Tag: Dale

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I’m Already Tired, I Gotta Retire Too?

Postaday for June 11th: I Am a Rock. Is it easy for you to ask for help when you need it, or do you prefer to rely only on yourself? Why?

I have talked to my therapist at length. No, I don’t like asking people for help. Let’s ask Dale.

Hey, Dale. Turn off the TV for a second.

Can’t. Crudites are up by two, top of the eighth.

Crudites?

That’s a baseball team you invented because you haven’t decided where I live yet.

I thought I made you a Mets fan.

Did you? I don’t remember that.

Well, nevermind. Let me ask you a question.

Go ahead. Damn it, Manless! You bum!

Is it easy for you to ask people for help?

Buck-o, I get on my knees every day and ask God to help Manless get cancer. Ace pitcher, my ass.

No, but seriously. Like, do you ever ask Loretta for help.

Uh, I don’t know, do I? Every time you write about me, she ain’t around.

Well, now’s your chance. Let’s do some character building. Tell me about a time you asked Loretta for help.

Damn it!

Dale.

Sorry. What do you want me to do?

Was there ever a time when you needed Loretta to help you with something, like, when you had to check your machismo at the door and ask her to get you through an ordeal?

You mean other than last week when Gonzales broke his ankle pinch hitting for Lopez?

Well, that’s not exactly—

—Cause let me tell you, I was nearly in tears.

Yeah, but, what about—

I’m sitting right here, in this chair, and even the play-by-play guys got his mouth shut for a change, the camera zoomed in on Gonzales while we wait for the skipper to trot on out there. And you could see it, in his eyes, him thinking he’s two years past retirement as it is, maybe he gets a place in Arizona, or Miami. And Loretta walks in, and she goes Dale, you’re awful quiet, and I look at her, she ain’t the gal she used to be, but she’s still a decent broad, and I’m just lookin’ at her, like I’m that damned manager, and this chair and my sunken chest and how my knees hurt when I get up in the morning and it takes longer to chew on a steak than it used to, and you can’t smile at people on the bus causer they’ll either mace ya or ask ya to sign some petition to save the baby seals from getting evicted, or whatever, and Loretta’s not the kinda dame you ask to do menial things, I mean, I’m the man of the house but I can get up to get my own beer, you know, but there I am, and there she is, and she’s closer to the ice box anyway, so maybe this one time I ask her and she can hear it in my voice how sad I am, and maybe we have a moment, and it’s nothing like when we were kids but it’s something, and then later in the middle of the night she’ll lean over and she’ll whisper, let’s move to Phoenix and I won’t think it’s a stupid idea this time, I’ll think its her way of trying to take care of me, make sure I’m okay.

Uh, oh. Um. Yeah. So, uh… did you?

Did I what?

Ask her for the beer?

Nah. She’s my wife, not my maid.

I see.

Besides, I ask her to get me one, she starts counting them. I don’t need that kinda help, do I, buck-o?

No, I guess not.

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The Nose Knows (Dale)

Postaday for June 7th: Super Sensitive. If you were forced to give up one sense, but gain super-sensitivity in another, which senses would you choose?

How do ya mean, forced? What are you gonna do, hold a gun to me head and holler “Awright, lose the sense of smell, jerk-face, or you’ll be sleepin’ wit da fishes. Don’t worry, you’ll get better eyesight outta da deal.” Or perhaps I’m to go under the knife. “Observe, Dr. Malicious, as I sever Dale’s optic nerves and reattach them to his sense of taste. And voila! The next superior sommelier is created! Muahhaahhaaa!” Gimme a break.

Actually, thinkin’ about it, I suppose it would be awright to go blind if I got an uptick in the other senses. Like that Daredevil kid. Of course, firstly, he’s in his twenties, and on the other hand, he’s a comic book hero. But I’d sign up for that. I been around my fair share of decades, and I’ve seen plenty. Blind me if it’ll make my hearin’ better.

I’m guessing most folks won’t want to lose their sense of sight. But what is there to look at? With hearing, you still got your bands from the 70s (before music went stupid), you still got your baseball games on the radio. What else do ya need?

But Dale, you’re sayin’, this is your first post about not hittin’ the strip clubs when your wife is outta town. You’d give that up if you went blind. Well, thanks, ya jerk, for bringin’ up strippers when I wasn’t going to. And lemme tell ya, I can still go. Might be harder to get there, but I’d still know the bartender, and you don’t need eyes to enjoy properly made martini.

You don’t need ears, either, so I don’t know if I’d pick enhanced hearing if I was going to lose my eyesight. My wife makes a mean meatloaf. And I’m sayin’ mean in the sense that it calls you names to your face while you’re eating it and then maybe tries to break your car windows when you’re done. So I don’t know if having a better sense of taste would be such a good thing for me either. Who knows, maybe there’s some kinda wonderful spice down there underneath all the char. My luck it would be Turmeric. We went to Goa a few years ago on some kind of vacation and she brought back a gallon of the stuff.

And I’m not so sure what having an improved sense of touch would get me. Maybe I’m at the Dancing Bare and Carla comes by for her tip and I reach in and I can tell just by feeling if I’m grabbin’ a Washington out of my wallet or a Jackson. I mean I know Carla’s got the kid and she’s working on her Associates but I give her a twenty just once and I look like a creep tryin’ to buy somethin’. Then again, I figure blind guys got special dividers for their bills so who needs touch?

I guess I’ll go with smell, then. Yep, gouge out my eyes, and make my snout a thing of beauty. Dogs live by, all the animals do, and they been around a lot longer than we have. I told you Loretta makes a mean meatloaf but up my olfactory and now I’m picking out the perfume she puts on when we go to church but wears off by Sunday’s chicken roast. I’m smellin’ the shampoo in her hair, the metals in her lipstick, the sweat on her upper lip because I don’t care what temperature it is, putting on the AC in April just feels wrong. Global warming, am I right?

That’d be good for a laugh, anyway. I like hearin the old girl laugh. She come walztin by and I’d smell soap and I’d say something like, “Wash your hands again, Lo? You gettin’ all OCD on me, woman?” And it’s cause she’s visiting the ladies more often now but she couldn’t admit that and I’m blind so I can’t see her blush but maybe I can smell it.

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Only 271 Degrees Left to Ignition

Postaday for May 31st: 180 Degrees. Tell us about a time you did a 180 — changed your views on something, reversed a decision, or acted in a way you ordinarily don’t.

Dale here. Nice try though. Getting Jason (that’s Bukkhead, ya twerps) to write up a whole post about online privacy yesterday, and then next day ask him about changing his views. He’s screwed either way, right? Either he used to be a neo-nazi and now he volunteers at the puppy orphanage, or, when he was a kid he gave money to the church but now he’s a god-less atheist hell-bent on the destruction of the American family.

Yeah, I don’t think so. That’s why I got this one. Look, Jason’s a nice kid, shoots his mouth off too much sometimes (who blogs three times a day? Jeebus) but his heart’s in the right place. Me, on the other hand, I got no heart. So I’ll take over here. Besides, as I’m a total figment of his imagination, this will be a good character-building exercise.

So let’s see, let’s see, total 180… I’ve mentioned before about how when my wife goes to visit her sister, I might attend a gentleman’s club or two. Strictly legit, strictly legal, sit on my hands, emphasis on the gentleman. Okay fine, so Loretta never hears about it. That’s not lying so much as, what would Jason say, “contextualizing the facts to create truth.” He’s a brainy little fart, ain’t he?

And just so’s we’re clear, a reminder: it’s not like Loretta goes to her sisters all that often, so it’s not like The Dancing Bare’s got a chair with my name on it. And I don’t even go everytime. Sometimes I do the cheetos and baseball on TV thing. Ya know, now that I think about, come Sunday morning, I’m either covered in orange dust, or glitter. Either way, that long hot shower is like a new baptism isn’t it?

But Digress ain’t just what you get when a Donkey and Tiger make love. Where was I. Oh yeah. Back, I don’t five years ago, six maybe, Loretta’s sister’s lumbago’s acting up. What the heck even is lumbago. Maybe I made that word up. Anyway, she’s out of town, and the boys of summer are still wintering in Arizona, so what am I gonna do? Watch hockey? I step over the The Bare. Kendo, guy behind the bar, make a martini that’d give James Bond a reason to finally quit espionage. I head over.

Carla’s on the stage, doing that thing she does with the feather’s and the straps on her heels. Up on the pole and dropping down, some kinda Icarus thing, I don’t know, I wasn’t all that sober for most of college (until I met Loretta; another story). I get my martian and grabbed a chair a little ways back from the stage. Carla will come by for her tip, she knows I’m good for it.

Three, four girls later, about that many martians, the music changes to something from one of those country’s where it’s dark half the year so all the do is play guitar and commit suicide. Growly and mean and, well, let’s face it, dirty. Here we go. Some tattooed gal in a white bikini and Betty Page bangs. Not my cup of tea.

Except, you know. After a few minutes, I’m thinking, tea’s not so bad. The British drink tea. They conquered half the globe, didn’t they? Maybe I should give tea a chance. The way that Betty moved up there. It was sexual, there’s no lying. But it was something else, too. Powerful. Like she owned it. Like it belonged to her. Like dancing for sad old middle-aged dudes like me was something noble. I was turned on, of course, but I was also, like, inspired. I sat up straight in my chair. I found my self not checking out her gams so much as her eyes. That sleepy gaze that seemed to say angels come in gossamer and they also wield swords. I got both. Gimme twenty bucks.

And I did too. And ever since then, I see some snot-nose on the sidewalk with his tattoos and his piercings, I think, well, maybe he ain’t such a ne’er-do-well afterall. Maybe folks scarring their skin with ink is their own business, and sometimes business is about owning yourself.

So, does that count? Is that a proper 180 on the subject of kids these days and their so-called body art? Don’t worry, don’t worry, I still think their music is crap and the few who do vote are putting pigeons before people, so I ain’t changed all that much. Most of ‘em got no respect, and the feeling’s mutual, I can assure you.

Maybe she was an angel, that Betty, afterall— I never saw her there again. I ain’t saying I’m much of a God guy, but, you know, they do say he works in mysterious ways. And why not send a messenger to the Dancing Bare to get old Dale to ease up in the judgmental attitude. I gave up on the big picture a long time ago, so all’s left is small stuff.

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Introducing Dale

Postaday for May 27th: Baggage Check. We all have complicated histories. When was the last time your past experiences informed a major decision you’ve made?

I got one of them headaches here you swear you’ll never drink again. Which is a lie because in my hand, a jelly-jar full of wild turkey. To take the edge off. Woke up at 2 am to gobble some exedrin and spent the next three hours moaning at the pillow where my wife’s head left a dent.

Ha, now you got to guess if she divorced me or died, and then guess if that’s why I drink.

The name’s Dale. Jason made me up— he says that sometimes when these writing prompts leave him flat, he’s going to hand it over to me, let me say a few things. Purely fictional, of course, but then, as he says, the point’s to write, not report. No one’s building a biography about poor old bukkhead.

So where was I. Sitting here in my overstuffed, looking out the window. Hurray for us, another hazy day my little corner of LA. You know how there’s New York City, and then there’s Queens, and there’s Long Island? That’s what this part of LA is like. Right in there and no where close. I don’t look out my window for the celebrities.

Truth is, my history ain’t so complicated. I don’t have to make too many major decisions. Wouldn’t be great if I got to tell you that I pulled the plug on my wife, on account of I had to make the same decision about my ma and I let her linger too long and we all suffered for it? But nah.

Look at me shrug, slosh a little wild turkey on my wrist, and say, sorry, to you, not my wrist.

That’s the second time I’ve brought up my wife. I think Jason’s trying to get somewhere with this. Now, I can’t have murdered her or anything, because he wants me to chime in now and again, and if all I am is a wife-o-cide, that’ll get real boring real fast. I need to be more complicated.

How about this. My wife didn’t leave me, and she ain’t dead. She’s visiting her sister. In, let’s say, Berkeley. Last time she went up there, I made a few bad calls. Sowed some oats. Nothing illegal, broke no vows, but had to take a couple hundred showers to get the glitter out of my chest hair, if you know what I mean.

So this time, major decision: two six packs and the Netflix. That kept me from driving any place. My oats went sowless.

Now what I have to decide is, was it worth it. What I gained in clean conscious, I lost in pounding migraine. And here I am, 10 in the morning, wild turkey in hand, staring out the window. Hazy day. My lawn needs mowing. Gloria, the neighbor, just backed out of her driveway and got slammed by some idiot kid doing 50. 50 in a residential zone. Broken glass everywhere. Kid’s half-hanging out his windhsield. I should call the cops. But damn, this headache is something fierce.

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