When I was a kid my mom used to love to go play BINGO. As a matter of fact most of my aunts and some of my uncles would get together and go play BINGO, leaving us kids at my grandmother’s house while they were out. I don’t know if they really enjoyed playing BINGO or if it was the fact that for a few hours they got to spend time together without the kids yelling and running around, not to mention the fact that there was a possibility of winning a hundred dollars for a straight bingo and five hundred for the last coverall of the night.

As kids, neither my cousins or myself minded the fact that we were dropped off at the my grandmother’s house - if we were lucky we would get to spend the night there and the whole night would be spent playing spies, as we tried to sneak into whatever room my grandparents were in and try to do it without them noticing us. We would crawl across the floor and hide behind sofa’s, under tables, etc. trying to be the spy who get the closest without being caught.

One of the things I remember about Bingo Night is that my grandmother would make a bean soup that she would serve us. Through the years I’ve sort of faked myself out telling myself that my grandmother was a great cook, so much so that I actually started to believe it was true, but if truth be told, the fact is that she wasn’t the best cook around. It seems that her specialty was either scrambled eggs with lots of white in them and bean soup. I hated scrambled eggs with lots of white in them so much that no matter how much ketchup I put on them I could not eat them. I would always give them to my cousin, Emilio. He would eat almost anything and everything that no one else would eat. I could handle the bean soup because it wasn’t near as bad as eggs with lots of white in them. My grandmother would boil pinto beans and once they were tender she would serve them with the broth and we’d have bean soup - simple as that. We soon learned that the best way to stomach them was by adding butter and lots of salt to the broth in our bowls

Everyone of us would sit at the table and eat the bean soup, which was not a good thing if your parents were picking you after Bingo because on the drive home you’d sit in the backseat of the car, with that bean soup bubbling in your stomach, gases building up, until you couldn’t hold it in any longer. You’d either unleash a loud, apocalyptic fart that would make your mother turn her head and look at you with disgust on her face. If that happened to me I would just close my eyes and pretend to be asleep, so I wouldn’t have to hear my mom talk about manners and how it was bad manners to fart in the car, especially during winter when it was too cold to open the windows. If you didn’t let one of the those loud butt trumpet sounds you’d be sure to let one of those silent ones that no one hears but in a few seconds has everyone in the car is gasping for air as their eyes water profusely, their brain itches and their nose hairs shrivel up and burn. Whenever that happened to me I would blame it on my younger brother and my parents would believe it was him, unless he farted first and blamed it on me.

“Oh, come on you guys,” my mom would say as she rolled down the window, “that’s disgusting.” And then, she’d go into her “you should know better than to fart in the car…you were raised with more manners than that” speech.

“But Grandma says that it’s dangerous if you try to hold a fart inside of your stomach” I protested, “because you can blow your insides out”

“Yeah,” my brother said as he let another silent, deadly one. That bean soup was powerful that night. “She farts all the time and she don‘t even care whose around when she does it. She just goes around BFFFT, PFFFT, ERT, BUUUURT all day long not caring if it stinks or not” My brother jumped in his seat as he made the fart noises with his mouth.

My dad started to laugh at the farting sounds my brother was making, but stopped when he saw the look on my mom’s face. Whether she admitted it or not my brother was right. My grandmother would fart whoever she felt the need to and she didn’t care where she was or who she was with. She could be outside watering her garden and talking to the lady next door and all of a sudden she’d lift her leg and let one rip just like she was a dude. Once she even farted right before they sang “Happy Birthday” to me on my birthday. I remember it was so loud that one kid even screamed from fright and for a second, just a split second I was afraid she was going to blow the candles right off my birthday cake. I know that’s impossible, but funny things go through a kid’s mind, especially when that kid is me.

“It’s true” my dad, looking at my mom.

“And sometimes she blames grandpa for it and sometimes she even blames the dog.” I said, “and the dog died like three years ago. How can a dead dog even fart? It‘s just not possible. It‘s her farting, I‘m telling you. It really is.”

“blrrruupp” my brother made another farting sound

“Stop it, all of you stop it.” My mom would finally say on the verge of laughing herself, “I don’t want to hear anymore about anyone farting.”

“Pffffffftttt!!!” My mom and I both looked at my brother as he made another farting sound, but this time he didn’t make it with his mouth.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been skating, but this was my nephew’s seventh birthday and he wanted to skate, so I would at least give it a try. When I was a kid I used to skate all the time with my friends and I remember that I used to fly around the rink and in my mind it was almost as if nothing existed except for me, my friends, and the music. I wondered what it would be like to be on the rink again after all these years. I was excited but at the same I was a little nervous about it.

I walked into the skating rink and it was a lot like the rink I remembered from my childhood. It even had that smell that was a bit musty with the sweet smells of the concession stand and just a hint of the spray they use to disinfect the skates when you turn them in. When faced with the thought of actually putting on the skates I hesitated a bit; what if I fell? What if I got hurt? What if I slammed myself into the wall?

I waited for my best friend Dave and his family to show up before I got my skates, mostly because he encouraged me to get them. My friend Dave is six feet six inches tall without skates so with skates on he’s like seven feet tall.

“you better not fall” I told him, “because if you do, you might squish three or four kids.”

He looked down at me, laughed and sarcastically repeated, “you might squish three or four kids hahaha. You’re a funny man.”

I laced up my skates and realized that I wasn’t ready for skating. “I don’t think I can stand up on these.”

“Just stand up.:” My friend encouraged.

I stood up and things were going good. I rolled walked on the carpet and made my way to the wooden rink. As soon as I stepped onto the wooden planks my legs started going wild. It was kind of the dance the scarecrow does in the Wizard of Oz and if I only had half a brain I wouldn’t be out there trying to relive my childhood.

“you got to let go of the wall” Dave said as he skated backwards trying to get me to skate.

“I don’t want to let go of the wall. The wall is my friend.”

“You can’t skate if you don’t let go of the wall.”

I tried to push myself, letting go of the short wall for a little bit thinking that by magic I might just start skating like most of the others at the rink. As I passed a girl that was leaning against the wall watching her friends skate she said, “you have more balls than I do for trying to do that.”

I looked at her and said the first thing that came to my mind. “I certainly hope I do.”

She laughed. When I realized what I said, I laughed too. My friend, Dave continued to encourage me. “Let go of the wall.”

I decided he was right and if I wanted to skate I would have to let go of the wall, so I did. I let go of the wall and started skating toward him like a giant five feet ten inch baby taking his first steps as his dad held out his hands, excited at his son’s first stumbling steps. I was skating when all of a sudden my other friend Tamika and her daughter Jessica came skating behind me. Jessica reached out toward me and yelled, “you’re going to fall!”

My arms started pin wheeling as I stumbled toward my friend who caught me like a little kid before I hit the floor. I had him in a bear hug as my legs were sliding every which way under me. I finally got my balance and made my way back to the wall. I always knew that Jessica hated me and this just proved it. She always looked at me with those “I hate Tony” eyes.” Above everything: the kids laughter, the load music, and the sound of thousands of wheels rolling over the wooden floor I could hear Jessica’s evil laugh as she watched me almost fall ”Wahahahahahaha: and then she skated away.

I grabbed the wall and continued my journey around the rink. It wasn’t long after that when my Dave’s wife came up to me and said, “they need you at the birthday table right away.” I was halfway around the rink, still holding on to the wall, and taking little baby roller-skating steps; I wasn’t going anywhere right away.

“Come on,” my friend Dave said.

“huh?” I looked at him with that same confused look that I have when I talk to my cousin Jason who graduated from MIT and is a doctor now. “what?”

“Grab hold of my shoulders and I’ll lead you there.” Now, that’s what I call I friend, someone who does not care how goofy he looks leading another grown man through a crowded skating rink

I felt a bit dumb being led around the rink by a big, muscular 6’6 foot white guy with a military hair cut. It’s different when you’re the leader and when you’re the one being led. I looked around hoping this wouldn’t somehow end up on Youtube. I held on tight as Dave’s shoulders as he skated around the rink faster than I thought anyone could skate with another person holding on to them.

I arrived at the party table and was greeted by our “party hostess,” a young girl who had introduced herself at the beginning of the party, but whose name I had already forgotten. She said, “we’ll be bringing out the pizza shortly if you want to gather the kids.”

I thought to myself, “this is why they needed me right away?” “Ok,” I answered.

We gathered the kids and as they were eating pizza I decided that I was going to go out on the rink and conquer my fears - I was going to skate even if it killed me. I knew that the first thing I had to do was lose my fear of falling or whatever fear I had, so I decided that I would psyche myself out by telling myself that I had no fear.

I stepped out on the rink

No fear.

I steadied myself and let go of the wall.

No fear.

I started to roll slowly at first.

No fear. No fear

I was skating!

No fear

I started to skate faster.

No fear

I went faster and faster until everything just looked like a blur and then I went even faster.

No fear. No fear. NO FEAR!!!!

And then without warning, I hit the wall and then fell backward on to the floor - the fear was back and it kicked my ass.

I have a friend that swears by Craigslist. He and his wife just bought all the furniture for their new baby’s room from different people that listed their old stuff on Craigslist. I’ve heard about it long ago, but I’ve never actually gone on it looking for anything. Today I decided that I would check it out just to see what I could find. I typed different things and saw that it was almost like Ebay, I could find just about anything I wanted on Craigslist. I decided that I would try typing “Star Wars” to see what I could find and boy did I find things. One of the things that caught my eye was a listing that said

I typed the address into my phone and let the little electronic voice guide me to what I was hoping was the Mother Lode of Star Wars toys. In my mind I was that little kid circling all the toys I wanted from the Christmas Flyer from Toys R Us imagining that I would get them all, but somehow knowing I would be lucky to get one thing from my list. In my mind I imagined all the Star Wars things at unbelievable prices - I was going to build up my collection of Star Wars toys (which is already more Star Wars toys than one grown person should own).

I told my nephew that when he gets bigger he’ll probably get my Star Wars stuff, so the other day I find him going through my stuff.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Nothing.” he says. “I’m just looking at your Star Wars stuff”?

“Ok,” I was curious, “and why are you going through my stuff?”

“I want to take out the stuff you can give me for my birthday.”

I looked at him puzzled. “I’m going to give you my stuff for your birthday?”

“Yeah,” he didn’t look away from the figures he was fingering in my space case. “On my birthday I’m going to be seven and when I turn seven I’m going to be bigger and you said I could have your stuff when I get bigger.”

How could I argue with logic like that?

I drove to the garage sale thinking that maybe not only would I find stuff for my collection but I might a starter collection to give my nephew when he turns seven and gets bigger.

I drove around until I found the place. It was a regular house nestled in a nice community of regular houses. There weren’t any signs that I was about to hit the mother lode of all Star Wars toys or of any Rock ’n Roll memorabilia except for a cardboard cut out of Elvis holding a cardboard sign that said “Garage Sale” on it..

I pull up to the house and start my walk up the driveway. There is a man sitting in a small chair off to the side. He’s busy going through paperwork and mail, too busy to even look up at us as he says. “There’s some knock-off purses in that box over there and they’re two for thirty dollars or twenty dollars each.”

“thank you” I say walking toward the stuff in boxes that he’s selling expecting to find the mother lode, but all I see are fake Coach, Dooney Burke purses. I look over at the guy whose still busy with his paperwork and realize there is something familiar about him. I don’t know why but for some reason I notice his feet. He’s wearing sandals and his feet are huge. They are the feet that belong to a giant or to a Montenegrian. Finally I have to ask, “Do you have any Star Wars stuff?”

“Oh he says, ‘you seek Yoda’” and he laughs at his joke. “You’re here because of the ad in Craigslist.”

“yeah,” I answered. “Do you have anymore Star Wars stuff?”

“No” he said, finally looking up from the paperwork that he had on his lap. “I sold it all to some lady for $3,500” As he stands up I must have looked at him really funny because he asked, “What?”

He’s about 6’8 and as I look up at him I realize why he looks so familiar. “Has anyone told you that you look like Elvis?”

“Thank you. Thank you very much.” he says sounding like what I believe Elvis sounded like in real life. I can’t remember what the real Elvis sounded like because all I’ve heard were imitators pretending to be him, so to me he sounded like Elvis.

“You look like Elvis only supersized.”

The Giant Elvis chuckled. “ain’t never heard that one before.”

“so, no Star Wars stuff, huh?” I asked looking around.

The Giant Elvis looked around too and said, “Now the stage is bare and I’m standing here with emptiness all around.”

“Ah, ok” I said not really knowing what to say. I picked up a little blue dog that had a tag that identified it as a 2009 Elvis Christmas ornament - I guess it was a blue suede hound dog. “You know, my birthday is January 8^th” I don’t usually go around telling people my birth date but it seemed fitting at the time because January 8^th was the same as Elvis’ birthday used to be. Any fake Elvis worth his weight in spit should know that, I thought.

“well, happy birthday to you” the giant Elvis said not really getting the connection.

“Thank you” I gave him a sideway glance and did my best impersonation, “Thank you very much.”

“you should leave the impersonations to the professionals”

“Ok” I said, agreeing that my impersonation was pretty bad. “How about you show me a little bit of Elvis”

The giant Elvis started singing, “You can hide ‘neath your covers and study your pain. Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain, waste your summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from these streets …”

“Ah” I interrupted. “That’s not Elvis, that’s Bruce Springsteen.”

Giant Elvis looked at me with a puzzled looked on his face. He raised one eyebrow and asked, “are you sure?”

“Yeah I am. You’re singing Thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen. I’d bet your life on it.”

Giant Elvis looked at me but didn’t say anything. He started singing at the top of his lungs.

“Take my hand, take my whole life too … I can‘t help falling in love with you” he stopped and asked, “that was Elvis? Wasn’t it?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah that was Elvis. You’ve been quoting Elvis since I got here but you can’t remember the songs?”

“You’re putting too much pressure on me to perform.”

I didn’t even want to acknowledge that statement - it just seemed kind of weird to me.

It was at this time that a blond woman came out of the house. “Hi sugar” she said to me in a baby type voice. ”We have a big sale on knock off bags today two for thirty dollars.” She winked at me and said, “but for you honey we may even sweeten the offer.”

Giant Elvis put one arm around my shoulders, which really bothers me when strangers do that, “this is my wife. Do you know who she impersonates?” He asked as I moved away from under his arm.

“Marilyn Monroe?” I took a guess.

Giant Elvis laughed, “show him babe.”

The blond woman got on her knees, began rubbing her hands over her breasts and down over her legs as she sang, “like a virgin…touched for the very first time…like a virrrrrrgin…oh…oh…oh.”

I stood there not believing what I was seeing when Giant Elvis said, “you have to imagine her breasts have big cones over them.”

I looked at Giant Elvis and asked, “you said you had knock-off bags for sale?” I didn’t wait for an answer I started making my way to the car. As I got in my car to drive away Giant Elvis knocked on my window. He smiled as I rolled down the window and he gave me a picture of himself dressed in a glittery, rhinestone jumpsuit.

As I drove off I swear I could hear Giant Elvis sing:

“Well, it's one for the money,
Two for the show,
Three to get ready,
Now go, cat, go.”

I’m not sure I’ll be using Craigslist again.

I went out of town for Christmas this year so I didn’t get the chance to buy all the gifts I wanted to buy before leaving so I decided to go Christmas shopping for those people that I still haven’t seen and didn’t have gifts for so I’m driving along minding my own business, singing to whatever song is playing on the oldie’s station at the time when I put my blinker on to signal that I’m going to turn into the Target parking lot. As I’m making my turn some guy comes racing along and cuts me off turning into the parking lot from the lane beside me. Instinctively I honk the horn mostly because I really thought he was going to hit me and I don’t want to have to go through all that hassle I went through last time someone ran a stop sign and hit me. The driver of the other car flashes me his Happy New Year finger as he pulls into the parking lot. I pull in behind him and actually find a spot before he does. Well, Mr. I don’t know the fuck about driving laws pulls up behind me, gets out of the car and starts yelling at me about my lack of driving skills.

“You don’t know how to fuckin’ drive! You’re such a dumb ass that shouldn’t even be driving” He’s screaming at the top of his lungs.

I have to admit that it was a bit scary to have someone stand there and yell at me like that because you don’t know what anyone else is thinking or capable of doing. I know you’re supposed to stop and walk away from something like this so that it doesn’t escalate, but I didn’t walk away. I looked at him and said, “You’re the one that cut me off and I’m the dumb fuck that doesn’t know how to drive?”

“Fuck you, you fat ass muther fucker!”

I don’t know why but I couldn’t help thinking “Man, that’s a lot of fucks he’s using” It was at this point that I noticed the bumper sticker on his car. It was one of those religious fish with the word “Jesus” in it. I have a Darth Vader window decal on my car and found it funny that I have the Dark Lord of the Sith on my car and he has The Savior of the World on his, yet he’s the one yelling and calling me names. I pointed at his bumper sticker and simply asked, “Dude, what would Jesus do in this situation?” The guy’s face totally changed and he became quiet. He didn’t say anything else as he got in his car and drove off.

As I wrote in my face book post, for anyone who knows me, did you really think I would let the year slip by without posting this song? It's a great cover by Melissa Etheridge

Here’s wishing you and your family “a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year … another year over and a new one just begun...let's hope it's a good one without any fear."

I had a dream the other night that the Devil came into my room and woke me up from a good sleep. I looked in his eyes and he looked deep into mine and then he wiggled his fingers, stuck out his tongue and said, “boogie, boogie, boogie.” I just looked at him, rolled my eyes, and covered my head with my blanket and tried to go back to sleep. The Devil pulled the blanket off me and stuck out his tongue and wiggled his fingers and yelled, “BOOGIE! BOOGIE! BOOGIE!”

“Dude,” I said pulling the blanket back from him. “I’m trying to sleep here.”

The Devil looked perplexed. He sat on the edge of my bed and asked, “aren’t you scared?”

“No,” I said impatiently, “now let me go back to sleep.”

The Devil scratched the spot on his head between his horns and asked, “really?”

“Really” I was tired and wanted to get some sleep before having to get up in the morning so I asked him, “If I say I’m scared, will you leave me alone and let me sleep?”

The Devil stood up from the bed and thought about it for a second. ”No,” he answered. “I won’t leave you alone because you’d just be lying to me. Most people would be terrified of me if I showed up in their room in the middle of the night, why aren’t you afraid of me?”

I sat up in my bed and moved my face closer to his, “Dude, I work with your sister and she’s much more terrifying then you are.”

The Devil shrugged his shoulders and let me go back to sleep.

When I first read the message from Ian at Idiot’s Stew asking me if I would be interested in writing a guest post for his “The Idiot’s Super-Duper-Amazing-Pre-Thanksgiving-Holiday-Extravaganza-and-Parade” (aka Turkey Palooza) the first thought that went through my head was “is this message really for me?” If you’re a reader of Idiot’s Stew then you know Ian is a genius and a great writer, so I wondered why he would want my humble musings on his blog - I quickly agreed to do it before he came to his senses and retracted the offer.

My first thought for a story was about the times we would get together at my grandma’s house and have thanksgiving dinner and then my cousins and I would get into dirt clog fights with the rival neighborhood kids, but as I started the story something totally different came out. I thought about our family tradition of going to the movies every Thanksgiving and how that started and that’s what I wrote about, so go check out my contribution to “The Idiot’s Super-Duper-Amazing-Pre-Thanksgiving-Holiday-Extravaganza-and-Parade” (aka Turkey Palooza) and let me know what you think.

Thank you Ian for letting me be a part of this - it was an honor for me

I know a girl named Blue. That’s not the name she was born with. She was born with a girly name such as Lindsey, Monica, or Cheryl, but somewhere between the time she was born and the time I met her she became “Blue” I don’t know how or why she choose to call herself that. Maybe Blue is her favorite color, maybe she was feeling blue, or maybe she was having a “Blue Period” much like Picasso did during the years between 1900 - 1904. I know Blue is an unusual name for a girl, but Blue is far from being the usual girl next door.

When you first meet her, the first thing you notice about Blue is the way she dresses. She doesn’t dress like other girls I know. she’s always wearing a Dallas Cowboys jersey, blue jeans, and always has a blue handkerchief tied around her bald head which is covered with a Dallas Cowboy cap. At first glance she may come off as being a bit intimidating especially when you add the fact that she’s about five feet nine inches tall and weighs a good two hundred and fifty pounds.

You may or may not have guessed, but Blue is a lesbian. I’m not saying that being a lesbian is a good thing or a bad thing I’m just mentioning it because it’s an important part of the rest of this story. She drinks like a man, she swears like a man, and one time I even think I saw her adjust her balls like a man. One thing I can about her is that she’s cool as hell. I admire the fact that she speaks her mind and doesn’t care what others think about the way she dresses, the things she says, or her sexuality.

I remember one night we were all sitting around the fire-pit talking about how we all met and she mentioned that she thought my sister was beautiful when she first met her. I always thought Blue had a crush on my sister, but never said anything. One of my sister’s best friends told everyone how when they first met he thought my sister was a lesbian too because she was always hanging out with the guys at the automotive shop in school. He said that she knew more about cars than most of the guys in the class. He said that she was just one of the guys to the group until prom. His date cancelled at the last minute so he wasn’t going to go when he called my sister to see if she would go with him. He said that when he saw her he was dumbstruck because she was so beautiful and so girly. He said that everyone at the prom was shocked to see her all made up and dressed in a dress.

Blue enjoyed that story and laughed as she told us how she would drag my friend to the gay and lesbian bars because she didn’t want to go alone. At one particular bar she said she had to go to the restroom but didn’t want to go in by herself so she dragged him in there too. She said it was the more horrible of horrible places she ever had to go. She said that the floor was so nasty that you could probably name any disease and probably get it from the floor. She said that she didn’t even want to sit on the toilet not even with the ass protectors on it, so she “eagled it” I never heard that term before so I had to ask what that meant. She said that was when a girl went to the restroom and just hovered over the toilet seat because it’s so dirty - I never knew women did that until that night. The next thing she did and said made me come up with a great idea. She walked over to the cooler and pulled out a bottle of Miller Light, opened it and began to drink it. As she did she said, “Miller Light in a bottle is a lesbian drink. All the lesbians drink this stuff”

I looked at her and said, “My sister drinks Miller Light out of a bottle” and just like that the idea hit me… I would set my sister up with Blue.

It didn’t matter that my sister was not a lesbian, I was going to set her up with another girl. At the time she had been going out with good-for-nothing guys, so I figured why not try a girl? All the guys she had gone out with up to that time were almost a cookie cutter type of each other. They were short, ugly, with short stubby hair, saggy pants and no job. Most of the guys that she went out with up to that time had the IQ of a peanut butter sandwich.

When my sister found out what I had done, she went to my mom and asked, “you know what your son just did? Do you want to know what your son just did”

“What?” My mom asked.

“He set me up on a date with a lesbian."

"He set you up with a lesbian?"

"Yes. He set me up on a date with another girl.”

“Well,” my mom answered. “at least that way you can’t get pregnant.”

Last year, the tough guy from work and myself went to the 2008 Mr. Olympia Bodybuilding Expo. It was my first time at the expo and it was such a great experience that right afterwards we decided that the following year we would be going again. As a matter of fact we were so inspired by all the bodybuilders at the expo last year that we decided that the following year we went we were going to be buffed and muscular. We started off well, going to the gym and doing cardio

The first week the tough guy asked me, “did you work out?”

I answered, “Yeah I worked out and did cardio too.”

The second week the tough guy asked, “did you work out?”

I answered, “Yeah I worked out but I didn’t do cardio this time.”

The third week the tough guy asked, did you work out?”

I answered, “Uh…I didn’t really have time this week. It was a crazy week.”

The fourth week the tough guy asked, “did you work out?”

I answered, “No, but I passed the gym on my to McDonalds”

The fifth week the tough guy didn’t ask me anything.

This year we had a pretty good walk from where we parked to where the expo was being held. As we were walking I could feel myself feel a little winded. I told the tough guy that I really needed to get back in the gym because I was already starting to feel myself breath harder. To be fair though, I think I may have had the beginning of a cold because even now I’m still fighting off a cough and congestion, but at the time I didn’t know it. After a little bit, even though he won’t admit it, the tough guy was breathing just a little harder. I brought that up and he said he wasn’t breathing hard - maybe for next year’s expo we’ll get into better shape.

I used to think that bodybuilders in general were short little guys, but when I walked into the 2009 Mr. Olympia Bodybuilding Expo it was like walking into the land of giants. There were lots of bodybuilders, both men and women who were at least my height and quite a few that were taller than me. One of the biggest guys that I saw there was this guy:

At first when I came up to him I was like a little kid, just kind of wide-eyed and slacked-jawed. “You wanna an autograph?” the giant said.

I shook my head answering “no” but my mouth said, “yes” and like a little kid waiting for his baseball hero I waited as he autographed a picture for me. As I watched him sign his name I thought to myself this guy is not human…he’s a mutant. He handed me the picture and I asked him if I could take his picture. He flexed so I took his picture.

There was something about this next lady that really stuck me as beautiful - I don’t normally think that a woman who could body slam me is attractive --- wait a minute, yeah I kind of do, especially if she looks like Michelle Rodriguez. I don’t know, maybe it was her muscles or the fact that she was so dark, and I don’t mean that in a bad way, but the fact was that she was really dark made her muscles really stand out and I guess I liked that. Maybe she reminded me of dark chocolate and everyone knows just how much I love dark chocolate. I don’t know, but something seemed attractive to me about her. She was standing with some friends and every once in awhile someone would come up with a camera and ask to take her picture. I also noticed that while she talked to her friends every so often she would just turn, flex and someone would take her picture. As I walked by she flexed so I took her picture.

Not all the women were bodybuilders, some were just in very good shape. I don’t know what these girls were giving samples of - I don’t think most of the men that lined up at this booth knew or cared what they were getting as long as it came from these women. They could have been giving out coupons for 75% off a vasectomy and the men would have taken them with a smile.

but of all the girls I talked to at the expo this one was the one that seemed the hottest to me, not only because…well, she’s hot, but because she was so freaking nice. She was so nice to me that I was ready to give her my first born if she had asked me.

When I was a kid my grandfather would love to watch wrestling on television. I used to get a kick on how he used to cheer his favorites on and yell at the screen. As I got older I realized that it was just entertainment and it just didn’t seem to hold the same magic as it did for me when I was younger. There was one wrestler that I thought was cool, even after I got older - that was Stone Cold Steve Austin. He was this larger than life character on TV and for some reason seemed real. What I mean by real is that I had the feeling that if I ever met him in real life he would be exactly like he was on television, so imagine how I felt when I turned the corner and there he was sitting at a Muscle and Fitness booth signing autographs.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a brown spot on my foot I wasn’t too worried about it. I could just be getting older. Isn’t that what happens to you as you get older - you get spots? When my friend found out the first thing she said was, “You better get it checked because it could be skin cancer.” My friend is a bit of a hypochondriac and seems to think any sudden spot or change on your skin can only mean one thing - skin cancer. I know that as you age you begin to get spots and things grow out of places that you didn’t even know existed, but I guess that’s normal and inevitable, so when I saw the spot I wasn’t too concerned. I mean how likely is it that I would get skin cancer on my foot?

Needless to say, my friend’s words kept running though my mind. The more I thought about it the more I began to think that maybe it was something serious and I should get it checked. One morning I sat in the bathroom looking at my foot and the brown spot on the top of my foot and couldn’t help but notice how sharp the edges were - I didn’t know if that was a good sign or bad, but I figured it was a sign and then I noticed there was another faint spot just to the right of the first one. On the off chance that I had dirty feet, I licked my thumb and rubbed it against the spots but neither of them came off, so I didn’t have dirty feet. I had spots on my feet.

Later that day I called my friend and asked her if she could take a look at it. “You think it could be something serious?” I asked her a little worried.

“I’m no expert,” she said, “but let’s take a look.” Plop that big dog up here” she patted her lap. I just looked at her when I asked if there was something serious I didn’t expect her to give my feet an examination. I’m not a foot person - I hate having other people’s feet touch me and it just seemed sort of weird for me to have my friend touch my feet. “Come on, give me your foot” She said

“Uh..I don’t want to.”

“Oh come on, don’t be shy. You’re going to have to let someone look at it and besides how bad could they be? I have an older brother whose feet used to stink so bad that on family trips my dad used to make him ride with his feet sticking out the window.” I laughed at the image of her brother riding in the car with his feet sticking out the window. “Your feet can’t possibly stink more than that.”

I looked at her with a sideways glance, “My feet don’t stink at all.”

“just put it up here.“ I put my foot on my friend’s lap. “You’re right. It doesn’t smell.“ She leaned in a little and took a breath.

I looked at her with a strange look and slightly disgusted look on my face, who actually smells someone else’s feet? I don’t care if you’re friends or not - you don’t go around smelling other people’s feet - It’s just not right. I said, “I’m right 97 to 98 percent of the time and usually the other 2 -3 percent is because someone gave me wrong information.“

My friend just rolled her eyes and then began to look at the spot on my foot “It looks weird” she said licking her thumb and then rubbing against the spot.

“Hey!” I said starting to pull away from her, but she held my foot tightly.

“It might be dirty” She said smiling then the smile faded. “I bet you it’s some sort of melanoma”

“A whoda whada?” I asked not really hearing the word melanoma.

“A melanoma. A skin cancer.” She looked serious now and by the look she gave me I knew that I shouldn’t joke about it. ”You really should get it checked. You have three of them on this foot. Let me see the other foot.”

“Huh?” I didn’t even think to look at my other foot. I didn’t hesitate this time I put my foot in my friend’s lap and sure enough there were brown spots on it too. We just looked at each other and I think at that time we both had an idea that more than likely it wasn’t anything to worry about, but if it wasn’t cancer what could it be? Maybe I was turning into some sort of spotted mutant super-villain. I didn’t know what was happening but I did know I had to get it checked out. I’d hate to let it go and then die of some sort of rare spotted disease

Here lies Tony
He had spots on his feet
He didn’t worry about it
Now, he’s food for worms to eat

I called and made an appointment with a dermatologist . I hate going to see the doctor, even if it is a dermatologist, so as usual I paced in the waiting room. Finally, I was called back by a nice older lady who asked me different questions and asked me to take off my shoes so she could see the spots.

“I’ve never seen anything like that.” she said, “We’ll see what the doctor thinks, she should be in shortly.”

maybe there was still a chance I was becoming a mutant with evil spotted powers, was the first thought that went through my head. The second thought that went through my head was “why is this older lady looking at my feet if she’s not the doctor and why is she touching them?”

It wasn’t long before the doctor came in. It was like in a movie where the door opens slowly and you see a pair of long legs in four inch black stilettos come through first. As she walks in it’s as if she’s a model walking the runway with the wind machine blowing her hair and lab coat back in slow motion.

She licked her lips and said, “Hi sweetie, I hear you spots on your feet.” A curl of hair fell down in front of her face, she pushed it back. “lay back and lets see what we’ve got.” I sucked in my gut and melted into the examination table as she looked at my feet. ”Hummm, this is strange” she smiled. “You have six perfect circles on each foot”

“Six circles?” I sat up. “I didn’t have that many before.” I looked at my right foot and she was right there were three darker circles with two others that were not as dark. I didn’t see the sixth one, but I took her word for it - she is the professional. I looked at my other foot and I could clearly see six spots. I looked up at the doctor and asked, “What is it?”

“it’s nothing to worry about.” She kind of chuckled. I couldn’t believe that she chuckled while I was sitting there mutating into who knows what or I was on death’s doorstep with some sort of rare melanoma. “I can guarantee you that those spots are nothing to worry about” She turned and picked something up from the floor. At first I didn’t know what it was but then I saw she had my shoes. I guess that was the end of the appointment - I was definitely going somewhere else for a second opinion. “Watch this.” she said as she slid my shoes onto my feet.

As she slid my shoes on, it was so obvious that I had to laugh and wanted to slap my forehead. The holes on my Crocs matched exactly with the spots. The spots were nothing more than tanned areas of my feet.

“Wow” was all I said.

“Let’s just write this up as a free consultation.” she said as she smiled and walked out the door.