Cat's, lies, and video tape

You can call me a good ol' fashion cat lover if you want. You'd be wrong, but go ahead call me one if you feel the need. I'm not a cat hater though, so no stories of cat brutality can be told. Growing up we had a few cats living with us from time to time. I was mostly indifferent to them. I didn't bother them. They didn't bother me. As a young adult I was still trying to decide if I liked cats or not. I didn't have much opinion either way when one summer afternoon I got back into my car after visiting a friend. I had left the windows down in the car due to the heat and as I got in my car and sat down, a stray cat jumped from the back seat on to my shoulders and sprung out of the car window from whence it came leaving a few painful claw marks on my neck and a nearly shattered car windshield from the high-pitched scream I let out in reactionary terror.
I was no longer riding the fence about my feelings. Cats were now on my wrong side. I still wouldn't say I hated cats at that time. Hate takes too much energy and I had other things to do.
After I got married and started raising kids, we didn't have a cat live with us that I remember. There were no cats in our house or yard or within BB-gun range, just as a unit of measurement, NOTHING else.
Time went on and the children grew into adults and teenagers. Wow, teenagers ... Don't ever have teenagers in your house. They are horrible creatures that give cats a good name in my view. One spring my 15 year old daughter who wasn't exactly in my good graces at the time, kept bugging me to let her get a kitten a friend of hers was offering from a litter. It was the easiest series of "NO's" I had offered in ages. Eventually, she worked "the mom angle" and my wife came to me with the question and presented a pretty good argument about the benefits of having a cat in the house. You know, "They are clean, they take care of themselves, they don't smell, they don't make messes, they are quiet, and best of all, they magically rid the house of any mice by their presence alone!" ALL LIES. I stood my ground and presented a resounding, "Over my dead body NO". Yes there was weeping and gnashing of teeth, but I was proud of myself at standing my ground for possibly the first time in my life.
The very next day, I came home from work a few minutes before supper was done and sat down on my chair. After a couple deep breaths, I fell asleep for a well-deserved cat-nap (pardon the pun) I woke to the feel of something light and small on my chest. When I opened my eyes, there was a black kitten rear-end exposed without shame two inches from my face. Apparently that is their way of saying "hello".
My decision not to allow a kitten in the house had been vetoed by the true powers that be. The wife and kids figured if they presented a loving, cute, little, kitten to me in a special way, I'd melt and quickly forget the fact that I had forbid it. I don't recall the exact words spoken in the house over the next few minutes. I do remember supper being equal to any gourmet meal served to royalty. I'm sure it was just a coincidence and not part of any diabolical plan to appease me.
The kitten and I kept our distance for the first few days and eventually it began to jump on the chair and offer it's behind for inspection and acceptance as they often do. I even returned the favor a few times when the correct GI conditions presented itself.
My daughter named the cat Kaeg (cage) I seriously doubt the cat cared much about it's exotically spelled name. The only thing it did care about for along time was sharpening all Eight claws of each foot on the carpet, furniture, walls, cupboards, beds, my arms and legs and whatever else would hold still long enough for it to destroy.
After being de-clawed, it was quite awhile before it fell for the old, "Here kitty kitty, wanna go for a ride?" trick.
Every night after we fall asleep, mostly between 2:30am and 4:00am, he paws at the door to be let outside. I always wake up and let him out. A few hours later, he paws at the door until I wake up and let him back inside to play. He certainly never had any intention of actually sleeping at night. His job was to make sure I never slept for more than a few hours straight.
Nine years later not much has changed, until a couple weeks ago. I let him out around 2:00am. The rest of the night I woke up at hour and half-hour intervals thinking I heard the familiar pawing at the door. Nope, one false alarm after the other. He never returned and I have no clue what happened to him or where he is. I'm not sure at what point I became a cat lover, but it started with a chair.

New Age of Language

With the explosion of technology over the last 20 years, we've seen unparalelled changes in our lives from amazing medical advances to time wasting social-networking. The telecommunications industry has become the ever-growing monster of mass media madness. Banking has become so impersonal you may open accounts, apply for and complete loans, pay bills, transfer money and I'm sure several other things I'm not interested in by simply pushing a few buttons on your phone, without every talking to a bank employee in person or on the phone. This is just the tip of the iceberg of technology advances we've seen in our everyday live's. So, I began to think, which isn't always the best thing for me to do, but is there a good understanding of the differences between technology jargon and real-life dialogue? I came up with a little quiz to see if we can differentiate between certain phrases or quotes from the internet and telephony compared to everyday life and classic entertainment.
Is it a Famous Movie Quote or FaceBook status updates? You try to choose the right answer.
"Here's looking at you, kid." vs "OMG! Totally saw this cute lifeguard"
"I can't wait til I'm 18 so I can blow this dump" vs "There's no place like home."
"You can't handle the truth!" vs "Just found out Santa isn't real. Half the presents now?"
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." vs "Headin' to the river with my BFF's and some Buds"
"I literally can't even" vs "Houston, we have a problem."
"Do I look like an idiot? HELLO?" vs "You had me at 'hello."
Next, choose whether these quotes are from automated phone system options or wife questions.
"Press One for English." vs "Do I make myself clear?"
"Should we go wallpaper shopping today?" vs "Press Nine for more menu options"
"If you know your party's extension enter it now" vs "Whose phone number is this, KIRK?"
"Enter your card number, followed by the pound sign" vs "Can I have your card number?"
"If you are finished please hang up or choose another option." vs "You are finished! Hang up!"
"All lines are busy. Plese try your call again later" vs "Not tonight dear, I have a headache"
And my personal favorite: "Are you even listening to me?" vs "Your call is very important to us, please continue to hold."
You can see that it's still pretty easy to tell the difference between technology's accepted lingo and our own creative way to communicate with each other. If this ever changes it will become even more difficult for me to effectively communicate with anyone or anything. That could be a good thing, depending on your point of view.

The 15 pound Hamburger

Those of you who have seen the size and shape of my tummy from time to time will not be shocked at the revelation that I enjoy a tasty Hamburger ... or two ... or more. My love for this ambrosia-like food goes back before I can remember. I've ordered and cooked them in nearly every imaginable way. Twenty years or so ago, a popular burger chain made a delicious attempt at the perfect burger. Named after Michael Jordan, it was a quarter pound of beef with cheese, onion, pickles, BBQ sauce instead of ketchup, and bacon. It was not uncommon for me to devour four of these for lunch in those days. The beginning of an unhealthy lifestyle, but bear with me it gets more peculiar I promise.
I'm not sure where I came up with the inspiration to make the 15 pound Hamburger. I just know that once the idea was planted in my head, there would be no rest until I had accomplished the feat.
I had no idea how to make a bun that big or how to cook a ten pound beef patty. Since I wanted it to be enjoyably edible and not super thick and stacked high like you now see on food shows that try to make mammoth burgers that are impossible to get your mouth around, I would need to figure out how to spread it out to an ergonomically friendly size.
I have one of those large camping type frying pans that you can cook two dozen eggs, a pound of bacon, 20 sausage links and enough hash browns to choke a horse without any of the items touching each other. Do horses even eat potatoes? Anyhow, the pan is 32 inches wide and appeared to be able to handle the job.
The bun consisted of three one-pound frozen bread dough loaves. Once thawed and proofed, I cut and molded the mountain of dough into a bun-shaped sort of blob that fit into the giant pan. It wouldn't fit in the oven, so I put it on the outdoors grill that wouldn't close all the way due to the size. Therefore, I had to rotate it quite often. It wasn't perfect when it was done, but came out better than it should have considering the low skill level of the baker.
The beef patty was the focus of the entire show. I bought one of those 10 pound tubes of burger and carefully patted that out to fit the 32 inch pan as well. My meat is always well cared for as it is the most important item any time I have a guest(s)
Although I named it the 15 pound burger, it was likely closer to 17 or 18 pounds with condiments.
The list of other items used in the final preparations before serving were as follows;
4 large tomatoes sliced
2 pounds of sliced cheese
1 large head of iceberg lettuce
1 entire jar of mayo
1 bottle of mustard
1 bottle of HEINZ ketchup (any other brand is sub-standard and not allowed in my house)
1 quart of slice dill pickles
Yes, I completely forgot about bacon. I have no excuses. It was a rookie mistake.
Until the burger was ready to be flipped over, I had not thought about just how to perform that task. I set it off of the propane burner to quickly devise a plan. Without overly explaining the procedure, I'll just say it involved four people, wax paper, tin foil, a small end table, a chunk of ply-wood, some cursing and blind luck. Once that was complete, the bun was cut in half, the condiments were at the ready and the excitement level was pinnacle. I originally planned for eight adults, but with all the activity and aroma in and around my garage a few neighbors went from on-lookers to fully vested participants.
Several of us worked for a few minutes building the masterpiece. A few pictures were taken and finally the first cut was made. Thirteen people worked hard on their portions to eat all they could of what can only be described as edible art. When all were full and the evening was done, there was still a little over half of it left. I wrapped it up and gave away what I could and "suffered" for the next few days to eat the rest. My only regret is the bacon. HOW COULD I FORGET THE BACON?

Chicken wings and wonderful ways to love them

I've always liked chicken wings. The tiny amount of meat harvested from all the work you have to do to each one makes it more satisfying I guess. It's the old "nothing worth while is easy" adage.
The buffalo wing as you probably know, was started in Buffalo, New York when a college boy brought his college buddies into his parent's bar late one night and demanded food. At the time wings were generally discarded or made very little use of in homes or restaurants.
The most popular way the story is told is that the mother of the hungry boy, Teressa Bellissimo, was either short on other mainstay foods, short on time or short on patience with her sons' loud group of friends. Since she had a large quantity of wings that were delivered by mistake instead of the backs and necks they use for their stock, she decided to throw the wings in the deep fryer. While they were cooking she made a sauce. My feeling is that she used cayenne pepper as the main ingredient as a trick to fire up the mouths of the boys that were going to eat it. She mixed the cayenne pepper, vinegar and butter in a pan and warmed it. When the wings were done, she rolled them in the sauce and served the hungry boys. I'm guessing she was the most surprised person there when they tore into the wings and raved about how delicious they were. That's basically how Buffalo Wings started, or at least that's the most accepted version.
Buffalo style wings began to show up in restaurants and bars all over the country shortly after. My family's favorite place to enjoy buffalo wings is a chain restaurant that tries to double as a sports bar. They have a hot-wing challenge I don't promote attempting for liability reasons. Being who I am, I couldn't resist the challenge. I love spicy-hot foods. Even with my well advertised low pain tolerance, the hotter the better, is my motto. I guess I should have thought it through a little more after they made me sign a wavier not to　sue　them for injuries caused by the insanely hot sauce and required me to wear surgical grade latex gloves during the challenge.
Heat from peppers are measured by Scoville Heat Units. Jalapenos and Tabasco sauce are 2500-5000 units on average. The sauce for this challenge is nearly 100,000 units. That's 20 to 40 times hotter than Tabasco or a jalapeno. If you eat 12 wings in the allotted time, you win a T-shirt that does the boasting for you because trust me, you can't talk for a few hours afterwards. After I did the challenge, my wife became a little jealous of the attention and she refused to wear my shirt when I offered. She wanted to earn her own shirt! Her need for self-punishment has never been nearly as high as mine, but by golly she was going to give it a try. Try isn't the right word because try means there is a chance of failing and that wasn't an option for her.

After the formalities were complete and the wings were brought to the table, the server said the time would start when she took her first bite. Most of our family and several friends were there to cheer her on and give expert advise. Ever try to give advise to a hard-headed German girl under severe duress? Just don't.
She grabbed the first wing and bit into it like a trained professional. You could immediately tell the taste was not what she expected. To best describe it would be like biting into a hot charcoal you fished out of the grill. No flavor really, just intense, painful heat. She finished the first one and quickly learned to quit breathing through her mouth. During the second and third wing, her face turned red and little beads of sweat began to appear above her brow. My older son suggested to quit breathing all together and just bite, chew and swallow, for which he received a venomous look from his otherwise smiling and generally sweet-natured mother.
Wings number four, five and six went down nearly as fast as the previous three and well under the time pace for success. However, her face had turned from red to more of a purple and now sweat was beading up on her cheeks.
Now halfway through the challenge, her hands started to shake as she lifted wing number seven to her mouth. Tears began to flow and her nose started to run, by the time she had finished number eight and nine. No napkins are allowed to be used during the challenge, nor can you stop to take a drink of anything. The entire table got quiet as we sat there and watched a human we all love in more pain than we could imagine suffer through the last three wings. Her hands were shaking so bad they were now useless, so she just leaned forward to the plate, pinned the wings down with her forearms and finished them with noises and moans never before heard by man.
When she was done, she sat up and became still. She whispered, "I think I'm done" in a stoic manner. You must whisper because you do not want any air coming in or going out of your mouth at this point. Her hair was a mess. Her face was glow-in-the-dark red and covered in tears, snot, drool and 100,000 heat-unit sauce. I couldn't have been more proud of her.

Story about Moose the dog

I write my stories to hopefully be entertaining. Whether or not my goal is met depends on how much I enjoy writing them. I crack myself up as I write more than you can imagine, as I am easily entertained. I try to make them as humorous as possible, even at the expense of accuracy from time to time. But, please allow me to take a moment to be serious.
Now that that moment is gone, let me tell you about a dog named Moose. Moose was probably the least luckiest dog I've ever met. He came to us as a puppy when we lived in the country. He was mostly black lab I guess. Just that his head didn't look 100% classic lab. I think there was a collie in the woodpile, if you know what I mean.
When he first showed up as a small pup, he hopped out of the pickup and immediately took after our mature black lab and ran him into the bumper of the truck, his head to be precise. The sound was, "kadoink" as I remember. It wasn't his only moment of glory, but maybe the funniest.
As a hunting dog Moose was second to none. Opinions may vary of course, but he was a road hunting dog like I'd never imagined. All you had to do was let him out of the pickup and he'd take off on a little stiff legged doggie-trot down the dirt road. Suddenly, his ears would pop up and he would hop a couple of times and into the ditch he would pounce. Pheasants would flush and shotguns would ring out. Often he would emerge from the ditch with a bird in his mouth. Thankfully he wouldn't crunch hard enough to hurt them as hen pheasants were apparently his favorite prey.
It wasn't long before his luck turned bad and a series of unfortunate events caused me to remember him more than any other pet of which I've had the pleasure.
After a snow storm, my brother was driving up the long path from our house to the main road. The silly dog was chasing him and didn't remember the road turned at one point. The car's two right side tires went directly over his chest. Since the snow was soft and fresh, it didn't even hurt him. It just made a depression in the snow. That instance was probably more like good luck I guess.
Moose wasn't a picky eater either. Proof of this was when he discovered a not so freshly killed Jack Rabbit and made a snack of it. Soon after the delicacy was devoured he developed some measure of intestinal distress that lasted for days. I can't fully describe the smell that silently escaped his body in the car that time. It was a first date with a new girl and I had brought him along as chaperon. After the initial disgusted look I gave her and she gave me, I'm sure I heard him giggle from the back seat.
He went missing for a few days once. I assumed he was gone for good, but late one night I heard a faint echoing bark in the quiet of the countryside. We found out he had been accidentally shut in one of the out buildings by the landowner. He survived on sunflower seeds and rat poison. The next week wasn't pretty, but he made it.
A horse lived on the place too. I'm not sure why, but there was one there. Moose and the horse would frolic and chase each other around until one day they got tangled up and the horse stomped him into the ground. He escaped the fenced-in area, but collapsed soon after. Broken hip, leg and ego caused another several weeks of healing time to be needed.
I guess I should mention in those days cars didn't have the safety features they do now. Like when you have to press the brake pedal in order to take the car out of park. Moose was a horrible driver. 'Nuff said.
He was also an expert in getting the cats in trouble. He would talk them into mischief and they were never able to implicate him as the troublemaker, until one afternoon when we got home from school. A small white kitten named Snowball had all four feet in the pot of chili mom had made. The door opened. The cat looked up in surprise and yelling began. Moose was lying in the next room and acted like the commotion woke him up. He sat up and yawned as an over exaggeration of his innocence. The only problem was a large amount of dog saliva on the cat's back from where he carried it to the pot of chili. Cold meat sandwiches for us that night and Moose's diet for the week was two gallons of chili.

Winter blunderland...

As I watch the Winter Olympics this year, I can't help but be reminded of my first snow-skiing experience. I took the horde to the Black Hills for a little mini-vacation so everyone could try this seemingly fascinating winter sport. After writing a check for rental equipment that was nearly as large as my mortgage, I settled in the lodge to relax and watch the kids, who had all chosen snow boards as their weapon of the day.
My much better-half had rightfully forced me to promise not to ski as I was fresh off knee surgery. The non-surgical knee hadn't been behaving for years either. The bulged disk in my back was another consideration that helped me make this solemn promise. I was satisfied with sitting and sipping on beer, I mean hot-chocolate for the day, but I kept seeing young children maybe only 3-4 years old come flying down the hill almost effortlessly. My wife sailed through her ski-lesson with ease and even though it was her first time, she looked like a pro. How hard could this be? I began feeling this old competitive flame trying to ignite in my chest. I knew resistance would be futile. Before I had even finished my third "hot chocolate" I found myself filling out rental forms and being measured for equipment.
The rental consultant asked what my ability number was from one to five. I said, "Well, I used to be pretty athletic so..." He smiled. In retrospect I now see that his smile was more of an evil grin. He gave me a special pair of skis from the back room, telling me that since I'm a beginner, these skis would help me with stability, turning and keep my speed down. He lied like a rug! I did some research the next week. I found out that those particular skis make you go faster and have less maneuverability.
It was a fairly nice day. The temperature was in the low 40s and it was sunny with a light breeze. Seemed perfect for skiing. But since I hadn't planned to ski, all I had along was blood stained camouflage coveralls I use for hunting. No hat or gloves, but I shouldn't need them, right?
I made my way to the chair-lift and hopped on like a professional. I sat next to a tall, older man appearing to be in his 80s. He looked me over head to toe. After a moment of silence he asked, "Um... first time skiing, by chance?" I told him indeed it was and how could he possible have known? He just kind of smiled, not unlike the guy in the rental office. "How did your lessons go?", he asked. "I didn't have any. I'll figure it out" I said. His smile turned to confusion and he muttered, "Oh.... Oh my. Well, good luck"
I navigated off the chair-lift successfully, but that's about where things turned sour. Someone told me to follow the path west to the end because that is where a beginner would have the best chance of survival. The path was only slightly down hill, but it was narrow and had a few turns. I began to ski it slowly. I simply could not turn. Not matter what I tried, leaning, putting weight on one ski more than the other, turning my torso, nothing was working. When I needed to turn to avoid running into a cliff or falling off the mountain, I would just sit down, get back up, and aim the direction I wanted to go for a little while, then repeat. Finally, I figured out that I could dig a ski-pole into the snow like a canoe paddle and turn ever so slightly to avoid running off the path. Even when I didn't need to turn I would fall, sometimes in spectacular fashion. Once I got going too fast and decided to bail out and take a seat. My ski popped off and flew high in the air and I didn't even realize it until it hit me on the top of my head. As I was holding my head and wincing in pain my nephew flew over the top of me on his snow board to make fun of me. At the same time my teenage son covered me with a large wake of snow like a plow would from behind me as symbolic of a burial. Eventually, I got to the end where I was able to begin my actual first downhill run. It was a wide open bowl-shaped run several hundred yards wide and a straight shot to the lodge, so no turning was needed. But as I looked down the two miles to the lodge, I thought, "There's no way I survive that". I thought about taking my skis off and hiking down the mountain. But as I was contemplating that, I leaned a little too far over the edge of the drop-in area and involuntarily started the most exciting two minutes in ski racing history.
Back then I weighed 265 pounds and with my low center of gravity (short legs) it took about a second and a half to reach what many onlookers would swear to be about 75 MPH. No hat or gloves, remember. The wind noise muffled out the screams of "hey look out" from people warning others of a mad-man coming down the hill with no ability to turn or stop. When I would see someone cutting in front of me I didn't know what to do, so I just yelled "FORE" as they do in golf. One family member noted that they believe they saw a camo-colored bowling ball on toothpicks going down one of the runs that day.
I knew I was going way to fast, but I went ahead and got down in the classic downhill speed racing position of bending over and crouching slightly. Soon enough, the end of the slope was only 400 yards away and I did a quick calculation of speed, wind resistance, inertia and my inability to stop. The odds of surviving the impending crash into the lodge were low at best. I remember someone talking about putting your skis in a "snowplow" shape to stop, so I began to try that and I slowed a little, but not enough. I "snow-plowed" harder and harder making two large sprays of snow as I slowed more.
A large group of kids saw that I was coming in too fast and started to scramble and grab their friends and baby sisters from my path. It looked as though I wouldn't run into anybody, but there was still a very well made log lodge to deal with.

I was aiming at the deck of the lodge, particularly the steps to the deck. Somehow my skis popped up the stairs and I slid across the deck slowing enough to put my hands out to catch myself on the entrance door. It was over. I was alive. I noticed a paper sign between my hands on the door. It read: RENTAL RETURNS DOWNSTAIRS. What a good idea! For the record, my wife was not nearly as amused by my story of survival as I was that evening.  

Old Man and the Sea

It's been around 20 years since I last went Paddlefishing. The following
story may or may not be the reason that I've declined to go for so long. If
you don't know what Paddlefishing is, rest assured it is not hitting fish
with paddles to stun then harvest them.

The prehistoric looking Paddlefish has no bones, just a cartilage tube
running the length of its spine. They have a long paddle-shaped snout, or
rostrum that give the fish its common name. The dense, fleshy, white meat is
both delicious and always boneless of course. This is why they are sought
after by fisherman. Since they are plankton eaters, they cannot be caught by
the traditional hook and line methods. They are snagged with large treble
hooks attached to 30 lb or higher test line, and cast by 10 foot rods, lead
into the water by a Five ounce weight. Your opinion may vary, but that's
what I used. It's a real testosterone blow out, let me tell ya'.

A friend of mine started taking me to the Yellowstone River in eastern
Montana for this adventure. After several successful yearly trips, I decided
to share the experience with my family and brought them along. My wife's
sister lives just a few miles from the best fishing spot for these fish that
can weigh 70-100 pounds or more on occasion.

The best fishing seems to be at night, so I sent her and the kids into town
to stay at her sister's while I tried to catch my limit of two in the
moon-light. I was able to land one after a brief struggle with the 14 MPH
river current, large fish, little to no light and a surprise log tripping me
in spectacularly clumsy fashion. I fished straight through until dawn and
after many hours of casting, reeling, and jerking like a madman, I was
understandably tired and sore, so I sought refuge by sitting on my cooler.
Inside my cooler was cans of Coke and lots of Ding-Dongs. Whenever I would
get tired, I would simply drink a coke and pop a Ding-Dong in my mouth. The
sugar-rush was pretty intense and lasted long enough to fish a while
longer.

As the morning sun was warming the air and my skin, I sat on the cooler and
began to daydream and relive the nights activities. I had just called my
wife from my archaic cell phone and told her she could come get me any
time. So, I waited.

Meanwhile, the beach had filled up with more fishermen. Most casts were
flying well over 100 yards due to the large size of the sinker. That is, all
except for the casts of this very old gentleman directly in front of me. His
casts would go about 20 feet and he snagged the rocks below on every cast.
It was a little painful and pathetic to watch, but he devised a method of
breaking his line and retying the equipment without losing his place on the
beach, as it was now elbow-to-elbow fishermen. The only way to get a place
was if someone caught a fish and ended up down stream to land it or someone
snapped their line because they snagged on rocks and were unable to break
free. The old gentleman must have been out of replacement rigs because at
one point, he was snagged and was just pulling and pulling and not wanting
to cut his line. Several moments went by and I lost interest in watching him
grapple his pole. I began daydreaming once again. Or, it was a small Coke
and Ding-Dong induced sugar comma. I'm not sure which, but CRACK.... I was
lying flat on my back with my hands over my face wincing in pain. I had no
idea what had happened.

Somehow by constantly pulling and yanking on the snagged-up rig, the darn
thing came dislodged. Unfortunately the old guy was pulling with all his
might when that happened, sending a Five ounce lead weight rocketing out of
the shallow water leveraged by a long fishing pole at full bend. Having only
20 Feet of line out made everything happened so quickly, no one had time to
tell me to duck, as I was obviously only 19 feet behind him. I took the
impact of the weight directly on my right eye. My plastic right eye-glass
lens shattered into bits, no doubt saving my eye and possibly my life. Yes,
there was some blood and a swarm of people above me when I became brave
enough to let an off-duty EMT pry my hands off of my face. Some in attendance
recalled to me how amazing of a sound the impact had made and that it kind
of made them a little sick to their stomachs. I apologized for their inconvenience as
I collected my thoughts and got myself upright. The old guy that had nearly
cost me my sight was nice enough to come ask if I was "OK" and had I seen
his sinker anywhere.

"Ya I saw it a little bit ago, as a matter of fact" I sarcastically muttered, as I sat there with my one lens in the eye-glass frame that covered my now overly
bandaged face.

My wife showed up soon after and had heard of the accident while waking from
the parking lot to the beach. Somehow, she knew it was me before she even
got a description of the victim. If you know me well enough, you would just
assume it was me too. I think she was most upset at the fact that she was
now going to have to drive the 450 miles home herself. Since I was am
legally required to wear my necessary prescription eye-glasses while driving
a motorized vehicle.