Why you don't want to watch a movie with me

I know I should be writing positive, engaging things, but come on, positive, engaging things are rarely interesting. So here is why you don't want to watch a movie with me.

My attorney-friend Danny came over to watch a movie one Sunday night. Danny's an up-and-comer, married, two kids, a soon-to-be legal star cutting his teeth at a downtown law firm. I was surprised he showed up when he said he would because he's one of those maniacally busy types and also because it's maniacally hard finding a parking spot in my crowded Rogers Park neighborhood. But yeah, he was here and it was all good, right? At least it started out that way. But by the time the night was over, the whole thing was so traumatic I can't even remember the movie. But it was like most American movies guys watch together (violent).

So we got our beverages and finally settled in. The movie started, and I skipped through the coming attractions. Yeah, it was all good. Then just as the movie proper began in earnest the phone rang.

It was only set to ring three times before voicemail got it, so I let it ring. But Danny said, "Aren't you going to get that?"

I'm one of those people that when I watch a movie I watch a movie, so I said, "Nah, voicemail will." I even put the phone out in the hallway on the ironing board.

So the movie was rolling. Shootings, drugs, profanity—we were enjoying it. Then the phone rang again. (I should've put it out of earshot.) Now Danny said, "Aren't you going to get it this time?" I somewhat politely told him to just watch the damn movie.

He bristled at that for a moment, but then got back into the mayhem on the screen.

Well, you guessed it. The phone rang again. Danny was like, "You better get that. I forgot my phone at home. It could be my wife. It could be something important. An emergency."

"Your wife can live without you for as long as it takes to watch a movie, Danny," I scolded.

"But..."

The phone rang a few more times as we watched, and Danny still bristled, but he also realized my will was too strong for him.

The movie ended, and I felt bad for Danny because I could see he was uptight. I resolved there and then that next time we watched a movie together I would put my phone on silent. Danny left in a silent hush, and I went for another beer and to see if the pesty caller had left a voicemail.

Oh my.

"Gregg, it's Danny's wife Sharon. It's an emergency. The police called. Danny's car is blocking somebody's driveway, and if he doesn't run down there and move it, they're towing it."

Double oh my.

Each succeeding message was more desperate. 

Understandably, after a few minutes there was a knock on the door.

There stood Danny, his face utterly drained of color. "I can't find my car."

Perhaps pathologically a prankster, I asked, "Well, where did you leave it?"

"I thought down the street, but it wasn't there. Then I walked all around the block. It's not anywhere."

I couldn't torture him any longer. I told him about the messages.

So that's bad enough, right? But there's more.

Danny had legal briefs in his car, and the car was towed to the police pound, and no one would be there till Monday morning.

So for sure that's bad enough, right? But there's more.

Danny needed those briefs to argue a case before the Illinois Supreme Court in the morning.

Yeah, that's as bad as it gets. And that's why you don't want to watch a movie with me.

How to know where your golf ball ends up when you can't see it land

I was playing golf the other day with some buddies, and one of them (not me of course!) hit his golf ball hurtling off the golf course toward a house that lined the fairway. (People love to live on golf courses. They just don't like what happens when bad golfers play them.) So, as the ball soared through the blue sky like a white, heat-seeking missile, the four of us looked at each other and thought, Uh-oh.

The fact of the matter is bad golfers know where their golf balls land even when they go whizzing off the course and they can't see them anymore. How? Audio confirmation. So in the hopes of helping newbie golfers know where their golf balls land when they veer off the course, I've compiled a list of the sounds (and their consequences) to expect.

thrash—the ball hit some tree branches and got caught up in their leaves (You lucked out.)

thud—you hit a roof (Sure, you'll have butterflies in your stomach, but you should be okay.)

crash—uh, you just broke a window (This is not so okay. Pretend in your mind that you didn't  hear it, hurry up, hit your next shot and get on to the next hole.)

plop—the ball landed in somebody's swimming pool (You're mega lucky—buy a lottery ticket on your way home.)

aaaahhh!—you hit someone (Consider contacting a defense attorney.)

aaaahhh! and plop—a particularly nasty combination. You hit someone in a swimming pool and drowning is a real possibility (Leave the golf course immediately and make plans to flee the country.)

yelp!—you just killed the family dog (When the enraged pet owner charges onto the course, point to your friends.)

So there you have it. Newbie bad golfers now can always know where their golf balls land. Remember, though, when you hit a shot that goes off the course, you will often lose a golf ball (and some golf balls are very expensive), but it can be worse for the homeowner—having broken windows, losing pets and experiencing fatalities.

And don't forget to say, "Fore!" Happy golfing!

Sleeping is trying to kill me

Okay, if you enjoy sleeping, this is not for you. However, if you're regularly traumatized when you sleep, read on, and I'm sure you'll be able to relate.

Sleep is so wonderfully regenerative. (Hum Brahms lullaby.)

Until...a charley horse strikes!

And in an instant you go from peace to AGONY! Okay, maybe you don't die from that, but what about sleepwalking! (I've done it.) If you live in a high-rise and the balcony is missing, well, you can figure out the rest.

Or how about sleep-talking? You talk in your sleep saying something like, "Alexa, my bank account password is XXXXXXX, please share it with the world."

 
Then you wake up and all your money's gone and you kill yourself. See.

Ever dream you were falling?

Well, doing that could give you a heart attack for sure.

And then there's dreams. Sweet dreams. Not! I had a dream I was making out with Hillary Clinton!

Okay, I admit it, it was kind of fun. (She's a good kisser.) But imagine if you were a Trump fan! Muerte! You'd have a stroke and you're gone!

Honestly, I even hurt myself yawning. I Googled to see if that was even possible, and Google said it wasn't. But that's not true!

Hopefully, sleep is a wondrous regenerative respite for you. Just have a little empathy for those of us that aren't so fortunate.

My doctor is trying to kill me!

Oh, you're exaggerating, you're thinking. Well, you decide.

My doctor is old school. He definitely fits the "old" part of old school, but I'm not sure he went to school, at least not medical school. (Okay, he probably did, but you'll soon see what I'm saying.)

Not that he's not a nice guy. He's a super nice guy. And he shares this nice little office in the Chicago suburbs with a chain smoking cardiologist, so his office smells like a casino at four in the morning. But the secondhand smoke, while unpleasant, isn't the issue. The danger is much more direct.

I'll just tell you about a recent visit. I had two things I was concerned about: a boil on my chest and a little lump on my forearm. So there I was inhaling the secondhand smoke in the waiting room. I was nervous because I knew what my doctor was like. But the thing is he got things done. He wasn't afraid to do just about anything in his office. Once he cut a mole off my cheek. (I said, "Are you sure you want to do this in here? I mean, it's my face and all, so I want it to look okay." He smiled and said, "I'll make you look interesting.") Really, I think he would do anything short of a heart transplant. Or maybe he'd do that too. He'd just have the cardiologist assist him. But back to this visit.

So yeah, I was nervous. But I figured it was best to get this over with. So there I sat with my thigh bouncing like a diving board after a cannonball, and that's when I heard the first cry. It was the patient currently in with my doctor. I thought, No, I probably just imagined I heard that.

"Aaaaahhhh!" came another cry.

There was no denying that one. And the one that followed. And all that followed that. I was like, I gotta get out of here. But I sat there transfixed, second by second, my body trembling with each blood curdling cry.

Now I was next.

Using the babiest of baby steps I made my way into his office—and he was cleaning blood off the curtains! Yes, blood! He had a rag and he was wiping them down! (And his curtains were plastic, like this happened all the time!) I know, I know, I should've left, but it was too late—I was mesmerized and in his Svengali-like power.

He tossed the bloody rag (I was tempted to ask him about the bio-hazard risk but couldn't speak). Then he told me to take off my shirt and lay on my back on the exam table. What could I do? I obeyed.

Now I think it's important to point out that I like to do health things slowly. Very slowly. Some would say too slowly. Like, my typical approach would be to say to him, "let's consider this visit a consultation, doc, and maybe we'll do something in the coming year."

I barely had time to see him as he appeared over me with a lance and stabbed it into the boil on my chest.

"Aaaaaaahhhh!"

"There, that takes care of that. Now where's that lump on your arm?"

Seriously? I was so tempted to tell him it went away, but then what if he found it on his own? He'd probably amputate my arm. In abject terror, I pointed to the lump.

I could feel the cool of the alcohol prep cloth as he shimmed it over the area. Oh God. I closed my eyes. Let him do what he's going to do, but I just don't want to look at it.

Now, he was saying things like, "I bet it's a lipoma. It's probably a lipoma."

(Like I'm supposed to know what a lipoma is!)

I felt the scalpel slice into my forearm. It hurt but it was manageable.

"There. That's it," he said.

I breathed my first clear breath since I'd walked into the office.

"See?" he said.

See what? I opened my eyes.

A strange, lima bean-shaped thing was only inches from my face!

 "Aaaaaaahhhh! Get that thing out of here!"

He did. Getting sewn up wasn't bad at all, and I was in and out of there in fifteen minutes. Like I said, he gets things done. When I arrived home, I checked my phone, and there was an email from his office.

It was one of those surveys. The first question was:

"Would you recommend doctor to a friend?"

I started thinking about the people I hated.

My car is trying to kill me!

Okay, maybe it's not that bad, but I swear my car is trying to kill me.

It started subtly. I bought my car at one of those re-seller places, which I won't name so I don't get sued. This was 2007 and after trying out sitting in about a hundred cars where my right knee banged into the console or my head hit the roof, I came across a big, really big, beautiful American car that was only a 2004, and get this, it only had 4,000 miles on it!

My internal scam detector of course went off. 4K for three years! Something was fishy. An old lady who kept the car in the garage except for when she went to church (once a year on Christmas!), or on the other hand, maybe it was a mafia scumbag who turned the odometer back from 4,000,000?

But there was so much room in the car. (I know, I know, maybe not the best reason to buy a car, but it was like sitting on my living room sofa.)

Ok, I bought it. And in the beginning my car's homicidal tendencies were latent. For a couple of months everything seemed okay. Yeah, I was digging the car. Thinking I'd made the deal of a lifetime. But then little things started going wrong. After a heavy rain, my passenger door filled with water. (I only realized it while driving. When I'd brake it was like a fish bowl was in the car door.) Then my windshield started to leak. Slowly at first, then more, then more. Not quite a fire hose, okay? but it was getting there. (I should've seen the writing on the wall at this point—was my car trying to drown me?)

I fixed those potential flood risks (quite costly) and soldiered on, but clearly my 'garage kept by a church-going old lady' theory was kaput.

Now, it's not my car's fault that it has huge doors. That I'm not arguing. My golfing buddy won't park next to me in the golf course parking lot because he's sure if I open my door even half way, I'll dent his nice Toyota Avalon. And okay, okay, so I can take a little vehicular rejection, but the thing about the big doors is—I'm convinced they are trying to kill me.

How? Every time I open my door and get into the car, the door swings back and crushes my legs. Although the door hasn't broken my legs yet, I'm sure if I had osteoporosis it would have. Nevertheless, my legs are bruised and battered, and okay if the door hasn't killed me, besides making it very difficult to walk eighteen holes, it has weakened me to the point of being vulnerable to my car's most recent attempt at homicide.

I smelled gas. Not a lot at first. In the beginning, I thought it might have been the car in front of mine's exhaust. That sort of thing. But over time it became clear that it was my murderous car's latest try to get rid of me.

Well, you know how the story ends because I'm writing this. And I haven't sold the villainous car. How could I palm it off on someone else? For all practical purposes, I would be committing murder.

So now I keep a very suspicious eye on my car. Now if the car is going down a hill, I'm anticipating brake failure and preparing to eject. I have a fire extinguisher in the back seat for when the engine inevitably catches on fire. Lastly, for when that terrifying 'check engine' light comes on, I have a defibrillator to restore my heartbeat after the massive heart attack I'll surely have.

I honestly hope your car is better than mine (not all cars are evil), but at least now I know for a fact that my car is trying to kill me, and I'm preparing for its next attempt.

My hair dryer is trying to kill me!

Okay, full disclosure: that is not me in the photo.

And secondary full disclosure: I'm a guy.

Okay, I used to have this little hair dryer. It was so tidy. It was like a gun but a gun with a very short barrel. And it even folded up so it fit easily in a suitcase (for trips I never took). Here's one similar but mine's barrel was even shorter (and it was blue). Not that being blue was important. I'm not color blind or anything.

So life was good while I used that hair dryer. I'd get up groggy in the morning, shower and then dry my hair. It all seemed to take a long time but at least I wasn't injured.

Until the nice little hair dryer broke and I had to get a new (evil) one.

See the new one had a longer barrel. (I just got the cheapest one I could at Walmart.) So yeah, it was really long like this one this barber is using. Again, that is not me in the photo. I don't know who that guy with the mohawk is or who the barber is (or why he's wearing a construction worker's overalls with a bow tie).

So what was the problem? Well, the problem was I was used to the short barrel on the old hair dryer. So now when I get up groggy, shower and use the long-barrel dryer I smack my head because the barrel is longer than I'm used to.

Okay, I don't think I've fractured my skull or anything, but I have repeatedly given myself substantial smacks with the dryer, and that is not a pleasant way to start the day.

And you know what they say about it taking thirty days to break a habit? Well, it's true! So for thirty days I smacked myself in the head with the stupid too-long hair dryer. (Something similar happened when I visited my friend in Missouri and bought a cowboy hat, which kept getting knocked off when I'd get in my car.)

I considered suing the manufacturer (At least to recoup my medical bills for head contusions, cuts and burns.), but then the thirty days passed and I sustained injuries much less frequently.

So learn from me! If you've got a snub-nose hair dryer, don't get one with a long barrel or you'll pay dearly!

Why you don't want to go shopping with me!

Okay, full disclosure—I'm a guy.

Now that I got that out of the way, I'll tell you why you don't want to go shopping with me. Actually, an example might be even better.

The other day I went shopping to Kohl's. Kohl's is the perfect guy store because they have all these discount racks, where guys can buy at really cheap prices shirts that are too big, colors that are too garish and pants that even golfers would be embarrassed to wear. But on a Saturday a couple of weeks ago I was shopping for shoes (and there is no discount rack for shoes).

I know all about shoes, as my neighbor is a podiatrist. So I know you need a thumbnail's amount of room at the toe, that the shoe's dome should be big enough so that the toes can move freely, that the foot shouldn't touch on the sides. Yeah, I'm a veritable Dr. Scholls.

So I found a pair of shoes I liked. As a bonus, a really nice twenty-something female sales associate was there to help. I had already done all the self testing described above, but it was good to get a second opinion and the nice clerk obliged, confirming that this pair of shoes was a perfect fit.

So the next step was on to test the shoes around Kohl's store. (Buying shoes is the ultimate in a tricky purchase. Shoes are designed by their manufacturers to fit perfectly in the store but then change shape on the drive home and pinch your feet once you've worn the shoes on asphalt and scuffed them up—ie. when you can't return them anymore.) And boy, am I glad I did the tour around the store because I felt slight pinching somewhere. At first I thought it was in the toes on the right shoe, but by the time I got back to the shoe department, I felt the heel was slipping on the left shoe.

With such terrifying reservations, it was clear I needed to find a different pair.

I did. I was excited and by now I really wanted to get out of there too. I enjoy Kohl's but it was a Saturday, after all, and I had things to do. So I chop-chop ran through my self testing of the shoes and determined them to be another stellar fit. I told myself I should just buy them and get the heck out of there, but the nice clerk that helped me before was still there and it wouldn't hurt to have her—real quick—check them.

She seemed surprised to see me, as I'd already been there an hour and a half, but she dutifully confirmed that indeed the shoes were a 100% foolproof failsafe perfect fit. I was thrilled! But still the floor test awaited.

So off I went walking through Kohl's again. I was getting familiar with the store layout by now and was a little embarrassed to be walking through the lingerie section so regularly, but it was part of the path around the whole store and what was I going to do—backtrack? So round and round and round I went. This pair of shoes was a real hands-down winner. But maybe one last trip around the store would discover a latent flaw.

I was getting really tired. I'd been there over three hours, and I just decided to buy the darn shoes. I went back to the shoe section to get the box and get out of there. As fate would have it, the same clerk was there (I hadn't seen her on my rounds in a while—I think she must have gone to lunch or something) and when she saw me, her face flushed and she said, "Are you still here?!"

I was like, "Well, yeah, you see, I'm kind of mentally ill actually."

(I didn't really say that.) No, I just smiled, thanked her for her help and ran out of there as fast as I could.

And that is why you don't want to go shopping with me.