The Perfect Song Blog

When I go a store, I don’t go to shop. I’m a male. I’m going for things I need.

I am not shopping.

Having made that clear, I realize that when I go to a store, something changes in me. The day-to-day laid back, I-love-everybody Dennis Miller undergoes a change. It’s subtle and it’s massive.

I want what I’m going after and I want no one in my way. On my way to say, Wal-Mart, I watch the traffic and try to get the lane lead when the light turns green. If I’m coming up on a traffic light and it turns yellow, I bump the gas pedal and slide under it, hoping there’s not a cop around working toward a quota.

I arrive at Wal-Mart which I have a love-hate relationship with (as I do all stores, except the Apple Store, which I’ve never shopped in which explains why I love it). I find a parking spot with two goals:

1. To get as close as I can

2. To remember where I parked.

I go in, knowing what I want:

1. Seed starter kits.

2. Seeds

3. Storage crates

4. Shampoo –T-Gel, the only thing that controls my psoriasis

I know what I’m after. I know where they’re located. I move quickly, purposefully. An old man is shuffling in front of me. I tell myself I’ll be in his shoes one of these days but this isn’t the day and I let him eat my dust.

I round the corner of an aisle and nearly slam into a mother and three kids under the age of ten. This is the worst possible age combination group. Two kids are jumping, dancing and one is crying because the spoiled brat didn’t get the latest piece of red-painted poisonous toy from China.

I feel myself getting uptight because I have to slow down and put on a pasty fake smile of politeness masking my impatience and hopefully showing a cardboard façade of relating to the mother. (I do not relate because I am a male and the crying spoiled little barbarian should have been stored in his cave).
I scoop up the seed starter kits and head for the seed display. A Korean woman looking at the seeds asks if it’s too early to plant them. Yes, I say. It’s too early. She asks when a good time is and I want to say “go ask a Wal-Mart Associate, the vested experts making minimum wage and no benefits. They would love to expound on the best time to plant your seed.”

But I don’t.

I head down the aisle for the storage crates. A couple appears from behind a display in front of me and ambles. Do you have any idea what ambling is and what it does to me?

I’ll tell you in the next post

Okay, here’s the danger of being an ebayholic. A few weeks ago I came across a lot (collection) of vintage paperbacks. Popular Library. All published in the 1940s. I studied them. They were all in good shape. Two of them, I knew, were worth about $70 each.

I wanted them.

I put in a bid of $15. They just sat for a week with no activity. Then someone bid $17. So I immediately bid $20. No one else bid. We were down to three days, then two.

Then a dealer came in and outbid me. I let it sit until the night the bidding ended. I went in and bid $25. I was outbid. I went to $30.

Outbid again.

How much was I willing to pay? I figured I could go to $50, so I punched in the numbers. I had winning bid.

There was an hour left. I went on and did other things, forgetting the bid. At the last minute—literally– I remembered and rushed back to the site. The dealer had outbid me!

I threw in a new bid, putting me up to $60. I was outbid.

Now I was in a mode of combination panic and competiveness. With 33 seconds left I rushed to the keyboard and typed in $70. I hit the bid button, then the confirm, hoping I could get through with just the few seconds that were ticking away.

The moment I hit the confirm button I realized that after the$7 I hit the 0 button twice.

I had bid $700!

I broke into a cold sweat. $700 is like my life savings. Then I realized that eBay only takes your bid in 10% increments. But what if he had bid $200 or $300? Time moved so slow that if a hummingbird had passed in front of me I would have seen its wing movement.

Finally the sign came up that I had won the bid. Of course I had won. I’m an idiot who bid $700! I looked, cautiously (terrified, actually) to see what I’d actually paid.

I was relieved to find that I got out of it for a relatively low $97.

I walked away, lesson learned.

Actually, I’m not really sure what the lesson is except, if you’re an ebayholic, for God’s sakes, don’t panic.

In my previous post, I confessed how creating a website devoted to William Ard reactivated my addiction to vintage paperbacks, and eBay was the great enabler.

Ard died quite young and produced a limited body of work. It didn’t take me long to acquire the titles I needed. One night while poking around I decided to search for vintage paperbacks in general.

What in God’s name was I thinking? I lived and breathed vintage paperbacks throughout the 1990s. I traveled to flea markets, rummage sales, and participated in phone auctions (antiquated, yes, but that’s what we did in that century.)

List upon list unfolded before me. I scrolled through, pulling up individual lots, telling myself there might be an Ard title in the collection. But in truth, it was to savor the covers and titles. It all came back to me. I realized I could tell at a glance whether a book was worth anything by the publisher, author or cover art. I knew the publishers’ logos by heart from years of studying paperbacks.

I knew cover artists, and of course, authors. I found a particularly good copy of John D. MacDonald’s The Brass Cupcake. Well, I thought, just one. I can stop with just one.

I put in a bid.

I came across a near mint copy of The Luscious Puritan, a worthwhile investment just for the cover. One more won’t hurt, I convinced myself.

By the week’s end I was bidding on 15 items. I checked the bids every night. Sometimes I checked them at lunch hour at the office. I checked the email for notes from sellers. I did more searches. At night, even before I worked on my Ard site, which is my passion, I had to check eBay. Two hours later I would rip myself away, reminding myself of the addictive nature of all this.

I realized that there is no such thing as “social bidding.”

I had not only fallen off the wagon, I looked around and the wagon was nowhere in sight.

I’m not going to fight it anymore. I’m an addict and I admit it. I can’t stop with one or two bids. I’m in a sea of books and they’re all for sale. For sale by bid, the most seductive, adventurous, adrenaline-pumping way of buying.

It’s the search, the chase. It’s that initial bid and the sense of competition, the need to stay in the fight when another person outbids you. Your mind becomes distorted. Reality changes. You are committed to winning.

You learn to hate seeing the message “you’ve been outbid!” It’s like an admonishment, as if you’re a lesser person. You go to the box that says you have to bid at least 10 percent more. In fact the grand eBay Poobah tells you the minimum you can bid.

You type in the numbers and hit the bid button. If it says, “you are still outbid,” you put in more numbers . It’s so easy. “Congratulations, you are the high bidder!” Yes! I did it. I beat the other person . . .for the moment.

Losing hurts. It’s a lonely feeling. But if you’re a real addict, you know life goes on and you immediately continue onto new searches, new bids, new rounds. . . .

Friends told me to relinquish control, that the addiction is beyond a mere human. I must turn myself over to God and let Him help.

I did. I turned it over to Him, then put in a bid on a very rare pocket book copy of The Old Testament.

I knew all was lost when a pop-up screen told me: “You’ve been outbid, by God.”

Enough. I’d like to hear from you. Are you an eBayholic? Tell me about it. Share your story.  Use “comments” or email me at theperfectsong@gmail.com

My name is Dennis Miller and I’m an ebayholic.

Yes, I’m addicted. I thought I could just visit the site, have a quick peek and walk away, a social eBayer as it were. But no, I found myself gradually going back more and more until it became once a day, then twice. My God, sometimes I even signed on in the morning. I don’t know how this happened.

I’m not proud of it.

Let me give you some background. Let me talk about it. I need to talk about it, to share my story.

I first logged onto eBay in the 1990s, — wait! – let me leave for a moment and check. . . . Yes, I joined November 27, 1999, as the door closed quickly on the 20^th century. At that time I was interested in . . .oh, God, I don’t even know what I was interested in. But I bid on some things and won and played around with it for maybe a couple years. It was cheap high, but nothing serious.

Then I walked away from it. Cold turkey! I didn’t look back. I had neither need nor desire.

Nearly 10 years went by. Any of you my age knows how fast 10 years goes by. A blink. A wink. A heartbeat and –whoosh—a decade is behind you.

Then, in 2007 I started a website on a forgotten hard-boiled detective writer named William Ard. I had written an article about him for a magazine in 1992. I suddenly had the urge –no, a craving!—to start a web site and write about him, include photos of the numerous paperback book covers. I wanted to share him with the world and there is no better place than a web site.

I needed (and I say this in a hushed voice, looking to my right and left; God knows who is listening to all this) books. I needed books to photograph and upload onto the site.

My shoulders sag and I stare vacantly at my shoes as I admit this. I returned to eBay. . . . Yes! Nearly ten years clean and I returned to eBay. This time it wasn’t gradual. I strode through the cyber bat-winged doors, flinging them back and ordering auctions straight up!

I wanted Ard books! I sought them out with the full knowledge that I would pay any price for a first edition vintage paper back in very good condition or better. No one, please understand, no one would outbid me. I had the means and the will.

Needless to say, I found titles and I bid. And I won. With each title or lot I placed an initial bid with a maximum bid. As other bidders weighed in, I watched them carefully. I hit on their links to see who they were, if they were a casual collector or a seller. I was unmerciful in my quest to gather Ard titles. No one would get in my way.

As the bidding of each auction neared its end, I stayed on the site and hit the refresh button every 30 seconds, thwarting anyone who tried to come in at the last minute. Swoop in and throw another 10% on? Forget it, competitor! I toss in 20%!

In the first few weeks, I won every bid. Yes, it felt good. And no, I felt no remorse. I had a William Ard Website and I was determined to become the world’s leading expert in the works and life of this author. It’s a narrow, specialized field, but please try to understand the need, the attraction, the addiction of being the world’s best something or other.

Little did I know it would lead to bigger, stronger addictions that I’m in the middle of. Yes, even as you read this I’m struggling with a force more powerful than anything I ever imagined.

It’s pulling me into it’s black hole even as I write. I never thought it would go as far as it did. I thought I was in control.

Hard as it is, I’ll complete my confession in Part 2.

If you’d like to comment, please do. I could use the support.

I can just hear the question: “Okay kids, how would you like to watch a movie on the big screen this afternoon?” And the kids, ages 3-5 jump up in excitement. Mom packs them into the car and takes them to Sam’s Club.

How do I know this? I saw this family, Sunday. I went to Sam’s at 11:30 to beat the church crowd. Well, all the other heathens in New York State had the same thought. The place was mobbed. I showed my membership card to an uninterested senior citizen in his Sam’s vest. I grabbed a cart and proceeded inward. . .until I reached the family. The mother stood there using her cart to lean on as the kids, sitting on the floor in a semi-circle, watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

This was not a few minute watch. They were in for the duration. The kids were so engrossed I’m sure they forgot they were sitting on a gray, concrete floor. The mother was oblivious to the woman in front of me trying to get through as people, trying to get out, stood and waited. Finally a hole opened up and the woman pushed around the family and I followed.

I think if a Sam’s Associate had come over and paused the movie, the woman probably would have taken the kids over to the snack counter and bought pretzels and soda and returned to pick up where they left off.

I could see her sitting at the supper table that evening, telling her husband about her day. “Yes, we watched Pirates of The Caribbean. I just love Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom.”

“This was in Sam’s Club?” Asks the father for clarification.

“Yes, it was a little drafty. People kept coming in the whole time. You know those big doors . . .when they open it lets in a lot of cold air.“ Turns to children. “I don’t know how you kids stood it sitting on that cold floor.”

“I think somebody called Mommy an idiot,” one child says.

“Bitch,” another child adds. “They called her a bitch.”

“I think it was dumb bitch,” the other corrects. (See? Kids are always paying attention.)

“People are so rude,” the mother says. “I mean there we were just standing – or sitting – minding our own business and people gave me dirty looks. I mean, they wouldn’t be playing those movies if they didn’t want people to watch, would they? I mean, that’s the point.”

She takes a bite of mashed potatoes. “People are so immature,” she says self-righteously.

“I wonder what’s on next week?” One child says.

“We’ll see, honey,” Mom says. “I’m sure it will be a good one.”

In the last post I mentioned I volunteered to clean the upstairs bathroom on a weekly basis and Leigh gave me a training session. When she left, I looked around and decided to start with the tub. I have rinsed tubs before. I have also watched it get so grungy that I barely wanted to step in.

Now I was on my knees, scrubbing it inch-by-inch. It was an eye-opener. Here was a mere one-week collection of all types of things I’d washed off my body. There was a lot of hair. But there was also just –I don’t know—scum.

Humans are walking dirt balls and there’s nothing to be done about it except to wash all the collected dead stuff off your body, then get rid of it with Bartender’s Friend.

I moved on to the toilet. Using the Lysol wipes, I was again closer to a dirty toilet than I’ve ever been. It was not a pretty sight. What made it worse was the knowledge that these were my stains. For the most part, these were marks only a male can make.

But as I scrubbed and wiped something miraculous happened. The toilet gradually turned gleaming white before my eyes! It was transforming into something beautiful. In fact, it was so beautiful I wiped it down again just to see if I could heighten the gleam.

I scrubbed the inside of the bowl until it, too, gleamed. I flushed and watched the crystal clear water swirl around the blinding white sides of the porcelain bowl. If toilets had feelings, this one would be beaming with pride.

Inspired, I moved on to the sink, shook out some Bon Ami and began scrubbing. Toothpaste and spit stains were rubbed off. Beard hairs and flecks of pipe tobacco were swept away. I cleaned the mirror and washed the walls.

Then I stood back and looked around. Listen, when you make your living as an administrator and writer you don’t always see the results of your work. Today I stood there and basked in the results of my labors—a spotlessly clean bathroom!

I walked out so I could walk back in and appreciate it with a fresh eye.

The pride in ownership took a toll however. Later, I had to use the toilet. I looked down at its graceful curves flawlessly white. I lifted the seat with a loving appreciation I had never felt for a toilet seat. I unzipped and took aim and . . .had second thoughts.

I didn’t know if I could go through with this.

I was suffering PTCT –Post Toilet Cleaning Trauma.

With great reluctance I finally let the water flow. I shook ever so gently but even with the gentlest shake, men are condemned send drops flying where they shouldn’t. I zipped, grabbed a tissue and wiped the rim.

This toilet, I determined, would remain stain-free.

The shower was a different matter. When I shower at night the last thing I’m going to do is rinse it out. I resigned myself to having to face my collected detritus every Saturday armed with Bartender’s Friend.

But I do find myself nightly inspecting the sink for stray hairs and stains.

Yes, I have ownership now and take my duties seriously. But I’m also a little embarrassed to realize that women have known for decades what I finally appreciated: beneath the clothes we are unclean creatures.

I volunteered to clean the upstairs bathroom every week. Sounds small, I know, but it was a big jump for me.

I wanted to do something to help with the cleaning and knew from experience that washing, drying and folding clothes is not for me.

So, Saturday we had a training session, an eye-opening training session. I figured cleaning a bathroom meant washing the sink, wiping down the toilet and picking up things.

“First you have to take all the stuff off the sink,” Leigh said, moving the hair brush, electric toothbrush, tooth whitening solution, soap, deodorant and paper cup. She held up a bottle of industrial strength liquid that looked like something McGyver would use to melt concrete. “Then you squirt on the areas around the faucet that get gunked up. “ She squirted it.

“Don’t get it on your hands.”

I was becoming frightened.

What other flesh-melting weapons did she have hiding in her cleaning arsenal?

“Let it soak while you go to the tub,” she continued. “Scrub it by hand with this sponge using Bartender’s Friend. Get all the areas on the sides. Don’t forget the faucet. ”

I thought Bartender’s Friend was someone who bought me a drink.

This was looking a bit complicated. I was beginning to think I needed a degree in chemistry, protective face gear and heavy rubber gloves to complete the mission.

“Next you do the toilet. “ She dumped some ammonia into the bowl. “Then use Lysol Wipes to clean the rim, the seat, behind the seat and the sides.” She hauled out the toilet bowl brush. “Scrub the inside of the bowl until it’s clean.”

She went on. Haul out the throw rugs and shake them outside. Pour ammonia on the bath mat to get rid of the scum. Sweep the floor. Clean the walls where the dog lies and rubs dirt into them. Wash the mirror.

She handed me the cleaning materials. “Thanks . Good luck.”

And she left.

I was on my own.

In the next post I’ll let you know how I made out.

We went to Outback for Leigh’s birthday last week. Nathan wanted an appetizer. Leigh said okay and they proceeded to discuss what they wanted.

The waiter had come over three times while they were trying to decide. He stood patiently waiting as they argued in the most polite passive-aggressive manner I’ve ever heard.

“We can get the bloomin’ onion,” Leigh said.

“But you like the spinach dip,” Nathan answered.

“But I know you like the bloomin’ onion.”

“You always get the spinach dip.”

“Well, it’s new on the menu and we don’t know if it’s good.”

Finally Nathan shrugged. “You decide. It’s your birthday.”

They went with the bloomin’ onion. The waiter smiled, noted it and left.

Thirty minutes later a line of exuberant young waiters and waitresses with America’s Loudest Voices marched out and sang happy birthday to a young woman at a table beside us. It was the loudest birthday song I’ve ever heard.

Leigh, by the way, hates this feature of several restaurant chains.

Fifteen minutes later the band of servers returned and sang happy birthday to someone at another nearby table. This time I put a hand over my ear closest to them and held onto my coffee to keep it from vibrating off the table.

We finished our meal. I was just picking up my napkin when the happy band appeared again. “How could so many people be celebrating birthdays?” I wondered.

They stopped at our table and sang at the top of their voices holding a bowl of ice cream with a burning candle. As they sang, I studied Leigh’s expression which was a curious mixture of shock, rage, and thoughts of revenge.

They were directed at me. Her expression put a damper on the group’s enthusiasm. A waitress handed Leigh the ice cream and they hastily beat a retreat.

“Why did you do that?” Leigh said to me. It wasn’t a question. It was a demand that needed either a really truthful or a really creative answer. “You know I hate that!”

“It wasn’t me. I know you hate that.” In this case I thought simple was best.

“You did it when you called ahead.”

“I didn’t. I know you hate that.” Stay on message.

It worked. She turned to Nathan. “You did it you little –“

“No! I swear! I didn’t.” When Nathan wants to get a point across he always says “I swear.”

“You must have! How did they know? Somebody had to tell them!”

We puzzled over this until the waiter returned with the check. “I have a question,” I said. “How did you know it was her birthday?”

He smiled. “Oh, when they were talking about the appetizer and he” –he pointed to Nathan—“said, ‘you decide. It’s your birthday.”

He thought a minute. “God, I was hoping as we came out that it really was your birthday.”

I gave the kid a really big tip.

Mansfield University shuts down for 10 days over the holidays.  For many years I looked forward to this mini vacation as a time to get a lot of my projects done.

After many frustrating years, I now know that there is no free time leading up to Christmas.  Leigh is stressed out with cleaning the house, Christmas shopping, decorating, packing and wrapping, in addition to her business.

So I’m called in to help cook, play with the dogs, and wrap presents, a job I absolutely hate.  In my hands, scissors turn crooked and cut the paper in jagged lines.  I never cut it the right size.  The presents I wrap always look like they’ve been slept on by an overweight insomniac.

Christmas day is a physical and emotional rush. The post-Christmas recuperation time has lengthened into about three days.  I kid you not, I was up and around after surgery faster that I felt half alive after Christmas 2007.

One of the presents for Leigh was curtains for our living room which she’s needed for two years.   This year I gave her a note saying I’d buy them but she had to pick them out  Kim, our daughter was here.  Kim had to leave a few days after Christmas.

It worked.

What I hadn’t thought about was the unholy hassle of assembling rods and putting up the hangers.  I did one set the first night and found that the holes already in the wall  were not right for the new hangers.  I took everything apart, moved it over an inch and drilled a new hole.

There was, of course, no stud there.  I measured and re-measured,  screwed in the new hanger and found my level was no longer working correctly.

“I’ll just have eyeball it,” Leigh said.  I hate it when she eyeballs.  “Okay, just tap the bottom a litttttle to the left.  Nope!  No!  Too much.  Back just a tich.  No!  That was  more than a tich!

“What in the Hell’s name is a ‘tich’?”

“You know what a tich is.”

Obviously I don’t know if I just moved it more than a tich!”

“Don’t make such a big deal of things.  Just tap it –a tich.”  She did that just to anger me.  It worked.

I was now sweating and wanted a drink, something with significant  dose of alcohol in it.

“Ah! Ah! Close.   Now put it back to the right a tich.”

I found myself angry that the term tich was getting on my nerves.  I tapped it.  She stood and stared, studying it.  Time dragged on.

“Did your body freeze up?” I asked.  “Are you breathing?  Communicate, please!

“Over just a freckle of a hair,” she finally said.

I curse the carpenter who first came up with this non-existent universal measurement.  I curse all carpenters who keep it alive.  And, I realized, I was in a general, all-encompassing cursing mode.

I touched the hanger.

“It didn’t move,” she said.

I touched it harder, the old freckle-of-a-hair-touch.”

She nodded.  “Perfect.”

When shared projects like this are over, there’s a feeling of cautious relief.  Slowly, we speak to each other to make sure neither one was offended  too much.  She happily began hanging the first curtain.  I fixed a drink and went downstairs to watch The Family Guy.

The slate colored clouds lie like a rumpled blanket as the misty rain melts the snow. Everything is a texture of various shades of gray.
I don’t mind. I’m in the Jeep with three dogs headed to the transfer station to unload my garbage and recyclable cans and bottles.
We pass a hawk sitting on a post staring over the barren cornfield. He looks like he’s waiting for a 12 noon mouse rush. I park by the garbage bins where I contribute to an American landfill yet another week’s worth of trash, most of it made in China.
My horse-faced man who traveled the world to give advice to third world countries about his company sits in the trailer selling bags that we have to buy to put our garbage in.
“Kind of a gray day,” I say, knowing about a hundred people have already said the same thing.
He nods. “Yes it is. But it least it’s not snow.”
“True. I can’t believe Christmas is only three days away.”
He nods. He wears a baseball cap and has big, even white teeth. He’s in his 70s and smokes even though he’s had two pacemakers. “My wife passed away on this day three years ago,” he says quietly. “So Christmas don’t mean a whole lot to me anymore.”
I suppose anyone else would have said, “I’m sorry to hear that.” Instead I asked: “How did she die?
He nodded. “We were havin’ breakfast. We have a little enclosed patio where we would go out and have breakfast and watch the birds. She loved birds. We had birdhouses, you know, scattered around. We were eating breakfast when she put her hand up to her chest and said something hurt bad. She fell off her chair. . . and that was all she wrote. . . . She was gone.”
“I’m sorry to hear that but if you’re going to go that’s the best way,” I say.
He nods in complete agreement. “Yes, it is. No pain, no suffering. She was a nurse. Never no problem at all. Just came on that quick.” He looked out past the airport into the sky. His pale blue eyes were far away. He shook his head slowly. “I sure do miss her.”
We talk a little more and I give him three dollars for a garbage bag. “I’ll see you next Saturday. It’ll be here before we know it.”
The phrase Merry Christmas is worn and hollow and I did not wish him one.
He had shared his story and that was enough.