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
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