Ranting McRanterson

Ranting mcranterson….

Why do shitheads throw cigarette butts out their car windows? Why the fuck do shitheads who smoke leave their windows down to smoke? If you like smoke so damn much, keep it inside. And stop throwing butts on the ground in this hot, windy, dry weather. You’re going to cause a fire. And you … N.C. fire department license plate in front of me on N.C. 58 today outside of Emerald Isle … Fuck you for doing it. I hope you’re beach house catches on fire. Ok, I don’t really, but damn, you’re a fucking hypocrite.

To the bitch with the stringy blonde hair and the awful, awful, awful, ill-fitting dress at the unmentionable place today … Go Fuck You. If you want someone to do something – even when you hate their guts because they cuss, wear shorts and call you on your bullshit – ask nicely. It actually works.

To the drunk ass rednecks coming out of the shag bar across the street from my house. Shut up. You’re over 50. You shouldn’t be going “Wooooooooooooooo” in public anymore. Ok, you can do that, but do it less than you’re doing now.

Oh, and the bitch in the red Camaro… stop hitting my God damn mailbox. You need to get busted for a DUI. Drink, dance, then drive. Yeah, smart combo. Bitch.

Hey, guy who drives around Jacksonville with the giant, tattered Confederate flag. Stop it. You’re racism is showing. And to the guy who has the giant truck with the huge smokestack things, you stop it too. I don’t want to breathe all that fucking crap.

All the people – including my best friend – who posted pictures of the temperature either in their car, outside of their car, outside their office, or outside their apartments/houses today on facebook and twitter – I DON’T CARE. It’s 95 degrees INSIDE my house right now. I’m poor. That’s one of the ways I save money. But not foolishly cooling my house that I spend maybe six or seven hours a day in. Just ain’t worth it. I’d rather buy good beer.

Why do the grocery stores on the island close at midnight? It’s the summer. The tourists are here. Shouldn’t you be serving them? That way I don’t have to buy beer 30 minutes from my house and it gets hot before I get home.

And fuck you laws. I should be able to drink ONE beer while driving that distance. It will distract me no more or less, or make me no less or more of a driver (or writer) than a Monster energy drink or texting while driving.

The chicken in my fridge that went bad. Fuck you. I paid good money for you. And you spoiled. Yeah, it was my fault for not cooking you sooner, but shit, I really wanted to eat chicken last night.

And to my memory. Fuck you. I left my meal in the fridge and went out and spent 9 bucks on a meal. Dumb ass.

To the members of KISS. Eat shit. You aren’t KISS without Peter and Ace. And dressing up like you are Peter and Ace? Fuck off Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer. Fuck the fuck off.

To the NOLA Media Group. Eat shit. Those job descriptions you put out kept me from applying with your company. I know typing this means you’ll never hire me, even when your plan fails and you either go out of business and it won’t matter, or you go back to what worked. My new CEO says newspapers – the print part – actually has a future. I have no idea what he considers “a future” to be. A year? Ten years? One hundred years? But he spent a whole lot of money to prove it. But still less than your profits from the T-P last year.

Toby Keith fans. Eat shit.

Same for you, Brooks and Dunn or the song Mr. Roboto.

To me, for picking on that kid Ke-ho back in grade school. I was such a dick head.

To me, again, for spelling motherfucker mother fucker to make it two words instead of one.

To my teeth. Eat my ass. To me for the last 20 years, eat double my ass for not getting them fixed before it was too late.

Electronic dart machines in bars? Fuck you.

Internet jukeboxes that allow people to play anything by Slipknot or Stone Temple Pilots. Die in a fire.

The guy who dumped all the waste in the alley between my house and the hotel…I hope bats shit in your mouth tonight and you contract rabies. And I don’t even know if you can get rabies that way. Probably not. Maybe though?

To the people who talk to me in the bathroom. I don’t want to talk to you. I’m peeing or pooping. And yes, I called the shit poop, Adam Sandler. It creeps me out. And today, to the photog that did it, there was a guy taking a shit in there, and it smelled. Why the fuck did you stop me from leaving to ask me about 401Ks?

Lastly, to money. I’ve been bad to you all these years, and you in return have been bad to me. Let’s call a truce and forget about it…Asshat.

at least i wrote over 750 words ...

You know it’s bad when you struggle to cook.

It’s too damn windy out to be productive. Especially when it’s 89 degrees and humid inside the house. I rush to make four burgers, two for tonight, two for tomorrow and some broccoli. I know I’m rushing. I have to get up at 6:45 in the morning to go to work by 8:30. What the fuck is that? Then, I’ll be there until 11. Why do I do this to myself? Is meeting this guy worth it?

But, I want to eat. And eat well tonight, so I’m cooking on the grill. That adds at least an hour to prepare time. But, I soldier on. The bugs are flying inside since I opened up the door. It’s a compromise.

I sometimes wish I had a dog. But, then I’d have to keep the air conditioning on all the time so the dog didn’t burn up. Tradeoffs.

My car needs to be inspected. It needs new brake pads. Probably needs a new timing belt. But, I’m hoping that last one is just me being paranoid. But, I am usually right about such things.

A former colleague finished his book, I hear. I’m jealous. I can’t seem to get started on one. I have ideas, but no focus. I feel like I’m always on acid. Amazed by what’s going on inside and outside of my mind, but completely unable to focus. I have no idea if that’s what being on acid is like.

My nipples are raw. I wore a new shirt to work today it the damn thing rubbed on them all day and night. I kept looking at my erect nipples and wondering what the rest of the office was thinking. I do that.

The janitor was working today. Funny to see that.

Eating tacos is fun.

Eating tacos is great.

I don’t eat enough tacos.

There’s a giant pile of gravel in the alley between my house and the hotel now. The caretaker was shoveling that shit into the alley all morning. When I was trying to sleep. I almost was going to just hook my speakers up to my computer, find the worst bit of tranny on tranny porn that I could find and blast it out the window. I’d say that’s fair. Now I’m going to have all these dug up bugs scampering about my house due to this new pile of rubble and shit. And the giant hotel sign is gone. I wonder what he did with it? I do now know that a giant pile of bricks was behind it. I wonder if that’s where the feral cats were always fucking?

I still want a taco. But instead I’m cooking hamburgers. Three the normal way – Montreal seasoning and worstershire sauce – the fourth with those and some Crawfish seasoning. It’ll be interesting.

My foot itches. It actually feels like something is crawling on top of it and biting it. I’m wondering if I have ants. I don’t want to look because ants piss me off. And it would be the fault of the fucker dumping shit in the alley. It’s right near where I am right now. So, yes, I would blame that fucker with the ugly ponytail. I wonder to myself how many people called me the fucker with the ugly ponytail when I lived in Tempe?

I spilled a beer on my couch and carpet three nights ago. I didn’t clean it up. It still smells like beer in here. Maybe that’s where the ants are coming from? Spilt beer on the couch. That would not make a good band name.

I officially put out the invite for the Crawfish get together. I wonder if more than the 11 or so what showed up last year will show up this year. I know some will not, some will. All I can do is drink my Lone Star beer, cook the crawfish and see what happens. Sounds like a God damn good plan.

It amazes me the lengths some people will go just to snark. I used to be like that. And sometimes still am. It bothers me now. Is that a sign of growing old or just getting tired? Hell, I ain’t Don Rickles.

Somewhere right now, Adam Sandler is thinking about Bog Saget. Or maybe, John Lyndon is having sex. Still another possibility is Jose Canseco staring at himself in the mirror while trying to figure out why the Iron Sheik doesn’t like him.

Well, at least I wrote more than 750 words.

Slim Whitman

Driving down NC-58, I was blasting music loudly like I always do. Waving at all the tourists who turn their blinkers on, brake, then don’t turn. And by waving I mean flipping them off, casually. I think Chris Penn would be impressed.

I notice tonight that a lot of lights are out. The weather wasn’t bad today, so it wasn’t some wind-related thing. Then I start to wonder if that extremely loud helicopter that buzzed over my house as I was dozing in and out of sleep this morning actually did crash somewhere near. I thought I heard a faint rumble a few seconds after it buzzed over, but thought nothing of it after I went to work and there was not a mention of such an occurrence. Of course, working for a newspaper now, and something being missed isn’t exactly newsworthy. But this shit would have been everywhere, right?

A little further up, I spot a bunch of police lights. It’s not a drunk check point, it’s a freaking Wednesday night nowhere near a holiday. The hotels here aren’t close to booked solid and the price of gas is falling.

But instead of wanting to deal with it, I turn down a side street. I know these streets go through in this area, and I don’t feel like dealing with whatever it is up ahead. As I turn down the main beach road, Jello Biafra starts singing about his inability to have intercourse while inebriated, and I turn it up.

I guess that was my mistake.

Three seconds later, police lights are flashing and a cruiser is speeding up towards my bumper. I’m like a deer in headlights when that starts to happen. My mind starts to process all the shitty things I think about cops and what they do when they pull you over. But, I click the radio to “Off” and pull over.

The cop takes his time getting out of the car. I always wonder if they’re just finishing off a coffee or maybe a last text message to their Lea Thompson (oh, yeah, two “The Wild Life” references in less than 400 words!) sexpot sitting in a donut shop. I know it can’t take that long anymore to do a quick search of a license plate. It’s all digital now, it must take five seconds. I guess they still want that fear factoring into what comes next – the questioning.

Finally, the guy gets out of his car. I watch him amble up in my mirror. I’ve already got my license and registration ready. I’m sure he saw me doing that.

“Hello, sir,” the officer says, shining his phallic light saber into my eyes. “Exactly what are we doing on this road so late at night.”

So late at night? I think to myself. It’s 11, 11:20 at the latest.

“Driving home from work,” I say. It’s the answer I always give these guys. I start to wish I had my “Stay out of Malibu!” shirt on. Seems fitting.

“Where you working so late?”

There is that so late, thing again. This time I decide to take the bait.

“It’s really not that late, sir,” I say. Before the rrr of sir is done rolling off my tongue, the sass starts to flow.

“Son, are you getting smart with me?”

“Not at all,” I reply.

“Well, it certainly sounds like you are. Will you just answer my question, without any lip?”

“Sure, I, uh, I work for a newspaper. We keep strange hours, compared to the rest of the world.”

“What do you mean, the rest of the world?”

I was starting to feel a bit pissed. I could feel my neck getting numb from the blood rushing to my forehead and not anywhere else. My hands clamped around the steering wheel.

“Um, non-newspaper folk?” I said. “Like you.”

“I’m out here every night,” the cop says.

“You work seven nights a week?” I reply, and instantly regret it. I see him grabbed his flashlight tight. I speak again to try and soothe that one over.

“I probably pass you each night too, then,” I say. “I usually give you guys a little salute, and I always turn my brights off as I approach.”

“So, you work seven nights a week?” he said smart-assedly. I liked his attempt.

“You get a paper every day don’t ya?”

“Nope. I hate the news.”

“Dully noted,” I reply. “Well, your dad, he got the paper every day, right?”

“Yes.”

“Even on Christmas.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, that’s because people like me don’t mind working all these crazy hours. Being out real late at night and all.”

“Listen, smart ass,” the cop finally broke my roll. Well, my sorta roll. “I pulled you over because I was just sitting here, eating my Chicken McNuggets, when I hear all this fuck, this, fuck this, fuck this coming from your car.”

“Yeah, it was a little loud, sorry.”

“Who was that anyways?” he asked.

“The Dead Kennedys.” I answered.

“Fuck, those guys hate the police. Even more than those, um, that rap group,” he spit out in full on hate voice.

“N.W.A.?”

“Yeah, them, them, them…”

“Rappers?”

“You getting’ smart-allecky with me ‘gain?”

“No sir.”

“Best not be.”

I looked at his badge. It had the name Ipock on it. A damn common name in these here parts, to use the parlance of our locale.

“You can go,” he finally said. “Just keep that noise down.”

“You got it,” I said, starting up the car. Jello sort of smirked at me in low decibels when I turned the radio back on. “Tonight’s the night that we beat up drunks!”

I got back on the main road and saw all the news trucks there now. All the television stations were there doing live shots for the 11 p.m. news. I pulled over.

“Move along sir,” a baby-faced cop said to me. I pulled out my press pass that I’d never used for any press activities except getting back on the island after hurricanes. I flashed it at the cop, hoping he’d not read too much and see that it said “correspondent” on it.

“Oh, okay,” the guy said and walked away. I always find it disconcerting how easy it is to just show a laminated pass that says “Press” and people just let you do what you want. If I had no scruples, I’d really take advantage of it. Especially with the press dying off and pretty soon, that kind of privilege. Instead, I just put it back in my wallet where it will stay, most likely, for months.

I walk over to the way over dressed for this 102 degree heat blonde. She’s not too smart, and other than her body, not too good looking. But she’s got something, I can’t quite place it. Maybe it’s the Brittany Spears eyes?

“What’s the big hullabaloo?” I ask her.

“The hulla-what?” she responds. I hear a chuckle from behind. It’s Lars, a cameraman who I used to see quite often in the old sports reporting days. He walks over and shakes my hand.

“Damn if a helicopter didn’t crash here this morning,” Lars says. “And no one heard it or knew anything about it.”

“I heard it,” I say.

“Sure you did. And we’ll read all about it in the paper, right? You just held on to this little nugget?”

“Nah, it woke me up this morning. Heard the damn thing fly over my house. Way too low, too. And I thought I heard a big thud, but then I went back to sleep.”

“Back to sleep?” the blonde shrieked. “What kind of a journalist are you?”

“One that knew this was exactly what would happen, hun,” I said.

I had gone into the office and told my editor about what I heard.

“OK,” she said, looking at her computer and her phone. Twitter was on both of them.

I guess a press release never came. Or it came at 7, 8, 9 or 10 o’clock. Way past her bed time.

I got out my notebook and got to work.

At 11:32 I had a story written. I called the newsroom. Only the old-timer was still there.

“J.B.,” I said into the phone. “Can you take a story from me. Old school style. Dictation?”

“Paper’s in bed,” he replied.

“Fuck, you J.B.,” this is big.

“Quack,” he said. He always quacked when he got annoyed. He took my story. Re-did the front, with the story on it. 11 inches of copy. One really bad cell phone camera image of a chopper blade stuck in a dolphin statue. I noticed it when I interviewed an emergency worker. It was off the beaten path, and I hoped no one else saw it. Damn good image.

At midnight, I got back in my car and called my editor.

“Enjoy the front page today,” I said. “Something happened yesterday. I think someone told you about it.”

I knew she’d yell at me in the morning. And it was fucking worth it. Just like it always is. Pissing off the lazy editors in front of you, taking up comfortable seats and collecting six-figure salaries to do rice-bowl worthy efforts.

I drove down the road a ways. I pulled out my CD wallet. Yeah, I still have a CD wallet. Fuck an I-pod. I pulled out the disc I was searching for.

“You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge!”

Seven minutes later, I was talking to another friend of mine who works for the county – Officer Billiken.

Next time, I think I’ll just play some Slim Whitman.

toll booth guy

“Well, I got a job,” I said to my wife when she got home from her job as a nurse.

“Doing what?” she asked excitedly. I had been pretty much living on the couch for the past 11 months. I did write a book, one that a published called “God damn bad,” so it wasn’t a complete waste of a year. So I understood her excitement. I’d be getting off the couch.

“Toll booth,” I said.

“You got a job as a toll booth?” she smiled and punched me on the shoulder.

“Yep, the worst part is having that guy sit inside of me all day. But the bosses tell me you get used to it.”

I went to sleep that night after a nice bit of celebratory sex, including a nice blow job beginning, wondering why the fuck I was going to be going to work as a toll booth operator. I had two degrees from institutes of higher learning, was a pretty intelligent chap, and didn’t really want to work in a toll booth.

It didn’t really take me long to figure it out. Yeah, I could have blamed it on my being lazy. And that would be a good reason. I could blame it on the death of newspapers, and journalism in general, as a profession. Too easy, and you factor in the lazy part, and it becomes not the issue.

No, really it came down to one thing. I was a toll both operator because my last boss walked in on my sticking a hammer up by butt. Yep. I did it. And thankfully, I had a condom on the hammer, because you never know where those things have been before your hand. You really can’t explain your way out of “my boss just walked in on me shoving a hammer up my butt in the office” now can you? So, I simply pulled the hammer out of my butt, turned my computer off and walked out the side door of the office. He didn’t say a word, I didn’t say a word, although I’m sure many words were spoken after I exited.

Anyway, now that you are paying attention again, I, in best Zack Morris style, will get on with the true story.

I was a toll booth operator, collector, what have you because it sounded like a fun job. I mean, it’s like working at a supermarket or a Target store. You take money from someone and give them change and receipts if needed. But you get to see people at the strangest, I figured. And hell, you never know who you’d meet.

When I told the guy who would soon be my boss that I was considering writing a book about my experiences as a toll booth guy, he shrugged.

“Don’t know why anyone would want to read a book about a guy sitting in a box all day, taking coins from strangers,” he said looking me in the eye. “Would you read that book?”

I thought for a moment. I knew he was right, but was the embellishing of the day-to-day monotony that would make it great.

“How about a screen play then?” I replied. “I mean, I saw a movie about parking lot attendants, why not toll booth guys?”

“It’s your life, Jones,” he said. “By your cover letter – and you were one of three people who had cover letters that applied – I can tell you can write some. Hell, the only reason I called you was because of that cover letter, so maybe you know something I don’t. But dammit, I don’t want you writing while you are in the booth.”

“So I’m hired?” I said with a smirk.

“Of course you’re hired, Jones,” Mr. Latham, my new boss said.

I got fitted for my toll booth uniform that day. It was grey. Sort of like a mechanic’s outfit. It even had a spot for a name tag.

“Are we getting a patch to go here?” I asked.

“God dammit, Jones,” Latham yelled. “Of course not. Do you want everyone to know your name when you’re in that booth?”

“Good point,” I said. “It might lead to a conversation. And that would disrupt traffic flows.”

“God damn right it would,” Latham said. I began to think that maybe he was regretting hiring me.

I started to daydream about who I might meet. These toll booths were brand spanking new, so no one would have the foresight to avoid them yet. So everyone driving that I-95 corridor from Florida to New York City would pass through.

I envisioned seeing Miley Cyrus cruise through my lane in her supped up Dodge Charger. Or maybe Roy Williams going from one recruiting visit to another. Maybe Johnny Depp would go by in his limo, leaving me a tip.

It seemed the possibilities were endless.

But, it turned out, my dreams were spot on. You could see anyone. And that first day, in fact, the first person to drive through my lane was an old boss of mine.

“Well, well, well,” McSorlip said to me as he pulled up. “I see you’ve really gotten places in life, Jones.”

“Yep,” I said. “And I didn’t have to fuck with my integrity to do it, either.” I smiled and pushed the button that brings the green light up.

“Move on now,” I said as McSorlip was looking at me and trying to come up with something to say. “There’s plenty of cars waiting to get through.”

The next eight hours were a blur. Face after face. Most of them not looking at you at all, just sticking the dollar bill out the door and yanking their hand back as fast as possible.

I had talked to an old timer who was brought in from New Jersey to train us. He said that the rush hour shifts were the best to see things. Women going from work, trying to change clothes or whatever. They always showed a little skin for ya.

I didn’t see any of that. I did see a guy pick his nose with the dollar in the hand he was picking with. Then he wiped it on the dollar and handed it to me.

Another fine citizen handed me a $1 bill and then honked at me. “Hey buddy, I gave you a ten!” he yelled. “Nope, you gave me a one, sir,” here’s the photo of it. I pushed a button and a flip screen tv popped up, with the man’s hand holding a George Washington clearly showing.

“Well, guess you were right,” he said, speeding off.

At some point I realized I had to pee. I’d been drinking Country Time lemonades all morning, and was about to burst. I knew that we were awarded bonuses on not taking breaks, because “An open lane keeps the traffic flowing”, Latham would always say. So I gritted it out. Finally, at the 8 hour mark, my light turned red and traffic stopped coming to me. I ran out and went straight to the “shack”, the tiny office where we had vending machines and a fridge. I had never noticed, but there was just one bathroom, and a line was in front of it.

“First day pee?” the old timer said to me.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Get a bottle next time. You get pretty good at holding it in one hand, and taking money with the other. Just have to hope they don’t need change.”

thoughts, and where they lead...

I want a moment with my ex like the ending of the first episode of “The Newsroom”. I know it’s not going to happen, but, I’d still like that moment.

“What are your plans for my Emily?” her uncle said to me in Colorado.

“I don’t have any plans for her. I’m just trying to be there for her,” was my answer.

He grabbed my shoulder and looked me in the eyes. “Just don’t hurt her,” he said.

“Never,” I said with a smile.

She never heard that conversation. I never told her about it.

And I hadn’t really thought about it until right now. Especially the ending part.

And now I wish I hadn’t thought about it at all.

I want so much to believe in the Hollywood ending. The epiphany will come. Even if it takes years. But life isn’t like that for most of us. We bounce into people’s lives and it works or it doesn’t. For whatever reason, some get it right the first time. Some get it right after 100 tries. Some never do.

I hope that I’m not one of the latter. I’d hate to think that really, she was the one, and I let her go. Or she let me go.

The old cliché that if you let someone go, if they come back blah, blah, blah.

Fuck that shit. And fuck the keep trying. Fuck it. It’s all lies. We all fuck each other over. Some can just deal with it better than others.

And fuck that. I don’t want to be so God damn bitter. But I am. And I only have myself to blame. And damn you The Darkness for making that phrase always be in Justin Hawkins’ voice. No matter what the context. Welcome to my fucked up mind.

But that holds true for it all. You are what you perceive. Your reality is only what you perceive it to be. It’s so damn simple, and I’d guess so damn true.

I was thinking of writing about my father’s Members Only jacket tonight. About maybe putting it one after he dies. But I don’t want to think about my dad being dead. As much as we’ve fucking hated each other over the years – and dammit, I think he’s hated me at times too – I still love that fucking drunk bastard. I still want so much to make him proud of me. And I know my time is limited on that front. His health is bad, but damn, he keeps drinking. He keeps being bitter about things. And every day I see how much like him I really am. No matter how much I tried not to be. It’s impossible. Yeah, I don’t berate the one’s I love like he did. But I hide from them as much. And nowadays, they run away when you do that. They don’t stick around.

I wonder often what would have happened if my mom had had the guts to leave. She should have. He was a fucking prick most of the time. At least what I remember. And I don’t remember much, so for it to have made that much of an impression, it must have been a lot.

I still want to incorporate my mom taking that fucking marlin off the wall, hauling it to the front door and chucking it into the bushes into a story one day. Into a screen play. I was on the stairs, peering down through the white wood railings that lead upstairs. Me, a confused and scared little kid wondering why my parents fought so damn much. I know now why. And I always tried to say I’d never do the same things my dad did. Switch jobs for a woman. Give up on my dreams for hers. But, you know what. I always did the exact same thing. Even when I thought I wasn’t. It’s a fucked up world out there. And we’re all a part of it. And no matter, I made the decisions I made. Which either directly or indirectly led to the demise of great things in my life. And as Justin Hawkins will keep singing in my head all night “I’ve only got myself to blame…”

I see it now too. I want so badly to move to Raleigh and just get a job digging ditches or mowing lawns. But, I don’t want to give up on the “life.” Not that the “life” has ever given anything back to me but a couple of plagues on my floor – yeah, I don’t hang them – and a lot of pain – laid off, unrespected, angst-ridden.

I guess that’s why all the old guys were all single. Or divorced in the business. The smart ones got out. The ones that wanted families and lives and happiness. The rest of us, we got old and crusty and bitter.

And our teeth fell out.

Not yet, though.

spiders

I picked up the old crusty shoe from my carport. It had been sitting there ever since I moved in back in 2010. Slowly rotting away, but always there. It was some sort of symbol, I rationalized as I left it there.

Eventually, it became coated in spider webs. So many that every time I watered my flowers, I hosed down that shoe to try and make the webs go away. The shoe would fill up with water, bloat and slowly leak the water out from the lace holes and from a giant hole in the sole of the shoe – the reason I stopped wearing them years before.

But the flood of the shoe never got the spiders to go away. Sometimes they’d scamper out and walk around on the cement near the shoe, trying their best to stay out of the water. Other times they’d just stay on the shoe, walking around on the top of it. There were big spiders and little spiders. I’m assuming they were all related in whatever way spider families are. Maybe they argued. Maybe they shared a fly for dinner. Maybe they wanted to kill each other. Whatever it was, it happens.

Today, I did the same routine. I had just finished digging up a bunch of weeds and gigantic pieces of grass that were engulfing the three daisy plants that my girlfriend planted for me on my birthday in April. They’ve already bloomed twice, and it’s always a nice feeling to see the big white petals and yellow centers of those flowers. But, because of where they were planted, I haven’t been able to mow that part of the lawn, and it was becoming a jungle. And soon, the jungle would overtake the still small daisy plants. About two hours I spent pulling up weeds, grass and any other green plant that was invading the patch reserved for the daisies. I saw many bugs, mostly earwigs and baby crickets. Baby crickets, by the way, are extremely cool to watch. And there were a lot of them to watch.

A few spiders – black ones with huge claws – scurried about too. None of them like the ones that have taken up residence in my old size 12.5 Samba Classics. I would sho them away with the mini shovel, wait aren’t they called garden shovels? No need to kill them, they provide a service, killing the ants and other bugs that attempt to come into my house. Only when they come in the house do I kill spiders. I really just have a huge hang up about spiders crawling in my mouth or on my body while I sleep. Ask any girlfriend and she’ll have at least one experience of me waking up in a fright, sometimes throwing pillows at things or jumping out of bed flicking what I believe to be bugs off of my body. I guess it could be an early sign of some kind of mental issue, or, I just don’t like fucking spiders.

That, of course, would go back to my childhood. I used to not be scared of them. I’d let daddy longlegs walk on my arms and watch them. I’d stare at big spiders that would build webs across our front stoop late at night because my dad never turned the freaking porch light off. Still doesn’t. Of course, he leaves the television on 24 hours a day now too. Me, I rarely turn my own any more. It’s only good for VHS tapes and DVS anyway. Old hand-me-down televisons just aren’t useful anymore since the forced switch of the “public” airwaves to digital.

Anyway, one day I was climbing the giant Magnolia tree on the side of our house. I used to climb it all the time. The branches were nicely spaced out – and plentiful – all the way to the top. And as a kid, it was a perfect diversion/hiding place.

On this particular day, either in the summer or on the weekend – I was home and not at school, so I’m guessing this is correct – we were having our house painted. I remember the guy, he was wearing blue striped overalls and a blue painter’s cap. He had a mustache, I believe, and a red handkerchief.

I was in the tree, probably thinking about being in some imaginary war or some kind of secret spying mission against the Russians, when a spider waked across my hand. It was huge and scared the crap out of me. I took my other hand and flicked it – fast and hard – to get rid of the monstrosity. Only problem, of course, was the fact that I now was no longer holding on to a branch. The fall was sudden, and full of clunks against branches all the way down. Luckily, I was in a Magnolia tree and it had all those branches. I was well over two stories in the air, nearly at the very top of our house’s chimney when I fell.

I don’t remember much after letting go and falling.

I was told the painter heard me scream and turned in time to see me hit the ground. He rushed over and checked on me. Other than a few bruises, I was actually fine. But scared out of my mind. He tried to calm me down, and by now  my mom had come rushing outside.

She grabbed me, and probably thought horrible thoughts about the painter for a moment.

“What is it Randy?” she asked repeatedly.

I was crying by now. It’s a natural reaction of a kid. Something bad happens, and mom shows up. Time for the waterworks. Eventually, I said I fell from the tree. And something about a spider.

My mom thanked the painter and he went back to work. I went inside and don’t remember anything else about that day.

I do know that I never liked spiders again. And still don’t. I used to kill them all. No questions asked. Then slowly, I developed a little bit of a truce with them.

Until one day a girlfriend – who no longer thinks of me, or that day probably – was bitten by a brown recluse. She got the ugly wound, the rot, the puss. And I was angered by spiders again. Killing them wantonly.

Eventually, the wound healed. But she would dump me.

In my stuff that I moved back, months later, I noticed webs. I poked open the box of pretty valuable video game stuff and saw webs, everywhere. And a bunch of dead insects. This box hadn’t been touched by me other than to  move it from North Carolina to Florida, and then move it back to North Carolina from Florida in the last four years. It had been sitting in a corner, in my bedroom of all places, ever since I got back from Gainesville that last time.

I freaked and threw the box against a wall.  The spider came out. He was huge. He was a brown recluse. He’d been living in my room for almost a year now, feeding on whatever bugs came in. Luckily, it seemed from the carcasses in his/her web, they were plentiful. Crickets and grasshoppers and roaches and the worst – camel crickets, the bastards that jump everywhere – were everywhere. Dead and sucked dry.

I watched the spider walk around my stuff. I grabbed a glass from the kitchen and put it on top of the spider. And I looked at him. I wondered if he was related to the one who bit my ex. I hoped so. After he finally settled down, I picked up the glass, sliding a newspaper under it to keep him inside and walked outside.

I walked a few blocks down to the river and put the glass on the ground, letting him scurry out.

“Good travels, my friend!” I said to the spider as he walked towards downtown. It was my gesture of thanks, for killing all those bugs, and maybe inflicting some pain on someone who inflicted more on me than I think I’ll ever feel again.

I thought about that brown recluse today, when I grabbed the old shoe after flooding it again. A mother spider was holding her egg sack and carrying it around. I carefully took the shoe and put it in a new location – away from me and my bare feet, which is commonplace on the cement of the carport – and happily sent her and her family on their way to a new home.

I’m glad spiders and I get along better now. But I still wake up sometimes in the morning, look around and see a pillow tossed to the other side of the room. And I know it means that maybe, one of them was playing tricks on me last night.