Dr. Jan Prasad.........Attempted Murder!

It was 1/23/2005 and Dr. Jan Prasad was fast asleep in the hospital dormitory, as it was about 4 AM and he had been on his feet all day. Sadly, he was on a rotation, it was his turn to be attending cardiologist at Paradise Valley Hospital that eventful night. In the Cath Lab, layed a frightened man about 58 years of age, that had just been misdiagnosed by another sleepy doctor working the Emergency Room. He was told he had been having a heart attack, but it turned out to be untrue. 

The patient, me, had been having a difficult time taking a deep breath, but was still able to run up stairs and do his daily work without discomfort and the problem that had brought me to the ER was the feeling that my lungs were just not accepting air as usual. It kind of felt like they were somewhat already filled with something. Not knowing that Paradise Valley had a horrible reputation for scamming potential patients to extract extra money from them, I chose to go there, since it was close. It turned out that Mayo Clinic was just as close, probably closer.

The Cath Lab was an operating room setting, with people wearing masks all around me and a huge monitor above me. I laid there making jokes, so as not to cry. Suddenly, the two operating room doors swung open and a maniac with a foreign accent, somewhere in the Middle East, came busting in, similar to the way that Elvis would entered the stage. He was ranting and screaming at everyone, myself included. I don't recall what he said to others, but to me he said, "From now on you're my patient and you don't listen to any other doctors, do you understand?" I nodded, yes! I kept thinking that at any moment security would come through those same doors to contain this escaped maniac, but it turned out, he was my doctor, (holy crap).

He began by asking me what allergies I might have and then asked if I were allergic to shrimp? I thought we were going to order out, but it just turned out he wanted to know if I were allergic to iodine. The next thing I know, there is someone puling off my pants and shaving cream is applied to my private area and a razor is being applied. Quickly, I was naked and shaven and still no one explained anything to me. I started praying!

The overhead monitor lit up and suddenly I was watching my own angio-gram. Terribly interesting. Now, the maniac yells out that he's found 75% blockage and is going to install a stent. Huh? At some point and I'm watching on the monitor, he's having a difficult time and begins cursing, when he pushes too hard forward and I watch the monitor fill up with blood, or for all intents and purposes, just turn black. I ask the idiot/doctor what just happened, because I could tell from the reaction of the others in the room that something very bad had just occurred. I heard him casually say, "I tore your heart"!

At first it didn't even compute. I stalled, my thinking was adjusting for what he meant. Can you tear a person's heart? If so, what do you do to resolve it? My thoughts went directly to John Ritter, the actor who had just died of a torn aorta. Was I going to die? I asked the butcher/doctor and his reply was a casual, "I don't think so, we have a controlled environment and we'll fly you to John C. Lincoln Hospital and you'll have open heart surgery" and he walked away... I asked someone why they don't just do the surgery here and was told, because we don't have a cardiology department..........huh?

So they called Air-O-Vac and they flew me over for about $17000. I remember seeing the sun coming up over Camelback Mountain and how beautiful it was and praying that it wasn't the last thing I'd see. We landed on the roof at J. C.  Lincoln and looked for the first person I saw that looked like they could administer an IV. By this time, I was in severe pain, as blood was leaking out into my chest cavity. They put me out and I was in a coma for 2 and 1/2 weeks. During that time, I lost kidney function, as someone did not install the assist pump properly and it caused my kidneys to shut down. My son flew in from CA and was told that I was not going to make it. While I was out cold, I had several more procedures to try to keep me alive. I had a blood clot removed from my lung and constant drainage of my lungs that were filled with fluid. I was turning septic, I was told. 

During that period of time, they discovered what was really wrong with me to begin with. When they opened me up and I mean with a scalpel and a dremel to saw open my poor chest, they found a liter and a half of fluid in my pericardium, the sack around my heart. I had endocarditis or an infection in my heart. All of this could have been avoided with an antibiotic. They also found a aneurysm, that otherwise may never have been found and may have killed me? Perhaps this was part of God's big plan to begin with, I'll never know.

One thing I do know, is that doctors and nurses were lined up to congratulate me for my survival and as far as Dr. Jan Prasad was concerned, I think he may have come to see me, although I was pretty heavily drugged and had a hard time telling reality from hallucinations. I think he came to see me, but had nothing positive to say, only that my chart did not look too good, that he didn't think I was going to make it and left without saying, I'm sorry, or things like that happen sometimes. He was very negative and I never answered him or replied in any way. I watched him walk out and asked the nurse to not allow him back, that he seemed unbalanced...

I wrote this story in 2007 in more detail, but neglected to mention the horrible doctor's name, due to repercussions...It's been 8 horrible years since 2005. The man literally ended my life as I knew it. I suffered the initial shock of what happened, endured dialysis and bi-weekly pumping of fluid out of my lungs for months. Several surgeries to install and remove lines and pumps. Many more procedures including a misdiagnosis of bone cancer that continued for 6 months. This man cost my my life as I knew it.............. and no apology!

Nerds, Running Amok...

January 23, 2005

It was 8 years ago today. No one but me really cares. It's my first wife's 68th birthday. She was really cool at 23 when I married her, but over the years, ah, never mind. Eight years ago today, some maniacal doctor was preforming an angiogram on me, hiccuped and poked a hole through the descending artery of my heart. Nice job Achmed. That's what you get for having an angiogram at 4 AM. They flew me to a real hospital, performed open heart surgery and just 2 1/2 weeks later, I awakened to ask WTF? At that point, I had been 2 1/2 weeks sober so I figured this might be a good time to quit drinking. Turns out, it was!

On the dating services, all of the non drinking women contact me and want to talk about meetings and "one day at a time". Not me, I just want to move on to the future. It doesn't bother me in the least not to drink and cannot for the life of me figure out why I drank alcohol all of those years. I guess I'm just lucky! So okay, number 8 is out of the way. What, no chip?

Today was an interesting day. I drove around aimlessly looking for a house to rent and never even saw one. Finally, I was about to turn a corner off of a busy road, when I saw a for rent sign on the corner. I knew I would be killed instantly if I stopped to take down the number and after surviving Achmed's wobbly hand, I wasn't about to lose my life to an oncoming semi, rear ending me. I made a quick turn and turned the corner, getting out of harm's way and walked back to take down the number. I imagined how hard this must have been before cell phones, as I dialed the guy's number and got the usual..........voice mail. I left my usual message and headed for a treat at McDonald's, I was starved.

It seems that about everything in my life has changed. Even McDonald's. There were 2 old men sitting at a table, right next to each other playing a game on this computer that was installed on the table, huh??? Walking past them, I got into line in this upscale McDonald's. It was my turn and I ordered a quarter pounder, fries and a small diet Coke. The man in his early thirties punched my order into a computer and began asking questions. Is a medium fries okay? Is a medium diet Coke okay? Yes and Yes. I could see what was going on here, they claim to not have a small size so they can increase your order to medium. I felt like going outside to see if the small fries were all in the trash, next to the small diet Cokes! Then he asked for my first name. I said, Mel, what's yours? He just looked at me, like I had at least 2 heads. I took my little tray into the back room, where I would probably feel more comfortable. They used to have a children's playground back there, but it had been removed. The only people in the backroom were teenagers of Hispanic culture, hey Vato! Kind of looked like a meeting, 180, I was out of there. I found a 4 seat table across from some barely teenage boys and sat down, only to find out they had sold me a quarter pounder with cheese, artificial cheese. Another revenue builder. I'll bet that about no one that is hungry ever returns it and complains. I neglected to tell you that my total was over 7 dollars!

My burger was the size of the old 15 cent burgers we used to get when we were kids. I opened it immediately, I was famished. My burger was room temperature at best and was dead cold by the time I finished. My fries were cold to begin with but, hell, I was hungry and hate to return food anywhere to get it spit on! The most interesting thing were the teenage boys and no, I'm not a pedophile. They were all four about prepubescent age, probably somewhere between 13 and 15. The one boy was black, another mentioned he was from Europe more than once, the only words that were pretty obvious were "Dude and Bro". They were used in about every sentence. Another common denominator that defined the 4 boys was the word Nerd! Four nerds, attracted to one another due to nerdiness. Another thing that made it pretty obvious that they were all four virginal nerds, were their legs never stopped bobbing and jumping under the table. They could not just sit still. They looked like 4 Flamenco dancers under the table and 4 nerds, above. This is a result of hormones rushing through their blood vessels, screaming for release. Oh, how I miss those hormones! Directed properly, those 8 legs could have powered a generator that would accommodate the needs of the city of Cave Creek!

AT&T.......... AGAIN, LAST TIME, I PROMISE....

This is a bad day in the life of me. Today I did something that I swore I would not do. I paid the horrible company of AT&T, rather reluctantly. They didn't earn it in any way, shape or fashion and the time that I spent on the phone with them, before my call would drop, probably came to about 20 hours. Still, nothing but lies and underhanded misrepresentations. Still, this is not a comfortable feeling knowing that some pompous company is going to turn me over to a collection agency. It's also not a good time for that. Dealing with AT&T feels like borrowing from the mob. They have ways of making you pay! My payment was due on 12/28 and on 12/29 I received the first of many threatening letters, by snail mail of all possible ways, but that's not really why I paid. At no time in my life was my credit ever bad. I've always paid everyone on time and in full. Now that I'm anticipating changing my living situation (again), I'm going to be required to have my ducks in a row and no record of not paying my cell phone bill, or even having it delinquent. 

Let's talk about my current living situation and why I'm here. I was previously living with the Lovely Jules and when that situation fell apart, it was time to move on. When I say fell apart, I'm referring to the air conditioning. It quit and really hadn't worked all year, so we lived with space heaters all winter. When spring came and it comes in late February in Phoenix, no one wanted to put out the money for replacing the unit and it was getting into the 100's. I got misdiagnosed with Endocarditis and went immediately to the hospital for treatment. The day that I got out was a rather funny story. I had purchased a truck from a woman for a rather low price, an 01 Dodge Ram extra cab for $1700. Upon seeing her living situation with a 5000 sq. ft house and a 7 car garage, I inquired about storing my Corvette with her. She agreed and I said, you want my car, but you don't want me. She replied that she would rent me a room. Upon looking at the room, it was brand new and had it's own door to the outside, plus it was huge! It was part of a new room addition and no one had ever lived in it before. We shook hands on it after agreeing upon a rental figure that was quite affordable.

The day I moved in, I was in surgery at 10 AM, got discharged from the hospital at noon, moved until 5 PM with the help of my son plus movers and sold the truck for $4500 at 6 PM. I had spent about 6 or 7 hundred on the truck, but still generated a $2300 profit. I was extremely ill from the drugs they were piping into me, by an at home nurse that came everyday. The house was huge and could have been magnificent if it weren't for her. Unknown to me, she was a hoarder! I was under the impression that she had just moved in when I first saw the place, but here it is 6 or 7 months later and things never got cleaned up, but were worse than ever! 

For income, she sells crap on eBay and what she calls her office is stacked with boxes that I have never looked into, why would I? Piles and piles of torn up papers in cardboard boxes. When I first looked at the place, way back when I bought the truck, there was a huge atrium in the center of the house surrounded by glass with a skylight roof. Naturally, it had a dirt floor and could just picture how beautiful it would be with a Bogon Via tree and other desert plants. When I moved in the following week, she had had it cemented and filled with old clothes and new, along side of racks of clothes and to make things kind of eerie, a full box of dolls heads!

With her is her little boy, Ralph. Ralph is about 32 years old and seldom speaks to anyone. When Ralph is in his room and by the way, his room looks as bad as the rest of the house, he watches cartoons on TV, on his iPad and laughs with a woman's voice, really loud. Yeah, it sounds like the Bates Motel!!! He plays video games about 13 hours a day at one sitting and does it everyday. He had a job working, doing research for a motivational speaker, but got fired several months ago. He went to a cooking school and when he graduated was hired by a company in CA, but didn't want to leave her, according to Mommy. Are you hearing dysfunctional? The garbage dumpster is about 20 yards from the backdoor, but piles of garbage lie right next to the back door and if I don't take the garbage out to the road, no one does. I stopped doing it about a month ago and watched it just pile up in the yard. The refrigerator smells like a toilet after heavy use, thank God I've got my own little fridge in my room.

In the 7 car garage, I occupy one bay and the rest is filled ceiling to floor with junk, you know, just like a hoarder?

Aside from the 3 bedrooms, the balance of the house is not heated or air conditioned, too expensive. There are 5 bathrooms, but only Mom's and Ralph's work fully. I have nowhere to shave, so I shave in the shower, which is in mom's room. The bathroom that I choose to use is in the billiard room and somewhat private. It has a toilet but not a functioning sink. There's a bathroom adjoining the laundry room, it had a good toilet and a sink that works, but no lock on the door or mirror over the sink.

One of the bigger issues is no privacy. Mom doesn't have manners and was obviously brought up by turkeys. She's a Chicago, south side Italian and everyone has to know it. She just opens my door and comes walking in without knocking, EVER! In my room, there is a safe room, that her husband was planning on keeping his guns and other things of value. He chose a high road to travel.  The room has it's own AC vent and everything. After I moved in, she had Ralph install rods on the slump block walls and put tons of clothes into it, as well as about 300 pairs of shoes. When she goes out and she used to go out every night and get drunk, she would change into her outfit and model it for me and ask me how she looks. I'd gag and tell her beautiful. When she leaves, I throw up! 

I neglected to mention that Ralphie is 6' 4" and weighs about 275 lbs, so he's no little boy, yet his baby pictures and baby shoes are displayed proudly. Below are a few pictures of this dysfunction.

The Atrium

The Atrium again

The Office

The Office from a different angle.

Master Bedroom

And again

Ralphie's Room

He learned it from Mommy...

Big, Big, Day for Me...

Chicken Hawk

This day comes around every year and I know you all expect the usual January 17th report of how I'm doing, right? This is the day that I have been married to my second wife for 26 years (divorced 21), It's 25 glorious years since I stopped putting cigarettes in my mouth and sucked on them and of course it's 22 years since my first hair transplant. 

My second wife passed away about 2 years after we split up, she was found dead in a parked car in Northern California. I finally quit smoking as a one year anniversary present to both my new wife of one year and myself and the hair transplant was so painful and expensive that I swore I'd NEVER do it again! Then about 3 years later, before caller ID, I answered a ringing phone and it was the doctor's office calling, telling me that they had a last minute cancellation and they offered me the $500 deposit off of my procedure price, plus they were willing to do it for a mere $5000, compared to the $7500 I had paid for the first one, if I could schedule it for the following day, assuming I would have an HIV test today, before coming in, because they refused to work on anyone with HIV. Being of Jewish heritage, I loved a good deal and took the opportunity to look like my old hairy self, ouch! I guess I had been doing the hard to detect "comb-over" long enough. Isn't it funny how the memory of pain fades away so quickly, with the thought of a discount just over the horizon?

So today was rather unusual. I needed to go to Fry's pharmacy to pick up some prescriptions and I hadn't driven my car in a few days due the weather being so frigid. One night it was actually in the upper teens and this is Scottsdale, AZ. So I walked back to where my car was parked, away from the severe elements and as I walked, I heard this God awful screaming coming from somewhere behind the garage. When I turned the corner, I looked up on top of a telephone pole and there stood 2 Chicken Hawks, just looking down at me and trying their best to poop on my red Corvette. I waved my arm and clapped my hands, but to no avail. I don't know if you're familiar with Chicken Hawks, but they're big enough to killed chickens and carry them away, thus the name. Now, if I were good at this writing thing, I'd be able to give you a link to see how big these suckers are, but that's not me, so you're on your own!

I fired up my car and fought my way to Fry's in 3 PM traffic. When I got there, I was required to pay a new copay for the same drugs I'd been getting for free with my health insurance. I got stuck with the Middle Eastern fellow that always waits on me and never ever gets anything right. I decided to just pay the copay and hope for better help next time. I drove home without incident and when I put my car away, there on the ground laid one of the Chicken Hawks, deader than Kelsey's nuts! (An expression that my father-in-law used regularly) I kind of felt bad for the poor guy, like we had bonded in some way. I kind of touched it with my shoe and gave it a little nudge............nothing! Yep, it was surely dead. Did it's mate get pissed and finally push it off the telephone pole? Even if it had, why couldn't it just fly away? Maybe it's mate just got tired of all that constant screaming and gave it a lethal peck to the brain? Or was it just plain old, old age and natural causes? I've decided not to have an autopsy, but the funeral is planned for tomorrow. I'm inviting the cat!

Fallen Hero

A Laughing Matter or Two...

I've been on miscellaneous dating services for about 10 years, when in fact my true love was right there at my fingertips, all the while. She was on my iPhone 5. Her name is Siri and here is how I realized she was for me, all along. I've used Siri to make calls for me when I was driving at night. For awhile I was dating a woman in Chandler and while driving, I'd hit Siri up and ask her to call Whitey (she had white hair). Siri would answer with, "Whitey's home number of mobile?" Whitey didn't even have a landline. So I'd say mobile and the phone would start ringing her. I never realized Siri had other capabilities until I was watching TV and there was a commercial for iPhones and Siri was shown getting someone a weather report. I don't have to mention that the entire Valley of the Sun, in Arizona has been having extremely unseasonal weather, so I asked Siri to get me the weather report for Scottsdale. She immediately responded to my command and soon I was finished with it and told Siri, "Thank you". She audibly respond, "You're very welcome, Mel"! GASP!!!! I started really LOLing as I was totally in shock. How did Siri know my name? We'd never spoken and I certainly never told her my name. Did she get it from Verizon? Or was it AT&T that talked to her? Truthfully, I'll never know, but my only question is, what's our next step???

Here's another thing that has been keeping me laughing. There is a commercial on TV advertising some product that sucks the wax out of your ears. (Really) I don't know the name of the product because I'm laughing too hard and here's why. They show a man poking his ear with a Q-Tip and it talks about how you should never use a Q-Tip for cleaning your ears, because you will puncture your ear drum. As soon as they say this, the jumps and screams, "OUCH" combined with really terrible acting. Every time I watch it, I roll on the floor laughing or LMAO! Watch for it. It's not on network TV, but stations like TRU or TLC. You'll thank me!

A Strange Thing Happened Tonight...

I'm 66 years old (damn) and for all of my life, I've been enamoured by girls. That seems to have changed suddenly, so call this my coming out party. I am now officially enamoured by women! No more girls for me. My ideal woman is a grandmother, but one that has kept her shape somewhat intact and still has that irresistible gene that says, "Take Me", but of course, not without permission!

In my ongoing search for a mate in this world we live in, I spoke with a lady tonight, for what turned out to be 2 hours and 15 minutes and if it weren't for her cutting off the conversation, I'd still be chatting away. It went something like this:

The first few moments of our conversation was a tad awkward, us being total strangers put together by a dating service. I wrote to her one evening while on an Ambien high and she responded rather favorably. I quickly ran to the computer to see what I had babbled this time and was pleasantly surprised to see that I was fairly civil. That's not often the case. We agreed to talk tonight, but instead of a phone call, I got a message from the dating service that she had somehow lost my phone number and she supplied me with hers. I called. I started our conversation with,"This is going to go onto your personal record that follows you all the way through school"! She replied, "What, I had my mixer on"... I told her, I never had my mixer on! She said, that's because you probably don't bake! I said, let's move on...

At some point in our conversation, she mentioned she was from Chicago and that's all it took. We were off and running and didn't stop for 2 hours and 15 minutes. I told her that I too was from Chicago and she asked, what part? I said Skokie and and she said, me too! Then she asked if I were Jewish and I told her yes and she again said, me too! I asked what street she lived on and she said, Drake and Drake was just one street over from St. Louis where I lived. I asked what address and she told me and we lived just a block and a half away from one another. I was getting chills! She knew of all the same local restaurants that we went to as kids, where to get her corned beef on Sundays and bagels and lox for that matter. She even worked at the dairy Queen that I went to for Sundaes in the summer. She took her dog to the vet that I worked for when I was only 10, but I quickly realized why we had never run into one another. She is 9 years younger than me. When my friends and I were driving around at age 16, she was 7. She married an Irish Catholic man that was an alcoholic. I was married to a woman that was an alcoholic. Her son is in jail for 3 DUI's and I have a son that did some time for various things too. She owned a chocolate shop in Scottsdale for many years and moved here in 1973. I got here in 1974. She just finished school to study echosonography. She starts her new job in a doctor's office on Monday morning. Echosonography is the study of organs through the echo system, as in an echocardiagram.

It seems that we've made it through the interview phase, now we just have to meet and see if we like each other. Sometimes, that's the hard part!

What Did We Do before the Internet and Facebook?

I'm a computer addict. Everything in my life is based around the Internet. I sleep with my iPhone on vibrate and I place it on my wallet, to cushion the noise it make, so it won't awaken me when I'm sleeping. If I'm awake, I turn on the light and read the email or notice that I receive. Thank goodness Facebook notices only make it light up and don't vibrate or I'd be checking it out every time someone changed their profile picture (which it used to do)

When I wake up, the first thing I do, (sometimes before even peeing) is check my dating service notices to see what woman wrote to me while I was asleep. I check text messages and then last but not least, emails. Yeah, I'm hooked! When my last wife called out across the entire house that she was planning on moving out, I was in the billiard room playing "solitaire", on the computer. I yelled, what???

Facebook is another phenomenon. I lost 3 friends on Facebook in the last 45 days. Not because they unfriended me, but because they died! What's going on with that? I'm only 66 for Christ's sake and when will spell-check realize that Facebook is not 2 words and unfriended IS a word invented by Face Book. One of the decreased, I didn't even know. I was going through the people that I went to high school with and thought she was someone that I did know, but when she accepted my friendship offer, I realized I'd never even heard of her. Now that I've been notified that she died today, I really don't know what to say!

I'd better cut this short. I left my phone in the other room and I'm feeling kind of at a loss. I have to see if anyone changed their profile picture on Facebook!

AT&T is the WORST!

If Alexander Graham Bell knew what AT&T was doing, he never would have invented the telephone! I had the misfortune of calling AT&T yesterday to try to get someone to sympathize with me about my bill with them, but to no avail. Until my house went to short sale, a couple of years ago, my credit was about flawless. My number was 825 and I had never not paid anyone for any reason. Five weeks ago I had to breach my contract with AT&T due to, not poor service, but no service, ongoing for about 6 or 7 months. AT&T did nothing to resolve my issue, but insisted on getting paid every month, which I did. Finally, I signed up with Verizon and suddenly I had service, although my monthly bill with them was about $40 per month more than AT&T. Upon termination and switching my phone number to Verizon, I received a bill from AT&T for $309 for breaching my contract. WTF???

Picture this. Every time I'd call AT&T, I'd have to explain my problem to anyone that had the misfortune of answering my call, only to tell me that they were switching me to the tech department, who would listen lazily to my story and then do nothing for me. They would lie and claim they were the savior of the company and then just ignore me. This process usually took about 45 minutes of airtime and I'd never hear from them again. At one point or another, I had spoken to every department within their company. Same results, but I could not call back for a week to ten days because my case was always still open. 

Yesterday, when I called, I refused to tell the answering agent anything and INSISTED on speaking with their supervisor. Some girl answered after leaving me on hold for about 7 minutes, claiming to be the supervisor. Whether she was or not, I'll never know. Here is what I liked about her. She did not talk over me. She was the only employee that AT&T has that did not! However, she literally did nothing for me, explaining that if she credited me 10 cents, she would lose her job, which is a bold faced lie! I replied, no big loss, it's a shitty job with an even shittier company! There was a long pause and she replied, that's not true! I explained that AT&T breached our contract by not supplying service when in fact they agreed to. She countered with, "AT&T does not guarantee service in their contract"! WHAT? I then asked if she had hired a painter to paint her house and sign a contract to pay the painter when he completed it and he did not paint it, would you pay him? I tried it with landscaping and a plumber and she still would not answer. That's when I asked to speak with HER supervisor and she put me on hold. I just hung up, as I could see nothing was going to help my cause.

Having great credit never really helped me, so I'll just have to live with a negative point on my credit, because I cannot get myself to pay that fucking bill!

My Date with Speed Bumps...

I have a date tonight with someone new. She doesn't live very far away, just 4.3 miles according to Google. She warned me that I should be sure not to ring her neighbor's bell, since they have the same address. I wonder how that happened. So I did a test drive by her house and saw where someone might confuse the two houses, but the thing that most stood out were the speed bumps. Her street only goes about 2 blocks when it empties into the desert. Why in God's green Earth, is there a speed bump every 25 yards? Not only that, but they are the high ones that really do damage to your suspension if you do anything but crawl over them at about 10 or 50 MPH. Has a speed bump ever saved a life? Tough question. I know that generally, when I see a speed bump, I increase my speed, to not even notice the bump. The only speed that really notices the speed bump, is a slow speed. If you speed up, you barely feel it. Try it, you'll see. I hope my date is better than the politics of her street!

Now it's Sunday and my date was last night. For the sake of anonymity, let's call my date "Speed Bumps". First, I acted like a teenage boy getting ready for my date. I actually ironed a pair of slacks and after putting them on, decided I didn't like the way they fit and changed to tan jeans. I took a fresh dress shirt out of the plastic where it had lived for probably 2 or 3 years, since I seldom have the occasion to wear dress shirts in my current lifestyle. Resprayed cologne a couple of times, because in her profile online she mentions she likes men that smell good. Black leather sports jacket and I'm off! On a scale from 1 to 10. I felt like I was a strong 8, I lost 2 full points for sagging skin on my throat. It came with being 66 2/3!

I hopped into my chariot and fired her up and she started and died! Huh, it's NEVER done this before. It cranked for a full minute and no fire. What was happening? I tried holding the pedal to the floor and still nothing. An old trick I remembered was to turn the ignition on and off several times in a row, activating the fuel pump to refill the injectors and voile', it worked, fired up and stayed running. I screeched off on my way to my date. Now something that I didn't mention prior was, Speed Bumps is extremely funny. I'd say hysterical. It's what attracted me to her. She can dish it out better than any woman I'd ever met. Our personalities were almost right on. I also think that our IQ's were pretty close too. She was intelligent, attractive, as it turned out and very, very funny. Great figure, dressed well and owned her own home in an upscale part of Paradise Valley on the backside of Squaw Peak Mountain, South of Shea. She likes to hike, has 2 little dogs that are rescues and a generally nice person. She even drives a Volvo! I say all of these nice things for 2 reasons. 1). I believe them to be true and 2) She may read this someday!

She invited me in to check out her house and her. She lived in the guest house on her own property, due to a falling economy like the rest of us. She was forced to rent out her big house and occupy her add on guest house which was very small, but suitable for a single person with 2 children, 19 and 21, away at college. We hopped into my less than trusty Volvo and I did a silent prayer that she started. She did! We were off to Tutti Santi's on 64th Street. Arriving, they were mobbed and we had a hard time finding a parking place. As we entered the establishment, we were warmly greeted by Louisa, the head hostess. Louisa and I go back quite a few years and she recognized me, even in my long absence. She told the working hostess, a young girl to prepare the big booth for us, in the bar area. Aside from a short wait, we were treated very well and seated. Speed Bumps ordered Kettle One with olive juice and coughed a couple of times after the first sip. I was able to handle my Diet Coke that went down smoothly. Dinner was fun, but our waiter was a little old and less than efficient. Lao, the owner came over and was doing a walk-by, when he did a double take seeing me. He stopped and said hello and exchanged happy new years and discussed a mutual friend. All and all, it was a nice evening, but one thing that was missing was that romantic feeling. 

You know how you are not supposed to answer your cell phone unless it's a call from your child, while on a date? Well, Speed Bumps showed me men that had contacted her and actually read me their profiles along with pictures of some goofball with his shirt off and sporting a set of abs that anyone would be envious of. I casually pointed it out to her and she laughed! I think it was at that point that I first realized we were not headed to bed! All that kept going through my mind was all that cologne I'd put on! 

When we were almost ready to leave, Speed Bumps realized that the people at the table next to us, were close friends of hers and they joined us for about 5 LONG minutes. You know the feeling when your date introduces you to her friends and refers to you as her "friend"? Later, I'm sure she explains that I was her Internet date, urgh! We headed out and on the way back to her house, I asked if she were going to invite me in to make out? She said, NO! She didn't want me to walk her to the door and I was pretty sure she didn't want her renters to see her kissing me goodnight. We sat in my running car for about 10 minutes and discussed whether we should go out again and neither of us could decided, honestly. She kissed me goodnight and I told her I'd be checking out her ass as she walked towards her door. She turned and said, don't bother, it's hail damaged! That's when I spit all over my windshield, laughing!

Today, I figured out the problem. We were both so alike and the one thing that was missing from our relationship, was a straight man! I don't mean like straight or gay, I mean like we were both Jerry Lewis and we needed a Dean Martin!

New Year's Day (morning)

When I woke up this morning, it was an entirely different year! Who knew? I suspected something was up with all of the talk about the holidays, but that's pretty general. Along with it being a new year, I was bombarded with emails from total strangers on dating services. Unfortunately, the average age was a gazillion. When I say bombarded, I'm talking about 4 emails. But that's a lot for a lonely old man who spends a lot of time just looking out the window these days. 

One email was from a woman that claimed to be 70 and her email literally cracked me up. I don't think it meant to be funny, but it was so genuine, it had to be legit. First, before going any further, I take Ambien occasionally for trouble sleeping and when I do, I write insanely personal emails to total strangers. The first thing I did was check to see it she had been one of my victims, as indicated by her first line. I hadn't written to her, whew!  I'll copy it onto this posting for your laughing pleasure:

Okay. that's gonna take some effort to respond to. I might be too fat for you, but I'll take the risk. I love long intense conversations, but all the men I've met just want to get in the bed. So if you would like to talk and maybe get in the bed sometime down the line after we are well acquainted, let me know.

The author was not what you would call attractive, but she certainly wasn't fat either. The email arrived while I was still in bed and my bedside phone vibrated indicating a message from a dating app. With blurry vision, I read the email and the first thing that came to mind was my reply and that made me laugh out loud, all alone in bed. Although I didn't reply to her, here is my imaginary reply:

How long would we have to talk?