Tell me a story of love or of loss or of heroics or of nefarious deeds. Tell me a story that you won’t tell any other, and I will laugh or cry, be shocked or angered. I’ll oooh and ahhh and hang on your every word and love every second of it.

Now, I’m not surprised that I slept through someone entering the house, making his way to the bedroom, and hovering over the foot of my bed until I woke up. I mean, that’s what happens when one takes those sleeping pills the doctors prescribe. First one becomes all loopy, and then one stuffs a bunch of food in one’s face, all the while convinced of having sound mind and making acceptable decisions. Then one turns the light off and –boom- falls asleep.

So I wasn’t surprised that this man was able to get in unnoticed. I was bloody freaked out that there was a man staring at me when I left the wonderful world of dreams to return to the dull world of reality. Of course, this time reality wasn’t dull. Who calls reality dull when waking up to a stranger?

When I realized that something was out of place in my bedroom (and my heart started its marathon pace), the gentleman smiled and tipped his hat. His hat? Precisely. Maybe now I should explain why I call him a gentleman.

The person standing unexpectedly before me when I awoke was wearing a three-piece suit, brown and pinstriped like one might imagine Sherlock Holmes wore when he did his official detectiving. The man had a cane in his left hand and a top hat, as quaint as you can be. Not only was he out of place in my bedroom, but he seemed out of place in time.

This anachronistic gentleman tipped his hat, smiled, and extended his right arm in invitation. Now, it is not my habit to join trespassers in a stroll around town in the middle of the night, nor is it my habit to be dressed appropriately for such an event when I am sleeping in my own bed. However, since he looked rather non-threatening, and because my mind was still a little foggy from my nocturnal medications, I quickly slipped out of my bed and clothed myself.

It’s a strange feeling to consider oneself underdressed when one is, in fact, dressed appropriately for the time and the event, but this gentleman had a certain…panache that I believe would have left anyone feeling a bit inadequate in a similar circumstance. My wind pants and t-shirt may have been more utilitarian, but I certainly wasn’t going to look as good doing…whatever it is we were going to do…as the gentleman in the suit.

He led me to the front door where I was able to get my jacket, which had my house key. This was a good thing because I strongly suspect that I would not be as adept as breaking and entering into my own house as this odd nighttime visitor. Without further detainment, the gentleman led me out of my house and onto my front lawn, whereupon another oddity awaited me.

You may recall a week or so ago there was a strange shape on my back lawn which I imagined to be a large fox or small coyote or something equally sinister. It turns out that the creature on the lawn was a fox, and I am able to relate this as a certainty because I saw the same exact beast on my front lawn when the gentleman led me outside.

This animal gave me a start like one I hadn’t had since, well, since waking up to find a stranger in my bedroom. However, the animal looked at the man, and the man looked at the animal, and both had what I can only describe as a look of knowing understanding. The fox seemed to be quite docile, a mere observer of events, and the gentleman gave it another one of his charming smiles that had persuaded me out of bed.

The gentleman led me away from my house and into the trees. I noticed the fox watch our departure, but instead of following, it turned back to minding my house.

How long we walked through the forest, I can’t be sure. I had not donned my watch during my hasty dress. Familiar landscapes quickly became unfamiliar, and the sounds I am used to hearing at night in my neighborhood changed to foreign, if contemporary, noises. When we did emerge from the woods, we were standing directly in front of your residence.

We didn’t have to walk any further, for what the gentleman apparently wanted me to see was quite plain in the light of the moon. There, watching your home as diligently as one was watching mine, was a sizeable grey fox.

The animal turned to look at us. The gentleman remained silent, merely smiling again his enigmatic smile. We stepped back into the woods and allowed the creature to return to its nocturnal vigil.

After another indeterminable amount of time I was returned to my own premises and allowed back into my bed. The gentleman had left me at the front door, so I was not witness to his skills of entering a locked home. When he left, he left alone, and the fox remained in my yard, staring at the house.

Needless to say, I took some time getting back to sleep last night. I could not get the visitation out of my head, the oddity of the experience, and the sights I had witnessed. I thought long about the gentleman, but I thought even longer about the foxes.

As I lie there pondering these events, one thought, nay one certainty, allowed me to relax until I once more fell asleep. The foxes are no mere observers, my dear. They are guardians.

The sign in front of the fast food restaurant boasted that it was open 24/7, but everyone in the area knew that the city was a ghost town after 2AM. When he came back at 2:30 that night, he parked his car by some others in the department store lot next door. There were people inside stocking the shelves overnight, so his car didn’t look out of place. He opened the back door and unstrapped the small bundle from the car seat.

He had needed to drive around town for over an hour before the bundle had stopped crying and finally fell asleep. Now it smelled like sour milk, and definitely needed a clean diaper, but there was no way he was going to chance waking it before getting inside. He walked in slow, swaying steps across the parking lot.

He peeked around the corner of the building. As expected, the interior of the fast food restaurant was devoid of customers. He slowly opened the door. The restaurant’s two employees could be heard talking in the back, over the sound of hip-hop music. He stepped in and guided the door gently closed behind him.

Inside the bathroom, the door to the stall was half open. He stepped forward, careful not to squeak his shoes on the tile. He stepped through the half open door, rather than chance the creaking noise he had heard last time it opened. Here was the baby changing station, folded into the wall just like he last saw it.

He took one final peek out the stall door to make sure no one else entered the bathroom. He turned back and lowered the table of the station.

He set the bundle down on the baby changing station, and the child opened its eyes. It squinted in the bright bathroom interior, frowned, and inhaled a lungful of air to continue the caterwauling it had left off before the car ride. The man lifted up the baby station table and closed it into the wall before the child could begin the scream. Silence.

He was afraid that an employee may have heard the station close but wasn’t sure how long he was supposed to wait before opening it again. He looked at his watch. He looked at the bathroom door. He looked back at his watch. He never realized time could pass so slowly.

When he could wait no longer, he again lowered the baby changing station table. On the table was a puppy. It had a smooth blue bow tied around its neck. The puppy started wagging its tail.

He picked up the puppy. It licked his face. He nuzzled the puppy and scratched it behind the ears. The puppy cocked its head and closed its eyes contentedly.

He walked out of the bathroom, puppy under his arm. He left the restaurant and walked back to his car with a huge grin on his face.

I’ve only broken up with people three times. One of them wasn’t a big deal, but the other two were heartbreakers. However, these breakups can’t be the reason for my attraction to breakup songs, as they all occurred after my attraction to the music.

Perhaps finding Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet cassette in the coat closet at school was the start of my fondness. A good number of the songs on the tape have to do with just those issues. Perhaps since I liked the music, I liked the subject matter.

This doesn’t always happen to me, especially now that I’m a more circumspect adult. I can appreciate the musical quality of a song while abhorring the lyrics and/or subject matter. Are the lyrics and/or subject matter of the relationship songs really that bad, though?

Take a look at Bryan Adams for an example. He’s one of the artists I really liked in my college years. His music is great, especially for easy-listening fans who have the radio on at work. Most of those fans would probably not have any problem with Bryan Adams’ subject matter as the songs played in the workplace. However, when you really listen to what he’s saying, you hear songs about fornication and infidelity. To me, those themes aren’t something we should be encouraging.

So now we have music that I am fond, regardless of whether I can relate to it or whether I approve of the subject matter.

What’s up with that?

Seriously. I’m sweating like Big Bird at a Popeye’s.

I just put this shirt on and it is now drenched. The computer monitor is fogging up like the cold winter windshield of a car filled with 5 teenage girls. I had to go to the garage to get a squeegee.

Before my overheated computer circuitry fries, sending a brain-scrambling pulse through the delicate sensor nerves of my baby-soft fingers, I want to take a step back and remember things how they were…before the “incident”…back when all my friends and acquaintances weren’t gibbering morons who hadn’t had their brains supercharged by errant electrical surges.

I will miss you and this time when life was simple and I wasn’t dissatisfied by your mere presence.

Stocking
A Conan the Barbarian Sword Letter Opener
Star Wars Chop Sabers
Bacon Flavored Croutons
Bacon Dental Floss
Hematite Adventure Gaming Dice

Gifts included a wonderful assortment:
Kindle Keyboard (3G, WiFi)
Dwarven Dig! Adventure board game
Robo Rally boardgame
Despair, Inc 2012 Custom Calendar
7 inch digital picture frame
Littmann Stethoscope (Navy Blue)
Texas Roadhouse gift card
Cash

Now I’m trying to figure out what to do with my old letter opener. It came from Africa, so I don’t feel like throwing it away. The point is broken, though. I think I’ll just stick it in a pen jar and let the top look out at me while I open letters with the Conan sword.

I hope Christmas was wonderful to you and yours!

In fourth grade history class we were told that we would have a history test in a few days. Being the student I was, I took the book home and studied it along with whatever notes and handouts I had. When it came time for the test, I was ready. Before starting the test, the teacher said it would be open book. Everyone grabbed their textbooks and opened them up, reading for the test…everyone, that is, except me.

I figured that I had studied the subject matter enough. I remember thinking I didn’t need the book because I had this information down. I boldly accepted my test and started answering questions that I knew the answer to.

I don’t remember any point during the test where I wanted to bring my book out, though that surely would have still been an option. Instead, I dutifully finished the test and turned it in, proud of my studying skills. Now this was quite a while ago, so this is how I remember it now. I very well may have turned it in a little more nervous than usual, wishing I had used my book. I don’t at any point recall enough anxiety over the questions that I felt the need to retrieve my book.

When the tests were handed back a few days later, the teacher stated that “only one person was bold enough to fail this test.” I wasn’t worried about that person being me because I had studied and felt good about how I did on the test. Sure enough, when the tests were handed out, I had a failing grade on my paper (or really close to it). The grade was in the 60s…for an open book test.

I learned something on that day. I learned that no matter how comfortable I felt about the material presented, I was always going to use my book in an open book test. That life lesson has not failed me to this point.

When the scores were posted for this recent online midterm, my grade was an 89. I know for an open book test that’s not really overwhelmingly great. I blame the lower-than-desired grade on the fact that I cut one hour off my allowable testing time by scheduling an appointment earlier that day and then forgetting my appointment time when I started the test. I ended up only having two hours to take my three hour test.

There’s another lesson I don’t expect I’ll forget any time soon.

I spent a good number of my formative years at my great-grandmother’s house. She helped raise me, including educating me, and grew to love me. Everyone knew I was her favorite grandchild and that she absolutely adored me. When I eventually moved back in with my mother, the visits to my great-grandmother slowly grew fewer and fewer. I would go many weekends, then I would go a few weekends, and then I would not really go at all. She grew older and had to move out of the trailer where I grew up. She was in the hospital for cancer and I managed to visit her once. She was in a nursing home as she slowly lost her cognitive functions. She always asked about me when visitors came and would hope for the day when I would come visit. I managed one visit in years. She died and I have no idea when I last saw her before that. She spent the second part of her life getting irrevocably attached to me and then losing me. I disappointed her greatly.

My mother always encouraged me and fed my growing intelligence. She told me how smart I was all the time through grade school and high school. She did what it took to provide for and nurture a budding intelligence. I was, at different times, enrolled in an engineering program and a pre-veterinarian program. I am neither an engineer nor a veterinarian. I am not a medical provider, though I grew up with medical professionals all around me. One college diploma later, I am an EMT (a one semester course) and a registration representative (requisite? a one semester course). Neither pays enough to live above basic needs. I have disappointed my mother.

My wife saw my potential and married a man who could be anything he put his mind to. She has lived through periods of marriage where we bought generic brand foods and didn’t buy new clothes. She has lived though periods of working an extra job on the weekends to pay the bills. She inherited thousands of dollars of debt when she married me and had to help me pay it off instead of starting her marriage ahead of the game. She has worked long shifts, she has worked extra shifts, and she had worked physically demanding jobs. She has skimped and sacrificed and taken the brunt of living a low income lifestyle. Instead of pushing myself to constantly better myself and our situation, she is burdened with a man who finds contentment for too long with too little. I have disappointed the very love of my life.

If you were to ask me, completely out of this, or any, context, the three people I love or have loved most in my entire life, I would list these three women. I have let them all down to varying degrees, from the excusable to the unforgivable. I have become deplorable, and when I verbalize it, it hurts.

Thursday, May 19th

We used our free tickets to go to a plantation. Granted, this plantation was the one preferred by the Charleston Visitor’s Center (the same place that messed up our tour times the previous day), but when we requested a plantation walk we were (again) thinking about sprawling gardens with flowers in every color of the rainbow. We got a walk through someone’s forested back yard. So-and-so played here and the pastor/owner penned many of his sermons from here…. However, the place was severely lacking in flowers.

After the plantation walk, we went shopping at a Tanger Outlet. I liked the setup of the outlet area. We didn’t end up buying too much, which is different for our shopping day. I got a belt.

Friday, May 20th

Happy birthday to my wife! This was our day to just bum around the resort and bask in the warmth of SC along the beach…which led to both of us getting sunburnt. The sun drained us so we took a nap and woke up sore. I figured I would just be uncomfortable from my sunburn, but it was very uncomfortable sleeping the next few nights. We went to dinner at the Edisto Pavilion, an overpriced restaurant on the beach. Krissy’s pasta had shrimp, which she was sick of by that point in the vacation. I had a small steak, which fulfilled my craving.

Saturday, May 21st

I’m fine sitting around doing nothing. That’s part of vacation for me. Krissy, however, wanted to go do something. We figured Beaufort wasn’t too far away, just the next peninsula over, so we’d go check it out. It was kind of a spontaneous decision with no expectations, so it couldn’t disappoint us. The drive was a little longer than we expected, and the city is small, but there are quite a few things packed into it. Krissy had her first experience at a Chick-fil-A. We stopped at a chocolate shop that she had scouted out and bought a bunch more candy. They had a pack of chocolates shaped for nurses and the instruments they use. Apparently the pack was in the sun on the way home because two of the instruments melted in the car.

Sunday, May 22nd

We checked out relatively early and drove through SC, VA, WV, MD, and into PA before stopping for the night. We stayed at a Fairfield by Marriott and they seemed overexcited to have us there. I got two emails and a small card in the mail all thanking us for choosing them.

Monday, May 23rd

We finally arrived home after another long day of driving. We went through the rest of PA, NY, CT, MA, NH and into Maine. The house hadn’t burned down, and nobody had stolen the copper out of the house while we were gone. I consider that a win.

Saturday, May 14th

After 15 hours of driving through Maine, NH, Mass, Conn, NY, Penn, MD, WV, and VA, we stopped in Fredericksburg for the night. Highlights include fog in Pennsylvania so thick that I couldn’t see 10 yards in front of me. Also, it was torrentially down-pouring in Fredericksburg. All the hotels at our first stop were full due to weddings and graduations. We were told not to bother stopping at the next exit, either.

Sunday, May 15th

It was another long day of driving, but we made it to the resort. Along the way we stopped to eat at a very unimpressive Hardees. That night we ate at an Edisto Beach restaurant called McConkey’s Jungle Shack. The food was pretty good, and the ambiance of the screened in porch was great.

Monday, May 16th

I woke up before the SC sun. Apparently the sun gets up an hour later in SC than it does in Maine. Also, we went for an extremely long walk on Edisto Beach. We kept thinking a resort-owned rest/bathroom area was coming up just around the next bend in the beach. We took a lot of bends and never made it to the rest area. We wondered back through town instead of back via the beach and stumbled upon Whaley’s, a little hole-in-the-wall type restaurant and bar.

Tuesday, May 17th

We explored what I liked to call “the Strip” of the island. This included one long building with a pizzaria, a movie rental store (not open until 2PM), an administrative office, a candy store, and a nails/massage office. We had some pizza and bought a bunch of candy. The rest of the day was spent mostly relaxing and reading.

Wednesday, May 18th

We got up early for a trip to historic Charleston. We bought tickets to what we were told was a 90 min trip to Ft Sumter and then a 90 min historical Charleston bus tour. We double checked before getting on the first bus and found that the Ft Sumter tour was closer to 3 hours. We couldn’t do that and the bus tour because we had made an appointment to sit through a sales pitch later in the day in exchange for $92 worth of passes and gift cards. Unfortunately, we had put a (refundable) deposit down for the sales pitch or we would have skipped it. We only took the bus tour and were actually a little disappointed in Charleston. Sure, there are old, nice looking buildings with lots of history. However, real estate is at a premium so the houses are rather close together. We enjoyed hearing the historical facts and seeing the local architecture, but there were no wide boulevards or sprawling gardens like I was expecting.

To be continued…