Be MERRY (but not Mary) 43 ways!

My sons and I were playing around last night…. a little game I invented involving considering odd off the wall hypotheticals….. However it happened…... we wound up pondering if ESPN’s “Boomer” Chris Berman wrote regular news copy outside the realm of sports…..

We found this story…. which had been Emailed to me in my role as Serious Gump, analyst and advisor… and gave it the old Boomer treatment….

_{I realize this will amuse no one but myself, but then, self amusement is one of my passions}

NEWS STORY from the Dayton Daily News….

Honda picks Indiana for $550M assembly plant

Honda is expected to announce today that it has chosen a spot outside Greensburg, Ind., for a $400 million assembly plant over sites in O-hi-o and Ill-i-nois. Greensburg Mayor Frank P. “Praying” Manus said lawyers for Honda have scheduled a meeting with city and “In” Decatur County officials in Greensburg, a city of 10,260 people about halfway between Cincinnati, home of Ken Griffey Junior, Larry Flynt and William Howard Taft, and Indianapolis, home to the Brickyard, David Letterman and the relocated Baltimore Colts.

Ed “The Thriller” Miller, a Honda spokesman at the company’s auto manufacturing complex in Marysville, said, “We’ll have a news conference at 10:30 Wednesday morning in Greensburg, Ind.” Since not much else happens in Greensburg, we can bet the conference won’t be about Rush Limgaugh’s viagra prescriptions. Indiana state Rep. “Mister” Cleo Duncan, R-Greensburg, said an attorney who represents Honda in efforts to buy land in southeastern Indiana told her that Indiana Gov. Mitch “the snitch” Daniels would attend a major announcement this morning.

A new Honda plant and its 1,500 to 1,700 jobs in Indiana would be a setback for Ohio, home to more Honda suppliers than any other state. Auto assembly plants attract other suppliers who locate nearby to take advantage of reduced transportation costs and stremlined inventories. Two sites in Ohio were being considered. One was near Jeffersonville (named after Thomas, not George and Weezy) in Fayette County and the other was near Van Wert (which was not, as my producer thinks, the last name of Archie’s long time love Veronica), in northwest Ohio.

David “Old King” Cole, president of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., called for his pipe and his fiddlers three… then he said locating the plant in Ohio might have lured workers away from some of its own suppliers in the state. “They really know how to evaluate the factors,” Cole said of Honda. “But the most important one is the work force.”

_{End of lame bit inspired by my nerdy kids and too much sugar!}

I had a terrific weekend…

Loads of time with my sons, who are just the coolest….. we went to the movies… played ball…. hung out on the beach….. went to the grocery story together… cooked together…. cleaned together…. it was awesome….

I also had some time with the chicas this weekend…. and I went to a ballgame… well, a few ballgames….. Maybe I will share some morsels, if time permits….

Of course, what REALLY is motivating me to write under the Category heading of “Be Merry!” is my breakfast…

I had perhaps the tastiest, most flavorful omlette I have ever eaten…. this morning…. and the home fries were exceptional, as well….. and sausage LINKS.... not machine cut and preservative added, but butcher-made with spare parts laying around, and some spices….. mmmmmmmm

It was really good….. I can still taste it three hours after I ate it….. (especially the sausage links)

Living in a hurricane state is, in my honest view, much better than CNN portrays it….

In our case… meaning those who live in Gumpland… we treat weather seriously…. we don’t disregard it…. nor do we panic and freak out…. So yesterday we did all the responsible things….. when many of the counties around us issued voluntary evacuation orders, we gave almost all of our office employees today off…. we told all the retail and hospitality businesses to let anyone have the day off if they wanted…. at home, we double checked supplies and emergency back-ups…..

when we woke up this morning, we discovered crystal blue skies… and some wind….. not much else, as it looks like the storm has tracked far from us….

What do do with a day off, clear skies, and high winds?

We’re going to fly kites, of course….. Should be fun….. We’ve found some rather complex and very large contraptions we purchased last summer after a particularly cool day of kite flying… we’re attempting to assemble them and will be heading out to the open fields in just a few minutes…..

Should be fun….

Later in the day we’ll go to the beach to pick up the really big shells brought in by the elevated tidewaters…..

I guess if you need me, you’ll have to leave a message….

I shall return later to write the climatic chapter about Kristen and the hand she so expertly played…. the final chapter is the entire reason I’ve gone to the trouble to offer all this set up….

I want to add some party guests… because I may forget tomorrow when I get have time to compose the last piece of this story….

The party guests, in addition to those listed at the conclusion of Part 4, also included Loren and Meaghan, two 18 year old girls who just graduated from High School a few days ago…. Meaghan’s stepdad Ron.... Sumo the retired newsbabe who was with Nails earlier…. the pro football player, and his wife….. Miguel a single dad buddy of mine whom I have been bugging for ages to come over and hang out…. and Raj and Sonja, my Indian neighbors who spent the weekend in New York and called me on the drive home from the airport to invite themselves over for a few drinks to “cap off the weekend.”

The party was great…..

If you haven’t read the “back” issues, go on… it’ll be better than watching reruns of Survivor on the all-contrived reality show channel….

Part OnePart TwoPart ThreePart Four

If you have an excellent memory, you won’t need this little recap reminder…. IF you are new to this tale, or aren’t paying that much attention, then this reminder will be helpful… Either way, here is the reminder….

When last I told you part of this tale, it was about nine o’clock in the evening on Monday (Memorial Day) Itis close to 80 degrees with a nice sea breeze…. the sun has just set over the Gulf of Mexico… my compadre’ Ray had accompanied me to a local watering hole known, in this story, as the Mick....At my home, a few miles from the pub, a half dozen women, each better looking than any of the girls I dated in high school, are sleeping…. Several of the women have no idea who else is slumbering under the same roof. Indeed, someof the girls had never so much as met each other before they all came to be sleeping in my house…. Ray and I are working under a simple plan… We’re going to have a few drinks at the pub and see if we can rustle us up a small party…..

Now, a quick aside here. I am aware that people who abuse drugs refer to their episodes of drug intake as “parties”, or that folks in rehab often speak of their drug-taking days as “partying”.... These definitions are NOT the ones I am using…. In my case, the party we were seeking to create was one without illegal drugs…. let’s make that clear… no heroin… no drugs… Oh, there would be plenty of adult beverages…. but we hoped to combine it with music, laughter, food and frivolity…. people might swim, play pool, dance, and engage in fun conversations…. if we were lucky, some people would get fully or partially nude and there would be some inappropriate sexual behavior that people would regret the next day….. THAT is the sort of party we were seeking to build…. Why, it’s the sort of party we build all the time…

Normally, it unfolds like this….there’s an establishment…. in which several pockets of people are enjoying themselves, but keeping to themselves…. Folks talk only to the people they came with…. people pay for their own drinks and food …. Enter Gump and Ray Ray, we scope out the most interesting people in the joint, and invite them back to the party house, where no one will pay for food and drinks, and people will be able to interact with other people outside the small group they originally intended to spend the night hanging out with…

Got it?

Good. We can end the sidebar and get back to the main case in chief… the Case of the mystery thong, if you will…. except that I should point out that I realize this “episode” in the five part series will be the most boring of all…. nothing but a list of characters….. sorta the way Tarantino sets up action later in the film, when everything will make sense… until you get there, though, it’s just a hodgepodge of colorful characters with no seeming connection, and no appreciable action at all….

bear with me, my children….

I’ll confess that although our purpose in visiting the Mick was completely social…. There were a few minutes after we first settled in there when my business instincts were kicking in bigtime…. I struggled quite a bit not to do something about what I was observing…. The bar was staffed by only three employees… all male… none of whom was up to the task of staffing the place without the on-site supervision of a member of management or one of the more experienced bartenders. The Mick has 14 bartenders on staff, all of whom are also servers, and back up fry cooks…. The two guys on duty this Monday evening were the two least experienced in the bunch… they are also the only two f$ck-ups on the payroll…. Why they were both working…. together… without anyone else watching them… that’s all beyond me… Actually, I knew exactly why it had happened… but I wasn’t pleased…. Our “agreement” with the manager is that he will always have at least ONE of the female employees on duty… Plus, one of the five employees who we regard as responsible enough to permanently hold a key to the front door must always be on duty at night…. On this night, none of these responsible trustworthy folks were to be found on the premises… and no one with breasts….. Instead, our two testosterone-laden screw ups were running the bar, the floor, and the outside seating area…. The guy in the kitchen was pretty decent…. but he is lazy and has been known to cut corners when no one is looking… He is about the only cook on the payroll who is really unable to work properly without good supervision…. he also has been alleged to do a pretty good Cheech and Chong impersonation in the kitchen, when left unattended, if you catch my drift…

My instincts upon seeing all this were to get the bar manager or our owner/partner on the phone and demand that they find one of our more responsible employees and get them to the bar, pronto….Another option, which I also suppressed, was to jump behind the bar myself and lend some order to the chaos before me…. The place wasn’t terribly busy… but there was enough going wrong to make me unhappy…. After a minute or two of reflection, and some calming words from my chum Ray, I worked it out….

I have been a manager of operations long enough to know that there are times when things don’t look pretty, and everything isn’t firing exactly the way one would like…. The A team can’t be in the game all the time…. Sometimes, regrettably, you end up with people in places you aren’t all that thrilled with… sometimes, your employees do shit you’d wish they didn’t do…. but these moments of sub-optimum performance are not what defines a business or a manager…. Maturity demands that we recognize that such moments are inevitable… As Managers, we hope that people aren’t playing close attention when we slip up…. or that they judge us by the 95% of the time when we have our A game working, instead of the other five percent….It was that conclusion, more than anything else, that persuaded me not to do anything drastic….

So….. Ray and I took seats at the corner of the bar…. in the hour that followed, we chatted up every group (there were only about five or six, originally) in the joint…. Nothing very interesting going on…. The people were all serious drunks or nervously private scaredy-cats…. There was a group of about six or seven younger people… all barely of legal drinking age, spread out on the outside terrace…. with two live dogs, I might add… a breach of the health codes and company policy and our lease… all of which, if discovered by the wrong person would lead to bad consequences….

Ignoring THAT (it took strength, I tell you), it appeared that the group of younger folks were all friends with one of the bartenders…. it wasn’t their fault he was piling on the free drinks and free food, basically stealing money from his employer to impress his friends… all of whom had money and would have happily paid their way… anyway… returning to the story….The “surf kids”, as Ray and I were calling them… were actually okay…. they were decent and well behaved…. after a time, they moved inside to the back room, where the pool table and dart boards are located…. Ray and I were pretty close to bagging it… meaning we were about to leave the joint and return home without having added any new attendees to our impromptu party….

But, right about the time we were discussing making our departure, a few unexpected things happened (as they often do) in quick succession…. Completely random, of course…. but looking back, it almost seems as if someone had planned it…..

SIDEBAR: (Another one, I know) .... I use a very nifty computer-based digital phone assistant to receive, sort, and process all my incoming calls …. it acts as a virtual secretary, answering all my incoming calls (at home, in the office, and on my cell phone) and directing them to the proper place…. either to one of several voice mailboxes…. or to prompts where the caller can get more info…. or whatever…. One of the cooler features of the service is that it sends me text summaries of each transaction, prioritized….. it’s very cool….. The service is one of only three or four cool remnants from a disastrous investment I made it a horribly failed dot bomb back during the Clinton years…
{end sidebar}...

I was looking at my phone’s display screen, reading through some text summaries of incoming calls…. Despite the “dead” night we were encountering in all the restaurants and bars we visited, my phone had been very busy…. according to Trudy .... Scopes had called me….. So had Rodan, Sumo, Gump Junior, the ex, and two huge surprises…. people that I don’t think have ever called me before….. Mickey, the FBI agent, and someone named Shelly, with a last name I didn’t recognize….. Each of these calls was intriguing…. Just as I was dialing voice mail to here some of the messages, I got an incoming call from “L”.... I answered her call….

She was in a giddy mood…. called me to let me know that she and S had made it safely back to Nashville…. she thanked me for the fun weekend and teased me about her mom…. L and I are very close friends…. like many boy-girl friendships, ours has included brief tastes of the forbidden fruit…. in her more humorous moments, L loves to tease me that I should “hook up” with her mom….. she insists that a mother-daughter tandem would be an impressive trophy, even if I am not the sort to brag… I laughed…(if she only knew).... then, I thanked her for coming to visit, told her I’d see her soon, and clicked off….

Before I redialed voice mail, I shared the contents of a few of the text call summaries with Ray…. Who, I was surprised to see, was now standing against the wall talking to Bones.... Bones is a good kid…. He is a new hire, working directly in our headquarters office for about the last five weeks or so…. Bones just graduated from college in early April….. Four years ago, he worked at an entry-level gig for one of our companies….. then he worked for another…. That’s when I befriended him and earmarked him as a future star…. We kept in touch… and one summer during his undergrad years, he did an internship in our Finance division…. He also worked for a Wall Street Investment banker, and did a stint in the Acquisitions and Mergers consulting wing of a major accounting firm…. A small Italian dude who reminds me in physical mannerisms and style of speech of Doogie Howser’s best friend, Vinny, he’s been accepted into Stanford’s MBA program, but loves it so much in our family that he is going to put that off for a year…. Like I said, he’s a good kid…. But he NEVER travels alone….

Seeing him, I immediately began searching the bar to find who was with Bones…. it took me about ten seconds to find his traveling companions for the evening….. Hack, Corona and, to my great but pleasant surprise, “Abby”.... Hack is a former Offensive Lineman (at Ohio State, of course) who now works in our Information Services department…. he’s 25, clever as all get out, and a talented musician, to boot….. Corona coulda been in pictures, but instead she is our Accounts Payable Manager, among other things… She and Hack are kinda sorta dating, when it is convenient for both of them to do so… Abby is the 20 year old niece of Alexis, whom some of you know as MindLikeSieve.... if ever there was another person in this earth who reminds me of Alex, it is Abby…. She is a delight to spend time with, and I was very, very pleased that she had managed to find her way back to Gumpland…. A funner and sexier combination of smarts, humor, sassy attitude and unpredictable fun, you’ll probably never find… she had drifted away earlier in the weekend… but that is another story entirely…. for now, she was back….

I greeted all these people… they’re all friends who happen to be coworkers….. a good combination, in my view…. I caught Ray’s attention, and we divvied up the chore of returning the calls… He took Sumo, Rodan and Scopes…. I would handle the two unknowns and my own family…. Before calling my son’s mother’s house, or their cell phones, I dialed in to listen to their messages….. Junior was just checking in…. he told me he was beat, going to bed early, and he thanked me for the fun weekend, treating him to a movie, and introducing him to the famous people at Gators.... no call back required…. The ex called, sounding like she was rushed and trying to avoid having her estranged (?) husband hear that she was leaving me a message…. She called to apologize for acting weird at Gators and for giving me a hard time earlier in the day…. She thanked me for sending the celebrities up to their table, told me that everyone loved that, said that I am a sweetie, and asked me not to call back in reply to her message….

Well, I’ll be.

As I started to call the FBI Dude, Ray told me that he had received a call from Guido who was with Jillene, on their way back to my house…. excellent….. Guido heads up our Food Services division, and Jillene is our Owner/Partner of the Mick…. they had been off watching fireworks somewhere, in my little ski boat…. That’s a long story, which I will shorten by telling you that Jillene’s boat ran out of gas…. On SUNDAY…. they’d had my boat ever since… but… according to the Rayman… they were headed to my house to return it…. Finally, it looked like a party was shaping up….. And I was pleased to have a word with both of them about the decision to abandon Mick’s tavern to Dumb and Dumberer…. Just a few words really…. the kind best shared over a few fruity libations…. but that would wait…

I dialed the G-Man…. his youngest son is good friends with my youngest son…. we’ve coached in the same youth sports leagues and crossed paths at games and at school for six years or so…. our kids have slept over at each other’s houses…. but he and I aren’t really what I would call friends…. we’re friendly….. but we’ve never so much, as far as I know, shared a beer or talked for more than about thirty minutes….

Mickey is a 5 foot 10 inch tall, barrel chested stereotypical Red-headed Irishman from Boston…. He has a gabillion freckles…. and still says things like “pahk the cah in the yahd”..... As I readied to listen to his message in my voice mail, I had to admit that I had no earthly idea what he wanted…. I guessed it was probably to pass along an invite involving my son….. I was wrong….

The message was honest, if not out of the blue… He identified himself, pointed out that I had invited, on several occasions, him to grab a beer with me… He said that his family is all out of town visiting family, that he had been forced to stay here because of work… He said he was coming off a fourth straight day of 12 hours of Stake Out work, and he has tomorrow off…. Realizing it was short notice and guessing there was a 95 % chance I’d decline, he thought he’d call and see if I wanted to go ahead and grab that beer tonight….I thought about his message… It sounded genuine….. on the other hand…. he is an FBI agent…. for all I know…. he is investigating someone I know….. or wants to use me or my companies in some way…. I have nothing to hide…. the Feds are welcome…. Many of our closest associates are Feds of one stripe or another…. Simply Taking the guy at face value, I called him back and told him that I’ve no idea if he’d be interested… but instead of the two of us sitting down for a pint or two, I invited him to the house to join what I described as in impromptu party…. “probably be about 20 to 30 people there, when all is said and done… but nothing terribly illegal that will get him into TOO much trouble,” I said….

He told me he’d stop by….. Which really made me think that he must have ulterior motives…. or just be desperate for company…. That he was about to get, in spades….. For my next call was to Shelly…. who, the voice mail message revealed, was a girl I’ve sorta known for a while…. I first met her thru her job… but some of my close friends know her as a mom of a kid they coach…. and that sort of more familiar footing has rubbed off on me…. Shelly works as a boob-emphasizing bartender at a local chain of restaurants that were built to ape the Hooters formula…. About every other Sunday or Saturday, a couple of buddies and I stop by the bar where we mix ridiculous over the top flirtatious comments directed at Shelly and her two co-bartenders, with real conversations about her kid and her everyday life…. Her phone message said that the restaurant had been suddenly closed due to a water leak….. So Shelly and two of her co-workers (Angie and Cheryl) were, in her words, looking for a party! Boy, did she call the right number…. I telephoned her and invited her to the house….

Ray informed me that he had talked to Rodan, who was now en route to my house, in the company of Lindsey and Melanie.... Rodan is the manager of Mick’s Tavern… and Lindsey and Melanie are two of the bartenders…. if either of the three of them were working, I wouldn’t have been so disappointed when I first got here…. but I quickly forgot about that concern…. because Lindsey and Melanie are coming to the house….For me, it was unbelievable…. this party would have about a dozen women I have dreamed of making adult movies with….. I was quite certain the party would be fun…. even as I was very aware that there might be some less than great moments…. and some, if not, several of these girls, would forever be scratched off my list of “possibles”.... there was no way the night could unfold in a manner that wouldn’t involve some friction…..

Just as we got ready to leave, Hack asked Ray if he knew who all would be at the party…. Ray laughed and said, he couldn’t be sure that no one else would show up, but he could surely identify all who we knew so far were on their way, or already there….. 25 of them, he said….adding, “so far”....

I thought about it…. we already knew all these people were coming….GUMP, Ray, Carolina, MILP, Zip, Ram, Robin, Maggie, Bones, Hack, Corona, Abby, Mickey, Guido and Jillene, (plus whoever they still had with them) Rodan, Melanie and Lindsey (plus whoever they had with them or added to their group en route), Shelly, Angie, Cheryl (plus whoever they added to their mini-group)... AND…. Kristen....

But I haven’t introduced Kristen to you yet…. that’s right…. I must do that… because, Kristen is the key player in the next chapter….

she’s the one who “perfectly played her hand”....

to be continued…..

Apart from the ex’s displeasure…. the impromptu outing to Gator’s turned out well…. there were some mixed feelings, of course….. My sons, upon seeing the famous football player at our table, called my cell phone…. when I answered, they immediately asked if they could come to the table and “meet” the dude…. I told them to ask their mom… and, if she preferred, I could send the guy up to see them all…. I offered this because I know the ex and her Roosterish husband are fans of our new table guest…. Apparently, the littler Gumps preferred to avoid all sorts of debate on the issue…. before I even hung up the phone, they had left their table and practically sprinted down the two flights of stairs to where my group was sitting/standing….

I actually felt pretty bad about this… but couldn’t really see any other way to handle their excitement and enforce the “respect your mother and stepfather’s wishes” rule, separated, as I was, by two floors and several hundred people between us…... After the boys came down, then returned to their mother’s side, I later explained the deal and convinced the three celebrities to casually work their way upstairs where they introduced themself to the ex and Foghorn and complimented the boys…. they posed for photos with the five-person family… which is the best I could do under the circumstances….

ANYWAY…. Gators wasn’t terribly crowded…. I was feeling a bit off my normal game… because I knew my kids were watching….. while it was cool for them to see me being enthusiastically greeted by celebreties… it was a bit different thing to know that they could see me as I flirted with a half dozen women all at the same time…. Everyone in our group had a few adult beverages….. I started catching the girls in our group as they not quite successfully tried to stiflie yawns…. Realizing that all had been partying hard and long for more than three straight days, I offerred to end the night early….

Ray… god bless him…. would hear nothing of that… instead, he suggested that we return to my house, where the girls could take naps…. He figured they could wake up around ten or so, and we could all grab some dinner and perhaps party on, into the night…. since none of us had to be at work at any set time on Tuesday, that was as good a plan as any… and the girls liked it…. which is important….

The girls liking the plan was what convinced me to go along… I wasn’t so sure that they’d be ready to party later… but as I was not the least bit tired, I figured that the worst case scenario would involve everyone waking up in four or five hours and opting for a quieter night….. that wouldn’t even bother me….So we all climbed aboard Jenny and returned to the house… it was barely six o’clock…. MILP had relocated from the hammock to one of the guest bedrooms, Ram opted for one of the bedrooms… Carolina took another…. Zip spread out her lean muscular frame on the leather conversation pit group in the living room, telling us she wasn’t that tired, but that she was going to lie down and veg in front of the TV for a while…. Ray and I headed out in Jimmy, in search of a good bar crowd….

Our objective wasn’t just to have some drinks…. or to spend time together…. we wanted to find a happening bar crowd…. Not much of our weekend time had involved time “out”..... that isn’t a critical component of having fun…. but Ray and I are quite the team…. we thrive on bar type places…. meeting strangers is something we both enjoy… so that was the plan….

Good plan….

And we failed miserably…. We visited about six or seven places…. all of them were dead…. We decided to make the rounds of three of the places closer to my house, after which, if all were dead, we’d simply go home and play pool while waiting for the girls to wake up…. That’s almost how it played out, too….We visited two of the three targeted stops…. both were establishments our companies have an interest in…. these two places, like all the ones before, were pretty dead… I figured that most everyone in the bar-going public was so partied out from the long weekend that no body had the energy to keep it going… Under my theory, most every partying person in the county was at home nursing hangovers, soothing sunburns, or recovering from lack of sleep…. The first two places we’d visited were dead… but I was getting hungry…. We toyed with the idea of going home and eating some appetizers…. As we discussed the various items at home that were almost ready to eat, we remembered that we had a great deal of party food at the house…. We decided to head home and nosh a bit, before deciding what to do next….

It was only about eight, still light outside, too…. Which is why it was easy to see, when we rounded the bend on Gump Lane, that there was not one, but two women sleeping on my front stoop…. We were perplexed….I pulled in the driveway and was still unsure who my sleeping visitors were…. or even if they were asleep…. honestly, for a brief while, I thought “they” might be dead bodies… or even dummies someone left on my doorstep as a practical joke….. this was a most curious development….

Turns out…. it was a bigger surprise….. Time to introduce a new character to this epic comedy drama…. enter Maggie…. I will admit, I am as surprised as you are…. probably more so, truth be known….. Maggie is the 25 year old who works at the college where I teach and now operate a couple of coffee shops…. Until the shops came into my life, I knew nothing of Maggie, becuase I never spent that much time in the area where she works…. It didn’t take me very long after first “meeting” her to figure out some things about her personality…I learned that she thinks she is the object of lust for pretty much every man in the building….. She’s pretty good looking, dresses sharply but conservatively, and has a terrific smile…. She expertly plays the part of “super hostess” to all who visit the building she works in…. She has a unique job, and peforms it very well…. The key thing I noticed about Maggie very early on, once I noticed her at all, was that she seems, to me, to be VERY aware of how most of the males who work in her building feel about her…. She seems to relish it, at least that is my considered opinion, after observing her over the last couple of months….

Maggie is not stunning. She is in good shape, and has the very best posture I have ever encountered…. Seriously…. I figure she must have done some runway modeling at some point, because she walks with this very unnatural, but very appealing, exageragted stiff back and square shoulders…. her head is always at the proper angle to the ground… She does not point her nose in the air, nor does she look down… she carries herself like an exagerrated actress in a Stewardess training film… or like a Price is Right model….

Okay…. I need to shorten this up…. I said that I got this sense that Maggie digs being the center of attention… I was sensing (or thought I was) that she was slightly put out when I first started spending time in her vicinity, by the fact that I didn’t slobber all over her…. In fact, I ignored her….. Which led to some very amusing “innocent” attempts by her to get my attention…. The harder she tried… the more I ignored…. Driving her to do some research and scheme of ways to make me notice her….. I was told by the Security guards, who know me pretty well, and by the girls in the bookstore, that Maggie was peppering them with questions about me….

When she figured out that I was teaching a night course this term (which just started a week ago), she enrolled in the section…. Now there was no way I could ignore her… From day one, she kept inventing reasons to stay after class…. Rolling the dice, I employed some of my slicker boy-vs-girl tactics…. First I told her in a humorous way that she reminded me of my junior high girlfriend…. I said that she, like my seventh grade crush, has one ear lobe that is lower and slightly bigger than the other….. Used to being told that she is all that and a bag of chips… this got to her…. I know… but it works….

Now she ratcheted up her pursuit…. She would wear very sexy blouses to class… different from the blouse she wore to work that day… very different….. during class, she’d keep a jacket over the blouse…. or maybe a bulky sweatshirt…. after class, when she and I were the only ones in the classroom, she’d remove the jacket to show off her assets…. She would wiggle and shimmer and do everything short of whipping the puppies out, to get me to notice them…. Not being either romantically or sexually interested in Maggie, I had nothing to lose…. On the other hand, I am single, and I am not the sort of dude to go buringing bridges at the start of the campaign….

I decided the direct approach would be best… I had no idea if she was digging me in any serious way… or if she was just frustrated by my immunity to her normal charms….A couple of weeks ago, I came right out and told her…. something along these lines….

Maggie, I might be wrong, but let me bring this out in the open, because you seem unwilling to. I can understand how you’d be nervous or uncertain because we are both college employees and we are bombarded with all this training about sexual harassment and improper work relationships, so let me strip away that worry….. Whatever your intent, or your feelings, or inclination… I can handle it without getting worked up or filing charges against you… I’m not conceited enough to imagine that you have a crush on me or anything… but I do get the sense that you would like to get to know me a little better…. maybe as a friend at first…. who knows…. but you don’t need to be afraid…. I am not seeing anyone right now… nor am I looking, really…. I assumed you were with someone, and this might be way off base… but I get the feeling you want to ask me for coffee or something”

She seemed relieved…. then promptly invited me to go get some coffee…. I accepted a few of those invites…. But when she invited me to attend some group outing with some of her friends….I couldn’t make it….. general rules governing such things dictate that I would decline the first few invites anyway…. Which brought us to this weekend…. On Thursday morning, I was staffing the coffee shop near where she works…. our normal morning girl had a doctor’s appointment…. Maggie wandered over for a chat… when she asked me what my weekend plans involved, I told her that close to a dozen people were coming to my house for the weekend, and we had planned a series of parties, one right after the other…. Still not really knowing if Maggie digs me…. actually… I know nothing about her… she could be married or living with someone or an alchoholic or a lesbian—I just don’t know…. But I did offer a very casual invite for her to come out to the house over the weekend….

She said she knew where I lived…. this was a bit surprising, since we’d never discussed it… Enough people at the college have been to the house that it wasn’t THAT big a surprise…. I did explain that we’d be out on the boats quite a bit, so it would be best if she phoned ahead to determine our whereabouts…. I told her to bring a friend.. .or several….

Fast forward thru the weekend… no sign of Maggie… no calls…

Not a big deal… because I get the feeling that she lives with a guy… I even have a picture of what the guy looks and acts like… but that is another story for another time….

So, bringing you back to real time in my story…. a few minutes past eight in the evening on Monday…. Ray and I stopped by the house… where we found Maggie and her friend Robin sleeping on the front porch…. They were ridiculously drunk… I mean falling down… The last bar they had been at had called them a cab…. In her drunken stupor, she had given the cab driver my address…..

When they got to the house, they rang the bell…. no one answered the door…. being terribly inebriated, they both promptly laid down and passed out…. Ray and I helped them both into the house… pieced the above events together thru mumbled declarations and a few, “I love you mans”.... which we found quite amusing…

We settled the girls on couches and headed back out to the Mick, an Irish tavern not very far from the house…. It was at the Mick that things started to get VERY interesting…..

Next installment: A perfectly played hand – meet Shelly, Monica, Angie, Cheryl and Kristen… it just keeps getting better….

I left off with Jenny pulling alongside the long dock at Gators.... ours was one of a half dozen boats moored there at 4:30 on Memorial Day….. Ray and and his lovely wife went below deck for a moment, to find shirts… not that shirts are required at Gators…. but they probably, I thought, had to find matching shirts..... one of my favorite things about Gators is that folks are encouraged to wear just a bathing suit… None of this “no shirt, no shoes” crap…. I know what you are thinking too…. what about the gross fatties….. well… the place is big enough… and the obese patrons uncommon enough, that it is very easy to resituate oneself so as to avoid having an appetite ruined….

Anyway… I was helping our two lovely bikini-clad passengers (Ram and Zip) out of the boat, when the hardbodied Zip (whom I am told is a World Class sprinter known all over Europe) giggled and said, “You must have jealous women all over the county, Romeo… Some chickie upstairs is NOT very happy to see you helping us out of the boat.”

I followed the direction of her gaze to find.. to my surprise… my ex wife... sitting with the estranged husband, (whom I call Foghorn, tho never in front of my kids) the step daughter (who is one of the very few people whom I always, always call by her given name) and my two sons… The three kids were smiling bemusedly as the bachelor dad had accidentally become the center of attention for a couple of hundred watershide patrons….. it was the WOMEN everyone was gawking at…. which amused my sons to no end…..... the two parents with them, on the other hand… were far less amused….

I mean, most observers, seeing my geekish self with these two beauties were probably thinking it was a filming of one of those “ugly duckling” reality shows….. As for my, err, “family” in the upper deck….. I kinda wished I hadn’t stumbled upon them, to tell the truth….This sort of thing doesn’t happen THAT often… I don’t usually run into my kids or their mom during my bachelor outings…. NOT that I had done anything even the slightest bit inappropriate… YET…Still…. the always jealous second husband…. why he is jealous, I’ll never know… his wife is the one who wanted to divorce me… and she has never looked back…. but I digress…. The bloke is, I think, quite jealous of my business and social success…. which makes no sense really…. all of it is merely my way of compensating for the huge gaping hole in my heart created when his lovely wife asked to walk out of my life…. oops… I am emoting…..

Let me reel it in a bit….

Seeing me getting out of a very nice-looking boat with two very hot looking women seemed to really get under Foghorn’s skin…. My sons, of course, were obviously vicariously proud of their old man…. and amused both by the discomfort of their mom and stepdad, and also at my obvious desire to have avoided such a scene….. I had done nothing to deserve that prideful appreciation… but it was there all the same…. Their glee at the other parent’s reaction is something I am not in anyway responsible for, either…..

The ex was…in a word… pissed.... I am not entirely sure why…. As I mentioned…. our paths rarely cross in settings like this… not that it is a big deal… Gators is a big place…. it has three or four different levels and seats probably more than a thousand people at max capacity…. The ex and her bunch were grouped at an outside table on the deck of the third level, looking down over the water….

It’s not like they had told me they were coming to Gators…. had I known that, I probably would have avoided the place…. So, even today, 24 hours later, I still struggle with what they were so Gosh-darned pissed off about….. I’ve spent more time writing this description than I spent yesterday thinking about what the ex and her swarmy husband were “feeling” in real time. I hadn’t done anything aggregious, so I spent scant seconds concerned about their odd reactions…. I put it out of my mind and quickly set myself to the task of making sure my “party” of five found a suitable seat…. I was quite concerned with getting a good waitress… since the help at Gators is either excellent or abominable… no in between….

Soon, Ray and his wife joined us… they were wearing complimenting tropical colored Polo shirts.... ever the brochure-photo pair….. The five us were settled in at our dockside talbe… as Zip was explaining the daggers being shot across the building’s entire length from the angry looking couple with three beaming teenagers two levels up… when… suddenly…. our group was approached by the most widely-known celebrities in the joint….

I phrase it that way because Ray, Zip and Ram are all mini-celebrities in their own right…. they just aren’t as widely known and as easily recognized as the party who approached us…. The “new” group was being led to our table by “Nails,” a local radio guy/former college and pro athlete who is widely loved around here…. I won’t reveal who he is, but I will admit that he is a former Florida Gator…. and Gators clientele tends to be dominated by fans of the orange and blue…. Nails was with his two daughters, and a female companion, who is a retired local TV News Anchor ….

Nails is a big, tanned white guy, whom you’d guess, even if you didn’t know, once played ball in the NFL… he is still THAT big…. He also sports a completely shaved head…. it’s the biggest human head I’ve ever seen…. and it is always shining….. His daughters are 19 and 17…. very athletic looking…. both are big time volleyball players…. one in college, the other still in High School…. Sumo, his female companion, is a petite 45 year old blonde…. I had heard a rumor that the two of them were dating…. I was quite thrilled to learn that not only is this true…. but the couple have progressed to the point that the daughters are being brought along on inclusive family-type afternoon dates…..

This happy smiling foursome of them were accompanied by an even more beloved currently active athlete (on a local team), his wife and their two kids…. Ray and I are both pretty friendly with the radio dude… we’ve had business dealings and have socialized quite a bit with him over the years… He’s the best type of local celebrity…. a down to earth regular guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously…. His eldest daughter actually stayed in my condo in Tallahassee during an internship last summer….and the whole family is going to be staying there in July….. None of us had seen the other in quite a while, so the welcomes were warm…. they involved hugging…. (I am big on hugs… with men and women alike… a bit off putting to some.. but part of my trademark Gump charm).... of course, I am an incurable goof… so I used the scene of various people hugging each other to steal second and third hugs with Ram and Zip… everyone at our table thought this was pretty funny… Even my sons and their step sister found it funny….. they were sixty yards away and up two levels… but I knew they were watching and I was getting a teensy kick out of entertaining them…. because I could tell it was frustrating the ex and her husband… which was, in turn, amusing the kids… which was in turn, adding to the frustration of the ex and her husband…..

We have been apart for nine years, they have been together that whole time (maybe longer, hee hee)..... you’d think they’d be over it by now….Anyway…. The fella (‘we’ll call him Will) who was with the radio dude is pretty famous in these parts…. He and I have met a few times, but I had never met his kids…. No sooner than I was introduced to the kids, and Zip blurted out that my kids wereng sittion the upper level, with my ex…. Our new guests asked where… Zip and Carolina happily pointed… so every head at our table turned to look at the kids…. of course, the now VERY angry ex must have thought we were making some joke at her expense, because she shrank down in her seat….

This just caused her ridiculous plastic enhancements to become the only part of her that was visible from where we were….. One of the few conversations I had engaged in with Will happened to center around the topic of ridiculous fake jugs… and I made such vicious fun of my ex’s that it made a lasting impression….. Both Will AND his wife put it all together and made a few remarks to our group that amounted to agreeing with my past comments….This made everyone at our table positively ROAR with laughter…..

which, in turn, made the ex and her husband even angrier….

I have no idea why they were so angry… but it was quite funny....

I’m not hoping to run into them anytime soon under similar circumstances, because I don’t imagine they will be able to maintain consciousness….. so much blood ran into their faces, that I am surprised that neither of them passed out!

Realizing that the more real stuff I reveal, the riskier it is…. I’m not the first to figure out that I run certain risks each time I post…. Today, the way I feel, Tis all okay… Risk is not always a bad thing…. (I know, sometimes it’s a game, by Milton Bradley… but ignoring THAT).... Today I suspend my consideration of Risk….. You see…. I wish to tell you today about The WEEKEND… as in, Memorial Day Weekend in the USA, which just wrapped up…. Were I to describe Memorial Day Weekend in Gumpland briefly…. I’d say “good times…. much fun…. loads of time with mi muchachos…. mostly on the water….. nothing at all to complain about…. really.”

If time permits today, I might share some OTHER stories about the weekend, which was just chock full of savory morsels…. I want, however, to share bits of the last 18 hours or so…. on the off chance that one or two of you might be entertained or come to find a nugget you can use in your own life….. NOTE: This story is not for children…. Parts of the story may be Rated R…. the events and people described hereinafter are mostly all real, tho a few some of the names have been changed…. you should not try any of this at home, without the supervision and support of a team of trained professionals….. Any physical or other descriptions included herein were inserted to aid the reader in visualizing these events… No use of these descriptions or visual images may be made, without the express written consent of the Commissioner…

Now that the Legal Mumbo Jumbo is out of the way… Let’s act like Lee Nails and press on, shall we?

QUICK BACKGROUND TIDBIT….. Part of the shared custody arrangement regarding my Gump offspring involves alternating weekends…. meaning, one weekend my kids stay primarily with me and sleep at my house…. the next weekend, with their mom…. and so on…. there are other parts to our particular co-parenting arrangement, which are not important for this story…. actually, this part isn’t even important… but since I am trying to present a sort of “stream of consciousness” retelling of these events, I shall plunge forward….

This weekend was one when my sons were to be with me Friday, Saturday and Sunday….. and Monday, they would be with their mother…. yet… she (by “she”, I mean my babies’ momma, hereinafter called “the ex“) is separated from her second husband… and they are attempting some sort of reconciliation….. for all I know…. I don’t keep that close of a watch on the whole thing…. Anyway…. the ex had called on Saturday and asked if the Boys could return to her home on Sunday…. Her separated husband and his daughter were coming to the ex’s house for a family barbecue, and so on….. My sons and I had plans…. but since it sounded like it was important to their mom… and she doesn’t make that many special requests…. we re-arranged our plans a bit….

Monday morning, I was participating in a ceremony at the local Veterans Cemetary…. the boys like to come and watch… so we agreed they would do that…. Then my youngest pointed out (they were part of the conversation)... that the only thing we hadn’t done that we definitely intended to do over the weekend was to go see The DaVinci Code.... fair enough…. we decided we’d do that on Monday afternoon…. the mom was okay with that, on Saturday…

However… when Monday rolled around… The mom started to kick up a mini fuss about the boys going to the movie with me….I stayed out of it… and the boys persuaded her to let them come to the cinema…. Apparently, the family barbecue went so well on Sunday that it was being extended another day…. the “family” was planning on going out to dinner together on Monday… but earlier in the afternoon (around 4:30 or so).... We were seeing the 12:45 show…. so I promised her the kids would be home by 4….

The littler Gumps really enjoyed the movie (I had seen it already, and have to admit that it isn’t outstanding or anything).... We had just enough time after the film for a post movie chat about the topics and the way they diverged from the book…. At right around 3:30 PM on Monday (yesterday, if you are taking notes), I left the boys and slipped behind the wheel of Jimmy.... (my jeep… most objects and people in Gumpland have nicknames).... You’ve heard the same thing said about our President…Dubya…. go figure…

The jeep is small, fun and convertible…. I’ve previously posted pics… if you want to see it, ask one of my stalkers more regular readers…. The little Gumps are not pictured here or elsewhere…. I’ve been told they each bear some resemblance to me…. a fact for which I silently apologize to them both about fifty times each week…. The ex is…. well, never mind… I shant describe her right now….

Meanwhile, back in Jimmy…As I pulled out of the parking lot of the Mall…. the one that GumpCo now operates (sorry, can’t resist that little bit of braggin’... it’s just kinda cool, that’s all) ..... I was Listening to my Digital Phone assistant tell me who had called during the movie, I noted an urgent tone from my friend “C. Ray”... so he was the first person I called back…. When I reached him, he was on board my party boat (Jenny, of course) headed… he said… towards my house… He asked me when I would be home…. “15 minutes,” I said…. “Perfect,” he said….. “We’ll meet you there.“

Just as I pulled around the bend on my street (called Gump Lane, at least in this story), I could see Jenny slipping alongside the dock…. A few of you have seen aireal photos of the layout of Gump’s home and the adjacent boat docking area…. for those of you who have not seen the pics but are curious, get with those who have the photos…. or whatever…. I can’t be bothered…. Anyway…. I deJeeped and stepped onto the rear patio area of my house for just a second…. Long enough to determine that MILP was there, sleeping…..

MILP’s real name is Diane.... She’s the yummy 49 year old mother of my (even more yummy) close friend “L”.... MILP lives in Ohio… but travled to Florida to spend time with her daughter (my pal) “L” and L’s boyfriend (“S“) .... The two of them live in Nashville… S’s daughter lives here… meaning, near my house… not IN my house…. but the daughter is what drew the couple down to spend the weekend at Casa La Gump (which is not the real nickname of my house, lest you worry that I am some sort of wigglin’ piggly slipper-wearing fan of PBS, and Soy Milk… or something like that).... L and the boyfriend had hopped aboard their aeroplane flight back to the Grand Ole’ Opry while the dudes and I were at the movies…..

Bringing you back to real time, it was a few minutes before 4, I was standing on my rear patio, where Diane was sleeping. She was snoozing in a well-executed plan to maintain her “normal” sleep schedule… She works as a Supervisor for the MIS (computer) department of a large Insurance Company based near Cincinnati, Ohio…. Her normal work hours are from Midnight to Noon, 4 days a week….. She’d been doing a good job all weekend of sleeping from about one in the afternoon until around ten or 11 pm…. and Monday was no different, judging from the logs she was sawing so vicously as she lay curled up on my favorite shaded poolside hammock….

MILP is an attractive woman, not the least bit fake or pretentious or slutty…. But apart from that, she was asleep….. Sooo….Without even going into the house,, which would have maybe awakened her… I ditched the shoes I had on, slipped into my favorite pair of Sperry Docksiders that were sitting inconspiculously under the patio table, grabbed a different pair of sunglasses, jumped aboard the maritime vessel and we motored off…. careful not to create a wake in the man made canal….

Jenny is the party boat…. built to fill multiple roles, no doubt, but currently configured by me and mine to serve as a mobile floating party station… the four best party features include two bathrooms, an onboard hot tub, an ice machine and the kickin’est stero sound system ever put on the water….. C Ray is my de facto captain…. It was he who turned me on to the boat…. Quickly…. Ray and I once worked together, for the man.... we both had much fun in each other’s company, but didn’t particularly love the company we were working for…. Within weeks of each other, we both left that firm…

We’ve kept in close touch with each other… as I went off to be the entrepreneuer I’d always dreamed of being, and Ray went on to a series of impressive jobs in high end sales…. First as a pharmaceutical rep…. then selling TV and radio ads on behalf of a major media company…. then selling lobbying services…. Last Halloween, he and I decided to team up again…. and he has been working with me ever since…. Getting the boat was his idea…. Well, this particular boat…. I once contemplated buying it… then decided that was an extravagance that goes against my nature…. Ray convinced me to Lease the floating Festhaus….. In reply to Ray’s leadership, many of the weekend’s activities had involved this particular boat…. I am honestly grateful right now that the boat cannot actually talk…. the stories she would reveal….. yes…. moving on….

On board were four others, besides yours truly…. At the helm was the aforementoned C. Ray.... We often pronounce his name like the name of the Boats…. SeaRay.... funny for a couple of reasons…. but one being that he owns a SeaRay…. Anyway… Ray is a retired World Class athlete…. A very, very fit, lean, good looking, very outgoing black man…. His 6 foot 2 inch frame has not an ounce of fat upon it, even though he hasn’t run competitively in about six years…. Ray keeps his head shaved completely bald, ala Jordan…. He says Jordan stole the look from him….

Ray’s wife Charlotte was on board also… Charlotte was born and raised in Raleigh…. went to college in Durham, and met Ray in Greenville…. I call her Carolina.... Carolina is a tall, completely gorgeous milato woman…. Her mother was the product of a Jamacian-Cuban marriage, and her father was a caucasion US Navy Seal from Maryland…. Both Carolina’s parents could be models…. She is a US Army trained surgical nurse…. currently works at the Veterans Hospital and does some teaching, too…. You’d never know in looking at her bikini-calendar quality figure that she has two kids and a genius IQ….

Amber was the Redhead in our group…. Her nickname, given to her only a few days prior, is Ram, which is short for Rambler… which she is…. a bit like me, really… except her rambling is pretty entertaining… Amber is an aspiring actress and model…. Her life story is interesting… she is one of the few people I’ve ever met who was raised in a bona fide orphanage…. She started “modeling” in the lower end of the industry, before finally working her way out of the ghetto…. My most recent former girlfriend, Oprah, and I met Ram about two years ago…. Our talent agency represents her, in part…. Remarkably, I had never really hung out with her until this weekend…. She is a trip, in a good way… Ram is about 5’10, with ridiculous natural Barbie proportions… (probably 38, 22, 36, if anyone is trying to draw her on a sketch pad). She has a model’s body but doesn’t act like it…. She drinks and eats like a VIKING…. and I don’t mean those purple-tights wearing dudes up Minnesota way….

The fifth person in our group was “Gina”.... her nickname is Zip.... tis a double or triple or quadruple entendre…. She is a professional sprinter…. who went to University of Akron…. and she works for the Post Office….. in the department that considers and assigns new zip codes…. I know… that’s too funny…. Gina… being a runner, is very attractive, in the tradition of FloJo and her brethren…. A very fit, tall, Asian woman…. go figure…. Before I nicknamed her Zip, I almost called her Tiger.... Because her heritage is similar to that of Tiger Woods…. her mother is half Japanese, half Thai, and her father is half black, half Eskimo….. Somehow, from this stew of genes, they created a body that is among the fastest on the planet in her event…. A few of my male buddies say that neither Zip nor Ram are “doable”.... I disagree… while not everyone’s definition of ten… these girls are sevens or eights on anyone’s scale…. the Gump scale is a much broader spectrum than that used by most mortal men….

Sooooo…. the boat pushed off from the dock, with the five of us aboard…. I cracked open a bottle of Heineken, only my second of the day, and took inventory of my fellow passengers…. I was wearing solid colored swim shorts that could pass for casual shorts, and my Air Force One T-Shirt… one of my faves… Zip was wearing a very nice Leopard print two piece…. Ram, ever the understated fashion plate, was wearing a ridiculously expensive but oh-so-fitting teal colored two piece with matching wrap around beach skirt…. Ray and his other half were wearing matching (I know, they’re a cute couple that way) white swimwear…. they looked like a couple in a Condo Sales Brochure for Hilton Head or Club Med….. I was, by far, the most ordinary looking human in the fivesome….

Our destination was a fun waterside restaurant/bar called Gators... It’s only about a fifteen minute boat ride from my place to the joint… but we got stuck in a queue behind a couple of tall masted sail boats waiting for some bridges to open up…. So, it was, about 4:30 or so when our smallish contingent of obnoxious people hell-bent on squeezing every last minute of party potential out of this three day weekend loudly arrived at the barside dock….

to be continued....

Last night started quite slowly, to be honest…. I stopped with a friend to have one or two beers…. he had to go home, it was only ten…. so I stayed to have one or two more…. Eventually, this mushroomed into a suprisingly energetic all-night bash at Casa De Gump….. I didn’t drink so much that it has affected my memory – but, still, parts of the night are a blur…..

I woke up this morning to a scene that seems to have been cut from a movie…. a bit like Animal House.... it actually reminds me more of the “morning after” scenes in Sixteen Candles . . . . I only slept for an hour and a half or so…. when I went to “bed” at around five, there were a dozen or more partiers still going strong…..in the pool… in the rec room… on the roof… when I weaved my way through the house about two hours ago, there were some sixteen people in various states of sleep/coma….. amid a rather amazing accumulation of party debris material…. I sooooo wanted to keep hanging out there until they all wake up…. and maybe party on into the afternoon…..

BUT…. I had people to meet and things to do…. Even if the chief thing is sitting here, as I am right now… in the food court area of this Mall we are acquiring….. I am here now, at 8:30, sipping some tea, feeling good, and hanging out on the internet…. Such a far cry from where I was just a few hours ago….

Seems like a week ago…. last night…. as I peer thru the fog that is my memory, a moving picture unfolds…

When Steve (my original companion who arrived at the pub with me) was still with me, he chatted up the one man musical act (Shawn) and also introduced me to Dale and Lena, who run a restaurant on the beach….. Steve is an account rep for a major Food supplier…. Steve shoved off… Leaving me alone, ostensibly waiting for my friends Chuck, Monique, and Kyle…..

Dale and Lena beckoned me over…. introduced me to their two (as it turns out) single female friends…. Kari and Deb….. both looking quite tanned and wearing fun little sundresses along with seeming permasmiles…. Both are third year Law Students, here visiting on Spring Break…..

I talked to them briefly…. then went to the corner of the bar for a new hit….. there I met Jenine and Holly, two nurses who are back in school trying to get their BSN’s….. they live nearby….. Holly claimed to have a boyfriend…. Jenine claimed to maybe possibly perhaps getting back with her recent ex, Eric….

My friends showed up…. they only had time for one beer… which was fine… I intended to join them for a single pitcher, then depart the scene myself….. Enter the four teachers…. You heard me right….

Four 24 year old elementary school teachers from Fort Lauderdale, here on their Spring Break…. which answers that question…. where do hottish girls who live in Fort Lauderdale all the time go for their Spring Vacations…. Apparently, they come to Reddington Shores…. and eat dinner at one of our places…. then come out looking for a game of pool at another of our places….

When they walked in, they all seemed sun worn… as in, they had been to the beach all day…. they looked burned, salty, sweaty and quite beat….. Of course….. that should not deter a man such as myself….. Mostly being a good host… and partly because of ribbing from Monique…. I approached the four teachers, Julie, Melissa, April and June (I am not making that one up, the last two are sisters… their sister May – true, I know – is in the Keys snorkeling, she is also a teacher)... where was I… oh yes… the girls were playing pool at the one pool table we just installed in the pub….

{An unimportant ASIDE: We ended up, after ten months in business, expanding the pub by about fifteen feet (which cost us as much as the rest of the place, in rent). We added one pool table, a couple of dart boards, and more seating…..I told you it was unimportant, I should have added “unimpressive and unnecessary”}

Longish story coming to an end…. Next thing you know…. After having met 11 new people….all of the above, plus Amy (who used to work at Hooters as the back up bartender but is now a Medical Office Tech and was wearing Tropical Themed scrubs), ended up back at the GumpShack…. joined by my friends Mike, Barry, Rick and Dave….. Marty was a wuss and wouldn’t get out of bed at one to join the party…. but that is not very important….

The “party” simply started as a chance for everyone to get some food, keep on drinking, and keep on partying, I guess….. the pub was too crowded…. the Teachers had been warned about raucious allnighters at their rental condo… and the Lawyerettes were staying with a rather ordinary sister and her hubby, who have kids and normal jobs…. It seemed like such a natural for someone to suggest relocating the fracas to The Castle that Storage built…. There was some great music…. lots of 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s rock…. some modern pop…. country… a wee bit of the female balladeers… (For some reason, last night, I was reallly digging Sara McLaughlin).....

ANYWAY….I plan to finish this business at the Mall…. and get back home before eleven….. I am thinking about lunch on the boat…. the new boat my neighbor has as a demo….

{Humorous ASIDE: He routinely visits yacht brokers saying he wants to buy a boat… and they repeatedly “loan” him various vessels for weeks…. he cracks me up}

So yes, then….. As I got to the office at 7:00, the cleaning lady who tidies up my house on Fridays was leaving, headed towards my abode….. I told her about the people there and told her if she didn’t think she could clean without waking them all up, she could just bag it today….. She laughed so hard and went back into the building to “get more trash bags”....

I’ve no idea if that was meant as an editorial comment on Spring Breakish party people who are sleeping on the floors, thresholds and window sills like so many cats on a lazy afternoon…. but I shall not ponder the idea very long….

I’ve got mails to respond to…. Vendors to meet…. people to watch…. and LUNCH…. I almost forgot…. We need to clean the place up first….

Someone turn on the music… everyone grab a rag and a pair of gloves and let’s get to it….

Beer, anyone?

Sometimes, before a meeting, I will go into the conference room and write the word “THIS” on the dry erase board….. other times, I will write the word on a card and place it on my chair….

Then, I wait to reenter the room until it is nearly full…. I walk in quickly…. I am known as a fast walker…. and hasten to my seat… only to stop, dramatically, look scandalized, and ask, accusingly,

“Who put THIS up here?”

I even milk it…. selecting the newest/shyest person in the room, I will point at them, address them directly, and ask, “Did you put THIS here?”.... Often times, I will erase the word hurridely and say, “I have seen enough of THIS”....