Our Lady Of Perpetual Chewing Gum's Parish Bulletin, Tidbits Column

Kudos to Jerry Gilligan's 800 series in the parish Top Tier bowling league last week, just three weeks after his double hip replacement/hernia ordeal ... And "shame" on Ralph Lawson for missing his second 9 a.m. Sunday mass ushering assignment in 28 years in order to accompany his lovely bride, Marge, to the Inter-Parish Association of the Great Lakes' Bingo-thon! this weekend in Peoria (Here's hoping the weekend's full of B 7's for you, Marge) ... A note from Ed Flick: Please refrain from knowingly putting Canadian coins in the collection basket; it slows the count considerably ... God Bless Mr. (and especially) Mrs. Patrick McLatchey on the births of triplets Omar, Levon, and Plutarch, which by our count brings the brood to 13; better save two pews at the front left of the 10:15 from now on ... The Miller sisters once again report a bumper crop of their scrumptious melons. They'll be displaying their wares and selling them to benefit (as always) the Retired Priest Fund after all masses this weekend. Getcha some ... Dorothy Luger apologizes for two of the three batches of chocolate chip cookies sold at last week's Garden Club bake sale; she promises to offer free brownies at next week's Bridge Club bake sale ... In a related note, Iggy Reilly is resting comfortably at home following his recent three-day hospital excursion ... Little Timmy Dobek requests prayers for his hamster Zoltron who went missing during last weekend's visit to his Firlik grandparents ... Speaking of prayers, this week Luckie Pennington would like to thank saints Jude, Anthony, Tobias, Annika, Philbright, and especially Aurelio for favors granted ... Sign up now for the Marginally Mature Club's (that's the "old" Fifty Plus Club) day trip to Wheeling (ID required at the bus door!). As past president Lou Ferragamo likes to say, "Whatever goes on in Wheeling is usually forgotten on the bus ride home." ... Betty Springer reports that "the hay's in the barn and my corns are gone; thanks all for your kind thoughts and prayers." ... Chuck Berrigan seems to have forgotten again to whom he loaned his sump pump; if it's you, kindly return ... Father Fugi says that Rick Strick says that the new cushions for the kneelers should arrive and be in place by Advent ... Sister Jane laments that the school's basketball pump has once again gone missing ... Even though we're heading into winter, it's not too early to order your year's supply of sunblock and sunscreen to benefit the 8th grade's annual trip to Zoar ... Finally, Father Stein reminds one and all to please refrain from texting in the confessional. 

Five Flicks For A Friday

In my world it's not Friday but Wednesday today (long story, of no consequence). Anyway, I'm busy, but I thought I might give you all some suggestions for weekend entertainment in case all the big football games, the continuing stories of Justin Bieber's alleged thirty-second procreative performance and Herman Cain's immolation, and 48 hours of sleep don't pique your interest. Here are the trailers (except for Life Is Sweet, 2 minutes of representative dialogue) for five movies I love but which don't seem to appear on too many people's radar screens anymore, if they ever were. Seek them out and watch them--the pleasure will be all yours. 

When Twitter Twits Get Hitched

• dear mailordergroom.com: I ordered a bold one! bOld.
• sorry abt yr flat, ma, but the organist has a bar mtzvh in like 30 mins. we cldnt wait
• kinda busy for the next 2 wks, sergio. i'll call you later ; )
• pre as in pre-nup means after, right? i always get those things before words mixed up. postfixes i think.
• it nvr seemed like the right time, anyway he likes surprises. he'll find out my real name is Doug eventually.
• 2nd cuz, Shelly! I said he's my second cousin.
• quick, Tina, what his name again?
• that 'poorer' part is just figurative language, right?
• so what if it's white, Sarah? at least I didn't sleep with all the groomsmen and the minister too!
• does my new husband make me look fat?
• can anybody tell me what was in that punch last night?
• can you believe I said 'I do' like five times? as if! LOL
• how come when I Google 'Facts of Life' all I get is pix of Charlotte Rae?

ps: is that photo-bombing STOP sign symbolic or what?

Everyday Monster

If you're over the age of thirteen, I just don't see the point of Halloween, other than a little candy indulgence and the long overdue veneration of orange, a most underrated color. Do we really need a day to celebrate monsters and such when our daily lives are filled with all sorts of demons, succubi, Mary Kay reps, and politicians, who wear no discernible costumes and arrive unannounced by any kind of multiple choice trick or treat demands? But I guess if it's good for the economy, it's good for the U.S.A., to speak redundantly in this day and age.

We all have our personal hobgoblins--The Bore, The Mean Weller, The Self-Appointed Sage at Work, etc.--so in the spirit of the day and in an attempt to spread some virtual garlic around my sphere in the hopes of warding him off for a few months (and maybe allowing you to suffer evil torments vicariously and thus freeing you to live an unscary day), today I will discuss one of my everyday monsters, Dr. Julius Schanke, aka The Guy Who Shows Up At The Least Opportune Times. Schanke pronounces his name to rhyme with manque (manque), but everyone I know calls him Doc Schanke, rhyming with crock crank, though I've taken to referring to him simply as TGWSUATLOT. I first had the misfortune of meeting Dr. Schanke (professor emeritus of Ingestibles, Ballistics, Dirigibles, and All Things Nauseous at The Ohio State University, Ashtabula extension campus) back in 1992 at an in-person meeting of the alt.phlegmatics BBS community. He introduced himself as "the suave Brahmin of the slimy, a sort of crypto 'suami', if you will." I wish I hadn't. I can abide heavily bearded men and women with assorted shards of food adorning their countenances, but not--incredibly and in seeming opposition to the three laws of physics I'm familiar with--clean-shaven ones. I'm wagering that soon after his inevitable (?, one never knows) death, halitosis as we know it will be known henceforth as Schanke Syndrome.

In the nearly twenty years since our fateful meeting, six months have not gone by without my running into TGWSUATLOT, or more aptly, his ambushing of me. And, true to his title, these tete a tetes never occur when I'm wiling away a couple hours in a coffeehouse or mulling the slings and arrows while observing a single leaf of grass somewhere, but always when my dander is in the blood red zone and Old Father Time is goosing my ass something savage. For example, a few years ago, I--merely trying to buy a stamp in order to post remittance for an overdue municipal tax bill of $2.32 and dangerously in jeopardy of being late for my drive-thru, voluntary/cosmetic root canal appointment--was stuck in line at the Post Office behind a woman attempting to get passports for her brood of seven children all under the age of four (who were howling, climbing, drooling, and defacing government property) and a man of questionable heritage trying to mail what he swore was a box of nails and demanding to pay with six different money orders he had yet to purchase. In the midst of this maelstrom I suddenly heard, "Ergo, in re of our discussion in re of the use of obfuscating foreign phrases, I regret to inform you ... " Damn!, I shuddered, TGWSUATLOT. Forty-seven minutes later, with nothing to show for it but a wrinkled, self-adhesive Kwanzaa stamp (this was mid-July, btw) in need of licking, I stood in the parking lot dodging wrong-end of the dashboard driving mail scooters and attempting to assuage growing-hostile TGWSUATLOT with scores of "I see your point," "I'll have to get back to you on that," and "Really, I must be going," would-be placating phrases. Luckily my ersatz oral surgeon had an open schedule that afternoon and a shortage of anaesthetic, so I was eventually distracted.

Another time, as I was waiting in line at the confessional for my annual reconciliation appointment, who steps out of the box but TGWSUATLOT. He instantly lit up a nefarious smile, took me rather roughly by the elbow and quietly intoned, "My boy, don't waste your time with that quack," a quick lurch of his shoulder back at the confessional box, "for I've been going in and out all day, changing my voice radically each time and confessing to a panoply of sins, and all the poor man can come up with is, 'Say a baker's dozen Hail Mary's and scare up a nun to hold a door for.' Come with me rather, and I'll shrive your sins the holistic way over some rhubarb tea I brew in my car with the help of my cigarette lighter." I don't know how or why, and the memory is still too raw to detail, but I ended up doing two weeks of penance spraying Ly-Sol in every extant phone booth in Portage County.

Anyway, I'm sure you too have TGWSUATLOT in your life, maybe (hopefully) not as annoyingly monstrous as my TGWSUATLOT, but bothersome nonetheless. Perhaps my public sharing of my travails with my TGWSUATLOT will serve as sufficient vicarious terror for you, liberating you to enjoy your day sans Halloween foolery. Just call me your Halloween scapegoat, thank me when you run into me (God, I hope I'm not somebody's TGWSUATLOT!), go ahead, eat some candy, and get ready for two months of real holiday mania.

And finally, just in case you need a little more diabolical pondering to surfeit your market-imposed craving for something evil today, debate this question with yourself: Who is the greater monster in your life, the One-Upper (the person who can always top your present joy) or the One-Downer (the person who can always bottom your present woe-is-me warm wallowing)? No need to share your conclusions.

No. 3,205,425,579 Seeks No. 4,000,000,001

I've always seen it as a genetic thing, not a matter of choice: I'm a word guy, not a number guy. Nonetheless, I am fascinated by all the talk going around that soon, some say even as early as October 31, the Earth will reach the 7 billion mark in population. Makes me wonder what 7 billion pieces of bacon laid end to end would measure. It also makes me think of myself as a pretty insignificant speck. To make matters worse, the numbers crunching chaps at the BBC are offering a quick way to find out just where you stand in the horde, in case you really do want to feel as if you're just a number. I took the plunge and discovered that I'm number 3,205,425,579 on this planet.

A funny thing happened, though, after finding this out. Somehow I felt empowered. The more I looked at the number, the more I liked it. I like that it's an odd number. I like that it's divisible by three. I like the plethora of fives and love the fact that there are no sixes. I've duly memorized it, played it in Lotto, and will be getting it tattooed on my chest Monday. It's my number and no one can take it away from me.

The more I studied my number and got accustomed to its look and curves and sound, the more I started thinking about the ideal complementary number. After meditation, comtemplation, and some high powered calculus, I've determined that my long-sought soul mate is definitely 4,000,000,001. Trust me, I've done the math, double checked all my work, and even cross-checked it all on my trusty Tandy abacus. 4,000,000,001 is the one for me. So here's my message in a bottle, 4 bill +1. If it washes up on your shore, let me know. Together we'll make 7,205,425,580, which if that isn't the coolest number ever, I know nothing.

Exercises In Inauthentic Grammar, Number One: The Co-Dependent Clause

I hear that in education these days there is something called "authentic grammar assessment." Ah, I love educationalese, love any -ese, really. Being a contrarian and a Gemini, naturally, I like to consider the yang to any yin and vice versa or whatever. So, here is the first in a series of exercises in inauthentic grammar.

Although I know it's past four in the morning and you're not in the best mood and I promise this won't be like last time (yes, I looked up the word harangue and I'm sorry if I came off that way but I promise this won't be anything like that) and you know I don't like to meddle--would rather be known as a haranguer than a meddler any old day--and this may not seem to make much sense and I know me making sense isn't a regular enough occurrence, at least the way you see it, and by that I'm not saying that you need some kind of communication bi-focals or something, I only mean we're two different people, right, and sometimes it can be difficult (no, I promised myself I wouldn't use that word, sorry), it can be a challenge, not that you're not up for a challenge and that you don't meet them head on, but, where was I, oh, it can be daunting, how's that, daunting, to not only walk in someone else's shoes but just putting them on, feeling comfortable and all (and anyway I hope and pray and trust that what I am saying, or am about to say, really, I hope that it in no way changes anything between us, beyond, of course, recognizing--both of us, recognizing--that what I say could be something that maybe changes us, for the better of course, not that I'm saying we, you, us, need to change, just entertaining the possibility that, you know, as they say, change is good, I mean not for change's sake, naturally, but you know, if the prospect of change is available and all and seems like maybe it might be kind of a good idea, from your perspective, of course, we're talking what you want, obviously, right, you understand that, right, and really after all is said and done, any change in, well, anything, would be, could be, a pretty small one, relatively speaking meaning of course you would have to assess it and measure it according to your scale of small, medium, or large, two people, you know, two different perspectives and all not that I'm like some auditor or something doubting the accuracy of your, you know, measuring instruments, or anything, I'm just saying, you know, and really all of this, well not all of this, but all of this I'm about to say, is only meant as a suggestion, okay, you understand that, right) and I apologize for rambling on a bit, please note that, that I started this all with an apology, I just want to say ...

Something To Sneeze At

Some days it all comes together. Yesterday someone used the old phrase, "That's nothing to sneeze at," which got me wondering (which action always causes parentheses to line up like so many cannon fodder unfortunates) about the origin of the phrase, and, naturally, those things in life that warrant being sneezed at. And then today, all day, the cat I begrudgingly share domestic space with has been sneezing like it's finally discovered that it should be allergic to itself. Meanwhile, the hottest stories on the Internet at the moment appear to be Cher's tearful response to son (nee daughter) Chaz's being voted off Dancing With The Stars, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler's shower mishap (Dude might look better after losing some teeth) and Denise Richards admitting she regrets getting breast implants at the age of 19 (one woman's regret is another man's treasure[s]).

Now I proudly thought I had said all there was to say about sneezing in a poem years ago, but pondering that "nothing to sneeze about" phrase, I find that there's more, much more. Think about it, is there anything more uncontrollable, more of-a-mind-of-its-own, more totally involuntary, more inarguably and unequivocally inevitable than a simple sneeze? Hell, in comparison death and taxes are mere nuisances relatively procrasinatable (to coin a word I've meaning to for some time now). I mean, every other bodily function/annoyance (burps, farts, coughs, giggles, nature's calls, indelicate itches, even [outside the group shower scenario] arousals) can be somewhat diverted, delayed, suppressed, hidden, squelched, tempered, muted, etc., but a sneeze knows no brooking. Yes, shit does happen, but usually, hopefully, on one's own terms, but sneezes are wholly immediate; the phrase should be sneeze happens, shouldn't it?

And what an experience a sneeze is. There's the instant, oh God here it comes feeling (and is there any incident in life that is more limbo-inducing than waiting for that sneeze to arrive if it doesn't immediately follow the here-it-comes feeling?), the wind-up (the bracing yourself and the searching frantically for something to sneeze into), the skull-rattling explosion (and, if it isn't true I can't confirm it and don't wanna try, the fact/myth that it's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open or you'll blow them out along with all your phlegm [I just sneezed, btw, looking up phlegm to make sure of it's spelling--Good God, can I be allergic to the dictionary?], which makes me think what if Malcolm McDowell had to sneeze when they were filming that part of A Clockwork Orange where his eyes are kept open--did he get extra pay for risking his eyes like that?),

and the aftermath re-adjustment to real life and the clean-up. All of which is profoundly/artistically (until about the one minute mark when it can get rather gross, just warning you) displayed (thanks to those crafty South Australians) in this video:




But then, with all of its inevitability and uncontrollability, I cannot think of one famous real-life (as opposed to Woody Allen's cocaine-induced sneeze in Annie Hall) sneeze. Ever. Can you? Think of all the live, real-life action that's been caught on tape/film for more than a hundred years. Can you remember any famous/infamous sneeze? Kind of hard to believe, isn't it? I wasn't around at the time, but JFK's inauguration looked pretty cold--is it that hard to imagine "Ask not what your AAAACCCCHHHHHOOOOO country can do ... "? (and while we're on the subject, I know there's a strange fetish out there for everybody, but really, is a sneeze ever sexy? Don't think so. I mean if Marilyn Monroe had sneezed during her "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" sultry rendition, would it still be so devastatingly hot nearly fifty years later? Nah.) Lincoln's Gettysburg Address took place on November 19--wouldn't it be great to discover some crude recording of it where Lincoln, on a probably chilly, here-comes-winter-folks day sneezes right in the middle? Tell me Walter Cronkite, Regis Philbin, or even Sally Jesse Raphael, in all their TV time, never had the sniffles that resulted in an on-air sneeze. I don't believe it. And yet, where's the evidence? Fascinating.

But back to the "sneeze at" phrase. Beyond it's how-in-the-hell-did-that-phrase-come-about nature, doesn't it imply that one can sneeze at will? Now we all know (or least did know in sixth grade) those gross magicians who could burp and fart on demand, but have you ever known anybody who could sneeze on demand (ignoring the existential question of whether anybody would so desire)? It seems that as inevitable as a sneeze is, it is just as impossible to conjure one without some olfactory or tactile stimulus. Could there be anything scarier than someone pointing a gun at you and saying, "I'll give you five seconds to sneeze or I'll blow you away"? Outside of Chaz Bono tapping you on the shoulder asking for this dance, I think not. Sneezes, thus, are the ultimate ineffable currency--you can't get them when you want them or avoid them when you've got them (which might be why they provoke a "God bless you" like nothing else; sneezes are godlike like nothing else [incidentally, it seems people used to believe the soul left the body during sneezes, thus the blessing to safeguard people at such a vulnerable time]).

And so, I did some research. Boiled down, it seems that a few hundred years ago (interestingly, the 17th century, when Reason was all the vogue) people believed that a sneeze was a sound way to clear the mind. So the elites took to all means and manners to induce sneezes in themselves (hello, snuff!; so, in effect, sneezers were the original 1%), and sneezing in public became a sort of social status thing. Which then, overuse being what it is, evolved into conjuring a sneeze only to show boredom or derision. So, you sneezed at something you didn't like or at the least didn't interest you. Thus, something that was important, or at least interesting, was "nothing to be sneezed at." God I love language.

And so, cuddle your cats, sniff some pepper, or pull a nosehair out--there's plenty to sneeze at in this day and age, and it seems to me about time we start full-scale sneeze assaults on those things, if only to revivify that great phrase and give some much needed value to those things in life (there are still some, I truly believe) which are not to be sneezed at. Beyond the present plights of Cher, Steven Tyler, and Denise Richards (in Denise's case, her regret only; do your best, boys, to squelch all sneezes in the presence [real or imagined] of those implants),

may I suggest a rather spontaneous, off-the-top-of-my-head-and-by-no-means-exhaustive list of some things that should be sneezed at with full gusto:

• political debates for at least the next 12 months
• any member of the media talking about the media
• talk of the revamping of the Boston Red Sox
• Tony Romo
• anything about hipsters
• anything involving the phrase "Steve Jobs would have..."
• anything negative about bacon
• LeBron James on anything except the joys of a manicure
• Mitch McConnell
• anything using the word "buzz" that doesn't involve astronauts or apiaries