Tag: Life’s Funny

Life’s Funny

LIFE'S FUNNY

Out of Our Gourds

Recognizing post-traumatic pumpkin-spice disorder

By Maria Johnson

I stopped at the snack display just inside the grocery store’s sliding doors.

A bank of pillowy bags promised pumpkin pie-flavored popcorn.

As my brain mulled the mingling of those flavors, a store clerk walked past me.

“I don’t know about that,” he muttered under his breath.

He was right.

There was no reason to buy that bag when I had a jar of popcorn kernels, a stick of butter, a bottle of pumpkin pie spice and a bag of brown sugar at home. Smooth, sweet, salty, warm.

I would be making pumpkin-spiced popcorn soon.

A couple of decades ago, it wouldn’t have occurred to me.

That was before America jumped on the pumpkin-spice-latte train.

It began innocently enough, in 2003, in the Liquid Lab, a corner of Starbucks headquarters in Seattle. Charged with creating a new coffee drink, employees focused on a customer survey in which pumpkin kept popping up as a unique flavor.

So they did the natural thing: They spent hours eating pumpkin pie, sipping espresso and wondering how they ever landed such a cushy gig.

Eventually, they fused the flavors into one autumnal concoction and jotted down the recipe: espresso, steamed milk and pumpkin pie spices — basically cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.

They called their invention Pumpkin Spice Latte, or PSL, and tested it in 100 stores in Washington, D.C., and Vancouver, Canada.

Customers on both coasts slurped it up, and Starbucks rolled out the PSL to a toasty reception nationwide, but it wasn’t until Facebook and Twitter took off in 2006 that PSL found its wings.

Ever since then, from September through November, we’ve been bonkers for pumpkin-spiced anything.

I didn’t realize just how much we’d normalized the gourd until I tootled down the aisles of Trader Joe’s last year and noted the following items:

Pumpkin ice cream.

Spicy pumpkin samosas.

Pumpkin-ginger scones.

Pumpkin waffles (“Try them with our pumpkin butter!’).

Pumpkin tortilla chips.

Pumpkin salsa.

Pecan-pumpkin oatmeal.

Pumpkin O’s breakfast cereal.

Pumpkin spiced bagels.

Pumpkin cream cheese.

Pumpkin hummus.

I clung to the vine, following it around the store, hoping it would lead me out of the orange storm. Which it did. But not before …

Apple-and-pumpkin hand pies.

Pumpkin brioche.

Pumpkin-maple-bacon dog treats.

Pumpkin pancake mix.

Teeny-tiny pumpkin-spiced pretzels.

Pumpkin oat beverage.

Pasta sauce with pumpkin and butternut squash.

Pumpkin cider.

Pumpkin ale.

Pumpkin ravioli.

Pumpkin gnocchi.

Chocolate mousse pumpkin candies.

Pumpkin-spice cookie batons.

Pumpkin Joe-Joe’s (a version of the Oreos knockoffs).

Pumpkin kringles (No worries, Santa. They’re coffee cake rings).

Pumpkin bisque.

And last but not least, pumpkin body butter, for skin as soft as a … jack-o-lantern?

Good grief! I hadn’t been so spiced out since I binge-burned a pack of patchouli incense as a young woman. The effect was intense, transcendent and lasting, meaning I never got the smell of hippie-fied tranquility out of my curtains.

What accounted for the persistent appeal of pumpkin spice? Was there any taste trend that could compete?

I called Michael Oden, the marketing manager over at Mother Murphy’s, a family-owned Greensboro company that ships food and beverage flavorings to 30 countries. Their products include pumpkin-spice flavorings for beer and liquor.

Michael is sanguine about the state of the squash.

“Pumpkin spice will always be here,” he says, explaining that the taste’s popularity rests on cultural conditioning. Once people associate certain flavors with holidays, they try more versions, which drives more products to shelves, which reinforces the link.

Call it a flavor loop. Or a Pumpkin O, if you like.

Hybrids are bound to develop, Michael says, citing the pumpkin-allied flavors of apple, caramel, maple and cranberry.

In the last few years, another flavor fusion — “sweet heat” or “swicy” — has brought us jalapeño spiked honey, ancho chili pecan pie, strawberry tarts with black pepper, cayenne-chocolate cookies and ice cream set ablaze with gochujang, Korean chili paste.

Michael expects pumpkin spice and Cousin Swicy to inhabit the American palate for at least another five years.

The trick, he says, is for tastemakers to keep their offerings seasonal and to keep the intensity of their flavorings proportionate to their serving sizes.

“There are things that become too much,” he says tactfully.

I thought of this a few weeks ago when I made pumpkin-spiced popcorn at home. We were about to stream a movie when I pulled the Orville Redenbacher out of the pantry.

“Cover your eyes, Orville,” I said, pouring kernels into the well of the hot-air popper.

I melted butter, stirred in the sugar and spice, then drizzled the glaze over fresh popcorn and pressed “play” on the original Beetlejuice from 1988.

Somehow, we missed the multiplex mania back then and decided to revisit the phenomenon as a possible precursor to seeing the recently-released reprise, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

The original story was kinda fun. And pretty stupid. And very much a creature of its time.

I mean, Robert Goulet. Need I say more?

Oddly enough, our impression of my homemade pumpkin-spiced popcorn followed a similar pathway, progressing quickly from mmm to meh to OMG, please make it stop.

We set our bowls aside and hit pause.

Whether it’s patchouli or pumpkin spice or a prison-striped pest from the Great Beyond, I’m here to tell you — three times if necessary — that a little goes a long way.

Life’s Funny

LIFE'S FUNNY

Cloak & Wagger

Halloween costumes have gone to the dogs . . . and cats . . . and hamsters . . . and ferrets . . . and bearded dragons

By Maria Johnson

Two years ago, Millie was a ladybug for Halloween.

She wore a smart red-and-black velour jacket, cinched at the waist, with a shawl collar that pooled elegantly around her neck.

OK, it wasn’t really a shawl collar. It was a ladybug hood with antennae that Millie, a petite hound, kept shaking off because she can’t stand things on her ears.

The point is, red is Millie’s color, and she was quite fetching when I took her to the annual dog-o-ween parade in my mom’s townhouse community, which is not officially a retirement village, but is, shall we say, very silver.

As a result, small dogs are plentiful. So one Sunday afternoon before Halloween, residents gussy up their pups and take a lap around the neighborhood, stopping at homes where the few non-dog-owners sit outside with treats.

The dogs gobble as they go. They remind me of the chunky trick-or-treater who once came to my childhood home.

“Where’s your bag?” my dad asked as he doled out candy bars.

“Right here,” the kid said, slapping his belly with both hands.

Unlike the belly slapper, who snarfed his Baby Ruth as he walked away, the dogs at dog-o-ween usually inhale their first treats on the spot then stare down the giver, implying that a second, third or — why not? — fourth treat is customary.

Sometimes, the furry beggars get downright aggressive, snouting their way into a bag of Beggin’ Strips that’s held too close.

If a small human tried this with, say, a bag of fun-size Snickers, he would end up in a doorbell video on social media the next morning with the plea, “DOES ANYONE KNOW THIS CHILD?”

For dogs, though, people respond with a grace reserved for four-legged animals.

“Ha-ha-ha,” they say. “You scamp!”

This kind of cheerful generosity is more in line with the origins of dressing up at Halloween, which some historians trace back to the 19th-century Scottish practice of “guising,” or putting on costumes and performing in exchange for food and drink.

Over in Germany, they played a similar game, “Belsnickeling,” which called for children to don masks and costumes at Christmastime. If no one guessed their true identities, the tykes were rewarded with food.

Going back even further in time, the ancient Celts — who lived across what’s now Great Britain — observed an autumn festival called Samhain (pronounced SAH-win).

These pagan partygoers dressed as ghouls to blend in with the mischievous ghosts they believed roamed the earth during harvest time, when the veil between living and dead was the thinnest.

The locals lit bonfires and left food, drink, crops and other offerings to appease the spirits.

You could draw a couple of conclusions from these traditions.

One: There wasn’t a whole heck of lot going on in Western Europe back in the day.

Two: People are happy to play dress-up if there’s an immediate payoff, such as food, drink or not getting swept off to the netherworld.

The same reward system goes for dogs. Because Millie associates wearing a Halloween costume with getting food, she doesn’t seem to mind being dolled up.

Last year, she wore a simple jester’s collar, partly because of the ear sensitivity issue and partly because I didn’t make enough time to shop for a proper costume. This year, I started early.

There are so many choices.

For several years, pet owners were limited to dog costumes and only a smattering of cat costumes, which makes sense. Dogs will work for food, even if it means wearing a wonky costume. Cats, not so much.

If I see you on Halloween, bloodied and dressed in tatters, I will not assume that you’re headed to a party dressed as a zombie. I will assume you tried to dress your cat as a Minion.

Nevertheless, the selection of get-ups for cats and dogs has mushroomed to hundreds, enough to break into subcategories. One pet supply website has costume tabs for “Trending” (stegosaurus, happy cow, granny); “TV and movie” (Buzz Lightyear, R2D2, Cookie Monster): “Funny” (snail, werewolf, hula girl, skunk); and “Career” (mail carrier, UPS driver, chef).

Many are so-called front-walking costumes featuring pants that make a dog’s front legs look like human legs, along with stuffed arms that stick out and hold a prop.

So if you squint your eyes and pretend you don’t see the other 95 percent of your neighbor’s Bichon frisé, you could believe that a 1-foot-tall UPS driver in dire need of facial waxing is delivering a tiny package to your door.

Believable, given the current hiring situation.

On the other hand, it’s highly unlikely that this delivery “person” would be focused on anything other than ripping open the box and gnawing off its own arms.

If your dog is small enough, you might try a variation of the front-walking costume: the no-walking costume.

I give you the winner of last year’s Fort Greene Park dog costume contest in Brooklyn, N.Y., a chihuahua mix that rode in a pet carrier draped with a small pale suit and white button-down shirt. It helped that the dog, which lent only its head to the ensemble, bore an uncanny resemblance to Talking Heads singer David Byrne.

The crowd roared its approval.

Basically, no creature is safe from human merriment. These days, websites offer costumes for multiple species. The fashionable guinea pig or ferret might show up for Halloween — though God knows where — dressed as a bumblebee, butterfly or leprechaun.

A bearded dragon, meanwhile, could turn out as a small lobster, a cowboy, a unicorn or, cruelly, a cricket.

I’m not sure who thought that one up. Probably the same sadist who decided it would be funny to make a dog costume with stuffed squirrels frolicking on the back, while the dog wears an acorn cap.

Ha-ha-ha, said no dog, ever.

Thank goodness, none of the front-walking costumes are in play for Millie, though I truly wish she would tolerate a wig with a red bandana, long braided pigtails and guitar-holding arms.

Then she could be Millie Nelson.

After much consideration, though, I’ve ordered her a tennis dress. Like her mama, she’s obsessed with chasing tennis balls, and after all, who wouldn’t want to be recognized as the great Millie Jean King?.

2024 Department Life's Funny

Life’s Funny

LIFE'S FUNNY

Could Be a Myssssstery

But the math sayssss no

By Maria Johnson

By the time I saw the black snake, it was smack in the middle of my lane, a few yards ahead of me.

It was too late to steer around it.

Best case scenario, I figured, my car would pass squarely over the undulating 4-foot ribbon that was booking it across the searing blacktop in the middle of the day.

I squinted and raised my shoulders to brace for ka-thunk, ka-thunk under my tires.

A nanosecond passed. Nothing.

Not even one ka-thunk.

I glanced in my rearview mirror.

No squashed “S” in my wake, which was good.

But neither did I see the snake finishing its sprint to the other side of the road.

Huh?

I pulled into a side street, turned around and retraced my path.

No snake on the road.

No snake beside the road.

What the . . . ?

I turned around once more to survey the scene of the non-crime.

Then a horrifying possibility occurred to me:

What if the snake had somehow glommed onto the underside of my car and was now tucked into the recesses of my engine?

Why, just the week before, a friend had told the story of a friend of hers, who lived in the country and had been driving down the road when a snake slithered out of an air-conditioning vent on her dashboard.

Alone in the car now, I issued a string of words not suited for a family-friendly magazine.

I slapped shut every air vent I could reach.

The innocent creature I’d hoped to spare suddenly represented a cardiac threat.

Then I remembered another story, this one from my childhood. One morning, my mom was driving my brother to Vacation Bible School. On the way to and fro’, we heard meowing. Back at home, Puff, our cat, appeared from under the car. He was streaked with grease like a mechanic. We thought it was funny.

Looking back, I’m sure that Puff was never quite the same after his VBS experience, but we had no time for trauma in the 1960s.

The point is, I knew that animals could shelter under the hood of a car, never mind that the critters in both of my cautionary tales had probably stowed away while the car was parked.

Maybe, I thought, one of my tires could have grabbed the black snake and flung it upward — minus the ka-thunk — into the guts of my car.

Long shot? Perhaps. But it was too late, the air vent story had left the station.

Minutes later, I pulled up in front of my house, parked several feet from the curb and literally jumped out of the car.

I’d just been to a baby shower, so I was wearing a sun-dress, not my usual T-shirt and shorts.

Also, it was hot as Hades, and I was circling my car while stooped over, peering underneath from a safe distance.

The unusual scene did not go unnoticed.

Our neighbor Jonathan came out of his front door looking concerned.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

I explained what had happened.

“Pop the hood,” Jonathan said.

He lifted the lid of my Honda and . . .

JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH!! A WHOLE NEST OF BLACK SNAKES RIGHT BEHIND THE AIR FILTER!!!

Oh. Wait. Just some hoses.

“I don’t see anything,” Jonathan said, studying the engine from different angles.

I was soothed. Somewhat.

I went inside and recounted the experience to my husband, who thought for a minute and finally said, “I don’t know. Snakes can move pretty fast.”

“Yeah, 35 miles an hour when they’re inside my car!”

“We could look under the rest of a car with a mirror and a flashlight,” he offered.

“Too close,” I shot back.

“We could take it to a garage, and they could put it on a lift,” he said. “Do you need an oil change?”

Brilliant!

We drove to our favorite quick-change garage.

“I’m gonna let you explain this,” Jeff said.

I opened the door as a uniformed guy named Jordan approached the car.

“Got time for an oil change?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “Can we do anything else for you?”

“Funny you should ask,” I said.

I summarized the situation: snake, no snake, air vent, eek.

Jordan smiled and nodded at my request for an oil change plus.

“You don’t seem put off by this,” I said.

He smiled and shook his head no. I had a suspicion about the source of his nonchalance.

“Are you a country boy?” I asked.

“A little bit,” he said, flashing a grin and the tattoo inside his left forearm: the image of a shotgun and the words “YEE YEE,” a hunter’s exclamation.

“Where did you grow up?” I asked.

“In West Virginia, on a farm,” he said.

Then Jordan showed me the ink on his right arm: At his wrist, a jumping bass with the words “Fish On;” on the underside of his forearm, “Family and Friends.”

Right person. Right place. Right time.

Thirty minutes later, Jordan reported the outcome of the procedure. Fresh oil.

No snake.

I exhaled. We drove home and parked in the garage, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look over my shoulder as we walked away from the car.

Later that night, I noodled on the mystery.

I reached for my phone and searched, “How fast can a black snake move?”

Answer: A black racer can hit 8–10 miles an hour.

Next search: How wide is a two-lane road?

Answer: 24 feet.

A quick conversion told me that 8–10 miles an hour translated to about 12 feet a second.

In other words, it would take a black racer two seconds to cross a road. Or one second to cross half a road.

Now, split that second, and give half to the moment between the point I couldn’t see over my hood and the point my front tires crossed the snake’s path.

Give the other half to the time it would take for me to clear that spot and see anything in my rear view mirror.

Conclusion #1: The snake made it across the road.

Conclusion #2: I made sense of the mystery.

Conclusion #3: My husband was right.

Conclusion #4: If you need an oil change or a snake check, go see Jordan at Express Oil Change by the Lowe’s hardware store on Battleground Avenue.

Yee yee.

2024 Department Life's Funny

Life’s Funny

LIFE'S FUNNY

Shhh!

Learning to read (in) a room full of people

By Maria Johnson

A few years ago, an editor pitched me a column idea.

“You know what would be fun?” he said.

“What would be fun?” I asked, taking the bait.

“For you to go someplace where you couldn’t talk and write about it later,” he teased.

“Fun for you,” I shot back.

But I remembered that challenge when I saw a local calendar listing called “Greensboro Silent Book Club.” Here was my chance to be still and know . . . something.

I rang up the group’s founder, 32-year-old Maria Perdomo, who explained that she started the local SBC chapter in the fall of 2019 after hearing an NPR story about the first club in San Francisco.

Members brought their own books and read quietly in a shared space for an hour. Conversation before and after was optional. The practice spread and gelled into a national organization.

The concept made sense to Perdomo, who grew up in Colombia, in a culture that exalted storytelling. Her father, a writer, and her brother devoured books. By comparison, Perdomo was a literary slow-poke.

“It kinda kept me from wanting to engage with books in my own way,” she says.

Eventually, she found her way back to words. She started blogging while she was an international studies student at UNCG, and she yearned for a community of like-minded readers.

Cue the NPR story. Perdomo checked the SBC website — “Welcome to introvert happy hour,” it trumpets quietly — and saw a chapter in the Triangle, but nothing in the Triad. So she and a friend started a monthly meet-up in Greensboro’s independent book store, Scuppernong.

The group met a handful of times before COVID and resumed their regular hushed assemblies in 2023.

Every second Sunday of the month, they draw a core of 10 to 20 people, just enough to fill every seat in the comfortable space at the back of the store.

“My goal is to make it a space that’s not stressful,” says Perdomo, who now writes a Substack newsletter. “We hear all the time, ‘I’m a slow reader,’ but here no one is going to look down on you because you haven’t finished that massive book you started.”

I’m intrigued. I’m not an introvert, but I am a rather slow reader.

Also, my husband has just given me The Backyard Bird Chronicles, a nonfiction handbook by celebrated novelist Amy Tan. I tote the book to the next SBC meeting and take a short-term vow of silence.

Beforehand, Rachel Wasden, who leads the gathering in Perdomo’s absence, explains that people will show up with stories in a variety of platforms — traditional books, tablets, e-readers and audiobooks.

Once, a guy worked on writing his own book.

The point is, everyone will do their own thing, quietly, together.

“Every time I tell someone about it, they say, ‘That’s so weird. Why wouldn’t you read at home, in silence?’” Wasden says.

Her answer: It’s about choice. And energy, a precious commodity for introverts.

“You get to participate, or not participate, as much as you want,” she says.

The funny thing is, by the time I make it to the back of the store, these introverts — average age mid-30s — are chatting up a storm. Rachel asks folks to introduce themselves with names, pronouns and a short description of what they’re reading.

Jeff is working his way though The Greatest Beer Run Ever, the true account of a Vietnam vet who returns to the war as a sort of civilian beer fairy to U.S. troops.

Priya is reading Fairy Tales of Ireland.

Enid has brought the same book she brought last time, Notes on an Execution, the story of a serial killer’s life as seen through the eyes of women in his life. But she might crochet instead.

Kelli, a first-timer, is well into The Yellow Wallpaper.

Heaven, another first-timer, is nibbling away at Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.

The reading list goes on. Rachel, who is plowing through She Who Became the Sun, a re-telling of the Chinese myth of Mulan, calls the meeting to order.

It’s 12:25 p.m., not that anyone is counting the minutes she’ll have to remain quiet.

Ready. Set. Silence.

Whoa. They weren’t kidding. Everyone is reading.

My attention snags on the store’s creaking wooden floorboards.

On the violin music that wafts through speakers at the front of the shop.

On the crispy whiff of pages turning.

I look up and scan the group. Does anyone want to . . . ?

Nope. All heads are down.

Surrounded by stories that I’m forbidden to tap via conversation, I wade into the book in my lap. It’s good stuff.

Tan, who, as a child, liked to draw and play in creeks, outgrew those joys as an adult. Only at age 64 did she sign up for a birding group that sketched their subjects in the field.

It makes me wonder: What could a “new thing” be for me? How long would it take to learn? And . . . what time is it now?

I check my phone. 12:49. Hmm.

Quite the variety of footwear we have in this circle. I need a pedicure. And who is that crooning on the speakers now? Andrea Bocelli?

I rub my eyebrows to reset. It occurs to me how much reading is like meditating, bringing focus to the moment, noticing how the mind wanders and reeling it in again. It also dawns on me why I’m a relatively slow reader.

Finally, Rachel speaks: “If you want to finish the page you’re on, we’ll come together in another minute or so.”

It’s 1:24 p.m.

I pretend to read for the last minute.

Rachel welcomes us back into communion with a prompt for discussion.

“Where does your mind go when you read?” she asks.

I can’t help but laugh. Silently, of course. OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. Email her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com. Find an SBC chapter near you at silentbook.club. Maria Perdomo’s newsletter, “here I am,” can be found at mariamillefois.substack.com.

2024 Department Life's Funny

Life’s Funny

Smoothing out the Ruff Spots

Who’s training whom?

By Maria Johnson

Witness this exchange between two domestic partners:

Partner One really wants something, and pulls hard in that direction.

Partner Two, natch, pulls in the opposite direction.

This ticks off Partner One, who doubles down and lurches the other way.

Which prompts me — I mean Partner Two — to throw her entire weight the other way. And also to call Partner One a pig-headed so-and-so.

Finally, the trigger passes and things calm down, but both parties feel bruised and out of sorts.

This has been happening between me and our dog, Millie, for some time.

She also has been pulling like a sled dog during walks with my husband.

We need help.

We are not alone, as it turns out. Twenty of us gather one Saturday morning at Brad Howell’s downtown Greensboro business, Red Beard Dog Training.

We have two things in common: All of us yearn for more enjoyable walks with our canine companions, and all of us have left our pups at home, per Brad’s instruction.

This is owner training.

First clue.

We are all ears as Brad — yes, he has a red beard — begins a class called Leash Connections.

Assisting him is his human co-worker, Rylee, along with Brad’s pit bull mix, Dexter.

Brad rescued Dexter — a.k.a. Sexy Dexy — from the SPCA 10 years ago to help him with his blossoming dog-training business.

Brad already knew a fair bit about animals. He grew up on a farm outside of Asheville, spending much of his time helping to raise beef cattle and playing baseball. Still active in adult leagues, he retains a casual athletic bearing.

On the day we go for training, he walks around the room barefoot, dressed in a T-shirt and basketball shorts, as he lays out the cold truth: Your relationship with your dog might never be what you thought it was going to be.

They’re their own creature.

So are you. Each of you comes with your own inclinations and experiences.

“You try to do the best you can for yourself and your dog, for your relationship,” he explains.

That includes what riles them, what soothes them and what they need to be happy. If your pup needs a lot of physical activity, it’s your job to give it to them.

It’s also your responsibility to buffer their stressors. Watch for raised hackles and tucked tails.

“You gotta know the animal you’re with,” Brad urges. “Don’t put your dog in a situation that you can tell, from watching their body language, they wouldn’t make.”

Another key: rewarding the slightest improvement in problem behavior.

“We’re looking for baby steps,” Brad says. “I’m gonna brag on my dog as soon as she gives me a reason to.”

Sexy Dexy demonstrates by walking, on a slack leash, to the left and slightly behind Brad.

“He’s probably looking pretty hard at my treat pouch,” Brad says, smiling.

Indeed, Dexy is staring a hole in the small plastic box belted to Brad’s left hip.

His patience pays off. He snags a nibble of kibble and a hearty “Yes!”

In Brad’s world, positive reinforcement is a valuable tool.

So are negative consequences — and giving dogs enough time and consistency to figure them out.

Brad passes around a slip lead, similar to the looped cords that veterinarians often use as leashes.

He invites us to place the loop over one wrist, pull the cord with the other hand and see how little pressure it takes to feel uncomfortable.

Playing the role of unruly pooch, Rylee offers her wrist for a demo.

If she pulls, she feels the pressure.

If she wants to relieve the pressure, she has to step toward Brad. He doesn’t need to yank the cord. He just needs to stand firm. Rylee is in control of how much pressure she feels.

What if she continues to pull?

Brad’s next move seems counterintuitive. He steps toward Rylee, giving her slack.

If Rylee lurches again, she’ll feel pressure again, proportionate to how hard she pulls.

“I want them to control the level of consequence they get,” he explains.
With enough reps, Brad assures us, even the most stubborn pup will understand that she is causing a large part of her own discomfort — and she has the power to relieve it.

The room glows with imaginary light bulbs switching on over human heads.

Later, at home, we try a slip lead with Millie, our wee, atomic-powered hound.

She catches on quickly.

We are the slackers who miss chances to reward her when she does something right. We struggle to stay calm and consistent when she lunges.

It would be so much easier to point the paw at her.

But it’s increasingly clear that Millie will change her behavior if we change, too, by embracing the gospel according to Brad.

Trainer, train thyself. OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. Email her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

2024 Department Life's Funny

Life’s Funny

Just Doo It

The long way around a colonoscopy

By Maria Johnson

One of the pleasures of writing for O.Henry is hearing from readers who say, “That’s such a classy publication.”

Well, nothing lasts forever.

To be fair, the magazine remains a classy book. But this space, this month, might soil that reputation a tad.

So if you’re one of those people who likes to pretend you never doo, and even if you do doo, it doesn’t stink, please skip this column. But if you’re like the rest of us, and you’d try anything to avoid a colonoscopy, read on.

I’ll start with gratitude: I’m one of the lucky ones, intestinally speaking.

I have no family history of colon cancer, and therefore it was an option for my physician’s assistant to prescribe a noninvasive screening kit called Cologuard.

I had used earlier versions, and lemme just say that poo technology has come a long way since those first at-home tests, which were basically a few sheets of gift-wrapping tissue and some popsicle sticks.

Other advances — in cellular communication, point-to-point shipping and pharmaceutical-based musical theater — have made the process a true reflection of our times.

Recently, for example, I saw a television commercial that featured an animated box bearing the stylized letters “CG,” a sort of modern-day Kool-Aid Man, skipping through scenes where random adults, who all seem to know each other, converge in a park and sing the Cologuard song joyfully.

The chorus: “I did it my way.”

Somehow, I don’t think this is what Frank Sinatra had in mind.

But back to my tale.

My PA tells me she will have a test sent to my home.

About a week later, I get a text announcing that my kit is being shipped. Save the date!

Another text informs me when it’s delivered to my doorstep. For once, I’m not worried about porch pirates.

The next text reminds me to do what needs to be done.

Yet another text leans on me even harder. It says my provider is awaiting my test. I envision my bright and busy PA wondering — maybe over lunch— “Where is Maria’s poop sample?”

I am not moved.

The CG people know it. A brochure titled “Let’s Get Going” arrives in the mail, complete with diagrams and step-by-step instructions.

I flip through the brochure, which, I must say, editorially and graphically, is very well done.

I even open the Cologuard box, which rests on my bathroom counter, and unpack the contents.

First, I encounter a heavy-duty plastic bracket that I mistake for packing material. It’s so sturdy — and seemingly multipurpose, with a large hole in the middle — that I make a mental note to save it and hang it on the pegboard above my husband’s workbench. Never mind the stamped instruction to “Place Under Seat.”

Next layer: a sheaf of paper with 30-plus pages of instructions and inserts with the latest updates.

I start reading and get so nervous I have to go immediately. The test will have to wait for another day.

In the meantime, coincidentally, I see my OB-GYN for an annual exam.

She asks if I’ve done a Cologuard test recently.

“Funny you should ask,” I say. “It’s in progress.”

“In progress?” she probes.

“On my bathroom counter.”

“Oh yes, that’s where I put mine,” she says. “For about a year.”

My kinda doctor.

“The instructions stopped me,” I confess. “So much to read.”

She waves her hand.

“Just follow the diagrams. Like putting together a piece of furniture.”

“There are a lot of pieces in the kit,” I continue. “And when you’re done, you have to drop off the box at UPS.”

“And you know that they know what’s in there,” she said, barely suppressing a smile.

“And you know there have been mishaps!” I add.

So now, we’re laughing, my doc and I, about the potentially leaky life of Cologuard returns. And suddenly, there and then, I resolve to do it. The test, I mean. At home.

A couple of days — and a couple of cups of coffee — later, the time seems right. I go straight to the diagrams, referring to them as I quickly assemble a small plastic chamberpot over the toilet bowl.

I feel increasing pressure about hitting the target. I read on and hit another stressor: The volume of my contribution can be no greater than the liquid preservative that I’m supposed to pour over it.

Great. A mathematical word problem.

Dancing in place, I pick up the bottle of preservative, which says it contains 290 milliliters.

This really helps.

The instructions also warn against drinking from the bottle, which tells me that some poor souls have done this, hoping, I suppose, to shortcut the preservation process.

Obviously, Cologuard has heeded the advice of lawyers rather than, say, Charles Darwin, in writing these instructions.

I have dallied long enough. I dive in, hitting the brakes at an estimated 290 milliliters of relief, and add the liquid preservative.

At this point, I wonder why the kit doesn’t include a test for stomach cancer, because I nearly hurl at what I’m shipping to some poor unfortunate soul at Exact Sciences Laboratories on Badger Road in Madison, Wisconsin.

I apologize silently and seal the container tightly.

Not one hour later, I receive another text:

“Urgent reminder: Complete and ship your Cologuard kit ASAP.

Was there a camera in the box, too?

I hustle to the UPS store, chuck the box onto the scale, snatch a shipping receipt with eyes averted, and drive off in search of my tribe who, I’ve been led to believe, have done it their way, and are joyfully singing in a park somewhere. OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. Email her at
ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

2024 Department Life's Funny

Life’s Funny

Getting Around to the Inner Game

Fifty years later, a classic book somehow seems wiser

By Maria Johnson

I pull up to the tennis courts late, worried that my friend will be miffed, even though this Saturday morning hitting session is just for fun.

The lag is no biggie, thank goodness.

The place is sparsely populated, and my pal is walking around the court languidly, phone pressed to her ear, engrossed in a conversation about her impending move.

She takes her time, which is fair and fine by me.

It’s a glistening spring day, and I take a few moments to soak it up.

The solid blue dome overhead.

The way my friend’s pastel Nikes leave footprints in the damp green grit of the synthetic clay.

The brush marks on the perfectly combed court.

The lacy overlay of snowflake-size petals blown from nearby Bradford pear trees, stinky but beautiful.

But stinky.

On the back fence, a mockingbird trills through his list of knockoffs.

A few courts down, the resident pro gives gentle reminders to his students.

I unzip my tennis bag, grab a racket and paw around until I feel the glossy cover of a book I’ve been meaning to give my friend, The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey.

The thin, pale paperback with a yellow ball on the cover — I wiped off another distinguishing feature, a coffee ring, before I left home — became a best-seller when it was published exactly 50 years ago, at the height of the 1970s tennis boom.

At the time, I was a teenager who was swept up in the wave, brandishing a steel Wilson T2000 racket, wearing a shiny Adidas track suit and racing around in featherlight Tretorn tennis shoes topped with pom-pom socks.

And yes, that was fly way back then.

I don’t remember how I acquired the book — Did someone give it to me? Did I go to a bookstore and buy it? — but I do remember reading a few chapters.

What malarkey, I thought.

The author went on and on about Self 1 and Self 2.

Self 1 was the self-critical voice, the source of rules and judgments, shoulds and oughts, rights and wrongs, goods and bads.

It was the self that yelled, “You idiot!” when I missed a shot and occasionally hammered the fence with my T2000, though not too hard because a cracked racket head was not terribly cool — or practical for a girl who worked weekends serving hot dogs at a snack shack.

Like most teenagers, I was well acquainted with Self 1, who was chiefly concerned with performance and appearance.

I was not as chummy with Self 2, the home of curiosity, awareness, acceptance and a knack for learning by imitation.

The ability to find joy in play — that is, childlike play marked by getting lost in the process and not giving a whit about scores or what anyone else thinks — lived with Self 2.

As a teen, I had no use for her.

I tossed the book aside, but for some reason I took it with me when I left home, boxing it up, unpacking it, not reading it I and repeating the cycle of neglect several times during the couple of decades when I didn’t touch a racket at all.

A few years ago, well into my second life as a tennis player, I unpacked a box of books and there it was. I started reading the yellowed pages and, this time, I couldn’t stop.

Gallwey, the author, had gotten a lot smarter in the intervening 50 years, and I wanted to share his wisdom with my friend.

She has finished her phone conversation.

“Here,” I say, handing her the slim volume. “Before I forget.”

She thanks me and slips the book into her bag.

We pluck a dozen of the brightest balls from a hopper, tuck them into our jacket pockets and start hitting short-court, service line to service line, to warm up.

We chat as we hit, taking quick stock of family, friends and the health of the aforementioned before tackling the pains of prepping a house for a move and discussing the merits of track lighting versus halo lighting.

The balls keep flying, arcing and landing inside the boxes as we dance around our shots. With our minds otherwise occupied, the rackets and the balls seem to be doing their own thing.

We back up to the baselines, too far apart for conversation now, and drop into long cross-court rallies.

Bounce-hit, bounce-hit.

The balls fly deep and fast.

My friend, a former college player, is nursing a shoulder injury and has no interest in playing flat out, which is great for me. In fighting form, in a real-deal match, she’d flatten me. That’s just the Self 1 truth.

But today, she just wants to hit, grooving her strokes without worrying about scores. In other words, she wants Self 1 to butt out.

Same here.

Bounce-hit, bounce-hit.

I blot out everything but the ball. By the time it lands on my side of the court and rises up, I can see the brand name spinning like a cyclone.

Gallwey — now 86 years old and set to release a hardback special edition of his softbound masterpiece next month — would say that by concentrating on the ball and giving Self 1 a job to do, I’m freeing up Self 2 to do what she knows how to do: Put the ball where it needs to go.

The rallies stretch. Five, 10, 20 shots.

We’re slugging the balls with topspin. And knifing it with slice. And hitting drop shots that curl up and die, leaving both the dropper and the drop-ee scrambling and panting with laughter.

“Oh, noooo . . . ” we yelp mid-sprint.

“You did NOT . . . ” we scold and take off. We applaud each other’s wicked shots by clapping free hands to string.

We are playing. Tennis just happens to be the game.

It’s tempting to say I’d like to banish Self 1 from all areas of my life, tennis and otherwise, but ’taint true. Making a little room for Self 1 strikes me as a good thing. The ability to kick yourself in the butt without kicking yourself to the curb is a valuable trait, as is judgment when it’s used, um, judiciously.

Plus, I like winning. Correction: I
luvvvv winning. It’s an addictive juice.

But this is also true: My Self 2 comes around more than she used to, and I’m always happy to see her. She watches more, listens more, lingers in the moment longer and tells Self 1 to shush and hold her horses.

Maybe Self 2 is emboldened by age to stage-whisper what experience has shown her: that she is not the game. Or the score. Or how well she hits that drop shot.

She is something else entirely.

On her good days, you’ll see her running around the court, focused and flowing.

On her best days, you’ll see her hanging with other Self 2s.

Today is one of those days.

“My God,” my friend says, smiling and breathless as we break for water. “I’m gonna miss this.”

“Yeah,” I say between gulps. “Me, too.”

We talk a little, pick up a few balls and head back out for another round of moments. OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. Email her at
ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

2024 Department Life's Funny

Life’s Funny

What’s in a Name?

Ask Dewey. Or Michael.

By Maria Johnson

A new acquaintance suggested that we go to an event together.

“You should bring Dewey,” she said.

I looked at her, puzzled.

“You know, your husband,” she prompted.

“Oh,” I said, laughing. “Yeah, OK, but that’s not his name.”

Now it was her turn to look stumped.

“Don’t you call him Dewey?” she asked.

“Yeah, I do,” I confirmed. “But his real name is Jeff. I call him Dewey. But no one else does. Well, except our sons. It’s kind of a pet name.”

If she thought about rescinding her invitation, she was graceful and did not.

And, by the way, Dewey and I had a great time with her and her husband, who, for some reason, she called by his real first name.

Seriously, I get why people address each other by their given names. That’s what names are for. When parents give their kids a name, they presume that’s what other people will call them.

And most people do.

Which is fine.

Heck, I call most people by their given names — when I can remember them.

But people I’m fond of or I know really well? Mmm, not so much.

That’s why I had to laugh when I read about Nikki Haley’s husband.

His real first name is William.

Most people call him Bill.

But when Haley met him, she told him he didn’t look like a Bill.

She asked him what his full name was.

He told her William Michael.

She said he looked more like a Michael, and from then on, she called him Michael.

I totally get it.

And for what it’s worth, I think she’s right. Look at his picture. The dude is a complete Michael.

Apparently, everyone else thought so, too, because from then on, other people called him Michael, too.

Which is cool. Other people can use a person’s new name, especially if it’s a new public name.

Which is not the same as a new private name.

Example: Michael, public name.

Dewey, private name.

I mean, you can call Jeff “Dewey” if you want to. But I doubt he’d answer. And if he did, I’d be crushed.

It’s complicated.

One thing I’ve learned: Often, there’s a namer in the family. This is one of the first things that Dewey (that’s Jeff to you) and I realized we had in common. We were the namers in our families. Maybe because we’re both first children, and while being a firstborn comes with a lot of pressure, it also carries some privileges.

Therefore, Dewey/Jeff renamed some of his family members Maude, Lay-Otee, Carico, Sheep Pup and Deo Bahee.

My family included Lil’ Greek, Shrimp and Dossie, aka Dosito Mikhail Yakovich.

Hey, it was the Cold War era. And yes, I said the whole name every time I used it. Much to his chagrin.

That’s the thing about renaming people in your immediate family. They don’t necessarily have to like their new monikers. They just have to tolerate them.

If I were completely honest, I’d admit that renaming is a wee flex, a mini Declaration of Independence that says, “I’m not calling you what the rest of the world calls you.”

But even more important, new names are expressions of fondness, closeness and a unique shared history.

Take the example of a dear friend and her brother, who are very close.

Privately, he addresses her as “Fool,” based on a family story that resembles a fever dream.

She calls him “ hole,” emphasis on the “ .”

In her contact list, he’s listed as “A-hole,” but her cell phone’s voice assistant pronounces his name “A-holey.” So my friend tells her phone to “call A-holey” when she wants to talk her to baby brother.

Is that love or what?

Inside my own family, I call Jeff “Dewey,” which was derived from the boys calling him Dad, which morphed into Doodad, which was shortened — ta-da — to Dewey. Who else would know that?

He calls me Sweetch, a form of Sweetie.

Awww.

We have multiple pet names for our sons, most of which we use in private, partly out of respect, partly because we’ve received withering looks for using them in public.

Take the time I summoned one son, now a New Yorker, by his pet name when he was walking too fast for us down the crowded sidewalks.

“BADOODIE! HOLD UP!” I hollered.

Apparently being hailed as Badoodie by your mom on the streets of Brooklyn is not a hip thing.

Neither is calling a grown man Ta-Ta in front of his girlfriend.

In other words, context is everything. You have to modulate nicknames according to who’s present.

Renaming people outside your family is different beast all together.

In these cases, a degree of playfulness and acceptance is needed, or the name won’t stick, even if you apply it with affection.

I’ve been lucky in that department. I think of some of my earliest pals: Gurr, Beck, Mishur, Limpy, Kince and Polly. None of those were their given names, but if I called them on the phone today, I dare say they’d brighten at the sound of those tags.

Later came Betho, Goof, Conchita, Der Lovely, Lyd, DK, Fash, Little Boy and others.

Today, you might hear me refer to Special K, Peegs, Little Debbie, Weez, Cootie, Rev K or Queenie Bee.

As for me, I’ve answered to many names in my lifetime: Goof, Conchita and Fash (often nicknames are reflexive, applying to both parties), along with Moom, M.J., Mojo, Mo, M, Mahrear and Mish.

While some of them are more attractive than others — “Mahrear” reflects a former colleague’s delight at how our boss’s Virginia accent made my name sound like his backside, as in, “That writer is a pain in Mahrear” — all of them make me smile because they tickle memories of the people, the stories and the closeness we’ve shared.

And ain’t that the name of the game? OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. Email her at
ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

2024 Department Life's Funny

Life’s Funny

All Hail the King of Toaster Pastries

Why Pop-Tarts are a thing again

By Maria Johnson

As a child of the ’60s and ’70s, I was an advertiser’s dream.

Allowed to roam all three TV channels — four if you counted “educational TV,” which I didn’t — I spent many Saturday mornings glued to the cartoon adventures of Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, the Flintstones, Jonny Quest, the Jetsons, Scooby-Doo, Space Ghost and Fat Albert while making room for real humans in the form of The Monkees.

I use the term “real humans” loosely.

Anyway, consuming so much animation gave me a rich audio and visual catalog. I still hear the whistling of falling anvils when something drops, mutter “ruh-rho” when I make a mistake, and feel like I’m turning to a block of ice then cracking into a million pieces and falling into a pile of shards when I step into water that’s colder than expected.

So, you know, yabba-dabba-doo for imagination.

I also ingested a helluva lot of marketing for sugary convenience foods, which translated — as intended — into me begging my parents to buy them, which translated into a nasty Pop-Tarts habit.

Strawberry.

Blueberry.

Brown sugar-cinnamon.

Dutch apple.

Chocolate.

Painted with a hard shellack of frosting.

Or plain.

It hardly mattered.

These highly processed tiles of joy were sold as “toaster pastries,” which was laughable because they were neither real pastries nor toasted. Not much anyway. Not in our house. My brother and I usually snarfed down those perfectly rectangular suckers at room temperature.

They were packaged in twos, suggesting to some people, perhaps, that the contents were meant to be shared. Translated into sibling-speak, however, the meaning was clear: “Two for me. Get your own.”

We did, and we were wary of pretenders, chiefly Toastettes, which were distinguished by deep hash marks around the edges, and Danish Go-Rounds, which were flat tubes of fruit-filled crust curled into spirals.

Imposters, both.

In due time, of course, I left Pop-Tarts behind, moved onto other unhealthy habits and eventually — as happens to the best of us — became a health-conscious adult.

If I ever bought Pop-Tarts for my own kids, I don’t remember it.

In fact, I tilted the other way, toward whole-grain parenting. Let’s just say there’s a reason my adult sons sometimes tease me with the word “flax,” as in, “Oh, what a shame, Mom. There’s no flax on the menu.”

Or, “What would you call the color of those jeans, Mom? Flax?”

Or, “If only I’d eaten more flax, this wouldn’t be happening.”

To which I can only say, “That’s probably true.”

So, honestly, it was one of the biggest shocks of my life when the boys came home for the holidays recently and we all sat down to watch one of their alma maters, N.C. State, play in a longstanding Florida football contest that was branded, for the first time ever, as the Pop-Tarts Bowl.

Huh?

My interest was piqued.

I hadn’t thought of them — Pop-Tarts, I mean — in so long. And now, here was the logo, plastered all over the field and the screen. Honestly, I didn’t realize Pop-Tarts were still in production.

Then came halftime, and a bellowing announcer directed everyone’s attention to midfield, where a giant toaster was set up. Music blared and the crowd noise swelled as the official Pop-Tarts mascot — frosted, natch, with sprinkles — rose up on a stage inside one of the slots.

Jets of sparks and smoke spewed as the mascot emerged into full view.

Endowed with golden-brown arms and legs, the Pop-Tart strutted, punched the air and whipped up the crowd with his painted-on smile.

It was a rock star’s entrance. Freddie Mercury had nothing on this cat.

A dam broke inside of me. I was flooded with memories.

Of the smell of Pop-Tarts.

Of the feel of Pop-Tarts in my hands, and how I used to break off the crusty edges and eat them first.

I could taste them again.

I fidgeted in my seat.

“Have y’all ever had a Pop-Tart?” I asked the young heads in the room.

They stared at me.

“Not even in college?”

More blank looks.

“Do you WANT to eat a Pop-Tart?” I asked.

Shoulders shrugged. Then someone said, “No, but I think YOU do.”

It was the truth.
“I’m going to the store,” I said flatly. “Who’s with me?”

My younger son, the one who taunts me most about flaxseed, was ecstatic at seeing me crack.

“I’m in!” he said.

Minutes later, we were back with two boxes: one blueberry and one brown sugar-cinnamon, both frosted. We passed them around.

The packets were wrapped in thin, silver film, not the paper and foil envelope of my youth.

The tarts were smaller and thinner than I remembered.

And they tasted less robust, if that’s possible for a laminated wafer born on a conveyor belt.

But they tickled a long dormant lobe of my brain.

My older son’s partner, who is an outstanding baker, chewed slowly.

“What do you think?” I asked, smiling at her with purple teeth.

Her brow furrowed.

Beside her, my elder son, who’s also a foodie, offered an olive branch: “It’s . . . complicated.”

Kansas State won the game. I couldn’t tell you the score.

But forever seared into my mind is the sight of a Pop-Tart incarnate flitting about the sidelines and the announcer wondering which team was going to have the privilege of eating the mascot at the end of the game.

It was blatant cannibalism.

I was all for it.

At the game’s conclusion, as thousands of fans roared their approval, the mascot sacrificed himself to the humongous toaster, descending on his stage to a fate sealed by the heating elements.

A few seconds later, an oversized, frosted tart — sans arms and legs — slid from the bottom of the toaster. The winning team was invited to come over and break off a piece to celebrate.

It was advertising genius.

I fell for it. Again. As it turned out, I had plenty of company.

The kitschy show went viral.

Pop-Tarts’ brand value jumped 25 percent thanks to the media chatter, such as this post on the social platform X:

“I would actually watch the Super Bowl halftime show if it was the Pop-Tart fighting a Toaster Strudel.”

Enchanted fans snapped up novelty T-shirts commemorating the game.

And my newly exposed sons?

The epicure decided he could do without pastries that resembled postcards.

The other, the anti-flaxxer, was open to a Pop-Tart inclusive life.

Secretly, I was happy.

Days later, when we dropped him off at the airport, I noticed he’d left something behind on the car seat: a silver packet of Pop-Tarts.

“Wait here,” I told my husband. I dashed into the airport, sussed out my son in a security line and pardoned my way through the queue.

“You left this in the car,” I said, breathlessly handing him the shiny packet.

He grinned.

I grinned.

Then I turned and zipped away as fast as . . . well, the Road Runner.

Meep-meep. OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. Email her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

2024 Department Life's Funny

Life’s Funny

Project Runway

Sitting on a tarmac is boring: Sitting beside a tarmac is another story

By Maria Johnson

“Here comes one!”

Conversation freezes and heads swivel to the horizon, where two bright beams glow, side by side, above a distant tree line.

“Oooooh, that’s a big one,” says our airplane-obsessed friend, whose birthday we are celebrating with a parking lot picnic beside a runway at Piedmont Triad International Airport.

The four of us, all empty nesters, are way beyond the age of coveting stuff. Well, most stuff anyway.

Experiences, time together, moments that morph into stories and embed as warm memories — that’s what we prize.

So, recently, our wee gang has been celebrating birthdays with daytime excursions that introduce us to new places and people.

During one of these forays, a friend who was not being fêted at the moment came clean about her obsession with all things aero. As a young woman growing up in Rockingham County, she tinkered with the idea of becoming a flight attendant. That dream never took off, but her fascination with soaring above it all persisted.

As an adult, she regularly asked flight crews for tours of cockpits; bought toy jetliners with battery-powered engines and lights “for the grandchildren.” She even bought a captain’s hat from a former Piedmont Airlines pilot.

Side note: If you ever want to see a bunch of 60-plus North Carolinians get misty-eyed, ask them about Piedmont Airlines. It really was the best. Sigh.

Anyway, our well-traveled pal also revealed how much she loved to watch airplanes take off and land. She said she liked to imagine who was aboard, where they were going, what it was like there, and what the passengers would do when they got there.

Escapism? Totally.

The rest of us knew what we had to do for her birthday: Find a place to watch planes come and go. I remembered that there used to be a diner near PTI where you could catch the action aloft. An internet search confirmed that the restaurant had closed, but a few clicks later, I landed on a website called planespotters.net, where jet-heads post their favorite viewing sites.

A recon mission was called for. One pal piloted. I co-piloted, translating the map app’s instructions because who the heck knows what 500 feet looks like when you’re going 60 miles an hour? Just turn left where that blue car is coming out.

We cased several parking lots, some right next to the runways. I’m quite sure we appeared on several security cameras.

To dispel fear — and reduce the odds of being placed on a TSA watchlist labeled “HUH?” — we waved at the control tower as we drove past. Several times.

Maybe it was the time of day, late one afternoon in the fading light of fall, but we didn’t see much action.

The next day, I stuck my head in at one of GTCC’s aviation training buildings, “yoo-hooed” my way down a hallway and found a darkened classroom where three young men sat at computer screens doing . . . we’ll call it homework.

“Hey, fellas, I know this sounds weird, but do y’all know of a good place to watch airplanes take off and land?”

“Yeah, I know a great place,” one of the guys said, popping out of his seat and walking over to show me a map on his phone.

He pointed me to a gravel lot off Old Oak Ridge Road.

I drove right over. Jackpot.

I dropped a pin and shared it with our foursome. We booked a date.

A couple of weeks later, we packed up camp chairs and a knee-high table.

One of us brought fruit and crackers.

Another brought Biscoff cookies and packs of almonds.

Another brought prosecco.

The birthday girl brought her captain’s hat, which she wore proudly as we cheered and waved at the passing planes.

They looked so small, even the big ones, when you considered that these sleek aluminum tubes carried so many people, each connected to their own constellation of lives. The passengers would scatter as soon as they claimed their bags, and yet, for a precious few ticks of the clock, they were on the same trip.

Was it any different on the ground, at our makeshift celebration only a stone’s throw from barbed wire and warning signs?

Between the drones and roars overhead, we turned to our seat mates and talked of the things circling our hearts. Of joys and worries. Of health and family and friends.

As we chatted, sunset painted the sky in neon pink and somber purple.

A flock of starlings, headed for their evening roost, rippled like a flag in the sky.

The nighttime lights of the airport emerged like the skyline of a city.

Other people came and went from the parking lot: a lone young man perched on his motorcycle; a middle-aged woman and her small dog; a young couple who spent most of their time taking pictures of themselves and their car.

Small eddies of humanity swirled and dissipated here.

We were one of those swirls, sitting in a tight circle on a dusty patch of gravel, wrapped in throws against the deepening chill as we sipped and nibbled, nodded and mmm-ed, rode the crosswinds of laughter and tears, and occasionally looked to the clouds and let our imaginations fly.

We were determined to enjoy the ride. OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. Email her at
ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

2024 Department Life's Funny