My Eulogy

I'm guessing eleven of you showed up today—twenty tops. That's okay. I wanted a small gathering. Why else would I schedule my memorial service for 7 a.m. on a Tuesday?

Some of you might have been saddened by the news of my demise. Others might be happy, ecstatic even. To you I say, "Why are you here?" People do strange things, as we know, like watching "Storage Wars" and attending memorial services for people they despised who never liked them either, just to keep up appearances. Please, if you're happy I'm dead, just go. No one will judge you, and if they do, who gives a crap?

As you may know, I was cremated. I guess it was painless, but you can't be sure until they fire up those burners. That smidgen of doubt makes most people get buried. The point is, I may have gone out screaming. I'm guessing I died on the job. I'm sure it was ridiculous. I was a mailman, and never watched where I was going. Maybe I slipped on the ice behind someone's hedges, knocked myself out and froze to death before they found me. Or tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and lurched into the path of a dump truck. Or, on one of my woodsy shortcuts, stumbled upon a family of deer—the city's crawling with them, only to be gored and stomped to death by the dad.

If you're sad I'm gone, don't be. I had a full, productive life, and contributed richly to the lives of others. I was a pillar of the community. God broke the mold when he made me. Wait. Can you smell that? Boy, clichés have a wicked stench in the afterlife, especially when they're not true.

The fact is, I performed many good deeds. I raised funds for three different organizations. But I must confess, I only did it so people would say what a great guy I was. You don't believe me? You shouldn't. I was a shameless liar my whole life.

I did portraits of friends as gifts. What a selfless artiste. Wrong. I did a portrait of Yitzahk Rabin that hangs in the offices of the local synagogue. I'm ashamed to admit that I probably did it for the praise, but it was arguably my best portrait. There I go, tooting my own horn again.

I loved to make people laugh and even did standup for a couple of years. Sharing laughter was a passion of mine. Wrong again. Truth is, my ego was the size of Schenectady. Yes, New York. What are you, slow?

I realize now that I only did good things to feel better about me. It's always been about me. Other people disgust me, including nearly everyone here. Not only are you all dead to me now, most of you were dead to me before I died.

If any of you are still sad that I kicked, you have the I.Q. of a bologna sandwich. Now go to the hospital and get a brain scan. Don't forget to tell everyone there, "Walt Wood is dead! Yay! What an jerk. So... why am I still talking about him?"

Did Mom leave yet? She showed up, right? Quick question, Mom. Long ago you told me it was better to masturbate than have sex out of wedlock. My question is, "How did you know that?"

I guess it's just you and me now, Pastor. Don't feel bad. At least you're getting paid. I have one final question for you. I'm troubled. I have a choice now between a) spending all eternity bored out of my skull in heaven or b) haunting my wife until she joins me in hell. I'm leaning toward the latter. Is that a sin?

Seriously though, I figure I'm either playing Twister with Sophia Loren or watching "Storage Wars" in IMAX. Heaven or Hell. Which is it? How should I know? I wrote this thing before I died. HELLO!!

Libyan Baseball

I love baseball. Not playing it of course. Much too dangerous. I love to watch it. It reminds me of Saturday afternoons in the '60s, Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek calling a game on the old black and white Westinghouse, Uncle Bernie (not our real uncle) spending an hour screaming at the players and umpires. Bernie had anger issues and blown ego boundaries, so it was a relief when the beer hit him and he fell asleep. We would all doze off then, and that's what I love best about baseball: The naps.

I was a lazy kid, so my father convinced me to play baseball the same way he got me to do anything: Against my will. He was in the Air Force and got sent to Libya in '62. That's where I learned to play the game. Libyan baseball is the same as American baseball, but without grass or rainouts. There was plenty of sand, which has a way of slowing down the game. Imagine playing baseball on the beach. A line drive would arrive at its normal speed, but we would dive out of the way in slow motion. We did everything in slo-mo. We jogged the base paths in slo-mo. We ran into each other in slo-mo. We shook sand out of our underwear in slo-mo.

I enjoyed the game for a while because I've always been a fan of slapstick. It's funny when other people get hurt, as long as they don't really get hurt. Then came the Billy Peterson incident. When a ball came near him, Billy actually ran toward it. He would throw his entire body in front of it. Very strange kid. On this occasion, a ball flew his way in center field, and instead of doing the logical thing—i.e. watch it drop, dig it out of the sand and throw it halfway to the guy standing behind second base, Billy tried to make a running catch. Big mistake. You see, desert plants are extremely stubborn. Extracting them from an entire baseball field by the roots is next to impossible. Maybe our dads loved us, but not that much. In short, Billy tripped on one of those pesky desert stumps—in slo-mo of course, and his timing was thrown. He caught the ball with his face and went down. Naturally, I started laughing. He didn't move. Not so funny. We watched them carry him off the field. At our next game they told us his dad got transferred back to the states. Until then, we thought Billy was dead. Maybe he was dead, and they lied, just to trick us into going back out there. They were so bored waiting around for a shooting war, they would do anything for cheap entertainment. Sadistic? You bet. But let's remember, without sadists we would have no masochists, and without masochists, no one to play baseball.

In '64 I get traded to Michigan, and I'm forced to play in the rain now. It takes quarter-sized hail for them to call off a game. The grass is nice, but grounders are as dangerous as line drives. I'm taking balls off the ankles and shins in addition to the line shots. The outfield was relaxing in Libya. Here, grounders never stop, and they expect me to chase them all the way to the fence.

Baseball is teaching me about the trade-offs in life. I play some first base, and the footing allows me to easily avoid the ball. However, I have to fall on a slab of concrete. That same ball would have hit me in Libya, but I would have fallen into a pillow of sand. This reminds me of the latest gag they've come up with: Sliding. Have you seen this? Please, unless I'm falling off my bike, don't expect me to slide on a sidewalk.

Fifty years later, we own a flat screen Hi-Def Samsung. I have to endure Joe Buck and Tim McCarver on Saturdays, but at least there are no lunatic uncles making me nervous. Sure, watching baseball brings back painful memories from my playing days, but there's always the payoff: the sandman calls, and it's time for another nap.

Good Dog!

Having spent twenty-nine years as a mailman, I would like to dispel the myth that we don’t get along with dogs. I refer to pets, of course, not dingoes, hyenas and such. At any point in the history of mail delivery, postal carriers and dogs have developed an understanding.

Dog owners, on the other hand, are a different animal.

Consider this scenario. Let’s say you’re a substitute carrier filling in for a fellow mailman who walked into the side of a bus while ogling a college coed. It’s your first day on the route, so you are approaching yet another unfamiliar house. As you walk up to the porch, you notice that the interior door is open. The storm door is closed. The window in the storm door has a crack running down the middle of it, which has been taped. This is a red flag. You step onto the creaky porch and hear the scrabbling of doggie nails on a wooden floor. He's coming for you. He's getting closer. Closer still, and BAM! He slams into the storm door, and repeatedly lunges at it, rising to his hindquarters with each lunge.

He’s a scary one, half German Shepherd, half Doberman Pinscher, half Tasmanian Devil. Very scary to be sure, but hey, he’s just doing his job. You’re doing your job as well, and as long as the storm door holds—with the aid of your foot propped against the bottom of it, you’re cool.

Enter the dog owner. A guy wearing a tank top and jean shorts—with the pockets sticking out the bottom—comes striding up, stoops and grabs the dog by the collar. Backhanding him, he yells, “Shut up! Bad dog!” Let me interject: The Post Office frowns on mail carriers accosting customers. So you can only think, Why are you doing that, you moron? That dog is defending you and everyone else who lives here. He’s not a bad dog. He’s a good dog. You’re a bad owner.

At this moment the guy looks up at you, and says, “Hey, I’m really sorry, man.” And you think, For what? Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to him. You’re not doing me any favors, Pal. This dog is already angry at me for invading your space. Granted, he doesn’t keep a diary, but he has a memory, and now—thanks to you—he’s going to associate all this pain and suffering with my presence in his life. This can only fall back on me. He’s going to love you again in about 20 seconds, but he’ll hate me forever. So, yes, you should apologize to me, even though you don’t know what you’re apologizing for.

Because, you see, three or four days from now—as sure as I’m sitting at this substandard Dell keyboard—this same dog will be out in the front yard, loose and unsupervised. Let me interject:

All mail carriers are trained to “finger” the mail between houses, so as to have it ready to drop into the mailbox as soon as we reach it. It saves time, but there’s a drawback. As you amble into the yard, you don’t see the dog because you’re fingering the mail. By the time you do see him—at about the same time he sees you—it’s too late. To complicate matters, you discover you’re standing between the dog and a two-year-old child sitting on the front steps.

Let me interject:

Certain dogs are extremely protective of children. Unfortunately for you, from this particular dog’s perspective, you are not simply a loathsome intruder that he associates with pain and humiliation. Now you are openly threatening the defenseless little boy he loves more than any other creature on God’s green earth.

Let’s say the dog is about forty feet away from you. How long do you suppose it will take him to get here? A second? You might have just enough time to drop the mail and wet your pants.

Here's the key question: What do you suppose he’ll do when he reaches you? I’ll make it easy for you. Multiple choice. Will he:

1. Drop his red rubber ball at your feet so you can have a quick game of “fetch”?
2. Roll over on his back so you can rub his tummy?
3. Chew your leg off? Or:
4. Tear your face off, rip your throat out, scarf down your ears, and then haul your carcass from house to house so that all the other dogs in the neighborhood who have been abused—by their owners—in the presence of a mail carrier, can each have an opportunity to C. chew your leg off… or your other leg. Each of your arms. Any remaining appendages. Devour all of your flesh and organs. And then drag whatever’s left into a ditch for the crows to pick clean.

Remember, he was just doing his job. Okay, maybe he got a little carried away. Nobody’s perfect. Keep in mind that it wasn’t his fault, which I realize is of little comfort to you now. But take heart; your demise will help in our national campaign to have all those annoying signs altered to read:

Warning: Beware of the dog owner!

A Needlessly Embarrassing Purchase

I don’t know about you, but I was raised to believe that anything having to do with sex is shameful. And that is how I feel every two years when I endure the purchase of a box of one dozen condoms. That’s right, one box. You do the math.

I enter the store wishing I had the superpower of invisibility. I search for the sign and pray there is no one here with whom I am even remotely acquainted. Finally, there it is: “Family Planning.” I mosey up to the display all calm-like, but the sheer volume of options overwhelms me. Were there this many last time? I look for the familiar box. It’s not here. I assumed it would be the same color, but they’ve changed it on me. What was wrong with aqua blue?

I pick up a product of the same brand, but I don’t remember the description on the box at home. Are mine spermicidal? Lubricated? Who can remember? Heat rises around my ears. I should just get out of here and regroup. Try again another time.

But I’ve come too far now to turn back. I look at a sampling of choices. There are images of the product on the backs of the boxes. They look like plastic models of inter-ballistic missiles, which I find troubling somehow. One box says “Ultra Thin”, giving me pause. Already skeptical of their tensile strength, why would I want thinner? Does it really make a difference, pleasure-wise? I decide that the (possible) reward does not merit the risk. And they cost three dollars more, for less protection.

I’ve been standing here too long. There’s an elderly woman stooped over a pushcart. She’s a little older than my mother, but still.... I know she’s judging me.

I stroll away and wander through the aisles. Bags of peanut butter cups are on sale. Halloween is coming, so this is would make a safe, innocuous purchase. I’m reminded of the golden rule of condom shopping: Always buy a few other items, so as not to look desperate to have sex at two-thirty in the afternoon.

I return to the display ready to grab a box, any box. My eye is drawn to a surreal image: Luxury Condoms. I’m not kidding--$43.99 for one dozen condoms made of lambskin, one of the strongest membranes on earth. We hope. But four bucks a pop? There may be guys around who are that proud of their penises. I’m not one of them.

I snatch my selection and head for the checkout counter with the bag of Reese’s cups, a liter of Mountain Dew, and a copy of The Utne Reader. The cashier is a woman. It’s always a woman. As usual, I’ve calculated the total price of my purchase in my head, but it rings up too high by three dollars. I pause mid-swipe, scanning the screen. They’ve charged me the Ultra Thin price for a box of Regulars. Having seen the panic in my eyes, the cashier looks away. I tell myself to be rational, pay the money, and get the hell out of here. It’s not worth it.

Instead, I hear myself saying, “I’m pretty sure these condoms were marked at $12.59.”

“Well, that’s how the computer rang them up,” she says.

Now everyone knows why I’m here. I sneak a peripheral glance over my shoulder. Sixty people are lined up behind me, including my surrogate mother. I can hear their minds shouting, “This guy’s buying condoms! This guy, right here! He’s a little old for condoms, isn’t he? What’s he going to do with them? The old perv.” No. I am not a perv, just a normal man who doesn’t want to start a second family.

I say, “Let me check the price.” I grab the box and scurry away, avoiding the glares of my accusers. The cashier calls after me, “I’ll send someone back.” Sure enough, a young woman appears from nowhere. She’s wearing a headset and a lime green top. Her cleavage distracts me while she verifies the price. Vindicated, I endure a walk of mixed emotions back to the checkout counter. My head feels like it’s on fire. As I pass them, the people in waiting memorize every line and blemish on my face. They will never forget.

True Romance, Mailman Style

When people find out I’m a mailman, they sometimes ask if mail carriers really have affairs with their customers. As a rule, no, that’s a myth, but I did have a religious experience once with an enormous Scandinavian lady in a clown suit. Okay, that’s not quite true. In actuality, she was a Harlequin Great Dane named Millie (though I didn’t know her name at the time, as we were not properly introduced).

If you’re familiar with unexpected dog encounters, you know they usually happen suddenly, without warning. You never hear a dog say, “Psssst! Hey, Buddy. Over here. You might wanna gird your loins, Pal. I’m comin’ for ya.” It doesn’t work that way. It’s more likely a two-year-old child opens a screen door, and half a second later, fangs are in your thigh.

So, imagine yourself walking along with a mailbag over your shoulder. Maybe you’re subbing on a route you’ve never carried before. It’s a warm, sunny afternoon in June. You come to a beautiful mansion with a flower garden out front in full bloom. You stop to admire the craft that went into the building’s stonework. The garden is wonderful; its fragrance fills the air. Talk about smelling the roses. What an idyllic setting. Now, where is that mailbox?

Suddenly, a small pony comes galloping around the corner. You realize it’s not a pony, but a Great Dane with a splotchy black and white coat. You take a breath to scream, but there’s no time. No time to flee, nowhere to go, and she’s coming right at you. You’re backing frantically through the begonias, dropping your mailbag, the one with the dog spray in it. She reaches you, and pins you to that beautiful stone wall you just had to stop and admire, and plants her muzzle firmly into the fly of your pants as you stand on tippy tippy tiptoes. Your arms are spread wide, palms glued to the stone. Her tail is not wagging—not a good sign. She turns her gaze upward and looks balefully into your eyes, posing the question, “What now, Mr. Intruder?”

What now? Here’s what now. Your central nervous system is kabloowie. You dare not make a sound, but your mind is screaming, “Mayday! Holy Crap! Mayday!” Even though you can retreat no further, your doomed scrotum is trying to crawl into your prostate gland, while your penis does its best impression of Tippy the Turtle. You are transformed into your former self, your four-year-old self calling for his Mommy. In your mind, you whisper, “Nice doggie. Nice doggie.” You’ve never heard yourself whimper before. Mr. Rogers appears in your mind’s eye, posing the $64,000 question: “Can you say ‘castration’?”

While the two of you are locked in this position, a couple in their late seventies pulls up in a Buick Regal. The husband brakes at the stop sign, and says, “Oh, look dear. What an interesting garden sculpture.”

His wife does a double take and says, “Why, yes. And so lifelike. We should get one.”

As you wait for the inevitable chomping of the groin, you recall a line written by C. S. Lewis: “The present moment is the point at which time touches eternity.” You understand now what he meant. This is an eternity crammed into very few seconds of real time. Real time? There is no time. You’re out of time. Only the grace of God can save you now. You hope against hope that someone has fed this dog today. Of course, you know very well that dogs don’t eat genitalia when they’re hungry. You’re not an idiot. But forgive yourself for not thinking rationally at this moment.

At last, the eternity ends—it took what, eight seconds?—when young Millie here restarts the clock by sniffing you twice then snorting into your crotch like a horse into a feed bag. This causes you to pee your pants a little. And you were doing so well. Thankfully, the smell of urine is enough to save you. It’s a miracle. It seems the very Bladder of God has descended to relieve you of your burden. Millie immediately withdraws her head and cocks it to one side, puzzled. You’ll swear she looks just like Scooby Doo. She turns away from you when a tiny elderly man comes inching onto the veranda like Tim Conway on The Carol Burnett Show, calling, “Millie, Millie get in here, you silly little thing.” Little thing. That’s not funny, old man. Or are you very slow and very blind? Millie lopes to the veranda and disappears into the house. After apologizing, Tim shuffles after her.

Thus ended my hellish, harlequin romance with Millie. True story. And the closest I have ever come to an affair with a customer.

Helga

The first time I met Helga was after my tragic standup comedy experiment back in the '80s. It was horrible. They booed. They threw things at me: Beer nuts, beer nut bowls; beer bottles; car keys.

I fled the bar and roared away in my yellow '72 VW Super Beetle (with the crank sunroof). I must have blacked out, because when I woke up, I didn't know where I was. It turned out to be the psyche ward at the hospital.

Long story short, standup comedy ruined my life. I lost everything: My house, my job, my wife, my kids, my bass boat, my truck, my birddog Lucky. I lost my train set, my pet rock, my magic eight ball, my pet turtle Rufus, my wife, my kids (I remarried), my Greetings From Asbury Park album, my Classic Ken Doll collection, my TV Guide collection (and not just the covers either). I had a bag of vintage marbles: Taws, Clearies, peeries, cat's eyes, moonies, spiders, baldies. All gone.

Things came to a head when I lost my toothbrush. The only thing I owned at that point was a key to a rest room in Fountain Square Mall. That's how I met Helga. She worked in the building, also had a key to the room, and interrupted me in the middle of a sponge bath. One thing led to another, and before you know it, I was telling her my life story. At the time, I was convinced I was not crazy, but rather possessed by the devil (why else would I try standup?). I don't know if you've ever shopped for an exorcist, but I couldn't find one, having to resort instead to psychotherapy. I've wasted a lot of money on therapists over the years. Bankers. Insurance agents. Oil men. Psychotherapists. All bloodsuckers. Our fair town is crawling with shrinks. Eventually, each of them said the same thing to me: "I can't help you. Get away from me!"

It turned out Helga was also a psychotherapist. Huzzah! But she was different. She acknowledged that I was in fact possessed by demons, or as she called them, in her heavy Austrian accent, "Zose Sons of Beelzebub". She went on to say that contrary to popular opinion, they don't exist solely in your mind. "Zay get around. I beliff zay are liffing in your colon." How she discerned this is beyond me.

I'll never forget that first session. She hypnotized me, and when I came out of it, I was tied to a Barcalounger with a ball gag in my mouth. I let out a muffled scream. She smacked me with a blackjack and hissed, "Pipe down, Screwtape." She left the room and came back wearing black leather short shorts and a top adorned with leather faux-boobies that pointed at the ceiling. She grabbed a straight-backed chair, and straddled it in front of me. Say what you will about 75-year-old women. In that little outfit, she was pretty hot.

Later that night as I dressed my wounds, I thought she might not be the right therapist for me.

But I couldn't stay away. We've been together a long time now, and she says I've made great strides in my masochistnicity. A couple of weeks ago, she says to me, "Martini"—she calls me Martini for some reason—"You can grow no furzer in ze flouwvink of your masochistnicity, vizzout first you return to ze stage und try to make again ze people laugh."

I said, "No way," and bolted for the door. She tackled me, and tied me to the Barcalounger, to which, I'll admit, I've grown attached. She called me a bad boy and... did some things. When I could form words again I asked her to loosen the ropes. She chuckled and snarled at me. I thought she was going to bite me again, but she just sat there tapping the riding crop into the palm of her hand.

Then she said, "Martini. You're goink to do exactly vhat I tell you to do. Because iff you don't, I vill visit many many naughty operations on you. Und you know I vill do it."

I heard my child voice say, "Okay."

"You vill set aside your fear, Martini, und you vill get back up on zat stage before a life audience, und you vill flagellate yourself."

My child voice said, "Sure. Okay," not knowing what flagellate meant. I think it has something to do with microscopic creatures whipping each other with their tails.

"After you do zis, you vill accomplish self-actualization through self-flagellation."

So long story short, this is the reason I'm doing standup comedy again.

Birdbath