Lessons learned

“Marta, the car is in the garage,” I paused for a few seconds and listened to the phone, there was no response, so I said it again, “Marta, the car is in the garage.”

When I first moved to Seattle many years ago I would get my haircut by Rumplestiltskin St. Croix once every six weeks for 24 dollars. This went on for about a year when I realized that my routine went something like this. I would stop in at Rumplestiltskin St. Croix’s shop, get my haircut, pay him, ride my bike home, look in the mirror, hate my new haircut, take out some electric clippers and buzz all my hair off. About 6 weeks later my hair was long enough to require a new cut and I would find some time to stop in at the shop of one Rumplestiltskin St. Croix and the cycle would start all over.

After a year of wasting 24 dollars every six weeks like clockwork, I removed the part of the cycle where I stopped by the St. Croix shop and just began buzzing my hair off. I’d like to say that I invested that 24 dollars every 6 weeks and since that time those investments have paid off to the tune of some 17 million dollars. That would not be true.

What is true is that no matter what sort of hair style I asked Rumplestiltskin St. Croix to concoct on the top of my head, he always found a way to make me look foolish. I hated Rumplestiltskin St. Croix with a passion. I still do. He was the first of many. While I don’t hold onto the hate I felt for Mr. St. Croix, I started to see a pattern and I was to learn a valuable lesson then that has followed me through my life.

For a while I was a stay at home dad, this was many years ago, when it was unusual to see a father with his young children, and it was very unusual to see a father with as many young children as I had, which was many, at this point the actual number escapes me. There were a lot. At the time we lived in a rural area outside of Seattle and someone unbeknownst to me notified the local television station of the oddity of a father who actually stays home and cares for his hordes of children. The talentless hack of an airheaded bumblebee reporter called me one day and asked if he might join me for a day of “fathering” and if his crew could video tape me. Sure I said, why not.

A Wednesday soon after I was trailed by a sloppy crew of obese know nothings and this blow dried dimwit as the kids and I played at a park, painted pictures in our living room and had peanut butter and banana sandwiches. At some point the idiot had me sit down while my baby slept in my cradling arms and asked me some questions. A day or so later I witnessed my public humiliation as the snarky shithead of a human being mocked and snidely made fun of everything we did on a daily basis because I was a grown man doing these absurd child like things. What an immature oaf I must be he seemed to be saying to his audience of equally retarded and intellectually imbalanced morons.

He was doing a live shot from a park near my house and the camera came back to him as unknown families were picnicking behind and he ended with, “that’s it from here, back to you in the studio, reporting from the wilds of surburbia, get me out of here (big fake grin) I’m Rumplestiltskin O’Brien.” The studio hosts asked him if was going to be safe and he just guffawed and said he had a crayon if things got out of hand and all the empty suits with their fake tans and non-functioning brains laughed at their own jokes. Another Rumplestiltskin making my life miserable.

A few years ago I started a small cattle rustling business in Montana. I know, it sounds illegal and my lawyer refuses to allow me to say anything else, except that it may indeed have some aspect that was technically on the line of illegality, but the fact is, I was good on a horse and my business partner, one Rumplestiltskin Feingold had a system. See, Feingold had come up with some sort of mathematical calculation. If we were able to rustle one cow from every farm in Montana, by the end of cow season we would have close to ten thousand cows. The plan would be, sell them on the open market for 100 dollars a cow, far below the going rate for prime beef, and pocket the money. I am not good at math, but Rumplestiltskin Feingold promised me upwards of 500 dollars for my incredible riding and roping skills.

Needless to say, I worked my ass off, but in the end I roped and rustled well over 10 thousand high grade triple A cows from a variety of fields in and around the dilapidated farmlands of Montana. Feingold was able to arrange sales of all but one of the cows, which I was forced to keep as a house pet, whom I still have grazing in my backyard and I still lovingly call Fat Momma because that bitch does nothing but eat and moo. How much money did Rumplestiltskin Feingold split with me after taking in well over 17 million in illegal profits? Eleven dollars. That’s true, I get a fat gassy obese cow and 17 dollars, Rumplestiltskin Feingold waddled away with well over 16 million, 900 thousand dollars in profits.

I was in a bar about 6 months ago in the Paris Airport, on my to somewhere exotic and a guy sat down next to me, asked me what I was drinking and I said I’d just finished a shot of tequila. He flagged the bartender and said, “I’d like a shot of tequila and get one for my friend here,” and he pointed at me, although I was not his friend, I was just sitting at the bar waiting for my flight.

I did turn towards him and at that point I did recognize his face. Everyone would if you buy any sort of men’s shaving product. That chiseled jaw line. He has been in every Esquire Magazine, Men’s Health, Men’s Workout, Good Looking Men’s Sports Digest and the list is endless. If you have read any magazine that relates to men in any form in the last 2-3 years, there can be no doubt you have seen his handsome and chiseled features selling you a variety of shaving products and colognes. I put my hand out and introduced myself, he shook my hand and said, “hey, my names Rumple, Rumplestiltskin.”

I stood up immediately, without saying another word and walked away from both an hour of chatting with a super model and free tequila, two things I would never have thought possible.

This past week I was at the local Apple Store because my new MacBook Pro was acting up and I needed some help. I had made an appointment online using the super useful Apple website and I checked in when I got there. My name was soon called, such is the efficiency of the Apple Store. (You did guess right, this is a paid commercial plug). A young man asked if he could help and hanging around his neck was one of those necklace things with a name tag dangling at chest level. “Yes, I think you can, see,” I paused, searching for his name, because I figured we should become fast friends since I am a computer fool and I was going to need all sorts of help setting up my new MacBook Pro. I found the employee ID card and right there, of course in the middle was his name, Rumplestiltskin. I continued, “actually, I am going to need someone else to help me.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I will need someone else. I can not work with you. I’m sorry.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“I can not say anything else. Please, another Mac Genius.”

That was it. Off he went and soon enough a young Asian guy named Tang was helping me.

This morning I got a call from Rumplestiltskin Kaminski. I know that because when I answered the phone, he said, “hi, this is Rumplestiltskin Kaminski.” So I responded with (in my deepest of Spanish accents), “Marta, dee car is in dee garage,” I paused for a few seconds and listened to the blankness of the dead air coming from the phone, there was no response, so I said it again, but this time very slowly, “Marta, dee car is in dee garage.” Then I hung up the phone, turned off the ringer, ran a hot bath and drank some tea.