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!
Friday, December 9, 2011
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.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Internet Dating Tips
I was just reading some dating personals on the internet, because it seemed like a better thing to be doing than working, and I have to say it's surprising to me that anybody ever bones anybody else meeting each other like this. Here are some of my issues.
1.) There's too many weird acronyms in these messages for me to have much idea what this girl is all about half the time. What's a BBW? A big-booty whitegirl? A bad ball washer? A big buffalo wing? Takes too long to figure out. You're dumped.
2.) People sound like insecure liars. Other people (me) can see through that. A sample of things people said:
-"Curvy" = Fat
-"Pretty" = Pretty Gross looking
-"I just want to be held" = I've never been on a date before and I'm 30. And fat.
-"Average build"= Built like a dump truck
- "2 kids and not much drama"= A slut with an ex who still humps and beats her
-"Great Personality"= Really fat and ugly
-"Told I have a great smile"= Gingivitis
-"Done playing head games" = I will definitely let you steal my savings to buy meth, and then forgive you when you don't call me for 3 months
-"Sassy" = Huge pain in the ass.
- "I believe in true love" = I'm an idealistic moron. And fat.
- "Easy on the eyes" = If you're blind.
- "BBW" = This means fat, I'm just not sure how fat
3.) Some people tell you things you wouldn't want to know even if you were married to them.
- "I need someone who's not hairy because I got raped by a badger when I was 12 and have nightmares about fur."
4.) The ones who have pics look absolutely atrocious. Like "Not even with a stolen penis would I get near you" atrocious. If you're going to put pictures up why would you choose:
a.) Side of face Mugshot pic
b.) Cell phone pic of you squatting like you're peeing in your living room
c.) Pic of you frowning while wearing too tight jeans with one leg rolled up gangsta-style
Good rule of thumb here: If you look like the cookie monster, don't post a pic.
I was just thinking that people should hire me to make their dating profiles suck less. I'm sure I would be great at this because
a.) I'm awesome
b.) The current profiles suck, as I've mentioned.
To prove that I am qualified for this job I just invented, here is what my Internet Dating Profile would look like, if I was not married obviously (Luv U hunny).
"Really awesome dude with gigantic weiner seeks girl to eventually cheat on. Must be good at cleaning bathrooms, especially mine, and going away. Should hate things like roundabouts, hornets, and those sweaters with stupid flimsy necks that look like vaginas. Also anything else I might think of.
I enjoy tabby kittens, puffy clouds, long walks by the fireplace, groupie luv, throwing dirt clumps at old people, borrowing money, walking thru tall grass without pants, foods that begin with the letter "Q", anything made of velveteen, sneaking into other's gardens and eating their vegetables, St Patrick's Eve, donating meth to charity, scotch eggs, cornflakes and bourbon, porno movies filmed in Chernobyl, making booger sculptures, screaming at horses to "GIDDYUP", and female nudity.
You should enjoy all these things too. Now please send 20 dollars and a picture of yourself. Then, 1 of 3 things will happen.
1.) I will look at your picture and spontaneously barf all over it. Then I will keep your 20 dollars.
2.) I will look at your picture, shake my head, throw it in a fire, and keep your 20 dollars. But I may send you a sea monkey for trying.
3.) I will look at your picture, and invite you over. But if you want to join my gang, first you're going to have to kill somebody. That's the way it goes in gangs. You pick the person out, so I have plausible deniability in case you do something dumb like get caught or kill the King of England or something. If you succeed, you can come over. If you get caught, you get caught. Either way, I keep your 20 dollars."
Pretty much, if somebody posted something like that, dates would just start falling from everywhere like a plague of locusts, except much different. So yeah, let me know if you want to take advantage of this opportunity, because pretty soon it will seem stupid to me.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Snapping Turtles are Jerks
The other day the family and I were on our way home from a hike. Originally, the purpose behind taking the kids for hikes was to instill in them an appreciation for nature, and living things and beauty, and to keep them from becoming sedentary fatsos who sit on pillows eating chocolate and watching reruns of SpongeBob NoPants all day. Quickly, the mission of hikes shifted from this to "tiring out the children so they quit running around like energetic snow monkey crackheads on meth." Many times, hikes do not succeed in tiring them out.
As we were leaving the park, I noticed a large stone in the road. This seemed hazardous. I stopped the car and got out. As I walked over to the stone, it walked away from me. "This is odd behavior for a stone," I said to no one in particular. Then I realized that the stone was actually a big Snapping Turtle, and the world started making sense again.
I decided that my good deed of the day would be to help the turtle across the road, like he was an old lady or something. So I walked over to him and tried to shove him with my foot. This is when I realized that turtles are heavy. The turtle realized that some big thing was trying to kick him, so he made an angry turtle hissing noise. It was not friendly.
I decided that I needed to show him who was boss, so I stepped right on top of him, asserting my dominance. He stuck his neck way far out (Side note: Turtle heads and necks look like green penises with faces), then whipped back towards the middle of his shell and tried to bite my shoe. It was pretty quick for a turtle. Startled, I said, "Hey, Fuck You Asshole!!"
I decided to switch tactics, so I got a stick and started trying to poke him across the road. I figured it would work, as I had seen policemen do it to homeless people numerous times in the past with considerable success. I found out that there is a big difference between homeless people, and angry, penis-headed turtles. The turtle felt me poking him and whirled around to face me. He did this fast, like he was laying on a Lazy Susan. He reached his face out again and bit the stick. Hard. Then he shook the stick like a puppy would do, if the puppy was really mean, and had a shell, and smelled like my nut sack after a really humid baseball game.
At this point I gave up. Outside of picking him up, which seemed dangerous considering he weighed 30 pounds and wanted to bite my extremities off, I couldn't think of a way to move him. I figured the Crocodile Hunter would have known what to do, but I didn't. I considering trying to scare him off the road, but after he started bluff charging me like a very small Grizzly Bear I didn't figure he would scare easily.
So I left. Screw that turtle! Have fun dying.
As we were leaving the park, I noticed a large stone in the road. This seemed hazardous. I stopped the car and got out. As I walked over to the stone, it walked away from me. "This is odd behavior for a stone," I said to no one in particular. Then I realized that the stone was actually a big Snapping Turtle, and the world started making sense again.
I decided that my good deed of the day would be to help the turtle across the road, like he was an old lady or something. So I walked over to him and tried to shove him with my foot. This is when I realized that turtles are heavy. The turtle realized that some big thing was trying to kick him, so he made an angry turtle hissing noise. It was not friendly.
I decided that I needed to show him who was boss, so I stepped right on top of him, asserting my dominance. He stuck his neck way far out (Side note: Turtle heads and necks look like green penises with faces), then whipped back towards the middle of his shell and tried to bite my shoe. It was pretty quick for a turtle. Startled, I said, "Hey, Fuck You Asshole!!"
I decided to switch tactics, so I got a stick and started trying to poke him across the road. I figured it would work, as I had seen policemen do it to homeless people numerous times in the past with considerable success. I found out that there is a big difference between homeless people, and angry, penis-headed turtles. The turtle felt me poking him and whirled around to face me. He did this fast, like he was laying on a Lazy Susan. He reached his face out again and bit the stick. Hard. Then he shook the stick like a puppy would do, if the puppy was really mean, and had a shell, and smelled like my nut sack after a really humid baseball game.
At this point I gave up. Outside of picking him up, which seemed dangerous considering he weighed 30 pounds and wanted to bite my extremities off, I couldn't think of a way to move him. I figured the Crocodile Hunter would have known what to do, but I didn't. I considering trying to scare him off the road, but after he started bluff charging me like a very small Grizzly Bear I didn't figure he would scare easily.
So I left. Screw that turtle! Have fun dying.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Birthday Memories
Recently I had a birthday. I am now 34. My kids got me an Angry Birds keychain and a Pillow Pet for my birthday. Apparently they think I am 8. Actually it was nice because they thought of the gifts all by themselves, and I had a very fun time. It makes me think back to other birthday's I've had though...
Age 1: Sat in my birthday cake. Crapped my pants.
Age 3: Received a giant wagon and a stern lecture from my grandmother to not touch the lit birthday candles. Crapped my pants.
Age 4: Received a fireman helmet with a flashing light on top that made a loud French police siren noise constantly. My parents, who bought it for me, got annoyed with it in 12 seconds. A kid named Steve stole it. Steve had a brother named Poopy Charlie. Poopy Charlie smelled like poop, hence his name. Anyhow, Steve stole my fireman helmet, my parents rejoiced, and I crapped my pants and cried.
Age 6: Party in my backyard. Got a swingset. 10 years later the swingset was used strictly as a target for apples, because swinging on it meant getting near the rusty, exposed bolts, and possibly cutting yourself and getting instantaneous, permanent lockjaw (or at least that's what my mom told me). Crapped my pants.
Age 8: Party in my backyard again. Got a wood bat that was way too big for me. Accidentally smashed a kid in the head on my backswing with the aforementioned bat. His mom came and got him. He did not attend any more of my birthdays. Also was forced to invite a weird kid because he was the brother of a kid I wanted to invite. The two were a package deal. Lame! The weird kid held a football by the points and kicked it in the middle like it was a watermelon, for christ sakes...
Age 9: Twins game. 10 obnoxiously loud 9 year olds riding down the highway in a busted out station wagon screaming at the top of our lungs the entire time. This was not particularly safe. The Metrodome was about 50% full, and 6 of the 10 kids got lost for longer than 15 minutes during the course of the game. My Dad mentioned to me many times that he needed about 6 scotches afterward to calm him down. Also, the station wagon died about a week later, and my Dad, being a responsible grown up, ditched the car on the side of the road and walked home. Since the title had never been transferred, the guy he bought it from got dinged for the towing expense. Sorry Mr. Pokorny...
Age 12: Rain. Little league game got rained out. We were going to San Francisco the next day, so I had to miss a game. Lots of crying and gigantic temper tantrums ensued, and trying to bargain my way out of the trip so I could play Little League ensued too. I was unsuccessful. We won the game 16-1. I felt no consolation in this.
Age 16: Got Driver's license. Drove off, leaving my mother in my wake. She cried. Drove around Lake Calhoun under the guise of "pickin' up hoochies". Truth be told, probably would have crapped my pants had any real hoochies approached my vehicle. Drove over a turtle. Felt conflicted about this.
Age 18: Went to a strip club. Really super scared of doing this. Decided during the drive over that I would rather fight 20 dragons naked than this. Did not have that choice. Wore tight bicycle pants so that if I got a boner, the prosty-toots wouldn't notice it. Went up on stage. Nearly vomited in a cup mid walk. Got smashed in the face by boobs for a long time. Noticed that one of the strippers drew eyes and a nose above her c-section scar to make a face. Was repulsed by this. Got approached to go in the champagne room. Nearly crapped my pants. Got out of there barely.
Age 21: Drank too much. Not sure of much else. Apparently stumbled into a street light with my head. Nearly crapped my pants.
Age 22: Hit a monstrous home run on my 2nd to last college at bat. Pimped the shit out of it. Played to the crowd. Nearly tripped around 3rd base. Felt dumb.
Age 27: Stared at my wife's gigantic pregnant belly a lot. Also, a mosquito stung me on the sack (side note: that may not have happened on my birthday)
Age 30: Surprise party. I was not surprised as my wife was acting all funny on the way over to my parents. Also, the 50 cars parked outside was kind of a dead giveaway.
Yep, it's been quite a ride. For sweet 35, I'm getting some Sprewells and going hang gliding with paraplegics. Or maybe something different. I don't know...
Age 1: Sat in my birthday cake. Crapped my pants.
Age 3: Received a giant wagon and a stern lecture from my grandmother to not touch the lit birthday candles. Crapped my pants.
Age 4: Received a fireman helmet with a flashing light on top that made a loud French police siren noise constantly. My parents, who bought it for me, got annoyed with it in 12 seconds. A kid named Steve stole it. Steve had a brother named Poopy Charlie. Poopy Charlie smelled like poop, hence his name. Anyhow, Steve stole my fireman helmet, my parents rejoiced, and I crapped my pants and cried.
Age 6: Party in my backyard. Got a swingset. 10 years later the swingset was used strictly as a target for apples, because swinging on it meant getting near the rusty, exposed bolts, and possibly cutting yourself and getting instantaneous, permanent lockjaw (or at least that's what my mom told me). Crapped my pants.
Age 8: Party in my backyard again. Got a wood bat that was way too big for me. Accidentally smashed a kid in the head on my backswing with the aforementioned bat. His mom came and got him. He did not attend any more of my birthdays. Also was forced to invite a weird kid because he was the brother of a kid I wanted to invite. The two were a package deal. Lame! The weird kid held a football by the points and kicked it in the middle like it was a watermelon, for christ sakes...
Age 9: Twins game. 10 obnoxiously loud 9 year olds riding down the highway in a busted out station wagon screaming at the top of our lungs the entire time. This was not particularly safe. The Metrodome was about 50% full, and 6 of the 10 kids got lost for longer than 15 minutes during the course of the game. My Dad mentioned to me many times that he needed about 6 scotches afterward to calm him down. Also, the station wagon died about a week later, and my Dad, being a responsible grown up, ditched the car on the side of the road and walked home. Since the title had never been transferred, the guy he bought it from got dinged for the towing expense. Sorry Mr. Pokorny...
Age 12: Rain. Little league game got rained out. We were going to San Francisco the next day, so I had to miss a game. Lots of crying and gigantic temper tantrums ensued, and trying to bargain my way out of the trip so I could play Little League ensued too. I was unsuccessful. We won the game 16-1. I felt no consolation in this.
Age 16: Got Driver's license. Drove off, leaving my mother in my wake. She cried. Drove around Lake Calhoun under the guise of "pickin' up hoochies". Truth be told, probably would have crapped my pants had any real hoochies approached my vehicle. Drove over a turtle. Felt conflicted about this.
Age 18: Went to a strip club. Really super scared of doing this. Decided during the drive over that I would rather fight 20 dragons naked than this. Did not have that choice. Wore tight bicycle pants so that if I got a boner, the prosty-toots wouldn't notice it. Went up on stage. Nearly vomited in a cup mid walk. Got smashed in the face by boobs for a long time. Noticed that one of the strippers drew eyes and a nose above her c-section scar to make a face. Was repulsed by this. Got approached to go in the champagne room. Nearly crapped my pants. Got out of there barely.
Age 21: Drank too much. Not sure of much else. Apparently stumbled into a street light with my head. Nearly crapped my pants.
Age 22: Hit a monstrous home run on my 2nd to last college at bat. Pimped the shit out of it. Played to the crowd. Nearly tripped around 3rd base. Felt dumb.
Age 27: Stared at my wife's gigantic pregnant belly a lot. Also, a mosquito stung me on the sack (side note: that may not have happened on my birthday)
Age 30: Surprise party. I was not surprised as my wife was acting all funny on the way over to my parents. Also, the 50 cars parked outside was kind of a dead giveaway.
Yep, it's been quite a ride. For sweet 35, I'm getting some Sprewells and going hang gliding with paraplegics. Or maybe something different. I don't know...
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
The Church Offering Debacle
I can say with confidence that I am definitely a fiscal conservative. I want my money to be my money, and I want to have the option of donating a portion of it to the less fortunate, or just making it rain on naked strippers if I feel like it.
My son has apparently already developed my appreciation for hoarding money, as we learned the hard way at church the other night.
Let me just explain this first. We go to church on Wednesday night, a service known as "W.O.W." which I believe stands for "W.O.W. on Wednesday" or something like that. Maybe it stands for "Whip Out Weiners." I guess I'm not certain.
Anyhow, the WOW service is very kid oriented, with a lot of singing and dancing, and mercifully a really short sermon. The sermon usually sounds something like this.
"See that flagpole? God made it. See that hill? God made that too. See that pile of sawdust? God made it. God's awesome. Fist bump your neighbor. God's great. Clap 3 times. God rules. Sing this song. Know who made up the words? That's right, God. Go in peace and serve the lord."
That's about it, which is nice, because about 30 seconds into the service my kids get antsy and start rummaging through my wife's purse looking for snacks, running up and down the aisles, and picking tiny green dot stickers out of the bible and sticking them to everything, and there's only so much of that you can take as a parent before you start choking the children, which is frowned upon in the sanctuary.
So there we are, in the middle of church, when it becomes time for the offering. I start handing out dollar bills to everybody around me, like I'm Al Czervik or something, and then in theory, the children go up to the front up the church, plop the dollar into that felt-covered bowl thing that looks like a giant billiards pocket, and come back, satisfied that they'd done their part to keep the people in Japan floating around aimlessly due to the tsunami fed, or to keep the church from being foreclosed upon because apparently God, with his infinite power, can't pay his bills on time. In theory, this is how it goes.
In reality, while my daughter goes up and deposits the money, my son has decided that the dollar is now his, and he has chosen to pocket it rather than donate it to an unknown cause. This causes problems.
Us: Miles, go on up and give your offering.
Miles: No!
Us: Um. Yes, you have to.
Miles (Emphatically): NO!!! It's mine!
Us: Miles, don't you want to help our the poor children? (This is our old standby. If we ever have an issue with throwing away toys or something, the boilerplate mantra is that the toys or items are going to poor children. There is a giant island in the North Atlantic filled with poor children happily playing with our old Happy Meal toys.)
Miles: NO!! Tell them to get their own money!! This is my big money!
Us: Fine, but you can't just keep the money. Give it back.
Miles: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
What followed was a gigantic tantrum right in the middle of church. It was a lucky break that the offering music was playing loudly so nobody noticed except people nearby who could see my beautiful little boy yelling his lungs out with a death grip on a dollar bill. I'm sure they were confused.
Finally we calmed him down a little, but he still wouldn't let go of the dollar. Fine, I'll pay a dollar for a lack of screaming. Seems like a good investment to me, and things turned out OK, except for that the very instant church ended Miles said loudly to no one in particular, "IT'S OVER LET'S GET OUTTA HERE." Even the pastor heard that one.
I don't know what the moral of this story. Don't ever give Miles a dollar I guess...
My son has apparently already developed my appreciation for hoarding money, as we learned the hard way at church the other night.
Let me just explain this first. We go to church on Wednesday night, a service known as "W.O.W." which I believe stands for "W.O.W. on Wednesday" or something like that. Maybe it stands for "Whip Out Weiners." I guess I'm not certain.
Anyhow, the WOW service is very kid oriented, with a lot of singing and dancing, and mercifully a really short sermon. The sermon usually sounds something like this.
"See that flagpole? God made it. See that hill? God made that too. See that pile of sawdust? God made it. God's awesome. Fist bump your neighbor. God's great. Clap 3 times. God rules. Sing this song. Know who made up the words? That's right, God. Go in peace and serve the lord."
That's about it, which is nice, because about 30 seconds into the service my kids get antsy and start rummaging through my wife's purse looking for snacks, running up and down the aisles, and picking tiny green dot stickers out of the bible and sticking them to everything, and there's only so much of that you can take as a parent before you start choking the children, which is frowned upon in the sanctuary.
So there we are, in the middle of church, when it becomes time for the offering. I start handing out dollar bills to everybody around me, like I'm Al Czervik or something, and then in theory, the children go up to the front up the church, plop the dollar into that felt-covered bowl thing that looks like a giant billiards pocket, and come back, satisfied that they'd done their part to keep the people in Japan floating around aimlessly due to the tsunami fed, or to keep the church from being foreclosed upon because apparently God, with his infinite power, can't pay his bills on time. In theory, this is how it goes.
In reality, while my daughter goes up and deposits the money, my son has decided that the dollar is now his, and he has chosen to pocket it rather than donate it to an unknown cause. This causes problems.
Us: Miles, go on up and give your offering.
Miles: No!
Us: Um. Yes, you have to.
Miles (Emphatically): NO!!! It's mine!
Us: Miles, don't you want to help our the poor children? (This is our old standby. If we ever have an issue with throwing away toys or something, the boilerplate mantra is that the toys or items are going to poor children. There is a giant island in the North Atlantic filled with poor children happily playing with our old Happy Meal toys.)
Miles: NO!! Tell them to get their own money!! This is my big money!
Us: Fine, but you can't just keep the money. Give it back.
Miles: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
What followed was a gigantic tantrum right in the middle of church. It was a lucky break that the offering music was playing loudly so nobody noticed except people nearby who could see my beautiful little boy yelling his lungs out with a death grip on a dollar bill. I'm sure they were confused.
Finally we calmed him down a little, but he still wouldn't let go of the dollar. Fine, I'll pay a dollar for a lack of screaming. Seems like a good investment to me, and things turned out OK, except for that the very instant church ended Miles said loudly to no one in particular, "IT'S OVER LET'S GET OUTTA HERE." Even the pastor heard that one.
I don't know what the moral of this story. Don't ever give Miles a dollar I guess...
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Burritos and How Not to Order Them.
I love burritos. Especially Chipotle Burritos. I don't care that they're like 8000 calories, I still eat them a lot. I eat them often enough to know about the "Chipotle Window", the time you can go and there won't be a massive line of people ordering people before you. That way I can get in, get out, and begin the wonderful eating process.
I've even learned to slow down while eating them, because I used to eat them so fast that by the time I was done my brain hadn't figured out that my stomach was full yet, and then I'd have to sit there for 5 minutes consumed with anger because I wanted more burrito. I even emailed Chipotle and asked them to make an "El Grande" burrito that was 25% larger just for guys like me. The representative who emailed me back suggested I order a taco or two with my burrito. He was stupid!
Occasionally, due to unforeseen circumstances, I wind up missing the Chipotle Window and standing in an immense line. This always bothers me because there is always at least one person in front of me who was no idea how to order a burrito. This slows down the line considerably. The employees are relatively efficient but for the most part they speak Spanish, and what I refer to as "Burrito English", in that they understand words like "chicken", "black beans" and "fajita". Anything other than that causes a huge bottleneck and makes me want to choke slam the offending patron.
I knew I was in for an maddeningly long wait when I heard this lady say this.
Lady: I want a....... um....... burrito.
Worker: Kind of meat?
Lady: Uh, what kind you got? What's that one?
Worker: Steak.
Lady: No that one.
Worker: This one? Carnitas.
Lady: Carnitas? What's a carnita? Never mind, what's that one?
(Brian's blood begins to boil)
Worker: Chicken
Lady: Oh, well I want steak.
(Dammit lady, get moving!!)
Worker: Kind of beans?
Lady: Beans?? I want some vegetables.
Worker: Fajita?
Lady: What? No I want some VE-GE-TA-BLES. And I also want some beans.
(AAAAHHHHHH!!)
Worker: Kind of salsa?
Lady: Now.... let... me.... see. Oh, are those tomatoes?
(It's fucking salsa lady!)
Lady: And what's that green stuff?
Worker: Guac.
Lady: What is it in English?
Worker: Guac. Guacamole.
Lady: Ooh, I want Guacamole.
Worker: Guac is 50 cent extra.
Lady: What?? Well how much is my total then.
(53 cents more than it was before, and I'm going to poop in your mouth soon!!)
Then she went to the register, left her cigarettes behind, had to go back and retrieve them, and then proceeded to pay with change, and not well organized change either. Really, she deserved a good slaughtering.
I think the lesson to be learned here is this, to paraphrase Treach from Naughty By Nature. If you ain't never been to Chipotle, don't ever go to Chipotle, cuz you wouldn't understand it in Chipotle. And there might be a big headed fellow lurking nearby to kill you and eat your burrito.
I've even learned to slow down while eating them, because I used to eat them so fast that by the time I was done my brain hadn't figured out that my stomach was full yet, and then I'd have to sit there for 5 minutes consumed with anger because I wanted more burrito. I even emailed Chipotle and asked them to make an "El Grande" burrito that was 25% larger just for guys like me. The representative who emailed me back suggested I order a taco or two with my burrito. He was stupid!
Occasionally, due to unforeseen circumstances, I wind up missing the Chipotle Window and standing in an immense line. This always bothers me because there is always at least one person in front of me who was no idea how to order a burrito. This slows down the line considerably. The employees are relatively efficient but for the most part they speak Spanish, and what I refer to as "Burrito English", in that they understand words like "chicken", "black beans" and "fajita". Anything other than that causes a huge bottleneck and makes me want to choke slam the offending patron.
I knew I was in for an maddeningly long wait when I heard this lady say this.
Lady: I want a....... um....... burrito.
Worker: Kind of meat?
Lady: Uh, what kind you got? What's that one?
Worker: Steak.
Lady: No that one.
Worker: This one? Carnitas.
Lady: Carnitas? What's a carnita? Never mind, what's that one?
(Brian's blood begins to boil)
Worker: Chicken
Lady: Oh, well I want steak.
(Dammit lady, get moving!!)
Worker: Kind of beans?
Lady: Beans?? I want some vegetables.
Worker: Fajita?
Lady: What? No I want some VE-GE-TA-BLES. And I also want some beans.
(AAAAHHHHHH!!)
Worker: Kind of salsa?
Lady: Now.... let... me.... see. Oh, are those tomatoes?
(It's fucking salsa lady!)
Lady: And what's that green stuff?
Worker: Guac.
Lady: What is it in English?
Worker: Guac. Guacamole.
Lady: Ooh, I want Guacamole.
Worker: Guac is 50 cent extra.
Lady: What?? Well how much is my total then.
(53 cents more than it was before, and I'm going to poop in your mouth soon!!)
Then she went to the register, left her cigarettes behind, had to go back and retrieve them, and then proceeded to pay with change, and not well organized change either. Really, she deserved a good slaughtering.
I think the lesson to be learned here is this, to paraphrase Treach from Naughty By Nature. If you ain't never been to Chipotle, don't ever go to Chipotle, cuz you wouldn't understand it in Chipotle. And there might be a big headed fellow lurking nearby to kill you and eat your burrito.
Monday, February 28, 2011
My Great Massage Parlor Idea.
I have a lot of really great ideas. Trouble is most of them are terrible. The ones that aren't terrible however, are really great.
The trouble with that is, usually I will come up with a great idea while I'm driving, or pooping or something, and by the time I have a chance to write it down I've started thinking about boobs or I've seen a puffy dog or I've heard a weird noise in the woods and I've forgotten all about it.
This was not one of those times.
Here's my idea, and by reading about it you have implicitly agreed not to steal it. It's a massage parlor called the "Happy Ending Massage Parlor." There would be a big neon sign, and around the sign would be pictures of half naked ladies and hearts, and X's and O's and other fun things like that.
The name alone ought to be enough to keep the place packed for a good long time, like forever. But then I'd hire a "Hype Man" to run around the Metro area and tell people that if you got the right masseuse, you could actually opt for a happy ending with this girl who was the hottest girl in the world, or at least in the South Metro. We'd call her "Jasmine" or "Diamond" or "Yuki" or something, and she wouldn't actually exist, but the Hype Man would perpetrate that myth until it was saturated throughout the city.
(Side note: I know this works because when I was a kid there was a legend that these two mean bullies named "Jess and Joe" lived behind the Holiday Gas Station on Excelsior Blvd, and if they saw you at the gas station, they'd kill you, or take your bike. We were all scared to death to go there as kids, and I'm still a little leery going there now even though, to the best of my knowledge, Jess and Joe were figments of somebody's imagination.)
Anyhow, at the same time the Hype Man was spreading the word about the magical prowess of this girl, he'd be immersing himself in the Marijuana culture (so everyplace again) that the name of the establishment carried a secret meaning. Happy Ending Massage Parlor. HEMP. He'd say you could get discount pot here if you bought a year long package of "Happy Endings" and said the magic password that nobody knew, or something similar.
Meanwhile, we'd run the business completely by the book and just let the word on the street become part of the overall folklore of the place. I think it wouldn't matter that Jasmine didn't exist or that weed wasn't part of a long-term package. The overall ambiance of the place would have an illicit, Vegas-y feel to it, except it would be in boring-ass Minnesota where there is a decided dearth of illicit Vegas-y things.
People will come Ray! Oh yes, people will most definitely come! Now all I need is a wealthy dowager or lottery winner, or just somebody with money burning a hole in their pocket to be my financier, because I'm not taking any chances just in case everybody around here is a big, gay nerd.
Seriously, this is an awesome idea. Call me and give me money now.
The trouble with that is, usually I will come up with a great idea while I'm driving, or pooping or something, and by the time I have a chance to write it down I've started thinking about boobs or I've seen a puffy dog or I've heard a weird noise in the woods and I've forgotten all about it.
This was not one of those times.
Here's my idea, and by reading about it you have implicitly agreed not to steal it. It's a massage parlor called the "Happy Ending Massage Parlor." There would be a big neon sign, and around the sign would be pictures of half naked ladies and hearts, and X's and O's and other fun things like that.
The name alone ought to be enough to keep the place packed for a good long time, like forever. But then I'd hire a "Hype Man" to run around the Metro area and tell people that if you got the right masseuse, you could actually opt for a happy ending with this girl who was the hottest girl in the world, or at least in the South Metro. We'd call her "Jasmine" or "Diamond" or "Yuki" or something, and she wouldn't actually exist, but the Hype Man would perpetrate that myth until it was saturated throughout the city.
(Side note: I know this works because when I was a kid there was a legend that these two mean bullies named "Jess and Joe" lived behind the Holiday Gas Station on Excelsior Blvd, and if they saw you at the gas station, they'd kill you, or take your bike. We were all scared to death to go there as kids, and I'm still a little leery going there now even though, to the best of my knowledge, Jess and Joe were figments of somebody's imagination.)
Anyhow, at the same time the Hype Man was spreading the word about the magical prowess of this girl, he'd be immersing himself in the Marijuana culture (so everyplace again) that the name of the establishment carried a secret meaning. Happy Ending Massage Parlor. HEMP. He'd say you could get discount pot here if you bought a year long package of "Happy Endings" and said the magic password that nobody knew, or something similar.
Meanwhile, we'd run the business completely by the book and just let the word on the street become part of the overall folklore of the place. I think it wouldn't matter that Jasmine didn't exist or that weed wasn't part of a long-term package. The overall ambiance of the place would have an illicit, Vegas-y feel to it, except it would be in boring-ass Minnesota where there is a decided dearth of illicit Vegas-y things.
People will come Ray! Oh yes, people will most definitely come! Now all I need is a wealthy dowager or lottery winner, or just somebody with money burning a hole in their pocket to be my financier, because I'm not taking any chances just in case everybody around here is a big, gay nerd.
Seriously, this is an awesome idea. Call me and give me money now.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Brian Has an Itch
You know what sucks? Did you ever get a really bad itch in a spot you can't get to? I hate that.
I don't just mean an itch in the middle of your back or something that your arms can't reach because in a pinch you can always just sidle up to a wall corner and itch your back grizzly bear style. It's different than that.
It's like my bones itch sometimes. About once a week I get a really bad itch right on my left ulna, and I can't scratch it because I can't touch my bones because of all the arm skin. It makes me angry. Angry Birds angry. But not angry enough to rip off my flesh and itch my arm bone. So I just have to wait for it to go away. Waiting for an itch to go away is like waiting for Jehovah's Witnesses to leave your doorstep when you're naked and trapped downstairs and all your clothes are upstairs and you live in a split level house so the only way to get upstairs is to walk by the door where the Jehovah's Witnesses will see that you've been ignoring them and they'll also see your Wang. It sucks.
But even worse than having your bones itch is when you have an itch in a really inappropriate place. What do you do then? Have you ever been out in public when all of a sudden you get a really bad itch right in your butthole? I was at a Timberwolves game once when all of a sudden my butthole started to itch really bad! If I had been at home, I would have just itched my butthole, and then probably washed my hands. But you can't just start itching your butthole in front of 10,000 people unless you are:
a.) 2 years old
b.) Clinically insane
c.) In a big war
I did not fit any of those groups perfectly, so that meant I just had to sit there with an itchy butthole while my son ate Cotton Candy and Snow Cones for dinner and spilled all over himself. It's difficult trying to cheer for any team while your butthole itches.
Maybe it's just me who has these issues. I don't know.
I don't just mean an itch in the middle of your back or something that your arms can't reach because in a pinch you can always just sidle up to a wall corner and itch your back grizzly bear style. It's different than that.
It's like my bones itch sometimes. About once a week I get a really bad itch right on my left ulna, and I can't scratch it because I can't touch my bones because of all the arm skin. It makes me angry. Angry Birds angry. But not angry enough to rip off my flesh and itch my arm bone. So I just have to wait for it to go away. Waiting for an itch to go away is like waiting for Jehovah's Witnesses to leave your doorstep when you're naked and trapped downstairs and all your clothes are upstairs and you live in a split level house so the only way to get upstairs is to walk by the door where the Jehovah's Witnesses will see that you've been ignoring them and they'll also see your Wang. It sucks.
But even worse than having your bones itch is when you have an itch in a really inappropriate place. What do you do then? Have you ever been out in public when all of a sudden you get a really bad itch right in your butthole? I was at a Timberwolves game once when all of a sudden my butthole started to itch really bad! If I had been at home, I would have just itched my butthole, and then probably washed my hands. But you can't just start itching your butthole in front of 10,000 people unless you are:
a.) 2 years old
b.) Clinically insane
c.) In a big war
I did not fit any of those groups perfectly, so that meant I just had to sit there with an itchy butthole while my son ate Cotton Candy and Snow Cones for dinner and spilled all over himself. It's difficult trying to cheer for any team while your butthole itches.
Maybe it's just me who has these issues. I don't know.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Aiden's Mom Sucks
I'm not the best parent in the world. I try hard, but sometimes I yell at my kids when I shouldn't, sometimes I let them do things they shouldn't, and occasionally I feed them M&M's and Sprite for breakfast. That said, we've tried, as parents, to give our kids at least a little bit of independence so they can figure stuff out for themselves. We don't let them skip around in the street or smoke cigars or anything like that, but we do attempt to let them be, without a constant adult presence around them. It seems to have served them well. Outside of brawling with each other on a nightly basis, and occasionally flicking boogers at us, they seem to be happy, intelligent children.
With that in mind, I reserve a certain, special, vitriolic hatred for those parents who cannot get the fuck out of their kids' shadows for even one second throughout the day. I hate them like I hate Hornets and Roundabouts and Heely's and Dog the Bounty Hunter. Hate them. Here's why:
1.) Their kids are usually really poorly adjusted to life, probably because they haven't been allowed to do any living, so therefore you might see a 4 year old kid who:
2.) They give off an air of smug superiority, as if to say, "I don't trust all you morons to realize how special my child is, so I'm never going to let him near you or your inferior offspring without being nearby to shove him in the right direction should he get too near the riff-raff"
3.) They always have a misshapen ass. Always. You can't trust anybody with a misshapen ass.
4.) They are constantly in the way. I coached my kids' basketball team last year and one of the other teams was filled with parents like this. Consequently, there were as many adults on the court as kids for that team. It was so obnoxious.
"Your kid is 4! He can't even run 10 feet without tripping on a dust particle and falling over! Stop harassing him!! HE'S NOT GOING TO CROSSOVER DRIBBLE!! Get your misshapen ass off the court!!"
And don't even get me started on the mother who tried to scold our team for guarding her son too closely. That one got a Jensen size 13 Nike in her misshapen ass.
Personally, I thought that team's parents encompassed the dregs of parental society, that that was as bad as it could get. Sadly, I was mistaken.
Let me introduce you to a woman we'll call "Aiden's Mom" (because that's who she is). Aiden's mom has a son named Aiden, and a daughter named "Hey You" that gets her shoelaces tied by Aiden's dad. Both Aiden and "Hey You" go to gymnastics with my kids.
I want to beat the shit out of Aiden's Mom. Literally. I want to smash her face into a pommel horse. I want to fling her off the high uneven bar. I want to choke her with the rings. I want to drop a Port-A-Pit on her. She is quite possibly the worst person in the world, the Genghis Khan of overprotective gymnastics mothers with misshapen asses.
The first time we met Aiden's Mom was in the lobby at gymnastics. The lobby was crowded. My mother was in there, looking very much like you might expect my mother to look. Aiden's Mom began shoving her way through the crowd, carrying Aiden. She got to my mom and said, "Excuse me, I have to get through." When typed, that sounds polite. When Aiden's Mom said it, it was definitely not polite. (You can ask my mom if you don't believe me). Those 7 words made me think to myself, "Wow, that lady is a mean slut!" I was right.
While the rest of the parents sit on chairs and watch from the lobby area, and gossip, and send text messages, and work on their laptops and whatnot, Aiden's Mom is IN the gymnastics area, following Aiden around at all times, and paying absolutely no attention to the other 8 kids in Aiden's class, or Aiden's teacher. If you listen for about 5 minutes, you'll hear the following over and over ad nauseum:
"Hurry up Aiden"
"Watch out Aiden"
"Bounce on your bottom Aiden"
"Out of the way, here comes Aiden"
"Wait for me Aiden"
"Your the best one, Aiden" (said within earshot of the other kids)
"YAYYYYYY Aiden"
The final straw (and this was the thing that even irked the people on laptops that weren't paying attention) was when a little girl hit a slippery spot and fell off the trampoline. She wasn't hurt badly, but it scared her and she was crying. Instead of consoling the girl, Aiden's Mom brushed past her as if she didn't exist and ran over and grabbed Aiden as he approached the slippery spot. I'm no moral purist, but that's messed up.
I'm not proud to admit this, but I kept hoping Aiden would break his leg or get kidnapped by gypsies or fall down a well or something, just so this woman would have to eat a little crow, admit her ass was misshapen, and conclude perhaps that no matter how hard you suffocate your child, eventually he's going to have to breathe on his own.
She probably won't though, at least not without a fight. She's not a great person, but she thinks she's the best. Well, let me save you the suspense lady. You suck balls. And Aiden will always be an effeminate little weiner because of you. Always.
(Follow-Up: As we were leaving last night, Aiden's Dad was tying "Hey You's" shoelaces when Aiden's Mom said, "Hey You, I noticed you weren't putting forth your best effort while stretching. That is NOT how we do things in our family. Looks like we'll be working on that when we get home." "Hey You" is 5. I hate Aiden's Mom...)
With that in mind, I reserve a certain, special, vitriolic hatred for those parents who cannot get the fuck out of their kids' shadows for even one second throughout the day. I hate them like I hate Hornets and Roundabouts and Heely's and Dog the Bounty Hunter. Hate them. Here's why:
1.) Their kids are usually really poorly adjusted to life, probably because they haven't been allowed to do any living, so therefore you might see a 4 year old kid who:
- Is really whiny about everything
- Is really fuckin' stupid for his age
- Is still breast-feeding
- Spends all his time baby talking gibberish and drooling on his sweater with barnyard caricatures on it
- Craps his pants frequently
2.) They give off an air of smug superiority, as if to say, "I don't trust all you morons to realize how special my child is, so I'm never going to let him near you or your inferior offspring without being nearby to shove him in the right direction should he get too near the riff-raff"
3.) They always have a misshapen ass. Always. You can't trust anybody with a misshapen ass.
4.) They are constantly in the way. I coached my kids' basketball team last year and one of the other teams was filled with parents like this. Consequently, there were as many adults on the court as kids for that team. It was so obnoxious.
"Your kid is 4! He can't even run 10 feet without tripping on a dust particle and falling over! Stop harassing him!! HE'S NOT GOING TO CROSSOVER DRIBBLE!! Get your misshapen ass off the court!!"
And don't even get me started on the mother who tried to scold our team for guarding her son too closely. That one got a Jensen size 13 Nike in her misshapen ass.
Personally, I thought that team's parents encompassed the dregs of parental society, that that was as bad as it could get. Sadly, I was mistaken.
Let me introduce you to a woman we'll call "Aiden's Mom" (because that's who she is). Aiden's mom has a son named Aiden, and a daughter named "Hey You" that gets her shoelaces tied by Aiden's dad. Both Aiden and "Hey You" go to gymnastics with my kids.
I want to beat the shit out of Aiden's Mom. Literally. I want to smash her face into a pommel horse. I want to fling her off the high uneven bar. I want to choke her with the rings. I want to drop a Port-A-Pit on her. She is quite possibly the worst person in the world, the Genghis Khan of overprotective gymnastics mothers with misshapen asses.
The first time we met Aiden's Mom was in the lobby at gymnastics. The lobby was crowded. My mother was in there, looking very much like you might expect my mother to look. Aiden's Mom began shoving her way through the crowd, carrying Aiden. She got to my mom and said, "Excuse me, I have to get through." When typed, that sounds polite. When Aiden's Mom said it, it was definitely not polite. (You can ask my mom if you don't believe me). Those 7 words made me think to myself, "Wow, that lady is a mean slut!" I was right.
While the rest of the parents sit on chairs and watch from the lobby area, and gossip, and send text messages, and work on their laptops and whatnot, Aiden's Mom is IN the gymnastics area, following Aiden around at all times, and paying absolutely no attention to the other 8 kids in Aiden's class, or Aiden's teacher. If you listen for about 5 minutes, you'll hear the following over and over ad nauseum:
"Hurry up Aiden"
"Watch out Aiden"
"Bounce on your bottom Aiden"
"Out of the way, here comes Aiden"
"Wait for me Aiden"
"Your the best one, Aiden" (said within earshot of the other kids)
"YAYYYYYY Aiden"
The final straw (and this was the thing that even irked the people on laptops that weren't paying attention) was when a little girl hit a slippery spot and fell off the trampoline. She wasn't hurt badly, but it scared her and she was crying. Instead of consoling the girl, Aiden's Mom brushed past her as if she didn't exist and ran over and grabbed Aiden as he approached the slippery spot. I'm no moral purist, but that's messed up.
I'm not proud to admit this, but I kept hoping Aiden would break his leg or get kidnapped by gypsies or fall down a well or something, just so this woman would have to eat a little crow, admit her ass was misshapen, and conclude perhaps that no matter how hard you suffocate your child, eventually he's going to have to breathe on his own.
She probably won't though, at least not without a fight. She's not a great person, but she thinks she's the best. Well, let me save you the suspense lady. You suck balls. And Aiden will always be an effeminate little weiner because of you. Always.
(Follow-Up: As we were leaving last night, Aiden's Dad was tying "Hey You's" shoelaces when Aiden's Mom said, "Hey You, I noticed you weren't putting forth your best effort while stretching. That is NOT how we do things in our family. Looks like we'll be working on that when we get home." "Hey You" is 5. I hate Aiden's Mom...)
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Phone Books, Still?
I realized while searching in vain in my garage for my stupid missing ice scraper the other day, that I have about 30 different phone books laying around on the garage floor. This perplexes me. Why do we still get paper versions of the phone book? When was the last time you actually looked in the phone book? Actually, when was the last time your phone book served any purpose other than "doorstop" or "part of pile of random detritus piled in the garage"?
I don't understand this, and what's more, some guy came by to give me another phone book the other day, and he slipped in the driveway and fell in some dirty snow. As a former Qwest delivery boy myself when I was 18-20, I would never have been caught dead delivering phone books in the snow, and I was a moron back then, even more so than I am now. As proof of this, I offer up some moron-type things I did while delivering phone books.
1.) Went into a yard with a scary dog hiding behind a bush and threw the Yellow Pages at him in order to get away.
2.) Went delivering on a 95 degree day with no water, 12 cents in my pocket, and no credit cards. I had to periodically sneak into people's yards and drink from their sprinklers in order not to die. This led to an awkward exchange between me and a kid about my age who I startled when he popped out of a house I was drinking from.
Kid: Uh, hi. Who are you?
Me: Sorry. I'm delivering Phone Books and I, ummm, I got thirsty. So I was drinking from the sprinkler. Sorry.
Kid: Oh. Ok. (Stares at the ground for a long time)
Me: Well, I gotta go. Thanks for the water.
Kid: I don't even live here...
3.) Got really lost trying to find a neighborhood in Roseville and in the midst of an epic car tantrum, punched the windshield and spider-webbed it. Calmed down to process my actions, found the neighborhood, finished the delivery, and proceeded to blame the broken windshield on a rock falling off an overpass. (Side Note: My parents believed this, even though the break originated from the inside. Must have been a clever rock.)
4.) Told an old toothless homeless guy that loaded the phonebooks into my car from a big trailer that my favorite drink was Tanqueray even though I had no idea what it was at the time and was just trying to seem cool because I heard Snoop Dogg mention it. Thankfully he did not call my bluff. It's always embarrassing to have an old toothless, homeless guy throw the bullshit flag at you. Thankfully it's only happened twice to me.
5.) Got bored delivering one day and threw all my phonebooks in a dumpster and then claimed to have finished the route. Got paid anyway. Learned later that throwing phone books away is illegal. Also threw 2 phone books in a Port-A-Potty to see what would happen once.
6.) Delivered a phone book directly into the hands of a crazy person who to thanked me and then said
"You know, 75% of the 500,000 gooks in the world are chinks. Heh heh heh, that's a lot of chinks!"
It's been 15 years and I'm still trying to figure out what that meant.
7.) Almost got killed by a cadre of Mexican gang members because they thought I was trying to sneak in or something. I set the book on the porch and was leaving when I heard,
"Hey, what are you doing?"
Me: Oh, just delivering your phone book
Him: You like the music?
Me: No, phone book
Him (after long pause): What are you doing here?
Two other guys came out looking angry.
Them: What are you doing here?
Me: Phone books guys, phone books!
They didn't know what phone books were and I was about to get shanked. I finally walked between them all, picked up the phone book, pointed at it and said "Phone Book". It was like Gangsta Sesame Street.
They were all OK with that, but when I left I distinctly heard a "Que Esta Haciendo" coming from one of them. I'm not getting killed over phone books.
So yeah, I was a dumb kid delivering phone books, but even I knew not to deliver in the winter, or even at all anymore. It's just unnecessary clutter. Thanks anyway, but from now on please deliver my phone books to homeless shelters or malnourished kids or something. Thanks.
I don't understand this, and what's more, some guy came by to give me another phone book the other day, and he slipped in the driveway and fell in some dirty snow. As a former Qwest delivery boy myself when I was 18-20, I would never have been caught dead delivering phone books in the snow, and I was a moron back then, even more so than I am now. As proof of this, I offer up some moron-type things I did while delivering phone books.
1.) Went into a yard with a scary dog hiding behind a bush and threw the Yellow Pages at him in order to get away.
2.) Went delivering on a 95 degree day with no water, 12 cents in my pocket, and no credit cards. I had to periodically sneak into people's yards and drink from their sprinklers in order not to die. This led to an awkward exchange between me and a kid about my age who I startled when he popped out of a house I was drinking from.
Kid: Uh, hi. Who are you?
Me: Sorry. I'm delivering Phone Books and I, ummm, I got thirsty. So I was drinking from the sprinkler. Sorry.
Kid: Oh. Ok. (Stares at the ground for a long time)
Me: Well, I gotta go. Thanks for the water.
Kid: I don't even live here...
3.) Got really lost trying to find a neighborhood in Roseville and in the midst of an epic car tantrum, punched the windshield and spider-webbed it. Calmed down to process my actions, found the neighborhood, finished the delivery, and proceeded to blame the broken windshield on a rock falling off an overpass. (Side Note: My parents believed this, even though the break originated from the inside. Must have been a clever rock.)
4.) Told an old toothless homeless guy that loaded the phonebooks into my car from a big trailer that my favorite drink was Tanqueray even though I had no idea what it was at the time and was just trying to seem cool because I heard Snoop Dogg mention it. Thankfully he did not call my bluff. It's always embarrassing to have an old toothless, homeless guy throw the bullshit flag at you. Thankfully it's only happened twice to me.
5.) Got bored delivering one day and threw all my phonebooks in a dumpster and then claimed to have finished the route. Got paid anyway. Learned later that throwing phone books away is illegal. Also threw 2 phone books in a Port-A-Potty to see what would happen once.
6.) Delivered a phone book directly into the hands of a crazy person who to thanked me and then said
"You know, 75% of the 500,000 gooks in the world are chinks. Heh heh heh, that's a lot of chinks!"
It's been 15 years and I'm still trying to figure out what that meant.
7.) Almost got killed by a cadre of Mexican gang members because they thought I was trying to sneak in or something. I set the book on the porch and was leaving when I heard,
"Hey, what are you doing?"
Me: Oh, just delivering your phone book
Him: You like the music?
Me: No, phone book
Him (after long pause): What are you doing here?
Two other guys came out looking angry.
Them: What are you doing here?
Me: Phone books guys, phone books!
They didn't know what phone books were and I was about to get shanked. I finally walked between them all, picked up the phone book, pointed at it and said "Phone Book". It was like Gangsta Sesame Street.
They were all OK with that, but when I left I distinctly heard a "Que Esta Haciendo" coming from one of them. I'm not getting killed over phone books.
So yeah, I was a dumb kid delivering phone books, but even I knew not to deliver in the winter, or even at all anymore. It's just unnecessary clutter. Thanks anyway, but from now on please deliver my phone books to homeless shelters or malnourished kids or something. Thanks.
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