Mike Taylor's Reality Check

‘Fame’ isn’t easy when you’re a jerk with confidence issues

I want people to like me. There, I said it. If that makes me a terrible person, or weak in some way, too bad.

I think most folks, if they’re honest with themselves, would admit to wanting the same thing. Nobody wants people to not like them. I’ll bet even Hitler and Saddam, in the quiet hours before dawn, sat on the edges of their beds and wondered why they didn’t have more friends, wondered how many folks they’d have to kill to make people like them.

I’m more likable than Hitler or Saddam, at least most of the time. But I ain’t exactly Mother Theresa, either. I have my bad days; I’m guessing you do, too. And on my bad days, I can be a difficult person to like. Ask any of my friends, they’ll tell you.  In fact, they’d love to tell you.  In detail.  The Lovely Mrs. Taylor is actually writing a tell-all book about it, I think.

My “grumpy days” were never a real problem until last year, when this column began appearing in various editions of the Advance. Now, I’ve been writing this column for nearly 20 years, but mostly for small papers in Northern Michigan, where nobody knows me and I know nobody.

In Central Lake, for example, I was just a mug shot sandwiched between three columns of 10-point type. The only time I got recognized was when I was up north vacationing. While on vacation, I’m in the best of moods, a jolly fellow anxious to engage in idle pleasantries, so it’s the perfect time to meet a reader.

My grouchy days I spend for the most part within 100 miles of home, where previously, nobody was likely to I.D. me.

The Advance has put a big dent in that comfortable anonymity. See, the Advance, in its various area-specific incarnations, goes out to too many homes, too many communities.

Don’t misunderstand, I’m a long way from famous. Leonardo DiCaprio’s not staying up nights wondering why Mike Taylor’s getting all the attention. The paparazzi do not chase me through the streets of Paris. But I do get recognized on a fairly regular basis.

At the grocery or in a restaurant, someone will walk up and say, “Hey, you’re that guy who writes that column. I read that every week!”

I always answer, “So you’re the one!” I say this because I think it’s a moderately funny comment, and because I never really know what else to say. (I’m a lot cleverer in print than in person.)

Then we’ll talk for a couple minutes about a particular column or writing in general, or about bass fishing when I can nudge the conversation in that direction.

It makes me feel good that people read what I write, and I generally enjoy these encounters. The ones I don’t enjoy are those I call the “gotcha” recognitions, the “R” bombs. I had one of these this morning, which is why I’m thinking about it at the moment.

I had just spent an hour in voice mail hell with the company from whom I purchased my cell phone. Well, OK, not an hour, but at least ten minutes. OK, five. But I really hate voice mail.

My new phone wasn’t working right and after navigating through several audio robots, I landed a real, live person in tech support. Together, we pushed a lot of buttons, reprogrammed the phone twice, reinitiated the startup sequence, sacrificed a goat and applied leeches to the Bluetooth headset. The usual stuff didn’t work.

Then the tech person informed me that my phone has a “known software issue.” I don’t know who the issue is “known” by, but it wasn’t me, otherwise I wouldn’t have purchased the damn thing in the first place.

But the phone company rep said I could simply return the phone to the place I bought it, and they would exchange it for an identical phone, sans the software glitch.

“Are you sure they won’t give me any grief?” I asked.

“No, not at all,” said the tech person. “They’ll be happy to do it.”

I said OK, thanked the nice lady, and hung up.

Because I live a good 20-minute drive from the cell phone store, I called first, just to make absolutely sure they wouldn’t give me any grief about the exchange.

I got a real person on the third ring. We’ll call her Cindy, just in case she doesn’t want to see her real name (Patty) in print here and has an uncle that’s an attorney.

Cindy tried to help me out, but it turns out Cindy’s store is not an “official” dealership, but rather an independent something-or-other. Only the official stores can perform the exchange I needed.

“Well you looked like an official store when I was in there a couple months ago buying this phone,” I said, in as sarcastic a tone as I can muster, which is pretty sarcastic, lemme tell ya.

Cindy was undaunted by my crabbiness and remained positive and helpful.

“You can take the phone to a dealership in Big Rapids or Grand Rapids,” she said. “They’ll be happy to do an exchange for you there.”

Cindy also offered to order a new phone for me directly from the company and have it sent to my home. I whined, groaned and complained bitterly, but Cindy refused to sink down to my level and call me the names I know she must have been thinking of.

My belligerent grumbling was rapidly reaching an apex, when Cindy dropped the “R” bomb.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know how you hate dealing with cell phone companies. I read about it in one of your columns. I thought it was really funny.”

“Oh, uh, thanks,” I said. Cindy knew me. And now she knew that – in addition to being a funny guy – I am also a jerk.

To make matters worse, at that exact moment – and I’m not making this up – my phone suddenly started working again. Apparently, the leeches had taken a while to kick in.

I told Cindy I would appreciate it if she could have the company send me the new phone just the same. The software glitch is bound to return eventually. I thanked Cindy repeatedly for her help, hoping this might cause her to forget some of my earlier comments.

But now she knows the real me.  And I don’t think she likes me anymore.

I either have to start being nicer, or go back to writing for smaller newspapers.

Addendum: Cindy called back an hour after I wrote this with the news that the company won’t be sending me another phone after all.  Apparently, they don’t have any.  A phone company without phones.  Go figure.  Still, Cindy assures me I’ll be able to exchange it at the G.R. store, but I no longer believe in Santa or the Easter Bunny. Looks like I’d better keep a supply of leeches handy.

To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or anger management seminar dates, e-mail mtaylor@midmich.net or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429.

When it comes to reading this column, it’s all about location

Quick. Look around you. What do you see?

If you answered, “A sofa, my television, a houseplant and the cat,” chances are you’re a woman.

If you said, “The bathroom sink,” you’re a man.

Men read in the john. I know this because I’m a man and I do it.

This is not something I usually consider one way or the other, but I recently spoke with a reader (let’s call him Al, since that’s his name) and our conversation got me thinking about it. Last week Al gave me the disturbing news that we spend a lot of time together in his bathroom. We meet there at least once a week, sometimes twice, if I’ve written a column he finds particularly amusing.

Before hearing from Al, I never really thought about this aspect of my column. What happens to my little essays after I shoot them off to my editor has never really concerned me, as long as the paper keeps sending the checks. (Suckers!)

But now, thanks to Al, I find I’m a little freaked out by the idea of spending so much time in the bathrooms of strange men. Especially considering the fact that my mug shot runs with the column. I mean, my photo is, in all probability, lying on the backs of thousands of toilets, right now! Maybe face up!

I’m not sure why this bothers me. After all, I have a small, wicker basket in my own bathroom, placed there by The Lovely Mrs. Taylor specifically for the purpose of holding my “library” (as she puts it). Over the years, the photos of authors as diverse as Dave Barry, Stephen King, Charles Shultz, Kurt Vonnegut, Hemmingway and even Shakespeare have gazed out from that basket as I performed my necessaries.

None of them complained.

Presidents, scientists, rock stars … they’ve all had their time in the basket. If it bothered any of them, they never mentioned it to me.

Granted, the bathroom isn’t the most elegant of reading rooms. When tackling a serious novel or biography, I prefer to sit in my easy chair with a nice glass of Chardonnay and a good cigar, golden light from a small reading lamp bathing the book’s pages in its temperate glow.

But that’s not always convenient. Like most folks, I just don’t always have the time to devote to a reading experience. Sometimes, you gotta take the words where you find them and in the time available.

And bathroom time is – for the most part – wasted time. Unless you read there.

That’s the way men look at it, at least. Mrs. T claims she does not read in the john and I believe her. For women, bathroom “down time” is strictly business. It’s in and out, then back to whatever they were doing earlier.

For a man, the bathroom represents the one place in the house where he can get a little privacy, a little peace and quiet. It’s a sanctuary. While there, nobody asks him to take out the trash, put a new battery in the television remote, or dry the dishes. Nobody interrupts.

So it’s the perfect place to catch up on important (and not so important) reading. Columns, like this one, make especially good bathroom fodder, in large part because you can read one start-to-finish in about the time it takes to … well … you know.

But it is possible to read larger works there as well, in installments, of course. Unless you want your legs to fall asleep. That’s the one downside of bathroom reading; toilets aren’t built for long-term sitting. Considering men designed them, you’d think toilets would incorporate at least some La-Z-Boy qualities; maybe a drink holder or reclining back-rest. I know I would pay extra for that!

But I digress. The point is (I’m sure there was one when I started this) men read in the bathroom. So it stands to reason that some men read this column in the bathroom.

I guess I’ll have to get used to the idea. All I’m asking is that, when you’re finished, please, leave the paper with my photo facing down.

To reach Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or the address of a store that really does sell reclining toilets with cup holders, e-mail mtaylor@midmich.net or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429. Want more? Archived “Reality Check” columns, as well as photos, links and previously unpublished “mini-columns” are online at http://mtrealitycheck.typepad.com.

This column’s gonna kill me, eventually

In the years since this column first appeared in print, I’ve related innumerable tales of mishaps, near misses, brushes with death and temptings of fate, most culled from personal experience.  From the morning my son’s skateboard landed me in the emergency room to the afternoon I nearly lost a thumb cutting two-by-fours on my “modified” table saw, few embarrassing disasters have gone unreported.

Though accident prone, I consider myself imminently likeable, if not downright cuddly.  Despite this – and based on reader mail – folks just seem to love columns dealing with situations in which I am nearly killed.  Especially those situations brought on by my own alleged lack of common sense.

It has reached the point, in fact, that every time I put hammer to thumb instead of nail, someone will chime in (as I hop around in circles muttering every filthy word I know), “Oh well, maybe you’ll get a good column out of it.”

I was in the hospital a while back, with “mysterious” pains in one leg.  According to the doctor, it could have been nothing more serious than muscle strain.  Or it could have been a blood clot, which might at any moment break free, work its way to my heart, and kill me.

The doctor’s primary concern?  That I spell his name right should I live long enough to write a column about it.  Don’t get me wrong; he’s a good doctor and also a personal friend, but at that moment the letters I would have used to spell his name can’t be printed in a family newspaper.  At least not in the order I was considering.

At any rate, he saved my life like he always does; by applying leeches, burning some incense and waving a rattle around, so I owe him for that.  (Did I mention we’re friends?)

The reason I’m thinking about this (some might say obsessing) is because I had yet another “column-worthy” calamity last week: A car squished me.

Well, it didn’t actually squish me, but it did catapult me briefly into a near-Earth orbit, broke at least two of the toes on my left foot (including the big one, which, it turns out, I use a lot), and scraped most of the skin off my left hip.  It also ruined a perfectly good pair of bicycling shorts, which were seriously abraded at the same time as the hip skin.

To make matters worse, the accident was nobody’s fault but my own.

I was riding my bicycle – in 1976, a state-of-the-art Fuji touring bike, now an antique – to pick up the mail.  The sun was shining, the sparrows were singing, my front tire was headed toward a small patch of gravel, and I was only taking note of the sun and birds.  I may have been humming the old Disney tune, “Zippity Doo Dah,” but I don’t remember for sure.

Short story shorter: The tire hit the gravel, the bike hit the curb, I spilled left, the car hit my hip, I flew, the bike flew, we both landed, hard, and the car screeched to a halt, stopping inches from the point where my head rested on the pavement.  I said some very unflattering things about God, the universe and the sons of fatherless mothers, none of which I meant or would repeat in front of my own mother.

The driver of the car, an elderly gent with a very surprised expression on his face, jumped out of his Buick and asked if I was OK.

“I’ll know in a minute,” I said, struggling to my feet.  Then, “Yeah, I guess I’m alright.”

“You sure?” he asked, sounding doubtful.

Several streams of blood had begun to run down my left leg with alarming copiousness, I had enough gravel embedded in my hip to install a rock garden somewhere, and my big toe was pointed in a direction it has never pointed before.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said.

After more assurances, the driver took off, happy, I am sure, that he would not be involved in a vehicular manslaughter investigation.

The rear tire of my beloved Fuji was bent into a shape I can only describe as “taco-esque,” but I managed to half-push, half-carry it the few blocks home.

The attending physician (who, mercifully, had never read my column) patched me up, wrapped my broken toes and applied antiseptic solution to my various boo-boos.

When I got back to the house, I called The Lovely Mrs. Taylor at the office to let her know why I would not be picking up the mail.

“Well, keep your feet up until I get home,” she said, adding, by way of sympathetic gesture, “Maybe you’ll get a good column out of it at least.”

My editor, Erin – an otherwise wonderful person – said the same thing when I called her a few minutes later.  In fact, everyone who’s heard the story in the past week has said the same thing, verbatim.  Good column, good column, good column.

Well, friends, listen up: I don’t want a good column!  I don’t want a funny story to tell my grandchildren.  What I want is an unbroken toe, a gravel-free butt, and a bike tire shaped like a donut instead of a taco.  What I want is to experience fewer close encounters with the Grim Reaper.

Still, I know folks are only trying to be supportive, helpful.  And I probably will continue to write columns about my minor disasters.  (Like this one, for instance.)

In truth, it’s only Mrs. T’s “it’ll make a good column” comment that really has me concerned.  See, she’s hoping against hope that someday I’ll be “discovered” by some big shot New York editor, who will offer me loads of money to move to Manhattan and write for a publication there.  From there, I’ll make the leap to books, and the Big Novel will get published.  Then the screenplay.  The money will roll in.  Mrs. T will spend her days shopping for shoes instead of working in an office.

But all this can only happen if people read what I write.  And like I said earlier, folks really seem to enjoy the “disaster” stories.  So is it possible, I wonder, that Mrs. T is “arranging” accidents so I’ll have something to write about?

It seems unlikely, but not altogether impossible.

I wish I’d gotten the name of that driver.  Or thought to ask him who he was working for.

To reach Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or the number of a good personal injury attorney, e-mail mtaylor@midmich.net or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429.