So Much More Than a Pet

Tags

comic strips, family, pearls before swine, pets

The cartoon above by Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis ran in newspapers a few months ago, and instantly struck a chord with many folks who have loved and lost an animal who was more a member of the family than just a pet.

I’m sharing the cartoon today because my family recently said goodbye to Keiko, our English Shepherd mix who provided us with so much joy, affection and wet-nosed kisses over 14 years. Keiko was a constant in our lives through job changes, a move across town, heart-breaks and triumphs, and more than a dozen brutally hot Midwestern summers. During her lifetime, Keiko endured two pet cats, her humans’ hectic work schedules, and various yapping little dogs in the neighboring yards. Meanwhile, we tolerated bare patches in the backyard, the constant shedding of dog hair around the house, and the occasional “gift” in the corner of the basement when Keiko couldn’t quite make it outside in time.

Like Edee in Pearls Before Swine, Keiko was a gentle, nurturing dog that neighborhood kids often approached for a quick scratch behind the ears. In more than nine years, she never once growled or snapped at our son, despite the tugging, pulling, and errant karate kicks little boys sometimes inflict on pets. In fact, Keiko was very protective of our child. From the time we brought a three-day old infant home from the hospital, Keiko would bark and growl at any stranger who approached our doorstep, perhaps knowing how much this little baby meant to us. In a way, he was her baby, too.

For me, Keiko was an enthusiastic walking companion, even on days when the thermostat dipped into the teens or soared above 90. For my wife, Keiko was a tricolored shadow, following her from room to room, especially the warm bathroom on cold winter mornings, or the kitchen, where there was usually a pretzel cracker to enjoy.

Like the beloved pooch memorialized in Stephan’s cartoon, Keiko had cancer, and we had to put her to sleep. The staff at the veterinarian’s office were almost as heartbroken as we were. A few days later, they sent us a sympathy card with an image of a dog bounding across the Rainbow Bridge. Fourteen-year-old dogs affect a lot of human lives.

Does a Rainbow Bridge exist? I’d like to think it does. It would be nice seeing Keiko again. The house seems emptier now. Walking the neighborhood sidewalks without holding her lease feels strange. Even our son, who complained of having to let Keiko out several times a day to go pee in her later years, claims that he misses her. I even miss–at least a little bit–vacuuming the downstairs and pulling up gobs of black and white Keiko-hair from the medium-pile carpet.

Our hearts are a little broken right now, and it could be a while before we welcome a new animal into our family. There’ll be no replacing our soft, sweet companion of more than 14 years.

Rest in peace, Keiko.

Keiko, in her younger years.

Cooling off with a friend.

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The Moral Bucket List

Tags

career, david brooks, family, moral bucket list, new york times, purpose

This article by New York Times columnist David Brooks is more than a year old, but it is a powerful essay about people we all know who are able to see beyond themselves, and achieve a certain grace and contentment through good works. It’s about those folks who live their lives for a greater purpose than just career success or personal happiness, and how we might all become more like them. If you can carve out a few minutes, “The Moral Bucket List” is well worth reading and reflecting on.

At my age, it’s easy to get wrapped up in career, family life and the ever-growing number of tasks that must be crossed off my to-do list. Life sometimes seems like a series of obligations that need to be met and goals that need to be reached. However, I believe it’s important to take a step back every once in a while to think about my place in the world, my impact on others, and what it truly means to be living a fulfilling, grateful, meaningful life.

In my son’s Kindergarten class, his teacher will sometimes ask the students if what they are doing on a particular assignment is their “best work.” It’s a good question for every stage in life, I think. Is your life today your best work—not only for yourself, but for the people and world around you as well?

A Dog Named Keiko

Tags

birthday, children, dogs, english shepherd, family, free willy, kansas city, keiko, marriage

On July 31, 2005, my wife and I adopted a dog. It was not an easy decision. We had two cats at the time, and adding a dog to the mix was certain to cause some domestic unrest.

“I’ve had dogs before,” I told my wife. “They need a lot of attention and can be a lot of trouble.”

We were not planning on getting a dog in the summer of 2005. One evening after work, we got a phone call from my wife’s cousin. He told us about this dog he had rescued from a co-worker who could no longer care for it. The dog’s name was D.J., and it was some kind of a border collie mix.

“You should come look at her,” he suggested. “She’s really pretty.”

The cousin lived near our house, so we went over that night. It had been raining earlier in the day, and we found D.J. running around the backyard with our cousin’s Siberian Husky. Both dogs were covered in mud but were friendly and wanted to put their paws all over us. The dog we came to see looked to be a tri-color, but it was hard to tell because of the muck on her coat. Our cousin told us he thought that D.J. was about six months old, and had been chained to a tree most of her life.

“What do you think?” the cousin asked. “You want her?”

“We’re going to have to think about it,” I said.

The cousin stroked his Van Dyke beard and nodded. “You’ve got ‘til tomorrow. After that, she goes to the pound.”

Later that night, my wife and I talked about the dog. One thing we agreed on was that D.J. was a horrible name. We couldn’t agree on anything else, however. My wife wanted the dog. I said I didn’t think that this would be a good time to add another pet. “Dogs take a lot of work,” I said.

The next day around lunchtime, I got a call at work. It was my wife.

“I had a dream last night about that dog,” she said. “I really don’t want her to go to the pound. I think we should take her.”

“Your cousin isn’t going to take her to the pound. That’s just a bluff,” I said. I have to admit now that I did not know my wife’s cousin as well as she did.

“Can we please get her?” she said. “I just can’t stop thinking about that dog.”

I agreed. How could I say no? That night after work, we took the dog, gave her a bath and bought all the necessary dog things–two bowls, a leash, dog food, squeaky toys, and a big rubber ball that we tied to a low-hanging branch in our backyard. As it turned out, the dog’s coat was a beautiful white, black and tan mix. She also had different-colored eyes–one brown and one very light blue.

“Isn’t that unusual? Is she blind in one eye?” we asked the veterinarian a few days later.

“I don’t really know,” he said.

“She’s really pretty, isn’t she? What kind of dog is she?” we asked.

“I’m not really sure,” the vet replied.

We soon learned that she was not blind in her blue eye, and we eventually discovered that she was an English Shepherd, which is a fancy name for a border collie/Australian Shepherd mix. After a few days of trying out names, we decided on “Keiko,” which means “blessed child” in Japanese and was also the name of the whale in the movie, Free Willy. My wife picked Keiko, however, because she liked how it sounded. The dog seemed to respond to the name as well. At the very least, she liked it better than being called “D.J.”

Nine years later, Keiko is still going strong. The photos above were taken earlier this month after a recent grooming appointment. Keiko has been everything we could have wanted in a dog: smart, happy, fun, energetic, sometimes mischievous, always hungry for a treat. We worried about having a high-energy dog around little kids, but Keiko turned out to be a wonderful companion for our children–always gentle and patient, and very often protective.

July 31 is not the date of Keiko’s birth, but we remember it as the day her life began with us. She has brought us so much joy and helped us to navigate life’s ups and downs. She has always been there for our family. For me, she has been a regular walking companion, a reliable playmate, and the only dog I could ever teach to catch a Frisbee.

So, happy 9th birthday, Keiko! We love you so very much.

They Always Bring Food

Tags

author, casseroles, death, family, fiction, food, insurance, marriage, mourning, plot for pridemore, Stephen Roth

Cynthia had been gone less than a week when the casserole ladies starting showing up at Frank’s door.

Deborah Rhinehart was the first one. Frank had just dropped the last batch of relatives off at the airport and was looking forward to spending some time alone. Pulling onto the gravel drive, he spotted Deborah’s beige Chrysler New Yorker parked in front of his house. He thought about shifting into reverse and heading back into town, but it was too late. Deborah was already trotting toward his pickup, a deep glass dish brimming with chicken enchilada casserole in her hands.

“Frank, I am so sorry,” she said as he stepped out of the truck. “This was so sudden.”

Frank nodded, not knowing what to say. Cynthia had battled cancer for two long years. That didn’t seem very sudden to him. He knew Deborah meant well. She was a portly woman in her early 60s with a quick, gleaming smile. Her husband, Emmett, died of a heart attack six years ago. He collapsed behind the register of that liquor store his family had run for more than 60 years. A hell of a way to go.

“If you ever need someone to talk to about it, you know I’m a pretty good listener,” she said, offering up a cautious smile. “I don’t know exactly what you’re going through, but I think I have an idea.”

“Thanks, Deborah. I really appreciate it.” He took the casserole, which was still warm, and gave her a half-hug with his free arm. He had no idea where he would put the dish. The refrigerator was crammed with food from four days of eating, drinking and reminiscing with family members after Cynthia’s funeral. He might just eat the casserole tonight. Enchiladas were not his favorite, but they smelled good.

His next visitor appeared the following day, a Wednesday. Sandy Richardson was a slender, emotional woman who did a lot of communicating with her hands. Frank knew the minute he opened his front screen door that Sandy would insist on coming into the house and having a chat. Frank took her green bean casserole, which he had sampled many times at church picnics and other gatherings, and set it on the kitchen countertop. He returned to the living room with two cups of Folger’s Black Silk Blend.

“Shit, Frank. I don’t know what to say,” Sandy said, already tearing up. “Cynthia was a great woman. A great woman. The service last week was just beautiful. She would have been so happy. She was so happy.”

Frank smiled and looked down at his coffee. He knew Sandy well. They even dated for a short while in high school until Sandy caught him at the Highway 65 Drive-In with Tamara Brewer and kicked out one of the tail lights on his Pontiac. That was a long time ago and it was a story both of them enjoyed retelling every once in a while. Still, Sandy was crazy as bat shit. Both Frank and Cynthia knew it, as did Sandy’s longtime husband Trent. He put up with her antics for four decades before finally keeling over a couple of years ago while changing a car tire. Folks said the massive stroke was due to Trent’s chain smoking, which was probably a symptom of his turbulent, up-and-down marriage.

“I just want you to know,” Sandy Richardson said, placing a well-manicured hand firmly on Frank’s knee (it almost looked like a claw). “I’m here for you. Always have been. Always will be.”

After 30 more minutes of tears and sudden, unnerving laughter, Frank ushered Sandy out the door and returned to his newspaper. He had barely gotten through the business section where there was another knock on the door.

“Are you home, Frank?” He recognized the voice. He could curse himself for not shutting the front door.

“Hello, Brenda,” he said, smiling and lifting the massive dish of three-cheese lasagna from her hands. “You are too kind.”

She walked into the house without being asked, which was Brenda Fink’s typical way of operating.

“God, Frank, it is so dark in here,” she said.

“Well, Brenda,” he said, “I am in mourning.”

She cocked her head and fashioned a concerned look. “Oh honey, I know. I know she meant the world to you. I am so, so very sorry.”

“Thank you,” Frank said. “Can I get you some coffee?”

“That would be wonderful,” Brenda turned on a couple of lamps and picked up the scattered newspaper to make herself a place on the couch. She was a tall, athletic woman who liked to wear bright-colored lipstick and pencil skirts that accentuated her legs. Everyone at Frank’s insurance agency was a little bit afraid of Brenda Fink, who was the office manager. She was twice-divorced and childless, yet Frank and the staff often called Brenda “Mother” because that’s the role she played at the agency. She kept the books, hired and fired, maintained Frank’s calendar and led all other administrative functions while her boss spent time with his clients. She planned the office Christmas party, remembered everyone’s birthday, and brought in donuts and pulp-free orange juice every Friday.

When Frank returned with the coffees, Brenda pulled a fat manila envelope from her pocketbook and plopped it on the coffee table.

“Sympathy cards,” she said. “I have another bag full of them at the office. I sorted through all of them and brought you the best ones.”

“Thanks,” Frank said, pulling out a greeting card with a water-colored rose on it.

“So when do you think you’ll be coming back?” she asked.

Frank tipped back his cup and took a sip. He had been thinking about that. Frank was 62 and didn’t want to run the agency much longer. He had always planned on retiring at 65, but Cynthia’s painful decline made him wonder if he wanted to wait even that long.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe a week from now?”

“Brenda smiled. She was sitting across from Frank, cup and saucer balanced on her well-sculpted knees. She moved the coffee to a side table and leaned toward her boss, the little gold crucifix on her necklace dangling over her freckled chest.

“Frank, you take as long as you need.” She clasped both of her man-sized hands around one of his. “You know I’ll keep things ship-shape and in good working order while you’re gone.”

She rose, brushing lint from her skirt. “I take good care of you, don’t I, Frank?”

He picked up her cup and saucer, and shuffled into the kitchen. It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon and he was still in his pajamas.

“You do, Brenda,” he said, dumping the cups into the sink with a considerable clank. “You’re top-notch.”

She smiled and nodded at Frank, turned on her orthopedic wedge heel and headed out the door.

He watched her cross the yard, rev up her car and speed off, a cloud of gravel dust in her wake. He closed the front door, locked it, then returned to the couch and his business section.

Happy Birthday To You

Tags

birthday, boys, disney world, family, fatherhood, fourth, kansas city, kansas city royals, parenthood, parenting, playgrounds, summer, toddlers

Dear Son,

Saturday is your fourth birthday. I hope you will enjoy it. Nothing could top your third birthday, which we celebrated by spending a week at Disney World. You may remember your birthday dinner at Chef Mickey’s in the Contemporary Resort, the procession of Disney characters who stopped by our table, working you into a sugar-fueled, nap-deprived frenzy. You became so uncontrollable – rolling around the floor, hooting and screaming, doing somersaults out of our booth – that we had no choice but to put you in time-out right next to the gift shop and below the monorail station. Your mama and I felt awful about it, but that was the only way we could calm you down. It was really the one black mark on a trip that involved four Disney parks, countless character encounters and, amazingly, us training you how to go potty on your own.

Your fourth birthday, which will be spent with your friends at an indoor inflatable playground, won’t hold a candle to Disney World. But it will be the celebration of a year in which you continued to grow and thrive and learn so many things. As already mentioned, you graduated from diapers (at least during the day). You spent almost the entire summer at the swimming pool, finding the nerve to hold your head underwater, paddle around the shallow end, and even jump in all by yourself. You rode a big-boy bike with training wheels, learned the basics of football, soccer and basketball, and saw your first movie in a theater (Turbo: the animated tale of a snail who has the need for speed). You sat still and paid attention in your pre-K class, earning innumerable smiley faces on your performance chart. You learned that a pepperoni and sausage pizza from Casey’s General Store was the best food in all the world, except for your mama’s own spaghetti and meatballs.

The year 2013 was a challenging one for our family. You were a joy and inspiration through it all, however, even after you stopped taking naps on the weekends. When the weather was nice out, we toured the area playgrounds, including your beloved Penguin Park. When it was lousy outside, we did puzzles, played “catch” in the basement, and watch the same episodes of My Little Pony over and over again. We took you to your first Kansas City Royals baseball game, where you sat through two innings, devouring a hot dog and Cracker Jacks, before moving on to the outfield playground. You began a fascination with dinosaurs, and the T-Rex Café became your favorite dining spot.

Through all of this, you talked, sang and laughed constantly. Not a day passed when you didn’t say or do something that cracked your mama and me up. You showed a knack for one-liners, as I sometimes documented on my Facebook page (Me: We don’t ever whine in this house, now do we? You: Yes, but we can pretend to whine). You were smart-alecky, sassy and spoiled, but a blast to be around most of the time. When you got out of hand, you would reluctantly accept time-out, serve your punishment, then greet us with a grin and a hug. You were happy most of the time, and you never held anything against us for very long. Every single day, you said “I love you” to us, and that more than made up for all the unfinished meals, spilled bath water, and arguments over TV time.

These are just a few of the observations I can conjure up from what was another memorable, discovery-filled year with you, son. I know your fifth year is going to hold even more adventures, shenanigans and hilarious quips (“We ran out of batteries!” you said when the house lost power last summer). I can hardly wait for it to begin.

Love,

Daddy

Book Review: The Night Train

Tags

1960s, back bay books, book review, civil rights, clyde edgerton, dunn, family, fiction, little brown, north carolina, novel, segregation, southern fiction, Stephen Roth, the night train

Some of my fondest childhood memories were the trips we made to Dunn, North Carolina, to visit my mother’s family. I would sit in the kitchen of Grandma’s house or in front of her massive RCA color television in the back room, listening to my aunts and uncles reminisce about life growing up in a small tobacco town in the 1950s and 60s. There was a lot of laughter and the occasional heightened pitch of my mother or one of her sisters recounting a particularly juicy part of a story. Everyone on my mother’s side of my family was a good storyteller, so I guess I come by that honestly.

Reading The Night Train, Clyde Edgerton’s 2011 novel about a small town in the early 1960s, reminded me of Dunn and some of those raucous tales at Grandma’s house. Fictional Starke, North Carolina, is like countless other Southern hamlets before and after Segregation – railroad tracks splitting it into the white part and the black part of town, with little overlap between the two other than in the tobacco fields and at a few businesses. Despite the separation and the history, Edgerton notes, folks on both sides of the tracks seem to share more in common than they would care to admit:

We could accurately say that the railroad divided a community of cornbread, vegetable and chicken eaters; or a community of pet lovers; or a community of rural dialects; of families of men who hunted quail and rabbits; people who owned chickens; women who cooked and sewed; or people who had, in their lifetimes, “worked in tobacco” – picked it, carted it behind mule or tractor, tied it to sticks, hung it in barns to cure, took it to market, complained about suckering and sand lugging.

Sunday mornings, however, encapsulate just how far apart the two sides of town are:

The truths of their pasts gave each group a different God (one of deliverance, the other of dominion), a different mode of worship service (one with energy and joy trumping solemnity and fear, the other almost reversing that). And their histories brought hardships to the people of West Starke not understood by the people of East Starke, and guilt to the East not understood by anybody.

Somehow, despite their upbringings and social pressures of their town, two teen-aged boys – one black and one white – slowly become friends. As with a lot of kids suddenly old enough to form their own tastes, it is music that brings them together. Dwayne Hallston has discovered James Brown and instructs his all-white band to memorize every song on the Live at the Apollo album. Larry Lime paces Dwayne through James Brown’s dance moves, but Larry Lime’s real passion is piano jazz, which he’s learning from a hemophiliac musician called the Bleeder who plays a club on the outskirts of town.

Both Larry Lime and Dwayne love The Bobby Lee Reese Show, a local TV variety show featuring the latest country and rock acts every Saturday night, hosted by a transplanted Yankee with a strange knack for connecting with both white and black audiences. Dwayne wants to audition on Bobby Lee’s show, and what could possibly go wrong with white boys playing soul music on TV at a time when the South is about to erupt over Civil Rights?

At little more than 200 pages, The Night Train is a fast-moving, often hilarious trip along both sides of the railroad tracks in tiny Starke. Edgerton’s skill at developing characters is such that even the most vilely racist ones come off as strangely sympathetic. They’re not bad people, they are just products of a tightly wound caste system that still exists in pockets of small towns and big cities all across the country.

You know from the very beginning of the book that the blooming friendship between Larry Lime and Dwayne is bound to be tested. Along the way, however, there are wonderful boyhood adventures and vivid characters of all ages. And, as with all of Edgerton’s books, there’s some great storytelling. You can almost taste the fried chicken, green beans and buttered biscuits on Grandma’s kitchen table, no matter what part of town you’re from.

I Sure Am Going to Miss My Dad

Tags

dads, family, fatherhood, my life, Stephen Roth, tribute

Dad talking business; me playing with my stuffed giraffe.

Some time in the summer of 1977, when I was a six-year-old happily growing up in LaGrange, Georgia, my mom took me to a fish and chips place for lunch. She ordered me a basket of hush puppies and explained that my dad’s job was going to be transferred to the headquarters of Milliken & Co., and that he would be moving to Spartanburg, South Carolina.

“Well,” I said after some thought. “I sure am going to miss him!”

My mother then went on to explain that she and I would also be moving with him to Spartanburg, and the strange reality of an impending uprooting, away from all my friends and everything else I had ever known, slowly set into my six-year-old mind. There would be other moves, all of them between South Carolina and Georgia, in my growing-up years as my father’s career evolved. It was nothing compared with Dad’s own Army childhood, which took his family from Washington, D.C., to Germany to Seattle to San Francisco, as well as some other places in between that escape my memory now. My dad, like me, was an only child.

Today, I’m reminded of my naïve reaction to my mom’s big news of so long ago. “I sure am going to miss him!” I had said in the carefree, confident tone of a kid whose dad was smart and strong and probably going to be around forever. Today, I say the same thing, but in a different tone. Art Roth Jr. passed away early Monday morning, October 14, after more than a year battling bladder cancer in the same tenacious way he took on everything. This foe, however, proved even more persistent and formidable than Dad, who had survived two tours in Vietnam and later three firings in his long career as a brilliant turnaround artist for several different companies. Each time he experienced a setback, my dad came back stronger and more successful than before. Nothing, it seemed, could keep him down. It would be the same way with cancer, we all felt, until the last two months, when tests showed it had expanded to other parts of his body. “Like an unstoppable rebel force,” as Robert De Niro’s character described his late mother’s cancer in Meet the Parents. It was an uncomfortably funny line in the movie, perhaps because the description is so very true.

My dad traveled a lot when I was growing up. I used to entertain my friends and their parents with a Ricky Nelson song I had heard on television (“He’s a traveling man and he’s made a lot of stops all over the world.”) My friends could relate – most of their dads worked for the same company and also traveled frequently. Still, my dad was around for almost every big moment of my childhood. He was at every birthday, every school event. He helped me learn how to swim, helped me craft a Pinewood Derby racer from a block of pine, and taught me how to throw a football with a tight spiral. When I jumped into the corner of the Country Club pool and busted open my chin at age 3, my dad was just arriving from work to have lunch with us. He drove me and Mom to the hospital, all the while insisting to me that the cut wasn’t all that bad, and how tough I was being about it. Years later, when I went to retrieve a ball underneath my aunt and uncle’s deck and was stung by about nine wasps, my dad marveled at how fast I shot out from under the deck and into the swimming pool a few feet away. “Butch, that was probably the most perfect dive you’ve ever made,” he told me, and that made me feel proud.

He was a fun dad, but he could intimidate when necessary. I feared him a little, knowing he’d survived West Point and Vietnam, and now had an important job with one of the largest companies in the South. He did not need to scream or yell, because he possessed a cold, withering stare. I remember being trapped in that gaze for several long minutes after being caught lying about my grades. It was worse than any spanking or grounding I could have ever received, and I retreated as soon as I could to our living room piano, where I was more than happy to do my mandatory 30 minutes of practice. “Very nice playing,” Dad said when I was done, and my fear subsided.

As it is with a lot of fathers and sons, we grew closer as I got older. My dad never pushed me to get into sports, but I know he was pleased when I began taking an interest in football, tennis and golf. Some of my favorite memories involve watching sports with Dad, and I have ticket stubs to football and baseball games from Atlanta to San Francisco because of him. In 2009, he took me to the Augusta National for the Masters, and it was like getting to visit heaven for three days. Not just golf heaven, but actual heaven, with almost every blade of grass pristinely manicured. I opened a box of Dad’s things last night and there, atop all his Masters tickets dating back to 1975, was a spectator guide to the 2009 tournament. I’d like to think he saved it because it was the only tournament he and I attended together.

Perhaps my dad’s greatest gifts to me were always letting me know that I was loved and supporting my dreams, even if they weren’t what he would have envisioned. Every phone conversation we had ended with an “I love you.” He had a great way of building me up and making me feel good about myself even in the worst moments. He was always optimistic and excited about what I was doing, whether it was taking a $16,000 job as a reporter in Mexico, Mo., or getting to work for Hallmark Cards. “Butch,” he told me when I took the low-paying reporter job, “I’ll bet you’re going to be making $36,000 a year within five years.” He was wrong, but it was a nice thing to say.

He wasn’t a hugger. His way of affection was tossing the football, or playing “mercy,” or rubbing my back as we watched a game together, usually with a bowl of popcorn nearby. I miss those times most of all, feeling his hand giving the back of my neck a tight squeeze, and me trying not to let on that it hurt a little. I’m going to miss that. I’m going to miss my dad.

The Story Behind the Photo… Maybe (Version 5.0)

Tags

betting, family, football, humor, NFL, parenthood, photo fiction, tosh.o

Jeff felt his left eye twitch rhythmically, as it always did when he’d had more than three cups of coffee or was under intense, pounding pressure. For the life of him, he couldn’t imagine why Kathy had scheduled a family photo shoot at 4 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon.

Right now, posing with his wife and six-month-old daughter for an 8 x 11 glossy that would sit on their mantle for the rest of their lives was the last thing on Jeff’s mind. What was on his mind was football, specifically the fourth quarter of the Dallas-Cleveland game. As they parked their car at Portrait Expressions, Tony Romo and the Cowboys were on the Browns’ 24 yard line, threatening to score again.

“Get him! Get him!” Jeff screamed at his iPhone as the screen showed Romo scrambling out of the pocket with two Browns in pursuit.

“Jeff, you’re gonna scare Madison,” Kathy scolded. “Put the phone away.”

He did for the moment. But he tuned in again as they waited in the lobby for the photographer. The Cowboys had settled for a field goal and now the Browns had possession.

“Hold on to the damn ball,” he implored.

“Jeff, stop it!” his wife whispered.

Jeff had never been much of a betting man, but Madison’s arrival and his modest salary as an apprentice landscaper for The Grass Hut encouraged him to a little coin down on some NFL games. When he picked up the Plain Dealer on Monday and saw that the Cowboys were favored to beat Cleveland by 14 points – a betting line of absurd proportions for a professional football game – he couldn’t help but put $500 on the Browns to beat the spread. After all, the game was in Cleveland and it was late November. Anything could happen in those conditions, he thought.

The game was back-and-forth for three quarters, then Dallas pulled away. The field goal had put the Cowboys up 31-21. Now, Jeff pulled the phone from his pants pocket and saw Dallas had the ball again, and was driving. There were four minutes to go.

“Bring him down!” he growled.

“Okay, honey.” With Madison perched on her hip, Kathy grabbed the phone from Jeff’s hand and dumped it into her oversized purse. “No more Fantasy Football today.”

Jeff winced. Kathy had no idea about the bet, of course. She couldn’t imagine how much he had put on the line for his wife and daughter. But he knew he had to do it. Two years ago, as a high school senior, he played Billy Bigelow in the school production of Carousel. At the time, taking a role in the play was just another way to meet girls. But now those words from Billy’s “Soliloquy” seared him with meaning: I’ll go out and make it or steal it or taaaaake it… or die!

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, the photographer appeared and ushered them to a stool in front of a brownish backdrop. Kathy sat on the stool with Madison in her lap, and Jeff kind of crouched up against them, knees bent, like he had just taken a shot to the gut.

“Get in a little closer,” the photographer told Jeff. “Pretend you like ’em.”

Jeff complied. He noticed the guy was wearing a Browns ball cap. That gave him an idea.

“Hey, man,” he said. “You catch the final score of the game? Last I saw, they were down by ten.”

The photographer looked into his lens and chuckled. “Oh, it got worse. Dallas scored two more touchdowns. What are you gonna do? Maybe we’ll get a good draft pick.”

Jeff felt the sensation of what seemed like three golf balls working their way slowly down his throat.

“Smiles, everyone!” the photographer said.

Photo pulled from tosh.comedycentral.com.

Livin’ the Dream, and Other Stuff People Say

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family, humor, life, living the dream, paradise, work

“How’s it going?” I asked a co-worker recently as we passed each other in the 6th floor men’s room.

“Oh, you know. Livin’ the dream.”

He said it in a put-upon way that clearly meant he was aiming for irony. It was 7:30 on a Wednesday morning in the middle of a Kansas City winter. The only dream anyone has in that kind of scenario involves crawling back into a warm bed.

Still, our brief exchange made me wonder why people say things like that. A lot of people reply, “Livin’ the dream,” when asked how they are or what they’re doing. Or they might say, “It’s another day in paradise.” I get that sometimes from a relative who recently had his third back surgery in the past six months. “Another day in paradise,” he’ll grunt in a way that makes it pretty plain that he is, in fact, in another place well south of paradise.

We all know, in this cynical, sarcastic age, what these expressions mean: that life is shitty or, at best, uneventful. We are decades removed from a time when living the dream may have meant exactly that. Still, wouldn’t it be interesting if someone from a faraway place, a place not saturated with television advertising, celebrity gossip, 24-hour cable news, color-coded terror alerts or a stagnant economy, were somehow able to inhabit my body as I pass my co-worker (we’ll call him Mike) in the men’s room at 7:30 on a Wednesday morning. Here’s how I imagine that conversation playing out:

“How’s it going?” I ask.

“Oh, you know. Livin’ the dream.”

“Really? That sounds amazing.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Huh?”

“Tell me about the dream,” I say.

“Are you being a smart-ass?” Mike asks.

“No, I really want to know. I mean, you and I have been in a few meetings with each other. I know you have a wife and, what, three children? I know you drive a Nissan Pathfinder. You don’t seem like a particularly happy man. But to hear that you are living this dream… Well, it makes me wonder what kind of dream you are talking about.”

Mike takes off his glasses and rubs his forehead as he squints into the bathroom mirror. “Look, Stephen, I’m really not in the mood for this. My two-year-old had a meltdown this morning because we’re out of Fruit Loops. My wife’s mad at me for not shoveling the driveway. I left my laptop at home and had to drive all the way back through the sleet and snow to get it. I have a performance review in 30 minutes with my boss. And you’re busting my chops about, what was it again?”

“The dream that you are living,” I reply. “Although I must say it doesn’t sound like anything that I would describe as dream-like. At least not a pleasant dream.”

“You know what, Roth?” Mike leans in close enough that I can smell the coffee on his breath. “You’re a real asshole.”

He storms out of the bathroom without drying his hands. The next time I see Mike, two weeks later, he’s glowering at me from across the conference room table as I stammer through my Power Point. I never do learn about Mike’s dream. Neither of us brings it up. Our interactions are brief and business-like.

“Livin’ the dream?” Don’t bet on it. People who are truly living the good life don’t talk like that. They smile politely, say “I’m fine,” and scurry back to their desks in the hopes that no one will find out how truly lucky they are.

Next week, we’ll explore the rising popularity and social implications of, “It is what it is.”