"Hi... I'm in ... Ohio."

Pretty sure Ohio was the first alternate behind Delaware when they were writing the screenplay for "Wayne's World."

I've been asked approximately 95 times where I'm going for New Year's, and every single one of those 95 times, after I tell them, "Ohio," I get this response:

"Why?"

Their faces usually scrunch up, too.

It doesn't matter that I have a perfectly legitimate answer: "I'm going to a college reunion; like eight of my best friends from school are gonna be there; my friend Boo Boo Drew has a house in Columbus; his girlfriend Amy makes good sandwiches, I hear; also, Amy just graduated from Ohio State and is inviting like 100 of her friends to the party on New Year's Eve; also, there is gonna be a live band at their house," because their heads are still resonating with images of Ohio, which, for most people, consists of absolutely nothing.

It's Ohio. Who lives there? Why do people go there? Why the hell are you going to Ohio, dude?

Maybe so I can be blown away by a state flag that tries to be cool by not being a rectangle. Nice try at being different and unique, Ohio. The Longhorns are still gonna whoop your sorry Buckeye asses in the Fiesta Bowl.

"Ohio just seems..." Anna, who had been by far the most demonstrative WTF-Ohio of all the face-scrunchers, was looking for the words to express her complex feelings about Ohio. She had only been to Cincinnati -- which should be taught a la M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I to all American school children at an early age, since it's the hardest city name to get right in the history of spelling -- one time, and had not come away impressed. To Anna, Columbus was Cleveland was Cincinnati. They all start with C, and they're all in the same, bland state of Ohio.

"I don't know," she continued, "I just feel like, I want to go to all 50 states, except for Ohio. I'd even want to go see Nebraska -- I'd like to visit Omaha. And North Dakota, even North Dakota, since I'd like to see Devil's Lake, or Canyon, or whatever it is, something Devil's. But Ohio? I just don't see why anyone would want to go there."

I was making mental notes of her quote because I knew Boo Boo Drew would appreciate it. She did say one thing, however, in his state's defense: "I will say this: Ohio seems very ... pleasant."

As does ... Delaware.

Boo Boo Drew swears Columbus is cool. We shall see. I believe him; it's a college town. Even if it's not cool, I don't care, since it's just me chilling with my boys that I'm excited about. But still, we shall see.

In college I used to always joke Boo Boo for being from a state that, when I pictured what it must be like in my head, always came out as a "cloudy day." Why did I think this? I don't know; it's Ohio. Who goes there? Well, finally, the answer is going to be "this guy." I'm going to go check for myself to see if Boo Boo's home state is actually one giant cloudy day, or if there is some sunshine there, too.

Imagine being able to be magically whisked away to Houston, my hometown, where I'm wearing sandals every day and where it was 80 degrees on Christmas Eve. Now imagine being able to be magically whisked away to ... Ohio, with a forecast like this for the time I will be there:


Tomorrow: Flurries/Wind
Thursday: Mostly Sunny (allegedly)
Friday: Few Snow Showers
Saturday: Partly Cloudy
Sunday: Rain/Snow Showers


Hi... I'm in... Ohio.

awww... shut up.

The difference between Chase and Caroline

I started to feel sick two nights ago, at about 3 a.m. I noticed the cough before the muscle pains or the headache came, and I knew, "This is only going to get worse before it gets better."

Horrible timing. For once, I was looking forward to New Year's Eve, since I'll be going to Columbus, Ohio. Columbus? you ask. That's right. Columbus. A place where the beer flows like wine. And also where Boo Boo Drew lives -- we're having a college reunion in his three story Boo Boo den this week.

That's why I started taking medicine yesterday, to nip this thing in the bud. I want to be ready to go tomorrow night.

This morning, feeling like poop, I was talking to Chase on the Facebook chat. He was at work, getting paid to do this. I told him I felt sick, and that I hoped to get better in time for Columbus.

Keep in mind that Chase is "the nice one." He is affectionately referred to as "Mom" in our group of friends. And this is how he responded to my pity request:


shut up
you're fine


If Chase and I were female bff's, how would he respond in that situation? Only one way to find out: use my 18 year old sister as a guinea pig.

"Garland," I asked, "who is your most sympathetic friend? Maru? Text Maru and tell her you're sick, and that you don't think you'll be able to go out for New Year's."

"Why?"

"I'm doing an experiment."

"Well, Maru is in Mexico. She won't get it."

"Who else is sympathetic?"

"Caroline is pretty sympathetic," she said.

So she texted Caroline:

Hey i woke up this morning really sick. I'm not sure if i'll be able to go out tomorrow.

My prediction was that Caroline would respond with something involving an "awww" and a frowny face. Here was what she said:


Aww garland i am sorry what hurts? Can i bring you anything to make you feel better? Soup kleenex trash can aha


UNBELIEVABLE. Caroline is most definitely sympathetic. And girls are most definitely nicer to each other than guys.

:(

Tequila Christmas

Remember Sallie?

My version of Billy Madison's, "You can stay home with me, Billy, and help me shave my ARM pits!"

She came into work this morning, her first time since Christmas, and I asked her what Santa had brought her.

Clothes, clothes and more clothes, she said. She was giving me a detailed breakdown of nothing but clothes.

"Nothing else?" I asked. "Just clothes?"

"Yes," she said.

"What about tequila?" Anyone who knows Sallie knows she loves tequila like Brett Favre loves adrenaline.

"Oh, yes," she said, acting like it wasn't that big of a deal.

"What kind?"

"Jose. I already done finished one bottle, but I got another big one to tear into for New Year's."

"Do you do shots?" I asked. "Or sip it?"

"SHOTS," Sallie said. "I don't do no sippin'. Sippin' for little girls. I take shots. And I don't mix it with nothin' neither. Maybe a little salt, but ain't nothin' else."

And then, the capper, before she walked out of my room:

"I like it strong and HOT."

That's what she said.

merry xmas!! ho ho ho (y'all)!

The Christmas mass text

How many text messages were waiting for you when you went to check your phone after you opened presents this morning? I only had a few, but I'm sure the average female had like six, seven, eight of them waiting to be read.

And how many of them sounded something like the following?

merry xmas!! ho ho ho! xoxo

or

happy holidays!! xoxo

or

merry christmas!

Et cetera. You understand where I'm going with this.

The Christmas mass text, not to be confused with the irreverent act of texting due to boredom during the homily, is as impersonal, efficient and most importantly, obvious as the age old "re-gift." But it is a new social phenomenon, no older than five years, brought to you by the same generation that delivered President Elect Barack Obama to the world. And like the re-gift, the Christmas mass text fulfills a holiday-inspired social obligation, to let someone somewhat close to you know that yes, you are thinking about them on this special day.

If only there were some way to definitively prove that I'm not really as special as all these Christmas mass texters are trying to make me feel.


(As I finished that sentence -- no joke, as I was typing the final letters to that sentence -- I felt my phone vibrate: a text message. Please, God, be a Christmas mass text. PLEASE. If God were a writer, He would make it so.

I opened up my phone: 1 new message, from Mary. I click "Read."

merry christmas turtle


Mary has called me "Turtle" since high school. When I stick out my head and do the "turtle face," I really do look like one.

DAMNIT. It's genuine.)


Mary is smart. She knows that by adding in the word "turtle," she's giving it that personal touch. Like saying, "I've got the receipt if you want to exchange it," she is including proof that this is no mass text. And as a result, my friend is letting me know that I may be pretty special after all.

Merry Christmas to you, Mary.

and a happy new year (y'all)!

(The New Year's mass text, since everyone is drunk, sentimental and trigger happy, is about five times as rampant as anything you're ever going to see on December 25.)

"So I hope i can trust you with my life..."

As I see the end of my salvage career coming around the corner, the job search continues. I am changing my life plans every half hour or so, but these days, I'm feeling Austin. Every few days I get on craigslist.com and look for that next chapter of my life to just pop up on my screen, in the form of a link. Shockingly, it hasn't happened yet.

A few days ago, I found a listing for a tutoring position, part time, $30/hr, that I figured was worth a shot. So I gave it a half assed attempt, expecting to never hear back. I have never tutored anyone, and I figured a million people would be hitting "Louis Smith" up for the position. But it was no skin off my back to try.

Well, I heard back all right. But before we delve into the creepy response I received, first read my email, just to get a sense of how blown away I am by Louis' reply:

From: Bayless Parsley <billyparsley@gmail.com>
Subject: tutor position
To: louis.smith1960@yahoo.com
Date: Monday, December 22, 2008, 4:18 AM

Hi, I'm responding to the craigslist ad for the open tutor position. I have experience in education and work very well with children. If you'd like me to send a copy of my resume, please let me know. I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

Bayless Parsley

713-252-9255

That is it. Nothing special. Nothing to indicate that I'm a qualified tutor. Nothing to indicate that I don't have to go around knocking on people's doors to let them know I'm a sex offender anytime I move into a new neighborhood. I said nothing to Louis at all about myself, other than some vague descriptions of "experience in education" and being good with children.


Now, Louis' reply:


From: Louis Smith louis.smith1960@yahoo.com
Subject: tutor position (reply needed ASAP)
To: <billyparsley@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 8:32 PM

Hello ,

Thank you for the email, At present,i seek an experienced private tutor for my teenage son in Math, English, Science and reading tutorial. I would be happy to have my son under your tutorship,I have made contacts with my son( boy of 13 yrs) concerning this arrangement of the tutoring and it's pretty cool with him. Please advise on your fees (per hour/per day) depending on how you've rendered your services in the past.i want you to know I'm paying for 1 month ($30.00/hr) is what I have in mind . I hope you understand this as total deposit to BOOK your services ) . Also am planning for you to tutor him 3 times a week, which is 2hr per day,so get back to me with the total fee for the subjects and when you will be available to teach him during the week.Also my son does not resides in the states,He stays here with me in United Kingdom (UK). So my son will be arriving the states by Dec 2008 and i want him to study more while there in the states because am planning a relocation for him , I took him with me after I lost his mother some years ago was a single painful experience in my life time .I want you to know I'll be sending you the payment inform of money orders/check for the tutorials while I'll also pay the Nanny that will look after him during his stay there, so as soon as you get the money orders/check cashed you'll deduct cost of tutoring for the month and send balance to my nanny . That will be communicated to you later on .

If you are ready and willing to accept this offer which is in the best interest of my son and yourself , kindly send your full information to receive the payment so it can be made out on time as he will be arriving soon , also I want you to know he's my only son and I love him more than I love myself , I would have accompany him if not that am in the middle of a big project So I hope i can trust you with my life because he's my life and reason why i work , also i made a promise to his mom to take very good care of him and see that he has a very bright future , he's aspiring to be an engineer but his mom would have loved to see him in a doctor's suit ...I want you to teach him good morals and academic , also I want you to help me make him discover himself and follow the path of what his heart tells him to be , I want the brightest future for him, I truly hope I can trust you with my son and with the nanny's payment although my son is of out most importance.

Thanks for willing to help , I will be waiting for you to e-mail me with the following details so we can make concrete arrangement very soon .

NAME:
ADDRESS:
CITY:
ZIP CODE:
CONTACT PHONE NUMBER:
DIRECT PHONE NUMBER:
AGE:
SEX:
EMAIL ADDRESS:

Will be waiting to read your mail soon.

Very Respectful

Louis Smith.

First, notice, he added "reply needed ASAP."

I would love to tell you that the reason there is no break for paragraphs is because of a copy and paste malfunction, during the transfer from the actual email to this Blogger window. But that is not the reason. The reason is because the entire email was just one paragraph. Spelling mistakes, punctuation errors, screw ups with the third person singular verb form ... who is Louis Smith?

The answer is probably not "himself."

Who the hell is this guy? Where is he from? What is his first language? Definitely not English. It's pretty obvious this is a scam, but the thing is, I don't see how. I really don't. How could he possibly benefit from the information he wants me to send him? Identity theft requires things like social security numbers, credit card numbers, etc., right? I am so fascinated by this. I think I'm just going to give him Pigneri's information.

Greetings from the state which has a county named after Jefferson Davis.

(Jefferson Davis was the first president of the Confederacy.)

I won't lie: I doubt I ever would have gone to New Hebron, Mississippi had I not been forced to travel there for work today. But I'm glad I did, because now I can go ahead and check that off the ole bucket list.

"I do believe this is the best restaurant in Neweebrun," the little girl with an accent thicker than Jenny's said as I perused the buffet line.

"What are the other ones like?" I asked, glad I had finally discovered how the locals actually pronounce New Hebron.

"Well, the other one has better decorations, but this one has better food."

The little girl's mother works in the kitchen at Yesterday's Cafe, so naturally she is biased. Either that, or she could simply be telling the truth, since there are all of two restaurants in New Hebron. She knew the exact price of the all you can eat buffet ($7.44) at the better one. She also knew the exact time that it would fill up with the usual lunch crowd (11 a.m.). When they all flooded in -- blue collar, blue collar, blue collar -- I could practically feel the eyeballs burning a hole into the back of my head, as I ate my mashed potatoes with gravy, fried chicken and cornbread. I was wearing Carhartt's, but they were wearing Carhartt jackets. There is a big difference. The pants are for fake hippies; the jackets are for real men.

"Who's the Yankee?" I kept expecting to hear, even though I'm from Texas. That's how out of place I felt, what, with my laptop and fancy sunglasses, my shirt without a name tag sewn on and a rented Corolla parked outside, the only non-truck in sight. I was eating lunch in a small town in the heart of the Confederacy, and I don't have an accent. I may as well have been someone's cousin Vinny. Where is my black leather jacket when I need it?

"I'm looking for Highway 42. Do you know where that is?" I asked the little girl. She seemed to know everything else about Neweebrun.

"I don't know," she said, "I live on Main ayve."

"It's avenue," the waitress corrected her, really emphasizing the short 'a' in the Neweebrun way. "Not 'ayve'."

"Oh, whatever!" the little girl yelled. "It's the same difference!"

Maybe in Neweebrun, MS, it is.

I was in town to visit a pork rinds manufacturer that had suffered damage to some of his equipment from the recent snows that blanketed much of the southeastern United States two weeks ago. New Hebron got hammered by nine inches of the stuff, even more than what covered Baton Rouge (where I must have heard "Boy I tell yuh, this here is more snow than the winner of '88!" five times in the two hours I spent there that day), and way more than we got down in Houston.

A snowman in Houston doesn't leave much snow for the surrounding area.

Pork rinds: that was my assignment today. Just add it to the list of interesting industries I've been exposed to since taking this job over two months ago. Chrome plated rims, Persian rugs, tobacco stores, women's clothing boutiques, heavy equipment rentals, oil refineries, plastic bag manufacturers, and now, pork rinds companies.

That's right. I was a history major at Virginia. And I also speak Swahili.

On my drive back to Jackson, which is where I flew into, seeing as (no way!) New Hebron has a Dollar General and yet no airport, I passed by a crazy old man selling Confederate flags on the side of the road, in front of the entrance to an RV park. I promptly pulled a U-turn.

Welcome to Mississippi!

I hate Confederate flags; I view them as a symbol of slavery and racism, and I don't buy into the whole "Pride not Prejudice" bullshit. But I do love people's stories. And the guy in Mississippi who sits in a truck on the side of the road selling Confederate flags -- just like the Kosovo je Srbija nationalist, or the dreadlocked white guy in Ethiopia -- is a guy who has a story. That's why I pulled a U-turn.

Mississippi is a state overflowing with black people. They make up 37 percent of the population, easily the highest proportion of blacks in any state in the union, and yet, somehow, this is still the Mississippi state flag.

Yes, it is almost 2009.

"I don't think they know they're free yet," my black coworker remarked when I described to him what it felt like to see a huge, billowing Mississippi flag flying proudly in the wind every few minutes as I drove towards Jackson.

"Maybe they haven't gotten the memo yet."

"Also man," he said, "I don't think you realize how little in common I've got with the black people down in Mississippi."

My coworker is from Brooklyn. That's pretty close to New Jersey, which, as it turns out, is where Winstead is from.

Winstead.

That's right. The guy who makes a living selling Confederate flags on the side of the highway in M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I is not even from the South. He's from Atlantic City.

This, my friends, is why I love people's stories.

"Hell," he said, after I shook his hand and introduced myself, "these people down here think I'm some carpet bagger Yankee from Atlantic City."

I had noticed he didn't have the "Neweebrun" accent, but never in a million years would I have guessed that a man like this would hail from the armpit of America, New Jersey.

"I used to think the Confederate flag was just something that had to do with the Klan," he admitted, as we both shivered in the biting wind that is more characteristic of where he comes from than where he lives now. "Even two years into this business, I didn't realize it had anything to do with the Civil War."

Winstead. He sells Confederate flags for a living in Mississippi. He did not know the flags "had to do with the Civil War" for a full two years. It's Winstead.

"Do you do well?" I asked.

"I wouldn't say 'well,'" he said, in the understatement of the year, seeing as I've seen homeless men more dapper than Winstead, "but I will say this: anyone who stops -- and not that many people stop -- always buys something."

I was already trying to decide before he even said that which gift I was going to get for Tom, who is a pasty, white Yankee from Philadelphia.

I briefly considered the, "REBEL BLOOD IN MY VEINS, YANKEE BLOOD IN MY YARD!" option, but decided a) it was not worth $10 and b) he would never, ever display it, ever.

"So what are you doing in Jackson?" I asked. "Why the hell did you choose Mississippi?"

"Well," he said, "I used to work in the carnival business." Winstead is a former carnie. Please, God, make the story keep getting better. "And when that went out of business, we were in Jackson, and I just got stuck, I guess." A burning cigarette stuck to his bottom lip, as he spoke, the filter torn off. The paper was soaked through, and the ash was a good inch and a half out. "That was 15 years ago."

"So where do you live now?" I had my hands shoved in my pockets as we spoke. It was cold.

"Oh, I live in a tent out there." He pointed towards the RV park.

"Man," I said, shaking my head at the thought of poor Winstead wrapped up in his Confederate flags to keep warm, "do you freeze at night when it's this cold?"

"Yeah," he said, before pausing, as if he wasn't sure. "Well, yeah. But lately I've been real lucky because some people ask me to house sit their trailers, like when they're not gonna be around for a few days, I get to house sit their trailers."

He then began some rambling story about his truck, how it was dead, how some church group had offered him an interest free loan of $1,500. I wasn't really listening. I was taking pictures of the flags.

"How many kinds of Confederate flags can you possibly have?" I asked. I counted at least 30, all with different tacky designs printed atop the bars, like a motorcycle, or a wolf, or a skull and crossbones.

"Hell, tons of 'em," he said. "And it don't matter what kind; they all sell."

Clearly not well enough, though, to get him out of a tent and into a proper trailer. He used to have one of those, until Katrina wiped him out, he said. That was back when he worked selling flags on the side of the road in a neighboring county.

"Man I used to be in Hinds County," he said, "but they made me move."

"Why?"

"Because they said I was 'intimidating the Afro-American community.'"

"Well..."

Winstead was talking freely now, no longer guarded, as he had been initially. We were old pals at this point, in his mind.

"Those (N-bomb) aren't scared, man!" he tried to convince me, then covered himself, realizing I may be a (N-bomb) lover. You never know these days, with all those Obama supporters running amok. "I mean, uhh, those Afro-Americans ain't scared!"

"Uh huh."

I walked over to the table of Confederate goodies he had for sale. It was like going to a Claire's shop in 1861 Charleston. Cute bracelets and necklaces, hand made, with earrings and other female accessories, all adorned with the Stars and Bars. Not only that, but there were patriotic bumper stickers ("I Ain't Comin' Down!"), pocket knives with Confederate leaders' faces engraved on the handle (Winstead surmised that one of them was "probly Grant," showing how much he's shored up on his knowledge in the past 15 years), and even a deck of Confederate flag playing cards.

I was thinking two things: Tom, and cheap.

(Which is why I went with this magnet, with a flying eagle and a thermometer, and which was Made in China.)

I think I picked a winner.

The "You're Going to Hell, Sinner" Series.

If you drive east on I-10 from Houston to Baton Rouge, there is this stretch of road that will make you want to either get on your knees and pray or get on your knees to throw up. Or, it may just bring you to your knees in laughter. I have passed by it so many times, I can't even count -- it's on the way to UVa -- and I always meant to take a picture of it. Last week, I finally did. I don't know how long these Jesus-themed billboards have been there, but I always wonder, "Who the hell pays for these?"

Back-to-back-to-back, it's 1:




2:




And 3:




And 4, as well, which came out too blurry on my camera to even post.

I'm pretty sure they're on the Texas side of the state line, but all you have to do to find out is ask any LSU student from Houston, because I'm sure they've passed by these deals enough times to know exactly what exit they're located on.

Here's what I want to do: pass around a collection plate to raise the funds necessary to purchase some ad space on this billboard, which, not even joking, comes right after the four Christian ones.




It seems pretty obvious to me that KEM Outdoor is just asking for something sarcastic and secular to be plastered up there.

My ideas include:

1) Gay Animal Sex, Live Acts, Exit Now!

2) Muslims Rule.

3) Jesus was a Jew.

Feel free to email me with any ideas of your own.

Spavao sam kao zaklan.

And the most nonsensical analogy I can think of.

One of the many Quebecoise friends that I made during my travels, Élise, is an insomniac. This is why she reads my blog, coincidentally -- because there is nothing better for her to do when she is awake all night. We don't talk that often, but whenever I think about her, I'm hoping that she's sleeping better. Every time I get around to emailing her, I make sure and ask how that's going.

I don't speak French, which is Élise's first language, so I always write to her in English, her second.

"still sleeping like a baby?" I asked in the bon fête wish I sent her the other day.

"I have to thank you as well for updating your blog," she replied, knowing that I knew what she meant by that: it gives her something to do at 4 a.m. when she's still wide awake. "See, I'm still sleeping like a baby. Pathetic isn't it?"

That got me thinking about the phrase "sleeping like a baby."

Doesn't look very asleep to me.

Every parent with young children always celebrates the moment when "Janie is finally sleeping through the night," as if it's some huge event; as if normally, babies don't sleep peacefully at all. This is common knowledge. Everyone knows that babies cry in the middle of the night. Everyone knows that babies, more than anyone except perhaps former NFL linemen with sleep apnia, do not sleep like babies. And yet we continue to say it: "Man, I slept like a baby last night."

It makes no sense. Kind of like saying "It's the same difference," or asking where the bathroom is.

French speaking Élise makes more sense than we native English speakers when she compares a baby's sleeping habits to that of an insomniac.

Now, in Bosnia-Hercegovina, where I met Élise, they don't compare a good night's rest to something so nonsensical. Life is a little less rosy in the Balkans. We obsess over a recent downturn in the market like it's the greatest burden ever borne by any society in the history of mankind; they're still obsessing over 500 years of Turkish occupation, two world wars lost, genocides and NATO bombings. They view things a little differently in the Balkans. Things like, well, life. It's not nearly as cuddly as our American world view.

"Spavao sam kao zaklan," is how the Serbo-Croat speakers describe a peaceful night's sleep. Translation: I slept like I was slaughtered.

Which is how I slept many a night at the Three Black Catz in Belgrade after drinking rakija and pivo for six hours.

The South Slavs (English for Yugoslavs) are as close to a no bullshit culture as you're going to find. I once met an old Serbian man who, within maybe five seconds of having shaken my hand, let me know through an interpreter that he thought I had hands like a woman. "They are soft, he says, like woman," my friend Živko said.

I wonder if Živko describes things these days as being "as soft as Bili's hands," instead of a baby's bottom.

Recent quotes from my mother:

1) Speaking to her youngest child -- and my little sister -- Garland, during a moment of frustration while trying to get ready for our family Christmas party, always her grumpiest week of the year:

"Garland, don't ever get married. But if you do, don't have children."

2) Telling me about the movie, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which I have not seen:

"Bayless, you'd like that one. There's a three-way in it."

"They were wearin' 'em in the 70s!"

The last time I went jogging on my own volition, I was 20 years old, studying abroad in Geneva. I was trying to impress this girl I liked named Margaret. She was a big jogger who went to Wake Forest. One night, we were out at some bar, drinking quite a bit, feeling warm inside, when she mentioned that she was training for the Venice Marathon.

"How does that make you feel?" She was mocking me.

"How does what feel?"

"That a girl like me can run an entire marathon and you can't."

"I can run a marathon," I said, on the defensive.

"Yeah right."

"I can run a marathon, Margaret." She could barely hold it in. "I can. It's all mental. It's just about putting one step in front of the other, over, and over, and over." I was really drunk, by the way, when I was saying this. "I can run a marathon."

"Whatever." Margaret wasn't buying it.

"Okay Margaret," I said, "I'm going to start training, tomorrow." The marathon was about six weeks away at this point, and I had taken more than two years off from physical exertion. It was a lengthy sabbatical.

The next morning, I woke up slightly hungover, with the memory of Margaret's challenge fresh in my mind. So I put on my shoes, walked outside, did some half ass stretching, stopped once it was too painful, my long dormant muscles simply not ready for that kind of abuse, and started to jog. About the shoes: they weren't exactly what you're probably envisioning. They weren't hiking boots, but rather, more of a hybrid between hiking boots and tennis shoes; the kind of shoes you'd find at REI. I was jogging in those. In my mind, they'd act like ankle weights -- once I get some good shoes, I'll feel like I'm running on air. These shoes probably played a major role in what was to come.

Switzerland is a pretty hilly place, and despite the amazing weather and alpine smell, the first day was less than enjoyable. Same with the second day, and the third. I kept going, though, because all I could picture was Margaret's mocking tone; I hate hearing "I told you so," and so I ran.

Then we went hiking that weekend in the Alps. It was a pretty intense hike. I didn't stretch nearly enough. And my Achilles tendons were not happy about that.

That was the end of my brief jogging career. My Achilles' took four months to heal; every time I moved my foot up and down, it was like a brittle rubber band you'd find on the ground, being stretched, and creaking. I could almost hear them inside my ankles, crreeeeaaaaaak.

At least I still got the girl, though.

Four days ago, for a variety of reasons -- no. 1 being that I don't want to carry on the Parsley men tradition of being fat -- I resurrected my jogging career. I've run three miles every day since then. And, knock on wood, my Achilles' are okay, for now.

We'll see how long this lasts. Garland is convinced I'm going to get injured, since I didn't pay top dollar for the newest technology in running shoes. Instead, I went and got a sick new pair of Nike Pegasus 83's, UVa colors, orange and blue. They are awesome shoes. I feel like a million bucks in them. Not "running" shoes? So what? Forrest Gump wore shoes just like them, and he ran across the entire country! Multiple times!

"They used to wear 'em in the 70s!" John yelled when I told him I'd been catching grief for not falling for the ultimate marketing ploy, the concept of a "running shoes" as distinct from an old school lowtop Nike Pegasus 83.

"I know! What was Bill Russell wearing when he played basketball?"

Probably Chuck Taylor's. Not exactly what you would see an NBA player wearing today.

It's ironic that Garland is leading the charge in criticizing my shoe selection -- the truth is, I picked them because of the colors, and that's it -- because I had already bought her a smaller pair of the exact same shoes over a month before. It wasn't until a few days ago, when I went back to Academy for some reason, that I picked up mine. But Garland has no idea that she's about to open her Christmas gift to find ... the exact shoes that I'll make sure to be wearing when she opens it up.

But don't tell her I said that; I know she doesn't read my blog, so if we keep it between ourselves, the secret should remain safe.

Margaret is now engaged, to someone else.

Question: Who is the greedier, more traitorous Jew?

Bernie Madoff?

"Hi. I like to lie a lot."

Or Judas?

"I love you, silv.., I mean Jesus."

When adjusted for inflation, 30 pieces of silver isn't coming close to $50 billion, or even the more conservative estimate of $17.1 billion that Madoff made off with in the greatest Ponzi Scheme of all time. So Bernie is hands down the greedier one.

But more traitorous? That's a tough one, but I'm leaning towards Judas. He knew full well that whoever he laid that kiss on wasn't going to lose his fortune, but his life. That's pretty cold.

At the end of the day, though, I'm sure all Jews can agree on one thing: Bernie and Judas are both schmucks.

Next time, I'm getting Kung Pao shrimp, pho sho.

"Hello? Yeah. We're at Pho 20."

I know it's just the name of the restaurant, a Vietnamese joint on Broadway St. in Galveston, but it's impossible not to laugh when the person next to you says that on the phone. Especially when it's a beatnik like John. He is the opposite of that guy who periodically pronounces certain words in a ghetto fashion. Things like "fo sho," and "da," and ending sentences with "yo."

Being out-ordered is possibly the most frustrating thing that can happen to a person. It happened to me last night at Pho 20, and I'm still a little bitter about it. When you get out-ordered, you are getting dominated. Your unhappiness with your menu selection is simply amplified by the sense of fulfillment you pick up from your dining partner. Not only is my food bad, but look at his food. It's awesome. You become almost hungrier with every bite, because you know what you could be eating, had you not been so stupid. It's right in front of your face -- its aroma, its sight, its temptation. To ask for some of your neighbor's dish when you've been out-ordered is to sacrifice your honor. You just don't do that. And when they can tell you're pissed that you didn't go with the money selection -- in last night's case, the Kung Pao shrimp -- and offer you a bite, you are duty bound to decline. "No, I'm good," you say through clenched teeth.

The double whammy becomes a triple whammy when your friend asks for a to-go box. Talk about a kick to the nuts when you're already down. "I love Pho 20 because I always have a little extra for lunch tomorrow," John says, as you stare at your hardly touched bowl of Pho soup and noodles, and whatever mystery meat (allegedly "meatballs") floating around in it. "Or for later tonight, if I get hungry again." You smile, and pretend that you are happy for your friend. The triple whammy: not only are you paying a ton of money for a dish you feel you should be paid to eat, and not only do you get hungrier with every bite you watch the victor shovel into his mouth, but then you learn that the man who dominated you on the menu tonight will be laughing all the way until tomorrow's lunch, when he reheats his Kung Pao shrimp and goes for round 2.

I hate being out-ordered.

It's why, when I find something on the menu that I like at a particular restaurant, I almost never stray from it. (See: four consecutive years of buffalo chicken sandwiches at The Virginian, where one of the regular waitresses who knew my face came to start asking me not what I'd like to eat, but whether or not I wanted a menu.) I like what I know, and I know what I like. More importantly, I know what I don't like: and that is taking a risk on something you don't know for sure is good, and thus opening up yourself to the possibility of being out-ordered.

My panic option is the burger. If I feel rushed by an overeager waiter or waitress at a place I've never been to before, I always go with the burger. It's hard to go wrong with carbs and beef. My opción del pánico at a new Mexican restaurant is its burger equivalent, fajitas.

But an unfamiliar Vietnamese restaurant doesn't offer any panic options: no burgers, no fajitas. The risk of being out-ordered is therefore especially high at a place like Pho 20.

I went with the Phở Bò Viên, also known as the beef noodle soup with meatball.

"How do you say that in Vietnamese?" I asked the Vietnamese waitress.

"I no know."

"This word," I said, pointing to the menu, since she clearly hadn't understood my question and was trying to act like she had, "how do you say it, in Vietnamese?"

"I no know. I Chinese."

Okay then, false advertising.

"Sheh sheh, sheh sheh," I said, clasping my hands together and bowing my head. That's all I know in Chinese: "thank you, thank you." Not very applicable in this situation.

Mark that up as the second time in five minutes last night that I embarrassed myself in public. The two fat women at the table next to me started giggling uncontrollably after that unintentional display of racism on my part, but the guy who had been walking right behind us on the street outside hadn't find my littering too funny.

"This is the greatest thing about Ike," I said, as I threw the remnants of my lunch and other random trash I'd cleaned out of my car onto a big pile of garbage on the curb.

John, a Galveston local, blew up my spot. "Dude, don't do that. The city's not picking that stuff up anymore. They announced two weeks ago they're not doing it anymore." The stranger five feet behind us was definitely a local. "The people are gonna be the ones cleaning that up," John said, as the local walked by. He never said a word, or even looked at me. I felt like a horse's patute.

So maybe it was karma, me getting stuck with garbage in bowl after throwing my garbage on the ground, on an island that is still looking pretty post-apocalyptic in certain areas as a result of Hurricane Ike.

It was my own fault, I suppose. I broke the cardinal rule of how to order at Asian restaurants: trying to go cheap. When you're eating at any Asian restaurant -- Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, whatever -- you never want to read the menu according to price, like you're buying a used book on Amazaon or something. People from that part of the world will eat anything. And unless there's an Italian in the building, it is incredibly stupid to go with "meatballs" in your Pho soup, even if you do save two whole quarters in doing so.

Rachel, John's girlfriend, was horrified when she heard later that night that I'd gone with meatballs at a Vietnamese place. She's an Asiaphile, and never eats food from that part of the world if she can avoid it. "Gross! Bayless do you realize what that means at a Vietnamese place, 'meatballs'? I'm sure it was just a combination of like five different bodily organs, mashed into little 'balls' or something."

Of course, I wasn't thinking about this fact when I ordered it. I should have; I have experience with Saigon street food. But I guess I'm just getting forgetful in my old age. As soon as I took a bite of one of the "meatballs," I swallowed it and resolved not to swallow another. This stuff was either a) dog food or b) dog as food. One bite was enough. John confirmed my thoughts on the matter when he tried a piece.

Later that night, when we were sitting around with Rachel, John got up and went to the refrigerator to get his styrofoam leftover box.

"Give me some of that," I demanded, no longer caring about my out-order honor, or trifling concerns such as dignity.

"It pisses me off that this is so good," I said as I destroyed the remainder of the leftovers. "I was really hoping this would taste bad, too."

Such is the humiliation of being out-ordered.

An hour of Bob Nesta a day keeps Babylon away.

A text message I got tonight from my friend Chase:

"Just bought 'burnin' for my record player and it is sick. I listen to Bob at least an hour a day."

Which, to me, is like prayer.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: the world would be a better place if people just listened to Bob Marley.

It would surely put things into perspective. I know that much.

Just remember this: no matter what happens to the economy, we will survive. If there's one thing I learned from my time in Africa, it is that simple fact. We will survive.

You know you're getting older when:

1) You go to a party where people hold napkins with their drinks.

2) You go to a party with excessive cordiality. Guests going overboard with the "Thanks so much for having us," routine.

3) You're overheard on your cell phone at a coffee shop having a "business conversation," which I define as one where you have to sit upright, since you're so the opposite of chilling, and you can't begin the conversation with "Yo" or "What up," nor can you end it with "Peace."

4) Dudes start tucking their shirts in, after work, or on the weekends.

5) You find yourself talking with friends more about Bernie Madoff than Bernie Kosar.

6) You don't feel compelled to call someone "Mr." when he's over 30.

7) You have multiple St. Vincent DePaul classmates who are married.

I'm sure there will be more later.

A guy I work with had to go up to Detroit for a project last week. I saw him in the office the day he was set to leave; he had his roller suitcase all packed and was ready to go. He did not seem particularly excited about his most recent assignment.

"Detroit?" It's fitting that the winless Lions wear blue. The word just sounds sad to me these days.




I asked my co-worker to pay attention to the vibes in the air there, to see if he could gauge the mood of the place without asking any questions about it.

Jason was back in the office this morning, and he wasn't too high on the place.

"Man I was thinking about what you asked, about the vibe in that city," he said. "And you were totally right. You can feel it. They're at like 20 percent unemployment right now in that city."

"Twenty percent?!" (*I haven't checked this figure. But it doesn't sound too crazy.)

"Yes. And that's now. That is now."

"It's like interwar Germany or something."

"I went to this shopping mall," he said, not showing any indication he got the joke, "and it was a huge mall, like Katy Mills, one of those malls you see built out in the suburbs. Man, it's Christmas season, and that place was VACANT. Yeah, sure there were a few people, but --"

"But it was like, 'E-CHO! E-CHO! E-CHO!'?" I cut him off.

"Yes. Exactly," he said.

It is weird to be living in Houston right now. I do not feel "it" in the air down here. Things seem to be doing pretty well, except for the fact that I don't ever recall there being so few houses with Christmas lights up. Raja says people are "giving up on Christmas," but I don't know. Maybe. What I do know is that I see people with Starbucks cups in their hands, people take trips to Austin, and there are commercials on the radio talking about how great business is at some car dealership. The Bob reminds me every day of how lucky we should all feel to be living in Houston at a time like this; I'm sure that's part truth, part pitch to get me to stay.

But I know the storm is coming. I think everyone knows that.

What a strange feeling. To know it's coming. The final whimpers of the great party that has already drawn its last breath in California, in Florida and in Michigan. People expecting things to magically get better in 2009, 2010, well, they're going to be in for a serious shock.

It could be worse, I guess. The Texans could be the Lions.

There was a guy sitting in front of us at the Texans game today who had one of those personalized jerseys, with his own last name on the back, rather than Schaub, or A. Johnson or Williams. This guy's choice was the last name "Christ." Now, I've never met anyone whose last name is Christ. I doubt many of you have. I did have a teacher in high school whose last name was Crist, but Christ, not Christ.

I took about four pictures of this guy's back with my camera phone. I'm sure there's a way to upload those photos onto Blogger, but I don't know how to do it, so you'll have to go with my verbal descriptions.

Twerner argued that Christ was the guy's actual last name. I argued that it was a hardcore Christian rocking the battle red Texans jersey against the Titans today. What we both agreed on, however, was how funny it was that Christ chose the number 66 for his personalized jersey.

What I was really trying to get a photograph of, you see, was a shot of the word "Christ," together with the two big sixes on his back, and one of the smaller sixes on the sleeve:

CHRIST
666

Kind of like this photographer was able to do with the actual no. 66 for the Texans, DelJuan Robinson.

This is why I never left home without my camera when I was traveling, and when I was in Africa. I should not forget these lessons when in Houston. You never know what kind of jersey you're going to see at the Texans game.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about what my choice would be, if I had a personalized jersey?

THIS F'ING GUY
12

Twelve was my lucky number in high school.

When is GM gonna come out with a new Chevy Baaaaahhhhhh?

BAAAAHHHHH! BAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

That's the noise that sheep make.

Two things I read today that angered me:

1) That one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the debate on the Senate floor yesterday involved the UAW's refusal to slash wages and benefits for its workers to the levels enjoyed by Nissan, Toyota and Honda employees in the United States. As if they somehow do a better job than those Japanese, errr, wait, also American workers...

2) That the 1908 Ford Model T got better gas mileage than the Ford pick up my sister has declared she's going to be buying soon.

Barack, I love you man, but this is why I actually prefer divided government. Throwing this kind of money at these people would be like pissing down a toilet after you've hit the flush button, and wondering why there's no yellow left sitting in the bowl.

It snowed in Austin last night. Right in the middle of a trivia game, half the bar herded out the door to experience what this strange natural phenomenon felt like. Frozen water, falling from the sky. People seemed as excited as if manna was floating down. It was only the fourth time I'd ever seen snow in Texas.










And Kathryn, who is also from Houston, and has never lived in a place where snow is something that isn't novel, just sat in her chair, like it was no big deal.

You know the panic button on the electronic car keys? For my Toyota, it's red and has an icon of a speaker, or a horn, or some sort of contraption that emits noise printed in white, with three sound waves streaming out, meaning that it's a really loud contraption and it will save you in times of panic. I would love to know how many people who own cars with electronic key chains actually hit that button when they're panicking.

The panic button is designed for one thing and one thing only: finding your car in a parking lot. It should just be known as the "Where the F is my car?" button.

(The image of a man keeping one foot inside the parking garage elevator, as he stretches out towards the parked cars like a first baseman chasing a throw in the dirt, his glove hand clutching a set of car keys. He's clicking the red button, listening for a response; he has no idea which floor he parked on. Two other people get out of the elevator and walk to their cars. They can be seen talking about that weird guy nearly doing the splits in his suit, clicking his car keys. Distant echoes of a honking car horn let all three people know that the answer is one floor above.)

If you're in a parking lot and some dude starts trying to rob you, you're either going to scream for help or beg for mercy, or stab the dude's eyeball with your keys, not hit the panic button. If you're the CEO of a Detroit car company and you're about to run out of cash because of your poorly negotiated labor contracts and inflated production costs, you're either going to fly to Washington in your private jet or drive to Washington in your hybrid car to ask for a bailout, not hit the panic button. And if you simply write down on your hand that you parked on the eighth floor, not the seventh, you're not going to hit the panic button.

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal today about the Pakistani-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, "The Army of the Pure."

"Alleged Terrorist Group Steers Young Men to Fight."

Read it. And pay attention to this paragraph:

"After Mr. Kasab's first few months in a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp he felt a sense of purpose for the first time in his life, he told Mumbai police. It was his job to fight to the death to save Islam and he said he was ready to die in the jihad, police said."

I wouldn't hold your breath on any end to a war like this.

The Immaculate Misconception.

My cousin Laura, a practicing Catholic, reminded us all at dinner tonight that tomorrow is a holy day of obligation.

"Are you going?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said, defensively, almost as if I was attacking her for even considering not going to church on a Monday.

"I mean, who really goes to all of those?" I asked.

"I do."

"Really? All of them?" My tone was extremely skeptical. I really don't know anyone, not even The Bob, who goes to all of them. "You really go to every single one?"

"Yeah."

"Do you know why they're all holy days of obligation?"

No. And she doesn't care. Not that she should. Laura, along with 95 percent of the rest of the practicing Catholics out there in this country, just know that you're supposed to go. I should know; I used to be a practicing Catholic. And after 11 years of papist schooling, seven at St. Vincents and four at Strake Jesuit, I still couldn't tell you for which feast days we're "obliged" to attend mass. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even estimate within a range of five how many holy days of obligation there even are. All I know is that there are far too many, and that the Vatican says you have to go.

It's like voting for president, every year, multiple times a year. You know you're "supposed to," but most people just don't.

Does it matter why a certain feast day carries the obligatory mass tag? No. Do most Catholics even realize one is coming up unless a cousin mentions it at dinner? No. Do most Catholics even realize that that Immaculate Conception is tomorrow? Probably not.

The real question, though, is whether or not most Catholics realize what the Immaculate Conception is.

The Vatican should go ahead and rename it the Immaculate Misconception. That's how misinformed the laity is on this issue.


Question: What is the Immaculate Conception?

Answer you're most likely to hear in response from a baptized Catholic: Isn't it when Mary became pregnant with Jesus?


This, my brothers and sisters in Christ, is the Immaculate Misconception. The real answer to that question -- the one I'm sure I was asked for on at least one test at Strake, and that I can't believe I forgot -- is that it is a celebration of the moment when St. Anne became pregnant with Mary.

The Immaculate Conception has nothing to do with Jesus. It is a commemoration of Jesus' grandmother getting pregnant with his mother.

I went to Catholic school for 11 years, and somehow made it all the way through without knowing this fact.

Here is my question, though: This is a holy day of obligation? How far down the worm hole does the Vatican want to go, exactly? At what point do these conceptions cease to be immaculate? And the bigger question, in my mind, is how any conception could be more immaculate than the one that allegedly occurred without sexual intercourse ever taking place?!?!

Of course, I felt compelled to voice this concern out loud at the dinner table tonight, in front of two cousins under the age of 10.

"Come on, they're old enough," I said when the reaction of the older parties present indicated I maybe shouldn't have mentioned the S word out loud in front of the children.

"Actually, they're not," someone said.

"I mean, we're talking about God at least," I tried.

(What I didn't mention, as it would have only served to dig my hole deeper, was that they are old enough, seeing as my mother told me how babies were made when I was in kindergarten, and how gay sex worked by the time I had finished first grade. But she wasn't Catholic, so yeah.)

Just checked out the bowl schedule and I'm not sure what's more depressing: the fact that the Texas Bowl (which is in Houston the night before I leave to go to Ohio for NYE) did not get Notre Dame to play against hometown favorite Rice, or the scene the nation will be witnessing when it tunes into ESPN to watch the Motor City Bowl on December 26.

1) It's Florida Atlantic vs. Central Michigan. A hundred bucks goes to the first person who can name those two schools' mascots without Googling it. Another hundred goes to the first person able to name a player on each school's team.
2) It's in Detroit.
3) It's going to be played at Ford Field.
4) It's the day after Christmas during the worst recession since World War II, in Detroit, at Ford Field.

Honking horns and the taming of my inner African.

My Africa face.

I could really feel the change in me last night, at that red light. Like a wild dog that you take home from the SPCA, give it a bath, and teach it to sit. That's how I drive when I'm in America. Like the formerly rabid dog that has been given a bath and taught to sit.

The woman in front of me was the stereotypical woman who can't drive. Too slow, too hesitant, driving around in a rich white neighborhood in a vehicle entirely too large, probably purchased by a husband whose bank account is entirely too big, which paid for an engagement ring with entirely too much bling. Right after I hooked a left onto Auden and began treading in her wake, the woman tried to stop at a stop sign -- a stop sign -- and adjust her make up. I know this because her dash light was on and the mirror was flipped down, and because it took her about two seconds to start moving once I pulled up behind her.

"Stupid," I thought, without getting mad. In Africa, I would have gotten really mad at something like that. If they had stop signs in Africa, that is.

Then, we pulled up to the red light at Bellaire. I was turning right; she was clearly going straight ahead, into the neighborhood. Her blinker was not on. And even The Woman Who Can't Drive knows you can take a right on red. She flipped her mirror down once again, and the light came on. Finally, she could make herself beautiful.

Then the light turned green. And what do you know? The woman didn't move. She was too busy looking at her lips in the mirror. I waited, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt: one Miss-uh-ssippi, two Miss-uh-ssippi, she'll look up any moment now Miss-uh-ssippi... Nothing. I slightly, oh so slightly, tapped my horn. When I'm in America, the land of the civil, I hate people who honk. But this woman deserved to be 18-wheeler honked at, so she got off easy with my tap-tap-taparoo. Just give her a little tappy. It was so light that she didn't even hear it, and continued to paint her lips the color of the light she thought was still on.

Three Miss-uh-ssippi... The next honk was a little longer, but still just a tap. Maybe a quarter of a second long. Certainly nothing like the death honks I would lay on people who crossed me on Tanzanian roads. In Africa, I honk the way I boo at LSU football games. BOOOOOOOO!! HOOOOOOONNNNNKKKKKKKKK!!!!

In short, if this kind of stuff ever happened to me in Africa, I turned into Chris Farley after he found out on hidden camera that he hadn't been drinking regular coffee, but rather, Colombian decaffeinated coffee crystals: "Aaaangryyy."

The woman in the SUV with a fresh coat of lipstick heard the second tap of my horn, and started to move.

She took a right. A right on green.

The most amazing thing about the entire experience was that I didn't get angry. I didn't curse her. I didn't flick her off. I didn't even speed past her and give her a stern glare. When I lived in Tanzania, road rage was simply part of a balanced diet. I was a Mzungu in a world of Waafrika, and my guard was up, full time. Every moment of the day, even when I was relaxing, or laughing, or carrying on with friends in Swahili, there was an alarm in the back of my head that was ready. Kind of that Kung Fu style, relaxed state of alertness.

You have to be, if you're a Mzungu on that continent. Just ready, that's all. Ready to bring your A game to the msoto, a slang word we'd translate as "the hustle," or "the grind," or "the rat race," every day. Don't show weakness. Africans can smell it, like bees smell fear. This mentality -- Don't F with me, Usipime -- naturally carries over to the road, where people who have no business operating heavy machinery speed around on the two-lane highway like it's a video game, where you get more than one life before you die. Tanzanian drivers are animals, to put it quite simply. Barbaric. And what is the law of the jungle? Kill or be killed. Get angry. Make threatening hand motions at those who dare to cross you. Pass people who are going a mere 15 km over the "speed limit" (while the law may technically disagree, in effect, there is no such thing as a speed limit on Tanzanian highways; I use the term to denote what would be considered an acceptable speed on U.S. highways) without hesitation.

And always, always use that horn, for the slightest transgression. Especially when women in big SUV's are too busy fixing their make up in the mirror when the light turns green. If they had lights in Africa, that is.

(Actually, in Arusha, they put in the first one when I was there. Not that anyone paid any attention to it after sunset.)

Da (Bayless) Bears!

Yes. Yes.

"Great breakfast spots. Lubbock has tons of great places to eat breakfast. Other than that, there's pretty much nothing." - a Texas Tech senior I met last night.

Of course, there's also a pretty good football team in Texas' 12th biggest town, which used to be known only for Buddy Holly, wind and tumbleweeds.

A junior high art contest, on display next to baggage claim.

There is also a hill.

I emphasize the word "a"

As well as a truck, lifted anachronistically high, with my full initials on it.

Some day, anthropologists looking back on our society will write papers about the fact that people actually drove vehicles like this.

Other than that, there's not much in this northwest Texas town of 261,411. Or so I thought.

You know those feelings you get sometimes? Like a ouija board in your stomach, you feel it, pulling you. I am supposed to take a right instead of a left. I always try to listen to those feelings. Good things usually follow suit. An hour after landing in Lubbock, when I was cruising in my burnt orange Kia rental car looking for a place to eat, I had one. I am supposed to go eat at that cheap little Chinese food spot I saw back there. I can't explain it. I just obeyed. Always obey when you feel the inner ouija board pulling you in a certain direction.

The force which led me to pull a U-turn was not guiding me to Little Panda for the food, I'll tell you that. The Kung Pao chicken was terrible. It should have been called Kung Pao lots-of-vegetables-and-sauce-and-I-think-that-was-a-piece-of-chicken, but-I-can't-be-sure-because-I-left-my-glasses-in-the-car. At least the lunch platter came with Won Ton soup. I got up to go grab a spoon.

"Is everysing okay?" the immigrant woman working the register asked when she saw me temporarily convulse.

"That's my name!" I pointed towards the bottom right corner of the poster board on the wall. It was a sort of mass thank you card, covered with messages and names scribbled in little kid handwriting. "Thank you for the food," one wrote, "I almost ate all of it." Printed in a different color marker, though, below all of the messages, were three words: Bayless 3rd grade.

"That a school in Rubbock," she explained.

It didn't take me rong to find it. Rubbock isn't very rarge.

Can you say, new Facebook profile pic?

The first time I went, on Tuesday, it was 5 o'clock -- no one was there. I took some photos, many with me doing the thumbs up, some with me doing the No. 1 sign, all of them making me look very strange to passersby. I'm sure if R.F. Bayless Elementary could afford a security guard, he would have checked my pockets for candy. A quick lap around the premises let me know that I was now a Bears fan.

I already made the obvious pun in the title. I've got nothin'.

I get really excited when I see/hear of people or places that share my mom's maiden name. It's pretty rare. When it does happen, as with R.F., it's always the last name, never the first (or middle). There's Rick the chef, and Skip the annoying sportswriter, and the gay detective from the old NBC show "Homicide." And then last year, before Christmas, I read about a freshman guard for Arizona named Jerryd. An email sent to my dad with a link to his Team USA jersey on eBay and the word "christmas" in the subject line got me my first piece of actual Bayless gear.

Ho ho ho.

And I'm even more excited now that Jerryd Bayless is on the Portland Trail Blazers.

I always liked the number 4

Since he's getting next to no playing time as a rookie, his Portland jersey is unavailable for purchase as of now. I have plans to purchase three of them in the future: available in red, white and black! But now that I'm not living in Tanzania, and no longer playing ball at Soweto on a regular basis, I really don't get that many opportunities to rock sleeveless jerseys anymore. My muscles are too small for that. I needed some Bayless Bears t-shirts.

That's why I went back yesterday, at 4:00.




"This yo skoo?" a little black kid with a high pitched voice asked from his perch on the floor inside the doorway, after overhearing me explain to the middle aged extended day lady that no, I was not there to pick up a child, but rather, for a reason I guaranteed she had never heard before.

"That's right," I told the impressionable youth. He was wearing his backpack and looking me up and down, mouth agape, semi-confused, not quite knowing what to make of me. I was wearing my bright blue and red Houston Oilers jacket, a relic that predates his arrival on earth. "I am the owner. I own this school."

"Ahhh," he said, with a trace of awe in his voice. I sure didn't look like the old white man in the picture frame, he was probably thinking.

If anything, I think Mr. Bayless looks like my friend's dad, Hank.

Hank

Robert F***in' Bayless. I OWN this skoo.

I was lingering because I knew there was gear to be had. Debbie, the principal's secretary, had come out and admitted it once I walked into her office and told her my story. ("'Your story,'" my friend Tom remarked in quotes when I was telling him this story yesterday on the phone. "You say that as if 'your story' was really long or something. 'Your story' was that your name is Bayless.") Debbie knew for a fact that there were t-shirts with the word "Bayless" on them; and she knew where they were, too. And Erma, the woman from the hallway, had told me she had a click pen with my name on it. But after a few minutes in the principal's office, the farthest I'd gotten was Debbie asking for my name -- (Don't these people listen??) -- and phone number, so that once Beatrice came back, she could call me.

"Can't you just find someone who knows where the shirts are?" I pestered.

Normally, she said, she could. But the problem was that no one was around who had a key. Mysterious figures such as "Beatrice" and "Mrs. Montes," spoken of by the three women in the office as if I must know them, were at home, or "busy."

"Does Beatrice live near here?" I asked.

"Yes," Debbie said.

"Can I go to Beatrice's house and get the key?"

Debbie pretended not to hear, or pled the fifth, or lost her voice, or just chose not to respond. The girl whose name I never caught started smiling. Erma, who for some reason decided to tell me about the click pen and then dragged her feet in actually going to retrieve it -- even though I would definitely hand over any pen of mine that said "Erma Jasper Elementary" on it -- started to get suspicious.

"Do you have any sort of identification that I can see?"

I shuffled around in my pockets. Of course Erma decides to ask me this the one time I leave my license in the car. All I had was my Bank of Texas debit card, which says Robert B. Robert F***in' Bayless? No. Erma would not have liked that response.

"I swear I'm not lying."

"Yeah, why would he make that up?" the smiling, younger staff member asked, basically telling Erma to calm down.

"Erma," I pleaded, "come on. If Debbie isn't gonna get Beatrice, at least go get that pen."

In my experience, if you immediately start using people's first names like you know them, they start to treat you like they know you. Especially in small towns like Lubbock. Erma went to go get the pen.

And Debbie, she, too, got up from her chair and disappeared.

They both came back at the same time, bearing gifts.

I always liked that Debbie

"I've got two for you to choose from," Debbie said, as she laid the shirts out on her desk, while I stared at the click pen, mesmerized, clicking, in-out, in-out, "This is so awesome," beaming, in-out. "Pick one."

One was Red Raider red and black and gave my name a more prominent role. The other actually said "Bears," but even cooler, had the tag line: Character counts at BAYLESS.




How could I possibly choose?

"Can I have both?"

"Don't get greedy."

"Come on Debbie. Beatrice won't mind." I still have no idea who Beatrice is.

Debbie smiled. Erma, too, was tickled. This was probably a very exciting event for them; a visitor! "Take 'em," she said.

Robert F***in' Bayless Elementary. I own that school.

I just saw a real, live tumbleweed.

And it wasn't on "The Simpsons."

I'd be lying if I said I dreamed of working for a salvage company as a kid. But hey, I've got a job. About 7.5% of my compatriots in this country can't say the same, and that number is rising fast. Seeing as I'm on a week-to-week basis as an "independent contractor" (I feel so grown up saying that), I might be part of that subset in the near future. But for now, I'm making bills, I'm living at home, I'm making sandwiches and I'm saving cash, biding my time.

Ah, the salvage business. It gets me out of a cubicle, at least. If I can't be traveling the world, I might as well be sifting through its damaged goods and meeting the diverse and interesting characters who own them. I just bought a pair of Dickies khakis that have a side pocket, specifically so that I can continue to carry around my trademark notebooks and still look professional. Golden writing material isn't confined just to the Balkans and East Africa, after all.

Illegal immigrants and chrome plated rims in Aldine, porno-watching truck drivers and oil refineries in Baytown, 72-year-old black Cajun dudes named "Good Time Charlie" and Persian rug stores in Baton Rouge, desperate housewife entrepreneurs and women's clothing boutiques in Conroe, and now, at this very moment, tumbleweeds and tobacco shops in Lubbock, Texas, home of Mike Leach and fire-and-brimstone talk radio.

This is my life. The life of a salvor. (Bet you never even knew that word existed, eh?)

(Interesting note: the guy I'm working with up here, fah fah away from Houston and still comfortably within the borders of the great state of Texas, once tackled Amani Toomer from behind in a high school football game and took him out of the game with an ankle injury. Or so he says. I desperately hope this is true. For me, and for him.)

Lubbock talk radio is the opposite of National Public Radio. It is all about Jesus and gays and the End of Days, delivered to you in the thickest of Southern accents. I was cruising around this morning on the flat, wind swept plains of northwest Texas, shortly after seeing a huge tumbleweed blow across the four lane highway ("If you don't watch out, those suckers'll put a big ole' dent in your truck," Amani Toomer's high school nemesis noted), with the radio on scan, when I heard something interesting that caused me to click scan again and listen for a bit. Here is what I heard, as best as I can recall:

Caller: "A national intelligence estimate recently released stated that American economic and military clout will diminish in the next two decades, while the instances of conflict, and proliferation of dangerous weapons will increase. Do you think that American power will decrease?"

Radio Host: "I do believe American power will decrease, and I think it has been decreasing for quite some time now. And I think it started in 1963, when they took prayer out of the schools..."

It was at this point that I erupted with laughter and clicked scan again. No time for this drivel, I thought. But then, remembering that there aren't many good radio stations in Lubbock, I clicked seek to go back. I wanted to hear this guy out. Writing material, remember? Sort of a "When in Lubbock" attitude.

Radio Host: "...when you take God out of the schools, that is when you begin to decline as a nation..."

(I could go on but I'd rather get to the part where the same caller describes the host's advice as "prophetic.")

Caller: "In your prophetic advice, what would you say about the U.S. auto industry?"

Radio Host: "On March 4th, 2005, you see, I received a dream. God sent me a dream. And in this dream, I foresaw that the U.S. auto industry would fail. I was standing on the brake in this dream. I mean, I was standin' on it! And I had both hands on the steering wheel, pushin' on the brake in this dream! And no matter what I did, no matter how hard I pushed down, the car just kept rollin' down the hill. And that is when I knew that the U.S. auto industry would fail."

Funny. Others had the same realization in their waking hours, but they deduced it from balance sheets, pension costs, quarterly figures, stuff like that.

Like I said, at least I'm not in a cubicle.

Best Buy, why do you lie?

Show your lying face!

What does this photo of a Best Buy employee named April have to do with this photo of a 12th century rock hewn church in the Ethiopian town of Lalibela?

Bet Giorgis, as seen through my father's eyes (sans Lasik), or my camera's

The answer: both are blurry.

The reason: because the camera used to take them fell out of my bike basket in Bagamoyo last April, and the $79 warranty I purchased to protect myself against such a scenario isn't exactly what it's cracked up to be.

First, we go back in time, to the days when I had a perfectly functional camera and no warranty, before I had ever even thought to insure an investment like that. I had just gotten back from the Balkans, for a two month stay at home before heading off to East Africa for a year. A bunch of friends and I were up in the hill country, chilling at our place in Hunt. We went swimming one afternoon, taking turns plunging into the green water of the Guadalupe River. I did a few swings off the triangle next door. Swam around a bit. Then Caroline asked, "What's the bulge in your pocket?" -- don't get any ideas -- and I realized, before even looking down, "Something I wish wasn't in there."

The sun didn't dry it out -- nor, as it turns out, did it dry out my iPod or my iPod speakers, both of which had gotten rained on the night before, when my friends and big sister left them outside after I'd already gone to sleep. It was a pretty bad day for me electronically. It was a really bad day for me electronically. Probably the worst electronic day of my career.

iPods, though, aren't really as essential for me when I'm traveling as a camera. I needed a camera for Africa. So I ponied up some major dollars (this is where all of my eBay proceeds went) for a new one. But I also needed to protect my new investment, in the wake of the river debacle.

They sold me on it pretty hard.

"Blah blah blah you should get the four year warranty blah blah for seventy nine dollars blah blah. If it breaks, for any reason, and you bring the camera in, you will get a free camera." - The Lying Liar Salesman, Best Buy, June 2007

For any reason? I'll get a new camera, if it breaks, for any reason? I'm going to Africa, man. A lot of messed up stuff could happen to that camera there. Genocide, famine, AIDS, rope swings. Any reason?

Yes, he swore, the lying liar. Anything. New camera.

What about if I'm on a safari, and an elephant tramples it?

Yes, brand new camera.

And then I get caught in the crossfires of a renewed civil war in the Congo, and it gets destroyed by an artillery barrage?

Yes, just bring it in, and we'll give you a brand new one.

And then the wildebeest migration begins, and I just happen to have gotten a flat on the Serengeti, and they trample over it like it's Mufasa?

Too bad Simba was too cheap to throw down the $79 for the warranty

Anything, the salesman assures you, as he thinks "QUOTA!" and inwardly sings, in a creepy, deep British accent, "Beeee preeee-PAAAAAAARRRRED!"

Scar = guy in a blue collared shirt who didn't graduate from college

Warranty + damaged camera = new camera. All you have to do is bring it in, and it's simple as that, the salesman swears.

Wait for it.

Waaaaait for it.

Okay now:

"NOOOOOOOOT!"

It is NOT as simple as that.

This isn't even an issue of reading or not reading the fine print. It's an issue of there not being any fine print. They're just liars. They tell you one thing; they do another; and they bank on the fact that no one is going to sue them over it because it's just not worth the time or money.

They're crafty bastards, those blue shirts at Best Buy.

Rather than coming in and getting a new camera when yours breaks, they force you to sit in line at the Geek Squad waiting deck, while two Geeks roam around behind the counter doing nothing to help anyone, one Geek actually works with the lucky customer who has persevered long enough to make it to the counter, and a neverending chain of new customers come up trying to cut you in line, testing your mettle and ability to tell them to get in the back of the line.

I've gotten really good at telling people to get back in line, now that I've sent my camera in for "repairs" three times now.

See, this is how they get you.

Turns out the warranty means that you get a new camera ... but only after you've sent in the old four times to get fixed. This takes a minimum of three months. This camera ain't coming back. I know it; Best Buy knows it; the guy at wherever they're mailing my baby to knows it, too. But around and around we continue to go. I know what they're doing; they're testing me. Do I have the wherewithal to continue to come to the store, stand in line at the Geek Squad desk (for those of you who don't know, the Best Buy IT support desk really is called the "Geek Squad"), fill out the necessary forms and then wait?

My answer: I'm going to get that free camera. I know not the meaning of "opportunity cost." I'm on mail in no. 3 at the moment. In a few weeks, my camera will return, still not fixed, at which point I will return, to Best Buy, also still not fixed, and return it for a fourth and final time. Allegedly, this is when I will be led to my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: a new camera; an admission of defeat for Best Buy. And a great moral victory for myself.