The Complaint Department

The following complaints were received by the Complaint Department during the past several weeks, and are now posted to ensure that managerial transparency is maintained.  Rest assured, nothing will come of these complaints, and I will do my utmost to resolve none of them.


Being even more tired after you've taken a nap
Rather self-explanatory.  It's a tragic thing to lay down hoping to be refreshed and wake up to feel like you've been run over by a train.  Nevermind the fact that you look like a mugshot with your matted, tangly hair, the creases on your face from the pattern of whatever you were sleeping on, and the puffy, dazed, 'what the hell just happened to me' look in your eyes.


Artists resisting the all-consuming power of iTunes
Yeah.  I'm looking at you, AC/DC and Bob Seger.  Resistance is futile, gentlemen.  Any continued plans to evade the grasp of the brave new world will result in...well, nothing really.  I just don't want to go to Best Buy for your albums because I feel like I'm being stalked by the employees.  Always lurking, watching, following, pacing, watching, watching, watching...


The 'new' Karate Kid
What the shit?  Ideas get recycled in those magical places where movies get made, but this one is especially irritating.  The source of my irritation, however, has nothing to with the cast, or even the film's new direction.  My irritation is due to the fact that 1984 was a long damn time ago.  That some kiddos may see the new version and be completely oblivious to the original really sticks in my craw.  And, for the record, I'll take Mr. Miyagi's crane technique over Jackie Chan's Kung Fu tomfoolery any day of the week.

Band-Aids on fingers
are incredibly irritating.

Overused sports cliches
"We've got our backs against the wall."
"He's a gunslinger."
"We control our own destiny."
"It is what it is."
"That's a great golf shot."
"Soccer is the world's most popular sport."

 Stay strong, Daniel-san.  You remain the original badass.

Pictures provided courtesy of someone else, in some other place.  Their names:

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bsirnusni

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Yes, it's all nonsense.  I'm just that odd.

A Boy and His Dogs

I was screaming.  My mother was shouting nonsense into the phone at my father, not knowing what was happening.  Blood was spilling out of my mouth and pattering onto the brown carpet and fragments of my teeth that lay entwined there, and I wasn't exactly sure what happened until I worked things backwards from the tears:

-She spun around and her mouth was in my face, and her teeth were sharp.
-I was a veterinarian and I was trying to help her, so I cornered her and picked her up.  There was a black purring in her chest and throat as I softly slid my hands under her belly.  Hm.  I may not have thought this through.  She doesn't seem very happy with me.
-She always kept her distance from me.  She always seemed kind of afraid.  But, I'm five.  And I'm nice.  Here, girl...
-She was a puppy some time ago.  We left her outside to play and run some errands.  We came home and found practice arrows strewn across the backyard, and those weird neighbor kids hanging on our fence laughing and pointing.  Our puppy was trembling in the grass among the arrows, terrified of these evil children.

Ah.  Now it made sense. 

The first dog in memory was that one, Samantha.  She was a young, gentle brown Cocker Spaniel who loved my father hopelessly and followed him everywhere, and was terrified of children.  That day we came home and found her quivering in the backyard, she was never the same with me.  Children had worked a ragged scar of fear and pain across her mind, and I was their size.  She was always respectful and kept her distance, though.  Until that stark day of my failed career as a veterinarian.  I'll always remember her, though...there was an intelligence inside her that I have yet to encounter in a dog again.

I've had other dogs in my life, and they were each varying shades of dumb.  There was the one who ambled around the house with a perpetually confused, blank look on her face.  We'd work on obedience with her, but she always seemed more interested in chasing and nipping at the rays of sunlight that dappled through the windows.  Or now, the boob who is an absolute sweetheart, yet feels there are demons in our digital camera and screams and runs in circles whenever it is taken out.  No, seriously.  It's not howling.  He screams.

Dumb as they may be, though...they're swell companions.  I just don't want to be a veterinarian anymore.

"Pay no attention to that man..."

behind the curtain."

(If you're still be reading this nonsense, I thought it fair to finally include a bit more personal information about me.  In so doing, perhaps it will grant you some insight to the pathways that meander through this odd mind and clarify the purpose of this exercise.  There will be several glimpses behind the curtain, and as always, I will pull the curtain back at times of my own choosing.)


That Which Terrifies:

To begin, it really wasn't my fault.  My father told me that I could watch, if I felt "up to it."  What am I going to say?  "No thanks, Dad.  I'll pass on this movie with the explosions and screaming and fighting and robots and slink away to my room to cry in a corner."  So I sat down next to him and watched a phenomenal car chase.  Things were exploding, and yes, the shouting continued.  Suddenly, this massive Semi truck, which I'm told contains the bad guy, is aflame and the chase ends.  But...wait.  Why is that door opening?  What the hell is going on here?

Oh, that's just an evil robot walking through fire to kill some damn lady who's just been knocked up.  Thanks, Dad.

A few weeks later, it seems now, my sister and mom are watching some music video that apparently I'm not allowed to watch due to 'The Terminator Nightmare Fiasco.'  I peek around the corner, and she turns the television off and just stares at me until I leave.  I turn and go.  But not really.  I'm far too clever for these confounded adults and their music.  I hear my sister whisper something to my mom, they both chuckle, but I don't even care.

I can see the television now, and I can hear the music.  It's night, and there are people dancing in the street, and I recognize the voice singing!  Wait.  Something isn't right.  Oh goddammit...

Seeking the final blow to my fragile psyche, the television and the evil cabal of adults in my house conspired to ruin Halloween, which seems was mere days after the zombie incident.  The movie was already on, and I just happened to wander in at the worst possible moment:

I just couldn't catch a break.  Absolutely none of this was my fault.  Honest.

Apart from the images above that were permanently scorched behind my eyes, the man behind the curtain is actually terrified of many legitimate horrors that exist in everyday life.  A list of a few of the more prominent, and regularly recurring fears follows:

-Snakes (yes, even the little ones).
-The bite of a Brown Recluse spider.
-Mayonnaise.
-Being buried alive.
-Being dropped in the middle of the ocean.
-Being trapped in close proximity to someone with rancid body odor.
-The Blair Witch.
-Papercuts between my fingers.
-The headlights of cars passing down my darkened street at night.  You know you always ran and hid from them, too.
-Sour cream.
-Rhino Beetle Larvae.  Bear Grylls ate one of the damn things.  And no, I'm not posting a picture of it because it would ruin my day.

In Rockville: The Sheet

His uncle hadn't been heard from in two days (Not his uncle, mind you.  It was his father's uncle.  So it was the boy's great-uncle, or grand-uncle..whichever).  That one man could go unnoticed for any length of time in a town of 300 was a feat in itself.  The people knew everyone's patterns, their comings-and-goings, their work schedules, eating habits, love interests, financial standing, favorite color, education, athleticism, fears, and yet they had missed this one character.  So, the morning of the second day, his father called around to check if Uncle had been to work, fallen ill, or was passed out somewhere.

No one had seen or heard from the graying Uncle since he shuffled from the pool hall three nights ago.

He dialed another number, and put his meaty hand over the mouthpiece, and called to the boy.  "Hey.  I need you to run over to Uncle's house.  Don't roll your eyes.  I know the place is a goddamn mess.  I'm not done on the phone.  I need you to see if he's there.  If he is, fine.  I'll be two minutes behind you, and we can load him into the car if he's sick."  His father lifted the reciever, began talking, and shooed the boy to the front foor.

The boy walked down the street with his head down, scuffing the brown rubble in the road.  He smiled and waved when spoken to, asked after his friend Larry when he passed Mr. Good walking out of the hardware store.  He poked his head in the store at raised his eyebrows at the owner, Walker, a thick, frighteningly muscled beast who always had a piece of gum slamming in his mouth.  "Hey Walker.  Got any more?"  Walker chuckled, reached into his apron and lobbed a piece of Bazooka to the boy.  "Thanks, Walker.  Pa says hi."

Uncle's house looked as most houses do.  Normal.  The boy peered in the smudged windows, but that proved pointless.  Piles of newspaper, boxes, and empty Budweiser crates shielded the interior nearly completely.  He knocked on the door and shouted for Uncle and got no reply.  He looked down the avenue back towards his house and imagined his father's scowl, sighed and pushed the door open.  There was no chill of doom, nor a flitting terror of wrongness and evil there.  It was just quiet.  And it smelled of dust and sour beer.  He stepped lightly around the piles of rubbish and wrecked furniture towards Uncle's room at the back of the small house.

He saw the shape of the man beneath the single white sheet.  He called to him, quieter this time, and moved into the room and alongside the bed.

Uncle was dead.  His eyes looked smoky and dry, and his mouth was open, whispering something important to faces no one could see.  The shock coiled along the boy's neck and back and tightened in his gut, and he couldn't stop staring.  The tears wouldn't come, for it felt as if his entire body had dried up.  All he could think to do was fight the shaking in his hands and grab the sheet and pull it gently over the dry, empty face.

Minutes later, his father arrived to find the boy laying across the bottom step of Uncle's porch.  Father stepped in, and shuffled through the house.  He stepped back out, lifted the boy from the step, and looked hard into his blue eyes.  "Hey.  I'm sorry you had to see that."  Father patted him on the back of his head and whispered, "It's okay.  Let's get going.  It's okay."

He lifted him from the wood, and carried the child home, whispering comfort to him the entire way.

Wishes, Plans, and The Failed Resolution

In late 2008, I decided to make my resolutions for 2009 realistic and manageable and primarily food-related.  I was never a fan of the grand New Year plans that had so many moving parts and were so susceptible to being torn apart by the chaos and change of everyday life.  There were a few larger ones that I kept to myself, but the smaller ones were all mostly accomplished.  For instance:

-As stated previously, I now adore avocados.
-I ate raw oysters.
-I cooked for dinner or lunch parties more often.
-I tried artichokes (yes, I had never eaten those either...back off).
-I attempted to create new recipes.  Some worked wonderfully, while others found a quick, violent end in the trash or garbage disposal.

The one food resolution that I didn't accomplish:  try a sample of the ridiculous ice cream flavors at the local shop.  The bubblegum, the cotton candy, the pistachio and such...their garish colors have always frightened me and made the enamel on my teeth itch.  Regrettably, I never made time to conquer that one.  Maybe next year.

The 2010 batch I will keep mostly to myself.  Were I to lay out all of my smallish resolutions and not follow through on some, I'm certain that the legions of people reading this thing would think me a selfish, lazy bore.  And I do so desperately crave everyone's approval.  A few that I will share, however:

-Convince as many people as I can to refer to this year as "twenty-ten."  Short and aerodynamic. "Two-thousand ten" is clunky, unnecessary, and a clear indication that whomever saying it that way is a complete tool.
-Give olives a fair chance.
-Make a lot of pancakes.
-Follow an idea for a ghost story to see where it leads.

 Lastly, my wishes for you:

-Take a nap with a loved one in a place where the sunlight falls to keep you warm.
-Hold hands with someone whenever you can.  You have no idea how good it feels to connect in such a simple way.
-Read often.
-Trust and follow your heart always.
-Lose an argument on purpose.  Leave that crucial closing argument or critical piece of evidence out.
-Appreciate the possibilities of a yoga room...
-Give some new music a chance.
-Create something.  A new language, a code, a new incredible hot dog ingredient, whatever.  Or just mash stuff together like this:
ypalaulsreemdnaieliwkcesilwtilbaicolootsilrps (sagnolsauoyt'nowetahemrofgnivigti).  Create!  It's easy!

Happy twenty ten, dear reader.