What To Do In The Dark When You’re Bored

I woke up this morning at 3 A.M. – well, that’s actually not correct – my stinkin’ BLADDER woke me up in the middle of the night, and I shuffled to the bathroom. Now, at that time of night my eyes are completely adjusted to the dark so I don’t bother turning the bathroom light on when I do my business. Afterwards as I left the toilet, I slipped on something wet and almost fell. Somebody doesn’t know how to aim right. But that got me thinking. If I can go to the bathroom in the dark, I wonder what else could be done in the absence of light? I stumbled to my desk and wrote down the title of today’s article so it wouldn’t be forgotten and then went back to bed. I think some of my absolute best ideas come in the middle of the night, but they get lost in my dreams if I don’t jot them down. I used to keep a notepad next to my side of the bed at night for such things, but discovered that in the light of day my notes looked like they were a combination of Chinese and Sanskrit. I even tried a tape recorder for awhile, but when I’d listen to it in the morning all I could hear was faint whispering. I guess either my voice is sleeping somewhere else at night, or I’m so afraid of waking up my wife I’m paralyzed with fear and can’t speak. So whenever my bladder drags me out of bed, or if an awesome idea snaps me awake, I make myself go to the desk and write it down. It seems those few steps improve my penmanship, but I have no clue why. Take notice, all you eggheads. I just gave you fodder for another scientific study. I’ll take my usual 15% finder’s fee.

But now that the morning is here in full force and I’ve had my customary cup of coffee, I have no idea what I was thinking about when I wrote that title. What in the heck can you do in the dark when you’re bored? I’ll have to do some serious pondering. Um… the first thing that comes to mind is naughty, but I’d have to know where the crochet hook is in the dark first. Then try finding a cat without turning on the lights. I don’t care if your eyes ARE fully adjusted, it’s practically impossible to capture a crochet hook-hating cat in the dark. It’s hard enough to pull off in the daylight, so good luck at 3 in the morning. But I can’t believe I’m actually talking about cat sex again. I need to up my dosage.

Whenever I’m truly bored I tend to eat, so I suppose something I could do in the dark is fix a meal. The fridge has to be off limits because the little light that comes on when you open the door will not only temporarily destroy your night vision, it takes all the fun out of the challenge. That leaves either canned food or Ramen noodles. I don’t care how good your eyes are in the dark, unless you’re OCD and know exactly where you place every can in the pantry, you’re going to pretty much be playing the roulette wheel with food. There’s nothing like canned brussels sprouts at 3 in the morning. I cooked up a can of Alpo once in the dark. Now I wish I had used a candle. Dog food is so much better, and more romantic, in candle light.

If you find yourself up at the wee hours of the morning and nothing to do, try putting a puzzle together. It’s easier than you think, especially with a pair of scissors on hand.  Speaking of scissors, you could give someone in the house a haircut while they’re sleeping. Try to avoid waterbeds, though. Trust me on that. One thing I do very well in the dark, and you can try this at home yourself, is to find out exactly where all the sharp edges of the furniture are with your big toe. You certainly won’t be bored for long! How about shaving your body hair with no lights on? Make sure you know where the Band-Aids are, by the way. If two or more of you happen to be awake and bored in a dark house, there’s always Blind Man’s Bluff. You can spice it up with grilling skewers, too, if you’re really bored. Just don’t tell the others. They’ll find out soon enough. Washing dishes in the dark is fun and rewarding, too, especially if you don’t mind random chunks of dried food on your plates in the morning. Just scrape them off, they’ll be fine.

Wow. Now that my mind is lubricated, I can think of billions of things to do in the dark. But then it hits me: don’t blind people (I refuse to use the PC term because it sounds so stupid) go around doing everything in the dark all the time anyway? That just knocked the wind out of my sails. I have a friend – a neighbor, actually – who is blind, and it gave me an idea. The next time I’m up at 3 in the morning with nothing to do, I think I’ll sneak over to his place and rearrange his furniture. I promise you his big toe won’t be bored when he wakes up!

Again, I need to up my dosage. Here, kitty kitty! Daddy wants to show you his grilling skewer!

Javelin Catching and Other Hobbies

A hobby is defined as a regularly undertaken activity that is done for pleasure. It is a pastime or pursuit that is not always done for monetary gain. Webster (only the most quoted fellow in the world, beside Jesus, of course) says that a hobby is “a pursuit outside one’s regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation.” As I’m sitting here, my brain is trying to convince me that under these definitions sex can be a hobby. I never thought of it that way. My brain needs a counselor. Normal people, however, have hobbies such as woodworking, crochet, Dungeons and Dragons, model building, hiking and terrariums. My hobby is collecting stool samples from famous people and sculpting them into miniature likenesses of the pooper. I promised myself I wouldn’t elaborate about that here because it would hijack the article, and besides, who is interested in a piece of shit like John Travolta? I mean, beside me.

I’d like to introduce you to a few rather unique and factual hobbies that some people engage in. If you know me, you’re aware that my twisted mind could come up with stuff on its own, but I want to keep this legitimate just so you will be able to appreciate the wonderful diversity in the world. Also, instead of trying to ferret out individuals like myself who practice such hobbies that can’t be discussed in Sunday School (believe me, I’ve tried), I’ll stick to those that are slightly less unusual.

Probably the most well-known bizarre hobby is extreme ironing. It originated in Great Britain because, well, we all know they’re stuck on that little island with nothing better to do. It is even considered an extreme sport and performance art. Extreme ironing is the act of actually ironing clothes while engaged in such activities as skydiving, skiing, mountain climbing and while under water. There is even a world championship every year. Last year’s winner was Bjorn Olsson from Gothenburg, Sweden. He was able to iron a pair of trousers while simultaneously bungee jumping, shaving his own head and bottle feeding an infant. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Another hobby I think is rather different is competitive dog grooming. These are people who deliberately embarrass man’s best friend by giving them haircuts to look like pirates, tigers, ninja turtles, pandas and other strange non-doggy things. Insiders call it ‘creative styling.’ Dogs call it ‘ruff.’  You know, it’s bad enough when you make a poor poodle look like it was stuck under a lawn mower, or like it was trimmed by an epileptic, but turning him into The Good Ship Lollypop is taking it just a little too far, don’t you think? A Mr. Herman Finklestein from Hoboken, New Jersey once groomed his chow Bear to look like a flying saucer, and then filled the animal with helium to amuse his neighbors. Bear was last seen hovering over a beef packing plant in Emporia, Kansas.

I have a daughter who is fascinated with cemeteries. Yes, this is actually a hobby, and it’s called Taphophilia, which is not to be confused with necrophilia, or the sexual attraction to dead people. I suppose that could be considered a hobby as well, to necrophiliacs. But there are folks who enjoy hanging out in cemeteries, checking out the headstones, going to famous gravesites such as Graceland where Elvis and his family are buried, doing gravestone rubbings which involve using paper and black chalk to make impressions of the things written on tombstones (my favorite is in Boot Hill cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona: “Here lies Butch / We planted him raw. / He was quick on the trigger / But slow on the draw.”) and other strange grave hunting things. A Mrs. Claudette Bouchard in Lyons, France used to throw Dance of the Dead parties in her family’s cemetery until local officials demanded she leave her deceased relatives underground.

There are so many unusual hobbies out there such as beetle fighting (putting Paul and John in a ring and letting them have at it), duct tape clothing (I refuse to wear a duct tape hat – I want to preserve what little hair I have left), javelin catching (the less I say about that the safer we’ll all be) and noodling (fishing with your hands. Just give me one of those javelins, ok?). Look, anybody can play chess or reenact famous battles with toy soldiers. Try to do something different. You are one-of-a-kind, aren’t you? Who knows? You may be the very first person to turn road kill collecting into a bonafide hobby. I’d come see it, but only if you handle my Johnny Depp crap carving.

Phooey

I’ve got one word to say about yard work. Phooey. Well, I’ve got a few hundred more words about the subject, but it all boils down to that one. I thought about using bah humbug, but don’t want to be sued by Scrooge. Again I say Phooey. Just hearing the phrase ‘yard work’ makes me shudder. I mean, doesn’t it sound like busting rocks in a prison? I never was too fond of the word ‘work’ anyway, but now I’m suppose to go outside and do it? Egads, who came up with this special hell in the first place? I know, let’s blame Adam. In Genesis 3:18 God told him that his punishment for eating the forbidden fruit was that he would have to do yard work. That verse has the words ‘sweat,’ ‘ground’ and ‘dust’ in it. Yeah, thanks, Adam. I think I would have told Eve “Nah, you go ahead and eat it. I’m too busy naming these creatures. Thanks, anyway.”

Yard work is always hard. It involves being outside where the sun beats down constantly. I tried doing yard work at night once. I believe that’s how crop circles are made. The sun is a formidable thing that should be avoided. You can’t even look at it, for goodness sake! I just can’t trust something that won’t let me check it out. It’s HOT, too. Who wants to clean the oven when it’s 400 degrees?  The sun is way hotter than that, even. That’s why God made shade, so we could keep out of the sun. Some people like to go outside and expose their skin to the sun on purpose, too. There must be a shortage of leather products and skin cancer somewhere. I believe I’ll stay inside and watch.

In addition to the sun, you’ve got to put up with all those squirrels and birds making fun of you while you’re groveling around in the yard. I hate a smart-aleck robin. Note that while you’re getting fried like bacon, the wild critters are hanging out in the coolness of trees. I wouldn’t mind yard work so much if I could sit up in an oak chillin’ with my home wrens. It’s downright degrading crawling on your hands and knees in front of a tree full of worm and nut eaters. That’s not the worst part. Yard work demands you get down on the ground. Have you seen all the BUGS living in your yard? If I knew any entomologists I’d ask them to come over and do my yard work for me. I don’t know about you, but I’m not too crazy about rolling around the dirt and grass with a gazillion insects crawling all over me. I don’t even know what most of them are! To be fair, some species spot a human digging around their home and they’re gone without even packing. Those I don’t mind. I could even respect them if it weren’t for the fact that they’re bugs. Ants, though, are about the rudest insects around. They’ve got no problem going over you instead of making a detour. Every time I’m forced to do yard work it takes days just to find all the ants skittering around on me. Let me tell you this: they love warm, moist places. I wouldn’t be surprised if I still have a few ants under my – well, let’s keep it clean, ok? And then there are spiders, the eight-legged freaks of the underworld. Don’t get me started on spiders. Whenever I see one I instantly turn into a six year old girl and run away shrieking at the top of my lungs. It’s so humiliating.

The worst thing about yard work, though, is what you have to DO. Why in the world do we have to have grass to begin with? It grows like crazy and we have to keep trimming it like some sort of industrial barber. Lawn mowers are loud, smelly, and they’ve got one thing I try to avoid at all cost: a sharp blade whirling around just inches from my ankles. I’m always having to look ahead for rocks when I mow. Hit one and you can bet it will find a window, even if it’s miles away. I thought about moving to the desert just to get away from grass, but who wants to mow sand? Yard work isn’t satisfied with just cutting grass. It demands that you trim bushes, edge walkways and sidewalks, pull weeds and wrestle with whatever it is growing in your yard. It is no fun keeping a prickly pear cactus patch weed-free. I may never get all those miniscule spines out of me. I was told once that the best thing to extract those prickers is with glue. I tried it but couldn’t get out of my chair for a month. The squirrels had a good laugh over that one.

You hear people all the time saying “Oh, I LOVE yard work!” I think there’s a clinical name for that in the DSM-5. Great. If you love yard work that much, come on over and wallow in mine. Oh, well, you must not love it that much, huh? If it weren’t for my wife, my yard would be at one with nature. Except for spiders. They have to die.

Yard work? Phooey, I say.

Reading Between the Lines

The other day I read a news story about a Russian man who changed a few conditions within the small print of a credit card and then sued when they broke the contract. Brilliant! That got me to thinking, and I believe I am going to open up a brand new occupation in the job market. I am now officially the world’s first and only Small Print Editor. Don’t even get the slightest idea of moving in on my territory. The UN has already sanctioned me to be the only one; they signed the declaration yesterday. Of course, they didn’t know this is what they were signing because they didn’t read the small print. Now I’m for hire, UN. My company is called PUTZ (Print Underwriting Translation Zone).

Everyone on the planet agrees to the conditions of small print without having the first idea what it is they’re agreeing to. Electronics, property, vehicles, appliances, even items bought off the shelf in your local grocery store. Reader, you are being bamboozled at every turn. It won’t do you any good to start reading the fine print either, because it’s so steeped in legal mumbo jumbo that your brains will automatically explode. Do yourself and your loved ones a favor and sign up with my Small Print Service. For only ten dollars a month I’ll not only read the small print of everything you’re interested in buying, but I’ll show you how you can stick it to the man by letting me edit it for you for just a small extra fee. You will save money up front, and then have the legal right to sue the manufacturer whenever you want. That’s the PUTZ guarantee!

I am uniquely qualified to take over your fine print needs. Having been married four times, I have the equivalent of three Doctorates in “Reading Between the Lines,” “Innuendo” and “Hidden Agendas.”  Along with my skills, I’ve developed a patented device – the Bodacious Print Magnifier – that is able to detect and highlight the smallest of print. You’ll never have to worry if you’re signing away custody of your firstborn child. You’ll never have shadowy figures knocking on your door at all hours of the night asking to use your bathroom. You’ll never take a can of sweet peas home again and then open it to find those cursed split peas. You’ll never have a warrantee mysteriously expire when your computer breaks down. You’ll never again pay for cable services or car insurance at a reasonable rate just to have them hike their prices on you after the first six months. All you have to do join PUTZ and your fine print problems are over.

Imagine signing a lease that gives you the power to miss ten months out of the year with no consequences! Imagine buying an older version of Windows and being able to upgrade the latest versions the rest of your life for free! Imagine signing for a credit card that allows you to borrow millions without ever having to pay it back! All you have to do is become a PUTZ, and it’ll be smooth sailing from here on out. As I’ve mentioned before, the complete package is only ten dollars a month. No more sweating over the details. Just leave it to me! Follow the link to my site and fill out the easy contract! Once you give your electronic signature (located below the small print), you can sit back, relax, and let me take over your purchases and finances. Life will be so easy, you’ll be amazed! So, the next time you buy something, let a PUTZ take care of the small print hassle!

Being Powerless

Lately I’ve been looking at things a little differently. No, I’m not speaking esoterically or metaphorically (I always wanted to use those two five dollar words in one sentence; now I can mark it off my bucket list). I mean literally. For some reason I’ve begun wondering what would happen if electricity decided it’s been used long enough and leaves for Venus. How would I cope in a world without it? Imagine waking up one morning and discovering the world has suddenly gone back to the 1800s? Personally, I’d get me one of those cool Civil War hats.

But really, life as we know it would be radically different. First of all, there would be the problem with food. I bet most people would run to Wal-Mart or Krogers or Piggly Wiggly to stock up on groceries. Me? I’m headed to Dollar Tree. You wouldn’t believe all the cool stuff they’ve got, and I’d have the aisles all to myself. Everlasting Gobstoppers, Milky Way bars, canned black olives (pitted!), pork and beans, vienna sausages, animal crackers, the list goes on forever.  I’d have a leg up on everyone else because while I’m filling up my little green shopping cart in the middle of the night (explanation to follow – bear with me!), folks are standing in monster lines at Wal-Mart realizing their plastic credit and debit cards are as useful as a losing candidate’s campaign sign a week after the election. That’s exactly why I’ll be doing my shopping at 2 AM in Dollar Tree when its closed. Which begs the question: Can someone get in trouble for saying they’re going to break in a Dollar Tree if the electric grid says sayonara? I’ll find out, won’t I? I mean, if you don’t have cash you’re pretty well screwed, right? But that’s secondary to needing food. I would say you can’t eat money, but in fact you could. I love a shredded twenty dollar bill in a Hollandaise sauce topped with pitted black olives from Dollar Tree.

Food would fall into three basic categories if we lost electricity: canned, boxed and better-eat-it-quick-before-it-spoils. Another thing I would yoink from a Dollar Tree would be all their can openers. That would be the new currency. Well, along with booze, cigarettes and Justin Bieber posters (you’ve gotta wipe your butt in the woods with something when all the toilet paper runs out). That brings up another problem if we all find ourselves back in the stone age. How would we survive without MasterCard or Visa? I think we’d probably have to develop a marketable skill that could be used to trade for necessities. You know some idiot will try to juggle his way into food and shelter. There’s always a fool in every crowd. I think they have a union and work in shifts. Me? No, I am foolish sometimes, but it’s not good enough to join the local Fools Guild. No, my marketable specialty would be as a doctor. I trained as a Medic in the Army and also worked as both a scrub tech and Medical Assistant. I can remove your appendix, set your broken leg, jerk out a bullet, stick an in pen in your throat if it swells up, and practically anything else you can think of. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to perform open heart surgery. I loaned my rib spreader out a couple of years ago, haven’t gotten it back yet and probably never will. Never trust a dog with rib spreaders. So if the world plunges into powerless chaos, just call me Doc. I will take your gallbladder out for a case of pitted black olives.

There are so many things that would change if we all lost electricity. Horses and rickshaws would regain popularity. Toilets would be flower pots and denture material. Computer desks would be kindling. Computers themselves would make excellent butcher blocks. Dogs would become doorbells (as if they aren’t already). Squirrels would be the meat in your stew. Televisions would be … well, we’d just have to watch TV in the dark, wouldn’t we? I suppose Survivor would be the only show left. So listen, do me a favor if electricity takes a dirt nap: Go find your own Dollar Tree. And remember – if you ever need surgery, I prefer to get paid in black olives. I wonder if they can be grilled?

Well, I’ll Be Hanged!

I read this morning about a scientist in 1905 who was fascinated with hanging. The kind that hangmen used to practice. The kind that makes your feet do a frantic little dance looking for something to stand on to. Well, I have to admit it fascinates me, too, but only in a ‘better him than me’ sort of way. There was a movie back in the ’70s called “Faces of Death” which was a compilation of real-life ways to die. A bunch of us teenagers would get together and start watching the tape and then see who would last the longest before throwing up or running away. I always won, but only because my friends duct taped me to my chair. But there was one scene that showed a row of men being hanged at the same time. I can’t remember if it was the standard gallows or if they were pushed off a ledge or what; all I can remember is their feet doing that frantic little dance a few moments before settling down. Fascinating but gruesome.

So this fellow by the name of Nicolas Minovici from Romania set out to study all he could regarding the whole hanging thing. He ultimately produced a scientific paper almost 300 pages long called “Studies on Hanging”. They weren’t that sophisticated back then. A paper now would probably be called “The Morphology, Physiology, Trigonometry and Metaphysics of Terminal Asphyxiation.” But hey, in 1905 they hadn’t invented all those five dollar words. So Nicolas began analyzing suicides by hanging – 172 of them, to be exact (this was before the days of being distracted from depression with such things as sitcoms and Facebook) – and broke the occurrences down by gender, race, how sophisticated the rope was, what time of year it was, the circumference of the rope and even the kind of knot used.  I’m disappointed to mention, though, that he didn’t record if they had their tongue hanging out or not. When we were kids we used to pretend we were dead by rolling our eyes up in their sockets and sticking our tongue out. I can’t remember if the “Faces of Death” hanging folks had their eyes rolled up and tongue out, though. I was too busy watching their feet do a jig.

It wasn’t enough for Mr. Minovici to study other peoples’ hanging. He had to go and try it himself. Idiot! That’s why God made assistants! Anyway, he started out by hanging from a non-contracting noose. He wrote “I let myself hang six to seven times for four to five seconds to get used to it.” I don’t think I could get used to a thing like that. He obviously didn’t find it too pleasant, either, because he wrote that he found the pain ‘almost intolerable’. Talk about being a pain in the neck! You don’t need me to tell you what he would be called if he hung himself by the butt cheeks.  He also reported that his neck hurt for weeks afterwards. They didn’t make scientists too bright back then, because he wrote that he was ‘comforted by the results’. I think I would have chosen another transitive verb other than ‘comforted’. He was so comforted that he decided to go all out and experience the real thing. Like I said, not too bright.

Nicolas stuck his head through a regular contracting noose and directed his assistant to hang him twelve times. Honestly. I bet he gave his assistant a hefty raise right before the experiment, because that guy could have literally gotten away with murder. “Honest, officer, look at his notes. He told me to do it!” This is where it gets really interesting, though. The scientist apologizes profusely in his notes afterwards that ‘despite all my courage I could not take the experiment any longer than three or four seconds.” All that work for nothing. I’m just glad he lived to tell about it. He did invent tap dancing, though.

Going Postal

I’ve been around the block enough times to know that if you tell the whole world that you have an irrational fear of something, the whole world will use it to scare the button off your belly. I actually conducted an experiment along this line a couple of years ago by sharing on Facebook that I was deathly afraid of spiders. The first few times someone slipped a picture of one on my wall or mentioned it to me, I’d pretend to be freaked out and do the keyboard equivalent of screaming (you know, AAARRRGGGHHH!!!). This only made things worse, or at least it would have if I really did harbor a phobia about spiders. Even by making this admission, my friends will never stop with the spider thing, because they’re already convinced that I’m just trying to get them to stop. One little experiment and I’ll always be known as that guy who hates spiders. That’s ok. I eat spiders for breakfast. But if you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll tell you what I’m REALLY afraid of. Promise you’ll keep it to yourself? I believe you. I’m secretly terrified of the Post Office.

You won’t find my particular irrational fear in an old edition of “Psychological Freaks” magazine. It doesn’t even register on the phobia Richter scale, because as far as I know, I’m the only human being alive who has it. I mean, who’s afraid of the Post Office, right? MEEEE! I’m sitting here having to squeeze my butt cheeks together because my IBS just jumped into overdrive; my hair is on end (quite the feat since my hair is about two feet long – I look like the world’s biggest paint brush) and I’m sweating like a china plate in a bull store. If I were any more nervous, I’d have – hold on, be right back…

Boy, that was close. Ok, I think I at least owe you an explanation (no, not about my explosive nervous bowels). There isn’t anything about the Post Office that doesn’t make my skin crawl and want to take a box cutter to my wrists. First of all, they’ve always got their own special little building, and you can’t go anywhere but the lobby. Listen to this frightening fact: you can’t even go to the bathroom at the Post Office! I can’t tell you how many times my IBS has caused unmentionable embarrassment while waiting in line. All you see are the stern-faced-uniform-wearing-no-sense-of-humor-whatsoever-must-be-hiding-a-shotgun-under-the-counter counter clerks screaming “NEXT!” Every Post Office I’ve been forced to enter always had at least forty or sixty stations, but there are never more than two of them open at any given time. I don’t care if the line is all the way to Timbuktu, they’re not going to open another one up. Makes me feel like cattle going to the slaughter. I can hear the Postmaster General (by the way, does it bother anyone else that the Post Office has a frickin General? What do they plan on attacking, if it isn’t us?), I can hear him say to his Aide-de-Camp “Keep those civilians in a single line in case we have to shoot ’em. We can pick ’em off from the back to the front like we’re hunting turkeys.” All we see are those angry clerks, but you know there has to be at least a few hundred more just waiting back there for someone to get out of line. Whenever it’s my turn, I crawl up to the one who screamed at me on my rubbery hands and knees and do my best to communicate my reason for being there. They never believe me anyway, so I say things like “Can I ship a jellyfish without bubble wrap?” and “I bet you have comfortable shoes,” and “May I have some paper towels? I’m afraid I crapped all over your lobby.” Believe me, those guys are never amused.

I’ve tried looking through the holes where you’re suppose to drop your mail – you know, there’s one for local and one for anywhere else in the world except local – to see if I could spot any mail soldiers getting ready to go postal. Think about it. If those postal postal guys are capable of shooting up their own base of operation, imagine how much they hate the outside world! I can never see anyone, though, because they make those chutes so that you can’t view anything but the threat of your own doom. The Post Office lobby always has row upon row of those metal doors with little tiny windows staring at anyone wandering around. If you want you can rent one (they don’t have renter’s insurance, either, those tyrants) and then once a day you have to go pick up your mail from there. If you miss one single day you’ll get that dreaded pale green notice telling you to go to the counter so they can scream at you over and over again until your IBS kicks up and you have to run away with your hands between your legs. No, don’t EVER get one of those little PO Boxes because they’ll pretty much own you then.

Have you ever seen those ten most wanted papers at the Post Office? Those jokers look so dangerous I bet they’re postal employees who have gone AWOL. Any place that warrants a Postmaster General must be pretty tough. The worst thing about them is that they know where you live!!! I’m sure one of these days my doorbell will chime and on the other side of my flimsy screen door will be three or four of those most wanted thugs demanding extra postage or else.

Yep, the whole postal system just freaks me out. Thank GOD for email! Wait. Who delivers emails? It couldn’t be. You’ve got to kidding – oh no, gotta go, feeling like I’ve got to…