DATING TIPS FOR PSYCHOPATHS

Imagine trying to define, in 25 words or less, the ‘infield fly rule’ to a Czechoslovakian who’s never seen a baseball game.

Or trying to explain to your 11-year old, literal-minded grandchild - who thinks ‘METAPHOR’ is a new high-tech firm on Route 128 - the meaning to the finale of ‘2001, A SPACE IDIOCY’ ... er... ‘ODYSSEY’.

Not so easy, is it?

One of the most daunting tasks anyone calling himself a writer ever needs to face is explaining something to another person - or instructing another person how to do something.    In other words; technical writing.

There’s the case, for example, of some product from Japan called, ‘POSCOOL’.   ‘PROSCOOL’ apparently is some kind of hemorrhoidal medical device - the instructions read as follows - and I’m not making any of this up:  “LIE DOWN ON BED AND INSERT PROSCOOL SLOWLY UP TO THE PROJECTED PORTION LIKE A SWORD-GUARD INTO ANAL DUCT WHILE INSERTING PROSCOOL FOR APPROXIMATELY FIVE MINUTES. KEEP QUIET.”

Hold it, pal!

‘Keep quiet’?   KEEP QUIET?

Listen, buddy:   If I ram something up my ca-ca canal like, “a sword-guard” - trust me on this - ‘QUIET’ is the last thing I’m going to be!

Granted, the poor copywriter who penned this gem obviously doesn’t speak English on a regular basis - but Lawdsy me! convoluted prose is convoluted prose.

Come to think of it ... this guy would be a perfect candidate for writing U.S. Federal Laws.   I mean, did you ever try READING a federal law?   It’s like verbal Nembutal.   Half way through the damned thing you either lapse into a dolorous torpor or become totally unconscious.   It’s language crammed with turgid legalese mumbo-jumbo.

Besides, the aim of most of our laws is to royally ream the Public up the you-know-what.

This Japanese guy would be a natural.

The renown physicist and all-round brainiac, Albert Einstein, once said that imagination was better than knowledge.   True enough, I suppose.   But it would be a cataclysmic mistake to underplay ‘knowledge’ too much ... especially if  it complements logic and common sense.   Imagination rules! ... but rudimentary ‘smarts’ dovetail nicely with  imagination, thank you.

This is especially true of erotic fantasies.

Let’s face it ... every human being over the age of reason has engaged - whether they want to admit it or not - in sexual fantasies ... usually more than once.

In my case, of course, I have a new one about every three hours.

Every so often I get to live out one of these fantasies in real life.   It happens maybe every blue moon or so if I’m lucky.  The problem is: I get so excited over the prospective carnal hi-jinx, that my brain often takes a permanent dixie.

A case in point: About 20 years ago, my late wife and I shared this fantasy where we made passionate love upon soft silk sheets in a candle-lit boudoir.   Pretty tame stuff, actually...but what the hell! - this isn’t the damned ‘PENTHOUSE FORUM!

At any rate, the two of us arranged a weekend where we were totally home alone.   She got the silk stuff.   I got the candles.

Man, I was so worked up about the project, I was sticking candles all over the joint!   And like an idiot, I even put one on the night-stand right next to the bed.

Jumping Jesus ... you should have seen what happened !

As we were flailing around on the silk, a little corner of the sheet came in contact with the flame from the candle.

Baboosh!

Take it from me, pal ... nothing puts the kibosh on an erotic mood faster than having to stand there naked, dousing the conflagration with a chemical extinguisher.

Believe it or else:

Yours truly had his tonsils removed back in the mid 50s, not in a hospital or in an antiseptic clinic or doctor’s office, but in my kitchen, specifically on the kitchen table at 41 Library Street in Revere, Massachusetts.

Weird but true.

Dangerous?   You bet your ass it was dangerous!   But in our working-class neighborhood at the time, it was a viable and - most importantly - cheaper alternative to a two-day hospital stay.   Putting me in a Pediatric Ward would’ve tapped the crap out of my parental units.

As it happened, some palpably fly-by-night surgeon was going door-to-door in Revere offering to perform the extraction in your house for fifty clams or so.

So when the boy next door had HIS tonsils successfully removed, my folks signed me up, like pronto!

I guess they picked the kitchen table because there was more light in the kitchen than in any other room in the house.   I remember my Aunt Dotty - a semi-retired RN - assisting with the operation.    I remember being anesthetized with ether.    ETHER, for God’s sake!

At any rate, the next thing you know, I’m safe in my bedroom being plied with ice cream.   My paternal grandmother, a cafeteria worker at the local high school toddled over with a paper bag filled with purloined ‘HOODSIES’.

That night, the rest of my family enjoyed a boisterous supper at - I kid you not - the freaking kitchen table!

Smoked Shoulder, I think.

I either had balls of brass in my younger days or I was one of the stupidest people on God’s green earth.   In retrospect, it was probably a combination of the two.   Courage and Foolishness, after all, coexist uneasily in a young man’s heart, mind and body.   Maybe it has something to do with rampaging hormones ... I don’t know for sure.

For example, in January 1967, I drove my ‘64 Mercury Meteor from Revere, Massachusetts to Tamworth, New Hampshire in a freaking blizzard.   The car, my first, was a gnarled hunk of junk, a genuine shitbox ... with, among other things, dangerously bald tires and a busted thermostat.   I cruised up there with the driver’s side window down all the way to keep the windshield from freezing up.   It took me 12 damned hours, but I finally made it.

Nowadays, of course, I wouldn’t even CONSIDER a foolish stunt like that.   I’ve become a cautious old fuddy ... either my testicles shrunk or my brain got bigger.

In 1969, I was drafted into the Army and while in basic training I concocted what I thought was a brilliant plan to keep my ass out of Vietnam.   As beneficiary on my G.I. life insurance policy I listed Gus Hall.   Gus Hall, at the time, was chairman of the American Communist Party.   My reasoning went like this: If the commies killed me, the U.S. government was going to have to PAY the commies for killing me.   It was a perfect and seamless plan, I thought.

No way Uncle Samuel was going to risk major embarrassment by sticking me in harm’s way.

Wrong.

For one thing, the C.I.D. - the Criminal Investigation Division - was instantaneously on my ass.   They subjected me to a brutal 5 hour interrogation like I was Alger Hiss.   At one point they pressured me to name names.   So being a total wise-ass, I gave them  the names of some people I knew who were members of the Young Republicans.   I mean, I treated the whole thing like a joke.

The upshot of this particular mess was that I lost my ‘TOP SECRET’ security clearance.

Pity.

This of course prevented me from any and all access to military documents deemed vital to national security ... real ‘delicate hush-hush’ stuff like the MACV Toilet Tissue Dispersal Files or the roster of the 50th Army Band.

So thanks to my stupidity, the security and prestige of the United States was preserved!   My rat-fink commie pals in Hanoi never got wind of the fact that Cliff Cole was now playing tuba during the Sunday Band concerts.