The Nefarious Case of the Bitter Jug
Or      
Why She Sits Naked On My Lap When I Eat Cookies and Milk

It is beautiful, a woman’s ability to reproduce a new human and to feed that little person at her breast.  No matter how you explain what life is or why we are here or what we are supposed to do while we are hear – bringing a fellow human into the world is both awful and awesome.

I have children.  Karin, their mother, insisted on having natural child birth (we had midwives) and to breastfeed them.  It is terrifying, wonderful and a little weird to witness the arrival of these miniature humans.  I mean, really, as a whole the human race is a goofy looking affair.  We have long gangling arms and legs connected to a torso.  High performance organs have to function as a team to keep the human body operating smoothly.  And we sit on our ass where reproduction and defecation occur within a few inches proximity.  That causes some wild exploration, but I digress.  Our head has multiple holes for hearing, for tasting, for smelling and for seeing.  We are absolutely sentient and completely dependent on the information we glean from these holes.  From birth this "awakening" requires proper nourishment.

Even if our posture is perfect and we learn to be decent humans, if we go to college and become great thinkers - still the basic daily achievement is feeding the body. We nourish the machine so that great things can happen or great obstacles can be overcome.  If we don’t eat we can't concentrate on Face Book or pay attention to the movie on our laptop.  What better way to learn to nurture oneself than at mommy's bosom, which is the subject of this missive.

Oh, the art, the poetry, the addictions, the obsessions, the loneliness, the exalted giddiness, and grandiose orgasms that have been caused by a woman's bosom.  However, for an infant the bosom is a life-line, literally the center of the universe.  Mommy’s boobies are the best!  Just take them away from baby and witness the reaction.

To come right down to it, babies become connoisseurs.  They know how to make the boobies produce what they need.  Infants also know that the tandem milk factories that comprise mommy's bosom do not produce an equal product with equal tastes.  These nuances cause some babies to favor feeding from only one breast.  People have likes and dislikes even at this early age.  Some naturally lean to the left breast, others to the right.  Question - if preference is for the left breast will baby grow up to be liberal, or conservative if baby likes the booby on the right?  What about the biblical twins, Esau and Jacob.  The story says two nations (Israel and Arabia) were warring in Rebekah’s belly.  Those babies were punching each other out inside their mother.  But, the fight was about who was going to feed from which booby.  That’s right, booby protocol is the source of all conflict in the middle-east.  What a news flash!

Could it be that one breast is bitter and one is sweet?  Maybe one is chocolate and the other vanilla (a little variety please) .  Probably not.  If an infant will only feed on the left breast, then what does mommy do with all that milk waiting to be expressed from the right.  Nothing?  Nothing can't happen!  It causes discomfort and pain, or worse yet, mastitis (very painful).  If baby will not feed from that booby then something has to be done.  DADDY CAN FIX THIS!

Daddy is a different kind of connoisseur.  He sees mommy's bosom in a way that can grant sweet relief for mommy and daddy.  Like baby, daddy loves to have mommy's bosom in his face.  He can't wait to taste that precious nectar the baby connoisseur is refusing (well, some daddies J).  Can this be a sweet prelude to a hot night of love making?  Daddy must go slowly and carefully.  Mommy may be too tired.  Even if she is in discomfort, the thought of a Daddy at her breast might be truly repugnant.  Nipples are raw from feeding and sore. 

I always ask for cookies - it's an American tradition - eat a cookie and suck a neglected breast dry.  Just think for a moment; Oreos and a mouth full of breast milk.  If Mommy is watching Daddy eat cookies at her breast, this might produce enough comic relief to help her forget overworked nipples.  As Daddy is sucking her forlorn breast, Mommy might be so grateful that she is willing to sit naked on his lap.  Well, I ask mommy to strip and sit on my lap with her breasts in my face.  Stimulating?  Yes!  A lusty reawakening?  Affirmative!

Sexual energy, long depleted by sleep deprivation and fatigue, may suddenly reappear.  Mommy's breasts are so much bigger with the new "arrival" and her hips (because of constant nursing) are reemerging from the fat of the recent pregnancy.  Thoughts of spawning and reproduction creep back into the imagination.  If daddy truly understands the pressures put upon mommy's tender parts, mommy may bring daddy closer into the realm of intimacy and cause sexual pleasure to reappear.

Of course, with breast feeding mommy does not ovulate - usually.  If cookies and milk do lead to a wondrous renewal of sex there are no worries about producing another little connoisseur.  Daddy is less frustrated by the constant pressure of baby on the boobies.  Mommy feels desirable.  The bed is reclaimed by lovers and for a very shot time emancipated from a totally dependent little human.  

Driver's Ed Bakula Driving School

Ed Bakula was a champion runner, an Olympian in track and field.  Courageous, Ed managed to outrun bullets in his native Poland to escape Russian occupiers.  He ran all the way to the U.S.A. just to sit in the passenger seat next to me.  I'm learning how to drive.  Well, I know how to drive.  I want the tax break and the insurance break (that is, my parents do).  I'm riding around town with good looking girls (Robin and Delores) from my school.  Me, Ed and this big guy named Maurice. Maurice is a year ahead of me.  Driver's Ed arrives about two minutes late at the back entrance of St. Pius X High School.  We have been waiting about fifteen minutes.

Ed or Mr. Bakula, as he asks us to call him, owns and operates Drivers Ed Bakula Driving School.  Mr. Bakula is short and wiry with receding hair on either side of his widow's peak.  Probably in his 50's, well groomed, he has a furrowed forehead and an aristocratic manor.  Mr. Bakula wears jump suits that cause him to  look like a professional race car driver - confident with a strong European accent.

Always looking out for us with advice about car maintenance and performance, Ed quizzes us as we wiz down the Interstate.  "Now students, how do you stop a car when the brakes are completely broken?"  No one offers an answer.  "Well, you drive off the rode into a field and run over small trees until the car slows to a stop.  (No big trees, they might kill you.)  Ed continues, "How much space do we give the car in front of us?" (None, I don't want anybody to cut in front of me.)  "One car length per 10 miles per hour" I say.  Mr. Bakula smiles wryly and asks, "Now next question.  When are my students going to pay the rest of their Drivers Ed fee?"  We all laugh.  I whisper with teeth clinched and a silly smirk, "When Dad feels like it."

The words Mr Bakula uses most in the car is, "slowly down!"  In American it would translate to, "slow down!"  Not that any of us are reckless.  If we drive two miles over the speed limit, we get a friendly "slowly down" and a smile.  Anyone accelerating five or ten miles over the speed limit hears tires squeal on the pavement.  The car might slide side-ways while it drags to a halt.  Mr. Bakula just hit the break pedal on the floor in front of his side of the seat.  "Don't do that!" says Mr. Bakula (he frowns).  Yeah, he still has the speed - fast feet on the pedal.  Good reaction.

Today we're entering the expressway for the first time.  We pull over in the Walmart parking lot along the frontage rode.  "Before we start, does any one need to visit the restroom," inquires Ed.  "They  have pooblic ( said "public" in American) restrooms in Walmart.

Now that everyone is back from the relief of the Walmart bathroom we begin the verbal part of the days lesson.  Mr. Bakula explains how "important" it is to keep with the flow of traffic on the interstate and not to turn into faster moving lanes until we build up enough speed.  "You will all do fine," says Mr. Bakula.  I think Maurice was day-dreaming when we received this lecture.

Maurice was the first one in the driver's seat to attempt the on-ramp and the merge into flowing traffic of the interstate highway.  From the traffic signal at the entrance to Walmart, Maurice jams the accelerator down to the floor and swerves into the on-ramp.  The acceleration pushes the rest of us deeper into our seats.  This aggressive move caught Mr. Bakula off guard.  Maurice is already on the freeway blasting into adjoining lanes, moving left and right, weaving in and out of traffic and gaining speed.

Driver's Ed Bakula erupts, "STOP IT, STOP IT!"  His fist is pounding on Maurice's right bicep.  "PULL OVER, YOU SILLY BOY!"  Maurice, frowning at our Polish Olympian, decides not to defend himself from the barrage of punches and "SILLY BOY's."  The car rolls to a stop and is purring on the side of the rode.  Mr. Bakula is seething and Maurice is rubbing his right bicep.  I'm just trying to keep from bursting into laughter.  Robin and Delores on either side of me in the back seat were straightening their sweaters and smoothing back their hair.  Their breasts had been bouncing on me and away from me as Maurice weaved in and out of traffic.  When Mr. Bakula hit the breaks and Maurice swerved onto the shoulder to stop, Robin touched me in an "excitable" and "unfamiliar" place as she attempted to steady herself during the stop.  "Sorry, Sammy," she said to me.  Way to go, Maurice.

Today's driving lesson was ended early by Maurice's reckless surge into the expressway.  Mr. Bakula pulled his cell phone out and called Maurice's parents.  Besides informing them of his infraction on the freeway, they were told to pick up their miscreant son.  We waited on the side of the freeway until they arrived.  Minus Maurice, Mr. Bakula drove us back to school.  We would attempt the on-ramp and expressway another day.  

We never saw Maurice again.  I wonder if Mr Bakula was really a Polish immigrant or was he a spy, connected to the KGB.  If they came to Maurice's house in the early morning darkness, did they take him to Siberia?  Maybe Drivers Ed will be easier there for him.

BoAt fOr SaLe

I had been driving for long hours in the Sonora Desert.  My eyes were aching from looking at the road for so long and I was tired.  The lines separating the lanes were hypnotic and demanding.  The longer I stared at them the less I could look away. Sunshine was low in the west, casting shadowy figures across the highway.  I thought I saw a camel crossing the road.  That woke me up.  I remembered a story about the army importing camels to the southwestern U.S..  But that was in the 1800's and all of them were dead, they must be.  Then I realized, I was certain of it, I had seen a ghost of one of those camels.  This should have been a warning to me.  I should be looking for a place to stop and close my eyes even if I was too tired to sleep.  Oh, to rest my mind and dunk it like a doughnut in a big mug of sleep.

No, I had to carry on. Mental collapse meant nothing to me.  Physical failure was not an option.  Insanity was creeping in, it must have been.  But it occurred to me - "you have to be smarter than average to go insane."  At this point it became obvious, stupidity was rotting my thoughts.  My fingers felt like they were glued to the steering, my grip was that tight.  My driving had to be "suspect".  Where's a cop when you need one?

That's when I saw it.  While driving over a rise in the highway, on the shoulder was a sign.  It said "BoAt fOr SaLe."  I started to smile, "A boat in the desert!"  Then I began to giggle.  Who the heck would buy a boat and put it in the desert?  There's no water here.   Maybe a million years ago.   Not a drainage ditch.  Not a reservoir or a river around here.  Not a rain cloud in the sky.  I began to laugh.  I had to pull over, I was laughing that hard.  I was laughing for the joyous pleasure of feeling my shoulders bounce up and down over the vibrating wind bag in my belly.  Billows of air were escaping my lungs, "HA, HA, HA!"  Fatigue and hunger and thirst and driving alone for days had done its damage.  I had to find out who would bring a boat to the desert?

I made a "180" and drove back, turning next to the for sale sign onto the bumpy driveway that meandered a couple hundred yards.  It ended at the door of a beat-up Air Stream vacation home on wheels.  Splattered on the side in red paint were large letters that formed the words, "God Speaks To Me."  There was the boat, a Hobie Catamaran resting on its trailer, at the far end of the Airstream.  It was sixteen foot long and in immaculate condition - stark contrast to the Air Stream.  A man opened the door to his trailer as if he had been expecting me.

"I just put the sign up this morning.  I knew it wouldn't take too long to find a buyer.  The name's Sam.  What's yours?"  He smiled and extended his hand to me.

"Ray," I said.

"This is my baby, so I want to find a good home for her," he walked along the flank of his boat patting it reverently.  A desert breeze filled the air and pressed against the yellow wind-breaker he wore.  "Watch what it does when I untie it from the post."

The boat began to float in the breeze, hovering above the trailer it had been resting on.  Sam was holding onto his Hobie Cat like a kid clings to a line with a kite flying at the end of it..

"I'm not really a buyer, uhm, how is it floating in the air."

That's what Hobie Cat's do.  They'll float on anything, including a breeze.  You don't always need water.

I was more tired than I thought.  First the ghost of the camel and now a boat that floats in the air.

"You're not see'n things," said Sam.  He was laughing under his breath.  His left hand rested on the hip of his swimming trunks. The right hand still held the leash to the Hobie Cat.

"I just had to know why you put a boat in the middle of the dessert," I said.  "Had to know why you were selling it with no water anywhere for many miles"

"I'm an optimist," Sam smiled. "There's always something that comes along to get you moving in the right direction.  Besides, this isn't the desert."

"I've been driving in the desert all day.  Of course it's the desert?"

Beep, beep, beep.

I rubbed my eyes.  Where was the beeping coming from?

"Sam, do you hear that beeping."  I was standing, watching the Hobie Cat, but, why was I feeling the seat of my car against my back?

Beeeeeeep!.

"I must be back in my car.  Oh, crap, I'm in my car!"  The sedan was parked in the middle of the highway with the motor running.

Beep, beeeeeep

"Hey, Ray.  Take hold of the tether.  See how the boat feels in the air."

"What?  Where are you, Sam.  How did you get to the highway?"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"There must be someone behind me but I can't see anything in the mirror.  I must be in the way.  I better get moving before I get hit."

Beep, beeeeeep.

"My arms won't move."  I couldn't make the car roll!  My heart was racing, I was sweating.

Beep, beep.

"Ray, Ray," said Sam.  "You sure you don't want to buy my boat?"

Beeeeep.

I slammed my eyelids shut, then opened them wide.  I was startled!  The ceiling of my bedroom was above me.  I could smell Sheila’s perfume and feel her warm breasts against me.

"Wake up and turn off the alarm," said Sheila.  She was not really awake.  "You've been talking in your sleep again."

Dead Elk Status For Children

We want to give "dead elk" status to children in Arizona.  I live in AZ and I must say we are an enlightened crowd.  We live by rules handed down by men who lived here long before us - pioneers who should have known better.  The following are a sampling of those rules.   

Rule 1:    Carry deadly force close to you like most folks carry their cell phones.
Rule 2:    Keep a list of reasons to apply this force.  Amend it vigorously with new reasons.     
Rule 3:    Remember the location of anything with a pulse.  This might take every waking hour, since everything that breaths has a pulse.  However, your efforts will be rewarded when you discover a "good enough" reason from Rule 2 to render a nearby pulse to cease.
Rule 4:     Expedition of Rule 3 will make you feel powerful, God-like. 
Rule 5:     Remember that using deadly force is an affirmation of all that is American, like the buffalo and the Middle Class.  
Rule 6:     Helping the living to die validates our ability to cause change that will bring in the new world order.  A place where freedoms are best kept secret in case the law decides what you're building in your garage is way too deadly, even for Arizona. 


After all, we are supposed to leave the planet different, proving that we spent time here.  There is no law saying you have to, but why not really live free and keep your child from dancing around unrestrained in the bed of a speeding pick-up.  Maybe that child will still be alive upon arriving home.

Applying "Dead Elk" status to children is an attempt to keep them safer on the roads (children, that is).  It is unlawful to carry a dead elk in the back of a pick-up in AZ without it being tied down.  So a clever legislator decided, “Hey if it's OK for a dead elk why not tie down our kids in the back of the pick-up.”  Eureka!  That way when they wiggle they won't fall out of the truck.  But, here's where it gets interesting.  Certain people have decided it is an infringement of their personal liberty if the government says a child has to be secured in the back of a pick-up truck.

No, it's an infraction of my pocket book.  What if that child falls out of said pickup and sustains life threatening injuries that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.  With the economy the way it is, there is a good chance the parents of this child will have no health insurance.  If they do have health insurance, there is probably a very low cap on what it covers.  Lets face it, the good governor of AZ has gutted AHCCS (state run health insurance), so the price of caring for this pathetic little kid will be coming out of my pocket (and yours) in the form of higher health care fees and higher drug costs, higher everything.

But, we wouldn't want anyone to feel confined by the government.  By all means let children run amuck in the back of a pick-up.  If there is an accident maybe it will be quick and painless.  Better for their personal freedom and I'll hope for the best.