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"