Long island

Think you have bad luck? My brother got ran over TWICE by the same car!

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unlucky meme

With St. Patrick’s Day last week, I was thinking about sharing some stories about my lucky shamrocks, but as I was writing, I couldn’t help but think of my brother. Forget about Luck of the Irish, if it weren’t for bad luck, my brother Joey wouldn’t have any at all. Here’s a perfect example to illustrate just how unlucky he is – picture it: Merit Gas Station: Long Island: September 2000.

die peacefully

My brother pulled into the gas station one man and left in tattered pieces. Nowadays, you can pay at the pump, but for anyone of the young’uns that might be reading this – back in 2000 it was down-right prehistoric: you won’t believe it, but we had to actually walk from your car to the attendant’s booth, prepay for your gas and then walk all the way back to your car to fill it up. Simple enough for most people, but not for my brother, not that day. Joey put the pump in the gas tank, headed over to prepay, paid for his gas, and headed back over to pump it. All normal and the same thing he had done hundreds and hundreds of times when – BOOM he’s suddenly a hood ornament!

 

hit with car

 

Out of nowhere, an old man rammed into Joey, knocking him to the ground, and proceeded to drive over him like he was gas station roadkill. Seriously, he was a Merritt Muskrat flattened like a pancake! Picture a possum on I95 wriggling under the front tires trying to break free before he’s crushed to bits – that was my brother there on the pavement. As he was screaming in agony and trying to figure out what the hell was going on, the old man realized that he hit something, stopped the car, and threw it in reverse. HE THREW THE EFFING CAR IN REVERSE AND THEN PROCEEDED TO HIT HIM AGAIN!  HE RAN HIM OVER TWICE! JOEY GOT HIT BY THE SAME CAR TWICE!!!

 

hold onto your teeth.jpg

 

My brother was in pain the first go around, but the shock of the car re-running him over set him over the edge. Screaming for help, the other customers could only watch in horror until that pimped out old Caddy finally came to a resting halt. One would think that people watching this unfold or the Police on the scene might rush over to my brother to assist and try and see if this real life crash test dummy was still alive, but they instead ran to the old man, who was clutching his chest. At this point he was outside the car on the ground next to Joey because after stopping the car, he got out, took one look at my brother, turned white as a ghost, shrugged his shoulders as if to say “Shit happens” and then his feet came out from underneath him and he hit the pavement.

grumpy old men.jpg

As the police and emergency personnel were tending to the old man, my brother was screaming “What the fuck? He ran me over twice and you’re helping him? Someone pump my gas or get my fucking money back from that attendant!” It fell on deaf ears though, as the police were trying to get the old man’s information. He directed them to his dashboard – he had flash cards with his name, address, and directions back to his house. Apparently, he had suffered a stroke almost four months to the day of the accident and wasn’t supposed to be driving. Of course, they felt the old man was in critical condition and immediately got him out of there in an ambulance and then asked my brother if he wanted an ambulance as well. Who stops to ask the person that got ran over twice if they’d like an ambulance? If ever there was a clear cut need for an ambulance, I’m pretty sure that was it.  

 

steamroller blues.jpg

 

It’s like every time he gets gas, that Elvis song “Steamroller Blues” plays in the background like his very own theme song: “I’m a steamroller baby, I’m ‘bout to roll all over you…” I’d like to say that my brother is now safely crossing on the green and not in between, but when we recently followed him to my sister’s house, he pulled over to get out and switch drivers right on the highway and his wife said “Why in the world would he get out of the car on a highway instead of pulling into a parking lot? Wasn’t getting run over twice enough?” Apparently, you can take the boy out of the gas station, but you can’t take the gas station out of the boy!

mr t jimmy.jpg

This has nothing to do with my brother or him getting hit by the car TWICE, but there’s always room for Jimmy McMillan!

 

Apparently, the first sense you lose once you get struck by a car is your sense of humor – and it’s still on the fritz because almost 17 years later, he still doesn’t think it’s funny. In hindsight, he really did get seriously hurt: he had his shoulder operated on, broke two toes and messed up his knee pretty bad. I only make light of this happening because it didn’t happen to me and it’s been years since it happened so it’s OK to laugh about it now. Granted we laughed back then too, but that’s not the point. We live and we learn and since then he looks both ways twice before crossing just in case…

 

unlucky.png

 

Sister, please tell me about the Baby Jesus…

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Pretty the Kitty sends her holiday wishes to everyone!

Pretty the Kitty sends her holiday wishes to everyone!

 

For the past week, I’ve been talking about my sister and it feels just a little bit wrong in a way. Not wrong because I wrote nutty things about a crazy person, but wrong because I held back and like Vanessa Williams: Went and saved the best for last. When talking about my itty-bitty, cray-cray sister and celebrating her Birthday Week, there is no more accurate portrayal of her in anything I’ve ever written than the famous Baby Jesus post! It would almost be irresponsible and selfish of me not to share it with you!

 

You think I'm Crazy...

 

Once again, she was causing bedlam in the bathroom and although this was one of the few times that no cats or walls were shit on, it also outlines her stint as a local vigilante worthy of the Master himself: Guardian Angel Curtis Sliwa! That’s not even to mention the time we were driving in the back of a parking lot one night and came upon a drug deal and she started holding the horn down, flashing her brights, and shouting out the window! I did what any real man does in that situation – I dove into the back seat and ducked for cover on the floor screaming like a little girl. Curtis, put her on patrol man, she’ll clean up the streets in no time.

 

sweet-baby-jesus

 

I was in Home Depot last week and saw a nativity set that I almost bought to revisit Kim for a reenactment, but didn’t because my sister is pretty sure she’d press charges this time. Either way click here for  The Famous Baby Jesus Story and hear a most amazing tale about me, my sister, and the absolute true meaning of Christmas!

 

The Famous Baby Jesus Story

 

 

Senior Spotlight on my younger sister

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Call the Lost and Found! This was the last reported trace of my Aunt WInk’s eyebrows…

I was driving back from the supermarket yesterday when I had to pull over to let a fire truck get past me on the way to some emergency and it reminded me of one of the places my sister Marlene used to live in. This ordinarily wouldn’t be noteworthy but, my sister was just 24 years old cohabitating with our crazy 62 year old aunt in an Adult 55-and-over community at the time.

Something is definitely off track when you’re not yet feeling your late-twenties angst but your housemate is collecting Social Security; that’s no longer a roommate situation – it’s a sitcom.

My aunt Wink has shocking red hair, weighs less than most stick figures I’ve drawn, and once upon a fine summer day had to be tucked under my sister-in-law’s arm like a purse and carried out of HER own going-away party. That’s not even the most random thing about her: She’s a hairdresser yet doesn’t own a set of eyebrows. I tell you, her forehead is bare as a baby’s bottom! Try rolling your eyes at something ridiculous and when you look up – there’s not a stitch of hair in sight, just a vast wasteland. I’m not sure if they were too expensive and she’s on a tight budget or if she was the victim of a hit-and-run but somebody should dial 911 because there was a crime committed for sure. I never really thought that the Great Long Island Eyebrow Shortage of 1995 was a real epidemic, but I’m starting to reconsider my position. To combat this follicular dilemma, she uses a red crayon to color in where the eyebrows used to rest their weary souls. She has to be careful in the summer though – one wrong swipe of a sweaty forehead and she’ll be mistaken for Homey the Clown again! That being said, she is hysterical and was a perfect roommate for my sister Marlene, because crazy radiates towards crazy and those two were like magnets.

What made the pairing of these two kindred spirits dangerous was that, despite the vast age difference between them, they were eerily similar to each other but neither would ever cop to it. If my sister Marlene was the opposite of my aunt, or at least a little different it might have worked out, but she’s actually just a much younger version of her. Besides the fact that the two of them share the same first name and a natural proclivity towards excessive cursing and chain-smoking; Shave Marlene’s brows off, and Maury wouldn’t even need a DNA test to be 99.9% sure of that Baby Momma.

Marlene loved living there and she really was in her element – all the old ladies flocked to her and lived vicariously through her. It was as if In Her Shoes took place on Long Island instead of Florida and she was Cameron Diaz without the There’s Something About Mary hair. In return, she headed straight to the nearest JC Penney the day after she unpacked to purchase a new floral housecoat. It was her very own Fantasy Island and my aunt was Tattoo to Marlene’s Mr. Roarke.

Marlene and some of her peeps just hangin’

My wife and I were driving to visit Marlene one afternoon when we got caught in some really backed up-traffic. Believe me when I tell you that in Long Island this is to be expected as the norm, but this was different. All of a sudden fire trucks come blaring past us on the side street we were perched on. We were about a mile down the road from their development, but the sirens were still close after they passed us. I tried calling their house line and got the machine. Tried cell phone and got the voice mail. Thinking the worst, we tried calling another ten times as if that would alleviate the situation or make them answer.

Finally we crept down the street and turned into their development to see multiple police cars and fire engines, and lots of people outside. We parked and ran towards their front door, when we heard that all-too-familiar voice calling out: “Hey!” We turned to see the ghost of Christmas future right there in front of us. Marlene was at her post in the center of about seven various housecoats snapped up to the collar all with cigarette ashes dangling from the sides of their mouths. They were huddled together on the grass more intently than most of the football huddles I’ve ever seen.

She paused only to take another drag “Get over here, Gloria saw the whole thing” she shouted excitedly, drawing us into the circle. There was actually more smoke coming out of all their cigarettes, than from the actual cars involved in the accident. We tried to tell her that we had been calling non-stop because we were worried with the sirens, but she didn’t have her phone with her because “it happened so fast and she didn’t want to miss anything.”

Marlene and some friends just chillin’

My wife looked at her and shook her head, then at me and then looked back to Marlene:  “You need to move out of here right away!” She took another long drag from her cigarette and questioned “What are you talking about? This place is great!” There was no convincing her to move out and she stayed there living high on the hog as a life-surrogate for the seniors for another year. I guess it wasn’t technically a mid-life crisis for her, but it was certainly a funny thing for the rest of us to talk about.

David Sedaris named my baby! Now we’re pregnant again – What’ll it be???

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The Man, The Myth, The Legend: David Sedaris

 

First off, this isn’t an April Fool’s Day joke – this is a true story.  My wife was pregnant with our first baby and we went to see David Sedaris. We didn’t go because she was pregnant and she didn’t get pregnant at the show as far as I know, we just happened to see his show while she was pregnant.  (Some people get confused easily, so I wanted to clear that up right away.) He was reading material from one of his books and just generally showing why he is one of the most hysterical men alive and we waited around for the book signing after the show. He always stays around after he’s done and chit chats with everyone and autographs books, cd’s, small turtles…basically whatever you bring with you for him to sign.

We’ve seen him multiple times, but even I am not narcissistic enough to believe that I’ll stand out among the many tons of people that he meets. We’ve actually trouped all over the Tri-State area and are thinking of forming a support group for other David Sedaris Groupies like us. My wife wasn’t always able to attend with me in the past and so I went with her mother. Don’t get nervous, this isn’t turning into another story about me watching dirty movies with my wife’s mom. She’s a blast and loves Sedaris as much as we always have a great time.

In fact, her mother and I (mother-in-law sounds so old and impersonal which is not her at all so I just call her “Boo”) went to see him in New Jersey once and while waiting on line to meet him after the show, an old lady came up and tried to cut the twenty-something girl in back of me. The old lady tried to casually merge into the line but the girl caught on immediately and called her out on it. She wouldn’t let her cut in front of her and that old lady got so annoyed at the young girl that she actually spit on her. She actually spit on her! I was shocked, but mostly just grossed out and really selfishly thankful that she didn’t spit on me. Had that lady spit on me, that would have been all she wrote because I would have knocked that old bitch out; but the girl was a really good sport about it. No offense to David Sedaris, but you would have thought we were waiting to meet Springsteen or The Rolling Stones by the way that old lady was acting. I haven’t seen spitting like that since the Long Island Game Farm Field Trip in Elementary School when a little boy in my class got a loogie right in the chops was he walked up little too close to the llama cage…

Anyway, the three of us (me, my wife, and Boo) went to see his show and afterwards we went to get our books signed. As we were chit chatting about my wife being pregnant, he asked if we knew what we were having and we said we weren’t finding out. He looked at my wife’s stomach and said “The middle name has to be Danger! It has to be!” and he wrote it in our book. Of course, I never thought she’d go for it, but two months later we welcomed little Danger onto the scene! My favorite part of it was when the priest asked “You want me to say Danger in the church during the Christening?”

I did my part and got us this far; Sedaris - Work your magic!!!

Fast Forward almost two years later: Tonight is his show, my wife is pregnant with our second child (We’re not finding out the sex of the baby again), and David – We need a name! I feel like I might sound a little bit crazier than I normally do, but let me try and convey the importance of this moment to you. This is a person that we revere, and I just fear that he might say a name like Nicaragua (If you’re a fan, then you know exactly how he pronounces it!) or Shortcake (Sedaris pronunciation: short-a-cock-a).

I will revisit this topic after the baby is born and do some explaining about the back-story if we end up with a baby named Boolie Von Coolie!!!!

Just for the Holiday Season: My Famous Baby Jesus Story

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I am not one to start with a disclaimer, but this post might need one. Some people get really crazy about Religion and what should and shouldn’t be done with iconic religious figures, so let me say right now that if you are the type that gets easily offended by the inappropriate misuse of a religious figurine by an absolute moron – STOP READING THIS NOW! Otherwise enjoy and don’t say that I didn’t warn you…

 

As you get together this week and surrounded yourself with those animals that you call Dad or Mom or maybe they’re your brother, sister, or even the housekeeper serving dinner  –  remember the spirit of the Holiday Season and what it was intended to be about: The Baby Jesus! I’m not kidding – I’d like to share a little something that happened to me the year that a little plastic baby named Jesus came into my life.

I was on winter recess from college and the insurance claims company where my sister Marlene worked needed temporary help for the holidays. I wasn’t really the working type but I figured a few extra bucks couldn’t hurt, so I signed on for a few weeks.

The office was in the basement of the owner’s house and besides him and I, there were only women working in the office. They were all crazy, but of particular note was the Office Manager, Kim. She was nuts and I do say that a lot about people, but with her it was actually true. She was dating my brother Angelo and if there was ever a person that should have been force-medicated because she was oh so crazy – it was Kim. She was a nice girl and all and no offense to my brother, but there was something really wrong with the water in that well if you know what I mean. Something was off and this is coming from a person that is a little “off.” If I know one thing for sure when I see it – it’s another crazy person and that bitch made me seem like a calm breeze. More about her later.

The office was about twenty minutes away from our house and Marlene and I had just left work and were heading home. We were driving along talking about nonsense as usual when I looked out the window and saw it. It was dark out and partially concealed, but I could see clear as day. They don’t call me Eagle Eye for nothing. (OK, no one actually calls me Eagle Eye, but what a cool nickname that would be – right?) I started screaming “Stop the car – Stop the car right now!!!” and Marlene swerved to the right, cut someone off and slammed on her brakes landing her hooptie halfway up the curb. I bolted out and ran down the sidewalk and as quick as a bunny I was back in the car cradling two plastic Baby Jesus figurines from a lawn manger. They were both life-size and in perfect condition, but one was painted to look like a real baby and the other was completely white – like a poor little albino Baby Jesus. I just knew in my soul that he wasn’t painted to remind me of the hardships and sacrifices in life and to remind me to give back and think of others…Or maybe the factory it came from ran out of flesh colored paint, which is far more likely.

It was January and Christmas was over, but someone had disgracefully thrown the Baby Jesus into the trash pile. Is it Baby Jesuses? Or is it like “The Gift of the Magi” and they’re called the Baby Jesi if there are more than one? Either way – You don’t do that! Just like with the disposal of a damaged American Flag, there is a certain protocol for the disposal of religious figurines. I am not sure exactly what that protocol is and Father John has been ignoring my calls since my Stigmata scare turned out to be a false alarm (OK, maybe I jumped the gun a little and got a little nervous…but it sure seemed like Stigmata to me) a few months ago but I knew that it wasn’t supposed to be in a heap of garbage and my Catholic guilt couldn’t let the Baby Jesus go out like that.

I was trying to buckle the Baby Jesus and his albino twin into their seatbelts in the back (Don’t roll your eyes, obviously, I didn’t know I would be picking up two babies or we would have brought car seats – sometimes life throws a curveball at you and you gotta duck) when Marlene went all kinds of crazy on me.

“Are you kidding? You almost got us into an accident to pick those fucking plastic dolls out of someone’s garbage – what’s wrong with you?”

“Lower your voice right now! They can hear every word your saying and they’ve been through a lot! I whispered back at her harshly.”

“What are you even going to do with those? Why did you take them out of the garbage Fred Sanford?”

Me in the Red Sweatshirt and Marlene in the Robe

“I guess that makes you Lamont then…DUNT DUNT DUNNIT…” and with that we were laughing and heading home. If you’re reading this and don’t know the theme song to Sanford & Son call your mother right now and tell her that I said that you were raised by animals! Then go to Best Buy immediately and get the Season DVD sets because that show is hysterical!

In actuality, I think Marlene was more annoyed at herself than me for stopping the car. Usually, her ninja-like reflexes kick in when she stops the car short and this time they just didn’t. In case I failed to mention this before, Marlene thinks she’s Curtis Sliwa in the Long Island Chapter of the Guardian Angels.

All she needs is a red beret and Marlene is can be an official Guardian Angel!

She’s got a baseball bat in her trunk at all times just in case something happens; all she needs is a red beret. True as I am typing here, one night she and I saw a kid getting jumped on the street by four other guys. She stopped her car in the middle of the road, popped the trunk, got her baseball bat out of it and went running down the sidewalk faster than TJ Hooker after a suspect.  As she was out there, I did what any sensible person would do – I screamed like a little girl and then dove into the driver’s seat, rolled up all the windows, locked the doors and slipped that mother into drive to get the hell out of there. I was carrying on like someone was chasing me in a Scream mask and figured it was every man for him or herself. Sister or no sister – out there on the streets – you’re on your own! Unbelievable as that was, she chased four guys away and when she helped the guy that got jumped up off the ground – he actually started yelling at her that he could have taken them. That’s when Florence Nightingale herself told him she hoped they came back and kicked the shit out of him again – she’s all heart that one.

So as we drove towards home with the babies safely tucked into the back seat – there was almost an explosion in the car. Like the stick of dynamite that went off on that cold Thanksgiving night when I drank half a gallon of apple juice – Marlene was in gastric distress. Believe it or not – this time there was severe stomach pains, sweating, cramps and a 98.6% chance of someone shitting their pants in the car and it wasn’t me! That’s what we call dramatic irony folks!

All of a sudden, Marlene shot across the highway and made a break for it down a side street. Kim, the crazy Office Manager that my brother Angelo was dating, lived close to where we were stuck in traffic so she headed that way. Kim lived in a basement apartment on a very busy street and as we pulled up in front of it, Marlene just slammed on the brakes and ran towards Kim’s door. This wouldn’t have been a big deal except for the fact that she almost got hit by at least two passing cars as she got out because she stopped short in the middle of the street. The car in back of us almost rammed us along with the cars screeching to a halt and lining up in back of his car. I got out of the car and tried to explain to the driver holding his horn down and cursing at me that she was having bad stomach pains and then just as I got to his window and tried to apologize, he leaned out and started screaming “Move that fucking car right now you Asshole!” Well, excuse me for trying to let you know what happened sir! I finally got the car out of the street and as I parked – it came to me like a vision: I knew exactly why the Baby Jesus had been brought into my life that cold dark night…

Do not ask me what possessed me over those next few moments, but I can still see it playing out in my mind’s eye in slow motion. When I got out of the car, I unbuckled the painted Baby Jesus, took off my jacket and wrapped it around him and I went running off into the night like a flash of lighting.

By some Christmas miracle, Marlene actually made it into Kim’s bathroom seconds before shitting her pants. I guess abandoning the car in traffic was a good strategy because she got there right in the nick of time. She ran in and went straight into Kim’s bathroom leaving the front door half open. Kim was on the telephone with my brother Angelo making plans to meet up later that night as Marlene bypassed any form of small talk.

Like a SWAT team busting up a meth lab, I kicked that half-opened door and came crashing through. I was cradling the wrapped-up Baby Jesus and hunched over so that you couldn’t really tell what I was holding as I burst into the room. I started screaming at the top of my lungs “KIM, KIM, – OH MY GOD KIM– THERE’S A DEAD BABY ON THE FRONT LAWN! THERE’S A DEAD BABY – CALL 911 – THERE’S A DEAD BABYYYYYYYYYY!!!” and with that, I thrust the Baby Jesus right up into her face as I was screaming.

The look of surprise, fear and confusion on her face was such that it will forever be embedded in my memory like a tattoo. As I went in screaming at the top of my lungs, it was loud; possibly a little louder than I should have screamed, as I think about it in hindsight. Kim was normally a very nervous person and a little on edge, but screaming frightened her… As I went rushing in like I was on fire, she threw the cordless phone (with Angelo still on the line) and immediately started screaming and freaking out, I mean FREAKING THE FUCK OUT! She was running around in circles crying and screaming and throwing her arms around. When I pushed it all up in her grill and she came face-to-face with the frightened Baby Jesus, she actually swung at it to get it away from her as she threw herself to the floor and collapsed into a heap. It might not have been as bad if immediately after she hit the ground, the Baby Jesus landed on top of her and then rolled off and settled right next to her on the ground staring up into her hysterical crying face.

It was so low as she talked that it was like a little squeak in between her wheezing at first…”ge… ge… ge”  “get” ”get out” “GET OUT” “GET THE FUCK OUT!!!!” as she tried to crawl towards the telephone that my brother was screaming through “WHO THE FUCK IS IN THE HOUSE…WHAT HAPPENED?…WHAT’S GOING ON?…I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU IF YOU TOUCH HER!…WHO’S THERE?” (He said later he thought she had been assaulted or attacked for sure with the way she was screaming and it happened so fast that he didn’t know if he should get into the car and head over or stay on the line.)

I would like to tell you that I was a mature person and sense finally came over me during her outbreaks and then subsequent breakdown immediately following my entrance, but alas that isn’t me…As she was alternately screaming, crying, and crawling towards the phone to try and recount to Angelo what had just occurred…I was crying laughing and on the floor trying not to pee my pants. I guess in hindsight I can see how she might not have thought it was funny, but in the moment – I really thought she might laugh at the absurdity of it all. Not the case.

As she tried to talk into the receiver it was a mess…”The…Baby…The Baby…Dead Baby…the Baby Jesus is in my house…” of course it made me laugh even harder and Angelo was trying to decipher what the hell she was talking about. She was then up on her feet screaming at me to get out again and calling me every curse in the book, heavy breathing/gasping for air, and still crying while my brother started screaming again “IS SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE?…WHO’S THERE?…WHAT BABY? TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!” as she threw me out the door. If she could have mustered the strength – she might have punched me in the face.

As I tried to stop laughing in her driveway and wipe the tears from my eyes, I realized that my jacket was still either wrapped around the Baby Jesus or on the floor where he and Kim hit the ground – and the car keys were tucked in the pocket of the jacket. There was absolutely no way that I could go back into that house without getting a serious beating (maybe deservedly so, I’ll give her that) so I sat out on the hood of the car waiting for Marlene.

Marlene came out of the bathroom and found Kim slumped in a pile on the living room floor crying into the phone and still not being able to explain fully what had happened to Angelo. She saw the Baby Jesus staring up at her from the living room floor and realized that the screaming and banging that she heard earlier was from me. She didn’t need to ask, but could pretty much piece together the events of the last few minutes in her mind and just walked out the door.

She came out to find me shivering from the cold but still laughing and then she got my jacket and we got back into the car. “Hey, do you think she’s going to give me back the Baby Jesus?” I asked trying to be serious and she just looked at me. “I can’t even right now…What the fuck is wrong with you?” she said and then we just busted out laughing…

As funny as Kim never found the incident and probably still doesn’t all these years later – Angelo tried not to laugh but he never heard the end of it from her. Needless to say, she was afraid to be alone there and he had to sleep over to calm her down because she was crying hysterically for hours.

The following Monday, she wouldn’t talk to me at work (OK, so maybe she had a right to be mad – I’ll give her that) and so I told her that I would “make it up to her” and go out to start her car and put the heat on for her as we were all getting ready to leave for the day. I went out and then came back to get Marlene. We got into our car, which wasn’t running and the windows were all rolled down. As I held my finger to my lips and told her not to say a word – I counted to about five before we heard Kim screaming at the top of her lungs out into the dark of night: “OH MY GOD – THE BABY JESUS IS IN MY CAR…WAAAAHHHH!!!” She started crying again and we got the hell out of there because I knew she would beat the shit out of me this time. As funny as she didn’t find it the first time, me putting the albino Baby Jesus in her car in a dark parking lot which scared her for a second time was worse. We didn’t even make it into the front door of our house before she had called my brother hysterical crying about the Baby Jesus again. He looked at me and Marlene and said “Enough with the Baby Jesus – How many of them do you even have?” and then he busted out laughing realizing how silly it sounded out loud…

I guess since time has passed I realize that it probably wasn’t something to joke about and it might have come across as mean…but it really was funny. She collapsed quicker than a Jenga game and I have never heard someone cry like that before or since. For the record, she never did give either Baby Jesus back to me.

I realize this might not be the Baby Jesus story you tell while sitting around your Christmas tree, but not a Christmas goes by that I don’t think about it and repeat around mine. I’m pretty sure not a Christmas goes by that Kim doesn’t think about it either…I imagine that if things had worked out between Angelo and Kim I might have grown to feel bad about it or been made to stop repeating this story, but like I said – she was crazy and they broke up – so here you go!

Happy Holidays to you and to all of the people in your life that would scare the shit out of you with a plastic Baby Jesus.

My Dental Dilemmas: Part One

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There is no beating around the bush here, I’ll just come right out and say it: I am a pussy when it comes to going to the dentist!I really like brushing and flossing and taking care of my teeth. I love that deep burning tingle from swishing the Listerine around in my mouth. What I do not care for is going to the dentist. I get all sorts of anxious and I start to sweat profusely and get nauseous – and that’s just in the car on the way over.

For as long as I can remember, going to the dentist has always been a traumatic experience for me. When I was little, I would get so freaked out in the dentist‘s chair that I would wait until he turned around to get equipment and then I would jump up out of the chair and make a run for it. My bib would be flying around the back of my neck like Superman’s cape and I was off and running down the hall. After making it out of the room more than once, my mother did what any supportive, loving, compassionate, and caring mother would do: She pinned me down to the chair. Her full body weight was on my chest and one of her hands was holding one of my arms down and her other hand would be jammed at my throat, pinning me to the headrest while my Aunt laid across my recklessly flailing legs trying to hold my other hand – effectively immobilizing me. As with any poor, defenseless animal caught in a trap by hunters, I was too terrified to scream and could only lay there in terror – waiting for the torture to end.

Now, any normal dentist would stop right there and say “wait a minute ladies, this might not be a good idea if we actually have to assault him to open his mouth” but not Long Island Dentists in the 80’s. He was just as bad as my mother and aunt because while they were pinning me to the mat, he was prying my mouth open with one of his hands and sticking torture devices in and out of my teeth with the other all the while drilling just for the fun of it. That is when I realized that life really isn’t fair after all. 

I would like to tell you that that was the only time that I have been held down and literally assaulted in a dentist’s office, but if I told you that, it would be a lie. There were many, many other times and it had only made my fears worse. Also, don’t even get me started about how they had to restrain me to get blood from my arm at the doctor’s office. The two of them weren’t enough that time and they needed two additional nurses helping them to try to hold me down. I was thrashing around like The Hulk and they were kicking and punching back because I was determined to get out of there. Each one of us left that office feeling downtrodden and covered in bruises…Sadly enough, if you were to look back through it, my medical history memory bank runs like a Tarantino film. 

As for my current dentist: It took me forever to find someone I am comfortable with but there are still issues.  I still freak out and my wife has to come and stay in the room with me to try to calm me (or apologize for my behavior). He actually makes me take the last possible appointment of the day because he doesn’t have a door on any of his exam rooms (I’m like the 3:00 show) and  apparently, I scared some of the kids and parents in the waiting room last time when I was freaking out during a cleaning, so he bumped me til there is no one around. By the way, he also makes me wear a pink nose cone to get the gas because he says the other colors are too small and won’t fit around my nose. Leave it to a dentist to make an already nervous person self-conscious about their big nose. I just can’t win!