of those dolls you see in the rear windows of certain cars.
One day I came home to the upstairs portion of the duplex to find my roommate sharpening knives. I dislike knives. They’re sharp and dangerous if you ask me. But he had an assortment of them in his work as a prep cook in a swanky restaurant nearby where my other roommate was the chef. Together they were a team of culinary delights and did I ever get any? No. Well, maybe, if I attended the brunch or something. Almost never did they cook at home.
After my roommate finished razor-sharpening his cutlery he commenced to making some bird feeder nectar. I never knew how until now. What he did was dump five pounds of sugar into a pot of boiling water for about 15 minutes. He said, “Don’t buy storebought nectar, it kills ‘em.” Then he put the pot into the freezer for another 15 minutes or so to cool down. The nectar was now ready for the feeder. Within minutes of filling it up the little jet fighters were coming in, fluttering their tiny wings and probing each blossom with their injecting pointed tongues.
“Zhoom, zhoom” they went in and out, always followed by even more colorful hummerbirds. Or were they bummingherds? Whatever. There were droves of them. Then one day my roommate decided he wanted a second one to hang on the other side of the front door at the top of our deck. It was splendid now. Instead of a mere half dozen blossoms we now had twelve. More and more birds came to us and my roommate was scrambling to keep the bottles filled. What was funny was though there were plenty of spouts to feed from the little guys would often fight over territorial rights.
Then one day my other roommate announced that his expensive feeder wasn’t attracting any hummingbirds. “Obviously, I told him, “you can’t even see the thing!” It was hanging under a porch roof completely out of sight. Plus he was using the dreaded store-bought nectar, something the intelligent avian creatures would never touch. So he got mad at the fact that my roommate had TWO of them and clearly stealing the population. So while he was at work and without any hesitant provocation he poured out the nectar and put in plain water. This is where I made my fatal mistake. I offered up the idea of putting in some booze. “Ha-ha!” my friend said and went for the liquor cabinet. “Don’t wanna get ‘em drunk so why not some of this Vermouth, it won’t hurt ‘em.”
With that the birds didn’t come back. Two or three were daring enough to try but they had a noticeable dive in their exit strategy. My roommate came home as per usual and put his knives away. I was watching video reruns of The Simpsons in the living room. After standing by the open door to watch his congenial friends come and go he saw that something was awry. Grabbing one of the feeders and giving it a sniff, maybe to entertain the idea that the juice had gone bad in the sun, he gave me a look that would burn drywall. What could I do? I smiled like I was the nativity child. Wrong.
He put the feeder away and disappeared down the stairs. In hot pursuit I followed behind him to see where he was going. Oh no! He went straight for our neighbor’s feeder, snatched it off the hanger and smashed it at his doorstep, there was glass everywhere. All he could say was, “Glad he didn’t have one with a plastic bottle.” I felt miserable and when my neighbor came home and saw the mess he was very lenient in his remarks. This made me feel better and I promised myself to not get involved with the next domestic dispute. So it seemed. Later we all moved out and went on to other locales. Did the new tenants have bird feeders? Probably not. If you don’t see one bird, you probably won’t see a hundred.
The moral of the story? “When life hands you lemons, make bird feeder nectar.”
AND NOW . . .
In the case of these two old peddlers of rockabilly jam sessions, come to Grand Lake, Colorado
and visit the Lariat Saloon. They play elsewhere but you gotta pay for a flyer with directions. It beats trying to collect tips from drunk Marines home on leave. Hey! We're talkin' train music here!
And now for a bit of information:
Did you know that our technology has advanced so far that we can now watch TV on our computers? Am I kidding? No. Check it out. Click Here!
Did you know that our technology has advanced so far that we can now watch TV on our computers? Am I kidding? No. Check it out. Click Here!
AND NOW . . .
In the case of these two old peddlers of rockabilly jam sessions, come to Grand Lake, Colorado
and visit the Lariat Saloon. They play elsewhere but you gotta pay for a flyer with directions. It beats trying to collect tips from drunk Marines home on leave. Hey! We're talkin' train music here!
Good ol' American Proverb
Eat when you're hungry -- Go when you have to
Work while the sun is high -- Rest when the spirit is low
O.R. Brett as told to his ex-wife Michele
Eat when you're hungry -- Go when you have to
Work while the sun is high -- Rest when the spirit is low
O.R. Brett as told to his ex-wife Michele
Copyright . Robert Tucker. All rights reserved.
