Since we’re having joy and merriment with viruses, bacteria, and other fun, fuzzy little subjects:

June 9, 2017 By Melanie Waddell, Director of Marketing, PDI Healthcare

“In an age of constant connectivity, healthcare professionals are rarely without touchscreen devices. From tablets in hallway kiosks to x-ray screens to doctors’ and nurses’ own smartphones, such surfaces abound in healthcare settings.

Proliferation of this technology inadvertently increases the risk of exposure to harmful bacteria and spread of infection. Our fingertips are home to a plethora of bacteria, and constant contact with touchscreens leaves phones, tablets, and other devices coated with thriving bacteria cultures that put all of us at risk if not cleaned properly.

But while touchscreens are present in healthcare facilities now more than ever, protocols for properly addressing the risks they invite haven’t quite caught up.

On any given day, about one in 25 hospital patients has at least one healthcare-associated infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If not cleaned properly, some bacteria can survive for months on the surface of a dry touchscreen device, according to a 2016 Environmental Health Review study.

And the risk of contamination is amplified by the fact that 86 percent of clinicians and 76 percent of nurses use smartphones while at work, according to Mobile Trends Report and a study published in JMIR Publications, respectively.

Harmful strains, such as MRSA, Staphyloccus and Streptococcus spp can linger on devices and put patients at risk of infection. Such hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) also cost hospitals billions of dollars in reduced reimbursements and preventable expenditures every year, according to the CDC.

The prevalence of these devices emphasizes the importance of proper cleaning, which is one of the most effective means, aside from hand hygiene, of minimizing or eliminating risks.”

A loyal reader, J.S., sent me a wonderful suggestion which tweaked my fanciful, yet bacteria-on my…, virus minded brain. Hard to remember a day when I wasn’t thinking outside a virtual petri dish of microscopic what-ifs being fed by a test tube of streaking headlines every half minute, but I digress.

Yesterday wasn’t a day of rest from the lab-orious, but always laughable, lather of lexicon, however, I did have a moment to check my messages. J.S. squeezed quite an interesting droplet into the little glass of ideas I had sitting around on my formerly germ-free table of literary schemes. She suggested I ponder the possibilities of the the dreaded touchscreen sign-in station at your local medical facility. “Sign-in station” defined, by me, as the non-human, flat formed, roughly two-dimensional, know-it-all-but-must-ask-it-all, bacteria screen circus all of us must face blurry-eyed at 7:05 in the morning after a 24 hour fast …. and use the steadiest finger of our non-shakiest hand while the other comatose, juice deprived patients wait their ever-lovin’ turn behind us.

The last time I used one of these was around a year ago at the medical center just up the street. It wasn’t pretty. Well, it kinda was, I guess. Presentation: a clear 10! .. Execution? Yes … by firing squad, please. I did everything S.O.P.. Name, DOB, procedure (blood work), the date, Dr. Name, my favorite pizza topping, extra mayo … all the standard questions. Uh, oh …. “We don’t have you currently in our system …”. “WHAAA?”, I proclaimed loudly under my breath just enough to get the attention of the receptionist over at the – get this – sign in desk.

She was a very nice lady. I could tell as I stomped gingerly over to her after thumbing my obstinant nose up at the digital excuse of a touchscreen. I explained my purpose for being there and she listened intently. Kudos to her. Also, props to her for telling me I, apparently, wasn’t standing in front of her … as there seemed to be no record of my existence. Damn. No wonder I couldn’t get waited on faster at Walmart.

OH, wait! What she meant was …. nobody sent over the order for my blood work, so my flat-faced, dirty-MRSA friend over at the other end of the lobby didn’t know what to do with me. “What do I do now?”, I kindly asked. “Well, we can’t do anything without an order from your doctor.”.

Stop frame…

One thing you DON’T want to do at this point is the following:

“Hmm. Can I just go over to the screen, again, and order my blood work, a small order of fries, a Pepsi… and maybe some nuggets? Super size, or not … wadda ya think?”

I don’t care how hungry you THINK you are, that is not a good idea. Clever? Yes, most definitely. Smart? Absolutely not. You will get an icy stare – enough to ensure your Pepsi will stay fresh-ly cold for the day. Also, more than enough to guarantee you may never return with both legs operating normal … that is if you can see through two black eyes.

It took three visits back to the center until I finally got my blood work done. What had to be completed, was. Now, just to be fair, I don’t believe the lady at the sign-in desk had anything to do with the delays. It was the inefficiency of the whole system between three different buildings, two doctors, and one two-bit little touchscreen. Oh, and karma.

The bigger picture is the touchscreen sign-in process. Since then, I have used them frequently – as I’m sure you have. The thought of how dirty they must be has crossed my mind, thus the article above. (What’s written by Melanie Waddell is more general and extends to all hand-held devices. Touchscreens – pardon the pun – are not immune.) Not only the unsanitary nature of the screen, but also the frequency of errors I’ve encountered.

It could be me. I have a weird relationship with Karma. We dance the dance so much I wear out my own soul by the synchronicity in the steps of our soles. I walk up to a touchscreeen and can almost expect certain malaise. Not always, but mostly … because I taunt them and they feel my tauntness. ATMs, convenience store kiosks, … any large flat surface requiring my digital attention. They will freeze up, deny my passwords, accept my passwords, but tell me stupid information I didn’t want to know, or just stare at me with a blank screen: “out of order, come back later”

I spent my adolescent and young adult years working in the fast food industry. The big one. No self-serve ordering kiosks. Just now old-fashioned registers where guys like me took your order, ran around to get it all together, collected a few bucks and sent you on your way. Simple.

Today, there are more kiosks than help. I don’t like it. I don’t care for it at the medical centers either. It’s not really because they’re dirty like the above article states, although that’s enough of a reason for most. Humans aren’t machines … and machines can’t ever be human. We need people to be with people. Us with us.

Yeah, I know smarty-mouth guys like me who are a bit testy with nice ladies at 7 a.m. can be challenging, but isn’t that still a better option than flatty-face?

Well J.S., see what you did? Take it in stride, my friend. Thanks for the idea. I will forever be grateful when there is an uprising of the touchscreens against me. Karma can be a nasty thing. I’ll make sure they have your number.

So many choices at a salad bar. Not as many, it seems, as local drive up cracky speaker, self-serve (any more) fast food joints, though. I have to mindfully decide to up-size my heaping spring salad mix instead of that decision being forced upon me by well-intentioned, high margin cholesterol pushers. No fizzy sodas. No grease smells wafting around my clothes that gleefully linger throughout the day. Just me, the lettuce options, and …. so much more.

I’ve done this salad bar thing before – inside a local grocery store, where fifty-year old guys contemplate their internal organ conditions and consider a healthy lunch option every so often. Shouldn’t speak for other guys, however, ’cause I never nudge elbows or share baby corn tongs. I’m always alone. Me and #4471, the code for weighing the multi-colored , sometimes dry concrete heavy monstrosity I end up with at the end. Some say, “Eat salads! They’re light ..” … Yeah, right.

If I don’t somehow manage to drop 16 other containers on the floor trying to unglue one off the top, the process usually begins post haste. Four lettuce types – only one of which I really like: CHUNKS !!. Love the chunks. Iceberg chunks. If spinach and spring mix came in heaping chunks and cores of deliciousness, I believe the earth could stop spinning right now. Could’t find too many of these within the icy bins holding all the necessary base-salad leafy greens, so an assortment of boringly flat, wimpy, “please take me” scratch had to do.

Sliding down the bar of no-fat/no joy, I encountered the next option: smaller vegetables. Carrots shaved down to one size larger than the human hair, onion circles attached to one another somewhere rendering one without six others almost impossible, and cherry tomatoes sized to not match the end of the very tongs assigned to them … all standard utility every time I visit. Accompanying these were the peas soaking in water (no thanks), small dry broccoli and cauliflower florets, olives, and bell pepper slivers. Necessary pile-ons. To pass over these would’ve been sacro-salad-sanc. How embarrassing it would have been to the scratch spinach .. naked to the world, uncovered, bare, exposed – if only for a minute as I focused my attention on the next, most sexy-named group: Les Legumes.

“Ah, my sweet Legumes”, rolls off the tongue as easily as, “I love you, my lovely sweet plume.”. As an aside, say it with a deep French accent – not aloud in the grocery store, but very much alone as you read this …. Anyhow…chickpeas, black beans, white beans, or pinto beans – the third choice group down the slide. My pleasure in this group is watching the little tan chicks roll around, finding their way through the cracks and hopefully disappearing into the darkness. THIS is why chunks are so important! They give topography to the salad. Depth. Meaning. Never would I ever pass by my little chick-a-dee-peas.

Around the corner to the tough neighborhood. Feeling the weight upon my shoulders and #4471 friend, we enter the dark alley of the macaroni boys. Their gatekeeper, at the end, was a group who shake down all who dare to turn: bacon bit and crouton tumblers who will mix it up with you if you dare. I chose not to, walking wide around the alley of despair, hoping to face the macaroni boys head on – feeling quite confident as I previously avoided these two without incident.

The macaroni boys are bold and arrogant. They hold special favor in the salad bar neighborhood due to their heft. They throw around their multi-syllabic mac-a-ro-ni weight knowing a few ladle-fulls in a plastic bin of unawareness can tip the scales in the favor of profitability. Next to the hard boiled egg clan living next door, who could provide an admiral food fight, the M.B’s hold a tight reign of terror over salad bar city. I plucked a few spiral cousins, gently, from the clan before the bosses recognized me, and quickly shuffled out of there before trench coat Willie spotted me and put out a pasta hit on my ^ss.

Last up the line were the incidentals. The unintendeds. Colory little hickeymadoos the grocery store so graciously allows us to see. A few drop down meats of fish pieces, turkey chunks, ham, chicken, and protein options strewn about usually find their way into my one-or-two chunk pile salads. Cheeses shredded down, and nuts of all naturally nuttiness, nutrious goodness get a spoonful or two of my attention. … Puddings, salsas, and creams (I think) don’t, but are there for another fifty-year old(ish) guy wanting some. Possibly crackers in packages and dressings in bottles to use are there and packs of same to buy separately at a ridiculously high per ounce price.

Certainly other salad bars – and this one as well – have other, different, items available for the more discerning shopper. I am a focused – know what I want at the end of a salad bar tong – guy. That said, the check-out always surprises me. Always. I blame BABY CORN ON THE COBS!. The damn things must weigh 3 pounds each. Ordinarily, #4471 should be reasonably priced, right?

I’m not going to rant on and on … know why? Because I’m not going to change. I’m not going to ever make a salad at a salad bar without them in order to find out the difference in price. They’re just that good.

Feeling proud of my decision to eat healthy, I finished my salad while in the process of writing this short salad saga. My friend, #4471, and I can close out the the entry proud we did it together.

I snapped shut an empty plastic container about an hour ago and will be placing it into the recycle bin shortly. Thankful, as always, to share this time with you … and, in a way, to have my clothes not smell like grease.

I mark my life safe from the macaroni boys as well for another day.

Finding today fascinating, I sit with a cold iced tea to my left and the never too far away cell phone resting near the computer mouse to my right. Down in the wee corner of the screen ahead, tucked away in almost obscurity, are little organized numbers and dashes. Directly above these I see 1:07 PM, indicating I have exactly one hour, twenty-two minutes to organize my thoughts before time expires. At that time, out into the cold I will go … attempting to sew the minds of the youth with the wisdom of the ages.

To what do I refer? 2/20/2020. Certainly not the press 02/02/2020 received as the palindrome princess eighteen days ago! I find today, in comparison, to be cleaner. It has a simple message forward: One number (2), followed by two numbers (20), followed by four (2020). Moreover, that one number doubled equals two, then two doubled equals four. Two (2), of course, being the multiplier and the only number, other than zero, to appear in the date AND there are only (2) dashes within the whole display. Totaling up all the numbers including the zeros? 7. Days in the week? 7. Coincidence? Ok, well maybe the last example one isn’t the exclamation point I was hoping for, but ….

..but what? I like this date today. I also may be the only one who does. A true visionary in the field of date recognitionary sciences, perhaps? Ah, I doubt it. Numbers, dashes, and any other visible nouns – are caught by these eyes …

… and held hostage longer than they should – at my insistence. Daily. It’s a problem: this internal requirement demanding everything I see go through a mental grinding mill. In goes information boulders some may find passively entertaining. Out comes blather opinion dust blowing everywhere, with no specific direction, subject to the freaks of natural selection. Processing the sentiment inside? A machine with cogs and pistons of reasons, spirits, feelings, to-do lists, wants, needs, huhs, don’t-get-its, whys, and hurts.

I don’t believe I am alone. All of us have this complex, weird brain process. We must grind through the day accumulating a mountain-load of rocks in order to keep the waters of life’s dam at bay. Information everywhere asking our cerebral matter to takes matters into its own hands … then friendly forced to state our views, meekly or assertively, written or aloud. Too much I say, for an over-punchy, look-at-that now kind of person. Way too much.

My mom was a look-at-that inspirational figure. Her enthusiasm for life urged her to do it. I do believe this was an escape from what was real – not living a life she really wanted for herself. Everything outside was magically keeping the perilous waters at bay. Her eyes caught everything including the beauty inside everyone and everything; although, she missed the beauty in herself represented in the you are special dust that blew from her into the hearts of all who knew her. Thus, the complex grinding mill of one wonderful mother, no longer alive, who is very much responsible for the genetic fuel in my mind motor.

Still, today is, has been, and will continue to be fascinating. Maybe only to me? 2/20/2020 really looks sexy. All those 2’s… Oh, and it is almost 7:00 pm. I was busy soaking in a ton of information since 1:07 as my mind processed a ton of rocks labeled music, chinese food, traffic, poker, emails, and texts. Deadline of 2:30? Didn’t happen. Obviously. I’m sure as I attempt to rest tonight, I’ll be Wile E Coyote’d again. Always happens. Too much information to process.

Tomorrow is 2/21/2020. Good thing. I don’t see that as being nearly as sexy.

A camera-to-camera selfie in the mirror is infinite. To put this image into simpler, easier to understand language:

• 

It’s infinitely more difficult to take a cell-fie than I thought. The little bubble eye-patchure thing is positioned in the upper 7th section of the phone just about where impossibility meets impatience. Granted, I don’t own the greatest and latest, but c’mon now! This should have been an easier task. Point, click, and shoot. Not to mention, although I will, last Thanksgiving a relative set the count-down-from-ten clock … an added ten seconds to my life I can’t get rid of in my phone. My “take this pic, and shove the backward ten numbers I can’t figure out how to disengage up your, well … ” Samsung, hip-hugging, pocket-inserting device which is the subject of a woe today.

More like a “whoa!” … said I, when settling into a familiar red booth, patting one of two empty pockets where said phone should have been.

It began as a morning of hope after a relatively good 7 hours sleep without neighborhood sirens, bodily interruptions, twisty-tie sheets jammed in my face, or pillows acting as suffocating murderers. Yesterday’s long blog in the hopper – thankfully so, as it was a day long project ending five hours later than projected. A bit surprised at the 9-degree temperature, though, due to the unseasonably warm February weather lately. With no expectation of an unordinary day, my hopeful self opened the familiar glass doors to a cafe of warm tea and friendships.

One friend was already quite comfortable looking sitting behind the steam of her second mug of coffee. Two others, under warmer circumstances, would have already been seated and served. With this, I had the rare, coveted choice of “inside or outside” booth-butt placement with the added bonus of being able to change my mind at any time. Having made a choice, I readied my posture … bent knees, tilted torso, momentum forward …

…then, “Whoa!!” I realized I left my cell phone at home. 🤦🏻‍♂️🙄

Of all the infinite problems an individual universe could visit upon someone, leaving a cell phone 4 miles away – in a familiar safe place – isn’t one of the unsolvables. It’s simply one of the classic “d’uhs” normal human-people stub their day on every once in a while. I didn’t recognize it as such until later. The moment I felt pockets as empty as wordy words without w’s, I knew my morning booth breakfast time was setting up to be more than one bacon strip short of a two-thousand calorie good time.

My leg twitched constantly. Righthand-smacking, a consequence of boredom, developed a red mark on the outside of a right thigh that didn’t deserve the abuse. Constant tapping, of what I believe to have been a Chopin Nocturne, on the table in front of my two friends (one new arrival adding to the mix) contributing to the vacancy of sanity in my head at the time. Head bobbing, not in agreement to anything, but in sync with the already metronomic twitching going on under the table … all of which, together, provide a symphony of laughs for the other patrons enjoying their breakfast fare.

At no time did I pay more than a few minutes attention to any conversation during the hour-and-a-half visit with my two friends … and this is a sad commentary on my life.

My phone was safe. I, clearly, was not.

Ok. Maybe that is overstating the problem a bit. It was a small wake-up. I was shocked how much not having my cell phone by my side changed how I thought – almost immediately. Granted, above assumed some literary license and I had fun writing, but it’s not too far from how I felt.

Mostly, the “what if” feelings crept in. What if someone important is calling me? What if I am missing an important text? What if there is a comment to a FaceBook post I wrote earlier? What if … this and that.

What if ….I missed important conversations with two really good friends because I was too worried about a cell phone missing, but safe at home? A question that never entered my mind until later.

It began as morning of limited hope. I can end the day with infinite hope having learned my lesson. Find your friends and a cafe. Not sayin’ to forget your cell phones at home, just maybe keep them in your pocket. This prevents a whole lot of twitching, patting, tapping, and metronomic nodding in public places and possibly saves an opportunity with friends that may never present itself again.

I invented a new word. “Idowatotab’it“.

Six vowels and an equal number of consonants alternate quite nicely, one after another, when glossed over the tongue. I encourage you to give it a go if you haven’t already. See … how fun, right?

Why this word … Ido-wato-tab’it?

As with all things, necessity breeds all things necessary in a life open to what is, necessarily, needed for all things to make sense; Therefore, I had to come up with a catch-all word to cover all the non-sense things happening in order to make sense out of all of the things I didn’t understand. Einstein struggled with his Theory of Everything. I have Idowatotabit. We’re pretty much the same I’m-man-concept except he had over-sexed hair and an accelerated IQ – accompanied with space-time fussiness – while I struggle with why bugs don’t walk in straight lines. I’m still working on that.

Too many times I’ve walked away – like last night, for example – without a feeling of “I had that”, or “Wow, I figured all that out”. Consider the problem of math. Simple math. Theoretically, simple math. The following problem appeared on my split Facebook screen:

“Find three consecutive numbers such that when twice the first is subtracted from the third and the difference increased by 8, the result is the same as the first number, increased by 4.“

I had slight interest in the answer to this problem at first. I DID care about the pocket 9-J of spades I was nursing in a hand of free texas holdem over on the left side of my split screen. The math involved figuring out pot and implied odds, after a Jack, Deuce, and Two hit the table on the flop with two aggressive players yet to act after me, was infinitely more fascinating. However, after a few subsequent peeks, my math geek third eye couldn’t help but consider < x+(1+x)+(2+x) such that when (2+x)-2x = y + 8 = x + 4 … > This was quite satisfying knowing I had, necessarily, come up with “3” as x … the correct answer in a relatively Einsteinly, non-theoretical short amount of time.

What should have more obvious to me is the Queen jumping off the table that was turned over as the 4th card, joining the Jack, Deuce, and Nine. This was a quite hazardous card for player A (me) staring down at 9-J. While I was over playing right-screen footsie with x and y, players B & C were actually paying full attention. Oh, I was clicking in chips because of my two-pair … no worries there … but the math I should have been executing there was otherwise detained.

Final card. Ding! … an Eight!…. Uh Oh. I had 9-J. Still had 9-J. On the board: Jack-Deuce-Nine-Queen-Eight.

Give me a bit of leeway to historize this particular game on this particular day. I was in a position to make the final table of nine players. The cards hit the table with over 350 players and had less than 10% remaining, including this guy who sometimes worries about quarters not lining up in neat, organized piles (that’s for you, John). Faced with possible elimination after dominating the chip stacks for forty-five minutes prior, I lost the math early in the hand and failed to make the correct bet sizes early (lingo for “I slopped the bucket”).

Player B … big bet after I checked knowing I was probably no good with only two pair. Player C folded. Ok. So it’s up to me. He, She, a dog or llama (online … didn’t know who it was – just an icon) has me all-in if I made the call. I knew what I was up against. A “10” I knew I was up against a straight. I knew, as sure as I knew the answer was “3”, that I was beat. So what did I do?

Yep … made the call. And lost all my chips. Why? Because bugs don’t walk in straight lines.

WHY? Because I had to know I was right! and …

WHY? What other way possible is there to come up with a catch-all word to cover all the non-sense things that happen in order to make sense out of all of the things I don’t understand? …Walking away, head down … not sad, but frustrated. Solving a sixth grade math problem (did I mention quickly?) while creating an adult problem for myself seems to be the split screen in life. The solving one, but creating another paradigm all of us face. I suspect, when considering the ever popular Stress–energy–momentum pseudotensor. Einstein himself found no solace at times between this idiomatic rock and hard place. The 9-J of his time.

Not dejected, but thwarted, I began my trek away from the very computer where
“I had that”, but didn’t. I started talking to inanimate objects, kicking my emotional self for third-eye wanderings, woefully cursing the curse of understanding quadratic equations, and then I stopped. Halted by a wondrously, wonderful, overwhelmingly syrupy word!

IDOWATOTAB’IT

My escape key from the emotional straight jacket paradigm. And, may I suggest it for your use as well?

Say it slowly with a forward hand gesture and a rich, deep Italian accent … With all the fervor and angst you can muster … Got it?

I don’t know what a Stress–energy–momentum pseudotensor does. I hope, for all bugs everywhere, there isn’t one walking around tomorrow, minding its own business, walking in an arc of distress seeing as it will not end well for either of us. For me, bug parts attached under my shoe I’ll need to clean and, well, spattered bug parts under my shoe for it. The solving one, but creating another paradigm all of us face. Even bugs.

Eewe, Ido-wato-tab’it anymore.

.

Approximately 9 p.m. last evening, I owned today’s writing. My formerly sharp brain and I, by extension, held captive an idea … written on the walls of imagination. There, among dreams of lottery winnings, high functioning mental health, youthful skin, and non-clicky knees, this most wonderful, uplifting theme for today took its place. Largely noticed within bumbling fantastical whimsy, it sat as I went about other matters knowing this morning would come quickly. “Alas, I have stumbled upon the golden theme for tomorrow’s posting!”, as paraphrased and foretold to a friend in a text last evening, thus setting a terrific tome for today…

…yes, a particular, predetermined post never to appear in front of your expectant, hopeful eyes. Unfortunately.

Sometime during the night, whispered Samsung gods stole my phone and, in the process, took hostage my sanity. All attempts to pull lucidness back into my 6 a.m. start blogging world came to a panicky halt … and with that, a delightfully original idea went into a disposable digital file stamped, “I may remember for later … but won’t. Even if I do, the brilliance I believed in my heart will have been sacrificed to the what would-have-been idols.” … (and, yes I do have tabs wide enough for such a label).

Let’s get this over with. I sleep rogue. With certain back issues and irregular patterns of wanting to be my own boss, the sofa is king. Charging station, multiple remotes for stuff I don’t even think are around anymore, trays for snacks and glasses, reclining possibilities … all comforts giving me at least a promise of 4 hours quality sleep. This is the healthiest option I have short of snuggling into a heaping pile of large bills on a swanky, velvety hotel bed somewhere in Nevada.

Mr. Samsung is never far away – within an arm’s length resting comfortably atop the largest cushion, overseeing my dream state. He is in a holding pattern at the ready, fully charged should I rise inspired. Until he’s not.

Welcome to my February 7th, 2020.

There was no reason for me to believe in ghosts until reaching for my phone early this morning and all I felt was a sliverly white charge cord. Familiar? Yes. Expected? What do you think? Not only did this feel narly in my already suprised hand, it also had its little “watcha gonna do ’bout it?” jack face staring right back. Picking up the little bastard, in my best grimbly, stubble-faced voice, I demanded, “Where’s my damn phone?! …. I need answers and I need ’em NOW!’. Silence.

Ok. Talking to inanimate objects wasn’t going to work. Corrective action needed. I knew my phone was within 3 feet. It HAD to be near because I plugged it in only hours before. In behind, down in back, across the front, up the sides did my not quite awake body-eyes scan. My every knee-worn move was mocked by the Jack King from its sofatic throne above with those quiet spits of righteous venom from …. hold on … I’m overheating through reflection.

So, anyway…. no phone. Off to the house phone to do the reverse-call-cell-number-gag-trick. You know, right? Problem being ….. what? Yes. My cell volume was …. off. No worries, though. Middle of the early morning with no noise meant I should have been able to hear the vibrating no-call default. Home phone up to one ear, the other free, I began my best impression of Tonto listening for cattle hooves. Slowly, up and across the sofa cushions, then down on the floor, I relentlessly ear-scanned with excellence. Puncing, poping, and prodding my lobe in places I never thought possible with rug burn as a reward…no vibration -save the ever increasing, irregular frustrating beat of my heart … still no phone…and jack staring me down.

Next. The dreaded “thrust hands in mysterious, dark cracks” method of retrieval. Jeepers. At this point, I sat back and contemplated. Is my phone really worth it? If ghosts took it, so be it, right? I like my phone guys. I can always write using my desktop, upgrade to an IPhone, … the options are aplenty. Stick my piano hands into where? Shit, no!

I was into this project, easily, 20 minutes and wrote off any hopes of following through with the original blog. This was developing into a Doug does a thing anyway, so I had to push forward into uncomfortable.

Squinty eyes aren’t my thing unless I have bad gas or eye sight too poor to pick people out of a crowd. This was an unfamiliar time to squint. In went my hands as two eyes, not used to partial closure in response to distress, closed completely from the horror of it all. Swiping around in darkness amidst textures I’ve never assumed real, my hands were assaulted by things. I have no other words. Grubly things. Stofly things. Glurkley things. Enough things to warrant my immediate withdrawal of hands without concern for any phone I may, or may not, ever see again.

Off to the kitchen. Two reasons. I needed to return the house phone. Second, in the everything drawer was a flashlight. Last resort. You may be wondering why I didn’t use a flashlight before – when looking in and around the sofa. Well, I’m a guy. We don’t do the obvious things first. Also, as an aside, if you’re ever frustrated, don’t look into the shiny end of a flashlight at 6 a.m. before turning it on …. and then. Maybe this life skill was covered in 2nd grade? I may have been absent that day.

Back to the front lines I marched with flashlight in hand and two very bright white spots in my eyes. On my knees once again, battle weary with a chafed ear and traumatized hands, I mined the underbelly of the fabriced beast whereupon I once rested. Memories of those moments gone … simultaneous stares from jack above, dripping sarcasm every time I failed. The rails and metal parts scuffed and scraped until at last I saw a small little gem – an AHA moment heard silently around the living room. A sliver of silver so perfectly perfect was the volume control on the side of my phone!

Take THAT, Jack!! .. I found my phone. Step one. Here’s the new problem. This is a sectional sofa with an iron and metal configuration challenging the Eiffel Tower. My phone was jammed upright in between two rails making extrication almost impossible. Now, I knew the phone made its way down there from the pain-in-the-ass jack, right? Gravity works only one way. I had no solution. My hands were too large to fit in between and taking apart the sofa then, at 6:45 in the morning, wasn’t a fix. I considered sucking in deeply, thus reducing the hulkiness of my hands. Maybe the general laws of body mass would step aside? Yardsticks, yarn, another household item beginning with “y”, or another letter, wasn’t the answer. A quagmire🤔.

Out of ideas was I. The ring so close … yet so far. A bridesmaid, not a bride. Almost a full hour. All I wanted to do was wake up, blog about Chinese food, push “publish”, and go about my day. As it stood, I was being taunted by a skinny wire and beaten down through a series of sensorial slaps to my soul. All for what? To be left looking at my phone two feet away, pining for release …. a salvation I could not provide.

And then a cellular MIRACLE, my friends!!

….As if those very idols, of a blog never to be seen, released their powers upon me with alacrity never before seen. The force strong enough to force my little Jack “buddy” off his little perch and to dislodge my phone from its perilous position, falling gently to the floor where I scooped it up. Simply said, in a less dramatic way, I kinda banged the f*ck out of the sofa cushion above – out of frustration – which dislodged my phone.

I doubt today was the day you wanted to hear about Chinese food, anyway. Good thing ghosts decided to move my phone and for me to miss a few Friday happenin’s in order to write. It’s always good for me share as I hope it is for you to read.

With that, I will plug my phone in for another night’s charging. Honestly, if I wake tomorrow and find my phone missing again in the early morning, there will be a quite different fantastical whimsy dancing around in my head …..

A line of exiting shoppers extending from the front door, easily ten yards ahead, to the same distance behind where I sit watching a cute young couple devour two hot dogs, one large hamburger, and two sodas. An all too familiar scene inside our local Sam’s Club as I wait, patiently and uncomfortably, on a red and white little elementary school-sized table not designed with me in mind.

Physically, I have a bony frame – specific to a certain part of my body in contact with a small, hard seat I currently occupy – that no amount of exercise will ever remedy. Emotionally, I’m not happy seeing unhappy people sloodged over their slow moving, thin-metal cages holding prisoner impulse bulk items they were unconsciously forced to buy. Spiritually, I focus on correct word choices I now type into my Samsung, praying for enlightenment as members jam extra shots of soda into their already full cups of overflowing carbonated poison at the fountain nearby. So yes, uncomfortable is the correct word choice for now.

Question: What would make me secure in my feelings right now? Well, maybe that isn’t the right question to ask. Rewind. What could I be doing right now – other than sitting on a toddler playground set in Sam’s Club, blogging about my first world problems, while anxiously slugging my knees upwards against the underside of a cheap plastic table? This the proper question! …

Answer: Absolutely NOTHING. This is where life placed me right now. For better … for worse, I am here.

A few minutes ago I was shuffling through the bread aisle sampling pizza off a small vendor cart. Before then, staring mindlessly into a self-serve kiosk that asked me, in a sexy, Angelina Jolie-ish robotic voice, if I wanted $2 off a bottle of dish detergent. I did stand there for an extra minute just to hear her ask me again … and, maybe again… before leaving without extricating a coupon from her welcoming aperture. In between, before and after pizza samples and, err… coupon moments, I wandered to and fro, in and among people-folk of all big-tall and smallness. They, as well, found themselves here – in Sam’s Club on Superbowl Sunday – pushing a cart full of expectations.

Twenty minutes ago, my good buddy Jim greeted me at the door with his usual smile and welcoming, “Hey, Doug … Nice to see you” demeanor. I pass through the doors of this gray brick building many, many times during the seasonal months of my business … February not being one of them… so, for Jim to address me in such a way wasn’t a surprise. Because we share a common interest in collecting small pieces of cardboard with athletes pictures on them (as wives understand them to be), the bond is natural and genuine. One of the few un-contractual benefits of “The Club”, I guess.

As I reflect, the faces in the never-ending line have changed. This doesn’t mean much except everyone around me looks different as well, which must mean I’m done in this place for now. My butt has the feeling of an anesthetized loaf of bread, the young couple’s food has been reduced to soggy napkins in the waste can, and I’m pretty sure there’s no more diet coke remaining in the soda machine. For now, time will not wait, but my thoughts will …

….I didn’t have any high hopes as I walked into Sam’s hours ago. My wish today was to fill time while Superbowl snacky odds and ends were being gathered. Writing wasn’t even on my mind. If any pangs of hunger poked a peek at all, I would have entertained a snack instead of observing. Eating is far better a diversion and time waster than staring at strangers while growing increasingly, posteriorly numb. Alas, I was driven to ogle. That is where life placed me and I was determined to make something out of it.

If there is a lesson, that’s it. Where we are at any moment – grocery, school, or park – is a place full of emotion, spirituality, and physical senses, etc … IF we see it that way. Observing our surroundings is filling up our lives with color that otherwise would be missed.

I was reminded of that today.

Now, when I get the chance … and soon … I must go back. I hear there’s a coupon for $2 off dish detergent.

• 

“There are, at present, nine-hundred, fifty-eight boroughs in Pennsylvania. A borough is a self-governing municipal entity, smaller than a city in its residential areas. I was raised in the borough of Hollidaysburg with close access to one of fifty-seven cities in our Commonwealth – that being Altoona, the “Railroad City” of generations with a footprint embedded in the Horseshoe Curve. A National Historic Landmark, this tourist attraction was built to help trains cross the Allegheny Ridge, a barrier to westward trade.”

Do you have any (bleeping) idea how difficult that last paragraph was for me to write? If so, raise your hand and I’ll buy you a drink. Geesh. Can you say, “adjectivally challenged?”… I can smell the halls of the school where books of expected middle school enlightenment were strewn face up at my feet. Stinky, prepubescent bullies on full tilt taking out their own insecurities on me. A single-minded, get through to the next class, should-have-been there already, hall “unfortunate” was I. It was in that very school above I would have written such a dry, colorless passage … no wonder. Save a few moments of private reflection, those days were stretched longer and tighter than the roughly seven hours allotted for state mandated public education. It was as if the pull of earth’s four cardinal directions acted in concert to tear apart the fabric of any normal, wearable smile I had before doors of entry. Day in, through the back IU8 off-yellow doors – and day out, through the same. Time after time.

We lived only a short block or two from the back side of the school – behind the football field as shown. Our house is seen nestled in behind the little black dot. In this archival postcard, the house was not yet ours, however. I was probably ten years too soon a thought when this picture was taken, mom hadn’t been swooned by a semi-bald sweet talking history major “dad”, and Richard James was ten years along manufacturing his Slinky toy only three miles away. By my estimate, sixty years have passed in this faded green and brown representation of a small borough located in western-central PA. These vanishing once vibrant colors being a small palette of superficial history. The memories I have of the past – in that school – are, by contrast, the formative, deeper, well-defined darker shades. On this basis alone, I invite you into my classroom of experiences.

If, in America, a reunion of adults who struggled through the terrible teens was ever organized, I’d gladly volunteer to head ALL the subcommittees such as the “gross locker room shower episodes” group, to mention one. At what point in the code book did mature, well-meaning adults decide a thirty second window was enough time for twenty-five icky, sweaty boys (yes, boys! .. not young men) to jam under less than twenty-five shower heads. To compound the problem, it was athletes vs. non-athletes pushing a way to the water spouts .. which wasn’t really a problem, anyway, because the jocks were the ones who “athleted” during gym, anyway. Most of us instrument blowers and finger peckers didn’t pore-sweat, but had to show success “after” the shower. Nothing like being embarrassingly naked having to prove wetness in front of a male gym educator for what, I now ask? … So he could check a box saying I took a shower? … which I never did because Big Billy, the football player, hogged the second to last shower in the corner. PS. I splashed a few drops of cold water on my bare chest from the water fountain. Didn’t take much. Don’t ask.

I also want to chair the “over-heated school dance” commission. If by, “over-heated”, you think I mean the large wooden room where, only hours before, boys and girls chucked their way around in tight, colorless unitards while sweaty big Billies swang a dirty dodge ball violently at sticky thin oboe players, you’d be wrong. I’m talking about genetic troopery marching through veins of anticipatory teens headed toward the front lines of heated first kisses. This, while clueless chapter-paws (parents & teachers disguised as chaperones .. my mash-up) adulted their way around in casual leisure suits pretending to monitor, but oogley-boogling each other across the room. Like we didn’t know. Bleaek .. and double-bleaek.

I went to two dances in three years. If you look to the left of the smiley part in the picture, that’s where the dances were held. Pillars representing, if you will, the teeth of the dragon – the mouth of hell where darkness invited a cascade of pulsing red, yellow, green, and blue lights filling a room already saturated with noise so loud an adolescent fart was only known by a vibration in your underwear. I entered my second dance expecting more of the same: 1. dirt on the backside of my faded jeans from leaning up against the racked bleachers, 2. not knowing anyone because I wasn’t a raccoon being able to spot trash in complete darkness, 3. acquiring Beethovian hearing by the third song due to the DJ’s complete obliviousness of his own auditory handicap, and 4. wondering why I was really there … it certainly couldn’t have been my idea. (Who invited me, anyway, and where the f**k is he..she…? “Maybe I should go talk to Mr…oh, wait. Can’t he’s snorking up to Mrs… What the …!! Now I’M getting over-heated and it ain’t the chick in the white David Cassidy t-shirt over there … Oh, wait, that’s sweaty Billy. Shit. I can’t see a damn thing.”)

Trauma never ending, over walked the twins. Not just any twins. THE twins. Now I remembered the “why” as in, “Why I came to the stale, drippy, hormone-burdened meat locker that night”. I promised I would … kiss … one of the twins. Just which one, I didn’t remember. Oh, yeah, this was epic for sure. Nearly deaf, blind, and alone, being approached by a set of babes beset with beguiling beauty,…eer…. actually at my age then, let’s just say “approached by ANY girls” …, I quickly realized a chance was close at hand to know FINALLY what girl lips felt like pressed, voluntarily, against mine (don’t ask). Trauma subsided into anticipated pleasure zones as blood quickly rushed to my formerly muted cheeks. This was my chance….

… Although, I did agree earlier in the day – at study hall where I never studied – to kiss one of my gal-mates at the dance NOT because I liked her … just because I was soooo lonely. Even with that foreknowledge, as the twins approached I couldn’t remember with which one I agreed to have early-teen magic lip bonding. They were identically equal and had similar ideas on how to confuse me. The best idea in their duplicitous (see what I did there?) plan? Take this neophytically numb newby outside behind a bush – with two male friends of theirs – to witness the act. Sure, why not, right? Twins girls, two dudes (one not sweaty Billy), a lot of bushes (as it turned out), a brick wall, darkness, dirt, aaaand me.

So tempting to stop. Right here. I’m a well-adjusted adult. You are, probably as well. I can assume nothing more needs to be written and your life will go on …

But, I won’t do that. Even though I really, really, really ….. want to …

I didn’t like it. Uck.

And by the way, for the record, I don’t remember which twin it was so don’t be looking back in any yearbook and calling out names. I’m also going to assume she liked it more than I did. She HAD to. There can’t be anything worse than what I experienced that night. Take any ordinary garden hose, dip in in gasoline, have an elephant spit on it, set it on fire, then jam it down my throat for five seconds. THAT would’ve been better. Heck, sweaty Billy may have done a better job!

Look, I’m not blaming her at all. I think she was a sweet girl. Pressures of those years can be horrible. She saw me as a possible target and that’s ok. I was willing to be because I had flaws as well. The whole kissing thing was so stupid, anyway. So was trying to get through the halls without a bully knocking books out of my arms. That school is a place of memories, … fantastic, great, good, bad, and horrible.

We have them. They’re not unique to any of us. Middle school years are tough and that school, to me, represents the hardest years of my life save a few adult years recently. My dad and I had really hard times back then. Fortunately, we’ve been able to patch all that up lately – forty years later.

My days were stretched longer and tighter than the roughly seven hours allotted for state mandated public education. Maybe, looking back, I’m glad they were because being pulled apart early on opened up spaces. Spaces in between the pieces of my life I only started to know later in life that were missing. Chances to heal. Chances to enliven the adjectivally challenged and bring color back to a once vibrant soul.

There are, at present, nine-hundred, fifty-eight boroughs in Pennsylvania, but only one way to heal in each one of us. Revisit your past, live through it and laugh. Find your sweaty Billy and maybe give him a kiss on the cheek for me.

It was necessary for me to turn right because I forgot where I parked. Exiting the office store with more items I planned on buying, that turn seemed the correct course of action because the dinged up pylon over there looked familiar. Not that yellow, concrete, scuffed pylons are rare, mind you, but this one had battle scars unlike any I’ve ever seen. It was, and sadly still is, bent and twisted, dented and puckered, …. red, blue, and silver bumper-scratched from years of neglect and abuse. I thought maybe I could find my car and brain somewhere in that general area … remembering I had passed the memorable pylon ten minutes prior… I thought. .. or, had thought, or was thinking at that time … whatever the correct grammar is here🤦🏻‍♂️ …

I suffer from DDDD. Doug’s Destination Distraction Disorders. I use the plural because there is no one itteration from what I can see. Happens pretty much everywhere I go – including leaving office supply stores looking for my car that, apparently, someone moved. My equally sorry automobile wasn’t anywhere near my disformed friend as I remembered. What would you do?

Me? Well, why not go into the local pet supply store, right? Distraction is key to solving the problem at hand. That’s what I figured, anyway. DDDD. An automatic response required for survival of my kind of species. In generations past, over-hairy, grunty cave dwellers in my lineage must have done evasive maneuvers similar to this. “Getting away from the situation” became the option of choice when over-hairy spouses’ constant nagging about the state of affairs, or losing the family dinosaur in a parking lot, knocked on their cave door. So, I dragged my knuckled self – albeit willingly – into the pet store because my preprogrammed, habitual mind told me to.

Pet stores have that certain smell. It’s a mix of new puppy, hamster poop, dog food, rabbit sweat, and cat shampoo. Once I opened the door, this woft of non-human odor molecules rode its way into my still car-less nostrils.

I wound my way around the leashes, treats, and nuggets – with partially full office bags still in hand – gliding seconds later into the marvelous, colorful, fishy-fun-filled, fantastic under water world of organized clear, stacked bubble tanks. Homes to many where directions don’t matter to orange, yellow, blue, and red inhabitants living in gravity free no-parking zones with cars they don’t own. Swimming randomly, bumping cautiously without harm, communicating with ease, joy aplenty just being there. Me, myself, and the fishes.

Watching for a few minutes was my take away from life. I do believe they posed for me … the pinks, the whites joined in. A symphony of silence for my enjoyment. With enough time, I would have named each friend swimming quickly by. Some said, “hi”, then found a new direction to make room for another to do the same. Some blew kisses. Some lifted their gentile fin in passing. Others had a glimmer of hope beaming in their ever opened eyes. What matter most to me, however, was their presence. They were there.

I had the unfortunate situation of still not knowing, though. Deep in reflection about inner self-worth in a scented box store filled with over-priced rats and snakes wasn’t exactly fixing my original problem. Asking my friends, the fish, where my car was parked wasn’t going to produce any results. Fish can’t talk and I’m pretty sure dry-erase boards don’t work in water. I had to solve this by sauntering out of the pet store and attacking the issue bumper-on. Certainly my car HAD to be out in the lot somewhere, I surmised.

It was. Just one row over, down from the battle scarred pylon soldier, hidden beside a rather large beast of a truck. Perhaps if I would not have turned right to begin with and continued forward, I may have seen my car. InDDDDeeed, I say this with all the confidence I can muster. I also know, had I done that, my magical moments in a pet store, alone with many friends, would have been lost forever.

And that is something I’m glad my hairy ancestors passed on to me.