I’ve considered myself to be an unhappy man. I’m always doing something I don’t want to do. Or I want to be somewhere else. I don’t want to talk, I want to just listen for the silence. But all I hear is noise. The way I want my life conflicts with the way the people I want to be with are living their life. No one has time for us, we have given all our time away. We never have enough. Life gets in the way for all of us I think.

This is how we go through life. Everyone wants a puppy. They’re so cute, you want to just hold them and squeeze them and play with them. Even them pooping in the house we can live with as there so cute. But then they grow up and there not as adorable as that puppy. They’re not the same. The same with our kids. They’re all cute and adorable when they’re so small and learning to do everything and they make you laugh and give you so much love. Then they grow up and it feels like the aliens have taken over their body.

God gave us free will, that’s the problem. I/we have no one to blame but ourselves. Everything wrong in our lives is because of the choices we all made. I made the choice to work for Donald Trump years ago at one of his hotels as a manager I don’t feel like sharing that now. I made the choice to teach my kids how to drive like a crazy guy. Now one of them is doing the same as me. The other one refuses to drive at all.

If we really sit down and backtrack we will find where we went wrong. No, we can’t change what we have done. The time machine is still not here yet. At some point in our lives, we chose the path we’re on. We just accepted it as it was the path in front of us and said why not. No one told us about the other paths and what they could offer. After a while you just tell yourself this path is fine, I’ll stay on it, and eventually what I want will be down this path, no reason to change.

So every day we wake up and make a decision as to which direction to take. You can change your path at any time but, will you be so bold to choose the path less trodden or unfamiliar. The path of least resistance will not challenge you.  For years I told people I wasn’t a risk-taker but in reality, the path I was on led me on a path of least resistance. That path was actually putting myself and my family in an even risker position. Not a path of opportunity but a path of relentlessness, unforgiving, inhumaneness.

Now that I have you all depressed, I do see light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve been making my own map for a new path and I hope you all find the right path much sooner than I did, as it gets harder as you get older.

My new path is fast approaching. The retirement path is a better path for me. I will have more control over this path. I will have three hours a day more to do what I want instead of commuting. More time to be with family, or to watch Netflix, Youtube, and write endless dribble on this page for you to read. Or maybe a new puppy to shit all over the house. Choose wisely folks.

Every day, I have a three-hour commute.  It is divided up by two one and a half-hour time periods as I commute to Chicago every day. That’s 780 hours a year. Divide it by a forty-hour workweek that’s nineteen and a half work weeks. It seems like such a waste. I can hear many of you shouting at me, as to what I could do during this commute. I could listen to relaxing music. I could listen to books on tape or is it CDs or memory stick, who knows. Or I could quietly contemplate the wonders of the universe as I pass by the scenic wonders commuting from Chicago to Indiana.

Now that all sounds wonderful but, what I experience driving is worse than if I had stayed at work with all pressure it offers. Let’s start with, I kind of push the limit on speed or so I thought. The speed limit is 55 on most of the highways going to Chicago. I generally push that to 75 or more and try and stay with a group or shall I say a “pack of us” like-minded drivers with the mindset that the Po-Po can’t stop all of us. But lately more and more, I’m getting someone coming up behind me and they are going 80 miles an hour or more and they seem to think they can just push their way through the pack. The pack usually notices this and we generally close ranks because either this guy’s drunk or has a death wish. He’s flashing his lights, giving us the finger and trying to pass on the right. We usually make them go three lanes over to have a chance to pass us or wait until we get to an area that is patrolled by the Po-Po and hope they grab him.

Then there’s all the construction and the dreaded solid white lines. Hopefully, you all know the “Rules of the Road” no one is suppose cross a solid white line. You just don’t do it. Especially in a construction zone, to many bad things can happen. But every day, there is an idiot out there that I really don’t think ever learned the Rules of The Road.

Commuting is hell and maybe if I had a chauffeur I could relax and use my time more wisely.

As many of you know I am married and I love my wife. I usually try and speak to her two to three times during the day. She is handicapped, so I have to check on her. However, if I dare to call her as I get in the car to begin my commute home after a long day I have sealed my fate. Again let me preface this, I love my wife, but I do not need to talk to her for an hour and a half. If I do call her when I begin my trip home, the odds are against me that I will be locked into this call for the entire time. In forty-plus years of sales and marketing, I have never spoken to anyone that long. Not even when I made speeches before groups.

We have entered that period of life that many people come to. The “adjustment period” is what I call it. The kids have left and abandoned us. Her mother just passed away who lived with us. She doesn’t have a car and has two dogs to talk to all day long. I’d go crazy myself if I was in the wife’s shoes. What makes it even more difficult is she is a “Type A” personality. She is the energizer bunny and doesn’t quit despite all her handicaps. But with age comes limitations as to what we can do, versus what we use to be able to do. As I approach the possibility of retirement I think my adjustment will have to be less running with the pack and more bicycle or scooter commuting. I’d still like some excitement maybe a Big Wheel is more of my style?

Back in 2009 I spoke of this new weapon the armed forces wanted to use. Here is a link to the original post.

Apparently the powers that be put the weapon on the back burner. I think my observation that it’s hard to get people to stay in one place long enough to use it on them had them concerned. With all the demonstrations going on now they want to bring it out again. Here is the latest on it at the Washington Post:

Safety and ethics worries sidelined a ‘heat ray’ for years. The feds asked about using it on protesters

I was right back then, and I think they will shelf it again. Maybe now they will take my suggestion seriously about downsizing it. Make it more portable. I’d buy one!

I believe, most men in their own mind, think they are still 20 something in age and are still slim and trim and quite the catch. I do wear a lot of black, hence a slimming affect reinforcing that image in my own mind. We also do not see ourselves as weak but strong and silent and masculine beings.

Today, those feelings were strong as I entered the Burrell Breast Care Center to have a mammogram and an ultrasound. I wanted to be strong, to avoid those thoughts of what could be happening. You see two years ago I found a small lump on my right side below my armpit. My doctor did take an x-ray but came back with it’s just a fatty deposit nothing to worry about. Today that deposit has grown to more than double its size. Hence the concern on my part and a trip to the Breast Care Center to relieve any fears. Just because my own weight has increased why would I correlate that into the fatty deposit growing exponentially also?

So they call my name and I turn around and there is Ms. Radiology 2020 who happens to be in maybe late forty’s or fifty’s. But looks fantastic and, in goes the stomach, the slouch straightens up. In my mind, she’s looking at least a hot forty-something hunk of a man. I also hope she is looking at me through rose-colored glasses. I discover that I am going to have a mammogram. Now us men are absolutely clueless about this procedure but have heard the complaints from women about the pancake machine. Of course, this doesn’t deter me, us male “gods” do not have pancakes to flatten, our chests are flat and strong. All I know is this beautiful woman is about to manhandle me and there is nothing to be frightened about. (Begin playing Def Leopard’s song “Pour Some Sugar On Me”)

I now humbly apologize to all women out there for my stupid male brain and it’s stupid thoughts about what you have gone through. Ms. Radiology is a masochist and is about to torture me as a contortionist.  She was trying to put a square peg in a round hole. I’m surprised she didn’t bring my leg up over my head so my hips would somehow lean me in more as she took her pictures which I’m sure will be posted today at masochistoldguys.com.

After she had her way with me she left me alone to contemplate all the wrongs I have dreamed and thought about women over the years. Father Mike, I will be at the confessional tonight at 5 and I’m ready for my penance of 5 Hail Mary’s and 4 Our Fathers.

I was told to expect the Doctor in a few minutes but then came another technician who stated she was going to perform my ultrasound test. All I could think about was, what was, she going to do with all that lube with my back to her. Was she friends with Ms. Radiologist? Was she a man-hater, was I to be punished for all of man’s sins against womanhood?

I was spared the onslaught and curled up into the fetal position as she performed the test. I would have to wait there half exposed with gooey lube all over my side. The doctor never even showed himself, he must be locked up somewhere forced to look at these images of his fellow man all day for his own sins.

I was informed that I am just a disgusting big ball of fat example of a man and to remove myself from these premises and to reflect on the suffering that man has imposed on women. I then proceeded to dress in my slimming black shirt and black pants and my Johnny Cash look and mosey out of there hoping they wouldn’t see the real me.

No, I do not live in Utah, (not everyone in Utah has multiple wives). No, I am not a polygamist. I can barely stay out of trouble with one wife. Apparently, I am a glutton for punishment. Of course I have my “Main Wife” whom I have been married to forever. Then there is the “Work Wife” who has changed several times over the years, as they tend to come and go now and then (hopefully not because of me?). Last but not least the “Church Wife.”

It’s my own fault, I developed these relationships out of my need for constant support I guess. It’s nice to have someone that has your back at all times. Even though the second and third wives are purely platonic relationships, they seem to take on some of the same attributes of the main wife.  My recent scare with the heart and my new diet seems to have brought them together for a common cause They seem to have had an “Earl” conference to set new guidelines for you know who. Unfortunately, I wasn’t invited to the conference nor did I have a say in the order of business that was discussed. Apparently, it was deemed necessary for all of them to now watch over me with my diet and to jointly encourage added activities of exercise in the form of walking and or bicycling.

Having not been use to such scrutiny, I am somewhat rebelling and fighting them off. In my mind they are probably signing me up for “The Biggest Loser Show” to ship me off to take care of my problem. That problem being me and my displeasure with all things that make me sweat and scream from the pain after the years of inactivity.

Lately I’ve been going to bed earlier than the main wife. That’s when I think the wife texting begins. I’m sure they compare notes and then decide the appropriate punishment to be handed out the next day. I’ll bet they even do a Facebook Live connection. God forbid they ever find out about my million dollar life insurance policy. I’ll be a dead man for sure. Oh God I forgot they read this, I better run for the border and brush up on my Spanish.