On Getting Ready for the Flood

     The end of the world is coming and her name is Irma!

    One of the most destructive hurricanes ever recorded (or possibly the most destructive) has hit the country and it is rapidly churning my way. There seems little doubt it will hit my neck of the woods. It has destroyed several islands (literally wiped them off the map), caused millions in property damage, killed a bunch of people, and has the survivors scrambling to pick up whatever’s left. And still for some reason, I’m dragging my feet about getting disaster supplies.

    As some of you may recall last year I was faced with a similar situation where the flooding of the city was ridiculous and I hadn’t bothered to plan ahead.  I still defend my lackidaziness then, there had been so many false alarms up until then, I figured the actual storm was just one more time “Crying wolf”.

    But now it is a credible threat. The beast has risen. A flood of biblical proportions threatens. And yet I still can’t get off my ass to get things together. As I cast a lazy eye over my unkempt apartment, eating all of the non-perishable foods like I shouldn’t be, I notice all sorts of things I need: crackers, water, toilet paper, some other food that’s nonperishable- whatever it might be, I’m blanking at the moment- wooden matches, candles, toilet paper, candy, thick woolen socks, and so on.

    Luckily I have a girlfriend to nag the shit out of me and spur me into action in order to cease her cackling.

    “Rex, we need the fooooood!”

    “Rex, did you get batteries?”

    “Rex, are you going to crush this pussy before we all drown? Well, are you?”

    These little interplays reinforce the basic dynamics of our relationship, of many American male-female relationships in general. While it was perfectly possible for her to go and stock up on food before the inevitable deluge, she viewed it as her job to kick me until I did it. As if she was supervising the management of our house. As if the place that I pay for was somehow under her control. As if my agency were somehow diminished when she was issuing orders, and her agency was limited to only issuing said orders.

    So what happened?

    I got the goddamn food, what else?

    Did you think I was going to let myself starve in the case of a flood? No amount of power control identity politicking is going to stand in the way of me getting what I need. And I suppose she can eat some of it too.

However, to add a little snuke I primarily stocked up on things she doesn’t like. Bologna, ugh. Pickles, vomit. Cocktail onions, double vomit. Grapes and its elderly cousin raisins, you know those are like just little cubes of sugar and not very nutritious, right. Ha. Score one for me! 

Course, I don’t really like those things either, but that’s beside the point. From a power politics lens of our relationship I had wrested back control. From a feminist perspective, me buying the grapes was the equivalent of blowing a hot load right in her face. An absolute display of my pungent masculinity.

But no, no. These things all pale in the vicious majesty of mother nature’s wrath. Who cares about what squabble emerge between man and women when the planet wants you dead? Let us put all petty aside and help each other, regardless of what the fanatics say.

I stand naked with my woman on our porch, linked hand in hand, watching the dark clouds roll in.

 Available on Kindle and paperback 

On Staring Up at the Sun

This past week its seems like half of America dropped everything they were doing to gaze at our life giving celestial orb. Being stuck here in Columbia, South Carolina, I found myself accidentally trapped in one of the best places in the country to watch the majesty of the 2017 eclipse, or as the ancients called it, the “moon devouring the sun”.

In ancient times, such an event would call for a massive human sacrifice or a collective public scourging of oneself in penance for the sins of humanity. Nowadays we are more sophisticated. Presently, we run out into the streets to clog up traffic and stare upwards stupidly, all the while gibbering “oooh” and “aaah”. A much more primal ritual, in a sense, than any of the ancients had concocted. The eclipse started at 1:41 on August 21st, 2017, briefly showered us in darkness around 2:35,  and then departed  roughly at 3:15.

And while the experience was fun, watching the sun slowly slip away like an accelerated moon cycle, listening to the crickets flare up in the middle of the day, watching people slowly get holes burned into their eyes. But the real story, my real story, lies in the preparation. As in, what a pain it was to actually get the goddamn glasses!   

Now part of this, okay most of this, was my own fault. In the weeks leading up to the great solar event I was very preoccupied in trying to make it to work on time, finding copies of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and re-arraigning my Fallout 4 settlements (which I spent more time on than cleaning my actual house). And as I never bother with things like the news, I missed completely the impending date of the this celestial event. Despite everyone talking about it at work, despite the growing number of discussions about it on social media, despite Google constantly throwing articles about it in my face, I forgot that it was about to happen.

It wasn't until my girlfriend came and kicked me in the shin, demanding to know how we would celebrate it and that I would have to get some glasses so we wouldn’t have holes burned into our retinas. Nevermind that she could’ve done something, I as the man would handle the situation… somehow.

Upon scouring the local stores, I discovered that every single place had sold out of glasses. After whining to the acne-scarred blimp behind the Walmart counter, she suggested I check out the local libraries as they were rumored to be giving them away free. I went, they were, but they were out. The gaunt sexless librarian stared at me through dead cow eyes and said they could send me a email list of places that were still supplying the needed spectacles. It took them an hour for their fat fingers to push in my email address and hit send. I waited on pins and needles, ready to spring into action the moment it arrived. And when it did, there was only one placed listed. Amazon.

Now let me describe these glasses to you, so you understand my reaction after looking the damn things up. The eclipse glasses frames are from cheap cardboard stock, very similar to what you would find in those old three-d glasses. The lens, instead of one being red and the other blue, were made from a pitch black film, so dark that only the brightest of lights, ie directly from the sun, could penetrate it. But this in itself did not look much different from the old camera film used back in the prehistoric days before digitalization.

These damn things!

So you can imagine my shock when I looked on Amazon and discovered that not only could I not buy individual pairs, the lowest being a block of five, but the whole mess would cost me a whopping $35.99. For essentially comic book X-Ray specs that I would only use for about an hour. But being henpecked as I was, I bit the bullet and ordered a pair.

For a day, all was right with the world. Then I went back on the website to check the order and I discovered the estimated delivery date was Tuesday August 22nd- exactly 24 hours after I would any possible use for them. Turns out that a run on the item was causing shipping delays. Well I helped the company out a little by canceling my order.

Then I had to go back to Amazon and order again. The problem was I had picked the cheapest package before, now I was forced to buy a group of 20 for $79.99. Ridiculous, but it shows the lengths a man will go to shut a woman up. Fine, problem solved. A little expensively, but solved. Right?

Wrong! I’m some of you might be aware of this, but there was a mini-scandal at this time, roughly four days before show time, because it seems many of the glasses peddled on Amazon weren’t up to snuff. And anyone trying to use them, would have neat little blind spots permanently burned into their vision. Very nice. So while I did dodge a bullet, I was left with nothing.

Bummed and upset, I dragged my perpetually squawking significant other, the light of my life, out for a night a sushi and saki- hoping beyond hope that raw fish and rice booze would cushion the blow. We went to nearby Japanese restaurant, noted locally for the lack of any asians working in it. And I was glad that I did, for on the specials board was the Eclipse Roll - Shrimp, avocado, seaweed wrap, topped with roe. Nice, but an order also came with a free pair of eclipse glasses!

Well halle-fucking-lujah. I grabbed the first waiter that glanced in our direction and immediately demanded two of the rolls. Startled, the waiter backed away at my New York brashness, but a further yell from me sent him scurrying for our sets of glasses, while a blonde southern belle wrapped our sushi. I sat back on my now soothed hackles and sighed in relief. I was the man, like the pioneers of old I went out into the freezing cold to chop down redwoods with my bare hands, strangling animal all along the way, to provide for my family. The laurels of godhood would soon be mine.

Then the unthinkable happened. The waiter in his scuttling servility scuttled back up to apologize. Apologize? Apologize for what? Ohhhh, there’s only one goddamn pair of glasses left. Well, how nice. Thank you for the skewer of roasted shrimp to make up for it. Now get out of my sight!

So who got the glasses? Well I offered them to her, on the condition that she was not to speak to of what she gazed upon through those smoky lenses. I could stand not viewing the event, but I wasn’t going to allow it to be rubbed in. In her infinite compassion, she offered to come to my work during the eclipse and we could take turns using them. Good enough.

Well the day came and the city shut down for several hours. My girlfriend appeared at my work and everyone in the building went out into the rapidly darkening day to stare at the sky. As I stepped out into the empty street, someone tapped me on my shoulder. I turned and a pair of eclipse glasses were shoved at me.

“What’s this?”

“We bought enough for the whole building awhile ago.” Came the reply, “You didn’t pick up yours.”

“Oh. Thanks.” I should start reading office emails.

“We’ve go a few extras. Do you need one for your girlfriend?”

“No. No. We’ve got that covered.”

I was given a pat on the back. My woman and I gripped hands and looked upwards.

 Available on Kindle and paperback