Free Tough Day for the Army by John Warner Page A

work with the Megaflex had something to do with it. Nonetheless, we’re also grateful that the state has some really low fitness-recheck requirements for its law enforcement officers.
    On the other hand, we suspect, and have suspected for some time, that “recyclables” get dumped into the same trash pile as everything else, which would make the concept of recycling pretty much moot.
    We admit that we weren’t thinking of this originally, but perhaps Larry Billings would be interested in a nonalcoholic beer. We had an uncle once who had his trouble with the ale and spirits, but he would drink the nonalcoholic beer. We’d like to do something to soothe our regrets.
    We regret that the school administration stocked the locker-room shower with the liquid, nonfoaming, antibacterial soap. It does not work for scrubbing off marker, nor does it leave one smelling or feeling fresh after a couple hours inside a gym locker. It leaves one smelling like the bottom of a chemistry-lab sink.
    We have slight qualms about digging our knee so hard into Sheriff Seager’s back as Mrs. Julie Seager née Norman lashed his hands and feet with lamp cord, allowing us to retrieve our clothes and run to the Sundowner Motor Lodge, Route 14, just past the public access and before the spot where the old oak fell during that microburst last summer.
    At the time, we were certain that our father’s tears were over our failure at the plate, or our pathetic appearance: wrapped in towels, feet black from the barefoot walk home, forehead scrubbed raw to near bleeding. We thought (foolishly) that he was ashamed.
    We shouldn’t have lied about that TiVo thing earlier. The truth is we forgot, or actually we remembered ten minutes into the show, which we thought would look bad considering our rock-solid promise to do this one thing, so we made up that other story, which actually worked, we think, which leads us to believe we might come to regret this little confession.
    We think now that our father meant to comfort us, that he was waiting for us, and as he was waiting, the tears just got the better of him. We should have known this all along, but regret the self- absorption of youth that leads one to think the whole world is aligned against them. In our defense, it had been a very bad evening. We had reason to believe the worst about people.
    We are grateful for the chalky mints in the dented tin dish at the front desk of the Sundowner Motor Lodge because we left without toothbrushes and all the stores were closed, and fresh breath was important at the time.
    What is clear is that the sort of people who buy prefabricated furniture (which we are) are the kind of people unlikely to be bothered by imperfect assembly.
    Regarding the Larry situation, we’ve known guys who’ll fall off the wagon just smelling a beer, and if Larry’s one of those guys, then even a nonalcoholic beer is probably a bad idea.
    That small-dick crack regarding Sheriff Seager was unfair. We take it back, despite its obvious truth. Of course, it’s easy to be charitable when one has secured the ultimate victory and said victory involves long sessions of lovemaking with a girl you’ve loved since you first saw her sweater.
    How do we know this about our father, then? Have we discussed that evening? No. Let us say this, though: He lives alone now. He makes model ships inside bottles. He uses strands saved from our mother’s hair to lash the tiny sailcloth to the miniature mast. We think this means something.
    We’re thankful for video on demand and their ameliorative effects on people who miss pivotal episodes of their favorite family dramas due to TiVo failures.
    If we were to outlive her, which we doubt will happen, but if so, we think we may be like our father and use something of her to make something else. But her hair falls in long curls, not straight like our mother’s. We’d have to think of something different.
    In truth,