Brian is an accidental Jerk.

So I was at the store this morning buying lemonade and vaseline, and when I'd finished browsing and texting people strange messages, I got into line at the checkout aisle. There was a lady in front of me standing by the check writing board so I stood back about 5 feet from her. Gave her a wide berth. Didn't want her to think I was trying to steal her banking information or anything (especially since I was).

All of a sudden I could literally feel a person standing behind me. He was standing way too close to me. I could feel his hot breath on my neck. This made me very uncomfortable. I like my space. So I moved up a little bit. The person moved up too. This was getting weird. He was like one inch behind me. So I moved up a little bit more. He moved too. Now I was upset. I couldn't move up anymore because then I'd be infringing on the territory of the lady in front of me. That wouldn't be OK.

After about 30 seconds he still hadn't moved back. I could still feel his breath. This would not stand. I turned around to face him.

Me: Can you just back off a little!!??
Guy: I only got THREEEEEEE Dollars!!

I had just yelled at a retarded guy. Great. Now I am the world's biggest jerk. People were looking at me with expressions of shame.

Me: Oh, um..... nevermind.
Guy: THREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

I took my lemonade and vaseline and left. I'm a jerk.

Brian is scared of crack.

I have a confession to make. I'm really scared of illegal drugs. I'm not just afraid of taking them and then freaking out and running naked through a carpet store, although that would probably be less fun and more consequential than it sounds. I'm even afraid of seeing drugs just laying around.

I've seen pot lots of times so that's not so scary anymore although it still makes me pause a little in apprehension. It reminds me a lot of this kid who was a scary bully back in Elementary School, but then I grew up and by 10th grade I had like 6 inches and 50 lbs on him. Even though he was now this little weinery guy, and I could have easily whooped his butt, there was a little part of me that was still cautious around him. He's a lot like pot.

But one time I was at a party and I saw some crack. It was just a little pile of crack laying on this table. There were some people I knew at the table, and some I didn't know, and presumably, they were going to smoke up that crack. I hadn't figured out it was crack yet, so I didn't know to be afraid.

Me: What that stuff on the table? Peanuts?
Crack Dude: Dude, it's crack!
Me: Oh.
Me (thinking to myself): Ohmigod it's crack! Let's get the hell out of here!! AAAAHHHHH!

It was pretty scary. I was kind of worried that the crack could like, jump up and get me or something. I suppose that's a somewhat irrational fear, but just to be on the safe side I quickly went to a non-crack part of the party.

Then one time I went into a house that had supposedly at one time contained a meth lab. Now I've read stories that say if there's a meth lab in your house that the meth sits in your walls for 500 years before it comes out. So that didn't make me very happy. I was worried that each breath I took, I was inhaling a little second hand meth. I was trying to breathe into my sweatshirt but if meth sticks to a house for 500 years it can probably penetrate a sweatshirt. So I got out of that house fast.

Yeah, I guess you could say I'm really scared of drugs. So, when you invite me over, please make sure to put your crack, heroin, meth, pot, sherm, quaaludes, coke, silver paint, peyote, opium poppies and toads that you lick away so that I don't see them and get frightened. Thanks.

From the Desk of Tony the Idiot.

Here's something that really bugs me that I bet a lot of you can relate. Did you ever do a contract hit on a guy, and then afterwards you gotta put plastic down in your trunk and secure it real good so he doesn't drip all over, and then you gotta lug his big heavy body up into the trunk, and then you gotta drive for ever out to some random place. Ugh, it's already taken up like 4 hours.

So then you get there and you start digging this big hole for him and that takes like 2 hours, and you're all sweaty and dirty and tired, and you always forget to bring some Aquafina or something so your mouth is all dry and you can't do anything about it, and then you finally turn around to get this guy out of the trunk and he's gone!!!

Isn't that irritating?? You do all this work and the guy runs off. Don't you always check under the car and in the back seat? The guy is never there though. Then you always think to yourself, "I shouldn't have my Ipod on full blast when I'm digging graves." But you know the next time you'll wear your Ipod again. You can't dig a grave without a Ipod.

So then you kinda half heartedly search through the corn, but corn hides guys pretty well, so then you just give up and drive back. Jimmy TwoLegs is always so pissed too when you tell him. It's not like he never made a mistake. What about the Tranny in Hoboken Jimmy, what about that huh?

Aww, life is tough sometimes. It's a good thing I can crochet, that's all I know.

Some Fat Dude Gets Really Mad

Here's something I don't quite get. Why is it that people feel like it's OK to throw big temper tantrums at the grocery store? Maybe this is just something I've noticed, but I can think of at least 5 different instances that I can bear witness to, where a grown human being, possibly at least partially educated, went bonkers at the store.

What makes me wonder about this is that it just happened yesterday afternoon. I was at SuperTarget, buying super ropes and freezies, and when I got near the checkouts I heard a big, loud commotion. Being the curious fellow that I am, I snuck over to hear the drama. There was a very large, angry man berating some Target worker. He was very overweight and his face was beet red. He looked as though he would probably be in a big coffin sometime soon. From what I could gather, he was incensed about the price of a big fire truck he was buying and he wanted to make sure God and everybody knew about this injustice. The whole thing was a little absurd.

Angry Guy: It said $7.99, I want you to honor your stated prices.
Target Guy: Sir, this item is $19.99, with tax the total is $21.29. I apologize, this item must have been placed on an incorrect shelf.
Angry Guy (Getting Angry): That is NOT my problem! Your error should NOT cost me $13.
Target Guy: Again, I apologize, but $19.99 is the price of this product.
Angry Guy (Really Angry): GOD DAMMIT!! So you're just the law when it comes to everything now? How much are these tic tacs, 4 million dollars? GOD DAMMIT!!

Now I begin giggling. That made no sense.

Target Guy: Sir, the tic tacs are $.79.
Angry Guy (Super Angry): JUST LIKE IT SAYS!! I WANT THIS TRUCK FOR $7.99, GOD DAMMIT!! JUST LIKE IT SAYS!!
Target Guy: Sir, I can't give it to you for that price.

I thought fire was going to shoot out of his nose. This was getting fun.

Angry Guy (Way too angry): SONOFABITCH FUCKER!!

Then the coolest part happened. He threw the fire truck way high up in the air, like he was doing a basketball granny shot. Everybody stared at it but nobody did anything. It landed with a big crash on the floor. Nobody moved, even the angry guy. Everybody was staring at the fire truck, including me and some other people that it had landed nearby. Then at the exact same time everybody turned their heads and looked at the angry guy. He looked like he had accidentally murdered somebody. Without a word, he took off out the door. Evidently the realization of what a crazy idiot he was had hit him pretty hard. Everybody began to try to get things back to normal but the interesting thing is that nobody even glanced at the fire truck, let alone came to pick it up. It was like it had ceased to exist.

This angry guy had managed to make about 1000 square feet of people feel awkward all at the same time. It made me wonder some things. Why did he decide to throw the fire truck up in the air? What good could have possibly come from that? Did this guy have some little kid he was going home empty handed to, because he wouldn't shell out another 13 bucks for a fire truck? Did he yell at his family the same way? Is this his first supermarket fit? He seemed like a seasoned pro.

As I was standing there pondering all this stuff, I noticed that my freezies were leaking freezie juice out the bottom of the container. I got very mad. I considered throwing my freezies high in the air to express my displeasure. I held back my urges. I felt I've learned a valuable lesson.

P.S. Whenever anything goes wrong from now on, I'm going to yell "SONOFABITCH FUCKER!!" really loudly. It just seems like a fun thing to do.

A plea to Child Molesters

I've been worrying a lot about child molesters lately. I'm not certain why, but it's even gotten to the point where I've not only pictured a scenario where one of my kids gets taken by a child molester, but also how I would get them back, and then how I would torture the child molester after I got them back.

"Let's see, first I'd crush his balls with a tack hammer, then I'd take a big railroad spike and nail his scrotum to a chair or something, then I'd rip his entire package off using a complicated system of levers and pulleys." Usually it's about that time that I realize that I should probably concentrate on driving.

The argument I've heard is that there are 10 times more child molesters out there than there was 20 years ago because child pornography is 10 times more accessible via the internet. Apparently the world is filled with wannabe perverts who just hadn't found the proper inspiration point yet. I wonder if that's true, or if really there is the same amount of child molesters as always, we're just 10 times more aware of them because of things like the internet, level 3 sex offender registry, and To Catch a Predator.

I hope it's the latter of the two scenarios because the whole thing is just horribly creepy. I understand that some people are unfortunate enough to have kids as their main sexual target. You like who you like, I don't believe it's a matter of choice. But why on earth would anybody ever go through with it? The risk/reward equation is dramatically skewered to the risk side. You win, you get to molest a kid. You lose, you go to jail for a long time, you get beat up and raped in jail because even the deviants of society hate you, and when you get out everybody knows where you live and what you've done forever and people probably hate you more than in prison.Not to mention you've either ruined a family's life or seriously altered its intended course. For ever. I don't get it. You have a really simple option that means that you get to keep your freedom, you'll never get angrily gang-humped, and you can live your life without the fear that somebody's going to burn your house down with you in it in the middle of the night.

This option involves lotion, tissues, and your brain. It takes about 2 minutes and then you can go on to whatever other activities you have planned for the day. It's a much better option, because believe you me, I will come find you and pull your junk off with a sophisticated system of levers and pulleys, and you don't want that. See, you listen to me and that douchebag Chris Hansen has to get a real job. Solving problems, that's what I do.

The American Girl Store Memoirs

I want to tell you that as a parent I've gotten an induction into a culture of all sorts of goofy stuff that I never thought I would before. Diapers and bottles and Dora the Explorer and Hannah Montana and youth soccer and the mysterious attraction of 8000 tiny trucks laying on the floor. But even I was not prepared for this latest object of my daughter's affection; The American Girl.

The American Girl is a high end line of dolls that markets to everybody over the age of 2. Apparently they have some sort of cheating, telemarketer database that has the names and addresses of any girl actually born or found on a train, and the day she turns 2, they start sending out these catalogs en masse. I know this because they began constantly appearing in my mailbox every month around the same time as my Barely Legal showed up. Wait, scratch that last part.

Anyhow, as my daughter grew, she began to really fall in love with these dolls, just like everybody falls in love with stuff that costs more than it's worth, like the toddler equivalent of a coach purse. So, schlums to the almighty corporation we are, we bought her one for Christmas. It came with a bunch of stuff, so that we wouldn't feel too terribly cheated. Diapers, and a backpack, a hat, a blankie, a couple of outfits, etc. OK fine, I can live with that. She really loves the doll, it's become like a tiny siamese twin joined at her arm, it's a reasonable investment.

The thing that got me is that there is a store at the Mall of America called the American Girl Store, where you can buy additional accessories for your doll. So, one day, we went there. And this place was basically a shrine to the excess everything we give to our children. It was unreal. It was packed to the gills with women and girls with their noses turned up collectively at the rest of the world. You could tell which side of the tracks they were from, and if, by some miracle you couldn't tell, you could hear it.

8 year old: Mom, you said last time I could get these 47 things. MOMMMMMMMM!!!!????
Mom: Hold on Kelsey, I'm on the phone with my life coach.
8 year old: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I unsuccessfully tried to fit in.

Me: (Speaking in the general direction of a woman): Wow, this is kinda like Cabbage Patch kids if they were Kennedy's, not orphans huh?
Woman: I highly doubt it. (Stalks away)
Me (Sadly to myself): Slut.

Also, there were at least 8 employees behind this extremely large pack of people whose sole job....was to.....wait for it..... do the doll's hair. That's right, for $20, you could have these people give your doll any kind of hairstyle you wanted which was inspiring a frenzy that I just stayed away from because I figured all that would happen is I would wind up smooshed in between two people even more plastic than the dolls themselves.

So before I start patting myself on the back too hard for railing against the bourgeous snobs inhabiting the store, let me just remind myself that I was there too, I bought something too, I rationalized the prices too, and you know what? I'm pretty sure I'll be back too.

Last thing. I saw this nerdy guy there who I always see at the gym. He looked like a member of Devo. He recognized me and I recognized him. We said nothing to each other. The following monday he walked up to me at the gym. He said, "Were you..." and I blurted out, "ISAWYOUATTHEAMERICANGIRLSTORE!!" I now refer to him as "American Girl Guy." He is OK with this. I am at peace.

Jasper goes to the Doctor

I took my dog to the vet the other day. As usual, this turned out to be a weird experience. In case you didn't know, dogs don't like going to the doctor. I felt kind of bad about this, Jasper thought we were going someplace fun, so he was really happy to get into the car with me. I tried to tell him over and over, "We're going to the vet, the VET, the VET dummy!!" but he was too busy sticking his snout out the window and panting really hard for no good reason.

This all changed the instant we pulled into the vet parking lot. Some little dog radar went off in his head and his mood switched from "euphoric to the point of insanity" to "What the crap are you doing to me dad? I thought we were friends?" in like .2 seconds. His tail went between his legs and I had to yank him out of the car. He smelled funny.

When we actually got inside the office he started shaking like he had Parkinson's. He tried to crawl in my lap and I noticed that his paws smelled a lot like crackers. Isn't that something? Smell your dogs paws sometime. Crackers. Then he peed on a potted plant. I said nothing because I didn't want to clean up urine.

Finally we got called in to see the doctor. By this time Jasper was so scared he wouldn't even eat, which is one of the things he's good at. He just layed on the floor and whimpered. After some serious petting and cajoling, we got him upright because the vet tech had decided she wanted to take his rectal temperature. Since I've never seen his rectum because of all the fur, I was pretty sure this would be difficult. I had no idea how right I was. It took a good 2 minutes of this girl randomly jamming a butt thermometer into his chasm of butt fur before she got it. (Actually, I have no idea if she got it, she might just have given up and guessed a temp.)

Vet Tech (Jabbing blindly): He sure has a lot of fur. (Jab, jab)
Me: Isn't there a more scientific method than that?

Then the actual veteranarian came in and gave me the bad news. Jasper is fat! I tried to cover for him.

Me: He's getting a little old. Maybe it's seasonal. It's been cold.
Vet: You think it's OK to be fat in the winter?
Me: Um.....

Then she did a battery of tests on him. One involved listening to his heartbeat. Only problem was that he was breathing so loudly, she couldn't hear anything. It was pretty loud.

Vet: Can you, uh, shut his nose so I can hear his heart? He's panting too loud.
Me: Shut his nose? Um, what good will that do?
Vet: Then I can hear the heartbeat.
Me: Uh OK.

She wanted me to clamp his mouth shut, but instead I tried to plug his nostrils on his tiny nose on the front of his big extendo bird beak mouth. Obviously this did no good.

Me: I can't shut his nose, it's too gross and slimy.
Vet: Huh. His whole mouth, not just his nose. I need to hear his heart.
Me (Feeling dumb): You said his nose.

We were fighting. Anyway, Jasper needs to lose 5 pounds. I'm not sure how that's going to happen since he eats garbage all day when I go to work. I've taken to calling him Fatty Arbuckle when he walks by in the hopes of shaming him into losing the weight, but I also tell him not to eat garbage when I'm at work. Maybe I need a better plan.

I'm inventing a Holiday

Today marks the dumbest holiday we celebrate in America, Groundhog Day. All over the country, mostly on the east coast, somebody whacks a groundhog on the butt with a stick, causing him to run out into the open. Then he sees a bunch of people, gets scared, and runs back in. Then the townsfolk all get together, skin the groundhog and serve him to the nearest homeless shelter. Then we have 6 more weeks of winter. It's a really fun tradition. Here's some other facts about Groundhog Day you may not know.

- A groundhog and a woodchuck are the same animal. I learned this yesterday. This has really ruined everything for me. Here I thought we had this majestic, mysterious rodent that predicted weather like a furry Paul Douglas, and really all it is is a woodchuck. Have you ever seen a woodchuck? They suck!!

- In Punxsutawney, PA, as many as 50,000 people show up for the celebration at a place that really is called Gobbler's Knob. I think there's a gay bar in Uptown with the same name, although it may just be an alley. I won't disparage this celebration anymore because I'm afraid if I do I'll have to live the same day over and over again.

- In years that the groundhog sees his shadow, signaling 6 more weeks of winter, suicide rates go up. Not dramatically, but enough so that I can make the argument that some people may actually be pushed over the edge by the prognostication of a rodent. That, my friends, is why I love people. If you are willing to end your life because Punxsutawney Phil tells you to, I'd really like to meet you.

-If the groundhog sees his shadow and jumps into the crowd and bites the shit out of people, it is a sign of the apocalypse.

- If the groundhog comes out and dies of a heart attack, it means a cold spring and that summer will bring a plague of locusts.

I'm just lying about those last two of course, but being that Groundhog Day has developed such a loyal following, doesn't it make you optimistic that anybody could just make up a holiday and get people to congregate somewhere?

I'd like to invent a holiday and call it Idiot Day. We'd find some little park someplace, get an empty cage, and put it on a table in the middle of a gazebo. Then a bunch of people would come stare at the cage, waiting for something to happen. After an hour, I'd get up on the gazebo, take the cage, and go home. Everybody still standing there is an idiot. I'm telling you, based on the number of idiots walking around, this could be the most popular holiday ever.