Naked Door to Door Exams

Lyme Away

Somewhere in a New England resort town where Lyme Disease flourishes...

Bob: “Joe, you read about this? Some 76 year old guy in Florida posed as a doctor, went door to door giving free breast exams. Got away with it for a while...”
Joe: “Wow! What a great idea man, we shoulda’ thought of that.”
Bob: “Yea. Hey....wait a minute... what about Deer Tick Inspector?”
Joe: “Deer ticks...lyme disease... damn, Bob, that could work.”
Bob: “I got a doctor’s coat, stethoscope, I got a clip board too.”
Joe: “How come you got a doctors coat?”
Bob: “Ah..... Betty, she likes to play doctor - patient....it's one of her sex fantasies. I just put up with it....you know, just to keep her happy....”
Joe: “Oh, she likes to play doctor - patient now? Cool.... So, ah... can I have your old pirate and slave girl costumes for Lucy and me?”
Bob: “Oh sure, Joe. Anyway, we could give it try... Deer Tick Inspector Lyme Prevention Team... I like it...”
Joe: “ It won’t work... the local girls won’t go for it.”
Bob: “Yea, too smart, too bad.”
Joe: “But the tourists are coming...”
Bob: “Tourists...yea...what do they know?”
Joe: “This could really work, Bob.”
Bob: “We only got one coat.”
Joe: “We’ll take turns.”
Bob: “What’ll we tell them?”

A tourist answers the knock at the door of her summer cottage.
Joe: “Good afternoon Ma’am. Dr. Joe Smith. There’s a severe deer tick infestation in this area. I’m here from the Lyme Disease Prevention Board to give you a free inspection.”
Lady: “How nice, come in, look around.”
Joe: “I’m not here to inspect the house ma’am. I inspect your person. Please remove your clothes.”
Lady: “What? Are you crazy?”
Joe: “Lyme disease causes premature aging ma’am.”
Lady: “It does? Well, I’m sure it’s not that bad...”
Joe: “And it causes the reversal of any plastic surgeries you may have had. Like if you had a nose job, and got Lyme’s, you’re nose would grow back into it’s original form plus a half inch.”
Lady: “Oh my gawd!!!”
Joe: "And it has a strange effect on silicone, causing it to either shrink or explode....we can't figure it out..."
Lady: "Oh jeez!"
Joe: “Take it easy ma’am, no need to tear off your clothes, I can help you get them off. I’m a trained professional.”

Overheard in the neighborhood grocery store.
Lady 1: “...and they send out Lyme tick inspectors too. Such a nice place.”
Lady 2: “Did you pass inspection?”
Lady 1: “Yes. I passed once last week and twice this week.”
Lady 2: “How often do they have to check?”
Lady 1: “Frequently I guess. This lyme thing is a big problem here.”

In a doctor’s office in that New England resort town...
Doctor to patient: “What Deer Tick Inspection doctor?”

Jail cell in that same resort town...
Joe: “Damn, Bob, that was fun...”
Bob: “Are they gonna charge us or not?”
Joe: “Only if they can find a woman willing to testify in court against us.”
Bob: “Well, none of my ‘patients’ are gonna complain. If that cop hadn’t seen you in the white coat at that lady’s door, we wouldn’t be here now for trespassing...”
Joe: “Yup, you’re right. “
Bob: “So, is that lady gonna press charges now that she knows the truth?”
Joe: “No, she likes me. I inspected her quite a few times... in depth inspections.... I dont' think she'll press charges, but let’s just say, I’m definitely gonna need those pirate and slave girls outfits...”

Spring, right on time...

Signs of Spring in Resort Areas, like Shelter Island

Well that’s it....the clocks have been turned forward, Easter and Passover are over, we’re all eating pastel colored egg salad sandwiches and leftover matzoh which means Spring is officially here!

Here's some signs of Spring where I live...

Daffodils and tulips are trumpeting their colors all over.

Tourists are already showing up. You can spot them on the ferries very easily, they hit their brakes when the ferry docks and race the gate to get off the ferry. But that sorta works out well, because when they race the gate, the ferry worker gets to hold up that all powerful hand and stop them with a face that says, “I don’t care if your car costs more than my house, this is Shelter Island and we all take turns and play nice, you moron.”

There’s tiny piles of dirt all over the lawn, new dirt means, the worms are building below.

Soon they’ll be big piles of new dirt above ground as we watch the new crop of McMansions spring up.

There''ll be new bunches of illegal aliens all over to build the McMansions.

Soon, we’ll hear the iron songbird of Spring, the John Deere riding lawnmower.

We’ll start hearing the latest round of “I don’t give a damn how they do it in the city....” stories of locals dressing down arrogant city people.

We’ll stand in line silently at the post office listening to someone from Florida demanding something impossible from our long suffering postal folk. We’ll wish that there was a separate line for locals, and knowing that it can’t be that way, we’ll size up the offending irritant as to whether we can fit their body into a small town bag because the large once cost more...

Men coated with spackle and paint will show up at deli’s with sandwich orders written on blocks of wood. I always wonder if their wives give them grocery shopping lists on planks...

The teenagers of Shelter Island increase the volume of their unceasing bain, “There’s nothing to do here” and “I’m bored.” My daughter always thought that these phrases constituted justification for drug indulgence. She didn’t realize that these phrases conjure up long lists of house and yard chores in the parental mind. These lists, coupled with the knowledge that they need our money for everything including drugs, gives us the leverage we need to get them to do anything at all, even though they can only do it halfway and half ass. It’s just as well. If they did anything start to finish, correctly, and the first time - the shock would kill us.

For me the greatest sign of Spring showed up on the side of my brother’s house. Clam rakes...two of them....nestled gently together in the morning sun. Their rusty baskets seemed to cry out, ”Clams...clams...give us clams....”

Oh yes, the best signs of Spring on Shelter Island, are the ones we can dip in butter.

Chocolate Tax?

Easter Form 1040

Saturday, April 13, somewhere in America...

“Margaret, you can’t dye Easter eggs here. I need this table to do taxes.”
“You should’ve had the taxes done already, I need this table to dye eggs.”
“This is the only table and I need it for taxes. Taxes take precedence over Easter eggs.”
“Not to me and three kids it doesn’t. See the line in the middle of the table? You stay on your side, we’ll stay on ours.”
“Be careful with those cups of dye, will ya? I don’t want anything on these forms.”
“Okay kids, after we dip the eggs, let’s put them on the paper towels to catch the drips.”
“HOLY---! Margaret! The egg rolled over the 1099’s! Now they’re purple!”
“The table’s not level. Remember I told you that.”
“Yea, yea.... gimme some paper... I’ll fold a wedge and stick it under this leg... there.... no more eggs over the line, okay?”
“Okay, we’ll try. “
“And keep it down.”
“They’re kids, Joe. We’re doing the Easter eggs, they’re going to make noise.”
“Isn’t there some religious teaching about dying eggs in silence?”
“I don’t think there’s anything in the Bible that covers egg dying, Joe. I think that’s in your thin book series...Activities I’ve Done With My Children.”
“HEY! HEY! NO THROWING EGGS, GUYS! Margaret, make them stop that!”
“Okay, settle down, no throwing eggs! BRIAN!”
“OH @&#$)!! Margaret! Perfect! That egg just hit the 1040, and it’s my last one! Now it has a pink stripe and yolk on it. Get me a tissue.. geez... “
“Just wipe it off. The IRS doesn’t care if they get a return with a pink stripe, as long as they get the money. Besides, it’s their own fault for scheduling April 15th so close to Easter.”
“It’s an IRS tradition Margaret, they schedule April 15th around this time every year....”
“Well they should check the calendar first. Tax day should not collide with Easter.”
“Pass me a chocolate bunny.”
“Okay.”
“How come you got solid ones? I hate solid bunnies. Like trying to bite through rebar.”
“I’ll get you a knife.”
“No, then I’ll have little chocolate shavings all over. Next time get hollow bunnies.”
“I get what’s on sale, Joe.”
“Well find hollow bunnies on sale next year....the ones with the blue candy eyes...”
“Yellow bow or pink bow?”
“Don't start Margaret, just get the hollow ones. Everybody keep quiet. Color your eggs quietly or the Easter Bunny won't come.”
"Nice Joe. I can't tell you how much fun it is co-parenting with you."


Friday, April 21, in an IRS office....

“Oh man, Tom! This one is a real stinker....damn egg yolks. How are we supposed to get these returns done with all these egg smears and color streaks?”
“I don’t know what’s worse, Bob, the ones with the egg stink or the ones with the watercolor abstracts on them.”
“We can’t keep doing this. We have to come up with a solution.”
“Management is on it. They’re either banning Easter from April or moving the eggs and bunnies stuff to another holiday. They’re thinking of Memorial Day. Start a new tradition of dying eggs red, white and blue. And have chocolate flags.”
“How can they pull that off?”
“Hey Bob, we’re the IRS, the only government agency that audits itself. We can do anything we want. Shouldn’t take long to push an new bill through Congress making the change official. No more tie dyed Tax forms.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to change the tax deadline date to February or May to avoid the Easter collision?”
“We’re the Internal Revenue Service, Bob. We’re not here to serve the people.”
“I’m sorry Tom, what was I thinking?”
“It’s the sulfur fumes from the eggs. Happens to the best agents.”

The Untuckables

The Untuckables

I live on an island. There are hundreds of islands off of both coasts of the Unitied States. Some have bridges, but most use ferries.

One of our ferry's has a new ticket system. It used to be that you exchanged money for a nice 3”x 4” postcard paper ticket (I scanned an actual ticket above) with the date and your trip choices punched out. Now they’re testing a new system, with a computerized handheld ticket machine about the size of a small tissue box, which is appropriate because it prints out a tissue thin ticket. If it were any thinner, it would be spray....

I watched the tickettaker punch in the codes for a round trip and then use a separate little printer on his belt to print out the tiny 2” square ticket. It took longer for him to enter the codes and wait for the ticket to be printed than it used to take to hand over cash and get a torn off ticket with your change. What’s going to happen when these little electronic machines gets hit with salt spray? Or are dropped? Not that either of those two things would happen on a ferry...

But here’s the real problem.... the tiny tickets!

Everyone on Shelter Island has a specific spot where they tuck their ferry ticket. Most people tuck it above the driver’s window where the frame joins the headliner. Some have elastic straps on their sun visors and tuck it there. Everybody has a spot and can ticket tuck by feel, in the dark, half asleep, while holding hot coffee, while arguing, anything, but the ticket has to be big enough and stiff enough to tuck. These new small, flimsy ones are untuckable tickets.

They wouldn’t tuck in my usual spot, so I had to drive with one hand while I searched for alternative ticket tucking locations. I’m an experienced ticket tucker, but I couldn’t secure this ticket anywhere. Plus, I could see that from my handling, the print — with my round trip fare on it — was smearing. It finally ended up in my wallet. Then I had to dig it out for the return trip.

But the problem is even bigger than that. You see, loose ferry tickets in the car serve a multitude of purposes in Island life:

You can write a note on a ferry ticket and wedge it in someone’s house door or car door, or leave it under the windshield wiper.

If it’s a long note, you can put a “1”, “2”, “3”, at the top of each ticket. You could write a novel if you have enough tickets.

You can write short grocery lists on the back of tickets.

In desperation, you can use the corner of a ferry ticket as a toothpick.

I have written absence excuses on the back of ferry tickets for the school because the nice note I wrote is still on the kitchen table.

You can play three games of ‘tic tac toe’ with bored kids on the back of each ticket.

As you’re driving and hear something on the radio you want to remember, you reach for a ferry ticket and pen and the ticket is just the right size to lay on the center of the steering wheel and write while you drive.

A ferry ticket can flatten and remove spiders from the car.

All of my bookmarksers are ferry tickets.

I asked a fellow school mom for an easy recipe she mentioned. She gave it to me on the back of a ferry ticket while we were in the parking lot.

It's not uncommon here to get in your car and find a note written on a ferry ticket waiting for you on the dashboard.

We can amuse ourselves on the ferry by looking at the shapes of the punches.

The old tickets could survive rain or coffee spills, but not the new ones. Three rain drops and you will be handing the ticket taker a lump of mush for a return ticker.

I know there’s no stopping progress. I know that computers make our lives better. I know that a computerized ticket is better for me than a tear off, I guess. I know all this, but I will sure miss those multipurpose ferry tickets.

Did I mention you can wallpaper with ferry tickets?