Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Monday, March 18, 2002 7:30 PM

Happy Birthday Nopey!


After a difficult Monday at work, I come home early. I go for a 5 mile run in order to relieve stress and feel better. When the run is completed, the first thing to cross my lips for rehydration is a wine cooler. We're celebrating Nopey's 14th birthday a day early!

The trip to the store prior to the run was eventfull. I was buying supplies for Nopey's birthday celebration - wine coolers, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies. All of his favorite foods. Near the checkout there is a geek in front of me. How do I know that he is a geek? Just a feeling - or maybe it was the biorad shirt that he had on. A cool shirt with a multi-colored DNA sequence circling his torso and disappearing into his Levis.

I cannot help myself, "Why don't you come with me, bring your cool shirt, and we'll live happily ever after together?"

He turns around and, not quite believing what he just heard, asks me to repeat it, "Excuse me!"

At this point, with the cat out of the bag, so to speak, I consider an alternate strategy. I consider a Three Stooges strategy: I spray him with the cold bottled water that I want to purchase, yelling "Get that wet shirt off or you'll catch pneumonia", and run for the exit with the shirt. But I repeat "Why don't you come with me, bring your cool shirt, and we'll live happily ever after together?"

He doesn't quite understand what I am asking, but he does start talking about his shirt, the specific DNA sequence that it represents, and how he came to have it. When he's finished talking, I take a more direct approach with "Do you want to f$&*?"

He politely refuses the invitation with a nice smile. And we both eventually pay for our goods and leave the store separately.

So we move ahead to after the run. Nopey doesn't want to drink tonight. Darn dog! "Nopey, do I have to do your drinking for you again?" But we do share the potato chips and the chocolate chip cookies.

Happy 14th Birthday Nopey!