Today, I would like to talk about Larry. Not soft, cuddly, polo shirt-wearing, burn-your-nut-hair-off Larry, but a different Larry. Larry Long. You see, one of the first jobs that I ever held was working in an independent video store. At this job, I would be expected to check videos in and out, make recommendations for customers, abuse the rent-to-own stereo system, and then vacuum up at the end of the day. Sometimes I got additional tasks to help break up my day, like, you know, like setting up displays to advertise new releases and such. It was while I was setting up one of these displays (a life-sized cardboard image of Cary Elwes, grabbing his nuts(?)) that I was introduced to what would be my most deplorable task at my new job, and his name was Larry Long. I have not changed his name. His name really was Larry Long, and do you know why I haven't changed his name? Because Larry Long was, and probably still is, illiterate - so he won't be reading this anyway. How do I know he's illiterate? Keep reading, brave internet friend, and I will tell you the tale.
The video store owner introduced me to Larry Long one day shortly after I started, and we shook hands. To describe Larry without using cliché' is difficult, but I will try. The first thing I noticed about Larry was that he was kind of yellow. Not yellow in a healthy Chinese sort of way - more yellow in an 'I drink myself to sleep every night, and have never brushed my teeth' kind of way. The pit stains in Larry's wife-beater were quite prominent, and were as yellow as his teeth. Larry's eyes were yellow, his hands were yellow, hell, even his breath was yellow - though it’s hard to say if his hands were yellow because of a liver problem or because he smoked so much that the nicotine stains wouldn't wash off anymore - assuming that he washed at all. Larry was sweaty. Larry was not given to kindness. Larry hadn't eaten a meal out other than 7-11 for years - and he wasn't much of a cook either. Larry's idea of treating a date was squirting a couple extra farts-worth of liquid cheese on the nachos when the store clerk wasn't looking. Larry could have easily been an extra on any episode of COPS, playing the part of 'guy without shirt wearing gold chain' who stands in his front yard screaming 'he done it! he done it!' and pointing deliberately and quite unnecessarily as the COPS tazer and drag off some other unfortunate chap like the lawnmowner man.
Please don't think I am being hard on Larry, or that I have any disdain for those who can't read. I don't. I'm just trying to give you a decent mental picture of what I, at 17, am about to have to deal with on a weekly basis until I grow a pair and quit this stupid job.
As I mentioned, Larry was yellowish, and he was also rather short. Five foot four, I would estimate. Five foot four, but he was all man. Larry would proceed to show up at the video store every other week for the next several months, reeking of beer and cigarettes, and we would begin what would be, by today's standards, a rather inappropriate relationship upon our first meeting. The relationship started like this:
Store owner (Vern): 'Hey, come here, I have a job for you.'
Me (and yes, her name really was Vern): 'Ok.'
Vern: 'See that guy at the counter? That's Larry.'
Me (Looking around, and spying Larry, who is leaning on a thirty-pack of Budweiser that he slung up on the rental counter just a moment ago): 'Ahhh... okay.'
Vern: 'Larry needs help picking out movies.'
Me (having made suggestions for customers a million times before): 'Oh, okay, no problem.'
Vern (lowering her voice): 'Larry can't read.'
Vern (continuing): 'You'll need to print out his rental history, and follow him around. Find some movies that he hasn't seen yet, and...'
Me: 'And? ...'
Vern: 'Just help out, okay?'
Me (hm, this is unusual): 'Erraky, sure....'
So I print out Larry's rental history, and it's one of those old dot-matrix printers that takes forever, and Larry looks to have rented about half the store so far, so I have some time to kill here.
Printer: 'zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzit.'
Me: 'Hey Larry.'
Larry (making a little upwards nod): 'Mnh.'
Me (gesturing towards the intellectually-painful Cary Elwes display I just set up): 'So uhh, have you seen 'Men in Tights?'
Larry: 'I don't do dude movies.'
Me (waiting patiently in slow-printer hell): 'Uh. Okay.'
Printer: 'zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzit!'
Glancing at the list, I could see that Larry loved his ass some porn. Loved it. Lived for it. Loved it, lived for it, rented it, watched it, and copied each and every one into his own personal porn library. Every-other week. Only on paydays. And he never missed a payday either.
About seven hundred zits later we're done, and I follow Larry. Larry heads straight back to the porno section of the store. Now, as a teenager, I had of course watched my share of porn - but never really discussed them in any kind of detail with another guy. 'Cause eww. This one time, over at Desi Fajardo's house (true story), we watched a great porno together while we drank his father's kahlua and smoked his father's camels, but that was four years ago - and we never felt the need to say more than 'oh, that's nice' during certain parts of the movie. It was not really a sharing kind of thing, and after that I was pretty much solo when watching porn - it's a guy thing I think.
Larry had no such inhibitions, and he crashed through the saloon-style swinging doors to the porno section (in which people under 18 - i.e. me are not allowed) with the bravado of someone who owned this section of the store (and in fact, as I was soon to find out, he essentially did, by virtue of somehow managing to afford two VCRs. . . yet still no deodorant). Larry studies the wall intently, and then holds up a video 'I got this one?' he asks.
Me: 'Uh.. Let’s see, Eight is not Enough...'
Me (damning myself for not printing out Larry's list in alphabetical order - it was by date instead): 'Looks like, last September, uhh.. yes.'
Larry, somewhat nonplussed, put the video back on the shelf and kept browsing. He picked up another and popped the question again. 'This?' he asked, holding it up.
Me (mumbling to myself): 'Postman always bangs twice.. Postman.. Bang..'
Me: 'Ah, yup, yup, sorry Larry, you've seen it already.'
And based on the length of the list that I was scanning, I sensed that this would go on forever unless I took the initiative and started pre-finding movies that Larry hadn't already watched. I looked along with Larry and he began recounting some of the movies he had seen and what he liked in rather horrifically fine detail for anyone within earshot, which I judged to be about 50% of the store given that all that was between us and the children's section was a pair of swinging doors and a six-foot section of painted plywood. I listened, involuntarily, as Larry recounted his weekend living room conquests and picked up on his likes and dislikes, and scurried around trying to find a movie with identical twins, in jail, with a billy club-wielding, red-head dominatrix warden on the cover, all the meanwhile looking up titles that Larry was tossing my way. 'This?' 'This?' 'This?' 'This?' he asked, as he flung porno after porno my way faster than I could look up his choices: 'Hannah Does Her Sisters', 'Buffy the Vampire Layer', 'The Great Muppet Raper', no, no, no... Sorry, Larry, - you've seen them all.
Larry: 'Fuuuck.'
Me (in my head): 'Yeah, that pretty much sums up our afternoon here...'
Me (outloud): 'You're living the dream man, what can I say?'
It was looking hopeless, and just then another guy came busting through the swinging doors. Larry looked up.
Guy: 'I got the stuff. Huh huh huh'
Larry: 'Heh heh heh'
Guy (showing Larry something in his pocket (I hope to God)): 'Huh huh huh,'
Larry (big smile, looking in the guys pocket - maybe his pants, I dunno): 'Heh heh heh'
Me (holding up the last video that Larry threw me): 'Hay, you haven't seen this one yet!'
Larry (squinting intently): 'Whadsat?'
Guy: 'That's... Dude. That's a dude movie!!!'
Me (looking again at the title): 'Drill Bill?'
Larry: 'I toll you I ain't into dudes!!'
Larry (quickly): 'Why'd you pick that!?'
Me (thinking that I couldn't get out of this gracefully): 'Oh, sorry...'
Guy: 'Dude.'
Larry: 'Dude.'
So we (Larry) ended up getting 'When Harry Ate Sally', 'Titty Titty Bang Bang', and 'Bonfire of the Panties' - which as it turns out, was actually switched with 'Bonfire of the Vanities' by mistake. Larry objected when I tried to exchange the movie for his chosen title, until I asked if he enjoyed Brian De Palma as much as I did, which sounded enough like a dude movie to Larry that he finally shut up.
So Larry announces rather loudly that he has to 'go have a squirt', and proceeds to weave his way over to the mens room, followed closely by his friend, leaving me to take the videos up to the register solo, and ring them up. And, as I was walking up to the register, hoping that by 'have a squirt' Larry had meant that he needed to pee rather than anything else, I bumped into Kari (who's Kari ) Editorial note: It wasn't really Kari, as I had already moved three times since knowing her - but it just as well could have been, and for the purposes of this story, it shall be.
Kari (staring at the pile of porn in my arms): 'O M G!' <-- she talked in acronyms sometimes.
Kari's Friends (conveniently, and exactly, one foot away): 'O M G!!' <-- So did they, apparently.
Kari and her friends: *whisper whisper -freak- whisper whisper*
Me: .. (Ah, what's the point... Is carrying around a depraved psycho’s porn for him any better than buying it myself?): 'Hi.'
I kept walking. They kept whispering and giggling. I set Larry's porn next to his case-or-more of beer on the counter and waited. Larry came out of the bathroom, followed by his friend, and rather non-chalantly and with a touch of practiced flair, picked up three blank video cassettes on his way to the register. Kari, oblivious to this, pantomimed a guy beating off - just for me, and then she and her friends turned and walked out of the store.
Guy (looking back towards the bathroom): 'I wouldn't go in there if I was you. Heh heh heh.'
Larry (grinning): 'Huh Huh Huh.'
Larry (gesturing to Kari as she walked out the door): 'Nice can on nat one nair.'
Larry: *belch*
Guy (all horned up, and dry-humping the counter): 'Ohh-h-h, she's bang-a-licous! Bang! Bang! Baaang!'
Me (having raised my hands off the counter, 'cause, I mean, hey): 'Yeah, um... She sure is... Yeah, like.. like a screen door in a hurricane, right?' <--I'm trying to fit in here, really.
Larry: ???
Guy: ???
Me: 'You know, like a screen door, when it's really windy and it... You know what, nevermind. Total's $18.50'
Larry pays with a twenty, belches once more for good measure, takes his change, and walks out the door - but not before I hear him mumbling to his friend 'Screen door. . . Must be a dude movie thing, I think he likes dude movies, hell I dunno.'
Kari and friends walk by moments later and make a gesture into the air as they pass by the outside store windows; they look as if they are giving a low-flying midget a hand job as he passes overhead.
I get to re-live this at school on Monday.
I get to clean the video store bathroom later tonight.
As a result, I get so intimately acquainted with Larry's tastes that when new pornos come in that I know he'll like (which is almost all of them), I add them to Larry's watchin' list, which is now duct-taped to the plywood wall inside the porno room - all so that Larry (and me) will never have to spend longer than 5 minutes in the video store picking out porn - hoping, perhaps, that this will spare me whatever small amount of dignity that I have left.
Larry showed up every-other week for nearly a year before I finally left for college. Every meeting presented some new and horrifying glimpse into the private life of a man who lived for nothing but cataloging imaginary poon - despite the 'Larry watchin' list'. This one time though, right before I left for college, I managed to sneak a copy of 'Homo Alone' into his weekend pile. I hope he had friends over that night.
And I never did get a date with Kari... Though, looking back on it now, I don't think that I really wanted one either...
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Mistakes have been made, others will be blamed. . .
I find myself, as a new parent, regretting some of the decisions that I made during the first couple of years raising the boy. Oh, not the major ones, I got those down: Read to your child 15 minutes a day, don't spike the milk, change their diapers daily, you know - my regrets are rather minor I guess, on a more personal level. Maybe 'regret' is the wrong word, maybe it would be better to say 'knowing what I know now, I wouldn't. . .', yeah, that's it. . . Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't ever be:1) Trying to substitute 'malk' for 'milk' - or really any basement brand food for the real deal. Let's face it, Oaty-o's do not equal Cheerios, and everyone knows it - even the 18 month old - and the perfect time to not discover the emerging pallate of your child is while driving through the middle of the California desert with 72 oz of Oaty-o's strewn across the back seat, 90 minutes away from the next rest stop with something sounding roughly equivalent in pitch and volume to a fire engine's siren coming from your back seat. Buy the damn Cheerios and save yourself the headache. The only potential benefit of buying basement (and I am making a distiction here between so-called bargain brands and basement, btw. Bargain hotdogs, for instance, are just rubbery and kinda nasty. Basement hotdogs turn your tongue magenta.) brands is the amusement of watching the child's face as he or she naively tries the new brand in front of you. The best I got from our 2-yr old was an immediate grimmace, and an audible 'plah', following by a 'da's yucky, papa' - and this was for freezer-o-pops, by the way. Who would have thought that you could screw up frozen sugar-water?
2) Encouraging solid foods too early. I always looked down upon those parents who sat with and fussed over their child during the first several months of solid food - scraping the pureed peas off of their chin back onto the spoon and placing it back in their mouth only to have half of it come back out again along with gurgling, when clearly their must be a better, less time-consuming way. I'll call my method 'the fish-feeding' method. I reasoned that, since this little guy was capable of crawling around and attempting to shove anything in his little mouth that he could find - and I believe that he in fact considered it his job, then the most reasonable method of feeding him would be to go along with a box of Cheerios and shake some out all over the floor in front of him, and wait for him to a) discover and b) eat them. Seriously. My wife nixed this idea, but suggested that we could put some on a paper plate on the ground and wait to see what happened. She expressed some concern that he might get a Cheerio stuck in his mouth and gag, but was willing to give it a shot. I poured the Cheerios on to a paper plate and waited. The discovery phase of the operation went fine - no problem in fact, but as the first Cheerio entered his mouth there was a gagging and wheezing sound, followed shortly by a jar of semi-digested pureed peas errupting from out of nowhere, in a near-perfect arc, showering the floor in a sickly green ooze. My wife had been videotaping at the time, so we have this moment for posterity. I haven't been able to live this one down yet.
3) Trusting the diaper. There will come a time when you rely on the diaper, and it will let your ass down (and often in a spectacular fashion). My time was 2:30 am September 1st, 2005. The kid was awake, in the middle of the night, because he was hungry, or so I had guessed. So I zombie'd my ass out of bed, got the stupid milk bottle, and went to take care of business. We sat, he fussed, but ultimately agreed to the milk. About half way through he seemed to be done, and as I went to sit him up to burp there was a horrendous sound which originiated from his back-end that propelled him skyward, eviscerating the diaper in the process. When he came down, I caught him - and everything else that came along with him. If you had happened on the scene 5 minutes later you would have seen something that looked as if the entire baby food aisle at the grocery store decided to empty itself on some poor chaps floor, a set of footprints leading away from said emptying, and distantly, the sound of running water, a screaming baby, and a cacophony of cuss words which would cling to the bathroom walls like so much baby food for weeks to come - which reminds me, I also wouldn't be:
4) Swearing in front of them. Oh, it's cute when you hit your thumb with a hammer and say 'dammit', and then they look up at you, make a crude attempt at a thumbs up (mimicking you) and say 'dabbit', but sometimes they pick up more than you might think, and will then wait for the perfect time to spring it on you. Like this one:
Grandma: 'Oh, darn-it, I meant to grab some malk at the store.'
Kid (admonishing Grandma, with the gravest of seriousness he can muster, shaking his head): 'We don't say that word Grandma. . . We don't say that fucking word.'
And his pronunciation of 'fucking' was bloody perfect, which was bloody hard to explain!
Why my wife objects to him saying 'darn-it' I'll never know, but whatever. It's better than mispronouncing words sometimes I guess. Right now we're working really hard on 'finger', becuase it comes out 'neeeeger' instead of 'finger' - and since we all hold hands everywhere we go, and since his hand is too small to hold an entire adult-sized hand, he is often heard to ask (in his outside voice, of course): 'Where my [finger]??', 'Okay, got my [finger]!!' as we're crossing the street or whatever. . . We're just waiting for that one to drop at the wrong time . . .
Saturday, July 26, 2008
The Lawnmower Man
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/25/mower.madness.ap/index.html
Now... You might be tempted to look at this guy and think, my God, what a pathetic waste of human life, but I bet that you're not exactly seeing him at his best. At least I hope not. It's my contention that this fellow probably grew up fairly normal (whatever that is these days), and then somewhere along the line from then until now he probably just got jacked with one too many times until he finally snapped. You all know someone on a similar path - that crazy checker at the grocery store, or that co-worker who has put on 40 lbs in the past year and always comes back from lunch smelling like gin, maybe that one old guy who lives on the corner who methodically digs up little squares of his front lawn and sifts through the dirt (but only at night, by floodlight) - you know someone who some day is going to get fucked in the drive-thru one too many times and will go absolutely bug-nutz crazy and plow their car through the drive-thru window and scream 'but it said drive thru!!! It said drive thru!!!' as the cops taser him and carry him off to jail. The point is that this guy was probably relatively normal at some point in his life but that the continual stress of living in our society made him cave in one day and say 'fuck it.'
The idea that some people may be put on this Earth to simply serve as an example for others has crossed my mind more than once, so to that end I suggest using this story for something positive. When you have identified that one person in your life who is going to snap at any time, then email them this story. And then tell them, next time someone readeatedly kicks the back of their chair in the theater, next time they get cut-off in traffic, next time they only hear the second flush, and the sound of running water on the hard wood floor, along with the words 'uh oh' to remember what happened to The Lawnmower Man, and maybe it will make it all better :).
Now... You might be tempted to look at this guy and think, my God, what a pathetic waste of human life, but I bet that you're not exactly seeing him at his best. At least I hope not. It's my contention that this fellow probably grew up fairly normal (whatever that is these days), and then somewhere along the line from then until now he probably just got jacked with one too many times until he finally snapped. You all know someone on a similar path - that crazy checker at the grocery store, or that co-worker who has put on 40 lbs in the past year and always comes back from lunch smelling like gin, maybe that one old guy who lives on the corner who methodically digs up little squares of his front lawn and sifts through the dirt (but only at night, by floodlight) - you know someone who some day is going to get fucked in the drive-thru one too many times and will go absolutely bug-nutz crazy and plow their car through the drive-thru window and scream 'but it said drive thru!!! It said drive thru!!!' as the cops taser him and carry him off to jail. The point is that this guy was probably relatively normal at some point in his life but that the continual stress of living in our society made him cave in one day and say 'fuck it.'
The idea that some people may be put on this Earth to simply serve as an example for others has crossed my mind more than once, so to that end I suggest using this story for something positive. When you have identified that one person in your life who is going to snap at any time, then email them this story. And then tell them, next time someone readeatedly kicks the back of their chair in the theater, next time they get cut-off in traffic, next time they only hear the second flush, and the sound of running water on the hard wood floor, along with the words 'uh oh' to remember what happened to The Lawnmower Man, and maybe it will make it all better :).
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Len and the Art of Interviewing
"Successful job interviews are an artform that is easily learned but which is difficult to master. The successful interview is much like dance where two partners engage each other in a rhythmic pattern of mutual discovery until, at the climax of the music, a mutually beneficial arrangement is achieved" the book read. It sounded like smut then, and it sounds like smut now. The book then rambled on for pages about the virtues of punctuality, picking the right tie, researching the company, and other academic and largely useless interview checklist items. I didn't know how irrelevant most of this would be at the time, so I continued reading and collecting these little droppings until both my pockets were full and something didn't smell too great. I then got a good night sleep, woke bright and early, showered, dressed appropriately, and went on my first ever post-college interview. You know, the big one, the one where you're supposed to land a real job instead of working the teacup ride for a traveling carnival. The one that's supposed to show off that going off to college made sense.
Let's back up a minute. I had just graduated college with a degree in Biochemistry. A good private college too, not one of those wussy state schools where the final exams are multiple choice *cough* UMN *cough* so I actually did know how to do some pretty amazing (to me, at the time at least) stuff despite my B- average there. Want to know if that DNA matches? Need an HIV test? Want to grow mutant corn? No problemo! So, needless to say, I thought that I was pretty hot stuff. Obviously, I needed to find myself a hot stuff job. So, having an a) girlfriend heading to Minneapolis and b) a big head filled with very little sense, I decided to pack up our (100% her) stuff in a U-Haul truck and head out there with her. Hm? Oh, no, I didn't have a job waiting there for me. Place to stay? Well, no, not as such. Money? Well, enough to last a few weeks I guess, as long as you like all four flavors of Ramen. The truck? Well, yes, they'll want it back after we arrive in Minneapolis. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. So in essence we had a place to stay (Super 8) and store our stuff (back of the U-Haul) for about 48 hours after our arrival, after which point we would either need to have an apartment or a garage sale. Surprisingly, the stars aligned and all went well, and that's how I came to be sitting in Minneapolis, reading the most useless interviewing guide on the planet made up by some total fuck-wit who was probably a free-lance writer and as such had never been offered nor held a real job in his whole life.
Now I had been on several job interviews before, but they were all for really crappy jobs where the interview was more of a formality than anything - sometimes only consisting of two words in the case of farm labor ('ju wanna?). A nod in the affirmative was all that one took - and, as most of my co-workers at the time either didn't speak English, or were people that you didn't want to spend any more time within arm's reach of than it took to say ' 'ju wanna?', I understood why.
Now, since Monster.com was in its infancy at the time, the best way to look for a job was still in classified ads for the most part. Unfortunately, since news papers charged by the word, some of the ads were quite brief, leaving much to the imagination of the reader. This is how I came to be sitting across from Len the next morning, completely unprepared for what was about to happen. I think the ad went something like this:
*******************************************************
* Asst. Mgr for rapid grow hi-tech company. Will train,
* no exp nec up to 68k to start 612-555-haha
*******************************************************
Ah, management already, excellent. I like delegating, and I'm all about hi-tech stuff. 68k, that's not too shabby either, in fact better than I was expecting for my first job. So I call and make an interview appointment with 'Len', drive up at the appointed time, and get out of the car looking for the address. It's in a strip mall... Okay, fine. Hm. 'E-L-E-C-T-R-O-L-U-X' the sign read. Okay, well, I guess that sounds kind of high tech. Assistant manager for the Electrolux corporation, hah, won't my college buddies be jealous when they find out. So I put on my interview face (chapter 9), and push open the door to find a display room full of vacuum cleaners. Big grey ugly vacuum cleaners. I step out and scrutinize the outside of the door again. . . 'E-L-E-C-T-R-O-L-U-X' it reads. 'Hmm. Maybe they are having the carpets cleaned or something...' I think, as I go back inside. 'Hello?' I say, in my confident, polite, and pleasing interview voice (chapter 6). A strange little man with a very dated suit and bow tie comes walking out from the back room, smiles at me, and then continues walking out the front door dragging a vacuum behind him. He kinda reminded me of that claymation-puppet host guy for those 1970's-era Santa, Frosty, and Rudolph shows that they drag out every year around Christmas. We really need new Christmas shows, don't we? I digress... At any rate, I walked cautiously towards the back room, dully wondering if this is a joke. 'Come in' says a heavy set man with a comb-over and coke-bottle glasses. 'I'm Len' he breathed. 'Hi, I -' I start, but Len cuts in 'Sit down. You see those over there?' he says, grunting towards a wall of ugly grey vacuum cleaners.
Me: 'Yah, th-'
Len: 'That's the new model 55. The chassis is a replica of the original models sold back in 55.'
Me: 'Oh, I-'
Len: 'They're the big seller right now and we push more units than any other store in the Midwest.'
Me: 'That's v-'
Len: 'A lot of folks don't know who we are these days, but if you go knocking on doors of the older generation then you'll see a smile and a wink, because they know quality when they see it.'
Me: 'I'm here about the assistant manager job?'
Len (continuing): 'You know, we use the same technology in these model 55s as jet aero-planes. There's not another vacuum in the world that can make the same claim.'
Me: 'I-'
Len: 'A lot of people will tell you that they can get by with less, but the beauty of an Electrolux vacuum is power and durability.'
Me (in my head, while looking them over): 'Well, the beauty certainly isn't in the chassis...'
Len: 'People don't know what they need in a vacuum anymore. They go for looks, or portability, or because it's quiet, but what they don't know is that it's not picking up all the dirt from their carpet. You don't want a dirty carpet do you?
Me: 'N-'
Len (pounding his fist on the table): 'No one wants a dirty carpet!'
Me (resume still in hand): 'I-'
Len (continuing to pound): 'For $800 today, you'll never have a dirty carpet again!'
Me: 'I'll just go ahead and see myself out...'
Len (talking over me, oblivious to the fact I am leaving): 'This is the finest machine ever built! Could put a man on the moon with the parts inside it!'
Sooo, I emerge from Electrolux a little wiser in the ways of the world, and as it happens we already owned a lovely little green Hoover at the time that even did the stairs. It cost (her) $100 and lasted 9 years before we threw it out - chiefly because she was taken in by the pretty colors of the new Dysons - not because the Hoover was giving out. Secretly, I still miss the Hoover. It was a total whore of a vacuum, sucking up anything that it came across without a single complaint. The new Dyson, by comparison, is kinda prissy. Anyhoo, since the whole Len thing was a failure, I started reading the paper again.
*******************************************************
* Exp cash handler for evening work. Must have reliab
* trans. Apply in person at Minn. Mariott Hotel
*******************************************************
Okay, so it's not Biochemistry exactly, but it could pay the bills while I get a real job eh? So I go down to the Mariott and walk up to the front desk - got four copies of my resume, got two pens, suit - check, tie - check, lookin' good, smellin', well, ok, and here we go!
Me: 'Hi, my name is Hammy, and I'm here to apply for the position posted in the Minnesota Crapper (or whatever their paper was called - I dunno).
She (handing me an application): 'Here, fill this out. I'll let them know you are here.'
Me: 'Thanks.'
So I sit down, and as I am debating whether blue or black ink would be more appropriate for this application - as it was copied on blue paper, I get a tap on the shoulder.
Him: 'Hey, you can leave that here. Follow me.'
Me: 'Okay, nice to meet you, I'm Hammy.'
Him (not looking at me): 'I'm Big Tony.'
He must have noticed my impeccable dress (Chapter 3) and resumes ready in hand (Chapter 4), and that's why I didn't have to fill out or bring the application with me. Yes, he knows how to spot a fellow professional when he sees one (Appendix A), for sure.
Big Tony proceeded to lead us down the hallway, across the hotel, and to the elevator. Were we going to a conference room? Was he giving me a tour of the hotel?
Big Tony (as if sensing my confusion): 'There's a guy you gotta meet.'
Me: 'Okay, sure.'
We get out on the second floor, and walk to a nearby hotel room. Big Tony stops and knocks twice. 'Who is it?' comes from inside. 'It's Big Tony' says Big Tony. 'Yeah, alright.' the inside voice says, and the door opens and we proceed into the room. It's just a room. A hotel room. And not even a suite. My spider sense begins to tingle. Rut Roh Raggy. . .
'Siddown' the guy says. 'I'm Frankie, youse here for da gig, right?'
Me (hesitantly): 'Yes, here is my resume.'
Frankie: 'You're a funny guy.'
Me (naively): 'Thanks, I -'
Frankie: 'Hey Big Tony, getta loada dis guy, here's my resume.'
Big Tony: 'Ha ha ha.'
Me (uncomfortable, restoring to my 'memorized questions to get the interview back on track' (chapter 15)): 'So uhh, what would you say is the most challenging aspect of this position?'
Frankie: 'Getting the clients to pay regular.'
Big Tony: 'Haaaa Ha.'
Me '..?'
Frankie: 'We sell insurance.'
Me (showing interest with related follow-up questions (chapter 16)): 'Oh, you mean like State Farm, or -'
Frankie: 'Hey Tony, dis guys bustin' me up here, like State Farm, that's rich.'
Big Tony: 'Ha ha ha.'
Frankie: 'Yeah, like State Farm, only we sells door to door, see?'
Me (in my head): 'Oh dear God...'
Me (outloud): 'So I would be -'
Frankie: 'You do collections. We collect door to door every week.'
Me: 'I see.'
Frankie: 'Some clients don't pay unless you motivate them. You got skills?'
Me: 'I-uh-huh?!'
Frankie: 'Are you tryin' to break my balls here? What am I, an asshole here?'
Big Tony: 'I'll get this -'
Frankie: 'Get dis guy outta here!'
And I was summarily gotten out of there. And I'm still not really clear on what the job was, except that it was probably painful, illegal, and quite unnecessary. Thankfully, I eventually managed to grab a job at the local University being a lab rat for some cancer research team. The pay was horrible, the tasks repetitive, and the prospects for advancement were dismal - as there were PhD's sitting across from my lab bench doing the exact same work that I was - but at least it paid the rent. It wasn't until later that I slowly gathered some real secrets for good interviewing, a few of which I will attempt to summarize for you here today. The following recommendations are based on being on both sides of the interview table approximately 100 times in the past 5 years - take them for whatever you think they're worth:
1) Dress appropriately to the job that you are applying for. Dress as if you were ready to step out of the interview and start working right away. Any more, and people might think that you're pompous or over-compensating - any less, and you appear not to care about or respect the position. Most interviewees fret about potential employers discovering weaknesses in their skill sets, but when I look across the table at someone I find myself asking 'Will they fit in?' just as often as 'Are they an idiot?'. Dress like you'll fit in.
2) Don't be afraid to admit ignorance of a topic or question asked. The interviewer likely already knows both the textbook answer and the real answer to whatever question they are asking, so don't bother trying to fake it. You'll sound like an idiot, kill your chances for the job, and likely provide endless entertainment for the interviewer's co-workers later that day. Say something like: 'Well, I don't have a lot of experience in that area, but if I had to guess, then I would say [...]' Even if you're wrong, you'll score points for demonstrating an ability to know your own limitations. This engenders trust. Editorial note: Don't try to use this on every question.
3) Have an answer ready for the following interview question: 'So, knowing what you know about our company now, tell me, what can you do to help us reach our goals?' Sounds stupid, yeah, especially if it's McDonalds, but if you go in with a clear picture of what the company is and how you fit in, then the answers you give to any other interview questions will paint a consistent and cohesive picture. If you have a good interviewer, then they will note this - and you will move up the list. If they ask this question straight away (only happened to me once), and you answer it with any kind of eloquence, then you just got the job. Congrats.
4) Have a few questions ready to ask the interviewer. You can stay generic here if you want, though pointed questions are better. Generic? 'So what do you envision the key contributions for this position to be?' 'What do you see as the most challenging aspects of this position?' 'What is a typical day-in-the-life like for your team?' You know, just stuff. Stuff that helps you learn about what kind of chaotic hell-hole you'll be (potentially) thrust into on a Monday coming soon. If you have no questions, then you have no apparent interest, and you'll move down the list fast.
5) Don't say anything stupid. Bad interviewers, especially, are looking for reasons to not hire you rather than looking for reasons to suspect that you will be a star at their company. If you need to keep a mouse in your pocket and stroke him when you get nervous, then the interview is not the best time to mention this. Shut the hell up, keep the mouse in your pocket, and smile.
6) When and if the inevitable subject of salary requirements ever comes up, the company will try to sign you for as little as possible. Oh, they may say that they are working with you to find a 'mutually beneficial' (Chapter 18) arrangement - or some other crap like that, but the fact of that matter is that if you would sign a piece of paper saying that you would do the job for $5 a year, then that would, all of a sudden, become the most beneficial arrangement. When they ask what you want, then you need to respond like this:
Company (wink wink): 'So, what's it going to take to get you to work here, today?'
You: 'Well, that's an excellent question. What are you prepared to offer your best candidate?'
Company (with a suddenly fake, plastic smile): 'Come on, now.'
You: 'Come on, now.'
Company (no matter what they say): 'Blah blah blah.'
You: 'Show me the money.'
Stick to those basics and you'll avoid a lot of uncomfortable situations. Most uncomfortable situation I have ever been in? Sure. I was interviewing at McDonalds just before my senior year of college in order to make ends meet. They had assistant manager positions open which were paying more than anything else at that point, so I decided to lie my way into an interview. 'No, no, I've had enough of college. I'm giving it up one year short of my degree to join your fine organization where I'll happily be the modern-day equivalent of an indentured servant for the rest of my life' I said, or the equivalent, and was invited to interview. During the interview I met with a current McDonald’s manager and listened to him talk about the goals of the company, and McDonald's University, and the training program, and all the other company lines. He indicated that there were several stations that I would have to work my way through and spend about 6 weeks working each until I had attained a mastery of each one. This seemed kind of.. dumb? to me, so I tried to make light of the requirement by saying 'Well, yeah, but do you really need six weeks salting fries? I mean, how can you screw up salting fries?' And this little mistake (don't say anything stupid, see #5 above) cost me approximately 30 of the most uncomfortable minutes in my life (that I will never get back) where we had to go over the proper procedure for salting fries in painstaking detail, as well as anything that could possibly go wrong with the process. To sum up: You salt forwards, back, and then forwards one more time. Three passes, and you try not to get salt in the oil, because it will break down the oil - which I say is complete BS, but I didn't want to get into it with him because I didn't need to spend an hour discussing intermolecular bonding theories with someone who was probably a burger flipper six weeks ago. I actually thanked him for his time and left after our little salting lesson, because no matter what happened next I couldn't see being successful there - even for three months. Some things should just be too damned stupid to be allowed. I went and delivered pizzas instead - and that's another story. :)
Let's back up a minute. I had just graduated college with a degree in Biochemistry. A good private college too, not one of those wussy state schools where the final exams are multiple choice *cough* UMN *cough* so I actually did know how to do some pretty amazing (to me, at the time at least) stuff despite my B- average there. Want to know if that DNA matches? Need an HIV test? Want to grow mutant corn? No problemo! So, needless to say, I thought that I was pretty hot stuff. Obviously, I needed to find myself a hot stuff job. So, having an a) girlfriend heading to Minneapolis and b) a big head filled with very little sense, I decided to pack up our (100% her) stuff in a U-Haul truck and head out there with her. Hm? Oh, no, I didn't have a job waiting there for me. Place to stay? Well, no, not as such. Money? Well, enough to last a few weeks I guess, as long as you like all four flavors of Ramen. The truck? Well, yes, they'll want it back after we arrive in Minneapolis. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. So in essence we had a place to stay (Super 8) and store our stuff (back of the U-Haul) for about 48 hours after our arrival, after which point we would either need to have an apartment or a garage sale. Surprisingly, the stars aligned and all went well, and that's how I came to be sitting in Minneapolis, reading the most useless interviewing guide on the planet made up by some total fuck-wit who was probably a free-lance writer and as such had never been offered nor held a real job in his whole life.
Now I had been on several job interviews before, but they were all for really crappy jobs where the interview was more of a formality than anything - sometimes only consisting of two words in the case of farm labor ('ju wanna?). A nod in the affirmative was all that one took - and, as most of my co-workers at the time either didn't speak English, or were people that you didn't want to spend any more time within arm's reach of than it took to say ' 'ju wanna?', I understood why.
Now, since Monster.com was in its infancy at the time, the best way to look for a job was still in classified ads for the most part. Unfortunately, since news papers charged by the word, some of the ads were quite brief, leaving much to the imagination of the reader. This is how I came to be sitting across from Len the next morning, completely unprepared for what was about to happen. I think the ad went something like this:
*******************************************************
* Asst. Mgr for rapid grow hi-tech company. Will train,
* no exp nec up to 68k to start 612-555-haha
*******************************************************
Ah, management already, excellent. I like delegating, and I'm all about hi-tech stuff. 68k, that's not too shabby either, in fact better than I was expecting for my first job. So I call and make an interview appointment with 'Len', drive up at the appointed time, and get out of the car looking for the address. It's in a strip mall... Okay, fine. Hm. 'E-L-E-C-T-R-O-L-U-X' the sign read. Okay, well, I guess that sounds kind of high tech. Assistant manager for the Electrolux corporation, hah, won't my college buddies be jealous when they find out. So I put on my interview face (chapter 9), and push open the door to find a display room full of vacuum cleaners. Big grey ugly vacuum cleaners. I step out and scrutinize the outside of the door again. . . 'E-L-E-C-T-R-O-L-U-X' it reads. 'Hmm. Maybe they are having the carpets cleaned or something...' I think, as I go back inside. 'Hello?' I say, in my confident, polite, and pleasing interview voice (chapter 6). A strange little man with a very dated suit and bow tie comes walking out from the back room, smiles at me, and then continues walking out the front door dragging a vacuum behind him. He kinda reminded me of that claymation-puppet host guy for those 1970's-era Santa, Frosty, and Rudolph shows that they drag out every year around Christmas. We really need new Christmas shows, don't we? I digress... At any rate, I walked cautiously towards the back room, dully wondering if this is a joke. 'Come in' says a heavy set man with a comb-over and coke-bottle glasses. 'I'm Len' he breathed. 'Hi, I -' I start, but Len cuts in 'Sit down. You see those over there?' he says, grunting towards a wall of ugly grey vacuum cleaners.
Me: 'Yah, th-'
Len: 'That's the new model 55. The chassis is a replica of the original models sold back in 55.'
Me: 'Oh, I-'
Len: 'They're the big seller right now and we push more units than any other store in the Midwest.'
Me: 'That's v-'
Len: 'A lot of folks don't know who we are these days, but if you go knocking on doors of the older generation then you'll see a smile and a wink, because they know quality when they see it.'
Me: 'I'm here about the assistant manager job?'
Len (continuing): 'You know, we use the same technology in these model 55s as jet aero-planes. There's not another vacuum in the world that can make the same claim.'
Me: 'I-'
Len: 'A lot of people will tell you that they can get by with less, but the beauty of an Electrolux vacuum is power and durability.'
Me (in my head, while looking them over): 'Well, the beauty certainly isn't in the chassis...'
Len: 'People don't know what they need in a vacuum anymore. They go for looks, or portability, or because it's quiet, but what they don't know is that it's not picking up all the dirt from their carpet. You don't want a dirty carpet do you?
Me: 'N-'
Len (pounding his fist on the table): 'No one wants a dirty carpet!'
Me (resume still in hand): 'I-'
Len (continuing to pound): 'For $800 today, you'll never have a dirty carpet again!'
Me: 'I'll just go ahead and see myself out...'
Len (talking over me, oblivious to the fact I am leaving): 'This is the finest machine ever built! Could put a man on the moon with the parts inside it!'
Sooo, I emerge from Electrolux a little wiser in the ways of the world, and as it happens we already owned a lovely little green Hoover at the time that even did the stairs. It cost (her) $100 and lasted 9 years before we threw it out - chiefly because she was taken in by the pretty colors of the new Dysons - not because the Hoover was giving out. Secretly, I still miss the Hoover. It was a total whore of a vacuum, sucking up anything that it came across without a single complaint. The new Dyson, by comparison, is kinda prissy. Anyhoo, since the whole Len thing was a failure, I started reading the paper again.
*******************************************************
* Exp cash handler for evening work. Must have reliab
* trans. Apply in person at Minn. Mariott Hotel
*******************************************************
Okay, so it's not Biochemistry exactly, but it could pay the bills while I get a real job eh? So I go down to the Mariott and walk up to the front desk - got four copies of my resume, got two pens, suit - check, tie - check, lookin' good, smellin', well, ok, and here we go!
Me: 'Hi, my name is Hammy, and I'm here to apply for the position posted in the Minnesota Crapper (or whatever their paper was called - I dunno).
She (handing me an application): 'Here, fill this out. I'll let them know you are here.'
Me: 'Thanks.'
So I sit down, and as I am debating whether blue or black ink would be more appropriate for this application - as it was copied on blue paper, I get a tap on the shoulder.
Him: 'Hey, you can leave that here. Follow me.'
Me: 'Okay, nice to meet you, I'm Hammy.'
Him (not looking at me): 'I'm Big Tony.'
He must have noticed my impeccable dress (Chapter 3) and resumes ready in hand (Chapter 4), and that's why I didn't have to fill out or bring the application with me. Yes, he knows how to spot a fellow professional when he sees one (Appendix A), for sure.
Big Tony proceeded to lead us down the hallway, across the hotel, and to the elevator. Were we going to a conference room? Was he giving me a tour of the hotel?
Big Tony (as if sensing my confusion): 'There's a guy you gotta meet.'
Me: 'Okay, sure.'
We get out on the second floor, and walk to a nearby hotel room. Big Tony stops and knocks twice. 'Who is it?' comes from inside. 'It's Big Tony' says Big Tony. 'Yeah, alright.' the inside voice says, and the door opens and we proceed into the room. It's just a room. A hotel room. And not even a suite. My spider sense begins to tingle. Rut Roh Raggy. . .
'Siddown' the guy says. 'I'm Frankie, youse here for da gig, right?'
Me (hesitantly): 'Yes, here is my resume.'
Frankie: 'You're a funny guy.'
Me (naively): 'Thanks, I -'
Frankie: 'Hey Big Tony, getta loada dis guy, here's my resume.'
Big Tony: 'Ha ha ha.'
Me (uncomfortable, restoring to my 'memorized questions to get the interview back on track' (chapter 15)): 'So uhh, what would you say is the most challenging aspect of this position?'
Frankie: 'Getting the clients to pay regular.'
Big Tony: 'Haaaa Ha.'
Me '..?'
Frankie: 'We sell insurance.'
Me (showing interest with related follow-up questions (chapter 16)): 'Oh, you mean like State Farm, or -'
Frankie: 'Hey Tony, dis guys bustin' me up here, like State Farm, that's rich.'
Big Tony: 'Ha ha ha.'
Frankie: 'Yeah, like State Farm, only we sells door to door, see?'
Me (in my head): 'Oh dear God...'
Me (outloud): 'So I would be -'
Frankie: 'You do collections. We collect door to door every week.'
Me: 'I see.'
Frankie: 'Some clients don't pay unless you motivate them. You got skills?'
Me: 'I-uh-huh?!'
Frankie: 'Are you tryin' to break my balls here? What am I, an asshole here?'
Big Tony: 'I'll get this -'
Frankie: 'Get dis guy outta here!'
And I was summarily gotten out of there. And I'm still not really clear on what the job was, except that it was probably painful, illegal, and quite unnecessary. Thankfully, I eventually managed to grab a job at the local University being a lab rat for some cancer research team. The pay was horrible, the tasks repetitive, and the prospects for advancement were dismal - as there were PhD's sitting across from my lab bench doing the exact same work that I was - but at least it paid the rent. It wasn't until later that I slowly gathered some real secrets for good interviewing, a few of which I will attempt to summarize for you here today. The following recommendations are based on being on both sides of the interview table approximately 100 times in the past 5 years - take them for whatever you think they're worth:
1) Dress appropriately to the job that you are applying for. Dress as if you were ready to step out of the interview and start working right away. Any more, and people might think that you're pompous or over-compensating - any less, and you appear not to care about or respect the position. Most interviewees fret about potential employers discovering weaknesses in their skill sets, but when I look across the table at someone I find myself asking 'Will they fit in?' just as often as 'Are they an idiot?'. Dress like you'll fit in.
2) Don't be afraid to admit ignorance of a topic or question asked. The interviewer likely already knows both the textbook answer and the real answer to whatever question they are asking, so don't bother trying to fake it. You'll sound like an idiot, kill your chances for the job, and likely provide endless entertainment for the interviewer's co-workers later that day. Say something like: 'Well, I don't have a lot of experience in that area, but if I had to guess, then I would say [...]' Even if you're wrong, you'll score points for demonstrating an ability to know your own limitations. This engenders trust. Editorial note: Don't try to use this on every question.
3) Have an answer ready for the following interview question: 'So, knowing what you know about our company now, tell me, what can you do to help us reach our goals?' Sounds stupid, yeah, especially if it's McDonalds, but if you go in with a clear picture of what the company is and how you fit in, then the answers you give to any other interview questions will paint a consistent and cohesive picture. If you have a good interviewer, then they will note this - and you will move up the list. If they ask this question straight away (only happened to me once), and you answer it with any kind of eloquence, then you just got the job. Congrats.
4) Have a few questions ready to ask the interviewer. You can stay generic here if you want, though pointed questions are better. Generic? 'So what do you envision the key contributions for this position to be?' 'What do you see as the most challenging aspects of this position?' 'What is a typical day-in-the-life like for your team?' You know, just stuff. Stuff that helps you learn about what kind of chaotic hell-hole you'll be (potentially) thrust into on a Monday coming soon. If you have no questions, then you have no apparent interest, and you'll move down the list fast.
5) Don't say anything stupid. Bad interviewers, especially, are looking for reasons to not hire you rather than looking for reasons to suspect that you will be a star at their company. If you need to keep a mouse in your pocket and stroke him when you get nervous, then the interview is not the best time to mention this. Shut the hell up, keep the mouse in your pocket, and smile.
6) When and if the inevitable subject of salary requirements ever comes up, the company will try to sign you for as little as possible. Oh, they may say that they are working with you to find a 'mutually beneficial' (Chapter 18) arrangement - or some other crap like that, but the fact of that matter is that if you would sign a piece of paper saying that you would do the job for $5 a year, then that would, all of a sudden, become the most beneficial arrangement. When they ask what you want, then you need to respond like this:
Company (wink wink): 'So, what's it going to take to get you to work here, today?'
You: 'Well, that's an excellent question. What are you prepared to offer your best candidate?'
Company (with a suddenly fake, plastic smile): 'Come on, now.'
You: 'Come on, now.'
Company (no matter what they say): 'Blah blah blah.'
You: 'Show me the money.'
Stick to those basics and you'll avoid a lot of uncomfortable situations. Most uncomfortable situation I have ever been in? Sure. I was interviewing at McDonalds just before my senior year of college in order to make ends meet. They had assistant manager positions open which were paying more than anything else at that point, so I decided to lie my way into an interview. 'No, no, I've had enough of college. I'm giving it up one year short of my degree to join your fine organization where I'll happily be the modern-day equivalent of an indentured servant for the rest of my life' I said, or the equivalent, and was invited to interview. During the interview I met with a current McDonald’s manager and listened to him talk about the goals of the company, and McDonald's University, and the training program, and all the other company lines. He indicated that there were several stations that I would have to work my way through and spend about 6 weeks working each until I had attained a mastery of each one. This seemed kind of.. dumb? to me, so I tried to make light of the requirement by saying 'Well, yeah, but do you really need six weeks salting fries? I mean, how can you screw up salting fries?' And this little mistake (don't say anything stupid, see #5 above) cost me approximately 30 of the most uncomfortable minutes in my life (that I will never get back) where we had to go over the proper procedure for salting fries in painstaking detail, as well as anything that could possibly go wrong with the process. To sum up: You salt forwards, back, and then forwards one more time. Three passes, and you try not to get salt in the oil, because it will break down the oil - which I say is complete BS, but I didn't want to get into it with him because I didn't need to spend an hour discussing intermolecular bonding theories with someone who was probably a burger flipper six weeks ago. I actually thanked him for his time and left after our little salting lesson, because no matter what happened next I couldn't see being successful there - even for three months. Some things should just be too damned stupid to be allowed. I went and delivered pizzas instead - and that's another story. :)
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Quick Update aka the Cop Out
Yes, I am copping out this week. Actually, it's been about two weeks, hasn't it? I'm sorry, I have been adjusting to a new job and the result is that I haven't had much time to work on music or write anything remotely interesting on here for the last couple of months. I accept the blame.
At any rate, I wanted to make an entry to let y'all know that 1) I am not dead, as Perez Hilton reported earlier, and 2) That I am thankful for the hundreds of you that have gone on to iTunes or Amazon and bought a song. You have inspired me to keep going. Over the past several weeks I have managed to actually finish writing the full-length album that I want to put out, and now it's just a matter of finding the time to record all of the parts that go into it. It will be out this year, even if I have to squeak it by in December. I'm hoping for late summer myself though.
Sooo, highlights of the last few months include:
- Receiving a bottle of simple syrup in the mail from a couple readers in Europe (who must have felt some sympathy for that Simple Syrup story) - thanks guys!!!
- Getting 3 nice 'atta-boys' on the iTunes reviews page (woo hoo!)
- Happily reporting to my wife that the 'I met My Wife at a Strip Club' story is the most popular read on this blog, despite her protests
- Seeing that music video to the right there has received over 300,000 views (combined) from all of the sites that have hosted it. W-O-W!
So, if you'll accept a cop-out for this week, I humbly offer the following joke (which is not mine) for your amusement:
C, E-flat, and G walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Sorry, but we don't serve minors." So, the E-flat leaves, and the C and the G have an open fifth between them. After a few drinks, the fifth is diminished; the G is out flat. An F comes in and tries to augment the situation, but is not sharp enough. A D comes into the bar and heads straight for the bathroom saying, "Excuse me. I'll just be a second." An A comes into the bar, but the bartender is not convinced that this relative of C is not a minor. Then the bartender notices a B-flat hiding at the end of the bar and exclaims, "Get out now! You're the seventh minor I've found in this bar tonight." The E-flat, not easily deflated, comes back to the bar the next night in a 3-piece suit with nicely shined shoes. The bartender says: "You're looking sharp tonight, come on in! This could be a major development." This proves to be the case, as the E-flat takes off the suit, and everything else, and is now au naturel. Eventually, the C sobers up, and realizes in horror that he's under a rest. The C is brought to trial, is found guilty of contributing to the diminution of a minor, and is sentenced to 10 years of DS without Coda at an upscale correctional facility. On appeal, however, the C is found innocent of any wrongdoing, even accidental, and that all accusations to the contrary are bassless. . .
Y'all remember not to take things too seriously, if only for today.
Cheers!
At any rate, I wanted to make an entry to let y'all know that 1) I am not dead, as Perez Hilton reported earlier, and 2) That I am thankful for the hundreds of you that have gone on to iTunes or Amazon and bought a song. You have inspired me to keep going. Over the past several weeks I have managed to actually finish writing the full-length album that I want to put out, and now it's just a matter of finding the time to record all of the parts that go into it. It will be out this year, even if I have to squeak it by in December. I'm hoping for late summer myself though.
Sooo, highlights of the last few months include:
- Receiving a bottle of simple syrup in the mail from a couple readers in Europe (who must have felt some sympathy for that Simple Syrup story) - thanks guys!!!
- Getting 3 nice 'atta-boys' on the iTunes reviews page (woo hoo!)
- Happily reporting to my wife that the 'I met My Wife at a Strip Club' story is the most popular read on this blog, despite her protests
- Seeing that music video to the right there has received over 300,000 views (combined) from all of the sites that have hosted it. W-O-W!
So, if you'll accept a cop-out for this week, I humbly offer the following joke (which is not mine) for your amusement:
C, E-flat, and G walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Sorry, but we don't serve minors." So, the E-flat leaves, and the C and the G have an open fifth between them. After a few drinks, the fifth is diminished; the G is out flat. An F comes in and tries to augment the situation, but is not sharp enough. A D comes into the bar and heads straight for the bathroom saying, "Excuse me. I'll just be a second." An A comes into the bar, but the bartender is not convinced that this relative of C is not a minor. Then the bartender notices a B-flat hiding at the end of the bar and exclaims, "Get out now! You're the seventh minor I've found in this bar tonight." The E-flat, not easily deflated, comes back to the bar the next night in a 3-piece suit with nicely shined shoes. The bartender says: "You're looking sharp tonight, come on in! This could be a major development." This proves to be the case, as the E-flat takes off the suit, and everything else, and is now au naturel. Eventually, the C sobers up, and realizes in horror that he's under a rest. The C is brought to trial, is found guilty of contributing to the diminution of a minor, and is sentenced to 10 years of DS without Coda at an upscale correctional facility. On appeal, however, the C is found innocent of any wrongdoing, even accidental, and that all accusations to the contrary are bassless. . .
Y'all remember not to take things too seriously, if only for today.
Cheers!
Thursday, June 19, 2008
A Modest Proposal
So, you've probably read about (how I met my wife), but did you hear about how I proposed? It's actually our anniverssary this week, so I've been thinking back to that day long ago. Let's rewind a few years, and I'll tell you the tale. . .
It's November, and it's buttfucking cold. No, not kind of cold, not really cold, it's geniune, wholesale, buttfucking cold because we're in Minnesota in the winter time, and they've been 'having a bit of a cold front moving in'. Editorial note: This means that it might climb into single digits for the high today, but with the wind-chill it will really be about -40.
News anchor: 'It's gonna be a little chilly today, for shooore!'
Co-anchor: 'Oooh yah, for shooore. Better button up those little ones, yah!'
News anchor: 'That's right, we're looking at an intra-day high of seven today, but the wind-chill means that any bare skin will die within a few minutes of exposure!'
Co-anchor: 'Yah, yah, scarves and hats at the bus stop this morning kids!'
News Anchor (nodding): 'Ooh, yah, that's a good idea Margey'
Co-anchor (nodding): 'Ooh yah.'
News Anchor (nodding back): 'Yah.'
Why are we in Minnesota you ask? Why is anyone in Minnesota you ask? That's a very good question, and the latter had something to do with even the Native Americans not wanting it, and the former to do with, as my father put it, 'chasing that skirt cross-country'. Apparently, if you're from northern Scandanavia, then Minnesota is pretty good living, so the Scandanavians decided to move in, and no one felt the need to stop them. Okay, I might be over-simplifying American immigration a tad, but in a nutshell that's what happened. So yah, you best button up those little ones, yah.
So the wife-to-be had been hinting that she was interested in tying the knot, so to speak. Our coffee table had begun to be taken over with magazines from Ben Bridge, Zales, The Shane Company, and other diamond hawkers who seem to hold some mystical power over the psyche of a woman which convinces them that something that a criminal dug out of the mud is somehow worth two months of your salary. * cough * whataloadofshit * cough * Sooooo, we're sitting there having dinner one night and the subject inevitably comes up:
She (dropping the hint): 'You know, I was talking with [someone] today, and she said that they have really great merchandise at The Shane Company, I think we should go...'
Me (looking up with a mouthful of Ramen, unaware): 'Hmph?'
She: 'Yes, it looks like they are open until 8, well it's settled then.'
Me (thankful that whatever it is is settled): 'Mowkay.'
So, half an hour later I am driving around in the snow, trying to find The Shane Company. 'Don't worry, I'll leave my purse in the car', she says. Now somehow we managed to buy her (our) first cat, who is still living with us by the way, while her purse was still in the car, but I don't remember this until much later - which is a pity because it would have made for great foreshadowing. We find The Shane Company. I park. We walk in, and are greeted with a dazzling display of diamonds adorning any kind of jewelry that you would ever want to wear.
Sales girl: 'Can I help you?'
The wife (giving the sales girl a certain, secret look): 'Oh... We're just looking...'
Sales girl (knowingly): 'Come right this way.'
Now, inside my mind I start to wonder, and I begin to piece together what has happened and what is about to happen, but much too slowly to be of any use or to head-off what is, at this point, absolutely certain to happen.
Future wife: (turning around, eyes beaming): 'Don't you looove it??'
Sales girl: 'That's a quality diamond right there Hammy. Hey, have you heard about the four C's?'
Future wife (fighting back a little dance of joy, and holding the ring up high, admiring it from every angle): 'Tell us about the four C's Carol!!'
Me (in my head): 'Carol, who's Ca --- Oh.'
Carol: 'Well, I'm glad you asked, the four C's are Color, Clarity, Blah, and blah blah blah blah.'
Carol blah blah blah'd for about an hour and a half, after which I found myself sitting in the car with a happy wife and no money spent. Awesome. We went home, and all seemed well. Then the next day we were sitting around after dinner, and she was all of a sudden unhappy. I can tell because she always makes these little over-obvious sighs which are designed to get me to look up from whatever I am doing and ask 'What's wrong honey?', at which point she will usually say something that is long, agonizing, and can't be solved by a man. It's usually something like she has this friend, and this friend said something insensitive to her other friend. So now her other friend isn't talking to the first friend, but the first friend doesn't know, and there's this party next week, and she couldn't possibly invite them both, and blah and blah and omg, I need another beer. Viva la penis, that's all I gotta say.
Anyway, she sighs, and sighs again, and then a third time, so I know I have to bite:
Me (perfectly disguised dread): 'Is something wrong honey?' *cringe *
Her: 'I just, I just hope no one else gets that ring, I love it soooo much.'
Me (in my head): 'Ring? What ring?'
Me (dismissive): 'Oh, I'm sure it will all be okay honey...'
Her: 'I didn't see anything else I liked, and they only had one.'
Me (dawning): 'Yeah, ummm, it sure was pretty.'
Me (in my head): 'Who the f--- was that sales girl again?'
Her (distraught): ...
So needless to say, I go back to The Shane Company the next day, find Kristi or Carlie or whatever the hell her name is, and say 'Hi, what was that one ring again?'. And she knows, and do you know what? I knew that she would know, because of that secret-look thing that went on earlier in the week. I had half-fancied that her and my future wife would hook up in some torrid affair before my bedroom eyes, but now I understood exactly what that secret look meant. It meant: 'Help me part my man from his money'. And thus she did, swiftly and efficiently, and for my $$$$$ (ouch) I got to leave with a teeny little piece of metal and rock, smaller than a quarter, dressed up nicely in a little felt box. Hoo-freaking-ray.
The days went by, and my wife seemed to grow more distant, more despondant, and more irritable by the day. I decided that, if I was going to propose to her before she garnished my dinner with rat poison, that I would have to do it rather quickly. So I picked a night in late November, and as we sat watching television I brought it up. Now, I had heard of spectacular proposals before. Proposals where people went up together in hot air balloons and when flying over a particular ridge at just the break of day the guy had his idiot friends light a bunch of hay bales on fire in the middle of a field that spelled out 'WILL YOU MARRY ME?' The guy was thrown in jail, his friends fined $1000 each, but she did say yes, and I bet the memory is worth more to them than any misdemeanors on his record. Some people had proposed at a baseball game on TV, some people at a nice dinner out with an acapella song, some people didn't have the guts for these kinds of proposals, but they nonetheless found a way to make that night special for their bride-to-be.
So I start scheming. Maybe I could get her to take a hot air balloon ride. Maybe I could sing at a piano bar. Maybe we could just go for a nice walk, and at the right moment I could pop the question. I try to be subtle. Don't want to tip my hand...
Me: 'So, uhh, what do you feel like doing tonight?'
Her (laying on the couch, mad): 'I'm doing it.'
TV Guy: 'Looks like we're in for more chills tonight, with lows reaching the minus teens...'
Me: 'How about we go for a walk and look at Christmas lights?'
Her: 'No.'
TV Girl: 'That's right yah. Time to plug in those cars, yah, for shooore.' <--Editorial note: They don't mean electric cars. In some parts of Minnesota it gets so cold that on a chilly morning, if you go outside to start your car then the sudden temperature change in the engine block will actually crack the steel. Plugging in your car keeps the engine block warm. How fucked up is this?
Me: 'Errkay, umm. Hey, we could go out for a nice dinner instead of cooking tonight.'
Her: 'I already thawed hamburger.'
TV Guy (nodding): 'Ooh, yah, that's a good idea there Margey.'
Me: 'Well, is there anything you would like to do other than -'
Her: 'I want to go to K-Mart and get a new litter box.'
TV Girl (nodding back): 'Ooh yah.'
Me (trying to work this out somehow): 'Errkay. . . '
So we go to Kmart, and before walking in we are greeted by a bell-ringer (Salvation Army), and my wife sticks out her hand (as is custom) for my spare change to put in the pot. Actually, what she says is 'Give me something shiney to put in the pot', well, usually, but not this time on account of her mood - which is a pity because that would have been a good time to present the ring. I dig around and hand her what I have. I still have one more chance when we come out of the store though - as she likes to get me both coming and going. She throws my money in the pot and stalks off into the store, very much on a mission for that new cat box. I can't blame her really, the old cat box does smell like ass, and it's not like I'm going to wash it out either. It's a good thing I didn't give her the ring right then, actually, because I would have had to spend the next twenty minutes with a store-bought screw-driver prying open the pot over the objections of the Salvation Army guy.
I check my pocket, for like the fourth time, because inside is an envelope (left the box at home to be more stealthy) with her ring in it. A ring that I paid more for than anything else in my life to that date, and if it falls out of my pocket then I may as well hang myself because I'll be out the money and no other ring will ever do. Losing the ring would be grounds for saying 'screw it', and joining a traveling carnival, really. So I check it again, and it's there, thank God.
She picks out a beauty of a new cat box, and we go to the register. I fidget more. She looks back at me kind of annoyed (I later learn that she thinks I am shoplifting gum or something, as I am nervously feeling around in my pockets and trying to open the envelope with one hand, unbeknownst to her). And we start to walk out. The bare ring is in hand now, and I am walking right behind her. And she doesn't stop at the bell ringer for some reason. She usually can't pass up a bell ringer with a little pot, so this is unusual for her. She didn't stop at the bloody bell ringer, now what the hell am I supposed to do? My big plan is ruined!
In a panic I chase her into the parking lot a few steps and call out to her 'Hey, I've got something shiney for the pot!' And she turns around really kind of pissed off that I am delaying our departure, because as I said before, it's buttfucking cold out. 'Fine.' she says, and starts to grab for my hand as I get down on one knee, in the parking lot of the K-Mart with the ever-present ice crystals floating in the air, illuminated by the headlights of on-coming K-Mart shoppers - who pause just briefly to witness this event. '[Name of future wife], Will you marry me?' I ask. And my hands are shaking from the cold, as my gloves are off and my arms are stretched into the air. And the knee of my jeans is stuck to the ice on the asphalt of the parking lot on account of the cold, and she looks at me and smiles for the first time in days, and says 'Yes'. Thank God.
We left the cat box in the middle of the parking lot by accident, but we went back for it. A cat box is, after all, a cat box. Then went back home and finished the news, only it was a happier news this time:
TV Girl: 'Ooh, looks like it's going to warm up a bit next week.'
TV Guy: 'Yah Margey, into the teens it looks like, yah.'
TV Girl: 'Are we going to be looking at some thunder-snow then there?'
TV Guy: 'Ooh yeah, could be thunder-snow, for shooore, yah.'
TV Girl (nodding): 'Best stay in side then, yah.'
TV Guy (nodding back): 'Ooh, yah.'
Me: 'What the hell is thunder-snow?'
Future-wife (content): 'It doesn't matter.'
It's November, and it's buttfucking cold. No, not kind of cold, not really cold, it's geniune, wholesale, buttfucking cold because we're in Minnesota in the winter time, and they've been 'having a bit of a cold front moving in'. Editorial note: This means that it might climb into single digits for the high today, but with the wind-chill it will really be about -40.
News anchor: 'It's gonna be a little chilly today, for shooore!'
Co-anchor: 'Oooh yah, for shooore. Better button up those little ones, yah!'
News anchor: 'That's right, we're looking at an intra-day high of seven today, but the wind-chill means that any bare skin will die within a few minutes of exposure!'
Co-anchor: 'Yah, yah, scarves and hats at the bus stop this morning kids!'
News Anchor (nodding): 'Ooh, yah, that's a good idea Margey'
Co-anchor (nodding): 'Ooh yah.'
News Anchor (nodding back): 'Yah.'
Why are we in Minnesota you ask? Why is anyone in Minnesota you ask? That's a very good question, and the latter had something to do with even the Native Americans not wanting it, and the former to do with, as my father put it, 'chasing that skirt cross-country'. Apparently, if you're from northern Scandanavia, then Minnesota is pretty good living, so the Scandanavians decided to move in, and no one felt the need to stop them. Okay, I might be over-simplifying American immigration a tad, but in a nutshell that's what happened. So yah, you best button up those little ones, yah.
So the wife-to-be had been hinting that she was interested in tying the knot, so to speak. Our coffee table had begun to be taken over with magazines from Ben Bridge, Zales, The Shane Company, and other diamond hawkers who seem to hold some mystical power over the psyche of a woman which convinces them that something that a criminal dug out of the mud is somehow worth two months of your salary. * cough * whataloadofshit * cough * Sooooo, we're sitting there having dinner one night and the subject inevitably comes up:
She (dropping the hint): 'You know, I was talking with [someone] today, and she said that they have really great merchandise at The Shane Company, I think we should go...'
Me (looking up with a mouthful of Ramen, unaware): 'Hmph?'
She: 'Yes, it looks like they are open until 8, well it's settled then.'
Me (thankful that whatever it is is settled): 'Mowkay.'
So, half an hour later I am driving around in the snow, trying to find The Shane Company. 'Don't worry, I'll leave my purse in the car', she says. Now somehow we managed to buy her (our) first cat, who is still living with us by the way, while her purse was still in the car, but I don't remember this until much later - which is a pity because it would have made for great foreshadowing. We find The Shane Company. I park. We walk in, and are greeted with a dazzling display of diamonds adorning any kind of jewelry that you would ever want to wear.
Sales girl: 'Can I help you?'
The wife (giving the sales girl a certain, secret look): 'Oh... We're just looking...'
Sales girl (knowingly): 'Come right this way.'
Now, inside my mind I start to wonder, and I begin to piece together what has happened and what is about to happen, but much too slowly to be of any use or to head-off what is, at this point, absolutely certain to happen.
Future wife: (turning around, eyes beaming): 'Don't you looove it??'
Sales girl: 'That's a quality diamond right there Hammy. Hey, have you heard about the four C's?'
Future wife (fighting back a little dance of joy, and holding the ring up high, admiring it from every angle): 'Tell us about the four C's Carol!!'
Me (in my head): 'Carol, who's Ca --- Oh.'
Carol: 'Well, I'm glad you asked, the four C's are Color, Clarity, Blah, and blah blah blah blah.'
Carol blah blah blah'd for about an hour and a half, after which I found myself sitting in the car with a happy wife and no money spent. Awesome. We went home, and all seemed well. Then the next day we were sitting around after dinner, and she was all of a sudden unhappy. I can tell because she always makes these little over-obvious sighs which are designed to get me to look up from whatever I am doing and ask 'What's wrong honey?', at which point she will usually say something that is long, agonizing, and can't be solved by a man. It's usually something like she has this friend, and this friend said something insensitive to her other friend. So now her other friend isn't talking to the first friend, but the first friend doesn't know, and there's this party next week, and she couldn't possibly invite them both, and blah and blah and omg, I need another beer. Viva la penis, that's all I gotta say.
Anyway, she sighs, and sighs again, and then a third time, so I know I have to bite:
Me (perfectly disguised dread): 'Is something wrong honey?' *cringe *
Her: 'I just, I just hope no one else gets that ring, I love it soooo much.'
Me (in my head): 'Ring? What ring?'
Me (dismissive): 'Oh, I'm sure it will all be okay honey...'
Her: 'I didn't see anything else I liked, and they only had one.'
Me (dawning): 'Yeah, ummm, it sure was pretty.'
Me (in my head): 'Who the f--- was that sales girl again?'
Her (distraught): ...
So needless to say, I go back to The Shane Company the next day, find Kristi or Carlie or whatever the hell her name is, and say 'Hi, what was that one ring again?'. And she knows, and do you know what? I knew that she would know, because of that secret-look thing that went on earlier in the week. I had half-fancied that her and my future wife would hook up in some torrid affair before my bedroom eyes, but now I understood exactly what that secret look meant. It meant: 'Help me part my man from his money'. And thus she did, swiftly and efficiently, and for my $$$$$ (ouch) I got to leave with a teeny little piece of metal and rock, smaller than a quarter, dressed up nicely in a little felt box. Hoo-freaking-ray.
The days went by, and my wife seemed to grow more distant, more despondant, and more irritable by the day. I decided that, if I was going to propose to her before she garnished my dinner with rat poison, that I would have to do it rather quickly. So I picked a night in late November, and as we sat watching television I brought it up. Now, I had heard of spectacular proposals before. Proposals where people went up together in hot air balloons and when flying over a particular ridge at just the break of day the guy had his idiot friends light a bunch of hay bales on fire in the middle of a field that spelled out 'WILL YOU MARRY ME?' The guy was thrown in jail, his friends fined $1000 each, but she did say yes, and I bet the memory is worth more to them than any misdemeanors on his record. Some people had proposed at a baseball game on TV, some people at a nice dinner out with an acapella song, some people didn't have the guts for these kinds of proposals, but they nonetheless found a way to make that night special for their bride-to-be.
So I start scheming. Maybe I could get her to take a hot air balloon ride. Maybe I could sing at a piano bar. Maybe we could just go for a nice walk, and at the right moment I could pop the question. I try to be subtle. Don't want to tip my hand...
Me: 'So, uhh, what do you feel like doing tonight?'
Her (laying on the couch, mad): 'I'm doing it.'
TV Guy: 'Looks like we're in for more chills tonight, with lows reaching the minus teens...'
Me: 'How about we go for a walk and look at Christmas lights?'
Her: 'No.'
TV Girl: 'That's right yah. Time to plug in those cars, yah, for shooore.' <--Editorial note: They don't mean electric cars. In some parts of Minnesota it gets so cold that on a chilly morning, if you go outside to start your car then the sudden temperature change in the engine block will actually crack the steel. Plugging in your car keeps the engine block warm. How fucked up is this?
Me: 'Errkay, umm. Hey, we could go out for a nice dinner instead of cooking tonight.'
Her: 'I already thawed hamburger.'
TV Guy (nodding): 'Ooh, yah, that's a good idea there Margey.'
Me: 'Well, is there anything you would like to do other than -'
Her: 'I want to go to K-Mart and get a new litter box.'
TV Girl (nodding back): 'Ooh yah.'
Me (trying to work this out somehow): 'Errkay. . . '
So we go to Kmart, and before walking in we are greeted by a bell-ringer (Salvation Army), and my wife sticks out her hand (as is custom) for my spare change to put in the pot. Actually, what she says is 'Give me something shiney to put in the pot', well, usually, but not this time on account of her mood - which is a pity because that would have been a good time to present the ring. I dig around and hand her what I have. I still have one more chance when we come out of the store though - as she likes to get me both coming and going. She throws my money in the pot and stalks off into the store, very much on a mission for that new cat box. I can't blame her really, the old cat box does smell like ass, and it's not like I'm going to wash it out either. It's a good thing I didn't give her the ring right then, actually, because I would have had to spend the next twenty minutes with a store-bought screw-driver prying open the pot over the objections of the Salvation Army guy.
I check my pocket, for like the fourth time, because inside is an envelope (left the box at home to be more stealthy) with her ring in it. A ring that I paid more for than anything else in my life to that date, and if it falls out of my pocket then I may as well hang myself because I'll be out the money and no other ring will ever do. Losing the ring would be grounds for saying 'screw it', and joining a traveling carnival, really. So I check it again, and it's there, thank God.
She picks out a beauty of a new cat box, and we go to the register. I fidget more. She looks back at me kind of annoyed (I later learn that she thinks I am shoplifting gum or something, as I am nervously feeling around in my pockets and trying to open the envelope with one hand, unbeknownst to her). And we start to walk out. The bare ring is in hand now, and I am walking right behind her. And she doesn't stop at the bell ringer for some reason. She usually can't pass up a bell ringer with a little pot, so this is unusual for her. She didn't stop at the bloody bell ringer, now what the hell am I supposed to do? My big plan is ruined!
In a panic I chase her into the parking lot a few steps and call out to her 'Hey, I've got something shiney for the pot!' And she turns around really kind of pissed off that I am delaying our departure, because as I said before, it's buttfucking cold out. 'Fine.' she says, and starts to grab for my hand as I get down on one knee, in the parking lot of the K-Mart with the ever-present ice crystals floating in the air, illuminated by the headlights of on-coming K-Mart shoppers - who pause just briefly to witness this event. '[Name of future wife], Will you marry me?' I ask. And my hands are shaking from the cold, as my gloves are off and my arms are stretched into the air. And the knee of my jeans is stuck to the ice on the asphalt of the parking lot on account of the cold, and she looks at me and smiles for the first time in days, and says 'Yes'. Thank God.
We left the cat box in the middle of the parking lot by accident, but we went back for it. A cat box is, after all, a cat box. Then went back home and finished the news, only it was a happier news this time:
TV Girl: 'Ooh, looks like it's going to warm up a bit next week.'
TV Guy: 'Yah Margey, into the teens it looks like, yah.'
TV Girl: 'Are we going to be looking at some thunder-snow then there?'
TV Guy: 'Ooh yeah, could be thunder-snow, for shooore, yah.'
TV Girl (nodding): 'Best stay in side then, yah.'
TV Guy (nodding back): 'Ooh, yah.'
Me: 'What the hell is thunder-snow?'
Future-wife (content): 'It doesn't matter.'
Sunday, June 8, 2008
In Retrospect
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/07/thong.bandits.ap/index.html
Now, having lived in what basically amounted to an immigrant housing project for the last couple years of college, I, at the risk of stereotyping, have found Hispanic people living in America to be fun, easy going, and resourceful (generally speaking). Based on my limited experience I would say that they, as a whole, usually don't take themselves too seriously, and they can often figure out how to do something cheaper, faster, and better than you would ordinarily think possible.
Case in point - one time I had a car that I needed to get emissions testing done for. It was a mess of a car (Pontiac Sunbird - only slightly less trouble than the Fiero was), and it had several issues in the engine department and wouldn't pass inspection for anything. I took it to a local shop where the guy started listing off what would need doing - adjust the idle, replace some vacuum tubing, something was up with the distributor, etc, etc.
Total cost: $Hundreds
He can fit me in: Monday
Being a poor teenager, and discouraged at this news, I decided to look around for alternatives. I needed to pass emissions to be able to drive my car, after all, and there was no way I could meet that bill for at least a few months. Now, why a seven-yr old coupe needs to pass emissions and a mostly-empty diesel-spewing bus doesn't is beyond me, but that's a separate rant. After driving around for a while I saw a non-descript service station of sorts that se habla'd Espanol, and so I decided to investigate. Pablo (yes, he really was named Pablo) came out with his friend (whose name I do not recall), and looked over the car with his bud and then came over to me and said something like this (and I am dead serious here):
Pablo: 'Okay, so we feex the car like theees, okay. You leeesin now.'
Me: 'Si.'
Pablo: 'I am going to file theeese connektors, si?'
Me: 'Si.'
Pablo: 'And then my essay over there, he eez going to [something, I don't know].'
Me (Well, it sounded like car talk): 'Si.'
Pablo: 'And then I take this screw, and tweeeest it in the tubing, si?'
Me: 'Si.'
Pablo: 'Don't let the inspector guy see this screw, or you will be fucked, si?'
Me: 'Si. Si. Cuanto es?'
Pablo: '¿Qué? '
Me (embarassed): 'Uhh, sorry, umm.. How much will it be, and when can you guys do the work?'
Pablo: 'Eet's already done essay, eets $20.'
And the inspectors never found the screw, or any of the other 'modifications' made in the engine, and I passed emissions, and all was well. For $20! Can you beat that?!
And there are other examples I could give where I have seen or been a part of schemes that involved similar 'simplification' of ordinarily complex tasks - from buying beer without ID to landscaping tricks to SAT preparation. So it strikes me as a bit, well, odd that the story above ever came to pass. In other words, what the hell were they thinking?
I figure that the conversation must have gone wrong somewhere along the line, and that's how these two ended up in jail hoping to hell that their fellow inmates don't discover that they like to dress in women's underwear. Maybe the conversation went something like this:
Guy #1: 'Man, essay, I could reeeelly go for some cervezas right now.'
Guy #2: 'Yeah man, but we don't got no money, man.'
Guy #1: 'I don't get paid until Wednesday man, what are we going to do?'
Guy #2: 'Hey man, I got a peestola, we could go rob the store and then get some beers after, man.'
Guy #1: 'Yeah, we could do that. But how will we disguise ourselves, essay?'
Guy #2: 'We could wear your seeester's panties on our faces!(?)'
Guy #1: 'Yeah man, that sounds like a good idea!' <---- Here's where it must have gone wrong.
Guy #2: 'Let's go.'
Like it or not, the conversation had to go something like that. Maybe we could substitute baby formula and hard times for beers and carelessness, but at some point the panties had to be brought up and agreed upon. Now, as much as I am a fan of thongs (God bless them), I would not try to conceal my face with one - well, unless maybe it was some kind of kinky litt --- you know what, I'll finish that thought privately.... Anyway, if I was forced to choose underwear for the job then I would probably cut eye holes in some granny panties and just go for it - but you can't possibly be constrained to underwear as your only concealment option right? I get if you're not a regular criminal (good for you!) and as such don't own a couple ski masks, but what about hankerchiefs? What about shop rags? What about rolling up a turtleneck and putting on a hat? What about a Halloween mask? What about wrapping an ace-bandage around your head - ala the mummy? What about a combination of scratch and sniff stickers and sun-glasses? What about using a goddamned shopping bag and cutting eye-holes in it - you could probably even find one of those in the parking lot or in the dumpster outside. Something had to be better than thongs, right guys? I mean, come on... Well... I guess everything gets clearer in retrospect, doesn't it? ;)
Now, having lived in what basically amounted to an immigrant housing project for the last couple years of college, I, at the risk of stereotyping, have found Hispanic people living in America to be fun, easy going, and resourceful (generally speaking). Based on my limited experience I would say that they, as a whole, usually don't take themselves too seriously, and they can often figure out how to do something cheaper, faster, and better than you would ordinarily think possible.
Case in point - one time I had a car that I needed to get emissions testing done for. It was a mess of a car (Pontiac Sunbird - only slightly less trouble than the Fiero was), and it had several issues in the engine department and wouldn't pass inspection for anything. I took it to a local shop where the guy started listing off what would need doing - adjust the idle, replace some vacuum tubing, something was up with the distributor, etc, etc.
Total cost: $Hundreds
He can fit me in: Monday
Being a poor teenager, and discouraged at this news, I decided to look around for alternatives. I needed to pass emissions to be able to drive my car, after all, and there was no way I could meet that bill for at least a few months. Now, why a seven-yr old coupe needs to pass emissions and a mostly-empty diesel-spewing bus doesn't is beyond me, but that's a separate rant. After driving around for a while I saw a non-descript service station of sorts that se habla'd Espanol, and so I decided to investigate. Pablo (yes, he really was named Pablo) came out with his friend (whose name I do not recall), and looked over the car with his bud and then came over to me and said something like this (and I am dead serious here):
Pablo: 'Okay, so we feex the car like theees, okay. You leeesin now.'
Me: 'Si.'
Pablo: 'I am going to file theeese connektors, si?'
Me: 'Si.'
Pablo: 'And then my essay over there, he eez going to [something, I don't know].'
Me (Well, it sounded like car talk): 'Si.'
Pablo: 'And then I take this screw, and tweeeest it in the tubing, si?'
Me: 'Si.'
Pablo: 'Don't let the inspector guy see this screw, or you will be fucked, si?'
Me: 'Si. Si. Cuanto es?'
Pablo: '¿Qué? '
Me (embarassed): 'Uhh, sorry, umm.. How much will it be, and when can you guys do the work?'
Pablo: 'Eet's already done essay, eets $20.'
And the inspectors never found the screw, or any of the other 'modifications' made in the engine, and I passed emissions, and all was well. For $20! Can you beat that?!
And there are other examples I could give where I have seen or been a part of schemes that involved similar 'simplification' of ordinarily complex tasks - from buying beer without ID to landscaping tricks to SAT preparation. So it strikes me as a bit, well, odd that the story above ever came to pass. In other words, what the hell were they thinking?
I figure that the conversation must have gone wrong somewhere along the line, and that's how these two ended up in jail hoping to hell that their fellow inmates don't discover that they like to dress in women's underwear. Maybe the conversation went something like this:
Guy #1: 'Man, essay, I could reeeelly go for some cervezas right now.'
Guy #2: 'Yeah man, but we don't got no money, man.'
Guy #1: 'I don't get paid until Wednesday man, what are we going to do?'
Guy #2: 'Hey man, I got a peestola, we could go rob the store and then get some beers after, man.'
Guy #1: 'Yeah, we could do that. But how will we disguise ourselves, essay?'
Guy #2: 'We could wear your seeester's panties on our faces!(?)'
Guy #1: 'Yeah man, that sounds like a good idea!' <---- Here's where it must have gone wrong.
Guy #2: 'Let's go.'
Like it or not, the conversation had to go something like that. Maybe we could substitute baby formula and hard times for beers and carelessness, but at some point the panties had to be brought up and agreed upon. Now, as much as I am a fan of thongs (God bless them), I would not try to conceal my face with one - well, unless maybe it was some kind of kinky litt --- you know what, I'll finish that thought privately.... Anyway, if I was forced to choose underwear for the job then I would probably cut eye holes in some granny panties and just go for it - but you can't possibly be constrained to underwear as your only concealment option right? I get if you're not a regular criminal (good for you!) and as such don't own a couple ski masks, but what about hankerchiefs? What about shop rags? What about rolling up a turtleneck and putting on a hat? What about a Halloween mask? What about wrapping an ace-bandage around your head - ala the mummy? What about a combination of scratch and sniff stickers and sun-glasses? What about using a goddamned shopping bag and cutting eye-holes in it - you could probably even find one of those in the parking lot or in the dumpster outside. Something had to be better than thongs, right guys? I mean, come on... Well... I guess everything gets clearer in retrospect, doesn't it? ;)
Sunday, May 18, 2008
What to Expect When You're Expecting
No, we're not expecting. But we have been twice before. When I say 'we', I mean 'she' - because I had no idea what to expect. She had books to help her along the way. She had friends who had been expecting before. I had nothing, and as a result my journey into 'expecting' was much like being bandied about the head with an axe-handle. It was painful, disorienting, and I hoped that it would soon stop. If I were to write a book for guys, about what to expect when you're expecting, then they would never read it - 'cause I mean come on, we're guys, but if I were to make some cliff notes on the book in an effort to help prepare the average guy for what to expect, then they would be as follows:
1) Strange books will begin to appear on your coffee table. Lots of them. Hundreds of dollars worth of books - and she will want you to read them along with her. You will want to resist this - but not to the point of appearing uninvolved or disinterested. Some books have excrutiating details in them which are best left to the doctors and the babies, and some are little journal-type things that you write in (i.e. Day 63: I thought I felt you kick today, but it turned out that it was just those fajitas we had last night. I realize that you aren't capable of kicking me yet, but you are such a little miracle and blah, and blah, and blah.) One possible compromise is to have her read the book aloud to you in the evenings while you're sipping your beer. If she resists, then remind her that studies show that babies are comforted by their mothers voice while in the womb and that ears begin to form at only 8 weeks into pregnancy, and wouldn't-this-be-a-great-family-bonding-thing-for-all-of-you? :) Then all you have to do is try to not grimance when she announces rather proudly that her mucus plug is about to come in. Tip: If she thinks that you are disinterested then you can save yourself by putting your ear to her stomach and listening to the fajitas digesting for a few minutes. Don't ask me why.
2) She will begin 'nesting' if she hasn't already. You thought the books were expensive? Having a baby is the world's best reason to go on a shopping spree - and it never ends! She will buy things. A lot of things. Things that the child will have no use for until they are three years old. Things that are cute. Things that are on sale. Things that her friends thought were cute. Things that you kind of need, but that could be put off for another 6 months easily. She will buy two of some things in case the baby likes one of them better. Then there will probably be something called a baby registry too, where all of her friends can join in the excitement and buy multiple copies of things that the baby will have no interest in. Take heart - at least the financial strain will be spread around somewhat. There's really no way to stop this without appearing to be the world's biggest prick, so my advice is just to plan ahead and let it happen and defend as much of your territory as possible. If you're not having the baby for another six months, then you don't need to have the car seat in the back of your car just in case. Did she get an inflatable kiddie pool on sale? Don't blow it up yet, just smile and compliment her shopping ability, and then stick it in the garage.
3) She will change. Physically, obviously, but that's easily dealt with by using the phrase: 'You're just glowing honey, and it's the greatest thing ever that you can bring our child into this world.' Just repeat it at least three times out loud, right now, and remember it. That phrase will save you from just about any arguments or drama about what's happening with her body - and if you're convincing enough, then you'll score some bonus 'good daddy' points out of the gate. Trust me, those are more easily earned now rather than later. Emotionally speaking she will also change, and could have umm.. mood swings.. and cravings.. It's kinda fun waking up not knowing whether the bacon and eggs that you made her for breakfast will make you a star for the day or whether you'll be the devil's spawn who is making her fat (insert glowing statement here) and then she'll start crying and call her friend to bitch about this and all of the other stupid things that you've done during this trimester. Cravings are handled easily enough, you just have to make sure that you get enough of whatever it is that she wants. Think one pint of Ben & Jerry's is enough? Think again. Get three. Worried about waste? Over a $3 pint of ice cream? When you now own two changing tables that go for $400 a pop? Get real. I once had to drag my ass out of bed at midnight (so cliche', but I'm serious) to go find a store that was still open and that had peach yogurt and pink lady apples (nothing else would do). I filled the damn shopping basket after that. Fool me once.
4) She will become, uhh, irrational at times. Some of this is the fault of the books from #1 - at least one of which outlaws all sugar while pregnant and suggests that you reward yourself with an organic fruit-juice-sweetened cookie no more than once a week if you just can't live without it. Of all the tripe to put in a pregnancy book. She may read things like this (unbeknownst to you), second-guess herself, try, fail, and cry, at which point you will need to step up and do something or you risk being the insensitive jerk who ruined her life. Remind her that her mother smoked, drank, and probably ate her weight in doughnuts while she was in the womb and look how beautiful and smart she turned out (insert glowing statement from #3 here - are you seeing how useful it is yet?). You won't be able to fight some of the irrationality though, as it tends to resist reason very well - such as why the spare room upstairs, which has had fine white walls for the last five years suddenly needs to be a different color for the baby. It's for the baby. The baby needs a yellow nursery. The baby needs it. Don't try reasoning through this; don't try fighting back. Yes, it's true that the baby likely wont be able to appreciate interior decorating for quite some time, yes it's true that they may prefer white to yellow, it's almost certainly true that the room doesn't need to be painted right now - but you won't win this one. Just suck it up, go to Home Depot, and get the paint that she picked out. Reward yourself with a new power tool while you're there - and if you get called on it, then say it's for the baby. A new router? Say it's for engraving the baby's name on the crib or the changing table or something. New saw? Well, you need it for the detail work on the rocking horse you were planning on surprising her with. You know.
5) A lot of books say that she may become very horny during the second trimester. Heh. I wouldn't bank on that. . .
Anyway, if you can weather the storm then when you get to the hospital and witness the miracle of birth you will be greatly rewarded. Cherish the arrival of the baby. Cherish the look on your wife's face as the baby is presented to her. Cherish the look on your wife's face as you tell her that you forgot to put the car seat in the back of the car that you drove to the hospital. Cherish the urine as it drips from your chin, because soon this little person will call you 'dada' and then it's all over. :)
That's it, in a nutshell, hope it helps!
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Away with the Circus
I was a carnie once, I'll admit it. Briefly. This unfortunate turn of events was due to the fact that I needed money prior to taking off for college, and I had just recently been fired from my prior job for 'horse play', whatever that is :).
So, at my Dad's insistence, I read through the paper to find myself a job for the last few weeks of summer before school started. I think the ad went something like this:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$
$ RIDE OPERATORS WANTED, NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY !!
$
$ Must speak and understand English, must be able to lift 50 lbs.
$
$ Get started TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
$
$ Show up on Friday at the field on 5th and Vine before 9am.
$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
And as you might have guessed from their rather stringent set of requirements, this turned out to be quite a fascinating and dynamic organization to become a part of. I showed up at 8:30 am on Friday, and stood next to a couple of other sorry-looking individuals and surveyed the once-vacant lot - which now seemed to be taken over by trailers, tents, and other assorted vehicles and contraptions that, when all taken in during the early morning fog, made this seem more like the set of a Stephen King movie rather than a place to bring the family. It was a chilly morning, but I waited. At about 9:20 a girl(?) came walking up to us and simply said (gruffly) 'CommON', and led us all into the maze of trailers that we had been staring at. The trail of smoke left by her cigar made it easy to follow her into the mist, and she sat us all down under a tent and went on.
Carnie Girl (handing us paper): 'Fill these out.'
Us (fumbling around for pens or whatever): ...
Carnie Girl: 'Oh Jesus Christ, CommON!'
From behind the trailer: 'Bev, where's my shorts!?'
Carnie Girl: 'I TOLL you I don't know, get-the-hell-outta my trailer!!'
Us (scribbling now): ...?
Bev (I guess): 'Don't you mind that now, y'all can fill those out later, CommON!'
Bev (mumbling): 'Somebitch better notta got me pregnant.'
One of us (not me): 'Is there going to be an interview, or.. ?'
Bev (walking off): 'CommON I SAID!'
And Bev walked us around to the various contraptions that were being set up in the field, and started pointing her cigar at them and calling out names (sort of). 'Blondie' she said, gesturing towards the Haunted House 'You're over there.' 'Freckles, on the canoe ride'. 'Sweet cheeks' she said, looking at me, 'You're on the teacups'. 'But I...' I started, 'CommON and git!' she said, and I scurried over to the ride and tried to figure out where to stand so that I at least looked like I knew what I was doing. 'I'll be back' she barked, and stomped her way off to one of the tents behind the line of trailers.
I stood in place, not daring to move, and looked over at the other new carnies-to-be. No one said anything, but it was easy to see by their similarly rigid stances that the the three of us had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. 'Up time!' I heard Bev grunting, as she rounded the line of trailers again. 'Up time!' she shouted, kicking the sides of the trailers as she went, causing them to shake back and forth to wake their occupants. 'UP TIME!' One by one a small herd of hung-over, red-vested carnies emerged from their trailers and went almost robotically to their assigned attractions. There would be no introductions. Bev handed each of the three of us a not-so-clean red vest, and a few words of encouragement 'Don't go making trouble'.
Me (putting on my vest): 'So umm.. How do you work the ride?'
Bev (incredulous, pointing to some buttons): 'Green means go, Red means stop. You know your colors right?'
Me: 'Err, yeah. So um.. What do I do if someone falls off or gets hurt or. . .'
Bev: 'Are you Makein TROUBLE?!'
Me (cowering): 'No!'
Bev: 'Look, there's only one thing you gotta know. Each cup has a weight limit of 140 pounds. Anything more than that, and it goes bad. Keep the fat fucks off it.'
Me (in my head): How the hell am I supposed to know how much someone weighs just by looking? I mean, what does a group of three 8 year-olds weigh? I better err on the side of caution here. . .
Me: (in my outside voice, with a thumbs up): 'You got it boss.'
Bev (handing me a towel): 'Here's your towel.'
Me: 'Umm (?)'
Bev (walking off, over her shoulder): 'You'll figger it.'
I seem to be the only one with a towel. Blondie and freckles didn't get towels. Hm. Before I had time to ponder this any further, people began making their way down the midway and out into the field to survey the shoddily-maintained death-tra- I mean, attractions. I didn't actually see them come down the midway, per se, I just heard the carnies start shouting at them as the walked - 'come on and who's gonna win - who's a winner here - you a winner sir? Step riiiight up!' My first customers were on the way. Two little kids and their mom. Mentally, I play the weight game before they arrive.
Two little kids: maybe 60 or 70 pounds total
Mom: Ugh. 200? I don't know.
I collect their tickets, pull back the chain on the corral, and they mooooove on to the teacup floor. 'Excuse me ma'am', I say, as she goes to hand me her tickets better think of something fast - think-think-think!, 'but this ride is just for little kids.' yeah! that's it! you go boy! 'Oh, okay' she gruffs, and I help her kids into the teacup. I push the green button, spin the little suckers around for a few minutes to their sheer delight, and then hit the red button, lead them back to mom, and then they stumble off giggling. 'Okay' I think. This is easy, no sweat! Next comes a family of four - mom and dad didn't even want to get on the stupid teacups - no problem! Gaggle of giggling girls? No problem! An entire cub scout troop? No problem! This ride isn't cool enough for anyone over 12 it seems, so this has been cake walk for the most part.
'Break' I hear from behind me, and turn around to see Bev bending over to get something in the grass at my feet (turns out it was a dime). And I tried not to look, but because I am a guy, I couldn't help it - it was totally involuntary. And I looked, and I saw a thin blue line of fabric popping out along the top of Bev's pants. Underwear. 'Now that's a surprise', I thought to myself, 'I would have figured her for going commando'.
Bev: 'What you lookin at?'
Me: 'Nothing!'
Bev: 'Git! And be back here in 20 minutes, less you want trouble, sweet cheeks!'
Me: 'Okay boss!'
And I take off my vest and scoot off towards the midway, looking for a hamburger or something to eat for lunch. Following the smoke, I find a little shack doing popcorn, hamburgers, and hot dogs with a short line gathering around it. I wait. And someone in a red vest nudges me and points over to a table where there were a bunch of other people, who could only be carnies, gathered. Every single one of them had a hot dog. So... I guess I am getting a hot dog too.
Me: 'One hot dog please.'
They: 'ONE HOT DOG!!!'
They: 'You with the show?'
Me: 'Huh? Err.. yeah. '
They (shaking their head and looking skyward): 'Here ya go.'
I go and sit at the table with all the other carnies, none of whose names I remember, but if you picture a bunch of alcoholic 40-yr olds who look like they spent the last 10 years in prison, then you wouldn't be too far off. The clamor of the midway and the smoke from the grill adds a touch of elegance and sense of occasion to the meal.
From the midway: 'and who's gonna win - who's a winner here - you a winner sir? Step riiiight up!'
Some old Carnie: 'Go git 'em son!!! Booyeah!!!'
Me (trying to be more carnie than I can reasonably pull off): 'Why y'all got hot dogs for anyhows?'
Old Carnie: 'Hot dogs is new on Friday.'
Me: 'So... I mean.. Do they ever get .. old?'
Carnies: (laughter)
Old Carnie (gesturing to the hot dog machine): 'See dat roller up air?'
Me: 'Yeah.'
Old Carnie: 'They load 'er up when we pull into town, and the hot dogs last all week.'
Me (epiphany): 'Ooooohhh, right then.'
Old Carnie: 'No dogs past Sunday, that's the rule. I been here near twenty years, and the only time I ever got sick was on dogs past Sunday.'
Me: 'What about, like, the other people who come here an-'
Old Carnie: 'Hey! Are you tryin' to make trouble?!'
Me (quickly): 'No!'
And I scarf my hot dog, make a mental note to switch to hamburgers on Monday, and scurry back to Bev who looks to be busy instructing the kids on the finer points of riding on my ride.
Bev: 'Heet-up on in there now! Here we go! CommON!'
Me: 'I'm back!'
Bev (pulling some Skoal out of her pocket): 'Great. You got a cigarette? I'll trade ya a dip.'
Me (because I smoked when I was 18): 'Here, just, take it. It's cool.'
Bev (all of a sudden turning nice): 'Well, thanks, they don't let us smoke when we're workin'.'
Bev (pausing to spit on the side of the ride): 'So I make do with this.'
And with that I actually saw Bev smile as she threw off her vest and lit up my cigarette. The cigarette could have easily rested in half a dozen different pockets between her remaining teeth, but she didn't seem to notice my awkward gawking. Then after a short pause and a big drag, she looked at me and said 'see ya.'
So I put my vest back on and stepped up to the ride. More people were coming now, it was a zoo in the afternoon. And across the field I see a mom with three kids coming up. Again, the pre-emptive weight game -
Kids #1 and #2: About 80 lbs I reckon
Kid #3: maybe 100 lbs
Mom: Milf-tastic! She'd fit under the limit with room to spare!
I open the door, take the tickets, and divvy everyone up into their cups, and awaaay we go! And a line forms as everyone is spinning around, and I now realize that I just lost my good excuse for keeping the ride weight under control. Shit. And as the ride ends, and as I say goodbye to Ms. Milf-tastic, we take on more riders, and the line continues to grow. So far so good. And we start/stop and load up again, and this time there is trouble.
Me: 'I'm sorry Ma'am, but this is a ride for little kids.'
300: 'It is not. I saw another mother riding with her kids just a minute ago.'
Me (in my head): I am so, so fucked.
Me (trying to sell it): 'No you didn't.'
300: 'Don't be tellin' me what I saw, and I don't see no sign that sa-'
Me (transformation complete): 'HAY! You tryin' to make TROUBLE?!?'
300 (in utter shock): 'No!'
It worked!! And the ride went on, and no one else in line said shit after that! Awesome! And the day went on without issue, and well into the evening until it was almost time to close down for the day. And then I got me another gaggle of giggling girls. And they were fine, and they climbed in and rode, and as the ride was coming to a stop the cutest among them said 'Hey, can we just go again?' Now, I am a total sucker for cute little girls. I can't help it. Want an ice cream cone? A pony? College tuition? Okay, just smile and blink your eyes at me, that's all it takes, and I'll cave. They need to make a pill for this, obviously. And since the carnival is emptying out, and since no one else is in line, I say 'Sure!', and I spin them again. And a few minutes later the ride comes to a stop, and again she asks 'Hey, can we go just one more time?'
Me (sucker): 'Ohhh, okay.'
Them: 'Woo hoo!'
It's not like anyone is counting my tickets anyway, right? And they spin and spin and spin, and then. for. some. reason. they. want. to. stop. So. we. stop, and they all get out and start heading in fairly random directions and collapse on the grass. No more giggles. Then slowly they regain their feet, and the cute one waves goodbye to me. The littlest one just looks at me and says 'sorry' before scurrying off to join her friends. Sorry? Sorry about what (?), I wonder. And then the smell hits me. And I creep up to the teacup where she had been sitting. And it's everywhere. Looks like it might have been pizza about an hour ago (?). And now I understand what the towel is for. So I get to work cleaning up, and Bev brings me by a bucket of water. 'Come back tomorrow, sweet cheeks' she says, before dropping the bucket and heading off to her trailer for the night.
And I do, and all the rest of that week too, until Thursday rolls around and it's time to pack up. I help with the packing up, and Bev comes over and hands me a wad of cash -
Bev: 'That's for the week. You headin' out with us?'
Me: 'Thanks. I don't think so, I have other-'
Bev (rocking back on her heels and flashing her six sexy teeth): 'Aw come on. You can sleep in my trailer if you don't got none.'
Me (putting it in terms that I think she can understand): 'Thanks really, but I think I'll be movin' on now.'
Bev (pausing to drag on her cigar): 'Arright then. See ya sweet cheeks!'
And then she smacked me on the ass, turned, and walked away.
So, at my Dad's insistence, I read through the paper to find myself a job for the last few weeks of summer before school started. I think the ad went something like this:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$
$ RIDE OPERATORS WANTED, NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY !!
$
$ Must speak and understand English, must be able to lift 50 lbs.
$
$ Get started TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
$
$ Show up on Friday at the field on 5th and Vine before 9am.
$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
And as you might have guessed from their rather stringent set of requirements, this turned out to be quite a fascinating and dynamic organization to become a part of. I showed up at 8:30 am on Friday, and stood next to a couple of other sorry-looking individuals and surveyed the once-vacant lot - which now seemed to be taken over by trailers, tents, and other assorted vehicles and contraptions that, when all taken in during the early morning fog, made this seem more like the set of a Stephen King movie rather than a place to bring the family. It was a chilly morning, but I waited. At about 9:20 a girl(?) came walking up to us and simply said (gruffly) 'CommON', and led us all into the maze of trailers that we had been staring at. The trail of smoke left by her cigar made it easy to follow her into the mist, and she sat us all down under a tent and went on.
Carnie Girl (handing us paper): 'Fill these out.'
Us (fumbling around for pens or whatever): ...
Carnie Girl: 'Oh Jesus Christ, CommON!'
From behind the trailer: 'Bev, where's my shorts!?'
Carnie Girl: 'I TOLL you I don't know, get-the-hell-outta my trailer!!'
Us (scribbling now): ...?
Bev (I guess): 'Don't you mind that now, y'all can fill those out later, CommON!'
Bev (mumbling): 'Somebitch better notta got me pregnant.'
One of us (not me): 'Is there going to be an interview, or.. ?'
Bev (walking off): 'CommON I SAID!'
And Bev walked us around to the various contraptions that were being set up in the field, and started pointing her cigar at them and calling out names (sort of). 'Blondie' she said, gesturing towards the Haunted House 'You're over there.' 'Freckles, on the canoe ride'. 'Sweet cheeks' she said, looking at me, 'You're on the teacups'. 'But I...' I started, 'CommON and git!' she said, and I scurried over to the ride and tried to figure out where to stand so that I at least looked like I knew what I was doing. 'I'll be back' she barked, and stomped her way off to one of the tents behind the line of trailers.
I stood in place, not daring to move, and looked over at the other new carnies-to-be. No one said anything, but it was easy to see by their similarly rigid stances that the the three of us had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. 'Up time!' I heard Bev grunting, as she rounded the line of trailers again. 'Up time!' she shouted, kicking the sides of the trailers as she went, causing them to shake back and forth to wake their occupants. 'UP TIME!' One by one a small herd of hung-over, red-vested carnies emerged from their trailers and went almost robotically to their assigned attractions. There would be no introductions. Bev handed each of the three of us a not-so-clean red vest, and a few words of encouragement 'Don't go making trouble'.
Me (putting on my vest): 'So umm.. How do you work the ride?'
Bev (incredulous, pointing to some buttons): 'Green means go, Red means stop. You know your colors right?'
Me: 'Err, yeah. So um.. What do I do if someone falls off or gets hurt or. . .'
Bev: 'Are you Makein TROUBLE?!'
Me (cowering): 'No!'
Bev: 'Look, there's only one thing you gotta know. Each cup has a weight limit of 140 pounds. Anything more than that, and it goes bad. Keep the fat fucks off it.'
Me (in my head): How the hell am I supposed to know how much someone weighs just by looking? I mean, what does a group of three 8 year-olds weigh? I better err on the side of caution here. . .
Me: (in my outside voice, with a thumbs up): 'You got it boss.'
Bev (handing me a towel): 'Here's your towel.'
Me: 'Umm (?)'
Bev (walking off, over her shoulder): 'You'll figger it.'
I seem to be the only one with a towel. Blondie and freckles didn't get towels. Hm. Before I had time to ponder this any further, people began making their way down the midway and out into the field to survey the shoddily-maintained death-tra- I mean, attractions. I didn't actually see them come down the midway, per se, I just heard the carnies start shouting at them as the walked - 'come on and who's gonna win - who's a winner here - you a winner sir? Step riiiight up!' My first customers were on the way. Two little kids and their mom. Mentally, I play the weight game before they arrive.
Two little kids: maybe 60 or 70 pounds total
Mom: Ugh. 200? I don't know.
I collect their tickets, pull back the chain on the corral, and they mooooove on to the teacup floor. 'Excuse me ma'am', I say, as she goes to hand me her tickets better think of something fast - think-think-think!, 'but this ride is just for little kids.' yeah! that's it! you go boy! 'Oh, okay' she gruffs, and I help her kids into the teacup. I push the green button, spin the little suckers around for a few minutes to their sheer delight, and then hit the red button, lead them back to mom, and then they stumble off giggling. 'Okay' I think. This is easy, no sweat! Next comes a family of four - mom and dad didn't even want to get on the stupid teacups - no problem! Gaggle of giggling girls? No problem! An entire cub scout troop? No problem! This ride isn't cool enough for anyone over 12 it seems, so this has been cake walk for the most part.
'Break' I hear from behind me, and turn around to see Bev bending over to get something in the grass at my feet (turns out it was a dime). And I tried not to look, but because I am a guy, I couldn't help it - it was totally involuntary. And I looked, and I saw a thin blue line of fabric popping out along the top of Bev's pants. Underwear. 'Now that's a surprise', I thought to myself, 'I would have figured her for going commando'.
Bev: 'What you lookin at?'
Me: 'Nothing!'
Bev: 'Git! And be back here in 20 minutes, less you want trouble, sweet cheeks!'
Me: 'Okay boss!'
And I take off my vest and scoot off towards the midway, looking for a hamburger or something to eat for lunch. Following the smoke, I find a little shack doing popcorn, hamburgers, and hot dogs with a short line gathering around it. I wait. And someone in a red vest nudges me and points over to a table where there were a bunch of other people, who could only be carnies, gathered. Every single one of them had a hot dog. So... I guess I am getting a hot dog too.
Me: 'One hot dog please.'
They: 'ONE HOT DOG!!!'
They: 'You with the show?'
Me: 'Huh? Err.. yeah. '
They (shaking their head and looking skyward): 'Here ya go.'
I go and sit at the table with all the other carnies, none of whose names I remember, but if you picture a bunch of alcoholic 40-yr olds who look like they spent the last 10 years in prison, then you wouldn't be too far off. The clamor of the midway and the smoke from the grill adds a touch of elegance and sense of occasion to the meal.
From the midway: 'and who's gonna win - who's a winner here - you a winner sir? Step riiiight up!'
Some old Carnie: 'Go git 'em son!!! Booyeah!!!'
Me (trying to be more carnie than I can reasonably pull off): 'Why y'all got hot dogs for anyhows?'
Old Carnie: 'Hot dogs is new on Friday.'
Me: 'So... I mean.. Do they ever get .. old?'
Carnies: (laughter)
Old Carnie (gesturing to the hot dog machine): 'See dat roller up air?'
Me: 'Yeah.'
Old Carnie: 'They load 'er up when we pull into town, and the hot dogs last all week.'
Me (epiphany): 'Ooooohhh, right then.'
Old Carnie: 'No dogs past Sunday, that's the rule. I been here near twenty years, and the only time I ever got sick was on dogs past Sunday.'
Me: 'What about, like, the other people who come here an-'
Old Carnie: 'Hey! Are you tryin' to make trouble?!'
Me (quickly): 'No!'
And I scarf my hot dog, make a mental note to switch to hamburgers on Monday, and scurry back to Bev who looks to be busy instructing the kids on the finer points of riding on my ride.
Bev: 'Heet-up on in there now! Here we go! CommON!'
Me: 'I'm back!'
Bev (pulling some Skoal out of her pocket): 'Great. You got a cigarette? I'll trade ya a dip.'
Me (because I smoked when I was 18): 'Here, just, take it. It's cool.'
Bev (all of a sudden turning nice): 'Well, thanks, they don't let us smoke when we're workin'.'
Bev (pausing to spit on the side of the ride): 'So I make do with this.'
And with that I actually saw Bev smile as she threw off her vest and lit up my cigarette. The cigarette could have easily rested in half a dozen different pockets between her remaining teeth, but she didn't seem to notice my awkward gawking. Then after a short pause and a big drag, she looked at me and said 'see ya.'
So I put my vest back on and stepped up to the ride. More people were coming now, it was a zoo in the afternoon. And across the field I see a mom with three kids coming up. Again, the pre-emptive weight game -
Kids #1 and #2: About 80 lbs I reckon
Kid #3: maybe 100 lbs
Mom: Milf-tastic! She'd fit under the limit with room to spare!
I open the door, take the tickets, and divvy everyone up into their cups, and awaaay we go! And a line forms as everyone is spinning around, and I now realize that I just lost my good excuse for keeping the ride weight under control. Shit. And as the ride ends, and as I say goodbye to Ms. Milf-tastic, we take on more riders, and the line continues to grow. So far so good. And we start/stop and load up again, and this time there is trouble.
Me: 'I'm sorry Ma'am, but this is a ride for little kids.'
300: 'It is not. I saw another mother riding with her kids just a minute ago.'
Me (in my head): I am so, so fucked.
Me (trying to sell it): 'No you didn't.'
300: 'Don't be tellin' me what I saw, and I don't see no sign that sa-'
Me (transformation complete): 'HAY! You tryin' to make TROUBLE?!?'
300 (in utter shock): 'No!'
It worked!! And the ride went on, and no one else in line said shit after that! Awesome! And the day went on without issue, and well into the evening until it was almost time to close down for the day. And then I got me another gaggle of giggling girls. And they were fine, and they climbed in and rode, and as the ride was coming to a stop the cutest among them said 'Hey, can we just go again?' Now, I am a total sucker for cute little girls. I can't help it. Want an ice cream cone? A pony? College tuition? Okay, just smile and blink your eyes at me, that's all it takes, and I'll cave. They need to make a pill for this, obviously. And since the carnival is emptying out, and since no one else is in line, I say 'Sure!', and I spin them again. And a few minutes later the ride comes to a stop, and again she asks 'Hey, can we go just one more time?'
Me (sucker): 'Ohhh, okay.'
Them: 'Woo hoo!'
It's not like anyone is counting my tickets anyway, right? And they spin and spin and spin, and then. for. some. reason. they. want. to. stop. So. we. stop, and they all get out and start heading in fairly random directions and collapse on the grass. No more giggles. Then slowly they regain their feet, and the cute one waves goodbye to me. The littlest one just looks at me and says 'sorry' before scurrying off to join her friends. Sorry? Sorry about what (?), I wonder. And then the smell hits me. And I creep up to the teacup where she had been sitting. And it's everywhere. Looks like it might have been pizza about an hour ago (?). And now I understand what the towel is for. So I get to work cleaning up, and Bev brings me by a bucket of water. 'Come back tomorrow, sweet cheeks' she says, before dropping the bucket and heading off to her trailer for the night.
And I do, and all the rest of that week too, until Thursday rolls around and it's time to pack up. I help with the packing up, and Bev comes over and hands me a wad of cash -
Bev: 'That's for the week. You headin' out with us?'
Me: 'Thanks. I don't think so, I have other-'
Bev (rocking back on her heels and flashing her six sexy teeth): 'Aw come on. You can sleep in my trailer if you don't got none.'
Me (putting it in terms that I think she can understand): 'Thanks really, but I think I'll be movin' on now.'
Bev (pausing to drag on her cigar): 'Arright then. See ya sweet cheeks!'
And then she smacked me on the ass, turned, and walked away.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
The Men's Room
'Why don't you change the baby? There's a changing station in the men's room.' she said. Evidently, she had never seen the inside of a men's room before. Certainly not a real men's room. Not a men's room like the one at the McDonalds off of I-5 that I would have had to change the baby in. 'No thanks. I'll just change him in the car' I say. 'Don't be stupid,' she continued editorial note: That is her favorite phrase, 'It's pouring outside, you'll get soaked...' 'I don't care.' I replied. And seeing the continued quizzical expression on her face, I had to break down and tell her. The real horrors that are the men's public restroom. This took roughly an hour to lay out for her, but I will attempt to keep it brief, since the rest of you have lives to get back to. I'll start with upscale men's rooms, and work my way down. I swear that all of this is real - there's not even a need to stretch the truth here. No pictures will be provided. You're welcome.
The Upscale Men's Room
Found in: Fancy restaurants, executive hotels, and anywhere there is a lot of money
You are sometimes ok venturing into the upscale men's room, especially if it's earlier in the day. These are cleaned frequently, have quality tile, and are monitored for the occasional no-no. In some upscale men's rooms they even have attendants to assist you with whatever you might need while peeing - you know, the little mint and towel guys in black tie. This can be both a good and bad thing, depending on whether you like encouragement while trying to accomplish your business:
'Come sir, let's have it then.'
'I shall alert the weather bureau that a flood shall be forthcoming.'
'Well struck sir. We shall have to re-tile after that thunderous contribution.'
You know. And this is not to say that an unattended upscale men's room will not deteriorate quickly when left alone for too long - quite the contrary. Men seem to be pigs, and it doesn't matter if they are in a suit or a wife beater, they can't squat, aim, or wash without making a mess. The only particularly dangerous thing about the upscale men's room is that the tile is well-sealed and high-quality, meaning that when it gets wet it will be extremely slick. Couple that with a nice pair of virtually tractionless dress shoes, such as you might wear in a fancy restaurant, and you can be in for some fun.
The Men's Room at Work
Found in: most workplaces
And here we begin to see a real breakdown of societal normalcy. If you've seen Lord of the Flies, then you understand what I'm getting at. Let's begin our tour at the stalls. The stalls are kind of like a game show, in that you're never quite sure what you'll find behind each door - or whether it's a good idea to try to trade up to see what's behind a different door. As a general rule, anything that doesn't have poo smeared all over the insides of the stall or throne is workable, though not necessarily desirable. The traditional method is the quick-peek through the cracked stall door during which you can make an informed decision about whether to venture into the stall any further. If someone just went wild with #1, then you might be able to clean up or even better do a hover-type manuver to avoid contact. Caution must be exercised with the hover though, as it tends to promote splashing, so sometimes you're better off trying still another stall door to see if you can find a relatively unmolested stall. Depends how many doors you have to choose from I guess. Allow me to summarize the typical stall findings:
Always: Toilet paper on the floor, liquid of one kind or another on the throne, bad smell.
Frequently: Toilet paper missing, previous hover-manuver gone awry - leading to collateral damage on throne, liquid surrounding throne - like a moat for your castle.
And Sometimes: Poo on throne, floor, or other, used toilet paper on floor or other, throne overflowing and has presents inside, and even 'my diet has gone horribly, horribly wrong' - leading to a total catastrophie.
Moving on, we have a special fixture for guys called a urinal. You pee in it. That's it. Most of the time. . . At my place of employment, someone has affixed a laminated (obviously) sign above the urinals which reads: 'Only Urine in the Urinals Please.' . . . This is a fortune-500 company, not some rinky-dink operation that employs transients to throw freight. And what's worse, I will tell you that there are exactly three things that are ever found in a urinal aside from urine. One is gum, but no one chews gum here. The second used to be cigarette butts, before they outlawed smoking inside. The third belongs in a stall, but for whatever reason it's apparently not getting to the stall sometimes. And for them to go to the trouble of making a sign about it tells me that this has happened more than once, right?
Let's dissect the urinal a little more though. I want to examine it from a time-of-day perspective, as most janitorial-type duties (how they do it, I'll never know) are performed at night. In the early early morning, the men's room at work is, for the most part, clean. This is your only shot at getting a stall in reasonable condition, and also your best shot at not getting your shoes wet if you need to use the urinal. Why, you ask? Well, as the urinal sees more and more use, there is more and more spillage on the ground, until a nice little lake forms in front of it. You choices at any point later in the day are to stand in the lake (but eww), or stand on the far side of the lake and pee across the distance. Most everyone chooses option #2, and as a result the lake continues to increase in size as the stream drop-offs continue to land on the floor. Occasionally the lake will build to such a size as to create and support a small town complete with a ferryman to take you across the lake in his little boat so that you may pee closer to the urinal. He will generally not be as nice as the little mint guy in the executive men's room, and you have to make sure that he doesn't head back to shore without you too. Tip well.
The Real Men's Room
Found in: Gas stations, fast food, airports, train stations, skating rinks, and especially Chucky Cheese.
Girls, think you've seen it all? Are you disgusted by that little drop of pee left on the seat, and the nerve of the person before you who left the toilet unflushed? HAHAHAHAHA!!!! You haven't seen shit, my friend. If the world descended into anarchy and people were expelling waste whenever, wherever, and however they pleased, then you still couldn't touch the absolute filthery (not a word, I checked) of the Real Men's Room. I call it that because you have to be a real man's man to even enter these god-forsaken shit holes. Most of us would rather pee out the car window, even with the risk of blow-back. The placement of thrones and urinals in the real men's room are taken mostly under advisement, with the final resting place of said waste pretty much being distributed randomly across whatever space is available in most cases. The only way you'd be able to prove that the throne or urinal was once used is that whatever contents were deposited in either one have not been flushed, ipso facto, someone managed to hit the target at least once - and let's be honest here, close counts in the real men's room.
Also, you do not wash your hands in the real men's room. Touching anything at all will just make you dirtier than when you came in. You go in, hold your breath, do whatever you need to do wherever you can find room to do it, and then if there is paper of some kind available, you use it, open the door with it, throw the paper on the floor, and get the hell out. 'And that's the reality of the situation' I said to her. . . 'Fine' she replied, 'I'll just change him in the women's restroom', and she stalked off kinda pissed.
And now I don't have to change the baby when we are on the road anymore!!! :)
The Upscale Men's Room
Found in: Fancy restaurants, executive hotels, and anywhere there is a lot of money
You are sometimes ok venturing into the upscale men's room, especially if it's earlier in the day. These are cleaned frequently, have quality tile, and are monitored for the occasional no-no. In some upscale men's rooms they even have attendants to assist you with whatever you might need while peeing - you know, the little mint and towel guys in black tie. This can be both a good and bad thing, depending on whether you like encouragement while trying to accomplish your business:
'Come sir, let's have it then.'
'I shall alert the weather bureau that a flood shall be forthcoming.'
'Well struck sir. We shall have to re-tile after that thunderous contribution.'
You know. And this is not to say that an unattended upscale men's room will not deteriorate quickly when left alone for too long - quite the contrary. Men seem to be pigs, and it doesn't matter if they are in a suit or a wife beater, they can't squat, aim, or wash without making a mess. The only particularly dangerous thing about the upscale men's room is that the tile is well-sealed and high-quality, meaning that when it gets wet it will be extremely slick. Couple that with a nice pair of virtually tractionless dress shoes, such as you might wear in a fancy restaurant, and you can be in for some fun.
The Men's Room at Work
Found in: most workplaces
And here we begin to see a real breakdown of societal normalcy. If you've seen Lord of the Flies, then you understand what I'm getting at. Let's begin our tour at the stalls. The stalls are kind of like a game show, in that you're never quite sure what you'll find behind each door - or whether it's a good idea to try to trade up to see what's behind a different door. As a general rule, anything that doesn't have poo smeared all over the insides of the stall or throne is workable, though not necessarily desirable. The traditional method is the quick-peek through the cracked stall door during which you can make an informed decision about whether to venture into the stall any further. If someone just went wild with #1, then you might be able to clean up or even better do a hover-type manuver to avoid contact. Caution must be exercised with the hover though, as it tends to promote splashing, so sometimes you're better off trying still another stall door to see if you can find a relatively unmolested stall. Depends how many doors you have to choose from I guess. Allow me to summarize the typical stall findings:
Always: Toilet paper on the floor, liquid of one kind or another on the throne, bad smell.
Frequently: Toilet paper missing, previous hover-manuver gone awry - leading to collateral damage on throne, liquid surrounding throne - like a moat for your castle.
And Sometimes: Poo on throne, floor, or other, used toilet paper on floor or other, throne overflowing and has presents inside, and even 'my diet has gone horribly, horribly wrong' - leading to a total catastrophie.
Moving on, we have a special fixture for guys called a urinal. You pee in it. That's it. Most of the time. . . At my place of employment, someone has affixed a laminated (obviously) sign above the urinals which reads: 'Only Urine in the Urinals Please.' . . . This is a fortune-500 company, not some rinky-dink operation that employs transients to throw freight. And what's worse, I will tell you that there are exactly three things that are ever found in a urinal aside from urine. One is gum, but no one chews gum here. The second used to be cigarette butts, before they outlawed smoking inside. The third belongs in a stall, but for whatever reason it's apparently not getting to the stall sometimes. And for them to go to the trouble of making a sign about it tells me that this has happened more than once, right?
Let's dissect the urinal a little more though. I want to examine it from a time-of-day perspective, as most janitorial-type duties (how they do it, I'll never know) are performed at night. In the early early morning, the men's room at work is, for the most part, clean. This is your only shot at getting a stall in reasonable condition, and also your best shot at not getting your shoes wet if you need to use the urinal. Why, you ask? Well, as the urinal sees more and more use, there is more and more spillage on the ground, until a nice little lake forms in front of it. You choices at any point later in the day are to stand in the lake (but eww), or stand on the far side of the lake and pee across the distance. Most everyone chooses option #2, and as a result the lake continues to increase in size as the stream drop-offs continue to land on the floor. Occasionally the lake will build to such a size as to create and support a small town complete with a ferryman to take you across the lake in his little boat so that you may pee closer to the urinal. He will generally not be as nice as the little mint guy in the executive men's room, and you have to make sure that he doesn't head back to shore without you too. Tip well.
The Real Men's Room
Found in: Gas stations, fast food, airports, train stations, skating rinks, and especially Chucky Cheese.
Girls, think you've seen it all? Are you disgusted by that little drop of pee left on the seat, and the nerve of the person before you who left the toilet unflushed? HAHAHAHAHA!!!! You haven't seen shit, my friend. If the world descended into anarchy and people were expelling waste whenever, wherever, and however they pleased, then you still couldn't touch the absolute filthery (not a word, I checked) of the Real Men's Room. I call it that because you have to be a real man's man to even enter these god-forsaken shit holes. Most of us would rather pee out the car window, even with the risk of blow-back. The placement of thrones and urinals in the real men's room are taken mostly under advisement, with the final resting place of said waste pretty much being distributed randomly across whatever space is available in most cases. The only way you'd be able to prove that the throne or urinal was once used is that whatever contents were deposited in either one have not been flushed, ipso facto, someone managed to hit the target at least once - and let's be honest here, close counts in the real men's room.
Also, you do not wash your hands in the real men's room. Touching anything at all will just make you dirtier than when you came in. You go in, hold your breath, do whatever you need to do wherever you can find room to do it, and then if there is paper of some kind available, you use it, open the door with it, throw the paper on the floor, and get the hell out. 'And that's the reality of the situation' I said to her. . . 'Fine' she replied, 'I'll just change him in the women's restroom', and she stalked off kinda pissed.
And now I don't have to change the baby when we are on the road anymore!!! :)
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Before She Eats
I attempted a parody of Carrie Underwood's 'Before He Cheats' a long time ago, and finally decided to put it on the list of songs over to the right. It's not a great performance on my part, but I felt it might at least be entertaining (maybe), so I figured I would put it up. This particular sonic nightmare was mixed (rescued, really) by a guy named Jay Walsh who can be reached at http://www.farviewrecording.com. If this is your first time here, then I would recommend listening to 'Glamorous' or 'Hey There Vagina' first, as these are really more up to snuff.
Rhianna and Eminem are next up. Additional videos likely. Be afraid. . .
Rhianna and Eminem are next up. Additional videos likely. Be afraid. . .
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The List
The list. You know, the list. The list of people who if you had a chance to sleep with them (not that you'd ever have a chance), then there is a silent agreement with the wife that it would be ok, because, I mean, damn. I'm not sure how many people y'all get to have on your list, but I get five on mine - chiefly as a result of my dongle hanging on a little hook by the front door. Encased in glass. Along with a little hammer and a note which reads 'Don't you even - '.
I figure that the only way I'd ever get to meet one of the people on my list and have a chance with them would be if like, they were driving around in my neighborhood without an entourage, with a dead cell phone, got a flat tire right in front of my house, and were insatiably horny upon my fixing the tire for them - and that's only if the lighting isn't too good. I changed out our porch lights from 75W to 60W just in case, and keep waiting for that knock on the door. So far zippo.
So without further ado, here's my list for 2008:
1) Natalie Portman. That little ripped up white outfit in Star Wars? To die for!
2) Rihanna. When she has the straight hair in those music videos? Ack!
3) Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. The blue chick from XMEN. Drooo o o o o l.
4) Angelina Jolie. Pretty much any time, anywhere. Duh.
5) Milla Jovovich. She's weird. She's interesting. She'd have to be a great lay.
I know, I know, you're saying what about Halle Berry? What about Victoria Beckham? What about - - - ??? Okay chief, who's on your list?
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Kari's House
The five of us had plotted all week. Me, Shane, Josh, Paul, and Bob. Plotted all week to have a sleep-over and then sneak out and go toilet paper Kari Pollreisz’s house. Kari, spelled K-a-r-i, was the future homecoming queen, head cheerleader, and queen of the fake-baked-mall-bitches all in one. She hated us. We openly hated but secretly loved her (or the idea of her anyway), and after enduring months of torment that only adolescents can either dish out or experience fully, we finally decided to get her back. We were going to TP her house. Next weekend. TP it good. Then she would be sorry and take back all those brush-offs, screw-yous, and thinly disguised looks of disdain that we would always garner while making those farting sounds with our arm pits in class. Bitch.
Bob, by virtue of having overheard our conversation at lunch, had to be included in this little endeavor, though everyone (particularly Paul) was skeptical about Bob’s ability to make a meaningful contribution (who's Bob?).
Paul: ‘He’s slow, weak, noisy, and pathetic – whaddaya mean we have to bring him?’
Me: ‘He’ll tell. . .’
And since we were 12, that was enough to secure Bob the outing of his life so far. Oh, I’m sure that Bob has since moved up in the world – probably retired from software engineering at 30 and waking up on his yacht right now as I type, deciding which ex-model will be allowed to welcome him into the world this morning with a bloody mary and a blow job, but this is a story set long ago where we can still poke fun at Bob and not have to follow it with a ‘sir’.
So we all meet up at my house, and Bob brings along all of his Dungeons and Dragons stuff because, well, we need something to do, and Bob will tell, so I guess we’re playing… Also, Bob gets to be the dungeon master, because he’s the only one who really knows how the game is supposed to work – and the only one with the rule books too, so that means he basically gets to tell us all what to do during the game to a large extent as well. Bob may very well have popped his first boner that night - what with all the excitement.
Bob (rolling dice): ‘Wah wah wah.’ <--- That’s how Bob laughs
Shane: ‘What?’
Bob: ‘It seems that the Beholder has taken an interest in you, puny elfling, wah-wah-wah’
Shane: ‘Okay so –‘
Bob: ‘The rest of you guys see Fizgig shoot up into the air and . . ‘
Bob (rolling more dice): ‘.. oh look, he just exploded. Wow. I’ve invented elf-rockets! Wah-wah-wah’
Bob: ‘Someone better collect the dust, maybe you can resurrect him in town.’
Paul: ‘Screw this crap.’
Bob (smug look): …
Me: ‘I’ll get a jar…’
And this pretty much goes on for a few hours, as we down cans of Jolt (remember Jolt?) cola and bags of chips. We get the stupid elf resurrected, we save someone from something – I don’t remember what, and emerge heros. And then it’s time.
About 2am we grab all the toilet paper in the house that we can find, about 12 rolls, and stuff them into backpacks. Josh has brought some from home already – 4 more rolls makes 16. And then naturally we grab the firecrackers too – because we, of course, have to go torment a field full of cows that are on the way. It’s like a tradition. Okay, it’s just a guy thing… Okay, so… Really it’s more like we wanted to try cow-tipping this one time, but we were too chicken to do it, so we threw firecrackers at them instead, and now we sort of just always do it, okay?
We also swipe a couple of beers from the fridge because, uhh, because they are there I guess. I didn’t develop any taste for beer until I was about 22 – and couldn’t hack down enough of it to get a buzz until I was 14, but hey, if it made you look cooler to have it, then you may as well have it right?
Me (popping open a can): ‘Here Bob, go for it.’
Bob: ‘I don’t think that I sh-‘
Me: ‘Oh Christ Bob, it’s just beer, drink it.’
Bob (sipping): ‘I – uGh! Argh!’
Bob says ‘argh’ a lot. It can mean any cuss word. He lives with his gran, if you recall, and she’s the kind of gran that don’t abide no cussin’. In my idle daydreams I sometimes picture Bob sitting in the bathroom with a bar of soap in his mouth, like that little kid in A Christmas Story. Bob hands me back the beer, and I pretend to like the rest of the can as we walk to the cow fields.
We spread the upper gap in the barbed-wire fence and crawl through quietly, approaching our unsuspecting prey – 5 or 6 cows standing in a field unsuspecting. Probably having cow dreams. What exactly they dream about I can’t tell you, but I can tell you that the dreams are about to come to an end –
Paul (lit firecrackers in hand): ‘Hey-oh Cows!!!!!’
Cows: ‘Moo?’
Paul: ‘Artillery!’
And at that we start sticking bottle rockets lightly in the ground, angled towards the cows, and lighting them. *shoom*shoo-shoo-shoom*bang*bang*bang-ang* (I wasn’t brave enough to launch them by hand yet) and Paul throws his firecrackers, and the cows start a mini-stampede to the other end of the field with us preparing to pursue, and Ssssssssssssssss…. *BANG* happens right at our feet.
Paul: ‘Dammit BOB! You don’t stick ‘em in the ground that far!’
Josh: ‘Cows are already gone, dood.’
Bob (abashed, and stammering): ‘O.. Okay.’
And we start a pursuit, and run them into a corner (quietly) where we continue the merciless and senseless onslaught – and Paul is about to bellow an attack order when from behind us: *shoom-shoo-shoo-shoo-shoom* rockets begin whizzing by our heads and veering off-course and hitting the adjacent fence right behind the cows *bang-bang-ang-ang-bang* and this naturally spooks the crap out of them, and they start their mini-stampede again – right towards us.
Paul: ‘Goddammit Bob!!!’
Bob: ‘I-‘
Me (cutting in) ‘RUN.’
And we do run, and probably make more of a production out of running than necessary, but hey it’s a really dark night, and if you get trampled or bit or something, then you’re basically on your own because no one thought to bring a flashlight. We cross to the nearest fence and all scoot through the barbed wire, and from behind me I hear
The darkness: ‘Oh ARGH.’
Me: ‘Bob?’
The darkness: ‘Help!’
Me: ‘Guys, I think Bob is in trouble.’
The darkness: ‘Come on guys…’
The guys (mocking): ‘Come on guys…’
The darkness: ‘I’m stuck!’
The guys: (laughter)
So, I go back for Bob, because Bob’s, well, a little out of his element I guess, and plus he is my friend. Mostly. So I walk back, and Bob is perched kind of straddling the barbed-wire fence, with the crotch of his stylish grey corduroy pants all hung up on the barbed wire (Bob chose corduroys instead of the cheap nasty purple jeans that I usually got stuck with – to each his own I guess).
Bob (having given up trying to free himself): ‘Help?’
Me (sighing): ‘Okay, let me see if I can OHMYGOD–WHAT-HAPPENED?’
Bob: ‘I kinda slipped on the way…’
Bob had, in fact, found himself a fresh cow-pie, ran through it and managed to both lose his shoe and slip and fall into a second cow-pie all at the same time. His pants were trashed. He smelled horrible. And I had to reach into this mess to get him off the fence.
Me: ‘This is love, Bob.’
Bob: ‘Please don’t tell the others.’
Me (fighting back the urge to both vomit and laugh): ‘I don’t think we’re going to be able to hide this one.’
Me (still fighting back a giggle): …Want some toilet paper, for… you know… (?)
Bob: …
Me: wah-wah-wah!
Bob: ‘Argh.’
So Bob gets loose, minus a few crotch fibers and the aforementioned shoe. And we talk about it and decide that going back for the shoe would be pointless as he’ll never want to wear it again anyway. No, I am absolutely not making any of this up, you’d just have to know Bob.
So, cows sufficiently spooked, we continued on to Care Bear’s house. Kari the bitch, Kari whose family is loaded, Kari who has never not been on any of the junior high dance, Christmas, homecoming, or whatever courts. Kari, whose book report was on ‘Of Mice and Men’, when asked, reported that the theme of the story was ‘to be nice to everyone (+ tee hee)’ and got an ‘A’ for that smarmy, vapid, future Miss America answer. Kari who was so high up on her throne that she actually sent a follower of hers to come over to our table at lunch time and announce that ‘Kari doesn’t like you’, since it was beneath her to do it herself. She’s getting hers tonight. Maybe we’ll even be lucky enough to wake her up while we’re doing it and then we can see her in her underwear in her bedroom window, we thought. Yah, that would be the icing on the cake alright.
And we’re close now. We’re sticking to the shadows, and have cut all the chatter among us. Toilet paper is handed out and primed silently as we walk. We don’t give any to Bob, despite the fact that he needs it the most. He might trip over a dangling stream and let out an ‘Argh!’ at the wrong time or something. No no, not taking any chances now. And we’re quiet, and we slow down. It’s just around the corner now. Hungry smirks are traded like baseball cards as we try to conceal the fog from our breath on approach. No fingerprints, no trace, no nothing we agreed. Everyone has known their piece of this endeavor since the day before. It will be fast, thorough, and humiliating – that much is certain. And we round the bend, and the tree blocking her house from view from the main road. And we start up the sides of the driveway – all stealthy, like cats. And we stop. And we look up. And wonder. And it was truly, truly the best work of art I had ever seen - even to this day. Absolute mastery, as if someone had decorated for Christmas. The trees were trimmed expertly; the house looked like something from a paper mache ginger bread kit. It was awe-inspiring, but as we stood there, toilet paper in hand, reeking of beer and cow manure, the fact remained that SOMEONE ELSE HAD ALREADY TOILET-PAPERED KARI’S HOUSE EARLIER THAT NIGHT!
Me (tossing my roll of toilet paper to Bob): ‘Here Bob… Argh!...’
Bob (suddenly hopeful): ‘Well, that’s that then. Who’s up for more D&D?’
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