"We gotta warn Pop!"- Dean Venture, The Venture Brothers

11th Inning. Free baseball. Dang, that's way more innings than I wanted to deal with.

Tierre tagged me with, "Seven Things About You."

Okay. Seven things about me . . .

1. I won't be satisfied until I get the Nobel.
2. I'm fond of The Mrs.
3. I'm also fond of beer.
4. I like the The Boy and Pugsley, too.
5. I'm out of beer.
6. Dang. Still out of beer.
7. Yup. Out of beer.

Pop Wilder spent the last week in Houston. He’d been to Houston before, but, heck, I think Carter or Kennedy or Truman was President then. I picked him up at the airport, where he’d piloted his custom-built stealth jet in. Actually, United Airlines® brought him in. His Stealth Bomber® was in the hanger having new missiles attached.

The Boy and I went to IAH to pick him up. He was there at the counter of the information booth yelling at a tiny woman encouraging her to call me. As if I could forget to pick up Pop Wilder. I arrived at the counter. I tried to take his address book from the tiny woman, but she held firm, until Pop Wilder recognized me and said, “Hi.”

The Boy and Pugsley and I had gone to meet him. The Mrs. was still suffering from a horrible case of ebola® and I was forced to volunteered to take The Boy and Pugsley with me to pick up Pop.

Getting into the airport at Houston on Sunday morning is easy. Very few people in Houston are awake (at least outside of football season) and those that are awake are at church, and not at the airport. Me? On a normal Sunday morning I’d have been asleep, dreaming about the riches that I would make from the new device I invented that eats plastic and shoots beer out the other side. Mmmmm. Beer from plastic.

Anyhow, The Boy pushed Pugsley in his stroller and I carried Pop Wilder’s bags to my car. I was impressed when The Boy opened the door for Pop Wilder, less so when he popped into Pop’s seat. Eventually we got the whole primate pecking order settled out and went home.

Pop Wilder lost his hearing due to his multi-year overseas vacation (courtesy of the US Government) before the Army discovered that earplugs were good while practicing to shoot Commies© and Nazis™. If a 200’ asteroid landed at 351 miles per second next to his house, he would say, “hmmm, wonder what that was.”

Pop can’t hear a lick.

When we got home to Casa Wilder, The Mrs. said, “Good to see you had a safe trip,” to which Pop Wilder responded:

“There’s no better complement a man my age could get.”

Ummm, still wondering what Pop thought The Mrs. said.

During the week, Barry Bonds® and the San Francisco Giants™ showed up in town to play the Houston Astros™. We scored some tickets in the section of the stands next to the drunken Texans who kept shouting “Barry Bonds put your dress back on,” whenever Barry came to the plate.

I never knew that Barry was transgendered, and thanked the fan for the info. I wonder if Barry® favors floral prints?

At the end of the 11th inning, Pop Wilder announced that his bionic limbs needed a stretch, and he was ready to go home. On the way out, I told Pop that I would buy him a ballcap if he wanted. He picked one out. “Can you make the brim flat?” Finally I get to take Pop to a ballgame and buy him a hat.


The Boy's synopsis of the game.

I told Pop yes, that I could, which would make him and his flat-brimmed baseball cap the height of hip-hop fashion. Wonder what they’ll think when they see Pop Wilder in the hood with his fly hat?

So, today, I put Pop on a plane. The folks at airport security admired his bionic legs with a metal detector. Pop amazed them by being able to run at 50mph and with his fly flat-brimmed hat. He was better, stronger, faster than he was before. But, that’s Pop.