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Grainy, crappy, photo aside- I did the thumb ring thingy.

I love the look but it’s been garnishing some askances in amongst the burly types I work with.

I know, I know.

In the gay community a ring on the right thumb means you’re single and available.

But I’m not gay nor single nor even available. So it’s just a ring, right?

And, hey, honestly?, if a bunch of gay guys want to hit on me I’d find it flattering ’cause ain’t none of that gonna be happening and who doesn’t like to be popular? Shit, I’ll play cock tease. (did I just say that?)

So it’s been different.

I’ve gotten some really interesting looks from the women I work with and been treated to some really strange vibes from the guys I work around.

Hmm.

All ’cause a stupid ring on my thumb.

Sometimes this shit makes me want to laugh out loud.

Tourons is a word I wished I’d made up. But I didn’t. It’s the marriage of tourist and moron and pretty much describes the shit we gotta put up with every summer.

Schools are out and the influx of Tourons is full bore. Like ticks in weeds they’re suddenly frickin’ everywhere.

I was wrestling the dickheads around on our walk the other day when an especially cacophonously dressed crowd of Tourons went by. (What is it about neon and tourons? I mean, really?)

And it got me thinking in broadly stroking generalizations about the Tourons. You know, broad strokes like, as in, Mexicans are REALLY good gardeners? That kinda shit.

Touron Trashing Time.

Sorry, if you don’t want to revel in this, please tune out, OK?

So I was gazing at the cacophonousness and I was all like-Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania seems to host the most neon covered folks who eat at, like 5 o’clock?, and move in a caravan of vehicles, carefully following one another to their destination and tipping a dollar. Miss Carol knows this- a dollar is a BIG thing to Pennsylvanians.

New York is a huge state full of people but New York is framed and detained by New York City. Zoo Yorkers are amazingly loud and outlandishly friendly IF they like you. Lots of gold chains and fake tans and huge tips. Zoo Yorkers will tip you for weather info.

West Virginians are, like, from another planet? I don’t get them at all.

New Jersey is New York’s quiet little wallflower sister that you maybe don’t want to wake up?

Maine and all those little chilly places north of bum-fuck? You people are brittle and curt. Maybe it’s the constant cold?

Connecticut has the prettiest women I’ve ever seen outside of California. They are ALL scorchingly beautiful. I’m sure there are places where they keep the ugly girls but, hey, the ones visiting and hanging at our beach are drop dead gorgeous.

North Carolina has the best southern accent I know. And everyone looks like they could kill something and cook it up and make it taste good and make it a party doing it.

Hey, we get tourons from all over the world. And ’cause I’m a local, I get to poke fun at y’all. I’ve seen license plates from as far away as Alaska. (Who would drive from Alaska to Va Beach?)(And why?) But you do. And a part of me, the very little cruel part, is glad you do.

‘Cause you Tourons are endlessly entertaining.

I mean, really.

Cutter has this weird thing that he likes to do with empty bottles of water. He likes to unscrew the cap.

So when I got home on Saturday from work I flipped him my empty Dasani bottle and he went at it.

Then I stopped and said, You’re too fucking weird, dude. Why do you do that?

And Cutter paused and said, ‘Cause it’s a challenge and I think I like challenges.

So I pulled the Dasani bottle away from him and spun the cap off with my teeth, screwed the cap back on, and said-some challenge.

Cutter looked at me like I was a turd and said- well, of course it’s easy for you dickhead, you’ve got FINGERS. Try it with these he said wiggling his paws.

So I picked the empty bottle up again and cradled it between my forearms and worked and unscrewed the top. It was harder, but not THAT hard. Honestly? I don’t know why I get sucked into Cutter’s universe, but I do.

I put the top back on again and flipped it to him again. Big deal I said.

Cutter cocked his head like he always does when he’s thinking big thoughts and then he said- maybe I just like the crackly sound it makes when I chew on it.

I walked away.

Miss Carol and me are fledgling little foodie virgins, flapping our damp wings in the big hugeness that is the FOOD TV’s sweetly smelling universe.

I mean, please, all those channels, all that food, all the time. It’s just flipping incredible- dreaming of those nubile meals sizzling softly on the horizon while you’re stuffing your face with lunch?

But what’s even more amazing for me is the verbiage, the words.

Like tonight, Miss Carol and me were watching something on a foodie channel while we ate dinner and a chef had made (prepared?) a squab tartine for some judges to judge.

Squab Tartine.

I have no clue what that could be or what those words even mean, but I love them. Roll them off your tongue- squab tartine. Like, as in, ooh, honey, baby- how ’bout some squab tartine drizzled on your boobs? No?

Anyway.

What was really funny was the chef presented it solemnly and all the judges looked solemnly at this thing on their plates like they knew exactly what a squab tartine might be, instead of giggling and rocking back and forth, going, oh, please, you made those words up, right? c’mon stop, dude, you’re killin’ us.

But, hey, I was giggling.

20-20 hindsight, so Miss Carol and me went to a party, OK?

And it was fun, ya know, if fun can be defined by the stuff that’s yet to come, ’cause you know it’s on it’s way. Or, at least, NOW you do.

So we hung, and we drank and we exalted in another ‘effing Friday well done and well put behind us.

But then.

On the way home I just maybe mentioned that some of the other women at the party were HUGE. I mean, seriously big. And I say other women so they can all read this and go- it’s HER!  IT’S NOT ME!

Anyway.

Miss Carol looks at me on the road home and says- am I that fat?

And I said- No way, not a chance, baby, are you THAT fat.

So, do you see where this is going?

And it is, and it has, and I wonder sometimes why I can’t learn the simple lessons.

Fuck.

How weird is this?

I’m working at the hospital, in this tiny bio-hazard room in the OR complex, measuring, trying to shoe-horn in a new intercom system for the OR’s, trying to work around the giganormous digital stereo device that blares music into the OR’s, ’cause, honestly? The doc’s luuuuurrves them some music while they’re slicing and dicing.

And I’m thinkin’, shit ain’t gonna fit. And I’m scratching the pimple I call a brain, when a doctor and nurse come into the little bio-hazard room I’m pimple scratching in.

The nurse picks up a plastic container, not unlike what you keep leftovers in, labeled “right” and opens it and says- I kid you not- I don’t think we kept the nipple.

She looks into it and jiggles the contents.

So the nipple was left behind, the doc says, grinning as his nurse opens a similar container labeled “left”. She gazes into the tupperware, makes a face, looks up, and then they notice me.

Are those, like, human parts? I ask. Not knowing what else to say and, you know, curious?

Wanna see a woman’s breast? the doc says slyly, looking over his shoulder at me.

The nurse proffers the tupperware and says- it’ll probably mess up the way you look at your wife for a coupla weeks. And maybe your sex-life for awhile, she says.

Thinking that maybe my sex-life probably doesn’t need much more messing up and that maybe my relationship with Miss Carol’s boobs is just fine, thank you very much, I swallow hard and say-

Um, no thanks.

So they both giggle and leave.

The surgeons and surgical staff are the hospital’s rock stars, make no mistake, but, man, they certainly have a different way of looking at the world.

Sorry.

But they do.

In the last couple of months Miss Carol and me have been here amid sucky old people, and then, last week, when we had to get utility easements for electricity to The Little House of Horrors, Miss Carol had to speak to this old shithead, er, whoops, I mean, gentleman, whose property rubs up against ours.

Now, keep in mind, by us paying for the utility being run past his property enhances him and his future.

He doesn’t have to fork over the big bucks, he just hooks up, should he ever want to build.

So we were kinda surprised when Miss Carol called him and he reduced her to tears saying he’d NEVER allow us to put a telephone pole on his lot unless we bought his lot from him.

Come to find out, he’s an old dickhead with lots of time on his hands who just looooves to be a prick.

Do you spell asshole with a capital A?

Then.

I was walking the boys yesterday afternoon.

Whoops, stop, and back up.

I was waiting for the boys to finish eating before I could walk them and I saw this elderly, mostly bat-shit crazy couple walk up the street. They are local bat-shit crazies. He was dressed in the same old nasty dirty shit he’s always wearing and she was sporting her bag-lady seemingly seamless shapeless dress and overbearing do-rag.

They were muttering to one another as they went by.

So Cutter and Tug finish up and we head out for the evening yank-around. As we head up the street I see that the bat-shit crazies have turned and are heading back and they’re still muttering about important stuff, I am sure.

They get closer and closer, and I’m like? WTF? are they gonna just walk on top of us and stomp me and the boys into the road with their shitty Wal-Mart walkers?

Then as they pass Mrs. Bat-Shit Crazy says- you’re walking on the wrong side of the street boy.

I turn, thinking, no way Mrs. Bat-Shit Crazy is talking to me and thinking, if she is, maybe I’ll kick the shit out of Mr. Bat-Shit Crazy.

Sorry. That was just how my day was going.

But as they scurried away Mrs. Bat-Shit Crazy started to scream at me over her shoulder about the importance of walking facing oncoming traffic. Mr. Bat-Shit Crazy just kept going, slumped.

I stood, mesmerized, Cutter and Tug jerking and yanking, and I wondered how much it must suck to get old and realize your lap is over. You’re done. You’re just waiting it out, marking out the final ticks of time.

And I thought how I’ll probably suck when I get old.

But I yelled, Fuck you bitch, into the face of her screeching, anyway.

I’m not proud of that.