When It Starts With the Beeping

That moment when one of your apartment’s 20-year-old combination smoke and carbon dioxide detectors starts randomly beeping and you aren’t cooking and have no candles burning or anything.  And then you manage to take it down off the wall and shake it and whatever, but it keeps on with the freaking beeping so loud and you take the batteries out and put them back in and it’s still beeping so freaking loud and so you take them out again and look for replacements, which totally aren’t where you thought they were, but you find them eventually in a bag under your bed.  And then you put the replacements in and it starts again with the  freaking beeping so loud and you start to plead with the detector, asking it what the hell it wants, and of course they never answer you and so you take the new batteries out and say ok I just can’t do this right now, I’ll deal with you tomorrow, and you hope there’s no gas leak or anything but what the hell can you do so you put the empty detector on the dresser and watch The Godfather and just hope for the best.

Holding Hands with My Old Man

When I was 16, my dad and I were on our way to meet my mom at a photographer’s studio downtown to pose for our only professional family portrait ever.  Walking from a nearby parking lot, he and I waited in our uncomfortable suits to cross at an intersection near the studio, and as the light changed, my dad grabbed my hand.  In that instant I was shocked and embarrassed that he had done it and confused especially because as he was so rarely demonstrative of his affections to me, but we walked across the busy intersection, my hand in his.  I never really thought much about that experience again until a few years later, after my dad passed away suddenly.  As I reconciled with conflicted emotions his leaving me so early, the memory of the embarrassing moment at the intersection that day reminded and comforted me that his instinct was to protect me.

Pop Culture Reality Check

Spotting Fail

Two young guys at the gym, both wearing earbuds. Young guy # one benching, young guy # two “spotting” his bench bro.  Young guy # one lifts semi heavy load, executes a couple of decent reps, last one lands on his chest.  Young guy # one gasps, “Brian! Brian! Brian! Brian!”.  Young guy # two (apparently his name is Brian), earbuds in, checking cellphone, doesn’t hear or see his gasping bench bro directly in front of him.  Old guy on next bench without earbuds (me) pulls bar off young guy # one’s chest.  Both young guys say, in unison, “Thanks, man”.    Old guy (me) replies, “No problem, Brian.”