So, if a a fat man and a squirrel were to share a see-saw, how many nuts would the portly fellow have to throw the rodent for things to be in balance?? Life is full of hypotheticals and sometimes it’s healthy to consider them.

Yesterday I was invited to join an “allumni” group for my high school. Makes me so proud. Hypothetically, “allumni” would be a great term if put to use by a culinary student when referring to his alma mater. Only if, of course, the English language took to pronouncing the double “L” as the Spanish language serves it up. “A-yum-ni.” Hot and fresh.

In my opinion, sentence fragments are superior to misspellings in every way, but the frankfurter trumps them both.

Goodness gracious, I love Jamaica. Actually, I’ve never been to Jamaica, except possibly Jamaica, Queens.

What I really do love are the kids from CAPA High School. Why? Because a significant contingent of the CAPA student body has become Franktuary regulars.

Aside from that, the school is a magnet performing arts public high school located downtown, on Fort Duquesne Boulevard.

I tell you this factoid because right now CAPA is in the midst of its annual all-school musical. I saw it last weekend. It’s “The Secret Garden” and I’m here to vouch that it has a higher production value than the average high school musical.

There are performances tonight through Saturday at 8 pm, as well as a matinee and an additional evening performance on Sunday. Tickets are $10, unless you’re special. If you go see it you’ll actually be supporting Franktuary, indirectly.

Back in high school, my friend and I wanted to start a Rebirth Brass Band tribute band. We called it the ShakyBootyBeat. Unfortunately, we never got very far with the band because we lacked the appropriate instrumentation. Specifically we never found a sousaphone player, let alone a sousaphone player worthy of filling the shoes of “Big Tuba Phil.” If only I knew “Big Meg” back then.

Since we didn’t have an entire band we worked on what we could, meaning we worked on the names of albums yet to be produced. My personal favorite is “Santa’s Got the Funks.”

At the time we came up with the title my friend and I were working as caddies at a local golf club. One of our peers was a laid-back-heavy-set-bearded-middle-aged-black man named Harvey. Another co-worker was a much smaller heavy-set fellow people called “Roger the Dodger.”

For our album cover, we envisioned Harvey wearing a Santa suit and sipping a lemonade while lounging on an inflatable raft as he floated on the pond between the fourth tee and green. Roger would be standing in front of the pond, wearing those curly little elf shoes, a green leotard, and an appropriately elfish cap. He would be sipping a cocktail while casually leaning on a seven wood.

Santa’s Got the Funks.

Over the past few months I’ve come to know a customer of mine fairly well. At least as well as you can know anyone you see several times a week but never for more than five minutes at a time. His name is Dino.

Dino orders everything on the menu, but not all at once. For some reason “something” always seems to happen and Dino’s order takes a little bit longer to prepare. It doesn’t seem to matter what it is he orders. Lucky for you, you aren’t Dino!

Anyway, whenever I see him, I think of Dino from the Flintstones. Then I think about how my senior class decorated a hallway of my high school around the theme of “The Flintstones Meet The Jetsons” for homecoming. We went all out. In the middle of the hall there was a fog machine that accidentally set off the fire alarms.

Let me back track for a moment- my high school has a tradition where each class decorates a hallway of the school with the theme of their choosing during homecoming week. It’s a competition, and the seniors ALWAYS win. There’s also a powder puff football game, and again, the seniors ALWAYS win.

So, where was I? That’s right, the fire alarm went off. The fire department came. All the hallways were deemed to be fire hazards. Certain administrative types were bent out of shape. That afternoon the seniors didn’t win the powder puff football game. That evening, during a pep rally, the winning class hallway was announced. Again, the seniors didn’t win. A very large portion of my class walked out of the rally.

The next morning a very large recreation of Dino (the dinosaur not my customer) stood in one of my high school’s court yards. The only way he could possibly have arrived there was via the roof.

I’ll tell you what, if a larger than life version of Dino my customer had turned up in the courtyard, that would have been strange. Of course, I’d only now be realizing just how strange it was, as seven years ago I would have had no idea who the over-sized figure in the courtyard represented.

Well, I’m ready to continue my story. The one you’ve long forgotten about. Here’s a hint, think about Decemer 07.

“I need you to unpack some boxes,” said the drawling voice. “I’ll give you $40 each.”

“Sure,” Jamie and I responded.

After a short walk we arrived at 359 Springfield Avenue, also known as “La Jolie Maison,” a storefront I had passed by countless times before but had never noticed. Upon entering La Jolie Maison I immediately noticed that I was surrounded by absurdly expensive things. Beds, tea cups, harpoons, all sorts of things.

We made our way to the store’s back door, where we encountered six large crates set out in a patio area.

“Here’s a drill boys,” said our Southern friend who later introduced herself as Diane. “There are mirrors inside, they’re $10,000 each, so be careful.”

I don’t think that price was accurate, but the mirrors were framed in gold. And thus began my year-long run of after school work at La Jolie Maison. It may very well have been the greatest high school job anyone has ever had.

Jamie and I simply became known as the “worker boys,” or “tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum,” depending on who was referring to us. Our co-workers were as colorful as a rainbow on LSD, and the entire staff was led by our boss, Kevin Clark, the happiest man I’ve ever met.

Generally work was “scheduled” on Monday and Wednesday afternoons from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm. The thing is, maybe 15% of the time there wasn’t any work to do, but Kevin would pay us $40 in petty cash just for showing up. The rest of the time work almost never really went to 5:00.

When there was work to do it mainly consisted of things like folding and measuring fabric, polishing silver, unpacking crates, and moving large pieces of furniture.

When we weren’t doing any of those things we were usually “organizing” the basement storage closet. Once while doing so we accidentally broke a tea cup with a $500 price tag. The good news? No one cared!

Our “overtime” work sessions were perhaps the most memorable. The owner of La Jolie Maison, named Laurie Finn, once had us help her move from one home to another in a neigboring town. She had moved within the same town on an annual basis for over 20 years, just for fun.

Another time I came in early on a Saturday morning to help with a sidewalk sale. I gave popcorn to children (and moved some trinkets) for maybe six hours. My compensation? $100 in petty cash.

Then there were the strange objects they allowed us to take home. It seemed like the fun would never stop.

After a while, of course, the fun did stop. About six months into our tenure our hours were pared, and over time our wage slipped to $10 an hour. Evenutally, Jamie and I were laid-off so Laurie Finn could hire her brother to do what we were doing full time. Full time!

At this point I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that La Jolie Maison is the small business model I most closely observed during my formative adolescent years. More evidence that the fact that I’ve managed to keep my own business open for more than a year is nothing short of astonishing. Thanks for helping with that!

Lately I’ve had an itch to travel somewhere. There are several cities I’d like to visit in the near future for very specific reasons, but I suppose I won’t be able to go to all of them. Here’s your chance to vote where I go!

A) Toronto – to see Body Worlds 2 and watch the Olympic men’s ice hockey gold medal game in a Canadian sports bar
B) Chicago – to eat Persian food with my long-time friend Bita Yektashenas
C) Cape Cod/Boston – to see my old viola teacher who now owns a Bed and Breakfast in Cape Cod as well as to visit my business partner Matt, who will be moving to Boston at the end of this month
D) The exotic international locale of your choice if you find someone suitable to cover for me here at Hot D***a while I’m gone.
E) New York – to see “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” starring the inimitable Norbert Leo Butz.

If you’ve chosen option D I’m very excited and WE need to talk. I’m pretty sure option E will happen regardless of where else I go.

All this talk of travel reminds me of the time I was in Lake Tahoe, at an Embassy Suites, with some high school friends. We played a game of Uno that just wouldn’t die. My friend Jamie forgot to say “uno” five minutes into the game when he only had one card remaining in his hand. Deciding to be a rule stickler, I made him take an extra card. Nobody else came close to winning for a VERY long time.

I know this to be the case because Embassy Suites happens to offer a very exciting complimentary happy hour to all of its guests every evening. It was during such a happy hour that our Uno game took place.

I believe that during the game I had five rum and cokes and two margaritas as happy hour came and almost went. When it finally ended (the game of Uno that is) I announced to everyone that I needed to sit down. Then I realized that I already was sitting down. Huh. What do you do about that? I haven’t played Uno in two years.

I’ve always wanted to write that. I hope someone out there in the MIDWEST reads this. I’m also hoping to count how many times I sneeze in 2006. You can count along with this blog! Look for an ever increasing number at the end of some of these entries.

Last night, I was at something called a “cell group.” I’ve never figured out why it’s called a “cell group.” Really, it has absolutely nothing to do with terrorism or prison, I swear. It’s a group of people from my church who meet on a weekly basis. There are actually cell groups all over Pittsburgh. Who knew!?!?

Anyway, the topic of Wicca came up, and I recalled a Wiccan with whom I went to high school. She actually went to elementary school with me too. She was a nice girl, although I regret to inform you that the rest of my grade-school class, myself included, was often not very nice to her. In high school, when she became a Wiccan, she carried around a spell book.

Until last night, I hadn’t thought about that girl or her spell book for years. I used to always wonder if she wrote anything about me in it. I should have inquired. I should have struck up a conversation, but I never did. Now I have no idea what became of this girl, but as far as I know I’m not under any spells.

Then again maybe she really liked me and she’s the reason I can seemingly eat frankfurters as if they’re made of Ultra Slim-Fast. Then again, maybe she’s the reason I’m still single. I’ll never know. 4.

You know, back in high school I really didn’t grasp the challenge of earning a living. Let me tell you about this job I had during my junior year. I worked at an extremely posh decorative interior store with my friend Jamie Burgmeyer. What a job it was. We mostly did things like polish silver, master the art of measuring yards of fabric using only our bodies, shoot the breeze with our very colorful full-time co-workers, and learn how to tie fancy bows around things like pillows. Gee w(h)illikers, the things I wouldn’t know today if I hadn’t spent time at La Jolie Maison.

When we landed the job we weren’t even looking for it. We were standing on a downtown corner waiting for one of our parents to pick us up, because, what can I say, we were exceptionally cool high school students. The reason we were in my hometown’s shopping district was because we were reviewing pizza places for our student newspaper, “The Tower.” We, along with another friend, wrote a “regular” column called “The Food Forum.” I place “regular” in quotations because during my freshman year of high school, “The Tower” came out on a weekly basis. Between my sophomore and senior years the prolific editing team for this fine publication produced roughly four installments. In that time I think the Food Forum appeared three times.

So, all that is to say, it wasn’t everyday that I hung out on a street corner in downtown Summit, NJ. As we waited for our ride, we heard a drawling female voice behind us query “How would you boys like to work for me?”

To be continued…

Without further adieu, the exciting conclusion to “The Curious Case of Uno.”

While thoroughly confused by the progression of recent events, my sixth period physics class began to feel a collective sense of guilt about Uno’s absence from our classroom. After all, it was perfectly reasonable to believe that we had quite literally driven her crazy through our antics.

Naturally we decided to do what any high school physics class would do at this point- discover where our teacher lives with the intention of purchasing her flowers. Doug was the designated flower deliverer, but a prior commitment kept me from riding shotgun for this particular stage of our mission.

Flying solo, Doug arrived at the home of Uno on a terribly rainy spring afternoon. After ringing the doorbell, Uno’s sister, whom we first encountered at Cheryl’s Deli, promptly answered the door. As she opened the door two small children ran outside and began playing in the mud with a tennis ball. While ignoring the children, Uno’s sister was very hospitable toward Doug and assured him that a bed-ridden Uno was unable to see any visitors but would really appreciate the flowers.

As this explanation came forth, Uno’s gold Volvo pulled alongside of her muddy yard. Doug turned around as he heard the slowing car and made direct eye contact with Uno. Shortly thereafter the gold Volvo sped away and the sister’s demeanor changed entirely.

“All right kids, that’s enough, INSIDE NOW!” she stammered. “Thank you very much,” she spat at Doug as the front door slammed in his face.

Around this time, it came to our attention that it was probably best to leave Uno alone. However, the saga continues because Uno was apparently unable to leave us alone. About a month before the end of the school year each of her senior students received a letter in the mail.

Essentially it stated that she had stopped coming to school when she learned she wouldn’t be offered tenure but that she felt it was her duty to continue to fax us assignments. It went on to say that, though she would be with us in spirit, she would not be able to attend our graduation ceremony. This was because she was refusing to return several high school library books and her school-issued computer. Talk about strange.

As for my scientific education, don’t fret! A long-time chemistry teacher from my high school’s science department came out of retirement to teach us an entire year’s worth of physics in our final month as high school students.

“Hey, big guy, would you like an apple?” That’s what someone said to me while I was sitting in a bathroom stall today. Not every day that happens. Nope, certainly not. After hearing that statement and assuming it was intended for someone else I looked down to see a hand stretched under my stall clutching a Macintosh (4152).

As much as I like to eat, I told my toilet-buddy that I was okay without his apple. Maybe that was a mistake, because it’s quarter after two right now and I’m pretty hungry. Yesterday I had chocolate icing for dinner. I think I might have a salad soon.

Tomorrow, after a very long hiatus, I will bring you the exciting conclusion of the six-part-blog-entry-true-story-mini-drama, “The Curious Tale of Uno.”