Tag Archives: scrabble

Day Three and He Still Smells Good (Nathan’s Blog…2012)

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“After two days, they smell like dead fish.”  That was one of my dad’s lines.  House guests sometimes are like permanent markers.  Shall I proceed further with this matter?  I think that sums it up.

They call him Nathan Nypen, brother of Natalie Nypen.  Misspelling their names intentionally, I only wish to save them from scrutiny when our picture hits the nightly news.  If he stays more than three days at our humble home, I may be forced to permanently injure him, just as he did to me two long days ago.

Engaged in the most fiercest of games known to somebody as “Scrabble”, Nathan and I had a dispute over his lackluster play and his refusal to allow me to utilize a hand written apostrophe.  Nathan spelled the word “somebody” playing off of my wife’s “Y”.  So, since I keep a garden of tiles in my pocket referred to as “S” and “Blank”, I believed the apostrophe S would fit in properly to spell “Somebody’s”.  Sir Nathan Nypen then referred to me as Somebody’s Fool.  Foolishly, I could only assume he was referring to my wife, or even perhaps me.  Therefore, as any common cave dweller must do, I started a fight in your own living room.  I still forget sometimes I’m close to forty years of life.  My neck still hurts on day three because I merely wished to provide a friendly ass wiping (yes Dave W., I indeed  spelled ass wiping correctly) but I think Nathan wanted to kill me.  Being friends since the fifth grade, I didn’t think he would fight dirty, especially in front of my wife and in OUR living and dying room!

It was an amicable finale and my wife has since used the Scrabble tiles as Briquettes.  This irritates me because I prefer a friendly game of Scrabble to a fight.  Losing in Scrabble only hurts for three minutes.  My neck has hurt for three days, and we have to put up with this ass wipe for a month.  This isn’t fair.  Wait until I break out my stash of a board game known as “Monopoly”.  He won’t know what hit him.

Most of this is fictional, and Nathan (don’t call me “Nate”)  has been a dear friend of ours for many years. (That’s non fiction.) We have welcomed him to our home and I must say, having very few friends, he has made me feel young again this morning.  He has reminded me of the days when he was the fabulous high school quarterback and I was his scapegoat running back. Nathan dished the ball to me thirty times on Friday nights just because he knew my neck and entire body was going to be punished by eleven men all night under the lights.  I think he got a kick out of it.  It was payback for me stealing his mother, Patty’s, absolutely delicious chocolate chip cookies at lunch time.  They were so good, this clown was trying to sell them.  That’s when I chose to steal them.  It’s the peasant way of glaring at life with principle.

So, if you don’t hear from me tomorrow, it’s only because Nathan will still be here for another day, and I will be staying, rent free, in the local penitentiary after beating the holy crap out of him…………….in Monopoly.

Just wait until he gets a load of Cribbage.

 

 

A Mother’s Day Hangover and 65 Cents

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When you hit the age of somewhere around twenty five to forty, you hear hangovers can last upwards of two full days.  This hangover I’m speaking of has nothing to do with alcohol.  It’s about all those mothers we have to please on Sunday.  It’s exhausting making the one, and the other ones you love so much, feel that love.

I only have one mother.  Her name is Margaret.  She is an exceptionally special person.  Yet, men and women alike choose to make phone calls to other mothers who have made a difference in their lives.  It doesn’t always have to be the one carrying you around in her belly for nine months, shooting you out of her hoo ha, and then still takes care of you and her other twelve children forty years later.  You may have outlaws…..sorry, in-laws visiting you on that weekend.  It may be your mother in-law and Grandmother in-law. (Two wonderful people) They only require two things:  Breakfast and Scrabble.  This is where a girl like me becomes a man.  I lay down the (in) LAWS.

Capable of convincing anyone on a Sunday Mother’s Day that all restaurants are closed on said day, I am equally capable of making them a hearty breakfast in our humble home for less than ten dollars and less than a thirteen hour wait in line at an “I HOPE I never eat here again”.  It’s a famous chain.  My pancakes, bacon and eggs take a mere twenty seven minutes.  This makes the mothers happy, and Ben a happy man.  Then, I beat the hell out of them in a friendly game of Scrabble.

Church:  Also closed on Mother’s Day.  Most elderly women don’t want to believe this.  In my world, Church is always closed on days such as Christmas, Easter, weddings, and most Sundays.  I’ll make an exception for a funeral.

Cards are really nice, but you have to leave that for your one and only mom.  Again, this is my world.  Phone calls are far easier than writing a sarcastic letter to your true mother who deserves so much more.  The letter I sent my mother only cost HER sixty five cents.  I placed the incorrect postage on the letter.  The mailman did deliver it ONE FULL DAY before Mother’s Day.  He just wouldn’t give it to her before she scrambled around looking for sixty five cents.  Now, I have great respect for men and women who deliver mail in rain, snow and are willing to charge my mother, (eighty five years of age, mind you) extra cash because a letter weighs over four ounces.  She paid for the extra postage, but made the postman, holding this heavy letter, wait about four minutes.  She has a great sense of humor.  Evidently, he was none too pleased with the weight and wait.  What the postman forgot to do, bless his heart, was open the mail to see if there was any money enclosed.  Indeed there was.  I also included with the letter thirteen dollars, representing mom’s thirteen children.  She called me on Saturday, and she couldn’t stop laughing.  It is the best medicine, and it made my day.

I recovered from the weekend hangover.