What’s the one thing that makes you try to remember every little detail you experienced from shower to office desk.

Easy!

Discovering your fly being down.

Like mine was, all morning.

No wonder that woman froze up when I sat beside her on the subway.

Well I’ve done more embarassing things. Like forgetting to take off that

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…sticker off the leg of my new-bought pants.

Speaking of which: why do straight guys never take off the small white cotton loops that hold the tags on new jeans?

The first car I ever drove was a 1977, two door LTD V8 with two-tone silver stripes not trying at all to be a Starsky and Hutch rip off, no. Pimps would have gotten out of the way with a respectful wave of their ostriched-plumed fedoras. The tires came up to my nipples. Or at least at my age, I thought they did. It had more buttons and gauges than Dad’s last car, who’s only memory of I have is sleeping in the back window. The front seat still went all the way across but half the front seat folded forward for kid access into the back.

I am sitting on Da’s lap, eyes barely over the steering wheel. We’re on the road back from the cottage and Da is working the pedals. I can remember squealing with delight, demanding more speed. I jerked the wheel back and forth like a parody of driving and Da stops the first lesson fast.

Of course the first time Da ever let me completely drive without the aid of a lap or long adult legs, I slammed so hard down on the gas that gravel flew from the back tires, rooster-tailing into the sky and achieving LEO status. Laughing, I looked over at Da and his outstreached hand, clamped tight onto the passenger dash. Thus the long and difficult relationship between my Da, his car and I, started.

I’m not a bad driver. No accidents since getting my license 22 years ago. Not even a speeding ticket. But I have forgotten certain parking tickets that showed up when Da went to renew the plates. And I’ve had his car towed due to not reading the street signs. Twice.

One time Mike and I “borrowed” Da’s car to drive from Brantford to Brockville, a 5 hour trip one way at a good clip, just so we could get Manols Fish and Chips. We were back that night after a long, butt-numbing drive.

In the flashy late-80s, Da had a new Nissan 200SX so fresh off the lot that he had all distinguishing markings removed so people were forced to ask him what kind of car it was. The little two seater was red with fold-in lights and had vanity plates that read “MY XS”. One interesting feature was the slightly Japanese voice that would inform you when your door transmorgified from a “door” into “a jar”. I would pop open the door on the highway just to hear the tiny schoolgirl voice “Doh is ajar!” I would try to run out of gas so that I could hear what she would say when fuel was low, but chickened out every time. “Excuse please! You will be walking to the nearest gas station if you please!” I fantasized about talking to that car and having her answer me back. Hey, it’s better than road rage.

My car indiscretions didn’t stay with one parent. When I was 15 I took my mother’s massive Buick out for a spin with my school chums. Not entirely comfortable with a V8, four door beheamoth, I hit a right turn so hard the back end fishtailed and squealed like a pig… but not in delight. We were on a Cobra Hunt, which meant we had a dozen egs and were bombing parked Camaroes, IROCs and Cobras with much mullet-hating contempt. When we got home and fell out of the Buick laughing, I noticed one of the hubcaps was missing. Visions of the hub rolling off into someone’s garden and an after dinner phone call gripped me: “My goodness! This looks like Rita’s hubcap!” (Brockvegas was small. Everyone knew everyone else’s business).

What to do? It was too late to go back and look for the cap, Mum was going to be home in minutes. I did what every kid with three older brothers had to do: I said John did it. John, at the time, was a bit of a hellion and Mum had no problem believing that one. Whew! I wasn’t around for the fallout, but I am sure he or Mike got the brunt of that one.

This hacking cough I’ve picked up has made me resort to cold medications at night so I can get at least 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. However, the codeine in these meds make me as jumpy as Michael J Fox in a paint mixer, so I try to avoid them.

Last night, after a big explosive cough that semi-woke me up, I said to myself “I just swallowed a .JPG!”

Ah. I think I need to stop taking these pills.

I get the call at 9:20pm:

“Hey! How are things?”

Sharkboy: “Not good…”

Sharkboy was just finishing up Pirates of the Carribean when he heard a noise coming from his bedroom. Flicking on the light he looks up to his small window (the small, basement-sized one that is just above the roof of the adjacent building next door, yet right at the top of his wall) to see a guy with a screwdriver poking at the latch on the window frame. Both men freak. Both run to the back alley. Sharkboy chases after him in his bare feet (in hindsight, this was probably not that bright, but in the heat of the moment…) and yells “I’ve called the police!” Would-be robber gets away.

Then he calls the police.

6 cops show up, take the screens for fingerprinting and then case closed. Damage done: one broken window, two shattered apartment-dwelling human’s nerves.

When I lived nearer to the Village, I was broken into while I was out . My roomies were at home at the time, “occupied” in their bedroom. The roomies thought the noise in the apartment was me bumbling around, when it was really two kids shoving stuff into their napsacks. It wasn’t until one of the robbers opened their bedroom door to get an eyeful of hot gay action did they realize they were being burgled. They chased one of the kids out the front door and heard the second leave via the back patio.

I come home to an apartment full of cops. They ask me some questions then ask me to see if any of my stuff is missing. One of them follows me up into my attic bedroom and as he crests the stairs he exclaims: “Holy! They really did a number up here!”

I am notorious for not putting dirty laundry in its hamper, nor do I put clean laundry away. I generally live the slob life.

“Yeah,” I say slowly, “A real number.”

Damage done: my Nintendo 64; $30USD I was saving for a trip to Kentucky; a pair of GAP chinos, which I took as a compliment towards my fashion sense, and my big city livin’ virginity. It took me a full 2 weeks to realize they went through my sock drawer.