Selected by Spuddie, here are a few of the stories posted by Pat to alt.penpals.forty-plus-yrs

Waiting to get some more from the Dolly Boy himself. :-)HAIR!! :-)

It seems that everyone today is advertising something for those of us whose hair decided not to turn gray but rather to turn loose and in the fullness of our manhood, we are the butt of many a joke.

Many people are really bothered by this natural occurrence, and I, though not totally destroyed by being thin-haired decided to try some of the cures. Not being a spendthrift I could not see spending big bucks to start off, so I looked into the cheaper items.

Spray hair was my first attempt and as I noted in a previous post...I'm a little shiny, but if you use that spray hair you can do all kinds of things. Stick your head in the couch and get all the loosechange, the popcorn and potato chips. The dust balls get your pillow dirty at night, but it washes right off in the shower, the dustand stuff, not the pillow, it takes 4 to 5 days for that to come loose.

But if you take the sheet off a twin bed you can make a turban and then tell everybody at work your are studying yoga. Of course that doesn't work for church, so you take the sheet and wrap it like a hospital dressing and tell everyone you were struck by a falling tree limb as you cut your yard. For some reason they always believe that story. If you look just right you can get somebody to bring you coffee and cake at thesocial gathering after mass, that way you can sit and really enjoy life.

You just got to know the secrets. One thing, watch which way your pointing that spray thingy on the can or else you have to wrap up the side of your head and come up with a whole new set of stories.Or else you have hair on your mirror or on the dog who usually sits there to help me do things that my wife is afraid to ask about. Actually, she enjoys being surprised by some of my 'dos.Like for the Holidays:I got some new spray hair , it's got sparkles in it, so now along with the feathers and dog hairs and dust balls I got sparkles, so people will think that it's a holiday hair design.

I've already had four fat (AH, pardon me - 4 porkettes) ask me where I had my hair done. I told them that a lady in Nevada made it specially for me and that they should order directly from her at MJ Fashions. I think the idea of paying for hair turned them off, but then it's harder to tell with women when they have a wig.

Men, now that's a whole different thing; if it doesn't breath or shit on your head they'll wear it and act like nothing is different. I had a supervisor that I called "Roadkill" because his hairpiece was so bad it looked like he stopped along the highway and picked up a dead animal and stuck it on top of his head. It was all I could do to keep from laughing in his face when he came in.  You must be careful how you talk about these things because it can come back and bite you on the ass.

Case in point, we were having a company meeting and *Roadkill* was playing volley ball, and his hair was bouncing up and down, looked like a small collie in heat. I was standing off to the side watching and laughing, when another manager asked if *Roadkill* has a hairpiece. Being the smart ass I am I was quick to answer. I assured him that even though it look like a live small animal it was indeed a custom made hair piece. he was curious as to how it stayed on and again I was quick withthe answer, " he has a strip of velcro stapled to his head and then another strip glued in the hair piece and he just slaps it on like a hat." The guy was fascinated, he actually believed that story and he walked off.

I later saw him talking to Roadkill and I saw Road's reaction.Funny how you can tell when a person doesn't like what s/he just heard. That night Road made a special effort to sit across from me at supper and seeing as how I was already on his shit list, I figured I might as well get my licks in. The conversation kinda rolled back and forth and we had a few drinks and finally Road asked me if I had anything I wanted to share with him. I looked at him and said " You can have half may steak to feed your hair if you want it." I have a loud voice and when drinking it gets louder, so to say that it got quiet is an understatement.

Now you have to understand Road had no sense of humor, he was a strict, by the book operator who did not care for renegades like me even before I insulted his hair.  He looked at me for about thirty seconds and then he burst out laughing and threw that damn brown rug in my plate. 

I think that hair piece was on everyone head that night at sometime and I do know that Barry (Roadkill) never wore it again. He evened loosened up a bit. Not much but at least I could look at him and not worry about laughing when his hair breathed.

Other thoughts on hair: I thought about putting some beads in my hair but that would make my head roll and I might roll out of the bed at night, I already fall out enough, I don't need to hit the floor anymore. But if you have problems falling out of bed try this, put you mattress on the floor and sleep on your box springs, that way if you do fall out you'll end up on your mattress and get a good night's sleep, unless of course your hair is stuck to the head board, then you just kinda dangle around until you wake up after having a night mare about being hanged by the posse in "The Ox-Bow Incident" or by Capt. McCall in "Lonesome Dove".But I do have a new chapeau, a madras snap brim sporting cap. Dennis Rodman eat your heart out. Pat

WHY I HATE PEANUT BUTTER... It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, I had a toothache and it was Thanksgiving Day. No dentist to be found, and so man that I am, I whimpered through the whole day. Late in the evening I came to a fateful decision, I'll just have all my teeth pulled and get dentures.

Now your local dentist does not like to do this because it cuts into his future earnings but if you insist most will do it. Somebody will, so they might as well get what they can out of the deal. My dentist took a mold and then sent it off to have the dentures made.

I came in on the following Thursday and we set about the make over. I think we have 34 teeth, don't quote me, I was on drugs. Anyway I was given 2 seconal and a dental assistant to help me get in the mood. Soft hands on your forehead have a soothing effect...seconal ain't bad either. After 20 minutes or so, the Doc arrives and another assistant and I'm hooked up to the laughing gas.

First time in my life I had ever had that stuff, I highly recommend it for some of the tight asses around here, a definite party favor.Ah, but then without warning the two assistants pin me in the chair, the Doc whips out a 6 ft needle and I get the final treatment,a Novocain shoot in the roof of the mouth. I think it nicked my brain cause I was goofy as hell. Passing lightly over the *bloody part*, however we did get into a giggling contest when I tried to talk after having all my teeth removed. The Doc had to call a time out to regroup and clean the blood of himself and the walls. Damn that laughing gas is good.Anyway, extraction's complete. The Doc inserts the new dentures and checks the fit, gives me a handful of pain pills and specific instructions to "under no circumstances remove the dentures before I return to see him Monday." If I feel like eating he suggests I stick to cool or body temperature items that are soft and require little or no chewing. Lots of liquids and pain pills as needed.

I got home and all things considered I felt pretty good, so good in fact that I had some lemon icebox pie, a whole one. Friday morning I had some more lemon icebox pie and coke. Another whole pie. I was manager of a restaurant and our lemon icebox pie was home made and just about perfect. Plus my baker was very fond of me and she took my personal pies as very serious work.I made it through Saturday night on the lemon pies, seven or eight, I can't remember but by Sunday I need food.

At that time I weighed in about 270 and eating was a hobby and I enjoyed my hobby. I tried scrambled eggs, when they were warm they cause pain, when cold, well a cold egg is a cold egg.Then I found it, the perfect food, soft, creamy, no chewing required, Peter Pan Peanut Butter. I got out a slice of nice soft white bread and slathered on the PPPB about two inches thick, then a little marshmallow whiz, also soft, viola -food. First bite went down like a charm. Gawd it was good, a tiny bite but I knew I could start taking bigger bits now because there was no pain.

On my third bite I felt a slight tug and then it was like someone hit me right between the eyes with a hammer. Every part of my head was in pain, I thought my eyes where going to pop out. It took me a minute or so to get control, you know how it is when you drink something extremely cold and the pain shoots through your eyes, well add some.I looked at my sandwich and there were my dentures, firmly locked in that sucker. Being a typical man, I quickly rushed into the bathroom so my wife wouldn't find out what a dumbass I had been and tried to repair the damage. 

I have always hear jokes about cans of worms or women with girdles or tight jeans, but I can honestly say that you will never understand the word tight and pain until you try to get a set of dentures back into a mouth that is swollen and sore and has no intention of ever been constrained again.

The first try to replace them sent me to my knees and I didn't, couldn't, wouldn't try again. That one try started all the emptysockets to bleeding and let me tell you, it is embarrassing when you wife comes in an catches you sitting in the bathroom, with awashcloth shoved in your mouth like a giant candy bar, your teeth in your hands and a used peanut butter sandwich stuck to the bathroom mirror. Hard to speak around the wash cloth and not having any teeth doesn't really help either. But after writing a message in my blood she called the Doc and he met me at his office.

You ever notice how smug some people can be when telling you I told you so without really saying the words?The Doc had some hydraulic tools and a socket wrench and he got the dentures back in, shit it was simple...for him. For me I can still see the exploding lights that were going off in my head. But the dentures were in place where they stayed for the next week and 10 more lemon pies.

Too this very day I don't eat lemon pie and the very though of PPPB gives me such a pain between my eyes I have to lay down for half a day. Beware, peanut butter might not kill you, but it can make you wish you were dead.

Pat

AND, some further advice to an 'inquiring mind' about going to the dentist, David, that's how all that stuff started with me.

I went to a dentist who wanted to clean under my gums and being a tiny bit fearful, I let him do just one jaw tooth. I should have known I was in trouble when he hit my tooth with the laser scalpel and my wallet jumped out of my back pocket. I thought it was the 4th of July I saw some many exploding lights. Anyway he did his thing, you ever notice they don't have any where to pee in a dentist's office, unless of course you use that little midget toilet they have for you to spit in.

Oh yeah!Anyway the tooth he worked on abscessed on the following Saturday and I ended up having to drive 70 miles to a friend's practice. He put me in the chair and gave me a couple of shots of Novocain then grabbed his extractor and put it on the tooth. I hit him so hard I actually cracked one of his front teeth, he was pissed.

I tried to tell him how bad that extractor hurt and he said the nerves were dead...dead my ass, I told him I could jump start a caterpillar with the pain that shot through me. He gave me a couple of more shots, my lips were drooping, I was slobbering all over myself and talking was hard, but if you know me, you know I don't let a little thing like Novocain stop me.Well he hitched up his extractor and bam, left ball in right corner pocket.

I damn near tore his arm off jumping out of that chair. My lips were drooping, I looked like a Char-pei with hydrophobia, I was crying  and trying to find out where it got that cheap ass Novocain. I think the foot in the conjones alerted him to the fact that this was serious shit.I was hurting so bad that I got back in the chair, let him strap me down, give me 5 more Novocain shots, the last one squirted dead on the tooth.

He put that damn extractor on and even though I was trying to eat it, he got his feet set and he pulled that tooth. Damn thing had roots like 400 year oak tree. I swear there 4 indention's on my left buttock to show where they came from.He held that tooth up and after watching to make sure I was going to attack him he let me loose.

I jumped out of that chair, grabbed that tooth and ran out side to my car. I got a hammer out of the trunk and I sat on the sidewalk and talked to that tooth for a couple of minutes and then beat the piss out of it with the hammer. Ryan, still my friend after our little adventure was taking picture and laughing his ass off while I beat that tooth.

So David, get that sucker pulled, and if they say anything about saving it, just bite the bastard on the arm.

Pat

  Too Much Beer???

Back in the days when I was just a younker in the Navy, like all younkers I wanted to prove that I was indeed a man. Now when you are 18 or 19 there are only just so many ways you can do this. Being a head strong and ego driven young male, I decide to show my manhood by the amount of beer I could hold. Seeing as beers were only 25 cents each at the club, I figured it was also the cheapest way.Gathering the other young bachelor male younkers, I proceeded to the EM club to show my talent and inherit my place as Super Younker.

We started drinking and as one by one the immature younkers dropped out I berated them with some choice Navy terms and continued to boast of my dominance. Eventually I was drinking alone and someone suggested we have supper. We got a steak supper at the club and I had one more beer. To say I was sloshed was an understatement, I have been drunk quite a few times since then but never quite as stupid.We arrived at our barracks, where we had the second floor. Most of us were waiting for our ships to come in and were just working odd jobs during the day.

Once we got in the barracks we were sitting around bullshitting when I started bragging about be Super man of beer drinking. One of my friends, without thinking, said "Well Super man fly you ass out that window." I did. Landed on a concrete pad 16 feet below the window on my right foot and left elbow. Poetry in motion turned to panic in flight. Everyone ran down to check me out and as the pain was driving away the effects of the beer, my friends loaded me in a wheel barrow and took me to sick bay, with a stop at the EM club for just one more beer, for them...My right ankle is still weak and I limit myself to one beer these days, my flying days are over.

Pat  -   waxing his strings