by Mike Covers

Happy Memorial Day, world (except, of course, that part of the world outside the United States)!  On this Memorial Day, it is important that we pause to remember our fallen and non-fallen veterans…especially if we forgot to do so on Veterans’ Day, Flag Day, Labor Day, Patriots’ Day, July 4, Halloween, Yom Kippur, etc. Honestly, I and most other people, especially on Facebook, can’t keep track of who gets honored on what day anymore. The only one that I’m reasonably sure that I’m right about is Presidents’ Day, which clearly honors, as its name suggests, Senators. Anyway, even today (Monday), Americans continue the time-honored tradition of remembering their veterans in the shallowest and most self-indulged ways possible.  

Let us further explore this 800th consecutive holiday bogged down by intense commercialism.

It is not surprising that “Memorial Day” and “traffic jams” have the same number of letters.  Sitting in traffic has become an essential staple of this holiday, as Americans use the 72-hour weekend to jaunt off to their favorite vacation destinations, apparently unaware, even with years of past experience, that the entire rest of the nation has decided to do the same thing. It is not all that unusual to see more of your car’s interior than your actual destination on this holiday weekend.  

The fact that virtually every American community holds traffic-blocking parades on major streets doesn’t improve the situation much.

Back when I was young and stupid, I always accompanied my family to the end of our street to watch the annual Memorial Day parade. It had your typical small-town format. First, the living members of the town’s VFW slowly make their way down the street, waving at the overweight soccer moms, beer-guzzling bachelors, and screaming children that they risked their lives to protect. Even though these veterans are older now, they still continue to be true American heroes, mainly by supplying nearly 75% of the funding for each state’s lottery system. Next come the assortment of elementary and high school marching bands whose uniforms are louder than their music. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though, when you consider that their rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is about as enjoyable to listen to as a diseased cat being fed to a woodchipper. Finally, parade attendees are treated to the township’s police and fire squads. Decked out in their best uniforms, these officers proudly walk off some of their Dunkin’ Donuts-fueled calories as their shiny vehicles creep slowly behind them. This always bothered me, for I always wondered what would happen if some non-parade-goer was in dire need of assistance at that moment. They would be unable to receive help because their tax-dollar-paid-for personnel and vehicles were currently busy waving stupidly at safer citizens.

Once the parade is over, the veterans return to the VFW and slowly make the acronym stand for “Very Fucking Wasted.”  The marching bands return home and are asked by their parents to pursue other creative endeavors, like participating in a Jackass reboot. The fire and police department members take the rest of the day off, victims of almost a full 2 hours of marching and no donuts. 

Everyone else returns to their backyards, opens up the ol’ shed, drags out the ol’ grill, and realizes they forgot to purchase the ol’ charcoal. Since the ratio of customers to bags of charcoal at the supermarket is approximately 947 to 0, the annual Memorial Day cookout quickly becomes an annual Memorial Day microwave-in. Frozen animal remains are slapped on the ol’ microwaveable dish and, upon hearing that wondrous DING!, served to the ol’ family.

So, as the day comes to a close, remember to take time out from your busy schedule of sitting in traffic and watching parades to fondly remember that you forgot to purchase charcoal. Also, if you can squeeze it in, think about veterans or whatever it is that Memorial Day honors. If you are unable to do so, don’t worry: Flag Day is only a few weeks away! Enjoy your 4-day work weeks, everyone!

by Mike Covers

“I have a college degree,” I told myself. Then, I slipped the giant, grinning insect head over my own melon and waddled into the supermarket.

Through the mesh holes covering my eyes, I could sort of see a gaggle of out-of-shape shoppers, all of whom were the dictionary definition of “white person.” Each one immediately donned a false grin and squeezed the shoulders of their respective offspring, not a single one of whom wanted to be there. With Phil Collins music filling the air and sweat raining from my armpits, I raised my arm and waved.

BuzzBee had arrived.

Mike…and Mike’s dignity…were gone.

Directly out of college, my Bachelor’s Degree in broadcast communications landed me a job as a promotions assistant for the Philadelphia FM radio station B101. Its adult contemporary format (translation: Rod Stewart has a forever home here) did very well in Philadelphia. Such success was proof of the power of suburbia, which plays a bigger role in the greater Philadelphia metro area than the city itself does. B101’s “soft rock” targeted an audience made up of middle-aged, out-of-shape, minivan-driving, cul-de-sac-dwelling, easily-offended suburbanites and their standard 2.5 children.

Part of the station’s advertising came in the form of a promotional team that would travel to events and area businesses, set up a logo-covered tent, and basically entertain the masses for a few hours. Sometimes, a prize wheel would be there, enticing hopeful idiots to spin it in the hopes of winning a Walmart-quality water bottle, T-shirt, bumper sticker, condom, etc. emblazoned with the station’s insignia. Other times, face painting and balloon animal-making would be offered. Parents would drag their unruly offspring over to us to have their sticky faces covered with water-soluble colors and their grimy hands filled with fragile balloons twisted into the vague shapes of a dog, sword, condom, etc.

No matter what, however, BuzzBee had to be present.

BuzzBee was a six-foot-tall, wing- and stinger-lacking bumblebee that had somehow developed the ability to walk erect. Why the station felt like it would be best represented by an insect that had apparently been trapped in a nuclear facility during meltdown is beyond me. Many of the small children who BuzzBee was supposed to entertain wound up being terrified of him, and for good reason. ACTUAL bees were bad enough; their sting left a hideous-looking mark that itched for weeks. Sometimes, such a sting was fatal. Imagine what a bee THIS size was capable of!

The costume consisted of a fur-coated body that activated the user’s sweat glands faster than a first date. Massive round shoes (since, you know, footwear is quite prevalent in the insect world) gave him a walk not unlike that exhibited during the closing hours of St. Patrick’s Day by college students. Our five-fingered hands were covered in…what else?…puffy four-fingered gloves. A huge, custom-made head complete with unblinking eyes and a permanent grin capped off the outfit and removed any and all traces of peripheral vision. Attached to the head were two screw-on antennae that could very easily come undone, causing BuzzBee to stumble around with small bolts sticking out of his skull.

I stared at the sea of curious, smiling faces. I thought about the calculus final I had taken mere weeks prior and how difficult it had been. I recalled how virtually every last area of college, including frat life, had stressed the importance of critical thinking. Memories of cramming sessions for exams that had nothing whatsoever to do with my course of study but rather to round out the “core curriculum” bubbled to the surface of my consciousness.

It had all resulted in dancing in a giant bee costume amidst a row of industrial freezers inside of a supermarket.

Did the business majors also now have jobs like this?

While I heard my share of horror stories related to performing as BuzzBee, my own stint inside the costume was rather uneventful. I was never pummeled by tough-guy 13-year-olds. My costume was also always complete; there were times when the crew had arrived at the event locale, many inconvenient miles away from the station, only to find that BuzzBee’s head was missing. My only brush with problems occurred on a day the B101 crew appeared at an event along the Delaware River waterfront.

It was an outdoor event, one that saw free ice cream giveaways. Thus, everything within a 5 mile radius was covered with sticky residue smelling faintly of mint chocolate chip. The temperature was somewhere in the trillions; I easily sweated off 15 pounds just LOOKING at the costume. As I less-than-enthusiastically waved all eight of my fingers at everyone who walked by, my eyes suddenly fixated on two particular people. My eyes almost burst, Tex-Avery-cartoon-style, through the mesh eyeholes and out into the stuffy July air in response.

Not more than 30 yards away stood my parents.

“Fuck me,” BuzzBee muttered out of his perma-grin. Such a phrase was quite uncharacteristic of him to say, but fortunately Jeffrey Osbourne’s “On the Wings of Love” was blaring out of a speaker carrying a live feed of the station. As a result, the typically-G-rated mascot’s little phrase melted into the deafening lyrics, much like the snow when a ray of sun is felt. As I tried to telepathically tell my parents to go away, one of the other promotion assistants approached me.

“Hey, do you want to go on break now?” she asked.

I don’t think I ever retreated to the concealment of the station’s van, which doubled as BuzzBee’s break room, faster than I did that day. By the time I returned to the public area, my parents had left.

“We saw your station down at the waterfront,” my dad informed me later on that day when I returned home. “We didn’t see you there, though.”

“Yeah, my team was at another event in Horsham,” I lied, knowing full well that my parents had never even HEARD of Horsham, much less been by it that day. I didn’t want either of them to witness their college-educated firstborn dancing around in a giant insect costume for eight dollars an hour. I would rather they spot me onstage at a strip club.

My employment with B101 ended after a little more than a year. I hung up my four-fingered gloves and fur-covered torso for something much better. The job I went to had dignity and class written all over it: local TV news.

At least I didn’t have to wear a costume.

by Mike Covers

So, you want to get a pet for your household? I hope you aren’t coming to me for advice, because I never had any pets growing up.

OK, that’s not exactly true. My parents, younger sisters, and I opened our home to over 10 different animals throughout the years. While we of course formed bonds with each and every one, I think small parts of my sisters and I are a tiny bit sad that we never had “real” pets.

And by “real” pets, I mean dogs and cats.

When we were younger, it seemed that every single one of our extended family members, neighbors, and friends had some sort of furry noisemaker running around their houses. There was “Bandit,” my grandmother’s dog that possessed the IQ of the bright red ball that he would chase after but could never find on the lawn. Also roaming around was “Blue,” my uncle’s dog that was so desperate to go outside that it jumped right through a glass window (fortunately, its brain absorbed the impact so there was no real damage to the animal). My aunt’s bright orange cat Milo spent the majority of its life sporting no personality at all until it was introduced to my laser pointer. It suddenly sprang to life, chasing that red dot all over the house and even in circles until it (Milo, not the dot) tipped over from dizziness.

My sisters and I loved playing with these novelty creatures and of course craved one of our own. Today, people our age do the same thing when they see their peers toting children.

We begged and begged our parents, but they made it abundantly clear that not a single dog, cat, or even hamster would ever enter our houses.

”Your mom’s allergic,” my dad informed us.

Our mom was apparently the only person on the planet who had an allergy to every type of fur imaginable (yet, for some reason, was perfectly OK around the hair sprouting from our heads and my dad’s ears). Obviously, the allergy concern was a ruse; my parents simply didn’t want to clean up all the time after an animal that we kids sure as hell wouldn’t look after. Even though we promised to take care of a dog or cat, making sure to elongate our words to maximum annoyance levels to show sincerity, neither Mom nor Dad budged. Maybe if we hadn’t made the promises from our bedrooms, which we also constantly promised to take care of but were instead littered with toys and food stains dating back to the early 1980s, things would have been different.

Thus began our existence with pets that we could not cuddle or walk.

Fish were plentiful. It was difficult to form long-lasting bonds with them, as our love was rarely reciprocated. Fish made the same bug-eyed, gape-mouthed face no matter what we were saying to them, not unlike Taylor Swift to her fans. The only time they displayed any sort of activity was when we sprinkled a few bits of their foul-smelling fish food into the tank. Bert, Ernie, Mario, and Luigi were just some of the fish that temporarily resided with us before meeting a rather distressing burial in our toilet bowl.

Parakeets were also plentiful; Peppermint, Snowball, and Bob spent healthy tenures locked up in birdcages in our house. In theory, you actually CAN cuddle with birds and show them direct affection; parakeets that friends and extended family members had were prone to perch on fingers and sit atop people’s heads, occasionally leaving a small, stinky souvenir of its visit mushed into hair follicles.

Our birds were nothing like these.

Our birds were the kind that inspired Hitchcok to write his famous movie (“Psycho”). Whenever anything got anywhere near them, they would narrow their eyes and snap at it. This included the fingers of my family and I: those birds would peck and bite in very conscious, very predicated desires to draw blood. This was very disappointing, seeing as how these colorful creatures represented a tropical climate, one rife with lethargy and happiness. Instead, these parakeets immediately became aware that they were in the bitter, eternally-miserable northeastern U.S. climate and acted the part. It’s not surprising that I taught one of them to say “fuck you.”

Finally, the “wild card” in the pile was Tootsie Roll, a turtle found on a local road by our dad one day. Tootsie Roll, who also attempted to bite us before discovering that his neck wasn’t long enough, lived in a cardboard box filled with grass clippings.

Of all of the pets we ever owned, Tootsie Roll was the only one who didn’t die (at least not in our presence): he escaped.

Seriously. We had three separate birds, all of whom had wings, yet it was the slow-moving reptile that managed to break free. The disappearance occurred one day while we were cleaning his box, filling it with freshly-cut grass clippings. While we desecrated the only home he knew in recent memory, we would place the turtle down in the backyard, letting him roam free until we were done. After all, he couldn’t get far, right?

One day, he did. We scoured the backyard for what seemed like hours before employing a new strategy that seemed nearly foolproof: whining to our dad.

”Tootsie Roll escaped!” we wailed.

Dad, despite being the all-powerful being that he was, helped us look around for a while before admitting defeat and informing us that there was nothing he could do. We hinted that maybe he should drive around until he found another turtle, or maybe even a dog or cat, for us, but that idea was quickly dismissed once he remembered that the local pet shop was having a sale on some of its meaner parakeets.

We were heartbroken that Tootsie Roll would choose a life in the wild over residence in the finest of cardboard boxes. Especially after we had just gotten done cleaning it! Our efforts were in vain!

Now that I am grown up (in age, certainly not in mentality) and with a place of my own, I could get a dog, cat, or even parakeet of my very own if I so choose. Both of my sisters got their own cats.

But I won’t.

I’m allergic.