Found Out My Wife Knows a Guy Who Got Eaten by a Lion

Looks like the baby will be here on September 11th. My wife isn't thrilled about that being his birthday, but I'm trying to see the glass as half-full. For starters, we'll always get an unbelievable deal on clowns. We’ll likely have the buffoon and merrymaker industry over a barrel for years to come.

My mother-in-law is coming by soon to drop off some clothes for him. Ever since she last came over and accused me of being a "lady," I've been in talks with our building about having a moat constructed to keep her out. Have a couple of gators flown in and assemble a team of archers on the rooftop. Knowing her, though, we'd get a knock on the door, and there she'd be with a plate of fresh gator meat and a bunch of suddenly weight-conscious archers who all just had their feelings hurt in a very specific type of way you'd need to personally experience to fully understand.

I found out last night that my wife knew a guy from college who got eaten by a lion, which is obviously very sad but not nearly as sad as knowing I missed out on ten years of claiming that story as my own. Would have loved a chance to spin that yarn. Such a rich clay from which to work. Unfortunately, you'll just have to take my word for it when I say the third dance number would have fundamentally changed the way you think about musical theater. And the costumes. Oh, sweetie—the costumes.

"So the lion actually ate him?" my listener would ask.

"Bones and all," I'd say solemnly as I fumble to get my velcro lion's mane on.

Try as I might, I can't help but view this whole situation as a betrayal of our marital vows. As far as I'm concerned, the second we placed these rings on our fingers, that person should have changed from someone she knows who was eaten by a lion into someone we know who was eaten by a lion. Instead, she decided to mention it nearly a decade into our relationship—while we were at dinner with friends, no less. 

Does she not see how poor the optics are on this? Before we even got the check, I could hear the other couples at dinner smugly talking to one another on their subway rides home.

"Just so you know," they would say. "If I knew someone who was eaten by a lion, I would tell you right away." 

And these were our friends. I shudder to think what our enemies would do with knowledge of such profound division between us. If there were ever a time for them to attack, certainly it would be now. 

Oh, a new thing I've been doing to prepare for becoming a dad: saying, "Great, so that's where my tax dollars are going," about any minor inconveniences in my life, whether my tax dollars are actually going there or not. After all, even a broken clock is right twice a day. 

Baby Will Be Here Soon

Someone has been making my wife laugh on Slack a little too much for my liking this past week. Either her company recently hired Carrot Top, or I'm in big trouble.

There's a construction crew that keeps their lighting on at night across the street. I might tell my wife tomorrow that I said something to them. I'm obviously not actually going to say anything to them. But to have the reputation as the type of person who isn't afraid to engage in a civil disagreement with a union laborer? Well, that's the type of press that money can't buy.

The baby is going to be here very soon. We're supposed to check in at 10 pm. I'm excited to see what happens at the hospital once the lights go down. Maybe I'll even find a lonely old dying man to befriend. Then, when my son is born, I'll go down to see him one last time, and the nurse will be changing the bedsheets and say something like, "Oh, I'm afraid Mr. White passed away this morning." That would be very meaningful. Profound, too. I'll need to find my playing cards.

Now that we're so close to the big day, I'm getting more nervous about the delivery. I've only seen childbirth once, and it was at the Liberty Science Center. I was on a field trip, and there was a booth that showed a video of it for some reason. None of us thought twice about what we were going to see—we had all just heard "naked woman" and started lining up in an orderly fashion. It really was orderly, too. I've been on a few different lines to see naked women in my time, but this one was almost certainly the most organized, if not the one with the most people eating astronaut ice cream.

The rest of the field trip wasn't so much fun after we watched that video. One kid, Kevin Harding, took it particularly hard. Don't get me wrong; none of us liked what we saw in there. Kevin, though? Well, let's just say Kevin left a little bit of himself behind in that booth that day. He actually moved away at the end of the school year. We never found out where either. Wherever he is, though, I hope he's found peace.

I’m Going To Be A Dad, So I’m Getting In Shape Again

I'm really excited about becoming a dad. I do need to get into better shape, though. My energy levels are nowhere near high enough for siring at the moment.

I'll be going to Equinox for the first time since my tour tomorrow to begin my journey. Everyone there has an enormous penis, which I'm really hoping is something that happened to them after they signed up. I know you're not supposed to look, but you couldn't not. Honestly, I'm not so sure it's even fair to say these guys had penises so much as their penises had them.

Once the tour ended, I proceeded to kill an hour at the juice bar while I waited for my wife's friend, who is studying to be a therapist, to leave our apartment.

I also have my second-ever spin class in two hours. I understand the appeal of group exercise now. When I first walked into the studio, I couldn't have been more skeptical about the whole situation. Then, the instructor called out my name in the middle of class and said I was doing a great job, and everything changed. From that point forward, I was all in. This was now a man I would die for. 

I also felt bad, though. Earlier in the class, he conducted a fun little poll and I chose not to participate to avoid drawing attention to myself. I mean, this man just made me famous beyond my wildest dreams, and I couldn't even take one measly poll he was doing? It was an easy one, too: he asked everyone what their favorite pie was, with fall being here and all. 

I didn't want my new teacher to see me as cynical, so I just decided I'd sign up for his class again this week and enthusiastically participate in whatever poll he had planned this time. But then he dropped a bomb on us: he was leaving the following morning to go home for a wedding. He wouldn't be back until the next week. 

I was devastated. There was no way I was going to be able to survive an entire week with this crushing guilt. I briefly debated whether I should just follow him back home to his apartment. He would open his shower curtain to find me, my sunken face covered in my own feces.

"Pecan," I would say as I slowly lift a loaded weapon to my temple.

The place has a rock wall, too. Which is great.

I Got A Chocolate Guy Now

I've been going to town on this chocolate turkey my wife's grandmother sent us. She gets it from her chocolatier. She actually gave me his business card the last time I saw her so that he could now be my chocolatier, as well. Which is a huge deal for me.

It recently occured to me that every decision I have ever made in my life, no matter how insignificant it may have seemed at the time, has been leading me to this very moment. Every door I held open for someone, or more importantly, didn't hold open for somebody, has made me into the person I am today: a man with a chocolatier.

One funny thing that happens when you have a chocolatier is you suddenly find him popping into your everyday conversations. I am constantly remembering funny anecdotes about him in front of people. I'll let off a little chuckle to myself, and then when everyone asks what I'm laughing about:

"Oh, nothing," I say. "Just something my chocolatier said last weekend."

Then, when they inevitably press further and ask what it was exactly that my chocolatier said:

"Well, he was telling me abou—actually," I say, suddenly realizing the futility of trying to explain whatever it is that my chocolatier said to the uninitiated. "Forget it. It's nothing."

It's not worth my time, nor theirs. That's time that neither of us can get back. That's actually the one piece of advice I would impart to someone aspiring to have a chocolatier of their own one day: time management. You can actually hear all about this and more as I roll out my new self-help seminar, "The Sweet Life," in the coming months. It's twelve hours long and has thirty different costume changes—both starting and ending with me dressed as a geisha but atop stilts of slightly different heights.

Noodles With Butter

My wife's college friends are over for their monthly book club meeting. We have a tiny apartment, so I can hear their entire discussion from our bedroom. It's admittedly been a while since I last read it, but evidently, there were way more people getting fingered in fraternity house basements than I remembered there being in The Kite Runner. Also, a threesome next to a dumpster after a Swedish House Mafia concert?

I think my greatest fear in life—outside of my wife seeing the size of my mother’s original guestlist for our wedding—is having two girls look at my penis at the same time. Those girls would be bonded together through shared trauma for the rest of their lives. Fifty years from now, you would see them both in one of those beautiful viral reunion videos, like when two prisoners of war reunite for the first time since being separated overseas. They would be hugging each other deeply while their family members who set the whole thing up would be looking on in the room, happily crying, and filming on their phones so that they could share on their social media channels. A local news affiliate would even be there to capture the moment.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” one of the girls would say.

“I’ve never stopped looking for you,” the other would reply. 

At this point, they’d put their forearms together to get a picture of the matching tattoos they have. Sure, like all things, time may have faded them, but they’re still there—and they always will be. 100 Years by Five for Fighting would take the segment into a commercial break, but not before the lead anchor shares all the details of the local food drive taking place that weekend where canned goods will be donated to all the other girls who bear the great misfortune of knowing what my penis looks like.

We're supposed to be going out to dinner with another couple tonight—my wife’s friend from college and her husband. I also have to stop at Target and pick up some toys for my nephew. I wish it were socially acceptable to play with toys as an adult. I'd be out to dinner on the double-dates my wife sets up with her friends, smashing action figures together and making fake explosion noises with my mouth while she tries unsuccessfully to get me to join the conversation.

"What did we say about eye contact?" she would say to me.

Then more discreetly to her friend and the husband, "sorry, we've been working on this at home." When it would be time to order, I'd get too scared to talk to the waiter, so I bashfully whisper what I want in my wife's ear for her to tell him.

"Noodles with butter it is," he'd say.

Then I'd smile. Because it's almost time for noodles with butter.

In Defense of Thomas Markle

I want to be in someone's entourage—preferably the guy who yells, "Don't call the fucking cops! Put the fucking phone down!" when something unspeakably horrible happens at a small intimate party. "Just let me think!" I would scream while aggressively massaging my temples. "Let me fucking think." The whole room—including Pauly Shore—is now staring at me. "Will someone get them out of here!" I would scream in the direction of the two girls of questionable age huddled together in the corner of the room. "Not you, Pauly!" I'd shout angrily. "You've done enough already."

I could never be a fixer, unfortunately. My wife would never allow it. She's always telling me what I can and can't do. I'll be without her company for the first time in a while tonight, which makes me sad. As difficult as she can be when it comes to letting me own and wield a substantial bladed melee weapon, I do enjoy having her around. Or at least as much as one possibly can under those circumstances. Apparently, she’s going to some Tapas place that Naomi Watts goes to sometimes. I swear, that one is always going to Tapas places that Naomi Watts goes to sometimes.

I read an article earlier today that said Meghan Markle used to hiss at her servants. Everyone is giving her a hard time for it, but I truly don't think she did anything wrong—as the fourth-billed actress on a USA legal drama, she has earned the right to make sharp sibilant sounds in the direction of royal staffers. That’s the type of delusional entitlement that makes us the greatest country in the entire goddamn world.

By the way, I’m obsessed with the Markle family in the way that most people are obsessed with the Royal Family. The world was deprived of the stories that would have come out of a Thomas Markle dinner with the Queen. He probably would have called the food “grub” a bunch and asked if Buckingham Palace had a “crapper” he could use.

Rockin' Pneumonia / Boogie Woogie Flu

Taking sick days when you're young is the best: you just jack off all day and watch Maury tell people if they are going to be parents or not. When you're old, though, they become less fun: you just jack off all day and watch Maury tell people if they are going to be parents or not, but this time you're kind of fat.

I'm currently on my third day in a row of being out sick. I've felt so horrible the past two days that I haven't been able even to watch TV. I've been trying to regain my TV-watching strength, though. I've started slow, watching short YouTube videos on my phone. If this were a movie, it would be the recovery montage of me slowly making my way down the hospital hallway with a walker and gown. My nurse would look over to my fiance while I watch a video of a man with a Southern accent accidentally setting his ass on fire.

"He's getting stronger," she would silently whisper so as not to disturb my progress.

The worst part about all of this is not being able to go outside. I desperately need fresh air. I read the entire Wikipedia page for the Entourage movie today. That’s the type of behavior of someone who is critically deprived of oxygen. I’m pretty sure I heard somewhere that the last thing you see before you die is the sentence: “The boys soon realize the reason Travis is angry over the movie is because he discovered that Vince is secretly dating Emily Ratajkowski.”

Helping My Dad

We're almost done with moving. My dad stopped by earlier to help mount the television to the wall. I initially planned on taking more of a "drink lemonade and gossip with the ladies" role in the operation, but he had other plans. When he asked me to grab the "torque wrench" from his toolbag, I honestly just assumed there was someone else standing behind me who wasn't actively trying to watch an episode of Blossom over his shoulder. 

Perhaps the only thing worse than being of no help to him, though, was how eager I appeared when a simple enough task presented itself in which I could be of use—like when he needed a writing utensil to mark measurements with. I fear I may have come off a little more "Look, Daddy, I brought you pencils!" than he probably felt comfortable with.

He showed great poise in that situation, though. Many fathers would feel the need to make their sons feel less than in that moment, but not him. Instead, he graciously took one of the pencils from my hand, curiously ran his fingers through the hair of the Troll Doll eraser resting atop it, and calmly reminded me of the attorney's name who handles our family's estate planning.

We almost got stuck in the elevator while moving our desk upstairs. There was one other girl in there with us. Entirely too skinny to eat but not skinny enough to use as leverage to pry the doors open. She offered nothing to us in that situation. She did make a joke about us being stuck on there, but the joke wasn't even that funny. So, she wouldn't have even made a suitable Elevator Jester. It was fine, the joke. But not great.

I’m Learning Lucid Dreaming

I've been having the most vivid nightmares lately. In an effort to reclaim my mind as my own, I started researching lucid dreaming. I haven't been able to get it to work yet, but when I do, you can rest assured that my dream will be something along the lines of this:

I'm soaring through the sky, feeling the cool night breeze against my face, riding atop the back of a giant-sized Christina Ricci like the kid in The NeverEnding Story. It's getting to be around dinner time, and we're both a little tired from a long night of soaring, so I tap her shoulder, letting her know it's time to begin our descent. 

She turns her head to me, nods in agreement, and begins to deploy her landing gear.

We land right outside a Friendly's. But not just any Friendly's. It's the one I used to go to as a child with my family.

I toss the keys to my Christina Ricci to the valet and make my way inside. My grandfather, who passed away ten years ago, is sitting there waiting for me. He's in our favorite booth—the one between the claw machine and the backdoor. He looks much different than when he was sick, slowly withering away from the chronic kidney disease that would eventually take him from us. He's younger here. Healthier. He has shoulder-length dark hair. Big catlike hazel eyes. Large breasts. He has changed his name to Christina Ricci. 

I play footsie with my grandfather while waiting for my Honey BBQ Chicken SuperMelt Sandwich to arrive.

Bachelor Parties & Unloved Children

My wife has been really nervous about a bachelor party I have in Vegas in a few weeks. I think she would worry a lot less if she knew just how much time at bachelor parties is spent speculating amongst one another about whether you could survive the hypothetical fall from the hotel balcony. She has this vision of us running through the streets of Vegas looking for drugs and loose women when, in reality, we'll spend most of the weekend sheepishly peering off the balcony, saying things like, "I think you'd only be looking at a pair of broken legs." 

I just got back from a run in Central Park, and it made me second-guess whether I truly want to raise a family in the city. I guess Machine Gun Kelly was playing a matinee show, and there was a huge line of kids waiting outside the venue. At first glance, I just assumed it was the returns line for a nearby foster care agency. Every girl looked like they had just jacked someone off in the woods, and every guy looked like they had just been jacked off in the woods.

One day, I want to move to the country and have a bunch of local backcountry roughnecks psychologically torment both myself and my family. Country boys would have a field day with a city boy like me. Bring me hunting only to ridicule me and leave me behind to find my own way home. Pull my pants down at the local dive while I'm playing pool and expose my penis and balls to all the other locals. Completely emasculate me in front of my wife by constantly giving me noogies and messing up my hair. 

"Alright, that's enough, now, fellas," I'll say sheepishly.

Then, when I finally get back to the new house I had sunk all my money into, my son would just stare at me at the foot of the stairs with as little respect as possible.

"You shoulda slugged 'em, Dad," he'd say before walking slowly up to his new bedroom, where he'd spend the rest of the evening on his computer.

So Old In My Shoes

I don’t think my fiance and I have ever had a single conversation that wasn’t about how poorly we slept the night before. Don’t get me wrong; she seems like a nice enough person—I just wouldn’t say I know her all that well. I think she hates peanuts? Or does she love peanuts? She definitely has strong feelings about peanuts. Honestly, I’m not even sure about that. She might not think about peanuts at all. I do know that she almost had a six-pack in her sophomore year of college and she can play "Disarm" by The Smashing Pumpkins on guit—oh, wait, that's me.

I’m just now remembering how awesome of a song “Disarm” is. I’ve listened to it like ten times since this morning. The only thing better than the song itself is the YouTube comment section for the music video. 50% of the comments are from divorced men memorializing a character from The Shield and 49% are teenagers talking about how they want to kill their step-parents in way that seems to be highly credible. The remaining 1% is from a guy telling a really horrible story about how he walked Billy Corgan’s dog once—and 0.75% of that 1% are responses calling him both gay and a liar. 

Ever since I deleted my social media channels, I find myself spending a great deal of time on YouTube. I’ve reached the age where I can no longer stomach fight videos on there. I used to love nothing more than watching two Midwestern high school students beat the ever-living shit out of one another on a tennis court. It was one of the few great pleasures of my life. I was even able to tell you what year the fight occurred by just looking at the Nu Metal or post-grunge band shirts the two warriors were wearing—Theory of a Deadman may as well just start selling their shirts with pre-stretched out collars and type 2 diabetic bloodstains. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure there was a solid three year stretch where I didn’t watch a single video on YouTube where someone with high cholesterol didn’t shout “git em’ Scooter!”

I only attended one after-school fight as a kid. It must have been my sophomore year because I vividly remember it raining Wedding Crashers quotes on the walk over to the off-grounds tennis court. My socks were absolutely soaked in Vince Vaughn quotes that whole school year.

The most jacked kid in our entire school—a young man who later would go on to play football at a prestigious D1 university—served as both the de facto referee and MC for the early afternoon bout. There were like a hundred kids there. People were climbing up on the fence surrounding the court to ensure they had the best possible view of the pending bloodshed.

 “Listen up,” he shouted. “There’s only one rule in this fight.”

I was already feeling squeamish so I was hoping the one rule would be no punching in the face.

“No one jumps in,” he continued. “I decide when this is over.”

As soon as he announced the one and only rule, he did one of the strangest things I have ever seen. Still, to this day, I question whether it actually happened or—

I can’t concentrate. There is a group of, like, fifty young people out in the courtyard right now. I typically wouldn’t mind, but it’s after dark, and they have a tremendous Bose soundbar. Don’t they understand that I am working on my memoirs? A big pet peeve of mine is when other people don’t understand that I am working on my memoirs. I already called down to security twice. If they aren’t careful, I’m gonna make it three times. Their lack of concern for my memoirs frightens me. 

My memoirs.

How The Assembly I Assume My Principal Held For The Girls In My Class After I Wore A Kangol Beret To School Probably Went

Mrs. O’Brien: Good afternoon, girls. Today, you might have...felt some things. I want you all to know that these things you may have been feeling are totally natural and nothing to be ashamed of. Truth be told, I was feeling them too. I was feeling them big time. Does anyone want to say anything? Maybe share their feelings? Remember, this is a judgement-free zone.

Girl #1: I guess I can start.

Mrs. O’Brien: Ok, great. That’s great.

Girl #1: I thought it was the hottest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

Girl #2: I did, too.

Girl #3:  I did, too.

Girl #4: I did, too.

Girl #5: I did, too.

Girl #6: I did, t—

Mrs. O’Brien: Alright, alright. I think we can all agree that it was the hottest thing any of us have ever seen in our entire lives. I guess what I really want to know is, how did it make you feel?

Girl #7: It made me feel the same way I felt last week when he was pantsed in gym glass.

Girls nod in unison

Girl #8: Did anyone else think it was weird that he was wearing two pairs of underwear? Almost as if he’s constantly scared that he’s going to get pantsed?

Mrs. O’Brien: Girl #8, please leave—you absolute fool.

Girl #8 leaves to the loudest boos anyone has ever heard in their entire life

Mrs. O’Brien: While we are on the subject—how did everyone feel last week when he was pantsed in gym class?

Girl #9: I thought it was the hottest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

Girl #10: I did, too.

Girl #11: I did, t—

Mrs. O’Brien: Focus, ladies.

Girl #12: I thought it was very forward-thinking and smart that he was wearing two pairs of underwear. I’m not going to lie though, I wish he wasn’t—I wanted to see his ass!

Girl #13: He has a hunky rock ‘n’ roll ass.

All Girls In Unison: We all wanted to see his hunky rock ‘n’ roll ass!

Mrs. O’Brien: Settle down now, girls. Settle down. I think it’s safe to say we all wanted to see his hunky rock ‘n’ roll ass. 

Girl #14: I think it’s so hot that he doesn’t talk to anyone on the bus and just stares out the window while listening to Jackson Browne. I don’t think that’s weird or melodramatic at all.

Mrs. O’Brien: Of course it’s not weird or melodramatic. Why would you even say that? Leave.

Girl #14 leaves to boos that are somehow even louder than when Girl #8 left

Mrs. O’Brien: Alright, girls, thank you for your bravery and courage in sharing this evening. I’m very proud of each and everyone of you. I want you to remember that if you need anything at all, I’m here for you—I’m here for all of you.

Britney Spears: What if we aren’t a student here?

Mrs. O’Brien: You too, Britney—you know that. You too, always.

Britney Spears: I just really want to see his hunky rock ‘n’ roll ass. 

Girls nod in unison

Lots of Doctors Appointments This Week

I can't stop thinking about the doctor's reaction to inspecting my genitals today. He was like a storefront fortune teller who foresaw some unspeakable horror in my tarot card reading, quickly pushing my money back to me and urging me to leave his office immediately. I'm pretty sure I heard him whispering something in Latin to himself as I was leaving.

Turns out it's nothing serious, which is a relief. Just a weird set, it seems.

To add insult to injury, I need to get a prostate exam as well this week. I was looking at ZocDoc, and there was one proctologist in my area who just so happens to be a gorgeous young woman. As you can imagine, getting an appointment with her is like trying to get tickets to see Springsteen. After a bit of research, I ended up settling on a guy who looked like he had the smallest fingers out of the bunch.

By the way, how is there not a more technologically advanced way to do all this yet? Are a divorced Jewish man's hands really still considered to be the best-in-class medical equipment when it comes to inspecting testicles? It's totally fine if they are—I just would like to see some research that backs this up. I mean, I was in a self-driving car the other night. 

You would think we would have robots for this by now. Possibly even hot girl robots with big breasts. Or a hot guy robot with big balls. Or if you're my wife and you're reading this, even though I have politely asked you not to open my Google Docs multiple times, it can be a robot you. But a Robot You who doesn't open my Google Docs.

Ricky Hates Crackheads 

“Is there a cat in here by any chance?” our foreman asked. “My allergies are acting up.”

“Oh, that’s just my cooler, boss,” Ricky said, tapping the mini-Coleman sitting at his feet.

When I was going into my sophomore year of college, my dad got me an internship working with his old construction union. I would take the 5:30 AM train into Manhattan every morning and spend nine hours around burly union men. The work was relatively easy, really just fetching breakfast orders on most days. When I got back with the food, I would sit on the radiator by the break table and listen to everyone talk. On this particular day, the breakfast conversation was about cats-in-coolers.

“Why did you put your cat in your cooler?” the foreman asked.

“To get him high,” Ricky said and continued eating his bacon sandwich. 

Ricky went on to explain that he and his friends would stuff his cat in the cooler, close the lid, and blow smoke into the drain plug on the side. Ricky was forty-years-old.

“Did it work?” I asked.

“What do you think?” he said.

Truthfully, I had no idea what to think. I just smiled and continued to eat my bacon sandwich. Ricky swore by bacon sandwiches and paid for my breakfast that morning under the stipulation that I order one. Wasn’t too bad.

Another day, Ricky told me a story about one of his friends getting “absolutely crocked on God-Knows-What,” and attempting to sew his own asshole shut. Shockingly long story short, this man had simply grown tired of having an asshole. It had been nothing but a burden to him, so he decided to rid himself of it. For the rest of the day, I couldn’t help but to imagine this friend sitting by a crackling fire in a charming antique rocking chair, legs thrown behind his head with crochet hooks in each hand—only stopping to fetch some tea from the whistling kettle in the next room or to inquire about a reverse mortgage through a toll-free number. 

Although I don’t know for sure what particular type of “God-knows-what” this man had taken, I can only assume it was not crack. Ricky hated crack. The only thing Ricky hated more than crack were crackheads. He had no tolerance for them, which was quite unfortunate because, to Ricky, everyone was a crackhead.

“Don’t listen to him,” he would say to me. “That guy is a total crackhead.”

“Really?” I would ask. “I had no idea.”

“Oh yeah,” he’d say. “Big time.”

Now, as far as I knew, none of these people were actually crackheads. That didn’t matter, though. Rick said they were, so they became as much. 

There was one “crackhead” in particular that Ricky absolutely couldn’t stand. His name was Joe, and he just so happened to be my designated mentor on the job site. I was assigned to him so that he could show me the ropes, but instead, he mostly just complained to me about our boss and told me about all of the different times he had sex with his wife. Joe loved having sex with his wife. He was also, up until that point in my life, the most Italian man I had ever met. Since then, he’s dropped to about five or six on my list—which is physical by the way—but that’s still very, almost impossibly, Italian.

Joe was also extremely arrogant, and Ricky didn’t take kindly to that. I can’t say I ever really enjoyed my time with Joe, either. He would constantly nitpick everything I did, whether it be the way I carried his tools or the way I tied my work boots. He also didn’t like my haircut, which I always thought was interesting. It was the most normal haircut you could possibly have. Seriously. You can ask any of my friends. Hell, you can even ask my enemies. If you can find any of them alive and in speaking condition, that is.

One morning, after I brought everyone’s breakfast orders back, I saw that Joe seemed confused by what was in front of him. I knew for a fact that I had gotten his order correct, considering I had been doing it all summer, and Joe was very much a creature of habit. He always got the same thing: egg whites, turkey, and swiss cheese on a whole wheat wrap. 

“What the fuck is this?” he asked very Italian-ly.

“Your breakfast,” I said with a normal haircut. “Right? Egg whites, turkey, and swiss cheese on a whole wheat wrap?”

Joe turned the bag over and spilled its contents onto the table in front of him. Then he picked up one of the many ketchup packets I brought back for him and held it up for the whole table to see. His face was bright red.

“This,” he said even more Italian-ly than the first time. “This is the bad fucking ketchup.”

“The bad ketchup?” I asked, genuinely confused but still with a normal haircut.

“Are you deaf?” he asked. “This. Is. The. Bad. Ketchup.”

It was then that a grown man launched a half-open packet of ketchup at my face from across the table. It hit me square in the forehead and stuck there for a few moments before dropping to the floor. I had no idea what to do or say. There was complete silence in that moment, until... 

“Leave him alone,” a voice bellowed from the distance. “You crackhead.”

We all turned around, and there was Ricky. He was running a little late that morning, but to me, he was right on time—his tool belt oddly reminiscent of a leather holster.

Joe’s face now turned a different shade of red, this time from embarrassment. There was no coming back from a temper tantrum like that, and he knew it. Even the most boisterous guy we worked with—an actual psychotic man from Pittsburgh—told Joe to cool down. He stood up, threw his entire breakfast into the trash, and went back downstairs to continue working. He didn’t say another word to me for the rest of the day. In fact, he didn’t say many words to me for the rest of the summer. He would occasionally bring me in to help out on some easy jobs, but for the most part, I was free of him, and he of me.

As for Ricky, I actually never got to see him again after that morning—he was laid off about two hours later for smoking crack in the utility closet.

Some Guy Can't Get Boners Anymore Because Of My Dad (In Defense Of David Spade Murdering Princess Diana)

I saw a man in Target earlier wearing a fedora with band-aids on every one of his fingers, presumably to cover the blisters he developed from telling women that they “won the internet” all day. While I was looking for my ointments in the pharmacy aisle, I overheard him talking to someone on the phone.

“Did you hear about Tiger Woods?” he asked. “They had to pull him out with the Jaws of Life!”

For whatever reason, people love car accidents that involve The Jaws Of Life. I was watching the Tiger Woods coverage on CNN and the correspondents must have used the phrase “The Jaws Of Life” no less than thirty times. We love the awesome power of the Jaws Of Life and the sinister implications of their use (Ironically enough, that’s also the name of my high concept post-rock project where I throw my legs behind my neck on stage and scream fun facts about the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping directly into my own asshole. It’s a commentary on war, but if you ask me what specific war, I’ll act like I see someone I know in the distance, start to walk away, and immediately trip on the smallest stick in the area, revealing the most remarkably soiled underwear you—or anyone else for that matter—have ever seen). 

The news also kept telling us that he was last publicly seen with David Spade the day before, as if this was some foreboding sign of things to come. While they didn't come right out and say it, they certainly implied that no one has ever hung out with David Spade without immediately getting into a one-vehicle car crash the following morning. Spade's always getting hung out to dry. If memory serves, I think they actually tried to hang Princess Diana on him, as well.

I've only been in one car accident. I was in the backseat of an Uber when a truck hopped the divider and slammed into us head-on. It was all very surreal. Luckily, I was wearing a seatbelt, so I wasn't tossed around too much. Uber must have thought I would sue them because they must have called me every day for a week. I'm way too lazy to sue. When my dad was younger, a woman tried to sue him for one million dollars. He got into a car accident with her husband, and she was claiming he was no longer able to "physically service her" on account of lingering emotional trauma. The case was almost immediately thrown out. The accident was nothing more than a little fender bender. Still, it must have felt good for that guy knowing his penis was at one time valued at one million dollars. If he didn't have an ego before that, I would imagine he does now. I wonder what my fiance would sue for if I could not physically service her. It might be a "whatever's in your pocket" situation. 

I do wonder what my life would be like if I had sued Uber, though. I certainly wouldn't be working at my current job, that's for sure. I'd probably just finance movies. It's high time that irreverent teen sex romps make their long overdue return to the silver screen. Love me a good irreverent teen sex romp. I'd love to get my hands on that American Pie IP. I think I could really take Stifler into new and uncharted waters. Literally. I would make a movie where Stifler is on a boat. I haven't gotten too much further than that. I don't think I need to either. With clay as rich as The Stifmeister on the potter's wheel, you just kind of sit there and watch the vase make itself. 

There's actually a pretty big market for American Pie fan-fiction on the internet. Most of them see Stifler off to college, and all of them spell the word for the female sex organ wrong in uniquely different ways. Also, and I think this goes without saying, but they always find our horny hero accidentally teaching a women’s studies class. I’m not hating on the lack of originality, mind you. The stories all share this common thread for a reason: it works. The main problem with Hollywood today, in my opinion, is that filmmakers are taking too many risks. Master screenwriter Quentin Tarantino said it best, after all: “I appreciate the female foot, but I've never said that I have a foot fetish. But I am a lower track guy. I like legs' I like booties'. I have a black male sexuality.”

I Think I’m Going To Have An Affair With Angus From The Movie Angus (And Other Thoughts On Public Libraries)

I’ve been spending the past week listening to nothing but the Angus soundtrack. It’s just too good. I think it might be better than Abbey Road. In fact, I know it is. As far as I know, Abbey Road doesn’t have any Goo Goo Dolls or Dance Hall Crashers songs on there. I don’t think I can watch the movie again, though, oddly enough. It would just give me too much nostalgia, and quite frankly, I don’t think I really liked it all that much. It made me depressed, seeing Angus all fat and stupid like that.  

I was curious as to what the kid from Angus was up to these days, so I did a little research. While he doesn't have a Wikipedia page, he does have a Cameo page where he charges $65 for a video. He'll also send you a personalized text message for $3.99. I'd imagine clicking the link to pay the kid from Angus $3.99 for a text message just redirects you to a suicide hotline. I think I have to do it, though. I'm going to blow all of the money my fiance and I are saving for a home on texting with the fat kid from Angus. I'll also do it really discreetly so that she thinks I'm having an affair, and in many ways, I will be. Then when she inevitably finds out where all of our money went—I'll be covered entirely in lesions at this point—she'll make me go to recovery meetings. I'll sit in a circle with other white men in their thirties who also blew all their money texting with the fat kid from Angus. Violently throwing up in my toilet due to withdrawals from no longer being able to text with the fat kid from Angus.

In a perfect world, The Angus soundtrack would have the same cachet as the Garden State soundtrack. I miss a good soundtrack. When I was a kid, I was on a never-ending quest to secure the Meet The Deedles soundtrack from my town’s library. They only had one copy, and it was never available. The guy—and I do feel safe in making that assumption—who rented it last, just never returned it. I don’t know why the library even shelved the soundtrack in the first place. That’s just lost inventory. No one who has ever come into possession of the Meet The Deedles soundtrack has ever ended up returning it, at least not without the business end of a longsword to their back. I mean, it opened up with Bosstones, Goldfinger, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, and last but not least: Dance Hall Crashers. 

I think the thing I love most about libraries is the consistency. You always know what you’re walking in on. There’s always a highly distressed man typing with two fingers on Ancestory.com and another woman who is desperately trying to watch something like Our Brand Is Crisis on DVD. The stakes always seem unspeakably high in both of these scenarios, almost as if there are bombs implanted in their bodies that will promptly detonate if they don’t successfully locate second cousins or watch a movie where Sandra Bullock has blonde hair.

I've also always been a huge fan of the newspaper archive in libraries—not necessarily the newspapers themselves, but more so the people who occupy them: middle-aged men trying to find out who kidnapped their daughters. At least that's what it looks like. The official police investigation may have dried up years ago, save for the occasional phone call around the holidays, but not for these men in grey crewneck sweatshirts. They are now taking the case into their own hands. Every single person in the newspaper archive section looks like their wife has to tell them that "she's not coming back" at least three times a day. The Venn diagram of people who regularly sit at a microfilm terminal and people who go to sleep with their back to their wives is a perfect circle.

One time this kid I knew accidentally printed out anime porn in our high school's library. I have no idea how the website wasn't blocked. Everything was blocked in there. I ran into him at a Kacey Musgraves concert in Brooklyn a few years back, and he had an earring.

My town's public library didn't have anything blocked. When I was working on my college admission essay, I spent a ton of time in the library's computer section. We only had one computer at home, and it barely worked on account of my brothers and I consuming media on it. We consumed a ton of media on this thing, especially at nighttime. I often wonder if my mom knew how much media we were all consuming at that time. I mean, at this point in my life, I was either consuming media or thinking about consuming media. My habit of consuming media was, for lack of a better word, all-consuming. One time, I remember one time my mom almost walked in on me consuming media, which would have been embarrassing because, in this particular media, a man and a woman were aggressively fucking each other in a barn. I don’t think she would have seen anything. The barn was dark. Almost a little too dark. In hindsight, the barn in which that man and woman were fucking each other, was entirely too dark.

Night Terrors & Juice Cleanses

“I understand this may be a difficult question to answer,” she said. “But, on a scale of 1-10, how happy would you say you are?”

I took a moment to think this over.

“I’d have to say it’s somewhere in the middle,” I told her. 

“So, like a four or a five?” she asked.

“Yeah, around there,” I said.

“No,” she said. “Which one is it: a four or a five?” 

I never really thought to seek out professional help for my night terrors. A week earlier, though, my mom was forced to rescue me from thrashing my face to pieces on my brother’s bedroom floor. I won’t bore you with the details of the nightmare that drove me to self-harm, but let’s just say a frog-bodied James Cromwell was working my butt-cheeks like a pair of conga drums and leave it at that. Mother scheduled an appointment with a specialist the following morning.

A few weeks before The Frogwell Incident, as it is now known amongst my biographers, I decided that I would attempt to take a holistic approach to quell my night-goblin problem. I had recently been at a party with some guy who just finished a juice cleanse. He claimed that he had never felt better, both physically and mentally. He also claimed that while he couldn’t definitively  prove it, his hog grew. 

At this point in my life, most of my meals were insanely processed Hungry Man style dinners. These things were downright sinister—when I heated them up, I swear the foreboding intro to Godsmack's "Voodoo" faintly played in place of the traditional hum of a microwave. The packages would taunt me from my freezer like the board game from Jumanji, except instead of that tribal drum beat, they would call each of the jurors on the Casey Anthony trial by name.

The next morning, I visited a website for a nearby juice shop and began to look through the menu. As far as I could gather, there wasn’t a single problem in the entire world that freshly pressed juice couldn’t fix. They had juices that helped brighten your skin complexion; juices that helped promote better eye-sight; juices that made your hair shiny and voluminous. What I didn’t see, however, were any juices that prevented critically acclaimed yet woefully underappreciated character actors from entering your dreams amphibiously and repurposing your bottom into two separate—but equally out of tune—Cuban percussion instruments. They did have a “make-your-own” option, though, so not all hope was lost.

All I could think about on my walk to the juice shop was how drastically my life was about to change. I was about to become not only the best possible version of myself but most likely the best possible version of anyone, ever. Then, something funny happened: I began to feel sad. I started to feel a sense of longing for the man I used to be pre-juice—more specifically, a man who didn’t have an enormous Juice-Hog. Was this really the man I wanted to be? If this strange man on ketamine could be trusted, I would soon be walking through life seemingly more hog than man. Could I handle that type of power? More importantly, could the world? Suddenly, I found myself slipping into a hazy projection of my not-so-distant future...

There are tanks. Lots of them. The local news stations are already on site—national news is on their way, and if the speed in which they are driving is any indication, they will soon be breaking the goddamn sound barrier. A massive spotlight has been turned on and after a few seconds of shifting around, is finally focused directly on my towering new tube steak.  

A no-nonsense colonel steps up, separating himself from his subordinates. The only thing longer than his list of military awards and decorations is the cigar he happens to be chomping on. It’s clear that he’s in charge of this operation.

“Listen up,” he calls into his megaphone. “I’m only going to say this once. Come forward peacefully, or be prepared for unprecedented physical force.”

Luckily, the group of neighborhood kids that had recently befriended me would show up just in the nick of time, ditching their bikes in the dirt and throwing themselves in front of me as a human shield.

“You’re scaring him!” they would scream. “He just wants to go home!”

At this point, the colonel has a decision to make. He can either take these kids at their word and order his platoon to lower their weapons—or he could unleash the wrath of God on this sleepy little town. 

“Please,” the leader of the group quietly pleads, wiping back the tears from his eyes. “He’s my friend.”

The colonel takes a second to think this over. The little boy sees in his eyes, however, that his decision had already been made.

“Fire.”

“But, sir,” one of the soldiers says. “What about the childre—”

“I said fire, dammit!”

Now, if this were a movie, the next scene would be when Hoggie—as the neighborhood kids affectionately named him—reveals he has the power of flight and whisks them away to safety, only to share one last tearful goodbye before they part ways forever. This isn’t a movie, though. This is real life. My enormous juice-penis and his new outcast band of friends are blasted to kingdom come.

As I came out of my hazy daydream/premonition, I decided that this wouldn’t be a future I wanted any hand in creating—the juice just wasn’t worth the squeeze, so to speak. I walked into a nearby bodega and purchased thirty dollars worth of chewing tobacco and two Zebra Cakes. 

“Four,” I said. 

Can I Ask You A Question, Please?

“Bitch,” she started. “You’re making caribou steaks...without me?”

I wasn’t entirely sure who was on the other line of this phone call, but I did know two things about her based on various context clues. First, she was a bitch. Secondly, she may or may not have been making caribou steaks without a woman in the most counterfeit Looney Tunes t-shirt I had ever seen. 

I can’t remember what movie I was seeing that day, but I was definitely seeing it by myself. I think it was “Truth or Dare” with Lucy Hale. There were only three people in the audience, including myself and this woman, so “Truth or Dare” with Lucy Hale would certainly check out. I could be wrong, though. Full disclosure, I was very much in between medications at the time—I had just recently purchased an invisible dog leash and was spending most of my days trying to learn sleight of hand magic from strange men on the internet. I also found myself drawing lots of diagrams on how to make sweatpants better—not necessarily more comfortable, but better. At that time, I could only be described as a “deeply unreliable narrator.” For about a week afterward, I was reasonably certain the woman in the Looney Tunes t-shirt was Hillary Swank. Still kind of do. 

“No, no,” she continued. “I still have time to chat—it’s only the previews.”

At this point, the only other person in the theater—a man in a long jacket who looked to be about forty—stood up and started to make his way to where we were sitting. This should be good, I thought to myself. Truthfully, the woman wasn’t bothering me very much. That being said, I wasn’t about to actively root against a public altercation in a matinee of a teen-slasher film—especially in the event it actually was Hillary Swank. Up until that point in my life, I had never seen Hillary Swank get into a public altercation in a matinee of a teen-slasher film. 

He finished climbing the stairs, stopped just short of her aisle, and instead turned to me.

“Excuse me,” he said. “But can I ask you a question, please?”

Now, at the time, I was still recovering from being asked a question at a recent Selena Gomez concert—I may have even still been wearing my hospital bracelet. I had bought tickets for my girlfriend and me to go for her birthday. Halfway through the show, the young girl sitting next to me tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I knew what a thong was. She wasn’t asking out of a place of curiosity, mind you—she very much knew what a thong was. Instead, she wanted me to prove that I knew what a thong was. She wouldn’t let up, either. I would try and deflect and she would just continue prodding me. I eventually had to ask my girlfriend to switch seats with me. It was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me in my life. I didn’t sleep a wink that night, mostly because I was learning magic and thinking about sweatpants in a real “big picture” kind of way. 

“Of course,” I said. 

He then sat down next to me.

This man is going to shoot me with a gun, I thought to myself.

He slowly reached into his jacket pocket.

This man is absolutely going to shoot me with a gun, I thought to myself.

And pulled out the only thing scarier than a gun: a black marble notebook in which he had written down every single movie trailer that had been shown so far, along with a corresponding numerical rating on a 1-10 scale.

“Would you happen to remember the trailer that was shown before this one?” he asked.

Why, this man is mad as a March hare, I thought to myself. This man is mad as a goddamn March hare. 

I didn’t remember what trailer he was asking about, but I was too scared to say as much. I needed to be of value to this man, that much I knew. I needed this man to need me. There was no telling how a man like this—one who is mad as a March hare—would react to an answer that he didn’t want to hear, or in this case, no answer at all. I needed to make something up and fast.

“It was for that new Chris Pratt movie,” I guessed. I probably wasn’t wrong, though. 

He clicked on his pen to activate the mini-flashlight feature and began to scan his list.

“No,” he said while tapping on the page. “I got that one.”

“Excuse me,” came a voice from behind us.

It was the woman in the illegal Looney Tunes shirt. She was eating the biggest cheeseburger I had ever seen in my life.

“Can you keep it down,” she said. “The movie is about to begin.”

The Mouse & Me

People are mean on the internet and I am the first person to ever say that.

There’s no denying the significant contributions the internet has provided us with. I mean, where else can you—and keep in mind this is a completely random example—hungover-ily read Pontius Pilate’s entire biography while simultaneously streaming Johnny Cash’s 2002 rendition of “Hurt”? 

Well, sure—I suppose you could read one of the many well researched books published about him and vinyl is making a comeback and all; but where else can you more easily watch porn shortly thereafter, without ever having to get up off of the bathroom floor? 

Aside from those two things, and only those two things, the internet has gone to shit. Al Gore would be turning in his grave if he could only see this today. 

If nothing else, the bullies of yesteryear displayed a charming sense of integrity by doing their mocking face-to face. They wore the patch of a bully proudly on their rolled up and cigarette pack laden sleeves. Now, I won’t necessarily claim to hold the third grade bully who punched me in the stomach for innocently saying another boy had “cool eyes” in the highest of esteem. With that being said, I can certainly respect the fact that he administered my sentence in person as opposed to across a screen. With that also being said, that is a complete lie to try and tie this back to the “good old days” narrative I’m desperately reaching for here—I have no respect for him whatsoever. I also saw him and his dad giving each other eskimo kisses on a ferris wheel at our town’s Renaissance fair last year. They were both holding two gigantic turkey legs at the time. The only reason I knew it was his dad was because he kept saying “Hmm, yes, these are nice eskimo kisses, Daddy. Say, Daddy, I must thank you for these tremendous eskimo kisses—in the form of more eskimo kisses.”

Alright, so that part isn’t exactly true, but I just wanted to prove a point: you can literally say whatever you want on the internet, whether it’s true or not, with no repercussions whatsoever. In the case of cyberbullying, the devil is in the details; the more specific you get, the more believable the lie. It's too easy. Just about anyone can be a bully as long as you have an internet connection and an axe to grind.

When I was young, we didn’t use the internet to bully people. We honored its intended use—watching weird sex things.

I can vividly remember the first time I saw the infamous “Mr. Hands” video. If you don’t know what I am referring to, it is a video where a horse has sex with—neigh, makes love to a man (I wrote ‘neigh’ instead of ‘nay’ because that’s how it’s spelt when referring to the noise a horse makes). Years later I discovered that the man—a central figure in the zoophile community at the time—died from his forbidden affair, meaning that I had ipso facto watched a video of someone actually dying. The official cause of death was your run of the mill “perforated colon from receptive anal intercourse with a stallion." Nothing more, nothing less. After some further investigation, the death was ruled accidental. While I was certainly horrified that at such a young age I had watched a video of a horse executing a man with his penis, I at least took solace in the fact that the horse did not have to do any hard time for this crime of passion. 

Of course, this sort of exploration wasn’t without consequence. One time we got a virus that somehow changed the background of our family computer to a woman’s asshole; at least I think it was a woman—and I think it was an asshole. 

Kids don’t use the internet for things like this today, though. Instead, they use it for bad things. Like bullying. 

The internet now gives bullies an outlet to stuff their victims into lockers long after that final bell rings. When I was younger, the second I stepped off the school bus, I was free. I sprinted down the stairs and onto my front lawn as if I was claiming religious sanctuary from my tormentors—which is ironic considering we were taking that very same bus back home from a Catholic school. I won’t act as if I got it too bad because, in all honesty, I didn’t—with the exception of one long and horrible year: the fourth grade.

Most afternoons on the bus would find me sitting nervously up front, reading my Animorphs and praying to God that the back of the bus wouldn’t choose me as their afternoon target. In the fourth grade, however, most of these prayers fell upon deaf ears.

There is always one kid on the back of every bus that takes great pride in the amount of torment he or she can hand down to younger kids on the front of the bus. For me, he was an eighth-grader who looked like a mouse. In reality, he looked more like a rat, but in the spirit of this self-righteous diatribe, I will say mouse. Mouse feels less mean.

He did look like a rat though.

One afternoon on the bus, I was summoned by the Mouse. 

“Hey Dan, stand up for a second,” he said in a suspiciously innocent tone.

I had grown accustomed to The Mouse’s games at this point and chose to ignore him. I knew his innocent tone was merely a ploy to entrap me—a mousetrap if you will. It was the siren song of an imminent nerd bashing. I also didn't want to stand up as this would require me having to take my seatbelt off, and this was quite literally the only rule we had on the bus.

Instead, I kept my head buried in the Animorphs I was reading at the time and acted like I could not hear him.

“I said stand up,” The Mouse continued. It seemed he had gravely misinterpreted my gutlessness as defiance.

I turned around, fully prepared for him to call me a "Gay Boy" for reading. This slam was a fan favorite of the back of the bus. I often wondered if the bookmarks I used were more detrimental than beneficial, serving as an indicator for the bullies to determine how much longer they would have to wait to give me a verbal swirly for reading an entire book.

“Yes?” I responded. I made sure to sound as meek as possible to dispel any prior notion that I was being brave or defiant. 

“Is your dildo velcro or strap on?” he asked.

Now, being ten years old, I did not yet know what a dildo was. However, the nonchalant nature in which he inquired led me to believe that it was something that I should most definitely have at least one of, if not several. 

“I asked you a question,” he continued. 

He was eager now, realizing that he was on the precipice of his bus bullying chef d’oeuvre. This would be his magnum opus, solidifying his reputation among the greats that had come before him. His tale of how he got a fourth grader to not only admit he owned a dildo, but that he also had an application preference, would live on in infamy.

The Mouse was that he was always desperately trying to fill the shoes left by the eighth-grade bully that had graduated on to high school a year prior. Now, this kid was a true master of his craft—a revolutionary, even. He was the Thomas Edison of bus mischief; but instead of, you know, discovering electricity, he purposely ate too many hot dogs on hot lunch day one time and unloaded his explosive putrid diarrhea all over the floor of the school bus. Both quite tremendous contributions to their respective fields. There is certainly no denying that. 

Time was running out to provide my answer. The entire back of the bus had their heads popped out of their seats now, eagerly awaiting my response. You did not make The Mouse wait. From what I remember, he was holding up an hourglass filled with blackest sand I had ever laid eyes upon. He was also wearing a serpent around his neck. 

After some careful consideration, I informed The Mouse and his associates that my dildo, which I owned, as a ten-year-old boy, was a strap on. 

The reasoning for this is actually more methodical than one would think. 

Earlier that year, I was insulted by one of The Mouse’s consiglieres for having velcro gym sneakers. He called me “the other bad F-word,” which is precisely how I later explained it to the principal when I told on him. Naturally, I assumed that if this logic applied to sneakers, it would, of course, also apply to my dildo.

The entire back half of the bus erupted in laughter. One older kid in particular, who never spoke, said it was the greatest day of his entire life. All I could do at that point was sit back down—yes, I was standing this whole time—re-buckle my seatbelt, and continue to read my book about a boy transforming into a tarantula.

When we finally arrived at my house that day, I walked off the bus with my head down and greeted my mother as best I could. She asked me how my day at school was, and once the bus had reached the end of the block, I asked her what a dildo was.

There was always a weird sexual element to The Mouse’s games. He reveled in the fact that he knew sex stuff, and the younger kids didn’t. I remember hearing a story that his older sister had gotten felt up by The Bus Dumper the year before, and always wondered what that must have felt like—not getting felt up by a guy who had taken a steamer on the bus, but rather being The Mouse and having to witness that. It must have been very traumatic for him, but it would also prove to be very traumatic for me. After all, It was this very event, and what I believe to be the psychological trauma he had incurred from it, that would serve as the catalyst for The Mouse’s next attack.

The year was 1998. The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal was rocking the nation. In response to a series of Indian nuclear tests, Pakistan recently exploded five nuclear devices of its own in the Chaghai hills of Baluchistan, prompting the United States, Japan and other nations to impose economic sanctions. The back of the bus was riding high off The Dildo Incident. I can’t really blame them. I mean, I said I owned a strap on dildo. There was one person in particular, however, who was becoming increasingly more vocal about it as the days went on. For the sake of anonymity, we’ll call her Caitlyn (Caitlyn was her real name).

Caitlyn was a fellow eighth-grader and far cooler than The Mouse because she was hot. Inside the walls of our school, Caitlyn would never be caught dead associating with The Mouse. They were in completely different classes, both socially and scholastically. These rules didn’t apply to the bus, however. As soon as you stepped on the bus any sense of popularity or existing social structures within your respective age group ceased to exist. There was only the back of the bus, and the front of the bus. 

Caitlyn, for the most part, was always very nice to me. Our parents had been mutual acquaintances so I think she felt as if she had no other choice. Truthfully, I didn’t care why she was being; I was just happy she was. 

One afternoon, as I was in the middle of reading my alien stories, I felt someone sit down next to me. This did not happen often. We did not have a very crowded bus. I didn’t want to completely turn my head over and engage this person, in the event that it was The Mouse; so instead I utilized my peripherals. I have great peripherals. I may have been bullied over many things that year, but having poor peripherals was never one of them. Honestly, I’d like to see them try—whether it be to my face or a 90 degree angle.

Using my Gift, I was surprised to see that it was Caitlyn. It was a pleasant surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. I was too scared to speak, but I raised my head out of my book and smiled at her. I assumed she was there to diffuse any tension that may have been lingering from the weeks prior. It was an appreciated gesture.

Then she started unbuttoning my shirt.

Something about this seemed...amiss. While I would like to have you believe that this was the norm for me, I just can’t—peripherals and honesty, both a blessing and a curse. 

It didn’t take long for the laughing to start and confirm my suspicions—The Mouse had put her up to this. But why? Up until this day, she had never joined in on the bullying. If anything, I could always rely on her to intervene if things were getting out of hand. Perhaps she owed him a debt? I can’t say for sure. 

I didn’t know how to react so I just continued to read my book, and she continued to unbutton my uniform shirt. Just as I was about to pass out, the bus driver finally intervened and demanded that Caitlyn get back to her seat. Unfortunately, by the time he decided to intervene, I was already without a shirt—the timing of his discipline always seemed a little too convenient for me. The whole scene wouldn’t have been all that out of place in a David Lynch film, really. 

When I got home that day, my mom asked me how school was. I decided not to share anything this time.  I realized a few weeks earlier when she delicately explained what a dildo was to me, that some things are better left unsaid.

I didn’t see Caitlyn all that much after she graduated onto high school later that year. We live in a small town, so I’ve always assumed she must have moved away somewhere. Wherever she is, I hope she’s doing well. I mean that. At the end of the day, she put her hand on my thigh and unbuttoned my shirt. It didn’t matter why she did it, all that matters is that she did, and for that, I will be eternally grateful.

As for The Mouse, I still see him from time to time, mostly at mass around the holidays. Now that I’m older, I realize that I can’t hold any animosity towards him. I mean, we were just kids and that’s what kids do—make fun of each other for literally anything possible. I was never quite the bullying type myself, but I have absolutely said and done things to people that I wish I could take back. I imagine The Mouse feels the same way. It’s actually kind of nice to see him, both of us now mature adults, years removed from those days, and all the wiser for it.

He's always wearing an insane puffy white fucking turtleneck and knows all the prayers by heart like a goddamn nerd. 

Never grew much, either. 

Physically, he’s quite small.

I Would Like To Professionally Collect A Kenyan Man’s Piss (I Ain’t So Good At Whistlin’)

I read an article earlier today that explained how they collect the piss from racehorses to conduct NTRA drug testing. Apparently, someone is actually paid to follow the horse around with a cup on race day so that they can catch its piss when they're ready to relieve themselves. If the horses are taking too long, they will start gently whistling at them, which I guess is supposed to coax the piss out of them? I'd love to be a Piss Man. I'd want to do it for Olympic sprinters, though. I've been gently whistling at Kenyan men and collecting their piss for years now. I might as well start getting paid for it.

I actually don’t know how to whistle. I have no intentions of learning either, so don’t even think about asking me to try. I hate when people whistle loudly. It’s always scary and catches me off guard. I used to date a girl whose dad was a great whistler. He kind of looked like Van Morrison, and one time he threw a plate of pot roast onto a golf course because it was overcooked. He also accused me of being a woman once when I was too scared to drive in the rain. Now that I’m thinking of it, I have no idea if he was actually a good whistler or not. He could sure as hell throw a mean pot roast, though. 

I was in Duane Reade earlier today and saw that they have drug tests for nicotine now. I'd imagine that has something to do with the teenage Juul craze. I'll have to make sure my fiance doesn't find out about those. They need to start making urine tests for the things that really matter, like if you've ever rented that movie The Lovely Bones for $4.99 on your fiance's Amazon account without telling her. I would have to borrow someone else's piss for that test. What can I say? There's something about watching Rachel Weisz grieve that just does it for me. Also, Stanley Tucci wears a wig and talks funny. You should check it out if you haven't already. I wouldn’t say it's worth your money, per se, but definitely worth your significant other's.

I went to high school with one of the stars of a short-lived reality television show, and he asked me for my piss one time. He didn’t go into much detail, but I guess his parents were drug testing him. I hope that's what it was for, at least. The whole interaction was beyond strange and is one that I still think about quite often to this day. He was waiting in the bathroom by my locker after school let out. Up until that point, we had never said a single word to one another. It was almost as if he had spent the week prior scouting me out so that he could determine whether my piss would be clean or not—hidden away in shrubbery and sitting at nearby cafeteria tables with a copy of the school newspaper conveniently covering his face. Somewhere along the way, he had decided that I would be a suitable piss donor, or “SPD” as they call it in the medical community. 

At the end of the day, all I could ask for is that he give my sinful piss a good home. 

As honored as I was that he chose me to carry his piss, I'm sure he had a long list of other potential surrogates in mind, as well. Ultimately, though, I was the best possible fit for him and his family. 

I wasn't sure what to say to him when he asked. I mean, this was a big decision. What I did know, however, was if I were to say yes, I needed to figure out what type of piss surrogate I would be. I think I'd like for him to be involved throughout the entire process, or at least as involved as he felt comfortable with being. After all, I know these things can be tricky for those who aren't fortunate enough to have clean piss. I'd ask him if he wanted to be there with me during conception while I chugged fountain sodas in the cafeteria. He'd come into the stall with me for delivery, letting me squeeze his hand while I pushed. We had already practiced breathing exercises together by this point, so he'd talk me through those as well.

“Just breathe,” he would say. 

And then he says something that makes this whole ordeal worthwhile, reminding me why I agreed to do this in the first place. 

“In this moment,” he says. “You look absolutely beautiful.”

That’s all it would take. I push once more and it’s done. 

Before I can take a look at it, however, the cup of piss is immediately taken from my hands. When I regain my faculties and exit the stall, I look in the corner of the bathroom and find the reality-star-who-shall-remain-anonymous swaddling my piss in a little blue blanket he had been keeping in his pocket this whole time. He begins taking his shirt off so that he can engage in skin-to-skin contact.

It's at this moment that I realize something: this piss is no longer mine. Sure, I may have carried it to term and delivered it, but that's all. This is where our relationship ends. I'll never see it graduate college. I'll never see it get married. All I can hope for now is that I made the right choice and that this teenage drug addict will provide it with the home it needs—the home it deserves.

(What really ended up happening was that I said no because I was scared and then he called me a word you can’t use anymore and carried on with his day.)

Table Scraps (Or The Perverted Family Sitting Next To Me At Dinner Last Night)

I always listen in on other people’s conversations at restaurants. More times than not at dinner, my girlfriend will have to snap her fingers in my direction to bring me back to Earth—me not listening to her is a big pet peeve of hers. During our dinner last week, however, neither of us said a single word to each other. Instead, we spent the duration of our Sunday night listening to two parents explain 9/11 conspiracy theories, Playboy, and Physician-Assisted Suicide to their son.

Let me start by saying that while I do believe that the integrity of steel beams, bioethics, and Bo Derek are all things that every growing boy needs to learn about eventually, I don’t think anyone should have to learn about them all at once. No one is equipped with the proper emotional machinery required to process that type of information deluge—let alone a ten-year-old boy in purple Crocs named Maxwell.

When I was growing up, I did everything within my power to avoid the sex talk. It must have taken thirty attempts by my mom and dad to finally have it with me. When it did finally happen, we were eating breakfast at a popular diner in our town. It was fashioned entirely out of old wooden boats and was meant to look like a pirate ship. Tom Selleck ate there once. Well, he filmed a movie there once—not sure if he actually ate the food. I don’t see why he wouldn’t though. Regardless, I like to think I was sitting in the same seat that he was sitting in that day. How many people can say they learned about sex while sitting in the same chair Tom Selleck was sitting in, aside from a young Tom Selleck? I can’t say for certain whether Tom Selleck had ever sat in the chair that Max was seated in that night. I didn’t ask—and quite frankly, I don’t think they would know the answer if I did. Lots of turnover in that industry. 

The meal started out innocently enough for Max. He was leaving for sleepaway camp the following morning and his parents were taking him out for one last dinner before it was time to part ways for the summer. Max seemed happy. Max seemed excited. Above all, Max seemed innocent. If there is one thing that any Don Henley fan worth their salt knows, however, it's that innocence must always come to an end. Also, that the Fleetwood Mac song “Sara” was allegedly written about his and Stevie Nicks' unborn child. 

Max would soon see his innocence vanish before his very incapable-of-working eyes (Max wore glasses), with his father’s utterance of two words—two words, that make up one name, that zero children should have to hear before they leave for summer camp: Terri Schiavo. 

Truthfully, I have no idea how they stumbled upon this topic of conversation. I was too busy having my posture compared to that of all of the other male patrons in the restaurant, as is customary when I go out to dinner with my girlfriend. I do know that Terri Schiavo is not a topic of conversation that can just be stumbled upon, however. It requires tremendous effort and full cooperation of all parties involved. 

“Maxwell, tell me—do you know who Terri Schiavo is?”

Max did not. Ten-year-old Max had not, in fact, known of Terri Schiavo.

That was all about to change, as his parents enlightened him to not only the Terri Schiavo phenomenon* but also to the big-picture ethical quandary that surrounds the entire issue of Physician-Assisted Suicide. It was almost as if they knew this moment would one day come, which became all the more apparent when they started working off of what I can only assume was a script. They weaved in and out of each other’s lines perfectly, working off one another like a seasoned jazz duo, or a macabre Laurel and Hardy. It got to the point where I was half expecting one of them to pull out a cartoonishly large frying pan and hit the other one over the head with it. 

Once the routine had come to an end, they opened the floor back up to Max.

“Does that all make sense, Maxwell?” they asked.

“Was 9/11 scary?” Max asked.

Somewhere along the way, Max had grown quite tired hearing about euthanasia. He asked this question as if he was a toddler requesting a new bedtime story. Max no longer wanted to discuss this Terri Shiavo his parents had been speaking of—not because it made him impossibly depressed, but because it made him impossibly bored. 

September 11th was only touched upon briefly, believe it or not. If I had not been so intently eavesdropping on their private conversation, I could have very well missed it entirely. They were just scratching the surface and Max knew it. That being said, they did somehow find their way to both controlled demolitions and Ed Asner, so that has to count for something. 

This accelerated course was not due to his parent’s reluctance to “go there,” mind you. Instead, it was because his father was, well, horny. At long last, it was time for Maxwell’s parents to talk to him about pornographic magazines. Everything up until this point was finger food. Now, it was time for the main course. Max was licking his chops—and I’m pretty sure his dad cracked his knuckles before beginning.

The transition from nano-thermite to skin mags was actually more seamless than you may think. Max’s father had a close friend who was a Manhattan attorney at the time and most of his business was located in the Financial District. They had also gone to summer camp together as children and shared a penchant for looking at Playboy magazines after their bunks went lights out for the night.

It was the greatest story I have ever heard. Truthfully. It was this story that allowed Max to go home with his family that night, and not Child Protective Services. It had everything you could ask for, and that includes both accents he should absolutely not have been doing in a sushi restaurant and highly-stylized prop work. There was a camp counselor named Pig-Boy. I think a character may have been resurrected from the dead at one point. It wasn’t just the actual material that had me enthralled—although it would have more than sufficed on it’s own. It was the way he delivered it. He had all of the beats down to an almost exact science. Every time he hit a real killer line, he would crack this knowingly wry smirk, kind of like Billy Crystal does after he tells a joke about baseball or his mom. 

We were even treated to a contentious debate on the delineations between bodies of water.

“It was either a river or a lake,” he said. “I can’t quite remember.”

This was in reference to where he would bring the magazines so as not to be caught.

“Well, was the water moving, or was it just, you know, still?” the mother asked.

“I don’t remember—I wasn’t exactly paying attention to the water, after all,” he responded. 

This, of course, being a reference to ogling honkers.

I could see in Max’s eyes that this was not the first time he had heard this story—and if he had any say in the matter, it would not be the last. Truthfully, I have no idea how he got that final spicy tuna roll down after hearing his father say “we would keep them in the woods and sneak out there whenever we needed them,” but nevertheless, he loved it. No matter which path the story found it’s way wildly careening down, it would always find its way comfortably back home for Max: the man who raised him going to town on himself by a river, or maybe a lake.

The creep’s wife also found this tale to be remarkably endearing. Every time he would get to the climax of the story, it was like she was falling in love with him all over again. To be honest, it was quite sweet. Seeing her so vulnerable actually made me warm up to her quite a bit—until she launched into a seemingly endless tirade around the inadequacies of Japanese American cuisine. I think she even banged her fists on the table at one point. Then, I could do without her again. 

It wasn’t long before they settled up on their bill and walked out of both the restaurant and our lives forever. I thought about taking Max’s straw as a memento, something to not only remember him by but also the greatest story I had ever heard. I decided against it in the end, because my girlfriend wouldn’t have liked that. You just can't take straws used by little boys as souvenirs anymore—certainly not like you used to, at least. C'est la vie, I suppose.

As we were getting ready for bed that night, all I could think about was Max and the treasure trove of new information he had at his disposal. If I know like Max like I think I know Max, he was most likely already knee-deep in virtual pornography and Loose Change YouTube clips at this point. Should I have intervened? Did I do everything I could have done? Should I have grabbed him by his shoulders and reassured him that there was nothing to be scared of? I could have related to him—letting him know that I also know what sex and 9/11 are. 

Max, listen to me—I learned about sex when I was sitting in the same pirate ship as Tom Selleck. Look at me now. Max, look me in the eyes. See me, boy. See me.

Should I have shaken him?

I guess I’ll never know. Probably, though.

**It might be inaccurate to describe the Terri Shiavo case as a phenomenon? Isn’t there some sort of prerequisite involving an accompanying dance craze or signature haircut to gain that designation? Did we...did we have one for that?

Daydreaming

I’ve always been a daydreamer. I remember being in grade school and constantly having to be tethered back to earth by my teachers. I could never understand why anyone would ever willingly choose to pay attention to the teacher, when they could just as easily do, well, anything else in the comfort of their own head. 

Some days would find me ripping a world-changing guitar solo in front of an audience comprised entirely of every single girl I’ve ever made eye contact with in my life. Other days, I would be courageously foiling a terrorist attack on an airplane. More days than not, however, it would be a combination of the two. The logistics to get there were complicated, but basically I would be sitting unsuspectingly on an airplane when a big scary guy suddenly stands up in the aisle. On his chest? A bomb. In his hand? The detonator. 

“Listen up!” he would shout. “This bomb is going to go off in exactly five minutes.”

At this point, everyone is just completely besides themselves, and understandably so. I mean, you should see this guy. 

“That is, unless someone on this flight knows how to play the solo to Van Halen’s Eruption.” 

Long story short, this son of a bitch programmed the bomb to deactivate immediately upon the playing of the solo to Eruption by Van Halen; but not just any performance—a pitch-perfect one. I’m talking completely indecipherable from the original. It’s all just a game to this guy. He even offers up the idea of this potential kill switch in a smug way. I mean, who could possibly be technically proficient enough to play the solo to Van Halen’s Eruption under normal circumstances, let alone during an airplane hijacking?

That person is me, friend.

I shoot right up out of my seat, grab my axe from the overhead compartment, and unleash the tastiest rendition of the Eruption solo that anyone has ever heard in their lives, and that’s saying something, considering Eddie Van Halen himself is on the plane.

The bomb immediately deactivates and the terrorist is blasted through the emergency exit by my guitar lasers.

The rest of the cabin—which is made up entirely of every single girl I’ve ever made eye contact with in my life—is going insane. They’re throwing themselves at my feet, telling me they want to name our kids after me. I don’t have time for this, though—I have to get back in my seat and continue flying the plane. 

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking: isn’t it a little unrealistic that every single girl you had ever made eye contact with somehow wound up on the same exact flight? Well, how else would they be getting to the “BD’s Lovers Summit,” in Maui? After all, the “Lover-Boy” package includes round trip tickets.

The other day on my way to work I caught myself daydreaming about being the type of person who doesn’t get overwhelmed by the concept of trees.

Four Poems About Scott Caan Being In Ketosis

Senryū: A Japanese poem of seventeen syllables in three lines of five, seven, and five.

Scott Caan making love
She is a supermodel 
He’s in Ketosis

Haiku: A Japanese poem of seventeen syllables in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of nature.

Scott Caan making love
This time he is in nature
He’s in Ketosis

Acrostic: First, last or other letters in a line spell out a particular word or phrase. The most common and simple form of an acrostic poem is where the first letters of each line spell out the word or phrase.

S cott
C aan
O ffers me a ride in his red convertible 
T hanks I say to Scott, who is in ketosis 
T hough I will have to decline

C urrently there is not enough room in the car
A fterall, the backseat is completely packed with babes
A nd 
N icole Richie already called shotgun

Free Verse: Free from limitations of regular meter or rhythm, and does not rhyme with fixed forms. Such poems do not follow regular rhyme scheme rules.

Free Verse poetry does not abide by the rules
Neither does Scott Caan
Unless they are dietary rules 
Meant to put him in a metabolic state 
Where raised levels of ketones reside in his body tissue
Scott Caan was also a part of a 1990s rap duo called The Whooliganz 
The duo went by the names Mad Skillz and Mudfoot, respectively
Scott was Mad Skillz

This Morning I Went For A Bike Ride

This morning I went for a bike ride. It was my first ride in a long time. I always get nervous riding in the city because it’s too crowded and crazy in there. I was at my parent’s house for the weekend, though, so I got my old bike out of the shed and took it for a spin. 

Basically, what ended up happening, was that I went so fast I broke the space-time continuum. I saw all versions of myself alongside me as I sped down my street—past, present, and future. 

I saw my five-year-old self cutting into my birthday cake—my parents smiling over my shoulder. 

I saw the birth of my first child—a daughter. I was in awe of her beauty and innocence. I saw her mother in her eyes.

I saw her first heartbreak. 

I saw my parents in their old age. 

I saw our final goodbyes.

I saw my sixty-year-old self walking my daughter down the aisle on her wedding day, a vision in white if there ever was one. Again, I saw her mother in her eyes—and hers in her mothers.

I saw the end of my life, surrounded by loved ones.

I saw all of these things at once.

When I came to a stop, I wondered what type of world I was now in. Surely, this couldn’t be the same world I left before my bike ride. Somewhere along the way, I imagine I must have thrown off the timeline—effectively altering my past, present, and future.

Was this still my parent’s house? Were these even still my parents? What was my new life like?

There was only one way to find out.

I opened the door to my new normal. Here we go, I thought to myself.

“Someone had diarrhea in the downstairs bathroom and forgot to flush,” my mother’s voice called out to me. “It stinks and it’s rude.”

Maybe I wasn’t going that fast, after all.

And yeah, no shit it stinks, Einstein. It’s fucking diarrhea.

Yeah, Probably Jackin’ It

Last week I saw the most chiseled jawline I have ever seen on a guy in a Boondock Saints shirt waiting in line at a McDonalds. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen more chiseled jawlines—just not on a guy in a Boondock Saints shirt waiting in line at a McDonalds. Take off his shirt and remove him from the building and It was actually one of the worst jawlines I have ever seen. I don’t feel bad saying that either because he called some woman a “most ghastly witch” before leaving. Actually, he didn’t—I just don’t want to sound mean by calling some innocent Troy Duffy enthusiast in McDonalds gross. I recently read in a book that when writing personal stories, you should always anticipate where you might become “unlikeable” to the reader. That way, you can immediately counter and get them back on your side. I think that just means you slander everyone to always make yourself look better. I don’t know. The writer was some sort of renowned teacher, but he seemed like a fucking moron in all honesty—which I don’t feel bad about saying, because he was also, by all accounts, a pederast. 

When I was growing up, I always wanted to be a teacher. I had this whole vision of my future self, wearing the tweed blazers and inspiring college students in massive lecture halls. It wasn’t so much the molding of minds that was pushing me in this direction as it was the outside chance that I could one day be thrown into the lead role of a disaster film. All of my favorite movies start that way. Earth is in big trouble, and the only person who can stop the impending disaster is an archaeologist or outer-space teacher at a liberal arts school. If a movie doesn’t have federal agents walking into an unsuspecting college professor’s lecture hall within the first fifteen minutes, I turn it off and stamp my feet. Armageddon gets a pass because they subverted the genre by having the encounter take place on an oil rig. I did, however, wish to honorably end my life when I realized Ben Affleck was twenty-six in that movie. It's not fair when people are younger than me, at any point in their lives—even in the past.

Basically, in my vision, I’d be in the middle of a hilarious and riveting lesson when two men in suits walk into the lecture hall. 

“Can I help you?” I would ask.

The men flash their FBI or CIA credentials.

“We’re gonna need you to come with us, sir,” they say. 

“Can this wait?” I’d ask. “I’m in the middle of a lesson—a hilarious and riveting one.”

“I’m afraid not sir. Right this way.”

I would go with them, but not before I announce the reading assignment for next week. Even now, this job means everything to me. 

“What’s this all about?” I would ask as we walk out the door and into the hall.

“I’m afraid we’re not at liberty to say.”

Then I would get in a helicopter and fly to the White House, where I would be debriefed on the issue at hand, which only I had the skill-set to solve. I don’t know what my specialty would be, though. For Bruce Willis, it was drilling. For Nicholas Cage, it was treasure hunting. For Aaron Eckhart, it was geophysics. I wonder what it would be for me. Maybe jackin’ it. Yeah, probably jackin’ it.

How My Girlfriend Pronounces Ricotta

ruh·kaa·tuh

Silly-Face Tag

“Should we play Silly-Face Tag?” he asked.

I felt a cold anger wash over me in that moment—a very specific anger I would not again experience for another seven years when a coworker would offhandedly request that I send him something in “two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

I had heard stories about college orientations. My school was holding ours relatively late in comparison to others, so most of my friends had already been to theirs. While everyone’s experiences varied to a certain extent, there was always one constant: icebreakers. 

I wasn’t even excited leading up to my orientation. All I could think about were the potential icebreakers that were awaiting me once I got there.

“So what do you say?” he continued. “It’s so much fun. I promise.”

This was not our orientation leader, by the way. He was just a fellow incoming freshman in our orientation group, which somehow made it so much worse. This could have been avoided, but at this point, it didn’t come as much of a surprise. He was causing problems for me all day. During our morning intake meeting on the quad, we were all going around the room and saying our names and one interesting thing about ourselves. Luckily for me, I have a twin brother. This typically plays well in these situations. Not for him, though.

“Oh, come on,” he said. “You can do better than that!”

I started looking for a large rock to bonk him in the head with. I desperately wished to bonk this man in the head with a rock. Any type would do—whether it be sedimentary, metamorphic, or igneous. I’m not overly picky, as far as Bonkin’ Rocks go. I’d even settle for a nice substantial piece of calcite in a pinch. Also, what was he expecting me to say?

Well, one time when I was in grade school, I picked my own dump up out of grandpa's toilet and just kind of held it in my bare hands for like thirty seconds. Just really wanted to feel the weight of the thing. 

One quiet kid named Richard, who somehow managed to speak even less than I had on the walk to the quad, told us that he was from “the area” and his interesting facts were that he lives on a farm where he cuts chickens heads off every day and his favorite band was Tool. It was without question the most sludge-metal thing I have ever heard anyone ever say—especially when you factor in that he didn’t say another word for the rest of the day.

In reality, I had no intention of finding out what Silly-Face Tag was. I had already made up my mind that If the orientation leader approved of this proposition, I would casually saunter over to the nearest window, open it, and plummet to my death. In Christlike fashion, I was fully prepared to give my life to an arguably more important cause than eternal salvation: the nationwide banishment of icebreakers. 

Our capital would hear about the tragedy that occurred in upstate New York that day and pass legislation immediately prohibiting icebreakers across the country. The guillotine would make it’s long overdue return to enforce these new regulations—with the kid in my orientation class serving as it’s inaugural subject. Then the guy that asked me if I was “almost done with the court” when I was playing tennis this morning. Also, anyone who goes out of their way to say things like “you don’t actually win a million dollars on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire if you account for the taxes.” 

Sure, I would be dead and not able to experience the freedom my brave sacrifice provided. Still, in all honesty, I wouldn’t want to live in a world where someone can cavalierly throw out the idea of playing “Silly-Face Tag” without thinking there would be grave repercussions for it.

As I was considering what song would be played at my funeral (Todd Rundgren’s “Bang On the Drum All Day”—open casket), I quickly thought about what would happen if I didn’t successfully perish, but instead just severely injured myself. What would be waiting for me on the other side of that outcome? Certainly a lengthy hospital visit for my physical injuries, but also some sort of immediate therapy mandate, I’d imagine. I would likely start with a series of intensive private sessions, but as I began to show some progress, I would be referred to group therapy—and what is waiting for me in group therapy? That’s right: more icebreakers. 

I weighed the two options heavily and decided that since we were on the first floor of the building, I would probably just act like I had diarrhea. She’s never steered me wrong before—God bless her heart.

So that’s what I did. I just acted like I had to take a dump. I don’t remember what happened when I got back. It was a long time ago, after all.

Sally's Doin' The Twist Now

We need to find a wedding band. My fiance has final approval, so I’m letting her take the lead on this one. In a perfect world, she’d let me hire a Morrisey impersonator. Not to sing, though. Just to walk around and say inflammatory things about the Queen while smacking our guests' cocktail hour plates out of their hands. 

We need to find a photographer, too. If it were up to me, we would just hand the Morrisey impersonator a disposable camera and tell him to run wild. Since it’s not up to me, though, we most likely won’t do that. That said, I can guarantee my fiancé has Annie Liebovitz’s rates somewhere in her internet search history—along with WikiHow articles on how to make balloon animals (I use her computer sometimes).

The registry process was way more intense than I thought it would be. There are so many things you need to get, and so many types of those things that you have to choose from, and different colors of those types of things. Our guide kept telling us to envision our “perfect dinner party” when we were looking at the glassware and utensils. 

“Now,” he said. “What type of glassware do you see?”

I honestly couldn’t tell him what I saw. I don’t know how I’m supposed to pay attention to things like glassware while Gavin Rossdale is giving me a back rub and gently singing “Glycerine” into my ear. I was also finding out the hard way it was a mistake sitting Mariah Carey and Ed Gein next to one another. As it turns out, the two of them are your quintessential loud talkers—and they get on better than you would think.

Tipping The Medicine Man

We were supposed to go out for Korean BBQ tonight, but I forgot my OCD medication is being delivered. My doctor said not to tip the delivery guy, but I don't know how I feel about that. I need to leave him something, I'd imagine. But what type of tip do you leave? Maybe I'll just hand him a DVD copy of Shark Tale. "Don't go spending that all at once," I would say, wearing a construction paper Zebra mask.

Almost done with wedding planning. I have found that roughly 99% of the wedding planning process is defending your respective mothers. Moms love having absolutely insane wedding guest lists. My mom is no exception. In fact, there is a pretty good chance that you, the person who is currently reading this, are on my mom’s list. She's even inviting my 96-year-old great uncle's best friend, Bud. Although, if my recent conversations with my uncle are any indication, Bud may very well be just a mop with sunglasses.

I don’t know what’s taking his guy so long. Maybe he got caught up at an invisible tea party or two along his delivery route. It’s probably for the best—gives me more time to set the table.

Takeoffs and Landings

I couldn’t sleep this morning so I got up and watched that movie The Perfect Score with Chris Evans and Erika Christensen. I don’t think I’ve seen it since it first came out, which probably makes sense. It’s not that good of a movie. I will say, though, that it definitely does a great job at capturing the early to mid 2000’s aesthetic. As the end credits started to roll, I began to feel like I could cry. First, because it was starting to hit me that I spent the first 93 minutes of my Saturday watching a movie in which Darius Miles received fourth billing; and second, because of the song that was playing over the credits: “In This Diary” by The Ataris.

The best party I've ever been to was an 8th grade graduation party. As much as I would like to say that this party was last weekend, it was 2003, and The Ataris' most recent release, So Long, Astoria, was taking Long Island by storm. It was a pool party, and all of the boys took turns doing flips off the diving board while all the girls lined up on the side of the pool with their feet dangling in the water. Since that day, my entire life has been trying to recapture the feeling I got when I emerged from the water while "In This Diary" was playing after a particularly extreme backflip. I mean it—every decision I have made, every word I have uttered, has been an intensely calculated move to feel that again. Unfortunately, even then, the moment was fleeting as the kid who was throwing the party followed me with one of the most extreme aerial aquatic maneuvers I had ever seen. He was that guy in your grade that was really good at gymnastics for some reason. Unfortunately, he wasn't good enough to save his parents' marriage as they divorced a few years later. When my parents—married 35 years as of last month—came to pick me up that afternoon, I remembered feeling completely at peace.

There’s a bunch of songs I can’t listen to anymore: “Ray of Light” by Madonna, for example. It reminds me of when I used to wake up early in the morning, fashion myself a white wine and orange juice smoothie, and watch music videos on VH1—the thinking man’s MTV—before my parents woke up. To this day, I wonder what my father’s reaction would be if he came downstairs to his 12-year-old son drinking a frozen cocktail from a Batman Forever glass while watching a Madonna music video at 7 am. 

As to why I watched VH1 instead of MTV? Well, there was a strict “No MTV” rule implemented in my household. I was a strict follower of rules, and VH1 seemed like a fair workaround. As far as I could gather, they never told me not to use our novelty Two-Face promotional mugs for tasteful alcoholic beverages.

I do remember when the “No MTV” ban was lifted, however. It was without question the most formative day of my entire life. I think eventually, my parents just kind of gave up on policing the television we consumed. My mom walked downstairs, asked what I was watching, I told her MTV, and that was that. She just kind of walked away, leaving me to begin, to borrow from a song, the best years of my life.

To me, paradise would be developing a severe neurological disorder where I wake up every morning thinking it’s 1999. I would start every morning with a Pillsbury Toaster Scramble, which my mom would prepare for me and lay out on the kitchen counter alongside a glass of pulp-free orange juice. I would watch TRL. I would talk to my friend Stephen on the phone and say things like, “I wish I could go to Woodstock.” I would jack off six thousand times a day. That would be about it, really. When the rubber hits the road, it's not fair that I don't have a severe neurological disorder where I wake up every morning thinking it's 1999.

Acknowledgements (For My 3rd Grade Book Report) 

Many people helped in the writing of this book report and I would be profoundly remiss if I failed to mention each of them by name. 

First, however, I would like to not thank my Mother, Irene. 

How many times must I publicly declare my disdain for Ants-On-A-Log before you finally take heed of my words? In fact, it’s starting to seem as if the only thing my words are good for in this house are for falling upon deaf ears. You also did not let me watch Scream 2 when Ryan Quinn brought it over our house last week. 

Mother, I fear that many—if not all—of my future biographers may choose to paint you in a light you will find less than flattering. 

Now that I got that out of the way, I would like to begin by thanking Ryan Quinn, for bringing Scream 2 over to my house last week. 

Ryan, your understanding throughout that most unfortunate ordeal was nothing short of pious. I cherish our friendship, which will unquestionably last forever and will under no circumstances end when your parents go through a horrible divorce and send you to public school. May we truly stay, forever young. 

To the best agent in the entire world, without whom this book report would not have been made possible: James Bond. I have seen Tomorrow Never Dies three times already, and have no intention of ever stopping. For your bravery, your charm, your stealth—I thank you a million times over. 

Caitlyn. Caitlyn, Caitlyn, Caitlyn. 

I don’t even know where to begin. Where does one typically begin when expressing gratitude towards their muse, let alone within the confines of the written page?  

Caitlyn, I will never be able to repay you for that one time on the bus when you put your hand on my upper-thigh and told me that you, too, thought Animorphs was cool. I am well aware that you were doing it on a dare to make the older kids on the back of the bus laugh, but I don’t care—all that matters is that you did it. They will raise statues in your likeness one day. 

Also, to every other girl I have ever seen in my entire life: you are all my muses as well, and I am eternally indebted to each and every one of you.

Above all else, I would like to thank you, the reader: Mrs. O’Hara. For you to take the time out of your day to read my work, means the world to me. Without you, these are just words on a page.

I also want to clear one thing up before you finalize any grading on this assignment. I know that there is a rumor going around school that your husband has a television permanently stuck on his head because he fell down the stairs while carrying one down from your attic. I did not start that rumor. It was not me. It was definitely not me. 

It wasn’t—and if you were to harshly grade this book report based off of that falsification, that would be illegal, and you would go to jail.  

Boom Shakalaka!

You're Bundled Up Now, Wait 'Til You Get Older

I had something of a crisis earlier today as I was watching old footage from MTV Spring Break. It was a video of Smash Mouth performing to a sea of adoring and belligerent fans on the beach in what appeared to be Mexico. Everyone was young and beautiful, including Smash Mouth. When the video ended, another video queued up. This time, it was a much more recent Smash Mouth performance at some free beer and wine festival in Jacksonville. I bet Smash Mouth never in a million years would have thought they’d be reduced to playing free festivals in Jacksonville, and that terrifies me. 

You couldn’t avoid Smash Mouth in the late-nineties if you tried. I’m pretty sure they were featured prominently in every single movie Freddie Prinze Jr. was in from 1997-1999, which is to say, they were everywhere. I’m convinced they must have shared a manager, and a very wealthy one at that; he probably made more money in those three years than a fair amount of publicly traded corporations. I’m talking generational wealth, which is fortunate for his family since I’m assuming he died in the early-aughts from mercury poisoning due to all the caviar he was eating in the late-nineties. 

The only reassuring thing about the more recent performance was that the crowd was still just as adoring and belligerent as the crowd from Spring Break. After all, a free Smash Mouth show is basically like the Beatles at Shea Stadium for the people of Jacksonville. Every couple in the city called up their babysitters that night, hung up on them because the hourly rate was too high, duct-taped their kids to the couch, and went to see Smash Mouth. 

I know I sound like a total coastal elitist right now, by the way. Truth be told, I actually really hate when people rip on Florida. I remember Stephen Colbert had a whole segment around the election about how fundamentally bad Florida was. It was the lamest thing I had ever seen. I know what you're probably thinking, by the way: what makes you any better? You literally just did the same thing. Wouldn't that make you a hypocrite? Well, the answer to that is: yes, I am a hypocrite. I've spent the better part of this week pissed off about having to rent a tux for a wedding next weekend, knowing full well that my wedding is also going to be black-tie mandatory with an impossibly inconvenient location for 99% of my guests. Also, I have seen Dave Matthews Band over thirty times, which I imagine discredits any opinion I may have on anything, geographical or otherwise.

What will my "free beer and wine festival in Jacksonville" look like? That's been the thought occupying my mind all day. I'm not going to sit here and act like I have a horrible life. All of my personal and family relationships couldn't be better than they are right now, largely attributed to some personal changes I tried to make once I turned thirty. My life is actually pretty good at the moment. On paper, some would say it's great, even. I just don't know what my life is going to look like twenty years from now, and that's messed up. I like to think I'll be in a massive house with my fifteen kids and enormous robot penis, but there's just no way to know. For all I know, I could be in a massive house with my fifteen kids and without an enormous robot penis. It's the uncertainty that kills me.

I was listening to this podcast recently, and they were talking about how cyclical Hollywood is. They used Clark Gable as an example. There was a time when Clark Gable was the biggest movie star on the face of the earth. Everyone knew who he was. Today, I'd venture to say most people would recognize his name if they heard it, but that's about it. Somewhere along the way, he just became "that guy that used to be famous." It only gets more diluted as time goes on. Gen Z, for example, probably doesn't even recognize his name anymore. That's not a knock on Gen Z, mind you. I, personally, can probably only name, like, three Clark Gable movies, and one of them is Gone with the Wind. It's already been diluted. Clark Gable didn't even die that long ago in the grand scheme of things. He died in 1960. There's going to come a day when no one will remember who The Rock is. That's enough to send any sane person into a full-on tailspin. I have more stress over the fact that people won't remember The Rock than that people won't remember me.

The sands of time truly do come for us all. At the end of the day, all we can do is hope that when our time comes, the sand doesn’t come from Jacksonville.

Pre-Cana

We signed up for Pre-Cana today. Someone told me that we could opt for one very long session instead of spreading it out over six sessions. I think I’m going to push for that one. The only thing that would stress me out more than talking about my sex life in front of strangers for one day is talking about my sex life in front of strangers for six days. I wonder if we'll all eat lunch together. Maybe I'll start a food fight. I would love to be the jester of Pre-Cana. In reality, I'll probably just sit quietly in the corner and write Star Trek fan fiction in my head until I dissociate completely and start hovering above the room in a meditative pose like Dr. Strange.

I wonder if they’re going to ask about whether I still go to church or not. I go to church three times a year: Easter, Christmas, and Mother's Day. The last time I went to church outside of those days was when I first moved into the city and thought I had mouth cancer. I remember literally swearing to God that I would never miss a Sunday mass again if he could just spare me this one time. When I found out the sores under my tongue were just from eating too many Sour Patch Kids, I immediately uncrossed my fingers and went about living my life as a sinner—but not before walking to the store to buy some more chewing tobacco and Sour Patch Kids. 

My mom's been campaigning for me to go back to mass for years now. She keeps telling me that I'll "feel better leaving than when I walked in." The only time I felt better leaving mass than when I walked in was when I was like twelve years old, and that's only because The Dudley Boyz were there for some reason. Also, now that I'm thinking more about it, of course, I would feel better leaving than when I walked in—I don't have to worry about sitting through mass anymore. I also want to say here that the reason I don't go to church anymore has nothing to do with being one of those faux-intellectual atheists or thinking I'm above it. It's just incredibly boring. It's hard to have any motivation to go to mass when you could be doing just about anything else. I do think I could get the younger generations back in the pews, though. First, The Dudley Boyz should always be there, and second, they need to stop with the weird sex stuff; in that exact order. They should also let you smoke cigarettes inside. Maybe I’ll run for Pope whenever the next election is.

The thing I miss most about my youth was going to the Ground Round—usually after five o'clock mass—and sitting in the smoking section. I must have been about twelve years old, but I just loved the smell and general desperate mood of the room. I'm pretty sure the smoking section of that Ground Round had the highest rate of hasty withdrawals made from college funds per square foot in the nation. Carbon emissions from the exasperated sighs in that room after Australian chariot races exceeded that of the most environmentally irresponsible of the Fortune 500s.

I would have our rehearsal dinner in a Ground Round so fast your head would spin. My fiance would never go for it, though. She'll probably want it to be somewhere where the specials don't rhyme, and the waiters aren't on Oxycontin. I'm willing to make concessions on one of those things, but not on both. After all, this is supposed to be the start of an equal union, and as such, it should reflect both of our respective tastes. I either want to have an incredibly misinformed conversation with my waiter about helicopters, or I want to have Hot Wings & Onion Rings on the menu. I don't even have to order it; I just need to know that I could. And at the end of the day, isn't that what marriage is all about?