God, Please Have a Sense of Humor...

So there I was. In church. Your hero is Catholic - you know that, right? Goes to Mass, more or less as he ought. Not much to confess, not because he is so good - because he is so boring.

And you probably also know, if you follow this blog, that the Wigster is a proud member of the Knights of Columbus. That's a fine fraternal insurance company - er, I mean organization that is set up to provide help to the needy, wear silly hats, and drink beer after meetings. These are fine things; we approve.

Our local chapter, here in Wilson, North Carolina, decides from time to time to perform the religious service of leading the congregation in praying the Rosary before every Mass for a month or so. This is to keep Catholics from coming to church too early - if you get there much before Mass begins, you have to kneel down and fish out your Rosary beads and so on. Otherwise, everybody thinks you are lost, looking for the neighborhood FWB church. And if you don't know what FWB is, you don't live in the South.

So, we take it in turns, this leading of the congregation in praying the Rosary before Mass. And last Sunday was your hero's turn. Yikes! I kept wishing I'd get whooping cough or bubonic plague or something catastrophic just beforehand, but it didn't happen - so I had to actually go through with it.

You know the Rosary, right? No? Well, it kinda goes like this (don't worry, you won't burst into flames for reading this - as far as I know):

Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus.

And then the congregation says:

Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death, amen.

Cheerful little ditty, ain't it?

The idea is, you say this about eleventy-dozen times, with some other stuff stuck into the middle of it, but this is the main bit. And I am supposed to say the first part, and the congregation waits until I'm done and then they say the second part. With me so far? Come on, it's not that hard.

Well, your Wiggy is not such a good counter. I'm supposed to go to eleventy-dozen, but I always stop at some, or many, or lots. I lose count and go over or under by some obvious amount, something that people would notice.

But Mrs. Wiggy is always there for her man! She sat next to me in the front pew, and she kept count, and she jabbed me in the ribs when I got to eleventy-dozen on the nose, so I knew what to say next.

And it worked, too.

Except for one little bit.

Naturally.

For me, that is.

I got about one bubble off plumb, and I started out by saying "Holy Mary, mother of God" instead of "Hail Mary, full of grace." Now, you can get sent directly to Hell for this stuff. People take it way seriously. You're not supposed to laugh, smirking is right out. A chuckle in the wrong place could get a red-hot poker up your radish-hole in the afterlife. So, I tried to correct myself...

"Holy Mar...Hail Mary, full of grace," I intoned, trying to cover my mistake by slurring like I'd been on a three-day bender. Surely people would understand that, for God's sake. I mean, we're Catholics in North Carolina! Reason enough to drink, we're under observation at all times.

Well, I finished that Rosary up in fine shape, though I was sweating bullets. And no sooner had I gotten done, than the music started and in comes our priest, and I was truly grateful.

But then, after church ended, as Mrs. Wiggy and I made our departure...She told me the awful truth.

She asked me,

"Do you know what you said in there?"

"Sure. I made a mistake. I tried to say 'Hail Mary' and 'Holy Mary' at the same time, and it got crossed up. You nudged me and I corrected myself."

"No, you didn't."

"I didn't?"

"No."

"So...what did I say, then?"

"You said...'Hairy Male, Mother of God!'"

And with that, my delicate, lovely, lady-like wife; my darling, my lover and my confidant - laughed at me. In my face. Until tears came out of her eyes.

Hairy Male.

Lovely.

I'm going to hell, and she's laughing at me.

I need a beer.

Pray For Me,

Wiggy

Learning the Fine Art of Grillery

So, it comes down to this. After forty some-odd years on this planet, having others cook food and present it to me for my consumption, my wife has said that I must, from time to time, act like a damned man and learn to cook on a barbecue.

Well, she's got a point. I just am not that much of a man, despite having hidden my lack of manly talents by being a US Marine about two decades ago. I don't watch sports on TV, I don't care about fishing or hunting, and have about zero interest in gardening or cooking things on a grill. I'd much rather take photographs of flowers and ... Oh, nevermind.

She's been more than fair with me. For the past several years, she has cooked and cleaned and only recently have I begun doing dishes and picking up after myself a tiny bit around the house. Urgh, I suck, come to think about it.

So last Friday night, we went out for dinner. And afterwards, Mrs. Wiggy drive my sorry ass over to the Lowes hardware store. Where they sell barbecue grills. Well, ain't this just a fine howdy-do.

We look at the grills. There certainly are a lot of them. Big ones, bigger ones, really really big ones. They range in price from a small car to a small country, or at least a large politician. I'm seeing entire kitchens transported out-of-doors here. No mere table-top charcoal grills are these, no sir. They are huge, they are shiny, they take delivery guys to bring them and set them up. You need building permits and additional insurance on your home to buy one of these suckers, for crying out loud.

I beg. I plead. I whine. I think the whining finally got her attention, especially since I was doing it over the store intercom system. "Oh, puhleeeeze, can we just get a cheap charcoal grill?" I don't need any bells and whistles and dials and levers. They'd just confuse me, and I'd have to press all the buttons and pull all the levers and then we'd probably end up at Defcon III and the president in a secure undisclosed location or something like that. Just a simple charcoal grill. A twenty-dollar charcoal grill. Something to be proud of, to show off to the neighbors.

And so it came to pass. Behold, the cheap charcoal grill (and the Too Much Coffee Man T-Shirt):



And by the way...bolt-cutters are in no way required on a grill of this type. But it is a manly tool, and I have one, so I got it out and tried to figure out how to use it. Well, I had been into the beer again.



And the dogs thought I was mistaken as well.



Well, the grilling gene that I did not inherit seems to have finally made it into my DNA somehow. Perhaps it was due to the severe threatening I got from Mrs. Wiggy. Hamburgers were eventually achieved, and they didn't taste at all the like charcoal briquets I singed them into. I think they're supposed to be crunchy in the out-of-doors.



The next night, I was made to do ... BBQ chicken. I know, I know. The horror. The horror.

This is the end, you know. I am a home-owner. I mow lawns. I fertilize, for God's sake. I plant shrubberies and I've joined various and sundry fraternal organizations (the sillier the hat, the better I like it), and now....Oh God...I cook.

I knew all this watching Alton Brown on the Food Network would come to no good. I just knew it.

Today, I grill. Today, I am a man. I guess. The world sucks. I wish I had a beer.

Keep Flippin' It,

Wiggy

"America has finally got to us"

It is not so much that a lake disappeared. I mean, that sort of thing happens all the time. God just pulled the plug on this particular bathtub, is what happened. Could happen to Lake Michigan tomorrow, which if it does, hey good on it.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian village was left baffled Thursday after its lake disappeared overnight.

NTV television showed pictures of a giant muddy hole bathed in summer sun, while fishermen from the village of Bolotnikovo looked on disconsolately.

No, I don't mind it when lakes go walkabout. Trees disappearing under the earth, no problem.

What bugs me is this:

"I am thinking, well, America has finally got to us," said one old woman, as she sat on the ground outside her house.

Which, of course, is entirely correct. But how did she know? We must guard our lake-vanishing technology much more closely in future.

Ala-Kazam,

Wiggy

I am a Ninja Master

This evening held great promise. I got off work, which always improves my mood, and I walked outside to find not only the sun still shining, but an altogether lovely day here in Wilson, North Carolina. Not too hot or too humid, just very nice - with the promise of a nice evening as well. I love those late spring evenings, when the temperature drops just enough to make the humidity feel like it's cold, even though it isn't. Add the slightest breeze, and you've got a great night for going out walking, biking, or even sleeping with the windows open. Know what I mean?

Well, it didn't really work out that way.

To begin with, tonight was Mrs. Wiggy's night to go out knitting. Yes, she's wild and crazy, and if she's not knocking over gas stations or shooting up biker bars with an AK-47, one can often find her knitting with her knitting friends in their cozy little nook down the street a ways. Frankly, I suspect terrorist plots. I'm keeping an eye on them.

Anyway.

So, Mrs. Wiggy heads out while I'm still, uh, in the library, but the last words I hear out of her have to do with dogs, floor, and clean. I figure I know what she means. We have two dogs. Dogs of war. Dogs of insurrection. Dogs of confusion. In other words, puppies.

And you know what puppies do? They make messes. In the kitchen. On the floor. And your hero Wiggy was elected to clean said floor. I got out the Spic-n-Span and made with the mop.

This is Milo and Mollie, our Instruments of Destruction With Gusto. They're five months old now, and they eat everything. Tonight, they ate Mrs. Wiggy's Zen Calendar, which is a real shame, because I liked those pithy quotes. And, they ate our Consumer Reports 2005 Yearbook, which we got free with our subscription to Consumer Reports. And you see that stainless-steel dishwasher? Well, it isn't. No. It was a white dishwasher, but it turned out to have some kind of removeable painted aluminum skin covering it. Not any more. Dogs of the Apocalypse, is what they are.

So.

Your ol' pal Wiggy spent six years in the Marine Corps, did you know that? Well, I did. And you know what I can do? I can mop a floor. Swab the deck, as they say. So, I put the dogs out back, moved all the heavy stuff (I'm good at moving heavy stuff, it's thinking that I have a problem with), and got busy, as I said earlier, with that mop.

Not bad, eh? Ol' Wiggy is still good for something around here, I'll tell you what.

Once I got the floor nice and mopped, it was still wet. Didn't want to let the dogs in and ruin that nice floor, so I thought and I thought, and pretty soon I came up with a brilliant idea. I grabbed both dog's harnesses and the new twenty-foot leashes we got them, and a short six-foot leash as well, and a cold beer for lubrication, and I headed out the back door to greet the pooches.

I attached the harnesses and a twenty-foot leash on each one, which is no mean feat when they are wriggle-puppies and want to jump up on daddy and show him how much mud they can find in the backyard by smearing it on his face. They promptly ran in counter-opposing circles and wrapped my feet up in the leashes, and I promptly fell on my butt, which was not as painful as it was dangerous to my beer. That's alcohol abuse, and we can't have that.

I opened the back yard gate to our fence and ushered the mutts out into the front yard. I had brought along the six-foot leash with the vague notion that if Mrs. Wiggy came home from knitting anytime soon, I'd take at least one of the dogs out for a neighborhood walk. Which is why I had it with me. Which has directly to do with the ninja stuff. I'm coming to that.

I then tied a nice half-hitch with a sheepshank knot in the twenty-foot leashes to the front of our porch. Ah, who am I kidding? I tied a couple of granny knots and called it good. I am a Marine, after all. Knots, we leave that to the Navy and the Boy Scouts. But I repeat myself.

So, there I was. In the center of my front yard. The very same yard I've been murdering lately with all kinds of weed killer and grass killer and just about every toxic thing known to Troma Industries. I even had sprinkled some of that dust from the envelope that I got from that group that calls itself the John Dillinger Died for You Society. Never did figure out what that stuff was, I just poured it on and watered it in. And there I stood, in the center of that dead, dead, lawn. With a leash in my hands. A surplus leash. A leash that was not doing anything at the moment.

And I began to twirl that leash.

I twirled that leash faster and faster. I did a nice little figure-eight with it. It got going to a surprising speed, seeing as how it was weighted at one end from the big chrome snap used to connect leash to collar. Yep, got it moving pretty good.

Like a Ninja, I had it going. Like some kinda black-belt karate champion of all time. Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris and Bill "Big Foot" Wallace all rolled into one, I was. Spin, spin, spin. Cross over. Spin.

And then, it hit me. No, I mean really. It hit me directly in the center of my punkin' haid. Hard.

And my sakes; I saw the stars, for a brief moment. I wanted very much to sit down on my dead, dead, lawn. Ah, the cool dirt; very welcoming. Ooh, perhaps better to have a stretch-out. Yes, that's better. Look, clouds! For a brief moment, I thought I heard birdies chirping. I remember thinking to myself - "My God, those Bugs Bunny cartoons were right - you do hear little birdies chirping when you knock yourself out." But then I realized that those actually were birdies, and they actually were chirping. With laughter, no doubt. They had better be glad my shotgun is in the house, is what. Rue the day.

So I'm laying there in the cool but very toxic dirt in front of my house, and my dogs are very happy to see me wanting to be more like them. They are stepping all over me and licking me in a most excited way. And I'm thinking to myself - "Oh, so this is what they mean by taking a dirt nap. Hehehehe." And then I'm thinking to myself that Mrs. Wiggy is going to be totally ticked off at me when she comes home from knitting and finds me in the front yard pushing up the daisies, or where they would be if I hadn't kilt them all with chemistry and science.

So, reluctantly...I push myself up off the dirt yard. Brush myself off. Climb up onto the porch with the dogs jumping excitedly all over me - new game, new game! Knock daddy in the dirt, whatch him get up again! Whee!

I found my beer propped up at the foot of the stairs, where I must have placed as I fell down like a pantomime horse, bits and pieces at a time. I never spilled a drop.

Because I am, as we all know, a Ninja Master.

The Acorn Festival

Note: This is not my usual sarcastic, ascerbic, tongue-in-cheek bit of nastiness. I am blogging this because it is something Mrs. Wiggy and I truly enjoyed - a bit of vanishing Americana, and the reason why people from NYC and CA don't understand the rest of the country. I'll try to be more nasty in the future.

On Saturday, Mrs. Wiggy and I journeyed down to Four Oaks, North Carolina. This is a very small town on I-95 just south of Smithfield. Not known for much, it's just a nice little town without any pretensions. Once a year, they put up a festival and solicit local businesses to donate money to pay for bands, rides for the kids, and so on. They put on a parade, invite some local celebrity to act as Grand Marshall, and kids get their faces painted up and eat funnel cake and ride cheesy rides. It is all a lot of fun.

Now, frankly, this sort of thing goes on all over the country, in small towns from east to west, north to south. That this one happened in a little corner of the southeast is of no consequence. What's important to me is that this kind of thing is still happening. It gives me hope that a part of the America I remember as a child is still being preserved, and not in a museum.

Now, if you're from 'the city' (wherever your center of culture and intellect might be), you might scoff at this sort of event. You might think it quaint or old-fashioned, even funny or deserving of ridicule. Well, I did to, at one point in my life. I thought I was so much more advanced than that. I came from roots such as these (only in rural central Illinois), and I thought I had left it all behind. Sure, those yokels, look at 'em having fun!

Well, I was wrong. This is not just good, clean, fun as they say, this is what America is built on. People living in communities who come out from time to time and interact with each other on a basic level. Understanding each other as people, being open and honestly friendly. Letting our collective guard down, forgetting about work and careers and the 401(k) retirement account and the war in Iraq and terrorists plotting to kill us all. This is how we lived, and how many of us still live. And you know what? Cheesy John Cougar Mellencamp songs notwithstanding, this is America.

So here are some photographs. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Oh, by the way, you can click on any of these photos to see them a bit larger.

This is Bill Leslie, a local news anchor on WRAL in Raleigh, NC. He also composes and performs his own music, which to me ranges from pure progressive jazz to celtic traditional, to bluegrass. He was the Grand Marshal of the parade (which we missed) and he performed with his band "Bragh Adair" (I believe that's what he called them). He autographed copies of his latest CD after his band's performance, and we bought one and had it signed. He seems like a very decent and gentlemanly fellow. We also enjoy watching him on WRAL every morning before we go to work.

Bill Leslie
Bill Leslie @ WRAL

Here is Mrs. Wiggy receiving our CD from Bill.

People stretched out on the grass to enjoy the bands - there were many present, from Bill Leslie's band to country-music bands, to shag music bands. What's shag music? Not what you think if you're British or an Austin Powers fan - Google for it! Hint: it is also called 'beach music' here in North Carolina.

Face-painting is always popular at these fairs. Why? I'm not sure. But what the heck - it beats shooting up heroin, I'm pretty sure. I've never heard of someone breaking into houses looking for more face-paint. Something tribal and primitive, perhaps. But safe.

It is always important to have lots of refreshments - and there were plenty of stands. Here's a typical one - it sells 'Smoothies'. Everybody loves smoothies.

And you really can't have a festival without funnel cake! So here's some funnel cake. Doesn't that look good? Well, not the display models. Those are made of wax. I think - it tasted waxy, anyway.

Now, in the South, NASCAR racing is very popular. Some might say more popular than...gasp...football. So you have to have a miniature NASCAR track for people to race each other.

You have just got to have your traditional rides...

...as well as your less conventional rides!

Ladies of a certain age...

...and ladies of a different age!

Trading secrets is part of what festivals are for!

Hanging out with our best friends...

...and hanging out with our best friends!

Now, you know you can't have a festival without a queen! So here's the outgoing queen, taking in the sun...

...and here is the incoming queen, about to accept her crown (well ok, she's already wearing it).

Your Majesty, the fair is yours.

Disliking a Face

So I got too much sun yesterday, and my face hurts now. I have stayed inside all day, scanning black-and-white negatives from the photos I took yesterday and crying silently on the inside. But it's not my face that we're talking about here.

Mrs. Wiggy bought me Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies, for which, bless her.

We each ate one, which was a lovely thing, sick or not.

Then she turned on the TV and we were watching HGTV, which is pretty much what we do. That or the Food Channel. People cooking or people building stuff.

The host of some fix-it TV show came on and my wife remarked,

"He's so ugly."

"What?"

"He's so ugly. I think he's ugly."

"What don't you like about him, his face?"

"No, his face is fine. I just don't like his eyes, ears, and nose."

"That's pretty much his whole face."

"No, I didn't say his mouth."

"Oh. You like his mouth?"

"No."

I have no idea what my wife and I talk about sometimes. Ladies - this is why we nod and say "Uh-huh" in a disinterested way from time to time. But we still love you. Especially when you bring us Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies.

Another word to bring back from the dead - irked. Now that's a fun word. I'm so irked.

Argle-Bargle.

Wiggy

"Police ID Chili Finger"

Well, hell yes. I mean, here I am trying to enjoy my coffee and bring myself bubbling slowly to something resembling consciousness, and Mrs. Wiggy has to go and switch on the TV. There, on the news (CBS) the talking head du jour has a banner under his grinning, death's head face, reading

Police ID Chili Finger

I'm going back to bed. Let me know how the day goes for the rest of you.

Smooches,

Wiggy

Welcome to HypnoBlog

I have decided to embark upon a career in hypnobloggery. A mid-life change in plans, perhaps, or just a way to entertain myself on a boring Friday. Who is to say, really?

Anyway, here's how it works. I will hypnoblog you through the power of this blog. You will be under my control from about the fifth paragraph down, until you perform whatever actions I have required of you and return control of your life to you. Which I promise to do, I am not an evil hypnobloggist. I'll let you know before I begin, so you can stop reading if you want to avoid being hypnoblogged.

OK, I lied. You are already under my complete control. Let's try a test. Say the word "poltroon." Say it again. Did you? I hope so. Do you know what a 'poltroon' is? It is a coward. That's an old and obsolete word that needs to be brought back into common parlance. So here is one of your assignments. Say 'poltroon' in a sentence three times today. That is my evil will and you must therefore comply. OK, then.

I always wondered about hypnosis - the movies and TV always portray it the same way. Some guy with a goatee, looking vaguely like Sigmund Freud, swings a hypnotic disk from a chain in a slow arc through the air, while suggesting that the subject (almost always a beautiful young woman) is getting 'sleepy.' Why sleepy?



Why not angry? Here's how I kind of picture it...

"You are getting angry. Angry! With every swing of the pendulum your ire increases. You are becoming short-tempered. You're sportin' a 'tude. You be cranky-boy. Somebody needs a nap. You're good and pissed off. You can barely restrain your fury! You have gone completely non-linear!"

"Yes, I am angry. Very angry. Must kill, must destroy!"

"Alright then. I order you to quit smoking."

"What?"

"You heard me. Quit smoking! The power of the hypnotic disk compels you!"

"I'll smoke over your corpse, you quack! ARGH!" (Violence ensues. Lots of it.)

NOTE TO SELF: OK, so not such a good idea. Perhaps 'sleep' is a better hypnotic command. Well, this is how we learn.

Now, where were we? Oh yes, you're still hypnoblogged. I nearly forgot. Sorry.

Um, ok, what shall I order you to do? I mean, besides saying 'poltroon'.

Be nice to people. OK, that's weak. Let me think.

I got it. Ah-hem. Remain calm. There, that's better.

Just so we're clear, let's review. You are hereby ordered by the power of the hypnoblog to use the word 'poltroon' in a sentence three times today. And you must remain calm. This is key. Other than that, um, well, just have a good day. Are we clear on that? Oh, and report back on the details of your use of the word 'poltroon' and how you remained calm. We can all learn from your experiences, so please share.

I now release you from the hypnoblog. Go about your business and remember...remember...remember...

Tastes Like Chicken,

Wiggy

We Got Cages for Animals Like You

A little existential everything-and-nothing for you today, I think. That's the ticket. Hey, don't walk away!

A long time ago, I spent an entire Saturday hanging out in my apartment with a couple of my friends, watching James Bond movies on TV - the local station had some kind of "James Bond Marathon" going on. We were, as they say, 'Male James Bonding'. Couple of things I remember from that experience...

First off, I often think one movie actor is another movie actor. Even if I know them, even if I've been to their homes, I get them wrong when I see them on TV or in the movies. I don't know why. I mean, I'm watching this James Bond movie, I believe it was "Live and Let Die," and I see this actor, and I suddenly exclaim - "Hey, that's Flip Wilson!"

OK, so it wasn't Flip Wilson. It was Yaphet Kotto. Which my so-called friends proceeded to rub in at 15-minute intervals for the next decade or so. And hey, I'm sorry, Yaphet. If you ever invite me over to your house, I'll apologize in person. Really.

This is Flip Wilson

This is Yaphet Kotto

Anyway, it was a good movie.

And then, this morning...no breakfast 'Hot Pocket' for me. Usually Mrs. Wiggy has one in the freezer and she pops it into my lunch bucket and I nuke that for breakfast once I get to work. But not today. She ran out. Well, that's ok. I just go down to the break room and get myself a vending-machine "Honey Bun". And a bag of peanut M&M's.

On the way back, I decided that I was in a space suit. Yes, I'm in a space suit and I've got a helmet on my head and I'm walking like the astronauts do when they're on the moon - you remember that old grainy footage of the astronauts walking or bounding on the moon, right? Weird. But that's kinda the way I'm walking in my mind. Like there's nearly no gravity. And I'm breathing in an out through some sort of apparatus, like I'm astronaut David Bowman in "2001: A Space Odyssey." Like Darth Vader, but less raspy.

My arms are moving back and forth in some sort of deliberate, swinging motion like I'm trying to get traction in the wading part of a swimming pool - you ever see someone do that? Wave their arms in the air when their legs would not get them any traction? Why do people do that? Do they think they're going to flap their way through the air? Anyway.

So I'm tromping down the hallway and people are walking the other way. I can barely see them through my visor - there's a lot of glare on the glass from the overhead florescent lights. And they're talking to me and waving - I can't hear what they're saying. Just my own breathing. In. Out.

I get back to my cubicle just in time, my oxygen supply was running low. I climb through the hatch, shut and dog it. I flip up the faceplate and take a deep breath of the clean cubicle air...ahhhh! Then sit down with my suit still on, but I have to take the bulky gloves off to type this.

I feel just like Flip Wilson today.

Sock it to me,

Wiggy

You May Even Be At Fault

Watching TV news with my wife this morning. Having my coffee. We laugh at a great commercial for "Colonial Williamsburg" which features a geeky I.T. guy getting a kneeling plea from a beautiful young woman to fix her laptop computer - he rules. I can't explain, you just have to see this series of commercials. Very cool.

No sooner had we seen that, then there came a commercial that broke my head open.

I'm used to the typical lawyerly ambulance-chasing ads on TV. You know the kind, they are the ones that feature earnest-looking men (usually) claiming that they will fight for my right to get a large financial settlement for whatever bad happens to me in my life. Which seems like a right neighborly thing to do. Because, as we all know, no matter what happens in my life, if I perceive it as 'bad', then somebody owes me some freaking money right now, dammit!

This guy is different, and nearly caused me to choke on my coffee. First of all, he looks just like the character "Norm" on the old TV show "Cheers." There are the typical shots of him looking earnest and trustworthy, kneeling next to an old woman in a wheelchair, kissing babies, etc. But then he addresses the camera and says that if we've been injured in an accident, even if we were totally at fault, he can get us the financial settlement that we deserve.

What?

Did I hear that right? Am I understanding the English language?

Let me get this straight. I can injure myself - and I can be totally responsible for that injury - and someone else is responsible for giving me a bunch of money for it? Urk. Boggle. Ranking Full Stop.

Now, we're not talking about some vague legal theory where, for example, a gun manufacturer is somehow responsible for me deciding to go on a rampage with it. No. We're talking about something that is ABSOLUTELY not anyone else's fault - but they have to pay anyway. I take a hammer and smash my damned thumb with it. Then I sue the city. Or my neighbor. Or my church. Of anyone else who ticked me off that day. And they gotta pay.

And lawyers wonder why we freaking hate them. You know what, lawyers? For all of you who do good things, defend the downtrodden and stand up for liberties and all that - sorry. The majority of you are just crooks. Evil people. Scum, slime, nasty and not worthy of being called 'human'. Now I'll prolly be sued. Sigh.

Then we go back to the news - they are showing a smashed-up race car. Well, NASCAR is big here in North Carolina, you know.

But, you know who crashed the race car? Governor Mike Easley, that's who. Back in 2003. Why were they showing it on TV? Well, they're going to let him take another whack at it. He's going to climb into a $100,000 NASCAR race car and race around the track in another publicity stunt at speeds reaching 185 mph. Well, hell. If he crashes, maybe he can sue somebody. Even if he does it on purpose.

I am afraid to go to work today. I think the aliens are landing. If they do, I'm gonna sue them.

The treasure is buried under the giant "W".

Sue This,

Wiggy

What a day to get creative

First of all, I had to get up this morning at 3:30 a.m. because the dogs were barking. "Hush, you muskies!" I yelled down the stairs, but it was to no avail. They barked even more, now having someone to talk to. I got up to let them out.

I made a pot of fine Kalossi coffee, which is from the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia and is a fine brew indeed. If one is to begin the day by rueing it, one should be properly fortified with fine coffee; that is how I feel about such things. Are we clear on this?

And so, I sat there in the dark living room on the ground floor of our home, listening to my darking bogs dig for truffles in the minefield that was formerly my backyard, and I thought it would be a fine day to get things done. This is usually a bad idea, and once again, I failed to learn from bitter experience.

My first stop was to be Walgreen's, where I was planning to drop off a roll of film from my Olympus XA2 camera. This is a clever little camera that is known for its ability to...well, not much of anything, really. It is just a cool camera and I like it, ok? And I have developed (get it, developed?) this habit of keeping it with me all the time and taking photos wherever it seems appropriate. Mostly out the window of my car. That's kind of odd, but there you go. I'm sprinkling some examples in around here.

Then, I was going to go to Lowes, the expensive Uber Hardware Store that has caused all the Western Auto and Ace Hardware stores to go pretty much belly up. But I need to go there anyway, because hey, no
more Western Auto.

Then, I was going to go to to the local donut store and buy donuts. Yes. Sigh. We have a freaking "Krispy Kreme" donut store here. No, I won't go to it. I just don't like them. Krispy Kreme donuts are very, very, greasy and they are directly from Satan's bottom, is what. I eat one of those and I spend the rest of the morning in the bathroom leaving landmines behind enemy lines, not unlike the dogs.

But it was not to be, at least not right away. See, I found this street festival in downtown Wilson, they called it "Art on the Block Fest" and Mrs Wiggy decided she wanted to see it. So ok, off we go to see it. But it was kind of a bust.

So, I'm back to getting things done. I've got these two Azalea plants that I've purchased the other day for Mrs. Wiggy, and now I'm going to plant them. All she has to do is tell me where to dig the hole. Which she does. There are protractors and compasses and strings and sticks involved, but I won't go into all that now. Suffice to say, when the dust settles, I am fully equipped to plant two small Azalea bushes - that is, I know where to dig the holes.

And dig I do. Until my back is nigh unto breaking, I dig. I dig a lot. Yep. North Carolina has a lot of clay, did you know that? Well, it does. And it is heavy. Sticks to the shovel.

So, there it is. Don't you think I did a good job? I know I do. By God, I am domesticated - I have planted...a shrubbery. Actually, two of them. From Monty Python to Rocky Horror to planting freaking bushes in the front yard. What the hell happened? One day I was a punk rocker. The next day I was gardening, for God's sake.

But what the hell. Embrace the horror. Did I tell you that I murdered most of my yard? Well, I did. I put down weed killer. And since my yard was mostly weeds, that killed it all, more or less. Left it looking like patchy mange, is what. So I decided to kill it some more. Here we go, strong chemicals.

Well, once I got done killing the lawn some more, I figured I'd better put some grass seed down. So I bought some grass seed at Lowes, and spread it around. Then I was going to water it in, but Mrs. Wiggy got all creative and read the directions, and it said that I needed to aerate the soil. I'm thinking what the hell are they talking about? Aerate? Like with air? Do I look like I have some huge air compressor laying around, I can pump my yard full of it? I tell Mrs. Wiggy that I'm not going to aerate the lawn. It can damned well aerate itself.

But then Mrs. Wiggy had a brainstorm. She asked me if I still had my late father's old golf stuff, which yes, I have. Then she mentioned that she thought she had seen a pair of shoes with golf spikes on them somewhere around the house. Ah-hah! Aerate the lawn! Clever girl.

But she was only joking. Ah, but I wasn't. Hehehehe. I went and found those shoes.

Note to self: Walking around inside the house with these on is not the smartest thing you can do, especially if you have hardwood floors. OK, then.

Now, no one should have to tromp around in their yard with golf shoes on, doing serious aeration work without a beer, you know? So I asked Mrs. Wiggy (since I had my special shoes on) to Beeru o kudasai? Which she did, because you know, I speak a little Japanese from when I was their emporer. So here you go, slancha!

You always have to prime the pump, you know. No way to do serious yard work without a nice long tug at a cold bottle of beer. Makes me steady. Sometimes I get so steady, I can hardly move.

Now, I want you all to know that this is not my fault. Mrs. Wiggy took these photographs, and she thinks that I have a, er, cute butt. So I present this photo for all the women in the world. Weep and gnash your teeth, because this butt belongs to Mrs. Wiggy. And for you guys out there, sorry dudes.

Here I am practicing my ceremonial Lawn Aeration Dance, soon to become a new dance craze. Someone is going to drop a net on me, I know this. But what the hell, it's a fun ride while it lasts.

Once I got all that done, with holes nicely punched in my dirt yard every couple of inches, I retired to a well-earned nap on the front porch. Ah, my toes need freedom.

And if you look closely, you can see the new shrubberies in place - the dirt is slowly turning to mud in the sprinkler and washing all my new grass seed down the street. We're going to have the greenest gutters in town, I swear.

So here I am, ensconced in my little town, slowly learning the ways of homo sapiens domesticus. And as long as I have beer, it's cool.

Keep Weedin',

Wiggy