Uncle Sal and the Prospective Parent (Episode 208)

Inside A Boy Named Sushi, Uncle Sal removed his Lehigh Valley IronPigs baseball cap and slid in across from Giacomo, whose new girlfriend Lindy had just gone to the restroom. He didn't get a long look at her, but saw enough of her bustline to know that she fit Giacomo's type.

"Nice lookin' girl...what I saw of her anyway."

"Yeah, only I'm a little worried about something."

Uncle Sal flagged a waiter and ordered a large bottle of hot sake that they could share. "What's worryin' you?"

"Well, maybe it's nothing, but we were out walking the other day and we passed one of those people that will paint your name on a grain of rice."

"That don't sound like nothin' to worry about," Uncle Sal said as he picked up some chopsticks , then took a shrimp and a piece of gari and put them in his mouth.

"That in itself isn't what worries me. Lindy goes to the guy and she says she has a special request, only she doesn't want me to hear it. So she makes her request and the guy says it will take 20 minutes. I try to convince her that we should keep walking and come back. She says she's not in any hurry and that we can wait. Well, sure enough after 20 minutes, the guy hands her the grain and she puts it directly into her locket."

Giacomo sipped some sake from his cup and wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. "I asked her if she could tell me what he painted for her and she kept refusing. So one day when she was in the shower, she left her locket on the dresser, I opened it up. It didn't seem like a big deal. Then the next day she left her computer open and I could see that she was browsing baby name websites. Well, that got me to thinking and I did some research. The thing on her grain of rice is a bullfrog. And you know what the frog symbolizes? Fertility."

Uncle Sal sipped some hot sake and chased it with a Japanese beer. "Oooh. Then I guess you do have some things to be concerned about."

"I'll say. I mean, we've been dating a couple weeks and she's already looking for baby names."

"And Lindy's pendant is a frog on rice."

This episode featured:
Makhtar Denka as Uncle Sal
Tony Catecuhtli as Giacomo
and
Jellybean Merengue as the gari.

Tune in next week when Uncle Sal says, "Nobody makes a fool of my family without my help."

Uncle Sal and the Intrigued Interviewer (Episode 207)

Uncle Sal entered Rock Around the Cocktails, removed his Round Rock Express baseball cap and scanned the place for the reporter who was interviewing him for the local paper. The reporter said he would be reading a biography of Joe Strummer. After a moment, Uncle Sal spotted the only person reading and made his way to the table.

The reporter looked up from his book and said, "Sal? Andrew Sweet. Boy, it sure is a pleasure to meet you. I can't believe I get to pick the brain of the most interesting man in town."

Uncle Sal shrugged and ordered a boilermaker from a waiter who wore a big button that read WHAT WOULD BUDDHA DO? on his vest.

Andrew Sweet started his digital voice recorder and said, "Let's just jump right in. I know you have had a wide variety of jobs in your life. Which was the most interesting?"

"Well, Andrews, as you know I was on the police force. They ain't too many dull days when you're a cop."

Uncle Sal's beer and shot of whiskey arrived. He dropped the shot glass into the pint glass, drank it down and quickly ordered another beer.

Sweet probed Uncle Sal's work history and Uncle Sal and was beginning to think there was no job Uncle Sal hadn't held. "Before I move on to something besides your work, let me ask you one more thing. What did you think you'd be doing when you were a kid?"

"Andrew, I'll tell ya. My first job was fixin' fences. I was 14 at the time and learned from a man in town how to fix any kinda fence. You know, things like rabbits and gophers can really do some damage to a fence. And when it happened, people would call my boss. He was usually playin' golf or sump'n so he'd send me. It was good work at that age. I could still prolly fix a fence, not that I'd want to."

Uncle Sal sipped from his bottle of Spud's and said, "Ya know what my next job was after that? Tow truck driver. I started doin' that shortly after I got my license. and it was pretty good money, especially for a teenager. But then ya get that call at 2:30 in the mornin', let's just say that ain't too great, bein' on call when people hit some bad luck."

"So those were your first two jobs? But you never figured you'd be stuck in either of them?"

"No, I sure didn't. I guess ya could say I learned pretty early on...neither a car tower nor a mender be."

This episode featured:
Franklin Benz as Uncle Sal
Richard Bonhomme as Andrew Sweet
and
Jellybean Merengue as the biography of Joe Strummer.

Tune in next week when Uncle Sal says, "Keep bats warm. Gracias."