I just finished re-reading “Nine Stories” by JD Salinger.  The main point I took away from it was that anything can happen at any given moment in anything he writes.  In essence, Salinger invented the Spanish-language soap opera.

He’s expecting us to kiss his ass for trying to make that old dog hunt?  You’ve gotta be shittin’ me.  Think Salinger is the only one who can crank out unpredictable McStories?  Think again.  I give you NM Walton’s Nine Shorter Stories.  All true and- because we all have the attention span of gnats- all 300 words or less.

Prune and Marshmallow 

While training for my first triathlon, I was working out 2 or 3 times a day.  Working so hard took a lot of juice, so I ate constantly.  Besides regular meals, I snacked unceasingly on power bars, dried fruit, and other snacks I brought in to work.  One day, I had forgotten to go shopping and only had two options for snacking: a bag of prunes and a bag of marshmallows.  I compromised and ate both.  Not realizing this was potentially a very bad decision, I decided to go for a run after work.  Exactly halfway through the run- and at the farthest point from civilization- I felt an ominous rumble in my colon, accompanied by an unpleasant childbirth-like sense of urgency.  With the gastrointestinal equivalent of an A-Bomb (S-Bomb?), I was forced to do the clenched-buttcheeks waddle for 3 fucking miles.  I had almost reached my car in peace when I spotted a pack of hotties walking the other way.  Though I was literally barely holding my shit together, I decided it would be a good idea to tell these girls I had a genetic disease to explain my odd gait.  It’s a man thing.  As they passed, I said (very casually) “I have cerebral palsy.”  I received odd looks of bewilderment and sympathy.

Flash forward 5 years: I’m on a flight to Gainesville.  The previous day, I had injured my shoulder pretty badly in a bike accident.  As I  reached my seat, I realized I lacked the strength to stow my bag in the overhead compartment.  I was holding up the plane.  For reasons unknown, I tried the same trick.  “I have multiple sclerosis,” I announced to the cabin.

Someone stowed my bag immediately.

Security Story #1

On one random flight I had checked in and was going through security.  The man in front of me was mid 50s and in a wheelchair.  He was obviously in poor physical condition and was probably 200+ pounds overweight.  Still, he said he could walk through the metal detector.  As he slowly rose and began to totter unsteadily through the portal, a significant queue had formed behind him.  Midway through his journey, the man put out a steadying hand.  This was a poor decision, as he had surrendered his rather large belt with its rather large buckle which held up his rather large pants.  Unsecured, his trousers slid down his bulbous torso, taking his underwear with them.  Now the man was pantless, bare ass hanging in the breeze and getting his dangle on for the horrified TSA attendant responsible for waving him through.  Worst of all, the man was too frail or otherwise unfit to retrieve his pants, forcing him to waddle through in the semi-nude.  The metal detector goes off and no one says a damn thing.  The final act: the gentleman, finally through the detector, bends over, giving the assembled line a good look at old browneye.  The assembled simultaneously recoil and go ‘ugh!’ as we are treated to the worst show in town.  The flasher returns to his wheelchair, acting as though he has not just mentally raped us, and moves on.  I’m the next guy through.  Clinging to some presence, I innocently ask the still-shocked attendant “do I need to go through that way too?” as I loosen my belt.

“I’ma’ hitchya wi’ mah billyclub if ya’ do,” she said.  “That was some fucked up shit.”

Security Story #2

People are fond of speculating about which celebrity they most closely resemble.  No one ever agrees on me.  I’ve gotten everything from John Candy to Jeff Corwin to Jim Carrey to Sam Sheppard.  A computer face-matching program told me I most closely resembled Bon Jovi.  Riiight.

By far the worst celebrity similarity I’ve been accused of occurred at yet another airport late in 2007.  To set this up, you have to remember that this was directly in the wake of the Natalee Holloway murder in Aruba.  I was braving the security checkpoint when an agent took a gander at my ID and did a double take.  “You sure you’re not Van der Sloot?” he asked, referring to Joran Van der Sloot, the man authorities accused of murdering Holloway.  Even though Van der Sloot had not attained the full notoriety he would ascend to by heading a sex slave operation, his picture was on TV everywhere.  And he looks like me from certain angles.

The guard was intrigued.  “Phil, there’s a guy coming back to you who looks like Van der Sloot,” he yelled to the X-ray operator.  “The killer!” he added for emphasis.  This set off all the TSA guys, who all ambled over for a look, repeating the rumor.  A side effect of this attention was a crowd of backed-up travelers who were mad at me because (A) I might be a killer and (B) I was distracting the TSA guys, thereby making them late for their flights.  I was seriously worried about a mistaken lynching.  The worst part was, I had a good joke about how 49 out of 50 coeds loved their trip to Aruba.  I was forever spoiled with the countenance of a murderer and inherently stale humor.

A Dose of One’s Own

As a high school senior, I had a lot of reasons to behave- college acceptance letter, valedictorian race, and a (to that point) clean criminal record come to mind.  This did not stop me from running a person who did not exist for student government as a protest to the obsolescence of the organization.  My non-candidate was named Hugh Jass, who ran an incredibly dirty campaign as a write-in candidate for student body president that nearly resulted in an upset victory.  This seemingly inconsequential act triggered a bizarre overreaction from the administration, who scoured the school for the culprit who dared to mock their mockery of the democratic process.  Still, the risk seemed fairly minimal; the administration wasn’t terribly competent and few knew of my role as mastermind.  Thus, it came as a tremendous surprise when I was called to the office the day after the election.  Adrift with fears that I would be questioned or possibly charged with scholastic espionage, my apprehensions deepened when I saw my mother waiting for me.  Perhaps I was in more trouble that I had bargained for.  My mother is a calm, tolerant woman who has dealt with more of my shitty pranks than she should have.  It should also be noted (A) she had helped me make campaign signs for Mr. Jass and (B) she was here to take me to a routine doctor’s appointment, one I had apparently forgotten about.  Seeing my worried face, she decided to give me a dose of my own medicine.

“Noah, they called me down for legal reasons and to give you the news myself: you’re being expelled for your little prank.  Get your stuff,” she said.  The blood drained out of my face as I saw my future washing away.  “Really?” I asked hopelessly.  “No, dumbass.  Don’t mess with mom.”

The Iceman Cometh

After finishing up my PhD I found myself needing a new job (or, more specifically, the money it provided).  Eventually I conned a gig with a guy at the University of Chicago.  The timing gave me a couple of months to find a new place to live.  I was moving from Gainesville, Florida, whose weather resembles hell with humidity to one of the most icy, bitter cold cities in the world.  There would be some adjustments.

But Chicago was on a lake.  Since I was now an officially trained scientist, I felt I was ready to live as MacGyver lived: on a houseboat.  Day after day I ran google searches for houseboats, scoured craigslist and rental agencies with the intensity that a man with a urinary tract infection searches for his medication.  Nary a houseboat was to be found.  This was confusing- I had seen the harbors of Chicago filled with boats, some of them quite large.  Was there some sort of massive waiting list for one of these coveted houseboats.

My consternation abruptly dissolved when I described my plight to one of our lab technicians who was a native of Chicago.  After cleaning up the shit he had expelled from laughing so hard, he informed me that Lake Michigan ices over each year about a mile into the lake.  Good for ice fishing, but it makes a houseboat about as useful as an asshole on your elbow.  His choice of words sent him into paroxysms of laughing, possibly resulting in him soiling himself anew.

The Black Diamond

Having never skied before, it was with a degree of apprehension that I agreed to a ski trip to Sugar Mountain in the Appalachians.  Equipment unfamiliar, I tottered about like a pig on- well- skis.  Ski school was a little help, and I was even able to make it down the bunny slope without falling before my (noticeably more talented) girlfriend suggested we hit the real slopes.  We stood in line for the lift that would take us to a green trail appropriately named Easy Street.  Sadly, no one told me the protocol for getting off the lift and, while my girlfriend eased out at the right stop, I continued onward and upward.  By the time I figured out how to safely debark myself, I was at the top trail.  “Whoopdedoo” the sign at the trailhead read, accompanied by two black diamonds.  The one or two other skiers on the run looked Olympic-caliber from where I stood.  No problem, I thought, we’ll do this slow and safe.  As instructed in ski school, I made a wedge with my skis and began easing down the trail.  For the first 5 seconds, I thought I might actually survive this.  Then the crusty snow of the Appalachians and my 300+ pounds began to overwhelm my ski wedge.  I accelerated dangerously.

I panicked like a punk bitch.  I abandoned the wedge and lunged to the right, then the left.  For a bare moment I was skiing, and it was wonderful.  Then my skis pointed directly downslope.  No brakes.  I didn’t see the mogul, but I felt it as I launched off the side of the mountain.  I was airborne for perhaps 3 seconds.  I did not stick the landing.  Then I was rolling.  And rolling.  And going with ski patrol to the hospital.

Noah Sells Out; Chokes

The scene: trip to New York City for my lady’s birthday.  Casting around for something unique to do, I signed us up to be in the cast of a talk show audience.  I now realize I might as well have taken us to get matching “Tool” tattoos, but I was young and slightly stupider than I am now.  To add insult to idiocy, the only show I can score tickets for was Ricki Lake.  It was scraping the bottom of the barrel even for daytime TV.

Everyone knows Ricki’s thing is emo.  Sitting through a makeover or a weight-loss drama would have been bad enough, but today’s show was particularly idiotic.  The title of the show was “Come Clean,” but that just scratched the surface.  The show featured two ostensibly heterosexual couples having relationship problems.  In each relationship, the woman suspected her boyfriend of cheating, which- of course- they were.  Standard fare thus far.  But the plot thickened: the ‘man’ in the relationship was actually a pre-op transsexual, bringing the added dimensions of multiple deceptions and inadvertent homosexuality to an already enriching discussion.

Midway through the show I decided I needed to get on the air.  Late in the show, an opportunity presented itself.  A producer needed two people for a segment called “audience advice” where we would counsel each couple on whether they should stay together or break up.  I pushed an old lady aside and jumped to the front of the line to volunteer.  “What’s your advice?” asked the producer.  “I will say whatever you want me to say,” I declared.  One minute later, I was giving a protracted explanation to television audiences everywhere as to why an otherwise blameless, heterosexual woman should take her lying, cheating, actually-a-woman ‘boyfriend’ back.

This was no one’s finest hour. 

Noah Saves a Life. Sorta.

Just like passing a kidney stone, college wouldn’t be complete without having to take some sort of suck-ass class like physics.  Noah don’t do physics, and while I generally keep up while we’re talking about Newtonian physics (i.e., how far does the motorcycle fly off the ramp?), when we start talking about electromagnetism and point field theory I…  [2.5 hours later, after a refreshing nap]… anyway, to pass this particular stone a little easier, I decided to take physics at the University of North Carolina over the summer.  My strategy was to find a class filled with retards and people who failed physics the first time and ride the curve without doing jack shit.  It worked brilliantly.  While enrolled, I stayed in the dorms.  One night, I strolled into our shared bathroom to take a shower.  I was preparing to leave the bathroom when I noticed a pair of feet sticking out of one of the toilet stalls.  The feet were connected to a guy who was lay prone, draped over one of the stalls with his head below the event horizon of the bowl.  He was naked, save for a thick covering of vomit about the head and shoulders.  I debated the merits of rendering aid against the natural aversion to touching a naked male corpse.  The humanitarian in me won out.  Very gingerly, I stretched out to tap his shoulder.  I needn’t have worried about discovering an asphyxiated corpse; at my touch, he came alive, hacking and muttering curses that suggested I’d harshed his mellow.  I left him to his work.

The oddest thing was this: the bathroom required a key to get in.  The guy was alone, totally nude and -thus- without pockets.  I’ve always wondered how he got there in the first place.

Twilight Zone

After losing weight, I had an entire wardrobe of giant clothes that I had no use for.  One of my roommates had a rather large boyfriend, so I loaded her up with my billowing shirts and ultra-spacious pants.  In fact, the only thing I was left with were about 20 pairs of XXXL boxers, which no dudes exchange per established man laws.  For some reason, I decided to take the underwear to work to see if I could find a bum to donate them to.  I arrived late, and was forced to park in a lot that bordered the main campus lake.  It was hot and I walked slowly, carrying my oversized underwear in a large ball.  Ahead of me, a baby alligator poked its head out of the lake, giving me the stinkeye.  At the same moment, a guy goes past heading the other way.  He’s riding a ghetto scooter and wearing a full tuxedo.  I make eye contact with alligator, give a little shrug to the tux-clad mopedestrian and hold out the gigantic ball of underwear as if to say ‘You want a piece of this?’  Without breaking eye contact, the gator slowly backed into the water and swam away.