Gary – Page 10 – Deep Dark Thoughts

Garden of Earthly Disasters

Every year, I plant a garden in my back yard, and every year, I usually experience about 50 percent success. Half of the plants do very well, while the other half make it their mission in life to suck up water and fertilizer for a few months before dying without producing any edible payback. I have gotten used to that dynamic. I take the good and accept the bad.

Not this year. This year, every plant in my garden decided that they were going on strike. They seemed determined to show me up for the farming failure they have always perceived me to be. From the day I planted the first seeds, I could almost hear the giggles and whispers as they conspired against me.

Let this blog be my written capitulation to the inevitable. I quit. I surrender. I cease and desist. My white flag is firmly planted in the ground, and hopefully, unlike everything else I put in the ground this year, it will not die.

The ordeal started with the zucchini. I plant squash every year because it is the easiest thing in the world to grow. You almost have to go out of your way to screw up growing zucchini. It will sometimes pop up in a garden uninvited like some kind of predatory, invasive lifeform dropping out of the sky to take over the planet.

A month or so after planting, I noticed that the zucchini plants had become infested with squash bugs. I tried pesticides, oils, and even physically removing the bugs by hand. The bug population outpaced my ability to keep up with them. They sucked and chewed on the plants until the leaves wilted and the zucchini turned yellow and fell off before growing large enough to pick.

When the battle was officially lost, I pulled out the plants and threw them away. As I pulled the zucchini plants from the garden, many of the squash bugs fell off onto the ground. I began to stomp them into the dirt, venting my frustrations on the tiny invaders who had rendered the simplest plant to grow into a desiccated heap in my yard. As I stepped on the miniature vampires, I discovered something I had never previously known about squash bugs.

They can fly.

To my horror, several of the little monsters launched themselves into the air, and all I could do was watch helplessly as they redistributed themselves through the rest of the garden. They quickly disappeared from sight. As they landed on the still healthy plants, I could hear their little squeals of glee as they found fresh fields of vegetables to destroy.

In addition to the bugs, the heat this summer has been oppressive. Sacramento has been experiencing a record number of days in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Even the plants that were bug free could not hold up against long hours in the direct path of the blistering sunlight. They wilted and dried out, lying down in surrender like French soldiers in World War II.

I tried giving them extra water during the hottest part of the day, but it was as futile as trying to push back the tide with a slotted spoon. The end was obvious, and inevitable.

All summer long, I have been growing small, withered plants that would open a few pathetic flowers, then die off before being able to produce any fruits or vegetables. I haven’t been this disappointed since EM1 dropped out of college.

I have tomato plants with no tomatoes, cucumber plants with no cucumbers, pepper plants with no peppers, and lettuce that resembles the bagged salads you forget in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator for several months. (Assuming the bagged salads also included a handful of hungry bugs.)

The garden isn’t the end of it either. I have several peach trees that suffered from leaf curl and dropped all their fruit before it could ripen. I have two apricot trees that just decided to take the year off, and I’m not totally certain why. I also have a couple apple trees that the birds seem to be enjoying very much. Every piece of fruit in those apple trees seems to have been nibbled or pecked by something that was only interested enough to take a few bites before moving on to make room for the next vaguely hungry animal in line at the buffet.

And the coup de grace in this disaster of cultivation is my back lawn. I have a huge dead hole in the middle of my lawn where the kids set up their inflatable pool. They swam in the thing once, then ignored the pool for weeks. I asked them several times to deflate it and move it, but instead, they let it remain in place just long enough that nothing green could possibly survive in the circular zone of destruction directly underneath.

It’s like a cosmic joke that everything I touch this year will die a slow, agonizing death. Even grass isn’t safe from my swath of carnage.

In light of my vegetative failures, I have decided it is time to give up. Going outside each day to view the destruction of flora that used to be my home landscaping has beaten me down to the point of submission. I am accepting defeat.

From this day forward, I will remain indoors where my cursed touch will be limited to the few sacrificial house plants shivering in fear on the windowsill. The iris and the begonia are doomed, but they can die knowing that their sacrifice will not be in vain.

They died so that others might live.

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Go Play Outside

When I was growing up, I loved television and video games as much as the next kid, but my favorite times were when I could get together with my friends in the great outdoors. This type of behavior was encouraged by every parent on the block. When the kids began to get a little stir crazy and started bouncing off of the walls, moms and dads everywhere would echo that well-known caveat, “Why don’t you go play outside?”

The, “or else,” usually remained silent, but we all heard it loud and clear.

Today, playing outside is neither encouraged nor desired. Kids prefer to be indoors and interact through electronic media, never physically interacting in any way. With the current pandemic situation in our world, this mindset is being reinforced by legal and medical authority.

It makes me sad. It makes me long for the times my friends and I gathered in groups and played until the sun set and our parents came outside to yell at us that dinner was ready.

I remember a favorite game of ours when I was a teenager. It was called, “bun-ball.” It wasn’t a real game, since we just made it up.

It was sort of a cross between handball and attempted murder.

All you needed to play bun-ball was a large open area with a brick or concrete wall, a tennis ball, and a group of friends who possessed a total disregard for human life and their own safety.

The rules were simple. The person with the ball, threw the ball at the brick wall. You had to hit the wall before the ball bounced on the ground. If it hit the ground first, it was a “skip,” and you got one point. You didn’t want points. Points were bad.

After the ball bounced off of the wall, if another player caught the ball before it hit the ground, the person who threw it got a point. Players could only catch the ball with one hand. If a player trying to catch the ball, dropped it, they must run and tag the wall before another player could grab the ball and hit the player that dropped it. If you get hit with the ball before you tag the wall… yup. You guessed it. That’s a point.

We learned quickly, that when you tag the wall you should keep running, since the player that picked up the ball after you dropped it is probably going to throw it at you anyway. Late hits were surprisingly frequent and, in some cases, quite deliberate. It may not cost you a point, but it’s still going to hurt.

If you use two hands or move the ball from one hand to the other, that is called a “bobble,” and it is the same as dropping the ball. You have to run and tag the wall before someone else nails you with the tennis ball.

Those were pretty much the rules. The fun part, however, started when one player got three points. This is also how the game got its name.

A player with three points had to curl up facing the wall, with their butt sticking out. It was your choice to kneel or stand. I recommend the kneeling approach since it makes a smaller target. Every other player then had one opportunity to throw the ball at the poor sap that had accumulated three points. The throwers stood far enough away that hitting their target was not a guarantee, but still close enough so the ball had sufficient momentum to do significant damage. After everyone had a turn humiliating and injuring their friend, the person with three points got reset to zero, and the game resumed.

My friends and I used to play this game on the tennis courts at school during recess. Today, I believe that playing bun-ball on school grounds would constitute about a half dozen felonies in California. Parents these days just get way too excited when their kid limps home with a bloody lip and circular bruises all over his ass.

Anyway, my point wasn’t that my friends were insane and intent on killing each other. My point was that we were all trying to kill each other outside! We inhaled fresh air through our broken noses and spat blood onto green grass, just as God intended.

I feel bad for kids that spend their entire lives indoors. This pandemic lockdown is going to end eventually, and when it does, I am afraid that the generation growing up now will choose to stay inside anyway. That’s just sad.

I want my kids to get out of the house and go play outside.

I know that there are plenty of activities we can do indoors to keep active and mentally stimulated, but it isn’t the same when you can’t look up and see the sky. It isn’t the same if you can’t run full speed without worrying about tripping over furniture.

Besides, there just isn’t enough space in the living room to throw a tennis ball.

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Forgotten, But Not Gone

It is disheartening when you suddenly discover that you hold very little value to your family. Not just that they take you for granted, but rather that they don’t seem to notice any difference if you are there or not.

Not too long ago, I decided to take a few days to go camping on my own. I told my wife and kids about my plans weeks in advance. The trip was not a secret by any means. But on the day I packed up my gear, hooked up the trailer and got ready to leave, I said goodbye to the kids and EM2 asked me, “Where are you going?”

I’m used to being ignored by my family, so this reaction was really no surprise to me. I told her, “Never mind. Go back to sleep.” Then I left.

It was a wonderfully peaceful trip. No internet. No television. No distractions. Just me, a book, and hundreds of square miles of trees and animals to stare at.

I returned home at the end of the week to find … everything exactly the same as when I left.

The cuckoo clock had stopped running since I am apparently the only person in the house that winds it, so it was literally as if time stood completely still in the house while I was gone.

The kids were sitting on the couch where they always are during the day. (If I hadn’t actually seen them occasionally get up to pull food out of the refrigerator, I would swear they were surgically attached to the couch cushions.) There were dishes in the sink, a used pan on the stove top, and a jar of peanut butter on the kitchen counter precisely where it had been when I left the house four days earlier. And outside, on the back lawn, a mostly deflated, unused swimming pool that I had begged them to get rid of while I was gone, sagged in the overgrown grass, waiting for me to eventually throw it away.

When I walked into the house, the kids did get up and acknowledge I was home. They didn’t ask me how my trip was, or even say, “hi,” however. They just grabbed a bag of food out of my hands to see what snacks I had brought back home, and immediately started rummaging through the contents like racoons lucky enough to find an open dumpster behind their favorite restaurant. The half-eaten bag of Doritos in my bag got a better welcome home reception than I did.

While I listened to EM1 and EM2 fighting over stale chocolate chip cookies, one of the cats wandered out of the back bedroom and rubbed against my leg, demanding to be petted. I felt marginally better. At least one of the animals was glad I was home. She let me scratch her behind the ear for about five seconds before she decided she had graced me with her presence long enough and decided to go back to the bedroom.

It was at that point that I decided to text my wife to let her know I had gotten home safely. I figured at least my loving spouse would show the appropriate amount of warmth and affection to the news that I was once more with the family. I received a text back that said:

“Working late tonight. Don’t wait for me to eat dinner.”

I could feel the love radiating from the phone.

That was it. That was my greeting after four days of being gone. Maybe I should have stayed away a little longer. Perhaps if I was gone a few more days they would have actually missed me. Or they might have simply forgotten about me altogether. I’m afraid that would probably be the more likely outcome.

After about two weeks:

EM1: “Where’s Dad?”

EM2: “Who?”

EM1: “You know, the guy that used to hang around here and bother us while we watched television?”

EM2: “Quiet. I want to hear this part.”

Despite the fact my family sucks and apparently doesn’t care if I’m in the house or not, I did discover my absence hadn’t been completely unnoticed. When I arrived home, I discovered that the hummingbird feeder in the backyard was completely empty. Several hungry and pissed off hummingbirds were hanging around the empty feeder like vagrants around a closed food kitchen.

I went outside and was immediately dive bombed by a handful of the tiny moochers. While I don’t actually speak hummingbird, I’m quite certain a few of them were making unkind remarks about me not knowing who my father was. Who knew cute little hummingbirds could be so cruel?

I refilled the feeder, despite the awful things the birds had said to me, then ran for my life as a cloud of the winged opportunists swarmed in from every direction. Now that there was food available again, I was just the guy that was between them and their lunch.

I went back in the house and found the kids had returned to the couch. Their attention was once more firmly fixed on whatever foreign-language soap opera they had found that morning, and any attempt on my part at conversation would be firmly met with rolled eyes and shushing noises. The only difference was now they were surrounded by the wrappers and detritus of the pillaged snacks they had stolen from me. I shook my head, realizing that it would probably be my job later to throw away the nest of garbage they had just built around themselves. I know they can’t be bothered to do it.

Even though I was now home, I was just as alone as if I was still surrounded by miles of empty forest.

With no one to talk to and nothing better to do, I went into my den, turned on the computer, and started looking for places to go on my next camping trip.

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Do What You Gotta Do

In twenty-five years of working in law enforcement, I’ve seen and heard quite a few threats from people who were going to have me fired or would “have my badge.” Despite the fact that there were a surprising number of such threats, my career survived them all.

My badge stayed pinned to my chest the entire time.

I once pulled over a teenager who was driving a Lamborghini Countach at 50 miles per hour in a 25 MPH zone. When I asked him for his driver’s license, he asked, “Do you know who my dad is?”

I responded, “I guess your dad is the guy who’s going to be pissed off his son got a speeding ticket while driving his $100,000 car.”

The kid didn’t like this answer very much. He also did not like it when I added that he did not have any proof of vehicle insurance to the citation. To this day, I still don’t know who his dad was since I never heard from the kid or his allegedly career-destroying parent ever again.

In addition to threats, I have also dealt with tears, bribes, promises, and pleas. I was even propositioned once, although I didn’t realize what was happening until it was already over. I pulled over a woman who had just gone through an intersection without stopping at the stop sign. When I walked up to the driver’s side window, the young lady was wearing a black miniskirt that barely covered her hips and a white blouse with the first four buttons unfastened. The view was rather impressive.

She smiled at me and asked how I was doing. I said fine and asked her for her driver’s license. When I explained that she had gone through a stop sign she laughed and apologized. She said, “I must have been distracted. I’m so sorry. I promise that will never happen again.” I thanked her and started walking back to my patrol vehicle with her paperwork.

The woman poked her head out of the window and yelled, “Hey! Are you giving me a f***ing ticket?”

I said I was, then asked her to remain in her car. When I returned to have her sign the ticket, her skirt was pulled down to her knees and her blouse was buttoned up to the neck. I have never before or since seen anyone shift from flirty stripper mode to angry nun quite so quickly. She signed the ticket while glaring at me the entire time, then drove off before I had time to tell her to have a nice day.

My favorite traffic stop story, however, has to be the time I was following a black SUV and I watched the vehicle drive past a stop sign without slowing down. I activated my overhead lights to pull the vehicle over. The SUV drove several more blocks without any acknowledgement that I was behind it. I turned on my siren thinking that maybe the driver just hadn’t noticed me. The vehicle still did not stop.

About the time I was considering using my radio to request an additional officer for a “failure to yield,” (police double talk for “I think I’m in a really, really slow car chase”) the SUV turned down a side street and finally pulled over. I approached the vehicle and noticed that the driver was talking on his cell phone. I started to ask for his driver’s license, but he held up a finger and told me, “Hold on!”

I paused, and I heard him say over the phone, “Yeah, he’s right here next to me. You want to talk to him?” The driver then held his phone out toward me. “Your Patrol Commander wants to talk to you.”

Surprised, and curious, I accepted the phone.

“Hello?” I said.

“Who is this?” said the voice on the phone.

“Officer Wilbanks. Hillsborough Police Department.”

“Oh, hi, Gary. It’s Tom.”

Oddly enough, I actually was talking to my Patrol Commander. He asked me what was going on and I explained why I had pulled the SUV over.

“Sounds pretty straight forward,” he said to me. “Do what you gotta do.”

“Do you want to talk to the guy again?” I asked.

“No. Just hang up. I don’t really want to talk to him anymore.”

I disconnected the call and handed the phone back the driver. He had an unpleasant smile on his face as he accepted his phone. “Well?” he asked, getting ready to drive away.

“I need your driver’s license and proof of insurance, please.”

The smile on his face went away. He handed me his information, then told me, “You must really not want this job anymore.”

“There are days I don’t love it,” I admitted. “But today isn’t one of them.”

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Everybody in the Pool

Just the other day, my oldest daughter announced that she wanted to go swimming. That wasn’t a big deal, or a surprise either, since for the past week we have been having 100-degree days outside and the weather report for the coming fortnight does not promise to get much better.

The problem is that we do not have a pool.

Well, we do have a pool, but it is not one of those pools that is always there just waiting for you to jump in. We have a ten-foot diameter, partially inflatable, wading pool.

Extensive assembly required.

I told EM1 she could set up the pool if she really wanted to, but I was not going to help her do it. The very next day I had to listen to two hours of whining as she begged me to help her put up the pool.

“Please, Dad. I can’t do it by myself. I just need you to help me get it out of the garage and blow it up.”

I reminded her of my refusal to get involved with the assembly project. Several times. Her mother eventually cracked, however, and pulled the duct tape-wrapped box out of the garage and out onto our back lawn. I watched as the two stood outside, yelling at each other as they pulled acre after acre of blue plastic out of the box and spread it over the newly mown grass. Grass that I would have to replant in September after the pool finished killing it.

If you have ever had a blowup pool on your lawn during the summer, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Next, EM1 asked me how to inflate the pool. I told her where she could find the air compressor in the garage and how to turn it on. The next thing I knew, she was dragging my air compressor into the house and shouting at me that she didn’t know how to turn it on. This particular compressor has a 100-gallon tank and sounds like a jackhammer firing up when it is running.

And my daughter had just brought it into the house.

I explained (EM1 would call it yelling, but I believe she exaggerates) that it needed to be outside before she turned it on. Firing up the compressor in an enclosed space such as a house would be as ill-conceived as setting off fireworks in an empty bathtub while sitting in it. The end results in both cases would involve immediate physical discomfort and subsequent deafness, making it difficult for EM1 to hear my “explaining” as to why I strongly suspect she was dropped on her head as a baby.

She dragged the compressor back outside.

That little confrontation was followed by an hour of EM1 inflating the pool, then another eight hours as she filled it with water from our garden hose. By the time the pool was full, it was dark outside and my daughter no longer wanted to go swimming.

The following morning, EM1 and her sister told me they were going to drive into town to buy smoothies so they could drink something cold while they sat out by the pool. Clearly, this saga was not over. I had hoped the pool would be forgotten and I could drain it and put it away over the weekend, but no such luck.

About two hours after they left, my children got back home. EM2 was carrying a smoothie in each hand, while EM1 lugged in two large boxes.

“What did you buy?” I asked, not really caring other than trying to figure out how much they had charged to my credit card.

“Pool floats, so we have something to sit on while we’re in the pool,” announced EM1.

The girls proceeded to unpack two enormous, donut-shaped floats and lay them out in the back yard. The floats were almost as big as our pool and probably cost twice as much. EM1 looked at me, and before she could even get the question out, I told her, “No, I will not help you inflate those.”

She said something very cruel and unflattering that vaguely sounded like “bass pole.” I won’t repeat the actual word since I don’t condone such language. I’m not even sure where she learned that kind of trash.

I blame the public schools.

An hour later, the floats were fully inflated, the girls were hyperventilating, and the smoothies had completely melted in their cups. Both of them still climbed into the pool, however, red-faced and sweating as they drifted on their oversized floats across their homemade duckpond.

The water probably felt nice. But it was still over a hundred degrees outside. I think it was only stubborn pride that kept the kids in the pool for the next couple hours. They did not want to admit the entire ordeal might have been a mistake. That was just fine with me.

I was content to remain inside, sprawled on the couch with the house’s internal thermostat set to a frosty 76 degrees. I had the TV on, a diet Pepsi in my hand, endless snacks waiting for me in the pantry, and two hours of uninterrupted relaxation. I think I definitely got the better end of this deal.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll recommend the girls take another pool day. I can always use another break, and I figure they owe me at least that much.

Especially since I know that neither one of those kids is going to help me when Autumn rolls around and it’s time to plant a new lawn.

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Comfort Food

I’ve been sick recently. Nothing major or life threatening; just feeling a little out of sorts so that all I want to do all day is curl up on the couch and sleep until I feel better. My wife tells me I’m a huge baby when I’m sick, but I see nothing wrong with taking the time to be lazy and recover from an illness. I admit I could probably get away with a little less whining and complaining, but that’s just the way I roll.

My wife’s threats of suffocating me with my own pillow aren’t going to change anything. I’m about 67% certain she won’t actually do it.

Besides, she is the kind of personality that when she gets sick, she denies that she’s sick until she passes out and has to go to the hospital. Personally, I think a couple days of staying in bed is the better way to go, but I will never convince her of that.

My favorite part of being sick, is the ability to indulge in comfort food. Mashed potatoes with lots of butter; grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup; and my personal favorite, soft boiled eggs.

Eggs might sound a little odd to some people, but when I was sick as a kid, that was what my dad would make for me in the morning. It always made me feel better. Probably because I could eat it and keep it down even if my stomach wasn’t really cooperating with me that day. Most of the things my mom would cook were practically inedible at the best of times. Breakfast usually consisted of a bowl of cold cereal because I knew better than to ask my mom to fix anything for me. There is only so much raw bacon and burnt toaster waffles a kid can swallow before he just gives up on the idea of breakfast completely.

But on the days I was sick, my dad would make me three, soft boiled eggs with butter, salt and pepper, then make some toast to go with it. It was pure heaven. It was even better on those rare days that I was sick enough to stay home from school. I could curl up on the couch with my breakfast and leisurely eat while I watched the TV. This didn’t happen very often, however. My mom was one of those people that believed if you are capable of physically standing up, you can go to school.

If I was in the bathroom throwing up, my mom would come in and say, “Well, since you’re already awake, why don’t you get dressed and go to school? We’ll see how you feel when you get there.”

I already knew how I’d feel when I got there. I’d feel like: “why the hell am I at school with a 103-degree fever?”

When I got older and lived away from home, I learned to make soft boiled eggs for myself when I didn’t feel well. It was never quite as good as when someone else made them for me, but I still enjoyed the reminder of those days at home.

I tried making soft boiled eggs for my kids when they were little. I wanted to pass the tradition along to another generation as sort of an homage to my dad. It didn’t go as well as I had hoped.

I remember when EM1 was about five years old and got sick. I made her some eggs and toast. I was genuinely excited to make breakfast for her and couldn’t wait to see the smile on her face as she enjoyed the same breakfast I had loved so much as a child.

She took one bite, chewed on it for a minute, then spit it back into the bowl. She ate the toast, and asked, “What else you got?”

Not the outpouring of gratitude I was hoping for.

EM2 liked it even less. She just looked at the eggs before running out of the room saying she would rather be hungry. Of course, EM2 currently lives on a diet of Hot Pockets and gummy bears, so what does she know about food?

My wife isn’t a fan of soft-boiled eggs either, so I guess, for now, I’m the only in the family keeping this particular tradition alive. That’s fine, though. It means I only have to cook them for myself. The rest of the family can fix their own breakfast and be miserable.

Cold cereal anyone?

Maybe when I have grandkids, I can try again. And maybe this next time, I shouldn’t start out giving the kids soft boiled eggs right away. It’s possible that the reason I like them so much isn’t because my dad made them for me, but perhaps because my mom didn’t make them for me.

Maybe a few years of charcoaled toast and runny pancakes is necessary to prime the palate to the point that it is ready for the delicacy that is the soft-boiled egg. Good things can never be truly appreciated without a little hardship to put them in proper perspective.

And it is also possible that I am making way too big of a deal about this whole egg thing and I should just go lie down for a bit.

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