Love in the age of dinosaurs

Let’s start out with the parental warning – this week’s column deals with issues of an adult nature. In fact, it’s all about sex. But since this is a family newspaper, we won’t be using that word.

Instead, let’s call if falafel. Because like the word we’re not using, falafels are wonderful and I don’t have them near as often as I’d like. Though I could, if I really set my mind to it.

As with so many things in life, when it comes to falafel, it’s all about timing.

Now, I’m not complaining about my falafel life; Mrs. Taylor (we’re officially dropping the “formerly Lori Frankforter” thing, at her request; she’s always hated her last name and doesn’t like being reminded of it in this column) is wonderful.

It’s just that we’re not having falafel as often as we used to. Sure, sure, I’ve been around long enough to know that when you first start sharing falafel with someone new, you just can’t seem to get enough. Falafel, I mean.

At first, you want falafel most every day, sometimes twice a day. Falafel seems like the most amazing thing in the world and you’re convinced your falafel is better than anyone else’s in the history of the world.

You may even find yourselves promising each other that you’ll never let 24 hours pass without at least a little quickie falafel.

But time passes and the day finally comes. You or your beloved decide you’d rather watch the season premiere of “Law & Order” than enjoy yet another falafel. Eventually, you’re having falafel once a week, maybe every other week.

And then a lot of time passes. You’re not kids anymore. You’re in your forties, your fifties and even – like me – your sixties. You never expected to live this long. Falafel, while still wonderful and one of your favorite things, is no longer something you can’t live without.

To make matters worse, there’s that timing thing I mentioned earlier. The problem, it seems to me, is that men and women – even geezers like Mrs. Taylor and me – while we still love falafel, rarely love it at the same time. See, different things put us in the mood for falafel.

For instance, nothing puts Mrs. Taylor in the mood for falafel more than me working in the yard all day. Apparently, seeing me out there in my baggy gardening pants, the sweat soaking through my smelly T-shirt to highlight my rippling triceps (look this is MY column, lemme tell the story my way) really gives her a craving for falafel.

Likewise, when she comes to hear my weekend rock band play a show, she’s likely to start thinking about falafel. I’m not a great musician, but apparently there’s something about seeing me holding a guitar and singing really loud that makes her forget what a nerd I am in real life.

Unfortunately, real life won’t let me forget I’m 61 and have a gimpy foot, a present from a botched surgery. By the time I’m done playing four sets or working six hours in the back yard, I am beat! Falafel is the LAST thing I want. I want my pills. I want a beer. I want my recliner and a couple episodes of “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”

I don’t want falafel.

When DO I want falafel? Well, on “date night” (if you’re a couple, you should have one of these!) Mrs. Taylor spends an hour or two getting dolled up. She puts on one of her slinky little dresses, curls her hair, works whatever other magic it is women perform behind closed bathroom doors.

When she walks out, ready for our evening, whoo boy, let me tell ya, I want falafel and how. But Mrs. T doesn’t want to put all that work into getting beautiful, then ruin it with a heaping helping of impromptu falafel. She wants to go out!

So.

That’s the problem with married falafel. It’s not insurmountable, at least not yet. And I understand that if it ever becomes so, there’s a pill for that. One that’ll help a guy remember why he was so crazy about falafel in the first place.

With any luck, that’s still a decade off, but I am open to the idea when the time comes.

After all, falafel with someone you love should be just as good the last time as it was the first.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 730-1414

I’m getting pretty tired of geezer-fied ‘offers’

When I was kid, I loved mail. Mail was birthday cards, copies of the “Weekly Reader,” postcards from Grandma’s vacation and the X-Ray Specs I’d ordered from the back pages of a Superman comic book.

Then came adulthood. No more X-Ray Specs. No more birthday cards. No more “Weekly Reader.” 

Instead, I got offers from lenders enticing me to spend money I didn’t have and bills from creditors demanding I pay back money I’d spent already.

Mail was no longer cause for celebration.

But like every reluctant grownup, I dealt with it and moved on. I figured the worst was over. 

I figured wrong.

My mail in recent months makes bills and credit card offers seem like party invitations by comparison.

I know why this is happening. I’m approaching a certain … age. A decade marker that separates the kiddies from the geezers. Come November 26, I will be landing firmly on the McDonald’s Senior Discount side of that line.

My mail reflects this fact.

Last week, for instance, I received an offer for financing on a “Hoveround,” a battery-powered scooter that’s supposed to help transport my decrepit, wrinkly self down to the corner store for my weekly purchase of Maalox, T.V. Guide and lottery tickets.

Mind you, this offer arrived three days after I completed an 80-mile bicycle tour along the Leelanau Penninsula. I may be old and tubby, but when I’m ready for a Hoveround, jerk-faces, I’ll call YOU!

Likewise, I’m not interested in any fancy refinance deals in which some mortgage company gets my home when I croak. I’ve dealt with too many banks and don’t trust ‘em not to kill me in my sleep in order to collect the house, should I live too long to suit them.

And if I get one more “offer” from the AARP, I’m going to track down the young kid in charge of sending out the mailers and beat him senseless, just to prove I still can. Maybe they’ll take the hint after that.

The final mailbox insult came in yesterday’s post. It was one of those sneaky, little insurance company mailers that looks for all the world like a bill for something I’ve already purchased.

They try to pull this stuff because old codgers (like me) aren’t supposed to be able to remember anything. We’re (apparently) easily confused and therefore likely to just send money.

It’s insulting, is what it is. But not as insulting as the “Family Keepsake” included in the envelope. 

Said “keepsake” is nothing but a sheet of paper upon which to list your next-of-kin, an abbreviated genealogical history, and your “funeral and burial arrangements.” 

This treasured document will give your kids something to ignore when they find you keeled over in your rocking chair.

Lemme tell ya buddy, the funeral director who’s going to handle MY planting hasn’t been born yet! I plan to go down kicking and screaming shortly after pulling an all-nighter at a wild New Year’s Eve 2065 party.

Until then, what I don’t need is daily reminders that time is no longer on my side. What I DO need is something to counter all this ageist propaganda.

I’m thinking it may be time to order some X-Ray Specs and take out a subscription to “Weekly Reader.” As I recall, the print used to be pretty big in that magazine. Maybe I could still see it without my reading glasses.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273

You’re only as old as it says you are on your driver’s license

I’m basically a non-violent guy; a child of the sixties who grew up in the age of Aquarius with the smug assurance that peace, love and understanding would eventually prevail over mankind’s baser instincts.

But as God is my witness, I intend to smack silly the next person who makes any of the following statements:

• Age is just a number.

• Sixty is the new 40.

• You’re only as old as you feel.

• Happy birthday.

That’s right. Today is my birthday (or it was when I wrote this on Nov. 26). I’m not 60 yet, but I will be in three years. Three years from today, in fact.

As a soon-to-be geezer, I can tell you one thing for certain: Age is not “just a number.” Age is a series of numbers, strung relentlessly end-to-end over the course of years, 57 in my case, each number 365 days larger than the one preceding it. 

The bigger the number, the older you are. That’s the way it works and nobody’s fooling anybody by pretending things are any different.

Fortunately (!!!blatant sexist remark alert!!!), I’m a man. Because I’m a man, it matters less that I’m older than dirt. Don’t ask me why; I did not make up the rules, but I refuse to pretend they don’t exist.

Women are expected to stay young and beautiful forever. Men, on the other hand, are allowed to get wrinkly, bald, grey … hell, they can even start smelling bad, yet still be considered attractive and desirable.

It isn’t fair, not by a long shot. But since I’m a man, and a selfish, narcissistic one at that, I will not complain about it here.

Even with the gender advantage, however, getting older is not something I would do were I given another option. An option other than death, I mean.

If I could buy a pill that would keep me forever young, I’d be at the pharmacy right now picking up my prescription rather than here at the office writing this column.

Oh, I don’t mind aging; at least not so far. I can still ride my bicycle 50 miles without breaking a sweat, I take stairs two at a time, I even have as much hair now as I did on my 18th birthday; more, if you count the carpet growing on my back.

So things could be worse.

I don’t FEEL old. I don’t even LOOK particularly old, at least I don’t think I do. It’s impossible to be objective about stuff like that. If I DO look old, nobody tell me, please. I’m perfectly happy living in my little delusional bubble and no infusion of pesky reality is going to make me any happier.

Still, it’s only a matter of time. Time’s inexorable march will eventually catch up with me. In due course, I’ll be not only older, but old. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

I could jog, I suppose, or eat salads instead of triple bacon burgers, but even then I’d only be postponing the inevitable. And at the end of it all, I still die.

It hardly seems worth the bother.

Even with all the medical and technological breakthroughs that continually come our way, it’s still likely my life is at least half over. But if the second half turns out to be anywhere near as wonderful as the first has been, I got nothin’ to complain about.

Besides, you’re only as old as you feel, and I hear 60 is the new 40.

BUY MY BOOK!  IN NEED CHRISTMAS MONEY!! Click the link on the right and fork over your hard-earned cash!  mtaylor325@gmail.com / (616) 548-8273

I’m not sure how I feel about the big store’s new liquor policy

A few weeks back I got off on a rant about the robo-tellers employed at a few of the larger retail grocery chains in the area. You know—the beep beep beep UPC code reader thingies that force you to ring up your own stuff? I hate ‘em.

Turns out a lot of other folks do, too, based on my reader mail. If anyone ever holds a profanity contest, I am now ready, having learned several new and interesting curse words while perusing the letters I received from readers who share my loathing for robo-tellers.

Though I didn’t mention the particular store I was referencing by name, most everybody figured it out anyway. Hopefully, that store’s lawyers will not, though I’m pretty sure if they did I’d be saved by the First Amendment (freedom to hide under the table when lawyers come knocking).

At any rate, though I may be a rabble rouser, I stink when it comes to following through on my threats to boycott anything. Like most Americans, my bark is worse than my baaah. Like a good sheep, I still shop at the store with the hated robo-tellers at least once or twice a week.

And after my experiences of the past few days, I’m kinda glad I do. Because the store in question has a new policy I really like: They card you if you’re trying to buy alcohol while appearing to be under 40. I found this out the other day while picking up a bottle of Cabernet. I’m camping again, trying to fit in as many outdoor days as I can before the snow flies, and I was shopping an unfamiliar branch of the all-too-familiar store.

When I beeped the bottle (Only six bucks for a liter! Is it any wonder I drink too much?) the robo-teller informed me I’d need to have my booze purchase approved. One of the girls who watches the robo-tellers work came over, beeped in a bunch of numbers, passed a magic card in front of the Mystery Reader, and—to my amazement—asked for my ID.

“My ID?” I asked. “Really?” It has been a while.

“We have to ask if you look under 40,” she replied. “Sorry.”

Overcome with emotion, I swept the girl into my arms, kissed her deeply on the lips and, on bended knee, proposed marriage. OK, I didn’t really do that, but I wanted to.

Modesty prevents me from mentioning my real age here (that, and the ever-present hope I’ll someday be able to attract a much younger woman) other than to say it remains in the realm of two digits. But just barely. That this girl thought I looked under 40…well!

The same thing happened again a couple days later when I was back replenishing my wine supply (camping is thirsty work!). And then again this afternoon.

I think I’ll start buying wine on a daily basis. I can’t drink it that fast, but I can give it to friends or use it to water the roses…something. It’ll be worth the expense just to hear those young girls ask for my ID.

If nothing else, this store’s policy is almost sure to bring in a whole new customer base: inebriated geezers with image problems.

Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Being a nerd at my age isn’t so bad, really

It’s hard to believe how nerdy I’ve become in the years since I turned 40. I used to be pretty cool, honest. People who know me now would never believe that, but it’s true.

There was a time, many years ago, when I was young, thin (more or less), had a good job, and drove a little red sports car that was always clean, waxed and smelling of that stuff that comes in a little can and hides under the driver’s side seat. In conversation, I called people “dude.”

Now I’m not thin, I don’t have a good job, and I drive a ten-speed or my girlfriend’s Pontiac that looks like it hasn’t been washed since coming off the assembly line eight years ago. There are child seats in back for the grandkids.

My sneakers have holes in them and—I may be imagining this—I think my hair is starting to get a little thin in front. (I hope I’m imagining this; with a head shaped like mine, the best thing you can hope for is to cover it with hair.)

In short, I’m no longer cool, not by anyone’s standard.

Usually, this does not bother me. I am, after all, over 50 and as such I’m entitled to be as uncool as I want to be. I haven’t started wearing white shoes and plaid pants yet, but when I decide I want to, I’ll do it without the slightest twinge of embarrassment.

The beauty part of getting old is you’re able to be a walking middle finger to the rest of the world, someone who says, with every fashion faux pas and dinner eaten at 4:30 in the afternoon, “I’m old and I no longer care what you think, sonny! I got bigger things to worry about, like Social Security and kids running across my lawn!”

Still, some small part of me longs for the red sports car days, when young ladies swooned when I walked into the room and captains of industry came to me for advice on selecting presidential candidates. (OK, it’s remotely possible my memory isn’t entirely accurate on this topic. Let an old man have his delusions, will ya!)

But like I said, I still sometimes miss being cool. The transition from cool to uncool happened so gradually I sometimes forget it has taken place at all. Then I find myself doing something so momentously uncool that even I can’t ignore it.

Like playing Scrabble. On a Friday night. In a bar with a live band playing in the background and kids half my age hopping around on the dance floor like Whack-a-mole puppets.

My Sweet Annie and I both love Scrabble. We both like greasy bar food. We both like music. We both (OK, me) like beer. At some point we decided to combine our favorite pastimes and maximize our fun.

So we play Scrabble in a crowded tavern. I tip well, so the management and waitstaff don’t mind.

We look like nerds and I’m sure I sometimes see the kiddies on the dance floor sniggering behind their hands, but I don’t care. We’re having fun, and at our age, that’s more important than being cool.

Dude.

More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

The mailman is making me feel older than I want to be

Were it not for the U.S. Postal Service, I wouldn’t mind getting old.

I was never a great beauty and I’m happily married, so I’m not overly concerned about losing my rugged good looks. I’m not thrilled with the prospect of eventually dying, but it doesn’t keep me up nights either. I’m not even resentful that my body no longer performs as it did when I was in my 20’s. In fact, considering the lousy maintenance I’ve put into it, my body’s doing better than it has any right to do.

Like I said, aging wouldn’t bother me, were it not for that blasted mail.

It started a few years ago, just before my 50th birthday. The envelope looked ordinary enough, but contained what was to be the harbinger of all the bad mail to come; an invitation to join the AARP.

AARP, for you kiddies, is the acronym for the American Association of Retired Persons. When I got the invitation, I still considered myself relatively young.

The AARP disagreed with this assessment; according to their experts, I was not even close to young. According to the AARP, I was old. (They used fluffy euphemisms like “golden years” and whatnot, but it all comes down to the same number of facial wrinkles.)

The AARP wanted me to join with millions of other geezers (by paying monthly dues) and reap the wondrous benefits of cheap prescription drugs and discounts on time shares in Florida.

I made up my mind to send an angry letter to the AARP telling them what they could do with their offer, but being old and confused, I never got around to it. I didn’t send them any dues, either, but that hasn’t stopped them from renewing their invitation every couple weeks. They know it’s only a matter of time.

A short while later, the coupons started showing up. Suddenly, inserted amongst the offers for 10 percent off razor blades and feminine hygiene products were coupons for things like hair dye. Hair dye for men.

My hair (miraculously) does not need dye. Not yet. I’m getting a little grey at the temples, but that’s about it. My hair works just fine, thanks.

And of course, there have been numerous offers for free samples of Viagra.

See above response to hair dye offer.

And Rogaine.

I have hair, it’s not too gray. Let the hair thing rest, already! You’re making me paranoid.

Then last week it happened. I knew it would. I got my first offer for a great deal on a “mobility scooter.”

How old do these people think I am? I’m 53, man! I still listen to Korn cranked to the max on the car stereo. I play tennis five days a week and ride a bicycle every day there’s not snow on the ground.

A scooter-mobile may be in my future, but not my immediate future. When (and if) I need one, I will call you. Meanwhile, leave me alone and let me enjoy what few (relatively) young years I have left!

On the other hand, I have noticed my hair seems just a little thinner, right in front there. It could be my imagination, but maybe I should hang on to those Rogaine coupons.

Just in case.


Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Is a 20 percent discount worth the humiliation?

The Lovely Mrs. Taylor and I just got back from vacation. We were gone only a week or so, but it was wonderful. Nice hotels, great meals, nothing but sunny skies the whole time. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it?

And it would have been, save for one incident, an incident that—for me, at least—cast a pall over the entire trip. I blame Mrs. Taylor.

We were pulling into St. Ignace after crossing the Mackinaw Bridge (for us acrophobes, the scariest structure in the world). I was trying to get my knees to stop knocking while Mrs. T kept an eye out for inexpensive accommodations.

Now, hunting for a hotel with Mrs. Taylor is an object lesson in patience. She desires—no, requires—all the luxuries of a four-star resort, but at prices comparable to those charged at “Crazy Moe’s Transients Welcome Motel & Grill—Rooms Let by the Night or the Hour.” Therefore, in each new town several hotels must be visited before she’s satisfied that a decent room is going to cost over a hundred bucks after all.

We’d just made it across the bridge alive when Mrs. T shouted excitedly, “There’s one! Look!”

I looked. It was like any of a hundred other nice hotels we’d seen this trip.

“So?” I said.

“Look,” she repeated, pointing to the establishment’s lighted sign.

Rooms $49.95 and up, it read. They all say that, by the way, but they don’t really mean it. That elusive $49.95 room is located in the hotel basement behind the boiler and is available only to blue-eyed, one-armed triathletes visiting from Guatemala who have three forms of notarized documentation proving that they do, indeed, have only one arm.

Everyone else has to pay around a hundred bucks.

I was surprised that Mrs. Taylor hadn’t caught on to the scam yet.

“So?” I said again. “Are you a one-armed triathlete?”

“No, not that,” Mrs. T said. “What it says below.”

I looked at the sign again. In smaller letters, beneath the main sign, was a banner stating, “20 percent discount for seniors over 50.”

“We can get a deal!” Mrs. T enthused.

And we could, I realized. I am over 50, though just barely. But a senior? I haven’t been a senior since my last year of school, and that was the good kind of senior, the kind one actually looks forward to being.

The hotel sign was talking about the sort of senior who watches television ads for “Rascal” and “Hoveround” scooters with avid interest; who tunes in regularly for episodes of “Matlock” and “Murder, She Wrote”; who yells at neighborhood kids to get the hell off the front lawn, already!

To her credit, the girl at the reception desk didn’t take my word for it when I told her I was a geezer. She looked skeptical and made me show her my driver’s license. I could have kissed her, but she was younger than my daughter and might have taken it the wrong way.

The Lovely Mrs. Taylor, who won’t be a senior for nearly two decades, thought the whole thing was great fun and quite hilarious.

I have plenty to say about that, but later. Right now, I’ve got to go chase those kids off my lawn again.



More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Feeling your age on the tennis court

Occasionally, I’ll start thinking I’m not old. Not really old. Not old like my parents were old when they were my age.

During such times, phrases like “You’re only as old as you feel,” and “Age is just a frame of mind” sift through my consciousness like wind through the treetops, singing their soft, siren songs, until I almost believe them.

But something always happens to slap me back in my place, to remind me that age is not a frame of mind, it is the number of years you’ve lived. In my case, a lot. Sometimes—usually, in fact—that “reminder” is a comment from The Lovely Mrs. Taylor, the one person on earth I can count on to tell me the unvarnished truth, even when what I’m looking for is a heavily-varnished lie.

Other times, a brief encounter with a mirror in a brightly lit room is enough to shake my delusions of youth. Whatever the case, there’s always something preventing me from fooling myself.

This past weekend, it was tennis.

Mrs. Taylor got it into her head that our evenings could be better spent hitting a little, yellow ball around, rather than watching yet another “Law & Order” rerun on Tivo. For my part, I was perfectly happy seeing bad guys get what’s coming to them in 60 minutes or less. But Mrs. T is not to be denied. Not by me, anyway.

So after a quick trip to Wal-Mart to pick up some balls and a couple of the cheapest rackets they had in stock, I found myself standing on the high school’s tennis court. It was at this moment we realized we have no idea how to play tennis.

I’m sure there are rules to the game, but I have no idea what they might be. From years of channel surfing—during which time I have occasionally flipped past a televised tennis match—I know the game involves hitting a ball back and forth over a net.

As to scoring, there’s a “love” thing, I think, though I don’t know whether that means you have no score or that you really like your opponent. And I think you get 15 points every time you do something right or your opponent does something wrong, but who knows. Not me, that’s for sure.

Eventually, Mrs. T and I devised our own set of rules involving moon phases, wind direction, the names of four of the seven dwarves, and frequent shouts of “Noonan! Miss! Noonan!”

In the end, our game of tennis more closely resembled “fetch,” in which the ball is served, the person on the receiving end takes a swing at it with his or her racket, and the ball sails over the fence. Repeat three times (the number of balls we had with us) then go pick the balls up and do it all over again.

Frankly, I’m confused as to why people think tennis is fun.

After an hour of this nonsense, I was panting like Pavlov’s dog in a bell store. I was ready for a cold margarita and an Adirondack chair in a shady corner of my back yard, an activity that—unlike tennis—really is fun.

Mrs. Taylor is convinced our game will improve with time. She may be right. Personally, I’m not planning a trip to Wimbledon any time soon.

More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Who’s your daddy? Not me, that’s for sure

Despite much masculine posturing to the contrary, the male ego is a delicate, fragile thing. Mine is, anyway. Like most guys, I usually pretend I’m above the opinions of others, that my self-confidence is an unassailable rock upon which the tides of opinion beat ceaselessly without creating the merest hint of erosion.

That’s baloney, of course; everybody wants to be liked. My guess is even Saddam Hussein’s feelings were hurt when people made fun of his moustache (which they did, a lot, though probably not while he was in the room).

But guys being guys, we do our best to bandage over our emotional ouchies, shrug off the baggage, and get on with life while doing our best to emulate Sylvester Stallone in any Rambo movie. Usually, I’m as good at this ego shell game as any man, however, last Thursday I got blindsided, but good.

The Lovely Mrs. Taylor was holding her annual yard sale, an event on a par with any major New York fashion show in terms of complexity, presentation and prep time. The only things keeping MTV from covering Mrs. T’s sales are the lack of a margarita fountain and a lip synch performance by Hannah Montana.

At any rate, her yard sales are legendary and people come from near and far to haggle over the junk she puts out there every year.

But to the point (yes, there is one, though I’m already having a hard time remembering what it was—male ego, that’s it): I was sitting on the front porch putting the finishing touches on last week’s column while Mrs. Taylor tended shop beneath a large beach umbrella, making change, answering questions, chatting with the neighbors. From the porch, I could see folks in the front yard, but through the screen, they couldn’t see me.

An attractive young lady in a brown sweater approached Mrs. T’s “checkout” table with a few books, a puzzle and an “almost new” carton of Lincoln Logs. While Mrs. Taylor was tallying up her purchases, the woman said, “Does Mike Taylor live here?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. T.

“I thought so,” she said. “I saw him mowing the yard a few weeks ago. I love the Guinness Brothers.” (The Guinness Brothers is the name of the little bar band I play in on the weekends. Not the best band in the world, but we don’t charge that much, so it all balances out.) “They’re really good,” the woman added.

Mrs. Taylor made a non-committal grunt. She knew I was eavesdropping from the porch and figured my already inflated ego could do without additional excitement.

“My husband and I go see them every chance we get,” the woman continued. “They’re our favorite band. We both read his column in the newspaper, too. He’s so funny.”

“Umm-hmm,” Mrs. T said. She later told me that, even from out in the front yard, she could hear skull bones shifting under the rapid expansion of my head. I have to admit I was feeling pretty pleased with myself at that moment.

Then it all came crashing down.

“Well, anyway,” the woman said, as she tucked her purchases into a canvas bag. “Tell your father we’re big fans.”

Father.

The Lovely Mrs. Taylor didn’t bother to correct her. She just sat there under the beach umbrella wearing a Mona Lisa smile, listening to the sound of my head deflating.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com/ or http://www.mlive.com/. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.