girls.
“No, you’re not,” one kid said.
“Am too!” I shot back.
“Are not!”
“Am too!”
“Prove it,” another kid said, prompting snickers from his buddies.
In such a situation, there’s really only one way to prove that such a friendship between really beautiful girls and a dumpy, hairy guy exists—speed dial.
Up until this year’s WrestleMania I had only a couple of names in my speed dial—after all, I barely knew how to turn one of these damn phones on, let alone enter names and numbers into it. My wife was on there, as was my son Dewey and my friend Jill Thompson, who illustrated two of my children’s books. Oh, and Test was on there, too. Which of course makes perfect sense. Stacy Keibler put his number in there, back when, frighteningly enough, they were a real couple. I’ve been trying to get the damn number out ever since. But no matter how many ways I try to delete him, Test keeps coming back. I swear, Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger have nothing on that guy.
But following WrestleMania, I had two new names on the speed dial. Good ones, too. Trish Stratus, a great wrestler and a good friend for many years, was one. Melina was the other.
With Chris Giordano.
Courtesy of the Foley family.
I’d utilized the Trish Stratus button a few days earlier, while watching the Backlash Pay-Per-View at my buddy Chris Giordano’s house. I actually met Chris at my first-ever Sports Night, and have probably watched about twenty Pay-Per-Views at his house since then. I went the first time because Chris, a huge WWE fan, was a young man with cerebral palsy. I continue to go, five years later, because Chris is a great guy, my kids love going, his mom and dad treat us like part of the family, and well, I get to eat a lot of free food while I’m over there.
While watching Backlash we noticed that Trish had fallen awkwardly from the ring and that her match had ended shortly after, in an unceremonious manner. It just kind of stopped. I looked at Chris’s wall, noticed a huge poster of Trish, and combining a desire to find out if she was okay with a desire to show off in front of Chris, gave the old speed dial a try. Trish didn’t answer, but Chris went absolutely crazy when he heard her on the voice mail.
It was now Melina’s turn to make me look good. I hit speed dial. “Hi, it’s Melina.” Again, just the voice mail, but the kids went crazy, nonetheless.
I waited for the beep. “Hi, its Mick Foley, and I’m hanging out with some really great kids, and they just wanted to say hello.” The kids all yelled their greetings. “Also, I’ve got what I think is a really good idea, and I really want to tell you about it. So, I’ll call you back in a couple of days, or you can call me back if you want. I’ll talk to you later.”
Keep in mind that writing a book by hand takes an enormous amount of time, especially when a completed manuscript is expected in two months. Because of the four kids running around the house, I do most of my writing at night, and subsequently spend much of the day exhausted.
I desperately need a good night’s sleep every few days, or else I just won’t have the energy to take command of the written page. In other words, the writing will start sucking. Not that it’s Pulitzer material anyway, but hey, at least it’s got energy. Right?
To ensure that good night’s sleep, I do occasionally take a sleeping pill. I may have made a tactical error in taking that pill right before checking my messages. Hey, a message from Melina. She would love to hear my idea. Cool! What a great voice, too. All right, I’ll give her a quick call, run down my idea, and be in bed in ten minutes.
I looked at the phone right before I hung up with her. Two hours and forty minutes! Damn. My longest phone call since I was in college and had a secret admirer, who used to call me at all hours of the evening and tantalize me with tales of forbidden lust that I had previously only read about.
Learning to Kill: Stories