Big Brother

Growing up with an older brother who was not only 7 years older than me and who happened to be one of the best athletes in the area did 2 things to me.

#1-Made me somewhat of an athlete that enjoys playing and watching sports
#2-Scarred me for life!


FOOTBALL-Most brothers would play catch with the football. Go out for some long and short passes.  Not my brother.  We played Special Teams. Specifically Punt Returns. I'd be standing about 25-30 yards away and he's punt the football high in the sky. By the time it came down for me to catch it, he was was running at full speed to nail me.  Also, when we played there was one rule. NO FAIR CATCH. Nice!


BASEBALL-We played a game that some of you will remember called Fast Pitch. You'd play at the school yard with a rubber baseball.  One guy would pitch against the school brick wall which had a spray painted rectangle to act as the strike zone. You'd get hits, or fly/ground out, walk or strike out.  This is how it went with my brother. If he didn't pitch a no-hitter, he'd lose his mind.  So if I got a hit one of 2 things would happen.  He would either say "Game over, I'm done" and walk off or worse, the next pitch after I got a hit would be thrown as hard as he could throw and would be air marked for my leg, arm or ribs. Can you say anger management issues?

BASKETBALL- Most older brothers might play horse or 21 with their much younger brothers but not my big brother.  We'd play one-on-one. He'd play defense as hard as he could. He didn't let me score. I'm not saying this figuratively but literally.  For about 4 years, I didn't score a point on him.  4 YEARS!  So I'm a freshman at Ohio State and playing a casual game of 3 on 3 with some guys but it's not casual for me. I'm playing really hard and scoring a lot.  One guy says "Hey man, relax it's just for fun" in which I replied "You relax, I' haven't scored a point in 4 years!"

HOCKEY-Saved the best for last. My brother was an All- State Hockey Player in Illinois his senior year of high school. So of course, it makes perfect sense to make his 11 year old brother  play goalie in the basement while he fired tennis balls with a real wood hockey stick  from point blank range.(You starting to figure out why I'm so demented?). He would put me in old hockey pants, give me a sawed off plastic hockey stick along with a baseball mitt  and in an attempt to protect me from his slapshots/wristshots, a plastic $3.99 Tony Esposito Goalie mask. I actually wasn't that bad. Then one day he blasts a slap shot from about 15 feet away and it hits me square in the chest.  I drop and cannot breathe. In a panic, he runs over to attend to me. I cannot breathe and this rocket scientist is pumping my legs like a butter churn saying "You better not tell Mom about this" Oh the compassion.

As we got older, I eventually could hold my own with him when we played sports against each other.(Really a weird feeling when I finally beat him in One-on-One Basketball). All this being said, my older brother was a tremendous big brother who would hang out with his brother who was so much younger and always look out for me. I will never ever forget the fact that on Friday nights when he was 18, he would always pick up fast food for me and him on his way home from hanging with his friends knowing I'd be waiting up to see him. Those are the times I remember most which is amazing since I wasn't allowed to fair catch any punts!

Anyone Got An Aspirin?

It's the spring of 1985 at Ohio State, my sophomore year.  A beautiful Saturday afternoon and my buddies and I are playing basketball at our fraternity house hoop court. There's a break in the game and we notice something. Down the street from our fraternity house is another fraternity house. The Phi Delts. They were basically the "IT" house on campus. Every member of their house was either an athlete at Ohio State, on student government or just really popular(picture the OMEGA House from Animal House). These guys grew up to be the Wall Street guys and Politicians that screw the poor so they can get rich. Nice fellas. Well, there's about 7 guys on their roof and they doing something but we really can't tell what they're doing. Then we notice 3 guys operating what looks like a gigantic slingshot. Two guys are on the left and right holding the slingshot and one guy is directly behind it pulling back on it. Well, we see the guy in the middle pull back and let go. We're not sure what they launched but they all starting screaming after whatever they launched hit something. We can now tell they're launching water balloons.  Now they're ready to launch another one. We see them loading the water balloon into the slingshot and they are actually pointed in our direction. We're not too worried because in between their house and our house are 2 small apartment buildings and a halfway house for women. (Basically, really dirty women that have been convicted of lesser crimes such as shoplifting and writing bad checks. Also, date material for some guys in our fraternity house if they were allowed to bring their parole officers) which is right next store to our house. We're talking about almost a block away. Pretty far. The next thing you know, They have launched another water balloon and it's coming right at our house. As this projectile gets closer to us, I yell "INCOMING". Then as if  it had a Military Guidance System on it, the water balloon hits me directly on top of my head. BOOMMM!!! This water balloon explodes on my head. This thing felt like a pineapple made of cement. I can't believe that not only did it not knock me down but that it didn't knock me out. I did get my bell rung and was more than a bit dizzy. My buddies are laughing so hard that I think they were peeing on themselves. The Hitler Youth at the other fraternity house were cheering and screaming not really concerned that they probably could've been charged with attempted murder. I have to admit, if someone else would have been nailed in the head with a water balloon from a block away, I would have laughed my ass off too.

Insert Foot in Mouth Part 2

This posting will be appreciated if you've ever been pregnant, been to the Jewish ceremony called a Bris or been around a total jerk. So the year is 2002 and I'm attending the Bris of one of my closest friend's son. A Bris is a Jewish ceremony where a Jewish baby boy 8 days old gets circumcised by a religious half surgeon/half Kosher butcher in front of his parents, all of their family and friends. It's brutal(especially for the little fella getting his equipment trimmed). Luckily for the baby, they dab a cloth that has wine on it in the baby's mouth to soothe him(basically the kid is drunk when the public surgery is performed). Well, this is not about the Bris but about something I was fortunate to witness at the Bris. Someone saying something unbelievably stupid who wasn't me. After the Bris, which was performed at a synagogue in this case, there is usually food and drinks for the guests.(Stand too close to the ceremony and you won't have an appetite, trust me). So I happen to be sitting at a table with the dad of the Bris Boy and a guy he works with. Well, this guy seemed a little slick. Not to stereotype all sales people(I've been in sales for 25 years so believe me, I don't disparage sales people) but this guy seemed a bit full of himself, kind of loud and kind of obnoxious. Half the time he said something, I would give my friend a look like "Is this gasbag for real?". Well, my friend had to leave to mingle with his other guests so I was left with Mr.Slick. Fortunately another guy sat down next to me who I knew. It was my friend Colin, the brother-in-law of my closest friend from college. Great guy. I introduce him to Mr. Slick. I'm talking with Colin and he's telling me about his work and his wife(Who is the sister of the same close friend from college and knew since she was 18). Colin also told me that his wife was 7 months pregnant. All this time, Mr. Slick is talking the head off of some poor soul sitting next to him not really paying any attention to me or Colin. Next thing you know  Colin's pregnant wife walks over and says hi to me. She immediately got called away from another friend without even acknowledging her husband. She's gone and Mr. Slick says to me and Colin "Hey, pregnancy has really treated that broad right. Did you see the rack on her?" Danny being Danny, I couldn't pass this one up. It was a layup. I say" Actually I didn't but this guy next me might have. Hey Colin did you notice that pregnant woman?" Colin replies "Actually I did" I then say to Mr. Slick,"Oh yeah, I forgot, that pregnant woman is Colin's wife" Mr. Slick turned white. He then said something like "Uh, Uh, I have to leave" and off he went. Colin and I looked at each other and just started laughing. Colin then said "Of all people I know, you are absolutely the perfect person to be here when that idiot made that comment." My good deeds seem to never end.

I Thought The Cab Drivers in Chicago Where Bad

Thanksgiving 2011 and my family is spending it in beautiful Maui, Hawaii. Gorgeous place, Great Weather and nice to be in the United States(Though taking 10 hours by airplane to get there makes its seem like you are not). I won't bore you with the details of my trip such as the Luau we went to( of course, I got pulled up on stage to a Hula Dance), Surfing( A lot harder than I thought it would be) and Boogie Boarding we did(Totally beat the crap out of my body doing that-yes,I'm old). I will tell you about 3 cab rides we had that were nuts. After the 2nd cab ride my oldest daughter said, "Dad, you are going to write about these cab rides aren't you?" So here I go.

Cab Ride #1-We arrive at the Maui airport and need a cab to our resort. The first cab in line has this Asian woman. I've been schlepping 2 huge pieces of luggage through the airport(travel with a wife and 2 teenage daughters. They brought for 1 week enough clothing for a month) and can't wait for someone to help with them. This woman gets out of the cab and she's about 4'5" and 80 lbs. Great. They are now giving driver's licences to 10 year olds. My wife says"Danny, there's no way she can pick up the luggage." I replied, "she probably can't pick up our carry ons".

Cab Ride #2-It's our first night after 10 hours of flying and we're exhausted but needed to go the local grocery store to pick up some beverages and breakfast stuff for our condo. The cab picks us up and the drivers name is Tony.  Tony is a Mid 50's Vietnamese man that speaks English really badly. Luckily we can communicate enough to tell him what store to go to and he also agrees to wait for us until we're done. He tells me to call his cell phone when we're ready and he'll pick us up again. Shopping goes quickly and I call Tony. I tell him we're ready to go and I can barely make out what he's saying back to me. There's screaming in the background. High pitched screaming. I tell my wife "I think the cab driving is beating the shit out of his kids." I wasn't kidding. Tony picks us up and now I hear clearer this screaming again and it's in his cab. It's horrible and I say "Tony, what is that?" I can't even make out Tony's reply. My oldest daughter who is super irritable when overtired says "Dad, look down there"  I look down and there's a portable DVD Player playing some really bad foreign theatrical video.  In the video, there's a woman in some kind of ceremonial outfit dancing like a mental patient and screaming( These are the screams I've been hearing). By the way, this woman also had more facial hair than makeup. I said "Tony, you have to turn this off"(Besides the video being horrendously annoying, I wasn't really thrilled with this guy watching a video while driving my family.) He says in horrible English "It's opera from Vietnam. Good Stuff." I replied "That's great just turn it off" He did and mumbled something that sounded like "Your Ross" (assuming Your Loss)

Cab Ride #3-This cab ride was from our resort to dinner in a small town close by. The driver that picks us up again is a Vietnamese man in his mid-50's name Dip Kouk, doup kok or something like that. For our purposes, I will refer to him as Long Duck Dong.(or the Donger). The Donger speaks English so poorly he makes Tony(Cab Driver #2) sound like Anthony Hopkins. I'm trying to tell him what restaurant we want to go to and every time he replies, I look back at my wife and kids with a look on my face that says "Did you get any of that? I got nothing." As we get on the main drag of this town, he sees a young couple across the street trying to get a cab. The Donger rolls down his window and yells to them "I take you! Pick you up! Stay! Pick you up!" He drives another 100 feet, drops us off and peels off a U Turn that make about 3 cars screech hitting their brakes so hard. We're laughing at this but soon enough we realize the joke is on us. The Donger drop us off about 2 blocks from our restaurant so he could get the other fare. We didn't know where the restaurant was so we assumed he was dropping us off at the restaurant. Thank for the great service Donger.

I Got It! I Got It! .........I Ain't Got it

The year is 1992 and my brother got me tickets to Game 6 of the NBA Championship game between Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls and the Portland Trailblazers. Long story short on the game. The Bulls made an unbelievable 4th quarter comeback to win their 2nd consecutive NBA championship. Amazing game (in the old Chicago Stadium-the place was rockin'!!)that I will never forget. Of course, you're wondering what bizarre thing happened to Danny. Well, my brother was sitting with his wife about 8 rows off the floor but he got me tickets 1st row mezzanine.  Only bad part was the other ticket he got was given to his father-in-law. Not my favorite person but whatever, I was at GAME 6 of the NBA Finals! Most everyone that has been to a sporting event and especially NBA games,  know the fans are entertained every second of the game.  Even during timeouts, they do something goofy(a guy with a trained dog, people in stands doing a contest of some form, etc....) to keep their ADD stricken fans always stimulated. Well, in between the end of the 3rd quarter and beginning of the 4th quarter, a couple of buffoons dressed up like the Blue Brothers come out and do there song/dance shtick. They're dancing around to "Sweet Home Chicago" and they end it with the short fat guy(Jake) on all fours while the tall skinny guy(Elwood) dribbles a basketball, steps on Jake's back and leaps to dunk the basketball. Crowd goes nuts! The PA announcer then says " Some lucky fan will go home with the ball Elwood just dunked. It has been signed by the entire Chicago Bulls Team!" Elwood takes the ball and whirls around once and chucks the ball into the stands. Not just into the stands but in the direction of my section. Our entire section stands up as this ball is coming our way.  Being in the front row, I had the railing separating me and the next section which was about 6 feet below me. The ball is coming directly for me. I'm leaning on the railing as this ball(seemingly in slow motion) is coming right at me. My brother's father-in-law is screaming "Danny, get it!".  With my arms outstretched, I get both my hands on the ball. You'd think that's the end of the story, boring huh? Nope. The second I get my hands on the ball, I got mobbed by what seemed like about a dozen people. I mean it's what it must be like when there's a fumble in a football game.  I got pounced on. Amazingly, I held onto the ball for a long time(long time being about 10 seconds) before the 3rd punch to my throat made me drop the ball.(Playing sports my entire life, I would have normally had no problem catching the ball but my huge mental error was that I didn't take into account that once I touched the ball it would be like an 18 year old's first night in prison)  The ball dropped into the lap of this little chubby 12 year old kid sitting in the last row in the section below me.  What are the odds that this kid who by the looks of what was around his seat(empty popcorn box, empty soda pop cup, empty plate with pizza crust on it-you get the gist) would  have his lap empty just in time for this ball to plop in it?(Guessing this little bastard was taking a breather before he decided on the Nachos or Frosty Malt as his next conquest). Everyone was cheering and thought it was just the greatest that this little boy got this treasured souvenir. I looked back at the mob that attacked me and they all were looking like "Yeah, we punched you in the throat and privates for that ball. Sorry, no hard feelings?" In all honesty, I probably would have done the same to a schmoe near me going for a ball. Well, I did get to see a championship being won  and that I will never forget. Though, I am still trying forget that little nacho eating punk that has my ball!

NEIGHBORS

Everyone has neighbors that annoy, irritate and just down right drive us crazy but not everyone tells the world about them. Let me preface by saying that these people I'm going to tell you about are hard working good people but absolute freaks.

Neighbor #1- Is That a 300 Foot Antenna or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

This is my neighbor directly next to me. Nice quiet family with kids. Well, the father is a Ham Radio enthusiast( so much he has a special license plate that states this-OOH NEAT!). If I'm right, Ham Radio kind of went out of style around 1979 with CB radios and 8 Track Tape Players. About 12 years ago(that would be 1999) my neighbor puts on his roof a 300 foot high antenna for his ham radio. I mean this thing is HUGE! At the time, I called my young daughters to come outside when he and his buddy were putting up this monstrosity and said "Girls, come over her. You may actually see a man fall to his death" Let alone he can talk to people in China, he probably can talk to people on Uranus! (Where I'm guessing he has relatives.)Now with cell phones and the Internet, I can't imagine this guy is using the ham radio that much but you never know. The good news is that my house is safe during storms because the house next to me has the world's largest lightning rod.


Neighbor #2-You Do Follow the Good Book,Don't You?

I will call these neighbors, who live behind me,Stan and Ann. Stan and Ann are very quiet folks with 2 kids. They seem nice(In 16 years don't think I've had a conversation longer than 7 minutes with either of them). Tragically, Stan fell off his roof about 10 years ago(shoveling snow off of it-you'd think that would be something I would do)and had serious head injuries but is alright now(though I think ever since the fall, he thinks he's Richard Nixon). Recently in our town, there has been controversy about literature in the high school that has content that deals with homosexuality. It's gotten people in an uproar. The people that support it(my wife and myself in that group) and super religious folks that are vehemently against it.(These narrow minded homophobes are entitled to their opinions). One day my wife is in our backyard and Ann approaches her.(probably the 1st time in 16 years) and says "Lisa, what do you think about all the stuff going on at the high school with the books?" Lisa, not sure what to say, replied "Ann, I really need to find out more about this before I feel comfortable taking a stance." Nicely played.(My wife definitely has a political future). Ann replies, "Stan and I don't believe in homosexuality." My wife stunned then says without missing a beat "OK,well you have a nice day Ann." At least I know where to get a cross to burn if I need one.


Neighbor #3-"Officer,He Seemed To Keep To Himself"

My across the street neighbors are very clean, very quiet and very STRANGE. Dad is an older guy into working out, has the sports car(he washes by hand twice a week)and works out of his home. Mom is an extremely morose woman(I'd say clinically depressed) that looks like she has major health problems(opposite of husband in terms of being in good physical shape). Their 33 year old son, who looks like the love child of Ted Kaczynski aka the UNIBOMBER and Charles Manson(long hair,goatee and if he was any paler,he'd be see thu), still lives at home and is newly unemployed after working for years at the local BLOCKBUSTER. I see him from time to time leaving his house dressed in full camouflage clothing and carrying what looks like STAR WARS toys. NORMAL!!!. They do have a daughter, who my family fondly calls Marilyn(MUNSTER reference people)because she seems really normal and nice and is the only member of the family that has ever spoken to us in 16 years. Marilyn is married with a baby, lives far away(no doubt on purpose) and we maybe see her once every 3 years. There is always someone up all night in the same room in the house with a dim light on(guessing someone on the computer looking up how to either build a bomb out of snow blower or finding out how long it takes for a body to decompose if you bury it in your basement.) SCARY!

I take solace knowing that most people have neighbors that are a bit off and for the most part these people are harmless.

I cannot wait for the block party!

"Look Out For The ........!!!"

The year is 1979 and I'm a freshman in high school. Since freshman boys are at the bottom of the social food chain ( freshman girls are interested in older guys and older girls, well...forget about it) our socializing for the most part was just hanging out. This meant on a weekend night, we would roam the streets of our town(not old enough to drive) and probably end the night at the local 7-11 playing pinball and eating microwave burritos. What an exciting nightlife. Another thing we would do (mainly if part of the group were juvenile delinquents) would be yell at cars as they pass us to see if they would get mad enough to stop. If they happen to stop, we'd splinter off into smaller groups and run away through people backyards. I know, pathetic but hey, it was our entertainment. So this one night, there's about 12 of us(probably 3-4 guys that would fall under the category of juvenile delinquent) and we are roaming the streets doing nothing. Of course, any cars that drive past us, we yell obscenities and anything else we thought might get a rise out of them. We're walking down a pretty dark street when a car drives by us and continuing our moronic behavior, we give them some yells. ERRRRRHHH!!!!!  The car stops on a dime and we see about 5 older guys jump out!...HOLY #$!@!# !!!!!!  We all split up and take off.  I just happen to be running with the 2 largest guys in the group.  One guy happens to be the fullback on the freshman football team. He's huge but he can run really fast(faster than me) and the other guy was just a fat slow guy. It's pitch black out and we're running through backyards.  The big fast kid gets about 50 yards ahead of me and I'm about 50 yards ahead of the other big guy.  I can hear the guy way ahead of me yelling something but can't really make it out. All of sudden, I trip over what has to be fire wood and fall right on my face.  OUCHHH!!! I'm in some serious pain. I can still hear the guy way ahead of me yelling. All I can hear is "Look out for the ...ed!  Huh? Again, he yells from now what must be 100-150 yards away, "Look out for the ....ed!"  The next thing I hear is a huge THUD!!!...  The fat slow guy behind me has run into an immovable object and has just dropped like a bag of dirt...It sounded like he ran into a large aluminum garbage can. I look over and he's on the ground shaking the cobwebs out of his head.  The other guy ahead of us, walked back to see if we were alright knowing we weren't getting chased anymore. As I'm also trying to get my wits about my self, I look up and now know what that guy was yelling to us. LOOK OUT FOR THE SHED!  The guy behind me ran smack dab into a somebody's tool shed.. We all started to laugh and then the rest of the group found us. One of the guys standing there said, "You won't believe it, I tripped about 10 feet after we all took off and when I looked up, the guys had gotten into the car and drove off. They never even chased us." Once again, the big winner of the night was stupidity.

Health Club

Anyone that knows me, knows I love to workout. Not fanatically but for the last 25 years I've had a steady regimen of working out with weights and doing some kind of cardio workout. About 10 years ago, I built a gym in my basement. A Universal weight machine, free weights and a recumbent bike. It's perfect. 3 times a week, I go down to basement at 6:30 A.M. and do a 30 minute workout. Zip in zip out. Recently, I quit karate because it wasn't the cardio workout it used to be. I decided I would join a health club to do a cardio class of some form. I've belonged to a half a dozen health clubs in my life ranging from really nice clubs to not so nice clubs. I didn't want to spend a lot of money because with my gym in my house, I'd only be using the club for a cardio class once or twice a week. So I decided on joining this not so nice large national chain health club (The name of it rhymes with SALLYS) that had a special running. The monthly fee was about the same price if I bought 2 Grande coffees at Starbucks every week. It was close to my office and home. Now let me preface by saying( You know I'm about to abuse the crap out of this health club) anyone that works out, even minimally, gets the utmost respect from me. I really mean that sincerely. That being said, I was a minority in the club being that I was a white guy in his 40's born in the United States. This club had what I called an "IA" membership. Everyone was from Romania, Bulgaria or Russia.Median age 60. Let me tell you, Eastern Europeans have got to be the hairiest people on planet Earth. I mean you walk into the locker room and it's wild freakin kingdom. I have no doubts that at least one parent of these men is a warthog. I actually one time saw a guy shaving his chest. I'm not talking a little trimming. I'm talking about this guy taking off enough hair to make sweaters for the entire Von Trapp Family. (I now change at my office or home before going to the club.) Also, my wife has no worries about me being distracted by any females at the club unless I suddenly become attracted to women with goatees(though have to give them credit, they do keep them neatly trimmed). Finally, as long as I've lived in my town, the police blotter in our neighborhood newspaper has had at minimum of one story each week on either a locker or car in the health club parking lot that has been broken into to. So, I park about a block away from the club and hide my wallet and phone in my trunk. (I consider the block walk to the club my warm up). All joking aside, the spin class I take is one of the best workouts I've ever had and the members and staff there are really nice folks. Plus, if I need a last minute Goulash recipe, I know where to go

Someone Really Needs to Feed Bambi

It's 1996 and my wife and I decide to take a summer vacation with our 2 year old daughter. Nothing major but a long weekend at a place called the Wisconsin Dells. The Wisconsin Dells is about 3 hours from Chicago and it's basically Disney World for hillbillies. It has water parks, Go-Carts, Weird attractions(Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum, Circus World, etc...) and bad food...Oh, almost forgot to mention, due to a lot of people from the Chicago suburbs taking advantage of how close the Wisconsin Dells is, the hotels, attractions and restaurants all jack up their pricing to stupid levels. (Ex. Paying $250 a night for a hotel room that isn't much nicer than a Motel 6 room). So we drive up and get ready for a weekend of fun, food and toothless people. The 1st attraction we decide to go to is a place called Deer Park. Deer Park is a 28 acre enclosed forest where the shtick of this place is that there are deer walking around freely and you can feed them.(Sadly,you know they don't feed the deer that well which makes them approach people) Sounds like a good way to kill an hour. We enter the park( after paying a ridiculous entrance fee) and start walking around. Pushing my toddler in a stroller we see some deer and people feeding them. I go to the place where you can get deer food and purchase a couple of packets of what looks like large graham crackers but for deer. The next thing that happened was nuts. The second I purchased the packet of food, all these deer start coming out of nowhere. I mean all of a sudden there are about 4 deer walking up to me. It's like they had sonar that told them "Some dumbass just bought that $8 packet of food, let's eat!" Now, another 6 deer arrive on the scene and my wife starts pushing my daughter in her stroller away from the deer. Meanwhile, I can't get the packet of food open. I mean, I'm trying my hardest to open this packet and it's not opening. It's not like it was 2011 and all food packaging is safety sealed. Now as I'm attempting to open this packet that is sealed up better than Fort Knox, the 10 deer are starting to surround me. I'm not afraid of animals but this was getting to be a tenuous situation. As I'm continuing to try to open this packet, I'm looking at the deer and they're looking at me like "Dude, we haven't been fed in days and if you don't get that packet open soon, there's going to be trouble" Now, my demented mind is thinking "The 1st deer that approaches me aggressively, I'm going to pop in the mouth" Yes, I'm contemplating getting into a fist fight with a deer!( You know that wouldn't have ended well on my end.) My wife is saying to me(from about 40 yards away), "Just drop the packet and let's go." Now with the deer getting closer to me and my wife figuring out how she makes a claim on my life insurance( "Yes, he couldn't get the food packet open, so the deer killed him"), I finally bust the packet open. The crackers spill on the ground and the deer go at it like a sharks to blood. I back away quickly and tell me wife "Let's get the hell out of here." We leave hoping my 2 year old hasn't been traumatized. The rest of the weekend was fun and to this day we laugh about how I almost got into a fist fight with a deer.

Bad Babysitter

This posting is about 2 of my favorite things. Food and My Nephew Matthew.  Matthew is my brother's oldest son and is just a great person. He's nice, funny and has a huge heart. Love the kid. Matthew is 24 years old but this story takes place in 1989 when he was 18 months old and I was 24. I was a single goofball living in the city and my brother and his wife were living in the suburbs of Chicago.  My brother asked me if I could watch Matthew one Saturday afternoon while he and his wife went out for about 6 hours. Of course, I said no problem. I loved seeing the little man as much as I could. So I arrive at my brother's house and my sister-in- law is going over everything I needed to know for the next 6 hours. What Matthew can eat, drink, when to put him down for a nap and so on.  My brother says to me "Listen, I don't care if you let him smoke cigarettes and drink scotch, just keep him alive until we get home."  They leave and its me and my nephew for the afternoon.  So we're playing and having a great time.  It's time for his nap. I put him down and chill out for the next 2 hours. The 2 hours go by and I hear him waking up. I go to get him and he's looking up at me in his crib just smiling. So cute. We go downstairs and I look at him and say "Should we get a snack?" We go into the kitchen and open the fridge. This fridge was fully stocked with everything you could want. A jar in the back catches my attention. It's a jar of garlic pickles. I really like pickles and love garlic pickles. So I grab the jar and say to Matthew, "Let's find something for you to eat."  I go to the cabinet and pull out some little crackers for him to eat. I hand him a cracker and  bust open the jar of pickles. As I'm enjoying my 1st garlic pickle ( I say 1st because you know that I'm going to be knocking out a few of these babies), Matthew is giving me a look like "Hey, can I have a garlic pickle?"  Hmmm? I'm thinking "Can you give a baby a garlic pickle?".  I figure, he has teeth( a few at least), a pickle is a cucumber ( so it's a vegetable) and I'm only going to give him a little piece of one. What the hell? So I break off a little piece of the pickle and give it to him. He wolfs it down and is pointing to my pickle as to say "More please."  I give him another piece. Love this kid. I'm training him to eat with his uncle in the future. After about 15 minutes, I've eaten 6 pickles and this 18 month old baby has probably eaten the equivalent of 1 whole garlic pickle. Soon after, my brother and sister-in-law arrive home and all is good. I'm hanging with my brother downstairs and my sister-in-law and Matthew go upstairs.  All of a sudden my sister-in-law screams "HOLY ##$*$*#!!!!"  We run upstairs to Matthew's bedroom and there's Matthew on his changing table with a diaper off and my sister-in-law standing about 5 feet away with here fingers plugging her nose. As my brother and I walked into the room, the odor was so bad, it was like getting punched in the face with a dumpster filled with old garbage. Not to mention men in Hazmat suits should have been here to deal with the soiled diaper. My sister-in-law asks me "Did you give Matthew anything to eat today?" I hesitantly say "Well, he had some animal crackers and he tried some garlic pickle."  I might as well have told her that I fed him rat poison. She says pretty angrily "You let him try a garlic pickle! " I replied with probably not the best answer. "Well, actually I think he might have eaten an entire pickle." At that point my brother says "Danny, I think it's best you leave the room now" I leave and proceed to hear my brother get a full on verbal assault from his wife. I didn't hear everything but pretty sure I heard "Is he a total moron?" " What idiot feeds a baby a garlic pickle!" and "He's never babysitting Matthew again" (That one hurt).  My brother comes down and says to me "Listen, thanks for watching Matthew but it's probably a good time for you to hit the road" I said "No problem and I'm sorry about this" He replies "Hey, other than my kid's ass exploding with toxic waste and that I probably have to buy my wife something expensive so she'll talk to me again, I think it went well"  After time, I did end up babysitting my nephew again and to this day, if my brother and I are at a restaurant or store that has garlic pickles we just start laughing.

Mr. Stupid Does The Right Thing

It's 2007 and my family and I are enjoying wonderful vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexcio.  Great weather and so relaxing. It's Christmas Eve, which happens to be my oldest daughter's birthday so we want to make a special night of it. We go out for a really nice dinner and we're walking back to our hotel. Well, along the street with all the cars, buses and taxis is a horse drawn carriage.  Now this isn't the type of carriage you might find in the streets of Chicago or New York but it is a horse drawn carriage. The carriage is pretty open(two padded benches and no doors) with balloons all over it and a nice old Mexican man driving what looks like the horse that came in last in the El Kentuckyio Derby.  We decide what the heck, let's go for it.  So my family gets on this equestrian deathtrap for a little ride. The carriage is going about 3 miles per hour and we couldn't be having more fun taking pictures and laughing the entire time. The carriage gets to our hotel and its time to end this ride. My wife and daughters get off and its time to pay the man. He says 150 pesos(about $15) and I ask if he will take American dollars(That night I happen to only have dollars and no pesos on me). The nice old man said "Si".  So proceed to give him $1.50 (oddly, I can typically figure out my commission on a complex deal at work in my head while I'm talking to a client but for some reason I couldn't figure our that it was $1 for every 10 pesos).  He says "Senor, it's 150 pesos which is $15."  I reply "No, 150 pesos is $1.50"  To his credit the man stayed calm and said again" Senor, 150 pesos is $15" and I again replied "no, it's $1.50" This went on for about 10 minutes until the man finally said very dejectedly "OK, Senor, $1.50. No problemo" and off he went.  I walk into a shop where my wife and daughters where and say to my wife "that guy tried to rip me off. He kept telling me 150 pesos was $15" My wife looks at me and says "You moron! 150 pesos is $15. You ripped him off!"  I felt terrible. I just gave this guy 10% of what I should've paid him. My wife says "What can you do? He's probably 5 blocks away by now" I replied "I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to pay him what I owe him. Hold my sandals." I take off my sandals and take off. I'm running as fast as I can down a busy sidewalk with tourist, locals and whoever else was out that night. I mean I'm flying. My wife must be thinking, he's either going to get hit by a car (Mexican traffic is a cross between New York rush hour and a demolition derby) or he's going to get arrested because he's running like he stole something(I wouldn't do well in a U.S. jail, can you imagine me in a Mexican jail?). I finally catch up to my man on the carriage and out of breath I say "Senor, lo siento, lo siento" (Translation-I'm sorry, I'm sorry)and not only paid him the $15 but I added $5 for his inconvenience and my stupidity. He was shocked but replied" Gracias Senor" and then I replied back "No Senor, lo siento".  I walked back to my family barefoot and dripping in sweat. My wife,never feeling the need to candy coat with me, says "You're really a nice man and you're really an idiot." .

The Miracle of Life

December 23, 1994. My wife is due any day with the birth of our first child. She goes to her ob/gyn that morning and the woman says tells her she's about a centimeter dilated so things are moving along. The rest of the day( I was working as a multi line sales rep in sporting goods so I officed out of our townhouse) we sat there wondering is this the day. My wife throughout is getting more uncomfortable but god bless her, not complaining. Around 5:00 P.M. she's a bit uncomfortable so she calls her gyno who tells her to relax it's probably still a day or two away. So we go to bed around 10:30 P.M.  At 12:30 A.M., I feel a nudge. Then another nudge. That nudge was more like a full palm to my face. My wife says "I think I'm in labor. We have to go to the hospital"  I immediately go into "try to stay calm on outside but freaking out on inside" mode. I ask her " How uncomfortable are you?" She says loudly "F*cking Uncomfortable!"  Good enough for me. We get her stuff and head to the garage. Now mind you, the hospital is in another town and a good 35-40 minutes away. It's the middle of the night on Christmas Eve so I figure if I go 90-110 mph, I should get there in 25 minutes. My wife is now saying "Oh my god, I feel something. Hurry!!" Great, so now my Nissan Pathfinder is got a shot of being a delivery room which will not be good(not to mention how much it's going to cost to get it detailed after childbirth has occurred in it). We get to the hospital and I'm gingerly leading my wife in. I say to the woman at the desk "My wife is in labor we need to get her to a room immediately!" This woman says "Well, you have to fill out and sign some forms first" I reply "Lady, if we don't get her to a room there's going to be 3 signatures!"  We get her into a room in the maternity ward and things start to get more settled. She's hooked up to monitors, there are nurses all over and I have a sense of calm. The nurse pulls me to the side and says "All of her doctors are not around and the one on call is very far away" I said "Far away as in downstairs at the cafeteria or far away as in Guam?" She replies "Far away enough where we will have to deliver the baby." Hey I didn't sign up for that at all. She was laughing and said "Relax the doctor is about 10 minutes away"  Great. My wife is about to give birth to the 1st of my huge debts and I've got a stand-up comedian here.  Also my wife who is now about 9 centimeters dilated wants drugs for the pain(Hey, I wanted drugs too!) . The nurse tells her she's too dilated and drugs can't be administered. Uh oh. Not good. If my wife doesn't get drugs, we may witness the the birth of my child and an exorcism at the same time. Amazingly, at that moment the anesthesiologist walks in and it's my wife's closest friend's brother who she's known forever. (Thank god is was Christmas Eve or this Jewish Doctor wouldn't be there). He tells her he can take care of her and administers an epidural.  Whew! All good in the laborhood. While we're waiting for my wife's doctor, I'm hearing a horrible sound out in the hallway. It sounds like a really sick cow or moose. Bad sounds. I look in the hallway and there's a huge pregnant woman leaning against the wall kind of waddling and making these noises that aren't human. We catch eyes and I say the first thing that pops into my head.  "Hang in there. It will be over soon" She gives me a look like "Yeah,, if over soon means I give birth to the baby elephant inside me in the next 3 days!" OK then. I go back to my wife and she's in heaven. The epidural has kicked in and all is good. Her doctor comes in and after about 3 hours I get to see the birth of new 7 lb 2 oz baby daughter. I actually felt a physiological change in me seeing the birth of my daughter. To this day, the birth of my 2 daughters (#2 Debt was a lot less dramatic) are the two greatest days of my life. Oh, yeah and the one thing I learned after the birth of my first daughter that I will pass on to any expectant fathers is that if you're going to be in the room when the birth occurs, you need to stay North of the Equator when positioning yourself. Trust me. Stay North Young Man, stay North.

Didn't Think She'd Be That Mad

It's the spring of 1983, my senior year in high school.  I'm heading towards graduation, the weather is great and it's the weekend. On this Friday night my friend Rich and I are going to go to a party with 2 girls. One girl, Debbie, is a really good friend of mine and the other girl, Shari I've known forever.  This isn't a date but just the 4 of us going to a party. The party happens to to be at a guy's house who goes to the high school in the town next to us. Rich and I really don't know anyone but hey, it's a party so I'm in. Shari has volunteered to drive which is good with us. We get to the party which is a good 30-40 minutes from where we live and it's rockin. Lot's of people, music and of course, lots of underage drinking. As we walk in with the girls, I get the vibe that the girls are more than welcome( what girl isn't welcome at a party?) but my buddy and I weren't. We're getting a lot of cold stares from all these people we don't know. Debbie and Shari couldn't be having a better time. They've already found some people(I believe 4-5 guys) that they're talking to. Well, after about an hour, Rich and I have had enough. We're ready to go. Debbie and Shari are not. This doesn't bode well because they're our transportation. (This was pre-cell phone days so we couldn't call a buddy to pick us up). Debbie, who's my close friend says "Just hang for a little bit longer and we'll leave soon" Nice. Shari then chimes in "On no, we're not going anywhere. There's a bunch of guys I have yet to meet". Great. Our only way out of this party is going to meet as many male suitors as possible which could take another 3 hours. (This due to the fact that she has to go to a completely different town to meet a male). Rich and I do not want to waste our entire Friday night at a this party. The light bulb goes off in my head(Usually this means something bad is going to happen down the line). I say to Rich "Let's go get your car" He says, "How are we going to get my car?"  I reply, "We'll take Shari's car. Don't worry I'll handle it"  I walk up to Shari and say, "Shari, can I have the keys to your car? Rich told me he actually left a six pack in the back seat" (Yeah, like we would have forgotten that). She reluctantly says, "Fine"  I grab the keys and we go to her car. We get in and I proceed to drive to Rich's house to get his car. Rich says "This isn't good. She's going to know we took her car(which was actually her mother's car) and not be happy about it"  I say "Relax, we'll get your car, get back and she'll never know the difference." We get Rich's car and go back to the party. Well, my internal GPS was just a bit off. We weren't gone for 30 minutes like I thought but more like an hour. No problem. Shari is probably giving her phone number for the 17th time to some random guy. Guess again. We pull up and park both cars. As we're walking back to the party, Debbie and Shari are on the sidewalk in front of the house walking right at us. I could actually see steam coming out of Shari's ears from about 20 feet away. As we get closer, I say "Shari, you won't...." POWWW!!!  Shari punches me right in the face. Whoa! A good shot too!  I shake my head and say "Shari, I totally deserved that" Before I could get another word in, Shari proceeded to call me every name in the book and even names not in the book.  Rich and I left (probably to get ice for my face). Even dumber was that Shari's on again/off again boyfriend( obviously  off again at this time) was Black Belt in Karate. So now for the next 4 months until I go to college, I'm looking over my shoulder waiting to get a round house kick to my head from this guy. Luckily it never happened. Debbie was disappointed in me but we stayed friends. Shari chose not to be friends with me anymore. Shocking.

Big Fish

The year is 1992, I'm 27 years old and my wife and I are going on our first vacation since our honeymoon.  We decide on Ixtapa, Mexico (If you don't know by now, I love Mexico). Ixtapa is a relatively new resort area in Mexico that was dug out of the beach for tourism in 1975. Right next to Ixtapa is an old fishing village called Zihuatanejo. (For Shawshank Redemption fans, that's were Andy and Red finally meet at the end of the movie). Well, my wife and I went there one day to tour the shops and restaurants and I see that you can go deep sea fishing. I've always wanted to go deep sea fishing. The problem is, my wife has absolutely no desire to go deep sea fishing. Oh well, another time. A few days into our trip, we meet a nice older couple( older meaning they were in their early 40's) on a Sunset Booze Cruise. They were from San Francisco and we got to know them a bit. I mentioned that I really would love to go deep sea fishing and the man says, "No Way? We're going tomorrow morning in Zihuatanejo. Come with us!" So I agreed.  I was to meet them at their hotel at 7:00 A.M. and we would go to the harbor. We get to the harbor and the 3 of us board a boat that doesn't look like the deep sea fishing boats I've seen on TV. I'm expecting a huge boat with rods and reels, a little kitchen and all the comforts of a large tour boat. Nope. This boat was about 18 feet long, had a motor that looked like the love child of a snow blower and riding mower. No kitchen and the only bathroom was a funnel. Yes, a funnel. There were 3 chairs and 3 rods. The Captain was a nice Mexican man who had another fellow with him as his 1st mate. I was a bit skeptical. (not as skeptical as my wife who's husband went off in Mexico with 2 strangers on a fishing trip-Sounds like a Lifetime Movie). The Captain says to us, "You will all catch big fish today or I give you your money back." Quite a guarantee. Well, off we go at about 7:30 A.M. and we head out to sea. For the next 3 hours nothing. No bites, no nibbles, no nothing. I can talk to anyone about almost anything but even I was running out of conversation. All of a sudden, we hear ZINGGGGGGGGGG coming off my reel. The next thing I know, I feel a sharp tug and then I see the most amazing thing. A swordfish jumps out of the water, twisting and turning. Everyone on the boat runs to me. The swordfish  dives back into the water and the fight is on. The Captain is giving me instructions on how to pull and reel this huge fish in. I'm pulling and reeling, pulling and reeling. This wasn't easy. I can't believe how strong this fish is. It was the equivalent of trying to reel in a really pissed off refrigerator. I mean I'm working hard. This fight is at the 40 minute mark and I say to the Captain "Turn on the motor!" He says "What?" I now say louder "TURN ON THE MOTOR AND LET'S PULL THIS BASTARD IN!" He says, "No Senor, you must be a man and pull him in yourself" Oh great! I'm my fighting this monster and the Captain is giving me life lessons. Finally, with my arms and back exhausted, I get the swordfish close to the boat. The next scene I was not prepared for. As the swordfish  is up against the boat, the Captain and his 1st mate take out 2 clubs and start giving this fish the wood shampoo. I mean ,I felt like I was watching the fish version of the Rodney King incident. The fish is subdued and they bring him onto the boat. I go to the front of the boat where there are some floatation seat mats and just lay down on them. I'm beat. I stayed there for another 40 minutes half napping, half dying. In the meantime the Captain was a man of his word. The man who invited me caught an Ahi Tuna(which he and his wife ate that night at their hotel) and his wife also caught a swordfish. We get back to the harbor and I took the picture you see I've attached. ( you may also notice the boats in the background. Those are the same boats that  we were just on.). The people at the harbor figured this swordfish was about 8' and 95 lbs. I didn't want to have the swordfish stuffed and mounted because it would have cost over $2,500 and it's basically a fiberglass mold of the fish you caught.(Plus I didn't have that kind of money to blow on a stuffed fish). So the picture would have to do. I did ask what they would do with the swordfish and my new friends said that the Captain and 1st mate would keep it and use it for food. I'm not sure I need to do that again but it was definitely an experience of a lifetime.

You Don't Bring A Pea Shooter To A Gunfight

It's 1982, my junior year in high school and time for the traditional "Sadie Hawkins" Dance. For those of you not familiar or from another planet, it's the dance where girls ask boys to the dance. Well, I didn't have a girlfriend(didn't have a girlfriend my entire high school career-Que the violins) so I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be asked. I really didn't care because as much as I was into girls, I never got upset about going to or not going to dances. About 4 days before the dance, a girl, we'll call her Traci, asked me to go to the dance. Let me tell you about Traci. She was a Cheerleader, in the "IN" crowd and I'd say she was cute. I figured that all of her buddies had dates and she wanted to go to the dance, needed a date and hence, asked me. So I said "yes" and was kind of excited.The night of the dance, I get dressed, get some form of floral arrangement to give Traci and go pick her up. Everything seemed to be all in line for a great night. We arrive at the high school and the place is rockin'. We walked in and probably 3 minutes to arriving, Traci takes off. She just up and leaves me to hang with her buddies. What?!?!  I'm standing there by myself and my date is socializing with everyone but me. Literally like I wasn't there. Was I just her taxi service? So for the next 30 minutes, I'm standing in a corner of the gym with the other morons who's dates also dumped them. There where about 9 of us and we're all bewildered. Well, me being me, I said  to the other guys " I don't know about you guys but this is bullshit and I'm leaving". One guy says, "You can't just leave your date?" I said "Watch me". So I left. I got in my car drove to my friend's house(he also did not get asked) and told him what happened. He said "Man, I can't believe you left Traci at the dance". I replied, "Screw her, she probably hasn't even figured out that I left" So the weekend went by and back to school on Monday. On Monday about 3 of Traci's friends came up to me and attempted to give me grief. After about 20 seconds of these 3 girls yelling at me, i just walked away. Whatever. At the end of the day, I'm getting ready to go to soccer practice and I walk by the Booster Booth. This is where over enthusiastic parents of the "IN" crowd kids(You know the type because they're at every high school in America) worked trying to sell everything from M & M's to sweatshirts so the school can get a new snow cone machine or some other piece of worthless crap for the school. As I walk by a mother leaves the booth and approaches me. It's Traci's mom and she's primed to let me have it. She starts in with "You're the boy that left my daughter at the dance" I'm stunned that this adult has gotten up to confront me. She continues with "You are a rude boy and have awful manners" Well, this woman didn't know who she was dealing with. I'm sure she thought that I would cower to her abuse. Guess again lady. As she pauses to take a breath, I'm thinking, "OK lady, now it's my turn" I say to her, "You know what lady? Your daughter asks me to the dance and then ignored me the second we got there, so  actually it's your daughter who is the rude one with no manners. I'm also guessing that since you're her mother, she learned it from you." This woman was shell shocked. She probably couldn't believe that this 5'3" kid is reaming her ass out and I'm  not finished. I then tell her "Why don't you go back into the booth and figure out how you raised such a little bitch".  Traci's mom was flustered and didn't know what to say. She goes into the booth grabs her purse and leaves the high school in a hurry. It's safe to say Traci and I would not be going to prom that year.

That Sucked!

It's the summer of 1982. Myself and 3 buddies have just found out there's a liquor store in the town next to ours where you can find adults to get you beer or as many of us fondly called "Copping some beer". So the 4 of us pile into my father's Olds 88 (Basically a Sherman Tank with Maroon upholstery) and head to this liquor store. We park towards the back of the parking lot and start asking any person we see if they will buy us a case of beer. No luck. Not only is no one going to buy us beer but we are getting every thing from dirty looks to people saying "Do your parents know what you are doing?" ( I felt like saying "Yeah they do. So besides the case of beer, can you also buy a bottle of Jack Daniels for my old man"). Finally a scruffy looking guy in his late 50's says "Sure, I'll buy you a case. Give me the money." Victory! We give him the $15 we scraped together and off he went. 2 seconds after he walked into the liquor store, we hear a siren and see flashing red lights. DAMN!!! A policeman pulls into the parking lot. He tells us to put our hands on the side of my car. As he's frisking us and lecturing us on the evils of underage drinking, the guy is walking out of the store with our case of beer. He sees whats going on and just keeps walking to his car. To add insult to injury as he's walking to his car he's waving to us and mouthing the words "Thank you" Rat Bastard!  We 're out $15, didn't get any beer and a degenerate that will buy booze for children just got a free case of beer courtesy of us. Another lesson learned. If you're going to give an adult money to buy alcohol for children, make sure they're trustworthy.

I Hope This Doesn't Go On My Permanent Record

Let me preface this posting(like I have on a few in the past) that the names on this posting have been changed to protect the moronic individuals involved in this.(Though most of the people involved are either in jail or illiterate). It's June 1983 and I'm a senior in high school with about a week left of school. I've already been accepted to Ohio State and all I have to do is take a few more final exams. It doesn't even matter at this point what grade I get on the final exams as long as I pass them. The last final exam I have to take is in a class called Earth Science. It is an entry level science I forgot to take as a freshman so I had to take it. My class consists of about 20 freshman, myself and 2 other seniors, Pete and Steve. Pete and Steve were not what you would call model citizens but I bonded with them being a senior like them and also not wanting to get my butt kicked by them(If you know me then you know that in the 4 years of being in school with them I had to have goofed on them at least once). So I really wasn't planning on studying too hard for the final knowing all I had to do was basically get a D on the test. Well, 2 days before the exam, Pete tells me he has a copy of the final exam. I said "Are you sure it's the same test we're going to be taking?" He said, " It should be. When I broke into Mrs. Kelly's office, it was sitting right on top of her desk" Broke into Mrs. Kelly's office?!?!?! Good enough for me. Pete, Steve and myself go to Steve's house and start looking at the exam. I say to both of these Rhodes Scholars,"Listen, we don't want to get 100% on the test. We need to get a few wrong." Both Pete and Steve agreed with the plan. The day of the test comes, a Wednesday and it's the same test. Nice! We breeze through it and leave. On Friday, we go to the classroom where the test scores should be posted on the door and there are no test scores. Huh? There's a huge note on the door that says TEST SCORES INCOMPLETE. This is not good! I'm starting to get really nervous. Correction, I'm starting to freak out! I run to Mrs. Kelly's office to see if she is there. I walk in and she's sitting at her desk not looking too happy. Before I could get a word out, she says in the sternest voice "Danny,my office was broken into and the test was stolen. 2 out of the 3 seniors got 100% on the test(way to follow the plan fellas). Every student is being questioned. I will need to speak with you on Monday morning at 9:00 A.M. and Mr.Fisher(The principle of the high school) will be there too." HOLY FREAKIN' MOLY!!!!!! Now I'm in full on panic mode. My life is over. I'm going to get expelled, my mother  is going to kill me and if she doesn't I'm going to be working as an assistant night manager at a Taco Bell the rest of my life. OH MY GOD!!! So the first thing I do after I talk to Mrs. Kelly is meet with Pete and Steve. They are remarkably calm.(Probably because theft of a final exam is probably not too stressful compared other things they've been involved in like armed robbery and auto theft). We're trying to figure out how to get out of this jam and all Pete is saying is "I'm going to find out what freshman told on us and beat the shit out of him!" Not really the constructive problem solving conversation I was looking for. Steve is telling me how he thinks that we should just say we found the exam the day before the test sitting on a table in the cafeteria. Oh Brother!  I'm in deep you know what! My entire future is on the line and I'm partnered up with the love children of Charles Manson and the 3 Stooges. Steve came up with a few other bonehead ideas while Pete is sitting there mumbling something about body dismemberment or something and I tell them, "I have to leave." Also nice timing on this. Happens on a Friday so I have all weekend to think about how I just threw my life down the toilet. All this time, I haven't said a thing to my mother. It's killing me and I finally pull her aside and tell her what happened. Amazingly, she was understanding( not happy at all about it)and gave me great advice. She said go in and tell the truth. Basically ask for mercy from my teacher and the principle. The one thing I had going for me was that I was a good student and had never been in trouble(or at least caught) before. It's Monday morning and after 48 hours of no sleep, I walk into Mrs. Kelly's office where the principle is sitting and say" Mrs. Kelly, Mr. Fisher, I did see the test, I didn't break into your office and take the exam and I don't know who did"(that lie was to protect the others and my physical well being). They paused(for what seemed like a lifetime) then Mrs.Kelly said "Danny, I'm really disappointed in you but I know you're a good student and everyone is entitled to a second chance. You will get a D in my class but you will graduate" WHEWWWWW!!!!!! I walked out of her office and ran home to tell my mother. Again, she was not happy and it absolutely scared me so much that I never ever again thought of doing anything like that in the future. Oh, about Steve and Pete. They got off easier than I thought(considering there was a break in and theft). They both had to go to summer school but did graduate and to this day I still think Pete is looking to beat the shit out of that freshman that told on him.

Not The Smartest Thing i've Ever Done

It's October 1991 and I'm on my honeymoon in Negril, Jamaica. Beautiful weather. beautiful beach and 10 days of just a wonderful time with my new bride. Due to safety(Jamaica isn't the safest country in the world), we basically just stayed at our resort. Though, one day the cabana boy(He looked like Scottie Pippen's Jamaican twin brother) who took me water skiing everyday told me about a place my wife and I had to go. Rick's Cafe up in the mountains. This place was known for it's beautiful sunsets and cliff diving. We take a 20 minute cab ride and arrive there with about 100 other tourists and regulars. The sunset is about 2 hours away so we belly up to the bar and get some drinks. As we're relaxing with the other patrons there seems to a bit of a commotion going on. It looks like the cliff diving show is about to begin. Now, I'd had seen cliff diving shows before in Mexico so I figured it was similar. Some underage peasant boys in Speedos doing dives from really high cliffs into about 6 feet of water. Love that stuff. To our surprise this wasn't a show at all. It was just a cliff by the bar that anyone could jump or dive off of. There were little Jamaican kids jumping off and a few men. I look at my wife and say "I've gotta try this!" She says, " I don't think just anyone is allowed to jump off that cliff." all of a sudden a patron( a pasty chunky fellow from the United States) goes to the cliff and jumps in. I said " Oh yeah? I'm doing it!" So I remove my t shirt, shoes and socks. I'm standing at the edge of the cliff in just my shorts. My wife is about 100 feet below with our camera.(Man, too bad Flip Cameras weren't around then!). People are cheering me on to do this. I look over the cliff and figure its about 75 feet to the bottom. One slight problem. About 10-20 feet below the top of the cliff, the cliff juts out about 10 feet. So not only am I jumping off a 75 foot cliff but i have to actually take a running start to clear the portion of the cliff sticking out. I take a deep breath and start my run. I get to the edge and make my leap. It seems like I'm in the air for minutes (actually about 4 seconds) and I'm realizing "Geez, this is really high up!" I hit the water and immediately think to myself "Yes, I've just broken both my feet!" I didn't break anything luckily but the splash I made had a diameter of about 10 feet. ( My mother-in-law later commented after seeing the picture of the splash "Oh look, Danny is in a hot tub.") I popped back up to cheers from the crowd. My new wife just looked at me and said "If I knew you were going to do this, I would have bought a hell of a lot of life insurance on you"

I Didn't Deserve That! (At least I don't think I did)

This episode of my life took place in 1989.  I'm going to one of my closest friend's wedding in Cincinnati, Ohio and it's one of the first weddings of my fraternity brothers. So a bunch of my other close college friends are going to be there. It's a 1st for me due to the fact that I'm bringing my serious girlfriend at the time to the wedding. (That serious girlfriend ended up being my wife). So, my buddy who's getting married informed me that my college girlfriend is also coming. (She was my buddy's wife's roommate in college). Let me give you a bit of background on my ex-girlfriend and our relationship. She transferred to Ohio State my junior year not knowing a person. She buddies up with my close friend's girlfriend(The couple getting married in this posting) and we started to date about 2 weeks into her arriving at Ohio State. Huge mistake on her part. She never really made any girlfriends and depended on me as her social life. I liked her. She was fun, liked sports and I'd never really had a serious girlfriend before. Well, it was kind of a tumultuous relationship. I didn't like being so tied down to having a girlfriend (or to one girl-hey, I was 21!) and she wanted to get serious. I mean serious as in "I think we should get married after we graduate" YIKES!!!  So after 2 years of this rocky relationship, I broke up with her( she didn't take it too well-that's another blog posting) and we went on our separate ways. Back to the wedding. I told my girlfriend (see wife) that my ex-girlfriend was going to be at the wedding and she should stay away from her. She asked "Why?"  I said "She's a nice girl but not really that mentally stable." We get to the Cincinnati and there's a hospitality suite at the hotel that everyone is hanging out at. It's Friday night and everyone is having a great time. A lot of us haven't seen each other in a while. One of my buddies walks up to me and says "Hey, you think they're comparing notes?" I look over and ex-girlfriend and current girlfriend are sitting on a couch talking. Not good!  My girlfriend comes up to me and says about my ex, "She's not that bad. She's nicer than you make her out to be"  Oh brother, obviously my ex-girlfriend left her psychotic personality back in her hotel room. The next night is the wedding. Awesome party. Actually, this wedding still has the best hors d'oeuvres I've ever had. Gourmet Corn Dogs. MMMMM!!!  About 2 hours into the party, I've managed to not have any interaction with the ex, when she walks up to me and says "You know, you don't have to ignore me!"  PSYCHO! I was waiting for a boiling pot with a dead bunny to be at my table. I just walked away. The next day, my girlfriend and I are at the airport waiting at the gate for our flight back to Chicago. Ex-Girlfriend(yes, she lived in Chicago too) scuttles past us abruptly to get on the plane. On the flight, I'm sitting on the aisle and my girlfriend is sitting in the middle seat. I think the psychopath is sitting about 10 rows in front of us. The flight attendants start the beverage service and in another hour we'll be home in Chicago. No problem. All of a sudden my ex-girlfriend walks right up to me with a glass of tomato juice and just dumps it all over me. While doing it she says "NOW WE'RE EVEN!" Holy Sh*t!! "Now we're even?"  Sorry, if we were even, you'd have a drink all over you like I did.  On top of it, I was wearing a white shirt! So my girlfriend is freaking out thinking that maybe this mental patient who just dumped her boyfriend with a drink is going to be waiting outside when we get off with something worse than a drink. I had the double task of trying to calm my girlfriend down and myself down. (Never have or ever will hit a woman but this was close). On top of it, everyone sitting around me(mainly a bunch of older ladies) absolutely thought that I did something that deserved this V-8 shower. (Some folks who know me may argue that I did deserve it). So, I went to the lavatory and changed my shirt. No drama the rest of the flight. I haven't seen my ex-girlfriend since that flight. I know this is going to sound weird but I really do hope she is happy and doing well. To this day, if I'm on a plane and someone near me orders a Bloody Mary, V-8 or tomato juice, I put my arms up to shield myself.

Employee of The Month

It's December 1986 during my winter break from Ohio State and I need a job. Home at this time is Evanston,Illinois (beginning of North Shore of Chicago suburbs) where my mother has a 2 bedroom apartment. Down the street is a high end florist who has a sign in the window DELIVERY DRIVER NEEDED. Perfect. Drive around for 2 weeks of the holiday season making decent money and low stress. I go in and meet the owner who is this little wispy man making a floral arrangement. My interview lasted about 3 minutes ("Do you have a valid driver's license and are you sober?"). I got hired.  All I had to do was make about 8-10 deliveries a day. My hours were about 2:00 P.M. until I got done which was usually around 6:00-6:30 P.M.  Could it be easier?  I spoke too soon. First of all, 99% of the flowers being delivered were Poinsettias plants(the Red Colored Plants that you only see holiday time). I saw so many Poinsettias plants that I was actually dreaming about them. In my dreams(remember, I'm 21 years old) the girls in my dreams are wearing bikinis made of Poinsettias! So every day I would go to the store, listen to the owner scream at everyone including me(you'll find out later not a nice man) and load up his station wagon (anyone reading this who is under 35 years old, that was our generation's mini van) with all the Poinsettias. Well, also remember this is 1986 and we're about 10-15 years away from having GPS Systems, so I'm using road maps. Not being Rand McNally(again for you youngsters-Rand McNally is the company that makes road maps), I can't find 70% of the houses I'm supposed to deliver these plants to.  So I would go back to the shop and tell the owner the people weren't home. Nice work ethic. He wasn't too happy about that. Also, the weird thing was, I was delivering (To the houses I did find) to some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Chicago and nobody tipped! Nobody! I couldn't believe it but I guess that's maybe how they got so rich. So it's a snowy afternoon and I'm making my usual partial deliveries when the snow starts to really pick up. In Chicago it can go from flurries to a blizzard in about 3 minutes. Well, I'm driving and having a hard time seeing the road. I take a left turn down a narrow street and there's another car coming right at me going really fast. I swerve but the driver of the other car hits the back of the station wagon. We both get out and access the situation. First off, I went down a one-way street the wrong way. My fault. Then I notice that the driver of the other car is a young black kid who is smaller than me(I was about 5'6" and 125 lbs when I was 21). He's crying. I say " Relax, are you OK?" he says "No! I'm dead! I'm only 14 and I stole my brother's car!" HOLY $##@%@% !!!!!!!  The good news for me is there's no way this kid wanted to get the police involved to write up an accident report. I'm assuming he was going to ditch his brother's car and let his brother think it got stolen(that's what I would've done). So we go on our separate ways and as I'm driving the floral shop's severely damaged car, I'm thinking, "Well , I'm going to get fired but at least I'll get paid for the week and a half  I worked." I get back and tell the owner what happened. I thought maybe his reaction might be  "Are you OK" or "Don't worry about it as long as nothing happened to you" . Nope. He called me everything in the book. This little guy was just going off on me. On top of him telling me I was fired, he also said he wasn't going to pay me for the 10 days I worked due to the damage of the car. I was flabbergasted. I didn't know what to say. This sawed-off floral maniac just ripped me a new one. I left with my tale between my legs. I told my mother about what happened and she said to call a family friend who was a lawyer. He told me that the floral shop owner had to pay me and that he takes the risk of car damage when he lets an employee drive it. I said "Really? He has to pay me?" The lawyer said "Absolutely"  So now I'm angry. I'm angry that this guy yelled at me (in front of all the other employees mind you) and that he was going to stiff me for the work I did(not great work but I did deliver some flowers). Plus since I can remember, I've always hated bullies and learned  that if you stand up to a bully they will more times than not back down( didn't work all the time aka getting my butt kicked in high school). The next day I walked into the shop and the owner says "What do you want!" I said " I want the money you owe me!' He says " Get the f*ck out of my shop!" I walk right up to him and get right in in face( he was almost my height exactly) and said "Listen, if you don't pay me right now, not only am I going to sue you for the pay you owe me but I'm going to go after your entire shop!" He backs up a step(I'm shaking at this point) and says "Hold on, I'll write you a check" Holy crap?!?!? It worked!  So I got paid and felt pretty confident that this job experience was not going on my resume.

That Skunk Owes Me a Cigar

If you ever want to find me on a Friday night in the summer, all you have to do is go to my backyard where you'll find me smoking a cigar. After a long week of work, there's nothing more relaxing than having a nice dinner with my wife and kids and then going out to my patio for a good stogie. Let me give you the setting. I have a fire going in my ceramic fire pit, sitting on my chaise lounge, I'm listening to tunes on my iPod and I'm smoking a really good cigar(one of the few things in life I splurge on). I can't begin to tell you how much this decompresses me from a long week and clears my head. I talk to my Silver Maple tree in my yard(only thing in a house of females that doesn't talk back to me). Danny's little slice of Heaven. This one Friday night I'm all set up.  Perfect evening. About 75 degrees, no wind and stars in the sky.  I light up my cigar and go to another world.  No more than 5 minutes into my smoking therapy session an uninvited guest(No, not my annoying neighbor that wants to tell me about his golf game and start a BROMANCE) strolls into my backyard.  A skunk. I've had opossums, cats and even a raccoon once but never a skunk. Oh man! This is not good especially because this black and white trespasser is just standing there staring at me.  He's also about 8 feet away from me. I sit still and hope he will just go on his way.  Not only is he not going on his way but he's walking towards me. You don't have to hit me over the head with a hammer on this one. I'm leaving. Though, what am I supposed to do with my cigar that is lit? I can't smoke it in the house(wife has an iron clad NO SMOKING rule in the house) but I don't want to waste a perfectly good cigar.  So now with the skunk kind of creeping closer( aren't animals supposed to be scared of humans?) I head to my patio door to go inside. The next sight is priceless. I'm standing barely inside my family room by the the sliding door to the patio with the door almost completely shut except with my hand holding the cigar about a foot extended from the sliding door.  Not only is this not good but not comfortable. I'm hoping this skunk will leave but he isn't. Not only that but looking closely at him, I think he's laughing. He's thinking "This Moron is standing inside his house holding a cigar outside his house" Finally after about 10 minutes of this standoff, I decide "Screw This!" I put my cigar out and go inside.  The skunk stayed out there for  another 90 minutes( I thought of offering the little bastard some lemonade).My wife got the biggest kick out of the skunk making me leave my own patio and said "In all honesty, I'm not sure that the stink of a skunk spraying you is much worse than how you smell after smoking a cigar"  I love you too!

Toto, I Don't Think We're in Chicago Anymore

It's 2006 and I have a business meeting in Tunica, Mississippi. Yes, you read it right. Tunica, Mississippi. My company is in a buying group and most of the companies in this group are in the South so they like to make our annual buying group meeting somewhere close to most of the people attending. Now, I have to first tell you that the most of the people attending this meeting in my buying group are some of the nicest people I've ever met so as much as I don't want to disparage the South, this one is just way too good not to tell about. So I land at the Memphis airport and get on a shuttle bus for about a 45 minute  ride to the hotel where our meeting is at. Well, it kind of looks like farmland and things I've seen before(with the exception that it doesn't look like there is a building in town that was constructed after 1955) until we get to about 10 minutes from the hotel. At that point, I look out the window and see miles and miles of cotton fields. Well, this Northerner has never seen a cotton field before. The 9 other people in the shuttle bus didn't seem fazed at all. Well, being the smart ass I am, I say "Geez, the only thing missing are the slaves." You could hear a pin drop in the bus. OK, so I got a tough crowd. No problem. Keep quiet until I get to the hotel. (SIDENOTE: It's a good thing I wasn't driving because my fear would be that I would get pulled over and the Tunica Policeman would look at my license and say "FRIEDMAN? Is that Jewish? Boy,I was going to write you a ticket but I think we're going to have a trial."). So we get to the hotel which is this behemoth structure of a hotel/casino/convention center. I'm assuming it's the only building in Tunica that has more than 2 bathrooms that are inside the building. I walk in to the registration counter and it smells funny in the hotel. It smells like smoke. Cigarette smoke and a lot of it. You know how Las Vegas pumps oxygen into the casinos to keep people up to gamble? Well, I think this hotel was pumping cigarette smoke into the casino! I'm not kidding! I say to myself "I only have to be here 3 days then I go home where I'm in the correct decade." Our meetings are going fine and we break for lunch. The lunch the hotel had set up for us was a buffet of Southern specialties. I'm always open to trying new foods and I was fortunate to find out the 5 Food Groups that are in a normal diet for someone in the South:

1) Fried
2) Greasy
3) Tobacco
4) Blackened/Mashed (anyway to mutilate perfectly good food)
5) Fried- They really like Fried Food!

Also, everyone just got the biggest kick out of my Chicago accent. I swear the next time I heard "Hey, y'all from New York?" I was going to answer "Hey,y'all from the set of Hee Haw?"

I survived the the rest of the trip without having the intelligence sucked out of me, being hogtied or getting engaged to someone in my immediate family. All joking aside, the people of Tunica, Mississippi were really nice folks and treated this Northerner well but I can honestly say I don't think I will be visiting Tunica anytime soon.

Is It Hot Enough For Ya?

I just got back from a speaking gig in Dallas. To say it was hot in Dallas is like saying the Titanic was a minor boating accident. It was HOT! I've been to Jamaica, Mexico and Florida in the summer and nothing compared to this. I think Dallas has had 32 straight days of temperatures over 100 degrees. (The record is 50 straight days and that is currently held by the SUN!). My entire goal for the 2 days there was to try to stay as cool at any cost. I land in Dallas and need to take a cab to my hotel. During the 5 minute wait at the cab stand, I sweat through my t shirt. (Luckily I packed 5 t shirts for this trip knowing that it was going hot as hell). I get to the hotel and check in. So far so good. NOT! The hotel that I was put up in doesn't have a restaurant and I need dinner. I walk 2 blocks to a Mexican restaurant and have a really good meal. Walk back to the hotel and sweat through t shirt #2. Now my biggest dilemma is figuring out how I am going to walk to the convention center where I speaking the next day (Convention center was literally across the street from the hotel-about 200 yards) without my suit disintegrating. I decide that I will walk over in shorts and a t shirt and change into my suit at the convention center. As I walk to the convention center sweating through t shirt #3, I not sure if I'm hallucinating but I think I see a fire hydrant flagging down some dogs. Get to the convention center, change into my suit and do my speaking session. Everything went well and now it's time to go to the airport. I change into shorts and t shirt #4 and grab a cab. The entire 30 minute drive to the airport the cab driver is complaining about the heat and he's from Nigeria! I arrive in Chicago and an unbelievably pleasant 75 degrees. Now anyone that knows me knows that I can't take Chicago winters anymore and as soon as my youngest daughter goes to college, me and the Mrs. are moving someplace warm. Florida, Arizona, Argentina. Anywhere warm just not Dallas!

Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

Let me preface this post by saying that the names of the people in this posting other than mine have been changed to protect the morons that took part in this stupid act. It's 1986, my junior year at Ohio State University. I'm living in my fraternity house with 70 other animals. It's a Saturday night in the springtime when a lot of fraternity houses have their Rush Weekends. Rush Weekend is when fraternities invite high school seniors for a weekend of drinking and carousing as to entice them into becoming members the next year when they are freshman. The fraternity house directly behind our fraternity house was primarily a Jewish house like mine. So we competed for the same Jewish kids from the high schools. So this weekend, the house behind us is having their Rush Weekend which culminates with a big party Saturday night. It's about 1:00 A.M. and 3 of my buddies and me are hanging out in our fraternity parking lot. We can see the party is going on and 2 of my buddies, John and Gary are just staring at their house. My other buddy Bruce and I are wondering what they are thinking about. By the way, not a shock, we all had consumed quite a bit of "Sodas" this night. John pulls out a lighter and starts playing with it. I say "What the hell are you doing? Stop playing with that" Then, Gary says "Let's light their dumpster on fire" Bruce and myself say "Shut up! You're not going to start a fire" Next thing you know, John is lighting a piece of paper held by Gary and they throw it into the dumpster. The dumpster didn't just catch of fire, it became engulfed in flames!!!!  We take off back to our house and soon the fire department is there with 3 trucks putting out the fire. HOLY @#$@#$@#!!!  The 4 of us are basically hiding in the house praying no one saw us. Well, for the next 3 weeks, the word going around campus is that Danny, yes me, started this fire and is an arsonist!  HOLY ^&*$ &*# !!!!!  part 2!  Amazingly, and stupidly after hearing this news, we all are still keeping our mouths shut.After 2 weeks of this, the fraternity house that had the fire calls Bruce( who was also our house Vice President) and say they know its Danny and if he doesn't turn himself in, they going to the police. This is not good!  Bruce, who is one of my closest friends to this day, is a true man in my eyes. Instead of turning me in to save his, John and Gary's asses, tells the fraternity house that how about they be reasonable and we come over to apologize. They agree. Well, the 4 of us go over one night to talk to their entire house. We elected Gary, who by the way was the actual arsonist, to speak for us. Gary is a character and has a way with words. Well, Gary goes into how we are all Jewish brothers and we need to stick together, blah, blah, blah...by the time, he's done the entire fraternity is giving us a standing ovation and back slapping us. Unbelievable!  To this day, I will remind all of the participants about that night and how I almost got arrested for arson.

You Never Know What Danny's Answer Will Be

So, last week I had my annual physical exam. I always get a little nervous because I work out a lot, eat decently and I don't drink so my fear is that the other than the doctor telling me I'm in good health, he will find something terrible. (I know, kind of weird thought process coming from Mr. Positive). So the doc,who by the way for you ladies out there, is nicknamed Dr. McDreamy(40 yrs old and looks like a skinnier George Clooney) by the ladies in my town, gets to the end of the exam and now it's time for the him to check my prostate or what I like to call the "Double Finger Oil Check". Something no man on earth looks forward to, including yours truly. The doc says "I have to tell you that your perfectly healthy (Whew!) and I really don't have to check your prostate unless you want me to". I pause and say with a straight face, "Doc, me and Mrs. have been going through a rough patch at home so actually I would like the exam. Can you dim the lights?"  He busted out laughing so hard, I thought he was going to pee his pants. He said, "That's a great one!" I was thinking, "No doc, you not doing the Double Finger Oil Check is a great one!"

No Thanks Ma'am, I Won't Be Needing That

As I approach my 20th wedding anniversary, I'm reminded of the first time I stayed over at my wife's house in Milwaukee when we started to date. Yes, this was after the famed 6 lb lobster dinner the first time I met her folks, so when they heard we were coming into Milwaukee for the night, I'm sure my future father-in-law said to my future mother-in-law, "Nancy, you better stock up on food, that little bastard can eat!" We drive up on a Friday after work and get there at about 8:00 P.M. I know my wife is nervous because she's worried what her folks will think of me after we're all together for 24 hours. I'm not nervous because, well, I just rarely get nervous over anything ( I believe the saying is "Ignorance is Bliss"). We walk in and the folks give my wife a big hug and kiss while I get the proverbial "Nice to see you again"  I could tell that they were not overly impressed the first time they met me. Let me also give you a bit of history. My wife is the youngest of 3 daughters. The oldest married someone from the same town that they knew well . The middle daughter married their best friend's son. Then comes me. Mr. "How ya doin?" from Chicago. Tough road ahead of me. So after her parents get done staring at me like I'm a science project, my wife and her mother go off into the kitchen and I'm sitting on the couch with her dad. Correction, he's sitting at one end of the L shaped sectional couch and I'm at the other end. He's glued to the TV set watching some boring ass golf tournament. I can tell that not only is he not  thrilled with me being in his home but I'm also getting the vibe I'm not the Mr. Right he envisioned for his daughter. Whatever. This is not the first time a girl's dad didn't like me. So I try to make conversation with him. "Mr Lieberman, how's the golf game?" Nothing. "Mr. Lieberman, how's business been?" Nothing. "Mr. Lieberman, when Lisa I get back to Chicago we're going to knock over a convenience store. Do you know where we can get a gun cheap?"  No, I didn't say that but I thought about it just to see if he was breathing. Later as I'm getting ready for bed(in a separate bedroom of course), my wife's mother comes up to me with 2 bath towels, 3 hand towels, a washcloth and a bar of soap. She looked like she was restocking the bathroom at a suite in Caesar's Palace. I then replied to her "No thanks ma'am, I won't be needing that." She walked away stunned thinking "Not only does this kid eat like a farm animal but he has the hygiene habits of one too!" We wake up the next morning and have a fairly normal day. We say goodbye and leave. I'm sure my wife's parent were thinking "It's just a phase. This won't last long".  Guess again. In actually, not only did I end up having a  good relationship with her mother but her dad and I became really close friends. Of course, now that I have 2 daughters, I can totally relate to where they were coming from. Though, If my daughter brings home a boy and he says "Mr Friedman, when Sydney and I get back to get back to Chicago we're going to knock over a convenience store. Do you know where we can get a gun cheap?"  I'm going to say "Yeah, I actually know where you can get a shotgun. It's in my garage. Just wait here and sit still"

The River Never Gets Deeper than 2 Feet....NOT!

The summer of 2008, my family took a long weekend to New Buffalo, Michigan. Great little town. New Buffalo has one main street with some antique stores, an old fashioned ice cream parlor and a restaurant that serves one mean burger. We stayed at the only resort which actually was fairly new and nice. Really relaxing time. One of the days there we decided to go canoeing  I found a tour company online that offered canoeing, kayaking and other outdoor activities that impressed me enough to sign up the family for a 3 hour canoe trip down the river. Everyone was pretty excited. It's about a 1 1/2 hour drive until we get to the tour company that had all of this outdoor activity and found out quickly that they put all there money into a fancy website. The place was located on basically an abandoned lot and there was a 18 year old kid sitting in front of a tool shed. Not feeling really good about this,I asked if this was the tour company that I found online and he replies "Yep, website is kind of deceiving ain't it?"  Terrific. This kid isn't even intelligent enough to lie to us. I figure we came this far so let's see what we have. The kid shows us 2 canoes that seems safe enough and gives us life preservers to wear. He tells us to just stay on the river path (which was about 20 feet wide) and the canoe will basically guide itself. I ask if there are any waivers I need to sign and he looks at me with a stupid look and says "Nope". (I'm guessing they figure anything horrible happens, I get the tool shed and the canoes in a lawsuit).  The last thing the kid says is "Don't worry, the river never gets deeper than 2 feet"  Off we go.  I have my youngest daughter( 9 years old at the time) with me and my wife has my oldest daughter(13 years old at the time) in her canoe. The canoe trip is kind a of boring because the river is really narrow with not a lot to see but woods to either side of us and the river is fairly calm. At about the 2 hour mark my wife and oldest daughter get stuck in some dead trees and bushes that fell into the river. They are stuck and can't get themselves loose. I paddle back towards them and sitting in my canoe, I can't get them out. I tell them, I'm going to get out of my canoe and get them loose. As I climb out of my canoe and into the river, I realize that the water is about 50 degrees.  Even with the temperature outside being 80, this water was cold but I'm not planning on standing in it too long. I'm going to get the girls loose and jump back into my canoe. Well, I take one step towards my wife's canoe and WHUUPFFFHH!!!!  I drop into about 5 1/2 feet of water!!!!  My head is the only part of my body above water. I'm not happy!  My wife and kids after the initial surprise of me dropping into this deep water just lose it and start laughing hysterically. I can't blame them. It had to look funny. I didn't find it funny though. Also, as a reminder if you didn't remember, the water is freezing. I figure at minimum I'm going to have to get a fork to dig my family jewels out of my stomach where they have retreated to. I climb out of the deep end and onto a log. Still freezing my ass off, I get the girls loose. We get back on our way. I then realize that my cell phone was clipped to my belt which two minutes ago was submerged under water for 5 minutes like the rest of my body. Great! Now my cell phone is trashed. I'm really getting angry now. My youngest ask me "Dad, how much longer do we have until the end?" I say about an hour which at that point it clicks in that I have to sit in wet clothing for the next hour. Again, not happy. We finally get to the end of this ordeal. The kid from the tool shed is waiting there (he drove to get the canoes) and takes a good look at me. He says "Did ya decide on going swimming?" I'm seething and trying to stay calm. I say to him "No swimming,just happened to find the one part of the river that is over 5 feet deep".  He says "By the dead tree and bushes? Oh yeah, I probably should've told you about that" 

Ya think Gomer?

Black Market Danny

I've been really fortunate that I've had a wonderful financial planner that has really done a great job for me and family for the last 20 years. Basically, I give him carte blanche and he has made me money over the long haul. I don't pretend to know anything about stocks or investing but there are times where I see or hear something that catches my eye and I want to do something. So over the last 20 years my wife and financial planner have let me play with $1,000 on buying a stock that I get excited about. Well, both times I've done this, I've lost the $1,000 in less than 9 months. You want to put a company out of business, call me and tell me the company is hot and I'll buy the stock or short the stock(selling stock before you buy stock) and you will get rich.
     This next story is how I was going to( along with a lot of friends and relatives of mine) get rich. The year is 1991 and my brother at the time was one of the largest bond traders in Chicago. He was really in tune with the stock market. In all his years of financial success, he never told anyone about specific stocks or any other investment tip because primarily his expertise was bonds and he didn't want to have it on his head if someone lost money from his advice. Well, for some reason my brother started to tell everyone he knew about this new company that was making a Cancer drug and the company stock was shooting to the sky. My wife and I, newly married, didn't have a lot of money but we wanted to get in. So I bought $2,000 worth of stock( that was a decent amount of money for us at the time).  The next day the stock goes up 2 points! Holy Moly! The day after that it goes up another point!  Now, I'm getting really excited. I'm also talking to a bunch of friends that also bought the stock.  We are all getting really pumped up. After one week of buying this stock, it has gone up almost 4 points.  My wife and I are thinking of getting out of our apartment and look at some new houses with our new found riches. Feeling great about this stock, I buy $2,000 more. Now I'm into it for $4,000 which if I had come home one day and told my wife I wanted to buy $4,000 worth of stock, she would have had me checked into a mental hospital. The stock is still going up. My wife tells me we need to chill out and take a break from checking the stock every 3 hours. So not only do I not look every 3 hours but I actually take about 2 weeks off from checking.  One night I get a call from one of my friends in total panic. He says to me "I'm killing myself and wanted to say goodbye to you"  I said "What??!?" He says that the company that we all own this stock in did some human testing and the person tested grew a third arm!  I again said "What?!?!?"  He was half kidding half freaked out.  The company did testing and there were adverse effects on the human subject. The stock dropped 75% in value overnight! So, not only were are profits wiped out but now my $4,000 investment was down to about $800! I did not know what to tell my wife. She's fairly conservative when it comes to money and this wasn't going to bode well with her. I told her what happened but we should hold on to the stock. It might come back. WRONG!!! It was falling like a certain cruise ship that hit a large iceberg. Finally after about a 2 weeks when the stock was in the proverbial toilet, I sold it and got about $350 of my $4,000 investment back. OUCH!!!!  So 20 years later, I let my professional advisor do the investing and stick to the blog writing.

And The Winner Is......Habanero Pepper!

Yes, another story about me eating. This near death experience ( yes, worse than the Big Mac Challenge) from food happened in 2007 at our friends house. My wife and 2 daughters went over for dinner on a Sunday night at our close friends house who live about 5 minutes from us. We had a nice meal( I believe take out Chinese food) with our friends and their 2 kids.  Dinner ends and the kids go to the basement to hang out. The adults are all cleaning up in the kitchen when the wife starts to tell us about Habanero Peppers, knowing that my wife and I love spicy hot food. Let me preface by saying, if you don't know already, the Habanero Pepper is one of the hottest peppers in the world and barely used in cooking and definitely not eaten alone. (Makes a Jalapeno Pepper seem like a carrot). So she goes on to tell us that her 15 year son loves hot food, saw the Habanero Pepper on a TV show and wanted to try it. Our friend, who is a great gardener, decided to get Habanero Pepper seeds and grow some. When they were ready, she had her son try one and after he took a simple lick from one pepper, he said "No way! I'm not eating that!" So my wife being an adventurous eater said, "I'll try it"  She takes a bite that wouldn't  even qualify as minuscule piece in any one's mind and immediately spits it into our friend's sink. I'm sitting there thinking "How hot is this pepper?" I now say "Come here. I'll give it a shot"  I proceed to bite into half of the pepper and swallow it. HUGE MISTAKE!!!!  HOLY @$@$@#  MOLY!!!!!  This bad boy was HOT!!!!!  So now I'm sitting at the kitchen table hoping this pain will not last long.  My wife and our friends are cleaning up and talking and no one is noticing that I'm not feeling good. It basically feels like some is continually lighting a match in my stomach. Now if you've even met me one time, you know that I'm as outgoing and extroverted as it gets. I will talk to a fire hydrant if no one is around. Well, I'm just sitting there silent with my face in my hands. I cannot believe what kind of pain I'm in. Finally, my wife comes up to me and ask if I'm alright. I say to her "Go get the girls. We have to go home." She replies, "It's only 7:00?"  I said "Lisa, get the girls NOW!!!!" We thank our friends for having us over and go home. We get home and I immediately go upstairs to my bathroom to the cabinet where we keep our medicine and grab a bottle of Pepto Bismol. I chugged the entire bottle until it was empty.  I then went to my bed and proceeded to lay in the fetal position. After 90 minutes I finally felt better. My wife says to me "I would believe it if I didn't see it. You got beat for the 1st time by food" I had to agree with her. The "Human Billy Goat" was beaten. There was a chink in the cast iron stomach. Though, being the ignoramus that you all are learning I am, you can bet that there will be more postings down the road on me doing some moronic eating.  Bon Appetit!