www.morgypoo.com

Tale of college humor

I felt pretty complacent after flunking out of college. I missed the daily campus life, the camaraderie of hanging out with dozens of other twenty-somethings. And without a college degree, just what did my future hold? Nothing would match the fun I left behind. And I didn’t figure I’d be landing on Wall Street any time soon.

At least I had a sweetheart back home now. She couldn’t wait to see me. As I drove toward Teri's house for our first summer date, I debated whether I should tell her about my indiscretions with Rikki. It wouldn’t help the relationship, but I wanted to get it off my chest. Maybe I would tell her when the moment seemed right.

I rang the bell and waited outside the door, not knowing how I would feel about seeing Teri again. Her Dad opened the door and said, "Hello Mork, come on in!" I didn’t bother correcting him. Soon Teri came walking down the stairs. First came two shapely, tan legs, then a red evening dress, filled out generously in just the right places, and finally a smiling Teri, ever so happy to see me. She was stunning. I could have been looking at Miss Universe as far as I was concerned.

Every eye was on Teri when we went out to eat. Men gawked with desire, but even worse, women stared in measuring jealousy. This was going to take some getting used to.

Now I'd seen a few women on this earth who were prettier than Teri, but not in my arms. Romancing such a gorgeous girl was very new to me. I felt proud, lucky, and undeserving. I couldn't help wondering what the heck she was doing with the likes of me, a so-so looking college flunky with all the love luck of Gilligan.

Teri and I got together just about every other day that summer, and this time around it didn't get old. Every smile of hers was new, every kiss the first. Just as Sheila had grown on me with the passing of time, this Teri was fast becoming a part of me. She was everything I wanted, romantic and tender, athletic and foxy. How quickly I forgot about college and its crazy fun, now that I had Teri. She was exactly what I needed to change my ways. She was more of a fitness addict than a beer guzzler, and that carried over to me pretty quickly, seeing how I was fed up with my drinking career anyway. With her in my life, I didn't miss the Boyzz, the Babes, or any of the college craziness I left behind. And with her in my life, I made no effort to keep in touch with any of those people. That was a closed chapter.

You could say I was in love, the kind of love that puts blinders on a man. All I could see, all I wanted to see, was Teri. She became that great quest I'd been looking for, and what's nice is that Teri felt the same way about me.

Next came the dreary part of being home: finding a job. I always wondered what I would do after college, whether I'd start my own law firm or go Fortune 500. Or bus boy, maybe. The key is in the resume. You don't come out and say 1.6 GPA. Interviewers frown on that. Better to say Dean's List. They don't have to know it's Dean Musky that you're talking about.

As funds ran low, I had to drop my compensation requirements a tad, just down to five bucks an hour. But the benefits of this place were primo: A free pair of work gloves and ten hours of tanning exposure every day. The place: A tree removal firm where Disco worked each summer. This sounded perfect. I could get a glowing tan, enjoy the outdoors and get in shape all at once.

I got in shape all right. Imagine carrying logs and dragging brush in 90 degree heat. Or chopping roots with an axe. And raking. Now add some sawdust down the back of your sweaty neck, an occasional thorn broken off in your skin, and the wonders of poison ivy breaking out all over your arms. Those were the benefits. As nasty and intolerable as those nuisances were, they paled in comparison to the task of "chipping" brush. Chipping, the word alone makes me want to seek counseling.

I was not allowed near the chipper for the first week on the job. Instead I was instructed to watch the experienced veterans feed it. The faces of these big strong men took on a different complexion once the loud whirring of the chipper's blades began. It sounded like a diesel helicopter badly in need of a tune up.

Bo, the big man, was first to strike. Despite his upper half being bare skinned, he stretched his arms around a gnarly thicket of stacked branches, hurled it up onto his shoulder, and gritted his teeth as he approached the machine of many teeth. He threw the stack into the chute, side-stepped and never looked back as the branches suddenly got sucked through the blades. A shotgun blast of wood chips burst out the other end, shooting into the truck bed with incredible speed.

The next one to offer a sacrifice to the machine of many teeth was Denny, an older man with a frail appearance. He wasn't as aggressive as Bo. Denny gently set the stack on the edge of the chute, then gingerly, tentatively pressed one or two branches at a time into the cutting cyclone. He acted like a kid picking at his food. No doubt he'd learned to be timid at that task.

My chance came the following week. I can vividly recall my first encounter with that *#@! machine. I think there are a few memories in every man's life that he carries with him forever, as though they were yesterday. The recollection never ages or fades. Sheila kissing me on her front porch, the train conductor letting me share my beer keg with fellow passengers, the fastball that got by my catcher's mitt and convinced me to wear a cup for all sporting or social activity. Let's add the chipper to these critical lifetime impressions.

I approached the machine with an armful of thorny branches, the engine roaring louder than thunder as I drew closer. It wasn't just the decibel level that was intimidating, it was the incredible RPM's of the engine, sounding as though it would soon explode. With a mighty heave I thrust the stack into the chute, but the machine would not accept my sacrifice. Instead it bounced the branches back out at me. Again I pushed, and again it didn't take. This was becoming a battle, a test of man versus machine.

The third time, as they say, is a charm: I put my whole body into it and crammed the brush right in there. As I did, zoom, the chipper jerked the branches out of my hands and through the whirling blades. Unfortunately, as the long branches were sucked in, they whipped across the side of my back with incredible stinging force, leaving a beauty of a welt on my college-soft skin. And that's not all: My gloves got yanked right off my hands and went spitting through the blades of the machine, spraying into the truck in a hundred little pieces of cloth.

The other workers laughed sympathetically as I froze in pain. They knew all too well what it felt like. Disco stepped up next to me and shouted in my ear: "Morg, welcome to hell."

Hell was a generous description for that working environment. The heat, the labor and the danger were unforgettable. Yet it was not only the !#*#! chipper that I had to fear; "headaches" constantly loomed overhead as well. As a groundman, my duty was to pick up the fallen branches and haul them to the chipper. The trick was to do so without getting beaned from up above. Time and again I'd be bending over to pick up a log or branch, and the voice of a climber forty feet above would warn: "Headache!"

Headache, tree lingo for heads-up. The term is pretty self explanatory; if you don't move fast, you'll have a doozy of a headache as a limb crashes down on top of your head.

Many was the day I cursed myself for ending up there. So, you couldn't do like everyone else and go to classes, my thoughts would beckon. No, you had to party all night and sleep in every day. 'College is to be enjoyed, not wasted in studying' you said. 'Degrees are for suckers' you said. And where did it get you? Hell, that's where. I'll bet the Boyzz are all sitting in air conditioned offices right now, making bookoo bucks and flirting with foxy young secretaries. But me, I’m in hell dodging branches and hauling -

"Headache!"

You know, flunking out isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Between a ball breaking job and a strenuous workout program, I needed all the rest I could get. Gone were the days of sleeping in till noon, long removed were those cozy afternoon naps; this was the real world, ten hour work days with no blow-offs allowed. Essentially this meant no 4 AM outings at the tavern on weeknights. And for that matter, even weekends were tame any more. Drinking really didn't fit in. I didn't want to get hammered. Sure I still belted down a few now and then, but I didn't enjoy that light drinking stuff. I never was into sipping down one or two beers "just to relax and unwind." If I wanted to unwind, I drank ten or twenty. And if I really wanted to let loose, I drank ten or twenty, maybe thirty, then did shots. Imagine foreplay without intercourse: that's what a few drinks was like to me. If I couldn't go all the way, I was better off not starting at all.

Besides, I had new things to live for now, things that mattered far more than getting hammered. With every passing week of summer, Teri and I became closer to one another in many ways. She was my everything now. My woman, what I spent my idle time thinking about. Not only was she right for me, my love for her was right. Such pure and unselfish feelings I had for her.

She was an active one, this woman I'd almost overlooked back in May. Together we did all sorts of things. But the most unforgettable, for this cowboy, was going jogging in the park at night. Afterwards we sat on the grass next to the lake, just me and this beautiful girl underneath the stars. We’d talk, we’d kiss, and she would drape her long hair down around my face like a tent so that all we could see was each other. The rest of the world was curtained off. We dreamed together. And we believed in each other's dreams. With Teri in my heart, I was a caring man, a hard worker, and no longer did I have the roaming eye. I didn't give a single thought to any other woman, only Teri.

We peaked, I suppose. All along Teri had been crazy about me. So when I made things mutual, life became magical for a time. This was perfect.

If intensity were the ultimate measure of a relationship, ours would have been an indestructible bond. Intensity is what we chased, extreme highs, the kind that demand yet more highs. But when that doesn't happen, a soul gets disappointed. That's the only way I can explain what caused Teri to change that summer, and just when I was getting hooked.

Intensity is not the test, I learned. Time is. Time tells all.

I could see the sad signs growing in Teri's eyes, the distant thoughts that I could only guess at, the affections that stopped coming. And then I overheard her talking at a party, eagerly telling someone of her plans to move to New York within the year.

New York? Where did that leave me, I wondered. And how could she not bother telling me about it? The thought of her leaving was sad, but her eagerness to do so was the real killer. This was a familiar scenario, Sheila and California, Teri and New York. It must be a curse, the Morg Curse, afflicting every woman I got close to, making them say things like: "You're really special, but I feel this incredible urge to leave the state."

I saw two sides of Teri at that party: A distant and bottled up woman, and a lively and free gal. The difference was the company. Around me she clammed up and seldom smiled, but she was free as a bird when talking with Lance and his buddies. And I could see why: I was measuring her every word, hinging my happiness on her attention, but Lance's buddies were wild and free, joking and laughing at everything around them. Even Lance was looking pretty footloose at this party, having been given his "walking papers" from Lacy a month earlier. Now he was single and free, and I was the one consumed by a sputtering romance.

With each subsequent date I braced myself for the inevitable goodbye scene. Surely the woman was just looking for the courage to say it. I was ready, even eager, for I'd already lost whatever love Teri had for me. Set me free, babe, I almost hoped. And I thought it was going to happen the night we drove out to the lake together. My heart was surrendered and ready to let go. But leave it to a woman to pull the illogical. As I sat on the grassy bank wondering, Teri suddenly became more friendly and affectionate than ever.

She was becoming a tough lady to figure. I'd spent the last month trying to regain Teri's love, doing and saying whatever it took to keep us together. And late that night when I was almost at a point of no longer caring, Teri poured out her love in abundance.

My senses should have been overpowered. There I was lying on the grass next to a quiet lake, Teri on top of me with her long blonde hair, her kisses, her warmth, an eager look in her eyes. Few men will ever feel the power that carries. Yet I could not fully enjoy it. A week earlier, I'd have given anything for that scene, but now I almost felt like saying, "To what do I owe the honor? For four weeks, I've been dying inside because you don't need me, and you cared not how that made me feel. But now, simply because you're in the mood for it, you give me all your affections." I almost voiced it.

Yes, strangely enough, this was bringing some resentment to the surface. Now I didn't go and show it. I kissed and hugged and caressed until the cows came home. But inside I was perplexed at my own inability to appreciate this dream come true. Maybe I sensed that Teri was being warm and caring because she felt like it, not because I needed it. Even love can be selfish at times. Not that mine was any more noble.

I let Teri talk me into attending a bible study with her, one summer evening. I was hesitant, though. Sure, I liked God and all, and I really missed reading the bible, but I never cared for any organized religious stuff. Church always seemed caught up in having control over people rather than helping people gain more self control. And reading scriptures, nobody did that.

Why, where I came from, being religious meant going to church every Sunday and not leaving early to see the kick-off. Beyond that, there was nothing. Well, I shouldn't say nothing: Bingo Night was held on Fridays for the truly devout souls. And mind you: When you did attend church, you darn well didn't sing the hymns. The Alleluia's, maybe. If you had a good voice. But sing any English words and surely folks would stare.

I guess that's what I hated about church, and why I quit going five years earlier: It was like belonging to an Apathy Club. Fence Sitters unite. The only rule: Look like you're hating every minute of it, like you're visiting your grandmother at the nursing home just so you can stay in the will.

Still, I tagged along with Teri, thinking maybe this bible study might bring us closer together. The man leading the bible study was a real good guy. He cared about the young men and women in that room. But the others there, they seemed so phony. No sincerity in that room, just dressy cover-up. Cosmetic innocence is what everyone portrayed. Why couldn't anyone approach God without pretending? And me, was I any better? Maybe not, but I wasn't about to join their facade. I wanted to know God better and listen to Him better, but I'd just as soon try on my own. I wanted to really find nice, not just act nice.

The roller coaster ride I call Teri went up higher and higher throughout July, and with it, I became more seriously hooked. But then the topic of New York started coming up again, and whenever I was with Teri, it seemed like she was miles away. I knew it wouldn’t last much longer, but I hung on for the bitter ride.

By summer's end, I had seven hundred bucks just burning a hole in my pocket. I also had many crazy ideas of how to spend it, but tops on my list was a car, my own car. No more borrowing Mom's Buick, not for this twenty three year old man of the world. I needed my very own set of wheels, a cruising vessel, something I could throw up in without getting yelled at. A man's car.

I found such a beaute through the want ads: A beat up old Chevelle convertible, red and rust exterior, black interior, just 98,000 miles on her. She even had eighty bucks worth of groceries trapped in the trunk, since being rear-ended six months earlier. That's some high octane produce.

I couldn't wait to show this hot new driving machine to my beloved Teripoo, and I got the chance that Saturday morning as we prepared to drive down to Macomb for Disco’s and Hurricane Jamie's wedding. "What do you think?" I beamed as I removed Teri's blindfold.

She stared at this beast of a car for the longest time, made a funny face, then asked, "Are you sure this thing will get us there?"

That's when I knew it was over between us.

What a great day this was for a road trip, the top down and the sizzling August sun pouring in. "Fill 'er up with oil and check the gas," I ordered the man at the full serve pump. And soon we were mobile. Tunes blasting and the wind ripping through our hair, people staring enviously as we blew past them. This was a man's car all right. But not ten minutes after deploying, Teripoo asked me to put the top up so her hair wouldn't get all messy. Yep, definitely a man's car.

This had to be the most strained road trip I'd ever been on, and I include the drunken journey with Lance where he dodged an imaginary swimming pool in the left lane. This trip wasn’t perilous, but awkward. Clearly Teri wanted to be some place else. Or with someone else. Why did she even keep seeing me, I wondered, if she was so uninspired about us? For more than a month now we'd stayed on ice, going out but not touching one another, like Teri had some kind of guilt about our borderline sex and even affection. We'd gone back and forth on this thing three times now. It frustrated me because I knew my love for her to be true. It didn't seem dirty or wrong, what we had. I'd known dirty and wrong, and this wasn't it.

I could even do without the sex, albeit the virgin kind, if I could just know that she cared. But the woman showed nothing any longer. She was so guarded. In a way, I understood: just four months earlier, I was the ambivalent one, I was the one wanting out but not saying so. So who was I to judge her for holding back now? If it's not there, it's not there. Or so I reasoned. But I still operated out of my fear. Still I died with every look of indifference on Teri's face.

I tried to relax and be myself at the wedding. Just forget about this sour romance and enjoy the company of the Boyzz, I told myself. And the Babes, those crazy ladies from Higgindome. Yet I felt so empty as I talked with these old pals. All I could do was wallow in Teri's shadow. It's like no one else was there but her. I was dead to everyone else.

Teri wasn't so cut off: a flood of snakesters plied their trade on her. Every dude with a hormone had to give it a shot. "Teri, that's a pretty name," they smiled. "So where do you work?" they asked, one at a time, not caring that she was with someone. She was just too pretty for guys to pass up. That was annoying, but what I saw next was downright painful: Teri showed a strong interest in one of these approachers. She had that look in her eyes, the same look she used to have for me. God that broke my heart. But there wasn't a thing I could do about it; if I accused her, she would only deny it. Or worse, she just might admit it.

Lance felt every bit as awkward, seeing how he had to walk his estranged Lacy up the aisle that weekend. Both of them acted very guarded, and now I could relate to their situation.

Teri and I spent the night at the motel as planned, leaving the long drive home for the morrow. Teri and I shared the same bed, but physical contact was taboo. She crawled under the covers and turned away, no kissy, no "goodnight Morgypoo," nothing. I laid awake for a long time, replaying torturous thoughts in my head and remembering Teri's every hint of indifference at the reception. I wasn't sure if I was hurt or mad, but as I thought about it, hurt seemed the better option. How could I honestly be mad at Teri? Either she had feelings for me, or she didn't. I couldn't expect her to fake what wasn't there.

Once Teri was asleep, she looked so very innocent and unguarded, the way she used to look. I was suddenly able to feel honest love for the girl again, for in her sleep she couldn't reject it. I slowly put my arm around her and stared for the longest time, then cried as I realized this would be the last time I would hold her.

In a matter of days, Teri and I were history as she set me free. No more hanging in limbo. It hurt like hell, but at least my future belonged to me once again. And what sort of future did I have now, I wondered? No degree, a ball breaking job, the woman I loved gone, and my college pals split up. I had made no effort to keep in touch with the Boyzz and Babes after school, for I had Teri, my soul mate. But now she was gone and suddenly I missed the old gang like crazy. Maybe I should have stayed in touch with them, I now realized. I needed them big time.

Just what kind of future did I have? Socially, dismal. The glory days were behind me. Romance, non existent. You don't meet a lot of women in a tree cutting job. And career wise, I looked to be pretty limited. Head Raker, maybe. There was no denying it: I was alone. I guess I was finally paying the fiddler for all that dancing.

Getting over Teri was hard. I took it day by day, not knowing if I would make it. I was that sure she was the one. Not calling her was the toughest part. But it really helped to think back to my break up with Sheila and how hard that was on me. Losing Teri paled in comparison, not because she was any less special, but because she wasn't the first.

What really helped me out was having Mindy to fall back on. Mindy, Mindy, Mindy, how I loved being inside her. Folks stared so enviously every time I climbed inside my Mindy, especially when she went topless. And why not? She was one hot lookin' lady. Tiger skin seats, a wooden beer tapper for a gear shift, she was everything a man looks for in a car.

Perhaps Mindy's best feature was her "hyperspace" unit: a push button mounted into the cigarette lighter. If you've ever played Asteroids, then you know the value of this function; any time danger looks imminent, you hit Hyperspace, causing you to disappear from that spot and reappear at some random location in the galaxy. Sort of what I was doing in real life these days.

I was anxious to show Lance what kind of power Mindy possessed, he being the Boyzz Director of Driving, so I took him for a spin through a quiet little subdivision. "I'll open 'er up and show you what she can do!" I shouted over the noise of my Boeing engine. The speedometer jumped quickly, 10, 20, 35, 50 mph and climbing. Suddenly, flashing red lights appeared on our tail, and moments later I was holding a ticket for twenty over the limit.

"I'm impressed," Lance teased.

We decided to stop in at a local tavern and sip a few lagers. As we walked in, we ran into an old pal from Macomb. "How come you're not down at school now?" he asked us. "Did you graduate?"

Lance replied that we had 'dropped out,' to which I took offense. "Speak for yourself, buddy," I shot back. Lance looked puzzled, so I made my case: "Hey, maybe you dropped out, pal, but I sure as hell didn't." Lance still didn't see what I was getting at, so I spelled it out for him: "Hey, I'm no quitter; I flunked out."

As we began our lime and tequila routine, Lance and I got to reminiscing about the good old days in Macomb, when we were single and free. "Let's go there!" I suggested. Lance grinned and said we'd definitely have to make a road trip one of these weekends. "No, I mean now," I said quite seriously.

"What, tonight?? This isn't even a weekend, Morg. I have to work tomorrow and Friday."

"So blow it off!"

Lance cocked his head and said, "You can't blow off work the way you blow off school."

"Lance, look at me."

"What?"

With music in my voice I uttered one powerful and enticing word, "Macomb."

Lance resisted, saying, "I'd love to, really, but my boss would kill me."

"You can send him a postcard, Lance. Tell him you're taking a sabbatical." My distraught friend sighed and looked down into his glass of beer. "Lance!" I exclaimed, making him jump.

"What?"

"M-a-c-o-m-m-b."

"Don't do this to me, Morg. I've missed enough work as it is." He turned to face the barmaid as she collected empty glasses.

"Look at me, Lance, M-m-m-m-a-c-o-o-o-m-m-b."

I knew I was casting a spell each time I said it, for Lance loved Macomb as much as I did. Besides, his ex-chick Lacy just sent him a juicy letter from Macomb, saying she missed him and all that other stuff.

By closing time, Lance succumbed. It only took a dozen tequilas to wear him down, along with some fifty recitals of "Lance look at me, Macomb." We agreed to take Mindy so we could go topless, figuring the fresh air might keep us awake for the long journey. And besides, this would be Mindy's maiden voyage to Macomb.

First stop: the Morg Estate. It took me about ninety seconds to pack my suitcase, undies, t-shirts, and the usual party hats. But no keg this time. Then we pulled into Lancelot Manor, where "Mister Hygiene" took forever to pack. Three o’clock in the morning, and the man is ironing and folding everything. I got fed up with waiting, so I blurted out, "Just throw a bunch of clothes in your suitcase, Bud! We're losing spontaneity here."

"Hey, maybe you don't care about looking good, but I do," Lance insisted. "Besides, I plan to have something going with a certain little lady when I get there." Oh yeah, Lacy, his ex.

"You don't need clothes for that. Let's just grab some beers and go!" I demanded.

"Okay, okay. All I have to do is write a note for my mom."

"What the heck for?" I asked.

"I can't just leave town in the middle of the night without telling her."

"Fine. I'll go tell her," I offered as I started up the stairs to her bedroom. Lance grabbed me, saying she didn't appreciate being woken up by strangers. "Okay," I said, "then I'll write the note, and you go load up the car."

Lance came in a few minutes later and said, "Okay, all packed up. Let's see the note. Uh, Morg, I have to leave a better note than this."

"What's wrong with it?" I asked.

He read it aloud: 'Dear Mom, I split. Love, Lance.' "I think it's missing something," he complained.

"You're right," I agreed. I took the note back and added: Thursday, 3:45 A.M. "There. Happy now?"

Finally we got on the road. Our E.T.A. for Macomb was 8:30 A.M., right on schedule to divert would-be class-goers to the bar. Everything was perfect. We had a twelve pack and fair weather ahead, nice enough to keep the top down. And I made Lance promise he would stay awake and drink with me throughout the ride. "I promise Morg, zzzZZZZ." He was out cold as soon as I reached the expressway. And without a co-pilot to crack jokes, I couldn't stay awake for very long. I vaguely recall getting off at an exit ramp and parking so I could just take a short snooze.

"Morg!" Lance shouted as he elbowed me, "Wake up, Morg!"

I glanced around our car, trying to get my bearings straight. "Where are we?" I asked.

"Great, you're behind the wheel, and you're asking me where we are. Well, unless I miss my guess, we're parked in front of the Robert Taylor housing project."

I thought for a moment, then said, "I thought that was in the slum section of Chicago."

"It is, and we are."

"We slept overnight in the slums, with the top down?" I asked rhetorically.

"Yup. It's a good thing your car blends in with the neighborhood. I'm surprised we didn't get picked up for vagrancy."

"Hey Lance, you notice anything about the people around here?"

"Yeah. None of 'em are white, and all of 'em are staring. What do you say we move on?" We resumed our trip, albeit less inspired than the previous night. And by the time we reached as far as Joliet, I found myself reconsidering the whole idea. Driving to Macomb while drunk seemed like a great adventure; driving to Macomb while hung over seemed stupid. I asked Lance how he felt about taking a rain check, and he happily agreed.

Yeah, it was discouraging to turn around and give up. We were admitting defeat, and we felt like dog shit. As I pulled into Lance's driveway, he turned to me and said, "Morg, look at me."

"What?"

He grinned as he uttered: "M-m-m-a-c-o-m-m-b."

Turn to Chapter 16: Attack of the Pickle Jar… http://www.morgypoo.com/ch16.htm