Good Night

I am sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable black leather poppa chair in my living room, and I am shrinking. I can't feel it, but I now know for sure that I am shrinking ! Isn't that what the Wicked Witch of the West said in The Wizard of Oz? I am shrinking.

Because my age index is pretty high, but my maturity level hasn't kept up with it, I often wonder if, "I'm shrinking" is what psychologists say when the phone rings while they're working. "I can't talk to you now, I'm shrinking."

Can you imagine listening to a shrink dealing with a manic depressive patient. "Cheer up. Calm down. Cheer up. Calm down." That would wear anybody down. Maybe that's why they call Psychiatrists shrinks. They're all worn down.

Big Louie, his own bad self, the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation, says there are six gears on your love boat. There's neutral...when there's nothing going on. There's pre-fore-play...like when Lady Wonder Wench is taking a shower. There's fore-play, like stuff having to do with feathers.

There's Play, of course. Then there's After play, which is the gear that most people don't think about. And there's reverse... which is a condition that is marked by silence, serious sulking, exaggerated politeness, needing your own space, having an affair, or moving to seperate states.

Those are the six gears on your love boat. If you don't deal with number five the right way, number six will hit you. And your love boat will back up and crash on the rocks.

I spent the afternoon in a Manly way. I was felling trees with my chain saw. Then I tossed huge logs into piles that stacked all the way to the roof. Well...part of the way. Then, when I was sure my Lady Wonder Wench was watching out the window, I stalked all over the property for signs of bears or other predatory wild life, which haven't actually been seen here since the James Madison administration...but my Lady Wonder Wench was watching, so I figured I'd go stalking around with my shotgun ready...just in case. All in an afternoon's work for a Manly Louie-Louie Generation guy.

What we have needed for so long is the opposite of the word..."Hello." A catch all statement that definitively puts an end to a phone conversation without offending anybody, or making you lie... too much. A simple but effective statement to terminate a phone conversation with any one without hurting any feelings. A statement so simple, emphatic and believeable, that even one of the Pimple People would understand. A statement with class, with feeling, with urgency. In short a statement that any Louie-Louie Generation guy or gal can use with confidence, clarity, and even a touch of élan.

Valentine's Day is a great excuse for some extra hugging, and kissing, and general fooling around. I have heard that some people get so carried away they even hug the nearest tree. Big Louie, his own bad self, the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation puts that into perspective. He always says, "It's ok to hug a tree. As long as that's as far as it goes."

And at the other extreme are a couple of guys I know who just ignore Valentine's Day. I guess they've just grown up too much to enjoy themselves anymore. And of course, there are quite a few folks who are taking another heavy hit to the heart this Valentine's Day. And unfortunately, it's true that sometimes...the hottest loves end in the coldest words. That's tough.

I've been lucky. The last time that happened to me was with a blonde. Blue eyes. We were in Kindergarten. Her name was Joanie. And she didn't even open my Valentine's Day card. Kind of made me feel like just another sock in the laundromat of life. That was a long time ago, and I've pretty much forgotten all about it. Mostly.

It is leap year, but I am not leaping from my big, comfortable, black leather poppa chair, because I have found that I don't bounce nearly as well as I used to. That's such an athletic word...leap. It suggests a finely muscled athlete... perhaps in a leotard...soaring into the air. I don't mind doing the soaring, but I don't like being sore, so it's the crashing back to the ground that sometimes bothers me.

Suppose you were God, and you wanted to make a really nasty, cold month...which if you were God, you'd have a perfect right to do. Maybe you wanted people to know, and appreciate, that just as you could make a stinking hot month like August, you could make a crappy cold month too if you felt like it. In your mercy, you'd make it shorter than the other months, but it would be really nasty cold.

So you made the month, and gave it the name February... because, FeBRUary has that nice kind of cold BRRR sound in there. Now suppose your clueless people keep leaving out the BRRR. They keep calling it Febyouary. If you were God, wouldn't you kind of tighten down the cold screws a little, hoping people would get the point?

Valentine's Day is coming. That's a big deal around here. In some places it's not. I guess like a lot of things, it depends on the context. The context here is that my Lady Wonder Wench seriously disrupts the estrogen level for most of this zip code. When she walks around in her two piece...which is what I call her bedroom slippers...I often lose control of my eyebrows, my ears, my fingers, and many of my other parts, and I am...for a short period of time...once again...Lifeguard Man. So I'm sitting here in my big, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room, scratching my head...which feels good by the way...trying to think of a new and better way to put how I feel about my Lady Wonder Wench into a Valentine's Day context.

I'm sitting here in my big, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room, watching my Lady Wonder Wench giggle...at the fact that I may never again be able to get up from my big, comfortable black leather poppa chair...because I've had my first real work out at the gym since we moved here...which was a long time ago. Actually all I did was swim in their 25 meter long pool. I did 800 meters. And I now have a real appreciation for the difference between a yard and a meter. A meter is approximately 6 miles longer than a yard.

I need to put this in context for you. I was, in my "yout"...which is the Brooklyn word meaning young person...the chief lifeguard at Coney Island's Section 4. I was...at that time...I was...I believe the term is...ripped. There were days when I had paperwork to do in the lifeguard shack, but I felt that it was my duty to go for a stroll along the beach because I looked so good. That was then. This is now. I realized yesterday that I have spent a little too much time in my poppa chair...because when I went to stand up and tighten my belt...for an agonizing few seconds...I couldn't find it. And when I did tighten it, I felt like I was all of a sudden two inches taller.

In our constant struggle to save the world, stop the sky from falling, and keep Victoria's Secret from falling into the wrong hands...the ones with cold fingertips, the Big Louie Department of Defense and Fooling Around has decided that we have run out of options. It's time to target the tear mongers. We are about to launch our ultimate un-doomsday weapon...our "Whistle Missile."