The Horrors of the Season

It’s that time of year again, with all the fa-la-la-ing and ho-ho-ho-ing and boughs of holly streaming across the airwaves and gently tintinabulating in every store and coffee shop!  The time to be jolly, the time for hearts to be warmed by a nostalgic carol about days of yore and blazing fires and puddings.  It’s also the time of year that I’ve traditionally destroyed my wife’s Christmas spirit by pointing out the horrors of seasonal music.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Christmas music – I better like it, because I sing it constantly, a barely audible act of ventriloquism that makes people on the metro platform at U Street glance around, annoyed, and then slowly move away from me.  What a great tradition!

But Christmas music teaches some very bad lessons.  Now that I have a three year old son, this fact is amplified, and my Christmas spirit destruction tradition has taken on a whole new impetus – that of the teachable moment.

Take, for instance, the age old “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” This song simply reinforces behaviors we’ve been trying to positively reinforce OUT of our son for the past three years!  Think about it: no please, no thank you, no “nice words”, just “bring me some figgy pudding and bring it right now!”  The only saving grace in all of this is that I believe my son would be sorely disappointed in figgy pudding, and it serves him right!  But it gets worse; the song ups the ante, going from demanding to threatening repercussions for non compliance – “we won’t go until we get some”.  Who wrote this song?  How unpleasant must have old-timey Christmases have been?  So I tell our son, don’t let me catch you demanding figgy pudding this Christmas season because you just might get what you ask for!

There are a host of mildly upsetting or at least thoughtless Christmas song lyrics, such as “and if we’ve no place to go, let it snow let it snow let is snow” (what if you do have some place to go, like the hospital?  Or work? How selfish!) and Good King Wenceslaus’s demand “bring me flesh and bring me wine” (oh where to begin – again, a total lack of “nice words” but of course he IS a King; so we are celebrating a non-elected autocrat who demands the choicest morsels for himself while his subjects get by on groat porridge or stewed acorns; and then of course there’s the vegan argument.  Maybe that’s anachronistic – the song’s lyrics are not “Good King Wenceslaus looked out, on the Feast of Stephen; As the snow lay round about, he knew he wasn’t vegan.” But still!).  Then there is Frosty’s magic hat that just happened to be blowing around some kid’s back yard.  First I tell my son that magic is all humbug, and then I warn him about lice, fleas, and any number of communicable diseases that one may contract if one dabbles in picking up old, discarded clothing that one just happens to find lying about.  He stares at me, but some day he’ll appreciate the pain I’m taking to educate him.

And then there’s “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” This song teaches you to be a sycophant: you must gain the favor of an authority figure in order to be loved.  All the reindeer then loved him only after Santa asked him to guide his sleigh.  This is a recipe for toddyism, an harbinger of future dictatorship, a decent into totalitarianism.  I fear for my country, and I let my three year old know it.  His only response is “Santa brings presents on his sleigh.”  Despite that, I think I’m getting through.

Which brings up the most heinous of all carols – “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”  Really, this is a terrifying song.  If someone were to tell you that an old, fat, bearded guy in a weird get-up was constantly watching you kid, even when he’s asleep, spying on him (How?  Through a window?  By slowly following him in his car as your kid walks down the street, a few feet behind? Creepy…) and taking notes, you’d call the police.  But it’s okay to convince our kids that Santa does these things?  I told my son that if he ever sees anyone like that following him around, to tell me at once.  But he shouldn’t worry too much, because Santa Claus doesn’t really exist.  I know I got through to him because he cried inconsolably.  And that’s all I ask.

Surviving the Federal Office Holiday Party

There’s a flyer in the hallway announcing your office’s holiday party, that festive tradition of long lines, name tags, and too much food.  And look, oh boy, it’s not just your office, it’s the Director’s Office Christmas Party, actually the Under Secretary’s party!  What mirth-making and joyful fa-la-laing are in store for you!

But before you go and wait in that food line with a couple hundred people you’ve never seen before (yes, they all work somewhere in the warren of cubicles that surround you) and shake hands with the grown ups who run the place, you need to review these basic survival tips.

Tip 1.  Dealing with the Christmas Guy.  You know who he is – the guy in the office who is always complaining.  The guy that shows up each morning with a copy of the Washington Times prominently folded under his arm and who ends every other sentence with “but I probably shouldn’t say that around here.”  When you seem him in the Holiday food line or Conference Room L6W100 (where all the food is), he will inevitably say “Merry Christmas”, followed by a sarcastic laugh, and then proceed to pontificate on the deplorable state our nation is in when we are forced by the liberals to call it a “holiday” party.  At this point, you are at a cross roads – you can tacitly agree with him, nodding and laughing and stuffing Costco cream puffs into your face so you don’t have to say anything, or you can take the fun road by nodding and laughing and wishing him a Happy Kwanza.  For best effect, be African American at this moment if you can.

Tip 2.  Dealing with the guy who knows your name and all your kids’ names, but whose name you have never known in the 5 years you’ve both worked there.  To you, his name is “hey there good morning!” or “good weekend?”  You’ve always assumed he’s never noticed that you don’t actually know his name, but lately you’ve had your doubts, stemming from the fact that he now says your name five or six times during any cursory exchange: “yes John, I had a good weekend, John.  And you John?  Did you, John, and little Johnny and Susie go to that park you mentioned, John? Huh, JOHN?”  At such moments you suspect that he might actually be stalking you and little Johnny and Susie.  And so at the Holiday Party it is best to avoid him.  If you do end up in line right next to him (which will most likely happen), face the other way and pretend like you are having a heated cell phone conversation.  Use profanity and start to cry.  The idea is to make him uncomfortable enough to not want to say hello.  If the food line is long, you may need to begin physically harming yourself – cutting or scratching and the like.  Remember, uncomfortable is the state you’d like him to be in.  Then slip into the rest room when he’s not looking.

Tip 3.  Know who is important.  This is not always as easy as it seems as you learned the hard way at that retirement party last month.  Remember?  The fat old dottering guy with the coffee breath and the cake frosting on his face that no one told him about, the guy you made the sarcastic comment to about being a pig?  Yeah, that guy.  The guy who turned out to be the politically appointed boss of your bosses boss.  (He’s the kind of guy who keeps an enemies list, by the way.)  It’s tempting to make a fool of the higher-ups at such events.  Which brings up name tags.  They make you wear a name tag so the deputy undersecretary of whatever can greet you by name and make you feel ever so important, so wouldn’t it be funny if you put “Stu” on your name tag instead of your real name?  Or his name?  His full name, including his middle initial?  Or an unpronounceable ethnic name of which ethnicity you are obviously not (like “Seamus” for instance)?  Funny?  Yes.  Will it elevate you in the eyes of your coworkers?  How could it not?  But don’t do it.  Until I’m there to see it, that is.

Tip 4.  Know who is really important.  There are certain people in any given FOB (that’s Federal Office Building for those of you pretending not to know) who can make your life easy, or make your life difficult.  It’s your choice.  These are the people who schedule your meetings and format your memos, the people who empty the trash and replace light bulbs.  Make sure you are nice to them at the Holiday party.  Go out of your way to invite them, even if it’s not your party.  Because you want to choose wisely and not end up being the guy sitting in the dark office, with your trash can overflowing, your memos unformatted and no meetings to go to, now do you?  Come on, it’s the holidays!

Tip 5.  If everyone else is dancing, dance.  Needless to say, no one should dance at work.  Not at a retirement party, not in their own cubicle, not to Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, not ever.  EVER.  Because you don’t want to see that lady dance and she might join in.  (You know who I’m talking about.)  But, there is one exception: at the Christmas party, if everyone is dancing, especially the people in Tips 4 and 5, then you sure better be dancing.  Life is about fitting in.  Besides, you’re a much better dancer than you think you are.  No, really, you are!  You’re not “that lady.”  At least not to everyone.  To some people, probably.  But better safe than sorry.  Go along to get along, I always say.

If you heed my advice, you are sure to have a happy and safe Federal Office Holiday Party season!  Unless you're Christmas Guy.  But you like to be miserable, anyway.

The Traffic is Terrific

My wife looks forward to this time of year with a certain amount of dread.  She knows that soon we will load our little family into the car and head to some relative’s house far away for Christmas.  It’s not the relatives she dreads – I’ve had a talk with her about this and stressed that she should dread them more than she does, but she’s too filled with the Christmas Spirit and all that humbug – it’s the getting there that she dreads.  The many hours spent by my side in heavy holiday traffic, watching as I slowly, inevitably, transform into, in her words, a maniac.

I of course have no any idea what she’s talking about.  I looked up that word and feel certain that I am not “characterized by ungovernable excitement or frenzy,” nor is my behavior synonymous with the terms “lunatic” and “madman.”  At least not while I am at the controls of a motor vehicle.  Perhaps while reading Proust.

But she insists.

And since she is generally right about everything, to prove that I am a reasonable person, I’ve been forced to reassess the situation.  I will admit that as the drive wears on with no appreciable abating of the traffic volume, my initial annoyance may escalate to frustration and anger and even, perhaps six or seven hours in, to blind rage.  An example that my wife always brings up is Christmas of 2008 when I tail gaited that motherfucker for 200 miles because he fucking cut me off the shit for brains when he had no godly reason to change lanes RIGHT THEN except to PISS ME THE FUCK OFF which if that’s what he wanted, god dammit that’s what he got!  My wife did not seem to follow the subtleties of my reasoning, insisting that it was an old man and his wife, that I was going to kill us all, and finally that we shouldn’t have followed them off the highway, down their street and into their driveway and for goodness sake stop blowing the horn now – they’ve gone inside and are probably calling the police!  In retrospect, she had some good points.

My wife also reminds me that our 3 year old son is at an impressionable age and picks up language quite readily.  She’s tired, she tells me, of explaining to her playgroup friends why he calls their children such bad things just after Christmas.  I suggested that she say our little one learned it from his cousins, whom, you'll remember, I'm trying to convince her to dread.  However, she’s an honest person.

But I think I am convinced now.  On a recent drive, from the back seat in his cute little voice, my son asked me why everyone in all the other cars are fucking idiots.  At that very moment, I felt proud of my son – so perceptive, so reasonable, he’s really going places, that one is!  Then I looked over at my wife.  Talk about a maniac!  Eyes wide and glaring, face turning red.  I was frightened.  “This is YOUR FAULT!” she said in a terrifying whisper-scream.  “Honey,” I said, “I think you’re becoming characterized by ungovernable excitement or frenzy.”  

But of course, she’s right.  It is my fault and I must find a solution.  The easiest fix would be for her to drive, but the only thing worse than my actual driving is my back-seat driving, which turns her into, let’s say, a madwoman.  Better to have only one “maniac” in the car than two.  So I see only one way out: I’m going to drink a liter and a half of wine just before we leave and proceed to pass out in the passenger seat leaving her to drive in peace.  I don’t think she’ll have a problem with that.

A Visit to the Doctor's Office

I’ve watched a lot of hospital programs on television. Which isn’t a good thing. Now, I have quite a hard time at the doctor’s office: I’m either over-confident, second guessing the doctor with such statements as “don’t you think we need to order a complete CBC and CT scan, doc? That seems pretty routine these days;” or, left alone in the examination room waiting for the doctor to show up, I let my imagination get the better of me. I’ve seen too many routine procedures end up with someone sitting on top of someone else pounding on their chest with blood spattering a set of protective eyewear. It’s no wonder I’m nervous.

For instance, just today I was at my dermatologist. I’ve just undressed to my underthings, and I’m waiting for the doctor. Sitting in a cold vinyl chair, my feet on the cold linoleum floor, I grow a bit anxious. What if they forgot about me, and the doctor never comes? What if I fall asleep and no one finds me until tomorrow? Is there a certain amount of time after which I should I start yelling for help?

Worse, what if they’ve put me in the wrong room? What if I’m in the room where they do things like “epidermal scrapping” or “laser age removal?” That machine over there, the one with the long retractable arm that looks like a soldering iron, what’s that for? Is the doctor going to use that on me? Not if I can help it!

On the counter, there seems to be an overabundance of latex gloves for a dermatologist’s office, as well as huge piles of gauze and bandages. Dear god, maybe this is where they do the “skin replacement”! I bet that would involve quite a lot of blood and chest-pounding. They may even need to hose down the room afterward. I scan the floor for a drain, and I’m only slightly reassured when I don’t find one.

There’s a door on the other wall I didn’t notice before. Where does that lead? What if it leads to the accounting firm in the next suite, and this isn’t an examination room at all, but the accountant’s break room? I keep a close eye on my watch: is it coffee break time yet? It would be peculiar to be sitting here in my undershorts as accountants pour their coffee and talk of “amortization.” I suppose I’d just ignore them. What else could I do? Perhaps they will assume I was a client come to pay a bill.

To calm myself, I decide to try to amuse myself. Over there, on that stainless steel tray, there are some hypodermic needles. What if I just took the cap off of one and plunged it into this little glass bottle here, like I see them doing on television. There, I’ve filled it, now I'll squirt a little out of the tip (so cool!) and plunge it into my arm. There now, that hurts like hell. The accountant problem doesn’t seem so vexing by comparison.

I wonder what’s in this little bottle? Novocain, judging from the numbness spreading over my bicep. Or some sort of neurotoxin perhaps. But why would they leave neurotoxin about? Perhaps it’s Botox. Now, that clamp sitting there, I bet I can clamp my bicep and not feel anything. Nope, I was wrong. And I can’t get it off. Better inject some more neurotoxin: there, that’s mildly better.

I don’t want the doctor (or horde of accountants) to find me with a clamp stuck to my arm, so I better take some of this gauze and wrap it around it. I can claim I have some terrible injury. A doctor wouldn’t be interested in that. The accountants might be, but I owe them no explanation beyond what I’m doing in their break room. If they ask. Oh look! A scalpel! Better not mess around with that! But this gauze, let me wrap it around my arm, here. You know what would be funny? If I wrapped myself up like a mummy! I can just see the look on the doctor’s face when he comes in! What a hoot! He’d be terrified! (Not sure about the accountants.) Imagine the sensational headlines: “Mummy Haunts Doctor’s Office (Accountant’s Break Room).”

And I go on like this, impossibly. I’m sure, when the doctor does arrive, he will think nothing of it. I bet lots of his patients suffer from such anxiety and uncontrollable compulsions. He probably finds them all the time in any number of strange and humorous situations: wearing surgical masks or latex gloves on their feet, using hypodermics as darts, hiding behind the soldering iron. And I’m sure the accounts’ clients are much worse.

My Desk, Benchley's Desk

My desk at work is a mess. (I always thought that my desk at home was a mess, too, but as it turns out , I don’t actually have a desk at home, just a heaping pile of unclassifiable stuff. I’m not sure what it’s sitting on, and I’m a little afraid to find out.) My desk constantly needs to be “red up,” as my Irish grandma from Homestead would say, but I never “red it up.”

There are times when I try to, about every year or so, but I usually get sidetracked by my wonder at the things I find buried among the detritus of my job. Today, for instance, I made some head-way: I recycled a whole stack of papers that were filled with red proof reading marks. I always keep these papers around, long after they are needed. I tell myself that it’s because I may have to refer to them later, just in case someone wants to know who the hell put that comma there. But I think the real, unconscious reason is that having stacks of papers on my desk, especially ones scrawled all over with red marks and arrows and loopy “delete” marks, makes me look really busy.

So anyway, I actually managed to throw away a whole stack of these papers. Mixed in, though, were sticky notes. Ah, sticky notes! I use them (apparently) for everything: jotting down grocery lists, figuring out my taxes, making enemies’ lists, converting bushels to drams. This morning, I found a sticky note that contained a list that said:

paper

1500 cal.

X29435

Bistro du Coin

I can’t possibly imagine what this means, and I have no recollection of writing any of those things down. I haven’t been to Bistro du Coin in years, and I don’t recall having plans to go there recently. “X29435” might be a missile code of some sort, maybe even a launch code. Perhaps I was entrusted with it for national security reasons. Or maybe it’s someone’s extension. I thought about dialing it, but the missile code idea scared me a little (I could hear Joshua’s voice saying “Would you like to play a game?”). The “paper” may have been a reminder to buy paper, or a paper, perhaps a “news” paper (why, oh why, am I not more specific in my list making?). But combined with the “1500 cal.” I can only assume that I intended to eat paper. Quite a lot of it. Why would I do that? Maybe as a way of cleaning up my desk? I’m pretty sure I never followed through with it, though, judging by how far down in the stack of paper I found this particular sticky note.

Pondering this note used up about 45 minutes, but I managed to move on to another part of my desk, where I had a stack of sticky notes containing phone numbers. I suppose my plan was to enter these numbers into some sort of data base. The only problem is, most of the phone numbers had no name associated with them. Just the number, hastily written out in a shaky hand, as if I had been under some sort of distress. I thought about calling each of these numbers to see who answered, but the missile code idea still jarred me.

Among these sticky notes, I found another one that contained a long list of names. Next to each name was either a check mark or an X. I recognized some of the names, mostly friends. Others were more generic, like “Jim” and “Anne.” I have no idea why I made this list. I hope it’s not a hit list. That would bring up many psychological issues that are better left un-examined, not the least of which is my lack of follow-through; to the best of my knowledge, I haven’t assassinated anyone on the list, not even an anonymous “Jim” or “Anne.”

The discovery of this gruesome little list caused me to abandon my desk cleaning. I was afraid of what else I might find, especially in my top left drawer, which contains some bulging #10 envelopes. I hope they are full of money, but the chance that they might contain fingers or old cups of coffee or weapons of mass destruction or heaven knows what has left me daunted. Maybe next year.

Golf Clubs on Metro

"Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into a even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose." -- Winston Churchill

I’ve carried lots of different things on metro trains: groceries, cakes, boxes, bicycles, hockey skates. And now, golf clubs. I was forced to borrow clubs from a friend, and this necessitated taking them for a train ride to get them home. I’ve seen people with lacrosse sticks, tennis rackets, pizzas, full football pads, even an air conditioner, on metro trains, but never, as odd as it may seem, golf clubs.

Taking golf clubs on metro is not as strange of an experience as I had hoped. I got a few funny looks, but they passed quickly. Only one man made a comment, and not a very witty one. Something to the effect of “where were you golfing down town?” And I had been rehearsing my responses all day, too, but never had a chance to use them: “Well, you see, I seem to have lost my balls,” or “Is the clubhouse this way?” or “You know, I’ve got this wicked slice, and…”

The worst thing about it: golf clubs are heavy. On the train, leaning against them jauntily, one arm akimbo, hat at a rakish angle, it's easy. Riding the escalator in a similar, if slightly more compact, manner is no big deal, either. But carrying them down U Street, having to wait for the lights and dodge other pedestrians, especially after a long day of work, is quite trying. I nearly threw them under a bus, but I persevered, although I was forced to drag them behind me the last block and a half, tug-of-war style. And I gave away the three iron along the way to lighten the load. It’s a terrible club, anyway, more fitted for street fighting than hitting a little ball. I hope its new owner puts it to good use.

I’ve been trying to think of other seldom seen things to carry onto metro: perhaps I’ll wear ice skates next, or maybe ski boots with the skis slung over my shoulder. Or maybe I’ll wear boxing gloves, although I’d have to ask the station attendant for help at the turnstile. Maybe I’ll just wear a motorcycle helmet. Maybe I should anyway, all the time.

In any case, I haven’t returned the clubs yet, and I don’t look forward to carrying them once again down U Street. Perhaps I’ll just take up street fighting. The motorcycle helmet won’t look so crazy then.

How to Shop for Wine

The thing about buying wine is that you’re not drunk yet when you’re doing it. This makes it rather difficult to grab whatever rot gut is cheapest and go on your merry way because your unaddled brain allows reason to cloud your judgment: “If this bottle is only $2.95,” you say to yourself, “there’s a good likelihood it contains something I would rather not drink, like antifreeze. Or goat urine.”

A $4.99 bottle might only contain rat hair or cockroach antennae, you reason, not as bad as the cheaper bottle, but still not pleasant. You continue reasoning on up the price scale: $6.99 probably just has dirt in it, $8.99 might be reasonably poison free but it’s probably made from something other than grapes, $10.99 must taste like gym socks, etc.

On up the pricing scale you go, until you are left with a wine from some unpronounceable French maison in the most expensive Appellation of France. And you can’t afford to buy that. So you leave, empty handed.

This is the problem I constantly run into while shopping, sober, at my little wine store on U Street next to The Ellington. They have a whole array of seemingly good wines at low prices all of which I’m scared to buy because of my unreasonable fear of blindness or hair loss or premature death.

There’s only one obvious solution to this problem, but it takes quite a bit of planning on my part. First, I must keep a half finished bottle of wine on hand in our apartment, a cheap bottle I purchased previously. I call this my “priming” bottle. Since I drank half of it before with no ill effects (except, of course, drunkenness), I know it’s safe to drink. So I polish off that bottle. But I must open a second bottle, because such habits indulged in frequently quickly build up mighty tolerances. I drink off half of that bottle, and then, thoroughly sloshed, I’m adequately prepared to go wine shopping. Off I go to my wine store, buying anything I want, because my reasoning now goes like this: “they don’t know whadahell they’re doing in this-here store, they got all the prices screwed hic! screwed hic! screwed hic! wrong. Mustuv left off some zeroes or somethin’.” In my inebriation, the inexpensive bottles seem quite the deal! You might be thinking to yourself that the opposite might be true, as well, that I could just as easily buy an expensive bottle using the same reasoning, but I’ve found this not to be an issue. Even drunk, I’m still a cheap bastard. And so I buy another bottle, take it home, set out a couple glasses, and pass out.

When I again decide to buy wine, I have waiting for me my half-full “priming” bottle and a second full bottle, and the circle is complete. I must admit, it’s not everyone’s idea of a good time, and it’s not even my idea of a good time, but it beats the hell out of drinking goat urine. Or, at least I think.

The Conference Call of Madness

The other day, a conference call I was attending revealed a psychological tick that I thought had been beaten out of me with rulers and yardsticks in Parochial school: the tendency to laugh, suddenly and uncontrollably, in the most inappropriate situations.

Back in elementary school, bizarre thoughts would flood my mind when I was supposed to be “reflecting on my sins” or serving as an altar boy, thoughts such as “what if the priest started making funny noises into the microphone, with a long crescendo of maniacal laughter?” Or I’d imagine that our teacher would suddenly explode, without warning, and then be standing there, black and smoking like in a cartoon, before falling over. Such things, of course, would shake me to the core of my being with laughter that I desperately tried to stifle with the fake cough or the head shake. By junior high, I’d been tortured enough to learn that nothing was that funny, and the strange images no longer invaded my consciousness.

Jump ahead a few decades, and I find myself sitting in a conference room full of people with four more on a speaker phone. Also on the speaker phone is Van Morrison, although no one had invited him. He had a lot to say about marvelous nights and moon dancing and such, a bit off topic. Obviously, someone had put the conference call on hold. Various people made jokes about it (none of which, by the way, precipitated my psychological tick): “if it were my office, you’d hear circus music” or “I think our hold music is the theme to Psycho.” Ha ha! Ha ha! The meeting started and the music continued unabated. It’s bad enough having Van Morrison serenade you from a speaker phone, but it’s even worse when he sings the same song, over and over and over again, and much, much worse when that song is “Moondance”. (I just looked up the lyrics, and my GOD, it’s worse than I thought!)

As the meeting progressed into discussions of “functionality” and “search capabilities”, no one seemed to notice the music. And then it began: what if, I thought (oh crap! Not again! Where’s Sister Angela with the ruler? Help me Sister Angela! Help me!), what if the music suddenly changed to Motley Crue’s “Girls Girls Girls” or Nine Inch Nails “Closer to God”, and for some reason it got really loud and then smoke started coming out of the speaker phone and then a rock star came crashing through the wall wielding a guitar and big hair and leather pants flicking his tongue around at random meeting attendees. Of course, none of this is funny. In fact, such things belie the onset of a psychotic episode demanding immediate medical attention and sedation.

And at first I didn’t laugh. My invoking of Sister Angela seemed to have done the trick. Then I took a sip of coffee and nearly spit it out across the table: instead of the image of some Slash-like character prancing about, I see my middle-aged, tubby, gray-haired boss stomping around on the table and screaching a-la-Steven Tyler. Somehow, I got the coffee down and shook it off. (Did you ever make hot coffee come out your nose? It’s burny.) But after that, each time I took a sip of coffee, the same or similar absurd images came to me and it was all I could do to keep from choking to death. I survived the meeting with only a few strange looks and no reprimands.

But now, I can’t have a mouth full of any kind of liquid without experiencing the urge to burst into laughter. Water. Beer. Soup. Even wine. Wine! I’m at the end of my rope.

I’ll been in the loony bin soon. Thanks, Van Morrison, for destroying yet another life.