Freaks Out There

Recently I have begun bogging about stuff in my life and Taoism.  Part of Taoism is not judging.  Well, I am not perfect by any means, and I am still working on this Taoism stuff, so……

I am going to judge.

I wrote a story about my son going pee outside.  It was funny.  It was meant to be one of those funny kid moments that was cute and we will tease him about when he is a teenager when he brings girls over to the house.

It is meant for other parents to laugh at as a humorous anecdote and to remind them of something in there life that may have happened when their kids were children.

I noticed the story was getting some attention.  When I looked to see how people were finding it, they found it from some weird searches:  Little Boy Peeing, wives peeing, boys peeing, peeing stories little boy, boy peeing art.

Now, here’s what I picture in my head:  Some guy in his late 30’s or 40’s who can’t find a date and lives at home with his elderly mother.  He justifies the search as “something funny” to look up, then before he knows it, he’s locking his door, grabbin’ the Kleenex and doing his business.

I don’t care what your thing is that gets you going, but if it involves kids, you have a problem.

So, if this is how you found this, and that is what you are looking for, I will judge you and Karma will bite you square in the ass!

If it Smells Clean, It Must Be Clean

Tommorrow I head off to take some leave, spend a couple of weeks with my family, then off to my training before going to Iraq.

That being said, there are several steps to what we call in the Army, “Clearing”.  Mostly it’s closing out evaluations, getting and award, making sure you don’t owe anyone on base anything and, if you live on base like I do, getting your quarters inspected for cleanliness.

The theory is that it is supposed to be cleaner than when you received it.  Just remember, “clean” is one of those relative terms.

I didn’t live like a pig, but, I didn’t spend much time here either.  My time was spent with my family that lives 3 hours from here, or it was spent on the road doing my job.

Occasionally I would throw some kind of perishable food item in the trash, forget to take the trash out, and return to my quarters after being gone for a couple of weeks.  I could usually smell stench of some kind of rotting flesh as I turned the key to the room. 

It made me feel as if I was in some cheesy, made-for-tv crime drama. I would play the part of the landlord dressed in the standard TV landlord costume; short, overweight, back hair (which I am currently cultivating), half shaven; old, white, mustard stained, wife-beater, tank top; gold chain with an Italian horn on the end of it, still carrying the last couple of bites of a sandwich.  I take the last couple of bites, wipe my hand on my shirt, get the keys that are attached to my belt loop and open the door. I say to one of the cops, “I don’t know officer, it’s usually pretty quiet up here, but da otha night I heaud some kinda boom, but I figgad it wadn’t my bizness.  Whatddo I know. It’s always the quiet ones.  Am I right or am I right?”

But not today.  Today, I get together my finest tools of the trade to pass my inspection.  The best smelling stuff that says clean.  Bleach, wipes with bleach, bathroom spray stuff with bleach, floor cleaning stuff with bleach, and if they made a mop that was made out of bleach, I would get that too. 

From top to bottom I scrub.  It brings me back 20 years to my days as a private.  Our Sunday night ritual was to clean and drink beer.  The next morning the First Sergeant and Sergeant Major would inspect our rooms.  Back then we used Pine-Sol because that’s what the Army gave us.  We would get drunk and when we were finished, we would cheer, “If it smells clean, it must be clean!” 

I wonder how many brain cells we fried doing that.  Not from the drinking, but from the Pine-Sol.

The next day the Sergeant Major would come in and run his bare finger under the rim of the toilet.  Inevitably, there was always someone in the barracks that would not quite clean their toilet enough and the echo of profanities would ensue.  For the next hour we would giggle and make comments to our buddies when no one was looking.  I always wondered if the Sergeant Major would eat finger foods for lunch Mondays.

I am done cleaning and it smells like bleach.  Tomorrow I will spray some Fabreez on the carpet, do one last wipe down of flat surfaces with my bleach filled wipes and stand tall for my final inspection.  I’m not drunk, and tomorrow a civilian contractor will come look at my little room that I called home for the last two years.  But, what the hell.  “If it smells clean, it must be clean!”

The Tao of the Best Coke Ever

My wife and I have this thing that we call the best Coke ever.  Coca-Cola drinkers, I think you know what I am talking about.

Now, for some reason, the Best Coke Ever doesn’t come in a plastic bottle or from a soda fountain.  It only comes from aluminum cans, or from glass bottles.  If you can find them, Coke in glass bottles are considered the Best, Best Coke Ever.  Sometimes, it doesn’t even happen from a bottle or can at all.  Sometimes it just doesn’t happen.

But when it does happen, it’s something spectacular.

It rarely happens from Coke purchased from convenience stores. They simply because don’t keep their refrigerators cold enough. 

It happens when you open that can and take the first gulp from a can that can be held for a minute at first, but after that, it’s almost too cold to hold. 

As you take that first gulp, you can feel coldness run down the back of your throat.  Your blood vessels in your head constrict, not enough to give you brain freeze, but riding that fine line between pain and pleasure.

You can feel the coldness push through your ear canals, almost as if that cold, tan, foamy goodness is about to spill from your ears onto your shoulders.

Behind your eyes the temperature in your head drops.  Maybe it’s only a degree or two, but it feels colder.  The sensation makes you want to roll your eyes into the back of your head, but you resist.

Simultaneously, the refreshing sensation runs down your throat , little by little, lining your esophogeal walls. 

The battle between 34.9 F and your body temperature of 98.6 F ensues until it brings everything back to center.  The physics of heat exchange cools your body until finally you can feel it pour into your stomach.

The tempurature levels out and everything ceases.  The sensation is gone.

Inevitably, the second sip isn’t the same.  Nor are the consecutive sips.

It’s only the first one.

The balance, the exact middle of pleasure and pain; The sweet taste and acidic qualities of this guilty pleasure;  That one moment in time, so pleasurable, yet so fleeting.  You want it to last forever, but you know, if it lasted forever, there would be no such thing as The Best Coke Ever.

If your mouth isn’t watering after this, then maybe you’re part of the Pepsi Generation.