“Brando,” I said in a ‘caught-your-hand-in-the-cookie-jar’ tone of voice and he turned to go back down the stairs.  Inside the pool, I couldn’t see him go down and suddenly I heard my wife say …

            “What’s the matter with Brando?” 

            That was all I needed to hear.  I jumped out of the pool expecting the worst and discovering I wasn’t too far off.  If he had broken his leg, at his age of almost ten-years-old, it would have been a better outlook for him.  Instead, he tore the ligaments of his right front forepaw completely in half.  I braced his leg and picked him up and we went home to make emergency vet calls to desperately find one open for the weekend.  Not an easy task.  The closest vet to us in any direction was an hour away.  The ones with a better reputations were well over an hour.  We received a call back from the closest one and drove him right away.  She was admittedly over her head with the injury and referred us to a place in Norway, Maine, some two hours plus away.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t get there until the beginning of the new week.  That summer was dedicated to getting our dog back to a level of comfort or making the ultimate decision not to let him suffer too greatly.  The vets in Norway, Maine were fantastic, but surgery was out of the question.  It was not financially viable, and even if it were, the vet openly admitted that because of the dog’s age, he sincerely doubted that it would result in success.  Instead I was referred to a man that made prosthetics for people and he eagerly jumped at the opportunity to try to help Brando and start a home-based business on the side.  He was also in Maine and also a couple hours away.  A couple visits to him and he had made a custom-made molding of Brando’s leg and in the interim, I had built a wide ramp going down our backyard steps for him to climb and descend.  I carpeted it with that fake green grass like carpeting and it was a great success.  But because of Brando’s age, other injuries of his past started to haunt him,  He had a fractured pelvis (not sure how that happened but he did jump into my tackling my nephew in the back yard once and we kind of landed on him … yet another time when we had to keep telling him to stay or lay down, but he wanted to play football, too … or basketball … or volleyball … and if you tried to put him in the house, he would stand by the door and bark his fool head off and the second someone went in or out, he’d beeline straight for the action … or he could have simply also injured his pelvis on the pool deck stairs) his hip dysplasia was becoming an issue and trying to walk with the man-made prosthetic splint was wreaking havoc on other parts of his body to compensate for the awkwardness of getting around with it on.  It ended up that after all that, we just medicated him on Rimadyl and some arthritis joint medicine and let him lumber around on the broken leg without anything at all.  After a while, even though it looked like hell to see him walking, it stopped hurting him so much.  So with a level of comfort achieved, our little loving buddy beat the system and found a way to still be somewhat (lovingly) annoying and get by on his own.  There were a few setbacks.  He must have splayed once when we were away from home … most likely on the linoleum kitchen floor and re-injured his hip, but after a while, he responded to the meds again and got better relatively quickly. 

            Then came the summer of 2006.  The thing I never thought would happen did.  Our cat of 16 years suddenly passed away.  He went so fast.  He was playing with a toy he had rediscovered under our bed and I was laughing at him because I hadn’t seen him with that toy in years … and within two weeks of that incident, he died.  Within five days, his kidneys shut down and he went into a catatonic shock.  On the way to be euthanized, he died on his own terms.  We had him cremated and his ashes, his cremains, are on our makeshift mantle.  I was so devastated and after Brando’s injuries of the previous year, I never saw it coming.  I was floored.  Six weeks after the passing of our cat, my grandfather passed away.  Again, although he was 92, he had just been driving a year or two before he went into the nursing home.  But when he went in, it was like he had given up all hope and went downhill so fast.  It didn’t give me enough time to absorb the data.  I was again, devastated. 

            With my grandmother smothered in a deep recess of dementia, my mother still in the throes of suicide by inhalation … she was life-long smoker who just could not kick the habit … on a Nebulizer and on Oxygen, but continued to smoke … and the inevitable age of our dog and his obvious complications, I knew it wouldn’t be too long before my wife, my daughter, and I endured even more death. 

            That started at the end of July this year.  My grandmother had suffered a stroke and was placed in hospice.  At or about the same time, my mother was also placed in hospice and we all waited to see who was going to go first.  My grandmother did and we drove down for the service which they had at the manor so my mother would be able to attend.  We fixed her a plate of food after the service, which she didn’t eat.  She was wheeled back to her room and asked that we come see her before we go.  We did and we got to kiss her and tell her we love her and my mother let her life go that very night.  She died on the same day as her mother’s funeral.  A week later we attended hers. 

            Despite the inevitableness of it all, it’s still a hard pill to swallow.  I must admit, in an odd sense to myself that I had already come to terms with the passing of my grandmother and mother long before they actually had died.  My grandmother didn’t even know who we were anymore when we’d visit her so I felt I lost my grandmother a long time ago.  As for my mother … well, she was my mother and I loved her for that, but it’s hard to sympathize with someone who refuses to change their habit knowing its killing them.  It put a tremendous amount of stress on this family every time she went to the hospital via ambulance and after a while, we all became somewhat desensitized by it all.  Like we surmised one of the trips would be the final one.  My mother had decided on giving up on her own life a long time before she died. 

            So after enduring two funerals within a seven day period, we were faced with the cumbersome task of trying to have Brando watched while we drove the three hours south and three hours back north.  He refused to get up and go out for my mother-in-law.  As a matter of fact, he barely lets my wife take him out anymore.  We have hip sling that we brace under his belly and assist him along the linoleum floor and down the backyard ramp and then let him walk on his own terms to do his business.  I think he’s not comfortable doing that anymore.  He barely gets up now and only goes out about twice a day.  That’s highly unusual for him.  We knew we didn’t want him to endure another winter … which up here in the North Country can be extremely brutal.  It’s heart wrenching to watch him with all his injuries trying to lift his paws out of the snow because they’re so cold.  That’s only on the extremely cold days, but it happens and I didn’t want him to have to suffer through that this winter. 

            Well … it seems that Brando … although when he lays down he perks his ears up high in a coherent state of mind which contradicts the inevitable task … has made us come to terms with what and when to do with him.  We called the vet and made the appointment.  The last appointment.  Is it the right decision?  How can we tell?  We have to base it on his level of comfort.  Our beloved dog has suffered for so long with such pain and never once complained, still happy to spend what time he can with us in any capacity.  That’s what makes this so hard.  But if he’s not getting up regularly to be taken outside … even assisted in being taken outside … then he’s holding his bladder and bowels so that he doesn’t disperse pain from dispelling them in the back yard.  It’s the only conclusion I can come up with to validate the appointment that we have made. 

            To know the date that your beloved pet is going to die and scratch him on the head and behind the ear and tell him you love him feels like such a betrayal.  You’re making the decision for him, based on his behavioral patterns, but if he were given the chance to choose, would he choose differently?  We can punish ourselves thinking all kinds of scenarios and most likely we will.  Until it’s over.  We’ll mourn his loss in our lives, somehow try to fill the void his absence has left us with, take a side order of guilt pondering our choice every now and then, and inevitably move forward. 

            I think the hardest part of this appointment we’ve made is going to be the drive there.  He’s going to be so excited and probably a little nervous … he’s never traveled well in a vehicle … about being with us for a ride.  I don’t know how I’m going to be able to make that ride bearable knowing I’m going to be losing my best friend, my little enema as I would often call him because he was always right up my ass every time I moved … all the endearing names and nicknames we’ve come up with to call him … all the memories, the good, the bad, the scary ones when he hurt himself … everything racing through my head.  The arrival at the vets, picking him up and helping him out of the truck.  Carefully lumbering him into the office, we’ll be somewhat embarrassed and inconsolable I’m sure.  Taking him into the room and waiting for the injection, all the while his trusting soul and expression of joy and expectation that after he gets a shot we’re going back home again.  Not quite my little man.  Not that day.  You’ll come back to our home later … in an urn … and have your spot on the makeshift mantle next to the cat … waiting for my urn to join both of yours.  That will be the one day I will no longer mourn my surrogate family.  My beloved pets. 

            I don’t want to sound as if I’m more devastated by the loss of a pet over a family member.  That is quite far from the truth.  I think what makes my pets harder for me to come to terms with the loss of them is that I acquired them on my own when I was single.  They were my responsibility and I was always the father-figure that did all the things with and for them.  They moved with me when I moved, they endured the changes of my lifestyle and adapted to it on their own terms, never once complaining, always just happy to be with me.  It makes losing them quite personal.  Some people do not consider losing a pet as significant as a family member.  Personally, I don’t think it’s any worse, but I don’t think it’s any better either.  The loss of the loved one is one and the same whether they walk on two legs or four. 

            Next Thursday we are going to endure the third death of this summer of 2008.  We’re going to mourn the loss of another loved one in our family … and what makes this the hardest one of the summer for me to deal with is he’s sitting in the living room right now with his ears perked up undoubtedly hearing me type and waiting next to Mommy for me to come out and coerce him into going outside to relieve himself.  That’s been our morning routine for a while.  When he was a puppy, he’d get up with me and I’d take him right out on his own.  Or he’d wake me up to be taken out.  Now, I have to prod him along.  It’s time for Brando to be comfortable again.  To be able to run again in the meadows of his dreams.  To catch the Frisbee again or tug on his Jolly Ball … he used to be so obnoxious with that slimy thing … challenging everyone … anyone to tug it from him … all sticky and slimy with his spit and drool.  No one wanted to touch it … but he just kept wiping you with it … challenging you until you reached down to get it and he’d turn his head away playing “Keep-Away” with you.  He’s been a wonderful dog.  The best dog in the world.  He’ll be sorely missed, but like my grandmother, we lost the real Brando a few years ago.  We’ve been hanging onto him and evaluating his level of comfort and waiting for the day to make the appointment.  That day is next Thursday.  Somewhat appropriate considering the date.  It’s not the first time I’ve bawled my eyes out on September 11^th.

Jody L. Campbell

R.I.P. little buddy. 

If you’ve ever seen the movie The Patriot you might recall the opening line. It goes … “I have long feared that my sins would return to visit me, and the cost would be more than I could bear.” Ah yes … words of great wisdom indeed. Why I am recalling that line while deciding to write about my days of yore, could only mean I have something to confess. And to that poor, sweet lass, who has undoubtedly passed the test of time with flying colors and moved on with her life, I sincerely apologize. Now, where do I start after that opening line? From the beginning, I presume.

The summer of 1980. I had had my license for over a year then and had done my best to do what damage I could to Mom’s car and even my grandparents’ car. That was a malicious act with the intent that if I did enough damage to theirs, they’d consider letting me buy one of my own. I was a working lad, after all. I needed to get from to and fro and had to have transportation. It was the obvious choice. I don’t recall how we found her; a 1970 Plymouth Satellite with 23,000 miles on the odometer. The back seat still wrapped in factory plastic sheeting, with a slant six .225 engine. Oh … the glory days. It was the original “little old lady from Pasadena” story. Except this little old lady lived in New Hampshire and not California. Nonetheless, it had manual steering and she couldn’t handle its girth. After her husband passed away, it was stored in her garage collecting dust and awaiting a $750 cash offer from my grandfather to purchase it for me. My first love.

The symbolism of a car to a teenaged boy is simplistic in terms. It is freedom on wheels and hardly any man alive will argue this fact with me. Why we consider it this is beyond all realm of comprehension. It’s not freedom per se. You have to make the payments, let alone the insurance and dive into the unjust world of realizing just how screwed you get by the auto insurance industry just for being male. You also have to gas it up. Everything about the car is financially restrictive. So why do we consider it symbolic freedom? Well … the girls, of course. The girls love the idea that a guy has his own car. And we’re in the stages of playing exploratory baseball with girls and certain parts of their anatomy … having a car to use as a ball field is just an easier outlet. I mean … what else are you going to say to her? Hey, honey … wanna go out in the woods with me? Um … no. That never works. At least not with the kind of girls you’d want to bring home and introduce to momma.

So I drove the Satellite home and had all kinds of visions and adventures going on in my head. Summer was coming after all and after last summer at the beach, this year was going to be even better. Why? Because now I had my own ride! Beer, babes, and beaches, oh my! What a wonderful world we lived in back in 1980. Bad hair, music trying to escape the inevitability of changing from the 70s and, the residual corduroy bellbottom pants. We were entering the disco decade. Eh gad. Somebody hit the brakes! If I knew then what I know now … I probably would have knocked up some young lass and be in worse shape now than ever before. Thank goodness the world works in mysterious ways.

So … we’ve covered “Freedom.” Everyone understands that cars are freedom to young lads. Now … let’s talk about the French. My dear grandmother is French Canadian so let’s get that out in the open before anyone accuses me of racial slander. I have nothing against the French. Hell, I’m part French and I kiss French and I eat French Fries … so bite me if you think I’m a racist. Sorry. Obviously, I still have some pent up issues to deal with. To say what I’m about to will involve Old Orchard Beach at the same time as explaining about the French. In the summer time, at least from days ago, the French Canadians would flock to the stateside beaches of Maine and one of their favorite haunts was Old Orchard Beach. The previous summer, we had experienced this newfound treasure being Coasters of New Hampshire, by a fellow Freedom Driver a year older than us already equipped with his drivers license who opened a whole new avenue of unexplored territory in the female gender to us. French chicks in the thousands. Oo-la-la!

There was one particular week and I do not recollect who went and who didn’t. I may not even have driven that particular night … but I remember it was night time when I met her. Why I can envision her so clearly and not recall her name is beyond me … and you’ll come to understand why as I complete this tale. She was small framed but built well, with fair eyes of bluish green and long, light brownish, dirty blondish colored hair. I walked past her in a crowd and turned to see … her other profile …and was elated to see she was doing the same to me. I smiled the international language. She returned the gesture. I can’t remember if we talked right then or rediscovered each other again later. Too many years have come and gone, too many cobwebs cluttering the attic of my memory. I remember … suddenly sitting on the beach with this girl. She smoked Canadian cigarettes and she knew I didn’t approve. Although if she had had a Columbian cigarette, I would have toked with great earnestness. But her beauty, although maybe wouldn’t have won any pageants, to me she was drop-dead gorgeous … she spoke broken English … very broken and the only French I knew was the kissing kind. It was a match made in heaven … for the summer that is.

The next thing I knew, we had decided to walk the park again, and to anyone who knows what Old Orchard Beach is about … it’s an amusement park chock full of ancient arcades and a boardwalk and amusement rides. When you’re young, it feels so enormous. Getting older and revisiting it one day later on in my life, I couldn’t believe how small it actually was. How … divey it seemed to be … but the days of yore had ways of changing what you experienced. They were truly magical, those days. This beach is undoubtedly unchanged from the test of time, and yet the comparisons from then to now are worlds apart only by imagination. That’s magic, people.

Walking down a certain street, I suddenly noticed a young lad who appeared to be following us. She was perplexed with me and did not notice. Young love. I took notice and waited for the right moment. I could have been wrong, so I paid an ounce of extra attention and sure enough, this unknown creep was stalking us … maybe her. I will be her hero, I thought and waited for a target of opportunity. The stalker spoke. She did not hear. I did. We kept walking and she kept looking at me … why was she so engrossed with me? Hell … I was just an average guy and she didn’t even know I had a car yet! He said something subtle again and walked a little faster to catch up to us. Again, she did not hear him. Was she choosing not to? Was this her boyfriend from Canada? We did indeed suffer from a language barrier, but all we needed to really do was look into each others eyes, start kissing, and who the hell needed to talk anyway? Am I right? We both spoke French when we kissed, so who cared. Anyway … this kid, a glimpse from the corner of my eye … you see, I didn’t want her to think anything was diverting my attention from her … a helpless romantic … and she bought and paid every cent; plus tax where applicable … until he moved just close enough behind her, and I lunged her carefully into a storefront … closed for the evening, guarded her by standing in front of her, and grabbed this stalking little bastard by the neck of his T-shirt to let him know … he just made a huge mistake. She’s with me, bucko! Prepare to meet your maker!

“Daniel,” she said, but pronounced it Danielle. French people. She looked at me with the utmost affection for my heroic deed, but there was something else in her eyes … something I didn’t quite understand yet desperately tried to. Her mind raced to find the words in English to make my density comprehend her. “My brother,” she said finally in the most alluring French accent I had ever heard in my life. Daniel smiled a goofy smile and I think I caught him praying to St. Anne De Beaupre that he was still alive after the brief incident. I extended my hand and he gladly shook it. He said something to … her … why can I not remember her name and yet know what her brother’s name was? I didn’t French kiss her brother for crying out loud?! Weird. Nonetheless, they talked briefly in a foreign tongue that I did not need to understand and he bid me farewell and I him. The rest of the night was hers’ and mine. We sat on the beach again later, kissing under the stars while listening to the waves crash against the shore. Her mouth tasted of stale cigarettes, but her passion was undeniable. My effort of heroism to protect a girl I barely knew, even if it was to her smaller framed and obviously weaker brother, paid dividends and left this poor French girl reeling.

I had walked her to her motel and bid her farewell. I would never see her again, I thought. I’m not sure what she was thinking. Next thing I knew, me and my local homies were all regrouped and on our way home sharing our stories of conquest. For some reason, and this is a true testimony … they all witnessed me meeting her after all … but I remained humbly silent and told them I had a good time with her and left it at that. They were all so willing to kiss and tell their own stories, that mine was accepted and forgotten. She was gone … and she left this hollow pit in my stomach and after arriving home that night and falling asleep, I dreamt of kissing her and crashing waves on the beach in the darkness.

I woke up. It was morning. Something still didn’t feel right. All I wanted to do was see her again. But even as small as Old Orchard Beach was, I would never find her again. I could never find her again. Could I? I ate breakfast … and thought of French. I took a shower … and thought of French. I told everyone in my house that I was going for a drive. I drove alone to Old Orchard Beach. I had to find her. I would find her. I knew where her motel was after all.

After arriving and parking my car, I made my way across the park and past it to the streets where the motels lined up on Atlantic Avenue. Route 1. I stood in front of her motel and the strangest revelation came over me. I wasn’t nervous. Every time before this when I had to call a girl on the phone, even if I knew she liked me, there was this odd sense that maybe I was wrong … that created this … fear of rejection deep, down inside me. But not now. I had only met her brother and if I knocked on that motel door, I was certain to meet her parents and other family members. But for some reason, I wasn’t nervous. All that was going on in my head was this undying urge to see this girl again … and when I knocked and her brother answered the door … and the door opened wide enough for her mother and father to see outside … to see me standing in front of their motel door … and smile at my arrival … knowing how excited their daughter would be to see me … knowing how excited she would be to see me there this day … man … my head was reeling! They had accepted me. They didn’t even know me. But she came flying out of the bathroom, freshly showered and her hair was still wet. She wore shorts and a white T-shirt with a bikini underneath. She kissed me in front of her parents … not French, but her parents smiled and were happy for their daughter. She told them we were leaving for the beach … in French … I didn’t understand anything. I was lost in a world of wondering what it was about this girl … other than her good looks that had me feeling this way … that had me accepted in her world. In their world.  She must have carried on about me the entire evening because it was like they already knew who I was and how I had attempted to save their little daughter from the evil grasp of her … younger brother? I was going with the flow. My god … it felt like I was in love with her. Was that even possible?  Did I even know what love was? 

We spent the entire day together. Straight into the evening until just about the same time as we had the previous night. It was time to go again. I felt empty. Hollow. Lovestruck. For godsake, someone help me! We kissed passionately and I told her I was leaving and probably wouldn’t see her again. Maybe next summer. She was only there for the remainder of the week and would be going back to Canada. We were worlds apart. Long distance relationships didn’t work especially at our age and we both understood that. I left again. Again, I had this sinking feeling about this girl. Why? I can’t even remember her name for crying out loud! Shame on me for that.

This time I let a day go between us. After I awoke the next morning, I sat in the living room and watched an interview with Stephen King on Good Morning America. He was on some beach with Joan Lunden and it looked vaguely familiar. She asked him questions and he answered them. And then … right before a commercial break … she dared to say it. “Good Morning America, here with Stephen King live from Old Orchard Beach.” I screamed. There was no way I could make it … Not now! He’d be long gone before I got there … and then what? Her, you idiot! That’s what! I didn’t even really care about Stephen King. Maybe a little. But it was her and hearing those three words … Old Orchard Beach. Oh my god. I had felt like puking. I had to see her again. I couldn’t let her go. I hadn’t told her that I loved her. I couldn’t tell her that I loved her. That would not be fair to her or me. After all, inevitably, we could never withstand the test of time. Too much high school was still left. We lived worlds apart. I stayed home that day and simmered in a pot of my own self inflicted misery. I was depressed. I yearned to be with her and even though when we were together we spoke so little to each other due to our language barrier, it was our eyes and what we saw in each others’ expressions that truly was the only conversation that needed to be spoken.

I couldn’t take it. It was Friday when I woke up again and she’d be leaving in a day or two. To Canada until next year … and god knows if or when I’d ever see her again. I wanted one more day with her. I showered and skipped breakfast and drove straight to Old Orchard Beach. The same knock on the same motel door produced a mother who smiled again when she saw me. In a thick French accent she said, “She’s gonna be so glad to see you. She’s on the beach.” I thanked her and headed for the sands. She was sunbathing and unsuspecting. She looked so erotic … so exotic … so much like a tourist. I snuck up on her. I recognized the hair, the contours of her body, those lips … despite her donning sunglasses … she was stunning. Sweat and tanning lotion had glistened exposed parts of her body and I stood there and took in the few moments to navigate the scenery in silence before I announced my arrival. What an absolute dish. A sprig of parsley on the side was all I needed to garnish that entrée.

Within the ocean breeze and the crashing waves, I uttered her name … a name I wish for the life of me would return to my memory banks … did I just imagine this poor girl? She looked up and tipped her sunglasses down towards me. Her face was both in shock and happiness. I had seemingly answered her unheard beckon call. Maybe she had some spell over me … I don’t know. She was elated and leapt up from her beach blanket and embraced me. Stephen King had been sitting there with Joan Lunden 24 hours ago, I thought briefly to myself as I hugged her back … all slippery and sexy. Again, we spent the entire day together well into the late evening. This would be indeed the last time we got to spend together … at least that year, but our love for one another had grown from a mere passing and notice that we each were checking the other out … like window shopping at the mall if you will, and there He or She is and how good they would look wearing the them … into … this unpronounced love with extreme barriers and distance that threatened every ounce of its existence. It could never work. We were too young. It would never work. End of story.

Sitting on the darkened beach again that night, we stopped kissing in time for each to catch our breath … content with listening to the unseen waves crashing in the near distance and I saw her head flicker towards mine and she said it in the darkness. “I love you, Jody,” she said. I stupidly smiled and looked out at the ocean as if I could see it. She saw me smile. She knew I chose not to return her devotion. I did love her, there was no doubt. But I couldn’t seem to tell her so. The realization that our love would never last consumed my behavior and left me blank. She said it again to confirm I understood her in her accented English. I silently grabbed her hand and pulled her head onto my shoulders and embraced her … still not returning her devotion. What she must have thought of me that moment …

As time passed, the night grew old and it was time to go again. I had a long drive home alone and this by far was the best day that I had spent with this elusive French girl. We exchanged addresses. Pen pals. She gave me a puca-shelled necklace she had been wearing to remember her by. I took her to my car … (shut up) … I had to have something to return in gesture. I was always a writer of sorts … self proclaimed … whatever. My ex-girlfriend from last year had written a story and I had told her I would rewrite her idea and give it to her. She was not a writer … and had no qualms about not being one … her story was self proclaimed as “stupid.” It was kind of, too. But I rewrote it with her intent and she was somewhat offended that I might take her stupid story and do a better job with it. Women. And there that story was … all hand written out and crumpled up in my glove box where she made me put it after refusing to read it. It was right under my Aviator Ray Ban’s. I wouldn’t need those tonight … I thought with a sudden case of temporary insanity. Hey … I love you French girl whose name evades me, but those are Ray Ban’s, honey. Here … take these crumpled pieces of paper with a story on it and remember me. She did and expressed how thrilled she was. Had she even noticed the Ray Ban’s? Ah … too long ago.

I left and actually mustered the urge to cry over her that night on my way home. I would indeed never see this French girl again in my life. Not next year or the year after that. Never again. She was but a mere chapter in a book with many others written about my life and her existence was but three days worth of encounters long. She was lost …

Well … not exactly … quite yet anyway. School started, I met another girl … And the French girl wrote a pen pal letter. I responded nicely … somehow that feeling in the pit of my stomach when she wasn’t around … the way she would look into my eyes … the expression on her face when she did … had all dissipated in my memory … as obviously did her name … poor, little French girl. Heavily involved within another relationship … one of which I reached an entirely different base with another game of exploratory baseball, I had tired of the puppy-loved, long distance relationship with … whatshername.

Another letter arrived and I ignored this one too but suddenly came up with a brilliant plan. Recruiting the assistance of my sister to respond a brief letter back to her in a women’s handwriting … I produced, directed, and starred in a brief eulogy of my own demise. We sadly reported to the French girl that I had been killed in an auto accident in my mother’s alleged handwriting. We told her how much I had mentioned and thought of her and how sorry (my mother) was and that she need not write any more letters … to a dead guy … and guess what? Uhuh … she mailed a frickin’ condolence card addressed to my mother … of course, which I had to explain. My mother wasn’t happy … and neither was the French girl, I’m sure … but I moved on. Or did I? I often think of that poor, French girl and the anguish of which I might have caused her. Did she cry over my imaginary death? Was that fair of me to make someone do? So … my past actions do indeed haunt me sometimes and I am truly afraid they will catch up to me … and the price is greater than I could bear. Please, French-girl-whose-name-evades-me, forgive an old man who was once in very much in love with you (although I couldn’t tell you at the time) and was young and foolish enough to make such a stupid decision. I’m sure you’re obviously better off without the likes of me and my conniving ways.

Jody Campbell

     A travesty.   It seems when mankind is left with nothing to diversify or segregate to or from, he commits this travesty to his very own.  I’m not sure if this still takes place in the schools, but I suspect that it does.  I didn’t think much about it when I was in school and I’ll tell you why in due time.  But the simple fact that it existed at all is a crime against young, innocent people, their dignity, and their developmental years. 

            My wife is a gentle, loving, and nurturing woman.  She is a wonderful mother and a loving wife.  She is tender, beautiful, and passive.  Except there is a dark side to my wife.  She is a super hero to some … to others … mostly in the insect world … she is an evil villain.  My wife has an alternate lifestyle.  She has been trained in the ancient arts of the Ninja.  She knows hundreds of ways to assassinate insects without cause, without provocation, without an ounce of consideration, and without a thought.  It must have taken years of training and conditioning for this woman to be as effective as she is.  She can assassinate a bug coming near her … not even really going in her direction … just near her and not even really notice that she just killed it … going on about her business as usual, while the dying bug writhes in the throes of death at her feet. 

            One day … not too long ago, my daughter, my wife, and I were in the back yard playing with our daughter’s toy golf set and I was trying to teach her the all important lessons of pars and teeing off and which club to use for which par.  I don’t even like golf, but it seemed important for me to teach her what I know about it.  My wife stood in the background and watched admirably as I fought to maintain the focus of the five-year-old with such stimulating techniques.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a small, harmless dragonfly flew near my wife.  I’m not talking about the three to four inch variety of dragonfly that makes us all a little bit nervous when it invades our space with loud flapping wings and hovering to and fro in front of our face and over our heads annoyingly, I’m talking small.  Like maybe just over an inch … maybe an inch and a half.  He was just a little guy.  And he wasn’t flying at her.  He was flying by her.  But he made a mistake.  He flew into the international “Non-Fly Zone of The Ninja Bug Assassin.”  Also known as INFZNBA.  Without flinching … without even really looking, her arm extended out, swatted the crap out of the poor unsuspecting dragonfly… who for all we know was on his way home with a toy for his or her tots as he promised he would be … but as it ended up … not this day … not ever.  He fell to the ground immediately dazed and confused.  His wings were badly broken and his spine cracked in half.  He would never fly again.  But that didn’t matter because the assassin wasn’t finished yet.  The bug was still alive.  Without consideration of this bug or his loved ones, my wife, the Ninja Bug Assassin, lifted a foot and stomped on the poor bug.  I would love to say he was dead instantly and felt no pain … that his pain was brief and he died immedietely.  However, surprised as I was, my facial expression surely conveying that fact that I did not approve of the unnecessary slaughter I had just witnessed, I watched the long tail section of this bug curl and uncurl as it writhed in painful convulsions which led me to take my larger booted foot and disintegrate the insect to put us both out of our current miseries. 

            I looked at my wife.  I said nothing, but my expression surely spoke volumes.  
            “What?” she asked in defense of her action.  “It was coming at me.” 

            “No … it wasn’t,” I said shaking my head and reciting a brief eulogy for the deceased.

            “It might have,” she tried to convince me. 

            The most horrific aspect of the whole assassination was the child seeing the entire ordeal.  A future Ninja Bug Assassin already in training and not even realizing it.  I could see the sparkle in the young girl’s eyes looking at her mother with awe and admiration.   

            I try to show my daughter which bugs you can pick up and which ones you can’t.  Sometimes, I have learned new things about bugs myself.  Like ladybugs can actually bite you.  Don’t tell me otherwise because one of them little creeps did so once and I winced and said “OW!” to the utter shock and horror of my daughter.  She hasn’t picked up a ladybug since that day … and neither have I for that matter.  Probably another reason why she will become a skilled assassin like her mother. 

            The Ninja Bug Assassin style of killing does not exhibit the most choreographic executions to their intended target.  It’s not always the most graceful or pretty sights to witness.  Sometimes it can even be downright awkward.  It can involve hopping around on one leg, while screaming … or running around in circles ducking and rising repeatedly like a chicken … or swaying to and fro with both arms flailing in the air or repeatedly circling around the hair and head of the assassin … as if trying not to drown … with no body of water nearby.  Even a variety of these techniques can and will be used in many of the assassinations.  The results are always the same.  No matter what the poor bug does to escape the Ninja Bug Assassin, it winds up dead.  It cannot escape from the lethal clutches of the NBA. 

            After the assassination, my wife returns to her lifestyle as if nothing happened without conscience.  Almost as if humming a lullaby to herself it would seem.  The body of the unsuspecting target will be dead or dying at her feet, a mere afterthought before she decides what to make for dinner … or perhaps what she’ll wear to work tomorrow … or ponders whether to fold laundry or do the dishes first.  Something of that nature.

            That morning, I’m looked at that grasshopper and told it in a whisper trying not to be heard, to stay still.  I knew that I was going to forget to all about him when I was more awake and would have the speed needed to catch it and release it.  If I tried to before I was fully awake, I would certainly miss and be running and crashing and stomping all over the house to try to catch it before … it’s too late.  She would awaken, come out to see what the ruckus was all about … the grasshopper would mistakenly hop near her direction, and without a moment’s notice, even in her foggy state of emerging awakeness, she would strike with deadly results and the carcass of the grasshopper wouldbe squished against the fibers of the carpet and left for the “removal system” AKA … me to clean up the mess. 

            A happy ending that day, however, I’m glad to announce to all of you bug lovers out there.  I didn’t forget about the little guy.  Actually, okay … I forgot at first and I was in the office on the computer and heard my wife in the kitchen starting her cup of coffee and a bright amber warning light of memory flashed across the screen of my brain.  Oh my God, the grasshopper!  I must save his life!  I leapt up and without trying to raise too much suspicion went into the kitchen as if to kiss my wife good morning.  But the skills of the Ninja Bug Assassin go far beyond the actual executions to the unsuspecting targets.  She was dubious of my intent and anyone could tell her sonar, radar, and any other ar she uses was on immediate high alert. 

            “I have to get rid of a bug,” I confessed.  Honesty is the best policy, they say. 

            Ninja Bug Assassin Mode went into automatic overdrive.  She walked across the kitchen like Keanu Reeves in special effects of another Matrix film.  Slow motion, yet ready, willing, and able to strike the “blow of death” at any second. 

            “Where is it?” she challenged in a demonic voice not her own.

            “I’ll take care of it,” I promised.  Her eyes scoped the entire perimeter of the kitchen and I knew then, this grasshopper’s time on this good green earth was limited. 

            “Please, Honey,” I pleaded for the innocent bug’s life.  “I’ll take care of it.  Get me a net from Jadyn’s bedroom.”  She did without complaint.  I had to be on high alert. 

            After handing me the net, she retreated back to the safety of the dining room where she watched in silence and … almost what I think may have been a slight degree of melancholy that she was not going to have the opportunity to kill.  I scooped up the grasshopper and ran him outside before anything else could happen to him.  He must have felt the tension.  It was so thick inside, you could have cut it with a knife. 

            I tipped the net upside down and as he fell to the grass I could have sworn I heard him say … “Bless you, dear sir.”  I stuck a finger in my ear and wriggled it all around and went back inside.  But first I said, “You’re welcome, friend.”  It must have just been my imagination.

            All in a day’s work when you live among the Ninja Bug Assassin Association of America, or NBAAA … something our daughter is destined to join the ranks of. 

Jody L. Campbell

            I don’t try to over-think things.  Maybe that’s my problem.  I don’t know what my problem is actually.  Here is a true-to-life scenario, my reaction to it, and the inevitable outcome.  The common denominator is that I’m a shmuck, but at least I admit it. 

            “Daddy!  Look!  Flowers!  Can I pick one for momma?”  She was so excited about the silly flowers.

            They were the same stupid tiger lilies that grew in the back yard every summer.  I looked at them and saw that at least ten unopened petals were attached to the same stem formation that had a completely sprouted blossom of brilliant orange.  If we picked it now, thought my dense incapacitated mind, the rest of the petals will surely die and we will lose all those flowers.  Does it make a difference, really?  In the long run?  Does it?  What do I do with these flowers and the large jungle grass plant part of it after the lilies have passed?  I mow it down.  And what happens the following year whether I do anything about it or not?  They grow back.  Without effort.  They’re there every year.  Let her pick them my mind said. 

            “If you pick a flower,” instead my stupid mouth butted in, “we will lose ten others.”  Is that something that seems personal to me?  No.  So what’s the big deal?  Just looking to ruin a six-year-old’s fascination with flowers.  A seemingly perfect opportunity to give her mother something thoughtful that cost me … what exactly?  Ten other blossoms?  What did those cost me?  Nothing.  They came with the stupid house. 

            To defend my pathetic character … let me rephrase that.  To … defend my … oh to hell with it.  I can’t defend anything about it.  It’s stupid.  Let her pick the damn flower.  Why didn’t I just say yes?  Well … I did, so get off my back.  But getting back to defending myself … or at least why I wanted to try to pathetically.  I wrote this stupid story a couple years back.  It was called Flowers of Fortune and it was about orange tiger lilies and for some reason after I wrote this stupid story, the tiger lilies in the back yard became … sacred ground, I guess.  I wanted to count them and see if perhaps my story would inevitably become prophetic.  Do you want to know what happened to the protagonist of the story?  He died.  So why in the hell would I want to see if my story would become prophetic?  Do I want to die?  Not really.  The flowers would grow a new amount of blossoms each day and the main character would dream about the new number of them and decided to play the lottery and won.  Except he never got to enjoy the money … or even the knowledge that he won, because he was dead long before the lottery drawing.  Now that I blew the ending for you … in the event you haven’t already read this tale of mine, does that make sense to you that for some reason, these stupid flowers became some sacred ritual for me to watch grow and count annually?  No.  It doesn’t make sense to me either.  I should have said … “Absolutely, honey.  Let’s pick a bunch of them,” but there was something else niggling me.  It said inside the narrow minded container of the interior of my brain that we would be wasting precious flower life if we picked it prematurely and teaching my daughter the importance of wasting and not wasting … seemed … pathetically important?  I’m trying.  It’s weak, I know.  But picking and getting to see one blossom for one day before it died and losing ten other potential blossoms seemed wasteful to me at the time. 

            At least she won.  She had that same injured look she gets from her mother.  It’s both adorable and irresistible at the same time.  Damn that curse on her side of the family! 

            “Alright,” I gave in.  I watched her try to yank one out and I cringed as she almost pulled three square feet of earth and roots up from the ground with her petite but determined hands.  “Go get the scissors for daddy,” I suggested.  “But don’t run with them!” 

            “Okay,” she exclaimed excitedly and I worried thinking maybe I should have just gone in and got them myself.  Do I worry too much, maybe? 

            She came back out and I grabbed the scissors and thanked her for the chore she completed.  I aimed them strategically at the very stem she had tried to excavate on her own behalf a minute or so ago and cut it on an angle.  One opened, brilliant, orange blossom, and ten other wasted sprouts never to open I thought.  How dense am I?

            Pretty dense I found out.  Some people that have green thumbs and have picked tiger lilies before can probably already assume the purpose of this writing of mine.  I had no idea.  We did not indeed waste any flowers at all.  As a matter of fact, we picked that flower about four days ago and have enjoyed three different blossoms sprouted and there’s another one on the way … most likely to sprout and enjoy for tomorrow.  They are the flower that keeps on giving … as long as they’re in water, I guess.  One blossom opens and the next day, it closes for good and begins to wither away.  With the death of that blossom, it seems to send life to another sprout and begin a life cycle anew.  We’ll undoubtedly have this one particular stem in our house for well over ten days and have exactly that many days to enjoy that many blossoms. 

            Today, I have learned an important lesson from my six-year-old.  Actually, I’ve learned a lot of lessons from my six-year-old today.  I’m glad she’s going to be around to teach her ignorant old man that it’s okay to pick the flowers sometimes.  It’s okay to waste a little bit from time to time … especially if it was free to begin with.  It’s okay to experiment.  It’s okay to be six-years-old … at heart … and want to discover new things. 

            Thanks darling.  I have an idea.  Let’s go pick some more of those flowers before they pass their lifespan in the ground out back.  Let’s fill our house with the blossoms everywhere.  Then I can mow the jungle grass down that much quicker and we can still have some beautiful looking flowers in the house.  She may only be six-years-old, but she’s a great teacher and my favorite flower.

Jody L. Campbell

It started out like any ordinary Daddy/Daughter Day. Honestly, I don’t know why we bother to call it that anymore since Mommy comes to lunch with us now. She used to work days and now she works from mid afternoon into early evening. But the name stuck and every day off from work I have that my daughter doesn’t attend her preschool, we call Daddy/Daughter Day and celebrate by having lunch out somewhere together. On that particular Daddy/Daughter Day, things were already taking a strange turn of events. We usually pick between two restaurants, one a sit-down, full-menu, pizza joint and the other, a fast food burger joint… that flame broils. When asked where she wanted to go that day, she opted for the other fast food burger joint that doesn’t flame broil. I immediately grimaced.

“No, Honey,” I said. “Daddy doesn’t want to go there.”

Her four-year-old eyes looked up at me and made the saddest most pleading expression a father could ever stand to see on the face of his children. “Please, please, oh please, Daddy!” she begged.

Who could argue? I’m putty in her hands and the terrible truth is she already knows how to control this.

Now between the two more popular fast food burger joints, I’m not really a fan of either one. I generally opt for the sit down pizza joint with no playzone/playground that distracts my impressionable daughter’s attention away from eating her lunch. This way, I can even have a beer with lunch and coerce her into eating using petty bribery. For example, “I’ll get you a balloon if you’re a good girl and eat all your lunch,” or “We’ll stop and buy a new movie on the way home if you’re a good…” you get the idea. However, because of our geographical situation, we have to travel two towns south to any restaurants, and in that town, one of these burger joints just runs better than the other. Not to mention the quality of the food is a little better… not much, but a little.

The second odd thing that occurred that day was my wife claiming she didn’t think she was going to join us. Sure, I thought to myself. Who could blame her? I gave her an indignant look for her obvious treachery and cowardice. She smiled in return. Uhuh. It’s not hard to distinguish where my daughter gets her intelligence and savvy from. However, by the time I had starting the truck up on that cold winter day, my wife decided… either she felt guilty enough about her abandonment or she was genuinely hungry. I thought she must have been really hungry, on the verge of starvation, considering the option of our destination. Or… really guilty for that matter. So, she went out and started her vehicle. We drive in separate vehicles and she’s already close to her work and can head straight there after lunch, then my daughter and I continue on with the remainder of our ritualistic day together.

Upon arrival, I’m still not coveting the fact we’re where we are, but I browsed my numbered options across the menu board while watching the sole male cashier taking the one person’s order ahead of us. It’s extremely obvious this kid was very uncomfortable doing what he was doing and the fact that he hadn’t been doing it very long is equally apparent. A rotund man standing in what I would consider management garb was standing behind the cashier and making himself look busy in an attempt to ignore the growing line of hard-up lunch incumbents beginning to form behind us. I guess we had actually arrived someplace “on time” for once, but the cashier was still over his head getting the order of the one person in front of us. And for the record, I don’t think that person was ordering for more then himself. Anxiety drained the already pallid color from the poor kid’s face. Now instead of finding the location of the numbered lunch the guy in front of us ordered on the computer keyboard, all he could focus on is how long clearing the line is going to take because everyone behind him is ignoring him. Sad. Finally, the rotund manager turned around without looking at any of us customers about to spend our hard earned dollars in the establishment that he controls, and instead of showing the kid where the button is, just pressed it himself and resumed putting a precarious bag of fries in a take-out bag and handing it to the drive-thru window clerk who appeared just as lost as the cashier. This was not a good choice, I thought to myself, but my daughter is ecstatic looking at the options of cheap and ineffective toys to have placed in her kid’s meal. Some of the simplest forms of entertainment seem to thrill the young and innocent more than any technical toy… that is, until they reach a certain age. So, I should be thankful that she’s not asking me for the more expensive ones at this point and relish the time I have left.

After a couple of minutes, my daughter was getting antsy and the line was still growing and I considered hopping over the counter and finding the button for a medium soft drink for the cashier. My wife whispered into my ear what her choice for lunch was and what to order our daughter and I realized that I was being abandoned once again to face the challenges of ordering fast food all by myself. I looked at her with a degree of my own anxiety and she raised her eyebrows apologetically and said, “She has to go to the bathroom.” Uhuh. Being a woman, she knows full well that the lesser of two evils for a guy is to remain alone in the lunch line and become the next victim of the cashier’s ignorance than it is to take my daughter to the… I can barely even say it… men’s room. I watched them pull away as if I just fell off a cliff and even though they’re the ones that are moving, I felt like I was the one heading for imminent danger.

“Next.” I heard announced. I looked at the kid and he was looking at me, wide-eyed, like I was Ghengis Kahn. I guess I can come off looking a bit intimidating sometimes. I just can’t help it. I ordered my two numbered choices and I’m not so sure it wasn’t the fear of God this kid had over me that seemed to motivate him a little more, but he found them on the keyboard relatively quick. I ordered the kid’s meal with the chocolate milk and while I’m waiting for him to find those buttons, I realized he was already looking at me with confidence building waiting for the next selection. Was he thinking I was easy? Oh yeah, Punk, I thought to myself… how about a fish sandwich on the side? Can you find that? He did.

“Is that all?” he asked with more confidence.

How about I hit you so hard the manager gets a bloody nose? That thought, those words had already formed in my head and were right on the tip of my tongue, but I successfully suppressed them back. The kid had done well. “Yes,” I simply said instead.

“That’ll be blah, blah, blah.” I didn’t listen to the total. I was holding the handy ATM card and waiting for the calculator sized pad to tell me when to swipe my card. When it did, I swiped.

CARD READ ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

Now why can’t they make these card swipe machines universal, I was thinking to myself as I flipped the card the other way, every place you go so us poor customers don’t have to figure out which way to place the cards. Are those illustrations really supposed to help? I swiped again with the card flipped over.

CARD READ ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

I could hear the lunch line behind me groan. I looked desperately at the kid. Now, my anxiety was building and I looked at him to save me. How the winds of change seem unforgiving sometimes.

“Can I just punch these numbers in manually somehow…?” I ask, “Maybe my strip is a little worn.”

Okay, the fact of the matter is that I had already known my strip was a little worn. It works most places and EVERY gas pump. So why not right then? I use it a lot, what can I say? I keep it on my wallet, unprotected. It’s most likely the wallet pocket that I keep it in that has worn the strip, but it could be the use, too. It’s not like they make some protective prophylactic to keep credit cards in when placing them in wallets. Maybe I should invent one. But right then, at that moment, it was already too late in development.

My question went completely ignored. Now the kid could feel my temper rising and had seemed to master the art of ignoring me and looking at his computer keyboard as if it might just verbally tell him to go ahead and let me punch my numbers in. I was suddenly imagining the manager facilitating a meeting in the morning with all his employees before they opened and reminding everyone of their restaurant credo… “Ignore the customer and their questions long enough and they will just go away eventually.”

“Try it again,” he said with his voice wavering after hitting some button on the keyboard. The Easy Button, I wondered? I swiped.

CARD READ ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

I flipped and tried again.

CARD READ ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

Audible groans where expressed behind me and I felt that I might be lynched by the crowd at any moment. I didn’t have cash, but I had another credit card… completely maxed out and I didn’t really want to pay interest for lunch. Not at that place! I looked desperately around the restaurant for my wife. Certainly she had to be done with our daughter and be wondering why I was taking so long. She wasn’t in sight.

I gave the kid my best Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry Callahan look. “Go ahead, Punk, ignore my question again.” Once again, the words were stifled at my lips, but already in the forming stage. He must have felt them.

“This guy’s card won’t work,” he said to the manager practicing his very own credo to the utmost expertise. The manager looked at him as if my card had just been declined and then he finally made eye contact with me, but then realized the error of his way. Turning his attention back to the kid, he hit his own Easy Button on the keyboard. His expression did little to instill any more confidence to me about what he was doing than the cashier he was replacing.

“Try it now,” said the manager.

I swiped.

CARD READ ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

I flipped and swiped.

CARD READ ERROR, PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

I audibly proclaimed the fact that I was aware of the Lord’s name and also knew what his middle initial was… in vain. I will certainly pay penance for that.

“Can I just punch in my numbers manually?” I asked getting my face as close to his as I could possibly get in a threatening stance. He practiced his credo. If you ignore them, they will go away. I suddenly envisioned Michael Douglas in the movie “Falling Down” while he attempted to order breakfast one minute late at one of these fast food joints that they fictionalized for the movie. “Whammy Burger” was the name they used and I suddenly felt like going “Whammy Burger” on this manager. I was pretty sure I didn’t have a duffel bag full of automatic weapons however. I always forget something when we leave the house.

Then, three things happened within seconds. The assistant manager who was not only married to the manager, but also made it aware that she wore the pants in the family, came out from behind the cooking area to see why the entire foyer was filled with people standing there like some bad zombie movie by George Romero. Her first instinct was the same as her husband’s and then it became immediately aware to me why she had decided to say “I do” to this man at the altar. Obviously, I had made an order and my credit card had been declined. If you ignore them, they will go away.

“No!” I protested. “Can’t I just punch my (expletive) numbers in manually? I see numbers on this pad. I bet they’re there for some purpose. Can’t you hit something to activate manual entry, for the love of Saint Peter and all of these groaning zombies behind me?” Okay, maybe I didn’t use those exact words.

She simply looked at her husband and he immediately returned to bagging fries and burgers and handing them to the drive-thru clerk. She then, looked at the kid and told him to return to the register.

“You’ll have to eliminate some of his order and make it less than twelve dollars in order to process it,” she said to him.

What? This all took place in seconds, mind you. The second thing that happened was I submissively pulled out my maxed credit card obviously quite unhappy with her decision and swiped the card waiting for that to be declined and physically grabbed by the crowd of people behind me and hung from the flag pole in the front of the restaurant parking lot.

TRANSACTION COMPLETE.

The kid was punching buttons when I did that. Stop doing that, I thought. I want all the (expletive) food.

The third thing that occurred was my wife and daughter finally returned to the counter. She looked at me as if I was inept at ordering food in a timely fashion not fully understanding the debacle I was in.

“Do you have your ATM card?” I asked her somehow unaware I was just approved. Why was I unaware? I don’t know. Perhaps I was secretly enjoying the humiliation and was in denial about it finally coming near an end. The fact was, I was frazzled and visions of zombies and restaurant personnel being blown away with weapons of mass destruction that I had carried into the place in my own duffel bag were running through my head.

“We’re about to go to (The Other Fast Food Burger Joint)!” I proclaimed so everyone in the place could hear me. How do you like them apples everyone?

She handed me her card. It’s the same account as my ATM card. We’re married. Why did I swipe it? I don’t know. I swiped it. My brain screamed for me to stop, but I ignored it. Was the restaurant’s credo contagious?

TRANSACTION COMPLETE. TWICE NOW, STUPID!

“Honey,” I said completely broken, “I think that credit card machine just called me stupid.”

“Go sit down with her,” said my wife referring to our daughter while placing a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “I’ll wait for the food and the voided transaction.”

So I grabbed my daughter’s hand and started to walk towards the back of the restaurant so I could get… away from peering eyes of hatred from the lunch line zombies. Away from it all. And as we turned the corner, out of sight, I thought for one brief moment that I could hear applause as I heard the cashier say…

“Next.”

Jody L. Campbell

    It’s a catchy title for a story. It reminds me of one of Aesop’s Fables where there will be some lesson instilled in young minds who endure reading it. That’s probably not going to happen in this tale. Although, somebody might learn something from my mistake. That’s only a mere theory with no statistics to back it up whatsoever.    

    It started out just like every morning. I go to the bathroom, wash my hands, turn on the computer, and then I go make my cup of coffee. Once the coffee maker is started, I return to the computer to crank-start the ancient phone-line modem and connect to the Internet.

    The coffee maker chugs and churns on the kitchen counter. It’s a two-cup model and it does just about the perfect job of brewing our favorite gourmet blend coffee. One of our few lavish luxuries. I brew one single cup, which is rather large … about 14 ounces … and when it is ready, I set the machine up for my wife.  This way, when she get’s up, all she has to do is push the button.  That’s love, people. 

    Once I finally got connected to the Internet, I assumed that the coffee machine must be pretty close to finishing. It’s sad that our dial-up takes so long, but that’s the undying truth to the matter. Just in case, I began the process of checking out all of my favorite web sites, to obtain my sports news and stats, check the weather, and of course, my own personal author based web sites data. Now, surely the cup of coffee is complete and only awaiting the perfect amount of sugar and cream to be added and consumed with delight.

    On that particular morning, I abandoned one particular web site and left the home office to retrieve my much anticipated cup of coffee. To my surprise, I heard another unfamiliar chug emanate from the machine as I approached it. What on earth could have slowed this process down, I wondered? Okay, the fact was, I knew it could probably stand to be de-scaled … you know … the old white vinegar and water treatment that cleans the sediments out of the insides of the machine.  Aren’t those the exact same ingredients of a Massengill douche?  Is that fact just odd to me?  It was a fairly new coffee pot and, to my own chagrin, I realized neither of us has taken the time to exercise the important maintenance procedure in our quest to obtain the perfect cup of coffee on a daily basis.

    I gathered that it was a little too early in the morning to start such a cumbersome task and promised myself that once my wife’s cup of coffee was brewed, later when she finally got up, that I will undertake the procedure personally.

    As I grabbed my cup of coffee, I noticed despite the amount of water I had put in, the machine had not yielded it all back. Although the automatic shut-off switch was no longer illuminated, only a half of the cup was filled with coffee. I pondered putting some more water in the well after I lifted the cover to see if there was any left inside, and to my surprise there was none. Where did it go? Did it evaporate? Was that the foreign chugging sound I had heard the machine make just a few moments before? Had it steamed off the water that was supposed to go into my cup of coffee? I inspected the counter-top to ensure that I hadn’t actually spilled the water when pouring it into the well. As I noticed the dry surface of the counter, I realized that I was in denial that the coffee machine just needed a simple cleaning and resolved myself to my newly brewed cup of … espresso, I guess. No amount of sugar and cream would make this gourmet blend of coffee the perfect cup on that morning. It was too strong, obviously because the proper amount of water had not brewed and filtered through the heaping ¼ cup of grounds placed in the filter trap.

    I like cappuccino, so I settled for the strong coffee that morning. As usual, before returning to the computer, I set up my wife’s cup so all she has to do is hit the start button when she decided to finally get up.  Love, I say.

    The coffee was pretty strong, but tolerable enough for me. I resolved in the fact that I would be making another cup later on to take on my commute to work and the machine will be de-scaled for that cup, therefore, it was not a complete loss.

    I returned to the computer and browsed more sites and gathered more data and statistics. Soon my mind was finally submerged in thought and the coffee machine de-scaling became low on the thought process of things to do. That is, until I would take another sip of my coffee and grimace down the mouthful. Hey … it would wake me up proper, right, I tried to convince myself. 

    A little while later, my wife woke up. She stealthily approached me from behind, trying to adjust her sleepy eyes to the bright monitor of the computer and ensure that I was behaving myself on the Internet, and then she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and neck and placed her head next to mine for our first “good morning” kiss. Satisfied with the fact that I didn’t quickly close one window and was startled by her attack, I offered to get up and go push the button to the coffee machine. We have a joke … sort of. She tells me that I make a better cup of coffee than she does, so I tell her it’s all in the way I push the button. I’ve extended this joke to the way I stir the cream and sugar in the final product. Counter-clock wise for several swirls and then one final clock-wise stir to slow the whirlpool of hot coffee down. It’s the one clock-wise stir I insist to her is the flavor stir.  I tell her and she smiles, certainly never buying into my theory.

    I pushed the button to the coffee machine again and listened to it come to life and begin the process all over again for her cup. Returning to the home office, I kept a watchful ear out on the chugs and churns to make myself aware if she was going to endure the same problem I had earlier with mine. Much to my pleasure, when the cup was done brewing, the perfect amount of water had filtered through the machine and she now had a perfect cup of coffee sitting below the cone. Lucky her. I added her cream and sugar and did the whole counter-clock wise/clock-wise procedure, which produced yet another smile from her sleepy face and I handed her over the cup. She happily walked to the living room to sit on the couch with her coveted coffee mug and awaited for the caffeine to kick in.

    I told her about my less than perfect cup of coffee and the fact that we needed to de-scale the machine. She told me the manual for the coffee maker was conveniently inside the cupboard right above it where we also keep the mugs, the grinder, and the coffee. To my horror, there were several procedures to de-scale the darn thing. It’s not rocket science. It’s repeating the same process over and over again and letting the machine cool down in between. I had to leave for work in just over an hour and now my second cup of coffee of the day had a threatened existence. I fervently began the process, but before I did, I decided to unplug the machine and run water through the well and just tip it back out in the sink.

    Now, considering the title of this story, I’m sure the reader is just waiting to find out why I chose to call it what I did. You can imagine what I discovered when I tipped the machine full of water over. There, at the bottom of the sink was a large, black ant. The big ones that grow almost an inch long. He had been sitting on the bottom of the coffee maker well and I had mistaken him for some sludge of some sort since he had been boiled for God knows how long and how many times. He was dead, of course.

    Suddenly, my mind screamed out. I must tell my wife to stop drinking her coffee and I’ll just make her a new cup! Then, the rational part of my brain spoke up. My wife is totally “bugged” out by bugs. Pun intended. She had certainly already had a few sips off of her morning coffee. And this ant is undoubtedly the cause of the machine acting up incorrectly when it brewed my cup earlier. Maybe the ant was trying to drink as much of the water as it could so it wouldn’t burn so badly. Who knows? Only the ant and maybe God and neither one of them were talking to me. Listen, J. I said to myself. If you tell your wife that you just discovered this ant inside the coffee machine, not only are you going to ruin her first cup of coffee of the day, she’s also not going to be able to enjoy the next one or the one after that. All she’s ever going to remember is that the machine was breached by a bug once and it will never leave her. And it’s not exactly like I was feeling any adverse effects from the ant. I felt okay. It’s not like the ant was crushed and ground up in the coffee grounds and then brewed. It was inside the fresh water well. So we weren’t exactly drinking ant-flavored Columbian coffee. We were drinking filtered ant-enhanced Columbian coffee.

    Not telling my wife was a dilemma to me. She not only suggests that I be completely honest with her, she demands it. By not telling her about this grotesque discovery, I was lying to her. “Shut up” screamed the rational part of my brain. “You’re not lying! You’re simply omitting the truth! And think of the repercussions she’ll suffer with all of her future cups of coffee! By omitting this one minute detail, you’re actually saving her and she will be able to enjoy drinking coffee for many years to come!” He was right. Swallowing down a large lump of guilt, I decided to keep my mouth shut. I had drank the coffee. And I had felt fine.

    I cleaned the large, black ant out of the sink with a paper towel and threw it in the trash. I then set up the de-scaling process of the machine and by the time I went to work, I had just about the best cup of coffee ready that the machine ever made. I did check the well after it brewed. Nothing. The perfect cup of ant-free Columbian coffee. Yumscilly!

    Of course, since there is an ounce of grotesque humor in this tale, I decided to write it and in case you’re wondering, my wife reads everything I write. Therefore, this is more of a therapeutic confession to her for me then it is a humorous essay on rational behavior. So my secret won’t be secret for very long. Once she discovers this piece (and she will discover it because she finds everything!) she will confront me and ask me if this is true.

    The dilemma, people … by writing this essay, I have forsaken my own choice to conceal the very thing I made a rational decision to hide from her. The quality of her future cups of coffee are now at stake and it’s all because of me and that stupid, lousy, suicidal ant. Of course, I can be satisfied with the fact that this took place a couple of weeks ago, so at least she was able to enjoy all those cups of coffee in between without wondering what other foreign objects may be filtering through our home brewed coffee.  She will add a daily ritual of checking the coffee maker well to her obsessions.  Not so bad, really. 

    Now, I am stuck on what to write about in my next essay. The mosquito and the spaghetti sauce, or the spider and the underwear drawer. Another confession and another dilemma are just waiting to unfold.

Jody L. Campbell

Perhaps not as poetic as Shakespeare could have … would have eloquently written it … but I ain’t exactly William. The good lord knows I’m trying. Not to emulate William. To exemplify myself. I have no idea how many query letters this makes. How many rejection letters to counter our efforts. My wife is a driving force to be reckoned with and the labors of her hard work are merely squandered by the lack of empathy in this business. The business of writing. Writing for your life, if you will. Because when all is said and done … that’s what I’m really doing.

I must interrupt my thoughts for a moment to tell you all this. I’m online right now … I was going to say … write now, but I didn’t want anyone to think I typoed without it being on purpose. Come on … I have sperl chek. Anywell … whilst online and deciding to write about this in my blog … a familiar voice emitted from the speakers of the laptop announcing the fact that “I have mail.” It not only broke my concentration and made me ponder why in hell I even attempted to write while I was online … what was I thinking … obviously, I wasn’t! Hello … how ya doin’ nice to meet ya! Reluctantly, since my concentration was already broken, I opted to check the email and see who the hell had the gall to bother me while I was writing. Another agent query reply. Oh joy. Another rejection? Should I have just deleted it and saved myself the pain? I opened it … because for crying out loud Jiminy Cricket … you never frickin’ know! I read it. What? I rubbed my eyes and read it again. Did she just say she was interested? Come on. I read it again. And again. I was just about to give up all hope and I’m sure I’m not even near surface of what some other writers have endured before getting accepted. It’s just such a thankless industry. I read it again just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating from the heat index and the humidity. Gall darn … it’s in black and white. She said she’s interested. Somebody pinch me. Ouch! You know … I meant that figuratively … not literally. That frickin’ hurt! Let me read that one more time. OMG … she is … she really, really is. She wants me to snail mail her the stuff and I may have to wait several months. But … she’s interested.

What am I talking about? I assumed you understood. Sorry about that. I have written one book and appeared in two other anthologies. I want to be noticed by my peers as an author. I want to obtain the fruit of my labor. I don’t want to get filthy, stinking rich. It’s not like that. It’s just a little notoriety I’m looking for. Someone to read me and say … yeah … that was alright. He’s not bad. Maybe he’s not Stephen King … maybe he’s not Edgar Allen Poe … hell, I could use the opiates for something to write about lord knows, maybe he’s not Grisham, Rice, Benchley, Hemingway, Lovecraft, O. Henry, Straub, Koontz … but he’s got something. Maybe even if it’s a little something … he has a gift to entertain his audience. He has something to captivate his audience and make them feel the plight of the characters he chooses to write about. He has something. I don’t care how small it is. Do any of you watch the Sci-fi channel? No … this is not true confessions. I don’t really care for that matter. Truth is, I don’t watch that much. I watch Ghost Hunters and some reruns of the X-Files because I was a fan of it when it was on syndicated television. I actually envisioned Gillian Anderson to play the part of Rhonda Lary in my manuscript if they ever made a movie of it. Of course, if you tell her this, I will deny it through my teeth in a state of star-struck awe. But … anyway … the movies they make on there. Is it me? Are there some people out there truly entertained by the movie Mansquito? Half man, half mosquito, all blood sucker. Are you serious? Just the trailer to this movie was bad! Is there someone out there in this world that actually watched that movie and are hoping for a sequel?

Really? People. I got some bad news for you. If you’re one of the ones sitting at home that I just described … half man and half mosquito shouldn’t be sucking anything. First of all, female mosquitoes are the blood suckers of the species. So to be politically correct, the title of the movie should have been Womansquito, not mansquito. The male mosquito simply supplies the sperm to the females who then require a meal of blood to develop the eggs. Male mosquitoes simply eat-slash-drink nectar from flowers and inseminate the female species . Ohhhh … now that’s scary! Maybe if I’m a frickin’ tulip or a daisy! I didn’t watch the movie. I saw the trailer and said to myself … the only thing worse than them making a movie about something this stupid are the people that actually watch it and think it was kinda good. The ones that can’t wait for “The Return of Mansquito.” And then it wasn’t long after this … I saw the trailer for another movie on Sci-fi channel. Now wait a minute before you go accusing me of spending all my time on this channel to begin with. I don’t … and my wife will vow testament to that. I told you the shows I watch on there … and they happen to have commercials … but this trailer I actually saw on “The Best Week Ever” or “The Soup” and they made fun of this movie and exploited the fact that not only was it on the Sci-fi channel, but it was also written by the same guy that wrote … yep … you guessed it … Mansquito. It was called Ice Spiders and it was about giant florescent green spiders that attacked a community of skiers on the slopes of a ski resort. Hey … if this is what you people want … I can write that stuff. I just happen to choose something that I think would be a little more … shall we dare say … entertaining to the mass populous.

So I write these stories and I write these blog entries and I feed-slash-suck off the nectar of my feedback from my friends and my family and I strive to become better at what I do. I belong to Internet writing-slash-author communities where we can all go on and review and rave and bash each others work and say it’s because we want to be better at what we do … and blah, blah, frickin’ blah. No one wants to hear the story they just sat down and wrote sucks. No one. I don’t care who the frig you are. On the flip side of that, people … no one wants to hear that everything they write is “awesome” or “good” or “great.” We all need areas of improvement and when you send out your material to only your friends and family … because they’re the only ones you don’t seem to have to hold a gun to their heads to get to read it … although I have to email them all every now and then and remind them that I have a web site and I’m a writer and I’d appreciate it if they’d read it or I’ll go get my gun … you’re going to get a more partial and biased review than you are if you send it out for an unbiased and neutral community of self-proclaimed writers and authors to review. Some of them may feel challenged by your stuff. Some of them may offer some inspirational advice. Some of them may sabotage your work because they think they’re better than you. Maybe they are. But that wasn’t the reason I put it out there to be reviewed. Nor was that the reason they put their own work out there. It’s just the way they are and maybe the fact that they were not breastfed as infants. I don’t really know all about that nor do I care. I just want to write and be noticed. So instead of the self-publishing avenue this time, I have written a full length manuscript entitled Season of the Sand Devil and I think it’s good enough to be made into a movie that Sci-fi channel could finally be proud to show on their network. I am seeking representation from an agent for this manuscript to get it published by a traditional publishing house.

Can I write? I don’t know. I love to write. That’s what I know. I can type fast like a son-of-a-gun and I don’t even do it the right way and my wife is still envious of how fast I can type. She took all those classes and has worked in the administration field. My typing experience comes from one simple personal typing class in high school and writing on a typewriter, then word processor, and now a computer my whole life. I have a broken right hand for crying out loud and my fingers are a bit gnarled and I can still type pretty darn fast. Typing fast doesn’t make you a good writer. I realize this. What comes from the typing defines whether you have the talent to entertain people or not. Most people that have read me … friends, family, and even the Internet writing communities, all say that I inhibit this talent. Maybe I’m not the greatest. Certainly not the kind of writer that will have a Pulitzer Prize on his mantle.  I’m okay with that. But, I’m not the worst writer, either. To give the guy that not only wrote Mansquito another opportunity to go out and write Ice Spiders and then make movies of both his ideas has this insidious way of mocking me. I don’t want to take anything away from this guy. But he’s had two movies made of his writing. (that I know of) I’d give me eye teeth to see my stuff on any channel with the opportunity to finally get noticed for what I am striving to be. A writer. Should I write or should I go? If I write it could mean trouble … if I don’t … it could be … double. Don’t sue me The Clash. I couldn’t help myself and hey … you just got some free advertising because anyone that knows that song of yours has it ringing in their head for the rest of the day, so bite me and you’re welcome.

Is it a miracle that when I sat down to write this, my intention was to express my frustration in this industry, trying to get an agent to represent me to finally notice me … and before I was done writing my first paragraph, I actually had one say via email … they were interested? I don’t know. What are the odds? I don’t really believe in miracles. I believe in hard work and ethics paying dividends. Just because she said she was interested doesn’t mean I’m in. I have a coupla other irons in the fire and lord knows we have a plethora of unreplied queries on the back burner simmering. Hopefully, anyway. If you know me and you love me … clap you hands … no wait … that wasn’t what I was going to say … so much for The Clash song tinkling around in my head … I was going to say … keep your fingers crossed for me. I need some inspiration in this industry right now. It does a body good. Maybe not a body, but a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Unless you’re Edgar Allen Poe and can write under the influence of opiates and pull it off successfully. Now … if you’d all excuse me … I have to go plagiarize the sequel to Mansquito … so I can get frickin’ noticed!

Jody L. Campbell