What Could Have Been ( Cigar Smoke 12-27-07)

OK, this is a hectic time of year. I’ll give you that. But, Regalers and Regalettes, I see your hectic and raise you two more hectics, and a damn frenzy.

I am writing this column, the one you are reading right now, on Dec. 21. You are reading it after Christmas. You, like many of my readers, are probably still alive. Me? It’s iffy.

So I sit down to write. I look at the computer. Actually, I look at a computer monitor that is not on. We’ve had a power outage, which I quickly determine is the reason why my computer power is out. I swear in three languages: English, Greek and Navy Sailor. At first, the power does not respond to these requests. So I am considering getting 10 pencils and a legal pad and going 1952 on the column. But then, doggone it, the computer screen leaps to life. Maybe there is a god.

After dodging that hectic-producing bullet, I settle in to write again. I smell something that I know the smell of. It starts with “P” and ends with “P” and has two “Os” in the middle. Yes, Virginia, it is poop. Dog poop. Hadley the Airedale dog poop.
I follow my nose into the bedroom and indeed there are some deposits of love on the rug. Then Marge, following her ears, hears me yelling in Sailor again and she comes into the bedroom. I tell her it was Hadley, not me. She groans and goes to get the dog poop cleaning supplies that we carry with us at all times. And she comes back with a bag and some paper towels and a bottle of odor-killing spray/cleaner stuff and we start to clean up. Then she starts to scoop the oopay up with a spatchula. Yes, a spatchula! She says she will wash it. I say I will be eating my fried eggs at Denny’s.

Marge leaves to shop. I put Hadley outside to, if he had a dog conscience, commit suicide. And again I sit down to write. I’m thinking of you. Always you. Never myself. You, the reader, are king. I, your humble writer, am peasant serf slave to your kingness.

So I type a couple of sentences. Really good sentences. Sentences some other writer would write. And then the doorbell rings. My neighbor says Merry Christmas and then he says did I know that one of his trees fell into my yard last night in the windstorm and broke my fence and my birdbath feeder and hit the side of our house and maybe killed my pets. Thanks for sharing, St. Nick.

I sit back down to write. I am going to spit hectic out and stomp on its little lima bean green ass. Yes, hectic is lima bean green. Sumbitch. And just then the phone rings. I do something I never do. I pick it up. It’s the Discover Card fraud unit checking to see if I really am using my credit card to buy Sharper Image crap. I tell them, “No, I’m not that dumb, hah hah. You think I’m that dumb. I haven’t used the card. At Sharper Image. Hah hah. Not me.” But because I am a law-abiding citizen, and part George Washington, I cannot tell a lie, so I say to the fraud guy, “Uh, I think it was my wife. She falls for that Sharper Image junk all the time.”

I sit back down at the computer. My stomach is grinding pretty good. Old hectic may be getting in his licks. In fact, I have created some intestinal pebbles and they have moved out of my stomach down through the bowels and out my urethra and into my shorts and slipped down my pants leg and have fallen on the floor. They are small, and round, and black, and shiny. I decide to sell them on E-Bay as marble antiques. Aggies.

Just then I remember I have some Christmas errands I have to do — right now. So I drive down to South Lake and actually find a parking spot on Lake Ave. (The last time this has happened was before World War II.) I get out of my car and go in and pick up a gift that I had ordered. And then I stop in to browse at William Sonoma and I just happen to stumble onto the exact gift I have been looking for and I buy it. However, I have to wait an hour for them to wrap it. So I rearrange the remaining incubating intestinal pebbles in my intestines and I shop for a few other items. Hectic is laughing openly at me.

In an hour I go out to the car. I have a parking ticket on the windshield. Hectic is falling on his butt, rolling around. He’s slapping his big, hectic thighs. I had to avert my eyes.

I drive home. I sit down at the you-know-what. The monitor has a note saying I have an email. I look at the email. It’s from Amazon. “We are sorry to inform you that, because of unusually high demand and our lack of competence, the really hard-to-find present you bought from us, and the one we promised you would be there by Christmas, is currently out of stock, and our new inventory of this valued item will not arrive until Feb. 12, if’en.” Mr. Hectic was pee-laughing.

Then Marge got back from shopping and said, “How’s your column coming, Honey? Oh, did you remember you have to get the Honey Baked Ham today?” Mr. Hectic looked at me. He tried to hold back a smile. He let out a little fart chortle. “Go get the damn ham. Nobody gives a shit about your column anyway.”

So I’m sorry. I apologize. I never got the chance to write this column. I’m pretty sure it would have been my best one. Wanna a slice of ham?