Wondering
Tonight, I began to wonder when Ellie transitioned from young to old.
Her frosted tips have taken to spreading around a bit. I first saw the gray in her muzzle, then in her eyebrows. Suddenly, the silver highlights were everywhere.
At night, she sits beside me on the couch. Sometimes, remaining completely still and staring for over an hour. She can sleep while sitting up, and she does it quite regularly. It’s odd to have a dog looking over your shoulder when you are writing, but she never speaks to me about grammatical errors. I can deal with her choice of seating positions.
The way she plants herself on the couch makes me laugh. I think that’s why we stay together. Her mom was a pure boxer dog and spent much of her time sitting with her master—upright—in a chair in their mid-coast farmhouse living room. Ellie must come by the strange positioning naturally.
Her dad was a chocolate lab whose hobbies included more amatory pursuits. He was able to lift the latch of the door to mom’s room— with his snout— when the time came to consummate their illicit love affair. Ellie is the product of a burglary, if you consider breaking and entering to be a crime worthy of charging as a felony.
When I selected her from the way-back of a Volvo 240 wagon, her pet-mom advised me that she didn’t want to take any money for her. She had advertised the Box-a-dor puppies for the sum of two-hundred-and-fifty dollars. She said she would refund the entire sum when I provided to her the medical records proving that Ellie had been spayed. I paid her the money but never asked for a refund once Ellie had her procedure.
Ellie held a lot of promise. Initially, I felt she was far more trainable. I mean, she’s trainable, but I am not patient enough to get by her stubborn streak. I suppose I’m not all that trainable. We stuck with the basics. Come when I call, don’t poop in the house, get off the bed when I tell you to, don’t bite the pleasant people who stop by the house or camp. Oh, and guard the truck so that I can leave tools and things lying around on the seats while forgetting to put the windows up when I go in some joint for coffee and pie.
She’s been a stellar performer. Oh, she does other things- sits, stays, shakes, and catches snacks like a boss. I only wanted a dog to be a dog. She’s got it down, pat. Sure, I have to beep the horn of the truck—sometimes—to get her to come back from her walkabouts at the lake. Usually I slam the door a couple of times before reaching for the horn. The sound of doors will usually bring her in if she is within shouting distance. Yes, it does cause you to shake your head in wonder when shouting her name didnt work in the first place; I know I can holler louder than the sound of a door slamming.
One of her annoying traits is that she peeps. She cries really. Whenever there is some urgent and unknown angst, she whimpers, peeps, cries, and moans. Her noises can be incredibly off-putting, but what are you going to do? We all have flaws.
When she is in, she wants to be out. When she is resting, she’d rather be running, and when she’s eating, don’t get between her and the bowl.
When she growls, listen to her. When she stares and groans in unison, it’s time to go outside. She is incredibly proud of her record of NEVER having an accident inside the house, not even one time since showing up when she was only eight weeks old. That’s six years of savings in paper towels alone.
A few weeks ago, Ellie came up lame after four straight hours of playing with an energetic five-month-old puppy. She limped for a day, but she came out of it. Telling her to slow down would be useless, and she is too stubborn to recall that she is not a puppy anymore.
I guess the key to making her slow down is to model the behavior for her. I’ll just sit on the couch and write some stuff. She will sit and stare. Tonight, she’s probably wondering when I transitioned from young to old.
Thanks for swinging by the writing page. Thanks for your support. Please make sure you have clicked the FOLLOW button on my Facebook page if you haven’t already.
Keep your hands to yourself, leave other people’s things alone, and be kind to one another.
TC
Thanks, I Try
At 0405hrs on Sunday, I was awakened by my internal clock. Knowing that it was time to take the significant one to the airport, I beat her to the hardwood floor by padding my way to the bathroom to avoid the rush. We made coffees, sipped them quickly, then I loaded her luggage and we silently traveled the short distance to the only international airport that calls Bangor home.
Many—from away— who hear me refer Bangor as an international airport tend to recoil and grin. They believe that such a small spot on the big map could not possibly be international. Yup, it’s international. We even have customs officials on site. Oh, I think they get bored, but they get paid the same as a customs official in Miami, or Los Angeles; who’s smiling payday?
The sun peeked over the distant tree line as warm tangerine light burst through a chink in the armor of darkness. We both agreed that it would be a hot one as we—otherwise—drove while choosing to remain silent.
I slowed down just in time to miss an indecisive member of the whitetail deer population. “You still have good eyes, dear,” she said. I merely answered with one of the noises that men make when they are tired and feel mildly appreciated. It’s a cross between an “ayuh” and a reassuring “harrumph.”
The fact that you are now trying to sound it out makes me feel better about telling this story.
The drop-off at the curbside was like all the others. I unloaded the luggage. She stood still—waiting for the bear hug.
“Text me when you get to Boston,” I growled earnestly. I like her updates, but I tell her that I don’t need them. She understands me. It was going to be a three-airport day for her, and I’d be back in the house within a half-hour picking up the coffee where I left off. I pictured it steaming, alone, on the chairside table. It was entombed in a Yeti mug; it would remain hot for hours. The Yeti is a good choice, but it’s a tumbler. It doesn’t fit in any of my cup holders.
“I shall. It’s a three-hour layover before I load up for New York. I can get some breakfast,” she sounded a bit sad about leaving. She always sounds like that. She’s a wide-roaming homebody. Driven by what she loves, but she wouldn’t mind getting to the camp a bit more so she can make American chop suey and eat dessert on the porch as the sun goes down. Gifford’s Camp Coffee ice cream is her dessert of choice. While the frogs croak and groan under the drape of darkness, I hear her spoon scraping up the melted remainders from an ancient glass bowl.
“And text me when you get finally get home,” I said. “I’m going to check on Sammy’s cats; he’s coming back from Washington later today. I’ll just make sure his place is still standing. He’s had a fella caring for them, but I should check. I’m not tired.”
She clickity-clacked her luggage toward the terminal, and I waited and watched through the enormous panes of clean glass for her to get to the Delta check-in counter. Job one was complete.
The needle on the gas gauge surprised me with a drawn-out curtsy toward the letter E as I swung into a pump farm of a modern convenience store. The vast lot was aglow under excellent lighting. The pumps were empty of other morning revelers, and like a wannabe tourist who had just won the lotto, I had my pick of the islands.
I scanned for a pump that revealed the telltale handle of a window washing squeegee peeking from the big gray trashcan/windshield washer combination canister sitting near each and every gas dispersal device. I spotted a red wooden handle—longer and sturdier than the standard black plastic gripped squeegee—and it made my decision for me.
A wooden handle allows more pressure to be exerted against a filthy windshield. Extruded plastic recoils backward, failing to scrub-a-dub-dub in a manner that fits my urgent need to rid myself of the macabre mix of mayfly entrails and black fly bodies in the expansive graveyard of goo that has dried onto the pitted glass.
A palpable sadness stifled my initial glee when I saw that the voluminous cistern was empty of the blue alcohol-based liquid bug remover. I started the gas pump and then belligerently defied all the written safety warnings by walking away as the fuel flowed freely.
I went to the adjacent islands while still holding my red-handled scrubber, hopeful that I could locate one bucket that held a bit of fluid. I checked three. I found none. I won’t lie; I was frustrated. Such a waste of a nostalgic wooden handled scrubber. I felt like a guy who found a date but couldn’t come up with the money to take her somewhere nice.
I considered speaking to the clerk about grabbing a gallon of fluid so that I might top off one of the reservoirs, but I reconsidered once I walked inside, only intending to cure my current— first-world— problem.
He greeted me from somewhere below his red store branded ball cap. “Good morning!” His hair was what I saw. His eyes were focused on his task.
He was piloting a mop bucket with the prowess of a pro, and his scrubbing was methodical and graceful. Caution signs— shaped like tiny yellow easels and emblazoned with images of falling cartoon characters who very well could be me on a bad day— were appropriately displayed near the wet spots. The lad wasn’t slacking on the outdoor chores at all. He was sparkling up the store for wandering weary-eyed warriors like myself.
Instead of pointing out my need for clean windows, I grabbed a hot Honduran blend in a medium cup. He watched me from under the brim, probably wondering if I would make my way to the plastic donut decanter; I didn’t. His bet was a good one because I thought of it for a moment.
As he de-mopped and made his way toward the counter, I blurted out that I was impressed by his work ethic. I had watched him while the coffee brewed in it’s wonderous one-cup way. I said, “It’s nice to see a person doing good work this early in the morning when no one is watching.” He smiled, maybe wondering if it was a strange set-up for an armed robbery. Seeing no other signs indicating crime was afoot, he said, “Thanks! I try.” His words smiled too. A slight uptick in his day? Maybe.
I allowed his words to roll around in my head as I found a ten-dollar bill to pay for the coffee. I kept talking because I tend to do that. I’d forgotten about my planned self-centered request when I saw the bead of sweat on his brow.
“Thanks for doing a good job. The place looks great.” I owed him that. My inital mental picture of a sluggish sitter reading porn mags and smoking near an open backdoor were found to be completely false. Too many movies displayed clerks as uncaring. I should watch more documentaries.
He passed me my change, and I tossed him back the five-dollar bill. “Buy yourself a cheap lunch, on me. Just because I appreciate your hard work so I can just wander in here and get a coffee.”
I still didn’t mention that I really wanted a clean windshield. I’d settled on the fact that scrubbed floors for many were far more important than the driver’s view for one inconsiderate buffoon.
He smiled a bit wider, said thanks. With that, the man of few words— and many chores— stuffed the grainy green likeness of Lincoln into his front pocket. He made his way toward the mop bucket as I exited the store holding a coffee that I didn’t need all that badly.
I walked past the red wooden handled squeegee hopeful that the next store might have such an sturdy artifact.
As my sneakers squeeked across the stained macadam, It came to me that following through on my first inclination would have been annoying. I felt better about the meager offering to pay a penance for a sin I only thought—for a minute— about committing.
I reflected on his gracious way of accepting the compliment. “Thanks! I try.” What a world we would be living in if we all could say that. First you have to try, and then you have to accept that people appreciate it. The trying is the hardest part; Tom Petty could have avoided a huge hit if he had selected those lyrics.
I took a photo of the skyline out over the airport, screwed the gas cap back on, and headed to Sammy’s place. I’d wash my windows later. I continued to covet the wooden handled squeegee for future use, so, in essence, I had only managed to beat back one official sin as I fully accepted my weakness for number ten of ten from that list of pesky of commandments. I probably should have slipped the Moses of Mopping a couple more bucks to keep my conscience clear for the next few minutes as I sipped coffee and drove on toward Sammy’s while watching out for wandering wildlife.
I silently sent up one of those prayers that I believe still fall on the ears of the omnipotent overseer of all my flaws. The words probably seem silly to some, but being sorry and thankful can occur at the very same moment in time. Even at a gas pump while watching the sunrise at 4:45 on a Sunday morning.
Be well.
TC
(Copyright Tim Cotton 2021)
Hey, thanks for reading my stuff. I appreciate more than you all can know. Also, thanks for the notes in email, Messenger, and in the BuyMeACoffee app. Some of you are very funny, and I appreciate humor, especially in these times. I am going to share some of the messages soon. I find that people enjoy reading the little notes that are sent. It binds us a bit. Thank you for the financial support for the blog. One last thing, I’ve noted a few notes from kind folks who feel the need to apologize, or explain to me that they are not in a position to make a donation, or even—sometimes—for the small amount they might give. I set this site up as a spot to come read the musings and to get away from the selectivity and strange way of how Facebook delivers (or doesn’t deliver) my posts. I wanted control, and to take the monetary gain away from Big Social Media (BSM). Please, please, please; you never need to apologize. You also don’t need to explain it to me. I understand these times, and I understand everyone’s situation is different. I am writing, you are reading. That’s the symbiotic relationship that writers need. Thanks for stopping by. Please share the writings on social so we can grow the website? My hope is to be able to utilize this medium for the advertisement of future books. The more, the merrier!
Keep trying, and have a good week.
Tim
Drafty Windows and a Dog Named Jack
My first home was built in 1865; it was about 100 years old when I was born and aged gracefully while I grew up. The deed became mine when I was in my mid-twenties. I always told people the place had been pre-owned—a lot.
We bought it in the fall of the year; the only heat source was burning wood. Two cast iron Vermont Castings stoves belted out a creaking, crackling song as hardwood became smoke, ember, and ash.
The wind whistled through the loose panes of the old windows as the sparsely insulated walls gave those stoves all the oxygen they needed for a good burn. Strategic sitting was required to avoid a draft on your neck or your ankles, usually at the same time.
I was young, broke, dumb, and happy.
My lady-friend, later to be called Mrs. Cotton, was a scavenger of formerly well-loved furniture. She found a decent used couch and chair; both were uncomfortable.
She was finishing her degree and stopped by from time to time to replenish the bare cupboards or throw up an antique mirror— or three— that she found at yard sales. She loved to reflect on a bargain. Some of those mirrors were later found to be valuable. She had a good eye for everything but men. God bless her.
I didn’t care; having all the lovely mirrors with minimal furniture to block the reflections allowed me an unimpeded view of the off-white lace curtains dancing smartly in other rooms as the wind blew right through the ancient plaster and lath walls.
Winter nights, like tonight, were blistering cold in the old place, and I had a regimen of adding wood to one of the two stoves approximately every two and a half hours. This method gave each stove about a five-hour burn time. I had one in the living room and one in the dining room. The stoves were no more than twenty-five feet apart. I slept on a mattress on the floor in the corner of the dining room. I call it a dining room, but there was no dining table in the room for a considerable amount of time. This—in turn—must have made it a bedroom.
I had shut off the upstairs for the winter because, well, there was no reason to add the stress of running up and down the stairs to attend to the endless stoking of the stoves.
My companion on those nights was a black and white Redbone hound-Labrador mix named Jackson. I picked him up at the mall, back when people would sometimes bring a pen full of puppies to the center court to sell. These were not puppy-mill puppies; they were inadvertently bred farm mutts. I use the word “mutt” with full respect to Jack’s parents.
I paid five dollars for the boy. Abe Lincoln never made a better deal.
Yes, his name was Jackson Lab— in a homage to the famous Bar Harbor genetic research facility where fine white mice are raised and studied. The name made me laugh, and it stuck. He was a stubborn, loyal, and a fierce watchdog. His eighty-pound to ninety-pound body was a welcome bed warmer for those nights when I would stretch the stoking times to three hours.
For a long time, there was no operational lock on the kitchen door. I never worried—even once— about the possibility of a burglary. For one thing, I owned nothing but a mattress, a few mirrors, and lovely lace curtains.
Secondly, that kind and loving animal turned into the Tasmanian devil when folks tried to enter his turf. Any burglar who was worthy of the moniker would have been easy to catch on the way out. They would have been easily followed in a light tracking snow due to guaranteed loss of body fluids of one type or another after an encounter with Jack.
Jack kept me safe and warm as the curtains moved like tethered ghosts in the darkness while cast-iron wood stoves groaned under constant expansion and contraction. He snored, and I think I did too; neither of us complained.
I would listen to the wind on those nights, wondering when I would have the money for replacement windows or when I might afford to add a furnace to the antique cape. Those needs were eventually met, and Jack was rewarded for his hardships with a place in the center of a new king-size mattress and the eventual arrival of Mrs. Cotton, who he loved dearly.
When I was away for three-months at the police academy, my significant one was followed home—late one night— by an unfamiliar pick-up truck. It was a time long before the advent of cellular telephones and quick communication; nurses predominantly wore white. While she walked Jack in the backyard for his nightly respite, the truck pulled into our driveway and sat— running— with the headlights blinding her vision and her clear pathway to the back door of the old cape. She was terrified and frozen in fear regarding why the truck was there at one a.m. in the morning. She told me later that she never felt so vulnerable standing in a white dress while bathed in the bright lights of jacked-up truck with a leaking exhaust.
Jack did not DO vulnerable.
While the dog was never formally trained in the dark arts, or how to properly protect his subjects, he must have had a chip on his shoulder from being dragged to a mall and sold to a couple of kids with no visible means of support, not to mention no functioning furnace. Jack turned into the Tasmanian devil that he was inadvertently bred to be.
He was a scary dog, and almost uncontrollable when his hackles were raised. She shared that he approached the truck—full speed— with the most guttural barking and growling that she had ever heard. The unseen driver of the truck determined not to stay and backed out of the yard rather quickly. The truck disappeared in a cloud of dust and smoke. She did not get a plate number, but she did get back to the house. He could have just been looking for directions, but we don’t believe that to be the case.
When not causing terror to those who might hold ill intent, and other than being a food-driven beast, Jack was generally a lazy and loving hound until his passing at the age of fourteen.
We still laugh when we talk about his incessant howling whenever emergency vehicles —utilizing sirens— passed our home. He would hear them long before we did and he would vocalize it in a most hound-like way. Annoying at the time, yet endearing now. Many years have installed the foggy dividers of multiple seasons between us.
The boy’s ashes were spread around the grounds of the camp in the woods. None were placed in the lake, Jack was grouchy when you tried to get him to take a swim. His hound-side prevailed.
He’s been gone about twenty-one years this winter.
You always want more when you have less. While it’s a worthy pursuit to aim toward lofty goals or to strive to have better things, you’d never have appreciated even one of them if it weren’t for the leaner times, or for those who shared them with you.
Tonight, the same wind blows cold snow over the top of a warmer home with far fewer cracks and much better windows. Here I am just wondering how Jack is.
TC
(Copyright Tim Cotton)
*This piece was written on a cold winter’s night a few years ago. I have revised it a couple of times. When you scour over something a few times, more memories bubble to the surface; I just add them to the stew.
I share it today, as this past week (maybe three) has been a tough time for me to write new things for a variety of reasons.
Writing wheelbarrows full of words for several venues, and trying to keep it fresh and delightful, can be tough. Those who tell you that it’s not are either lying or they are not writing.
Book number two— “Got Warrants?”— is coming to bookstores near you this October. I am excited for this release, and I would love it if you found the gumption to preorder the book. It’s a big deal, and it helps beget favor from a publisher when you determine that you’d like to write another.
I guarantee this is a book you want to keep on the occasional table in the living room, and grab an extra to be left in the bathroom. Your guests will swoon. That’s an overstatement.
I am now writing daily—in earnest—for book number three That’s a fib, but I am rehashing ideas and scribbling notes. I am also trying to read a few good books to rejuvenate my own love of writing.
I apologize for the times when I rehash and repost older content, and while this piece—about my boy, Jack— is nothing amazing, it is one of my favorites from years past. I don’t like to miss a week posting on the website that you all have supported so generously.
So, for those of you who have purchased coffee, or coffees, through the support app— BuyMeACoffee—I want to say thank you again. For those who come to just read, I want to thank you as well. This site will be always be “duty free” because I want to keep it open and accessible, but I am so appreciative for those who decided to pitch in. It’s really so cool to have this community of readers. Thank you for swinging by.
Your Friend,
Tim
The Scent of a Woman (No, not the movie)
The odor is strong. It is a cross between New York extra sharp cheese, Garnier Fructis Color Shield shampoo (it’s paraben-free), and a bucket of white perch left behind under an aluminum boat seat in mid-July.
While the added detail of the material used to construct the boat might not be necessary for you to know, the reflective qualities of unpainted aluminum do magnify the sun’s rays to a level that could quickly bake a tray of buttermilk biscuits to a golden-brown hue. You should smell what it can do to a bucket of perch.
Initially, when she returned from her walk, she rushed by, heading toward her water dish. I suppose that mouthwash wasn’t on her mind, but it should have been. I was standing on a stepladder, well above the fray, and the odiferous invisible wall of stink wafted up to my nasal passages from at least four feet below.
Sammy 
had taken her for a walk. She had been cooped up in the camp while I slowly installed a series of electrical outlets to the screened-in porch. She sat at the door and whined while I drilled oblong holes through the wall studs to run the 12/2 wire. It makes you sad to hear a dog longing to be outside, but I didn’t want her to get into something if she wandered off, unsupervised.
I’ve seen a couple of porcupines in the vicinity this year, and I know she has the heart of an investigator. I don’t have any desire to pull out quills while trying to keep her under control. She is a strong dog.
Ellie tends to stay within the line of sight, but she also knows when it is time to— subtly— fade out of view. At that point, her hearing becomes very spotty. It must be the thick forestation that blocks the friendly “come-hithers.”
I sometimes resort to a bit of yelling. Often, I do some searching and hiking, but there are moments that I only have to slam the truck door a couple of times. The sound of someone leaving without her company has a healing effect on her eardrums. So far, we have avoided a trip to the audiologist. Dog audiologists are expensive; at least, that’s what I have heard.
Sammy—Ellie’s bestest friend—took her out for a saunter and swim. He said that he spotted the not-so-fresh pile of something dead upon the rocks by the water. He surmised that a member of the weasel family had shredded some formerly swimming soul into a pile of post- mortem perfume. The sunbaked rock turned the pile o’ leavings into Ellie’s latest eau de toilette water with a strong emphasis on Toilette.
His story—and I believe him—was that Ellie first moistened her black hide with a frigid dip. Once she reached the perfect level of fur hydration, she exited the water and quickly made her way to roll in the pile of whatever she smells like now. She favors using her face as a probe when she is rolling around in dead things. Understandably, the face is located on the end of the dog where I spend most of my time. It makes sense, however, that the opposite end of this dog currently smells much better. No, I did not double-check.
Sammy tried some Dawn dish detergent on her muzzle and melon, but it merely caused us to sense a stronger level of stink. We put her out on the porch to dry, but that’s where I was. It seems that heat—and stink—rises, and I was on the ladder.
Once I completed the electrical endeavor, I went to the shower room and selected the only shampoo currently available on this jagged edge of America—unless I decided to drive into town for something more powerful. Yes, I used the Fructis, but I would have used any shampoo left behind in the shower by the official owner.
Ellie and I wandered to the shore and waded in. Spring-fed lakes tend to warm slowly. Certainly, we did not expect it to be warm in May. Still, it’s shocking to a man— and maybe a woman— but Ellie seemed to take the temperature in stride. I began to scrub her as well as I could with no collar present to grasp. She is a pretty obedient dog, but she did not want to stick around for the full-Fructis and cold-water soaking treatment.
The scrubbing was a side-show. Sammy watched from the porch. I did my best while could managing to keep my nether regions from dipping too deeply into the clear and cold cleanser of weasel—or otter— condiments.
I’d make a joke of singing soprano, but it’s overused in similar situations. Suffice it to say that I felt a slight tingle. I sensed a smile on Ellie’s fully Fructis-foamed face as she pulled toward deeper water so she could rinse thoroughly.
Drying off was typical mayhem, like that which occurs when drying off any non-compliant four-legged beast. You have lived it. I don’t need to explain.
The trip home was pleasant enough with the windows rolled down. By the judicious opening of the driver’s side window, one can create a crossflow of scent if you open the passenger’s side rear window a bit more. It’s science.
Ellie didn’t seem to be bothered by the faces I made in the rearview mirror. Most involved the scrunching of my abnormally large nose along with guttural sounds that indicated that I was about to pull over to wretch on the roadside.
The following day, as Ellie soaked up the sun in her bay window of choice, I noted that the ceiling fan was moving the air around as expected. Once her black fur came up to temperature, there was a strong and fruity rotten fish odor that lingered nicely. I pulled the curtains to keep the sun from baking her fur any further.
I had placed her long-loved fluorescent orange collar in a plastic bag. Once I opened the bag, it allowed a bit more of the sour smell of death to drift through the house. I removed her nametag, and I tossed the old collar deep into the garbage.
I did drive into town for a new collar. Fully believing that I had some powerful scent removing shampoo under the kitchen sink, I skipped buying from the display of miraculous elixirs that guarantee a scent-free dog. That was an oversight.
When I returned home from work on Monday night, I found that the house had been ravaged further by the stink of the beast. More scrubbing was necessary, and we have knocked the stench back a bit more. I did not have a pleasant dog-centric odor enhancing shampoo on hand, so I kicked it old school.
Ellie has since been spritzed with a bit of water-diluted Dolce & Gabbana “The One.” I rarely spritz myself with store-bought attractants, but it’s good to have a bottle of it around in case your dog takes on the odor of fish. In this case, dead fish.
Now the house smells like the foyer into a Caribbean Island casino on “All You Can Eat Fried Grouper night,” right after the recently docked cruise ship customers spent ninety-bucks on duty-free cologne.
Man! I’m feeling lucky.
The good news is that Ellie is enjoying her new collar (photo provided).
Have a wonderful Thursday!
I want to thank you all for stopping by the blog site. Thank for your support both moral and financial, and thanks for reading my stuff.
Be well.
Tim
(Copyright Tim Cotton Writes 2021)
A Nice Guy
I wasn’t trying to be nosy, but I cannot deny that I listened to the conversation between the store employee and the patron who waited his turn at getting to the cream dispenser.
It was a counter area where I don’t spend much time, and I am a bit timid to admit that there are a few days each year when I add one sugar and one cream to my coffee.
There is no rhyme or reason to when that happens, but it does. I take it black on all the other days.
I was on one of my jaunts to nowhere in particular, and it struck me that a little bit of sugar might aid me in ridding myself of a slight headache. I’d been driving for about an hour and a half, with about thirty minutes left to my final destination. There are times in life that you want something sweet.
The store employee methodically refilled the refrigerated countertop cream and milk dispenser while the two of us waited her out. The man in front of me knew the lady, and they talked about the sudden loss of a mutual friend. We will call him Jerry.
“That was awful quick, and he was such a nice guy,” she said.
“Cancer, no one even knew until he was in bed permanently. He was a tough bird.”
The man had a distinct Maine accent. It was thick, with a bit of a whine. Some say that a true Maine accent sounds a bit like “crying between the words.”
Maybe that someone is me, but I heard it somewhere else first. Some friends from the west coast claim that I have a slight accent. I disagree.
My compadre of the coffee condiment counter had his hair styled the same way my dad and my uncles presented their hair in the early 70s. It was neat, with just the right amount of product; combed over, with a distinct part on the right side. I could describe it as a more modernized version of the D/A style. Some—here—will know what I mean.
He had the weathered appearance of a man who spent some time outside, on the coast. His jeans were dark blue, unfaded with orange stitching, and they were neatly pressed. I surmised that he wasn’t working today.
The back of his plaid shirt was bloused— and tucked in—properly. You don’t see that much. He had been in the military a long time ago, or he was raised by a man who was.
He told the milk lady that he was heading to town to get his COVID shot. It suddenly made sense to me. He came up in an era when you dappered-up a bit to go to an appointment.
I was raised the same way. For some reason, I dropped that charade a long time ago. I think it’s a rebellious message meant to push back against the grain of a life spent inside uniforms with polished shoes and black polyester clip-on ties. I still have my court suits. They are slowly going out of style, fading further back into the recesses of the closet. I don’t tuck on days off. I feel okay about it.
I envied his commitment to looking sharp for a needle stick that might make his life easier. I’d been inoculated for months. It had all but slipped my mind that many of Maine’s rural folks were longing to be vaccinated. Most would have given their right arm for the special treatment I had received while getting my shots— earlier— due to my current occupation. I am by no means special, but the job put me near the top of the lists for first dibs on shots. The government made the list, I just complied.
I could tell he was pleased that he had secured an appointment. I can’t say why I knew it, but I did. Inflection means far more than the words that are shared. I was happy for him; it would probably take a load off his mind. He was just about my age, right in the sweet spot of folks who could be more debilitated by the onset of the strange disease.
I looked at his right hand. It held one paper cup filled with hot black coffee. In his meaty left paw, he held an empty paper cup.
It confused me at first, but he explained it to me like we were old friends. He didn’t just blurt out the reason. I had asked, under my breath, where the coffee stirrers were. He pointed them out. I saw the individually wrapped thin plastic straws in a plastic bin right in front of my face.
“You need four of ’em to stir a cup of coffee, so I do what I used to do when I was drinking.” He held up the two cups and mimicked the pouring of one into the other.
Several of his fingernails appeared to have been slammed—hard—into some painful mechanical contraptions. They clearly had been utilized to pry him out of some difficult situations. He was a tradesman of some type, possibly a fisherman enjoying a rare day off.
“Once I put the cream in, I mix it by pouring them back and forth between the cups. Wastes a paper cup, but it saves on plastic stirrers. Damn things are so small that they don’t even move the coffee around in the cup.”
“It makes sense,” I said. And it did. It made perfect sense.
We watched the clerk manipulating the machine so that it could soon supply the cow-created creamy goodness to the parade of coffee drinkers who would march by over the next three hours.
In that short moment in time, I found out that Jerry had passed away from cancer and that the man in the plaid shirt was a recovering drinker who was kind and considerate to share his method of perfectly mixing a cup of coffee with cream and sugar. He didn’t have to do that, but he did. That might not be a big deal to you when you are in a hurry, but it made me feel accepted in an unfamiliar environment.
We waited as the lady attendant made sure that the clear plastic bag filled with half & half was metering correctly out of the cream dispenser.
I grabbed a single packet of sugar and dumped it into my cup of coffee. I used two of the plastic straws to stir it rapidly. The man was right; the damn things barely moved the coffee around in the cup. His hypothesis had, now, become a proven theory.
I skipped the cream out of respect for the kind man’s process. He didn’t need me hanging around behind him—waiting—while he mixed up his coffee.
I walked to the register as I reflected on how fast Jerry had been taken from them. In that short memorial service for a nice guy, I had learned a lot. I wondered how Jerry liked his coffee.
The clerk offered me a reasonably priced club membership for future discounts on coffee, I declined. I told her that I didn’t live in the area, so it wouldn’t do me much good. Of course, she already knew it.
I nodded my head back toward the man who had unknowingly made the stop worthwhile.
“I want to take care of his coffee too.” The clerk punched in the extra and I paid the bill. He raised his single cup toward me in a toast and said, “Hey, thanks!”
I could see that he now held a quart of motor oil in his other hand, probably destined for the truck with the opened hood parked out by the gas pumps. I wish I had seen the 5w30 as it would have been the gracious thing to pay for it. We could have talked about how many miles were on the Ford. It would have been pleasant to find some confirmation for my hasty conclusions. None of it was any of my business, so I determined to just move along and try to nurse away my headache with some improperly mixed Rwandan roast with one sugar.
As I pushed the door open, I heard him say to the clerk, “He was a nice guy, do you know him?” The door shut behind me, cutting off the conversation, but I know she told him that she didn’t.
It’s good that Jerry had a lasting impact on his friends. I surmised that he’d be happy that they remembered him as being worthy of a mention during an important moment in the everyday life. I was pleased enough to have entered the ebb and flow of the imaginary club for nice guys.
I didn’t buy his coffee to be considered with that kind of reverence, of course. I bought it to show a tiny bit of bean-infused gratitude for small favors, and maybe because, in a world filled with people who sometimes cause me frustration, he made me feel at ease for fifteen seconds. That’s worth a buck seventy-nine all day long.
I pulled the shifter into drive and waited for a few miles to take the first sip. There are times in life when you want something sweet.
Copyright Tim Cotton May 2021
*Thanks for all the support for the Facebook page, the writing page, the newslog, the kind notes, the not so kind notes, the BuyMeACoffee support, and the friendships. I hope you all have a great week.
TC
Left To Our Own Advices
The pickup truck was wallowing about on my last journey to the east coast. While it is heavily sprung, and the roads are bad from here to eternity, I felt that the steering inputs caused it to be a tad more squirrely than typical.
I had a heavy trailer in tow, and that certainly exacerbates any asphalt-derived irregularities. I chalked it up to improper tongue weight and incorrectly inflated tires.
I wouldn’t say I am a stickler for maintenance, but I pay attention and keep up with the necessities. I enjoy the feeling that I get when the oil has been freshly changed and the tires rotated to opposite sides and opposite ends. It seems that engines feel like they run smoother and quieter after new oil has found its way to the crankshaft and all the other internal bearing surfaces.
I think it’s a psychological smoothness, merely a self-imposed moment of motorized Zen. Still, it’s good to know there are five thousand more miles between you and the next belly-crawl under the filthy chassis.
As I was killing a bit of time between destinations, I manipulated the steering wheel-mounted controls so that the tire pressures would be shown on the dash screen right before my very eyes. It’s the one feature that I think should be standard equipment in all new vehicles. I don’t trust that the numbers are one-hundred percent accurate, but it’s a good starting point when next you find yourself handy to an air hose. Seeing the pressure in digital form is much more informative than getting a flashing yellow light on the dashboard that looks like a tiny flat tire.
I noted that the right front tire was about five pounds below the manufacturer’s recommended pressure, and the two back tires were also severely lacking in the inflation department. I would have written that they were slacking, but it was too easy and could be considered grammatically inferior wordplay.
I made a mental note that I would take a few minutes— when I returned to Bangor— to check them with a proper air pressure gauge. I usually have a compressor with me on working weekends, but this time I left it behind, knowing that there would be no need for it; I was wrong again.
My Sunday morning coffee, church, more coffee, car wash, pastry run, newspaper reading on the waterfront, bagel munching session allowed me some time for tire pressure checks. I dug into the back door cubby to dig out the old electronic gauge. It’s a nifty device that displays the pressure numbers with glorious LED clarity.
I could see that from the tiny screen that the battery was low, but I believed it could still be trusted to give me a few checks before going to the dark side for good. I would change the battery later.
I added the appropriate amount of air to each of the ten-ply tires. It seemed to take forever, and it made my knees ache because of the time spent in the kneeling position. I should do more of that for other reasons, but the tarmac made it a painful endeavor. I prayed for sweet relief, as well as a more powerful compressor the next time I took on the task.
My target goal was sixty pounds of pressure in each of the front tires and sixty-five pounds in the rear tires. Still, it took far longer to reach the needed threshold than I expected. I stuck with it. I used my electronic gauge between each dose of air, and while the device seemed to be a bit wonky, I reached my goal on each of the Kevlar reinforced Goodyears.
I’ve put a lot of air in tires and never had it seemed to take so long to add enough to get the required pressure readings.
I kicked the last tire like a seasoned specialist, and I surmised that the pressures were—now—certainly higher.
My first few miles were jolting to the capped cup of coffee in the center console. Black bean juice shot forth like lava from Vesuvius out of the singular sipping slot. This Goodyear-related geyser was not normal behavior for my cups of coffee, even on Maine roads.
Our frost-blasted byways should not be confused with your “Main” roads. The additional E denotes the fact that we have EXTRA potholes.
The jolting was jarring, and I am an affirmative fan of a firm ride. Passing a couple of cars on the northbound I-95 turned into a full-fledged hellish sleigh ride, and I slowed to below the posted speed limit to inquire what the heck was going on. Upon my quivering manipulation of the steering wheel controls, I discovered why it took so long to fill the tires with air.
Each of the displayed digits (see accompanying photograph) indicated approximately ten more pounds of pressure than required by the manufacturer’s suggestions provided to me on the door jamb sticker. While I could easily explain away a pound—or two—in either direction of being exactly spot-on, these numbers were far higher than those that had been displayed on the faded screen of my tired tire gauge.
I concluded that the pain in my knees had been brought on by a weakened battery in my electronic air-pressure checker. I spent about double the time in the crouching tiger position than I should have. This also shed some light on why the wall-mounted gas station air dispenser strained so much while filling up my tires. I had been pushing Zeppelin-level air pressure into a tire meant to be filled with far less.
No, I can’t explain how the gauge could have been recalibrated by a weakened battery to read ten pounds too low in the pressure category, but I did glean a life lesson from the Conestoga-like ride quality that was my gift after trusting the badly behaved device.
In life, we sometimes depend on the wrong people for good advice. Yup, I should have double-checked the pressures on the dash-mounted device soon after topping off the tires. Relying on one gauge— or one person—for the best advice is not always the correct course of action.
Additionally, I depended on that one device while disregarding the low-battery warning and wonky behavior. Yet, I still accepted its information as “pure gospel.” I should have known better. I do, now. I have added a new air pressure gauge to my gear, and it doesn’t rely on battery power.
Nope, this story really isn’t a devotional, but my knees still ache, probably for the wrong reasons.
Surround yourself with wise counselors, check their batteries (or background) before depending on their advice. In a society where we receive much commentary and unrequested input from SMO (social media only) friends, we need to exercise caution.
Getting bad advice can makes many things—even tires—much harder.
Tim Cotton
Copyright May 2021
P.S.
*I appreciate that all of you stop by my page. I also want you to know that I have read each and every message left for me in the BuyMeACoffee App. I get a notice on my phone when anyone leaves a donation, or sends a note. I read them all. Thanks for the emailed notes, the wishes for good luck, the offered prayers and blessings, and the humorous and sarcastic scribbles. It’s fantastic, and so are all of you who have come to the page, purchased my book(s), or take a moment to glance at my written thoughts on the faceplant machine.
Your Friend,
TIm
One Bad Apple
The fleeting thoughts don’t always stick around long enough for me to find the time to jot them all down. As of late, I have much about the blooming spring— and the chores that come with it— on my mind.
There are undertakings at the camp that demand my attention. While I am not the primary carpenter working on the minor porch rejuvenation job, I have been charged with adding a few electrical outlets before the interior walls are covered with rough-cut pine. Success will depend on what happens the next time that I turn on the circuit breaker.
I need to open up the neighbor’s cottage, haul and stack some lumber, install a couple of docks, meet the soil scientist to find out where the new septic field is going to be located, move a cord of dry wood (in hopes that it might be a better spot for the leach field than for wood storage), and reset the front steps. Mr. Frost came in and did what he does best. That is, to make formerly level things crooked again.
The one hundred miles between camp and home are constantly trampled upon during my comings and goings. It gets expensive to live so far away from my favorite piece of ground. You learn to economize on other things, but the time to complete the tasks is allotted to each one of us in the very same way; there is never enough. I’ll make the trip a total of three times this week, and I will not spend even one night sleeping out on the screened-in porch; the paying job back home takes precedent.
The good news is that I am catching up on some really great music and consuming various blends of convenience store coffee. I find myself quietly reviewing each offering while taking my first sip. “Mmm, it tastes like coffee,” is clearly what this aficionado is hoping to mutter as he grabs the column shifter and drops the tranny into D, for delicious, and then steers toward the E on the mirror’s electronic compass. The W is used as a guide on the return trip. If not for the coffee, on some days, I might be reciting lefty loosey, righty tighty. That will do me no good when trying to get back home in the dark.
I smile to myself wondering what it would be like to drink a coffee that required me to utilize more than one descriptor—or even one extra ingredient—during the process of ordering. I’ve stood in a Starbucks’ line while the more refined in front of me rattle off the list of necessities that must be included in their bean juice. By the time I hear someone add the term “half-caff,” I lose interest in the recipe. To be able to step up to the counter and say, “black,” gives me a feeling that I might be giving the barista a break from the rote memorization exercises that terrorize them daily.
So far—this week—I have tried Honduran, Guatemalan, and Rwandan blends. All of them have been dispensed from those fancy instant brewing machines that grind out the beans after you used the digital screen to pick your poison. I really like the coffee that comes out of those things. I feel invested in the process. During brief discussion with the more outgoing clerks in various locations I have been informed that cleaning these fancy coffee makers is less time consuming than the old type.
I embrace each poorly-planned trip because destinations can sometimes be a letdown, especially when you cannot spend even one evening out of the three sitting by an open fire while being serenaded by peepers and the groaning of the lovelorn bullfrogs. That time will come, just not this week.
Ellie is confused with the repeated trips with very little downtime between the back and the forth. She would love to spend the night rather than winding down the hours snoozing in the backseat during the bumpy rides. She makes it clear with her eyes that she will take the truck seat over the love seat every single time. She does take her mandatory swim upon our arrival. I avoid doing the same this time of year.
If I were a builder, I would have never been considered a good finish man. I’d be thought of as the rough carpenter, at best. Maybe I would be the guy they send out to get lunches and pick up materials at the lumber yard. I’d forget things, but I’d show up on time, and I would stay late if they needed me to do so. I’d rather be considered loyal and trustworthy than as the guy who does the work of a perfectionist. I would also guarantee that everyone got the fries they ordered, even if they were perched at the top of the bag. You need to be trustworthy with French Fries, that’s for sure.
It would be great to be skilled in the building trades; I would have saved piles of money over the past fifty years.
My writing skills are only about one step away from my carpentry skills. Some might say that is an egotistical overstatement. I can rough in a sentence, but I have to come back more than once to grammatically improve the delivery and appearance.
I typically write my blog posts on Sundays, and then I look them over on Monday, and then, once again, on Tuesday night. I’m often found to be adding and subtracting words right up until it’s time for the Newslog to be sent out to the 13,500 subscribers late on Wednesday afternoons. I still miss things.
I’m not complaining about my chores, my gas bill, my lack of quality writing skills, good planning, or being void of competency in carpentry . I am just explaining why this week’s post really doesn’t have a predetermined destination or topic. It’s just another musing from the mind of a mope. Sometimes, it’s the drive that gives me pleasure.
While I was writing this, Ellie came forth to express her need for sweet relief. While she was indisposed during the disposal of whatever was no longer necessary, I perused the arthritic branches of my old apple tree. It’s a resilient soul.
I’ve been watching last year’s sturdy and stubborn crab apples decaying away throughout the winter. I have wondered when the birds might pick the old fruit clean from the branches. On this day, I was taken by the vivid pink flowering buds that surround the remaining freeze-dried fruits from the COVID winter of 2020.
While it’s difficult to pick out the carcass of the tiny apple, the little rascal is hanging in there—sad, wrinkled, and brown—just about in the center of the frame.
While no one would consider it a beautiful example of an apple— and it pales in comparison to the excited, vibrant, and youthful buds that surround it—it’s still a valuable asset to someone. Maybe a tired and northbound traveling bird will find it to be a nourishing tidbit. It could also be destined to drop to the ground where it will feed our tiny segmented and multi-legged brethren who deserve some fiber too.
Some might label the fruit as an aging soul surrounded by young and beautiful individuals in much better condition. Another viewpoint to consider is that the apple could have made a conscious choice to linger longer to pass on some sage advice to those who are less experienced.
All of us have some value, no matter what stage of life we are in, even if we don’t have the skills equal to those of whom we seem to find it necessary to compare ourselves with.
Even a rotten apple can help us come to a poignant ending in an essay about nothing in particular.
TC
**Thanks for you support for the website, and for checking out my musings on the book of faces. For those of you who have joined the Royal Order of Dooryard Visitors on BuyMeACoffee, and those who have made a donation of any size, I appreciate all you have done. We have increased our subscribers to the weekly Newslog by five hundred folks in the past couple of weeks. If you have a chance to share the Newslogs, maybe we can hit fourteen thousand subscribers in the weeks ahead. Thank you so much.
Tim
(Tim Cotton- Copyright May 2021)
When Good Sardines Go Bad
I perused my food stores this past Sunday. I was apprised that my significant other had recalibrated the cupboards in an earnest effort to protect me from future bouts of food poisoning. These were her words, not mine.
She told me about this newfound and—apparently— life-changing event as we drove through the pre-dawn darkness on the way to the airport to send her south to review her own cupboard keeping habits. I rushed home to survey the work she had done. It’s acceptable, but I am missing some perfectly edible staple foods.
She was home for an extended stay, and while she knows I am a planner (not a hoarder), she believes I need to do a better job rotating the crops, or in this case, the cans.
I tend to stack my canned goods. I buy a bunch, stack them on the shelves, and then I pull from the top. I am reinventing myself , and I will begin to pull cans and containers from the bottom; this could be disastrous, and noisy, but I am committed to keeping my end of the bargain.
My Campbell’s soup stack appears to be untouched, and this gives me hope. I consume it quite often. My collection of tomato soup never sits very long before I need to replace it with fresh stock. I buy it by the flat, and I fall back on toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup when I am low on everything else. There is no way that it has a chance to expire.
Thanks to her, I am now low on everything else.
She claims that she found some canned goods that had expired back in 2012. I can’t confirm that this is true since she rid our home of the evidence, but I do recall eating some sardines—on crackers— that displayed an expiration date in 2018. They were fine, and I didn’t tell her about it. I don’t tell anyone about it (except you). I recall shrugging my shoulders when I popped the top of the tin, I might have mumbled, “Meh,” and then dug in.
You can’t inform just anyone that you eat sardines as many folks seem to make the same gruesome gagging vocalization and then ridicule you to no end. If someone sees you eating sardines, they immediately indicate through word and deed that you are stinking up the place. Usually, you are. Eating sardines at work in a well-attended lunchroom is a recipe for being shunned for years.
The way I look at it, someone other than me is eating sardines. When the pandemic-related food shortages hit, I couldn’t find a dang can of ‘dines anywhere on the shelves. I made it through the drought; I had at least twenty cans in the cupboard.
Can sardines go bad? Ask their mothers because I have no idea.
The saltines that I utilized during the late-night SOLR (Snacking of Last Resort) were stale, but they were accompanied by sardines. So, there is that.
Stale crackers meet the threshold of a delicious side dish when eaten with expired sardines. I don’t accept life choices as an either/or situation. I am more of a “things could be worse” kind of guy.
Now, the crackers were not stale because they were aging in place. The saltines were stale because I had run out of clothespins to secure the loose end of the cellophane sleeve that keeps them neatly stacked—and fresh—when tightly sealed.
When I last checked the cupboard, each shelf was full. My judicious inspection caused me to conclude she has halved my kitchen stores. I have more in the basement.
There are beans, soup, Goldfish crackers in the big box, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, spaghetti sauces, Spam, Vienna sausage, and other things. I also have more sardines, and, yup, I have toilet paper, but I don’t panic over paper products. I panicked that she might have plucked the pantry of my pre-pandemic Peter Pan peanut butter.
I picked up the gigantic tub on one of those days when people were buying everything and anything from the shelves at my local grocer. The mega jar was the last one on the shelf. I grabbed it, and have gone through a little over half of it in the past year. The huge jar represented a strange time in America. I believe we have a bond. It still tastes fine, but I am not going to check the date on the jar. In a display of trust toward Peter, I will just keep eating it until it’s gone.
Ellie gets her peanut butter for her share of the stale crackers from that jar. We have shared a lot of late-night snacks over the past year. I am having couple of crackers as I write this missive. Yes, they are a bit punky. They are also perfectly acceptable feeding fodder for my dog and me. We are not high-end.
I am now committed to picking up some new clothespins. Ellie will appreciate more of a crunch with her peanut butter treats, and I’ll be completely on my game with fresh crackers the next time I wade into a can of old sardines.
Tim Cotton
(Copyright April 2021)
**Thanks for stopping by the page to check out the newslog, thanks for all the support in the coffee supply, and thank you for the notes and emails. I read every single one of them, I cannot always respond. Trust me when I tell you that it means a lot to hear from each and every one of you.
Thank you for those of you who have pre-ordered my new book, as well.
Tim
Just The Right Size
My sixties-inspired raised ranch has limited closet space; the designer had more minimalistic homeowners in mind during the building phase. It’s not so much that I don’t have enough closets, it’s just that the closets that I do have are too small.
The coat closet— and there is only one near the entry door—would better serve just two humans who live closer to the equator. We make do through the use of storage bins that we juggle seasonally.
There is one closet that defies the home’s design concept of less is less. In that closet, there is a bit of extra space just off to the left. I would refer to the area as a cubbyhole.
Is that still an acceptable moniker? No cubbies have ever been in the closet, and I would never support a person who thought stuffing cubbies was a good idea. Cubbies deserve better than to be jammed into a hole.
In that space sat a tiny wooden rocking chair. The child-sized sitting utensil was placed right on top of some old hunting coats and canvas pants that no longer fit the original purchaser. The cumbersome way that it teetered there—idle and poorly stored— had been frustrating to me each time I tried to dig through the closet to find something that was probably never placed there in the first place.
Hey, I misplace things. True Story.
In that closet are a couple of old computer boxes that I shouldn’t keep, a printer that no longer works, and a few odds and ends that I surmise were stored there by my significant other. I know better than to toss them out.
I can see a baseball glove way in the back—it belonged to my son— and there is also a plastic bag full of clothing that I should have delivered to the local recycling center a couple of sizes ago.
The area between the rungs of the chair is far too small to feng shui boxes into the voids and spaces. The arms and straight wooden back would never cozy up— fittingly— to the odd shape of the closet. The tiny chair has struck me in the head more times than I can count.
Sure, I forcefully wedged it back into the space, and as soon as I felt confident that it was finally secure, it always seemed to fall back toward me. There has been much time wasted trying to prop things against the chair to keep it in place.
Whenever I mentioned my displeasure with the tiny rocking chair to my significant other—using a grouchy voice with a distinct inflection of frustration (added in the aftermarket)—she would advise me to leave it. Her grandfather gave her the chair, and while she hasn’t used it for well over fifty years, it will always be just the right size.
A tiny rocking chair cannot be stored in a way that allows it to sit level no matter which way you push it back into the cubbyhole. The radius on the rocker rails will not allow proper storage in any location other than sitting level on a floor; I surmise that is where it is supposed to be.
I can’t write about the chair in the same way that she thinks of the chair, but I know that there is a sweet undertone to her words when she tells me to leave it be, and that sweet undertone is a dangerous place for me to meddle.
When my boy was a child, he used the chair. He would rock, read, and play with a Matchbox car. He never sat in the chair for long, but it’s not the type of chair that demands child to be relaxed. This chair is designed to move, even if only— slightly— when occupied. It certainly doesn’t belong stuffed into a closet. Not by me. I have a proven track record of failure.
When my granddaughter arrived a couple of years ago, I had no idea how much relief she had brought along with her. Certainly, the chair needed to be pulled out from the closet and placed on a level floor. My time spent digging for things that are not there is not entirely over. But the chair was finally out of the cubbyhole, and, in more ways than one, it was no longer a point of contention or conversation. I have found that the chair gives me far more pleasure while it sits idle on a level floor.
Sure, it would be much better if always filled with ants-in-the-pants wonder and inquisitiveness, but that’s impossible. Someday, I’ll take a few moments to explain to the little girl that it was only her arrival that allowed the tiny chair to be stored properly.
Now that the chair has been freed from the cramped cubbyhole, I must agree that it is just the right size.
TC
Thanks for subscribing the newslog, thanks for your support, and make sure to pre-order my new book—”Got Warrants”—at your favorite bookseller. Links are available on this website if your peruse it a bit. My hope is that your week is great. Drop me a line in the comments or at TimCottonWrites@gmail.com.
Tim Cotton
Carry-On, My Wayward Son?
I could have charged the wireless headphones a bit longer, but I didn’t. The Air Pods were fully operational during the early morning flight out of Pittsburgh, but they gave out soon after I landed in Charlotte, North Carolina. I could have taken an opportunity to pull out a pair of wired headphones that I carry as spares, but I didn’t feel like digging into the bottom of my carry-on gear bag.
I didn’t want to slow down the progress of finding my next gate, so I kept moving along. Whenever I am at an unfamiliar airport, no matter how much time I have between flights, I first try to find the gate from whence I will depart. When your final destination is a tiny town on the far edge of the continent, they don’t send you home on a big jet from the large terminal; that’s a fact. You are relegated to the far reaches of the rambling buildings to wait for the value-sized airplane options.
The rectangular plastic case that recharges the tiny headphones appeared to have enough residual juice to give the pods the boost that would be needed to get me through the upcoming flight back into Bangor International. I put the miraculous miniaturized melodious devices to bed in their minuscule compartments, shut the lid, and then threw them back into my pocket. I wanted them to wake up— refreshed— after a couple of hours while their owner wandered and wondered. I found my gate, and then I went back into the larger terminal to find a cup of coffee and a spot to stare.
After jockeying myself into a crevice between a huge janitorial cart and one of the big trash cans that open up electronically when beckoned by the garbage-filled hand of a human, I leaned against a sun-warmed plate glass window. My spot was wide enough for only one body, and I certainly filled it to capacity. The coffee was remarkably good.
I wanted the space to be comfortable but not large enough to invite the invasion of another weary traveler with a penchant for leaning and observing. I crossed my fingers, hopeful that the janitors had completed their tasks or that they were on a long lunch break in another distant area of the terminal. My comfortable cocoon was dependent on keeping the cart stationary as it was my northern boundary; I crossed my fingers that the lazy leaning upended mops would have the capacity to cover my six.
The impromptu observation post was located at an exit—and an entry— of two of the moving walkways that allow humans to pose as George Jetson when he is delivered from his flying car to his desk during the opening credits from the Saturday morning cartoon. Moving walkways allow you to walk— or stand— and still make pretty good time as you are delivered to the future. The theme song for the Jetsons played in my head (just like it is playing in yours). Soon, the steady hum coming from beneath the conveyer of citizenry washed away the jazzy brass-centric ditty, and I began to listen to the resonations from the terminal.
Without the headphones plugged into my ear pans, I focused on the sound of the hundreds of various-sized plastic wheels rolling—sometimes skidding— across the floor of the impressively clean and grit-free concourse. To my right, I could hear the oncoming rollers clickity-clacking their way toward me on the moving corduroy-steel walkway. Thip, thip, thip, screech, drag, and repeat. The parade had no beginning and no end.
Soon, I began to focus on the retreating sounds of other wheeled and weary warriors as they wrestled with the worry that they might miss a flight. I have felt their worry, and I sensed the whispering voices belting out a ballad of angst inside of their heads as they sought to locate the gate that flaunted their flight number. Some moved faster than others, and some lugged their gear at a snail’s pace. The latter were either early or, possibly, just confident in their necessary terminal velocity.
The sun was warm on my back as I tried to mix—only in my mind— the master track of the hundreds of wheels rolling to and from their destinations. Focusing on specific singular sounds allows the mental elimination of so many others. I blocked out the mobile conversations, the announcements, and the pleasant warnings on how we should avoid becoming the caretaker of someone else’s luggage. Thumping, clicking, and ticking created a cadence broken only by the sound of an occasional wheel with a flat spot—or a bad bearing— skidding along through the terminal.
Spellbound by the inbound and outbound sounds of people moving their belongings to unknown destinations kept me entertained for well over forty-five minutes. It was enough time to watch the line dissipate at the taco take-out joint located just a short jaunt across the concrete divide. I broke down and checked the reviews for this taqueria on Yelp. While searching, my mind drifted to inner-voice mode and it mentioned that the name—Yelp—rhymed with help, and for a moment I considered that “Help” might be a better choice for a moniker. I reconsidered dropping them a note due to the fact that I read somewhere that the developer is a millionaire, and I am not. Yelp works just fine
I ciphered time-to-flight calculations using old math, an analog watch, and one finger to scroll through two-star reviews. This led me to make the scientifically informed decision to wait until I got back to Bangor to eat less than appealing foods in the comfort of my own home.
It was apparent from my scan of Internet opinions that the guacamole— hidden within the walls of the faux stucco exterior— could make a rough flight far less than tolerable.
My headphones had recharged enough to return to my music. Un-played tunes remained on the download of my eclectic blend when the pitifully powered pods pooched out and thus were preempted by the clattering cacophony of rolling plastic wheels and the unknown voices from speakers echoing invisibly in the rafters above.
My electronic mix-tape of Bruce Hornsby, Van Morrison, The Eagles, Lou Rawls, Thomas Rhett, and James Taylor blocked out the world around me from that point on. I sauntered down the concrete causeway toward my gate. I was relieved that I skipped the tacos.
It was clear that I would arrive at my gate in plenty of time for random ruminations, and I was more than pleased that the enhanced noise-canceling capabilities of the rejuvenated headphones kept the sound of my own wheels from driving me crazy.
Take it easy.
Tim Cotton
(Copyright Tim Cotton April 2021)
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TC