The Proof Arrived.

T'was a lovely Saturday, September 27th 2008, as I impatiently awaited the arrival of our UPS delivery van. Had nothing better to do that morning. Had arisen at 0500 dingie-dongies suffering from anxiety in anticipation of seeing the proof copy of my novel "BERNIE'S WAR!".

I managed to gag down some packaged cereal laced with Kalua followed by a nervous puke. Feeling much better I left my hangar and hung out near the front door in case UPS might come early. I waved to a few early bird risers and gave my Greek next-door neighbor the finger whilst hurling some nifty Greek expletives at him. Now THAT'S a language rich in expletives that have all kinds of horrid meanings. Picked some of those up in Air Force flying school when a bunch of Greek students were going through at the same time. Of course, we taught them all the niceties of the English language, too. It was a riot. We taught them to say, "fuck you very much" instead of "thank you very much" and a variety of all sorts of other naughty words they could interject into their conversational English.

Nine and then ten o'clock came and went while I paced back-and-forth in front of our house. A few neighbors asked if anything was wrong. I simply told them that my wife, Brenda, had fallen down, was unconscious and that I was waiting for the ambulance to arrive - and then laughed. The poor sods didn't know what to think.

At eleven, tired and thirsty, I returned to my hangar muttering obscenities about the UPS driver's heritage. All kinds of things ran through my mind. I wondered if some dumb clown at the printers had forgotten to mark the package "For Saturday Delivery" thus leaving me in a full-swivel panic for the entire weekend. In a gesture of defiance, I cracked open an O'Doul's beer, added some salt and poured it down my gullet. In a few minutes I was belching like a cowboy whilst playing "Flatulating Rhythm" with my - well, you know what. Didn't seem to speed up the UPS dude, though.

Turned on the idiot box only to see some Muslim anal orifice telling us how he was gonna pull a trillion bucks out of his ass and give it to the needy. Not wishing to put a further strain on my own bowels, I turned that sumbitch immediately OFF. Sure wish it was that simple in real life.

At twelve noon I took a Valium and downed it with a shot of gin. It was only a matter of minutes before I was in la-la land. Awakened at two and lurched across the pool deck and into the house groping my way toward the front door.

EUREKA! There was a package by the door that looked like it might contain a book - and it DID. The frigging UPS dude hadn't even bothered to ring the doorbell and just dropped it by the door. It took me about fifteen minutes to figure out how to get the damned book box opened. There is NO way to get it opened short of destroying it and the contents therein. After breaking two fingernails I next pondered whether a chainsaw or a chisel and hammer would be best. I settled on tin-snips and this did the trick.

Sliding that book out of its shipping container was almost sexual! I was so pleased by its appearance that I didn't know if I was coming or going! At bloody last I was holding it in my hand (the book) and it looked just SUPERB! Hell, let's face it, at age 80 almost anything looks superb!

Ever onward to the marketplace or, as we say in Latin 101, "Ad Fornicatorium" - or something like that ....