In Medias Mess

So i went out to Vinny’s Auto in the morning because there was a light on the dash that said “Panic‘ in the shape of an engine.  The manual said it had something to do with the transmission or the hybrid gizmo stoker.  I arrived at Vinny’s, and saw Mac, who is pushing 80, putting a note on a car.  Told Mac what the light was, and he said that it could be one of a 174 different things, but sometimes it’s just that the gas cap is loose.  I went inside where Vinny said good morning as they dealt with a tire for a Jag that was not available from the usual place.  An old lady came in to announce that she was 87 and had to take a detour around her house that she didn’t leave very much.  I said, oh the detour on Ridgewood Rd, the old Indian trail?  I didn’t say Indian trail, but it was an old indian trail, and she said yes, and that’s why she had to take Winnington and now wondered how she was going to get home because ‘Mac, how long is the car going to take?” Mac informed her that it was going to be a while.  She said are you going to do the tires and the oil and the fluids and the windows? He said yes, they are going to do everything.  She said she was going to need a ride home. Mac said that sounds like an order.  He added ‘we are a very backed up because one of our mechanics O.D.’d and therefore didn’t come in .  Cocaine, he said, but he would give her a ride home after he did a couple of things.  This hiatus gave her the opportunity to turn to me for conversation.

 ‘I don’t go out much.’

Far be it from me to not engage in superflous conversation.  I said i was in the city last night but didn’t contact my accupuncturist despite being in Penn station on a rainy night, and there were lots of crazy people – my spouse said she saw three actual naked ladies in the bathroom before we split three slices of pizza, one not for each naked lady, before heading down on the C to the F to get to 2nd Ave. One of the ladies was busking with a musician on our way to the C, and waved to my spouse – ‘you saw me naked!’*

 “oh, i would never take a subway” she said. (the old lady at Vinny’s, not the naked one from the night before). I said, ‘going down was crazy (bathroom at penn went unmentioned – i have good judgment)  but coming back was fine, and i didn’t touch any surfaces at all, and wore my mask too.’

Her: What are we going to do with all the people?

Me: There is a lot of mental illness

Her: Plenty of jobs though – that’s good.

Mac strides in: Time to go.

Me: Bon Voyage. 

I sat down to read my book “Masters of Empire – Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America.‘  I was on page 151. “The Odawa should do what they always had done: simply use the leverage they had by playing off the European powers against each other.” On page 152, Vinny came out and said ‘let’s take a look.’  I handed him the key fob and we walked out to the car.  He said ‘this light could be one of a 174 different things. ‘I know he didn’t hear Mac say that, so ‘wow, impressive!’ Maybe it’s really not a number picked out of the air or a hat.

I told him Mac said it might be the gas cap is loose. I watched from a distance as Vinny got in, messed around, got out, fiddled with the gas cap, got back in… and then came over to me, handed me the key fob and said ‘you need a new gas cap’. I said “that’s great. Have a great holiday….. and i’m sorry about your guy.  Was it a shock?”

Vinny, tightly;  No, it was not. <and I’m not going to say more his face said> Processing how he was angry at having to deal with a drug addict employee for some period of time, I simply went with “See you next year.”

So, today, i thought i should really get that new gas cap. I went to NAPA auto parts, my go-to spot for brake lights since 1994.  A small store.  I entered, and the orange-hatted proprietor was standing at attention behind the cash register.  He welcomed me and we engaged in salutations.  I said ‘do you have a gas cap for an ’08 Prius.’He looked in the computer for a few, concluding ‘you’ll have to go toa bigger place – you can go to A, B or C.  Sorry.’ 

I got into the car and fought with Doogle maps because i didn’t want to tell them where i was, but ended up having to do so in order for them to get me to the Advance Auto Parts on Springfield.  A tiny young woman was behind the counter, talking on the phone.  After looking the piece up, she headed down the aisle with stuff piled up about 20 feet.  A minute later she comes back and takes a photo of the screen.  Then i saw her pushing one of those big wheeled ladders at the back of the store  She was about 3 and a half feet tall. The ladder was easily 12 feet. I couldn’t see her climbing, but I could hear.
I half expected to hear her crawling around in the air vents above me to find the thing i sought.  She came back, empty handed.  You’ll have to go to the store in East Orange.  ‘Thanks for looking’ I said –  ‘you’ve done plenty.’

I went back to the car, looking at my phone to get the new GSP route, and dropped the phone.  Where did it go?  Under the seat?  Must have bounced further back.  I had to get down on my knees and stick my head under.  Pulled out a bit of trash, plastic bags, receipts, disposable gloves.  This is taking longer than I expected.  Opened the back.  Looked under the front seat from back there.  Swept my hand under everything.  Nothing.  My phone has been dematerialized.  My knees are dirty.  Must expand search zone.  Something i needed had gone full thin air, but I knew it was within one foot of me. How long would it thumb its nose at me……..Ah, it fell into the compartment in the door with the CDs in it!  Bad, bad sneaky phone!

For a few minutes GPS was taking me back to the first store with the man in the orange hat, so I had to pull over and look up a third store.  Found it, got there, and they had it.  This store had a Christmas tree no one needed to see and an employee saying he had bet on Morocco in the Cup cause he knew it in his bones.  All three of the employees I met were people of worth who were not the type to ‘mail it in.’  I will remember them always because I wrote this short recollection.

I went outside and replaced the gas cap.  It formed a tight sunctiony closure, so I was content, and I remain so.

*note: upon further discussion with my spouse, it turns out that she was exagerating about the naked ladies. They were actually in pantyhose and bras.  My spouse’s exaggeration ratio is usually about 11 to one, but this was not a numerical exaggeration so I can’t measure it.  The ladies were not naked, but there were three of them.  I hope this has not ruined the story for you.

 end of depiction.

I Extol Expert Parallel Parker On His 80th Birthday

Where to start with Daniel Rooney?  I’ve known him since the ’90s when I first was getting into the competitive parallel parking scene. I’m sure I was just a young annoyance underfoot, but he saw something in me I guess, and took me under his fender.  I really didn’t know the score when it came to my inaugural parallel parking competition at Intercourse, Pennsylvania, but i knew i loved the attention I got when I parked really really well, especially from the ladies of course. I had never been to Intercourse, and knew nothing about it, and little more about parallel parking.  But I soon learned that Daniel was the top of the heap, and he was an 18-time national parallel parking champion. He also won the Lifetime Achievement Award for being Outstanding in the Parallel Parking Field of Excellence.  No one parallel parks in a field, but regardless, nobody is in Daniel’s league, especially when it comes to the more subtle techniques in the sport: smoothness of movement, accuracy of pivot, angling on an incline, or depositing a clunking ’70s six-cylinder in between two awkwardly positioned Range Rovers.  Really, I could watch Daniel park all day, and he has legions of fans who actually do.  

Next thing you know, Daniel hired me to be a combo assistant and teammate at the team parallel parking events. It was my big break. I’ll never forget the time we were late to the meet in Albany, Georgia, and he was going substantially over the speed limit.  Sure enough, the Georgia State Police stopped us, and we got to meet  Patrolman Richard Nixon (we didn’t get his middle name).  Well Nixon looked at Harry with perfunction and drawled out ‘Look here, Mister, nobody goes through Georgia that fast.” What do you say to that? Well, Daniel had the perfect retort, the kind of retort you never say in the moment, but wish you had.  He just backed that retort gracefully, at speed, into Patrolman Nixon’s well-marked and paved mindscape, right between a ’29 Model T Ford truck and a ’40 Buick Special.  He delivered the retort: ‘Sherman Did,’ into the space where it belonged. <pause> However, it had an unexpected and negative impact for which we were both utterly unprepared.  You’d think that Trooper Nixon would have been really really impressed as I was.  But no, the impact was so negative that no amount of ‘oh officer, I was just joking around‘ stuff can remedy.  No one could have predicted his ingenious comment could not have been received with all the appreciation that greets Daniel  in all aspects of his life.   Anyway, we were escorted to the local place of confinement where there were no Deputy Fifes or Sheriff Andys.  Just a dispeptic Nixon filling out paperwork.  I was dispatched to an ATM to get bail money.  But I didn’t know how to use an ATM, so I robbed the local cafe.  It was amazingly easy, and it’s fortunate that i had already signed up for the parallel parking life because of Daniel, otherwise i might have ended up in a life of crime (if you consider petty larceny a crime compared to the corporate chieftains and billionaires who have never had to parallel park once in their evil lives.)

I took the monies back to the police station only to find that Harry had broken out.  He’d somehow convinced Trooper Nixon that if he got special parallel parking lessons from the champ that he would impress everyone around town, including the local debutantes, and more importantly voters for when he runs for sheriff.  

So, we made it to the Albany meet only a few hours late.  Anyway, that’s all i have to say.  In the words of Elton John,’ Daniel, my brother,” Happy 80th !!!  Sheriff Nixon has also sent his best wishes.

Pretending to be Hank Aaron

Our practice as kids in northern Georgia in 1968 was to personify one of the Atlanta Braves before we’d start our baseball game on one of the front yards.   Not being so dumb, I’d say “I” was Hank Aaron.  On those occasions, Matt Rozar would call me the N-word.  I’d say “well, I hit the most home runs, don’t I?”  I meant the “I” who was pretending to be Hank Aaron, not the “I” who was not hitting any home runs.

—

The real “I” didn’t even develop into a doubles hitter for many years, after

which I would settle happily into being a 40-something opposite field slap hitter.  I’d sometimes pull a foul ball down the left side, and then watch the knucklehead fielders

shift a few feet to the left.  Dummies, just like Matt Rozar, I’d think, and then plop the next ball into right, and it didn’t have to be well struck.

—

Who did Rozar say he was at our games?   Perhaps Joe Torre I suppose, but certainly he would not have chosen Felipe Alou or Rico Carty.  I recall some kids would pick

Woody Woodward, such was the need or allure of identifying as a white player to avoid the attention of Rozar.  Woodward did flash some leather, but he played when shortstops were not really expected to hit a whole lot.

—

The next year, I asked for Aaron‘s autograph in a hotel in Canada when he was checking out.  He said, ‘I’ll be right with you, son.”  Son!  As a shy lad, I was ready to run away after he signed his name, but my mother sneaked up on us.  She touched Aaron on the elbow, and as he turned to see who was turning him around, Mom said  “Henry Aaron – you’re a great ballplayer.”  He looked a little surprised, but gave a big smile when she said we were from Atlanta.  Later, I read how he really wasn’t too happy about having the Braves move from Milwaukee to Atlanta in ’66, so I was glad she mentioned Atlanta, even if I got embarrassed a little.

As I wrote that last line, I turned to the Mets game on the TV as a fielder made a laughably improbable over-the-shoulder catch deep in the outfield.  He laughed, the dugout laughed, and the hitter looked befuddled as he stopped running halfway to second base. “I” am taking credit for that catch.  Thanks, Hank.

One Adam-12, One-Adam-12, see the….

Reed and Malloy were the cop characters in the 1960’s police show Adam-12, set in Los Angeles. They got their orders from the radio dispatcher, telling them who to see, and where.  They still are.  Perhaps you can add your own instructions to those below:

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-12,

Please see the 27-year-old man who says “back in the day” at least

20 times per day.  Advise him to wait another 35 years before using the phrase again.

Tell him he can switch to the overuse of “at the end of the day” in the interim.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-1,

See the woman at the bus stop on Main.  Congratulate her for making $24

on the walk from her house thanks to the new app that charges men $1 every

time they stare indiscreetly at ladies.  Pay her another $6, jerks!

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-12,

See the store manager at Kreggers.  He needs someone to dummy*

the canned fish section of aisle four.  Anchovies are flying off the shelves.

Try to be helpful.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-12,

See the rich men sitting at the table in Connecticut

worrying about Trump, but worrying even more about whether

the Democrats will nominate someone too scary to win.  Try not to annoy

the women who are waiting for the men to finally stop talking.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-12,

See the Realtor who got loaded at the Open House and fell

on the front steps after running like a realtor across the

street to put up some balloons.  She’s nice. See if she needs

a band-aid.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-12,

See Joe Biden.  I mean, just look at him.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-12,

See the women pushing her cart through the spilt mayonnaise in aisle 4

at the supermarket on North Street.  Really, it’s kind of amazing.  She dropped the jar,

and then pushed her cart through the stuff.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-1,

See the man waving on the corner of 12th and Elm to thank him for

waving at everyone.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-1,

See the man in the lobby of the Hotel at the Beach to remind him

that his phone heard him resolve once and for all to lose some weight

and call Sally.  Offer encouragement, but Sally might be out of his league

for the time being.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-1,

See the woman at 3345 Main who just finished the bio of Sylvia Plath.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-1,

See the man at 45 East St, Apt 7a to tell him that all the men he sat

with on that bench in 1977 have since passed away peacefully in San Francisco.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-1,

See the man on the third stool in Mom’s Kitchen on Stanton St.

Remind him that his wife doesn’t appreciate it when he eats sausages.

They repeat on him all the time when he gets home.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-1,

See the disassociating, bloated CEO at Office Park Drive, Building 4, Suite 603.

Tell him that that everyone in the office has good reason to hate his guts with a passion,

and they wouldn’t stop to help him if he was bleeding and injured by the side of the road.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-1,

See the man at the Grove Park softball field.  He runs like a gazelle.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-12,

See the child at 156 Davenport.  Vaporize his parents with your ray gun while

headquarters authorizes better replacement parents from alternative parent portal 2.

Just kidding.  The new parents are waiting in the garage already.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-1,

See the elderly lady from your dream in 1972 who is serving tea at the back of the room above the theater on South St.  She has scones.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-12,

See the ghost at 145 Elm. He didn’t lift the toilet seat again.

—

1-Adam-12, 1-Adam-1,

See the retired officer at Pleasant Donut Way. He wants to get your phone numbers so he can call you every day at 4:15.

—

*to dummy a shelf means to bring the depleted product up to the front of the shelf to make it seem like you aren’t low on that particular item of stock.

I don’t want to go to Brooklyn

Go ahead, stupid.  Go ahead and drive a car from New Jersey to Brooklyn. You can experience the colossal congestion, the cookie-crumbling condition of the roads, failure to plan for capacity, the refusal of the plutocracy to invest, the  aggression of the 18-wheel truckers who are taking speed on the last leg across the country,  the crisscrossing at the tolls, the sidelong dangers that reside just beyond your peripheral vision, the desire to murder fellow drivers, the desire of fellow drivers to murder you, the inaccuracy of the radio traffic reports combined with their speeded jumbling of words (did they say Lincoln or Holland!?), the need for despicable drivers of monster vehicles like Hummers, Escalades , Yukons and other living-room-sized vehicles to hinder the progress of me going to Brooklyn and the human race to survive in any civilized way, the need for your passenger to ask for help with the crossword in a rainstorm while making a lane change you shouldn’t really make,  the unforeseen construction that means you end up on the 59^th Street Bridge, a very poetic structure, from which Coltrane serenaded that is nonetheless built so tall and rickety that you go all shaky in your mind and bowels mid-span, the exit ramps from the various bridges over the East River that make you feel that you are in a World War One fighter plane  impetuously banking down and to the right to shake the enemy pilot so that you can make it onto the Brooklyn-Queens -(not)Expressway, the way the whole experience is like trying to read a too-long sentence with way too many set-off phrases and relative clauses  written by a desperate lamebrain making a futile lament that bores even him, so many times has he made it aloud on the way to Brooklyn where he eventually parks and tries to forget that he’ll have to fight his way out some hours later.  But, this time we got there okay through a major rainstorm, and Roberto Clemente was on the wall, making it all more than worthwhile.

From the Minutes of the Meeting of the Department of Redundant Entropy Department

The alarm rings.  Dunlop’s head jerks up and his fist jerks down to smash the clock into silence. Aloud, he emphatically says “yes, yes, yes” over and over before switching to “no, no, no, no.”  He lets his head fall back onto the pillow for a moment, but an instant later he is on his feet, looking at the clock again.  It says 3:30 PM.  This means nothing to Dunlop as he opens the shade, and heads into the lavatory. “YES,” he remembers that he had planned on writing up his lab notes after his nap.  As he splashes cold water over his numb face, he feels relieved to have recalled the purpose behind his waking up behavior.  “I knew I must have gotten up for something,” Dunlop thinks as he plops down in front of his desk.  He feels pretty awful. His cold has not yet left him, and the food he ate the previous evening is sitting motionless in his gut.

Dunlop shuts his eyes.  His head is congested and the room, being too hot, combined with the after-nap grogginess, makes him feel strangely enlarged.  It is a unsettling and sickly sensation.  He feels himself expanding to such an extent that the pain in his intestines seems only a dull ache at the center of a perversely bloated mass of his conscious being. This occasionally would happen to one of his appendages, sometimes even his head.  It was not a normal feeling, and no one he knew ever said “oh, yeah, that happens to me, too!” The inability to accurately describe it was another negative aspect of the phenomenon.

In fright, Dunlop opens his eyes.  This does not end the sensation. He sees his hands resting on the desk in front of him.  His hands are a part of his body and the desk is a part of his hands. The desk is connected to the floor and the walls and they are connected to the building. In horror, Dunlop watches himself become a huge, inert, unfeeling mass.

“Oh, what a fate, I’ve an inorganic redundant deathly deadening destiny – to become MacNaughton Dormitory.”  Dunlop can’t move.

The door flies open.  It is Dunlop’s roommate, Mark, the hard-working scientist, pseudo-Platonist utterer of inane aphorisms.  “What are ya doin’, Dun?” asks Mark.  Dunlop replies, “Succumbing to inertia and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, you insipid bowel movement.”

“Now, now, Dun, I’ll just overlook that – I know you’re just kidding. God, am I exhausted.  My lab took five hours and I have to get to work right away if I expect to get anything done tonight.”  Dunlop sounds an obligatory, ‘Oh” and begins to feebly move his arms about on the desk, getting things ready so he can begin work on the lab.  He stares at the lab-book, calculator and data for ten minutes.  It took him that long to remember that he did not have the lab sheet without which the completion of the assignment was impossible.  He strings together some scatological words, and struggling with his shoes, notices that his laces have only a few ties left in them until they break apart.  Grabbing his knapsack, he is almost out the door when Mark stops him, “Hey Dun, uh um – what’s the uh – the generic term for mother – i.e. analagous to the relationship between the words brother and sibling?”  Dunlop says, “uh… parent?”

“oooooooooohhhhhnooooooh” Mark resounds at the thought of his forgetting the word ‘parent’ while remembering the words “generic” and “analagous.”  Dunlop leaves Mark with the horror at his mental lapse, and starts trudging down the stairs in his heavy winter coat and scarf around his neck.  It is warmer out than he thought and a muggy sweat soon covers him. His leaden legs carry him to the door of his lab partner.  She answers the door and gets the sheet for him. Dunlop is disconcerted at the difficulty he experiences in communicating.  Everything he says is jumbled up together to Kathy’s ears, but perfectly distinguishable to Dunlop.  Conversely, Kathy’s words sound to him to be said too slowly to be understood. Dunlop manages to complete the conversation without the use of sign language, but with much repetition.

Soon he finds himself sitting at a library desk. He takes off his shoes to let his damp socks dry. He sits amid the socky stink, and thinks, “Finally, I can start this lab.”  He reads the instructions.  More scatological verbiage emerges from him.  He had left the data on his dormitory desk. He staggers out to remedy his latest oversight.  Before he can get to the dorm, however, he is intercepted by a large group of students heading for dinner at the commons.  Having lost all sense of direction and purpose, he lets himself get scooped up by the mass of people, and soon finds himself herded into the feeding arena.

The students, like over-heated molecules, redound in random disordered comminglings as food piles up on their trays. Dunlop finds a plate on his tray, loading it with mushroom/cheese and rice delight with corn.  His knees weaken.  His sight is blurred.  Someone spills some milk on his tray – “Man – I’m really sorry.”  Dunlop says “It’s okay – I like it.”  Now, the end of his scarf is hanging into his food.  He leaves it there.

 Suddenly, the general will attaches to him and he gets out his meal card just in time to be efficiently flushed through the cash registers and into the dining room.  Seated, he looks at his companions go through the eating motions while occasionally muffling something he doesn’t understand.  Beyond the table, Dunlop can see nothing but shapeless forms of brown or black.  Some items of food appear to be flying by his head, ‘Hey Dun, whazamatter, you whacked or something, huh?”  Dunlop does not hear. He stares at his plate. Everything on it melts indistinguishably into each other.  He cannot tell the whatever from the whatever. The substance on his plate is homogenized, uniform and calm. Wrecked napkins and bent forks lie to either side.  “So this is the fate of all things?” Dunlop thinks.  Upon this revelation, Dunlop’s vision explodes, and he sees himself from outside himself – at all angles simultaneously.  He watches his head and torso slowly tilt and begin the descent.  With complete lucidity, he sees from above, below and all sides, as his face settles, in slow motion, into the lukewarm mire of whateverness.

“That’s my roommate Dun,” Mark is heard to say as he passes by.

Maximal>

Don’t Be Stupid

Trying to be helpful, I pointed out this graffito to America some decades ago………but to no apparent avail.

People Offer Worthy Observations in the Morning

This morning my outgoing, ruddy and bearded petrol attendant, we’ll call him Joey, was issuing forth his usual ‘guten tagen on your noggins’ to me and a fellow named Dave who was driving by in his van. He used ‘phuckin’ as the adjective this time. He waved bye to Dave, and turned to me, saying “sorry about the F-bomb, but Dave likes them.”  Then the topic of conversation turned to an article I had read in which scientist Neil DeGrasse Tyson suggests that it is a high probability that the universe is a computer simulation created by a very advanced civilization. Joey readily embraced the topic, elucidating his amazement that the universe was actually real, that we are sending probes out a gazillion miles, and that it somehow all started from an infinitely infinitesimal density made of something that then exploded into everything.  I told him that I had asked physicists in my acquaintance to get back to me when they ultimately decided whether light was a wave or a particle, and that it is beyond my comprehension that light’s nature depends on the subject viewing it. Fist bumps and we’re off. Twelve dollars for the gas – it’s a hybrid.

A few minutes later I held the elevator for a white-haired woman who told me she never rides the elevator without getting nervous because she was once stuck in one and had to climb out through the roof of the cab.  I told her “well, that at least was a memorable day compared to many others.”  She continued, ‘Well I keep dreaming about it – I’m floating and everything,” and then she stepped out. a little wobbly, onto the second floor.

 

Goodbye Couch

Eulogy for a couch from the 1950s: This couch (we never were ‘sofa’ people) served the hindquarters of family and friends who made their incarnational debuts somewhere between 1885 and 2014.  It is heading to the Food Bank, and from there to another living room somewhere, where it can keep adding to its impressive achievements.

 

About That Time

About that time I hid under my manager’s desk and grabbed his knees when he sat down:  I’m not sorry

About that time I was too young to know better, and pretended to be wheel-chair bound while using mass transit all the way to the concert so that I’d have a seat:  Bad judgment, but I learned a lot…

About those times I sent email from many colleagues’ computers, assuming their own unique personal stream of consciousness voices: I’d do it again of course.

About that time I claimed to my friend that another friend had taken off in his car to go after some neighborhood ne’er-do-wells to fight them:  You really thought that Billy punched that guy in the face?

About that time I filled your umbrella with paper holes from the hole-puncher, and then closed it up again:  I would really like the opportunity to do that again.

About that time after the homemade pizza party, you said I couldn’t take a slice home for lunch, but after I licked it you changed your mind. It was delicious.

About that time I held back your coat sleeve while pretending to help you on with your coat, making you stick your arm out about ten times until you figured it out: It’s just a habit I have – blame my uncle.

About that time I saw you on the video monitor of the elevator, and the security guard let me give you directions via the intercom on “how to stand in an elevator:” I don’t think I’ve ever been that happy.

About that time I left “Thinking of You” cards on two colleagues’ chairs, signed by each of them to the other:  It brought you both together for a brief, confusing moment.

About that time I smashed my shopping cart into yours at the supermarket, while expressing how happy I was to see you both, and then followed you around making loud comments about your food choices: It was the start of something great.

About that time I started a small fire in your car while driving down Mountain Avenue:  What a nervous Nelly you were!

Regarding that time I chased you around the basement with a dead mouse and you died of a heart attack:  Sorry.