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"Fixing the Remote Scene"

   I walked back to the kitchen and scooped another piece of apple crisp onto my plate.  I knew I would be forced to endure twenty extra leg lifts per side but I just couldn’t help myself, it was that good.  I took my plate into the living room and settled on the couch for a while.  Those three cups of coffee I drank with Bobby didn’t bode well in my quest for a good night’s sleep, so I thought I might as well spend some time enlightening my life by watching educational programming.  I reached down and grabbed the converter which was still lying disassembled on the carpet from the night before.  Carefully, I gathered all the pieces I could see, took another bite of apple crisp and settled back on the couch to MacGyver the converter back together.  I had just gotten comfortable when I realized that I was missing a battery and would be forced to either take a break from gorging myself with the apple crisp and get up and look for it, or I could forgo the battery and eat my apple crisp in peace.  I looked at the cheap plastic clock which hung on the wall.  It was still early. 

“Hmmm, what to do, what to do?”  I mumbled.

     I looked at the clock again.  It hadn’t moved and I was getting a little bored just sitting on the couch by myself.  True I had a friend in the apple crisp, but she was quickly being cannibalized by my sudden and ravenous appetite for anything sweet.  I needed to find that battery.

     Because I had enough weight in my ass, gravity allowed me to hang over the back of the couch without falling and I blindly reached as far under the couch as I could.  In the not so distant past, I wouldn’t even of attempted to stick my hand anywhere near the underside of my couch, but since Shirley and her miraculous bag of chemicals came to visit, I was no longer afraid.  I couldn’t feel the battery yet, so I inched further over the couch and proudly shoved my arm in deeper.

“Ah, there you are!”

     I could feel the end of the battery with my fingertips but it still lay outside my grasp.  Of course I could have gotten off the couch, lay on my stomach and reached the battery, but that would have been too easy.  I liked to challenge myself.  Push my body to the limits.  I eased over the couch a little more, my butt resting on the very top, acting as a fulcrum for my swinging arms and legs.

“Careful now, balance…it’s all about the balance.  Concentrate.  See the battery.  Grab the battery.  Dismount from the couch.”

     It seemed fairly easy in my head.  I gathered my thoughts and took a deep breath.  I felt like an Olympic gymnast going for that perfect ten on the vault.  Finally, feeling at one with my mind and body I decided to take that final step.  Slowly as I reached down with my right arm I extended out my left leg for balance.  So far so good.  I took another deep breath and readied myself for the final descent.  Creeping my left arm down the back of the couch for support, I ever so gently manoeuvred my right hand to the last known battery location.  It was still there.  I rebalanced my legs, both of which were sprawled horizontally in the air and with pin point precision I stretched my Gumby arm out and snatched up the errant battery.  It was a sweet victory.  With the treasure in hand, I vigilantly recoiled my arm from under the couch when suddenly I felt a slight rumbling coming from the inner depths of my bowels.  Uncle Frank immediately popped into my head.  There was no way to stop it.  The gas was running through my body like an out of control locomotive.  I squeezed my butt cheeks together as tight as I could, hoping that by blocking the exit, the gas would boomerang back from whence it came.  It was no use.  I was no match for the raging demon.  It exploded into the room like a long loud firecracker and sent a rumble through the couch so fierce that I lost my balance and fell face first on the floor.  Not the dismount I had envisioned.  I wasn’t hurt which was good because the whole situation would have been very difficult to explain.  One of those “you really had to be there” stories.  I laid on the floor for a minute laughing to myself.

“That would be an eight point five on the dismount and ten and a half on the fart!  Good work Alex, good work!”

     I crawled back around to the front of the couch making sure I kept my head below the dissipating scent still lingering above and slithered on to the couch like a snake.  Eyeing the apple crisp on the coffee table, I quickly placed the battery in the converter, turned on the television and reached over to finish off the object of my desire.  Before I swallowed the last bite I let it sit on my tongue for a while, hoping that the wonderful apple flavour would penetrate deep into my taste buds and sustain my craving until the morning.  I closed my eyes, lost in the moment.

     For me life was all about freedom.  The freedom to lie on the couch and fart as loud as you wanted.  The freedom to eat as much apple crisp as your stomach could handle.  But most of all life was about the freedom of a lonely man to fall so much in love with a little boy that he would want to change his life completely and make that boy his son.  That’s what it was all about.  Finding love where you least expected to and taking that love and making it the center of your universe.