The Most Annoying Thing

Here's something that I really might hate more than anything in the world. More than Cancer, War, Heart Attacks, Osama Bin Laden, Dog the Bounty Hunter, The Loch Ness Monster, Hornets, and expired food combined. This something is a horrible invention called Heelys. Heelys, for those who don't know, are shoes that little kids wear with wheels in the back of them so they can "skate" around SuperTarget and the mall and irritate the shit out of me. I absolutely detest them. It's always some unfortunate looking little boy wearing them too. You know, some obnoxious, overweight 6 year old, with a Lightning McQueen hoodie, who's eyes aren't quite in the right spot, or who has a pig nose so you can see up to his brain even when he's staring at the ground, and he's shreiking for no good reason as he flies by me, and his mom is 30 feet behind both of us and she has a shopping cart filled with Coke and Snickers bars, and she's yelling at him to stop but she can't keep up because her ass is the size of a Honda Element so she just keeps yelling but he can't stop, won't stop, because he's all hopped up on Coke and Snickers bars.

I guess my beef is not even with Heelys per se, although I still think they're on par with shoes that light up when you take a step, like every kid is Michael Jackson in a "Billie Jean" video. It probably is pretty fun if you're outside. It's the stupid parents who don't remind their children explicitly, "Don't skate around at SuperTarget. It's crowded in there and you're bound to run into somebody, or at the very least annoy that guy with the big head up there. If you do skate around, I'm taking your shoes and you can't have gummy ANYTHING's for a week." I've found that last sentence to be a particularly effective deterrent for my children.

Here's something I don't really like to admit. When I see that kid zoom by me, I say a little prayer that he will smash into something. Not anything heavy, mind you. I don't want him to skate into the furniture section and have a china hutch fall on him. Just something little that will embarrass his mother, like a big bin of marbles with the cover ajar, or an old lady examining peaches. Break an octogenarian's hip, and I think even the laziest mother would have to agree to some consequences.

Just like Ray Finkle wanted "Laces out", I think the rule of thumb at the store should be "Wheels in."

I need a BOOST!!

Here's a big difference between working in a small company and working in a big company. A big company feels the need to have these morale boosting activities periodically. Theoretically, they are supposed to make employees feel that work is fun and that the company cares about you. Practically, they are hoping that it makes you steal less staplers and post it notes, and also that if you become disgruntled you'll just kill your family, instead of killing a bunch of co-workers, and tarnishing the companies' reputation.
When I used to work at a large company, we had all sorts of things like this. Pizza parties and games and prizes and potlucks (Side note: If you hate making food for a potluck, volunteer to bring the silverware, and then steal a bunch of plastic forks from the kitchen). On Halloween we had pumpkin carving contests. Me and a couple other people spent a lot of time carving this bad ass monster/kitty looking thing. Some others did stuff even better than that. You know what won 1st prize? Some donkey butt carved the companies' stock ticker symbol into a pumpkin. It probably took about 5 minutes. Morale boosting indeed! So I found a bunch of pumpkin guts from a garbage and put them in the sink. I suppose I was just punishing the janitors, but my point was made.
The only positive to come from these activities was that one day we were participating in something called "Frozen Cornish Game Hen Bowling." The object was to knock down bottles with a frozen carcass. But when the announcement came over the P.A. system, it sounded like "Frozen Cornish Gay Men Bowling." Now this sounded like a fairly risque activity and I wondered how we were going to avoid lawsuits from all the frozen gay men, and the gay men in the office, they were all a little bit nervous, because none of them were 100% certain that they were not Cornish. I mean really, is ANYBODY 100% certain that they aren't Cornish? I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable saying that in a court of law.
So anyway, I work in a small company, and my idea of a morale boosting activity is to wear my gym clothes to the office. Better incentive for me. I sure do hope I'm not Cornish.

Strippers are overrated

Why is it that people are so fanatical when it comes to strippers? I understand that they are naked, which is always a positive, but personally, they make me unconfortable. I had an old buddy call me up last week and say "Hey, I'm turning 33, we're getting a bunch of strippers over here to celebrate. You should come, they're gonna be naked. STRIPPERS DUDE!!!" Now, I understand that some birthdays hold more significance than others, but what's so special about 33 that requires naked chicks? The double numbers? Did you get strippers when you were 11 too?
Here's the most important thing though. Strippers don't like you. At all. Matter of fact, they're probably repulsed by you. Even if you have a 20 inch weiner and no pants. I was at a bachelor party once and I overheard the strippers making fun of everybody during their break. "Ew, he's fat" "Look at that guy's hair" "His head is too big" "Ugh, I bet that guy's balls smell really bad" etc...
Look at their routine if you believe their having a good time.
1.) They enter your house packed together like saltines and stare around nervously for a while.
2.) They rush over and do shots of whatever you have; whiskey, J.D., Malibu, turpentine, rubbing alcohol. This is so they can get naked near you without crying
3.) They go in a room for a loooonnnnnggg time. Everybody gets grumpy and starts to wonder if they all pulled an Andy Dufresne and escaped out a hole in the house.
4.) They finally pop out and get naked. They are new to stripping and kinda drunk so it is awkward. One of them falls over trying to get her day-glo butthuggers off around her giant high heels. (Side note: What is sexy about high heels? They scare me. They look pointy and sharp, like they could pierce human skin. Getting gored is not a turn on for me.)
5.) They grind on people. The music is loud, the people are loud, and it smells like cigarettes and fruit. Somebody inevitably tries to pay a stripper for sex. He is unsuccesful, and extremely relieved.
6.) They take a break, go do more shots, and make fun of all the people there. Someone comes up and asks a stupid, non-nudity related question like "So, any of you girls like Boston Legal?" or "So, anybody here from East Bethel?" They mock him.
7.) Somebody gets pissed because he thinks the strippers stole the poker buy-in money. Chaos ensues.
8.) The strippers are hustled away by that "handler" guy who shows up to make sure there isn't any casual raping by the patrons.
Sounds like a fun night for those girls huh? I don't understand the allure

Why is this painful??

You know what I can’t understand? Why does it hurt so much to get something in your penis hole? I’m not talking about anything perverted here. (Side note: One time I was reading my dad’s old Penthouse Letters, and I read about a guy and a girl, and the girl, like, stuck her nipple in the guy’s weiner hole or something, and the guy was like "YEAH!!" and I thought to myself "whatever" even though I was 10 and still believed that girls got "boner vaginas" because my friend Will told me he saw one at Meadowbrook.)
Anyhow, I’m getting off track here, but I just mean some little thing gets in there, usually it’s a little piece of string from the inside of your pants and it snakes its way into your hole. Wow that hurts! Why does that hurt so badly? Every time I go to the doctor I am tempted to ask but I always chicken out at the end because I’m afraid he’ll think I’m weird. Yes, I try to maintain a certain degree of professionialism when I’m getting my prostate checked.
Anyhow, the point is that it hurts too much for what’s going on there and it makes me mad. And Penthouse Letters is not always 100% truth.

My current concerns

Here are my top five concerns of the week so far:
1.) My father in law recently fixed our bathroom fan. You know, its the helpful little gizmo that sucks away your poop smell and clears off your mirror after you shower so you can more easily shave or pop your whiteheads. But the grate that fits over it wouldn’t go back on so now there’s a gaping hole in the bathroom ceiling. So when you turn on the fan it sucks away your poop smell, but crud also shoots out of the hole. So far it’s only been bits of old insulation, but I’m concerned that maybe there’s a few dead bats or rats or cats up there and the last thing I need is for old, decomposed corpses to come flying out at me when I’m wizzing, or popping my whiteheads.
2.) We like to go hiking with the kids whenever it’s nice enough and whenever we wind up at a new park to hike I’m always concerned that it’s going to be one of those "gay sex" parks that they advertise on Craigslist. It happened at a park right by my house last summer, the cops set up a sting and busted a bunch of dudes engaging in manly love right there in the park, so I know my concerns are not unfounded. I have nothing against gay sex per se, but when you’re walking along, enjoying nature with your kids, I would imagine it might be somewhat unsettling to see. And how on earth to explain:
Kid: Daddy, what are those two boys doing?
Me: NOTHING!! Look at the ground. Look at those sticks. Look at the tree.
3.) My dog has been having some serious sleep-barking episodes lately. Usually it’s pretty cute. He makes little whimpers, and moves his feet around like he’s barking and chasing something. Lately it’s been full out barks and he’s growling and stuff. I don’t know if this is a good dream or a bad dream, but I’m concerned that he’s going to bite my neck off while I’m asleep. Think of how long it can take to roust some people after they’ve been dreaming, and then think of how much stupider dogs are. It could take him an hour to actually wake up and by then he’s bitten your neck off and I’m dead at the hands of an Aussie Shepherd which would make for a very embarrassing obituary which brings me to 4.
4.) I’m concerned that the ASPCA has gotten us worried about the wrong stuff when it comes to this dog fighting business. I read a story about a 70 year old woman who was bitten by a pit bull after she tried to rescue her dead pomeranian from it’s mouth. That’s the real problem. This whole thing about how awful dog fighting is, and how Mike Vick is akin to Ted Bundy is just a little bit overstated. People get all emotional about dog fighting because they imagine old Max, their lovable golden retriever, having to fight to the death, and since Max is a member of the family, they get pissed at Mike Vick. These dogs aren’t the same and I don’t care what anybody says. I had to beat the shit out of a pit bull 2 years ago to get him to stop eating my dog and snarling at my 1 year old daughter and infant son who were strapped in a stroller. If it would have just been my wife, she would have been screwed. I don’t even want to think what might have happened. That’s the real issue. You have these really strong, ultra aggressive dogs out there in everybody’s neighborhood and they aren’t busy fighting 24 hours a day. Most of the time they’re chained to a tree, or a garage, and they get loose all the time and run through fences to go look for things to bite. That’s why I think the ASPCA is clouding the real issue. Dog fighting is probably really nasty, but frankly, I don’t care if a million dogs die. I don’t care if another dog kills them, or if they’re hung, or drowned, or electrocuted. I care that they are running amok through my neighborhood and they might just attack my family.
OK that was too serious for me.

Buying condoms

So I’m at the store not so long ago, in the checkout line, when I notice that the kid behind me has a little basket filled with about 500 condoms. I am amazed. I look at him incredulously and say "Holy Christ, what are you going to do, hump the entire high school??" He is a little perplexed and explains to me that he is a counselor at a planned parenthood center in South Minneapolis and that these will be passed out in an attempt to generate a message of safe sex throughout the younger community. I am slightly embarrassed, but, in my defense, he looks younger than me, so he looks like a high school kid. End of story.
It got me thinking how thankful I am to not have to buy condoms anymore. It was always the most awkward situation for me, because the checkout ladies were always about 65 and they always gave looked like they wanted to slap me for buying them. I had two methods to counter the angry old ladies.
1.) Buy a whole bunch of other stuff too as an act of subterfuge in an attempt to cover my tracks. A candy bar, a Sports Illustrated, soap, hair spray, a wiffle bat, a Jet Magazine, butter, salsa from the clearance section, a hard plastic dinosaur, a harmonica, candy necklaces, cat milk, Jolt Cola, a bird whistle, and condoms. Then heave it all up on the counter and act natural. This was sometimes effective but very expensive. This led me to option 2.....
2.) Steal condoms. This was very risky because if you get caught stealing condoms you’re basically a sex offender for life. I think you have to walk around and introduce yourself to the neighborhood when you move in like The Jesus in Big Lebowski.
I chose option 3. Have kids.

Mister Jensen goes to Chuck E Cheese

So yesterday we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese. One of the sadder things about growing up is that 20 years ago Chuck E Cheese was the end all be all of my existance. I needed nothing but to be inside to realize complete and utter serenity. I was self actualized in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. (Side note: Why hasn’t that nerdy piece of useless info from high school filtered out of my brain yet?)
I remember being 10 and at Chuck E Cheese. I met a girl named Wendy Lou. We shared a coke, I gave her some tokens, and then she frenched me in the balls. You know, the big pit of balls that people are always worried has syringes at the bottom? She was something else....
Brian: I like Ms Pac Man.
Wendy Lou: Me too, that was fun! What should we do now?
Brian: French me in the balls!!
OK, that didn’t actually happen to me. But a friend of mine..... The point here is Chuck E Cheese was like some perfect utopia to me. I could have lived there forever. Now I see it as a cynical adult and what I see is a bunch of crazy kids running around playing games, shrieking like soon to be martyred terrorists, and not eating their pizza. And running into each other...... a lot. They’re like bumper cars. That’s what I don’t like about being old, the change of perspective. Oh well. I stole a bunch of skee ball tickets. Life goes on.......

Kid Worries

As a parent, I feel I am possibly a little too worried about the inherent dangers my children face on a day-to-day basis. Part of me wants to just give them a jar of pennies and a comb and pray like hell that they make it to 18, but the majority of me worries too much. I’ve become my mother (without the propensity for eating entire sticks of butter in one sitting.) I worry about the realistic dangers, like them being stolen by a pack of dingos, or them driving the car without checking the "check engine" light when it’s on, but I also have some unfounded concerns
-Problem-When my daughter was 6 months old she used to flap her right arm really, really hard for no good reason
Concern: That she has a palsy arm or some disease that makes her little arm flap so violently.
Diagnosis: She liked to flap her arm. Then, it became boring so she stopped.
Problem: My son ran as fast as he could but only moved one arm and kept the other one tucked by his belly
Concern: My kids all have horrible, mysterious, incurable arm diseases.
Diagnosis: Extremely poor running form. Fixed himself
Problem: Son takes diaper off, throws it up in the air, runs around happily naked.
Concern: Super Gay!
Diagnosis: Super goofy.
Problem: Daughter bites off small chunks of her crib.
Concern: Pica, mental instability, Human Beaver Disease, lowered crib resale value.
Diagnosis: Boredom from mean parents leaving her in there too long.
Problem: Daughter has reddish indented welts on her arm.
Concern: Measles, small pox, demonic possession, wood ticks.
Diagnosis: Brother bites.
Whew!! That was close. Time to move to my children’s next confounding malady which is probably scheduled for immediately.

I cleaned the fridge

I cleaned out my fridge and freezer for the first time in many moons on friday. This was done in an attempt to remove all of the extremely frightening old expired food from anywhere near me. What I found is that if you don't clean your fridge often, bizarre things will accumulate. The following are the top 5 strangest things found while cleaning the fridge and freezer.
5.) Numerous frozen bags of black beans- This is my wife's doing. She has a serious infatuation with freezing lots of vegetables in preparation for a plague of locusts o'er the land devouring all of our crops, especially bean crops.
4.) Cat Milk- Who could even think of something like this? Cats have special milk because they are apparently lactose intolerant even though in every cartoon I've ever seen in my life their favorite foods are mice and milk. Cartoons have deceived me again. Similarly, if you drop an anvil off a cliff onto someone's head, they always die, no matter how many times you do it. So we fed our cat some cat milk and she still puked all over the place. (Side note: Cats are very small so if they puke up cat milk you can use them as a scrubber and they can't do much about it.)
3.) Pickled Okra- One time I was channeling Colonel Sanders or something and decided I couldn't go wrong with this little Southern delicacy. I figured, since I moved south of the Minnesota River, I already should probably have a Confederate flag hanging in my front yard, and this would be the next logical step. YEEHAW!!! I was wrong. How could something pickled not taste like a pickle? They tasted like pickles dipped in a port-a-potty left out in the sun for a few days. Yes I said "they." I ate more than one. The reason. I'm not so smart.
2.) A book- Behind the eggs, where most books are found. It was a Mickey Mouse board book, probably courtesy of one of the children. Although, one time I found a sandwich under my daughter's bed. I wonder if it was those two things that had switched spaces, perhaps another little prank that inanimate objects like to play on me.
1.) ?????- Honestly, I do not know what this was. It was hard and black and in a bag in the freezer. It glistened a little. It smelled like the freezer. It was square. I was afraid if I poked it it might sprout wings and fly away. If I was 12 I would have probably made my sister lick it and then threw it off the walk bridge. But since I am quite mature for my age, I simply put it in a Cub Foods bag and chased the dog around with it.

Paging Mr Jenstong

I just got a call from a telemarketer, actually he wasn't so much a telemarketer as he was a representative of a free, online IT "magazine" that goes directly into my junk mail every day conducting a survey on IT usage at our office. He may well have the world's most pointless job. There are many jobs that are not very essential, but this may be the alpha. Think about it.
Guy who knock large rocks off train tracks so the train won't derail
Guy who tightens bolts on signs
Paperweight
Fecal analyst
Cat Whisperer
Mongolian Naked Fighter
None of these jobs can be as unimportant as this caller's job. The survey starts poorly:
Guy: So, your name is Brian Jenstong?
Brian: Uh, Jensen
Guy: And you're located in Plymouth, Maine
Brian: Minnesota, not Maine.
Guy: Um hmm, and your company's name is (something unintelligible, followed by strange farting and chewing noises)
Brian: Close enough.
OK, it's taken me about 15 seconds to realize I am dealing with somebody that, at best, is someone I wouldn't trust to feed my pets correctly. He has a weird, effeminate accent and it also sounds like he has a piece of construction paper in his mouth. I want this survey to end now. It does not end.
Guy: What would you say is your favorite part about our magazine?
Brian (thinking quickly): Um, the swimsuit edition?
No pause or laughter or anything. Sharp as a balloon, this one.
Guy: And what would you say XYZ magazine needs to improve on?
Brian: I think it's phone surveys should be longer.
Again, nothing. After 7 minutes (I watched my clock) of asking me whether I use 80 zillion various IT devices, none of which I have ever heard of, he asks me how much the company spends on technology a year. He starts with "Over 5 million" and I keep rejecting him until he gets down to "Less than 10,000." I am not paying attention so I say no to that answer too. He is perplexed.
Guy: Um, that's the last choice.
Brian: We spend less than that.
Guy: You spend less than "Less than 10,000?"
Brian: Oh yeah!
Guy: Uhhhhhh....
Brian: Way less.
After a moment of unconfortable silence and then another moment of shifting the construction paper around, he accepted my answer and promised me a free something for my cooperation (I forget what the free thing was). Then he said "That's it for what time I need from us today," and hung up. What?? I just hope my free thing is something awesome, like surround sound speakers or something. It probably won't be though. Stupid magazine!

Old Food

Here's a strange little quirk of mine. I am deathly afraid of eating food that is past it's expiration date. I'll eat poison if it's in a buffet and I'll eat poop if it's on a dollar menu, but I'd have to make sure the poop and poison were fresh beforehand. I am especially weary of anything in the refrigerator door because usually that's where the condiments and dressings are kept and you're fucked if you pour expired dressing over something. You just have to throw that something right in the garbage. You can't try to wash off the old dressing because no matter how hard you try, there will still be old, gross, expired molecules over all over your food. Yuck!! I have a friend who always covers his beer with his hand whenever anybody farts because he is concerned about "shit molecules" getting inside his beer. I suppose the two fears are similar.
But are my fears unfounded? I don't think so. One time I drank some milk that was so old it had chunks in it. Needless to say, I barfed soon after. One time I bought a case of Busch Light and I forgot about it and left it in the trunk of my car all summer. When I went back to school I gave it to a buddy of mine and he drank it all. He then went on to have a subpar baseball season. Coincedence?? I think not.
Update: My dad just made and ate a quesadilla with softshell taco shells whose expiration date was August 27. What was he thinking? He had to move some pickles and the baking soda to get to them. He just went home sick. The timing is incredible

The Moron in Me

I am a moron. I've come to realize that and, over the years, I've come to accept and even embrace it because although being a moron is not a great thing, I'm a moron in different ways than most people are morons. I'm an original moron, an OM. Snoop Dogg would be jealous...
For instance, I have ruined two different electronic possessions of mine by accidentally dropping them into a glass of water. Ruining one thing by dropping it in a glass of water can maybe be played off as bad luck. Ruining two things = moron. About two years ago I dropped a remote in a glass of water. I didn't notice for about an hour because I was watching Look Who's Talking Too. Bruce Willis as a talking baby?? You can't make that stuff up. Then last saturday I dropped my cell phone into a glass of water. Now it only sort of works. I can't dial a 9 and pushing the 4 makes an entire phone number appear. The volume is stuck at the lowest setting and periodically the phone makes the "you have a message" noise at me for no comprehensible reason. It's like my phone has Down Syndrome. I expect it to shout "FRANKS AND BEANS" at me soon. So I'm going to take it to the phone store and pretend I have no idea how it contracted Down Syndrome
Store Employee: What's wrong with your phone?
Brian: I dunno. Extra chromosome?
This probably will not work. Being a moron is hard.

My dog's 1 redeeming quality

My dog isn't really good for much. He doesn't fetch, or do any neat tricks, or eat burglars or anything like that. He barks a lot for no good reason, he eats cat turds, and occasionally he pees on people at the Dog Park. I am very impressed however, with how good he is at sniffing things. The other night he sprinted out of the bedroom, barking angrily in the pitch dark. This is a regular occurance so usually I just go "Shut up, you stupid brown idiot!!" and huck a shoe in his general direction. This time he just kept barking though, so I went out into the living room to see if there was anything outside, just in case he was barking at 40 ninjas or something. So I look out the window, and a cat is outside wandering around the front yard. My dog may not be good for much, but anybody that can smell a cat through a house has my respect.

My questions

These are the top 10 things I don't understand right now:
1.) Why doesn't anyone ever get heart cancer?
2.) How is it possible that my two least favorite actresses, Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger, presented awards back to back at the Oscars last night?Someone was messing with me.
3.) If I have to poop, but instead I go to bed, why don't I still have to poop when I wake up? It always worries me a little and I check around the bed just to be safe.
4.) Why do I have a bruise on my palm?
5.) Why do deaf people all sound the same? It doesn't make sense. We learn to enunciate based on mimicking what we hear. If you can't hear, you have nothing to mimic. You just have to guess. So how do all deaf people guess to sound the same way?
6.) Why is it that all girls with really infectious laughs are at least 100 lbs overweight?
7.) Why can my dog eat an entire hamburger in about 4 seconds, but it takes him way longer than that to eat a graham cracker?
8.) Why does it sound like there are gerbils in my ventilation?
9.) Why do people get so mad if you take a dump at the Parade of Homes?
10.) Why don't cats like me?

Homeless People II

One fine day, I was walking through the skyway near the Target Center when I came upon a couple of homeless looking people. They were dressed shabbily, and the hair on their face was dirty, dreadlocked and full of mange. They looked like excellent candidates for my "Bum capture the flag" idea but they were also possibly crazy and bad smelling so I kept my distance.
The homeless man (we'll call him Lester) said to the homeless woman (we'll call her Fat Sue), "Watch Dis! I'm gonna flick off the camera." He meant one of the security cameras but instead he flipped a peace sign. He had confused his hand signals. He had also confused me. We passed each other and I heard him exclaim as he shuffled out of sight, "Watch Dis!! I'm gonna take out my dick!!" I did not turn around to see if he'd made good on that promise. I wonder where Lester and Fat Sue are now. Hopefully they both have their dicks in their pants, and I hope you do too!!

Nudity in the Locker Room

Whenever I go to the gym, I am always amazed at the vast amount of butt naked people wandering around the locker room blow drying their hair, weighing themselves, or shaving with their nutsacks resting on the sink. These people are very rarely even close to being in shape and they do things like stick a towel between their legs and ferociously dry their junk while casually discussing sub-prime mortgages with some other naked guy who is intently listening while checking out his butthole in the mirror. I don't understand this and what's more, my wife tells me that the women at the gym are very surreptitious about their nudity. She rarely even sees a nipple or butt crack. Again, I don't understand this difference. The female body is waaaayyy more tolerable and attractive than the male body. Even women agree about this. This is why when 2 girls start making out at the bar everybody is happy because their evening has been greatly enhanced. You hear things like "That was great!!" and "I sure am happy!" When 2 guys start making out, the crowd seems to disperse really fast and you hear things like "Let's get the hell out of here!" and "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!"
So I guess this naked guy thing is something I'll have to get used to because it seems to have become an epidemic. But here's two really good rules that all naked locker room people should adhere to:
1.) If your penis is shorter than your pubic hair, you should either trim your pubic hair, or grow a bigger penis. I get SPAM everyday that wants to help me do this. Apparently it's quite easy.
2.) Don't talk to me. Even if I'm on fire.

More things you never hear...

How many of you have ever started out a phone conversation with the question "Guess what just landed on my penis???" I had never asked that question, ever, until just now. Not even in college. I may be the only person to ask that in 2008. Amazing huh?
It was a moth that was on my penis by the way. I guess technically it wasn't on my penis, rather it was on the denim fabric over and around my penis. I don't know from where it had come. I hope it wasn't a Gypsy Moth. I would hate for my penis to get quarantined

Another reason to hate white people..

While I was getting gas the other day, I happened to spot a piece of paper sitting forlornly by the pump. What was on it was this absolutely garbage poem that must have fallen out of some Emo-kid's Jimmy Eat World lunchbox or something. After reading it I couldn't help hoping that the kid actually went home and killed himself. It wasn't just that the prose was filled with typos and had too many words underlined for significance, it was the contrived angst and the absolutely defeatist philosophy of the whole thing. It also had grape jelly on it. Some kid sadly sitting there eating PB&J, brushing his hair out of his eyes, pouring his soul out on paper, and then forgetting it at the Holiday. The thought makes me smile.
I need you, but you push me away. I try to touch you with my eyes but you're cold like the beef heart in my mom's freezer
I try to smell you with my liver but you run past and pop my soul with your fingers which are shaped like ghoulish tacks.
All is lost, my testicles become my pain in my pants of shame so I run.... away from my Townhouse and into a gas station of sadness.
My life's work is missing just like my life itself. Hope is for the foolish.
See, I can suck too!!

Brian and his adventures with a big ball

Here's a very stupid story. One time, I was jogging around my neighborhood as I am known to do. All of a sudden, I came upon a large rubber ball, kind of like the kind you would buy at Target in the big bin of balls for $2.99. It was really big, for a ball, almost as big as an exercise ball. Anyhow, I'm nearing the end of my run and I am very tired (230 lb men were not necessarily built for running) so in the hopes of distracting myself, I picked up the ball and began dribbling it down the street. A big dude running down the street dribbling a giant ball. And here's what happened. People slowed down.... to stare at me!!! I should have anticipated this but I was tired. I can't imagine what I would have thought if I saw me doing this but I'm guessing the phrase "short bus" would have crossed my mind. So I threw the ball into a yard full of Doberman Pinchers and they were scared of it. What a stupid story..

Cats are Jerks

My grandmother had about 400 cats in her lifetime. She made them "earn their names" and after they'd shown whatever distinguishing characteristic to make them a "puffball" versus a "brownie" she proceeded to treat them like equals. Equals, in this case, means she'd let them play with and subsequently eat a decomposing mouse and then 5 minutes later sit right near her face and pick food out of her mouth.
Since then I have come to the realization that not only are cats much dumber than we give them credit for, but they are also jerks. They don't really care about people, and all this sophistication that people think they exude is really just apathy towards whether you live or die. Cats are jerks
Brian: I might die.
Cat: Ok See ya then
Brian: Yeah, what would you do for food?
Cat: Somebody'd feed me
Brian: You're a jerk!!
Cat purrs while licking butter off butter dish, rendering butter useless
So since we've established that cats are good for nothing moochers that would be plotting and scheming ways to kill you and steal your salmon filets if they weren't too dumb, here's a neat little trick you can use to let them know who's in charge.
Get a headband, or a tiara, or a snap bracelet (although if you still have a snap bracelet, chances are you live in a garbage house). Stick it on a cat's back. That's it. I don't quite understand the mechanism, but it makes it so a cat can't walk. He just rolls over and gives up. Then you can look him right in the eye and tell him that you're in charge. Hopefully, this will make the cat think twice before scratching up the couch, eating the stuffing that falls out, and then ralphing it up on your bed. Hopefully he'll pause for a moment of reflection before he pees upwards on your wall for no good reason. Who knows? If all else fails, just train your dog to eat him.

I hurt my keester

So the other day I fell down the stairs. I was carrying some laundry, and one of my shoes had apparently climbed the stairs by itself (because it wanted to hang out with me) and it was halfway up and I stepped on it. Then my legs flew up in the air and I had that split second where your brain says, "Get ready to be in a lot of pain." Then I landed.....directly....on my butt. Every other part of me had a nice soft landing. I didn't hit my arm, or whack my elbow against the wall, or hit my foot on the floor or mush my skull against the stairs. My butt absorbed everything. I have learned that this is the incorrect way to fall. I think I may have died for a brief time. When I got up I tried a trick I had perfected as a kid when I hurt myself which was to walk around while kicking my legs out and flailing my arms and spinning my head around while saying "ow" 40 million times as fast as I could. I probably looked like Michael J Fox on a treadmill. This seemed to exacerbate the situation. Faced with hopeless, neverending agony, I laid down on the couch and whined softly while brainstorming how I was going to function with a shattered coccyx. "Well, I guess I'll have to have a butt cast. OWOWOW. Maybe I can get one at target. OW. It will probably have to be SuperTarget though, they have more stuff. Will my pants fit anymore? I wonder how much new pants are? Maybe I can just get pants with a cushion sewn in them. What other part of my body can I sit on??? OWOWOWOWOW."
Eventually, the pain subsided and I realized I was just fine and also that I was probably a big pussy. I also learned that Target does not carry butt casts. Even SuperTarget

Rampage

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine and he mentioned that some guy was really "on a rampage." It made me think back to when I was a kid and my grandfather would get drunk and quarrelsome and they'd eject him from his nursing home. I got used to hearing "Chester's on a rampage" and I had no idea what it meant. I used to picture him growing really tall and smashing and stomping on skyscrapers like in that video game, called Rampage, where you'd smash and stomp skyscrapers. You were also Godzilla, but that fact kind of got lost in the shuffle. I like that better than just being drunk and disorderly.
"Holy Shit guys, Chester just knocked down the Foshay Tower with his head!! He's on a rampage!!"
That could tend to make a guy pretty famous. Instead, his biggest claim to fame is that he is the only person I know to get an entire pork chop bone lodged in his throat and opt for "sleeping it off" instead of "Emergency Room"

Flatulence and Me.

I think I may have a buttox problem. Maybe not, I haven't really asked around, but I fart quite frequently, especially in the morning when I have 1/3rd of a days farts stored up. My wife is not happy with this. I admit my manners have regressed since we began dating some 10 years ago from "perfect gentleman" down to somewhere around "chimp wearing a diaper" and I know I must improve, but it's difficult and it seems unhealthy to suppress your farts. Because what happens to them? I certainly wouldn't want my body to resorb them because after a while there would be a veritable apartment complex of farts roaming around my innards. I think it may be more difficult for me specifically. I remember when I was dating people and trying to be at my awesomest, I would hold all my farts in. Then when the date was over and I was driving home I would sit there and FART and FART and FART and FART the whole way home. Usually, this was my favorite part of the date. It probably was like this.
Date: I had a great time tonight.
Brian: Yeah, who knew there were so many bridges of Madison County. Meryl Streep should get an oscar (I need to fart, I need to fart)
Date: Well, call me tomorrow, OK.
Brian: You know I will bizzo!! (I NEED TO FART RIGHT NOW)
Brian drives off
Date: Wait, my underpa...............
Brian: Fart, fart, fart, fart, fart etc............
Now this isn't verbatim, but pretty close. I hope you can understand my dilemma.

Homeless People

Homeless people are freakin crazy. I suppose that's why they are homeless. When I worked downtown they were all over the place. Always looking for change ("Can't you just accept things the way they are?" I'd say. Homeless people don't appreciate subtle humor). Always prosthelitizing to nobody in particular about stuff ("The lord is coming!!! I saw him step over 7 counties yesterday"). And always choosing me to bother. Sometimes they're almost charming. When I was in Atlanta a guy came up to me and shook my hand. It was like shaking a piece of sandpaper, and I don't know for sure, but I think I felt diseases crawling around. Bad ones too. He says to me "Sir, what's the best nation in the world? DONATION!! And in that nation, what's the best city? Generosity!!" I gave him a dollar. I hope he bought hand lotion. Other times, they are downright rude. A guy said to me "Hey, I saw you at SexWorld!" He said it really loudly too. His friends laughed. Homeless people were mocking me. It was not one of my prouder moments. He didn't even want money or anything. He just wanted to mess with me.
So here's my homeless people idea. It's a pretty great idea. Are you ready? Ok, it's like Capture the Flag but with bums instead of flags. There are sandwiches and things like that on each side and the bums fight each other to get to them. The details need to be worked out, but it has promise. I think HBO would probably want to show it. What a great idea!!
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Theory 1

Here's something I came up with a while ago. The size of your head is directly related to the size of your butt. I don't mean horizontally, there are some unfortunate people out there with normal sized heads and asses the size of studio apartments, and then there are people like me with smaller butts but heads that can absorb nuclear accidents. I'm talking about length of head and length of butt. Without fail, this is true. I defy you to get a tape measure, measure your head, and then measure your butt and find a reasonable difference. FYI, for those of you trying to estimate your overall athleticism, being able to measure your own butt is worth 1.5 units.

I'm stupider than my pocket

I have this small problem with my cell phone. Actually I have two problems with it. The first is that it doesn't work in Mexico so the only way to communicate with someone not in the same room as you is to scream like Pee Wee Herman at the secret word (or a horrorporn movie, if that exists.) But screaming in Mexico has unintended consequences, the worst of which is that it makes thousands of little Mexican dudes scuttle like beach crabs over to me. "I don't have any bags, I don't need a taxi, I don't want a Dos Equis, and get that fricking conch out of my face! Sucks to your ass-mar! I'm just using an old fashioned cell phone."
But my biggest issue with my phone is that periodically it and my pocket like to get together and play little tricks on me. They start small. I'll take out my phone, open it up and wonder "Who could have possibly had the patience to type 14000 number 8's?" Then sometimes I'll hear someone saying "Hello?!?!" inside my pants and for just a split second I wonder if my penis has learned to talk. That would be a whole other problem, having a penis that talked too much. But I digress. The other day my pocket and cell phone got together and made the phone make noises that I simply cannot replicate. It's very frustrating to be dumber than your pocket even when it's in kahoots with your phone. At least I'm smarter than my shoes. They sat out in the garage all last night. Morons!!

Something fun to do

Go into a gas station, buy some items, and when you get to the counter ask the employee if he has a small sack. Try not to giggle. If he says yes and then puts his hands in his pockets and glances sadly down toward his crotchal area, the joke has failed.
(Side-note: One day in high school yearbook class, we spent an entire class period calling bowling alleys and asking the people who answered if they had 7 pound balls. Some things will always be fun....)

Teaching Kids about sex

Now that I have children, I am beginning to think to myself, "Uh Oh, someday they will want to know about the birds and the bees. But more importantly, they are going to want to know about vaginas and penises and buttholes and phillipine tubes and ovaries and golden showers and dirty sanchezes and Johnny Holmes, and all sorts of stuff like that. I am DEFINITELY NOT going to be their resource EVER EVER EVER. If they ever ask a sex question I will refer them directly to a nun or somebody from the middle east who's had their junk sewn shut as a homage to tradition. Actually, I'm not that worried about that, I figure they'll just find out from movies and the exceptionally sex knowledgable kid from the bus. His name will probably be CJ and he will probably be mostly wrong, but I'd rather my kids think babies come from a hole in your back, or from the downstairs coat closet than know the truth. In my case, his name was actually CJ and he knew everything about naked ladies and, strangely, about slaughtering chickens. That's why some days we'd say "CJ, talk about chickens" and other days "Talk about Naked Ladies." Either was very entertaining, but not necessarily accurate. I thought a woman's privates were called a "BAGINA" until I was 13. I thought you could get somebody pregnant just by bouncing out at them when they weren't paying attention. Oh well, at least I didn't have to hear anything from my parents. I still am a big fan of bagina.

Movie quotes you never hear

You know what you never hear somebody say in the movies? "Hold it right there or I'll stab your brains out." I think that would make for a great movie line. If Scorsese ever becomes my friend, watch out world, because somebody is definitely getting their brains stabbed out. Personally I hope it's either Val Kilmer or Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Toilet Seats

So the other day I left the toilet seat up after expelling urine. Inexplicably, my wife fell right in the toilet. How do you do that? So she angrily yells "YOU LIVE WITH WOMEN, PUT THE TOILET SEAT DOWN, I FELL IN." My response, thoroughly unrehearsed or planned in any way was "Are you fucking retarded?" I felt bad but, somewhere I think I heard a bunch of dudes cheering. Maybe they are in the front yard, I'd better check. I don't want a bunch of random dudes congregating in my yard. Seriously though, how do you fall in the toilet? I've seen a cat fall in but cats are really dumb. They eat earwax for crying out loud. I can pretty much guarantee you I will never fall in an open toilet. Here are some things that I am more likely to fall through or into.
1.) A manhole
2.) A railroad bridge
3.) A big hole in my yard, possibly caused by random dudes hanging out in it.
4.) A vortex (I don't even know what a vortex is but it sounds scary)
5.) A parallel dimension (I think this happened once, when I was 9)
6.) A place where bears hibernate
7.) Quicksand
8.) A big net.

I am less lazy

I realize that I've gotten a lot less lazy lately. I cannot figure out why. I used to be so lazy that I waited until it was time to leave work to use the bathroom because it was near the door and I didn't want to make any unnecessary trips. I contemplated peeing in my coworkers garbages but that thought never progressed from my brain to my urethra (as far as they know). Side note: One time, at a party, I spent all night peeing in a guy's garbage because he was constantly telling people not to "PH" him. I assume he meant "playa hate." See why I hate white people??? Anyway, I always wondered what he thought when he woke up the next day to a garbage full of wizz. He never said a word. One time I went out into my front yard and there were a bunch of notebooks laying out there. No one ever came back for them. That stayed with me for a long time. Did some kid just get fed up with school and decide to go bonkers right in my yard? I hope those are the kind of answers you get when you die