Sunday, February 19, 2012

‘The Ol’ Pucker Factor’

This story starts out before my ‘Canoe Club’ days…
You’ve all heard of, and some may have had, the phenomenon called ‘The Pucker Factor’!?!? You know the situation… something happens you’re smack dab in the middle of… a situation that scares the ‘Holy Ba-Jeezusss’ outta you!!! It’s that tightness in the ol’ sphincter after a close call… that,

"HOLY SHIT, that fella just jumped into a ‘GAUDAMNED ALLIGATOR FARM’ smothered in chicken gizzards!!!"
… that kind of not so fresh feel’n!!!
Yeah, I’ve had a few of those moments throughout my life… usually involved a gun pointed in my general direction!!!

The first instance of such a case I was only six years old!!!

You see my mother had married this fella named ‘Charlie Brown’… and Charlie had a brood of young’ns from a prior marriage he named after the Peanut Characters… yep, you guessed it… Chuck Jr… Linus and Lucy Brown!!! Indeed, and some would say that Charlie Brown, he’s a clown… cause he always had a way of bullshitt’n his way in and out of trouble!!!
Well Charlie’s ex-wife had a new man in her life named Leonard! Leonard had the temperament crossed between Darth Vader and Cujo!! To put it lightly… the son-of-a-bitch was half nutts!!!
In the likes of things Leonard insisted that instead of Charlie pick’n up the kids at their house, we must meet at a mutual gathering place… Wades in Lee’s Summit, Mo was the place in question… but after wait’n around for an hour or so Charlie became somewhat anxious and decided to take the kids to their house.
Well, need I tell you this was quite the bad idea… after dropping them off we went back to Wades for some dinner and just as we drove up the intersection head’n home Leonard pulled out in front of us blocking the road while slobber’n… yell’n… and cuss’n up a storm!!!
Now picture this… It’s the summer of 1974 ( I think)… I’m sitt’n in the center-cab of a pickup truck straddling the stick shift… we didn’t wear seatbelts back then… and Leonard pulls out the most terrify’n double barreled sawed off shotgun I’d ever seen… probably the only sawed off shotgun I’d ever seen, at the time, and shoots a round off in the air then points the gun at the cab of the truck!!! Yep, He was hell bent on shoving that two barreled menace right up Charlie Brown’s ass!!!
That was the first time I’d ever felt the tightness of the ol’ sphincter clenching uncontrollably scared outta my young mind… needless to say I pissed myself as I had absolutely no control of my bladder or bowel movements… sure it would’a been worse had I been full a shit!!!!
Look’n back, it was quite a traumatic experience for such a young fella to go through!!! But I survived to tell the story!!!
So the years past… and as I got older… in some ways I suppose I got dumber and started hang’n around with some real ‘Riff Raff’!!!
As a young teenager I’d moved to Florida to live with my real Pops… you know, the one who brought me into this world… and not gett’n the attention I was look’n for from him, I went elsewhere look’n for some sort’a acceptance!!
There was a fell’a named Larry ‘Bubby’ Dowd that took a liking to me. Now Bubby was about three years my senior but he seemed to enjoy my company… said me and him could really make a team pick’n up the gals!!! Now Bubby just bought a used beater he referred to as the ‘Chaka-Khan’ mobile so we could make a menace of things!!!
Now those of you read’n this who didn’t know Bubby at the time need to realize this fella thought he was a real outlaw… some sort’a modern day ‘Billy The Kid’ if you know what I mean…
The Bubby I knew would ride down Havendale Boulevard butt nekkitt on the back of a horse singing,

"Back in the saddle again"…  

Bubby encouraged, condoned and perpetuated friction between the conventional young man and the likes of any other fella look’n for trouble…  So as we drove around in the ‘Chaka-Khan’ mobile we went on in search of monkey business like nobody’s business as sort of a contest to liven things up. It sounded nuts, but everyone knew that Bubby was crazy enough to pull any screwball stunt there was to pull.

Just as we were head’n down the main drag there was this blue 70’s Camaro rev’n his engine look’n all big and bad… Bubby said we oughta do something about this… and me being the dumb little do-dah I was thought I’d show off and try to make an impression for Bubby… so I stuck my head out the window and tapped on the Camaro’s driver side window just gett’n ready for something smart ass to say!!!

Well the fella in the Camaro didn’t take to kindly to my gesture as he rolled down his window and pulled what seemed to me like ‘Clint Eastwood’s’ .44 Magnum with a gaudamned three foot long barrel and pressed it right up to my forehead in between the eyes!!! I said…

 “Maybe I oughta get back into the car now!!”

As the fella in the bright blue Camaro replies…

“I think that’s the wisest decision you’d ever made!!!”

Maybe I’m exaggerating but at the heat at the moment… that was some kinda pucker factor!!! Thank God I had noth’n stored in the ol’ shit locker cause I surely would’a made a mess of things!!! If you don’t believe me… Steve Bush and Sonia Sutton were there… they can attest to it… this was a no shitter!!!

So a few years later… I still hadn’t learned my lessons in life… I joined the ol’ Canoe Club where the sharks ate the timid and it was strictly law of the jungle where you didn’t survive unless you walked softly and carried a heavy stick!!! In this type of society piss’n people off was entertaining… and I was noth’n more than just another single guy in search of some amusement and sexual gratification!!!

So I hooked up with this young gal down in San Diego named Amy! Now Amy was the kind of gal who was aiming to please and loved to shower her man with plenty of attention and gifts on a regular basis… you know, like trinkets, jewelry, little things of the sort…

Well I suppose it was fair to say I had lost interest in Amy after a month or so as she was too easy to please and there was just no game in the relationship… after all… I was just a 100% red blooded crackerjack wild man who loved to play hard and chase after good look’n young dames… so I gave her the boot and sent her away all broken hearted and pissed off!!!

However it wasn’t but a month or two later I had ran into Amy again at the local watering hole and realized she couldn’t help but notice me as well. Realizing she was nothing less than heated with me over our last affair I had to do some amazing things with the ol’ silver tongue… the type of situations where you turn bullshit into gold at a rate that would even amaze Bill Clinton!!!

So once I got her on the ropes it was back to my place for a bit of a nightcap for good old time-sake!!!

The next morning I showed her out to the car from my barracks room wearing a skivvy shirt, a pair of shorts and some flip flops… Amy said she had something to give me from inside her glove compartment… now knowing how giving Amy was I figured it safe to assume she had another gift of jewelry or someth’n or rather to give me… but as she bent down to reach in her car she came up and turn right into me with something rigid, hard, and cold pointed right at my groin area, something in the form of a 'Saturday Night Special'… you know, with bullets and all!!! She exclaims in a low and determined voice…

“If you ever screw with me again it will be the last you ever see of those jewels!!!”

I wasn’t only scared shitless but I couldn’t even get a word out I was shak’n in my britches so hard… I think my knees about buckled, and once again… that ol’ pucker factor came into play!!!
Once she left head’n off base I hurried into the barrack’s Quarterdeck to let the Duty Officer know what just happened!!!
 “Son, you need an interpreter to translate your gibberish into some kinda form of English we can all understand!!!”
But seriously folks … I had considered gett’n me some of those elephant tranquilizers to put me down and help me to relax after that… I was blown away for a good couple of days… never ran into Amy again as I ended up shipp'n out to Bremerton, Washington!!!
But one thing I did learn through all of this… if I had spent more time doing productive stuff and less in monkey business, I probably would have slept a hell of a lot better!!!
Today there’s research being done in some major educational institute in the likes of MIT in an attempt to find out how the hell I lived through all that silly bullshit I write about… It may be the miracle that saves us all from self-annihilation.
Many times, the only thing between me and 'Walking the Plank of Life' was a ‘Guardian Angel’ who had taken a chance with me butt nekkitt rid’n down Havendale Boulevard sing’n,
“Back in The Saddle Again…”

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