The Eagle of Shame

I didn’t win too many awards as a child. A couple of little league basketball participation trophies, a little ribbon for winning the spelling bee in third grade, and that was about it. Except for, of course, the eagle.

When I was young my grandfather met the oldest living Eagle Scout in the world. Apparently, he was in the business of molding and painting ceramic eagles by hand. My grandfather thought these would make great gifts for some of his grandsons when they earned their eagle scouts, so he had the gentleman make one for my brother, with his name engraved on the bottom and everything.

I never really liked Boy Scouts, and wasn’t very good at it. All the tying knots, making bird feeders, and watching mammals seemed silly and pointless to me. So I would just sneak to the trading post and buy Laffy Taffys and pop rocks with Eric Armstrong while everyone else worked on their merit badges at camp.

Consequently, I never earned my Eagle Scout. Neither did my brother. The age of 18 came and went for each of us, and the ceramic eagle just sat on a shelf in Gramps’s den. Some years later, he sent it to us, with Joel’s name still engraved on the bottom, and a new message scrawled on the under it: “And Clark didn’t too.”

We displayed it proudly in our bedroom. A symbol of our failure. A constant reminder of humility. If we ever got too complacent in our successes or too confident in our abilities, we would look up at its piercing eyes and hear its silent, tormenting cry: “KAW! KAW! YOU FAILED!”

Names for Things

I name things, quite frequently. Stuff I use regularly. Mostly cars and electronic devices. My first car was named Smashy, because that’s what the back bumper looked like after I got rear ended my third day driving it. Lindsay’s car is named Shrinky. (It’s a Suzuki Esteem. Psychologists help people gain self-esteem. Psychologists are also called shrinks. A bit of a stretch, but a very cute name.)

I have also named all my iPods. The firstborn was Kilroy (Kilroy seems to be my default for just about everything – I named a robot in a radio drama I once made Kilroy, and it is also my rap misnomer). He went missing, but in my heart of hearts, I still have an idle hope that we might find him. Following suit, I named my second iPod Kilretta, because she was a feminine electric blue. After she was smashed to bits in the prime of her life by a speeding line of 18-wheelers I adopted Kilbot, who still remains with me even though he is now mute. My current iPod is named Bowen.

My first computer was named Kompyuter, with an exclamation point at the end. There is an involved and uninteresting story why that I won’t go into. I called my second computer Wardin, and my third and current computer remains nameless. I also have a laptop named Slappy. This is because I name my computers posthumously, so I can clearly label the back up discs of information I’ve taken from them before they go to the place where good computers are eternally blessed.

Don’t act like it’s weird. You know you name stuff too.

You Say Fixation, I Say Project

I am always working on some sort of project. I think it runs in my family. Mom is always sewing pajamas for the grandkids or mending costumes for a neighbor. Dad is constantly gulping down the facts from his latest book in the dead of the night in his study. My sister Laurel has the Gardner Gazettes family newsletter, my other sister Care has quilts, and so on. Projects everywhere.

I’ve found that my projects rotate. For some reason I can only work on them one at a time. And I get obsessed. I want to put in as much time as possible. On my latest road trip, I took a laptop with me and typed away a short story while everyone slept around me. When I started my job at Melaleuca, I would take pages of my screenplay with me to the gym and edit them while I bobbed up and down on the treadmill.

My usual projects—or fixations, the term changes depending on how much I let them get in the way of other responsibilities I attend to—currently rotate among screenwriting, cartooning, making music, writing fiction, and ghostwriting for Philip J. Harpman (who has been working on a new and exciting project off and on for the last year or two). A rotation can last anywhere between a few weeks to several months. My latest was my comic strip, “Learning to Fly,” which I recently submitted for syndication. The last few weeks I’ve been working on a couple of short stories starring Murphy “Wheels” Tomlison, a paraplegic private detective, and his hippie homeopathic nurse assistant Nikki.

I thrive on my creative projects. I love being able to create art rather than mindlessly soak in the treacherous tripe that is sloshed across checkout counter magazines and television screens. I hope you all have projects you can turn to as well. If you don’t, or have always thought about doing something but have been afraid to, now is the time. Unless a DVD boxed set of “Charles in Charge” sounds more interesting. Your choice.

"So help me, Bobbie!"

I have a new favorite game—“Jabberjot: The Wacky Word Game.” Players are given 90 seconds to write a short story using randomly selected pictures of characters, settings, and props, as well as three words and a theme. In the feverish fervor required to churn out a story incorporating all of the elements, hilarity often ensues. Here are some of my favorite stories that have come out of playing the game with friends and family:

“C’mon, eat it! So help, me Bobbie! I swear, if you break one more Christmas ornament, you’ll be eating moss all summer!”

Bobbie fingered the pink, fuzzy dice in his pocket. “They’re my only friends,” he thought. “If I can just hold on to these, I know things are going to change!” --Joel Gardner

* * *

The crowd jumped up and down as the terminally ill opera singer sang the last driving note of the “Ode to Fishing” opera.

Wanda underlined his name in the program. “I will always remember this night,” she sobbed. --J.Clark Gardner

* * *

Andrew got his lederhosen stuck when he was driving to work. He was trying to get the diseased salmon out from under the brake pedal.

This underlines the importance of cleaning out your care before it’s too late. With a clean car, you can jump for joy when you reach your destination. --Lindsay Gardner

* * *

It was summer, and Cleaver decided it was time to connect with the neighborhood boys. So he brought a red ornament and one set of fuzzy dice to the pinewood derby.

The other boys were enthralled by his fascinating items, so they let him join in on the fun. Cleaver sent his pinewood down the ramp and then . . . his car was defeated. He accidentally said a swear word, and once again had to spend a lovely summer in his bear cave. --Katie Gardner

“Jabberjot: The Wacky Word Game” is available at fairplaygames.com for $20.95.

The Screen of Shame

I trip up the stairs to the call center. A quick scan confirms my suspicion. I weave through a few corridors to the IT department. More of the same. Back downstairs, I look through the purchasing room and finance department. Same. Same. Same.

I sink in my chair, knowing now that my inkling was correct. I stand alone. I am marked. Cursed, even. Cast out and forlorn. I am the only one. I am the only one in the entire building without a flat panel LCD monitor.

I look up at the giant CRV machine before me, feeling both resentment and pity for its grubby screen, unexplained patches of velcro attached to its sides, and the way its pixels fuzz in and blur out in vertical lines at certain intervals in the day. This morning, four boxes containing shining, new 28-inch Dell flat panel monitors arrived in our department, and my coworkers chattered with glee as they replaced their old flat panel monitors with new flat panel monitors. There were now enough to give three employees two flat panel monitors, for optimum viewing and organization on their computers.

I remain alone with my tube-powered giant, like the child that got last week’s beanie weenies for hot lunch because the cafeteria had enough pizza for everyone but him. I look forward with a somber face and determined eyes, knowing that one day, if I am worthy, I will be rewarded for my patience and fortitude.

80 Gigs of Life-Changing Goodness

My iPod has changed my life. Quite the heavy claim, I know, but it’s true. Why else would I have already gone through four in as many years? Why else would I offer a moment of silence every time I pass that certain stretch of I-80 East where my third iPod, Kilretta, fell from the top of my car to an untimely death, my soul screaming in torment as I watched passing 18 wheelers crush her to pieces? Why else would I have recruited a coworker’s psychic friend to achieve astral projection to try and locate my first iPod, Kilroy, when he came up missing?

I’ll tell you how my iPods have changed my life. They have given me more control over what goes into my ears and eyes. When in my car, I listen only to music that I have chosen for me. No used car commercials. No morning DJ’s poring over what the famous people are eating for breakfast these days. No glimpses into the gaping jaws of hell caused by inadvertently hearing six seconds of a country music song while flipping through the stations. No correspondents broadcasting live from a Big Mouth Wireless, pretending they are impressed with the specials on Bluetooth peripherals you can hear about if you “swing on by” to pick up a free KUPI bumper sticker. Instead, I experience my music. My media. Tom Petty and The Cars. Alison Krauss and Cocteau Twins. Episodes of Monk and Jane Austen audio books.

If you ever hear someone like me gushing about their iPod, please don’t judge them. Congratulate them. Be happy for them. And look into getting one yourself. We could all do with a life-changing device now and then.