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How to Avoid Pretentiousness… NOT!

Pretentious: according to The Free Dictionary, this means “making claim to distinction or importance, esp undeservedly.” A large portion of my adult life has been spent trying to avoid looking pretentious. Pretentious people tend to make me mad, and pretentious people tend to show exactly how pretentious they are by the clothes they wear and the cars they drive… sigh.

This past weekend, the wife and I came to the conclusion that it was time to replace my car. “My car”… as if I own anything of my own anymore. Once you get married, you enter into a socialist state in which everything is community property. However, in the state of my marriage, I have always tended to get the crappy car. You know, we head to the dealership with my old piece of crap as the trade-in, we get a nice vehicle, the wife gets the nice vehicle, and I get the next piece of crap that used to be the wife’s. This has always been my choice, because I don’t mind driving a good car that looks like a piece of crap… what’s pretentious about a beat-up Taurus station wagon? Nothing, that’s what; so I drove the Taurus for a few years. It was a good, non-pretentious car.

Then, all of a sudden, the head gasket on the Taurus goes out. Well, that sucks. It’s gonna cost like $2000 to get that head gasket replaced, and the Blue Book on a 1996 Taurus wagon with a physical condition matching ours is like $1500. Doesn’t make sense to fix it, does it? So, I limp the thing along. I get used to it wanting to die at stop lights, and I get used to adding oil and antifreeze. No big deal. It’s all so un-pretentious, you know? Well, a few months later, I notice that the tires are looking a little ragged… as in, they are all completely bald at exactly the same time. Crap. Well, I just drive the thing around town, and I tell the Scoutmaster that I can’t haul the scouts in the Taurus anymore (which is a relief… ’cause hauling those kids around gets a little pricey when most of the parents aren’t kicking in for gas moolah). No big deal right… except, I notice that there is actually metal showing through on one of the tires.

Is metal supposed to show through on a tire? I’m kind of doubting it. I know the tires are “steel-belted”, and I know my “belt” shows most of the time (except when my belly is hanging over it… oh, who am I kidding, my belt never shows; but I know on normal people, belts show). I know next to nothing about anything auto-mechanically related (which the actual mechanics in our area seem to love), but I’m a figurin’ that metal fiber showing up on the outside of the tire ain’t a good thing. Crap.

Ok, so I’m justifying in my head how I can keep driving the Taurus around for a bit longer. I am, after all, just driving the thing in town. If the tires actually blows, I’ll probably be going less than 50 mph, so all is well, right? Sure! Until, all of a sudden, every time I step on the brakes, I hear the horrid sound of metal on metal. What the… aren’t the brakes supposed to squeal before you get the whole metal on metal thing? Again, a mechanic I am not; I know you are supposed to hear a stinking squeal before you hear the brain-gnashing nails-on-chalkboard-esque metal-on-metal horror-fest that all of a sudden I am experiencing. Crap. I am beginning to realize that it’s about time to call it quits with the Taurus.

The wife, for like the past six months, has been telling me we need to get a new car. I am finally at the point where I can agree. So, we go looking for cars. We will, as our main intention, buy a car on Saturday. So, Friday night, we go through some of the local lots to see what is available. One thing we learned by driving through the local lots: if you, as a local car lot dude, do not display the prices you are asking for your cars either on the car itself or, at least, on your website… I will not buy a car from you. There is absolutely nothing more exasperating to me when trying to make a multi-thousand-dollar purchase then not to be able to weigh your options before being assaulted by the onslaught of commission-based sales representatives. I will not do it. We saw plenty of cars that we really liked at several of the smaller lots, but we had no idea how much these things were selling for. We were looking in the $5000 range. We would have felt stupid asking about a car that we thought might have been in our range and finding out that car was being sold for $12,000 (which is what we expected to be the reality). Needless-to-say, we avoided all lots with no published prices. My duty was to myself and my family… not a salesman who was going to try to sell me more than what I was looking for.

After doing a brief bit of browsing, the wife and I had narrowed it down to one lot in particular (that had at least one non-pushy sales person and obviously-displayed prices… and the lot we bought our past two vehicles at). Now, we just had to decide on a vehicle.

Great time to interject that the wife finds my blog… this blog… a little disturbing. Through this blog, the wife has discovered that I feel kind of old and that turning forty really sucked for me and that I am kind of going through a mid-life crisis. The wife knows that I love her and I would never trade her in for a newer model… because, you know, I don’t sense a blown head gasket and she keeps her tires pretty well rotated. However, the wife is constantly looking for ways to improve my libido and self-esteem at this precarious point in my life ( if anyone has potential winning Power-ball numbers, please forward them to my wife). So, as we’re looking for cars, she keeps saying, “Make sure you pick something you are going to be happy driving.” I think she is messing with me, you know, just playing with my esteem so if I end up picking something I end up hating she can come back and say, “I told you to pick something that would make you happy.” Well, a Jeep Wrangler would make me happy, but there was none of those in the $5000 arena. However, there was this nice little Pontiac Firebird with funky orange paint.

Ahhh… a true lower-middle class mid-life crisis car. Thing is, no matter what we looked at, the wife kept saying, “Don’t forget about the Firebird.” I think she was serious! It was a little more than we were looking at spending, but we could have swung it. She either really wanted me to have the Firebird, or she knew that my reason would kick in and I would come to the conclusion on my own that a sports car is not a realistic option for a 40-year-old with a wife and two young-uns. Damn, I wanted that Firebird! But, the reason kicked in and I knew it would make more sense to drive something like that when I turn fifty… you know, when the senior discounts start to kick in… and the hair is completely gray… and the chances of actually losing that belly are ZERO… slightly less than 10 years from now…

…sigh…

… and she is still going to be able to say, “I told you to pick something you would be happy driving.” I married a pretty bright dame 🙂

Okay, so the Firebird is postponed for the next 10 years or so. We are seriously down to two cars within our range. One is a 2001 Cadillac Catera, the other is a Chevy Aveo. The Caddy has less than 100,000 miles and is in great shape… and is about a grand less than we were looking to spend.

The Aveo is a 2009 with less than 8,000 miles and in about a grand more than we were planning on spending.

I’m immediately leaning toward the Aveo. It’s low-mileage, it will last almost forever, it gets great gas mileage, and it is so stinking ugly that “pretentious” would never a word to describe it. The wife seems fine with my choice of one of the ugliest cars since the Vega, and I am ready to take her for a test drive… the car, not the wife.

Handles like a dream, pretty punchy for such a little piece of crap, rides like a cardboard soap-box derby car, but, hey… it can’t weight more than I do. It starts to get a little warm in her as we’re taking her around town.

“Turn on the AC,” says the wife.

Travis, our awesome little sales dude, looks kind of sheepishly at us from the back seat and says, “Uh, this one doesn’t have AC.”

Stardate: 2010. We have encountered an alien life form known as the Aveo. On her world, they still make cars with no AC. Hers is a dying world, but one on which we are momentarily trapped. I am quickly sending our coordinates to Spock so he can beam us the hell out of here.

“I could live with no AC,” I say. “I’ll be the one mostly driving it, it gets like 40 miles-per-gallon, and I don’t mind sweating a little… it’ll help me keep my weight down.”

“Having a car that gets 40 miles-per-gallon would make sense if we could take it on trips… but I will not ride in a car with no AC.” The wife doesn’t even smile as she makes her assertion.

“We could roll down the windows,” I smile, still hoping to avoid any chance of looking pretentious. After all, there is nothing I can imagine that would be less pretentious than my sweaty-ass driving around in this little piece of crap with all the windows down and me justifying at the top of my lungs to any passerby who looks my way, “I’m getting 40 miles-per-gallon, so screw you!”

“Can you imagine how cranky your boys will be if we’re taking a trip to Denver in this thing in the middle of the summer with no AC?” She has a point. The boys are barely bearable on any kind of lengthy trip when the climate is perfect. Hot wind blowing in our faces as sweat pours down our faces would not add to the delight of any of our outings.

“So, I guess it’s the Cadillac,” I surrender.

“There’s always the Firebird, ” the wife reminds me.”

The Cadillac, of course, drives like a dream… and has AC.

So, we head into the offices so Travis can help us figure out which car we want.

“Which car have you folks decided on,” Travis asks.

“Well, I guess we’d like the Cadillac,” I say.

“You don’t sound so sure,” says Travis.

“There is still the Firebird,” says the wife.

“Does the Firebird come with the blond?” I ask.

“No, I’m afraid not,” says Travis. “You wouldn’t believe how many 40-year-old-looking guys ask that, though.”

“…sigh… I guess the Cadillac it is.”

Here we are, a few days later, and I love the Cadillac. It really does drive like a dream… considering the thing is almost 10 years old. The Bose sound system is amazing, and the thing has more buttons than a person can push on a relatively lengthy drive. There is still the pretentious-factor. I still feel like the only people who drive Cadillacs are snotty people with money and posers. The wife insists I’m wrong, but I still have a vague recollection of an ad I once saw…

… maybe it’s just my imagination. I guess being a poser ain’t so bad… not when the tunes sound so flipping good on that Bose…

Stinking Old Germans!

There are so many things about the Craphandle of Nebraska not to like! The wind blows here almost all of the time. The scenery is… uh… not very scenic. There is little to do here that does not involve killing critters of one kind or another or drinking lots and lots of alcohol (I know, I know; sounds like a redneck heaven… but if you aren’t 100% pure redneck, it sucks.) Low wages and a relatively high cost of living (i.e. we make less and pay more because we like killing stuff and drinking stuff… or something.) Oh, I could go on for hours about the stuff here that sucks! There is some good stuff here too, but the good stuff isn’t nearly as fun to write about!

One of the most annoying things of all about living in the Craphandle of Nebraska is the stinking old Germans!

Now, I have nothing against Germans as a people (other then, I guess, World War I… & maybe World War II… and that holocaust thing wasn’t real cool… and BWMs kind of suck ’cause they are only for rich, snotty people.) Heck, I have my fair share of German blood running through my veins. However, the Germans here are different! The Germans here in the Craphandle of Nebraska are Germans from Russia who left Russia to get away from the Czars… blah, blah, blah. I’ve had the whole thing explained to me before but it didn’t interest me at the time and I have no desire to bore you to death with it now. To make it short: Germans around here are… uh… different; did I already mention that?

To Germans around here, bratwurst isn’t a mainstay and sauerkraut is seldom seen. “Garlic sausage” is the meat of choice. Never heard of garlic sausage? Yeah, neither has 99% of the US population. Garlic sausage is a beefie porkish big link sausage thingie that tastes pretty garlicy. Don’t get me wrong, the garlic sausage stuff is good… but it ain’t bratwurst! Also, they have these things here called “cabbage burgers.” These are also known in German communities around the world as kraut burgers or runzas.

Kraut burgers are a mixture of lightly seasoned cabbage and ground beef stuffed inside bread dough and baked. Sounds yummy, huh? Actually, they aren’t nearly as gross as they sound and, if you’re like me, you will enjoy the gas-producing side effects:) There is even a franchised fast food restaurant based out of somewhere in eastern Nebraska that specializes in kraut burgers; it’s called Runza and it sells extremely overpriced, very small versions of the kraut burger. So, next time you’re in Nebraska, stop at a Runza and order some cabbage and ground beef stuffed bread dough… it will only take like 3 of them to fill you up, and they are only like $5.00 each. That’s a reasonable lunch!

Germans around here also like their “German Blackberries”, which aren’t blackberries at all but are the potentially lethal Black Nightshade.

The local Germans use these berries, which are from the same plant family as tobacco, in breads and various desert products. Poisonous tobacco berries… line up kiddies, Grandma has something special for you!

Aside from the strange cooking habits of the stinking Germans, the attitude that many of these people force on you will either really tick you off or make you sick! “My family helped found this valley,” the stinking Germans will say (’cause, I guess, much of the Craphandle is located in a valley.) They throw this at you in an attempt to, I don’t know, impress you? It’s like the fact that this moron’s great-grandfather settled here a long time ago makes the moron someone special. I always want to come back with something like:

“Well, if your family helped found this valley, why in the hell aren’t there better paying jobs here? Why is the crime rate so proportionately high here? Why has this turned into a retirement community where young families have to be semi-retarded to stay? Why is it, that at any given time of the day, you can be stopped by not one but two trains when trying to travel from one side of the “twin cities” of Scottsbluff and Gering to the other… what kind of “progressive” community still has railroad crossings on major streets instead of underpasses or overpasses… oh, that’s right, we’re not ‘progressive,’ ’cause we’re a bunch of stinking Germans who don’t need no stinking progress! Why is there a meth lab in every corn field and a meth head on every corner? If your family helped found this valley and played a major part in what this valley is today… I guess your family kind of failed us, didn’t they, Sparky!”

Of course, the stinking old Germans only throw this crap out when you are dealing with a customer service issue and they want special treatment because of “who they are.” If I was actually able to come back with the response I feel is appropriate, I would find myself filing for unemployment. Stinking Germans!

Another time where the stinking old Germans really try to tick me off is when they are driving! Even in my church parking lot, you really have to be careful with the stinking Germans behind the wheel. It can be 15 degrees Fahrenheit with the wind howling and the snow blowing and you are coming out of church with your family, including your new-born baby. You are trying to rush your family to the safety of the awaiting car but… LOOK OUT!!!… a stinking old German is coming right at you and there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that that old moron is going to slow down let alone stop to let you and your family find safety from the weather in your car… not until they drive by. How DARE you think that the stinking old German should let you cross just because he or she is in the warm safety of their car; they are old and they are German… you should feel lucky that they didn’t just run you down where you stand, because that is perfectly within their rights. Don’t you know who they ARE! And if you think the church parking lot is bad, just wait until you try the stinking Walmart parking lot!!!

Stinking Nebraskans and Their Stinking Low-Beams!

I spent some time back in Montana over the long Thanksgiving weekend. Spending some time driving in a normal state made me realize how ridiculous drivers are in Nebraska.

In Montana, especially eastern Montana, there are a lot of deer. A LOT OF DEER! When you drive in the rural areas after the sun’s gone down, you have to constantly scan the sides of the road looking for any sign of movement. I lived in Montana for most of the first 22 years of my life; I hit two different deer on two separate occasions. If you live in Montana and you drive at night, you will almost unavoidably hit a deer. Something that Montanans realize is that it’s a heck of a lot easier to catch the glint of a deer’s eye in the headlights if your headlight beams are on high. Thus, people in Montana, when approaching another car at night, usually dim their headlights about 4 to 5 seconds before passing the other car.

Nebraskans (and, to be honest, Wyomingites are even more anal about this than Nebraskans) start flashing their headlights from high-to-low in an effort to get you to dim your lights at anywhere from 1/2 mile to 1 mile away. This means these morons are flashing you at 30 seconds to 1 minute away! Seriously! If these old Germans have such poor eyesight that they need oncoming lights on dim at this distance, they should have their licenses taken away… not only because they are increasing the risk of roadside hazards becoming unexpected surprises, they also just annoy the CRAP out of me!

These light-flashing idiots used to get to me so bad that I would wait until I was about 4 or five seconds away before I would dim my lights just to make them mad. Of course, this backfired, because the light-flashing nincompoops started sticking it to me. By “sticking it to me” I mean that they would wait until the last second and then hit me with all that they’ve got… high beams, low beams, and if they got ’em, fog lights, all at once. The blinding brightness usually lasted well after the other car passed and made me even madder. I actually considered turning around and running the idiots off the road on more than one occasion, but doing hard time because grandma Schultz ticked me off on her way to make butterballs at church wouldn’t sit well with the wife. Instead of tinkering with my blood pressure more than need be, I have attempted to learn to conform to the local idiotic driving patterns.

And then I went to Montana and re-experienced night driving the way it should be: safely avoiding the hazards at the side of the road. On our return trip, it started getting dark right about the time we arrived in our local driving area… and I once again had morons flashing their lights at me from up-to a mile away.

I wanted to get this straight once and for all. Tonight, I went to several states’ DMV websites, including Nebraska and Wyoming, to find out what the law is regarding distance for dimming headlights when approaching another vehicle. Nebraska did not list a specific distance. It did list a distance of 200 feet when approaching another vehicle from the rear but it didn’t list a distance for forward-approaching vehicles. 200 feet from the rear was the same distance I found on several other websites, except for the Wyoming site which put this distance at 300 feet. The funny thing is (and I don’t mean funny in the sense of “ha ha” but more in the sense of making you want to stick a red-hot steak knife into your eyeball) the distances on the sites I visited regarding the correct distance to dim you lights when approaching another vehicle from the front ranged from 300 feet to 500 feet. The Wyoming site stated 500 feet.

So, you might ask yourself, how long would it take for two vehicles to meet each other from a distance of 500 feet… considering a speed of about 55 mph? Thanks for asking! The Wyoming Driver Manual, on page 75, states… and I quote… “You should dim at least 500 feet (about four to five seconds) before meeting an oncoming vehicle.” I kid you not!

So, let’s see if we can get Adventurer Rich’s situation all straightened out. I have been dimming my headlights in a very legal fashion and should have increased the safety on the road (due to potential roadside hazards) in the process. The stinking knuckleheads that blast me with all that they’ve got are, in reverse, breaking the law because they think I am breaking the law (which I’m not) and causing a danger to me and anyone in my car by obscuring my vision with their temper tantrum… not to mention that they are tempting fate that I don’t have a temper tantrum of my own, turn around, and run their sorry butts off the road!

Let’s see if we have learned a little lesson here. If you are driving on one of the many rural highways in western Nebraska or eastern Wyoming and you come across a gent who refuses to dim his lights at 1/2 mile away, proceed with caution. If you get to anywhere from 10 to 4 seconds away and he then dims his lights, remember that he is acting in a completely legal fashion. If you, at this point, decide to blast him because he didn’t dim his lights when you wanted him to (law be damned!), accept that he may very well turn around and do everything within his power to see you run off the road (which would be no more illegal or put any more life in danger than you did by blasting him with your headlights.) And the number one thing that I hope you have learned is this: if you would even consider flashing your lights at someone when they are 1/2 mile away in an attempt to get them to dim their headlights… you need to turn in your driver’s license, Grandpa, ’cause you shouldn’t even be on the road!

Advice from the office sage…

I was having a little trouble going back to work today. After a vacation or a holiday it’s always a struggle to go back to the day-to-day monotony of work-a-day life. At work, I was doing a little venting to a wise coworker.

“Wouldn’t life be perfect if we could wake up every day and work at something we’re passionate about?” I asked. “When you get a job working for someone else, you are most likely trying to turn someone else’s passion into your own. Life would be so much easier and more fulfilling if we all worked on our own passion instead of trying to become passionate about someone else’s passion.”

The wise sage looked at me with a slight smile gracing the corners of his lips. “We humans grow tired of things so rapidly,” his deep voice rumbled as he shook his head knowingly. “If our passions were our means of earning a living, we would quickly grow tired of them and they would no longer be our passions. By keeping our passions separate from our means of economic survival, we maintain the passion that is our passion and our lives retain their meaning. After all, a job provides the sustenance we need to live… but a passion provides the fullness of heart and soul each of us need to live well.”

I looked at the wise sage and began to contemplate his wise words. This man, with his hair half-way down his back but contained in the most majestic of ponytails, had a lot of time to contemplate the meaning of life. This man… this 32 year-old hulk-of-a-man, lives in the basement of a house he shares with his brother and his… cat. This man’s passion is World of Warcraft and conquering that online games world with his band of misfit brothers. This man almost peed his pants when the new Mountain Dew Game Fuel (in tribute to World of Warcraft) came out… and he came close to punching me in the face when I told him I thought the “blue” tasted best (“Blue represents the pesky Alliance, a grouping of mere humans and their ilk, who are far inferior to the majestic, raging power of the Horde,” he had said to me in a raised voice with a fist at half mast. “Ok, Dude, the red is better… take a pill,” I responded, not really thinking the red was better but not wanting to get into a debate, or my butt kicked, over a stupid video game.) This is the guy I’m taking advice from on the idea of following one’s passion? This is the guy who, for one brief instant, I am considering a sage and one worthy of listening to? I’m an idiot!

Man… coming back to work after a holiday can really SUCK!

Softball #3

You know what? I played softball Friday night and for the first time this season I felt like I could actually run! Did I stretch more than usual? No, I stretched no more than usual. Have I been running sprints on the days between games? Haha… seriously, run on days I don’t have to, that’s funny! So what, you may ask yourself, is Adventurer Rich’s secret to being able to run without feeling like the muscles in his legs are actually going to explode?

When I was a wee tot, I remember something my grandma had around the house. It came in a small bottle with a funky, sponge-like applicator at the top. When I would press the applicator against myself, cool green liquid would erupt onto my skin. Within a matter of moments, the liquid was absorbed into my skin and a mild heat consumed my flesh. This was an amazing liquid that my Grandma rarely let me touch. She, however, reeked of this liquids pungent odor almost all of the time. This magical liquid was the reason for my ability to run in last Friday’s softball game without feeling like my groin was going to burst. This magical liquid is… Absorbine Jr (I can’t believe I actually found an Amazon link for Absorbine Jr 🙂 )

Absorbine Jr. is amazing. The cool of the (I’m sure mildly toxic) chemicals that first splash across your skin is invigorating. The oddly green appearance of the liquid is reminiscent of the Grossolium 90 that transformed Melvin Junko into one of the oddest superheros of all time: The Toxic Avenger . Remember that awesome flick? I could do a whole post on how much that single film transformed my entire adolescence… or not. Anyway, back to the Absorbine Jr. The cooling of the skin is of course followed by the mild burn that never quite gets hot enough, you know? It starts to burn pretty good, and just when you think it is going to kick into a full-fledged Icy Hot type burn, it levels off leaving you wanting more. And that classic smell… that classic “old person” smell… that classic “old person” smell that stays with you for hours after the warming sensation has disappeared and reminds me of my grandma; the smell is unforgettable.

So I bought a bottle of Absorbine Jr the other day because I’m feeling a little sore all the time now since softball season started. I know it was good enough for my grandma, so it’s gotta be good enough for me. I get home and I sponge it on all of my sore spots. The cool feels good, the warm feels great, and the smell waxes my nostalgic. I’m wishing they would sell the green, stinky magic juice in 5 gallon buckets so I could fill a tub with it and just soak. Another great thing about Absorbine Jr is the fact that you don’t have to beg a family member to put it on you. You know how no one wants to rub you down with Icy Hot or Bengay because they have to spend too much time washing the crap off their hands after rubbing you down with it? With Absorbine Jr, you need no one. You just rub the green toxin all over your body with the handy applicator-tipped bottle (or, if you find it in 5 gallon buckets, just soak) and let the magic begin. The smell is just annoying enough that you will keep various family members away from you (which often helps your muscles relax as well).

The Absorbine Jr works so well after a softball game, I’m thinking to myself (which is always a dangerous proposition) that maybe putting the stuff on before a game would be a good idea. So, that’s exactly what I do, I douse myself down with Absorbine Jr before driving to the Carpenter Center to play ball. On the way there, the warm tinglies are kicking in and I’m feeling great. I get to the fields and find some of my teammates. I saunter over, feeling pretty cool and collected with my major Absorbine Jr vibe going on. One of the young kids starts to look around and wrinkles her nose. “What’s that smell?” she asks. I kind of drift off to the side of our group.

I grab a softball and ask who wants to warm up. Another whipper-snapper says he’ll warm me up, and we disengage from the rest of the group and toss the ball back-and-forth. We throw and we catch and we throw and we catch some more until the whipper-snapper finally asks, “You warmed up enough yet?”

I know that if we go back to the group that I’m sweating just enough right now that the Absorbine Jr smell is at an all-time high (it appears that it somewhat lodges in the pores of your skin and when you sweat… POW, the smell really comes alive!) “Just a few more throws,” I holler back to the whipper-snapper. We throw the ball until the game is ready to begin.

The thing with Church League co-ed softball is that you always have plenty of guys to play, but you never seem to have quite enough gals to play. Since there were more than plenty of guys, a few of us sat out for the first couple of innings and would go in as replacements at a later point in the game. Now, with me being one of the older dudes on the team, sitting out for two or three innings after already having warmed-up freaked me out a little. I just got through stretching out the old muscles and letting the Absorbine Jr work its magic. If I just sat on the bench for two or three innings, those muscles would tighten right back up and I’d be in serious trouble, so instead of just sitting on the bench, I’m outside the dugout running little sprints, laying on the ground stretching muscles, and doing everything I possibly can to keep those muscles warm. In the meantime, I’m working up a little sweat and stinking to Absorbine Jr high-heaven.

When I finally get to go into the game, I’m up to bat. I can tell that the stink is pretty heavy on me, and it’s making me a little self-conscious. I get up to bat and I glance back at the catcher. The catcher’s face is all twisted up in a wad and I can’t help but think it is because she can smell my Absorbine Jr reek (it could have been that the lady just had a kind of wadded-up face, but I wasn’t thinking too clearly… I think the Absorbine Jr fumes were getting to me.) I hit a little dinker down the third base line and off to first I go. I’m safe on first. The first baseman has a funny look on his face and I’m dead certain that he smells the “old” on me. I start sweating harder which makes the Absorbine Jr stench stronger and when the gal at bat blasts over second base I run like a bat out of hell so that no one can smell my stink. I run harder than I’ve ever run and any pain in my muscles that had hampered my play in previous weeks was nowhere in my mind as I attempted to leave the hideous old person smell of Absorbine Jr in my dust.

Needless to say, I was out at second. But throughout the rest of the entire game (which we lost) I ran without giving any thought to my old muscles. The pains and flair-ups of previous weeks were gone as, with every move that I made, I attempted to keep those around me from becoming disgusted with my smell.

The funny thing is… the way I was pushing my muscles in an attempt to seperate myself from my stench should have made for days of sore muscles and aching joints. After the game, I felt just fine. The day after the game, I felt just fine. Here it is, Sunday, Father’s Day, and I feel just fine. I’ll admit, the hideous odor following me throughout the game made me rather uncomfortable; however, I feel better than I have felt in weeks. I think my grandma was really onto something with Absorbine Jr. I love and miss my grandma very much. She has passed from life on this earth around 17 years ago. I am very thankful that she passed the secret of Absorbine Jr onto me… I just wish I didn’t have to smell like her to enjoy its benefits.