Hermit Glitterati

OW!

You got gauntlet in my peanut butter!

There I was, enjoying an old man birthday, when blog-fool dropped a gauntlet. The silly thing hit my big toe, glopped in my peanut butter toe vat, then klunk-spatted into the street. That’s where all gauntlets go to die. The streets are littered with gauntlet droppings. The ants and crows pick clean the peanut butter though, so don’t bother…

Anyway… I can’t throw my cat without hitting one (The gauntlet—not the ants. I mean I have plenty of ants, but why would I throw my cat to miss them? A cat is a perfect ant-swatter if you fling it’s tail right. But I digress from the gauntlet gauntlet. Back to the gauntlet.). It’s like people find reasons to drop these gloves at the drop of their hat. I hope some haberdasher is profiting from this, cuz I’m not.

In the old days, they walked out in the street and dueled.

“I’m the fastest haberdasher in these here parts—no wait, blogger—now scribble!”

“Uh, you got me! Your verb usage was too quick. My prose flows purple with embellished blood!”

Now people just throw perfectly good hand wear. Yeah, whatever. I’m a blogger not a writer. Nobody wants to challenge me. Bloggers perch one link above toaster manual writers in the evolutionary chain.

“You know that line about ‘don’t use in the tub?’ I wrote that!”

Interesting side not for all you gauntlet holders out there, we’re one link below cereal box writers. Yeah, they get to join the nutty-cluster union. Bloggers are just a bunch of street vermin dodging gauntlets and flaming comments.

Who wants to compete with that? The Pirate Queen told me somebody at D360 did.

“You know somebody wrote a blog about you?”

“No, you’re probably just reading too much into it.” Cuz the last time I joked that somebody might have blogged about me, I got my eyes clawed out. Even bloggers need eyes, it’s brains and elbows that are dead weight to us. Toes? No, that’s where we keep our peanut butter, silly.

“Well they left a comment on your wall too.”

“Coincidence.”

“They said you were popular.”

“Oh, it’s ON!”

Me? Popular? Hardly. I’ve taken efforts to ensure my unpopularity. I sported horn-rimmed glasses until I was 12, and wore my uncle’s disco hand me downs 4 years after he graduated: 6 years after the great mirrorball piñata riot.

“Hey that’s glass, not candy!”

It was led by bloggers, before we found our idiom.

Popular?

I don’t send Christmas cards.

I kick my cat.

I hurl lawn gnomes at neighbor kids.

The good humor man? I shot him.

Popular?

Nope.

Why am I such a popu-phobe? I’m not. I just don’t believe in it. Popularity is a benchmark for people concerned with climbing up and falling down the social ladder. I have a social dungeon, not a ladder.

“Bring out the gimp.”

See? I’m too busy being Rob. And let me tell ya, being Rob isn’t easy. In school I was voted “most likely to hide in the library and scream ‘not in the face!’” Was that because my face was so beautiful? Well, duh! But that didn’t make me popular. It made me a target for every gang of pocket protector clad ruffians swinging slide rules like death scythes yearning to be popular. They were too busy playing D&D angry villagers to notice that I was not in the way of their popularity. It was the 20-sided dice and the slide rules.

“You get plus two throw to hit: he’s a blogger.”

Remember the kid in Almost Famous? That was me, except I wasn’t nearly as cute or intelligent: I had greasy hair and ate glue. I was 2 evolutionary rungs over the hairy butt boy at the circus. As an adult? Remember the kid in Almost Famous…? Now I AM the hairy butt boy at the circus.

“Come one come all! See the Rob stick to the Great Wall of Velcro! Careful boys and girls, keep your mitts to yourselves He flings poo! Oh, no worries, he’s stuck to the wall!”

I’ve never been popular. I don’t want to be popular. It takes too much effort. Four out of five dead-stars surveyed agree. Ask them. Go ahead, I’ll wait. What? They’re dead? See? That’s what popularity does to your relevance. Nobody cares what you have to say anymore.

I don’t care about relevance. I want to be Rob. I know, I know, it’s a little ignoble, but it’s who I am. This last weekend was my birthday. In the years since Neil Armstrong made a giant leap, Rob Boyd has tried to figure out what is under his kilt (mine, not Neil’s). It’s not mighty footprints on my moon; It’s a dude, a blog, and another day to smile (yeah, I keep peanut butter under my kilt too, wanna see?) I’m happy with that. My blog has nothing to do with being popular. It pings like a pinball of scattered thoughts. I’m lucky if it coherent.

If a Rob blogs in a vacuum does he make a sound?

He does when he passes out from lack of oxygen. But when you roll away his corpse, you’ll also find the blog he wrote. Maybe somebody will read it. Maybe somebody will crumple it up in a ball and toss it on my lawn: my legacy.

“Here lies Robert Boyd’s final wor—oh, wait, it’s now over there…”

Will the final words of a grumpy hermit yelling for kids to get off his lawn stand the test of time? I dunno. That’s for time to tell, but the one thing time won’t say is “Rob was popular.”

So I’ll continue to blog, and you can continue to stub my toe with the “popular” gauntlet if it makes you feel better, or you can just read and scratch your head. I guess that’s kinda what I’ve learned about Rob over these years. I write because I love it, and because it makes other people smile. If that makes me popular, then I wouldn’t know. I’m too busy working through psychoses, neuroses, phobias, foibles, and peanut butter.

I can tell my gauntlet wielding friend that if he wants popularity, he should go after that Caldwell guy. He’s got a front-page blog and hoards of hotties swooning. Me? I’m just a weak-link blogger and I’m happy that way.

Soiled Sheets of Discontent

There are two women in my life, and one of them is pooping in my bed. Ok, you can stop covering your mouth with your palm and whispering about the Pirate Queen. It’s not her. I’ve got the Pirate Queen bathroom trained.

“No, seriously baby, I cleaned the bathroom. I swear. There’s no need to go to Starbucks…”

She is still using some woman witchery and floating 3 inches over the seat though. Nonetheless, for the record, she is not pooping in my bead.

“Then who is the poo, Christopher Robby?”

My poo-culprit is another Winnie: Persephone, my cat. I don’t get it. We’ve been together over a year and a half. This trick is recent. She does the doo only when I spend the night at the Pirate Queen’s.

Now if she’d done this from the beginning, I’d understand, but this isn’t the first weekend I’ve spent at the Pirate Queens. What’s changed? Why is there a new tension between Persephone and I? Are we just like other couples that have fallen into complacency, and don’t know how to communicate without crapping where they sleep?

I don’t know what started it, but I am familiar enough with poo-munication. With dogs it means, “Dude, could you put this somewhere?” With people, it means you pay an extra $50, with cats it’s “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore.”

I’ve tried accommodating her. I made sure her food was full. I made sure her water was full. I made sure her litter box was empty.

“Yes dear. Whatever you want.”

Persephone has an eating disorder that makes things challenging through. Whenever she eats, she eats everything at once. If I’m leaving for the weekend, and lay out enough food to last until Monday, her bowl is empty before the back door is locked and my butt’s belted in my car.

At first I thought this was the source of the problem: she’d eat all her food, and blame me because there wasn’t more. See? Just like any other relationship. In order to combat this, I bought her an automatic feeder that would disperse food in digestible increments.

I went away this weekend thinking, “Mission Accomplished!” I came home to a quilt planted poo-garden. Now I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore. I grabbed my fuzzy miss and rubbed her nose in the poo with repeated “NO!”s.

Ok, so I should pause here. If you haven’t guessed, I’m a dog guy. That’s what you do with puppy-doo. I suck when it comes to women and cats. I swatted the Pirate Queen with a rolled up newspaper once and she pulled out a whip.

“Now that’s a swat.”

Persephone didn’t take to my dog training any better. When I went to bed, there was a fresh pile of “communication” waiting for me. I gave her a communicatory facial with a “No!” and placed her in her box. Then I locked her in the

bathroom.

Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t confused about the message my cat was communicating. This isn’t my first relationship. I understand bitter spite poo. I can leave a few piles of my own.

I chose not to do that--this time.

Still, I can’t let a mad cat think that she’s the queen of my house. I’ve seen where that leads. This time it’s gonna be different.

On the other hand I’m considering a trip to the Humane Society in the morning. There’s only room for one shitty disposition in my house, and both MyEx and the Pirate Queen can agree that I have it.

But isn’t that a bit extreme? Ending a relationship because I don’t agree with Persephone’s attitude? After this much time, it’s like divorcing after our first fight. We’re a civil culture. We don’t do that—OK, maybe we do, but I won’t. I’m a drag my feet in the muck kind of guy. I don’t quit.

So what do I do? Cuz the princess and the Poo are not the answer either.

I could go to an expert and have them help us. That would be intelligent. Instead, I go to the Internet. This is like going to your single best friend for marriage advice. The first thing I see is a Yahoo page saying, “My cat poos in my bed. Should I put her to sleep?”

I gasp.

Persephone and I are going through a rough spot, but I would never consider that. Most of what I find online is like gaggling hen advice, suggesting everything from “I’m a bad mate” to “my cat is imbalanced.” Neither of these accusations are true, and neither one answers the question that I really have: how do I stop this?

Finally I find a site suggesting something I hadn’t considered. I read the words, and a tear rolled down my cheek, like an Indian in a slittered casino. “Your cat poos in your bed because she loves you.”

Awww…

What do I do now? I mean I can go toe to toe with hissing anger, but love? How do I fight that?

The site offers the theory that my cat is pooing where she smells me most (yup, the bed. That makes sense…) She’s marking her “Rob” territory because she’s afraid of losing me.

“Holy needy cat-shit Batman!”

What is our dynamic duo to do? Tune in next week…

I can’t wait that long. This theory has spun our relationship into a new spiral. I’m not angry anymore. I’m sad. I’ve pushed away someone’s love because I misread their needs. In what kind of world does this make sense? What kind of ass did that make me?

Yup, the poopy-bed kind.

I wondered if we looked at all our relationships in terms of actions of love instead of reactions in anger what would our approach be? Would our failure rate be as high as it is today? I dunno. I’m only reading the poo leaves.

I’m trying a new approach. This morning I walked into the room where she spent the night. I sat on the floor, held out my hand and waited. When she was ready, she came to me. When she did, I pet her.

“You know, kitty, we both have to get along here.”

“Mew.”

Yeah, I know. I’m partly to blame, but I’m trying. This is new to me.”

“Mew-mew.”

“No, I’m not excusing myself. I’m not apologizing either—but I’m not asking for an apology. You’re you, I’m me, and we need to find a place that works for both of us. That’s not always going to be easy, but we’ll try, OK?” I rubbed between her ears of encouragement.

“Mew.”

I stood up, and let her think. I’m not confused. This isn’t some ABC movie special. Credits won’t roll. We won’t fall into each other’s furry arms and live happily ever after. I only want to find a way for us to live together. I want to make one relationship work, because if I can get along with a cat, I can get along with anybody.

And that’s why I’m waiting for the Pirate Queen. She’s leaving to visit her family in a few weeks. She’ll be gone for a little over a week. I’m gonna miss her. So while she’s gone, I’m going to stop by her apartment, crawl up on her bed and leave her a pile of my love.

Won’t she be surprised when she gets home to see how much I love her?

Man in Waiting

Waiting.

It’s a game for one player. OK, many people can play, but it’s more of an individual task. Group waiting is like a baseball game without the…well, it’s like a baseball game. Waiting is a hands-off sport. It’s not competitive, although competitive people participate. It’s one person, a clock, a gaze, and a pot: refusing to boil.

I have no patience. Waiting? It’s not my strong suit. OK let’s face it. Waiting, it’s not even a card in my hand. If I’m playing waiting bridge, I’m passing the bid to my partner every time. Let them wait on me.

Even as a kid. I couldn’t wait. Whether it was waiting for Billy Fritz to take his Sorry-turn, or Mom baking the chocolate chips, I couldn’t handle it. In either case, somebody ended up with a mouthful of something.

“Robby, where are the blue Sorry pieces?”

“Billy ate them.”

“Why did Billy eat them?”

“Cuz a sock puppet forced them down his throat?”

Sock puppets? I can do sock puppets. They don’t wait. You know why? Cuz nobody wants food served by a sweaty gold toes, no matter how cute it looks. See? Waiting humor isn’t even good. It stinks

So what’s Rob waiting on?

Wait for it…

Yeah, sorry, I couldn’t help it.

No really, now, here it goes.

I’m waiting for life.

Yup. The life train left Chicago at 3:15pm carrying 700 cars of 10,000 happy people moving on with life. If the train is traveling at 115 mph, how long until it derails, leaving Rob stranded, and pee-pee dance in Union Station? Oh yeah, the crinkled cars of burning people? We’re not talking about them.

We’re talking about me.

…

And waiting.

I’m waiting on an employer to tell me whether I’m employed. I went in for a second interview two weeks ago. This week, I still haven’t heard anything. If I get the job, there’s a mortgage company waiting on me to pay my bills. They aren’t good at waiting either. Their nasty-grams are paper kindling for the train of life.

Some cats can handle waiting better than humans so long as it doesn't involve food.

Did you know that the average American spends 15,000 hours waiting? Do you know that I just made that up? Why? Cuz I didn’t want to wait for survey results. I’m way too busy—waiting.

I’m waiting for responses from book agents—even bad responses, so that then I’ll know how they feel about my ugly baby. I did get one ugly baby rejection this week. It’s not the response I was hoping for, but it is one less waiting.

I rarely make people wait in my own world. I hate to leave people hanging. Ask the agents who hate my work. I don’t even leave a participle dangling. OK, that’s a lie, but those participles, they deserve it. They’re just rude.

I’m waiting for the Pirate Queen. I’m not sure what I’m waiting for there, but I’m sure it’s sexy, lacy and a little risqué…

There’s no need for you to wait with me for that. I won’t share.

So where does all this waiting leave me?

Thinking.

Yeah, what’s worse than waiting? That’s right: thinking. What’s the number one cause of regime change in this world? Men who think. Unlike waiting, people can think in groups. That’s called “group-think.” Group think is less dangerous than individual think. It’s like thought bubble wrap. Nobody can get too hurt from group-think, unless they’re following an individual thinker. Then we’re all lost in thought.

That’s why I never think alone.

I think in the shower.

Loofa Kermit and Scrubby Doo help me to make sense of my world. Today we thought about waiting.

As a man of faith, I’m a firm believer in “God’s time.” Unfortunately he hasn’t read my schedule, and he keeps me waiting while Life’s thought train burns 700 cars of 10,000 happy people. Well, they aren’t too happy: their burning. Either way—Thanks God.

These were my thoughts while scrubbing Doo over my fuzzy butt. That’s when Kermit called from the shower caddy.

“Hi, ho, Rob. Even the great men and women of God wait. Look at David. He waited for Saul to have a workplace accident.”

“Trooby-dooby-doo!”

“Yeah, Ok…”

And look at Abraham. He waited for God’s promise.”

Scrubby Doo tried to agree again, but I was holding him under water.

“And Daniel—“

“You’re right Kermit, but there’s one flaw in your logic?”

“Oh? Do tell, Rob!”

“These were all great men of God, right?”

“Why Yes!”

“I’m not great.”

Kermit looked at the wall, then back at the shower head, “Uhm, need me to scrub your back?”

Still, my shower mates made their point. It’s ok. I’m fine being an okey-dokey man of God. I just don’t want to be an okey-dokey man who waits. And waiting is what I’m doing now. I’m take comfort in shower epiphanies and the knowledge that when the waiting is done, I can be an okey-dokey man of action. Behind every man of action is a man who waited, and not in a “Can I scrub your back” fashion.

I’m tired of waiting. I want to do.

All I need is a word.

Any word

but “wait.”

We Dance

“sssyfish roffly.” My Queen said over our third bottle of wine.

I want to tell you what that means, but I’m happy to remember the words themselves. She followed that up with something about “Jacuzzi “and “champagne.” That I’m sure of. I nodded and stumbled into my swim trunks, pulling them up, doing my uncoordinated jig.

“Are you going to take off your pants first?”

“Uhm, yeah. I was just trying them on to see if they fit.” There’s no lie like a drunken lie.

This was our anniversary weekend. One year ago, on Memorial weekend, we met in Napa Valley. This year, we opted for the other wine country: Temecula. It’s closer, it’s cheaper, and gosh darn it people like it.

We wanted to.

There was one question keeping us uncertain though: Could we regain the Napa Magic in its cheaper cousin? We both look back at the time we spent up north with fond remembrance. Would this weekend be flawed Zirconia to our diamond dreams? We both turn to the OCD side even when we’re drinking.

“If you’re gonna spill the wine could you please hit the napkin?”

“The force is strong in this one…”

Our big dread is this: we’re not high school kids riding the Big Giddy of infatuation. We’re skeptical adults with nubby-scarred hands. We’ve both touched the hot stove too many times. Our flesh is calloused and insensitive; what’s imperfect now, will always be imperfect. What’s perfect now, will annoy the hell of the other person in six months. What’s left?

“We’ll always have Napa.”

Yeah, thanks Monty Hall, but I don’t want the consolation prize. I want the real thing. I want yesterday, today, tomorrow. This puts me in the divorced man’s paradox. Would I know the real thing if it bit me in the ass? I’d like to think so, at least before the venom kicked in. But I’ve been married. Didn’t I the real thing sink its fangs into me then?

If I answer no, then what makes me believe I can tell the difference this time?

If I answer yes, then why couldn’t I keep it together last time? Am I a better person now?

To make matters worse, I know that the Pirate Queen is asking herself the same question. We’re plodding the insecurity waltz. 1,2,3,4 draw close…2,3,4 push away, 2,3,4…

The real problem is there are no answers here. We can dance around this until we’re dizzy. We’re turning mental rings as insubstantial as the ones at the bottom of the champagne bottle. We need to pick a course and move forward. Otherwise everything will evaporate, leaving us with nothing more than a bitter circle stain of what never was.

The Pirate Queen and I, we’re not perfect. We’re bent. We’re bruised. We’re bedraggled, and that was before the alcohol. We’ve had our good times, we’ve had our bad times. It doesn’t matter if it’s Napa, Temecula, or Omaha: as long as we stay together we will have more of both.

“Why do you love me?” She asks after our swim.

All the reasons rush forward, muddling in my mouth before they can escape, “mmmghma.” Yep. That says it all.

She smiles. “Me too.”

I reach out and take her hand. Even in our insecurity, we understand each other. To me that says a lot. Last year when we met, we had nothing. We were two souls meeting each other for the first time. This time we have a year of companionship. The answer to my divorced man’s paradox is that the Pirate Queen good outweighs the bad. Enduring her worst is preferable to imagining life without her good.

That makes this anniversary even better than the last. Now if I can just get these wet swim trunks down from around my pool drenched pants.

Finding Balance

“I’m Frank. If you want to have a political debate, I’m your man!” That’s what the frank new guy in my Bible study group said after he’d introduced himself. He’s still shaking my hand. He’s enthusiastic and dogmatic: quite the Bible study dream combo.

I stare in his eyes. “I’m not looking for a man.”

He stops shaking my hand, and twists his head like a lost puppy. “uh…”

Yeah, I give him a chance to catch up. It’s OK. It’s not like I’m smarter than the average bear; I’m just more skewed. In sixth grade it made me the social equivalent of a Wiccan vacationing in eastern Massachusetts. As an adult it makes me just as popular, but at least I’m a conversational Mohammad Ali: nobody can touch me if they can’t understand me.

Frank turns to the guy sitting across from him, “So what do you think of Obama’s handling of the BP oil crisis?”

“Well, uhm…” See? The guy across from Frank doesn’t want to talk about politics either, but now he’s stuck, because I bobbed and weaved my way out of that bad boy.

Politics shouldn’t matter. This is Bible study, and we’re here to talk about things mentioned within. BP may be the equivalent of an Apocalyptic plague, but I’m not gonna count my locusts until they’re hatched.

I don’t like talking politics. I was married. I’ve learned about winnable battles and victories that are ashes in my mouth. Politics and religion are holy wars looking to happen. Frank says he likes to debate politics, but like any master debater, what Frank really likes is to prove how right he is.

Good for Frank. Some people like that. Not me. I avoid politics.

Last month while I waited for a haircut, a woman sitting next to me played with her young daughter. She was keeping the girl occupied. I sifted through my iPhone email as the opening guitar for Toto’s “Hold the Line” comes over the radio. I know these things. The lady next to me doesn’t. She raises her daughter’s arms up high in the air and squeals, “This is Journey! Mommy loves this song!” She blew raspberries into the girl’s belly. I sighed.

Luckily there was a pet store next door. I found a Terrier, bought him, slapped him in a picnic basket and donned my favorite Dorothy Gail garb—my hair was already long; I didn’t need a wig, but I did grab some zip-tie ribbons. Then I returned to the haircutter before the song was over.

“You like Journey?” I asked holding the basket’s handles.

“Yes.” She said looking up from her little girl.

I then beat the woman with the dog basket, yelling, “This is Toto!” Toto yelps and cowers beneath the baskets flaps. Don’t hate me: I gave him some bubble wrap bedding. It didn’t help the woman much, but Toto was fine.

The little girl was horrified. So was I. I’m appalled by the gaps in the American education system and parents who misinform their kids. In the end, I leave. The little girl holds Toto in her arms, because the police won’t let me take him in the back of the car.

“His name is Toto!” I call as they drive away. I don’t think she’ll forget.

Music is my politics. I’m not here to debate it though. Just get your facts right or I’ll let you know you’re wrong.

Frank’s now got the guy across from him against the ropes. He’s citing Obama’s fiscal policy for his first year in office.

Obama had a fiscal policy?

I don’t know. I pay just enough attention to politics to know that, as an unemployed divorced male, I’m a statistic. I do know who won American Idol, though. See? I know something that has nothing to do with music.

I told the Pirate Queen about the woman and her girl getting the haircut when she posted bail.

“She told her daughter it was Journey!”

“Yeah, honey? I hate to tell you this, but I don’t remember who did that song.”

We broke up for a month after that.

See? Frank’s not the only guy who has his sticking points. We all have our lines in the sand separating us the world is full of idiots. I guess the difference between Frank and I, is that I know that I have a problem.

My court appointed therapist agrees.

“I swear Arizona’s got it right.” Franks now talking to somebody else. The guy across from him has excused himself and is hiding out in the bathroom. I say hiding, but maybe not. He’s been in there for a half-hour. Maybe he’s just feeling a little irregular.

I know a lot about feeling irregular. I was in the grocery store last week. I’m walking down the aisle looking to buy some instant rice dinners. Unfortunately, there’s a couple snuggling in front of the soup. They’re blocking the aisle from passage like a bridge troll awaiting toll.

I throw a bottle of spaghetti sauce in their cart, but it’s no use. I have two choices. I can wait and watch as he nibbles her ear, or I can look at the canned veggies, and wait.

“Oh look! Sauerkraut!” I need some!

After fifteen minutes I’m reading the ingredients list on a ramen packet. The music overhead starts to play, “Sunglasses at Night.” I remember this song from my youth. So do the lover-trolls.

“Listen!” she-troll screams, “It’s David Bowie!”

He-troll agrees, “You just recognized that?”

That’s it. I can stand here for love, but stupidity? I turn my cart so that the canned food cannons are facing the Siamese troll-twins and I fire all guns.

Peas! Carrots! Corn! Kraut! If it’s on the shelf, it’s flying at my nemesis. “ARRGH and Avast! You scurvy dogs! I know Bowie, and Corey Hart is no David Bowie!” The Pirate Queen would be so proud of my swashbuckling skill!

The store manager is impressed. He’s got three mall cops to hold me down until the real police show up.

“Corey Hart! You freakin’ idiot!” I yell from the back of the car.

Yeah, I’m a bit of a zealot sometimes. That’s why I don’t go toe to toe with Frank. I know what it’s like to have issues. His issues aren’t mine but we can agree to at least not cross paths.

The other guy Frank’s been talking to has gnawed his own leg off and is hopping for the door. It’s me and one other man left, and I’m not getting locked into Frank’s sights. I lean towards the remaining guy who’s been quiet all night. “Hey! It’s been a while! How are you doing?”

“I’m getting a divorce.”

Both Frank and I stop.

“Dude! That blows. I’ve been there.” Both Frank and I say in unison. We look to each other then to the guy in front of us. Suddenly the world is a smaller place. There are no dogmas, only pain. Frank and I sit and listen as the other guy relays his story. He’s not blaming, he’s just letting it out.

“You know, I don’t talk to anybody about this cuz I don’t want them to go, ‘poor you.’” He’s trying to sound upbeat.

Frank and I nod. “I know what you mean.” We harmonize.

That night we didn’t get into the Bible study. We put all out weapons and opinions aside to help a friend. Sometimes that’s the most important part. Our comrade let go his pain, and we held our issues until the evening was over.

After the man had released his burden he said, “What’s that beeping?”

Frank said, “I hear it too.”

I looked down and lifted my pant leg, “Oh, that’s me.” A red light blinked in quick sequence on my bulky black anklet. “The police will be here pretty soon. You might want to move away before they tackle to me.”

It was the least I could do for the soon to be divorced and my new friend Frank.

Minotaurs and Other Half-Bull Things.

Call me Ishmail. No that’s already been done. Call me something else. Call me something hale, something hearty, something manly. Call me something that men will raise mugs of ale and women will swoon in syllabic enchantment as it passes lips.

Call me Pookie.

MyEx did.

It’s OK. I called her that too. Later we called each other other things. Pookie was our team name for each other. Yeah, if we were a 2010 Olympic team, we’d be team Pookie. Our flag a rabid one-eyed teddy bear bearing the insignia “Don’t ruffle me.”

For a while after the divorce, the whole pookie thing became a hook in my crawfish—or however that craw thing goes: it didn’t sound good. It’s not that I denied my pookie-dom. I was the pookie. MyEx may have been a pookie too, but she was no longer mine, and that name belonged to me. She couldn’t keep it.

The Pirate Queen and I, we have nicknames, and no, they’re not “The Pirate Queen” unless you’re talking about me on “Dress Up Fridays,” then yeah, sure. As for The Pirate Queen, She’ll settle for “My Queen” but prefers “Mistress.”

Crack!

The point is we’re all Minotaurs. No, not as in nicknames, I mean really. We all surround ourselves with real mazes of names, nicknames, and passwords and we can’t keep them straight. We create titles for anybody and anything, hoping to make them endearing, significant, or in some cases: memorable. What happens when the corridors of our maze stretch beyond our memory, though? What if the names and words are titles to things no longer in our life? That’s when some Theseus with his ball of twine enters to ruin our day.

My latest Theseus bears an apple—or is an Apple. Recently I bought a new computer. Like any new computer wielding Robotaur, mine needed walls of pictures, music and documents rebuilt, recreating my maze of yore. One corridor down the path of recreation was called ITunes.

A file that didn't survive the old computer was my iTunes library file. You know the one: the file that saves playlists and tells the iPhones and iPods what’s naughty and what’s nice. Without it, a few of my iPhone apps were lost, irretrievable down some black corridor. I also couldn’t access any music purchased online.

Great Caesar’s Ghost!

OK, that isn't what I said, but I thought I’d add an old world feel. Play along. It’s one of those name things I talked about earlier. Besides, I only needed to authorize my new computer through iTunes to access my purchased music. The rest, I could work around.

Like any other Rob epic, this simple story takes a tragic turn. No slaughtering of young lovers, or queens sleeping with sacrificial white bulls, but the smooth seas of Rob did turn dark with foreshadowing.

The first step in my saga: log into ITunes---or try to. I type the names. They tell me that my account is "deactivated." I ask “why?” They tell me that I’m persona non-grata (that’s a Latin nickname for Michael Vick visiting the ASPCA). I email Apple for more details. After fifteen minutes they haven’t replied. I’m done waiting. “Patient,” is not a Rob nickname.

On the iTunes site, I find a "chat" link, so I do. I mean there are some things I'd like to chat about, right? I talk to Mel C. I'm not convinced that Mel C. isn’t an online name for computerized answering machine. She takes forever to reply and her replies seem generic. Maybe she was multitasking. I dunno. She gives me a link. I follow the link. It says that my account is deactivated because of too many incorrect password attempts. I don’t remember forgetting these names, but OK.

The link page says all I need to do is log in and have the system send me a new password.

Piece of cake. That’s a nickname for “tempting fate.”

I give Apple my ID. They tell me that if I have access to my AOL account, I can have it sent there (My AOL account belongs to MyEx. OK, so no...) or I can click another link that will let me work it through an online method. I choose option 2.

It asks me my log in.

I type.

It asks me my birthday.

I type.

It asks me my security question: "Who gave you your ipod?"

I type in: MyEx.

It tells me no.

Now I remember the event clearly. It was my birthday, and MyEx was the giver.

I have to log out and try again. This time I answer: "My wife."

Nope.

"MyEx’s full legal name?"

Uh-uh.

"Rumplestiltskin?"

nice try.

Fine. So I go back and talk to Mel C. She tells me "Oh, boy, you're fucked." Ok. I paraphrase. She really said, "Oh, well you'll have to open a new account."

"Uhm, but what happens to all my music that I purchased?"

"It stays attached to your old account."

"And I can't use it."

"Nope."

"So let me get this straight: You'll send billing receipts to my current email account, but I can't have my password sent there?"

"You can try the customer service phone number." Mel knows a riled minotaur when she hears one.

"OK."

I try customer service. There I learn what Apple has known all along: I am not the minotaur. I am a rat in his maze. The computerized service minotaur agrees, and it's chasing me down blind alleys.

"What is your problem?"

"I can't access my iTunes account."

"Please stand by"

...

"What is your problem?"

"I can't access my iTunes account."

"Are you using a Mac product?"

"No."

"Please go online and search our database...goodbye."

I am Theseus of the telephony world, and I forgot my ball of string.

I try again, get through to the Mac question and change my answer.

"Please stand by."

...

"What is your problem?"

AHHH! I think this is where a blood vessel bursts in my skull, allowing the ichor river of knowledge to flow where it hadn't passed before.

I hang up and return to the password reset program.

"What is your log in ID?"

I type.

"What is your Birthday?"

I type.

"Who gave you the iPod?"

The Pookie.

"Your account has been reactivated."

Two years ago, that would have hurt like a spear through my bittersweet memory pickle. After the divorce, I’d demanded “the pookie” namesake back. It belonged to me, locked in a hidden maze, never spoken again. Now, two years later, Apple forced me to open it up and share. Today, it took me an hour to stop laughing. Maybe that’s what it means to be the pookie. Maybe the pookie means “free to move on.”

Call me pookie.