Now I know how Papa Bear felt

Somebody’s been sleeping in my bed. A blond somebody.

Sadly, this is not the preamble to a passionate tale of naughtiness featuring a new girlfriend in the starring role. (Hey, it could happen!) Nor is it a modern day retelling of the Goldilocks saga. 

See, I have no idea who the blond “somebody” is.

Near as I can figure, the B & E took place last week while I was in the hospital. I was hospitalized for a couple days — nothing major, but it did require an overnight stay. 

When I left my apartment for the emergency room, my bed was made, the dishes done and the door locked. When I arrived home a couple days later, the door was no longer locked. In fact, it stood open an inch or so.

Now, I’ve seen enough cop shows to know that when faced with this situation you’re supposed to back away and call 911, in case the ax murderer is still inside. I didn’t do this; I just went on in.

“Hello,” I called into the dark kitchen, dropping my voice a couple octaves in order to sound manly and imposing. “Anybody here?”

Nobody was. The rest of the apartment was likewise intruder-free.

Maybe I left the door ajar, I thought to myself. Maybe I was in such a hurry to get to the emergency room I just plain forgot.

Then I saw the dirty dishes in my sink. A coffee cup, two cereal bowls and a small assortment of silverware. None of it was the stuff I use on a daily basis.

“Someone’s been eating in my house,” I said aloud, hoping the Papa Bear quote would ease my anxiety. It didn’t.

Continuing through the apartment, I saw my comforter and sheets had been turned down. The bed had obviously been slept in. There were long, blonde hairs on the pillow, easy to see because I was using the chocolate colored linen last week. The pillow smelled faintly of unfamiliar perfume.

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice — another storybook blond — noted during her visit to Wonderland.

Perhaps strangest of all, my hair brush was loaded with more long, blonde hairs. Who uses someone else’s hair brush? Had this intruder no fear of cooties?

My cat, Friday, witnessed the whole thing, of course, but he’s useless even by cat standards; as a witness to a police sketch artist, even more so.

Nothing was missing, nothing broken.

I checked with all the long-haired blonds I know: my daughter, my former girlfriend, Sweet Annie, a girl who comes out to see my little bar band from time to time. I couldn’t imagine any of them would sneak into my unoccupied apartment and indeed, none of them had.

I changed the sheets, washed the dishes and bought myself a new hairbrush. But I can’t wash away the sense of unease. I don’t feel violated, exactly, but I am understandably curious as to the intruder’s identity.

If it’s you and you’re reading this, please send me an anonymous confession along with the assurance you don’t plan to sneak in and kill me in my sleep. 

And next time? Use the hairbrush under the sink, OK? I bought that specifically for guests.

I think I’m overdue for an oil change

I’m beginning to feel like a poorly-maintained classic car, maybe a ’68 Mustang, one that’s been washed and waxed regularly, but hasn’t had as many oil changes as it should have had over the years. 

See, for my age, I look pretty good. Not attractive, exactly, but considerably younger than the issuance date my birth certificate indicates. I take no real pride in this, since I had nothing to do with it. I rarely eat “right,” I drink too much beer, I don’t get enough sleep and in the summer I’m outside all the time without ever bothering with sunscreen.

Despite all this, like that Mustang, I look okay for my age. Sadly, the analogy does not end there. Like that Mustang, I’ve got high miles and a lot of my mechanical components seem to be in need of repair lately.

This is on my mind just now because I can’t walk. I could a couple days ago, but not today. 

In fact, last weekend I went for a 28-mile bicycle ride. Got winded a couple times, but that’s to be expected after a long winter’s hibernation.

My legs were a little sore the next day, but they felt fine the day after that. Then two days ago I woke up with both my knees hurting like a sunnavagun. This wasn’t little “over-exertion” discomfort, either, but a boo-boo like I’d never experienced before. Those suckers were screaming like a congressman forced to work a 40-hour week.

It came out of nowhere! 

Two days later and the left leg feels OK, mostly. The right is still keeping me in bed and the Bayer people in business. 

I’m seeing a doctor tomorrow; with any luck it’ll turn out to be nothing, some iron deficiency, maybe. Something easily treatable.

But it still has me worried. This comes only a week after I was hospitalized with a “stricture” of the esophagus that was preventing me from swallowing grilled chicken or anything else, including water and far more importantly, beer.

I’ve gone my whole life, up until the last couple weeks, with absolutely no health issue more serious than a cold or stubbed toe. Now all of a sudden I’m falling apart? Getting “mystery” aches and pains?

Oh, I’m guessing I’ll be right as rain in a few days, but then what? As with that old Mustang, it’s just a matter of time before something else goes kablooey and needs to be repaired, replaced or removed.

And as I understand it, there is no way to completely halt this process. It can be delayed, sure, but in the end, that Mustang’s going to wind up in the scrap yard.

I suppose I should find that thought depressing, but I don’t. It’s all part of that Disney “circle of life” thing, and I’m OK with that.

Still, I’m beginning to wish I’d been a bit more methodical with those oil changes.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273

Water is sure to play a part in my eventual demise

I’m not sure exactly when I’ll die, but I have a good idea how. When the Grim Reaper finally stretches out his skeletal hand for my soul, I’ll be under water.

He’s almost gotten me a dozen times already, the first when I was only three years old and most recently, last summer. I make the Reaper’s job all too easy, because of my love of water.

If there’s water nearby, I want to be in it.

I learned to swim early, taking summer classes at Highland Park pool. Rather than making me safer, learning to swim actually increased the likelihood I would eventually drown. Armed with false confidence, I would head onto a lake with no thought whatsoever of the return trip. I’d swim out until I was exhausted and only then consider the fact I had to swim back again. This made for some interesting near-death experiences.

The most memorable happened when I was 17. I was camping at Lake Michigan, trying to get over the unutterable anguish of having been dumped by a girl whose name I no longer remember. Moping near my little campfire — it must have been around midnight — I decided life simply wasn’t worth living, not if I couldn’t have the girl whose name I no longer remember.

I would never heal. I would forever be miserable. I couldn’t live without her. Such are the musings of a heartsore teenage Lothario.

I walked to the shoreline. A billion billion stars arched across the moonless night sky. No other lights intruded on this deserted stretch of sand. In a dramatic fit of pique such as only a jilted teenager can muster, I decided to end it all. That would teach her, this girl whose name I no longer remember.

I kicked off my jeans. Naked I had entered this world, naked I would leave it.

I waded into the inky, undulating waters and swam away from shore, a tragic hero out of Hemingway or Faulkner. It was all very overwrought and theatrical.

Of course, I had no intention of actually dying. Even then I realized the girl whose name I no longer remember had a rather large nose and a laugh that made my ears bleed.

As I swam, the tide was going out. By the time I noticed, I could no longer see the shore and had no idea in which direction it might lay. There were a few panicky moments as I splashed about like a beached flounder and made hasty deals with God, deals I promptly forgot two minutes after making it back to shore.

Problem was, I washed ashore two miles from my campsite, on a well-lit public beach. Buck naked. Cars and campers lined the parking lot, less than 20 yards from the water’s edge.

I sprinted through the shallows; headlights came on. Once again, the Reaper nearly got me, as I narrowly avoided dying from embarrassment. 

Read my book, or maybe you should wait for the next one

I made a terrible mistake the other day: I read my own book, the one published a few years ago, “Looking at the Pint Half Full.” (Lest you think I’m trying to hawk my book here, you should know there’s only a handful of copies left, or maybe none. The last few were available only at Robbins Book List in Greenville and it’s possible they’ve sold out by now, in which case I should stop by the store to pick up a check so I’ll have beer money this weekend.)

I had never read my book before. I mean, I read it as I was writing and editing it, obviously, but never after it came out in print. I’m not sure why; it just never occurred to me to do so.

I only read it the other day because it’s the only “print” book in my house. I had just finished my last unread Kindle novel and my Internet connection was down, so I couldn’t download another one.

I read my book because that’s all there was handy.

Now I wish I hadn’t.

Why? Well, first off, it’s not as good as I thought it was. The book is (mostly) a collection of my newspaper columns, some from 10 or 15 years ago. I’m a better writer now than I was then and some of the phrasing feels clunky to me. Also, there’s one chapter in which I discuss my old rotator cuff injury. For reasons I will never understand, I referred to my boo-boo, repeatedly, as a rotator “cup” injury. What’s a rotator cup injury, or for that matter, a rotator cup? I have no idea, but there it is in my book!

There’s also a typo in there somewhere. Only one, but it bugs me. How did that typo sneak past me? I’ll admit, I did most of my editing on the book while sitting in my favorite booth at Moose Winooski’s, a little pub in Clawson, where I was living at the time. It’s possible the 40-ounce, two-dollar drafts they serve there had something to do with that typo; I’ll never know for sure.

Also, there are too many chapters about my last divorce and all the horrifying dating experiences that followed. Some are funny, but a couple are just darn depressing. 

And why did I write about losing my job and my house? I have no idea, other than it seemed like a good idea at the time.

At least I had enough sense to include the column about hopping trains during summer vacations back when I was a kid; it’s my personal all-time favorite, although I’ve never had a reader mention it as being one of his or hers.

I guess the book’s OK, if a little uneven. If it was someone else’s book and I the reviewer, I’d probably give it 2.5 stars out of four.

They say a writer is his own worst critic.

I hope that’s true.

mtaylor325@gmail.com