I am a "nomal person" I just carry around headless nudes....

My daughter wanted a dress dummy at first, and then we moved on to perhaps a mannequin. 

 

But those were in my mind, and when Target was selling out they had discounted the mannequins but they were expensive ( $75 a piece for top and bottom) and even when it dropped lower, $37.50 each, they had no way to stand up. They were a very light fiberglass and would not have worked.

In my morning wandering in the Mall every day I began to notice that a Ricki’s store was closing and it was selling off the fixtures. Waiting until the last days, I took my self in and explained to the saleswoman that I was a “normal person” but it was a present for my daughter. We had a good laugh and after some discussion, I purchased a mannequin for $50 including a chrome stand. They had a few left, even a sitting one but I knew she wanted a standing one and quite frankly I didn’t really need one or even want one.

After paying for it I asked the fatal question, did I have to carry this nude model out of the mall? At least they had a back door making for a shorter and more secretive trip. I took he arms in a big bag along with the chrome base and carried the nude woman out with one hand in her crotch praying I could make it to my car. The only person I saw was the UPS man who tried to look away. I had to stop and explain to him that I was “normal” and it was a present for my daughter and we had a big laugh.

Tonight we drove to Toronto to deliver it and my wife and daughter were able to get it into the building and onto an elevator and into her apartment. Thank God it’s out of my house!

Just take a left turn up ahead please.....

My mother started to drive as a young woman; I assumed it was when she was in her teens although I know very little about these times. She did get a driver’s license early on and renewed it every year of her life.

I do know when she married my father in 1935, part of the deal was that he was the driver. I never remember her driving anywhere when I was a child. It was just what was.

My mother cooked and my father drove.

Being much younger than my father (11 years) she knew there may come a day when she would be alone and need to drive and didn’t want to start from scratch, so she kept renewing the license.

My father passed away when my mother was 60, and while we got rid of his somewhat problematic car, it was not too long before she decided to purchase a new car for herself.

We visited a car salesman friend of mine and made a deal on a new Chevrolet Nova that seemed just about right for her.  When she eventually stopped driving the car some years later, it was purchased by me and eventually went to my son where it ended its life.

But while she was driving, she was a cautious driver, and took a series of professional driving and parking lessons after her first lesson from me, who kept my hands over my eyes and screamed a bit.

After she was comfortable driving, she helped my family out a great deal by helping with getting kids to school and events when needed and helping to deliver the newspaper on a rainy day and often saved my sons from getting soaked.

My focus here was the habit she developed of not being comfortable making left turns, so she stayed with right ones. She developed elaborate schemes for getting from place to place, only turning right. Sometimes she would proudly show up early on a Sunday to announce she had a done dry run to someplace or another that she had to go the next day and figured out how to do it turning right only.

It was an amazing skill, one that I admired but never tried to copy.

You can try it, just pick a destination, preferably urban as she was driving around Baltimore, Maryland, and figure on a place at least 15 minutes away and get there without turning left. 

It is of course possible, just not my way of thinking.

Mine is a short day’s journey into the morning.

 I started to walk the mall. I have been reluctant to admit it, as it seems so mundane, but a regimen of mall walking at least six days a week proves to be very invigorating.

The mall is filled starting about 7 a.m. with mostly older people endlessly walking.  

There are groups of women, and groups of men, as well as couples, singles, people with walkers, people with canes and even a person or two every now and then with crutches! It has the look of a place of miracles, a shrine to St. Commerce, where everyone must someday throw off their shackles and be free.

The food court is open early so groups gather to get coffee and meet and talk. I know no one here and am happy not to join any group. I have spent my life not joining, so this is a comfortable position for me. It looks a lot like my junior high cafeteria in the seating patterns.

Most groups are single sex but a few have an extra man or woman attached. Many seem to be by ethnicity, which I can only tell by listening to the languages spoken, clearly not English.

It’s gentle pace, and most people can out walk me. My health keeps me moving slowly and I have the need to stop every now and then to catch my breath, however, the mall leaves me not concerned about upward slopes or cold breezes. I am passed by people with walkers but that’s just a fact.

There are some “power couples”, slightly younger than most on a race to something, and I always want to hand them a trophy as they speed walk by me. There are some younger people on morning exercise workouts who find, like me, that this is an easy and free exercise place. Some seem to be mall employees walking before work starts.

After 9:00 a.m. it seems the escalators start running so you can walk on several levels.

I told someone the other day that I was doing this and he wanted to know how many rotations of the mall I made each day, as his friends do three. I tried to laugh it off as life is not, for me, a competition. If I did three rotations, I would need to clarify his description of a complete rotation and by the way, they would bury me before I ever reached that goal.

This is a personal journey and some days I can do better than others. I learn to eat and drink (coffee) less before I go, and complete my breakfast afterwards, not in the food court.

It is good for me and something I set out as a personal journey. It is safe, warm in winter and cool in summer, has plenty of parking, gives me something to look at (window shopping) and does it all with no charge, no real commitment and no contracts. You can show up any time from 7:00 a.m. until 9:00 in the evening and walk around.

This is a no humor story, it’s a direction for me at this point, and gives me a good place to start the day.

The only funny thing is what happens to coats. I keep mine on but people must come in without them and it’s cold and snowy right now, or they have secret places to keep them, or have group watchers in the food court to oversee the coats. Many have coats tied around their waists.

Mine is a short day’s journey into the morning.

Sort of like falling again but not so bad….

I was asleep a few days ago when something woke me up. I started to turn the wrong way I guess. The next thing I knew I rolled out of bed and onto the floor! The pillows stopped my head from falling at the same rate and I ended up on my knees! 

They hurt!

The house shook, and my wife was sure it was like the scene in Jurassic Park where we see the water ripple as the Tyrannosaurus Rex comes closer. 

The only sound was my moaning…and laughing! Who else would fall again, but manage a 28” fall from bed onto a carpet.

I got up feeling a bit silly, with sore knees and promised, as always, not to fall again.

Just like a Stephen King novel....

This is a hard story to write as there is no great ending and no funny lines attached. It was a Stephen King novel come to life and I was in it!

We had driven to Detroit on Saturday to see two of my sons and their families, and we met up at a Sports Bar and watched the Michigan-Ohio State football and ate nachos etc. and had a great time, even the though the game was a bit of a disaster. We visited with my first wife and my former father-in-law for an hour before we returned home. Add to this a bit of shopping and it made for a very full day.

Driving into Michigan in the morning, for several miles after you enter on Route 94, coming over the Blue Water Bridge into Port Huron Michigan, the road is very torn up by construction. It’s a lane wide and in the day time you can see but at night there are no lights for most of the construction (or repair) portion. They have cones erected on both sides of the lanes and some lines left on the highway, and it goes on a few miles, maybe 5 to 10 of them. Going over I noted how bad it was and knew the return would be horrible.

After some dinner and getting gas in New Baltimore Michigan, we moved toward that part of the highway. It was a clear night, and although very dark it was passable. The posted speed limit when I could see one was 60 mph coming down from the normal 65 or 70 of the highway.

As I have gotten older, night driving makes me a bit more concerned and in bad weather it scares the hell out of me but this was a clear evening. I moved along, and recognised there are no shoulders to go on to, there is no-see darkness on the side of the cones, just construction equipment parked and highway run offs. I was uncomfortable at 60 mph, but do my best and was going over 50 and probably was at 60 as a car came up behind me and got on my bumper. He drove about 12” from my rear bumper and would not move off. He (or she, we could not see) continued, brightened his lights, and finally, in his or her complete frustration leaned on the horn!

I thought for a second maybe something was wrong with my car and a hand was hanging out of the trunk, but I knew nothing was wrong. I tried to speed up, but was actually scared of flying off the road into construction and killing us both. There were no other cars on the road and he was in some sort of a hurry I guess.

After a while he did it again! He got close as he could and leaned on the horn again and would not stop. There was no place to pull off or stop! If I stopped he would have to stop behind me or shoot me or push me off of the road but he could not have gotten around me easily. I would have been happy to leave him room, believe me!

This continued for the whole 5 to 10 miles and finally, a mile or two before the bridge it opened and I went to the right lane, the lights appeared on the road and he shot off onto the last exit in Michigan and I went onto the Bridge to Canada exit!

I never saw the vehicle or saw a licence number. The “should haves” are few, as there were limited possibilities.

The “should haves”:

My wife should have called 911 and reported it while it was it was happening.

I should carry a hand gun as I would have easily used it. (Not legal in Canada but after shooting him I could have tossed it in Michigan)

Have a James Bond car device and spread an oil slick on the road behind me.

Have a box of tacks to throw out the back to blow his tires.

What I did was to go home and calm down. I had a beer and went to bed and wrote this post

However, it was just like a Stephen King book, the one they made into a movie with the trucks, “Maximum Overdrive”, and I was the star!.