Notes From All Over
 
Yes, well . . . there it is . . . deadline time has once again rolled around
and I haven't a damned thing ready for that mud-sucking, squinty-eyed,
fish-faced editor of mine.  Since the tremendous response of my last column,
my dear editor has decided to keep me on the ferret and pet desk -- which
actually means, he plans on keeping me as far from him as possible.
Actually, that's not necessarily such a bad idea -- the farther away from
him I am, the less possibility that he can actually verify my expense
vouchers.  Have you ever noticed how much like auditors the average editor
is?  Average editor?  That's a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one!
As far as I can tell, there is nothing average about any editor it has ever
been my misfortune to know.  Editors are the only creatures on the face of
the earth to have radically different sized feet -- notice I didn't say
humans since there is some dispute in the scientific community about the
biological ancestry of editors.  There are some scientists who believe that
the average editor (that term again!) is actually descended from the
unlikely cross between a baboon and a three-toed sloth.  Other scientists
claim that the average editor is actually an un-evolved gibbon.  This theory
would explain the inordinately long arms common to all editors and the
unusual hooting sounds heard coming from editor's offices.  But, I digress
(although as I've pointed out before, that's not necessarily such a bad
thing).
 
Be that as it may . . . my favorite fish-faced editor suggested I do the
Steinbeck thing and chronicle travels with a ferret, a la "Travels With
Charley." I immediately suggested doing the Hemingway thing -- sitting
around a cantina in Spain drinking large amounts of chilled wine while
enraged bulls or extraordinarily fat women chased young men dressed in white
through the streets, a la Hemingway sitting around drinking heavily while
people and animals or extraordinarily fat women ran through the streets.
Needless to say, Fish-face vetoed my idea and told me to hit the road.
Which is how I ended up on the road with ferret in tow.
 
While packing my bag and getting ready to hit the road, I came to the
conclusion that Steinbeck was a piker when it came to travel.  I mean, what
was so great about driving around America with a poodle named Charley in a
truck?  Any idiot can do that!  And what kind of idiot names a poodle
Charley?  Believe me, I know several idiots with dogs who have gone off in a
car across country -- of course, none of them had poodles named Charley.
The only unfortunate thing was that they all managed to find their way back
home -- a fact I attribute more to the homing ability of the dog rather than
the idiot doing the driving.  Anyway, while packing my bag and getting to
know my new traveling companion, Blitzkrieg, I hit upon the idea of a trip
around the world -- by air, of course.  As for Blitzkrieg's name -- I had
considered naming him Slinky, or Stinky, or Flopsy, Mopsy, or some other
cute and equally insipid name until I let him out in my hotel suite.  Yes,
hotel suite.  Globe trotting journalists from the old school or journalists
with the trots, are not generally good housekeepers.  Hotel suites make
wonderful temporary lodgings -- someone comes in and cleans out all the
clutter, hangs your clothes, and restocks the bar.  It's almost like living
at home with mother again -- except she never restocked the bar.
 
As I was saying, while wondering what to name the mask-faced carpet shark, I
let him wander around the room to get to know me and my lifestyle as it
were.  Within five minutes, I knew exactly what that fur-covered engine of
destruction should be named.  What Blitzkrieg did to the suite, Hitler's
panzer forces did to Poland in 1939.  And they did it with slightly less
destruction, I might add!  With nary a backward glance, Blitzkrieg made a
dash for the potted ficus or palm or whatever the hell stood in the large
pot in the corner of the room was and began flinging dirt all over the room.
Thirty seconds later, the large leafy thing sagged drunkenly in it's pot
like a Congressman after a fund raising dinner.  A deft push with a dirt
encrusted nose and the plant crashed to the floor, taking half the bar with
it.  A panicked inspection revealed that no serious damage had been done to
the potables that matter, nothing lost but club soda, seltzer water, and
some glasses -- which I'm fairly indifferent to anyway; I mean, why bother
with glasses when swilling directly from the bottle is so much more
convenient?
 
Did the sound of smashing glass as it tumbled to it's destruction stop that
little four-legged bulldozer?  Don't bet your Aunt Myrtle's girdle on it!
Blitzkrieg simply looked around for other targets of opportunity.  As his
triangular head swiveled this way and that searching for a target, I saw
them flash brightly -- target acquired!  The carpet panzer zoomed straight
for the bookcase, and wedged his head between the case and the wall.  For
the briefest of moments, I thought he was stuck.  No such luck, with a kick
of his back feet and a twist of his tubular body, the entire bookcase came
crashing down in a shower of yellowed pages, plaster bookends, and
splintering wood.  As the dust cleared, Blitzkrieg appeared among the rubble
looking much like Rommel, the Desert Fox, surveying the waste laid to the
enemy forces.  Satisfied with the path of chaos and destruction; he belched,
scratched behind his ear and came to sit in my lap.
 
Surveying the carnage of what I was sure was my former hotel suite, I
decided that this Steinbeck idea was not without its merits.  The sitting
room of the suite looked like the aftermath of a convention thrown by
Republicans, the Knights of Columbus, the Shriners, and a couple of
traveling Jesuits.  I hadn't seen such a mess outside of a war zone since
the retirement party for Walter Cronkite -- compared to Blitzkrieg, one
hundred drunken journalists running riot naked (Cronkite, Dan Rather, and
Tom Brokaw, not me) through the Waldorf-Astoria were a bunch of babes in the
woods.  Yes sir, this was going to be a trip to remember.
 
(TO BE CONTINUED . . .
[Posted in FML issue 1637]