Tom Meitner

This is the longest commute of my life.

Seriously, how long is this going to take? My shirt is stuck to my back, and I need to air out my crotch. That sun is beautiful. Man, it’s too warm to be sitting in a car! How is it 2011 and there aren’t any flying cars yet? Ooo, I love this song! I wonder why she never called me back?

That guy walking on the sidewalk needs to put on a different shirt. What would happen if I jerked the wheel on this car and plowed into that kid on his bike? Would it kill him? Would it kill me? You don’t want to do that. You’re not that guy.

Or what about driving into oncoming traffic? If I hit another car head-on at 55 miles an hour, would we both be crunched to bits, or would our bodies be flung from the wreckage?

I wish I could drive on the sidewalk. I just want to get home. Great, now I have to pee. Don’t think about it - you will just cause problems for yourself. I wonder why they don’t have porta-potties on the sides of the road. I bet there’s a business idea in there somewhere.

Seriously, is every radio station obligated to play commercials right now? I really need some music. That girl over there is obviously listening to her iPod or something. I hate iPods. If she’s listening to the radio, then she’s got some secret radio station that actually plays music during rush hour. You know what would be funny? If she wasn’t listening to music and just dances like that. Whoops - look away. She noticed you staring. Yeah, pay closer attention to the driving there, sweetheart.

What am I having for dinner tonight? Great, now you’re hungry on top of this. It’s a strange feeling to feel hungry and have to go to the bathroom at the same time. It’s like your body wants something, but it also wants to get rid of something. Make up your mind in there! Maybe I’ll have spaghetti. That’s simple enough. Oooo, you know what sounds good? Arby’s. “Feels like an Arby’s night.” Wait, you’ve got $82 in your account, but your Amazon Prime membership renews tomorrow. Not enough left over for Arby’s. Boy, I can’t wait until this business takes off and I don’t have to decide between Amazon Prime and Arby’s. Both are too good to pass up.

That’s it, I’m plugging in my phone and turning on some real music. You’d think the radio would play more Old Crow Medicine Show. Just like network TV - trying to please too many people at once. Stupid Fox cancelling Arrested Development. I can’t wait until that show comes back. I sure hope it’s as good as it was.

Do I have any meat in the freezer? Maybe I have some chicken laying around. I could have that. First, you gotta get home, if that’s ever going to happen.

I sat down on a park bench and started scribbling in my notebook. My nose detected the unmistakable stench of sadness, and I looked up to see exactly what I expected: an old, homeless-looking guy. He was clad in tennis shoes that must have been 15 years old, purple-checkered flannel pajama pants, and a dirty white t-shirt covered by an army jacket.

The jacket had a couple of chevrons on the shoulder, and looked pretty war-torn. I couldn’t tell if he bought it from a surplus store or if this was actually worn during some kind of battle. He ran his hand through his dark grey hair (or at least, the hairs that were still clinging to his head), scratched his long, scraggly beard, and sat down next to me.

Clearly not seeing that I was disinterested in talking, he spun this little yarn:

“I was lying in the trenches in Vietnam. Clutching my gun close to my chest, I shuddered helplessly while explosions were going off all around me. It felt like I was in the middle of a fireworks show. I poked my head up long enough to watch my buddy Steve Raynard take a bullet to his leg. He crumpled into a heap in the middle of the battlefield.

“I liked Steve, so my fears all of a sudden disappeared and I climbed out of the trench to go get ‘im. I hunched over to check his wound and wrapped it up quickly. As I moved to my knees, a bullet came screeching through the air and sliced right through my shoulder.” He slid part of his jacket down to reveal the bullet hole in his shoulder. Then, he turned around to show the exit wound.

He continued. “It hurt like hell, but I couldn’t just leave Steve there. This was the guy that took out three Viet Cong soldiers that were poised to take me out. If it wasn’t for Steve, I wouldn’t be here telling this story. I grabbed him, threw him over my good shoulder, and let my other arm dangle at my side. Bullets ripped through the ground around me, peppering us with dirt and mud with every step. I finally got him back to the trench.

“When the bullets died down, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and gave one to me. There, we shared a peaceful moment, knowing that we had saved each others’ lives. That’s what the war was about, man. It was about lives. Lives were at stake, and we respected the hell out of each other.”

He sat for a minute and stared at me. I could feel the muscles in my body shifting anxiously, as I grew increasingly uncomfortable. As he finally got up and walked away, I wondered about the bullet hole. His story made little sense and had even less of a point. The bullet hole was probably from some other guy that he happened into on the street, or it could have even been from a cop. I certainly don’t know if it really did come from a Viet Cong gun, or if he’s just another homeless dude.

But I liked his story. He was entertaining, if nothing else. And for that brief moment, an otherwise-completely irrelevant homeless guy had my attention. That’s probably all he wanted.

Stare at the window where the sun is shining in. Try to ignore the bars that are somewhat blocking your view. Imagine that you are strolling along, in the sun. Daydream to when you could sit on a toilet in complete privacy, not worrying about whether or not someone was going to be “motivated” by the sight. Remember a time when you were free.

Picture the girls in your life that you haven’t seen for years, and wonder what they are up to. Do your best to forget about the fact that they all remember you, and they all live with the knowledge that they used to be with a convicted felon. Hang your head in shame, knowing that they are breathing a sigh of relief that they got out while they still could.

Close your eyes and force yourself to remember the taste of your mom’s cooking. Smile at the thought of that meat loaf - the cheapest of meals, but one that Mom knew how to make just right, with a side of veggies and mashed potatoes. Say to yourself, “Man, that was good stuff.” Block from your memory the crap that you have been feeding yourself with for the last two years. Swallow that lump in your throat when you remember that you haven’t seen your mom since the courtroom.

Think about your last job and how much you hated it. Shake your head at the idea that, at the time, you thought loading boxes onto a truck while the knives of strained muscles pierced the nerves of your back felt like you were stuck in jail. Acknowledge the irony of that statement now.

Ignore the guy in the cell next to you, and try not to think about what those noises mean. Pretend that you are not hearing it, otherwise you will start having mental thoughts, and you know that none of them are pleasant ones.

Think of the last thing you wore before you got in here. Struggle to remember because it’s been so long. Give up on trying to think of it, because you know it will just make you more depressed.

Climb to your feet and press your forehead on the cool steel of the bars on your cell. Look across at your fellow prisoners that are a few yards away from you. Plan to punch the guy on the left when you get your time outside. Admit to yourself that it won’t make you feel any better.

Slink down back to your bed and lay down. Stare at the ceiling and sigh to yourself. Close your eyes and force yourself to daydream more. Encourage yourself to keep doing this, because it’s the only way to really pass the time. Fight back tears when the realization of that statement hits you.

Swear to yourself that, whenever you get out of here, you will never go back to doing that thing ever again. Promise yourself you have learned your lesson, and never look back. Wait patiently for your chance to get out.

The bell rings as the door swings open. The wood floor rubs against the bottom of the door, and it briefly hesitates before slamming shut. She exhales heavily, as if she is sighing upon realization that she is here again. Maybe she swore to herself that she would kick caffeine and never turn back. She could have tried to quit cold turkey but was just too weak-willed. I’m glad she wasn’t, because it would have meant there was nothing to look forward to in the afternoon.

But today, she unbuttons the big black buttons that hold her charcoal coat tight against her chest. The rush of cool air finally makes its way across the room as other patrons shuffle in their seats and grab their coffees and hot chocolates to recover from the blast.

She steps up to the counter. Her stride personifies the phrase, “spring in your step”, as she bounces on the balls of her feet. Like clockwork, she does this every single day - just after 2:00pm. Today, the sunbeams are trying to push their way into the coffee shop. Baristas have dropped the blinds halfway down the windows in a vain effort to fight back against the blinding warmth. Warm customers don’t buy coffee.

She asks for coffee with a pinch of cinnamon. The barista smirks while looking down at her register, approving of the order, and knowing what it was going to be before she even opened her mouth. The order is cute without being overbearing. Nobody likes those, “half-caffeine, mocha latte with low-fat whipped cream and chocolate drizzle”-people. Those are the people who order drinks just to say that they were in a coffee shop, even though their drink tastes nothing like coffee. But not her. She likes to taste that bitterness, curbed ever so slightly by the sweetness of the cinnamon. It’s like people who drink scotch with a tiny splash of water.

As she slides over to the pickup counter, she shoves her hands into her pockets and gazes around the room. Her eyes meet mine, and she reaches up to adjust her glasses. The corners of her mouth pull up into a hypnotizing smile, and her eyes buckle under the pressure of her cheeks, squinting slightly. The subject of her smile nods and peers down at the newspaper. Regardless of whether or not there is an opportunity there, it’s not going to be today.

The barista thanks her and hands her the coffee. She returns the thanks, grabs the coffee, and strides out the door, breaking the atmosphere of the room once again with the loud scrape of the door and the wall of cold air that punches everyone inside. She walks past the window en route to wherever she goes when she leaves here every day. No car. No bike. Rain or snow, she walks. Either she lives nearby or she is interested in keeping herself in shape. Maybe both. The wind snaps her hair straight back, but she pauses briefly to partake in her cinnamoned coffee, which must taste like heaven when walking around out in those temperatures.

Her life is a mystery. No one knows where she comes from or what her story is. No one knows what she does for a living, or why she comes in every day at the same time.

She might be interested. She might be looking for a friend. She might be looking for someone special. She might be able to find all of those things in that coffee shop on any given day of the week, from the same guy that makes eye contact with her every day.

But it’s not going to be today.

Is it just me, or has “Back To The Future” ruined this word for everybody? Thanks a lot, McFly.

I certainly believe in destiny, or at least a form of it. When I look back on my life, I can see how all my decisions led to where I am now. I think that’s destiny. You might think that’s free will. But things happen to us for a reason, and they push us towards a certain end goal that has already been predetermined for us. I really do believe that.

It’s all over literature, too. Dorothy was destined to drop that house on that witch so that she could wind up saving the land of Oz. Batman’s parents were destined to die so that he would become the crimefighter of Gotham City. Jack was destined to buy those magic beans. This stuff didn’t happen by chance.

You’ll see it in the real world, too. I was destined to marry my wife, despite a series of unfortunate events that led up to it. The Green Bay Packers were destined to win the Super Bowl this year, despite being saddled with a ridiculous number of injuries. Destiny is all over the place.

But destiny is a result of hard work, too. Every example above is a direct result of hard work. Yeah, you’re destined to go places, but you have to be the one to go get there. Destiny rewards those who work to achieve it.

Just like George McFly.

Packing up the car. Grabbing the grill. Shoving the big foam finger into the back seat. Rolling down the windows. Sitting in traffic. Sweating in the sunshine. Popping the trunk. Grabbing the lawn chairs. Lighting the charcoal. Throwing the football around. Cheering with drunk people. Opening another beer. Cooking some bratwurst. Laughing with friends. Walking through the parking lot. Dodging the drunks. Finding our seats. Cheering a home run. Doing the wave. Yelling at the umpire. Applauding a strikeout. Guessing the attendance. Screaming at racing sausages. Pushing through the crowd. Finding the car. Listening to the post-game on the radio. Throwing the football again. Eating cheese and crackers. Waiting for cars to clear out. Driving home. Unpacking the cooler. Tossing the Brewers shirt into the hamper.

I’m wondering how I became the “bad guy” here.

This girl pops in out of nowhere - and has all the powers of a witch. I mean, she dropped a house on my sister. Normal girls can’t do that, and I’ve never seen a Munchkin do it, so what other option is there? After she does that, I show up and she had stolen her shoes! If you ask me, that’s pretty sick!

So while everyone else is standing around, cheering the girl, I show up and ask for my dead sister’s shoes back. Is that unreasonable? I mean, is it so crazy that I would like the only thing that survived my sister’s murder to be returned to me - her closest living relative? Is it carte blanche to loot a dead body with witnesses everywhere and get to keep the stuff?

If you are approaching this from my mind, you see why I’m so mad, don’t you? In my head, that girl is a witch, and an evil one. Her dog bit me, and from what I know, dogs that bite strangers get put down for the public’s safety. I’m trying to police this whole stinking land, and everyone’s chasing after me!

She’ll probably kill me, too, and steal my stuff - like my broom or something. And then everyone will cheer her again. For murdering. Yep, this is real fair.

(Today’s idea was to write in a form I’m not comfortable with. I chose poetry.)

Writing words I never would.

Running numbers hour after hour.

Panicking when my inbox is silent.

Creating new ideas every day.

Jotting down notes I will never read again.

My brain moves too fast for my life some days.

A phone call to Houston.

An email to England.

A tweet to California.

Payments trickle in.

The clock moves faster than ever before.

My eyes close momentarily.

My imagination dreams of success.

Opened eyes see that I’m already there.

Another day in the life.

Writing prompt: “Write one full page - at a minimum - about snot.”

Snot falls into a general category that I steer clear of, which is gross humor. Your farting, your snot, your belching - all of this stuff is involved in simple human functions that we’ve turned into humor for some reason. But I have to write about this, and the point is to steer clear of subtleties. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I’m amazed at how many different forms snot can take. Just think about it: what other thing can you think of that has such a varied consistency, shape, and color? It could be bright green, yellow, clear, or red. It could be black, if you were breathing in some soot or something. It can run out of your nose like water, or it can be hard as a rock, embedded into your nose hairs until you have to yank it out with your eyes watering. If you pick your nose, it might be a little red. It can be incredibly sticky and hang around in the back of your nose, taunting you and laughing at you.

It has such a dramatic effect on your body, too. If you have a nose full of snot and you can’t breathe, you become lethargic and a giant blob of laziness. Sometimes laying down will force your snot to plug up your nose, and you won’t be able to sleep. Or you could be sitting in church and hear the familiar “nose whistle” and you rub your nose to try and rearrange the snot to something that won’t be so musical.

I use a neti pot every night. For those who don’t know, a neti pot is where you pour warm salt water into one nostril and it drains out the other nostril. It flushes allergens and crap out of your sinuses. I love using the thing, but I’m always disappointed because I only see the water come out. I’d love to be able to see pieces of snot getting washed out so I could trash talk to it. Is that weird?

And don’t get me started on blowing your nose. I wouldn’t even blow my nose when I was a kid because I hated it - I still kinda do. It drives me batty when the snot is so plugged that, when you try to blow your nose, air shoots out your ears. Are you kidding me? How tight of a seal could there possibly be?

I go back and forth on handkerchiefs, too. On one hand, they are classy, and if used correctly, can be very useful without being disgusting. But then I feel like Jerry Seinfeld saying, “I have a snotrag.” I saw on Mythbusters once they tested which method of containing your sneezes was the best, and the elbow beat the handkerchief handily. So maybe we don’t need handkerchiefs - we just need to not touch the insides of other people’s elbows, which I figure rarely happens anyway. Ah, the things my mind dreams up.

So there you go. Five hundred words on snot. I apologize.

Gobbled gook, gobbledy gook, gobbledy gobbledy gook!

What’s in a name other than a bunch of letters that don’t make sense?

How do I write about a webcam?

Can my mind drift off further if I attach it to a dragonfly?

Butterflies creep me out.

The trees in the forest whisper quietly to the man wearing the yellow skirt.

Dust remover can be called many things, but it is just a can of air.

If I wrote about football, would you even care? I never played football.

I’m just writing about stuff I see around the room. It’s kinda like “I love lamp”.

Mickey Mouse is my best friend, but he’s never really done anything for me. In fact, I think his cartoons are boring.

I wish I was golfing right now.

This month, my wife has a “PEP” meeting. I wonder if that’s like “Pep Club” from grade school. I’m betting her meeting will have less cheerleaders falling off pyramids and hurting themselves.

The tops of my hands are surprisingly hairy. They’re not bushy, but there’s definitely a lot of hair there. This is the only time I’ll ever write about hair on my body.

My mind is blowing freely in the wind, and my apartment smells of smoked paprika (and rich mahogany).

I’m making goulash in the slow cooker as I type this. It smelled good at first, but now, not so much. It’s kinda like when you make popcorn - it smells fresh at first, but after a while, it kind of sucks.

I continue to research and think about new ways to expand my business. I don’t know what will happen next.

As George Carlin once said, “I have lots of great ideas - the problem is, most of them suck.”

Just crossed the 300 word mark. Shooting for 500 words of useless material, not unlike my college papers.

No MasterMind call today. I’m okay with it. I failed at my goals for this week, so I don’t feel like admitting it to them. Plus it gives me an extra hour to get work done. You know, like this.

When I go to Menard’s, it makes me want to buy a house.

I have the theme from “Reading Rainbow” stuck in my head.

I wonder why I subsconsciously chose this format to write all this crap in. Maybe I feel like this is poetry or something.

It’s not.

I hate wearing socks. They’re such a pain, but my feet are cold without them. Soon, it will be so warm out that I will go days without wearing socks. I’m actually really looking forward to that day.

I haven’t had a cigar in a while. Not since I saw the worst standup comedy act in history. That was a horrible night.

But my cigars and humidor are back in fighting shape. I should celebrate with a cigar. Too bad my wife hates them.

I’ve been married for 5 months now. I think that’s the most insane thing I’ve ever written, until the day I write, “I’ve been married for 50 years now.” That will probably be even more insane.