Last Sunday (Sunday-Sunday-SUNDAY...!) my phone rings somewhere around
about noonish from none other than the ChanMan. He tells me that while
GeoCaching somewhere down in the deep dark woods of Maylene, he was
captured by some of the local natives and auctioned off into the slave
labor market, but that a real nice couple had purchased him and he was
now being used as a talking monkey at the Bessemer Flea Market. And
that he had told them he was going to the bathroom but instead found a
phone and was calling all his buddies trying to find someone who would
come down there and rescue him.
At first I thought to myself... "Has ChanMan found GrannieChan's
(sweetest woman in the world) "Snuff and Ale" cabinet and he's "pickled"
himself???
Or maybe... He's having some type of weird medication reaction and is
hallucinating???
Or... He's lost so much weight that his head is squeezing his brain a
little and he's talking gibberish?
As he goes on in detail about bringing some "pinto's and cheese" to
distract his captors, I hear a faint clue as to what is causing this
strange event. I can hear his teeth chattering! So I instantly
recognize this as the dreaded post-op WLS Brain Freeze Syndrome. If any
of you have been experiencing feeling cold after you have had your WLS
and have wondered what would actually happen if you couldn't get warm
again, well, here it is. Your brain freezes up and you start
hallucinating that all the normal things that are going on around you in
your life are bazaar events and that you are in fact, an alien love
child and the product of an their efforts to populate the planet with
their species. So, you start calling your friends and telling them all
kinds of strange things like this.
In reality... Wes and Lisa had a booth set up at the Bessemer Flea
Market (10 Flea's for $1.00) and ChanMan had decided to try his hand
too. The sun was shining and the sky was clear when he set up, but it
quickly became cold, gray and windy. By noon he had long since passed
"I'm cold" and was now on the edge of the WLS Hypothermia envelope. His
brain kicked into "Safe Mode" and began calling out for help. I was
flattered that I was thought of so I could come and share his pain.
While it was COLD in Bessemer, it was cool in Irondale and Dumbdog and I
were taking turns watering the grass when I got the call from ChanMan.
I had been under a little medication haze myself, so I thought, "Why
not"? Fresh air, some new smiling faces and at least ChanMan wouldn't
pee on my shoe like Dumbdog had just done. So I ask ChanMan how to get
where they were? I was quickly reminded he was not at 100% capacity
when he tells me "somewhere on 8th street in Bessemer". So off I go
into the frozen innermost regions of Bessemer, in a T-shirt like a fool.
Chan had told me he and Wes were set up at the back of the place. I was
once again reminded that "front, back" was relevant to your "perceived"
current position. I parked and walked down the main aisle toward the
bustle of people. Now I came to a decision making juncture, straight,
left, or right? I chose left and was going to work the perimeter from
the outside towards the middle. Of course, if I had chosen to go to the
"right", I would have gone about 50 feet and seen both of them. But,
no, it never works that way for me, so an hour later, I finally stumble
upon Lisa manning the booth, and as I am sneaking up on her, I can see
ChanMan just a little ways further down the aisle at his booth. I joke
around with Lisa for a few minutes and I ask her "Where's Wes"? she
points to the truck and says "He's inside the truck snuggled up with
Barkley getting warm". I sneak up the side of the truck and tap on the
window and I get two big ole grins, but the one from Barkley had a
little doggy drool in it. Wes had his cell phone stuck to the side of
his head as he chatted away with Kristy who was calling for the flea
market update, so I told him I was walking on down to where ChanMan was.
As I get closer and closer to ChanMan, I can see him standing there
talking to a guy, but something is fishy looking. Chan has on a
burgundy wind breaker type jacket, and at first I thought it was just
the reflection of the color of the jacket in his face, but as I got
closer I could see that, no, his face IS about the color of the jacket.
And man, the wind is really blowing down here on ChanMan Corner. His
booth must have been at the intersection of "WINDY LANE" because the
wind was howling through there like a banshee. He had to constantly
keep setting his stuff back up as the wind kept trying to flatten his
table. And it really wasn't that cold, maybe in the 50's, but with that
wind, I was glad I had the good sense to put my heavy jacket on when I
got out of the truck.
Wes and I had to soon make a food/potty run and Chan had requested some
boiled peanuts if we came back by the "P-Nut" booth. We stopped off at
several of the booths and chatted with the other vendors on the way to
the food court. This place was much larger than I remembered it being
with both inside and outside booths. As soon as we got inside one of
the heated buildings, I could feel an infrared heater calling my name at
the other end of the aisle. Man did that thing feel good. Wished I
could taken some of it back to Chan and Lisa. There must have been
several hundred sellers there, with everything from tables-o-trees to
pots-o-panties for sale. I thought about several of you as Wes and I
walked the aisles looking at the goods. They even had a "Roner Driving
Simulator" set up there. It was a little toy dune buggy that when it
encountered an obstacle, it would just stand up on it's back wheels,
flip itself over and head off in the other direction, unstoppable, just
like our fearless leader. In a nutshell, they had everything there.
Oh, and speaking of nuts I safely delivered Chan's boiled peanuts.
Wes and Lisa took turns warming up with Barkley, and I was finally able
to talk ChanMan into going up to Wes's truck and and warming his nuts
while I watched his booth. As soon as he was outa sight... I decided
that I wanted to get real friendly with a huge stuffed teddy bear that
Chan had brought to sell, so I threw the bear on my shoulders, wrapped
its legs around my head covering my mouth and nose and secured them
there with a little spring clamp. Instant hat! And warm too. It still
needed a little work, so I took the arms and wrapped them around my head
and ears and secured them together with another clamp. I can only
imagine what I looked like with this huge white bear sitting on my
shoulders with it's arms and legs wrapped around my head, but at least I
was warmer, even though I looked like I had my head up a bear's butt.
At least all the little kids smiled and waived as they walked by.
So the moral to the story is...
Get out! Do something! Do anything! Meet life head on, with your
lights on HIGH! It was so good to see Chan in the fast lane instead of
sitting in the bleachers. And Wes and I walked all over that frozen
tundra with the best of them. Lisa was bubbling over with anticipation
about her upcoming TT, and I was more than impressed watching her and
Wes load up the truck as the sun sunk behind the Popeye's Fried Chicken
sign.
I am in the process of rebuilding my mountain bike so I can putt around
the block with Dumbdog, wish he liked riding in the car. And we have
done our second walk of 2003 with no fatalities. So, I'm trying to prep
for what I think will be the best year of my life yet. Joy and I have
1000 GeoCaches to find, 100 covered bridges to photograph and mark with
the GPS, my metal detector has come and gone twice, and is now on
backorder, but maybe it'll get here before all of the buds pop, I got a
river gold dredge expedition planned, Joy and I are driving the truck
for the Shades Valley Theatre group to Lincoln, NE in a couple of
months, I'm working City Stages 2003 again this year, and Cait and I
have a few photography outings planned. So, all in all, I got a good
start on an active year, DO YOU?
Now if I could just convince the Kreeping Kudzoo Krud to "COME OUT"!
Oh, Ernest Angely, where are you when I need you?
Tim.
aka: The Irondale Ironman!