Uncle Willis

Baby Wolfgang arrived on January 6^th. I wasn’t just Willis anymore. I was now Uncle Willis. When I first arrived at the hospital, I met my brother Arnold (the new dad) in the hallway outside the recovery room and he was looking a wee bit stressed. “What’s up, bro?” I asked as I gave him a sucker punch to the gut.

“Not much, bro,” he replied with a sucker punch back. “Where’s mom and dad?” he asked.

“They’re outside having a smoke.”

“Nice,” he said. “So much for their New Year’s Resolution, huh?”

But, I wasn’t interested in scrutinizing anyone’s New Year’s resolutions. After all, who was I to judge? I couldn't keep mine for more than day. What I was really interested in was what happened in the delivery room.

“So, bro, were you in the delivery room when the baby was born?”

“Yup,” he said with a tone of regret.

“Really? Was it nasty?”

“Let’s just say I saw some things in there I wish I could have gone my whole life without seeing.”

“Like what?” I asked. Did you see them cut the umbilical cord?”

“I saw everything,” he bemoaned. “The crown of the head coming out,”

“Ew,” I responded.

“The umbilical cord being cut,”

I cringed.

“The placenta coming out,”

I felt a lump in my throat.

“But the worst part, bro,” he added. “Was the when the blood spattered all over my face when the placenta came out.”

I let out a gasp and asked. “Did they ask you if you wanted to take home the placenta to eat it? It’s like one of the healthiest things you can eat.”

“No. They did not,” he answered with disgust and a smile.

On that wonderful note, my parents had just entered the building. We gave each other high-fives and then my brother led us to the hospital room where Tootie and Baby Wolfgang were staying.

Tootie was sitting up in her hospital bed watching the honorable Judge Joe Brown on television when we stormed in on her.  She looked startled when we initially breached the room, but she quickly composed herself and greeted us with a big smile. “Hi everyone!” she said.

“Hi Tootie,” We said in unison.

“How are you feeling,” my mother kindly asked.

“Much better now,” Tootie replied.

“How was it giving birth?”

“Oh. It was awful,” Charlene declared. “ It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. I don’t know how I got through it.”

“Was Arnold in there with you while you were having the baby?” My father jumped in.

“Oh yeah. Arnold was there the whole time. He was a real trooper,” she said as Arnold put his head down and shook it.

“Bro is traumatized!” I imparted.

“You could say that,” Arnold quietly admitted. 

The nurse brought baby Wolfgang into the room, put him in some sort of baby tray, and asked us, “Would anyone like to hold him?”

Everyone looked at each other helplessly. “I’m afraid I might drop him,” my mother divulged.

“I don’t want to drop him either,” concurred my father.

My brother didn’t say anything, but it looked like he was afraid to drop him too.

“I’ll pick him up,” I boldly announced.

I had picked up way heavier things than a baby without dropping them, including pissed off animals that hissed and clawed at me. 

“Careful, careful,” I heard from all directions as if I was removing the neuron trigger from a nuclear warhead. 

I swung him up into the air in one fell swoop. “That wasn't so hard,” I whispered to baby Wolfgang as I cradled him in my arms. 

Being an uncle already felt kind of cool.

The Big Womack

I only started watching the Bachelor because of Charlene. It’s her favorite show. When we initially began dating, one of the first questions she asked me was, “Are you excited for the new season of the Bachelor?”

In hopes I’d get into her pants faster, I fibbed and said, “Of course I’m excited about the new season of the Bachelor.” That made her very happy, but it wasn’t quite enough to get her to put out ahead of schedule. In fact, Charlene made me wait two months before she gave me some hay for my donkey. That’s eight two-hour episodes of the Bachelorette I had to grit and bear…

The first season I saw starred Deanna, the Greek reject from the previous season that was built like an Olympic butterfly stroke swimmer. What amazed me most about the show was how well the producers coached the men to speak so highly of her on camera.

“I think it’s so sweet how all the men talk about Deanna,” Charlene would often say as we watched the show.

I didn’t have the heart to tell Charlene the truth -- that Deanna’s suitors were full of shit.

This season they brought back Brad Womack. He’s the Bachelor who couldn’t look Deanna (or the other finalist) in the eye and tell her he loved her. America was pissed at him for that and, as a result, he allegedly went into a deep depression. But after three years of intense therapy, he has resurfaced a new man – twice as horny and rearing to prey on another herd of twenty-five insecure and attention starved women.  When asked by Chris Harrison if he thought his future wife is inside the mansion this time around, “Definitely!” Brad confidently responded.

“He’s such a nice guy,” Charlene wept as he told tear-jerking stories about how his father wasn’t there for him when he was growing up.

“Uh-oh,” I replied. “Does that mean I have to add Brad Womack to the list of dudes you want to bang?”

Charlene laughed. “No,” she said contritely. “He’s gross…”

The only thing Charlene found gross about Brad Womack was the high risk of catching an STD from him -- and possibly that ridiculous tattoo on his back.

“So, Let’s see,” I said. “There’s Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey, Jr., Johnny Depp, Danny Gokey, Pat Sajak, and now Brad Womack.”

Charlene playfully slapped my arm. “Baby. The only one you really have to worry about is Pat Sajack. He's so funny!”

 

From Bad Mood to Bachelor

Later that day, Charlene looked frazzled while she was getting ready for work. I walked into the bathroom where she was fixing her hair, grabbed her hips, and dry humped her from behind like I often do whenever she’s getting ready for work, looking out of sorts, or both.

“C’mon! Can’t you see I’m trying to get ready?” she asked rhetorically with a part amused, part annoyed expression as she curled her hair.

“I can’t help it. You just look so good. You make me so horny!”

“You always do this when I’m trying to get ready.”

“I know,” I said childishly.

“If you don’t go away I’m going to stab you in the eye with my curling iron! ”

I gently pulled her hair away from her ear, leaned in, and whispered into it with my super dramatic sexy voice, “I want you to stab me with your curling iron in my (pause) asssssssshole…”

She spun around quickly - war face on - and gesticulated the curling iron going up my butt. “I’ll stab you in asshole!” she roared.

“No! No! No!” I laughingly pleaded as I defended against her half-hearted ass rape attempt. “I don’t want the curling iron in my asshole! “

“Then get out of here and let me get ready!” she demanded.

I frowned, slumped my shoulders, walked two steps out of the bathroom, turned back around to face her, and told her very somberly, “You should be in a good mood.”

“Why?” she asked abrasively.

“Because tonight the season premiere of the Bachelor is on.”

Her eyes immediately lit up and a smile quickly overran her face. “Oh my God! I totally forgot! The Bachelor is on! That makes me so happy!” she joyfully declared.

52 Words For Tai Bo

After New Year’s, I decided to cash in the gift certificate that Charlene got me for my birthday. It was for a one-month membership at L.A. Boxing.

I didn’t know exactly what L.A. Boxing was all about, but I assumed it had something to do with boxing. And, I like to box.

I had to fill out the typical nonsense gym membership paperwork when I got there. Questions like: What are your fitness goals? How long have you been thinking about a fitness program? What’s the name and number of a friend that we can harass into joining the club?

After the paperwork, the guy behind the counter pulled out a class schedule and said, “Let me tell you about our group classes…”

I had once heard that Eskimos have 52 words for snow. This guy had 52 words for Tai Bo. ‘Group Kickboxing’, ‘Group Boxing’, ‘Group MMA’. It was all Tai Bo to me.

“That’s ok,” I interrupted. “I’m not really interested in group classes. I just want to hit the bag.”

He gave me a nod, handed me the schedule, and said, “Here’s a copy of the class schedule just in case you change your mind.”

As I was putting the schedule in my gym bag he asked, “Oh, by the way, do you have gloves?”

“No. I don’t wear gloves,” I explained.  “I just use hand wraps.”

“That’s cool. It’s just that the owners are pretty strict about everyone using gloves. Ya’ know, in case of cuts and things.” 

I knew exactly what he was talking about. My bare knuckles had left bloodstains and blood spatter on the hard leather of many a heavy bag. And I didn’t always have the decency to clean it up when I was done either.

He handed me a pair of gloves from behind the counter and said, “If you don’t mind…”

I wrapped my hands, slapped on the big, comfy 16-ounce boxing gloves, and went to work on the heavy bag.

My knuckles were in heaven. It felt as if there was a cloud of softness between my fist and the bag on every impact. “He-he-he,” I giggled like the Downy Bear after each punch.

“You look disgusting,” Charlene noted when I returned home from my workout red faced and covered head-to-toe in sweat.

“Why, thanks,” I replied as I approached her with open arms. “You look like you need a hug!”

“You better not come near me, you fucking asshole” she asserted as she back stepped away from me. 

I pretended to make chase and then turned off into the bedroom to change out of my wet clothes.

“So, how was it?” she asked.

“It was good,” I reported. “But they made me wear those stupid ass boxing gloves.”

“Why?”

“Because they don’t want blood to get all over the punching bags.”

“Gross!” Charlene exclaimed. ”Does that really happen?”

“It does when I hit the bag,” I said plainly. “But never as bad as this one guy I used to work out with. It looked like a crime scene when he was done hitting the bag. There was blood on the bag, all over the floor, the walls, the mirrors. It was nasty.”

“Ew. I think you should wear gloves from now on,” Charlene advised. 

Transformation Now or Maybe Never

I don’t know what being freed from the parking lot meant to my neighbors, but all it meant for me and Charlene was that we had no more excuses to stay home from work.

Charlene and I were working together for a health juice company (and I use the term “health” loosely) called ‘Transformation Now’. Our job was to promote the juice at supermarkets and educate shoppers as to why Transformation Now was a better choice than Sunny D.

The juice we endorsed was of the superfruit variety: acai, pomegranate, blueberry, and noni. They were high in antioxidants and even higher in sugar content. If your body wasn’t tough enough to absorb 29 grams of sugar per 10 ounce serving, there was also a vegetable juice to choose from. It was low in sugar, contained half the salt content of a V8, and aroused a wonderfully frightening throat closing sensation after every sip.

Most shoppers weren’t interested in trying the juice for fear it would trigger an explosive need to visit a bathroom, which was a reasonable concern inside a supermarket, indeed. Customers were particularly cautious about sampling the acai (pronounced ‘Ah-Sigh-EE’) because it was purple and looked like prune juice. Its resemblance to prune juice was so uncanny that, in our neck of the woods, it became widely referred to as the ‘Ass-EE’ berry juice.

Charlene and I had a lot of fun with our job. After all, we got paid to interact with people and give away free stuff – which is like two of our all-time favorite things to do. Unfortunately for us, however, people weren’t buying the juice. 

Some would argue that it wasn’t selling because it was too expensive (which it was), but one woman we met at Costco put it best when she said, “It’s kind of like the taste you get in the back of your throat after you almost vomit in your mouth.” 

In any event and for whatever reason, Transformation Now decided to cut our sampling program short. So, rather than authenticating the health benefits of their snake oil juice for two more months, we’d only be doing it for two more weeks.

"That's some fucking bullshit!" Charlene uttered when she first heard about our early dismissal from Transformation Now.

In the pre-Willis era, Charlene was a prim and proper little Miss Goodie Two Shoes. The words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ weren’t even in her vocabulary. She struggled a great deal with my free flowing foul mouth at the start of our relationship, but as time went on, she slowly began to love using profanity as much as I do – especially when in the heat of anger. 

“Can you believe this shit?” she added. “We were the best fucking thing that ever happened to Transformation Now.”

“I know. It’s some bullshit,” I sympathized. “I don’t know how they expect to compete against Sunny D with that overpriced, shit tasting, snake oil juice without us.” 

Halfway House to Freedom

My neighbors took to the Good Samaritan Highway immediately. It even inspired the owner of a certain abandoned Ford Explorer to surface. The owner, a man in his early 20’s, is one of the many colorful part-time residents staying sporadically at the apartment Charlene and I refer to as the ‘Halfway House’.

Since their arrival, the occupants of the Halfway House have contributed a new and distinct flavor to our otherwise quiet and peaceful community in the form of litter in the parking lot, vandalism, car break-ins, home invasions, and police raids, just to name a few.

Despite all the trouble they cause, Charlene and I always smile and say, “Hi, How are you?” whenever we see any of the suspicious characters coming and going to and from the Halfway House.  Zigzag, on the other hand, prefers to exhibit her massive teeth and says, “If you come near me, my family, or my home, I’ll fucking tear your head off!” So far we haven’t had any problems with anyone living there.

The parking lot had, at last, been cleared of abandoned vehicles. By that time, unfortunately, the plows had already headed home for the night. I headed home too. 

The next morning, Charlene and I heard what sounded like a Sherman tank entering our parking lot. Cheering ensued a few seconds later. I peered out the window to check it out. Low and behold, the monster of all snowplows had just arrived.

Just about every one of our neighbors seemed to be outside for this grand event. They clapped and waved and banged their snow shovels together in the air. I even heard a small group of them singing ‘Kumbaya’. It was if they had just been rescued after spending six seasons on the tv series ‘Lost’.

The Good Samaritan Highway

“Where’s my GODDAMN tea?” Charlene playfully yelled to me from the bathroom.

One of my jobs around the house is making the morning tea. The task only fell under my jurisdiction because I wake up before her every single morning. On most days I serve it to her while she is still sleeping. And, and it generally gets cold before she wakes up to drink it. Oddly, she doesn’t seem to mind that it gets cold. She just reheats it in the microwave. What she does mind, however, is if she wakes up and the tea isn’t on her nightstand. Then I get an earful.

The tea had just been coming to a boil when she beckoned for it. “Hold your GODDAMN horses,” I laughingly yelled back. “It’s almost ready!”

Charlene and I sat in front of the television, sipped our tea, and watched the weather for a few minutes before she announced, “I feel like I want to knit all day. What are you going to do?”

What she really meant to ask me is, “When are you going to get your ass outside and dig the cars out of the snow?”

“I was thinking of going outside and digging the cars out of the snow,” I replied.

I got bundled back up in my winter getup and headed outside shovel in hand. I assessed the distance between myself and the cars, took a deep breath, and plodded intently through the snow.

It took me about an hour to excavate our cars from under the snow. The only thing that stood between the cars and the freedom of plowed road, at that point, was about 1000 square feet of waist high snow – and an abandoned Ford Explorer.

The idea of trudging knee-to-chest back to the apartment was not particularly inviting, but it did invigorate me to begin construction an elaborate walking path that spanned from the plowed road all the way to the front door. In true Jersey fashion, I even built an exit that led directly to our cars.

About halfway through the project, some of my neighbors, debilitated by the snow, shouted desperately down from their windows and asked if I could dig them out. They also wanted to know who’s effin’ truck was blocking the parking lot.

Although not in my original blueprint, I was more than happy to disentomb my forsaken neighbors from the massive snowdrifts they were trapped under. They were so grateful for my assistance that my walkway quickly became known in the community as the ‘Good Samaritan Highway’.