Twitter = Wit confetti; my tweets of the month

Wicked storm has me fearing for my life in my 2nd story office. Might hide in basement. Happily, that's where the bar is. And #Bucs are on. Safety first!

That was the 200th tweet from the past month at @8days2amish. A friend saw it and requested a picture, which I’ve posted above.

It’s the first glimpse I’ve ever offered of The Pond’s interior. That’s Dave, the owner, on my left, and on my right one of the seven Regular Joes, all of whom are helpfully named Joe.

The rest are all buddies who I wish were named Buddy.

The past four weeks were historic to my Twitter account because they demolished my conceit of keeping my total tweets under 1,000 as it’s been for nearly two years.

I figured 1,000 was a nice round number and I could achieve pure Twitter essence if I’d frequently and ruthlessly winnow out the weaklings as I added fresh sparklers.

But a host of friendly new followers -- one of them high profile celebrity babe Holland Taylor -- has led me to sharpen my radar for Tweet-worthy thoughts and, of course, plaster my office walls with gorgeous Holland Taylor posters.

“The great thing about your Twitter feed is it’s just you. You don’t link to other stories or engage in conversation. You just post these idiosyncratic little bolts of wit.”

I was highly complimented when Matt Stroud told me that. He’s a great writer and friend who is succeeding as a freelancer despite bearing the occupational burden of having once been a student of mine.

I was heartened to hear him say that because that exactly sums up my Twitter aspirations. I want my twitter feed to be full from top to bottom with engaging and offbeat thoughts, a VIP pass to my brain, if you will.

In the last month, I posted nearly 200 tweets. So Twitter is now officially another one of those things I used to relentlessly mock in which I’m now fully engaged.

Sort of like marriage and fatherhood.

And I tingle and think sweet, happy thoughts about you any time one of you retweets one of my posts to your followers. Same goes for anyone who refers people to my blog.

Means the world to me.

I could say more, but I’ve already exceeded 140 characters.

Here are two dozen of I think were the best of the month. See if you can guess my favorite (answer at conclusion).

• I'll bet 98% of men are content using just 15% of their brain as long as another comparatively inconsequential organ keeps on giving it 110%.

• I've never seen a white supremacist who's made me, a fellow white, feel the least bit superior.

• I’m surprised no one’s developed a bacon perfume for women. I’m sure men would find those wearing “Eau de Bacon” irresistible.

• Does anyone else wonder if all the other kids made fun of him because Jeremiah was a bullfrog?

• Some patriot should tailor the lyrics of "The Star-Spangled Banner" to the theme from "The Price is Right." It'd be very catchy

• I suppose it's immature of me to even pose the question, but does anyone know if the nation of Turkey has a national bird?

• I've lived a long time but I've never known anyone who when they were young & their heart was an open book used to say live & let live.

• Pundits refer to Ohio and Pennsylvania as swing states. But Wisconsin has the most playgrounds per capita. It is THE swing state.

• Anyone know if ObamaCare will cover the years of intense psychological care needed by Conservatives driven crazy by Supreme Court ruling?

• Global warming will be solved in 15 years when NASA engineers figure way to move Earth farther from the sun. Days will be longer, too.

• Lyme Disease leaves victims chronically fatigued. Lemon Lyme Disease leaves victims chronically fatigued sourpusses.

• Reporter #ChrisChristie called "stupid" should have responded in singsong voice, "I know you are, but what am I?"

• Now that Anderson Cooper's admitted he's gay, maybe Donald Trump will be encouraged to step forward and finally admit he's an ass.

• Scientists will in 10 yrs figure way to harness hate as renewable energy. Good: it's green. Bad: Driving someone crazy will be civic minded.

• How come a single camera lens isn't properly referred to as a camera len?

• The word "astute" doesn't sound like it should convey wisdom. It sounds like it should convey flatulence.

• Instamacy is the mutual attraction so powerful it causes consenting adults to leap into bed moments after first locking eyes.

• Despite the obvious mathematical inconsistencies, a game of 8 Ball played between two naked men is still called 8 Ball.

• Artistic people often settle disputes by drawing straws.

• Starry-eyed singles who date someone proficient in detonating pyrotechnics are apt to go out with a bang.

• Recent health research says some soft drinks contain flame retardants. They say it's bad. Is it? I'd like to be more flame retardant.

• Thought new "Dallas" plot line that former drunken whore Sue Ellen Ewing was running for guv of Texas was preposterous. Then realized, hell, Texas elected Rick Perry.

• It is entirely possible to simultaneously give someone both a rump roast and a bum steer.

• Happy 94th birthday to a man who accomplished more during 27 years in captivity than I've accomplished in 49 years of carefree freedom. #Mandela

Lots of fun word play in this batch. And I like the one about Anderson Cooper because it has, I think, a certain deftness to it and I’m fond of any topic that let’s me take a blast at the idiot Trump, as I did here last June.

But I think I have to go with the Mandela one. It’s self-deprecating and makes a point about this monumental man who is second on the list of people with whom I’d most like to have a long, boozy lunch.

Who’s first?

Holland Taylor!

Me, Mandela and doin' time

It was only a $15 parking ticket. It had been issued to me on July 3 outside the local public library for parking on the wrong side of the road. Many would have just paid it.

Not me. It didn’t seem fair. There was no sign. It was a holiday weekend on a road between a church and a small town library where my wife had asked me to pick up some books for the kids.

The only way my mission could have been more wholesome was if I’d paused to donate a spare kidney to some sick orphan.

So I took it to the local police chief. We’d never met, but have mutual friends. He looked at the ticket, looked at me, smiled and said, “Let’s let this go with a warning, okay?”

Okay!

I don’t know why I felt so good, but I had to fight the urge to jump up and click my heels together. It continued a run of friendly run-ins with badge-bearing folks from whom I used to instinctively run.

I’ve also become friendly with a Pennsylvania State Trooper whom I’d met at a golf function. We hit it off and and I invited him down to my local tavern where he proceeded to make as loud an ass out of himself as those of us who don’t carry loaded weapons for a living.

We all had a swell time. At the end of the night, he threw an arm around me and shoved his business card in my shirt pocket. I didn’t examine it until the next day. On the back, he’d written: “Chris is a personal friend/golf buddy. Any professional courtesy appreciated.”

I had to practically rub the Twilight Zone out of my booze-reddened eyes. It was a get out of jail free card!

And it’s just such a sad pity that I can’t think of a single circumstance where I’ll ever get to use it.

I don’t know how it happened, but all the menace of my youth has gradually leaked away. What remains couldn’t make a decent puddle.

Somehow I’ve become good and it seems like such a waste.

Where were these powerful friendships during my hell-raising youth? Where were they when I could have really used them?

Like the night I killed my wife.

It was 1987. All the old gang from college was in town and that meant lots of drinking. Inevitably, things got out of hand and one of my buddies, a Cincinnati lad, got busted for drunk and disorderly behavior.

The haze of history, not to mention multiple Ouzo shooters, fogs the details. I think it was an ill-advised game of toss involving empty beer bottles and a nervous valet, but I clearly remember a big steroid stallion of a cop rudely shoving him in the back of the cruiser.

As I was the semi-sober host, I felt honor-bound to take charge. I asked the officer when I could collect the miscreant.

“He’s with us,” was all he said.

“I understand that sir, but when, pray tell, can I come retrieve him?”

We went through a variation of this two more times before he growled, ‘Say one more word and you’re goin’ with him!”

You can beat me senseless and throw my shattered body in a dark dungeon until time runs out. But no one will ever incarcerate my inner smart ass.

I said, “Well . . .”

The very next instant began a lifelong appreciation for the sturdy construction of a well-built American vehicle. He grabbed the back of my head and slammed my chin into the cruiser’s hood.

I’m convinced if had been one of those mid-80’s foreign cars, the force would have collapsed the vehicle and the three of us would have had to perp walk a mile to the two-cell station.

Cell one was occupied by a surly-looking punk. He never even glanced up as they threw the two of us into the cell next door.

I confess I wasn’t unhappy about being there. I didn’t want to go through life without having to endure some imprisonment, if for no other reason than I could feel a kind of kinship with Nelson Mandela.

After about an hour of cellmate giggling -- and it was just giggling -- my buddy broke the ice with unseen Prisoner No. 000001.

He said he was in for a bar brawl, drunk and disorderly. “You guys?” he asked.

“Same thing, D&D,” said my buddy, a fast learner already hip to jailhouse lingo.

“You?” he asked me.

“I killed my wife.”

“You what!”

“Yep. Killed her dead.”

Maybe it was still the drunk part of his D&D, but I was surprised to learn he was such a sensitive sort. He was floored and came alive with interest. He asked what made me do it.

“Caught her in bed with a black guy,” I said.

“Oh, man!”

“Well, she’s black, too,” I explained.

He asked what I did.

“Shot her right in the ass,” I said.

“You sure you killed her?”

“I think so. It’s all so confused. All I remember is her rubbing her ass and hollerin' at me.”

I’ve heard stories of men who endure long incarceration. They say they remember the forlorness, the estrangement.

Me, I’ll always remember my buddy trying to stifle all his belly laughs as I spun one of my greatest stories ever, one rich with sordid detail about my criminal life as an outlaw youth.

When they let the two of us go at dawn, we walked past our cell neighbor. He didn’t even look up, too fearful to even fathom an evil so malevolent, so near.

I wonder if even one of Mandela’s nights over 27 years of bitter imprisonment was as much fun as my 12 hours.

I doubt it.

He probably ran with the wrong crowd.