What's In a Name?

Riding in a car loaded with teenagers is always fun, no matter your age. Take me for example (I always do – take me for an example, that is; someone once told me I was Narcissistic and I replied that he was a pessimistic spastic. I don’t know what the heck either thing is but my response sounded cool and rhymed), when I was teenager myself, in the dim and distant past, I took to heart the expression, “Idle hands are the Devil’s playthings.” Whenever I found myself in the back seat of a Ford Pinto with several other teenagers, I would always keep both hands busy. One had a beer can grafted to it and the other, like a snake hidden in the tall grass, would slither stealthily toward the teenage girls’ secret hiding places. So much for that expression. It appears that old Satan has all the bases covered (pardon the pun) as busy hands are also his playthings.

Today, the father of a teenage girl, I keep both hands on the steering wheel and one eye permanently on the rear view mirror spying the backseat ceiling, which is where I insist all male teen passengers keep their hands affixed. “Glue! That’s right Mister Guitar Hero, I’ve seen your hands in action. Keep ‘em glued to that ceiling or your band mates will be posting an ad on Craig’s List for a new guitar player!” If you are looking for a new and creative way to embarrass your teenage daughter, apart from having a pulse, I recommend this.

Thusly forced to engage their minds on intellectual pursuits, my daughter and her friends discussed the merits of band names. We started with the name for Guitar Hero’s band, The McLovins. I asked my young passenger (who is actually a very nice, very bright, and very talented guitar player – just in case his parents find out about this blog) if the name was a tribute to the Teen Movie cult classic “Super Bad”? Only indirectly, he explained. You see, his band’s You Tube Video was seen by a couple of stoned blokes on a Phish Fan site. One was like, “Dude, the guitar player looks like McLovin!” And the other was like, “Dude, the bass player looks like McLovin!” And then together, “Dude, it’s the McLovins!!” The video went viral and the band had its name. Check out the amazing jam band “The McLovins” here. http://www.themclovins.com/fr_home.cfm

We (I made them include me since they were in my car) all agreed that the topic of band names might prove fun.

We identified some as clever; some inexplicably cool; some stupid funny; and some clearly the brainchild of minds violently unhinged by drugs or reality Television. Here are just a few examples (feel free to submit your own names and editorial comments).


· Menace II Sobriety: A play on words with an alcohol reference, right up my alley.

· The Smith’s: Understated parody of other band names suggesting a need for anonymity due to a closet full of skeletons, such as ambivalent sexual behavior, designer drug use, or being a member of an ideal suburban family that spawned a serial killer.

· I Set My Friends On Fire: Enough said…until my oh so clever daughter said that it doesn’t have to be read literally but could also be a metaphor. I was gonna come back with, “that’s what my “girl” friends used to say about me back in the day, but then I remembered that I was in a car full of raging hormones and thought better of it, filing this thought in the back of my mind under the category: Share someday during Thanksgiving dinner when the kids are all grown up and out of the house.

· Gogol Bordello: A Gypsy Punk band name with a reference to a Russian novelist and a brothel. Esoteric literary allusion coupled with gutter talk – remind you of anyone??!

· Thrift Store Catastrophe: Reminds me of Daughter of The Captain (DOTC), who was born with style and a taste for fine clothing. Forcing her to shop for second hand clothes in order to save money results in a Thrift Store Catastrophe.

· Deuce Bag: This one is pure Shakespeare. A crude idiom with a nod to illegal drugs wrapped in a pun. I’m getting way too excited over this.

· Private Event: My imagination was off and running with impure thoughts about private events of a certain ilk when I realized that this was not the name of a band after all but simply a notice for a…er…private event.

· Goon Squad: This one makes the cut because of its breathtaking lack of wit and originality, no doubt the work of a bunch of high school burnouts with no future prospects.

· Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams: Drugs. Lots and lots of them. You know I looked up Slambovia to see if it’s a real place (hey, many folks still think Slovakia is a made up country, even some who actually live there). The question of the existence of Slambovia depends on your state of mind, with those in state of sobriety generally agreeing that it’s fantasy while those in altered states insisting they visit frequently. You choose. I already know how the Goon Squad will answer.

· Us Against the Archers: I don’t really know why I like this name; I just do. Let’s go shoot some arrows at something!

· Justin Bieber: Who the fuck names a band Justin Bieber? Must be a Disney band.

Eventually the teens grew tired of conversing with an adult – or maybe just this particular adult – and started texting each other and giggling. But I had done my good deed for the day and reconnected with the youth of America, extortion notwithstanding.

Believe The Captain when he says: All Hail Slambovia!

Yours sneaking off to see the Slambovian Circus ringmaster formerly known as my dealer,

The Captain

Gogol Bordello

If I Was a Celebrity...

I don’t know about you, but my favorite part about visiting the grocery store is waiting in the checkout line; this gives me time to peruse the tabloids for the media frenzy about the latest misadventures of the now grown up child stars or horny politicians. It seems that nothing will mess you up more than being the underage star of some lame eighties TV sitcom. Nonetheless, which one of us would turn down Fate’s invitation to become a celebrity and spend our days finding ways to make the front page of the Daily Star? Not me! Now I admit that, already being a blogging buffoon, this isn’t such a stretch for The Captain; the only difference would be that my silly and obscene antics would be real and not imagined. But I thought it would still be loads of fun to go through the exercise of planning my day as if I was Charlie Sheen or MacKenzie Phillips. So here we go, The Captain’s “Day with an Imaginary Celebrity.”

6 AM: Put on one of those Lone Ranger masks without the holes for the eyes, take a valium, and go to bed.

3 PM: Wake Up Call, which means having my hot illegal immigrant housekeeper wake me up by throwing a strike down my custom mahogany bedroom bowling alley wet bar. If that doesn’t work, she has been instructed to get out the forceps and the tequila.

3:30 PM Breakfast of Lucky Charms, skittles, and, to make it healthy, some appled-smoked bacon to get my daily serving of fruit.

5 PM: Place a call on my diamond studded Blackberry to a local T-Shirt shop to order 100 shirts that read: “Unattractive Groupies Need Not Apply.”

6 PM: Call my Personal Assistant to instruct him to set up a play date with Cory Feldman and a Michael Jackson Impersonator.

7 PM: Luncheon with hot E News reporter by the pool. Don’t forget to use my big boy manners.
8:30 PM: Go on Scavenger Hunt in neighborhood ravines looking for one of Charlie Sheen’s Mercedes and discarded prescription meds.

9:00 PM: Game of Spin the Bottle with MacKenzie Phillips, Margot Kidder, Robert Downey, Jr., Winona Ryder, Lindsey Lohan, Dana Plato, and those anorexic blonde twins. Share my scavenger hunt plunder. Prank call Johnny Depp and tell him it’s the 90’s and he doesn’t know what he’s missing!

9:37 PM: Call 911

9:38 PM: Call my lawyer.

10 PM: Order some Chinese, with a side of activated charcoal.

11 PM: Move the party down to the Home Theater Bunker Bar. Tell Lindsay Lohan that Britanny Spears is prettier than she is and duck. Put on Gary Coleman masks and revive Dana Plato. Strategically place shiny trinkets with hidden GPS chips throughout the room so you can track Winona Ryder after she leaves.

12 AM: Private concert with Justin Bieber, which is interrupted after ten minutes when Lohan mistakes him for Spears.

12:26 AM: Call Justin’s Mom.

1:30 AM: Ring for Alfred the Butler (his real name is Steve) and have him bring the Hummer around to get me the f*ck outta here. Just drive Alfred my man!!!!

1:31 AM: Paparazzi on Vespas in hot pursuit.

1:35 AM: Instruct Alfred to push the Batmobile button to release a gazillion Ninja stars from the secret trunk compartment into the Paparazzi’s path.

1:36 AM: Steve instructs me to sit down and shut up.

2 AM: Arrive back home to find Kidder and Plato humping an unconcious Downey, Jr, Phillips in the pantry, nose bloodied after inhaling 3 packets of Margartita mix, Lohan with Sheen in an arm lock, Ryder long gone, and a bill from the ambulance company that transported Spears. No sign of those skinny ass twins other than the 15 empty Oreo packages on the floor. Rush over to stop Phillips from trying to snort the crumbs.

2:30 AM: Go next door to hang with the eight kids who live there – their parents are never home. Spend all night talking about how their Dad’s a Playa and Mom’s a narcissistic publicity hound. Put the kids to bed and headed home – had to pull Kidder out of the pool again.

6 AM: Called the housekeeper – Lolita or Senorita or Margarita or whatever her name is – to come and tuck me in. I sleep, perchance to dream, though my reality is naught but a dream. It’d been a busy day as a Celebrity.

Believe The Captain when he says: Everything you read in the Daily Star is true!

Yours calling Kidder a cab,

The Captain

Friends from the Hood

Folk Songs from the Old Country

This past weekend, The Captain attended a family reunion for the Slovak side of the family. I’ll preface my remarks by pointing out that when I was a boy, picnic attire for the Slovak grownups in attendance was strictly formal – suits for the men and summer dresses for the women. Peasants when they lived in what was once called Czechoslovakia (yes, I spelled that without any help), they were often called “quaint” and “backwards” by the wealthy Bohemian tourists who headed east from Prague in search of some quiet time in the Tatry mountains. Well, based on their picnic garb, I gotta agree that they seemed to have it backwards alright. This created some difficulty during softball games for a young American boy in a T shirt and shorts and a glint in his eye. Do I slide into third and ruin Uncle John’s wool slacks or do I come in standing up and risk making the second out? Well, Uncle John could be a real mean son-of-a-bitch, so standing it was.

The story of Father of The Captain (FOTC) is a pretty cool one. Some day I may write about it at length in a serious vein with great pride and admiration. For the sake of this blog, here’s the reader’s digest version. He was youngest of three children living on the family farm with his Mom in the village of Mengusovce (population 700); his father had already been in the states for several years – in Torrington, CT, of all places – sending money back home to pay for passage to America for his family. My Uncle John was the oldest sibling, followed by my Aunt Sue and finally Father of The Captain, who reportedly was well acquainted with trouble and who had a habit of sneaking into the woods to visit the gypsy camps. Then came 1939 and the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, so my Grandmother decided she could tarry no longer and packed up the family possessions on a pony drawn cart and headed to Bremen to catch a ship to America. At the time, my Uncle John was 17, my Aunt Sue was 15, and FOTC 11. A year after the arrival, a fourth sibling was born in America – my Uncle Milan.

The transition to a new country, culture, and language is much easier for an eleven year old than for teenagers. Whereas my Uncle and Aunt never were able to completely shed their old country ways, FOTC assimilated faster than shit through the geese he used to force feed back in Europe. So growing up in Torrington, I was a normal American lad ( as normal as someone can be spending his formative years in Torrington).

In the subsequent years, people started dying, which happens. First my grandfather, then my Uncle John and then FOTC. My Grandmother outlived her two oldest sons, but just barely, as exactly one week after my father’s funeral, my Aunt Sue went to visit her in a nursing home; she’d brought her some Kolache (a Slovak pastry) leftover from FOTC’s funeral reception. It was a little dry and my Grandmother choked on it and died on the stop. I gotta say that I give my Aunt Sue a lot of credit as to this very day she has never felt even the slightest pang of guilt. God bless her.

So there was my Aunt Sue this past weekend, sitting next to me in a lawn chair. For the record, she was sitting in 95 degree heat wearing a smart polyester pant suit. She’s 87 now and walks with a cane and sometimes thinks I’m my father, which is really a bad thing because being me I can’t help playing along at times. It took a good twenty minutes to convince her that I was not her little brother and that I was just kidding about spying on her as a child when I caught her doing the nasty in the tall grass with the handsome gypsy rover. Please pray for my soul. Any way, as she watched the younger generations playing volleyball, she suddenly blurted out that watching us makes her want to sing. Of course, my younger sister heard this and, just like when we were kids and my older sister was in the same room, she started to boss me around, demanding that I get the video camera and record my Aunt singing her song. Someday I will be a man, but that was not the moment, so I did as I was told, as I spied my older sister watching me to see how I’d react.

So Aunt Sue began to sing a sweet folk melody in Slovak. Everyone gathered listened quietly, mesmerized by the simple folk melody. We all guessed that this was a lullaby that was sung to her by her mother. She ended and we all sat quietly, until yours truly opened his mouth and asked her what the song was about: a mother and her son, we were told, and we all, or at least some of us, envisioned a mother suckling her pure and innocent babe. But wait, there’s more… the son was in fact a young man and the song was a plea for him to sleep at home tonight. Confused, I asked for clarification. And Aunt Sue clarified. The son was apparently quite virile and was in the habit of cohabitating with numerous young village maidens and spent more nights in haylofts than in his bed at home. “You go dog!” escaped from my mouth and was not particularly well received, especially by Mother of the Captain, whose hearing is still sharp. I was dying to ask if this was a song that my grandmother ever sang to my father, but thought better of it.

Right about then my cousin Arnie, a 50-something virgin who lives alone, shot up out of his chair and he and his polyester slacks abruptly departed without saying goodbye. Never a dull moment at the Slovak family picnic! Now there are times when even the most strident atheist has to admit that there is an undeniable and mysterious balance and symmetry to life. And this was one of those moments, because no sooner had Arnie left than cousin Sharie, another 50-something virgin, arrived some 3 hours late, as she felt it more important to spend time with her flatearther Christian cult friends than her own flesh and blood. The void of a fifty-something virgin is not so easily filled, but there stood Sharie, filling it in all her glory in her freshly printed Christian retreat T-Shirt informing one and all that we’re a bunch of no good sinners and that Hell is anxiously awaiting our arrival.

And I did I mention that MOTC still has eagle eyes? She saw that I was about to open my mouth to comment and knew from years of experience that no good could come from it; she glared at me and gestured to my sisters to get ready to pounce. I looked MOTC straight in the eye, gave SsOTC a wink, and said…”Hi Sharie, nice to see you.” Oh, did I mention that the Slovak side of the family doesn’t drink? Some nonsense about the Devil’s brew. With my six-pack drained, it was time to go. But before I departed, I told my Aunt Sue that I would love to record her singing more folk songs. As I bent down to kiss her goodbye, she must have thought that I was her brother again because she whispered in my ear, “I’m so glad you never told Ma about me and the gypsies.” It was “gypsies” plural!!

Believe The Captain when he says: You go Aunt Sue!

Yours wondering if the Slovaks sang folk songs about birth control,

The Captain

The Quaint but sexually active village of Mengusovce, Slovakia.

Random Updates

It often happens that I have thoughts I’d like to add to my blogs, but unfortunately for me, these thoughts are, like me in high school, either tardy or absent for publication. Now I could go back and amend a blog, but I’m way too lazy for that, so I decided to start a new practice: make random updates to recent blogs. It’s not very hard to make arbitrary changes to a published document after the fact. Who says Project Managers never taught me anything?! So time to turn on the fan and let it fly!

The Summer Intern Blog: This one is still being discussed at lunch with my coworkers. Today, one such conversation had moved from the purported efficacy of outsourcing to whether summer interns should be paid for showing up and looking young and attractive when I had a stroke of Captainesque creativity and proposed that we offshore our internship program. Not only will the offshore interns look nice but they will actually do work at the same time. Plus, you can take them home with you, where they will gladly cook and clean and perform other services on demand – always with a gracious smile!

The Soccer Blog: Upon review, soccer remains a second tier sport; plus, no sport worth its balls would ever boast of a maneuver called a “nutmeg,” a spice used to flavor baked squash pies.

The Parakeet Blog: This past weekend, sometime after 2 in the morning and 6 gin and tonics, 4 Pina Coladas and some unknown quantity of beer, I learned that parakeets do in fact talk. Me and Seamus the Parakeet had a long, productive and candid discussion about my suspicions. Turns out, he does in fact hate my guts and told me straight out that he if managed to escape his cage he’d take aim at my aorta with his razor sharp beak if given the chance. I immediately went to the garage, got out my blow torch, and soldered his cage permanently shut. I’m so glad we had our little chat!

Who Am I? Blog. After a great deal of brutally honest soul searching, I learned that I am not who I think I am. Seriously, I just received a copy of the paternity report from the Fertility Clinic and it turns out that my real father is not the Milkman after all, but some itinerant mental hospital outpatient preacher. Yikes.

Bucket List Blog: One addition. Before I die, I want to actually do some good in the world, like run a baseball clinic for English Soccer goalies to show them how the hands are properly used.

Jargon Juice Blog: New phrase – “Perform an Appendectomy.” Slang for removing the most unnecessary member of the Project Team, the Project Manager.

Fridge Militia Blog: Two summer interns reportedly ran afoul of the Fridge Militia and were forcibly removed from their homes in the middle of the night. Word on the floor is they stole leftovers from the communal fridge.

The Male Brain Blog: Still searching for one!!

Believe The Captain when he says: Balls Over Brains!!!

Yours shooting baskets with a soccer ball, to show it how a ball should really feel,

The Captain

Who Is The Captain??

They say you can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps; this gets a little tricky with bloggers who choose to remain hidden behind the veil of a purposely ambiguous literary persona, but there are some general conclusions that can be reached. Given that my company is a virtual readership, maybe I can glean some things from their commentary and suggestions. Factor in natural instinct and social conditioning, and you can at least draw a composite sketch of yours truly. So let’s try!

The Virtual Company I Keep…

The suggestions for blogging topics that I most frequently receive from my Myrmidons fall into several categories:

· Fire play – This one makes sense since I began my stagnated writing career by penning pearls of Fire Safety wisdom in the name of feigned corporate concern as a “Floor Captain,” who is, to summarize, the dumbass who got snookered into staying behind and making sure everyone else on his floor gets out safely before he is consumed by the fires of Hades (even my language and my obsession for long and random parentheticals like this one say a lot about who I am or, more clinically, what I suffer from; I am the quintessential Generation X Existentialist and suffer from life – it gets me all amped up and I just can’t help myself and I get all excited and hyper, which extends to my writing).

What does this reveal about The Captain? Very little, really; especially since becoming a Floor Captain wasn’t an intentional move but the result of a cruel practical joke by co-workers. Writing mock fire safety bulletins was my revenge, so I guess you can say The Captain was born out of pettiness and a childish need for revenge. Sounds about right.

· Physical Features – Most especially, bad haircuts (think butch mullet), fat (layers and layers of it), ass cracks (nothing says “adolescent” like laughing at butt cracks!), and tacky and/or slutty prom clothes.

What does this say about the true identity of The Captain? That I loved 6th grade and never really left it! (Coincidentally, that is the last year I attended the same school as my archenemy Denise Bodner, the girl who humiliated me in front of my prepubescent male brethren by kicking my ass in a running race along the girl/boy playground dividing line. Sometimes my therapists and I muse that all of my problems stem from this event and we even joke that the only solution is to go back and repeat 6th grade for a second time, challenge the girl in the wheelchair to a race, exorcise my demons by eking out a victory after the wheelchair brake mysteriously engages, and then celebrate by skipping school and heading to Barella’s Tavern for some afternoon billiards and beer, just like the good old days; but then we quickly sober up when we consider the consequences of me losing again).

· Stupidity – Way too many examples to mention, but often involve people lighting themselves or their “friends” on fire or trading human infants for malt liquor, back rent, or Pokémon cards (only the part about Pokémon was made up, by the way).

What does this tell you about me? To borrow an acronym from the appendix-like Project Management Community, I am a SME (Subject Matter Expert) on stupidity. And just so you can understand my metaphor, the appendix is a superfluous human organ – it’s there but serves no purpose.

My Natural Instincts…

· Sexuality – Human beings (and yes I am one!) are sexual beings and, as all males learn very early in life, talking about sex intelligently is not something men are wired to do, so we make crude jokes about it; masturbation will always get a laugh with guys because we will never be comfortable talking about it openly. And as that cute redheaded psychologist expert that I blogged about acknowledged, men are obsessed with breasts, as evidenced by my blogs on this touchy subject about historical slang for the female bosom. As far as women go, I can honestly state that I have no idea what women think about sex; any guy who claims otherwise is jerking your chain (and probably his own as well!) I have actually written a draft of a book about a man and his dog who have a special telepathic connection which results in interesting conversations about human and canine sexuality, The Captain’s creative yet dysfunctional attempt to broach the subject.

My Environment... To begin at the beginning, The Cliff Notes of The Captain’s Childhood:

· Born in Torrington, CT, a depressed and decaying factory town on the Naugatuck river, which accounts for my proletarian bent;
· Grew up in a 2 family working class home across the street from Barella’s tavern, a formative influence in my early development; there’s something about being a 5 year old heading out to Kindergarten on a fine Spring morning and finding a bleeding, middle-aged rummy unconscious on your front lawn that leaves a lasting impression;
· Emotionally scarred for life by Denise Bodner, the girl who lived three houses down from me whom I had a secret crush on who was faster and stronger than me, something her brothers and my sisters never let me forget;
· Speaking of sisters, The Boy Captain was a middle child, sandwiched between TWO sisters, one 2 years older and the other a year younger; for some strange reason, my mother would always blame me whenever she found dismembered Barbie torsos with anatomically accurate pencil markings underneath the couch cushions; a restraining order was issued and I was not allowed to be in the same room as a Barbie doll. Shortly thereafter, I found my GI Joe with life-like hair hanging from my bedroom doorknob by a wire.
· Eventually graduated from Torrington High School after showing remarkably little talent for writing, or anything else for that matter. The one exception was a handwritten treatise written on a cafeteria napkin lampooning all the graduating seniors who had offended me in real or imagined ways. It was long and, to those not targeted, funny.
· Attended Marist College; graduated in four years, leaving with a solid two months of retained memories I am prohibited from divulging per the conditions of my probation. The rest of my time fell into a black hole or a blackout, or some black magic, but if my friends are to be believed, a good time was had by all. After college, it’s all downhill anyway, as evidenced by my current vocation of tortured author/insurance professional.

What does this say about me? Not a clue, but it certainly means any dumbass can get a college degree. Listen, I’ve known me for most of my life and can’t even begin to explain this bizarre concoction of plasma and spirit. Have another drink. I’m gonna.

Captainesque Trivia. Did you know that The Captain…

· Can translate three, count ‘em, three dead languages? Yup. Latin, Koine Greek, and ancient Hebrew. I have also been accused of butchering to death modern English.
· Owns a kilt (there is an entire blog waiting to be written about my experience as a Scottish drummer in a bagpipe band).
· Has a pierced scrotum and is a compulsive fibber (guess which is the fib).
· Was a drummer in a garage band that was SO bad that we got booed off the stage of a 7th grade sock hop (at least the chaperones were too dumb to check our socks, so we still had a good time).
· Was once a certified Sexual Assault Crisis Counselor. Wow, that’s not funny at all (but really true).

Believe The Captain when he says: It’s best to wash your gym socks before stashing organic material in them.

Yours searching eBay for a GI Joe with life-like hair and Dominatrix Barbie,

The one and thankfully only Captain!

Vacation with The Captain

The words below came within 3 gin and tonics of not getting written. This year’s vacation for The Captain has lacked the obvious inspirational moments from past vacations, like the topless sunbather or the geriatric gangstas. But my good friends at the Gordon’s distillery came through again and I am starting this blog with no apparent direction but with the confidence that it will no doubt stumble somewhere fueled by the fermented juniper berry juice.

I think I’ll start by going backwards; actually, I will start with the old man who woke me up every freakin’ morning with the exaggerated shuffling of his special walking sneakers right outside my window as he embarked on his morning sabbatical by circumambulating the neighborhood – backwards! Have you ever seen or heard an ancient man walking in reverse? It is a long, loud and excruciatingly painful process for both walker and witness. I wondered why he only walked backyards. Perhaps it was a form of physical therapy; perhaps it was an old man’s futile attempt to delay the inevitable atrophy that comes with the slow decay of the human body; or maybe he finally succumbed to his mental illness and believed himself to be a character in a heretofore undiscovered Lewis Carroll novel. All I can say is that it was lucky for the old bastard that I was too tired or hungover to respond to the urge to run outside, hide behind the Hydrangea bush, jump out like a psychotic looking jack-in-the-box clown, trip him up, and steal his prescription sneakers. I know that this image is unseemly, but backyards walking should be prohibited before 9 am.

I began having nightmares incorporating the shuffling noise; once it was sound of a drooling orangutan with yellow teeth slowly sawing off my ears with nail file; once it was a flashback to an overnight boy scout camp prank where the Charmin had been replaced with course grit sandpaper; and finally, I dreamed that a gargantuan stick bug was dry humping the very chalkboard used by Miss Purcell in my first grade classroom (I know…pretty weird, huh?) The first dream was symbolic, the second an old and painful memory; the third? Well, it frightened even me and spurred me to action. I woke up before sunrise and ran out and bought a dozen packs of cheap bubble gum, chewed them up frantically, and placed each glob strategically on the sidewalk in anticipation of the hot sun bearing down on them just before old man “can’t walk forward” shuffled past. Ruined those Medicare sneakers and put him out of commission for the rest of my vacation while he presumably had another pair custom made. Then I rewarded myself with a well deserved nap.

Summer Vacation Movie Trivia. There is woman (who frequents the very beach where The Captain wrestled with the moral dilemma of whether to confront the topless attractive female sunbather with a lecture on modesty or attempt to shame her by staring at her) who resembles a human raisin. She is at least 80 years old, and always wears a rather revealing white bikini. Her dry, brown, leathery, wrinkled skin hangs off a frail set of bones ravaged by osteoporosis. Her gaunt, dark face is hidden beneath a shaggy shock of brittle, bottle brush snow white hair. Her eyes are not so much orbs as dull reddish lights shining through her protruding orbital lobes. She reminded me of someone but I just couldn’t recall whom. It was really bothering me but this time, my nightmares provided the answer. One night I dreamed about the Legend of Sleepy Hollow movie starring Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane. Well, there is a scene in the movie when Ichabod goes to an ancient witch who lives in a creepy cave in the haunted woods; her eyes are snakes that explode out of her eye sockets. That was her! The raisin lady!! I realize that I may have forever ruined that movie for you, but at least that was just special effects. The raisin lady is for real!

If you have ever vacationed on Cape Cod, you know that visiting any grocery store is like visiting the United Nations. In a single week, I met young female check out clerks from foreign countries like Russia, Ireland, France, and New Jersey (this one had the thickest accent). From what I can tell, every grocery store clerk in the summer is either an attractive young foreign female or a young American male college baseball player there to play in the Cape Cod baseball league and conduct independent study research in foreign relations with the female clerks. Home Run for Hyannis!

Believe The Captain when he says: Walking backwards is harder than it looks!

Yours disinfecting my ass,

The Captain