A Situation of Concern.

 

With all that stood between her and the game I was reduced to, you'd think there wouldn't be more than a handful of rotational foundations to which our lives could be pinned without a secret addition being imperiled. I'd always loved the way her hair seemed so well starched, especially for a morning person. When she thought better about fixing up our space in time for the Dutch New Year collaboration, I took her straight to the Department of Surgical Interventions at Mass General. There I was greeted by Lois Parnell and her assistant Hyman Lurfshpatzel. Through a set of pre-determined hand signals, Hyman made it known to me that Lois was in the middle of a very concerning situation on the home front. Her son and husband had been implicated in a botched hush money scheme which had spilled into a local watering hole putting several Olympic swimteam hopefuls' lives at risk.

By the time I arrived at Josh Swenson International Airport (Terminal 2) at roughly 3:98 in the wee hours, all I could see was a clearly upset Okinawan dental hygienist who seemingly never knew what hit her. And, to be fair, we've been wracking our brains for months now trying to figure out if, in fact, she was ever actually 'hit' at all. You see, when you play the game as long as I have, certain telltale features will leap out at you like a sore thumb at an anti-clerical  Rumba Contest. Other than that, I'm not the first to admit that there's no age limit on people who might feel the need from time to time to lean against whatever wall or other support structure might present itself. The person I dream of, night after night for going on a year or two, if that, is of medium height, with salty eyes and generally favors tan formfitting apparel. He—or she, it's never clear which!—continues to drum their fingers on a level-high synthetic table while I politely ask when I can expect to hear my name on one of the local shows. Other than that, there's an urban stickiness which I just cannot shake.

Now that my Pastor, Dr Dan Stimfler, has heard the full story, he's asked that I submit to a full battery of specimen contours under the direction of a bonded Service Agent who hails from the Four Corners region in the Sebna area. He (the Service Agent) has been keeping a lot of stress bottled up deep underneath. So much so, that when he was apprehended leaking caustic substances from the upper tier of Veterans Stadium, all we could do was to laugh out loud and thank the Lord for small miracles. To think that I was about to entrust my wife's mother to a solo camping event to be overseen by a pre-psychotic scoutmaster, gives more than a few of us chills and a runny nose. Sometimes even our tummies get uncomfortable. Which makes it difficult to bank our fair share of shut-eye. The Task Force has seen the contamination up close and personal. They'd also like to counsel at-risk youth during their time in-country. There's still the language barrier though. Plus, of course, they're deaf. Which might mean that we'll have trouble getting our sheets in before the cut-off. Just do the math. You might not like what you come up with, is all I'm trying to say.

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