Day 23 - The Runner Stumbles

"There is only one success... to be able to spend your life your own way, and not give others absurd claims upon it."
- Christopher Morley

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."
- Winston Churchill

"You don't just stumble into the future. You create your own future."
- Roger Smith

June 23rd, 2004

Okay, nobody's perfect, least of which, me.

However, under the circumstances, the alternative of climbing a tower with a high powered rifle and taking random shots at innocent civilians, would eventually result in a lifestyle involving a burly cell mate named "Bruno" wanting me to be his "bitch". And who wants that? Especially, when I'm almost certain he'd hog up the remote control during "TV Time". But on the bright side, I'd have access to free weights. On the whole though, it would cramp my lifestyle a bit.

Let me explain what happened and how I broke for a small amount of time on one specific day: I fell.

I stumbled and fell, figuratively, of course. It was a really bad week. On a 1 to 10 scale of bad weeks, 1 being "I stubbed my toe" and 10 being "an earthquake in Freehold", I'd rate it about a 9 and a half. Beginning on Tuesday, the 15th, I knew it was going to be trouble. Professionally, I had a hectic week full of new test scripts that had to be done and written clearly conflicting with a project that wasn't even mine but I had to take because the original tester was not going to be in the office the week of the product release. Normally, that would not be a problem but his time estimates were WAY OFF. That meant I had to do a computer "double time" to get this done in a timely manner.

Plus on top of that, I found a whole bunch of scenarios that this guy did not. This is the time/testing equivalent of trying to stuff a whole bunch of garbage into a small trash can and having to "jump on top of it" in order to get the lid closed.

Okay bad enough. Usually, though, a couple of cigarettes will take away the emotional stress that comes with corporate aggrevation. Right now, it's the balancing act I hate contending with. At the end of the day, I went home.

The following scenario happened three times this week for a two hour period. I got on the subway, which had an average temperature of 150°F and arrived at the Port Authority. I raced up the four flights of stairs to get to gate 321 to a crowded bus. Okay, bad enough. The AC broke and we hit traffic going home. Now, wait for it.... here comes the cherry. On every single one of these rides there was a screaming infant.

Hey, here's a little advice for you new parents out there. If you are considering taking your newborn into the city for any reason, drive in. For the rest of us, PLEASE drive in. Especially in the summer. I know you may enjoy the smell of a urine soaked feces stained diaper in the summer heat, but the rest of us in a crowded contained space - do not. So, when you think of being the last two people on a crowded four thirty bus in the month of June - just don't go on. The people on the bus worked hard and want to sleep or, in my case, READ. That's very hard to do when a baby is screaming at the top of its lungs because there is no AC on the bus.

Let me stress this again, it happened 3 times this week.

Once again, normally, this is not a problem. I could sit at home with a beer and wash away my troubles.

So, the crap at work kept a-comin through that week and Friday was the third of the bad commutes home. I dragged my ass to the house and vegged out for about 20 minutes. I needed some real mindless downtime and suggested that we try to catch Garfield on the big screen. Garfield has long been an influence on my cartoon drawing ability since, oh, forever and I can identify with that fat, lazy cat. I decided to try to minimize the child screaming factor by going to the latest show at 8:30. I did and it didn't help. Screaming kids everywhere. Initially, I thought it was not going to be a problem because I was spoiled on the last child oriented film I went to (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Where the kids were so silent, you could hear a pin drop. This was not the case for Garfield.

Well, the movie was "so-so" (ie - not worth the price of admission and I should have waited for DVD release) and I left thoroughly annoyed. We went home and I went to bed desperately seeking oblivion.

As my normal Saturday morning ritual now excludes cartoons in the morning, I've decided to be more productive with my time. I awoke and began my day with a trip to Barnes & Noble to get not only a Father's Day present, but also a birthday present for my mother. Remember, Barnes & Noble can be a one stop shopping place for all of your book reading needs. As my father has now decided to kill his time now by working at a garden center, I bought him 1,000 Questions and Answers About Gardening. For my mother, I got her a basic book on Yoga. Remember, my parents are in their "golden years" now and just the thought of my mother (and father for that matter) in a Yoga class mentally gives me amusement. I, then, went next door to the Starbuck's and got myself and my wife two lattes to go and went home.

I puttered around the house a bit and straightened up. I felt like going out and doing something. Knowing that it was Father's Day weekend, I was pretty sure that there would be sales all over the place. I thought going to Best Buy to see if there were any DVD's on sale was a good idea.

My wife and I got into the car and pulled out of our parking spot. The car was running... shakey. It's hard to describe. I thought it was a flat tire but when I got out of the car to check all of the tires were still inflated. As we went out of the development, I had my wife get out of the car and watch the tires from the front coming to the back leaving. No problems were visible and, of course, I didn't feel anything while I drove it that time. She got back in the car and we spoke about going to Sears instead to get tires.

I turned onto Rt. 33 Business and said, "BUT I DON'T WANNA GO TO SEARS TODAY!!!" (For those of you with an active imagination, picture a petulant child saying the same thing and you'll have me to a "T".)

"We just paid off the car, Honey. Maybe you should have the tires changed right now. After all, those are the originals."
"Okay! Alright! GODDAMMIT! Let's go to Sears!"

As if on cue, the front passenger tire blew out.... and I knew I had no jack in the car.

Fortunately, we could not have been half a mile from the house. After the obligatory, "There is no jack.", "Why is there no jack?", "I don't know why there is no jack." argument, my wife jogged home to get the Jetta (which had a jack) and came back so I could change the tire and drive the remaining three quarters of a mile to Sears. (Yes, kiddies, that's the kind of luck I have. I decide I need tires from a place that's barely a mile away and have a blow out on the way there.) I arrived at Sears (attached to the Freehold Raceway Mall) and made arrangements to have the new tires put on but to also have them aligned properly (which was the cause behind the blowout).

While we waited, my wife and I elected to get lunch in the hidden restaurant at the 3rd floor of Nordstroms. Not many people know about this soup, sandwich, and salad place and it's good for a nice quiet lunch. Until today, of course, when a couple brought their screaming infant into my much needed Nirvana and placed me in Danté's fifth circle of Hell.

See, here's the problem. It's bad enough to be with a screaming kid. A responsible adult can walk away from that situation without it becoming really ugly. But what happens when you can't walk away - like when you are in a movie theatre or in a restaurant or in a crowded bus? It's just not fair, especially, since Loew's is now advertising (at least in Freehold), special movie time discounts for mothers and their babies on selected showtimes. They are encouraging them to come and spoil a movie for the other patrons. Sure, let's ignore the people who paid full price to have their movie going experience completely ruined by a person who paid half.

And they wonder why box office receipts are low.

After an hour and a half of indigestion, I went back to Sears. $310 dollars later, I was out of the mall and headed to Best Buy (well, actually, we dropped off the Jetta at the house first, but then we went to Best Buy.)

I started looking at the DVD's and I was browsing for... something. Initially, I was torn for the first season of Northern Exposure but then it was won out by the first season of Monk. But that's not where the value came in. My eagle eyed wife found a treasure in the form of a colorized version of Reefer Madness. Okay, it's a cult film. But even better, on this DVD is a feature of commentary by Michael J. Nelson, formerly of Mystery Science Theature 3000. It was like finding a lost episode of MST3K. My wife bought it for me as a "Doggie Father's Day"* present along with a whole bunch of old Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes black and whites for an amazingly low $15 on DVD.

I got home and my mind was reeling. After I finished cooking dinner, I finally broke and said, "You know, F%@k it! Right now, I need to unwind a bit and right now, reading just aint gonna do it." I popped in Reefer Madness with Mike Nelson's commentary. It was hilarious. I felt a little guilty about breaking my vow, but at the same time there were extenuating circumstances and my stress factor for the week was very high.

I still plan on going through the rest of the month with no TV. Out of 432 hours of potential television viewing time, I've watched about 6 to 8 hours. And with the exception of Reagan's Funeral and a presidential broadcast, none of it was network television. Not too shabby.

Once again, the alternative with the high powered rifle and being Bruno's prison bitch are not cheery prospects.

* - For those of you who don't think that pet owners deserve this kind of holiday, remember that kids eventually can go to the bathroom by themselves. Dogs are walked everyday without exception. They stay children for their entire life.