Just the Ten of Us

Mr. Potter died when I was seven. He was my aunt's father, but I didn't know that at the time. To me, he was just a nice old guy I saw on birthdays and holidays who'd give me money. He had a Winnebago that he and his wife were going to travel the country in, but never did. So after he died, my aunt Betty decided we should take it on a trip to see what it would be like. So ten of us, Uncle Jay, Betty, their kids Andrea, Kristin, Joel, Jon, my parents, my younger brother Ryan and me, went on a trip to Busch Gardens.


From left to right: Kristin, Jon...or Joel, my dad,
Ryan, my mom, Andrea, me, Betty, the other twin, Jay.

We took the Winnebago and my parents' station wagon and set off on a mishap-laden adventure that we still talk about today. My mom drove the Winnebago for exactly one block before it was decided maybe someone else should take the wheel. At one point, the car broke down on the side of the rode right next to a bag of rotting fish. So we were standing on the side of the road with a stinking bag of fish guts in the middle of August, waiting for AAA. Later, my then three-year-old brother Ryan announced he had a string in his throat, which my parents didn't understand until he threw up all over the place. Joel and Jon were in the back of the station wagon, banging on the back hatch for dear life for someone to let them out.

We made a stop at a campsite and we were all supposed to go to a waterpark, but I got stung by a bee. My dad said it was because God was punishing me for whatever I did earlier. So my uncle's family went to the water park, and my family stayed behind for a while. When we did finally go, instead of going to the big water park, we went to the cheap, broken down one across the street. My mom took Ryan on a slide with her and her mat flipped over at the bottom, and for a while she was underwater on top of Ryan. None of the attendants at the park even offered to help. To this day, neither one of them has gone back on a water slide. Meanwhile, the slide I was on didn't have enough water on the slide part to make it slippery, so I stopped halfway down. I wasn't sure what to do, so I stood up. Then the guy that went down behind me crashed into me, and there was much screaming and confusion all the way down. Also, some other guy grabbed me out of the pool because I was floating face down trying to see how long I could hold my breath and he thought I was drowning. He got pretty mad.

Then there's my dad, who carefully walked all the way across the German-themed food court in Busch Gardens, with a lederhosen-clad Um-pa band playing in the background, carrying a pizza and a pitcher of Sprite all the way from the Italy-themed section of the park until finally spilling the pitcher all over the pizza when he put them on the table. Looking equally embarrassed and angry, and certainly not about to walk all the way back to get Italy to get another pizza, he clenched his teeth and said "You're gonna EAT that pizza and you're gonna LIKE it!" My mom grabbed some napkins and mopped up most of the soda.

As soon as we got back, my aunt sold the Winnebago. That trip became the template for every vavaction my family's been on since then. What a great trip.

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There's Guns in Them Thar Hills!

I've always really liked where I live. We have a large backyard and lots of woods. There's a path in the woods that leads to a river and waterfall. It's only a few feet high, but...do you have a waterfall? Didn't think so.



Anyway, there's a path that leads to my grandmother's house and for the past two weekends, I've been cleaning up the path and making it look nice after years of neglect and several storms left it looking creepy and foreboding.

My brother Glenn and I also cleaned up the hill leading up to my grandmother's house (you can either go up the hill or through the woods...or just use the driveway like normal people.) My neighbor's house used to be a mill and the guy that lived there many years ago used the hill to dump his trash. For as long as I can remember, we'd find old glass bottles, license plates, and Schlitz beer cans on the hill, usually after a rainstorm uncovered them.

But this weekend as we raked all the leaves off and cut back the thorn bushes, Glenn uncovered two rusty old guns, or at least the barrels. The stocks and everything else were gone, but burried together was a rifle and a shotgun.





First the creepy hut, now we're finding old guns.

Who knows why they were burried there. This guy dumped all his trash on that hill, so it's more likely that he just threw them out than if he hid them to cover some sordid crime. Maybe his mama put them in the ground because he can't shoot them anymore.

I'd like to know exactly what kind they are and how old they are. I don't know the first thing about guns, so for all I know they could just be BB guns. But they look really old. And anything over 100 years old that you find in the ground is cool.

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The Secret of Bare Cove

Like the Hardy Boys before us, (the teen sleuths, not the wrestlers) my friends and I have discovered the secret of someplace. Yes, we have uncovered the grisly truth of behind the secret of Bare Cove. Or we would have, if we hadn't bolted like Kenyan marathon runners as soon as we heard someone coming.

Here's what went down: Last month we were sitting around Nick's house trying to decide how to spend our Sunday afternoon, when it was suggested that we buy some disposable cameras and go around taking pictures of random stuff. Maybe it was the ammonia emitting from the ferret cage, but we thought it was a good idea and we were soon on our way.

After taking a few pictures at Nantasket Beach, we drove to Bare Cove, the type of large wooded area where people go to walk their dogs or to write 10,000 page manuscripts on the evils of technology. It didn't take long for us to veer off the paved path to explore the woods. Eventually, we came to a suspicious pair of women's shoes.


Two red pumps. I think they were pumps. I don't really know what the hell a pump is, but it sounds good: two red pumps. Abandoned shoes in the middle of nowhere are a little disturbing. But not as much a hut made out of tree branches sitting on a hill that overlooks abandoned shoes in the middle of nowhere.





We went up to investigate the hut. It was small; made out of branches and twigs, and what looked like maybe a piece of broken old fence for a door. There was a jacket inside. Outside, there was a hacksaw with a bright orange handle sticking out under the dead leaves.



I'm sure there's many explanations for what we found. Maybe the hut was a Cub Scout project or some handy junkies home, and completely unrelated to the shoes scattered below. It's not like I saw any blood on the hacksaw, although I didn't exactly get close enough to investigate. We all ran away when we heard someone coming. Maybe it was just a jogger. Or a squirrel. But no one wanted to stick around to find out. I'm too young to be skinned alive and worn as a coat.

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Spleen Day

April 2.

This day may not hold much meaning to most people, but to my friends and me, it will forever be known as Spleen Day. Yes, on this day in 1996, Nick got smacked around like an angry rag doll and wound up in the hospital minus a superfluous organ.

We were juniors in high school. I was sitting in homeroom, probably doodling skulls and bunnies, when Jim burst into the room, laughing hysterically.

"Nick's nose exploded!"

"What?!"

"There's blood everywhere!"

Jim explained what had happened. Apparently, Nick had some words with someone outside the building. I think Nick made fun of his girlfriend or something. I don’t know. I was sitting at my desk, channeling my own teenage angst into demented little scribbles in the margins of my notebook. But the point is, things started to heat up, and Nick got punched in the face, spilling forth what I can only imagine was a crimson torrent from his nose. That probably would have been more than enough for someone to get their point across, but it didn't stop there. He was also kicked in the side, which ruptured his spleen and set up the subsequent hospital stay. All this before school even started. It was an interesting day.

Ironically, the school was having a blood drive that day. Really. The joke was that all the blood collected went to Nick, either that or all the blood he left on the dirt outside was mopped up and donated to the Red Cross.

Nick was laid out for a few weeks, while the other kid with the silly poodle haircut was suspended and told if he got into another fight within so many days he’d be expelled.

Nick has since proclaimed that April 2 be known as Spleen Day, and while the greeting card companies haven't jumped on it yet (Happy Spleen Day, Grandma!), it's significant enough to be the date of Nick and Hedie's wedding next year. Easier to remember the anniversary that way.

Who knows? Maybe it'll catch on. Or maybe not. But for a select few, it will always be remembered as the day Nick got the ever-loving crap kicked out of him by a drugged-out lunkhead.

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The Tao of Joe II

You already know that in order to speak Joe you must tirelessly spew out-of-date and often misquoted catchphrases from television and movies. And that, whenever possible, speak in a poorly-executed lame accent. Here's your next lesson in Joespeak: Jaberwokify your speech.

The man makes up his own damn words! He's all Don Kingafied with his imaginarilacious wordiology. Usually, if he's referring to something and/or someone, he'll combine them with something similar (example: rather than saying "Absolute Delivery is at the door", Joe says "Absolut Vodka is at the door." Granted, that's not making up words, but it sure as hell screws up people that don't know how the little hamster wheel in his head works. But it doesn't stop there. He'll also pick a word in his sentence and add "-age" to it. So the already confusing "Absolut Vodka is at the door" becomes "Absolut Vodka is at the doorage." Throw in that idiot gurgle noise of his and you now officially can speak Joe:

Sane people: Absolute Delivery is at the door.

Joespeak: Absolut Vodka is at the doorage. Arrrughgurghrgh.

I can't even make this stuff up. When told that he has to superscript a registered trademark symbol, he said, (in a horrid Hindu accent, no less) "Okay. I forgotage that." Here are some more examples of things he's actually said:

"Time to cook the lunch-ed."

"I said hancock. Arurururgururgrurah!"

"I've got you're nice right here."

"I've got to go to the Cape (Cape Cod) tonight. Arrurrghurrurragh!"

By the way, even as I'm writing this, Joe just let out three "Arrurrghurrurah"s within five minutes of each other. He's on pace to break his own record. This guy's the Barry Bonds of repetitive annoying noises.

"You are all poo-ly poo lickers!" (Have I mentioned he's almost 50?)

"Na na na, na nana na, na na na na nananna na. The Banana Splits. Arhrhrhrahgghg"

"I'm off to the posty office."

"I'll see you boys in the 'A' and 'M'." (He says this every day before he leaves. When he comes in every morning, it's "Gutentagen!")

"TELEMUNDO SEGUNDO!!"

The important thing to remember here is that when he says these things, he's not actually talking to anyone in particular. He's just...saying it. "You sir, are a pooly poo-licker" And all you can think is "Is he talking to me? What does that even mean? Is he seven years old? God, my brain hurts."

He once said "Literature" in different accents for ten minutes. Sometimes I wonder if his brain works properly. I'd hate to call him the office jerk if he's really just the friendly office retard, like Benny Stulwicz in LA Law.

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