Reflecting on Maturity

  • by Drew

When I was young, I imagined that when a man grew up and became ‘mature’ he would sit in a wood paneled library surrounded by books and Audubon prints, drinking port from magnificently huge snifters, smoking imported cigars of questionable legality and discussing economics and politics, making pithy statements about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In reality, I have grown up and become cynical, sitting in an unfinished basement on a ‘borrowed’ steel case chair or a tired recumbent exercise bicycle, surrounded by preschooler sketches and Liquor store ads, drinking tap water from a refilled Poland Spring bottle, blogging prosaically about life, traffic and the failure of the news media to adequately inform us without bias.

And then, a simple trip to the mall with my 7 year old this past weekend gave me a sense of superiority that even the finest Cuban Churchill and vintage Dow’s (or Churchill’s for that matter) could never offer.

We were walking past a Finish Line store with all sorts of sneakers displayed in the window. One rack showed multi-colored Nike’s of all colors, vertically arrayed in a rainbow of two-tone swoosh combos. Two men of about my age passed us and I caught their conversation. Let me note in advance that while I am not a person who makes snap judgements about the socio-economic position of individuals based solely on their physical appearance, one thing was abundantly clear about these guys – neither had (as the Catholic School nuns used to say) had a pot to piss in. Anyway…

First Guy: I need to get a pair of those.
Second Guy: Which ones?
First Guy: The black ones with the yellow swoosh.
Second Guy: Why you need those?
First Guy: I just bought a yellow and black hat.
Second Guy: Oh.

Now I am not trying to assume some sort of moral superiority simply because it escapes me why a man of limited financial means would require a pair of shoes sale priced around $150 to match a recently purchase baseball cap. I mean, I know that coordinated fashion is high on the list of many people, but… I mean, was it maybe irresponsible to buy a black and yellow hat in the first place knowing that you do not already own black and yellow sneakers? I mean, that day he was wearing a white cap with a navy bill and it looked fine with his white and red sneakers. Even his white t-shirt, though a little grungy, fit the overall color scheme. Yes, the forest green hoodie threw off the whole red, white and blue – these colors don’t run!!!! –  theme, but still. Maybe if he’d just gone straight for the white and red cap, he wouldn’t need those new coordinating sneakers.

And this leads me to another, even more important point. We all know that most men really don’t care about fashion. Their only real reason for trying to dress cool is to woo a potential lover. Clearly this guy was straight, because no gay man would buy matching yellow and black headgear and footwear, so can someone please tell me where you find the ladies that are impressed by the bumblebee color combo? Seriously, is that the only barrier to this guy getting laid? Not having black and yellow kicks to match his black and yellow ball cap?

Should I just move to Canada now?

Shhhh…Don’t Tell

  • by Drew

Ok, you better be able to keep a secret. Carol’s birthday is fast approaching and I’m in the gifts for her shopping mindset. It’s not like it’s a substantial birthday or anything. She’ll be, like, 30-something. No biggie.

Of course, I like to think I am a good provider and that my gift selections are not mediocre. I’m a giver. I like to…give. It’s just a thing, I give, no big whoop. Deal with it.

That sounded really funny in my head, the little vocal accent I gave it, but I’m thinking on the screen it looks kind of douche-y. Sorry. I didn’t get much sleep last night.

Anyway, don’t tell her, but I’m on the lookout for something swank yet charming yet indicative of lifelong affection.

And cheap.

Yeah, cheap.

Ideas?

A couple kilos

  • by Drew

I should probably go to the doctor. All my time in the hospital lately makes me think…yeah it’s time. But what happens when he says I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol and the onset of male pattern baldness…well, I don’t know about that last one, but he’ll probably notice it’s thinning a little bit when I strip down to my underwear because we all know how guys hate to look at other guys’ packages.

You know, he’ll avert his eyes and lock in on that thin spot on the crown and it’ll get all jungle competitive, right?

I don’t know, I never go to the doctor so who knows. Maybe he’ll be balder than me. But then he’ll make some ass comment about my back hair or something and, well, you probably shouldn’t slap your physician, right?

In any event he will surely tell me to lose a couple pounds. They all do that. And that means skipping the wine for a while, skipping the french fries. Dude, that’s a drag. Maybe I should just be on the lookout for the best diet pills, right?

Speaking of which, any suggestions because bulimia is just so not me, and I really hate to give up my fries and wine. It’s the French in me.

Did he?

  • by Drew

All that Puffy talk in the last post makes me wonder how many fans of Sean John (is that his current name?) will be hitting the ol’ site. Man, you wouldn’t believe some of the searches that land wayward surfers here at Pope Street.

But that’s neither here nor there, I had something pointed out to me just moments ago about the whole post-op puffy hands thing I talked about – as long as you’ve got the balloon hands you can save money on wrinkle cream.

Okay, maybe that is small comfort, especially since the extra stretch might lead to additional future wrinkles when the swelling goes down. But for now let’s just look for a bright light. Can we do that please? Naysayers be damned. Haters be quiet. Puff Daddy fans be spending your money on anything other than Puff Daddy clothing, music and libations. Seriously.

Did you know…

  • by Drew

When you undergo massive surgery, or two massive surgeries in two days, and you are under heavy anesthesia, your hands may puff up. Seriously puff up. Actually, one nurse said if you don’t look like jiffy puff, you didn’t have heart surgery. I think jiffy puff is a marshmallow, or at least, I think she meant something marshmallow-ish.

I think Stay-Puft Marshmallow man in Ghostbusters and…yeah, that’s a bout right. So, if you’re just out of surgery on your heart (first or second round) or if you know somebody who is, don’t be thinking weight loss supplement…it’s all good.

Seriously, though, after a full week of having a loved one in the Intensive Care Unit, actually in the ICUs of two different hospitals, it is calming to know that a physical side effect like puffiness is just that – a side effect. And even if it seems a little scary and is surely uncomfortable, we can rest assured that it is normal and transitory. And if we’re not laughing about it, at least we can have a little smile.

But no s’mores. S’mores will have to come much much later.

Disinterestifected

  • by Drew

And while I’m writing about the ICU waiting room, here’s a comment my mother made that I can’t help but mention…because it bears great truth. It is amazing how many people will use the bathroom and not flush the toilet. And not just number one, but number two.

People. What the hell are you thinking? If you’re doing the deed and then, um, wiping the evidence of the deed, aren’t you going to be washing your hands anyway? I mean, please…PLEASE be washing your hands after making the poops. My 4 year old has known this for, well, ever. And if you’r washing your hands right then, don’t you think you can bend the knob? Seriously, it’ really not that gross. It’s just cold steel.

And contrary to what you might think, it is highly unlikely that the prior user did something really nasty on their hands and then flushed, leaving nasty all over the knob. It just doesn’t really happen all that often.

And seriously, haven’t you figured out that 95% of public bathroom users don’t ever touch the knob? That’s what your feet in nice comfortable rubber-soled shoes are for. I don’t think my mother has touched a public washroom flusher since the 70s. I’ve had to explain to  my kids about using my foot on the knob and both boys eagerly await a height gain of 6 to 12 inches so they too can foot-flush.

I know there are germophobes that won’t shake hands and require steam cleaners to prep any unfamiliar room, but come on. It’s a hospital. The janitors do the rounds more frequently than the doctors and if all else fails, there is a dispenser of hand sanitizer along the wall every 5 feet. It is WAY more unsanitary to leave a toilet full of unflushed schmootzie than to flush and then wash your hands.

Is it laziness? Is it lack of concern for your fellow citizens? Is in germophobia? Is it stupidity?

Is it just me?

Mass

  • by Drew

In the ICU waiting room at a major trauma center University hospital you see a lot of things. You see, for example, a world class mullet on a middle aged guy in a navy windbreaker, timberline boots and urban camouflage fleece pants. It was impressive. I commented to my brother that it is always nice to see someone visiting their sick loved ones in their “really nice” fuzzy pants. He remarked that he was pretty sure David Lee Roth had the same pants. Maybe in the Panama video?

If not, DLR wishes he had.

There is no better cross section of class struggle, though. Seriously. Get yourself to the ICU Waiting Room some day and you’ll see what I mean.

I was particularly entertained yesterday when a very dark skinned woman in unbelievably straining designer jeans came in. She was massive, in all respects. She was heavy, though not Orca fat (to borrow from The Usual Suspects) but checking out the best fat burners might not be a bad idea. The cornrowed beauty by her side looked like a minor meal for her Mama.

And massive – not to sound mean, but I cannot emphasize her all around hugeness enough chose a seat, from the dozen available, right next to a diminutive lady, frail and tired looking. She’d brought her lunch in a soft-sided lunchbox, a trick many of the old hats seemed to know. It’s a long day with lots of waiting – bring a book and bring your own food.

Anyway, for all my setup, the payoff may seem slim. Let me just say that the fleeting look of abject terror on the little old lady’s face – however short-lived – was just priceless.

Sick Sucks

  • by Drew

I am now a virtual expert on what killed Three’s Company star John Ritter. And when I say virtual, it’s not some cutesy cyber-wiki-geek reference. I literally know more about what killed John Ritter than most first year med students.

Why so well-versed in aorta aneurysms you ask? (See, I wasn’t just blowing smoke.)

Actually, someone very close to me is in the ICU at Westchester Medical Center right now. She’s been there for a couple of days, following a couple of days at Phelps Memorial. Yes, it’s been a long week. And I’ve been surrounded by the family and close friends of similarly afflicted – or, if not similarly afflicted, no less tragically ill. Heart failure, mesothelioma, brain damage, third degree burns, respiratory failure. Cancer of everything.

And the John Ritter aorta aneurysm? That’s what we’re dealing with. Except it started with a tear instead of the expected outright burst, so there was anemia and fatigue before the pressure on the trachea led to loss of oxygen and heart failure. Then there was CPR and paddles and intubation and ventilators.

And night after night of wondering if they hadn’t sent her home from an empty ER in the first place, an ER that was recently renovated to accept dozens of patients…if the insurance companies weren’t so restrictive about the length of stay and what they consider appropriate care and how much they will actually reimburse the facility…well…I wonder.

I have a Barry Crimmins album from the early 90s that dealt with Bush I, and you could listen to it during the reign of Bush II and it was entirely too relevant. All you had to do was add the middle initial. At one point he says something like (and I admit to paraphrasing because I’m just too tired to dig up the exact quote) –

Whoever decided to combine the healing arts and the profit motive was an evil evil person.

Joy by the Flashing Lights

  • by Drew

Ah, to revel in the downfall of others…what a joy. And when that person is a real douche, seeing them go down is just plain righteous. I know they say revenge is a dish best served cold, but gloating over the misfortune of a jerk…it has to be tastiest when it is toasty enough to burn the roof of your mouth.

Why the celebration you ask? I was driving home from errands earlier and witnessed a particularly inventive bit of really dangerous bad driving. And I think it resonates so much with me because this is far form the first time I have witnessed it.

See, there’s a point in this one lane highway (speed limit 50) where another road intersects via an underpass. So the junction is accomplished with an on ramp. See, drivers can come off the other road and make almost a full circle to come onto an on ramp on the road in question, the road I was on. From my perspective, there is a right lane that appears for about 100 yards or so. Once in a while, someone merges onto the road I was on (a road I drive very frequently) by entering from the right lane. Traffic is not that bad and it’s usually an easy merge to juggle.

Now very occasionally you get someone who is so self-centered, so obnoxious, so reckless, or maybe just really late for their colon cleanse, and they decide that the person in front of them is going too slow. When they come to this stretch of right lane merge, they choose to slide into that merge lane and use it as a passing lane (a passing on the right lane, in fact) and speed past the person they are following. This will only work if there is noone actually using the merge lane as an entrance lane to merge from, of course.

Today, not for the first time, the driver directly in front of me chose to pull the mega reckless douche move and pass on the right when we got to the merge. It seemed to be a pretty unnecessary act of aggression because the car s/he wished to pass was going at least 55. Once in a while we get old-timers or out of state drivers doing 35 and it is frustrating. Of course, in the defense of the elderly, infirm, and weary (or should it be wary) travellers, the road has very little speed signage.

As I said, though, this was not the case. This guy was just being a jerk. But guess what…as s/he made the move, there was actually a cop on the other side of the road. And though I was about to make a disparaging remark about the cops never doing anything, I was stunned to guilty silence when the cop actually yoinked into a driveway, did a fast U-turn and came back after the guy.

This driver was so busted that s/he actually pulled over before the cop even got fully turned around with his lights flashing. It was awesome. You ever watch a guy blow by doing like 90 in a 45 and then half a mile later there’s a cop on the side of the road and you wonder what the hell they’re doing and why they missed the speeder? You know how you have that desire to see the jerk pulled over? Do you, like me, fantasize about honking and waving as you drive by and that jerk is in full shame, pulled over, maybe even getting cuffed against the hood?

This was sort of a fulfillment of the dream. So righteous.

Tiny tear

  • by Drew

I saw an interesting plate on the back of a Hummer today.

 IIRUINII

I suppose it could be read as 2-Ruin-2, but I think this was a visual play, like the two capital I’s were supposed to look like columns. Columns flanking a ruin, like this is the vehicle of an archaeologist with a sense of humor. And not a teaching archaeologist or anything like that because what teach would have the bucks to buy, trick out and keep scrupulously detailed this behemoth.

 I mean, maybe a celebrity archaeologist like Indiana Jones might get tired of looking for Ferrari parts and buy American, but…I don’t know, I think Indy would be more of a hybrid kind of a guy. He’d look at the 8-mile-to-a-gallon wonder and say something like technology like this belongs in a museum. He always says stuff like that.

There is a hint of irony here, though. I mean, not to be all tree-huggy or anything, but one (of the many) thing that is destroying our planet is carbon emissions from our ridiculous reliance on fossil fuels. So, in a sense, the completely unnecessary guzzler from hell is in some way responsible for our, well, ruin.

Somewhere a Native American dude is crying. Can you see it?

© 2026 Drew Bancroft. All rights reserved. Totally.