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Articles
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Groinman gone numb!
That’s right, Seattle’s Most Numb-er one Cop… While it was years ago and in my younger days, I can still remember so vividly how a Dawg defeat could send me into some angst, some depression, one USC loss in particular kept me in bed to nearly noon…
Then there was the ’83 Apple Cup. Holey Crapes! I was driving a hot little MG roadster at the time, with that loss and yet another Rose Bowl denial, I took my frustrations out on the road with that hot little car. That ‘hot little car’ got me home, minus some sidewall rubber and a quart of oil… Yes Gloria, there is a God!! But last year, now last year was some sort of different kind of animal! Seems to me that with every defeat, Groinman here, just became a little number, as in numb to the core, so numb in fact that by the end the ’04 season, that ’04 season no longer even EXISTED!! Just like my MG Roadster… With every loss, it seems some Voo-Doo pin got stuck in my rear quarters, thusly enhancing the numbing effect. By the time we left Pullman, I could have had a root canal… Dentures anyone? Maybe it was a bit like Chinese water torture, a drop at a time, a day at a time, a game at a time… Then one night, you come home and the whole damn dam has broke! It was a dark and cold night, fairly late. I come home to my find my new Malamute pups, Eli and Elsie, FRANTIC on the deck! My instincts tell me quite clearly…something sucks… I enter the house, thru the garage, head thru the kitchen door. Kitchen is minus it’s kitchen table. I bound around to the hallway. The secretary desk is also missin’. Eli and Elsie are chewing on the back door trying to get into the house! ‘WHAT the HELL is this?’ I bellow out to anyone willing to listen. Normally, when I yell, the pups cower. They are now trying to dig thru the back door!! A cold chill runs up my spine, a shot of adrenaline hits my heart, as my nostrils flair out, I know that I’m not home alone, and I ain’t packin’. I suppose the pups did want in…. I opened the door to the back deck and 240 pounds of Malamute puppies nearly knock me on my gyster, I never did know how to spell gister… I spun around in time to get to my gun stash, EMPTY!! Must be an inside job!! My pulse quickens, a bead of sweat runs down my nose. WE’VE BEEN BURGLED!! After a 1-10 season, it’s time to KICK SOME ASS Whose house? GROINMAN’S HOUSE!! I ran down to the basement with only my little buddy in hand, that’s right, 26 inches of polished black, laser beam-honed, Tennessee Hickory stick!! Once in the basement, I did find my good ol’ single shot .410 shotgun, only me knows where he hides… Much to my displeasure, I find that the door to the basement is not only open, but BUSTED open. My pups are long gone. The gate to the A-O-Kay Malamute corral is also open, making a pup escape route… The lousy perps couldn’t even close the DOOR! BARN DOOR COUGARS!! Off in the distance, in the half moon light, I can hear the pups on the chase! A big water splash! They’ve got them! They’re in the RIVER!! Visions of a river water baptismal for my neighboring coug perps fill my fantasies! It’s only a half-mile run, up that hill, up to that river, load up the shotgun and the little buddy gang, it’s time to ROLL!! The river was deep, and cold as blue-ice, but needed to be crossed…my pups are in jeopardy, and I’m a bit pissed, maybe not in that order…. Dang nab-it, by the time I crossed that river, soaked thru to the skin, I find myself just below Ol’ Smedley’s pasture. I find that my faithful pups are not ‘McGruff’ crime dog candidates… Elsie has crawled under the fence and is now chasin’ Smedley’s ol’ mare, and takin’ turns rollin’ in horse manure. Eli meanwhile has tried to side-straddle hop the fence and got his private parts caught up in that fencin’! Elsie is laughing off her tail-feathers!! This is one of them new-fangled electric type fences that stretch! Eli has taken that stretchability to an entirely new level. He’s got that fencin’ stretched entirely over everything private!! At first I assume he’s actually amusin’ hisself. As my shock starts to wear off, I realize he’s in great pain. As any parent would do, you try to save your loved one. Seems I just buried Rocky… I ran up and grabbed Eli from the back by his shoulders, I’m trying to free him from that electric fence. I found myself quite motivated, being soaked to the skin, while being full of adrenaline, on account of tryin’ to catch the perps. All the while, tryin’ to save my pup from an electric fence. Ol’ Smedley yells out, “What the Hell are you doing to that dog out there on my fence Groinman! You FREAK! Be out of here ‘afore I call the Cops!! ‘Afore I turn up the VOLTAGE!! Yes, an electrifyin’ experience, but it was time to go home. I had to get home before my wife Gloria entered this mess. She’d be devastated. The pups and myself entered the house knowin’ we’d been had. The perps were long gone. I caught a glimpse of ourselve’s in the mirror, Eli soaked to the bone, covered in mud, (sly grin on his face) me, soaked to the bone, covered in some blended mixture, and Elsie, my sweetie little girl, covered in Horse sheet… I was thinkin’ about the three of us just hoppin’ in the shower and being done with it quick, that’s when I saw the phone. Next to the phone was a little envelope with the name ‘Lee’ written across it. The classic ‘Dear John’ letter, this time, addressed to a guy named Lee… My wife, of all these seasons had left me, now, unlike 20 minutes ago, I was really home alone. We got married on a ‘bye’, delayed our Honeymoon for a Rose Bowl trip, ya’ go 1-10 and nothin’ else matters…. I couldn’t get that damn Kenny Rodgers song out of my head. “Ya’ picked a fine time to leave me Gloria… With two hungry puppies, While season tickets are due… Ya’ picked a fine time to leave me, GLORIA!!!” The months went by, and I found myself sorta’ manic, then depressant, I found myself with time to contemplate, and then time to reflect… I was often reflectin’ on how good frozen food had become! While contemplatin’ on how much better my favorite beverage tasted in the larger 16 oz. size… I was becomin’ number by the day, I nearly titled this story ‘Seattle Numbest Cop’ then thought, ‘what was I thinking’. The months went by and I found myself in Wenatchee, ya’ know the ‘Trial of The Century’! I was contemplatin’ on one of those Wind Mill steaks, at 9:00 AM, when my cell blasts off!! It’s GLORIA!! “Lee When CAN YOU GET HERE!!” I wondered if the ‘Wind Mill’ had a drive thru, but the best steaks in the world would have to be damned, I was needed elsewhere, and sometimes a guy’s gotta’ do what he’s gotta do… I was home in less than 3 hours. “Lee, Just hold me Lee, then be gone…” A Wind Mill Steak sacrifice… We’ll, we decided to have Chinese take out on Thursdays at Gloria’s apartment. Then one Thursday she thought it’d be fun to have dinner at ‘OUR’, house, besides, she missed the pups. “Lee” she says, “I know you’re all excited about your new Quarterback, and with all the new expectations he brings, but I want to tell you this, I want MY old Quarterback back, with all his baggage and WARTS…” Damn GLORIA!! Well, we finished the Chinese, and well fella’s, she’s never left. I was thinkin’ about a new career, that as a marriage counselor, but then again, I had it easy. Gloria was merely Demon possessed, simple child’s play… So now we’re lookin’ at Air Force! Rumor has that some of you ain’t forkin’ out the bucks to take in the GAME!! A hundred years from now, you won’t even remember that 30 bucks you saved!! But let me TELL YOU THIS!! You WILL remember NOT seein’ Stanback’s and Willingham’s DEBUT!! GLORIA SAID SO!! DO YOU HEAR ME!! DAWGS BY 11!! MAKE IT 12!! PS. Yeah, I gotta’ buy my tickets at the gate too…
Lee Groinman can be reached at malamute@4malamute.com |
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This is Officer Lee Groinman,