The other day I was playing some sort of derivative of football with my son, although it was inside, I was sitting on the couch fiddling around on my Ipad, and he was in his underpants. Cleverly, I named this game "Underpants Couch Football." Basically the game is him throwing a small football as hard as he can at me and then me throwing it back while he skitters around in his underpants like Marky Mark.
Anyway, in this one instance he wouldn't throw the ball back to me. He thought it was really clever to continuously pump fake me and then bounce around. Frustrated I yelled, "Shit, I got me enough money to buy me a hundred balls!" He looked at me funny. That's when it occurred to me that he was 6 and had never seen "Boyz n the Hood" and so he didn't know what I was talking about. I felt bad for him. Because "Boyz n the Hood" can teach a 6 year old all sorts of valuable lessons like:
1.) Don't ever bring your football anywhere.
2.) If you do bring your football somewhere, and if a bunch of gang members want your football, you should give it to them, because even if you think they're just going to keep it, the big one wearing his shirt as a hat will eventually give it back, because you know somebody would eventually knock over a 40.
3.) If you see a dead body laying in an alley that has been there a long time, don't bother him, because he's not bothering you. Even if it smells like a dog died
4.) If your friend gets arrested for stealing, you won't see him again until you're 17 and he's Ice Cube
5.) To get a baby all you have to do is find a girl, stick your thing in her, and 9 months later a baby comes out
6.) If your mom calls you a "fat fuck", it's a term of endearment
7.) If you wear a football jersey all the time, USC recruiters will come to your house when you're older, even if your house is in a horrible part of town and there are drive-by shooters (with wheelchairs and pacifiers) on your porch.
8.) If you rake up all 14 leaves in your tiny yard, it will take you until it's dark, but then your dad will take you fishing. As long as he's only 8 years older than you.
9.) When people try to rob your house, you will get startled and pee on your pajama bottoms
10.) We're all from Africa. And we're all African Booty Scratchers.
So it's settled. Instead of Barney, or Phineas and Ferb, or any of that other drivel, Miles and I will be watching Boyz n the Hood tonight. If you have kids, you might want to get on the bandwagon and do this too, because pretty soon people will be jumping on this idea like a fat girl on a hotcake trampoline.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Friday, December 9, 2011
The Not-So-Funny Pubic Hair Joke
I was in a public restroom the other day, and I walked into a stall and there was a bunch of pubic hair laying everywhere. It was obvious that some sort of frenzy had happened in there. You know when cats or birds have a prolonged fight, and then afterward there's a big clump of fur or feathers, and even if you didn't see it, you know you're at the site of a battle. It was like that. Somebody was dick fighting!
Anyway, I left that bathroom in a hurry, just in case the dick fighters came back. I didn't want to get caught in the middle of that.
It reminded me of this time in 9th grade. It was actually the 1st day of 9th grade, and back then I was an even goofier looking, less confident version of my current self. The very first class I had was a Math class, probably something like Algebra I. The first thing we did in Algebra I was receive a syllabus and our math books. The math books we received were several years old, and had been passed down from the last Algebra class. So I opened my math book to try to ascertain how hard high school math was going to be, and I was flipping through the pages. I got to one page and almost shrieked like a sissyboy. There was a big pile of pubes in my math book. So there I was, 10 minutes into my high school career, and somehow I had gotten the pube book. It was fairly obvious that somebody had chopped off a large portion of their pubes, shoved them into the math book, and shut the book, knowing full well that eventually somebody else would open the book, see the pubes and maybe shout, "Yarrgh! Pubes!"
Since I was a little too shy to shout, "Yarrgh! Pubes!" I just shut the book and felt uncomfortable about high school until the period ended. When the period ended, I figured I had to do something. I couldn't, in good conscience, stick a book into my locker with somebody else's pubes in it. That would have been weird. So, I sheepishly walked over to my teacher and said, "Excuse me sir, I need a different book. This one has pubes." Not surprisingly, the teacher looked at me like I had 3 heads. Then he saw the pubes and was equally horrified, and I could tell that he was trying to figure out if I could have possibly smuggled in a bag of my own pubes and stuck them in the book. I think he must have determined that that was an unlikely scenario, so he just gave me another book, but sufficed to say my high school days were off to a bizarre start. I never did find out who's pubes they were, which is odd, because I had figured that eventually I'd hear somebody saying, "HAHAHA, I stuck pubes into a math book once," and then I would punch that person in the crotch.
So, in case anybody knows who did it, I got the pube book and I was not amused!
Anyway, I left that bathroom in a hurry, just in case the dick fighters came back. I didn't want to get caught in the middle of that.
It reminded me of this time in 9th grade. It was actually the 1st day of 9th grade, and back then I was an even goofier looking, less confident version of my current self. The very first class I had was a Math class, probably something like Algebra I. The first thing we did in Algebra I was receive a syllabus and our math books. The math books we received were several years old, and had been passed down from the last Algebra class. So I opened my math book to try to ascertain how hard high school math was going to be, and I was flipping through the pages. I got to one page and almost shrieked like a sissyboy. There was a big pile of pubes in my math book. So there I was, 10 minutes into my high school career, and somehow I had gotten the pube book. It was fairly obvious that somebody had chopped off a large portion of their pubes, shoved them into the math book, and shut the book, knowing full well that eventually somebody else would open the book, see the pubes and maybe shout, "Yarrgh! Pubes!"
Since I was a little too shy to shout, "Yarrgh! Pubes!" I just shut the book and felt uncomfortable about high school until the period ended. When the period ended, I figured I had to do something. I couldn't, in good conscience, stick a book into my locker with somebody else's pubes in it. That would have been weird. So, I sheepishly walked over to my teacher and said, "Excuse me sir, I need a different book. This one has pubes." Not surprisingly, the teacher looked at me like I had 3 heads. Then he saw the pubes and was equally horrified, and I could tell that he was trying to figure out if I could have possibly smuggled in a bag of my own pubes and stuck them in the book. I think he must have determined that that was an unlikely scenario, so he just gave me another book, but sufficed to say my high school days were off to a bizarre start. I never did find out who's pubes they were, which is odd, because I had figured that eventually I'd hear somebody saying, "HAHAHA, I stuck pubes into a math book once," and then I would punch that person in the crotch.
So, in case anybody knows who did it, I got the pube book and I was not amused!
Monday, November 21, 2011
A Time to be Thankful
Being that the Thanksgiving season is upon us I thought I would give an incomplete list of the things I am thankful for this holiday season. In no particular order I am thankful for:
1.) My family
2.) My dog who chews his foot constantly so that it may eventually be amputated
3.) My other dog who protects us from garbage trucks and 13 year olds
4.) The female buttocks
5.) Turkeys (because they hang out on the railroad tracks and eat gravel)
6.) Other turkeys (because I eat them and get sleepy)
7.) Whale blowholes
8.) My penis
9.) The garbage man for taking my garbage (because I don't know what I would do with it otherwise)
10.) Fantasy Football (For making Sundays fun even when the Vikings are gay homosexuals)
11.) Random Debris
12.) Being able to see
13.) Being able to wear pants
14.) Being able to see that others are wearing pants
15.) Rhioceri
16.) Monkeys, as long as they are flinging poo
17.) That time when I found 5 bucks in the grass
18.) My scrotum
19.) My other scrotum
20.) My neighbor who screams obscenities at his wife while doing yard work
21.) This pig I saw on the internet with giant balls
22.) Public urination
23.) Unicorn meat (especially Unicorn Noodle Soup)
24.) The fact that I haven't zipped my weiner into my zipper in nearly a year
25.) The fact that I don't have a giganticly disproportionate or misshapen ass
26.) Any dance that has "extreme pelvic thrust" as one of it's moves
27.) Andre the Giant
28.) Ghetto Fabulous sunglasses found in the ashtray at Menards
29.) Areolas that aren't way huge like Kate Winslet's
30.) The Minnesota Valkyrie (even the no talent hoes riding the pine)
31.) Gay people who don't talk about butt sex in casual conversation
32.) Nymphomaniacs who live near me
33.) Morning farts
34.) The fact that I never get a boner while sprinting
35.) The fact that I never got arrested for stealing condoms because I was too embarrassed to buy them.
36.) Kangaroo pouches
37.) The fact that my nipples are symmetrical
38.) My yard, for being at the bottom of a hill, so I can watch out my window and root for cars to crash when it's slippery
39.) My kids for learning to whistle, and then sounding like foghorns running out of batteries because they can't whistle a tune.
40.) The word "crotch"
41.) Occupy "insert city here" for making me feel like less of a loser
42.) Cat burglars
43.) Fully charged riding carts at the grocery store
44.) Kumquats
45.) The City of Kansas City.
46.) When I saw a dildo in the sewer one time.
47.) This sparkly platypus from my dreams
48.) Anybody who's last name is "Orgasm"
49.) People who mispronounce the word "chipotle"
50.) Sacajawea dollars
51.) This guy at the gym who admitted that he had a "chapped buns"
52.) Anybody who puts crack in their salad
53.) The fact that I can pee longer if I drink a big glass of water while peeing
54.) Tortoises
55.) Flapjacks
56.) The endocrine system
57.) Pooping while running at full speed.
As I've mentioned, this is not a "complete" list. For the full list, please contact the records department of the St. Ignatius Home for the Partially Insane. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!
1.) My family
2.) My dog who chews his foot constantly so that it may eventually be amputated
3.) My other dog who protects us from garbage trucks and 13 year olds
4.) The female buttocks
5.) Turkeys (because they hang out on the railroad tracks and eat gravel)
6.) Other turkeys (because I eat them and get sleepy)
7.) Whale blowholes
8.) My penis
9.) The garbage man for taking my garbage (because I don't know what I would do with it otherwise)
10.) Fantasy Football (For making Sundays fun even when the Vikings are gay homosexuals)
11.) Random Debris
12.) Being able to see
13.) Being able to wear pants
14.) Being able to see that others are wearing pants
15.) Rhioceri
16.) Monkeys, as long as they are flinging poo
17.) That time when I found 5 bucks in the grass
18.) My scrotum
19.) My other scrotum
20.) My neighbor who screams obscenities at his wife while doing yard work
21.) This pig I saw on the internet with giant balls
22.) Public urination
23.) Unicorn meat (especially Unicorn Noodle Soup)
24.) The fact that I haven't zipped my weiner into my zipper in nearly a year
25.) The fact that I don't have a giganticly disproportionate or misshapen ass
26.) Any dance that has "extreme pelvic thrust" as one of it's moves
27.) Andre the Giant
28.) Ghetto Fabulous sunglasses found in the ashtray at Menards
29.) Areolas that aren't way huge like Kate Winslet's
30.) The Minnesota Valkyrie (even the no talent hoes riding the pine)
31.) Gay people who don't talk about butt sex in casual conversation
32.) Nymphomaniacs who live near me
33.) Morning farts
34.) The fact that I never get a boner while sprinting
35.) The fact that I never got arrested for stealing condoms because I was too embarrassed to buy them.
36.) Kangaroo pouches
37.) The fact that my nipples are symmetrical
38.) My yard, for being at the bottom of a hill, so I can watch out my window and root for cars to crash when it's slippery
39.) My kids for learning to whistle, and then sounding like foghorns running out of batteries because they can't whistle a tune.
40.) The word "crotch"
41.) Occupy "insert city here" for making me feel like less of a loser
42.) Cat burglars
43.) Fully charged riding carts at the grocery store
44.) Kumquats
45.) The City of Kansas City.
46.) When I saw a dildo in the sewer one time.
47.) This sparkly platypus from my dreams
48.) Anybody who's last name is "Orgasm"
49.) People who mispronounce the word "chipotle"
50.) Sacajawea dollars
51.) This guy at the gym who admitted that he had a "chapped buns"
52.) Anybody who puts crack in their salad
53.) The fact that I can pee longer if I drink a big glass of water while peeing
54.) Tortoises
55.) Flapjacks
56.) The endocrine system
57.) Pooping while running at full speed.
As I've mentioned, this is not a "complete" list. For the full list, please contact the records department of the St. Ignatius Home for the Partially Insane. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!
Friday, October 21, 2011
Brian is a PH'er
I have a much better story to tell than this one. It's called "The Night of Quick Escalation in Kansas City" but for now I have been asked not to put that one in written form, but I gotta tell a frickin' story so here is one...
When I was in college I had this acquaintance. For argument's sake, we'll call him Jeremy. Jeremy was one of those kids who hadn't completely finished going through puberty when he got to college, so he was a gangly mess of arms and legs, kind of like a newborn deer. As time went on though, he eventually grew into his body a little and developed a little confidence and starting trying to mack on girls and stuff.
Anyway, one night I was out at the bar with friends, enjoying a few refreshments, and then a few more, and even a few more and pretty soon I really had to take a whiz. I was disappointed to notice that all the bathrooms were in use. This sucked. I thought about peeing outside, but didn't want to get arrested for public urination, so I pee-pee danced over to this little used bathroom in the other room of the bar. When I busted in, penis already out of my pants, there was Jeremy making out with a really unattractive girl. He was not pleased to see me.
Him: Jensen, go find another bathroom!
Me: No way, I'm whizzin' now. Go french that girl someplace else.
Him: Jensen, dude, why you gotta PH me man? Why you gotta PH me?
In this case "PH" stood for "Player Hate", which was one of those stupid phrases that stupid people used back in the stupid late 90's.
He was a lot more upset than I had anticipated, and unleashed a string of profanities at me, and some more references to PH'ing. I just shook my head and peed. All this hubbub over an ugly girl.
About 2 weeks later Jeremy had a party over at his house. His house was about 200 feet away from mine, and it was South Dakota, so really, what else was there to do, so I went to the party. I walked in rather inconspicuously with about 3 other guys, but I must have set off his PH radar because he yelled (from a different room)
"Hey, look who's here. You gonna PH me again tonight, you fucking PH'er!" I realize how absurd what he said sounded, but for some reason, that night it made me really angry. So I sat over by the keg and drank beer and silently fumed for a while. I also stared at some girl butts, because that's kind of my M.O.
After about 45 minutes of angry drinking, I had to go to the bathroom. I passed by Jeremy as I headed towards the bathroom and he was chatting up some dorks and talking about the relentless PH'ing he faced on a daily basis. When I got in the bathroom, I noticed a pile of his dirty clothes laying in a bin on the floor, so I did the most logical thing I could think of. I peed all over his clothes.
During a night of consistent beer drinking, I had to pee approximately every 18 minutes. (I knew this because I had timed it several times, and it was pretty much like clockwork.) I was at the party for about 3 more hours, so in total, I probably peed on his clothes 11 times. By the end the clothes were totally saturated and there was visible standing urine in there. It was kind of gross.
So, I guess he was right. I was PH'ing him, if PH'ing means "peeing" in his "hamper". Repeatedly. I'm not really proud of this, but I can't change the past, so be it. The next afternoon he walked over to our house and was lamenting about the fact that someone had urinated all over his dirty clothes.
I just shook my head. Stupid PH'ers.
When I was in college I had this acquaintance. For argument's sake, we'll call him Jeremy. Jeremy was one of those kids who hadn't completely finished going through puberty when he got to college, so he was a gangly mess of arms and legs, kind of like a newborn deer. As time went on though, he eventually grew into his body a little and developed a little confidence and starting trying to mack on girls and stuff.
Anyway, one night I was out at the bar with friends, enjoying a few refreshments, and then a few more, and even a few more and pretty soon I really had to take a whiz. I was disappointed to notice that all the bathrooms were in use. This sucked. I thought about peeing outside, but didn't want to get arrested for public urination, so I pee-pee danced over to this little used bathroom in the other room of the bar. When I busted in, penis already out of my pants, there was Jeremy making out with a really unattractive girl. He was not pleased to see me.
Him: Jensen, go find another bathroom!
Me: No way, I'm whizzin' now. Go french that girl someplace else.
Him: Jensen, dude, why you gotta PH me man? Why you gotta PH me?
In this case "PH" stood for "Player Hate", which was one of those stupid phrases that stupid people used back in the stupid late 90's.
He was a lot more upset than I had anticipated, and unleashed a string of profanities at me, and some more references to PH'ing. I just shook my head and peed. All this hubbub over an ugly girl.
About 2 weeks later Jeremy had a party over at his house. His house was about 200 feet away from mine, and it was South Dakota, so really, what else was there to do, so I went to the party. I walked in rather inconspicuously with about 3 other guys, but I must have set off his PH radar because he yelled (from a different room)
"Hey, look who's here. You gonna PH me again tonight, you fucking PH'er!" I realize how absurd what he said sounded, but for some reason, that night it made me really angry. So I sat over by the keg and drank beer and silently fumed for a while. I also stared at some girl butts, because that's kind of my M.O.
After about 45 minutes of angry drinking, I had to go to the bathroom. I passed by Jeremy as I headed towards the bathroom and he was chatting up some dorks and talking about the relentless PH'ing he faced on a daily basis. When I got in the bathroom, I noticed a pile of his dirty clothes laying in a bin on the floor, so I did the most logical thing I could think of. I peed all over his clothes.
During a night of consistent beer drinking, I had to pee approximately every 18 minutes. (I knew this because I had timed it several times, and it was pretty much like clockwork.) I was at the party for about 3 more hours, so in total, I probably peed on his clothes 11 times. By the end the clothes were totally saturated and there was visible standing urine in there. It was kind of gross.
So, I guess he was right. I was PH'ing him, if PH'ing means "peeing" in his "hamper". Repeatedly. I'm not really proud of this, but I can't change the past, so be it. The next afternoon he walked over to our house and was lamenting about the fact that someone had urinated all over his dirty clothes.
I just shook my head. Stupid PH'ers.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Brian Buries a Cat
The other day the cat died. It was a sad event for our family, but the cat was 18, and she kind of looked like an old stuffed animal that somebody had thrown up on and then left out in the yard for a few years. In other words, she'd seen better days.
When animals figure out they're going to die, they do whatever possible to avoid you, because they just want to go lie down and die, and it's hard to go lie down and die when little kids are dragging you around, and the dog thinks you're a squeaky toy.
Anyway, she initially decided to lay in the litter box and die, which seemed a little too unceremonious for my wife. After all, she had gotten the cat in high school, and the cat had become a welcome presence in the family. So my wife made up a shoebox with a towel in it, and the cat layed in there and died overnight.
After some tears were shed that early morning, we decided it would better to bury the cat before the kids woke up, instead of them seeing a dead cat laying in a shoebox. So we plopped the cat in a garbage bag, and set out by the light of the moon to dig a cat grave.
The first thing I noticed was that it was way colder than I had expected. The cat had died the night of the first freeze in Minnesota, so the ground was really hard. The second problem was that our backyard is full of trees, so therefore the underground part of our yard is full of tree roots. The third complication was that it was pitch dark. So here we are, holding a dead cat in a garbage bag, trying to dig through frozen, root filled ground in the dark. As you might imagine, this did not go well.
After about 20 minutes of getting consistently stymied by roots, hard ground, and the occasional rogue giant stone, we had dug out about 10 inches of earth. You couldn't even bury a gerbil in our hole. (Get it, bury a gerbil in our hole.) I looked at my wife, with sweat dripping off me, and said,
Me: This is fuckin' impossible, maybe we can just throw her in the garbage.
Her: No way!!!
But it seemed as though she was considering this, because eventually we went inside and began googling things like, "What to do with a dead cat." While she was googling I was secretly plotting out my sneakiest route down to the park by our house which had a garbage. I figured I'd sneak over there, fling the cat in the garbage, and run off, Mission Impossible style.
Eventually we found out that it was illegal to throw your dead cat away at the park garbage so we were kind of stuck, and I had to go back out to my tiny hole. The sun had started to come up by then so it was easier to see and the ground was not as frozen, and mercifully, after a lot of swearing, I managed to dig a big enough hole to fit a cat and a garbage bag, and nobody with a broken leg saw me, Rear Window style, and thought I was trying to bury my wife.
Things appeared to be back to normal, and luckily I must have buried the cat deep enough so dog noses can't smell her and dig her up (that would be traumatic).
Before I left the house that morning, I saw that my wife had left a Facebook post that said, "Good-bye to our dear sweet Mitzah kitty." (Side note: The cat's name was Mitzah. No one has any idea why, and the wife ain't talking. I always figured she had some boyfriend named "Bobby Mitzah" or something that she didn't want me to know about.) Anyway, she had posted this nice, semi-eulogy on Facebook, and I couldn't help but notice that 6 inches above in the Google toolbar search engine was the phrase "legality of throwing a dead animal in the trash." Good gravy. Circle of life indeed.
When animals figure out they're going to die, they do whatever possible to avoid you, because they just want to go lie down and die, and it's hard to go lie down and die when little kids are dragging you around, and the dog thinks you're a squeaky toy.
Anyway, she initially decided to lay in the litter box and die, which seemed a little too unceremonious for my wife. After all, she had gotten the cat in high school, and the cat had become a welcome presence in the family. So my wife made up a shoebox with a towel in it, and the cat layed in there and died overnight.
After some tears were shed that early morning, we decided it would better to bury the cat before the kids woke up, instead of them seeing a dead cat laying in a shoebox. So we plopped the cat in a garbage bag, and set out by the light of the moon to dig a cat grave.
The first thing I noticed was that it was way colder than I had expected. The cat had died the night of the first freeze in Minnesota, so the ground was really hard. The second problem was that our backyard is full of trees, so therefore the underground part of our yard is full of tree roots. The third complication was that it was pitch dark. So here we are, holding a dead cat in a garbage bag, trying to dig through frozen, root filled ground in the dark. As you might imagine, this did not go well.
After about 20 minutes of getting consistently stymied by roots, hard ground, and the occasional rogue giant stone, we had dug out about 10 inches of earth. You couldn't even bury a gerbil in our hole. (Get it, bury a gerbil in our hole.) I looked at my wife, with sweat dripping off me, and said,
Me: This is fuckin' impossible, maybe we can just throw her in the garbage.
Her: No way!!!
But it seemed as though she was considering this, because eventually we went inside and began googling things like, "What to do with a dead cat." While she was googling I was secretly plotting out my sneakiest route down to the park by our house which had a garbage. I figured I'd sneak over there, fling the cat in the garbage, and run off, Mission Impossible style.
Eventually we found out that it was illegal to throw your dead cat away at the park garbage so we were kind of stuck, and I had to go back out to my tiny hole. The sun had started to come up by then so it was easier to see and the ground was not as frozen, and mercifully, after a lot of swearing, I managed to dig a big enough hole to fit a cat and a garbage bag, and nobody with a broken leg saw me, Rear Window style, and thought I was trying to bury my wife.
Things appeared to be back to normal, and luckily I must have buried the cat deep enough so dog noses can't smell her and dig her up (that would be traumatic).
Before I left the house that morning, I saw that my wife had left a Facebook post that said, "Good-bye to our dear sweet Mitzah kitty." (Side note: The cat's name was Mitzah. No one has any idea why, and the wife ain't talking. I always figured she had some boyfriend named "Bobby Mitzah" or something that she didn't want me to know about.) Anyway, she had posted this nice, semi-eulogy on Facebook, and I couldn't help but notice that 6 inches above in the Google toolbar search engine was the phrase "legality of throwing a dead animal in the trash." Good gravy. Circle of life indeed.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Mike Vick and Other Animal Cruelty Related Questions.
I read the other day that Michael Vick signed a contract extension for $100 Million. Of course, not all of that money is guaranteed, but it is a substantial raise from the 13 cents an hour he got washing pots, or whatever he did while he was in the joint less than 3 years ago.
I also enjoy this because I know it makes a lot of people furious. As we know, Michael Vick pled guilty to running an interstate dog fighting operation, served 21 months in Federal Prison, filed bankruptcy, got released from prison, got another job in the NFL, and did well enough to merit a $100 million contract extension, and some people refuse to forgive him, and wish a painful death on him, and other really mature things.
I do not in any way condone what Vick did, fighting dogs is an awful thing to do, regardless of how much credence you give the socio-economic argument that dog fighting is more prevalent in lower income areas of the South, and Vick was just engaging in something he had grown up around. He should have known better.
I wonder though, if people would have still been as upset if Vick had been fighting rats. Or tarantulas. Rats and Tarantulas are pets too. Do you think people would have been so furious if we had learned than Mike Vick went out back and electrocuted a tarantula? What if he was really into snake fighting, and a snake did poorly, so he went out back (Side note: All the really repugnant things I read about that happened to the dogs there happened "out back") and drowned a snake. Snakes are pets.
What if he was fighting gerbils, and his gerbil lost, so he shoved the gerbil up his butt? Would PETA have even gotten involved?? A gerbil is a pet. What if he just took two ant farms and smashed them together? BLAM!! Ant fighting. Dead ants everywhere. What would the ASPCA's response have been? Ants are sort of pets.
We apparently draw a line somewhere between dog fighting (felony) and throwing your digital pet in the river because he purrs too loud in the middle of the night and wakes you up (stupid). I just don't know where that line is.
I also enjoy this because I know it makes a lot of people furious. As we know, Michael Vick pled guilty to running an interstate dog fighting operation, served 21 months in Federal Prison, filed bankruptcy, got released from prison, got another job in the NFL, and did well enough to merit a $100 million contract extension, and some people refuse to forgive him, and wish a painful death on him, and other really mature things.
I do not in any way condone what Vick did, fighting dogs is an awful thing to do, regardless of how much credence you give the socio-economic argument that dog fighting is more prevalent in lower income areas of the South, and Vick was just engaging in something he had grown up around. He should have known better.
I wonder though, if people would have still been as upset if Vick had been fighting rats. Or tarantulas. Rats and Tarantulas are pets too. Do you think people would have been so furious if we had learned than Mike Vick went out back and electrocuted a tarantula? What if he was really into snake fighting, and a snake did poorly, so he went out back (Side note: All the really repugnant things I read about that happened to the dogs there happened "out back") and drowned a snake. Snakes are pets.
What if he was fighting gerbils, and his gerbil lost, so he shoved the gerbil up his butt? Would PETA have even gotten involved?? A gerbil is a pet. What if he just took two ant farms and smashed them together? BLAM!! Ant fighting. Dead ants everywhere. What would the ASPCA's response have been? Ants are sort of pets.
We apparently draw a line somewhere between dog fighting (felony) and throwing your digital pet in the river because he purrs too loud in the middle of the night and wakes you up (stupid). I just don't know where that line is.
Monday, August 15, 2011
The Disturbing Encounter with Pedro Homelessman.
I've had the opportunity to play a large portion of baseball games at Parade Stadium for the last 15 years. Parade Stadium is located right outside of downtown Minneapolis, directly next to a large consortium of highway underpasses. Minneapolis contains a lot of strange people. Highway underpasses, as we know, seem to be a place where the homeless, destitute, insane people congregate. Being that Parade stadium is a stones throw away from both of these places, the parking lot around 9:00 pm tends to become fertile ground for these sorts of interesting people to mill about, which means that throughout the years we've encountered some strange things like
-A legless man screaming incoherently about something. I don't know what it was he was screaming about because he was incoherent.
-A man who carried his own chair around. I believe the chair was smeared in poop, because it smelled awful. Maybe it was the man...
-A methed out guy who got really excited when we gave him a baseball, so he snuck into the outfield after the game and played catch with himself. Like, he would throw the ball 100 feet in one direction, then sprint over to it, and then throw it 100 feet in the other direction. He did this even after the lights were shut off. Dark, solitary catch on meth is difficult.
The strangest thing I've ever encountered however, is what will forever be remembered as "The Pedro Homelessman Incident." This began innocently enough. We had just sat down after a game and were enjoying a few beverages as we tend to do after most games, when we noticed a couple of motley looking people shuffling around the lot. One of them had a giant plastic sack filled with pop and beer cans. He looked a little bit like Homeless Santa Claus.
This didn't raise any concerns, because, like I've said, there are a lot of dudes like this in the vicinity and if they are finding cans to recycle to buy a little food or booze or whatever, more power to them. Far be it for me to say that if was in their position, I wouldn't be doing the exact same thing.
Everything changed though when they decided to come over and bother us. Both of them were obviously homeless, and not recently homeless either, as their clothes were tattered and dirty and fit poorly. Both of them were of Hispanic descent and spoke little English, and both of them reeked horribly of B.O. and beer
Pedro: blblblblblblblblbblblbqkdwqhddhwubn cans?
Us: Um, you can't have these cans yet, we need to drink the beer inside them first.
Pedro's Buddy: bqkbqofnweofinweifwefwiownmfwifn cans????
Us: You can definitely have the cans fellas, but they need to be empty. We need to drink the beer in them first. Then you can have them.
Pedro (emphatically): asoffnwofnwenowefnfnowifnownweonn CANS!!!!
Us: Dudes, get out of here, you guys smell like a giant taint.
Instead of retreating back, or going to look for other cans in the interim, they just started hovering closer to us, wanting to hang out or something. Considering that:
a.) They spoke no English
b.) They smelled awful
c.) They were remarkably, heroically intoxicated
d.) They were homeless and we probably didn't have a lot in common
It became very uncomfortable very fast. Some teammates starting openly mocking them, one teammate stole their large sack of cans and ran off, and others completely ignored them. When Pedro's buddy came over and practically sat in my lap to try to give me explicit directions (in Drunken Spanish) how to correctly do the scorebook, I got up and took a walk. I went over to a nearby pine tree and pretended to take a pee, but really I was just preparing my immune system for battle since a homeless man had layed on me.
After I had collected my wits, and prepared my immune system, I turned around to head back to the circle of teammates + homeless people. What I saw did not please me. Pedro Homelessman.... was sitting.... in my chair! My initial thought was "I'm gonna have to burn that fucking chair." I walked over to him. He was busy excitedly spewing gibberish at no one in particular. He paid no attention to me.
Me: Dude?
Me: Uh vato?
Me: Compadre?
Me: Esse?
He still paid no attention to me. I heard from the peanut gallery, "Jensen, you're gonna get fined a dollar if you don't get that fuckin' dude out of your chair!" So I shook him a little bit by the shoulder. It was like touching a really dirty dog. He looked at me. I said "Up!" He looked pissed, but eventually got out of my chair.
By this time, everybody had grown tired of the antics of these two guys, and were beginning to yell at them to go away. Pedro's buddy came over to me again. He had apparently learned better English in 5 minutes because he pointed over to Pedro and said, "He gotta gun. He keeeeel white people talkin' sheeeeeet!" I told him to go stink somewhere else.
As I said that I looked up because Pedro Homelessman was causing a big ruckus. Then the awful thing happened. Pedro yelled something like "ABLAHBABABABABA" and then lifted up his shirt. On his stomach was an abomination so unnatural that it must have been stuck on by Satan himself. It was red and big and festering and pulsating. It looked like an angry cow udder except bigger and more evil. The image of it is forever seared into my brain. I honestly do not know what it was. Maybe I don't want to know. Apparently this living wound thing had a similar effect on everybody else because you heard things like:
"Oh Dear Jesus, what is THAT??!!"
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
" Holy shit, put your shirt down!!"
After that, gently persuading them to be on their way was replaced by full blown screaming for them to "get the fuck out of here and never come back." This message apparently did not need subtitles as Pedro and his buddy took off for under the bridge in a big hurry. The rest of us were left pondering what in the name of Sweet Baby Jesus we had just seen. They never got our cans either.
-A legless man screaming incoherently about something. I don't know what it was he was screaming about because he was incoherent.
-A man who carried his own chair around. I believe the chair was smeared in poop, because it smelled awful. Maybe it was the man...
-A methed out guy who got really excited when we gave him a baseball, so he snuck into the outfield after the game and played catch with himself. Like, he would throw the ball 100 feet in one direction, then sprint over to it, and then throw it 100 feet in the other direction. He did this even after the lights were shut off. Dark, solitary catch on meth is difficult.
The strangest thing I've ever encountered however, is what will forever be remembered as "The Pedro Homelessman Incident." This began innocently enough. We had just sat down after a game and were enjoying a few beverages as we tend to do after most games, when we noticed a couple of motley looking people shuffling around the lot. One of them had a giant plastic sack filled with pop and beer cans. He looked a little bit like Homeless Santa Claus.
This didn't raise any concerns, because, like I've said, there are a lot of dudes like this in the vicinity and if they are finding cans to recycle to buy a little food or booze or whatever, more power to them. Far be it for me to say that if was in their position, I wouldn't be doing the exact same thing.
Everything changed though when they decided to come over and bother us. Both of them were obviously homeless, and not recently homeless either, as their clothes were tattered and dirty and fit poorly. Both of them were of Hispanic descent and spoke little English, and both of them reeked horribly of B.O. and beer
Pedro: blblblblblblblblbblblbqkdwqhddhwubn cans?
Us: Um, you can't have these cans yet, we need to drink the beer inside them first.
Pedro's Buddy: bqkbqofnweofinweifwefwiownmfwifn cans????
Us: You can definitely have the cans fellas, but they need to be empty. We need to drink the beer in them first. Then you can have them.
Pedro (emphatically): asoffnwofnwenowefnfnowifnownweonn CANS!!!!
Us: Dudes, get out of here, you guys smell like a giant taint.
Instead of retreating back, or going to look for other cans in the interim, they just started hovering closer to us, wanting to hang out or something. Considering that:
a.) They spoke no English
b.) They smelled awful
c.) They were remarkably, heroically intoxicated
d.) They were homeless and we probably didn't have a lot in common
It became very uncomfortable very fast. Some teammates starting openly mocking them, one teammate stole their large sack of cans and ran off, and others completely ignored them. When Pedro's buddy came over and practically sat in my lap to try to give me explicit directions (in Drunken Spanish) how to correctly do the scorebook, I got up and took a walk. I went over to a nearby pine tree and pretended to take a pee, but really I was just preparing my immune system for battle since a homeless man had layed on me.
After I had collected my wits, and prepared my immune system, I turned around to head back to the circle of teammates + homeless people. What I saw did not please me. Pedro Homelessman.... was sitting.... in my chair! My initial thought was "I'm gonna have to burn that fucking chair." I walked over to him. He was busy excitedly spewing gibberish at no one in particular. He paid no attention to me.
Me: Dude?
Me: Uh vato?
Me: Compadre?
Me: Esse?
He still paid no attention to me. I heard from the peanut gallery, "Jensen, you're gonna get fined a dollar if you don't get that fuckin' dude out of your chair!" So I shook him a little bit by the shoulder. It was like touching a really dirty dog. He looked at me. I said "Up!" He looked pissed, but eventually got out of my chair.
By this time, everybody had grown tired of the antics of these two guys, and were beginning to yell at them to go away. Pedro's buddy came over to me again. He had apparently learned better English in 5 minutes because he pointed over to Pedro and said, "He gotta gun. He keeeeel white people talkin' sheeeeeet!" I told him to go stink somewhere else.
As I said that I looked up because Pedro Homelessman was causing a big ruckus. Then the awful thing happened. Pedro yelled something like "ABLAHBABABABABA" and then lifted up his shirt. On his stomach was an abomination so unnatural that it must have been stuck on by Satan himself. It was red and big and festering and pulsating. It looked like an angry cow udder except bigger and more evil. The image of it is forever seared into my brain. I honestly do not know what it was. Maybe I don't want to know. Apparently this living wound thing had a similar effect on everybody else because you heard things like:
"Oh Dear Jesus, what is THAT??!!"
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
" Holy shit, put your shirt down!!"
After that, gently persuading them to be on their way was replaced by full blown screaming for them to "get the fuck out of here and never come back." This message apparently did not need subtitles as Pedro and his buddy took off for under the bridge in a big hurry. The rest of us were left pondering what in the name of Sweet Baby Jesus we had just seen. They never got our cans either.
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