Always on the lookout for lazy bachelor food that’s vegan or vegetarian, I purchased a sack of frozen, pre-pattied yam-based hash browns. They were damned near flavorless without a coating of salt, and worse than the taste they stank like unwashed arm pits.
After two bites regretted, I spat out what I’d chewed, and flushed the rest. Five patties remained in the freezer, so I jettisoned them out the side door as a gift to urban wildlife.
Not ten seconds after launch, a crow landed near the patties, and walked toward and then onto one of them. Each patty was the size of a where’s-the-beef burger, but flatter and frozen solid. Watching from the kitchen window, I wondered whether the crow wondered why whatever it was standing on was very, very cold, on a hot summer’s day.
The the bird started pecking at the sweet potato patty, while standing on it. On the second peck, something edible (for a bird, not for a human) chipped off and bounced away, but instead of chasing it, the crow continued pecking. Peck, peck, peck. After a dozen pecks, the bird left the patty platform and walked to and ate all its well-earned yam shrapnel.
After that, I thought it would peck off more bits, but instead the bird lifted a corner of the frozen patty in its beak, and flew away with it. In two minutes’ time, a hash brown had gone from the freezer to property of a crow.
Four patties remained on the grass, and I’d enjoyed the show so much, I grabbed a few popsicles, unwrapped them, then dragged a chair across the kitchen floor, expecting to sit and watch more crows, more pecking, more flights with frozen food. Nope. In the 45 seconds it had taken me to fetch the popsicles and chair, all the hash brown patties had been taken, presumably by other crows.
Nature, man. That is some slick, wicked shit.
♦ ♦ ♦
A less pleasant part of nature is getting old. Body parts don’t work so well as they used to, pains come and go for no reason, and for me (at least so far) the worst part is the sudden need to poop.
Right up to my early 60s, poop was rarely a panic, but these days I gotta sit and spread cheeks pronto, soon as I feel the urge. A few mornings ago, I felt the urge and hurried to the john, but found the door closed. Which means, one of my flatmates was in there.
The good news is, I have a porta-toilet for exactly such emergencies. The bad news is, I’ve been cleaning my room, and several boxes had been stacked on top of the potty. In my urgent condition, lifting four boxes to reveal the porta-toilet would’ve been moot; the bending and exertion would’ve squeezed all the shit outta my sphincter, and into my shorts.
One of the advantages of being a slob is, there’s always a box when you need one. The solution was jammed into the top of a bookshelf: an empty box my mail-order shoes had come in, many months ago. I dropped my shorts, held the box under my anus, opened wide and said ahhh.
If this had been a diarrhea poop, there would’ve been splatter on the ceiling, the walls, the carpet, and everywhere in between, but fortunately, it was the consistency of applesauce, so the only splatter was in my shorts and on my legs. There was lots, though.
Stashed the now-shitty box where I’d gotten it, top shelf, then opened my bedroom door to wait until whoever was in the bathroom came out. My need to poop had passed entirely, but I needed to shower the feces from my pasty white legs, and I’d need to wash my shitty shorts in the shower, too, because no other pair was clean.
Almost immediately (of course) the bathroom door opened, and out stepped Dean (of course), who saw me and immediately (of course) started talking about what he’d cooked yesterday at the Hilton Park Hyatt Saint-Regis Four Seasons Marriott Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he’s an assistant chef and never stops telling me.
“Not right now, dude,” I said and hurricaned past him into the john.
Soap, scrub, rinse, repeat, I cleaned myself and my shorts. Dean was still in the kitchen (of course) when I emerged, and instantly (of course) started talking at me again. “‘Not right now’ means all morning, Dean,” I said as I blitzed past in my wet underwear, and into my room.
Soon as my door closed, I heard Robert, my other flatmate, come into the kitchen, and he and Dean started talking. When that happens they talk for hours, and indeed, they were still there, talking football or baseball or whatever, when I came out twenty minutes later, fully dressed over my wet underwear, and carrying that cardboard box with my applesaucey shit in it. They were sitting and I held the box high so they couldn’t see what was in it, but their conversation grew strangely silent after I’d passed and until I reached the door, so they must’ve smelt what I’d dealt. Which made me smile, then, and now as I type it.
Shoved the shitty box into the dumpster, then walked to the bus stop to start my morning’s journey to Mom’s house.
For a few hours my shorts were wet from the shower, but wearing black britches I don’t think anyone could see the wetness. And the cool and the wet is rather refreshing when it’s warm out. Might start wearing wet shorts any time the forecast approaches or exceeds 80°.
♦ ♦ ♦
When I was 10 and my sister Katrina was 14, her two best friends at school were Adelle and Michelle. Adelle was cute, and little-kid me had a crush on her. Michelle was frickin’ beautiful, so I never bothered daydreaming about her, ‘cuz even as a child I understood the concept “out of my league.”
Adelle, though. Lots of daydreams there.
Through my early and their late teens, Adelle and Michelle spent many afternoons and overnights with Katrina at our house. It was 50+ years ago, but I’ll never forget one afternoon circa 1971, when the three of them were sunbathing in our back yard. They thought I was in the living room watching TV, if they thought of me at all. But no, I was in the attic, bent painfully over a small air vent overlooking the back yard, so’s I could see the three of them laying face down, but with their bikinis unstrapped. Oh là là!
As usually happens, the girls gradually became women. Adelle and Michelle got apartments and husbands and stopped coming by the Holland homestead, but the three of them have remained friends. Adelle has become a friend of mine, too, and comes to our twice-monthly family breakfasts, when her health permits. Which isn’t as often as it used to be. She’s 70-something, and she’s been hospitalized twice in recent months.
I haven’t seen Michelle since the early 1990s, when I made my big break from Seattle, but Katrina and Adelle still mention her, and see her sometimes. Not for much longer, though. She has leukemia, and went into hospice care last week.
Dying is just another part of nature. Eventually we’ll all be pecked at and eaten by crows, even the hot girls from high school.
7/14/2026
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