so friday was the grand opening of the new super mall for saint louis. wanna know how big a deal it was? vern from trading spaces was making an appearance.

saturday morning was the big unveiling our very own apple store in said mall. you know what there is a big difference between? soccer moms who make an event of going to the new super mall and geeks who go to pay homage to a particular brand of computer the day there first local store opens.

earlier in the week man who screams like woman (MWSLW) asked if i was going. sure. you want to go together? sure. ok, i'll meet you at 6. for those not reading the news, this would be four full hours before the doors were to be opened. but, if you wanted a shirt (to the first 1000) you best get their at 6.

since i could make my very own shirt in the same 4 hours, i elected to not join MWSLW. when i arrived shortly before they opened the doors there was a line. there was a line so long that it went down the mall and wrapped around multiple potted trees and lengths of glass handrails blocking the way of the hustling mall-goers. in trying to get through the mass they would anxiously ask what all the ruckus was about. new apple store. what's an apple store? apple is a computer company. hmm, what are they giving away. well, shirts, but that's not why everyone is standing in line. well why then. ... there's a reason these two groups of people don't mix by choice. by the end of my wait i was simply saying "if you gotta ask, i can't explain."

and, by the way, i did get a shirt. i'm wearing it right now. have been since i got it. the next time you see me, i'll still be wearing it. i shower in my new shirt. i mean, i did wait in line and talk to all those silly humans after all. i earned this shirt.

the downtown tower i work in is, thankfully, very regimented about their bathrooms and because of this they are consistently very clean and well supplied. to maintain this standard they send cleaning guys around three to four times a day. i often pass by them while attending to my own three to four times a day duties and am always intrigued by the mechanical process in which they perform this task.

their methods are precise and systematic. if you remove the chore at hand one may call it some modern form of interpretive dance. that is until the shockingly jolly fellow walks along the galley of toilets and begins his repetitive review. he slaps the first door open, peers in, checks the toilet paper, wipes the seat, all good. he slaps the second door open, peers in, checks the toilet paper, wipes the seat, all good. he slaps the third door open, peers in and stumbles backward shielding the lower part of his face with his forearm and exclaims "oh, for the love of christ!"

so much for high art.

i wear glasses. my glasses cost more that every sock, pant, shirt and short that i own. some may think i'm using these overblown descriptors to simply add import thus emphasizing the point, but i'm not. if this were barker's showcase showdown my specs would be valued higher than my entire wardrobe. although, this info is for those who have never met me, because those that have, know this, tell me this and sadly shake their heads at this routinely.

let me tell you a story. my mother has one hobby: collecting pictures and then finding and placing them in frilly frames all valued under 7.99. for my wedding, she made two photo assortments of marty and i crammed with grainy shots of us growing up. at the reception while walking past some people hunched over these curiosities i overheard the following hushed conversation in reference to my seventh grade school picture:

man: why is he wearing shop glasses.
woman: those aren't shop glasses, those are his regular glasses.
man: oh, damn.

oh damn is right. and as i was saying, my current glasses cost more than all of my clothes combined. but it wasn't just this experience that moved me so. childhood trauma aside, i've simply never understood (some) people's logic in regard to their face hardware versus their wardrobe. assuming you are one who requires eye wear, you are wearing them daily. daily! as in everyday! and unless you are me, that super-rad sweater-vest you got from old navy or the gap or af or the other place where everyone seems to buy their clothes, it may get worn once, maybe twice and on a good day thrice a month and that's of course only seasonal wear. so in summary, many people, perhaps not you, will spend more money on five sweaters which they may, may collectively wear 30 times in a year than they would on something hanging off their face, something people actually look at, each and every day of the year. sometimes i just don't get folks. i love the differences in 'em, don't try corn-holing me here, i just don't get 'em.

and no, i will not be posting the picture in question anytime soon. i'm not that hard-up for readers just yet.

this site is know as many things to few people. my favorite moniker-maker is "he-who is-not-afraid-to-use-naughty-words-in-his-blog-ed". in addition to his current descriptor of "the whole life catalog", he previously referred to my site as "troy has his whole dang life online". thanks for the kind and apt descriptors f-bomb ed.

in addition i've recently gotten the impression, from another blogger, that i've been neglecting my viewing audience. to this, i agree. i have been taking you for granted and depriving you of the details you have become accustomed and addicted to. so in attempt to live up to big ed's nomenclature and to push the plunger for buddy james' awaiting needle, allow me to share some details from my recent life to get everyone up to speed.

more recently than i'd like to admit i wore the same pair of pants 23 days in a row. and, if you're asking the same question marty did (have you washed those this month?), the answer is a confident no.

when not wearing the 23-day pants, i wore the same pair of shorts, which i will call, for simplicity sake, the 23-day shorts. and again the answer to you and marty's question would be a second confident no.

i kicked a bella-discarded pickle part under the stove instead of throwing it in the garbage.

crouching near the ground in my work clothes i saved 8 earthworms from a post rain sun and droves of killer ants, despite many concerned looks by passerby's.

i recently watched the complete first season of OZ in two days. that would be 13 hours worth of humor for the uninitiated.

after the neighbor's dog licked my hand, i wiped the slobber off on the back of bella's shirt. (for those gasping at my lack of respect, allow me to report that she didn't seem to mind).

so as you can see, all's well and going as expected in troy-ville. thanks for your patience and continued intrigue and i promise (meaning i will try as long as it is not inconveniencing to me) to keep you better apprised of my happenings.

we keep our microwave in the basement. have for years. and the years before that, we didn't have one. when company is over and they want to heat up their coffee or warm a plate of food, we take their morsel, disappear into the basement and return with a piping hot rendition of said item. you might think we would have to explain this a lot, but most of the people we hang out with surpass this paltry idiosyncrasy tenfold and don't think anything of it: "oh the nuke-box is in the basement, sure, where else would it be?"

allow me to proffer the following as evidence. some couple friends of ours tv lives on one of those black, wheeled audio visual carts in the garage ... a disconnected garage in at a home located in the country. as a rule they don't watch tv. as a helper to this rule, that can't keep the tube in the house, lest they may break this mandate. but when company stays with them, in comes the cart with the shiny picture box. here is where you get to envision my grown and portly friend pushing an a.v. cart across a grassy and bumpy backyard into the home so said visitors don't think them foolish or a tad on the eccentric side.

a situational side-effect of this routine comes from the effort required to return the cart to it's spiderwebby home all the way on the other side of the lawn. in getting it in, there is incentive, company and all. in getting it out all there is effort, and work and a hundred pound pain in the ass on wheels. given this, sometimes the tv cart out-endures the company. this is bad. this is very bad. because as you can imagine, there's a good reason the cart lives next to the family automobile.

i received the following email in regard to a sign left by my friend's wife, taped to the tv during its latest tour in their home: given my friends unwillingness to even check the actual writing on the sign for the above email, i'm thinking they will be watching the next super bowl wherever the tv now rests.

if you wandered into the what i'm hearing section, you may have noticed it has a new look. in spending the last few days hacking on that, i devoted many cycles on listening to music, thinking about music, organizing my music and even laying hands on some new music. in fact, this month's offering comes from bookguy. now this unemployed bloke jet sets all over the planet and the one dirge he returns with has a total of nine unique words in it, and they're not even in english. sheesh. and, of what little spanish i know, these scant words don't even seem right. i asked bookguy about this and he replied: what can i say, bookguy's smart. bookguy also doesn't question native speakers on matters of their own tongue. like i said, smart. once satisfied with its grammatical correctness i listened to this nine-word, four-minute song on repeat for one hour. i'm smart too.

well, anyway, back to these random thoughts on music. one thing i recalled dealt with how my mother never knocked before coming into my room. any women reading this, please just accept that you should not walk straight into teenage boys rooms without some sort of fanfare or ceremony announcing the visit. you'll will hear things going on behind the door before it opens. this is good. you want this to be happening. ultimately i'm just trying to save you the embarrassment my mother suffered when she burst into my room and found me standing in front of a full length mirror singing and dancing to the Grease soundtrack. i was all over every move from the Greased Lightning bit, using my bed as the car. regrettably, i had the music up so loud i didn't hear her enter and continued the mini-production until her laughter overwhelmed my Optimus speaker 'system'. and, yes i had the whole arm pointing and hip bucking thing all worked out too. i don't play when i'm getting my greased lightning going.

amazingly given this trauma, somehow, years later, i was able to overcome the shame of my mother's invasion enough to ask a girl to move around funny with me on the dance floor at a junior high, all-stag affair. jenna something conceded (astoundingly) and we weaved our way through the crowd to the beginnings of hipsway's honeythief. we settled on a spot and marked it as ours by stopping, facing one another and then moving about in a seizing manner. my mother wasn't around so my body was quick to do what it does. falling into the zone, i drifted somewhere else, my head rolling back looking upwards at the tile ceiling and the random streamers coming down as my body fought an invisible enemy. i was really starting to let go, opening it up some might say, but who couldn't, this is hipsway we're talking about. but again, regrettably, my introduction to dance with other humans was cut short when my thrusting hand accidentally struck my partner in the ribcage leaving her slightly bent, holding her side and breathing irregularly. as people stopped to look and a smallish circle formed i could tell that some people may have been embarrassed by this development but those people would not have spent a moment of their life standing in their underwear, soaked with sweat, a musical playing behind them and shouting at their mother to stop laughing, get out of their room and to try knocking next time.

i have a relatively gnarly bruise on the top of my left hand. it's over my index and middle finger, starts at the knuckle and oblongs its way to the top of my thumb. i like having this bruise just as i like having scabs. it is a sign that something has occurred and therefore something has been done.

while talking to people or riding in the elevator i like to show my bruise to them. not in an obvious and stupid kind of way where i hold up my hand and say "did you see that i have a bruise on my hand," but instead where i bid someone good day while testing my shave by rubbing my crippled hand along my cheek, soiled part facing the audience of course. it then occurs to me that it has probably occurred to them that i not only do not have any facial hair but also look like i couldn't even produce any facial hair which leaves me wondering if they are wondering why the guy standing next to them seems to be making love to his face with his own amorous and apparently broken hand.

i've concluded that this is not the exact impression i'm looking for so i'm back to just holding my hand out and polling the group if they noticed my bruise. most have not, until i hold it up for display at least.

even though these encounters are not my first choice, i'm still oddly stated in the end.

dearmitt.com's most eligible bachelor, the dr of diss, stevie williams himself, is no longer eligible and will shortly no longer be a bachelor, simply leaving the 'most' descriptor to describe him which i think he will retain with little issue. stephen and his bride-almost-to-be floated through town for dinner and stories after visiting his family in walnut grove a few months back. after leaving, and i never told steve this, marty and i compared notes and each voiced that we thought rachel was a bit of blend of marty and i thus allowing her to stroll about as an astoundingly bright and witty and wholly attractive and quintessentially pleasant young lady.

and this engagement holds special import for me because i occasionally feared the worst for stevie ever finding that one right lady given a horrible event which occurred in college. during a night of drunken tomfoolery in the dorms, steve found himself sleeping on an elevator, naked and adorning black permanent marker art on his rear quarters which included several inordinately large daisy's, a farm house in the distance and words defining who was here, and there, and basically just about anywhere an arrow could be drawn. and did i mention that he visited every floor of the tower in this comfortable state before regaining enough wit to return to his own.

at a later point in time i thought steve was drawn to medicine to divine a method of permanently removing the faint remnants of those indelible glyphs from his person. i gather he succeeded in that i don't know anyone would necessarily pursue a relationship with someone who's body logged a preverbal who's who of hudson hall in the 90-91 academic term.

good work steive-poo (and that by the way is what i wrote in elongated cursive on his inner thigh ... although it was two full years after the naked elevator incident).

I have recently been told I have a responsibility to my readers. This disclosure closely paralleled my discovery that I had readers. All very exciting.

I was recently telling someone of a recent trip I took to north carolina to surprise my best bud Bookpimp on his 30th birthday. The person I was speaking to turned on me and in a highly exasperated manner proclaimed, "But you said (on your website) you couldn't go and that you were sending him a present, which was going to be late might I add." (12.28.01 entry)

Well yes but all that was a ploy to make pimp think I wasn't going when I really was.

And, just when in the hell were you going to tell us?

Hmm. Soon. I swear. I was just about to. The fact of the matter is on my way there in the airport I overheard this great exchange in the bathroom between a small boy and his father. At that moment I decided to make a photo essay of sorts where I would combine photos from the trip with things I overheard on the trip. My initial plan was to get 30 of each in honor of bookpimp's special day, but alas my friends aren't as stimulating as I initially thought and so we have 15 photos coupled with 15 quotes for a cumulative 30. There is no order or credits given. The order is irrelevant and the orators know who they were which should be enough so Bookpimp is 30 is just a lean collection of images and words which I hope you enjoy at some level.

And, pimp has his present now. And, he seems to like it. although instead I think for a present I could have simply told him that I wouldn't ask him if it feels different being 30, because a lot of people ask that, and there really is no answer, I guess because there really is no question but I guess it does feel different in a sense in that you get asked a lot more inane questions than when you were 29. See you at 40 to see if it's any different than 39.

Last night Man Who Screams Like Woman (MWSLW) and myself went to our local apple users group to see what they had to offer. We were thoroughly excited and had largish expectations of what we would find. Upon arriving at the session and nabbing some seats, we quietly took in the scene with sullen faces. After several quiet minutes, MWSLW leaned over to me and whispered, "So what do you think?" I responded, "I think we somehow have landed on the set of Cocoon."

Everyone was over sixty but us and this kid in the back row whose speaking voice greatly resembled the synthesized computer guy from War Games (Do you want to play a game?). I almost asked the facilitator to just point me to the shuffleboard lanes so I could get my stick on before the rheumatism set in and I'd have to settle for pinochle on the veranda with professor plum, floyd the barber and one of the gabor girls.

But, as karma would have it, during our dejected departure from the meeting and in the middle of our mutterings, we found a gay magazine, the adult variety, in the street that seemed to have been specially crafted for that lonely trucker away from home. And, as luck would have it, that's me. I mean that's us. I mean that's the most surreal evening I've had in some time. Come to think of it, the only thing that would have made the evening more surreal is if said magazine had catered to elderly gay truckers.

while you all have been scrambling to get your everyman photos in, i've been shooting a few of my own around. tonight i received an email from one of the recipients telling me 'Congratulations! Your photograph has been added to the mirror project.' look at me walking the walk. i guess it's about time because i think i have the talking the talk down pretty well. anyway, you can see my mirror here should you be so inclined. unfortunately, for my regulars this is recycled product. sorry. but it is currently 1:51am which is early compared to when i originally sent them my submission, so suck it up and be happy for us here.

i took my Computer Programming Theory final earlier this week. a few people have asked about the experience and if i'm all about being a java guru now. sure. why not. i've feigned worse. but, the major flaw here is in the question being asked. it's not always about where we are in the end, but what, if any, memorable moments we incurred along the way. because it is, in the end, these moments that will keep us warm and grinning in our old age. so instead of boasting on the net result of this experience allow me to instead speak to one of the alpha moments over this last academic season.

my professor was a portly fellow, santa claus portly. this is good in an educator. he also oftentimes wore oxford shirts with a thin v-neck sweater on top as an accent piece also fitting the role. this is also good because you want your instructor to look instructorish. every class before lecturing the prof would run through some prepatory steps seemingly to get his game face on. these rituals included checking his silver chalk pencil for chalk, patting his shirt pocket for his red light beam laser, sliding his 64 oz quick trip beverage towards the rear of the desk and lastly, always lastly, hitching up his pants to their rightful place in preparation for the pacing and moving about that was moments from happening. now, i'm sure it goes without saying that it is here, in this final step, where the fun begins.

first, he would carefully fold the sweater up exposing the drooping belt line as well as the lowest buttons of the oxford. this creates a half-shirt kind of look (anyone remember those?) with the sweater. he then digs his thumbs inside his trousers at about 10 and 2, slightly bends his knees, causing a break in his legs, and then stands straight up, pulling sharply on his pants and leaning back with the flow. this process, when complete, could effectively raise his equator anywhere from 5-9 inches, depending on the given starting point, amount of flex in the knees and energy exerted on the upward lift. to conclude the ceremony, the sweater is neatly folded back down concealing the work area and smoothed out to quell any evidence that might point to the event.

i reckon this should not be a completely mesmerizing experience for me, but every time it occurred, i got the guilty feeling that not only was i witnessing some personal act, but that i was front and center for a terribly obscene ablution which was not meant for me. in fact, i would avert my gaze, but my leaning eyes betrayed this intention, acting on their own, committed to not missing a single stroke of this well-practiced and highly appreciated dance. so in answer to your question, i'm now, as can be seen, one java coding fool.

I shower naked. I also sleep naked and I'm naked when first getting dressed. I talked with a guy recently who is never naked (except in the shower which really doesn't count). I mean this guy is single, lives alone and he gets dressed in the bathroom after bathing. Now perhaps it's just that my body has never acclimated to the St Louis humidity or that I'm in constant denial about our clothes conscious society, but I like to air the parts out every now and again, you know walk around and pick up the house, watch a sitcom, read a book, everything but fry bacon. It's liberating. Therapeutic if you will.

In fact, in my old third story apartment I felt immune to gazing passerby's and was nude as much as not. The only people who had any kind of view into my place was the third story apartment across the way. And, as I recall the only time this was an issue was one night when I was standing in the dining room reading an entertainment weekly, naked, and looked up and discovered my neighbor, his girlfriend and two dinner guest all turned in their seats or craning their heads around and looking at me from their dining room. Now one would think that either they or I would break the gaze to diffuse the oddish moment, but no one did. We all held each others eye, or at least I think eye, for about 30 seconds until I finally turned the page of my magazine and slowly walked into the living room to finish my article while lazing on the futon. Being a fan of memorable moments, I like to think that they, as I, remember that unique isntance still today.

I know I said I was done, but while working on today's entry, it just didn't seem right. I received the following in my email and thought it offered a unique perspective on this ordeal, meaning it's not a political analyst or re-playing the same 10 shots of the actual carnage. As for if this concludes my entries on this or not, it would seem apparent that I cannot honestly say. We'll see. Meanwhile please share in this personal essay, The Price We Pay.

I have this thing with hand lotion, skin creams or essentially anything that makes my hands greasy. One of the quadrillion times Marty obtained poison ivy in the back yard she asked me to apply some soothing ointment to her back. I looked at her back and then the bottle of murky murk she handed me. I pondered the request to touch evil substance A to evil substance B with nothing more than my left or right hand. I dealt out five spots on Marty's back, smartly distancing each glop for even coverage. I then took the opening of the bottle and began pushing the mounds of goo around to all of the affected areas.

What are you doing?!?

I'm putting this stuff on your back.

You have to rub it in.

I am rubbing it in.

With your hand, not with the bottle.

What's the difference?

One is what normal people do and one is what insane people do.

Yeah, I know all of those crazy people getting this stuff all over their hands, that's why they're crazy.

Oh forget it. Give me that.

Marty sat up, snatched evil substance B from my hand and went into the bathroom to tend to evil substance A on her own. I wanted to help. I sincerely did. But, I sat on the bed unable to get the thought of either of those contaminants out of my head and the epidermal mayhem that was occurring just down the hall behind the half closed bathroom door didn't ease my anxiety. After a few minutes she returned looking a tad peeved. I asked if I could help, she said that she was just fine on her own. If she could have done it herself I'm not certain why she asked for my assistance to begin with. I decided not to mention this foible to her. She did have poison ivy and all.

I spoke to Bosnia Chris today over his web phone and had commented on the recent update where they were climbing up some mountain and one of the people took a tumble and cut his wrist impressively open [photo not for the weak of gut]. I conveyed to Chris that had this happened to me, a flight for life chopper would have had to escort me to the nearest trauma center. He simply laughed it off and said how they didn't have a first aid kit and had to improvise. Their makeshift solution began with a tampon, which was applied directly to the wound and served as the initial gauze. This was followed up with a wrap of toilet paper and then a sandwich bag to keep all the fixings in place. Once applied Chris escorted his mate down the mountain and to more traditional medical care.

I asked how he could not divulge those details when retelling the story on the web. He said that he didn't feel comfortable putting the word tampon on his site (tampon, tampon, tampon). After calling him gutless I said that I would share this juicy detail on my own in that I've already freely used the term (tampon, tampon, tampon) a number of times and it appears in my working journal an additional 24 times.

Furthermore, I'm not sure how I would have fared in this fellow's situation. You see, I have a immense phobia towards this and other like hygiene products. If you've ever meandered down the pink and blue isle at the supermarket or department store, the smell emanating from these shrink-wrapped packages is just not right. It's like in math where two negatives make a positive. The stuff is just too clean, too natural that they are actually unclean and unnatural. But, in typical fashion I believe in getting in the face of that which terrifies you/me and this is my vehicle for this aggressive posturing. Man, just imagine if I was born a non-tripod.

excerpt from Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

A fortunate few of you have already heard tell of my similar experience while visiting the nearby and ominous Amish country, mid-west chapter. For those who questioned my motives for sharing this taboo yarn, I now present the academic work of Mr. Sedaris as my evidence that it is noteworthy, it is interesting, and it is very, very funny.

The word 'turd' appeared six times in this short story. I actually had to add it to my word processor's local dictionary for convenience.

While Microsoft Word does not recognize the word turd, it can automagically change "Ameria" to "America".

Nicholson Baker, in his work the Fermata, referred to the male member approximately 67 times and never used the same descriptor twice.

One time while showering I had a persistent hair tickling my upper lip. I would push it out of the way only to have it return moments later. While attending to my post-shower ablutions the nuisance returned. I leaned into the mirror to locate it and saw the pest sneaking into my mouth (This wasn't greatly unusual in that I've always been shaving challenged and have missed many a chin or cheek hair for weeks at a time). I trapped the nuisance between a forefinger and thumb and gave it a tug. To my bewilderment the result did not register on my lip though, but in my nose. I leaned closer and pulled the hair directly away from my face and sure enough after the visible inch it snuck up into my right nostril.

Being in college at the time, I considered leaving this unique strand in place to astound and impress my classmates with but after a moment of lucidity gave it a hearty tug and dropped the surprisingly stout root into the sink. Later in class I momentarily panicked at the thought that this coarse black hair had been hanging out of my nostril for weeks. I rapidly deduced this was impossible because even if people did not possess the social experience to address such a fix there certainly would have been gasps of horror and fleeing children in my presence. So it obviously must have been around for some time, like since age twelve, growing in an upward direction only to be dislodged by an allergy based sneeze or a healthy blow of the nose. I don't know this to be fact but it is the explanation I'm running with still today. Furthermore, I've yet to purchase one of those silver claw contraptions used for internal hair removal but have also not ruled it out of my bathroom arsenal just yet.

This guy in my neighborhood when I was a kid used to bite his toenails. He'd grab an ankle and pull his foot up to his face, crane his head forward, clench the front of his teeth down on the corner of a nail and pull his head back taking a sliver of the nail with him. He would then look away and spit the shard into the air and then go down for another pass. I'm not embarrassed to admit that this is one of the coolest feats I've ever seen.

When I was 13 I found myself at the pool with several friends. We were at that annoy everyone else in the water age where we'd perform cannonballs and engage in bewildering splash fights without regard for other pool-goers. Upon arriving at our destination and losing our non-swimming garb, the first challenge of the day was to see who could swim underwater the furthest. So we all charged to the side of the pool and performed awkward dives over the little tikes hanging on the side and began a frenzied race along the pool floor, weaving around the legs of the less active.

Near the other side, contestant's heads started surfacing, immediately looking around to see how they fared. I popped up a respectable second and was grinning at my accomplishment when one of my cohorts pointed at me and said, "You were supposed to swim underwater DeArmitt." I looked at him startled thinking some deception was at hand to pilfer my silver. "What are you talking about, of course I swam underwater". His reply was one I would never forget and that would haunt me for many school pictures to come. "Then why's your hair dry?"

I raised my hand to feel my head only to find he was right. While everyone else's hair was matted cleanly to their foreheads, mine still leapt wildly away from my skull. It was at that precise moment that the discovery process began, a process that ever confirmed that I was not like all the other boys in that I, unlike them, had water repellant hair.

Justin Yunke can't sleep at night. People are mistaking my friend and his domain for the popular Puerto Rican rainforest, Yunke National Forest. He regularly receives inquiries about the park and pedestrian requests for information. The major problem here, a great majority of these inquiries are written in Spanish, a language he has not mastered. In defense, he tried responding to said messages in the most basic English possible, explaining that he was neither the actual park nor in any way affiliated with it. This routinely resulted in more email from the original sender, not understanding his reply. Frustrated, Justin attempted a new tactic. For every email he received in this foreign tongue he simply replied with the following: "Yo tengo el tocadisco" which translates to "I have the record player". This has surprisingly cured his dilemma and saves him from fending off these redundant queries. Justin es muy intelligente!

A pal shared a story with me about a friend of their family who was a pilot for one of the major airlines. His route ran from St. Louis to New York and he regularly killed time in the big apple. One day while walking about town a young man bumped into him quite hard on the sidewalk of a crowded street. He briefly glared at the fellow but kept on. About ten paces later he instinctively patted his chest jacket for his wallet and found it to be gone. He whipped around and yelled at the kid who turned startled and when the very tall man, fully adorned in his pilot's outfit, began moving towards him, took off running. This stout and athletic bombardier soon caught up to the youth, pushed him against the wall and barked "The Wallet!!!" The kid immediately relinquished the item and the captain pocketed it and moved on impressed with his resolve to so readily correct the problem.

Later that day after returning to his hotel room, he began emptying his pockets and realized before dropping even the first item that he was staring down at his own worn and familiar wallet on the table which he apparently left behind. The story goes on that he later returned the victim's wallet, unaltered, in a manila envelope with no return address on it.

Now while the original conveyer of this tale seemed quite sincere, every time I tell it to someone, it greatly smacks of things that urban legends are made of. To date, I've never had anyone call me on it which typically happens with such tales, nor have I had someone else report hearing the scenario in regard to another friend of a distant relation. Regardless of its legitimacy, it stands as one of my favorite yarns.

>Many have asked, some have received, but none are sated when it comes to the fabled tale of BirdMan. Always aiming to please I can no longer deny the masses what is rightfully theirs. So I present to the dearmitt.com community the first and only available printing of the happenings and events that transpired on that oppressive July 3rd day on the Arch grounds of downtown St. Louis. Without further delay I invite you to personally experience The Legend of the Birdman.

I overheard a few teachers Marty works with reminiscing about some of the best pranks pulled in the school over the years. While many were fairly pedestrian, one stood out as the inspired work of a true craftsman. Several years back a rather anonymous student, who I will call Joe, informed one of his teachers, who I will call Mr. Kent, that his family was moving and the next day would be his last. For whatever reason, Mr. Kent devised a scheme and asked Joe and a fellow faculty member to participate.

On the following day in what would be Joe's last class (unbeknownst to all present), Mr. Kent entered the room with a principal in tow and advised the governing teacher that they needed to speak to Joe. Joe started frantically looking around and began pleading with his current teacher to not let them take him. The conspirators then went to Joe's seat and forcibly removed him while he white-knuckled the desk, not letting go. They ultimately tore him loose and carried him out of the room while he screamed and begged in protest. The door slammed shut as they exited and that was the last anyone ever saw of Joe.

As I said, the inspired work of a genius.

I started watching Party of Five in its second to last season. Soon after, I made the immense error in judgment of telling some guys that I had a romantic dream involving Claudia Salinger (Lacey Chabert). At the time I was watching the show, she was getting ready to go off for college. What I didn't realize was that for many true fans who have been with the show from the start, these guys included, Claud started as a precocious whelp of like 6 who used to sleep in a tent in the living room. They mentioned this to me amidst guffaws but the actual import of their mockery didn't hit until I caught a rerun where she was in this tent-phase. I immediately grasped the felonious appearance of my tale and immediately sought them out to retract and explain away my earlier confession hence putting the legend to rest. But being friends of mine and possessing a wicked sense of humor, years later I opened a wedding card to find the following memento inside.