[The following string was born of the East Coast's wilting heat wave of early July. The Melissa Manchester reference seems out of place but is an inside joke stemming from a voice mail message left by Jared X on A's cell phone a few years ago, horrifically singing the chorus of one of Ms. Manchester's offerings from the '80s. The reasons behind the message are lost to history.]
From: Jared X
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 9:31 AM
To: A
Subject: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
When it’s 92 degrees outside before 9:00am, it does not bode well for the rest of the day. I don’t recall so much as a breeze since sometime last week.
************
From: A
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 1:54 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
A few quotes come to mind:
"Sometimes it gets so hot I want to crawl right out of my skin." -- John Goodman as Charlie the Insurance Salesman
"They say it is so hot today, people are walking up to cops and asking the cops to shoot them." -- Al Pacino as Ricky Roma
“It’s gonna be hot and wet! That’s nice if you’re with a lady, but ain’t no good if you’re in the jungle!” -- Robin Williams as Adrian Kronauer as Roosevelt E. Roosevelt
"Today's forecast: SUN! SUN! SUN! SUN! SUN!" -- Steve Martin as Harris K. Telemacher
************
From: Jared X
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 2:01 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
“Today's temperature's gonna rise up over 100 degrees, so there's a Jheri curl alert! If you have a Jheri curl, stay in the house or you'll end up with a permanent black helmet on your head foreva!” – Samuel L. Jackson as Mister Senor Love Daddy
“It’s so hot out I’m getting a f***ing headache.” – [Cousin M] as herself
*****************
From: A
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 2:48 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
"Did you see 'The Little Mermaid' on TV yesterday? Ariel, she's so hot!" -- Jason Biggs as Jim Levenstein
*****************
From: Jared X
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 3:16 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
“The water was too hot. Definitely burned Charlie Babbitt!!!! Water was too hot.” – Dustin Hoffman as Ray Babbitt
*****************
From: A
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 4:00 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
"It's so damn hot... milk was a bad choice." -- Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy
*****************
From: Jared X
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 4:12 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
“The heat got hotter, Ali starts to curse me….” – Q Tip as a guy who inadvertently drove his friends from Brooklyn to El Segundo and then left his wallet there
*****************
From: A
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2010 4:22 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
"Beat you with bologna, slap you with salami/Cuz when I get hot I get hot like pastrami." -- LL Cool J as a dude who'll rip you to shreds, tap you on the head, then leave the battle lookin' as happy as a newlywed
*****************
From: Jared X
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 9:42 AM
To: A
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
Hi temp yesterday: 103
Temp @ 4:00 am: 84
Temp @ 9:15 work arrival: 93
Expected hi today: 102
“I’m stranded in the jungle trying to take in all the heat they was givin’….” -- Bruce Springsteen as “Bad Scooter”
****************
From: A
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 1:31 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
Eugene hi temp yesterday: 85°
Temp @ 4:00 am: 68°
Temp @ 9:30 work arrival: 72°
Expected hi today: 92°
Expected type of heat: dry... it's a dry heat
Expected comfort level, compared to NYC: scads higher
Expected complaints from the locals: zip
Expected winner of the World Cup semis today: Germany
Melting point of a vuvuzela: 225° F
Melting point of a hot dog: Unknown
Possible formula for melting point of a hot dog, if "melting point of a hot dog" = HG, "melting point" = b, "lips" = L, and "a$$holes" = A: HG = bL + bA
"In the he-e-e-e-eat of the ni-i-i-ight..." -- Dad, doing a terrible impression of Ray Charles.
**************
From: Jared X
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 1:59 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
NYC’s heat: somehow less dry than yesterday
Spain 2, Germany 1
Melt all the vuvuzelas … please.
Jared to Sabrett Hot Dog Vendor on West xxth Street: What would you say is the melting point of one of these hot dogs?
Sabrett Hot Dog Vendor: You want relish with that?
“She said she would be lost without you, she’s stepped out of her head (Out of her head!)” – Jared, doing intentionally awful impersonation of Melissa Manchester
***************
From: A
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 2:17 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
Hi temp of the dirty water in average Sabrett vendor's cart: 55°
Average age of condiments: 5 months
Ingredients in that brown sauce on the onions: ???
Typical ethnicity of vendor: ???
Eating a NYC Sabrett hot dog: Priceless (where "Priceless" = "slightly better than a fly-covered-wheel-of-meat gyro from the next cart.")
"It's so hot today. Sooo hot today. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot." -- Mick Jagger doing the weather report while rubbing nipples, on MTV, circa 1986.
************
From: Jared X
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 2:52 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
Hardness of Sabrett vendor’s large pretzels on the Mohs Scale of Hardness: 11 (scratches diamond)
Out of 12 drinks displayed on top of cart, number actually in melted-ice-bin for sale: 1 (diet orange Fanta)
Ethnicity of Sabrett vendor on West xxth Street: Macedonian (or something)
Cap worn by Macedonian (?) Sabrett vendor on West xxth Street: Winnipeg Jets
Language spoken by Macedonian (?) Sabrett vendor on West xxth Street to Uzbek (?) cab driver who pulled over behind cart for hot dog: Spanish
“HOT! Gettin’ in the hot tub! HOT! Huh! Zebede houmph! HOT!” – Eddie Murphy as James Brown on SNL, circa 1984
****************
From: A
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 3:49 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: Melting Point of Hot Dogs
Average number of napkins you receive with each Sabrett: 35*
Average number of said napkins that already have mustard or ketchup smeared on them: 34.5*
Number of calories in a can of Diet Orange Fanta: 4**
Number of countries besides Mexico that still distribute Diet Orange Fanta: 3**
Number of countries besides Mexico where it's still socially acceptable to drive an 80's VW beetle: 0***
*Results may vary
**Figures are pitifully uneducated guesses
***Just plain not true
"It ain't the heat; it's the humility." -- Yogi Berra
Friday, September 3, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Deathtraps for Children
From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 12:02 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
I didn’t play soccer again this weekend, probably the last time I’ll need to rest this stupid, stupid shin for my stupid, stupid, injury. Instead of soccer, which at least is fun, I went to a BD party for a 75-year-old at my sister-in-laws' house in Jersey. This party involved about 6.5 hours of standing around (not sitting and resting my shin), occasionally chasing the stray three-year-old nephew who had wandered too close to the pool and was not being watched by his responsible party. I can’t stomach three-year-olds wandering perilously close to large, in-ground pools. I just can’t.
On one such occasion, I distracted a three-year-old lad by playing a game wherein he was controlling my legs and making me walk away from the pool. He guided me over to a plastic storage bin and I feigned crashing into it because three-year-olds are universally delighted by such chicanery. As I completed my dramatic flourish, I felt a hot needle in my leg. Then another. Then I noticed that the three-year-old, who only moments earlier was precariously standing on the edge of an in-ground pool, was now surrounded by a cloud of angry bees. One of these bees stung him in the hand. Yet another stung me right on my now-infamous shin contusion. I whisked him away and into the house, feeling additional hot needles in additional body parts, so that we could both get ice. My sister-in-law comes in behind us laughing that “Oh yeah, there’s a bees nest in that bin.” That might’ve been good information to have had earlier in the afternoon. You know, before my nephew and I had become welt-ridden pin cushions for the Rural New Jersey Bee Cooperative.
Although I could say this about just about any other activity in the world, I’d have been better off playing soccer. Without shin pads.
***********************
From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 1:39 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
I had a parallel experience to your In-law Party for the Advancement of Child Safety. On Saturday I played a show out in a rural area just outside Eugene that contains many farms and wineries. We played the show in a covered horse arena. Outside the arena there was a barbecue area and further on there were more fenced-in horse fields and goat pens – a really quaint, well-kept farm. The flies were bad, but that’s to be expected when you mix the errant spillage of Ninkasi with shredded, horses**t-tinged bark.
I was told to advertise said party as “kid-friendly.” But in retrospect, I would not have complied. When we got there (early) there were already a bunch of filthy kids running around everywhere, petting and feeding the horses and goats, unattended. Our singer was particularly appalled that some little kids were feeding and petting the Shetlands and the two stallions, which can apparently be mean and aggressive, and was telling me so when she realized the pens in their entirety were surrounded by electric fencing. No one was injured, thankfully, before we could get the word out.
When we walked back into the arena, we noticed a couple handfuls of obviously underaged kids hanging out by the kegs and drinking beer. As I poured my first, I was introduced to the host’s oldest daughter, possibly 15 years old, who was quick to proclaim her hatred for beer and take a greedy gulp from a Smirnoff pint that had some kind of stawberry mixer poured into it only enough to change its hue to a wan pink.
While the bands played, the marijuana abounded. Kids ran in and out and from between the legs of parents who passed more joints than I can ever remember seeing in one place at one time. Outside, having fed everyone, the BBQers did bong rips and got the late-night snacks ready. From the stage, I saw a guy with no hair on top of his head, but dreads down to his knees, with a lit spliff in his mouth, swinging a 3-year-old girl (presumably his daughter) in time with the music.
It was bizarro world. The only person to get mildly hurt was a 30-something who apparently drunkenly stumbled into one of the lit grills. He disappeared after that and we’re not sure how he got home. Maybe they fed him to the pigs.
****************
From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 2:21 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Your Deathtrap for Children sounds like it was a lot more fun than my Deathtrap for Children.
Interestingly, I’d have brought toddlers to a “kid friendly” party at a winery-farm, but not my teens and preteens. Toddlers like farm animals, and the farmers usually structure the kid-animal interactions in a safe manner. Preteens and teens don’t need to see adults making drunken/stoned a$$e$ of themselves as they’re starting to make their own decisions about how to behave at parties. Unfortunately, the party I went to over the weekend featured adults making drunk/stoned a$$es of themselves and I had my teens/preteens there. I was able to occupy them with babysitting tasks, which helped. I’d have pulled it all off too, if I’d known where the bees lived ahead of time.
Remember: always scout out the locations of major beehives when watching other people’s brats at parties you didn’t want to go to in the first place. Also, don’t swing your child while holding a giant spliff in your lips. You could put out someone’s eye.
***************
From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:05 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Naw, these guys are lifers... real pros. He probably rolled the thing with one hand while playing with his kid with the other. Anyway, who would want to be responsible for wasting that dank, Yreka stuff on their kid’s eyeball? (Note: if this really happens, make sure said child goes to detox).
****************
From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:15 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Unless the kid has REOG (Really Early-Onset Glaucoma). Interestingly, scientists have found a link between REOG and dreadlocked parents.
******************
From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:29 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Maybe so, but REOG is treated by smoking the spliff, not inserting it into the maladied eye. Liquid LSD on the other hand... in the Northwest they refer to the ocular dose as “the ladder.”
****************
From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:46 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
As a parent thoroughly experienced in administering medicines to 3-year-olds, I’m not sure how you get a child of that age either to smoke a medicine or take it in directly through the eye. It’s hard enough to get a liquid dose in through the mouth if the child is at all finicky and the medicine doesn’t taste like bubblegum. I’d think you’d need a suppository form of LSD to assure that the child actually received the dose. They could call the suppository form “the chute.” Or “the brown acid.”
***************
From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 4:22 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
To get a child to smoke their medicinal cannabis, train them with cigarettes. Show them a TMZ video of Miley Cyrus getting caught smoking. Make sure you supply the proper smokes to the child: Marbs or Camels or any brand that is thoroughly and purposefully addictive (stay away from American Spirits and Winstons). The child will be begging you for his/her maryjane in no time! [Surgeon General’s Warning: Quitting Smoking When You’re Five Or Six Greatly Reduces Serious Threats To Your Health]
*******************
From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 5:07 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
I think there’d be an entire new market for Dora the Explorer nicotine patches. For boys, of course, there’d be the Diego nicotine patch. The picture on the patch could be Dora (or Diego) smiling broadly and saying “No fumar!”
We should get in on this on the ground floor.
**************
From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 6:21 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Your organic garden and The “No Fumar!” Patch® are two ways to start a healthy lifestyle change that’s easy and fun!!
If we get Michelle Obama’s endorsement, we’re rich.
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 12:02 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
I didn’t play soccer again this weekend, probably the last time I’ll need to rest this stupid, stupid shin for my stupid, stupid, injury. Instead of soccer, which at least is fun, I went to a BD party for a 75-year-old at my sister-in-laws' house in Jersey. This party involved about 6.5 hours of standing around (not sitting and resting my shin), occasionally chasing the stray three-year-old nephew who had wandered too close to the pool and was not being watched by his responsible party. I can’t stomach three-year-olds wandering perilously close to large, in-ground pools. I just can’t.
On one such occasion, I distracted a three-year-old lad by playing a game wherein he was controlling my legs and making me walk away from the pool. He guided me over to a plastic storage bin and I feigned crashing into it because three-year-olds are universally delighted by such chicanery. As I completed my dramatic flourish, I felt a hot needle in my leg. Then another. Then I noticed that the three-year-old, who only moments earlier was precariously standing on the edge of an in-ground pool, was now surrounded by a cloud of angry bees. One of these bees stung him in the hand. Yet another stung me right on my now-infamous shin contusion. I whisked him away and into the house, feeling additional hot needles in additional body parts, so that we could both get ice. My sister-in-law comes in behind us laughing that “Oh yeah, there’s a bees nest in that bin.” That might’ve been good information to have had earlier in the afternoon. You know, before my nephew and I had become welt-ridden pin cushions for the Rural New Jersey Bee Cooperative.
Although I could say this about just about any other activity in the world, I’d have been better off playing soccer. Without shin pads.
***********************
From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 1:39 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
I had a parallel experience to your In-law Party for the Advancement of Child Safety. On Saturday I played a show out in a rural area just outside Eugene that contains many farms and wineries. We played the show in a covered horse arena. Outside the arena there was a barbecue area and further on there were more fenced-in horse fields and goat pens – a really quaint, well-kept farm. The flies were bad, but that’s to be expected when you mix the errant spillage of Ninkasi with shredded, horses**t-tinged bark.
I was told to advertise said party as “kid-friendly.” But in retrospect, I would not have complied. When we got there (early) there were already a bunch of filthy kids running around everywhere, petting and feeding the horses and goats, unattended. Our singer was particularly appalled that some little kids were feeding and petting the Shetlands and the two stallions, which can apparently be mean and aggressive, and was telling me so when she realized the pens in their entirety were surrounded by electric fencing. No one was injured, thankfully, before we could get the word out.
When we walked back into the arena, we noticed a couple handfuls of obviously underaged kids hanging out by the kegs and drinking beer. As I poured my first, I was introduced to the host’s oldest daughter, possibly 15 years old, who was quick to proclaim her hatred for beer and take a greedy gulp from a Smirnoff pint that had some kind of stawberry mixer poured into it only enough to change its hue to a wan pink.
While the bands played, the marijuana abounded. Kids ran in and out and from between the legs of parents who passed more joints than I can ever remember seeing in one place at one time. Outside, having fed everyone, the BBQers did bong rips and got the late-night snacks ready. From the stage, I saw a guy with no hair on top of his head, but dreads down to his knees, with a lit spliff in his mouth, swinging a 3-year-old girl (presumably his daughter) in time with the music.
It was bizarro world. The only person to get mildly hurt was a 30-something who apparently drunkenly stumbled into one of the lit grills. He disappeared after that and we’re not sure how he got home. Maybe they fed him to the pigs.
****************
From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 2:21 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Your Deathtrap for Children sounds like it was a lot more fun than my Deathtrap for Children.
Interestingly, I’d have brought toddlers to a “kid friendly” party at a winery-farm, but not my teens and preteens. Toddlers like farm animals, and the farmers usually structure the kid-animal interactions in a safe manner. Preteens and teens don’t need to see adults making drunken/stoned a$$e$ of themselves as they’re starting to make their own decisions about how to behave at parties. Unfortunately, the party I went to over the weekend featured adults making drunk/stoned a$$es of themselves and I had my teens/preteens there. I was able to occupy them with babysitting tasks, which helped. I’d have pulled it all off too, if I’d known where the bees lived ahead of time.
Remember: always scout out the locations of major beehives when watching other people’s brats at parties you didn’t want to go to in the first place. Also, don’t swing your child while holding a giant spliff in your lips. You could put out someone’s eye.
***************
From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:05 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Naw, these guys are lifers... real pros. He probably rolled the thing with one hand while playing with his kid with the other. Anyway, who would want to be responsible for wasting that dank, Yreka stuff on their kid’s eyeball? (Note: if this really happens, make sure said child goes to detox).
****************
From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:15 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Unless the kid has REOG (Really Early-Onset Glaucoma). Interestingly, scientists have found a link between REOG and dreadlocked parents.
******************
From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:29 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Maybe so, but REOG is treated by smoking the spliff, not inserting it into the maladied eye. Liquid LSD on the other hand... in the Northwest they refer to the ocular dose as “the ladder.”
****************
From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 3:46 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
As a parent thoroughly experienced in administering medicines to 3-year-olds, I’m not sure how you get a child of that age either to smoke a medicine or take it in directly through the eye. It’s hard enough to get a liquid dose in through the mouth if the child is at all finicky and the medicine doesn’t taste like bubblegum. I’d think you’d need a suppository form of LSD to assure that the child actually received the dose. They could call the suppository form “the chute.” Or “the brown acid.”
***************
From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 4:22 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
To get a child to smoke their medicinal cannabis, train them with cigarettes. Show them a TMZ video of Miley Cyrus getting caught smoking. Make sure you supply the proper smokes to the child: Marbs or Camels or any brand that is thoroughly and purposefully addictive (stay away from American Spirits and Winstons). The child will be begging you for his/her maryjane in no time! [Surgeon General’s Warning: Quitting Smoking When You’re Five Or Six Greatly Reduces Serious Threats To Your Health]
*******************
From: Jared X
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 5:07 PM
To: A
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
I think there’d be an entire new market for Dora the Explorer nicotine patches. For boys, of course, there’d be the Diego nicotine patch. The picture on the patch could be Dora (or Diego) smiling broadly and saying “No fumar!”
**************
From: A
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 6:21 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: No Good Deed...
Your organic garden and The “No Fumar!” Patch® are two ways to start a healthy lifestyle change that’s easy and fun!!
If we get Michelle Obama’s endorsement, we’re rich.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Change is for the Birds
From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 2:11 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: change sucks
That's a joke of course. But when you are talking about e-mail systems, it's true. We are on a brand new, browser-based e-mail system that will make it much more difficult to archive our communications as I've been doing. I'll have to figure this out.
Hope I didn't put you on the spot yesterday with my phone call... was only trying to get advice, not have you tell me when I should and shouldn't visit. In any case, I'll gauge the situation and probably come out toward the end of the summer or something. Will let you know when I know.
A
***********************
From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 2:22:37 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
You didn't put me on the spot at all. Really, you didn't.
We should talk before anyone makes travel plans this summer. We're likely going to Maine with the kids this summer and we usually do things like that in late August. We usually get a house and those are usually hard to cancel, so let's coordinate. I'd hate to be away when you were in town.
By the same token, I'll give you as much heads-up as possible if we're heading west by ourselves.
We have another plan in the works for next summer. We're hoping to pool enough time off to drive with the kids across-country. There are some difficulties with that big of a trip but we've been wanting to do something like that for a long time. They're all old enough now that they wouldn't ask "Are we there yet" while still in Pennsylvania. We'd of course make Oregon a destination if we did anything like that.
I've been saving our e-mails too. I'll have more time to be a human being after this week.
****************
From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 2:49 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
Sounds good.
*************
From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 2:53:38 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
When you say "Sounds good," I feel like you're putting me on the spot.
Please stop that.
**************
From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:18 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
I've become what I detest: a west coast spot putter. The horror!
**************
From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:22:25 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
I thought spot putters were endangered. With all the logging out there and whatnot.
***************
From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:47 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
You're thinking of the spotted pooder, a small bird aptly named because it's neck looks like a vagina. In the logging towns, you can still find trucker hats that read "Save A Tree... Kill A Spotted Pooder."
Unfortunately, they've been hunted to the brink of extinction for their rose-colored, peachfish-odored throat feathers.
**************
From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:57:29 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
I believe you Photoshopped a vaginaesque feather pattern onto what was actually a tufted titmouse.
Somewhere on cable, Beavis just had a seizure.
****************
From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 4:41 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
Dude, it's a fu**ing spotted POODER. Don't sit there and tell me that I don't know the diff--
Ok, it's a titmouse. How the living f**k do you know what a tufted titmouse looks like?
**************
From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 5:40:30 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
Oh, I know about the birds. I know about the birds real good.
Titmice form a mixed flock with nuthatches and chickadees in the winter and congregate by the dozen in the ten-foot-tall rhododendron right outside my bedroom window. Every day at about 6:30 they start with their little piping call. Sometimes the stupid f**ks even fly into the window.
As bad as that is, the whippoorwill I get in the summer is ten times worse. F***er is nocturnal and sits there for hours, a couple of feet through a wall from my pillow, saying "whip-POOR-will, whip-POOR-will, whip-POOR-will." My Central Pennsylvanian friend T once suggested that I go out there with a bb gun and waste the little motherf***er. But my night vision isn't so good and they get all quiet as soon as you get close.
Then there's the northern yellow-shafted flicker (a medium brown woodpecker) that, every April, perches itself atop my metallic chimney cover and pecks the living Bejesus out of the thing to attract a mate.
Amplified down the flue, it sounds like a jackhammer on the roof, all at 7:00 am and seemingly only on weekends. I went up on the roof last year and found pockmarks all over the damn thing.
Your truckers and their shirts are right. My shirt would say: "Save a Chimney Cover, Kill a Northern Yellow-Shafted Flicker." The print would have to be a little small.
*****************
From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 5:59 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
The trucker hat was real and read: "Save A Tree, Kill A Spotted Owl." Anyone ignorant enough to wear something like that probably can't read small print.
Suggestions for your natural aviary:
1. Cut back your rhododendron
2. Construct a custom "lid" for your chimney cover that consists of multiple upright projections (nails, dowels) so the flicker cannot land.
3. Give the whippoorwill a dollar and suggest that there's more where that came from in Botswana.
If these don't work, purchase some C-4 and mold in into likenesses of each bird. Attach a wire to the decoys and run each of these wires to a detonator (preferable one of those Acme ones with a really big plunger). As they approach the decoys, detonate the explosives. Make sure you are nowhere near a golf course when you do this.
****************
From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 6:47:25 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
The rhododendron grows faster than I can cut it. Also, it can't be killed.
I believe I will take your suggestion regarding the nail blanket for the chimney cover.
The Audubon Society has rated the whippoorwill as the least bribable of all North American bird species. They come from old money.
If the aforementioned birds weren't deterred by the endless construction at my house, a little C4 won't scare them. Now if I went out there and sang Kenny Loggins' "I'm Alright" to them at the top of my lungs ... that just might work.
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 2:11 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: change sucks
That's a joke of course. But when you are talking about e-mail systems, it's true. We are on a brand new, browser-based e-mail system that will make it much more difficult to archive our communications as I've been doing. I'll have to figure this out.
Hope I didn't put you on the spot yesterday with my phone call... was only trying to get advice, not have you tell me when I should and shouldn't visit. In any case, I'll gauge the situation and probably come out toward the end of the summer or something. Will let you know when I know.
A
***********************
From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 2:22:37 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
You didn't put me on the spot at all. Really, you didn't.
We should talk before anyone makes travel plans this summer. We're likely going to Maine with the kids this summer and we usually do things like that in late August. We usually get a house and those are usually hard to cancel, so let's coordinate. I'd hate to be away when you were in town.
By the same token, I'll give you as much heads-up as possible if we're heading west by ourselves.
We have another plan in the works for next summer. We're hoping to pool enough time off to drive with the kids across-country. There are some difficulties with that big of a trip but we've been wanting to do something like that for a long time. They're all old enough now that they wouldn't ask "Are we there yet" while still in Pennsylvania. We'd of course make Oregon a destination if we did anything like that.
I've been saving our e-mails too. I'll have more time to be a human being after this week.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 2:49 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
Sounds good.
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From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 2:53:38 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
When you say "Sounds good," I feel like you're putting me on the spot.
Please stop that.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:18 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
I've become what I detest: a west coast spot putter. The horror!
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From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:22:25 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
I thought spot putters were endangered. With all the logging out there and whatnot.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:47 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
You're thinking of the spotted pooder, a small bird aptly named because it's neck looks like a vagina. In the logging towns, you can still find trucker hats that read "Save A Tree... Kill A Spotted Pooder."
Unfortunately, they've been hunted to the brink of extinction for their rose-colored, peachfish-odored throat feathers.
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From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:57:29 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
I believe you Photoshopped a vaginaesque feather pattern onto what was actually a tufted titmouse.
Somewhere on cable, Beavis just had a seizure.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 4:41 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
Dude, it's a fu**ing spotted POODER. Don't sit there and tell me that I don't know the diff--
Ok, it's a titmouse. How the living f**k do you know what a tufted titmouse looks like?
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From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 5:40:30 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
Oh, I know about the birds. I know about the birds real good.
Titmice form a mixed flock with nuthatches and chickadees in the winter and congregate by the dozen in the ten-foot-tall rhododendron right outside my bedroom window. Every day at about 6:30 they start with their little piping call. Sometimes the stupid f**ks even fly into the window.
As bad as that is, the whippoorwill I get in the summer is ten times worse. F***er is nocturnal and sits there for hours, a couple of feet through a wall from my pillow, saying "whip-POOR-will, whip-POOR-will, whip-POOR-will." My Central Pennsylvanian friend T once suggested that I go out there with a bb gun and waste the little motherf***er. But my night vision isn't so good and they get all quiet as soon as you get close.
Then there's the northern yellow-shafted flicker (a medium brown woodpecker) that, every April, perches itself atop my metallic chimney cover and pecks the living Bejesus out of the thing to attract a mate.
Amplified down the flue, it sounds like a jackhammer on the roof, all at 7:00 am and seemingly only on weekends. I went up on the roof last year and found pockmarks all over the damn thing.
Your truckers and their shirts are right. My shirt would say: "Save a Chimney Cover, Kill a Northern Yellow-Shafted Flicker." The print would have to be a little small.
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From: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 5:59 PM
To: Jared X
Subject: Re: change sucks
The trucker hat was real and read: "Save A Tree, Kill A Spotted Owl." Anyone ignorant enough to wear something like that probably can't read small print.
Suggestions for your natural aviary:
1. Cut back your rhododendron
2. Construct a custom "lid" for your chimney cover that consists of multiple upright projections (nails, dowels) so the flicker cannot land.
3. Give the whippoorwill a dollar and suggest that there's more where that came from in Botswana.
If these don't work, purchase some C-4 and mold in into likenesses of each bird. Attach a wire to the decoys and run each of these wires to a detonator (preferable one of those Acme ones with a really big plunger). As they approach the decoys, detonate the explosives. Make sure you are nowhere near a golf course when you do this.
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From: Jared X
To: A
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 6:47:25 PM
Subject: RE: change sucks
The rhododendron grows faster than I can cut it. Also, it can't be killed.
I believe I will take your suggestion regarding the nail blanket for the chimney cover.
The Audubon Society has rated the whippoorwill as the least bribable of all North American bird species. They come from old money.
If the aforementioned birds weren't deterred by the endless construction at my house, a little C4 won't scare them. Now if I went out there and sang Kenny Loggins' "I'm Alright" to them at the top of my lungs ... that just might work.
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