A Man of Good Will (10-4-2007)

Well, I haven’t been the victim of any new crimes lately. No mailbox smashings or laptop thefts to report. I was kind of hoping some slug would kidnap me or kick my dog or something, but nothing has happened. So, I don’t have a column idea.

Just kidding. As most of you know, I could write a thousand words about not writing a thousand words.

The other night I was getting ready to go to bed, and I was standing in front of my dresser, holding my stomach up so it wouldn’t fall on my toes, and damned if I couldn’t find my ratty robe. No, it wasn’t in one of my tummy folds. I knew it was on the dresser top but, alas, it was not alone. There were many sartorial companions sharing the dresser space: pants, shorts, tee shirts, bathing suits, sweat pants, plus a few towels and a half of a ham sandwich. (Marge is so sloppy.)

I finally found my robe. It was the piled on garment with the most holes and I could smell the hardened syrup. Anyway, Marge made a nice little suggestion, “Honey, you think you could maybe get rid of some of those old clothes if you still want to be married and have meals prepared for you and not have to live on the street, darling?” I got her drift. I’m a drifter.

The next day I went to work. No, not work like you guys go to, fake work like throwing out old sartorial stuff. First, of course, I took all the stuff off the dresser top. Threw it on the bed. Then I opened some drawers and pulled out, and I’m not exaggerating here, 42 tee shirts that I had collected from minor league baseball games and minor league hockey games and minor league country concerts. Shirts from Red Deer and Medicine Hat and Alaska and Georgia and Texas and one that had Merle Haggard on it shooting a commie and one from Brandon, Manitoba, and one from Regina, Saskatchewan, and if I keep going I’m going to cry. It’s too late. I’m sobbing. OK, I’m balling. Like a crybaby.

When I finally stopped blathering, I went into my closet to look for other contributions to take to The Good Will store. My closet, thinking I guess that I would be pleased, was stuffed. I had slacks from when I actually could buy belts at regular stores. I had slacks with 36-inch waist seizes. Antiques. It was unreal. I kept throwing things on the bed. It was like a mountain of cheap wool and polyester. People from trailer parks were at the door. It was kind of neat. I traded some old pants for a Jeff Foxworthy CD.

I put, excuse the expression, a ton of pants on the bed. And not only pants. I found old pairs of dress shoes and cowboy boots and lumberjack boots and work boots and pissy-little colored belts and sport coats that Marty Robbins wouldn’t wear and suits and jackets and sweaters and I kept stacking them on the bed. You talk about a mountain. Sir Hillary would have gotten a Sir Hernia climbing that peak.

So I said to Marge, “Margie Pargie Wargie, would you please put the stuff on the bed in my bad-daddy Hemi SUV?” And Marge said, “You want to hear a Tammy Wynette song? D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”

OK, so me and a buddy and his friend, Mr. Forklift, got that mountain of crap, I mean, donation items, into the SUV. And then, because I am what, I am a wonderful, caring human being, I drove down to the Good Will Store. You know, the one on the corner of Altadena Drive and Foothill. Right across the street from the biggest giant-ass Mobil gas station on earth and right next to the Just Tires store. That one. I would have gone to the little thrift shop place up in Altadena on Lake but I thought they might kill me behind the store when I opened the door and just bury my dead poorly dressed body under my own old clothes.

Anyway, I get to the Good Will Donation Center, and I go inside to donation headquarters and the guy comes out to help me unload, and I open the door and we start taking the clothes out, and he looks at a few of the items and he kind of pauses and finally says, “You know, sir, we like to give people clothes that will, uh, increase their feeling of self-esteem.”

I laughed to myself with kind of a “if you weren’t with this Good Will outfit I would probably whack your ass” laugh. Then I said, “Uh, well these clothes were good enough for me for forty years. You think maybe your needy sumbitches could lower themselves just a tad.” And the donation guy says, “I think maybe you better take your stuff up the street.”

So I did. I took all my stuff to the Bad Will Store. Funky little place up on Colorado Blvd. Run by Pete Rose and Barry Bonds. Terrell Owens is their public relations guy.

I left some really neat stuff in there, too. There’s this one pair of brand damn new walking shorts that I bought on EBay. Beautiful pair of shorts. Size 46. Never worn. If you added a few tent poles, they would make a good starter home for some nice young family.