December "Tweets(?)" of the Month

 

• There oughta be a litmus test for the number of times a lazy reporter can declare a non-scientific judgement a litmus test

• Our daughter is studying ancient times in the hopes of becoming a future historian, an aspiration that I believe must involve some sort of time travel. I imagine we’ll one day be sitting down to watch a program and she’ll just before our eyes disappear. Her mother will scream in terror. Me? I’ll seize the abandoned remote!

• Happy Birthday, Valerie Glenz Rodell! I can describe you as loving, sweet, diligent, youthful, understanding, sexy, prudent, encouraging and patient enough to await the day my elusive ship’ll some in. How all those positive words can accurately describe your character and I can still  declare you as my wife of 26 years honestly amazes me. If we all got what we deserved on our birthdays, today you’d hit the Powerball jackpot. And I’d get squat. I already hit the jackpot the day we met.

• I dreamt last night a female zombie approached and asked if she could pick my brain. Not thinking, I instinctively gave her the finger. She mistook the gesture for a compromise offer and now whenever I have to do basic math or carry the 7, I must remove foot wear. I thought about complaining about her snack, er, snap decision but figured I'd better bite my tongue.

• You might think it’s all just profane nitpicking, but I’d rather be called an “effing a—hole” than just your typical garden variety “a—hole.” Being an “effing”anything at least hints at some baseline social skills.

• I pity the people who reside in austere newer homes so tightly constructed they don’t make a peep. Our 50-year-old home coughs, creaks, sighs and sniffles. The floors groan, the cupboards squeak, and when the old furnace rattles to life (thank God) it sounds like a veteran stage actor clearing his throat just before the curtain rises. My favorite sound? I love hearing the fireplace damper being pulled open. Sounds to me like the wheels of an old steam locomotive as they begin to grip the rail. But my all-time favorite sound is the distinctive rattling of the warped old floorboards when the legs of the crib began to bounce on them, signaling that one of our babies was awake, hungry and eager for another day full of play, laughter and songs so joyful I imagine even the house had fun.

• I consider it yet another degradation of once-proud men, but I'm upset how what I once called "the family jewels" somehow became "my junk." From jewels to junk in three short decades. SAD!

• Which is more confounding? That you’ve become the person you are today or that the person you’ve become today is the exact same person you used to mock when you were the person you used to be.

• Women age distinctly; men uniformly. As a woman ages, she becomes more individual -- her hair color, her laughter, her manner of dress -- all put her in sharp relief from other women. All men age the same. We lose hair, gain weight and generally stumble thru life w/ the bewildered expressions of men who mistake the sliding glass patio door for open and repeatedly slam into the invisible solid. If we lived to be 120, we wouldn't be able to walk 50 feet without someone confusing us for their Uncle Burt.

• We revel in the misfortune of less fortunate. We gloat when our hatreds provoke irrational acts. We care not who's killing whom as long as our pack can elude blame. I fear we're becoming a nation that behaves as if 50 percent of us were raised by wolves. The other 50 percent? They’d be the wolves. 

• I live in a house with 3 sassy women. And I'm under a constant barrage by boneheads eager to engage me in provocative political and social arguments. I hold my tongue so much it's a wonder my fingertips don't have tastebuds.

• I was stuck at an interminable red light wondering about all the things that take so damn long. Things like waiting for the computer to boot up, TSA lines, and getting stuck on IT hold. Our busy lives are consumed by mini-eternities. Want to know something that goes by like lightning? Sixty years. 

• I read because I'm convinced the more I have in my mind the less I'll have on it.

• I suggest we Pennsylvanians reshape our borders -- put some wiggles in 'em -- so we don't appear on maps like the state most likely to be used as the dead battery gauge when the USA starts to run out of power.

• My father died in ’04; mom in ’17. Their memories flicker fainter each year for our daughters, 22 and 16. It’s a pity. I wish on their tough days they could recollect how the faces of these two people lit up when they saw their beloved grandkids — and stayed brilliantly illuminated whenever they were blessed to be in their presence. I wish I had a pill — just one pill — that would restore all our memories. Not of childhood, but of infancy, when our every expression, sound or gesture provoked pure delight. The pill would remind us of what perfect love, security and hopefulness feels like. One pill. One dose. I’d prescribe it to America. 

• This is the time of year married men begin to envy leaves. Leaves get blown at least once a year.

• Being a student of communications, I have a lot of questions about what to me is one of the most fascinating methods of all-time. I'm talking the smoke signal. What were the parental controls ("Look away! Look away!")? Did shifting winds lead to historic misreads ("I can say with near certainty the Indians won't attack today, Gen. Custer.)?" And how many petty annoyances do we still share some 200 years later, ("Can I bum your lighter? It's asking me to change my password ... AGAIN!")?

• I sometimes fear my drive for ceaseless originality is weakening and I'm destined to reach back for the greatest hits. But I always conclude I'm being too hard on myself. I sometimes fear my drive for ceaseless originality is weakening and I'm destined to reach back for the greatest hits. But I always conclude I'm being too hard on myself.

• I sometimes fear my drive for ceaseless originality is weakening and I'm destined to reach back for the greatest hits. But I always conclude I'm being too hard on myself. I sometimes fear my drive for ceaseless originality is weakening and I'm destined to reach back for the greatest hits. But I always conclude I'm being too hard on myself.

Why I never write about going to High School in Mt. Lebanon

 

(767 words)

The question caught me by surprise. One of my oldest buddies had made the drive from Pittsburgh to Latrobe to spend the day drinking, joking and generally ditching the world of common responsibilities.

So it was pretty much like we’d time traveled back to high school for a day of carefree hookie.

Then he asked me if I’d ever suffered a trauma in high school.

In fact, I had. I’d been victimized by an indifferent barber who gave me a haircut so horrific I blamed it for forestalling the loss of my virginity by about 7 years.

Sure, there may have been other factors in play, but let’s just say it took a really long time to grow out.

I asked my friend why he thought I’d been otherwise traumatized.

“You’ve never once written about us,” he said. “I’ve read all your books and there’s so much stuff about OU and I keep reading and wondering, man, when’s he going to write about all the great times we had in high school. And you never do.”

I’d never thought about it, but he’s correct. And it’s striking. I can’t think of one story I’ve written about an era that involved some of the greatest times with some of the best friends from my life and it all happened in high school. 

We had the greatest group of guys. We got along with everyone, and skated easily through the mine field of cliquish hostilities. We chased girls in one direction and ran from the police in the other. Whenever we were together there was laughter, hi-jinx and some illegally obtained Wild Mustang malt liquor. 

I’m proud of my Wild Mustang friends and consider those times foundationally crucial to all I’ve become, which I’ve been told, is a warm, generous, supportive, ego-free author of books that make people happy.

The only thing I can figure is it isn’t the high school or the people who went there that’s the problem.

The problem is where they built the school.

It’s in the South Hills of Pittsburgh. That’s what I always say when people ask where I went to high school. And it’s true. The South Hills is a proud and ethnically diverse community.

But as answers go, it’s deliberately vague. So, if pressed, I say, “The house I grew up in was about a 5-iron from Castle Shannon.” Also true and most people know Castle Shannon is part of the gritty Keystone Oaks School District.

If they persist in seeking specificity, I tell them I went to school at 155 Cochran Road.

And with that I’ve exhausted all my evasions and all their patience and I’m at last forced to confess I attended — spoiler alert! — Mt. Lebanon High School.

This is the point at which I fully expect the questioner to threaten to beat me up unless I fork over that day’s lunch money.

Yes, my trauma is that I grew up and was edumacated in one of Pittsburgh’s most affluent neighborhoods. I was classmates with kids who drove Mercedes Benzes to school. Their fathers were titans of industry who were on the tournament committee at Oakmont CC.

They had pools, au pairs, valets and spoke fluent French.

In France!

Me, I was the son of an optician who moonlighted as a bartender at some of the very clubs where my classmates frolicked. He never had money and was often complaining that he felt like a failure because he never had the loot that his neighbors had.

Dad, you weren’t a failure.

You just raised one.

Sometimes, that’s just how it feels. I know that’s wrong, but I feel the same stresses to provide as the old man did.

I wonder if being raised in Mt. Lebanon, amidst so much easy wealth, is the trauma my friend hinted at. Because many of the values I fall short on were instilled in those gilded schools.

When people find out I grew up in Lebo, they call me a cake-eater and make assumptions about me having all the barriers they had to overcome removed in advance by Jeeves.

Then they threaten to beat me up if I don’t hand over my lunch money. 

And that’s the story of my trauma. 

I grew up happy in a warm, safe place where kind, witty people let me know I was truly loved.

And who’d ever want to read about that?

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What will I call my "Tweets of the Month" when Twitter goes away?

• Women age distinctly; men uniformly. As a woman ages, she becomes more individual -- her hair color, her laughter, her manner of dress -- all put her in sharp relief from other women. All men age the same. We lose hair, gain weight and generally stumble thru life w/ the bewildered expressions of men who mistake the sliding glass patio door for open and repeatedly slam into the invisible solid. If we lived to be 120, we wouldn't be able to walk 50 feet without someone confusing us for their Uncle Burt.

• We revel in the misfortune of less fortunate. We gloat when our hatreds provoke irrational acts. We care not who's killing whom as long as our pack can elude blame. I fear we're becoming a nation that behaves as if 50 percent of us were raised by wolves. The other 50 percent? They’d be the wolves. 

• I live in a house with 3 sassy women. And I'm under a constant barrage by boneheads eager to engage me in provocative political and social arguments. I hold my tongue so much it's a wonder my fingertips don't have tastebuds.

• I was stuck at an interminable red light wondering about all the things that take so damn long. Things like waiting for the computer to boot up, TSA lines, and getting stuck on IT hold. Our busy lives are consumed by mini-eternities. Want to know something that goes by like lightning? Sixty years. 

• I read because I'm convinced the more I have in my mind the less I'll have on it.

• I suggest we Pennsylvanians reshape our borders -- put some wiggles in 'em -- so we don't appear on maps like the state most likely to be used as the dead battery gauge when the USA starts to run out of power.

• My father died in ’04; mom in ’17. Their memories flicker fainter each year for our daughters, 22 and 16. It’s a pity. I wish on their tough days they could recollect how the faces of these two people lit up when they saw their beloved grandkids — and stayed brilliantly illuminated whenever they were blessed to be in their presence. I wish I had a pill — just one pill — that would restore all our memories. Not of childhood, but of infancy, when our every expression, sound or gesture provoked pure delight. The pill would remind us of what perfect love, security and hopefulness feels like. One pill. One dose. I’d prescribe it to America. 

• This is the time of year married men begin to envy leaves. Leaves get blown at least once a year.

• I sometimes fear my drive for ceaseless originality is weakening and I'm destined to reach back for the greatest hits. But I always conclude I'm being too hard on myself. I sometimes fear my drive for ceaseless originality is weakening and I'm destined to reach back for the greatest hits. But I always conclude I'm being too hard on myself.

• You can convert a home. You invert a fraction. You can subvert a good idea. You can transvert a landscape, and you can pervert an innocence wholesome and pure. Question: How come I’ve never seen, felt, heard, smelled or been invited to enjoy an illicit little vert. What is a vert? It can do so much yet it remains to me cloaked in mystery. Its humility may nevert be surpassed.

• Referring to men & women whose exercise goal is to strip their frames of any excess weight as body "builders" is fraudulent. They're not body builders. Now, me, I've spent the last few years adding enough closet space to my posterior it's surprising the township's not after me to staple a permit to my ass. Now, THAT's body building

• I realize the observation will cause some to think me ignorant at best, xenophobic at worst, but I was surprised to read Saigon has a thriving Chinatown neighborhood. Isn’t that like Cleveland having a busy Canadatown neighborhood? Sure, they’re distinct nationalities, but wouldn’t the differences be of interest to just a few anthropologists. It’s certainly an indication of the international popularity of the Chinese culture. It also has me wondering if most major Chinese cities have their very own Chinatowns or if that would take redundancy to absurd levels.

• That catbird means an advantageous position matters far less to me than the potential hybrid that results the day we mingle their DNA. Do you want as a house pet a cat that can fly or a bird that snoozes the day away cozied up on your lap? I'd go with the flying feline. And while we're at it, what would the titmouse look like if it looked like its component names?

• This is the time of year when I always begin to wonder if the nation of Turkey has a national bird. Could it be that obvious? Of course I'm the same guy who thinks a 3rd world African nation must have great take-out food just because the country's name is TO-GO.

• News that Buffalo is getting walloped with 5-feet of snow has me thinking that Buffalo should be renamed Uninhabitable. Even buffalo can't live in Buffalo. 

• I know to some patriots the charge itself is practically seditious, but the Founding Fathers got it all wrong when they called the place where the legislative branch does business the "House of Representatives." It would make more sense to call it, "The Big Room of Morally Shady Mostly White Men Whose Positions Bend According to the Latest Campaign Contributions.”

• I understand the mostly snobby reasons it's never mentioned alongside classic scenes from "Godfather" or "Citizen Kane," but one of the most compelling scenes in all American film is the hanging of Jake Spoon.

• On this day we as a nation should vow to never again say Happy Veteran's Day until we're certain we've done everything we can to ensure every veteran is happy.

• ”These kids today do nothing all day but stare at their stupid phones," say in unison the cranky old men who do nothing all day but stare at Fox News.

.

• Doctor suggests I not drink my Wild Turkey straight, so I now drink bourbon & water. I drink water from 7 am to 5 pm. I drink bourbon from 5:01 to 10 pm.

• I vow to never describe anything as being cute as a button until someone shows me an actual button that any reasonable observer would consider cute. Describing a button as cute is like describing a utility poll as charming. The two are functional and should never be considered "cute."

A jiffy moment or two about time

(587 words)

I’m a guy with plenty of time on his hands so I wonder about the passing of time pretty much round the clock.

Speaking of clocks, historians say the first one was built in the year 1270. Catching a bus before then must have required infinite patience.

It sounds simplistic, but I wonder how they decided clock hands ought to go clockwise. Really, how would they know?

If anyone has time to study time, it ought to be me. It’s not like I’m one of those guys who has to punch a clock, a phrase that always reminds me of Henry David Thoreau who wondered (or should it be “pondered?”), “Is it possible to kill time without injuring eternity?”

Remind me to invite him to my next seance.

If I could only find the time. It just goes by so fast.

Like in an instant. A moment. A jiffy.

Each of those examples, by the way, is an actual unit of time.

A moment is a pre-clock medieval time measure that lasts precisely 90 seconds. I wonder how in those pre-clock days they timed 90 seconds. I guess they could have said, “A-one Mississippi! A-two Mississippi! …”

But knowing a moment is 90 seconds is useful to me and now, I hope, to you. You can now tell an annoying caller you'll "be one moment" and really take your time. I thought a moment was like 4 or 5 seconds, like within the realm of a winking flirtation.

In fact, an open-minded couple could go in 90 seconds from perfect strangers to being partners in an act that could conceivably result in the birth of a child. I’ve seen it done.

A friend of mine in college made meaningful eye contact with a girl he saw on the sidewalk and asked her if she’d like a house tour. I wondered later if she was from a different country where “house tour” translates to “instant sex.” But he really did get a girl in bed in 90 seconds.

I doubt he could have accomplished the same feat in a jiffy.

From Wikipedia: To physicists, a jiffy is how long light takes to travel a distance of one femtometre, which is a millionth of a millionth of a millimetre. That means that there are about three hundred thousand billion billion jiffys in a second.

Yet it takes at least 30 interminable minutes to get a basic suite of services at a vehicle maintenance shop called Jiffy Lube.

As for two shakes of a lamb’s tail, I become uncomfortable speculating about the origins of the phrase that certainly involves prolonged staring at the hind quarters of these gentle beasts.

I’ve heard too many stories of love-starved men succumbing to the carnal temptations of cattle and ‘round these parts we understand bedlam is an uproarious situation, but bed lamb is a rural scandal.

I’d like to see a judge sentence a bestiality convict to 50,000 shakes of a lamb’s tale.

Lesson: do sheep, do time.

Or does time do you?

It’s kind of like one of my favorite lines.

“Foolish mortal. You think you can kill time … Time kills you!”

It can be time for a change. Time goes by. You can call time out and be just in time. In your spare time you can save time. You can try to make time but will eventually run out of time.

Because time flies. It just never lands.

And that’s that. I’ve been doing these blogs since 2008, but this is the first one that ever directly took on the topic.

It’s about time.

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October Tweets of the Month

                                        

• I live in a house with 3 sassy women. I teach a class of undergrads raised to be hyper-sensitive on any number of topics. And I'm under a constant barrage by boneheads eager to engage me in provocative political and social arguments. I hold my tongue so much it's a wonder my fingertips don't have tastebuds.

• Some gifted writers enjoy gilded reputations, movie deals and widespread approval. They are famous authors. Others are considered dangerous, yet still secure movie deals for their illicit work. They are infamous. Then there are guys like me. We have none of that. We're unfamous.

• Hearing people judge those who attend hurricane parties always cracks me up. This is Planet Earth 2022. Climate change, drought, injustice, partisan rancor -- and most of us remain by choice oblivious to it all. It's one big Hurricane Party and we're all standing in line while the bartender cuts citrus fruit garnish. Party on.                         

• The Metric System has been the dominant unit of measurement in England since about 1680. The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964. Pete Townsend wrote the hit single "I Can See for Miles" in 1966, one year before setting foot in the USA. Question: In the 1st draft of the song, did Townsend try the lyric, "I Can See For Kilometers and Kilometers and Kilometers …"

• John Lennon was killed in 1980. George Harrison died in 2001. Paul McCartney is 80. Ringo Starr, 82. I'm not wishing any ill on either, but if the actuary tables are to be believed The Fab Four will one day soon have a heavenly reunion. I have to think there are already lines forming at the ticket windows.

• I drink too much. Laugh too loud. Lie to dodge tedious tasks. And at the end of another week when it could be argued my greatest achievement was not dunking the  phone in the toilet, I forgive myself my sins. Indeed, I put the human in humanity.

• I was stuck at an interminable red light wondering about all the things that take so damn long. Things like waiting for the computer to boot up, TSA lines, and getting stuck on IT hold. Our busy lives are consumed by mini-eternities. Want to know something that goes by like lightning? Sixty years. 

• It’s sadly ironic that in a day when social media creates disposable "stars" that light pollution is resulting in the visual obliteration of actual stars in the heavens.

• Reuters headline reads "Russians attack Ukrainian cities during rush hour." They still have rush hour? Traffic on the 4s? Beep 'n' creep? If ever a situation called for suspension of rigorous work duties, I'd think "Sovereign Country invaded by Russian Army" would top the list.

• One of the many oddities of my existence is that by most demographics I'm considered working class, yet few would consider what I do to be actual work and if I  have any class at all it's not readily apparent even to me.

• Say what you want about their leadership abilities, but if nothing else at least TRUMP, BIDEN and PUTIN would  make dandy Wordle first guesses.

• What salient fact on one of the day's biggest stories did nearly every news organization get wrong? They all declared Alex Jones was ordered to pay "nearly $1 billion" in damages. Pardon, but it was $965 million. That's not nearly a billion. It's off by $35 million. That's a lot.

• Some have suggested I'd sleep better if I stopped worrying about things over which I have no control. I get it. I can't stop wars, reverse climate change, etc. But it could be 50k years from now & I'll still be fretting about kids running w/wrong crowd. And we'll be in Heaven!

• I read because I'm convinced the more I have in my mind the less I'll have on it.

• Seeing a vivid rainbow over Latrobe this morning reminded me of the Sunday school lesson that the phenomena was God assuring that everything's going to be all right. It's good to know on these days when so many feel truly godforsaken, like He's Holy Ghosted us.

• I’d like to one day report on malfunctioning picnic ware litigation so I could without exaggeration describe it as a real basket case.

• My fear isn't that when the robots show up they'll take over my job. My fear is that when the robots take over my job no one will notice I'm gone ... Wait.  The whole premise is absurd. C'mon! Me? With a job? Who am I kidding!

• The Swedes must cleanup in the fish Olympics. I mean, who's their competition? They are the only nation that has organized their fish in the whole pescatorial realm.

• That scientists say Earth is 4.5 billion years old only adds poignant urgency to the timely challenge of reversing Climate Change. Anything that's 4.5 billion years old and still seems too young to die is bound to be pretty special. 

When did chocolate milk become nutritionally evil?

 

(683 words)

I couldn’t tell whether the stranger was mocking me or we were on the verge of bonding over my breakfast beverage of choice.

“You don’t see many grown men who feel secure enough to order one of those in a crowded diner,” he said.

We were sitting at the counter in the Youngstown Grille, just up the street from the Tin Lizzy and the best breakfast place in Westmoreland County — and I’m not saying that just because they put posters of me and my books up on the walls (although that doesn’t hurt in the rankings).

So what was I drinking that was so childish it startled the stranger?

Hawaiian Punch?

Apple & Eve juice box?

Pedialyte with a twist?

No, it was chocolate milk.

And although I can’t be certain, I think it had just two ingredients, chocolate and milk. So it isn’t being cunning or trying to conceal its composition. It’s the Gin & Tonic of breakfast libations.

When did it become a dietary object of ridicule?

I looked at my place setting. There was nothing else there that, to me, would draw mockery. There was no sippy cup. No loopty-loop straw popular with the 4 year olds. I stopped using those  when I turned 50 and decided it might be time to try to at least appear mature.

In fact, there was no straw at all. There never is. The efficient and pleasant Youngstown Grille staff all know not to ever bring me a straw because they’re trained to understand this bedrock characteristic of my conduct.

No straws. I don’t suck.

I should have known ordering chocolate milk would one day become controversial the day my wife felt compelled to share her nutritional insights in ways befitting a supportive spouse.

“I can’t believe you still drink chocolate milk,” she encouraged.

It was like the day she busted me removing from the freezer what would qualify as a sunrise staple in my college days — and that’s higher edoocation!

“That’s your breakfast?”

That was Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food, an ice cream delicacy created by Vermont alchemists who one day divined caramel, marshmallow, chocolate ice cream and tiny chunks of fish-shaped milk chocolate would hit the same spot in the craving brain as bacon and eggs.

Try it!

And invite me! I’ll even bring my own spoon, the one with the happy, little dinosaurs on the stem.

I already know the rap on chocolate milk. It’s high in calories and sugars that lead to obesity and heart disease. The internet usually conveys the news accompanied by pictures of grim-looking doctors with stethoscopes draped around their necks.

But the pro-chocolate milk people tend to use drawings of cows with reassuring grins that seem to say, “Love me! Eat me! Drink me! I’m yours to plunder!”

I’m not kidding when I say I felt the stranger and I were about to bond. I was disposed to liking him immediately. Why?

For one, he was reading a book. A major league book.

Yes, it was hard cover. Mine are all softies, which is only one step up from the cardboard kind teething toddlers gnaw on or as I call them “Read ’n’ Chews!”

We talked about where to find the best breakfast in the area.

“I live in New Stanton,” he said, “and I’ll drive a long way for a great breakfast. This was a long way but it was well worth the drive. I’ll be back.”

I showed remarkable restraint by not pointing out the posters and books on the shelf were mine.

Before departing he thoughtfully poked his head in the kitchen and said loud enough for the whole restaurant to hear, “Thanks, men. That was the best breakfast I’ve had in years. I’ll be back.”

I hope he is and soon. He seemed like a great guy.

I won’t even mind if he ridicules me for drinking chocolate milk. He could tell me healthier options and I’ll tell him to shove off. 

He can go Phish.

But only on the days when he doesn’t feel like driving to Youngstown for breakfast.

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Just not a B'n'B kind of guy

 

(610 words)

My disdain for the Bed & Breakfast option nearly surfaced when the sweet West Virginia proprietor told us she’d had some guests from Pittsburgh the previous week.

I almost blurted out, “Oh, and how did they taste?”

But I bit my tongue, unnerved by the prospect that our hosts might be biting it later on.

I’m not going to contend all B&B operators are cannibals (well, they are in the slasher movies) but I’ve never stayed in a single one where I didn’t move all the furniture in front of the door.

What kind of people would want a bunch of towel-stealing strangers roaming their halls day and night?

It’s just weird.

Besides the fear of being eaten and served to the other guests, staying in a B&B prevents me from doing two activities I enjoy in my own home.

That would be farting and having sex.

What? You thought I was going to say Yahtzee?

Farting and screwing are two reliable home pastimes.

I say farting and having sex like the frequency of the two are neck-and-neck. Alas, the count is lopsided. I do a whole lot of the one and comparatively little of the other.

I won’t keep you in suspense: for every 15 or so farts, I probably get lucky once or twice.

Those of you with a nose for statistics may sense that all that farting is to blame for the romantic tally coming in a distant second. To you I say, you’d be wise to keep your nose out of my business, especially when the topic is flatulence.

But let’s stipulate I fart. A lot.

Just not when I’m in stranger’s home, which is the essence of your average B&B. Farting in the dining room after a big meal is considered rude. So is farting on the back porch even when frogs from the nearby pond can camouflage the offense.

Heck, you don’t even feel comfortable farting in the bathroom. And even in the fanciest B&Bs, the bathroom is where they always put all the toilets.

I know. Go figure.

Yes, I’m even reluctant to make any typical bathroom noises in a typical bathroom.

So, in the end, I wind up succumbing to a sort of self-imposed constipation. 

Sex? Forget about it.

Sure, you can have polite sex, but what fun is that?

Polite sex is when a stealthy hand signals the foreplay has begun and it’s time to whisper what kind of condiment you want poured onto your tummy.

Me, I usually go for the spicy brown mustard so I can imagine we’re doin’ it during a rain delay at the Bucco game, which I recommend every couple try at least once. PNC Park is a great place for quiet intimacy because there’s never anybody in the stands — especially if the Pirates are playing a home game.

I prefer really rowdy sex. Roof-rattling sex. Cat. 4 sex. Sex so tumultuous that when the cops kick down the door you just know they’ve brought folding chairs and the bargain bags of kettle korn.

You just can’t get away with that in a B&B.

I feel sheepish mentioning all this because we wound up having a lovely time at our secluded little B&B. It was relaxing, scenic and we weren’t hoodwinked into dining on the remains of the tubby Clevelanders who’d stayed there the previous week.

We got home safe and sound and full of memories and, of course, full of the accumulated compounds from a weekend’s worth of captive gas.

It mattered not because there’s no place like home.

Even when it’s full of fart.

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