The Silver Tongued Devil

Today is Brother R's birthday. I don't have a lot of money these days, so I thought I would use this blog to pay tribute to him. When I first started writing this blog, I made him read it so that I could get his approval before circulating it among the masses. He loves to write. He even published his own magazine.

This magazine, The Trucktacular, was a huge success. He only stopped doing it because it became too much work to do on his own. It was pretty much a blog in paper form. He filled it with stories about people he knew. He had a question and answer section with his dwarf character from World of Warcraft whose answer to everything included use of an axe. There were interviews with random people in his life including his 7 year old daughter. There was a recount of his weekly basketball game that was retold in a way that even I, a total sportsophobe, looked forward to reading. The best was a monthly in depth account of a local gang war titled, "The Corporation Vs. The Working Man." He allowed us a rare insight into the gritty rivalry that had pitted his box store warehouse co-workers against his brother and wife's office coworkers. There were beat downs, kidnappings and turf invasions as each gang tried to establish their superiority. There are not many published authors who can make me laugh as hard as I did reading those accounts.

I just can't sit here and describe his writing. I am going to reprint my favorite episode for the rest of you. Please note that his style is to use everyone's real names as well as nicknames making the stories are more personal. I do the opposite in my blog so I will just use nicknames wherever possible and initials when they are not. Mostly because I haven't even met some of these people and don't particularly want to get sued. Without further ado today's surprise (as much to him as anyone else) guest writer Brother R.

The Corporation Vs. The Working Man
Tales of a Secret War
Episode 2 (In Episode 1, The Lockbox Corporation had gone to Bullseye Mart and was attacked with various products by The Truckabee gang.)

Disclaimer: Corporation names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The Truckabees knew that they had started an all out war with The Lockbox Corporation and knew they were always going to be in danger. The day would come where a bloody unneeded battle would take place and people would die. Cobra could not let this happen. He knew that if he went alone to the Lockbox Corporation headquarters he might be able to reach some kind of truce with his brother. He also thought that since it was during business hours it would be less likely to get a beat down.

As he waited in the lobby for MF to come down, he was noticeably nervous. Ding. The elevator doors opened and the younger F brother stood inside. But he was not alone. His "friend" MC was with him along with a man called EB. EB was a man that had a past with Cobra. Once friends, they turned into bitter enemies over a questionable homerun call at a whiffle ball tournament. EB swore it cleared the fence and was in fair territory while Cobra thought it was the opposite. Needless to say this was an explosive relationship.

"I thought maybe we could reach a truce, so that none of your people would have to miss any work time." Cobra spoke with an arrogant smile.

"How bout this?" EB leaped across the room and slapped a figure four leg lock on him instead. MF ran over and dropped an elbow right on top of his head for good measure. Cobra looked up at the receptionist, hoping that she was on the phone with the police so that a little justice might prevail. He was quite shocked to see her laughing and pointing as the Lockbox employees imposed their will on him. Finally, MC ran over and said that they should stop before they went too far. Then he laughed, kicked Cobra in his rock hard abs and slapped him in his face.

"You guys wanna throw soup cans at people?" Matt asked as he opened a thermos and began to dump it out on a now semi-conscious Cobra. "Well, here is some soup. And it's split pea. HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

I guess it was clear in the mind of Cobra that there was going to be no truce. This thing had already become more explosive than even he had thought. As he crawled out the doors of the enormous office building, he had but one thing on his mind. Revenge!

Cobra struggled to get to his car, but finally did make it. He grabbed out his cell, and placed a call to his colleague, The Incredible Bulk. The Bulk couldn't believe his ears. A three on one beat down? That was more Truckabee style than anything. "Don't worry chief, I got the payback taken care of."

"Hello," Bulk said on one end of the phone. "Yeah, we have a bit of a situation. Yeah, they got cobra. Three on one. I know, that's more our style. OK I am on my way to pick you up."

4:55 PM Lockbox corporation Headquarters

Work was over for MF and he was on his way out of the building headed to his car. It was dark now and there was a weird feeling in the air. Unfortunately for MF he didn't park in the parking garage. No, it was too full, so he parked down the road. This had the mark of trouble written all over it.

"Hello MF." A dark and mysterious voice came out of the bushes. "I hear you like to fight unfair wars against solid citizens of this country. Well I am here to even the score up."

A tasty guitar riff began to play. The Elbow jumped out of the bushes with guitar in tow. Behind him, tripping while exiting the bushes was TruckaD. He had some hot bacon in his hand. "These odds look a little bit better." Cobra was speaking with The Bulk at his side.

"You think I didn't know you Truckalosers would be out here?" MF snapped his fingers. MC and EB jumped out from behind the bushes on the other side of the street. (Man, there are a lot of bushes in Salem.) Then he whistled and two women jumped out of the backseat of MF's car. It was Cobra's wife, EF and her BFFL SM.

The line in the sand was drawn and each group was trying to stare a hole right through the other. Just then The Elbow started a solo on his sweet musical instrument of choice. The Truckabees seemed almost possessed now. Their eyes were red and they didn't look like themselves. TruckaD threw his hot greasy bacon and hit MC right in the face. "My eyes!" MC screamed. "You got bacon grease in my eyes."

EB was now looking right at The Elbow and started playing air guitar to some KISS song he had in his head. The Elbow stopped to check out how frickin' sweet EB's moves were. That was all the chance EF and SM needed. EF pulled The Elbow's hair and SM tried to scratch out his eyeballs.

Seeing his opportunity Cobra grabbed MF and held him as The Bulk was about to take a vicious swing. But then a voice was heard by a man passing by. "Hey guys, what you up to?"

It was DM, SM's husband. "Yes!" Both SM and Cobra yelled at the same time. "What do you mean yes?" SM asked. "He is my husband and he will fight on our side."

"Your crazy." Cobra told the delusional Mrs. M. "He is my best friend and a former Bullseye Mart employee, he is obviously going to fight on our side."

"Well?" SM asked as she peered into his soul. "You have to decide."

"Yeah buddy," Cobra pleaded. "You are going to have to pick a side."

THE END

(OK, I will at least resolve the major cliff hanger with the first bit of Episode 3, "Danny's Decision" since none of you probably have access. As for the battle, no one ever really wins a fight.)

Episode 3

DM was deemed The Franchise by Cobra back in the late nineties because of the promise he showed right from the beginning. These two kids became the best of friends right from day one. They spent countless hours playing PlayStation and running plays down on the Courthouse basketball floor. But his life was now with his wife, SM. How could friendship compete with love? I mean sure Cobra and The Franchise just stood there between the proverbial rock and a hard place. What could he do? He had to break someone's heart. So he did the only logical thing. He turned and ran as fast as he could and he didn't stop until he got home. And even then he went straight into his bedroom and hid under the bed.

NOW THE END

So, that is my brother. I am going to send him this link for his birthday. Please take some time to make a comment below to wish him a Happy Birthday and tell him how awesome you think he is.

I love you bro!

55 Shopping Days Until My Birthday!

This will be the first year I have ever taken my birthday off from work. My mom will be in town that week and if I ever do get back to work, I figured it would be the only day I could probably guilt them into letting me take. Birthdays trump mono. Most everyone I know takes a day off for their birthday. I don't get it personally. It's the one day that everyone has to be nice to you. In my office they put up an banner at your desk to announce it. Then, even the people who don't like you have to say something nice or avoid you altogether. Either way it is a win-win.

Ever since high school, I have big on the notification process. There are people I haven't seen in years who could probably still tell you when my birthday is. I make sure everyone has plenty of warning. I like to start about three weeks out. A month just seems needy. One day I heard someone complaining that no one ever remembered their birthday. I suddenly realized that we all just sit back and hope that someone recognizes it is our day and end up being severely disappointed when they don't. I decided I wasn't going to let that happen anymore. I was so bad that anytime I got near a calendar, I would make sure that I wrote it on the correct day. When I was able to start accessing people's electronic calendars, I was ecstatic and a little out of control. Let me tell you, it worked like a dream. On my birthday, I get all the attention I could ever want.

There was a time in my twenties when I started throwing myself large birthday parties. It was important to me that I have a lot of people around me on that day. I had a boyfriend pass away when I was twenty. We had the same birthday. When that day came around the following year, I was terrified to be alone. For a long time after that, I continued to make sure I was surrounded by people that loved me on that day. I don't know that I told more than one or two people, I didn't really want their sympathy, I just wanted them to be there.

One year I threw a party at a huge park back in Oregon. I invited everyone I knew and made presents mandatory. I know people say they don't want presents, but I just can't believe that could possibly be true. I made sure to specify that I didn't care what they got me as long as it was wrapped up. I got two of my all time favorite gifts that year. Lawn gnomes. They were awesome. Unfortunately, they were eventually stolen, but I will never forget Fungi and Dumpy. Fungi held a mushroom. I guess Dumpy was supposed to be put behind a plant to look like he was hiding behind it. But, since I've never had plants, he just looked like he was getting ready to take a poo.

At my last job, I was so annoying to one of my teammates, I thought she was going to smack me. I didn't realize how bad I was until I was thrown a surprise birthday party by our clients. People I had never met before brought in a cake and sang Happy Birthday to me. The next day as we were checking out of our hotel and packing up the car to head for the airport, one of the housecleaning ladies yelled a parting birthday wish to me. My coworker could only stare at me in awe, unable to say a word.

I have that affect on people. I finally decided that maybe I was a little too old and too professional to be playing up my need for attention after I started my current job. Two weeks before my birthday, my boss came in and announced, "Happy Birthday! How does it feel to be a year older?" Everyone looked at me and I just shook my head and said my birthday wasn't for another two weeks. He looked at me funny and then said that the alarm on his phone had gone off at 4:00 in the morning with a reminder that it was my birthday. I was mortified. I had put my birthday on his calendar and set the reminder to go off two weeks early. I thought it would be funny to tell him he had two weeks to shop for my birthday. It was funny. To everyone else in the office it was hilarious. But that wasn't the worst part.

In all the blushing, stammering and apologizing, I forgot I had set it to repeat every year. My boss didn't think it was as funny the second year around.