This is from my latest book, MY LIFE AS A FREAK MAGNET, available in bookstores everywhere and online at
Amazon.com and the other usual suspects. In fact, you can go direct to the link to order it here:
http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-As-Freak-Magnet/dp/0977281949/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229269909&sr=8-1This is my wife's favorite story from the book. It's a pretty funny story, and 100 percent true. Well, almost. Anyway, hope you enjoy it...
(Oh, and as with any of my stories, feel free to e-mail them out or share them with all your friends. Just make sure to include my byline and the copyright/website info at the end.)
STICKY HANDS
By Sean LearyI can’t stand having sticky hands.
I realize this is hardly a shocking revelation. Nothing perverse along the lines of ``I can’t stand being touched unless it’s by someone’s big toe’’ or ``I can’t stand the feel of sunlight on my skin because I think it’s cooking me like bacon’’ or ``I can’t stand any movies featuring Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts.’’
No, disliking stickiness is, I would venture to guess, a fairly common thing. I don’t imagine there are too many people out there who lather up with marshmallow cream every morning.
However, I don’t imagine all people have gotten to their neurosis the same way I did.
It all began during a particularly long road trip. I was seven years old, and I, my three younger siblings, and my two parents were making the 14-hour trek to upstate ....New York.... from Chicagoland to visit my grandparents.
Now that I’m an adult, and a father, I can only imagine the agony my parents went through on these trips. But I’ll give them credit. We made a number of them. To ....New York..... To ....Florida..... To ....Louisiana..... To ....North Carolina..... All to visit relatives. All of them in the family Truckster, zooming along the highway with strange smells emanating from the spawn in the back seat.
Looking back, this definitely puts my father’s bursts of anger and impatience with us into perspective.
And it was one of those that led to my angst about stickiness.
It was on that fateful trip to ....New York...., somewhere in the middle-end of the journey, that I had decided it would be a good idea to eat a chocolate bar that had been sitting in the hot car for several hours. Even with air conditioning, with six people in a car, it’s going to get a little warm, and when a Hershey bar is sitting in anything but a cooler, it’s pretty much doomed to become a puddle.
``Don’t eat that, it’s gonna make a mess,’’ my father offered.
But that hardly mattered to me.
``We’re not that far away,’’ my mother said. ``You know your grandparents will have dinner waiting when we get there.’’
``But I’m hungry now.’’
``Can’t you have something else?’’ she said. ``Isn’t there a sandwich in the cooler?’’
``I don’t want a sandwich.’’
Soggy baloney? No. That wouldn’t do. I wanted candy, and I wanted it then.
``Fine, but you better not make a goddamn mess!’’ my father exclaimed.
``I won’t!’’ I promised.
And I tried not to. I really did.
I gingerly opened the wrapper, scooped out the insides with my fingers, brought the gluey wrapper to my mouth to lick it clean, and managed to somehow avoid getting any chocolate onto my shirt, shorts or any aspect of the car’s interior.
My hands were a different story.
No matter how much I licked them clean, they were caked with a thick, sugary adhesive.
``My hands are sticky!’’
``We told you not to eat it,’’ my mother said.
At first, I used this to my advantage, holding my hands menacingly around the faces and hair of my brother and sisters.
``Quit bugging your brother and sisters!’’ my mom admonished.
``And don’t go touching anything in the car – not the door handles, not the window handles, not the seats – nothing!’’ my father added.
Given such restrictions, the sticky hands failed to amuse for very long. Seconds later, they became more an annoyance than anything else.
I tried licking my hands again, to no avail. They were still gunked.
Then, the slow descent began. With an idea, mind you, a strange, stupid idea that must have made some sense at the time to my youthful brain, but which now just seems completely idiotic.
I opened up a bag of Doritos.
It was a small bag, the kind we’d have packed in our lunches. But it held just enough Doritos to leave a generous dusting of red and orange on my newly disgusting mitts.
So now I not only had chocolate and sugar residue on my hands, I also had spicy corn chip gunk.
None of which was peeling off, no matter how much I licked.
``My hands are sticky!’’
``We told you not to eat that candy bar!’’ my mother said.
We were driving through ....Canada.... and making good time, so my father didn’t want to stop at a rest stop. I think he also did it to teach me a lesson. Regardless of the reason, for several hours I was left to my awkward devices, unable to touch anything or anyone. It was okay for a while. A short while. But when I couldn’t read comic books, I began to get antsy. And when I started to sneeze and had to blow my nose, I really freaked out, trying to somehow rub my face into my short-sleeved shirt shoulder to catch the post-nasal drip.
``Nmah ghands ....ur.... stiggy!’’ I slurred from the background as my sisters giggled.
``It’s your own damn fault!’’ my father growled. ``We told you not to do it, and you did it anyway.’’
``Nyah, bud…’’
``But nothing! You’re just gonna have to deal with it, because I’m not stopping!’’
The words shook down from on high as though my dad was Moses with the two tablets. Only a Moses who was accompanied by someone a bit more sympathetic than he.
``We’ve got to stop up here to go over the bridge from ....Canada.... back into ....New York....,’’ my mother said. ``We can pull over then, and you can wash your hands.’’
``Nnoh kay.’’
Thus began one of the longest half hours of my life. A half hour of mile counting and sign spotting. A half hour that came to an end with an incredible act of hubris.
Figuring I was going to be getting to a bathroom soon, I figured it would be safe enough for me to use a tissue to somewhat alleviate my sinus condition.
Predictably, this turned out to be a bad idea.
Not only did the tissue not work particularly well, given that it stuck fast to my hand, but it shredded into various little pieces that only made my Edward Sludgehands condition all the worse.
Now, not only did I have the chocolate sugar sticky hands, but I also had Dorito dust and bits of tissue all over me.
But not to worry, right? Because we’d be stopping soon. The gateway between nations would surely be one equipped with a bathroom, and ergo, a sink, right?
Wrong.
``Is there anywhere for him to stop and wash up?’’ my mother said, looking around as we approached the line of cars going through the turnstile booths.
``I don’t see one,’’ my father intoned.
They exchanged a glance.
``I told him not to eat that damn thing,’’ my father insisted.
``Uh, are we going to stop?’’ I asked meekly from the packed back seat.
My father and mother looked at each other, faces scrunched, and then my father started looking around at the surrounding area.
``Fine,’’ he said, veering the car over to the side of the road, onto the shoulder just before a high, grassy series of hills.
The car halted, he turned around.
``Okay, get out and wash your hands.’’
``With what?’’
``Look in the cooler.’’
Now, this would’ve been a good idea had there been any ice in there. Ice would’ve melted into water, and that would’ve saved me a lot of discomfort along the way. At any time I could’ve been cleaning off in my own little plastic bird bath.
But somewhere along the way, earlier in the trip, my brother had kicked the cooler over, by accident, when we were at a rest stop, eating sandwiches at a picnic table. As a result, there was no ice, and no water, in there. In fact, nothing remotely close aside from two ice packs, neither of which generated much in the way of condensation.
``What am I supposed to wash my hands with?’’
Well, perhaps I shouldn’t say there wasn’t anything remotely close.
My father took all of three seconds of scanning the contents before he came up with his brilliant idea.
``That Coke there, wash your hands with that Coke.’’
``Huh?’’
``Just do it. Wash your hands with the goddamn Coke.’’
``How am I going to . . .’’
``Do you see anything else in there you can do it with?’’ my father said, pointing out the lonely baloney sandwich and likewise unlikely suspect cans of Orange Crush and Dr. Pepper.
``Just take the damn can out, go outside by the grass, and dump the Coke out over your hands and wash them in the grass.’’
``You mean wipe my hands in the grass?’’
``No, just get your hands wet enough to get some of that gunk off them,’’ he wisely offered. ``Don’t get them in the grass or you’ll just get grass all over them.’’
He had a point.
It was attached to a warped and rusty sword, but the point was sharp enough.
``Can I use the Orange Crush?’’
``I don’t care which one you use, just use one of them,’’ he said. ``We’ll be at your grandparents house soon and you can wash them off then. Just use the pop to get all that crap off them.’’
For a moment I thought about my selection and decided the Coke would be the best bet. One time, in school, Lindsay Frye told me that you could use a Coke to clean a car engine, so I figured if it was that strong of a cleaner, it would take the junk right off my paws.
I walked out into the grassy field. Opened the can. And with my right hand now stuck to its metallic body, grasping it, I dumped part of the contents onto the other hand.
Sure enough, with enough of a flow, a good portion of the gunk slipped off. Maybe this would work after all.
With my right hand still wet, I poured the remains onto my left. It didn’t quite get everything off, since I’d used a good amount on the first hand, but with some wiping it did manage to cut through the Dorito dust and much of the tissue.
Figuring my problems were somewhat solved, I shook my hands off over the grass and ran back to the car.
``Got it taken care of?’’ my dad said.
``Yeah.’’
``Do you feel better now?’’ my mother asked.
``Uh, I guess so,’’ I said, with my hands still kinda wet.
I guess so.
And then, I didn’t have to do any guessing.
Then, my hands dried.
And they were stickier than they were to start with.
``My hands are sticky again.’’
My parents looked at each other.
``We’re almost there,’’ my dad said. ``We’re not stopping.’’
``How long is almost there?’’
``We’ll be there shortly.’’
``How long is shortly?’’
``We’ll be there when we damn well get there!’’ he exploded, his red face scowling into the back.
Shocked, I slunk back into my seat, as my siblings followed suit.
I didn’t utter a peep the rest of the way.
Instead, I licked my sticky wounds, trying in vain to get the syrup off my hands as I watched the signs, and counted the miles.
By the time we got to my grandparents’ house, I was a mess. Ignoring my father’s calls to help with luggage and bags, I ran in and made a beeline to their bathroom, where I spent what seemed like several hours soaping and hot watering my hands until they turned pruney and pale.
And even then, whenever I’d close my fist, I imagined I could still somewhat feel that gummy glove that had slopped its way onto me for most of the trip.
For years afterward, I couldn’t bear having the slightest stickiness on my hands for any length of time. Gooey junk was fine – I was able to work in a pizza place, kneading dough and piecing on sausage and pepperoni for hours – but throw some sugar into the mix, get things good and sticky, and I couldn’t stand it. I still can’t.
In recent years, I’ve gotten somewhat better. If need be, I can now wait at least a little while before I’ve got to make purposeful strides to the sink. I’ve even been able to help with such mundane tasks as baking cookies without getting too jenky about it.
But even so, regardless of how desperate I am, no matter how sticky my hands may be, I will never wash them with Coke again.
So, mom, dad, I guess I learned my lesson after all.
Or a lesson, anyway.
From the book MY LIFE AS A FREAK MAGNET, by Sean Leary
copyright 2009 Sean Leary / for more writing and stuff see www.seanleary.com