Nightstand surprises

I rarely use this space for anything of a serious nature, but an extended family member of mine passed away yesterday. She was a kind and loving woman, and it didn't feel right to not mention her today. Gloria, you will be - and already are - deeply missed.

I'm not really in the writing mood, so here's something from the archives:

I was cleaning out an old nightstand, and I came across the most interesting things. The bottom drawer was almost entirely old photographs spanning the years. Most of them were from vacations that my wife and I have taken throughout the years, and it was nice to relive some of those moments (even if it made the cleaning process take five times as long). There were also many, many pictures of my group of friends during our college years, often with wide, alcohol-induced smiles. I also found a set of pictures from my bachelor party, and man that was a blast. Just me and my closest friends in the world (including my brother the Best Man, of course) drinking, acting stupid, and having fun.

A few of the pictures took place in a Hooters restaurant where we went for lunch. Unbeknownst to all of us, they have a tradition when it comes to bachelor parties: the groom-to-be has to put a raw hotdog in his mouth, a broomstick between his legs, and then ride the broomstick around the whole restaurant like a horse. When the waitresses brought me up in front of the whole restaurant and told me what I had to do, I quickly surveyed my options: either do it and get it over with or try to say no and cause a bigger stink. I told my friends that they'd better get good pictures, donned my "cool" sunglasses, and made a lap around the restaurant. For being one of the most embarrassing situations I've encountered, I look remarkably at ease in the photos. To this day I swear that I couldn't have done it without my sunglasses on; they allowed me to adopt an alternate persona in order to get through the ordeal.

I found two other things that were particularly interesting in my nightstand. One was a random piece of paper with a work assignment on it. On the back of it, I had written down two puns that must've stuck me on the same day. First, I wrote "Delusions of Grand Jury," maybe thinking that should I ever right a parody of a John Grisham novel, I'd have my title. Second, I wrote "Rice Erroneous." It took me a minute, but I think I was making a play on words with "Rice-a-Roni," and what one could call it if they screwed up the cooking process. This was before I knew of Condoleeza, so I couldn't have been coining a new nickname for her. I don't remember writing either of these down, so it was a strange experience to have to decipher my own puns.

Lastly, I found another piece of paper with an email I had written to my friend Jon in late April of 1998. He and I had been going back and forth writing purposely horrendous poetry in emails, each one more gloriously bad than the previous. I vaguely remember writing this one and almost stopping partway through because it was so silly, then changing it so it would appear that I was taking myself seriously - way too seriously. Without further ado, here is "Untitled" by Peter Klein:

Who knows the No
of the Norse Thunder Gods?
Who knows the nose
of the flaming bald eagle?
Who sees the sea
of the mighty Hepatitis?
Who sees the Sees
of the cocoa butter's loins?

It is he who smotes the matches of the pond'ring Everglades.
It is he who counts the crashing rainbow sparrows I have made.
It is he who kills a deer, a female dear, and then says "Doe."
It is he who need not know the name of that which No now knows.

I now know the knowledge
of the fruitless periled trees.
I know the bleeding wassifer
and his bandaged, bloody knees.
I know the swooning titmouse
and the way that prey will pray.
I know the pretty backspace key
bites ebb tides in the sway.
I know that used jalopies
are impossible to tow.
And yet I know that everything
I need not know to No.

Ah, I love bad poetry. I wish I still had the others that Jon and I wrote to each other, but this was the only one of its kind in my nightstand. I have the unintentionally bad ones from my teen years, but I think I'll keep those off the internet for a while longer. Part of me wants to go to an open mic poetry night and read that one with a running inner monologue of "If you don't understand this then you're an idiot because this shit is publishable. Grow up already." I looked on careerbuilder.com, but they didn't have "bad poet" as an occupation, so I guess it'll have to remain just a hobby for me. Oh well. Have a good day, gentle readers, and look out for swooning titmouses. Titmice? Whatever.