2.4. Ladies and Germs.

"Guess who has a date with Bonnie Kleinschmidt?"

When you ask a question like that, you're expecting a certain kind of response. Especially when you strut into your apartment looking like the cat that caught the canary. You're expecting a sense of awe and wonder, fear and respect. Bonnie Kleinschmidt. I dropped that question on Balki this week, and he of course guessed "Pat Sajak" because Balki doesn't have any understanding of the world outside of game shows and sheep shit. 

"Close," I told him. "ME. Larry Appleton. STUD." I had a date with Bonnie Kleinschmidt, fourth runner up for the Miss Chicago Beauty Contest. Balki was confused - he thought she "always laughed in (my) face" when I asked her out. And it's true - homegirl's cruel - but she's beautiful when she laughs.

But Bonnie wouldn't be laughing anymore, because I had two tickets to the Bruce Springsteen concert. She had no choice! Balki noted that my method of getting dates seems to be bribing them, and I was just like, whatever gets me in, bro. Whatever gets me in. I daydreamed out loud to Balki about blowing The Boss's mind when he sees Bonnie K on my arm, and Balki rightfully interrupted me before my slacks started to get tight. He told me we had to go to the hospital to visit Twinkacetti, who broke his leg (whatever story he sold, I guarantee a bookie did it) and I told him eff that. 

Balki called me out on breaking my promise, but look: I had a date with Bonnie Kleinschmidt. Bonnie Kleinschmidt! I wasn't risking that by going to a hospital. They're crawling with germs. And if I wanted to be crawling all over Bonnie Kleinschmidt, I wasn't going to take any unnecessary risks.

Balki didn't know what germs are, and I admittedly described them in sort of a vague, alarmist fashion that could easily be misinterpreted by a two year old. He stood perfectly erect and still, his eyes darting around the room fearfully. He pointed out that he couldn't see anything, and I told him that germs are microscopic. 

Balki didn't believe me, completely rejecting the science of airborne pathogens altogether. Even for Balki, this was a pretty deep low. I can understand the people of Mypos might not understand banking, or the subtle and carefully planned web of manipulations and lies required to score a date with the likes of Bonnie Kleinschmidt, but GERMS? Know they nothing of illness? WHAT IS MYPOS?

He started busting my balls about it, asking if the tiny creatures have a leader and smirking to himself while simultaneously revealing he's the dumbest asshole on the planet. Normally I might have just let this one go and hope karma would reward me with the poetic justice of Balki contracting AIDS, but I had way too much empirical evidence to "lose" this fight. I told him every time I had something important in my life, germs ruined it. I missed my sixth grade graduation. I missed the spelling bee, which I was a shoo-in to win. I missed my Junior Prom.

I was not going to miss Bonnie Kleinschmidt.

Readers, you know by now that almost everything that happens in my life is either foreshadowing or payoff. 

Balki shamed me into going to the hospital with him anyway by basically calling me a coward to my face, and pointing out that Twinkacetti would wonder why I hadn't come to visit. Why, all of a sudden, do we care about what Twinkacetti thinks about us? And why do we think he'd even be happy to see us while he's laid up in the hospital with a busted twig? Twinkacetti HATES us! And just because we never go to work, or do our jobs while we're there! He'd probably just start grilling us about why we're visiting him in the hospital instead of working, which is a totally fair question. As far as I know, Balki, Twinkie and I are the only three employees of Ritz Discount; I have to assume the store is just going to go out of business now.

Where was I? Balki tortured me all the way out the door, swatting at invisible germs with his newspaper as we headed off to the hospital. He was blown away by the modern aesthetic of the American hospital, and asked if they "kill the animals on another floor." I'm almost certain he still means people, like Christians or something. 

So I was itching to GTFO. Balki meanwhile was poking around the hospital room, and came across a metal bedpan. He declared that he'd found a "Mypos Army helmet" and put it on his head. Countless people have peed and crapped in that thing. It probably did smell like people on Mypos's hair, now that I think of it. Anyway we burst through the curtain into Twinkacetti's space. As expected, he was not happy to see us and kind of a dick. Not that I can blame him; the last thing I'd want to see if I was laid up in a dirty hospital with a broken leg is the blank grin of Balki Bartokamous, who rightfully belonged in the morgue a thousand times over for the epically dumb shit he pulls every week and yet still walks around unharmed with that dopey smile plastered across his face.

I did the standard "sorry about your leg, we'll get out of your hair" routine and headed for the door, but then Twinkie got all vulnerable on us and asked us to help him elevate his leg. Balki said the crank was stuck, so I told him to press the release - and next thing, Twinkie's leg goes flying up over his shoulders and he screamed like he'd been shot, and I SWEAR Balki got a semi. Twinkie ordered us to leave, which I was perfectly happy with - but on our way out the door his wife Edwina showed up with his two awful kids, whose names - get this - are Donnie and Marie. I don't understand that at all. We kind of felt compelled to stick around and make small talk now, so I decided to drop some charm bombs on the kids. 

I imagined hours later, little Marie would say to Edwina over dinner, "That Larry Appleton is a stud. He seems like the kind of guy who could lock down a Bonnie Kleinschmidt. Someday I'm going to marry Larry Appleton and he'll inherit the store and kill my father." I knelt down in front of her and told her what a pretty little girl she is, and she sneezed right into my mouth and eyes. Edwina told her to cover her mouth because she didn't want to give everyone her germs, and all of a sudden germs became very real to Balki. He pulled a complete 180 and now feared germs just as much as I did. 

If I had time to think of it in the moment I would've been seriously insulted. I've taught Balki everything he knows about America and modern life. I've taught him the value of money. I've taught him how to run game on babes. And he calls bullshit on my explanation of germs right up until the second it's validated by Edwina Twinkacetti, and all of a sudden it's gospel? Screw Balki. I'm done teaching him anything. He can go live with Edwina Twinkacetti and ruin her life for all I care. I gave up on all social conventions and just declared "I'm out of here," then ran for the door as fast as my legs could carry me. 

And then I was sick.

The next morning Balki was preparing "breakfast" for me, which was a bowl of dry cereal. Frankly, this is the absolute peak of his culinary skills and it was a kind gesture, but let's not forget that I told Balki that this is EXACTLY what was going to happen if he dragged me to the hospital, and then he bullied me into going anyway and now I'm sick as as dog for my date with Bonnie Kleinschmidt. Per usual, everything bad in my life is Balki's fault. I told him so directly, and he acted all innocent like he didn't know what I was talking about. 

Bonnie called. Balki and I each answered a separate land line at the same time. I have no idea why we installed the second phone, by the way. They're literally twenty feet apart from each other. Anyway I shouted at Balki to hangup and switched into the coolest Larry voice I could muster through my nasty cold. She pointed out that I sounded weird, and I countered that she sounded weird. Expert move, Larry A. They put you down, you put em down harder. Jungle rules. I spit pure silk through the handset, promising to pick her up at seven and whispering "bye bye" like I was talking to her panties. 

I spent the day vitamining-up. I cut up a dozen oranges on the coffee table and wolfed them down one by one while Balki went to the grocery store for supplies. I'll also note that this is at least the second day in a row Ritz Discount did not open for business. He dumped a bag of pills on the table so big it felt like we were partying with Motley Crue, and then tried to talk me into canceling the date with Bonnie and rescheduling when I felt better. Does Balki not remember just two weeks ago, when I refused to cancel our dates with Jennifer and Mary Anne even though we were totally bushwhacked from a day at the gym and it totally paid off in the end? Wonder what those girls are up to this week, anyway? I told him I was going to push through. 

Balki then emptied the contents of his second bag. There was enough garlic in there to clear out Salem's Lot, plus something called "Wolfbane" and a bag of pumpkin mold. He told me these were the kind of things you take if you want to "get serious" about getting better. I rejected his barbaric witchcraft and told him to just leave me alone while I slam my pills. Balki insisted he could make me better by cooking his secret Myposian cure (logic problem Balki, if you can heal me instantly, then why are you trying to talk me out of the date? Get your shit together Balki, this is prime time.) and I went off like a firecracker on him about how stupid everyone on Mypos is, and that if modern medicine doesn't have a cure for the cold there's no way those silly backwards dinks do, and choked down a handful of vitamins A, B,C and D.

Nothing was working. Pills, steam, nothing. Balki was still harassing me about trying his cure but I wasn't having it. I've learned by now that Balki is like the monkey's paw - his cure might make me feel better, but would probably give me hepatitis. I had an hour and a half to get well enough, and it wasn't happening. Balki suggested I should get dressed, and I went through a manic swing of joyful optimism that he was right followed immediately by a soul-crushing realization that I was never going to see Bonnie Kleinschmidt naked. I collapsed on the couch in tears, as broken a man as I've ever been in my life. I made the mistake of telling Balki that I've tried everything, and he lost his shit. He yelled at me that he'd made the secret Mypos cure, it works in 20 minutes, and it was just sitting in the kitchen waiting for me. 

I caved. "Why not?" I said. I wouldn't be able to go on the date anyway. I had nothing to lose. I grabbed him by the collar and declared that I wanted the Mypos cure.

And now he didn't want to give it to me. 

As is his custom, Balki forced me to degrade myself and grovel over something that was all his fault. He then produced a fluid that looked like kerosene and green food coloring. He hopped up to the kitchen to grab a spoon so I could take the appropriate dose, but I'd already chugged the entire jar. Balki told me I'd drank enough for a whole village. 

He looked legitimately scared, like maybe I was about to die. I told him it was no big deal, if it was just herbs and fish parts then there's no real risk of overdosing or anything. Balki said it should kick in really fast considering the dose, and he was holding his breath.

We waited. 

And then I started to trip. BALLS. HARD.

I could see through Balki. My mind completely exploded, and I fell through a hole a thousand miles deep as the walls swirled in technicolor around me. On earth, I was standing completely still, my eyes frozen wide open with the kind of terror that a man can only experience when he's seen his own face melt into the wall and morph into the visage of Satan crying tears of blood. I couldn't move. I couldn't blink. Balki dropped me on the couch and draped the garlic across my neck, and I vanished into a hellscape fever nightmare.

Some amount of time passed. If felt like seconds or centuries. Time no longer mattered. I woke.

I felt fantastic. Better than I'd felt in my entire life, in fact. I felt like I could conquer giants. I checked my watch, and was pleased to see I had fifteen minutes to get ready for my date. I heaped praise on Balki for his miracle drug, and told him he should bottle it and sell it. Then I saw the newspaper.

It was far too thick to be the evening edition. I asked Balki what the hell, and he told me it was Sunday's paper. My mouth dropped. I'd been asleep for twenty four hours? Balki then told me it was actually Tuesday, and I'd been asleep for three days.

Balki told me the effect of the medicine was supposed to be a 20 minute nap, during which I'd recover; but since I chugged the whole jar, it knocked me out for three days. Reality sunk in. I'd missed my one-shot date with Bonnie Kleinschmidt. To make matters a thousand times worse, while I was vanishing down the rabbit hole Balki had told Bonnie I was dead and he took her to the concert himself. Fortunately, the second they got to the arena Bonnie ditched him for some guy in the front row. I guarantee she would not have done that to Smooth Larry A, but it's kind of funny that it happened to Balki. He can get around to paying me for those tickets whenever.

Balki got all sad and mopey that he was ditched by the date he stole from the cousin who he dragged into getting a cold and then drugged and left for dead. Although karma was finally starting to inch its way into the life of its biggest target on earth, I felt a little bad for him. The only thing harder than getting Bonnie Kleinschmidt on the line is watching her swim away. 

Even though I'd done even less wrong than usual and this whole mess was Balki's fault, I launched into the standard line of apologies for doing, I don't know SOMETHING wrong. Looking back at all of this I still can't understand what it was I had to apologize to Balki for, but he sure made me own it. 

Anyway turns out Bruce didn't even play, because he had the flu. They rescheduled the concert for this weekend, and I offered to take Balki with me. Then he sneezed. Get him, karma! I believe in you! AIDS! AIDS! AIDS!

2.3. The Unnatural.

Hey folks: The Voice of Larry here. I'm back, y'all! My deep apologies for vanishing on you for the past few months. It started with a hand injury that made typing difficult (fully healed) and then my spare time got completely swallowed up in another project for a long time, which I've just completed. Before we get back into the journal: while I've been adamant to not let the Internet life of this thing wade into the entries themselves, I want to send a shout out to my most loyal reader, Mark Jensen, who is recovering from a health emergency of his own and whose recovery has inspired me to get back into the swing of things. Get better soon, Mark! Without further adieu:

2.3. The Unnatural.

Larry Appleton, reporting from the dugout in baseball city! Look. I'm an athlete, all right? It was sports week here in Chicago, focused on a series of dramatic events surrounding the softball team I manage, which I've never mentioned before today and am unlikely to ever bring up again. So pay attention.

The week started with your old buddy Cousin Larry riding high. Literally. I was carried on the shoulders of the Ritz Discount Royals softball team into the store, with Balki leading a ribald chant of "We're number one!" as the team poured through the front door with their curly-headed Caesar beaming down at them from on high. Twinkacetti greeted us, and he was holding a massive handful of cash and looking anxious and sweaty. He was desperate for the results of the game like he had one of his kids' fingers riding on it (which wouldn't surprise me at all.)

Balki, the team's waterboy, scorekeeper and head cheerleader, launched into a literal play-by-play of the entire game until Twinkie rightfully shut him up and asked for me - the team's manager - to give him the quick and dirty.

Of course I'm the manager, by the way. Managers are the ones with the plan.

It was telling that Twinkie didn't care so much about whether we won, just whether we "beat the spread." You know, it's weird that some degenerate bookie Twinkie knows is actually establishing gambling lines for local rec-league softball games, but that at least explains why he was so twitchy and carrying all that cash around. I told him we had in fact pulled it off, and he spirited away to his office to count his winnings.

I  got the team charged up with a rousing speech about how we just have to beat the Shop and Spend team in the next game and the Championship is ours. They cheered. Jennifer looked at me like she was going to tear me apart the minute we were alone. Mary Anne looked at me like she picked the wrong cousin. Balki looked at me like he didn't understand a word I was saying because he's an idiot, but he was smiling. Our team might just be the Royals, but this is what Kings feel like.

Quick aside - Balki's wardrobe has gotten really out there this year. Today he had on a gray dress shirt, black shorts so long that they somehow were hiked above his belly button but still hanging down to his knees, suspenders, dress socks and wing tips. I honestly don't know if he's going for "French Schoolboy" or "Golfing Granny" but it's weirding me out.

Anyhoo. I told the team how important the win was, because if we pulled it off the Championship trophy would be MINE, and I would graciously share it with all of them - in spirit. They seemed to appreciate this. I dispatched the team and commented offhand to Balki that it was weird how Slugger, the Royals' ringer, didn't hang around for his custom slap on the ass from Coach before taking off. That's when Balki remembered to tell me that Slugger was going to the Grand Canyon with his family next week and wouldn't be around for the big game.

Shiiiiiiiiiit.

I grabbed him by his shirt collar and asked desperately why Slugger wouldn't tell me that himself. Balki pointed out that I would probably assault him the same way I was assaulting Balki right now, and I realized that I had underestimated my own identity as a vicious, domineering, violent man of power. I told Balki how much the team stinks without Slugger, and Balki started hinting around that maybe Slugger's replacement was standing in the room already. I pretended not to get the hint before sneaking out to lick my wounds.

I spent the whole next day trying to recruit a replacement, with no luck. I was really sweatin' it, man. Obviously Twinkacetti, my employer (and maybe landlord, I don't think that's ever been made clear) has been placing an escalating series of bets on the Royals, and anything that comes down hard on his head will undoubtedly come down twice as hard on mine. Also, the trophy! So close to MINE! Anyway Balki came home, overtly pining for the open roster spot now by wearing a child-size baseball cap and wearing a glove. I finally had to confront the question head on, and I told Balki we were headed into the championship and I needed someone who had at least played the game once in his life before.

Balki rolled out that whole standard issue bullcrap line about how it's important that you have fun, not that you win the game, which is the exact wrong thing I'd want to hear from someone trying to worm their way onto a team one game away from the championship. How about a little killer spirit, Balki? You're already climbing uphill trying to get on my team, Sport!

I told Balki that trophies are more important than life, and I cut to the chase that we usually don't get to until after our hijinks of the week by telling him I'm dealing with a web of serious inferiority complexes stemming from my life in a big family with more successful siblings. This time it was my brother Billy, the family athlete, who rubbed his lifetime of trophies in my face every night in our shared bedroom.

But being the good guy I am, I offered Balki the chance to practice with the team the next day so we could see if he had any raw skills. And being the terrible guy that Balki is, he responded with zero gratitude at all and instead launched into his standard selfish little baby routine, whining, "I want practice now." Despite it being dark out and how I was trying to relax with a cold beer after spending all day cold-calling bats for hire, Balki wouldn't let it go.

In the old days, this would have devolved into a vicious shouting match; but I've learned that I could either waste a lot of energy and lose that argument eventually, or just cave immediately and hope I don't get injured. Balki has destroyed my spirit to such a depressing degree that I caved in less than four seconds. He wanted to pitch - a position that is not open on our roster - but instead of directing his first practice toward something productive like fielding slow grounders in deep right field, I issued him a pair of socks and took the bat. Trust me, this was easier.

We cleared some space in the living room and I told Balki to toss it up and over the plate. He went on to pretend he was getting signs from an imaginary catcher for what felt like days, until I totally snapped at him and demanded he throw the ball. He had driven me to a level of frustration so intense that when he finally whipped the socks high and outside, I chased 'em. I should've just let it go past me and wait for my pitch, but I was so determined to cream those socks back at Balki that I lost my cool, swung hard and destroyed yet another living room lamp. The asshole had the nerve to say "Strike one."

In case you all forgot over the hiatus, I just, I hate Balki so much.

Next day. Balki and I returned home in single color sweatsuits. Mine was a spaklingly clean royal blue, and Balki was in a completely filthy banana yellow. Practice had not gone well. I told him I'd never seen such an embarrassing display of baseball in my life. He liked sliding, so he just slid head first into every base while he was supposed to be playing right field. Never took batting practice. He was so disruptive we literally would have been better off with only 8 on the field.

I tried to gently kick Balki off the team, but he pulled the most massive guilt trip ever on me before I could get the words out of my mouth about what an amazing honor it was going to be to play the game he'd spent his whole life worshiping from Mypos; although clearly not worshiping enough to ever watch a single game in his life, and I know they have TV over there.

I couldn't do it. I told him he'd made the team. Balki said they'd throw him a parade on Mypos when they hear about it. HOW PATHETIC IS MYPOS? He sashayed off to tell his stuffed sheep about the whole situation or something, just as Twinkie called to tell me he'd recruited Duke Lyle to fill in for Slugger.

You heard that right. Duke Frigging Lyle.

For those of you who don't live in Chicago, you might not recognize the name; but trust me, in the small business recreation league circles of Chicago, Duke Lyle is kind of a big deal. You don't just turn down a chance to put Duke Lyle on your roster. Twinkie had offered Duke $50, which would come out of my pocket of course. I was walking tall anyway. I was about to get my trophy, which I could rub in Billy's face for the rest of his life. And then I heard Balki singing "The Impossible Dream" from the back, and I remembered the promise I had just made.

I had a turnip to toss off the truck.

The next day, Twinkie showed up with Duke Lyle himself. Duke Lyle! The strapping young ringer was kind of a dick up front, demanding his fifty bucks and then strolling off to get in some BP before game time. As he was walking away Balki, who I'd not bothered to say anything to the night before, arrived in his brand new uniform.

I pulled the team together and gave them a super inspiring speech about how important it was for them to win for me, and sent all but Balki out to the field. I told the turnip I was holding him back as my secret weapon, and I was keeping him on the bench until the perfect moment when I would unload him on the field. On a scale of "brilliant Larry manipulations," I'd put it near the top. Balki drank every word in and called me a genius.

You have no idea, Dummy.

He gleefully took his spot on the bench, and the game started. It didn't go well from the start. The Shop and Spend Spartans got off to an early lead, and I almost got my ass kicked out for going off on the ump like a machine gun.

We were down 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth. Token female player Mary Anne struck out for the second out of the inning, hacking away at the ball overhead with the bat like she was trying to beat Balki with a rubber hose during one of what I can only imagine are the horrifying sex games they play when the lights go out.

Two outs, bottom of the ninth, down one, one runner on base.

Duke was up. Balki tried to call a timeout, and put on the most amazing crybaby voice he's ever unloaded and told me he realized I wasn't putting him in, and that winning a championship must be more important than having a friend.

Low blow, Bartokamous.

All right, look: I know this makes me look bad. That's Balki's specialty. He'd set it all up from the word "Cousin." But think about this for a second. This is my team. I've coached them all season. I've had a LIFELONG FRIGGING COMPLEX from not winning any trophies, in the shadow of Billy Appleton. Balki had to see how important this was to me! I mean, he's been pretty satisfied being the cheerleader all season, and I let him dress for the last game, and all of a sudden the thing I've obviously needed my whole life has to take second fiddle to Balki getting one at bat in a rec league baseball game or we're not friends anymore? WHEN DID THIS, LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE, BECOME ABOUT BALKI???

Twinkie came down from the stands to ask what the eff was going on, and I told him the situation. He played me even harder than Balki, tweaking my trophy-jones and calling me a loser. But I knew the real stakes. The trophy on my shelf would be nice, but it would always carry the stink of Balki's manufactured hurt feelings and it would make me sick looking at it. I sent the turnip in.

Balki stepped up to the plate and held the bat cluelessly while two meatball pitches sailed past him in slow motion. Mary Anne could've drilled a run in off of them, but Balki just watched. I told him he only gets three strikes, and he said he got the strike and ball count mixed up. He asked if he should hit the next one.

Sure enough, the pitch comes in - and by the way, we were playing with some strange silver spray-painted ball for some reason. Balki connected, solid. I've never seen a softball hit so far. Of course he just stood there watching, then ran toward third base before finally getting in motion in the right direction. He slid into every base, as is his custom. But it didn't matter; Balki had hit that silver softball a country mile. Two runs scored. The Royals had won.

Balki and I returned home victors, but the tiny, cheap trophy felt weirdly empty. I realized I'd almost thrown away our friendship over it, and I'd quietly regretted not taking that deal. He then told me he was basically a superstar at home of a much more challenging version of softball where you hit rocks with a stick. Would've been nice to know earlier in the season, buddy.

I put my tiny plastic trophy on the mantle and gazed at it with pride. My first trophy, there by itself, not being overshadowed for the first time in my life. This prompted Balki to take out his absolutely massive wood and metal Most Valuable Player trophy, which seems like bullshit considering he played exactly one at bat in the whole season, and placed it directly next to my little one. The light from the sconce above the mantle shone down on the two trophies, and mine was now literally in the shadow of Balki's much bigger one.

God hates me.